Mac – A Boon and a Bane

When you walk into a group of people who have worked with nothing but Windows driven machines all your life, don’t expect anything more than a raised eyebrow or two when you unveil your Macbook (pro) from its case. Having recently decided to try out something new and join the Apple bandwagon I decided it was time to join the minority of people who dare use a mac as part of their daily lives and the journey so far has been interesting.

1. “Oh isn’t he the guy with the Mac?!” – In more traditional organizations (the ones without the new  ‘Life 2.0’ crowd) owning a Mac is like having a Rolls Royce Phantom in a parking lot filled with Mustangs and Toyotas. The sheer nature of the car and its uniqueness grabs every ones attention. A boardroom filled with ‘heartless suits’ will stop whatever it is they are doing to see the unveiling of a mac from its laptop bag. A mac is a sure eye catcher. And if you think the cute girl in the other cubicle is giving you the looks, just know “ITS NOT YOU!”. If you own a Mac be prepared to handle all the attention and answer some of the very basic questions “How big a hole did it leave in your wallet?”. “Does it work?” (from a day to day office perspective). And if the attention is not enough, the sheer look out being ‘outdone’ on the faces of everyone else (especially the suits who should in normal circumstances be doing better than you) should be quite satisfying. 
2. “My mommy said “Life is not a bed of roses” : All the attention and love in the world can’t get you a ‘get out of jail free’ card when it comes to getting your work done. Working on a mac required some patience especially if you are a new convert. So be prepared for the odd ball that comes your way. For example a task of connecting to  a networked printer can be more painful that trying to retrieve data from a crashed windows system. Going ‘cold turkey’ is not recommended for new converts and it might be a better idea to have a windows installation on your mac (just in case!). Mac still has a long way to go before it will be adopted with arms wide!

Conclusion : Owning a mac can be an exhilarating experience and working with it is a pleasure. However its still a long way to go before corporates start accepting it as a ‘common standard’.

Wild Hogs – The Review

Is a road trip the ultimate cure for people dealing with mid-life crisis? Like never before, this seems to be the self-prescribed solution. But having said that, a road trip is a fabulous unwinding experience for all.

The movie portrays the lives of 4 individuals who decide its time to change the monotony that has slowly and unknowingly crept into their lives.Although from varied circumstances and lives, there are two things that create an unspoken bond between them:

1. Mid-life crisis
2. A love for biking

They agree the latter seemed to be the perfect solution to bring back the spice of life and head out on this road trip that sees them bring out parts of them that they had chosen to suppress through life’s course. With only a ‘no rules’ rule applicable, they set out and it isn’t long before they find trouble before trouble finds them.

Life has made wimps out of these four and its all about finding their true selves back. After ‘losing’ one of their bikes to a mean Del Fuegos biker gang, they steal it back and in the process happen to blow up the gang’s hangout. Running from them the Wild Hogs end up in Madrid, a sleepy town where they are forced to stay for the night. This is when some of the very interesting experiences help them forge the bonds of friendship stronger.

The on screen chemistry between a group of four unlikely individuals – a little comedy from Martin Lawrence, blossoming love between William Macy and the ever so pretty Marisa Tomei, add to that larger than life Travolta and a Tim Allen we can all relate to and you got yourself a pretty potent combination of flavors to keep you enticed for a long time.

All in all a decent watch that has also got me making investment plans for my road trip in a few years from now.

Rating: 7/10

Its Green Time

It is DIFFICULT to get a man to understand something when his SALARY depends on his NOT UNDERSTANDING IT – Upton Sinclair

Global Warming is definitely an issues that’s on our minds, at least our sub-conscious. An Inconvenient Truth certain helps one get a perspective into the seriousness of this problem. Although many people, material have tried to help open peoples’ eyes to this grave concern, none have managed to drive the point home better.

Al Gore has demonstrated through this documentary, without a shadow of doubt, the impending consequences that we are about to face as a result of our ‘ignorant and blind’ actions over the past decades. What captured my attention for the entire duration was the sequence in which his point were stated, adequate use of imagery and video and also his ability to connect with his audience no matter what region of the globe they are from.

The idea of ‘go green’ is not something new. Its been around for quite some time. I remember a show on Discovery that discussed this very issue form a ‘worst case’ perspective. Although i watched this show at least 5 years back, i do distinctly remember the designs of an architect ( i have not been able to research him on Google) who came up with designs for buildings meant to be constructed on water – the designs being inspired by his fascination towards ‘gears’.

In my quest to find anything i could about the architect and his designs, i stumbled upon a few (out of millions) of ‘green designs’ and other ‘green news’ that are worth taking a look.

• Initiatives amongst the Gulf countries to align themselves with the ‘green’ attitude’.
• Designs from Koen Olthuis of Waterstudio.nl who believes the best course for humanity is becoming ‘friends with water’.
• What would a house in the future look like with all the green initiatives kicking into high gear? Check out this thought inspiring vision.

We have to be able to change the world we will in, for us and for our future and perhaps a renewable resource like ‘political will’ could give us the direction we are looking for to help forge on in this time of uncertain futures.

