Category Archives: reviews

Integrity in everyday life

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Integrity is adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty. Integrity is a very important value that you need to hold in the modern society. Integrity makes us build trust on people around us and helps you worry less about the negative effects of lack of integrity. I would like to emphasis what i said about Integrity with following example.

Ex. Five friends A, B, C, D and E got together to work on a wonderful idea. They are supposed to start the work in the next few days. A took all the details from B, C, D and E, so that all the communication can be done and they also exchanged ideas and plans. Two days later, X came and convinced C, D and E to join him. Now C, D, E and X are one group. Unfortunately X or C or D or E does not tell A or B about this split and pretend that nothing happened.

Even though these are very small things in life, they characterize people and their integrity of decisions. Lack of communication makes it more difficult to trust people from them on. If you want to be a good friend, neighbor or leader, remember the following in your life.

  • Once you take a decision, stick to it. No matter what happens.
  • If you need to break the contract, then communicate. Every one understands that contracts are not written in stone.
  • If you don’t intend to stand to your decision, then don’t make a decision.
  • Trust is earned very hard. Don’t loose it in the first place.
  • People are smart! Don’t fool around.

Why Google TV?

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Bringing the Web and TV content together is attempted by many in the past and it’s Google TV now. Initially i was all skeptical why Google has it as a big project spending huge $ on marketing. Apart from many other obvious reason, i got convinced last night. After a long time i got some time to play with my TV and Wii.

Watching a Movie : My DVD player broke and thought that i will watch some movies online. I knew Wii has a Netflix channel that you can install for free. Finding the Netflix channel and installing it was an easy task. Connecting my Netflix userid was also easy. Wii created a verification code and i need to key it in the Netflix account. Now the fun stuff… I started the Netflix channel and decided to watch the “Iron Man” movie. It started buffering the movie for 24 seconds. It played for about 3 minutes and started buffering again. Woah… that sucks. I just cant have the device buffer all the time i see the movie. The picture quality was very bad and flaky. I have the AT&T Uverse with 18MB speed and i consider this a decent internet connection. I am not sure what the reason was for my slow streaming and searched web but did not find anything.

Thumbs Down – Picture Quality, Viewing Experience

Browsing the Web : Next, i tried browsing the web with the Internet Channel on Wii. I have no idea why on earth they use Opera as browser? Pages are quick enough to load and mostly renders properly. However, its a pain (lot of pain) to search and browse. I quit browsing in almost 5 minutes. Its a horrible experience to move the Wii remote and click on single letters on the UI.

Thumbs Down – Search, Browsing Experience, Rendering, Page fit, Page Quality

Why Google TV : Yeah yeah… i hear that we have Apple TV, XBox, Roku, Wii among the popular ones and many TVs come with the Internet Widgets. But all these technologies have feature limitations. If you want to Browse, Search, watch movie content from Netflix and Youtube,  browse pictures from Picasa, Flicker and others then you need a device that’s optimized for the Browsing, Search, Page Rendering and does a good job on 1080p HDTVs.

You must not see any difference when you watch the same Netflix movie or Youtube video on similar PC vs. HDTV. And more over, you need a input device that’s elegant and yet convenient enough to give you the QWERTY keyboard (or may be voice commands). I guess this is the are Google ventured to come into. Google did a pretty good job (creating the platform) of integrating the TRUE Internet experience and the cable channels on HDTV.

Sure that there is a lot of work for Google to do before the main stream viewers accept Google TV. But, right now, its definitely a geek’s gadget.

Paper based advertisement and promotions in mail

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This is a small effort to make people realize how much of paper we waste in the name of Advertisement and Promotions in USA. Here is what i did — On On June 8th i decided that i will watch closely on all the mail i get by post. Most of the mail goes in the trash bin anyway. The idea of this experiment is to collect *ALL* mail i get between June 10th 2010 to July 9th 2010. I sorted all the mail and separated the junk and what i really look for. Following is the outcome.

Please see this video before you read on… Paper Garbage from Mail.

