Jackie Chan
Ricky Martin
Will Smith
Liz Taylor
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
Microsoft Mobile Under Seige?
In the last 1 week, Microsoft Mobile is finding itself battered and hounded.
First, the Windows Mobile got a response which could only be compared to Microsoft Vista in terms of the catatrosphically disastrous reviews - the most damaging one from Mobilecrunch, which, to quote, says:
And of course, the disastrous Sidekick upgrade and the wordplay on Microsoft and Danger is overwhelming.
All this might perhaps, finally, make Steve Ballmer (and of course, the Windows Mo) quit and in fuse young blood that might yet make Microsoft more relevant in these changing times of Cloud Computing, SaaS and internet based technologies, where Microsoft has been lagging for quite a while. {It was quite interesting to see Ballmer play the Google's Anonymity and Underplay card when questioned on Windows 7 during his EU Trip}
Microsoft's success in the 80's and 90's came from the fact that they were what Google is now - a company which consistently tossed up good products, with a sound financial platform and of course, one of the best talent pools in the world. The talent and the financial platform still lives on, but the new and innovative products have died out. In the last 10 years, I can count only 2 success stories - Windows XP (which was really a milestone) and Bing (take the Bing ads with a pinch of salt, however). Perhaps make a younger person, who, might be able to make decisions to move the company in the right direction - I don't want to see the Motorola story happen once again to a company which I'd like to see exist in an meaningful manner for more years to come.
First, the Windows Mobile got a response which could only be compared to Microsoft Vista in terms of the catatrosphically disastrous reviews - the most damaging one from Mobilecrunch, which, to quote, says:
Windows Mobile 6.5 is a spit and polish job on 6.1 — nothing more, nothing less. Every single change in Windows Mobile 6.5 feels like it was made by a team of homebrewers or modders, rather than a huge corporation with truckloads of money to blow on one of their flagship products.
And of course, the disastrous Sidekick upgrade and the wordplay on Microsoft and Danger is overwhelming.
All this might perhaps, finally, make Steve Ballmer (and of course, the Windows Mo) quit and in fuse young blood that might yet make Microsoft more relevant in these changing times of Cloud Computing, SaaS and internet based technologies, where Microsoft has been lagging for quite a while. {It was quite interesting to see Ballmer play the Google's Anonymity and Underplay card when questioned on Windows 7 during his EU Trip}
Microsoft's success in the 80's and 90's came from the fact that they were what Google is now - a company which consistently tossed up good products, with a sound financial platform and of course, one of the best talent pools in the world. The talent and the financial platform still lives on, but the new and innovative products have died out. In the last 10 years, I can count only 2 success stories - Windows XP (which was really a milestone) and Bing (take the Bing ads with a pinch of salt, however). Perhaps make a younger person, who, might be able to make decisions to move the company in the right direction - I don't want to see the Motorola story happen once again to a company which I'd like to see exist in an meaningful manner for more years to come.
Friday, October 09, 2009
Tag Tag
I have been tagged and have tagged many of my blog friends. Recently, I have noticed a few things online which causes immense irritation or frustration. I'm sharing them here. Anybody interested can continue this from here:
1. Funny spellings and morse code English - Lots of people use spelling which are downright funny - apparently, nyc = nice, lyk is like and cool is kewl. What I cannot understand is these alternate spellings are in no way an easier option as kewl and cool are four letter words. and lyk is one letter shorter than like. I do not know what the person who is using these funny spellings is going to do with the time they save by typing these funny and hard to decipher spellings. The best of them all is the 'moi'. I'm linguistically challenged, knowing only English and Thamizh. I first thought that moi was the thing that people used to give during weddings or other social occasions in India. It was one of those kind souls who later explained that moi was French for me.
2. The usage of 'awwwwww' and 'Muaaaah' - These words must be officially banned from usage. I do not know how the hell they can either sound or be cute/romantic for anybody. Awwwww sounds more like the sound that Vadivelu makes. And Muaaah, with its spelling and all that sounds like the sound an erumai maadu (buffalo) might make. While I cannot for sure rule out that the janthu's which type these muaah's are not erumai maadu's, I'm reasonably sure that they do not want the general populace to know that they are one.
3. The 'Like' feature in Facebook - Someone says on their facebook status - "Enga veetile inniki ezhavu" and you would see a couple of their 'friends' liking it. I cannot fathom how people could 'like' certain stuff which they seem to do on Facebook. I will not surprised if somebody might actually leave a suicide note on facebook and unsurprisingly, some of their friends will like it.
