Mo's (mohans) Space

Other Places to find me

2010-10-28T02:41:00.002+02:00

Not much to say in last few months. Keep in touch with my quicker n shorter posts over at tumblr. Check it out at - mohans.tumblr.com.

Or you can follow me on twitter (for 140 character conversations) - twitter.com/mohans

or more info over at about.me

Hello World

2010-05-19T15:13:00.002+02:00

Its been quite a while since I updated the blog, thou am not ignoring it or mebbe I'm. Its just been busy and not much to write past few months or in one word Boooring :). Though I did go to India already twice this year which was brilliant. Will be back with more stuff, news, photos etc. soon.

Enjoy your summer.

PS: I am not using fb (don't worry I haven't Quit), just a break. But you can catch me on twitter.

My fav. shots of 2009

2009-12-31T13:33:00.005+01:00

Here are some of my own favorite shots taken in year 2009.

Had a great snow season early this year in Dublin.

Taken during several dublin walks with my camera :)

Ireland winning the Grand Slam - 6 nations Rugby.

Got a new macbook pro.

Graffiti by Maser

Southern Californian Sunset

Beautiful moment - crashing waves on the sunset

Amazing Sunset Colors

Disney Concert Hall - LA

20 sec of LA

Japanese Kite Flying festival with friends

Almost 10,000 ft - great hike

Yosemite welcomes with a storm, it was my first ever drive in mountains + storm didn't help :) but it was amazing

This place is just beyond words, calm, peaceful, beautiful, scenic, river flowing sound, the granite drops .......

at Kings Canyon

Pillars of our world - Redwood Trees

feeling of how vast landscape in CA is

as I left it in my mind last time

Nostalgic

To my wonderful friends in Dublin, THANKS.

Nostalgic Empire

2009-12-10T18:04:00.001+01:00

Nostalgic Empire, originally uploaded by Mohan S.

Applications crashing in Snow Leopard

2009-09-08T22:55:00.006+02:00

I upgraded to Snow Leopard last week and overall it was a smooth transition, but it also had the biggest problem (at-least for me). Firefox - the most used application on my Macbook Pro CRASHED, like every time I start it - it crashes n crashes. It was extremely annoying. And 1Password was not working in Safari, so I decided to move a close second of Firefox, i.e. Flock which worked much better than Firefox but crashed occasionally, until today when it refused to start up too.

Mozilla and Apple forums have few threads complaining of such but there was not a clear answer in any of those, so the problem persisted for me until I found this "Snow Leopard Crashes and Problems" and problem is with the Fonts in Snow Leopard. After the upgrade (esp. if you have extra fonts installed), few of them are corrupted.

So I followed the simple step of reseting the font caches first (as mentioned on the page). Type in terminal "atsutil databases -removeUser" and restart your system so OSX can rebuild the fonts. And after the restart - check the Font Book and remove duplicate fonts or validate fonts, if any. In my system, even after the restart, some fonts were not working - so I revalidated them.

And this seems to resolve the problem of firefox crashing due to font issues (not sure of other applications but some of them are caused by fonts)

Am happy Firefox is working smoothly now and hopefully it will continue to do so :)

Real sunset sky

2009-09-05T04:25:00.001+02:00

Real sunset sky, originally uploaded by Mohan S.

@Laguna Beach, Orange County, California

Photo Meetup at Dana Point, OC

2009-08-25T08:15:00.000+02:00

DMV thoughts from West Coast

2009-08-02T06:49:00.004+02:00

Went to DMV last week, it was not as bad as they show in TV/movies :)
Glad I went by appointment thou, as the line was just too long.
Being CA and home of silicon valley and all other computer stuff, you would expect it to be lot more computerized and all. But the biggest surprise (atleast to me) was the paper-based written exam. Easier for me :) but still paper-based, who does that.
Best part - they corrected the exam in 10 sec. (39 questions) - they had a stencil of correct answers to do it.
And here is my CA license, as I already had a NJ license (expired), no behind the wheel exam

I need to stay in one country long enough to have a permanent long term license. Gotta do this license thing every time I move. Hopefully will get full Irish license when I get back to Dublin.

