Power of creative sharing, Via.Me

I am sure everyone was surprised, and shocked over the Instagram incident last month. Well, whatever happens, happens for a reason. While everyone was talking about Instagram, a brand new application called “Via.me” came along, and believe me, it is one of the best media-sharing (photo/video/audio/notes) iPhone application currently out there and its free without any advertisements.

The reason I decided to write a user review for Via.me is because it is a very unique platform, and in my opinion, the best of its kind thus far. I have been using Via.me for just over a month, and one thing I would like to mention besides its creative filters, and amazing user-interface is that “Via.Me never crashed on me thus far”. It is the most-used app on my iPhone 4s after facebook, texting, and email.

You’re probably thinking, why Via.me over Instagram? Well, let’s compare the major functionality of both apps which is camera & filters. Via.me comes with a faster-response camera than Instagram, and when it comes to filters, Via.me is far ahead of any of its competitor. While Instagram’s filters are focused on making a picture look old and antique, Via.me’s filters are designed to give your photos a “cool” factor. Cool in the sense that even though your picture may be taken in Delhi, the Via.me filters are powerful enough to brush “Paris” onto it. Cool, right? Hell’ Yeah!

I will introduce you to Via.me now.

Via.me requires you to signup/login by your Facebook or Twitter credentials, but it never forces you to share on either platform. You can simply share your pictures and videos on Via.me portal with other Via.me users with an option to share it with friends on facebook and/or twitter at the same time. Via.Me comes with 5 pages: feed, explore, camera, activity, and profile. Lets take a look at each, individually.

Feed:

Feed is basically your homepage. Here, you are able to see the posts of those who you are following. It will show all the pictures, videos, notes, and audio based on the times at which they were shared. You will also be able to see the number of times any post has been viewed. Yes, you can follow your favorite people/brands/celebrities on Via.me, just like Twitter.

Explore:

Explore is one of my favorite feature. You will see “what’s Hot” or trending at any given time, posted by any given user. It’s a great way to find creativity and you have a choice to follow that user who matches your interests. I met most of my Via.me friends on this page.

Camera:

Via.me is all about sharing by rich media like pictures and videos. Camera is the most amazing feature and is the backbone of this application. Once you touch the middle “Camera” button ,you’re able to either take a live picture or video using your phone’s camera or you can just simply choose a saved picture from your phone’s camera roll. Then it’s fun times, once you have a choice of 17 camera filters to apply. Each offers something unique, and all of them are awesome! Each of the filters is named after famous cities such Moscow, Athens, Vegas, Hollywood, London, Milan, NY, Bay Area, along with the “normal” filter. Each filter makes your picture look unique in its own way, and its amazing to see how different a picture can look with different filters.

Activity:

Activity is your notification page and shows what’s going on within the people you follow on Via.me. Activity page will show notifications like “Adam shared a new picture,” or will notify you each time you are followed by someone new. It is a good feature to keep track of activities of your friends and followers, and also notifies you when someone posts something on a post that you have previously commented on. This allows for easy discussions as well.

Profile:

The profile page is basically your own page, and shows anything you have shared on Via.Me with the number of views to each item, along with any comments. This page also shows how many people are following you and who you are following.

Sharing:

On the top right of the Via.me page is sharing option. You will be able to type a caption along with your picture or video. You don’t have to share media content on this, you can just simple write a blog and post it to facebook and/or twitter along with via.me.

Via.me is a very successful mobile application created by San Francisco-based software start up company called “RadiumOne“. Gurbaksh Chahal, CEO & Chairman of RadiumOne, is very active and interactive on Via.me and is always testing/reviewing/sharing various new features along with his interesting posts. If you have any praise/comments/feedback, just let @gchahal know about it. He is likely among the most approachable CEOs out there.

I have met some great people on Via.me. It is amazing to see how Via.me has been able to build a family, of sorts, in a very short period of time. Currently, Via.me is only available on iPhone app store, but based on Mr. Chahal’s updates, it is coming soon for Android users. Make sure you have via.me on your phone to enjoy the power of creative sharing.

