tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73418363557031470212024-03-05T16:38:40.738+05:30Celebrate TechnologyAbhishek Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16301277323018014045noreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7341836355703147021.post-35723012208108708462011-02-04T11:29:00.008+05:302011-02-04T12:39:43.366+05:30The Bing vs Google Story: An interesting analogy<div style="text-align: justify;">So its become quite fad these days - discussing the big controversy where <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/microsofts-bing-uses-google-search.html">Google alleges Bing</a> of using <span style="font-style: italic;">Google search results</span> to improve their own search service.<br /></div><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Story</span></span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">So to cut a long story short, Google believed Bing was secretly making use of their search results to improve its own service; and ran a '<a href="http://searchengineland.com/google-bing-is-cheating-copying-our-search-results-62914">sting operation</a>' to prove this behavior. They created an artificial result for a search query ("<a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=hiybbprqag">hiybbprqag</a>") that originally returned no results, and tweaked their index to return a hand crafted result that had no relationship to the original query.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 126px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHCBJDSAx0RK0RyTEp3zjIlT9K9nwPyLdFtUefEzA2nbLFxirt6m2eE3OtR-etZwJX9rtAri6uBuHGYADl6Ej86txVzi_V9WFwLlJSMHOxgeufgfzPQA2Crd0mTto3kx9l6LBpzhhphos/" alt="" border="0" /><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">A few days later, searches on Bing for the same keyword returned the same results that Google did (<a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/microsofts-bing-uses-google-search.html">Here's</a> the whole story). As expected, Google claims this is unethical behavior and would like this practice to stop.<br /></div><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Microsoft's Take</span></span><br /><a href="http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/search/archive/2011/02/02/setting-the-record-straight.aspx">Microsoft responded quite strongly</a>, stating that<br /><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;">"To be clear, we learn from all of our customers. What we saw in today’s story was a spy-novelesque stunt to generate extreme outliers in tail query ranking. It was a creative tactic by a competitor, and we’ll take it as a back-handed compliment. But it doesn’t accurately portray how we use opt-in customer data as one of many inputs to help improve our user experience."</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"> - Harry Shum, Bing Corporate Vice President</div></blockquote><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bing - a better way to Google?</span></span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">But with all this controversy around, the popular opinion indeed is that Bing copies results from Google. This video on College Humor probably says it best:<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><em><blockquote>"Bing helps you Google the best choice, faster. And shows related Googles right there on the results page. Bing knows what you like to Google."</blockquote></em></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://www.collegehumor.com/moogaloop/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1915736&fullscreen=1" height="225" width="400"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><param name="movie" quality="best" value="http://www.collegehumor.com/moogaloop/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1915736&fullscreen=1"><embed src="http://www.collegehumor.com/moogaloop/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1915736&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" allowscriptaccess="always" height="360" width="640"></embed></object><br /></div><br /><div><br /><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">An interesting Analogy</span></span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Here is an interesting analogy that I came across, of the events of this entire Bing-Google episode:<br /></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:85%;">The Bing Cafe head chef is waiting at his usual bus stop and overhears someone saying<br /></span></div><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >"Hey, I had unusual dish X with unusual ingredient Y last night, and it</span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" > was pretty good." </span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />But he doesn't think anything of it, because nobody ever asks for unusual dish X at the Bing Cafe.<br /><br />Until one day, voila! Someone comes in and orders off-menu: dish X!<br /><br />The chef has never made dish X before, but he remembers that unusual bus stop conversation and decides to try to make dish X with unusual ingredient Y.<br /></span></div><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />And then the customer peels off his fake moustache and says<br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >"Aha, gotcha! That was *our* idea, at the Google Deli across the street! *We* invented the idea of making dish X with Y!" </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br />And he explains to his dining companion, the local restaurant reviewer, that they sent twenty people to the chef's bus stop to *deliberately* have conversations in front of him, and a whopping *7%* of the time, the chef later made dishes with the unusual ingredients they mentioned. And the local restaurant reviewer, who isn't entirely clear whether 7% of dishes ordered by 20 people is a big or small number, presses his editor to make this "scandal" a front-page story.<br /><br />And the editor isn't good at math or ethics either, but it's a slow news day in their town, so voila: Front page news.<br /><br />So then a reporter asks Bing Cafe chef about the article and he says<br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >"Huh? That's ridiculous. I'm not reselling Google Deli food at the Bing Cafe."</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br />And then he reads the article, and he says "You gotta be kidding me. The Google Deli has been deliberately sending spies to my bus stop?"<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:85%;">And the chef tries to respond, but hey, it turns out that today is the opening day of the "Whipped Cream Pie Convention", and soon there are pies flying through the air so that everyone is messy and nobody wins, except for the Keystone Kops Production Company, who have diligently filmed the whole thing for your internet viewing pleasure.</span></div></blockquote></div><br /><div> </div>Abhishek Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16301277323018014045noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7341836355703147021.post-9099782868796206812010-04-20T23:59:00.007+05:302010-04-21T01:02:25.199+05:30The Nexus One, powered up and flying in MumbaiIt's been a while since I got the best gadget I've possessed so far.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/05/google-nexus-one-the-techcrunch-review/"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 200px;" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/01/nexus-one-france-20100105-600-2.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://tctechcrunch.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/nexusone.jpg"><br /></a>I was drawn into an internal struggle between the iPhone 3GS and the N1. There are enough people on both sides over the net to confuse, so I looked down into the facts. Here's what tilted me in the favor of this marvelous piece:<br /><ul><li>Its got a <span style="font-weight: bold;">bigger, brighter screen with a higher resolution</span> than the iPhone. ("This is the best mobile phone display on the market today, blowing away the iPhone’s 480 x 320 display" - <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/05/google-nexus-one-the-techcrunch-review/#ixzz0lfUapEKQ">Techcrunch</a>)<br /><br /></li><li>Its got <span style="font-weight: bold;">multitasking </span>built in bottom up.<br /><br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">5 Megapixel cam with flash</span> - much better picture quality than the 3.2 on iphone without a flash. I've seen both the pics now and can say for sure.<br /><br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">The dual microphone noise cancellation feature</span> - silences out the background noise for crystal clear voice - to the other side of the line. iPhone users have always complained of poor call quality.<br /><br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Better contact syncing over the net</span>. Any of you change your phone numbers over facebook or twitter, and my phone will update itself in minutes. Ofcourse I can add additional numbers.<br /><br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Google's own phone</span> - much better and natve Gmail and Gtalk integration, smooth performance. (the best Gmail and gtalk app in the entire phone market)<br /><br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Google Calendar</span> synced in with full support for all features - multiple calendars, labels, tasks etc. iPhone had clumsy hacks to enable one or more of these.<br /><br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Openness about the android platform</span> and adobe's promise to release the latest flash for N1. (Didnt we know Steve Jobs thinks nobody uses flash or rather shouldnt? Everyone ofcourse uses quicktime instead).<br /><br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">The promise of Google voice coming to India sometime</span> that will rid us or dependency on mobile carriers. Its already got the app running free in the US.<br /></li></ul><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">iPhone?</span></span><br />Tell me how much of that can you do with the iPhone? IMO the iPhone is a fancy iPod with a multimedia computing device and a phone app that serves to be a very highly regarded masterpiece of fashion jewelery in the tech genre.<br />I would very much like to own it, and when I feel the need for a fashion adornment I'll get one. With N1, I get a lot more power, flexibility and usability.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Nexus One</span></span><br />Now that I've got the phone and have been using it for a while, I'm not disappointed at all.<br />the 1GHz snapdragon processor makes this phone run so fast, that experiencing lag is history. I don't think ill be able to adjust with any other phone after this.<br /><br />The multitasking is smooth, contact syncing is intelligent and I've got lots of apps to do a lot of things.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Advertised vs the Real</span></span><br />GPS navigation is surprisingly pretty accurate in mumbai - accurate upto 2 metres in the west and varies till around 50m in the east.<br /><br />The push notifications are handy and realtime for Twitter, Gtalk, Facebook, SMSes and Emails.<br /><br />The contact and sync is intelligent and automatically merges duplicates within the phonebook.<br />The profile pic is also autopicked from facebook / gtalk.<br /><br />The picture quality is much better than any phone cam I've ever used. The gallery app autosyncs with picasa and shows up those albums beside the camera album.<br /><br />The phone really is fast. It responds with every touch as fast as it can, except where network speed is a bottleneck.<br /><br />Offline mode: I can continue to delete, read, write emails, calendar entries offline and they're synced up when the connection is made.<br /><br />Voice search: voice recognition works 50% of the time for me when i spell it out slow. I guess it'll get better over time because the analysis is done over the net.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mumbai</span></span><br />Here we dont have 3G yet, and I was doubtful about the EDGE speed and coverage. But the phone works, rather flies fantastic for its capabilities on the Vodafone EDGE network here. But it does lag bad enough to lose motivation when I try viewing youtube videos.<br />Vodafone has the largest coverage in this part of the country and hopefully with the 3G bidding that has begun, it should be launched by the year end.<br />Call quality is good and as I mentioned, maps and GPS location work just as advertised.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The few cons</span></span><br />A few minor cons that should look to get fixed:<br /><ul><li>Multi Touch and pinch-and-zoom work fine, but are not very smooth and sometimes jittery.<br /><br /></li><li>high battery usage. I've got learn the skill of turning on and off features as I need them to be able to use it for 24 hours without any recharge.<br /><br />Most of it is eaten by the display though.<br /><br />With maximum use (almost constant playing around), it burns out in 12 hours. using just call, sms, and email when necessary makes it last 40 hours without a recharge. so its a play between these limits.<br /><br />Here's a <a href="http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/android/thread?tid=574d6cee673440ab&hl=en">handy link for battery life on N1</a>.<br /></li></ul>Haven't rooted the phone yet, and dont plan to until I'm bored of its present state. I'll go for the <a href="http://www.cyanogenmod.com/">cyanogenmod</a> route then.Abhishek Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16301277323018014045noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7341836355703147021.post-29673102703955644632009-09-02T12:04:00.007+05:302009-09-02T13:01:46.059+05:30Good Web 2.0 Design Elements<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.roytanck.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/wp-cumulus.gif"></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.roytanck.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/flickrwidget-150x150.jpg"></a>In the recent days, ive had renewed interest in web 2.0 application development. <div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Web 2.0 is a vast domain, and a very important (and overemphasized, i must admit) aspect of it is design and layout. There have loads of gurus who've written about the new css standard and clean development methodology. In this post, I choose to document some of the killer tools that are helpful in adding the extra edge to a web 2.0 website with minimal effort.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">First off, however, some highly irritating stuff that happens when you go into div alignment for tableless design is that sometimes float:right and float:left dont work correctly. At times they appear one below the other, and at times the outer parent div just doesnt expand to include the child div elements (imagine if you had a background image on the parent div that was supposed to strech all along). Quick fixes learnt after a lot of fishing through the web:</div><div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;">Make a div extend automatically to cover the child elements: use "overflow:visible" and "height:auto" on the parent div and watch it extend smoothly to cover all children inside. "overflow:auto" also works but visible is the safer choice. If you want fixed height and scroll bars on parent div in case the child overflows, use "height:100px; overflow:auto;"</li><li><div style="text-align: justify;">To make sure ur parent div's width is enough to accommodate the child divs which are both floating left and right. instead of manually setting the parent width to greater than the maximum width of float:left and float:right children, a better way is to add a dummy element below all children (but inside the parent div) with a "clear:both" attribute. The dummy element could be a "br" or "div" or anything.</div><div><li style="text-align: justify;">If you're in a situation where all children divs floating left or right, appear one below the other and not stacked side by side or horizontally as needed, you need to add "clear:none" to the style of the child divs.</li></div></li></ul><div>And now we come to some excellent tools that can be used to enhance display</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Photo display cloud:</b></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="http://www.roytanck.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/flickrwidget-150x150.jpg" border="0" alt="" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 150px; " /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Photo display: adding a photo display widget that looks like a nice photo cloud. Its released under GPL so you can tinker around as well. <<a href="http://www.roytanck.com/2009/04/09/introducing-photo-widget-floating-thumbnails-for-your-website/">link</a>></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Roy tanck, the original author of this tool, also has a flickr/picasa tool that will import pics for display directly from the flickr / picasa rss for the photos you want to display. But he has decided to keep that project under closed control and hosted on a cloud platform. If you intend to use that, you will have to import the plugin directly from where he has hosted it and provide it with the necessary rss url to load the photos. I personally prefer to use the GPL version as I can download and set it up on my webserver without hassles and can also customize it the way I want. Btw, the flickr / picasa widget details can be found here: <<a href="http://www.roytanck.com/2009/03/18/my-flickr-widget-now-does-picasa-too/">link1</a>, <a href="http://www.roytanck.com/get-my-flickr-widget/">link2</a>></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Word Cloud</b></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="http://www.roytanck.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/wp-cumulus-js-300x220.gif" border="0" alt="" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 150px; " /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A word cloud can be a good way of displaying a set of concepts and not having to clutter up the screen with rows and columns of data at the same time. Not to mention the way it catches your eye as an innovative mode of information display. Originally developed to display a tag cloud on a wordpress blog, it has evolved to support every major blogging software (including blogger and movable type) and now its also available for standalone integration into web pages. You just need to embed the swf and set the flashvars with the data in the correct xml format, and you're done. Of course there are loads of customizations for color combinations and background image etc, but all that is here in the documentation: <<a href="http://www.roytanck.com/2008/05/19/how-to-repurpose-my-tag-cloud-flash-movie/">link</a>>. You might also want to consider <a href="http://www.roytanck.com/2008/08/18/wordpress-plugin-tagnetic-poetry/">this</a> funky interface if you're looking for something out of the ordinary.