Investigations of CSI

We love CSI and CSI: Miami 🙂 In fact, we are so addicted that we bought whatever we could find of both series on DVD and watched it all day after day – notwithstanding all the blood, gore and spilled guts :p We were all caught up on the regular series up to season five but were missing season three of CSI: Miami. So imagine our joy when we found both season three of Miami and season one of CSI: New York on DVD recently :p

We decided to give CSI: New York a spin first since we like Gary Sinise (at least I do :p) and also probably because Laurie doesn’t like David Caruso that much :p Besides, it was a new show and we thought it might take a different direction. Take a different direction it did but so far, not in an enjoyable way.

For starters, the show has a really dark look. It’s probably supposed to reflect the grim and gritty reality of New York life and the lighting in the show is supposed to reflect the mood. It just doesn’t work for me, that’s all. True, I’ve never been in New York and so can’t say if this reflects the mood of the city or not. It’s just that as a show it kind of comes of gloomy and there just doesn’t seem to be as much of a sense of people as there was with the other two CSI shows.

On top of that, the stories seem awful. Sure, we’ve only seen about four or five episodes and I sure hope that the stories pick up later on. But so far, it looks as if they took the rejected ideas from the other two shows, the third-stringers who would have had to sit out the whole game, and put them into CSI: New York. I haven’t seen one story which was as absorbing as the stories on the other shows. Or maybe I’m just coming to New York on a bad day … :p

The dope on DOpus

I first discussed Windows Explorer replacements a while back right here on this blog. Chris who read the entry and who was doing an article on Explorer replacements contacted me after reading that entry because he wanted to ask me about PowerDesk and Explorer Plus. (Incidentally, Novatix, the company who released Explorer Plus, seems to have removed all traces of the product from their site and seem to be positioning themselves as a security company now – weird :p)

Anyway, by the time Chris contacted me, I had switched over from both PowerDesk and Explorer Plus to what in my opinion is the new champ amongst explorer replacements – Directory Opus. I told Chris that I was now using and after some discussion back and forth about it, Chris tried it out and he seems to be impressed by it as well 🙂 In fact, he went so far as to write to the folks over at GPSoftware, the developers of Directory Opus, and tell them that it was my blog entry which got him on to DOpus. However, at that point I realized that I didn’t really have a blog entry about DOpus :p All the praise that heaped on DOpus had been via e-mail. I decided to rectify this omission with this new blog entry 🙂

The problem with PowerDesk (and Explorer Plus) had always been the fact that the software was prone to inexplicable glitches. Sometimes, the scrollbar on the directory treeview would become huge (about 10 times the normal size) and you would not be able to scroll anything. The only solution was to restart the application. At other times, one or other directory pane would not refresh and the app would just sit there. Since PowerDesk and Explorer Plus shared the same code base, both apps appeared to have the same issues. So in came Directory Opus and I must confess, that I have not had any issues at all with DOpus.

DOpus is at once more powerful than PowerDesk and more configurable. DOpus seems to be built upon the idea of building blocks. If you are of a technical bent, the app has certain basic commands which can be chained together to perform more complex tasks. If you are not technically oriented, then you can simply use it as is and still reap the benefits of a superior explorer replacement. The split views, the tabbed displays which allow you to have many differing views of the same data, the regular expression based renaming facility, the plugins which enhance the functionality of the app – these are just a few of my favourite things about DOpus.

About the only complaint that I have about this marvel of an app is the price. Where most shareware apps seem to be in the $25 – $50 range, currently DOpus comes in at about $60 (I thought I paid about $70 when I bought it but I might be mistaken). But buy it I did even at that price because after looking high and low, I have not been able to find another Explorer replacement which has the stability and the functionality of Directory Opus 🙂

Are we flawed?

I came across this particular view on a board that I visit that had a really wrong resonance. This guy said that he was a man of faith (doesn’t matter which faith to the subject at hand :p) but that the believed that humanity was utterly and irredeemably flawed and that the only way they can find salvation is by appealing to God. Basically, he was saying that humanity finds salvation in spite of themselves through their faith in God, that God uplifts them. He went on to say that we as humans are incapable of any "good deeds" because all our deeds (even the good ones) are done out of selfish motivations and that a truly selfless act was impossible.

