Ahoy!

Howdy cyberfolks! Just writing in to say hello from chilly Fremont. Well, the section of Fremont that we live in anyway. We're huddled around our heater every night trying to stay warm these days. We've also been buying new winterwear. This is odd, because both App and I haven't bought much new winterwear since our first winter in the USA when we absolutely needed the basic fleece, sweaters etc.
I don't know when I will be able to go to the mountains to snowboard. Even though it has been cold, we haven't had much precipitation, so it's a bit of wait and see.
I've been trying to call and announce in person, but for those I haven't gotten around to talking with - App is pregnant and we are expecting our first baby in June next year!
Yes, its exciting and all very scary! :)
Our friends Mahesh and Shuba will be there first though, their baby boy is expected at the turn of the year and it will be fun to see how they cope.
We have a holiday party coming up at App's workplace and we are going to be dressed up for it. Should be fun. Also watch out for the "Train of Lights" - a Niles special.
Adios for now.

I'll just eat one more!

He he he! I know exactly how that feels!

Wine of the last 3 months

Wine of the last 3 months
Originally uploaded by Jillako.

Consumption has been down but quality of the wines has been superb :)

BBC NEWS Flash : Penguins beat Bond at US cinemas

Hey App, I told you this Happy Feet movie thing looked cool. Apparently I wasn't the only one since the movie beat the much hyped Bond movie at the box office this weekend!

Read Penguins beat Bond at US cinemas.

So, we got to see the #2 movie of last weekend - "Casino Royale" and we have to say, we agree with the reviews. It was a refreshing Bond movie. This one was about Bond in the beginning, when he becomes 007. In the key of other such origin movies ("Batman Begins"), this one is also successful. The Bond girls were so-so, and much of the attention was on Mr. Daniel Craig. He fits the role well for this movie. It will be interesting to see him in the next Bond movie though. Let's talk about it here in 2008, then.

Footnote for Ranjit (who didn't buy Daniel's british accent in this movie): Arjun tells me that Mr. Craig is Australian.

Footnote for Arjun (who will have to wait a few more weeks to see the movie): The movie had a simultaneous release in India, even having been dubbed in Tamil for the local movie halls of TN. :) Oz needs to catch up.

Fuel prices are ok now, I need a RAM price drop!!

Has anyone tried upgrading the memory on their computer recently? I want to upgrade the memory on my WinXP computer that I built about 4 years back when I was single. I paid about $60 bucks back then for two 256MB sticks of DDR RAM and I've just about had it with 512 MB on my machine!! So, it's 4 years since and I go shopping for an additional 512MB RAM and what do I find? I can buy some no-name brand memory for about the same 60 bucks that I paid 4 years back. If I want a decent brand, then the prices are insane, like 80 to 90 bucks!! What is going on? Do we have a RAM chip shortage? You know something is wrong when I can buy flash memory for about 1/4 the cost of similar RAM!!

Mike, if you're reading this, I should've held on to my old laptop memory. Who would've thought that it would grow in value as it aged.. like fine wine?

I'm starting to think that flash memory should replace all memory. We already know that flash memory is replacing hard drives in some lightweight computers. Now, make some flash memory that is fast enough to replace RAM and bring the size and prices down!! Please..

It's the week of Zune, PS3 and Wii

Joy of Tech has a humorous take on the Zune. Like the PC & Mac ads from Apple.

My younger sister ramya's wedding is fixed :)

My younger sister Ramya's marriage has been finalized. Everyone in my family is very excited about it. Her engagement is on Nov 19th and her wedding is on Jan 29th. Arvind and I are going to India for two weeks to attend the wedding. I'm very very excited for my family and the fact that I could attend the wedding. Its been a long time since I visited India. I'm planning to do some shopping, relax, enjoy the wedding with my parents and inlaws and return happily knowing that both my sisters are here in US and I can visit them whenever I want to...

Carcassonne

Joystiq has a review of Carcassonne today. If you don't know already, it is a popular board game from Germany. We got this game a few months back and both App and I love it. Check it out if you get a chance. You can always drop by our place for a quick game too :)

Belated Halloween Wishes

We had a fantastic time at Vijai & Sarah's wedding in the LA area last weekend. I managed to get the pictures uploaded yesterday and you might have already noticed them in the flickr badge to the right. Also, yesterday was Halloween night, so belated wishes to you all. I'm sure there are plenty of chocolates to go about this week :)
We had a bunch of kids come by dressed up in their costumes so it was good to have bought the candy beforehand. App's work had a party in the afternoon and I guess it was a big deal for them because they call got dressed in costumes et al. At my work we hardly even noticed that it was Halloween, guess we'll have to learn to have some fun!
It's been pretty chilly here this week, too early for these kind of temperatures. It was wonderful and warm in Manhattan beach over the weekend! Time to start looking forward to snowboarding times.. :)

By way of an update

Projection screen installed
Originally uploaded by Jillako.

Sorry regular reader (that's you in the corner), been a little overwhelmed over the last few weeks. Anyways, things are coming together rather nicely at the house. The latest thing to get installed was this projection screen which cost a grand total of $60 and $3 for 2 hooks to hang it from. Should have done it years ago being that a friend of mine (he knows, he reads, I think!) has been very generous with letting me borrow his projector. :)

I should take some photos of the buddhist temple nearby that serves great food on Sundays. Last weekend, I spent some time with some friends from work and we tried shooting some guns that one of them owns, our targets were plastic water bottles and milk jugs. It was pretty wild to do that sort of a thing but it terrifies me that it is considered regular pastime in this country!

Weekdays are running by fast these days between my commute, regular work at home and the tasks that I still have to do with regards to the move. Hopefully, we'll do some interesting things to share with you soon :)

Till later...

I got a new Sony Walkman!

Life goes on as usual with the exception of the occasional new toy! And today it is my (already) beloved NW-S205F. Sony has to work on their naming convention if they are to compete with the iPod Nano. Anyway, I will blog my impressions about the player after I have used it for a couple of weeks. In the meanwhile, here are my unboxing pictures :)
From Sony NW-S205F...

