Ganpati Bappa Morya

The immersion of Ganesh idol's today culminates a wonderful & grand festival celebrated all over Maharashtra. This year could be said to be the beginning of Political Ganesh Pandals. Almost all big idols had big sponsorships & advertisements from Political parties.

I always make it a point to visit 2 specific Ganesh idols in the city of Mumbai. You guessed it right - the Ganesh idols of Ganesh Gulli & the Lalbaugcharaja, both located at nearby places in Lalbaug area, Parel. While Ganesh Gulli's idol is famous for its standing postures & theme based pandals, Lalbaugcharaja is famous for its immense faith among its believers. Its said that Lalbaugcharaja fulfills every visitors' wish.

It was the 75th year of Lalbaugcharaja. By looking onto the enormous crowd on TV, all my hopes of visiting Lalbaugcharaja doomed down. It all happened day before yesterday. when there came in a reference of an ex-employee of my company named Rizwan. Rizwan helped me & few of my friends to join the queue in between at Lalbaugcharaja, through his top class references, to make a successfull darshan of Lalbaugraja & Ganesh Gulli Ganesh idols. I heard that the queues were extending almost 1-2 kms & people waited on an average of 6-9 hrs to have a darshan. Thanks to Rizwan that the entire episode was wrapped up only in a matter of 1-2 hrs. People staying abroad can have a look at the snaps of Ganesh Gulli & Lalbaugcharaja Ganesh idols clicked from my Camera. The snap of the Ganesh idol at Ganesh Gulli is posted on the top. The snap of Lalbaugcharaja was clicked with great difficult & hence appears a bit blurred is posted below.

My 10 Commandments for new Car drivers in India

A new car...wow...a dream come true for many aspirants desperately wanting to drive their own vehicle. If this is not your first Car then no need of reading further. Before you hit the roads on a frequent basis its always wise to carry some handy tips desperately required while driving on Indian roads.

Driving Tips -

1. Practice regularly on empty roads before being a part of the maddening traffic.
2. BE VERY CAREFUL WITH YOUR POWER STEERING. We mostly learn driving on vehicles without Power Steerings & this is where all the problem starts. Since your new Car comes with a Power Steering you will notice that a small turn on the Steering causes your Car to turn more than expected. But believe me, once you get accustomed to your Power Steering you would find yourself handicapped without that. Warning you again: BE VERY VERY CAREFUL WITH YOUR POWER STEERING.
3. Install a Front Bumper metal guard along with a Pointer to give you safety as well as good judgement. The metal guard would ensure that your Front Bumper as well as the Engine is protected in case of minor bumpings here & there. The Pointer on the Left Hand Side would give you proper judgement about how much space your Car occupies on the road.
4. Practice U-turn & Parking with Reverse gear ample number of times. Do remember that you can park your Car much more precisely while Parking using the Reverse gear. While practicing U-turn do not accelerate much else you might end up ramming your Car onto the divider (just like I had done :-). While negotiating a U-turn drive very slowly & use the Steering based upon how much the Car is turning. Practicing U-turn would also give you a better control over your Power Steering.
5. Have a practice of looking onto all your mirrors (Left, Right & Rear View) during driving. Negligence can lead to accidents.
6. DO NOT TAKE SHORT LEFT TURNS. Remember, judging your Car's left portion of the body is much difficult as compared to the right, since you drive while sitting on the right. Whenever you try to overtake someone or try to take a left turn, turn slightly right before you turn left. This would give your Car the bare minimum space required to take the turn. A short left turn can also turn out to be very costly if you are Parking your Car in a congested area. You might end up having dents on your left doors or the rear bumper.
7. APPLY BRAKES GRADUALLY rather than applying suddent brakes. Suddent braking causes inconvenience to people in the traffic, & can also cause damage to the rear portion of you Car if someone ramms onto your Car due to sudden braking.
8. How much ever gentleman you are, you need to be very bold, aggresive & need to use abusive language while you are on the roads. Else its a tough day out for you on the field. People can easily take you for a ride if you accept your mistakes while on the roads. Its clear... you are a perfect driver (even though you are not) when you are on the road ;-)
9. Be very confident while you are driving. But never be overconfident. Overconfidence would cause a lot of damage to your Car which would turn out to be very heavy for your pockets.
10. Always keep a Nail Polish of the same colour as your Car's body. In the initial days you are bound to have minor scratches on your Car which can get easily covered using Nail Polish.
    

