Gadget# 2 uploaded today

I uploaded my second Google Personalized Gadget to Google's content directory today. Its a personalized news feed. You will be able to have real-time updates of the type of news you selected on your Google personalized page. If you prefer to search the news content with specific keyword(s), you will be presented with the news related to that keyword. You can also adjust the rate at which the news should get refreshed. I hope you take advantage of it.

My Stock Gadget on Google Personalized Homepage

I have been observing the robustness of the Google Personalized Homepage and the ability to add/delete/drag/drop gadgets on your personalized homepage and it was fascinating. That, I felt is going to be the next generation of Web. Well, Google, as different as always, allows users to write their own gadgets to be added to this page. I started writing my own little gadget that displays the change in stock prices on US Stock Markets and finally, today is the day I submitted it to Google's content directory but you can click on the following link to add it to your personalized homepage to try it out. It has very little features but it definitely doesn't hurt to take a look.. :)

Spam email sent out

A few days ago, there was a ton of emails sent out by spammers - all those emails appear to come from an unknown email address with my domainname - stocknews9271@udaysasi.com or something like that. Most of those emails got blocked by the addressees anti-spam softwares and got bounced back. Since that email doesnt actually exist, they ended up in my Inbox as I have activated "Catch All" feature in Yahoo Domains. (From Yahoo Domains site : With the "catch-all" feature, any messages sent to an address at your domain name that does not exist will be redirected to your Yahoo! Mail account). Thus my Inbox got flooded with over 1000 emails per day for 2 days until I realised I can turn off that feature. If someone is checking this website with regards to those emails, I am glad I blogged this.. Looks like there is no place to hide from spammers.

Pepboys sucks

Just to vent out all of my frustration in a couple of words - "Pepboys sucks". I have been going to Pepboys for all my car repairs for the past 3 years. Recently I took my car to their garage to report a problem that there is a lot of noise while turning, and even more while making a U-turn. I got a call from them saying that the axle has gone bad and needs replacement. I was 450 dollars poorer by the time I got my car back. But, guess what? The problem still remains. I take my car there the very next day to report that and the guy over there says that it "could be" the PowerSteering pump and gave an estimate of 300 bucks for replacement. I really did not like his confidence and his tone and walked away. I am no car expert by any means, but I just wanted to checkout the car by opening the hood myself and I realised the powersteering fluid tank is empty, literally bone dry. The issue was that there was a leak in that and the fluid drained away, hence the noise while turning. All I had to do was buy a quart of Powersteering fluid with anti-leak and it solved my problem, atleast for now.. It was less than 10 bucks. Thw worst part of this was that I had done an oil change 10 days earlier at Pepboys and they did not check any of the fluids, though they claim to do so for every oil change.

I was so amazed to see how a publicly traded company(on New York Stock Exchange) like Pepboys could have so unexperienced mechanics who cant relate the problem to the correct part. Well, as far as I am concerned, I am never going there and I would never re commend it to anyone.

Dream turns into reality

Did it ever happen to you where you dream of something, something that you haven't seen before or does not exist and suddenly one day you get the privilege to see it in reality. Today, I came across some experiment conducted by a bunch of researchers in UK regarding capturing the electromagnetic space images on camera. They call it a Wi-Fi camera, which is an appropriate name. I always fantasised myself looking at the electromagnetic and radio waves that are produced by all the wireless networks and cellfone networks around us. 3D real-time Network maps do not seem to be fiction anymore and that day is not far..
Wifi camera

Rajampet takes a place on the Internet

Rajampet, a small town in the southern part of Andhra Pradesh, India is where I grew up and spent pretty much all of my childhood. Finally, I could make my place appear on the Internet last week. I registered the domain name rajampet.com and added some very basic content to it to get started. It features some details about where the place is, what is it known for, why I created the page etc.. Oh.. the latest addition to the webpage is a guestbook. This way I would want to come across the people from Rajampet, who are actually residing in different parts of the world. I am planning to add some pictures on the site after a few months (Well, I need to go to India to get some) :)

Painful Deceptions - Other side of the coin

I was one of the millions of people who shared the same opinion about what happened on the Sept 11th to the United States, as I witnessed the two towers on fire from Newark, NJ on my way to skool. I was not touched by any criticism on the Bush Administration until I came across this video. I am an Engineer and I obviously believe in Science, as I feel Science is the only thing that can logically explain many mysteries in the world. Take a look at this video if you have an hour and half on your hands. Very thought provoking and extremely logical to look at the 9/11 attacks from a different view. Do I believe what the author has to say? Time will prove(or may be not)..

Painful Deceptions - Google Video