Rajan's View

There was a time when the each of the browsers had distinctive features and quirks. Internet Explorer soon started to dominate the browser market. Mozilla Firefox came in like a breath of fresh air with new features like tabbed browsing, spell check and so on. However, Internet Explorer was quick to match these features and maintained it's hold. Along the way, Opera also came into the fray. But, it didn't have much to challenge Explorer's dominance. Safari continues to be relegated to the "apple world". The story started to change with a new entrant - Chromium aka known as Google Chrome (Chromium is the "open source" version). According to me it received a lukewarm response, even among geeks like me. I installed it and quickly shifted back to Firefox. I wish I could say the same now! In the course of my work and home life, I use 3 different operating systems, don't ask me why! They are - Windows 7, Mac Leopard and Ubuntu. I have Chrome in all t

Vegetable stew The vegetable stew from Kerala, God's Own Country is a versatile dish. It can be used as a side dish for chappatis or dosa / appam. It is quite easy to make. And as all stews go, it is very filling and satisfying after a long day of work. Other vegetables that go well in this dish are cauliflower and carrots. For those interested in meat, chicken or lamb can be substituted instead Contributed by Rajan Manickavasagam . Published 07. May 2011 Ingredients 2 diced potatoes 2 sliced green chillies 4 strips of ginger 1 sliced onion 4 tablespoon vegetable oil 1 handful of curry leaves 1 clove 1 cardamom 1 cup of peas 1 cup of coconut milk 1-2 teaspoon of salt (or to taste) Instructions Dice the potatoes and cook them until they are soft. This can be done quickly in the microwave. Heat the oil in pan. Add onions, ginger, curry leaves, clove and cardamom. The clove and cardamom help flavour the oil.

Posted by Rajan April 10th, 2011 Yes Minister Rating: 5 out of 5 Politics, intelligent and comedy. Often there are not words you would use in the same sentence, at least not in a positive manner. Yes Minister, is a very intelligent comedy about politics. What makes Yes Minister classic is that, the episodes and circumstances are timeless which I am sure are played about in the corridors of power even today. Yes Minister was originally written as a book by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn. Later it was converted into a TV series. The TV series is true to the book in every way without any deviation or dilution. If you are an avid book reader, go for the book. For those who enjoy watching, the TV series is brilliant because of the hilarious portrayal by Paul Eddington (the bumbling and naive minister - Jim Hacker), Nigel Hawthorne (the arrogant and cunning permanent under secretary - Sir Humphrey) and Derek Fowlds (the well meaning private secretary - Bernard, caught in the

Pan fried sea bass This weekend I had orders from my wife to cook something different. So, off I went looking for all the ingredients we had at home. This dish is mish-mash of different items. This recipe also happens to be the first one where I have used hrecipe tags. Contributed by Rajan Manickavasagam . Published 20. Mar 2011 Ingredients 2 potatoes 1 egg 50 grammes of bread crumbs 1 spoonful of oregano 1 spoonful of thyme 1 spoonful of basil 3 bell peppers 1 cup of diced carrots 1 cup of peas 7-8 spoonful of olive oil 2 slices of sea bass 2-3 spoonful of salt 2-3 spoonful of pepper You can use some Mayonnaise or Tartar sauce as well. Instructions Boil and slice potatoes. Dip the potatoes in egg and then bread crumbs. Fry the potatoes in olive oil for a few minutes. Slice the bell pe

In Bangalore, there is something different now, more than just the malls and movies. Adding to this list of pedantic attractions is a refreshing new entrant - modern art. The National Gallery of Modern Art located at Palace Road, is an oasis of old world charm. The gallery is located in a renovated old house - Manekyavelu Mansion. It was started a couple of years ago. The gallery is part of the Department of Culture, Govt. of India. The Bangalore branch joins it's older siblings in Delhi and Bombay. NGMA, Bangalore At my wife's prodding, we visited this place this weekend. The gallery is extremely well maintained and very sparse. They have a good range of visiting and permanent exhibitions. Hopefully, there are more such museums created. After all, there is no dearth of culture and history in India. If you ever visit Bangalore, try and visit this gallery. There is a cafe too, if you are in the mood for some tea and snacks. It is located in the heart of the city and

