5 greediest consumer softwares to avoid

Here is my compilation.Feel free to suggest more.There are some wonderful open source and slick alternatives like KLite Codec, VLC, Firefox etc. to these greedy ones.

• Real Player (Please let me know if you could find any greedier software than this)
  

• Adobe Reader (Someday the size will reach 100MB)
  

• iTunes (Minimum update size is 50MB and Quicktime, Safari bundling)
  

• DivX (Unwanted desktop icons and trial softwares annoyance)
  

• Internet Explorer (We all know how good it is)

Bootnote: Add Antivirus softwares to this list.

A tribute to great artist Vincent van Gogh

Last week, I was reading about Vincent van Gogh on wikipedia and it was truly moving.I was totally in the awe of this amazing painter after reading that.I know that I deserve very little to talk about this great passionate person, but It's good to know that both of us have a "french connection" ;-).

Here is a wonderful soothing song from You Tube which features some of his paintings.

iPhone debuts unprepared Indian market with irrational and ludicrous price tag

Last night, I almost fall off of my chair laughing, after reading some dumbass PR surrounding iPhone India launch. As a guy who is closely attached with the handset industry, can totally understand the price tag as it takes at least 4 years to break- even, even if you give 500 INR profit every month to your operator after paying 10K INR initially. So it's understandable in some senses, but it's also a clear acknowledgement from operators that they have no hopes on service (post-sales) revenue.

My shots at iPhone India to uncover the reality,

• It's just a GPRS phone.Calm down! I doubt that too.
  

• If there is no subsidy, why network lock-in? Apple should answer this half-assed strategy.

• No special tariffs for iPhone users.Forget data, at least voice.

• Don't fall for bells and whistles! iPhone is just a PR drum for operators.

• Prepare for dumbass spam stuff from your network operator.To be honest, Indian operators have nothing special to offer to your iPhone.

• Remember that it's an Apple's product.It's not Airtel's or Vodafone's.
  

• More than half the features are useless in India.

• By the time you get 3G here in India, Apple would release at least 3 new models.Even if 3G starts in 2009, it will be experimental only and mass-market adoption can happen only in 2011.

• Don't pin your hopes on Wi-Fi hotspots , you can rarely find them in India.
  

• If you don't have a PC and broadband, it's useless to buy an iPhone.PC and broadband connection are prerequisites for iPod and iPhone.

• If you are style conscious and just want to flaunt your richness in public then iPhone is just for you and just for you only.

• If you get any hardware problem, then prepare to run here and there.

• It's a significant risk to carry 30K device in your pocket in India.

• You can buy a reasonable notebook or couple of high-end assembled desktop PCs for the same price. If show-off is your need, then go for iPhone.

• The price will stay same, at least until Apple releases a new model next year. So, don't expect any price reduction for at least one year.
  

• iPod touch is far better option and could be a good companion to existing phone if you desperately need some "touchy".

• iPhone is not yet a corporate device in US itself and I am almost certain that over-cautious Indian businesses will never adopt it.So, no corporate offers and tariffs.yada yada yada.Calm down!!
  

Temporary Solution to "Could not start kstartconfig. Check your installation"

Few weeks ago, I have installed KDE and after restarting and changing the session I get an error message "Could not start kstartconfig. Check your installation" and takes me back to the login screen. Back to the Gnome session, I have tried few from usual Gsearch but nothing worked. Here is a temporary solution.

• Create a new user (System->Administration->Users and Groups)

• Feel free to add user privileges according to your needs.

• Log out and login to KDE session with the new user name and password.

• Happy happy KDE.