List of Travel Books

A list of popular travel books.

Link via MobiBlog.

Related:
- Maximum City—Bombay Lost and Found is an interesting read. It isn't exactly a travel book, however it may be taken as a Citylogue, a description of life in Bombay, as seen from the eyes of a cross-section of people, more so, from the ones on the fringe of society and their life and times in the melting pot that is the city of Bombay.

U.S.-returned author, Suketu Mehta's Maximum City is his view of life in Bombay as seen from his interaction with a cross section of Bombay's society. It is a window to the 'Zeitgeist'* of the city with stories about people in politics, religion, underworld (Mafia), Bollywood, cricket, and all the things that make Bombay what it is. A city of dreams and the melting pot of India.

To borrow from Frank Sinatra's popular song and change New York to Bombay, "Bombay, Bombay, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere."

Read the book if you have an afternoon to spare.

* Zeitgeist - The general cultural, education, intellectual, and moral outlook of an era. In this context, it would be of the city.

- Again, this isn't a travel book, but is related to adventures and worth mentioning as a related read.

Khaled Husseini's 'The Kite Runner', a literal translation in Hindi would be 'Patang Pakadnewala'—one who runs after and catches a kite after it is cut and falls to the ground.

It is the story of friendship between the author and his servant as kids in Kabul amidst the political and religious turmoil of Afghanistan; the author's journey to California from Kabul, the incidents that make him go back to Afghanistan via the Peshawar and the story that unfolds in Kabul in the time of the Taliban.

There are a couple of lovely lines from an Afghan wedding song in the book, Ahesta Boro Maheman, Ahesta Boro; which means "Go slowly, my lovely moon, go slowly." The next line is "Turn the night to a key and throw it in the well." Beautiful, isn't it?

Another line from the Persian poet Rumi, if I'm not mistaken, that says "How seamless seemed love and then came trouble." These nuggets brighten the book with local flavour.

Any books that you'd like to suggest and share? Let me know. Thanks.

Google Links for the Day

Google tops The Wired 40—a list of companies with vision, reach, technology, ideas and the impatience to put them in practice.

Talking of new product launches, see Google's latest offering—Google Checkout, that tracks shopping items bought from different Web sites. Buy from different Web sites, proceed to Checkout through Google and see items bought from different Web sites on a Google Checkout page. Read the benefits of Google Checkout. Try it.

See pictures of Google buildings under construction in The Dalles, Oregon, MI.

Did you know? Larry Page was born in Lansing, MI; graduated from East Lansing High School, and holds a Bachelors degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Find Google in The Oxford English Dictionary. The OED adds Google* as a verb in its latest revision dated June 15, 2006. * Use Ctrl+F to find Google on the Web page.

To google for something is to find information about it by using the Google search engine.

GOOG is trading at $417.81 on NASDAQ.

The military government of Myanmar (Burma) bans Google and Gmail to restrict the flow of information in and out of the country.

BusinessWeek articles: Google's product process and why its non-search products aren't as popular as its Web search.

Thoughts for Today

Thoughts for Today from Savage Garden's song Affirmation.

These are the ones that I believe.

I believe we place our happiness in other people's hands
I believe you can't appreciate real love until you've been burned

I believe the grass is no more greener on the other side
(read U.S. or maybe it is, atleast in the freedom and choices of higher education. Few people take a year or even a month or two off from studies or work in India to go trekking or biking. Yes, people here do take a year off to prepare for MBA and other entrance examinations. I would definitely have been a Ph.D. in something, don't know in what, but in something, if I would have had the freedom to learn poetry and technology side by side. One can't do that in India. Taking GMAT and going to the U.S. is an escapist attitude. You weren't good enough to crack the CAT and so you're taking the GMAT to get admission in some unknown college in the U.S. Scoring 600 on 800 on the fly is normal for most people with average intelligence and I suppose, but I haven't tried, 700 on 800 would be possible with a month's study of Barron's GMAT guide.)

I believe your most attractive features are your heart and soul
I believe that family is worth more than money or gold
I believe in love surviving death into eternity
~ Read the lyrics of Savage Garden's Affirmation.

