Sync two folders in Windows using SyncToy

I had a need to update my movie and songs list today and was looking for a tool that would ensure the song lists updated in my external drive and my laptop hard disk. Found this simple Microsoft tool SyncToy. You can choose two independent folders ( left and right folder ) to keep your data in sync between folders.The best options that comes with this tool

• Two way syncing also Echoing a particular folder / Subfolder. 

• Very simple and intuitive UI. 

• Also you can create many pairs of folders and you can run the pairs whenever you need to / schedule the synch.

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Mobile blogging

This blog was started in 2006 and this would be my first post from mobile apps. Yes I now blog either from my iPod touch or the HTC Mozart windows phone 7. This is too cool for micro blogging I must say. Amazing growth of technology. Though this is existing for a long time I could afford this only now. More posts to come from my app soon :)

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The year that was : 2010

As I reflect about the last one year - 2010, the amount of changes that has happened were not just a few. So wanted to list some of the great things that had happened in this year for which I must thank many people who helped pass through this journey.

The year 2010, started with the final term of my post graduate program in XLRI but a great term in terms of learning important things for my life. Got some of the great friends in this place and getting a gold medal made the last term very eventful though there was a heartbreak in my previous term. My mother had her day in my convocation, it was one of her long waited sight which I keep hearing from my school days - Finally she was happy that at least once I could get her the sight of getting a medal.  Left XL with a good number of friends who had helped me pass out this place successfully and also a few I was not interested to meet ever in my life. But saying that I do not have any grudges against any of them all forgotten now, all helped me in my learning.

Joined Microsoft in March, started the journey of work for second time. Great team at my work made the remaining part of the year very memorable. I finally shifted my home from Coimbatore this year. Yes, after 44 years of living in Coimbatore, my mother had to shift with me to Hyderabad. This was one big change she herself never expected.

After about 4 months of working in Hyderabad in couple of roles, got an opportunity to work in Redmond for 3 months. End of July, I flew to Seattle. Made new friends in this place and first time ever in my life I started running. All thanks to my coach and my super boss, Matt who coached me in swimming and inspired me with his Iron Man participation. I started swimming regularly and knocked of a minute from my timing log for a 100 yard swimming. Cycling a 100 mile, completing two 5Ks and swimming a 2.5K were some things I would consider as sincere efforts in my training when I was in Seattle. Also learnt a bit of cooking during this time and tried some different cuisines like Lebanese, Ethiopian, Mexican, Thai... Left Seattle gaining a good fitness and determination to run more when I get back to India.

After coming back to India, traveled further for some recruitment trips. This year I had visited all metros in India. Took a vacation with my Mom and visited Taj. The beautiful sight of Taj Mahal is still in my eyes, early morning run at Agra around Taj and entered the place at 6.00 AM. I would rate the sight of Taj early morning as one of the best time to see it. Went around Agra, Mathura and Shikri with Mom. And by the way during this I have also added another few sites to my journey to complete visiting the 28 UNESCO heritage sites in India. I have so far visited 12 of the 28 sites, and in 2011 I hope to add a few more to this.

Learnt some new things in this year - finally I can drive a car now and got my driving licence. I can read Telugu slowly like a first standard kid, I am at this stage only now. I completed my first half marathon in Bangalore with my best friend. Though both of us struggled, since we were running a half marathon in midnight after a long day walking around the city.  The year closed in Mumbai, with my XL friends.

I hope this new year, 2011 would also be a very eventful journey. Lots to learn new and I continue to change for the good..Happy and Prosperous New Year 2011 for all.

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Biking and Running and time for Self - reflection

During my three month stay in Seattle, I really had improved in swimming. All thanks to Matt, my HR Director who trained me to improve my breathing in water. I almost had a 3 month continuous practice of swimming in one of the best indoor pools I have seen so far. It was called the Pro sports club which had 3 indoor heated 25 yards pools. I was tracking my time taken for doing a 100 yard lap, which I started with a 2.45 minutes when I reached Seattle in August. Before leaving to India I could take a minute off from the timing. I could do the 100 yards in 1.45 minutes. That was the improvement I could see in the 3 months of training and retraining. But what I also improved was my stamina, I could do a 3KM of swimming. Which I could never ever done before my regular training.

The best thing which I enjoyed during my swimming trainings was the amount of time I get everyday to reflect upon my various activities at work and other than work. I felt it was a time for myself to prepare, plan and pursue on my personal development plan. Later I started to increase my mileage by lot of biking and running at Seattle. These two are something which I am doing very dedicatedly even after coming India.

In the past till I was in my engineering I had very little or no time for reflection. But later I found the best things happened in life were because of the time I spent consciously on reflecting upon my actions and thoughts periodically. This could be a weekly or monthly. But the time spent on self-reflection or you can call it as introspection is an investment for your personal improvement. It has brought in lot of change in me and it would be the same for anyone who can put in the time periodically in reflection. This is one of the reason I do not want to miss out my Triathlon practice everyday – either running, swimming or biking.

Anyway I would be running the Bangalore Midnight Marathon on 11th Dec @ 0000hrs. This would be my first half marathon, you can cheer me up by sending your wishes as comments or email. Which would motivate me to practice regularly in the last few weeks and complete the half marathon next month.

More updates about my Half marathon and especially my long biking expeditions recently coming soon Now I need to catch up some work.

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Another Knock in the Top Management of Microsoft

Another big head in the company is going to leave, came the announcement today. The Chief Software Architect position is something which I valued so much for the people like Nathan Myhrvold and Bill Gates occupied it. Ray Ozzie , who had been an Independent Software Vendor for a long time with Microsoft, came into the company when Groove Corp. was acquired. The Groove is one tool I absolutely love it for the ease of collaborating with team and share documents seamlessly.  BTW Groove is now part of MS Office suite if you are not aware of it. It is called Microsoft Groove in Office 2007 and as Microsoft SharePoint Workspace in Office 2010.

So Today the news came Ray Ozzie is going to leave the Company. This is just not the one thing in the company this year. Here goes the bleeding list of Top guys who has left the company now – Robert Bach, President of Entertainment & Devices(House of Xbox, Zune etc.) who would be leaving soon, Steven Elop, President of Microsoft Business Division (House of Office Suite), James Allard, Chief Experience Officer of Entertainment & Devices Division, Rebecca Norlander, Partner Engineering Manager for AdCenter platform( James Allard’s better half), The list is not complete if I miss some of the technical fellows and distinguished engineers who are the pillars of the company, but left Microsoft for good. Gary Flake, Brad Lovering are some of the TFs who are leaving the company.

As Mini-Microsoft, this is like seriously a Boom-Boom-Boom time for the company to prove that we are still going strong and back on growth. Kevin Turner said the company is back on growth with strong growth in revenues because of Windows 7. I hope Windows Phone 7 and Kinect proves to be successful like Windows 7 to prove the market wrong and against the Goldman Sachs downgrading recently

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Data Backups are must

When I was a Software Developer, this was something sacrosanct – Backup and Recovery.  Especially I used to work in very voluminous backend database for large Telecom and Internet Service Provider. I remember some incidents where we had lost a complete set of data that is essential for us to do the authentication and authorisation of customers who would connect to the system – That is making a call / connecting to the internet. Once the data loss happened, every second counts for us in terms of revenue to the company. Every second it takes to recover the lost data the company would be loosing few thousands of rupees in revenue. This was my first incident I could sense the importance of backup and how much it can impact in business.

