Now remember that I am writing this post with a white flag in my hand...I already surrender to those Casanovas who have their own melodious ways of spending time with their girlfriends and romantic interests...Following is my consideration...The only way to be happy with your love interest is to do other (read non-romantic) activities together.
Tell me...how many times can both of you on a bike ride in the evening Mumbai traffic ..? How many times can you two eat out..?? How many movies can both of you tolerate (after you're done tolerating each other) ?...After a couple of weeks...time spent at the coffee house will feel like time spent in the local train...
What I am thinking is that the best way to keep the level of excitement going on is to do something constructive and profitable together...
Going to drawing class...
Joining a dancing class...
Joining a swimming pool (wow!)..
Going out of the city on your bike or car early morning and return late night...
Coach kindergarten children for 100-metre races...
These things will help each other to discover the hidden things...things that will never surface in the college basement or in the canteen or in the coffee shop...
Love you all...
Why not have a plugin for WinAmp / iTunes / VLC which fiddles with the equalizer settings ??
Now see...songs bought from the iTunes Store have full metadata in them...and generally most other songs too have their metadata within them...However, I am concerned with only the genre of the song.
Why not have an EQ which shall set itself according to the genre of the song being played ??...When a rock is on...set the EQ to Rock...during a BackStreet Boys song...set it to Blues...and so on..
What say you ..??
My professor of C++ says that nowadays there are extremely few projects that are executed using C++...Very few companies are running projects that require system level programming...Programming that requires deep understanding of the interrelationship between the hardware and the software...
This has been the popular opinion for quite some years now...and application development is the sexiest tag a programmer can ask for...making apps was where the moolah lay...
Yet...there are many situations today which prove that system programming is very much in the know...and that fundamental changes that are required in certain fields are accomplished only by system programming...
True innovation, I believe, is driven by the evolution of how low level software converses with the hardware...if we can innovate at this level...if greater performance is extracted at the lower levels...then apps naturally run better and perform better...
Truly pathbreaking devices that are in the news today are the result of awesome system programming...that is...writing software that controls the hardware very tightly...
The OLPC required great amounts of code rewriting to give the end user the benefits of low-power and low-cost computing. Although the OS is based on Linux...it is a highly customized edition that runs as the frontend...
Next...the Asus eeePC...the thin white 7-inch netbook pioneered by Asus...although the hardware is not new as is presumed...the reason behind the high success of the eeePC is the highly intuitive Linux edition that it runs on...The software makes it friggin easy to use even for grandma..!!
Next in line...is the highly desirable iPhone...As it is understood by very few...the true high points of iPhone lie not in its hardware...but in its UI and software...The iPhone runs a mobile version of the most sophisticated OS in the world...Mac OS X. And engineers at Apple have been constantly laboring on the OS since Steve Jobs took the stage in 1997...
Although these are but 3 examples...I have to tell you that I am writing this off-the-cuff...deeper thinking will reveal many more...
And making apps will continue to remain sexy...but they remain sexy because of the groundlevel innovations and feats of engineering...
I dont understand why Steve Jobs wants to limit his Apple to the US only. Why isnt he focusing more on India and Hong Kong and Korea and Japan and Europe...
The thing is...products like the iPod and the Ipod Touch and the iPhone havent taken off in the above regions as they should...And the reason is the people from these areas do not see why they should buy from Apple...
Apple could a lot more better if it focuses its marketing here...
And another thing is...non-innovative companies like Microsoft and Nokia and Samsung have gripped the Indian market...teenage college students sing praises of Vista..aarrgh...Yuck !!...The people around here need to be told of the real thing...Who the real leader is...
And finally, since Apple products arent successfull here...no one else can adopt the same way that they have gone through without eschewing a hundred patents in the process...Only the fake cheapstake China products make the money here...Not because of innovation..Not because of clever marketing or brand positioning...But because they are flooded in the market...and are dirt cheap...
Wow...
Just a month since the public is caught unawares by the global economic slowdown and companies are already scrambling to cut costs... "counting the office staples -- minimizing printouts -- taking a rickshaw than a taxi -- switch off lights in the day"...all these measures are taken by myriad companies...
Jet airways, Future Group's Big Bazar, TCS, SAP AG, Cognizant....just a few to name those who are the latest to the cost cutting bandwagon...
But you know what...these remedies is like giving band aid to a person having a heart attack...
