new glow-glow logo for Dhiraagu

This is a bit overdue but nevertheless, here! This blog is very much the modified writings in my comments to Inn's blog on Dhiraagu logo on July 5th 2005.

The old logo of Dhiraagu wasnt pretty or particularly likable or even reflective of Maldives (it was more a reminder of Cable&Worthless) but it had more character than this new one! Red? Blood? Martyr? Communist? wat? Apparantly, when you say "A company is in the red" it means the company is losing money! (http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0769383.html)
On the other hand http://sbinformation.about.com/cs/advertising/a/colors.htm this article says "Red: Passion. Excitement. Danger. Red is the color of attention.... Use red to inject excitement into your brand."
Dhiraagu is feeling excited and competed with!?

My interpretation of this: Everytime a competition comes along change logo ! Is that it?? but then again, how often do these guys get competition (EkekekeE)
Boney looking hand.. reminds me of drugged hand of Sir Robert Geldof (Bod Geldorf) in the movie of "The Wall". I am a bit confused as to the displayed motives of the company now! white hand.. a concept of neatness; displaying purity and sincerity.. but the red background and white palm also reminds me of a STOP sign!! Well, one article of 4th July in Evening Weekly (by Vaail Zahir Hussain) did say it was the "touch" or "hi-5" kinda hand! But the same article did mention that it was out of fasion as well!
Bottomline? the logo doesn't suit a telecom company neither does it say anything about a "maldivian touch." I dont like it and i dont get it! A logo is supposed to promote the company.. show the might of it! not let ppl go "urrgh!!?"

"out-u-scum!"

No no. Not you.
This is a bathroom cleaner I came across in the stores! Its simply amazing how the product designer dudes had came up with this name!

OUT-U-SCUM!tm. (The trademark includes the exclamation mark.)

The Blue Cross Laboratories at Santa Clarita in Canada produce this bathroom cleaning, tile scrubbing, porcelain out-scumming detergent. I was not able to find much info on the product on the web. However the www.buyingBIG.com ppl have it available on their web-store! There is no denying that it indeed is an effective cleaner! Its just the name thats so hilariously, outrageously straight forward! Looking for a bonus in it? Hey, its environment friendly! "Biodegradable" it says!
I wonder what other products these guys have out in the market? "Wipe-u-blind?" the ultimate blinds-dusting product?!

rxs hears home

"Dagun-dah dagun-dah dagun-dah,
Raydiyo haveeru.... Dhivehi bimun
tini tinti teetee" and the madonlin of Jaymu Dhonkamana played on and the programme began!

I just heard it. It was miyooooozik to my aching ears. Aching to hear homeland voices beside what i hear everyday, aching to hear "radio" the maldivian radio I grew up listening to and was listening to until a few months back!

I had made several attempts to listen to this www.vom.gov.mv , the Voice of Maldives audio webcast (or some call it Radio Maldives online,) but for some reason it wasn't working for me. Many other Maldivians living here have had the same problem. One IT guy said it was something to do with a messed-up DNS server in this city (duh??) or some stuff like that. Another IT guy told me that streaming had nothing to do with DNS servers!
Tonight, my friend Senses0, told me he was listening to some geek counsellor saying deep-stuff about substance abuse on V.O.M. Having explained my problem to him and that I had tried listening many a times and on different timings, I checked the V.O.M. site. Presto! There it was ! It had worked and no one had done anything! Atleast not to my knowledge. Amazing how the anonymous unkown forces work things out for you.
All I am left with is this temporary (as long as the V.O.M. stays audible) happinnes, and an i-o-u-tea for Senses0!

Thank you distant sounds and voices.

the camera IS here!