Some Statistics

Total Weight of the Mails (which correlates to paper weight that goes into junk) : 5.2 lbs (2.35 kgs)

Promotions & Ads addressed to Me : 21 mails

Promotions & Ads addressed to Previous Residents : 9 mails

Coupons addressed to Current Resident : 12 mails

Note 1: I have ALL my bank accounts, credit cards, utilities, mobile, cable bills as “paperless“.

Note 2 : Above mails are the ones that i personally never subscribed or wanted.

Whats does it mean

I can say that i get the least amount of mail and i still get 5 lbs of mail per months that i put into the trash. Lets do a simple math here. According to the latest Google public data the US population is 307,006,550 (307 million) as of July 2009.

Amount of Paper junk that comes by mail in 1 month = 307/4 mi X 5.2 lbs  = 399 million lbs

Amount of Paper junk that comes by mail in 1 year = 307/4 mi X 5.2 lbs X 12 months = 4788 million lbs = 4.7 billion lbs of paper

I am sure the above math is very (very) conservative as there may be s one who totally depend on the paper based billing and others.

Is there a way to reduce this paper waste  + printing chemicals + recycle costs + indirect costs and which yields NOTHING productive ?

Updated 13th July 7.00 pm PST : One of the reader pointed out that the multiplication factor is not 300 million people as these mails are per house hold. I agree! Taking that in to consideration, the new numbers would simply be 1/4 of original.

Again, these numbers are DEFINITELY not accurate. They only demonstrate the enormous paper waste.  So, i would suggest readers to be aware of the fact that these numbers are not based out of scientific formula :). Thanks for your understanding.

I can see it coming…

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As i wrote in my previous entry that i will be starting the part-time MBA from this September from UC Davis Bay Area campus. By now, i am already seeing most of the challenges that i would be facing. It’s definitely going to the time crunch and mostly it deals with the time management. 24 hours seems to be too less to do want i am doing now. All the time divided among the following categories.

….and… I am already getting anxious. In the past week my daughter has been with high fever and teething pain and we are spending most of the time with my daughter diverting her and pacifying her pain. I really want to be able to do “same thing” (at least i want to dream to do it) even after my classes start in September. The biggest challenge of all the things is to be able to justify the time at Office, Home and School. All the three are very important and crucial to want we want to be as a person.

I want to get the maximum gain out of my MBA at this time. Let us see what i say in the next 4 months. I reserve the blog title… “I am seeing it now…” to talk about my experiences of MBA in November 2010 🙂

My Decision on Business (MBA) school in Bay Area!

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This post is supposed to be a private notes. However, i thought this post would help many more out there who are deciding between colleges. The decision of choosing the college is a mix of quantitative, qualitative, personal and emotional analysis. One might get so many conflicting opinions and finally one may be totally confused about the DECISION.

I applied for 4 different colleges in Bay Area. # UC Davis Bay Area Part-time MBA program # Santa Clara University Professional MBA Program # University of San Francisco # Golden Gate University. These 4 universities are more or less famous in the Bay Area and i see many colleagues and friends who did their MBA and are in good positions in their respective organizations. I had discussions with many students from each of the university that I applied and debated a lot on one over the other. Trust me, I had almost 4 months of decision time and research. I did also attended the guest classes from each university.

Without wasting your time and my time, following are the considerations 🙂

  • Reputation of the School
    • Is this school recognized out side Bay Area ?
    • Is this school recognized out side California ?
    • Is this school recognized out side USA ?
  • Total Cost of the Program
    • Is it affordable? Is it Worth ?
  • Campus
    • Is it necessary to be in Campus ?
    • What do you want to do with Campus ?
    • Do you have much time to hand around in Campus ?
  • Alumni
    • Do you have powerful Alumni ?
    • Is Alumni active ?
    • Can you benefit from Alumni ?
  • Industry Connection
    • Does the school provide good exposure ?
    • Can you get connections from School ?
    • Do you get access to best people from Industry ?
  • Diversity of Students
    • Do you want same mind set of people or different ?
    • Do you want to stick to same field of profession even after MBA ?
    • Do you respect the opinion of a person in other profession ?
  • Faculty
    • Do you have a guest faculty or a full-time faculty ?
    • Do you get the professors from undergraduate program ?
    • Are they well qualified and well experienced in Industry.

