My favourite Podcasts

I've been listening to various podcasts while commuting to and fro from work for last couple of months, and I couldn't be happier.

Before I discovered podcasts, my options of utilizing a considerable amount of my daily waking life were limited to music from FM radio station or music from my USB stick. Former were annoyance due to abundant number of advertisements, which are often repeated, and limited selection of latest songs, which were also repeated, and which were less of musical delight but more driven by latest movie marketing. Later was considerably preferred, but became boring due to my inability to update my collection often and hence repeating same collection. I tried audio-books few times but quickly discarded the option for they required too much concentration detrimental to safe driving.

Enter world of podcasts! Podcasts are best described as audio blogs. They are delight because they are almost inexhaustive, being updated weekly, and are not as distracting in effect being similar to listening to radio news, and are wildly interesting, entertaining, educational and useful. In some way, I feel they have made my driven less stressful since I am no hurry to reach my destination, instead preferring continuation of my favourite show.

Below is collection of some of my favourite podcasts, in decreasing order of my preference, alphabetically within each sub-group, and my commentary on the same:

List Updated on 11th June 2020

Great:

• Anthropocene Reviewed — Host's personal opinion on various random things, often including esoteric history and personal anecdotes, told in soothing narrative
• EconTalk (Library of Economics and Liberty) — This isn't very entertaining but if you want your mental horizon to be stretched with very deep fundamental concepts, this it it. Falls into a category of podcast you should listen to but probably you won't.
• Every Little Thing — is discussion on minor topics and histories of science.
• Futility Closet — Extremely affable narratives from history of world telling history of minor things and incidents. As they describe themselves, will suit you if your mind is curious about oddities and find pleasure in information for sake of it.
• Indicator from Planet Money — News and stories around current economic metrics from USA.
• Planet Money — Stories of past and present things that make modern economy.
• Radiolab from WNYC — Interesting informative stories about various themes, primary around science and technology.
• Science Vs — This is one the best show to learn about the scientific basis of many common conceptions and misconceptions. Each episode looks at academic literature and tries to synthesize positive, neutral, or negative decision on key questions. Examples of questions explored are the effectiveness of vaccines, diets, multi-vitamins, political questions on abortions, gun control, etc.
• What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law — Show talks about various topics in US Constitution Law and how they are interpreted in the current environment, their history, their usefulness, key cases, etc. and ties them back to US President's Trump's actions.

Very Good:

• 60-Second Science — Quick bites into latest scientific research. Mildly interesting.
• 99% Invisible — Short stories about man-made things that shape the world, and design consideration thereof.
• Completely Optional Knowledge — Simple explanation of science queries. Can be too simple and verbose at times for my knowledge.
• Criminal — Stories of crimes, laws, and their history from USA
• Freakonomics Radio — Logic and data driven look at almost everything in world around us. Built from book of the same name, this is absolutely wonderful podcasts which brings out best practices in various fields from all over the world. Intelligent and stupid questions, all are honored.
• Linear Digressions — Discussion on recent paper in Machine Learning space, or general topic related to Data Science world in simple to understand language.
• The Allusionist — Etymology of words explained in saucier language.
• The Data Skeptic Podcast — This just fits into my groove of analytic science, so I love it for its discussion and references. Will work if you have interest in the science of data driven decision making.
• The History of India Podcast — No one told story of ancient India sourced from ancient text better than this! Making history informative and fun.
• The Infinite Monkey Cage — This is general discussion, with some comedic input, on scientific concept done in live stage setting.
• Reply All — This is discussion on internet, technology and social issue surrounding them. Fairly humour, creative, except for its 'Yes-Yes-No' segment where conversation on dissecting an viral tweet.
• Science Friday — Interviews on cutting edge research or latest discovery in world of Science.

Good:

• A Skeptics Guide to Conspiracy — This is very good in content but not so much in editing. I think they could say that same in half the time as there is a lot of repetation in conversation. However, this discusses latest research in science, with few good puzzles thrown in.
• HBR IdeaCast — Management gyaan isn't my cup of tea, but listening to key stories of Harvard Business Review is still worthwhile.
• Hidden Brain — Anecdotes from behaviour science and psychology.
• Inside Forbes India — India related stories from business world.
• The Economist — Weekly round of world new and explanations on money, market and science. Useful for getting critical international news, and free! Content is heavily biased towards US and UK with bit of Japan, China and Europe but then one can assume it's driven by where money is.
• This American Life — Interesting, emotional and amusing stories from various walks of life, on varying theme
• Sawbones — Humour filled history of medicines and surgery
• StarTalk Radio — This has decent enough content on astronomy, astrophysics, and anything Universe related, but there is lot of banter and chit chat which makes it inefficient for me.
• Stuff You Should Know — This is 'how things work' of podcasts. It's mildly entertaining but content is too low key and slow for my taste.

