Technology Blog of Vikas SN

Some days ago, We had our fest in our college. One of the organizers approached me and asked me if I could prepare a playlist so as to fit a Fashion show as he was not happy with the one the choreographer had made. I said okie as he was one of my best friends, so why not do it. I heard the whole concept of their fashion show and also heard the songs selected for the show. The first song was good so I continued and heard the other songs but I was suprised more in the sense shocked at the selection of the songs the choreographer had selected, it was completely rock and jazz. I didnt know in what state of mind did he select such songs. I told my friend that these songs will not work for show as the feel will be completely different.

Imagine a traditional fashion show with rock playing background. Ya you guessed it right, these are the right ingredients for a disaster. I told my friend the same and he agreed to it and told me to start afresh. I went searching for songs everywhere, through my collection, on the net, enquired my friends etc etc. Finally I came up with a playlist full of Indian songs suiting exactly to the theme of the show and showed it to him. My friend was overjoyed hearing the songs. He told me that it was awesome and thanked me a lot. I felt happy at his reaction and appreciation for my hard work. But my joy was shortlived as he came back the next day and told me that the choreographer had rejected all the songs saying that the songs are not good. He also added that all other members in the team just loved my music and only the choreographer had problems with it. I told him that it was his wish whether he wants to choose the songs or not. He was in a dilemma as he wanted to choose my songs but could not bcoz of the choreographer. After some days, he told me that he has coaxed his choreographer and managed to add a few songs of my playlist.

Finally the day of the show arrived, I went to see that show, I was particularly curious as to how the choreographer had fit rock and jazz in a traditional show. The show started. The first two round went on smoothly as the lone song I had liked in his playlist and one of my songs were used in it. But when the third sequence started, as I had contemplated, it was very bad to see traditional with Rock background. I thanked god that the show ended very soon. After the customary praise and calculated adulation shared with the fashion team. I went back home that night and sat on my bed. Something was bothering me. I asked myself if a part of me was secretly happy that fashion show was a disaster. Was I happy that a competitor might have erred in his selection? And the truth is, I was happy, and that made me feel sick.

It doesn’t really matter how hard you introspect for that answer, the reality I guess is that it is in human nature to be jealous of someone for his or her success. Here I was, feeling pleasure from a classmate’s imminent pain that his show flopped.

Why is it so easy, so natural for people to feel a tinge of excitement when another person misses the mark with their work? Why does a section of people secretly wish that you fail so that you can be branded as a failure and they succeed. What’s the matter with us?

We are all very competitive in the world so as to establish a mark in the world, and that spirit is exhilarating and bold. But how much more evolved would we be if we collectively took the blame for a flopped idea or a flopped project.

Idealistic, I know. It’s too tempting to relish someone else’s failures, but if we could turn that jealousy into a more acceptable envy, I think we’d could achieve solidarity very easily.

The Co-founder of Microsoft and one of the driving force in the company, Bill Gates spends his last day at the office on Friday. Bill Gates who was famous for his boyish face and nerdy manner epitomized the US software colossus. However Gates, aged 52, will remain the chairman of the Microsoft board of directors and the company's largest shareholder.

Gates will now turn his attention to the philanthropic organisation "Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation" he established with his wife which is by the way, the world's biggest philanthropic organisation.

Paul Allen, who teamed with Gates to start Microsoft in a garage in 1975, will be among those attending his farewell party at a gala dinner affair Friday night.

Gates leaves Microsoft in a time when the computer era is changing rapidly with new inventions being done every now and then and challenges from Internet Superpower "Google" and long time rival "Apple" (who make Macintosh Computers) are increasing slowly.

3 top executives from Microsoft will look into the duties of Bill Gates namely Ray Ozzie who will take over the duties of Chief Software Architect, Craig Mundie who will look into Bill Gates's chief research and strategy officer duties and Steve Ballmer who will be the CEO of Microsoft Corporation headquartered at Redmond, Washington.

Microsoft is losing Gates at a time when "cloud computing" (E.g. Google Docs) is fast becoming the next big thing and shaking the "packaged software" foundation (Microsoft Office comprising of Word, Excel and Powerpoint etc) on which the company's fortune is built and also Windows Vista has flopped big time with users still preferring its previous version Windows XP and also when Microsoft Zune, once considered iPod's competitor, has failed to create an impact.

But after 33 years at the helm of the company he co-founded with Paul Allen after dropping out of Harvard in 1975, Gates, who has virtually achieved his initial goal of putting a PC in every home, will leave the problems for someone else to sort out.

BYE BYE!!! Bill Gates, we will miss you.

The 3G version of Apple iPhone was officially released on June 10th. You are thinking what's new in this phone. Well let me tell you some of the important updates done to the new iPhone 3G.

