Why-kee-pedia?

I caught my eleven year old nephew browsing the web and I asked him, “What are you up to?” He said, “I am researching on Tamil freedom fighters on ‘why-kee-peedia’. For an essay?”

I was impressed. When I was his age, I had to rely on the government library in Greamspet, Chittoor, for research. The wiry, old librarian was a hostile man. He walked about in those cramped corridors between bookshelves, his shoulders hunched over and his eyes roving: we stole half the books within a week of the opening of the library. The modus-operandi was simple. Pick a book of your fancy, check if anyone’s watching, if no one was, tuck the book under your shirt. And, walk s..l..o..w..l..y. That rule is the same I guess: for shoplifting, bank robbery, and running away from eateries without paying the More...

Comments (0)

RIP Michael Jackson

It was raining and we were scurrying for cover in VGP Golden Beach. It was 1989. I refused to budge. They were playing Thriller. That was the first time I heard MJ. I was transfixed. “What music is this?” I asked someone and they laughed at me. “That’s Michael Jackson, stupid!” Now, I was a small town boy and we didn’t get any ‘western music’ records. When I walked into the music store on Church street in Chittoor, the next week, and asked for Thriller the store guy clucked his tongue and said ‘No. I have to order it from Madras. Double charge. Will take 10 days. Shall I?”

I hadn’t heard his music before. I heard of this guy MJ all right but for a 16 year old back in 1989, 200 bucks were a lot of More...

Comments (1)

Yahoo Domains: Insufferable and Dirty

I booked a domain name last year using Yahoo Domains. This year they increased their renewal prices without a notification to my principal mail id (which is Gmail). They bill my credit card without asking me if I want to renew a domain for 34.95 USD Yes. 34.95 for a domain name.

Fine, probably I didn’t read some fine print. I am a moron but shouldn’t there be a way I can get in touch with them? I mean I fucking paid money and bought something from them… No. There is a convoluted wizard where you choose your problem and click continue… see http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/contactus/. After I clicked Continue, a cute little note said:

So I tried setting up a “call back” with Yahoo. You make an online request and they’ll call More...

Comments (0)

Music Yogi: "It is okay if you don’t buy our CDs"

A colleague of mine recommended a CD of Karnatriix. I fell in love with their music. And Karnatriix sells their CDs on Music Yogi. I wrote about their “IE only website earlier… If you thought that was bad, check this out.I called Music Yogi. They provided a number on their website. Some guy picks the phone

Me: Is this Music Yogi?

Guy1: Who is this?

Me: I got your number from the website?!?

Then the guy yells out to some other guy.

Guy2: Hello?

Me: Is this Music Yogi?

Guy2: Yes?

Me: I have some feedback on your websi…

Guy2: Yeah, we are having problems… which CD do you want?

Me: Album called Namaste by Karnatriix?

Guy2: You can send a DD if you want…

Me: Dude! I thought this was 2009?? More...

Comments (0)

Testing ping.fm ignore.

Comments (0)

99 Movie Review

A low-profile movie (by Bollywood standards) that has no real star power releases. It doesn’t get too much media attention (by Bollywood standards again). But slowly but surely it creates a buzz. A friend mentions it on the phone. Colleagues talk about it. No, they are not gushing about it or anything. It is a calm acknowledgment of a good movie. It has grossed 7.24 Crores under two weeks. To me that’s an indication that people enjoyed the movie. It is solid testimony to the fact that if you stuck to fundamentals and create a rewarding, engaging experience for the viewer, you will succeed. Star or no star. Media hype or no hype. 99 is a laugh-out-loud funny movie that tells the story of two young men that want to make it big (hit a century, if you More...

Comments (0)

My Friend Sancho – Review

Amit Varma’s debut novel My Friend Sancho is a welcome change. I say this not because of its literary merit. It is a welcome change because a) It is pop-fiction b) It does not try tricks like that IIT-MBA fellow whatever his name is (blending bollywood and cricket, well fuck you!) and most importantly c) It is almost-honest writing. No holier-than-thou shit.

It is a funny book. For people with average sense of humor that is. That’s like 99.999999% of people. So I enjoyed it. For example, that MF line. And the oft-repeated imaginary dialogue. Note to Amit: Stop saying ‘So there.’ so often. So there.

Amit Varma uses his book to promote his blog. That’s quite smart. I am sure Amit, on his birthday every year, sends a ‘Congrats’ card to his parents.

But does More...

Comments (1)

IRCTC Calendar Design

IRCTC.co.in is the Indian Railways’ ticketing website.

April has only 30 days. I still went ahead and selected 31st April and hit ‘Find Trains’. Guess what happened next?

If you know April has only 30 days why would you add 31st to it? Better than designing accurate error messages, is preventing errors. IRCTC seemed to have missed that part.

Recommended Books on Usability write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Comments (6)

Quick Review of Travel/Ticketing Websites in India

Travelocity.com

My rating: 2 out of 5

See that screen grab above? Yeah. That’s what you’re supposed to use to pick a ‘From’ and ‘To’. See how the ‘One-way’ and ‘Return’ checking is done. Instead of asking you upfront, they ask you at the end! This is lazy design.

Makemytrip.com

My rating: 2.5 out of 5 Easy to search for flights. But text is difficult to read because the text and BG are not contrasting. But if you are a South Indian and you have an initial for a last name OR if you have two words in your first name (like Suman Kumar), you can’t use this site. See screen grabs.

See? They want my last name to be at least two characters long!

And, they More...

Comments (6)

Observations of an Amateur Bird Photographer

I had posted this on India Nature Watch long time back…

It is the journey. Not the destination.

I used to go to Hebbal lake to photograph birds. What’s the big deal? Only, I was armed with my mighty Nikkor 18-70 MM and I used to wonder ‘Why in the god’s name do the Pelicans appear so distant.’ Yeah. Laugh away. That’s when one of the gentlemen who was armed with something that closely resembled a Bazooka told me ‘Er, you need a bigger lens?’ And I bought myself a Nikon 70-300 G for a little over five thousand bucks. Improvement? Yes. Satisfied. Hell no. Well, my point here is, whether I was trying to photograph birds with my kit lens or my poor man’s telephoto lens, the journey has always been the same. I discovered my More...

Comments (0)
Go to Top