tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77842242012-01-12T01:05:23.427+05:30The serenade all freelance writers are sungzigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.comBlogger2331100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-54317451982087444982008-05-04T00:00:00.004+05:302008-05-04T09:40:12.342+05:30

Homesickunseen dharamsalaDharamsala, quiet little place that is, has been in the news a lot lately, thanks to its most famous resident, the Dalai Lama. You see, after he made his escape from Tibet, the Indian government shunted him around a bit before giving him a place of residence in Upper Dharamsala, also called McLeodganj. Mcleodganj was a sort of hangout for army officers and their families

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-53432768233136305792008-05-01T00:00:00.005+05:302008-07-17T04:15:13.689+05:30

Like-a-localWhen teh interwebs were still young, my webpage proclaimed the intention to get to know people around the world, so that when I finally had enough money to backpack around the world, I’d have places to stay, friends to hang out with who’d point me to the good, cheap food, the cool places to go, and so on. Having the foresight of a new-born puppy, I didn’t start a dot com, and here I

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-72834073656266400682008-05-01T00:00:00.004+05:302008-07-17T04:13:27.177+05:30

Act OneGrizzled narrator ambles in, props butt against large black cube, the only prop on stage.Narrator: Back in the day, I appeared in a musical, and got to see a few Bombay theatres from what has always been the right side of the proscenium for me. Later, performance put aside, I did reviews, visited pretty much every theatre in the city. And, despite my early pash for stages large enough to

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-55858736099925019142008-04-27T00:00:00.002+05:302008-05-04T06:54:45.707+05:30

One WorldPangea DayPangaea (to use the spelling everyone not American uses) is the name scientists give to a supercontinent, one of many in the earth’s history of drifting continental plates, a single landmass that existed some 200 to 300 million years ago, from which the continents we know today broke apart and drifted away. Pangea Day is on May 10th, and will be celebrated with a 4-hour

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-48133316712279308532008-04-20T00:00:00.003+05:302008-05-04T06:49:49.941+05:30

As spoken in..IDEA - The International Dialects Of English ArchiveTwo weeks ago, this column pointed to a site that served up a menu of common English words with their pronunciations in different parts of the world. This site, an archive that was started just over ten years ago, at the University Of Kansas in the USA, as ‘a repository of primary source recordings for actors and other artists in

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-77663930885394903852008-04-13T00:00:00.000+05:302008-04-14T02:49:24.618+05:30

The original Yahoo!Shammi KapoorWay before David Filo and Jerry Yang named their ‘Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle,’ this Indian film star had already made the word famous on this side of the world. But a lesser-known facet of the exuberant Mr Kapoor is that he was a net pioneer in this country (I’m told he is a founder and still chairman of Internet Users Community of India). This is

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-89587863367840750902008-04-06T00:00:00.001+05:302008-04-14T02:43:45.560+05:30

Tomahto / TomaytoSound Comparisons‘England and America are two countries separated by a common language,’ said that caustic wit, George Bernard Shaw. And in My Fair Lady, the Broadway and Hollywood musical version of his Pygmalion, Henry Higgins says, the various accents used just in the UK, ‘One common language I’m afraid we’ll never get.’ American accents also differ widely from region to

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-14134003921591214142008-04-01T00:00:00.006+05:302008-05-04T09:32:10.241+05:30

ResponsibleTravel & The Responsible Tourism AwardsResponsible Travel is a bit of a thing with us, starting with hikes in the Sahyadris as a college student; the Adventurers and Mountaineers Club walked with a large bag, where all hikers were supposed to dump their garbage, on pain of ostracism. ‘Take nothing by memories, leave nothing but footprints’ and all that. So it was a delight to chance

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-86385557466899390942008-04-01T00:00:00.002+05:302008-05-04T06:56:01.680+05:30

In The Elephanta Suite, you examine the lives of visitors and tourists to India. Why did you choose to look at the outsiders? I chose Americans as the central characters in these stories because I cannot pretend to know much about the inner life of Indians. I have made the dramas of Americans abroad one of my obsessive subjects, and in this sense I am a great fan of the writing of Paul Bowles (

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-87179810982884167772008-03-30T00:00:00.001+05:302008-04-14T02:44:30.934+05:30

To help you along to April Fools’ Day, the plan here was to come up with a complete column-full of weird but fictitious websites. But that we rejected partly because that would mean we would have to actually think, which we can manage only once a week or thereabouts, and partly because the web is rather more weird than even your columnist’s imagination.Dream HolidaySans SerriffeThis is a very old

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-57550980210765316902008-03-23T00:00:00.004+05:302008-04-14T01:00:17.825+05:30

Time out!SI VaultA magazine, a global icon, though perhaps some in this country know it best for its swimsuit issue: Sports Illustrated. The magazine is over 50 years old, and just this last week—Thursday to be exact—it opened up its archives online. And, in a sign of the times, where even the most closed-fisted media organisations are discovering the benefit of making their content freely

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-5614722717062662062008-03-16T00:00:00.000+05:302008-03-16T14:23:55.841+05:30

Darn!Damn InterestingThis site does what your columnist tries to do as well: give you something interesting to read; stuff you’ll look at and go, ‘Damn, that was interesting.’ Except that the team of writers here goes much further, with long, witty, well-researched articles on all sorts of interesting topics, ‘facts and ideas, whether they appeared in the past, the present, or the (anticipated)

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-21955222953486942652008-03-09T00:00:00.001+05:302008-03-16T14:19:07.481+05:30

