Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Hyper-loop

Find a billionaire to float an idea and it will feature in every paper and TV show and blog and website in hours!
Travelling in impossibly packed Bombay locals in 1988 I had written a piece on how the future of transport would involve moving people in tubes like capsules stacked in a bundle much like electrons or photons flow in a cable. That is pretty much the Hyperloop. And guess what,  with five inch touch screens and bluetooth, Wifi and google glass the passengers won't need much elbow room either. No centrespread to unfurl in your neighbour's face you see!

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Those annoying ads in Y!Mail, GMail and webpages

I have been sick of the sudden burst of ads in my desktop Yahoo Mail, Gmail and Internet pages.
So I decided to do something about it.
Here is what I did:
1. Went to Yahoo Mail options and selected Opt Out for "Interest-based Ads". See below:



Then I went to Google Chrome Store and installed the two applications below:

Now it looks like I have got rid of all my ads! ( I have blacked out areas of my email details)


Friday, March 22, 2013

Friday, March 1, 2013

Sharing photos with friends



Way back in 2001, my uncle celebrated his 100th birthday. It was a great event in the extended family, and I had great pleasure in meeting so many relatives and celebrating the grand old man's birthday. My uncle was fully active, healthy, happy and could remember names and details of all his relatives of four generations there.
I also had a camera which I had just purchased in Japan, the Sony DSC-P1. This camera made lovely 1 MP photos which I could see as I shot them, and I could also share them via the Sony photo sharing application on the Internet. Overnight, lots of people in the family around the world could see the birthday photos and feel happy.

Since then, I have shot and shared several thousand pictures. I am into my dozenth digital camera, and I have the cult camera Canon 5D Mark II which shoots in 21 MP and HD Video using a full frame sensor!

The beauty of digital cameras, whether they are the ones on your cell-phone or other DSLRs or Cybershots, is that
1. You can compose and optimize the photo as you shoot it.
2. Show it around right away.
3. Save it on your computer for future viewing.
4. Share it on the Internet.

By definition, digital cameras have a way to transfer the photos to your computer from the camera either directly using a USB cable or by removing the memory card and attaching it to your computer through a USB card reader. Once the photo is stored on your computer, you can use your Google or Yahoo account to upload the photo to a web album and share it.

Step 1 : how to transfer photos from camera to computer using Picasa



Step 2 : How to share pictures on web albums:

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Wow, blazing broadband at 999 all told

Installed ACT fibre/Ethernet at home. Performs at >15X speed that I was getting with BSNL BB Combo! See acttv.in for details.