"My way or the highway" - that was the crux of the converstaion. I hate it when someone shouts at 6:30 a.m. It is not the right time to practice one's wits either! Got a feeling its going to be one lousy day.

Mundane conversations for courtesy ---------
A typical Monday morning starts with

"How was your weekend?"
"It was good." On second thoughts, "It was veryyyyyyyyyyyy relaxing. <30 second silence> How was yours?".
"Good".

This is what one hears in the hallway of a office, in an elevator, at the coffee shop!
So here I go..my weekend was uneventful but for a 3 hour online-session on Project Initiation (part of the Project Management course that I'm taking), a dinner at a friend's place, cleaning up the house. No bike rides this weekend as the weather didn't cooperate. Talking of bike rides, I was stopped by a gentleman who looked like a doorman at the big condo building around the corner. He signaled me look at a sign on the opposite side of the road ..."No cycling on sidewalks". He said I would get a ticket if I wasn't careful. From "no rules" to rules sucks. Since it was late when I left from work today, the sidewalks were relatively free of pedestrians.

Some tidbit on password sharing practices --
What would it take for to you give up your password to your computer? A survey in Liverpool, England says 37 percent of you will give up your computer password if somebody asks you nicely. 34 percent hold out until somebody offers up a candy bar. Other passwords statistics, 40 percent of you know your coworker's pass words. And 55 percent of you would tell your boss your password if he asked for it.

2 more days to go before dad comes!

The Gmail Experience - Note: there's no hyphen between "G" and "mail" - some habits die hard :)

Things I liked:

1. Conversations - when someone replies to a message, it is grouped with the original message. As a new message comes in, it gets stacked, which makes it easier to read and associate. For a free-mail system, this is a good feature. Consumer is the king and it rules!

2. 1 gigabyte of storage - I hate seeing that "you are currently using 80% of your storage" - please upgrade to blah blah..for a mere 6 MB of storage space in other mail providers.

3. Text box for "Searching mail/web" at the top of the page.

4. "Delete forever" option is indeed there (contrary to the rumors), though not very obvious to one. Once you move a mail to trash and choose the action "Delete forever", the messages get deleted. On deletion, this message is displayed - "No conversations in the trash. Who needs to delete when you have 1000 MB of storage?!" - which is true. But as a user I expect to have the rights of doing whatever I wish to.

Things that I didn't like:

1. The user interface is not very intuitive, which is surprising as Google is a master in simplistic design. "Compose Mail" at the top left corner doesn't stand out.

2. There is no link in the "Compose Mail" page to use the "Auto-address complete" feature. I hope they don't expect users to remember it.

3. The "help" links and other links on the help page open in a popup window. If one click on the "inbox" link, the mail opens up again in popup window. Guess it isn't all that bad as I sound - probably the effect of working on ADA compliance.

Not sure how efficient the anti-spam software is that Gmail uses. If it is anything like Yahoo!'s, it is not great. Having all those junk spam mails in the spam folder will be annoying. And I hope there is no limit on how many mails you can report as spam if you are a free user.

It is nice to know that there is someone else who uses "Search Options" too. Advanced Searching options for mails in Gmail is called "Search Options".

Otherwise, it is great. Go google! Time for Yahoo! and Hotmail to catch up and get those mass storage servers.

More stories on Gmail at:
Gmail Saga
Gmail still sparking debates

G-mail

The user interface for managing posts on BLOGGER has changed. It is neat. Blogger also has a promotion on its website for active bloggers (atleast thats what it said) for subscribing to G-mail. Blogger is owned by Google. It is amazing that one has 1000 MB of free storage. Wonder how this will impact Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail. If G-mail has IMAP, then it would be neat to read the messages on Outlook/mail client. One more thing I like is that since this is just in the beta version, the probability of getting a mail-id of one's choice is high, like the one I got today. With Yahoo!, you almost never get it before 5/6 tries and it isn't quite what you would have wanted.

The Road Ahead
Uncertainty has been a certain part of our lives for the past 2 years. Location,duration is almost never known until the last minute. And that didn't give too many choices, so we have been going with the ride.
I'm not quite sure what lies ahead. The thought of giving up all of this is making me really sad. I will miss this, the past 9 months has been the best part of the past 5 years, despite all the crazy stuff that demands a lot. I keep telling myself that I don't care and want to go back, hoping it will make quitting easier but it isn't working :(

Anyways, so this week has been really busy because of Vinay's visit. Next week, dad should be here by now. It is going to be great for a month.

Happy birthday!
Today is Vivek's Birthday. Happy Birthday :)

I talked and listened to so much technical stuff today that my head still hurts. It helped to an extent to keep my mind off the whole incident, however not completely - I'm still feeling bad. Despite all our efforts, no hope of recovering any of it.
Took my bike to work for the first time today. It was fun on lower Wacker Drive, not knowing where to go!
Vinay got me a book by R.KNarayan titled The Painter of signs. He is best known for The Malgudi Days. The serial was a brilliant portrayal of the book and an instant hit. After all who wouldn't remember the characters played by Anant Nag, Girish Karnad - brings back fond childhood memories of all those nice serials - the only 30 min time during the day when we kids were allowed to watch TV.

