Routine Order

It’s time to buy a new mattress, and I am thinking of buying a memory foam mattress. Memory foam mattresses are clearly better than traditional spring mattresses, but are more expensive. Considering how coil mattresses are highly over-priced with respect to the cost of the material that goes into their construction, the increased price seems justified. Here’s a comparison of memory foam and spring mattresses. The big difference for me is that unlike my last spring mattress, the memory foam mattress will remain a good, responsive mattress for a longer period. The “memory” in the name comes from the fact that the material remembers its shape and elasticity(springiness) and regains it in a very short time after it has been slept on. I sleep on my side, and the fact that the memory foam mattress will “give” to ensure that my spine remains straight and parallel to the ground as shown below is also compelling.


The best memory foam mattress should be non-toxic, and shouldn’t use any adhesives. Adhesives and toxic ingredients emit chemical vapors and such, and degenerate over time. Doesn’t sound too friendly and welcoming, does it? I might just buy the mattress from essentia direct, but even if you don’t plan to buy a mattress, try using their sleep diagnostic tool - it lets you find the perfect mattress.

More interestingly, it has a question about bed sizes, where you can see how Twin, Queen, King, and all the other sizes compare - that is something that I never really had a handle on. Now with the tool, I can easily find the difference between the different mattress sizes using the slider at the bottom. It’s hard to explain in words, but head over to the sleep diagnostic tool and see how good it is.

I have never paid attention to the small details of the things that get handed to me at trade fairs and client demos, but the other day, I came across a very well put-together sales pitch kit for a company that does trade show exhibits. It was all put together in a gorgeous presentation folder. Half-jokingly, I asked the lady if their company did the design and produced all that stuff too, you know, in addition to the trade show exhibits they were selling.

Turns out that no, they did not make it themselves. The press kit was done at U.S. Press Direct. The Presentation Folders in particular were simply outstanding. After I got home, I learned from their site that the folders were as cheap as around $1400 for 500 folders. The way she told me, they designed the folders in-house, and uploaded their designs, and since they had past experience with US Press Direct, they did not have to wait to see the proof samples.

I was glad I asked about the kits, its not very often that the makers of these products get publicity - since no company would want them to put the name or details of the maker on their stuff. So I thought I write here to appreciate a good product, and hopefully find this article again the next time I go searching for a good print firm.

I was trying to choose between the Digital SLR (or even SLR-like) camera offering from Canon and Nikon. A google search led to me what looks like an excellent resource for digital camera reviews. The Test Freaks review pages are unique after a fashion. They aggregate reviews on specific camera models from across the web. Few sites succeed in adding value without adding too much original content. The page on the Digital Rebel XT, for example, leads you to many reviews. Not that I need to read too many more reviews to be drooling for one of them big boys!

Since I am not rich enough to afford a full featured, robust dSLR for pursuing what is essentially a hobby, I have been eyeing the Nikon D70, which seems just right for my purposes. You shouldn’t really compare the D70 to the Rebel XT or the Rebel XTi from Canon. They are worlds apart, but the D70 does seem to fit the bill as the perfect hobbyist dSLR. Try out “Serious” photography without breaking the bank. From the Nikon D70 reviews page on Test Freaks, I get the picture that the camera lacks a good white-balance adjustment feature and also a vertical grip. As for the grip, I can only say if its really gonna bug me after I have tried it for a day or two. Unfortunately, one can’t touch and feel things over the ‘web, so I guess I will have to find a brick-and-mortar store to try out the camera. It will be sizable investment for me, and I don’t want no second-guessing.

