Random Musings

Samsung Galaxy Note - MY Review

2011-12-29T22:26:00.002+05:30

Is it a phone? Is it a tablet? Well, do I really care?

Let’s be clear about one thing. A Samsung Note user will never buy the phone to be used as a tablet. At the end of the day it’s a phone – albeit a big smart phone that comes bundled with lots of cool features and offers ‘miniature’ tablet experience. It would be prudent to call it a tablet as it is not but some of the things that tablets are associated with like viewing experience on big size screen, portability, computing on the move, ease of use & size of the device itself can be experienced on Galaxy Note.

When Apple launched the Ipad, they created a whole new segment for tablet devices. Devices like Galaxy Note has been around since Palm days but Samsung has pushed the envelope further by bundling a host of engaging features, super duper hardware, a cool responsive Android OS, a sleek & thin design and cleverly marketing it as a device that’s a cross over between a phone & tablet which actually it is.

I will not get into technical features or specs of the phone since you can find all those on various review sites but will give my experience of using the phone so far.

Size

“Is it really a phone? “

“It’s too big to be a phone”.

“You will look weird talking to someone on this phone”.

“it must be heavy”.

These are some of the common reactions that I came across when people saw my Note and similar views have been shared across many review forums and put up by users too.

Let’s clear the air on this. First thing first, the phone is not at all heavy and you will be surprised to see how light it is when you hold it in your hands. Secondly, holding it to your ears and talking through it doesn’t give weird feeling at all or no one really stares at you. For the past 3 days I have been doing extensive talking and never ever got the feeling as if people were watching me or I was getting uncomfortable holding the phone to my ears. You will definitely feel weird if you hold a Galaxy Tab to your ears but not with this phone. It’s I feel a matter of perception. If you are comfortable with it then you shouldn’t really bother what others feel about it.

How the phone looks while you hold it next to your ears

For people who have large hands or a good grip, the phone will suit them a lot. I am one of those guys. As you can see in the picture, the grip comes fine and it doesn’t look too big (well that’s the advantage if you have large hands/grip).

The next common thing that you get to hear is, with a phone that big, wonder how it will fit in your shirt pocket or in trousers/jeans. Well, you are not stuffing a Dell smartphone in your pockets but a phone which looks like Khali but comes with a Kareena Kapoor waistline. It's light, slim, fits in easily in any pocket and you don't really feel any difference while carrying it.

In the picture above, I was carrying the phone in my left pocket and neither did my trousers slide down due to its weight nor did I got tired carrying it around. Unless you are wearing a tight jeans, you don't even get to see the phone outline in your pocket from outside.

Battery Life

On all tech reviews I have heard a lot about this phone’s battery. Almost all sites have given a big thumbs up to its giant battery size. But do remember that while the battery is big, so is the phone and a big sized phone with a super enormous HD AMOLED screen like that can do drain out the battery but it depends on how you are consuming it. Many reviews/forums have mentioned on how they have tested the battery using it extensively playing songs, viewing movies, browsing etc and the battery has lasted beyond 12-14 hrs or so. A friend of mine who also has similar phone mentions that his lasts for 1.5 days – again depending on what and how you use it.

I tested the battery in 2 ways. In 1st scenario, I disabled all power saving options, kept my LCD brightness to 100% and the whole day I used the phone extensively on wi-fi, downloaded lots of apps, took & made lots of calls, played around with various settings on the phone, clicked some snaps, edited the snaps using in bult tools, extensively used my office mail, accessed facebook & twitter frequently, kept on fiddling with the screen to almost take it off the hibernate mode etc. The battery lasted for nearly 16 hours with the indicator showing 5% left.

In 2^nd scenario I activated my auto brightness and power saving option and again used the phone a bit on wi-fi and mostly on edge for data access, accessing facebook & twitter & making/receiving calls. I also clicked lots of pictures, did some photo editing, got around 1GB of apps transferred from a friend who had Samsung Galaxy S2 through wifi-Direct (It’s a pretty cool feature to transfer stuff at super blazing speed between Samsung phones), used bluetooth to transfer some files, installed the apps, played around with the phone a bit, accessed my office emails and shot a few emails. Putting across the latest screen shot from the phone battery status.

A battery app available on app store that gives you the status of your battery left.

It's the screen size that consumes most of the battery.

As you can see, it's been over 22 hours since I charged my battery and still 11% of juice is left which I feel should be worth another 2-4 hours if I use it discreetly. So nearly 24 -25 hours on a battery with normal usage and browsing thrown in is not a bad deal.

Motion Sense

The Galaxy S2 has many good motion sensor features which are carried forward in Galaxy Note but one of the coolest motion feature which is not even available on S2 is taking a screenshot with a hand swipe across the screen. Simply move your hand from right to left on top of screen and voila - a screen shot is taken! You should see how the jaws of people drop when you do this cool trick in front of them. :D No more pressing of 2 buttons simultaneously as you do that on iphone or other android phones. There are many other motion sensor features bundled in like tilting a bit up and down to zoom in & out of a screen, shaking the phone a bit to scan for bluetooth devices around and some more stuff. As a new user it takes a while for you to get a grip on all these features and I doubt how many of these you will actually use it too. But that screen grab feature is a standout amongst all the rest. I still need to explore other motion sense features but for the moment even if I don't stumble upon them - I am happy as I don't think personally I would be using them unless I just want to show it off in front of my friends!

S-Pen

The S-pen which is one of the USP of the phone is bit tricky to use initially. I have never used stylus in my life and it takes a while before you get a hang of it. There are some cool usage features with S-Pen. Unlike some other stylus, this one is stylish, fits in perfectly in the slot with a light click and there is no fear of it falling down from the slot.The image editing, editing screen grabs, taking snaps and adding any hand written notes, doodling, making notes, using it to sypw across alphabets to automatically construct a word are some of the cool features. Those who love doodling, making sketches etc would love it as the in built app has many such supporting features.

My 1st output using the Samsung Note stylus

A crude attempt of using the lasso tool- normally seen in Photoshop to crop a image using stylus.

The in built image editing app for S-Pen.

Storage

The phone comes with a 16GB storage. For a person who all his life has max used 2GB on his Nokia phone – 16 GB is simply overwhelming and I have already lined up some good songs & HD movies that I want to load on my phone. J . The Note also supports micro SD and you can extend that storage space.

Screen Case

I don’t know if it’s an introductory offer or a part of permanent offering but Samsung Galaxy Note comes with a free (worth INR 1700) case. So what’s the big deal about it. Well it’s not like any other nallah case or the one that comes with galaxy s2. This one has been carefully thought through. It’s a flip case with an actual phone hard cover attached to the back. This means to use it, simply remove your phone back cover and snap this on the phone. The cover is of good quality and I am sure within few months Samsung will withdraw this free cover offer.

Touch Response

I had never been a fan of touch screen phones and have always sworn by qwerty models. One of the reason being the ease with which I could type. Call it the fat finger syndrome. You can never type quickly on iphone or any of the other touch screen phones. The Galaxy s2 somehow came with still a better screen layout than any other touch screen phones. Thanks to the size of the screen, typing becomes easy and a breeze on Galaxy Note. Also the response of the screen is pretty fast and a breeze. Samsung has come a very long way since the early days of its touch screen phones.

Conclusion

I believe the fuss about the big size of the phone, whether it’s a phone or a tablet will keep on continuing on various forums and expect people around to question you – do you really use it as a phone? But over time just like how Ipad managed to create a space for itself, phones like these will manage to create a league of its own. As a person who have always stuck by Nokia for the past 12 years moving on to Android and a Samsung phone is a sign of why people are abandoning the Nokia boat – the company is not evolving and Symbian has nothing new to offer. Even Lumia is slightly disappointing.

If you are a person who love his facebook, social integration of feeds from different channels, contacts, collaboration features, love catching up on browsing on the move, need a powerful device to manage all the multi tasking between office work, mails, social life, good space to store songs/pictures/movies, etc – this device will work for you.

Sign off note: After seeing & using my phone, already a friend of mine in office placed an order for it from the same e-comm site from which I bought and another colleague has made up his mind to purchase one. Well, it’s infectious!

RIP Steve Jobs

2011-10-07T00:56:00.000+05:30

A cold night in Sandton, Jo’berg and the depressing news that UK has readjusted its growth target from 0.2% to 0.1% is what I went late night to bed with. Usually woken up by the 7am alarm, this time it was the early rays of sun that somehow had managed to creep in my room that woke me up. A look at the watch – 7.45am. Damn! A look at the phone – dead. Double Damn! Switched on my TV and hurriedly started doing my chores when got the most depressing news of the day, perhaps more gloomy than the recession news we have started getting used to - Steve Jobs is dead. Damn raised to the power of infinite.

Momentarily, a deep sense of grief filled in, as if I had lost someone who was very close to me. Never in my life had my eyes become moist and felt so saddened over the death of any public figure. The global mourning as seen over twitter, facebook, electronic & print media and other social channels with Google – Apple’s most bitter rival in recent times putting up an obituary on their home page reflect what an iconic personality he was.

While Steve would always be remembered for founding Apple and revolutionizing the way we see & interact with mobile, music & computing devices, for me it’s his intrinsic qualities as a human being that he demonstrated to raise an empire and become a guiding light for millions of people is what the world will remember him for.

In a consumer research driven world, Steve Jobs threw out of the window all the theories we had learnt in Philip Kotler’s Marketing & Advertising bible. Consumer is always right – do extensive research around consumer products to know user behavior. When iPad was launched and it caught fancy of the world, in an interview when asked if any user or market research was done for the product, Steve bluntly replied – “consumers don’t know what they want. It’s our job to provide them”. That was Steve who always lived by his gut feel and instincts. When the big guns were building boxy computing machines in the 80s, Steve targeted for a ‘lifestyle’ product through Macintosh. He was a visionary – a gifted one who just lived his entire life with a single minded motto – follow your dream. He was a person who redefined the phrase out of the box thinking.

His passion for being a perfectionist is also well known. He threw out 2 iphone prototypes before finally approving the final one. Creatives in Apple have a direct reporting to Steve as all product designs right from an accessory pin to a Macbook goes for an approval through him.

Inspite of being thrown from his company, being on his own, trying new things out and coming back again to lead Apple and then battling various health issues to rise up again and again to stun the world with one path breaking product after another reflected his never say die attitude. In his now famous Standford speech he reflected on how "Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith.

"Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma -- which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

A dreamer. A visionary. A person from a contemporary era who kept on raising his internal benchmarks for innovation. A person who never gave up and taught us to stay hungry and foolish.

RIP Steve Jobs. Apple won’t be as fruitful without you.

Available for Sale - 11/12 DVD collection titled: BBC -Days That Shook The World

2011-06-12T14:55:00.000+05:30

A brand new unopened 11/12 DVD set 3 series collection available for sale. Titled: Days That Shook The World. Price: Rs. 2700. I am selling it as someone else bought a similar set for me. I am offering it at the discounted price on which I purchased it.

(click on the photograph to see the enlarged view)

If you are interested in buying it, please contact me on 9960601324.

What I hate about the new Yahoo Mail user experience

2011-05-11T12:58:00.001+05:30

So yahoo mail is going into major upgrade mode with overhauling of entire webmail application UI, new features and integrating with some of other yahoo channels from a single interface. Most of these changes I believe happened couple of weeks/months back but I noticed it recently. While the overall look has become very sleek but I was surprised to see introduction and change made to some key user interaction that contradicts mental model of how a user perceives that feature and adds new learning curve while dealing with the refurbished Yahoo Mail.

Image 1

(Click on image thumbnails for bigger view)

For those who have not seen the new yahoo mail interface, the screen above shows you how the mail now looks in its new avatar. Prominent changes include introduction of lot of tab controls on top, ajax dropdown, overlay windows for actions, integration of applications on left hand side panel.

Earlier, on click of any mail, the mail used to open up in the same window. Now in the new version, the mail opens up as a separate page in a tab (see image below). For illustration example I have clicked the Jet airways mail below.

Image 2

The mail opens in a new tab as shown above. Perhaps in the 1^st instance a user doesn’t realize that the mail has opened in a tabbed format. It’s after clicking on Inbox and selecting any other mail for viewing, the realization comes that the mails are opening in tabbed format and user can jump on to the other previously opened mail without going to inbox and selecting the mail. Works really well when it is assumed that a user normally likes performing this task or that’s a normal mail surfer’s interaction pattern. What can be the implications of this tabbed view, will illustrate with another example later but from here would like to highlight a grave ‘flaw’ if I may put it in the normal interaction pattern of a mail surfer which yahoo has deviated from.

Those who are fluent with keyboard control always prefer pressing backspace button to move back to inbox. That is the mental model of any mail surfer for going back to inbox to check the mails. This is where yahoo mail blunders. Notice what happens when you click on backspace button.

image 3

On press of backspace, instead of opening inbox window, another tab opens up with a mail. After repeated instances like these or perhaps clicking manually on inbox link from the left you get to realize that the backspace button is now linked to opening of next mail below the previously opened mail. So what you get to see is the next mail in your inbox. Bad. How can yahoo assume that a user would like to view this mail only? Shouldn’t that be a user’s prerogative? IF that was not enough, the next example will illustrate on a major blunder that Yahoo has made with the backspace button.

image 4

I clicked on the backspace button and after realization that it is not linked to going back to inbox, I manually click on inbox and now want to open that Jetairways mail again. But where is that mail? And then I realize what the buggers at yahoo have done.

Image 5

The backspace button is now linked to deleting a mail. Very bad interaction as the usual mental model that a user presumes is that pressing backspace leads back to previous page. This is the pattern followed in ALL webmails – gmail, hotmail, rediff, indiatimes and even previously in yahoo mail too. Many users will I bet not realize this also that they have unknowingly deleted their mail!

image 6

So now that mails open in different tabs and after realization that this is the model that will happen, I decided to check what happens when I click multiple mails. Since the idea from yahoo is for letting users surf seamlessly between different open stage mails without letting them move back to inbox, with each click the open tab on top navigation panel kept increasing. Will a user click any tab to close his mail and do ‘tab management’? I hope yahoo has done some user testing around this as many people might find this irritating (clicking open tabs again & again).

Image 7

And as I suspected, this is what happened when I clicked multiple mails and didn’t bother to close the open tabs. As I was testing this feature, I was prepared to get a response like this but users who perhaps might miss the open tab mail reading concept and keep navigating through inbox link on left to read mails, might perhaps take a while to realize what this means and the entire concept of tabbed mail approach.

Like with any new rollout where major changes are made, there would be initial reluctance but over period people do get used to it. I am sure with yahoo mail also people will start adapting to the new features but if only yahoo would have not deviated from the key functionality interactions that are followed by all mail users across other sites and retained the same then it would have been perfect.

What's the fart about?

2011-02-06T07:25:00.007+05:30

Now this is the kind of news that can make any person like me, reeling under a late night party hangover sit and read it attentively.

Oblivion to the world fuel crisis, global recession, the Arab world renaissance, rapidly growing inflation or the even nearly approach 2012 dooms day, a small African nation - Malawi will vigorously debate in the coming week in their parliament if farting in public should be made criminal offence. Wow. I love this kind of news. Sadly this 4 column news was tucked in the World section in TOI. In my opinion this has to be the most catching and attention grabbing news to come in recent months and should have been placed right on front page! People are bored to read about the Egypt crisis, the 65 rs kilo Onion, Petrol & Beer kind of news. Now this is news. A country already reeling under poverty spending the precious little tax saver’s money to debate on issues that can in future have global catastrophic effect. As per the news…

"The government has a right to ensure public decency. We are entitled to introduce order in the country," justice and constitutional affairs minister George Chaponda told independent radio station Capital Radio. "Would you like to see people farting in public anywhere?" Since the country embraced multi-party politics 16 years ago people had felt free to fart anywhere, said Chaponda.

"It was not there during the time of dictatorship because people were afraid of the consequences. Now because of multipartism or freedom, people would like to fart anywhere, he said.

I completely agree with you bro. In a democratic, multi party system, people tend to fart albeit loudly – in public places, on the national media, in parliament, on tax payer sponsored foreign visits without thinking of the consequences. Now the only difference is that these are the people who run the country. But let me tell you my friend, in dictatorship too the people – especially the one who call the shots in the country do fart but the only difference is that in dictatorship the fart is passed off by the state owned media as the next perfume brand from the house of Gucci.

Not many people understand that farting is the most technical job you can ever imagine to perform. More complex than the Matrix itself. Imagine stuck in a small group or sitting in a small restaurant, or in front of your would be fiancé or gf and you get the feeling – oh yeah a fart is on the way. You have to draw upon your years of experience to convert that big bang into a silencer equipped muzzle shot so that it’s not heard. Yeah, bet the men reading this post can relate with that.

