www.phulki.com really rocks !!!

If you are a Hindi music fan right from the oldies to latest albums phulki.com is the place for you. In simple words you could call it as the google for Hindi music. It has got a clean simple interface in which you just enter the song / album name which you want to hear and voila it returns you a list of matching songs displayed googlish style.

Whats more - from within the list you get direct links for listening to the song without navigating away from the page, and the song gets added to your playlist. You could add multiple songs in your playlist and even save your playlist (for which i guess you need to register). Also phulki provides some pre-defined playlist which are also pretty neat.

In addition against some songs you also get a direct download link - not being a legal expert not sure if that might have been the right thing to do or not.

Overall its a pretty great experience and I would definitely recommend this song to all hindi movie buffs. Also if any of you could tell me what "phulki" actually means ? Check out www.phulki.com

Moviemart.in - Online DVD rental in India - My Initial impressions

I finally decided to start with an online service for DVD rental. The neighborhood DVD rental store was too expensive with very limited collections. So just reviewed the internet for some options in India and shortlisted to the following options

BigFlix
SeventyMM
MovieMart.in

As expected with BigFlix being a Reliance company poor customer service was the de-facto standard, and the same was confirmed by the reviews which i read online. I guess BigFlix with the kind of investment being put into it may become the cheapest option, but definitely not the best in terms of Customer Service.

Regarding SeventyMM i got mixed response for the same both from my friends and the reviews posted online. I was getting a good corporate deal with seventy mm, but still getting not a too positive feedback didn't help.

Finally came moviemart.in probably the oldest DVD rental company in India (looks like a couple of years old) and not the biggest (they are based out of Delhi but i guess serve in most of the country via TNT courier).  The reviews looked positive almost all over the net so I finally decided to give it a shot. I opted for the weekend plan (Currently available in NCR only) i.e. @Rs 249 i get to see eight DVD's a month and am able to borow 2 DVD's at a time making the cost at around Rs 31.25 per DVD, definitely not the cheapest but not too sky rocketing also. MY account was activated in an hour and the DVD's were delivered on that day itself.

So based on my two days experience with moviemart.in i really found their customer service to be worldclass (quite unlike any Indian company out there). in addition you can always expect prompt responses from their end and they always look eager to help the customer out. In addition they do have a decent collection of movies which definitely would keep me hooked on for the next few months.

Though it would be too early to make a judgement based on just 2 days with moviemart.in but it definitely has been a great start. Great Job moviemart.in for that. Keep it up . Would post my experience after about a month of movie watching with moviemart.in. Hopefully they would be maintaining their standards.

Finally Managed to upgrade my ipod Touch to iphone 2.0 Firmware

After 24 hours of struggle finally managed to upgrade my first generation Ipod Touch to iphone 2.0 firmware which made my waller lighter by $9.95.

With this upgrade came the Januray upgrade to ipod touch free (for which ipod touch users had to shell out $ 19.95). Some of the great enhancements coming up with formware 2.0 support in addiion to the normail January Upgrade (i.e. Stocks, Notes, Email, Google Maps) is

• Cisco VPN support
• Support for Microsoft Exchange Server
• Support for Apps (around 25 % of 500 odd applications available at this time are free. The rest start from 0.95 $ and range upto $40)
• Out of the host of free Apps availbale on the ipod store the remote seems to be really cool. You can actually control your itunes/Apple TV etc. using the ipod touch over the wireless network. No more reaching for the computer everytime you got to change the track/playlist playing on the itunes.

All in all $ 9.95 are well spent it though the iphone users would be getting this firmware upgrade for free.

Apple ITunes Store crumbles under its own load

Check this out. Looks like Apple's itunes store is having a hard time managing load of new iphone 3g users as well as older generation iphone and ipod touch users trying to upgrade their firmware.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1594632&tstart=0
http://www.tuaw.com/2008/07/11/itunes-activation-server-pining-for-the-fjords/
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/07/11/iphone-apple-brick-tech-iphone08-cx_dme_0711brick.html

itunes Store finally accessible from India using Indian Credit Card/Billing Address

Just checked out the itunes store.. Its finally been launched for India. This is really awesome. It Rocks. You can now use an Indian Credit Card with an Indian billing address to finally buy the apps from the App Store (though music/movies etc. still don't seem to be available to Indian users).

The App store is up for itunes Store India. :-)

Though Apple App Store is Up.. 2.0 Firmware for Ipod Touch/Iphone Still not out. Unless we upgrade our existing ipod touch /iphone to firmware 2.0 we would be unable to launch/install the applications from the App Store in our ipod touch/iPhone.

At this point through to use the App Store first of all we need to upgrade to itunes 7.7 and then as we download any applications they get installed into the itunes. Just waiting for the firmware update so that we may actually be able to install the applications on the ipod touch/iphone.