But this case is applicable for everybody these days – as everyone store most of your data in PCs/Laptops or Mobile phones. You have multiple storage devices and every damn thing you can imagine is now stored in digital form. So like how we used to insure our properties in life it is essential to have backups for all the data you are having in your PCs or other devices. At least those critical data which you would need – in case of losing that – you would be in a terrible state. Have them in a proper backup schedule.

External Hard Disks / Flash Drives

There are plenty of options for backup these days – The external hard disk rates have fallen so much – every body who can afford a PC would definitely can spend additional thousand rupees to have a external storage device to backup.  Pros : Easy way to maintain  - Lots of software available for free that would help in doing sync every time you connect to the device.  Cons: You must be very disciplined to follow the backup schedule every time so that you don’t have obsolete data in your backup when you lose original data. Also you must take additional care in maintaining the external storage device not to be damaged. ( Who will guard the guards problem – Who will take care of the backup data)

Cloud Storage

In the last 4 years I have used multiple online services for my data backup, which in a way gave the advantage of mobility of my data – access my important data anywhere /  and everywhere whenever needed. Maintaining my important files I would need in any case ( Prioritizing is so important in data maintenance also ) online is better because I don’t need to take care of the storage device – which is maintained dedicatedly by a company.  I used to be amazed with Gmail when they launched the Gigabyte storage in mailbox five years before. So I used to store my important files as mail attachments. All my contacts/ some application details etc. were stored in the form of mail attachments. Again the problem was maintaining versions/ sync up the latest one were not possible. Then I was using the online storage providers who were offering for free like – eSnips, Scribd to store some of my documents and files.

But in the last 2 years the best backup and online storage which I am using which is available for free for many – though people are not aware of it – is the SkyDrive. It is a service by Microsoft ( many Microsoft employees don’t know who’s service is SkyDrive). At present SkyDrive is part of the Windows Live Suite of offerings by Microsoft – which provides 25GB of online storage (25 GB is not a small amount of space you are getting for free).  Biggest advantage is you can just drag and drop files into SkyDrive in browser. That makes it very cool to maintain.

The even more cool feature in the Windows Live suite is the use of Windows Live Mesh Client in your PC. You can configure a maximum of 2GB of documents to be automatically synced to the cloud i.e SkyDrive. So as an when documents are edited/added/deleted in those configured folders files are made sync with the SkyDrive making the SkyDrive an online backup for your important files. This is my latest backup device I am using in the last 2 years and found it very useful and comfortable without any headache. You can give a try – Also for prioritizing files – I maintain those bulky files like photos in online photo-storage not in SkyDrive. You can use any of the photo storage providers like Flickr / Picasa. These things need not be an online sync as mostly you would not be editing the photos every time and you dont need  a continuous syncing.  Also I store my favourites ( Links ) not in my PC rather I store in the cloud – I use del.icio.us, a service acquired by Yahoo. I maintain about 700 favourites tagged in multiple ways and easily searchable. Also it available for public to access it so that they can also use my favourites. For storing it every time I have installed a plug-in for internet explorer. I use the same short cut (Cntl+D) for tagging and it stores the link in my online account instead of browser.

My Picks for Cloud Backups :  Documents/ General Files – SkyDrive, Photos – Flickr/Picasa, Links – Del.icio.us.

So do use any of the backup methods suggested above to save your data without losing it.

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My Mom’s advice and way of living

I am on a business visit to USA. This is my first visit to the west and I have heard a lot about life in US from various people, books, movies etc. All I could say after seeing things here in the last 3 weeks – to have a peaceful life still my Mom’s words remain the same. Irrespective of the place – Live a simple life.

In Subramoney, PV Subramanian has quoted almost most of the things I had followed and felt the real pleasure in doing so – a simple life. You Must definitely read the post.

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Ride to Golconda

Last October I wrote about my cycling trip to Chandil. I recently purchased a new bike – my Shwin Sporterra. So after a long break I went for a long trip to Golconda Fort in Hyderabad. When I started the trip I never had not planned for this trail. But as I started to ride I found a new trail which was simply amazing, It was through the Nehru Ring road (Samshabad Airport Bypass) and via the Scenic India Army Artillery centre. Then came to know that this leads to Golconda.

When I reached the Moti Darwaza in Golconda, I felt great in finding a new trail. The total distance covered was 62 KM up and down and you can find the route map here. The total time taken was about 3 hours. I would recommended this trail for all amateur bike enthusiasts.

Post the ride went for Manirathnam’s Raavan. I read a lot of scathing reviews about the movie. But I enjoyed the beautiful cinematography. Loved every place shown in the movie, wanted to explore such places- reminded me of my trekking experience @ Chalakudy during my Rotaract days and North East trip post XL. AR Rahman was again magical in his tunes. For me this movie was definitely worth watching in the Big screen.

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The Yearbook that never came

In XL we were planning to print an Year Book for our batch. It would contain the profile of every batch mate along with few testimonials from their dear friends. But due to lack of time / some mishap we could not print it. I still hope one day by surprise I would receive the Year Book.

But everyone of us received the testimonials from our friends by mail before it was planned to be published for approval.  Over the last weekend I stumbled on those testimonials which I received from my dear friends in XL. As a memory I thought of publishing those in this blog which I have been using it as my Personal Diary. The below in no particular order are some testimonials written to me, I have added those in this post in the way I read them on last Sunday. (I have also added link to their facebook page as a hyperlink over their names.)

One of my first friends on campus. Obsessive about attending classes and grades, he is also extremely emotional. More Tam than MGR, In XL, has graduated from an ATM to a Brit! Totally a techie, and totally unfit for HR, he somehow managed to combine the best of both worlds and get into MS! Half my grades are because he was there in my project group! Unofficial CR of every class..Will remember the chat sessions outside Bisuda with him and the other idiot! Im sure that he will go on to bag many more gold medals in life. - Reju Mathew.

He has been an inspiration to me. The topper in the batch, this guy has shown me what single minded focus and dedication can achieve. He has attended 849/850 classes in XLRI a feat which is even better than topping the college. A computer geek, I still feel he has chosen the wrong field.  A tamil movie freak, he watches every single tamil movie that releases.  He has been a great companion of mine over the last 2 years. Microsoft is lucky to have picked a person as good as him – Srinath

One of the most systematic and passionate person I have seen on XL campus. I learned from you – about how to follow your dream.  I will miss the devotional music that you used to play each morning.. Inspiration to keep my room clean. I hope you will recruit one day successor for Bill Gates. Very clear in thought process and Thanks a lot for helping me in building my self confidence. I m jealous of your hard work and persistence. Hoping that god will give 50% of that to me. Topper - Gold medalist- I m proud of you !! (I hope you will learn not speak in Tamil in front of people who don’t know Tamil  especially me ) (And special request for you to keep me technologically updated ) – Gaurav Marathe

The star of XLRI, in his own way. Lives life by his own rules. Academics. Attendance. Classes. Elective-choosing algorithms :D. Drive. Passion. Ambition. Modesty. Caring and concerned. Forthright. Responsible. Hard-working. Tendency to FRAX only on things he’s not too keen about. The Tamil face of FLIX. The shy smile. The righteous anger against certain things. Balanced opinions. Trusted TAXI mate. IT Whiz. My technology trouble-shooter and guru. My CV Formatter. Ever willing to help. The long discussions at night. A kind ear when distressed. Kind words when depressed. Rock-solid support. Mentor. Confidante. Counselor. Comfort. The room I go to when I need anything, just anything. - Krishnan S