To the roof of the worldTibetan Uprising MovementA short while ago, this column featured the Bhopal survivors padyatra to Delhi. This is another such people’s movement. India is host to a large number of Tibetan refugees, including the Dalai Lama himself, and the Tibetan Government in Exile. This year, just after the Beijing Olympics, it will be fifty years since the Dalai Lama escaped from the

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-12556904466152335632008-03-02T00:00:00.000+05:302008-03-16T14:13:22.084+05:30

Flat WorldApartment TherapyFriends forwarded some cool staircase designs to us a while ago. Living in a rented flat, we could only forward them on to duplex-endowed friends. Then recently someone else sent us some more rad designs and we looked more closely. The site’s mission is ‘Helping people make their homes more beautiful, organized and healthy by connecting them to a wealth of resources,

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-271728109710222112008-03-01T00:00:00.005+05:302008-04-16T06:10:43.491+05:30

You left India as a young man. How often have you returned? Regularly since my association with the Bhopal survivors began in the mid-nineties, but before that there was a 15-year gap. Any memorable journeys? From Kathmandu to Nepalganj, an airstrip on the Nepalese side of the border. Our tiny plane whirred into the air like a metal grasshopper; the high Himalayas rose up behind the foothills,

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-50432758657820518242008-03-01T00:00:00.004+05:302008-04-14T01:00:58.208+05:30

The Indian Railways Fan ClubIn these days of budget airlines and frequent flyer miles, and to hell with carbon footprints, this site is almost like leafing through an old picture album and finding photos of an old flame. Wait, did we say leafing through an album? Jeeze, we almost let on how old we are. ‘Browsing,’ we meant. So there. Like we were saying, this site brought back a rush of soft,

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-34113031190325401952008-02-24T00:00:00.004+05:302008-04-01T03:38:56.631+05:30

RememberBhopal-Delhi PadyatraTwenty-three years, two months, twenty-one days have passed by. Half a million people were exposed to the gas. 3,800 people died that night, as per the most conservative report (more than the 2974 killed in the 9/11 attacks); the number was closer to 15,000, say others. 20,000 have died to date as a result of that exposure. 120,000 still suffer from the accident and

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-50945908829745542212008-02-24T00:00:00.001+05:302008-03-15T10:38:34.342+05:30

Indra Sinha, legendary copywriter, tireless campaigner for justice for the survivors of the Bhopal gas leak of December 1984, highly-regarded novelist (his Animal’s People was short-listed for the 2007 Man Booker Prize), is holidaying in India with his wife. Fitting in appearances at the recent Jaipur Festival and Kala Ghoda Arts Festival between sojourns in Rajasthan and Goa, he also made time

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-6464269395443933162008-02-17T00:00:00.001+05:302008-03-16T13:58:55.479+05:30

Who’s the most beautiful of them all?The Mirror ProjectVerily I say unto thee, it takes all kinds. I mean, yeah, there are photo sites. And yeah, there are sites that are devoted to narcissism. But a site devoted to pictures taken of the photographers, taken off reflectove surfaces? Who’da thunk? But let’s be fair. These are not just the kind of shots we’ve all taken—y’know, aim at mirror,

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-26890932439421008442008-02-03T00:00:00.001+05:302008-03-16T13:47:15.128+05:30

Digital AlexandriaUniversal Digital Library: Million Book CollectionThis column may have pointed briefly to this project once before, but it bears a revisit. The goals of the project are noble: preserving human knowledge for the future. We had stories first, word of mouth. Then writing came in, and then books became the best way to pass information around, and down the years. But books can

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-33181593018028338852008-02-01T00:00:00.002+05:302008-03-15T10:22:49.014+05:30

travel bookmarking‘Social bookmarking’ isn’t new. When you share a cool link with friends, that’s what you’re doing. Sites like del.icio.us make it ludicrously easy to do, giving you the added bonus of saving ’em online. (Psst, if you’re on del.icio.us and know of sites you think we should cover, tag them ‘for:zigzackly’) This site goes further. For one, as it’s name indicates, the focus is

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-36210438757669519612008-01-20T00:00:00.001+05:302008-03-16T13:39:09.190+05:30

Be sharpMusipediaNo prizes for guessing this is for the music buffs. As the name suggests, it’s a take on the Wikipedia model of collaboration, in this case a searchable, user-editable, and steadily expanding ‘collection of tunes, melodies, and musical themes.’ The entries include sheet music, audio files, and plain-text information. It also features a search engine that helps you find a piece of

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-88339994223249963932008-01-13T00:00:00.001+05:302008-03-16T13:32:20.162+05:30

Identity CrisisOpenIDHell, my friend, is keeping track of IDs and passwords for every darn site you use. If you’re like me, you’ve got a loooong list and you’ve forgotten more of them than you can remember. It wasn’t for my browser storing passwords for me, I’d have no online social life to speak of. But here’s a solution. OpenID lets you wander around the web under one identity. Let’s say you

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-671603638687852992008-01-06T00:00:00.000+05:302008-03-16T13:27:45.859+05:30

So, all hangovers taken care of and messed up your first cheque by writing the wrong year yet? Happy New Year, from the bottom of this little column’s, well, for lack of a better word, heart.A watched kettle never boilsKitchen MythsThe web is host to more myths stated as serious fact than any other medium. And many sites specialise in busting those myths with reason, research or just plain scorn.

