Neat list

This is a neat list of must have apps

Honda City ZX

Honda launched the brand new Honda City ZX last week. On the face of it, it seems to be a facelift but, but it some how makes the car a lot more appealing. it looks more balanced than before. It makes me very glad that I held out for this version and not the previous one. Now I just need to wait for the new year...

Peanuts and more Peanuts

Woohoo. Another purchase to wait for... The Complete Peanuts Boxed Set Series

Loony over Loans

I was looking to get a loan to buy a car. It seems that to get a loan for my unique circumstances is somewhat difficult. Finally got a financier, who is giving me a loan which allows me to get a Honda City. I think he is ripping me off. Will have to look around...

The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

I'm planning to buy The Complete Calvin and Hobbes (Hardcover). Costs all of $92 US and another 12 shipping to India. Books are so expensive. sigh!

Comment Spam Galore

I had a rash of comment spam over the weekend... I wonder why tho. This is quite a low traffic blog... What a waste of time for whovever is doing it. Could be a bot as well.

Update: Spamming is going on as I write this down. Hmmm... Time to force use of a blogger id.

Update: Hah! I just realised that Blogger had added word verification in the commenting system. It's on now :D

I Want my City...

After procrastinating about a car for many years I'm finally going in for a Honda City CVT.
at nearly 7.7 lakhs (choke...) it is perhaps the best mid-size car to drive in India and with the CVT, it is a dream on the chaotic streets of Delhi.

Didn't like the Getz too much and the swift was a plain disappointment...

Maruti Swift: First Impressions

As first impressions go, I came away with a mixed feeling about the Swift. It looks fabulous and drives really well. The power steering gave pin-point control (and this is inspite of the fact that I'm a very ocassional driver). Power delivery seemed to be bit lacking, but I can't be sure, if this is because of the car or because I was tentative and needed to be careful in the Delhi traffic.

What really turned me off is the shockingly poor quality of the interiors. Cheap plastic and upholstery just gave a tacky feeling. The inside door handle (molded into the interior of the door) when used to pull the rear door shut gives a feeling that the whole assembly would come off. Similar tacky materials, if you saw the lining near the hatch door.

The facia for the music system is a far cry from the Swift one sees in Europe. Leave alone integrated CD player and steering controls, one sees a gaping hole where the Casette Player needs to go in.

Surprisingly enough, the outside finish was excellent. It's almost as if different companies were manufacturing the two parts of the car.

Last but very important from my perspective, the drivers seat and footwell is not big enough to accomodate my 6'1" frame. In the VXi model (which I sat in while being stationary), the thighs keep threatenign to touch the steering wheel. I have this problem with the Wagon R as well, but not with the Santro. Though while driving the Swift ZXi model, I didn't notice this. I will probably have to start looking outside the Maruti stable for a suitable car.

All things said and done, maybe pricing the car about 10K more for better interiors would still make the car a good deal (Of course I'm betting on the car being available in CSD). Also, I'm just itching to now go and try out the Getz.

On road prices for Delhi (incl of 4 year warranty, etc)

LXi - 4.2 L
VXi - 4.4 L (i don't remember the exact price)
ZXi - 5.4 L

Bottom line. See the car interiors before you put down money for it.

Rocky

Video set to Eye of the Tiger... Hahahah

Google Webaccelerator for those who can't get it...

I only read about Google weba ccelerator today and it seems that only North American and European users can get access to it.

Now that pissed me off ocmpletely. so I decided to look for it no matter what. So I did a google search. nothing, nada, zip... not to be deterred, I decided to have a look at Yahoo search. So the query google webaccelerator setup .exe throws back the first result as the winner...

Drumrolls...

the url is...

http://webaccelerator.google.com/GoogleWebAcceleratorSetup.msi


Ha Ha Ha...

Covert Channels in the TCP/IP Protocol Suite

Covert Channels in the TCP/IP Protocol Suite

All I can say is hmmm...

Google Movie Theatre Search

I was searching for a movie called Son of The Mask on Google and I was led to this page...

Wish I could post a screen shot from office...

Portal Player hiring in India

Portal Player is hiring in India... For those who don't know Portal Player makes the chipsets that power the iPod

Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything is yet another fabulous book...

Electric Universe : The Shocking True Story of Electricity

Electric Universe : The Shocking True Story of Electricity is another fab book. Who would have thought that Edison stole someones idea...

Nirantar

Nirantar is a blog(zine) in hindi and uses the devnagiri font as well. THe authoir also claims that this is the first of it's kind...

I think larger fonts need to be used tho...

Nice...

PSP price update in Delhi

I was at Pallika bazaar yesterday and just happened to enquire about the price of Playstation Portable. adn the price has dropped to Rs. 16,500 which also includes a game of ones choice (out of the 9 available).

THe unit is the Japanese Value pack. With Case, remote and a 32 meg memory card. the dealer is tossing in a game at the price...




Among the games that were available were Ridge Racer and Spiderman. Individual Games are priced at around 3K each.

I was almost tempted to buy when I calculated the cost in $. it comes out to be about 375 USD. Way expensive. Worthwhile to ask someone to carry it from the US...

Nokia 8800

Never wanted to buy a Nokia until Nokia 8800





woo hoo what a phone... reportedly will cost around 700 USD... I can get a PSP and a mess of games for that...