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>JQuery</b></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you'd ask me for a single best tool to pick out of the lot for web 2.0 usability, It would be Jquery. It makes very complicated things very easy to do, if you know the underlying concept and want to cut the chase to get what you want the way you want it without hassles. Most of the plugins and display tools that dont rely on flash, depend on jquery. I dont think I need say more. <<a href="http://jquery.com/">link</a>></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Tabbed interface</b></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A handy tabbed interface for use on web pages. There are many available, but I personally liked the feel and usability of this one. You can obviously change the color and border styles. </div><div>Here's the link: <<a href="http://apricotstudios.wordpress.com/2008/08/29/jquery-tabs-tutorial/">link</a>></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There are two good fixes in the comments, one for adding a fade style between change of tabs submitted by Andrew Strachan. Additionally, if you want to fix the lack of support for nested div tags within the master tabs, you need to modify the javascript to as follows:</div><div><br /></div><div><blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';">$(document).ready(function(){<br />$(’#tabs div’).hide(); // Hide all divs<br />$(’#tabs div:first’).show(); // Show the first div<br />$(’#tabs div:first div’).show(); // Show the nested divs<br />// Set the class of the first link to active<br />$(’#tabs ul li:first’).addClass(’active’);<br />$(’#tabs ul li a’).click(function(){ //When any link is clicked<br /> // Remove active class from all links<br /> $(’#tabs ul li’).removeClass(’active’);<br /> //Set clicked link class to active<br /> $(this).parent().addClass(’active’);<br /> // Set variable currentTab to value of href attribute of<br /> // clicked link<br /> var currentTab = $(this).attr(’href’);<br /> $(’#tabs div’).hide(); // Hide all divs<br /> $(currentTab).show(); // Show div with id equal to variable<br /> // currentTab<br /> $(currentTab + ” div”).show(); // Show nested divs<br /> return false;<br />});<br />});</span></span></blockquote></blockquote></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">EDIT: I'll add to this list more tools that I feel are decent enough to keep in my web 2.0 collection.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Abhishek Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16301277323018014045noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7341836355703147021.post-37703134683109328812009-06-16T07:52:00.006+05:302009-06-16T19:40:11.719+05:30Think again... And decide<div style="text-align: justify;">Its been quite a while that I've put in anything new here. Ofcourse, as busy as the month(s) have been, it wouldnt all account for this delay as much as a lack of an interesting topic and procrastination. In this post, I decide to bore you with a review of an interesting book that I decided to read the last week.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.managementconsultingnews.com/interviews/finkelstein_interview.php"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpoaS_EywyiAwT5biJy2uY8Mveg27EiTZApGAahJBMfnlf-TVpnmJJ2pd8h-fJAJdgD7zn_BScperiagN2-eNbjerDHxiuCzaXNJXWJJMaPHM76dPywUoQFsJsiSeZNNLCCWNw2qartZUJ/s200/think_again.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347761985847773954" style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 132px; height: 200px;" border="0" /></a><div style="text-align: justify;">I just finished reading <i>"Think Again: Why Good Leaders make bad decisions and how to keep it from happening to you"</i>. It documents a lot of interesting work done by the authors Finkelstein, Whitehead and Campbell (you can get it <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Think-Again-Leaders-Decisions-Happening/dp/1422126129">here</a>). Finkelstein has been an authority on strategy, leadership and warning signs for corporate disasters; but I didnt know that when I picked this up from my neighbouring colleague at work.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The book has interesting material on how our brain processes information to arrive at decisions and just so that all this doesnt sound too far-fetched, the book is abundant with ample examples to verify each of its findings. Ofcourse the foundation of all of it is that we learn from experience how to handle situations and this experience teaches us to make prudent decisions as we get more and more experienced. However such experiences, the authors have shown very successfully, can also prejudice rather than enlighten and hence bias us towards wrongful decisions that may seem perfectly correct at the time they were made. </div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">They have analyzed a large collection of decisions made by influential people over the past few decades to arrive on bechmarks that qualify good decisions from bad ones. Every decision has an inherent risk factor and no matter how good it may be at the time, they might turn out badly in future: some people may just be plainly <i>unlucky</i>. The authors have done well not to include such decisions, but to limit their research to those that were flawed at the time they were made and could (rather should) have been averted if possible.</div><div><br /></div><div>The findings result in four <i>sources of errors</i> that include </div><div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><b>Misleading Experiences:</b> past experiences that seem similar to the current situation but are actually not because we have underestimated a vital difference between the two scenarios</li><li style="text-align: justify;"><b>Misleading Prejudgments:</b> Experience has a strange way of teaching us to think less and less as we gain more and more experience. It seems to become "obvious" to us what the course of action should be without thinking over it. This occurs due to heuristics that are developed and strengthened with age. Most often these heuristics or biases have strange ways of defying reason.</li><li style="text-align: justify;"><b>Inapproprate Self-Interest:</b> Every one is selfish. Even those who claim they arent, are selfish for the appreciations that their perceived selflessness would generate. Ofcourse there are exceptions, but one of the major factors blinding us from making objective decisions is an inappropriate self-interest. Sometimese actions in this direction actually work against self interest if thought out carefully. Case in point: in a survey where a random collection of people of people were asked "If you were sued by someone else and they lost the case, should he/she pay your legal costs?", 85% people answered yes. But when asked "If you sue someone and you lost the case, should you pay his/her legal costs?", only 44% answered yes. It is evident that the influence of self interest clouded the objectivity in the decision that was made.</li><li style="text-align: justify;"><b>Inappropriate attachments:</b> emotional or other attachments have a way of clouding the judgement with irrational thinking.</li></ul><div style="text-align: justify;">Ofcourse there are many other factors that come into play, the most insightful of them being short-term returns which our brain weighs more heavily than a long term return, especially when it comes to matters involving money.</div><div><br /></div><div>Three good cases in point which I quote from the book:</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>The Iraq decision and Tony Blair</b>:</div><div><blockquote style="text-align: justify;">Prior to the iraq decision, Tony Blair had 3 relevant but potentially misleading experiences: in the Balkans, in Sierra Leone, and in Afghanistan. In all 3 cases, military intervention or a credible threat of military intervention succeeded or appeared to succeed in resolving the situation. Eg: Tony Blair personally pursuaded a reluctant President Clinton to threaten the Serbian leader, Milosevic, with military invasion if he did not back down over Kosovo. The threat worked. Milosevic backed down and was then overthrown in an internal political coup. The poliy of making a credible threat of military intervention worked. These earlier experiences ecouraged Blair to support military intervention in Iraq. He was certainly more enthusiastic than the British foreign secretary or the chancellor of the exchequer, neither of whom had such personal involvement in these earlier events. Ofcourse, these earlier experiences may not have been misleading, they just turned out to be so because the situation in Iraq was different in some important ways. Most prominently, Iraq was a fractured society which had only been held together by brutal force.</blockquote></div><div><b>The Bay of Pigs, kennedy and Cuba</b>:</div><div><blockquote style="text-align: justify;">One of the first decisions Kennedy made when he became president was to overthrow Fidel Castro's regime in Cuba. The plan, developed by the CIA called for an invasion by cuban exiles, with US military support including air cover and paratroopers to secure the approaches to the landing beaches. The forces were meant to join up with other cubans opposed to castro. Kennedy wanted the US involvement to be "deniable", and he insisted that operation be undertaken entirely by cubans and landing take place at night in an area with little opposition. The only option was the Bay of Pigs. The operations was launched in April 1961. It was a disaster. The plan had been leaked, and Castro's forces quickly closed in, preventing the invaders from leaving the beaches. Despite US airstrikes, all rebels were captured or killed in 3 days time. Kennedy was forced to negotiate for the release of survivors and it was a political setback. So what was wrong in the decision? The list is long. Kennedy's plan was based on his prejudgment that visible US involvement was unacceptable. His changes made for political reasons and without advice of generals condemned the operation militarily. In addition to that, there was an element of self interest in his decision to go ahead with the plan. While he had personal misgivings about the whole enterprise, kennedy was under domestic political pressure to do something about cuba and was accused by opponents of being weak.</blockquote><blockquote><br /></blockquote><b>Russian Investment:</b></div><div><blockquote style="text-align: justify;">A large UK chemical company was considering a major investment in Russia. The chairman was concerned that the CEO and the regional management team had become overcommitted to the project. In this case, the chairman had not done a formal red flags analysis, but if he had, he might have been concerned about prejudgments. For example, he was concerned that local managers had presumed that the market was attractive. He was also concerned about attachments. The local managers had close and difficult to unwind relationships with local partners. the chairman also recognized that his own thinking could be biased. He had previous experience of losing money in Russia and had recently been briefed about deteriorating relationships between Russia and the UK. What later happened as a result of many meetings and exercises, was that the investment plan was wisely dropped.</blockquote><blockquote><br /></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">The safeguards that the authors suggest against bad decisions are <i>Monitoring</i>, <i>Group debates and discussion</i> (there is minimal probability that a bias or prejudice shared by one will be shared by many others, unless it it worthy of an impact in the decision process), data and experience (as against intuition and heuristics) and <i>continous governance</i>.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>It has been an enlightening book to read.</div></div>Abhishek Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16301277323018014045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7341836355703147021.post-70115187831818989382009-03-26T21:36:00.013+05:302009-03-26T23:08:19.893+05:30The Dream Gadget that we all really want<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgywdsVwqJh0a49QD7CkmnV8avw6Zoz4g6pontqNTuSUde56Tx_TAaRzPCIiKyrb9G0KCEXEhjJCEgpIQ8G0iSrhQJ8vLIPhCAFVvd3c_Nek2rENWao5kzGAXAYhGXLGOZKPZjkYdhqNPWV/s1600-h/del6.jpg"></a>Its been a long while and I realized that a post is long due; its been quite a hectic week with a lot of things moving in progression and some things losing out to the more prioritized set of tasks. <div><br /></div><div>What got me intrigued about the gadget that we as users really want is this <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/24/no-never-surrender-to-your-users-facebook/">post by techcrunch</a>. Arrington believes that if you build features that users want, you will never succeed. And that the <a href="http://www.sethgodin.com/purple/">walkman would never have been made</a> if this were so. The <a href="http://scobleizer.com/2009/03/21/why-facebook-has-never-listened-and-why-it-definitely-wont-start-now/">porsche would have been a volvo</a> with user demanded features and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_by_committee">horse would have been a camel</a>. I beg to differ and disagree.</div><div><br /></div><div>The fundamental assumption I'd like to make here is that <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">users are dumb</span>. Yes, marketers would disagree, and users and developers would all go up in arms with the defense "the user is king". But if you notice, just about carefully enough, you will see that the user has certain wants and desires that s/he wants fulfilled; but doesnt know how to go about getting them. </div><div>The Xerox machine was never demanded by the users, It literally came into the market and begged everyone to realize that they want it. </div><div>Ditto with the ipod. Any many many other products.</div><div>The features that users ask for result from their deductions about how to satisfy their wants and desires. And most often than not, these deductions are wrong; and that is why the user is "dumb". If I as a user am uncomfortable in my sitting posture in a porsche and demand more leg space, the designers should be able to see through my discomfort and maybe design an ergonomic or higher seat rather than conceding my demand of more leg space, and other features that would take the porsche <a href="http://scobleizer.com/2009/03/21/why-facebook-has-never-listened-and-why-it-definitely-wont-start-now/">to being a volvo</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>The point I'm trying to make is that user feedback does matter. But not at superficial level or face value. It matters one further level away. User feedback about features should *ideally* reveal what they really want. And smart organizations would focus on serving those wants / needs / desires rather than blandly conceding to the features that the user demands. (or denying them the way Arrington has <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/24/no-never-surrender-to-your-users-facebook/">argued</a>).</div><div><br /></div><div>As for the title of this post. Before I talk about the gadget I really want, lets talk about the why I would want something like that. </div><div><ul><li>I have a PC which is powerful but its bulky and un-portable.</li><li>I have a laptop but thats bulky too and I'd like to have a simple, fast laptop with a touchscreen interface to browse the net, read ebooks (like kindle), keep me updated with feeds.</li><li>I've seen the tablet, but its too cumbersome and expensive. I want reduced specs and usability.</li><li>I want something light and portable that i can carry around anywhere. Imagine watching TV on the sofa and querying for the latest discounts on the advertisement you just saw on TV. or maybe read about the reviews of a move that will feature in another 5 minutes. Or maybe verify the facts that Bush / Obama / other leaders are talking about in a live speech; maybe live blog about it?</li><li>It should look nice and trendy and be usable and fast and sleek at the same time.</li></ul><div>As said in the first post on crunchpad:</div><div><blockquote>I want a dead simple and dirt cheap touch screen web tablet to surf the web. Nothing fancy like the Dell latitude XT, which costs $2,500. Just a Macbook Air-thin touch screen machine that runs Firefox and possibly Skype on top of a Linux kernel. It doesn’t exist today, and as far as we can tell no one is creating one.</blockquote><br /></div></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Crunchpad</span></span></div><div>Techcrunch went about its own task of making one such gadget. Here is <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/30/update-on-the-techcrunch-tablet-prototype-a/">Prototype A</a> and <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/19/techcrunch-tablet-update-prototype-b/#comment-2603937">Prototype B</a>. A screen picture:</div><div><br /></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgywdsVwqJh0a49QD7CkmnV8avw6Zoz4g6pontqNTuSUde56Tx_TAaRzPCIiKyrb9G0KCEXEhjJCEgpIQ8G0iSrhQJ8vLIPhCAFVvd3c_Nek2rENWao5kzGAXAYhGXLGOZKPZjkYdhqNPWV/s1600-h/del6.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgywdsVwqJh0a49QD7CkmnV8avw6Zoz4g6pontqNTuSUde56Tx_TAaRzPCIiKyrb9G0KCEXEhjJCEgpIQ8G0iSrhQJ8vLIPhCAFVvd3c_Nek2rENWao5kzGAXAYhGXLGOZKPZjkYdhqNPWV/s320/del6.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317550744093183554" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 182px; " /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjPvitXZ9B0xCczY4IrMhAjW7txj7Be0Qk4ECmPuUUtgHY77dS2j2dFIFKrJEKvsnV7JnuTEKy0_XZvkbbgw1Sd6ka3M4vYCfjaNqVOF-o5cdcMzdBliIiXbOqrriBX_Vd3Q2vbA340OWL/s1600-h/del5.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjPvitXZ9B0xCczY4IrMhAjW7txj7Be0Qk4ECmPuUUtgHY77dS2j2dFIFKrJEKvsnV7JnuTEKy0_XZvkbbgw1Sd6ka3M4vYCfjaNqVOF-o5cdcMzdBliIiXbOqrriBX_Vd3Q2vbA340OWL/s320/del5.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317550648392216354" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 180px; " /></a></div><div>There are no plans of going into production yet, so lets put this aside as a mere hobby project.</div><div>Moroever, it seems a trifle too thick (and maybe bulky?)</div><div><br /></div><div>Cost: 200$.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Touchbook</span></span></div><div>Recently I came accross <a href="http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/">Touchbook</a>.</div><div><blockquote>Until now, all netbooks were engineered the same way: Power-hungry Intel Atom, ugly case, and outdated 90's OS. Our goal: To achieve a breakthrough in both architecture and design. The result: a revolutionary device that works as both a netbook and a standalone tablet thanks to a detachable keyboard and a 3D touchscreen user interface.</blockquote><div><br /></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifyXsEAaBc7ptL3HV8ekglAbvz7a5RZFyjNHKaxKbi24ncSxI2RSaXOOF_RphtIg6kGue5Pg8rLH0L2Hy-JRGguBL4K32zAkDvxRT0Pq1CtPAXv7LhZIyWbty48kM6zcbPFZwLDzA4Q3ZQ/s1600-h/del2.png"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifyXsEAaBc7ptL3HV8ekglAbvz7a5RZFyjNHKaxKbi24ncSxI2RSaXOOF_RphtIg6kGue5Pg8rLH0L2Hy-JRGguBL4K32zAkDvxRT0Pq1CtPAXv7LhZIyWbty48kM6zcbPFZwLDzA4Q3ZQ/s320/del2.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317548729358437186" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 280px; height: 195px; " /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwvoN8r6hDNfZgi9aru8HQl6TCLbm36VMYHG7AO2XrX8AYhyphenhyphenm24MOG2viih8y-ibTQ_oZVdID1O2mydCj8urfjgjbEPHQ2yXNu-qx-Rq87J-XqhBXPba9p3juVAhhOKFuBYsrQrz9PBUGF/s1600-h/del1.png"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwvoN8r6hDNfZgi9aru8HQl6TCLbm36VMYHG7AO2XrX8AYhyphenhyphenm24MOG2viih8y-ibTQ_oZVdID1O2mydCj8urfjgjbEPHQ2yXNu-qx-Rq87J-XqhBXPba9p3juVAhhOKFuBYsrQrz9PBUGF/s320/del1.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317547386469264562" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 189px; height: 146px; " /></a></div>Some highlights:</div><div><ul><li>Like a cellphone, it is always-on, so there is no need to reboot each time. And without noisy fans and disk drives, it's completely silent, so it won't intrude on your inner space.<br /></li><li></li><li>The Touch Book OS has two modes: one for use with keyboard and touchpad, and one for use as a standalone touchscreen tablet. The innovative 3D interface is easy to use and does not require a stylus or a skinny pinky.</li><li>The Touch Book also includes Mozilla's upcoming mobile browser, code-named Fennec, which was designed with touchscreens in mind.</li><li>400$</li><li>The best one in my opinion</li></ul><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; ">Mintpad</span></span></div><div>A device that is between a phone and a laptop, one notch above a PDA. </div><div><br /></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVs4s874mtd5dv3n4XlvbQlXInLFfVirUpZqW09flDrDGJ1xAssoS74oMdHf6tvt37ik7d8ECXhhKessuoVhuHs-ViffP5GE6srGvJWOR77u31Bjq1oO1nzMMdzedkgmgW7Q_3fw02_2R7/s1600-h/del4.