Google SMS Channel - Trafficspot

Google India Labs has recently launched a new service called SMS Channel. This service provides free SMS messages within a group. I have created a new SMS group called TrafficSpot. I would like everybody to join this group. Using this service one can get the latest traffic updates in your city. To subscribe use your mobile and type "ON trafficspot" and send it to 9870807070(it is a google mobile number). This will subscribe to this trafficspot channel. Once you are subscribed, you can send traffic alert messages to everyone(who subscribed) by typing "send trafficspot <your traffic alert message>"  and send it to 9870807070.

Keep your traffic alert message in one of the following format.

• <Road, Place, City> - traffic <very low/low/normal/high/very high/jam> - <spotted date & time>
• <Latitude, Longitude> - traffic <very low/low/normal/high/very high/jam> - <spotted date & time>

For example,

1. Sholapur Highway, Hadapsar, Pune - Traffic Low - 2/10/08 5:10 PM
2. [18.500264,73.939404] - Traffic Jam - 2/10/08 8:00 PM

If you have any GPS enabled mobile phones, like the ones from Nokia you can spot the latitude/longitude of the place you wish. Hope my SMS channel will become a great and cool service to everyone.

For more info on the SMS service go to http://labs.google.co.in/smschannels/help

 

Technorati Tags: sms,google,free,traffic,india

IPL - 1

Why Michael Clarke was not selected for IPL? Did he reject the offer?

Technorati Tags: IPL,India,Cricket,T20

One paragraph that explains life

Arthur Ashe, the legendary Wimbledon player was dying of AIDS which he got due to infected blood he received during a heart surgery in 1983. From world over, he received letters from his fans, one of which conveyed: "Why does GOD have to select you for such a bad disease"?To this Arthur Ashe replied:
"The world over -- 50 million  children start playing tennis, 5 million learn to play tennis, 500,000 learn professional tennis, 50,000 come to the circuit, 5000 reach the  grand slam, 50 reach Wimbledon, 4 to semi final, 2 to the finals, when I was holding a cup I never asked GOD 'Why me?'. And today in pain I should not be asking GOD 'Why me?'"

"Happiness keeps you Sweet, Trials keep you Strong, Sorrow keeps you Human, Failure keeps you humble and Success keeps you glowing, but only Faith & Attitude Keeps you going..."

Technorati tags: sport, quote, tennis

Another Superman

An Indian guy named “Anantharaman Subbaraman” arrived at the New York airport and ended up waiting for his visa for about 2 hours for the authorities to call his name. He got fed up and went to them and asked why they haven’t called his name yet.

They said that they have been calling him for the last 2 hours as “Anotherman Superman”

Technorati Tags: jokes, india

Guru Music - Mindless Rediff

"No one but A R Rahman can compose the music for a Mani Ratnam film!"

I strongly condemn the above lines. Mr.Ilayaraja has done a greater job for Mani Ratnam's previous works. The reason why they parted their way is a different matter altogether.

GMail Firewall problem

I got this problem recently when I was browsing Gmail. A link pointed to this site.

God Exists

A man went to a barbershop to have his hair cut and his beard trimmed. As the barber began to work, they began to have a good conversation. They talked about so many things and various subjects. When they eventually touched on the subject of God, the barber said: "I don't believe that God exists."

"Why do you say that?" asked the customer.

"Well, you just have to go out in the street to realize that God doesn't exist. Tell me, if God exists, would there be so many sick people? Would there be abandoned children? If God existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain. I can't imagine a loving God who would allow all of these things."

The customer thought for a moment, but didn't respond because he didn't want to start an argument. The barber finished his job and the customer left the shop. Just after he left the barbershop, he saw a man in the street with lon g, stringy, dirty hair and an untrimmed beard. He looked dirty and unkempt.

The customer turned back and entered the barber shop again and he said to the barber: "You know what? Barbers do not exist."

"How can you say that?" asked the surprised barber. "I am here, and I am a barber. And I just worked on you!"

"No!" the customer exclaimed. "Barbers don't exist because if they did, there would be no people with dirty long ! hair and untrimmed beards, like that man outside."