I am sure if I google, I can find many games around farting itself. If there are games already available for ipad , iphone & android, bet there should be real versions followed too. The Biggest Farter Wins. Measuring the velocity of a farter by lighting the gas behind! Speaking of which, have you ever wondered why they put up a BIG RED colored ‘STRICTLY NO SMOKING’ bright signage in all corridors of Parliament, the visitor’s gallery & near cabins of all ministers in Government establishments? Yup, you guessed it right! I had an opportunity to visit the Parliament once and if you have ever been to the visitor’s gallery, you will see the AC blower on full blast and a transparent glass screen blocking the atmospheric air emitted by our honourly politicians. While public safety measures are taken what makes these politicans immune from the self emitted every day farts that they release in the Parliament? There are 2 reasons for that. 1) These guys are thick skinned. So any molecular particle floating from a colleague’s fart just bounces off from the skin of these guys instead of settling down. 2) More importantly, all the guys who get selected to represent our constituencies go through a nose membrane transplant. A small mesh is implanted that converts the inhaled foul gas into a fresh reusable fart by the same guy. Why do you think we are the toast of all the carbon credit seeking countries? Innovative mechanisms can be seen right in the bowels of the Parliament especially if some debate is on.

By the way, there are 3 countries that can never ever ban farting. They are Pakistan, India & China.

India, we already know and briefly talked about above why. Read any bi lateral talks results between Pakistan/India or China/India and you can guess why farting can never be banned.

Pakistan has taken farting to next level. Tired of using guns, ammos, normal bombs, suicide bombers in Pakistan, fed with a gastronomic diet of Jihad are turning themselves into a live Fart Bombers. The promises to the bombers I am told are a lifetime McDonalds & Pizza Hut supply in heaven (or hell) and a complimentary tickling by the most beautiful nymph. For bombers in POK photos of Katrina Kaif are passed off as the nymph.

Now Chinese farts are quite tricky ones. You keep your ears up to hear any mumbling noise from a Chinese ass but hardly hear anything. The Chinese farts are more like Chinse whispers. There definitely is a fart but you don’t hear it and smell it a little late. Or else how can you explain this Wen Jiabo chap making an official trip to India – all armed with Hindi Chini bhai bhai scented room freshner, his aides spraying it before hand in any meeting and once he was gone, 2 weeks later you get the foul smell of the Arunachal Pradesh stapled visa issue.

But imagine if they was indeed an actual ministry, just like the Malwai chaps enforcing laws related to farting in India? I wonder what that ministry would be called? Ministry of Renewable Energies or Ministry of Natural Gas. I can think of the latter. But I bilve there is already a minstry by that name. I guess they would have made it Ministry of Natural gas – Internal & Minstry of Natural gas - External. The internal one would focus on the ‘real’ natural gas sourced from deep inside the earth while the external will concentrate their energies on the natural gases emitted by people. While the country would be reeling under heavy inflation and rising food costs and Sharad Pawar would be grilled in Parliament, the chap managing the MoNG – E portfolio would be quietly chuckling in one corner in the Parliament. After all the rising food cost is directly proportional to the fart emitted in air. High food cost means less people will buy fart emitting veggies like ‘mooli’ which means less of fart to pollute the air.

Back closer to work, you deal day in day out with guys who have made careers by farting. The mantra is not ‘Work Smarter Not Harder’ but ‘Fart Harder but Smarter’. Yes, in a collaborative world, every fart counts in work and you need to keep updating your repository with newer, smarter mechanisms of farting and making customers bill you $140/hr consulting rate . After all for them it’s not just a fart. It’s a process of synthesizing efficient paradigms that involve intuitive methodologies to unleash visionary whiff of air to deliver ‘bleeding-edge’ solutions. The same logic applies internally when you want to don the role of Arjuna – the Savior. Genuine thought process, views are taken as crap. One ‘fart-astra’ from your arsenal can quieten the most vocal or rational ones.

Should really thank the article that got printed ysday. Atleast it motivated me to put this farty post after a long time. Till the time the world is full of news like this, which I am sure it will be, it will always get me on to release some gas of my own!

All farts welcomed in the comments section :-)

random thought waiting outside a ladies trial room for wifey to co me out

2011-01-29T17:14:00.001+05:30

Why are almost all lingerie counters in any of the mall that you walk in managed by chinkis? :D

regards,
Lokesh Sapre
-----------------------
Sent from my Nokia E71

Bsnl launches ipad data plan | my experience with the same

2011-01-28T18:36:00.001+05:30

So finally Apple officially launched the ipad in India and as a surprise package tied up with bsnl for various attractive 3G data plan offers. The moment I read the news on one of the online sites, I quickly opened up the bsnl site to check about it. i found it a bit surprising that officially it got launched today and there was no media coverage in any of the printed newspapers. Such a 'big' news was tucked away in a corner on bsnl site with a small ipad image and a dull font data plan link. I clicked it, checked the plans, filled up the inquiry form and waited for someone to call me. But knowing that it might take ages before someone will actually call, I called up on the helpline no that they had provided in the ad. After few rings the guy picked up the call, inquired of my region and need and transfered the call. I told them about my interest in the microsim card and inquired if I can get the same from local bsnl office. The guy put me on hold again and after few minutes responded that they were not aware of the 'scheme' and perhaps I should call in evening! Pissed off to the core, I decided to hit out to local bsnl office in the afternoon.

The Yerwada Bsnl office is manned by an all female staff. The inquiry counter lady was clueless and directed me to the section officer. As expected, she also didn't have any response and came to know that bsnl has launched something like this from me only! She visited the website and while she was doing so, I parroted out the various data plans that bsnl has launched for ipad. She gave me an embarassed smile ( coz without looking at the monitor I was telling her about the various plans which she should have been knowing) and confessed she was not aware of ipad& these plans. She called up her seniors who themsevles didn't have much idea. The lady apologized to me, took my number and promised the moment they get details and the sim card, I'll be the 1st Ipad data plan customer she will hand over the sim too.

I returned back, bit amused with this entire experience but felt sorry on how bsnl is on the verge of losing a sizable market share again thanks to blotched up marketing activities. Bsnl has got the 1st move advantage and in couple of months apple will partner with other telcos as soon as 3 g network is rolled out pan India. With attractive India prices for the device, the rush for data plans will be up for sure and hopefully bsnl should gear themselves up to cater to demands.

Sent from my iPad

Obama visit - random musings

2010-11-06T15:42:00.001+05:30

The best, rationaled, well paneled discussions on Obama visit happening on ndtv 24x7. Shekhar Gupta takes the cake on the discussion. His take on Maha Govt's 'baraati' attitude sums up the incompetencies and useless row created by them on being asked to show identity proofs.

Disappointed with BJP's official press briefing showing their disappointment that Obama didn't slam Pakistan. Grow up guys. Yeah Shekhar I agreee with you - they have lost their bearings.

regards,
Lokesh Sapre
-----------------------
Sent from my Nokia E71

The Curious Case of Buzzing Light

2010-10-22T12:30:00.000+05:30

On a long haul international flight, the most boring part besides watching the rerun of movies is standing outside the loo and waiting endlessly for your turn. On a recent trip while I was waiting for my turn, twice or thrice I saw the call attendant light outside the loo blink. Each time the attendant came and asked the person inside if everything was fine, she got a +ve reply and went back. False alarm. It was not as if the call was made by one person. I saw that pattern getting repeated with 3 different people in 2 separate loos. Curiosity took over me as finally my turn came and while the call of the nature happened, I was snooping around to find where the attendant button was. As I accidently spotted the button (yes, I was on the verge of unknowingly pressing it), it dawned upon me why the airhostess was getting called for no reason by person inside the loo.

Take a look at the picture above. The orange colored button is placed on the left hand side. In the matchbox shaped toilet, as the person sits on the pot, many a times in that cramped space the person tries to adjust himself in and this is when the button gets accidentally pressed as it’s too close to the arm and tucked away near to the waist level and gets missed completely by the person. It nearly happened with me too as I tried to jostle in the compact loo.

Flawed Product Design

The above incidence serves as a good example for software & product designers. The intent of placing an emergency call button close to the person is right, but should that be the right position where it needs to be placed? Any call to action features, be it on the web, desktop applications and as my airline loo experience showed me should be placed where it’s visible and convenient for a person to use. In that loo the button was getting missed and that was the reason it was getting accidentally pressed by people. Perhaps shifting the button a little more to the left could have solved the problem. A) The accidental pressing would have stopped. B) The button would have been more visible and in front of the eye.

In conclusion, as a designer or a product developer it’s imperative to step into a user’s shoes and iron out these kind of potential usability issues at initial stages of design itself. Getting the product prototype tested by actual users during prototype stage helps in finding problems that are easier and cheaper to fix rather than unearthing it after the product has been released. Involve a usability consultant in the project right from the inception stage as their expertise and usability knowledge can help in shaping up the product as per user expectations and meet defined goals & business objectives.

Usability Testing of the Delhi Airport T3

2010-07-06T19:55:00.000+05:30

As said by GMR in an interview:

..... airport is about people, not buildings. An airport is a very complex system," he says. That is why before throwing open the Delhi airport to the public he is testing it with "dummy passengers" - 3,000 men and women, each paid Rs 175 to come and play act, testing everything from baggage handling to security.

mobile blogging

2010-06-22T08:00:00.001+05:30

Testing out mobile blogging through this 1st scrap posted through my business phone. If it updates instantly then you will see frequent scraps and mobile uploads from me.

Regards,
Lokesh Sapre
-----------------------
***Sent from my Nokia E71***

random thought

2010-06-21T10:54:00.000+05:30

Saw few guys in ties. Asked a question to myself. To work like a consultant, it is necessary to wear ties day in and out unless its a client facing scenario? Does wearing a tie make you feel like a consultant? Isn't it the work that you do which is more important in that sphere of your business domain rather than the appearance in office ( and remember, it's not client meetings that are to be attended). Why this false facade?

the state of mind I am in these days :-)

2010-04-27T16:59:00.002+05:30

and after I land on the national geo site and click on the careers section....this is the screen I get!

Oh well...it seems all restless people like me would be accessing the National Geo site. Well lemme try my luck with Discovery now :-)

Goodbye ABN AMRO

2010-03-31T12:01:00.002+05:30

Got bit of sentimental after hearing that ABN AMRO's name would be changed to RBS (Royal bank of Scotland). Perhaps the reason is given the fact that I had been associated with ABN AMRO for the past 9-10 years or so. Not many of my colleagues know this but I was the Information Architect who was part of the design team that had created the the entire ABN AMRO net banking website. This was way back in 2001 or something. I was working in an IT company in Delhi. We used to deal with ABN Delhi HO. This was my 1st experience of dealing with IA of a full fledged banking application. I remember the workshops that the design team and client used to have at ABN's CP office. We used to do endless rounds of white boarding & card sorting exercises to arrive on user mental models. Of course there were rounds of heated discussions also with the customer during the workshops which used to spice up our thinking process. In one such incidence we were discussing the Online Account Summary flow. The client had a 'banker's view of the same while we felt it won't work and presented end user's view point. It went on for some time. We took a prompt decision. We went down to the branch and randomly selected few users and expressed out point of view to understand what they feel and they agreed with our thinking! Bang on. The discussion was closed. The client team were a bunch of tough nuts but they accepted points when presented with logic & strong rational. When the banking website was launched, we had even created a banking site demo which used to be part of the online application for quite a few years. We had slipped in our names in the demo as account holders and shown lakhs of rupees in fictitious account number. That was the only closest way of demonstrating that we were quite rich! :-)

When I shifted to Mumbai in 2003 my relation with the bank continued in form of corporate salary account which I got transferred to Pune when I shifted the base here in 2006. I still maintain the account and use the internet banking that I created. I have always loved ABN's services. In my 7 years relationship with the bank,I have only visited my bank once for sign verification else all my transactions have been carried online or through doorstep banking. After nearly 10 years of its online existence, I am glad to see that the core task flows and navigation of the net banking application has not changed at all. It's means a lot as it bears a stamp of users acceptance and seamless interaction & transaction that they have on the site. In fact I was told that the online site was referred as one of the best internet banking applications present in India.

Now that the bank has been bought over by RBS, I hope the services that I enjoyed earlier would continue to be the same. It's very weird feeling calling my bank RBS now ;-) but hopefully over the period will get used to the new name now. :-)

Foxed over flux!

2010-03-05T15:23:00.003+05:30

I was in two minds about writing this post. This topic had been on my mind for quite some time but I was really dragging on this post. Well some personal experience around this topic last Friday triggered me to put my thoughts across – and of course some help from Sarah Palin!

Couple of the days ago, Sarah Palin called Twitter as ‘little twittering thing’. It was an innocent response to her reference to how speedily things happen on Twitter. But what came out was the negative connotation rather than an endearing one.

Last week I was discussing an onsite project opportunity with one of the program mangers. Since they work a lot in embedded & desktop apps space, I highlighted them on how they can pitch for technologies like Silverlight & Flex in their projects which are the emerging technologies in RIA (Rich Internet Applications) space. The Program manager replied ‘oh yeah we are aware of flex…it’s to do with UI skin & design…’. I told him it’s not just about UI skin but more to do with backend technologies which makes the interaction simple. He and his team mate reply ‘ but the flux presentation that you sent in proposal talked about that’. Which presentation I inquired, since I was managing the flex initiatives and I had never sent any prezo. The FLUX prezo – the guy replies. And then it struck me. He was referring to the new capability presentation sent by the usability practice titled: flux. I winced my teeth and politely went on to explain the bizarre branding name that has cropped up couple of months back.

The 1st time I heard about the new branding for usability team I was very surprised. I saw the branding in a team mate’s email signature and this is how it looked.

The other variation of the branding I saw was like this: flUX which is used in document or as file name of any capability prezo or overview. It didn’t have any tag line along with it. Then I also see it in email credentials like this: flUX – The User Experience Group

Branding is a very important exercise and there are various aspects you need to keep in mind before going in for brand christening. Is branding needed for a usability group working in a pure play technology company – I’ll come to that part later but my 1st question to myself and to few peers around was what did flUX – the word meant to them. I was told by the mates who coined the branding that the reason behind using the word flUX is that in metallurgy flux is a chemical cleaning agent that removes oxides from the metal to be joined. Since in UX space we remove the ‘impurities’ related to ‘bad experience’ hence flUX. To add to the touch was the byline ‘flawless user experience’, the ‘fl’ from flUX stands for flawless and ‘UX’ for user experience. Neat. But do people really understand that’s how the term got coined? When put on a ppt or when sent in a document to customer/prospect/internal stake holders – will they understand what flUX means? From my last week experience I don’t think so. Intelligence doesn’t always sell. In colloquial language flux most of the times is used in negative connotation. It means ‘uncertainty’. His mind was in a state of flux over the decision. 8 out of 10 times in spoken language it will be commonly used to express a state of indecisiveness. The remaining 2 times folks in white coats would be using it. The point that I want to make is when it comes to branding, you also need to consider all these aspects, debate it out, research and then proceed. By discussing it internally with 2-3 practice guys or getting the branding feedback done from few external ex- college design friends won’t help in discovering the real issues. A brand name needs to be really thought through; researched and extensive feedback needs to be taken.

I know that one of the lessons in branding is also to make your brand stand out, think of uncommon brand names/acronyms, to have a recall value but you need to consider that the brand name unknowingly doesn’t give different context meanings. Also as my flex-flux experience highlighted, the brand shouldn’t get confused with something else, especially in a technology company where the word got confused with a core technology which the company is building capabilities in.

More than often, you might not be available for any presentation or physically won’t be present when flux branded collateral would be presented or discussed. The luxury of ‘Hi we are from usability practice and our group is named as flux which stands for flawless user experience…” won’t be available. Then what?

Francois gossieaux in his article on customer vs brand advocacy says “most buying decisions happen when your people are not in the room – not part of the conversations that lead to buying decisions. So for them (your company’s marketing team) to be brand advocates is to a certain degree a waste of time. What you need is for your customers and prospects to be your brand advocates.” And this is where the 2nd important point of my whole take on branding comes in.

Should branding be done for usability team or the services that they pitch? Your customers be it internal stakeholders or external one will not recall your group brand name when they need your services. When there is a need for UI design/evaluation etc, do you think the question that will pop up in their mind would be “hey we need to call flux guys in for this”? No. Don’t be under any illusion. For your internal stakeholders, you will always be known as the ‘usability team’, ‘UI team’ , ‘UI guys’ – irrespective of any fancy name that you coin. When the call would come, the top of the mind recall would be usability, UI design, html developer and NOT flux. Similarly for external customers flux will not make any sense. They would be approaching ‘the company‘for certain services which may or may not be aligned to UI/design and not flux. Even if you send them capability branded doc all pasted with flux – their final call of action would be with ‘the company’ and NOT the branded group. Don’t expect the customer to call the company and say “ I need the flux team services for my website revamp”.

