Ajay - The Invincible

China n Cars!!!

2010-07-05T21:55:00.004+05:30

The automobile market in China is expanding at breakneck speed. Factories are churning out cars 24/7 but still unable to meet the Chinese demand. China overtook the U.S. last year as the world’s largest automobile market with sales surging 46 percent to 13.6 million, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. Nissan, Ford Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co. are running their Chinese factories at full capacity, with overtime and weekend shifts, and still can’t deliver enough cars. Cars are no longer a luxury item, but more of a basic necessity. Although China has made significant investment in infrastructure, more needs to be done to support the booming car market and to aviod huge traffic jams like the one above. Cars have not only affected the domestic landscape they are changing China’s role in the world. Increased resource requirements have led Chinese companies to scour the globe for commodities, no matter the ecological costs. Two weeks ago, for instance, a Chinese company bought a $4.6 billion stake in Alberta’s Tar Sands, which is among the world’s dirtiest sources of oil.
Until the mid-1990s China was oil self-sufficient, a position that has changed dramatically. China is now the number two consumer of oil worldwide and the country has been responsible for a great deal of the world’s total oil growth in recent years. With less than two percent of the world’s oil reserves, most of its growing needs will be imported. Fifteen years ago automobiles in China guzzled about 10 percent of the country’s much smaller total oil usage. Today cars and light trucks consume about forty percent of all China’s oil. So long as the country continues along the North American ‘development’ path, there’s no reason to believe that cars won’t someday consume half of the country’s oil. The ecological consequences will become increasingly severe. Is this really the development we need?

The Conscience of Capitalism

2010-06-29T21:48:00.005+05:30

I recently read a very moving article from Forbes India:

At a meeting in Sweden recently of young people from around the world, a Nigerian woman shared the grief of her people. She said that, every year for the past 20 years, large quantities of oil, as much as that leaking into the Gulf of Mexico from the broken BP oil rig, have been spilling in her country from an MNC’s leaking pipelines and broken rigs. The waterways have become completely contaminated. The waters are so oily they even burn! Water for drinking and bathing is hard to come by. The health of the people has been badly affected. There are no more fish to catch. Agriculture is impossible. Livelihoods are destroyed. The US media is full of anger with BP for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. She sympathized with the people of Louisiana whose concerns are known to the whole world now, but she wondered if they even knew what had been happening in Nigeria all these years?

The Indian media is filled with anger with Union Carbide and the tragedy of Bhopal. When a rare brown pelican was smothered in oil in Louisiana, the US President said he was looking for someone’s ass to kick in BP. The people of Bhopal, where thousands of human beings were killed, ask the Indian government why no one’s ass has been kicked.

These tragedies have raised emotionally charged issues of justice: Of who should be punished; and of double standards — one for the rich and another for poor countries. Beneath these issues are important questions about the responsibilities and liabilities of business corporations, especially multinationals, and about the roles of governments in regulating their behavior and protecting public interests. These are also questions in the recent debates about who was responsible for the global financial crisis whose fallout has affected many common people. To these questions let us turn.

Thomas Friedman, author of the paean to globalization, The World is Flat, had written an earlier book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, that explained how the world is not yet flat. The Lexus car was his metaphor for globalization: A universally desired product of technology, produced by a multinational corporation. The Olive Tree represented the deep roots in traditions and identities which resist the forces of globalization. His conclusion was that the Lexus would prevail. It may some day, but it will be a struggle. Because the last few years have shown the strength of the Olive Tree’s roots in the demands of communities and nations for their rights to land, resources, dignity and respect.

With information and money sloshing across the world, accelerated by new communication technologies, institutions and ideas of globalization are spreading across national boundaries. Meanwhile, governments — especially elected governments — must respond to the demands for justice and protection from people within their boundaries. Such are the demands for tribal rights and affirmative action, and even demands for new states.

Many of these demands, springing from histories of injustice, may not sound ‘rational’ to the economists and technologists propounding globalization. However, with the rapid spread of ideas of human rights, multiplication in the numbers of NGOs fighting for various causes, an explosion of access to information, and very active media, governments ignore these demands at their peril.

