Happy Holidays!

Season's greetings to all! Things have been quiet on the blogosphere for a bit - we've been busy planning our trip to Seattle to visit Vijai, Sarah and Inji! Hope to have some updates from Seattle later this week.

In the meanwhile, there's another free song at Coldplay.com, get it before Jan 5th.

Bonus, video...

iCal sync now available from Google Calendar

Hurray, Google Calendar has launched free two way sync with iCal on Mac OS X.5!
This was number 1 on my wish list of features for Google Calendar.

Thank you Google!

Apple fun on The Simpsons

Enjoy! :)



Update: Original YouTube video was removed, so updated with Hulu link. Only works within US though, sorry!

A new hope

The United States has elected Barack Obama to be the next president of the country. Obviously a historic election but the way that his campaign was run, the strong turnout, the margin of the win and the promises held in his election manifesto give me great hope for the future of America.

Congratulations Mr. Obama, I look forward to all that you have promised.

Indian rocket takes off for moon

Congrats to the ISRO on successfully launching the first Indian lunar mission!



I never get bored from watching rocket and shuttle launches :)

Boxee is da bomb!

If you have a digital media collection - photos, music, videos - and would like to watch it on your TV then you owe it to yourself to try Boxee. Boxee is based on the tried-and-tested XBMC but it's the best version of XBMC I've seen yet.

The latest version even lets you watch videos from Hulu, CBS, Comedy Central.

Watch this.


quick intro to boxee from boxee on Vimeo.

If you need an invite, hit me up!

Dude, it's been 10 years..

..since The Big Lebowski was first released.

The BBC asks if it was a cultural milestone. I don't know about that, I only saw it two years ago, but I'm pretty certain it's a cult hit on DVD.

Looking forward to "Burn after reading" on DVD.

Pictures from India @ Big Picture

The Big Picture is one of the most interesting blogs that I follow. The most recent posting profiles India. Head on over and take a look!

Japan has 21-st century bicycle parking

Check it out, totally rad!



It would be nice to have something like this for BART! Actually, any secure bike storage would be welcome, forget the robotic wizardry.

Google intros Chrome

So, this is verrrryy interesting - after being a robust partner of Mozilla/Firefox for so many years, Google has decided to launch their own browser - Google Chrome (link should be up soon). If that didn't surprise you in itself, apparently Chrome is going to be based on Webkit, the same engine used by Apple's Safari! Like I said, verrrryy interesting indeed.



This can only be bad news for Mozilla, since they make most of their money from their relationship with Google, who now competes with them!

On the other hand, I think this is great news for web users as Google's investment should serve to hasten advancement of browser and web standards.

Windows only for now, Mac and Linux versions should be forthcoming.

UPDATE: If you're technically inclined, this cool toon tells you a lot more about what Google is trying to do and what's different.

London at night

The Big Picture just put up a bunch of awesome pictures of London city. If you like/know London, you're sure to enjoy the whole bunch, head on over.

Tomatoes in bloom

Tomato Flowers
Originally uploaded by Jillako

These are exciting times in our yard, our tomato plants are blooming!

We got an Earthbox when the tomato planting season was all but over. With nothing to lose I planted some seeds but they have done very well indeed and I'm really looking forward to having some homegrown tomatoes!

My Neighbor Totoro

So I watched "My Neighbor Totoro" last night and it's still on my mind this morning. I love animated movies in general, and this was a masterpiece. I think I'll watch it many times before I've had my fill.

It's an anime movie with a simple story, artful depiction of the Japanese country side, cute characters, pretty good voiceovers and many little touches that made me long for the simple life. Also, the 2D animation still blows the pants off many 3D animated movies that are being made today.

It was first released in 1988! I cannot believe that I hadn't heard about it until Netflix suggested it (because I loved "Howl's Moving Castle" and "Spirited Away"). Chalk one more up for Netflix. This one's a winner, I may have to buy it for Anjali.

It's great for all ages, do yourself a favor and watch it with your family! :)

EyePet for PS3 announced

.. and it looks cute!



