Friday 21 January 2011

Apple the Innovator and Rest Followers ?


Before I begin, let me tell you guys that I'm not an Apple fan boy but I couldn't stop myself admiring them for what they've done in the last decade. I was reminded of few forgotten facts about Apple thru news - 'Steve Jobs - CEO Of the decade', to take some time to think about where Apple is and where are its competitors. Here’s what I felt..
Remember the days when we were bombarded with Candybar(Nokia and Sony Ericson) phones and few Windows phones which were wisely called as ‘Windows phones’ and not Smartphones coz they simply weren’t! No one in those days really thought of any innovative products but continued producing similar kind of designs slightly different than the previous ones with slight new features(not spectacular thou)and suddenly Apple announced a phone named – iPhone - The first multi-touch phone! People couldn't believe how something can work without keypad/stylus such flawlessly. And the results were astonishing - Market share of Apple’s iPhone started going up with all other phones losing the market. And then the funny thing happened, all the companies suddenly started coming out with similar phones but with rubbish Operating systems and failed miserably. Until one day when Google decided to jump in and produce something decent(Correction – Bought a company who had produced a decent OS – Android Inc.) which can fight the Apple dominance. Anyway, not getting into any details here, what I want to say is, even today with all the manufacturers along with Google are fighting against Apple’s dominance. The first thing I see on tech sites after a new phone launch is - Comparison with the latest iPhone. Reason? It is still believed to be the best and one to be benchmarked against coz its ease of use makes it more popular. Lets face it guys when we talk about Smartphones, the first phone that comes to our mind is – iPhone.
It is one of the examples thou, same thing happened with iPod and now iPad. The tablet market was considered dead a while ago but with Apple iPad in that field now, it is a new booming market and countless companies started producing tablets and the word iPad killer was coined!
The other day I read that Samsung sold 2 million units of one of their devices and was boasting about it. On the other hand, iPod which has sold more than 237 million units is still running. Nowadays, people wait for June/July to see what Apple's new product is going to be and then the other companies jump in the business to make something competitive to that and nothing new. So basically Apple is being innovative and the rest of the pack is being competitive for their survival. Hence I honestly feel - Apple are innovators and rest are simply followers!

Monday 27 December 2010

Farah Khan Compelling Audience to Pay more than TMK's Ticket


Hope none of you would come up with a "WHY" for the title above, for the obvious reason that after watching Tees Maar Khan viewers would have to buy extra Headache pills.

After trying so hard to erase this horrendous movie(if you call it!) out of my mind, I am in no mood to discuss the story all over again. Because, all I have got for this disaster is ANGER ! And why not, after seeing Super Big Promotions and Promises by the Masala Queen(Farah Khan) herself, if audience gets hollow script, repetitive dialogues and age-old jokes on the name of Masala Movie what response one should expect?  I would refrain from commenting on Akki’s and Kat’s performance as they tried their best to present what they didn’t get in the entire movie- a Story & Good Dialogues ! Sadly, half of the movie dialogues were taken by the irritating punch line “Khanon me Khan- Tees Maar Khan” ! For those who have seen this movie know, how Akshay Kumar aka TMK directs a movie with no story; personally I felt that Farah Khan did the same while directing TMK. Is this just because she thought that irrespective of what she come up with, they would take advantage of festive season and drag masses to the Banner Name ? Or she was in illusion that for the entire movie people would drool over “Sheila Ki Jawani” !

Many people might find the reaction in this post bit extreme because ideally not every movie can be a Hit. But I wish that it was just about this movie! Hope you haven’t forgotten that it’s the same Farah Khan who along with her brother the Great Sajid Khan(Director of “Hey Baby”) love to mock other directors for their work in almost every Award function and who have upset countless people with their harsh remarks. So, do they have the face to show in any Award function now? I guess not, at least not in front of Ashutosh Gowarikar(Smirk).

I am a die-hard fan of bollywood movies and I have no shame in accepting it, but the most annoying part of this industry is the favouritism towards big banners. I have no faith left in famous movie critics anymore, because none of them have guts to stand up and give a fair review about movies of big banners like Yash raj, Dharma(KJo) and many more.. Nevertheless, I can speak my mind out here and for me TMK gets one star that too just and just for NoNo NoNo No Sheila..Sheila ki Jawani(Wink)



Rating: 

Sunday 19 December 2010

Google Nexus S - Why Google is being a fish in the pond than dominating the mobile industry ?