At the same time, governments are urged by the global finance lobby and multinational corporations to open their boundaries further to attract investments. In the view of these lobbies, governments that do not make life easy for them are not progressive. Indeed, the chairman of Dow Chemicals, irked by new regulations imposed by the US government after the Enron and WorldCom scandals, said he dreamt of shifting the headquarters of his corporation to an island not subject to any government so that he could be free to make more profits for his shareholders! Thus the stage is set for clashes and governments must intermediate between the forces of the Lexus and the Olive Tree.

Ronald Reagan had said that government is not the solution, it is the problem. Too much rolling back of government contributed to the recent financial crisis in the US. Government did too little. It should have tamed the animal spirits in the market, its critics now say. Let us look, therefore, into the nature
of the beast that is to be tamed, viz. corporations.

The limited liability corporation is an invention of man: A device created to attract capital. The liabilities of investors are limited to encourage them to invest and take risks with their capital. Abraham Lincoln wrote in 1864 after the Civil War, “I see in the future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the future of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavour to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.” Over the next 150 years, through a series of legal and ideological battles, corporations acquired all the rights of citizens to protection of properties and other freedoms. In addition, they obtained privileges of limited liability and other protections that human citizens do not have. This history has been documented by Ted Nace in an excellent book with a provocative title, The Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy. Thus we have institutions and laws whereby corporations can internalize and privatize profits while costs of damages to communities and the environment are externalized and socialized.

Image: Sean Gardner/ Reuters

Woes Continue The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico

When a citizen does wrong, you know whose ass to kick. When a corporation causes harm, who exactly should take the rap? Moreover, unlike a person, as Nace points out, a corporation can do the Houdini — disappear and reappear in another body with a new name — and avoid being punished.
Such are the questions that President Obama and the American people, and also the Indian government and Indian people, are grappling with. Whenever the leaders of the US and India come together, as they will again when President Obama visits India later this year, they proclaim the partnership between the two largest democracies in the world. Along side such visits, business leaders from both countries also meet to promote investments and trade.

Should not these dialogues between government and industry leaders also be about the evolution of better institutions of democracy, and capitalism, and within that, the role of corporations? Because, as leaders of the largest democracies, they must also show leadership in the evolution of ideas and institutions.

Mankind has developed many powerful ‘dual use’ technologies that can do great good but, in the wrong hands, can do great harm too. These include nuclear energy and bio-genetics. Who can be trusted with their power? What safeguards must be in place? The large, limited liability corporation is also a powerful ‘dual use’ concept invented by man. The agenda for co-operation between the US and India is fraught with debates about these ‘dual use’ technologies.

Business needs freedom to take risks, innovate and increase wealth. Governments must protect their citizens and promote the common cause. Therefore, even as governments promote business, they must also regulate it. Business leaders resent regulation. They would rather be trusted to regulate their own behaviour. They must always remember that corporations are given a licence to operate by society, and that society can curb or even withdraw that license. The most egregious illustration of this is the conduct of the East India Company. It was given a charter by the Crown to trade in the East. The minutes of its board meetings in London show that the board was hardly concerned about the conditions of the people in the places in which the company operated. It was concerned about financing the missions; it charged its operators abroad to make profits; and it decided the dividends for the investors. When the conduct of the Company’s operators became intolerable, the people rebelled, and the Crown was compelled to withdraw the Company’s charter.

Self regulation requires a conscience. Corporations are the engines of capitalism. Wherein lies the conscience of the corporation — an inanimate, legal construct devised by man? That is the question at the heart of corporate governance. Does it lie in the board, which society should trust to ensure that the corporation causes no harm? If so, is the board equipped with the moral precepts, intellectual ideas and norms of conduct that will enable it to discharge its responsibility to society? The responsibility of the chairman of the board is to ensure that the board is so equipped. A capable board with a conscience can ensure that the corporation’s executive management is well equipped to act responsibly too.

Finally, as the woman from Nigeria said in Sweden, the people want the buck to stop somewhere. They are tired of buck-passing. Great leaders admit the buck stops with them.

Lonngest Ever Tennis Match!!!!!

2010-06-24T22:32:00.007+05:30

After 11 hours and five absorbing minutes on court, John Isner wrote his name into the record books as the winner of the sport's longest ever battle when the giant American finally clinched the epic three-day, 183-game thriller 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7-9), 7-6 (7-3), 70-68.