Brands need to be created in usability but these should be around the services that you offer. Create brands around your specialized offerings. Let these be the talking point amongst your internal stakeholders and customers. Your well executed work itself becomes a brand within the organization and has a better recall value for the employee and the group than any fancy brand names. Create brands around your resources who come with niche skills. Their skills and knowledge in the specialized area would indirectly reflect upon company’s capabilities and your practice and help in getting business.

To sum up this branding discussion, signing off with a testimonial that one of the UX person recently received from an internal stakeholder. Notice the highlighted part.

“…... Minor details on the portal in terms of graphic representation was taken care of well by co-ordinating with others in the UE (Flux?) team…”

The question mark still remains.

Tiger is back in his woods :-)

2010-02-16T14:31:00.000+05:30

So the news is that Tiger Woods is out of Sex rehabilitation centre and trying to get back in his normal life – of course he has still not made public appearance. Often I wonder what this ‘sex rehabilitation centre’ would be like. The idea is to cure a person from his ‘disease’ which in this case his regular sexual affairs. So how do they test if the person is cured? In the 1^st place, how to they treat the person? Do they make him watch some religious discourse followed by a lap dance by some skimpily dressed gal and observe if the erection is happening and at what pace? J Or perhaps tie the person up to zillions of wires and check his beats to see if is he still getting excited by watching naked gals dancing in front of him. Let me google on what they do and hope to publish another post on it soon :-)

Blogging sabbatical

2010-02-04T18:59:00.002+05:30

I noticed that last year I just posted one single post! It's very surprising for me since till a year before that I was heavily blogging. This year I promise it would be different. My dear friend Sahana who herself is an avid blogger & the queen of tweets has suggested I start a photo blog. I am toying with that idea too. Very soon I'll be posting my road trip blogs along with snaps. Hope I'll gain back my motivation to write and write passionately. :)

The new tablet on the block - Ipad

2010-02-04T18:46:00.004+05:30

Those who have followed Steve Jobs closely through his career would be aware that the king pin of Apple doesn’t sell products. He sells experience. Right from the 80s days when the famous Mac TVC brought in a revolutionary change in the desktop industry to the visual experience of seeing a notebook being pulled out of an envelope. It was no surprise that the most awaited launch of recent time – the Apple tablet bore the same aura and excitement generally you will find at Oscars. Given Apple’s panache for creating mega hype for any product launch, little wonder everyone was super excited on what Steve would produce this time. And boy, they were not disappointed. So finally we have the Apple Ipad and as expected it has created a stormy debate on blogs and technology forums. The main bone of discussion has been – where does it fit in? It’s an Iphone/Itouch on steroids minus the ability to make a call and still not in a league where it can be qualified as a notebook. So has Apple created the biggest blunder by creating a product that doesn’t fit into any category or have they embarked on a bold attempt to create a new market segment?

Experience Sells. Apple products have always been driven around experience. Be it the visual appeal or the sheer joy of experiencing the interaction on any of the apple product. Experience, like brands are not built overnight. And with Apple who has set the benchmark for interaction experience, users always expect the next product from their stable to take the experience a notch higher. If you would have seen the key note that Steve Jobs delivered, his maximum emphasis was around the experience that a user would enjoy with the product. A key aspect in all his key notes has always been the demo that Steve delivers around the product. Steve never ‘sells’ the products. His demos do the job of selling. A simple tap here, a light touch to flick the ebook on the Ipad, the rotatable bookstore, the email keypad, the rotatable browser – notice how he casually went through the key user journeys on the Ipad, as the audience experienced it in delight. Didn’t it make you feel you want to grab that product right away? That’s experience – a hallmark of all Apple products.

Experience creates demand. In Apple’s case it’s their brilliant marketing strategy that has also fuelled up any demand for their product. The sheer aura that they manage to create around any of their product launch helps in creating anticipation and the experience of the product converts that anticipation into a demand. In Ipad’s case I believe Apple has boldly ventured on a path of creating a new market segment. A product that fits between a laptop & a smart phone like iphone. The question is, will they manage to create the demand? I believe yes. Thanks to Ipad, we will see a rise of a new segment of users who would like to ride on the convergence wave that Ipad promises. Apple’s ‘tempting’ pricing strategy for ipad will ensure that conversions happen. With ipad, Apple has also blown the war trumpet against ebook hardware manufacturers like Kindle and taken the storming bull by its horn. Their venture in ebooks with launch of ibooks application in ipad is a bold attempt to walk into the ebook territory. Of course, you don’t expect ebooks addicts to buy ipad for just the books application and they would very well stick to portable devices like Kindle. Already a storm in brewing up in ebooks industry with publishers picking up sides on which side of the hardware manufactures there would like to be. Will this be another Blueray v/s HD DVD in making?.

On the flip side what I didn’t like about Ipad is the limited hard disk space that is bundled into the device. 64GB?? This device is not an ipod but has been pitched as an entertainment solution. Games, movies, photos. Load all that up plus few more softwares and very soon you will start feeling a pinch for space. Imagine, sitting at airport lounge and plugging in an external HDD to the sleek looking ipad. While ipad has provision of mini GSM card for 3G model, I wonder if they will launch 3G model in India as I am not sure if mini GSM are available with telecom operators.
Over all I feel apple has lived up to their brand name and have managed to create a storm. But they need to watch out as Google is just round the corner fine turning their version of the tablet. Already their Android platform and the decision to enter the smart phone segment have started giving Steve Jobs nightmare.

For ipad, will they manage to convert foot falls into purchases when they launch it in March? Only time will tell.

Swine flu hits my Project!!!

2009-08-11T11:28:00.004+05:30

This had to come at some point of time. Every day I get umpteen calls from my wife, parents, inlaws - inquiring about my whereabouts (now I know why cricketers are protesting the WADA rules ;-P), instructing me to wear mask, stop going out in public places etc. Their concern is genuine as they see the media frenzy in TV - about how the virus is spreading in Pune. Just yesterday I was discussing with a friend about how parents of outstation people would be feeling concerned about the alarming situation here and in morning one of my team mates dropped the bombshell.

The team mate's parents who stay in MP have asked him to come back home immediately. The person calls me up in morning informing me that he would like to go on leave with effect from today as his parents are very disturbed with the events. Now the project on which resource is already 3 weeks behind schedule and its on critical path currently. The visibility for the project is high within the organization and the stakes are high. I tried reasoning with him that going on leave will not help and try educating your parents about the measures that organization has taken and all. The team mate comes to office in a disheveled shape. He has a mask on and wearing full jacket. He informs me that he tried his best but of no use. The AR also informs me that we cannot stop any resource from going back home in this kind of scenario. My concern was that this will have a cascading effect. But then the resource drops a bombshell. He tells me that he had been feeling feverish since ysday, had slight cold and is on medicine which has been prescribed by the local GP and if the symptoms persists in couple fo days, he asked him to get swine flu test done. As he spoke with me thru his mask - I just held my breath (hey! it's swine flu around!)but then I had to release it ;-) Immediately I asked him to go on leave :-) and rushed in the loo to wash my hands!!! (couldn't believe I did this!..and what made me do this!) Seeing him in that state I could understand why his parents were concerned. I can see similar symptoms ( worried parents tracking their kids) being passed on to other outstation resources in my team. For me & other senior members of the team - it's like a war situation here on Ground Zero. People want to go on leave and we are on acute shortage of resources. Wearing masks they keep working on- regularly attending calls from worried parents.

Which brings me to more important topic - how to ensure business continuity? people who want to take precautionary leave should have the flexibility from working from home. At an organizational level, perhaps trial versions of critical softwares needed for project should be installed in personal desktops/laptops of the resources. Daily checkin/checkouts can be committed through VPN line or the code can be shared on project ftp server and someone in office can commit the same in SVN repository. Importantly, the client also needs to be educated that given the scenario, there might be some impact to the dates of the project.

Close Encounter with Nano: 1st hand review

2009-01-13T18:02:00.003+05:30

The other day while coming back from Shirdi, some 20 kms from Pune, a small toy like car zipped past me. I cried in excitement to my wife who was sitting next to me. "Hey, that's Nano"!! The Nano emblem shining brightly on the bonet of the white, bright car, it raced ahead. Suddenly there was excitement on the road. Like me, few others had also spotted the car. Negotiating the traffic, I tried to step up on my speed to catch up with the car. It was nearly dark and the the commercial traffic was high on nagar road so I had to watch out for all the trucks on my side of the road and overtaking them was not that easy. But for Nano it was a different ball game. The car took advantage of its size and criss crossed between trucks to take up pole positions among other cars on the road - something I just couldn't digest. I mean here I was driving a relatively heavy sized big brother Indica Turbo and this new born cousin from the same family zips past me without giving me much maneuvering chance! Finally as the traffic cleared I managed to catch up with the car and got a good look inside. Drove for some 15 kms along with the car, sometimes over taking it from the left, from right, staying ahead, behind - so that I could get detailed look of the car, its exteriors, interiors, etc. The test driver just gave me a smile, probably understanding what I was upto. My observations about the car:

- It rocks. It's a tiny, exposive device and has a pretty good grip on the road even on speed of 70kms ph (that was my speed while I was trailing the car for some kms)

- It's size can be advantage for traffic situations where you need to zip through vehicles.

- The test driver's height must be 5ft 9 inches and his head was not touching the roof - so that way it's good.

- I could see orange colored illuminated panel - and there was a small green colored small LCD rectagle box glowing in the instrument console panel - probably the tripmeter which might be electronic.

- the car was driving on high beam on road and I could see that the light was quite strong - so no problems in that department.

What I didn't like:

- As many of you might be knowing, the engine in the car is in back side. I could see some part of the exhaust 'hanging' out - just like it's there in some of the petrol rikshaws.

- Probably the model that i was racing with was low end as the bumper was very basic dull colored greyish plastic one

- The bumper in this model was not 'shielding' the part of exaust/engine which I could see dangling out. On few bumps, the exaust 'shook' along with few other parts near the rear end. It gave the feeling as if the entire pack has been loosely tied. It would be interesting to see how the car performs in true Indian conditions, where there are many potholes/bumps on the roads. I suspect the car's belly is prone to attacks from sharp stones or big potholes/gravels as the ground clearance is not that high.

Overall, still it's a good car. My wifey certainly liked it and said that she would certainly learn how to drive car provided if I book Nano for her! Personally I feel it's a car more suitable for women, eldery people as they would definitely treat the car with kid's glove.

Enough is enough!

2008-11-30T21:38:00.003+05:30

Frustration. Anger. Helplessness. It had been a very emotional 3 days for me as I watched Mumbai attacked, yet again. And as the attack unfolded & counter attack started, I wondered what would be India’s view after all this gets over? Will the usual ‘famed Mumbai spirit’ & the usual clichés of the city’s resilience to get on with life start ringing again? But this time even Mumbaikars shouted back. Enough is enough. Damn the clichés. Life moves on but are our lives taken for granted by the guys whom we have elected? The home minister of Mumbai has the audacity to state that ‘such incidents happen in big cities’ and that too in a press conference. Felt like puking over the *****. Does the guy even know the magnitude of this attack? The guy then ranted about a committee being formed to investigate. Fucking Bullshit. I am sure a committee must’ve been formed even during 2006 train blasts. If that’s not all, I wonder what really drove Narendra Modi to even think of having a press conference on day 2 of the attack. How can someone even think of politicizing the whole issue!! Till the other day, BJP, MNS and the clan were pointing fingers on ATS chief Karkare and today they have put up boards across the city saluting him as martyrs and letting the commoner know that these boards have been put up by them – with the larger than life sized party logos of theirs. It came as a no surprise that Karkare’s family refused compensation from Narendra Modi. As the NSG mopped up the operation, in process losing out on 3 brave men – all from different parts of the country, I wonder what would Raj Thakrey say now? His ‘sons of the soil’ vaanar sena didn’t turn up to save Mumbai from the ‘outsiders’. The real men who lost their lives to save Mumbai were from North & South India. But when they entered in the hotel they were not fighting for Mumbai. They were fighting for India. The citizens who voiced their views yesterday on many channels echoed similar sentiments but sadly, vote politics is not driven by ‘elitist or English speaking rational people’ of the society.

I am a Maharashtrian born & brought up in Delhi. A core North Indian but still I am a Mumbaikar. It’s the city where I have spent the most wonderful 4 years of my professional life. It’s the city which is still close to my heart and will always remain so. And why only me; the city belongs to each and every Indian citizen. And as the city laid under siege, sitting in Pune I just cried in pain. Clearly the administration has not learnt the lessons and I am sure – they never will. But now the time has come for them to sit up listen to the growing voices of angry citizens who have lost hope with the system. Some day the scars on the Taj, Nariman house & the Oberoi would heal, the blood would be washed; all telltale signs of the burnt place would be erased but what about the voices of the innocent dead victims? Won’t they haunt us each time we pass from those iconic places? They say public memory is short. The people who man the system might live in that belief but this time it won’t be forgotten so soon. The country wants some hard answers. Mumbai wants some answers.

Ladakh Vacation

2008-10-28T11:54:00.002+05:30

Wish you all a very warm & happy diwali. Off late, I had been very lazy in updating my blog. More than lazy, I'll say I had been too tied up with work & transition that had been happening at work, role and personal life. To escape from it all and bring focus back, I had cut myself off from work, emails, cell phones, laptop and escaped to Ladakh for 2 week break. It had been really refreshing and it has helped me in focusing on few things which i intend to plan & aim for in coming few months. Will share about my Leh experience and the transition that I am going thru in other posts.

9.11.2001

2008-09-11T15:19:00.003+05:30

..Still remember that night. Me, Tanuj, his wife and few friends of ours were chilling out in Buzz at Saket, Delhi. Amidst the loud music and conversations over booze, we saw the silent images of aeroplanes crashing into World Trade Centre being showed on TV. The entire gathering their watched in amazement as the videos kept replaying. The flow of booze stopped. The music died out as someone switched on the volume of the TV. We forgot our conversations and got glued to the TV. The next 1 hr in Buzz was surreal - no music, no normal chitchat - as we witnessed the world being changed.

I still remember that night.

Been there…done that

2008-09-02T16:43:00.002+05:30

Ok some cheap thrills. You will find me blabbering this for coming few weeks.

Friend: hey loks, were you on leave? Didn’t see you in office for past 3-4 days.
Loks: Oh no...actually I was in UK last week.
Friend: Oh…some new project.
Loks: Oh no no… had to meet a prospect…make a proposal presentation on how we can set up their offshore development centre and come back.

Friend: cool.
Loks: yeah.. just part of the job…nothing exciting about it.

Don’t they have a telephone in your part of the world?

2008-09-02T16:43:00.001+05:30

Couple of weeks back the European delivery head calls me in his office.

Head: Lokesh, you have to go to UK in two weeks time. You have to make a proposal presentation.

Me: Ok… and then?

Head: ..and then…come back.

Me: Err… so I’ll just be going there to make a presentation..? Why, I can do that even from here. All I need to do is just pick up the phone! Why spend airfare, precious pounds on accommodation, daily expense etc just for sending someone from offshore to make a presentation!!!

Samosa – 60bucks!

2008-09-02T16:42:00.000+05:30

The management of Mumbai international airport have come up with a new strategy of letting the flyer get the feel of the ‘conversion’ prices that they normally do when they land abroad – at airport itself. Otherwise how to do you make sense that a stupid samosa for which I won’t have paid more than 5 bucks gets sold at 60 bucks at the airport!!! A 10 bucks black forest goes for 80 bucks. Yes, it’s a good way to make flyers feel the pinch even before they fly!

I hate night flights.

2008-09-02T16:41:00.000+05:30

I hate to take the international night flights. They are a real pain in the ass. For starter, you need to leave Pune early so as to avoid the maddening evening traffic in Sion or Andheri and in between, skip dinner as you are caught in transit. As mostly flights depart at 2.am types, more than food, its sleep that’s on your mind. But after a quick snooze and a shot of Jack Daniels you realize – hey this is the late night flight, which means no dinner served! Only snacks and breakfast! Grrrrrrrr.

The other reason I don’t like taking the night flight is because at nights the airport bears a resemblance of a mela than an airport. You bump into all this kachra public traveling in kacchas & baniyaans to Gulf. Ok the Unddies & vest was exaggerated but seriously, the entire environment resembles a bus adda. All the gulf flights leave at night, so you would see all these mallus, tambis – with their loongis tied up to their waist, flaunting their assets, yapping away in a group waiting to leaving India to start a new life in Gulf.

