October 23, 2009

I Hate...

I Hate You All …


I know writing your comeback script with a title like that can be a risky business but I wanted to give credit to people who bugged me so much that they broke my blogger’s block .. So I’m gonna talk about people who bang my door every now and then .. Here we go then .. :

My Newspaperwallah : Boy, I hate you already when you deliver the paper late (or not at all) but why do you effing have to announce that you’ve dropped the paper by ringing the doorbell ? I really hate getting up in morning to answer the bell to find there’s no soul outside .. My neighbors don’t steal newspaper if you must know …

Kachrewali : (I don’t even know if she can even read Hindi / Marathi let alone English .. But for whatever its worth… ) … I don’t understand why do you think I generate enough crap everyday so that you can collect daily … I don’t understand why you look so disappointed when I tell you there’s nothing in the dust bin .. I don’t understand why you don’t show up when I DO put that dust bin in front of my door …

“Ghar main paanch saal se kam ka bachcha hai kya?” waali’s: I really don’t understand why do you have to come and check every month to find out if I did get a baby miraculously when I already told you last month ..? I know some of you girls might wanna help but have I ever asked any of you “Come on inside and we’ll see what can be done about it” …

Feedback wallahs : I only have this feedback : If I don’t use your service doesn’t it mean it sucks already .. and if I do use your service : Dude .. Do something about it … It sucks …

Cablewallah : How come the only time that I get to know of your existence is when you come to collect the monthly bill and not when I complain about your pathetic set top box from hell on an average of ten times a month …?

Telephonewallah: Well .. I don’t hate you that much anymore .. Not ever since when I fixed my telephone line myself and told you when you did show up on time .. And when I lodged the complain next time and you did show up (after a week) and said “Maine socha aapne khud hi theek kar liya hoga ab tak” … Grrr

“Saamnewala ghar par hai kya?” wallahs : Moron … If he was home wouldn’t he answer your crappy banging-his-door-for-ten-minutes ..?? I really wonder if the saamnewala has to endure the same pain …

“Papa ghar par hain kya ?” wallahs : Do I really look this young ..?? I really hate it people think its my dad who works in Company and not me …

Whoever comes knocking when I am shaving / taking bath / you know what …

Hmmm… It looks this can go on and on … I am gonna take a print out of this page and stick it on my door and see if works …

Its not originally written by me... Just wanted to share it with u guys.... :)

October 15, 2009

Amazing Photosketch converts free hand sketches into realistic pictures

This is possibly one of the coolest thing I have ever seen



Photosketch is, a soon to be made available, web based application that can take a simple stick-figure like rough sketches with annotations, search the web for matching photos and then automagically combines them together into a single “Photoshopped” image.


Watch the video demonstrating the jaw-dropping technology.


We present a system that composes a realistic picture from a simple freehand sketch annotated with text labels. The composed picture is generated by seamlessly stitching several photographs in agreement with the sketch and text labels; these are found by searching the Internet. Although online image search generates many inappropriate results, our system is able to automatically select suitable photographs to generate a high quality composition, using a filtering scheme to exclude undesirable images. We also provide a novel image blending algorithm to allow seamless image composition. Each blending result is given a numeric score, allowing us to find an optimal combination of discovered images. Experimental results show the method is very successful; we also evaluate our system using the results from two user studies.





October 08, 2009

How to Check Multiple Email Addresses for New Mail At Once.htm

How to Check Multiple Email Addresses for New Mail At Once

In the last 15 years, I have had at least four different primary email addresses. My first email account was on MSN Hotmail (now Windows Live Hotmail), then I shifted to Yahoo Mail for some time, then to Google mail followed by Google Apps for Gmail.

Creating a new email account is easy (and often free) but the big problem is that you can't completely ignore the old inbox (unless the service supports auto-forward) because some of your past contacts may still try to reach you on your previous (primary) addresses. 

Now if you are in a similar situation as me and maintain two or more email addresses, here are some solutions that will help you check for new mail across all your web email accounts from a central location without having to log into individual accounts.
Option #1: Use a Desktop based mail client

Gmail, Google Apps for Mail and now Windows Live Hotmail officially support the POP3 protocol so you can check mails in any of these accounts though desktop mail clients like Microsoft Outlook, ThunderBird, Windows Live Mail or Eudura.

Since the free version of Yahoo! Mail doesn't offer auto-forward or POP access facility, there's a simple workaround – you can either use WebMail (for ThunderBird) or YPOPs and manage your Yahoo! emails from any desktop mail client.

Another good alternative here is Zimbra Desktop – it's an Outlook like desktop software (developed by Yahoo) that will help you check mails across all your Yahoo! accounts for free. Zimbra is available on Mac, Windows and Linux.