Thoughts from West Coast

2009-07-20T04:59:00.002+02:00

highlights:

some wonderful tea flavors at Cha for Tea (still ginger black tea with milk is still best) but its nice to have cold tea flavors in this weather
speaking of weather - its 35 C .. living in such hot weather in quite a loooong time
speaking of weather again - nobody talks about how good the weather is here, sun is always shining; its also nice how back in Dublin, life sort revolves around good weather
got a credit card (of 100 USD limit :D) for building US credit history or thats what the bank lady told is a good idea
likes the vegetation here (apart from the palm tress), feels like back home in India
Indian food is def. way better
there are lots n lots of Asians in Irvine .. almost everyone :)
almost impossible to do anything without a car .. ok i already knew that but thought might be different

Best Landscapes seen from Airplane

2009-07-07T04:59:00.006+02:00

On the way from NY to LA, somewhere over Colorado, Utah and Nevada. I haven't looked out of a plane window so much. It was amazing watching all this landscape from high above.

Didn't take pictures of Great Lakes in Michigan, but they were HUGE, for once i thought which ocean are we crossing now. Amazing.

400th Post from Long Beach, LA - Highlights Only

2009-07-07T04:33:00.004+02:00

I am moving to Irvine for few months for summer n fall for work project. Thou' am already in LA and no, I didn't get the tickets for the MJ memorial, heard on news, some of them are going for 150,000 $$$ on ebay.

Here are some highlights of the trip already:

Watched LIVE car chase
Local news about animals escaped from somewhere to somewhere
Mountain Dew
Cheap Sushi
Meal portions are huge
Normal is just not normal anymore
5 lane (10 total) highways
Who said there is car recession - all those fancy brand new GM's!!
After watching all that Daily Show, had to see Fox News (wow)
Pics of awesome landscape (prev. post)
Its actually Hot
Using AC to keep room temp at 21 C .. ??
Feels different than east coast

Ah, best part (not exactly after 2.5 months delay but still), no immigration checks in US (only for flights from Dublin/Shannon, Ireland, all stuff done in Dublin airport) .. was good.

Cold Shower

2009-06-02T15:14:00.003+02:00

Best Summer in Dublin. Sun is shining :)

Mo's Rainy Sunday Receipe

2009-05-17T20:21:00.006+02:00

Red Kidney Beans (Rajma) Curry

Grind to a paste - 1 Onion, 2 Chillis (I added one red and one green so as its not very spicy), big chunk of ginger, 4 Garlic cloves and mint leaves. Add oil to a pan, before you add the paste, add cumin, and coriander seeds until light brown. And then add the paste. Fresh spices smell awesome :)

Keep stirring until the oil separates from the spice paste as seen below

Cut 2 Tomatoes, 4-5 potatoes and 1 can of kidney beans

Before you add tomatoes, add little bit of garam masala (mix of indian spicies), salt to taste and pinch of Turmeric.
And then add tomatoes and stirr until they mix properly

Seen like this

Add Potatoes and Kidney Beans and Add 2 Cups of Water and cook (slow heat) until potatoes are cooked

Trust me :) .. u won't be disappointed if you like Indian food

Dessert (am no expert in this now) - Most times, they end in disaster. So this time I went for something very very simple (thanks to lil for suggesting it)

Got 1 sliced mango with skin, plain yoghurt, saffron and tiny bit of milk to mix saffron

Grill the mango with brown sugar or plain sugar sprinkled on top

Mix the saffron in warm milk and add to yoghurt and mix throughly

Final product: Topped with pecan

Graffiti Selective Coloring

2009-05-10T17:04:00.004+02:00

Dublin in Selective Colors, originally uploaded by Mohan S.

I took this shot near upper camden street, graffiti art done by Maser. You can see the original one here. I decided to try selective coloring on it. Have seen some real good ones on flickr. Trying to avoid photoshop :), I decided to do it in Adobe Lightroom (which btw is a great photo management software, only if it could be free). But after several tries, it didn't seem to work properly. Its very easy to start with, go to Brush tool, make it BnW and then erase the parts you wanna do selective coloring on. But somewhere midway, it seemed to just crash, not exactly crash crash but the eraser tool just won't work right, also cudn't switch between eraser n brush to correct minor details. After 4/5 half tries, time to go back to photoshop. Also was thinking Lightroom might be easier on memory n stuff doing simple selective coloring but no, it took ages n wait'd for seconds (n I'm using latest macbook pro). Photoshop - to my surprise :), lot more easier for selective coloring than lightroom. Import the image, do a background copy of the original layer. From adjustments, selective BnW and then make a mask layer on top of it. Now on the mask layer, just use the brush tool, to erase the parts you are interested in. You can zoom in and do minor details. If an error, switch to black background and erase to get the original parts back. This is important if you want to get the colors right precisely. It was like doing graffiti on original graffiti. The resulting image looked nicer, its bit rought on edges if you see the bigger size of it on flickr, but otherwise looks nice :). Also I only did it using mac trackpad, no mouse.