Gandalf is up!

That's our home Windows PC for you guys! I can say without exaggeration that the hardest bits about setting back up were rewiring the home theater setup and the computer set up. The iMac was a breeze, of course and has been operational since day one but Gandalf took a bit of work. Anyway, the internet connection should be all OK as of today. In other news, work is going along swimmingly and we are due to hand over the old house to our landlady on Saturday.

If you have a bit of free time and have fond memories of cassette tapes, head on over to this site and generate your own cassette, like I did here.



TPTP, btw, was a compilation tape I tried to make every year (TPTP = The Past & The Present). That's a bit of useless trivia for you, but I do have fond memories of making compilation tapes. Seems like I used to make a whole bunch of them back in the day when making each one would take like a month - 15 days to decide on the songs and a week for the music store to record one for you, another week to neatly label and finish off the tape. These days, you can make a playlist in iTunes in about 5 minutes and it already includes all the song information and album art! And how many playlists have I made this year? Try ZERO. Hmm, something's wrong there.

My commute these days, takes me through wonderful Niles Canyon. I'll have to dedicate a whole post to this area sometime but suffice to know that it is as good a commute as any I have had and the longer (than was usual) drive gives me a chance to catch up with all the tunes on my iPod. I miss bicycling though.

That's it for now, more later.

And now reporting from Fremont, it is ..

Just us again! Glad to be posting again. This one is from work but hope to be able to post from home soon too. The physical aspect of moving is done but so many little tasks remain. It feels like I am forever searching for little things that I don't know where to find. Today, it is my USB cable for my Walkman phone. Hopefully App can repeat her wonderful performance from last night and find it for me (yesterday was the accesories box for my MZ-RH1). :)

Also, the internet connection at home is acting up at random times and I would really like to have that fixed before I lose my wits. Having Vonage for our home phone makes us dependent on the internet a whole lot more than it would otherwise. I was browsing the Verizon site today, FiOS is so good but doesn't look to be an option for me. Funny enough, it is cheaper and faster!

Quick shout out to Arjun who should be heading out to Madras in just over a day! Have a fun trip, bro!

Till later, smiles everyone!

We're MIA because we're moving this week!

Sorry folks, I've been really busy trying to get things going for our move this weekend. We're moving to Fremont which will balance out the commute for App and me. The place we're moving to is a bit old but really a nice and spacious house. We shall share pictures soon.
Also, jillako.com is having issues as well. The domain is up for renewal but my hosting company seems to be awfully quiet so I might have to move my digital home too. In the meanwhile, don't be surprised if the blog disappears for a while. It will be back. Also, use my gmail address to contact me in the future.
Plenty of new iPods came out yesterday, check apple.com.

Cheers!

Do dogs love cats?

Well, they certainly love this one! Watch!
The video is just over 2.5 mins be patient for the first minute or so..



Via CuteOverload.com

Is summer ending already?

Labor day weekend is here and that means that the sun will be setting earlier and the evenings are going to be dark soon. It was so hard to appreciate the seasons when I lived in Madras but now they have a profound impact on my life and my waistline. Like most people in the USA, I find my weight increasing in the winter and stabilising in the summer. Now, the objective is to put in enough excercise in the summer so that I come back to the previous year's state before I start increasing again. However, this year I haven't been doing a good job of excercising enough and it is going to be harder when the sun sets earlier. Also, we are soon moving to Fremont and there are no trails that we can get to without getting in our cars and it is going to be harder to get daily excercise. Hope to find some way around that.

That said, winter does bring snow to the Sierras. That means I can look forward to snowboarding trips! Yay! :)

Pink Floyd's Pulse

Hello everyone. The week has gone by pretty fast and by extension, that means it has been a quiet week on the blog here. However, the work week is winding down this afternoon and I wanted to take time out and let everyone that reads know about the recently released "Pulse" DVD.

Now, this concert of Pink Floyd was recorded in 1994 - the year I passed out of high school. To me that seems like yesterday but it has now been 12 years!! I guess my '94 is like Bryan Adams' '69. Anyway, back to Pulse - I have always wanted to see the concert in its entirety and when it was recently released on DVD, I added it to our Netflix queue and promptly moved it to the top spot.
Last weekend, I eagerly awaited the first disc (yes, it takes 2 DVDs!) and had a hell of a Sunday evening watching DVD 1.

I had seen bits of the concert on (M)TV a few times but was still amazed by the show that Floyd put on. As an avid Floyd fan, I was able to sing along to every song. If found myself mesmerized by the awesomeness of the music and just the way all the members of the band came together to sing all their classics. Since this performance was just after the release of their last album Division Bell, there is a bit of all their best stuff.

Looking at David Gilmour lean back and grin at his bandmates while he performed some of the most amazing riffs on a guitar that anyone could, was (please excuse my limited grammar) awesome! The lights show that accompanied the performance was without parallel in any other performance I have ever seen and while the video quality of the DVD seemed on the lower end, the audio was top notch on our home theatre system. I'm not sure if the lights and colours of the concert were stretching the limits of the DVD format or the original recording itself was lacking but I really hope it's the former because I would love to see this concert on a Blu-Ray disc! :)

I had a day's break before I got to watch DVD 2 on Tuesday night and again, it was an experience par none. If I ever doubt the need for a HDTV or a home theatre audio system, please remind me of these 2 nights. The second disc was a non-stop performance of the complete Dark Side Of The Moon album - including all the little sound effects in the original album. Simply amazing, with a surprisingly satisfying encore. I heartily recommend this DVD set to all Pink Floyd fans and indeed, all rock music aficionados.

The surgeon's shoelace knot

I didn't know there was more to a shoelace knot than the simple shoelace knot. That was before I encountered Ian's shoelace site, a whole website dedicated to the art of tying your shoelaces!