My Eat Club = Awesome

Last night I found out about a start up company called “My Eat Club”. My Eat Club is successfully changing the way people eat lunch at work. Even though most of the big companies like Zynga, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. have cafeterias but employees get bored of same kind of cooking or mostly they are too busy to go out for lunch, or figuring out what & where to eat is also a big brainstorming exercise in that little window of lunch time. Now here comes the “My Eat Club” to solve all these problems of thinking, boring food, driving, and also your lunch budget. Eat Club brings you fresh/yummy food from the restaurants you love from their list. Just select your meal from your favorite restaurant for $7.50 and go back to work. Yes, $7.50, I know you’re either shocked or surprised to get great food for this little money. I walked in McDonald’s to check their prices and you’re looking at around 10 dollars for a “good” burger/sandwich with fries and soda. And believe me it was crowded (long drive-thru line), and it smells like oil spill in the location.

People love, correction, people want healthy food and they try not to compromise on taste, flavor, meal size, and price. My Eat Club is kind of your “free membership” from hundreds of great restaurants in San Francisco Bay Area with delivery and all they charge is “Seven Dollars & 50 cents”. Also, you don’t have to give any tip or gratuity or spend your expensive gas & time for eating lunch.

No one wants to work hungry, and everyone loves food, and this is your reason to try and love what “MyEatClub” has to deliver for you tomorrow.

Also, Follow, Like and read about “MyEatClub” on Twitter, Facebook and Yelp for great deal of information and 5-star reviews.

Failure Vs. Mistakes

Failure, Success, Motivation, Inspiration etc etc. All these words are publicly available for free from family, friends, peers, professors, even strangers. We all get inspired by other people’s success stories, money, fame, status etc, but we never try to know the “behind the scenes” of that person’s life. All we notice is Mark is now a 17.5 bln dollar man, or G sold his company to yahoo for 300 mln dollars. This is a normal thing to do for normal people. If you’re above normal, or just street smart, you know what to look for in a successful man. His Failures. And how he over came that phase of life to make it large & visible. One thing always bothers me that no one tell failure stories, but success stories become headlines and breaking news. Failure is a good thing, if that happens to you. People fail because they try to do things differently. If you keep following the same methods, we wouldn’t have things that we do now.

Best thing to do after making a mistake is to own that mistake. Keep making mistakes, one of these mistakes will make you an innovator. I would love to copyright my mistakes so I totally own them, and give them away as lesson to coming generations. It’s human nature to cover our mistakes, which is a very normal thing to do. All of us has done it at some point of our lives. Most important thing to do after a mistake is “don’t settle”. Settle is a word which has no given value. It changes for people to people. My parents are settled with our lovely family of four, Mark is keeping his focus and still shipping with 17.5 Bln dollars on his name. You just can not define settle.

I strongly recommend you to make mistakes. If you have an idea and you really believe in it then, close your eyes, say “fuck it, and dive in the water”. There is no other way, to make it happen.

Bose D K, Jaago Bhaago aur Maaro

I woke up with my Facebook page filled with notifications like “Hang Kasab till death”, “PMO or PM”0”, Killer Congress, F**king Terrorists etc. I literally thought about something bad must have happened in my country because Indians are never this aware for country unless it’s India vs. Pakistan cricket, or few hours after bomb blasts.

I was right, this time it was again the case of bomb blast, in fact 3 blasts in 10 minutes in Mumbai. The latest official numbers shows 18 deaths. Seriously, I hope it’s only 18. Our government at every level is trained to keep the numbers in control, whether its death toll or corruption money. Nobody knows how many exactly died.

I was devastated when I came to know that Mumbai got Kasab’s birthday gift on July 13, 2011 as bomb blast. Kasab is probably as famous as Baba Ramdev or Shahrukh Khan in India. He’s safe, healthy, gets attention, and even if he applies for Indian Citizenship, this guy has a fair shot of getting it after living in India for 3 years now.

