Hockey – the national game of India. But how many Indians know it? Ask a random Indian, “What is our national game?”. If you hear “Cricket” from them, don’t feel amazed (However I never asked anyone). It’s something like when you ask “What is our national flower?” and people answering “Rose” (I had asked few people and got that answer. Once one friend was praising Indian National Congress for being secular and choosing Hand as their electoral sign as Hand and criticizing BJP for choosing Lotus as their electoral sign and supporting Hindutva (Hinduness). It did not came to my mind at that time, but I think she does not know Lotus is our national flower.). Similarly, I have seen people answering, that Vande Matarm is our National Anthem (Vande Matarm is our national song and Jana Gana Mana is our national anthem). Hockey was chosen as our national game, because at that time in India, people were loving this game and was one of the most popular games, similar to football. Cricket was not that much popular in India. But now the wind has changed. Now cricket is the most popular game of India. And if someone forgot anything about hockey or does not like hockey, then we should not blame them.

But the promotion by Hero Honda really worked well. When I knew ICC World Cup will be played in 2011 in Asia since 3 years, I came to know about FIH Word Cup via this ad campaign. I watched when India was playing its first match of the tournament with Pakistan. India played really well. I really enjoyed it and millions of other Indians too. Indian players were playing with great confidence, which was visible from their body languages. This was because millions of Indians supported them. That was a free trial of the product (Indin Hockey) for a new customer (Indian supporter) and the result was quite good. So the supporter will love to watch the next match. And I will sure watch the next match tomorrow. All the best for my team India.

Hockey, when I was a kid

When I was a kid, I saw people playing cricket and football. And we kids play games like hide and seek, thief and police, our own version of basket ball (where we have 7 pieces of small tiles piled up, called as basket, one guy hits those with a ball and opposing team players need to place them correctly. The basket breaker team will throw the ball to hit basket keeper team player, and if the ball hits, then you can’t touch the baskets.. blah blah…) and some other country games. When I grow up by some years, we friends tried to play some real game, and we have two options, cricket or football. We could play anything and anywhere. Normally we played on the side spaces of a main field where people play cricket or football, or some open spaces inside colony or some open spaces near the non busy street. We needed some stuff to play. To play football, arrange some waste papers, poly bags and some threads, if available. Prepare a ball big enough to hit that by our foot. We studied in school that our former prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri was playing hockey with these type of ball and some normal stick to use as hockey stick. But I don’t think we have taken the idea from the book. We knew this art before. And for cricket we have used any stick or wood board which can be substituted as bat or own footwear as bat, buy a rubber or plastic ball, or prepare a paper ball(sometimes I played with ripen brinjals too). For wicket draw it on wall with small piece of brick or break some small trees to get stick for the wickets. Similarly, we tried to play hockey with a plastic ball and sticks just twice. Well, actually I want to say that we got enough opportunity to play cricket. Then some football, but no hockey. This is happening with hockey. However it’s our national game, but no one is getting much opportunity of play hockey at the entry level. Our Govt is not promoting this at school level. They should supply enough kit to every school. If they are unable to do it, then think over to change our national game to cricket.

When did I watch Hockey?

Titan Cup 1997 – I was in class seven. I started to watch cricket at that time. I was watching football matches live near my home in annual tournament since I was in class 2 to class 8. But I watched a hockey match quite late. It’s 31st July, 2002, when Indian Women’s Hockey team was playing to South Africa in Commonwealth Games, Manchester quarter final. South Africans were playing good and were leading with three goals. Just before the time finishes, Indians played really well and scored three goals to force extra time. And a golden goal by Jyoti Sunita Kullu and India won that match to enter semifinal. The match was trilling and you can compare the thrill with any thrilling cricket match. I watched the semifinal and the final with England. India played well in those matches too. The final was exciting too. And a personal note: “Many English players were beautiful too .”. After that I have watched one match in a IPL type tournament, where Orissa Steelers was playing with some other team. I never got chance to watch it since 2010 world cup.

Why cricket is popular and there is a lot of money?

