Point to be noted

Do you take Notes? Then "Evernote" is for you

2009-01-31T14:10:00.006-05:00

I know most people take notes for things to do, things they liked, remembering birthdays, work tasks, Url's and anything else you just need to jott down for future reference. Apart from the traditional ways of taking notes like the diary and pen, there are a lot of online options now a days. Some of these are Google Notebook, Yahoo Notepad, , evernote, etc.

I started with Yahoo Notepad first and loved it. I used it mainly to keep notes about work. It also had a nice widget which I used a lot. But later somehow I thought the options were not enough and I also stumbled upon google notebook. With google's enhanced search capabilities I started using it. I liked it for its efficient interface. I had most of my data captured on google. But google recently announced that they are freezing any new development of Notebook. Even though this doesn't mean that the notebook suddenly becomes a bad app, there will not be any new features added to it.

This is when I found "Evernote". It is a robust online note taking application which does everything that Google or yahoo could do and more. Apart from storing, organizing and tagging notes, evernote also had advanced features like OCR (Optical Character recognition), which means you can just scan your handwritten notes and Evernote can search on them. Its a killer feature for those who like to take notes by hand. It has a lot of other features like tagging, clipping, screenshot, etc. It had a desktop download available which syncs with the evernote on web to keep your notes updated on all your machines. You can also attach PDF files. It has a Delicious import tool to store all your Url's. They also recently released a Google Notebook import tool to make the transition easier. Theres a lot more things you can do. So if you like to keep notes and keep them organized, I would recommend trying Evernote.

Sehwag's form

2007-02-19T00:29:00.000-05:00

So, my prediction about Sehwag made last year has come true for sure. But I really hope that he comes back to form in the world cup. I think his problem last year has been concentration. Maybe because he wasn't motivated enough. But what better platform to motivate yourself than the world cup. I think he will come back to his devastating best in the wc. Even when he is in half decent form, he can win India matches and we need him in the first eleven as he also gives us a decent bowling option. So I really hope this prediction of mine also comes true and Sehwag gets his devastating touch back!

Email as a rss feed

2007-02-19T00:05:00.000-05:00

Have you ever wanted to read your email quickly as a rss feed? Then you can use bloglines. Bloglines is a great site that helps you organize your favourite rss feeds including news and blogs.

But it also has an interesting feature - Email Subscriptions. Basically, you get a temporary email address, which you can use to subscribe for those newsletters which you feel might not be safe to receive on your regular email account. This is a temporary email id which gets wiped you when you unsubscribe it from bloglines settings. So don't worry about about those spam newsletters which do not have an unsubscribe facility.

Whats more? If your personal email account supports automatic email forwarding (gmail does), you can auto forward all your email to this bloglines email and read them as rss feeds quickly. It works great if you work behind a firewall which does not allow you to check your personal emails! You cannot send emails, but you'll never miss anything.

Whats best? You can create unlimited such email id's! But if your firewall blocks bloglines :-) try something else.

Error Downloading Codec!!

2006-05-13T12:17:00.000-05:00

If you are tired of this message on Windows media player (like I was), trying to play Xvid, DVD , avi or mpeg-2 files , then try downloading the VLC media player.

It plays almost all types of media files, is open source and takes up less space than most other media players.

Its Cool!

Click here for the direct download link.

Reserving Votes ...

2006-05-08T15:46:00.000-05:00

Enough has been said recently about how reservations based on caste are bad. And more so in Private institutions and companies.

Although a little late, let me put forth a few points.

I tried to look at how this problem was tackled since independence. There were some castes which were historically poor and backward because they were oppressed socially and economically by the rest of the society.

The government needed to do something to facilitate these castes to come out of their poverty and improve their social status.

To resolve this problem, the government started with reserving around 22.5% of seats for such castes in government and affiliated educational institutes and offices.

After about 30 years, the government felt that the above solution is doing no good. Hence they set up a commission to identify the actual backward classes and a solution to alleviate these castes of the backwardness. The commission reported (Mandal commission) that more than half of the population in India can be termed a backward. So the government increased these reservations even after a lot of opposition from the public to about 50% (Which is the limit set by the supreme court .. otherwise, it could have been anything) and increased the number of castes that could take advantage of these reservations.

After 20 more years, the government still feels that this solution hasn't worked. So they are now contemplating increasing these reservations in private companies and private educational institutes.

Successive governments have only been reinforcing reservations as a solution for this problem, even though it is a proven failure.

So, why is this government doing the same mistake again?