My question to you is, why are we still hosting him? There are enough evidences against him carrying a gun and killing around people at Mumbai Central in 2008. What else does our government looking for? If these cases are going to take years to figure out what to do with a terrorist who we already have in custody for 3 years, I will have to use F word. Seriously, justice or human rights? Why can’t we just shoot him in the ass, and cut him in pieces then FedEx to Terrorism Headquarters. Our citizens are so heroic to kill each other when it comes to their local street Masjid or Temples, why are they now acting like a little pussy cat.

Indian youth with Facebook or Movie Stars with Twitter are posting prayers for the victims. They will do, or they have to do for next couple hours until we have new headlines.

Speaking of headlines, Aajtak is more professional in Cricket broadcasting than Bomb Blasts. They had hours of broadcasting on Dhoni, “Because his team played safe in last test match against WI in order to secure the test series”. But Aajtak managed to cut the live coverage of breaking news for some fake stupid BABA who was selling his red fortune bullshit book for Rupees 3,000. Really? What the fuck? Is this India’s top Hindi news network or cheaply buyable TV spot for BABAs. I don’t know where to start and where to end, it’s probably I am tipsy or most likely I am pissed.

Terrorism is like not a disease which we will have scientists to research in a lab for years to cure. We know who is killing our people, we know where they belong, we know why they are doing it, and even we have a fucking terrorist living with us for last 3 years, and we are too stupid to kill him. If our government is too busy to eat money for games, spectrum scandals, or attending fashion shows, I will not be surprised if we have a weekly bomb blast as a reminder that “it’s time to wake the fuck up”.

I know I am not using very decent language, but I can’t help it. Indian Youth is entering into a new era of Delhi Belly, a stupid movie which happened to be super hit, and widely appreciated.

Bose D K, Jaago Bhaago aur Maaro. Nahi to Maroo!

First Sight

First Sight, two simple words, but they can change everything around you. At least they did change things around me. I am a normal 22 year old man, who gets attracted by attractive stuff normally, and stay attractive for some time, then moves on! But this is my first “First Sight” incident.

Anyways, I and my dad were flying back from Delhi to New York! It was a 14 hour long flight. I and my dad had a lot to talk about last 19 days we spent in Aligarh, Chandausi, Bareilly and Ahmedabad! We met lots of people, attended various family events. Now it was time to come back to California, and get back to work!

I was quite, because I was little tipsy. Before getting boarded on plane, I walked into Delhi Dare Devils Bar at the airport lounge, and spent every single Indian currency I had on drinks! I loved it!

I and my dad were talking about random stuff for almost 2 hours before I fall asleep. As soon as I was deep in sleep, I felt like I am leaving something behind. A very important person, who I didn’t got chance to talk, just saw her once for 7 minutes, and that’s it. I was sad, surprised, and lonely. But connections are meant to be made, and during my trip, I made a connection.

Let me tell you, how it happened. Since, I spent my 18 years in Aligarh, and especially 7 wonderful years in AMU. I made many great friends. I visited AMU Engineering College to meet up with my friends, and had great time. During my AMU visit, I saw a simple yet cute face at a “Bhelpuri Stand”, and whispered “WOW”. This wasn’t the usual “WOW”, but I kept it with me. This is only time I saw her, may be had a one line conversation, and that’s all. She was busy talking to my friends, and I was just stealing her simplicity.

I came back, got busy with work, school, friends, family, parties and other random west coast stuff. I cherished my trip for weeks, but the only thing I wished to spend more time was her. All I had was a 7 minute glance, and I don’t know if I should be happy or sad.

Almost after two months, when I was still under “WOW” effect, I decided to start a conversation and proceed in the direction for good. Facebook proved its power, and I was so happy to see that face again. I was little nervous and much excited when I started talking to her. The only progress I made is, now she knows about my WOW influence, and we are still talking. Life is great, but 7,692 miles away!

