Life Reloaded!!!

My friend has told me one of his observation which I want to share with you, "Being more ambitious is more dangerous than being not ambitious." Its not that I completely agree with him, but I will remember this for rest of my life.

Spoilers Warning : If you are reading or are intending to read above book, please do not proceed unless you want to know murderer. Till now I have read three of Agatha Christie books. The first was "The Mystery of Blue Train". It was a really great book. I tried my best to guess the Culprit, with no success at all. Then I read "The Mysterious Mister Quin". It was a set of short stories. I was not much impressed by that book. It was more of a supernatural thing than a murder mystery. Last week my brother brought the book "The Murder of Roger Ackroyed".... Well, I don't know why but I didn't start the book exactly the way I usually do. I went to the last page (rather the back page) of the book which generally contains a short para from the book. I started reading it, but there wasn't any para from the book. There was a mention of how controversial the book was. In fact, it was mentioned that some of the newspapers called Agatha Christie a "C...

Happy birthday to my Brother, Hrushikesh and to one of my best friends Kiran....

What gift should I give to my brother on his birthday??? Any suggestions?

कुछ बिखरे सपने और आँखों में नमी है, एक छोटा सा आसमां और उम्मीन्दों की ज़मीं है, यूँ तो बहुत दोस्त है ज़िन्दगी मैं, पर जो खास है वाही पास नहीं है ....................

There is a rumor in VJTI that I got an offer from Google. काश ऐसा होता.......

  If I am not mistaking it was 8th February, 2001 when we celebrated our send off in Chikitsak High School. It was a pleasant coincidence that my birthday and our sendoff function was happening on the same day. In fact I do remember my classmates bringing a Cake also. First, we cleaned our classroom on the previous day. Then came the decorations. To be honest I wasn't present for decoration part of it since I had joined a test series for SSC and had to rush to give a test in the evening, but I really wanted to contribute. In fact, it was my idea to give a big Wall-Clock to school, which is hung near the entrance. I am not able to recollect all the events that happened during that day. There was no special dress code for boys but girls were wearing Saris. To make a guess, I think I must have spent most of my time teasing Vishwajeet (as usual) along with Vikram and Viraj. I also remember that all the 10th students had gathered in Vagale Hall in the evening. Since I am not a great...

"A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first thought of."                                                                                                                                               - Burt Bacharach

My salary for the first month i.e. November has been credited to my Citi Bank account. Cheers friends......

Saab kuch seekha hamne na seekhi hoshiyari Sach hai duniyawaalon ki hum hain anaadi Duniya ne kitna samajhaya Kaun hai apna kaun paraaya Phir bhi dil ki chot chupa kar Hamne aapka dil bahalaaya Khud pe mar mitne ki ye zid thi hamari Sach hai duniyawaalon ki hum hain anaadi Asli nakli chehre dekhe Dil pe sau sau pahre dekhe Mere dukhte dil se poochho Kya kya khwaab sunahare dekhe Toota jis taare pe nazar thi hamari Dil ka chaman ujadte dekha Pyaar ka rang utarte dekha Hamne har jeene waale ko Dhan daulat pe marte dekha Dil pe marne waale marenge bhikhari Sach hai duniyawaalon ki hum hain anaadi

Sorry for the mistake in the earlier link. Here is the correct one.

After listening KK, Piu, and Manoj I thought I should also try my hand (or voice??) at singing. So when no one else was present at home yesterday I recorded one Marathi song. Try listening to it, it can be really funny to hear your own or friends voice singing a song without music alone!!! You can download the song from here if you want.

Recently, I had a problem with Gmail account. I got 1000 mails from my own email account saying that this is your diwali gift. All the 1000 mails were sent in the space of 20 minutes. I still have no clue regarding this. I thought my account may be hacked so I have changed my password and till now that thing was not repeated. Do you know how someone can do this?

My brother says I am too sarcastic.... Is it... Is it true?

Hi, I always wanted to add the slide shows of various Picassa albums which I have. Cant believe that I never noticed the "embed slideshow" link in that. Anyways, here a look at my last day in college. I will add my school photos also, as Kiran has scanned all the photos.

