I Phone: I and the Game of Phones

Reference - Page 69, A Game of thrones, A song of Ice and Fire - by R.R. Martin

Intro: 
Jay Stark has just taken the responsibilities for the Hand of the King in Westeros; which is like being Deputy to the King. A tired, irritable and hungry Jay has been summoned to attend an urgent meeting of the small council.

Littlefinger = Master of the coin = Finance Minister
Varys = Master of Whisperers = Head of Intelligence

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Jay Stark : I don’t think I should get such a costly device to communicate. This is an extravagance that the realm can ill afford.

Littlefinger : Master of the coin finds the money. The king and the Hand spend it.

Jay Stark : I will not be a party to such an extravagance.

Littlefinger : His grace thinks a royal device is what the Hand of the King should carry. Every embellishment will add to the aura, which will bring respect. Respect and authority is what you need to take the kingdom from a 5.5 growth rate to 9.

Jay Stark : Authority and respect comes from the genuine interest to do good for the Kingdom. No amount of gold, for that matter Apple products can add any luster to the personality of the Hand.

Jay Stark contemplated for a moment in his thoughts - how happy was he with his Samsung Guru when he was in the North. The Gadget was still probably the cheapest gadget in the North but communication was pure and without any guile.His expressionless face stared at Littlefinger for explanations.

Littlefinger : You would anyways need a device to communicate with the King for he rarely comes out of his harem. Apologies but we have already sinned and bought I Phone 5 for you without your permission. Please, accept this welcome Gift.

Jay Stark retorted: Why I phone 5 and not something else, what about I phone 4 or Samsung Galaxy…? I Phone 5 will cost us 20 Gold Coins more.

Littlefinger : Because I Phone 5 is sleeker, thinner and lighter.

Jay Stark : This one doesn't look thin or light.

Littlefinger : That is because we have put it in a cover that will protect the Phone. It is more delicate than a sixteen year old virgin's hymen.

Jay Stark frowned : So, remind me why did we buy this since, it is not thin anymore and I have to open the case and show it to everyone for them to realize I carry an I Phone.

Littlefinger : Our Lord is truly honorable and bereft of the intention to play in the misty maze of the Westeros. Perhaps Lord Varys can explain the technological detail as I am only the master of coin and I follow the orders.

Varys : My Lord! How it amuses me that it’s the matter of only intellect that an eunuch is called into the service for all other body parts are considered useless save his brain.

Varys flashes a cunning smile towards Littlefinger and continues - Coming back to the matter of our immediate attention – I Phone is a product which originated beyond the walls and like the whitewalkers, its life is beyond the body it is confined to."

Littlefinger : Lord Varys! Apologies for interrupting but could you speak in the language of the commons. (Eunuch! That's how I pay my debts - word for word, insult for an insult)

Varys : What I meant was, I Phone brings about a lot of interest particularly in the Ladies of the castle. This is probably an unnecessary information but even the Hound was being gazed upon by the vixens while he was carrying the device to you.

Jay Stark : That could have been of help, while I was still young and had not been to any war. But now that I am old and devoted to my Lady, who would I want to impress?

Jay Stark stared to the sky for a while and smiled at God's Irony. No young or teeny one can afford the I Phone when they need it the most and the one’s who can afford it, have no need for it. He was still shaking his head when he was interrupted by the stealth voice of Lord Varys - A man is never too old to Brandish his liking for any kitten on the block. Even the likes of you can feast on any damsel in the kingdom. But since, you are not interested the only other thing I can talk about is the magnificent environment of I Cloud, I Tunes, I Message it brings.”

Jay Stark : All these that you mentioned begin with "I" and why do I wonder that the "I" represents over indulgence in self. Do you think the Freecities in the realm and beyond, which use the Google products do not have something to Message, to listen to music and space to store?

Lord Varys : My Lord! there is a reason why one man rules over others and that is, they don’t know that everything in the rulers' disposal is only the glossed over version of everything they have. If, they knew the  holy truth they will be peers and no man accepts to be ruled by a peer. For he who was made by the Almighty suffers from Jealousy and resents to be ruled by anyone but the throne. Thus, the Rules of the Game were made and thus the game of phones had begun.

Jay Stark snatched the phone from Little finger in disgust and walked out of the iron door without saying any word. The entire council could see the half bitten apple logo signing from far away even as the Hand slowly disappeared from the vision.

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JAY 12:29 PM  No comment

And then there was a Google Nexus... (A socio-tech review)

Disclaimer - Those who actually believe, I will enlighten them about the features of the device.. The world is infested with better geeks!!

Nexus 7 is awesome, handy and apt - if reading was the purpose you chased before acquiring this 7 inch device. It will easily fit into your back pocket if you are Khali (read an enormous sloth in WWE) . If you are a lady and you love wearing a polka dot sleeveless dress; you would still look lovely when you have that nexus in your hand instead of your clutches. Nexus is a winner.

