Paused

I have started a new blog related to Eclipse and PDE. Ya, its all technical stuff and that’s what am really busy with. So till I achieve a balance with the new work, this blog remains paused. Hope to get writing here, not soon though.

 

Condron

This is wiered but it is so. I noticed almost all the traffic to my blog is coming through condron. But this shouldn’t be completely unexpected. This is an obscure unknown blog and any chances of it to get eyeballs if through a blog roller like condron. Am not complaning

 

So long, so long

I had disappeared again for long. Been busy with life. And now a baby to keep me more occupied than ever. Don’t think any body here would have missed me But just in case you did, me is back. At least trying to be. Won’t be as regular as I used to be.

What’s new?

Nothing much. I made few disclosures recently. Things didn’t turn out rosy. Ideas get shot down. Need to face it. Will talk/crib about it more but later. Some more quotes, some fundas but lets see if it can be more innovative. Will try change some flavor.

 

Liberty and Safty

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary
Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
                                                        Benjamin Franklin

 

Privacy and Internet

The biggest casualty of terror I see is the privacy. Governments across the globe are embarrassing themselves with privacy invading laws. And people are are somehow OK with it.

With that companies too are finding ways to creep into your browsers, hiding behind cool features. And we are unknowingly letting them know so much about us. Needless to name, you-know-who is leading the pack. We don’t realize but the browsing habits can reveal so much about out personality, our habits and our needs. Think about it, if you are selling a brand of gadget. Won’t you be ready to shell out good money just to know, if people are searching more for your brand or your rivals ones. That, in which area, which time of year, and so on. The one you buy this information from captured from it for free.

Now whatever you do, people are so scarred these days, they don’t mind being watched. Now you can fight for your and their privacy. Or. Be the evil lord and make use their fear. I would recommend later. Cause, if you don’t someone else. So its better be someone lesser evil.

The time is ripe for hitting the market with such products. Trust is all time low. Lower than Mr. Bush’s popularity ever was. This is best time to sell surveillance products. Both hardware and software. In coming years, it will only get easier to sell software that will capture data directly where is generates. Without human interventions. Managers don’t trust their employees anymore. They want the information right out of the your machine. You don’t have to fill time sheets anymore. Won’t you would be fudging it anyway. Because you don’t trust you employer with honest reporting.

 

Internet and Browser

We can’t imagine the world without Internet anymore. It’s into our life so deep and even those who would vow against computers unknowingly are so dependent on it. Superstores, ATMs, reservations, where not?

Browsers has been the way we access it. Start with text only like Lynx. Then came Mozilla and IE. And with that started something new. Standards. We started talking about standards. Open standards, to be more specific. Standards are like Law. You are supposed to follow them but if you want to get faster, richer, better than other then you have to bend few and break some. That’s what IE did too. And now chrome doing the same. Trying to optimize the browsers in favor of particular format for the content. But that’s another debate.

So the content is what makes the Internet. And the content is getting richer by the day. It can be so because the bandwidth is increasingly getting cheaper. We start with text, then images, then videos and now we are already talking about real time streaming HD quality. So will the browsers remain relevant in next decade? I certainly don’t think so. We are probably seeing the end of them. In two more years, as enter next decade, they will become much incapable to cope up with the amount of content and the processing required to present it.

How we will be browsing net in next decade?

Before trying to envision that, lets quickly check the kind of data we be dealing with. HD quality video stream, 3 D worlds like SecondLife, IP TV, VoIP, Maps, Gaming, MMOs and MMORPGs. Today we have separate desktop application to deal with each of them. So, of course, a new platform has to come that can present this rich content. That platform needs to be hardware accelerated. That is, it need to take help of your graphics cards and you need to have a good one. Quality graphic cards might be luxury today but so were CD drives and sound cards once. Near future we can expect them so be standard part of motherboards.

Does this mean we will be browsing using sophisticated browser?

Again, we will have to glance back to predict this. With the internet and dot com boom of late 90s a variety of browsers became available. Many couldn’t sustain or perform with time and hence, gone obsolete. History will repeat itself. We will have variety of paltforms for rich content delivery. Few will win.

What about standards?

