Moi et moi-même (Me and Myself)

Apple's Patent War

noreply@blogger.com (Abhishek) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:28:00 +0000

From Wikipedia's definition of patents:

A patent (pronounced /ˈpætənt/ or /ˈpeɪtənt/) is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state (national government) to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for a public disclosure of an invention.

This week, Apple filed patent lawsuits against cellphone manufacturer HTC, claiming 20 U.S. patent violations. That was the talk of the town in the whole tech world. Here's what Steve Jobs had to say about it:

“We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.” (source: Apple.com)

As pointed out by various sources, some of the patent infringements which has pissed off Steve Jobs are really, how do I put it succinctly, eye brow raising? For example - look at this one (a snippet from engadget.com) -

Patent #7,657,849: Unlocking A Device By Performing Gestures On An Unlock Image This one's cute 'cause it's brand new -- seriously, it was just granted on February 2. It's almost exactly what it says on the tin: it covers unlocking a touchscreen device by moving an unlock image. It's broad enough for us to say that it covers virtually every unlock behavior we've seen on phones, not just the iPhone's slide-to-unlock implementation.

This makes me wonder, is there any specific criteria you need to file U.S. patents - especially software patents such as these? I mean, come on - how can you patent an idea? In the above patent, you are creating a patent that allows, mind you, ONLY YOU, to use any implementation, to unlock a screen using a gesture on a touchscreen. How does that work out for other manufacturers? Should they just leave out the "unlock your phone" feature on their "oh-so-smart" phones, just because another company has already patented that idea? That's just plain ludicrous!! Patents should be on how you implement an idea, but not on the idea itself.

Ideas are generally abstract. One person may later come up with a better and an even more efficient implementation of the same idea - should there be a patent or a law to discourage such innovations? Especially in a software world, its all about these abstract ideas. Most operating systems have the same set of ideas behind their UI implementation (the user clicks the minimize button, for example, and the window disappears), the only thing that differs is how each operating system is more efficient in incorporating that into the whole user experience.

Software patents are fine, as long it's used as a tool to issue counter patent lawsuits (as a defensive measure) against a company. But when someone tries to take an offensive stand by being the first to file a case against a competitor on such patents that is down right obvious (such as the example quoted above), it makes me wonder if the whole patent system is actually encouraging innovations.

"Apple has suffered irreparable injury for which there is no adequate remedy at law and will continue to suffer such irreparable injury unless the defendants' infringement" is enjoined by the court, Apple said in a complaint filed in the Delaware court. (source: informationweek.com)

I agree that Apple has its reasons to be annoyed. Many of the features in other smart phones (like the Google Android platform based devices) have been directly influenced by what Apple first introduced in its iPhone. Instead of creating a complete new UI design, they are imitating the ideas already present and successful, in their phones. But, can you file patents for every feature, fathomed by your common sense, that you have introduced in your product, and expect to kill the competition later by filing a dozen patent lawsuits, when they come up with similar ideas? Do ALL of the 20 patents mentioned require legitimate legal actions? Or is it just a waste of enormous time and money for the concerned parties and the court? Apple has been respected and loved for its innovations (remember the "Think Different" ads, Macs, iPod, iPhone etc etc?). But with Apple diligently taking steps like these to get rid of the competition, people will be forced to think differently - no one likes to see someone becoming over-competitive.

Disclaimer: I am not a master of U.S. patent laws, but as a consumer of tech gadgets, I have presented my views on the situation. (I still love Apple and Google :))

Water Bubbles (Photo Blog)

noreply@blogger.com (Abhishek) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 02:58:00 +0000

Water Bubbles, originally uploaded by abhishekontheweb.

The bowl was filled with water, and it was made to overflow by placing it under flowing tap water. As the tap water hit the surface of the water in the bowl, I was able to shoot these random shapes of the froth generated. Shot at 1/200th second with flash on. (Looks like cells under a microscope, doesn't it?)

Translation Party - Can Translations be Fun?

noreply@blogger.com (Abhishek) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 14:44:00 +0000

Recently, I became a HUGE fan of CNET's Buzz Out Loud podcast (nothing to do with the Google Buzz launch this week, and believe me, these CNET presenters are not happy with Google stealing their show's name). Whatever, today, when I was listening to one of their latest episodes, they suggested a site to visit - it's called the "Translation Party" (oh, btw, its from Google...).

