What is in a Name?

What is in a name? Much importance is given to the name given to a child or the name a person beholds. Parents of earlier generations used to name their children after Gods and Godesses. These days however, parents try to give modern, fashionable, and innovative names to their children.

In south India, peoples' names tend to be long and many times complex. Sometime back I read a hillarious article in a blog on the woes of a south Indian guy bearing a long and complex name. These long and complex names are not thought to be cool and hence detested by youngsters of this generation. For such people, I bring a story of a man from south India whose long and complex name got him recognition for his work. He even has a fan club thanks to his "complex" name! Meet Mr. Seetharaman Narayanan of Adobe Photoshop fame.

The 21st Century Browser

I have four e-mail accounts to check, I want to read the news on a website, and fill up my assignment status on my organization’s intranet site. Do I open 5 windows of IE and work on them or have just one window of Firefox with the required websites open in 5 different tabs? I prefer the latter to switching through the clutter of windows on my taskbar. This ‘Tabbed Browsing’ feature of Firefox attracted me to it about nearly two years ago. I now love this browser that I call the 21^st century browser.

Firefox has improved a lot and become a lot more user friendly since I first got introduced to it. I can view websites that function only in IE using the IE Tab extension. I do not need to open a search engine site to search for information on the web. I can simply type in the search bar on the menu bar of the browser and search using the search of my choice. I can also search for meanings in dictionaries on the web, and products in websites like Amazon! All, without typing the website address to open the site first.

Pop-up ads have been a pain in the neck while browsing the web. Several pop-up blockers were created to relive users of pop-ups. Some were blocked others managed to sneak through. Pop-up blockers are also the source of adware and viruses that can harm the computer. With the Ad-block extension of Firefox, I never again faced a pop-up ad. It is the most efficient pop-up blocker ever!

I recently discovered the Forecastfox extension. Earlier I used to visit the weather.com website from the Firefox search bar to check weather forecast for the day. Now I have it constantly being updated on my browser’s status bar! The various browser themes are of course the fun part of Firefox. It is fun dabbling with the looks of the browser and having a new one every now and then, rather than the same constant bland look. Firefox has several wonderful features and extensions that make browsing fun. The list could go pretty long!

So guys, if you still haven’t switched to Firefox (which surprises me!), right away, Go Firefox! I am sure you will never return to IE.

Festivals

We have all have fond memories of the various festivals that were a part of our growing years. The excitement of making preparations for the festivities, decorating the house, mom's delicacies, new clothes. It is funny when people in India are surprised to see people staying abroad celebrate the festivals with great excitement and dedication. I think when we are away from home, each approaching festival brings memories of it from home, and we long to recreate the same excitement and fun. We enjoy in putting in that extra effort to procure the hard to find things like mango leaves, betel leaves, and the right puja coconut. When the eventual output is as close as possible to what we had back home, it makes us thrilled and feel closer to home.

It was our first Vinayaka Chaturthi in the US this year. It is a big festival for us. We enjoyed a lot making preparations for it. We took photos of the puja and sent them home back in India. The palavelli that we made using wooden columns bought from hardware store, was the center of attraction. I hope we are able to make better and more beautiful arrangements in each of the coming years.

The Opening

Hello people! Yet another blog opens on the web. Yet another person decides to put her thoughts out for the world to read. It is interesting to see how popular blogging has become. Writing was considered a skilled job, an art, and it was believed that not everyone is blessed with this skill. But with such a large number of good blogs out there, I must say there is a huge writer population today that almost make blogs a form of literature.

I have always been fond of writing, and starting a blog has been on my mind for a while. Only I kept wondering why would people be interested to spend time in reading my thoughts or observations? After some deliberation I thought, 'aw! what the heck...I'll write for my own pleasure of writing. If people are interested to stop by my blog, it is only better'. Hence was finally born, 'The Red Hibiscus'. The hibiscus absolutely fascinates. It is bright and has a simple form, yet has great elegance. Welcome folks, to 'The Red Hibiscus'!