Well, we will gradually start writing standards too but then who will follow them? I will be equivolcal here though. Because we do need standards. And the way it will work in reality will be that there will be some standard and everyone will be deviating away from it. But the deviation will be much controlled and lesser copared to abscence of standards. You can say the variance will be much lesser and that will be a good thing.

Who will be causality?

Browsers shall be first. Then, the technologies that can not support rich contents like XML. Yes, I don’t see the future of XML in content delivery. Doesn’t mean XML will die. XML will remain and hopefully be used only were its really needed. Next will be the companies, the sites and the platforms which won’t support rich contents. Google is slowly moving that direction already. Microsoft made a head start ( we are already seeing early prototypes of photosynth, etc from them).

Conclusion

Changing times ahead. Once this economic depression is over and the IT industry is weeded out of non-IT thinking brains ( there was a time when everybody thought they could code). And with that IT industry will probably come of age. Internet would have penetrated much deeper in out lives. The way we look at computers and internet will change. Because the way computer and internet look will also change. With all this technological biggest casuality will be PRIVACY!!

 

Next is what?

Lets start a new series. New year. New chain of thoughts. Lets try and think and innovate. Lets glance back and gauge where we stand today. And from this lets try to extrapolate tomorrow. It’ll be fun. Let me know if you had any premonitions

 

Happy New Year

Wish you a very safe, peaceful and joyous New Year 2009.

The definition for “Happy” changes each year. And I believe this year Happy means being safe. And being at peace – with self, with others, with mother nature and with God. These are difficult times and might it be getting darker ahead. But I wish you sleep peacefully – not having to worry about you job, your mortgage, and your family’s future.

So wish you again a “Happy” New Year. We will be discussing more stuff. More of innovation and less of my dose of philosophy

I have been away for a while as I was busy welcoming new addition to our family. We were blessed with an angel last September the 1st, 2008.

Hope to be back and regular here again.

 

Common sense

Common sense is instinct, and enough of it is genius.
                                        Josh Billings

 

Conquering hesitation : Talking to strangers

Why men don’t ask for directions? Of the many reasons, hesitation is one. Many of us are too hesitent to walk up to stranger and talk to them. Even when we are looking for help. When was the last time you spoke to a stranger?

Have you been to an village or small town. People so easily talk to strangers. Have a chit chat – over whatever be the topic – politics, economy, sports, doesn’t matter. Everyone has his two cents to throw in. But what a stark contrast you see in big cities. You won’t even pass a smile to your neighbour, forget the greeting. Why?

I don’t think lifestyle is a reason. In a smaller town, you will somehow secured and easy. A big city gives a very intimidating feeling. Like you are nobody and no one bothers about you. More or less true, but why let that feeling hang on to us so tight? I know, even if you gather courage to tell something to a stranger, first look you will get will be of suspicion. That’s a hazard of times we are living in. Anyway, let get back to the point. We are hesitant to talk to strangers and how we get rid of it.

You surely would have met a salesman and a beggar on the road. Next time notice how they approach to strangers. There’s a lot to learn from them. Both have a very different approach. A salesman will start with introduction, but a beggar cuts all the crap and throws a one liner at you. We all know who is more successful.

Again, lets take it in a vice versa situation. How you would like a stranger to approach you. To be point. Specific and precise. Isn’t it. So lets do the same. When you approach a stranger get to the point right after a a polite greeting.

Easier said then done. We know what to say but approaching take guts. Remember we spoke of Baby Steps process. Lets use the same.

Start small. One day just walk on the road, without your wrist watch. Ask for what time it is. And move on. Try it after every 50 yards or so. This will give you some confidence. Do not forget to smile when you are asking for time.

What next. Perhaps you guessed it right. Ask for directions. Pick up a landmark and ask for the directions towards it. When you are asking for direction, the length of conversation is longer and give you little more confidence.

Now the some more practice. While waiting for elevator or bus or tickets, try to hit a conversation. Now do not use a one liner like “Oh! Such a sunny day”, “The elevator is taking forever” or “Is the queue even moving”. As soon you let something out like this, any scope of decent conversation is over. Because now if say anything more after this, it will look like you are “trying hard” to get that person’s attention. And this puts people on back-foot.

How to hit a conversation then? Its getting longer than I expected to lets split here and take that topic out as Conversation Starters.