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-49291356406079388162008-01-01T00:00:00.000+05:302008-03-15T10:14:09.299+05:30

Travel GreenerQuicker than you can say Pachouri, we’ve suddenly come all over environmentalist. We now talk grimly of recycling, cutting emissions, carbon footprints and more, not just as dippy tree-hugger behaviour, but as something we all need to know more about. More talk than action, it must be said, but at least we’re taking it seriously. And we travellers—yes, you too, dear reader—must do

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-89446800197743546312007-12-30T00:00:00.001+05:302008-03-16T02:08:54.920+05:30

It's that time of the year. When an editor's fancy turns lightly to thoughts of round-ups and best-of lists. “Yassah massah,” we say, and jump to it. The quick version: If 2005 was blogging, and 2006 was all about the Social Web, Web 2.0, then 2007 was when the people jumped in and began to take the web back.We began to use the web in ways that went beyond random surfing and forwarding allegedly

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-66553917212095619142007-12-23T00:00:00.000+05:302008-03-16T02:00:17.757+05:30

Santa’s backNORAD SantaA quick reminder of this site, which I’ve mentioned every year. It’s run by the combined USA-Canada NORAD (North American Air Defense Command). And it ‘tracks’ Santa’s travels. You go read about why the military wound up running a kiddie service for more than half a century. And let the kids enjoy the rest of the site.Happy HolidaysIn a world where business and friendships

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-20034453522042870722007-12-16T00:00:00.001+05:302008-03-15T12:10:28.419+05:30

Where were you when the lights went out?Mumbai UnplugAs I write this, it is many hours to go before Mumbai Unplug’s designated ‘batti bandh’ time, so I have no idea how successful it was. I hope it went well, because it makes me optimistic: political parties, rival media houses and businesses have put aside their differences and supported this; huge numbers of people care enough for our

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-1097372323117677362007-12-02T00:00:00.001+05:302008-03-15T12:00:41.866+05:30

Cat foodLOLinatorA promise. The last LOLcats link. Yup, I’ll make it quick: This site will “LOLinate” any website for you. Just go over, enter the URL, and giggle. For best effect, choose a site that takes itself really, really seriously. (Courtesy friend of this column, Jugal Mody.)No subtitlesListen to a MovieThe site name says it all, but your columnist needs to earn his weekly crust by trying

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-37228585863419139522007-12-01T10:08:00.001+05:302008-03-15T10:11:51.530+05:30

redBusYou can book all your transport in India online these days: planes, trains and cars—sort of—but not busses. Until now, with redBus. Aside from e-tickets, you can order ’em by phone or SMS, and have them delivered to you at a small premum (in major metros). You can even get them from physical shops, which seems to me to defeat the point, but then, hey, I have exactly zero successful

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-25253684755711601372007-11-25T00:00:00.002+05:302008-03-15T09:59:33.225+05:30

PussyfootingI CAN HAZ?Remember the LOLcats meme this column wrote about a couple of months ago? Well, if you liked the lunacy of the whole thing, you’ll also like this one. You know the very long URLs that some websites—this newspaper’s for instance—generate? I told you ages ago about services like TinyURL and DURL that let you, in your emails or other communication, point to them by using a

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-35352916598537470572007-11-18T00:00:00.001+05:302008-03-15T09:52:51.562+05:30

Below the beltPanties For PeaceI’m late with this one—it’s been on my list for a while, but, erm, I forgot—so let’s cut to the chase. Y’all know what’s been happening across the border in Myanmar, right? (That’s the country that used to be Burma. Everyone renames these days.) Monks getting beaten up and killed, the military junta quelling rallies and all that? Well, this activist group has this

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-83834576074565680872007-11-04T00:00:00.000+05:302008-03-15T09:46:57.906+05:30

Thirsty?India Water PortalWe take water for granted. Most of us barely give it a thought, enjoying the luxury of having it, quite literally, on tap. But, as we learn when we face water cuts or polluted supplies, the lack of it can be disastrous. Supported by the National Knowledge Commission, this portal is a huge knowledge base on water. Its creators say it was “created in a spirit of sharing

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-84729549962696659242007-11-01T00:00:00.000+05:302008-03-15T10:08:42.653+05:30

TripItRight, so there’s a heckuva lot the prospective traveller can do online—that’s why Editor-san pays me the big bucks coffee money to write this little thingy for you every month—buy air tickets and hotel rooms, book cars or restaurant tables, view route maps, meet people, whatever. Thing is, by the time you’re done, you have one heckuva lot of e-threads to keep track of. This services does

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-24339785887231387272007-10-28T00:00:00.001+05:302008-04-18T00:45:56.377+05:30

I fully intended to follow up last week’s column with some more sites fighting the good fight for our environment, but then, hey, you don’t read this column for its grey matter now, do you? So, here’s the usual dose of looniness. Next week, we’ll go green again. (Send in site recommendations, yes?)Conference call, reduxROFLConEvery now and then, the web throws up a mad little idea with legs. I’m

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-13373893009942670122007-10-21T00:00:00.000+05:302007-10-31T13:38:08.676+05:30

In honour of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore and their Nobel Peace Prize, here’s a set of links for the planet.Give it away nowFreecycleIn India, thanks to the ragpicking industry, a lot or recycling takes places despite the lack of awareness of even simple things sorting garbage into organic and inorganic waste. Even so, all of us have stuff lying around at home

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-52629578570582280862007-10-14T00:00:00.000+05:302007-10-31T13:31:46.441+05:30

Peace be with youQibla LocatorThe other day, a friend and I were wondering how Muslim astronauts in earth orbit would orient themselves to Mecca when they pray, seeing as their position relative to the holy city would change constantly; not to speak of having several sunrises and sunsets to factor in every “day.” A little research online and I found that theologians have been discussing this

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-86211706684327998952007-10-07T00:00:00.000+05:302007-10-14T01:16:04.516+05:30

Go ahead, take the food from my tableWeeblyThis is a scary site. For me, that is. Because it could cost me a lot of site design work. For you, however, it’s good news. Especially if you’re the type who goes cross-eyed when someone mentions things like DNS settings or FTP. First, it’s ridiculously simple to use: click, drag, drop, you’re done. I created a basic site layout in about 3 minutes

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-38354287738143632442007-10-01T00:00:00.003+05:302008-04-14T02:56:00.461+05:30

You know, there’s this thing Delhi and Bombay have about each other. People from either burg take great delight in sniping at the other. And when His Editorness asked me to write a Capital Letter, methinks the man was hoping I’d write a Delhi Sucks piece and earn some hate mail to put some spark into his life. But I won’t. Why make a Delhiwalla happy?Oh darn. That truce didn’t last long, did it?