I thought I had lost faith in the zillions of deal websites - you know the kind I am talking about, blogs, or sites that list deal after deal for electronics and stuff. I even frequented a forum that I have mentioned on this blog before, so I was like, “oh yeah, so what’s new?,” when my GF told me about this site that has coupon codes and deals. Just another excuse for her to blow her money sky high. Yeah, she’s the kind that would buy eye drops for $1 ’cause its an awesome deal - the catch being, she’d have to buy a 100 bottles of eye drops, and no, her eyes aren’t dry or anything. But don’t tell her I told you that

Dealwhiz is handy to find those darned discount coupons though - for HP, Dell and the lot that seem to be eternally selling at a loss, but still alive and kicking. Never tell someone who has a Dell how much you bought your Dell for - for she will kill you by telling you how much cheaper she bought it for Anyways, to get back to the topic, check out dealwhiz.com for coupon codes, and I am NOT talking about Dell and HP coupons alone, after all, how many PCs/laptops does one need to buy? I found this cold stone creamery coupon that made my day, and kept my sweet tooth happy.

Layne Thrasher about writing his debut book:

Writing is not always peacefully releasing. Sometimes the words haunt, keeping one awake at night until they are released on the piece of paper where they live and breathe and ultimately die if not remembered.

I picked up my copy of the “100 sonnets - love and demise” in the bargain bin. There’s an occasional sparkle here and there, a couple of verses that are really good. It would have been much better if he wasn’t a slave to rhyme - some of the stanza jar, but they still rhyme.

It’s been a long, long time since I read really good poetry, discounted or not.

Web sites that don’t provide an RSS feed with updates annoy the hell out of me. I mean, do they think we are still living in the 90’s or what? I have been searching for a solution that tracks changes to web pages and automatically notifies me of the change through email. I finally found a great solution: changedetect - webpage monitoring services. They offer a one-click webpage monitoring system:

No logins are required to setup web page monitoring with ChangeDetect…
In fact, you do not even have to visit the ChangeDetect website at all…
Just surf the web as you normally do and, with one-click, monitor your favorite web pages and save as you go.

It is totally free, and has some really cool change monitoring features - my favorites are auto-login and support for https websites too. So you can monitor protected pages which require a login. The benefits of changedetect include improved privacy and a highly adaptable feature set. This is a LOT more than what I was looking for, and amazingly enough, it is free! They also have an extensive list of frequently asked questions for all of your questions.

I really love it when someone takes a tool beyond being cheap hack to a well-document, feature-rich utility like changedetect.com. I wonder why I never heard of it before or read about it. Hope this article comes in handy for others who are looking for a similar tool.

Cupid had been kind to me, but the kindness was conditional. My “date” has left me high and dry after the first two dates, leaving me at the mercy of online dating services. I picked a couple based on their online dating reviews and much hilarity ensued Read on for details…

I had written about cheap date ideas in this connection before. That date went well, we went to a mall and window shopped, had ice cream, saw a movie and it actually turned out to be not so cheap, but what the heck, it was fun, nevertheless.

So its been two weeks since I went out with someone, in spite of giving online dating services a shot. You won’t believe the kind of stuff that happens online. I thought I had a date, and ended up with what can mildly be described as an “Escort” service - if you see what I am talking about. My first mistake was that I let on too much information about myself. Including my phone number. Big mistake. I also let the online wooing drag on too long. She was nice and polite and we were chatting and stuff. It was when it came to setting up a face-to-face meeting that she was kind of reserved. Then she told me we could meet at her place. You NEVER do that - you always want to meet someone in a public place. These are just a few of the tips for online dating that I found handy. Then she called me - well, only thing is, it was she who called me, but someone who knew her - promising to set up that first meeting “at my convenience” at my place. I ran, like hell. I got a couple more calls from the same number but I knew better than to pick them up, of course.

I will save myself the trouble of writing about the disadvantages of online dating since someone else already has. The first one - trading off honesty for attractiveness is the one you really have to account for. I try not to embellish my profile with half-truths and lies, but it is a difficult thing to do - everyone else seems to be the coolest person you ever would meet! Anyways, “True” and “Engage”, both of which are free signups from the reviews site seem promising. I got a couple of responses, but you know how it is - once bitten, twice shy. I just have to take it easy, and be on guard.

