Last week, I awoke to find Aaron with me. He was sitting next to my bed, grinning his cheekiest grin, holding my hand.
For a few minutes, I savored a sweet uncertainty: Were the last few weeks all a nightmare, and Aaron was still with me? Or was I awaking inside a dream state, and in the real…
After being married for more than 37 years I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as a leader of an organization such as ours.
Awesome things can be done using this “thing”.. Sample shown below.. You can find more on www.surface.com
<p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/28361677“>New York Times R&D Lab: The kitchen table of the Future</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/niemanlab“>Nieman Journalism Lab</a> on <a href=”http://vimeo.com“>Vimeo</a>.</p>
The notes below is a collection of some amazing stories I found over the web about Steve Jobs.
The impossible, make it smaller
When engineers working on the very first iPod completed the prototype, they presented their work to Steve Jobs for his approval. Jobs played with the device, scrutinized it, weighed it in his hands, and promptly rejected it. It was too big. The engineers explained that they had toreinvent inventing to create the iPod,and that it was simply impossible to make it any smaller. Jobs was quiet for a moment. Finally he stood, walked over to an aquarium, and dropped the iPod in the tank. After it touched bottom, bubbles floated to the top. “Those are air bubbles,” he snapped. “That means there’s space in there. Make it smaller.”
By Amit Chaudhary via The Atlantic
Here, don’t be late anymore
Givens recalled one day when a secretary was late, and Jobs demanded to know why.
“(She was a) single mom, good secretary,” Givens said. “She said, ‘My car wouldn’t start.’ So, that afternoon, (Jobs) walks into her office, throws a set of keys to a brand new Jaguar and says, ‘Here, don’t be late anymore.’ He was always doing things like that, surprising people.”
By Shrey Banga via wral
Icon Ambulance
One Sunday morning, January 6th, 2008 I was attending religious services when my cell phone vibrated. As discreetly as possible, I checked the phone and noticed that my phone said “Caller ID unknown”. I choose to ignore. After services, as I was walking to my car with my family, I checked my cell phone messages. The message left was from Steve Jobs. “Vic, can you call me at home? I have something urgent to discuss” it said. Before I even reached my car, I called Steve Jobs back. I was responsible for all mobile applications at Google, and in that role, had regular dealings with Steve. It was one of the perks of the job. “Hey Steve - this is Vic”, I said. “I’m sorry I didn’t answer your call earlier. I was in religious services, and the caller ID said unknown, so I didn’t pick up”.
Steve laughed. He said, “Vic, unless the Caller ID said ‘GOD’, you should never pick up during services”. I laughed nervously. After all, while it was customary for Steve to call during the week upset about something, it was unusual for him to call me on Sunday and ask me to call his home. I wondered what was so important? “So Vic, we have an urgent issue, one that I need addressed right away. I’ve already assigned someone from my team to help you, and I hope you can fix this tomorrow” said Steve. “I’ve been looking at the Google logo on the iPhone and I’m not happy with the icon. The second O in Google doesn’t have the right yellow gradient. It’s just wrong and I’m going to have Greg fix it tomorrow. Is that okay with you?” Of course this was okay with me. A few minutes later on that Sunday I received an email from Steve with the subject “Icon Ambulance”. The email directed me to work with Greg Christie to fix the icon.
By Vic Gundotra on his G+ post
My Experience with Jobs and Apple
Growing up I was a huge apple fan-boy (fine, still am.) The first NY apple store in Soho opening was probably the coolest thing that happened to me between the ages 6 and 12. For a while I would spend almost every weekend there. Every year for halloween I was a mac, and I made a habit of shaving the Apple logo into my head to celebrate every OS launch.
My neighbor Brooke mentioned that Steve Jobs, busy as he is, always reads email sent to his public address. I think I was around 10 or 12, and I sent a very enthusiastic and grammatically incorrect message including a picture of my shaved head.
Apparently he forwarded it to the head of Public Relations, Katie, and I got invited to the opening of the 5th Avenue Cube. I can never thank them enough. This was probably the high point of my childhood.
[Apparently the kid in the blue coat just said “I’m Apple’s biggest fan” to which Steve replied, “what about that guy”]
Now-a-days everyone uses gmail. It’s the best email service around and there’s not a single day in my life in my Outlook Web Access is as good as gmail, I will leave using Outlook client once for all.
Gmail provides you with lots and lots of features, but most of them stay ignored for many users. Here are a list of 5 best features according to me that most people tend to neglect/oversee.
Inbox preview
When using your email over slow connection, you should have wondered what you need to do while the system is logging you in. Looking at the progress bar while I see ‘Loading harsha**@gmail.com’, I always look for the apps which are using my bandwidth, and shut down utorrent even if there is no downloading in progress. The disappointment is much larger when I see there is nothing new to read after it has finished loading after ages
Well, Google has given you a solution, it’s the Inbox preview
While gmail is loading, this feature will show you a simple but a static look of your inbox with 10 most recent messages displayed. This will ease up our pain a lot especially when on a super slow shared connection.