Now I believe in God and consider myself a man of faith. And don’t ask me "Which God?" since that’s going to lead to a whole different discussion :p My sister-in-law once asked me that and I said "There is only one God!". She looked at me for a moment, nodded and laughed. I don’t know if she got it in the same sense I meant it or if she thought that I meant it in the Islamic sense. Didn’t really matter actually since religion, as far as I’m concerned, is a personal thing. Each of us should be free to follow our beliefs and our path to God. We might take different paths but I believe that we all end up at the same destination.

But I digress. The opinion stated on the bulletin board certainly is not the view of God (or humanity) that I have. I believe that one of the greatest gifts (and curses) that God gave us is free will. We have a choice in our actions. We can decide to do something good for any reason, we can decide not to act or we can do something bad. As far as I am concerned, the motivation (whether it is selfish or not) does not detract from a good deed. I believe that God gave us the opportunity to save ourselves – or not. I have no illusions about the goodness of humanity generally but at the same time, I have great faith in the capacity in humanity for goodness (or even greatness) in specific cases. I know of many, many people who have gone out of their way to do something nice, friendly, helpful or kind in my own case. They had nothing to gain from that action and I certainly would not have called it selfish in their part.

On the other hand, I am not sure we understand selfless correctly. What exactly is selfless? Doesn’t it mean that there is an absence of self? So if you are to do something selflessly, are we saying that we did it without any selfish motivation or that there was nothing of our self involved in the action? If the former, I agree with the usage of "selfless", if the latter, then I am afraid no human is capable of a selfless act. Because if there was no self, then there is no "I".

In the final analysis, my personal belief is that we find our own salvation and our path to God. But then again, as I’ve said before, religion (and the path we take in life) are intensely personal choices. So YMMV 🙂

Limitations

I used to think that I simply wrote – that I could write anything. Then, when I started writing, my horizons shrank a little bit and I used to think that I could write science fiction. Yesterday, I realized that even in science fiction, that there are certain genres and sub-genres that I just could not write in :p

Is it a part of growing up when you find your limitations or is it just a sign of old age setting in because you find yourself trapped in a certain genre or in a labeled box? I am not sure. But what I did realize was that I am limited. I am limited by the type of tale I can tell and also by what I enjoy writing. I guess that last bit is the most significant. Sure, I can write in a different genre or in a sub-genre but I won’t enjoy it as much.

This all came about when I offered to help another writer with their book. This other person writes science fiction as well and so I figured that I should be able to pitch in and help. However, when I read the first couple of chapters of his story, I realized that I just couldn’t do it. It was science fiction but it was not something that I could get into. I also realized that I don’t like science fiction set in the world of today – at least, I don’t like to write it. I like creating an intricate society which is either an extrapolation of society today or one that is a "what if?" scenario. What if humanity didn’t go in for mechanical technology? What if evolution took us down a different path? What if most of humanity destroyed itself in a cataclysmic series of wars? That sort of thing …

In addition to that, I’m beginning to discover that I enjoy injecting humour into my stories. I enjoy making fun of my own characters. This kind of precludes a completely serious story. For instance, one of the short stories that I submitted recently was a rather serious and sentimental story. I had written that about five or six years ago. I like the tone of the story but today, I can’t think of writing something like that because I don’t think I can keep up the sombre mood. But then again, maybe I am wrong. How do you know what you can or can’t do till you actually try to do it? As John Locke keeps on saying in "Lost", "Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do!" :p

On the track of a submission

First of all, before I forget, if anybody needs an invite to Windows Live Messenger beta, I’ve got a few invites. So let me know 🙂 I kinda, sorta like it and the winks are amusing and since Microsoft has seen fit to give me a few beta invites, I might as well pass it along.

