Khaman is NOT Dhokla

I am from gujarat and I am proud gujarati like millions around the world. Every gujarati would have eaten khaman and dhokla at some point of time in their lives. For those who are not aware what is Khaman and Dhokla, you can visualise the same from the picture given on the side. The one top (white in colour) is dhokla and Khaman is on the bottom picture ( yellow in colour).

I have lot of friends who are from India outside of gujarat who also love khaman and dhokla. While they love it, I only have one request not to say Khaman as Khaman Dhokla as Khaman is Khaman and IT IS NOT DHOKLA. It is the wrong packaging done by Gits and likes of those companies who have created this misconception by printing Khaman as Khaman Dhokla on their package.

So, please next time you are savouring your taste buds with these two delicious dishes, please do remember which one is what... Happy hogging khaman and dhokla...

After 3 years....

I have been using linux for over 3 years. Now that I look back at it, I have mixed feelings of using linux. On one hand I am happy about things which I have found, learnt and over a period of time experienced. My first install of kubuntu 6.06 on my amd64 laptop to my current install of ubuntu 8.10, I can see so much maturity in linux desktop/laptop whatever you want t say. I sure feel happy that linux system has matured and has become very userfriendly. The other day I was at my friend's place installing linux on his laptop, and I was pleased with how linux (might be a ubuntu usability feature) recognized the printer and configured it for me even without touching anything, no add hardware, no cd required. That was one of the most wow moments of my life where in I could see my friend appreciating the usability features of linux. I am also happy looking at the number of software updates I do not have to keep. I being a geek and always experimenting with latest and greatest I used to keep downloading winamp, firefox and tons of other softwares and installing them to keep the updated. This is no longer the case, well atleast not searching independently. I just update the ubuntu version and I kind of get latest and greatest of all the software. I do not have to hunt down the net for latesst version, I just type some command (I prefer that) or open up synaptic and I am all set. So, over all I am very happy with my system.

On the other hand, I miss out those games which are windows only... I know I know there is wine but still it is not capable enough to play all the games. I loved playing Age of Empires, Caesar etc... while I am able to play Caesar with wine, I was not able to make AOE work. Also, the company that I work for has all its internal application drenched with MS stuff. This does not allow me the flexibility to work on my linux computer in office. Also, I do hate linux some times when things go all messy, and I am not able to figure out wtf I did wrong or what has messed it up... but I do feeel happy when I do a clean install and I am all set with some minor tweaks...

Overall it has saved me time ... I would say naahh due to my company policies of using properietary softwares... but I have learnt a lot... so much so that I always try to spread the word of using open source eg. ubuntu, open office etc to my friends and there are some friends who are pretty darn satisfied with ubuntu installs I have done for them...

Why I do not use Chrome and Stick to Firefox

I tried out google chrome, it is slick, minimalistic however I still stick to firefox for many reasons some of them I am giving here.

1. It does not have adblock, this one is no bummer as google wont block its main source of revenue ;-).
2. No stumble upon, I am one of them who is now addicted to it and there no such thing for chrome yet.
3. No keyword or tagging of bookmarks. I use keyword shortcuts to go to pages quickly, chrom does not have such provision.
4. New process for new tab is memory hog, try opening 14+ tab in chrome and it crashes my computer while firefox crash around 25 or so tab. I know not all will open so many tabs :-).
5. Mouse gesture, I love them esp when I have mouse connected to my laptop.
6. No extension framework or I am not aware of. This does not allow things to be added to chrome.
7. I have used 3.1 version of firefox with new javascript engine it seems much faster compared to chrome in processing the sites like gmail, docs etc.
8. It does not have bookmark syncing between computers. I use foxmark to sync my two laptops and work pc with the same bookmarks.

So, all in all I will stick to firefox :-).