My schmoopie Natty is growing… 
Enjoying fatherhood
Enjoying fatherhood… will be back soon
11.11.11: Natty
A new addition has sprouted into our family. We’re very chuffed and blessed to become new parents of a beautiful little baby boy “Natty”. We are thrilled to introduce
Shalom Keshet
born 11.11.11 at 2:55 am
Weighing 6 pounds and Measuring 19 inches.
Overwhelmed with joy,
Aira & Rakesh
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* The meaning of “Natty” is “God has given” – Smart, Good and Cool baby.
** The meaning of Shalom is “peace” and Keshet means “rainbow”.
New Gmail design
Google accidentally posted a video of a new version of Gmail that features a revamped look, redesigned conversation threads and improved search to its YouTube channel. The new version of Gmail has been in the works since June this year when Google began tinkering with its features.
This unofficial video, which features Jason Cornwell, user experience designer for Gmail, highlights other upcoming features in the new revamped Gmail. Google has since made the video private but not before YouTube user crlsndrsjmnz uploaded it to his YouTube account.
Lytro: Only camera that captures life in living pictures
Sometime ago, when I heard about Ren Ng, while he was a researcher at Stanford, he was photographing a friend’s daughter and noticed “it was incredibly difficult to focus the image properly and capture her fleeting smile in just the right way.” After completing his Ph.D, Ng decided to use his experience in light field research to “start a company that would produce light field cameras that everyone could enjoy.”
In 2011, Lytro demonstrated a camera that allows users to change the focus of a picture after the picture is taken. Lytro is developing “a new type of camera that dramatically changes photography for the first time since the 1800s,” according to TechCrunch.
The company’s first camera was launched on October 19th, 2011 in 8GB ($399) and 16GB ($499) versions, shipping in early 2012. It’s a global revolution but we only ship to the US for now. You need a Mac to import and edit your pictures.
The technology is being used in this camera is – Light field photography (also known as plenoptic photography) captures all the available light in a scene going in every direction. It works by breaking up the main image with a microlens over an image sensor. Prior to development of the Lytro camera, light field images had to be taken with hundreds of different cameras tethered to a computer to compose the image.
Features of plenoptic cameras include:
Refocusing: Users are able to refocus images after they are taken.
Speed: Because there is no need to focus the lens before taking a picture, a plenoptic camera can capture images more quickly than conventional point-and-shoot digital cameras.
Low-light sensitivity: the ability to adjust focus in post-processing allows the use of larger apertures than are feasible on conventional cameras, thus enabling photography in low-light environments without a flash.
Make it magic.
Lytro lets you take pictures like never before. Unlike a conventional camera that captures a single plane of light, the Lytro camera captures the entire light field, which is all the light traveling in every direction in every point in space.
Capture everything – instantly.
Capture living pictures with the press of a single button. By instantly capturing complete light field data, the Lytro gives you capabilities you’ve never had in a regular camera.
Focus after the fact.
Since you’ll capture the color, intensity, and direction of all the light, you can experience the first major light field capability – focusing after the fact. Focus and re-focus, anywhere in the picture. You can refocus your pictures at anytime, after the fact.
And focusing after the fact, means no auto-focus motor. No auto-focus motor means no shutter delay. So, capture the moment you meant to capture not the one a shutter-delayed camera captured for you.
Share the love.
Don’t keep the fun to yourself. Easily share from the desktop or from Lytro.com to friends and family on Facebook, Twitter, email or your blog.
I think Flipcart perfectly fits the Indian mentality
“I don’t like Window Shopping. Do you know why?”
“I tell you, Why?”
“Number 1. It’s boring.”
“Number 2. I get tired.”
“Number 3. Just wandering aimlessly through shops full of people, I hate that.”
“Number 4. It is sad that have no cash for clothes which I want, so the pauver time were totally wasted.”
A few years ago, when I wanted to buy something online, only Amazon or Ebay name used to pop up in my mind first. Now there are many online retailer sites. On Amazon, when I order, I always paid extra for faster shipping. For example, I ordered something that costs $10 but I had to pay $9 extra for shipping to be delivered.
On eBay, whenever I find something to buy, the product is available on eBay India but not for the same price. There are many products are available in eBay US or other international eBay sites like eBay UK, Australia, etc but the same products you won’t get on eBay India. Due to this reason, many times I drop the idea to buy something from these sites I am looking for. Sometimes, I ordered something but it never reached (later they refunded the money).