Its been a complete mess in Pakistan with the emergency imposed. As an Indian if you think that you live in better place, then think again. Look at the “state” of Karnataka. I mean, the way BJP and JD(S) have been functioning for last 2 months or so, its really a shameful chapter in Indian democracy. If you still what I am talking about then listen to this. JD(S) cheif Deve Gowda had established a coalition govertment with Congress 3 years ago. But 12 months in to power, his son decided that they had enough of secular agenda and went to BJP. Now, initially Gowda opposed this move, but later retracted his statements saying it is for the betterment of Karnataka. They had a power sharing “agreement” with BJP, which meant first the Janata Dal will have its CM for 18 months and for next 18 months BJP. Everything was going along nicely until, the time to handover the pwoer to BJP came closer. Gowda father and son accused BJP of trying to kill them and refused tranfer power. Now, in such ...

Thanks to the Thanks giving day in US, we had no work at all in the office. I played Table Tennis for almost 2 hours(I have turned into a good TT player, just that I need a booming serve with fiery top spin). 1 more hour for Indo-Pak Test. Again one hour or so for breakfast and lunch. And if you are thinking that I spent remaining time working then you are absolutely WRONG. My colleagues and I spent rest of the time discussing various topics from mandatory leaves to Bollywood Vs Hollywood. In all it just another day at office doing nothing other than but still earning you around Rs. 800 a day.

Abhiram…. This guy from Nagpur is always full of energy, and is always ready to help others even if he himself is in a mess. During our final semester exam he was wrongly marked as absent, so he had to come all the way from Nagpur to Mumbai to get the result corrected. Fortunately, the matter was resolved and he got 70+ percentage. Anyways, I am not here to discuss his life here. I want to share one joke of his with my friends in vjcomps. It goes like this. .. In the final year of my BE, I used to work (???) for final year project with his room mate Pratik, Sankalp and Sidscope. Since Pratik stayed in hostel, we decided to do development in his room (D-108, if I am not mistaking). Now, Abhiram is all guns blazing when Kapil (another hostelite) is around. Kapil is a shy guy who rarely speaks about girls, forget about other stuff. So when Kapil started talking about some boring topic, Abhiram used to say, “Tell me the truth Kapil, tula ‘TA’ avadate ‘TA’……… ”. As you know we sometim...

“As a successful venture capitalist, Peter Morgan Kash has raised zillions of dollars and started up dozens of successful biopharma companies. He has also lectured on entrepreneurship at the Wharton School of Business and Japan’s Nihon University. One of the earliest lessons he learnt was that there is no success without failure. He started working on Wall Street at the age of 21 and by 30 made a sizeable fortune. “But in no time, I lost virtually all of it,” he writes in his book, Make Your Own Luck: Success Tactics You Won’t Learn in Business School. “What made the loss particularly difficult was that my setback was due entirely to my own poor judgement. No one had squandered my success except me.” As it turned out, this period became one of the richest and most educational times of the New York businessman’s life. He went on to have several successes. “But I do believe that I would never have had them, if I had not failed so spectacularly early on,” he told this writer recently, dur...

Finally, I took the Common Admission Test on Sunday, 18 th November. I liked the way I worked my way to the CAT center. On the previous day as well as on the D-day, I didn’t show any signs of tension or pressure. It was going to be just another test. And it turned out to be one…. The test started at 10.30am. Interestingly, the person with Test Registration No. previous to me was absent, similar to last year. I started with Math, then Verbal and finally DI. Unfortunately my performance in none of the section was satisfactory. Even though, I have got really good marks in Quant, it did put some pressure on me. Quant was really tough, but I should have told myself to calm down as most others would be having tougher time than me. It didn’t really affect my English, but severed my DI. I should not have skipped the 4 DS sums at the start of the section. But it’s always easy to say after the test, what “should” be done and what “should not” be done. It’s all about what you do in those 2 ½ h...

SimCAT 8 has been THE BEST performance by me in all my SimCATs. I was really impressed the way I attempted most of my questions. It felt so much identical to the way I used to write papers in 10 th and 12 th . Even the verbal section was good. I guess the real trick for performing well in verbal is to start off well. I had prepared well for the JFI (Judgment-Fact-Inference) questions and it actually showed in the exam. Previously, I had never got a single correct JFI. This time 4 out of 5 correct answers. In fact I got the last one wrong because I made a mistake in one of the 4 statements. It feels really good now, as I wanted to do well JFI since last year. Ironically, I got less marks in DI as compared to other sections. I wasted 1 5 min on a set which fetched me just 1 correct answer and nothing else. Also when I was left with 5 min with 2 sets to go, I attempted the difficult one which restricted my total attempt in DI. Still if you really look at the marks in DI they are good. ...

