Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Expensive ‘tribute’ to a simple man

Montblanc has launched a gold, rhodium-plated nib pen costing (hold your breath) Rs 11 lakh in memory of – of all persons – Mahatma Gandhi!

A company report says the series was being produced as a tribute to the many people who had followed the Mahatma.

I remember reading Gandhiji once searched desperately for a small pencil stub. He did not want to even waste a small stub.

What sort of tribute is this? Montblanc is using the Mahatma to sell its products – that too such a stinkingly-expensive pen.

And guess who launched the luxury pen? It’s Tushar Gandhi, the Mahatma’s great grandson! It is not enough if you have the Mahatma’s name, and you are also his great grandson.

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Mr Tushar Gandhi, great grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, displays the Mahatma Gandhi Limited Edition Montblanc pen in Mumbai on Tuesday. The 18K gold, rhodium-plated nib pen priced at Rs 11 lakh displays an intricate, hand engraved depiction of Gandhi, at 60, setting off, with bamboo staff in hand, on his famous salt march. A company report says that the MGLE-3000 series was being produced as a tribute to the many people who had followed the Mahatma. – Paul Noronha, The Hindu Business Line, dt. Wednesday, September 30, 2009.

Saturday, September 05, 2009

Yahoo! Meme

 

Yahoo!'s microblogging platform Meme, is now available in English.

At the first glance, Meme is good. What differentiates Meme from Twitter is that you can add photos, videos and MP3s apart from text.
Aviary meme-yahoo-com Picture 1The interface looks good. Unlike Twitter, where you have to use external services such as Twitpic for posting pictures and videos, you can post them directly in Meme.

Moreover, you can see the pictures or videos directly in Meme.
But there are some drawbacks. While you can post photos from your computer, you post only videos and MP3s only as Web links. It remains to be seen whether Meme can break the stranglehold of Twitter.

I have just started posting in Meme.

You can find my Meme here.

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Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Moving from Shozu to Pixelpipe

Sometimes, companies take decisions that are downright stupid. The latest to join the bandwagon is Shozu. It is now a paid app and can be downloaded only from mobile stores such as Nokia’s iPhone’s and Blackberry’s official stores. In India, the app costs 7 euros at the Ovi store.

Why is Shozu’s move stupid? Suppose you have a phone in which you have installed Shozu. If you change the phone or lose the Shozu application, you will have to pay 7 euros to get it again.

I keep flashing my Nokia E71 to get the latest firmware. Every time I do it, I lose most of the apps and install them again, including Shozu. But after I flashed my mobile on Saturday, I have re-installed almost all my apps, except Shozu, because I will have to shell out 7 euros to get Shozu from the Nokia OVI store.

I emailed Shozu from their contact form in their Web site, but Shozu has preferred to keep quiet.

So I have decided not to use Shozu. I have found an excellent alternative: Pixelpipe.

It integrates with Nokia Share Online app and offers almost all the functionalities of Shozu. As you use it through Nokia Share, you don’t have to run an app in the background as you have to if you use Shozu.

And it’s free!