In my case, I have a pair of shoes made by Skechers that I really love. The laces are made from some new hybrid material that makes the shoelaces really tough and keep them looking new. However, this new material has very little friction when I tie my shoelaces which means I had to keep tying them about a dozen times a day (only a slight exaggeration) because they keep coming off!! After using the surgeon's shoelace knot, however, my laces stay put all day and I can vouch that this variation on the shoelace knot indeed does work! I was surprised that you can still untie the knot like a regular shoelace knot, just pull.

I have no idea if this is useful to anyone reading this blog but I decided to tell you guys about it anyway. :)

Found through Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools

Death Cab 4 Cutie @ Berkeley - Aug 11th

Death Cab 4 Cutie @ Berkeley - Aug 11th
Originally uploaded by Jillako.

Quick concert report from last friday -

* We liked the Greek Theater. Good location, casual atmosphere, plenty of good seats.

* The band rocked, like, seriously.

* The audience didn't seem to get into the music too much. Which leads me to believe that most of them were not familiar with Death Cab's earlier work, much like us. Everything they performed from 'Plans' (the latest album) was well received.

* Once the lights dimmed out in anticipation of the main act, a whole bunch of folks lit up their pipes/bongs?? whatever, they put weed into. I mean seriously, this in a venue where no smoking was allowed. People were puffing away like steam engines.

* My Sony Ericsson camera wasn't too bad actually. This picture looks decent.

Scramble for Lentils - "dal" shortage is real!

So it wasn't just a rumour after all. I've heard people talk about the lentil shortage and ban on exports by India but I didn't really think it was real. So today, I went searching online and apparently a lot of Indians and Indian Restaurants are being hit hard by the ban!

Scramble for Lentils: "Local retailers still have Indian toor dal on their shelves, but that's unlikely to last. Ajit Kaushal, owner of Bombay Trading Company in Concord, says he's pleading with customers not to start hoarding. 'It will only make the prices go higher,' says Kaushal, who sold up to seven hundred pounds of toor dal a week before the supply started drying up. Since early July, he has had to double the price, which is currently at $2 per pound. "

What's that? Wow, its a Firefox crop circle!!

This past weekend, the OSU Linux Users Group descended on a field in Oregon to create a 45,000+ square foot crop circle of the Firefox logo.





Here's the logo for reference -



Read the story. See the photo gallery.

Via Slashdot.

Joy of Tech cracks me up.

Hahaha. Steve Jobs is about to start talking at the WWDC in San Fran shortly. Of course, the rumor mills have been in full swing as prior to any major 'Stevenote'. Check of Joy of Tech's take on the situation while I check out Engadget's live coverage and report back later today. :)



Late update (25th Aug): The WWDC Stevenote was a bit of a letdown in that Apple decided not to divulge all the features of the next OS (Leopard).
The new Mac Pro & XServe were introduced, as expected and they both look to be pretty good. Leopard looks like a good upgrade to Tiger from what we were shown but key features are still under wraps.

Kinda quiet around here..

I'm back from India and well into the flow of things here. Nothing happening that's really out of the ordinary though, so not much to add here.
The last batch of photos from India (Mahabalipuram) will be ready for upload sometime this week so watchout for that. I'm looking forward to the Death Cab 4 Cutie concert next Friday, with App.
Also, Apple is hosting the WWDC (World Wide Developer Conference) in San Francisco starting Monday. WWDC has not been a stage for important product launches in the past. However, the last few months have been kind of quiet for Apple and there is a lot of buzz around Steve Jobs' Keynote. Come back next week to see if anything interesting turned up.
Til' later...

Random notes from our Kerala visit.

Thrissur: Anaiyootu
Originally uploaded by Jillako.

- The "stew" served with Aapam has no mallu name, it is called stew even by the locals
- 98% of the males sport facial hair
- Everything (and apparently *everything*) is unionized.
- Elite hotel in Guruvayur looks the same after 11 years. The mosquitos were giant sized though, I don't remember that part.
- Temples are generally smaller and the approach to the dieties is from the side so you literally only get a few seconds before you have to move on. Forget waiting for the "arathy" to be shown.
- @Guruvayur - Churidhars are considered pants and not allowed in the temple so women can rent a mundu and wear it with their churidhar tops resulting in a peculiar looking female dress.
- @Guruvayur - If you look like a foreigner you'll probably be questioned a number of times to verify you are really hindu. However, if you look like a local you will not have trouble getting in even if you are muslim or christian.
- True story from our visit: After the Anaiyootu, two mahouts were walking an elephant to the owner's residence when they got into a fight and went their own ways - leaving the elephant scot-free!! Residents were terrified to see an elephant walking about town on its own and called in the police who had to take care of the matter!
- Always pack an umbrella, especially around the monsoon.
- Pay attention to notices asking you to take care of your valuables, even if they are in temples. My father's wallet was picked, and from the front pocket too.
- Kerala is beautiful
- I loved the architecture of the temples and older homes. I wish I had pictures.
- To see the money from gulf expats at work, just drive the road from Thrissur to Guruvayur. The houses speak for themselves.
- I still have plenty to see in Kerala!

P.S.: Plenty of pics @ Flickr, as always. Comments welcome & encouraged. :)

We're back and fatter than ever!

Vistas from the train en route to Courtallam
Originally uploaded by Jillako.

Heheh! Here's a picture from our train trip to beautiful Courtallam (Kutrallam, in Tamil). I had a swell time. Darrell got his first real taste of rural Tamil Nadu. We had lots of local food, snacks and sweets.
Highlights of the 2 day trip were the waterfalls, of course and the musical pillars at the Nellai-appar temple in Tirunelveli. It was also good to catch up with close family in Tirunelveli - my grandmother and chinna-thatha :)
Lots more pictures from our trip on Flickr, be sure to check them out and leave any comments :)

Bombay rocked by blasts, back to normal in 24 hours

Anybody who cares to watch or read news has already heard about last night's horrific blasts in Bombay a.k.a. Mumbai. One has to appreciate the resolve with which the common people in Bombay have handled the situation. Plenty has been said about the official handling of the response to the blast, one word sums it up best - inadequate. The authorities are woefully ill-equipped or ill-prepared to respond to such emergencies. I hope this will spur some changes to the system.
Being in Madras has allowed me to watch detailed coverage in the media about the blasts and the response. I applaud the local folks of Bombay who stepped up to take charge and handle the evacuation of the dead and the wounded to the nearby hospitals. After seeing their response to the deadly blasts, I am not at all surprised that the city is nearly back to normal a day after the blasts.
I hope that the perpetrators are brought to trial and justice delivered. With no clues or claims of responsiblity yet, it might take a while.

