Oriental Desi

Google adds POP mail support to Gmail

2007-03-01T17:57:00.000+05:30

Its just out! now you can pull mails from other accounts to your Gmail. There's a catch though - you can use these features only with POP mail accounts.

According to Google:

Now Gmail can check for the mail you receive at your other email accounts. You can retrieve your mail (new and old) from up to five other email accounts and have them all in Gmail. Then you can even create a customized 'From:' address, which lets you send messages from Gmail, but have them look like they were sent from another one of your email accounts. Please note that you can only retrieve mail from accounts that have POP3 access enabled.

POP mail support was long due from Google. I wonder what will be Yahoo's reaction...

Internet Search Statistics from China

2006-01-30T16:33:00.000+05:30

I dug something interesting today. I was trying get some info from Baidu via BabelFish. And I bumped into a goldmine of statistics. It is similar to Google Zeitgeist; but the statistics are restricted to Baidu only. It gives you an idea of what 100 million Internet users in China have been searching for. There are lots of "Top 10" search terms in dozens of categories.

Sounds interesting? Well like always, you may have to take all those numbers coming out of the Middle Kngdpm with a pinch of salt!

Here's Baidu's very own zeitgeist

P.S: Since it is translated through BabelFish, availability is not assured !!

Mittal launches €18.6bn offer for rival Arcelor

2006-01-27T17:13:00.000+05:30

The acquistion guru Lakshmi Mittal has done it again! But it may not be going be easy this time, because the company he is trying to gobble up is none other than his rival Arcelor, world's second largest steel maker.

Mittal is offering €18.6, which values Arcelor share at €28.21, a 27 per cent premium over last night’s closing price.

If the deal comes through, then Mittal will be reaching the 100 tonne mark easily, leaving behind Nippon Steel way behind.

Here's more on this from FT: Mittal launches €18.6bn offer for steel rival Arcelor

China building its own Sun!

2006-01-23T13:00:00.000+05:30

This will surprise even those who are familiar with the extra-ordinary ways in which Middle Kingdom is trying to conquer the world! If you believe a news story carried in Xinhua, then you might as well be prepared to live in world where China will have its own Sun!! Here's an excerpt from Xinhua article:

It was learned from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) that it will have completed the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) which aims to explore infinite and clean energy resources of nuclear fusion by this March or April.

By then, Hefei will become the first institute in the world to have built an all-superconducting non-circular section nuclear fusion experiment facility, which is generally known as an artificial sun.

It will take quite some time and effort to find out whether it’s the usual communist propaganda or some real advance in technology.
Here’s the complete article: China to complete world's 1st artificial sun

Is Yahoo Acquiring SearchFox Assets?

2006-01-17T16:52:00.000+05:30

As everyone was wondering about sudden decision of Searchfox to shut shop, there seems to be some hope for their technology. In a recent post, TechCrunch syas that Yahoo is acquiring the assests of SearchFox. It says:

Reliable sources are reporting that SearchFox, which announced
that it will be shutting down as of January 25, 2006, has sold its assets to
Yahoo. At least some of the employees have moved over to Yahoo as well.

Here's the complete story: Yahoo Acquires SearchFox Assets

SearchFox will shut down on January 25

2006-01-11T17:44:00.000+05:30

So here comes the first casualty (that I witnessed) of the Web 2.0 bubble !! SearchFox has announced that it's closing down. The services will be stopped on January 25. Here's the excerpt from the mail sent to SearchFox users:

Thanks for all your help in making SearchFox what it is. We have enjoyed
providing this service, and hope that you have enjoyed using it. Please export
all of your links and an OPML file with your RSS sources before the site shuts
down. In accordance with our privacy policy, we will delete all personal
information on January 25 after we shut down the services.

You can find the same message posted on SearchFox blog here: http://3gsearch.blogspot.com/2006/01/searchfox-will-shut-down-on-january-25.html

Well it rather came as a surprise.. although Web 2.0 is getting hyped up too much, I thought RSS world had some true potential.. we will have wait till sleuths are out to find out the reason for the shut down... till then, those million other geeks wanting to build the next best RSS reader/aggregator should think again!

For all those Web 2.0 inventors: Don’t Blow Your Beta

2006-01-10T17:49:00.000+05:30

Here's a ncie piece of advice from Michael Arrington of TechCrunch about how not to blow up your beta.

Certainly there is no set recipe for success (or failure). But there are a number of easy-to-avoid traps when building and presenting a product. Likewise, there are a number of “crowd pleaser” features that always get positive comments.

Very true!!! You can read the full article here: Don’t Blow Your Beta

retrievr: Out-of-the-box way of seaching images on Flickr

2006-01-04T19:04:00.000+05:30

Have you heard of "retrievr" ? I am sure most you haven't; so did I til a few moments ago. But once I discovered it, I am not able to take my hands off it! Its so addctive.. Ok..I will tell you what it is. In the words of the people who created it, retrievr is

an experimental service which lets you search and explore in a selection of Flickr images by drawing a rough sketch.

Currently the index contains many of Flickr's most interesting images. If you'd like to have your images (or the images for a specific tag) added, please let me know. A submission interface is planned!

