Mayank's Blog

As the year 2009 draws to a close, let us take a look back at a product which Microsoft launched ealier this year as its answer to Wordpress - Oxite . Oxite is an is an " open source, standards compliant, and extensible content management sample that can run anything from blogs to big web sites ." This is how Microsoft describes it. (To see Oxite in action, click here )

We all have downloaded songs from the internet or ripped songs from CD/DVD and stored on our PC or music player. Whenever we do that, the songs are named as xxx01.mp3, xxx02.mp3 and so on, where 'xxx' stands for the album name. The song's actual name is hidden away in its Advanced Properties -> Title. This is really frustrating because we cannot identify the song. The tool ' Songs Renamer ' which I have created helps you solve this problem. It automates the process of renaming of songs by picking up the text available in Title property and applying it in the file name. Download Songs Renamer Songs Renamer by Mayank Kumar is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License .

India-Sri Lanka 5th ODI cricket match happening in Ferozshah Kotla grounds in New Delhi was about to be cancelled due to the poor quality of pitch, after nearly 25 overs of play. Players, umpires, match refree, and other officials were having a conference in the middle of the ground. Among them was a man clad in white kurta-pajama , complete with a Gandhi topi and a pot belly. If you haven't guessed it already, he was a neta . He did not have a clue about what was going on but was there just for cheap publicity. I was revulsed at the sight of him; not quite sure what irritated me more - the game being cancelled or his presence. However, on hindsight I pondered whether politicians deserve the hatred that they get?

Hi there! Welcome to The Game of Life! If you look at the URL (the little bar above in your browser), it will be pointing to www.mayanklive.com instead of your good old blogspot address. Don't get too fidgety. That's because we have moved to this new domain to ensure that you, my reader, always gets to read the best articles without having to remember and type such a long URL. As with any change, this process of moving will be a little painful and I request you to kindly bear with me. Lame, I know! But I promise to be back with a savvier look and more importantly, some good articles. Till then bookmark www.mayanklive.com in your browser. Thanks for your love and support! Edit: 12th July 2017 - We have moved back to blogspot address. https://mayankblogshere.blogspot.in/

Me and my roommate were returning from a movie theater when I noticed a girl in a black dress and black goggles who seemed to be pretty. Maybe I looked for a second too long at her that I was chided by my roommate. "Dude, don't look at girls like that!!", he said out aloud, much to my embarrassment and his delight. This made me think and write about - How the hell do you look at girls? Let me set the ground rules before you read on. Don't despise men who stare at girls or think of them as perverts. They are doing a public service. This is how it works - Girls spend time, effort and money in buying makeup, clothes and other numerous accessories which make them look good. Have you ever thought why they go through so much trouble?

After nearly an year, this December I had a chance to visit Bihar. My visits normally consist of resting in my home in Patna and occasional visits to my uncle's place. But this time it was different. I had to go to Gaya to attend my cousin sister's marriage ceremony. Stepping out of Patna made me question - Am I really proud to be a Bihari? Patna is like any other city in India, struggling with pollution, traffic jams, crime, etc. Being snuggled in my bed in Patna had made me forget the reality of what Bihar really is; after all its been nearly 10 years since I had traveled to any town outside of Patna in Bihar. So, the illusion was broken the moment my uncle's brand new Maruti A-Star moved out of outskirts of Patna, to what is supposedly the "National Highway". If you haven't guessed it already, its an apology of a road.

Like all of us, I too use Google Talk client to chat with my friends and family. Yesterday while chatting, I wished I could chat in Hindi the way we do in Blogger, Orkut or other Google sites. And what if we could type in Hindi (or other regional languages) on any site, the same way. Well, Google has again come to the rescue! Google Talk can help you with automatic, quick transliterations, converting the Roman characters that you type into your chat to Indic characters. Transliteration lets you type Indic words phonetically in English script and still have them appear in their correct alphabet. Please note that this is not the same as translation. The sound of the words are converted from one alphabet to the other, not their meaning. To use this, you will have to use a Transliteration bot. To use a bot, add it to your Friends list and send it the message you want transliterated. For example, if you send "Namaste" to en2hi.translit@bot.talk.google.com (English to Hindi), it