Kudos to small shop owners. Boo on Mall culture.

In this jet age when people are supposed to gain benefits of Internet shopping, and reap ample rewards from discounts available on-line, one shop still beats them all and the shops in glittering malls.  Let me explain how.

I was in dire need of a printer cartridge for my inkjet printer. It was way too costly in malls in Noida and I had no time or money to make a trip to Delhi’s Nehru place to find one at the cheapest price. I searched ebay and still price quoted there was MRP plus the courier charges, making it cost even more than the prices in Noida.

I was perplexed why would people buy something online, if they are not getting it at the right price, and if they could get it cheaper locally.

Then I decided to give it a try. My brother was supposed to come to Noida the next day from Ujjain. I asked him to find the price of the cartridge in Ujjain, which is a small town and comparatively in a remote location, giving you the impression that things like computer supplies might be costlier there. But to my utter surprise, the price quoted was lesser than I enquired anywhere else.

And the icing on the cake was: The cartridge was not available in Ujjain. However my brother informed the store keeper, that he needed to travel in the evening, and hence needed the cartridge before that. The storekeeper, setting an ultimate example of customer service, promised to get the cartridge ordered from next town, and to deliver at the railway station right at my brother’s seat, before the train’s departure.  And he kept his promise, indeed! All this at a price less than internet’s best price.

In future I am always going to get a quote from Ujjain shops first, for all things that I can get from there.

Google does it yet again!! Picassa Updates.

Though I am a bit late to notice this, but is worth sharing. Picassa for Web now supports:

1. Name tagging like Orkut, using your Gmail contacts.
2. Email upload.
3. A shiny new GUI.
4. And introduces Picassa 3 software, with some improvements to photo editing features.

I am not detailing it here, because the experts have themselves done it on Gmail and Picassa blogs. And finally here is a link detailing the differences between Picassa 2.7 and 3.0 beta.

 

My Celebrity Look-Alikes. I don’t know even a single bloke here.

 

Google does it again. Experimental iGoogle features.

Google is constantly changing its products. First it was Google Talk Labs Edition, then the hyped browser Chrome, and now they have put in some innovation and cool user interface in their personalized (for users) Google page called iGoogle.

This is still in experimentation, meaning, not everybody will be able to see this version of the iGoogle web page. But a few users have been invited by Google to use this experimental web page when they log in. (and that includes lucky me !!). Full story can be read on Google Support page.

The USP of this new interface are rounded boxes (called canvas view gadgets) on the Home page for various applications added onto iGoogle by the user. Any box can be maximized to view the full application in its own frame within iGoogle page. Also iGoogle has a left navigation to tab through each of the frames / pages of application added onto iGoogle. These boxes can be dragged and dropped to change their location on the Home page, can be collapsed, maximized and customized.

So now I can have all my favourite web applications, web sites, news feeds, jokes, weather forecast, Gmail, Gtalk and many more added as boxes to my iGoogle webpage and use them from a single window. I can also set iGoogle as my home page to have quick access to all my favourite web sites at once.

Did I mention GTalk, yes the best part of this new interface is that it also provides a separate tab in the left navigation for chatting using Google services. And now since base code of Gmail is supported on IE6 as well, you can go invisible while chatting from iGoogle irresepective of the IE version you are using. Great !! What else could I ask for. However as of now the Gtalk tab is not available to all who have access to the new iGoogle. Google says, there are still some bugs with this, which they are working upon. For me, I do not have the Gtalk on my iGoogle as yet.

All of this is what makes me a die hard Google “Bhakt”. I only wish Google to call more and more users to experience the new iGoogle, and to make the chatting tab available to all.

Here is a sneak preview of the new iGoogle, for those who do not have access to it yet:

 

Blogging Friends Forever Award

It has been quite some time now since Sudeshna conferred me with the “Blogging Friends Forever” award. I feel the time is now ripe to pass on this award to few of my friends as my blog has matured a lot. Also the number of hits to my blog has gone up considerably. Now going by various posts on Sudeshna’s and others’ blogs on cyberspace, something tells me that doing so is a must, and would rather be rude, if I don’t do it.

The following rules apply to this award:

1. You pass on the award to 5 people
2. 4 of them can be regular visitors of your blog
3. One (the 5th one) has to be new to your blog and live in another part of the world.
4. You must link back to who ever gave you the award.

So I pass on this award to:

1. To my friend and once upon a time colleague Kalyan.
2. My friend, gadget mentor, and brother Aditya.
3. Sharmila who is a new visitor to my blog.
4. Kulprete, my childhood friend, and now an enterprising fellow.
5. And to Alex from Russia who once visited my blog from obviously a completely other part of the world !!

 

Wiki Rocks !!

Did you ever imagine, Wiki could start a cookbook. And here is one of their first, our very own Chapati. Read on….

Google Talk, Labs Edition

I am a big fan of Google labs, and have been following all their products religiously. The latest innovation from Google Labs are Google Pages, Google Sites and Google Talk Labs Edition. The former two did not impress me much. But the last one is pretty neat.

It scores over traditional Google talk, by having all chat windows open as tabs within the  application window than as pop ups. This is a great help, since in my office, having too many Google Talk pop ups gives a wrong impression. Also group chat feature has now been added, allowing far more interesting discussions with all your friends at the same time, than boring personal messages to just one of them. Off course, unless you are looking for some privacy . It has a better interface styling and color layout. At last Google has added some color to the pane. So what if its primitive blue. And the feature, I was dying to see in Google Talk. Like Gmail Chat, one can now go invisible in Google Talk as well. Yippee !!

This edition still lags far behind the traditional client in terms of functionality, especially voice call feature is missing. I wonder, why is it still called Google “Talk”?  Even the settings feature is not available. But after all this is still in Labs, and not a Release. So I am expecting some improvements before this is released.

Here is my verdict on Google Talk Labs Edition,

The Pros,

1) Great interface. Has been shaded in blue.

2) Tabs and not popups.

3) Group chat enabled.

4) Invisible mode added.

The Cons,

1) Voice calls feature missing.

2) Settings feature missing.

3) File transfer feature missing.

Here is what I suggest,

Go and try the Google Talk, Labs Edition. As more and more people use it, Google will be able to collect statistical data, that will help them to improve this product.

Visit their site for more details.