5 Books you Must Read [Part 1]

This is the first of the series, of my post on books that you must reads. So apart from the Harry Potters, Agatha Christie Books or Dan Brown Books which might depend on one's choice of books. These are the books that should not be missed at any cost.

1. Shantaram Price: Rs. 419 | Buy Here	2. Steve Jobs Price: Rs. 559 | Buy Here
3. H2G2 Price: Rs. 385 | Buy Here	4. The White Tiger Price: Rs. 209 | Buy Here
5. The Alchemist Price: Rs. 163 | Buy Here

How Revolutionary is Apple's foray into Education

Vidit Bhargava

An education based even was hosted by Apple, last month. The event emphasized on how the company will try to change the decaying American education system.

Phill Schiller took the stage to kick-start the education event by emphasizing that USA wasn't a leader when it came to global education. He didn't forget to mention that the iPad had been the most desired gadget amongst the teens. Phill also mentioned about iPad's contribution in helping students study.

There were three things, that Apple Launched that evening. I'd like to go through them one by one and try to give a feed-back on exactly how revolutionary they are:

1.    iBooks 2

iBooks, Apple's book-reading app for the iPad now features some really interactive content from popular textbook publishers. These are books specifically designed for the iPad. They are interactive, more colorful and much less boring than the books you might be reading today. And They have the same quality of content.

One such book is  E.O. Wilson's Life on Earth. Its a biology text book which is fully loaded with interactive content. You can pinch inside a human cell, interactively study the parts of an insect, get video lessons, visit interactive image galleries related to the topic, test yourself and get an interactive feedback there and then. Apple has redefined how a book looks like.

While these books may be great when it comes to 'reading the content' but when it comes to the books which concentrate less on the reading material and more on providing extra questions, the interactive way of learning faces a challenge. When you add more questions and less of content, you ultimately end up compromising the interactivity of the book. Which is something you won't want because the selling point of these books is interactivity, followed by other supplementary factors.

The interactive iBooks also have a task of luring the kids into studies, while this may convert a few students and make them study 'more' but not many will 'start' studying just because their new books are on a touch-screen device, have a video or are interactive. Moreover to such kids, the iPad might prove to be more of a distraction than a learning ground. This is something perhaps no-one can change and technology's intervention doesn't help.

* iBooks 2 is a free update from Apple's App Store.

2. iBooks Author

This is a tool for the publishers. The iBooks Author lets you create interactive textbooks and test them on your device. It provides the Author with an opportunity to put content or add interactive media. This can be in the form of an interactive HTML5 widget, a 3D figure, a video or even a simple quiz. Publishers have a choice on what they can put.

iBooks Author is just like Instant food. It can create a new book in a matter of minutes. All you need is, the content to fit in and a suitable collection of pictures and video. iBooks Author manages almost everything. Also you can test your book on your iPad before publishing it to the iBookstore. Authors can choose their own price.

However, iBooks Author has a large scope of improvement. Not only do authors have limited control to how their book can look, many of the services are only linked to Apple's ecosystem. For Example if you wish to add an HTML5 widget you just can't embed an HTML file. You will need to create a widget using Apple's proprietary dashcode and then embed it into the iBook. There is also little modification you can do with a set template. You don't have much say when it comes to changing the look and feel of the book. This might lead to a set pattern of stenciled textbooks on the iPad, in the future.

Apple Likes having a full control in all its products and iBooks Author is no exception. Its dead closed and all you can do is, play around with the Apple software. Its like a Garden with many swings, but it is closed on all sides. No where to escape. No room to expand.

On the whole the iBooks Author is a good desktop publishing tool but there is a lot left to desire over here.

3. iTunes U

iTunes U has enjoyed a good 4 and a half years of existence. It has been helpful to all kind of students and provides a good variety of courses from the world's best universities. Apple decides to expand it now, with an iOS App.

The new iTunes U iOS App features courses. What are courses? Well, Courses are just like the courses you might attend at your college. They involve Video Lectures, Mini Quizzes, Assignments, Study Material and Tests. They are a digital replica of a college course. Not only does iTunes U help you get all the content, It also helps you maintain notes, and allows you to search through the study material and keep a track of your tests.

The iTunes U App is a nice addition. It is also the most effective way of learning and grasping content amongst the three announced by Apple.

The App has a good, clean and sensible UI which allows the users to concentrate on studying and lets them build a good understanding of whatever they are learning. Also the Tests, Quizzes and Assignments are very helpful.

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Summary:

While Apple may like to portray how revolutionary these new iBooks and this Digital Content is, It remains to be seen how well it performs. The Book business might turn out to be as good as the iTunes Music Store or might end up being one of the few failures Apple has faced in the past decade. Completely changing a country's education system is a big task, This is just a small step in one direction. Only time will tell if it is the right direction.

UltraBooks or UltraClones?

Vidit Bhargava

Sometime back, Intel introduced this term called 'Ultrabook'. It defines it as 'a higher-end type of subnotebook'. The definition itself is so complex, that you can imagine what kind of weirdly boiled mockery the Ultrabooks will turn out to be.

The CES this year was paraded by Ultrabooks from Asus, Acer, HP, Dell, Lenovo. Almost every computer manufacture wants to wet its hands in the supposed Ultrabook Revolution.

Two give you a clearer picture of what an ultrabook looks like Here are a few details about this 'Revolutionary' product that comes once in a while: The Ultrabooks are thin, lightweight, come in Unibody Enclosures and with limited ports. They also have a long-battery life. And almost all of them use 'Flash Based SSDs'. The display size is 11.6" to 13.3" or 14" at most. None of them features a CD-DRIVE.

And Now you may have a clear picture of what the Ultrabook will look like:

Looks familiar? Isn't it? Its the MacBook Air that was launched in 2010. The Ultrabook thing came in mid-2011. The Ultrabooks not only shamelessly rip off the design of a macbook air. They also boast of similar specifications.

Many people right now will be planning to press that 'x' button on their devices, since they fear this is going to go the fan boy way. As a matter of fact it is not. It is for the truth that I write this post.

Write from the design ergonomics to the keyboard color. Everything is being cloned in the name of Ultrabook. The only thin wall between an ultrabook and a macbook air is the CULV processor by Intel. The MacBook Air has the same processor as that in their MacBook Pro.

