Times Of India - Male fertility and email

Following up on my interesting tidbits around the Internet thread, here's another TODO off my list :-)

The Times of India has an Ajaxified (ooh!) widget on the right side of its homepage. Clicking on the "Most emailed" tab comes up with very amusing results. Check out what I found:



I wonder how many men would be using it to sway it in their favour. "But darling, it is a scientific fact that if we don't do it now, we won't have that baby 3 years later!"

And no, you won't find that link there -- it's gone :-) Here it is, by the way.

Facebook - Interesting Screenshots

Every now and then I keep coming across interesting tidbits on the Internet (or Mumbai's streets) which I keep tagging as "must-blog" and stashing away in my mental archive. This post is about getting one of those items off my TODO list :-)

I'm not much of a fan of social networks, but for what it's worth, I've recently started Facebooking more than Orkutting. Specially because of the granularity you can assign to various "friends" on Facebook. I was sick of getting friend requests from random people on Orkut and having to choose between the slightly rude "acquaintance" and the slightly more-warm-that-I'd-like-it-to-be "friend". On the other hand, on Facebook, I can exactly specify how I know the person. So, someone I've interviewed is also on my contact list but with the complete context. And 6 months down the line if I get a scrap ("writing on the wall" in Facebook-speak) I can remind myself of how I know the person. (I know, a little rude to be saying this, but it happens to all of us -- especially me!)

But what simply takes the cake is the way they've phrased the options for the "We dated" section. Apt and to the point. I think it covers almost all the situations in a relationship. Especially the catch-all "It's complicated" bit :-) Take a look for yourself -- click for larger pics.

75% usability experts think that Cleartrip.com is the best!

From the Usability Professionals Association - Bangalore Chapter's Blog:

What is your favorite Indian website from a usability perspective? What aspect of it do you like?

• Sridhar Marri: I am yet to see a great Indian website on the Internet. However in the Intranet space, our Sparsh – the Infosys Intranet is my favorite. Its telescopic information architecture and flexible design for growth are two aspects that I like most. And it is full of life!


• Muthukumar: http://www.cleartrip.com/ I like it because the overall ticketing process is easy to use, defect free and fast.


• Param: www.cleartrip.com It is not cluttered. The user interface is simple. Implementation is slick and consistent (like immediate page refreshes, etc.).


• Amit Pande: The last one I liked was http://www.cleartrip.com – it made bookings easier by providing a lot of relevant information upfront, making trip price calculations easy, and keeping the credit card payment process straightforward. I also like some of the UI components used in the site, including the collapsible panes.

:-)

I guess the almost obsessive focus on user experience and the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid) is paying off. Recently, we had also been chosen as the best Indian travel website (and there are quite a few of them out there) by PC World.

Kudos to the entire design, tech, and product team at Cleartrip for consistently kicking ass!

PS: And I beat Hrush to this post :-)

Loins of Punjab on YouTube

I was was searching YouTube for a clip of Khoon Karaba (from Loins of Punjab) and I was pleasantly surprised to find that most of the movie trailers on YouTube have been put up by Manish Acharya himself (actually it could've been anyone from the production company with an account in his name, but what the heck!). Here's Manish Acharya's account page.

It's good to see the web being used to connect directly with the audience.

Do watch the Loins of Punjab Music Video.
And finally:

I'm the galactic jedi life force of bhangra!

ROFL! You just have to watch this film!

Cross blog promotion... three new posts at Foodie For Life:

• Clubs and Burgers at Cafe Mocambo, Fort, Mumbai


• Amazing Indian food at Food Inn, Colaba, Mumbai


• Mini meals at Mocha, Marine Lines, Mumbai

Movielicious Weekend

Watched three movies last weekend. The perks of living bang next to a multiplex... heh :-) I saw "Loins of Punjab" and "Manorama - Six Feet Under" back-to-back. And I mean back-to-back. 1:30 to 3:15 was Loins of Punjab and 3:15 to 5:30 was Manorama.

Both the movies simply rocked!