Refined Look – the G+ way
Well, this is how the future gmail is going to look like. This theme clears a lot of clutter, gives a neat and clean look of your inbox and also your activity bar stays stagnant even if you scroll down the page.
There were rumors that down the lane, all google products are going to look the same way and this is just a start. This is part of consistency efforts that google is putting in place across all its products so that end users will not fell they are using another product while they are still in Google domain.
There are 2 themes: Preview and Preview(dense). Go to settings>themes and you can select whichever you want depending on the information density you prefer
Preview Pane
This, I would say is one of the most useful labs available in gmail. Just like Outlook, when you click an email, it shows the snippet as a preview.
After you enable Preview Pane from the Labs tab in Gmail Settings you’ll see a toggle button in the top right corner of your message list, which lets you switch between preview and list views.
Just like outlook, you can also specify which split you want: Vertical, Horizontal or no split at all
And there is a default 3 second delay that gmail marks a message as read when opened in the preview pane. This can be customized as well.
Undo Send
Sometimes, we forget to attach a file or hit send too early just to realize you have used some bad words in your email. Well, Google provides you with this lab which lets you to be able to undo your email upto 5 seconds after you hit ‘send’. Undo Send can be enabled under Settings>Labs
Delegation feature - Manage multiple gmail accounts
Delegation is somewhat useful for the execs who have assistants manage their calendars and monitor emails, but not for regular folks like us who will not have such ‘huge’ requirements and not to mention, we have plenty of ‘free’ time to check and send emails. But this feature sure comes handy if you have multiple gmail addresses. To grant access to another account, click the Settings link in the top right corner of Gmail. On the “Accounts” tab, you’ll see a new section where you can “Grant access to your account.”
It was very clear from Nortel patent war that Apple and Microsoft teamed up to beat Google. Nortel, the Canadian telecom equipment maker had gone bankrupt and offered to sell more than 6000 of its patents. It was the last set of patents that Nortel had held after its bankruptcy in 2009. A “Consortium” of industry players including Apple, Microsoft, RIM, Sony, Ericsson beat Google and Intel in the patent auction. What does that mean to Google? Well, it means a lot. That makes each player in consortium to cough out far less amount than Google had offered initially. They have just agreed not to sue themselves, but that also means they can sue others. The patent war is getting intense. Effectively, this loss can be very bad for Android. There are far too many patent infringement lawsuits already in courts surrounding Android and its makers(mainly HTC, Motorola and Samsung). But now, after this Moto acquisition, Google will get a chance to lay hands on ~24000 patents held by Motorola. With that strong paten trove in its arsenal, Android will be much less vulnerable to litigation.
Interesting fact: Motorola has the patent on the cell phone.
In the Android handset segment, HTC is the major player followed by Motorola and Samsung. All other handsets account just for 10-15% of total Android market. That technically means Google is now owner of a firm that makes 30% of Android sets sold worldwide. Is it trying to go the Apple way?? That cannot be ruled out, but for now, Google has announced that it is going to run Motorola mobility as a separate entity; completely isolated from its core business.
At 29%, Googorola sits in the second place seat, just behind HTC (35%) and ahead of Samsung (25%). That stat comes from numbers pulled fresh this morning by mobile analytics firm Localytics.
Android, being open source, has not been yielding more money to Google whereas iPhone turned out to be the primary source of income for Apple, who now holds more cash reserves than the US government itself. Apple, who once was far behind in the war, is now fighting with Exxon for the post of ‘Most Valuable company of the world’. Google now got the much needed push to compete with Apple, atleast in the mobile device segment. This could also mean that a competitor is getting ready for iPad in the form of Moto tablets powered by Android.
As Greg says, Google just instantly shot from zero to 60 (well, zero to 30% — but you get what I mean) in a race they long pretended to have no interest in. They stood aside and let the major manufacturers raise Android to the top — and now that it’s there, they’re swooping in and taking a commanding control of the hardware side of things. Is it evil? Perhaps a bit. But it’s also downright genius. Marketshare maintained, Google will have final say over what happens to thirty percent of the hardware sitting in pockets, and be able to sway the other manufacturers accordingly.
So, what is in store for us (The users)?? Let’s wait and watch
Okay, now that everyone got into G+, we might be looking for enhancements.. like Vanity URLs etc., Whenever I find a new service thats interesting, I go and block my handle ‘harshaunplugged’ so that I will not be able to lose my identity anywhere.. Remember Facebook also didn’t had this feature until recently.. It was only 2 years back(i think) FB started offering vanity URLs.. but Google+ don’t have an such option(as of now).. May be they were taken back on this one since G+ is heavily related to gmail and as such privac issues will pop up.
