Unbelievable, but its true and applicable to many of us internet freaks! I dunno about you but I am the one who belong to the unfortunate group of these Pappus . I still don’t know how to type! Its really very unfortunate. Infact not knowing to type is equivalent to being a handicap in today’s world of keyboard communication. Despite this we don’t take it too seriously to cure it. Perhaps most of us are ignorant of this ailment of ours and don’t pay any heed to the symptoms.

I too realized it as recently as last month when I was chatting with a friend on gmail’s chat client. While chatting I observed the colour before my friend’s user-id changing from green to orange (when I was typing) and then back from orange to green accompanying an instant reply from my friend in a flash. And that particular reply was not a single word or a mere liner but a complete paragraph comprising well over 30 words! No, it was none of those copy-paste tricks as every word of it was very relevant and personalised. It was a real quicky. It was my first online encounter giving me the first hand experience of expressions taking form at the speed of thought. It was amazing! I couldn’t hold myself to ask my chat-partner about her typing speed and pat came the reply “65 words per minute”. I was simply floored.

I started calculating  as of how much I can save on my typing time per day if I could type at that pace. Of late, I’d been wondering about my constantly increasing allocation of time for replying to the ever increasing numbers of incoming emails, chatting, writing blog posts & answering comments plus doing several other more important tasks. Instead of finding any solution to it, I’d been trying to manage time by fewer & shorter replies to mails, blogging less often and returning answers to text chats by voice chats, …all these I never wanted to do but was compelled to. But now a solution to these never ending trauma seems to be in sight. Learn to type and increase its speed. Simple enough! I wish it was that simple but its not. Learning to type requires more than a disciplined approach, a persistant effort and solid committments. I’d tried and failed several times earlier too. (Recently I was surprised to notice a mention to it while reading my first ever blog post).

My friend who type @ 65 wpm is not a typist or a computerr operator. She was taught typing at a young agewhen she was still inh her eighth grade.Ever since then typing comes to her naturally as writing with pen & paper to me. (She confesses that she hasn’t used a pen for past many years now!). Can you realize how annoying could it be to her if you chat with abnormally slow speed gazing over the keyboard, looking for the right key to hit?     Well, I immediately blocked her chat id from my list to save this annoyance till I learn to type atleast half her speed.

Curiously, I started inquiring about the typing speeds of other chat friends. To my surprise, none of them were satisfied with their own speed. One friend suggested to use an Orkut Application called Type Racer. But I found it good only for testing speed and not for actually learning to type. For speed test too, it requires 100% accuracy to complete it, which I am not looking for right now. When I asked this well-wisher about her score on this orkut application, she confessed that she too din’t fare well on it. Anyways, I ain’t looking to put up my name on the front page leader board of play.typeracer.com .

Though I have quiet a decent typing speed, I can’t do it with my eyes off the keyboard. A person’s eyes should be on the display screen while typing and not on the keyboard. I cross-checked it by observing that when writing on paper, my eyes are on paper and not on the pen-tip. Its similar here too.

But it was difficult for me to believe a childhood friend confessing that he too can’t put his eyes off the keyboard while typing. How strange! I remember my college days when I’d set up my first business. He was my partner then. And when we purchased our first typewriter, he was the only one in my entire circle who could use it. Whenever I needed to dispatch any official letter, I used to run to him for getting it neatly typed. And now the same friend says he can”t type! What more, he has put in several months of practice, but he is still on the same page as me. Hard luck, man!

Well, all these implied that learning to type will not be a hot cake for me. I’m already using wrong fingers for the keys. So I first need to unlearn what I already know. And this is the most difficult part. So I checked several typing tutorials and software to start with. Animated images of aqua life at Rapid Typing caught my fancy and I downloaded the same for practicing. But as I keep switching on several systems, I shifted my practice sessions to the web-based Typing Web. But onlookers & visitors at my office started questioning about why I am learning to type as for them I am the master of computer-world. I just sighed & muttered “Pappu can’t type, saala!“.

One evening I observed a pianist playing some lovely old melodious music at a mall near my home. I just sat beside him and started enjoying the music andsimultaneously observing the movements of his fingers over the keyboard. There was 100% accuracy! I started going there regularly thinking learning to play piano might help in learning typing . But can’t someone create a software which could play such beautiful melodies on striking the right keys on my computer’s keyboard as they did for the piano keys? That will surely make learning typing easier and a fun for me.

But one evening I got a bit late to reach that mall. Pianist had already left. But he had put his piano on auto-play mode. I started observing the keys moving down & then up automatically with the music. Now imagine what was mind thinking about .

Well, the latest operating system, Windows Vista, has in built Narrator which can read you all the internet pages, Tablet PC Input Panel accessory enables you to use your handwriting or an on-screen keyboard, writing pad or character pad in Windows Vista can convert your handwriting to text and voice recognisation software can convert your speech to text.  For if these was not enough, Microsoft has decided to come up with a new version of Windows by January, 2010 and God only knows what more it will bring along!