What it does is simple. It asks you to enter any English sentence. It converts that sentence to Japanese (I know what you might be thinking. Japanese, huh? Do I need to impress anyone in Japanese!?!). Simple, right? But here's where the fun starts (and that's why the name has "Party" in it). It converts the translated Japanese back to English. and so forth. After about ten or so to and fro translations, even in your wildest dreams, you won't be able to imagine how come the final English sentence turn out to be so funny (and equally senseless).

Lets, for example, enter a sentence: "I am planning to visit the auto expo in Chicago today." Plain, simple English, which even a 3 year old kid is going to understand, right. On clicking the "find equilibrium" - yes, that's what they seem to call it, this is what it displays:

Once more!! Once more!! Lets enter "Man, I am so tired of the cold!!!" And, here comes the response:

Try it out for yourself, and comment if you find some translations real deep and profound!!

A Cloudy Evening

noreply@blogger.com (Abhishek) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 15:42:00 +0000

A Cloudy Evening, originally uploaded by abhishekontheweb.

Some times, when you look out of your window, don't you wish that the sky was redder (something which is generally shown in those science fiction movies depicting earthlings on Mars) - giving it a dramatic hue. Well, yesterday, when I had nothing better to do, I looked out and saw a cloudy sky. There was a reddish hue, as it was almost dusk. Then, I thought, wouldn't it be worth a try to make it look even more dramatic. Thanks to digital photography, a photo can be made to look so surreal, just by a couple of mouse clicks (in my case, a couple of taps on the trackpad). With the help of iPhoto, I was able to use a red filter to enhance the color of the sky. The photo was taken at a very low exposure, to bring out the shades of the cloud formation.

The next morning, I was surprised to see the sky so blue!!

A Day at the Movies

noreply@blogger.com (Abhishek) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 11:58:00 +0000

I remember having this conversation with a friend of mine when I was in New York during Christmas. We had booked tickets for a movie, as we had nothing else to do on a rainy day. As we were going to the screens...

Me: You remember the screen number, right? (I always ask that question, every time I go to a multiplex to watch a movie, even if I had the tickets in my pocket).

Friend: Yes, its on the ticket (duh!!). Its screen 9.

Me: Great (dunno why I said that, doesn't make the movie any better if its on screen 9, but whatever)...

We go in.

But its already playing a movie - and looks like it has already reached the climax.

Me: Didn't know that they have started showing such elaborate scenes in trailers.

Friend: Ooops... Thats "Invictus", and its not a trailer.

We walk out.

Me (Contemplating): So, it was screen # 9, right?

Friend: Yup, thats what the ticket said. May be we are a bit too early.

Me (Curious now): Let me have a look at the tickets.

And promptly, I look at the tickets.

Me (Giving that I-knew-it look): Do you remember what movie are we going to watch?

My friend thinks for a while.

Friend (now embarrassed): He he... Now don't you pull my leg. . . . .

(Psst... We were there to watch the movie "Nine")...

New Year Resolutions?

noreply@blogger.com (Abhishek) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 05:39:00 +0000

Its again that time of the year when I am forced to answer questions from my office colleagues (esp. my bosses) - "So Abhishek, what resolutions do you have for this year". And I end up mumbling the same answer "I don't believe in these resolutions, as I am 101% sure, come Jan2nd, and I'll be back to my usual routine :)". And that's 1 resolution I have managed to keep for a long time.

I remember, back in my school days, writing an essay on "New Year's Resolution" was a part of the winter vacation assignment. And, talking about assignments in school, I was the laziest of the lot - I always managed to scribble something on my notebook - most of them being the usual "I will complete my assignments in time, I will not wait for the last week to study for my exam, etc etc".

So 1st of January every year is that day when you say that whatever you do today is what you are going to do for the rest of the year, right? (And now, thanks to social networking tools like Twitter, everyone knows everyones resolutions immediately - isn't that scary??). This year, I ended up spending my entire day in bed, down with a bad cold, eating pizza, and watching endless episodes of "The Office". Would I like myself to do that for the entire year? You bet!!! I DO :) :)

P.S - For those of you who might be wondering how unfortunate it is for me to be down with fever on 1st of Jan, it was actually a result of my photography enthusiasm that landed me in such a soup. I had a chance to click some photographs of fireworks at Navy Pier, Chicago, on the occasion of the new year's eve. But there was a catch. The show started at 8.15 PM in the night, and I had to stand next to the freezing Michigan Lake in the cold (it was around -20 degrees Celsius). I ended up with my hands completely numb for the next 30 min, and a BAD BAD cold by the time I went to sleep. Here are some of the pics I took, by the way....

