Penned Thoughts

preshit: It’s Not Her Spellcheck That’s Broken, It’s Her

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 23:48:17 +0530

It’s Not Her Spellcheck That’s Broken, It’s Her

A boy with his face smeared in color smiles during the...

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 23:46:19 +0530

A boy with his face smeared in color smiles during the celebrations of Holi in Siliguri, India on February 26, 2010.

Last Monday (March 1st), people in India and other countries with large Hindu populations celebrated Holi, the Festival of Colors. A welcoming of Spring, Holi is celebrated as the triumph of good over evil. Hindu devotees and others enthusiastically drop their inhibitions, and chase each other in temples and through the streets, playfully splashing colorful paint, powder and water on each other. People also attend bonfires to commemorate the story of Prahlada, a Hindu figure and devout follower of Lord Vishnu who prevailed over his father and the demoness Holika with the power of his devotion. Collected here are a handful of images from this year’s Festival of Colors.

[via Preshit Deorukhkar]

sreeyesh: 9gag: Coolest quit smoking ad ever!! I’ll say!

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:43:17 +0530

sreeyesh:

9gag:

Coolest quit smoking ad ever!!

I’ll say!

What’s keeping me away…

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:56:52 +0530

I’m in my hometown, Siliguri, till March 10th and the Internet connectivity here is really spotty. Therefore, I’ll be away from Penned Thoughts till that time. Thank you for your patience.

-Aayush

Instapaper Blog: Instapaper Pro 2.2 now available

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 01:24:00 +0530

Instapaper Blog: Instapaper Pro 2.2 now available:

After months of development, Instapaper Pro 2.2 is now available. The full changelog is below, but first, a brief explanation if you’re interested.

After the previous version’s release, I took a break from reading on the iPhone and read everything on the Kindle. I learned that I much preferred…

Instapaper is the single most commonly launched third-party application on my iPhone, followed by Tweetie, Facebook, MoneyBook and Sleep Cycle, in that order (not counting games).

Palm CEO’s Letter to Employees

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:44:00 +0530

Palm CEO’s Letter to Employees:

Do these sound like the words of a company that is going to last very long? They do not to me. More thoughts on Palm coming up in another post. Soon…ish.

[via Daring Fireball]

Enigma

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:18:03 +0530

Enigma

goobimama: Smoking Apples Magazine Issue 5 Loads of Mac stuff....

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:15:17 +0530

goobimama:

Smoking Apples Magazine Issue 5

Loads of Mac stuff. Completely free (no email registration nonsense). And we spent a lot of time and effort making it. Hope you likey!

"Our planet is really tough and that’s not about to change. In the long run, Earth can cope with..."

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 02:19:00 +0530

“

Our planet is really tough and that’s not about to change. In the long run, Earth can cope with anything we throw at it. We could clear all the jungles, but a jungle can regrow over a few thousand years; we could burn down all of Earth’s fossil fuels, flooding the atmosphere with Carbon Dioxide, but even then it would only take a million years for the atmosphere to recover; even the creatures we are wiping out will be replaced with others as evolution works its magic. It’s only a question of time. The Earth will be just fine.

But that’s not to say that the rapid changes we are forcing on Earth don’t matter. We humans operate on a different timescale. We have evolved to occupy the world as it is; now we are changing this world, and in doing so, altering the very environment that has allowed our species and civilisation to thrive. We’re certainly more advanced than the dinosaurs but that doesn’t mean that we are much better at coping with sudden change on a global scale. It’s often suggested that the planet needs saving, but it’s not Earth that’s in peril, it’s us.

”

- Iain Stewart

Like most geeks, I’m a movie and television show buff and, perhaps unlike most of them, have a huge collection of both forms of media that has almost filled my 2.7TB Drobo to full capacity. Recently, however, I’ve found that documentaries about geology and science are starting to appeal more to me than the fictional stuff.

I just watched all five episodes of a brilliantly well-crafted documentary on evolution and the history of Earth by the British Broadcasting Corporation. Narrated with contagious enthusiasm by geologist Iain Stewart, Earth: The Power of the Planet is just a lot of fun to watch and, in a welcome change from most documentaries about the Earth, focuses more on informing you about the Earth’s history than hammering in the message of saving the environment. That is certainly the theme behind the series but it remains in the background for the most part, making the whole thing a more enjoyable experience.

The couple of paragraphs I’ve quoted above are the conclusive remarks of Iain Stewart as he signs off at the end of the fifth and last episode (which also happens to be the best one of the lot). It’s a fantastically written monologue and I just wanted to share it with you all. If you’re into these kinds of documentaries, I highly recommend that you watch this series if you get a chance to do so.

Short reviews of Indian travel sites

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 23:39:00 +0530

Due to the large number of train and flight tickets I have to book on a regular basis, I’ve had the opportunity to try out a fair number of travel booking sites in India. Here are the reviews of the ones I’ve used so far, in reverse alphabetical order.