The fresh hires are being pushed onto the bench right from their first day...many are not being trained...those who are the real hard workers in a company are told to put off their vacations...
These are just the things that will crack out any hacker who is on the prowl for a job...Startups can leverage this situation...Talent will be cheaper than ever...The bargaining power will be back to the one who is hiring....
This is the same situation that took place when Microsoft was in court over the monopoly case...Programmers and talented people fled the company...and came over to Google in droves...Google became a magnet for talent...And that is still one of the greatest assets of the company. And now, its time for Apple for world technology domination.
So these cost cutting plans and layoffs are good for us... Yay..!!
Style and excitement are the only things that shall set apart the lovable companies from the rest.
An emotional bond with the customer is anytime better than a rational reasoning why your products are better.
A small fan following of product loyalists is way more effective than passive mass consumers.
Irresistible products are better than feature-rich products.
We reject mediocrity.
We are happen to be intolerant of unintelligent beings because intelligence is a requirement to accomplishment.
We seem to have an instinct for knowing which technologies to shun and which to pursue. That is called focus. Something which many other software coders don’t seem to grasp.
Sometimes we are frustrated of living in a defective world that deprives us of our wish to rise above the mediocre.
We are in the business of finding questions which have no answers. And when we do find such questions, we simply invent the answers.
We are convinced that nothing is more powerful than a community of talented people working on related problems.
To identify and foster human intelligence for the benefit of humanity; to encourage research into the nature, characteristics, and uses of intelligence; and to provide a stimulating intellectual and social environment for its members...all through software.
Answer the The XRD questionnaire to see if you think you are one of us. Email the answers, or write them in the comments.
At a conference lately...Vinod Khosla...the legendary Indian vc in silicon valley...said that his bets were on the clean energy innovations...
Khosla completely believes that silicon valley has 'got it'...and that it will deliver to the world the best clean energy solutions ever thought of...Khosla has also said that he is happy to poke around for new ideas...and he is trying to recognize the next black swan...ahem...here comes the kicker...
by definition...a black swan is like a slap in the face...like a dunk in iced water...like a brick in the nuts...black swans are events which are rare...which are happen very fast...and which have wide-reaching impact...
Now if Khosla is looking for a black swan...he might also be looking for a dunk in the water... ;)
The reason why we don’t hear many mobile users saying that I bought this and this app from so and so site is that there exists no such infrastructure from which the users could buy mobile apps.
First of all ...online buying is virtually nonexistent in India. and the majority of the users who MY buy apps are teenagers...and most of them do not have credit cars...those who do have credit cards are the people in their 20s...and these then transfer the files to the teens...so the basic reason why people don’t buy money is that they don’t have the money required in the format.
Next...users are still afraid of online transactions...even a geek like me hasn’t processed his first online transactions...How would I then expect normal people to do so??...
thirdly...many users do n
ot have access to good quality stuff...almost all the apps out there are never sorted on a quality basis...quality assurance is nonexistent.
fourth...almost all of the mobile app sites are and seem dodgy in nature...with their hundreds of ads and popups...and useless and dead links...finding good software...nay...software is pain ...and may take up to one hour for a good app to be searched and installed....
Fifth...instead of calling the people to where the apps are...why not take the apps to where the main buyers are??...why not install Bluetooth enabled app dispensers in the central foyer of every college....of every office??...a few ads on the equipment could pay for the hardware....replication of software has zero costs....
next...people are not educated as to what purposes they put their mobiles to use...calling and texting make up 70% percent of the total features used in all the users...nationally...making them aware ..And making the apps fun to use will bring hordes of new users...
We will need to accept cash at the app dispensers...and why not have a drm type thing for the apps too...of course...Like the iPods...only 3% of mobiles might have drm apps...But then...like the iPod mania...we could have a mania too...
The main frustration the app developers face is the difference in mobiles OSes and the thousands of different mobiles...each having its own different control set...the boon of the mobile manufacturers has become the bane of the app developers....developers never know if the end user will be having a scroll wheel or a d pad or a touch screen or the resolution of the phone...
"Those who care about their software should make their own hardware" -- Alan Kay.
Live emulators should also be possible at the app dispensers so that the users can also try out the app before they make the decision. This crucial feature is grouse not only in mobile apps but in the case of computer software too...live emulation should be possible over the net...always...
The apps should be priced so low that should take the fun out of stealing... (Provided everyone else steals for fun like me :))
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