4. Babe - The last time I really liked using this word when a movie about a piglet/pig came out when I was young(er). Nowadays you find every roadside romeo addressing every female he knows with this word. Again, I cannot see a reason as to why they cannot refer to that girl by her name. I cannot see why calling somebody as Babe (variant - babes) will be cool.
5. Use of the word Only - Recently there is a spate of sentences which end with only (colloquial usage = wonly). Popular examples - I'm working on a sunday wonly, I'm drinking beer wonly. If ONLY these F'ed morons stopped using this word!!
6. Having work related status messages on Facebook/Gtalk - It is understood that when an employer pays you for 40 hours, they would expect you to work for the money that they pay you. And of course, all jobs come with the clause that at certain point of time during the job, you might have to stay back on the odd day or have a crazy week once in while. And I guess most of us undergo this, irrespective of where you work - starting from Google/Microsoft/Intel to Mannar and Co. Then why the hell should someone crib about 'Oh! I had to work like a dog', '10 hours at the office'. If you are so bloody busy with work, how the hell can you find time to login to twitter, facebook and update the status with these 'oh-i'm-so-busy-look-at-me' not so subtle message? Inda madri vetti velai panra nerathile ozhunga velai panna, veetuku ozhungaana time ku polaam!! I cannot understand how these foolish people expect to be paid to update facebook status and put some 140 character nonsense in Twitter.
7. Twitter - I own a Twitter account for the past 6-7 months and cannot, for the limited intelligence that I possess, understand the purpose of Twitter. I assume that no-one on this planet would be interested in knowing when I woke up, when I sodikified my kai-viral and when I had my last coffee. At this rate, I'm quite afraid as to what other personal detail can come out on Twitter. And when I saw that twitter was recently valued at 1 Billion, I could not help think, Kali muththi pochchu.
8. Blog jaalras - Nowadays, celebrities use Blogs, facebook as an easy means to publicize themselves / reach out the public. A good case in point is Chinmayee's blog, where, except for those sporadic weird posts which scares the living daylights out of you, you more or less get information about her shows, songs etc. I generally do not find posts like these irritating, as I understand that as a celebrity, your market value is only as good as how well people remember you. In fact, I only hope more celebrities take to blogging so that we get to know how various industries work, the dynamics etc. What does get me is those makkal who put some comment like "Oh! You are the living legend of acting", "You are the vidivelli of tamizh cinema". Ada Raama!!
1. Funny spellings and morse code English - Lots of people use spelling which are downright funny - apparently, nyc = nice, lyk is like and cool is kewl. What I cannot understand is these alternate spellings are in no way an easier option as kewl and cool are four letter words. and lyk is one letter shorter than like. I do not know what the person who is using these funny spellings is going to do with the time they save by typing these funny and hard to decipher spellings. The best of them all is the 'moi'. I'm linguistically challenged, knowing only English and Thamizh. I first thought that moi was the thing that people used to give during weddings or other social occasions in India. It was one of those kind souls who later explained that moi was French for me.
2. The usage of 'awwwwww' and 'Muaaaah' - These words must be officially banned from usage. I do not know how the hell they can either sound or be cute/romantic for anybody. Awwwww sounds more like the sound that Vadivelu makes. And Muaaah, with its spelling and all that sounds like the sound an erumai maadu (buffalo) might make. While I cannot for sure rule out that the janthu's which type these muaah's are not erumai maadu's, I'm reasonably sure that they do not want the general populace to know that they are one.
3. The 'Like' feature in Facebook - Someone says on their facebook status - "Enga veetile inniki ezhavu" and you would see a couple of their 'friends' liking it. I cannot fathom how people could 'like' certain stuff which they seem to do on Facebook. I will not surprised if somebody might actually leave a suicide note on facebook and unsurprisingly, some of their friends will like it.
4. Babe - The last time I really liked using this word when a movie about a piglet/pig came out when I was young(er). Nowadays you find every roadside romeo addressing every female he knows with this word. Again, I cannot see a reason as to why they cannot refer to that girl by her name. I cannot see why calling somebody as Babe (variant - babes) will be cool.
5. Use of the word Only - Recently there is a spate of sentences which end with only (colloquial usage = wonly). Popular examples - I'm working on a sunday wonly, I'm drinking beer wonly. If ONLY these F'ed morons stopped using this word!!