The game of cricket is designed in such a way that it takes lot of time to complete, this means it wastes lot of time. As the game is slower than football or hockey. So you have enough time to understand the game. There is enough time to view replays, if you are watching it on TV. But hockey and football are for 70 minutes and 90 minutes respectively. The game is fast and exiting. So you may not understand the game when you watch it for the first time. But watch it for few more times, you will understand it and love it. I have learned basics of tennis by watching a match for 30 minutes. You try and you will understand and love.

Similarly, there is lot of money in cricket. Take an example of TV relays. In between every over, you can show one or two ads. When player gets out, you will have a commercial break. And if it is drinks, then few more ads in that commercial break. If one player got injured, then some ads. Also you will find some ads on screen when the play is going on, as siders (I don’t know what to tell them). So, there is enough time to show ads and earn money. But in hockey, before start of match, 3 or 4 ads. At the time of half time, 3 or 4 ads. Before second half starts 2 or 3 ads. And no ad after the match. No ad after the goal. No ad when there is an injury for foul or accident. Don’t ask me how to increase ad spots in a hockey match relay. If you do, I will say, do differed live and put some ads at exiting points. Or if you want to telecast live, then ask the players to take test for a minute after few minutes and then resume the game form that point. I know, these will never work, otherwise the game will lose the excitement.

Also, largest cricket stadium of India can hold 82,000 spectators in it, where largest hockey stadium of India can hold 25,000 people.

So there is more money is cricket, so the game is improving, gaining popularity. Companies are more interested to sponsor an event in cricket, so why they should waste their money here in hockey? So, Govt. of India has to do everything to promote hockey.

I need a good suitable photo to use in this post, but unable to find a good suitable one. Please send me a good suitable photo. I also pray for Indian hockey team and at last I will say Dhak Dhak Goal

Image credit: Fickr – dev null – heart-on-a-stick

I was tensed due to this problem in PayPal, but my behavior was cool and I was keep saying myself “All iz well”. People say “don’t use PayPal to as a saving account”. And it’s true that you will not get interest by saving money their. Today I found that the money I withdrawn from my PayPal account to my bank account reversed. Still I was cool, and I did not notice that I received less money than the actual amount. But when I see that I said something like “Fucking Paypal” (Update: they added that money, which was missing now to my account, peace). This happened because PayPal takes around 2.5% of the money as their currency conversion fees. They don’t show you that as fees, but their conversion rate is less than the actual conversion rates (conversion rates, exchange rates, forex – all same). Which is the conversion rate after deducting their fees from the original conversion rates. You can see I have written the eye opener on the header. This is because this activities by PayPal has opened my eyes (and mind too). I knew that PayPal rate is always less than the current conversion rate, but never thought why. And today I found this answer.

With this frustration level, I stopped working on my job and started looking for alternatives to PayPal. I found some good alternatives (this is an eye opener), which I will explain below. But after spending some quality hours on that, I emailed PayPal stating my frustration. I was not expecting any reply, but I got a very good reply. They assured that the money I lost during their reversal process will be added to my account in 24 – 72 hours. Earlier they informed in their blog that withdrawal facility to bank accounts will works in few days. And they also informed (in mail) that while we can’t withdraw money to our bank accounts, we can withdraw money to any Visa credit card or by check. So this is something good to hear from them.

PayPal Alternatives

Xoom
Xoom service is available from months and they claim that they are cheapest way to send money to India. And we all agree to this, but it’s cheaper than the withdrawal from PayPal to your bank account. Using Xoom, you can transfer money to three options:

1. Cash Pickup from a Punjab National Bank
2. Bank Deposit, supports any bank
3. Home Delivery, using Blue Dart

Let me show you how you can save money with Xoom. This will very by very little amount as per the current conversion rates. For example, you want to withdraw $500 from your PayPal to your bank account. You will get INR 22,512.75. (PayPal exchange rate:1 USD = 45.0255 INR, at the time I am writing this). If you will use Xoom, you need to pay $19.99 as fee. Let’s reduce that from your $500. Now you can transfer $480 from your PayPal account to your bank account using Xoom. Here you will get INR 22,041.69 (Exchange Rate USD 1.00 = INR 45.9202 at time time I am writing this). This gives you more less money than PayPal normal withdrawal. But if you increase the amount to withdraw, then using Xoom will be profitable. But this time currency conversion rate of PayPal is too good and exchange rate of Xoom is too bad then PayPal wins the race upto maximum limit. In the morning when I was roughly estimating advantages by guessing normal exchange rate, then I Xoom was the winner. Since then I see a drop in the exchange rate of Xoom. And I see a good exchange rate at PayPal which is unbelievable.