For more pics, go to: Fireworks at Navy Pier

A Cold Winter Day

noreply@blogger.com (Abhishek) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 16:10:00 +0000

Cold Winter Day on "Black Friday"

Yesterday (the day after Thanksgiving - the so called "Black Friday" discount day in the retail world), I had a chance to take my camera out. With the winters just around the corner, it was a bit cold and windy (but pleasant and sunny none the less), and I was trying my hand to shoot some pics with the new camera - my intention was to get a handle over its features as quickly as possible. I managed to take some shots - and a few of them were taken in black and white to give that "cold winter effect". Here's a link to the slideshow for the rest of the pics: Flickr Slide Show

My First Date with the Nikon D90

noreply@blogger.com (Abhishek) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 16:57:00 +0000

View from my apartment - Shutter priority with exposure at 30s

I had a blog post of an almost similar name a couple of years back - when I had got Canon A570IS. And after months of research and reading online articles, watching videos, I finally ended up ordering Nikon D90 with 18-105mm VR kit lens. It arrived this Tuesday, and I was SUPER excited - so excited that I left office a couple of hours earlier than usual :)

I would have loved to have shot an unboxing video (but, I was TOO impatient- just grabbed a knife and opened the box the instant I got home). I had also ordered some additional accessories (that included a Dolica Proline tripod). So, the first thing I do is to setup the camera on the tripod and shoot with a reasonably long exposure (30s). Thankfully, it was dark outside. And I liked the result :)

For the past 2 days, I have been reading about the features of the camera - in fact, had bought a book by David Busch specifically for that.

I guess I'll be using my Flickr account big time now.

Cooking and Me

noreply@blogger.com (Abhishek) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 19:47:00 +0000

Today's hot topic - my cooking. As Agila pointed out, I should blog about it. Good idea!!!

I was never into cooking. Even as a kid, I seldom watched how my mom made those delicious dishes. Until recently, I didn't even know how to boil an egg. The only thing I was able to make was tea. My parents' friends used to praise my "tea preparing skills" like anything (my mom taught me that way back when I was in 9th grade). Otherwise, I was utterly useless in the kitchen. And to be very frank, I never had to worry about it at all. Once I left home for college, thanks to the hostel food and cafeteria, my hunger problems were taken care of - well not exactly the way I would have preferred (implying the food was just horrible). But I survived those 4 years. Then when I started working, office cafeteria didn't make me feel the need to bring cooked food from home.

Living in Pune also had its advantages from the food front. Why would I want to learn to cook when there were numerous eating joints throughout the city. With all types of cuisines imaginable, I enjoyed my stay in Pune.

Now, when I am in US, the regular home made Indian food seem to be a delicacy. Before leaving India, my mom tried to give me a crash course in cooking, but failed miserably (she teaches well, but me being me, had other things in mind at that time).

And yesterday, with a bit of imagination, I tried to make something from what was available in the refrigerator - potatoes and peas (with tomatoes and onions), and some assorted spices. And to me surprise, it actually turned out to be delicious (well, there was no one else to vouch for that). But all in all, I was happy. Now I can experiment with other things. And I realized, that cooking can be fun :)

May be a blog on "Abhishek's own recipes" some day, eh? :D

Chicago

noreply@blogger.com (Abhishek) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:08:00 +0000

The hibernation ends (yet again)... Yes, just 1 post in the past 6 months!!! Well, I didn't have much to write about recently, other than the fact that I have been on the move since May. But, now that I am settled at one place for quite some time, I thought of picking up this whatever little habit of blogging I had earlier.

Sitting at home after an usual day at work wasn't that common when I was in India - I generally came back home late. Here, its different. Its almost winters now - yes, I mean "almost", as most of my informants have warned me about how harsh winters are usually here. With DST off, things get dark a bit too early. 5 0clock, and its dark outside. And not to mention the constant roar of the wind which I am able to hear outside my apartment window.