So till the time I learn to type, this world will declare it as an archaic & outdated skill! So friends, do we  really need to learn typing? What if Pappu can’t type, Pappu can communicate better without it :)  …tirkit taara, tirkit taara……..

Technorati Tags: Type, blind typing, touch typing, typing

Even copyright laws have gone archaic in this digital age. But strangely enough, legal expertise is not easy to find on this issue. A couple of years back, I was in Dehradun (a state capital in India) and looked for an legal expert on IPR & copyright issues  at the local bar council. Strangely I wasn’t able to locate any and was advised by some counsellors to go to delhi for the same attributing it to be a complex issue. I discussed the questions at open forums online and got all sorts of confusing answers. After giving their advice, everyone will add that you should confirm it with some attorney with expertize in this domain. PubLaw has a good coverage on it with this fine print, I have also tried to understand Creative Commons License many times. But some how nothing gets into my mind.

Around a couple of months back I met Rahi who used to take help for expanding his ideas on his blog from newspapers’ & magazines’ articles. He was advised by someone to restrain from it and he agreed to it. But I find nothing wrong when he still continues the same way. Another friend Archet writes more than a dozen blogs based on all stolen content. But as Dilbert puts it, intangibles can’t be stolen!

One of my friends Ashok got scared of these practices of freely using anyone’s personal flickr photographs and now he restrain himself from using these sites for creating personal albums. The assumption that whatever available on the Internet is in public domain and hence free for use by everyone is hurting sentiments of many and changing their online behaviour. Today I know many people who dare not to share their personal or family photographs through online webspaces. They fear their possible illicit usage.

Last month I met Priyanka of TwilightFairy who has fought with the country’s biggest media conglomerate for stealing a photograph taken by her. I was really impressed with her account and the struggle & odds she faced to get the credit for her photograph. Yes, she was successful in winning the battle and was compensated a meager Rs. 10,000/- by The Times of India for using a Flickr photograph taken by her without her permission.

She showed the copy of Whats Hot supplement of The Times of India, in which the corrigendum for the same was published a day back on 19th September,2008. But unfortunately, it was also a mutual settlement case and not the actual legal battle.  And strangely there are people commenting against her too!

When we are not using any art work and only using the information or the news, it is also said to be a case of plagiarism! But how can you attribute a news to an original source, as it is almost the same in several media! And what more when we compile a news or information referring multiple media, its difficult to attribute it to all. Some people says attribution is enough but others say, attribution should not be without permission of the original publisher. And if we try to get the permission from all sources, probably it will be too late to publish that piece and we will have to leave it altogether as it losses its relevance. So the end result will be that our readers will be left poorer without that piece of news. Will it be fair for them. I agree with the argument that no one is entitled to earn any money out of others’ efforts but is it fair if we are not using it to make money? If one is not making money, what about her non-monetary gains like goodwill, fan-following, etc. Now it seems unfair too.

One person at the last months’ tweet up meet at Delhi (unfortunately I forgot his name),  told that one U.S.A. entity had taken his permission and offered him good greenbacks for using their own building’s photograph and this despite his mentioning that his photographs are free for anyone’s use. How strange! Seems every one is scared of the confusing laws about plagiarism and its definition. And surprisingly, super rich people and organizations are more likely to foot a bigger compensation bill than their poorer counterparts committing the same crime! So is it that I shouldn’t care for anything called plagiarism as I am too poor to compensate anyone?

Technorati Tags: Plagiarism, copyright, IPR

Who really is Poor?

No, not the beggars, for their gross earnings are above the national per capita income. (One report reveals the total earnings of all the beggars in Mumbai alone to an astonishing Rupees 180 crore i.e. 1,800 millions! Take a guess for Chennai figures by visiting here, for Hyderabad here, for Kolkata click here, for Delhi click here or this one.).

No, it can’t be the slum-dwellers of metropolis …as the valuation of most slum units are more than a well-built average rural home!

Nor it can be the person lying on a footpath …for these people have access to exotic & invaluable but legally banned drugs for their indulgence, which even a middle-class household can not afford, if it ever wished for the same!

And about daily wage-earners …I have observed most of them including masons, plumbers, rickshaw-pullers, auto-drivers, restaurant waiters, etc. making many folds higher income than a qualified junior level executive. Moreover, their status is that of a businessman as against the one slogging for his pay through out the month!

So who is actually POOR in the real sense??? Well, hold your breathe, for I might sound a bit insulting when (more…)

On the feedback to “Love this Pet …A Tiger!“, Aldo  Tripiciano, the owner & webmaster of buytigers.com has come up with certain clarifications on his website in defense of his act. Now he says that he was just fooling around with this fake story of selling tigers online! And in response to it, he had received several hundred emails (over 300 orders for tigers till date), but he hasn’t replied to any one of them. And he further adds that he is not a trickster to lure people to part with their hard earned money. But he accepts that he was aware that the site may have hurt someone’s sensibilities. And yes, it has of course done that. The site has not only hurt the sensibilities of some people but of a nation (India) as a whole.