And like everything, it ended as well. I guess 7,693 miles is little way too much!

My Blog in 2010!

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Fresher than ever.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 3,000 times in 2010. That’s about 7 full 747s.

 

In 2010, there were 13 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 24 posts. There were 12 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 987kb. That’s about a picture per month.

The busiest day of the year was July 3rd with 62 views. The most popular post that day was “It’s 4am and you are in my house”.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, WordPress Dashboard, rpg-directory.com, search.aol.com, and linkedin.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for peace explosion, man dreaming, explosion peace, facebook status quotes, and prateek gupta.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

“It’s 4am and you are in my house” July 2010
4 comments

2

Peace Explosion March 2009
2 comments

3

Funny Facebook Status Quotes! November 2009
1 comment

4

About March 2009

5

Probably Maybe September 2010
3 comments

After a While

After a while you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul,
And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning and company doesn’t mean security,
And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts and presents aren’t promises,
And you begin to accept your defeat with your head up and your eyes open, with grace of an adult, not with the grief of a child,
And you learn to build all your roads on today because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans.
After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much.
So plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure….
that you really are strong,
and you really do have worth.
And you learn and you learn…..
with every good-bye you learn.

Dad Says, “Just Kiss Him”!

One night a guy dropped his date at her home.

As they were about to wish each other goodnight at the front door, the guy started feeling a little in the mood. With an air of confidence, he leaned with his hand against the wall and smiling, he said to her, ”Honey, would you give me a kiss ?”

Horrified, she replied, “Are you mad? My parents will see us!”

“Oh come on! Who’s gonna see us at this hour?” He asked grinning at her.

“No, please. Can you imagine if we get caught?” she worried.

“Oh come on! There’s nobody around, they’re all sleeping!”.

“No way, it’s just too risky!”

“Oh please, please, I love you so much?!?”.

“No, no, and no. I love you too, but I just can’t!”.

“Oh yes you can. Please?”

“No, no. I just can’t” “I’m begging you…”

Out of the blue, the light on the stairs went on, and girl’s elder sister showed up in her pajamas, hair disheveled, and in a sleepy voice she said, “Dad says to go ahead and give him a kiss, or I can do it. Or if needed, mom says she can come down herself and do it, but for God’s sake and all of ours….

TELL HIM TO TAKE HIS HAND OFF THE DOOR BELL…….

Probably Maybe

WOW. Wow was the first thing I thought after her one glance. Instantly made so many future plans, and whatever. I was so sure about this feeling just after a glance of her beautiful looking smiley face. She is every guy’s dream girl. I already started feeling so possessive that I thought of hacking into her facebook and delete her pictures to save her charm from devils eye. Well, it was just a thought, and I just got my gmail hacked a few weeks ago, and literally lost my 19,000 emails and over a thousand contacts. So I clearly I can’t help myself.

Anyways, it was American Airlines flight from Austin, Texas to San Francisco, California. By god’s grace, I was lucky enough to get a window seat in a tiny American Airlines kind of empty airplane. As soon as plane took off, I heard a sweet voice of an airline crew requesting me to buckle up my seat belt and gently asked me to put aside my laptop and iPhone. Strictly “NO ELECTRONICS” for the first few minutes. But after couple minutes, I looked around to find out most of the passengers were using there gadgets. I decided not to play with mine and just looked around, and tried to find some interesting. I saw the same AA air hostess walking here and there with a smile on face and helping people. She was amazing! Anyways, I was “not too good looking” enough to flirt with an Air Hostess. So I killed my intentions and closed my eyes. Woke up with my air chocked ears on the arrival announcement at San Francisco Airport. I thought for sure, this is the final good-bye, and I gently said to her, “Hope to see you again” and walked through the tunnel to the terminal.