Quarter Final Lineup

Football World Cup 2006 in Germany

- Argentina v. Germany 8:30pm IST* Fri., 30 Jun
Argentine coach Jose Pekerman needs to play Messi and Tevez as strikers to start the match on an attacking note and score the first goal. If Germany goes a goal ahead in the first half then it would be difficult for Argentina to break through the strong German defence.

I hope Argentina wins, but Germany is in form and with the home crowd behind them, they might give a superlative performance to reach the semis.

- Italy v. Ukraine 12:30am IST Sat., 1 Jul
Italy should consider themselves lucky to reach the quarterfinals. Their defence would hold Ukraine, but they need to score to win, else anything is possible in the penalty shootout.

Italy should go through if they score in the first half.

- Portugal v. England 8:30pm IST Sat., 1 Jul
Portugal, even without Deco and with many players yellow carded, still are the favourites for this match. England's defensive approach will cost them dear. What's the point in playing for the match to end after scoring a goal, like England did versus Ecuador. England should go for goals, because that's what the Portuguese are going to do, and if England decide to sit on a one nil lead, it would be a surefire recipe for defeat.

Luis Figo as the playmaker and Cristiano Ronaldo, if fit, and Maniche as the strikers pose a threat to England. Hope Frank Lampard, after all the missed chances, gets one through this time for England, although a single goal won't be enough for England to win versus Portugal.

- Brazil v. France 12:30am IST Sun., 2 Jul
This seems to be a classic in the making. Brazil are strong, but their defence can be beaten, and Zinedine Zidane needs only a shot to convert a chance to a goal. It should be a high scoring game, and hopefully should not go to the penalty shoot out, because Barthez can snatch the game from Brazil in penalties.

So it would be Argentina, Italy, Portugal, and Brazil; or it may well be the other way round with Germany, Ukraine, England, and France. Let's see.

*IST: Indian Standard Time.

A Thought for Today

Nobody got anywhere in the world by simply being content.
~ Louis L'Amour

Rediff changes design; looks much sleeker

Rediff gets a makeover. The new design does away with small shopping ads that were a regular feature on the top right-hand corner and also makes it look sober with less ads and boxes. The new design reduces scrolling and provides text links to various features.

- The skyblue background of the search box doesn't quite seem to contrast with the hyperlinks in navy. A greyish background would look good.
- The grey text in the search box would make for easier reading if it is changed to black and the font size is increased by 2 points.

Take a look at Rediff's new home page.

Reading

Thoughts that encourage innovation at Google.

Zoho

To browse Zoho's suite of office tools and utilities.

Afternoon

An afternoon walk after lunch, with the wind on my face and slight rain, feels good.

Online Travel

Interview with Esteban Walther, Head of Travel—EMEA*, Google. Esteban Walther on advertising opportunities for the travel enterprise on Google search.

There isn't any mention of travel portal from Google.

A thought: Either Google acquires a meta travel search engine or integrates features from Local search, Maps, AdWords in 'n' languages, OneBox airfare search, Weather, Personalized search, and News to start a customized Google Travel Web site with single click OneBox searches for airfares and hotels.

It's a lucrative market and Google sure would be eyeing the advertising revenue from travel searches.

* EMEA: Europe, Middle East, and Africa.

Related:
- Have you tried Google's OneBox Airfare search?
Here's an example: Sao Paulo to Bombay

- Find global airfares with Mobissimo meta travel search engine.

Poetry

Reading poetry on a slow Monday afternoon. Even Sunday afternoon was slow. If the afternoons are slow, why am I not doing something to make them fast?

Khud apne liye baith ke sochenge kisi din
Yun hai ki tujhe bhuul ke dekhenge kisi din

Someday I will sit and think about myself
That is I will try to forget you someday

Bhatke hue phirte hain kai lafz jo dil main
Duniyaa ne diyaa vaqt to likhenge kisi din

These wandering words that are roaming my heart
If the world gives time, I will write them someday
~ Read Urdu Poetry

Ajnabi jaanke guzre to koi baat na thi
Par tum jaankar bhi kyun anjaan rehna chahte ho?

It doesn't matter if you pass as a stranger like any other
But why are you aloof and unknown even when you know me?

Beautiful Thought

Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.

Fun with Football Names

If you played football for Brazil, what would be your popular nickname? Find out from the Brazilian Football Name generator and also get an image of a t-shirt with your Brazilian football name.