It is pretty clear that this is being done more as a populist measure to gain support of the backward castes, than for the larger good. What the government seems to be doing is reserving some votes for themselves in the next election.

Even if the law doesn't pass, they have the sympathy of the lower castes in backward areas.

The best way to tackle this problem is probably to increase scholarships for backward castes. There are so many scholars in our country who could suggest so many better ways to tackle this problem, but our politicians would agree only if these solutions would result in reserving some votes for them!!

Schumi's formula

2006-05-08T09:14:00.000-05:00

I started following F1 sometime in 2000. Since then I have seen Michael Schumacher and ferrari win race after race with the same formula. They wait for their closest rival make the PIT stop, then something happens to Michael, he sets the track on fire with some blistering laps which are generally the fastest of the race. Michael then Pits and the ferrari mechanics almost always do their work a couple of seconds faster than their rivals and Michael comes out ahead and takes the win. Amazing!

These Traffic Cops ...

2006-05-05T08:02:00.000-05:00

Just read a story about a traffic cop in Bangalore breaking the rules and getting caught by a common man. Very interesting indeed.

But what this story is doing to the blogosphere is amazing. Already hundreds have left comments on this blog. I am sure thousands have read this story one way or another. And this is going to spread like wild fire. (Atleast I hope so)

Interesting points come up in my mind while reading this story and the comments later.

Almost all of the comments agree that what the cop did was wrong. Even though some of us jump traffic lights ourselves, we agree that a better discipline would be good. So I can assume that even the Cop himself knows he is wrong. He could not accept it in front of Swaroop for obvious reasons. So there’s always a hope that the situation will improve. But for that we need a society who WANTS change. All these politicians and Cops are after all a part of the society and also elected by us.

The system is too slow to adapt to the huge changes happening in information sharing these days with blogs and emails. I am sure when this cop starts getting phone calls he won't have a clue how so many people already know about this. I think we should take advantage of this fact

What we all can do is give this incident as much publicity as we can through whatever means and create a social pressure on the administrators to do something about such incidents.

I am sure that some person in the system above the level this concerned cop is going to know about this incident one way or another. Will he do anything about it? May be not. But he will definitely talk about this to his colleagues and maybe also to that cop.

A whole lot of other people – administrators and politicians will also know about this. When they know that people are starting to react to their behaviour, they will think twice before doing such things.

This change is going to happen. How fast this will happen depends on “YOU”. (I mean us).

Violence for what?

2006-04-12T14:50:00.000-05:00

"Urgent! Rajkumar's demise" was the subject of the first email when I opened my Inbox today morning. A long forwarded chain, where one of the lines said "There are reports of violence on Bangalore streets." I thought he was murdered or something, but then i read - He had an heart attack. Doctors tried their best, but could not save him.

People in IT companies were sent home early. A Holiday was delacred the next day citing dangerous conditions even before the government declared mourning!!

Can anyone explain? I had a tough time explaining this to our Client. Why would there be violence if a celebrety passes away naturally? All sorts of questions came up - Was he killed? Was there a conspiracy? Was the hospital which treated him inefficient? and likewise.

Sadly, we need no reason to come out on streets and destroy public property. First Faridabad, then Guwahati and now Bangalore... and many more such occassions before. Some people just seem to be waiting for the slightest opportunity to create trouble.

Indian Cricket: Gone are those days

2006-04-09T10:35:00.000-05:00

1. When India used to falter chasing a less than decent total.
2. When we had only 1 batsman to regularly dominate opposition bowlers.
3. When India used to play the opponent going down or Up to their level and have nail biting finishes even against zimbabwe and bangladesh.
4. When fast bowlers were only used to roughen up the ball just enough for the spinners to grip it.
5. When 10 out of 11 players were certain of their place in the team at any given time.
6. When someone with long hair was considered to be irresponsible.
7. When fast bowlers were called so just because they opened the bowling. They were infact no more than medium pacers.
8. When India used to lose atleast 1 match after winning 2 so as not to dishearten the visiting teams.
9. When batsman defended very hard to compensate for an explosive start to the innings so as to give the opposing team a gettable target.
10. And last but not the least, the BCCI would not give television telecast rights to companies before penultimate day.

I am sure there are many more changes. Feel free to comment and I will add those here.

Hiatus

2006-04-09T10:32:00.000-05:00

Its been a long hiatus in blogging for the past 1 month due to various reasons ... esp. work, laziness and an overall dull atmosphere here. But I hope to get back on track soon..