Well that pretty much sums up what it is. What it does is, it fetches the images (from flickr) that are similar to the one drawn by you on the canvas. Pretty cool, eh? Though retrievr's "image recognition" capabilities are far from being perfect, it is a fresh and interesting (intelligent?) approach in image search. Well actually it can go beyond image search and can offer solutions in dozen other areas like image recognition, authentication, etc.

Try it over here: http://labs.systemone.at/retrievr/

Before You Set Up Shop in China..

2006-01-04T14:42:00.000+05:30

China continues to attract thousands of businessmen from across the world. Everyone is lured by its cheap labor and vast market. But it’s not all that rosy if you look at some of the big names like PepsiCo and Microsoft which have are yet to reap benefits in the Middle Kingdom.

There’s more such cautious advice in this article from Business Week.

Why the Dollar Is Rising

2005-12-30T11:11:00.000+05:30

An interesting article on the rise of U$ dollar: Why the Dollar Is Rising . . . Again

Startup Survival Probabilities

2005-12-23T13:42:00.000+05:30

We've heard it all. Its the usual thing. There's some "stealth" company trying to build the the biggest killer-app; it starts talking to VCs; VCs are gung-ho about the "paradigm shift" thats imminent; VCs starts pouring int eh dollar$ (or Yen, Yuan, Rupees, whatever); there's huge launch party which is covered by NYT; and there are lots of news about beta being tested out by previliged web-gurus; and then comes the bust...within no time, you will read about its asset being acquired some other startup or a private equity group.

Is that all? Are all startups headed toward the inevitable disaster? How many of them will survive. Business Opportunities Weblog seems to be knowing the answer. Here's more:
http://www.business-opportunities.biz/2005/12/22/fact-or-fiction-9-in-10-new-business-will-close-in-the-first-year/

Characteristics of an Ideal start-up

2005-12-23T12:56:00.000+05:30

They say traits of person can be spotted at an early age. Does this hold good for startups as well? Is there way to identify an "ideal startup"? It may not be possible to define and ideal starup, but certainly there are some characteristics that could tell it all. Business Opportunites Weblog seems to be saying something on these lines:

http://www.business-opportunities.biz/2005/12/19/25-characteristics-of-the-ideal-startup/

Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 Released

2005-09-10T03:00:00.000+05:30

Here’s the latest salvo from Mozilla to gain an upper hand in the brutal browser war. Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 has just been released.

Some of the new features in Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 include:

· Automatic updates

· Faster browsing

· Improved pop-up blocking

· Drag and drop reordering for browser tabs

More here from Firefox official site.

So ..will Google acquire Reuters ???

2005-09-09T15:49:00.000+05:30

Wouldn’t it be equity market analyst’s dream come true if numero uno information retrieval company joins hands with world’s largest financial and news info-base? Well, if what Siliconbeat syas is true then such a day may be not too far.

Siliconbeat speculates that Google may be trying to acquire Reuters. Is anybody ready to buy and trust this piece because it comes from a VC industry news source that apparently boasts “We don't usually traffic in unfounded rumors”??

Here’s more…err..little

Google Talk Starts!

2005-08-25T01:47:00.000+05:30

The world media nad blogs are busy writing stories about the launch of an Instant Messaging software by Google. It will be interesting to see what lies in it for Google!

Media war in China

2005-06-10T15:49:00.000+05:30

The past few weeks have seen an increased debate over the media and freedom of expression in China. While the leading dailies across the world are busy publishing stories that criticize the China’s monstrous censorship laws and lack of free press, the Communists are trying their best to water down the whole issue.

Here are articles some article on this issue that make an interesting read. As usual, the Western media portray China as the most censored nation while China itself tries to prove it is clean. Needless to say, the truth lies somewhere in between, and probably little closer to what Western media say.

China cracks down on Web and expats from Chrsitian Science Monitor

You can’t access this if you are in browsing from China! Yeah, there you score Western Media! China loses full 5 points for blocking such an innocuous content!

China’s Chill on Foreign Media from Chrsitian Science Monitor

Surprisingly this isn’t blocked (yet!). Grab your copies before the Master shuts it down!

World media set off a new round of craze reporting on China from People’s Daily Online

Hmm…who’s inst floored by flattery!!!

Campaign launched to crack down on false news from Xinhua

If you haven’t got it yet, it reads “Don’t mess with me”!

Look who's talking about "unfair competition"

2005-06-10T09:25:00.000+05:30

Xinhua reports that Huawei has accused its cross-town rival ZTE of unfair competition. It says:

China’s Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. had accused ZTE Corp. of unfair competition in a recent deal to build a GSM network in Nepal, and had filed a complaint, the China Business News reported, citing unidentified sources.

“Huawei has filed complaints to the China Chamber of Commerce in Nepal, claiming ZTE’s US$3.9 million bid for the national GSM network in Nepal in April was lower than actual production costs,” the Shanghai-based paper quoted the source as saying. For the same bid, Huawei’s proposal was US$12 million, the paper added.

It couldn’t be any funnier! This is the first time I read “fairness, “competition”, Huawe and China in the same article! Oh yeah, and Huawei is the epitome of “fairness” and “competition”!!!!

Obviously, Huawei’s accusation doesn’t merit any analysis. But the incident itself could be a pointer to the future, as the Chinese vendors are fighting to increase their “overseas sales”. This is going to be interesting!