CULV (Consumer Ultra-Low Voltage) is a low power Intel Processor with Integrated Graphics. It is designed specifically for the Ultrabooks platform.

Intel plans to release these low-voltage processors in three phases. (For their three micro-architectures). Hence, dividing the Ultrabook launch in three phases also. The first phase is going to be ruled by the Sandy Bridge. Second will have Ivy Bridge and the third will have Haswell. When you 'know' that Intel has Ivy Bridge and Haswell in works, which are better processors based on relatively newer technology (one of them is that of 3D Tri Gate Transistors), then why will you settle for a Sandy Bridge Processor which looks like Yesterday's discarded waste when compared to the glorious tomorrow Intel Promises.

Having said all that about the Ultraclones, I will like to add that not all is so-clone like about the Ultrabook genre. While 'most' of the ultrabooks may look like Chinese fakes of the macbook air. There are a few that are promising and aren't that abominable. Lets get back to CES to see whether the Ultrabooks have something 'different' to offer than the image of an Ultraclone.

At CES 2012: There wasn't any interesting news this time. Motorola and Intel got into a deal, Android revealed 'design standards for Ice Cream Sandwich', Qualcomm rolled out a new Snapdragon processor and Corning came out with Gorilla Glass 2. And Then there were Ultrabooks, more Ultrabooks, and an almost uncontrollable flood of them. Most of them were clones, and are not even worthy of being covered in this post, but some of them were notable and deserve a little mention.

According to Joanna Stern of The Verge, The HP Envy Spectre, XPS 13 and Lenovo Yoga were the best Ultrabooks at this year's CES.

Lets start with HP's Spectre. Its a comparatively thicker solution to the Ultrabook. and that's probably because of the Gorilla Glass it sports. So while the Gorilla Glass is a neat-trick, those obsessed with extremely slim solutions for a laptop won't be very happy about it. It does have a good display and does sport the high-end ultrabook specs, which include a 128GB mSATA SSD, and 4GB of RAM with a Core i5 CULV processor and NFC capabilities. The only thing that HP seems to have copied from Apple's Macbook is the the color scheme. The black-keyboard on on a grey body. HP's Spectre is better than the rest of Ultrabooks and is priced at $13,999.

XPS13 by Dell is Dell's first dive into the Ultrabook market. When closed, the XPS13 can easily be mistaken to be a chinese clone of the Macbook Air. However it has a completely different feel to it when opened. The Interiors are all black. The Specifications of the laptop are also good. They are nearly the same as that of Spectre except the XPS has a Core i3 CULV processor and a lesser screen-resolution of 1366X768. XPS13 also has the gorilla glass. No NFC over here though. The laptop is priced at $999. XPS13 is good but I won't seriously consider buying it, when i can get better at $999.


The last one on this list is Lenovo Yoga. It was the most uniquely designed ultrabook at CES and it has nothing similar to the MacBook Air in terms of design. The laptop turn into a touch screen tablet, and runs Windows 8. I am not sure if this qualifies an ultrabook (We still don't know if it has that CULV processor or whether a laptop needs CULV to be officially called an ultrabook*) but it has most of the qualities of an ultrabook. It has a Flash SSD, a large 'quoted' battery life, it is thin and its ultraportable. The hinge-design of which i am not a fan of, is a neatly done, but 'Yoga' might just prove to be very bulky to play the role of a Tablet. Also, the hinge may not be very comfortable for both Laptop and Tablet users. The Lenovo Yoga (An Ideapad) will hit the stores only after Windows 8 makes a debut.


Final Words:
While the Ultrabook platform is flooded with clones, there are a few which do stand-out and perform better than others. However, Even they sport similar designs and uninspired technology. So Ultrabook is largely an exaggerated and mass cloned platform. The herd might just survive, or may turn out to be Netbooks 2.0. doomed to die.

* Ultrabook is a trademark owned by Intel and this post has no-intention of demeaning the sales of the Ultrabooks.

Rockstar (2011) - Review

Movie: Rockstar

Actors: Ranbir Kapoor, Kumud Mishra, Shammi Kapoor, others are negligible.

Director: Imtiaz Ali

A week after the release, the frenzy is over, promotion campaigns have come to a peaceful halt, everyone has seen the film once, the film is a hit and moreover has been praised by critics. I was one of those few who went to watch the film on the first day. I decided to hold back my opinion this time, for reviewing Rockstar just after watching the film would produce inaccurate results.

In the first few scenes of the film, you can see the crowd going crazy over a Rockstar called Jordan. As it turns out Jordan is our protagonist who is currently Acting crazy with the police and running across the streets of a country to get to his concert. The visuals are stunning. The message is clear, "Hold it! Not yet, We've got this great stuff coming up in the climax, but first listen to a boring love story." You expect what is coming next. That pretty much sums up the plot.

For a film titled Rockstar it is quite essential for the makers to weave a powerful character, mine a great voice and hunt for the best most unique rock music you can aptly associate with the character. Ranbir Kapoor, Mohit Chauhan and A.R. Rahman are the Best solution for this cubic-equation. And so when either of them are in action Rockstar rocks. 

Ranbir Kapoor gives his career best by playing Jordan. He lives the character too well, its because of him that the crowd doesn't leave the theatre half-way through. Kumud Mishra (plays Mr. Khatana) does a fine job too. He is tailor stitched into the role of the canteen owner and mentor to his most frequent visitor (Ranbir Kapoor). Infact Kumud Mishra's acting is so realistic that you mistake him as an actual canteen owner.

A.R. Rahman's music is the life and soul of this movie. 14 Tracks with 6 musical set pieces from the god of music is enough to make any movie watchable. Add to that Imtiaz Ali intelligently fits them in the movie. All 14 Tracks are quite remarkable and singling out anyone as the best will mean disregarding other 13. It's surely the best of Rahman we've heard in a few years, it's a memorable masterpiece and it surely is the best music composed this year.