After the two men resumed on Thursday at 59-59 in the fifth set with exactly 10 hours on the clock, the conclusion came an hour and five minutes into the third day when Isner threaded a backhand pass up the line. The final shot of the match handed the 23rd seed what had proved an elusive break of serve that finally brought to an end an eight-hour, 11-minute final set.

The last break of serve had come two days earlier when Mahut had taken Isner's serve in the first game of the second set early on Tuesday afternoon. That meant the two gladiators had held serve for an astounding 169 games before Isner collapsed to the turf after converting his fifth match point.

As the two men embraced after the final, 980th point of the match fans, media and players rose as one to applaud their heroic effort.

For the record, the match eclipsed the previous longest - a 2004 French Open duel between Frenchmen Fabrice Santoro and Arnaud Clement - by a massive four hours and 32 minutes. The combined ace tally stood at 215, with Isner hammering down 112, just nine more than his opponent on 103.

As the crowd waited for part three of this absorbing battle, there was a buzz of anticipation in the air. All those involved were ready. Swedish umpire Mohamed Lahyani was back refreshed, as were John McEnroe and Tracy Austin, both courtside to witness the drama. Even the scoreboard was in better shape, patched up and back in working order after conking out at 50-all on Wednesday night.

The first key moment came after only a couple of minutes as Isner delivered his 100th ace on his way to holding for 60-59. Fifteen minutes later Mahut matched the statistic as he held to bring the scores back to 62-62.

The match clock ticked over the 11-hour mark just as Isner made it 69-68, and in the next game the match was decided. A miscued drop shot from the Frenchman left him at 15-30, and although a brilliant serve and volley point made it30-all, the end was near.

An Isner forehand pass took him to 40-30 and his fifth match point, and a laser-like backhand that left the Frenchman rooted to the spot brought down the final curtain.
Isner's reward is a second round meeting with Dutchman Thiemo De Bakker, himself the winner of a marathon first match when he beat Colombia's Santiago Giraldo 16-14 in the deciding set. Perhaps they should be made to play best of three sets.

Vital statistics
Match duration: 11 hours, five minutes
Fifth set duration: Eight hours, 11 minutes
Total number of games: 183
Fifth set number of games: 138
Total number of points: 980
Isner aces: 112
Mahut aces: 103
Combined aces: 215
Isner winners: 246
Mahut winners: 244

Why China Can't Cool Its Overheated Real Estate Boom

2010-06-16T21:23:00.001+05:30

Even among Western analysts who live and work in China, the major role played by municipal governments in fueling China's increasingly speculative real estate boom is underappreciated. The actions of those local authorities are at the heart of China's property bubble, and they explain why the central government's attempts to cool lending and construction are failing.

China's central government has attempted to douse the speculative flames of its real estate bubble -- prices rose 9.5% in January alone -- by calling on banks to curb real estate lending and by increasing the level of reserves banks must maintain. But those moves are offset by the incentives local governments have to put money into real estate speculation.

The key difference between China's current real estate bubble and the U.S. bubble that popped in 2007 is this: In the U.S., it was individuals and lenders who made overleveraged, speculative bets via subprime mortgages. In China, explained Northwestern University researcher Victor Shih to NPR, the leveraged debt fueling the speculation comes from local governments, which have borrowed trillions of dollars worth of funds from China's banking system to develop real estate projects in their jurisdictions.

Shih has found that almost 50% of the Shanghai government's revenues come from land sales, and local governments have come to rely on this income.

"Local governments now are forming their own real estate developers and would actually buy land from themselves. As this becomes more common -- and it is becoming very, very common -- then local governments have a high stake in maintaining and increasing the value of real estate in their own jurisdiction," Shih observed.

Unsurprisingly, these incentives to boost land values have led to sky-high prices. The right to develop a plot of land in downtown Shanghai was recently purchased for a record $1.35 billion.

Beijing's Own Policies Undermine Its Fiscal Goals

The incentives to local governments start with targets set by the central government. Respected analyst Andy Xie, formerly of Morgan Stanley, observes that local government performance in China is measured by GDP and fiscal revenue -- and both of those numbers can be quickly boosted by real estate development. This makes pouring municipal funds into development a "win-win" for local leaders, even if there's no consumer or business demand for the new buildings.