"Ah, but barbers DO exist! " answered the barber. " What happens, is, people do not come to me. "

"Exactly!"- affirmed the customer. ! "That's the point! God, too, DOES exist! What happens, is, people don't go to Him and do not look forHim. That's why there's so much pain and suffering in the world."

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Google Trends

Most of you by now will be knowing about Google Trends. With Google Trends, you can compare the world's interest in your favorite topics. Its a good tool for doing market research. Let us see some interesting trends.

India Vs Pakistan

We Indians are less concerned about ourselves and pakistanis, but Pakistanis are more concerned about themselves and about us.

Here is the another one, Tamil vs Hindi vs Marathi vs Telugu vs Kannada

Hindi leads the pack in India, UAE, Saudi, Canada and UK. While Tamil leads in Srilanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Switzerland an almost comes equal with Hindi in Kuwait.

Any guess which is most searched term in Google? ;)

Official with Indian cricket cap

How can a board official(here its Kiran More, Chief of Selectors) wear an Indian cap as shown in this picture? Recently this issue was raised by Sunil Gavaskar on Gloster(Indian cricket team physio) wearing the official cap. Picture courtesy: Rediff.com

Google Doodle

Time and again Google has celebrated several festive occasions by showing interesting Google Logo's, which they call it as Google Doodle. More Doodles you can find it at,

• www.google.co.in/doodle2.html
• www.google.co.in/doodle3.html
• www.google.co.in/doodle4.html
• www.google.co.in/doodle5.html
• www.google.co.in/doodle6.html
• www.google.co.in/doodle7.html
• www.google.co.in/doodle8.html
• www.google.co.in/doodle9.html
• www.google.co.in/doodle10.html

www.marsdencartoons.com is the master behind the Doodles.

Praying for rain

Ganguly will be the only person praying for more rain in Chennai not because he didn’t want to face pace bowling under damp conditions, if the match is abandoned then he will be getting two more chances to prove himself. ;)

A nice collection of Tamil stories

A nice collection of tamil stories told with good set of pictures. I would recommend to Fathers/Mothers who were struggling to find good stories to tell their kids at night. http://siruvarpoonga.blogspot.com/

Google Katrina help page.

Secret of Google's Power

THE SECRET SOURCE OF GOOGLE'S POWER:
http://blog.topix.net/archives/000016.html

Email signatures - I

I have started collecting interesting email signatures found on the net. This is the first part of the series.

1. The only intuitive interface is the nipple, everything else is learnt.
2. Only Dead Fish Swim Along The Stream
3. The most important early product on the way to developing a good product is an imperfect version.
4. Life is complex. It consists of real and imaginary parts.
5. The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from. -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum
6. B+ve is not just a blood group.
7. Beauty is His footprint showing us where He has passed - Aurobindo
   

Ayuveda Basics

Learn about Ayurveda here.

Many spellings but same person

Want to see, in how many ways people are trying to get information about Britiney Spheres.

First flight

Recently I had flown from Pune-Bangalore-Pune in a span of 5 days. This was my first flight experience. It was made possible by Spicejet. The cost was quite affordable. Even though two way charge was around RS.5100, I would have saved more than RS.1500 if I had booked a day before. My friends were threatening me about the flight company, since it is a new company and it cannot afford to fly at this rate, it can close at any time. Thanks to my faith, my first flight experience was without any trouble.

Here few moments in the flight were worth sharing. First the takeoff and the other one is of flying over the quiet and pleasant white clouds, which were simply awesome. I have planned to come by spicejet next time too. I decided to take few snaps of these clouds next time. The onboard crew staff were pleasant (looking). Till that time I have seen them only in films and in TV. They gave us cookies and 200ml water bottle which is acceptable considering the ticket price.

I think they would have a decent salary. I just wonder the cost structure of this newcomers in the aviation industry and how they are going to survive in this business. The flight which I travelled was 200 seater Boeing 737-800. The capacity of the flight is 192( 32 * 6) passengers. I felt like travelling in volvo bus. It was so close and short seating capacity, but still comfortable. Anyway we can't deny one thing , only because of them people like me can fly. Otherwise I have to wait till my company will sponsor.

Bangalore at 15 miles above sea level
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