Widgets - Light, beautiful and powerful

2006-03-10T15:36:00.000-05:00

Recently I came across something called as "Widgets". These are really nice little apps which run on your desktop without interfering with your work. Yet you can use these to track your mails, calendar, notes, weather, to-do list and lots more.

Here are some screenshots of widgets from Yahoo..

Google and Yahoo both have their own Widget engines. I personally liked Yahoo's (which was earlier called Konfabulator, now acquired by yahoo) more. Google's widgets are also great but more suitable to use on your Web pages instead of desktops.

These apps need a very little memory, they look slick and are very useful.

Templates ..

2006-03-06T15:19:00.000-05:00

We have all heard about software templates? But here I see the concept being used everywhere. Be it the grocery stores or food chains like Mac Donald's, Taco Bells and Pizza Hut's or even the downtown's.

First time I got this feeling was when travelling to Niagara Falls a few months ago. We were travelling by a tour bus and it was a pretty long journey (10 hours). The bus would stop at "Service Areas" quite frequently (An area off the highway having food courts, rest rooms, travel information, gas stations, etc). I couldn't help but notice that all these service areas were exactly the same to look. They all had the same design. After a while one could blindly go in and know where the restrooms were.

How boring and effective at the same time :)

Deja vu..

2006-03-05T06:32:00.000-05:00

Watching Sachin Bat in the second innings of the first test against england reminds me of the sachin in his hey days. He used to terrorize bowlers all around then. He certainly is not as good now. But the man's cricketing intellect is still at his best. The way he is demoralizing Flintoff and co is fun to watch. I don't think he can pull off a win for India, and he also knows that. But by coming out to bat the way he has, playing cheeky and powerful shots alternatingly, he has kept england guessing. India at this stage need 9 runs per over. The last 2 overs just yeilded 25 runs. Even as I write this, Dhoni has just been dismissed. This probably means end of the fun as Sachin would also take it easy now, but he certainly has made a point here. He is surely coming back to his best. Amen!

White Beauty

2006-02-27T09:07:00.000-05:00

Some snaps from the snow storm last week!

The Emergence of Pune

2006-02-12T13:50:00.000-05:00

After a noteworthy last year in terms of image build up, Pune is still making news. More and more people are recognizing the city as a favourable business destination. The lastest from Forbes categorizes Pune in the "Emerging Global Cities" category.

Its a real heartning sign. And a lot of credit needs to go to this government. Atleast in terms of making the right noises. Remember Vilasrao calling up Murthy immediately after the Gowda episode and making it known to the whole world. That was a masterstroke. Even though Infosys did not promise anything, the move by CM sent the right signals to the industry. The local administration also did their bit in the past few months. Various schemes like public private partnerships (with tax sops for the companies) for constructing roads, use of captive power for general public, etc have been announced further increasing the attractiveness for businesses.

The city had a head start in the early 90's in terms of IT businesses and talent. Pune had a lot of things going in its favour. Infosys was started in Pune. Patni and TCS were always here. But the governments then did not take any initiatives. They just waited for things to happen. The script was lost somewhere during the late 90's, mostly during the SS - BJP rule. A lot of companies shyed away from Pune and Maharashtra during this period.

The basics are all in place. The city has abundant talent, great climate, beautiful outskirts, strong industry and proximity to the financial capital of the country. Its also the city where the world's happiest Indians live.

Now only a decent infrastructure needs to be built. Pune is getting all the attention it needs now. from the state and the central government. This is the make or break time. I hope the government lives up to the expectations.

The 3 biggies

2006-01-29T11:06:00.000-05:00

Of Indian IT industry are on a roll currently. This story compares their journey till now. It would be very interesting indeed to see who will make that leap into the next league of IBM, Accenture, EDS. And being a part of this competition enthuses me. I can definitely say that Infosys is not leaving any stone unturned and is trying its best. It has got the best senior management of all these companies and also a fantastic work culture. I don't agree with the author of the story when he says Infosys promoises 400 and gives only 100. Rather for such a huge organisation, Infosys is very transparant in all its dealings. That for me is the best thing about the company.

Salute the Flag

2006-01-26T16:08:00.000-05:00

Happy Republic Day

On this day I remember something from the 2004 independence day when I was at bangalore. Our company was not having a flag hoisting ceremony. Because I didn't have anywhere to go for the republic day flag hoisting ceremony (I really like the feel of the moment ) I went to a ceremony organized by the "Maharashtra Mandal" in Bangalore. Some of my college friends were coming there as there was an alumni meet scheduled at the same place later and it was also a good opportunity to meet everyone.