Yesterday was my first Night shift in Citi. It was a different experience, totally. In my whole life I have never studied beyond 1.30 am(and that was only once in 10th). So it wasnt going to easy for me. I reached the office at 10 pm. Tried to solve some CAT problems with my colleague. At 10.30 we (actually not me but others, as I am yet to receive full access to the system) started working. I started feeling drowsy post 1 am. By that time others were also bored. So we ate Diwali Mithai given by Citi ( Mast Kaju Katri ). We even listened to some fine Marathi music on YouTube. The best song among them was sung by Abhijeet Kosambi- "कैवाल्याच्या चांदन्याला भुकेला चकोर ". Now I know why he was recalled by the Judges in that competition. He was simply majestic. At 4.30 Ankur gave up and went to sleep. I also took a nap while sitting on the chair. Sleep was getting irresistible. I was waiting for the clock to show 7 am. While returning in the car, I was so unaware...

Thanks to Citi group I know my blood group. It is A+.

I remember Arun Nair who got into Morgan Stanley, narrating his adventure on the day his interviews. He had reached to the Morgan Stanley office along with other students from our college. Most of them were thirsty. So when they reached the Cafeteria, one of them went to get the water. He filled the glass and drank that water only to find that it was HOT AND NEARLY BOILING WATER....... I really used to wonder how can someone be so stupid to make such a mistake. From last week I have stopped wondering about it. Why??? Because I made the same damn old mistake. I wasn't able to taste most of the eatables for nearly a week. It was bad, really bad.

Many people are wondering why I joined Citi Group over IBM. I must say it was not an easy decision to make. The problem was that my parents were completely unhappy with the way I had resigned and started studying at home. They wanted to start working as soon as possible. The feeling then intensified with the demand that I try to take up a job in Mumbai. I applied at many places but most of the companies had completed the placements for the year 2007 with the exception of Citi. The job profile in Citi wasn't really attractive, but the name of the company was more important to me than anything else. It would really help when I apply for management institutes. So I thought it would be good to join Citi. And till now it has been a good experience. Most of my peers know that I am trying for MBA and have said they will help me to study CAT. If you ask me about IBM, I told them the reason and have returned their "Offer Letter". I have night shift today, so lets see how it work...

I know its little late now, but didn't have enough time to Blog.

I have started working in Citi Group. I will tell you more about my first week on Saturday.

If you have not seen it then this is the time......  

This is one of my favorite film dialogs. From The Matrix Reloaded: "Hope. It is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength and your greatest weakness."

Yesterday there was Kojagiri Pournima and I was thinking of various songs related to " Chand ". The latest one which I have heard is .... A aeey chand ja kahin chhup ja.. aaeey chaand ja kahin chhup ja dil humara hua besahara isse chhor ke tu ab naaa ja hui sham, main ne dil ko tham, liya tera naam ab aaa ja dil humara hua besahara isse chhor ke tu ab naaa ja hui sham, main ne dil ko tham, liya tera naam ab aaa ja aaey chand ja kahin chhup ja.. aaey chand ja kahin chhup ja Aankhon se jall woh barse mann main jo aag lagaye aaaaaaa rakh banaye tann ko rooh ko jo tarpaye beqadar tu ab aa ja .. main ne dil ka khola darwaza aur rastoon main deep jalaye beqadar tu ab aa ja .. main ne dil ka khola darwaza aur rastoon main deep jalaye dil humara hua besahara isse chhor ke tu ab naaa ja hui sham, main ne dil ko tham, liya tera naam ab aaa ja dil humara hua besahara isse chhor ke tu ab naaa ja hui sham, main ne dil ko tham, liya tera naam ab aaa ja aaey chaand ja kahin chhup ja.. aa...

Well yesterday was a superb day for sports. There were 2 brave efforts which made the day special. First it was David Nalbandian beating Federer in Madrid masters final. He was unseeded, has not entered a single final this yr, is out of top ten(in fact 25th to be precise). He became the first player since Boris Becker to beat top 3 players in the world in a single tournament. (Nadal in  R8, Djokovic in semis, and Federer in finals) If that was not enough then what about Kimi "Iceman" Raikkonen? Into the last race of the season he was 7 points behind Hamilton, and 3 behind Alonso. Most of the papers were concentrating on the Hamilton VS Alonso fight. And it wasn't going to be easy for Kimi was it?? but, as I said miracles do happen... so when the race finished the scores were Hamilton 109, Alonso 109 and Kimi -110!!!!. He won the race and along with it the championship. Superb finish to the most controversial season ever. :)

I have uploaded 3rd build of the Feed Reader which I am developing. It still requires .Net 2.0 and IE7. http://cid-4341e40a50227f6b.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Public?uc=1

"The only people who find what they are looking for in life are the fault finders."