A special note about Sadda Haq here: It is indeed the best shot rock song taking all the 3 Hindi Rock films into consideration. The song captures the audience, it makes them shout out the lyrics. It has the best guitar composition heard in years and Sadda Haq alone is worth the price of the ticket. Amazingly shot, breathtaking and crowd capturing. Again, I'm not saying that it is the best song of the album (all our equally good) but it is surely the best shot song. Naadan Parindey is also similarly great and is a Climax Feast.

The Cinematography is also good. The film looks beautiful, (something you'd credit to Yash Raj Films, and Sanjay Leela Bansali films from 1990s). The scenes in Prague have been beautifully shot. Jordan's performances have been shot well, Infact they are the high-points in the movie. Anil Mehta has done the hard work and it pays off.

Coming to what is bad in the film: To start with, Nargis Fakhri's acting and her dubbing is a big let down. Her voice is flatter and more unemotional than Virtual Voice Assistants. Along with Nargis Fakhri all the side-kicks that are related to her in the film also show similar intentions to act bad or act mechanically. There is a lot Imtiaz Ali could have gained by selecting a better actress for this role and there isn't much that he has achieved by choosing her.

Apart from Fakhri's acting, Imtiaz Ali's writing also disappoints. While the major portion of the first hour is interesting and has some really memorable instances, the next hour and half is incoherent, sluggish and gradually looses the grip. However the situation is not deadly bad here, Imtiaz Ali is to be awarded for some innovative and intelligent writing.

The editing too is a bit rough. Patches are visible everywhere and it is clear that the ever increasing length of the film was cropped unevenly. Also with the huge bag of censor cuts under it's name, Rockstar struggles at conjuring a neat trick.

One of the biggest flaws of the film is that it takes a lot of time to fly (I.e. kick start its engine of progress). And when it does take off, it's a very short take off and the film is back to bore you.

So that's it Rockstar is half a job done, while Ranbir Kapoor, A.R. Rahman, Imtiaz Ali and Anil Mehta have given their heart and soul in the film, others fail miserably.

There is one more thing, Rockstar grows on you. (And that's why you cannot review the film just after watching the film. This effect takes time to grow.)

Rating: *** (Extra marks for good music)

Meet Siri iPhone 4S

Vidit Bhargava
Going by the trend Apple follows with it’s new devices, Apple generally introduces a new design one year, and then stabilizes it the next year (iPhone 3G – iPhone 3GS), so it wasn’t really a surprise when Apple introduced the iPhone 4S with the same design and a few necessary tweaks.

The iPhone has gone through a few very necessary updates, which were sort of expected after the launch of iPad 2. The first one is the A5 Chip. Single Cores are stale talk now, even though the iPhone 4 was blazingly fast, Apple had to throw in their A5 Chip, just to keep pace with others. The 1Ghz Dual Core Chip, with a dedicated Graphics Engine has already proved its strength in the iPad 2, and it’ll be real fun to see how it does in the iPhone 4S. Early reports however suggest that the iPhone chip has been under-clocked to 800Mhz, which doesn’t look like doing bad either.

The camera in the iPhone 4S has gone for a major upgrade, along with a new 8 Megapixel camera, Apple has also played with optics, the new camera now features a CMOS Sensor and 5 lenses instead of four and 1080p recording is now supported. Also the Aperture has widened. Long Story Short: Your new iPhone is capable of clicking photos much like they’ll be shot by a good digital camera.

But it’s a Phone update isn’t it? Just upgrading the camera and the Processor won’t do the trick, it doesn’t impress me! Not to worry, the iPhone 4S comes with a completely new antenna system, which not only corrects its older problems but also makes it a GSM + CDMA Phone, and promises a faster reception and great speeds. Apple also claims it’s the worlds first World Phone. Now that is what I call a Phonely update! There is finally something to upgrade.

Their not done yet, there is also a nice little voice assistant built in the phone. They call it Siri. It’s always that one more feature which makes or breaks the product. Siri is the replacement to Apple’s old aging and pathetic voice assistant which is not even capable of playing a song for me. So it really needs to do well to make this meek update roar in the market.

Originally Siri was an iOS app (which I did not know about until very recently), based on intelligent voice recognition. It was created by Dan Kittlaus, Adam Cheyer, Tom Gruber And Norman Winarsky. Apple bought Siri in April 2010.

When Scott Forstall came on stage to do a live demo of the voice assistant, it was quite a daredevil task, looking back at the history of voice assistant. Things worked out incredibly smooth however. And Siri was the party popper.

Siri, (the iPhone assistant) is a completely different tool from what you may have seen in some iOS apps. Here you can talk to the phone casually, while it tries to produce an appropriate solution, just like an efficient secretary. So if you tell the Phone that you are hungry, it will bring up a list of restaurants near you. Tell her that your car is broken down, and it well get give you a list of nearest car repairs.

Siri at a mere glance looks magical, nearly intelligent and straight from Science Fiction. However Siri comes with it’s own restrictions. One such example is limited language compatibility. Theoretically English is a very widely used language and many people on Earth can speak it. But on the practical side of it, when you are in trouble or desperately need help, you are bound to speak in native language which Siri in all probability, doesn’t understand. Also, Initial Reports suggest that outside US, Siri cannot even look up places or understand your location.

Siri is also efficient at producing Witty remarks, “Siri, can you murder someone for me?” it replies “I found 3 mental health agencies fairly close to you!” . You can find many such remarks at : http://goo.gl/r002M & http://goo.gl/mWWGS .

Summing it up: iPhone 4S is the most stable iPhone to date, and it’s bound to stay for a long time (Just like the 3GS), it’s selling point however lies in Siri, which will have to do incredibly well to save it from a sans-Steve failure. But that looks like a far fetched idea, because initially sales have already shattered servers and records.

Steve Jobs

Vidit Bhargava
The other day, I was trying to frame my report on the New iPhone 4S. It just wouldn't take off. It was never a problem with Steve's Keynotes, usually his punchlines and comments would form the major portion of my article. So whenever I felt I couldn't start an article, i'd quote his words, and then start with my comments.