Alcatel realigns its IPTV strategy

2005-05-14T04:25:00.000+05:30

Just when things are hotting up in the IPTV market, in a rather interesting move, Alcatel has decided to stop the further development of its IPTV middleware product, the Open Media Platform (OMP). Instead, it will concentrate on “system integration” mode and will sell Microsoft’s IPTV middleware exclusively.

LightReading reports that:

Alcatel (NYSE: ALA - message board; Paris: CGEP:PA) is abandoning the further development of its IPTV middleware product, the Open Media Platform (OMP), and has agreed to sell Microsoft Corp.'s (Nasdaq: MSFT - message board) product exclusively, according to several industry sources.

Alcatel has delayed a scheduled “next-generation” upgrade to the OMP while it hammers out its IPTV middleware partnership with Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT - message board), a source close to the situation says (see Alcatel, Microsoft Confirm IPTV Deal).

Looks like Alcatel is being smart enough to tem up instead of fight against with Microsoft. So far Telecom has been mostly out of reach of Microsoft. But IPTV technology will probably be the beginning of a new chapter in Telecom where vendors always stole a march with mind-boggling numbers.

My guess is that with Microsoft entry, IPTV market will probably be reduced to a commodity server market. Microsoft has turned the core of the IPTV offerings into a Client/Server architecture and has already won major deals and poised to dominate the market. On the other hand, the “end-to-end” offerings from the Telco equipment vendors are yet to prove their worth. Excluding some major wins by ZTE, other vendors have not yet announced major deals.

In such a scenario, it makes sense to be with Microsoft’s side rather than fighting with it. So, no wonder that Alcatel has chosen to be on Microsoft's side.

blogger is down

2005-05-12T01:40:00.000+05:30

When I tried posting (at around 10 AM local time), Blogger was down for maintenance. I wanted to capture such a rare moment! So took a screenshot of the message posted by Blogger.

So here’s pic that contains Blogger’s message:

Guess who indulges in India-bashing....

2005-05-10T07:05:00.000+05:30

Came across this interesting article in Indian Express. It throws light on how India’s image is tarnished by none other than Indians themselves. Here are some of the observations in the article that I found interesting:

We as a nation appear to be excessively obsessed about how we are perceived.

As these stereotyped images of India conjured during colonial times fade away today, another one, uglier and more repulsive than the previous, is being created. Events are being exaggerated or blown out of proportion in order to sensationalise news items and thereby make them more appealing to a Western audience. However the culprits this time are not the West or Europeans. The detractors are our own homegrown writers enthusiastically misusing a newfound access to the world stage with each one trying to outdo the other in this calumny.

Use the right forums to seek redress if that is your real intention. Do not sensationalize events to garner personal glory.

…… Western public (like the public everywhere) craves for melodrama which these Indian writers are ever willing to provide even at the cost of truth and honesty.

Although I may not agree with all the views expressed in the article, I couldn’t help but to admit that I felt the same way after reading an article written by the Bloomberg columnist Andy Mukherjee. In that article, Andy Mukherjee tries to tell how Singapore can take a leaf out of Bangalore’s book to create an “urban buzz”.

Although the idea is flattering for Bangalore, the way Bangalore is projected in the article makes the reader wonder whether the article is using this opportunity to denigrate Bangalore. Here’s a line that precisely underlines that: “A series of accidents created the city (Bangalore)”. Excuse me!! Agreed that Bangalore is not a planned city, but trying to take away the credit it deserves by such a foolish remark is as preposterous as saying “an accident created Andy Mukherjee“.

As long as we Indians (or people of Indian origin) don’t stop washing our dirty linen in the public, we are going to be ridiculed and mocked at by outsiders. Also, we should make sincere efforts at correcting things that makes us laughable, such as cows on the road, urinating in public, etc. Once these basic things are set right, I think the fingers pointing towards them will disappear gradually, if not immediately.

Back to work ...

2005-05-09T08:35:00.000+05:30

After a week long vacation I am back to work today. Although it is Sunday, we are working today to compensate for the extra day off that we got during the vacation. Although I had prepared myself to make it as pleasant as possible, it turned out to be the other way round. In fact it couldn’t have been any worse. First off, when I woke up in the morning, my whole body was aching, body temperature was a wee bit higher and I was almost shivering. I knew it’s that dreadful flu! But the vacation is over and I must go to work. So after a great effort I convinced myself that I am alright and managed to climb out of bed and take a quick shower. As I hadn’t bought groceries in the last few days, there was absolutely nothing for breakfast. So I couldn’t take medicines and was feeling hungry and tired.
When I started to office at least the rain had stopped. Somehow managed to reach the office. Within few minutes one of my colleagues broke the bad news that company is being restructured and there would be significant reduction in workforce. Although I did not get hysterical, I did ponder over it for a while. Because, just 2 weeks ago I had decided to stay in this job for a while and said no to 2~3 potential offers. Anyways, it doesn’t bother me much although it will be a point that I will consider for my short-term planning.
I took some medicine after lunch and was feeling better. But no signs of complete relief yet. Hope I will be back with a bang by tomorrow.

My window to the world

2005-04-29T02:30:00.000+05:30

These are the views of the road from my office window. I know it looks pretty mundane.

Window to the world

The first pic shows the IIPC (an IBM joint venture) and GreatWall Technology, two well known IT companies in China.

The second pic shows some apartments.