G+ ID is a long string of numbers that you don’t want to remember, let alone give it to anyone or post/link it somewhere.. gplus.to comes to our rescue.. It is just a simple website that helps us redirect our G+ profile to a vanity URL we can set up under gplus.to domain… I’ve just set up mine: gplus.to/harshaunplugged
Wanna care to get yours?
Ø RECENTLY CHINA AIRPORTS WERE CLOSED DUE TO HEAVY FOG
……. LATER IT WAS DISCOVERED THAT RAJNIKANTH WAS SMOKING IN INDIA!!!!!!!!!!
Ø RAJNIKANTH DID HIS KG FROM SEVEN DIFFERENT PLACES..TODAY THOSE PLACES ARE KNOWN AS IITs!!!!!!
Ø GOVERNMENT OF INDIA PAYS TAX TO RAJNIKANTH FOR LIVING IN INDIA!!!!!!!
Ø DEFINITION OF SOLAR ECLIPSE:
WHEN RAJNIKANTH STARES AT SUN WITH ANGER, SUN HIDES BEHIND THE MOON. THIS GREATEST PHENOMENA IS CALLED SOLAR ECLIPSE………!!!!!
Ø RAJNIKANTH WOKE UP ONE DAY AND DECIDED HE SHOULD SHARE ATLEAST ONE PERCENT OF HIS KNOWLEDGE WITH THE WORLD……
THUS………………….. THE GOOGLE WAS BORN!!!!
Ø THINK WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF RAJNI WOULD HAVE BORN 150 YEARS AGO..?????
BRITISH WOULD HAVE FOUGHT FOR INDEPENDANCE….
Ø BEST RAJNI JOKE!!!!!!
EVEN GHAJINI REMEMBERS RAJNI!!!!
Ø AN EMAIL WAS SENT FROM MYSORE TO BANGALORE
RAJNIKANTH STOPPED IT AT MANDYA ….
Ø WHY DO EARTHQUAKE OCCURS?????
BECAUSE AT THAT TIME RAJNIKANTH’S MOBILE IS ON VIBRATION MODE!!!!!!!!!
Ø ONCE RAJNIKANTH BUNKED A WHOLE DAY IN SCHOOL…..!
SINCE THEN THAT DAY IS KNOWN AS
…………….
…………..
SUNDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ø THE PYRAMIDS IN EGYPT ARE ACTUALLY……………………………
……….RAJNIKANTHS PRIMARY SCHOOL CRAFT PROJECTS!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ø BREAKING NEWS:
ISRO DOES NOT EXISTS ANYMORE…..!!
RAJNIKANTH PURCHASED ALL THE ROCKETS FOR DIWALI CELEBRATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ø WHY DID RAJNI BUY AN ACRE OF LAND WTH 4 WELLS ON EACH CORNER?????
………………….. TO PLAY CARROM!!!!!!
Ø BEFORE TOM CRUISE, RAJNI WAS APPROACHED FOR THE MOVIE MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, BUT RAJNI REFUSED AS HE FOUND THE TITLE INSULTING..
Ø Rajnikanths next project. Titanic in Tamil. Climax revised. Both survive. Rajnikant swims across the Atlantic Ocean with heroine in one hand and… Titanic in the other.
MNP is here.. Finally!! after 2 years of delays and push backs, its here!! Its been launched in Haryana last week and is expected to roll out to all over India by March 2011. Its already being speculated that this will launch in Metros and some other regions in the end if December; provided operators are ready with the infra.
MNP has been in the US and other countries from a long time and it took us so long to bring it here. Better late than never. India is already one of the cheapest telecom markets in the world owing to the fierce competition and strict regulatory authorities. Finally, consumer will emerge as the winner!!
You can always avail the features of the new telecom provider you’ve always wanted; retaining the same number. Isn’t it awesome. Everyone I’ve spoken to, wanted to port their numbers out for a varying range of reasons. Some want good signal strength, some needs better talk plans and some for the latest craze, 3G. I also plan to port my Vodafone number to Airtel just because Airtel has the 3G license in AP circle.
New players always want to woo customers from other players, especially higher ends. Also, this is a major opportunity for major players to be in the competition by offering better service and taking an advantage of their pan-India presence.
You can opt for porting out a number for a one time fee of Rs19. Fair Enough. 4 days and some paper work should get you out to the new provider. A minimum lock-in period of 90 days will apply before you choose to port out again! So, plan your moves well or you will be locked in for 3 months.
Idea has already started their campaign on TiVos with Junior Bacchan, while Docomo and BSNL have seperate plans like free talk time and free GPRS, 3G services etc.,
All of this just brings more competition in the Indian telecom space and more freedom for the consumers. A moment to rejoice. So, how many of you planning to port out??