Good but Defunct:

• 30 Animals that Made Us Smarter — How science and tech uses "biomimicry" to learn from nature and animals.
• 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy — Stories of small things and their impact on world.
• Dissecting Love — Science and biology of relationship and sex. Need I say more?
• More Perfect — This show goes into the story behind pivotal cases in front of US Supreme Court, past and present, and how law and precedent and arguments are shaping the legal opinion.
• Invisibilia — Bit verbose and emotion insight into hidden psychological narrative governing current world and human life.
• It's Your Universe — Journey into Solar System. It's only one season though!
• Serial — This is a serialized radio show with one story. First season presented a true murder mystery thriller. Very gripping.
• The Intersection — Melting pot of Science, History, and Culture in this Indian quality podcast.

If you can recommend any other, I will be really thankful!

How do I organize my blogroll

When I started using feed reader in 2005, I used to place all my feeds into folders by subjects. Sometime in late 2007, I re-organized them by my preference to read, after reading about this practice at another blogger’s. When I moved to GReader in 2008, I continued my organization into four categories of Must Read, Should Read, Could Read and Might Read in decreasing order of importance. Soon after, I introduced a new folder Under Evaluation which hoarded all newly added feeds which I will move into one of the four aforementioned categories in due course of time as I developed preference for them. Promotion or demotion of a feed depended on its ability to continually be relevant to me. One thing in Google Reader which was different from Bloglines, my first feed reader, was that I could tag a feed with multiple labels (just like GMail) and thus put them in multiple folders simultaneously.

As recently as last month, I again reorganized my feeds where each feed is placed into (1) one of five preference categories, named A to E based on how much I’d like to read them, and (2) one of many subject categories based on content. I created category F to hold all heavy volume feeds (Digg, Overhead in…) which publish several dozens posts a day and category Z to hold newly added feeds which will be deleted or promoted to A…E in due course. I also created Private A category for preferred personal feeds (such as my own blog posts and comments, my Google searches, my Facebook feeds) and Private B category for the rest (currently holding feed from LinkedIn updates which is a high volume feed).

Now, I start my day with Private A and then go down from A to E as long as I’ve time. I always read anything in A before anything in B and so on. A post once read is marked read in both categories. I regularly read Z, sometimes before other feeds, to make up my mind about them and reshelf them when I see a pattern. Thereafter, a feed moves up or down categories all the time. If I have really all the time in the world, then I read F but mostly it’s there just because GReader doesn’t have option to switch off a feed and not because I read them. Lastly, feeds in subject category News are not placed in any preference category A…F since I don’t want to mix news with other feeds and because I hardly read news these days. Sometimes, when I am in particular mood, I select feeds by subject categories. For example, on a busy day, I might just look at subject category ‘Friends’ to check new blog posts from my friends which might not be higher on preference of content but are still important because they are from my friends. Or sometime, I just want to read Comics or Jokes only. Use of ‘#’ and ‘$’ is just to quickly distinguish one type of categorization from the other.

If that’s not really clear, I am an organization freak. I sometimes even customize font type and font size of Excel files which I plant to delete in 10 minutes. It must be some kind of mental sickness, I guess.

Washing machine that wouldn’t work

We recently procured a new washing machine for our dorm. It’s quite latest technology front-loading IFB Senorita Dx fully automatic washing machine costing about 20,000/-. With mere three buttons on front panel ‘Start/Pause’, ‘Rinse’ and ‘Hold’ and a knob to set temperature, it’s also very simply designed. No more trouble of setting wash time or rinse time, just put detergent and press ‘Start’. So what exactly is the problem? Hint: It’s not in the title.

Just hold on to the above and consider its users in our dorm. Washing machine will be used by residents of post-graduate program in management in one of the premier business colleges of the country. Why is that important? Now, we are not arrogant, but we are also not stupid. We’d like to believe that we are at least few points of above average intelligence. Heck, we are at least post-graduate students and many have engineering backgrounds. Ok, so you ask, once again, why is that important?

Well, it’s important because how this machine works has stumped every single person in this twenty member dorm. How can it, if it’s fully automatic push-and-go as I say, you wonder? Frankly, I don’t know, but I will try to answer. More importantly, though, is the fact that I refuse to take blame. If a design fails 20 reasonably intelligent people then fault must lie with the designer. If an idiot cannot figure out, he is to be blamed. If 100 idiots cannot figure out, company should change its design or close the shop.