The tricolour was hoisted, a few patriotic songs were sung and a few speeches delivered. It was like any other flag hoisiting ceremony. But there was one speech that etched my heart. It wasn't a speech in the real sense. A guy came forward and wanted to tell everyone what he thought while he was driving down that morning. What he said was something like this

When I was coming to the venue today morning, I saw some small kids on the streets waving the small tricolours and smiling. I saw a few more with the riding their bicycles proudly with the flag fluttering on their handles. And I thought to myself, I also did the same when I was a kid. But now I do not buy that small flag and stick it to my car or my bike? Nor do I see many of my generation doing so? Now we don't want to spend even that much of money. Why this change? Do you feel less patriotic for your country when you grow up?

We have a lot more things to worry when we grow up; earn money, pass exams, etc. Hence we utilize whatever day off we get to party hard and sleep long. But we have only 2 days in a year when we celebrate our Independence and our democracy. Can we not atleast make the time to salute the flag (maybe, only in our hearts) ?

Ha Ha Ha Ha!

2006-01-26T16:02:00.000-05:00

Gaurav points to the best blond joke ever!

Watch out when you say "Hi"

2006-01-25T05:58:00.000-05:00

This is a continuation from my previous post where I had written how Indians are not used to saying "Hi" to unknown people and how eventually they get used to it in this country.

But have you ever noticed that Indians who have stayed here for years or settled here behave strangely. They do not greet "desi" people around, but do greet non desis. I always wondered why they behaved like this. After all whats wrong in it. Smiling and greeting people is good.

Well, what happened recently with me might have an answer to this.

Ok..So we (I and my wife) meet this couple in one of the malls here. My wife says "Hi" while passing by and these guys start talking. So after the initial Hi, How r u, Where in India r u from? .. Ok ... yeah I have been to Pune ... nice city and all that stuff....our discussion comes to "What do you do here" mode. My wife says I am looking for Jobs and I tell him about mine. So we also ask them the same question and they just say they do "freelance". Whatever that is supposed to mean. After repeated attempts I was unsuccessful in getting anything out from them about what they do here for a living or even what field they are in. But fine...doesn't matter to me ... as if we were going to meet again!

But ... after a while we exchange phone numbers on their insistance(biggest mistake!!). The guy "Arun" says he would just like to meet us the next time they are around in our area. I didn't really think too much of it as I thought it is a rare possibility.

After a couple of days. this lady calls my wife and leaves a voice message, "Hi, I am Monica. We met the other day in mall. We are coming to your area in the next couple of days. So thought of meeting you guys. So let me know when is it suitable for you and Lets Take it from there". This is where I thought something is really fishy. Because I couldn't decipher what she wants to take it from where !! We decided not to call back. But then the next day a phone rings and the cell phone display shows "Private Number" and we have to answer. Again this lady .... so what happened .. lets meet stuff. We ask her whats she up to and is there something she wants to talk about. But she says she just wants to meet casually to make friends. And asks us the time. I somehow manage to ward off the meeting for a week, kind of hoping that they would get the message that we do not want to meet.

But as shameless as these people are, they kept calling and we kept saying, "No, we are busy". This happened almost 2 months ago. Finally I told this guy, that i am so busy that I can't think of meeting him and just give me a break. he took it literally and asked me when in future i would be free to meet him. I told him not until next year. (This happened in November). Come January and this guy calls again!!!! Bizarre .. He still didn't get the message or didn't want to.

Now again he wants to meet. His wife is again keeping voice messages like "Lets take it from there". And they are always calling from different numbers or "Private numbers".

Now my guess is as good as yours. These are Multu Level Marketing kind of guys. And I have had a tough time evading them. After this incident I have spoken to a lot of desis here and most of them have had such an experience, although not as bad.

I wonder if this is the reason why desis here do not want to say "Hi" to desis. And expectedly even I have become wary of exchanging a smile with someone at public places, especially desis.

Any ideas on how to get rid of these guys?

Hi ... How are ya?

