internet | Blogger Mathai

Archive for the 'internet' Category

May

Is Twitter for you ??

Categories: funny and internet

Yeah this is just what we needed ! another medium to let people know you’ve just farted or are down in the dumps coz your girl friend left you since you were too busy texting, chatting, facebook’ing and tweeting to notice her. Sheesh ! Twitter seems to be spreading like a virus now, almost anyone with an internet connection seems to be on this latest fad.

The question is.. do we really need to know that you just had a tuna and mayo sandwich or that the itch you had in your groin turned out to be Crabs ? What ever it maybe I don’t think the average person would like to update something every now and then with mundane everyday happenings. I see potential with a Rock group for example.. coz you can keep track of the cities they are hitting and so on but for common man Joe ? Nah !

Haven’t heard of Twitter??.. well, crawl out from under that rock and click this [link]

May

Google Transliterate

By Mathai 5 Comments

Categories: funny and internet

Another gem from Google Labs. This stuff is fricking awesome. For those of you who cant write in their native language script but can speak it this is for you. I was trying it out just now and it works great !

Indian language options are;

Bengali
Gujarati
Hindi
Kannada
Malayalam
Marathi
Nepali
Tamil
Telugu

And they have an Arabic page too, I cross checked the output with Google translator to confirm the ‘transliteration’.

Google Transliterate Indian Languages [link]
Google Transliterate Arabic [link]

Apr

Qualitynet blocking torrents again

By Mathai 5 Comments

Categories: internet and kuwait

I just got off the phone with Qualitynet customer care to complain about my lousy download speeds when they informed me that they’re putting a limit on download speed till some “issue” is resolved. Till then we have to suffer with horribly long ETA’s on our downloads

Boo Qualitynet !

update: 21:00 hrs.
Looks like speeds are back to normal, maybe their “issue” is over now.

Mar

Add-ons for Firefox

By Mathai 4 Comments

Categories: internet and softwares

Nowadays I’m beginning to see a lot of people using browsers other than Internet explorer on a regular basis. From a quick analysis on the hit counter you can see that the next popular browser after IE is Firefox by Mozilla. I’ve been using Firefox since the early days and have grown fond of its stability and functionality, like they had tabbed windows much before IE and also support a lot of add-ons and user scripts.

Here are some of the extra add-ons I use on my PC.

Vista aero theme [link]
Gives your browser that “Vista” look.

Scribefire [link]
A blogging interface that lets you create, edit and publish to your blog.

Amazon Local currency script [link]
(for this to work you have to install Greasemonkey, described below)
This is really cool and displays the merchandise in KD or other currencies of your choice.
Via SomeContrast.com

If you’re a heavy flickr user like me, here are some essential tools.

Greasemonkey [link]
Its a script management tool that inserts Java scripts into pages

Flickr referrer [link]
Shows people how you arrived at a particular picture or photostream

Flickr comment tools [link]
Lets you insert html code and other useful bits into comments

Icon/Name reply tool [link]
Helps you reply quicly to a commentor via his buddy icon or name

If you havent got Firefox, download it now ! [link]
You can find tons of other add-ons here [link]

Phew ! I dont think I’ve ever posted so many links in a single post before!

Jan

Find a wife

By Mathai 4 Comments

Categories: funny and internet

I get a lot of spam emails daily and they are deleted almost immediately from my inbox. But this one deserves a post in my blog. It seems to be a legitimate email from a guy in Kuwait. I didn’t call on the number provided in the mail to verify authenticity coz I don’t want to get involved with this matter. But its really funny, how desperate is this guy to send out spam emails in search of a wife ? Email ID, mobile number and photograph has been blacked out to protect his identity.

Click on the picture to see the larger size

lol @ “can you help me to find this wife please ?”

Have a nice weekend guys

Jan

USB Voip Phone

By Mathai 6 Comments

Categories: electronics and internet

For the past few years I’ve been using headphones and microphone for my Voip calls and voice chats. I preferred it over a dedicated phone coz;
1. I was too lazy to buy a phone
2. the same headset was used to listen to music as well.
Lately my family has started using Voip and I felt they were not too comfortable having to speak into a mic while wearing a heavy headset. I found this little product during my search for a cheap, no frills device and decided to buy it. This device is very simple and inexpensive and being a typical “Made in China” product it doesnt even have a brand name ! [link]

How it works;

1. Setup is pretty simple, you just plug it into the USB port and wait for the OS to detect it and install necessary drivers. It works fine on both Vista and XP.
2. Go to the Audio settings option in your messenger client (like Yahoo or Skype)
3. Select “USB Audio Device” for microphone and speakers and apply changes.