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVs4s874mtd5dv3n4XlvbQlXInLFfVirUpZqW09flDrDGJ1xAssoS74oMdHf6tvt37ik7d8ECXhhKessuoVhuHs-ViffP5GE6srGvJWOR77u31Bjq1oO1nzMMdzedkgmgW7Q_3fw02_2R7/s320/del4.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317549004237470146" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 209px; " /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-mSyCHzd_bY4jakCLEwmQ3ReRrUVNJONTuIwNsYF8olkIR1txOFtrTt0WCB1cUZv15UOGqXUJSENxKZt2lEOE5IQvkOyoW1JjaMMDSAWkTp69v1ZPAlrhMELiJ-PNPykUy9cBYwoAoVZy/s1600-h/del3.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-mSyCHzd_bY4jakCLEwmQ3ReRrUVNJONTuIwNsYF8olkIR1txOFtrTt0WCB1cUZv15UOGqXUJSENxKZt2lEOE5IQvkOyoW1JjaMMDSAWkTp69v1ZPAlrhMELiJ-PNPykUy9cBYwoAoVZy/s320/del3.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317548791081117730" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 190px; " /></a></div><div>Does almost everything on the checklist:</div></div><ul><li></li><li>Memo - one of the core functions, vector-based memo engine, advanced technology that mimics the "same feeling of writing on paper," auto-save, detailed drawings</li><li>Schedule - calendar, appointments, to do list</li><li>Name Card - individual contact cards using photos taken with built-in camera</li><li>Camera - still images (JPG) and video recording (AVI)</li><li>Life - community feature, daily contests for mintpad users to enter</li><li>Blog - community feature, create your own and view others' "mint blogs"</li><li>Book Store - community feature, create and share content published as "books"</li><li>Chatting - real-time memo exchange, chatrooms, WiFi and ad hoc connections</li><li>Music - standard music functions (APE, FLAC, MP3, OGG, WAV, WMA)</li><li>Video - internet streaming TV, standard video functions (DiVX, MPEG-4, WMV, XviD)</li><li>Pictures - photo album, slideshow, up to 2048 x 2048 resolution</li><li>Recording - voice recording (WMA)</li><li>Internet - "high-speed full browsing with Flash support" (according to product brochure)</li><li>160$</li></ul><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Others</span></span></div><div>There are couple others trying to build a similar product. the Kindle itself does pretty well on few fronts though falls back on features and capabilities. Apple is roumored to be doing something with touchscreens lately. But as of now the touchbook seems to be the best of the lot.</div><div><br /></div><div>Only time will tell which of the gadgets takes a lead and provides what we truly want.</div></div></div></div>Abhishek Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16301277323018014045noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7341836355703147021.post-61206527337066199252009-03-06T17:01:00.008+05:302009-03-10T09:53:36.948+05:30Social Media and Microblogging Roundup: What do you do with it?<div>We've all heard of the buzz around social media and the hype around the likes of twitter, facebook etc. OK, you've got yourself a twitter account. But what next?</div><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://telecompk.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/microblogging-1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 489px; height: 472px;" src="http://telecompk.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/microblogging-1.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.twitter.com/">Twitter</a> is not just the next "cool" or "trendy" thing that exists just for you to join and brag about to others. Its more of a connecting tool, where you can share views with others, just like facebook; though twitter is not as much of a sharing tool as a "shout" tool: You're shouting out to the world and you know there are people listening. What you talk about is also a matter of choice and opinion, It could be what you're doing now (status updates), what you think about things (views, opinions) or News (Like the recent earthquake). And <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/22/business/22drill.html?_r=1">how much blogs influence what web surfers buy on the net</a> is not so well understood, but social media is impacting this very quickly. But this is not all. If you're a company or a brand, you can get to build a whole personality around yourself to interact and listen with customers / prospective clients, general public. The interactive nature of the system makes it much more effective at what marketing is all about: engaging the user.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><ul><li><a href="http://mashable.com/2008/12/14/brands-do-twitter/">Why brands absolutely DO belong to twitter</a> by mashable discusses exactly this. Its fun to note the ideas they provide if companies like coca cola were to ever have a twitter profile:<br /><blockquote>"Coca Cola has millions of ways to go with this, from showing old ads, to trivia to history and answering questions about the product. I see many ways that staple brands—ones that people would think would be boring online—can be exciting. Not all brands need to reinvent the wheel with their own Social Networking sites. Some of the best tools like Twitter are out there for free to let people know all this great stuff about you."</blockquote><br /><br /></li><li>For brands and businesses / organizations who want to project themselves using the new social media technologies, mashable has its own list of <a href="http://mashable.com/2008/12/29/brand-reputation-monitoring-tools/">Top 10 Reputation Tracking Tools Worth Paying For.</a> They charge a small fee to analyse the company profile and tell you what people think of them and other analytics including brand personality and keyword based searches. Ofcourse, if you want some free tools, there is a <a href="http://mashable.com/2008/12/24/free-brand-monitoring-tools/">short list of them</a> although not all that fancy and maybe requires a bit of effort. An interesting service is <a href="http://www.filtrbox.com/">filtrbox</a> which does a host of activities related to brand monitoring, but the service seems a bit cluttered in some places, too naive in other places and in general shows a lack of focus IMO. Although these tools (like <a href="http://www.reputationdefender.com/">MyReputation</a>) are centered around SEO, they do have the focus around brand building and engaging with the users / customers / clients. <a href="http://www.buzzlogic.com/">Buzzlogic</a> comes very close to this goal.<br />I feel this space is still naive and needs lot more innovation to deliver valued services.<br /><br /></li><li>For other organizations who have no clue about what they need to do once they've gotten into social media / microblogging, there are these handy "<a href="http://mashable.com/2008/07/10/how-to-develop-a-social-media-plan/">How to Develop a Social Media Plan for Your Business in 5 Steps</a>" which btw apply to individuals as well, because as Reid Hoffman puts it, <a href="http://xploretech.blogspot.com/2009/03/reid-hoffman-everyone-individual-is.html">you are the entrepreneur of a small business: the business of your career</a>.<br /><br /></li><li>In case you're an artist or a designer, you might be interested in <a href="http://mashable.com/2009/02/23/twitter-artists/">twitter tips for artists</a>.</li></ul><div><br /></div><div>Once you've got yourself into the social media space and have become active, there are these handy tools that you can engage in, either for pure fun or for real analysis:</div><div><ul><li><a href="http://www.yacktrack.com/home?query=http://xploretech.blogspot.com/">Yacktrack</a> allows you to track conversations accross blogs, bookmarking sites, microblogging sites depending on keywords you provide.</li><li><a href="http://socialmention.com/search?t=blogs&q=abhishek_kr7&btnG=Search">Socialmention</a> is a realtime search aggregator that searches through blogs , microblogs and other social media networks for the keywords you provide (it uses other search services like google blogsearch, technorati search, twitter search etc behind the scenes).</li><li><a href="http://twinfluence.com/index.php">Twinfluence</a> shows you how much of an influence you have over your network and your second level network. some consider it as a metric of popularity or authority, others see it as a metric of reach or visibility (of yourself as an individual or a brand)</li><li><a href="http://twitter-friends.com/index.php?user=abhishek_kr7&mode=stats">Twitter-friends</a> is the best tool according to me. It shows you all kinds of statistics / graphs of your social network, activity, replies, messages etc. And it doesnt require a twitter login, so you can explore safely.</li><li><a href="http://twittercounter.com/abhishek_kr7/all">Twittercounter</a> is a tool that shows you how many people follow you and how this number changed over time, along with a graph. Interesting for analysis.</li><li><a href="http://tweetoclock.com/">Tweetoclock</a> lets you find out what is the best time to tweet someone or when they're most active.</li></ul><div>There are many other tools that I havent yet come accross (or just arent all that interesting to note!). I'll add them here when I do. </div><div>All these signify that user generated content is not limited to what we have seen so far. The level of interactivity is just beginning to showcase itself, there is a long way to go.</div><div><br /></div><div>Update: Found a lot more new stuff since I wrote this post. Here's an update -</div><div><br /></div><div>Favourite (and good) Twitter Client tools for desktop</div><div><ul><li><a href="http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/">Tweetdeck</a> - <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"The default columns can contain All Tweets from your timeline, @replies directed to you and direct messages. The GROUP, SEARCH and REPLIES buttons then allow the user to make up additional columns populated from the live tweet information. "</span><br /></li><li><a href="http://www.feedalizr.com/">Feedalizr</a>- <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"Feedalizr is becoming a way for you to “re-mix” the web and we notice that lots of our users are using the product in the discovery of serendipitous content. Not so much reporting to each other about what they had for breakfast… This is largely a function of how twitter/friendfeed are evolving. I think the facebook status update makes feedalizr the must have web 2.0 killer app (if I may say so myself - and you guys can flame me cause I am wearing kevlar !)." by <a href="http://www.mihswat.com/tag/feedalizr/">John Kotsaftis</a></span><br /></li><li><a href="http://www.twhirl.org/">Twhirl</a> - Very similar to TweetDeck though slightly less in features.</li></ul><div><br /></div><div>Some new (and amazing tools) for twitter users:</div><div><ul><li><a href="http://tweetburner.com/">TweetBurner</a> - Heard of feedburner? This does the same for tweets. You can check out which of your links were clicked how often and manage many other things.</li><li><a href="http://twitter.com/timer">TweetTimer</a> - Need to be reminded of something at some time? Just follow <a href="http://twitter.com/timer">time</a>r and send a message in the format mentioned <a href="http://twitter.com/timer">here</a></li><li><a href="http://tweetbeep.com/">TweetBeep</a> - Twitter alerts by email. (for eg, if anyone tweets your name or id, you get notified).</li><li><a href="http://useqwitter.com/">Quitter</a> - Tells you who stopped following you, and the most likely tweet that lead to that unfollowing. Pretty cool.</li><li><a href="http://www.tweetlater.com/">TweetLater</a> - lets you time tweets, so that you can tweet them later.</li></ul></div></div></div></div>Abhishek Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16301277323018014045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7341836355703147021.post-2239644712883128292009-03-06T12:08:00.005+05:302009-03-06T21:30:09.214+05:30Reid Hoffman: "Every individual is now an Entrepreneur"<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid_Hoffman">Reid Hoffman</a> shares his views on the his investment successes and most particularly in the vision that he has for web 2.0's next generation user interactivity. This is the charlie rose show featuring him:<br /><div align="center"><blockquote></blockquote><embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=6134861518728324891&hl=en&fs=true" style="width:400px;height:326px" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed> </div>An interesting viewpoint and a quote that redefines the difference between individuals today compared to the generation before:<br /><div><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">"</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">I actually think every individual is now an entrepreneur, whether they recognize it or not. Because it used to be that you got a job at one company and you were there 20, 30, 40, years. That’s been dead for decades. That’s even dying in Japan. The salary man no longer even exists in Japan. Average job length is two to four years. That makes you a small business. You are the entrepreneur of your own small business. How do you get to your next gig? How do you do your career progression? All these things now fall on the individual shoulders. And so, they’re essentially an entrepreneur. Now, they’re not an entrepreneur a la, I’ll go create, you know, Google, LinkedIn, a business. They’re entrepreneurs in terms of the business of themselves and how they drive that. So it’s how they get, like, their next job opportunity, how they get a promotion. All of that stuff comes from how they manage the network around them. Which is, by the way, what gave me the idea for LinkedIn.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">"</span></blockquote></div>On Risk and investment:<div><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">"I think that one of the key things — the reason why I think risk tolerance is important is because what happens is people delude themselves they’re not taking risks. They say, oh, I’m going to get a job at, you know, Hewlett-Packard or I’m going to get a job — and that’s not risky. Well, look at current economic climates. Everything in life has some risk, and what you have to actually learn to do is how to navigate it. And people who take risk intelligently can usually actually make a lot more progress than people who don’t.</span></span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">(On Bad risk:) Yes. Well, there’s a huge difference between intelligent risk taking and stupid risk taking. Now, the trick is to know the difference.</span></span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">I mean, this is actually one of the things that makes me mildly nervous even on the stimulus package, because if you think about, well, our problem is leverage. What is the stimulus package? Borrow money, spend it.</span></span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">So I think it’s really…</span></span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Well, and therefore, I think to do it successfully, you actually have to make sure that the stimulus that you’re spending it in is actually creating sustainable jobs. So I’m a huge believer in the way that you actually get out of these economic downturns is through entrepreneurship, because that creates new kinds of jobs that actually have longevity and strength to them.</span></span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">If you’re investing in an industry that has, for example, known problems, you’re just delaying the problem. That’s not necessarily a good thing."</span></span></blockquote><br /><div>Techcrunch has covered the interview excerpts <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/05/read-hoffman-tells-charlie-rose-every-individual-is-now-an-entrepreneur/">here</a>.</div></div>Abhishek Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16301277323018014045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7341836355703147021.post-10311732562323267662009-03-02T09:16:00.008+05:302009-03-04T21:34:50.687+05:30Barcamp Singapore (Feb 28)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://barcamp.org/BarCampSingapore3"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 200px;" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3572/3318455013_d589e55d1d.jpg?v=0" border="0" alt="" /></a><div style="text-align: justify;">This is a long overdue post. I attended <a href="http://barcamp.org/">Barcamp</a>, <a href="http://barcamp.org/BarCampSingapore">Singapore</a> last Saturday. Being my first experience of a barcamp, it was a fun filled event with lots and lots of interesting talks (view the <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/tag/barcampsg3">slides</a>). Besides interacting with a lot of diverse, enthusiastic people, it was interesting to discuss and come accross new ideas, technologies and methodologies. This is a long post, you may want to skip to <a href="#barcampsg3talks">my ideas on people and talks I attended</a>, <a href="#barcampsg3mytalk">My talk at barcamp</a>, <a href="#barcampsg3pictures">Pictures</a> or <a href="#barcampsglinks">links</a>.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; "><a name="barcampsg3talks">The talks</a></span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Barcamp team organized the talks on a 2 tier level. There was a pre-registration online for those willing to present an idea or a talk; and certain slots were left vacant for on the spot presentations after their proposed topics were voted by the public on the whiteboard. (The <a href="http://barcamp.org/BarCampSingapore3">schedule</a>).</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There were 5 tracks going on parallely and barcamp was characterized by the steady movement of people from one track to the other very frequently. Oh, and wifi access made live tweeting possible :)</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3499/3319281096_346772fd34.jpg?v=0"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 300px;" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3499/3319281096_346772fd34.jpg?v=0" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The talk on virtual worlds by Jeremy Synder was interesting particularly because it focussed on the non-game aspects of the topic, something that is very hard to find since gaming is almost synonymous with 3d or virtual reality. Interesting also, because one of the guys I met earlier at RIAction and here at barcamp again, Gabriel, runs a <a href="http://www.emotionink.com/">startup</a> focussed on getting 3D to the web (No, they dont use flash or other plugins, they write their own objective C based plugin).</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I met quite a few people over lunch, and it was a bit surprising to see many NTU / NUS students with startup ideas on web 2.0, made for a good discussion. There was a general sentiment that blogging as a phenomenon will soon die in the face of other growing social networks like facebooks(which allows posts of stories) and microblogging. I strongly disagree with that, because a blog allows you to build a brand besides being a publishing platform (not merely where you share stories with friends). And then there were people working in new startup companies with eventual aims of starting their own thing soon. It turned out to be an interesting exchange of ideas, views and concepts.