Couple of weeks back, Google announced its second phone, Nexus S with Samsung. Google shocked the world by launching Nexus one last year by jumping into Mobile industry and this time, after one year and numerous rumours/speculations, everyone was thinking that an extra-ordinary device is in making @ Googleplex.
And when Google announced the device, it disappointed all those people. The reason ? It was obvious, Google launched their second phone much similar to their first one, hardly any changes, same processor(1GHz), same power and everything, in-fact few -ve points. It has no expandable storage and look wise it seems cheap plastic, In all it was shear disappointment!
What is bad is the way Google advertises this phone - 'Be the first one to get the latest OS updates'. So ??? What's the big deal ? It's not like other phones won't get s/w update, it'll just be couple of months after the Nexus S gets it. Let's consider Apple in this respect - When apple launches the new s/w, its just the matter of plugging the phone into your laptop/computer and job done, it doesn't tell you whether its iPhone 2G, 3G or 4 and when you can consume the update. Anyway, leave this part aside and lets look at what's the latest offering in the market hardware wise - a dual core processor, Bluetooth 3.0, HD Media recording/viewing etc. And Google has none of these things in their new phone. The other manufacturers on the other hands like Samsung, LG has considered these new offerings, in-fact LG has just announced a dual-core phone with HDMI output which is atleast twice as fast as Google's Nexus S.
What Google is trying to sell in other words is - a pentium 3 processor offering Windows 7 as against a Windows XP/Vista with a quad-core xeon processor. And I am sure that many of us will go for better and more powerful hardware with a little delay in software update than the latest software and year old hardware!!!

Thursday 16 December 2010

Migrants are the real problem in Mumbai, Delhi....Really???


As we all know these days there are lot of statements being made about migration to metro cities of India. Especially Sena is the forerunner winging about the problem of migration in Mumbai. Recently our honourable home minister Mr P Chidambaram has also joined the hands raising the voice against the migrants in Delhi.

They both are claiming to have resident permit before entering Delhi and Mumbai. Wow...hold on guys before incorporating any such Tughluk act and enforcing it as a law, let me clear out some facts here --

1. India is democratic Republic country and people of this country has a right to travel across the length and breadth of the nation and move and settle anywhere they want, they need not have to have permission for doing so whatsoever. This is not illegal at all.

2. I totally understand the problem of the big cities, they are choking up with rise in population, crunch in living space, fight for the basic needs etc etc etc, but the cause of the problem is not just the migrants living in the cities but it is each and individual person who has been living in the city and using the city resources to support themselves it includes all laymen, political bureaus, municipal workers and so called high net worth individuals.

3. Rather than blaming on each other as always, for a change try to dig into the root cause of this situation, why only big cities are having this problem, why people want to leave their town or village and move to the big cities? one simple reason for this is opportunity. Opportunity to grow, sustain and thrive is only made available in metro cities. People know they will definitely get some sort of job and earn their livelihood and support their family.

So dear politicians please at least now pull up your socks or some of you may tie up your lungis ( better late than never) and work on improving the economical and living conditions of the small towns and villages, create more jobs for the people living in there, work on agricultural prosperity of the farmers in villages, and the situation will improve on its own.

I know this is an old wine may be in an old bottle as well, and it has never and may not ever get into the thick skinned politicians, they would go on doing what they are interested in doing but the only thing that worries me is why common people like us have to suffer ? a big question mark that just remains at the end of all discussions involving politics !!!

Diverse yet together

Diversity, the word itself may contain diverse meanings in itself for different individual. Looks like, this is the reason why the one who proposed this topic has framed it as "Diversity to you."
Having stayed in India, a person would not have to exercise his brain muscles too much to pen down few words on a topic like this. But when I think about the first time when I crossed Indian boundaries, it is altogether an extra-ordinary experience. For first time I stepped out of London Heathrow airport all alone-nervous-confused, like a sheep that had lost her herd. Like others I was excited to know about the new place, its culture, its people and their lifestyle. But it doesn’t come easily, so for all those sour experiences I thought to compose the Oops list for myself.
In my initial days, when I was still struggling to catch up on their accent, somebody asked me, “You alright?” Astonished I looked at him, totally unaware if this could be a polite way of greeting someone; I responded “Why did you ask that!” After few days, it was a part of my day-to-day greetings.
Few weeks later, when I started to believe that somehow I was successful in chopping by square pegs to fit in this round hole called ‘London’, here I did another goof up. We were having a good time in a drinks party with our client, where a lady was sharing some funny tales about her kids. All engrossed in her talks, I happened to ask her that, how long she had been married for. Politely, she replied “I am still not married.” My face turned red with embarrassment, but at the same time I found myself diving in ocean deep thoughts of how our culture, values and society differ from theirs. People may have different views on this and why not, every society has its own values and it gives right to an individual to lead his life on his own terms. So, fair enough! Perhaps, this is the reason why we Indians share so much emotional intimacy with our families and are so intricate when it comes to relationships. And, I take pride in it.
Despite of all the social and cultural diversities, at work we have to work in tandem. I may spend hours boasting about my culture but without a pinch of doubt I would say, the professionalism they display on work front is by far better than ours. No surprise, while our government is still striving hard to manage such a big population; they are developed, organized, technologically advanced and in a state to feed their citizens in worst of worst crises. It's amazing to see people of different ethnicities, sharing the same roof, contributing different ideas for the benefit of the same organization.
I believe the soul reason of organizations having employees from different nationalities and background is to kindle innovation and to target customers from different geographies. Because at the end of the day we are the AUDIENCE, diverse but yet unique in our diversities!
Hard to define this term, but if I try the best I can say  ..
It’s like breathing the same air, but perceiving the fragrance differently.