Window to the world

I took these pictures from camera phone. Just wanted to make sure I have some pictures as a memoir, as I would be moving to a cubicle soon, in few hours.
I am sharing this room with a colleague of mine. Rest of our team members also have similar arrangement and thus 8 of us are located in four different rooms. I personally felt its kind of inconvenient to spread across in different rooms. But everyone wanted it to be that way. But now that there more senior guys demanding their own private spaces, we have to move to cubicles to make way fro them. I am ok with it. But some of my colleagues doesnât seem to like it. They are used to special comforts like privacy, secrecy that come with a room.
So when I come back from holidays, I would be back in cubicle, which I really love anyway.

Holidays are just around the corner

2005-04-28T23:30:00.000+05:30

Yes!! I will be on vacation starting tomorrow. Welcome distraction indeed!! We have a week-long “Labor Day Holiday” starting from May 1^st. Since workload is “relatively” lesser, I talked my boss into letting me have 2 days more and as always as he agreed instantaneously!

I will be traveling to Guilin, a famous historic and cultural city with extremely beautiful landscapes. It’s a 4-day “package” trip. I will be back in Shenzhen on 2^nd May and then plan to spend rest of the holidays in Hong Kong.

This is the best part of working and living in China – you get to enjoy 4 weeks of mandatory holidays. Apparently, Chinese government “planned” this way in order to boost tourism and economy and you bet it does serve its purpose very well, albeit overwhelmingly. Since these are mandatory holidays almost 70% of the workforce across China will be vacationing. So you can imagine the rush and the problems associated with in a country of billion plus. Inspite of all this, these holidays provide a great opportunity for an expat to travel around China.

Initially I had planned to go to another beautiful place called Yunnan. But it didn’t materialize as the tickets were sold out. So finally settled for Guilin. Since I would be having a great time in Guilin and then in Hong Kong, I may not be updating my blog till May 7^th.

Pixela ImageMixer is awful

2005-04-28T00:10:00.000+05:30

I never thought transferring videos from handycam to computer could be so frustrating; definitely not after having done it successfully just 2 days ago.

Last night I was trying to transfer some video clips form my Sony handycam to my laptop using Pixela ImageMixer software. In the process I realized that Pixela could easily be rated as the worst software application ever developed as far as usability is concerned. It’s just awful. The worst thing is that it is so unpredictable and behaves crazy. I easily did this thing just 2 days ago using the same handycam and laptop; but here I am today wasting 3 hours fixing it up.

I don’t know why Pixela’s developers fail to see that they need to follow certain simple and generally accepted principles while designing a GUI. Pixela’s GUI makes a great study for an awful design. It doesn’t follow the standard menu bar, toolbar or context menu approach. Agreed that they want to showcase their creative talent. But that doesn’t mean they have to make it look like a Martian GUI.

I just felt so frustrated that I would’ve smacked the hell out of a Sony or Pixela support guy if they were to show up.

It leaves me wondering why software developers fail to realize the importance of usability.

Eureka!! Eureka!!

2005-04-27T00:09:00.000+05:30

I am almost ecstatic! After a long time I feel I am on a high without having resort to grass or alcohol! The reason behind my current blissful state is my discovery of a unique way to post comments in my blog!!

As I noted in my previous posts, the Internet is highly monitored, censored and controlled by the government. If you still don’t believe in what I am saying, check out this article in MercuryNews.com. So it is extremely difficult to maintain a blog.

In order to overcome this menace, I access my blog through Anonymouse.ws. Unfortunately, Anonymouse.ws doesn’t support authentication. So I cannot post comments on Blogspot.com blogs using my Blogger ID; I have to post comments as an “anonymous” reader.

But that’s a thing of past! I discovered today that I could log on to my blog through Babelfish! (it’s such a lovely tool, I love it).

Since Anonymouse.ws is down for the last 2 days, I wanted to find out whether I can access my blog through Babelfish. When I typed the URL of my blog in Babelfish and pressed enter, it displayed my blog almost instantaneously. When I tried to post a comment (using my Blogger ID and password), I was thrilled to find out that it worked! This is the beauty of internet- no matter what they do, freedom prevails.

An unexpectedly great day

2005-04-26T12:10:00.000+05:30

I reached home quite early today and had nothing to do. TV programs were as dud as always they’ve been. Tried to connect to the net through dial up, but soon discovered that China Telecom has cut off services, as I haven’t paid my telephone bills. I looked out the window and it was drizzling.

That left me pondering what to do. A brilliant idea struck my mind! There are so many videos captured on my handycam; but I haven’t transferred them to the computer. I thought of doing it today.

So I started installing the necessary software and luckily everything was installed without any hitch. Then I connected my handycam to laptop and there I go! As I transferred many video clips it was kind of a travel down the memory lane. I enjoyed watching those clips. I had a hearty laugh looking at the videos shot during Bheemeswari (its an amazing place) trip, which apparently turned out to be a “team breaking” trip!!

Home videos are so much fun. They provide glimpse of your yesteryears and bring back fond (and not-so-fond) memories of the time spent with loved (and hated) ones.

Somebody in China tracking my blog and surfing habits!

2005-04-26T00:42:00.000+05:30

Yes. That seems to be the case. Otherwise, how can they suddenly block Anonymouse out of the blue? I use this wonderful site called Anonymouse to get access to the sites that are blocked in China. It can also be used for anonymous surfing, which makes me feel much safer. I frequently use this site to view my own blog (yes, I can’t access it directly!)