So exactly what gives? Well, firstly, one of two slots on left (1) is for detergent and another is for fabric-softener but it is not marked which is for which. Secondly, knob (5) has exactly same readings on right half and on left half. Differentiation is neither obvious nor clear. Thirdly, pushing ‘Start’ button (2) turns monitor light red, locks the door, and machine still shows no sign of life. Pushing ‘Start’ button again unlocks the door and light starts blinking. User has no clue what that means and why. Apparently, machine appears dead because in its infinite wisdom it’s calculating automatic settings depending on load and temperature setting. However, this calculation takes anywhere from five minutes to twenty minutes. Sometimes, when you come back half-an-hour later it still is dead. Then one has to push button in frustration until there is some noise signifying response. It’s frustrating to deal with something that just sits mockingly at you! When it starts working finally, it stops only after three hours of washing, rinsing and drying all clothes. Oh yeah, there are four lights (4) apart from start light which blink to some meaning unknown to user. Buttons for ‘Rinse’ and ‘Hold’ (3) serve purpose unknown to me.

You tell me, whose fault it is? Or better you don’t, since it’s not mine. If one needs a manual to figure out a washing machine, then life is doomed. How can company expects common public to use this machine? Of course, one can say, rightly so, that in matters such as these, lesser the intelligence better it is; or to frame alternatively, common man is more smarter than educated man. Now, as I had written on my earlier blog (in Hindi) that if designer cannot even design ergonomics and layout of such simple operation in intuitive interface, am I not right in cursing him every two weeks when I use this evil equipment? Smart designer doesn’t screw-up so simple a system. For example, if people commonly attempt opening the door by pulling rather than pushing when it’s designed for later, it’s sign of poor design. And it tells a lot about how little attention is paid that nearly all doors have sign telling ‘push’ or ‘pull’.

Recommended free softwares on internet

If TV is idiot box, what is computer? Well, computer is what you make it to be. If you know how to do stuff, computer is best efficiency machine out there, and if you don’t, it will make you commit suicide, or at least, tempt you enough. I love trying out new softwares and applications and want to list some of the best ones in this post. While these may not be new to anyone who follows technology blogs such as lifehacker.com, they might still provide a good summary of what you didn’t know you could do. I have decided not to provide direct link to these softwares since doing so is too much work for me and you can do no harm with more practice in web search.

Rename Master is amazingly powerful tool to mass rename your files based on variety of rules (ex: append, replace, meta data) and can be useful for organization freaks who like their filenames to have some conformity. EmptyFolderNuker is also simple software which checks your directories for detecting empty folders and deletes them, again useful for cleaning up your drive rather than saving much space. KeePass is recommended tool to store so many types of passwords that one is required to memorize these days. It encrypts database which can use a master password or some file as key. Launchy is also recommended application launcher tool from keyboards. Stop searching your software in long list of ‘All Programs’ and just press few keys to launch programs by their name. Launchy indexes your programs in its search and is intelligent enough to prioritize your frequently used programs in search results. If you ever wanted to record music playing on your computer then Audacity is for you. It is an amazing audio-editor can be used for practically anything and depends merely on your technical skill. SyncBack is tool to backup your data on external drive and it intelligently synchronizes changed files and backs up only modified file. CCleaner is your key to recover hidden spaces in nooks of your hard drive by clearing all junk. Duplicate Cleaner is pretty good software to search for duplicate photo or music files and offers smart delete options. TrueCrypt is tool to password protect important data on your computer. MediaMonkey and Picasa are recommended softwares to organize your music and photographs. ATNotes is great for on-screen post-it notes. Faststone is slick screen capture utility which provides wide functionality. Finally, Wallpaper Master automatically changes wallpaper on your desktop at set interval to bring freshness in your life.

If you use Firefox for your web browsing needs, and you should be, then following extensions and scripts will come handy. Add to Search Bar adds any search box to your browser’s search bar. All-in-One Gestures are latest invention in web navigation where you don’t have to click anything to perform various tasks on webpages. Better GMail 2, Better Youtube, and Better GReader add multiple functionalities to your Gmail, Youtube and Google Reader experience. BugMeNot skips past annoying registration requirements at many websites and Download Statusbar replaces your pop-up download window with slick small bar in status bar location. DownloadThemAll! is best download manager which is great for downloading multiple objects off same page. FEBE is extension to back up all your extensions, profiles, bookmarks, etc. at regular interval. Menu Editor helps you edit your main menu and context menus to clean out unwanted options. Morning Coffee opens up select sites that you regularly open first thing in the morning. PDF Download provides you many options when you click that pdf link in webpage. Read it Later is slick bookmarking tool to mark pages to be read later when you have more time. Tab Mix Plus is a must have extension covering all that you didn’t know you wanted in tabs in Firefox and more. TimeTracker tracks time spent on web, if that makes you feel guilty. Greasemonkey is javascript handler extension for Firefox. Few of my favourite scripts include The Movie Dude (cross-links movie sites), Google Account Multi-Login, Google Image Relinker (links to images directly in image search) and Inline IMDB Ratings (shows rating whenever link to IMDB is provided). Stylish is extension to change look and feel of webpage by modifying style sheets and you can find out more if you so desire.

