The wedding shopping and loads of life lessons.

Now before you jump to conclusions looking at the title of the post, I wanna clear it here. IT IS NOT THE SHOPPING OF MY MARRIAGE. Phew.

Now I can move on. Yeah so it is my cousin's wedding (?) and we are shopping for her. Its been tiresome and yet its been awesome. Learned a lot. How much and what all is done in the shopping of the "Big Fat Indian Wedding" and beyond that what relationships can you trust and up to what extent & how fragile relationships can be. Its been so much that at the 10th day I was a bit tired physically but all I can say is that it has been a tremendous experience. The clothes, jewelery, sweets and all the customs & traditions, meeting the in laws and stuff is fun so far. Yes there have been hiccups and little misunderstandings due to the cultural differences and "THAT" actually makes the whole process even more fun, distinct and more enjoyable. In these 10 days, I have seen & known so much about my cousin & the whole process has been amazing. I have not known her or about her so much in last 10 years and that is the beauty of these 10 days.

I am so looking forward to this marriage and all I can pray for is that she has a great life ahead. The only sister I love with all my heart and will miss when I leave for the "2nd life in the same birth".

:)

All I need is good wishes for her which I assume are with me from you guys.

Happy and recovering from tiredness,
H@rdeep.

WOW. JUST WOW.

If I did not write today about this, I would have regretted it forever. There are times when some things struck you so hard that you remember them for a long time if not for the lifetime.

This is just 1 of those things. Very sad that the "embedding" of video was disabled. So you will have to go at Youtube to watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

Dial2do, Ping.fm & Google Voice rock my world.

I have always been a fan of technology, innovations and tools that make life simpler and I don't mind being a "beta user" to all these services, software, websites or any other tools.

Dial2do was something I started using because I follow this great guy called "Pat Phelan" on twitter and everywhere else. I gained an invite code and I could use it because I had a U.S number through Grandcentral. Today I am more than hooked. And trust me these guys keep getting better and outdo themselves.

I have been using Grandcentral.com ever since I could lay hands on it which is today Google Voice and people are still dying to get in to it. I love whatever Google Voice does for me and the "intelligent uses" I make of it.

Ping.fm has been a personal favorite again because they keep getting better day by day. Ability to update so many places by posting status messages and by so many means. hellotxt remains far behind. They have made the life of every social media junkie easier. (BTW I use Google Voice to update my status everywhere because Ping.fm has a text number which is NOT a short code). Great job guys. DAMN AWESOME. I am a FAN FOR LIFE. <3

Try and use them all and I am sure U will love each 1 of them and even the combinations of using each other. this ability of APIs and integration is a clear winner. Nothing beats these 3 in what they are doing. Clear winners. But having said this, I am really dying to look forward to more innovative services because its time I get excited like a child again which sadly has not happened for some time now. Hope people out there are listening and reading this.

Looking forward to exciting services,
H@rdeep.

P.S :- Oops proof reading showed me there are a lot of "Is" in there. Sorry for that. Not at all intentional. :)

Inum's failure to take off and its future prospects.

When Inum was announced by Voxbone, it really got me excited but I was skeptical about it too. I always thought that maybe its too late because things like Enum, Gizmo5, and many other numbers and specially U.S numbers are freely available so people have an international number for free which is globally reachable.

Since any1 can get a U.S DID for free from Ipkall, Groovytel, Voxox, Google Voice (Formerly Grandcentral) or various other websites and since any and every website allows free calls to U.S, having a virtual U.S number means you already have a Inum indirectly. So maybe these guys behind Inum did not get it right because the concept is great, but they are a bit too late.. But slow and steady progress is seen on the blog of Inum. They 1st had access numbers from 45 countries which has not increased, but now calls can be made through Google Talk too besides the interoperability of all Inum VOIP providers. This was news to my ears, but hardly a surprise as Google talk has been exploited and used in creative manners by every other company out there like Gtalk2Voip, Tringme, truphone and what not except Google and the reason is its adoption of Open Standards.

The fact that they do not receive the attention of people is the major hindrance though and that is the "ONLY PROBLEM" that they are not so popular. I find the concept wonderful and as always I have taken the plunge & loved it so far. lets see where it goes, but this sure is 1 thing I will keep an eye on.

H@rdeep.