Then I heard the name “Flipcart.com” a online retailer of books, electronics, music, etc. I ordered a book – “Stay Hungry Stay Foolish” by Rashmi Bansal (the words “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish” was used by Steve Jobs in 2005 at Stanford University when he was addressing to students).
WOW! I got the book in less than 24 hours. I was completely surprised to see the service Flipcart provided. It was an amazing experience I had. First time I was impressed by an Indian online book retailer site.
The first and best thing I like about flipkart is their prompt of delivery. They provide more choices of products – an excellent collection in terms of books. hey are growing their collection of books, electronics, music, gadgets, etc. The discover-ability of products are also exceptional. Flipkart provide good pricing compared to its competitors. They provide convenient payment options like Flipkart here offer you Cash on Delivery, Net banking and even through your debit card provide EMI to their loyal customers. Flipkart site design is clean, cool and very friendly. Flipkart packs the products in a good manner whether it is book or electronics. Also, their customer Service is awesome.
I would not be shopping again from Amazon.com until Amazon India will be opened here. I now shops on India’s answer to Amazon and eBay — FlipKart.com — which delivers books, phones and other items in as little as 24 hours at no extra cost. I don’t need to pay Flipkart a single penny until a courier bearing his books arrives at my door. Now when I order something on Flipkart I opt the Net banking as a mode of payment – it’s very convenient for me.
“I think Flipcart perfectly fits the Indian mentality.”
While dozens of electronic commerce firms have recently sprung up to capitalize on India’s growing Internet use, they have a problem. Indians are not yet comfortable with shopping on the Web. Many of them remain unwilling to use credit cards online. So the Indian retailers have gone to great lengths to gain customers. Customers may pay in cash on delivery, and the company fields delivery squads to ensure shipments get to customers quickly.
Online sales still make up a small portion of overall retail spending — one estimate pegs it at $10 billion, a tiny fraction of India’s $500 billion retail market — but they are growing fast.
FlipKart says it had revenue of 500 million rupees ($11 million) in its last fiscal year, and is now clocking sales of about 10 million rupees a day.
“This time it is for real,” said Kishore Biyani, the founder and chief executive of the Future Group, referring to an earlier wave of e-commerce euphoria in the early 2000s. “This is the biggest thing to happen in India.”
That rapid growth has drawn the attention of venture capitalists who poured $183 million into 20 e-commerce firms in the last 12 months, up from $61 million for 13 firms in the previous 12 months, according to Venture Intelligence, a research firm.
The rapid growth has also attracted the notice of American online retailers. Amazon, which has a software development office in Bangalore, is now building a warehouse and hiring employees for an Indian site, according to two industry officials.
But, like in frothy Silicon Valley, some Indian analysts and investors are starting to question the frenzied deal-making. These skeptics find it difficult to justify the high prices venture capitalists are paying to invest in unprofitable Indian e-commerce firms. For instance, VCCircle, a news site, recently reported that FlipKart may soon raise $150 million, which would give it a $1 billion valuation.
India has 50 million to 100 million Internet users, according to various analysts, and the number is growing by about 30 percent a year. JuxtConsult, a New Delhi-based research firm, estimates that 17 million people bought something online this year, up from 10 million last year. The Indian government estimates that household consumption has increased by more than two-thirds in the last five years, and most of that increase has come in the purchase of nonfood items.
“It seems to be more for real than a flash in the pan,” said Kanwaljit Singh, who is a senior managing director at Helion Advisors, which has invested in about a half-dozen Indian e-commerce sites, including MakeMyTrip.
But capitalizing on India’s growth online will not be easy. Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal (who are not related), the founders of FlipKart, have had to do things that their American or European counterparts would never have. They have set up delivery operations in 13 big Indian cities like Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi because Indian shippers do not have the delivery and package-tracking abilities that FedEx and U.P.S. provide for its American customers. They plan to expand FlipKart’s delivery network to 25 cities within a year.
Sachin Bansal, the company’s chief executive, said that by having its own staff, FlipKart avoids paying courier services’ commissions of more than 2 percent to accept cash on delivery, which make up about 60 percent of its orders. It can also track packages more accurately. And because labor costs are relatively low in India, its delivery cost is a modest $1 a package.
“More than 90 percent of retail transactions in India are in cash,” Mr. Bansal said. “People like my dad and my uncle, they are much more comfortable with cash. If we have to increase our customer base, we have to accept cash.”
FlipKart is not alone in tweaking its model to suit Indian conditions. Myntra, an online retailer of clothes, has a delivery staff in Bangalore and plans to hire couriers in other cities.