Xie says this has led to a politically driven bubble, supported by local governments' need to meet the central government's growth targets.

The dependence of local governments on development fees and skyrocketing land values is also fueling a "moral hazard" dilemma. Speculators sense that the government will never let values fall, which encourages further reckless speculation.

In Terms of Real Growth, the "Boom" Is a Bust

Paradoxically, this channeling of China's capital into real estate development is hurting the country's long-term prospects by diverting the capital from other more productive uses. Ultimately, Xie says, this decreases capital efficiency and thus lowers domestic consumption. Though China has been trying to promote domestic consumption for a decade, private consumption as a percentage of GDP has declined every year.

This overreliance on real estate development also threatens the nation's financial stability by increasing debt levels and by relying on overvalued land as collateral. And it creates another systemic risk: Because property prices have increased faster than middle-class income, many otherwise-prosperous households have been priced out of the housing market. This fosters resentment as hard-working people see a handful of local officials and developers becoming wealthy from a bubble that has left housing unaffordable for the vast majority of wage earners.

Moreover, as the white-hot property market creates winners and losers based solely on speculation and political influence, other determinants of income such as education and experience have been marginalized: Ordinary people feel their own efforts won't bear fruit because the system appears to reward only speculators and insiders.

A Feedback Loop of Ever-Inflating Values

All land in China remains government-owned; developers get only leases. But while ownership is clearly in the hands of the state, which level of government is authorized to grant a lease on a given parcel can be unclear. As a result, leases may be negotiated at the local level and essentially rubber-stamped without much oversight by higher-level agencies.

This ambiguity gives local authorities leeway to negotiate leases with companies they partly own and lets them transfer the land at inflated valuations.

Since local governments generate revenues from transfer fees when they lease land to developers, this feeds two bubbles: First, local governments inflate the land prices in order to increase the transfer fees they collect. Then, those ever-inflating values encourage individuals to try to get rich quick by speculating on ever-rising housing prices.

Local governments don't just sell land leases to developers, they also invest directly in developers. That creates additional "one hand washes the other" incentives to play fast and loose with loans and land valuations.

See full article from DailyFinance: http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/real-estate/why-china-cant-cool-its-overheated-real-estate-boom/19371786/?icid=sphere_copyright

Why Asset Bubbles Will Always Surprise Us

2010-06-12T20:18:00.002+05:30

Below is a nice article on price bubble i read recently on the Harvard Site:

It would be nice if we could predict bubbles; even nicer if we could prevent them. Unfortunately, this would violate the laws of nature: asset bubbles occur because of the limits of our ability to process information and coordinate activity in a market setting, where no-one is in charge, and no-one has a complete view of the big picture.

Here's how it works. On occasion, the enthusiasm for some growth opportunity or new technology attracts interest from people in the capital markets. Financing is suddenly available. Sooner or later the flow of new money starts to have an impact on the value of the assets being financed. But it takes time for people in the market to become fully aware of that impact.

In the case of the US housing market, prices began to accelerate beyond their sustainable path sometime around, say, 2003 thanks to global capital flows from savings-rich economies, advances in securitization technology, and an insatiable appetite for housing on the part of American consumers and investors. But it took until 2007 for the securitization markets to shut down. It took the broader equity markets another year to understand the severity of the housing crash and the resulting damage to the banking system. The government finally took steps to stabilize the system with TARP in late 2008 and stress tests for the banks in early 2009.

Why did it take so long for us collectively to come to our senses? Because consumers, mortgage brokers, lenders, investment bankers, regulators, CDO managers, rating agencies, and investors in distant countries didn't understand individually what the totality of their actions would mean for US home prices, the financial system, or the global economy.

We may criticize individuals, firms, leaders, and regulatory policies. But it would be unrealistic to think we could expect immediate, collective self-consciousness on the part of any group of people operating in a market setting. Each individual faces a practically infinite quantity of information in our complicated world. And we all have extremely limited resources with which to process this information. No system can be perfectly self-conscious. The kind of immediate social awareness that would prevent bubbles from forming or bursting is a physical and mathematical impossibility.