I remember, when I landed in Chicago on 15th August, I loved the weather here. It was warm and sunny, and I could see the daylight till late 8.30s. And I made full use of that opportunity to visit some of the most famous places in Chicago - the Field Museum, the Shedd Aquarium, the Adler Planterium, the Science and Industry Museum to name a few. Millennium Park and Lake Michigan are just a mile walk from where I stay, so I used to visit those places frequently. And there was the Chicago Jazz Festival which 1 of my friends dragged me to.

One thing I like about this place is how much information is accessible anytime you want. My earliest friend in Chicago was in fact - google maps. From locating the nearest Walmart store, to exploring the various bus and train routes of CTA, it was really the most useful tool I found during my initial days here.

Now, that the winter sets in, it is getting difficult to get out of the house. But I am enjoying the cold chill - reminds me of the times I spent in north India.

Well, thats a lot of updates I seem to have given. But that pretty much sums up what I have been doing these days.

I leave you with a glimpse of some of the places I have been talking about...

Check out my flickr stream here...

My Driving Dilemma

noreply@blogger.com (Abhishek) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 02:19:00 +0000

Driving can be fun, that is, when you know driving, and when you don't have to constantly apply brakes. Alas, thats not the condition in most parts of India, and to be specific, in Calcutta (aka Kolkata, as some people would prefer to call the city of joy).

I recently shifted to Calcutta, and one of the primary concerns after landing here was the dilemma if whether I would be able to drive. As with most of the cities, people drive their cars in a general direction (is there something called LANES?). Yes, and thats where the problem starts. Bus stop to pick up passengers on the fast lane. Rickshaws (both cycle as well as hand pulled) also prefer to drive on the right lane. And thats just the beginning.

Then there are the infamous yellow Ambassador taxis, which don't follow any traffic rules, but expect you to be a law-abiding citizen (ever seen one of those without a sign of "obey traffic rules" on its back?). And their numbers are in 100s and 1000s. If you manage to look at the streets here, you'll only see the yellow color everywhere. (There have been a couple of times when I just managed to escape from being hit by a taxi while overtaking me from the left).

Yes, thats pretty much it. You get the picture, right? So, I was a bit too scared to take my car out on the roads in the beginning (and, sometime, I am still). But, you get used to it. You get used to the buzzing city, the city full of lights and life. And that's what makes this city one of the best cities in India (at least when you are not driving :P ).

GeekTool ~ A Way to Make Your Desktop More Useful

noreply@blogger.com (Abhishek) — Sun, 24 May 2009 02:56:00 +0000

There are various ways to make your computer desktop more useful. People use widgets to display various details directly on their desktops. I had heard about something called "GeekTool" a long time back, but hadn't actually bothered to have a look at it. Yesterday, while browsing, I came across a series of screenshots flaunting the use of Geektool. I got curious and started exploring. And, I liked it.

Geektool is a utility for your Mac which allows you to post results of various terminal commands (Unix commands). This can vary from simple date and time commands, to other system commands like top, ps. And, the outputs can be displayed in various fonts and colors, thus blending with your wallpapers. Try it out.

You can get various scripts for your Geektool by just searching about it on Google.

Languages!!! Languages!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Abhishek) — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 10:16:00 +0000

Learning languages can be fun (as if knowing how to read, write and speak in 3 languages wasn't fun enough!!!). Yes, for Indians, we are generally comfortable in communicating in 3 languages (generally) - English, Hindi (our national language) and our mother tongue (and we tend to create a new language by concocting the three languages most of the times). But, some people (including a good friend of mine) have a flair for learning new languages. Unfortunately for me, whatever I have learnt in my first 5 years of life has been permanently stored in my memory, and any new language I learn is automatically purged after a few years of inactivity.

I have traveled a lot since I was a kid, been to almost all the states in India, so have been exposed to a number of languages. But, somehow, I never made a conscious effort to learn that region's language. So, I was stuck speaking in Bengali at home, Hindi with friends and English at school. In my school life, I had French and Sanskrit as a part of the curriculum, and, I think I managed to get good scores in those subjects quite well, but actually didn't get a chance to converse in those languages. So, after a few years, the only things I remembered were a few unrelated words.

I stayed in Kerala for more than 2 years, but somehow, managed to be just fine by not learning Malayalam - English was fine enough :). Then, when I moved to Pune, haven't even made any effort to learn Marathi, even though it has been about 7 years here.