Darrell arrives in Madras

Darrell arrives in Madras
Originally uploaded by Jillako.

My parents gave Darrell the traditional welcome with kumkum and flower garland.

Somasundaram playground on a Sunday!

Somasundaram playground on a Sunday!
Originally uploaded by Jillako.

Here's the scene from my parents' house in Madras. We arrived on a Sunday - the busiest day on the playground. There are innumerable cricket games going on simultaneously.

Rachna..

I had a wonderful visit to Florida and a great 3rd year anniversary all by myself. In fact, I enjoyed the quiet weekend alone. I didn't step out of the house on Saturday. Played this game called Animal Crossing for nearly 2 days non stop. So much so that I'm dreaming about the virtual world. So I have limited myself to only 45 mins on the regular work days. Its been really hot here last couple of days.

Oh yeah, coming back to the original topic...my florida trip. Rachna, my niece, is absolutely cute and adorable. She talks so much in tamil. I'm going to make conscious effort to speak in tamil. She said all these tamil words like "kuppai", "kuppai thoti", "daji mattum, ba-blah mattum"(raji only,bala only). She calls raji as daji not amma and balaji as ba-blah not appa. Her expressions and smile can win anyone over. Ofcourse, you better know tamil to talk to her. Her vocabulary is astounding. She speaks tanglish like no other. She says Oopusu(oops - she adds a "su" to any word). Its so funny, even when i'm typing this, I can't help but smile. We went to a mall nearby and got her a Bulid-a-bear bunny. Its actually fun to see her laughing so much. She enjoyed the whole buying the skin and the voice, adding the fluff, bathing and dressing her bunny. I enjoyed the part where she was asked to get a heart for the bunny (cute red heart), she had to say something and kiss it to make it starting beating. Read more about it on build a bear site.

Enough said.. Take a look at her pictures.
Nice Photos

Cute Rachna
Rachna and me
My favorite picture of her
Raji, rachna and myself
Rachna bathing Tracy

A month's wine - June 2006

A month's wine - June 2006
Originally uploaded by Jillako.

Alright, last post before I take off on my flight. Here's last month's wine :) Lots of good stuff.
This month's wine consumption is going to be understandably low, since I don't have much wine available in Madras :)

Heading home this week; Happy 4th

Yup, it's time to visit Madras! I've been looking forward to visiting home for a while. Right now is the longest stretch I have spent without visiting home by far.. 3 years, the previous maximum being about 1 year.
Lots going on right now, both at work and home. I am trying to tie up lots of loose ends before I get out of here and hence the silence on the blog front. I hope to have frequent updates when I am on vacation though.
I did manage to squeeze in a visit to the golf driving range with Darrell to practice my swing. And practice it needs - lots of it. Maybe over the summer :)
I can already hear fireworks in the background - today is the 4th Of July - Independence Day here in the U.S. of A. It really is the closest thing to Diwali. I shall have to try shooting some pictures in the night.
App has been away on a mini vacation with her sister and family in lovely Florida. Maybe you'll have an update from her when she gets in tomorrow, who can say?

Geronimo - the giant sailboat

Geronimo
Originally uploaded by Jillako.

Is this sailboat huge or what? Turns out, this is the record-breaking Geronimo. We came across it when sailing the bay in James' 40-foot sailboat on Sunday. It was a fun trip for me - first time sailing. There are more pics at Flickr. :)

It's getting hot in here!

So take off all your clothes... oops, not so fast, this is the bay area after all :)
Keep a jacket packed, just to be sure. I'll probably be sailing in the bay with a friend from work and will definitely take a jacket to make sure I don't freeze in this arctic water that seems to have a direct conduit to the shores of Nor-Cal.

Anyway, hot weather is here. Pool parties around the corner, had a small start with some dessert tonight. The week went by so so for both App and me. Highlight of the week: App's long overdue birthday present - the Nintendo DS Lite. I'd been waiting for it to go on sale and gifted it to her on Sunday, day of release, well US release anyway. She loves it so far - with just the Brain Age game - tests, calculations and sudoku. Nintendogs wasn't so well received. Oh well, plenty more games to try.

Also been watching some world cup soccer since we're getting all the matches, in HD too. Have a knack for missing all the good goals though, even when I get up early to watch live. Need to cut down on bathroom breaks, etc.? Can't wait for a HD version of Tivo or the Comcast DVR.
Will stop rambling and get to bed now, tomorrow is the Italy vs. USA game!!

HoudahSpot on BlogZot today!

My review of HoudahSpot as seen on MacZOT.com


HoudahSpot helps you tame the wild thing that Spotlight is. For one thing it will not start a search until you want it to and you have options other than searching by prefix. Check it out, free to try for 30 days.

NOTE: If you're seeing this on June 16, 2006 head over to MacZOT, you might be able to get a Free copy of HoudahSpot

Search easily in Tiger, Mac OS X, with HoudahSpot

Sean & Silvia

Bride dances with the groom
Originally uploaded by Jillako.

I just managed to upload the few pictures we shot from our visit to Santa Barbara last month, here's Sean dancing with Silvia after their wedding. There's more at Flickr, as always. :)

Style comes crashing!

This video is too funny for words - watch!



Thanks, Roshni!

A month's wine - May 2006

A month's wine - May 2006
Originally uploaded by Jillako.

Here's last month's consumption - there were some good wines here. The trend looks to continue this month. Also, click through to Flickr to see notes for this and last month's wine (which I forgot to post).