The inevitability of surprise does not mean that our financial system cannot be made more resilient — the key is to prevent the build-up of leverage (which makes outcomes more severe) and react more quickly during the crisis so that we can speed on our way to recovery. Here are some steps we can take now:

• Make sure public leverage does not become excessive. In addition to bringing down US Treasury debt levels, we should put Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Bank System into run-off, which would help pay off roughly $3 trillion in so-called "US Agency" debt (a close cousin to Treasuries).

• Identify sources of "hidden leverage," such as the reliance by many institutions on similar statistical models (like Value-at-Risk) or credit ratings. We should reform the rating agencies so as to break up the oligopolistic market position of Moody's and Standard & Poors.

• Impose shorter term limits on certain public officials, for example the chairman of the Federal Reserve, to prevent the build-up of excessive investor confidence in the power of personalities or institutions to forestall economic crisis.

• Develop systems to recapitalize the financial system more quickly, with less taxpayer exposure, such as so-called "contingent capital," which consists of debt that automatically converts to equity during a crisis, stabilizing an institution without requiring protracted negotiations among investors or enactment of emergency government programs.

• Develop better corporate governance protocols, so that boards of directors can react more quickly to crisis including, if necessary, replacing CEOs who are caught in the grips of "cognitive dissonance" and unable to react to crisis or change.

Here is the link to the original article:

http://blogs.hbr.org/finance-the-way-forward/2010/06/why-asset-bubbles-will-always.html

My thoughts on Bhopal Gas Tragedy

2010-06-10T22:32:00.002+05:30

The TV channels have worked themselves into a lather about Warren Anderson, and I don't see why. The then Chairman of Union Carbide need never have stepped on Indian soil after the gas leak. He obviously came with some deal having been struck in advance. Even without such a deal, he'd have been bailed after a few days of custody.
It's always convenient to blame the foreigners. So what if the Bhopal plant was entirely under Indian management, as required by Indian law? So what if we don't yet know what triggered the leak? So what if we've put no measures in place to cope with another such accident?
We've never been too fussed about safety. What sense does it make to press charges of culpable homicide when what happened was clearly negligence? Criminal negligence, no doubt, but nonetheless negligence. Unless, of course, we accept the Union Carbide theory that it was sabotage.
Intention is central to culpability. Absent an intent to kill, it makes no sense to put people away for ten years, even if their negligence resulted in 10,000 deaths. The problem lies not with the sentence but the delay in getting to this point. It has made India an international laughing stock.
The other issue relates to the compensation of 470 million dollars. I don't believe it was such a trivial amount as is being made out. The government should've accepted the initial offer of 350 million dollars and used it to build health care centres, and disbursed it quickly to victims. Instead it demanded over 3 billion and finally had to accept the 350 million plus interest. And after it got the 470 million, it kept most of it in a bank account, like it would do any good there!!!!

Urban Warfare

2010-06-10T22:04:00.001+05:30

Urban warfare is a different style of warfare because an enemy could be hiding anywhere, each house must be cleared out individually, and no powerful weapons may be used out of fear for collateral damage. However, it is disadvantageous to use because of the danger it puts your own civilians in. Despite this, however, many weaker enemies resort to urban warfare in order to combat a powerful enemy. For this reason, the US has developed MOUT (Military Operations on Urban Terrain) training.

The Battle of Stalingrad (1942-43) in WWII is a prime example of urban warfare. It was initiated due to Operation Barbarossa, the German push eastward towards Moscow. Stalingrad was a key target due to its symbolic name and its industrial capacity. Initially, the Russians under Zhukov were almost completely pushed out of the city by Paulus's Sixth Army. However, powerful Russian tank, skilled Russian snipers, and masses of Russian soldiers (whose life expectancy was less than 24 hours) fought back and even surrounded the Germans in Operation Uranus. Eventually, after a failed rescue attempt by Manstein's German Army, Paulus surrendered and the Russians won the battle.

Road to MBA - DAY 10, Day 11, Day12 and Day13

2010-06-08T20:43:00.002+05:30

Not much progress on the MBA front for the past few days, as lot of work at office and few unexpected events of the weekend.