6. Having work related status messages on Facebook/Gtalk - It is understood that when an employer pays you for 40 hours, they would expect you to work for the money that they pay you. And of course, all jobs come with the clause that at certain point of time during the job, you might have to stay back on the odd day or have a crazy week once in while. And I guess most of us undergo this, irrespective of where you work - starting from Google/Microsoft/Intel to Mannar and Co. Then why the hell should someone crib about 'Oh! I had to work like a dog', '10 hours at the office'. If you are so bloody busy with work, how the hell can you find time to login to twitter, facebook and update the status with these 'oh-i'm-so-busy-look-at-me' not so subtle message? Inda madri vetti velai panra nerathile ozhunga velai panna, veetuku ozhungaana time ku polaam!! I cannot understand how these foolish people expect to be paid to update facebook status and put some 140 character nonsense in Twitter.
7. Twitter - I own a Twitter account for the past 6-7 months and cannot, for the limited intelligence that I possess, understand the purpose of Twitter. I assume that no-one on this planet would be interested in knowing when I woke up, when I sodikified my kai-viral and when I had my last coffee. At this rate, I'm quite afraid as to what other personal detail can come out on Twitter. And when I saw that twitter was recently valued at 1 Billion, I could not help think, Kali muththi pochchu.
8. Blog jaalras - Nowadays, celebrities use Blogs, facebook as an easy means to publicize themselves / reach out the public. A good case in point is Chinmayee's blog, where, except for those sporadic weird posts which scares the living daylights out of you, you more or less get information about her shows, songs etc. I generally do not find posts like these irritating, as I understand that as a celebrity, your market value is only as good as how well people remember you. In fact, I only hope more celebrities take to blogging so that we get to know how various industries work, the dynamics etc. What does get me is those makkal who put some comment like "Oh! You are the living legend of acting", "You are the vidivelli of tamizh cinema". Ada Raama!!
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Apple - The Shine Never Comes Off
I've been using the iPhone from Apple for more than a year now - while I can say that this is the coolest phone I've had, I find the media and the online folks are way too liberal to Apple - I do not know what Apple has done to be dealt such a sweetheart deal. The iPhone has lots of bugs and very frequent fixes. The number of Software updates to the iPhone software is way too many and perhaps Apple has not right to spoof Microsoft in its TV ads anymore. And the network that they have partnered with, AT&T, deserves to be one of the worst in terms of coverage. No wonder Verizon has its latest ad up and running successfully. Recently, I'd been to Boston and the only way that I could be on a phone call was if I came out of my hotel room onto the parking lot! Thank God, I make at the most one personal call a day. The Apple Yippies (these wannabe folks who are like Rajni Kanth or Kamal Haasan fanatics) blindly ascribe any shortcoming of the iPhone to AT&T - while I agree that network coverage and the ability to have 3G anywhere in the US to be issues related to AT&T, the phone arbitrarily crashing out of Apps, The removal of the Google Voice app, 3 years to introduce the MMS feature and the inability to provide a stable OS release that does not need to be updated every 3 months seems to be very poor performance coming from a company which likes to project itself as ultra cool and very pragmatic. And not to say, quoting an Apple Support Rep., you SHOULD switch off the phone once a day and you SHOULD connect to iTunes every week to make sure you iPhone works well. If Windows OS had a similar flaw, Apple would have a field day with its oh-I'm-Apple-and-so-I'm-cool ads with that young guy and the bespectacled guy having yet another pointless commercial. I feel that while Microsoft is culpable in certain issues - especially, with their Internet technology, by any standard, Windows is the best OS for a person who uses the PC (or the PL - Personal Laptop) - which has been there, done that and most importantly, walked the walk and talked the talk - I especially like the fact that they support their earlier versions - very recently a friend of mine forwarded a Powerpoint presentation which we made in the 11th grade - Powerpoint presentations were a big deal back then and it was really nice to get to view it once again. I really doubt if I could do something similar on the iPhone (10 years from now) if the iPhone exists till then.
Talking about gadgets, my laptop is on the verge of natural death and my camera has kicked the bucket, quite unexpectedly. Bringing hope, Thanksgiving is around the corner and Black Friday is there, too. But if anyone finds an amazing deal somewhere (apart from fatwallet, woot, edealsinfo and cheapstingybargains - which I almost habitually check), please let me know. Of course, I would like to have the free Windows 7 upgrade option :)
Talking about gadgets, my laptop is on the verge of natural death and my camera has kicked the bucket, quite unexpectedly. Bringing hope, Thanksgiving is around the corner and Black Friday is there, too. But if anyone finds an amazing deal somewhere (apart from fatwallet, woot, edealsinfo and cheapstingybargains - which I almost habitually check), please let me know. Of course, I would like to have the free Windows 7 upgrade option :)
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