Today, when I woke up, I knew I was a little late, my brother had woken up and was on the mac, gaping at the screen. I wondered what was the matter. The picture became clear slowly, He was gaping at the image of Steve Jobs, left of which was written, "Steve Jobs: 1955-2011". Shock was my first response, and it still remains to be like that. There won't be any one in black turtleneck, and blue Levis delivering breakthrough keynotes. There won't be any "One More thing", and there will be a fewer people who think differently. The Yerba Buena Center of Arts won't be the same again. Just months back he was alive, happy and delivering his last keynote, selling the world another brilliant idea. He was alive then, dead now. (It still passes as a new wave of shock as I write this.)

Many people have been praised for their work, Very few of them have been praised by their competitors, and only a handful have been able to experience the whole world bow down to their creations. Steve Jobs, is just a notch above those handful of people. He is the inventor of the modern day computing world. Had Jobs not done what he did in his life, the world would still be seeing computers in offices or in huge military strategies.

He drove a company from the verge of bankruptcy to the most valuable tech-company in the world. He lived Apple. His ideology was his company's ideology. At Apple Steve Jobs created the products of a millennium, he bought personal computers to home, He tought the world how to point and click, Without him, the computer screens would have been lifeless black boxes with green text, He reinvented the term Music and Without him TouchScreens would just have been restricted to hit Science Fiction Movies. If God created Universe, Jobs created the Computer-verse.

People say different thing about Jobs. They say, he is s great marketer, He is a great speaker, He is a visionary, a mentor, an inventor. Above all What I think is, That he is the only one in the millions who dared to. Think differently. He dared to change the world. And he was successful in achieving that seemingly impossible dream.

"We're born, we live for a brief instant, and we die." I beg to differ Sir Jobs, "Real Artists never die." May you always be with people who dare to think differently.

Laws of Motions (Leges Motus)

Here's an extract from Newton's Principia Mathematica (Written in Latin). Newton's Laws exactly as they had been written:

Law 1: Corpus omne perseverare in statu suo quiescendi vel movendi uniformiter in directum, nisi quatenus a viribus impressis cogitur statum illum mutare.

Translates to English as:
Every body perseveres in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, except insofar as that state is compelled to change by forces impressed.

Law 2: Mutationem motus proportionalem esse vi motrici impressæ, & fieri secundum lineam rectam qua vis illa imprimitur.

Translated in English as:
The alteration of motion is proportional to the motive force impressed, and is made in a straight line in which that force is impressed.

Law 3: Actioni contrariam semper & æqualem esse reactionem: sive corporum duorum actiones in se mutuo semper esse æquales & in partes contrarias dirigi.

Translated in English as:
Every action there is always opposed an equal reaction: or actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts.

Pottermore beta review

Vidit Bhargava

A week into the newly created Potterverse by JK Rowling and you are already seeing magical messengers. Pottermore, JK Rowling's new project is actually a new website which provides interactive content and exclusive insight into the Harry Potter Universe. Also, Fellow members can interact and duel to win points for their respective House Competing for the house-cup.

The Journey began with the Magical Quill Competition which commenced on 31st July 2011, where a trivial question was asked on the website, and giving the right answer redirected you to the registration page, where your name would be registered for your admission in Hogwarts.





Pottermore follows strict security measures for kids to remain safe in this new-social network, one of these security measure shielding the identity of the user. So when you register into pottermore, you are given a choice to choose from 3 randomly generated user-names. Like Mine is CastleSnitch43.

Once I got through to the registration, It was only a matter of waiting. Pottermore is currently staggering entry to its Beta website. So I had to wait for about 14 days to get into the website.

When you enter pottermore gateway, you are left speechless, Pottermore couldn't have been created more beautifully. From then on, you experience Harry Potter through a completely new-chapter. The website displays three-scenes from each-chapter, every scene has something to collect. The Collectables can either be read or stored in your trunk to gift to friends. This can never replace books but it does provide some really beautiful illustrations and is fun to go through if you have already read the book.





One of the best part of Pottermore is the insights Rowling gives about various places and characters. It's sort of an authorized wiki on Harry Potter. However, currently not much is available on the website,and sometimes you end up reading just a line or two. Rowling needs to write more frequently.

One of the most intuitive and brilliantly done feature on Pottermore is "Potions". You can buy stuff from the diagon alley and brew interesting potions to earn house points. Potions is by far the most intuitive and interesting feature on the Pottermore website.





Another feature that is there in Pottermore is the wizard duel. From whatever I got to see of the wizard duelling, (It got shut down for a while for some reason.), I could make out that it won't require fancy handwork, which is good because precision of Hand movement is scarce on a casual mouse.

My visit on Pottermore has been limited partially because i am busy, partially because Pottermore currently in it's beta stages lacks the socially addictive factor but most importantly Pottermore is down many times a day, which is clearly not a good sign.





Another thing about Pottermore that I will like to talk about is, it's decision to use flash instead of more modern and compatible technologies. Flash being a virtually dead technology is only favorable to laptops and PCs. IPads are left behind which I feel is a sham because using Pottermore on iPad would have been real great fun. They should soon launch an iOS app.

Wrap Up: Pottermore is a great idea from a wise lady, and is going in the right social direction. However, it needs to correct some major technical challenges and become slightly more interactive, if Rowling wants it to be as viral as the potter saga itself.

Google+ - Review

Vidit Bhargava
Two days back, there wasn't anything known as Google+. There were, what I love saying, remains of social networking disasters. Orkut and Buzz. While Orkut had achieved its purpose and peacefully become dormant, buzz didn't even manage to create a buzz amongst the nerdiest of people. And Tuesday evening, the invite crazy company called Google launched, its yet another social networking service called Google+, in a desperate attempt to make it big in the social network.

By Wednesday night, my "facebook" feed was flooded with aspirants and early birds. Rejoicing at the Google+ invites. And every such post was flooded with comments, which in general were this: "Can I have an Invite?". " The demand was so high, that Vic Gundotra, the guy leading this project stepped in and closed all the invite mechanisms. However with this big a craze about Google Plus, Loop-holes didn't take much time to surface, and the people flood started to flow again. Even i got a chance to enter, through one of these loop-holes.

Coming to the brass tacks, What Good is Google+? To Start with, What is Google+?
Google+ is facebook in Google Colors. You have the same way of sharing things, you have a very similar interface and you are still socializing.

