BrandAdda release 1.0

Hi folks!

On March 31, 2009 we opened up release 1.0 of our site to the world wide web. It was surely a proud moment for all of us at SmartCrowds who worked so hard towards it. If you haven’t already, I urge you to check it out. Don’t forget to leave the feedback at the bottom of the page in the feedback form.

OK, What are we all about you ask? Most communication today associated with brands and consumers is one – way. Brands blast the airwaves with commercials and adverts. The consumer has rants which he blogs about or posts on different fora. How do we close the loop? How we do we make the communication more interactive? BrandAdda is our answer to this problem. Here you can air your views regarding what you love/hate about something and the brand reps will listen to you.. and respond! You are absolutely nuts about Apple’s 1984 Mac commercial? Post a youtube link and let the world know. Wanna hear what the twitter world is talking about Apple? Hear Hear.. There are lots of things you can do on BrandAdda. We genuinely hope that this will address the big gap between customers and companies today.

This release brings a lot of changes to the UI. Some features were taken out that seemed to be unused or confusing to the users. We added some features to make the whole experience much better for the user. Visually, I believe the site to be much more appealing than it was before.

For me personally this release meant some long nights and weekends I was working while my friends were enjoying themselves. But I feel happy I made those sacrifices, because the end product is so awesome that it really makes me proud. I personally believe we’ve now got a product that can really take off. What it needs is for the people out there to know about it. Would appreciate it if you can help the word spread. If you are a registered user at BrandAdda you can invite your friends by email and get extra points for it

Inspite of all the effort we put in, there might still be bugs and issues. Sorry for that. Please help us by reporting them on the feedback form at the bottom of the page.

Well.. there goes the baby into the big bad world. Let’s see how she does

ps : The opinions here are my own. They have nothing to do with the company.

xkcd’s etch-a-sketch

Debian‘s version 4.0 was called Etch. It was named after the etch-a-sketch in Toy Story, following Debian traditions of naming it’s versions after Toy Story characters (the current version, 5.0, is called Lenny).

This post isn’t on Debian. It’s about xkcd #551. It’s also based on etch-a-sketch. It’s one of my favourites, I guess. I suppose I can understand how the guy must be feeling. Take a look -

Etch-a-Sketch

Vishwaroopam

He stood in awe as the Goddess stood before him. He had never seen a Goddess before. The thought had never crossed his mind. Why would he want to see a Goddess? Why would the Goddess want to see him? He didn’t like the idea one bit. Goddesses popping up here and there and not doing their job. Weren’t they supposed to massage their husband’s feet or occasionally raise some hullaballoo or something. He had read about goddesses walking out on their husbands in fits of anger, heard of them going all crazy because the husband dared to take the head out of her son. But Goddesses popping out before guys minding their own business? Bah.. what was this world coming to?

And then she started. “Child.. I am much pleased by your tapas. Tell me, what is it that you need?”. His mouth mouthed the words “What the..” silently. To his credit, he recovered immediately. “Hey. What the.. “. No this time he didn’t say it silently. He continued, “I didn’t do any tapas wapas. What the heck are you talking about, wierdo?”. “Oh shut the **** up, moron”, she said. “This is my usual opening line. I know you’re a lazy ass. I was just sitting bored. No one does tapas anymore. You were the closest guy around while I was taking my tour. That’s why I decided to appear before you and grant a wish”.  “I don’t want any wishes from you, you old hag”, he retorted. He didn’t like being called lazy, even though he knew very well he was one. Besides, Larry Wall always says laziness is a virtue all programmers should develop. Who gives a shit if he meant it in a completely different way.

He was kinda perplexed though. He asked, “Hey you’re a goddess. I thought you would be a great beauty or something”. “Of course I’m beautiful, moron. But only in my true form. I have to curb my true form so you don’t die from the sheer power it radiates”. “It can’t be that powerful, can it?”, he asked. “Of course it is.”, she said. “Would you like to see it?”, she said this in a very British accent. Damn, I love the brits. Especially the accent. Well most of the brits anyway. I hate Keira Knightley. Is Victoria Beckham a brit too? If yes, that would be another. I don’t hate Tony Blair, strange as it might sound. His accent is very brit. I like that. I like Jason Statham, love Coldplay. But enough of the brits. We all know they’re great, right? Except the occassional misadventurer like General Dyer or Keira Knightley.

