Cold Feet

There's a scene in the movie Up in The Air, in which George Clooney's sister is getting married. The bridegroom gets cold feet and wants to call off the marriage. Clooney movtivational-speaks to the groom, and lo, in five minutes the groom re-proposes to the bride and they get married.

Like the groom, I'm too in the verge of making such a decision and have cold feet. I have a lot of Clooneys for me.

I Love Readin' - An awesome book lending service startup

I usually do not write much. I mean, look at the last post in my blog. But I need to write about http://iloveread.in. Not because I want to win prizes, but i heard from the CEO of I Love Readin', Amrutash, that no one else has written about the service and felt the urge that I need to do something about it right away. They're in line for some well deserved - and pending - admiration and support.

I Love Readin' is a Netflix-model BDN (Books Distribution Network (I coined the term - just now!)) - its a startup founded by a bunch of IIT guys. In simple terms, a book-lending service, Netflix sshtyle - Borrow, Read, Return, Rinse-and-repeat. No, you don't have to rinse actually speaking...

I heard about I Love Readin' (ILR from now on - for brevity's sake) from my colleague Mrudhukar. He told me one day that one of his seniors is starting this company and it is about books, blah blah blah and sent me a link to Amrutash's post. I was instantly bought on to the idea cos just a few days ago I was googling for "library chennai" and found that all good libraries are too far from my home and was just about to give up.

ILR was exactly the kind of service/offering I was looking for because of the following reasons:

1. I love reading books (of various genres. Lately into history, economics, philosophy. Mostly non-fiction.)
2. I already have a collection of around 70-100 books on my shelves and my shelves have filled up, so I want to avoid buying more books.
3. I realized one day that, when it comes to non-fiction books, I read most of them only once and also I skip a few of the chapters that do not interest me. "So," I asked myself, "why should I pay for the book, read it once, that too not always fully, and let it collect dust forever in my shelves?"
4. I'm too lazy to go to the bookstore or library wade through the piles and racks of books and pick up good ones. I dunno, the Internet has made me really really lazy (online bank transfers, online tickets, online mobile bills payment, online photo-prints, online shopping). Besides, for me, a trip to a bookstore/library and back is half-a-day gone. Not too productive.
5. I hate reading pdfs and chms on my laptop. I have nearly given up on reading ebooks. These days, I read only excerpts of books online. (And piracy is bad - you know what i mean ;-).
6. I like the feel of the paper-book. Books are optimized for readability. And books are more compact and 'portable' than laptops and computers.
7. Amazon Kindle or a similar device/service has not yet launched in India. Even if they do, its going to be hellishly costly.

I became a member the first day ILR launched (23 Dec 2009) and I was their first (and happy too!) customer. I have already borrowed thee books from them till now: 2 initially - Argumentative Indian and One Hundred Years of Solitude. I'm just about to finish AI and have returned OHYS and have borrowed one today - The Ascent of Money.

Their 'customer-service' has been great so far. They've delivered at my office address and at my home address, wherever i wanted them at my convenience, and the books that I wanted. When the CEO delivers the books you had requested at your doorstep because other 'boys' weren't available, what more can a customer ask for - such promptness. All I see is an extremely motivated and focussed team at work here. Yeah, they still need to iron out a few wrinkles (the website, the subscription fees, the logistics), but hey, I'd still give it away to them heartily - they're doing a great job for a months-old startup.

The subscription fee is a little steeper than one might expect (at least than I expected), but think of all those ways in which you fritter your hard-earned money away. A large veg pizza costs you 150-200 bucks. A tub of popcorn at Satyam is around 50-80 bucks. A Ghee Masala Dosa at Swathi (Hotel Saravana Bhavan) is a whopping 120 bucks. Now you might ask why am i citing only examples of edible items, but hey, let us not digress (if you really want to, we can take that offline ;-). Anyway, coming back to our topic at hand, it will be money well spent if you 'investing' it on yourself - books, learning new things (music, martial arts, language), treks, travel etc. Even in terms of ROI, it made good sense to me to become a member (quarterly subscription - Rs. 700) because of the following reasons:

1. A good book costs Rs. 300 on average. Being the slow reader that I am, even if i finish a book at a pace of 1 per month, the quarterly subscription of Rs. 700 would have gotten me Rs. 900 worth of books. And thats the worst case. You'll obviously get better returns if you go for extended subscription periods. Or if you finish book faster (ideally like Swami Vivekananda - who used to devour books at the rate of 1 per day as I read somewhere. Of course, the content, not the book itself. Its a PJ, btw, if you didn't get it).
2. Because this is similar to a library, I'll be forced to promptly do my reading so that I can make the most out of my subscription (and believe me, its a pretty good motivational factor, although the I Love Readin' guys allow you to keep the book for as long as you want).
3. I can cut down on the commute to those libraries.

Go checkout their site! And if you're excited about the service, become members and start readin'! Fall in love with books again (if you have broken up with books or reading, that is :-)!

If you're convinced and you feel the subscription charge is too high, you can always ask them for lower prices. If a lot of people urge them to get cheaper, there's a good chance they will do so.

Mac Bootcamp graphics - 32 bit color mode problem

Today i set up a new external monitor that i got for use with my macboook. i had already installed bootcamp on the macbook and was running xpsp2. When i tried using the monitor alone in xp, and when i set the color mode to 32 bits, the display got all screwed up and was shaking vigorously. This was happening only on 32 bit mode, that too for resolutions greater than 1400X. The display was all cool at all resolutions in 16 bit mode. I googled about this and found that no one else has talked about this. I later installed the latest graphics driver for win xp from the intel site and things have been fine since then.

The Airtel.in new account registration form

I dunno why, but often keep wondering why are most of the Indian sites so sucky. I mean they have a business here and internet in India is getting bigger and so is the online consumer/customer base and why can't they concentrate more on their websites and make them of better? Take for example the Airtel site www.airtel.in. The other day, i was searching for airtel offices in Chennai at the Airtel site. Their "Reach Airtel" page (get there by Main page "Contact us" > "Customer service centers" mobile > "Airtel Relationship Centre" and choose Tamilnadu from the "Select your circle" dropdown and hit go") contains every conceivable (well, nearly) city in TN EXCEPT Chennai. There's not even a 'Madras' in the list :-( I had to call up the customer care to get the list of offices near where i stay.

But the subject of the post oughta be given due consideration. So, here's the background. I wanted to setup my online account with airtel so that i can pay my bills online without having to go to an airtel office (I never do it on time, even this month i'm beyond my due date). I visited the airtel site and clicked on the "Register" link. I was taken to the registration form, which was thankfully over https. And whatsoever form i give my mobile number in, i wasn't able to successfully get through the registration, and i'd always get the error message 'Invalid mobile number' or something of that sort. Besides, on the login form, the 3rd row second column in the registration table (it looks like a table) was off by a column, which was suggestive of some "colspan" goof up and so i was interested in taking a look at the page source code. Though i dint end up validating my guess, i happened to see a good amount of javascript at the page, which contained lotsa dead code and an "alert" every other line. All the alerts in the main code path were commented out. I was even able to see that it was developed my Satyam Computer Services Ltd on Oct-10-2006. Seeing debug grade code running on the site, i decided not to get registered at the site, and that i'll pay from my bank account directly, or even better yet, go to some airtel office.

One of the funniest things that happened in my life

And it happened today morning. Its so subtly and softly funny that i think of it now, late in the night, the same day and chuckling about it.

It was around 6:45 AM in the morning. Today being a saturday, i was fast asleep. Someone was calling me on my phone and i was so pissed off to answer the call. I groped around my bed for the phone and finally managed to lay my hands on it. It said: "Home calling". It was a freaking call from my home land line number. All i did was this: i rejected the call and went back to sleep. It should have been my mom who was just trying to wake me up i guess (i usually lock the door of my room from inside, maybe they tried banging on the door in vain and finally gave up) - very creative of her!! And the day has passed, i havent asked her who called me from our home phone and she, or for that matter, nor has my dad or sister, talked to me about the call.

Luxuries - how crazy they drive the mankind. A call to a son who just a bunch to stairs away. Freaking hilarious!!