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I was kinda looking forward to the talk on the other google APIs by <a href="http://twitter.com/vinoaj">Vinoaj</a> at Google, but was dissapointed to know that he couldnt make it and the presentation was done in lieu of him. It was an interesting topic because web development now is so focussed on standalone php / aspx / ruby etc development that getting a common task such as creating graphs/charts requires plugins and isntallations and configurations to get working. With google api's its just a matter of <a href="http://code.google.com/apis/chart/">calling the right function</a> and letting google do the graph generation for you. The same goes for the <a href="http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/">Google Web toolkit</a> and <a href="http://code.google.com/more/">other API</a>'s. It was amazing to see the <a href="http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2008/02/real-time-train-map-for-switzerland.html">demo on live swiss train positions (in real time) overlayed on google maps</a>. Maybe sometime the MRT train positions of Singapore can be seen in real time on google earth as well.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There were a couple of other <a href="http://www.creativecrew.com.sg/2009/02/barcamp-singapore/">talks by the folks at CreativeCrew on Adobe products</a>, I attended those on photoshop techniques, fireworks. CreativeCrew also had a presence at the First Rich Internet Applications conference in singapore, and their <a href="http://www.creativecrew.com.sg/2009/02/creative-crew-special-event-guest-star-paul-burnett-adobe-and-tad-lackman-lucas-film/">next upcoming event</a> is this Wednesday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">An interesting topic towards the end was the poor state of funding available for aspiring entrepreneurs in Singapore (Only 600$ pm availability was claimed). There was a discussion on "Fundraising WTF" where stories on fundraising were shared and solutions discussed. There was a sentiment that NUS is very rigid and traditional in its procedures and something needs to be done about that. </div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">All in all, a very interesting experience, that ended in an interesting end with a game of werewolves, a kinda tradition at barcamp (you might want to read <a href="http://missgeeky.com/2007/11/05/weirdest-werewolf-game-ever/">the-weirdest-werewolves-game-ever</a>). The next barcamp, according to Preetam over dinner, may just happen this June, if you're interested.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><a name="barcampsg3mytalk">My talk on Microblogging and Ideas</a></span></span> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">I spoke on how microblogging is the next thing for web 2.0 and what could be future directions that it could potentially take. With facebook's attempted (and failed) acquisition of twitter, Google's acquisition of Jaiku (a twitter alternative), and Facebook's retaliatory move of opening up its LiveFeed (counter twitter?) shows how everyone is scampering into this area. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglVPO8FQNEGuMtPeVZIvZPjCJ-spXt4IWJJDip2a35cJwzvoBGee53i1f4xVHTil_8z6t1Upw6g1bOVN31OPFJLxyxmGIgykbBtci7xxHPkX1q34Mi6NaOfpAAQ5N0ybCbQLrhO4_aKGdK/s1600-h/3319281310_64ce47a790.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglVPO8FQNEGuMtPeVZIvZPjCJ-spXt4IWJJDip2a35cJwzvoBGee53i1f4xVHTil_8z6t1Upw6g1bOVN31OPFJLxyxmGIgykbBtci7xxHPkX1q34Mi6NaOfpAAQ5N0ybCbQLrhO4_aKGdK/s320/3319281310_64ce47a790.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308474164378486594" /></a><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">My presentation:</div><div><br /></div><div align="center"><br /><div style="width:425px;text-align:left" id="__ss_1080868"><a style="font:14px Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;display:block;margin:12px 0 3px 0;text-decoration:underline;" href="http://www.slideshare.net/abhishek_kr7/micro-blogging-service-idea?type=powerpoint" title="Micro Blogging Service Idea">Micro Blogging Service Idea</a><object style="margin:0px" width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://static.slideshare.net/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=micro-bloggingservice-090227175208-phpapp02&stripped_title=micro-blogging-service-idea"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://static.slideshare.net/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=micro-bloggingservice-090227175208-phpapp02&stripped_title=micro-blogging-service-idea" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><div style="font-size:11px;font-family:tahoma,arial;height:26px;padding-top:2px;">View more <a style="text-decoration:underline;" href="http://www.slideshare.net/">presentations</a> from <a style="text-decoration:underline;" href="http://www.slideshare.net/abhishek_kr7">abhishek_kr7</a>. (tags: <a style="text-decoration:underline;" href="http://slideshare.net/tag/twitter">twitter</a> <a style="text-decoration:underline;" href="http://slideshare.net/tag/barcampsg3">barcampsg3</a>)</div></div><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">I did get quite a good feedback later on, apart from a question on "How do you see microblogging emerging in singaporean culture". That took me offbeat, and I later learnt that commenting and talking freely on topics or arguments is not something that comes freely to native singaporeans. Two months in Singapore, and I'm still learning the culture :)</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><a name="barcampsg3pictures">Pictures</a></span></span></div><div>Some snaps of the event. (Disclaimer: All the pics do not belong to me. They have been taken from <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/barcampsg3/">here</a> and are the copyrights of their respective owners).</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div align="center"><br /><object width="400" height="300"> <param name="flashvars" value="&offsite=true&lang=en-us&page_show_url=%2Fphotos%2Fabhishek_kr7%2Fsets%2F72157614744872266%2Fshow%2F&page_show_back_url=%2Fphotos%2Fabhishek_kr7%2Fsets%2F72157614744872266%2F&set_id=72157614744872266&jump_to="></param> <param name="movie" value="http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=67348"></param> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=67348" allowFullScreen="true" flashvars="&offsite=true&lang=en-us&page_show_url=%2Fphotos%2Fabhishek_kr7%2Fsets%2F72157614744872266%2Fshow%2F&page_show_back_url=%2Fphotos%2Fabhishek_kr7%2Fsets%2F72157614744872266%2F&set_id=72157614744872266&jump_to=" width="400" height="300"></embed></object><br /></div><br /><div align="left"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><a name="barcampsglinks">Links</a></span></span></div><div align="left"><ul><li><a href="http://barcamp.org/">Barcamp</a></li><li><a href="http://barcamp.org/BarCampSingapore">Barcamp Singapore</a></li><li><a href="http://barcamp.org/BarCampSingapore3">Schedule of talks and events</a></li><li><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/barcampsg3/">Flickr Pics</a></li><li><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/tag/barcampsg3">Presentations</a></li></ul></div>Abhishek Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16301277323018014045noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7341836355703147021.post-10043699374914392122009-02-27T22:24:00.001+05:302009-03-05T21:16:42.580+05:30The first Rich Internet Applications Conference in Singapore<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_6peDbXi2RlDdaktA8JT2UVxW0N9uEzDu0Yk981Dg6JqvBadlxRKx2HEfF-9QsboEKesHoWPb1esoDGcMrONXKtC_gNNzA6n_FWg4a2XQJ25NKT4yR_8hsSxVgQNPS_twgpnHxkLsYclj/s1600-h/riaction_logo.png"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 41px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_6peDbXi2RlDdaktA8JT2UVxW0N9uEzDu0Yk981Dg6JqvBadlxRKx2HEfF-9QsboEKesHoWPb1esoDGcMrONXKtC_gNNzA6n_FWg4a2XQJ25NKT4yR_8hsSxVgQNPS_twgpnHxkLsYclj/s200/riaction_logo.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307757043616768466" /></a>I just attended <a href="http://riaction.sg/">RIAction</a>, the <a href="http://sgentrepreneurs.com/events/2009/02/18/event-riaction-26-feb-2009/">first Rich Internet Applications conference in Singapore</a>.<div style="text-align: justify;">They had several parallel tracks, most notable ones being occupied by Microsoft (Silverlight, Expressions blind, Azure etc), Adobe (Flex, FlexMonkey, AIR, Flash etc), php (php user group, singapore), Flex User group and other user group communities.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">All the 3 big names in this arena were sponsors of the event (Google, Adobe and Microsoft).</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Apart from tutorials and workshops / jumpstarts, keynotes, I got myself a cheezy Google Lanyard, and some Microsoft & RIAction goodies. Joined up with the <a href="http://fug.sg/">Flex user group</a>, <a href="http://blog.php.com.sg/">php user group</a> and met a couple of folks at <a href="http://www.creativecrew.com.sg/">creativecrew</a> as well.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Interestingly, some web 2.0 startups like <a href="http://www.zopim.com/">zopim</a> (Aims to add an intelligent chat agent to any website for clients / customers). There were a couple other companies present, but with the same old USP of software consulting and development.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">IMO the RIAction team (one of the organizers is <a href="http://expertria.com/index.php/archives/273">Hu Shunjie</a>) did a pretty good job of a first RIA Conference in Singapore. </div><br /><div align="left"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Update:</span> Just found this video about RIAction "I love RIAction".</div><br /><div align="center"><br /><embed src="http://blip.tv/play/Ae_oSYn0KA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="600" height="363" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed><br /></div>Abhishek Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16301277323018014045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7341836355703147021.post-462930724525836462009-02-27T10:59:00.005+05:302009-02-27T12:23:23.542+05:30Macbook Pro 17 inch is here. Is it everything that a notebook should be?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtOKolEoxR3C-0IIKjt8Y4va85JW21pA1F-Y4-KTcKe_jODYaTfWQ-egDbX8ar5uw8ZpsM2YeBeDt5W87-CNEre7p15usRoP1ETENDEWbAxaW6m0Sjueo2eGPUkKGoPzXr2ZdO4dzhLaWF/s1600-h/macbook17.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 175px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtOKolEoxR3C-0IIKjt8Y4va85JW21pA1F-Y4-KTcKe_jODYaTfWQ-egDbX8ar5uw8ZpsM2YeBeDt5W87-CNEre7p15usRoP1ETENDEWbAxaW6m0Sjueo2eGPUkKGoPzXr2ZdO4dzhLaWF/s320/macbook17.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307349583257637042" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Apple's products have always held a niche position in the computing industry. With a sleek design, great interface, innovative features and the much touted superior OS X, it entered the notebook industry a couple of years ago with the "macbook". At the time, bloggers unanimously rejected its claim of being far superior to existing laptop models. CNet declared in 2006, that <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-6026231-7.html">bloggers hate the Macbook Pro</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But over the years, constant innovation, ease of use and great design aesthetics have made it one of the must haves. Recently, <a href="http://techblips.dailyradar.com/story/17_inch_macbook_pro_delayed_two_weeks/">Apple has announced</a> the New 17" Macbook Pro with the major attractions being</div><div><ul><li>Intel Core2Duo 2.66 to 2.93 GHz processor support</li><li>The longest lasting mac notebook battery ever (claimed at 8 hours)</li><li>Desktop Graphics experience on the notebook with NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics processor and <span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family:Arial;font-size:13px;">1920-by-1200-pixel resolution (133 pixels per inch) </span></li></ul><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">And the all time favourites:</span></span></span></div><ul><li>Precision Aluminium unibody thin and sleek build</li><li>Multi-touch and trackpad button feature</li></ul><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Of course, its not all eye-candy that attracts me towards the mac. The claim that "It just works" is heavy and well substantiated. I havent ever witnessed a mac crash, and havent experienced performance hogs that PC users are all well aware of. Of course, I could get my standard Dell Laptop well tuned and high on performance as well, but the difference is that it would require knowledge and most importantly, constant effort from my side. Effort that I could otherwise use to get something <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">productive</span> done. Of course,<a href="http://james.padolsey.com/general/dear-apples-flock/"> James likes to criticize the Apple folks and their following for their elitist attitude</a> (and I agree with him on that), but I do believe it is a productivity enhancer if I can get more done with less effort and dont have to worry about performance and Crashing all the time. And the great build and interface doesnt hurt either.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So when I was deciding about getting myself a macbook pro, the new 17 inch release with better processor and graphics support. If only they could update the 15 inch version with those specs, but I guess that'll take a lot of time to happen. </div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Macbook Pro Complaints:</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So while I wait, its handy to check out some of the common complaints people have with the macbook pro (and see how many of them have been resolved and will be resolved in subsequent releases). I got most of these from <a href="http://www.appledefects.com/">AppleDefects</a>, <a href="http://www.red-sweater.com/blog/macbook-pro-noise-complaints/">RedSweater</a> and other complain posts.</div><div><ul><li><a href="http://www.red-sweater.com/blog/105/all-work-and-no-play-makes-a-quiet-macbook-pro">Hissing / whining noise</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family:'Lucida Grande';font-size:12px;"> <br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(204, 204, 204);">The problem on the MacBook Pro is generating a lot of discussion on the web. I think it’s worse now because the laptop sits closer to and relatively level to your ears, while the G5 tower often rests somewhere around the corner of your desk and closer to the floor. Annoying </span></span><a href="http://www.red-sweater.com/blog/macbook-pro-noise-complaints"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(204, 204, 204);">whine</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(204, 204, 204);"> from an Apple product? (</span></span><a href="http://www.red-sweater.com/blog/107/macbook-pro-noise-update"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(204, 204, 204);">more</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(204, 204, 204);">)</span></span></span></li><li><a href="http://www.appledefects.com/wiki/index.php?title=MacBook_Pro#High_Pitched_Squeal">High Pitched Squeal</a> </li><li><a href="http://www.appledefects.com/wiki/index.php?title=MacBook_Pro#Swollen_Battery_2">Swollen Battery</a></li><li><a href="http://www.appledefects.com/wiki/index.php?title=MacBook_Pro#Growing_crystal_failure">Growing Crystal Failure</a></li><li><a href="http://www.appledefects.com/wiki/index.php?title=MacBook_Pro#Loose_lid_hinges">Loose lid hinges</a></li><li><a href="http://www.appledefects.com/wiki/index.php?title=MacBook_Pro#Wifi_signal_drops">Wifi Signal Drops</a></li><li><a href="http://www.red-sweater.com/blog/117/macbook-pro-noise-customer-sensory-issues">MBP: Customer Sensory Issues</a></li><li><a href="http://macflaws.com/2008/11/apples-red-ring-of-death/">Screen Display problem</a></li><li><a href="http://mybiggestcomplaint.com/apple-refusing-to-fix-my-macbook-pro/99/">Build and Repair problem</a> (Apple care and repair problem)</li><li><a href="http://www.intelmactemp.com/list">Heat up problem</a> (Intel Mac temperature Database; <a href="http://macbricol.free.fr/coreduotemp/">how to monitor</a>)</li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><a href="http://flickr.com/photos/67535489@N00/sets/72157594145560024/">MacBook Pro's Magsafe adapter melted down</a> (flickr pics)</span></span></li></ul><div><br /></div><div>Most of these problems are specific and not general (except the noise and wifi issue), they can arguably be blamed on the ignorance of the user. </div><div><br /></div><div>Those who are really picky about specifications and features <a href="http://www.tnl.net/blog/2006/01/11/macbook-pro-comparison-charts/">may want to compare macbook with competing laptops like acer's travelmate</a> and the latest Dell releases. You will get more specifications and features than the macbook for a lesser cost. But the Apple product has unique features that enhance usability and experience even if its a compromise on the specs. It does work for some, for the others there are always unlimited options.</div><div><br /></div><div>The mac does make for a good user experience, but its not without its drawbacks.</div></div></div>Abhishek Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16301277323018014045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7341836355703147021.post-32351268214249541442009-02-21T12:58:00.010+05:302009-02-21T15:42:56.299+05:30The Changing face of Public Opinion and its neutrality<div style="text-align: justify;">In the current era, there is a big hype surrounding user generated content. Everything that the web 2.0 is praised about involves enabling the average user to generate content and <span style="font-style: italic;">influence</span> global opinions.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Think about it. Ten or fifteen years ago, the only people who controlled influence, impressions and perceptions, were the big media companies. The News Corporations. TV Channels. Radio Stations. Newspaper Publications. Magazines. To some extent, books and popular authors. To a lesser extent, public rallies. And to a greater extent, huge political movements involving all forms of mass media and public communications.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you don't get the gravity of that, consider this: these Forms of Expression became so popular in controlling public opinion, that in all forms of societies <a href="http://www.progressiveliving.org/mass_media_and_politics.htm">some form of control</a> was brought in to keep a check on their functioning. In countries like China and USSR / Russia, censorship was commonplace. In the US and other Free Capitalist nations, a more <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias">subtler regime</a> was enabled (No <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/02/bush_budget_cuts_environment.php">corporations or organizations</a>, for example, <a href="http://reclaimdemocracy.org/weekly_2003/oil_corporations_iraq_immunity.html">receiving funds from the Bush Administration would dare speak against them</a>. No reporting agencies would contradict the views of their sponsors, and even if they did it would be confined to constructive criticism. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Woods">Tiger Woods</a> dare not speak anything against Accenture lest they discontinue their esteemed sponsorship.) The influence of these mediums of expressions was so deeply yet unobtrusively intertwined in the system that it makes me wonder why people couldn't see through what they were being <span style="font-style: italic;">made </span>to believe.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.conspiracytheoristclothing.com/sheep_tv.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 261px; height: 233px;" src="http://www.conspiracytheoristclothing.com/sheep_tv.