If you blog, then Windows Live Writer with Dynamic Template plug-in is best desktop blogging client. coComment is service which tracks your comments at other people’s blog so that you don’t miss the conversation without needing to manually check if reply has been made.

Association defines use

There is a game which involves calling out first word that comes to your mind when another word is uttered. Psychology tells us that these two pair form inherent association in our mind. A thing can do multiple things but is usually well known for one of things, which becomes its primary association. And if an object is associated with a particular use, that use becomes its prominent use and breaking the association becomes tough task.

People in developed world have interacted with mobile phones before people in developing world. At that time mobile was purely for wireless telephony purposes. Over time, mobile also started providing chatting, photography, videography, internet browsing and gaming services. Yet, for earlier adapters it is psychologically difficult to redefine association of mobile from with telephony to with other uses. On the other hand, users in developing countries who saw mobile along with all other features for the first time around found its association natural. That is one reason that early adapters still don’t use many value added features of mobile that new adapters use. They, and me, feel separate need of camera for pictures; computer for internet; and mobile for telephony. It is, of course, wrong to suggest that differences are rigid, yet it is true in general sense, and process of adoption of uses is slow in earlier users.

We see this in new generation familiar with computers from their birth. Ask me to write and expect me to pick up a pen and paper. Ask them to write and expect them to pick up their laptop. Technology has already changed meaning of familiar words and phrases. There was a time hard drive meant a long tiring drive by car and memory was thing you couldn’t buy in the market. To get people to redefine association, and hence enhance new innovating uses, is one of the most difficult job of marketer.

Why send an SMS?

SMSs are very popular in India. In fact, younger generation — yes, I’ve crossed the other side of Indian median age — continuously communicates with friends through SMSs. They are advantageous in that sender and receiver can communicate when they are not in position of being able to speak aloud, say in boring class lectures. However, most of the usage is in situations where verbal communication is possible. I find this strange, mostly because, I am not one who does that. I see four disadvantages of SMS over phone call.

1. SMS costs the same as one minute of call time, about 1/- and yet you can speak so much more in one minute than you can write in SMS, so more information can be communicated.
2. SMS is cumbersome, lengthy and time consuming to type on best of all mobile keyboards, and most don’t have the best.
3. SMS is one way communication while call is two way, including confirmations and correction.
4. Sender of SMS expects a reply confirming the event (to make up for one way communication) and this doubles the cost.

It appears to me that even when you don’t bother about trivial charges, there are so many other benefits. Why do people still SMS when they don’t have to?

This article provides some interesting statistics for USA. Average consumer sends/receives 357 text messages a month (compared with 204 phone calls), while teen users sends/receives 1,742 text messages (NYTimes).

Introducing Movilens

If you, like me, enjoy watching (English) movies then you would be overwhelmed by sheer number of movies available to watch. Not only you are at a disadvantage to be born so long after movies were started to be made, your rate of watching them is dwarfed by their rate of production. Clearly, intelligent response would be to watch intelligently, watching only what you would like, and not wasting your precious little time on earth on watching pieces of crap, if you excuse me. Enter Movielens.

Movielens is a website which uses advanced mathematics, purportedly, to predict your ratings for a movie, given your past ratings to other movies. Initially you will have to rate couple of movies to let the system calibrate your preferences. Once you've rated over 20 movies, system starts generating predictions, which improve as you rate more movies, and are near to half-point (on a five-point scale) accuracy when you've rated about 200 movies. Plus, it generates nifty statistics like ratings by genre and number of movies watched by genre. It works better than IMDB ratings which are generic for all, since given my penchant for horror, 6/10 IMDB on horror is acceptable to me than 8/10 in romance. Try it.

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While we are at it, let me recommend you few of my favourites, which are not commonly popular:

• Twelve Monkeys (1995)
• Truman Show, The (1998)
• To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
• Thank You for Smoking (2006)
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The (2003)
• Green Mile, The (1999)
  
• Spellbound (2002)
• Some Like It Hot (1959)
• Roman Holiday (1953)
• Prestige, The (2006
• Phone Booth (2002)
• Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
• Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
• Monsters, Inc. (2001)
• It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963)
• It Happened One Night (1934)
• Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle (2004)
• Groundhog Day (1993)
• Great Race, The (1965)
• Gods Must Be Crazy, The (1980)
• Gods Must Be Crazy II, The (1989)
• Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
• Diary of Anne Frank, The (1959)
• Dial M for Murder (1954)
• Descent, The (2005)
• Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)
• Blair Witch Project, The (1999)
• Thing, The (1982)
• Speed (1994)
• Man from Earth, The (2007)
• Hotel Rwanda (2004)
• Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989)
• Grudge, The (2004)
• Death at a Funeral (2007)
• Condemned, The (2007)
• Born into Brothels (2004)
• Bedazzled (2000)
• A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Lift kara de

Never have I give so much thoughts to elevators/lifts then after reading this fascinating post on NewYorker (Up and Then Down). As part of modern life, they are so ubiquitous to be invisible, and only association one may have is when delays becomes irritating. But therein lies technology, innovation, psychology, fear and a fascinating journey in chain supported metal boxes plying up and down the dark vertical tunnel.

