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A very happy diwali to you. What a wonderful day it is, I woke up this morning and realized the vibrations I felt were not of an earthquake but the kids were on fire(bursting crackers). Agrrhhh … But then its diwali, I remembered my childhood days when I did the same as a school going boy. I wish I could get back those days.
The so called ‘festival of lights’ has become the festival of sounds. Its less of lights & more of sound.
Diwali in brief is a celebration which continues for five days.

Day 1 -> Dhanatrayodashi or Dhan teras
Day 2 -> Naraka Chaturdashi
Day 3 -> Lakshmi Puja
Day 4 -> Govardhan Puja
Day 5 -> Bhaubeej

Found this interesting image while searching for ‘diwali‘ in flickr.

Image courtesy: swapnamah via Flickr
[tags]diwali, festival, lights, lamps, divali[/tags]

With the festive season(diwali) around the corner, Yahoo! India Movies kicks off with its kool new look. Not to mention there is tons of information you can find which will save your time which you would waste searching for information about Bollywood.

Its nice to see the movies front page so rich with information. Its got the latest movies featured as the eye grabber on the front page. After a close look it looks like all the information one would ever want about movies is right there on the front page. A showtimes module, event photos, movie stills, wallpapers. Explore movies section divided into three major sections as ‘In Theaters’, ‘Still Hot’ & ‘Box Office Top 5′. There’s an interview module which features a snippet of the interview of the latest celebrity. There is a poll module along with a rating & review module. Reviews again are critic reviews & user reviews. Videos module looks pretty simple, I’d prefer a video player which would play the video without taking me to a different page (may be that will follow by time). I’m not done yet, there’s this three-in-one module which lets me have a look at the latest bollywood news, top movies & top celebrities.

Phew … Thats a mouthful and if thats not enough to find what you’re looking for, they’ve got a handy search box (not the one on the top-right corner) right in the middle of the page. All this information without moving away from the main page.

There’s even more wrapped in this whole red carpet. Have a look at the moolah which speak for the verdict of the movie in the box office section. News, photos, interviews, videos and each section split gracefully. I’ve not seen a photos slide show so viral before – The last photo in the slideshow is followed by a bunch of options to see other photos. Something very similar to the youtube video player, making the user stick to that section for a longer time.

The A-Z tab on the top navigation comes very handy for searching movies by year/alphabetically, personalities. I tried searching for Don in the A-Z section and found some amazing results and relevant suggestions. A tag-cloud with the most searched movies is placed on the right.
A small note on the showtimes page says ‘Ticketing option coming soon’. Now thats some good news for people who like getting things done without moving away from the computer.

Bad things follow after the good (at least in my case). Time to look at the areas which need more attention.
I see some user’s posting reviews even before the movie has released. Having an option like preview/user expectations would make the movie statistics even interesting, something like an option to see what the people were expecting from the movie and what was the outcome.
There is no/very little space for the regional/Hollywood movies. I know, I know there is a movies site by Yahoo! for international audience.
A better video player will be expected by the people. Adding the viral effect (like the one in slideshow) to the video player will be a plus point.

There’s much more than what I’ve mentioned in my blog, not to mention the Yahoo! India Movies Logo has a Beta attached to it. That should give a rough idea that there’s more in store to come. If you have a word or two to say about the site then punch it here.

[tags]Yahoo!, India, Movies, Bollywood, Box-office, Videos[/tags]

With the driving directions feature being rolled out, Yahoo! India Maps emerges as the best maps service for India.
I tried searching for driving directions with some of the major maps services like Mapquest, Google maps, live maps but none of them come even closer to what Yahoo! India Maps offer. Google maps refused to identify the directions in India while Mapquest had no clue of what I was searching. The only satisfactory result (somewhat) was given by live maps.

Some of the new features in Yahoo! India Maps are:

• Driving directions for almost every place in India
• Driving directions can be sent to mobile (SMS)
• Information like total distance, time & route detailed are available
• Even local Auto Richskaw fares are available for some areas

Below is a screen-shot of driving direction from Thane to Andheri

Routes with multiple points can also be mentioned as a search query. e.g Mumbai to Chennai to Kolkata to Delhi.
To start off with searching directions, go to Yahoo! India Maps and type the directions you want in the search box(e.g Mumbai to Bangalore). For more detailed directions, Zoom into the map & use the right click option to select the source & destination.
You can share the directions you have marked by using the share option given on the top left corner of the page.
Do have a look at the Clear option on the top right corner, it will be very handy while searching for new directions.

[tags]Yahoo, India, Maps, driving, directions, fare, distance[/tags]

Yahoo! launches a new set of killer features to its existing search page.