I will tell you other eye opening advantages of Xoom later on this post. Also I will update you once I see Xoom wining the race. But before you transfer your money, you can compare both. It’ll be easy, if you know how much (max) money you want to withdraw.

Image credit: Fickr – stuartpilbrow – 089/365 Money…What Money

So, I got response from 171 people in a very limited time. Basically I got two type of answers. First advocated “Ctrl + Alt + Delete” and the other said “Ctrl + Shift + Esc”. There were not much  differences in the number of each party, about a half in each side. So what do you think? Which one is the correct answer and which one is the myth?

I got some interesting answers too, like “Fuck you, Winblows loser.” from billg@microsoft.com and “maderchod.. apni gaand marwa le” from bhosdika@gmail.com, “NIGGERS” from someone. So there are three hate entries. One hates Windows and other two either hates me or the question I asked. (Hate entries indicates that I am getting popular, )

There are some uncommon wrong answers too, like “taskmgr” (actually he meant to run that command) and “Win+E”. One guy sent me a link, which is a good resource. One guy asked me to search in Google and also politely answered my question. Some people explained me about both the shortcuts.

I am not saying “Ctrl + Alt + Delete” is wrong, but I will say it’s a myth that “‘Ctrl + Alt + Delete’ is the shortcut for opening Task Manager in Windows (only those versions who have the term called Task Manager)”. It works in those XP systems which having welcome screen (The systems which are connected to an domain are not allowed to use welcome screen). So this can’t be called Window shortcut for opening Task manager. So, “Ctrl + Shift + Esc” is the answer and “Ctrl + Alt + Delete” is the myth.

NB: I am not a die hard fan of Windows. But using this most (can says 100%) of the time for various reason.

Image credit: Fickr – Hamed Saber – Stoney Roof Window

Internet Browsing has become an intimate part of our life. I do a lot of stuff on Internet, I check emails, browse social networks like Facebook, Orkut, read many blogs (including some design blogs like Web Designer Depot, Smashing Magazine etc. which are having too of images to inspire us), Twitter, Flickr (I have a weakness to photography, however at this point I only own a mobile phone with 3.2 MP camera (Sony Ericsson K790i)). Well, all these access website means a lot of downloads to your PC. I checked my bandwidth usage statistics and found that my daily use of download bandwidth falls between 500 MB to 1.25 GB. And it’s the age of P2P (yes, I mean BitTorrent). If I download anything using this, then a lot of bandwidth to add in my statistics. You can imagine how difficult it would be to stay within limit.

I stay in a small city of India, where I have access to Internet, but the service is poor. There is no Airtel broadband available here (which I think best in India, I learned from my past experience, when I was staying in Chennai). Here at Cuttack I have to use BSNL, which is comparatively good among all available ISPs. But it’s not reliable. In other cities it might be reliable, but not in Cuttack. Bhubaneswar is the nearest city of Cuttack (just 25 KMs) and the state capital of Orissa. Friends from that city says that BSNL has improved and no problem with their connections. Also, the road which goes near my home is now under build. And the cables which are below the ground breaks down due to the work. When the cables broke down for the first time, all telephones in my area gone dead. When we inquired, the people at BSNL said it may take a month to fix all them. I just got surprised and I decided to take a secondary connection and applied for Ortel.

I decided to use Ortel’s unlimited plan, because I was not sure about the fate of BSNL connection. And just few hours after I applied for Ortel, my BSNL connection started working. I goes well in that month (November 2009). So I decided to change the Ortel plan to a limited plan, which costs around 200 rupees. As I am using Ortel for few bytes, why should I pay 699 for a unlimited plan? So I decided to change the plan to limited (Rs 200/mo) plan. When I went to their office and applied to change the plan, they said: “You have not completed a month with us, so your records are not set with us, so we can’t degrade your plan, but we can upgrade your plan without any problem.”. So I waited for the bill, also I was not using that connection. When I got the bill at the mid of December, I went to their office to change the plan. They said to change the plan you need to pay Rs 100 as fee. I know this is simply bullshit, but I didn’t have any other option. Not sure whether it’s needed while upgrade. Also I came to know that they don’t have limited 200 plan in Cuttack. So I need to choose limited 325 which comes with 1.25 GB free download as the lowest priced plan. Also, they said it’s only possible to change the plan at the midnight of first day of the month, but if your upgrading then they can change it right away!