Since we already have the camera, this should be a fun, inexpensive game. From what I can tell, looks like it will take a year to release (late 2009).

தமிழில் ப்லோக் பண்ணுவோம்!!

கூகுளுக்கு தான் நன்றி சொல்லணும்.

தமிழில் நியூஸ் கூட படிக்கலாம் இங்க.

So, Google added transliteration support for Tamil, our mother tongue. Pretty fantastic stuff. See full details here.

How to hack a technical job interview- Vijai @ Lifehacker

I like Lifehacker but they're not in my Bloglines, which is why I didn't find out until today that my high school pal Vijai was featured in this post last month.

Good one, Vijai. I'd take his talk seriously, he can nail interviews!

XBox 360: Call for action!

I'm only a casual gamer but I'm intensely interested in this generation of gaming hardware. I think this is gaming's "breakout" generation. Nearly everyone is going to have one of the 5 devices out there by the time the generation is done and lot of us are going to be doing more than gaming. Some of the rules that applied to the previous generation will not apply here. The current hardware has a lot more staying power than previous generations. Sort of like the Audio CD. The Audio CD was seen by most as good enough. While DVD Audio and SACD offered better quality, people were happy with Audio CDs and they didn't buy into the higher fidelity.

In a way, Sony has the right idea with their 10 year strategy for the PS3. The Cell chip has enough processing power and by the time new hardware comes out from Nintendo and Microsoft, developers should've learnt to fully utilize all that power.

Anyway, I want to talk about the XBox 360. Against all odds (I'm writing on a Mac, I don't like paying for online gaming, I'm not interested in the Zune), I find myself liking the XBox 360. More surprising, I like it for the software! Yes, Microsoft is definitely doing good on the software front here. Unfortunately, their hardware is falling behind. Here's my call for action to get the XBox 360 back to being competitive. As of now, its falling behind and will likely be relegated to 3rd place in this generation again. Here are a few things Microsoft should do -

1. Bring sexy back.
It worked for the DS Lite. Yes, the games are awesome but MS needs to redesign the XBox.
A few suggestions -

• Get rid of the monstrous external power brick, we need one nice svelte XBox.
• It would be nice if I didn't feel the need to reach for my noise canceling headphones when the XBox is powered on - make it quieter. A slot loading disc drive might help too.

2. Make XBox Live Gold cheaper.
Yes, hardcore gamers don't mind paying for XBox Live but if you're looking to get this into kids' homes, you need to look beyond. Faced with a choice between a Blu-Ray playing PS3 with free online play and a DVD playing XBox 360 with paid XBox Live, guess which one is getting picked? Also casual gamers like me would like to play a few nights a week, but I'm not going to pay for this privilege.
Free would be nice but even $24 ($2 a month) is easier to swallow than the current cost.

3. Include wi-fi.
This is 2008! How many homes have ethernet in their TV room or bedroom? Wi-fi is everywhere. Your wi-fi accessory is outrageously priced and I don't want a Gaming adapter in addition to the noisy console and its huge power brick.

4. Increase storage.
You need to keep up or move ahead of the competition here. 160GB standard would be nice, 320GB for the premium? Personally, I'd like the ability to upgrade the drive myself, but I realize that the non-techie users (vast majority) would prefer to buy these upgrades at Best Buy.

5. Sell Media Center.
How many XBox 360 users who have Vista pay for Tivo? I bet it isn't a small number. MS needs to sell this functionality. Btw, we need the wifi toting, quieter XBox that can fit in a TV cabinet for this to happen. Create a Media Package - the 360 console with a USB TV tuner for those using Vista Premium or Ultimate. For $50 more, you can have a DVR too!

6. Make it reliable, stupid!
Last but not least, the hardware needs to be reliable. MS is lucky the users like the games and software as much as they do. I can't image a mass market device being so unreliable. My unit has been replaced twice in 2 years! I don't have much hopes for it staying alive long after the 3 year warranty ends. It would be nice if there was a trade in option for the older XBox owners on a newer console.