Yatra: It is one of the most popular travel booking websites in India and for good reason—it has a very well laid out user interface and they offer a lot of discount codes and special offers to their customers. They also have a stellar customer support team. It all comes at a price, however. Yatra charges a premium for using its service and its prices are almost always higher than those of competing travel booking sites. Not very much higher, mind you, but high enough for you to notice. They often used to have exclusive deals and significant discounts on prices in their early years but they are few and far between now. They also offer bookings of train tickets and, although it’s slightly more expensive than booking them directly through the IRCTC website, I prefer it over the latter, simply because it has a better user interface and the rate of failure is much lower.

Travelocity: When Travelocity launched the Indian version of its site, they started things off by offering Rs. 400 discounts on all tickets, which, given how low the prices for flight bookings have come down in recent years, can be a large percentage on most bookings. They don’t offer that discount on all tickets anymore but they still manage to almost always be cheaper than Yatra and other competing websites. The site’s interface is nothing to crow about but it isn’t too shabby either. I definitely would prefer it if they mentioned whether the tickets are refundable upon cancellation or not, like Yatra and most other sites do. They do not offer bookings of train tickets.

IRCTC: They only offer train ticket bookings, of course, and the site works well for the most part. Being a Government service, the prices are very low and they only thing the charge you is a paltry Rs. 20 convenience fee, which is more than reasonable. However, their servers are not nearly well-equipped enough to deal with the massive spikes of traffic they receive at 08:00 A.M. on a daily basis, when the Tatkal bookings open up for trains that are scheduled to ply two days later. The site cannot deal with the massive hits and goes down as soon as the clock strikes the eighth hour each morning. Besides that, and the dated look and user interface, it is a pretty well-executed utilitarian website that gets the job done.

iXiGO: iXiGO is fantastic! Well, it isn’t as fantastic as it used to be but it’s still pretty awesome. Instead of acting as a middleman like most agents and charging a commission for using its services, iXiGO brings you prices for tickets straight from the official websites of all the flights operating in India. When you choose your flight and hit Book, it directs you to the respective flight’s website and you pay them directly. These days, however, that does not offer you a guarantee of being the cheapest tickets on the block. Thanks to the emergence of sites like Travelocity, you can often get a discount if you deal with the agent instead of dealing with the flights themselves.

What’s more, where once iXiGO used to list the exact fare that you’d have to pay to get your tickets, the prices it lists these days are often a few hundred short of what the actual total ends up being when you land on the flights’ websites. That, you’d think, would defeat the whole purpose of iXiGO, but that’s not quite true, because iXiGO has a few tricks up its sleeve.

For one thing, it automatically opens Travelocity and other websites in a new window and brings you prices from there as well, so you are free to compare it against the flight’s own prices. For another, it has absolutely the best user interface among all the travel booking websites I’ve ever used in India, both for its flight and railway booking services. It even remembers the data you’d entered the last time you visited the website—a trick other websites would do well to ape—so that you don’t have to keep entering it again and again every time you visit. Nice touch!

What’s more, the creator of iXiGO maintains a very active Twitter account where he actively encourages users to send feedback and post about any issues they might have, which he then promptly resolves to the best of his ability. They also quickly respond to e-mails they receive. I know this is starting to sound more and more like an advertisement but trust me when I say this, I have not been paid by them to write this article. I’m a genuine fan.

Goibibo: Since its the newest kid on the block, it’s generally also the cheapest. Much like Travelocity before it, Goibibo offers significant discounts on the prices of most tickets you book through it, making it pretty cheap indeed, at least until you actually try to pay for those tickets. In a stunning show of lack of foresight and sheer incompetence, it rejects nearly every payment method you throw at it, including debit cards from Axis Bank, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank’s netbanking (and those are the three best banks in India). It pretty much only accepts credit cards and even those after a few failed tries. If your cards or your bank’s netbanking is supported and you’re willing to be spurned a few times in order to score the discount, Goibibo is ideal for you.

Cleartrip, MakeMyTrip and the rest: They’re all the same. I’m sure they’re good in their own right and I hope they have some interesting new features to offer but in the few times I’ve given them a shot, I’ve found the prices to be about the same as Yatra’s and the user interface to be ordinary and boring. I’ll admit to not having used them nearly as often as I’ve used the others mentioned above, so I’m not in much of a position to comment on them. If they are any good, I would love to hear about them in the comments below.

So, what do I use?

I go to iXiGO and enter all my data in (unless I want to reuse the information I’d keyed in during my last visit, as is often the case—once again, ingenious!) and then uncheck akbartravelsonline and Goibibo from the “also check on” options below. I leave Travelocity checked, however, and hit return. In most cases, Travelocity offers the tickets at either the same price as the official one quoted by the flight or at a slight discount and I book from there. They have a very friendly and helpful customer service department and the site is not too shabby either (although it could definitely use some sprucing up). Like I mentioned before, however, I would like it if they could clearly mention whether the prices of the tickets I’m booking are refundable upon cancellation or not.

So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen! In a fiercely contested battle between Goibibo, iXiGO, Travelocity and Yatra here on Penned Thoughts, the lethal combination of iXiGO and Travelocity has won the day and laid claim to the crown. Let the travelling begin!