Consumers and suppliers laud FlipKart’s service and execution. But they expect the company to soon face greater competition, especially if Amazon starts an Indian operation. “Today they are the best,” said Ananth Padmanabhan, vice president for sales at Penguin India. But, he asked, “if Amazon comes here next month, and they might, what will FlipKart do?”
An Amazon spokesman, Craig Berman, declined to comment on the company’s plans for India, but Mr. Padmanabhan said Amazon officials have been holding talks with publishers, and another industry official said the retailer has begun hiring employees for an Indian site.
The Bansals say they are prepared for competition from Amazon. Sachin Bansal, who worked with Binny Bansal as a software developer at Amazon before starting FlipKart, brushed aside a suggestion that the firm would make for an easy acquisition by Amazon.
“We are very keen on going our own way,” he said. “The opportunity is so large that we would want to grow it to a much bigger level before we think of anything.”
What did one BlackBerry user say to the other BlackBerry user? Nothing.
For last two days I have been experiencing issues while using BlackBerry services that makes me wonder what the heck they are doing. Later I came to know after getting a message from RIM that we’re experiencing some issues. That message says:
“You may again be experiencing intermittent issues while using BlackBerry services. BlackBerry provider. RIM is working on the issue and it will likely to be restored withing the next 4 hours. We regret the inconconenience caused.”
Other important aspect covered by the report is the problem that such a technology is facing around the world:
When I knew that many people are facing the problem around the world. After getting hit with this issue, BlackBerry users across the world have been left without email or text services for a second day due to an unexplained fault. Customers in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil, Chile and Argentina have now reported problems with their devices.
BlackBerry manufacturer Research In Motion (RIM) released a statement saying: “The messaging and browsing delays being experienced by BlackBerry users… were caused by a core switch failure within RIM’s infrastructure.
“Although the system is designed to failover to a back-up switch, the failover did not function as previously tested.”
“As a result, a large backlog of data was generated and we are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service as quickly as possible.”
“We apologise for any inconvenience and we will continue to keep you informed.”
The server problems started on Monday morning.
Steve Dinneen, technology columnist with City AM newspaper, described the situation as a disaster for Blackberry.
Speaking on Jeff Randall Live, he stressed the outage had badly damaged the firm’s brand, which is already struggling.
“It couldn’t have come at a worse time for Blackberry – it’s already seen its share price fall by two thirds since the start of this year,” Mr Dinneen said.
“If ever there’s a time that people were going to jump ship from Blackberry, this is it.”
Customers have been venting their fury at the lack of service on Twitter and other social networking sites.
One tweeted: “You realise that sending a letter in a bottle and putting it in the Thames is more reliable than a BlackBerry.”
Another joked: “What did one BlackBerry user say to the other BlackBerry user? Nothing.”
RIM had given the all-clear on Tuesday morning after the first problems.
But they struck again later, leaving users unable to access emails or the internet or use messaging services.
Regular voice-calling services appear not to have been affected, and the problem seems to be limited to personal rather than business contracts.
Mobile operators in the UK including T Mobile and Orange posted messages on their websites referring customers experiencing difficulties to the manufacturer.
Vodafone said: “Research in Motion (RIM) is currently investigating the issue as a priority to restore services as soon as possible.”
TV critic Ian Hyland tweeted: “All we need now is for i-phones to start playing up and we’ll have the dream headline: ‘Apple and Blackberry Crumble.’”
Apple Announces Plans to Release Steve Jobs 2.0
Jobs’ death has inspired an outpouring of grief from fans of iProducts the world over, the Onion hasn’t shied away from adding its own spin to the mass-appreciations and tributes to the beloved tech giant.
Headlines for videos and articles on the Onion carry such doozies as “Last Bastion of U.S. Economy Succumbs to Pancreatic Cancer,” “Apple User Acting Like His Dad Died” and “Last American Who Knew What the Fuck He Was Doing Dies.”
Most provocative of all is a web video entitled “Apple Announces Plans to Release Steve Jobs 2.0”
In many ways, the jokes inside are relatively tame, leaving most of the shock humor to the titles.
Among the flaws that Jobs 2.0 is supposed to fix, for instance, is the old Jobs habit of wearing “dad jeans.” The fresher model will sport a “sleek new white turtleneck” and a “richer, deeper voice.”
That hasn’t stopped some from failing to find the humor in the Onion’s Jobs jokes. Business Insider CEO and Editor-in-Chief Henry Blodget slammed the piece.