Poetry on a Sunday Afternoon

Reading a lovely ghazal, on a slow Sunday afternoon, listening to Complicated Heart.

...I don't know what you're thinking
To me it seems quite tough
To hold a conversation
When words are not enough...

Hamaare dil pe jo zakhmon kaa baab likhaa hai
The chapters of hurt that you've written on my heart

Hamaare dil pe jo zakhmon kaa baab likhaa hai
Usii main vaqt kaa saara hisaab likhaa hai

The chapters of hurt that you've written on my heart
Are the ones with the calculations (expenses) of my life

Kuch aur kaam to ham se na ho sakaa lekin
Tumhaare hijr kaa ek ek azaab likhaa hai

I could not do any other work except
Pen down each pain of your separation

Suluuk nishtaron jaisaa na kijiye ham se
Hameshaa aap ko ham ne gulaab likhaa hai

Don't treat me with daggers drawn
I've always written you a rose

These lines are lovely.

Tere vajuud ko mahsuus umr bhar hogaa
Tere labon pe jo ham ne javaab likhaa hai

Your existence (conscience) would experience for a lifetime
The answer I've written on your lips
~ Read more ghazals of Manzar Bhopali on Aligarians.com

Photo Sharing Web sites

Photo Sharing Web sites: PhotoBucket commands a 44% market share of the online photo sharing space and receives 56% of its traffic from MySpace. PhotoBucket, Yahoo! Photos, Webshots, Kodak Gallery, and ImageShack make the first five and Flickr—even though sixth, with a 6% share, is increasing rapidly gaining 44% in the past four months and up three places since last year.

ImageShack is an image hosting provider while Flickr is an online photo sharing community like PhotoBucket.

Read and view Hitwise statistics on the top ten photo sharing Web sites.

Market Cap. from Google Finance

Google Finance provides dropdown search options, like Google Suggest, and makes searching for financial information faster and simpler.



Market Capitalization of major software companies and their employee strength.

Company - Market Capitalization - Employees

Microsoft - $233.40bn - 61,000

Google - $121.22bn - 5,680

Oracle - $76.45bn - 49,872

Yahoo - $43.22bn - 9,800

Infosys - $39.56bn - 52,700

Wipro - $17.05bn - 53,742

Symantec - $16.71bn - 16,000

Cognizant - $9.10bn - 24,300

Satyam - $5.22bn - 28,624

BMC - $4.61bn - 6,200

TCS - Revenue $2.88bn - 53,329

Note: All mkt. cap. numbers are as of date.
1 billion equals a 1000 million, that is 100 crores.

Web sites as Remote Controls

If popular Web sites were remote controls, how would their user interface be? Take a look at images created by Philipp Lenssen of Google Blogoscoped.

If Google would be a remote control, in keeping with its simple and usable interface and sometimes 'Do No Evil but digress from it policy' it would have only one button 'Start', that's it. Start and watch Google Ads on TV. Done with watching the ads, surf the Net on TV; done with that, then watch ads again, there's no button to stop. Once a Google user, always a Google user.

Comparing Airfare Search Results

Comparing results of Mobissimo meta travel search engine and Farecast airfares predictor search for an airline ticket from Seattle, WA to Boston, MA on July 5. Why these two cities? Because Farecast is in Beta and predicts airfares only between SEA and BOS.

July 5 SEA to BOS Economy Class

- Best deal from Mobissimo $404 (all inclusive) with 1-stop in Denver, CO.

- Best deal from Farecast* $425 with the prediction as 'Buy Now'.
Although clicking on the $425 link takes me to Orbitz where the lowest airfare from SEA and BOS with 1-stop is $406.

If the lowest fare is $406 and the link is from Farecast, why does the Farecast results page show a price of $425, or is it an indicative price for the current week?

* Accessing Farecast requires a login and is by invitation only.

People are searching for airfares and if a Web site can give the exact fare to the airfare searcher without any addons, plugins, popups, or horizontal scrolling in a simple and usable interface then that Web site would easily get loyal users.

Usability: Mobissimo provides good deals. They should cut down on the number of results shown on one page. They show about 40 odd airfares on one page. Chances are that a user finds the best deal in the first 5-10 results. The other results can be shown with a 'Next' link. This would prevent scrolling and make the results page compact.

