chirag.patnaiks.in

or Bhajini... more like. Dimag ki Bhaji ban gayi... Drag, Drag Drag

  Software is marvelous, This is an untouched picture After a little post processing... Not bad at all...

This is a video that some of us produced in the Times of India three years ago. It was shot on my old Canon S1 IS. Not bad for an amateur production I think.

All the streetlights on the Sector 62 road... Stolen. India shining indeed.

Spotted this poster on my morning jog... Blast from the past... and at yesterday's prices too...

Vodafone today fired the first shot in the upcoming iPhone race. Vodafone today is out with an ad in The Times of India which called for bookings from existing users by sending an sms with the word IPHONE to 56789. Obviously there are no details on pricing and availability et al. All indications are that the phone will be available sometime in October (probably in time for Diwali). Stay Tuned... Update: You could also now book online at http://www.vodafone.in/ Update: More iPhone India news here

I'm looking forward to picking up PlayStation 3 80 GB Metal Gear Solid 4 Pack . I just need to figure out someone to carry it back from the states...

I ran across this article... It is surprising that how little we know about this here. This report is primarily driven by Private industry. This self same industry is calling for Canada's inclusion on this list of worst offenders... A Foreign office rep told the Canadian House of Commons "In regard to the watch list, Canada does not recognize the 301 watch list process. It basically lacks reliable and objective analysis. It's driven entirely by U.S. industry." The industry body that drives this report is IIPA. We would be well advised to also recall a statement by William Patry, a copyright expert and Google's copyright attorney. "the sheer arrogance and affront to the sovereignty of foreign governments by the IIPA's annual reports and effort to penalize those governments that do not toe the IIPA's line is breathtaking." It is best to ignore such ramblings and if push comes to shove, throw the ball back by linking demands for more access to the...

I had bought a Canon S1 IS (the first generation ultra zoom camera) way back in Mar of 2004 from Amazon. Four years later the LCD screen and EVF went on the blink. I was in denial for  a few months, when I finally handed it over to Canon India (through my cousin who works there).  She called a few days later to tell me that they can't fix the camera, but they will replace it with the latest generation Canon S5 IS . Awesome... This is customer service, not the usual bit of thievery , most companies in India Indulge in. I was out to lunch this sunday, so I took it out the camera to take some pics... Bougainvillea at the Defence Colony Market. This was in the Macro mode. I feel that the focus is a bit soft. I need to get the hang of the camera. A sign at the entrance of the garden A forlorn looking Fountain I plan to run the much famed CHDK custom firmware for  DIGIC II & III processors... The stuff you can add to the cameras functionality is mindbogg...

This is awesome... I ran across this today at PressTalk . Very nice... Sends a tingle down your spine... This is part of the Imagine! series of videos for Pangea Day on May 10... The others: Japan sings for Turkey! France Sings for USA Australia sings for Lebanon Read more here... See Pangea's YouTube channel here

I just bought (rented?) another domain. marlinspike.in This adds to the 3 I already own... patnaiks.in patnaik.in chiragpatnaik.com   Another cost head... these four domains cost me around 3000 bucks a year... No end to spending money...

So... it finally launches... Nearly, a year after I quit Indiatimes, the social networking (the specs of which was one of the things (along with Indiatimes Mail ) on my plate) platform has finally gone live. It took a year of work on the PeopleAggregator platform to finally reach an acceptable state of launch, and as is fashionable these days, it is in Beta. Is it too little too late? In a world dominated by Facebook, Myspace and Orkut (dominating different geographies), this is the most obvious question... After all sites like Rediff Iland did not gain much traction either, and lets not forget numerous sites like yaari.com, which have fallen by the wayside... Another catch all Social Network, hohum. The answer. Depends. Depends on whether, the product will remain a social network in the mould of Facebook or will evolve to something more. The potential exists to do much more, ofcourse... The direction it will take totally depends on the team handling the product. No one from...

So much is said about social networks and how catch all social networks are all the rage right now. But look back a few years and you see all a landscape littered with yesterday's stars. Friendster Hi5 and to some extent Orkut (Some may argue that Orkut is alive and kicking in India, but I beg to differ. Orkut isn't hip any mre, which means that over time it will slide into nothingness. After all which woman, wants 100 friend requests from absolute strangers) And not to mention that the hundreds of new social networks that pop up every other day. Clearly a gold rush is on. The acquisition of Desimartini by HT 's Firefly eVenture is a symptom of this gold rush. With the reported difficulties of Google & MS to monetise their respective ad properties of MySpace and Facebook, it is clear that we have seen all the hypergrowth we had to see, It will grow, there are after all several billion people on this planet but not necessarily to the po...