I submitted a short story to Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. I first learnt of ASIM through Simon Hayne’s site. I came across Simon’s site while doing a web search for something else. Given that he is a humorous science fiction author, I tarried a while on his site. (Actually, I’d been to his site several times before but each time, I’d been there to look at one or other piece of his software and never noticed that he was a writer but once I did find out that he was a writer, I stayed longer :p) In his own way, Simon have been inspirational for me 🙂 I came across Simon’s site at a time when I had been querying agents about my novel for a while and had got nothing but rejections – on query. When I read Simon’s story and his long struggle to get published (before finally succeeding), I realized that perhaps I too could become published and that I had to learn to be patient …

Anyway, at that point I noticed that Simon was involved with ASIM but didn’t think anything more of it since I didn’t have any short stories for publication. Now that I’ve started doing short stories, I decided that I should give ASIM a try. I sent in one of my short stories at the beginning of the week and was told that it had passed the initial reading and is now in their submission queue. So I’m keeping my fingers crossed :p

The interesting thing about ASIM is their submission tracking system. One of the most agonizing things about submitting any work is the long wait involved – and the uncertainty. Sometimes, you don’t even know if they received your submission and you certainly don’t know what is happening with your submission. You know that you have to wait a month, or two, or three but beyond that, it’s all darkness. At ASIM, they make the wait easier for you 🙂 You get assigned a submission number and then you can keep track of where you submission is in the submission process. I really like that 🙂

In fact, I like how ASIM works so much that I think I’ll try submitting my novel to them next to see if they are interested in serializing it … or not 🙂

Family fun

It’s never easy when dealing with family, is it? 🙂 We were over at my parents place yesterday (and no, this isn’t about my parents :p) My brother is getting married soon and they are getting ready for the wedding in a major way. The invitations are going out, suits are being made, saris chosen, outfits coordinate – the whole works.

This leads me to the point of this post. The wedding is a fairly large function with about 400 people attending – around 150 from our side and 250 from the bride’s side. Now the problem is, over here you get family, extended family and the ever extending family :p You have so many people in the family circle that sometimes the ripple effects can be felt on the other end of the island :p On my Dad’s side for instance, he’s got seven siblings and on my mother’s side, she’s got five siblings. Each of these siblings has at least three (sometimes more) kids and each of those kids have kids as well. Then there are the other family members. My paternal grandfather had three siblings and each of them had eight or more kids – one of them had twenty, if I recall correctly. All of these, if not immediate family, are still family.

This is just the tip of the iceberg since I’m not counting all the other aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, in-laws and what not for about four generations. That’s a lot of people and somebody is going to feel left out no matter what you do. Of course, being a developing country, transportation is not the best and even though the island is barely 240 miles across at the longest point, it sometimes takes eight to ten hours to get from one point to another. So, some relatives are excluded by virtue of being too far away to get here. Even with that, my parents have had to make decisions as to who gets invited and who does not. They try to be fair and to make certain that there are representatives from each branch and sub-branch of the family tree. But that still leaves the question, how do you ensure that somebody does not feel left out?

I guess the answer is you can’t. No matter how hard you try, you can’t please everybody and you can’t make sure that nobody gets hurt. Sure, you can invite everybody over but then how are you going to pay for all of that? :p How are you going to find the space to house all the people? There used to be a time when weddings were simpler because it was usually a village affair. The bride and groom would be from the village, everybody gets together from the village, have the ceremony and it’s done. But no more. Now you have relatives all over the place and everybody has to be invited …. Ah the complexities of modern day life :p

One-trick ponies and one-horse races

At one time, Microsoft used to be a one-trick pony. So did Google 🙂 For the longest time, even after they had started diversifying, Microsoft used to do mostly software. Sure they had Hotmail, but that seemed to be almost an afterthought more than anything else. Then came the revolution when they started getting into anything and everything – handhelds, mobile devices, pocket PC, smart phones. Of course, it was always mostly in terms of developing the OS for the devices and setting up the specs for each device rather than actually getting into marketing a device under their brand name. That too changed with the X-Box. That is where Microsoft stands today.