Note: Above links show airfare results for searches made today and the prices may change depending on the availability of tickets. That's where Farecast can help. At the same time, if one can find the best deal on Mobissimo right away, then why would one wait to buy an airline ticket?

More on Farecast once I try a few more searches. They have a slider feature for setting the prices and dates, although a dropdown would be simpler and easier, instead of a slider. The slider feature is, I suppose, unique—however a dropdown box provides better usability.

Update: Tue., June 27, 2006

Related:
Searchenginewatch on Farecast and Farecompare.

Pre Quarter Finals

Argentina faces Mexico and it's Holland versus Portugal in the pre quarter-finals of the 2006 football world cup. England takes on Ecuador and Germany plays Sweden in the other pre quarter final matches. Eight slots are yet to be decided.

Beautiful Quote

A beautiful thought for today.

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.
~ Ray Bradbury

Time profiles Bombay

Time magazine profiles Bombay.

If you're visitng Bombay from abroad, here are five quintessentially 'Bombay' things to do.

- Eat a vada pav
- Watch a Hindi movie
- Take a walk along Marine Drive, from Chowpatty to the parapet of Nariman Point
- Learn Bambaiyya Hindi—the easiest word is Vanda Nai—no problem
- Hang out a Borivali fast local train ;-)

Feedback for Mobissimo

Feedback for Mobissimo India.

The KingFisher airlines link on your search results page takes the user to the Homepage and not the ticket booking page of Kingfisher airlines.

Here's an example of the above.

Why is it so? Is it because Kingfisher Airlines requires a login?

Links

Update: 21 June
Windows XP command line reference.

Update: 17 June.
24 passes and a goal.

What is teamwork? Keep management books aside and watch Argentine Esteban Cambiasso's goal v. Serbia in the football world cup.

Farecast predicts airfares and tells consumers the best time to buy an airline ticket on the Internet. I'm awaiting an invite from Farecast to try their airfares prediction search engine.

Schedule of Football world cup 2006. Argentina plays Serbia at 6:30 this evening and it's Netherlands versus Ivory Coast at 9:30 (IST) tonight.

Share Photos with Google's Picasa Web Albums

Google ventures into Flickrspace.

Picasa, Google's photo finder application, goes online as Picasa Web Albums.

Upload, share, and view your photos on the Web, like Flickr, with Google's Picasa Web Albums photo sharing application.

Here's a sample photo sharing page on Picasa Web Albums. Enter your Gmail address for an invitation to try Picasa Web Albums—the online photo sharing Web site of Google.

Live football scores with FootieFox for Firefox browser

Get live world cup football scores on your desktop by installing the FootieFox plugin for Firefox browser.

See screenshot below. Click the image or link to download FootieFox.



Note: FootieFox plugin is only for Firefox browser. Download Firefox browser. File size: 4.9MB.

Search trends for popular footballers

Ronaldinho and Brazil are the flavour of the month across the world and so it is on search engines.

See Google search trends for popular footballers.



Read what's the buzz about Brazil on the Yahoo! buzz log.

Brazil grinds to a halt; the emerging markets of Latin America are expected to show less volatality, and the 2006 football world cup gets into its groove as Brazil prepares to turn the stadiums of Germany to a cauldron of magic with the talent, passion, beauty, and skill of its mercurial lineup of Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Robinho, Kaka, Adriano, and Roberto Carlos; as it opens its defence of the world cup on Jun 14 at 12:30am IST (13 Jun 3pm EDT) versus Croatia.

Live Football Scores on Google

Google shows live scores from the football world cup. See images below.





Note: Match timings are in IST as the search result is from Google India.

Related Link:
- Personalize Google search with football world cup scores.

Football Search Shortcuts on Yahoo!

Use search shortcuts on Yahoo! to follow the football world cup 2006.

Screenshots of search shortcuts given below. Click the links to see the actual search results.

1. Team page and match schedule



2. Latest group standings



3. Result of a particular game



4. Get the latest score



5. Matches scheduled for the day



Note for Yahoo! - Why aren't these shortcuts available from domain specific pages like Yahoo.co.in and Yahoo.com.br?

Related Links:
- Follow the football world cup'06 with Google. Google also provides live scores by the minute.
- Are you travelling to Germany to watch the football world cup? Here's how you may find best deals on airfares to Germany from USA.