If you drive regularly for 3-4 months, there are fair chances that you would be a very good driver after going through my Driving Tips. All the best to you & happy journey...

Advantages of using Microsoft Windows Live Mail - WLM

Its almost 2 months since 30-June-2008 when Microsoft disabled the DAV Protocol. The main implication was that you could no more configure your favourite Hotmail / MSN / Windows Live Mail account from Microsoft's FREE Mail Client, Outlook Express. As an alternative Microsoft provided a new Mail Client named Windows Live Mail (referred to as WLM in future references). Initially I hesitated & got annoyed using the same due to its Vista look & feel, but now I have discovered some small but useful features which will tempt you to shift from Microsoft Outlook Express to Windows Live Mail, even for your POP3 & IMAP accounts.

Firstly its the look & feel which is lot more intuitive that Outlook Express. It colour codes your different Mail Accounts for easy differentiation. Screenshot shown below.



Next comes the speed of operation. WLM is surprisingly a light application. Though Microsoft is famous for making resource hungry applications, WLM negates their standard approach. It loads faster & even operates fast. You can also use it in Offline mode when you are not connected to net. Thanks to Microsoft that though it has retained the Vista look & feel it has not retained the resource hungriness of Vista in WLM :-)

And finally the most important feature for the techhies. Just like Microsoft Outlook & Outlook Express, WLM also has associated mail files. The Store Folder which was referred to as Local Folders in Microsoft Outlook Express, is now referred to as Storage Folders in WLM. Screenshot shown below.



But something which has totally changed is the cryptic storage of mails in .dbx & .pst files. WLM stores all individual messages as .eml files; which makes the e-mail messages more searchable in Offline mode. Though the is not according to the Subject of the e-mail, but still each individual e-mail in any of the folders resides as a .eml file. The Store Folder can be located & changed according to one's needs from Tools (+T) -> Options ->Advanced -> Maintenance -> Store Folder . Do remember that the Menu Bar in WLM is hidden by default & can be activated by depressing the ALT key. Since all the mails reside as .eml files in the Store Folder, they can be attached & sent easily to someone without requiring to export such messages. Also the Store Folder retains the exact tree structure of the Mail Accounts that you would see in the WLM interface.

Aren't all these features wonderful? Why are you still stuck up with your old Mail Client, Download WLM switch to Windows Live Mail today!!!

Orkut & Facebook Mobile Clients

Nowadays every application has switched over from PC to Notebook to Mobile. But when you come to your favourite Social Networking sites like Orkut or Facebook you still might not be aware of any kind of application. People traditionally use http://m.orkut.com & http://m.facebook.com to view Orkut / Facebook from their GPRS enabled handsets.

If you have an advanced GPRS connection enabled then probably life becomes a bit more easier. Rather than using a Mobile Browser to view these Social Networking sites you can use Fring (interesting features of Fring have already been described in one of my earlier posts "The Future of Telephony - Mobile SIP Telephony") to do your scrapping & poking for your Social Networking sites.

But how do you do that? I will straightaway go to the Social Networking features in Fring. Once you start Fring on your Cell you need to logon to Fring using a registered Fring ID. Once Fring gets loaded just go to Options -> Settings -> Manage Add-ons . Here you need to check the Orkut & Facebook options & enter their respective login credentials. Once this is done you will find shortcuts to these add-ons on Fring's main screen & when these shortcuts are executed to will find all options that you generally find on the web to use these Social Networking sites. This feature of Fring is really interesting & enjoy your experience with MobScrapping :-)