Finally I went for it! My mind was set on the Nikon Coolpix 4600! I had read the specs and was impressed, as I said in my previous post with the 4cm macro, as well as the a/v recordablity!
Went to the shop who offered the camera the previous day for 16,500 rupees (236 USD)! The guy didnt have Nikon4600! I was totally depressed for a second. He insisted I buy the Nikon Coolpix5600 and was offering it for 18,000Rps (257USD.) He said the difference was mainly the 5.1 megapixel feature and that the video was with audio! We had a score about even 4600 having audio. But I was disproved when he showed me the common manual for 4600&5600: Only the 5600 had audio. However, I said I couldnt afford it and walked out. There was no reducing the price.
The next shop didnt have it either (the 4600.) But asked me to buy 4200 saying it was the same! I slashed back madly at them saying if they were the same the manufacturere would put the same model number! Madness!
On my fifth attempt I finally came to a shop that had Nikon5600. Actually they didnt have it but the guy in the shop called up a place and talked in a funny language and said the camera was on its way! Meanwhile he was persuading me to buy the 5200 as it was more within my budget! The guy was right! The 5600 was in his shop within 4 minutes! I compared the two (5200 and 5600) as by now 4600 was out of my list cos it didnt have audio on the video clips. The guy said he couldnt come down further than 18,000 on the price and walked on to another customer! This was his mistake! I quickly asked the next salesperson to give it for 16000! He said no way! The lowest he can give is for 17500 Rps (250USD - my ceiling figure, and a figure 1000 Rupees more than I had in mind aprior) and he held on to that number! Finally I gave an 18000 and he asked the other guy (whom I was dealing with before and who I gathered was the boss there,) to give 500 rupees change. This is where it triggered! the boss-guy got real mad! They argued secretly with their backs to me and a little distance away from me, in their strange language. Me with my wanna-be-superman attitude, let my ear their way and overheard them and understood a couple of word. Apparantly they had brought the camera from another shop and costed them 17800 rupees and now they were selling me at a 300 rps loss! the salemen their need some training in salemanship. The boss-guy asked me the minimun was 17800 and cant reduce further, but ofcourse I said the deal was already done for 17500! And so it was! Now I am happy. The Nikon Coolpix 5600 was in my hands. This is a swell of a camera. Not the digital camera of my dreams which is nothing short of, nothing lower in specs than the Canon EOS series.
Links:
Nikon Coolpix 4600/5600 information brochure
Nikon Coolpix 4600
Nikon Coolpix 5600

Looking for a camera

I needed to buy a modest, good, non-unbranded yet cheap digital camera! Where do I go? I went to the shopping roads (where the happening is.) True enough I had seen digital cameras there earlier. There were the big names Nikon, Canon, Sony, Olympus. And there were those I didnt want: Vivitar, Mercury, many more!
A friend of mine had bought recently a Vivitar digital camera and I wasnt impressed: here's why
- bad display: too dim, not fine enough.
- menu's display like it was something of 1995 !
- images taken werent just good enough! some contrast fixing built-in technology (i think) fixes the contrast so much that light is too light and dark is too dark!
- ineffective flash! Gives a flood of light burning the closes object and making u think there were no objects except where the flash flooded.
There were a couple of plus points!
- It looked sleek.
- charges from USB connection
- reasonable amount of "on-board" storage (32 MB)

Having decided I wouldnt go for these, I chose to stick to a well known brand name: Canon, Sony, Nikon, Olympus. These were what I would look for. So off I went. Nikon Coolpix5600 was Good! I liked it! but the price wasnt in my range! I was looking for something within 200USD or just above. Nikon Coolpix5200? GOOD but still high on the price tag. Finally having admired Nikon coolpix range down to Coolpix 4600. I was happy with the price and functions. It even came in three colours Silver, Metallic Blue and Metalic Pink!
Some features I liked in it were:
- 4.1 mega pixels .. Not bad enough unless I am into publishing magazines and stuff which I wasnt.
- Nikkor lens.. 3 x Optical zoom and 4 x digital zoom. not bad eh?
- lightaround 4 lb i think (withough battery and extras)
- SD card slot
- naaaice looking! and fits palm grip
- 4cm Macro !!

I saw a Sony S90 and S60 too! S60 was in my price range! i had to make a choice between SOny and Nikon. Both were much the same in resolution and weight, no wait, Sony was a heavier, not many colours of covers! It had a Carl-Zeiss lens though! and 6x digital zoom. both cameras took videos.

The one factor that made me choose the Nikon Coolpix 4600 over the Sony S60 (yes i chose the Nikon,) is the macro! 4cm? thats cool enough isnt it!

Here are the two main websites I used to compare these two cameras after I returned from having looked at the cameras and before I went again to buy it!
For the Sony Cybershot S60 http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/specs/Sony/Cyber-shot%20DSC-S60.htm
and for the Nikon Coolpix 4600 http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/specs/Nikon/Coolpix%204600.htm

start my cool blog

so this is it!
blogging starts.

I signed for a new account in the wake of midnight last night and this morning I signed in as rxs and I had a completely different profile! Apparantly I had created an account long long ago (not in a galaxy far far away.) I want the old one and needed to delete the new one. I wanted the one I created in May 2001! and delete the July 4th, 2005!

Quickly, I went thru the listing as to "how to delete an account" and apparantly blogspot doesnt give that option but one can delete all blogs in an account and change all the information to false info (including username to something like "alkjlasdinsdasd") and then sign out. Voila! no one including you would know to sign in again (most probably), but leaves the username for others (or you) to use it again.

This remindde me of a part of the song that all wanna-be-guitarists attempts first, Hotel California by Eagles, which reads "You can check-out anytime you like, but you can never leave."