Mo's Mint Thai Red Curry

2009-05-07T16:54:00.003+02:00

Coconut Milk + Mo's Special Mint Paste

Saute Vegetables + Chicken

Final Product with Yop

5000 years ago

2009-05-04T21:56:00.004+02:00

Knouth, Newgrange in Co. Meath, one of the worlds most ancient, better called prehistoric, places.

camara bag packers

2009-04-25T18:35:00.000+02:00

Frm N95

Indian Food Made Easy

2009-04-12T23:14:00.002+02:00

Roasting Marinated Vegetables and Circular sliced onions added on top for another round of roasting

Marinated (mixture of yogurt, egg, flour, ginger, garlic, chillies, salt, pepper, lemon juice) and roasted chicken skewers

Dinner Plate: Marinated chicken skewers with roasted vegetables with side of bread and cucumber raita (yoghurt)

And thats how I spent entire Easter afternoon n evening :)

Apple: Which one do you want?

2009-04-04T19:02:00.002+02:00

Apple: Which one do you want?, originally uploaded by Mohan S.

Choose wisely :)

fancy cup of mocha

2009-03-25T17:05:00.001+01:00

Frm N95

Belated Paddy's Day (with pics)

2009-03-21T03:13:00.004+01:00

Did you had a fun St. Patrick's day. It was a great sunny day in Dublin and I went to see the parade and thanks to pix.ie, got a VIP pass for some great photo opportunity. Recently, I have started using pix.ie also for posting some photos, and plus side of it, it sorta also gives me insight into the local Irish photo community (not that it only irish :D) and some extra feedback is always nice. Check it out. More photos of paddy's day here.

DoF

2009-02-24T23:13:00.003+01:00

No Skateboarding, originally uploaded by Mohan S.

From photowalk around Dublin. Photowalk's are good way to spend some quality time with my camera, otherwise it keeps biting dust. Glad I did first one past weekend. More to come!!

Ah enjoy pancake day :)

If you looking for a job, Get on the bus..

2009-02-22T18:38:00.003+01:00

to Jobstown!!

Behind the lens

2009-02-21T23:49:00.000+01:00

Frm N95

Glowing Sky

2009-02-21T23:47:00.000+01:00

Frm N95

Lots of Apple goodies

2009-02-19T16:14:00.000+01:00

Frm N95

Conversation with Desmond Tutu

2009-02-18T15:08:00.001+01:00

Frm N95

Snowboarding in Wicklow

2009-02-12T21:37:00.004+01:00

Snowboarding in Wicklow, originally uploaded by Mohan S.

To start off, if you don't know, it normally doesn't snow in Dublin :) .. its mostly rainy n windy. But since last 2 weeks, the climate is indeed changing, probably the snowing melting from poles is getting to us.

Last weekend, it snow'd enough (actually can still see the snow up the mountains around Dublin) to do some snow sports. The picture above is Conor getting some good air on the ramp. It was a very good day with all the snow stuff. If you are in or around Dublin, hope you enjoyed the wonderful change of weather.

Here another one:

And finally a video I made last week:

Mo Links - Once in a While

2009-02-07T17:27:00.005+01:00

Recently, I moved from Windows to Mac (atleast for my personal work). Since I have been using OSX more regularly now, thought might share some links for OSX. Its a bit of learning curve to move from Windows to OSX, even thou OSX is lot smoother and very friendly :); its nice to find some useful apps for new OSX users, most of them are the ones I am using myself.