Here’s an amazing example of how the same thing, or almost the same thing can come in various shades of free. I have been looking high and low for software that helps me help family members without their having to jump through firewalls, setup VNC and play with port forwarding setting on the router.

Fogcreek’s copilot is the first candidate for such a remote desktop solution. See the demo. It helps you help someone over TightVNC. The copilot website acts as a go-between helping you connect your desktop to that of the person you are helping. The downside is price - copilot is not free, though it is built upon TightVNC which is free - both in terms of price, and the freedom to build on. Fogcreek’s copilot costs $5 per day (if you buy their daypass). I can pay for it, no problem, I thought, but then I found crossloop.

Crossloop is the free equivalent of Copilot, as it is free for use. You ask the person you are helping to download the software and install it, by clicking “Next” a few times. Then you ask them to be the “Host”. The UI can’t be simpler - it has two tabs - “Join” and “host”. So after they setup their machine as a host, you get a number/code to enter in the “Join” tab and you are connected. It uses TightVNC too, as listed on the page about Crossloop’s technology, so it is essentially the same as FogCreek’s Copilot.

CrossLoop promises much, and I can see myself promoting this among my own little circle of friends and coworkers. It is ideal when you want to connect to a friend’s PC. I wish it worked on Linux/Mac systems though. Copilot works on Macs too. Of course, if anything I said above is incorrect, or if there are any better tools, please let me know.

I often find myself racking my brain for gift ideas. Here’s a cool idea. Everytime I see one of these photo pendants in a movie, I so desperately want to get one, or better still - give one. I went to Spider-man III yesterday and in the movie a little girl gives her dad a photo pendant - one with a lid, oval in shape - you get the point. Well, I thought it would be really cool as a gift for a friend who became a dad in February this year.


Searching online led me to this custom photo jewelry website that specializes in such stuff. They look like a brick-and-mortar shop that is venturing online. So I said, what the heck, lets give them a call. Turns out they are nice little family run business - I will take one of those over a huge corporate giant any day. I ended up ordering the oval photo locket - for my friend. Now I can’t wait to get it. I just wish it had a small door, or lid, but the ones with the lid are heart-shaped and I felt that would be taking the gift too far. Soon after I ordered, I got an email requesting the photo, and I had to reply with the photo. I’m hoping I can get it within the week.

I am a bookswim alpha tester now! I got an invitation and I signed up for a plan today.

Bookswim is an online book rental library, much like Netflix, only for books. I had first written about BookSwim’s launch plans and then I had posted a link to the interview with Bookswim’s creator.

The plans for Bookswim are as follows:

1. $23.99 a month for a 3 books at a time plan
2. $26.99 a month for the 5 books at a time plan
3. $29.99 for 7 books at a time
4. $32.99 for 9 books at a time, and
5. $35.99 for 11 books at a time

In addition to the above there is a free membership which you can use to just look over everything - if you decide to rent books, you will have to upgrade to the paid plans.

First impression - the rates are high. $23.99 will buy me a decent book or two a month! Also, whats the point in the 11 books-at-a-time plan? You can finish 11 books all at once - I take at least a day or two to finish a decent sized book. Also, you can’t seem to send back a book as soon as you finish it - for the three books at a time plan, for example, you can send back two books when you are done with them, as you are reading the third book. This won’t be a big problem in the long run, since you can manage to read the 4th book that arrives and send in the third and fourth books and so on - if you know what I mean. Shipping is free both ways. Asking people so send in two books together will save them some shipping dues. Here’s what the plan says:

When you finish 2 books, send them back in return for 2 MORE books. You still have that third book in your hands to read while the others are being shipped, so you’re never without a book!

There is a one month money-back guarantee, in case it doesn’t work out for you, which is reassuring.

The collections seems okay. There are lots of graphic novels and comics as well. There is no Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being), but I could find Umberto Eco and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Of course this was just a very cursory search.

Lets see how this takes off, and then maybe I will pay for the books themselves.

Forget the iPhone, I am drooling over this baby - the Nokia N95 smartphone.