Summary:
Completed Manhattan SC Guide
Started with OG 11
Stared 1000SC - completed 100 ques

Justice Delayed and Justice Denied

2010-06-08T20:26:00.003+05:30

Its has been a long and agonising fight by the survivors of the Bhopal gas tragedy for justice. Just two years in jail for the men who committed the worst crime against the people of this country. And whats worse - they are immediately bailed out!!! This mockery of justice after such a long wait. Twenty six years after 40 tonnes of lethal gas seeped into the lungs of Bhopal, some 17,000 men and women are still waiting for the so-called compensation… In all these years, the poor victims have done everything they could to get justice and compensation… Today, they were denied justice. Today, they were told that they should be happy with the peanuts thrown at them by Union Carbide. Today, India proved once again that it doesn't care for its poor… Today, India proved that it doesn't really care for its people, particularly if they have been slaughtered by powerful people from the most powerful nation in the world. Instead of taking on America and fighting for justice for its poor, India is more than happy to sell its dead cheap. What a pity!!!!!

End of an era???

2010-06-03T20:50:00.003+05:30

Its very disappointing to see Federer loose. I was hoping agianst hope to see Federer win the Claycourt once again by defeating his nemesis Nadal, however it seems Soderling had some other plans. Federer "The Magician" as he is called by many of his fans was handed a shock defeat by the "Party Carsher" Robin Soderling. However the defeat of Federer looks is like a silver lining for the other top ranked players. Will this mark the beginning of the "End of the Federer era?" only time will tell that!

Road to MBA - DAY 9

2010-06-03T20:44:00.001+05:30

Still struck up with Sentence Correction. Its almost done now. Will be starting with OG on Saturday and another test on Sunday, hopefully i will be crossing the 650 barrrier this time

Road to MBA - DAY 8

2010-06-01T20:47:00.003+05:30

After a disastrous second test, i did a deeper analysis and tried to figure out where i am messing it up, so here is the outcome

1. Loosing track of Math - I need to do some math problems everyday
2. Too slow progress with Verbal - I need to pull up my socks and finish Manhattan SC, and start with OG Soon
3. Track my progress wrt to OG daily and analyze the error logs
4. Go though the flash cards - I am not making use of it

Having decided that, here is my progress for the day 8:

- Completed two chapters in Manhattan SC. One more chapter left, after that i have to start with OG

Road to MBA - DAY 7

2010-05-31T01:10:00.002+05:30

Outcome of Day 7:
- More insights into usage of pronouns and adjectives
- good progress with Manhattan SC guide

Took a MGMAT, scored pathetic:

SCORE & OVERVIEW OF RESULTS

TYPE

SCORE

ESTIMATED PERCENTILE RANK

Quantitative

55 %

Verbal

56 %

Total

560

57 %

Lessons Learnt:

- Dont ignore quant, keep practicing everyday
- Dont be overconfident
- start with the OG as soon as possible

Road to MBA - DAY 6

2010-05-29T22:20:00.002+05:30

Had a very tiring day at office today, couldn't do any GMAT preparation.
However i collected the info regarding the Essays and related stuff. So not entirely a day wasted

Road to MBA - DAY 4 and Day 5

2010-05-28T00:13:00.002+05:30

Couldn't blog yesterday :( Hence the summary of two days:

DAY 4:
Started to work on Verbal. Manhattan Prep SC Guide seems to be good book. I am picking up the speed now. Feeling lot more confident on Verbal now. Completed the first two chapters.

Learning's from the Day:
1. Avoid passive voice
2. Avoid being + verb form
3. such as is used to indicate examples, like is used to indicate similarity
4. Avoid redundancy
5. Dont change the subject when looking for the right answer
6. Check the singular and plural, subject verb agreement

DAY 5:
Today researched about the schools. Since i have to prepare for the essays as well, collected the info regarding the schools, downloaded various brochures. Rethinking the strategy of working on Verbal or Quant?

Nifty slumps 3% on European Woes - Analysis by a soon to be MBA

2010-05-25T23:19:00.004+05:30

It looks like the bull run is coming to an end!!! The benchmark indices NSE and Sensex tanked 3% today due to poor global cues. Unfortunately there is a lot of bad news coming from all the corners, North Koreans and the South Koreans are almost at war. The statement of the US president asking for the American troops in S.E Asia to be on alert didn't go well with the markets either. If this was not enough, news came in late afternoon that Spain was heading the Greece way.
there is a lot of pessimism in the European markets, but the reaction here to the situation in Europe is little too soon, too fast and too much.