Watched Dhol the next day. Or couldn't watch it for that matter - left it midway at the interval.

Loins of Punjab is a laugh riot. It's about a "Desi Idol" contest which apparently is _not_ a rip-off of hundreds of music contests out there today. The only catch being that it's open for all the South-East Asian in America. Amazing bunch of characters the script writer has cooked up. I just loved the hip-hop/bhangra surd duo and their "Khoon-karaba" number. Loins of Punjab is a must-must watch.

Manorama-Six Feet Under is also an amazing movie. Short and sweet. Very different script. Lovely cinematography. The director has paid attention to small details like the kind of clothes the actors are wearing. The decor inside the houses. The kind of vehicles people are traveling in. Everything. Abhay Deol is a surprisingly good actor. I liked him in "Ek Chaalis Ki Last Local" as well. Ditto for Gul Panag in Manorama and Dor. This too, is a must watch.

Dhol was a piece of shit. No other way to describe it. I mean, how many times can someone make the same thing over and over again. This time the gags didn't even elicit a tiny giggle. Had to leave it during the interval. Couldn't sit through the entire ordeal.

And the sad part was that Dhol was almost house full, whereas, Loins of Punjab and Manorama were almost house empty. Sad. Really sad.

Shit floats AND sells.

Test post

test post

--

http://nandz.blogspot.com
http://foodieforlife.blogspot.com

The GMail Video...

...is finally out. It's probably been out for a while, it's just that I happened to notice the "Watch our video" link in GMail today. Go watch it at http://mail.google.com/mvideo. And watch my submission titled God, Adam, and GMail, which sadly didn't get selected :-(

Interestingly, no clip from India was selected and there were only a couple of submissions from thsi side of the world. Check out the map. The pin on Mumbai will lead to my submission again :-)

I made the video using GAP - The Gimp Animation Package. It's pretty easy once you get the hang of it. I'll probably write a small tutorial some day I find the time.

Orkut and India - A Love-Hate Relationship

Well, I hope this time the bigots don't go around chasing Orkut for dishonoring the national colours! I won't be surprised if there's a law hidden in some obscure act somewhere!

Enjoy your freedom while it lasts!

What does software and menstruation have in common?

At least two Ubuntu packages. I present to you cycle and mencal for tracking menstrual cycles. Immense entertainment ensues to think about the functional testing.

Man from testing team: Honey, did you have your period today?
Test subject: Get lost you insensitive clod!
Man from testing team: (Filling out bug report form) Prediction early by few days. Kindly fix ASAP.

Cycle

calendar program for women
Cycle is a calendar for women. Given a cycle length or statistics for
several periods, it can calculate the days until menstruation, the days
of "safe" sex, the fertile period, and the days to ovulations, and
define the d.o.b. of a child. It allows the user to write notes and
helps to supervise the administration of hormonal contraceptive tablets.

Possibilities of the program:
  - Calculate days of menstruation, based on the length of the cycle or
    on statistics of previous periods.
  - Calculate days of "safe" sex, fertile period and day to ovulations.
  - Definition of D.O.B. (Date Of Birth) of a child
  - Allows to write notes.
  - Helps to supervise reception of hormonal contraceptive tablets.
  - Multiple users allowed. Data is protected by a password for every
    user.

NOTE: This program is not a reliable contraceptive method. It does
neither help to prevent sexual transmision diseases like AIDS. It is
just an electronic means of keeping track of some of your medical data
and extract some statistical conclusions from them. You cannot consider
this program as a substitute for your gynecologist in any way.

 Homepage: http://cycle.sourceforge.net/

Mencal

A menstruation calendar
Mencal is a menstruation calendar written in Perl.

It is a simple variation of the well-known Unix command cal. The main
difference is that you can have some periodically repeating days highlighted
in color. This can be used to track menstruation (or other) cycles
conveniently.

Author: C. McCohy 
Homepage: http://mencal.kyberdigi.cz/english.html

I've read so many arguments and debates on why we don't have women in technology, especially software. And I never really figure out the real reason for it. But now I can say, at least we're trying!