The N95 has a 5 MegaPixel camera (oh, and by the way did you know that Nokia, not Canon, or Kodak, is the largest producer of digital cameras in the world?!!) which pretty much means I won’t need a seperate camera phone. It’s got wi-fi, bluetooth, and has a cool slider design - I much prefer sliders over flipphones and candybar phones. What has me really excited about the phone is that it is a Symbian smartphone as well. The only downside I can think of is that it does not support 3G. 3G be damned, I say - this cool phone will allow me to browse the web, check email, take pics, and, oh, it will let me make calls.

The Nokia N95 is already available in the UK with orange, and even T-mobile. So how long do I have to wait before it is launched in the US? I am out of contract now, and would gladly switch carriers (or stay with T-mobile) to get my hands on this one - I bet it will stay good enough for another 2 years.

CleanUp! is a powerful and easy-to-use application that removes temporary files created while surfing the web, empties the Recycle Bin, deletes files from your temporary folders and more.

CleanUp! frees disk space and reduces the “clutter” on your computer helping it to run more efficiently. It also can be used as a way to protect your privacy on the Internet. You can even instruct CleanUp! to securely delete files making it impossible to retrieve their contents using lower-level disk tools - just another way of protecting your privacy.

I tried it, it works - often I stumble upon files in my computer that I don’t know the purpose for, and I let them be, lest my computer crash on me at random some day in the future. I rand CleanUp! on this computer a month ago, and nothing bad has happened, so I guess I can vouch for its safety. It gave me an extra 3.5 GB of free space by deleting a lot of unnecessary crud, and this goes beyond just emptying the recycle bin and the temporary internet files. The options are simple and easy to follow, and I loved the experience of using it, in general. Highly recommended to spring clean your Windows machine.

I am in love with Todoist, the simple todo list manager.

Todoist is a new kind of todo list, that’s useful and easy to use.

So what is it that makes Todoist better than the other to-do list managers out there?
Off the top of my head, the following features impress me the most:

1. A dead simple, but dropdead gorgeous design.
2. Create an infinite number of “projects”
3. Create nested to-do lists. Ctrl+Right moves a to-do list item to the right, and that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to using keyboard shortcuts
4. Easy to use formatting
5. Easy to enter dates/times and to create recurring items: Write “every day at 1 PM” to schedule an item to recur every day at 13:00 hrs!
6. Create items with or without checkboxes
7. Prioritize items
8. Get a list of items due today, this week etc, even create custom queries for different lookups of items on your to-do list. You don’t have to search for the links to do these - there are a minimal number of links and all of them are placed in just the perfect place.

All of it reminds me of the Vim Outliner. This is like a Web 2.0 incarnation of the Vim Outliner, just a lot trimmed down.

I would love to have a Vim outliner style task/project completion estimate, based on the number of checkboxes (and their “depth”) that have been completed.

Also the the todoist homepage could make do with a list of features. Heck, even this article of mine does a better job of “selling” todoist than the homepage!

Todoist is brought to the world by the talented Amir Salihefendic, who also brought us the simple and beautiful Skeletonz, which is a Python powered CMS.

Profitable Marketing: McDonalds, Starbucks and Now is Time for Chipotles Growth Strategy is a look at how Chipotle focuses on word-of-mouth marketing to popularize itself.

Chipotle’s website is minimalist and a lot of fun, too. Their food is better. There is absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing, that I crave more than their burrito-in-a-bowl. I love it. I tried Qdoba’s “naked” burrito, which sounds sexy, but is everything but. Something about the chipotle taste makes me want to go back for more.

Now read Business Week’s article on how Chipotle spends so little on advertising and still manages to grow phenomenally. Instead of serving ads, they serve their A-grade food, for free sometimes:

When Chipotle came to midtown Manhattan last July, it gave burritos away to 6,000 people, some of whom stood in line for two hours. The stunt cost $35,000, figures James W. Adams, Chipotle’s marketing director. In return, the company landed 6,000 new spokespeople. “You could spend that same amount on an ad in The New York Times and you wouldn’t have that many people talking about you,” Adams points out. “The response to the food is almost always positive. It’s unique and it’s tasty.”