From the design point of view, Apple has modified the phone and the phone is lot slimmer than the last model. A new color "White" has also been added to the lineup of the phones, though it is available only in 16GB models and all the other models will now have a glossy black rear casing. The earphone socket has also been adjusted to accommodate normal 3.5mm pins, so that people can simply plug in any headphone of their choice. The back of the phone has also been changed from simple flat back to a tapering back to give it a sleeker look. Nothing much has changed design wise. But one of the missing features is a secondary camera in the front since this is a 3G phone and should support video calling

Features wise, iPhone 3G is faster than the previous model, it also has a better battery life which is would approximately 5hrs of talktime. The new iPhone 3G is equipped with an integrated GPS unit along with other location based services to enhance the feature especially with Google Maps and photo Geo-tagging. An option to delete emails in bulk has been provided, a new Contact search has been provided to find names in the address book. Complete support has been provided for viewing Microsoft and also iWork documents. It also has a brand new scientific calculator, but the best part is that it gives a total enterprise support to the business users. It also supports Push email, Push contacts, Push Calendar, Auto-discovery of Exchange servers, Global address lookup, and a Remote Wipe security feature.

iPhone 3G also has 'Typepad', a blogging application for the iPhone, through which bloggers can easily upload images and content. iPhone 3G will also have application called "Mobile News Network" through which it is possible for the users to watch news videos as well upload images to the site of Associated Press.

Fresh New games will be available for download at The AppStore at $9.99 per game. The games available for download include Sega's Monkey Ball, 3D Racing etc. The iPhone 2.0 SDK will be available from July, for free(for only iPhone users, iPod Touch will have to pay up $10 for the kit).

But one of the major things, Apple has missed out is Bluetooth Radio that has still not been updated to support an A2DP profile. But that aside, I am curious to know as to when would the iPhone 3G arrive in India and also how much would it cost considering the drop in the pricing of iPhones ($199 for 8GB model and $299 for 16GB model). Hello!!! Airtel/Vodafone people, you listening?

Idea Cellular, the Aditya Birla Group firm is on the verge of taking over Spice Communications, as the talks have reached the "advanced stage". The ball now is BK Modi's (Largest Share holder of Spice Communications) Court as he is in talks with Idea about the buyout price for his 40.8% stake in the company. According to the sources, the share price may lie between 77 -78 rupees per share i.e. around 22 billion rupees for Mr.Modi's stake.

After the merger, Idea Cellular will become the 5th largest mobile operator in India after Bharti Airtel, Reliance, Vodafone Essar and BSNL unseating Tata Teleservices.

This will also help Idea gain a strong foothold in Punjab and Karnataka circles where it had no representation though Idea already has operations in Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi and Maharashtra, the four circles where Spice had been granted licence to operate in but is still awaiting the spectrum allocation before it could roll out services.

Being a Spice customer myself, hoping that this deal would happen for better and the services of Spice improves and not vice versa

The exponential growth of the city in the last few years had robbed it from its much famed green cover. Many people had blamed and criticized the IT industry for this. But now the things are slowly changing in the "Garden City Of India". Many of the IT biggies likes Infosys, Wipro and TCS are doing their bit for the environment and developing eco-friendly buildings/campuses. The building are being made of natural stone and the canteen have been made plastic free, the water fountains using recycled water.

As Nandan Nilekani, Co-Chairman, Infosys quoted in an interview "It is about doing things in a way in which water is recycled, waste management, so it's a whole host of things, which reduce the energy, water, and footprint of the building”.

Other Companies like SAP Labs are also chipping in to do their bit. The SAP Labs' facility in Bangalore are functioning mainly on natural light. The company sources say that they do not switch on the light till 6pm in the evening. Wipro is promoting their green computers, which uses a minimum amount of hazardous chemicals.

Though it is not just in Bangalore, Infy is planning a similar building in Jaipur and TCS is also opening a "green" campus in Bhubaneshwar.

Bangalore's Real estate sector is also jumping into this to provide the much needed infrastructure. "The Indian Green Business Council, which is part of the CII, in just the last 60 days has received applications for green home ratings for 50 to 60 million square feet of buildings,” says CEO, Biodiversity Conservation India Ltd, C Hariharan.

The potential of this "Green Building" market is pegged at 30 to 40 billion dollars and even though the initial costs are higher, IT companies are flocking towards this idea as it will help them earn some goodwill and also earn some brownie points or in this case "Carbon points" :-).

Of late, Celebrities have been hit by the blogging Virus. Be it the "Big B" Amitabh Bachchan or Aamir "The perfectionist" Khan or the industry's bad boy Salman Khan.

But now even politicians are entering into this territory. Our own Lalu prasad Yadav has opened a blog on mypopkorn.com and he intends to post every week on his blog. This has created a lot of interest among people because knowing Lalu's sense of humour, it would be a nice and humourous blog to read.

Though the first post is seriously political regarding the Gujjar's agitation and mishandling of the same by Vasundhara Raje's Government. Nevertheless his forthcoming posts may be packed with humour for which he is famous for.

To visit his blog click here.

Sometimes writing a personal blog can be a big problem. Though you are able to write anything you want, but this very freedom gets to you at times, leaving you thinking as to what topic should be written about, as there will be many topics about which you would want to write about in the blog. This results in what I call as "Topics Jam". The final result of this "Jam" would be to give up the idea of writing about anything and forgetting about it. That is the reason I have able to write only 6 posts in almost an year though often wanting to blog more regularly.
So here is another attempt to start blogging regularly :-)
Let me see how far will I succeed this time...