Got ink on my finger

This morning, as I woke up at 6:00 AM to the alarm as I do every other day, I had a slight sense of apprehension and anticipation. It wasn’t palpable enough to bother me but certainly perceptible because my wife sensed it. I was doing something for the first time in my life – exercising my right to cast a vote in the biggest democratic process in the world. I coaxed and wheedled my wife out of bed and pushed her until she got ready and we could walk off to the polling station which wasn’t too far from where I live – we walked :)

I guess it wasn’t just the thought of standing in a line for a very long time that drove me to start early. I just wanted to be there and do it when the first opportunity presented itself. I was the kind of guy that would laugh at people wasting their energy on a “useless” process that yielded either one worthless government or another that was no less inept. But I felt this morning that India is changing. If you did not pay close attention, you’d probably miss it. The change is excruciatingly slow and the biggest change that needs to come by – in the people – is not going as well as it should. But there is change.

This was affirmed when I went to the polling station and found people quietly and solemnly queued up. There was a tangible sense in the morning air of people feeling proud of their own ability and alacrity at fulfilling their duty. I felt the same. For a techie who prides himself at finding solutions to convoluted problems, I was fumbling like an idiot once my turn came up – I had no idea what to do. But the officers at the polling station guided me through and in less than a minute, I had already had my name looked up, presented credentials, got my finger inked and pressed a couple of buttons registering my vote. DONE!

I have no idea whether my candidate will win or what difference my vote will make. But this much is certain – I have escaped the impotence of not doing anything. And it feels good.

Zunyx is now on XBox Live

It has been over an year I have had my XBox 360 console but I hadn’t gotten around to setting up my XBox Live account. Yesterday, I got around to doing it and I was happy. I updated my XBox interface, set up my account and played for a while as well, just to compensate for using my XBox as a DVD player for so long.

Most of the process was quick and easy. In fact, I didn’t have to spend too much time on my GamerTag because I inherited my ZuneTag on account of using the same Windows Live ID. Now that is really cool. I used the time I saved to build myself [what I thought was] a cool avatar.

One little misadventure that caused me some concern was that when I was trying to add my XBox to my home network, I tried to do so using a D-Link wireless router connected to my XBox that would link to my wireless DSL modem. This caused the infamous 3RLoD problem (general hardware failure) and nothing would work.

I used it as an opportunity though to scope out some of the wacky suggestions on the web to fix the problem like the towel trick which by the way sounds like total nonsense. All I did in the end was power down the console, unplug the video and power cables (yes, this is important; just powering off and on didn’t work), plug everything back in and fire it up.

I now have the console connected directly to the modem through an Ethernet cable but I can live with that until I purchase my XBox Wireless Networking Adapter.

Oh! And that’s not all. I also set up my XBox as an extender with my media center PC. This means that I can now stream my media content from my PC to my TV through the XBox. It does pretty well even on a wireless connection. I can also use my XBox as a DVR to record live TV. Pretty cool huh?

Windows 7 is dripping with awesomeness

I spent some time yesterday to install the Windows 7 (Beta) on my laptop. I sort of felt dumb for having waited as long as I did given the extraordinary feedback I’ve been hearing. I got to it eventually and man, am I glad I did! Windows 7 totally rocks! It is very stable, quite fast and very well organized. I love how IE launches in a flash, how Outlook loads in an instant and several other little things that are already making my life easier.

Some of the new features are pretty cool – I especially like the full screen previews you get when you hover over the tabs in the taskbar and that the window is actually brought to the top when you hover over the preview. Makes it very easy to switch to the one you want. Other features such as jump lists and homegroups are very neat. The one feature I am missing badly at this point is Windows Touch. I don’t have a touch-sensitive screen on my laptop – so I won’t be able to interact with Windows through touch – but Windows has this feature now.

Thing I like most though, is that getting to typical configuration tasks on Windows has been made extremely easy and efficient. Also, the OS infers most of the information and makes it easy on you. The libraries feature for example, lets you add several locations where you store your music, pictures etc. so that you can access those locations through a single click.

And then there’s IE8 which has several cool new features of its own! Remember Microsoft Paint? That doodle app we used to play with when we were kids?? Even Paint has undergone a change with a new Ribbon menu and cooler interface (see above). Take my word for it – it is time to move to Windows 7 the day it hits the shelf.

Dev D – yeah, I have seen the movie already

It usually takes me a really long time to drag myself to a movie theater to watch a movie – even one that people have recommended to me and I am looking forward to. Dev D, however, was an outstanding exception. I was so impressed with the soundtrack that I just had to go watch it – and it hasn’t been long since I blogged about the soundtrack. It was well worth the time I spent on it over the weekend and more. I sort of knew the story and guessed what I could expect – I don’t even like the storyline so much. But I was very pleasantly surprised. It was a very well made flick.

The screenplay was very different and even though in some places, the plot meandered a little bit, you never really get bored because you are getting all these visuals, sounds and compositions that you’ve probably never experienced before. A warning to the traditionalists – this is a dark movie and was made with the intention of it being one. So if stark reality makes you weak in the knees, you should probably stay home and rent a family entertainer. I personally thought the performances were good. There was this lady on TV that rated this film just average – I would like to thank her for keeping my expectations low and humbly submit to her that she sucks as a movie critic.

For those with a more contemporary outlook, this is a must watch. True to its promise, this movie really is ‘emotional attyachar’ but you’ll enjoy it anyway. Check it out!