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-49842471791498306552007-10-01T00:00:00.002+05:302008-03-15T10:02:54.783+05:30

EveryTrail & GlobalMotionSister sites, with the same basic idea: mashing up maps (specifically Google Maps and Google Earth with some other services as well in the USA), GPS data, photographs, and personal notes. They differ in the fine focus. EveryTrail is about trips, and works best for treks and road trips. Routes are mapped via GPS device, and photographs are “geo-tagged” to the exact time

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-3162818283417599542007-09-30T00:00:00.000+05:302007-10-14T03:07:08.750+05:30

Wikid WorldWikiscannerAs Wikipedia gets bigger, more and more people are looking up things on Wikipedia, unreliable as it can sometimes be. And more and more organisations and special interests find themselves being written about. Not always to their, er, delight. Companies like to be able to control what’s being said about them, put their own spin on things, with entire departments devoted to

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-57504161830020133642007-09-23T00:00:00.000+05:302007-10-14T00:54:55.253+05:30

Judging a bookBad Book CoversI must hasten to add that these are not bad in a way that will get the Moral Police morons after you. They’re just awful design, or bad juxtapostions of titel and graphics, or— oh, just go see. 112 images for you to giggle at, with the site owner’s snarky little captions.Homer and meSimpsonize meIf you’re a Simpsons fan, you’ll like this site, which lets you convert a

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-92211187999148099412007-09-15T00:00:00.000+05:302007-10-14T01:01:59.114+05:30

It’s been a wait for the Bamboo. I first noticed the space many months ago, on another visit to The Park, but it only opened its doors in late August. When we visited, it was empty. On a Saturday evening. A cricket match being telecast at that time probably had much to do with it; there’s no widescreen TV Bamboo, unlike the bar and Zest, their other restaurant, to the disappointment of your

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-54207946960185831062007-09-10T00:00:00.000+05:302007-10-14T00:59:54.912+05:30

In the building where I once lived in the quieter, older, mainly residential part of Vashi, there was a bar that had, ahem, waitresses. It meant that there were always autorickshaws available near my house late in the night, and frequent entertaining vocabulary enhancement when the ladies had disagreements behind the joint. The place went through several changes of management and name—the basic

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-49085998455133205792007-09-09T00:00:00.000+05:302007-10-14T00:37:25.503+05:30

For ever and everImmortality InstituteAging’s a bitch, no? That steady loss of muscle tone, that degeneration of the senses, and then death. This site, like all of us, thinks that’s not a nice thing. And, unlike all of us, is working towards eliminating it. That is, the whole aging bit. Science, after all, has already extended life expectancy far beyond what it was even a few generations ago. And

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-35025246723299182512007-09-02T00:00:00.000+05:302007-09-05T08:35:17.806+05:30

TogetherBlog Action DayBloggers love crusades, even if it’s just one blogger ranting about the system. This site seeks to harness some of that energy with a simple idea. On a given day—October 15th—every blogger enlisted will post about a single important issue. Nope, they won’t be following the media’s lead and talking about film stars going to jail. This one’s about the environment, and

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-1681161520438018652007-09-01T00:00:00.001+05:302007-10-14T00:41:00.655+05:30

Two-and-a-half kilometres of beach all to myself. A waiter from the restaurant trudges across the sand, bearing provender. I’m in one of those long pool-chairs, under a thatch umbrella. The waves gambol in a few feet away. A fairly determined sort of breeze comes in from the west. A chap could get used to this.I’m at the The Beach at Mandvi Palace. It sits in the middle of the 450 acres of mildly

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-65627076836774617882007-09-01T00:00:00.000+05:302007-10-14T00:38:15.100+05:30

Airline Meals Truly, my fellow travellers, the interweb is a wonderful place. One thought, when one covered websites dedicated to toilets, that nothing else could surprise one. But, I kid you not, there is a site dedicated to that other necessity, food, and the variety of it available in the air, as the name has already told the smart ones in the class.The site started with a few of its creator’s

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-9329739754756569582007-08-26T08:20:00.000+05:302007-09-05T08:28:18.697+05:30

Once upon a timeKhaufpur city welcomes youMore than twenty years ago, Bhopal woke to horror. A chemical leak in a factory poisoned the area, and many died that night. It didn’t end there. The toxins stayed, scarring and permanently handicapping some, affecting children not born at that time, the earth, the water. Activists still fight for justice, for compensation. Indra Sinha, the writer, is one

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-43551132160945866392007-08-19T00:00:00.000+05:302007-09-05T08:20:29.341+05:30

Sticking it to ’emThese Come From Trees BlogThis blog is the home of an interesting experiment in “environmentalism, viral marketing, and user interface design with the goal of reducing consumer waste paper!” You’ve come across guerrilla advertising before: stuff that sneaks up at you from unexpected places, never from conventional media outlets. This blog aims to remind people not to waste paper

