Happy New Year

-- Shibu

ADVANCED WISHES

Govt. Departments?

Two different departments & two different treatments and they both are part of the Indian government.

With my friend's advice, I had registered for my new landline & broadband connection at BSNL. Ten days went by and didn't really find any response. Hence, made a walk into a BSNL office near my house and happened to meet the manager at the office. From that point onwards, the office manager himself took so much interest in making sure we get both the connections. The same was treated with very high priority. The heights of it is, the manager called me at 9.45PM on the day I got the net connection, just out of his concern and made sure that as a customer I'm satisfied with the service. I really wonder, if I can get such a treatment from any other Governmental organization. :)

Here is another department representing the domestic LPG Gas Cylinder service, where I'm really trying to transfer the name and location for past 4 months. And still, there is only one answer - The person who had the authority to do so in the department had passed away & still, no one has taken over the same!! :(

Headlines...

Quite some interesting headlines in the newspaper last 2 days...

• Dead body found in the luggage hold in an Air India flight and that made a scare in the Britain Airport. Just not sure, why such things always end up happening in Air India:)?
  
• Lalu, the new Management Guru for Harvard & Wharton students! From the time I have been in India, people have always been talking about the Indian Railway Sector turn around which Lalu has made in like 30 months time and that too with no layoffs. I really wish, he had done something very similar in Bihar too.

  "Bihar is too difficult. It has no potential. Per capita income is low, there are constant floods. But the Railways is like an empire. It has huge potential,"

Hutch.. Hot or Not?

From the day I started looking into options of taking a cell connection at India AirTel, Reliance, BSNL and Hutch have had been the major players. But past four days have changed my opinion on Hutch infact.

Like, when I heard from one of my friends that Reliance have made an offer for Hutch, I just couldn't believe my ears. So, as I was trying to get this fact into my mind, the next day I saw the news of Vodafone thinking about Hutch. Hmmm... And wait for a day more and now Essar group have made an official offer to buy the remaining 67% of the stake in Hutchison!

Haven't really gone into the details. Well, Hutch is too hot in the Indian cellular communications business market now, but from a customer perspective...

'e'ducators!

There are so many graduates especially girls & ladies who tend to sit at house after marriage and engage themselves within the word called 'House Wife'.

The studies, the efforts & the pain they have undergone all in their earlier years can be made worth and it is being made possible by some websites now-a-days. Like, TutorVista is one. It is bringing teachers from India closer to students in USA via web technology. Great stuffs, indeed! To term it in another way - Tutions outsourced to India, but it is reaching a bit more to the house wives:)

Well, 2 things to note though - The teachers have to be awake at odd times like early in the morning in India inorder to manage the time zone differences.

And the other one is, I remember the tutors when I was in Masters at OSU were being paid like USD10 per hour and a tutor is allowed to work for 20 hours per week. That means, a tutor in US should be able to make more than say USD 800 per month, which is around Rs. 36,000/- - May be the Indian house wives should be getting say Rs.8000/- per month. Real cost cutting, real cheap labours & real outsourcing:)

Likewise, I have heard real good reviews about EduComp too! May be, I'll get to see the demo of it soon...

'Wiki' What?

So, the new word is out in the market. Wikiasari - yet another competitor for Google & other web search giants but with some difference from the makers of Wikipedia.

The difference is, there will be Human Intervention in the algorithm based searches. Humans can sure help in making better decisions rather than completely depending on machines, just like the logic Will Smith gives in 'I, Robot'! But... What we are looking at, is a stupendous job of finding the relevance from millions of pages. So, can human really make a difference in such areas?

Meanwhile, on a side note is - The funders are Amazon.com. Why? What happened to A9.com? Anyways, let's wait 'n watch what Jimmy Wales is upto.

Invite - Orkut Way:)

Getting More Innovative:)

Thanks To SM

Simple 'X'lication

Xmas Gift

Thanks To SM

Auto Gambling?