Once I had the criteria, it was easy for me to decide. I never had the Commute or Schedule as the critical criteria as most of the classes are over the weekend and i don’t mind the commute at all. I also had the “easy factor” in the application process. I definitely wanted to join something that i felt “GOOD” and “CONVENIENT”. Following is my general impression on the application process for each University.

Golden Gate University : Had to send the GMAT score, TOEFL waiver essay, 2 Recommendations, 1 Application Essay/Statement of Purpose, Transcripts directly from University and the application fee. It was a very smooth process and i had no issues with the communication or the way they handled the application. They offer an MBA with in 21 months and the tuition fee is relatively less in Golden Gate. I had a personal interview with the director of the program where we discussed my experience, why i want to do my MBA and my future aspirations. All in all, it was a nice experience.

University of San Francisco : Had to send GMAT score, waived the TOEFL, 2 recommendations, 2 application essays, and Transcripts sent to WES (World Education Services) and application fee. This is one University that made me bit frustrated. I had no idea why this university asks people to send the Transcripts to WES where as ALL other universities asks them Transcripts sent directly to them. The problem is the WES support system is very lousy and i hated interacting with them. They have a customer support and email that does not respond. Repeatedly interacting with them just made me frustrated and angry most times. They also charge around $260 to review your transcripts. I have no idea, why this university does this. My university sent the Transcripts to all the universities including WES and the WES says that it had not got it (where as other universities got them). Also, the fact that i had to put so much of pressure on USF to get a reply from a “person” (and not IVR) from WES was too huge and not desired.

However, my experience with this university was tiring and i don’t recommend this for International Students.

Santa Clara University : This needed GMAT score, waived the TOEFL, 2 paper based recommendations, 2 application essays and the Transcripts sent to them directly. I loved the campus and the class rooms (i took guest student class) and the professors looked very knowledgeable. Students that i talked to gave a very good impression of the program. This program has mostly students from the IT/Software industry. Probably people looking for diversity may not find this as a best choice.

My over all impression was that this is a great school and i had a smooth communication. The admission team is nice and professional.

UC Davis : This needed GMAT score, waived TOEFL, 2 recommendations, 2 long-essays, 3 short-essays, 1 personal interview and the Transcripts sent to them directly once you get admitted. Bay Area campus is an extended one in San Ramon and i liked the class rooms too. Santa Clara University and UC Davis Bay Area had similar class rooms. UC Davis is known for the diversity of students and it stands in leadership position in the Industry and events. I had to go to the San Ramon campus for my personal interview. I had an interview with the panel and a 5 minute presentation with the panel. The presentation topic could be any thing and i talked about my parenting experiences.

My overall  impression was great and very satisfied with the way they answer the questions/queries about the program.

Of course, i finally decided to take the admission in the UC Davis for the various reason i discussed above. Everyone have their own priorities and expectations. Depending on what your goals are, the decision parameters and the end result might differ. However, it is worthwhile to consider all the options available and take a careful decision on the MBA program that’s going to get added for rest of your life. I consider deciding an MBA program is like decision of marriage. One needs to be very careful with personal expectation and the spouse’s. If your mess up the expectations, you screw up the complete relationship. It takes a lot of effort to analyze and decide what each one of us wants.

My decision is my decision. I want any readers to take my opinions with a grain of salt and use your own discretion. My situation may not be your situation.

My take on kids schooling in California, USA.

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The motivation of the post is a discussion that me and my friends discussed over a dinner. Families moved from decent school districts to GREAT (Ranked #1 in that State or County) and pay exorbitant rents and living costs. This is a small effort to understand how the schooling system here works.