But now, I realize that learning languages can be fun. Other than knowing the various ways in which you can communicate to the residents of the place, it helps you to understand that region's culture even more. For example, currently, I have started learning German, and other than learning about the language, I am also becoming aware of their culture and lifestyle.

So how do I rate the languages I know (refer the picture at the starting of the post)?

1. English - 6th box

2. Bengali - 5th box

3. Hindi - 6th box

4. Sanskrit - 5th box

5. French - 5th box

6. German - somewhere in between 3rd and 4th :)

7. All other languages = prelinguistic :P

The ultimate level of perfection? Profanity, of course :)

Embedding Images in HTML

noreply@blogger.com (Abhishek) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 13:40:00 +0000

I noticed that the my new Blogger theme had loads of links to external images, which forced the user to wait for a considerable time before he/she can see the full page. And sometimes, a few of the images would not show up at all (again, those little idiosyncrasies of the browsers). I was looking for a way to embed the images in an encoded format, directly into the HTML of the theme. After googling on it, I found a nice site which will create a Base64 encoding of any image I provide, which I can then add to my theme.

The general way to add an encoded byte stream instead of the URL in CSS:

div.image {
width:884px;
height:181px;
background-image:url(data:image/jpeg;base64,/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAgAAZABkAAD...);
}

It took me considerable time to actually replace some 20 odd pngs and jpegs with weird series of characters (not to mention, it makes the theme code even more unreadable, but I managed to add comments wherever possible). I was happy with the result, as the updated theme loaded just fine in Safari 4 beta and Firefox 3 in Mac, Firefox 3.1 beta in Windows, Mobile Browser in S60 3rd Editon (Nokia E51), and Opera Mini browser. But, IE 6 couldn't process the encoded characters and display a picture. Haven't tried it IE7, so I would be really gratefully if someone is able to post a comment on how this blog looks using IE7 (or any other browser I haven't tried). If there are problems with many browsers, I might shift back to my previous url-linked-images version of the theme.

Update: Searching on the net provided some solutions to make IE display Base 64 encoded images, which requires a bit of PHP coding. Now I need to learn that, so I'll try to get this thing fixed as soon I have some time. My verdict? Why doesn't Microsoft's browser support something which is unanimously supported by all other browsers across all platforms? I would have completely ignored IE, but most of people still use IE, whether they like it or not :(

Cross Browser Issues

noreply@blogger.com (Abhishek) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 12:23:00 +0000

Lately, I have been tweaking my blog with lots of new widgets (if you navigate along the sidebar, you'll see what I mean). This mainly includes getting some code snippets (javascript mainly) and modifying the XML template of the theme. But, its really frustrating to get complete different results when I view this in different browsers. I predominantly use Safari Beta 4, and most of the widgets work fine. But when I open the same page in Firefox 3, a few them stop working completely. Take for example, the flash widget for displaying the label cloud (source: roytanck.com). The labels show just fine in Safari in Mac, and IE6 in Windows. But when it comes to Firefox, based on the version of the browser I am using, it behaves differently. Like, for example, in Firefox 3.1 beta 3, I need to specifically click the start button to start running the script, and in Firefox 3.0.8 for Mac, it doesn't work at all!!!

Again, while composing a blog in the Blogger editor, things work just fine in Firefox. But when it comes to Safari, if I paste some lines from somewhere into the text area, instead of landing where it should land in normal world, it somehow manages to paste itself outside it, no matter what I do.

So, currently, I am trying to find out the best browser to use in various scenarios. So, if you see some weird results while viewing this site, you can try switching the browser for some time :P

Happy April Fool's Day

noreply@blogger.com (Abhishek) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 02:39:00 +0000

This is what I got through mail from a friend of mine, and, believe me, I couldn't stop laughing :D

Update: One of my friends actually didn't realize that there is no F13 key. He just didn't press it when he read the poster because he didn't agree to the first paragraph!!! :D

My Blog v2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Abhishek) — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 13:20:00 +0000

I changed the look of my blog completely today. Yes, as it is quite obvious, the theme is completely redesigned - had to do some HTML coding to tweak an existing theme to make it more functional. And of course, the address of my blog!! Yes, yesterday, I bought a domain (I was in fact a bit surprised to find this domain name actually available, so without thinking twice, bought it).