This is not the usual philosophical one- "Television is a new medium. It's called a medium because nothing is well-done." -Fred Allen

That was the punch line we had used for our project and job interviews. I am still using it - fight, Sid, fight.

If you are my friend, then please pray for me that I will get into Citi Group, next week. I need more well-wishers than ever. God help me.

Last 2 SimCATs have brought some hopes back to my mind after a disastrous SimCAT 3 where I got just 3 marks in VA. SimCAT 4 was better in terms of rank as I cruised to 39th rank. Sidscope did better than me getting his maiden merit list performance with 23rd rank. I rate my SimCAT 5 performance equally high despite 127th rank. I got good marks in all 3 sections and cleared each cutoff by at least 4 marks. I have to carry this momentum till the CAT and achieve what I set to achieve.

I forgot to mention that you would also require to have .Net 2.0 runtime environment in order to run that program.

Hello everyone. For last 2 months I have been trying to write a code for Feed Reader. This Feed Reader will be a desktop reader. Currently this reader is in very basic level of development. You must have IE7 installed on your PC to make use of it. The reason for this is that my code makes use of Microsoft RSS Framework. You can download the software from following link and test it. I request you to please test the application and reply the bugs so that the application will improve in its next release. http://cid-4341e40a50227f6b.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Public

For people who use AIRTEL but still call Dolphin "pathetic", this one is for you: "Jinke ghar shishe ke hote hai woh dusaron ke ghar pe patthar nahi pheka karate :P "

ओंकार स्वरुपा, सद्‍गुरु समर्था अनाथाच्या नाथा, तुज नमो तुज नमो, तुज नमो, तुज नमो नमो मायबापा, गुरुकृपा घना तोडीया बंधना मायामोहा मोहोजाळ माझे कोण नीरक्षीर तुजविण दयाळा सद्‍गुरु राया सद्‍गुरु राया माझा आनंद सागर त्रैलोक्या आधार गुरुराव गुरुराव स्वामी असे स्वयंप्रकाश ज्या पुढे उदास चंद्ररवी रवी, शशी, अग्नि, नेणती ज्या रुपा स्वप्रकाशरुपा नेणे वेद एका जनार्दनी, गुरु परब्रम्ह तयाचे पै नाम सदा मुखी तुज नमो, तुज नमो तुज नमो

If sex is a natural phenomenon then why so many books to tell how to? - Hindustan Times

For the first time in my life I watched a complete world cup final. And boy it was fun... Superb match as it was, it had everything, sometimes Indians on top, at others the Pakitsatnis. At the end it was the Indians who hold their nerves to be the winner. Well a small description of the match along with my reactions follows. Here it goes... The match begins with a surprise as Yusuf Pathan came to open the innings along with Gambhir(Hmmmm.... Has Dhoni gone made... I mean a rookie in final that to open the innings??) They started with an impulse but soon came down to earth as India lost Pathan, Robin, Yuvraj, Dhoni cheaply. It was the orthodox Gambhir who made 75 (HE got out on an unorthodox shot) Gul bowled really well. His yorkers except one were well directed and fetched him 3 wickets. Rohit Sharma provided the last flurish with 30 of 16 balls. Indians could get just 157 in their allotted 20 overs. Now it was Pak's turn to get 158. It was a mixed start for them as they lost 2 w...

I was surprised today after I found that Yahoo had already launched a web messenger similar to Gtalk web gadget. As yahoo messenger has more capabilities than Gtalk, the same is the case with the web gadgets. You can even SMS to your friend via yahoo messenger (both desktop client and web client). The link to the yahoo web messenger is http://webmessenger.yahoo.com/ . Please have a look.