When the trio deal between GM, Nissan & Renault didn't happen, it was all over for Kerkorian. His words were no more a pressure tactic on GM's CEO Wagoner. Now, he is more like a gambler, a person who owns Casinos who atlast made a decision to sell all of his stake in GM. One headache gone for Wagoner, now its high time for him to make some turn arounds with the greatest backing from the board of directors.

Well, its in fact high time to act because Japanese auto makers are not showing any slow down in US market - Toyota just tipped Ford from No.2 spot.

Bruins Ruins...

Haha... Wooohhh...
Trojans are out from the run for the National Championship game... I never expected that UCLA Bruins could go ahead & beat their cross town rivals USC. Whenever I used to stay in Sou Cal, the whole crowd around me used to cheer for USC & it always used to be easy win for USC... Well, not this time. The run for national champs against the Big 'O' is still a big question!!!!

And so, most probably it's yet again a game of the rivals:) Wolverines & Bucks. What a great game it would be for the Columbus-Ann Arbor fans!

Players Play...

Just wondering why to blame Chappell alone when the experienced Indian cricketers are also supposed to be playing the game? Why a single person has to be blamed, for the major debacles of the Indian cricket team against the South Africans?

Cricket is not a game like NFLs or NBAs where each and every move by the players is pre-determined by a coach. At the same time, should Greg Chappell take moral responsibility and step down?

Well, he sure has enough guts to make statements on Indian MPs:)

Time to Find Time...

It's high time for me to find some time to give myself some more time:)

I just wish I can blog more...

Shuffle

An email at my inbox. That is yet another gadget from Apple called iPod Shuffle. If I compare mine with that, mine is too bulky:)

I should really appreciate Apple's strategy. The right time to introduce this product into the market for the upcoming holiday season, the same 1GB, the same shuffle features, the smallness and the price tag - USD79/-. Check it out.

The Comment

A comment really worth an uproar & ofcourse, there are lots of hidden truth in it...

You know education, if you make the most of it, and you study hard, and you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq. -- John Kerry

Champs Trophy...

Two gooooood games!! Pakistan beating Sri Lanka... And W.Indies beating Australia after their humiliating defeat against Sri Lanka in the qualifiers.

With all controversies & the latest being the drug one, with poor bowling line up, Pakistan still managed to win...

Some good batting performances from Morton & Gilchrist. A full 100 over match. The doubts on low scoring Mumbai pitch washed away and goes along with it, the talks of switching the finals from Mumbai... And the first hat-trick for W.Indies... ICC Champions Trophy matches are interesting.

The next match for England & Australia should also be equally good thinking about the up coming Ashes.

Line Drawn...

Advanced Diwali Ramzan Wishes... Thanks To Appalla

Sun @ Google...

I know that heading makes things a bit more interesting & increases curiosity... Anyways, this is nothing to do with Sun Microsystems.

It's all about the new project in Googleplex about installations of some solar panels for energy generation & hence, helping Google with some electric power! This sure is an interesting development because it seems, the project will be capable of generating power for like 1000 homes.

Hmmm... Wouldn't that be sufficient to meet Google's needs? Well, not really. It seems, that is gonna be sufficient only for half of Google's needs!!! Whatever it is, this sure will help them conserve some energy & save some cost, down the line in future. And ofcourse, they'll get some financial incentives too from government.

Madai Thirandu

Thanks To Sathya

G Spreads...

Ahhh... From the time Writely got integrated with Google's spreadsheets, the Google's product performance has depreciated a lot. Not sure why!

• Especially, only half of the sheet actually gets displayed or rather loaded in Firefox if we move on to other tabs or windows when the spreadsheet is actually loading!
• Sometimes, the sheet says only 50% uploaded and it never completes uploading.
• Very often the sheet loses connection to the server and automatically goes for 'Switch to Read only mode'!
• The sharing options has become more distractive rather than a great feature....