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">(Image courtesy <a href="http://messageinamatrix.wordpress.com/">MessageInAMatrix</a>)</span></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Getting <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/designeducation/mass-media-vs-usergenerated-content-75856">back to now</a>. There are blogs written by users accross the world that everyone is free to read. News websites that are not so tightly regulated and need much less funds to survive (than are necessary for bigger agencies to use as leverage for censorship). There is user generated wikipedia which beats every other encyclopedia I've come across in terms of size, depth, information and content. And it survives on user donations. Not on the charity trusts of influential corps who would dig their tentacles everywhere to control public perception. There's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/">YouTube</a> replacing the big and dominant role of the TV. Remember the big <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake"><span style="font-style: italic;">tsunami</span></a>? or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina">Hurricane katrina</a>? When no reporter dared to venture into dangerous territory, the native people blogged and uploaded <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4lpIaSraPE">videos of the event</a> and thats how the word spread. Even news sites like CNN relied on youtube for most of their coverage. People now collaborate for Open Source Projects to develop everthing from the <a href="http://www.kernel.org/">next Kernel for your PC</a> to a <a href="http://www.gnucash.org/">financial accounting Services</a>. And these open source softwares do not suffer from the drawbacks of big corporate software developments - "<a href="http://samdanielson.com/2007/3/3/intellectual-property-laws-are-evil">Manipulation for personal Benefit</a>" as is explained by Sam <a href="http://samdanielson.com/2007/3/3/intellectual-property-laws-are-evil"><here></here></a>. That's the prime source of distrust in adopting anything new and Proprietary (apart from the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html">lack of freedom</a>).<br /></div><br /><br /><div align="center"><br /><div style="width: 425px; text-align: left;" id="__ss_35304"><a style="margin: 12px 0pt 3px; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; display: block; text-decoration: underline;" href="http://www.slideshare.net/wah17/social-media-35304?type=powerpoint" title="Social Media">Social Media</a><object style="margin: 0px;" width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://static.slideshare.net/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=social-media-35304-18552&stripped_title=social-media-35304"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://static.slideshare.net/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=social-media-35304-18552&stripped_title=social-media-35304" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="355"></embed></object></div><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Today I can freely upload <a href="http://www.youtube.com/abhishekkr7">my own videos</a>. Write my opinions on a blog (no matter <a href="http://xploretech.blogspot.com/2008/10/internet-network-and-our-rights-bits.html">who I may contradict</a> in the process). <a href="http://xploretech.blogspot.com/2007/06/lookback-at-our-experience-imagine-cup.html">Report an event (or experience)</a> I've witnessed. <a href="http://sourceforge.net/">Collaborate</a> to develop Software I want and need. In essence I am free in principle and in action. And I know there are a lot of you like me. That's why I can navigate to youtube and experience the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUyaTUb2yi4&feature=PlayList&p=A10D6FEACA5CD16B&index=0&playnext=1">Olympics in beijing</a> (and discover that the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxbcXDH-saU&feature=related">TV News video of the fireworks had been artificially generated for greater sensationalization</a> as against what <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-q9aeWtk-Y">really happened</a>) or a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8MMnURFXfk">view of Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower</a>. Or read about stock valuations and their behaviour; know about the future direction of technology and protocols for emerging systems. And I know what I'm reading is genuine; not filtered through a moral sieve, because you know what? The moral sieve is often an excuse for censorship so that bigger organizations can get away with their nefarious activities. It may be an over-hyped concern, I agree, but I feel secure in a free world, <a href="http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/gashc3861.doc.htm">not a restrictive one (no matter what excuse you provide)</a>. And I'm sure you do too. And I'm glad this happened . User generated content is the best source of Information I have. And I fully support it.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">But while we accept that, we must do it with a grain of salt; because here is something to ponder about: We regard Wikipedia as largely neutral compared to any other encyclopedia. Obviously, since Wikipedia is written by millions of users like us; and so in effect we are informing ourselves without a mode of bias. Quite unlike corporations like Brittanica, Webster, encarta and the like who can never guarantee you complete neutrality. (Of course, they do guarantee, but we all know how information can be twisted to favour certain viewpoints as against others and yet remain within the legal definition of 'neutral'). <a href="http://xkcd.com/545/">XKCD</a> points out an interesting incident that outlines that the very assumption of public neutrality can be compromised:<br /></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/neutrality_shmeutrality.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 506px; height: 283px;" src="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/neutrality_shmeutrality.png" alt="" border="0" /></a>Abhishek Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16301277323018014045noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7341836355703147021.post-65461733047149359532009-02-11T09:14:00.005+05:302009-02-11T09:49:14.414+05:30Notifications - a new direction for developersNotifications is a common phenomenon. A lot of us have Gtalk as our IM client, even those on Pidgin would have noticed notifications like these:<br /><br /><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 192px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYinHKcBbA8hpn6cPo8wukWBRLRELNBzsm9ZBmsr2ZZUh2CCJPjHgP3D-JxzEwwpsEx_LEL0KK-pp51YAakj-75Sil2kPlPAqr6ciLOz09xhmugPdfKLkVar-V95DY5pzt15uuWl6EM3VA/s320/delete.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5301383647917262962" border="0" /> <img style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 210px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3Uk6Vd809weE7Vmr5a7262LcEZcnaZPOYtpug85cCCPNvjV8NP8h1xdGqSPXJ8ZIvw_fKkEuckVesmcONoZBJkTrxIO39L4czCmCi3RzA3FNC0TiBLzNj4u4K4KkAYnsbhT6ewmg4l_W_/s320/delete.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5301384298959912146" border="0" /><br /><br />You get the point. Every other application has their own notifications for users (btw, the notification on the right is from feedalizr, a great tool for updating you on twitter, facebook, friendfeed and other alerts all in one place). Imagine what happens when each of them are unaware of the other application and serve the user as though they were the only software using notifications<br /><ul><li>Each application would have a differently styled notification popup, confusing the user</li><li>The scheduling of notifications would be nonexistant.</li><li>The user could be bombarded with multiple overlapping notifications from different applications at the same time ("low battery" , "Mystifier is online" , "Dp replied to your twitter entry ..." ....)</li><li>The user would begin to get frustrated at times.</li></ul>The solution? A notification system that each application could communicate with.<br /><br />I just discovered a <a href="http://growl.info/">Growl</a> <a href="http://www.lifehacker.com.au/tips/2008/07/29/snarl_displays_growllike_universal_notifications.html">inspired</a> tool for Notifications on Windows - <a href="http://www.fullphat.net/index.php">snarl</a>.<br />How is it different from the numerous other notification software available? Well, for one, it uses a <a href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php">BSD style license</a>, which means it is free to be used by both open source and proprietary software systems alike.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.fullphat.net/index.php"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 278px; height: 146px;" src="http://www.lifehacker.com/assets/resources/2008/07/snarl.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Snarl can be used by any application and it provides a centralized way for managing notifications. The user can turn it off, if say s/he has plugged the laptop to a projector and is in a meeting. Its a very convenient way to manage notifications and is highly skinnable and allows for fine grained control. The user can also <a href="http://www.fullphat.net/screenshots/index.html">override the application defaults</a> and change the notification style based on their own preferences and style.<br /><br />For a start, here is what you can do. If you have a Pidgin client (and assuming you have network on twitter / identi.ca etc which you have linked to your IM for updates), you can <a href="http://sheenonline.biz/2008/07/give-your-pidgin-more-bite-with-snarl/">integrate snarl to give your pidgin more bite</a>.<br /><br />I think snarl is the future for notification management on windows. Looking further down the line, there would probably be standardized protocols for notification management making the application work seamlessly on any platform / environment.Abhishek Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16301277323018014045noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7341836355703147021.post-40768982385899165932009-02-09T12:28:00.007+05:302009-02-09T12:38:53.935+05:30Average is NOT NormalI found an interesting slide on <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/">slideshare</a>. We all normally rely on averages and means to work out whether something is worth the effort or not. But averages are not actually normal phenomenon.<br /><br />Consider the stock market as an example. For the last 80 years, it has averaged 10% increase. But if you invest your money on that basis, you may not grow by 10%. Why? Check this slideshow out:<br /><br /><div align="center"><br /><div style="width: 425px; text-align: center;" id="__ss_936040"><object style="margin: 0px;" width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://static.slideshare.net/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=average-is-not-normal-1232497625616024-3&stripped_title=average-is-not-normal-presentation"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://static.slideshare.net/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=average-is-not-normal-1232497625616024-3&stripped_title=average-is-not-normal-presentation" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="355"></embed></object></div></div><br /><br /><br />It all depends on where you start, where you want to go, and your behaviour / skill.Abhishek Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16301277323018014045noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7341836355703147021.post-34941864252249922482009-02-06T16:12:00.005+05:302009-02-06T16:27:44.716+05:30Google FriendConnect - Great tool to keep visitors connected<div style="text-align: justify;">I've just added <a href="http://www.google.com/friendconnect/">Google Friend Connect</a> to this blog (You can see the members gadget on the right column). Seems to be a great tool and probably the next big wave of web 2.0 innovation. This is for all the bloggers out there. But not for them alone...<br /><br />It such an <a href="http://www.backbonemag.com/Press_Release/Items/press_release_05120802.asp">innovative feature</a> that facebook supposedly <a href="http://googlewatch.eweek.com/content/google_vs_facebook/google_drills_down_into_friend_connect.html">banned it for a while</a> claiming that (<a href="http://resources.bnet.com/topic/google+friend+connect.html">competition</a>?) developers get access to user data. Turns out that was an overhyped concern.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Whether you've been looking for something to market your website, blog; or to connect with readers; to network with people; or keep in touch with friends, Google Friend Connect is a great way to add this functionality to your blog or website.<br /></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpPbdfV7yqAHsKc448MZ4DWtCc3brdJRMm8rmjWhdSyBuHOlg59vw5wb2xlAi3hEkp3KacFOuurU7SSFYyxHw_FNEmVtnD9IPZvUCm7jvxTFrS_wGMBANjNzR84lfNzbeyh62_8ofnQp4k/s1600-h/delete.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 319px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpPbdfV7yqAHsKc448MZ4DWtCc3brdJRMm8rmjWhdSyBuHOlg59vw5wb2xlAi3hEkp3KacFOuurU7SSFYyxHw_FNEmVtnD9IPZvUCm7jvxTFrS_wGMBANjNzR84lfNzbeyh62_8ofnQp4k/s320/delete.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5299633053847716162" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">It allows facebook like applications to take advantage of your social network to connect you with others and them to you.<br /></div><br />This capability allows you to add your google friends, orkut and twitter (as of now, the list is increasing) to the network and add gadgets like a wall (facebook users, sound familiar? I'll soon add it here as well) to you website where your connected network can write / post etc. There is also an API which allows developers to write their own gadgets (much like facebook apps). So this is exciting new Stuff.<br /><br /><a href="http://googlingsocial.com/?p=63">Here </a>is a video on how <span style="font-style: italic;">you </span>can add it to <a href="www.walyou.com/blog/2008/12/07/how-to-set-up-google-friend-connect-on-your-blog/">your blog</a> too.<br /><br /><div align="center"><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Zld3p-sSJDQ&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Zld3p-sSJDQ&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object></div>Abhishek Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16301277323018014045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7341836355703147021.post-9727493642860289912009-02-03T18:15:00.004+05:302009-02-03T18:29:46.487+05:30Pursue the passion - innovative websiteHere's what I came accross while surfing today.<br /><a href="http://www.pursuethepassion.com/"></a><blockquote style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.pursuethepassion.com/">http://www.pursuethepassion.com/</a></blockquote><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">It's a website that is inspired by the passion people have for the work they do. (If you know how working for a mundane job which was never meant for you can feel, this is the exact opposite, if you know what I mean).<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">It was in 2006 that 3 college friends, who were presumably <a href="http://www.pursuethepassion.com/about.php">unsure</a> of where their passion would be, <a href="http://www.youngmoney.com/entrepreneur/advice/301">traveled across the country</a> in a 28-foot RV to discover how chasing your dreams can be the best career move you ever make.<br /></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">"Pursue the Passion" RV traveled 16,000 miles over 38 states. We interviewed more than 300 people who love what they do for a living and created a sweet website at <a href="http://www.pursuethepassion.com/">pursuethepassion.com</a> from those experiences.<br /></div><br /></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">They went around pitching their idea to various companies, corporations, angel investors, magazines, TV shows, and a business school; only to discover that startup money comes in through finding the best fit and not 'spamming' per se.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">I checked out their website, and at the time I saw it, it had a video of an intervew with an aerospace engineer. Seems like a boring topic to check out; but the way it was presented catches your attention as an interesting and amazing job profile to look at. The catch here is the passion with which the interviewee presented and the way in which the video was shown.<br /></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgw0e2Wy01ja0z6BY_6dw1wp8-bRKMNXdQZucGpPN5ygPasw57R-Auf4qPaCATQuFPU7ypZgfc0_GXHIngl9nIxJSdFm-hecVsLCM9aF_4IEY9tBra1cmiYS252cU0mSRuJQ0AwR64J0pA/s1600-h/delete.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 130px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgw0e2Wy01ja0z6BY_6dw1wp8-bRKMNXdQZucGpPN5ygPasw57R-Auf4qPaCATQuFPU7ypZgfc0_GXHIngl9nIxJSdFm-hecVsLCM9aF_4IEY9tBra1cmiYS252cU0mSRuJQ0AwR64J0pA/s320/delete.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5298554904806410386" border="0" /></a><br />This is what their mission is<br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote>The goal of Pursue the Passion is to get people to think differently about career paths. We want current and future workforces to not only realize that they can be passionate about a career, but we want to provide them with the tools to do so. Through our website, speaking program, and initiatives in the classroom, we are playing a meaningful role in reversing the long-term negative trends in employment statistics.</blockquote></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The website is a collection of such interviews that inspire you to find where your passion truly lies. Because without that life seems a drab, quite unlike the roller coaster that each of the interviewees describe their lives to be.<br /></div><br />Interesting website to look out.Abhishek Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16301277323018014045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7341836355703147021.post-33384043392863368042009-01-26T08:52:00.003+05:302009-01-26T09:31:47.448+05:30Microblogging as a phenomenon<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirpW1B8y6bGnrDcK1SEaXjmVReXEykQw4fieL4X-rYnQL-UZFV3RbKN0Oza3fKzJ4GJRoRtei8MmXRcNE63F-o_kt6vUWNqPyWIxDu7LwNIaCLev4Xb-Lcp1yYo07AjyeDn26AkNQilHuY/s1600-h/microblogging.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 229px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirpW1B8y6bGnrDcK1SEaXjmVReXEykQw4fieL4X-rYnQL-UZFV3RbKN0Oza3fKzJ4GJRoRtei8MmXRcNE63F-o_kt6vUWNqPyWIxDu7LwNIaCLev4Xb-Lcp1yYo07AjyeDn26AkNQilHuY/s320/microblogging.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5295445090013497154" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Let me admit it. Im not (yet) a micro blogging addict.<br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Neither was I a blogger about 5 years ago. Back then, blogging was considered niche, and the rules were just being defined. You'd get a quizzical look if you said you owned a <span style="font-style: italic;">blog</span> (unless ofcourse, you were confronted with questions like 'what is a blog?'). But now, its commonplace and its exploding, so much so that standards are being rewritten for scalability.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Its just a part of life that has engulfed everyone, irrespective of age, culture, employment, status, and what not. And it is a great leveler too, because everyone's opinion counts equally. Well, not equally, but then the mode of expression does exist. It has become a natural form of communication for most; while it still remains a form of publicity for others. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.<br /></div><br />But thats not what this post is about.