But I am quite impressed with the crowd management at the new international airport. The privatization has really worked. Inspite of such a maddening rush, I was able to check in within 5 mins and clear immigration & security in 10 mins. Not bad…not bad at all!!

Cash for Vote

2008-07-31T10:50:00.004+05:30

In the past one week, a lot of dirty, murky water has passed under the bridge. Finally we all got to see the 'true' colors of our politicians. The most 'ironical' moment for me in this entire drama was the closing part when after a dirty day at office, the speaker closed the session on 'Vande Matram' geet. Personally for me it was disturbing to see all these 'representatives of the common people' standing attentively in respect (were they?) as the national song got played.

If that was not all, the shape of things to come in future rolled off this week when Sushma Swaraj came up with her version on the serial blasts. Her 'conspiracy' theory of blaming the blasts on the government to divert off attention from cash for vote scam - broke all points of records on how low can a thinking get in politics. People who follow her theatreatics would remember how in 2004 when Congress came in power she howled and howled and threatened that she would shave off her head, sleep on floor and follow the life of a 'sadhavi' is Sonia is made the PM. Disgusting.

Where is Lokesh?

2008-06-24T19:36:00.002+05:30

Caught with tons of work - shitty, exciting, maddning. Loads happening at work, personal life...Need to sit down and really think - think about why it's happening this way - think about why am i not getting time to do what I love the most - write, blog, connect.

Will be back soon.

World Peace? What World Peace?

2008-03-31T15:03:00.003+05:30

' Beautiful women walking down the ramp in their swimsuits...you think world peace would be on anyone's mind...' - top of the mind candid reply from a participant of this year's Femina Miss India on being asked what she thinks about world peace.

Yeah baby, if I was the judge, my award certainly would have gone to you.

Washing Machine Usability

2008-03-11T22:37:00.003+05:30

The studio apt. where I live in, has this 'fully loaded' washing machine that can do anything and everything you can think of related with washing clothes. You might ask - what's the big deal in washing clothes? All you need is a soap, water and - clothes! But then this machine comes with all those modes of washing different types of clothes (silk, cotton, polyster,etc) at different settings, various wash modes (depending upon how soiled is your clothes), water modes (to conserve water & use it effectively), various RPMs for various wash types..blah blah. Ok, so I was impressed. But now comes the big question - how should I operate it.
Unlike the previous generation washing machines, which just had 2 knobs to select timer and drain water - here was a machine that had a 'mini instrument' panel full of small buttons & various flashing LEDs.

I took out the Instructional Manual and started reading it carefully. 15 mins of 'chatofying' the book and and I still couldn't figure from where do I have to operate the water tap! I checked the washing machine and couldn't figure the point from water pipe had to be plugged in or the draining pipe outlet. Finally I figured out that the water inlet & outlet pipes were already attached to the machine - though there was no 'knob' to turn it on/off. Ok, so this is Uk and perhaps here machines are already attached to the water outlets but shouldn't the manual have instructions for 1st timer users about these things or is it just assumed that people might be knowing about it. What if a person moves into a new house and wants to install the machine? How will he know about these things? The manual should have had instructions about plumbing or how the machine has to be installed -right to details of fixing it to water/drainage outlet. This way, I would have come to know that there is no need to seat about the water outlet. Anyway, this was just the begining. The next part, selecting which clothes type. There were pre-defined clothes type and I selected 'cottons'. The instructional manual was well documented in the remaining steps and after 5-6 steps, I selected the START button and voila - the machine started! But hey, hang on! What's this? For my 'cottons' selection & even wich 'quick wash' option selection, the machine calcuated that it will take 2hrs 45 mins to wash my 9 shirts!!! Quickly I checked the manual. I did not wanted to waste 3 hrs in washing some stupid 9 shirts. The process had started and I realised that if I cancel any pre-defined programme, I have to start the process all over again with the already 'pre-defined' wash modes.

Why couldn't the machine come with a 'customised' wash mode option too? An option where I even select wash time period instead of letting the machine doing it for me. What I felt really missing from the machine was the option of letting the user to customise his washing choice as per his preference. Comparatively, I felt the 1st generation (manual/semi automatic) washing machine was much easier to use (you don't need manual to use those 2 knobs of setting timer & draining water). Ofcourse once you get a hang of a fully automatic loaded gizmo like the one I used, you do start liking it but is it really helping me in any way to make my washing more effective than the 1st gen machines. Those in favor might say that you don't have to worry about anything - put the clothes in and do your other work and come back only to dry clothes but what about the electricity consumption? I spent 3 hrs of electricity (and water) to wash 9 shirts which I could have done in less than 40 mins in semi-automatic washing machine.

Its good that you have a product that promises to 'automate' or ease out the way you have been performing certain tasks but shouldn't we let the user take control of the product instead of the other way around?

My trip to Lords - The Home of Cricket

2008-01-08T00:08:00.000+05:30

If there is one stadium that any true cricket lover would have grown up hearing about is Lords. Majestic as it sounds, arguably it has always stood as a mighty colossal in the cricketing empire. As an Indian, there are many cricketing moments that are linked with Lords. The 1st test match that India ever played was at Lords. The vivid memories of Kapil's Devils lifting up the Prudential Cup to the not so recent one of Sourav Ganguly doing a jig in the visitor's Pavilion after Nat West Final victory. It was one stadium that I always wanted to visit and finally got my opportunity on 5th January, 2008. I had heard about the Lords Cricketing Museum - which is one of the best cricketing museums in the world and that visitors can have a conducted tour of Lords on off cricketing days. With that info. I headed off to Lords.

God must be a cricket lover!
I think god must be a cricket lover - after all its not everyday that you see so much sunshine in London and not a drop of rain! The main entry to Lords is through the WG Grace Entrance. A feeling of excitement crept in me as I began my walk through the gate. The facade of the stadium is massive though if you compare it with Eden Gardens or Chinnaswamy stadium, it might not look so overpowering but then there is so much history attached with the stadium which makes it look larger than life. On the huge columns, there were quotes of different cricketers mentioned sharing their experience at Lords. Rahul Dravid's face & quote greeted me the moment I entered in. The Lords Cricket Museum is right inside the stadium. They charge £12.00 for the 2 hr tour which includes a visit to the Long Room, committee room, dressing rooms of the players, pavilion, stands, the new Investec media centre and of course the museum itself.

A walk down the history
The museum is a sheer paradise for any lover of the game. You will find vintage photographs of teams, cricketing moments, artefacts, old autographed bats, balls, gloves & other cricketing accessories. Bats used by famous cricketers like WG Grace & Sir Don Bradman to score some classic centuries are also on display here. Other cricketing gear used by players like Victor Trumper, Jack Hobss and some of the contemporaries like Shane warne, Lara, Glen McGrath, rahul Dravid, etc also find a place in the museum. A painting of Maharaja Ranjitsingh facing the bowler as he prepares a fresh guard adorns one corner of the wall. But the biggest exhibit is the Wisden Trophy and the original Ashes urn which is kept on the 1st floor of the museum.

The Long Room
Many times I had heard of this 'Long Room' in commentaries. Finally got to see this room. Long Room is the main room through which all players enter into the field. Its right behind the pavilion and that's the only accessible way for players. The room is more of an art gallery with portraits of may old players and cricketing events adorning the walls. There is a huge chandelier in the room. On normal cricketing days, there are benches in the room where drinks n food is kept. Right in the middle of the room, my eye caught a few old photographs of a cricketing team & some news clippings which had turned yellow. As I leaned to have a close look, my eyes just sparkled. The news clipping dated back to 1932. It had the scorecard & post match review of United India's (that's how the team was known in those time) 1st ever test match that they played against England. On 1st day of the match a sizable audience had gathered to see this team of 'unique’ cricketers. No one had given India a chance and yet within 1 hour into the match, England were reeling at 19/3. Surely, the 1st hour itself was the biggest upset for the English side and though as expected India lost the match, but this spirited performance from the Indians drew praises from the British public & media. I wish I could paraphrase the actual news clipping here (btw, photography is strictly prohibited in the museum, long room & dressing room). A diverse team which had 2-3 Mohammedans, Hindus, a Sikh too, people who had never experienced cold in India - forget the British weather and moreover captained by a maharaja famous for his royal tantrums, yet found a common cause to bond together in cricket - said the article. The vintage photograph was of the Indian team who played that day. A sense of pride enveloped in me. The long room is frequented by everyone who plays there and this news clippings & the photograph is the only prized artefact of any test playing country that has been displayed in the long room. Surely it means a lot which perhaps also shows the 'respect' the britishers showed for the 1932 visiting team.

The Pavilion & the dressing room
The door to the long room opens to the pavilion. The view from the pavilion is truly majestic. The players come down from dressing room, walk through the long room and exit out through the small pavilion gate onto the field. Just for information, if you want to become a member of MCC, there is a waiting period of only 18 years :-) Another shortcut is, start playing for Middlesex and after 10 appearances or so, you get a restricted membership.The dressing room is on the 1st floor. IN both the dressing rooms, there are 2-3 honour boards fixed on in the room that records the guys who have scored centuries or got 5 wickets or more at Lords. The guide who accompanied us shared lots of anecdotes related to the dressing room about how Freddie is possessive about a particular chair and always prefer sitting there, where do other guys sit and all. As I walked to the visitor's dressing room, I eyed upon the Hall of fame board on the top. You'll find many Indian names on the plaque but then like the guide said, having a name on the board doesn't mean they were the world's best. It was just their day or else how can you explain the name of an Indian guy who shares the world record with Glen McGrath for getting out on 5 consecutive ducks in matches highlighted there for his 109 no in 2000. That's Ajit Agarkar for you - the centurion who was not supposed to be even in the final 11 but got his lucky break on the eve of the match when a frontline bowler got injured. Everyone dreams of hitting a century at Lords and Mr. Agarkar celebrated all his birthdays that day in 2000. Interestingly, the world's top 3 batsmen, Lara, Ricky Ponting & sachin - none of them have ever scored a century at Lords. The feeling of standing in the balcony of dressing room is really awesome. As I stood there on that spot, somewhere in the back of my mind background score of Gladiator started playing - as I could imagine & feel the joy & excitement that Sourav would have gone through when he exactly stood at the same spot where I stood and flinged his shirt in air with excitement, or Kapil would have hoisted the prudential world cup trophy in air, or in the summer of 1979 when India were down and out and were trailing by over 300 runs, Vensarkar & Vishwanath scored fine centuries to bring the match to draw. Incidentally Vensarkar's name appear thrice on the board and his 3rd century in 1986 also led to India's only win at Lords. Standing there, I couldn't help but think about all this - after all like I said before, there is so much history attached with the stadium that you can't help but travel back in time.

The Nursery End
You might have heard about the nursery end in commentaries. On the opposite end of the pavilion is the nursery end. There is no nursery now but once upon a time there used to be a big nursery there. Now the ground is used by players for net practice.

The futuristic media centre
And finally the space craft shaped media centre. In 2001 it was acclaimed as one of the best 50 buildings in Britain. The view from the Investec media centre is really cool. The media centre itself is very well equipped and quite spacious unlike a few press stands I have seen in India. There are 2 floors in that giant 'cockpit'. On top floor the TV commentators sit. I stepped into the dingy little ESPN room from where Harsha Bhogle, Ravi Shastri, Gavaskar, Akram and company give their commentary & match analysis. On both corners of the media centre are 2 reserved hospitality boxes for the main sponsors - Investec.
Needless to say, the guided tour was really engaging. Our guide, one elderly gentleman (forgotten his name), was really well versed with the history of the game, the stadium, the anecdotes and made the entire duration really entertaining. His sense of humour was also flawless & so were his timings (sample this: "see that boolding there? That's where the ICC used to sit...and now they have shifted their based from the home of cricket to another wooonder-fool cricket playing nation called Duubaai").I had a lovely afternoon over there and as I walked back from the WG Grace gates and looked over at Rahul Dravid's face, I could now truly understand why Lords is known as the home of the cricket.
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Snaps that I took at Lords can be accessed at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lokeshsapre/

Sachin Rules!

2008-01-04T18:12:00.000+05:30

Image source: Rediff.com
Commit all your crimes when Sachin is batting. They will go unnoticed because even the Lord is watching.

- Reads a banner at Sydney Cricket Ground

How many times have we crucified him and how many times he has risen up from the ashes. That's Sachin Tendulkar for you.

Fabio Capello & Kabir Khan

2008-01-04T17:46:00.000+05:30

I have been following British football for a while and let me tell you, these guys take their football verrrry seriously. To see how Britishers are passionate about football, visit any pub during a league match- like I used to do when any important matches used to take place involving Chelsea, Liverpool, Man U, Arsneal. Life comes to a standstill if any of these teams are involved against each other. The pubs are packed and overflowing. Everyone there turns into a footballer and like us back home tuned into cricket, turn into a couch player. There are 2 men who have the most enviable jobs in UK. Jobs which are high risk, under constant pressure and media & public glare.

The first person to hold that job is Gordon Brown - The Prime Minister. The 2nd person who have that job is the England Football team National Coach which in this case is Fabio Capello. Skeptics have questioned the ned to hire a 'foreigner' for the post who can't even speak proper English! But the guy has balls. He is a no nonsense tuffie who know how to do his job. Reputations and egos don't matter to him. He has proved himself out in club level circuits and in many ways draw parellel to Kabir Khan - the role that Sharukh Khan played in Chakh De India. Like Sharukh he too has to deal with king sized egos of many star football players in the English team. It would be interesting to see how he manages to do that coz knowing his reputation he is a real hard task master. This could be the real antidote that English football team needed.

Old books like old soldiers don't die

2008-01-04T16:06:00.000+05:30

I have been a diehard fan of Commando Comics since god knows when. So imagine my joy when I stumble into a book shop that had stocked commando comics and was selling the 'Best of Commando' series compilation for half price. Have ended up buying a whole set and gearing up for picking up few more collections. My only dilemma - each compilation weighs like a thick dictionary and my luggage is nearly touching the 28kilos mark. Don't want to end up paying penalty again at Heathrow.

London Musings -2

2007-12-24T22:55:00.000+05:30

I couldn’t make it to Page 3 but I have successfully managed to make it to a little black book of Metropolitan Police, London!

Why London is such a dangerous city to live in and why there are so many crime cases recorded during Christmas time, I got a live sample of it yesterday night. 1AM . Me and my 3 day old room partner from Delhi were smoking outside our hostel. Down the street I could hear a roar of a car speeding. We both turned back and saw a car roaring in on the street heading towards us. Instinctively, we stepped back, knowing that at that speed the car would surely miss a sharp turn ahead and that’s what happened. The car went crashing into the boulevard and then into a fence surrounding the building in front of the hostel. Such was the impact that along the way it ripped apart solid iron fence along the way, swirled 360 degree and finally banged into a staircase. It sounded as if a bomb had exploded. 3 young guys got donw from the car and started swearing at each other. They were badly shaken and started running from the scene. We realised quickly that the car must be a stolen one. We and few more people ran upto the car. The airbags saved the guys but the front of the car was badly damaged. It was a BENTLEY 2 door sports car! Very soon the police and NHS ambulance came in. Since me & mydelhi friend were the only2 witneses who saw it happening, the police questioned us, took down all details and noted down our phone numbers & contact addresses. So this way, I managed to make my entry into the records of Metropolitan Police but the incident really shook us up. We have been told that such incidences rise a lot during christmas & new year in London. Booze related problems & crimes have been on a rise in UK especially in London and what happened ysday was another proof of it. Mr. Brown himself is struggling to come out with a tough law related to it but I doubt if they can do it.

London Musings....

2007-12-07T14:18:00.000+05:30

So much that I want to write but not getting time at all. Like how I almost missed my flight to London last week, my action & adventure on Mumbai-Pune expressway, my experience this time around in London, the weather, life, the people.....so much thoughts parked in my mind but so less the time. After ages I can see the sun out today, hopefully it would be a sunny day. Let's hope this sun shine extends its warmth on this project too, which at this stage it seems is heading towards a cardiac arrest.

My recent experience with user research

2007-10-09T14:54:00.000+05:30

For the past few weeks I have been involved in a very low key, exciting project. Why low key, coz except for 2-3 people, no one in our Usability & Elearning team really know what I am doing and exciting coz it involves near about full life cycle activities of 'user centered design'. Our Elearning group is developing an assessment module for dealership sales team of India's largest automotive group. For this project, we have been doing extensive usability activities right from the word go. For a change, the customer here itself have been harping on getting a usability person on board who will oversee that the deliverables meet user expectations. Its more of a participatory design process that we are following. At every stage of the design, user is actually kept in the picture. Constant feedback is taken from end users & all design & interaction feedback are incorporated. Its the users who are evolving the design.

