I have been testing out Windows Live™ Mail (Beta) for almost 2 months, yes when it was known only as Mail Beta! I have to say I was drooling over the new features when I first got the chance to experience them. Especially the drag & drop support (handy for organizing emails or deleting them). And though sure there are a lot of annoying bugs (like when a "fixed width" HTML email gets clipped from the right ). I have to say that web mail suddenly has become appealing again. The only appeal of Gmail to me was that they were offering POP/SMTP for free, the space thing is a bit too overrated (in my humble opinion) think about it you have a 200 GB hard disk would you really care about the size of your POP account. Though I would like to acknowledge the fact that it is because of GMail that we are able to see increase in attachment limits of all the providers, besides the obvious; newer developments in the form of betas by Microsoft & Yahoo!

Anyways back to Windows Live™ Mail, since the new beta has seen changes in its domain from the earlier start.com to live.com and my Internet Explorer settings are pretty high, as I do use it for browsing purposes (and No! I do not use an Anti Virus program, why? May be I should state that outside this post.) Since I have enabled warning while switching from one zone to another I keep getting warnings when I'm browsing a site in my trusted zone (say passport.net) which contains content from a site from the internet zone, like start.com or live.com (until you add them in the secured zone). Then I realized that it would be really nice if you could add a site to one of the zones when you're prompted with a similar warning sign in IE7. And it would be really great to see the ability to define your own zones in which you could disable combination of various elements like images, Javascript, ActiveX. This can go a long way in allowing the user to define their own level of protection!

Sexual Attraction in men is predominantly visual than chemical or emotional. But everybody knows that, right? I just wanted to be sure that readers of this post remember this fact. And we men do love to stare at God’s most beautiful creation, Don’t we?
But casual staring is different from gawking like hungry wolves! For people who have not been in the Northern part of India (or Pakistan for that reason) it may be pretty surprising to learn that most men of the region, and I mean 90% of all men stare at women in a very disgusting manner. From teenage boys who have grown their first pubic hair to men old enough to be great grandfathers, this phenomenon is prevalent across all age groups. Men from other parts of the globe (those who are able to read this) may find it ridiculous but the fact is that a very large fraction of men from India and Pakistan (falling between 22N & 32N latitude) stare at every other woman in a way that’s not only demeaning and rude, it’s downright scary for most women.
A few things that I would like to say before going a bit ahead on this issue… I was born and brought up in Northern India. And yet for some strange reason I didn’t pick up on this attribute that’s predominant in men of my immediate geographical area. I never paid attention to this “menace” until about 3 weeks ago when I was asked by an 11 year old girl why men do that. I didn’t have any answers, so I honestly replied to her that I didn’t know. However this got me started in conducting some research for a better answer. When I started off searching through the web for articles/discussions & blogs, I quickly made the shocking discovery that there’s something terribly wrong with men in this part of the globe.
Finding reasons to why this is so; is surprisingly easy. Though most men from both countries of the Sub-Continent will disagree with me, but most women can and probably will relate to the fact that from their childhood to adulthood men in the Indian Sub-Continent are brought up in an environment where they are made to believe that not only are they superior to women (which happens even in the liberal west) but they grow a sense of inconsideration for the female sex identifiable with their western counterparts of the “Dark Ages”.
But I was provided with the best possible answer to that little girl’s query which is perhaps undoubtedly the most impressive answer yet which I was told by someone with more experience and first hand experiences of this trend… “It’s not that every guy does it, with time there comes a realization that there are still a lot of men who do not act like a hungry pack of wolves prying over a helpless creature”. (This paragraph has been modified since it was first published.)

OK so I could tell her that, but it still doesn't change this unpleasant fact and this menace still doesn't go away. And I don't wanna lie!

Can best friends be replaced? I know it’s a plastic question in our world full of cosmetic things, where most people make friends for quick gains. But I still believe best friends are found out of selflessness rather than the selfishness inherent in every living person. I lost mine in a tragic accident 4 months ago, and there’s rarely been a day yet that I haven’t thought of him. We were not geographically close for almost a year at the time of his death; in fact we were probably the farthest distance possible on our planet, me in New Delhi & he in Jacksonville, Florida. I remember I was in denial to myself for the first week I heard this tragic news. But only a handful of people know that I wasn’t able to go to his funeral because I was tense all night before that and had a terrible migraine probably because of sleep deprivation + tension. I have never felt so helpless and angry at myself before.
And now here I am, selfishly seeking as if it were a broken coffee mug; a replacement for something that’s irreplaceable. And even though I’m writing this with a huge load of self-guilt, the fundamental fact remains that life moves on.
None of the close friends of mine are physically close to me. They’re either thousands of miles away and even on different continent. And I don’t know having a best friend is like being in love I guess… You don’t pick your best friend just like you don’t pick who you are going to love. You just know it! I’m desperate to experience such a feeling; either it’s a new best friend or the love of my life.