<br /><div style="text-align: justify;">In the same way that blogging has revolutionized the connected world, a new concept called microblogging is beginning to do the same. And right in the midst of this new paradigm is <a href="http://www.twitter.com/">twitter</a>. Here's a video about it: "Twitter in plain english"<br /></div><br /><object width="425" height="349"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ddO9idmax0o&rel=0&border=1&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ddO9idmax0o&rel=0&border=1&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="349"></embed></object><br />Here's what BusinessWeek <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2008/tc20080514_269697.htm">Says</a>:<br /><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"> It's easy to laugh at nonsense on <a href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?capId=35962803">Twitter</a>, the microblogging rage. "My nose is leaking," <a href="http://twitter.com/zapples/statuses/809316914" onclick="popup(this.href,770,600);return false;" target="popup">writes someone called Zapples</a>, "so imma go to sleep now.…" But I've heard lots of similar drivel (and even produced some myself) on the phone—an important technology if there ever was one. </p> <p style="text-align: justify;">The key question today isn't what's dumb on Twitter, but instead how a service with bite-size messages topping out at 140 characters can be smart, useful, maybe even necessary. Here's why I'm looking. In the last few months, <a href="http://venturebeat.com/2008/04/29/hitwise-twitter-traffic-is-in-fact-going-up-but-still-not-big/" onclick="popup(this.href,770,600);return false;" target="popup">the traffic on Twitter has exploded</a>, growing far beyond its circles of bleeding-edge tech enthusiasts and hard-core social networkers. </p></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">Yes, thats true. You will find many high profile celebrities, tech enthusiasts, company spokespersons, employees, product users and ofcourse, friends!<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The fundamental difference between microblogging and blogging in the purest sense is that the former is centered around <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.fastcompany.com/blog/norman-birnbach/pr-back-talk/10-twitter-etiquette-rules">engagement </a>and conversation, while blogging is more involved with expression and publishing. Yes, the boundaries are very fine. But what tells me that microblogging is still in its infancy is that <a href="http://acanmedia.com/2008/09/09/how-to-track-twitter-conversations/">the users are making up the rules right now</a>. There is a large share of anti-twitter microbloggers out there who vouch for <a href="http://thecommandline.net/2008/07/25/importance-of-open-microblogging/">OpenMicroblogging</a> (essentially get open source to do what wordpress did to blogging) and if you're one of them, there are <a href="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080711-open-source-microblogging-site-may-become-twitter-fallback.html">other services</a> available too. So why not Jump in and have some fun!<br /></div><br />By the way, if you're wondering, I'm <a href="http://twitter.com/abhishek_kr7">here</a>Abhishek Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16301277323018014045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7341836355703147021.post-86428885812901773852009-01-14T18:43:00.003+05:302009-01-14T19:16:58.924+05:30On Entrepreneurship...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpcJ1nDA2WfPD8rmo6z_4iedgfhCzxOa9hzFfYSURIEkbag6KU_hmyHoLa7vpzDlsmjipHEUxerUwRXewkD0VpweCjdJwBekTaVTVFepzWsAHATdB0C-qi9LkeMYFui7LrWcd2Ueqznd7I/s1600-h/Doorway.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpcJ1nDA2WfPD8rmo6z_4iedgfhCzxOa9hzFfYSURIEkbag6KU_hmyHoLa7vpzDlsmjipHEUxerUwRXewkD0VpweCjdJwBekTaVTVFepzWsAHATdB0C-qi9LkeMYFui7LrWcd2Ueqznd7I/s320/Doorway.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5291141700669121170" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Interesting links on entrepreneurship:<br /><br />Just read over a couple of interesting articles on entrepreneurship. Heres a short list (and a handy bookmark for myself).<br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.ekhoury.com/2008/12/09/15-tips-for-a-successful-entrepreneur/">15 tips to be a successful entrepreneur<br /></a>Some general aspects of attitude, behaviour and outlook for entrepreneurs.<br /><br /></li><li><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/money/smallbusiness/columnist/abrams/2008-10-17-start-a-business_N.htm">Nows the best time to start a business</a><br />How is this recession time the best time to start a business..<br /><blockquote><p class="inside-copy">"History bears me out. When times are bad for the economy, it can be a great time to start a business. In fact, 16 of the 30 companies that make up the Dow industrial average were started during a recession or depression. These include Procter & Gamble, Disney, Alcoa, McDonald's, General Electric and Johnson & Johnson."</p></blockquote><br /></li><li><a href="http://www.bizlaunch.ca/thinking.php">Thinking about starting your own biz?</a><br /><blockquote>"People are attracted to the idea of owning their own small business for different reasons. You may crave the freedom and independence of being your own boss, have a business idea that keeps you up at night, want to make a lot of money or simply escape the nine-to-five job routine."<br /><br /></blockquote></li><li><a href="http://wealthing.blogspot.com/2008/09/chinese-story.html">An inspiring chinese Story</a><br /><blockquote>“You know, we were so hungry, people would take it home any wildlife to eat. You see, we were very poor. I mean –he paused- my grandparents were rich, they had a summer home, and a small brick factory, but after the revolution they lost everything. Not only what they had physically. My parents had to work very hard, we were displaced. It was very difficult. Some of my relatives die of hunger. I realized I had to study very very hard to honor my parents. I finally got to go to University, in another state. We were so poor –he sighted- I only had two shirts in four years, can you imagine? I washed one and used the other one. You could almost see through the fabric when I finished.” "I'm so lucky"<br /><br /></blockquote></li><li><a href="http://anupendra.blogspot.com/2009/01/kiva-loosening-my-social.html">Kiva: loosen your social entrepreneurship credit</a><br /><blockquote>"I read a week of Wall Street Journals today. Lots of articles about worsening credit. The only lending I do is through <a href="http://ww.kiva.org/">ww.kiva.org</a> so I've doubled the money I've channeled into the system. "<br /></blockquote></li><li><a href="http://campusentrepreneurship.wordpress.com/">Campus Entrepreneurship - NYTimes</a><br /><blockquote><p style="padding-left: 30px;">“We’re really a dorm of dreamers and doers,” says Prinya Kovitchindachai, who is hoping to market a vile-tasting pill, imported from Thailand, that he touts as a hangover treatment. “College students are the largest group of binge drinkers,” he says, quietly gleeful at the prospect of such a large market so close at hand. Friends have helped him bone up on the basics of international shipping, of securing shelf space and — in a consultation with a neighbor who was wearing a towel and still dripping from the shower — of creating Web sites</p></blockquote></li></ul><br />Plan to currently network around before delving into something new... lets see how things turn out...Abhishek Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16301277323018014045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7341836355703147021.post-44518200233630483592009-01-02T10:16:00.002+05:302009-01-02T10:30:43.818+05:30Moving and resizing Partitions in vista<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhErygaHsICRpeRMrpfRVRutQ7HkKVB8_cjXRDaoQr2Za_qmvrFlUsLkS5a9mMo6KOfrNx-hAEP1nfF4lS3uN6zfSNEuUW0FyLs7rTfYWgawrDcYU3jmDwwh6k6hfPsrjJmf8Ustb2uXlMG/s1600-h/windows-vista.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 50px; height: 50px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhErygaHsICRpeRMrpfRVRutQ7HkKVB8_cjXRDaoQr2Za_qmvrFlUsLkS5a9mMo6KOfrNx-hAEP1nfF4lS3uN6zfSNEuUW0FyLs7rTfYWgawrDcYU3jmDwwh6k6hfPsrjJmf8Ustb2uXlMG/s200/windows-vista.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5286556778176624882" border="0" /></a>Although vista has a cool partition management tool inbuilt, you cannot perform powerful operations like increase your primary boot partition space by bringing in free space from the end or another drive etc.<br /><br />Gparted allows you to do that flawlessly. Here's a good howto on that:<br /><blockquote><a href="http://www.hackszine.com/blog/archive/2007/04/move_partitions_around_on_vist.html">http://www.hackszine.com/blog/archive/2007/04/move_partitions_around_on_vist.html</a></blockquote>I'm plannin to use it myself and see how it goes...<br /><br />Other unrecommended but possible alternatives include:<br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.partition-tool.com/resource/resize-vista-partition.htm"><cite>www.<b>partition</b>-tool.com/resource/<b>resize</b>-<b>vista</b>-<b>partition</b>.htm</cite></a></li><li><a href="http://www.vistarewired.com/2007/04/07/how-to-work-with-partitions-in-windows-vista-xp-when-disk-management-doesnt-work"><cite>http://www.vistarewired.com/2007/04/07/how-to-work-with-partitions-in-windows-vista-xp-when-disk-management-doesnt-work</cite></a></li><li><a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/resize-a-partition-for-free-in-windows-vista/"><cite>www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-<b>vista</b>/<b>resize</b>-a-<b>partition</b>-for-free-in-<wbr>windows-<b>vista</b>/</cite></a></li></ul><cite><br /></cite>Abhishek Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16301277323018014045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7341836355703147021.post-64176682367729283872008-11-06T22:55:00.011+05:302008-11-07T20:31:55.901+05:30Vista Troubles and Office woes...If there is anything I hate about technology, its <em><strong>institutionalization</strong></em>.<br />Think about it.<br /><br /><div align="justify">Everything we do with our Personal Computers, mobile phones, internet connections, and a bunch of other software has made us institutionalized. </div><br /><div align="justify">Institutionalized in many senses of the word... We have become institutionalized to the user interface, the taskbar, the start menu, the OK / Cancel buttons whenever a dialogue box pops up, and many many things. In the absense of any of these, we feel left in the dark, insecure, and unsure.</div><br /><br /><div align="justify">Recently I got institutionalized to Windows Vista, and had to shift over from my earlier OS: fedora 9, for two reasons. Firstly, one of my courses this semester, creative multimedia, relies on Adobe Creative Suite 3, which runs only on Windows. Secondly, I had a lot of trouble getting the campus Wi-fi to work in fedora. But this institutionalization has its own demerits. I faced two problems (and when I googled, I found I wasnt alone).</div>===================================================================<br /><br /><strong>Sonic Solutions DLA</strong><br /><br />On every Machine reboot, I would get a warning message saying:<br /><br /><br /><blockquote>this driver is blocked due to compatibility issues<br />sonic solutions<br />dlapublisher: sonic solutions</blockquote><br /><br /><div align="justify">It turns out, this is due to the roxio drag and drop feature, which came bundled with the OS. The solution:</div><br /><blockquote><br /><p>Open Up 'My Computer' and delete these files and folders if they exist.<br /><span style="font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;">C:\Program Files\Roxio\Drag-to-disc\</span></p><p><span style="font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;">C:\Windows\DLA.EXE'</span></p><p><span style="font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;">C:\Windows\System32\DLA\C:\Windows\System32\DLAAPI_W.DLL</span></p><p><span style="font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;">C:\Windows\System32\drivers\DLACDBHM.SYS</span></p><p><span style="font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;">C:\Windows\System32\drivers\DLARTL_M.SYS</span></p><br /><p>Now, reboot. The problem should vanish.</p></blockquote>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><p><strong>Microsoft Office Word, Crashes on exit</strong></p><p align="justify">This happened overnight. I didnt install anything new, no new drivers, no new softwares, no uninstalls, but yet one fine day My Word crashes whenever I close it. Heres what it says: "Microsoft Office Word has stopped working". Additional information:</p><blockquote><p>Problem signature:<br /><span style="font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;">Problem Event Name: APPCRASH<br />Application Name: WINWORD.EXE<br />Application Version: 12.0.4518.1014<br />Application Timestamp: 45428028<br />Fault Module Name: mso.dll<br />Fault Module Version: 12.0.4518.1014<br />Fault Module Timestamp: 4542867b<br />Exception Code: c0000005<br />Exception Offset: 0003977b<br />OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.768.2<br />Locale ID: 1033 </span></p><br /><p><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;"></span></p><br /><p><span style="font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;">Additional information about the problem:<br />LCID: 1033<br />Brand: Office12Crash<br />skulcid: 1033</span></p><br /><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBwOde4GHqP8UifuLvnFuG4X8CMfOK2rviIQqlozHMD0cFXAUhgGcVcI2pHS2-MZ-YuSTH-D8LR-yje65BevbtZiwRYo4oQ4kLji2XYiNrrfnRwN8HkOhQQc29HqQ0omdn-aFUuuMHoeWC/s1600-h/wordcrash.jpg"></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5265604166218464914" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 270px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBwOde4GHqP8UifuLvnFuG4X8CMfOK2rviIQqlozHMD0cFXAUhgGcVcI2pHS2-MZ-YuSTH-D8LR-yje65BevbtZiwRYo4oQ4kLji2XYiNrrfnRwN8HkOhQQc29HqQ0omdn-aFUuuMHoeWC/s320/wordcrash.jpg" border="0" /></a></blockquote><br /><p>Solution:</p><br /><p align="justify">If you want to work on Word, goto command prompt, and start winword.exe with the /a switch. It will work, but without addons. Its a relief, coz I can finally get my work done without bothering to search for the Office installation DVD, repairing office or uninstalling and reinstalling it...</p><br /><blockquote><br /><p>Goto start, type cmd and press enter.</p><br /><p>Navigate to <span style="font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;">C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12</span></p><br /><p>Type in "<span style="font-size:85%;">winword.exe /a</span>" without the quotes and press enter. And now, it works!</p></blockquote><br /><p align="justify">And while ur at it, goto the office menu (top left), word options, add-ins and disable the culprit after you've identified it (no choice but to try all of them out one by one, unless you're sure).</p><br /><p align="justify">Note that this solution works only if the fault module (in the crash message) is "mso.dll". In other common cases, the fault module starts with "hp... .dll". In such cases, your HP printer driver is causing problems and you need to uninstall it to get word to work. </p><p align="justify">------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p align="justify"></p><p align="justify"><strong>The Hibernate Option in Windows Vista is <em>Gone</em>!</strong></p><p align="justify">This happened to me when I tried to clean up my C drive (system drive). </p><p align="justify">Right clicking the drive > Properties > disk cleanup</p><p align="justify">Here, I chose to remove everything I could, to make some space. And accidentally also removed the Hibernation file from the list (which was consuming > 4 GB of space at the time).</p><p align="justify">So now I find that the hibernate option has gone missing. I cant even enable it. It isnt there in the power options, neither is it there anywhere else. I was forced to make-do with the sleep option. But the solution i quite simple:</p><blockquote><p>Get into the command prompt, open it in administrative mode (by right clicking the icon in the start menu and selecting run as administrator), and type in:</p><p><span style="font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;">powercfg /hibernate on</span></p><p>Reboot. And voila, hibernate is back in the "Microsoft Power Options" and the shutdown menu.</p></blockquote><p align="justify"><br />===================================================================</p><br /><p align="justify">I know institutionalization is bad, but in some cases its just about optimization. In the enterprise, professionals would rather continue with the inefficiencies of a system they know how to use, than invest time (and money) in learning a new and better systems (including open source counterparts) with hopes of improved performance.</p><br /><p>The day when Open Source software <em>institutionalizes</em> the users as much, or more, than Microsoft has; will be the day when we will get to see true competition at its best... </p><br /><p>Till then, its make-do time...</p>Abhishek Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16301277323018014045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7341836355703147021.post-6391366272428161412008-10-26T23:10:00.000+05:302008-10-28T01:37:54.600+05:30Subversive Art<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIwsZY-u8VYHDACJlzBVXY2W-dVdbHRgvCcFDtXIb-Drz2xK677o64jPbbiu1uePznUE4AJ2N1-kkmzV78c-lnJhFuMKDOQXdJjqreHCvrrAzzz6ktHErhUTswrvtmAiupx_RwduY_rXVO/s1600-h/vogel.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 139px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIwsZY-u8VYHDACJlzBVXY2W-dVdbHRgvCcFDtXIb-Drz2xK677o64jPbbiu1uePznUE4AJ2N1-kkmzV78c-lnJhFuMKDOQXdJjqreHCvrrAzzz6ktHErhUTswrvtmAiupx_RwduY_rXVO/s200/vogel.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261919418501599778" border="0" /></a>I just finished an interesting book titled "Film As A Subversive Art" by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos_Vogel">Amos Vogel</a>" which is considered to be among the most unorthodox film histories in history. The author was also the founder of the New York City avantgarde ciné-club <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_16" title="Cinema 16">Cinema 16</a> (America's most important film club 1947-1963).<br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />The book talks about the history of films that have been subversive in nature, first being used as tools by new, emerging, revolutionary groups (like the socialists and communists) and later being used against these very establishments. He also talks about subversion in a different sense, in the art of film making itself, in the portrayal of ideas, forms, shapes and direction - how they have responded over the years to a constant desire to challenge the existing norms and techniques of film-making (for example he talks about the movement of camera and camera angles as a revolution in itself). The <a href="http://www.artbook.com/1933045272.html">artbook</a>'s review says:<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><span style=";font-family:helvetica;font-size:85%;" >So ahead of his time was Vogel that the ideas that he penned some 30 years ago are still relevant today, and readily accessible in this classic volume. Accompanied by over 300 rare film stills, <i>Film as a Subversive Art</i> analyzes how aesthetic, sexual, and ideological subversives use one of the most powerful art forms of our day to exchange or manipulate our conscious and unconscious, demystify visual taboos, destroy dated cinematic forms, and undermine existing value systems and institutions. This subversion of form, as well as of content, is placed within the context of the contemporary world view of science, philosophy, and modern art, and is illuminated by a detailed examination of over 500 films, including many banned, rarely seen, or never released works.</span></blockquote></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The essence of book lies in eternal subversive art, where the author stresses that subversiveness is an inseparable attribute of true art. The freedom to question lies at the heart of what art is all about.