My favorite online applications

I am kind of Internet addict spending lot of hours online each day like many others. Some of my favorite applications that keep me really busy online are:

1. New York Times Reader - This is exceptionally well designed online/offline newspaper reader built on Microsoft's WPF technology. It makes reading newspaper so much fun and easy on eyes. You have to try to believe it. Unfortunately, it's only available for 30-day trial at this time and the paid service is a bit expensive. I wish it will be a free service someday.

Download the reader at http://select.nytimes.com/gst/timesreader.html

2. Yahoo Pipes - It's an amazingly well designed online app from Yahoo that allows fun and creative things with aggregation/mashup. Of all the Mashup builders online this has to be the best and most useful one out there.

Check out my yahoo pipe at http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=CHQMhUfN2xGqj5rxdLq02Q. This pipe allows for any kind of jobs in and around Seattle area aggregating job openings advertised across multiple job sites like Cragslist, Career Builder, Hot Jobs, etc

3. Google Personalized - This has been my home page for quite some time now. First thing I check early morning when I login onto my machine is scanning the Google personalized home page. With RSS subscriptions from my favorite sites, I get a quick view of new content updates from popular sources on a single page without lot of clicking and wastage of time browsing.

Best thing I like about this tool from Google is that it is 100% ad free. Now that coming for Google is fantastic. I have been always impressed with Google's understanding of where to place ads and in what format without annoying users and continue to make billions from, you guessed it right - Online ADs :-).

Check out Google Personalized at http://www.google.com/ig/

I will keep updating this blog post as I find my favorite online applications.

Enjoy!!

India Map as shown by BBC (without any part of Jammu & Kashmir)

BBC web site is showing India map without the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir as part of India. This is including the current Indian administered state of the state. I wonder what are they showing for map of Pakistan and what is their policy when showing disputed territories around the world.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6931993.stm

Wondering which Hindi songs to download?

We are all always on a look out for those new Hindi movie song hits that are currently popular in India. Ever wondered which songs to download?

I found this Google Music Trend Chart for India to be quite useful. Something to bookmark and check out frequently.

This chart lists top songs Google Talk users are listening to. No more of those hacked top songs list.

http://www.google.com/trends/music?where=IND&genre=hindi%20soundtrack

Real Estate Price Chart from Yahoo

If you have recently purchased real estate property in India, I would like to hear from you on how real are these real estate rate comparison charts from Yahoo?

Thanks,

Radio for the 21st Century - Pandora

After the death of Napster some 5-6 years back, there hasn't been any other service that I have been impressed for listening to music online until now. Wait is finally over. Welcome to world of Pandora.

Pandora is an awesome, sleek, and above all 100% legal service for listening to the music you like. It's not ordinary radio station site that you find on iTunes where you basically have only selection on the music category (Pop, Rock, etc) and it forces you to listen to songs played by the stations with you not having much control. Pandora is different. You can search for your favorite artists or albums and it creates a radio station that matches your music taste.

The interface is very easy to use, classy, and fast. You can even share your favorite stations with your friends and search for what your friend's are listening to. You can bookmark your favorite artists, albums or individual songs. Above all, the service is FREE!

Now this is what I call as service of 21st century. Who needs to pirate CDs, download music from illegal sites when you have a service like P-A-N-D-O-R-A.

Pandora is my new addiction. Great jobs, guys. Enjoy the music at www.pandora.com

Share your Experience - Buying Real Estate in India

Real Estate prices in majority of the cities are again on the rise and at an enormous rate. Blame it on inflation, IT boom, robust economy and population explosion.

For us folks working in US who have strong connections back home - We all have thought about investing in India at some point; starting small, either by buying a home or piece of land. If you are like me, then you are frustrated that you have not been able to take step beyond thinking about it. Most of it has to do with not knowing how to get started and having an incomplete picture being remote.

I would like to hear from my US readers who have recently invested/purchased property in India on how their overall buying experience was?

Thanks

Which is the most corrupt airport in India?

One of the headaches most of us have experienced at least once when flying to India is dealing with our corrupt custom officers at the airport. Dealing with them can be quite frustrating.

I have heard all sort of horror stories from custom officer tearing pages from the passport to gettting arrested after arguments.

I want to know which airport in your experience has the most corrupt officers. I vote for Amchi Mumbai airport. They have some very shameless chain of officers with hawaldar to the top manager involved in taking bribe and violating every possible rule they can. Their attitude is like they own the airport and we are at their mercy at least for an hour or so till we get out of the airport.

I am interested in hearing about your vote and reason behind nominating it for the most corrupt airport.