Belkin WiFi VOIP phone w/ Skype

This phone looks pretty neat. Belkin might be learning a few things from making so many Apple accessories, you think? Anyway, read
this article but I wish we had more details like a price or date. If it was $150 or below, I can see myself using this. $100 would be the magic price point at which I would get one for each of my family locations :)

Cute cards...

I got these cute greeting cards for my birthday. One from Arjun and other from my neighbor Elena. So similiar.. I loved both the cards. Thank you both. Check out their cards...
Arjun's Card
Inside of the card.

Elena's Card
Inside of the card.

My wrist is getting better now. Arvind was happy to see me cooking and cleaning our house :) We had a very relaxed weekend.

I'm vacation deprived

Expedia's Vacation Deprivation Home Page has just made it official. For the 6th consecutive year, Americans are the most vacation deprived populace of all developed countries. Americans earn less vacation than other countries and don't use all of that vacation too, leaving 4 days of vacation per year unused on an average!!
Depressing!! I haven't had a long vacation in a while!!

Tim Leffel says "Dear vacation-deprived American–are you nuts?!"

Not just another Apple Store

Apple took the wraps off its newest flagship location (Fifth Ave, New York) yesterday. Here are the pics I liked best.

WOW! It's their grandest store yet, and it will be open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year! When are we getting one of these on the west coast? :) Although, from all accounts, NY truly is the city that never sleeps, unlike here.

The Black MacBook

Apple has released the successor to the iBook (prefer that name to MacBook myself) -

"Now the Intel Core Duo is as affordable as it is powerful. With MacBook, you get the world’s fastest mobile architecture in a beautifully designed notebook that costs less than slower, clunkier models. That’s like getting a sports car for the price of a scooter. Of course, MacBook holds more than your average two-seater: up to 80GB hard drive, an optional DVD-burning SuperDrive, built-in Bluetooth, wireless-ready (802.11g) AirPort, and up to 2GB of RAM. And for the first time ever, choose bright white or sleek black."

Read all the details here.

I personally like the black but will probably buy the white. Being that it's a redesigned enclosure, there will likely be a few hardware kinks that will get ironed out over the first few months. By that time, I should sell my Mac Mini and buy the white MacBook!

UPDATE: Here's a list of what's new with the iBook and why I think it's a great buy at $1099

1. Dual Core Processor
2. Faster bus
3. Thinner case (quarter inch thinner)
4. Brighter screen (Widescreen too)
5. Optical Audio In & Out (Awesome!)
6. Built-in iSight
7. FrontRow w/ Remote
8. MagSafe power connector to protect against trips.

Overall - this takes the cake as the best value Mac!! Just replaced the 17" iMac Core Duo on my list :)

The Evolution of Dance

I found this fun!

YouTube - Evolution of Dance:



Thru One Digital Life

Bloc Party rox!

'Silent Alarm' is a great album, check it out if you haven't yet. Some songs are much better than the others, but overall the album is a good listen and definitely more so after a few listens rather than at the first. Give it a shot!

P.S: App is recovering fine :)

Whee! It's Wii

TIME.com has an interesting write up about Nintendo's Wii and the new controller. He comes out rather positive about the whole experience. I must say that it leaves me wanting to try it. I am usually overwhelmed by all the buttons and actions I have to memorize when playing a game and the Wii controller seems like a delightful replacement. Not to mention that I might finally be able to play games with and against my wife or parents. :)

This is the week of E3, btw. Expect more gaming news.

Beautiful spring days are here

Around now is some of the best time to be in Northern California, we have great sunny days that are not too hot and cool breezy evenings. Wonderful to stroll out in the sun at lunch and walk over the hills in the evenings.

And so it was on a cool spring day that we set out on our planned bike, taste, eat day on Saturday with Darrell and Shoshana, both of whom share a birthday 3 days after App. After driving to Camp Arroyo in Livermore where Shosh works, we had a great breakfest provided by her before setting off on our bikes.

We were riding along, happily anticipating our first winery stop, going down a slope when App's cap flew off her head. Her reflex reaction was to grab the brakes, which sent her flying with the bike. She hit the paved bike trail, head first followed by the bike which landed on her. I was a little further ahead and didn't see any of this, Darrell was behind App however and managed to stop before plowing into her.

He then handled the situation calmly and managed to put pressure on the cut above her left eyebrow, stopping the bleeding. There was blood all over App by now but she was keeping face bravely.
Darrell brought the car back and we hit home before I took App to the Kaiser ER in Walnut Creek, where they took their sweet time X-Raying her hand and stitching up her deep cut above her eyebrow. She is bruised all over with cuts and scrapes but it could have been a lot worse and we're thankful it was just a cut.

I hope she gets normal soon! It's been quite an experience for her as a person that has hardly taken any hard falls like this. I, on the other hand, can't even count the number of times I've had these falls :)

Anyway, the weather is still great and it should be good walking with App and getting her back to normal this week.

Stay tuned for more Apple news this week, the much anticipated MacBook (a.k.a the Intel iBook) is expected tomorrow. There's a new iPod Ad that is up now too.

New Mac Ads

At long last, Apple has launched an ad campaign for the Macintosh.

You can see all of them on Apple's site.

I think an ad campaign is good for the Mac but the ads could've been better. This series is too reminiscent of the Switch campaign.

People need to see the UI and beauty of the new Macs.

Stephen Colbert rocks!

I might not have known him a couple of days back but this man is a hero!
To stand up before the President of the USA and deliver this witty satirical performance takes talent and guts.

Read the full text from his appearance at the White House Correspondents' Association annual dinner -
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/05/1820500.php

Had us in splits.

Later, he called it the best weekend of his life.

You can see the second half of his talk in low-res video.

Thanks to Stephen Maher for the original link!

SubEthaEdit Blogzot on today!

It's Blogzot 2.0 on MacZOT.com! MacZot has tempted me into buying a bunch of Mac Shareware so far but no price is better than free! Especially when it comes to SubEthaEdit from CodingMonkeys, a cool collaborative text editor.