I'd like to end by giving kudos where it's due. These are the things that the XBox 360 gets right -

1. Great integration with XBox Live. Superb online experience.
2. Graphics on par with PS3 even while having launched first and using DVD media.
3. The best wireless controller of the current generation. Feels right, reliable.
4. Best games library of current generation.
5. Media Center is awesome.
6. XBox Live Arcade is best in class. Great selection.

Bollywood @ kk.org

Kevin Kelly is one amazing man. I read his Cool Tools blog everyday and have found so many interesting products through there. However, he is so much more. He founded "Wired" magazine, for one thing. He also runs a whole bunch of other blogs and just seems to be getting so much accomplished!

Anway, back to my post. So I was reading this post on his Conceptual Trends and Current Topics blog and did a double take when I saw the sample picture used to illustrate the face swapping technology being discussed. Check it out and see if you recognize any of these faces :)

How does a lightning strike feel?

I personally don't know, but maybe this user from Flickr can answer that one for you. Here's her video -

Free song from Coldplay.com

Coldplay is giving away another free song. This one is called "Death will never conquer". It's free of cost, so go get it.

Looking under the hood of Google search

Amit Singhal of Google has a very interesting post explaining "Technologies behind Google ranking" over at the Official Google Blog.

It's quite eye opening about the myriad things that happen to make every Google search operation happen. Here's an excerpt -

"Synonyms are the foundation of our query understanding work. This is one of the hardest problems we are solving at Google. Though sometimes obvious to humans, it is an unsolved problem in automatic language processing. As a user, I don't want to think too much about what words I should use in my queries. Often I don't even know what the right words are. This is where our synonyms system comes into action. Our synonyms system can do sophisticated query modifications, e.g., it knows that the word 'Dr' in the query [Dr Zhivago] stands for Doctor whereas in [Rodeo Dr] it means Drive. A user looking for [back bumper repair] gets results about rear bumper repair. For [Ramstein ab], we automatically look for Ramstein Air Base; for the query query [b&b ab] we search for Bed and Breakfasts in Alberta, Canada. We have developed this level of query understanding for almost one hundred different languages, which is what I am truly proud of."

House of cards - Radiohead's new video

So, Radiohead has a new video out and it's making waves because it doesn't use any cameras in the regular sense. Instead it uses some kind of 3-D scanner technology which uses lasers to create 3-D imagery.



That in itself would be pretty cool but they worked with Google (I don't know how Google does it but they get involved in all these neat things) to share a lot of the "making of" information. There's a web-based 3-D Viewer available that you can use to manipulate the video. Because its just data, you can see it at any angle. Very very cool! Check it out.

Hooray for Jay-Z

The man has a sense of humour. After widely reported disparaging remarks from Noel Gallagher about the hip-hop artiste headlining at Glastonbury this year, Jay-Z got back in his own classy way.

First, he included Noel G's comments in the video played before starting his set



And then he proceed to sing Oasis' Wonderwall! :)



LOL!

Also, he gave a stellar performance as well.

Good stuff!

Anjali's Birthday visit to Monterey Bay Aquarium

Click to Play

We took Anjali on her first visit to an aquarium for her birthday. As you can see, she had a bit of fun. We enjoyed it as well.

Anjali did not take much interest in the Sea Otters and Penguins but was very interested in the fishes, the kids play area and the touch pools. She really digs the huge whale model they have hanging from the ceiling.

Another chance to show off the ability to import from the Panasonic Camcorder. Nice picture don't you think? :)

Happy First Birthday to Anjali!

Totally lovin' the ride
Originally uploaded by Jillako

Can you believe that our little angel is already one! At this age, there are no demands for birthday gifts and party, she's so happy whenever we spend time with her! So that's what we're doing today (and what we did Tuesday, when this was taken). It's a family day off. Hope to have pictures of Anjali on her birthday gift (a trike) soon enough.

