schadenfreude n.
Pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.

Back in July, Jacob from Mutiny.in contacted me, asking if I would be interested in redesigning Mutiny.in. Being a fan of the site, and in a generous mood, I decided to take on the project. The initial plan was to do a complete overhaul, including re-branding the site, and launching it on August 15th, coinciding with India’s 60th Independence day. But, due to the time constraint, decision was made to keep the old identity, and move on with a new site design.

The point man for the project at Mutiny was Woke, Mutiny’s editorial head, and his creative input was a tremendous help in shaping the final design. I tried to follow Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain’s process for tracking the stages of design; and you can have a look at it here: Mutiny.in Project

As for the final site, it seems a little off from the final mark up provided, but their technical team is working on resolving some of the issues. Overall, they got the site up on August 15th, Jacob and team are happy with the new design, and favorable but some mixed reactions from their readers.

After releasing the India 60 wallpaper, which was created for India’s 60th Independence day, I started putting together a web page based on the wallpaper. The intention here was to make it easier to get to the original photographs used in the wallpaper, and this effort resulted in a page matching the wallpaper, with each image linking to the original photograph.

But, while I was creating the wallpaper page, I started to wonder what a web site based on the design of the wallpaper would be like. So, I started putting together a new site, and to keep things simple I decided to make it a site with links related to Indian news, videos, images, and podcasts. This effort culminated in India60.com.

Now, I am probably breaking quiet a few norms with this design, and some of you w ho stick to the preachings of the design gods, might cringe at it. One of the obvious ones being horizontal scroll. There is a little used mouse feature which is perfect for this site and to get around the horizontal scroll issue. If you keep the scroll wheel pressed as you move the mouse around in the browser window, you can move the page in any direction, kind of like the hand tool in Photoshop.

India 60 is still an experiment in progress, and in a future post I will try and share some of the technical aspects of the site. Check it out, and do share your thoughts.

Looks like Miss Teen South Carolina herself is the answer to the question!

In the second India vs. England ODI (One Day International), in a seven match series; India, batting first, sets a massive total of 329-7. Tendulkar, the maestro, opened with Ganguly, and ended with a knock of 99 runs, includes 15 fours and 1 six. Dravid kept the runs going, with 92 in 63 balls, 11 fours and 1 six. Wow! this would have been a great match to see. For the less fortunate, follow the live text commentary of the match over at BBC. Scorecard Here are some snippets of the very expressive text commentray from BBC:

“Nightmarish times for Pup Broad as Dravid dispenses with his Wall alter-ego in favour of some Henry Heave-Ho.” “Dravid smashes Jimmy off the front foot for an extraordinary six over the cover boundary. The ball travels so fast that it knocks a full pint straight out of a stunned spectator’s hands. Soaked in beer, the fan turns to the gallery and raises his arms in unmerited triumph.” “There are, sadly, people out there who will try to tell you that this clash will be as forgettable as Daphne and Celeste. Ignore them - for they are fools who know nothing of the ways of cricket.” “I’m still here! I am the unfortunate fool who has to work the late shift today until seven; I am manically pressing the refresh button in same kind of attempt at happiness.” More

After coming across Greg Storey’s collection of iPhone wallpapers; initially I started going through some of my photographs to put together an iPhone wallpaper collection. But then I got distracted with other projects, and forgot about the iPhone wallpapers, until I came across Adam Polselli’s wallpapers.

This time around I decided to take the Blog Index framework, an old dark theme for Counterjumper, and put the two together to create a new iPhone Wallpapers page on Counterjumper to showcase my iPhone wallpapers, as well as wallpapers by others.

If you would like your iPhone wallpapers to be included on this site, either add it to the iPhone Wallpapers Group on flickr or send me a link to your Wallpapers.

My Mile Marker, a site by Sidebar Creative, is a very simple way to track your fuel consumption. I have been using it since July, and if you are regular in updating the site with fuel usage information, you will soon start to see stats like the one below.

The Morning News interviews Martin Klimas, a photographer who captures unique transformations as recognizable objects shatter.

In my pictures you see the world through the eye of a high-speed camera. This way of seeing provides for us something that we normally cannot see, this moment of transformation can really only be imagined by us. I provide a way for us to see this action differently. It is an in-between state. A state where rest and motion can exist together. I hope this situation can be applied and give us thought in our everyday world.

No, not the movie, but AT&T’s iPhone bill. Justine Ezarik, shows off her 300 page iPhone bill!

It doesn’t have to be that way, says AT&T. “We can always give people a summary bill,” said AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel. “It’s little more than what you owe this month. And there’s always the online option, too, which means you never get a paper bill.”