Y!Q

What is Y!Q???

`Victorian Internet

The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-Line Pioneers is another fab book...

Happy Birthday to me...

8 wishes so far...
2 calls, 2 sms', 3 egreetings, one in person...

Ego Surfing

I go ego surfing once ina while and Google Search: chirag puts me at 82 at my current url which is http://chiragpatnaik.blogspot.com/. It puts me at number 9 at my old url... grrrr...

The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time

Seize the Daylight : The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time is a wow read...

Google Mozilla Foundation Spoof...

Someone did a fake press release of google acquiring Mozilla Foundation

April Fools Pranks...

I read a lot of April Fools pranks on the web...

here are some of them...

Apple to Enter PDA Market

Google's Infinity+1

Google to acquire Mozilla Foundation

let me look for a few more... stay tooned.

Google Infinity +1 Storage

Before the world forgets about the spoof. i took a screen shot of the same.... I'd forgotten to do so yesterday. Ironically enough Google's Cache had it...

Hah! even my Google Desktop cache had it...

500GB HDD

Toshiba creates a monster 500GB 5 Platter Hard Disk. This hard drive is said to be the last of it's kind as newer HDD technologies will start to come in by the end of this year...

World's Smallest 4 GB Drive

Toshiba is all set to produce the World's Smallest 4 GB Drive

Intelliseek's BlogPulse

Intelliseek's BlogPulse is search engine for Blogs

MSN Search Spoof

MSN Search Spoof is even more hilarious. It generates fake MSN search results after you enter a victims name and his lifestyle quirks...

YaGoohoo!gle

YaGoohoo!gle seemed to be one of those April Fool things... It presents two screens with results from both engines...

Google wants 'dark fiber'

Google wants 'dark fiber' is a story on ZDNet which speculates as ti the reason why Google is planning to buy Fiber optic cable across America (and maybe the world)...

Cable I think will be the future of media. people owning the pipes into the home swill be the big winners of the media wars of tomorrow...

Going Once, Going Twice, Going 6 billion times... Yahoo! 360 Invites

I just got a Yahoo! 360 invite... So if anyone of you need one leave a comment...

Buyers Remorse, Redux...

I bought a Powershot S1 IS last may for abt $430 US. The price has now fallen to $350 US... grrr...

No fair...

I bought an Apple iPod 20 Gig for 299 USD. now nto only the price has dropped by some 15 USD but also the iPod 40 Gig price had fallen till a few days ago. (now it's back up to 399 SUD). I think Amazon realised that the Accessories included with this obsolete model makes it a good buy.

The amusing part is that iPod Photo 40 Gig at 360 USSD is actually cheaper than the regular iPod 40 Gig. This model is also obsolete but includes all the necessary accesories... Docks Connectors etc.

The best part of all... the iPod Photo 30 Gig at 330 USD is only $30 less than the iPod Photo 40 Gig which includes the accesories not present in the 30 GB model...

The bottom line... I wish I had waited...

5th Anniversary...

I didn't even realise it and it's the fifth anniversary of my blog... I'm seriously impressed... Even though there were some largish gaps in between... Marlinspike - Knot Untangler: March 2000

Spring Night in Delhi

Delhi has had lovely weather this spring and I just happened to lookup in the sky tonite and it looked lovely so I took a few snaps...

I'm calling the series Spring Night in Delhi.

For the most impact visit the

March Archive

The individual posts are...

Every cloud has a Silver lining
I'm Back...
Navigating the Clouds...
Hide and Seek...
Hide and Seek... Part Deux...
Here we go again...

Here we go again...

Hide and Seek... 

Hide and Seek... Part Deux... 

Navigating the Clouds... 

I'm Back... 

Every cloud has a Silver lining 

iPod eBooks Creator

Just four days ago I was wondering a way to convert large text files into small bite sized pieces that would fit onthe iPod. I was planning to dig in to my (rusty) programming skills to whip up something like that. But Now I found iPod eBooks Creator. Problem solved...

New Domain

I have a new URL which goes as http://patnaiks.in/chirag. I'd recently bought a domain on the newly opened India registry. It also means a new email address which goes as chirag@patnaiks... and for my brother and so on and so forth...

Finally...

I finally got my iPod yesterday after nearly a month of waiting. the iPod made a journey halway across the world from America to Delhi via Bombay.

It's a monochrome 20G version and I've already stuffed half of it with music...

it's iPod time

I get my iPod today in under 12 hours. I sure am excited...

Deutche Wella German Language Course

Deutche Wella has put up it's German Language Course online... cool... need to check it out

Notepad Invaders

Remember Space Invaders... Well this is a new (older?) version... Notepad Invaders

Leukamia patient needs Platelets

Smriti Thind, my junior from school, has been diagnosed with Leukamia and is currently at the Tata Memorial hospital in Bombay. She needs a constant supply of Platelets (A+ Blood Type) from Male donors.

If you you or someone you know has this blood type and is located in Bombay, and can spare the time to go and donate. Do let me know, I'll put you in touch with the relevant person

Mediaah is back...

Mediaah is back. The Blog, which was a thorn in the side of many media companies till last year is going to be back after a 12 month hiatus from the 17th o Jan. Let me not rave about the blog, but have a look yourself...

Gmail Accts for Free

I have a dozen invites to Gmail. In the off chance you don't have one leave a comment...