It has been almost 3 years now since I started blogging here. Now when I read through my earlier posts, I find them quite amusing. Yes, 3 years is a long time. But here I am, posting another post on my good old blog :) . It will be quite interesting to see this post another 3 years down the line (maybe a new design will be due by then? Or maybe I'll have my own website hosted with this URL?)

Btw, to comment on this blog, you just need to click on the bubble near the title of the post. :)

Update: Do you see that cute little "AB" icon in the address bar of the browser? That is also a new addition :)

The Earth Hour

noreply@blogger.com (Abhishek) — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 02:01:00 +0000

Yesterday, at 8.30 PM in the evening, we switched off the lights for an hour for the "Earth Hour". I have been getting mails, not only from my friends, but also from my company, reminding me about the importance.

When I first heard about this a month back (I suppose ), I laughed it off. I mean, what were these people who decided to start this even thought of achieving by switching off lights for an hour? I kept getting more and more mails about this event. I was amused at the same time - we anyways have a 2 plus hours load shedding every day - so is it a double "Earth Hour" every day? :)

The main difference I find here is "choice" - if i switch off all the lights voluntarily, instead of forcefully every day, it symbolizes how much we are concerned about the current environmental condition. If we can stop what we are doing, and participate in this event, it should serve as an eye-opener for all the world leaders out there who have the power to make a change.

So there I was, coming back home, and I chose to use the stairs instead of taking the elevator. Let us hope that something is done to ameliorate the current situation.

Update: A few cities in Maharashtra (for example, my friend's home town) have a daily load shedding at that time, so she didn't have to take an extra effort in switching off lights and fans :P

The Internet and Me

noreply@blogger.com (Abhishek) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 05:06:00 +0000

We have come a long way. I remember the first day I connected to the internet (was it 2002? Yes) using a dialup modem I just installed. The series of weird dialing tones you got when you pressed the connect button - and voila!!! You are connected. Dialups were so costly those days, had to keep a track of my internet usage (@56kbps :D ). I remember the first mail account I created - it was hotmail - and I still log into the mailbox every once in a while (not to mention the number of times it got deactivated coz of non-usage).

That was how I looked at internet some 8 years back - have a mailbox to receive and send mails - the only way to connect to friends. And then there was Yahoo chat. All my friends used that. And of course, Google was still there. Our online presence was limited to mails chats.

I guess, for me, it was Google's new services in 2005 which started changing how people used the web. Gmail came, with it came an integrated chat client. With the same google account, you could now use Picasa to share pics with friends (I remember the pain in attaching all the pics in mail and sending it to friends earlier), social networking revolution with the introduction of Orkut, blogs, YouTube etc etc.

I have noticed a shift in the trend from those early days of my internet usage. I used to write mails to friends, share pics with them. But now, its more about broadcasting "whats on your mind" to all the people you know at the same time (and sometimes, to people you haven't even met before) - thats what the social networking sites do. It all about "publishing" your thoughts. I hardly use my personal mailbox to send message to a friends asking how is he/she doing - now I just post a message on his online scrapbook/wall, open for anyone else to read!! With online services dedicated in broadcasting what you are doing (Twitter), to sharing interesting links online (Digg/ Delicious), to sharing your musical tastes (LastFM), we have a lot of services online these days to help you have your presence in the Internet. Everything seems to be shifting towards social networking.

Now, you are connected to the internet as soon as you start your computer, see which friends are online, and what are they doing these days. Truly, the Internet has brought the world a lot closer :)

About This and That..

noreply@blogger.com (Abhishek) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:49:00 +0000

As the title says, I am in that "random" mood again, it seems. Another uneventful day in office has made me really tired, and so after an one hour nap in the evening, I decided to just update my blog. Yes, today's Friday, and I don't seem have much plans tonight.

I have been reading and smiling at the articles about the latest AIG bonus fiasco, and the hum-drum its causing across America - my take? Those idiots deserve to be treated like that (90% tax?? Ha ha :) )

For the last few days, I have been absorbed with the new Facebook home page - which, after giving an initial scornful look, I seem to like it. I mean, seriously, what's with this "what's in your mind" stuff? I liked "Abhishek is ..." better. But as they say, you get used to the change. But now, I am addicted to the new layout. The best part? I can comment on anything!!! And I just love people replying to those comments, and some of them are really witty replies :). Wonder, how come I didn't miss this feature before?