Google was slightly different (but then again perhaps not :p) They started off (at least appeared to but perceptions can be deceiving …) much more slowly but have suddenly branched out in so many bewildering directions at once. You had Google Desktop Search being added to the web search and then you had Picasa coming in to the mix. The next thing you know, wham! You had a whole bunch of Google services and downloads – Google Earth, Google Talk, Blogger, GMail, Froogle, Google Base and a host of others. This is in addition to the other stuff which is only hinted at or have not been completely rolled out yet – GDrive, Google Analytics, Google Calendar, Writely etc.

If you look at how the two companies have been progressing – MS has been building on their OS market and slowly expanding into new areas while Google has been building on their web presence and search engine superiority and have been moving in ever widening circles. It is inevitable that these two giants both end up in the same arena sooner or later. (And yes, everybody has been talking about this for ages and I’m not saying anything new here :p) Looks as if MS is finally ready to do something about the threat from Google though since they have come up with a whole series of "Live" services and tools which are web based.

There’s Windows Live Search – another attempt by MS to try to horn in on Google’s territory :p They tried it earlier with MSN Search but that didn’t seem to get them anywhere. This is supposed to be faster and better but I have no idea how since it’s just another search engine :p There’s also Live Mail, OneCare Live, Live Safety Center, Office Live and so on. Basically, MS seems to be going "web" full on. Of course, not having tested most of this stuff, I can’t really comment on it. One thing that I have tested though is Windows Live Messenger (WLM) and I must say that I kind of like it 🙂

I signed up for the beta because of the shared folder feature. Laurie and I send a lot of files back and forth – she edits my stories and I edit hers (mostly it’s the first :p) It’s a pain to have to open Explorer, find the file share, go to the right folder and then drop the file in and tell Laurie it’s there. I’d rather have the file automatically synchronized with her machine when I make any changes. This is what I thought the shared folder feature did. Unfortunately, it hasn’t turned out to be quite that :p When you add a file to a shared folder, WLM actually makes a copy of the original and places it in your WLM shared folder. So, after the first instance, if you change the original, nothing is synchronized with the other person you’re sharing the document with. I haven’t tried modifying the document in the shared folder itself but I have a feeling that the changes will synchronize then but that defeats the whole purpose of having documents in an ordered folder structure :p So not quite there yet …

The other annoying thing about shared folders is that if you enable shared folders – all your file transfers are done via shared folders. You can’t do an instant send the old way which is never updated again and do a shared folder approach only when you need it. It’s all or nothing. Other than that though, I kind of like WLM and it has performed without any issues on my machine so far. In fact, I’ve actually gone back to WLM and stopped connecting to the Messenger network via Trillian. Given that Trillian development seems to be stagnating, I might actually go back to individual IM apps again :p

Publishing, pretensions and pusillanimous platitudes

One of the writing forums I habituate, Absolute Write, has a discussion about a PoD (Print on Demand) outfit called Heliographica Press. Now the folks over at Heliographica bill themselves as a "publishing company" and talks of several imprints they have etc. Their lowest package appears to be a setup fee of $240 and $5 a month after that. Quite a tidy sum to invest to see your book published. And the thing is, this amount is supposed to get you "marketing" by Heliographica. (And I’ll get to the relevance about "marketing" in a bit …)

Now Laurie and I have considered doing the same thing that Heliographica did – not bilk people out of money but provide a low-cost solution for people who do not know enough about self-publishing to get into PoD :p I wrote about it here in my blog and even received a query from somebody else who was interested. But what they were mostly interested in was the marketing aspect – like most writers, all they wanted to do was write and to leave the marketing to the publisher. Of course, being in Sri Lanka, we certainly would not have been able to provide any sort of marketing service and would not have offered the service in the first place. However, Heliographica does offer marketing but what appears evident from the posts at Absolute Write is that they have not followed through on their promise of marketing, not to mention publishing.