I looked around the airport filled with diversely beautiful passengers and people hugging each other on arrival and departure, whatever I was alone no one was supposed to pick me up. I tried to call my friend, and got the text, “S-o-B, wait up over there, only reason I am coming to pick you up because you can buy us “Duty Free MALBORO’S AND LIQUOR” from the airport shops.” I thank airport for duty free shops and laughed at the text message. While shopping, I noticed the same air hostess again, and try to waive to get her attention. Yes, I am that desperate for beautiful ladies! haha~

“Hi, We met again”!, She said. I just nobbed, because, I usually act 100000 times more stupid in front of beautiful girls. She reminded me that, I am not dreaming. The very next moment I asked her for coffee at the airport coffee shop. And guess what, she smiled and said, “how about some juice?” I replied with “oh, I care so much about coffee but ok!”

You might know, how weird it is for an Indian to ask another Indian that if he/she is an Indian. Yeah, this is what about to happen. I mean I clearly look like an Indian but she doesn’t in that graceful Air Hostess get up!  I mean to me, she wasn’t looking Indian but I took my chance and asked her name! Hi, I am Pranav Gupta, Suhana Gupta was her reply. I might have misheard “Gupta”, but yeah we shared same surname! How awesome it was to begin my convo now!

After a very interesting hour long conversation, my loving friend called, “WTF, where the hell are you? Parking cost 7 dollars and I am not paying for that shit.” I smiled enough so it look like my friend is welcoming me over the phone by saying, “dude, I got your things. Just give me 5 more minutes”. Awesome, perfect, See you”

She was waiting for her next flight to serve, and I had my friend waiting for me to serve me with his wise words, so I called it our first hangout and exchanged our cell phone numbers, added each other on Facebook right away “thank you iPhone”! and mutually agreed to “Hope to see you soon” phrase!

Now I was running to the restroom with about to blast bladder, and noticed the “happy smile” on my face in the Mens restroom’s huge mirror. Oh wow, I just had my day!

Hear What I’m Not Saying

Don’t be fooled by me.

Don’t be fooled by the face I wear.

For I wear a mask, a thousand masks,

masks that I’m afraid to take off,

and none of them in me.

Pretending is an art that’s second nature to me,

but don’t be fooled.

For God’s sake don’t be fooled.

I give you the impression that I’m secure,

that confidence is my name and coolness is my game,

that the water’s calm and I’m in command,

and that I need no one.

But don’t believe me.

My surface may seem smooth but my surface

is my mask, ever-varying and ever-concealing.

Beneath lies no complacence.

Beneath lies confusion and fear and aloneness.

But I hide this. I don’t want anybody to know it.

I panic at the thought of my weakness and fear being exposed.

That’s why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,

a nonchalant sophisticated facade, to help me pretend,

to shield me from the glance that knows.

But such a glance is precisely my salvation.

My only hope, and I know it.

That is, if it’s followed by acceptance,

if it’s followed by love.

It’s the only thing that can liberate me from myself.

From my own self-built prison walls,

from the barriers I so painstakingly erect.

It’s the only thing that I will assure me

of what I can’t assure myself,

that I’m really worth something.

I don’t like to hide.

I don’t like to play superficial phony games.

I want to stop playing them.

I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me,

but you’ve got to help me.

You’ve got to hold out your hand

even when that’s the last thing I seem to want.

Only you can wipe away from my eyes

the bland stare of the breathing dead.

Only you can tell me into aliveness.

Each time you’re kind and gentle and encouraging,

each time you try to understand because you really care,

my heart begins to grow wings, very small wings,

very feeble wings,

but wings!

With your power to touch me into feeling

you can breathe life into me.

I want you to know that.

Who am I, you may wonder.

I am someone you know very well,

but you won’t figure this out,

because I am hiding under a mask.

I am tough, I have guts, I can be macho;

but only with masks around me,

and you won’t know how emotional,

caring, and loving I am.

Loving I am, Loving I am.