The comfort that the device provides has affected another ritual. I have stopped carrying the news paper to the washroom and instead the lovemaking in the bathtub is with the 7 incher!!!. (I meant the browsing on the Nexus u pervert!) Actually, water might be detrimental to its health and I trust you won’t do it unless someone asked you to do so in WHO DARES WINS. There are already two affordable dents in my tab so that’s as much I take care of it (I was not doing any drop test for the review - FYI). This brings me to another USP of Nexus, its price point. Google subsidizes the awesome device so that, it can win the bigger war of OS and applications when compared to the Apples and Microsofts of the world. Total Cost = $250 for 32 GB.

That’s about as much I can talk about the tab features, owning a Nexus is actually a lesson in philosophy and human behavior. The latest Jelly Bean OS and the Play Store are just frills.

Nexus is called nexus because it is a nexus between the Gods/Lords and certain techies in this world to spoil the likes of me further. Not that spoiling me is a gargantuan task and on a scale of toughness it will be next to adding 2 + 2 and arriving at 4. Nevertheless, among the Luxury items that I owned after becoming a Punaikar - it is the most revered one. You can read about the other two in my earlier published tomes... A) The Induction Heater and The Joy of Cooking (you can buy it from Flipkart @ 20% off) ; and B) Alto – The car and the social curse (Published in the October addition of Auto - the mag).

While the induction heater helped Jaybert rise from the dungeons in the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs; The car taught me the social relevance of an automotive at another level. “Do you have a car?” is a cruel Question and probably the only Question crueler than that is “Which car do you own?”. The quizmaster is not interested in the correct answer but with that he/she will classify you into the social strata. This is how the modern day varna system works in India. I have essentially adored my car till now. Every scratch is a proud mark presenting the triumphant return from the battlefield of Pune traffic. But the infallible has fallen and I might change the car. 

Nexus on the other hand had an opposite impact on people. I could feel with various reactions which makes me realise that I am transforming from being a not so touchable retard to an uber cool figure. I don’t hate any bit of it.

Bottomline - Don't wait for the India launch just ask one of your buddies to get it from US!

While you go and buy Nexus, I need to get my commission from Google :) 

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JAY 9:56 PM  No comment

RockMelt Thumbs Up!

 This is perfect ending to a week which started with watching the movie "The Social Network". A themed browser backed by the Netscape founder is here and is called RockMelt. I had brushed this one aside, before a friend of mine got me hooked onto it. This new browser is really Jazzy even for the net junkies not into the social networking. However, If you are into networking and shit... this is the place to be. It pimps the browsing experience.

 I am a memory conscious animal and since, I am using this 1.83 GHz HP mini, my every step in installing new programme is decided by the memory usage. I checked out the Memory consumption for RockMelt : As much as Google chrome - which in anyways is a one of the lightest in its league.

Itz available on invite only. Go to www.rockmelt.com and seek an invitation. Once, you get the invite (courtesy facebook) you can download it and then, use the facebook login again to step inside. you get to see all your friends on the sidebar. The other pillars of Social Networking (Twitter) are also available for easy navigation.

It seems an all out attack by Mark Zuckerberg on Google. If the messaging service wanted to outdo gmail, RockMelt seems a clever political alliance to drown Chrome.

I am not sure about the security and crash resistance yet - but considering its a new age browser it would be at its worst be 1000 times sturdier than the dud called Internet Explorer. You can catch on more detailed review here>> http://www.vanksen.com/blog/our-drive-by-rockmelt-review/.

That ends my first post through RockMelt.

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JAY 9:52 AM  No comment

Master Plan Google

This is an over hyped conspiracy theory and the clip is very sleek.

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JAY 12:58 AM  8 comments

Tickling the Blogger : Recent comments and more.

Proppadom eerrodipus strophillicious Commentovilli and blogcrotic.
(please, know these terms before you read the following tutorial. It is important)

Recent Comments :

I used to have Farrago recent comments hack. Google it if you want that hack. But now as the blogger itself has provided help to add this feature, I guess there is no need to take the pain. Blogger provides simple code, which can be modified easily with some common blogger template tags.

What did i do?

I modified the code to include the whole comment body by adding the following tag:

<$BlogCommentBody$>

Now, my recent comments appear perfectly in my sidebar. I could afford to add the whole comments body because my sidebar is a hover menu and hence, the comments body would appear only on hover. (Thus it doesn't clutter my sidebar even if there is a long comment .. tada ). So, I can read the recent comments without trying to navigate away.

With Farrago hack, I was able to limit the no. of recent comments to appear which I am not able to do right now and it seems recent comments appear only for the posts on display on the home page. hmm........ Your friendly neighborhood is thinking.

Footnote:
I was thinking of calling myself the Jedi knight of blog technology. Later, I thought it is too much of a fancy idea to wear those gown and look weird..... "Yoda, please hear me not. Just joking, I am."

and about those terms on the top of the post.. nvm them.. thats something I have to do cause I donno how to start a post.

