Notes from a Desi Geek

I guess I am bit late to blog about CrimsonBay. It’s like ‘desi’ iTunes, where you can download hindi songs for 69 cents or 99 cents, depending on how you pay for the song. Btw, I found about the site through an article in Business World. The article (which I can not link to) states that this service aims to target huge number of Indians in US, who doesn’t have an easy way to liste/buy hindi music. Rediff Radio service (which I dislike) is not enough, what is really needed, is iTunes like service where I can buy hindi music legally. So, site such CrimsonBay are most welcome. I have few complaints though.

1. What kind of name ‘CrimsonBay’ is? It is not related to music, it’s not related to India, and it’s not even catchy? Don’t these guys know importance of a good business name? If I were the owner, I would have named my service as desiTunes. The logo of service would look like

Yes, I know the logo and site name very much resembles to some thing else, which is very popular, and I think it would have caused controversy. But why not create controversy and get noticed like a Purple Cow rather than go completely unnoticed.

2. Their site isn’t all that special. It doesn’t scream ‘I am cool, check me out!’. This, coupled with the fact that they have limited collection of songs to start with makes a non starter.

3. They have come up with a really nice idea that if you buy songs using their ‘debit’ account, they will offer song at 69 cents. That’s neat! But they are not publicizing it enough! If I were the CEO, I will create the following banner ad and run through rediff/sulekha. [Btw, wait and watch the animation]

CrimsonBay Guys, I grant you all the rights to use above idea for your campaign!
4. In this age, when blogging is the next medium to get word out about your service, they are literally absent in blogosphere. Why o’ Why? They are missing out BIG TIME on free and very effective method of generating buzz.

I guess that’s enough for now! Crimson Bay guys, if you are reading this, get in touch with me. I think I have few ideas to make you guys do better.
JD

Unlike Nilesh, who brought digital happiness to get over temporary gloom in his life, I bought digital happiness just for the heck of it!
In comments of Nilesh’ post, I mentioned that I want digital SLR Camera to be my next digital happiness, but it happens to be………… Dell Axim PDA!
And here is the picture of my new little sweetheart!

Thanks to Slickdeals, I was able to grab this beauty in little under 400$. The cost is well justfied if I can improve my productivity using this little tool, and I am quite confident that I can.
I have quite a few ideas about how one can use PDA to improve the mobility/productivity and I will be blogging about them as and when I implement them. Keep watching this space!
Btw, this post reminds me of my favourite quote about money and happiness. Here it goes:

Those who say that Money can’t buy happiness, didn’t know where to shop.

How true!

Blogosphere was all praise for the wonderful Google Maps when it was launched in beginning of February.

The dust has settled right now and last week I actually needed driving directions.
Obviously I headed to Google Maps. I gave the Start and End Address. Directions are shown and I start looking for Printer Friendly Page. There is none! There is only a ‘Print’ link which will directly send the page to Printer. I don’t have a chance to preview how the print out is going to look like. Anyway, as a trustful Google user, I gave Print Command. And what does the Print look like?

• The printed page begins with a big map taking 50% of the first page. Now, I don’t really think that including such a big map in print is of any use as you can not really use the map.
• Even worse, the directions are listed from 1 to n without using a table. This makes it very very hard to read directions when you are driving alone. In fact, I will say it’s dangerous!

Compare this to Mapquest. Check the print version for the same driving directions. Notice, how useful it is?

• It has meaningful icons on left which tells me whether I am supposed to make left turn, right turn or exit from the free way.
• Distance is easily readable in the right most column.
• They have that little note section at the end which I find it useful at times.

Only drawback is that they do not highlight the street name like Google Maps does. But still, I think Mapquest offers much better printed driving directions then Google Maps.

Few more things I like about Mapquest:

• Mapquest saves list of addresses you have searched for. This is available via drop down for quick access. It has saved me lot of time.
• It has ‘Avoid Highways’ option while determining driving directions, which can be useful at times.

Google Maps has fantastic web interface and Mapquest has better print version. Can we marry these two somehow?

Today, BoingBoing mentions an exploit which affects Firefox, Safari, Opera….all browsers except IE.

And how do the geeks react?
Simon Wilson, who earlier wrote post titled ‘Nasty new IE vulnerability’ when IE was affected by a very similar problem. This time when Firefox gets affected, he mentions it ‘quietly’ in his link blog. Interesting thing is, he doesn’t even mention that Firefox users are affected. [Title of my post should make sense now]

Paulo writes about it in post titled ‘Non-IE vulnerability’. Wow!

Overall, how many geeks have blogged about it? Technorati tells me that around 20 posts have been made on this exploit. I wonder how many posts have been made if this was an IE exploit.

What point I am trying to make?
Simple, be honest when you are critcizing/bashing and don’t be hypocrite. If you are going to make noise when security problem is discovered with IE, make the same amount of noise when Firefox faces similar problem. Overall, idea should be to make people aware that, a security problem has been discovered with product and they should be careful.

Firefox hasn’t even reached 50% market share, and we are seeing a serious exploit. Imagine, what would happen when Firefox reaches more than 50% market share? I am guessing that even Firefox will have numerous exploits, just like market leader IE has. One has to realize that it’s a herculean task to create a secure product, which is to be used by millions. So let’s work together to create better/secure products instead of bashing each other.

JD

Did you check the latest and greatest MSN portal? Not only it is more standards compliant, it offers one nifty feature for all keyboard freaks like me. Here

Everyone (I mean all bloggers) knows what Technorati is about. But I guess few know about Blogdigger. I came to know about this service from Christopher. I have been using both the services for some time now and here

If you are following my blog, you know that I have been having a hard time with Rediff Radio. After sending at least 10 mails to neha@rediffradio.com id without getting response, I thought enough was enough. [On a side note: What kind of id neha@rediffradio.com is? Why not more obvious id like support@rediffradio.com?] I wanted to call these guys and get the resolution. I try to find their customer service number. To my surprise, there is no customer service number listed anywhere on Rediff site! But I for one was determined to find the number and I figured out that if customer is not important for Rediff, a shareholder might be. Lo and behold, I was correct! Checking Investor Information page on Rediff, revealed the Head Office Phone Number.

Tip# 1
If you are trying to find contact information for any company and unable to find it, remember to check their Investor Information page. Generally, most of the companies love share holders more than they love their customers.

Tip# 2
Rediff Customer Service Number: 91-22-24449144
US Office Phone Number: 1-212-929-1727

So, I call up the Customer Service Number and tell the receptionist that I have problem with Rediff Radio. Without listening to me properly, she transferred me to Rediff Shopping Customer Service. The nice lady from Rediff Shopping Customer Service told me that she can not help me and she will transfer me back to reception. The receptionist now told me that probably