Nature has often been quoted as a an ally of Japan. The most famous instance being the "kamikaze" or "divine wind". When Japan was threatened by Mongol invasion in the 12th century, typhoons destroyed the invading naval armada and saved Japan. But, yesterday Japan was a victim of a nature's fury and power. It suffered from one of the deadliest earthquakes and tsunami. This tsunami is several times bigger than the one that hit the Indian ocean in 2004. While the exact reasons or cause for the earthquake and tsunami are being worked out, The world is already aware of the massive scale of destruction. The japanese people are one of the most prepared against such natural disasters. But, in this case, it may be too much to bear for them too. To see a 20-30 foot high wave travelling at 500 km / hr must be terrifying. As seen on TV screens around the world, it looked like a scene out of the movie - 2012. Hopefully, much of the damage can be repaired soon and th

In the past few years, our computers at home have become more and more involved in our daily lives, be it for paying the bills or keeping touch with friends. This articles explores a few basic steps to protect your computer. Here are a set of one time and ongoing steps to help protect your computer. If you have any other ideas, please send them to me and I will add them to the list below. One time setup 1. Ensure that you have a password for your computer login and do not set the option "to login automatically". 2. Use an anti-virus tool. There are plenty of free ones available like - AVG, Microsoft Essentials and Clam Anti Virus. I would recommend Microsoft Essentials. It's quite simple to use. 3. Ensure that you set medium or high priority security options in your browser. 4. Disable pop-ups. It saves nuisance in a lot of sites. 5. If you are using Windows, enable the Windows Firewall or use 3rd party firewall. For most purposes, the Windows Firewall is a

Posted by Rajan March 3rd, 2011 Saajnaa Saajnaa Rating: 5 out of 5 In recent times, fancy lyrics and modern music have dictated the direction of soundtrack in Indian movies, especially the songs. Every now and then, you get to hear melodious tunes. One of the most lilting songs from recent times has been Saajnaa from the movie Lamhaa. The movie is based on the the trauma faced by people of Kashmir starring Sanjay Dutt, Bipasha Basu and Kunal Kapoor. The song is about a love so close yet apart due to circumstances. This particular song is sung by Mika Singh and Chinmayi. Normally, Mika is associated with more boisterous pop and movie songs in Hindi and his native Punjabi. Here he sings completely out of character with a lot of melancholy. The lyrics are very elegant. Chinmayi gives a very controlled performance, a good foil to Mika's honest rendition. And finally, the music. At times, it feels as if the instruments too are singing along side the singers. In the same

Posted by Rajan March 2nd, 2011 Megamind Rating: 3 out of 5 Megamind is one of the latest animated releases from Dreamworks Animation. As far animated movies go by, this is a very mature and intelligent movie. The animated movies have a come a long way from the time of Beauty & Beast, Alladin and Lion King. The initial animated movies depended on an existing story or fable. The newer set of movies like Toy Story, Despicable Me and Incredibles have an independent plot of their own. The script and direction in these movies are as important as in the regular movies. These movies are as much for kids as they are for adults. The story is about an orphan, Megamind (Will Ferrel) from space who lands up in a jail. The company he grows up with inevitably moves him to the wrong side of the law. On the other hand, there is another orphan, Metro Man (Brad Pitt) who lands into a rich house. As they grow up, both of them becomes arch enemies fighting over Metro City. Eve

In my previous post , I had predicted that, search engines will try to help users with more applied / custom searches. Right on cue, Google released a food recipe search last week. This search is specific to recipes and one can filter the results based on cooking time, ingredients and calories. For now, it looks like Google is indexing the sites which have recipes using the RDFa or Microformat attributes. We are inching closer to the "semantic web" where we have richer attributes specifying a data. The richer the data, more the application of it. With the growth of smartphones, there will be even greater use of such data. This also means that, to start with all the food sites will now have to tag their recipes with either RDFa or Microformat so that they appear better in Google. Either someone will have to develop a tool to do this conversion or perhaps employ people to do a one time conversion. It makes me think that as things keep changing, the change itself keep