Mr.Microsoft! An absolutely down-to-earth, simple, no pretentions guy! Macha, one sweet-smile you flash off and some 100 girls wil fall :) From the late night chat up, to the chettinad food to the Malaysia discussions, its been great knowing you! Hope to see you at Hyderabad soon, and have loads of masti! :) – Swapna Kumshi

A work ethic that will put a programmed computer to shame, this guy has one of the most prolific attendance records in the history of XL, 849/850 classes!! One of the most focussed guys I have seen around, this Coimbatore lad has redefined perfection at academics.... Sure to win the top honours this year, he is one guy who swears by technology.... My saviour when it comes to IT issues and a very good friend... I will remember the time we spent holidaying in Malaysia, the late night chit chats and the concept of FREE money.... He is sure to take himself to greater heights. – Tushar Walwadikar

First met him in the train while coming to XL, he struck me as a music lover (with iPod being his constant companion) and  one prefers to be silent. Was right on the first but never thought Hari would turn out to be the colossus of the character that became in XL. An out rightly brilliant guy, extremely hardworking, his determination to overcome the odds is inhuman. A rare Rank 1 who is happy to help even his core competitors and fellow students with acads, he has struck his mark in most fields in XL- Flix, website, sigma,acads etc. Personally, our friendship is an enigma in the sense, he is one guy whom I have rarely withold my frank opinion from, yet I have also lost count of the no of times we have fought; yet the bond has always been good enough to weather the storm. He has helped me personally on innumerable times and made my stay here bearable in tough times. The 'Looti' that we have done with TAXI gang over 2 years seems too good to have happened today. Thank You, Machan for the memories and hope the same continues in future too. "#$*&% NADUNGUDU'..haaa haa an unforgettable quote of urs – Ramasswamy

The only guy in my class to whom I can lose my Rank 1 and still be happy. Macchi I was never able to bring myself to compete with a gem like u. The only thing which I can say about you is you are the guy whom a mother wants to be her son, whom a woman wants to be her husband, whom a sister wants to be her brother. Macchi I enjoyed the time we Big Three spent together. Hope that we will stay that way. –Lenin Mandalapu

Dei Macha to be frank I am not getting any words to pen our two years interaction at XL. How can I put in words the warmth, the care and the confidence you have given me during the times of need ? How can I explain the generosity with which you lend your helping hand at various points of time ?
Hari is a person who sets example for others ! A deadly combination of determination, hardwork, intelligence, courage and most impoortantlyhis way of mixing with all kinds of people. - Krishna Chaitanya P

Vision: Microsoft Mission: Microsoft Keywords: Microsoft PPO. Socrates, CRISP, 'Anything remotely related to computers', Tamil, movies, Gold Medallist, Travel Major Achievement: Attended 849/850 classes at XL. Hari is the 'stud' of the PMIR Batch, the most sincere student here. A tech geek, he is the one stop solution for PPTs and laptop repairs (a tag which he hates). A great advisor, he is one who I approach for advice. A perfectionist, if he decides to work on something, he gives his 100% (Rem: The kakani assignments). In short, he will go places. - Vineeth Ravichandran

One of the few people I have sought to emulate, Hari is one of the most adorable friends I have. A combination of smarts, hardwork and perseverance, he is also the one stop shop for the neatest and the most comprehensive notes in class. His technical expertise, his humility, his warmth and his personable nature are traits he is known for. A patron of all things Google and Tamil, he has been promoting the subject of economics for a while now. Famous as the guy who missed just one class in the entire two years, one can only admire his love for lectures and exams.  Hari exhibits a quiet resilience and confidence, a quality for which I admire him most of all. - Veena Narasimhan

I initially felt that Hari is your stereotypical tam, really awesome in studies and very simple in his tastes. I was wrong; he is one mean poser, his pictures bear testimony to that, he is one big stud boy, his clothing sense will prove that summarily and he has a sleek style for attracting the fairer gender, refer to the million walks he takes every day in and around the golden jubilee park. He is very hardworking (that’s a given) but he is the biggest FRAXER on campus too (testimony from everyone who has worked with him in a team). I could relate to him incessantly, thanks to his religious habits and his simplicity (which of course is a veil to his party animal interior). I expect him to do nice in life and wish him all the best for the same. cheers – Siddharth Chatterjee

Everyone should once have a look at his “before & after” picture to understand how determined a person he is :) He is a very simple, funny, down to earth guy who is really easy to get along with! A person who does both sit through & audit courses I really have no choice left but to call him a ghissu! But this also shows his insatiable thirst for knowledge & also not shying away vasooling paisa ;) Overall a very smart guy who will definitely make is big one day! - Priya Geddi

Topper of the batch,Mulitalented, versatile and  sunny – Hari is quite the catch. His intelligence and dedication are legendary, With his expertise, Microsoft is sure to rejoice and make merry! On technology and computers, He is all knowing, He helps one and all and during holidays,  his beard he likes growing!! - Garima Bawa

Last But not least my dearest room mate could not write his testimonial for me : But wrote a Long mail to me. That I would always cherish though it was not an intended testimonial only for me.  “The saddest part about a failure is that the person realises only later that he was just one step away from success when he gave up... if you have to refuse anything in life, refuse to give up..It is to you all that i owe the smiles that i had in xl, to you that i owe the pain that i will have when i would miss you after xl (till the time we meet) and to be frank, it is to YOU all that i owe my 'MBA' “ – Hrishikesh Kashyap

I must thank my dear friends a lot for your testimonial.  It really mean a lot to me for spending some time to write down few words for me. I enjoyed the 2 years at XL with every one of you. Thanks a lot for all your help and support.

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Search Rankings

I just went through ComScore May 2010 Search Rankings. Google remains in the top,but there is 0.7% dip in the marker share. Yahoo & Bing are with 29.5% market share. I am combining both data because of their Yahoo-Microsoft Alliance.

These percentage changes may look very small seeing the first time. But it matters a lot, because the total core search activity for one month in Total U.S is about 15935million searches. Now you can do the Math.

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Operating System Market Share

Off late I am tracking the market share of various operating systems. I used to read many user reviews, research data to keep updated. Today I found an interesting way to find out the operating system market share from the data which I have been accumulating. I use Google analytics to analyse the site statistics for this website. Google analytics captures the operating system and browser capabilities. That gives the visitor operating system capabilities. I just picked the last 3 months visitor statistics for my website and that gave a glimpse of market share of OS among the people who use internet the maximum.  The image over the left shows Windows is among the top with about 80%. But the data here shows only the PC users who have access to internet. In countries like India/China there are many PCs without an Internet connection and logically they would not be having a Mac/Linux but Windows (Highly likely a pirated version). Another interesting piece was there was couple of visitors from mobile devices to my website – from an Android/ iPhone/iPad. This shows people of now search more from mobile devices. Let us see how the Chrome OS skews this data set in future.

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Please do vote to Help Students Solve the World’s Toughest Problems

Do you think a social media application can help stop the spread of malaria? Could a mobile alert system help warn citizens of a looming natural disaster?  Can a mobile phone be used to detect vascular diseases like sickle cell anemia and type 1 diabetes?

These are just a few of the projects designed by students competing in the Imagine Cup, a global technology competition focused on improving education, healthcare and the environment. These students all have one thing in common; they are going to change the world!

Starting from a field of over 325,000 competitors from all over the world, only 400 have made it to the final stage and will attend the Worldwide Finals in Poland this summer. You can learn more about their projects, watch their videos, and vote to support your favourite team at www.imaginecup.com.  