Wednesday 15 December 2010

It’s more than just a Festival..

I couldn't celebrate my first diwali after wedding in a typical Traditional Indian way, nonetheless it would always remain the most memorable one. It was the first time, I couldn't call out on mom's name for any sort of help. Being the only lady in the house, the preparations were entirely on to me and without a pinch of exaggeration I would say -things went quite well. A pat on my back !
When it comes to food my first time experiments seldom turn out bad (Touch wood!), and yet again the Gajar Ka Halwa and Alu Tikki was Yumilicious ! Come on, it's not the creation of my mind. It was a compliment given by Mr. Husband (Not on the Gunpoint, trust me!) But the main attraction of this diwali was the Rangoli I made on water. Yeah, it almost took me 3 hours to make it and the outcome is right here.
All in all, it was a very mixed experience. On one hand it was great to enjoy the colourful Indian customs as a Married Me but on the other hand, seeing various things happening around my heart was questioning myself.. Might sound a cliché but somewhere it pinches, that how our every custom is so Male-centric. Not that we haven't seen our Moms practising these traditions, so ideally it shouldn't come as a surprise. But somewhere in my mind I had this notion that for today's woman it's a long forgotten thing because the lifestyle has changed drastically over all these years. I am still unconvinced at the fact that, why a girl has to leave her house after her wedding and why is it that things change entirely for a girl, right from her looks to preferences but not for the guy. It's so obvious for girls to feel this way, because for most of us our upbringing was no less than any of our male friends/siblings or was may be way superior than many of them. So why this discrimination when it comes to our traditions?
I won't go too far, I recall instances from few months back. Having stayed away from home for more than 7 years, I thought of taking a break and spent almost six months at home before my wedding. Although my family is quite open-minded but still, there were occasions when I got remarks from some elderly ladies (dadi ma types) visiting our house. Remarks on every little thing like "Aey bai thari chori to ek chudi koni dale"("Your daughter doesn't even wear a single bangle !") or "Choti si tikki daal le"("Put a bindi"). I was so astonished to see this, because all my life nobody took a damn interest if I am dead in shorts or alive in Jeans, but all of a sudden everybody got a passport to intrude my privacy! Scary it was, especially for a person like me who does always opposite of what she's being forced to do. Quite sometimes I felt offended and showed my frustration to mom and she just said- "Either happily follow or Ignore." I found the latter easier and now they find it offending to waste their words on me. I do admit that in Urban India things have changed a lot, but it is not even one percent of what it should be. By God's grace, my personal experiences are not that bad as compared to what I have heard from few of my female friends. My eyes popped out in shock, when one of my friends told me that in her family she is not supposed to talk to her father-in-law and brother-in-law. What !!! Come Again ! No No NONO WHAT !!! I recalled my ragging days in engineering when seniors used to say – "How dare you look at me!","You are talking a lot aren't you?","Muskura kyun rahi ho, smile itni bhi acchi nahi hai(Why are you smiling, it isn't that good)" Most of you would not believe it, but trust me guys this happens. I can state numerous instances like this from different section of our society, but I know everybody is aware of what it is like anyway..
I often remember one of my favourite chemistry teacher, Shukla Sir, who used to come up with one or the other amusing tale about a girl's identity in our society. He believed that, "A girl doesn't have an identity in our society, first she would be called as somebody's daughter, then somebody's wife and then somebody's mother. So amidst this where is her own identity?" He always encouraged us to do something for ourselves, so that in future our parents are identified by our names. In my home town girls were not so serious about their careers and perhaps it was his way of inspiring us. Though in those days, for me his message was nothing more than an amusing tale because I anyway wanted a different life as many of us. But now when I look back, I realise somewhere he had a great influence on my conscience. He is no more in this world, but had he been amongst us, he would have been so proud to know that today there are many people who know my dad as my Father. :-)
No doubt, I appreciate liveliness in Indian culture a lot. But there is a big bag of rubbish we are carrying on our backs and it's high time that we take this off our shoulders. Many MCPs (Male Chauvinist Pigs) would claim that I should be born as a boy. It feels more insulting to hear remarks like this because by saying so, they are putting a stamp on the entire idea. Why can't it be"Oh poor you ! I wish you were born as a girl!"<Smirk> For this I solely support the western culture, where in there is no game of imposing thoughts and traditions. People live their life in the way they like and where a girl receives the same respect and identity in the society as a boy. I am no feminist guys, but this piece of writing has come from a girl inside me who detest comparison on sexual grounds and who just wants to live her life in her own terms. The simple way, the happy way :-)
p.s. – Guys would love to hear your comments on this. And by any chance if any Feminist group comes across this post, let me know what kind of facilities/perks you provide because I might consider joining you ;-)