Some of the major features added to the search page are Yahoo! Search Assist & related topics; both these appear in a slider below the search box as you type your search query. Search results containing any multimedia content can be viewed (images, videos) in the same page(inline).Mind you its not just Yahoo! Videos that play inline but Metacafe and Youtube videos also join the party.
Google search also has an inline palyer, but the videos palyed are restricted to Youtube. Here’s a snapshot of the Y! search suggest & the inline video player option.

Check out inline video player

Images get more respect in the search Yahoo! Search results page. Thumbnails of images from flickr are included in the search results page. Search for “Goa photos” for a preview of this feature.

Moving away from the “Yahoo! search page” lets have a look at the Yahoo! home page. The Yahoo! home page has a sleek version of the search suggest (assist) feature. After typing a couple of words one can use the keyboard (arrow keys) to select the suggested search queries. Here’s a snapshot of the Yahoo! home page search.

Apart from all these features I must say the look and feel of the search page has undergone a drastic makeover. Go checkout the new search page here.

From the official source: Our mission is to get you from “to do” to “done.”

[tags]yahoo, search, searchassist, searchsuggest, searchresults, youtube, metacafe[/tags]

After London its time for some in India (Bangalore), Open Hack day is here in India & will be held in Bangalore. The dates for the open hack Day in Bangalore are October 5th and 6th, 2007.

So what are you waiting for, Go to http://hackdayindia.eventwax.com/hack-day-india and register yourself before we hit the limit. Applications will be reviewed & picked up.

To support your application, please enter information (such as a link to your blog or other online presence) in the “Special Requirements” section on the third page of the application form.

For more details of the London and USA events, including a list of hacks and prizewinners, check out the Hack Day Blog. If text isn’t your bag, many, many photos and videos of the events may be found on Flickr or on your favorite video site.

For more(up to date) information please bookmark http://hackday.org/

[tags]yahoo, hack, hackday, india, yahooindia[/tags]

How much more fun the internet has become …

More Information about the program.

Title :The Worlds Best Music – Ep101

Description : Every week IMF scans the blobe looking for great music, delivering a mix of the hottest hit videos from the U.S. and the rest of the world. Featuring The All-American Rejects, Ster…

I was travelling to office by cab, suddenly Ranjith noticed an advertisement on the bus (BEST). Made a joke out of him for saying “Free 512 GB card” with the camera. I didn’t believe ranjith until I saw the blunder today at Andheri. This time I was lucky enough to capture it.
The great thing about the AD is, it reads “Free 512 GB Card + Battery charger”, I got to buy one & use it for lifetime without deleting any snaps. Hope they correct this mistake.

[Update] – Informed the kodak commercial department.

[tags]Kodak, typo, camera, blunder[/tags]

Just came across this wonderful post explaining the 11 craziest ways to browse flickr. Check the same here.

Source: mashable.com

[tags]flickr, photos, mashup, yahoo, crazy[/tags]

Don’t know if this feature is for testing or a full release. I’ve not come across this anywhere on the web (may be i’m too ignorant to notice this feature). The other possibility is – I always have cookies disabled for *.google.com :p in Firefox. Don’t remember reading about this anywhere either.

Its something like this:

• Login to your google account
• Search for any keyword, e.g movies
• Click on any link & then hit the browser back button
• Just hit refresh after you are back on the search results page
• Time will be displayed across the link which you visited (clicked on)

If you happen to visit the page more than once, the search results page will display the number of times the page is visited by you.
This feature will not work if you are not logged in to your google account.

Didn’t find this feature working fully correct, specially the number of visits shown across a link in search results page.

[tags]google, search, time, search results [/tags]

I’ve heard a lot about this author, but never really got the time to peek into his work. Saturday was the day when it was raining heavily & I got my hands on his (Chetan Bhagat) second Novel – one night @the call center.

I’m not a guy who will spend time reading a book(read as – Novel). Just booted my PC to listen to some music & I came across a file (night.txt) on the desktop. My roommate (not a techie) was doing some kinda typing practice using this novel. He had a couple of pages typed in this text file. I went through the text file & found it interesting.
The next thing I was doing is reading the novel. Started off @ 2.30 pm & finished reading the novel at 9.00pm.
Thats quite some time (atleast for a person like me), was lucky enough not to attend many phone calls(just a couple of them) that afternoon. ON@TCC is a nice novel which revolves around one night, 6 people working in call center in Gurgaon, and they get a phone call. A Phone call from GOD. The best part about the whole novel is, It gets better as you approach the end of it. I still cant believe I read the full novel at one strech (Thanks to the rains). Heard a lot about his first novel as well, May be I should give it a try – Five point someone. Is that happening this saturday?well… I guess the rains have a role to paly here.

[tags]chetan, bhagat, novel, ONTCC, call center[/tags]