Readability

One of the interesting things MS Word does, after checking spellings and grammar, if you've set up right option, is to display readability statistics (See here how to set up the option). There are six of them which tell you how easy or difficult it is read a piece of text. Using average number of words in a sentence and average number of syllables in a word, two statistics numerically measure readability. Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES) is a score between 0 and 100 (most to least difficult) and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL) is average class/grade of an American student who can comfortably read the given text. FRES is expected to be around 60 and FKGL around 8 for most internet audiences. I however, find myself writing on more difficult side on both score due to my tendency to write long sentences, though I don't think I write long words on average.

My post on Horror movies scored 60.0 and 10.3 respectively, while Who can take life? scored 59.4 and 10.0. Simpler post on Power of inanities scored 69.6 and 6.3 while Of Men and Women, and Preference thereof scored 47.9 and 12.2. I get worse (better?) in Meek shall inherit the earth with 33.6 and 14.1. Jawaharlal Nehru's Tryst with Destiny, mentioned in At the stroke of midnight, even while being profound, was linguistically easy with mere 60.3 and 10.1 scores.

My academic writings score even worse and typical FRES score is 20-30 and typical FKGL is always above 12. It's all theoretical nevertheless for I've not confirmed whether one needs to be in 10th class to understand Tryst with Destiny, but it's still useful to budding writers. Plus it's fun as you see by me going overboard! Try it.

अभासी पुस्तकालय (LibraryThing)

कुछ दिनों पहले ही जीतू जी ने शेलफारी से परिचय कराया था और अपनी पुस्तकों की सूची से दिखाई थी। उससे कुछ ही दिनों पहले मैनें भी लाईब्रेरीथिंग पर अपनी पुस्तक की अलमारी सजाई थी। इन दोनों के बारे में और जानकारी प्राप्त करने के चक्कर में मैनें इधर-उधर हाथ-पैर मारे तो पता चला कि इस क्षेत्र में इन दोनो के अलावा लगभग पच्चीस ओर विकल्प हैं जिनमें से लाईब्रेरीथिंग, शेलफारी, लिस्टाल, गुरूलिब मुख्यतः प्रसिद्ध हैं। एक नई जानकारी तो ये मिली इस इस तरह की सेवा को सामाजिक नामावली सेवा यानि Social Cataloging Service कहते हैं। जिस तरह यूट्यूब ने वीडीयों के मामलें में, डिग ने समाचार के मामलें में, और फ्लिकर ने तस्वीरों के मामलें में उपयोगकर्ताओं को ना ही अपने सामान रखने की जगह दी है बल्कि एक-दूसरे से जोड़ कर समुदायिकता फैलाई है, उसी तरह नामावली सेवाऐं उपयोगकर्ताओं को अंतर्जाल पर अपनी किताबें, संगीतों व फिल्मों की सूची बनाने और व्यवस्थित करने के साथ-साथ उनकी पसंद को बांटने वालों से उनका परिचय कराती हैं। इस लेख में मैं केवल किताबें व्यवस्थित करने वाली सेवाऐं से संदर्भ रखूँगा।

सभी लेखों को पढ़कार व खुद प्रयोग कर मुझे लाईब्रेरीथिंग ही बेहतर विकल्प लगा क्योंकि:

• इसका समुदाय बहुत बढ़ा है जिससे पुस्तक पर प्रतिक्रिया व पसंद की पुस्तकों के मिलाप की संभावना व शुद्धता ज्यादा होती है।
  
• इसमें हर पुस्तक का अलग पन्ना है, साथ ही हर लेखक व हर टैग (tag) का अलग पन्ना है।
  
• इसका इंटरफेस सरल है और एक ही पन्ने पर अपने पुस्तकालय को देखने, आंकलन करने, समीक्षा लिखने, पुस्तक की जानकारी बदलनें, इत्यादि की आसानी रहती है। देखने के लिये पाँच अलग-अलग क्रम में कॉलम जमा सकते हैं। शेलफारी पर यही बड़ी कमी थी, समीक्षा व आंकलन के लिये हर किताब पर अलग से जाना पड़ता है।
  
