Thursday, September 9, 2010

Google's instant cafe

This is a new revolution in Google's trends.As always google has proved itself as "trend setters"and are of course unique also. With so many search engines being in tough competition;Google still has maintained its monopoly and is still aiming high!So what's so different about "Google instant"?
                Google claims that people take 300 milliseconds to type and take only 30 milliseconds to glance throughout the page searched for. So by introducing google instant ,they are trying to reduce the time taken for typing and making it much faster. We type just a letter of the word to be searched ,and it gives us lots of options related, which would obviously be most appropriate.Just start  typing and you can see predictions right in front of you,just at a click.Its like a  Hindi saying"chutki bajake'.Similar to how the kids say A for "apple" ,B for ball..,..this says .."Amazon';AOL,Apple,etc..''I typed my name 'rajashr' and wow! it was at the first few  in the list showing as "Rajashree prasad' with face book details and blogger details!
                                                               Introduced on September 8th, this is now available to users in USA ,UK ,France ,Germany ,Italy and Russia and will  soon be extended.It has some additional features like "safety guard" for violated contents ,which could be turned on while usage ;getting automatically' turned off' ,when the Internet is slow .The guided predictions help you find out what is needed ,when you don't exactly know what you are searching for ;and also the most related search item is highlighted .Also the related matter appears only with 2 or 3 letters of the word and you can stop typing as soon as your related matter appears. They would soon introduce this feature to be accessed through cell phones also.            
             
           

Monday, September 6, 2010

Grandma tales of "Bells and Pradakshina"

I always remember my grandma telling me some captivating  mythological stories and answering my unlimited questions realted to certain rituals .I felt like sharing these few views from my grandmom's excerpts.


We Hindus have a customary practice of ringing bells at temple. This custom is also followed at homes in the worship place /’pooja room’. Of the several logics behind this tradition, the most appropriate one would be to awaken the god “.does that mean god is sleeping? Well, obviously the answer is “no”. We all are aware that god is omniscient and may not need to be woken up. But what the people believe is that, act of ringing a bell after our prayers, creates alertness and invokes attention of god towards us, and that our prayers have reached his ears. We also ring bells during an” arthi” pooja /worship of god. This also again signifies the same .Also some mythologies claim that these bells drive the evil spirits or any bad omen away .There has also been claims that ringing bells would drive away all the distractions of human mind and reassure their presence of mind during the prayer and creates a positve "aura".Aarthi is almost the concluding part of the worship and we want to make sure that lord has heard all our prayers.


‘Pradakshina’ -This is a customary practice of moving around the temple outer “ankana” or premise with the almighty as the centre point of “reference”. This signifies that lord is the “CENTER OF ORIGIN “, everything revolves round him; just like how the planets revolve around sun ,with sun as center. Our lives are associated with the lord’s blessings; our sorrows, our joys are related to him; he is the force behind all the drives. This ritual is a way of cannaughting gratitude to the lord. Also while revolving around the statue of god, with god at center; a communication is aroused between the person and lord through the positive vibes /energy channelized from god to us. We also circumambulate 3 times to ourselves in front of the lord; sometimes with a recital of a “mantra” that says”yaanikani cha papani ,janmantara kritani, taani kaani vinaashanti pradakshine padepade”.This “mantra” translates that whatever sins we have committed in our life and also in the previous lives,are washed awayor demolished by the repeated “pradakshina”.