I should start blogging again.

I don't think this was much of a "blog" anyway, but I should probably continue to do whatever I was doing with it till a few months ago.

Ok. See you in the next post!

Shady Sequels: Wrong Turn

Official Wrong Turn movies:

• Wrong Turn
• Wrong Turn 2: Dead End
• Wrong Turn: Left for Dead

It looks like this is going to continue, so I went ahead and made it easier for them. These are not just names of potential Wrong Turn sequels, they are also plot lines if you're imaginative.

• Wrong Turn 4: Should've Used GPS
• Wrong Turn 5: How About Google Maps, Then?

How about some prequels?

• Wrong Turn 0: You're STILL Not Ready?!
• Wrong Turn -1: We Haven't Left Yet.
• Wrong Turn -2: Where the Fuck are My Socks?

More..

• Wrong Turn 3.5: I Said LEFT, Dammit! LEFT!
• Wrong Turn 6: Ask for Fucking Directions
• Wrong Turn 7: Next Time, Just Take the Bloody Bus

And the grand finale...

• Wrong Turn 8: I Think the Party's Over

I certainly hope it is.

Contributions by the community:

• @Tuoni: "Wrong Turn 8: You & me, we're fucking done professionally"
• @nithinkd: Spin-ofs: "Wrong Turn: Wrong Bus", "Wrong Town", "Wrong House", "Wrong Wife", "Wrong Kids" .. "Wrong Maid" !!! LOL

Got more? Twee-ply to me.

Maybe this 'Shady Sequels' series can become a regular thing on my blog. I come up with too many movie names and plot lines to just tweet them once and let them fade away!

Firefox Axxis (2009) Review

I guess it's been a while now and so I figured a review is probably due.

Here's the post I made in my epic thread titled "Aalaap's big bike search" .. heh.

"aalaap" wrote:

I bought the Firefo Axxis.



Rs. 7,062 exact. Rode it all the way home from the Malad bike station to Mahim.

Hardtail (front shocks). Standard, powder-coated 18-inch frame. VERY light. No gears. Alloy rims, steel spokes and hub. V-type brakes. Easily detachable front tyres. Easy seat height adjustment. Great looking. Great name.

Add-ons in the next few days or so:

- Bottle holder

- 21-speeder Shimanos. If I go for Revo Shift, it'll cost me around 1,800 bucks. If I go for Rapid Fire shifters, around Rs. 2,000. I think I'll take the rapid fires...

- Helmet - a standard Kamachi from Metro for Rs. 250 or so.

- Mud guards would be a good idea...

Some more details on my blog.

THE END

* credits roll *

Ride

Very, very comfortable and smooth to ride. Makes NO noise at all. It's like I'm riding on smooth tarmac. And when I actually get on smooth tarmac, I don't feel like I'm on the ground at all!

The front suspension is very basic, cheap stuff that you'll probably find in some local, under 5k bikes. It does kick in when riding over potholes, but otherwise, on non-potholed roads, it's fairly hard, and so it doesn't have a negative effect on pedalling efficiency. I think that's a good thing.

The seat is a bit hard, but I'm going to put a Velo GelTec cover on it and see if that makes it any better.

The grip isn't uncomfortable, but a slightly thicker, softer rubber cover might help. I do think the grip is a bit too thin for me, so an added cover is really going to help me.

Components

From what I see, the bike has very standard components that you'll find in a normal and/or cheapo bike. The downside is that they'll give way sooner than the good quality stuff, but on the other hand, they are cheap and easily replaceable. Another upside to standard, cheapo components is that you won't have a problem letting your local cycle shop repair guy tinker around with it. They're used to working with that kinda stuff. I would have hated to take a Trek or a Merida to the local shop!!

On one of the RTWs (I suppose it was the second one), I was noticeably slow on our way to town from shivaji park. The reason was that my front brakes were rubbing against the rim even when I wasn't braking. We (Kunal, R K) tried fixing it with toolkits, but we only made it worse and I rode back with a barely working front brake. I was dead slow on the way back, so it was okay. I took it to the local cycle guy (Sardar) and he fixed it up in 10 minutes for 10 bucks. lol. No problems since.