But the whole marketing thing is beside the point. What I find interesting is something in the discussion thread at Absolute Write. One of the people involved with Heliographica appears at Absolute Write and takes the opportunity to say that he’s left Heliographica but wants to sell the artwork he did for the Heliographica books to the respective authors for a negotiable fee. So first they bilk the people out of the money and don’t provide them with good service and then they split up and try to gouge more money out of the people separately? That’s not just dishonest but seems to verge on the criminal. I just can’t understand people like that. Is the money worth it to crush the dreams of so many? I hope for their peace of mind that it is … But then again, so many seem to find no trouble at all in sleeping well on a bed made up of the shattered dreams of others …

The unfolding of the new age

Recently, there was all that brouhaha over the Microsoft Origami project – basically an ultra-light (sic) device which weighs only 2 pounds or so (that’s about 1kg for the metrically inclined :p) and runs a version of Windows XP and can run MS Office. I believe the original Microsoft spec was to have a device which can run on batteries the whole day and could be carried anywhere with you – the truly portable PC. However, the original devices don’t seem to be anywhere close to the target in battery life since if I am not mistaken, they are supposed to have something like two and a half hours of battery life.

So what’s interesting about Origami? It’s the fact that a few people online have touted this as the next-generation writer’s tool. I have to laugh 🙂 Come on, there have been electronic writing tools around for ages. Sure, some of them are not as portable as others but even as far back as 1997, I remember using the HP Handheld PC. It ran Windows CE, folded up into about the size of your palm, ran for several days on one charge and had a tiny keyboard. I still remember typing out a story on it while waiting for a connecting flight in the Las Vegas airport terminal.

Then there is the Compaq iPaq. It fits in your pocket and again runs Windows CE and comes with Pocket Word. I’ve plugged in a foldable keyboard and have typed out stories on that too. Sure, it’s not as good as the HP Handheld since the foldable keyboard needs a really flat surface but still it works as a writing tool. Heck, I’ve even written a couple of poems and songs using the touch-screen on my Sony Ericsson P800 – but a writing tool it’s not. Perhaps if you added a bluetooth, keyboard, it might work better 🙂

But why go to such lengths? There are such perfectly good writing tools like the AlpahSmart line of products. They are lightweight, easy to use and the battery lasts much longer than two and a half hours :p If you like the AlphaSmart range, then there’s also QuickPad.

Basically, there are a heck of a lot of alternatives out there for writers to keep writing on the go. (And I’m not even going to touch on traditional pen and paper here – mostly because I can never write unless I have a keyboard in front of me :p) But the Origami just does not look like the kind of tool I’d want if all I want is a way to keep writing on the go. It’s just too expensive, power-hungry and as yet, untested for it to be something that I *have to* have. Perhaps a few years down the line, once the product has matured, it will be the writer’s tool of choice. But not just yet …

Silence *is* golden

Laurie and I are back to being the only people in the house 🙂 Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed having our niece and nephew over but it’s almost impossible to get any writing done with "Pooh’s Heffalumph Movie" or "George of the Jungle" or even "Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" playing in the background. Instead of being transported to the world of my story, I end up in the jungle with George, telling him to watch out for that tree :p

Now that we are all alone, I’m able to go back to the world of my story and imagine things as they should be. I’ve already got about a page done today. The story is a long ways away from being done. I just started on it and am on the third page at the moment. However, I’m kind of hoping that I’ll get this one done much faster now that I can concentrate fully on it.

Sometimes I find myself wondering if it is worth it to write another story when I haven’t sold the first one – my first short story (at least my first in a long time and the first one I seriously wanted to consider publishing) is still out there. I have not heard from the people I submitted it to yet but then again, they did mention that it would take about three month’s for a response. I guess I could simply sit there waiting to see what the response would be but I just don’t feel like doing that 🙂

If this was a novel, I probably would be more concerned. A novel takes a lot more time and effort to write and I just don’t see the point in going to all that effort if it is not likely to go anywhere. Sure, the main reason for writing must be for oneself – if you don’t enjoy writing, then you shouldn’t be doing it. But on the other hand, I can enjoy the stories in my head without going to all the trouble of putting them down on paper :p So the only reason to put them down on paper would be if there is a possibility that others might enjoy it too 🙂 But then again, that’s just me …

Anyway, the new short story is humming along and hopefully, I can get it done by about the end of the week. I still have no idea where this story is going. All I know so far is what will happen in the next two or three pages. Once those events actually transpire, the characters will decide where it goes next 🙂