Now you’re all set to make and receive calls !

After a month of use I’ve found that voice quality is really good and comparable to a regular telephone. The only problem now is that I’ve lost the driver CD that came along with and cannot use the hot keys if I’m using it on a new computer. Since it doesn’t have a brand name I’m not able to search for drivers.

Another thing is that you need a computer to make calls. Since my whole apartment is covered by Wifi I’m thinking of buying a Wifi Voip phone in the near future. You can click the links below to see similar devices.

USB phones [link]
Wifi phones [link]

Jan

Indian Rock

By Mathai 4 Comments

Categories: internet and music

I was visiting Grey’s blog on Indian Rock music last night and I must say that hes complied the most impressive set of Indian rock bands I have ever seen. Over a decade ago Indian Rock was almost unheard of in the Indian subcontinent and existed mostly as underground concerts or private jam sessions at local gatherings. It was difficult to get sponsorship, support or even permission to stage a concert back in those days.

One of the first Indian bands I heard was Rock Machine back in 1992 and can you imagine, the record shop that I bought it from had ordered only 50 copies since they didnt expect anyone to buy them ! Rock Machine went thru some changes later on and became “Indus Creed” and now two of the original band members have formed a new group called Alms for Shanthi.
Another popular band from the 90′s was 13AD.

The important thing is that these dedicated rockers survived and many of them have achieved star status now. For instance, in my hometown of Trivandrum there was a band called Charizma that played covers and had a few successful concerts in their resume. Now one of the guys (who also happens to be my friend) is in the very successful band Avial ! I wish him all the best.

And to all Indian rockers I say “ ROCK ON !!!“

Nov

Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam and Spam

By Mathai 2 Comments

Categories: funny and internet

Don’t drink cold water after an oily meal, check your back seat before driving, dont pump a tankful of gas in your car, dont eat from KFC coz its not real chicken, some Nigerian dude wants to send me a gajillion dollars, microsoft will pay me for every email I send, some little girl with cancer will get money for every email I forward, if I dont forward a grainy picture of Jesus/Mary to atleast 15 people I will die in the next 5 days, Indian employees make up more than 30 % of most prestigious American companies, pictures of ugly limosines which are rumored to be owned by the likes of Bill Gates and other rich dudes, Important medical news from Johns Hopkins Hospital ( are there no other hospitals in the world ??), mobile phones that can cook an egg, fuel gauges that tell you which side the fuel filler cap is on (not true for all cars) Chinese /Taiwanese people eating dead babies, an incoming call from a certain number on your mobile phone can kill you/ infect your phone with a virus…

I get mails like these everyday sent to me by scores of ignorant spammers and many of them have been in circulation since 1992 !! I guess soon after the first email came the spam mail. My dear readers please please please stop sending these emails. For more information on these emails kindly visit any of the following sites. Lets keep our inboxes spam free.

Breakthechain

Tips to combat email spam and hoaxes [Link...]

Sep

Cyborg Name

By Mathai 3 Comments

Categories: funny and internet

Get Your Cyborg Name

Found this on Rayboy’s Blog

lol @ Hazardous Assasination Individual !

Sep

Hobby Link Japan

By Mathai 1 Comment

Categories: internet and toys

I had ordered some items from a Japanese hobby website around a week ago and was eagerly expecting delivery sometime before the end of the week. Imagine my surprise when I got a call from the EMS delivery counter that my package from Japan had arrived!

For those of you not familiar with ordering from Hobby Link Japan, heres what happens;

1. Check out the (drool worthy) items on HLJ
2. Add items to your shopping cart.
3. Fill out the personal information form and payment details.
4. Select EMS delivery instead of SAL (thank you Mishari)
5. Patiently wait for delivery
6. You get a call/SMS from MOC Kuwait, asking you to pick up your package.
7. Head to MOC Office in Keifan and get your package
8. Go straight home and go nuts !!!!

I had ordered a Revoltech Mazinkaiser and an HCM Pro Gundam RX79(G)
Following are the pictures of the unboxing.. since I have a busy weekend ahead of me I wont have time to set up a photo shoot with these guys right now.