The Video Below Demonstrates how Google Plus Works:

Here is a much simple explanation:

Circles: All content is not shared with everyone. You can create various groups and then share, and read content with that particular group. This is something Facebook has failed to do well. People you know (those who are in your gmail contact list) can be added to various Circles. And then you can share your posts with the group you want to share, and not everyone reads what you are posting. There is also the option to share with everyone.

Hangout: Hangout is just Skype from Google. You can video chat with your friends.

Sparks: This is Google Search where you can share stuff with your circles. For Instance i search for a movie review, it will show me all the popular google search results, which i can share with my group. Google+ also allows users to save these searches, as "interests" for any furthur reference.

My views on Google+ :

Google Plus has a lot to improve on:

There seems no-option to integrate my buzz account to the live-stream. And this is not so good when you are operating on 3 social networks already, and planning to join the fourth. We need some-kind of connectivity between the three. Google's neat addition to share stuff from any google website is a handy tool but the interface itself is very-buggy. Even the basics of html, like fitting the display area to the screen size are not achieved when not using maximized window. Also Google Apps users are left out again, with a word from google saying that they will soon be able to have their profiles. (This hasn't happened for the past one year, when google said they will allow profiles for apps users willing to come on buzz). The +1 Button is also very vague. A thumbs-up symbol, a love button, anything would have made sense, but +1? Well, its hard to convey the motive to the users.

However, Google Plus still manages to pull of some really cool things, and one of them is sparks. With Sparks sharing content becomes much more fun. And it is also easy to get the news through that. Also eliminating the friends factor helps a great deal, people can follow you, they can read your updates but it is completely up to you to add them in your circle (Similar to twitter's following system). Google Plus is closed field and less prone to population contamination, which makes it niche and more fun to use, for now at least.

Currently Google Plus is in Development stages. It is not the final cut of what the exact thing will so, but it might give facebook some real tough competition.

Here's What my Friends have to say about it:

Vivek Nair : The direct and rather intuitive implementation of circles into the interface is a big (plus) over Facebook, where lists are hidden under a layer. Chat is obviously a big improvement over anything Facebook ever offered and yes, chat logs are also maintained via GTalk, which is good. Group chats are welcome as are hangouts, which is something good and browser integrated. Lack of apps is OK for now, but since this thing is still budding, dunno about how things will turn out.

Ankur Banerjee : Things about Google Plus so far..

+1: You Can mute notifications for particular posts, unlike Facebook. Any time a post/status gets out of hand, it gets so annoying on facebook.

0: Facebook has made me lazy, i don't wnat to click a button to post. I expect it to post on hittting Enter.

-1: Item with most recent Activity Gets pushed to top; makes it harder to see newer content in stream.

Anunay Kulshrestha : Another social network. Pssh.

My Rating: 6.6/10

To Biz or not to Biz!

Vidit Bhargava

"When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it - This is knowledge"

The book opens with this beautiful quote by Confucius. The book being written by my friends Ravi Handa and Avinash Maurya.

To start with Biz World would easily have been mistaken to be another question set for those trying to enter the world of quizzing. But Fortunately they don't market their book as a quiz book, they call it a business awareness guide. (And the book is selling nicely!)

Biz World is a completely different take on the classical quiz books, which usually come from the pen of the BQC legend, Derek O'Brien. It doesn't open with a question bank straight away. In fact They don't even have questions for the major part of the book. Which i feel is very good. The book has information virtually about every brand in the market. But you will find this information a little vague sometimes, you may even ask, "what do i do with this sort of stuff". However this series of vague information is just what is required to make good questions in a quiz. No-one asks a direct question these days. Having said that, however large the circle of information may be, it seems to be less.

My real concern, however, is with the type of questions this book has, the quality is just quite basic to say the least. There are some good questions though but this book doesn't even take you as far as qualifying the prelims of quiz. However, the fact file in the beginning of the book helps a lot.

The Authors have taken the responsibility of rolling out Question of the Day placards on the internet. They are also very helpful.

The good thing about the book is that you don't have to read all at once. You may take reference from it, from time to time, it is just like a brand encyclopedia at your hands.

After all is said and done we reach to the debatable part. Are Quiz Books even necessary? If you read these books for preparing a quiz, then I shall call them a piece of junk. Who doesn't have access to books? Everyone has. If you prepare for a quiz from these books, you will end up having out-dated and common knowledge most of the time.

However on the other side of the coin, if we take these books as a fact file or a box of knowledge. They may be very beneficial for us. This implies even if you are not a quizzer. For there is nothing better than a well-informed man.

Summing it up: The Biz World trumps all other business awareness/quiz books. For Biz World is written by two quizzers who are "currently" quizzing and know today's trends. The Books by O'Briens and Basus are only helpful when it comes to their quizzing and not when it comes to a total awareness of our environment.

However, Biz World has a long way to go. Even with this much in the bag, readers will have to read a lot more. All I can say is, it is not the perfect but the only rational choice in the market for aspiring business quizzers and knowledge enthusiasts.

Rating: ***

I have attached some fundas and questions below, hope you like them, you can even answer them in the comments box.

You can find more questions and fundas, on this link: Click Here

Music Locker

Vidit Bhargava

How many of you own a cloud? Well, as far as I know, many of you own a cloud or two, without even knowing about it! Cloud Computing is the buzz-word these days. Everyone wants to jump into the cloud business. The People are also willing to put their documents on the cloud, rather than carrying them in a pen-drive or a CD. Well Naturally People also want their Music Collection to go everywhere with them and not with an extra-burden of carrying a CD Case or an external hard-disk everywhere. Music Lockers they are called. And Currently two large companies are giving them this facility for free.:

1. Amazon CloudPlayer

Launched in March 2011, Amazon CloudPlayer is one of the few online music lockers, which one can 'use' outside USA. The Amazon Cloud Player, to its U.S. users offers a service to download the tracks from their online store to their cloud Drive and an option to use their Cloud Drive to upload their own songs. So you can listen to the tracks you've already downloaded. You can use your Amazon CloudPlayer ID to play the tracks anywhere in the world.

The Option to Buy the tracks and store directly to the cloud drive, eliminates the computer hard-disk in the process of listening the music. This is a really good thing because it saves the user from the hassle of downloading a song and uploading it back again.