If enough people blog about it, the price will reduce all the way to free. MacZOT and TheCodingMonkeys will award $105,000 in Mac software (that's 3000 licenses worth $35 each) so here's my 5 cents worth - go do your bit!

Mac Newbie Tip #1: Turn on the tabs!

There are a number of things I do to set up my Mac OS X environment when I start using a new Mac or set up a new version of the OS. A few of you that read the blog (Arjun, Sudhish) are starting to use the Mac OS for the first time and I figured that I would write down a few tips here in the hope that they others may find them useful now and in the future as well.

For tip #1, I'll start with Safari which is the default browser included with the OS, a pretty good one if I may add! Inexplicably, Apple ships Safari with a couple of key options turned off.

First, you may want to turn on the pop-up blocker. There's still a great many sites that will annoy the hell out of you with pop-up windows so I find it very useful to turn the blocker on. This is easily accomplished by turning it on from the menu. Here's where you can find it.



Next, I recommend you turn on tabbed browsing. I love tabs in my browser, as anyone using Firefox would also attest. IE 7 in Windows Vista will have this feature next year but Safari has had it for a good few years now. To turn this on, go to Safari->Preferences and select 'Tabs' on the top strip. Here's what you'll see. The keyboard shortcuts are handy too.



As a bonus, try Command (this is the key with the Apple logo) and the comma key. That is an almost universal shortcut for the Preferences window in any application.
Mac Newbie Tip_

Spending time spending money - Pt. 2

I've been meaning to continue this series of short intros to my new toys that I am most happy with. For part two, I'd like to bring up my 20GB iPod click-wheel (4G). I used to own a 40GB version of the same iPod that I sold less than a year back but the prices on these have dropped so much that I just couldn't resist buying one at $100. I already have a vast iTunes library and both our cars are wired for it, so it was a no-brainer. Another addition to my library of personal audio players (yes, listing them all out would be a whole new post!).

So far in 2006 -

1. Sony MDR-7506 Headphones - $90
2. Apple iPod 20GB (4G) - $100
Spending time money_

Happy Tamil New Year!

It's the Tamil New Year today, wishes to everyone - have a great year ahead!

Tamil New Year normally sees a whole slew of star movies but this year everyone's focus is on the upcoming elections in Tamil Nadu. There's still a bunch of movies out though, here's a link to an overview.

Happy Vishu to our Mallu friends.

A month's wine - Mar 2006

A month's wine - Mar 2006
Originally uploaded by Jillako.

I've neglected the blog a bit over the last couple of weeks, hope to get back to normal soon enough. In the meanwhile, here's a delayed look at last month's wine. There were some real surprises here.

Obligatory Boot Camp post

So Apple has been on a tear the last couple of days and it's not just the stock! The whole world has been inundated with the news but being that I have a strong Apple focus, it would be kind of odd to leave this bit out. So, here's the short n' quick post.

It all started with Boot Camp, software released by Apple that makes it a cinch to partition your drive and dual boot into Microsoft Windows. All on the Intel Macs, of course.

Makes things really interesting, now that you can officially boot Windows XP and even Vista on your Mac!

If you decide to do it, don't forget the firmware update you need to apply to your Mac before you do the Bootcamp install.

Game benchmarks are apparently looking good!

If you read the first comment in there, you already know - Parallels has released Virtualization Software for the Mac.. like VMWare.. that you can use to run Windows!!

Would love to try all this stuff out, but I don't have an Intel iMac! Arjun does, however and will be trying some of this out over the weekend.

Happy Birthday to Apple Computer - It's the big three-oh!

Hard to imagine that was no personal computer industry 30 years ago, when Jobs and Woz set out with their Apple I (pictured as a cake here!). To celebrate the special day, I've rounded up some interesting reads.

Macworld takes a look back at the Genesis of Apple, an article that I found most interesting.

PCWorld (yup!) remembers some of Apple's most innovative products that failed.

The SF Chronicle talks about the man behind the Mac and then some about the fanatical customers. Want more? Check A Silicon Valley fairy tale.

PCMag (yup!) recollects 30 years of using Apple Machines.

Forbes chips in with 20 great moments in Apple history.

CNet has a lot of articles that are linked from Apple marks 3 decades.

Wired discusses Apple's finest flip-flops and 30 years of Apple products(monster gallery!) and Steve Jobs' best quotes ever. Also, the best of Wired on Apple.

If that's not enough for you, there's plenty more on Google News.

Spending time spending money - Pt. 1

From the Wikipedia page about "pack rat" -

"A peculiar characteristic is that if they find something they want, they will drop what they are currently carrying, for example a piece of cactus, and "trade" it for the new item."

and

"The term pack rat is also used in English as slang to refer to a person who collects miscellaneous items and has trouble getting rid of them."

Alright, I'm a pack rat. I collect. A lot. Our current house was quite spacious when we moved in here just over a year ago and now its bursting at its seams with things. Some of these things do see the light of day and get used a few times a year but there are a lot of things that never get used, not in a year anyway and so those things have got to go! There are also things that I'd like to use and can't find because I there's too many items to comb through.

I'm on a quest to reduce the number of items I own but its going to be tough, it's against my very nature to throw away anything that my grandchildren might find useful!

On that note, let me get started about my newest acquisitions :)

I have been busy spending time selling a few items on ebay & craigslist to come up with the money to buy some new toys! Here's the first one -

The Sony MDR-7506 Headphones



These well reviewed headphones replaced an aging set I have used since I was in school (pre-1998!)
Anyway, I like them so far.

+ves -

Solid feel.
Foldable design makes it easy to carry. Bonus carry pouch.
Good sound esp. bass.
Closed ear cups (previous one was open) improves sound isolation. I can actually picture myself taking these on my next flight.

-ves -

Ear pads are not quite as comfy as my previous pair.


