New sexy portable MP3 player

Got a sexy portable MP3 player: Creative MuVo TX FM 512MB.

Salient features...

• Built-in FM radio and recorder
• Super-fast USB 2.0
• Built-in microphone for voice recording
• 5-band custom equalizer and 4 presets (Jazz, Rock, Pop and Classical)
• Displays ID3 tags for song title
• Reversible LCD for left or right handed operation
• Doubles up as USB storage device
• Weight: 32grams without battery
• Up to 15hrs of MP3 continuous play on 1 x AAA battery

I (rather my brother) have been using it for about 2 weeks without any grievances and is satisfied with it's sound quality and ease of using it's controls. It comes with an arm band so that you can easily put it on your arm while exercising, jogging, etc. Other contender for the 512MB MP3 player was Apple's iPod Shuffle! A little cheaper than TX FM, I would have gone for it but for these two short comings:

1. Built-in rechargable battery and charger.
2. without any additional accessory, only way to charge is to plug it in USB for about 4-5 hrs!

For 1, though a boon, rechargable batteries can live for only a limited number of charge-discharge cycles. And difficult, if not impossible, to get it replaced in India. And for 2, it restricts it's usage while you are constantly on move where you might not get opportunity to plug it in USB!

Hitch: The Movie

Hitch, v: to hook or entangle. True to it's meaning, movie is about getting dates together (no points for guessing that right)! Alex Hitchens (starring Will Smith), the Date Doctor, secretly helps guys build courage/skills/situations to walk up to his date and propose her. The best part is his tricks are flawless. Only to find himself carried away by a gorgeous gossip columnist, Sara (Eva Mendes), where his skills fall short!

I would have only gone it next weekend, but for my generous friend who gave me 2 tickets of the preview show which she won in one of the contests. I would rate this movie as a good Romantic Comedy movie. At times you will want to laugh at the top of your voices just to express how hilarious a scene was and I really did it a couple of times! Guess what... I was *not* the only one. All gorgeous looking females ensure that you don't get your attention off the screen even for a minute. No vulgar comedy, and can be watched with your family! Packed with enough of comedy and sense, the movie is worth 2 hours of your time.

Visited New Shopping Mall: Pune Central

If you, unlike me, read newspapers regularly, you cannot miss the Central's 4 page separate supplement advertisement that came with Pune's Sunday Times Of India! Though I'm not a shopping freak, I decided to spend some time browsing through the store (along with and on insistence of my mommy and brother). I cannot say if it's the greatest store, but with 5 levels (4 + ground floor) and 3 tier basement parking I would say this is *just* too big a mall and worth a visit for any serious shopping freak. Central claims to have the largest collection of all major Indian and International brands under one single roof. While I visited it, one of the floors was still under construction. Located near Bundh Garden, Boat Club, and owned by Pantaloon Retail, Central is the third (or fourth) branch in the country, others being in Banglore & Hyderabad. So guys, spare some 3 hours (and that's minimum) and have a leisurely visit at this new store, you won't repent it! And hey, I forgot to add that it has Planet M music store, food joint and some more stuff that I might have missed!

Nevis Celebrates Second Anniversary!

Nevis Networks grew to be a 2 year old startup on 2nd April '05. We had a small celebration (of course it had to be small, we don' t want people to get into party mood and be that way for rest of the week, and yes, we want to save every possible penny we can ;-) )! Cutting the cakes, followed by snacks and then group photos. Here's my team. And if you are wondering why on earth am I holding my right hand back, then you guessed it right, I'm holding snacks which I am trying to hide ;-)

I'm resting my hands on Nikunj's shoulders, to his left is Archana followed by Sweta. And the taller of guys between Nik and Archie is Boney.

VIM Tip

While I've lots of stuff to post, I couldn't resist when I stumbled upon this SEXY Vim tip! I just couldn't wait to share this with you all. I know, this might be pretty naive for a seasoned Vi* user, but still just in case you don't have this! Just place this in your .vimrc.

" Get me the function name!
map _F ma[[k"xyy`a:echo @x

Ok, do you want me to explain it piece-meal... here it goes...
1. map _F
This will map key combination '_' followe by 'F' to whatever follows.
2. ma
Record/mark your current cursour location in the file into 'a'.
3. [[
Takes you to the start of the current function.
4. k
Move one line up.
5. "xyy
Read/yank current line into register 'x'
6. `a
Get back to where your cursour originally was, i.e. marked as 'a'
7. :echo @x
Echo the contents of reg 'x', which happens to be the function name!
BINGO!
This is the actual source of this tip!


Happy Vi*'ing!

Note: This won't work if you define your functions in a little different way!!!
In that case use [[ to go to start of the function, read the name and press '' (two single quotes) to return to previous cursour location.