When I tried to access Anonymouse this morning, “Page not Found” was the last page in the internet I expected. But that was to be the case. I have trying to access many times, tweaking around with my browser settings, but nothing seems to be working.

And with it also goes my access to Google News, which is intermittently blocked. Its almost 4 in the afternoon and I haven’t read today’s headlines yet. Aaargghhhh….

Chinese Media

2005-04-25T00:18:00.000+05:30

I must thank Michael Parikh for rekindling my interest on this subject. It was because of his comment that I decided to give shape to my lingering thoughts about Chinese media.

If there is one thing that I really hate about China, it ought to be the media. Only those who have lived here can understand and explain how hard it is to get open and unbiased news. I am not disputing the fact that media toes the line of the ruling elite (did I say CNN? J) in all parts of the world. But they are generally accepted to be unbiased and transparent. Even in a not so developed country like India, media is almost independent.

But in China, you have to experience to believe it. China might be putting up a good show with an impressive economy and infrastructure, but it has still retained its “propaganda” agenda when it comes to media. I am not talking about Communist trying to direct the course of the media or shaping up the minds of its billion plus population. That’s a given and I cant complain much about it. I am talking about plain simple news.

If there was to be an Oscar for best censorship, no doubt Chinese government will walk away with the honor! Really. Every bit of news is censored. The censoring also spans the Internet.

So when there was so much being written, shown and discussed in the world media about the Sino-Japanese rift, there was absolutely no coverage on that subject. The programs/news broadcast by foreign media such as CNN, CBS, even Hong Kong channels that made any references to the issue were blocked. (It is common practice in China to throw frustrating ads when the international TV channels air anything that the Communists don’t like). Sample this, the news clip that showed anti-Japanese protests was blocked; but the immediate next news clip showing some pretests in India was left untouched!

The funniest thing is that you will find millions of pages of commentary and analysis written in Chinese media about hot issues in other countries, but not even one that discusses real issues in China!

If you had thought that you could use Internet to overcome the censorship menace, don’t forget the fact that Chinese government is Tech-savvy. So in simple words, government can block access to any site that. So even the harmless, news sites like CNN, BBC, VOA are blocked. Oh yeah and did I till you Google is also blocked frequently (even after Google agreeing with the Government to filter its result to remove any “sensitive” content). All the popular blog sites are locked. Funniest thing is (I must really thank God for it), I can post my blog (domain: Blogger.com) but cant view it (domain: blogspot.com)!! (But thanks to nifty site that lets me browse unanimously, I can get across most of the site blocked in China.)

This explains why Chinese were acting so crazy against Japanese and why they couldn’t get to hear the other side of the story. When there is so much of state control over the media, it is obvious that why average Chinese can’t see the whole picture and simply marches on to the street when the government commands him to do so.

Aargghhhhh!!! I can’t respond to a comment in my own blog!

2005-04-23T23:39:00.000+05:30

I was thrilled to find a genuine comment in my blog for the first time! And it was in fact an encouraging comment by an inquisitive visitor who seemed to have interest reading what I had posted. I was elated and wanted to thank this great soul by replying to his comment.

But within few seconds I realized that I cant post a comment on my own blog! Yeah you heard me right, and this happens only in China! The reason is that, the domain “blogspot.com” is blocked. So I cant view my blog (because its URL is http://orientaldesi.blogspot.com). Surprisingly (thank God!) I can post through Blogger.com!!!

Well I am really disappointed to not have replied to the visitor’s comments. Luckily for me, he has provided his blog’s URL. So I will go through his blog and then dig up his e-mail address and then shoot a mail!

China-Japan Spat to end finally?

2005-04-23T02:50:00.000+05:30

At last there seems to be some good news for diffusing the tensions between Japan and China. The first ray of hope emerged when Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi made known his intentions for a dialog, sent his Foreign Minister to Beijing and openly showed interests to hold a dialog with Chinese President Hu Jintao on the sidelines of the Afro-Asian summit in Jakarta.

Although Chinese were not so forthcoming, they at least did not screw up anything in the last few days. They did some good to diffuse tensions, albeit in their typical communist way. China is scaling down anti-Japanese protests and has reportedly warned those holding protests without state’s approval of dire consequences. This will obviously work, because nobody in China has the guts to go against the government.

The icing on the cake came just few minutes ago when Junichiro Koizumi, publicly apologized for the atrocities committed by Imperial Japan. This is what Reuters says:

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi apologized on Friday for the "tremendous damage and suffering" caused by Japan's wartime past in an apparent effort to help douse a flaming row with China.

Koizumi made the apology during a speech at a multilateral summit in Jakarta in front of leaders from 100 Asian and African countries including Chinese President Hu Jintao, whom he is likely to meet in the coming days.

I can already sense that “anger” in Chinese coming down! How do I know? Well, the number of hate mails that our Chinese colleagues used to dish out to company-wide mailing list has significantly reduced. In fact it is almost nil. There isn’t even a single hate mail since Tuesday. Good for them! Well after all everyone wants to see China maintain it’s aggressive economic growth rate so that they can benefit from it!

