Mobile Power

Many people around us carry hi-fi mobile fones. But how many of them know it is actually a computer what they are carrying in their hand? With an operating system (like windows or mac) running in it? Well, the answer is – many of them know…hehehe

But I am sure that many of them are not aware of the possibilities and available softwares for their high-end fones, apart from games and anti-virus.

Symbian is one of the most commonly used operating system and there are many applications available for symbian based fones.

Here are some possibilities from the hundreds available :

* Spy the Bluetooth fones around you
* Turn your mobile fone into a universal Remote Control
* Google provides map and GPS for free (you need internet).
* Print and Fax service for Nokia E and N series
* Radio application to turn mobile into web radio
* Tons of different dictionaries including a free one
* Social net work and blogging
* Record all your talks
* Turn your mobile with cam into web cam
* Application to manage our calls to greet with custom message, reply with sms/mms
* First Aid guide
* Human Anatomy and Physiology
* Encyclopedia
* Lock all the data we have in our fone, with password
* All in one IM
* Use mobile as a voice recorder
* Bank account keeper
* Muslim prayer times
* Periodic Table
* Font Enhancer
* Wireless Power Point presenter
* Baby care monitor

tomorrows day !!

The following is written by my son. One day I saw him typing something and it is as follows:


tomorrow is our puppet show,very exciting,
all we need is the first two periods book,
snacks,lunch and the other three periods books
we need to bring a permission letter and 50 rupees, to attend it.
in rankashankara,J P nagar.
the topic is:
the king"s journey.

and he saved it as tomorrows day.

Well, he writes better than this and he can even write small stories. All the best my son!

Thoughtlets

Losing two friends

I lost two potential friends in the following way. The conversation is from memory and not verbatim.

“It seems you are tall”

“I am not that tall, but average” Me

“You are tall”

“So what?” me

“I don’t like tall guys”

“Why? That’s strange” me

“Coz, I am short”

There it goes

“I think I am not qualified to become your friend, since your profile says you dont like people who are into fitness or watch what they eat” Me

“It’s ok, that’s not mandatory…I put it as a joke”

Me becomes a happy man

“Are you part of the community, the sword of the spirit?”

“No, I am not even a Christian ” Me


And there goes another one

Mare Mania again

The strange dream sequence did not stop, it seems.

The dream : Me watching TV and there comes the news that I have been selected into the Indian Cricket Team, as a bowler !!!

But I am happy that my logical part of the brain was working that time too. I was thinking that way.

“Then what will Venu think about this?”

Venu was one of the best bowler friend I had in my locality (other wise I had a friend who was a State level Cricket player) when I was living in my native place.

I am not into that sport, though I had played it during school with paper/rubber/tennis ball. But since I have been selected as a bowler, I am thinking in my dreams what kind of bowling I need to do - spin or medium pace !!!

I Love You

Most of my friends did not get time to spend with me during this week so far and today wasn’t different. To add up to this, one of them showed up and said she is sad which wasn’t great.

I got a new friend with whom I had 3 chats and each ended in some sort of unpleasant way, mainly due to her poor understanding of English. There is another person who don’t read properly and asks same thing again, which sometime is irritating.

Unfortunately, I happened to chat with them at the end of the day and it wasn’t a great feeling. I already wasn’t happy about stuffs went for the day and hence may be I lost a lil control, I don’t know…

But there lies the beauty and love of God. There comes a 'pleasant one', at a totally unexpected time, after a couple of week’s break, and we had a small chat, which made me so happy. Thank you my friend and thank you God !!

Hey God, I LOVE YOU !

Friendly Religion Again

I got a message asking why I wrote many things referring to Bible or Christianity, being a Hindu, from a Hindu itself. Don’t worry, brother, I am not going to change my religion. It is not required for a Hindu. I wrote may be coz, most of my friends are Christians-some are hardcore and extreme Christians- and I happened to read Bible many a times, even after my course was over. I am not too much into any religion.

Second thing is me writing about friendships and relationships etc. Nice observation. I have many new friends now and I enjoy friendship. Many a times, their issues and problems becomes mine too.

