Citibank ATM

Have you ever used Citibank ATMs? Did you notice that the ATM screen after dispatching the money, shows up your account balance to everybody standing in the queue. No looking over the shoulders is required here.

The ATM screen is placed in such an angle that it is clearly visible to all the people standing behind in the queue (even though the queue is about 5 to 6 ft away). Either the screen could be mounted at a lower angle such that it is visible to only the user or else the viewing angle of the LCD panel could be reduced.

As a workaround, the only option left is to hide the screen from others!

Sillunu Oru Kaadhal - review

First time I am writing a review for a Tamil movie. Watched "Sillunu Oru Kaadhal" movie.

The screenplay was very obvious (nothing new or different). I mean the anticipation of what is going to happen in the next frame is quiet obvious. The hero has an usual flashback and there are no surprises. The second half of the movie was quiet boring, a good test for your patience if you could stick to your seat till the climax. The climax was bit different but again predictable. Music is by ARR and I could hardly understand the lyrics. I could just make out only a few tamil words in the songs. It is pity that the good lyrics are thrown to waste. At a few places I feel that flow has been disrupted. For the sake of having comedy Vadivel was shown in a few scenes and disappears forever after that.

Finally my rating would be below average movie!

Review from IndiaGlitz. Their review is quiet positive and I hope that is because IndiaGlitz has sponsored for the movie.

Bitter experience with PVR online movie ticketing system

I was trying to book online movie tickets in PVR cinemas. It is one heck of a pathetic web application that could have ever been built. Firstly, the availability is never updated properly. While trying to book the ticket, the app showed that the seats are available and even gave me the seat numbers. After entering the credit card details and going through the payment screen, it died down. The app never refreshed to show the status of the payment. On refreshing the page, it showed the same seat allocation and the payment screen. Going through it second time also ended in vain. After restarting in fresh browser window, I found that the seats are full instantaneously. There has been no error or update stating that the credit card hasn't been charged.

This made me feel that online train ticket booking is much better app. IRCTC should get a pat on their back!

Need of thin chat clients

My usage level of chat is very sparse. I would prefer picking up the phone and talking rather than chatting. For conveying unimportant things I prefer chat over phone. I have never realized the usage of thin chat clients until my office network blocked the usage of thick chat clients due to a virus outbreak. Chat option in Gmail and Meebo came in really handy at certain points.

Send Email at Residence/Office

The above option at one of the HDFC NetBanking forms made me to think for a while. How can one classify email as residence/office?

Ways to wriggle money from customers

In this materialistic world, almost every other service vendor tries to wriggle the hard earned money from the customers. Airtel and Citibank is no excuse to this.

With Airtel when you get a new connection, they automatically enable Hello Tunes (though you request them not to enable) since it is free for the first month. The customer is never told that it is "only" free for the first month and from the next they will be charged for this petty service. Secondly they never intimate the customer that such a service has been enabled without their approval. Lot of such options are taken for granted.

Secondly, Citibank is very famous and notorious with such promotions. They will send you a life-time free gold credit card without your request on applying for a savings account. Apart from this they will enable Ready credit and all other such options automatically and keep charging heavy penalties and dues if you happen to violate their laws/policies. With a dismissal quality of service they pester you continuously with promotional offers. Nothing useful could be got from them.

I just came across an illogical incident with Citibank. I requested a bank statement and they promised to deliver it through courier only to my residential address. Since this being an account statement I had to sign and collect. With no body at my residence during office hours, the statement will be sent back to Citibank which they will duly thrash for security reasons. And the worst part is yet to come, for such a service I have to pay them charges.