Road to MBA - DAY 3

2010-05-25T23:11:00.002+05:30

Not much GMAT preparation for today. I am looking at the bigger picture ;), today brainstormed on "Why do I need an MBA". Collected a lot of points, hoping to prepare a CV soon and send it for analysis to few B Schools and ClearAdmit. This session also gave me the much needed motivation to stretch myself further!!!!
Now i have to do a MBA whatever it takes, and i will ensure i will clear the first hurdle the "GMAT" with flying colours.
starting with the Manhattan SC today, i have to hit 650 this weekend in the GMAT powerprep

Road to MBA - DAY 2

2010-05-25T03:42:00.005+05:30

Not much progress today, still undecided as to how to deal with Verbal. Planning to start with Manhattan Verbal from tomorrow onwards. Have to compensate for today's loss of 1 hr tomorrow.
cant afford to be distracted by twitter.

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.”

Frailty thy name is politics!

2010-05-24T20:20:00.003+05:30

Its really appalling to see our Mr Clean Image PM Dr. Manmohan Singh defend his telecom minister who is in midst of one of the greatest scams of our time. Mr Raja is alleged to have allocated the 2G spectrum at throwaway prices of 2000-3000 cr, when the asking rate was around 55000 crores. Many of the Indian entities who purchased the licenses then sold their share to foreign investors at 1500% premium!!!. Recently the sale of 3G spectrum fetched the govt a whopping 60000 crores. When asked about the anomaly in the pricing of the spectrum, the telecom minister defended himself by saying that 2G is like a "ration rice" and 3G is like a basmati rice!!!
I would like to remind our esteemed minister that the "rationed rice" which is subsidised by the govt is for the poor people in the country - in the same context i would like to know the 2G spectrum was sold at subsidised rate for poor telecom operators? ( read Reliance - the Ambanis, Unitech, Airtel).

Its true that politics really brings the worst out of men. How else can one explain our PM defending the tainted minister. The compulsions of coalition politics really brings the issue of 2 party system to the forefront.

Road to MBA - DAY 1

2010-05-23T23:40:00.003+05:30

Here is the summary of Day1:

Took the Powerprep test and scored 610. Its a pathetic score to say the least. However i can now do a better analysis of my strengths and weakness.

Detailed Score :

Quant Score - 48
Verbal Score - 26 (???)
Total Score - 610

My takeaways from Day1

- Need to improve my verbal to a great extent.
- Improve my reading skills. ( For certain big passages i was not even able to read them completely, need to really work on my concentration skills)
- Dont assume things and solve ( for DA)
- Avoid silly mistakes in quant
- Brush up quant fundas

I know after practising on quant for some more time, i can improve upon my quant score, but i really have an uphill task for tackling verbal

Is China's Economy Overheating?

2010-05-23T11:04:00.002+05:30

China's gross domestic product grew at a rate of 11.9% in the first quarter of 2010, compared to the same period a year before. HSBC predicts that the China's GDP would grow by a 11% this year.
Thats a bit too fast going by even's China's standard. The massive govt stimulus has sparked a rise in inflation. There is a property bubble building up in the real estate market. The prices in the housing market have risen by 11% compared to last year. Several economists are predicting a bubble burst soon. I hope China learns from the mistake of US and reins in the prices, otherwise the mortgage crises in China would be inevitable.

The King of Clay is back!

2010-05-22T23:55:00.004+05:30

Who can possibly beat Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros? This question was already on everyone’s lips 12 months ago, and little did we know that we were going to get an emphatic answer. This year however, the Majorcan has managed to become an even hotter favourite than in 2009…

For the first time since he made his debut in 2005, Rafael Nadal will not be going to the French Open as defending champion. This year, that particular honour goes to the Spaniard’s chief rival, Roger Federer. Does the Swiss maestro finally winning his first major on clay in 2009 represent the end of an era, or was it merely a parenthesis?