Heck there’s even a blog about Chipotle (Where “blog” stands for burrito log, it seems).

I have personally introduced at least 10 people to chipotle. I myself went there first after being told of a friend’s girlfriend who woudn’t eat anywhere else. So what is it that I love about Chipotle?

1. I like the fact that their food is organic - everything(including the meat) is grown organically, naturally. Admittedly, their beans are not 100% organic, but the fact that they want it to be provides economic incentive to organic farmers
2. I love the way the food tastes
3. I love how much food they give, and that you can limit your portions if you want
4. I love the simplicity of ordering food at Chipotle - fewer choices, but really you can get a lot of variation in taste with the choices offered
5. I love the music that’s playing at the place - always different, always interesting

I don’t know how many people will end up at a Chipotle’s after reading this, but this I am sure of - you’ll love it, and think it worth every dollar spent.

This blog is anonymous. You might want to know why, and more importantly, how.

I did have another blog which is way more popular, and older, and respected. I still blog there, but increasingly this is my “preferred blog”.


Photo Credit: Anonymous Blogger by zivpu

Fear of getting fired is not the only reason why someone would want to blog anonymously.
I wanted an anonymous blog because:

1. Anonymity sets me free to write about whatever I want
2. I don’t have to stop a thought in its tracks because of fear of blowing good relationships with other people - bloggers and people I know in real life. I can write however I want.
3. My dad and a lot of relatives read my other blog
4. My boss once brought up something I wrote on my other blog, and wanted me to delete it. So what you write on your blog affects work and I don’t like that
5. I don’t want stuff I wrote in the past to turn up in google searches for my name - thus affecting future relationships and deals.

Now that we have the “why” out of the way, lets get into the details of how to blog anonymously, on the cheap. We ignore fee blog hosts like blogger and wordpress.com since you lose a little bit of your independence when you sign up for a hosted blog, and that is not acceptable to us

There is a guide by the electronic frontier foundation about how to blog anonymously. In fact, that was the first guide I referred to when I was thinking of starting this new blog. It provides a list of tips on how to remain anonymous. It is worth a read. However, I was really disappointed in one thing - the link for registering a domain name anonymously does not work! The link points to https://www.onlinepolicy.org/forms/opg-domain-create.shtml which returns a “404: Not found” page. So much for an easy to follow guide. Earlier today, the subject of anonymous blogging came up again in conversation, and I decided to document how I made this blog anonymous.

After the EFF article, I searched and ended up at ask.metafilter.com. There were a couple of posts there, but none of the suggestions were cheap. So I did some more research and ended up with my perfect solution. Read on for details…

Keep reading →

I unsubscribed from Gizmodo and Engadget today. While I don’t expect this to change the internet, I wish it did.

Let me try and explain why I unsubscribed in the hope that you see my point, and you too unsubscribe:

1. They are not blogs any more

   They are more like dedicated newspapers that cover the latest shiny “bling” on the street.

2. They suffer from article diarrhea

   The number of posts they put out is ridiculous. Part of what I trust the people who write the blogs I read is to use their judgement to reduce the amount of data I have to sift through. Human filters, that is what blog authors are, or should be. A good blog will only have good stuff - common sense, really.

3. The blogs are incredibly sexist

   Some, if not most of the posts on either blog are offensively sexist - and I not even female. How do you justify the use of words like “broad”, “chick”, etc, and the gross sexual language that is seen from time to time.

In short, I used to read the blogs, but now, I find that I can use less than 5% of the posts I see on these blogs. Somewhere in the past few months, they went from being interesting to plain irritating - writing about all kinds of junk in impolite, unprofessional language. Maybe that is what keeps most of their readers happy, but sadly, I don’t belong to that section of the population that likes it. I gain very little useful information, news, tips or insight.