The process started couple of weeks back when me & 2 of my elearning team members went to conduct contextual inquiry at the dealer's location. We spent time in the dealership, observing the sales team at their work, noting down their routine, way they handle queries, the kind of queries they face, the various aids & enablers that they bank on, etc. We also spent time individually with each sales person gathering their understanding & views. The focus of this session was to gather insights that would go into making of this assessment module. Contextual Inquiry can at times throw up really wonderful insights. For instance, we were told that most of the TA for this eleraning module are matric pass and are very poor with english. When they come for any company sponsored training, the evaluator had to personally 'interpret' the question form to sales guys and let them know where they had to tick. In our CI exercise we came to know that not many of these guys are too conversant with computers outside their work domain. So how do you design an interface for a guy who has never spent time on computers? Will he adapt to mouse or keyboard interaction? What will be his learning curve? These were some of the challenges that propped up But these were still fine, what came next was really unexpected. During interviews, we popped the idea of localization and many users readily accepted that localization of content would definitely help but then we came across a user who though was not so good with english still said that he would opt for the language in any kind of test. On further pressing he hesitantly shared that in the 'class' where he belongs, 'knowing' english is seen as a step to move up in the ranks. More soever, speaking in english, or for that matter even attempting questions gives him some kind of confidence inside. So it has more to do with socio conditions around him that motivates him to 'attempt' in english irrespective of his knowing that he can fail in the test. Imagine, there can be thousands of users across the country with views like this user. So another design & content challenge for us. How do you define what is 'simple english'? Something so simple that it conveys the message & users understand it immediately. Later during design stage we realised that to make it quite simple to understand, we need to make it short n snappy and at times grammatically incorrect!

Last week we were in user's environment again, this time conducting usability testing of our designs & key interactions with users. We even video graphed the entire user 's interaction with the screen to capture where his mouse movements went, how he interacted with many of these features, etc. These video shoots helped us in analyzing many of these user's 'comfort' pattern with the mouse & keyboard too. Of course besides video analysis, me & my team was involved in f-2-f interactions too. There were many valid design suggestions made by the users too.

Yesterday I was back in the field again, this time to test semantics of some icons for the application with the end users. At times we tend to 'assume' that a particular icon would convey the desired meaning. The icons that we wanted to test was for Timing meter & audio option. While the timing meter which we felt would work, did work with the users, for the audio option , we got interesting feedback for some icons which normally we would have assumed that it will work.

For instance:

A user thought that this icon stood for Shouting Loud.

For this icon, a user felt that it meant that Talking can be a nuisance to others, while another user felt it meant a horn button but an indication to wake the next person, push him!

The best was this:

User view: Loud talking can be injurious to ears!

I won't share what did work with them coz that would be violating the copyright clauses but this exercise reinforced my belief that why for each & every design step its important to keep users in picture.

Personally this whole project has been very stimulating & enriching for me. We are closing in on product rollout soon & would love to see how users across India receive it.

Designers: Does this ring any bell?

2007-10-08T18:05:00.000+05:30

Recently my wife & I were scouting for electrical fittings & accessories for our new house. After purchasing most of the stuff, we got into an argument over which bell to buy. She fancied instrument which had Bollywood tones as ring while I wanted to settle for old fashioned bells which had high, if not shrill ring. For me the ‘ting tong’ bell worked. We finally went for the Bollywood one and got it installed. It’s been a week now and we all are still struggling to get a hang of it. First of all, it takes more than a few seconds for the mind to register that it’s our door bell which is ringing! The reason being, it sounds more like a mobile ring tone than a bell. Worse, the instrument is located in my bedroom & if we are standing in guest bedroom balcony and there is lots of noise around, at times it takes more than a few push & “laila-o-laila’ encore before anyone can get to hear it! The other day I had to spend 5 mins outside the house ringing the bell and then flash out my mobile and call wifey inside to open the door! I suspect had it been the old fashioned bell, the sound wouldn’t have caused these problems. Somewhere in back of mind, the bell still stands for ‘ting tong’. A sound like that registers immediately in your mind no matter in which corner of the house you are and perhaps the reason lies in the fact that we have grown up listening to bells which had high pitch noise. Bells which most of the times had always gone ‘ting tong’ and less on ‘gayatri mantra’ tones.

Similarly in software design, it’s very important to know about your user’s mental model, about the way they perceive things to be. Users will take on to your product like a duck to the water only if they find it designed the way that mirrors their work & thought flow pattern.

Bringing simplicity in interfaces

2007-10-01T09:55:00.001+05:30

The most intuitive interface ever designed is the human nipple.

I came across this statement while I was researching on some topic and ever since, it has just stuck in my mind. Come to think of it, how true it stands in its meaning. If you have ever observed a lactating mother feeding her baby, see how the baby’s tiny mouth opens up as the nipple comes near. The baby will stare blankly at faces but recognizes the feeding point immediately. And for babies of adult kind, they don’t need any intuitive visual cues!

That’s the power of simplicity. And it’s this simplicity that creates a brand out of an intuitive design. Oliver Reichenstein from Information Architect Inc. in one of his post on his blog talks about his McDonalds experience in Japan. Out of plethora of options available on the display tile, he settles for a plain Cheese Burger. Not that he has a fascination for it, but according to him, the visual of cheese burger is something he can relate to easily out of all other ‘local palate’ suited burgers. Walk into any McDonalds around the world, a plain cheese burger would look exactly the same way. When an interface becomes so simple, language or any other cultural barriers hold no fort. So when he has to place an order, not knowing Japanese language doesn’t matter to him. The visual of plain cheese burger is an instant recognition for him about the burger’s content.

Simplicity leads to intuitiveness and intuitiveness leads to creation of a brand. A brand that doesn’t always need the support of marketing for its creation. A brand that gets created by its own virtues.

In the Indian context, one of the brands which have a very intuitive interface I can think of is the erstwhile Mother Dairy logo. Since its inception till recent years, they had adapted the Operation Flood logo. The operation Flood logo is the most powerful & yet simple design that I can think of. It’s just not about logo design but the recognition that comes with the brand. Mother dairy has been around since I opened my eyes for the 1st time. No Delhiite can ever say that they don’t know what the logo stands for. In the early 80s, there was no concept of milk in poly pack. If you were living in Delhi and wanted milk, you had 3 options. A) The good ol’ Tabela milk delivered by the vendor. B) Go to the nearest Delhi Milk Scheme (DMS) booth and get bottled milk – which was again run by sarkaari karamcharis and somehow used to be a nightmarish experience and C) Go to Mother Dairy Booth. Now these Mother dairy booths were quite ‘hi tech’. They had automatic vending machines (yeah for the 80s…that’s hitech). You pay money to the booth guy, get tokens in lieu of the cash, place your diiba in the vending machine, put your coin in the slot and watch in fascination as half litre milk poured. If the coin used to get stuck, there was a lever which you had to pull and the coin used to come out in a slot below. There were 3 such machines in a booth. 2 machines used to pour half litre milk per token and the 3rd one used to pour 1 litre per token. So it kind of bifurcated people accordingly. Its been over 20 years now. Lot of cosmetic changes has come across the booth. Now it even sells Safal & other Mother Dairy products but the front end of the vending machine still has the same interface except few minor changes like addition of a LCD display to show how many tokens you have deposited in the machine (in the latest machines, you can insert all tokens one after another and then wait as milk starts pouring automatically). For more than 20 years the same interface has worked successfully and the only reason it has worked is because of its simplicity.

In the software context, the most complex task is to bring about simplicity in interfaces. As a designer at times we try to bring about lot of interactivities, marry technology components, bring widgets, thinking that this will bring around simplicity for user’s task but unknowingly we add complexity to the visual & interaction design. All these are just enablers. Focus on basics. Ask the question: Is your interface helping your user fulfill his key tasks without making him take support from other external factors to complete the task? In organizations where usability & processes related to it are still struggling to find a place user the sun, most of the time designers & usability analysts have to work with their hands tied. Lot of these ‘user research’ activities are left to ‘client knows the best’ and requirements come in some fancy documents to the designer. It’s a humungous job changing mindsets in the organization. Well after all Rome wasn’t built in a day so understandably, it will be time before usability processes gets implemented & awareness fully dawns within organization. Till that happens this is what I usually advice to designers when they get a voluminous BRD, HLD or any other fancy document in their hand. Don’t directly jump onto the design conceptualization. Scan through those documents, take a piece of paper, draw three columns on it and jot down the following things in the columns – various user roles, the tasks that each role can perform and finally in the 3rd column jot down according to “you” the steps that a user would need to perform to complete each task. Many times these requirement documents can be misleading & at times even designers tend to stick to it or get influenced by it. But even if we manage to crystallize these three things, rest follows. In 2001 while I was designing the Information Architecture for an online banking application, I came across a business analyst who was not willing to buy the flow that I had designed for the application. His wafer thin argument: the customer has asked us to design it in the way he wants and that’s how we have documented it! In next client meeting I accompanied him to client’s office to hear out their rationale. Then I drew out these 3 columns on their whiteboard with the details that I felt and explained my flow in that context. The customer was partially convinced but somehow his ‘ego’ didn’t allow him to accept the flow (that was 2001, usability was something unheard and customers especially Indian ones still thought they knew everything!). So I did the next best thing. I dragged both of them to the bank branch which was on ground floor and in their presence asked some of the bank customers questions which were in context with my proposed flow. Their replies vindicated my flow & made a few faces around go red. The customer had to accept that the flow that we had designed was indeed ‘user led’. Later, we even tested out prototype of the application with end users and worked on few teething problems that customers would face. When the application was launched, users accepted it wholeheartedly. It was profiled for its simplicity & ease of use in various tech magazines. Circa 2007. Except for a few security related changes, the netbanking application is still running the way we had designed it and is ranked amongst the best internet banking sites in India.

To conclude, just stick to basics. Remember, the mother dairy customer’s need was only milk and that’s what he got in that vending machine interface. 1 slot to put the token, 1 lever to retrieve the token and a clearly visible big compartment where he can put his jar for the milk to pour.

What not to wear: Contextual Inquiry at its best

2007-09-07T11:28:00.000+05:30

I am a serial Discovery Travel & Living addict. All their programs are entertaining & very informative. Off late, I have got hooked on to another of their program called What Not To Wear. In UK, this program is aired on BBC. It's a program where the anchors, who are known fashion stylists, shortlist a candidate, track his or her dressing, grooming & attire habit and based on the profile suggest what will suit the person best to make the person look stylish. To study the candidate, you need to do certain amount of what we call as 'user research'. In this program, the user research is done through Contextual Inquiry (CI) method. The candidate is secretly filmed in day to day life as she/he performs her daily routine. To trigger a CI, you always need a focus point. In this case, the focus point is the attire. The stylists, through the video films, probe about the person especially his/her dressing patterns, likings, disliking, his or her daily routine, people they meet, their reactions, any socio-emotional traits, etc. and then create visual persona about what will suit best for the candidate. This helps in creating the focus point for them to probe further when conducting f2f meetings with the candidate. In f2f meetings, the stylists validate certain observations that they made during video filming and try to gather as much user authentic data that can help them in building good style statement for the person.

After giving tips to the candidate about what will suit them best and taking them through the secretly recorded video sessions too, the stylists again observe the candidate from background - mostly through hidden cameras and observe if their 'styling interventions' have brought about any change to the candidate. The visual personas that the stylists had earlier created also gets validated as the candidate goes out for shopping .

My Latest possession

2007-09-06T12:04:00.000+05:30

Panasonic Lumix FZ50

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/PanasonicFZ50/

Why I envy delhiites ;-)

2007-08-31T22:47:00.000+05:30

Check out the rate of fuel in Delhi. Hi Speed Diesel just 30 bucks!!!! Bloody Hell. I pay around 37 bucks out here!!!! :((

This blog is now rated as NC17 :P

2007-08-24T14:42:00.001+05:30

Till few months back, my blog was rated PG- R. Now after that rather 'sexy ' post, the rating has changed. :D

Adnan killing - TV Channels are the murderers

2007-08-24T14:28:00.000+05:30

A few days back when this Adnan abduction thing broke out on TV channels, everyone went into the hyperactive mode. One of the TV channels in detail explained what steps police would like to take now, including tracking the last place of the call that came from Adnan’s mobile number which now was switched off. They even explained how police would be doing this. This made me wonder, what if Adnan’s abductors were viewing this news? Won’t they get to know what’s happening on Police’s end? Won’t they then plan out their next step accordingly?

Next day Adnan was murdered. It was later revealed that the abductors panicked when they saw the TV news reports & felt that crime branch would close up on them soon and so killed him. Thereafter, all news channels have been talking about different murder theories linked with effects of social networking sites to influence of crime/murder related plots in serials & movies. But for me, TV channels are equally responsible for Adnan’s murder. To increase their TRP ratings, sensationalize issues, all these channels have lost basic sensitivities. Had they shown a bit of restrained news related to the kidnapping, perhaps Adnan could have been saved. Even if the kidnapping news was leaked by cops, TV channels should have realized what impact it could have created had they aired the entire police strategy verbatim. What was really sad for me as a viewer was to see even NDTV India fall for it. Till this news, I used to rank it the only sane channel left in the other so called Hindi news channels.

Battle at Kruger

2007-08-16T16:18:00.000+05:30

Came across this news in Delhi TOI. Those of you who have not seen this video, this 8 minute clipping is the best wildlife video ever shot and that too by an amateur who just happened to be testing out his new handycam.

Taken from a vehicle on the opposite side of a watering hole, the video begins with the herd of buffalo approaching the water, unaware of the lions resting nearby. The lions charge and disperse the herd, picking off a young buffalo and unintentionally knocking it into the water while attempting to make a kill. While the lions try to drag the buffalo out of the water, it is grabbed by a pair of crocodiles, who fight for it before giving up and leaving it to the lions. The lions sit down and prepare to eat, but are quickly surrounded by the reorganized buffalo, who move in and begin charging and kicking at the lions. After a battle which includes one lion being tossed into the air, the baby buffalo (which is miraculously still alive) escapes into the herd. The emboldened buffalo chase the remainder of the lions away.

Dumbledore’s Army & Rang De Basanti

2007-08-16T15:44:00.000+05:30

As I was watching the latest Harry Potter flick, I couldn’t help but draw similarities a few key scenes in the movie had that with the current scenario we are facing in our education system. The movie opens with the resent day scenario that Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry is facing. The Ministry of Magic – more of a governing body, is influencing & trying to make inroads into the way Hogwarts had been running so far. Intentional ignorance displayed by Ministry of Magic headed by Cornelius Fudge takes over reasoning of Albus Dumbledore. The Ministry’s growing influence can be seen as they manage to appoint a new teacher - Dolores Umbridge in Hogwarts. Parroting what Ministry has always believed in (that Lord Voldemort has not returned) she starts influencing the student community much to their discomfort. Though appointed as a defense against the dark arts teacher, she rather believes in giving theoretical lessons rather than practical as like her ministry, she believes that the text book curriculum would be sufficient for the students who are made to live in a make believe world sans Lord Voldermort. However Harry Potter, the rebel amongst the students is not happy and when he protests, he gets punished. But to practically prepare students against the dark lord, he starts an underground organization called as Dumbledore’s Army. This organization prepares the students, secretly to tackle against the evil forces.

Compare this with the times in which we live today. The growing ‘controversial’ intervention of Ministry of Magic – which in our case is the HRD Ministry, can be seen in all spheres of education these days. Right from conflicting views on sex education in books to different interpretations of religious scriptures, the list goes on. The Ministry’s plan to ‘plant’ their own directors in IIMs by releasing a recruitment ad in leading new dailies for the post is so Hogwarts like scenario. Imagine if the Ministry succeeds in their latest plan to have a controlling say in IIMs. The directors appointed by Ministry would obviously come with a predefined propaganda which would besides other things include a say on the implementation of increased quota system – a pet ‘project’ of HRD Ministry. Already the Ministry’s plan is getting stiff resistance from our modern day Dumbledore’s Army – the students, who have united to make themselves heard. But sadly, unlike Harry & his band, they don’t have much of ‘magical’ powers to resist against the dark forces of the Ministry. Whatever resistances the students have tried to put have got crushed down by the powerful forces controlled by the Ministry alliances (read police). It wouldn’t be too long when a few from these Dumbledore’s Army would go underground and do a ‘Rang De Basanti’ on the dark forces from the Ministry. Will it solve the purpose? Probably no, but it would rattle the Ministry enough to think twice before venturing out with their vicious plans.

Harry Potter finale

2007-07-24T12:24:00.001+05:30

Caught up with Harry Potter & The Order of Phoenix on the 21st. The same day the last of the HP series got realised. Now I am not so much of a die hard HP fan so didn't want to invest nearly 1000 bucks in buying that humongous book. But was really curious to find out how Rowling has treated the end. So the leech that I am, went to the crossword at Citipride and picked up the latest book and spent 10 min to read the last chapter. :)

Ok, I won't give the ending out but will only say that madam Rowling has not only mastered the art of writing but also of business too :) On that note, will leave the interpretation to you. Those who would like to know the ending, can email me.

