Net Stuff

Apr 8 2013

Facebook vs Twitter

Do you feel like you “get” social media, or do you just use it because that’s where all your friends and family are?

I think every is on Facebook/Twitter and other such sites (I’m gonna use these two as the main talking points since they are the most popular) for a few similar reasons. Beyond the main reason – in that it’s where everyone is and it’s an easy way to keep in touch and communicated some ideas, thoughts, announcements, videos & photographs. Facebook has shown it to be easy to make a lot of new friends and reconnect with old ones that you had previously lost touch with. And ofcourse lose a few and make a few more enemies along the way! That’s a given.

But I think it’s also a way to reach out to like minded individuals, form communities, share important messages and conducts meetings. I’m not just there to share jokes and videos. There are people on it who just want to say hi to all their friends, wish them good morning/good afternoon/good evening/good night and happy weekend and share pics of babies, animals & flowers and goodies. I hate it when guys over here have their new picture taken, post them and then tag all the girls in their friends list. What the fuck is that all about? Ofcourse they should be able to do that if that’s what they want but have some substance in your posts atleast once in a while. I’d post food, animals & the occasional cute baby in a funny costume pic as well but there is a lot of other stuff that I write about and post pics/videos about.

And ofcourse since I am an atheist it’s even more annoying when some people continuously posts the ‘i am nothing without god’, ‘throw yourself at the feet of god’ type posts all day and nothing not one one valuable thing to contribute. How un-uplifting is that? god is great and we are shit! Bunch of morons. I can understand the few posts here and there but come on grow a pair of balls and get on with your one and only life. And my last rant is those Facebookers who only posts images of things that they like but don’t say anything at all. I mean no words, no comments just image after image after image.

Atleast Twitter is different. No one remains on Twitter unless they have some stuff to say. And it’s always interesting. Some people may start an account at first but soon lose interest when they can’t come up with stuff to say or share.

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By Roshan • Net Stuff, Photos, Ramblings • 1

Feb 9 2013

My 500th Facebook Friend Gift Giveaway

500th friend give away. I’m at 499 friends on Facebook at the moment. Never thought I’d get that many. So I’m going to give away a gift.

The 500th friend request that I receive and approve (no duplicates please) will get a little gift from me. Whoever it may be (unless it’s someone I already know and do not like the person at all). Ofcourse you will have to send me your address so I can mail it to you. Who will it be?

Update: I went through my Facebook friends list and found 20 dead accounts in it and deleted / de-friended them. No need for that shit. And I’ve only gained one friend since then. The search for the winner is still on.

By Roshan • Friends, Net Stuff • 0

Feb 1 2013

Website Server Space Locked For Another Year

My URL having been paid & locked up for one year in November, it was now time for the server space that I use to store the files of this blog. The payment due date being today, I was sent the invoice a few days ago.

Well I just made the payment via credit card for $44 USD which secures my web server space for the next 365 days. That comes to around Rs. 2330. Not bad for a year. I was thinking about paying for a couple of years in a row but I think I might want to change the package I have with them and expand a bit in a year. We’ll see, I have some plans for this website – the blog will stay the same but I might do a few more things along with it. And I will need more webspace for the same.

Anyway rest assured regular readers, the blog will go on as usual. You can expect me to blog on a daily basis for the next year atleast, provided I don’t die or something equally horrendous happens to me.

By Roshan • Blogs, Net Stuff, Personal, Tech Stuff • 3

Jan 1 2013

Rated R Superstar Blogger

Created by OnePlusYou – Free Online Dating

Hahahaha. They are basing it on the last few posts that have these words

murder (7x)
corpse (3x)
bomb (2x)
missionary (1x)

Sheesh, will isn’t that quite simple enough. So kids stay away from uncle Roshan’s blog or bring an adult with ya!

By Roshan • Blogs, Net Stuff • 3

Dec 29 2012

My Facebook Friends

To make your own click here! Here is my friends list – Indians, Canadians, Americans, a few Brits and a handfdul of assorted Europeans!

By Roshan • Images, Net Stuff • 0

Nov 29 2012

Rejected Bond Titles Twitter Hastag

I was having a little fun today joining in on the hashtag fun for Rejected Bond movie titles. Here are ones I came up with so far!

From Russia with Mail Order Brides and vodka
Dr. Perhaps if you says please with sugar on top
You only live once but a near death experience can make it seem like it’s two lives
Octomom
The Spy who Cuddled with me
On her Majesty’s Wifi Service
A View To Akhil
Diet Another Day
Dye Another Day, I don’t Have Any Grey Yet!

By Roshan • Movies, Net Stuff • 1

Nov 10 2012

URL Registered For 2013

I have some hopes for my blog, humble as it is. I’ve been blogging since 2002, althought it was sporadic till early 2005. Mainly due to the fact that I didn’t own a computer and internet connection at home. So I would go to an internet cafe 3 times a week and spend a few hours each time in blogging and reading blogs and surfing the net. I created an account with bloggers and got a blogspot blog up and running while living in Calicut. At the time it was mainly to keep a record of my life in Calicut and as such I focussed a bit more on that but soon it became a general life blog. But it became a huge mess and in October of 2005, I stopped using that blog and moved to a new blogspot account in countroshculla.blogspot.in.

With the new blog I was not only more frequent but I developed my style and content to make it more about not just stuff that happened to me, movies/tv/music reviews but also about my thoughts, feelings and ideas – which was missing in the old blog. Dare I say that I had a purpose in blogging now, expressing myself in the best way that I know how to. This continued on in 2006 until the 1st of January, 2011 when I setup this website & blog. And you can go through the archives to see how it has gone on since that time.I had booked my URL from Canoetech and for my webserver space, I chose Total Choice Hosting – both recommended to me by my cousin. The first is run by his college friend and the second was a client of his then employers and now he works for them directly.

So, as for the URL, November 14 is the last date to renew it as I had registered it in November of 2006. At Rs.500 for a year I should be renewing it for a few years at a stretch but I purposely do it only for a year – just to keep in touch with the owner and see if I get some offers once in a while. Anyways, today I renewed the URL for another year – besides it would be prudent to see if the world ends on December 21 of this year or not.

By Roshan • Blogs, Net Stuff • 4

Oct 18 2012

My Social Network

It has improved some relationships and it has not helped in a few. The best thing to look at it is that you can get to meet & become friends with like minded individuals either in your own locality, country or anywhere around the world. You can share ideas about things that make you laugh, cry, nostalgic, angry and what sets you thinking. Heck you can share things that make you horny! You also like funny pics of cats & dogs? So do I !

Ofcourse when you share your views online on Twitter or Facebook, you also run the risk of hurting the pride, political or religious views of some of the people you connect online with. They might even be people you know in real life and you might even see them quite frequently face to face. When something you said or posted or even reposted offends their juvenile sensitive feelings, then there might be a clash of egos. And you must be prepared for that. It can leads to arguments, both online and when you meet face to face next. You will also find out who you’re real friends are, which people are real dumbos and numbnuts who believe in any fairytale that they have been fed from childhood and the idiots! Sometimes you find it odd that people who you thought were of a different mindset actually share a bunch of common ideas as you. And you will be surprised with the answers and inputs they come up with.

Overall I think it’s good as you find out the truth behind those facades that people normally put. Often I find that people’s true nature comes out in the things that he/she reads, shares, likes and ofcourse comments. Their prejudices, hates and fears can come out in shining bright light and it’s there for all to see. Be prepared to stand up for your thoughts and ideas. And defend them if you believe in them. Otherwise it’s a lot of sharing the same pics and stupid messages, over & over again!

By Roshan • Net Stuff • 0

Oct 14 2012

Bye, Plinky!

What the fuck? No. Why? Why is this happening? Where will I get my prompts now?

After 384 answers on Plinky, it looks like I’m losing the blogging prompt service that started in November of 2008. This is terrible news. I’ve relied on Plinky to set my brain cells working and get some blog posts running on my website. A simple question that will get me thinking and bring forth a life experience, an event, a viewpoint or something I had even forgotten from my childhood – Plinky was a simple awesome little thing that helped me maintain my nearly daily posts on this blog from 2009 onwards.

I just loved this website and often visited it unless I already had a post idea or two brewing in my mind or wanted to post about something that happened that day. I’m gonna miss them.

Update : Apparently, it was just a question or a blog prompt submitted by one of the regular contributors. So they are not going away. Yay!

By Roshan • Blogs, Net Stuff • 3

Oct 6 2012

My Time Online

Hmmm, let’s taken an average day, a day that I do not have to go to work and am completely free. And let’s say that I am at home for that day. I will be online all the time. I might be downloading some tv series or a movie or I might be actually sitting at my laptop and browsing, blogging, reading other blogs, commenting, spending time on Youtube, Twitter, Facebook etc. No matter what it is always on. When I go to sleep or I’m watching a movie on the lappy, the connection is still on and downloading some files for music or movies/tv.

On a work day, I wake up at 7am, get my morning cup of coffee and immediately go online to listen to some clips and check Facebook & Twitter. I take a shower, shave and then switch the notebook off and go to work. I check my mail, Tweets and Facebook replies on my BlackBerry from time to time while at work and on the bus to and fro. Once I get back home, it’s straight to the laptop and connecting to the internet as soon as I get to my room. Yes even before I change my clothes to something more comfortable.

So do you think that is too much? Me, I think I need more time online

By Roshan • Net Stuff, Personal • 1

Oct 3 2012

Tweet, Tweet!

Twitter is never a time waster. Nothing in social networking or the internet for that matter is a time waster if you know what you are doing. It’s the people who waste their time if they do not know what they want or are looking for in Twitter. Someone who, say, whose idea of social networking is just Orkut, as a lot of people I know have, then Twitter will not work for them. Twitter is not Orkut and is miles ahead in usefulness. And to tell you the truth, Orkut is so fucking cheesy!

Ok, so only 140 characters, no problem? It still is great. Compared to that Orkut is still being used almost like a chat program by many of my fellow Indians. “Hi how r u?” reply “I’m doing great, how about you?” reply “missing you”! That’s not what it’s supposed to be. Posts after posts after posts of the same old crap until I finally cancelled my Orkut account. Never do I want to use that shit again! And all those glitter-art gifs and logos and nonsense – Orkut is so yuck! And that’s because people used it in a stupid way and the site itself is so dumb!

And although Facebook is the one you have to compare it to, Twitter is miles ahead and those who don’t use it will never be able to understand the fun that a lot of us who do use it have. It’s great for sharing links, images and thoughts. And ideas! Everything you can think of – so what if you have a 140 character limit, use more than one tweet to send your message across to your followers. Plus it’s a great way for someone famous to keep in touch with their fans and pass along information and converse with them. So use Twitter and chuck out Orkut! That’s all!!

By Roshan • Net Stuff, Ramblings • 6

Aug 20 2012

Which Scifi Character Are you?

John Sheridan

An experienced survivor who has maneuvered around many obstacles, you are looked up to by those who rely on your good judgment.

In the last few years, we’ve stumbled. We stumbled at the death of the president, the war, and on and on. When you stumble a lot you tend to look at your feet. Now we have to make people lift their eyes back to the horizon and see the line of ancestors behind us saying, “Make my life have meaning,” and to our inheritors before us saying, “create the world we will live in.”

John is a character in the Babylon 5 universe. You can read his biography at the Worlds of JMS fansite.

By Roshan • Cool Stuff, Net Stuff, Sci Fi • 0

Jul 1 2012

What Kind Of Canadian Are You?

Although I have never been to Canada I have a love affair with the country. I love almost everything about Canada and everything Canadian. So on this Canada Day, I took the rather unscientific Canada Day Quiz by the Globe and Mail and apparently I am most like a Prairie dweller.

My team in the NHL is the Ottawa Senators and I would have thought I would be more like an Ontarian, since I know more people & am aware of more Ontario things. Oh well Corner Gas it is, whoo! Bring on the Prairies!

Enjoy your Canada Day Canadians!

By Roshan • Net Stuff • 2

Jun 29 2012

Was It A Malware?

Had a close scare this evening. Around 6pm I was sitting at my laptop just chatting away and for no reason in particular I wanted to check on some old WordPress themes that I had installed. Now I have no intention of straying away from this particular theme unless I find another one with similar settings. I really like this one but was just checking on some old themes for fun. I tried the previews of a couple and then saw one called ‘Varg’ which I didn’t recognize as having installed it earlier. Instead of clicking on ‘preview theme’ I clicked on ‘activate’ by mistake and when I refreshed my blog, it showed just blank – some error! Oops, I went back to the admin page for Themes in WordPress and deleted that particular theme. That should have sorted things out.

But it didn’t. Some kind of malware I guess; Varg took all my WordPress theme, including the default ones that comes bundled with WordPress! WTF? I panicked a bit and logged off from my admin page and then logged back in. Still the same and I’m unable to access the blog. Oh boy! I used my FTP software and deleted whatever files were there in the themes section of my WordPress. Post that I transferred a couple of themes, including this current one that I have been using for 8 months now. And things were working once again. I contacted the technical help of my website server space provider and asked them to check and see if there was a Malware still remaining. A quick check later he reported that it was clean and to keep my passwords fresh and update all my software in the website.

Yes I shall do that. Then I went about re-activating all the widgets that you see on the sidebar since they got deactivated when the theme got cancelled. But I could get them back in a few minutes. Whew! Close one!

By Roshan • Blogs, Net Stuff, Tech Stuff • 1

May 26 2012

Anonymous Hits Facebook Page

When I tried entered Facebook’s URL into my browser this morning, here is what I saw. I had to refresh the page before I could access my Facebook account.

By Roshan • India, Net Stuff • 2

May 19 2012

Goodbye Tata Indicom; Hello Reliance

I finally did it. After months of threatening to do it I finally have taken up a new broadband connection with Reliance and have sent a cancellation request of my 5 year+ Tata Indicom connection. I have just had enough of their really bad services and frequent disconnections and delay in getting problems fixed, their pathetic technical staff’s incompetent resolutions, bad customer care services and pathetic response via emails. I have had so much trouble with those half-wits that I have had enough.

Two cable disconnections ago I told the tech guys who called me up that “you know that there is a problem with frequent cable being ripped from the post because the trucks carrying goods are rather careless and they don’t bother to check and see what damage they are causing. If that is the case you need to change the post or make it higher or do something. I can’t have frequent disconnections and then wait for 3 to 4 days while you get a new cable and fix the problem.” The next time it happened, late last month it took 4 days for them to show up and fix the issue. I kept calling the helpline and hassling supervisors and only then did it get fixed. I made them waive of some of the monthly rent as well as I had a total of 7 days downtime. But I had decided that enough was enough, customer loyalty my ass!! I wanted to check out various other providers.

I chose Reliance because 1) people nearby who have their connection have no issues and 2) they have a better plan with faster speed and at lower rates than what I am currently using with Tata! It’s a no-brainer. I applied for one and they fixed it up today. Hallelujah! I can’t wait for tonight to check the faster speeds I get past 10pm! So good bye Tata! Hello Reliance!

By Roshan • Cochin, Net Stuff • 3

Apr 28 2012

Disconnected – Yet Again

This month seems like disconnection month for me as far as internet and Tata broadband are concerned. I’ve been disconnected so frequently now it’s getting ridiculous. The problem they say is due to huge lorries and trucks pulling the cable out when driving by a block away from here and that’s why the internet goes out for me and a few other people in my area. If this is the truth, I can understand it’s not their fault that my service is getting disrupted. But Tata’s response is totally their responsibility.

I called them up in the afternoon when I noticed that the connection was down and had a complaint registered. Their tech team here called up to find the status of lights on my modem. I informed them of the same and they said “Ok, let us check and call you back.” I’m waiting and waiting and finally at 7pm I lost my patience. I called the call center again and find that my complaint is in progress. Which means that since tomorrow is a Sunday, they will only fix it on Monday. This has happened once too often.

Enough is enough, I have decided to cancel the connection and move to either Airtel or Reliance.

By Roshan • Cochin, Net Stuff • 3

Apr 22 2012

Indian Demo-Crazy : Free Speech Be Damned!

The Indian Government could force a number of websites like Google, it’s video sharing service Youtube & social networks sites like Facebook & Twitter to introduce local servers in India, as the country’s government seeks to better regulate ‘objectionable content’ on the Internet. Now for those of you who proudly declare India to be the world’s largest democracy – take a moment to let that sink in. Then hang your head in shame!

According to a report from Hindustan Times, “the option is already in process” with India’s union law ministry, which is looking into a solution that would see the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Google and YouTube asked to set up servers to handle content from the country’s Web space. High level politicians have raised the issue of removing ‘objectionable & offending content’ from these sites. Home secretary RK Singh is said to have suggested that the US develop a system to catch unsuitable Web content instantly, or within a specific period of time, to help cut down on “mala fide” postings. While such a request seems optimistic, Singh told Lute that, if the US is unable to address the issue of managing content itself, India could require the Web firms to comply with the server request. However, the US politician’s responses are not known, at this stage.

I have a suggestion – the so called ‘objectionable content’ is often related to politics & religion, two strange bedfellows. Perhaps the politicians and religious fucktards could clean up their act and not provide us with the aforementioned content which is what we sometimes share across these social networking sites!!