Consciously or Subconsciously we all send kids to school to gain knowledge, social network, social skills and finally get into the main stream work life or career by undergraduate and graduate degrees. Well, a school’s rank is definitely based on the Students, Parents, Teachers, Public Funds, Private Funds (in case of private schools), Infrastructure and Passout or Graduate %. As i understand these are the main criteria that we as a parent really worry about.

Looks like the US Undergraduate Universities are eying at students from all over the country who are like the TOP 5% (or even top 10%) of the Middle School and High School. This means, the top 5% of the students (in Honor role) in a school have the chances to write the tests conducted by the local universities. e.g. my niece who is 7th grade in NY got to write the John Hopkins talent test which eventually helps them to choose some good candidates. Of course, its a race between many universities to get the best students again to boost their own ratings.

This criteria makes me believe that it is OK to have kids in good/decent school district where they have the opportunity to excel. In that level, any school with a decent API give s great deal of attention to your kid. The purpose of the Academic Performance Index (API) is to measure the year-over-year growth in academic performance for California (or any other State) schools. The API summarizes a school’s standardized test scores into a single number, which ranges from 200 to 1000. The statewide API goal is 800 for all schools; higher numbers generally indicate better performance on the tests.

Now, look at the other aspect of sending our kids to a school that has TOO much of competition and TOO much of pressure. E.g. Cupertino School District.  Kids undergo too much or pressure and distress to keep up with the TOP 5% results and we (some parents) get upset as our kids are not in the TOP 5% (as some may have even moved to Cupertino from else where and are spending higher rents and mortgages). Unconsciously, parents have high expectation on kids and it becomes similar to our EAMCET or IIT coaching stuff. As per my experience, i see less of my friends (in Cupertino) who sends their kids to other extracurricular activities compared to Fremont, Pleasanton and Sunnyvale friends. The fact is the kids in Cupertino HAVE to keep up with the competition to do well.

As long as kids have decent education and overall development, i would not too much worry about the school rankings. Of course, in my view, they should definitely go to a decent school which is probably above 850 API. I am motivated by the fact that every person from IIT and IIM is not a super star while there are more chances of becoming one.

As a closing remark : A person’s success is based on variety of factors than mere Intelligence and School.

What do you think ?

A close look at Google Privacy Policy!

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For many Google seems to be a very cool Internet company and Google has become synonymous to Internet. For the people who are not in technology/computer industry, it seems to be too hard to believe that Google is more than just an e-mail service and Search Engine.

I compiled few important legal privacy notices from Google Website and you can imagine how your data, emails, chats, mobile apps and Buzz can be used.
“Google may know you more than your parents, wife and kids”

Google Buzz

Website : http://www.google.com/buzz/help/privacy.html

When you first enter Google Buzz, to make the startup experience easier, we may automatically select people for you to follow based on the people you email and chat with most. Similarly, we may also suggest to others that they automatically follow you. You can review and edit the list of people you follow and block people from following you.

When you use Google Buzz, we may record information about your use of the product, such as the posts you like or comment on and the other users with whom you communicate, in order to provide you with a better experience on Buzz and other Google services and to improve the quality of Google services.

If you use Google Buzz on a mobile device and choose to view “nearby” posts, your location will be collected by Google. If you use a mobile device to create a post which shares your location, then your location will be collected by Google and displayed to other users, as described when you first attempt to use Buzz on a mobile device. You may thereafter opt out of the collection and display of your location on a per-post basis. You can also choose to exclude your location from all of your posts.

If you chose to delete your Google profile, your Buzz posts will be deleted, but the comments and “likes” you have made on other people’s posts will not be deleted. You have the option to remove your comments on others’ posts individually if you’d like. Residual copies of deleted material may take up to 60 days to be deleted from our active servers and may remain in our offline backup systems.

Google Chat

Website : http://www.google.com/talk/privacy.html

Account activity. You need a Google Account to access Google Talk. Google asks for some personal information when you create a Google Account, including your email address and a password, which is used to protect your account from unauthorized access. A Google Account allows you to access many of our services that require registration. When you use Google Talk, we may record information about your usage, such as when you use Google Talk, the size of your contact list and the contacts you communicate with, and the frequency and size of data transfers. Information displayed or clicked on in the Google Talk interface (including UI elements, settings, and other information) is also recorded.