FunctionFlip : Arrange the function keys as you wish individually. Useful.
Twitterific OSX App
Some cool Apple themed Wallpapers
Encrypt Files - Mac OSX Tip
BibDesk - bibliographic reference manager
Finally, Skitch - very cool, handy, useful app for screen capture and sharing

Damn, it snow's too in dublin :)

2009-02-02T11:49:00.000+01:00

Frm N95

Apple going strong - 3 generations

2009-02-01T00:45:00.001+01:00

Frm N95

Going Full HD

2009-02-01T00:22:00.001+01:00

Frm N95

Google Suggesting Everything is Harmful on Web

2009-01-31T16:17:00.005+01:00

Searching google today is returning "this site is harmful" for whatever I search on Google.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Even wikipedia articles

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Or is it only my ISP or anyone else having this problem.

Update: on BBC

Double Blue Screen of Death

2009-01-30T21:34:00.001+01:00

Frm N95

Real Apple Belfast

2009-01-30T17:06:00.002+01:00

Frm N95

On the way to work

2009-01-30T17:05:00.001+01:00

Frm N95

2007 CV Wordle

2009-01-23T15:45:00.003+01:00

Interesting way to visualize your CV. Here's a 2007 version of my CV. Or make you own at Wordle.

Now living next to

2009-01-22T19:57:00.000+01:00

Christ Church
Frm N95

Smithfield's lighthouse

2009-01-18T23:55:00.001+01:00

Frm N95

Ross's

2009-01-10T17:51:00.000+01:00

Frm N95

WOW - Cirque du Soleil

2009-01-10T04:08:00.001+01:00

They are coming to Dublin.. gotta see them!!

Microsoft tag for the blog

2009-01-09T21:26:00.005+01:00

Yesterday MS released an app called Tag, which lets you create your own tags which mobile devices with cameras can read. I created one for my blog. Try it. Its super quick and responsive on my Nokia N95 in analyzing the code.

Slides on show

2009-01-05T20:07:00.002+01:00

Just realized, flickr slideshows are cool way to show set of images or the entire collection. Never tried them before, check out, go fullscreen !! :D

2009 Flickr Fav's

2009-01-05T01:20:00.003+01:00

I have been spending a lot of time these days on flickr, I need to get out and do some real photography :) .. its been ages since I went out just with the intention of taking shots. Here is a photo dump of some of the most recent favorites. Hope everyone havin a wonderful start to 2009.

HDR Comparison

2009-01-04T03:16:00.006+01:00

Recently, I have been doing bit of HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography or post-processing as you may call it. Normally, I am not very fond of post-processing, am more of a in-camera shot kinda person or mebbe becoz I just can't do photoshop'ing.

Over the Christmas, we did few hikes around the Dublin mountains.

Here are two shots of the same place, first one is in-camera shot:

and here is the HDR processed one:

Which one do you like?

4 Yrs

2009-01-03T22:27:00.002+01:00

Its been 4 long years for this blog. I mainly started it to keep in touch with friends, after Princeton. Over the months, years, sometimes I have neglected it, sometimes wrote crap (still), sometimes posted pictures, travel logs, sometimes wrote about work, most recently mobile photo blog etc etc.. It never found a niche, it was never meant too. Its follows me and has a diverse range of interests :).

Just now, it striked me, we need a new makeover for it. I don't like the banner image anymore, its too dark n red n 2006. Hence first n foremost, I want to make a new banner image for it (like very soon), but seeing my Photoshop skills, it might take a little longer, but very soon.

Actually, I wanted to move it over to my own domain or wordpress, where I can tweak it more. Mebbe I'll do it this year, but not sure.

Tic'le Me - Wink!! - LOLCats

2009-01-03T22:17:00.003+01:00

Just a fun test, got this picture in Cambridge last year.

moar funny pictures

HAPPY NEW YEAR '09

2009-01-01T17:39:00.012+01:00

Wishing everyone a very happy, prosperous, n joyful 2009.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-24T04:38:00.004+01:00

Wishing everyone a Wonderful Christmas. Best Wishes.

Image Courtesy : chopeh

Rainy X-mas

2008-12-21T21:26:00.000+01:00

Frm N95

Dublin's xmas tree close-up

2008-12-14T03:39:00.001+01:00

Frm N95

Notre Dame de Paris HDR

2008-12-10T19:17:00.002+01:00

Originally uploaded by Mohan S

Most recent work of HDR. Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. Most of the other images of the cathedral weren't very good, and with so many tourists its quite hard to get a decent shot. But I like this HDR one most, as it brings out the character of the place much better.