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JAY 3:45 PM  No comment

Smileys in Blogger

Though, I keep fiddling with the blogger template I, like the miser with a spoon, have rarely talked in detail as to what and how I do it. Recently, I saw some fellow bloggers nonnie and luna throwin a lot of tutorials, I thought lets do it for once.

So, when a friend of mine asked me how I included smileys in blogger .. I decided to put it here.

This is where I get my smileys from. A simple "click" for whenever I want.

Initially wanted to include all the yahoo smileys here, but then I thought they were a bit big for my liking. I used greasemonkey scripts to include them here. For the techies who want to know more go for the attachment below.
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Greasemonkey is a firefox extension which allows you to change the way your webinterface functions by modifying through Javascripts. So, first of all you need firefoc with greasemonkey. Then I found the some Java scripts for blogger in Userscripts. I installed one script for blogger smileys through it. But, I didn't like them so i wanted to have my own smileys. For this, I opened an account with userscript.Then, Uploaded the script for smileys/emoticons to my account and modified the script.

To modify the script, I opened the script in an editor (in my case notepad) and then included a few lines for the smileys I wanted to add. like here :-

Its simple. One only needs to include the image url's for their smileys/emoticons. Then save it and upload in your host (in my case Userscript). Then install the script to your browser through greasemonkey.

Thus you are done.

There are other ways to do it like included a whole lot of codes into ur template for urself but I think using greasemonkey for JS is a simpler way.

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JAY 2:09 PM  5 comments

Netvibes, Fauxto and me

I have been using netvibes for a while. Its a nice place to get all your feeds aggregated.Apart from all the news, I use "webnotes" and "to do list" a lot. Look at the screenshot which showcases my pathetic "to do list" .

I used a new online picture editor Fauxto to edit the pic and it simultaneously hosted my picture also. Fauxto is neat and a handy picture editor.

(Click to enlarge)

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JAY 3:39 PM  7 comments

Another template HARAKIRI

I don't end fiddling with template . I have again made changes by replacing my earlier smileys to new ones (courtesy: greasemonkey scripts), putting a list of recent comments to my sidebar and by using peek a boo comments.

I don't use too many smileys; but I thgt, hell!! no harm in having them in my template and I am satisfied with type of addition cause they are small.

I was looking for a list of recent comments to be displayed on my sidebar like I had seen in some wordpress templates. I found some neat hacks in blogfresh and followed it with a bit of customization for my hover menu bar. It was working.

However, when it was time to get a show/hide comments thing(so that one doesn't have to navigate away from the page to read the comments), I ended up spending a lot of time. Finally, i got my rescuer in the blogger help. Lolz, I didn't know it was called peek a boo comments. Its neat and the comments are displayed instantly without having to wait for another page to download.
Meanwhile, I switched from old blogger to blogger beta and I had a tough time. 1st, it took a lot of time to transfer my blogs. 2ndly, for a few minutes it seemed I had lost a few code changes I had made .

Thankfully, everythng is fine now. The beta one loads faster so it would tempt me to fiddle with the template further and check the previews fast .

Oye, I have changed the background and got dotted borders too (in case u didn't notice).

[update] 23/12/2006 : Modified the comments section. Added colored comment boxes(It's easy just define a class with ur choice of colors and and fix the comment codes within that class.)

tried lightbox. added a searchbox. have a pop-up comment box now.

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JAY 2:03 PM  13 comments

CSS... My Ass

Hadn't changed my blog for a while now(not that I am very willing to change). As the exams got over and no sports for a while.. I had the time to fiddle with it. 1st Thing I looked at, was the complaint of those long posts, I am addicted to. So... what I did was using the "read more" thing, which we see in the newspapers. Then I saw that in Franky's blog and then Slim's. I was looking for javascript and CSS .. but I dunked the javascript (avoid it as long as possible), and got some simple solutions in blogger help. Then, I customized it to use it only for my long posts. I love it when its done with simple codes.

Then, I was looking to get that hoverbox for comments about any links on the page and I stumbled upon the idea of having hover menu box. I tried and yay!!! got it.Check my vertical hover menu box on the right; for Archive, Blogrolls and previous posts. Again I have avoided the use of javascript. But yeah javascript can be handy.

I will modify it further and need to fix it for other browsers.

lolz.. These CSS, javascript shit is easy .. I guess, they need professionals only coz u need some1 else to devote time :).

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JAY 2:25 AM  10 comments

Toufee and clipmarks.

I had added two extensions recently to my firefox. One was performancing and the other was clipmarks. Clipmarks made me stumbled upon this nice site called toufee,where u can make flash movies, banner, etc online. Its very simple and wd come in handy for a layman. I made my 1st movie .. and here it is..

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JAY 10:25 AM  2 comments