So my plan was going to turn to a limited one when the world celebrating new year. Just two days before that my BSNL connection got dead. We found two other phones in the neighbor also got dead. We tried to give complain in the traditional way, by calling 198 from another phone. I used Ortel for two days as an unlimited plan, but when I entered into new year, I tried to being a makhichus while using the bandwidth. I stopped visiting the websites I normally do. I changed auto update feature of few applications. For sometime I disabled images in my Firefox browser. I set alarm to know when my download of the month crosses 1000 MB. Still I noticed that I was using more that 70 MB in checking my emails and using some essential websites (not bandwidth hungry) everyday. And the experience to be in limit is difficult to explain. This was for the first time I was using Internet within limit and that’s also for more than 5 days. So I when I got my BSNL connection back to work, I have crossed around 600 MB limit. And just after few hours I started using unlimited connection, the limit alarm started to roar.

I was also seen some people (who use a limited plan) wonder and complain about the extra bytes downloaded. Once Debasish wrote:

India TV Breaking News – mehnga pada internet se video download
dekhiye kaise yeah insaan aaj karod pati se roadpati ho gaya sirf internet se asleel video download karte karte
sirf aaur sirf hamare channel par aaj rat 1 baje ke baad
kuny ke 1 baje ke baad kamara free download suru hota hai
india tv best comedy news ever

So, here are some tips to reduce downloads, if you are using an limited connection.

• Install a good antivirus and spyware.
• Visit only those websites you really need to.
• Don’t visit any link shared by anyone.
• Don’t visit social networking websites, YouTube, Flickr, Porn websites etc.
• Disable images in Firefox.
• Don’t use IE.
• Fuck all the tips above (excluding the one just above it) and get an ulimited connection.

Where Impatience is the New Life (love that Airtel ad) why should we stick to those limited plans?

Image credit: Fickr – Kapungo – Suck It and See

You stamp your personality on events, says Ganesha. You hold centre-stage and have an imposing, arresting and authoritative presence. You could be a most highly inspiring leader, smiles Ganesha. You have a regal bearing, with a high level of self-confidence and like to be in the limelight. Your forthrightness, integrity and childlike honesty would endear you to everyone. Being highly courageous you could achieve greater success if you take people into confidence and consider their viewpoints too, before embarking on a course of action, advises Ganesha. You are highly enthusiastic which could be contagious. You possess a sunny bright, cheerful, positive and optimistic disposition. You are dramatic in your ways and have lofty motives and ideals. At times, you must sit back and relax and let others have a share of the limelight, too. Ganesha is proud that you are thoroughbred professionals!

I have to just replace ‘you’ with ‘I’. And it’ll be good ‘About me’. Do you hesitate to write about me? Do you write something like “I will tell u another day…..ok !” or “i m a kool guy.i like making new frnds.” or “I am very friendly in nature.” or “Aapni badai khud karna theek nahi … ” or “need to ask my friends…khud ki tarif khud karne ki aadat nai hain….” or “Realise the dreams and strive hard to achieve it !” or “M very friendly and loving” or “cant finish ma bibliography in such a small space…he he” or “ask my friends and people. They will tell you better.” or “** Lets c what u can explore **” ……….. oh my god (let’s say OMG in Rab ne bana di jodi style) ohhhh… mmmmy… ggggoddd… I will find so many such one liner about me. This does not mean that they don’t know about themselves, if you talk to them, they may speak a lot about them, but when it comes to type, they becomes too lazy. It might be a good idea to create an applications who writes “About Me” for you. You just copy and paste that. But that applications may take much time to come. (If I am creating this, then please wait till 23 Sep, 2011, my Shani Maha Dasha ends and Budh Maha Dasha starts.). So why wait for long, take your horoscope prediction and just replace ‘You’ with ‘I’.