PS: if my mom had to convey something urgently to me before she left for work, she could have messaged me. ;-)

Rest

So, after nearly 3 weeks, i come home from work and i dont have anything to prepare for the next day at work. Despite the fact that i have a lot of things to learn about, i'm planning to take rest tonight and peacefully sleep.

Peace.

Back to 38219

Airtel refused to give me back my number after i was back and so they had to lose one of their faithful customers.

But the strange thing is that, i got back my 38219. Mentioning which, i have to recount a significant amount of my history as far as mobile phones in my life are concerned. My mobile (initally, a Nokia 1100 which i lovvvveeed) has played a big role in life. Its been responsible for many tribulations and jubilations, and howmuch so ever i talk about it, it wont suffice.

I first got my mobile in my college second year, and it was a Hutch postpaid. And the worst part was the plan in which it came with, the SMSes were a rupee each, which i dint know. I was very new to mobiles and tariffs etc. I ended up sending a lots of messages over the first week, most of which will have an impact on my life forever. I ended doing lots of stupid funny things. I wouldnt recognize that an important phase of my life was passing until later. What a roller-coaster ride it was!! It had to happen and leave loads of lessons and messages and nostalgias and memories and pleasures and pains for the future. And the hilarious part about the first week of the spurt of SMSes was that, unknowingly, i had surmounted a bill of approx 1200 bucks. Thanks to Sona, who enlightened me abt the mobile phone tariffs and doubted if messages will be free in a postpaid plan ;-), and also for letting me know how to get to know the unbilled amount on the account. I was already going thru a disaster and it came down as a shock upon me to know that i was owing 1200 bucks to Hutch just on the sixth day of having gotten my mobile. My mom and i decided to cover up the issue from dad and have the bill paid. Thats the only 'bad' thing i remember having done during my college days. And so we did. We went to the Hutch shop at Teynampet, and got the amount paid and the number surrendered immediately. I still remember that day - it was rainy and cloudy, and the sky outside and my inside were gloomy. I was kinda scared, and sad, feeling drained and pathetic and sleepy, as it happens to me in those dark dreams and nightmares of mine. My mom just couldn't take the fact that we had been 'cheated' - she had 'forgotten' to get the tariff details or she had been told that SMSes were free or something - i dont exactly remember - and she was trying to put up a fight with the Hutch bill counter girl. I had my mom drop the argument for two reasons: 1. It didnt look good 2. The girl was beautiful and i didnt want to get embarrassed in front of her. One funny thing was that i wasnt the only fool who had fouled up not knowing the tariff, and we (mom and me) weren't the only ones who wanted to take Hutch to the consumer court.

So the first thing that we did after our tussle with Hutch was to go to the Airtel outlet just opposite to the Hutch shop to take a connection from them - 98400 38219 - which was to stay for a long time with me. It was the "student scheme" - with unlimited free SMS. What more would i ever want? I think it was around christmas time and most of them at the college hostel were going back home etc. Its surprising that i'm able to recollect many minute deatails about that day. It was a saturday. It was raining and it was between a drizzle and a shower. I was wearing the grey shirt. Mom and me were travelling in an auto from Teynampet to Saidapet to catch a bus to back to our place when the number got activated. And the first thing i did after the number got activated was to send message to her announcing my number and only later to others, and that too a less detailed message - "Hutch guzzled up a lot of my money". Swamy (Ganja) replied back commiserating and my Amen-ed.

And it was college over and i moved to Bangalore. I first took an airtel number that i was with until i had to leave to the US of A. I come back and find my number disabled. Of course, the mistake was mine, but i was ready to make amends and agreements, but the Airtel flock just won't give me the old number and i had to bid a goodbye and renew my friendship with Hutch (now Vodafone). And I'm back to my 38219. The second i noticed the number, nothing could come in the way between me and the number. Maybe i like to cling to the past, but, come on, there are not only bad things that happened to me in the past, there were also a few good things - or i just love to think of those "bad 'ol days" and bask in its sunshine.

(Update: Edited to remove a lot of silly bullshit. And hey, after moving back to Chennai, i also have had to lose my 38219. Its a 75236 now. Crazzzzy buggers :))