Where were we now? Ah yes, “Would you like to see it”, she said in a very English accent. Did I mention I like all the different kinds of Brit accents? English , Scot, Irish.. the different kinds of each. It’s so sexy. Damn, here I go off again. Anyways, the former dialogue got our hero thinking. “If she looks so ugly now. Does she look super ugly in her true form? Or does she look super beautiful? Better than Angelina Jolie? Or worse than Keira Knightley?”. ( I hate Keira Knightley’s jaw the worst, by the way. Am not even going to call her actions in front of the camera “acting”. Whatever it is, I hate that too. But her jaw takes the cake) “Whatever it is , I gotta see it”. “Hey, Lady”, he said aloud. “I want to see your true form thing”. “Ok, if that’s what you wish my child..”. She shouted, “Ban-kai“. Lo and behold. Before him stood the Goddess in her true form. He withered under the onslaught of the true form. She was chattering non – stop. “blaah blaah .. Do you know, when I was in Shimla I .. blaah blaah”. It was too much bear. I dare not even imagine what it must’ve been like. The sheer speed. The torrent flow. It reminded him of an avalanche. He couldn’t bear it any longer. He shouted, “STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPP…”.

And then he died. There’s only so much a mortal can bear.

Moral of the story : Never let goddesses show you their true form. Or something like that.

Warning : If this post makes you puke , consider suicide or something similar.. I’m not responsible. I wash my hands off.

The mouse who wanted to fly

Mouse wanted to fly. That’s all he dreamed about – night and day. When he was small he read books. All the books he read about were about great birds. Birds who flew high in the sky. Birds who crossed whole forests in a single stroke of their wings. Birds whose wings flap came down as storm winds on the mere mortals below. He dreamed about being one of them. He longed to be up there. He wanted to be worshipped like he worshipped the great birds. The desire ate every cell in his body. For a while it was good. For he imagined that the day would come soon when he could fly. He was still small. There was time still.

For a while all was good.. but that changed. As days passed, he grew more and more sad. The mouse who always smiled was no more. The mouse everyone loved was no more. He forgot how to smile. For he could not fly. He had many a friend among the birds. They expected him to fly too. He thought he would. He thought he could be a great bird one day. He thought he was destined to be a great one. His bird friends all encouraged him. Despite his failures, they thought he could fly. It was only a matter of time.

Things started getting worse. Many attempts he made to fly. None succeeded. He tried and tried. But couldn’t fly. The mice no longer counted him as one of their own. The birds had hoped that he would fly one day like them. They too lost hope. And the mouse.. he started to understand – he would never fly. He didn’t have wings. God had not made him to fly. But he thought he could.. and that’s all he cared about. It’s not a nice feeling. A mere mouse doesn’t feel very sad when he can’t fly. But our mouse was no mere mouse. He wanted to fly. He dreamed about it night and day. There were times when he knew he could fly. He was crushed. What was his life worth now?

The story doesn’t end here. It could go on if you wanted. Maybe his children will grow wings. Or their children, or theirs. The spark, the desire to fly.. maybe it will live on in his cells and take wing one day in his children. But one truth remains – our mouse will never fly. His destiny is to be alone. His destiny is to never fly.

Twitter maintenance

Nice maintenance message from twitter

twitter maintenance page

Hoax mail from “Microsoft”

Dear Microsoft Customer,

Please notice that Microsoft company has recently issued a Security Update for OS Microsoft Windows. The update applies to the following OS versions: Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows Millenium, Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows Vista.

Please notice, that present update applies to high-priority updates category. In order to help protect your computer against security threats and performance problems, we strongly recommend you to install this update.

Since public distribution of this Update through the official website http://www.microsoft.com would have result in efficient creation of a malicious software, we made a decision to issue an experimental private version of an update for all Microsoft Windows OS users.

As your computer is set to receive notifications when new updates are available, you have received this notice.

In order to start the update, please follow the step-by-step instruction:
1. Run the file, that you have received along with this message.
2. Carefully follow all the instructions you see on the screen.

If nothing changes after you have run the file, probably in the settings of your OS you have an indication to run all the updates at a background routine. In that case, at this point the upgrade of your OS will be finished.

We apologize for any inconvenience this back order may be causing you.

Thank you,

Steve Lipner
Director of Security Assurance
Microsoft Corp.