So it is simple – I got many new friends and almost 94% of them happened to be Christians. As I mentioned, some are hardcore religious people who eat-drink-think-sleep religion (please note that I said religion not God). Thus this religion comes on the way without inviting, most of the time. Even today I got a ‘accept Jesus as your savior’ kind of mail from one of such friends. But sending back ‘accept Krishna as your savior’ mail is not my style. And another person made a religious statement and asked me not to argue on it (how clever). Anyway friendship and love has its beauty.

So the topic religion and friendship might remain live in my blogs, may be for some more time…

Vague Weekend Thoughts ...

I had posted a prayer request. Thanks for those who joined me for the prayer, my friend is very much better now.

..................................... ***...............................................

A relative of mine gave birth to a baby boy today

..................................... ***...............................................

My brother-in-law’s best friend came to invite me for his marriage, today. And I was happy to talk to a pleasant guy in person (and to his mom too)

..................................... ***...............................................

I happened to be in touch with an old friend of mine who said she might be available in a different IM. Hence I installed it. but we could not chat except for the new year eve or so. Coz, there is a time difference of 3 and a half hours (ahead of my time) and hence she comes online when it is 11.30 pm. This is the story of why I installed that IM.

One day somebody said hi to me and I too responded to that hi. That person’s profile said that ‘he’ is from China and is 22 years old. Since I setup that IM just for somebody else, I did not furnish any info other than what was compulsory. He said he is working with an Indian company in china (a software giant).

Days passed ...We talked a lot about many things – the present scenario of software industry, China’s trade with the US, tiananmen square student protest, Bruce Lee, kung-fu, availability of vegetarian food in china, languages in India, the US playing the world police…… and I considered that I finally got a native person from china as my friend. One day I happened to say ‘ my wife….’

“Your wife?....oh no!, all these days I thought you are a woman and I thought I got a women to chat with...”

That was his response….how does it happen? How can Jay be a female name? I don’t know, but he said he searched for females and I happened to be listed there since I have not specified any gender (such people will be listed in both, it seems). He did not ask me and he did not even observe my male way of observation and thinking.

So, I asked him

“So, if you knew that I am a male, you wouldn’t have said even a hi to me, right?”

“Perhaps, yes….but now it doesn’t matter”

..................................... ***...............................................

That reminds me another incident.

When I was using yahoo, a pop up came saying hi. I too said hi. After some formal how are you stuff I got this shocking request from him:

“Can I see your b**bs please…..please please”

So, I replied this way:

“I am very sorry, I cant do that”

“pleeeeease” he pleaded to me

“Sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t have b**bs coz am very much a man” I told him and then he just disappeared.

It seems, he did not check any thing about me in my profile coz he was in a hurry to see my non-existing ...(you know what)

..................................... ***...............................................


Life is unpredictable


Yesterday I was having two chats at the same time. One I thought will be a pleasant one and one I considered as an unpleasant one. At the end, the unpleasant chatter said:

“you ARE a very good friend”

The pleasant chatter said:

“You are having an unpleasant chat with me..grrrrrrrrrrrrrr ….bye”

. . * * * . .

It is not easy for me to go to sleep with an irritated mindset. My wife knows this and I reminded her yesterday with a request :

“please don’t irritate me when I am about to goto bed”

But she did irritate me, went to bed and within seconds she slept….

And me? ...

A Prayer Request ...

A friend of mine fell sick. This is the fourth day today and she said she is not much better. Well, if its viral, it might take 5-7 days for anyone to recover from a flu. She asked me to pray and why don’t you people join me?

(There are some professional prayer service available world wide. Their job is to pray for others. I am not that lazy a guy who doesn’t even have time to pray for my friend. And, I don’t want that kinda mechanical prayers. I don’t think they have special powers and skills to put our matters in front of God, and get it sanctioned. And don’t think that God is busy listening to them and answer them. They just fill up your name as in case of a printed application).

So, let’s pray with all our heart…just we and God and nobody in between.



How does a daily prayer look? I don’t follow any particular format, though I thank Him for the food, cloth, money etc he provided me for the day. So, feel free to have the choice of yours. But if we fell in to a river (assuming that we know swimming) and feel like praying, we better pray to God to provide the courage and strength to swim rather than being panic and crying out ‘help help’ (it doesn’t mean that you should not call for help)

Being Empty.