• यह विश्व की कई पुस्तकालयों से जुड़ी है जिससे किताब का मिलना आसान है।
  
• अपने पुस्तकालय को अपने कंप्यूटर पर डाऊनलोड व अपलोड आसान है।
  
• इसके साथ की कई मजेदार टूल हैं जैसे अपने सारे कवर पन्ने एक साथ देखना, लेखकों की तस्वीरों, संपूर्ण उपयोगकर्ताओं का लेखक व टैग क्लाऊड (tag cloud), सभी की रैटिंग का चित्रातमक प्रस्तुति, कई मैंलिंग लिस्ट, समुदाय, सांख्याकि पन्ना

लाईब्रेरीथिंग की सबसे बड़ी कमी है कि इसमें सिर्फ २०० किताबों की सूची बना सकते हैं और अतिरिक्त के लिये $२५ की प्रीमियम सदस्यता लेनी पड़ती है। मैने शेलफारी और लिस्टाल दोनों पर खाता खोला पर मुझे यही सबसे बेहतर लगी और कई रोचक पुस्तकों की सिफारिशें भी प्राप्त हुई। वैसे भी अभी तो ८८ किताबें हीं है तो काफी समय है अलमारी भरने में। जब भरेगी तब सोचेगें, अन्यथा दूसरा निःशुल्क खाता तो खोल ही सकते हैं। इस चिठ्ठे पर दाई और जो पुस्तकों की सूची (पुरालेख के नीचे) देख रहें हैं वो भी वहां के विजेट्स से बनाई है। वैसे इन सेवाओं पर हिन्दी की किताबें रखने की सुविधा उपलब्ध नहीं है क्योंकि हिन्दी की किताबों का जाल पर कोई डाटाबेस नही है। अभी लगता भी नही कि किसी समय शीघ्र ही यह सुविधा मिलेगी।

अधिक जानकारी के लिये (टिप्पणियाँ भी देखें):
techcrunch, librarytwopointzero, fadetheory

मेरी लाईब्रेरी

(यह पहला तकनीकी लेख है इस पन्ने पर अतः आधा अंग्रेजी में होने के लिये मुआफ़ करना :)

सैंतीस रूपये का चूना

किसी से खबर मिली थी कि भारत सरकार का संगणक विभाग भारतीय भाषाओं के विस्तार के लिये हिन्दी (व अन्य भाषाओं) में सोफ्टवेयर की सी.डी. भेज रहा है। शौक मैं भी उनके जालस्थल पर पहुँच गया और जबकि मैं उन सोफ्टवेयरों को डाऊनलोड भी कर सकता था फिर भी एक सी.डी. का अनुरोध कर दिया। पता अमरीका वाला डाला और...फिर बात भूल गया। किसने सोचा था कि सरकारी दफ्तर से कुछ मँगाओ तो मिल भी जायेगा वो भी सात समुंदर पार। महीनों के बाद एक दिन सी.डी. यहाँ पहुँच ही गई। वाह जी, बड़ा आश्‍चर्य हुआ। फिर जब डाक टिकट की कीमत देखी तो पहला विचार यही आया कि सरकारी सैंतीस रूपये बिगड़वा दिये मैने!

किसने सोचा था कि सरकारी दफ्तर से कुछ मँगाओ तो मिल भी जायेगा वो भी सात समुंदर पार।

खैर कभी उस सी.डी. के सोफ्टवेयरों का ऊपयोग करूँगा तो, शायद जब अपने घर पर कंप्यूटर लाऊँ माता-पिता के लिये। मेरे लिये तो बरहा ही पर्याप्त है अभी। फिर भी जिन लोगों को मँगाना हो वो कोशिश कर सकते हैं - अगर यहाँ भेज सकते हैं तो निश्चित ही कहीं भी भेज सकते होगें। सी.डी. में हिन्दीभाषी फॉन्ट और कुंजीपटल ड्राईवर्स, ऑफिस (भारतीय), ब्राऊज़र (फायरफॉक्स), आई. एम. (गेम) व ई-मेल सोफ्टवेयर (कोलंबा), शब्दकोष, स्पैल-चैकर, टाईपिंग सिखाने का व लेख से आवाज़ बदलने वाला सोफ्टवेयर इत्यादि हैं।