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Indeed, if you notice, one of the most prominent periods in history of art was during the <span style="font-weight: bold;">renaissance age</span>, which undoubtedly came about as a result of opposition to the existing Church regime.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Its really amazing to see the time and age when Vogel wrote down the book. The fascimile edition, you will notice, is written such that the concepts have been conveyed in so abstract a sense that they are meaningful even today. <a href="http://www.thestickingplace.com/film/film-as-a-subversive-art/">This</a> and <a href="http://www.thestickingplace.com/film/film-as-a-subversive-art/biography.php">this</a> will give you a better read into the history / biography of Vogel and Film at his time, including cinema 16.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">His work seems to be inspired in part by the outrage against Nazi oppression of occupied Europe. (He fled Nazism with his parents in 1938 to the American South, where, he noted, the racial divide was analogous to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Semitism" title="Anti-Semitism" class="mw-redirect">anti-Semitism</a> he witnessed in Europe).<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">We are what we are today as a result of what our ancestors were yesterday. In pre-historic times, the fear of attack and conflict with other tribes/animals was a catalyst for social bonding and building of groups. This, as it often happens, was (mis)used by many as a tool for power during the medieval ages, and later during the 19th century too (If you remember, it was the fear of communism that lead to appeasement of, and the rise of fascism WWII). In today's world, the fear is not as much of attack or danger, as it is about the curb of freedom.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Its not only about Film, but any art in general is used by the prevailing authority to reinforce the prevailing cultural values and beliefs. Look at China today, talk about the "cultural revolution", look at the promotional art propagated by the nazis, The communists at the time of Lenin were no different. Look at the media today, they seem to be reinforcing beliefs too.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">But then history is witness to the fact that the nature of art is such that there cannot be no contradiction. There will always be a form of art questioning the prevalent obvious. Theres a British band (the name slips my mind, ill update the post when I recall later) who have taken it upon themselves to produce the most horrifying and unpleasant music as is humanly possible. This they say, is their attempt to oppose social norms and do things differently.<br /></div><br />Grosz once said of his work:<br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote>I drew and painted out of a spirit of contradiction, trying in my works to convince the world that it was ugly, sick and mendacious</blockquote></div>The origin of abstract paintings also shares a similar notion.<br /><br />If you have ever heard of the <a href="http://www.blogger.com/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhua">Manhua comics</a>, you will realize that what I am trying to say.<br /><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:85%;">The first Manhua comic appeared on the Chinese market in 1928. The genre was used as a political tool during the Second World War and by Mao's regime, before being adopted by today's underground artists, intent on challenging the state.</span><br /></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:85%;">During Mao's Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, comics were used as propaganda, featuring a smiling workforce and heroic images from folk legends. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:85%;">In recent years, the artform has been adopted by a group of underground illustrators to challenge notions of freedom and modernisation in China. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Because of their subversive nature, Manhua comics are not granted licences to be sold in bookshops, so artists give away artwork or send it free to mobile phones.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">[Offtopic note: Manhua comics <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/chinas-subversive-art-of-manhua-comes-to-britain-789997.html">now come to britain</a> ]<br /></span></p></blockquote><br /><a href="http://dadahead.blogspot.com/2005/03/subversive-art-blogging.html">Here</a>'s another take on subversive art blogging.<br /><br /><br /><br />And <a href="http://weburbanist.com/2007/11/10/guerilla-for-good-3-subversive-urban-art-projects-designed-to-improve-the-planet/">Here</a>'s a really interesting depiction of subversive art in guerilla marketting.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://weburbanist.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/not-happening-here.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 211px; height: 120px;" src="http://weburbanist.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/not-happening-here.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://weburbanist.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/save-the-trees-stickers.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 211px; height: 120px;" src="http://weburbanist.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/save-the-trees-stickers.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">If you ever get to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Film-Subversive-Art-Amos-Vogel/dp/1933045272">read the book</a>, and if you appreciate it, you would love to view the films that he discusses at great length. <a href="http://www.angoleiro.com/sbnb.cgi?d=4">Here's</a> a site which makes an attempt to provide most of them.<br /><br />IMO, the quest for subversion will forever remain as long as art remains; for there will always be opposition and curbs of varying form and degree in times to come. There will always be something to oppose and something to embrace, for change is the only constant, and without that, we cease to exist.<br /></div>Abhishek Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16301277323018014045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7341836355703147021.post-43819135781037474292008-10-08T22:42:00.012+05:302008-10-10T04:54:27.494+05:30Internet, Network and our Rights - BITS Pilani Goa CampusI am writing this blog entry out of sheer desperation over the hopeless actions continually undertaken by our network administrators and providers in college.<br /><br />I am a 4th year student of <a href="http://www.bits-goa.ac.in/">BITS Pilani Goa campus</a>. I have been studying here for more than 3 years. In today's world, network availability and quality internet access is indispensable for any sort of academic activity. Let me recall the issues that I am talking about:<br /><ul><li>The entire college shares the internet over a 4 Mbps connection. This connection is further bifurcated through the use of multiple proxies for the faculty, staff and students. The exact bandwidth available to us is not made public, but I can vouch for the fact that a common google search, for which Google, Inc. takes 0.12 seconds takes well over 10 seconds to display on my room connection now, at 11pm today. (And it has been roughly the same almost every day).<br /></li><li>The internet access is unavailable in our hostel rooms from morning 9 to evening 5. Presumably this has been done to increase attendance in classes. If this were so, wouldnt cutting hostel electricity be the logical next step? Is it moral to restrict someone's right over a basic necessity for something like attendance? Why not just let the grade reflect the attendance issues and let internet and other rights be left alone?<br /></li><li>This semester, we have timed internet slots of 2 hours each, during which we get access to the internet - hostel wise. Did we know we were paying for this at the start of each year? Do we _want_ to pay for this? If low bandwidth is the problem, shouldn't a raise in the payments be an issue of debate? Shouldn't quotations be obtained from other service providers in search for the best deal? Have we seen any such attempt? I am afraid not.</li><li>Up until a month ago, I couldn't search for 'tuberculosis' on the internet because of the censorship policy.<br />I couldnt search for 'chest cancer'.<br />Nothing with 'teen' included.<br />I couldnt apply to university of georgia because it had the phrase 'orgi' in it.<br />I cannot log on to orkut to join communities for placement discussions and project discussions.<br />Facebook has now been banned<br />I cannot update my Linux system (fedora) with online repositories because apparently their download links have banned phrases.<br />People have had to change their blog titles and had to <a href="http://irrashonallyurs.blogspot.com/2008/08/updates-from-bits-start-of-hyd-campus.html">rename sketches on their blog</a> (remove the word 'Girl'!) to make sure they are accessible in campus.<br />I could go on, and this list runs into thousands...<br />I relied heavily on anonymous proxies to do this for me. And I'm not alone, a lot of my colleagues have to resort to it too. And given our bandwidth, imagine the patience that goes into such an effort. Add to that our growing censorship of these anonymous proxies by our self-proclaimed morality-keepers, the network administrators.</li><li>Our internal file sharing p2p network - DC (which has been the centre-stage of file search and information exchange in campus) - is in danger of being shut down because it is claimed (as per the notice put up), that it affects 'internet' bandwidth. I fail to see how much the internet bandwidth is affected by a p2p-based network which runs on a 100 Mbps network.</li><li>I'm afraid that if this continues, whatever we share over the network may come under surveillance of network staff and if deemed inappropriate the network facility will close down.<br />I'm afraid that soon, there will be a day when each of our computers will be scanned for 'inappropriate' or 'banned' material.<br />As deplorable as it sounds, these actions are still tolerable if these bans were legitimate, but 'tuberculosis' , 'chest' , 'georgia' etc. being considered 'inappropriate' ??<br /><br />Is this what we have come to?</li></ul><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifXhWkvCwH1gkURHJS43dB8B7R6BkCDkd4IRR4ggGQt7rR4Y_MPCK_KUvPULJNdHMXpfE_EWMWBpTeGwugBbNfx3XkE63TlbozvdqJJ4-MO5BMUYUGRnAHFtUx7a4cuETEBIfV1-9XZcAY/s1600-h/Aerial+View+of+Campus+1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifXhWkvCwH1gkURHJS43dB8B7R6BkCDkd4IRR4ggGQt7rR4Y_MPCK_KUvPULJNdHMXpfE_EWMWBpTeGwugBbNfx3XkE63TlbozvdqJJ4-MO5BMUYUGRnAHFtUx7a4cuETEBIfV1-9XZcAY/s200/Aerial+View+of+Campus+1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5254858545991717810" border="0" /></a><br />It seems that internet usage and LAN are considered more of a privilege than a right in this campus. But are we, as students, paying for a privilege? Something that may be denied to us at the free whim of some external agency (These bans are suggested and implemented by the network admins, some of whom work for Wipro)?<br />Who decides the morality of these restrictive actions that affect our usage?<br />In any considerate society (and I believe ours is a considerate society), a person who pays for a service decides how best to use it. Shouldn't the people who pay for these services, decide how to use it best? This is how it should be, but morality creeps in, and in order to justify the incorrect actions the general fall-back claim is<br /><blockquote>'The students don't know what is right and wrong. By imposing restrictions, we prevent them from doing wrong things'<br /></blockquote>Two questions:<br /><ul><li>Who decides right from wrong? Should it be the administrative staff who provide the connectivity?</li><li>When the network admins say that a particular policy or a restriction needs to be taken to 'improve connectivity' or 'bandwidth' , are they always right? most of the times, 'NO'. There are many other ways of achieving better connectivity but those options have never been explored. My guess is that this is because our network admins are incapable of, or do not know all the different ways and do not wish to let this incapability be known to the general public. As a result, secrecy creeps in. They do whatever they want and claim it is the right thing to do. Haven't we already abandoned this kind of thinking long ago when the renaissance age crept in? Has there ever been an <span style="font-style: italic;">open debate</span> in campus over this issue discussing these policies? I don't recall any.</li></ul>Today, I was intrigued about the economic crises that have brought a lot of countries to the brink of bankruptcy.<br />I couldn't read the New York Times, because www.nytimes.com has been banned by our network administrators. This is what it says:<br /><blockquote>Access to the page: http://www.nytimes.com<br />... has been denied for the following reason:<br />Banned site: nytimes.com<br /><br />You are seeing this error because what you attempted to access appears to contain, or is labeled as containing, material that has been deemed inappropriate. </blockquote>Reading international news is considered inappropriate? <div class="chat out"> <div class="msg 1st">We are paying for this connection, not to be told that few of the most informative and educative sites are "inappropriate" for viewing. And by the way, who decides on the appropriateness of sites? If the network admins provide us with connectivity, does it automatically give them a right to<br /><ul><li>control what we do with the connection?</li><li>pry on our usage and violate our privacy?</li><li>dictate moral terms on the usage of the connection?</li></ul>As an analogy, does providing us with a hostel to live, automatically entitle the wardens to impose on us a lifestyle of their liking and self-proclaimed morality? (I'm not talking about socially acceptable norms). It obviously doesn't. And similarly issues of morality should be considered separately from issues of connectivity, service and bandwidth.<br /></div></div><br />When the Local Area Network and the Internet were designed and made public, they were done so as to enable everyone to stay connected without bounds and restrictions. And the internet and even intranet networks today exist between many societies across the world.<br />Ours is a civilized society where we have rights and liberties and duties.<br />Recently, various international <span style="font-style: italic;">human rights organizations</span>, the <span style="font-style: italic;">Internet Society</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Human Rights Watch</span>, The <span style="font-style: italic;">American Civil Liberties Union</span>, the <span style="font-style: italic;">Electronic Privacy Information Center</span>, the <span style="font-style: italic;">Association des Utilisateurs d'Internet</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">other civil liberties and human rights organizations</span> have joined together to create a <span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Global Internet Liberty Campaign</span> (http://gilc.org). Two of their principles that I would like to highlight are:<br /><ul><li style="font-weight: bold;">The Global Internet Liberty Campaign advocates prohibiting prior censorship of on-line communication.</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Global Internet Liberty Campaign advocates insisting that on-line free expression (reading and writing) not be restricted by indirect means such as excessively restrictive governmental or private controls over computer hardware or software, telecommunications infrastructure, or other essential components of the Internet</span>.</li></ul>You can read more about the principles <a href="http://gilc.org/about/principles.html">here</a>: http://gilc.org/about/principles.html<br />The GILC invites all aware and conscious global citizens like us to join them.<br /><blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;">We invite you our fellow users from around the world who are interested in taking concerted action to protect the Internet to join us in this campaign.</span><br /></blockquote>I would definitely support the cause of this campaign. And in case you are an open and aware internet user, I would like you to do so too.<br /><br />India is a free nation. We have laws of freedom and liberty applicable to all our citizens. And as 21 yr old citizen, I am entitled to my rights. I have the freedom of equality, of speech, of religion and many others... But before we speak about that, the spirit in which these liberties were designed, were such as to enable a person to reach his or her full potential. To lead a better, richer life. To live freely. Without restrictive boundaries and fear. And in order to protect these rights, we have an independent judiciary. Independent, to make sure even the government cannot step over the line. We are the world's largest democracy. And our current rise shows that our system is successful. We should be immensely proud of that. However the global internet liberty campaign has not yet made it into our legal system, but I think it is only a matter of time before a similar set of rights are incorporated(there are many agencies already campaigning for it within India). Until then, I would hate to see the lack of such rules or norms cause inappropriate restrictions in our campus.<br /><br />Although I have criticized the restrictions and policies that we are facing, I'm sure the administrative staff and faculty don't bear any ill-feelings towards the students. There is a major lack of communication and uncertainty over the right course of action. There is a fine line between trying to impose a morally effective policy and crossing over the right to freedom, liberty and information of an individual. Although the actions are noble in spirit, they are restrictive in action. I believe that the network and internet should 'enable' a student to achieve and perform better, rather than 'disable' him/her.<br />And for this to happen I would like to see the following take place:<br /><ul><li>Removal of all absurd and inappropriate timing restrictions for the internet.</li><li>Availability of internet connectivity in hostels at reasonable speeds (which it certainly is NOT right now). There are two ways in which this can be done:<br />- Increase the bandwidth given the the ISP. This might involve increase in payments, and if this affects students' fee amount, a reasonable discussion should be put forth.<br />- Search for quotations from alternative service providers who provide better service.<br /><br />In case this does not work out, then a reasonable and <span style="font-style: italic;">open</span> debate about the restriction policy should decide the action to be taken.<br /></li><li>surveillance of activities of individual users on grounds of morality should stop.</li><li>The connectivity staff should strive towards creating an open and free system in order to 'enable' every student in campus.</li></ul>Although I have deep gratitude towards our alumni who provided us this connectivity through BITSConnect, I would like to point out the situation it is currently in. What was considered a luxury a decade ago is now a necessity, and we are being deprived of it. There is certainly something more to be demanded and done...Abhishek Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16301277323018014045noreply@blogger.com50tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7341836355703147021.post-61168114759562157342008-10-05T01:09:00.004+05:302008-10-05T01:50:42.085+05:30The engineering craze in India and college rankings<div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>This is partly in response to an <a href="http://xploretech.blogspot.com/2007/06/engineering-college-rankings-outlook-vs.html">earlier post</a> I wrote about engineering college rankings.