Once there was a seeker. He had strong believes/opinions since he spent lot of time reading many books of knowledge. But he understood that something is missing and he decided to became a disciple of a great Zen master. Master had a talk with him and asked him to come next day morning. And thus he came next day.

Master invited him for a tea. He took a cup and started pouring tea into it. The cup got filled up to the brim. But he kept on pouring tea. And it started overflowing. Still he kept on pouring. The disciple got irritated and asked his master,

“What are you doing? Cant you see that the cup is full?”

Then said the Master :

“Yes, I can see it. Good that you observed it. Our situation is also like this. You think you are full and hence I can’t give you any knowledge. If you want me to fill it, you first need to become empty”

DreamWeaver !!

My last couple of nights were irritable with strange and unpleasant dreams. Day before yesterday, I had the very strange dream of me becoming the Vice President of India. And then there were many issues like my official car not ready….the driver says some excuses and finally I drove my own car myself and enter my official residence. That is not the only problem I faced….and I remember that the way to my residence was bit confusing….

Yesterday was more ‘hellish’. It was very difficult to sleep. It all started with me buying a new MicroSD card for my phone and my experiments with it. I wanted to achieve something but I could not. Then searched the internet and found that I am not alone but it’s a loooooong list. But by the time I realized it, it was past midnight. Then it was very difficult to go to sleep. I might have slept only after 2.45, early morning. I became hungry. This triggered acidity then drink water, drink milk, eat biscuits…..and finally when I slept…

Oh my God what dreams!! Totally unpleasant…and the dream was filled with most of my close relatives, including my late parents. Thus I woke up again and till 5.30, I was aware (I heard the 5.30 alarm set by my wife). Then there I goes to deep sleep for one hour and wakes up seeing big spiders in my dream !!!

It looks like our frustrations and disappointments can trigger something in our subconscious mind resulting nightmares. Am not sure about it. I understand some part of the dreams including spiders. But why yesterday? And I don’t understand that Vice President dream at all (vice president not getting car and all are ok, but why I became the vice president? I never ever wished for it, read about it, or hated it)..

But I like the total mechanism behind dreams. The mind-brain-body (tired body, better put, in my case) sync to produce such dreams… Mind is a big wonder and so do dreams. Dreams are not fully understood to science, even today. But anyway, it was more than enough to drain my energies!!!.

Invisible Yahoo!

This is for the first time somebody asking me something from a blog I posted very long ago. I already gave a couple of personal replies (and some part of this blog is part of that personal mail, well, what I write is my intellectual property and copy righted …hehehe). Anyway, I got some questions about the invisibility feature of yahoo. And some religion related from some other reader (it is not doubt about religion but my views on certain things). Writing a fuller blog about that religion stuff is not easy. I need to think a little and may be read a little too.

So, the invisibility feature of Yahoo!. I don’t want to write a detailed one about that too. But anyway, it is still possible to find out the invisible person, that is my answer.

About ‘yahoo’s security holes’. Sorry, I am not a security expert, though I had studied about some basic protocols. Am not the right person to comment on it. I observed those things from a common man’s perspective. And I mailed yahoo people about it too. But its of no use. Even in the latest version 9 beta of the yahoo IM, theses issues exist.

So, is yahoo keeping it for some purpose? I don’t know.

How to find out the invisible people? Well, the people who asked me weren’t my friends. I don’t know them. Somehow they happened to read my blog. Well, that is enough. Use your that skill and find it out all by yourself. And I am sure that you can find out.

But I have some requests. Please don’t mess up with your computer’s security and sensitive data. There are applications available for FREE for this purpose. Why do they want to give you a free software? How are they managing their overheads to maintain a website and keep it running? It doesn’t look like a hobbyist work nor does a charity activity.

There is one very popular application in this regard which is said to be open source. Well, I could not find out the source code in that site. May be I have to write to the moderator and get it. But that is not the way Open Source applications work. If you ever find out such a code (I will be sooo happy if you let me know it too), go through it and compile it and use it, rather than using the original application for better safety. And don’t forget to compare the file size of the one you compiled and the one you got it as ready made ( I am not talking about any genuine open source GNU licensed ones). There are many sites which tell that these applications are Spywares. It many fail to find your invisible friend but it won’t fail to do its other job, keep that in mind.

