Recently in Observations Category

After a long gap, I logged in to my blog server and found many interesting comments created by bots. Some are funny, here are a few examples..

• detox body says .... So pleased to enjoy such a interesting post that does not fall back on base posturing to get the idea covered. Thanks for an enjoyable read.
• Austin Naillon says ...Awesome write-up! This will aid a lot of people find out more about this particular topic. Are you keen to incorporate video tutorials together with these? It could definitely help. Your description was spot on and thanks to you.
• Max53 says .."well im excited "  :-)
• Social Bookmarks says ..Dude... good post! I might actually even listen to what you are saying. Overall your whole blog is great... I am digging it. Peace!

 A few comments which are totally unrelated to the topic of the blog post. For example,

• In response to my blog on the trip to Grodno, Erin says "Thank you for the time you spent on this post. Know that your work is much appreciated. Keep it up! "
• On my post about planning the Europe trip, Oscar Henningsen says "Pretty wonderful post, very useful stuff. Never imagined I would find the information I would like right here. I have been scouring throughout the internet for some time now and had been starting to get frustrated. Thankfully, I stumbled across your site and got precisely what I was looking for. "

 But all said and done, I must admit that some of these comments have motivated me enough to write a blog after a long long time :-)

I have registered for Bar Camp Bangalore, to be held on 7th and 8th of March 2009. Bar Camp is a network of user-generated conferences held around the globe. It is an open workshop event where the contents are provided by the participants themselves. Anybody can register a session and other members can join the session. The presenter creates a topic page on the Bar Camp website and participants can discuss the topic prior to the event. During the event, on hour time will be dedicated to discuss the topic.
To know more about Bar Camp, read their FAQ page or this Wikipedia link..
I am really looking forward for this event.

There is a good news for people affected with RSI and back-pain due to extended hours of sitting. Look out for the StepUI from Microsoft Research demonstrated at the TechFest event at Redmond. It is a foot-powered UI where the users can read email, browse photos etc. with their feet.
The dance pad on which the users can perform these commands sound a little strange. But apparently, the StepUI can be used with a Bluetooth device that can be attached to an anklet or shoe. That is good.
Very soon, we can surf the Net by dancing 5-6-7-8 :-)

Today I wanted to give a feedback to the Google team to add a NEXT and PREVIOUS button on top of the the Google Search Results Page. I have often found the need of this toolbar when we scroll up and down the Results page looking for a best fitting document.
I searched for almost half an hour for a feedback page where I can give this suggestion. One obvious link that I found is the "Dissatisfied? Help us improve" link in Results page. But this page is specific to suggest improvements in the search results given by the search engine. I could not find a generic feedback page where I can post my suggestion which is a generic usability suggestion. I searched almost the entire Google Site and stopped the exrecise when I finally hit the "Are we Hiring" page.
We normally "Google" to find info on the Web. But I could not get this simple info from Google site.
Should Google think about a site revamp?

Google has come up with the Google Mobile Personalized Home Page which helps you create a web page with content of your choice and can be accessed from your mobile in a phone-friendly format. You need to sign in with Google account and then add content of your choice to the Home Page- the content could be Weather report, snapshop of Gmail Inbox, News from CNet, Wired etc.
Looks very similar to Windows Live UI. Also, I guess use of AJAX would have given a better user experience to the application.

Steven Soderbergh's movie Bubble is getting released in theaters on Jan 27th. What is so great about it? The greatness lies in the fact that the DVD version of the movie will get released just 4 days after the theater release! This is totally unheard-of in the movie industry.Soderbergh says that this an experimental approach to gain control over the well-spread piracy which anyway brings out the DVD version of a movie on the release date itself. Hmm.. that's interesting.. Like the saying goes "Beat the sweat with sweat". If all Hollywood directors take this stand, then piracy will have no place on earth. But what will happen to our Multiplex and iMax theaters?? Let's wait and watch,

Being a Malayalee from Kerala, God's Own country, I was searching Wikipedia for articles in Malayalam and found that there are some 300 such articles in Wikipedia. I was happy to see this article on Onam, the State festival of Kerala. But the content page was disappointing because of the strange script. Malayalam is a language which has 56 alphabets, but when we write text, we combine the alpabhets to make nice round letters. The language translator software of Wikipedia was not able to capture this art. Hence the content page of these articles look very funny. But still I am happy to see some content there.

I guess one's life changes a lot when he/she gets a committed partner. I deliberately avoided the word "when he/she gets married" because the contemporary school of thought says that marriage is not required for a committed relationship . (I somehow do not agree to that thought.) Anyway, I believe that when we start living and sharing with a person whom we like, the interests and likings of both the parties slowly align themselves to each other. Initially we start with the understanding that we agree to disagree on certain things. But slowly, we tend to have a common opinion on those points. This does not happen by force or as a sacrifice. It comes involuntarily and naturally.