Open to students around the world, the Imagine Cup is a serious challenge that draws incredible talent, passion and perseverance. The event spans one year, beginning with local, regional and online competitions. The finalists go on to attend the Worldwide Finals held in a different location every year.  The intensity of the work brings students together, and motivates the competitors to rise above challenges and make an impact on the world.

And let’s face it; the world could use a little changing.  We live in difficult times with a ton of problems raining down on people every day.  The real question is who is going to step up and do something about it? We think it’s you. Be sure to tune into www.imaginecup.com on July 8^th to see who emerges as the “People’s Choice” champion.

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New place, bike and Shock

So after a lot of thinking, I have moved out of Coimbatore now. I am settled now in a new place. Very hot compared to my home town. But getting used to it. So first thing I have bought is a bike. I used to travel to my engineering college (GCT) in Coimbatore by a Hercules Thriller. After four years I have bought my own bike – Shwinn Sporterra. It is a 21 gear set bike, just getting used to riding this.

Today I went for enrolling in a nearby swimming pool at Gachibowli Sports Complex. The pool is really awesome, that is what I would say for a 50m pool. But I was in for a rude shock seeing the crowd for enrolling in a swimming pool. The enrolment starts at 7 AM in front of the gate on every 5th of the month. But actually people come and stand in the queue the previous day night about 9.30 pm. There were people with pillows and bed sheets sleeping in the queue to get the 100 odd forms distributed every month.

I have never seen this much of crowd for a swimming pool. You can see that in the picture also. I think people in Hyderabad are more health conscious – if so the statistics should prove that.  I find many people into biking (like me :). There is a Hyderabad cycling club which organises regular cycling events.

I have already seen Lots of Telugu movies, and gulped enough of Biriyani. So far I have i have not travelled much in this place, I  just visited Ramoji Film city. I was travelling to Bangalore and Delhi for my work. Planning to explore the place further in the coming months.

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Convergence – All in One – One for All

When I saw Google/Gmail Buzz today, this time it was not a big surprise for me. I was expecting already some development behind the word “Buzz” was going on. I had tried creating labels in Gmail with the name Buzz earlier and it never allowed me because it was a Gmail Reserve Word. GTalk also never had the Buzz option. The option of buzz in Gmail-  it is another Twitter or Facebook News feed option. Integrating all the things in one is something Gmail started long ago when they introduced chats inside the mail box. They even integrated video and voice chat inside your mailbox. All the recent developments these days is providing all the need in one place – Videos, music, pictures, mail, search, social networking etc all in one. One Application for all these is what every one are trying. I see this as a technological convergence. This is what seen in electronic and computing gadgets where you can get all the things in one gadget. It acts as a mobile communicator, camera, video and audio player etc. The need of customers has also moved to one gadget for all purpose from multiple gadgets for multiple purpose. So the Google/Gmail Buzz can be called as another Gbook/Gwitter right inside your mail box.

A Good move by Google, since Orkut is losing its market share in one of its dominant market – India. Facebook has become the cool thing now in India compared to Orkut and Google very badly need to lock the customers completely switch to Facebook. The idea of locking its email users in this is a good try by Google. Early adopters of technology like me would try at this point and say it is a cool thing. But its the laggards who make the application a success by staying for longer time. Google Wave is yet to make an impact, I keep shouting inside wave to find the use of it and it is yet to become a success. Buzz should create some buzzing for Google next.

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Quick review of recent reads #2

After entering XL, I rarely read any books other than the course materials. Most of the time I was busy behind the laptop screen doing some assignments or projects. Even if I found some free time, I never felt like reading a book, would watch some new Tamil movie which relaxes me a lot. During my summer internship I found some time to read some books. Recently a couple of weeks during travel I could read.

Predictably irrational by Dan Airely 

The basic assumption of Traditional Economics is – “All Humans are Rational, we always make rational choices “. But this book is a fascinating examination of why human beings are wired and conditioned to react irrationally. We human beings are a selfish bunch, so it's all the more surprising to see how easily we can be manipulated to behave in ways that run counter to our own self-interest.  What I learned from Predictably Irrational is that everyone is irrational sometimes, and that's OK. We're not perfectly logical creatures, after all. The trick is training yourself to know when you're most likely to make irrational choices, and to resist those impulses. I would say this books increased my interest in Behavioural Economics. I would rate this a 4.5 / 5 in terms of value add, style of writing and research done.

Freakonomics by Steven Levitt

No special mention required about this book, as this is one of the book most reviewed, and also you can refer the Freakonomics blog at NY Times. But this is also of the same genre similar to behavioural economics. “Conventional wisdom is often shoddily formed and devilishly difficult to see through” – You will understand this if you read this book. A must read if you would like to understand many economic problems could be related to something which are not obvious. One of the most famous correlations gave by him is the Link between - US crime rate and Legalising Abortion. I would rate a 4/5 for this book.

I have started again, at present I am reading Gregory Robert’s – Shantaram.

Previous Reviews

1. Quick Review

2. Under Cover Economist

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First Time !!!

For the last 24 years I have never crossed her borders. Respected her Saluted her and I still would do always…But Tomorrow is the first time ever in my lifetime I am crossing the borders of India.
A first trip to Malaysia for a week. The best timing I could ever get. Hope It goes as planned ( Do we have a plan actually:)

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A Dream come true…

This Passion started with Windows 3.1 during my school days, this was a dream company. In-fact I am a  PC!!!
Waiting to explore through World without Walls….

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Cycling to Chandil

For this Gandhi Jayanthi, I and Hrishi planned a small adventure. Biking till Chandil from XLRI.  We started at about 3.30 in the evening when the weather was very good for cycling. By 5.00 we touched 30 KM on the high way to Chandil. But it was getting dark slowly and the NH 33 highway is a typical India road with many potholes and jammed by trucks. Hence we decided to return and had to abandon the trip to the chandil Dam which required additional 25 Km from that place. When we were returning it became completely dark by 6.00 PM. The worst was the vehicles coming in the opposite direction came with full beam and they never mind to use the dipper. It was becoming to tough to cycle when it started to rain. But still we managed to reach campus by 7.30. It was a 4 hour cycling with a small break twice for 5 minutes. We were happy we were able to cover atleast 60Km in the trip.

You can check the track in this link.

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A One stop place for all NRIs

Few of my friends in US have come up with a website, similar to internet directory, with links very relevant for any Non Resident Indians.They call it as an online guide to NRIs across the world.

According to NRISpot.com

Top 10 reasons to use the site.

1. When you want get a snapshot of what’s happening in India in a single page - news, business, sports, stock exchange, currency rates, gold price.

2. When you want to find popular sites to read Indian news, Cinema News, Blogs and Cricket Scores.

3. When you are looking to send money to India, and want to compare exchange rates provided by the different Banks or Service Providers.

4. When you want to find the best sites to  listen to Indian music.

5. When you want to know the best sites to print and mail photos to India for less than $3.

6. When you are looking for a site that offers information on grocery stores or temples or restaurants in your US city.

7. When you want to find out the best sites to book tickets (flight, bus, train, hotels etc) in India (or to India).

8. When you want to find out the best sites for Indian Classifieds is the US or in India.

9. When you want to find out the best sites for Indian Recipes.

10. And rather simply, if you want to know what types of websites, products and services are available to NRIs!

According to me, the five important things I liked are..