I have been closely observing this latest China-Japan spat and it is interesting to note that Japanese have been quite soft and mellowed-down during the whole episode. Are they really that way? I don’t think so. Even though they may be sincere in diffusing the tensions, the soft approach they took basically stems from the bad timing (for Japanese). With Japanese economy still struggling to show a decent growth and China emerging as Japan’s largest trading partner, fight with China is the last thing Japan wants. So Japan seems to have though smart and let go jingoistic national pride for economic growth and stability.

As for China, it maybe grinning with an ugly smile and might even claim to have brought Japan on its knees. After all it provided them a chance to let the super-heated steam out! Since almost every Chinese has let his “anger” against Japan, no steam left in him. So Communist bosses made their seats safe for few more years by shifting the window. An old technique, how long will it last?

Google's googlies

2005-04-20T02:38:00.000+05:30

After having started my blog and successfully managing to keep it running, I got curious whether search engines have crawled enough to recognize my blog. In order to not to disappoint myself, I played extremely safe and entered the exact phrase and hit “enter” expecting my blog to be listed in the first page.

But what I found was astonishing. Because, my blog was not at all listed in the search results. It didn’t figure in the top 100 listings. What is even more disturbing is that almost all the top 10 listings are adult sites, apparently due to the fact that my search string included such exotic names as oriental and desi.

Initially, I thought I am getting a “censored” search result and tried searching through a proxy site. But even then Google threw up same results. I never expected my blog to be listed at the top slot. I am not an expert in search engine stuff but I was hoping to see my blog somewhere within Top 50 listings based on two simple facts: (a) I believed Google is a saner and “lesser evil” search engine (b) Google has the best indexing of Blogspot as Blogpsot is its own backyard.

Then I went onto search in other search engines and consoled myself when Yahoo listed my blog at the top slot. Neither MSN nor AskJeeves seem to have any clue about my blog. I was so amused and literally danced “bhalle-bhalle” after seeing our very own desi search engine Rediff successfully crawling into my blog.

Google not only disappointed me but also left me wondering whether Google has started turning evil in order to keep Wall Street happy? Or is it that people have high expectations of Google?

Chinese, their Gulliblity and their English skills

2005-04-18T23:30:00.000+05:30

Amongst all these boring and ugly tales of anti-Japanese protests going on in China, here emerges a funny fact! I am sure one would be amused to find out how this whole Communist backed anti-Japanese protests have uncovered two interesting facts.

This morning, one of our Chinese colleagues mass-mailed an "appeal" to the comrades. It said how Chinese are selecting the incorrect answer in the CNN website poll and how it is failing their effort to prove (and justify) their outrage against Japan.

The background of this mail is an online opinion poll run by CNN. Just like the all the western media, CNN also is trying to cash in on the whole anti-Japanese protest drama, while at the same time trying its best to not to anger the Beijing bosses. So they are running "balanced" stories (which is very uncommon of CNN) and have posted some opinion polls on their website.

First, CNN website had the following question in their poll:

Do you think Japan should become a permanent member of United Nations Security Council?

If you are a Chinese trying to prove a point (which ahs no meaning anyway!), you will select "NO". And so did thousands of Chinese and so the results really pleased the comrades and their bosses in Beijing. However, this joy was overshadowed by the results of the next poll. In the second poll, CNN website had the following question:

Do you think China's anti-Japanese sentiment is justified?

Without bothering to see what it means, all our comrades hit "NO" again! The results are obviously devastating for the comrades and so they are flooding frantic e-mail messages to educate others to select the right answer! Damn funny! For that matter everything with ant-Japanese protests have been so funny.

Of course everybody knows that one has to take the results of such online polls (and the polls themselves) with a pinch of salt. But the infuriated and gullible Chinese who have never heard of (let alone experience) anything called freedom of speech and allowed probably for the first time to participate in such online polls, wanted to prove their point. And they almost did it!!

The results also proved that Chinese are not used to rational thinking and analysis and that they need another 2~3 decades to master their practical English communication skills.

Oh, yeah, when I am just about to end this post, I got this thought. Isn’t it quite possible that the top echelons of the Party might have put an army of comrades in front of thousands of computers in order to have the poll results in their favor??

Honey, I witnessed the protests!

2005-04-18T10:30:00.000+05:30

These days I have been preoccupied too much with the state-sponsored anti-Japanese protests going on in China. I have been talking, thinking and blogging a lot about this, not because I care any damn thing, but because of the whole drama behind the protests.

I really wanted to witness it first-hand, but couldn't do it because of two reasons: (a) as the media is tightly controlled by China, there's almost no information available about the protests, their schedules, locations etc (b) I have been lethargic and so unwilling to go around the town looking for protestors on the street. I just don’t feeling like getting out of the comforts of my home, especially so during the weekends.

However, today was an exception and I was more than pleased to have got a rare chance to witness some protests in the communist land.

One of my friends wanted to buy some electronic stuff. So we headed off to HuaQiangBay, the city's downtown filled with shopping malls and restaurants, and of course good-looking girls :-).

So we went around lots of shops, saw everything except what we wanted, fiddled with what’s on display and finally managed to escape from the persuasive salespersons. As we were coming out of a shopping mall, we saw lot of people standing along the road. By the time we hit the walkway, we could clearly see the whole road lined with people and police. Initially, there were more police than people. Later on people started to fill in.