Meditation is a MUST

I know everyone is just VERY busy. How the hell does one spare time for meditation? Besides, what good is it in this highly competative and stressful world? If you are faced with the same dilema ... here's how Sri Sri Ravishankar, founder of Art Of Living responds. I found a reference to this on one of Art of Living sites.

Question: Meditation calms the mind. It feels good. But in our daily life we have to handle paying bills, parking tickets and other mundane things. How can we do this with the same calm mind without getting irritated or perturbed?

Sri Sri: You take a shower in the morning to clean your body. After that you do all the daily activities. You don't have to keep on taking a shower throughout the day. It is like that. You meditate and calm your mind, then go on with other activities. It is not easy to keep yourself undisturbed but it will happen as you keep doing the practices regularly. Then it will become easy.

My Radio's off

That's SICK!!! Working without music is BORING like hell! I usually play radio to aid me concentrate. No no no no NOT radio mirchi! I said I play radio for MUSIC and not for NOISE. These days people know of radio ONLY because of that GOD DAMNED cheap-boring-stinking radio channel. I listen to good old Vividh Bharati. Music also serves as a means to cut me off of all the ambient noises around me! I think the problem is mainly becasue just behind the place where I kept my small walky 2 new PCs have come up. They seem to be causing a lot of electromangetic disturbance, which interferes with already weak radio signals in my cubicle :'-( Don't believe me, trying tuning your small walky keeping it near your monitor or PC cabinet. Any ideas how I can work around this problem??? Be the provider of a fix to this blessed! No, PLEASE don't give me options like MP3, Internet Radio, Cassette, get antenna blah blah.

Met Sushmita Sen

Hello Buddies, back after a LONG time! Was sick last week and so had to cover up for the sick leaves! Am back to normal, I guess ;-) A couple of days back I met Sushmita Sen! Yes the former Miss Universe, 1994! She was staying at resort at an hour's drive from Pune. My sister had contacts with the person in-charge of the resort who asked her if she was interested in seeing her personally! She jumped to her feet and asked me (along with other cousins) to join in. I, of course, was too reluctant to spend my Sunday leisure time waiting to see any celebrity (of course unless she were Angelina Jolie or Charlize Theron). But I joined and I tell you, a few hours' wait was worth it. She's a VERY soft spoken person and shows no ego. And GOD DAMN ... she looks so SSSSSSSWEET!!! Here's one snap that I want to share with you guys!

Envy me ...

My New PC

It has been ages that I haven't posted anything on blog. That's mainly because I was caught up into critical bugs (and am still struggling with one). Well, I don't wanna talk about that right now. The other secondary reason is that I got a new PC @ home and whatever time I could spare, I spent in making it more usable everyday, and today I've got it to the point that I can post thro my new PC with net connected over IrDA link to my mobile phone [Nokia 6610i], acting as a modem, which transfers data over GPRS! Yes, as exotic as it sounds, it was a REAL PITA to get all these links working right! Especially when you have M$FT Windoze XP to install your drivers on with absolutely no manual to RTFM! 2/3, Sleepless nights, a few unending-always-on-hold calls to Airtel customer care, digging net like hell, and BINGO! Things started working! Needless to say, I bothered a buddy or two as well! Phew! Finally I'm done (I cross my fingers and think so!)

Just to show-off ;-) I've posted the snap of my new PC here. I have tried to get a configuration that will survive at least 5+years of my computing needs!

1. Intel Pentium -4 2.80 GHz, 800MHz FSB, 1MB L2 Cache, LGA775.
2. Intel D915GAV Motherboard
(Something striking about this mobo is that its has got built-in 5.1 Intel High Definition Audio system, implying on-board support for DTS, Dolby, etc. Grantsdale, as this mobo is called, features multi-tasking audio ports, implying that it can sense whether you have plugged in a mic, speaker, or something else and switch to appropriate functionality without human intervention. Features GMA900 onboard graphics subsystem. Also has PIC-X slots. And hell lotta technical innovations)
3. 17" Samsung LCD/TFT Monitor (710N) [CRTs suck!!!]
4. 120 GB Seagate SATA HDD [Barracuda 7200.7 SATA - ST3120026AS]
5. 1GB (512x2) DDR 400MHz RAM
6. Creative Inspire 5200 (5.1) 6-speaker system
7. Sony CD-RW/DVD-RW (Sony DRU-710A) [review 1, review 2]

Yes, you read it right! It's DVD RW, remember ... about meeting 5 years of computing needs!!! Items 6 & 7 weren't planned for when I started researching about the PC. They did add to my total cost significantly, but I don't repent putting in extra money. Inspire 5200 rocks my room at mere volume of 5! I spent significant amount of time shortlisting each of the components. I almost stopped reading my novels after I started taking brochures/manuals/reviews back home to go through the nights!

I haven't installed Linux though, as I'm yet to get my hands on the distro I want: Debian Sarge! Well, I can keep writing about new PC and how I went about shortlisting each of the components, but I don't wanna bore you chaps! So I'll cut if off here!