Office Twister

2008-12-10T14:15:00.001+01:00

Frm N95

MLG Secret Santa

2008-12-10T13:16:00.001+01:00

Frm N95

2nd Floor - irish coffee-gluhwien

2008-12-10T13:15:00.001+01:00

Frm N95

Irish coffee shoppin

2008-12-09T01:58:00.000+01:00

Secret santa comin to town
Frm N95

Indian dinner - 2

2008-12-07T02:27:00.001+01:00

Frm N95

Indian dinner by ME

2008-12-07T02:24:00.001+01:00

Frm N95

CASL black xmas tree

2008-12-05T16:49:00.001+01:00

Frm N95

frozen dublin

2008-11-29T15:32:00.001+01:00

Frm N95

Mobile Accessible

2008-11-28T18:24:00.005+01:00

Recently I was looking for blogger blogs to be viewed on mobile phone but they don't have such a setting. By google'ing, came across this post, link, which shows "how-to" access your or other blogger sites in mobile phones.

If you wanna access this blog via a mobile: Click Here and Bookmark it.

Probably, you need to have google account as it uses Google reader.

M. Gladwell talkin abt communication

2008-11-27T20:44:00.002+01:00

Frm N95

Waitin for Malcolm Galdwell talk

2008-11-27T19:22:00.001+01:00

Frm N95

got my first picture publication

2008-11-26T19:19:00.001+01:00

Here: http://tinyurl.com/6o8xky
Frm N95

10 Apps for N95

2008-11-23T22:05:00.004+01:00

in no particular order:

10. YouTube mobile - comes with v20 of the firmware

9. Nokia Maps with GPS - comes with v20 of the firmware

8. Google Maps - m.google.com

7. Gmail client - m.google.com

6. Fring

5. Yahoo Go!

4. Location Tagger

3. Share Online - inbuilt

2. Step Counter

1. Mail-to-Blogger / Shozu (if it suits you)

Check out Image No. 9

2008-11-23T16:48:00.001+01:00

Colours Of India - Photo Show

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: gallery pictures)

Thinking Design

2008-11-23T16:44:00.001+01:00

Visual and Creative Thinking:What We Learned From Peter Pan and Willy Wonka

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: kelseyruger sketching)

Tulip prices fall by 99%! Are we there yet?

2008-11-23T16:24:00.003+01:00

The Financial Crisis: an Historical Perspective

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: credit loans)

Mebbe its just me, but until last year, all these corporation which are going bust were making BILLIONS of dollars in profits and now they can't afford a few millions. Who's to blame?

Nokia N95 + Blogger + Post Pictures

2008-11-21T20:34:00.009+01:00

Got a mobile phone, + Wifi or 3G; but how to post images to Blogger. In the end it turned out to be quite simple but it still took a week to find the best way to get my mobile pictures to blogger.

The first method I tried was Shozu. Even thou, its one of best mobile software I found for posting to various ervices together, it didn't really solve my posting problems. I configured blogger but when it posted pictures, it also posted a tiny shozu logo image along with it - which sucks and also the image didn't scale properly, too small. Mebbe there are some settings to solve these 2 issues but I couldn't get it working. Hence shozu was out.

The second method was to use Lifeblog service provided by Nokia. Worse part, it has no settings to post to Blogger.com. Totally useless you might think. There is a work around for it, link: post to blogger, basically you use the flickr settings for lifeblog and configure your blog in flickr and post directly to your blog and flickr also. The reason it turned useless for me was it was also posting the image to flickr and I didn't wanted to post camera images on flickr all the time. If you don't mind that, its pretty good.

Then I tried using Blogger Mobile, it looked good but somehow I couldn't get it working for me. Mebbe becoz of proxy, not sure!!

Finally, I configured my email account on the phone for emails. And setup Mail-to-Blogger under Settings -> Email and you can make a private email account xxxx@blogger.com and just send the pictures taken from phone to the specified email address with 'Title of post' in the 'Subject line' and if you wanna add info, just write like an email. Hit send and its done. And it also scales the image in decent size.

