Hello world!

Well I decided I wanted to move my blog to WordPress and here I am.  Somehow I was not happy with the blogspot interface and the features it was providing me.  I find the WordPress has a much more cleaner interface and a lot more features (more on that later).  BTW WordPress has a neat little button to import you blog from other sites, so if you are also one of those who have been wanting to move their blog, just sign up and import (other blogging sites also provide this functionality).

no title required

found this rather interesting image..

How we mess up our education system in India.

I have been a student of Kendriya Vidyalaya, and I know for a fact that our curriculum was much better than the state boards.  In fact till the year before I passed out of the X class (1991) we were given 5% extra on top of the percentage we scored in the board exams if were to cross over from the CBSE schools to the state board (In Maharashtra atleast).  We were also required to furnish a domicile certificate if we wanted to get admitted to a state board affilianted Junior College (class XI), I never really understood why were we given such a treatment.  On one hand the state was acknowledging that our study pattern had been better and on the other hand we needed to prove we were Maharashtrians enough !

I wondered why could we not have one single curriculum across India so that students could easily cross over from one school to another.  What is the point have every state have their own bodies which create their own curriculum ? Why not draw the best talent from all states and make them run the National curriculum program?  All we would need are some translators for the vernacular schools.   Guess we just like to give every state the opportunity to spend money on the exact same thing which the NCERT has already worked on.  Also it would give the regional parties a chance to introduce ‘customised history’ lessons. So much for a ‘forever developing nation’ which is short of funds !

I feel there are a lot of simple answers to the big questions India faces as a country, it just needs some common sense and a bit of political will to set it right.  Maybe they just don’t want us to get smart, that way they can keep exploiting us and milking the country & filling up their already overflowing coffers.

Funniest Email Ever

I came across this mail trail at our work from one of our fellow IT guys, I haven’t stopped laughing yet.. omg.. somebody please tell him to stop using the built in thesaurus..

Please click on the thumbnails to enlarge.

English is indeed a bery funny language !!

Scotch Tape Tricks

A very useful collection of Scotch tape tricks, food for thought for a stationery freak like me…

Smoking Kills

Pure and simple. Ok ok… I have been reading it myself over and over again.

Games overtake electrical sector in Japan

Most people give you a wry smile if you tell them you are gamer, guess this story will shut them up. According to another report the worldwide gaming industry is bigger than the Movie Industry !

That surely made me miss my old gaming days…mmmmmmmmmmmmm… what a time that was.. playing Quake III, GTA, MOHAA, CoD, Half Life right into the night.. I did trade this shitty job for that life anyday…lol

Click on the title to read on more.

GMail Ninja

Most people I know have an inbox which holds every email that was ever sent to them thanks to the virtually unlimited mailbox sizes being provided by GMail/yahoo & others. Trust me organising your mailbox will be a fruitful activity especially when you want to find something or keep track of all those emails. With GMAIL we got to realise is that it is not your vanila email account, it has a a lot more capability than you realise. Have a look at these tips and you will realise how much more you can do with GMAIL.

Excerpt from the original post :

The GMail product management team has combined the best of tips into a guide at www.gmail.com/tips, cheekily entitled “Become a Gmail Ninja.” The tips are categorized into ninja belts (white, green, black and master ) based on how much mail you get each day. There is even a printable 2 page version

Home-2009

I watched this movie yesterday and I can’t find words to describe how I feel. Guilt, anger, fear are few words that come to mind. Now we all know what we have been doing to earth with our mindless industrialisation but I think after watching this movie we will have to accept the harsh reality.

Mother earth is dying ! Are we ready to do something about it ?

Synopsis –

In 200,000 years (majority of it in the last 50 years) humanity has upset the balance of the planet, established by nearly four billion years of evolution. The price to pay is high, but it’s too to be a pessimist: Humanity has barely ten years to reverser the trend, become aware of the full extent of its spoliation of the Earth’s riches and change its patterns of consumption.

By bringing footage from over 50 countries, all seen from the air, by sharing with us his wonder and his concern, with this film Yann Arthus-Bertrand lays a foundation stone for the edifice that, together, we must rebuild.

We can no longer afford to bury our heads in the sand and think the danger will pass away.

Another suggested watch on the same lines is the documantery An Inconvenient Truth.

The Missing Link – Use Microsoft Outlook with Google Apps for email, contacts, and calendar

I have been a strong advocate of using Google Apps for business but it lacked a major feature which was of using Outlook as a full fledged client. Well they seem to have fixed this with the release of Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook.

Now you can use outlook to sync all your emails, calendar, & contacts. I am not sure yet whether you can sync notes or tasks. I will soon find out and post an update.

With the release of an offline mode and now this, Google Apps seems to have turned a full circle.

Update : In case that just made you think about deploying Google Apps in your organisation, here a link that can help.

Update 2 : I cannot confirm whether it can sync tasks/notes. I guess they would get added once Gmail itself has notes (it does have Tasks though)