The $25 iPhone

Now that the iPhone 3G has been announced at $199, Craigslist is chock full of early adopters trying to sell their iPhone to raise cash for a 3G purchase. There are also the folks who passed on the original iPhone looking to pick used units for a song. This guy takes the cake for his asking price though.



Nice try, dude, nice try!

Honeybees, ducks, chicken and dogs

Actually there were goslings and a cow too. I've listed some of the fine animals and birds that Anjali enjoyed the company of today.

We took her along on a field trip with the Santa Clara Beekeepers Guild. I've gotten very interested of late with keeping a bee hive. We certainly have the space and we'd love the honey and the bees seem nice enough.

At one point I was standing near about 10 hives, with the beekeeper handling a frame full of bees from one of the hives. The bees started buzzing around quite a bit and it was a bit unnerving, but everyone seemed pretty calm and wore no protective gear and so I kept my nerves. This particular beekeeper had a lot of bees and though it was interesting to see his operation, we'll probably learn more from some other folks there that had smaller setups. We brought a quart of local honey home with us! :)
I hope the parents will start their own hive in Kutrallam!

Would've loved to take pictures but it appears that the Pentax SLR is broken! :( It is still under warranty and I hope to have it fixed soon!

Look ma, I can walk!

Amazing how fast things develop in a one year old's life. Anjali could not do this 2 days ago, look at her now!

Amazon.com is down

Probably means a lot more to a software engineering couple like App and I but here's what Amazon.com looks like right now -



It has been that way for almost 15 minutes. WOW!

The weekend before a Jobs' keynote

As usual, Joy of tech nails it.



Lots to look forward to on WWDC Monday.

Anjali with her canine buddy

Went bicycle shopping this past weekend and Anjali loved Dino, the doggie at the bike shop!

Weekend Update!

Not in SNL style, but jillako style!

Right now, its hotter than ever this year. The local paper called the weather "hot, sticky, nasty and uncomfortable". I say, it feels just like home (Madras)! Bring on the fans and go crazy with the garden hose :)

Anjali is doing great. She has learnt to use the walker, she is also quite comfortable going to daycare in the day.

We are managing but squeezed for time as full time workers and parents. Anjali's food is made on time but ours is a bit of challenge. The best dinner we had all week was a mish-mash of leftovers from Anjali's food all cooked into one tasty dal curry!

I managed to make chapatis from scratch, hooray!

I found out that 1080p video recorded in 24p mode on the HDC-SD9 video camera can be imported into iMovie w/ Perian 1.1 installed. Yay! Look forward to some good quality videos as soon as we find something interesting to shoot and share!

And I'll end with a clip from a recent SNL Weekend Update. This one is about GTA IV, the highly anticipated video game. I've never been much of a GTA fan, but this clip was funny!



Til' later, adios amigos!

Beware: The Panasonic SD9 Camcorder

In the interest of anyone looking for a HD Camcorder (a probably 1:1 mapping with those that have a new baby), I'd like to advertise this fact -

The Panasonic HDC-SD9 is a great little camcorder. It is currently the world's smallest 1080p camcorder and the video quality is pretty good. However, it does have one big gotcha - you cannot import/edit the video on your Mac or your PC in any straightforward manner.

It crashes iMovie. I had previously tested iMovie '08 with shot on a HDC-SX5, from Panny's previous generation and everything worked great. The SD9 has something different about its video that causes iMovie to crash while importing.

Today, I tried importing on my Windows Vista machine using Sony Vegas and that program went into a hang as well. I'm inclined to believe that this is clearly a problem with the camera.

The video does play back great on my PS3. I think we'll stick it out and see if Apple and/or Panasonic fix this issue.

New Coldplay Music

We love ourselves some music from Coldplay and we're really looking forward to their new album next month. Meanwhile, they are giving away their first single from the new album for free at their website. You can get their new song Violet Hill for free in MP3 format at Coldplay.com

What's not to like about that! Go get it.

New Cricket Ads in Chennai

This one had me in splits. Check it out.



From Arksantos'comment in this post from Hawkeye

If you liked that one, you owe it to yourself to check out the others in that post as well!