Going Mobile

2008-11-21T20:33:00.002+01:00

Recently, I got a new phone, Nokia N95 8Gb, its actually given to us as a part of research work being done in the field of social-ubiquitous computing in CASL, for the clarity group. I have been meaning to buy a new phone for quite some time now, my previous O2 windows mobile smart phone was a piece of s***.

I have heard/read about N95 but never tried myself. Ok, its not an iPhone, iPhone just kills every other brand out there in the user interface and web browsing exprience. But it lacks a lot of phone features which nokia has mastered over the years, without going into details of it.

Important thing for me, it has a 5MP camera + Wifi (without getting billed for data), which gives me more opportunities to shoot images and post it direcly from the phone or just post from mobile, even thou writting a post is quite a task from phone keyboard, hence I would be posting lot more image going around me.

First mobile post

2008-11-21T17:06:00.000+01:00

Dublin's 'energy efficient 100,000 LED' xmas tree designed by french firm Blachere.
Frm N95

SUPER BUSY

2008-11-08T18:24:00.001+01:00

just wanna drop a line

work is keeping me super busy

more next week

Diwali at home

2008-11-01T15:02:00.003+01:00

More Images from Delhi

2008-10-24T22:26:00.001+02:00

The Central Shopping District - Cannaught Place "CP"

Spicy "Indian" Chinese Food and its vegetarian

India Gate - The War Memorial

Amar Javan Jyoti

The new high rise residential complexes in Gurgaon - satellite town of Delhi.

Delhi Traffic

2008-10-24T22:14:00.001+02:00

I am totally overwhelmed by the traffic in Delhi. Even thou' I am not driving, just sitting n watching it makes me tired and bit afraid also. The traffic is just too much all the time and everywhere and worst part, people crossing n passing from any direction they find n not following the laws. One can't blame one person or another for the mess as everyone seems to be doing it, be it either bus drivers, trucks, vans, auto-rickshaws or cars. The best part of the transportation in Delhi seems to be Delhi Metro, a lot of it is still under construction but everything associated with it, works seamlessly. Am already looking forward for next visit, hopefully by then most major routes would be completed.

Old Delhi, ok this one is the extreme case as its the old part of delhi which is already very congested.

Images from India, Delhi

2008-10-21T15:12:00.002+02:00

Red Fort, Old Delhi

The Kebab Shop in Delhi called Khan Chacha, they were just mouthwatering

A bull decorated with beads, for the Saturday God

A Richshaw Driver

Wah Taj

2008-10-14T22:02:00.003+02:00

"Wah" is a Hindi word meaning wow or great. And Wah Taj is a commonly used phrase for description of Taj Mahal. And I once more had a chance to visit it. Here are some the pics:

6 AM at the Taj Mahal. Drove from Delhi at 1 AM at night just to see sunrise at the taj.

Taj glowing with the morning sun rays

Taj HDR

Rising Sun

Delhi Flicks

2008-10-12T22:14:00.005+02:00

Delhi Policemen watching the Fireworks during Dussehra (due to bomb blasts, there was lot of security, everywhere I take my camera, they are checking me even more.. contd.)

In short - the festival commemorates the victory of Rama, prince of Ayodhya and avatara of Vishnu, over Ravana, the ruler of Lanka who had abducted Rama's wife, Sita Devi. The pics shows the effigies of Ravana in center and his 2 brothers on both sides.

Burning of Ravana, victory of good over evil

Moving on too, more common things in delhi, Malls, there is one every mile suppose.. this is one of the biggest and its just 10 min. walk from my home. And there is an Irish pub also in it, called Geoffrey's, atleast the decor was Green :) with some old high school songs being played, it was fun. And contd. my camera story, the security were almost like not letting me take the camera inside. But I did :)

And even an oktoberfest band with beer and food, all in one :)

First Images from Delhi, India

2008-10-10T14:23:00.002+02:00

Some shots of Durga Puja in C.R. Park, Delhi (as usual wikipedia can give you all the information about it, click here).

Goddess Durga

There was lots of security around, even army, due to last weeks of bombing in Delhi and other parts of India.

Namaste from Delhi - Creating Employment

2008-10-09T21:15:00.004+02:00

Its so good to be home. I need to plan my trips more often and shorter. So much has changed in Delhi, for good n bad. Today was Dussehra or Vijayadashami, the triumph of good over evil (wikipedia), I'll post some pics soon.

