Amitabh Jotwani

I am absolutely loving the reincarnation! Having used Windows for close to 9 years, it does seem a little weird seeing things work so much better and so elegantly. I am sure it will take me a little while getting fully accustomed to the intricacies of OSX…but then dropping 9 yrs of bad habits would take some time right?? but I am definitely getting there…

Continuing from my last post, here’s a quick update on things that amaze me on my Macbook-
1. The widgets – I LOVE THE DASHBOARD, so many options, so easy, so useful, so beautiful!!
2. Bluetooth support – I turned on my Sony Ericson phone, it was detected straight away by the macbook, and what’s more – in less than 10 seconds it was all set up and I synced my contacts in less than 30 seconds. I tell from experience, Windows XP drove me crazy with bluetooth (among many other things ofcourse!!)
3. Airport Wireless – My Macbook and my Dell laptop from work lost the Internet connection this morning. I would like to blame the Netgear router…Now the Dell usually does that every now and then and the fix is to disable the network connection, enable it, then repair it and wait for the process for a few minutes, then repeat the steps and hope for the best. The Macbook however connected itself back within seconds while the PC struggled for another 10 mins!

There is a bit of learning curve when switching from PC to Mac, but believe me you all, it is totally worth it…I am a mac….and you are??

So it’s official now, I am thinking different..am thinking great, am thinking Apple!!

After months of thinking and rethinking and then some more, I was finally convinced enough to take the plunge and make the switch from PC to Mac.

Thanks to all the good words and all the pushing by the one dude who by the way I call the the ultimate Mac Nerd – Kunal, I am a proud owner of the brand new, all white n sexy MacBook…so ladies and gentz…take a bow and give a big round of applause to the all new macbook…and to the convincer!!

I will be writing about my trysts with the Mac as and when they come along in the next few days, but for now I must say, it’s a revelation – Apple really rocks!!

It’s amazing how we get so used to the crappy Windows environment (Watch how I am calling Windows names already!) that we begin to think that what the guys at Redmond offer is really the best we can get, that the buggy Windows is really what the standards of computing are…but believe me if you would, Apple is way ahead, way more advanced and way more cooler – It’s no surprise then that Mac OSX really is the world’s most advanced Operating System..!!

Here’s a list of what I have really loved so far and probably all the PC to Mac switchers would (not necessarily in order) -

1. No Drivers crap
2. No Uninstall wizards – Simply trash the application file and you are done
3. No registry mess
4. I was connected to my secured wireless network even before I began using the mac, it gave me a list of the available networks in it’s set up wizard itself – the wireless management is amazing
5. The build in camera is awesome!!
6. Spotlight – the builtin search kicks Vista’s search big time – it’s super fast and it’s bang on target.
7. No Viruses – can you believe it!!
8. No Spyware!
9. The expose feature – manage multiple windows with the tap of a key or a click of a mouse
10. The dashboard widgets
11. The awesome animation tricks
12. The magnetic power plug
13. It’s core Unix!!

And I promise this list will keep growing in the days to come….as I begin to discover the hidden world of Mac – the world where no BSOD’s exist!!

I was brainstorming about a rather interesting internet venture yesterday (I would leave the details undercover here ) and a few points came to my mind, so I wanted to jot them down before I forgot. And even before I realised it, my hands lay on the keyboard of my computer….not a pen and a notepad but the computer…Can you believe it? I mean when did this transition happen? When did I get over the notepad days? When did I get upgraded or downgraded depending on how you look at it?

I looked back and a strange realisation dawned on me, which may be familiar to all similar geeks….I hardly write anything these days, write as in pen and paper write…everything I do is on the computer, the brainstorming sessions, the reminders, the plannings; you name it and I am doing that on my computer…

The last thing that I can remember writing or probably would still write is any information given to me over the phone…but believe me if you would, if I was anywhere near my computer, that information would be going straight down to Google notepad!!

With that said, I wonder if the next generation would even need to learn how to write…I mean as long as you know how to type..you will be fine -

• There would be no handwriting competitions, unless it’s Arial vs Verdana
• There would be no marks set aside for good handwriting..I mean come on everyones typing..unless there are marks set aside for Lucida Handwriting…so if you wrote your English essay in Arial…bad boy…marks cut!!

We would probably be laughed at when we tell our kids what a Pen is…they would be like…”you guys used to write?? We just think and my computer emails the thoughts!!” Now that would be awesome!!