The above funny one liner “about me” are taken from original Orkut profiles. Want to know who are they? No, I will not tell, but you can surely search for them. Well, I have to comment on those one liners. Let me write those below.

“I will tell u another day…..ok !” – That day never will come.

“i m a kool guy.i like making new frnds.” – Everyone on Orkut is kool and all most everyone want to make new frnds, right?

“I am very friendly in nature.” – This is the most common one. Search for this and you will find plenty such results. If you found a girl who has given photo of a beautiful south Indian actor like Tammana or a beautiful unknown girl which you may find in more profile, just send a friendly friend request. You might not get accepted! And in case you are accepted, nothing to going to happen.

“Aapni badai khud karna theek nahi … ” – Just ask her to speak up. She may never stop doing her own badai. But types badai here. I will type scraps, can’t type badai “about me”. (For the people who don’t know Hindi: Badai means Praise. “Aapni badai khud karna theek nahi” means “It’s not good to praise yourself”.

“need to ask my friends…khud ki tarif khud karne ki aadat nai hain….” – You know that writing “About me” is “Khud ki tarif”. But you think you should as your friends to do your tarif. (For the people who don’t know Hindi: Tarif, Badai are similar words, means Praise)

“M very friendly and loving” – A new flavor of the most common one liner.

“cant finish ma bibliography in such a small space…he he” – You can’t type 100 characters, but say 2048 (even more) characters are less for you to type about you. Stop showing your tooth now! Another variant “Hmmmm where do I start …..there’s so much to know & so little space to write”

“ask my friends and people. They will tell you better.” – Yes, I will ask your friends and they will tell to communicate me be my friend first, to be my friend know me first and to know me ask my friends! This chain is never going to stop like the spam emails from Thirupathi.

“** Lets c what u can explore **” – I may explore your scraps, albums, but those are protected. To explore those I need to be your friend. And I need to know before explore you. Don’t worry no one can explore you.

“my friends know me ….” – My friends even know me. The person who is reading this, her/his friends also know her/him.

And some more one liners “About Me”, on which I can’t comment (don’t have patience now):
“simple but highly ambitious” “a mystery…. even to myself” “let u know… once i find myself….” “am coooooolllll” “I believe in simple living n high thinking……….!” “Not interested in adding strangers.So if u dont know me,dont send me friend request plz.” “its secret……” ………………………………. there are too much. If you want to add some comment below.

Image credit: Fickr – Cayetano – Bath Museum

After seeing Threadless and those tshirts anyone will love to have one or all (any number between one and all is also welcome).  So did I. I wanted to buy one form them. Then I started converting dollars to Indian Rupees to know how much a tee will cost. Normally all Threadless tees cost $18 and those are on sales cost $12 (Now, when I am writing this, there is a holiday sale, when all tees cost $10). If you leave in India, then the normal shipping costs $9 (This will deliver your tee in 1-3 weeks, if you need it in 5-10 business days, then it will cost you $13). So in total, $18 for tee and $9 for shipping comes to $27. And in INR, it’s around Rs 1300. Tell me what can you buy in Rs 1300 in India? One or two branded shirt or jeans or trousers or two or three tshirts (depending upon the brand and the sale, if any). Tell me what will you buy in Rs 1300 in the comment form below. Then I dropped the idea of buying a Threadless tee.

I stopped buying a Theadless tee, but I wanted to know how can I get these in a reasonable price in India. At that time I knew two or three of the services which was printing photos on tshirts. After some browsing I came to know some other services, with some tshirts available for sale, take your customized print order, have bulk order option etc. But not a single service did touch my heart yet. Not only the tshirt, they also print your designs on teddy, key chain, mouse pad etc. Still they don’t have the attraction which will make me to spend some money on them.