We were waiting anxiously to see whats going to happen. We waited for 10 minutes but nothing happened; 15 minutes, still nothing happened. Finally, after 20 minutes or so, we could see some people marching on the street. They were holding some placards (very few), shouting out something against Japan. And only God knows why, suddenly al the people who were watching from the roadside started clapping, as if they were watching some parade during a festival or national celebrations. It was really strange.

Then there was absolute silence. Nothing happened for about 15 minutes. Then there was another bunch of protesters. And again people clapped and laughed. One could hardly sense the kind of tension or anxiety that you typically see during protests. Everyone (spectators as well as protestors) was laughing and going around as if they are enjoying some festivities. It was weird.

And the police were also smiling sheepishly. Some of them seemed to be from the paramilitary and were like new recruits in the age range of 18 to 20. They were made to march from one end to the other end of the road unnecessarily.

When everybody thought it’s all over, some prankster climbed atop the roof of one of the shopping malls. He tried to cover that part of the advertisement on the façade (Panasonic). Obviously he didn’t know how to read English. So he covered only the text written in Chinese. The word “Panasonic” written in English was left unharmed and was clearly visible.

Protesters forced one of the Sony authorized shops to close its doors, and then lined its entrance with bricks and left a pair of sued slippers (later, I saw an aged beggar happily taking possession of those slippers).

You could see almost all the bystanders capturing those “rare” moments in their camera phone and digital cameras. Some even had brought Video cameras to record the whole drama.

By now it was almost 6 O’ clock, dinnertime for Chinese. So all the spectators started drifting towards the nearby KFCs, McDonalds and other fast food chains. Soon the roads were almost deserted, and you could see some uniformed men dotting the restaurants.
So this was the Chinese version of protests that mark their patriotism, anger towards Japan and what not. It was more like a weekend family outing filled with, food, fun and drama!

Ash to be on David Letterman's show

2005-02-07T11:16:00.000+05:30

Just when people were discussing about Ash's appearance on 60 Minutes, here comes another good news. India Daily writes that Aishwarya Rai, the famed bollywood beauty who has around 17000 websites dedicated to her, is all set to be featured on David Letterman's Late Show on Feb 9th.
As for me, its the news that I had been waiting for all these days. I am a big fan of Aish and I really love watching Dave making fun of everything on earth. Watching your favorite star on your favorite talk show. wow that sounds amazing. What more can you ask for.
I was dying to watch this thing happen after watching Aish on 60 minutes. In fact I even planned of sending a suggestion to Late Show guys to have Aish on the show. (Seriously). But the most saddening thing is that I would be missing the show as I would be flying to Singapore on Feb 9th. :-( But I have asked my friend to record it so that I can watch it later.
And I hope that Aish would put on a better show compared to the one on 60 minutes. No offense meant, but with all her talents and skills and exposure to the international glamour world she should be more articulate and sophisticated when appearing on a show. Although I appreciated her efforts to be natural and cool, but looking at the way she moves her hands so frequently and too many giggles that almost swallow what she says one feels that there's a lot of improvements to be made. This becomes all the more important considering the fact that she is trying to break in to Hollywood, where a star is judged by how well she can act in her reel and real life. But she has gone a long way compared to her appearance on Karan Johar's Koffee with Karan, which was pathetic to say the least.
She just needs to add a touch of finesse and flair and there she would be ready to take on the Wild Wild West !

Teaching can be fun..eh????

2005-02-03T15:20:00.000+05:30

Talk about teaching, and I can almost feel nutheads getting on my nerves! Well not exactly, but I do agree that I am not a good teacher, cuz I just dont have the patience of a saint! Well, why am I talking about teaching of all things on earth? Cuz, today I tried 101-ing a friend of mine into blogging. And it really took quite a bit of effort. But it was worth it, cuz she such a sheet nice n warm girl. She has just created her bolg and I hope to see interesting posts on her blog soon.

China Gas to sell up to 10 pct stake to India's GAIL

2005-02-02T07:14:00.000+05:30

As the cliché goes, while the ink in the BusinessesWeek article (India and China: Oil Patch Partners?) is still wet, there comes the big bang! Yes, they have done it! India and China have gone beyond PR campaigns to prove that they are taking the co-opetetion route when it comes to snagging up oil supplies. Reuters says that China Gas to sell up to 10 pct stake to India's GAIL.

Although the event itself may not be shocking or surprising, the timing might have sent many analysts for a six! Energy pundits are closely watching the new courtship between China and India in the oil and gas sector. While everyone was expecting some kind of co-operation, nobody would have though it might happen so soon.

As the world starts speculating about another start of a fresh cold war between these two giants of Asia, India and China are slowly cozying up with each other. They are going out of their way to prove that it is a fresh start and they want it to be a different story this time around. Will this result in the next romantic courtship that other adversaries can emulate to end their decades old rivalry? Well, only time can tell.

Although, mistrust and competition runs deep inside both these partners, they have decided to join hands together in areas they cant go alone or where competition ruins both their interests.

Some of the questions hovering around in my mind now are: what impact will it have on other aspects? Will it herald a new era of peace and co-operation across Himalayas? Will it have a positive impact on Indo-Pak ties? Is US already scripting a strategy to break this nascent relation? Or is it just a stunt by one of the parteners to take a score on the other??