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-40126314914269247162007-08-12T00:00:00.000+05:302007-09-05T08:13:41.770+05:30

HungrysigFoodThe first time I glanced at this site, I read ‘sick food’ and thought it was about stuff like arrowroot porridge and hot soups. Further investigation corrected my mis-read. The ‘sig’ in the name is short for ‘Special Interest Group,’ and that is a pretty apt description. sigFood is a community of foodies, which, from the look of it has most of its membership in Bombay and Bangalore (

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-12545320664534773392007-08-05T00:00:00.000+05:302007-09-05T08:05:04.314+05:30

Whatcha wanna do?SoYouWannaThe site’s promise to teach you ‘how to do all the things nobody taught you in school’ isn’t quite bang on—though I’ll admit that those that were, I didn’t pay much attention to at that time—but it is, nevertheless, a fascinating repository of tips and advice from its members. The subject range is huge. Just a random wander around the site, and I now know how to become

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-53247092384504433692007-08-01T00:00:00.001+05:302007-09-05T07:51:06.876+05:30

PairUp Every website with a few dollars to fling onto the table is talking communities and user-generated content these days. Anything more than small coins, and they commission a shiny logo with a half-shadow, throw in bevelled edges, stick a ‘beta’ below the site name, and hey, presto, Web 2.0!This site, to give it is due, has focus. It aim—with a ™ at the end and all—is “Connecting business

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-72710646157158864732007-08-01T00:00:00.000+05:302007-09-05T07:48:30.270+05:30

Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the Northby Stuart MaconiePaperback, 352 pagesEbury PressISBN 9780091910228England, to me, looks way too small to have a North, so this book is an education. My perceptions, I realised, cringing, are just the kind that I take voluble delight in castigating when I hear them in non-Indian accents about India. The England I know through books, movies and TV is London

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-84999204860541944542007-07-29T00:00:00.000+05:302007-10-14T02:00:29.284+05:30

Green stuffVegetarian Times“Great Food, Good Health, Smart Living” says the site’s tagline. I inspected it somewhat dubiously, because though I haven’t been a must-have-meat eater for a decade or so, and I am a staunch tree-hugger, I can’t imagine going totally vegetarian. But this site, the online presence of a magazine, makes me think that I could, perhaps, maybe, possibly, if pushed, stop

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-43067082851557646232007-07-22T00:00:00.000+05:302007-07-25T06:27:38.229+05:30

ConnectorMashableI’m a keen student of developments on the web2.0 front, particularly the social networking scene, out of both personal and professional interest. And usually, the one site that has the quickest and most comprehensive coverage is Mashable. And it’s not just for folks like me. Its just as appealing to anyone interested in keeping abreast. Their most recent act of beauty: a series

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-57856966981802805712007-07-15T00:00:00.000+05:302007-07-25T06:22:32.950+05:30

I’ve got your backFight Corruption NowThat there is corruption in India is beyond doubt. That there are people who fight it, from outside the system as well as from within, is, thankfully, a certainty too. Sadly, these warriors have it all against them. The tragic cases of Satyendra Dubey and Shanmughan Manjunath come to mind. This site is run by a lady called Jayashree J N. She is married to M N

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-5701317281783244522007-07-08T00:00:00.000+05:302007-07-10T05:32:26.238+05:30

And they all lived happilyGodawful Fan FictionFan fiction is writing by fans of a popular fictional character or book or whatever that uses those characters in their own scenarios. With the web, the genre’s practitioners do not lack for a platform, and for like-minded souls. Of course, not every fan can write for toffee, so the results can be rather, erm, uneven. Authors tend to be rather pleased

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-89544235277816139972007-07-01T00:00:00.000+05:302007-09-05T07:49:44.847+05:30

ArzooAfter he and Jack Smith sold Hotmail to Microsoft for 400 mill, Sabeer Bhatia started a new company, Arzoo, which aimed to play matchmaker between tech experts and companies that wanted their services. Perhaps the plan wasn’t unique enough; certainly the timing was unfortunate. Arzoo dotbombed in 2001. Last year, Bhatia made it over into a travel portal but didn’t make too much of a noise

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-65811947464168887802007-06-24T00:00:00.000+05:302007-06-26T19:37:34.011+05:30

Rickshaw!Teesra PahiyaAs you read this, sipping your coffee, three young people from Bombay will be revving up their engine and embarking on a madcap adventure. And the engine they will be starting is that of the humble rickshaw. Yes, that lick-and-a-prayer bucket of bolts that swerves through city traffic making a godawful racket. They will start at Calcutta, and drive 3,750km across the north,

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-56016632327819983942007-06-19T03:57:00.000+05:302007-06-19T04:06:51.221+05:30

Waves To FriendsWorse Than FailureAlong the lines of the more family-friendly LOLs and BRBs and other such abbrevspeak, there’s another acronym that finds itself in pretty common usage online, and in real life, spelt out. It’s used to indicate an annoyed, surprised disbelief at some event or action, and has the same initial letters as this site’s name does, but, let us say, it packs in a lot more

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-30524564192665266362007-06-10T00:00:00.002+05:302008-03-06T08:43:24.425+05:30

As I write this, it is sweltering.My shirt is drenched, my skin prickles and the tiles outside my window are radiating even more heat. There is an expectant stillness in the air, a quiet, breathless anticipation. Clouds scud across a bright blue sky; they’re coming from the right direction, but there are too few of them, and they’re fluffy and white, practically all silver lining.Damn. It’s still