Since I'm planning to buy a PS3 and some other stuff, I've been frequenting a lot of gadget blogs. Engadget Gizmodo Crave

I refuse to call Comics as Graphic Novels. It's just trying to be snooty. Thus said, I'm thinking of adding a few more comics to my collection... Absolute Sandman Vol I Absolute Sandman Vol II Absolute Sandman Vol III Absolute Kingdom Come Bone Sigh! another huge credit card bill... And I'm not the first one to think that calling comics as graphics novels is snooty... Some in the comics community have objected to the term "graphic novel" on the grounds that it is unnecessary, or that its usage has been corrupted bycommercial interests. Writer Alan Moore believes: “ It's a marketing term. I mean, it was one that I never had any sympathy with. The term 'comic' does just as well for me. ... The problem is that 'graphic novel' just came to mean 'expensive comic book' and so what you'd get is people like DC Comics or Marvel comics — because 'graphic novels' were getting some attention, they'd stick six issues of whatever wor...

Just this morning , for no particular reason, I typed in www.orissa.in and this is what I see... For a regular internet user, there is nothing strange here. Another squatter, who got in early in the game and is now raking in the cash, by putting up a parking page with ads on one of the many millions of URL's (Ain't Google Adsense wonderful). Since in the overall scheme of things Orissa figures pretty much at the bottom of the heap, I wonder if it is only Orissa or are the other domains also being squatted on... www.uttarpradesh.in Yup. So A quick lookup on who, what, where and we get the registrant as (drumroll...) the Government of India. Registrant Name:Government of India Registrant Organization:RESERVED NAME Registrant Street1:ERNET India, 6 CGO Complex, Lodi Road Registrant Street2:New Delhi Registrant City:New Delhi Registrant Postal Code:110003 Registrant Country:IN Registrant Phone:+91.1124361895 Registrant FAX:+91.1124362924 Registrant Email: So far so good. Wisely ...

Cisco globalisation officer: telepresence is the future. Why commute to compute? Is the question he is asking. Solve telepresence and you save time, money and even save the environment. -- Sent from Google Mail for mobile | mobile.google.com

Sunil Mittal feels he needs to create a Facebook account, because his children are using Facebook to keep in touch with their friends. Who is going to tell him about when it will become uncool to be there. Like in orkut or Friendster before it. Social networks are built on exclusivity. You take away the exclusivity and it becomes quite not the place to hang out. Sunil Mittal: more transistors than grains of rice are produced in the world. He doesn't know that Iraqi's speak Arabic. :) He mentioned in his speech, that using voice translation an Iraqi speaking Iraqi can communicate with a Chinese speaking Chinese... :o and he plans to launch mobile remittance services. Good idea. -- Sent from Google Mail for mobile | mobile.google.com

Mukesh Ambani says, the world is NOT Flat. It's not black and white, but shades of grey. So True. -- Sent from Google Mail for mobile | mobile.google.com

Over the past few years, I have been building up a collection of Comic Strips. I am through with Calvin and Hobbes and Farside by Gary Larson I am now collecting Peanuts from this new Complete Peanuts series. I'm already have the first sixteen years of Peanuts. right from 1950 onwards. I got 1963-66 , 1959-62 , 1955-58 , 1950-54 so far... these are twin volume boxed sets and there are single volumes also available for e.g. 1967-68 and 1969-70 I expect it will take me another 10 years to finish with this. Another collection that I recently started on is Complete Dennis the Menace I got the first 8 years so far... 1955-58 and 1951-54 . Again these are double volume boxed sets. Single volumes are also available like 1957-58 . Apart from these the above that I'm already collecting I have some more on the anvil. Dick Tracy , Terry and the Pirates and Popeye Last week, I also picked up The Completely Mad Don Martin . Its really quite good and MAD. :)

For an area (NCR) in this country which is the back office Capital of the world. Where is customer service headed these days.? This morning I was trying to resolve three very old cases getting some service in this country. Two of these companies are supposed to be stars of the Indian Industry and the third is a dealer of Bharat Petroleoum who someone has forgotten to tell about the new India. Read on for some short stories. Reliance Money indulges in petty larceny. Having had my fill of another great customer service organisation called HDFC Bank, I thought Reliance may be a breath of fresh air (and not to mention cheaper). Sometime late last year, Reliance Money came out with this offer for share holders (I own some Adlabs and RelComm) where you got 20% off on the trading fees. This offer normally allows you to trade to the tune of Rs. 5 lakhs for Rs. 500 as fees. so 20% off that means Rs. 375. So I fill up the application (with 21 signatures no less) and I'm assured by the smil...

When you try and access a banking site in India, do you ever get the feeling that you are being made to jump through hoops before you are allowed to reach a screen, where you can finally log in? It's almost as if they don't want you to login to their site but watch ads... For eg. HDFC Bank - 3 Steps to get to the login Page... ICICI Bank - 3 Steps... Bah! what a waste of time... Anyway, I didn't realise this till I went to my parents place for a vacation. My usual shortcuts weren't available on their computer, so I was jumping through hoops... So is there a solution? Yes! use the following links to jump to the login page directly. (Unless you have a morbid fascination to see some atrocious ads on the various pages they force you to see) HDFC Bank https://netbanking.hdfcbank.com/netbanking/ ICICI Bank https://infinity.icicibank.co.in/Login.jsp Deutsche Bank https://login.deutschebank.co.in/ HDFC Securities https://trade.hdfcsec.com/ Citibank https://www.citibank.co.in/ib...