We use this information internally to deliver the best possible service to you, such as improving the Google Talk user interface and maintaining a consistent and reliable user experience.

You can uninstall the Google Talk software at any time through your computer operating system’s uninstall process. You may delete your contacts information or chat histories you have stored in your Gmail account by deleting them through Gmail or by deleting your Gmail account from the Google Accounts page. Because of the way we maintain this service, such deletion may not be immediate, and residual copies may remain on backup media.

Google Mail

Website : http://mail.google.com/mail/help/privacy.html

Gmail stores, processes and maintains your messages, contact lists and other data related to your account in order to provide the service to you.

When you use Gmail, Google’s servers automatically record certain information about your use of Gmail. Similar to other web services, Google records information such as account activity (including storage usage, number of log-ins), data displayed or clicked on (including UI elements, ads, links); and other log information (including browser type, IP-address, date and time of access, cookie ID, and referrer URL).

Google maintains and processes your Gmail account and its contents to provide the Gmail service to you and to improve our services. The Gmail service includes relevant advertising and related links based on the IP address, content of messages and other information related to your use of Gmail.

Google’s computers process the information in your messages for various purposes, including formatting and displaying the information to you, delivering advertisements and related links, preventing unsolicited bulk email (spam), backing up your messages, and other purposes relating to offering you Gmail.

Being a good HOST…is an Art!

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Yes… you heard it right. Being a good host is an aArt. Some people are good at it and some really suck. Not that they don’t know how to be a good host, they just don’t have that Art in them and they don’t seem to understand it.

You go someone’s home as a guest and you feel great about those few hours you spend. You want to spend more time at their home and you feel “like home“. These hosts make you feel great about yourself and gives all the comfort that you need.  There is this other category of people who you want to “avoid“. Even if by chance you go, you feel choked and want to come out of their home as soon as possible. You are there more as a “viewer” and not as a “contributor” and “enjoyer”.  You would go to their home “late” and want to leave their home “early“.

Over the years I have the privilege of being a Guest and Host aswell. When I consciously observe more and more… following are some factors that influence the “perception” of being a good “HOST”.

Invitation/Planning : Of course, this seems to be very simple and straight forward thing to do. Everyone in life is busy (as you are). Allow people to plan their visit to your place and give them enough choices on dates. It is not difficult to do this, if you plan. Calling people on the day of the “Get-to-gather” is a BAD idea (unless they have some idea of the invitation).

Don’t send a simple e-mail and expect people to turn up. It is extremely impolite to invite people by emails (this perhaps is OK when you have a 100s of guests to call). When you are having a private-family gathering, it is nice to call each family and invite. If you are calling 4 families, you are not excused to say that you don’t have (4 * 5 minutes) 20 minutes of time.

Homogeneous Group : As a host you want to take a special precaution and consideration on the nature of people you are inviting. When you celebrate some parties which are typically 2-3 hours, people don’t care what kind of group they are mixing with. But when you call people home to spend an afternoon or evening, they are expecting to talk/discuss/ jokes, etc…

You may want to invite groups where they share much “common” interests and not having “contrast” interests. e.g. some people are “Culturally” inclined, some have strong “Political” views, some talk more about “Kids”, etc…  Considering different interests, you need to make a “sensible” judgment as to see who will blend and who will not.  Few think that “diversity” is good but not to a point where people go into “shells”.

Lively Hosts : You see a smiley face in the morning, you feel great about the day. You see a dull/boring face in the morning, you feel the same. Our moods, enthusiasm and psychology is influenced by the people around us and the company we are.

You can’t have a straight fave and invite people home and expect them to enjoy. Hosts should be lively and friendly to have a great atmosphere. People would not want to be guests at your home and become sad after seeing you. If that’s the case, they would have stayed back as well. Very clearly guests would want to go and meet these (lively) hosts all the time.