Google Football World Cup Logos

See the subtle changes in the Google football World Cup logo as the search interface changes.

Google.com football World Cup logo.



The Brazil logo sports a golden yellow jersey, the Dutch logo changes to trademark orange, Argentina comes across in traditional skyblue stripes and white, and the shirt colour of the player on Mexico's Google football world cup logo changes to dark green.

Use Google search interface in your language and domain and find the difference in your country's Google football world cup 2006 logo.



Related Links:
- This is an interesting read. Nicknames of teams participating in the football world cup 2006.
- Football world cup blog.

Google Portugal Logo

Google shows a special logo on Google Portugal to celebrate the Portuguese national holiday of Dia de Portugal (Day of Portugal) that honours and commemorates the life of its national poet and litterateur Luis de Camoes (1525-1580).

Use Mobissimo to get best deals on airfares

Use Mobissimo meta travel search engine to your advantage by searching for the best deals on airfares to Europe.

Find best deals and save on airfares with Mobissimo meta travel search engine.

Here's an example:

Suppose you're travelling from New York City to Frankfurt on Jun 18 to watch the football World Cup.

Here's how you can make your trip that much more enjoyable by finding the best airfares with Mobissimo.

1. Search for airfares from NYC to FRA
View Mobissimo search results for NYC to FRA Jun 18
Best deal on 1-way ticket in Economy Class: $922.06
Departs JFK, NYC on Jun 18 at 10:20pm local time
Arrives FRA, Germany on Jun 19 at 02:50pm local time

2. Search for airfares from NYC to LHR
View Mobissimo search results for NYC TO LHR Jun 18
Best deal on 1-way ticket in Economy Class: $434.43
Take a flight from JFK, NYC on Jun 18 at 08:10pm local time
and reach London Heathrow airport on Jun 19 at 07:55am local time

3. Search for airfares from LHR to FRA
View Mobissimo search results for LHR to FRA Jun 19
Best deal on 1-way ticket in Economy Class: $181.75
Take a flight from London Heathrow (LHR) on Jun 19 at 02:05pm local time and reach FRA on Jun 19 at 07:10pm local time.

4. Let's calculate the saving and the extra time that it takes.

# NYC to FRA: $922.06 --1

# NYC to LHR: $434.43 --2
# LHR to FRA: $181.75 --3
--------------------------
# Total: $616.18 -------4
--------------------------

Effective Saving: $305.88 (1 minus 4)

Time difference between a single flight and two flights 4 hours and 20 minutes. Saving: $305.88

5. Note: Rates from the above links may change depending on the availability of tickets. These prices are as of Jun 9 at 08:20pm IST. All prices are in U.S. Dollars. This method works.

Try Mobissimo and save on your airfares. Use Mobissimo to your advantage and find the best deals on airfares to Germany. Enjoy watching the football world cup in Germany with that extra saving. :-)

Related Links:

- Mobissimo comes to India
- Read more about Mobissimo Meta Travel Search Engine on this blog.
- Mobissimo Travel Search Tutorial
- Visit Mobissimo India and Mobissimo France.
- Mobissimo Blog

Technorati Tags for this post.

Tags to categorize this post on Technorati, the blog search engine.

- Mobissimo, Travel Search Engine, Search Engines, Search Engine, Travel, Travel Search, Airfares, Search Airfares, Meta Search Engine, Mobissimo Meta Search Engine, Mobissimo Travel Search Engine, Travel Search Engines, Mobissimo Airfare Search, and Airfare Search

Football World Cup Schedule on Google

Follow the Football World Cup with Google.

- Google provides a schedule of football matches* as a onebox result for searches related to teams participating in the tournament. Click image to view the search results.



- Add a table of Football World Cup scores and standings to your Google personalized homepage. Click the image on the left to personalize your Google home page with football scores and standings.

* The time is IST as the screenshot is from Google India.

Beautiful Lines

A 2-liner for the day. This should have been posted in the evening.

Khushbuu se bharii shaam main jugnuu ke qalam se
Ik nazm tere vaaste likhenge kisi din...

On an evening filled with fragrance with the firefly for a pen
Someday I will write a poem (string pearls of words) for you

Read more on UrduPoetry.com.