-Aayush

"Impatience is the mother of all reckless purchases."

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 16:50:39 +0530

“Impatience is the mother of all reckless purchases.”

- Aayush Arya

(via ridingwithstrangers) Ha ha! I’m sure a lot of us geeks can...

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 23:16:40 +0530

(via ridingwithstrangers)

Ha ha! I’m sure a lot of us geeks can identify with that.

How to use a semicolon

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:47:12 +0530

How to use a semicolon:

Read. Remember. Bookmark for future reference.

Why is Airtel treating Delhi like a stepchild?

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:36:00 +0530

I just sent a letter to Airtel that I thought some of you may want to read. Here goes:

Hello.

I’m Aayush Arya and I have been an Airtel mobile subscriber since as far back as I can remember. I also subscribed to a 2Mbps unlimited broadband connection when I moved to Noida. I’ve dutifully been paying Rs. 3,373 every month for the past half-a-year, content in the assumption that I would be able to reap the benefits of it when Airtel is able to lower the rental of my plan or increase the speeds.

Today, however, I was faced with a surprising revelation. One of my friends in Bangalore was recently offered a 2Mbps unlimited connection by Airtel for just Rs. 2,000 per month and several other friends in Mumbai (and even a couple of them in New Delhi) told me that they’ve been paying Rs. 2,500 per month for a 2Mbps unlimited plan from Airtel ever since its introduction.

Even going by the information on your website, it appears that Delhi & NCR is the only region where Airtel is still charging in excess of Rs. 3,000 for said connection. I checked out the pricing in Kolkata and Pune randomly and both of them had this plan listed at Rs. 2,000 per month.

This just makes me feel like a fool. Why should I have to pay so much more for using the same service from the same provider that is being offered to everyone else in the country for two-thirds of what I am paying? Are we being charged a premium just because we live in the capital? How does that make any sense?

My question to you is this: are you going to amend your pricing and change my monthly rental to Rs. 1,999 (+ tax) as soon as this billing cycle comes to a close? Please let me know as soon as possible because my decision of whether or not I want to continue subscribing to your service rests heavily upon your answer.

Thank you.

If you live in Delhi & NCR, I urge you to do the same. Send them an e-mail (including your phone number in the title) and let them know that you won’t stand for such treatment, even if you do not subscribe to any of the plans that are irregularly priced in this area.

-Aayush

Pitchfork steals URL to start a Tumblr, Tumblr facing ‘big brother’ backlash

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:53:00 +0530

Pitchfork steals URL to start a Tumblr, Tumblr facing ‘big brother’ backlash:

I love Tumblr just as much as the next person but this just reeks of incompetence. And all this lying to save their asses is just making it worse. They need to step up and admit that they made a mistake, apologise for it and offer to put the domain back under the control of its original owner. Otherwise, all they are doing is digging a deeper hole for themselves.

[via Preshit Deorukhkar]

Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Login

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 01:00:06 +0530

Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Login:

marco:

(via Zoya)

Dear visitors from Google. This site is not Facebook. This is a website called ReadWriteWeb that reports on news about Facebook and other Internet services. To access Facebook right now, click here. For future reference, type “facebook.com” into your browser address bar or enter “facebook” into Google and click on the first result. We recommend that you then save Facebook as a bookmark in your browser.

I will now say two things that will shock most people who know me:

You should follow this link to ReadWriteWeb.

You should read the comments.

You can see the same effect on anything ranked highly by a Google search for “facebook login”, including this.

This is truly unbelievable. Just read the darned comments! I understand that the vast majority of the world isn’t tech-savvy but how can so many people just not get it? I would laugh but this just makes me sad.

Aardvark joins Google!

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 01:33:00 +0530

Aardvark joins Google! :

This is terrific news. Now that Google is going to put its weight behind it, it will hopefully grow to a massive scale, which in turn would mean there would be a higher likelihood of its finding someone to answer your question. Congratulations to the Aardvark team for this grand acquisition.

2009 Best App Ever Awards

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 23:03:30 +0530

2009 Best App Ever Awards:

I really need to stop going through these lest I run through the remaining balance on my iTunes Gift Card. I’ve already spent $20 in just the past hour.

iTunes celebrates 10 billion songs downloaded.

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:35:00 +0530

iTunes celebrates 10 billion songs downloaded.:

Help iTunes reach 10 billion song downloads, and you could win a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card.

iTunes changed the way you buy music, making songs and albums available for download, day or night. Seven years later, we’re about to celebrate our biggest milestone for music, yet — 10 billion songs downloaded. Buy a song, and if it’s the 10 billionth download, you could win a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card. It’s our way of saying thanks.

How the Letterman-Oprah-Leno Super Bowl Ad Came Together

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 23:16:00 +0530

How the Letterman-Oprah-Leno Super Bowl Ad Came Together:

It’s the funniest Superbowl commercial I’ve seen in a while and this is the story of how it came about.

(via Instapaper)