1. Easy navigation to links

2. Home page with very often checked Facts (Sensex, Exchange rates etc.)

3. Content Related to Indians

4. Useful links related to day to day activities ( Bill Pay, Shopping ,Matrimony etc.)

5. Some offers to regular visitors (A recent offer is sending photo prints free to India)

With the increase in the number of NRIs and also our reliance with internet, this site would be a readymade guide for day to day activities.If this site could scale up by providing a platform for NRIs to interact among themselves within the site in addition to the static links, then this site would be a home page of all NRIs.

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2 Sets Down and Still

Federer was down with two sets today at French open fourth round against Tommy Haas. Third Round it was 4-4 and suddenly my Hero rose to the occasion by giving a deathly blow. 6-4 followed by a bagel 6-0 and a 6-2 to uproot the opponent. This scene would give lot of confidence for any Federer fan. I am boosted with Confidence today.

I am just Hoping Federer would achieve the most expected win at the French Open this Sunday.

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BING – Microsoft’s New Search Avatar

Today, Microsoft announced a new avatar of its search engine – Bing. I’ve been playing around with Bing www.bing.com since morning, and what I liked is that it’s not just a search engine, but designed to help make decisions. In fact we are making a paradigm shift and calling it a ‘Decision Engine’ because of the way It empowers people to gain insight and knowledge from the Web, moving more quickly to making the important decisions.
Its pretty cool! The new snazzy design will have a beautiful daily image on the homepage which will have hotspots embedded in it to let you explore the picture in detail
Try the Best Match feature that makes finding relevant information, by putting up front information like customer service numbers for retail sites, the ability to track a package right from the search page, deep links to common pages within the site and much more.
It also has this cool explorer pane on the left that lets me easily get to related searches, past searches, news on the topic etc. It even has a quick tabs feature that anticipates my intent when searching. For example, when I’m searching for a favorite musician, it filters results by albums, biography, videos and images….amazing!
Check out the Video and image search – it has these handy filtering tools that let me sort by size, color, style and much much more. In fact, when I search for videos, it even gives me a preview, when I simply hover over one!
Bing launches globally on 3^rd June and some of the features will roll out in India in the coming months. You must check it out at www.bing.com.

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A day at Google’s office

Long time since I posted, I must blame my laziness to stretch a bit extra. But the last two months some great incidents happened in my life which I must share to all. These incidents or accidents are great for me, ‘coz they had been my great desires while I was doing engineering at GCT.

After winning the Google Got the ‘App’titude challenge our team at XL did not had time to think about it also due to the prolonged placements for seniors, I was also completely engrossed in the finance assignments and other end term projects during that time. One fine day on March, we got a mail from Google Gurgaon office inviting us to their office. It was a surprise for me that my dream of visiting is happening. So we fixed the dates, but only Thunga and Chintan could join with me for thee visit. Our Professor Mr.Ashish Pani and Amrit Pal Singh the other team mate could not join for the visit due to prior commitments.

The whole visit was taken for us by a Googler – Shashank. We got flight tickets booked by him from Jamshedpur to Delhi on 25 March ‘09. Our day at Google would be on 26th March. We reached Delhi on 25th night at Delhi Airport. The great honor for me was when I saw a person standing at arrivals with a Google Signboard engrossed with our names. I immediately got the signboard from him and preserved it. ( Come on – for the first time I am treated like a VIP by one of my most loved companies – Google and Microsoft. It does not happen every other day.)

All three of us felt Google is pampering us with flight trip and huge individual rooms at Ibis. But that was not the end. The next day ,

Date : 26th March 2009

Morning 7.45 AM : Beep Beep… My Phone rang… I woke up and attended it… It was the driver sent by Google to pick us for the Office.  I got ready and so were Thunga and Chintan and we got into car at about 8.45 AM

Morning 9.15 AM: We all three were in car and stuck in the usual Gurgaon traffic. We were moving to Google office. I got a call from Shashank saying what happened to us since we were supposed to be in the office by 9.00 AM and the director is waiting for us. I almost fainted, I made the director of Google wait :). It was a great day for me I thought.

Morning 9.45 AM: We all three were in the office of Google India Director.We discussed about the Contest on how we went about implementing the Apps at XL. He also told his experiences in life and it turned out to a general chat with him.

Morning 10.15 AM: After the meeting, Thunga had instinct to drink coffee, so there was Costa inside the office and Shasank took us there. Thunga took the coffee and was about to pay for it. Suddenly it struck, come on you dont pay for food in Google. We saw around it was a huge cafeteria with Pizzas to south Indian food stuffs. I can grab anything for free here today, I picked the Red bull from the case kept there (I never purchased a Red bull, and had argued it as useless for the amount we pay. But today I am treated by Google).Then I notices food was every where in the office you just need to stretch 20 Meters to grab anything :).

Morning 10.45 AM: We were in the Green Room. What were we doing ?. There was a video shoot on us, yes it was a video case study on our Apps Experience. We did some rehearsals and finally with in an Hour our case study presentation was over. I would update the link here once I get it from Google.

Morning 11.45 AM: We had a presentation on Google Ad-words Non Dedicated services.

After Noon 12.30 PM: Presentation on Google Analytics by Analytics team

After Noon 1.00 PM: I was damn hungry and we had a royal lunch in Google cafeteria.

After Noon 1.30 PM: We had a presentation by the Sales and Marketing team of Google.

At 2.30 PM,  It was coming to an end and we were presented the Winners Certificate for being the National Level Winners of the Google Challenge. We were showered with lots of Google Goodies (What no Bags to T-Shirts and some Gadgets too :) After that we were dropped at Airport and all three of us boarded on Jet Airways with fond memories to cherish.

When I finished my Computer Science Engineering -  There were only two companies that I considered the as my dream companies. One was Microsoft and Other was Google. Google for the revolution they had made in the way we work. We cant work without search in any job. Microsoft for my passion on Windows and DOS which I  had been working with from the day I started to use computers in the year 1996. Windows is so entrenched in my life and I dreamt being a part of Microsoft one day during that time.

So I finally had a chance to see Google and I also had a similar chance to be with Microsoft which I would write in my next post.

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The Sixth Sense

A computer in everything and everywhere. I used to wonder after seeing Hollywood movies like Minority report & Paycheck whether the technology they showed will ever be invented. It was a system screen projected on any surface and you operate the system using the surface. And it came to world in the name of Sixth Sense.

Please see the TED show, where sixth sense was presented to know more about it.

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And the Results of Google 'App'titude Challenge

Today I received a mail from Google Inc. It was really exhilarating to read each and every line.  The mail goes as mentioned below.

Hello everyone,

As you all are aware, Got The 'App'titude Challenge concluded on February 28, 2009. In the days that followed, we reviewed the accrued usage data and are now ready to announce the much anticipated winner.

Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI), Jamshedpur, have won the challenge by demonstrating the highest usage of Google Apps products. The XLRI team working on Google Apps implementation was led by Prof. Ashish Pani. The other members are “Hariharan R, Chintan Agarwal, Pal Singh and Srikanth Thunga”. The team showed great enthusiasm and managed to stay on top of the challenge from the beginning. They named this initiative XL CONNECT, ran a pilot and implemented Google Apps within a month from the day they secured approval from the college decision makers. They also conducted marketing campaigns to inspire students to find innovative ways to use Google Apps services. 

Alliance Business Academy - Bangalore, Birla Institute of Management Technology - Delhi, Jaypee Business School - Noida, Mudra Institute of Communications – Ahmedabad, Zakir Husain College of Engineering & Technology- Aligarh Muslim University, and National Institute of Technology - Calicut are some of the other colleges which had very high Google Apps usage. These colleges now join the elite group of colleges including Indian Institute of Management - Ahmedabad and National Institute of Design - Ahmedabad that are using Google Apps extensively.