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-64348709667942677172007-06-10T00:00:00.001+05:302007-06-11T00:22:39.276+05:30

Bring lightLight a candle for the victims of online child abuseI have a deep-seated loathing for sites that needlessly hinder my wandering around the web by insisting on using massive, clunky flash files and no other navigation. But I’ll make an exception with this one (though its a huge offender) because its objectives are worthy, and ask you to drop by and take a look. It is focussed on what is

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-48386584490675676402007-06-03T00:00:00.000+05:302007-06-03T18:18:27.479+05:30

Show and TellThe ESP game & Peekaboom & PhetchIn the ESP game, you and an unseen random partner must type the same words in response to an image. Peekaboom is a guessing game, where parts of the image are revealed and parters take turns figuring out each other’s images. And Phetch is a treasure hunt except you’re searching the web for images. Aside from their use of images, the ability to play

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-8018348315646465392007-06-01T00:00:00.000+05:302007-07-25T06:41:00.676+05:30

Cybercafe Search Engine and Cybercafes In these days of wireless. connectivity and hand-held devices that help you connect up wherever you are, who needs cybercafes? Well, until Editor Sahib ponies up more dineros for his hard-working freelancers, I do. You see, WiFi is still pretty expensive in this country, and not exactly ubiquitous. And as for connecting up via cellphone or other hand-helds,

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-14547319897387973652007-05-27T00:00:00.000+05:302007-05-28T15:57:27.799+05:30

Curious minds want to knowHow Products Are MadeThe holidays are winding to a close, so perhaps this is a little late.. But, nevertheless, if the young ’uns are driving you up the wall with questions you’re hard-pressed to answer, send them over here. This is a huge repository of information about the making of just about anything you can think of, “from daily household items to complicated

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-79141985807592131122007-05-20T00:00:00.000+05:302007-05-20T09:33:58.833+05:30

ViralWho is Sick?Matter of time before someone thought of this, I guess, and many would be kicking themselves for not having done so. This site is a mashup, that uses the Google Maps interface to let you know what diseases are going around. It’s brilliant in its simplicity: readers who are feeling in any way unwell can post their symptoms anonymously. Or can check out their areas for what

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-64590825924476730112007-05-13T00:00:00.000+05:302007-05-15T04:51:34.973+05:30

How to how toinstructablesAt it’s basic level, it’s pretty simple; members post step by step instructions on how to do things. All manner of things: food, home improvement gadgets, vehicles (a wheelchair for crippled dachshunds is one famous item here), things that work through USB ports, and one particularly rivetting section labelled “not liable.” Of course some stuff is more useful or smarter

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-17760724748114939002007-05-06T00:00:00.000+05:302007-05-08T07:10:00.966+05:30

This column made its debut on the 6th May, 2005. And this edition is number 101. Happy birthday, Mousetrap. You can send me cheques for that traditional Indian sum, Rs 101. No? Darn. Ah well, here’s your cheap return gift. A set of sites with nothing in common except that they have a “101” connection.Food101 CookbooksThe web’s full of recipe blogs, and the creator of this site can take a fair

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-10075783594510720082007-05-05T00:00:00.000+05:302007-05-25T13:27:00.389+05:30

Make your own world“Why does the internet increasingly seem to revolve around communities?” the brief said, adding, “How do communities come about? How should they be nurtured?” and concluded cheerily, “That's all.”That’s all?! Jeeze, laddie, people write whole books about this kind of stuff.“Oh well. Just write about 300 words on communities by midnight.”Ah.Well, here it is in a nutshell. “No

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-59228386153773699832007-05-01T00:00:00.001+05:302007-06-28T22:45:38.432+05:30

I’m floating on my back, in a blood warm-sea. Land is a thin smudge on the horizon. There’s not a sound to be heard except the stray seagull, and the watery patpatpat of the swell against my body. A voice yells my name. I raise an ear out of the water; Kedar, leaning over the rail of the Rosa, is demanding that I turn over and swim for the camera. Damn. Duty must be done. I flip over, and execute

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-82869361402553847112007-05-01T00:00:00.000+05:302007-07-25T06:41:00.677+05:30

Slow Travel If you’re into itineraries and checklists and package tours with accompanying cook to make you food just like mummyji’s, turn the page now, there’s a good lad.Right. So what is slow travel? It’s an unpackaged tour, if you like. The thought came from the Slow Food concept, which gave rise to the Slow Movement in general. (Look them up. Later. No rush.) The idea of slow travel is that

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-18059917432331907122007-04-29T00:00:00.001+05:302007-04-29T08:45:16.820+05:30

Buy greenecocentraThis column missed a few good dates in the last month or two, most notably April Fool’s Day and World Environment Day, last week. Well, I’ll continue to be an idiot all year long, and I’ll make up for last week, at least, by pointing you to this online marketplace with a difference. This one is for the buying and selling of eco friendly and ethical products. Products are defined

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-32956761378567417042007-04-22T00:00:00.000+05:302007-04-29T03:25:28.963+05:30

Making it upLangmakerLanguages change, evolve, morph, live and die out. That is the natural order of things. But there are other languages, constructed deliberately, for reasons that may include dissatisfaction with some elements of an existing language, or to communicate across languages, or just for very elaborate works of fiction. Examples include Esperanto, Klingon, Tolkien’s Elvish tongues,

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-32810725198056293112007-04-15T00:00:00.000+05:302007-04-15T16:46:33.975+05:30