Then the business idea came to my mind. In India, you will definitely get more customers as compared to US. Yes, we have so much population, and due to this huge population we are loosing many things, then why should not we get some profit from it? If you will have a beautiful website with awesome designs and a reasonable price then you will definitely need to reprint to keep your stock to fulfill the demand of the public. To keep price low and the quality of the tshirt high, you need to be placed near to a place where you can get tshirts (raw material, you say) at a cheaper price and the shipping for raw material will be low. For example Tirupur in Tamil Nadu. You need to also invest some good amount of money on the designs. Remember, Threadless spends $1.5 millions per year on the designs. And of course, promotion and good customer support is a must.

I am unable to grab this business due to my location on the globe. That’s why I shared my idea here. You can grab the idea and build a great business, if you execute the idea well. I do believe that all Idea are stupid unless they are executed well. And a well executed simple idea will be considered as a great idea. So if you are executing my idea and need more help, please email me: feedback [at] debiprasad.net. I have many other tips on this idea, which will bring you success. I also can help you building a good website, something like Threadless, for your business.

I was thinking to write more, but to write about seven hundred words took me around 2 hours. One dayI will write about available tshirt online shops in India. I have some other business idea, which I am unable to execute. I will share those under this category:  Entrepreneur. If you want to share any one your idea, you are welcome. Also, let me know what do you think on this. Wish you a great new year, 2010.

I know how to cook, I can cook most of the known dishes, but it’s always difficult for me to prepare Roti and Dosha. There are many ways to cook a particular dish. Some came with little change and name the new dish a new wired name. My preparation method might be different from others, so I added my style in the title. You must be thinking why Mutton Curry, and the reason is that most people might like this. Read further to know what’s my style of preparing mutton curry.

Before cooking you need:

• Mutton 500 gram
• Onion 200 gram
• Garlic paste 50 gram
• Ginger paste 25 gram
• Oil 100 ml (I prefer to have mustard oil for better taste, but you can use any refined oil as you prefer)
• Chill powder 2 small spoons (Use less or more as per your taste)
• Turmeric powder 1 tea spoon
• Green cardamom 5 gram
• Cinnamon 5 gram
• Salt according to your taste
• Potatoes (optional, if you like to)
• A spoon of chopped Coriander leaves or one small spoon Fenugreek Leaves (Kasoori methi)
• 1.5 spoon of cumin

Clean mutton and keep aside. Chop onions. Make paste of ginger, garlic, cardamom, cinnamon and a spoon of cumin.If you want to use potatoes, then peel it. If the size of the potatoes are small, then make two pieces else for bigger ones make four pieces.

Now start cooking…

Take a pressure cooker and heat it on full flame. Put oil in the cooker wait until it heats up. Then put a pinch of cumin and after cumin cracks add chopped onions. Fry on high flame until it gets golden brown. Add salt according to your taste while frying onions. This makes onion to be fried quicker. Then slow down the flame and add chili powder. Mix it with the fried onion, then add ginger, garlic, cardamom, cinnamon and cumin paste. Add turmeric powder. Now raise the flame to high and fry the masala till you see it leaving oils or you have a good smell. Careful, don’t burn it, also see whether it’s not sticking to the base of the cooker. If you fry it continuously, then it’ll not stick. Add chopped Coriander leaves or Fenugreek Leaves, fry for one minute.

Now add mutton to it and fry it. Do it for 5 minutes then slow down the flame and cover the lid of cooker on it, but don’t close it. Leave for 5 minutes. If you want to add potatoes then add potatoes. Mix it with mutton and the masala. Now add water. If you want thick gravy then add less water else more.

Remember you have added salt before as per the amount of water. Also using potatoes need more salt than without potatoes. If you are not sure about the amount of salt, then add less salt. At this point after adding water you can mix it and taste the gravy. This may taste little less salty now, but after you complete preparation it’ll taste perfect. If you feel the amount of salt is very less, add little now.

Now close the lid of the cooker and raise the flame to high. Wait for the first whistle. When it blows slow the the flame to low and wait for two more whistles. If your water is hard, then wait for another whistle on low flame. Now put off the stove and wait for the cooker to be cooled down. When it’ll be cooled down, there will not be any pressure in the cooker. Now open and serve hot. You can enjoy this with Rice, any other delicious rice item like fried rice, pulao etc., or roti etc.

If you cook and the result comes good then I might not be there to taste it, but you can have a good comment here. You can also send me a photo or video to feedback [at] debiprasad.net. If if the result is bad or you didn’t like it, scold me on the comment form. If you have any tips or recipes to share with me comment or email me.