 

Conquering hesitation: communicating with (professionally) seniors

Only few managers are very approachable. You are lucky if you’ve got one. But then not all are lucky. and not always too. So how to deal with situations where Open Door policy is just a rhetoric.

Before we discuss how to approach, lets first try to find what really intimidates us? I do not believe its the power they have (by virtue of their position) to affect your career. I feel the intimidation, the fear, is generated from our own desires. We want to impress them, want to be in their good books and a sense that we might not be able to achieve it; is what intimidates us.

Now obviously we can’t do away with desires. But then we need to realize our self-worth. If you know you are doing your job well (knowing ain’t enough. you have to do your job well too). Then you approach your senior with that confidence and self-pride. Both will show in your attitude, and in your conversation. Think of it in a vice versa situation. If you are a senior and a junior approaches you. Who you would be more impressed with – the one who is lost or the one who knows what he wants.

So this will be a helpful approach. When ever you have to appraoch a senior, think of it if you are a senior and a sub-ordinate wants to reach you – how would you like him to behave and that will be your answer.

Now its not necessary that things will definitely go well with this approach. You still might get an unwarranted negative treatment. What can you do if that person had a fight and you were the scapegoat for this anger unleashed upon. I would say do not dishearten. I would look even such thing is a positive way (if we are sure you were not wrong). Because then when that person’s anger cools down, he realises his mistake and guilt takes over. That is the right moment to go back. High chances that you will get what you were looking for, the remorse of being rude at you will give you a bias in your favour if not an advantage.

 

Poll: Conquering hesitation

 

Conquering hesitation

Now hesitation is a vicious circle. It will block you. And it keeps blocking you. The more you let it block yourself, more hesitant you keep getting. Slowly, it becomes a problem to the extent that you are no longer able to communicate with others properly. Of course, the degree varies. You may feel hesitant only when approaching strangers or opposite sex or seniors. It differs person to person. But the traits are same. You want to say something. Want to do something. But you can not. Your mind holds you back. It will project all sorts of negative consequences.

Baby Steps

Hesitation can not be killed in a single day. You have to make conscious efforts. conscious small small efforts. Slowly curing it. You can start with identifying things that you are hesitant in doing. Now sort them. Where you feels least hesitant on the top and so on. Now if may so happen that that even the first item in you list is proving too much to handle, them think of smaller things, which you would be less hesitant in doing. So start with it. Collect you guts and go ahead. Do it. Now proceed to next item only if you feel confident. If not, repeat the first item few times, till you feel ready for next. Keep taking baby steps. Do not try to measure, how much you are out of it. To think about hesitation is to get into it even more.

The most commonly seen hesitation is to communicate with strangers, opposite sex or seniors. There is one more – expressing yourself in public. I feel we need discuss all four in detail. So instead of clubbing them together, I will break them into different posts.

 

Buck up

It is so easy get lost. So easy to loose the motivation. There are so many distractions that its unbelievably hard to remain focused on your goals. I am going through the same these days. Office work and family life keeps me so busy that I am getting hardly any motivation to pursue my goals for this year. And time is running out fast.

We once discussed about the perseverance. Habits of Innovative People : Habit 6.

We should preach what we follow. But today am in situation where I need to follow what I preach. I realized that as you grow up the ladder in your organization. It becomes harder and harder to remain focused. How to get out of this situation?

Let me take this as an opportunity to experiment with myself. And try to find a way to deal with it. So here is what I am going to do. Firstly, I need a way to keep reminding myself of the tasks which are getting delayed. Alarms or To Dos won’t work because they will remind me when I will be busy doing some other work. I am taking few post-its and pasting them over my work desk, on TV and on door of my bathroom. This should remind me when I am not technically busy.

Memory is taken care of. What about motivation? Rather Self-motivation.

I should now do a SWOT to take stock of my situation.

This shows high degree in Threats and Weakness. Unless I make opportunity quadrant heavier or Weakness quadrant lighter, it will remain a very uphill task. So to achieve this, I am now marking each day 10 to 11pm for my tasks. This shall remove the time management from weakness. Now if I add brainstorming activity this dedicated slot, I see opportunity for new ideas. This should now balance my SWOT. Lets see how it goes now. Will keep you posted.

 

Life

Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.
                              John W. Gardner