Ask.com Blog Search

Try the Blogs and Feeds search of Ask.com. It provides previewing, saving a link to MyAsk, subscribing a blog with your preferred reader, and bookmarking/sharing options from the search results page.

I liked the preview feature (shown a binocular icon on the search results page). It allows viewing the content of a Web page without visiting it. Search for blogs and feeds on Ask.com.

Related links:
- Google Blogsearch, Technorati, Blogdigger, and many more.

A Thought for Today

The best things in life are unexpected, because there were no expectations.
~ Eli Khamarov Surviving on Planet Reebok

- My fortune for the day on Orkut says, "You are soon going to change your present line of work." Let's see. I am exploring a few opportunities, although the line of work may or may not change.

- Received an email this morning from Abhijit who wanted information on Brand Equity quiz. There were a series of questions that appeared in the Economic Times in March 2004 and I had solved almost all of them, of course with help from Google, and had a copy of that email in my mailbox and I readily sent across that email to Abhijit. Also met him on Orkut in the afternoon. If you're a quizzer and you want those 100 odd questions with answers, let me know.

- Found a school friend and another acquaintance on Orkut.

Yes, there's joy in the unexpected.

Google.com Not Accessible in China

An article on BBC says that Google.com is blocked in China with only the government censored Chinese interface Google.cn available for more than a 100 million (more than 10 crore) Chinese users that have access to the Internet.

A company with a market capitalization of more than $118bn succumbs to censorship to make a few hundred million dollars more and says it still upholds its 'Do No Evil' policy.

There can't be a grey area in Doing No Evil, either you are ethical in your business practices or you're not. Google should make a few billion less and give free adwords advertising space to Chinese users to compensate them for not making the world's information available at their fingertips.

Google should change its mission from 'To organize the world's information and make it universally accessible' to 'make it universally accessible, albeit selectively to users in China.'

Why only Google and not Yahoo!? That's because Google is a different company, a company that challenges the mindset, that challenges the regular way of doing business, whether it is with 20% time for employees to work on their own projects or going the Dutch auction way on Nasdaq, or rolling out Beta features of applications at a rapid pace, or organizing unique competitions for programmers and other Google users, for their speed, simplicity, and effectiveness.

Whatever I've learnt on the Internet, I've learnt through Google and if Google is God then it shouldn't care about money. It should care about changing the world, making the world a better place to live, and providing the power of knowledge and information to everyone that needs it.

Come on Google, spare a few billion bucks, lose a couple of million today and make a few billion more later on. Show some spine, don't allow censorship. Do business anywhere in the world on your own terms.

That's what separates Google from the others. Make it true across the world. Don't consent to censorship in China.

Had a thought after reading the article and posted it online.

Update: June 10, 2006.
China allows access to Google.com in Beijing and Shanghai.

Current Music

It's not always rainbows and butterflies
It's compromise that moves us along
My heart is full and my door's always open
You can come anytime you want

I don't mind spending everyday
Out on your corner in the pouring rain
Current music and mood—no I won't say mood, as it's bright and sunny out here, now it has turned a bit cloudy; but yes, I really won't mind spending an afternoon out in the pouring rain, waiting for that someone special, if only she's around somewhere. A walk in the rains or a movie at the multiplex? It's always a walk in the rains for me.
These lines are beautiful...really lovely.:-)

Look for the girl with the broken smile
Ask her if she wants to stay a while...

Know all of the things that make you who you are
I know that goodbye means nothing at all...

Please don't try so hard to say goodbye...try so hard to say goodbye.
~ Maroon 5 - She Will Be Loved

- Read the lyrics of She Will Be Loved (Maroon 5)
- Download MP3 of 'She Will Be Loved' by Maroon 5. File size: 6.1MB.

Steps to download the MP3.
a. Open the link given above
b. Wait for the page to load
c. Go to the bottom of the page
d. Click the Free button
e. Wait for about 20 to 22 seconds after the page loads
f. Enter the alphanumeric code shown on the Web page
g. Click the Download button to start downloading the MP3 to your computer
h. Hope this helps those who aren't familiar with file sharing on Rapidshare.de.

P.S. It's bright and sunny again. Hasn't rained this week.

Screenshots of Google Spreadsheets

Create, view, save, share, edit, and access spreadsheets on the Web with Google Spreadsheets.

For example: I created a spreadsheet of groups and teams in the 2006 Football World Cup.