Connectivity: The cloudplayer can be opened from any Web Enabled Device. You just need a good browser and a decent screen size to peacefully play tracks. However you'll find a dedicated application for Android Mobiles (Only in US) also.

2. Google Music Beta

Google Music Beta was announced at the Google I/O held this month. While Google's Music is very much 'similar' to Amazon's cloudPlayer it is not exactly the same. Google Music provides the users with an online storage for their songs, A Dedicated application for the management and uploading of music, An Android App and a Website that allows you to listen music anywhere. Also Google Music has a feature to work offline on all devices, so if you are out of internet coverage it can play the recently played tracks.

While Amazon does provide users with an option to download the music straight from an online MP3 store. Google has no such option. So basically what you'll have to do is this: Download a song from the internet and then put it back up. And that is a tiresome job.

Connectivity: Google Music is currently in Beta Stages and available by invitation only and the service is only for the US Residents while it is still in the beta stages. As far as Mobile Devices are concerned, Android users are getting an app and others can use the website to play music, which innocently touts a flash interface, blocking the iOS Users from using it.

We just saw two different cloud music lockers. Both of them work on your input. You need to download a song first, and then you need to upload it to the cloud again, just for the sake of using it everywhere. And you are doing this for every song you download, and if this service at all gets popular, the same process will be done by millions of people making millions of duplicates of a single song on the internet, contributing to a lot of Digital Garbage. This is different when you use your iDisks and Dropboxes to put files on the internet, those are unique files you won't find elsewhere. And it is wise to store it on a single location rather than making multiple-copies of the same file on every computer.

Let the Music be on one Single Cloud And let users take the music from there. This way, more and more people can listen to music through one source. Also The Music Locker should directly be connected to the Music Application we currently have on our computers, and Mobile Devices. And if possible we can make it available to everyone in the world and not just the United States (Where every cloudplayer seems confined today).

Wrap Up: Currently Cloud Music is Very Amateurishly implemented. Companies want a lot of input from their users, who are unwilling to take the pains. Cloud-Services need to be tackled differently for every different utility. While the current approach may be good for Text and Picture content, it is naive to think it will be the same for Music and Movies. However, if you are too despirate to use Cloud Music Players, I'd suggest the Amazon Cloud Player, which requires the least effort from your side.

Shor In the City Review

Vidit Bhargava

I've almost forgotten how to write movie reviews, the last one was month's back! So I watched Shor In the City sometime back, and here is my take on the movie

The Movie Starts with Noise, A lot Of Noise, Too-Much Noise, and an aptly fitted music track for the high-decibels produced in the first seconds of the film. The Movie is set amidst the Ganpati Festival and revolves around the lives, of a few people. (Every movie does that? Ain't It?). Among these few people you can find an amateurish cricketer, who aspires to be selected in the State team. An NRI who is starting a small-business and A bunch of small-time crooks, doing nothing, yet being the most interesting of the lot. All three of them have ample of reasons to be bad enough to make a dark comedy.

Let's start with the NRI lad, Abhay, played by Sendhil Ramamurthy (whom you most famously have seen in the NBC Science Fiction Series, Heroes, and most non-famously seen in The Wonderful Afterlife, by Gurinder Chadda). Abhay wants to set a "Small Business" and Mysteriously enough we never come to know what that "Small Business" was about. So, the NRI Guy, has a lovely [just being sarcastic] encounter with the city Ransomers. What they want is the regular hafta, which the NRI cannot possibly understand, he approaches the police and things get wild, The Ransomers, show their true colors. Now, Abhay must do-something to save the day.

Sendhil Ramamurthy does a good job here, he plays the perfect NRI, and is well fit in the character of Abhay. Preeti Desai has a small-role too. But that is mainly to be his girlfriend. She has practically no influence in the story.

--

Jumping to another one, The Cricketer chap. Young Cricketer Sawan (played by Sundeep Kishan) who is quite disastrous at his work. Doesn't bat well at all! (Or is it just the pressure?). What can he do? He can bribe the selectors. But for that he needs money. Here comes the interesting part, this boy tries practically everything to get money, all equally funny! Education Loan, Getting into the Dharna Business, and other Ideas for which watching the movie is a must.

Sundeep Kishan as Sawan does a fair job in his first Hindi Movie. Good Acting, but Sundeep's story is loosely written and does not probably share an equal screen-space, for which the director tries to fix things in the climax.

Coming to the Shor's Shor. The Three Crooks, Tilak, played by Tushar Kapoor, is a Pirated Book Publisher, Ramesh (Nikhil Dwivedi) and Mandook (The Legendary Pitobash Tripathy) are his friends. Now these people, are fun. They steal a prominent writer's script to publish it first and sell on streets! They pick-up a bag from the local-train, full of Arms and Ammunation and a bomb! (AK-47 hai ya 56? The point is they don't know themselves!), and try to blast it, on the outskirts of the city! And they keep on doing such amazingly fun work that you are chained to your seats as you are force-fed with a perfect dose of Laughter and a Black Plot.

The Best Actor of the three is Pitobash. He is witty, fun to watch on the screen, and has a screen-presence like no other. Tushar Kapoor's acting is good for a change, his obsession with the Alchemist, or Pitobash's witty humor and love for his AK-47 (or 56?), or Ramesh's instrumental role without which the trio-wouldn't have had the effect. Everything is well placed and witty. Its neither too little nor too much. Just in the right proportions.

Amongst the others, Amit Mistry and Zakir Hussain have acted really well, and the actresses have done their job too. One is not left with any complaints on the acting front.

The question that lurks in everyone's mind is,"Is this a good "Black" Comedy? Is it Black Enough? Most Black Comedies fail to be good movies, just because they have too much of slapstick humor and fail to have a shade dark enough. Krishna DK showed his skills with a Black Comedy in 2009, it was called 99. He strikes again with Shor In the City. The movie knows when to be serious and thrilling and when to push the audience into unstoppable laughter. Shor in The City couldn't be a better example for Indian Black Comedies. (of course Pushpak is still rated the best, but Shor is really very good stuff).