Then there are web based services. There too, they hide the code. If you don’t believe me, try to find the code by opting for ‘view source’. I am not sure what exactly is happening. They might steal something from your computer or there is something fishy about it. Is it worth doing that just to find out who is hiding from you? If you think yes….well…..

I have been asked whether I had tried it or not. The answer is yes. And the result?

You can’t trust most of these popular applications, in most of the cases. It does fail and provide you with wrong results. And you might unwantedly suspect a real friend of yours. And I came to know that yahoo constantly changes the servers to counter these applications. Some applications address this too. They will give you options to choose different servers and thus you can do some trials. Is it worth? What if you get different results? Which one is right and which one is wrong?

Web services were better than these installable applications. They were more accurate too. But that too failed many times. I tested with my own yahoo account and hence I am sure about my status. If you are doing these checks while yahoo updating their logics and servers, the possibility of a false positive is more.

What if it works fine? It might definitely hurt you. When you find out your ‘close’ friend was all fake and liar, what else is your emotion other than getting hurt and being angry or irritated? Will it give you any positive emotion as a result? I don’t think so. It might also lead to some misunderstandings. It can spoil a relationship of any kind. (but I am not telling that it doesn’t have any positives to offer). And you will always become suspicious about your yahoo buddies.

How to counter these checks and still be invisible? As of now, I don’t know any fool proof method and if I come across, I will update my blog.

Is yahoo very much aware of it? I really think so. Is yahoo providing a tool to find out the invisible ones? Yes and No.

No because yahoo did not name it that way and its categorized in a different way. And it seems they have fixed this issue lately.

Yes because yahoo provides many IMVironments and one of them has/had this ability to find the invisible one and this fact is there all over the net. This works/worked 100% but the problem here is you can not do this without the other person knowing it. Because, you need to send at least a character to the other person and thus there will come a pop-up window and the IMVirontment gets loaded. (some web based ones too send the other person a window, but from their side, and thus 'informs' the user that they have been checked for their invisibility). Naturally the other person might think why this person starts with an IMVrinment. The IMVronment used for this purpose was ‘DOODLE’. So, if you ever received such a thing when you were invisible, well, somebody did a try. But this is an ethical hack.

I don’t want to encourage anybody to tryout stuffs which may not be legal or causing security threats. And let us hope yahoo will address this issue when the final version of 9 comes.

But one unfortunate thing I expect after posting this blog is, some of my own friends would start suspecting me. Coz that is how things happen in this world. But what if it helps avoid many misunderstandings and breakups among many others?

Caring and Sharing..

There is a story. Once there was a learnt man who also was proud of his knowledge. He thought he achieved the highest knowledge.

One day he was walking in the streets and saw a poor beggar sitting near a garbage bin. He looked very hungry and tired. Then somebody came and threw some food waste. He took it and there came a street dog. The dog wagged its tail and looked at him.

The beggar gave the food to the dog. The learnt man got surprised to see this and he then went to the beggar and asked.

“You look very hungry and tired and you gave that food to the dog. Isn’t it foolish?”

“Because I am a human. It is not there in a dog’s nature to share its food. Only a human can do it” replied the beggar.

The learnt man paid his salutation in respect and arranged for some food for the beggar

Yes, we humans are designed for caring and sharing too. It is there in our nature, though we are not aware of it.

Neighborhood Troubles !

There are about 193 countries in this world (with international recognition) and only 7 nuclear power nations (acknowledged) and India is one among them. India is a major power in this subcontinent. If India and China becomes an ally then that would be the world power and if Russia joins hand with it, well, what is there to say?

But the US knows this and always keeps an eye on it. Hence, they always pamper Pakistan and keep the Kashmir issue alive. US will never allow India and Pakistan to become friends. India is a peace loving country by nature and its history dates back to tens of thousands of years ago to Rama’s age. Lord Rama fought a war with Ravana and won over Lanka. But he did not become the King of Lanka but what he did was returning the land and making Ravana’s brother as the new King.