For the second part - Creating Employment, we went to have some dinner n drinks at a Bar and as we arrived, there was vale parking, all good. While returning, the parking lot was empty and we could see our car just 15-20 steps away but we still got the car driven all the way to us by the vale guy (not sure what's it called). It just felt bit off as we cud see the car few meters away but still the vale guy got the car. With cheap labor comes new work opportunities.

Flickr Fav Dump

2008-09-30T21:43:00.004+02:00

Some of my recent flickr favorites. Hope everyone having a good September. Don't let the financial mess get you down :)

Back in Dublin

2008-09-24T13:06:00.003+02:00

Louvre Reflection, originally uploaded by Mohan S.

This is my favorite shot from the entire French n Paris trip, taken without a tripod and a shiny new background for my PC (without walls) screen.

Bonjour from Ile de Re

2008-09-11T18:14:00.003+02:00

Been a while since I posted. I am currently attending a Summer School (for Machine Learning) in Ile de Re, an island on the south-west coast of France. Weather has been not as good as I expected but still quite nice n warm. Tried some local Pino (combination of cognac n grape juice, bit sweet) also, quite good. Am not able to upload pics, the wifi connection is extremely slow. More from Paris next week.

Wordle

2008-08-31T02:11:00.004+02:00

Just now, I came across a neat website called wordle which lets you create word/tag clouds from rss feeds, or any text. Check out the wordle for my blog.

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South-West - Truely Gorgeous

2008-08-15T18:48:00.005+02:00

Following up on my traveling around Ireland series, this time we went to the South-West of Ireland. To read about previous road trips, check posts To The West and To North-West. The maps of our drive was as follows:

We first went to Limerick on the way to Dingle Peninsula, drove around peninsula, back to Dingle, towards Kilkee crossing river, following day to Cliffs of Moher and finally Galway and back to Dublin.

As I have said it in previous posts also, my love for Ireland just keeps growing everytime I visit anything outside Dublin :)

Some highlights of trip, if someone wanna do similar.

Limerick was great, but it was raining so we cudn't manage to see much but still in between sun n rain patches, we managed to see the castle and church. The best part, food was way cheaper than Dublin and we enjoyed a wonderful cup of coffee and home made scones for less than 12 euros for 3 people.
Normally, people go to Ring of Kerry. But we decided to go to Dingle Peninsula. The only thing I knew of it was the famous Dolphin called Fungie, which we off-course saw the next day.
Dingle is just gorgeous, no words can explain it. It was not the best weather, but atleast it was not raining with some sun shining once in a while and we drove all along the peninsula, its probably one of the most beautiful drive in Ireland I have taken. Also lots of prehistoric sites to see, the landscape is out of world :) and also visited the west most point of Ireland, "The Basket Islands", which comprises of 7 islands. We went to the edge of one of the islands and it was soo soo coool. Unmissable.
We then drove back to Dingle and passed Connor Pass, it was bit overcast by then, so we didn't stop but it looked very tempting to have a walk. But we needed to cross the river by ferry to go across and didn't wanted to take the long road route. So we had to hurry up and we drove to Tarbert and got the ferry to Woodview (see map here for more close up route)
And drove to a small town of Kilkee.
Following day, we had nice breakfast in Kilkee, nice sunny day, drove to Cliffs to Moher (second of the many time probably I will visit this spot).
The last stop was Galway city, which was much much better than I expected. Nice, small town city like feeling. Def. not to miss.

And ah, don't worry about accommodation, there are so many B&B's and non-breakfast places, we never had to book anything, just go to one n spend the night.

I would be posting the pictures slowly on flickr, Have a look here.

Some collage shots:

Limerick n Irish Highways

Fungie, Dingle Peninsula

Drive along Dingle peninsula, Landscape

Flying High on the west most point in Ireland, The Basket Islands

Kilkee, Cliffs of Moher n Galway City

Dummies Guide to US Elections - Part 8

2008-08-07T00:31:00.009+02:00

Its been a while since I posted on my previous series "Dummies Guide to US Elections" (Part 6 n older) and since then lot has happened, ah not really. Thou' Mrs. Clinton is out of the race, it was getting just too confusing for everyone (Americans / International community alike). So now we down to final two - the very very old man "the-white-hair-dude" and the-man-who-is-gonna-bring-change.

