Ik hou van Diana!

I meditated a bit over a title for this post. I love Diana! It sounds strange, doesn't it? That's exactly why I went for a little Dutch there, which interestingly conveys the same sounding less wierd (or wierder?) Well, Diana is no princess. It's a software I just cannot do without. It doesn't do anything out of the ordinary. All it does is help me keep track of my to-do list (for over 3 years now). Yeah it also helps me deal with my random cut-copy-paste and disconnected thoughts.

At work of late, people have been curious about this ever active little window in my computer. That's when I thought I should do a bit to promote this teeny weeny tool that has made my life a lot easier. Diana's creator Sanne Schaap (alias Sheep) says the program was not made to impress and simplicity is his philosophy. Schaap is sheep in Dutch. Thanks to Google language tools. Ik hou van Diana! You see the connection now :P

The core part of Diana is a calendar. Click on a day and you can enter data against the day in the panel below. It remains there until you remove it explicitly. So you can go back and forth managing your past, present and future with the aid of your arrow keys. The calendar menu gives options to go to next month, previous month, jump to today and make summary report (of the next 40 days). Keyboard short cuts are Pg dn, Pg up, F5, F9 respectively. That's about it. Nothing more nothing less.

The download is available for free at Sheep Friends. Try it once and you are going to like it, the least assured, you will forget Post-it notes. At Sheep Friends there are other adorable friends of Diana

• Abby, a quick conversion tool (my second favourite)
• Billy, a lightweight mp3 player (Billy in Wikipedia)
  
• Hawk, an ultra fast hex file viewer
• Kelly, a disturbingly small desktop calculator
• Natty, a system tray mail notifier

Finally, thanks to Saurabh who got a reluctant me hooked to Diana.

My last couple of weeks!

Looks like the drive to blog is not just enough. Not blogging for close to a month pinches especially when I am striving to be a religious blogger. My friends never miss to make fun of that very aspiration. Not so amusing, they even doubt the verity of ClustrMaps and voice it a little too often. In a fit to blog, I wrote a lot and said RIP to all of them. I guess I should take it a little easy.

Last couple of weeks have been absolutely hectic with more responsibilities at work. It's going to be like this for another one month before I get away to Kashmir for the perfect holiday. Okay people exclaim! Kashmir! I am just so excited even when I'm agnostic about my coming back.

Some other relevant updates. My experiment with baby tears in a terrarium failed miserably. A good old friend called on me after 4 long years. I took time off from work and slogged away the next couple of days. No regrets there, those are some moments to cherish. Carpe diem! I believe in it. Chandana celebrated Mac's first bark. Meanwhile Mac & Cooper still sing the same song of friendship. Before the intense work schedule took a toll on my well being, I did a bit of self indulgence at Bodycraft. I loved it and would recommend the place to all fellow Bangaloreans.

After coaxing close to a score of people to buy 'Three Men in a Boat' and making sure that each one advocates the same in an MLM fashion, I picked up my second copy of the book. This time a neat hard bound edition all for just Rs.150/- from Wilco Publishing House. The publishers have a huge list of titles, mostly complete & unabridged classics, classified under 'Classic Library Books'. These books elegantly bound come in surprisingly low price. Before I even realised, I had already grabbed The best of O. Henry, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. My pleasure, Alice's book came with the original illustrations by John Tenniel. I had always wanted to read them with an adult's perspective ever since I figured Alice & the logic-chopping pair Tweedledum and Tweedledee in a book on logic. Below Tweedledum and Tweedledee debate the finer points of logic with Alice.

"I know what you are thinking about", said Tweedledum : "but it isn't so, nohow."

"Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be: but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic."

As I said earlier, let me take it a little easy. Alice and her adventures can easily be part of another post. By the way did you know that Alice's books were banned in China on the grounds that "animals should not use human language".

There was a big fat wedding in the family and we paid a brief visit to my folk's. It felt great catching up with aunts, uncles and cousins, who were little kids when we last met 7 years ago. Some interesting pictures I took during the trip. This one is my favourite.

No, it is no tree in hibernation. It's a dried flower of teak tree held against a white wall. Mangoes, the luxury of summer, fallen from the big mango tree in my ancestral home yard.

 

The tree provides food and shelter to a lot of animals and birds. Like always I still spot many rare birds. They may not be actually rare but I haven't seen them in plenty. There is a beauty in the infestation of this wild plant too, right? Come monsoon, it is going to thrive more.

Finally, the purpose of this left me confused. A shelter? for? from?


Last weekend had my friends at work and their families coming over for a potluck lunch. It was fun to play the hostess. With a couple of the same guys leaving work to pursue better options, the Friday lunches won't be the same fun anymore. Let me wish them all the best. Meanwhile I am still waiting for Manu's blog launch. Given the fact that he is much of a self starter and is diagnosed with an acute case of verbal diarrhea (I'm stealing his very words here), I am surprised I am still waiting.