Hot gals, all waiting for me...

2007-07-24T12:03:00.000+05:30

A cursory look at my Gmail junk folder, and I realised there are so many hot gals who were bored in the afternoon & evenings and wanted to chat with me. Shucks. Missed the opportunity:P :P

AVN Awards: A must watch show

2007-07-19T11:37:00.000+05:30

Now these are awards show i would really, really love to watch. If not live, then at least on any TV Channel. AVN Awards are the 'oscars' of Porn Industry. They are sponsored and presented by America's Adult Video Industry. besides the usual categories of awards like best actor, actress, director etc (wonder how do they judge on these categories), they have categories like these:

Production categories

Best Video Feature, Best Film, Best DVD, Best Gonzo Release, Best Gonzo Series, Best Sex Comedy, Best Vignette Release, Best Vignette Series, Best All-Sex Release, Best Continuing Video Series, Best High-Definition Production, Best Interactive DVD, Best Classic DVD, Best Foreign Feature, Best Foreign All-Sex Release, Best Foreign All-Sex Series, Best Anal-Themed Feature, Best Anal-Themed Series, Best All-Girl Feature, Best All-Girl Series, Best Ethnic-Themed Release—Asian, Best Ethnic-Themed Release—Black, Best Ethnic-Themed Release—Latin, Best Interracial Release, Best Ethnic-Themed Series, Best P.O.V. Release, Best Oral-Themed Feature, Best Oral-Themed Series, Best Amateur Release, Best Amateur Series, Best Pro-Am Release, Best Pro-Am Series, Best Alternative Release, BBi-Sexual Video, Best Gay Video, Best Gay Alternative Video, Best Gay Solo Video

Performer categories

Best New Starlet, Best Male Newcomer, Female Performer of the Year, Male Performer of the Year, Female Foreign Performer of the Year, Male Foreign Performer of the Year, Transsexual Performer of the Year, Performer of the Year-Gay Video, Newcomer of the Year-Gay Video,

Best Actress—Film, Best Actress—Video, Best Actor—Film, Best Actor—Video, Best Supporting Actress—Film, Best Supporting Actress—Video, Best Supporting Actor—Film, Best Supporting Actor—Video, Best Non-Sex Performance, Best Tease Performance, Best Actor—Gay Video, Best Supporting Actor—Gay Video, Best Non-Sex Performance—Bi-Sexual/Gay Video

Sex scene categories

Awarded to performer(s) in a scene, Best All-Girl Sex Scene—Film, Best All-Girl Sex Scene—Video, Best Anal Sex Scene, Best Oral Sex Scene—Film, Best Oral Sex Scene—Video, Best Couples Sex Scene—Film, Best Couples Sex Scene—Video, Best Group Sex Scene—Film, Best Group Sex Scene—Video, Best Threeway Sex Scene—Video, Best Sex Scene in a Foreign-Shot Production, Best Solo Sex Scene, Most Outrageous Sex Scene Best Sex Scene—Gay Video

Technical categories

Best Screenplay—Film, Best Screenplay—Video, Best Art Direction—Film, Best Art Direction—Video, Best Cinematography, Best Videography, Best Editing—Film, Best Editing—Video, Best Special Effects, Best Music, Best DVD Extras, Best DVD Menus, Best Screenplay—Gay Video, Best Videography—Gay Video, Best Editing—Gay Video, Best Music Score—Gay Video

Specialty categories

Best Specialty Release—Big Bust, Best Specialty Release—BDSM, Best Specialty Release—Spanking, Best Specialty Release—Foot Fetish, Best Specialty Release—Other Genre, Best Transsexual Release, Best Gay Specialty Release

Marketing categories

Best DVD Packaging, Best VHS Packaging, Best Box Cover Concept, Best Overall Marketing Campaign—Company Image, Best Overall Marketing Campaign—Individual Project, Best Marketing Website, Best Retail Website, BBox Cover Concept—Gay Video, Best Packaging—Gay Video

And yes. They do have a HALL of FAME award too. :)

If you want to enhance your knowledge about these awards, do check out dope about it on wiki.

In which world are we living in?

2007-07-19T10:55:00.000+05:30

Far from this maddening crowd, this planet where we live in, another planet is evolving. A planet which is similar to our planet, has a civilization, people, governments, economies, forest, animals, cars, runs the similar way minus the global warming, poverty, terrorism kind of problems that we live with on this planet. It's a utopian planet, but it's there for sure. yes, it's a virtual planet. Second Life is one such virtual planet. Check out the virtual life on their site www.secondlife.com

Recently researching for a proposal, I came across many such virtual worlds that are flourishing in the cyber space. A cursory glance through the sites and i wondered do these sites really do well, I mean do kids, teenagers really are addicted to this kind of stuff? And I was surprised by some stats that i came across. yes, it's a cult out there. The virtual space market is overcrowded but still sites are getting unique visitors by millions every month. Most of these sites are MMORPG (massively multimedia online role playing games) based sites. It requires heavy investment and very specialized capabilities & skill sets to build this kind of cyber world.

If things go the way they are planned, very soon I would be part of a team that would be building another of this cyber world.

More posts about it later.

In the meantime, do check out some sites and stats related to these virtual communities on this site.

Where am I holed up?

2007-07-18T17:17:00.000+05:30

Many of you must be wondering why I haven't updated my blog for so many days. Well, I wish I could say that I am on a secret assignment which involves me traveling across globe and striking out militant hideouts that are on RAW's list but the truth is I am holed back home in Pune busy working on an equally secret assignment. For the past few weeks my energies are going in building a proposal & planning the allied activities involved along with the core team. The stakes are high as the success of this project will lead us to another 50 million dollar account mining from the same customer. The beauty of the whole thing is that this road we are about to drive on, as an organization we have never taken that road - especially in the domain space where we are pitching for the project but then thats what making this entire venture interesting. The feeling of uncertainty of what lies ahead. The road would be full of potholes for sure but I guess that would make it challenging and more knowledgeable of how to negotiate the stumbling blocks.

Will post more later

news that brought smile

2007-06-27T14:30:00.000+05:30

After ages i think after seeing the 1st page of today's TOI (pune edition), I must have have smiled while reading. For a change, today's front page didn't have any news about politics, murky presidential elections, scams, rape, murder or any other depressing news. Today's main news items were all about determination. It was all about the light at the end of a dark tunnel. The news items were about SSC results in the state and the main headlines were dominated by girls from the backward & poor community who have scored over 95% or so and topped their categories in the state results. Children of vegetable sellers, of shop helpers who against all odds managed to shine. Children with ambitious dreams. Children who know that the road ahead now is even difficult but they & there parents are leaving no stones unturned to see that they fulfill their dreams.

On 2nd thoughts...

2007-06-27T14:10:00.000+05:30

Had I not quit advertising...

I wouldn't have met some wonderful people in my next company like Ekta, Tanuj, Shalini, Amit who would go on to become an integral part of my life.

Wouldn't have had a chance to scale the treacherous route to Leh with amit & that too on a bike.

Wouldn't have got the opportunity to leave Delhi forever and come to Mumbai (the city that I once hated the most to relocate) - where i spent the best 3.5 years of my life and made some new friends.

Wouldn't have had the chance of going on site to UK and gain good experience (and in the process also save a bit for my car's down payment!)

And lastly, wouldn't have been posting this blog from the newest city that i am residing in for the past 1 year - Pune.

So whatever happens, I guess happens for good. :)

My advertising days...

2007-06-27T12:04:00.001+05:30

Was watching Pranaya Roy on his programme - 60 yrs of Indian Destiny on Sunday. This time he was covering advertising. The panel of guests were Prasoon Joshi, Aleque Padamsee, Piyush Pandey & Prahalad kakkar. As they talked and discussed the history of advertising, showcasing various old & new ads, I was reminded of my days in advertising. My memorable 2.5 years of association with Contract - as copy trainee & Crayons Advertising as a copy guy. The time of my life I had there. The highs that me & my art partner used to get after creating campaigns which we knew might never get printed but can get us jobs in other agencies (in advtg. lingo we used to call it portfolio ke liye ads.), the kicks that i got after I saw my 1st printed ad (it was a shaving cream ad in a Chandigarh local newspaper), the crazy, wild things we used to do at office & team parties. I remember once after a heavy boozing session, we ran out of stocks and then at 1 am in night we went to local bootlegger who supplied some desi stuff and what kicks we had! A small dose of it was enough for satish - our client servicing team guy to make a call at 2 am in the morning to one of our leechad client and puke out all choicest maa-behen abuses :) Then the time when me, Vishal (a budding body builder & client servicing guy) and my art guy - Ashish went on a holiday to nanital, got drunk & bashed up a guy who was irritating us at telephone booth, next day when senses dawned upon us - packed up and escaped from nanital to Mussoorie (those of you who are familiar with that part of the world can realise the distance we covered - and that too in state transport buses where even animals travel in the bus with passengers!) so that we don't get lynched by that bashed up guy's friends :) And why Mussoorie? Coz the bombshell of our office - a girl called Sonal was vacationing there and we thought she would like to have company of 3 smart looking men :)

Then i remember recording my 1st radio jungle and how I rulaoed the producer & voice over artist ( a sweet babe from Gurgaon) to squeeze my script and record it within 30 secs. The kicks that i got after hearing the jingle on radio for the 1st time.

And yes, how can i forget to mention about Prasoon Joshi who once appreciated my TVC film ideas which i shared with him when i had gone for my O&M interview. It so happened that I was showing my portfolio to an ACD in O&M and Prasoon stepped into his room. Suddenly the light went off. As we waited for the generators to start, the ACD asked if I had worked on any TVCs, which i said yes and shared few of my TVC storyboards. Both of them found the ideas humorous and Prasoon even commented that 'you have a good thinking mind'. I even made through the O&M interview but stinking politics of a CD who had just joined the agency saw me left out and that was the turning point in my decision to quit advertising.

But yeah..I do miss my advertising days.

Sarkar Zindabad

2007-06-25T23:18:00.000+05:30

Just caught up with Sarkar again on Filmy. Can't help but shower praises for Abhishekh's mesmerizing performance. The powerful dialogues & screenplay make it worth watching each time it comes on TV.

Think Flat

2007-06-25T22:57:00.000+05:30

These days I am reading the Annual Report of Infosys. Why I am stressing on 'reading' is coz the annual report is no less than a good reading material. Titled 'Think Flat', it takes off where Thomas Friedman left in his best seller book - The World is Flat. The initial few sections including the in depth interview with nandan nilekani reveals how Infy is creating exciting, winning opportunities in this flat world. Those of you who have not read the book, would recommend you to read it. It gives a good insight of the dynamics of global economies and how they have adapted themselves in this new world without boundaries that we are living in.

This Blog is rated PG-R

2007-06-25T15:46:00.000+05:30

How is your blog rated? Find out on this site.

My few minutes of online fame :P

2007-06-25T09:55:00.000+05:30

There is a site called BlogInterviewer.com. They conduct interviews with the most interesting bloggers on the Internet. My blog is also present there.

Click on this link to go through the interview.

Map of online communities

2007-06-22T14:02:00.001+05:30

(click to enlarge)

Source: http://xkcd.com/c256.html

Why I want to watch Shivaji

2007-06-22T00:28:00.000+05:30

I am no Tamilian. Neither a kannada. Heck, I don't even know whether Shivaji - The Boss, the Rajnikant movie is a kannada or a telgu movie. For me, everything down south is uniform, no divisions based on caste or languages. And as some of my friends from South would vouch, the feeling is mutual :)

Yet i want to watch Shivaji - The Boss. The only reason why i want to watch is that it stars Rajnikant. The great rajnikant. The only person on this planet who can give Newton a run for his theories. Ok, make that 2nd person on the planet (how can I leave out Mithun da).

Sample the latest stunt from his movie. Rajni has a gun in his hand and he wants to shoot someone down. Now the other person is not within his shooting range. So what does he do? He throws the gun in that goon's direction. The gun whizzes in the air in that goon's direction, the trigger gets fired automatically, the fire is shot, the goon dies and that's not all. Like a boomerang the gun comes back in Rajni's hand. Mission accomplished.

Tell me honestly. How can language be a barrier when you have stunts like these in movies. For me, if i go for the movie, my paisa vassool would be just watching this stunt. :D

Soon to arrive, new kid on the block....

2007-06-21T23:31:00.000+05:30

Take a hard look at him.

Next time when you see him, he might be signing autographs at crosswords. Meet Anil Goel. A good friend's hubby, which makes him my good friend too. No, make that my best pal, my langotiya yaar, my Veeru. Why the extra makkhan? Coz that's what I would be parroting in first half of 2008 when the dude releases his maiden novel :D

You can get to know more of him on his personal blog.

But on a serious note, I really feel inspired by his new venture. Of what i know of him, his hectic corporate life has been keeping him endlessly busy (he handles an investment banking account for a leading MNC IT consulting firm in Mumbai) and still finding time to follow up on your passion , your dream - that's motivational stuff, at least for me. One of my closest friend, who knows me better than I do myself had been egging me to take the next step ahead and pen down a book or something. She knows i have the flair for it and can make up for a good read. Even I have been nursing the desire to write something and have started sketching few ideas - but the lazy bum that i am, have always found refuge under the pretext of being loaded with work or have parked that thought somewhere at the back of mind. The trouble is that when it goes in the store room, chances are it gets covered with cobwebs and gets forgotten until one day, someone comes with a broom ( in this case the dude in the pic) and cleans the room up.

Now have to make sure it remains that way.

why hutch why?

2007-06-21T19:08:00.000+05:30

Why hutch why?

Why do you always come up with one brilliant concept after another? Why do you make ads. that are so refreshingly different and stand out from the clutter, always. Why do you put your heart & soul into even chut-put promo ads. Why can't you make those ooooh- so -aaam adami - feel good Airtel kinda ads? Why can't you make those 'Yeah to bada toing hai toing hai' kind of ads?
Take for instance your Eskimo ad. Instead of showing those Eskimos coming from different part of the country and assembling in a location and heading to a house, as a bedazzled man looks at them and realizes it's his own doing (and then focus on the Live search feature on Hutch phones), why couldn't you just show it direct in the face. At least that would have saved the Eskimos the trouble of coming from different parts of the world and more importantly, saved me the trouble of stopping by any channel to watch the ad. knowing the fact that the programme that I want to watch on some other channel has already started.

Don't do it Hutch. Your advertising has already reached where Sunita Williams spent past so many months. Now which other level do you want to elevate it to?

The cat & the baba...

2007-06-21T18:34:00.000+05:30

On sunday night while I was just about to sleep, I heard my mom screaming in her sleep. It seems she was going through some bad nightmare. We all rushed to the room and woke her up. Badly shaken, she woke up, didn't say much and then went off to sleep again.

Next day she told us that she saw a black cat in her dream and the cat was stalking her. usually whenever she has seen the black cat in her dreams, something good had happened. Like she told us that before I was born, a day or two before that, ahem...she had seen the cat. So, a good omen, but for what? We didn't know.

We then headed for an appointment with our lawyer. We had to show him the draft copy of our agreement papers before heading to the builder's office for final submission of demand drafts and completion of other formalities. After the meeting, we had a quick breakfast at a small cafe nearby. Just when we were planning to leave, a sadhu baba dressed in the garb of Sai baba approached us and asked us if we could spare some food for him. Now me being me, I don't really entertain sadhus, especially ones who beg. But my dad belongs to a different breed. He took out his wallet to offer him some money, but the sadhu refused the money and requested if we could feed him with something. So stuck with the unusual request, dad asked him to step in the cafe and told the waiter to serve the sadhu with a plate of vada sambhaar. My dad, who himself is a staunch believer of sai baba, in someway felt that perhaps it was god himself in disguise or else when do you come across fakirs & babas who refuse money. Not thinking too much about it, we reached the builder's office.

The marketing lady before getting down to start the formalities gave an offer to us. She said that just yesterday someone had canceled his booking (which was made about a month back) and the rate that was offered to that person was Rs. 25 less than our negotiated final rate. She said if we wanted, she can pass on that rate to us. A quick calculation and we realised with the new rate, it would mean a saving of over Rs.28,000 to us. An unexpected gift like this, who can say no! Just 2 weeks back we had spent over 5 hrs to negotiate and cut down rates by over 3 lakhs. A rupee more of rate cut was met with stiffest of resistance. And here within 2 minutes we got a further discount of over 28k. After completing the formalities , happily we stepped out.