इंटरनेट पर जाओ - मच्छर भगाओ

संगणक (computer) और अंतर्जाल ने दुनिया कैसी बदल दी है वह किसी से छुपा नही है। चूहे के द्वारा स्पर्श से शुरू अंतर्जाल ध्वनि और चलचित्रों के माध्यम से हमारी आँखों के साथ-साथ हमारे कानों पर भी छा रहा है। नये अनुसंधानों के अनुसार वह दिन भी दूर नही जब हम गंध भी अंतर्जाल पर बाँट सकेंगे। जालस्थल के द्वारा भेजे गये विशिष्ट संदेशों को आपके संगणक से जुड़ा यंत्र अपने अंदर स्थित दो-तीन गंधो को मिलाकर नई गंध बना देगा (जैसे कि अभी रंग बनते हैं)। अभी-अभी प्राप्त सूचना से ये ज्ञात हुआ है कि कोरिया स्थित एम्पास कंपनी ने ऐसा निःशुल्क टूलबार बनाया है जिसके इंस्टाल करने से मच्छर भाग जाते हैं। कंपनी के अनुसार ये टूलबार संगणक से ऐसी ध्वनी उत्‍पन्न करवाता है जिसे सिर्फ मच्छर ही सुन सकें और आसपास से भाग जायें। जिन वस्तुओं का संगणक/अंतर्जाल से कुछ लेना-देना नही वहाँ भी इनकी उपयोगिता आश्चर्यचकित करने वाली है। आने वाले समय में विज्ञान-कल्प की कथाऐं असंभव नही लगती!

साथ ही: चिठ्ठे दक्षता से पढ़ना
यदि आप कई चिठ्ठे पढ़ते हैं और उनमें कोई नई प्रविष्टि आई या नही की जाँच करने चिठ्ठों पर जाते हैं, तो चिठ्ठों के फ़ीड पाठकों की मदद से काम बहुत ही आसान हो जाता है। नई खबर के लिये नारद जी के दरवाजे भी जाने की जरूरत नही, और तो और, आप प्रविष्टियाँ भी बिना चिठ्ठे पर जायें पढ़ सकते हैं। ब्लॉगलाईन्स (bloglines) नामक फ़ीड पाठक सरल और उपयोगी है। यही नही समस्त समाचारों की ताजा जानकारी इससे जुटाई जा सकती है। जो लोग इसके बारें में नही जानते हों वे आज ही जानकारी प्राप्त करें और अंतर्जाल(धन्यवाद आलोक जी) जाल २.० की क्रांति मे शामिल होवें! ऐक बार फायदे जान जायेंगे तो फिर ना नही कर पायेंगे!

उपलेख (जुलाई २९): आप मच्छर का टूलबार यहाँ से डाऊनलोड कर सकरे हैं। एम्पास के जालपृष्ठ को पढ़ने के लिये गूगल अनुवादक का उपयोग करें, हांलाकि सफलता ज्यादा नही मिलेगी। टूलबार का इंस्टालेशन भी कोरियन भाषा में है!

फायर-फॉक्स - पुरानी खबर?

जानता हूँ कि ये अब पुरानी खबर है फिर भी सच्‍चाई तो सच्‍चाई ही है, और सच यह है कि आज के समय में मॉज़िला फायर-फॉक्स से बेहतर वेब-ब्राऊज़र नही। और बात सिर्फ टैब्ड ब्राऊज़िंग की ही नही - वो तो ऑपेरा, नेटस्केप, और नये आने वाले ईन्टर्नेट एक्सप्रलोरर में भी है। बात तो बहुत सी बातों के खूबसूरत जोड़ की है। टैब्स के साथ कई अन्य अतिरिक्त फीचर्स हैं, वास्तव की हर ज़रूरत के लिये, जो कि आपके अंतर्जाल भ्रमण के अनुभव में चार नहीं चालीस चाँद लगा देते है। बिना जगह घेरने वाले टूल-बारों के कई सर्च-ईजिंन की सुविधा, मनमोहक रंग-रूप की थीम, और अगणित एड-ऑन। एड-ऑन ये फीचर होता है फयर-फॉक्स में जिससे आप अपनी सुविधा अनुसार अपने ब्राऊज़र की खूबियाँ और फंक्शनालिटीज़ घटा-बढ़ा सकतें हैं।

अगर आपने चूहे-के-ईशारों (माऊस-गेस्चर्स) के बारे में नही सुना तो आप वेब-ब्राऊज़िंग की दुनियाँ के पाषांण युग में जी रहें हैं - ऐसी लत लगी है इसकी तो कि क्लिक करनें में भी आलस आने लगा है अब। माऊस-गेस्चर्स वो होता है जिसमे कई सामान्य प्रक्रियायें, जैसे कि वापस जाना (बैक), पन्ना पुनः लॉड करना, खोलना-बंद करना, और जाने क्या-क्या के लिये क्लिक करनें की जरूरत नही, सिर्फ माऊस को घुमा देना ही काफी है।

हाँलाकि अतिरिक्त एड-ऑन तो अपनी जरूरत के हिसाब से आप इंस्टाल कर ही सकतें है, मैनें जो उपयोगीं पायें उनकी सूची प्रस्तुत है:

1. टॉकबैक (Talkback) - ये किसी कारण से यदि फायर-फॉक्स क्रेश कर जाये तो उसकी सूचना बनाने वाली टीम को देने के लिये है, जिससे कि वो खामियों का विश्लेषण कर उसको सुधारने की कोशिष करें। ये उपयोगकर्ता के सीधे काम का नही और इसकों इंस्टाल करनें की भी ज़रूरत नही क्योंकि ये खुद-बखुद ही इंस्टाल हो जाता है।


2. पी डी एफ डाऊनलॉड (PDF Download) - अगर आप अंतर्जाल से किसी पी डी एफ फाईल को डाऊनलॉड करतें हैं, अथवा बिना कंप्यूटर पे उतारे ही ब्राऊज़र में ही देखना चाहतें हैं तो यह उप्योगी है।


3. आई ई व्यू (IE View) - जैसा कि आप अब तक समझ ही गये होंगे कि हिन्दी ईन्टर्नेंट एक्सप्लोरर के ब्राऊज़रों मे ही शुद्ध दिखती है, और कई जालपृष्ठ आप आई ई मे खोलना चाहें तो फयर-फ़ॉक्स से सीधा कड़ी को आई ई मे खोल सकतें हैं बिना यू आर एल कॉपी करे। पर ध्यान दें, इसका ज्यादा उपयोग ना करें वरना फयर-फॉक्स को इस्तेमाल का फायदा ही क्या?


4. वन क्लिक वेदर (1-ClickWeather) - अपने ब्रऊज़र पे ही मौसम की ताज़ा जानकारी पाईये।


5. याहू फ़ोटो अपलोड टूल (Yahoo! Photos Easy Upload Tool) - अगर आप याहू! पे तस्वीरें अपलॉड करतें है तो ये लाभकर हो सकता है।


6. कस्टमाईज़ गूगल (Customize Google) - अगर चाहें तो गूगल में विज्ञापन इत्यादि को प्रतिबंधित कर सकते हैं।


7. ग्रीज़ मंकी (Greasemonkey) - ये सुविधा कई अन्य सुविधाओं का द्वार है। ग्रीज़ मंकी कई स्क्रिप्ट चलाने में मदद करता है जो कि कई वेबसाईटों मे सुविधा के फीचर और प्रारूप आपकी पसंद के अनुसार ढाल सकतीं हैं।


8. गूगल सेफ़ ब्राऊज़िंग (Google Safe Browsing) - फिशिंग के हमले से बचनें का शौक हो तो इसका उपयोग करें।


9. टैब मिक्स प्लस (Tab Mix Plus) - यह बहुत ही महत्वपूर्ण सुविधा है जिससे आप टैब्स के कई सैटिंग्स बदल सकते हैं और अपने अनुभव को और भी आसान बना सकतें हैं। उदाहरणतः टैब बदलनें के लिये टैब पे माऊस रख देना भर, और पेज़ के लोड होने की प्रोग्रेस दिखना।


10. ऑल-इन-वन गेस्चर्स (All-in-One Gestures) - और यह है ताज मे सितारा, शहंशाहों का शहंशाह, माऊस गेस्चर्स। अब ब्राऊज़ करने के कामों, जैसे टैब खोलना-बंद करना, कड़ी को नई खिड़की या नई टैब पे खोलना, पीछे और आगे जाना, री-लोड या खिड़की छोटा (मिनिमाईज़) करना, कोड, कूकीज़ देखना, और भी जाने क्या-क्या सब कलई की एक लचक से संभव।


11. डॉऊन देम ऑल (DownThemAll!) - अगर किसी पन्ने से कई कड़ीयाँ एक साथ डाऊनलॉड करनी तो अब हर किसी पे एक-एक कर क्लिक करनें की ज़रूरत नही। ये खुद-बखुद ही कड़ियाँ चुन लेगा आपके लिये।


12. आई ई टैब (IE Tab) - आई ई व्यू की तरह ही आई ई टैब भी किसी भी पन्ने को हिन्दी में दर्शाता है पर इसमे आप फयर-फॉक्स के टैब में ही ईन्टर्नेट एक्सप्लोरर खोल सकते हैं और अतिरिक्त खिड़की खोलने की आवश्यक्ता नही।


13. गूगल नोटबुक (Google Notebook) - यदि गूगल नोटबुक के उपयोग्कर्ता हैं तो किसी भी पन्ने से सीधे सेलेक्ट कर नोटबुक में लिख सकतें हैं।


14. पर्फोर्मेंसिंग (Performancing) - ये सुविधा ब्लॉगिंग के शौकीनों के लिये काफी उपयोगी है, किसी भी पन्ने से सीधे अपनें किसी भी ब्लॉग पे लेख लिख सकतें हैं।

आप इन एड-ऑन को इंस्टाल करने के लिये यहाँ जाकर दिये गये नाम से खोजें। यहाँ भी जाईये, बहुत से अतिउपयोगी एड-ऑन की सूची बना रखी है।