If you prefer reading and replying to emails on the service provider's website itself but need some sort of a desktop notifier to ping you as soon as new messages land in any of your inboxes, get ePrompter – this runs in the Windows system tray and can retrieve messages from all your web mail accounts at pre-defined intervals.
Option #2: Check mails on any computer

If you work across multiple computers, it may take lot of effort for you to install and configure desktop mail clients on all these individual machines. What you therefore need is ThunderBird Portable – it's just like the desktop version of ThunderBird except that all settings and data are stored on the USB drive so you can easily carry it around and check mails on multiple email accounts from any computer anywhere.

Alternatively, you may try web based services like Fuser and Mail2Web that help you check all your email accounts on a single website. They provide a common inbox for all your web email accounts where you can send as well receive messages without having to log separately into any of you different mail accounts.

Fuser works with Microsoft Exchange as well so you check both personal and work related email simultaneously. Mail2Web offers a WAP version of the website optimized for the small screen of your mobile phones.
Option #3: Let one email address rule them all

The solutions that we discussed so far involved pulling up emails from multiple web accounts into one central location. What if all the messages that reach your secondary inboxes are pushed automatically to your main email address so you can check them in the web browser itself without having to configure anything?

There are two services that can help us here – the good old Gmail and the second is NutShellMail – it's new and awesome.

Let's start with Gmail. This Google mail service includes a featured called Mail Fetcher that will help download messages from up to five other email accounts into your central Gmail inbox. Thus you can check even non-Gmail accounts from Gmail as long as they support POP access (e.g., Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo Mail Plus).

Things get much simpler if you want to use your Gmail (or Google Apps) account as a secondary address because Gmail can auto-forward all incoming messages to any other email account so you really don't have to check your Gmail account ever except for any false positives that get caught in the Spam folder.

Next in this category is NutShellMail – it's a relatively new web service that takes a different but very original approach to dealing with email.

Let's assume that your main address is on Gmail but all the junk newsletters reach your Yahoo! address. You also maintain an AOL account because some of your old college friends still have that address.

Now NutShellMail is a web based service that will monitor all your secondary email addresses in the background and will send you a digest mail containing a list of messages that may have arrived in any your web mail accounts. You can click on the subject line of any message to read the contents.

This service will also come handy in places like your office where you can't check personal mails (on say Gmail or Yahoo!) as access to the mail website has been blocked due to company policies. You can configure NutShellMail and it will send you snapshots of all your inboxes on a recurring schedule.


ENJOY
:)

October 05, 2009

Sonia & Khiem’s Stunning Chinese Wedding

Sonia & Khiem’s Stunning Chinese Wedding: "

I’m sure you’re all aware that there has been a lot of rain this Summer! It seems like every other weekend has had rain. For some, this has been a bit of a negative when it comes to wedding photography, but for us, we love the challenge and a chance to make use of the amazing window light that always happens during inclement weather. Shooting through the rain can look amazing if the bride and groom are brave and don’t mind a bit of wedding day rain.


02-the bride and groom at an old school house in mississauga


We started out the photo shoot at an old school house in Mississauga, which made for incredible pictures. Sonia looked incredible and Khiem wasn’t too shabby either ;) I really love the shots Charlotte and I took through the rain from across the driveway. Two of the groomsmen were good enough to hold big golf umbrellas over us. You can see Charlotte was getting the wide angle image which I was shooting tight with the 70-200mm lens.


04-bride and groom kissing through the rain


05-a stunning chinese bride in an old toronto schoolhouse


06-chinese wedding photogrpahy toronto


01-an awesome antique ring photo


You may remember Sonia and Khiem’s Engagement Photos in High Park.. we had a great time together, wandering through the park, stopping here and there to take some more pictures. We had a great time and one shot in particular that Charlotte came up with, but had me execute (because it involved climbing up into a cherry tree!) was the image they chose for the canvas that was on display at their reception… Isn’t it an awesome shot?


birds eye view engagement photo toronto


We arrived at the wedding & reception venue in Markham, and proceeded with the family photos. I had to share this shot with you all… isn’t this just the cutest little girl on the planet?!!


09-possibly the worlds cutest little girl


Their ceremony was wonderful. Full of fun, lighthearted laughter and lots of love.


00A-Chinese bride is walked down the aisle by her father


00B-Chinese wedding ceremony in markham


12-the first kiss


12A-the bride and groom hanging out at their markham reception


Sonia and Khiem’s entrance was nothing short of hilarious… their entire wedding party ran through a long corridor of people giving high fives.. then when the bride and groom made their entrance, Khiem broke out the phantom camera and snapped away at his beautiful bride with the wedding party!


13-chinese wedding pary ham it up during their entrance


12B-sonia and kheim make their big reception entrance


Sonia and Khiem are environmentally aware and chose to have locally grown flowers for their event, as well as offsetting the carbon emissions from their wedding by sponsoring the event with bullfrog power… incidentally, if you’d like to bullfrog your home, you can save $25 by using our promo code DAVE5412.


14-sonia and kheim cut their wedding cake


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