Firmware Upgrades - How Useful Are They?

Lately, I am seeing a lot of firmware upgrades coming up for different products - take for example, my iPod. The 5th generation video iPod (or the 5.5th generation, as a matter of fact), is no longer available in the market. But, Apple (hail Apple!!!), thought about iPod owners like us, and provided with a brand new firmware (1.2.x something to 1.3.0) - quite a jump, if you care to notice. But all I could find from various sites is that Apple has claimed it contains several "bug fixes".

Now, as a consumer, I should be told what are the exact bug fixes they are talking about - coz, after 1 year of usage, without any firmware upgrades, I haven't noticed any bugs which requires to be fixed. I am quite happy and content with my original firmware with which my iPod was shipped.

Well, actually, come to think of it, there was something that was missing in the original firmware - Apple, promply, forgot to add the Indian timezone in its time settings!!! Can you believe it? There is +5.00 GMT, and it then jumps directly to +6.00 GMT. As if the entire subcontinent populated with a billion something people is gone, vanished, disappeared!!! And weirdly, in its world clock, there is a mention of Bombay, but whats the use?? Its something like this - you are in India, but when you set the time, you cannot select the IST. So either you need to select +5.oo GMT, or +6.00 GMT. Now with either of these time zones, you actually screw up the world clocks that is displayed in your iPod. So, if you go to Bombay's current time in the world clock - its either half an hour late or early. And that is true for any other city in the world. I was actually surprised when I noticed this thing in my iPod.

But, now I hear, that they have finally introduced the IST in the new firmware. But still, I am not taking a risk of upgrading my firmware, which is working perfectly fine. It should not be the case that the new firmware introduces some new bugs together with fixing the existing bugs. Atleast, I'll wait for some further review/comments.

My Blog Needed Some Much Needed Attention

Yup, the title says it all - it had been quite some time with the same template, so that needed some change - but at some cost. The beloved "Tag Cloud" I had created some time back is now gone, and I don't have the patience to create a new one to suit this template - so, I guess, I have to live without it for some time....

I also noticed one thing - now I don't have to select a profile pic from some http url (thank God for that) - it now provides a simple option of uploading your pic from your computer (thank God for that again - high fives etc etc) - I wonder why they didn't think of this before and waited so long to implement it. At least, that was a sweet surprise :) .

Now, that also makes my second post for the day (an indication of how eventful my day was today) - and requires a celebration!!! :P

Sunday Again

Once again, today is one of those days when I let my thoughts wander, and decide to post those weird and unrelated thoughts on my blog - which is soon going to complete its 2 years (its another 3 months to go anyways). Why do I blog by the way? I guess, when I am supremely bored, and I have nothing else to do - as I am doing just now. It was an uneventful Sunday, and a long one too - really long, when you manage to wake up at 7 a.m. in the morning, and have no fixed plans for the whole day. Yikes!!! 7 a.m!!! On a Sunday!!! Are you nuts?? That what I generally get a response when I tell my friends about it - but thats the truth. Whatever, the main point I am referring to right now that today has been an idle day for me, and for some reason, decided to post my uneventful day's events on the blog, to add one more irrelevant post to it, and to remind me to "GET SOME LIFE!!!!"....

Some of the things which I did today, worth mentioning here, that is, are:

1. Trying to complete the book I had laid my hands on last Wednesday.
2. Watched a movie.

Ok, now lets be a bit elaborate - the book I am referring to, and I am halfway through reading it is called "So He Takes the Dog" by Jonathan Buckley. Nice book, revolving around a murder mystery of a vagabond in England. And unlike a murder mystery novel, this one doesn't have the kind of adrenaline rush action which is a general characteristic of book of such genre. Infact this book is surprisingly calm and slow... And till now, I am liking it.

The second task - a movie. Oh this one is called "If Only" starring the always anorexic Jeniffer Love Hewitt and not so known Paul Nicholls. Good and mushy romantic movie, and a perfect time pass for an idle Sunday afternoon.

That pretty much sums up my day till now :)

Facebook Status Messages "is"....

"Hey, whats wrong with your English now??"
"Why, what happened?"
"Well, don't you see an 'is' after message's'? Where did that come from? "
"Hmmm... good point!!!"

One interesting thing that I found lately, and constantly amuses me from time to time is the Facebook status, and how people use them (including me)... I have been using Facebook for more than 6 months now, but for the past few weeks (or maybe a month), I have started using Facebook more frequently than ever - especially when you are sitting idle in 5 AM in the morning and have nothing better to do.... There are applications etc which people continuously put (or should I call install) on their profile, but the status messages are the most interesting thing that I have started noticing....

I remember till last year, Facebook forced everyone to update their status messages starting with the word "is"... And I noticed a lot of funny usage of the word "is" - and, obviously, when you force something like that, they are bound to be grammatically incorrect in large numbers - but none the less, they were funny... Something like " 'Facebook user is' got really drunk last night and is now confused to why there is an "is" after my name before the text box." Even funnier: "Facebook user is' (ignore the 'is') got really drunk last night and is now confused to why there is an "is" after my name before the text box."

Take another example: "John Smith is wanting ice cream."

There have been a few groups which tried to voice their "concerns". A description of such a group:

Is it not totally bloody annoying that you have to be 'IS' every time you update you status? I don't want to say 'Joe IS thinking' or 'Joe IS wanting' or 'Joe IS feeling', or have to make that grammatical check in my head every time I update my status, thinking, oh no, I can't say it like it IS, because the 'IS' IS omnipresent.

Another good one:

For those of us who like updating our status on Facebook, there is always one obstacle: the word 'is'. What if you wanted to say:
"Jonathan hates snow"?
Unfortunately, you are forced to say:
"Jonathan is thinking he hates the snow"
What if you wanted to say "Mary ate your mom". OOPS! You can't do that! You have to say something like "Mary is currently eating your mom".

And finally, Facebook developers listened to the users' plea and made the notorious word "is" an optional thing. But, I still like to make use of the word whenever I update my status... It exercises my brain to figure out something which will go well with the word...

Also, people do put loads of funny status messages on their profile - take for example - a friend of mine has made it daily habit to write something exceedingly stupid, yet funny, everyday. Like, for example: " 'Facebook user'... Parachute for sale - used once, never opened, small stain". Well, Facebook developers did think of an innovative way to keep the users amused and busy :)

Delicious Bookmarks

Ever wondered how to keep an online list of all the sites you have bookmarked, so you can access it from anywhere in the Internet?? Well, there is something called "Delicious". Seriously, it is called delicious, and it indeed is!!! I have been using it for some months now, and I find it very very convenient all the time. Next time, I don't need to enter those keywords in Google and search for that great site I visited - I just log in to my free delicious account, and there it is - just a click away!!!

Try it. You can also look into other's public bookmarks. Ok, if you don't know what am I referring to - it simply means that you can categorize all your bookmarks into public and private. Public includes general info sites etc which you don't mind sharing with the whole world, and private.... well, as the name suggests, its "private" and confidential, so that you need to log in with your password to view those... Simple, right?? Yes, it is.... You can also create a network of delicious accounts with your friends, colleagues, to make bookmark sharing even more easier.

You can access my public bookmarks in delicious from here.

Please note: This is not an advertisement or anything. I am just posting a tool which I find useful everyday... Look for posts with tag as "tools" in my blog. I'll be adding new posts every now and then.