Year / 2010

by Nirupam Biswas

Windows Phone 7 is, as we speak, losing fantastic applications because of its approval process.

Designer Silverlight » Blog Archive » Windows Phone 7 UX – One Size Does Not Fit All.

I would like to quote one para from the linked post.

I can’t overestimate how frustrated my clients are with the Microsoft approval process. It ranges from sadness to fury. Clients who are on virtually all other platforms are expressing frustration that they have never had so much trouble getting through an approval process. The rejection reports are inconsistent, spotty, and fragmented. We will submit an app 5 times and get different “errors” back each time. Nine times out of ten, those errors are not errors, but complaints about UX functionality. Of those, at least half of them are complaints about functionality that, if fixed, would worsen the user experience.

I love Microsoft and I love Windows Phone 7, but rejecting apps based on the UX guidelines (while not giving us the tools to abide by the guidelines effectively) is a recipe for suicide.

by Nirupam Biswas

Maybe Pizzas and Subways have caused some allergies in me

Like many I have feasted over many Pizzas and ‘healthy’ Subway burgers. Infrequently and sporadically I have seem to get allergy attacks where hives form on your skin [1].

Hives will cause lot small swellings to form on your body, as it happens in case of insect bites, but all throughout the body. Many of the swelling may merge to form bigger islands. Along with that you will get extreme burning sensation throughout your body over your skin and incessant itching, but itching only spreads the hive formations.

I remember, I had this for the first time in my life, more a year ago. I had a Domino’s Non-veg pizza and after 15-20 mins I went to a local market, where it was hot and sweaty. I started having itchy sensations over my head and arms, along with some hives. The hives were not red and looked like it happened as a result of some mosquito bite. Then when I started scratching them then the situation aggravated. In half hour I was back home and my body was full with hives and islands and it was burning my skin. I took a cold shower, even though it gave a little relief, but it felt like thousand stings. My roomies grew concerned about my situation so we went to a doctor and took a shot of an anti-allergy medicine. It took about an hour to recover after that.

Later I called Dominos to query about any ingredients they put which is known to cause allergy, but as I expected they did know of anything. I had the dreaded thought that I have developed allergy of chicken! Finally I concluded may the heat, sweat and dirt caused this. Time passed and I had many more pizzas and I never had such an issue except for one another day. This time I was at home and was cool and dry. This time I tired not to scratch and in 15-20 mins I recovered.

It has been now one year and today after having Subway burger that same hive allergy struck me. Today also I was cool and dry and I tried not to scratch myself and I recovered in 15-20 mins, but now I could not ignore this anymore. So, I googled and found loads of information. So my final conclusion is I have developed allergy against corn syrup.

Conclusion

It seems I have developed allergy against High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). This is a very dangerous substance and unfortunately, as I found out today, it is present in almost all fast foods. Including Subway burgers and Domino’s Pizzas [2][3][4]. This is also known to cause allergies, like hives [5].

Links

by Nirupam Biswas

The HDFC scumbags.

I got a call from HDFC saying that I am being offered a Credit Card which has no renewal fees. I needed one but only for international online transactions like paying for this server, but didn’t want to incur any additional maintenance charges. Well so, I inquired and was assured that there are NO MAINTENANCE charges.

But the telemarketing scumbags of HDFC didn’t reveal then that there is indeed an annual charge for dormant cards of Rs.400. Well as it turns out if you do not make total transactions of minimum Rs.50000 per year then your card is dormant! This is exact reason for which I turned down ICICI credit card even though I have bank account there, but at least they were very clear and truthful about this.

HDFC you got me. Now I am now thinking of getting other bank’s credit card (maybe ICICI, even though it costs Rs.100 more), and will get out of this shitty bank.