Spring is finally here- it looks like Spring and feels like one too. I came here around the same time last year and it was cold in Boston and raining all the time. However, it is so beautiful here and that is the only best part about this weekend. I wish V was here this weekend. Whenever he is here, it is cold.
I don't want to remember this weekend. Coming to terms with reality was tough. Ignoring it by thinking it didn't happen to us was foolishness. After all there are very bad people in this world who do really mean things. It is stupid on one's part to trust anybody just like that. I was really upset and very sad yesterday about the huge loss. I am trying to come to peace with it - took a long bike ride along the lake shore, went to meet a friend today - diversion is helping. Need to stay away from the comp so as NOT to remind myself about it.

Internet Fraud

"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward."
-- Vernon Law


Now we know what this quote exactly means after being burnt badly.
If you are trading online, always keep in mind these important points before buying anything:

1. Do not get carried away by the credentials of the seller - it can be faked easily.
2. Do not be involved in direct transactions with the seller, if you are outbid on e-bay.
3. Always pay thr PayPal and not in cash or wired transfers such as Western Union or Money Gram.
4. Avoid transactions with sellers who are helping/obliging more than is required.
5. Be extra careful when transacting for goods of very high value.
6. Get the contact details of the seller and speak to the seller before paying up.
7. Do not always pay in full if directly dealing with the seller unless you receive the item.

Read more on Fraud Tips here:

The recent experience has reaffirmed my faith in brick and mortar stores.

A Year of Blogging
It is exactly a year today since I started blogging. It will continue to stay a personal journal with a small/no audience. I have taken down comments since I don't really expect to see one.

The Apprentice

The Apprentice - 215,000 applicants, 16 shortlisted contestants, featuring in 15 episodes, 1 getting fired every week, finally 1 getting hired. Whoever wins the Apprentice gets a chance to run one of Donald Trump's companies and to make enough money for 2 generations. The 15 episode Business reality show aired on NBC every Thursday @ 8 P.M CST, features Donald Trump assigning tasks ranging from selling a lemonade to renting Marquis jet for a day. One task very week leading to the poor performer (1 every week) getting fired. The performance was judged based on inputs from rest of the team mates but the decision on who to fire was solely made by Trump. All the episodes were packed with action and real drama. I don't know how much of it was edited/censored. The final episode aired today live on NBC. It was indeed a tough decision. The competition was tight between the two final contestants - Bill Rancic, a Chicago entrepreneur and Kwame Jackson, an investment banker who worked for Goldman Sachs. They quit their high profile jobs to participate in the TV show least knowing what was in store for them.

The Apprentice is Bill. He heard the words "You're hired". The final episode didn't have the trademark words "You're fired". Bill is the apprentice now, with a lucrative salary of $250,000. For a while I thought Kwame would get hired. Kwame's laid-back attitude under high pressure and good performance despite a not-so-good team as Bill's appealed to me. He never once showed signs of tension or nervousness. He also did not get to the nerves of his people by checking on whether the job is done or not every 10 mins. As George said, these are traits that come handy in the long run . Perhaps the biggest factor that got him fired was his faith in Omarosa. It is really surprising that given a choice of people one would have chosen Omarosa and Heidi. Kwame's choice of his team members costed him the job. Bill was smart enough to have chosen ALL the best people - Nick, Amy and Katrina - all of whom were recently fired.

Bill's performance was good as always but as his teammates said he was getting on to their nerves by following up on everything too frequently - it was probably the pressure to perform well.

Once Bill was hired, he was asked to choose between two amazing offers. He had 3 minutes to make the decision. The first one was to supervise the operations of Trump International Hotel that would rise where Chicago-Sun times stands today, thus redefining the Chicago skyline. The second was to oversee operations of a Golf Course in LA. Both were (supposedly) equally challenging but as on would expect Bill made the obvious choice of staying @ Chicago with the Trump International Hotel. Last August, when I first read about this project there was a mention that the initial plans (before 2001) were for 107 floors making it among the tallest buildings in the world. However for obvious reasons, it wouldn't stand so tall now.
NBC.com web site is probably experiencing high traffic now after the "The Apprentice" show is over as the response time is significantly high.

Added this section on 04/17/04
The Other side of "The Apprentice":
BBC's view
Views of a blogger

In other news, in exactly 2 weeks from now, dad would be here.

Today's weather is spring-like for real and a big relief from the 30s of the past 1 week. After work, I rode my bike along the lake shore. I should probably do it everyday. I am currently reading a book titled "Coincidence" by David Ambrose (a unknown book from a not-so-famous author). However what I came across in it was the similarities between JFK and Lincoln assassinations that I wasn't aware of before.

Reading Time

Right now, it is at the trough point of the sine curve at work! Not long before it goes crazy. Caught up on my reading ..here are a few good articles on Forbes

1. G-mail - the web based mail from Google. The fact that it was announced on April 1 had most people thinking it was a April Fool's joke! I heard from someone about the privacy issues that Google is facing as it retains all the e-mails. Didn't think it was real until I read this one.

