Venkatarangan's Spaces

Last week while in San Jose (CA), my good friend “Ranga” took me for a change to have Ethiopian food for dinner at “Zeni Ethiopian Restaurant”. I readily agreed as I like to experiment any food that is Vegetarian (As I say in foreign lands - No Fish, No Meat & No Chicken).

We went through the menu and decided to play safe with their ready-made “Vegetarian Combo” (shown above). I didn’t understand a single item contained in the combo (YE-MISER WOT ,YE-KIK ALITCHA, ATAKELT WOT, YE-GOMEN WOT, YE TIMATIM FITFIT) but once served and tasted figured out that all of them are names of different gravy (side-dishes). Each of them tasted like “Yellow Dal”, “Tomato/Onion Salad”, “Green Salad” and so on. All of these side-dishes were served on a big bread they call “Injera” (it looked to me and tasted like a big South Indian Dosa).

Overall it was spicy, tasty, filling and I loved it!. Thanks Ranga.

As one of the Windows 7 Beta testers, about a week back I received a commemorative edition of Windows 7 Ultimate DVD. It was special with a nice “Thank You” message signed by Microsoft CEO Mr.Steve Ballmer.

In general I liked Windows Vista - its engineering improvements on Security, Stability, Aero Glass & many other features; except for its slow boot-up and performance of routine file management tasks. Microsoft made a wise move of not introducing any major kernel level changes for Windows 7 from Vista, instead concentrating on improving all round performance. I have been using Windows 7 for last few months in both my MacBook Air (MBA) & in my Desktop (Quad Core, 64-bit, 8GB RAM) and I love it. Windows 7 simply rocks in my MBA that I have completely removed Mac OS X and use only Windows.

Windows 7 – the best Windows OS ever made!

Just like most of the Hollywood movies I have watched in recent years, I saw this movie (The Time Traveler’s Wife) too on a long-distance flight. This was on my return flight from SFO to Hong Kong in Cathay Pacific – on Business class they have a nice selection of movie, TV shows, a 17” LCD screen and a full-flat bed.

As someone who has watched lot of Star Trek episodes,  the idea of Time Travel was familiar to me, so I was inquisitive after seeing the title of this movie. The movie is about “A love story about a man with a genetic disorder that causes him to time travel unpredictably, and about his wife, an artist, who has to cope with his frequent absences and dangerous experiences”. The story has been told by the Director quite nicely and he brings out the emotional pain of a wife with a husband who keeps disappearing suddenly. In one instance, just before their marriage, the Bridegroom in his 20s disappears and reappears just seconds before marriage in his 40s.

A nice movie to watch if you like the idea of Time Travel, otherwise can be pretty confusing to follow!

I am in LA for Microsoft PDC ‘09. One thing in Day 1 I was happy to see in real was a Azure container that was on display in the exhibition floor. These are containers (shipping container) that have all included in them – Hundreds of Dell Servers, Climate controlled, Networked, Monitoring and so on. When a container arrives at a new Microsoft Data Center location, all they need to do is plug in power and network uplink. Everything else is included in the container box. A typical data center will have hundreds of these containers

On transit to USA I was in Hong Kong for 2 days, since I have seen Hong Kong last year I decided to do a day trip to Macau by Ferry. The TurboJet Ferry took less than a hour and the Super Class was very comfortable with serving of breakfast, leather seats and so on, costing about HK$250.

To visit Macau remember you will need your Passport, so don’t leave them in your Hotel in Hong Kong and also your Air Ticket copy to renter Hong Kong. Both Hong Kong & Macau allows Indian Passport holders to stay for few weeks on a visit (VISA on entry) so no need to get a VISA in advance. Macau has its own currency - Macanese pataca, but you can freely use in every place Hong Kong dollars (and 1 MOP Dollar is approximately equal to 1 Hong Kong Dollar).

When in Macau I took a Grey Line City tour for HK$120 or so from the visitor centre in the ferry station – it was worth it. The tour covered most of the highlights of Macau (leaving the Casinos which I was not interested as I have seen enough in Las Vegas) including “St. Paul's Cathedral”, “A-Ma Temple”, “Macau Tower”, “Macau Museum” and others. Taxis are available easily in all places in Macau. McDonalds and Pizza Hut is available in tourists area, I went with Pizza Hut so that I can easily get Vegetarian food.