"Pandas make you smile"

They really do make you smile! I was suprised to see Anjali really enjoy this video even if she'd never seen a panda before.
Full article at NPR

Anjali's video chat with her Chitappa

Here's a recording Arjun made of a happy video chat session. Anjali loves the song (she knows it well by now) and usually dances to it.

Things are generally good at our end. Anjali is having some difficulty adjusting to her days at the daycare but we hope she will be comfortable soon.

Till later!

The best things in life are free

This post doesn't really have anything to do with the song by Luther Vandross and Janet Jackson but I just realized that song is 16 years old, ouch! Guess I'm not that young anymore :)

Anyway, on to WSJ.com. I really enjoy reading the Wall Street Journal at my work, and I realize that not everyone wants to pay their hefty subscription fee even if their articles are top notch. Well, the good news is that there is plenty of content online at WSJ.com that is available to everyone. For instance, I think all of their blogs are free. Here are a few that I enjoy -

Developments - Headlines from the Real Estate market, always a topic of interest.

The Juggle - Topics of interest for parents who "juggle" challenges in their families everyday. Usually spot-on with many of the challenges discussed.

Marketbeat - Notes from daily market events. Quite useful to follow if you don't obsessively track stocks but would still like to keep track of major events in the markets.

There's many more that are all free. When I'd like to check a blog regularly, I usually just add it to my list at Bloglines (use the beta!), follow it for a week or two and then decide if I'm going to keep the feed. Try it.

Introducing Chumby

A Chumby is one of the emerging class of internet connected devices that can be used around the home. It can be thought of as a cross between a small digital photoframe, alarm clock and low-power computer. This particular device is easy to develop for and thus has a mushrooming collection of widgets available to all users.

Arjun and I got one of these as a gift for my parents for their anniversary. Now they can keep up with blog posts and photos on flickr without having to switch on their computer. (If I got the Gmail widget to work, they could check email too!)

Anyway, the device has no persistent memory, which means it loads everything it needs from the internet when it powers on. I have created a virtual Chumby that is a clone of my parents' Chumby.

Check it out.

Playtime with Anjali

Sorry about the quality, this is from my cellphone!

Another cool Sony ad

Sony does it again. Love it.

I wanted to place the video inline but it screwed up the layout. Click on the link, I guarantee it's worth it! :)

I uploaded this copy so I could share!

Airborne® Settlement

So Airborne turns out to be a hoax. I'll admit falling for this one, hook line and sinker. It was just such a cool thing to do. Putting "prevention is better than cure" into practice. A nice carbonated drink filled with vitamins, we really wanted this to work, didn't we? Oh well..

Here's how to get some money back.

Wines of the last 6 months

Wines of the last 6 months - Part 2
Originally uploaded by Jillako

After a while, I have finally uploaded some pictures of the wines that have been consumed over the last several months. There's too many to summarize in here but I have to say that the Wente Duetto, Mas Malbec and the Rosenblum Rominger Syrah were standouts. More pics and notes at Flickr.

9 months old and quite a handful

Anjali sitting
Originally uploaded by Jillako

Anjali is proving to be quite an active baby. I'm glad we have the space that we do at our current residence. She keeps her grandparents quite busy and we are expecting a second full time job when they leave in a few months!

Here's a picture I like, this one is from last month when she was 8 months :)

A R Rahman Discography - Officially available!

If you've been a fan of A.R.Rahman, it's been hard to keep track of everything that he has released since there are no definitive Indian resources that keep track of this stuff. Even Wikipedia can't cover it all.

I've lamented this from time to time. However, I got wind of his official site today (must be new). It's nicely done. To me, the best part is the Discography section. Very well done with album art and fine details. Kudos to the creative brain behind the website. Now its time to organize my A.R.Rahman collection and fill in the gaps..

Good day out snowboarding

Here's a video that I took yesterday when Arjun and I went snowboarding. He's doing pretty good considering it is only the start of his second day snowboarding ever!