In addition, over 100 colleges in India participated & implemented Google Apps as part of this challenge. Our thanks to those teams also for taking the lead in improving communication & collaboration capabilities in their college.

Thanks
--
Got The "App"titude Challenge
Main Site: http://www.google.co.in/apps/gottheapptitude

For me the best part in Winning this is the prize :). Below mentioned is the prize we will be getting.

• A case study to be featured on our Google Apps website as well as a video testimonial featured on our Google Apps YouTube channel
• A letter of recommendation from FMS and Google
• An all expense paid trip for your team to visit one of our Google India offices

Update:  Our team at Google Gurgaon office, an all expense paid trip from XLRI. Chintan, Srikanth and I from our implementation team visited their office  

Related Posts

1. A Small Sense of Satisfaction
2. Students testimonial – Update from Google
3. Google Truly Brilliant – Amazing Move

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Viddyho Tinyurl Link on GTalk IM - is a Phishing Link

If you ever get a Instant message from any one with a message “lol check this out http://tinyurl.com/xxx“, Don’t enter your GMAIL id and password to login which it will be requesting to watch a video. It was very suspicious the moment I saw. If you enter your Gmail Id and password to login, it will send a Instant message to all the people in your Gtalk list. A nice prank, but a dirty idea.

So don’t fall into this phishing prank. This is very recent, I got the instant messages from about 5 people already at this time. Convey to all of your friends to stop this. More details of this prank will come out soon.

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Obama of India

Nowadays when I am surfing, the usual Google banner ads which will have some un-known face is showing a familiar face. In the last two months, it was only one face and tri-color ( Its only one – Saffron:) is what that captures attention. It is Mr. L K Adavni’s prime minister campaign - for the Indian 15th Lok Sabha Elections.

I did some googling to find out the amount of money spent for the Advertising campaign – Its huge – Rs.250 Crore campaign. In this economic scenario this is really a huge amount for advertisement campaign.

He has followed Barack Obama’s style campaign by completely utilizing the web for the campaign. He has created a Website , Forum ,Blog, Orkut Community , You Tube Channel & Facebook page. A huge money has been poured into the Google Adwords and Banners adds campaign.This is probably the first time by an Indian politician. I am not giving any personal opinion on the party or the candidate here. But I am impressed on the party’s effort ( or any consultant who gave the idea) in using the power of internet for the elections.

That is a great move for me because of one reason, this should create an awareness to many Indian people about the power of Technology. This I see as just a precursor. Now every politician will be forced to follow and flood the world wide web. This will bring out money from deep-black-pockets of India which is in a way useful for online ads community beneficiaries like me who display online ads in our websites, 

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A new way of learning

This term at XL is going to be really  hectic. This 3 months will be worse than Term II. In Term I,most of the time I spent in learning Micro-economics and I spared a little extra time in learning Indian Constitution & Preliminary Labor Laws. The way economics was taught and the approach in the testing pattern was totally alien for me till my graduation. The exams were completely a problem solving approach, whereas in lectures were about discussing concepts.

I expected to relax in Term II , but what I got was totally the opposite. I had to go through a new type of pedagogy, The Case Approach. Performance Management was the course which was completely a course which went by case approach. I struggled in the beginning but it helped during my Summer Placement. I never thought I could crack a E&Y‘s consult interview  especially a Case based GD. Amidst the tedious Term II, Summer Placement consumed enormous time and what followed after that was completely strenuous. Projects Submissions and Quizzes, End Term and at last a good learning in this  term. The subjects I enjoyed in this term were Compensation, Performance management and Appraisal, Macro- Economics ( Any day it is an interesting subject for me) and Financial Accounting.

When I came back from home last week, Term III started with a jolt with 4 classes of Corporate Finance I have done 5 assignments. Every other day I am now doing Financial analysis of my company – Hatsun Agro Products Limited – which was allocated for me. For those in South India know this company very well for its household brand names – Arun Ice cream, Arokya milk and Komatha milk. The subject is really very interesting and I am enjoying to the maximum in lectures. The way the subject is taught matters a lot. I came here due to my inclination for training and development, now teaching as a profession has become one of my aspiration.

A general perception with people - all subjects can be taught to students in one best way – i.e. Lecturing , as Fredrick Taylor’s Taylorism says about industrial labor. Every subject that is to be taught to students must be adapted to the target audience with the different pedagogical methods, testing methods and especially the course content. I don’t think this is being thought of in the huge number of newly opened engineering college in Tamil Nadu. I am saying especially about this place, because I belong to Coimabatore , a cosmopolitan city in Tamil Nadu, were I have seen in during my graduation days the number of engineering colleges increased ten folds. The new colleges co not have quality faculties and a good course plans. I strongly now feel, I must bring in a change to academia with whatever I could contribute. For now, I will wait for this term to get over and complete my internship in a well known software MNC at Hyderabad.

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Social Entrepreneurship Conference at XL

 “Providing Access to Sustainable Development”. When I saw the logo published in the conference brochures, I had a contemplation on how brand managers would have an intrinsic motivation when they see their brain child brand being used by commoners. Whenever I see people using XL Connect , and when I see the logo, it gives me a satisfaction in transforming existing thing and making it helpful to others. This is the relational benefits one gets as a brand manager other than transactional benefits like salary, perquisites in the job.

Recently I had an opportunity to take part in a logo designing contest here at XL. The logo was to be used in a National Social Entrepreneurship Conference. The conference is being held for the first time in XL, which brings in all the Social Entrepreneurs in one forum. My logo was selected for the conference which portrays the conference theme

This logo designing also gave me an opportunity to design the website for the conference. This is my first functional website for an event, which would serve a social cause. Joomla CMS was the savior for me to create a quick website. I would advise everyone who would start to explore Joomla for the first time, install XAMPP bundle in their local system.XAMP is promoted by Apache friends, and its an open source bundle with a cross platform PHP, Apache HTTP Server, MySql database and Perl scripting. The first time Joomla experience was a great experience, you can exploit a huge list of web templates in the internet and also a vast set of plugins for the website. I used siteground-j15-59 theme, and tweaked a little in its script to have the complete browser occupied layout and this helped me in removing the blog layout. Also a bit of Photoshop efforts gave me a good webpage header.

The photos in the header image were shot by me and our friends at XL during our rural visit here at Jharkhand. The left side of the header is existing conditions in most of Jharkhand villages and right side of the header is the image of farming which happens for a short period of just 2 months depending on monsoon. If monsoon fails agriculture here stops even for those two months. The Website its XL’s initiative towards Social Entrepreneurship.You can have a look at the website here.I am nor writing about the conference, as the website will be the source of information.Thanks to Sigma (Social Initiative Group for Managerial Assistance), the organizers of the event for giving me this opportunity.

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Yet another exam was over

Today was the end of the second term for me at XL. For me this term was quite a long term compared to the first term. The reasons could be many things. Maybe I am very badly homesick, or the grueling  projects and case presentations of this term or “Surprise” quizzes of special subjects that often signaled my ignorance or could be the summer placements that showcased my hesitation in expressing thoughts in every group discussions. Even could be for any other reason which I am not able to recollect now.

Almost 6 months of MBA - one quarter of my aspiration is complete today. When I look back to check whether I have really reached where I wished to be. Computers where my Passion and still it is, and a career in training and development was the attraction for me at XL when I came here. But what all I have read and understood in the last two terms are totally different. About 280 Sessions in the two terms,in the six months I have been inside class rooms listening to lectures,presentations or case discussion for about 420 hours. Writing multiple quizzes, last minute submissions and it looks like my four year engineering studies was compressed and given in this two terms.