Apparently, these are popular in studios. My older headphones have now moved to work where they are providing amazing sound for yours truly while at work. Win, win! :)

Look out for other purchases in coming weeks!
Spending time money_

Welcome, new Macintosh users!

I've been a little busy over the weekend but I did manage to iChat with Arjun who was on his new 20" iMac Core Duo! Congrats bro and also to Sudhish who should be getting his new 12" Powerbook G4 this week.
It's great to have you guys on board.
Time to start looking for newer recruits ;)

Windows XP, now on Apple Macs!

Yes, the unthinkable is now possible. The contest has been won by 2 enterprising hackers who managed to get the Windows XP CD to install on an Intel-based Macintosh.

The question is - do you really want to do it? :)

Google Calendar coming

If you haven't already heard, Google Calendar is coming!!
TechCrunch has exclusive screenshots, check them out. I'm really looking forward to this application because I think I might actually use a calendar if it was decent enough and available over the web. Best of all, because of Google's popularity, I am sure that Google or someone smarter will come up with a way to integrate this with iCal!
Google has been on a roll lately (yeah, for about a year!) with a number of cool acquisitions. Check out Writely and SketchUp, both of which are really cool.

In other news, having a run-of-the-mill week. Nothing really special, really should get cracking on my taxes but its all so complex this year!

I'm listening to my old Guns 'N Roses MD right now - remember them? Oh the good ol' times, what an awesome band! Wish they were still making music. Oh wait, GNR is coming out with a new album - Chinese Democracy! But its only Axl, the rest of them are in Velvet Revolver, and they're all apparently still fighting!! Oh well, I'll just go back to the music that was!

End of weekend update

Kirkwood - Coming down Cornice
Originally uploaded by Jillako.

Back from my day trip to Kirkwood today. The snow was good but the whole experience of driving 7 hours for about 5 hours of snowboarding left me tired. I want more 2 day trips!! Oh well..

App had the day to herself for relaxation. Saturday, we caught one of Cafe Intermezzo's hugemongous salads (we still have lots leftover in the fridge after we both dug into it for lunch y'day) before heading out to Rosemount at Alameda to pick up our shipment. Managed to taste some wonderful Zins too. :)

Darrell came over with "The Legend Of Zorro" which we watched with him. If you miss the yesteryear movies of MGR, check this out. It's got all the cliches. They could replace Banderas with Rajnikanth and the movie would be better for it. App suggested that they should make a tamil movie of it but I countered that Sony has made Zorro out of a tamil movie!!

The photo is from today - visibility was poor, it was snowing all day. The run is off a chair lift called Cornice Express.

Origami = UMPC

So the Origami project was a bit of a letdown. It was a teaser campaign for the new Microsoft-Intel UMPC platform a.k.a a small Tablet PC. You can read more about it at Microsoft or Engadget.
Doesn't quite live up to the hype but interesting nonetheless. It's a lot like the OQO (which is available with the Tablet PC OS now) except for the fact that the OQO includes a QWERTY keyboard which is missing with UMPC. The only new feature appears to be the useful Touch Pack interface.

I can see myself buying a device like this (especially if it ran OS X!) if it becomes cheap enough (first models are around $1000). I like the OQO but it's too expensive for my non-needs. I can't spend $2000 on what would essentially be a cool toy! :)

There are some close up pictures of two of the devices here.

Joy Of Tech was not too thrilled with the UMPC / Origami launch.

Tax time already!

It's that dreary time of the year again when everyone's attention is on filing the tax return. Every year, the tax laws in this country seem to get a little bit more complex than they are already. The tax prep industry (yes, its big here) must do some serious lobbying at the IRS to convolute the laws more and more. I've been using TurboTax to prepare my tax return since 1999 and I used to feel it was a breeze back then. Of course, I had no deductions, no stock plans, no interest income even. The form used to be called 1040EZ or the like. Of course, I moved to the full 1040 form a while back and since then every year's prep seems to be more of a time waster than the previous one. Next year, I might just have to go to a CPA (accountant).

This year we got our TurboTax for free (legally!) because the product is made by Intuit, App's new employer! On the topic, she's really liking her new job. I think the change is doing her wonders.

So, thanks to the efforts I'll be putting in over the next week of Tax prepping, you can expect a little lull in the frequency of posts here. You don't want me rambling about tax stuff anyway. In the meanwhile, the gadget connoisseurs can check out Engadget for their awesome CeBIT coverage.

I picked up a cheap used digital camera to take along while snowboarding, so hope to come back with some pictures for y'all on monday! Have a good weekend, everyone!

Get a life, Apple fans!

Another funny Joy Of Tech comic!

Russian River Weekend

App and I had a great weekend at the Russian River Wine Road Barrell Tasting Weekend. During this last weekend, more than a 100 wineries in the Russian River Valley, Dry Creek Valley and Alexander Valley opened their doors to everyone who bought a $5 glass and poured their current and future wines. It was a fantastic event and I'm glad we visited. We had the chance to try some great wine.

Our favourites for the wine - Bella, Siduri, Korbel California Champagne
Our favourites for the atmosphere - Lambert Bridge (live music), Battaglini (friendly folks) and Bella (a great western theme extending into the caves w/ live music!)
Most crowded - Siduri, Lambert Bridge
Prettiest - Hop Kiln (pictured)

The whole area was very pretty even though it rained almost all of Sunday. We stayed in Guerneville overnight on Saturday. Our room was not far from the river and had no TV. Very relaxing. It's definitely a trip I'd be up for repeating again in the future. :)

A month's wine - Feb 2006

A month's wine - Feb 2006
Originally uploaded by Jillako.

Here's what we (mostly I) consumed last month. I'm liking this as a catalog of some of the good stuff we've had.
You can check out the Vertigo that I devoted a whole post to, a couple of weeks back.

The Last Aussie Muesli

The Last Aussie Muesli
Originally uploaded by Jillako.

