A sad weekend for Schumi

[Update] The videos have been deleted from YouTube

PS: Thanks TxaportaRacing for the videos

2006 Shanghai F1 videos

[Update] The videos have been deleted from YouTube

Schumacher passing Alonso

Schumacher overtakes Fisichella

Massa's incident with Coulthard

The ultimate cat n mouse game...

Kudoos to Viodentia :) A patch this fast.. you are a genius...

If you didn't know, microsoft updated its PlayForSure IBX component on 23^rd September after Viodentia released ver 1.2 of FairUse4WM [a program used to remove DRM from media files protected with microsoft WMDRM 10 or 11] to circumvent the microsoft patch.

After just 5 days, Viodentia has updated his program FairUse4WM to ver 1.3, that thrashes the microsoft's protection scheme yet again. All this inspite of the lawsuit launched by microsoft for copyright infringement against him.

An interesting interview

Read it @ The Engadget Interview: Viodentia, creator of FairUse4WM

The power of Innovation

This is what people with great ideas come out with... Folks at Moixa Energy have rolled out USBCELLs, AA batteries which can be recharged through any USB port. No need to buy a separate charger as a majority of people now have a computer/laptop with USB ports either at the office or at home.


Just flip the cap of the battery and plug it in to your laptop or desktop to start charging. These 1300mAH NiMH batteries take around 5 hours to charge to 90%+ of their capacity. A pair of these batteries will cost you £12.99 in the UK. USBCELLs can be used in a wide range of devices just like normal cells.

Google maps in orkut

orkut has introduced a new feature by which you can see your friends on a map. It is available only to some users now [probably in beta]. But the maps page can be accessed through this URL

http://www.orkut.com/Map.aspx

Read on at this link.

The funda of partial payment in IPOs

This comes straight from my experience... I applied for the IPO of GMR Infrastructure in the first week of August through an icicidirect.com demat account.

The IPO section in the account page listed GMR Infrastructure Limited. I clicked the Go button against the company and it took me to another page to enter the quantity and price that i wanted. These details were entered. There were two options for the payment, Partial Payment and Full Payment. This was my first venture into the share market. I was also not familiar with the options available in icicidirect.com account. I selected the Partial Payment option assuming that the rest of the amount for the order would be automatically debited from my account when the allocation is done. I don't know what i was thinking at that time, i did not even bother to call their customer service to verify the implications of the Partial Payment option. I submitted the request and my order book showed that my request was in the Ordered status.

I checked a few days later and found that my order status was now Executed. Now came the date when the shares were being allocated. I was allocated the full amount of shares that i had requested for. But icicidirect.com wouldn't let me move them to my trading account so that i can sell them on the day of listing[that was my plan]. I was worried. So i called up their customer care and they told me that since i had not paid the full amount for my purchase, i would not be able to trade these shares until i pay the rest of the amount. They also informed that the company would contact me directly with instructions on how to pay the rest of the amount.

The day of the listing came. Still i didn't get any letter. Days went by and i was sure that my first investment would end up in loss[experts were of the opinion that GMR was a good holding only in the long term. that meant atleast 4-6 years]. Finally on the fifth day after the listing i got the letter. It stated that i had to take an 'Account payee' Demand Draft against a company account specified in the letter and submit it along with the letter to a particular bank branch, also listed in the letter. I took the DD today. Now i have to submit it tomorrow.

The letter also has this,
"Partly paid-up Equity Shares will not be traded until the Balance Amount Payable is received and corporate action for crediting Fully paid-up Equity Shares in your demat account is completed and trading approval in respect thereof is received from the Stock Exchanges. The process of corporate action may take about 2 weeks from the Due Date for Payment of Balance Amount or receipt of payment, whichever is later. During this period, these Partly paid-up Equity Shares cannot be traded." too bad.. :-( i can only sell my shares after a whole month from the date of listing... hope i won't end up in loss.

This all happened because i assumed something and that went wrong. So its always better to clarify things if the stakes are high.

The Partial Payment option is good for an IPO which is expected to be oversubscribed[that too by a good amount] and you are not sure of getting all the shares that you have requested. Always pay the full amount if you are not sure.

Better safe than sorry !!!

PS: The standard disclaimer applies

Be careful with that IPOD... on a plane !!!

Read this real incident about a guy on a plane with an ipod. I'm sure you'll be laughing your hearts out after reading this.. i feel sorry for this guy...

I played WoW, I became a terrorist (story!)

H00ray... I'm goin home...

Hope to enjoy a few days away from the stagnant life@hyderabad.

have to meet some old friends.. hopefully go on a long loooong drive lest all the worries of life...

n choose among the two roads that diverge in the distance...[yup.. u got it right.. i'm a big fan of Robert Frost]

Bon Echo Alpha 3 now availale

Bon Echo Alpha 3, the last alpha milestone of Mozilla Firefox 2.0 was released yesterday. The new features include

• anti-phishing support
• client-side session and persistent storage
• search history along with search suggestions for Google and Yahoo! searches in the SearchBar

The first beta release is expected in june. Get more info @ Bon Echo Alpha 3 Milestone Page

Quit

Not my creation... taken from a fwd...

One day I decided to quit...I quit my job, my relationship, my
Spirituality... I wanted to quit my life.

I went to the woods to have one last talk with God. "God", I said.. "Can you give me one good reason not to quit?" His answer surprised me...

"Look around", He said. "Do you see the fern and the bamboo?"

"Yes", I replied.

"When I planted the fern and the bamboo seeds, I took very good care of them. I gave them light. I gave them water. The fern quickly grew from the earth. Its brilliant green covered the floor. Yet nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo. In the second year the Fern grew more vibrant and plentiful. And again, nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo." He said.