But some good learning for me in the last two terms which I must preserve. Some excellent Professors who have inspired me to become a professor if I complete a PhD. Summer Internship was a good evaluation for me to find out my weakness, or probably a test to my strengths. Finally next term and summer placement will be giving me a better perspectives and changes for good.

And Miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep…

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Easy way to Create Photo Galleries

I have created a photo gallery, it was quite easy for me to do with the aid of Google Picasa. To check my photo gallery , Click the Photos link in the top navigation bar. I have made the slide shows with the auto code generated by Picasa. Followed the steps mentioned below.

You can embed a Flash slideshow of any web album. It'll be automatically updated when you make changes to your album. Follow these steps to embed a slideshow:

1. On the My Photos page, click your album.
2. Click Link to this album on the right-hand side.
3. Click Embed Slideshow.
4. Choose your slideshow settings, such as image size, captions, and autoplay.
5. Once you've chosen your settings, copy the resulting HTML code (Ctrl-C).
6. Paste the HTML in the source code for your site (Ctrl-V).

- Google Help

This feature is very helpful having easy galleries instead of Static Image Folders which according to me is not an attraction in this Web 2.0 Era. Have a look at my Photo Gallery and you decide Static Image Folder Gallery Vs Flash based Slide Shows.

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Life of Lively is almost over

Almost the day lively came, I had mentioned earlier as Lively is bit lively But…May be for Children to Enjoy. Of course this was totally away from Google’s innovative product line. Finally the day has been marked by Google itself for Lively to be on Dec 31 2008. A good move by Google I would say, not to manage products which does not has any market.

Related Posts.

1. Lively is bit lively But…May be for Children to Enjoy


2. Google Enters - A new area not thought of

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Google Truly Brilliant – Amazing Move

Today, I tried the new feature introduced by Google – Integrated Video and Voice Chat in Gmail. Truly a very innovative move, Google was first to integrate chat inside Email environment. They further improvised it now by adding video and voice to it. But you need a plug-in to be installed for the same. You can download it here.

The great news for me was, this works the same way with Google Apps users also. So I think all the XL users can now integrated further with this feature.

Google has created their every application more like a reusable template and hence they are able to easily adopt changes and do the same applicable for all the customized users. Their Apps is an innovation in terms of business strategy in this internet industry.

Only bad news now is this feature is not available for Linux users, only for the loyal Windows OS users. I think the Linux version of the plug-in would follow soon, so no need to comment on this.

Related Posts

1. A Small Sense of Satisfaction


2. Students testimonial – Update from Google

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Microsoft in - Reaching Differently

Microsoft has launched a new project Dream Spark. Through this project, MS is providing A Gamut of Free Licensed softwares to all the Technical Students.

In India any technical student ( graduate or undergraduate ) can walk to nearest NIIT or Aptech and receive a DVD of the softwares. Also you can download from Dream Spark if you have a high speed internet connection.

This is a great surprise for me, because Microsoft has always been criticized for the Licensed software and Zero Free Wares. The company has adopted itself to change in the environment by reaching the students community for free right now, we need to see how effective this will be.

I am no more a Technical Student, So I really missed the chance to try with some of the softwares which wanted to try my hands. But this is a great move by MS.

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Students testimonial – Update from Google

The following is from the Google Got the aptitude challenge website.

Please check here to read about other college testimonials(Click this Link –>Student Testimonial)

XLRI Transforming with XL Connect

Google's 'Got the Aptitude' challenge has given us the opportunity to transform our communication system. After registration, the first thing we did was to implement Google Apps in our existing test server. We named this initiative 'XL CONNECT' because the services provided by Google Apps will help the XL community stay connected 24/7. We then came up with a working model to increase Google Apps awareness and market its advantages in campus. The presentation created by Google came in handy to explain the benefits from Google Apps to our faculty members, IT admin and student committees. Since Email was a default application we focused on the other Google Apps products like Talk, Sites and Docs. Our main selling point was Google sites which would be very helpful for our student committees. As every committee wanted a group site, it was easy to make the sale and obtain approval from our IT admin. The contest deadlines really pushed us to stay focused. We are excited about the launch and we have already started increasing Apps awareness through teasers, posters and some merchandise. We also plan to create some use cases on how effectively Google apps can be used.

- XLRI Team Members: Hariharan R, Chintan Agarwal, Amrit Pal Singh, Srikanth Thunga, Prof. Ashish Pani

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A Small Sense of Satisfaction

Today at XL, we have completed the shift of our Students mail server to Google Apps Education Edition. I am a member of Systems Society of XL– better known as

SOCRATES – Society for Rapid Assimilation of Technology and Systems

My love for technology and systems made me apply only for this students committee. I was very happy when I was selected for this committee because I consider being with this society was not an extra-curricular activity but an opportunity to be in touch with my interests. I always believe technology can make our life simpler and our energy can be utilized for better needs to care for people. Actually I should learn this, caring and concern for people which I most of the times miss it which I am struggling to get it.

At XL we were using an internal mail server for students which had the age-old Squirrel Mail. We provided a 100 MB limited space for every student. This year my agenda was to bring in a change for the betterment of everyone in any are which I am comfortable. Finally, I had a chance to suggest a change for shifting the internal server to Google Apps Education Edition. Google of-course provides 7 GB of mail box each and also a gamut of services bundled like Chat, Sites, Docs and Calendar. Google provides the basic edition for free which is far better than the system we had.

Suggested this change on October first week to the IT administration. After a set of permissions ,approval and testing finally today we went live after complete migration from the legacy server. Now we call the new gamut of Google Apps service as XL Connect. This change will be of great use to the students community to be in touch with every one easily using the internal chat now , also I hope the Docs and Sites will serve further for team projects and committees. I am happy that some change I wanted is visualized, though a small change but a Satisfaction for me. This would not have been possible without the help of my committee secretary Chintan Agarwal and the Help Desk guys at XL who really did the actual implementation.

Next :  The one I felt a great thing done by a great institute is MIT OCW. This one will be my next agenda. Hope this comes true soon. :)

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Economically expressive Gurus

I think the role of Teacher – Guru has a great influence in our interests. My interests did not vary a lot because of my personal interests. The Gurus who taught me and guided me were one of the major reasons in my passions. I observed that very recently in my introspection. I must say the first time hostel experience life gave me some leeway to introspect in-spite of the pressing schedule of XL.

Computers became my passion when I did a course on computer applications ( Basic Course : Windows 3.1, Fox Pro – All Stone age Era :P and Microsoft Office 97).I must really confess one thing my real interest in computer came out of me not the moment I started working with computer. It came due to proper facilitation by my life mentor Mr.Elango, who was the faculty of course. I am still passionate of technology and Computers – though I never prefer to spend too much in these because of my usual habit. This passion carried on from my Higher secondary school to my work seeing computers day in and out. To add to it, in-spite of my interest in computers I never owned a PC till I landed in XL. Still I managed to keep me abreast with the pace of technological change.

The same holds true for my interest in Training and Development. This interest was the primary reason why I landed in XL for my post graduation on Personnel Management. The 3 days training on Personality development by International Faculty Jc.Mahesh Bagawandas was a moment of enlightenment for me. I never imagined how a role of a trainer could be. The three days totally gave a new career path which I aspire now.