Blogs without steroidstumblrForgive the cutesy web 2.0 nonsensical name. If you’ve been thinking about blogging, but are intimidated by how complex it seems, this could be your answer. All you need to do (after signing up, natch) is choose from five basic types of posts: photo, quote, link, conversation or video, or a ‘regular post’ option. Next, enter content, and post. Done. None of the bells

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-17344705989639682172007-04-08T00:00:00.000+05:302007-04-09T04:33:24.336+05:30

Faster than a broadband connection..Superman through the agesMore than seventy years ago, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, boyhood pals, created a cultural phenomenon. Their creation, Superman, that child of Krypton, was the first superhero. Their comic defined the genre: skin-tight costume (and the chuddies on the outside), the secret identity, the special powers, the super-villains to battle. This

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-1002047274241964072007-04-01T00:00:00.002+05:302007-04-01T23:23:18.932+05:30

One site to hold them allThe Encyclopedia of ArdaIf you love the Lord of the Rings, and Tolkien’s complex, detailed and vibrant creations in general, you have a multitude of options on the web: a search for ‘Tolkien’ as of this writing yielded about 17 million results. This site, though, has to be about the best I’ve seen (be warned, though, that I came to Middle Earth late in life and do not

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-62773561721459264062007-04-01T00:00:00.001+05:302007-07-25T06:40:46.391+05:30

http://www.world66.com/World66 is a wiki-like site where content is completely user-generated. I say “wiki-like,” because you don’t have to know a lot of weird wiki mark-up language. How does it stack up against other user-driven travel guides? Pretty decently. The format is clean and well-structured and the user-interface make it simple and very quick to start new sections, based on what’s

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-63644505379333516952007-04-01T00:00:00.000+05:302007-05-09T06:16:55.973+05:30

The Park opened its glass-and-shiny-metal doors in February, and the punters have been rolling in with some regularity since then. Not surprising: it is the first five-star hotel in the city, and with its focus on the business traveller, it fills a much-needed niche for the very many software and BPO companies in a city that is beginning to feel its oats a bit. It is unpromising at first sight: a

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-56862308752558156152007-03-25T00:00:00.000+05:302007-03-26T07:00:22.502+05:30

Found in translationZamzarWeb browsers and HTML, the computer world’s equivalent of Pidgin English, serve up stuff to us that most computers can read. But, like Pidgin, they have their limitations when it comes to communicating more complex thoughts than the yes-no-bathroom variety. Which is why we will continue to need specialised file formats. But there are so many of them out there (txt, pdf,

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-91812925581375673472007-03-23T00:00:00.000+05:302007-05-25T13:27:41.428+05:30

Zest Twenty four-hour restaurants are a novelty in that middle-class haven, New Bombay. Well, there are a few dives that stay open all night, once the lair of thirsty mildly anti-social elements, now also home to equally dehydrated call-centre kids. But a legitimately open fine dining establishment in a fancy hotel, one you can seriously dent the credit card with? Nada. Well, gentlefolk, you

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-39841191807248245602007-03-18T00:00:00.001+05:302007-05-25T13:28:36.424+05:30

Something’s Fishy In the welter of buildings that have sprung up over the last few years in Sector 30, Vashi, one of the newest is the Tunga Regency, all cement and blue glass.This magazine told me to wander over and pick one the three restaurants to review. The choice was easy: Café Vihar, the vegetarian place, was overrun with noisy brats, partly open-air and looked like a food court in an

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-36683686488653758632007-03-18T00:00:00.000+05:302007-03-26T06:55:43.064+05:30

All in a flapThe Ornithopter ZoneWhat’s an ornithopter? It’s a device that flies by flapping its wings, bird-style. The Ornithopter Zone is a fascinating resource about these unusual machines. Plenty of information about the history and science of this branch of aviation, with instructions and tips for those experimentally inclined. There’s even software to help you make your own machine, and,

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-62248770686998379572007-03-11T00:00:00.000+05:302007-03-26T06:53:12.322+05:30

Holy statistics, BatmanAdherentsA vast array of information on religion, but in a rather secular way: through numbers and statistics. You could spend days in here, flittng from topic to topic, from the serious number crunching (the site claims, as of my last reading, to have over 43,870 citations and statistics for over 4200 religions) by geography or religion, to essays and collections of

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-61588512242487718602007-03-04T00:00:00.000+05:302007-03-27T06:43:58.166+05:30

Second helpingA month ago, this column did an edition devoted to food sites. Space constraints meant that I could only put a few sites in. So I promised more in the next week. And that next week happened to be only the second since this column began where I didn’t send one in on time. And what with one thing or another, that promise slipped my mind. But not my little database. So, here you go.

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-35821400971840143092007-03-01T00:00:00.000+05:302007-03-21T03:25:46.769+05:30

Bombay beggars description. Which hasn’t stopped people from trying, borrowing and adapting freely, in typical Bambaiya style. Urbs Prima in Indus. Gateway of India. Bom bahia. The Big Mango. Slumbay. Bollywood. Maximum City. The city that never sleeps. The city of opportunity.Of course the city has inspired others who have expended more than just a catchy slogan’s worth of words on it too. Arun

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-17142294515397444752007-02-18T00:00:00.000+05:302007-03-26T06:41:55.341+05:30

Life after Second LifeGet a First LifeSecond Life, the 3D virtual world, has over three-and-a-half million members glued to their computers all over the world. Leading, inevitably, to highly polarised camps either raving about it or dissing it. This page, needless to say, is of the second variety. Since it’s just one page, I won’t spoil it for you by telling you too much.Pen palsToday in LettersA

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-16005855743967482007-02-04T00:00:00.000+05:302007-03-26T06:37:47.587+05:30