2006-01-19T23:30:00.000-05:00

I said when I passed by this new face i saw in my office corridor the other day. And I got a faintly surprised look and then a broken greeting "Oh ..... hi ....." and the voice faded away as I continued on my way. I turned around briefly after a few seconds to find the guy lingering around a bit and then proceeding. Not for too long, but this happened in seconds. And I smiled in my mind. Cos I remember myself in the same position exactly an year ago when I first came into this country. We Indians are so not used to this. We don't even look at people passing by . And when you suddenly get a greeting from a completely unknown person, you don't know how to react. And there is so little time to say anything. In those couple of seconds when you pass each other, you have to answer that person and then ask him if he / she is also doing good :) Its difficult if you are not prepared for it and It can be embarrassing at times. I still remember from the starting days, a guy who would always ask, "Hey ... whats up buddy?" and even before I could start answering "whats up" he was gone ... always. I would wonder if he really wanted to know.

With time everyone learns how to handle this in their own way. Some people just smile say "Good, Thanks" and move on. Some ask back "How are you doing?" or "Fine, Thanks, Yourself?". And it just becomes a habbit. So you greet anyone who makes eye contact with a smile and a greeting like "Hi How are you doing?".

So Hey! If you are just passing by my blog, "How are you doing?" :)

Foot Work ..

2006-01-13T17:28:00.000-05:00

Scott Styris is avoiding it for more success in his batting. Does it really matter anyways? No, not Styris' batting, but footwork in modern day cricket. Styris decided to cut down on his footwork to allow him to be more balanced when striking the ball and it gave him instant success.

But for how long Scott?

Well, having good balance while hitting the ball is obviously good, no one will disagree, but isn't that what footwork is meant to provide? Balance while playing your shots? I mean footwork is not just about reaching to the pitch of the ball, otherwise no one would have played on the back foot. I think good footwork itself enables one to have a greater balance while playing shots.

Some might disagree sighting the most recent example of Sehwag. Now I am not going to say that Sehwag achieves that balance because of his good footwork, but he does it inspite of it only because he has exemplary hand-eye coordination. Ganguly had a divine touch in his early days owing to this very attribute.

Someone like Sehwag won't need footwork when he is young. But it will start to matter once that hand eye coordination starts to fade with age, like I am afraid has happened with Ganguly. Its more difficult for these type of batsmen to come out of a loss of form, which is inevitable over a period of time.

A Dravid or Tendulkar can work their way into form using their footwork like Sachin did in sydney to come out of a longish loss of form. Sachin could cope with his loss of hand eye coordination with aging only because he has a decent foorwork. Infact he is still coming to terms with it, but he certainly has the technique to cope with it.

I fear when ever Sehwag loses this touch with age, his career is going to go only downwards from that point on, much like Ganguly's. Sehwag still has a better all round batting capabilities, so probably he would have achieved more than what Ganguly has (atleast in Test Cricket), but it is improbable that he reaches the tier of a Tendulkar or Dravid.

Contrary to what Styris feels, most successful batsmen in world cricket have had decent footwork. If you look at the top three or four batsmen in this era - Sachin, Lara, Ponting and Dravid no one will disagree that they have good footwork and they do achieve good balance with it.

Gavaskar and Boycott will definitely agree :)

Video chat with google talk ..

2006-01-13T01:24:00.000-05:00

The wait is over.

Although not a google enhancement, this third party software does a good job. The video quality is as good or bad as yahoo, but the feature of screen sharing is its real highlight. Coupled with the voice quality of skype/gtalk, this could come in real handy for presenting data or pictures to a group of people at once. Nice!

Pack it up now!

2006-01-12T15:12:00.000-05:00

Google has done it again. They are raising the bar consistently. They are now distributing a lot of free software in this pack. You can access it right from the google home page. The pack includes Norton Antivirus with 6-month subscription to protection updates and an Antispyware utility (a must for regular surfers) apart from all the usual google softwares (picasa, desktop search, google earth, etc). Go get it!

Why am I blogging?

2006-01-12T01:34:00.000-05:00

Because I am impressed with this medium to express yourself. It's a great way to share your thoughts about anything, absolutely anything. Well, thats the main reason. I always knew it, but somehow couldn't kickstart the blog.

In the past few months I have been a regular reader of many blogs . There were so many instances in the past when I really wanted to start blogging; once when a good friend Gaurav took on a bogus B-school and bloggers all around the world came to his support, once when Sourav Ganguly decided to share dressing room conversations with the media, once when I saw snowfall for the first time. All these times I readily had somehting to write. But somehow I felt I should start when I didn't have a particular topic. This blog will not be about a particular topic. I wish to write about everything from politics to science and sports to economics and in the process hope to gain a lot more knowledge and have lot more fun.

I am really not sure how much far I will be able to take this, but I am going to try. No, this is not my new years resolution, that status goes to "Losing Weight" :-P. The distance is nothing; it is only the first step that costs.