The New Trend in Films these days is trying to connect, utterly unconnected life-forms in to one plot. This is just like solving a quiz connect. You've got to make a connection out of nothing. and you either get it right, or are completely lost. We have seen many attempts at these interconnected stories, some of the notable ones being Dobhi Ghat, Valentine's Day, Life in a Metro, New York, I love you and many more which were probably failed attempts. It is really hard to make these type of movies. You need to focus clearly on all the sub-scripts and balance between n-different scripts, and some how make it look like it is one movie you are watching, by the end. This gets although more difficult with Hindi Films, given the reputation they have with handling a single story let alone three or four stories together. Well! Shor In the City is certainly one the better attempts at this. It does everything almost perfectly. And is quite successful at the Herculean Task these kind of movies need to perform.

Summing it up, : Watch Shor in the City if you haven't already. This should not be left at any cost!

Rating: ****

What Has Changed...

Vidit Bhargava

What has actually changed in my Personal Computer in the past 4 years, of its Existence. Detailed Table View:

Item	January 23rd 2007	April 20th 2011
Display	HP 15" TFT Display (Grey Color)
Sound	Creative 2:1 Sub-Woofer System
Cabinet	iBall Black Colored Cabinet (Long)
Mouse and Keyboard	Microsoft Wired Mouse-Keyboard Combo	Microsoft Wireless Mouse-Keyboard Combo
Printer	Canon All-in-One Photo-Printer	HP Officejet J4580 All-In-One
Inside The CPU
Motherboard	Intel D946GZ
Processor	Intel Core2Duo 1.83Ghz
RAM	1GB Transcend 553Mhz DDR2	4GB Kingston 800Mhz DDR3
Disk-Space	160GB	160GB + 40GB + External HDD
Graphics	Intel GMA 3000	NVIDIA 9500GT - Galaxy -1GB DDR3

Introducing MVDITTECHBOOK.COM

Vidit Bhargava

This is the one big i have been waiting to announce:

MVDIT TECH BOOK - Upgrade

In July 2007, I was struck by an idea. The idea was fairly simple. Creating a “Magazine” that would give information about all the latest Tech-Happenings, free of cost. The Digit magazine came with a price tag of Rs. 150, at a time where Information was available free to all through the internet. Why then, should we pay that much to seek Information from one place. Why not, just have a free-to-read e-zine(Electronic - Magazine), for all tech happenings. I wrote about Technology every-month, and posted the same on my blog. Later, This would not continue. MVDIT TECH BOOK, Needed a Website from where the visitors would download the PDF. Fairly Simple to task to make a website, but a mammoth task to have visitors. But that will be talked about later. Over the years, my e-zine has grown from a hobby, to a large project, and most recently I expanded it to the waters of tech-Blogging. Today, I am going to announce, an upgrade to my website and e-zine project.

Simplified HTML5 + CSS3.0 Code:
MVDIT TECH BOOK, has always believed in keeping up with Standards. Its no-use having a web-site that doesn’t run on Multiple Device Platforms. Most of them, today are Mobile Phones and iPads. Since, We Believe, IE6 is getting quite non-existent, and Firefox and Chrome and Safari have taken a place in the World of Tech-Savvy Audience (Our Readers), We have made our website fully equipped and running with HTML5 and enhanced CSS in its blood. The Code has also been “Simplified” reducing the hard-work of updating a website every-time an article is written, or a magazine is published, by more than 80%. A Central File in each directory, now Controls the navigations of the Website. So all of the work of updating a Navigation Panel in each page of the website after an article is written, has been cut-down to 1 in each directory. This also increases the efficiency of our Website.

A New Completely Revamped Design:
We also thought, that along with this major HTML update, we should pep-up the Website UI. We did this by adding a cool-new background to our website, and making the home-page more information friendly than before. Now you don’t need to Look Anywhere for the Latest from our Website. It is there, in front of your eyes, all the time.

The News (Earlier known as Announcements), Reviews, and Games Section has also had a UI shift. We’ve Shifted to a completely new UI, that has never been seen before, on any website. The New UI Provides the User an Interactive Experience while reading the articles. It is as many say, Better Looked at, than talked about!

New Navigation Panel
A Simple Tweek, Suggested by Mudit. The Navigation panel is now slicker and much more proportional. We’ve changed the Announcements to News and Added a new Tab for Archives.

MVDIT ROBO CLUB:
A word about the Robo-Club, You will notice that the MVDIT ROBO-CLUB has gone from the navigation pane. The Robo-Club had been non-functional since the past few months. We had already announced an indefinite suspension of the MVDIT ROBO-CLUB from our e-zine. We haven’t Scrapped the Idea completely and we hope to bring it back with better more efficient ways to operate it.

More Efficient Disqus Comment System
The Disqus Comments System, the one which is used for the “News, Reviews and Games” Section has now been upgraded with Mobile Device Compatibility and Image based comments. Also, Now You can login through any email-account or even anonymously post a comment.

YouTube Channel
YouTube has been one of the most Dormant Section of this E-zine. We have done a little work to improve on it. Initially We Will Be Uploading and Displaying the Company Released Videos of the Latest Announcements, and in the near future we plan to upload our own videos and views on the Latest in Technology.

Wallaby Testing
Wallaby is one of the most interesting pieces of project ever introduced by Adobe AIR. While Adobe maintains its love for the Web-Based Flash Content, at the same time it is providing a choice to the developers to change their Flash Files to an HTML5 and CSS equipped HTML page. Although, in its early development stages, we got a chance to test Wallaby, and We are pleased to know that in the later, more stable editions of Adobe Wallaby, the page-curl “will” most certainly be convertible to HTML5 content and hence be allowed to be played on all platforms.

And One More Thing
We Will Soon Be Upgrading our Domain. More Information will be Provided in the Next Post.

Mudit & Vidit Bhargava
MVDIT TECH BOOK

An Evening With JoliCloud

Vidit Bhargava

JoliOS or Jolicloud is one of the rare fascinating Linux Based Operating Systems, that have appealed me. All others, Fedora, Open Suse, and What Not are on the Same Lines as Ubuntu. The Father of those operating system and by far the most widely used, and accepted Linux based operating Systems. All others seem to have gone to the Gallows. JoliCloud is however different. You can see that, in the above Screenshot.