2. Tips on surviving the office party. If it were not for an incident at recent party, I wouldn't have posted this link. It is sad that some people get so drunk as to lose their control. This is so true - "the office party is still a business function. You can't ever let down your guard. Even though the setting is a little more personal, you're not with friends."

3. The 25 Fastest-Growing Technology Companies I'm happy to see CTS in the list!

I am having the most amazing weekend in a really long time. V got me a 26-inch bike yesterday and all the accessories too. It will be fun to ride the bike to work everyday. It was too cold along the lakefront this morning and it took a while to get back to senses after staying out in the cold that long!

We met R, P and P over dinner last night. They are such a fun group and I love meeting them. I introduced V to them and I'm glad they all enjoyed each other's company. We got cute Easter presents from them :)

The drawing is complete. It is quite different from all the ones that I have done before. Most of my former sketches were pencil sketches and quite articulately done. This one looks as though drawn by a 5th grade kid.

Anyways, I'm glad it is weekend since V is here this time. We are going out for dinner tomorrow with R and P to Sayat Nova.

The Apprentice took a good turn in yesterday's episode. Trump said, "Though everyone thought I would hire a beautiful young lady like Amy, I don't play games when it comes to business". I feel Bill would get hired but would be really surprised if Kwame does. Lets see what happens in the finale next Thursday!

I love Penguins

I love watching Penguins, yes, those cute 2-legged creatures that live around the South Pole. As a kid, I remember Mom and I spending hours watching Penguins on Discovery Channel. They have such a funny way of walking and always move around in groups. I particularly like the ones that have a yellow head crest. What prompted this entry was a sketch of Penguin that I'm doing now. It has been a customary habit for years now to draw sketches on my beloved ones' birthday. Mom has received the maximum number of sketches until now. This time I'm doing it for V. It has all these characters - Winnie the Pooh, Mickey Mouse (for Stuart in the movie "Stuart Little"), Bozo, Polar Bear, Penguins and a big smiley that reads "Happy Birthday" in the center. I'm excited to see how it turns out. This one is being done on a 11*14 white poster sheet using crayons.

Erratic sleeping hours, watching movies non-stop (that is NOT very typical of me), fiddling with the new camcorder and a no-purpose trip to the mall constituted this weekend. Everything was so unlike me - I just wanted to tire myself out so much so that I wouldn't get bored and finally sleep for hours at a stretch - instead I slept lil and chatted a lot with P this morning - it was so nice talking to him after a long time - that was the best part of this weekend. I'm so glad the weekend is over.

Craze for Electronics runs in the family

For a while I thought it was just P who was crazy about gadgets. But I guess it runs in the family including V and Dad. DCR-HC 40 - the MiniDV handycam camcorder from Sony is finally here. It arrived today. Dad bought it. It is the result of a 2-month long deliberations, research on what, where and when to buy. Though finally what drove us to settle for one last Sunday was the ultimatum from mom - its either that damn camcorder or me. I'm sure she felt the amount of person hours we put into deciding the camcorder could have been spent elsewhere :) - just kidding. Dad was keen on buying TRV-33 - which is out of production now since DCR-HC40 replaced it.
So yeah I ordered it from IBUY digital I was apprehensive about ordering it from any of these sites that price a product $100 lesser than it is priced at Circuit City or Best Buy But the reviews for IBUY were the best in Yahoo Shopping So I placed my trust on Yahoo's rating of 5 for IBUY and Dad's research on the same - he did a great homework. As promised the product did arrive within 2 days of placing the order and it costed us a $100 less. However I'm not so convinced about the authenticity of the 5-star rating now. What IBUY does is, once a customer places a product and calls to confirm the order, they trick people into taking their 5-star survey with a lucrative win-a-Plasma TV contest. It is obviously too good to resist. So almost every customer that buys a product gives them a 5 star rating. And no wonder they are the only ones in Yahoo's shopping list with a rating of 5. Even Circuit City and Best Buy rank lower.

On the work front, I've finally decided to let it go. I am trying to come to terms with the fact that it is time to move on. There is no point cribbing when there is scope for a change. It is time to try something else. Most people I've talked to in the past few days say they dislike the jobs they do, but still stick to it when there are better options. We perhaps get so comfortable to the discomfort ( :- ) ) of the present job or perhaps it is so easy-going that we shut the doors to everything else. But unfortunately such jobs do not offer growth and they clash with ambition (if there's one). I hope it works for the better.

I liked this quote :
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies - Groucho Marx
At times, it feels good to just sit there and watch the game, the ball is in your court and yet you don't play it while others are waiting anxiously for you to make your move!

"The Apprentice" has been kind of getting predictable over the past 4 episodes. I read somewhere that Donald Trump has the final say on who gets fired every week. Wonder if he is going to choose Amy finally.

Countdown - 150 days to go and it is pretty exciting! In terms of months, it seems like a really long time!

I'm very infamous for the no. of hours I sleep. But last night, I beat my own records. Seeing TV, guess I dozed off at 7:00 p.m. last night and the next thing I know it is 7:30 a.m. this morning. It is crazy and need to use my time more effectively then sleep it away.