Time – A new Perspective

• How long does it take to get an online shares trading account opened up? I found out that a procedure that should take no more than 2 weeks can extend and extend up to 2 freaking months.

• It takes more that 30 minutes to try to explain the difference between a blog and a forum to your boss and convince him to go with one.

• It only takes a second to realize you’ve been a total jacka$$.

• It might take upto an eternity trying to correct the mistakes that you have made.

• The 2 hours you spent watching TMNT will never be restored to you. The 30 second video clips 😉 that you watch may yield more emotional and physical stimulation.

Divorce is so over-rated!

What God has brought together, let no man break asunder

Most Christians pride themselves with the fact that their family values are upheld by the very fact that they do things together. They pray together, eat together, watch TV together etc etc.

A family that prays together, stays together

But is this true? New data says other wise. The results of a recent poll on this very subject reveals surprising results. Read the entire article here

So the next time someone you know talks about the subject of divorce make sure you throw this at them. It could turn out to be a very interesting conversation

A Constitutionalized Blogosphere

Can you imagine a world without rules? I’m sure when faced with such a question, most of us would conjure an image of total chaos, fighting, mayhem and bloodshed. Now why should the virtual world be any different? Most of us have heard of cyber bullying and for the more unfortunate have been a victim of such acts.

The recent events in the life of Kathy Sierra might have pushed the creation of the ‘Blogger’s Code of Conduct’. The crux of the 6 point draft of a conduct for those in the blogosphere is this:

We take responsibility for our own words and for the comments we allow on our blog.

A blogger is responsible not only for the content in his/her blog but also the words in the comments that follow. If any ‘objectionable’ comment is found, it is the responsibility of the blogger to remove them. Now having said that ther is a very thin line between this and censorship. A comment with an opposite view point could easily be mistaken as ‘objectionable’ and deleted. And that would only help destroy the freedom of speech that we so enjoy more in the virtual than reality.

Now on to more trivial things. “..if you fancy enforcing this code of conduct on your blog feel free to use one of our multi colored ‘Civility Enforced’ badges..”. Well I believe it makes more sense to pledge having a ‘Parental Advisory’ image along with posts with explicit words. That way we could enforce ‘civility’..dont you think? 

“In case you do not wish to enforce civility, do not worry! Feel free to use this ‘Anything Goes’ badge into your blog”. This way you let us know that what we have been doing for so many months/years might not be endorsed by O Reilly.

 Fancy anyone of those badges? Id rather have one of these ‘Parental Advisory’ badges any time of the blogging year!!

The Walls Have Ears

A couple of days back I was flipping through the channels to find something interesting to watch and a small segment of news entitled ‘The Walls Have Ears’ from CNN IBN caught my attention. This was a one minute news segment about an upcoming technology. I have spent 2 days since then trying to find anything on the Internet about this news  but have always come up empty handed.

The technology developed by a structural engineer and a software developer from India over the course of 17 years can be used to reconstruct (replay) conversations held within a room without the use of any electronic devices.The identities of the individuals who created this technology were not revealed due to security reasons. There was even a source that went on to say that this technology had profound uses in countries like USA. The theory behind the technology was briefly explained:

When we speak, our sound waves strike the walls. These sound waves represent a form of energy and when struck on the walls excite the atoms within the walls displacing electrons and other particles. Every sound (word,sentence etc) hits the walls at different energy levels thereby creating a unique identifiable signature. By measuring this energy it would be possible to determine the words spoken and thereby the conversation made within a room.

Sounds like something straight out from a science fiction movie. However the technology would be made available in 2008. Considering the possibilities this has to offer I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a mad rush by many nations to understand the workings of this technology.

“..And on the day of Judgment even walls will testify against you..”

The quote above represents a passage in the Bible that some,after hearing this news, have been quick to associate with. No matter what conclusions are drawn, if someone could let me know of any links you come across on this subject (the technology) i would appreciate it.

Odeo – Dead End Ahead

Having heard a lot about Odeo i decided it was time to give it a try. The ‘signing-up’ procedures were extremely easy. However what was supposed to be a 3 minute job to upload a couple of files turned into frustration as i realized that they took away the upload feature for new users (and old users new to uploading). WTH? Thats just plain a$$ frustrating. The least they could do was put the new ‘restriction’ somewhere on the homepage and thus the so called ‘new users’ could just go away. But then again they need the new user sign up!

Bottom line Odeo scored negative marks in my book.

Free software? Anyone?

Every day we offer licensed software you’d have to buy otherwise, for free! Yes, we are giving away software, and you can download it from our site, right now and right here and our goal is to give away every good piece of software, sooner or later.

Yeah..this aint no scam people. These guys (Site:Give Away Of the Day ) give away one software(ive seen a number of games too …No its not GTA!!) everyday. So be on the lookout coz you never know if your favourite software is up for grabs

How to kill your wife

Disclaimer: Killing your wife either by this method or any method whatsoever is most likely to be considered as murder in many states!