In 1947, India gained freedom from the British but got split in to two. Pakistan for Muslims and Hindustan for Hindus. It was a partition based on religion, though the history tells the story in a different way. But India did not become a Hindu nation but it decided to stand as a secular nation and Christians decided to stand with Hindustan or India.

Since long time Pakistan is playing with terror. And then this coup by Musharaf. He also is a promoter of terror. When the then Indian Prime Minister visited Pakistan to have peace talks and even started a bus to Pak, what this Musharaf did was infiltrating India (while the peace talk was going on) and thus the Kargil war. India won all the four (1947-48, 1965, 1971 and the Kargil war in 1999) wars started by Pakistan.

The latest episode was killing a former Pakistan Prime Minister and a prominent Pakistani leader, Benazir Bhutto. She become a victim of terror or some sort of political conspiracy. Many thought there is something fishy in it and Musharaf said he or his government has no involvement in it.

Well, what did the US do, though Musharaf’s hand was not proved or disproved (but yes, suspected)? They gave a New Year gift - $500 million worth fighter planes to Pakistan. That is the decision by a man who also had a personal war with Iraq. Bin Laden’s latest statement said the US is after oil and I think he is right, though I am not a Laden supporter.

The Animal Instict !

The other day I happened to touch the topic animal instincts. . But I never thought it will hit back me in this manner.

I wrote that we, the humans, are the only living thing who comes to this world without fully packed with ‘instincts’, compared to our fellow living things. Did it even sounded like praising the animal instincts?

Look at what happened in Brisbane, Australia.. A Carpet Python swallowed four golf balls. The news paper report says ‘….. mistaking them for chicken eggs’. Well that’s interesting. Did the python say so?













Hey common python buddy, where did go your instincts ? Don’t pull my legs.

May be or May be Not !

I listen to many spiritual talks (from other religions too). The other day, a preacher/teacher/swami whom I respect very much and listen a lot said this “ you listen to that insect, it will tell you….” Well, will it? and can we?

To agree or disagree? I don’t know. Coz, many insects use chemicals for communication and I hardly think we humans are fitted with the receptors and decoders of all such chemicals. His intention is good but I think, we also need to consider the ‘nature’ and ‘instinct’ of insects and animals.

Look at a cow while it is grazing. It has a clear idea which plant or grass is edible and which is not. It won’t eat all the vegetation that comes in its way. And what about humans? We need to learn things from this nature, virtually, almost everything (except to smile… well, these days people learn even that if they want to enter into any beauty competition).

(need to learn – how to speak, cook, swim, read, write, dress, tie the shoe lace, neck tie, cultivate….lets go to a big mall and look around and see all the man made stuffs – there is some special skilled knowledge behind everything we see from pizza to electronic gadgets to polished glass made gift items…. Lets go to a BIG book seller – amazon.com – and see how many books are there…WOW, do we have any idea inside each book? Do we have any idea what is there in our favorite scriptures, if we don’t read it?.... When somebody invents something, it becomes something to be learnt for rest of the world……well the list is tooo long ) .

All other species come to this world as learnt ones; they know everything they are supposed to know. They don’t have to learn anything at all from any schools. They are all naturals. There is a fruit which is very much similar to mango, in my native place. But that is poisonous. And many humans died of eating it by mistake (none of the animals) And people use this to commit suicide.

We humans have got some phobias too. For example, the Arachnophobia, the fear of spiders. How wise it is to ask a person to go and listen to a spider, who has that phobia?

I remember how my father used to deal with (big) spiders. (He was a sort of spiritual and religious man). For example, if the spider is in his bed and he can’t lie down coz of it, he will take a piece of paper or stick or something like that and tap it somewhere near the spider and moves it away. That’s it. And then he sleeps. He doesn’t kill them. He never got bitten by one (but I am). I even not heard of him killing a snake. But I have killed. Well, this reminds of an incident.

This happened about 12 years ago. There were snakes in my then neighborhood. And one night, I came back from work at night and was about to use the rest room, for which we need to enter through the backyard. Then my mom told me this, referring to our neighbor (cousin)

“ they said they saw a snake around this place, so be careful”

Well, as soon as I stepped out I saw something crawling and it was a snake. Then it disappeared. So I took a stick and searched for it. There was a small pile of broken bricks and I finally found it inside it. I could see its head through a hole. But it seemed like the snake looking at me and saying

“No, don’t kill me”

I stared it for a while and the left the place.