Click image for a larger view.



Share the spreadsheet by inviting friends to view or edit the document. See image on the right.

Click the 'Open a spreadsheet' link to open a saved spreadsheet the next time you login to Google Spreadsheets.

Haiku on the fly

A Haiku on the fly.

Looking out the half-curtained window
Quiet and slow afternoon turns to evening
Watching a day go by

Wrote the above as a comment on Vinod's blog.

On demand Haiku, in demand current mood and feeling. :-)

Google Spreadsheets Coming Soon

Google plans to introduce a beta Web-based spreadsheet application that allows viewing and editing data while chatting from within the application, that is, a spreadhseet program with access to Gtalk. Watch out for Google Labs to make the announcement later today.

Update: 5:15pm IST. Provide your email address to get an invitation to try Google Spreadsheets.

Hike in Petrol and Diesel Prices

Petrol price is up by Rs. 4/- per litre, and diesel by Rs. 2/- per litre from midnight today.

That makes a 100-rupee note, in Pune, worth 1.84 litres of petrol (without oil) @ Rs. 54.20/- per litre.

What is the price of a litre of petrol in your city? How many dollars for a gallon of gas in the US?

Cricket: Wasim Jaffer Scores a Double Century

Wasim Jaffer showed his batting elegance and, on his third comeback to the Indian team, proved his potential as an opening batsman at the highest level by scoring a double century (212 runs) as India piled on the runs in their second innings on the fourth day (Jun. 5) of the first test versus the West Indies at St. John's in Antigua.

Socring a double century in a test match is an achievement and Wasim Jaffer joins a select few Indians who have scored a double century in the West Indies. Well played, Wasim.

Follow the match and read the scores on Cricinfo.

Good Quote

When you have only two pennies left in the world; buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.
~ Chinese Proverb

Food and Flowers is all it takes to balance expenses.

Lovely Lines

Guzaren jo mere ghar se to ruk jaayen sitaare
Is tarah meri raat ko chamkao kisi din

Stars passing my house should stop in their tracks
Light up my nights like that someday

Main apnii har ik saans usii raat ko de duun
Sar rakh ke mere seene pe so jaao kisi din

I would give each breath of my life for that night
When you would sleep with your face on my chest

Read more on UrduPoetry.

A Thought for Today

Each new morning is the first day of the rest of your life.

Smileys PhotoQuote

A smile is an inexpensive way to change your looks.


Click image for a larger view.

Turn your gaze to the image on the right sidebar of this Web page. How do I look in an orange kurta?

BSNL Dataone Email Settings

For my reference.

1. Settings for configuring BSNL Dataone email in MS Outlook Express.

- Incoming Mail Server (POP3): smma.sancharnet.in
- Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP): smra.sancharnet.in
Check (tick) the box for Outgoing mail server authentication.

2. Download Realtek RTL-8139D ethernet adapter (LAN) driver from DriverGuide. Requires free registration.

3. Link to download ZoneAlarm personal firewall. Filesize: 10MB.

4. Why is the speed so slow? I'm unable to check the speed from 2Wire.com.

5. Software download: USB drivers for Sony Ericsson K750i camera cell phone.

Image Editing Notes

Tips from PhotoshopSupport on fixing underexposed (dark) and overexposed (bright) images.

1. Fixing Underexposed (Dark) images:

- To fix underexposed photographs use Screen blend mode for the duplicate layer. Repeat this a couple of times, if required.
- Reduce the opacity (of the topmost layer) to adjust the look and feel of the image
- Choose Layer -> Flatten Image
- Save as .jpg

2. Fixing Overexposed (Bright) images:

- To fix overexposed photographs use Multiply blend mode for the duplicate layer. Repeat this step a couple of times, if required.
- Reduce the opacity (of the topmost layer) to say 50% or 60% to adjust the look and of the topmost layer
- Choose Layer -> Flatten Image
- Save as .jpg

What's the news from Pune?

Rains ahoy! Roads dug up, flyovers under construction, power cuts—but all that is forgotten with a ride in the rains, getting wet, feeling the wind on my face—with the road bumps :-). This year the monsoon is going to be severe. It's been raining since the three/four days and the monsoon has arrived in Pune.

Did you get wet in the rains? I did yesterday. :-)