Chennai street maps on Google

I learnt this from Teakada. Finally a street level map of Chennai and it is pretty cool. I hope we will get directions soon.

From rags to riches

I found this story interesting, The inspiring rags-to-riches tale of Sarathbabu.

Roller coster ride

When I heard this story on NPR this morning, it stuck me hard. I quote, Leroy Sievers, "And no one else, as much as they want to, as much as they may need to, no one else can really ride along with you. They can watch; they can be supportive. But when you're up there on top of the ride, looking down on that huge drop in front of you, you're the only one in the car". I lost my mother due to cancer earlier this year. I fully understood what he meant.

I recently learnt that a 2 year old named Nirali is going through the same ordeal. It is a lot of suffering for a little one to go through. I hope she finds a match soon. I have heard younger ones have a greater chance to fight it...I just hope that it is true in her case.

Tea is good for you

I just found out that drinking tea is healthy. That is good news to me. I had quit coffee sometime ago. I am drinking around three cups of tea a day.

Jill Carroll tells her story

I stumbled across this link while reading Yahoo News! She was held captive for 82 days in Iraq.

Few things (family tree, backup et al)

I have a few things to write about. So here goes:

1. Tribalpages: I have setup my family tree here. You can check out a sample family tree of the British royal family. After I added photos to each person, the views got really interesting. It acts like a address book too. I suggest you give it a try.

2. External hard-disk: I once heard on Leo Laporte's radio show, the importance on having a backup solution at home. I recently got to implement one at home. My digital videos and pictures collection absolutely needed it. The question was "What if my system crashes and I lose everything?". The company built external hard-disk solutions have smaller hard disks and high prices. I had a friend of mine suggest how I can build one myself (Thanks Suresh). I went to Micro Center and got a internal IDE hard drive for a cost of $120 ($60 mail-in rebate). I then bought a hard disk drive casing for $25. For a final cost $85, I had a 200GB external hard disk solution. Setting up the casing was pretty easy, just put in the hard disk and connect the cables. It works like a USB flash drive. You get a new drive letter and it is simple copy and paste operation to backup the files.

3. Name search: If someone knows your name, wants to find out where you are and what you are up to, what do they do? I was thinking, they would do a Google search. But Google search results are random and not a ideal way to do this. If you don't have a online presence (homepage etc), you will never show up. The next option is to use a website that has tons of members. Yahoo is one such. I have now updated my profile so that I show up on a search like that on members.yahoo.com. There is a check box on the profile that has to be checked so that it shows up on a search like this. Now the question is, who is going to bother search for me? :)

4. Free postal service to India: Free online postal service is one that provides a e-mail to paper post service to reach people in India without e-mail access. Alcacrity housing in Chennai once had a service like this. Now that site is down. I went searching and found a list of websites providing this service. Indianservice is one that stood-out in the list. Has anyone tried it?

5. Yahoo Answers and Ask: If you have not check these yet, you should. Ask has an XML feed.

6. Definitions: Did you know Google can be used as a online-dictionary?

Getting paid for writing on Wikipedia

Companies are starting to see value in having presence on Wikipedia. Now someone has started a business based on it. MyWikiBiz.com gets paid helping companies setup their articles on Wikipedia. Here is one of the company's contributions. Now that's a novel idea.

Israel and Palestine

The Israel-Lebonan war is all over the news these days. I have a particular interest in Middle east history, Israel in particular. Ever wonder how Israel ended up in the middle of bunch of Arab states. BBC News has a detailed history of the conflict and a portal on Middle east crisis. BBC remains my primary source of news online. And NPR on the radio.

I'm back

A post from me after a long break. I had been at Wikipedia all this time. It's great to be back. Hopefully should start posting like before. This week, I managed to create my Yahoo! 360 page. I wonder what makes MySpace so popular. Y360 has many of the same social networking features. It may be because MS was the first one on the block.

Indian pulse export ban

I am one of those hit by the pulse export ban by the Government. Today we went to Artesia to stock up on the pulses. The prices were hiked up ($8 for a 4lb pack, used to be $4) and there was restriction of 2 packs per customer. The stores say it would be another six months before new stocks come in. Just learnt that the ban will be extended until March 31, 2007. How are we to make sambar any more?

Wikimapia - Let's describe the whole Earth!

Here is a awesome website that I found recently. It lets you search for any city in the world and lets you zoom in and find your home (if you are lucky). I was not lucky because a thick white cloud covered our place. Tagging important places is such great feature. Go ahead and tag on.

To start, click the Wikimapia menu option on the top right hand corner and search for a city.

India vs West Indies cricket update

If you are having trouble finding the audio cricket commentary links from my previous post, this site is still hosting them.

India vs West Indies cricket

If you live outside India, you can listen to unofficial India v West Indies cricket commentary here and here.

If you are having trouble finding the links read this update.

Is it worth drinking juice from concentrate?

I just confirmed it (have heard a lot of people say) today that juices from cocentrate (and pasteurized) are zero in nutrition. I was thinking that I was drinking healthy.

Source: Food Science: about juices

Lazybase

Ever heard of Lazybase!? It has a lot of potential in the lines of wiki, blog collaborations. Here is a sample.

The story of a little coffee plant

Listen to this story. It will make you smile.

Link: NPR : The Little Coffee Plant that Wouldn't Die

Sify Scorecard

Sify has done a great job with their scorecard. They have linked videos to all the sixers, fours and the fall of wickets. Coool stuff! Check it out
here.

Video Frames

How about creating photo frames that play video. We can call them "Video frames". It can have two modes, a continuous play mode, or a manual play by clicking a play button somewhere on the frame. They should have some kind of storage device that could store a small clip.

You could do the same with photo albums that have video pages, small clips that are attached to the page.

Tom Cruise's Minority Report had a device that would play 3D video. That would be cool!