Would update the blog as soon as I am able to update my ipod touch to the latest firmware (from the current 1.1.4).

Cheers.. and Enjoy

Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na Movie Review - It Rocks...

There are meaningful movies and then there are those dull senseless movies. But there are movies in a third category which though not being meaningful do entertain a lot and that's what movies are meant for. Right ?

Jaane Tu Y a Jaane Na is a movie about six yongsters with the leads played by Jai(Imran) and Aditi (Genelia D Souza) and their friends . Everyone including their friends, Aditi's Parents (Anuradha Patel , Jayant Kirpralkar) , Jai's Mother (Ratna Pathak Shah) know Aditi and Jai are in love, but probably Aditi and Jai do not. To make things better or worse Jai and Aditi plan to find a perfact match for each other to prove that they don't actually love each other.

Jai finds Meghna as her love angle and Aditi is enganged with Sushant. But finally following a typical Hindi movie formula Jai and Aditi find that they are actually in love with the climax at the airport (now how many times have we actually seen that :-) )

Now inspite of having a typical Bollywood story and some sterotyped characters Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na still works for the fresh way in which the debutant director (Abbas Tyrewala) has presented the same. All the actors have put in a brilliant performance and Imran Khan is definitely a kid to watch out for. Actually he inherits quite a few of his Mamu's (Aamir Khan) talent. Some of the dialogues are really young and cool and make you split into laughter. The cameo of Naseruudin Shah as a dead person speaking from the frame of a picture (Similar to what happens in Hum Paanch) also adds to the humor element of the movie.

The strongest point of the movie though seems to be an astounding score by A.R. Rahman. Though a couple of songs (Jaana tu Jaana.. and JTYJN title song) have been left out of the movie partially but still the songs alongwith the adds to the overall mood the movie.

Finally full credit to Abbas Tyrelwala for churning out such a great enternainer though the storyline is cliched and the screenplay could have been a bit tighter. Go watch this movie. This one is surely not to be missed.

Rating 3.5/5

Ring Road Honda (Sugoi Motors), Moti Nagar, New Delhi :-( - Feedback regarding servicing of Honda City ZX (Gxi)

After a lot of research I had finally settled for Honda City ZX (Gxi) Anniversary edition with alloys. Its been almost three months since I have been driving the car and touchwood have no problems with the car as is expected from a Honda product. The mileage is excellent, AC supereffective and the drive is real smooth and noiseless.

Unfortuenately the same cannot be said about my experience with getting the car serviced. The first service for the same was due on end April which I took the car to Ring Road Honda (Sugoi Motors), Moti Nagar in almost a brand new condition. I was shocked to receive the car in a dirty condition with all the beige interiors, seat covers being soiled. Had to get the same cleaned in front of my eyes with assurances that this would not happening wasting more than an hour of my time. This was definitely not expected from Honda.

Neverthelss I took my car for second service to Ring Road Honda (Sugoi Motors), Moti Nagar, New Delhi (My second mistake, if i do that again I could probably write a book like "The Three Mistakes Of My Life"), on 22nd June 2008 and this time was for a real big shock. In addition to the seats and interiors being more dirty there were a couple of big scratches in the bumper of the car which were not present before i took the car for service (and the same can be verified on the job sheet where they mark all the scratches). When i brought it to the notice of the concerned people they told me to bring the car another day as it will take one whole day to paint the scratch and then dry it etc. I even talked to the service manager out there all he gave me was the email id and told me to give my feedback over there. All along the way nobody felt the need to apologize and behaved as if they are doing me a great favor by painting the scratch which they had themselves created. In addition this has caused unnecessary trouble for me to take my car to the dealer again for removing the scratch.(And going by my current experience I am sure that i will get a couple of new scratches in addition to the customary dirtying of seats/interiors).

Though I am really Happy with the performance of the Honda City car, but the poor servicing by Ring Road Honda (Sugoi Motors), Moti Nagar, New Delhi is really leaving a bad taste in my mouth. I was a proud owner of Maruti cars for more than 12 years and had never faced any such problem. So all you people out there just keep this experience in mind before taking your car for service to Ring Road Honda (Sugoi Motors), Moti Nagar, New Delhi
.

Update June 20th 2008

Thanks Ring Road Honda (Sugoi Motors), Moti Nagar PR personnel called me up and told me to come over one day for getting the scratch cleaned. When asked about who will pay for my commute to and fro to the service station they said as per the policy they are not liable for paying any reimbursement (I guess as per the policy they shouldnt be allowed to put any scratches on the car either ;-)). T service station being approx 10 kms from my home. This means extra expense for me commuting up and down there in addition to being one whole day of the weekend withotu my car. Thanks Ring Road Honda (Sugoi Motors), Moti Nagar, New Delhi.