And Almee Aryal’s book “Hello Tiger” which he was offering along with the cub is about football as per his recent claims, which is being sold here for $14.95 only. Though its not actually about feeding tigers (which was never claimed anyways), its also not about football as claimed by Aldo. Seems he has just selected a random cover without even going through the details of it (This is how pranksters actually behave!). And if some author’s book is wrongly categorized or described, the author will be obviously offended.

If he is innocent and not ignorant as he knew all these, then why did he do all this?  Perhaps just for fun to gauge the impact of his false claims! And thinking it might land him to some SEO job or that of a freelance journalist with some prestigious publisher! Thats what he claims.

But perhaps Aldo forgets that playing with the sentiments of so many people is a crime in itself and you can’t take them for a ride just for your own amusement or pleasure. No individual has such rights. Moreover, this clarification seems to be framed after he started fearing legal actions against him. There is still no link available to this justification from the home page of his website, which is still leading the new visitors falling into his trap! Yes we are skeptical and all such efforts of misleading anyone should be discouraged by the law enforcing authorities.

buytigers, wild life, pet, tiger, PETA, pets

Technorati Tags: buytigers, wild life, pet, tiger, PETA, pets

Studies indicate that use of antiperspirants is a major cause for this disease. People use antiperspirants to counter excessive perspiration by their body. Whereas our body has its natural mechanism to get rid of toxins through perspiration. Antiperspirants stops this leading to development of breast-cancer in mainly upper left corner of the breast due to accumulation of toxins under the skin. Men has comparatively fewer chances of developing it in comparison to women as antiperspirants are directly applied to the breast-hairs and only a part of it succeeds in touching their skins. But despite this it can not be ignored. Do read some of the data about India in my last years’ post regarding this.

Let us help spread awareness about it.

Technorati Tags: breast cancer, pink, October, antiperspirant

But a mere thought of possibilities of existence of life at some other planet gives butterflies

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But many times this question crops up into my mind :

Do we really need a National Language?

Hindi is of course our country’s widespread language today and deserve to be called a National Language. It descended from Sanskrit and is easy to learn. But at times it seems to me that its not very techno-friendly and words are quite difficult to pronounce and grasp. In contrast, our South Indian languages like Tamil are very musical and easy to speak (I mean we need to exert less force and thrust lesser air out of our throats while speaking these languages).

Secondly, if there should be a national language, why there should not be a language which could be accorded an International Language status? In fact, history had done the humankind a favour by the spread of British colonial culture resulting in the widespread use of English in most parts of the world. Today its considered as the language of business.

Today, we are supposed to learn at least three languages : first our mother tongue (some regional language or dialect), then our national language Hindi and then English to readily steer through our life. Isn’t much of the human resources being wasted in this? How many human hours are consumed in learning three languages when, if given a choice for one, many would do away with one.

I recall my interaction with one friend, a couple of years back whom I met at some wedding ceremony in Mumbai. Unfortunately, (more…)

Everything and anything can happen in this strange strange world. Some years back, our then presiden Mr. Abdul Kalam was worried about the fact that one of the country’s foremost Wild Life sanctuary meant for tigers viz. Sariska Wild Life Sanctuary in Rajasthan, suddenly declared that its tiger population has gone to zero. Censure followed and confirmed the fears. Recently, one tiger and a tigress were transported there to breed back the tigers there, after all the media hype & criticism.

Forget all these media hype. If you are tired of those old pettable options of dogs & cats, you can opt for a bigger (and yeah, a really BIGGER) cat (more…)

Why will Internet crash ?

* OECD predicts an acute shortage of IP addresses by 2011

* Explosive growth in new Internet connections is leading to consumption of more & more IP addresses.

* 85 percentage of the possible IP addresses had been already allocated by early this year.

* Remainig 16 percentage of IP addresses are expected to be finished in (more…)

Contrary to the popular perception, humour too has to pay its price. And perhaps our society is too poor to afford it! At times, humour require us to be careless, carefree or even ignorant. And taking things lightly might ease out some ongoing tensions but we might behave irresponsibly, thus paying the price in form of the resultant losses.

Of late, we have started taking things too seriously however trivial or unimportant they might be. We have gone over-cautious, over-conscious, over-committed & too rigid in our philosophy, values & approach. There are protocols for smiling (or rather putting up plastic smiles), etiquettes attached with laughters, whispering at the lowest possible decibel limit for lol! and so on. All these leave no space for humour but paradoxically are equally humourous.

To find out more, I went on to observe the normal default emotions of Delhiites in their (more…)