Tuesday 14 December 2010

Go Shopping on Web

So are you among those people who wish to look different and want to minimize chances of spotting another person wearing the same outfit as you are? Well I am !  And this is why, I prefer browsing sites to get the uniqueness I pay for. Besides, one can always grab some fantastic deals straight from his/her couch, rather than going from shop to shop? After all, window shopping on web is not a bad idea.
Unlike others, I have no guilt in confessing the Shopoholic side of me. But yes now somehow I have discovered a way of winning this grey area of mine by shopping online. As, it's difficult to resist a gorgeous dress on Zara's or FCUK's shopping window but it's easier when you are browsing on a website.
Some people might reject the idea of online shopping for the sake of clothes quality and texture, but with the introduction of new online shopping features like free returns and collection policy, it's way easier to get a dream deal. The best part about most of these stores is, if you don't like the product for whatever reasons, you have all rights to return it within 30 days time and  they will refund your money without any questioning.
Here I list my Top 5 online personal favourites for clothing and accessories:
  • Asos : Very trendy and stylish collection for both Men and Women. Besides Asos products, this online store sell products from various major designer brands. In contrast with other shopping stores, one thing I personally love about Asos is Free delivery they offer on all it's products. For the kind of design and quality of clothes asos, it's obviously little expensive. So you need to keep an eye on the latest deals available, which can get you a designer overcoat worth  £100 in just  £20. Isn't that a dream ! I would suggest buyers to visit the “Clearance” section most often, in order to snatch extra-ordinary deals.
  • Boohoo : Amazing collection of dresses and accessories on cheap prices. I would recommend buyers to visit  £8  dresses section. You can catch some great deals here. The only negative I can think of is, the delivery charges they levy + it's Women store only.
  • Addition Direct : An all rounder shopping store that showcase products right from Clothing to Home furniture. Worthy to keep an eye on latest offers as I find it little expensive when it comes to clothing but I assure that you will find a great variety on kitchen products.
  • Very and Laredoute : Two other online stores that specializes in different areas.For both Men and Women, the collection is versatile and I would recommend Very for party dresses. Again only negative is the delivery charges they levy even on standard deliveries.
 The sites mentioned above are the ones I have dealt with so far (for clothing), but you can always try official websites of some major brands like Debenhams,Dorothy Perkins,Top shop,Mango and so on. The only word of caution for new users is to check the size guide before ordering items, as a size 8 in asos would be slightly bigger than the one in boohoo.


One can't get a diamond at the cost of bronze, so always remember in terms of quality you would only get what you have paid for. Don't hesitate to put your comments on this post or let me know if you want a detailed review on something. For folks who would like to do some value addition–  “You are most welcome”. Cheers.

Monday 13 December 2010

Kareena instigated a new Controversy in KWK 3

While the recent Kareena- Priyanka controversies are still trying to die in peace, Bebo instigated a new one at the latest Karan Johar's talk show - Koffee with Karan 3. First Kareena agrees to be the no.1 actress in the industry, later she ranked Priyanka no 2.  Bebo(Kareena) is going all gaga for her latest 100 crs turnover movies 3 Idiots and GolmaaL 3. Folks don't understand that why doesn't she leave it to the audience to decide who's the best! Because as far as viewers are concerned, everybody knows that there was nothing potential for her to do in 3 -idiots. And for Golmaal 3, most of the credit is taken by Ajay Devgan and Tushar Kapoor. Has Big B, the reigning King of bollywood ever claimed to be the no. 1 ? Or does that apply to Kareena as well that," Not everybody can carry success with dignity ?"

The story doesn't come to an end here, in the rapid fire round Kareena dared to ask Priyanka "From where has she got her accent ?" Looks like Bebo feels Priyanka has got a fake accent. However that raises questions for her boyfriend Saif's accent too. Guess, Priyanka would be the best person to answer Bebo's question. What we can do is to wait for the next episode of KWK starring Priyanka and Shahid and expect a better reply from PC, which might shut Kareena's big mouth. Not forever but may be for a while..