So the much awaited Spiderman3 is out and I ofcourse just had to watch it the first day. I had been waiting for this for so long…Let’s just say, it was dissapointing…it was long and it was boring in parts…far too much drama and the emotions seemed far too stretched out…

It almost seemed like director Sam Raimi was watching some Bollywood flicks while he was scripting Spidy3 (Karan Johar did someone say , cause some of the scenes looked like a direct lift off from them or as Bollywood directors would like to say “Inspired from them!”. Here are some -

• Spidy’s friend Harry Osborn is dying, but he waits for Spidy to breathe his last
• Spidy says to dying Harry “I will get you through this” but Harry replies back “No, I gotta go!!” and dies
• Harry Osborn blackmails Spidy’s girlfriend Mary Jane to dump Spidy or he would kill him. So she does with an emotional speech “There is some other guy I love!!”
• And then in a typical Bollywood hero response, Spidy deicides to play the envy game and uses a girl to hurt Mary Jane back
• Harry Osborn’s butler convinces Harry that Spidy did not infact kill his father – just a few lines and that’s it!!
• The villain, the sandman breaks down in the climax and apologises!!
• Every character sheds a tear..literally each and every character!

Spidy vs Spidy

I really liked the concept of a good spidy vs a bad spidy, I think it was an excellent plot but the director did not use it efficiently. This to me should have been the basic plot around which the film should have revolved…instead the film revolves around emotions with action thrown in as fillers…absurd…infact the bad spidy does not show up untill the last 45 minutes or so of the film..

I think it could have been a great film had it been edited by…ummm…1 hour or so …it’s way tooooo long!!

Google’s personalised homepage has been rechristened iGoogle. As the name suggests, it lets you customize you Google homepage by adding gadgets or widgets or whatever other gizmo name you wanna call these tiny apps. Examples include Weather,Calendar,email,countdown to an event and many many more. It also lets you build and integrate your own gadgets created using Google’s gadget maker.

iPod,iMac and now iGoogle…It almost seems like the letter “I” is blessed…kinda like the letter “K” in Ekta Kapoor’s saas bahu soaps!!

Thanks Rohit Nakra for contributing this one – really funny!!

• India failed to defeat Afghanistan in the world cup qualifier in the Asia -Pacific zone
• Coach Virendra Sehwag said that he is not worried bcoz he has backing of selectors, captain and board….and that they had won a close match against Papua new guinea just 2 yrs ago
• Rahul Dravid, the coach of New Zealand team said that Sachin should now consider retiring gracefully and let his son take over the captaincy
• Mahendra Singh Dhoni broke Ajit Agarkars record of most no of conecutive ducks in twenty 20
• Saurav Ganguly, the coach of england feels that the boys need to control their emotions on the field
• The current leading man from Bollywood Bret Lee advises MS Dhoni to take up acting as well.
• Minnows Pakistan beat Ireland in a close match…and thus they avenged their defeat in the 2007 WC against the then minnows ireland
• Inzamam ul haq, who was the captain of the losing team and now the present coach said in a press interview that “Boys plays well…they try hard…inshallah we wins the world cup”
• The police arrested 8 ppl for voilence after England and NZ match…Investigations revealed that these ppl were members of Dravid and Ganguly fan communities on Orkut which have 623241516 and 126542 members respectively.
• The Indian cricket board led by president Rahul Gandhi has called for an emergency meeting to discuss future course of action .former players like Yuvraj singh, Mohammad Kaif,VVS Laxman and Kumble have been invited…coach Sehwag and captain Tendulkar will present a report…
• VVS Laxman today created a new controversy by saying that he expected a written apology from Rahul Gandhi for including him in the category of former players….he said that he has improved his fielding and fitness and wants to play 2023 WC in Brazil

I always believed that the Indian creative brains rock. They are absolutely phenomenal when it comes to creative ad campaigns and spontaneous marketing. Here is a glittering example – some hoardings from the streets of Mumbai…..

• Jet Airways put up the following hoarding

• A few days later, Kingfisher came up with this

• And I thought that was it, but then GoAir came along with a top notch catch phrase

I would not be surprised if we get another addition uptop!! I am sure the higher your hoarding, the more you pay…In this war of the Air Lords…the one who lands at the top wins…

Having seen so many Indian Cricket fans switch their support in the recently concluded World Cup…it just made me wonder – Should you support a team just because they are the favorites??

