WriteToMyBlog.com, is a web-based editor (with a lot of formatting options), that allows you to write to your blog (from another website?!). First thoughts go like, “wtf?!”, … “hmmm.. interesting”… “I am a web 2.0 junkie?! The likes 1. Simplicity of the UI interface - neat, allows lots of space for text 2. Integration of Flickr and Youtube (although I would love to see more such services) 3. Zero account creation overhead. (I wrote this post, before I created the account to publish it, and is a 1-click process.) ...

I have been away from the internet for most of the last week. There are only a few things that can keep me away from spending hours reading feeds or uploading pictures, and when those things do happen, it is not very pleasant. Last week I lost yet another wonderful person from my life. I lost my father-in-law, Mr. Ghanshyam Maheswari. He was a good man, a good soul, a great father, and most of all, someone who lived his life - truly lived every moment of it. I can’t find words to express the loss I feel. As the hours on the plane ride half way across the world passed, I couldn’t begin to accept that he had really passed on. I guess, a part of me was expecting to see him at the airport, telling my wife and me that this was all just a dream. ...

I hate having to upgrade software. I truly do. I release a version every 3 months, and it try to make the upgrade as painless as possible. For an application like wordpress, that has been around for such a long, I would expect that they would do something to make it a little easier to upgrade. Ok. Sorry about the rant, but here is my problem: the download for wordpress 2.5.1 is around 1 MB, but what has really changed is only a few lines. However, according to wordpress, you have to go through a time-consuming process to get your blog up to date. ...

A few weeks back, I installed Alex King’s Twitter Tools for wordpress. Running it for a few weeks, I found that by lack of posting to my blog, became more apparent that earlier. There are now more “twitter” posts than the number of posts that I have written myself in the last year or so. How pathetic is that?! Looks like I have almost lost the need to say something (about anything) and it is about time to shut down this blog. However, I intend to give it another shot (one last time), before I stop hosting my own blog, and move to life-streaming instead (You can already find my at shiva.tumblr.com). ...

Well, this is a first post to my blog using Jott, which is a very cool service. It allows you to call a number and talk what you want to post, and post it to your blog. I think it’s one of the new tools that really enable blogging. I’m just going to try it and see how it works out. listen Powered by Jott

I have the very distinct feeling that a bunch of people from India, are going to visit my site today. Maybe, it is too late, but nonetheless, I was compelled to post before I left for work, after staying up the whole night (watching movies). No really - Van Helsing followed by American Gangster - two very find movies, I might add, but I digress. I got the honour, of being one of the few listed on a fellow tech-enthusiast’s list of “twittering” Indians. It’s not everyday that I make someone’s list, and hence the compulsion to blog about it. So, thank you Yuvi. Since he described me as a programmer, on his list, it’s only fair – ...

I did it! I finally went out and bought myself a mac. I didn’t waver. No! Not this time. I knew exactly what I wanted, and I was going to get it, come what may! I have to confess that I have been pretty critical of Apple andits policies. I still am. Nothing has changed my opinion of Apple as a company, in particular, it’s marketing team. The ipod touch price changes lead me to those conclusions.I liked the ipod touch’s interface and engineering, but when I first booted up my MacBook (Penryn-based) I was completely taken aback. The first time I booted my laptop, it was completely usable. Within a few hours, I had a few applications installed (open source ones), tweeted, seesmiced my first video, and was having fun, in general. The Mac experience was very very close to the ideal computing experience ever. (Yeah, it is that big a deal). ...

“This is it! Its the final straw. We need to do something about it!” “What is it?”, you ask. I am sick and tired of hearing story after story of crazed authority figures, forcing rules upon the common man, rendering life to a boring, monotonous series of security checks and bans and fines. From security at airports, to self-righteous moderation aimed at photographers in public spaces. I am sick of it. ...

A few days ago, I returned the Ipod touch that I had for exactly 11 days, coz Apple chose to charge me $20. Apart from me being a cheap bas***d, I had this queasy feeling in my gut, about apple products. I felt an unexplainable rage towards Apple, Jobs and the fanboys. I am usually a very moderate person, and it really surprised me that I could harbor such crazy extremism and frustration. I could never place a finger on the source, until I read this article on Coding Horror by Jeff Atwood. ...

Since I don’t enjoyed being screwed over when I buy a $500 product, I said buh-bye to my ipod touch today. One thing that I enjoyed, was the sharpness of the display. I will definetly buy this device again, if I knew for sure that, Apple will not pull another stunt like that with the imminent release of IPOD touch SDK. So until then, I commute for 2 hours everyday with no music to listen, no podcast from CNN to watch :( ...