Rain

I woke up today morning to find the whole neighborhood drenched in rain. It had been incessantly raining since around 3 in the morning today. As I was whiling away my time by the window with a cup of coffee, the wish that I had since my childhood crossed my mind and put a smile on my face. You see ever since I was a kid, I have seen storms and floods and all sorts of natural calamities on TV. never in real life. So I always wished to be in a place which gets flooded bad. Pretty bad. I have lived parts of my life in some places which are very notorious for floods, they flood year after year without fail. No matter what. But guess what, during the time I was there, no floods.

Anyways, this evil wish of mine was gone from my mind when I went out in the evening and rediscovered my passion of driving in the rain. I love whizzing past slow traffic and spraying them all over with water. Driving in the zero visibility spray is like driving into the unknown :P. Well its pretty late at night and its still raining. Believe me or not, it hasn't stopped raining even for a single minute since morning. Yeah at times it was just a light drizzle, but even that didn't stop at all. So I hope it continues like this all through the night and by the time I wake up tomorrow, I hope the whole place gets flooded :P.

Freedom

India is my country and all Indians are my brothers and sisters. I love my country and I am proud of its rich and varied heritage. I shall always strive to be worthy of it. I shall give respect to my parents, teachers and elders and treat everyone with courtesy. To my country and my people, I pledge my devotion.In their well being and prosperity alone, lies my happiness.

:) I thought I had forgotten it. Am glad that I can still recall my Pledge. Here's something special for you guys today. This is a picture of the front page of "Times of India's" first news paper of Independent India. Happy Independence Day. Click on the picture for a better view.

Life is a journey

Life is a journey, not a Destination,

Happiness lies along the way, not at the end of it,
For then, the journey is over & tis too late,
The time for happiness is Today, not Tomorrow.

Life is a Parody ...

We all like to think that we have some control over the events in our lives, and a lot of the time we can fool ourselves into thinking that we really are in charge. But then something happens to remind us that the world runs by its own rules and not ours, that we're just along for the ride.

Some songs that'll make you feel better ...

Is there a lot on your mind ... Is there something that's troubling you ... Don't worry ... Just turn off your mobile, pull down the shades, turn the AC down , get a cup of hot chocolate and it'll all make sense ... Hit play and just relax ...

e-books: Devices and Formats

A lot of us love reading. And a little less of us are eco-conscious. How good would it be, to mix these both passions? Well, if the number of e-book readers that are flooding the market are anything go by, Pretty damn good! You gotta appreciate the USP of e-book readers here. They serve a key demographic of consumers, They are eco-friendly, They make pursuing your hobbies very simple and the business value ain’t so ugly either.

Currently, the market has a lot of e-book readers. Here are some I came across: Kindle, Sony Reader, eSlick, BeBook. Amazon has even released an update to Kindle with a controversial “Text to Speech” feature that allows your reader to read a particular book out loud. Pretty nifty if you ask me, leaving the copyright infringement aside. You can even read e-books on your iPhone/iPod Touch. Which is my favourite by far.

Now, the problem with the whole thing is interoperability. There are as many e-book formats as there are e-book readers. And most of the time you can’t migrate your book collection to a new device or have multiple devices at the same time. There is one format though, ePub, which is an open format and most devices support it.

An avid reader needs to make an informed decision when he chooses a particular device and then a compatible format. If you buy books in epub format you can rest assured that 10 years from now, you won’t have to worry about how you can read the Harry Potter series again in the new generation devices. You are not locked into any proprietary format that might go extinct sometime in the future.

If you are in the United States, Buying a Kindle makes more sense as there is a lot of content available apart from books. People elsewhere might consider Sony Reader or some such depending on the availability of the device and compatible content. I, for one, use my iPod Touch for reading these days. Further, all the books I buy are readable on my computer albeit, by installing additional software.

For further info head to these links:

• ePub format
• List of devices and compatible formats
• e-book Reading on iPhone/iPod Touch

Some websites that allow you to buy e-Books:

• Amazon
• BooksOnBoard
• eReader
• FictionWise

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