Image credit: Fickr – kevindooley – Kitchen kitsch

Today Pratiksha made me remembering Hum Tum cartoons. As she was listening to Ladki Kyun song of movie Hum Tum, she told more about boys (Hum) and girls (Tum) and their … . See all the cartoons of Hum Tum …

The cartoons used in this movie Hum Tum is made by Kathaa Animations. All images used here are copyright of YRF films and on there server. I have hotlinked those here.

When I posted this (on my old blog), my intention was to give all the Hum Tum cartoons at one place. This film was released in 2004 and this is 2008. But Hum Tum cartoons has not lost its popularity. I am still able to get visitors to this blog for Hum Tum cartoons. Thanks to Yash Raj Films to make a great film and great cartoons and hosting them in their servers.

Enjoy and give your comments!

Image credit: Fickr – Jason Pratt – Boy and Girl Hummel Figurines

Vande Utkala Janani by Various Artists

Author: Kanta Kabi Laxmikanta Mohapatra

Music: Bikas Das & Ratikant Satpathy

Artists: Trupti Das, Pranab Pattnaik, Prafulla Kar, Subas Das, Tansen Singh, Geeta Pattnaik, Ratikant Satpathy, Bikas Das and Tapu Mishra

Visual Director: Ranjan Satpathy

I found that many people want to download this video. Download here in High Quality.

You should download the lyric and the meaning in English here.

Yesterday I came to know about Retweet feature on the web version of Twitter. I use twhirl (a light weight Adobe Air twitter client), so I opened twitter on my browser and did not notice this feature. Today when I saw one message on Facebook from SitePoint, I again checked it back. I welcomed with a banner which notified me that I am a part of beta group to use this feature and explained how to use this in a short illustration.

This feature is different from the regular RT feature we used to use. Before introducing this feature, we used to add “RT personyouretweet: ” before the post we want to RT and post it. Here the person whom you RT will also got this status as a reply. In most of the twitter clients, RTing is much easier, just click on an icon and it will add “RT personyouretweet: ” before the post, then you just send it. When I used to RT from web, then I used to copy the message, put on the text area, add “RT personIretweet: ” before that message and hit send. Now, from the web interface, when you click on the Retweet button on any post, it’ll appear on the home page of the people who follow you as from the person who you retweet.

You might see tweets from unknowns (the person whom you don’t follow) on your home page. Before it annoy you for the first time, twitter will display a message as in the image displayed before. I like this part of the welcome. These are the posts retweeted by someone you follow. It’ll also show who (you follow) and how many other people (you don’t follow) retweeted this. You will not see RT or @personyouretweeted in the message, hence saving space. Count this an advantage. You will save some characters, so you never has to trim the original message. A small disadvantage is that you can not add your own comment on it (for example, Wow!!! I like it RT @someone…).

You can also stop receiving these retweets from anyone you follow by using this simple settings. If someone tweets good but retweets bad, then you can disable receiving retweets from that particular user.

At the right hand side of twitter web home page, you can see one link called “Retweets”. On that page you can see what are the Retweets by people you follow (and who else retweeted that), what are the retweets you made, and your tweets retweeted. If you retweeted something by mistake, there is a undo button too.

The power of twitter is it’s API. You can access twitter in thousands of ways. But with these new features most of the twitter clients becomes outdated and need to be add these features soon. These features will create some new awesome applications. Now just wait and see the good time.

Update – 22nd Nov., 2009

When twitter does not use graphics to show a retweet on your homepage, it displays retweet in the old way. They also said this when they informed about this beta feature, that the people who don’t have this new feature will see the retweeted tweets in the old way, i.e. prefaced with RT. I guess this feature is out of beta now. If your latest post is a retweet, then you can see it below the text area in the old way. When someone implements this feature in their application, they can use this old concept with the new style to make it much better or simply simple.

Update

I see TweetDeck applied this new retweet feature in it. You can retweet in both ways – old and new. And you can set one way as default in the settings. You can set TweetDeck to ask you which way to use too.

Image credit: Fickr – petesimon – Twitter