I guess it’s just one way of saving yourself the blushes…By supporting a winning team like Australia, you make sure that you don’t go through the emotional stress and the fear of losing….You take pride in all their wins and since they don’t lose often…you are not dejected often…

By supporting a team like Australia, you will more often than not…end up on the winning side…and even if you don’t…you can always get away by saying – “Hey dude…they are the best team..they will come back”. You see no emotional ties or embarrassment here…

Anybody who knows me…is well aware that I am not a big supporter of the Australian Cricket team…the reasons for which I will leave for some other time. Having said that, I affirm that the Aussies are undoubtedly the best Cricket team in the world today, more so now that they are 3 time champions.

But I wonder if your loyalty and support towards a team should be decided by the number of wins a team gets or the number of cups a team gets. Aren’t you just playing safe and making sure you are always on the winning side??

I am a die hard Indian and South African supporter and will remain so…even after the debacles that the 2 teams keep going through, but then again, sports is not about making sure you always end up on the winning side, a true fan stands by his team through thick and thin…and not just jump off a rocking boat!!

If you saw the World Cup Final on Saturday, you probably know what I am talking about. It really was a fitting climax to what has been a boring and probably the worst organized World Cup ever in the history of Cricket…

You would say the bottom line is – Australia are still the champs…and I would not disagree…Gilchrist played an innings of his life to take the Aussies through…I would only like to add that I think Srilanka got a raw deal and an unfair final….largely because of the insane and dumb people organising the event…the ICC

Why do I say an unfair final?? read on….

An Unfair Final

1. The fact that the World Cup final was reduced to 38 overs a side took the sheen off the final – It just suited the Aussies more with their powerful hitters.
2. The D/L confusion – It took the umpires good 15-20 mins to let the Srilankans know the revised target. Srilanka were 140 odd for 2 wickets when it started to rain again…now per D/L system Srilanka was trailing at this point. So they lost a few quick wickets trying to speed things along. Not that they were badly placed for a full 38 over game…but they were now made to play the “What if it rains” game..which cost them the wickets of sangakara and jaisurya…
3. Unknown target – Srilanka was not given the revised target for good 10-15 mins…so they were now playing with less that 15 overs remaining without knowing the new target…the umpires were all confused..the refree has no idea…wait a min…who is it hurting….it’s costing Srilanka the World Cup…BTW NO LIGHT IS OFFERED
4. Playing in the dark – Believe it or not, Srilanka ended up playing atleast the last 10 overs in dark. The stadiums in the carribean have no flood lights!

An embarassing Final

1. Srilanka played the last 10 overs in fading light. The last 3 in pitch darkness.
2. Confusion all round concerning the D/L system and what the revised target would be for Srilanka.
3. The umpires and the refree were confused about the rules of D/L and use of the reserve day.
4. The game should have been over per the D/L system long before. The umpires insisted in continuing.
5. With 3 overs left, batsmen take the light offer and walk off. Aussies celebrate, presentation dias rolls to the ground and the crowds party. But the umpires bring the players back on the field and get them to play the last 3 overs in pitch darkness.
6. 800 dancers perform at the closing ceremony in pitch darkness. The crowds can’t see anything.
7. The Aussies lift the World Cup 16 teams were fighting for in pitch darkness.

What if?

Now I agree that it was a dead rubber with Srilanka needing 70 odd runs off 3 overs. But here’s my what if

1. What if it wasn’t a dead rubber?
2. What if Srilanka needed 30 runs off the last 3 overs with Malinga and Vass at the wicket?
3. A slim chance but a chance indeed.
4. Wouldn’t it have been unfair for them to play the last 3 overs in pitch darkness?

It’s a pity the World Cup had to end this way – but I guess it was just a perfect finale to a bizarre World Cup…I am not going to remember this one for long…Are you??

So it’s official…South Africa have yet again ruined their chances of getting in to the final of a World Cup…let alone winning it…they MUST get over this habit of getting so close and choking themselves to death…this is costing them big time..I read that the team had a support staff of 12 people..assisting them at the world cup including Jonty Rhodes in the fielding department…I guess it would not be a bad idea to get a team of psychiatrists in there as well…

Looking at the replays…some of the shots the South African batsmen played were attrocious…especially Smith, Kallis and Prince…simply unbelievable…while Smith and Kallis tried their best not to let Aussies dominate the mental games prior to the match….Ricky Ponting n his men surely had the last laugh…it seemed that South Africa only had one game plan…dominate and be aggresive..no matter what…while it’s great when it clicks..like it almost did in their earlier encounter…but they did not have a backup plan here…at 27-5 inside 10 overs…they were dead and out…

Australians in the mean while are having a dream run…..I can now only pray that they now have their long due bad day on 28 April – the finals!!

Go Srilanka..Repeat 96!!