16 kids, 9 Men, 9 Women @ MGM Resorts

25th of December last year we had been to MGM resorts for lunch, So this time we decided to have a get together at their resorts. It was a one day trip.

What I liked at MGM resorts?

1. The beach, well not that clean, for the guest area it is clean
2. The rooms, and their service. Liked it very much

Why MGM resorts doesn’t deserve to have families as clients

1. Awful bar and its bartender, for the size of a resort like that, it should be big. The Chennai City has much bigger bars. Trust me this place is so so crowded, The attitude of the bartender is like “we are free loaders”.
2. The children playground is good and decent play area, hope they don’t mind cleaning up the rust.
3. The food, last year’s lunch made us to stay, this year they are loosing all the nine families.

 

VinodVV Photography

Spot your train southern Railway – not smart phone friendly

I use this site often http://www.trainenquiry.com/indexNS.aspx on the desktop browser.  Recently I started using an iPhone 3GS IOS 5 for browsing on the move. Today morning I wanted to check on a train entered the train number and clicked on search.
Guess what?
2 browser window opened up, each of which was an online advertisement. All I was seeing is the Advertisement and I was searching for the “train number” and the station name.

The problem is that the smart phone display the last opened page. So I lost the main page.

Would be happy if the site works on all browsers and have the advertisement run inline and no new browser windows.

Maruti rating has got to do with JD Power

For a month I have been researching on buying a new hatchback, had a Mahindra Renault Logan petrol GLX for 2 and half years and finally gave up on Mahindra’s marketing strategies of reducing the pricing of car. Imagine what happens to early adopters is a big middle finger.

My criteria was responsive, economical, spacious for 2 adults and 2 kids, good mileage and little occupy little space on parking.

Cars I had in mind where, Hyundai i10, Hyundai i20, Fiat Punto, Chevy Spark with gas, Maruti Alto, Maruti wagon R, Maruti Ritz and Maruti A-star.

The real battle was between Chevy Spark with gas and Maruti A-Star Vxi.

No rants out here. Maruti A-Star finally won my family’s heart, and I was happy that I did have to shell out much on the accessories. The deal had sun film control, PU steering grip, PU car seats, Car body cover, Pricol Remote locking and under chassis painting.

PU – imitation leather.

Finally had to give the feed back when people from popular vehicles people call me up, I said my rating was 6/10 for Maruti. The person who call me said it was a problem, check the rating which I have attached as image. I said Maruti has their rating system for which I will not respond. I had my own rating system were 6/10 was actually good.

These are marketing guys gimmicks. I have a feeling J.D Power satisfaction report has got to with Maruti rating system. Where every customer responds with 8/10 naturally J.D power will have to be biased towards Maruti. Check the link below

http://www.indiacar.com/jd_power/default.htm

check the "customer satisfaction index" for 2008. You will understand what I am referring to.

P.S: I believe Chevy Spark will do better in coming days. I received a call from Spark guys and they wanted to analyze on why they lost a customer. I told them about resale value, mileage. It was indeed a call I didn’t expect. I love their "Chevy" car design, interior, responsiveness and handling. Just that, this time it didn’t work out.

tags: Photography, Chennai, Cars, Maruti, Hyundai, Chevy, Fiat, JD Power, Customer Satisfaction

maruti a star

maruti rating card

The Art & Science of Seductive Interactions

Why only few interactions are successful?
It is not just usability, there are few more things beyond to make users to stick on with your product or service.

Panic Mode, Self Destruction mode – The future of Mobile Phones.

Well I did watch the movie Mission Impossible 1,2 & 3. I am taking this to next level, I think it is high time for Mobile phones to have this feature of Self Destruction mode. Why?

You should have heard about the excellent feature of Mobile tracker from Samsung. Wow -  Awesome, That Awesome didn’t help my friend to get back his mobile.

What is Mobile tracker?
The owner of the mobile phone needs to store 2 sets of mobile number on to Samsung phone. After which in any case some one changes the SIM card of that mobile with a new SIM card, Immediately a SMS is sent to both the registered numbers of the new SIM card inserted or mobile phone number is revealed. So that the Owner can track who is currently owning his/her mobile.

Now back to story…

My friend had recently lost his mobile tracker enabled mobile phone, in spite of he calling up the current mobile owner, the phone has not yet reached his hands. He threatens to throw the mobile in to a WELL, rather he returns the mobile of fearing a plot to get captured by Cops.

So here is my simple suggestion, I am sure the mobile manufacturers are listening

This phone should have these features

1) Data Sync

2) Panic Mode

3) Self Destruction Mode.

Data Sync: Why can’t all data be backed up instantly or atleast every day, week or month, Well I suggest that to happen automatically on a computer through Wifi or any other method possible. As soon as the user authenticates a particular computer and when the user is well inside the network it should back up the new updates, with out even bothering the Mobile phone owner.

Panic Mode: As soon as you loose your mobile phone, you send an SMS to your mobile phone with some unique keys. From then on any SMS on that mobile phone received will be forwarded to the desired number set by you, All voice calls in conference mode. The data card datas are completely erased.

Assuming the thief is smart enough,  inserts a new SIM card, Panic mode automatically gets activated and any future communications are to shared with the 2 desired numbers already set by the owner of the Mobile phone. More of an enhanced mobile tracker. Let us say the thief is even more smart enough to have an SIM card inserted with little money re-charged, then SMS alone gets activated and when money recharged with sufficient money it should do with conference call.

Self Destruction mode: Assuming you spoke to the thief and is not ready for any deals. Then why the heck he should have your Mobile phone or even sell them. Start activating the Self destruction mode by just sending the SMS with a unique key, kindly note that SMS can be activated from any mobile phone. The mother board starts to melt down by alerting the user with a speaker phone voice activated for self destruction.

