Vista Point

Minnow redifined

Rajesh — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 13:46:29 +0000

Before the world cup started, everyone looked at the Groups and said, the minnows are there to provide practice matches for the top 2 from each group. Yeah… right. It has been 2 weeks since the warmups have started and just 5 days since the group matches have commenced. It is time to wipe out the word minnow from the ICC dictionary. Every minnow (so called) have given a tough fight. Some have lost poorly to RSA, AUS or SL but others have provided good game.

In group D a minnow (IRE) leads the table ahead of WI.

In group C a minnow (KEN) is ahead of ENG

In group B a minnow (BAN) is ahead of IND

Only group A has both AUS and RSA ahead of the minnows

There was an article in rediff – “Super 8s: India vs Pakistan, April 15″. This article was talking about the schedule on an ICC website that has actually mentioned the teams in Super 8s. But it was only an assumption and based on this assumption, India will be playing Pakistan on April 15th which turns out to be a sunday. Anyway the point I was trying to make is, every website, talking about world cup has predicted the top 2 from each group will go to Super 8s. But I am not sure it is going to happen that way. Pakistan is almost out of the worldcup and if India looses to Sri Lanka then we board the same plane as pakistan.

Outlook is Jhakaas.. as they say

Rajesh — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 13:27:08 +0000

A friend forwarded this URL and it is hilarious. It is an add for Microsoft Outlook 2007 by Microsoft India in a complete desi style. Turn up your volume and enjoy.

Worldcup Cricket Maps

Rajesh — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 14:43:15 +0000

This was my weekend project.

I was experimenting with Google Maps API from the past month and thought this might be a good way of testing what I understood.

The goal is to map all the cricket grounds around the world. Started out with India. I did map most of the grounds used for the World Cup 2007 in West Indies. I missed three of them, and will map them if I can find them.

The way I did this is, using Google Earth and other local city or country websites to help me pin point the ground. The grounds that were tough to plot were, Australian and NZ grounds. This is mostly due to Google Earth not rendering the maps correctly and also not able to find the local websites that would give me landmarks to indetify the ground.

USB Cells

Rajesh — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:47:53 +0000

If you have kids (0-5 yrs) in your house you would know how many AA or AAA batteries you would need to fulfil their toy needs. I had so many toys as gifts for my kids first birthday and all of them needed atleast 2 cells. Initially I used to get a big pack from Costco, but after hearing about this product I thought I would give it a try. So went online to my favorite geek store and bought them. They were little pricey. 20$ a pack of 2 cells. I bought 2 packs.

Other than my kids toys, there are 2 other devices that I use everyday, that need a single AA battery. One is my wireless mouse and the other is the pager. The pager is on always and the mouse is on during the working hours. I charged them using a regular usb port. I just plugged them before going to bed and started using them the next morning.

I am pretty happy with the buy till now. The one that I used for the wireless mouse is yet to be recharged again. It has been 5 weeks since I first charged it fully. But the one I used for the pager which is powered on 24/7, I had to recharge it in 3 weeks, which I felt was ok.

I will be testing the other 2 that I bought on my kid’s toy and give it to him to play. Lets see how long would the charge last.

Indian team for WC07

Rajesh — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 11:44:42 +0000

They have announced the Indian team and I had a similar team on paper, except for one, Mohammad Kaif. I feel he is much better a fielder than Dinesh Karthik. I am aware that Dinesh played well in one match againt WI, but he did mis field 3 times in Rajkot against SL, which are worth atleast 10 runs. At last we lost the match by 5 runs. So fielding is crucial and Kaif would have been a better pick. Imagine in one match in WC, yuvraj falls sick, our fielding will be worse than the fielding during 1999 world cup.

But overall the selection was good. I think we have a very strong team. Even middle order is ok. Sehwag should improve alot. Sehwag, Yuvraj, dhoni, pathan/karthik are the key players. They have to make atleast 100 – 125 runs between them if the top order clicks, but if the top order topples, then they have even a bigger role to play.

Bowling lineup is good too. Zaheer, Munaf and Agarkar and very very consistent with line and length, which will be the key when we start playing super 8s. Teams like Australia, Pakistan, South Africa and Sri Lanka have openers who can make start scoring from the first ball if they are bowled slightly away from the line. And first 10 overs are the key in this WC 07. If we can restrict a run rate of 5.5 in the first 15 overs, I think there will be equal pressure on both sides.

I am sure will play super 8s. No doubt about it. But we have to play an excellent game for every match in super 8s. The toss, the weather and everything else will start playing their role.

Many contenders

Rajesh — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 00:24:38 +0000

World cup 2007 is around the corner. If you have been following the recent one days, you see that every team trying to say that, they are to take seriously. England won the series, South Africa thrashing Pakistan, Sri Lanka looks powerful by beating NZ at NZ. Keeping aside some fitness concerns, India has been playing well too. It is going to be an interesting 45 days of competition. And I sure am going to follow every match.

Best cricketing moment

Rajesh — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 17:42:34 +0000

This has been the best response till date. We have seen Venkatesh prasad’s response to Sohail, We have seen Balaji’s response to Akthar but Sreesanth beats all of them. Take a look…

Harsh yet right on target

Rajesh — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 20:18:59 +0000

This story in cricinfo is a must read for the entire indian team. The performance was so poor that it was visible from the first half of the play. Even though it was nervous in the last 2 overs, and even if we won the match some how, it would not have been a deserving win. We look at Sri Lanka, England and Australia as contendors, and forgot about WI. Watch out. World cup is around the corner and the ball will be in the West Indian courts

Padmaja’s blog

Rajesh — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 13:23:29 +0000

Paddu started to blog again. We chose wordpress to host the blog. This blog is hosted using the wordpress API and paddu’s is hosted on wordpress. The new service, which was started during this year has some pretty neat stuff. The administration options are quite good. The theme customization does not allow to write custom CSS. But the pre-built theme options were enough.

Check it out.

Vasthu for your home (page)

Rajesh — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 15:14:00 +0000

I did not believe in what I was reading. This article in CNN got my attention. It goes on as something like this -

“Earth is the layout, fire is the color, air is the HTML, space is name of the Web site, and water is the font and graphics,” says Narang, adding that each must be chosen carefully and strike a balance with the other.

After I completed reading, I had to ask my self one question… What part is the “content” playing in this shastra. I remember danesh posting something similar. And also on the other hand, what would a website designer do if he was told that according to the stars alignment, the login page should always face the North??