May be they can communicate with us, may be not, may be yes, may be not, may be yes, may be not, may be….

HNY - Appendix

How can I forget this? I just can’t believe this. This is in continuation with my New Year post. Was it just another day? Well, of course not.

My in-laws invited us for a lunch at their home and thus I had a decent vegetarian meal, which followed the traditional feast style (alcoholic drink of any nature is not at all part of any feast in India, as per our tradition. So, when I say a feast, its just food). So, it can be considered as my celebration of New Year.

I thank God for giving me a feast to start with..

Happy New Year !!!

Well its Happy New Year today. During December, 2007, I thought I will note down all the events which somehow touched my life during that year. But, most of the time I forgot, when I remembered, I wasn’t near my laptop or it was switched off. When everything was fine, I thought I will note it down just after finishing what I was doing. And the final result is, I did not note down anything at all.

One thing I can not forget is my mother’s death plus some unpleasant experiences there after(from my relatives). If I minus my mom and things connected to her, 2007 was a nice year for me. Hmmm, may be I need to minus some clashes with one of my friends and the its impacts on me, two three times..

I don’t know what I should call when something happen at the end of a year. Is it the start of something or end of something? If the new year carries it on, may be we can call it it’s part of the new year. And astrologically, there is cusp period.

2007 definitely was dominated by friendships. I met new friends. And an old friendship came to a ‘better understanding’, though it had to travel through some misunderstandings. 2007 offered me some strange people in the form of friendship.

I used to presume certain basic things (like some basic knowledge background on general things, ability to grasp things, better familiarity with the specialized qualification, idea about the world around us etc etc) based on a person’s educational qualifications. That means, I expect certain things from them,based on how educated they are. A baby sitter showed more maturity and understanding than an engineer and thus questioned me of my own presumptions. And when we presume, sometimes our talks might go in some unexpected directions.

This happed to me and even affected a friendship in an unknown manner. 2008 might tell me how much damage it had done.

It doesn’t matter what path we are into. We should not stand still. Keep walking. Climb heights. And moreover, its always good to understand that there are many other people, faith, path, countries, cultures, believes, fashion trends, mountains, valleys, rivers, plants, animals, eating habits, habits, outlooks etc etc etc around us. If we don’t understand this very basic thing, we might hurt others, might get laughed at and more over live like the frog in the well !!!

My name sounded normal (when I am called Jay) and my wife’s and son’s name sounded strange to one of my friends. And when I got asked ‘why is all these names are like this’ , as if I don’t know how to pronounce my wife’s name, or sounded like ‘there is something wrong with these pple’, I smelled that lack of such understanding. What was the result? Hurt or irritation or …… I don’t know. But 2007 gifted me with one such a feeling.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, many of my friends came back to me. Or otherwise, I was able to be in touch with them. Today I received a picture greeting from a friend who I thought I lost for ever, we weren’t in touch for two years or so. And another friend greeted and gifted me with the picture of her family, I thought I lost this person also. We weren’t in touch for 3 years or so.

I hope 2008 will gift me with more true friends, happiness, peace of mind, health and lots and lots of positives things. Let it make me understand more about my negative sides too. I hope I will spend more time to look within me this year.

There wasn’t any celebration for me this new year. Not even a drop of alcohol went inside me (I was lucky that I did not need any cough syrup or any homeopathic medicine, else I wouldn’t have been able to make this statement). Thus I was one of the luckiest to wake up healthily, without any hangover. The eve was just a day spent with my family. Was that all?

Nope. I got many new year wishes and I could wish many too. But a particular wish was so special which came from a hospital. A friend of mine was spending the time in a hospital. And this is the sad thing that happened at the end of 2007. It wasn’t unexpected since it was a delivery. But there came some unexpected things on the way, which wasn’t pleasant to hear or bear.

A good leader got assassinated in our neighboring country. Result of terrorism, power hunger and politics.

So, is New Year a BIG thing? Well, its all marketed now, by business giants and culture giants and lets hope we wont end up paying more tax this year, at the least !!