Happen to read from Seth Godin blog on

“Gil lost his cell phone”

I think Seth would appreciate my idea.

Kindly note: Mobile manufacturers, If you intend to use my idea, Kindly reward me. Let’s discuss.

What if KingFisher, Indian Railways? – offer price cuts & haircuts

What if personal grooming become part of air travel?
It is just a wild thought, why should some one have to waste a minimum of 1/2 ~ 6 hrs of quality time?

If Airlines could think of premium services like facial massage, hair cut and what not. There could even think of providing a spa, I was just kidding on the spa. some thing interesting could be offered at a reasonable rate so that Air travel becomes more luxury.

Well I can think of a major competitor for the Airlines. It is none other than the Indian Railways. Imagine Shatapadi having a seperate coach as saloon with all the amenities.

I guess that would be interesting to see them in future.

mGinger Captcha Challenge, UserExperience

mginger captcha challenge

After a long time, I finally login to mGinger to find any thing interesting happening and wanted to know how much I had earned so far.

There was an interesting promo to refer a friend, I did fell for the marketing stunt, so I choose the option as Orkut, because most friends at orkut don’t mind getting spams and they are not that serious types if I had sent them an advertising promo the chances are high that they would visit the link.

Now the challenge part, Orkut has captcha installed to reduce spam, and mGinger wants its users to spam Orkut, Imagine If I selected 60 contacts to send an invite, I would have to fill all the 60 captcha correctly inorder to send the invite.

OMG – mGinger could have warned me about the captcha when I was selecting the orkut friends for referrals

There are actually 2 options available for mGinger to keep the users from frustration or to provide better user experience.

• Option 1: quietly remove the orkut referral program
• Option 2: Beat the orkut captcha to give a better user experience

so how many of them actually made pocket money for every month is still a question with mGinger?

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – 7+ star ratings

I am a fan of Indie, The latest movie “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” did live up to the expectation.
To tell you the fact I was excited when they planned for this new movie but I didn’t set any high expectation, as Harrison Ford was already old. After seeing the movie, Man this guy still seems to rock at this age. Hats of to you sir.

I have seen the previous sequential, With a great director like Steven Spielberg, how could the movie fail, at the same time I felt bad, that the story of this movie had to do with the interest of Steven Spielberg. If you have seen all the Steven Spielberg movie you could predict this one too. The one liners and those punching dialogue are not that notable like the older sequential, very few.

The set, special effects and sound is excellent. Worth watching with the family.

I watched this movie at Satyam Cinemas, Chennai, India last Saturday noon show.Technorati Tags: Movie, Indiana Jones, Chennai, India, Satyam Cinemas, Theatre, Review, Movie Review

Designers Toolbox – Ultimate resource

A site which loads with resources for both the designers, Offline (Print Media) and the Online (Internet) professionals.

Most of the time we get stuck with out knowing the right dimensions for instance when ever we wanted to make a CD label, we go ahead and start measuring a CD and then design them. This site has enough resource on all possible office related stuff. And it is all free to download.

Educate yourself with the right design terms. You could learn how many different types of folder exist and how to differentiate them.

So check out the site Designer toolbox

Lend and earn through Lendbee

Lendbee is a closed contact network which allows you to share eBooks, Books, Old Magazines, Old Movie CD/ DVD, educational CD/DVD, Old Games CD/DVD and much more.

Whom does it cater too?
Office: Close pals in an office network of like minded people who buy managerial/ management books or Technical, fiction, spiritual or self discipline based books can lend their books. Apart from that people who love movies can lend them to their friends. The best part is no ones knows what movies, books and audio programs you share other than your closed group members. Once you register, you can create as many groups, one could play a role of cynical playboy with girlfriends to totally spiritual types with respect to family.

The best way to save money: each one buys one book or magazine or movies of their choice and share among them selves.

College: For students money and room space could be a major problem. Here are some nice tips to earn money and saving your room from getting messy.

Being students you should be having lots of books while you did your 1st,2nd or 3rd year, Currently bundled and kept under your bed. Here is how to getting things done.

Register now, create a group which remains private, choose your trusted junior girl friends to be part of your closed group to lend your college books/CD/DVD or audio programs, While you lend, you could make little money if you ever needed. Well lendbee never knows in what terms you lend your books, because every thing is offline.

School: Being a school student comics, novels have remained favorites rather than those boring text books. Here is how you can make the most of it.

Most parents subscribe to comics like Tinkle, Magic Pot, Tell me why and Amar chitra Katha collections Why not each parent subscribe to one of them and be shared among friends, Exchanging books is simple, children meet at school So ask your parents to register here and make the most of it.

Friends in a locality or town or city: Are you part of Photography community or Music or Dance group in your locality. The best part is gaining more knowledge is by self realization, reading books or watching dance performance could improve your skills. You could make your own style.

A cool feature is on its way at lendbee, Imagine if you are a designer and in need of black book (Best Award winning Advertisements to logos and inspirational works). You search for that items across groups if found, you could communicate with the person who owns the book through lendbee – both the lender and borrower email id’s are not revealed to either parties. Being a lender your identity is never revealed, but the borrower identity is revealed to the person who owns the book. So that he can decide whether or not to lend.

So don’t wait register now. Create as many closed groups and experience the power of lending/sharing. By the way, who knows you could make more girl friends, gain more knowledge and save more money.

Technorati Tags: lendbee, books, CD, DVD, Audio books, Ebooks, Sharing, lending, Privacy, group, friends, Office, College, school, girlfriend