Before my first term in XL I never thought Economics was a very interesting subject to study. In my state it was a norm that only if you do not score well in SSLC exam people land up in economics group for their Higher Secondary education. Had I known about this subject earlier I would have opted for this was  my thought recently. The interest was due to the professor who taught micro-economics Mr.Sumit Sarkar. I struggled in the beginning to understand the subject, but the pressure gave by him by continuous quizzes and completely problematic approach really made me work hard. Eventually I started to like the subject a lot. This term I am studying Macro-Economics. In the initial two classes of macro-eco I could not understand the new professor’s style. But eventually now I have got a little grip of the subject, Hope my interest stays on and the professor too should facilitate a little to better my interest.

A good teacher according to me should not just impart education or knowledge. He/She should create an interest in the subject, show a student a path in his life to survive. He should make the student find out one’s strength and weakness. I am just reading a  book on leadership ( My interest area) and I find no difference in the influencing process of a leader and a Guru. For a student his guru should lead by example as a leader is to his followers.

My Thanks to all my Gurus!!!

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Optimism on Obvious Calamities

“And allow me to leave you with a pinch of optimism, just because I can. I call it Adams' Rule of Obvious Calamities. It states that any calamity that is foreseeable by the public at large won't turn out so bad after all. The best recent example was the Y2K problem, where computers worldwide were expected to fail. It seemed impossible that those issues could be resolved in time, but they were.

The problems that hit hardest are the ones that sneak up on you. Our current financial problem is big, but I expect a recession to be mild and even useful, precisely because so much human energy and attention is being focused on the fix.”

- Scott Adams, The Credit Crunch Explained.

One of my friends,forwarded me an email about the Sub Prime Crisis which explained the Credit Crunch in very easy language. Have a look at the Presentation. It is a good read to understand the credit crisis in a funny cartoon language.

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Stumbled On 2 Interesting Things

I have always fancied Time Machine. Google has done something new, yes it has launched again its old, Year 2001 Search Index back for you to check what all existed and which all did not existed.

I obviously tried my name and some fancy new terms like blogging, orkut and some more. You also can try your own search terms.

I also stumbled one more interesting feature by Google, SMS Channels for RSS Feeds. Excellent Idea, and you can create your own channel for your blogs.

I have created the SMS Channel of this blog- eXcellence. You can subscribe for it. Have a try with this yet another innovation, of my Fascinating company.

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More than 2.2 million%

I was shocked seeing that number. It is the Inflation rate of Zimbabwe - HYPERINFLATION. The Fortune magazine reports as below.

“If purchased on the newsstand in Zimbabwe, the issue of Fortune you're holding would have cost you 270,543,825,555 Zimbabwean dollars.”

–The world's worst inflation, Fortune Magazine.

You need to carry cash in cartloads to buy simple goods like eggs and bread to the nearest departmental store where the store owner can only weigh the currency notes to deliver you the goods. He has no time to count those notes, even the IT system are struggling to handle the bank transactions which are giving a data overflow error. Of course the programmers would have never imagined the basic withdrawal transaction of an Automated Teller machines would ever be of billions of Zimbabwe dollars.

Parade magazine ranked Robert Mygabe the dictator of Zimbabwe one among the worst 10 dictators of the world. Of course this year he is going to top the list, in transforming a country, which introduced Zimbabwe dollars in the 1980s, at a conversion rate 1Z$ = 1.47USD. The transformation has been a collapse of a country, and I have seen these many days Zimbabwe for Cricket and never seen this worst governance in the country.

 

These photos and graphs are relatively skewed too much in this country in the recent years.

The fate of the people here is a Big Question.

The Economic Imbalance of the world was very much shown in this, may be after this term if I am well equipped in Macro Economic theory I would really do a detailed analysis on the complete background of this.

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A Change in Look and Feel

Almost after a year, I finally found a way to alter my blog template. This fluid template is quite spacious and I decided to stick with this. This requires some changes in the colors which I need to really work on the CSS, which I am bit scratchy. I am just learning the rope, would do that also soon.

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Being a Part of It

My friend wrote a post some time back, which I happened to look back at it again today. I wanted to mention it here, because its a good read, if you happened to understand the intended pun related to a small group of B School guys.

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Google Enters - A new area not thought of

After my review on lively, I thought Google is exploring the User friendly Chat Rooms and other web experiences possible in web 2.0. It was an unlikely that Google will launch a browser which I have never thought of. Of course, that is why they are market leaders now. I am happy in one way that somehow at 00.30 hrs I was wide awake and waiting for Google to launch its open source browser – Chrome, and write a review of the same. I cannot review completely as of now, because of my end term exams. But I would keep updating this post as I use.

The client looks very thin, as such not consuming much memory. As usual, the browser is very simple - No menu bars, title bars and tool bars. It is tab based browser and the Google Suggest is embedded in the Address bar. I could try only these as of now, till that time you keep trying and post your comments.

Update: 1.00 Hrs

You have a new incognito window in the browser. It says “Pages you view in this window won't appear in your browser history or search history, and they won't leave other traces, like cookies, on your computer after you close the incognito window. Any files you download or bookmarks you create will be preserved, however.” But cannot save from “People standing behind you” :)

And each tab is a separate process, hence managed separately in task manager.

One sudden thought : Some similarity in colors getting closer Google Vs Windows.

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Still it Thrives

This is life without a safety net-Thrilling and Dangerous.

Misjudgments are punished ruthlessly.

When competition gets tougher, small business feel it first.

Financing is hard to find, sometimes impossible.

Regulatory costs hurt more in companies with less fat -One Reason, Growth is slow.

Owners lie awake at night worrying…. Yet Entrepreneurial Sector THRIVES…

-Charles Burk (Fortune Magazine)

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Save as PDF or XPS Office 2007 Download without Validation

Almost a year and half before I wrote a review on the experience of Office 2007. But personal laptop gives you real experience in our day to day activities. I was searching for a way to install the Save as PDF or XPS plug-in to install in the office 2007. Because of the irritating compatibility issue with Office 2007 Word documents (.docx). My Adobe Acrobat Pro 8.0 is was not helping to convert my Word documents in this format. So I had to save the word document in the .doc format and then use the Create PDF option of Acrobat Pro.

The plug-in for this Save as PDF is available in Microsoft portal only to genuine office licence key holders. Don't ask me who I am :) I was searching for some direct download link finally BINGO.... I got the direct link for this download of this plug-in. Please click this link to download the plug-in. Enjoy now the inbuilt PDF save feature of Word 2007.

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Scratchy Start after a couple of Years

Of late, after a long break, I resumed one of my favorite hobby - Graphic Designing. Adobe Photoshop was one of the tools which revered the most during the 4 years of my period at Rotaract Club of Saibaba Colony. I was given opportunity in the club to test any kind of ideas I had, and in that way I started doing graphic designing for the club as a cost cutting exercise. It turned out to be a great hobby where in some instances I got paid for some huge banners which I designed for my friend's college festivals. For designing I always wanted a PC with a good Processor Speed and at least 512 MB RAM a couple of years of back. I did not have the hardware at that time and hence for every design I need to request someone's PC Hours, that is what I call for borrowing their PC for doing my work.

Today I own a laptop with a specification of  2.1Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo and a 2 GB Ram. I never imagined I will own such a sophisticated hardware. Now at XL I got a couple of opportunities  to start with my hobby, so I did not want to leave now, I loaded my Laptop with Photoshop CS2 and started with some initial designs. Though my designs are very scratchy in some time it will improve. I am going to publish the designs which I will be doing here afterwards. For that I am using my Beautiful Rants Blog at Yahoo 360.

So to look at my recent designs click here.

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