After-market components and Accessories

I had planned to put gears on this, inspite of Dipak (of Gear) advising against it. But after giving it more thought, and more importantly, after riding it for a longer amount of time, I have a feeling that I don't need gears at all. I hadn't seriously ridden a bike for almost a decade till I bought this one, so I was naturally feeling left behind. But I guess I'm slowly regaining the stamina every time I ride, so even light slopes such as flyovers seem pretty trivial now. So I don't think I want to put gears. Besides, even if I do, that'll end up streching the seat stay to accomodate for the rear gears, and that's gonna screw up the frame, which is what everyone is saying. Fair. No gears.

But you can put gears if you want. Around 1500-1800 for 21s.

Style

The Axxis is a REALLY good looking bike. I finalized on buying it the day I actually saw it on front of me. I already liked it in the pictures, but when I saw it, I had to have it. And that's why I bought it.

The bike has a perfect balance of black and silver colors. It's got some great tribal-ish vinyl-ish sticker on the frame with a fantastic looking "Firefox" and "Axxis" logos in a very good looking font.

This bike looks so good, almost everyone stares at it when I ride by. One guy on a motorcycle in my area slowed down while next to me and was staring at it. I told him its a Firefox Axxis and asked him to check out firefoxbikes.com. He asked me where I got it from. I said Malad. Then he said it's a cool bike and sped away. And I was smiling!

Customer Service

Don't ever go to the Malad shop. The guy out there is a total ass. Go to Nerul or Thane. Much nicer people.

However, you don't always need to go to the Firefox Station for everything. Like I said before, the local guy can take care of everything for you, and he won't mess anything up, since the components are pretty standard on this one.

Conclusion

So the bike has standard, cheap components, but the ride quality is excellent and the style factor is way up there. For Rs. 7,062, this may not be the best quality bike you can buy (surely not), but it IS definitely the best looking bike you can find!

I may add more to this review as and when I remember stuff.

Bought the Firefox Axxis on March 13, 2009 around 6pm from the Firefox Station in Malad. Paid Rs. 7,062 by credit card (so 2.5% got added).

I started using Twitter on...

3/25/07

I looked long and hard for the "Welcome new Twitterer" email in my Gmail inbox (which I got back in 2004 and I've never used the 'Delete' button in), but I just couldn't find it. I found some welcome emails for some extra accounts I had created for work later on in 2007, but not my main account.

Then I expanded the search to throw up everything sent by @twitter.com and I found these:

Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2007 01:37:59 +0000
From: Devesh Mistry
To: (hidden)
Message-Id: <4605d277d340c_2ab06fba1b695@habrock.tmail>
Subject: Devesh Mistry wants you to join Twitter!

Hi!


Devesh Mistry wants you to join Twitter!

Click here to get started:
http://twitter.com/i/06c99b863b0fc0588a7911c92be180a85e934aea

Or, check out Devesh Mistry's Twitter profile:
http://twitter.com/deveshm

Ciao!

... followed by the first DM he sent me:

Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2007 09:54:51 +0000
From: Devesh Mistry via Twitter
To: (hidden)
Message-Id: <460646eba16a_eab707af922692@sirin.twitter.com.tmail>
Subject: Direct message from Devesh Mistry via web

LOL this is neat!

Devesh Mistry

--
follow me at http://twitter.com/deveshm
send me a direct message from your phone or IM: D DEVESHM your message here.
turn off these email notifications at: http://twitter.com/account/notifications

And a forgot password email:

Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 04:06:18 +0000
From: Twitter
To: (hidden)
Message-Id: <460746ba372e7_1f98758f3fc31ba@sirin.twitter.com.tmail>
Subject: We all forget, sometimes...

Hey there-

Can't remember your password, huh?
It happens to the best of us.

Your password is: (hidden)

Login at:
http://twitter.com/login

If you want to change your password,
login to your account and click the
"Settings" link at the top right
side of the screen.

The forgot password email is dated 26th and the first invitation is dated 25th! lol, i must have been one oblivious ass!

I still haven't found the original "Welcome new Twitter-er" or whatever that email was called back then. It might have something to do with the fact that I signed up using an aalaap.com email address instead of gmail, and switched it to gmail later on. But, if I've been using Gmail since 2004, why the fuck would I give a non-gmail address to a web app two years down the line? That just eludes me.