This is not what caught my attention, but someone else bought back the good feeling of "drama" the US elections gives to us and am totally back on track to track. And that someone else is Paris Hilton. And this is the best campaign you will ever see and it has given an entirely new dimension to the ever-so dramatic US elections. Check it out:

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

Finally, a worthwhile 3rd candidate has arrived. Vote for Paris Hilton.

Paris Hilton quotes:
"he is oldest celebrity in the world, like super old"
"i'm just hot"
"totally ready to lead"
"dancing was sin, n beer was served in a bucket"
"I'll see you at the debate bitches"
"Vice President - Rihana"
"Paint it Pink"

This was in response to this Mc Cain ad (which is btw just awful)

And I can't even comprehend this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mopkn0lPzM8

Flickr Fav Dump

2008-08-02T01:31:00.003+02:00

Dublin Metblogs Wants MOAR

2008-07-29T13:28:00.007+02:00

Metblogs Recruiting Poster, originally uploaded by seanbonner.

Isn't this the best recruiting poster you have ever seen :), atleast for me. So, I also write/blog/rant/manage for Dublin Metblogs, which is part of the global network of cities "Metroblogging". And Sean (n HQ team) created this awesome recruiting poster; so if you live in Dublin and would like to be part of our team, Check this Come Blog With Us.

Spread my wings n Fly away

2008-07-26T17:47:00.003+02:00

Spread my wings, originally uploaded by Mohan S.

Last weekend, we went to see Rose festival in Raheny. Here is a shot of one of most beautiful flower :)

The Golden Rule?

2008-07-22T17:47:00.001+02:00

Jay-Z performing Mundian Tu Bach Ke @ Glastonbury 08

2008-07-15T16:24:00.003+02:00

Very cool, finally I liked something Jay-Z has done :)

The 7x7 Journey (photo-book)

2008-07-08T23:36:00.006+02:00

I have been meaning to get some of my photos in a book / printed form for sometime now, not that I have pro photos or anything but more of a collection of some good shots taken over the years (mostly in 2007-2008). So today I finally self published a photo collection in a book form titled "The 7x7 Journey" at blurb.com; you can find the link and preview of the book on the right hand column. The cover looks as -

Its a collection of photos (20 pages - 40 photos) in 7x7 format.

Hope you like. And yeah you can buy it also from the link above or link on right hand side. Its reasonably priced at Euro 10 for a softcover version.

Is he gonna flip a lot more?

2008-07-07T02:23:00.006+02:00

hopefully not, but

His Switch on Telecom Immunity (NY Times)

And Iraq

Everybody Dance Now

2008-07-07T02:15:00.000+02:00

Sunset HDR Again

2008-07-03T21:58:00.004+02:00

Just playing around with some more RAW images for HDR processing in Photomatix and Photoshop.

I like this with not much color in sky but the you can see the shades of sunset sun in water.

Here's with more sunset colors in sky

And ya, this is the original jpeg shot

Fantasy Football WIN

2008-06-30T00:13:00.006+02:00

It was my first fantasy football competition. And I WON :) and so did Spain after a long long time and their second big international cup.

I was surprised how addictive it can be. At some point, I was more interested in getting points from my selected players in here rather than who wins.

Final Tally

Winning Team (as you see, I was supporting both teams equally :))

Second HDR Try

2008-06-29T01:58:00.006+02:00

Did some HDR processing for RAW images, taken during the bundoran trip.

Flickr Fav. Dump

2008-06-28T20:28:00.001+02:00

NEWS

2008-06-28T03:16:00.001+02:00

Google news was welcome change in online news with aggregated news from all over but there was something missing always, no interactivity n no videos (some youtube ones but not enough), and then I saw this one. Piclens, its a plugin for firefox and initially I installed it for flickr and over the months, its has improved a lot with news, videos, immersive environment. Just flick thru' news n images in the morning for a quick glance, or see images n videos of news with headlines. Still of things missing (some sort of personalization aspect would be very interesting) but going in right direction. Check it out!!

Serious Hot Dancing

2008-06-28T03:02:00.001+02:00