The events that took place ysday night and today morning played in my mind and b4 even I could say anything, mom & dad voiced it. The cat + feeding the baba = unexpected savings

The rational side of me cannot accept it. But somewhere in back of my mind, I can't discount it either.

some blogcamp pune snaps

2007-06-18T22:27:00.000+05:30

@ registration table

Melody making her presentation

Melody again

Lunch by the poolside

Abhishekh from SMS Gupshup does his act

some of the posters that greeted us

Pune BlogCamp -2

2007-06-18T20:37:00.000+05:30

8.30 am - Kick in

Bloggers, both professional and waiting in the wings have started gathering at the registration counter. There is excitement in the air. No one knows what lies ahead. Volunteers pitch in for work that requires immediate attention. Registrations are done, T-shirts distributed and someone is around to take a snap of each participant not before they have worn it and displayed their name card in mug shot style.

10.00 am

Tarun sets the ball rolling. The hall is kind of full. Around 150 participants are there now. Lot of student community can also be seen. A general round of intros are made. Some keep it short & simple, others put in their marketing speel, which gets booed. There are some interesting characters around. For instance a person who introduces himself and tells the audience he does photo blogging and after a small pause informs he mostly shoots photos of his neighbours and posts it on his blog!!! Everyone breaks into a laugh and tease him about the place where he lives and give ideas on how he can increase traffic to his blog by doing live streaming/video casting of his neighbors ;-) The person sitting next to him gets up and introduces himself as his neighbor - again the audience breaks into laughter!!! There are some 'celebrity' bloggers also in the crowd. Prem Paniker of rediff.com (liked his Lord of the Strings tee) and Sakshi Juneja who in some way is unofficial PR agent of rakhi sawant make their presence felt. So popular is she on the blog space that she even had a stalker follow & harass her, which she shares in a discussion later in the day. Interesting to see that there are a few guys who have made blogging as their full time career and earn their bread & butter out of it! One of them even shares some of his trade secrets on how to popularize your blog in a session later. Then there is a guy who plans to start a blog for men without gfs!!! ;-) Over all, pretty interesting bunch of people and you know it would be one hell of a knowledge sharing & learning session.

10.30 am -5.00 pm

Lot of presentations are on the whiteboard. 2 Different threads are started. Some of the interesting thread that I attend include a presentation made by Purple Nova guy who has a product in market that turns your home PC into a hosting platform & there is no need to have a Ip address to host your stuff which means, no need to depend on a hosting provider for Ip address, space, other hosting needs etc. Blogging through SMS? Sounds mind boggling isn't it but if you believe the guys from SMS Gupshup, it's the next big thing and already it has picked up a lot. Btw, even i tried my hands on it and created my 1st virtual SMS blog, sitting there. Abhishek Thakkar's gigantic personality & his witty style of presenting the SMD Gupshup funda was hard to miss. More details about it can be found on their site. Oh btw, did I mention that the entire campus was wifi enabled. Many bloggers did live blogging from the campus. The signals were weak at times so many of us, including myself had a hard times logging in. Melody made an interesting presentation on flaming & how to tackle with it. There was another interesting discussion on podcasting and another one made by Niresh Kothari on how to popularize your blog. He is the same guy who runs around 15 blogs & website and has made blogging as his full time career. The guys from Fropper shared the concept of ezeblogging through their template driven blogging approach. Those who are new to blogging would find it very easy & useful. The Sulekha presentation didn't really go well with the audience, probably more to the fact that they were trying to 'hardsell' Sulekha as the best thing that happened around, which bloggers were not so ready to accept. Also the the fact that Sulekha branded themselves as web2.0 platform based site but couldn't respond back convincingly to the web 2.0 related queries that people had.

5.30pm - Kick out

experience sharing, feedback session and next steps were discussed. The knowledge sharing session was worth the day spent. Not to mention meeting so many people with diverse background and getting to know them. Looking fwd to the next Bar Camp now.

Uncorking@BlogCamp Pune

2007-06-16T23:28:00.000+05:30

Some blogs are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and tasted.

The tone was all set for Blog Camp, Pune – the 1st of a kind initiative on the lines of Bar camp being held in Pune. What is it that brings so many people together on a single platform to collaborate through different channels to start up an ‘unconference’? What is it that drives people to use blogging as more than a collaborative tool, what it that makes people from as far as Bangalore to show up on a lazy Saturday afternoon to attend the sessions. Seeking answers to questions like these I landed up at Blog camp Pune which was held in SCIT (Symbosis College of IT), Hinjewadi, Pune. On the way, picked up a guy who was also planning to come for the event.

For the uninitiated, Blog Camp pune was a free unconference focusing exclusively on blogging, organized by bloggers for bloggers. It’s an ad-hoc unconference where people come together with no fixed agenda and topics are decided then and there itself. Depending upon the topics that people would like to discuss about and present, multiple threads run throughout the day and participants attend the topics of their interest. Lot of knowledge sharing happens.

My back has gone for a toss again so finding it very difficult to sit straight and write about it. So will be writing more posts about it tomorrow.

Na teri...na meri....

2007-06-14T20:33:00.000+05:30

Shivraj patil
nahi
Bhairo Singh Shekhawat

Patil....
Shekhawat...

Patil....
Shekhawat....

Ok. Chal na meri na teri....

Pratibha Patil Shekhawat

happy?

How googled are you?

2007-06-14T15:12:00.000+05:30

Read somewhere recently that in US, people like to name their new born babies with names that are google friendly. In other words, the names should easily appear in google if someone searches for it. Their concern - that everyone searches for records of people on the net and that they should not be left behind (wierdos).

Btw, how google friendly are you? Does your name tops the list? Is the result specific to the context? In my case, i have hijacked top 3 and half pages of results that appear if you type my full name. And yes, all results are in my context :)

I wanna talk n talk n talk Ms. Jolie

2007-06-08T12:35:00.000+05:30

If I bump into Angelina Jolie, what will I do? I will just talk and talk and talk. Talk endlessly for the whole night, morning, evening and endless nights. Who wants to do any other things with her when you can simply talk.

Duh! Who wants to date a cartoon?

2007-06-07T11:20:00.000+05:30

Sample this radio spot that's hogging the airwaves in Pune these days:

Girl 1: Hurry up we are getting late
Girl 2: hang on, tell me will this eyeliner shade look better or this?
Girl 1: (excited voice) What's up darling? Who is this new boy?

Girl 2: Jigar. The Official mascot for 2008 Youth Commonwealth Games.

My 1st reaction: Huh?!

I think it's a slap on the face of all men folks in Pune that instead of dating men, gals are now going out with cartoons. Not that they don't, but this time around a real cartoon character :D

I am sure some potbellied Director of DAVP (department of Audio Visual Publicity), sitting in his AC cabin would have conceptualized this gem of a radio spot and all his jonnies would have ensured that it is executed to the hilt.

Btw, the best part of the radio spot is Jigar talking at the end. He is supposed to be a 'tiger' but croons like donald duck. :D :D

Roti..Kapda and now another Makaan

2007-06-06T22:24:00.000+05:30

The hunt for the house ends. Yesterday booked a 2 and half BHK (~~1222~~ 1132 sqft) house. Will get possession in August 07. The apartment is located in Rakshak Nagar Gold - very close to Zensar office and strategically located near the MIDC IT park. So close, that it will take me 5 mins to walk up to my office! :D Can even see office building from one of my bedroom's drawing room. Though it used to take me on an average 1.5 hrs to reach home from office, but I will truly miss my stay at Aditya Shagun & Bavdhan locality which is more like a mini hill station.

Have posted a screenshot from Google earth to show where the apartment is located. The sattellite image is not updated as I can see only few buildings, but you can get an idea how close it is to my office.

PS: Calculated today.... the distance from apartment to office is .8 kms. :D :D :D

What's not cooking at Shaukat Aziz's residence

2007-05-31T16:54:00.000+05:30

It's official now.

Shaukaut Aziz - Pakistan's PM has given up on rice. In a public statement last week, the Foreign Affairs Ministry informed that Aziz won't be having rice in his food staple. Rice has now become a forbidden word for him and he won't like to see anything that has got to do with rice - so all Biryanis are out for him now. The ministry also informed that Aziz had not given up on rice coz of any medical problems.

The give up happened when Shaukat Aziz met Condoleezza Rice - US Secretary of State and tried to seduce her, failing miserably, and ending up messing his plate.

hehehehehe.

2 continents. 2 Different news

2007-05-29T11:49:00.000+05:30

In today's TOI (Pune edition) found these 2 news in the Times International section.

1st News clipping read:

Sex-change couple jailed in Pakistan

Story about how a same sex couple have been jailed in Pakistan for getting married and staying together. They have now appealed to Mushy for help.

2nd news clipping, right below read:

Gay Aussie hotel wins right to ban hetrosexual

A MELBOURNE pub catering for gay men has won the right to refuse entry to heterosexuals in a landmark ruling the owner says will keep patrons safe.

The owners of Collingwood's Peel Hotel applied to ban straight men and women to try to prevent "sexually based insults and violence" towards its gay patrons.

Both these stories on the same page. Contrasting, yet interesting.

Abused 2.0

2007-05-29T10:52:00.000+05:30

I think the most abused, hacked & cliché word these days is '2.0'. If you have run out of ideas, need some push ups, want to add the 'next level ideas' to a dull mundane presentation, just add 2.0 as a suffix and you have it. Web 2.0 has become the most fancy words these days and just like the dot com boom, people are riding on the 2.0 bandwagon and making heads turn, little realizing or leveraging on the essence of 2.0 technologies.

In a recent article, Deep Kalra of Make My Trip says "Travel 2.0 is the buzzword here. Content, both developed by users and by portals, will help customers make better travel plans.”

See? Another 2.0 added and you get byte space on the internet. Being part of the team that was involved in creating information architecture & design of the MMT site in early 2000, if I am not wrong, the site already had the 'features' which Deep refers to as 'Travel 2.0'. The site had a facility to post user content, which was nothing more than ratings & travelogues and others could rank it. If this is what '2.0' means to Deep then he should check out the tons of info related to web 2.0 on the net again.

Web 2.0 is nothing but a combination of technologies/features that can help create larger audience participation and give real control in the hands of users rather the other way around. Period.

Picture This...

2007-05-29T10:20:00.000+05:30

I sit very close to a picture window on 4th floor from where I can see the entire Campus greenbelt and open fields, river and mountains in the distance. This part of Kharadi, I am told, turns lushgreen during rainy season. Infact the whole of Pune and nearby areas wear a different look during rains. The weather takes a dip, people flock out to picnic areas nearby and in Konkan belt. The place where I live - bavdhan, is a mini hill station in itself. Surrounded by hills, it's always breezy there and the recent showers has forced us to shut off fans in evenings and use light quilts at nights. I shifted here last year in August and i know how exciting the weather is here so really looking fwd to monsoons now.

Leaving this post with a few snaps that i took 2-3 days back from my office window of the 1st heavy showers that hit Pune.

(see that river behind our office? I am told during monsoons the river overflows!)

In the distance you can see the river shining in the darkness)

Shaving blues

2007-05-23T14:43:00.000+05:30

Ask any man what he feels is the most tiring work everyday and perhaps the most common reply would be - shaving every morning. So when today Suvi asked me "aren't you shaving", I replied, "it's the John Ibrahim look, you won't understand - it's a guy's thing". "ya but John doesn't have a part white stubble", she replied back coolly. "Jeeez"...I snorted and ignored the comment.

(cut to office)

Get greeted by a female colleague.
"hiiii loks"

"Hiiii"

"what's up?"
.......and b4 i can reply to that one, i get her next question.

"You didn't shaveee......felt lazzzy in the morning kyaa?", almost counting my white hair in the stubble.

At that moment, all the John Ibrahim stuff just went fizzing like an inflated balloon that has been released.

Hope suvi is not reading this one. :)

what i am watching these days...

2007-05-21T16:21:00.000+05:30

Hells Kitchen - 2 teams contest it out in Gordon Ramsy's kitchen as he grills them out. Experience new flavours of jealously in the Blue team as one gal ho doesn't have any formal cooking background keeps winning challenges one after the other while others turn sore.

A Matter of Taste - Vir sanghvi takes us into bowels of great Indian culinary journies

No reservations & A Cooks Tour - Something similar to Vir sanghvi, Anthony Bordain samples us world cusines and new flavors.

Miami Ink - Live show of these 4-5 fellas who oepn up a tattoo shop in downtown Miami.

All these shows are on Discovery Travel & Living.

Also watching Biggets Looser - some real heavyweights fighting to lose weight - a new reality show on Sahara One.

This post is for free

2007-05-21T15:49:00.000+05:30

This post that you are reading comes free of cost.

For the past couple of days I have been facing a peculiar problem. Some Jhonnie in my vicinity has acquired a wireless router for his laptop. Now this Jhonnie, I presume uses it most of the time in evenings and at times leave it open at mornings. So what has this got to do with me or the subject of this post. Well what is happening is that whenever I switch on my wireless router, my laptop is not reading my router's network and is like a true blue delhiite, snapping on to that jhonnie's network, illegally. I have never come across this situation b4 coz the laptop should show both wireless networks in the status bar, but after some keeda that i did long time back in the laptop settings, it has stopped showing network in the box. Anyways, so I get to switch on my router only when his is closed. You might ask, so even he might be snapping on to your network. But nopes. The jhonnie is a new kid on the block. I presumed that when I saw the details of his network. He (or she?) has NOT enabled any password on his wireless router. Jeeez man...that's the 1st thing that you do when you configure your router. His network shows the router name (which is default name when no password is set).

So whenever he is online and I am in a mood to access the net, I simply switch on my browser and i am online - at his expense! :D Let's see how long this honeymoon lasts :)

Hum tum ek kamre mein band ho....

2007-05-16T18:01:00.000+05:30

....aur door nahi khuley!!!!!

Over 17 members including me & our consulting practice head are currently holed up in our main bay and can't move out. The reason? The Access Door is NOT accepting our cards!!! :D :D..and is locked! :D :D

The worst sufferers? People who had to catch the 6.00 pm bus. :D

I wonder what would have happened if someone was working late night and faced this problem? Help desk would have said " saab aaaj raat wahi nikaal lo coz mechanic to kal subah aayega!!" Ironically, the fire exit is bang opposite the closed door.

Happy Dent ad.

2007-05-14T15:33:00.000+05:30

really funny...how I missed this ad. Awesum.

Mudra takes Big bazaar on a ride

2007-05-14T14:22:00.000+05:30

What comes in your mind when you say Big Bazaar?

"Isssey sasta aur tikau aur kahi nahi milega." The key word in all communication has been sasta and then tikau. Comes to think of it, it can be translated as Cheap Quality :-) though that's another topic all together. So when you talk about Big bazaar audience profile, who are they? I'll say they are:

- Primary audience(food & beverages): Food bazaar customers who are their for good bargains
- Primary audience (furniture): people who are looking out for good deals on durable and good looking furniture.
- Primary audience: (clothing): No frills, the 'original' middle & slightly upper middle class people who have no air about brands and are more interested in 'value for money' deals. They are more than happy if the apparel as compared to some 'reputed' brands lacks 'finesse' or doesn't have that 'wow' stuff as long as they are getting it for a steal as compared to brands found in other shopping malls. It's a big chunk of audience and they will always keep patronizing Big bazaar's apparel section.

So found it very surprising when Big bazaar came out with a series of outdoor ads.

The ads are tongue in cheek and take a dig at Shoppers stop, Lifestyle & Westside. The headlines read:

Change Your Lifestyle. Make a smart choice! Formal shirts Rs........
Keep West-aSide. Make a smart choice ! T shirts Rs.......
Shoppers! Stop. Make a smart choice ! Sarees Rs....

Cheeky, no doubt but do they serve their purpose? It's apparent that big bazaar is targeting the shopping chunk of patrons of these stores but I wonder if any thought went into studying the profile of the shopper segment by Mudra & Big bazaar. People who shop frequently or whenever need arises for buying any apparels from these stores are people who:

- are brand & style conscious
- firmly believe that stores like lifestyle, shoppers stop, etc offer quality & top most, latest trends stuff
- don't mind paying a little extra if it helps them stand out from the clutter
- Might not be trend setter but like to be one and associate stores like these with that
- Enjoy the ambiance, the crowd, the overall quality of display & aura that these store offers
-Would like to step down from their cars carrying bags of shoppers stop, lifestyle etc and would die if someone spots them with apparel filled bags of Big bazaar (the exception made is Food bazaar bags - that's accepted)

Yes, there are primary shoppers from these segment too who won't mind buying once in a while from Big bazaar apparel section but mostly, not so important stuff.