“Does anyone else NOT think this is funny? I think tasteless RT The Onion: Apple Announces Plans To Release Steve Jobs 2.0,” Blodget tweeted.
Others, such as the New Yorker, have also tried to inject a little levity into Jobs’ passing. The cover of this week’s magazine has Jobs being greeted at the pearly gates by an iPad wielding St. Peter, but that kind of humor is more aggrandizing than it is savage.
It’s not the first time, nor will it be the last, that the Onion has found itself in the position of trying to be funny about a tragic event. After all, their first New York issue after the company moved from Madison, Wisconsin to the big apple was originally scheduled to be published on September 11, 2001.
The terrorist attacks of 9/11 pushed that date back, but even as the country was still reeling from the carnage, the Onion’s editors still managed to find the funny. Among the now classic headlines — “Highjackers Surprised to Find Selves in Hell.”
Looking back on it nearly a decade later, Onion writer John Krewson told Yahoo that the issue was “cathartic.”
Jobs death certainly isn’t on the scale of 9/11, but the makeshift memorials at Apple stores and the tributes that flooded Facebook and Twitter demonstrate that people across the globe felt a deep kinship with him.
Will the Onion prove that laughter is the best medicine for grief?
Update: Watch Jobs 2.0 by The Onion News Network
Facebook has acquired friend.ly
Facebook has acquired friend.ly, creator of a question and answer application for getting to know other people on the social network.
Friend.ly lets people answer questions within their social network.
“We’re excited about this because we feel the spirit of friend.ly aligns well with Facebook’s vision, and we’re thrilled to be joining such an innovative company. The friend.ly team will be focusing on new projects at Facebook, but friend.ly will continue to operate as a separate service.”
Other acqui-hires have gone on to do great things at Facebook. Sam Lessin, for example, led the charge on Facebook’s new timeline feature.
Setting Up Email with Google Apps for your own domain
The Google Apps has now become very popular for many businesses and bloggers. This service from Google providing independently customizable versions of several Google products under a custom domain name. It features several Web applications with similar functionality to traditional office suites and Gmail is one of them.
You can send and receive email from your own mapped domain using Google Apps. With just a few clicks, you can configure your DNS records to use this service to provide your email. A free Google apps account includes several gigabytes of space and the ability to set up multiple mailboxes.
This means you can have your own blog and email addresses on your own domain.
To set this up:
Map a top-level domain (e.g. example.com) you already own (not a subdomain, such as blog.example.com), or register a new one.
Go to Google Apps site and sign up.
You can choose the plan that fits your email needs best. There is also a free plan which allows you to create upto 50 email addresses.
Google Apps (Free) – up to 50 email addresses
On the next page after clicking a signup link or button, enter your domain name that you already own and have mapped to your own parked domain.
Enter domain
Fill out the signup form with your information. Do not enter the email address you’re trying to set up with your custom domain. The “Email address” here has to be a valid address you can currently receive email with.
On the next page, create a username and password for the domain’s administrator account on Google Apps.
Once the account is set up, you will receive an email from Google and you’ll be taken to a login page for your new Google Apps account. Login with the information you just set up.
When Google asks you to verify domain ownership, you can choose to use a DNS record and select “Other” from the Instructions pull-down menu. You’ll be provided with a TXT record that starts with “google-site-verification.” Copy this code, and keep this window open.
On your hosting site dashboard, find your mapped domain, and click Edit DNS.
In the large text area, enter TXT, followed by a space, then the record provided by Google in step 7 as seen in the screenshot below. Click Save DNS records.
Return to your Google Apps control panel and select the “Active” link under Email.
You’ll see a list of MX Server addresses. Return to the Edit DNS screen from step 9 and enter MX, followed by a space, followed by the priority number, followed by the MX Server address as seen in the screenshot below. Click Save DNS records.
Go back to your Google Apps control panel (where you copied the verification code at the above), make sure you have selected the DNS record option, and click the Verify button to complete the verification process. You will see a message like this:
You’re done! As the message suggests, it can take up to 48 hours for all the DNS changes to filter through the Internet. Don’t panic if it doesn’t work right away.
You can now set up your email accounts in the Google Apps control panel.
By default, your can access your webmail at http://mail.google.com/a/example.com (the last part is your actual custom domain) to send and receive all email with your domain.
Your inbox will be protected by Google’s excellent spam filters. You can access your mail using the Gmail web interface for your domain, forward it to another mailbox, set up POP, IMAP, and SMTP access, or even use smart filters to manage your mailbox.
See my email UI integrated with the Google apps:
