Features & Use

There is definitely no shortage of organizers and task managers for Android users. The problem is finding one that is quick, efficient, simple and easy-to-use. Today users expect a certain number of basic key features from their task managing apps: instant synchronization, a complementary web client and multiple sharing capabilities. Wunderlist manages to offer all of the above and more.

When you start up Wunderlist, you’ll be asked to create a Wunderlist account by providing an email address and password. Although it is possible to use Wunderlist without an account, you will not be able to save and synchronize your tasks across multiple devices and computers. After the quick and painless registration procedure (shouldn’t take you more than 2 seconds), you start off with just one task list called Inbox. In your Inbox you’ll find six preset default tasks that explain the basics of how to use Wunderlist as a task manager under the Tutorial section.

In Wunderlist, you can create customized lists with specific tasks. Tapping on each list opens up a screen where you can add as many tasks as you please. While adding tasks is a breeze, you’ll have to edit each task in order to add a reminder or date. By default each task is added without either of those things. Speaking of reminders, Wunderlist can remind you of things on your to-do list by sending you an email. You can set the specific time and date when to receive a reminder about a specific task. There is no integrating task alarm as is the case with other task managers. Personally, I actually like the fact that my phone doesn’t ring every 10 minutes to notify me about things I need to do. Emails are, in my opinion, both discreet and effective.

Each one of your tasks can be prioritized by tapping the star symbol. All your most important tasks are then displayed under the Starred tab.

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Key Features:

  • Wunderlist is completely free for every device
  • Cloud syncing your task to other devices
  • Email reminders
  • Organize Sort your tasks into lists
  • Due Dates Assign deadlines
  • Focus View
  • Adding Notes for every task
  • Prioritize Star important tasks
  • Personalization Background wallpapers

Wunderlist Web Client
In addition to the user-friendly app, there is also a Wunderlist web client that uses cloud technology to synch and backup all of your lists and tasks. The web client is basically a carbon copy of the app albeit with a couple of small additions. For those of you used to carrying a hard copy of your to-do lists and tasks, Wunderlist allows you to print out your lists on your computer. Sharing your lists with others can only be set up through the web client. You can either invite your friends and coworkers to join Wunderlist or generate a secret URL that can be shared with non-Wunderlist users. Just click on the small cloud icon at the top right of the page to see the URL.

Bottom Line:
Everything is very simple and easy-to-use without any unnecessary layers of extra features. The synchronization works perfectly and allows for cross-platform integration. All your tasks can be accessed from any smartphone, tablet or computer – regardless of the operating system(Except Linux). This is definitely a big plus for the average office worker with multiple devices both at work and at home. Although generally a solid app, I wish Wunderlist would include status bar notifications in addition to email reminders.  Hopefully, we’ll see new and useful features in the upcoming updated versions.

Screen & Controls

In terms of style and appearance, Wunderlist does a pretty good job. You can select among several different background pictures – all of them are well-designed. When compared to the web client, the app version of Wunderlist seems rather bland. All the tasteful graphic design that was put into the web version appears to be missing from the Wunderlist app. If you’ve developed a good look for the website, why not transpose it to the app?

The basic layout is pretty straightforward and is made up of six medium-sized tabs. You’ll have to tap the Menu button for adding and deleting tasks. Although the app is generally responsive, there was a small glitch with checking off tasks on your lists. Tapping the checkmark next to each task doesn’t always mark off that specific task and opening the edit screen instead. A bit frustrating, but not a big deal on phones with bigger screens.

Speed & Stability

A stable and reliable app that syncs all the tasks instantly. Wunderlist opens immediately and doesn’t take any time to load – a must for quickly adding items to your list.

 

Eagerly awaiting the launch of Wunderkit, a new software from the Wunderlist Team.

How many times were you frustrated when you see were playing a game or watching a video when the program suddenly crashes? How annoying is it when your computer takes an eternity to boot. There seems to be light at the end of the tunnel,  thanks to the team at Soluto for developing a great piece of software that too for FREE.

Soluto is a great piece of freeware for optimizing Windows performance, not just for speeding up boot times.This piece of software is suitable for anyone, from computer novices to experts.No matter how good you are at using a computer, this anti-frustration software is very likely to help you out, allowing you to tweak the programs in your boot up, to allow you to speed up the process, track the programs that are causing your computer troubles so that you can work out what you should do about it, or edit your web browsers settings and add ons to speed up your internet browsing.

Soluto has been around for a while, The first feature that the program brought was the ability to remove programs from your boot up or delay the process until the boot up has completed. This is so that you can decrease the boot up time, and see which processes are taking the largest amount of time.The brilliant thing about the program is that it is so easy to change the programs in the boot up, without any risk of breaking anything, as the process so easy, skipping all of Windows’ menus and advanced functions to access the screen.

Soluto separates your programs into three categories, “No-Brainers” – applications which are taking up a large amount of time which Soluto recommends you remove, “Potentially Removable” – ones which will be taking less time, and “Cannot be removed ” – system processes that are required for boot. From various tests of the program, I have managed to save between 20 and 35 seconds off my boot time.

The next feature is the application crash management.If you have an application crashes, solute logs it and stores it in history. It automatically attempts to find solutions to the crashes and reminds you if a program is likely to crash often.Within the last month I have had Windows Media Player crash 12 times on me, with Soluto finding solutions multiple times for me.

The last feature Soluto has is the ability to work with your add ons and settings for your web browser, choosing to modify either Internet Explorer, Google Chrome or Firefox.I find this part of the program is better for computer novices, who find it harder accessing web browser settings, as you have the option to change your search engine from a variety of choices.

All in all, this application is a must have for anyone, as it takes up little system resources and proves to be extremely valuable in clearing out your system.

Even better: it’s free! You can download it from here:Soluto-Anti Frustration Software

Twitter is arguably the best platform to keep yourself updated with latest events, current affairs, hot prospects, and trending topics. Many avid Twitter users rely more on desktop clients rather than Twitter Web UI to keep tab on what their peeps are tweeting about and also to manage and view replies in a convenient way. If you’re fond of Twitter desktop clients with drop-dead UIs, like widely used Adobe Air based TweetDeck, Seesmic, Sobees, etc., have a look at MetroTwit too.

MetoTwit is an ingeniously beautiful metro UI based Twitter client for Windows, having all the features one would expect from an all-in-one Twitter client. According to the dev team, the application is kept overly simple with intuitively designed multi-paned user interface to tweet, view, and manage your timeline, send direct messages, reply to your peeps, view current trends, categorize favorite tweets and retweets, and lot more.

After installing the application, click Sign in to begin the authorization process. Enter the verification code generated during the process in MetroTwit to sign in to your account. By default, it shows three panes containing your friends, mentions, and direct messages. Underneath these columns, tweet box is present which counts characters as you type. You can either manually refresh updates listed in each pane or let it automatically keep all the panes updated all the time. You can remove the columns to widen the overall space allocated to each pane, however, it also allows stretching the size of any pane.

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The cross imaged button present in bottom left corner lets you add 4 more panes, which are, Public tweets, Favourite tweets, My tweets, and My retweets, and initiate Twitter and user profile search. All the default panes, if disabled, can be re-enabled by selecting their options from this menu.

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MetroTwit posts live notifications on latest updates from your followers over system notification area.

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Adjacent to tweet box, you have options to load the list of your followers and to refresh the timeline to get latest updates.

It offers both white and black metro UI themes. From Settings window, you can switch between themes & theme accents, and tailor almost all the features and functions it has, ranging from tweets, timeline refresh interval, spell-check, auto-complete, desktop alerts and sounds, MetroTwit synchronization, URL shortening service and so on.

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Furthermore, it also supports Windows 7 superbar thumbnail live preview function, letting you view latest unread updates, and refresh timeline from its taskbar icon.

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Since it’s a .Net Framework 4 based application, you will find memory footprint relatively high when all panes are opened. However, I have seen that memory footprint remained stagnant around 75 MB with 3 default panes. It’s worth mentioning here that it’s in beta, so you can expect some functionality related bugs. We did find one with Twitter Trends feature.

It works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7, provided you have .Net Framework 4 installed and if you don’t have it preinstalled, Metrotwit will install it for you and it is definitely better than Adobe Air.

Download MetroTwit

Rockmelt Logo

The browser war – an interesting battle! Whilst so many people I know use Firefox I never embraced it, even though the plugins are useful and in many ways it’s more advanced than Safari and Chrome (My staple until recently).

Then one day I read an article somewhere online about a NEW browser which was making some noise. It was called ROCKMELT and I clicked on the first piece of media I found, a video which you can watch here. The story showcasing the features of Rockmelt was hugely persuasive. The beauty of Rockmelt as a browser is that for me it solves an age old problem I have with internet use during my day. Work / Play / Time. I found that in a typical day I’m bombarded by nonsense left right and center. Whether it’s a Facebook update, a tweet or news item or even checking the status of an ebay purchase or bid.

Rockmelt has two ‘edges’- the left hand side shows your friends and the right is called an ‘App’ edge but for me it’s more like a place I can view or hide ‘everything’. In this I mean that I have all the superfluous material that would often get in the way of my work available to check instantly, quickly and without having to open up new pages. The ‘edges’ can be hidden or you can show one or the other.

Before I would stop my work, launch a new browser tab or window and check the latest Lifehacker and Goal.com page, Facebook or my twitter feeds. Now I can simply show my ‘App’ edge and within seconds check ALL of these items and get back to work. It saves me time. A LOT of time. I can also very quickly update any of my Twitter or Facebook accounts from the small status box on the top left edge of the screen. Interacting with your social media is also possible directly from these edges.

The browser is built on the Chrome platform which means it benefits from a slew of plugins, including those that assist me with everyday web development, email checking and translation tools. I now feel that my browser is more INTEGRATED, my workflow more streamlined and most of all my time more productive.

If you haven’t tried it I highly recommend it – It’s now my default browser. You can download it here.

Chennai Super Kings have shown once again that they are championship material. The Never say die attitude of the team helped them secure yet another title. The record of the Chennai team speaks volumes about the Team members. After retaining MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Albie Morkel and Murali Vijay, team owner Mr.Gurunath Meiyappan and Coach Stephen Fleming showed immense faith in their former players retaining most of them. It was unfortunate that the team couldn’t buy back Spin Wizard Muthiah Muralitharan as he was prized out by Kochi Tuskers Kerala and Chennai lad L Balaji was bought by Kolkata Knight Riders. Apart from retaining key players like Doug Bollinger, R Ashwin, Badrinath, Hussey they did very well in adding great players like Dwayne Bravo, Ben Hilfenhaus, Suraj Randiv, Scott styris, Nuwan Kulasekara and the electric Faf Du Plesis. The Batting as always looks strong and it was great to see that they added some good Bowlers and the attack is a lot better than the previous line up.

The Opening ceremony held at Chennai was fantastic with lots of film songs but it was not as grand as the ones held in previous editions. The First match was between Chennai and Kolkata in Chennai. The match went down to the over with Kolkata needing 5 from 6 Balls. Tim Southee who had replaced the injured Ben Hilfenhaus bowled a perfect final over with perfect Yorkers giving away only 3 runs in the final over thus handing Chennai a well deserved win. Chennai were off to a nervous start. The Full match video,

CSK V KKR

 

After 5 days Chennai played Kings XI Punjab, after winning the toss they elected to bat they lost two wickets in the very first bowled by Praveen Kumar who got some prodigious Swing. Vijay and Badrinath played wonderfully to guide Chennai to a Mammoth Score.When everything looked bleak for KXiP,  a little known Paul Valthaty had other ideas and scored what turned out to be the Best Innings of this IPL and single handedly won the match for Kings XI Punjab. Preity Zinta was smiling from ear to ear. Chennai were beaten by a single man and there were dumbstruck by this innings.

Paul Valthaty
Match 09 CSK vs KXIP

After tasting defeat at the hands of the Punjab lions, they were well prepared and hungry to win their next match against Royal challengers Bangalore in their own Backyard. Mike Hussey who was playing for Australia against Bangladesh and was in Red hot form after hitting century in the last ODI, played a controlled innings to guide Chennai to a Mammoth total once again and went on to win the match comfortably.

CSK VS RCB
CSK VS RCB Full Match

 

Chennai then had to go to Kochi to play against the newcomers Kochi Tuskers Kerala. But they were very unlucky as the Rain Gods preferred to interfere and tilted the match in kochi’s favor. Kochi went on to win the match under the Duck Worth Lewis method. The Lions came back wounded.

KTK vs CSK
KTK VS CSK

 

From Kochi the Kings went to Mumbai to play against Sachin’s Team and it was one of the most anticipated match of this years IPL and was billed as a Rematch of last years Final. The Match was a closely fought one and Chennai couldn’t chase down the target set by MI and subsequently lost the match by 8 Runs.

CSK VS MI

After 5 Matches, Chennai had won 2 and Lost 3 and were in a spot of bother.

The next Match was against Pune Warriors. The Pune warriors started with a bang winning their first 2 matches convincingly but lost their next 2 matches against Delhi and Mumbai closely and they were desperately in need of a win to get them back on track. Yuvraj as a Captain had lost all the Matches against Chennai. All Chennai fans were hoping that Yuvi’s Bad Luck against Chennai continued and the bad Omen returned to haunt Yuvi and Pune Warriors lost the Match. The Highlight was Jakati’s Superhuman catch to send Yuvraj when he was about to take off and Launch an attack against Chennai and Chennai went on to win it by 25 runs.

Chennai vs Pune
Chennai vs Pune

The Next match was the return leg against Pune warriors in Pune, As usual Yuvi’s bad luck against Chennai continued and the all familiar Pune Top order Collapse happened against and Chennai went on to win the match more comfortably.

 

So after 5 wins and 2 Losses Chennai appeared to be well on course for yet another Semi Final appearance and they returned to Chennai to take on the Deccan Chargers who were having a torrid time on the field dropping so many catches and their batting unit failing consistently.  The Bowlers led by Dale Steyn and Ishant Sharma were not supported by their batters. Chennai won the match by 19 Runs and extended their unbeaten home record to 4 wins. Chennai had one foot on the semifinal.

Chennai Vs Deccan
Chennai Vs Deccan

The next match for the Chennai was against the Rajasthan Royals led by the Master Manipulator Shane Warne. Shane won the toss and elected to bat on a wonderful pitch. Dravid was at his best and put on an opening stand of 86 in just 10 overs with the rusty Shane Watson. In the 11 over Jakati took an incredulous catch to send back Watson and triggered a Batting collapse and the Royals limped to a score of just 140 which was never going to challenge the mighty Chennai Batting line up on a belter of a wicket and the Chennai batsmen Hussey and Raina guided the team to an easy victory.

Chennai Vs Rajasthan

 

Chennai Vs Rajasthan

Their next assignment was against the Kolkata Knight Riders at the majestic Eden Gardens. But the Rain gods were not kind enough once again to the lads from Chennai as they lost another match due to the dreaded Duck-Worth Lewis method. Dhoni’s decision to bat first on a damp wicket in overcast conditions drew some flak from the supporters.

 

Chennai vs. kolkata
chennai vs kolkata

 

From Kolkata they went on to Jaipur to take on the Mighty Rajasthan Royals. The prematch was dogged by controversy regarding the pitch in Jaipur and grounds men was ordered by the BCCI to prepare a fair wicket for the match and not a pitch that will tilt the match in favor of the home team. The Fortress had been breached and Chennai won the match quite comfortably. The Highlight being Roger Binny’s Fielding efforts who was literally gifting runs to the opposition. Rahane batted beautifully for Rajasthan but for a losing cause which was the only bright side for the home team. Dhoni showed his explosive side by scoring a quick fire 40 off just 18 balls which included 3 boundaries and 3 towering sixes.. The Famous Helicopter shot was on display. Chennai won the match by a Mammoth 63 Runs and by this they did themselves a favor by improving their NRR.

Chennai vs Rajasthan
Chennai vs Rajasthan

 

Their next match was against Delhi Daredevils who had been the laggards of this year’s IPL. Irfan Pathan their Costliest player was just a pale shadow of himself a couple of years ago. One could sum up Delhi Daredevils IPL season in a sentence “When Sehwag delivered Delhi won and lost when he failed.” Venugopal Rao was the only another bright spot bright spot for Delhi daredevils as they endured a forgettable IPL season. With Sehwag injured and out of the competition to undergo a shoulder surgery, Chennai were in the drivers seat to win this match comfortably and they obliged by winning this encounter by 18 runs thus virtually guaranteeing them of a spot in the knockout stages for the fourth straight time and extending their winning streak at home to 6 wins in 6 matches.

CSK vs DD

 

CSK vs DD

 

After the rain deprived them of a victory at kochi, the kings from Chennai were eyeing revenge against the Kochi Tuskers Kerala at their home turf where they have won all their matches. Kochi were without their captain Mahela Jayawardena  who had flown to England to paly for Sri Lanka. The Saha who was playing his second match for the Chennai super kings played a mature and match winning innings and guided the team from a precarious position to a respectable total of 152, a score the Chennai boys defended beautifully to make to 7 out of 7 in Chennai.

Chennai vs Kochi

 

The last day of IPL league stage had all the 4 IPL Semifinalists competing to decide the standings in the final league table. Chennai vs. Bangalore and Mumbai Vs. Kolkata. Chennai played Bangalore at Bangalore and RCB were looking for  revenge against their counterparts from Chennai  as they had lost to Chennai in their Previous Encounter. Chennai batted first and their batting fell apart like 9 pins and were in all sorts of trouble before Skipper Dhoni’s Lone hand of 70 from 40 balls with 6 sixes made sure that they crossed 100 and had something to play for. But Chris Gayle a had other plans as he took RCB to yet another victory. Gayle having come as a replacement for Dirk Nannes had been batting like a man with supernatural abilities in this years IPL. Bangalore were in someway similar to Delhi as they were solely depended on Gayle but they were lucky that Gayle played very well in all the games and was Mr.Consistent a title which he seldom gets. No one had seen a Gayle who was so consistent and he himself would have wondered about his consistency. Chennai lost but they were lucky that Mumbai sneaked to a last ball victory to hand Chennai the Second Spot and dump Kolkata to the 3 rd spot. The Semifinal 1 was to be held between Chennai and Bangalore and Qualifier 1 between Mumbai and Kolkata, a repeat of the matches held just 2 days ago.

RCB vs Chennai
Rcb vs Chennai

 

Semifinal 1 :  Chennai vs. Bangalore

                                                         The first qualifier was between the Chennai Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bangalore held at Mumbai. It was a wonderful Cricket match. The winner goes to the final but the loser gets another shot at the final. Losing team plays the winner of the second qualifier. Bangalore won the toss and decided to bat first. It was a belter of a wicket. Gayle who was in ominous form was trapped leg before wicket by Ravichandran Ashwin, Gayle was not happy but replays showed that he was out. Virat Kohli, the lad from New Delhi and the only member of the RCB squad who was retained showed immense maturity and along with Agarwal built a base for the RCB batsmen to follow. Virat’s brilliant batting and Luke Pomersbach’s cameo at the end ensured that RCB reached a mammoth total of 175. The most defining moment of the innings was when Saurabh Tiwary, the Dhoni lookalike hit a vicious straight drive which hit Ravichandran Ashwin on the head near the Temple.

 

He immediately fell on the ground and the ball after deflection went straight to long on in a flash. Ashwin was escorted of the pitch by the physio.Luckily for him and the team he was alright. Quite frankly he was lucky to be alive.

Chennai’s innings started on a disastrous as Mike Hussey was adjudged leg before wicket for a duck in the very first over  bowled by Zaheer Khan. Murali Vijay after hitting Srikanth Arvind for a boundary of his first ball fell in the third ball. Chennai were now Tottering at 7 for 2. Suresh Raina the highest run getter in  the Indian Premier League joined forces with Mr. Consistent  Subramaniam Badrinath. When the team is in dire straits the go to man Badrinath delivered. Just when the Partnership was blossoming,  mithun had Badrinath caught in the deep. Chennai were 70/3 after 11 overs and the match was evenly poised. Skipper MS Dhoni counterattacked beautifully and scored a quick-fire 29 of just 18 balls which included a towering six. He hit Zaheer for a six in the very first ball of the over but the Indian pace spearhead had the last laugh as he forced Dhoni to mistime a slower ball full toss straight down long one’s throat. It was celebration time for Zaheer but it was to be short lived as Raina dispatched the next ball over mid wicket for a six and then creamed the next one over cover. Zaheer was livid with himself for conceding so 3 sixes in his over. Chennai still needed about 38 runs from 3 overs. Chris Gayle bowled the best over of his life by just conceding 4 runs in his fantastic over. He just kept on bowling Yorkers and both Raina and Morkel couldn’t free their arms. So Chennai needed 35 runs from 12 balls. A very difficult task and just when the game looked like slipping away from the mighty Chennai. Raina and Morkel smashed Srikanth Arvind for 3 Sixes in the same over including the Longest hit of the tournament, a heave over long on and up she went and out of the ground in Mumbai. Srikanth Arvind’s first real bad over of the tournament, one cant blame Arvind here as the good balls went for sixes. Chennai still needed 12 runs of the final over to be bowled by Daniel Vettori. Raina was all cramping up and his request for a runner was turned out by the umpire as there was only one over remaining in the match. Unlike others raina didn’t make a big fuss about it and  carried on. After 3 balls Morkel finally hit a huge six of Vettori and sealed the match for Chennai. Poor RCB guys were crestfallen as it was a case of “So Near Yet So Far” for them.

Chennai advanced to the finals while RCB will face the winner of the Qualifier 2 between Mumbai Indians and Kolkata Knight Riders and will play what will virtually a Semi Final.

Defining Moments

Eagerly Awaiting the Finals and hope to see the Lions from Chennai retain their Crown. Good to know that they haven’t lost a single match in ChennaiSmile. If the other team that faces them in the final want to become champions they have to beat the Champions in their own Den and breach their Fortress.

GREENDAY-MY FAV BAND!

Posted: June 23, 2011 in Uncategorized

Green Day is an American punk rock band formed in 1987. The band consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist and backing vocalist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tre Cool. Cool replaced former drummer John Kiffmeyer in 1990, prior to the recording of the band’s second studio album, Kerplunk, and has been a member of the band since.

Green Day was originally part of the punk scene at 924 Gilman Street in Berkeley, California. The band’s early releases for the independent record label Lookout! Records earned it a grassroots fanbase. In 1994, its major label debut Dookie became a breakout success and eventually sold over 10 million copies in the U.S. Green Day was widely credited, alongside fellow California punkbands The Offspring and Rancid, with popularizing and reviving mainstream interest in punk rock in the United States.

Green Day has sold over 65 million records worldwide with 24.639 million in the US alone. The group has won five Grammy Awards:Best Alternative Album for Dookie, Best Rock Album for American Idiot, Record of the Year for "Boulevard of Broken Dreams", Best Rock Album for the second time for 21st Century Breakdown and Best Musical Show Album for American Idiot: The Original Broadway Cast Recording. In 2010, a stage adaptation of American Idiot debuted on Broadway. The musical has been nominated for several Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Scenic Design, and has received generally positive reviews.

My favorite Greenday songs are as follows.

Boulevard of Broken Dreams, My fav Song Ever
Holiday
21 Guns
Welcome to Paradise

Greenday’s Concerts are the Best as Billie Joe encourages the Crowd to sing the Songs and engages them in the Concert. For me the Boulevard of Broken Dreams song in Tokyo Japan is the Greatest ever song in a Concert.Billie Rocks. Long Live Greenday

NYC Trip

Posted: June 2, 2011 in Travel

                                 A visit to the Big Apple is always going to be different from others and it certainly turned out to be different. The Traffic Jams, millions of people, Subway travel ,numerous flyovers brought back memories of good old Chennai. Buffalo, the place where I lived for the past 10 Months is a Very Quiet place and is a very small city. New York City is dirty but has lots of Skyscrapers to boast about. The New York Skyline is something that is unique to the city as not a lot of places have quite an array of skyscrapers as NYC has. It is a Tourists paradise as it has well over 60 attractions.

                                 New york city is the most Populous city in the United states. It consists of 5 islands namely Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island, Brooklyn and Bronx. It can rightly be called as the Financial Nerve Center of the World because of the numerous financial institutions that have their headquarters in the city. It is a well structured city with well built roads, Metro and ferry system.

New York City Subway :

                                  We rode on the Subway to get to places in and around NYC and I am obliged to describe about the efficient transport system. It is one of the oldest and most extensive Rapid systems in the world. It has over 468 stations and the rail length exceeds 337 KM and has 26 lines crisscrossing the city. It is the 4th busiest Subway system in the world and the busiest in the western hemisphere. It operates 24×7 and 365 days a year. The Elevated line has been in operation since 1868. The Construction of the first underground subway line began way back in 1904 and the first line opened in 1934. But the system is very outdated when compared to the Mass Rapid systems in Singapore, Dubai etc. which is ultra modern with beautiful coaches, stations etc. The NYC Subway is very Noisy and the stations are untidy. The Rail coaches shakes like a teenager after a six pack Red BullSmile. The Subway needs immediate improvement otherwise the city is definitely going to lose its charm. Most Subway stations are not senior citizen and handicap friendly and need to have escalators and elevators. But I must confess that for a system built in 1904, it is very efficient.

 

 

 IMG_4303NYC_subway-4D

We reached New york city at around 4 in the evening from Boston. After checking in the hotel we went to Broadway to collect our New York day passes which is a pass which grants entry to most of the attractions in the city and thus one can avoid standing in the long queues to buy tickets. Broadway was simply amazing in the night, giant screens continuously showing ads and buildings that are well lit and surrounded by plenty of people. It was completely opposite to life at Buffalo.

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After collecting the pass we went to our hotel and slept of immediately as we had a four very busy days ahead. The next day we started from our hotel @9 in the morning. Our first stop was Statue of Liberty.The statue is about 46m high. We took a train to reach our destination. 

Statue of Liberty:

We took the ferry at around 10:30 am,  after the security procedures similar to the ones at airports we boarded the ferry to Liberty island. We roamed around liberty island for about 2 hours clicking the camera at will. A Small description of the statue of liberty,

The Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World) is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886. The statue, a gift to the United States from the people of France, is of a robed female figure representing Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom, who bears a torch and a tabula ansata (a tablet evoking the law) upon which is inscribed the date of the American Declaration of Independence. A broken chain lies at her feet. The statue has become an icon of freedom and of the United States.

Symbolism:

For over a century, the Statue of Liberty has stood valiantly in the open air, symbolizing freedom throughout the world. She has held a patriotic place in each and every American heart since she was unveiled in October 1886, and has greeted all immigrants into Ellis Island, announcing that their journey to the "land of the free" has finally come to an end. Her flaming torch, flowing robes, and spiked crown have long since been an inspiration for American Pride, and the utter power and grace of her posture have given the United States a symbolic mascot that will forever display the power, wealth, and freedom of this great nation.The Statue of Liberty is a monumental sculpture, portraying a woman escaping the chains of tyranny, which lie at her feet. Held aloft in her right hand is a flaming torch, representing liberty. Her left hand grasps a tablet on which is inscribed in roman numerals, the date the United States declared its independence, "July 4, 1776." She wears flowing robes, and the seven rays of her spiked crown that jets out into the sky symbolizes the seven seas and continents.

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Why is the statue Green?

The statue is made of copper and it undergoes Oxidation when it is exposed to oxygen.Oxidation causes a fine crust or film which is usually Green in color. The film protects the metal inside. It took 30 years for the statue to turn from its natural color to green.

Empire state Building :

After witnessing the Symbol of freedom, we proceeded to take an aerial view of this gigantic City from one of the worlds tallest Buildings, the Empire state Building..The Empire state Building is a 102-story landmark. It is 1,250 ft (381 meters) tall. Its name is derived from the nickname for New York, the Empire State. It stood as the world’s tallest building for 40 years, from its completion in 1931 until construction of the World Trade Center’s North Tower was completed in 1972. The Empire State Building is currently the tallest building in New York City. It was named as one of the seven wonders of the modern world. Currently it is the 3rd tallest building in the United States. Some cool facts about Empire state Building

  • There are 6500 Windows.
  • There are 1860 steps from the street level to 102nd floor.
  • It took 7000000 man hours to build the Empire state Building.
  • It took just 1 year and 45 days to build.
  • It took 57,000 Tons of steel to build.
  • It has 17 million feet of telephone wire to service the building.

The View from 86th floor of the Building was great and it just took about 100 sec for the lift to climb 80 floors. Whoa.

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The Chrysler Building, it was the tallest building in the world on completion but was overtaken by the Empire state building just a year later.

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Next Stop was New York City Skyride which is a virtual tour simulator about New York City. It is located on the 2nd floor of the Empire state building and it is a 30 minute movie.

TIMES SQUARE :

Our next stop was Times square which is near the Empire state Building. Nasdaq , New York Times, Bloomberg all have their headquarters there and is the Commercial hub of New York City. Times Square at night was still bustling with people and oozes energy. The time was already half past 9 and we decided to call it a day and returned to our hotel.

The next morning we got up around 8 in the morning. We set out to the world famous Madame Tussauds Wax Museum.

We reached the wax museum at around 10 in the morning and after collecting our tickets, we went to the seventh Floor which has the statues of Hollywood Stars including Brad Pitt, Hugh Jackman, Angelina Jolie, oprah wimfrey, Salma Hayek and an array of Hollywood stars.

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Amitabh Bachan and Sharukh Khan sculptures represent BollywoodSmile

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Pic With the Police(James Bond) and Thief(Jack Sparrow)

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After the Reel Heroes it was time to take Pictures with the Real Heroes, Gandhi and Mandela

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Pic with The Genius of our Generation, Albert Einstein and the Philanthropic Diana

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Papa shaking hands with Bush before Discussions about world peace with BushSmile with tongue out

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Papa helping Charlie ChaplinSmile

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It was time for Papa to be Mummified,

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Time for pictures with the Sports stars like Pele , Navaratilova, Spitz etc

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My favorite Pop star, Michael JacksonSmile

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Spiderman and the Incredible Hulk

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We saw a 4-D Picture Happy feet about Penguins.

Then we proceeded to the Bodies Exhibition and then to the World Trade Center. It was already 9 o clock and we proceeded to our Hotel to take rest before the Washington DC trip the next day. The one thing that I like the most about NYC is the numerous Indian Restaurants, we had a nice meal in Saravana Bhavan and twice in North Indian RestaurantSmile We thoroughly enjoyed our stay in the Big Apple and were fascinated by its diverse culture.

Trip to Watkins Glen

Posted: May 21, 2011 in Family, Travel, USA
Tags: , , ,

Watkins Glen State Park is located on the edge of the village of Watkins Glen,New York, south of Seneca Lake in Schuyler County. The main feature of the park is the hiking trail that climbs up through the gorge, passing over and under waterfalls. The park has a lower part that is next to the village and an upper part that is open woodland.

Watkins Glen State Park is in a 400-foot-deep (120 m) narrow gorge cut through rock by a stream that was left hanging when glaciers of the Ice age deepened the Seneca valley, increasing the tributary stream gradient to create rapids and waterfalls wherever there were layers of hard rock. The rocks of the area are sedimentary of Devonian age that are part of a dissected plateau that was uplifted with little faulting or distortion. They consist mostly of soft shales, with some layers of harder sandstone and limestone.(Source Wikipedia).

About the Trail: Within two miles, the glen’s stream descends 400 feet past 200-foot cliffs, generating 19 waterfalls along its course. The gorge path winds over and under waterfalls and through the spray of Cavern Cascade. Rim trails overlook the gorge.

We started our hotel Days Inn @ Bath, NY at around 11 am(Still rue why we left so late), Watkins State Park was around 1 hour away from the hotel. We reached their in about an hour or so. The GPS system kept on leading us to the Seneca Lake nearby instead of the state park. We finally managed to reach the Park. the Entrance had a Small Waterfall, it was just a Glimpse of what we were about to see.

It is part of the Finger Lakes which are a pattern of lakes in the west-central section of Upstate New York in the United States.The lakes are linear in shape, each lake oriented on a north-south axis. Seneca lake which is close by is the deepest and largest of all finger lakes. It is a collection of eleven lakes.

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There were Three Trails that we could take namely Indian Trail, Gorge Trail and southern Rim trail. We took the Gorge trail as it was the Easiest and the closest to the Waterfalls and had a well laid path. The amount of Water flowing through the gorge was more than usual due to heavy rainfall during the preceding week.The Summer has just begun in New York and it was a great feeling to walk in the Sun and able to feel the heat of the sun. Lots of people have come down to see this natural beauty and I am pretty much sure that most of them wouldn’t have left disappointed. The First waterfall was exciting as it was the first time I could walk beneath a waterfall. The water was gushing out of the falls at high velocity.

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I was surprised at my mom’s new found love for Trekking. It was so nice to see her enjoying every bit of trekking. The Other day she Climbed around 600 steps with ease at Letchworth state Park and the happiness and the energy that she got when seeing the waterfalls was amazing. I must say that her energy rubbed on me and I took two trips on the trail, one with my dad and I went back to the entrance to take my mom.

 

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Now About the Plant Life in the State Park. There are 2 types of plant,

  • Shade Loving plants
  • Sun Loving Plants.

                    The Shade loving plants are dwarf and they grow near the bottom of the hills and in south side which is gets sunlight most of the day while the sun loving plants grow near the top of the hills and facing north and thus act as a shield to the shade loving Plants.

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Last Pic : The Smallest WaterfallSmile 

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After about an hour’s walk we reached the other entrance of the state parkSmile It was one hell of a trekking Experience, we were truly bowled over by the Nature’s Beauty and it definitely must be on EVERY Waterfall lovers Bucket List.

During Spring 2011, I took a course namely Analysis as part of my Masters coursework. It was taken by Professor. Johannes M.Nitche. He is a PhD from MIT.He is very systematic and expects the same from his students,super intelligent(I need not say that as PhD from MIT says it all), has superb grasp of the subject, gives loads of assignments(Had 25 Assignments in 30 weeks), clears doubts instantly and so on. Only six people enrolled for the subject which gave us a hint that it was a very tough course.  It was a four credit course and hence had 3 theory classes per week and a Recitation class.  The purpose of the course was to Enhance the  Chemical engineering students capability in tackling complex mathematical problems that may arise in their field. The syllabus was vast, starting with Vector Calculus and then moving onto Matrix manipulation, Ordinary differential equation. Partial Differential Equations, Wave equation,Integrating methods like Bessel functions, Laplace transforms, Fourier transforms etc.  It practically covered the entire length and breadth of mathematics that is needed for an engineer.

The classes were very interesting and I learnt some new concepts every day. The Assignments were a big letdown as his homework was Voluminous, often stretching up to 50 sides. It was very difficult initially for me to adapt as I was hardly given any Assignments in my undergrad. The Assignments most probably will be based on one concept and same type of problem with different set of numbers. It would approximately take about 5 hours to complete an assignment. Most of the assignments would need plotting graph on Maple or Matlab too, But the Assignments made preparations for the exam a cakewalk. We had 3 Cycle Tests and a Final. I never studied for these exams as the assignments made me proficient with the problems. Time constraint made these exams difficult. One must be super fast to complete the exam in the stipulated time. I got decent marks in the Assignments and Exams and got an A- Grade. But at the end of the course I must confess that I am way better in Mathematics than I used to be before. Thanks to Nitche for taking such a Wonderful course.

Urban Heat Island

Posted: April 23, 2011 in Uncategorized

Just as I was browsing the net I came across this interesting phenomenon called Urban heat Island. Having spent the bulk of my life in Places like Chennai and Trichy which is synonymous with heat I decided to check about this phenomenon because of which I have suffered a lot. An urban heat island is a metropolitan area which is significantly warmer than the surrounding rural areas The phenomenon was first described by Luke Howard in 1810s. The Temperature difference is larger during the nights than during the day and when the wind is weak. The main cause of urban heat island is due to the modification of the land surface by urban development wherein the materials used like concrete etc. effectively retain more heat than soil, grass, trees etc.  In some cases the difference can be as high as 15 Deg. Celsius. This effect is profound in cities like Chennai which is devoid of trees and is a “Concrete Jungle”. The roads are build using tar or Bitumen which absorbs heat rather than reflecting it as soil does. 

The High Rise Skyscrapers are a visual treat but they enhance the Urban heat effect because the tall buildings within many urban areas provide multiple surfaces for the reflection and absorption of sunlight, increasing the efficiency with which urban areas are heated. This is called as the Urban Canyon effect. They also block the wind and hence inhibits cooling by convection. Heat released from automobiles, industries and air conditioning also aids this phenomenon. The industries and automobiles release carbon-di-oxide and other green house gases which absorbs the suns radiation and heats up the surface of the earth.

Impacts :

Apart from increasing the temperature, UHI can have secondary effects on climate like alteration of local wind patterns, cloud formation, fog formation and humidity. The extra heat provided by the UHI leads to higher upward wind thrust which can trigger additional rain and thunderstorms. Metropolitan areas are less susceptible to weak tornadoes due to the turbulent mixing of hot and cold air.

UHI causes heat waves which can lead to sun strokes and other heat related illness in humans. Due to the additional heat energy consumption of AC’s and Refrigerators increases immensely and lots of money is wasted on energy. More energy consumption leads to more energy production which indirectly leads to Global Warming,

Mitigation of UHI:

UHI can be reduced by ,

Shading the roads with trees, which will intercept sunlight shading the people and Roads under them.

Changing the roof color to either White or Green. Dark colors absorb heat and hence should not be used in roofs. It reduces our Energy bill immensely. We can further reduce the energy bill by growing roof top Lawns and plants help in reducing the temperature of the building by several degrees. We can save the environment by consuming less energy, and reduce UHI too.

It has been found out that an urban tree filters nine times more carbon than the same tree planted in a forest.

 

So, Lets Go green by painting our roofs green and also by growing more trees.