Fun

Another gadget that has caught my fancy of late. Digital photo frames let you display slideshows of your digital photographs. You can just pop-in your camera's SD card, store photos in the internal memory - some models even let you connect to your Picasa/Flickr account through WiFi and stream your photo-album. You can even play movies and MP3 songs. NYTimes created a comprehensive feature comparison chart here that you can choose to select which one is best for you.



Very convenient, very stylish - they look just like contemporary photo-frames. They're available on Ebay India now, though I have not seen it at any retailer. I think it'll make for a great gift too.

I've been using my free time to read a lot of webcomics (no superheroes please). I found most of these using StumbleUpon/friend recommendations. I've subscribed to them using rssfwd, a service that tracks changes in RSS feeds and sends a new posting directly to your mailbox (I always forget to open Google Reader).

Here is my reading list:

• Questionable Content - I like the author's sense of humor and his drawing. You only have to overlook the references to music. Can be sarcastic at times.
• Something Positive - My latest read. Sarcasm at its very best.
• Ctrl+Alt+Delete - The author's imagination about video games got me addicted. Plus, Ethan is crazy.
• Sinfest - A black comedy that has interesting characters and some good jokes packed in a single line format.
• xkcd - For geeks only. I love this one :)
• Rob and Elliot - Rob is an amusing character.
• Sluggy Freelance - This guy has about the imaginative mind I have ever encountered.
• Nothing Better - This is not exactly funny and the main theme is teenagers trying to understand the meaning of God. It can get a bit boring, but the characters are well defined and the illustrations are simply awesome.
• Luann - Brad's gullibility is endearing, and Luann is good looking too. Luann reminds me of Betty. This is one of the famous comics out there, and the site is only the online version of the syndicated strip (unlike others that are purely webcomics.

The next time you find an afternoon with nothing better to do (and a working internet connection, of course) - give yourself a laugh.

Beware though - these comics are addictive. Do not say that no one warned you :)

Also, don't forget to check out 'This is our Life' by Rajneesh Kapoor everyday in HT City. 'This is our Life' is about a young Indian who has much the same cribs as you and me - women, cricket, politics and boring television shows. You could also pick up his books from Barista outlets.

What do you read online? Drop me a link in a comment.

EDIT: Another favorite is PHD comics - a comic that I had exhausted 2 years back - but continues to be a hit amongst those who want to look back at those grueling years spent studying.

Here's a screencast of my new Ubuntu installation in all its glory. The screencast shows off the following in order:

• The easy to navigate application menu with classified entries, not just a catch-all menu
• Nautilus - The file manager is highly customizable
• Windows drives are easily accessible - You just need to enter your password once
• The transparent terminal - How's that for eye candy?
• Wobbly windows - whoever would have thought of that!
• Multiple workspaces - You can organize multiple windows and unclutter your desktop
• Firefox is the default web browser - and it should be
• Synaptics package manager is used to get access to thousands of programs for Linux
• Add-remove programs provides an easier interface for programs customized for Ubuntu - All required programs are automatically downloaded, installed and configured
• You can move windows across workspaces - Nice to know that
• Finally, the desktop cube in all its glory - Compiz-Fusion is a real shot in the Linux arm

The video was captured in xvidcap that directly records videos in the FLV format as required by Youtube.

Have some time to waste? Want to contribute to a good cause, and have some fun at the same time? Head on over to Phetch!

This is a wonderful game where you get to describe an image in words for others to search using your description - all in real-time with the clock ticking down. Of course, you get to search for images based on descriptions given by other's too. Think it's easy? Try describing an image of a mountain, a family, or a gear assembly, when there are ten images showing the same thing. With time, you'll start describing the characteristics that define an image symbolically - for example, the lady in the purple hat, or the tree with red flowers next to the river, or the mole on the right cheek of the old man.

Observant readers would be thinking - "What's the good cause?" Here's a quote from the website:

The Web is not built for the blind. Only a small fraction of major corporate websites are fully accessible to the disabled, let alone those of smaller organizations or individuals. However, millions of blind people surf the Web every day, and Internet use by those with disabilities grows at twice the rate of the non-disabled.

Phetch is a game which, as a side effect, generates explanatory sentences for randomly chosen images from the Web. If our game is played as much as some other popular online games, we can assign captions to all images on the Web in a matter of months. Using the output of the game, we are building a system to improve the accessibility of the Web.

You'll find it hard to tear yourself away! Look for me in the top scorers list as MANICLAUGHTER.

Let's face it - Orkut is slowly becoming passe. I took one look at Facebook and I admit, I'm hooked. Not because of the visual interface (frankly, Orkut's light blue color and link arrangement is better). Nor by the ease of use (both are pretty much the same). Not even by the wall-to-wall feature (takes the fun of piecing information together away).

But by the applications or widgets that you, me or anybody can make and add to our profile. I show the cities and places I have visited (log in to Facebook before clicking), send free gifts (digital, of course), show-off the books I have read, display a new LOLcat everyday (you don't know what a LOLcat is? Shame) and invite people to play games. I even proudly display a reason for which I will drink today :)

The difference - Facebook took the meaning of Web 2.0 different from Orkut. It's not only about letting the community interact with each other, it's about letting the community define the whole platform. Facebook's base site is painfully featureless (even fewer features than Orkut). However, giving programmers the tools and APIs to interact with the base database opened a world of innovation far beyond what even the maker could have imagined.

Are you on Facebook yet? If you are, do not, repeat do not install Jetman. Now that I've warned you, do not blame me later. If you still go ahead and do it, do let me know your Jetman score :)

I found this video while browsing through Engadget.

The video shows a chair break apart, and then re-assemble itself. The base moves around picking up the legs and the back, before pulling itself upright. Though the video is obviously digitally mastered (at one point you can see a leg magically lifted to the correct height for a connection), the company promises that they will have a working prototype by May 2006.

What is the world coming to? And what could I possible do with such a chair?

So you thought Intellectual Property and Patents are all about serious technological inventions right? Well, think again!

The next time you play Charades during a party over drinks, you might actually be infringing on this patent (well apparently only if you are above 21 years of age).

From the abstract:

The present invention is a social game and method of playing the same comprising a plurality of cards. Each card has at least one task for the cardholder to attempt to successfully complete, such as at least one question to answer, at least one act to perform, at least one instruction to follow, and/or at least one fact, quote or saying to read. When a cardholder successfully completes a task, the cardholder earns a predetermined amount of points. Additionally, where a task requires another player to guess what the cardholder is acting or doing, the player that correctly answers may also earn at least one point. The first player to earn a predetermined total number of points wins the game. The game and method of the invention may be played using alcoholic beverages throughout the course of the game, but only by players twenty-one (21) years of age and older.

This patent is currently under review, and may one day be granted.