Mudra & Big bazaar should understand - it's aspirational & emotional stuff. A school or college kid might buy a lowest priced tshirt from shopper's stop or lifestyle (probably 200 bucks) which perhaps he could have got a bit cheap in big bazaar but he can tell his friends who ask him where he picked up the stuff from - proudly the name of the place. Some people are born with a silver spoon are all about brands will never shop at Big bazaar. The others, who have moved up the ranks and have developed a style image for themselves, have become brand conscious and more importantly have a good purchasing power won't switch over to Big bazaar just bcoz it's offering jeans/cargos/sarees or anything for a 3 digit price.

Whoa! Another portal changes design!

2007-05-14T13:50:00.000+05:30

First rediff. Then NDTV. Then India Times. Then Times of India. And now saw Agency Faqs site in a new avtaar. Funny thing is the timing. Most of them changed their look within a snapn of month or so. Finally they are heeding to user experience.

Googly by Google :-)

2007-05-14T12:41:00.000+05:30

Plagiarism & Google don't go together, do they? Innovative technology, innovative products, innovative online branding ads - google has always been front runner. So it came as a surprise to me when I came across these links:

Small PR headache for Google

Google Blatantly copies yahoo

Google copies IE7 promo material from yahoo

Apparently, google copied online promo ads of yahoo IE7 branded browser to the hilt - layout, text, it almost looked like a mirror page.

Obviously, yahoo discussion forums & tech newforums were flooded with articles. Google later rectified the page but the best part is the blog piece posted by Matt Cutts - a Google Engineer. In defense, he simply attacked. :-)

Conversation between a Pakistani & Indian

2007-05-11T12:41:00.000+05:30

Paaki: आज मेरे पास घर है, गाड़ी है, बैंक बैलेंस है... तुमहारे पास क्या है?

Indian: मेरे पास....AC है, जीसके चलाने पर लाइट भी नही जाती।

Read more...

Go jump in well Paris

2007-05-07T16:41:00.000+05:30

Paris Hilton claims that she violated the driving probation coz her Publicist told her she can drive. She has fired her publicist

Duh. I always knew she was dumb but this dumb? I mean when last time she broke the rule, she would have been present in the court when judge gave the sentence. Didn't she understand the implication of that sentence? On top of it she says

“I feel that I was treated unfairly and that the sentence is both cruel and unwarranted. I don’t deserve this.”

The best quote comes from one of Hilton's fan. On Paris Hilton's website, one fan writes -

"She provides hope for young people all over the U.S. and the world. She provides beauty and excitement to (most of) our otherwise mundane lives"

Beauty & Excitement. he he he. Ya baby. I have seen your leaked out sex tapes. Indeed, you do provide excitement in the mundane lives of your fans :D

You know you are working 2 hard when...

2007-05-07T12:13:00.000+05:30

..you pick up landline at home and press '0' to make a call or when you enter home, you try to swap card at the door to make it open. You must have heard tales like these but this dream of mine that I had ysday night tops the chart of my favorites.

The entire last week I had been working on a proposal for conducting onsite HCI activities for a UK based customer of ours. I had been meeting the ODC head of that account regularly. Day b4 ysday while I was driving in nasik, my car tyre got punctured - twice. So after the laborious work of changing the tyre and getting it fixed, i came home and hit the bed and dozed off. Got this wierd dream that find a place in my fav 'you are working 2 hard' list. Saw that the ODC head was fixing my tyres and later he sends across the car at my home and sends an email from his workshop informing me that the tyres have been fixed, a few alignment problems have been sorted out and hold on, in same breath he informs that in the HCI proposal, make a few amendments on point no x, y & z.

What say you? should it get a place in the 'you are working 2 hard when..' list? :)

confessions of a reluctant dieter (part 2)

2007-05-07T10:59:00.000+05:30

Monday

“Loks, how can we survive the day only on fruits?” I looked at my watch. 9.30am. Groan. The day had just begun. We still had 6 more days to go.

A diet war veteran, I know how to survive the treacherous pangs of hunger snipers that are always on lookout for our willpower to popup so that they can shoot it down. Throughout the day I kept parroting one word to Suvi – ‘Will Power’. Somehow survived through day 1.

Tuesday

“wow”. 1 kg lost already. But another whole day to pass off and worse, it’s may day so that means – be grounded at home. Ideally you always look fwd to a break but in this case, staying at home makes you feel hungrier! Suvi spiced up the all vegetable day by ‘pav bhaji’ kind of recipe minus the pavs, butter or any oil. So boiled veggies dashed up in little bit of masala along with some soup and salads. The day passed off peacefully.

Wednesday

This time around, I am also finding it a bit difficult to keep up with the GM diet. The reason being, when you are alone, you can somehow still follow it, but with Suvi around, she transforms herself into a modern day ‘Meneka’, trying to break my tapasya as I stand firm like the rock of Gibraltar to complete the diet successfully. “loks, can we have a biscuit with the tea. Loks just a single bread slice…Loks…just a little bit of aachaar…..plsssssssss…”

2 kgs lost. 3 days gone. 4 more to go.

Thursday

You don’t need a Times Restaurant Guide to tell how many eating joints are there in JM Road and from Karve Road to Paud Road. You can ask me about it. For the past 3 days while driving back to home, both me and Suvi unwittingly look out at all the passing hotel & restaurant signages and keep sighing. Add to it, on my way back my car always gets stuck in a mini traffic signal jam in front of this small restaurant where a guy is always fanning out delicious looking kababs on the roadside. Inspite of the windows being shut, the aroma of the delectable kababs squeezes in through the car and adds more fire in our bellies!

Friday

I accidentally bump into a wall. But instead of stars & revolving tweeting birds on top of my head, I get to see Chicken Mcgrills & grilled sandwiches rotating neatly in the mini orbit. I quickly bite into one and the pain disappears quickly. Happily, I head to work. A good way to start the day, I think.

By Friday I have also introduced a new romantic lexicon. It’s a dieter’s delight. So no more sugar coated cuchi coos or clichés like sweetheart or I luv you types. Instead, cuddle up your partner, pull his or her cheeks and let the voice from your heart come out and you will realize that most of the time you will end up saying “my jalebiiiii”, “my leg pieceee”, “my rasgulllla”, “my balushaiii”, “my grilled feeesh”, “my chole bhatureeee” and so on. As you keep rattling your expressions of love, you will also realize that that cuddling or pulling cheek have slowly turned into a full tight squeeze or rather a vibrant shake – as you go into an orgasmic frenzy and keep dishing out one expression after another.

Saturday & Sunday

I have never seen Suvi so happy in this diet week. After all, as per diet schedule, these 2 days are feast day. Which means you can have a cup of rice on both days. After surviving on fruits & veggies thru out the week, having rice was like finding an oasis in a desert. Like a kid she clapped and danced all around with the mere thought of having some ‘real’ food after ages. :) Thanks to the ‘solid’ food, breezed thru both these days.

Finally, GM Diet over. 3.5 kgs lost in 1 week. Suvi lost some 3 kgs. But finally we have decided instead of fad diets like these, we would rather moderate our eating habits and work out. I am already back on my skipping & morning workout schedule which I had discontinued a few months back (it worked for me then). Let’s see if I am able to keep it going! :) :)

Yawned....

2007-05-07T10:49:00.000+05:30

...my favorite past time while watching the movie TaRaRumPum. Go for the movie if you want to watch a new look Rani Mukherjee or want to remind your hubby about the consequences of high purchasing through credit cards & bad investment planning...coz that's what the movie is all about. The moral of the story, as you will realize after 3 hrs is that you need to save money for rainy day, invest wisely and plan for the future. I wonder why Yash Raj studios who had smartly roped in Chevrolet, Lays, Castrol etc for surrogate advertising in this movie didn't tie up with any of the financial institutions like ICICI or Kotak for co-sponsoring the movie. :)

Confessions of a reluctant dieter (part 1)

2007-05-04T13:49:00.000+05:30

I had been wanting to write this post since last week but had been too preoccupied with some office work which had mentally kind of drained me out, so was finding it difficult to pen it out. Finally got some time to sketch it out. This would be a pretty long post so I would break it into couple of parts. Here is the 1st part of the installment.

Suvi had been after me for quite some time to go on a diet. It's not that I had put on or something but more coz she wanted to go on a diet and needed company. "But why me?” I protested. "loks...while getting married you had taken vows around the sacred fire that you will nibhao my saath in all ups and downs of life", she reminded me emotionally. "But that didn't include dieting!!!". But I had no choice. All my pleas were falling to deaf ears. This 'marriage vows' thing or the 'shaadi se pehley you used to be' stinger is the Bramha astra that I guess every married woman resorts to when cornered to the wall. Faced with no choice, I threw in my towel. Ok, we would diet from today.

"No, not today", said Suvi. On being asked why not, she said "look now we would be going on a diet for some time, so let' start it from monday and let's enjoy the next 2-3 days that we have. I want to eat home cooked chicken and then tomorrow we have to go for my colleague's bday party also - she has planned amazing spread for dinner". Amused, I knew where this diet was heading to. I could already sense that in next coming days, this diet plane would lose its flight plan and turn topsy turvy before someone (read Suvi) presses the emergency chute button and bails us out. So like convicts on death sentence, with last few days to go, we feasted on chicken. Butter Chicken at Suvi’s colleague’s party on Friday, Chicken Thai Green Curry cooked as surprise dinner on Saturday by me and again some chicken at home on Sunday. If Malinga’s hat trick stole the thunder at the world cup, this chicken feast hat trick simply bowled us over. With Suvi’s wish being granted, I thought we could go on diet from Monday peacefully now. Or so I thought.

We had decided that for the 1^st week we will follow the General Motor diet plan. I had previously tried this diet plan in Delhi and had seen good results. You can stand to lose anywhere from 3-6 kgs in 1 week itself. Of course, it’s a fad diet but when you are desperate, you don’t think about fad-shad. You are more interested in the end result figure and in GM Diet Plan’s case, it looked really very tempting. So when Suvi heard about the plan, she looked excited. Though she had never ever dieted before but thought of giving it a shot. The 1^st day we had to eat just fruits and nothing else. On Sunday evening I stepped in reliance fresh to buy some fruits. Lost all my appetite after checking out price of apples. 100 Rs KG!!! Inspected it closely and saw ‘Washington’ tag on it. Among the apples kept there, these ones looked the best so reluctantly picked up a kilo which turned out to be mere 4-5 apples only. So apples, water melon, musk melon and what have you, a cool bill of Rs. 160.

Drawing from my past experience, I knew this diet would turn out to be an expensive one But hey; it’s for a good cause after all. If we both lose few kgs., naturally we will go out and binge again. This will lead to an increase in the revenues of the shopkeeper who till now had been derived of our share of revenue coz we had gone in self exile. An increase in revenues for him means he can save a little more for his kids & family. Similarly, the waiter who would serve us would also be tipped extra and they can send that extra money back home. So our act would contribute in a small way to fulfill our social responsibilities. :) :)

Iranians v/s Iranians

2007-05-04T12:43:00.000+05:30

Pune is full of Iranis. You will find them in every nook and corner, every mall, every eatery. Modern Iranis. Liberal (or liberated?) Iranis. Irani men sans the clothing that they normally wear in Iran. Irani babes in tanktops, halter necks, denims, minis & tight fittings. Irani couples publicly holding each other or a odd peck or two. A far contrast from the conservative society that they live in back home.

And then there are Iranians like these.

No wonder more and more Iranians seek to fly away from their country to liberal pastures like India.

Finally Appy Fizz Cricket Commercial link!

2007-04-27T18:28:00.000+05:30

Ok guys...Finally I found the link to the Appy Fizz song that I was searching. Ok..err..it was not me but Shazia who fwded the link to me. Thanks Shazia!!

Enjoy!

http://www.thecricketsong.com/

Malinga Rocks!

2007-04-25T14:17:00.000+05:30

It's not just his rock star freakish hair style but his unique sling action bowling also rocks. The 4 wickets that he took against SA in a WC league match recently were awesome and yesterday again he made the NZ opening batsmen jump all around the pitch. The best pace driven, swing bowling that I have seen lately.

Another Siddhu Bouncer!

2007-04-25T14:07:00.000+05:30

Was catching up with Turning Point on NDTV today morning. Siddhu as usual hijacked all the air space and started bombarding on Simon Taufel's poor umpiring in the NZ - SL semi final. And then he dropped his bomb - another one of those bouncers - and here it goes:

"Simon Taufel's decision had been so poor yesterday that in the morning he would need 2 hands to hold on to his bumps"

Wow! What was that?

On being reminded by the presenter that this is a family channel so pls mind your words, he roared back "Well I am a family man"!! (?)

I always feel sorry for poor Ajay Jadeja who most of the time is reduced to a mere spectator when both of these guys come for the show.

Hey, leave the kids alone!

2007-04-25T13:55:00.000+05:30

As if school kids of today are not burdened by over expectations of their parents, the changing syllabus, the increasing size of their school bags, peer pressure, the future of quotas; we have very conveniently set another 'expectations' from them. This time - winning the cricket world cup in next 4-8 yrs!

1st the Pepsi ad.

And now, seeing another set of ads. by Surf Exel showing 11 small kids holding to their cricket kit, in soiled clothes, posing in 'Lagaan' style. The headline, in the same 'lagaan' typo screams:

Practice Karengey
Daag lagayengey
2015 mein to world cup le hi aayengey

Pluusssee...give the kids a break man!

Am I getting old?

2007-04-22T19:58:00.000+05:30

The players I grew up watching, admiring and adoring are all gone.
Steffi Graf
Monic Seles
Gabrelia Sabatini
Pete Sampras
Jim Courier
Michel Jordan
Carl Lewis
Steve Waugh
Andre Aggasi

and now... Brian Lara.

Sigh. I miss them.

Bingo Ads remixed :)

2007-04-20T12:45:00.000+05:30

(Video): Show different types of primitive traps used in jungle to catch animals. In different shots show human beings catching animals using different types of traps.

(Audio): प्राचीन युग से मनुष्यों ने शिकार करना सीख लिया था. शिकार करने के लिए वोह trap का प्रयोग करते थे. वोह जंगल में trap को ऐसे जगह रकते जहाँ शिकार पानी पीने आता और उनको पकड लेते. बार बार ऐसा करने से जानवर भी सतर्क हो जाते तो फिर मनुष्यों को अपना दिमाग लगाना पड़ता जानवरो को चतुराई से पकड़ने के लिए.

पर अगर आपको बिना दिमाग लगाए, मसालेदार, तद्कीले crap का आनंद उठाना हो, तो वोह आपको trap से नही मिलेगा. वोह मिलेगा Mid Day ke web edition से.

Mid Day
No Sense, Nonsense.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What made me write this post?

sample some of the headlines:

Aaj hamari bhi Shaadi hai: Story of a couple who is sharing the big day with Abhi & Ash

Rs. 1.29 lakh suitcase: Story about the Suitcases that Ash is getting from her cousin as wedding gift.

Tag Board on my blog

2007-04-20T12:05:00.000+05:30

I have installed a new tag board on my blog. You will find it on the right hand side of my blog ( just below the previous post topics). The suggestion for installing the same came from a hotshot Radio Mirchi RJ (hehehehe...now even I can boast of having celebrity connections) who wanted to leave a message on my blog but there was no 'neutral' message board. Wonder why I never thought about it myself. Perhaps coz till now most of my blog readers were my close friends who used to visit my blog just for my posts.

And as requested, he also took time out from his busy schedule to 'inaugurate' the tag board by posting the 1st message on it :D Thanks Shrikant!

So any messages hat you want to post to me, besides the comments one, you can post it out here. Feedback, any topics that are in your mind, suggestions, any point of debates & opinions...

But make it under 200 characters or else break the message into multiple parts and then post.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Aaj Tak's Intellectual level...

2007-04-20T11:45:00.000+05:30

sample the question posed by a journalist at Abhi's so called lover's press conference.

"आपका और अभिषेक का प्यार कैसा था? क्या आप दोनो बाघो में गाना गाया करते थे? या फिर डेक पे प्यार भरे गाने लगा के सुंना करते थे.... आप प्यार कैसे करते थे...प्यार का इजहार कैसे करते थे?

They actually asked a question like that.

Uaaaaaa...papaaa..she hijacked my air space!!!

2007-04-20T11:38:00.000+05:30

Uaaaaaaaaaa........

Big B: What happend abhi beta?

Abhi: pappaaaaa...I paid crores for this wedding...got scores of media lined up for exclusive titbits...and some stupid gal called Janhvi has stolen my show...the entire media is covering her and not my wedding papaaaa...waaaaaaaaaaaaa.uaaaaaaaa...:( :(

Big B: Calm down beta..lemme find out.. Koi Hai!! Darbaaan!!!

Amar: Ji bulaya?

Big B: Just find out..what's the matter... who is this gal who made this wedding into a bollywood script.