We did it, we finally did it. India has won the world T-20 world cup. Here are some great moments in the match: http://picasaweb.google.com/darkside299/IndiaWinT20WorldCup2007

ओंकार स्वरुपा, सद्‍गुरु समर्था अनाथाच्या नाथा, तुज नमो तुज नमो, तुज नमो, तुज नमो नमो मायबापा, गुरुकृपा घना तोडीया बंधना मायामोहा मोहोजाळ माझे कोण नीरक्षीर तुजविण दयाळा सद्‍गुरु राया सद्‍गुरु राया माझा आनंद सागर त्रैलोक्या आधार गुरुराव गुरुराव स्वामी असे स्वयंप्रकाश ज्या पुढे उदास चंद्ररवी रवी, शशी, अग्नि, नेणती ज्या रुपा स्वप्रकाशरुपा नेणे वेद एका जनार्दनी, गुरु परब्रम्ह तयाचे पै नाम सदा मुखी तुज नमो, तुज नमो तुज नमो

I thought I had solved today's SimCAT properly but I was wrong. The 20 question barrier pulled me back to where I was. My score in PS, VA and DI was 14, 3, 31 respectively. Lets see what the percentile turns out to be.

Its been great world cup till now. Its been fascinating to see Indians playing so well. They have reached the finals of the world cup. Its a dream final with Indians facing their arch rivals Pakistan. Both teams have performed above expectation. It will be big finale to this magnificent world cup. I will report the winner tomorrow (I hope India wins and I know they will).

Following are the thoughts of one of my best buddies which I think will help me in this difficult period........ 1. If there is a will, there is a way. 2. You can take opinions from others, but you have to make your own decisions. Because nobody knows you more than you do. 3. If you work hard (smartness implied), you WILL get your dues.

Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.

Just to make a note of it- Roger Federer won the US Open Men's Single title by defeating Novak Djokovic whereas Justin Henin-Hardine won the Ladies Single title. Both got a whopping US $2.4 million as prize money. Congrats to them.

Its been eventful last month for Indian sports. Indian cricket team won the Test series in England, but lost the one day series 3-4. The match at oval was an absolute cracker. Everyone will remember it for a long long time. Apart from cricket, it was surprise wins for the Men's Football and Hockey teams. Football team won their maiden Nehru cup, while Hockey team remained unbeaten to hold the Asia cup. In fact India defeated Sri Lanka 20-0, a record. The biggest win was actually in Final when they thrashed Asian Champions South Korea 7-2.  As the news channels say it " चक दे  India ".

Its fierce battle between the 2 software giants where it is difficult to say who will be the winner. Microsoft has recently published a set of questions which they think the "Enterprises" should ask themselves before shifting to Google. Here are they: 1.      Google touts having enterprise level customers but how many “USERS” of their applications truly exist within the enterprise? 2.      Google has a history of releasing incomplete products, calling them beta software, and issuing updates on a “known only to Google” schedule – this flies in the face of what enterprises want and need in their technology partners – what is Google doing that indicates they are in lock step with customer needs? 3.      Google touts the low cost of their apps –not only price but the absence of need for hardware, storage or maintenance for Google Apps.  BUT if GAPE is indeed a complement to MSFT Office, the costs actually bec...

    Sent to you by Darkside via Google Reader:     India outplay South Korea to lift Asia Cup via Top Headlines by IBNLive.com editor@ibnonline.com on 9/10/07 India beat South Korea 7-2 on Sunday to retain the men's field Asia Cup.     Things you can do from here: Visit the original item on Top Headlines Subscribe to Top Headlines using Google Reader Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favorite sites    

"U learn in life when u lose"

"Silent gratitude isn't very much use to anyone."

    Sent to you by Darkside via Google Reader:     Find a needle in a feedstack with Google Reader via Official Google Blog by Karen on 9/6/07 Posted by Ben Darnell, Google Reader Engineer The fundamental problem with information is that there's too much of it, and this is probably why we all go to our trusted sources to learn what we really need to know. Your sources filter out the noise and present the most interesting bits to you in a useful way. For many of us, these sources include newspapers, magazines, and of course blogs. We built Google Reader as a way for you to see all of your online sources in one place. So if you want to keep up with the chatter about the new iPods or Superbad , now you can. We've added a familiar search box to the top of Google Reader so you can search across all the blogs and sites to which you're subscribed. See if this doesn't help with your information overload. And by the way, if you want to learn more about feed readers...

Yesterday I was just surfing the net to check which web feed reader is the best. Currently I use the Google Reader for viewing my feeds. I went Wikipedia to find drawbacks in GR. I found one which was lack of search facility in it. Today I logged in to Google Reader and found that they have placed a new "Search" button in the UI. Can there be a bigger coincidence than this???

"If you pay peanuts, you will get monkeys."