And I am not alone, this post from kottke.org reports on a former editor of gizmodo who winds up a rant about gizmodo with “..because you wanted a new chromed robot turd to put in your pocket.” That’s precisely the kind of language I have come to expect from the “editors” of these blogs(more evidence that these are not blogs but tech-pornographic newsletters).

So off you go engadget and gizmodo - find some other feed reader to infest.

“We pride ourselves in offering some of the most comprehensive comparisons between Apple and Microsoft’s operating systems on the Internet.”

Quite a commendable goal - will make deciding between Windows and OSX much easier. Or more difficult, if you are the kind who is confused by your brain, and prefer to decide with your “heart” instead.

This list of features for comparing the GUIs of Windows XP and OSX is interesting - I have often wondered about how best to compare the GUIs of two different OSes/Desktop environments. If there was a scientific, standard way of evaluating GUIs, we’d know for sure which of GNOME and KDE are better!

Oh, here’s the final score of the OSX Vs. XP comparison, by the way. OSX comes out on top.

Alright, I have to get this out of my brain before it explodes with a distinct, loud “Boing!”.

Why doesn’t Boing Boing link to external pages in a sane manner?

Take a look at the article about Betelnut Girls in Taiwan.

Stop. Right there. Now, I were Boing Boing, I would write that as follows:
Take a look at the article about Betelnut Girls in Taiwan Link.

Do you see it?

You don’t? Well, head over to the article and see how there is a “Link” at the end of every phrase, which links to what the phrase talks about. Make the phrase the link, dudes!

So instead of “A westerner tries betel nut Link” we will have “A westerner tries betel nut“.

This idea is not mine - it has been common knowledge for ages - it makes more sense to machines that try to comprehend the data that is the web, you see. There must be one solidly confused robot who hates going to boing boing on her rounds. “Oh! Those folks who have a single-word vocabulary for anything that’s not on their site. Not. Again!!!” I can hear the robot moan.

The Economist list of the top books of the year 2006 is interesting in itself, but what really got my gut was the following description of Richard Dawkins‘ latest book, “The God Delusion,” — as a wavering agnostic myself, maybe I should grab the book, and give it a half-chance of swaying me either way. Maybe it will just end up as another book on my Amazon wishlist, that stays there forever. Lucky are those that get gifts.

The God Delusion
By Richard Dawkins. Houghton Mifflin; 416 pages; $27. Bantam; £20

Atheists will love Richard Dawkins’s incisive logic and rapier wit and theists will find few better tests of the robustness of their faith. Even agnostics, who claim to have no opinion on God, may be persuaded that their position is untenable waffle.

BookSwim promises an online book rental service that works like Netflix does. I am wondering if it will get off the ground, as much as whether it will be successful.

1. Books have a much lesser audience these days
2. There are a lot more books than Movies released every year
3. Readers have pretty specific tastes, especially when it comes to non-fiction — where a person might want to read books on something that might sound obscure to me
4. Books might just cost more than DVDs in some case - think hundreds of dollars
5. Books have a limited re-usable life after which they get dog-eared, torn, ripped etc
6. Unethical customers might tear out a page - making the book un-reusable
7. Libraries are still alive and kicking
8. It takes 3 hours to watch a movie, around 3 days to read a book - so subscribers get less “value” per dollar with books, for the same subscription amount - how much cheaper will bookswim be, and how will hey manage it?

Considering all these factors it is difficult to see how they will make any profit, given the no-late-fees, free-postage deal they are offering. The site is set to launch this first quarter of 2007, but it looks like they are still looking for financers. There is a brochure touching upon why bookswim is an appealing idea, but it is superficial in some respects.

Thanks to the distant librarian who brought this in my field of view. The site he links to has some commetary too.

I’ll have to wait and see what rates and benefits they offer before signing up - owning a good book is still pretty high on my list of priorities, so renting a book does not seem too attractive - if I like the book, I’ll probably end up buying it, so it would be neat if bookswim offered the possibility of renting-to-own, for a small additional price.