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This is a better crafted hoax than others out there Still quite a few flaws So don’t go and “install” the “update”.

1. Microsoft “company”
2. OS Microsoft Windows

A typical update from Microsoft would be something like this : http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e0bd6fbe-f46e-4961-9a79-49ec77d39439&DisplayLang=en

I want a new earphone and an mp3 player

Long time since my last post This time I’ve a question for the community.

I was thinking of getting myself a portable audio player and an earphone. Haven’t yet fully decided on what to buy though. I was thinking of getting a Sennheiser CX 300 or 400. No clue about the player though

I’m looking at spending a total of about 300 – 325 $ at the max. Highest priority is sound quality. A must – have is the ability to use it on my Linux machine, which means no restrictions like those on the iPod (can add music only with the iTunes?). I would mostly use it on trains or buses on long journeys (which is one reason I thought I would go for the Sennheiser canalphones). Support for OGG and/or FLAC formats would be nice. I don’t really care for video support, I just want the music

Any suggestions?

Carl Icahn and Yahoo!

Saw an article on Wired about Carl Icahn and Yahoo! Basically Icahn wants to replace the current board of directors at Yahoo! with his own and pursue the Microsoft deal all over again. The New York Times has published the letter sent by Icahn to the chairman of Yahoo.

I doubt any good will come out of this. Personally, I think Yahoo! and Microsoft are incompatible companies and a merger between the two will only lead to disaster.

I don’t know what the problem is with this guy. Wikipedia says -

Icahn developed a reputation as a ruthless corporate raider after his hostile takeover of TWA in 1985.^[1] The result of that takeover was Icahn systematically stripping TWA of its assets and selling them off.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Icahn

I hope Icahn doesn’t end up ruining Yahoo!. Somebody put some sense into him.

Sita Sings the Blues

Came across an interesting article on Wired.

NEW YORK — Amid the documentaries and live-action features at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival is a first for the event — a feature-length, computer-generated animated film rendered entirely by a single animator, working out of a home office.

Nina Paley’s Sita Sings the Blues, which makes its North American premiere Friday at the festival, tells two parallel stories: the ancient Hindu epic the Ramayana and the breakup of Paley’s 21st-century marriage. It does so through four distinct styles of animation, a “greek chorus” of Indonesian shadow puppets and wildly imaginative musical interludes that use authentic 1920s blues recordings to link narratives 3,000 years apart.

The article has got an interview of Nina Paley as well as a trailer of the film.

From what I read from the article, it features Rama leaving Sita.

Wired: You voiced the role of yourself, and that leads to the film’s most excruciating scene, in which your character asks your husband to take you back.

Paley: [Laughs.] Isn’t that pathetic? I wanted people to feel my pain. And believe me, that’s just a little taste of it. [Laughs.] When this sort of thing happens to you, it’s so shameful, so humiliating. Which is why I included that scene of Sita sitting there on the banks of the river saying, “I must have committed a terrible sin in a previous life to deserve such suffering.” There’s always a sense that, if something bad happens to you, that there’s something really wrong with you. And I love that even Sita believes this, because she’s completely stainless, that’s the whole point of her character. I feel that airing this stuff out is the way to take the shame out of it. Plus, pain is funny!

The Ramayana says that Rama chose to leave Sita because of his duty as a king. In the otherwise spotless character of Rama, I feel, this is a huge blemish. And so do a lot of people. Many “experts” though have felt otherwise.

Should be interesting to see how Ramayana and the character of Sita is treated in this film.

Links :

Wired article : http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/news/2008/04/sita?currentPage=all

Site of the film : http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/

Are lecture notes copyright infringement?

University of Florida professor Michael Moulton thinks copyright law protects the lectures he gives to his students, and he’s headed to court to prove it.

Moulton and his e-textbook publisher are suing Thomas Bean, who runs a company that repackages and sells student notes, arguing that the business is illegal since notes taken during college lectures violate the professor’s copyright.

This would be funny if this wasn’t an actual court case.

Doesn’t common sense revolt at this very idea? What is worse is that a Professor, someone who is supposed to spread ideas and mould the young, has taken this step.

Perhaps the day is not far when copyright notices will be put up in lecture halls and agreements signed before the beginning of each lecture in the temples of our learning. Perhaps the day is not far when true culture will cease to exist.