Listening to trance again - my current favorite being "Metaphorique" by Cape Town - truly mesmerizing :)

Decided to learn German, so, without thinking twice (after hearing about a good institute), enrolled for the weekend session. They are supposed to start tomorrow, so excited about it too :)

Welcome 2009!!

noreply@blogger.com (Abhishek) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 17:55:00 +0000

2009 is here, and January is almost over. And, it had been an eventful month so far - Mr Obama becoming the president of United States (and that makes him, unarguably, the most powerful man on earth). Also in the news had been the popularity of our very own Mumbaikars in the British movie "Slumdog Millionaire", and our beloved Mr Rahman for weaving his melodious magic, yet again. I haven't had a chance to watch the movie though, but that's the first thing on my list for this weekend.

Other events which had created headlines, especially in India, is our PM's surgery, which kept him away from the 60th Republic Day festivities. The argument with Pakistan regarding the Mumbai attack continues, with its incessant denials of having any part to play in that event - phew!!!

The economy is still in bad state, with the unemployment rate increasing (and with the recent announcements of over 70k layoffs across various companies, things seriously look a bit too gloomy). UK has finally announced that it is in recession.

The announcement of the Padma awards have, as usual, created a bit of a news (atleast in my opinion). Conferring the award to our golden boy (in Olympics that is) was expected. And so was the list of filmstars (Akshay Kumar, Ash - which makes her the 4th Bachchan to get it). But did someone forget about the other medal winners at the Olympics.

So, it has indeed been a month of events. Hopefully, things will improve soon (from the financial point atleast).

And yes, this is my 2nd post for this year, and coincidently, it marks my 50th post on my blog (hurrays)!!!

Tweeting Away on Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Abhishek) — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 17:58:00 +0000

Yup, you have guessed right - I am lately bitten by the Twitter bug... If you don't know what I am talking about, feel free to go to my Twitter profile. Its fun, and unlike other social networking sites (aka Facebook/Orkut etc etc), this just needs one single piece of info - what you are currently doing... Also known as "micro-blogging" - it allows you to post anything within the 140 word limit - so that others can follow your tweets.

So what are waiting for?

Apple's Sense of Humour - The Joke's on Windows (AGAIN) !!!

noreply@blogger.com (Abhishek) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 08:58:00 +0000

The title says it all - today, I noticed something strangely weird. While exploring the PC on my local area network, I had a look at how a "PC" icon looks in Leopard's Finder (the default explorer in Mac OS X). And, to my amusement, I saw the familiar screenshot of a typical Windows machine - one that defines its identity - Blue Screen of Death...

Wonder what guys at Redmond have to say over this ;). How did I miss this for so long?

"Death at a Funeral" was Hilarious

noreply@blogger.com (Abhishek) — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 12:29:00 +0000

I watched Frank Oz's "Death at a Funeral" today afternoon - and I couldn't stop laughing throughout the movie. For the first time, I randomly selected a movie without looking at IMDB review - the title was a bit strange - thought it to be some kind of family drama - but it turned out to be more than that. Not going to spoil the fun by giving you any detail on what the movie is all about - just watch it :P

Me a Trainer?? No Way!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Abhishek) — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 05:00:00 +0000

It happened in November. Got a mail from my manager asking if I was willing to contribute something towards the general awareness of the employees here in my company - in other words - taking a training session on some technical stuff I have been working for the past couple of years. Having nothing better to do, I agreed.

The first series of session was attended by an abominably small number of people, but it was fun, none the less - I mean, handling a handful of people in my first EVER training session, helps you deal with LESS number of questions / doubts :) ... After putting 5 days of effort, my first session was finally over (in my opinion it was a success - that's STRICTLY my opinion)... Got a decent feedback, which encouraged me to accept the next training session in December.

Here is the thing now - there are now 25 people who BELIEVE that I can TEACH, and everything turned out to be... well, a chaos on the 1st day. I was thinking - "WHY the hell did I even think of doing this again??". Things cooled down after a day or two (as a few of them backed out) - leaving a decent number of souls (15 to be approx) at my disposal ;) . Infact, I have started liking this new role of mine so much (again), it makes me wonder "Why the hell didn't I do this before?".

I am thinking - how good am I? Teaching has always been my so-called "strength" in school or college days. I am still confused if I am going to take another of these classroom training next month...

BTW, the training is on Java webservices - and my manager thinks I have gained enough expertise to start training people - I was myself not aware of this till the 1st time I started speaking in the classroom..