Update: I may have found the first few tweets that @deveshm and I posted to Twitter!! Not in the correct order...

aalaap: Listening to Nocturnal 082 - a blast from the past - while last night's Nocturnal 086 gets downloaded! (4/1/07, 12.35pm)
deveshm: So much emotional baggage... Still so much to off load... There goes my weekend plans :( (4/1/07, 8.08am)
aalaap: Playing Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (4/1/07, 2.23am)
aalaap: Upgrading Boot Camp on the office Mac so I can go ahead and install Vista. (4/2/07, 1.16 PM)
deveshm: Hate waiting in medical centres :( (4/2/07, 2.02 PM)
...

As you can see, I took to it instantly. I knew it was going to be a great time ahead. The dawn of a new era on the internet!

Remember your first few tweets? If you had enabled the Twitter IM feature and used Gmail, then all of those tweets you posted/received would be saved in your chat history. That's where I found the ones I mentioned above. If you find some of your first tweets, post them in the comments below!

Why Firefox Personas are a good thing...

It's been over a year since Mozilla Labs introduced Personas - a simple skinning add-on for Firefox that makes it easy and light to change the look and feel of your browser - but only now have they released it officially. I don't know why it would take them more than a year to work on and perfect an add-on that displays two images - one on top and one at the bottom - but that's exactly what it's taken them.

Anyway, it's finally here, and I have a feeling only good can come of these Personas.

One of the obvious reasons why I like Personas (and liked them from day one) is that you don't need to shut down and restart the browser every time you change a skin. Just select a new Persona from the menu and you can see it change right before your eyes. This is the thing I hate about Firefox themes or add-ons - they are useless until you restart and with the kind of bloat and tardiness Firefox is packing these days, that can annoy the fuck outta you.

It's easy to get started too. Firefox comes with only one theme by default and makes you go to the online Theme directory to look for and get more. Personas have almost 50 skins ready for you to use when you install it. And they are all easy to preview and switch by clicking the little fox icon at the bottom. If you want more, you can always go to the Personas directory.

Finally, there's the categories of Personas in the gallery. I noticed a 'Websites' category which has a collection of skins that let you brand your Firefox with a website of your choice. This is very interesting, because it opens up new possibilities in providing a seamless website style. Imagine the blue sky and clouds from Twitter.com extending beyond the canvas and showing up in your browser header and footer. Imagine Flickr.com showing up some popular photo thumbnails behind your header. Okay, that doesn't sound very pretty, but you get the idea. This can be used for advertising too!

Sure, this can be misused, but it's not less safer than landing up on an unknown website that may just have porn advertising all over it!

The CSS for activating Personas could read something like this:

body {
-moz-personas-header: url(this-is-my-header.png);
-moz-personas-footer: url(this-is-my-footer.png);
}

For this to happen, Mozilla would need to...

1. Integrate Personas into the next version of Firefox. Personas are no good if casual users don't know about them. The extension is about 178kb, which won't add too much overhead to the full Firefox installer download. Integration will drive up usage.

2. Add the -moz-personas-header and -moz-personas-footer CSS extensions to Firefox.

3. Consider adding another 'toolbar' image strip that can be used to change the default theme icons, such as the back, next, refresh, stop and home buttons. This will make Personas a lighter, easier to use theme engine than the theme engine itself.

We all got used to favicons, right? In the same way, I think Firefox Personas have the potential to make the web a more interesting place.

And now, I shall go back to using Chrome because I prefer it over Firefox. :-)

Just got a Firefox Axxis!

Yep.. I went to the Firefox Bike Station in Malad, took one glance at the Firefox Axxis and I knew I had to buy it. So I did!

It cost me Rs. 7,062 after all taxes and VAT and shat and fat.

Some of the interesting features include:

26" wheels, 18" frame
VERY light!
Detachable front wheel for use with a bike rack
Easy seat height adjustment
F/R V-brakes
Alloy rims, steel spokes and hub

What's not good? Well a few things...

The frame is regular MS iron and power coated, not aluminum alloy. This means the bike will need some special care after a little wear and tear!
No default gears. I'll put gears later on, but they'll cost me between Rs. 1,500-3,000 bucks. I can do that later - I don't feel the need right away.