So the time has come to open the last packet of muesli from the big shipment brought by Arjun last fall! Like fine wine, I savoured every helping of Oz's fine muesli but alas, even after spacing new packets apart by opening a few local American ones in between, it is now time to devour the last one!! Farewell, Australian Muesli.. till next time. :)

The Joy of Tech comic... Apple Special Event

LOL! So Apple's "fun products" were accurately predicted by AppleInsider and didn't excite most people. The iPod Hi-Fi is hardly "innovative"; the Mac Mini gets a nice performance bump but also gets integrated graphics and a $100 price bump; the iPod leather case is ho-hum. The Joy of Tech comic has a humorous take on the whole event. :)
The next Apple Event is expected April 1st!

What is the Origami project?

MicroSoft has an intriguing website called the Origami Project purported to launch a new handheld device. What can this device be? Macrumors has some suggestions.

The buzz appears timed to steal some of the thunder from Apple's expected new products. Although, there is no hint that Steve Jobs will announce a new iPod device tomorrow, Apple is definitely launching some "fun products" tomorrow - AppleInsider thinks that it will be an Intel Mac Mini and an iPod Boombox and that sounds possible to me. We shall see.

The Best of Web 2.0

From Designtechnica: "The next generation of the web is here! With new kinds of desktop-like applications being released left and right, how will you know where to go and what to use?"

I use most of these sites already and plan to try the others. AJAX is helping enhance the usability of the web!

Some updates

Alright, I didn't get to make a single post all week! I had a good 3 day weekend with Vijai, we went snowboarding back to back days but didn't get to take any pictures, sorry. It was fun times at Kirkwood. I've taken a couple of days to get back to normal and get my head around tasks at work. Last Saturday, App and I went to the Rosenblum Open House event and it was *packed*, I mean really packed. They were pouring a lot of wines though so it was fun, we got a pair of their cool Riedel glasses.
Also, last week was pretty cold in the Bay Area and it even snowed at some higher elevations! It was odd but beautiful seeing snow on the hills around Pleasanton. I wish I had taken pictures.
Congratulations to App on her new job. She starts at Intuit on Monday.
One of the eggs in the hummingbird's nest appears to have hatched, hopefully we'll see a youngling hop out soon.
That's it for now, more later.

Livio Felluga's Vertigo

This is the story of a wine, created in Italy by blending 70% Merlot with 30% Cabernet by a winery called Livio Felluga. They call this wine Vertigo and it has become special to App and me.

Here's the history - 3 years ago, on Valentine's day I took App to a special dinner at a nice restaurant called Emilio's. It turned to be among the most expensive dinners I have ever paid for, but it was all for good cause. We were happy and in good spirits, thanks to the good food and the fantastic wine that we picked by chance - a bottle of Livio Felluga Vertigo from 1998. Even to your yet uneducated tongues, it was smooth, full and very good. I took the opportunity to spring out a ring and propose marriage to App (formally) and the night became very special to us. So, these days, we celebrate that occasion more than Valentine's day itself as it is very special.

Back to the wine - during the rest of my visit, we tried to procure the same bottle of wine from local winestores and had no luck.
Afterwards, App managed to get a winestore to special order the same bottle of wine and a month or so later she surprised me with a bottle of Vertigo from 2000. I was pleasantly surpised and thrilled. The wine was obviously younger than what we had tasted and we decided to put in down for a special day.

'Special' day to App was one year later when she started prompting me to open 'the bottle'! After 2 years of disappointing her, this year I quietly planned to open it and sure enough, as we were preparing to head out to dinner this Valentine's, App asked if we were planning to take some 'special wine' with a twinkle in her eye :). So open we did, 'the bottle' and what a bottle it was. The wine was well balanced and heavy bodied, it coated your tongue as you tasted it. I thought it was magnificient. We celebrated 3 years of being together and relished it to the last drop (we finished it the next day, we'd be sauced if we had a whole bottle between the two of us).

Now, if we could find a way to buy another bottle of Vertigo and put it down....

Hummingbird in the neighbourhood

Hummingbird in the neighbourhood
Originally uploaded by Jillako.

We have a new neighbour expecting a new family!! She is just outside our door and is a really hard worker. This hummingbird has set up her nest in a really unusual spot, in a plant just outside our house. I've seen her humming out and about but Darrell was the one who pointed the nest out to me. I took these pictures on Sunday, check them out. I also spied a couple of little eggs in the nest.
A bit of nature in this bay area suburb :)

Windows Vista Home Page

Microsoft has a nice Windows Vista Page showing the main features of the next Windows. In my small Virtual Machine running the Beta, I haven't been able to try the new cool Aero Glass features but I hope to check it out sometime soon.

In other news, I've been busy watching the Winter Olympics. Surprisingly hooked to TV watching some really cool events. NBC's coverage is heavily focused on the US team's performance and thankfully, they have been doing decently well so far.

India is leading the current ODI series against Pakistan 2-1, yay!

Snow storms are on the horizon for this weekend, so Vijai and I are kicked about this weekend's boarding!

I plan to try taking a bicycle up on the hills behind our house tonight, if I like it I might do it more often.

..and Happy Valentine's Day!

Winter Olympics are here

I've been spending a lot of time on the couch this week. I've been playing Soul Calibur 3 which I'm finding hard, there was the Grammy's on Tuesday, tonight I'm watching the opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics at Turin. I have new found love for winter games this year thanks to my own snowboarding :)
This week has been very warm for us here in NorCal and that means the Sierras got no snow and very warm weather that would make the snow icy. In any case, I am going for sure next week when Vijai comes over so I'm taking it quiet this weekend. Also, I might be getting a cold. Oh well, I'll just watch more TV!
Btw, App and I went to a .NET user group meeting here locally and I got a disc of the Windows Vista Beta. I'm blogging this from IE 7 in Windows Vista, looks cool so far. So now IE7, FireFox and Safari look pretty identical in terms of tabbed browsing, search box etc. I think Safari was first out though.

Jumping cats!!

DSC_1278
Originally uploaded by junku.

Boy these cats are really jumpy! And good job by whoever took the photos :) Take your time, there's about 125 pictures in all.