Air-India is expanding rapidly

Air-India has just announced that it will start a daily service from India to Los Angeles. There will be seven weekly flights; 3 from Delhi, and 4 from Mumbai. The flights will do a stopover at Frankfurt, Germany and will not require a change of aircraft for passengers. Air-India also announced that it is trying to start a daily service to Chicago as well.

After establishing daily service to Chicago, Air-India will have daily services to four US destinations: New York (JFK), Newark (EWR), Los Angeles (LAX), Chicago (ORD).

Trip to Ahmedabad, India

I just came back from my journey to Ahmedabad, India from Washington DC. I chose to fly Air-India from Newark Liberty International Airport. From Washington DC to Newark, I flew Continental Airlines. I will be posting details of this brief (8 days long) journey very soon. Stay tuned.

MSN Search Ignoring Blogger Blogspot Sites?

I think so. I searched for the follwing term in Yahoo, Google and MSN search engines.

"blogspot.com"

MSN returned only 697,515 results for the term. Google came up with 4,170,000 sites contianing term "blogspot.com". Yahoo found the maximum number of results with 38,000,000.

Microsoft is at it again. It looks like that MSN Search is ignoring the sites run by rival companies. Blogger is owned by Google and it looks like MSN Search is not indexing these blogs as much as the rival search engines do. I can find my blog http://discretelife.blogspot.com/ on Yahoo and Google, but my blog is nowhere to be seen on MSN Search. What is going on? What happened to the idea of indexing the "information on the web" regardless the source of the information?

Dell Inspiron 8600

When I bought my dell inspiron 8600 laptop last month, it did not came with the "best" display setup for the screen. I have WSXGA+ screen and it came with 1680x1050 native resolution set by dell. Well, that was almost unreadable. I reduced the screen resolution to 1280x800 and used it for almost 3-4 weeks. It still felt odd every time I fired up my laptop.

Finally, yesterday I realized that there is 1280x768 option available. I promptly moved the cursor left and tested that resolution. It felt perfect with 96 dpi text settings.

This is great. Anyone who have 15.4 inch WSXGA+ widescreen should try 1280x768 resolution. This is the ideal resolution. I am loving my laptop now.

From USA to Ahmedabad

I finally bought my india bound tickets from the travel agent today. I opted to go with Air India from Newark Liberty International Airport to Ahmedabad. This flight will take me to Paris first, then Mumbai and finally land at Ahmedabad. I will fly Continental Airline from Washington DC to Newark.

I finally decided on this option after reading some dreadful experiences of other people on the internet. The following links will take you to some of these experiences and you let me know if you would try to go to Mumbai again. I am sure many Ahmedabad bound passengers now prefer Air India flights because there is no need to do customs in Mumbai. These passengers can get their customs done at Ahmedabad. There is less harrassments by airport staff at Ahmedabad compared to Mumbai airport.

• Mumbai Airport Experiences
• Some More Mumbai Airport Experiences
• Sleeping at Mumbai Airport (Some people dare try this!!)
• Mumbai Airport Blog
• Mumbai Travel Info

Here are the advantages of travelling Air India from USA for Ahmedabad passengers:

• You check in your luggage at your city and pick up your luggage at Ahmedabad. There is no hassle with the luggage at Newark or Mumbai. I will check in my luggage at Reagan National Airport (DCA) and collect my luggage at Ahmedabad.
• There is no terminal or airport change at Mumbai airport. They just let you out of the airplane and into the terminal for an hour while they clean the airplane for next journey. They promptly let you back in. Going from international terminal to domestic terminal in Mumbai with your luggage at 2 am could be a big hassle and risky.
• Coming back you check in my luggage at Ahmedabad and get it back at Newark. At Newark, you promptly give that luggage back to employees working at the "connecting flights" section. They will send you luggage at your final destination. In my case, Reagan National Airport in Washington DC.
• Travelling Air India is not bad now as it used to be. They are trying very hard to improve the service.
• From Newark it takes only 17-18 hours to get to Ahmedabad. If you live in New York area and want to go to Ahmedabad, this is the best option.
• For desi movie fans, you get to watch 2 desi movies in this 18 hours.
• The airplane Air India uses is Boeing 747 all the way to Ahmedabad. Four Jet engines on the plane makes me feel safer up in the air.