"In year three there was still nothing from the bamboo seed. But I
would not quit. In year four, again, there was nothing from the bamboo seed. I would not quit." He said.

"Then in the fifth year a tiny sprout emerged from the earth. Compared to the fern it was seemingly small and insignificant...
But just 6 months later the bamboo rose to over 100 feet tall. It had spent the five years growing roots. Those roots made it strong and gave it what it needed to survive. I would not give any of my creations a challenge it could not handle." He
said to me.

"Did you know, my child, that all this time you have been struggling,
you have actually been growing roots?"

"I would not quit on the bamboo. I will never quit on you."

"Don't compare yourself to others." He said. "The bamboo had a
different purpose than the fern. Yet they both make the forest beautiful."

"Your time will come", God said to me. "You will rise high"

"How high should I rise?" I asked.

"How high will the bamboo rise?" He asked in return.

"As high as it can?" I questioned

"Yes." He said, "Give me glory by rising as high as you can."

I left the forest and bring back this story. I hope these words can
help you see that God will never give up on you.

He will never give up on you!

Just Be Positive All the Time

Hope i could be this optimistic in life... hmm...

Vim (Vi IMproved) version 7.0

The version 7.0 of the popular editor is out. Some of the new features that have been added are:

• Spell checking support for about 50 languages
• Intelligent completion for C, HTML, Ruby, Python, PHP, etc.
• Tab pages, each containing multiple windows
• Undo branches: never accidentally lose text again
• Vim script supports Lists and Dictionaries (similar to Python)
• Vim script profiling
• Improved Unicode support
• Highlighting of cursor line, cursor column and matching braces
• Translated manual pages support.
• Internal grep; works on all platforms, searches compressed files
• Browsing remote directories, zip and tar archives
• Printing multi-byte text

Download Vim 7.0 @ Vim Homepage

Linux.com has explanations for some of the new features

Bon Echo Alpha 2 released today

Bon Echo Alpha 2, the second development milestone of Mozilla Firefox 2 aimed at developers and testers, is now available. Changes include inline spell checking in text boxes, automatic session restore after a crash and changes to the default tab behavior.

Get more info @ Bon Echo Alpha 2 Milestone Page

++ Bon Echo Alpha 2 review can be found here.

My Google Talk looks like this

This is my themed version of Google Talk ver 1.0.0.92. If any one wants this theme, feel free to contact me.

Light's Most Exotic Trick Yet: So Fast it Goes ... Backwards?

"Slowing down light used to be considered a neat trick for physics wonks. But researchers in New York now say they've pushed light into reverse. And as if to defy common sense, the backward-moving light travels faster than light."

Read on here

Courtesy slashdot.org

Careless Whisper[Ladies And Gentleman] - George Michael

One song that will always be close to my heart...

Time can never mend the careless whispers of a good friend
To the heart and mind, ignorance is kind
there's no comfort in the truth
pain is all you'll find

Should've known better

I feel so unsure
as I take your hand and lead you to the dance floor
as the music dies, something in your eyes
calls to mind the silver screen
and all its sad good-byes

I'm never gonna dance again
guilty feet have got no rhythm
though it's easy to pretend
I know you're not a fool

Should've known better than to cheat a friend
and waste the chance that I've been given
so I'm never gonna dance again
the way I danced with you

Time can never mend
the careless whispers of a good friend
to the heart and mind
ignorance is kind
there's no comfort in the truth
pain is all you'll find

I'm never gonna dance again
guilty feet have got no rhythm
though it's easy to pretend
I know you're not a fool

Should've known better than to cheat a friend
and waste this chance that I've been given
so I'm never gonna dance again
the way I danced with you

Never without your love

Tonight the music seems so loud
I wish that we could lose this crowd
Maybe it's better this way
We'd hurt each other with the things we'd want to say

We could have been so good together
We could have lived this dance forever
But noone's gonna dance with me
Please stay

And I'm never gonna dance again
guilty feet have got no rhythm
though it's easy to pretend
I know you're not a fool

Should've known better than to cheat a friend
and waste the chance that I've been given
so I'm never gonna dance again
the way I danced with you

(Now that you're gone) Now that you're gone
(Now that you're gone) What I did's so wrong
that you had to leave me alone

Foxit Reader - u can use it on the fly

"Foxit Reader is a free reader for PDF (Portable Document Format) documents. You can view and print PDF documents with it.

Foxit Reader is small (the download is 1.2MB), so it downloads quickly. It doesn't need any installation, so you can start to run it as soon as you've downloaded it.

And It starts up immediately, so you don't need to wait for an annoying "Welcome" screen to disappear."

-- an amazing piece of software. It's fast, requires no installation and has an interface similar to Adobe Acrobat Reader.


You can download it @ http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

First try @ macro mode photography

hope you like it :)

Happy Onam

To all keralites out there...

Happy Onam!!!

An evening at Hussain Sagar Lake

Yesterday evening was simply great. It brought back some of the few sweet memories I cherish. It all started with Manu's plan to have the dinner at Eat Street, a multi-cuisine food court on the banks of the Hussain Sagar lake, Hyderabad. A wonderful place to be in the evenings. The food is good and the prices are reasonable.

We were having food and Manu had this idea of going for a boat ride in the lake. I was not interested but decided to join them anyway. It was nearing 8:30. So we hurried with the food and took the tickets for the ride.We had to wait in the boat for some time before the boat started its journey. The boat headed for the 16 meter high monolithic Buddha statue on an island in the lake. It looked great with all the lighting effects.

The ride was fun. :)

n here is Manu Jose, being blessed by buddha. hehehe...