Blocking Google's Ads in Search Results

2005-01-26T15:39:00.000+05:30

If you are an ultra-sensitive ad-abhorrer who cant stand those ads displayed by Google in the name "Sponsored Links", then here is something to make you happy! If you are a Firefox aficionado, follow these simple instructions from Scroogle.org (which apparently is running a campaign against Google for whatever reasons) to tinker a bit of your Firefox settings and voila! All those ads are blocked ! Yes you heard me write. This method is only available for Firefox.

Well those IE fans need not be disheartened. Cuz, there are dozens of KB-sized apps ready to munch all kinds of ads. I particularly like this cute app called AdMuncher which does its job almost perfectly.

Will "Google" Replace "Hello" ??

2005-01-25T21:45:00.000+05:30

Looks like google is not content with the web content alone and it may be well on its way to start "tring"-ing. So we might be just few days away from getting a VoIP app from Google stable. At least thats what this Times
article says.

Based on a job ad posted in the Google's career section, The Times speculates that Google could soon offer a VoIP app (similar to Skype). Well this sounds interesting. It goes to prove the Google's "lateral thinking" capabilities. Time and again Google has thought out of the box and has come out with sanzzy tools whenever we had just thought the Google stream is about to dry up.

If this development is for real, then it just makes me wonder what is the motive behind Google's move into the VoIP space which is already pretty crowded. But then again, its after all Google. Those smart-alecs wouldn't be betting on something that doesn't involve ca$h. My guess is that they are betting on it as a new assured revenue stream that could ensure constant revenues. This sounds logical by looking at the amazing success of Skype. If someone were to dismiss Skype for being largely used as free tool, I would say look at Vonage. Those guys survived an almost bust and have bounced back ..and how.. Vonage is getting increasingly popular with the corporate as well individuals as a cost effective communication solution.

So, like every one else Google may start with a free service and then move onto pay model, or they they might keep PC-to-PC free and start charging for PC-to-Phone..Or wait a sec...they might give all these VoIP app providers a run for for their money by offering free PC-to-Phone service supported by Ads...! Well that sounds quite logical too. It scores another point too. I guess Google is looking at being part of every type of media/content. So they satrted with web, came to hard disk throough Desktop search, went all over the globe through KeyHole, slipped into SMSes through Mobile Search, got onto your idiot box through Video search (y'day)..and obviously they are getting into your ears through this VoIP app. So you could be soon getting a search engine to to search for all those whispering going on behind you!

So Google is about to change the rules of the game yet again! So what's up next on Google's sleeves? It would be interesting to see how Yahoo and Microsoft would react. Did I hear Yahoo and Micsrosoft blaming the snowstorm for their shiver??

2004-09-27T09:23:00.000+05:30

Finally…. I am blogging! Although I am pretty quick in catching the tech bandwagon and trying out lotto geeky stuff, somehow this blog thing had proved elusive. In fact I did make an attempt last year (’03), it proved to be damp squib after a much hyped start. (I don’t even remember the name of that blog!) but this time around, I have promised myself to stay afloat and sail ahead..
In today’s world, especially in the cyberworld, everything is about the name! Everything is in a name..and name does matter. So, the first hurdle was to come out with a catchy n’ clicky name..although this blog, by definition, is meant to be personal and private, it would sure be interesting to let some folks take a peek at good and not so good part of my persona. I mean.. common .. wouldn’t it be interesting to generate curiosity about ur life amongst unknown but decent folks and receive cute mails from them?? Oh yeah, and did u say online privacy, personal info and all that BS? When living in a country where surveillance cameras are mounted all over the place, and where the term “personal” has no meaning in the dictionary, what is the significance of privacy anyway. And frankly, I don’t give a damn. If some sick psycho wants to play around with what I have on my blog, I can’t prevent it anyway.. So my blog will occasionally contain some content targeted at an audience, rather than writing for myself. So finding a catchy name was important. As I am living in China, far away from my home, the trigger/idea for the blog’s content would be from China rather than from India; but it will be processed/analyzed/shaped/written based on the way my mind grew up back home. So I wanted a name that represents this idea: China from an Indian’s perspective. I came out with half a dozen names; but ultimately stuck with two options: “Spicy Dragon”, where “spicy “ represents India and “dragon” represents China. But it was kinda too poetic…so ultimately I was left with the obvious choice, “Oriental Desi”..this is pretty self explanatory, eh?

I plan do a recap on how I landed up in the land of dragon and then fast forward to today or whatever day it is (will be!).

As I write this, I am living in southern-chinese city called ShenZhen. It’s a nice city bordering Hong kong. In fact u can see Hong Kong’s skyline from ShenZhen bay.
I landed here first time in June’02. It was a tough choice, as I had thrown all traditional wisdom and rationality into thin air and decided to come here. My close friend Santosh’s words still ring in ears “Hey goobe..ella bittu China-ge hogthiyeno” (Man! Of all the places, have u decided to go to China!!).. well he might stil want to stick with that opinion (San, if u wish to change ur opinion check out some facts about China here….. http://english.people.com.cn/english/200107/09/eng20010709_74498.html
http://www.sinomania.com
(Some numbers could be riggerd.. so u can consider 70% of the stated value to be actual value !!)

For me, it has been an exciting journey filled with mostly fun and bit of homesickness, missing friends and my lovely home – Bangalore! But I have no regrets and I liked this city so much that after a gap of one year I made another irrational decision and threw my cushy job at HP and came back to ShenZhen. It has kinda’ become my second home – literally and figuratively.