I'll also be honest and say that I was leaning towards this bike because of two primary reasons - it looks hot and it's got an even hotter name - Axxis - which sounds way better than Target or Cyclone or Tempest or anyfuckingthing else that Firefox has in their range.

And I rode it all the way home from Malad to Mahim! It was a tiring, yet exhilarating ride that took a total of two hours because I took a good amount of breaks, had a Pepsi (reluctantly) and made a few phone calls. I'm sure I can do it in half that time, but I think this is pretty good for a first ride!

Just got a laptop for Rs. 10,990!

Update: This is crazy! The laptop had a built-in Atheros AR5005G WiFi adapter! 11k and WiFi too!! INSANE!


No, it's not second hand. No, it's not a netbook. No, it's not a VIA processor. No, it's not a joke!

It's the Sahara E101. I got it from the great big Big Bazaar clearance sale at Orchid City Centre mall at Mumbai Central. Normally, I wouldn't touch a Sahara product with a ten foot pole, but a full-featured laptop at 11k was too fucking cheap to resist!

It doesn't look so bad...

...and it's not too bad on the specs either: (mostly copy pasted from the website)

• Processor: Intel® Celeron® M Processor 380 (1 MB L2 Cache, 1.6GHz, 400MHZ FSB)
• Operating System: Linux (Fedora some fuck shit. EDIT: It's Fedora Core 5 from 2006. It has Firefox 1.5!)
• Motherboard: SIS M661 MX+SIS963L
• Memory: 256 MB DDR RAM (upgradeable upto 2GB)
• LCD Display: 35.8cms (14.1") TFT LCD XGA Display
• VGA & Graphics: SISM661 Integrated graphics
• Hard Drive: 40GB HDD
• Optical Drive: DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive
• Pointing Device: Built-in touch pad with 2 click buttons
• LED Status Indicator: Power, Battery, HDD, Num Lock, CAPS Lock
• Keyboard: 19mm, 2.5mm travel 86 keys with Windows function keys, Power button, Internet Browser, Email and 2 application buttons
• Interface Ports: 2x Audio Jack (Mic In & Headphone Out), 1x VGA, 4x USB 2.0 Port, 1x RJ11, 1x RJ45, 1x DC-In, 1x PCMCIA Type II
• Audio: AC'97 Built-in stereo sound with 3D sound effects
• AC Adapter: 100~240 V, 50-60 Hz, 19V, 3.42 Amps DC Output Adapter
• Battery: Li-Ion battery pack
• Communication: Built-in 10/100 Fast Ethernet Controller, 56 K v90 v92 support modem
• USB Connector: 4* USB 2.0 (v2.0)
• Warranty: NO WARRANTY OR GAURANTEE! hahaha

Here are the points you need to make note of:

1. There is no Wi-Fi. But since this thing has a PCMCIA slot, a simple WiFi adapter will do the trick. Since it's PCMCIA, the card'll slide right in and you won't even notice it, unlike the newer USB WiFi dongles. I'm going to get the Netgear WG511, which costs around Rs. 1,100. The laptop comes with a built-in Atheros AR5005G 802.11b/g WiFi adapter! No need to buy anything extra!
2. There is no Bluetooth. If you need it, a simple, tiny Bluetooth dongle (like my Super Mini BT dongle) will cost you not more than 200-250 bucks.
3. The laptop has two DDR slots They are DDR1, not DDR2. There's one 256MB DDR333 SODIMM by default, so you can add another 1GB and get a total of 1.25GB. This is good enough to run Vista. A new 1GB DDR400 SODIMM costs around Rs. 1,450. 2GB would cost you Rs. 2,900, but that'll be totally sorted!

So after spending around Rs. 2,800 1,700 (depending on what you want from the list above), you get a fully functional notebook and that's still going to cost you just a hint over Rs. 13.5k 12.5k! I think that's a good deal for those who are strapped for cash and are looking for a netbook for that very reason. If you're looking for a netbook for the portability factor, then this Sahara E101 at 11k is obviously not for you, but if you're running low on dough and you need a laptop, this is the best deal in the market right now!

What do you think?

Unfortunately, this marvel of a deal is no longer available. I got it from a Big Bazaar clearance sale that's obviously over now. Too bad!