Its time analyze my performances in all the test given by me for CAT. There are certain facts that have come up which are as follows: 1. First and foremost, my strength as always has been Maths and DI. The weak point has been English. 2. Strength and weakness doesn't necessarily imply that I always get more marks in the two. It talks about the relative difficulty I feel while attempting each type of questions. 3.  DI has been the source of bulk of my scores. My confident level is so high in DI that I generally could attempt(not necessarily write an answer) all the question in DI section. My accuracy is also really good.  The problem here is the calculations especially the ones involving "percentages". I hate them but there is hardly any way out. Data sufficiency problems have been the real culprit in decreasing my accuracy. I need to practice them more to perform better. Last but not the least, some times the confidence turns into overconfidence and creates havoc...

"It is always the best policy to speak the truth--unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar"

"Laughing at our mistakes can lengthen our own life. Laughing at someone else's can shorten it."                                                                                     - Cullen Hightower

Toh Phir Aao Mujhko Sataao                                             Toh phir aao mujhko sataao                                               Toh phir aao mujhko rulaao   Dil baadal bane hai, aankhein behne lage hai Aahein aise uthein hai jaise aandhi chalein hai Toh phir aao mujhko sataao Toh phir aao mujhko rulaao Aa bhi jaao                                  ...

I cant believe it. For the first time in my life I got a whole DI set wrong. Shit, shit, shit. I cant lose marks like this. DI is my strength. I got just 43 out of 150 where actually I should have got 75 as I lost 32 marks in that set. Come on Sid you can do better than this...

"It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech." -Mark Twain

Aditya is one person whom you should never count on for keeping secrets. I told him that i had left Webaroo, so that afterwards he should be angry with me that I didn't inform him about my resignation. After all as I took such an extreme step of resigning, I should have asked my dearest friends for advise. But then he was the first person to whom I told the news. And as always Mr. Aajtak did his job of telling the whole thing to his "buddies" . I came to know about this only yesterday, when Shashikant called me to tell me that he got a job and will be joining on 1st of September (Congrats to him as he finally silenced his critics, Aditya being one of them).  He asked me whether I was really thinking of leaving my job. He also told me that Nishigandh told him my "whole story". I was completely baffled... How did Nishigandh come to know about this? Any guesses? Yes it was Aditya who did it again. I mean why the hell do you need to tell the that I left some compan...

In its 60th year as an independent nation, India has just elected its first woman president. Yet the ascent of the demure Pratibha Patil - with her covered head and long career in "women's issues" - may not necessarily be a victory for Indian women. Today, in India, "women's empowerment" is a government slogan; it is a feature of every party manifesto. There is a ministry for women and child development. There are laws against female foeticide, domestic violence and sexual harassment in the workplace. The number of working women is exploding: businesswomen such as Kiran Majumdar Shaw and sportswomen such as Sania Mirza show that talented, determined women are making it in every corner of this traditional society - a society that was entirely male-dominated in 1947. Yet, in the first decade of the 21st century, Indian women - seemingly protected by law, celebrated by the media and nursed by activists - remain second-class citizens, most obviously in rural are...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc said on Sunday it was giving its e-mail users more ways to reach friends and online contacts by allowing them to trade messages with mobile phone users. The new e-mail-to-phone connection is one of the features the Internet media giant plans to add as it makes available to the more than 250 million Yahoo Mail users a new version of the world's most popular e-mail program in coming weeks. The Yahoo Mail overhaul is part of a drive to transform its e-mail franchise into more of a social activity that blends the convenience of instant communication with the implicit network of relationships found in one's online address book.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007 11:00 AM PDT Symantec Tuesday unveiled the 2008 editions of its Norton AntiVirus and Internet Security desktop protection products, adding what it calls "threat interceptor" defense to prevent execution of malicious code enabled through a drive-by download . Used by consumers and small businesses, Norton AntiVirus 2008 and Norton Internet Security , which includes the antivirus capability plus a desktop firewall and host-based intrusion prevention, will now be able to block drive-by downloads from Web sites where visitors with unpatched computers can easily be infected and their machines compromised. Symantec 's 2008 edition security products are designed to run on Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Windows Vista . "There are multiple infection vectors for drive-by downloads, both Web sites where malicious code is deliberately posted and legitimate Web sites that have been compromised," noted Ed Kim , director of product management at ...

To fight a War you need a definite game plan. Almost every company has a "mission" towards which its goals are addressed.  I am facing a situation of war in my own life with the objective of making it to the IIM. Its not going to be easy, but who said it will be?  So from today onwards its "Mission Impossible" for me. This mission doesnt just include CAT but also my fight ahead of it, like GD and PI. CAT is just one of the battles which i must win to win the war. I request you all to please help me in this fight of survival. If you see any good material on CAT or a good news article, opinions of thinkers like Karan Thapar, Barakha Dutt, Rajdeep Saradesai. I need to keep myself updated with latest technology. Suggest good books that I must read to improve my English. And say these words whenever you meet me: "Come on Sid you can do it. ......."

Well, I have started my studies for CAT. I have already given 1 SimCAT and 1 FCT. I have decided to keep track of my progress in each of the 3 sections. I have made a Google Spreadsheet, which contains 2 sheets 1 with marks and other with accuracy. I hope my accuracy and marks both keep rising. Most importantly it should reach its peak at the time of CAT '07. Here is the link to it: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pubkey=po4HIlJMb1OUM8foksJz1Nw

PC World - Beta Watch   SpaceTime: Better 3D Browsing Most approaches to three-dimensional browsing have been seriously disappointing. SpaceTime , a free public beta download, has some good ideas, though it's still too buggy to use regularly. SpaceTime arranges large thumbnails of sites in a line stretching out into a blue sky. To interact with a page, you double-click the thumbnail. SpaceTime lets you quickly flip through the top five results of a Web search, and seeing images of the pages instead of a snippet of text sometimes makes it easier to figure out whether you want to visit them. On my system, though, generating the thumbnails took a noticeable amount of time--10 seconds or so. PC World - Beta Watch

I was wondering that as I am always in search of better and better software on the net, I could list down some of them which could be helpful to others. So following is the list of software which I am currently using along with a small description of most of them: 1. Zip-Unzip Software 7-zip 4.42 WinZIP 11 WinRAR 3.61 Out of these 7-zip is the freeware and other 2 are Shareware. I mostly use WinZIP and WinRAR. Earlier I also had ZipGenius which is also good but it is a little slower than WinZIP. 2. Audio and Video Windows Media Player 11 VLC Player 0.86a Winamp 5.32 QuickTime 7.2 K-Lite codec Pack 1.66 iTunes 7.3.2 Audacity 1.0 Well if you are wondering what "Audacity" is, then let me clear that its not used for media playing. Its a audio authoring tool, means you can edit the audio. I think WMP 11, VLC Player, K-Lite codec pack are must. Try to avoid iTunes and Quick time. I have to use them for my iPod shuffle. 3. Appearance RoketDock 1.3.1 Yahoo! Widgets 1.2.6 UberIcon ...

I have done it. Finally I am an Engineer. It doesn't feel like that though. I got 530 out of 700 which turns out to be 75.71%. In my final year in VJTI I scored 1137 out of 1500. Its 75.8 per cent. I was in top 15 in my class in both the semesters which brings me to top ten in the final year, surprising isnt it? My aggregate for all 4 years is 4469/5900. That makes it 75.75%. Hehe... I guess my hard work did pay off. After all I was able to keep the same percentage in both the semester. I hope I better my success in future and don't repeat the mistakes made in the past.

My results were declared on last Friday. I got distinction in 8th sem which also gives me an overall distinction in my BE. Marks will be displayed on Tuesday. Congrats to me and all my classmates.....

I took my 1st SimCAT to begin my 2nd campaign to crack CAT. The maths section was the most difficult followed by verbal and DI in levels of difficulty. After assessing my paper, I found that I have got around 100 marks out of 300.Not a bad start man!!! After all, I decided to take SimCAT just the other day and did not study at all before the test. I am sure  I will improve upon this. Hope for the best...

So its final now. At least for the moment!!! I am going to give CAT this year.well, its been a difficult decision for me as well as my family. I had a many discussions with my family. We concluded that it would be really difficult for me to pursue MS in US. Reasons are many ranging from fees to my staying alone. I guess the biggest reason for backing out of "MS theory" was the unavailability of any guide. For years, its been like this.We never had the emotional support we needed. When I look back for last 8 yrs or so, its been my friends who have stood by me in my difficult phases other than my parents and bro. If it wasn't for Vishwajeet, I am seriously not sure whether I would have come to merit by any chance. HE was the one who guided me to my success in 10th and 12th. Same has been Sidscope's role during my engineering. We hardly have any relatives. Whatever relatives we have, are mostly useless.So sometimes it feels sad, after watching your friends and their rela...

I am not a midnight's child or a child of partition. Actually, I was born the year after Nehru died. In a sense, I represent the post-Nehruvian generation, those for whom the freedom struggle was confined to Amar Chitra Katha comics and history textbooks that valorised our national icons. And yet, i must confesss there is something about 60 years of Indian independence that fills me with a sense of pride and nostalgia.Pride in being an Indian, nostalgia for what it must have been like in those heady days ahead of August 15th 1947. Looking at sepia-tinted images of Rajpath on the day India achieved freedom, one can imagine the frenzied crowds, the sense of utter joy at being a free nation. We take freedom for granted today.We couldn't have been quite so bindaas 60 years ago. That perhaps is our greatest achievement, creating a sense of uninhibited freedom among millions (spit where you want, vote for whom you wish!).Few gave this country a chance of survival 60 years ago. The pr...

Its been a tough time for the last 4 to 5 weeks. I resigned from Webaroo. Since I had forfeited Lehman Brothers offer, I am left with IBM now. Though its not entirely difficult for me to stay in Pune, I am going to make some attempts in companies in Mumbai. Lets see what happens...

What is life? How can you succeed in it? Its certainly not as easy as ABC. For some life is as ugly as Scarecrow & for others its as beautiful as their Girlfriend. Some say its as bright as day while others say it's as dark as midnight. Well, I am not as wise as Solomon, but certainly not as dumb as a statue. To begin with, I must admit life can be as brittle as glass. Our one mistake could ruin our entire life. Hence you need to be as brave as a Lion, as cunning as a Fox, as watchful as a Hawk. When doing a work, try to be as busy as an Ant & as sharp as a razor. Be careful of those who are as greedy as Wolf. If your are as innocent as Dove, then these people will always badger your way. If you are as silly as a Goose then people who are as hungry as a Hawk will eat you up. Be as firm as a Rock. Firmness doesn't mean silence. So don't be as silent as the dead. Express yourself whenever required, in a voice as sweet as honey. If you think as quick as lightning then ...

I read one article by Barakha Dutt. It was about how Indian feel proud if some one of Indian origin however "Un-Indian" he/she may be. On the other hand, the same support is not led to people with controversial background. Check out this article. http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=aa63f54e-b26f-439e-8047-187da254512d&MatchID1=4479&TeamID1=6&TeamID2=25&MatchType1=2&SeriesID1=1115&PrimaryID=4479&Headline=Made+in+India

I had gone to my native place Vareri in Devgad (District Sindhudurg ) between 11 to 16. It is a place famous for the Alfonso mangoes. Here are some thing which happened during those days. Day 1: For the first time in my life I traveled in a train for long distance journey. Otherwise it use to be the Lal Daba which would take around 13-14 hrs to reach Devgad . We were really curious about the time it would take to reach. And we weren't disappointed. Compared to the ST, it took us 10 hrs to reach home, a saving of 3-4 hrs of boring journey. But I guess it wasn't going to be as happy as the journey was. We reached here only to find that the electricity supply wasn't restored. We had requested the MSEB to cut the supply earlier as we didn't have anyone staying here & due to my engineering we were sure that we wont be coming here for that period. Before leaving Mumbai we had made an application to local MSEB office. An application wasn't enough though. I guess ...

Following Song describes my state of mind when I had gone to my native place last week - Yeh hai meri kahani khamosh zindagani sannata keh raha hai kyun zulm seh raha hai Ek dastaan purani tanhayi ki zubani her zakham khil raha hai kuch mujh se keh raha hai Chubtay kantay yadoon ke Daaman say chunta hoon Girti deewaron ke Aanchal mai Zinda hoon Bass yeh meri kahani benishaan nishaani ek darr beh raha hai kuch mujh se keh raha hai Chubtay kantay yadoon ke Daaman say chunta hoon Girti deewaron ke Aanchal mai Zinda hoon   Bajay pyaar ki shabnum mere gulistaan mein baraste rehte hain har simt maut ke saye siyahiyon se ulajh padti hain meri aankhein koi nahi .. koi bhi nahi jo batlaye itni der ujalon ki raah dekhe koi nahi hai koi bhi nahi na pass na durr yeh pyaar hai dil ki dharkan apni chahat ka jo ellan kiye jaati hai zindagi hai jo jiye jaati hai khoon k ghoont peay jaati hai khwaab aankhon se siye jaati hai Ab na koi paas hai phir bhi ehsaas hai Yahiaon mai uljhi padi jeen...