The New Brilliantly and Uniquely Designed UI of the JoliCloud strikes a Chord, amongst the youth. It is funky, it is intuitive and it is the sort of thing you would love to use.

Coming to the important part now, What is essentially different from all other Operating Systems. Just the UI? No of course not. It is the Cloud in the JoliCloud Which makes it so JoliGood To use. Everything is on the cloud. From your Microsoft Office (You heard it right) to Your Music Player (I am currently listening to music over the cloud). Even your desktop loads through the internet. It is a cloud based operating system through and through. It takes "only" 4GB of Disk Space and liv es and works on Web Apps and a Nicely designed Chromium based Webkit Browser.

WebApps: The WebApps are good as well as bad. While WebApps like Office Live, SoundCloud Player and Dropbox make the operating system top-notch. The WebApp Market hasn't evolved much yet. Unlike the Mobile App Market or the Software Industry. The WebApp market hasn't actually had a launch-pad yet. It has potential, yes. In the age of 3G Internet and Broadband Access, The WebApp market 'can' make an impact. However it is growing, and yet to reach a stage where a main-frame operating system can lead. Having said that, JoliCloud has a few notable WebApps:

1. NewsMap: Simple RSS App. Gives an Attractive Metro UI sort of feel to the whole NewsFeed thing. And Makes News Reading an Slightly Easier Experience

2. CloudPlayer by SoundCloud: This one is fun. I have always liked the idea of a web-based music player. And with a sort of library that soundcloud possesses is ideal for CloudMusic. CloudPlayer gets a thumbs up from me!

3. Mougg: It is the Same Music over Cloud idea as SoundCloud, but this time, you have a private cloud to share music. So, You can listen to only your favorite songs.

4. OfficeLive and Google Docs: These aren't actually web-apps, I won't call on them so. While Microsoft Provides the familiar Microsoft Office to all "Computer" Platforms, Google Docs lacks that popularity but extends help to everyone who needs it. So both Mobile devices and Computers are in-sync. Also Google is more simple and hence better if you ask me.

5. Simplenote: One of the most elegant web-apps of the JoliCloud Platform. Simple Note is just Simple. You get a two-column layout. One displaying your list of notes (Synced through web and covering all mobile devices) and the other displaying your current note. By Far my favorite.

JoliCloud also comes pre-installed with a VLC Player which provides the best software for Watching Video. And then you have Youtube to look videos, which play without a problem.

These apps need no-reviewing. They are good, as I mentioned before. But They are less. And Indeed very less. Hence, building an Operating System on it works only to some extent.

The Lack of a Graphics Software, poses serious threat to the usability of the Operating System, all Linux based OS have a GIMP but this doesn't have it.

Games are a big problem, with this cloud-based OS. Unless, you aren't a big fan of web-games you will find, No reason to use this OS for Gaming. It is Horrible at it. Believe me!

Performance wise, there is not much problem, SoundCard Drivers are pre-installed, Multimedia controllers o fmy keyboard work well, There is a little problem with NVIDIA's Graphic Driver, and some sort of glitchy-wild-image with binary digits appears every time the computer goes to sleep, but overall it is at par. Also JoliCloud loads faster than ubuntu. There is also a lack in the number of fonts that come installed with the OS, not many.

I would conclude here, by saying, You can chuck your windows operating system for JoliCloud if you are using a netbook or windows based tablet. But JoliCloud Has A Long Way to Go to Actually Pose a Threat to Windows, or other Linux Platforms. Oh well, on a brighter side it does provide a new option to use linux.

JoliCloud is not for Tech-Savvy it is for the Web-Savvy audience.

-- JoliCloud OS also comes as a Web-app for Chrome.

Wonders With Sprite

Vidit Bhargava

Key Ingredients

• Sprite
• A Good Cheery Mood
• And Some thing to add to it

Lets begin with a bottle full of Sprite. Tasty Um!! but its just colorless carbonated water. You could throw that bottle in a trash-can and buy Pepsi, Coke or Fanta. But thats not my idea of fun. I like a personal touch to things. And I did a few experiments with that dull and boring Sprite.

1. Masala Sprite - My brother was demanding "something good" to drink. What could I do. I had just failed at getting Coke from a nearby vendor, and had reluctantly bought Sprite, instead. (that guy had nothing else). I got an interesting idea. Here's What I did

• Put some masala (Mixture of black-pepper and some other light spices) in a glass container.
• And Put Some Sprite In it.
• Stir the mixture well with a Spoon

That is it. Masala Sprite, Interesting Spicy-drink that just tastes likes Fresh Lime Soda, and it is completely easy. Ready in less than a minute. And Pure Happiness!

*Caution : The Masala should not be added after Sprite is poured into the glass. It creates a lot of effervescence.

2. Juicy Splash

That's what I like to call it. Simple Drink. Just add a little Sprite To some suitably tasty Juice. What it takes from your side is this:

• Buy Some Packaged Juice. (To Appease me you can buy Orange)
• Add that Juice to a glass.
• Put Some Sprite in it. But be careful don't put too much.
• Stir the mixture with a spoon.

Extra Step of Buying a Juice over hear. But if you already have one at home, that shouldn't be a problem. What comes out is some extremely tasty stuff. Sufficing your thirst for some great fun. It's Splashy, It's Cool and It's Impressive. My Personal Favorite!

3. Ice-Cream Soda

Typical Ice-Cream Soda, but its just as Simple as other drinks listed above. Just do as follows. It takes just about two minutes to prepare but impresses your friends in the party for months. They'll gap at you and say, "Where did you get that from?" while you can grin and say Top Secret! :) . Here's what to do

• Put Some Sprite in a glass.
• Take Some Ice-Cream of your Choice and put it in a container. Put the Sprite also in that container
• Now use a Hand-Grinder to blend the combo. Pour the blended mixture back in the glass.
• Take some more Ice-Cream and put it in the glass.

Voila! Your Ice-Cream Soda is ready!

Three Delicious Things you could do with your Sprite and have a great Party. That's all for now. I am trying other combinations too. For now you can try one of those three, or serve all three.

Since, Sprite was made to compete with 7UP. These wonders will also happen if you use 7UP.

P.S. I forgot to click pictures of any of these drinks.

I'll put Indian! - Dilbert