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUT_l_a6mE8nf6JoKWPlN3c6EE0o1D13pG4_mZ3De3HcbT92EMmAqLHjn3idYKZkwuy30KScusb3YVVY_gdxmAnUbm1HiiIO_3I5wodA-3NHRDTIqbZZmK-8q-6klNDyAFN9OnZkEkZ0Fu/s1600-h/india_today.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUT_l_a6mE8nf6JoKWPlN3c6EE0o1D13pG4_mZ3De3HcbT92EMmAqLHjn3idYKZkwuy30KScusb3YVVY_gdxmAnUbm1HiiIO_3I5wodA-3NHRDTIqbZZmK-8q-6klNDyAFN9OnZkEkZ0Fu/s320/india_today.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5253395593517624850" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Something offtopic before I get to the point: Outlook's ratings are out this time and it agrees with even Mint's engineering college rankings in stating that BITS Pilani ranks as the #1 private engineering college in India. Being a Bitsian, this comes as a relief to me (not as joy though, mainly because its common knowledge that these rankings lack credibility).<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Anyways getting back to the point, this is about the engineering college rankings (or the so called perception among people, of ranking). To get into perspective, these are few of the most widely popular rankings that majority of the public go by:<br /></div><ol><li>India Today, <a href="http://www.india-today.com/itoday/20010521/cover-engineering.shtml">college rankings</a>: http://www.india-today.com/itoday/20010521/cover-engineering.shtml<br /></li><li>Outlook, <a href="http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20060717&fname=Cover+Story&sid=5">college rankings</a> (methodology <a href="http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20060717&fname=Cover+Story&sid=7">here</a>): http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20060717&fname=Cover+Story&sid=5</li><li>Dataquest <a href="http://admissionsync.com/2007/07/13/data-quest-top-schools-in-india-2007/">college rankings</a>: http://admissionsync.com/2007/07/13/data-quest-top-schools-in-india-2007/<br /></li></ol><span style="font-weight: bold;">What is the fuss about?</span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">In my opinion, all the fuss is about confusion and misinformation. Half the students who get into engineering dont know what it is about, or what they want to do in life. A great majority of them are pushed in by their parents, who know little about other alternatives and are ignorant or indifferent to suggestions of alternative options.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Whatever may be the reason, engineering is considered by a vast majority of people as a gateway to good jobs and a means to earn a good living. In this pursuit there is a mad rush for engineering all around India. This is evident by the number of students who sit for engineering entrance examinations such as <a href="http://www.iitd.ac.in/jee/">JEE</a> or <a href="http://www.aieee.nic.in/">AIEEE</a>. And this number is only increasing year after year. No proportional growth in the colleges results in a very visible rat race for the few colleges that have earned a respectable reputation among the masses.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">In this wild rush, there is a great deal of chaos and confusion which is the reason why people seek these so called rankings, so that they may get a sense of direction and information out of the confusing mess that they are in.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But they do not know that the rankings they depend on, are not dependable at all. They are at best attempts to judge the colleges. And different agencies, magazines, judge colleges differently and not always correctly. The criteria for comparison also varies and often it is misreported (as had happened in the case of bits pilani and india today). For example, in the case of anna university, I quote (From T.R. Muralidharan's article in Outlook):<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote>Anna University (to which TN engineering colleges are affiliated) is still finding it difficult to ensure that infrastructure and facilities at the colleges conform to standards. The quality of education rendered too is often substandard. There is a shortage of good professors in areas like IT and communications where developments happen rapidly. </blockquote></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The rankings are widely accepted to be futile, but however they do seem to have a following among the masses because of lack of other information.<br /></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmm4TsLKgKhJ-gKWsqltPhoF9qGt9NZq_KMJZMd2NtfqHruuhnzvo-a0RVpaSR2Emq-KLKgds3TQB2_LJXJ8FERB3i3VUQ-NgcIXN_q06EWcYxK0hCGdEuy-qpkB2w_2FL3emaOMbAf3Xa/s1600-h/dsc00030.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmm4TsLKgKhJ-gKWsqltPhoF9qGt9NZq_KMJZMd2NtfqHruuhnzvo-a0RVpaSR2Emq-KLKgds3TQB2_LJXJ8FERB3i3VUQ-NgcIXN_q06EWcYxK0hCGdEuy-qpkB2w_2FL3emaOMbAf3Xa/s320/dsc00030.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5253394051240761650" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Rankings:</span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">When we try to analyze all potential rankings, there could be 3 kinds (source of information detailed below is rediff.com):<br /></div><ol><li><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Government rankings:</span> <span class="f12">The central government carries out a survey of engineering colleges every few years. The survey, conducted by the World Bank, is used to arrive at a funding formula for financing colleges under United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and to monitor the progress of the colleges receiving funding.</span></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="f12">The government survey is highly respectable and includes comments/suggestions for the improvement needed by the colleges. These are generally not available in public domain.</span></p></li><li><p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="f12"><b>Academic rankings: </b>These is carried out by leading institutions around the world and sometimes by academic and scientific magazines. The survey is authentic and unbiased, but is of limited use. It is used mainly to boost the ego of a college among similar colleges, to attract talented faculty and to keep flow of money from its patrons.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="f12">The Asian Technology Information Program, Tokyo, is a prestigious, non-profit think-tank, which monitors research programmes from universities/institutes across Asia and classifies some of the leading universities in a specific research area.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="f12">For example, according to ATIP, Indian Institute of Science is among the world leaders in the field of nano-crystal technology research. Similarly, it puts Banaras Hindu University among the leading research universities in the world in the field of application of hydrogen energy to two-wheeler vehicles.</span></p></li><li style="text-align: justify;"><p><span class="f12"><b>Magazine rankings: </b>Also known as popular rankings, these are the ones that are mostly read by common folk. These are carried out by national magazines as a guide for students and faculty, and for the college themselves.</span></p></li></ol><div style="text-align: justify;">So what we do require is a blend of government and agency rankings (pure government rankings could make the system corrupt, agency rankings coupled with openness of the ranking methods and information used, could be more transparent and a better system).<br /></div> <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br />The craze?</span><br />A third point to ponder upon is the mad craze after engineering in India.<br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The mushrooming of coaching classes for engineering and private tutors and the conditions of teaching etc clearly indicate that students are trying too hard to satisfy this 'craze' or 'rat race' of getting into a good engineering college no matter what it takes. <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122272498377287687.html">Heres an article</a> that discusses one such region: Kota, where 40000 students join annually in hopes of entering an elite engineering college.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The craze is maddening, and will end only when either or both of two things happen:<br /></div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;">People get wiser to the availability of other options for a good career; and students going after their passions and interest to chart out a future career that is both satisfying and monetarily rewarding</li><li style="text-align: justify;">The number of colleges (not just any colleges, quality colleges) increase in the country, without useless fuss of quotas and locality rules spoiling the merit-based-admission criteria.</li></ul><div style="text-align: justify;">Thats as far as my mind goes, lets see how the future unfurls itself. Either the rat race ends, or we just wait for a Pied Piper to come along and lead us to our own disaster.<br /></div>Or probably we dont even need him, we are enroute already...Abhishek Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16301277323018014045noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7341836355703147021.post-69376303864572439062008-09-06T20:38:00.003+05:302008-09-06T21:30:46.700+05:30Google Chrome - Crash the browser :P<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd8wEU9CMSI65ZSYBVTFKZz2QJl1zEWEIa3cUzM4rkILo0x6ipAxzqiY1mN8aiHj4wcxXcqeeQdPVvFTUWynylZgXxi6BxvFptl8UxpRnV_O8O7s82YQ1xZnbwZ6M43AvGmRBnOdG-08nQ/s1600-h/chrome_crash_message.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd8wEU9CMSI65ZSYBVTFKZz2QJl1zEWEIa3cUzM4rkILo0x6ipAxzqiY1mN8aiHj4wcxXcqeeQdPVvFTUWynylZgXxi6BxvFptl8UxpRnV_O8O7s82YQ1xZnbwZ6M43AvGmRBnOdG-08nQ/s200/chrome_crash_message.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5242937335400003362" /></a><br />Okay so this is a quick post on how to crash google chrome (not that you would want to do it, but just for fun).<div><ul><li>This one was discovered by Rishi Agarwal, one of my hostel-mates: type in 'About:%' in the address bar, without the quotes, and the browser with all its tabs crashes instantly (even before you press the enter key). I think chrome was all about sandboxing of tabs... but apparently theres still some work to be done.<br />(Correction: I just realized <a href="http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20080903/qotd-crashing-chrome/">here</a> that just typing in ':%' is enough to crash the browser!)</li><li>For those interested in crashing Chrome through some under the cover techniques, check out <a href="http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=1847&tag=nl.e539">this</a> and <a href="http://evilfingers.com/advisory/google_chrome_poc.php">this</a>. <br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; "><blockquote>“An issue exists in how chrome behaves with undefined-handlers in chrome.dll version 0.2.149.27. A crash can result without user interaction. When a user is made to visit a malicious link, which has an undefined handler followed by a ’special’ character, the chrome crashes with a Google Chrome message window “Whoa! Google Chrome has crashed. Restart now?”. It crashes on “int 3″ at 0×01002FF3 as an exception/trap, followed by “POP EBP” instruction when pointed out by the EIP register at 0×01002FF4.”</blockquote></span><br /></li><li>A vulnerability that tricks you into execution of an executable / JAR file. <a href="http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=1843">More</a><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; "><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 15px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; "></p><blockquote><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 15px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; ">Just hours after the release of Google Chrome, researcher <a href="http://aviv.raffon.net/" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 77, 153); ">Aviv Raff</a>discovered that he could combine two vulnerabilities — a flaw in Apple Safari (WebKit) and a Java bug discussed at this year’s Black Hat conference — to trick users into launching executables direct from the new browser.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 15px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; ">Raff has cooked up a harmless demo of the attack in action, showing how a Google Chrome users can be lured into downloading and launching a JAR (Java Archive) file that gets executed without warning.<br /></p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 15px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; ">In the <a href="http://raffon.net/research/google/chrome/carpet.html" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 77, 153); ">proof-of-concept</a>, Raff’s code shows how a malicious hacker can use a clever social engineering lure — it requires two mouse clicks — to plant malware on Windows desktops.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 15px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; ">The Google Chrome user-agent shows that Chrome is actually WebKit 525.13 (Safari 3.1), which is an outdated/vulnerable version of that browser.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 15px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; ">Apple patched the carpet-bombing issue with Safari v3.1.2.</p><p></p></blockquote></span></li></ul><div>(Nothing more as of now. ill keep adding to this list as I find out more)</div></div>Abhishek Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16301277323018014045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7341836355703147021.post-4081832226663617022008-09-03T11:20:00.005+05:302008-09-03T15:18:53.853+05:30Google Chrome - First lookSo after a <a href="http://xploretech.blogspot.com/2008/09/google-browser.html">long</a> and <a href="http://xploretech.blogspot.com/2008/09/google-browser-google-chrome-download.html">anxious</a> wait, its finally <a href="http://gears.google.com/chrome/?hl=en">available</a> to the public, and I've been using <a href="http://gears.google.com/chrome/?hl=en">Google Chrome</a> all morning.<div><br /></div><div>It seems to be fast and quick and as expected, user friendly.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Quick takes:</span></div><div><ul><li>Minimalistic look, with maximum space given to the web page / content. Even the status bar is overlayed on the page when necessary and dissapears when not.</li><li>Intuitive interface. Switching between tabs is fast (compared to both IE and mozilla). Each tab is sandboxed separately so a slowdown or crash in one of them doesnt crash the browser (havent tested this though).</li><li>icon on tab to the left of page title (before the favicon appears) is a rotating arc, showing a 'busy' state. Anti clockwise rotation until the site is determined, clockwise after download begins.</li><li>Handy address bar: intelligent autocomplete for urls. google search results also supplement the options for easy selection.</li><li>Frequently browsed pages appear as a matrix on newly opened tabs. Quickly resume where the last session left off.</li><li>Most other features work as in firefox, including shortcuts.</li></ul></div><div><br /></div><div>Cons:</div><div><ul><li>It takes the connection settings from IE. So everytime you need to change a proxy, for instance, you will have to tweak your IE setting.</li><li>Closing the entire browser does not prompt you for confirmation. Neither does it save the tabs to be reloaded at next start.</li><li>No easy way to bookmark pages. Right-clicking on the tab or the page doesn't have a bookmark option. The only way, as I see it, is to go into bookmarks and add the link manually. </li><li>Drag drop of tabs onto bookmark toolbar doesnt work.</li><li>the "forward" and "back" buttons dont have a drop down menu to jump into history more than a step. </li></ul><div>Issues</div><div><ul><li>On my laptop, the touchpad scroll works fine when scrolling down, but scroll up doesnt happen. I check with firefox and it works fine there, but on chrome it just doesnt. Something that needs to be fixed.</li></ul></div><div>Havent gone deeper than this so far. Next thing to do is probably test it out on wine for Linux. After that, probably check if the settings and preferences are exportable if I need to get back to firefox later.</div><div>So far it seems chrome will cut into firefox's user share pretty easily. I'm already a chrome-user :P. Find out <a href="http://chromium.org/">more</a> and <a href="http://blogs.computerworld.com/google_chrome_first_look">more</a> and <a href="http://lifehacker.com/5044484/google-chrome-first-look">more</a>. </div><div>Below: A video by google on the philosophy behind the need for chrome.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/JGmO7Oximw8&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/JGmO7Oximw8&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /></div></div>Abhishek Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16301277323018014045noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7341836355703147021.post-90534194330657882712008-09-02T14:30:00.005+05:302008-09-02T15:08:36.070+05:30The Google Browser: Google Chrome - Download<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT2xRomY2oG8awxw7msTtEmN8_FElJ33l2vnph1S-yzIKqFae_7_fpWwWpWeewF6iScnR8VwN1sCyA6-tuYwHe9f-Wbqe59vIT1_MsuONU0jS5n-9QFx_LsQfuMKvLnlHRLNqif4h9b0o2/s1600-h/google-chrome-logo.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT2xRomY2oG8awxw7msTtEmN8_FElJ33l2vnph1S-yzIKqFae_7_fpWwWpWeewF6iScnR8VwN1sCyA6-tuYwHe9f-Wbqe59vIT1_MsuONU0jS5n-9QFx_LsQfuMKvLnlHRLNqif4h9b0o2/s200/google-chrome-logo.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5241347581062242850" border="0" /></a><br /><br />A little more about how the browser is going to be..<br /><blockquote>Google Chrome will be a multi tabs browser, with each tab owning its own process running with limited rigths for improved security and crash prevention. Google Chrome browser will also include several innovative features like a JavaScript Virtual Machine, called V8, to speed up JavaScript performance in the browser, an address bar ’omnibox’ offering search suggestions ( top visited pages or popular pages ), a special 'incognito' tab with improved privacy protection.</blockquote><strong><a href="http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080901/the-entire-google-chrome-blog-announcement/">The entire Google Chrome Browser Blog announcement</a><br />The Beta Download: Available September 2, 2008 (Today!)</strong><br /><blockquote>Google (GOOG) said it would be launching Chrome in 100 countries, but it will only be in beta in Windows (Google said Mac and Linux versions were coming soon).</blockquote><br />Download links (Ill update this with information as available):<br /><ul><li>The <a href="http://gears.google.com/chrome/?hl=en">Home page</a> (http://gears.google.com/chrome/?hl=en). Yes it used to work earlier, but a few days ago, google redirected it to its search page. Probably when Chrome is released, the link will work.</li><li><a href="http://digg.com/tech_news/Where_to_Download_Google_Chrome">Updates on download links:</a> http://digg.com/tech_news/Where_to_Download_Google_Chrome.<br /></li></ul><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTDKmbqNA7XhgG8M7r-mt3Vcu0qHlgyhpXUzdFcYUtBJ2PiJnkM6BSIOc1ShwPbCRVUEjAi6Jqy9Yfc0u36zAARq6YALATnix3tHNCuQgO76YKhixT9JvqNFDHixVZD5sOldhbJcYzeoh3/s1600-h/chrome21-261x300.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTDKmbqNA7XhgG8M7r-mt3Vcu0qHlgyhpXUzdFcYUtBJ2PiJnkM6BSIOc1ShwPbCRVUEjAi6Jqy9Yfc0u36zAARq6YALATnix3tHNCuQgO76YKhixT9JvqNFDHixVZD5sOldhbJcYzeoh3/s200/chrome21-261x300.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5241355307816501138" border="0" /></a></div>Abhishek Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16301277323018014045noreply@blogger.com0