Change is coolIdeal BiteJust the other day, scientists concluded that it was us humans that were causing climate change that would lead to some serious global mayhem. (What took them so long?) So, right, the developed world has caused a substantial amount of damage, but we’re catching up rapidly in more than just the brands we buy. And sure, you’re worried, and sure you’d help if you knew how,

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-1215406315485849822007-02-01T00:00:00.000+05:302007-03-19T08:22:36.194+05:30

http://www.thebathroomdiaries.com/With the social web and web 2.0 and other such buzzwords, everyone’s a reviewer. What’s even more interesting is what gets reviewed. In the rush to win eyeballs and participation, new sites find increasingly esoteric areas to specialise in. This site, for instance, seeks to make, erm, a splash in a very special niche area. It is a wealth of information on a

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-35713284061912542032007-01-28T00:00:00.000+05:302007-03-26T06:30:37.099+05:30

Click, chop, simmerCookingByNumbersRecipes books are all very well, but what about those times you need to knock together a quick meal, and you haven’t the time to go buy all the ingredients? Try this site out. Simply look inside your fridge and your shelves, then come back, and click on all the items that you have in stock, and then hit “Find Recipes.” If you check the “I feel lucky” option as

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-2645082922192870452007-01-26T00:00:00.000+05:302007-03-19T06:32:43.862+05:30

Activism, says Wikipedia, “can be described as intentional action to bring about social or political change. This action is in support of, or opposition to, one side of an often controversial argument.”I quote Wikipedia deliberately; because that definition may have changed by the time you see it.Wikipedia, the encyclopaedia that anyone can edit, is one of the poster children of the new web; the

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-20345985947352357252007-01-21T00:00:00.000+05:302007-03-26T06:25:18.919+05:30

AbleOuchOne of the many great sites that the BBC hosts, Ouch is about the lives of disabled people. But what separates it from the many—most of them really good—sites out there that seek to do the same? For one, it’s not about helpful hints and tips and the like. Nor does it crusade for rights. What really sets it apart is its attitude: it does not condescend; it does not ask for quarter; it’s in

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-58984256395603021642007-01-14T00:00:00.000+05:302007-03-26T06:19:53.169+05:30

Take thatConcise FreewareThis piece is a leftover from last week’s column on leftover sites. The irony. It originally made way for another similar site on the 24th December column that featured freebies. Like many other freeware collectors, this one has a mix of services, applications and sites sorted into neat categories. What won me over was some unusual sections: one devoted to Firefox, my

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-75237570422037211102007-01-07T00:00:00.000+05:302007-03-26T06:18:08.013+05:30

After the party season, there are usually a lot of leftovers. Here are a few sites that got dropped from various editions of this column for space reasons.Ex LibrisFrequent readers of this column will know that I have a bit of a bias towards book- and reading-related sites. I included a few free book sites in the Christmas Eve column. Here are a few more, to keep the spirit of giving

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-91110255199720213402007-01-01T00:00:00.002+05:302007-03-19T06:32:10.123+05:30

“To give on paper any adequate idea of the Boondi-ki-Mahal is impossible. Jeypore Palace may be called the Versailles of India; Udaipur’s House of State is dwarfed by the hills round it and the spread of the Pichola Lake; Jodhpur’s House of Strife, grey towers on red rock, is the work of giants, but the Palace of Boondi, even in broad daylight, is such a Palace as men build for themselves in

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-14262870299251495822007-01-01T00:00:00.001+05:302007-03-19T06:39:31.115+05:30

2006: The year of the social web. Be warned, this is a personal list. Your mileage may differ. The contendersFlickrFlickr’s been around a while, and its basic level, it’s a pretty cool photo-sharing site where you can put your pictures up, and give permission to various groups that you define to see them. It also permits embedding on other sites. But the big deal was being able to tag your shots,

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-1166883960831882902007-01-01T00:00:00.000+05:302007-03-14T22:17:28.434+05:30

Map My IndiaThis site has improved considerably since I first saw it, but it still needs a halfway competent sub-editor to correct the dodgy grammar, and the interface needs a heckuva lot of work before it can compare with the ease of use of a Mapquest or the maps utilities from Google and Yahoo. But it scores for us in this country because of its India focus. It can help you find places down to

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-1165800443498435382006-12-24T00:00:00.000+05:302007-03-14T22:18:52.282+05:30

It’s Christmas tomorrow; a nice excuse for giving you a lot of good free stuff. Soft spotSoftpediaSince this is a web column, let’s start with stuff you can use on your computer. Oodles of free software here, for all of you who’d rather not spend money pimping up your machine. It’s all neatly sorted: Windows (natch), but also Mac and Linux stuff; programs for your handheld and cellphones; drivers

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-1165801057388647772006-12-17T00:00:00.000+05:302007-03-14T22:18:52.284+05:30

Search isn’t just about the top search engines. This week, a few unusual ways to find information you need. Say that again?howjsayFinding word meanings is easy. Examples of usage, ditto. But English, with its various roots and influences and inconsistent spelling can be a right pain in the posterior when it comes to figuring out how to pronounce a word you’ve never heard used. Yes, dictionaries

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784224.post-1165747573878364562006-12-10T00:00:00.000+05:302007-03-14T22:18:52.285+05:30

What goes up must get sent upInsultingly Stupid Movie Physics“To protect the minds of children everywhere, so that they may grow up in a world where they know the difference between speed and velocity..” and so on. In other words, this is for the scientifically minded among you, the kind that like to tell everyone just why 007 would not have survived that jump if it had been for real. With

zigzacklyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061386367303982262noreply@blogger.com0