Openness : Oh boy, this is so important to understand and implement. Create an environment where everyone if the guests can contribute and share their thoughts. Don’t steal the discussions and jokes. Guests may not say anything at that time but they leave a bad taste on them. e.g. when a guest is talking about “Slum dog millionaire” movie, don’t ridicule by saying that “oh god, don’t even talk about that movie”. In short, don’t interrupt, don’t ridicule and don’t steal the show. Give equal importance to each and everyone.

Some people seem to know “everything” in this word (at least that’s what they think). Dont worry about these people, these are the “real-poor-moron-souls on this earth”.

Cleanliness : Is this even a topic to discuss ??? Who on this world does not know that the house needs to be clean when you invite guests. Sadly, some people dont get it. Really…!

When you invite, it is your responsibility to CLEAR and CLEAN the stuff around. Understand that “CLEAR and CLEAN” both are important. You don’t want your guests to make way into the home thorough all the things lying on th ground. “I don’t have time”, is not excuse. If you don’t have time, dont Invite guests.

Guests can’t tolerate the wet floor, blurry/stained glass in bathroom, stained water tumblers, stained tea/coffee cups and stained bowls and plates. Yes… it is important to CLEAN at least the things that you give to guests.

Food : (mostly in Indian context) Food is the most important part of any invitation of Guests. We love to cook variety of traditional and modern food at home and enjoy with guests. Please do take some precautions when you are cooking.

Don’t Experiment : Your Guests are not guinea pigs. Please do not ever experiment on the day of get-together. You really want the food to be tasty and eatable. If you experiment and you get it wrong, you are not give a very bad impression about your self to that guest.

Make it fresh : This may not seem to be a point of discussion. But many high-tech people cook 1/2/3 days before they invite people. They think that, because i eat “the same junk”, my guests will also eat the same. If you can’t cook fresh, please do not invite. It’s not worth to have a bad memory about you.

Remember : You make nine(9) SUPERB dishes and make one(1) “SUCKY” dish; the chances are that people (like me) are going to remember that “SUCKY” dish for the life long. If you know something is wrong, you better don’t serve. It is better to have 5 average food items rather than 3-Superb and 2-Sucky items. You get that… ?

Send Off : You did everything well and screw up in the end is of no use. When your guests are leaving be considerate and thankful to them that they accepted your invitation and made it home. You need to be kind and thankful, even if they aren’t. When they are leaving, please don’t be watching TV and say “Bye” from your couch.

Clearly, one needs to be more conscious about what they do and they dont when they invite Guests. Inviting Guests and being Hosts is Responsibility and Fun too. Dont let your over enthusiasm or over boredom kill your guests. You may not lose your guests forever; but they will hate to come back again.

Be conscious and have a great fun!

Avatar Movie : My take on it…

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I just watched the Avatar Movie this afternoon around 3.30pm show in Regal 3D-IMAX in Dublin/CA. Its almost 2 hours 40 min movie and well thought out hi-fi science fiction.

Nice aspects of Movie :

  • The graphics work is AWESOME! All the scenes in the movie looked very REAL.
  • I heard the complete Navi clan, especially Navi female (Neytiri) is completely computer generated. That is a complete brilliant work done by Technology/Graphics.
  • The Pandora’s hanging Mountains, Dragons, The Giant Tree, Mountain Banshee/Ikran, Rhinoceros like, Viperwolf, beautiful creatures in jungle are wonderful creatures that felt life like.

What could have been better :

  • The fight machines/Amplified Mobility Platform in the movie seems to be replica of Matrix Movie which we have seen in Xion.
  • The initial screen based computer and navigation seems to be borrowed from Minority Report/Matrix.
  • Some of the scenes like mountains and terrains are similar to Lord of The Rings/Harry Porter.
  • The “Unobtanium” metal –  the reason why humans are on Pandora does not seem to contain any importance. This is a little silly concept and did not gel well with the rest of screen play.
  • The first 30 minutes seems to be dragging and slow.

All in all, it is a disappointment for a James Cameron Movie. Perhaps the expectations are too high. What i saw was a combination of different movies and shortage of originality for the Avatar.

Viperwolf