Despite his defeat to Robin Soderling in the round of 16 last year which was perhaps the perfect illustration of how nothing can ever be taken for granted in the world of sport, Rafa will again be the red-hot favourite at the 2010 French Open. But why is it that the four-time champion looks more of a shoe-in than ever, despite his long unbeaten streak on the Paris clay having come to an end?

No road to Paris via Barcelona

Firstly, Nadal chose to not to play in Barcelona this year – a tough decision for the 23-year-old. To the casual observer, it is a relatively insignificant tournament, but Rafa had won it on no fewer than five occasions in the past and it of course represented another chance for glory in front of his home crowd. It was a real sacrifice, and one made very much with Roland Garros in mind.

While we will never know how much his defeat to Soderling was due to his knee injury, Rafa has certainly learnt the lessons of 2009 and there is no way that he will arrive in Paris in anything less than top form physically. Last year’s marathon semi-final win over Novak Djokovic at the Madrid masters was the straw which broke the camel’s back towards the end of an exhausting season on the European red brick, and so the king of clay simply decided to cross a tournament off his busy 2010 schedule. When he arrives in Madrid this time around, he will be fresher than in previous years, particularly since he only dropped 14 games in winning his sixth title in Monte Carlo, although his fifth Rome crown did take a little more out of him.

Secondly, Rafa will be out for revenge. His defeat to Soderling, with the Swede being buoyed by a crowd which very much decided to cheer for the underdog on that fateful Sunday, was a real body-blow to Nadal, and he will not let it happen again in a hurry. He then went without a title in a barren spell which lasted 11 months, which seemed to spur him on even further in Monte Carlo and Rome this year, the first of which he won with style, the second with substance.
"The important thing is to have enough motivation to want to improve all the time," he said after his win over David Ferrer as dusk fell on the brand new centre court at the Foro Italico in the Italian capital. "I am probably more happy winning without playing my best," he added, referring to the struggle he had in his semi-final against Latvian surprise package Ernest Gulbis.
Barring injuries, Nadal will therefore arrive at the French in peak physical form, highly motivated and brimming with confidence. His opponents be warned – it will take something special to pull off a “Robin Soderling” act on Rafa in 2010…

The Road to an MBA

2010-05-22T23:05:00.005+05:30

The road to an MBA begins with a GMAT. Now that i have scheduled my GMAT test, here is how i plan to go about it.

1. Gather info regarding the GMAT - DONE
2. Purchase the GMAT Bibles - OG Series - DONE
3. Brush up the fundas - DONE
4. Start with Quant from OG - IN PROGRESS
5. Start the SC from Manhattan SC guide - YET TO START
6. Start CR using powerscore - YET TO START

Apart from all these i am planning to take a weekly test and track my progress and ofcourse spend atleast half an hour reading The Economist and NY Times

A new life n a new beginning!!!!!!

2010-05-22T22:58:00.002+05:30

Its a new life a new beginning.. A very short but sweet song from the movie - Bachna Ae Haseeno.

Well i am now drawing inspiration from this song, and planning a start a new life. the last one year has been very demanding, hence a long break from blogging.

Wondering what the new beginning? Here it is:
1. Booked the GMAT test on 10th August

So until then Eat GMAT, Drink GMAT and Sleep GMAT

The Fab 14!!!!

2009-06-21T21:16:00.002+05:30

a picture is really worth 1000 words!!!!!!

- Here above all the victory snaps of the 14 amazing grand slam title wins by Roger Federer

Fedex is back!!!!!

2009-06-08T20:03:00.001+05:30

And so am I.

If there was one and only one thing that could have brought me back to blogging, it just had to be Roger Federer! Thats how much I am passionate about the greatest champion in tennis history.watching Roger Federer play on any day is not only pleasing, but also it brings a sense of sereneness and calm to those watching him. There is a surreal magic in his style of play, and the way he carries himself on court; Federer looks all pervasive. His armory is quite full, with his serve, returns, amazing drop shots and of course his special-also the only rightful claimant-the brilliant backhand cross court volley makes one yearn for more and more of them. Like Mozart composing those magical notes, like Michelangelo chiseling and working away his works of art, Roger Federer moves on all over the court with grit and perseverance.

Last night, he clinched his 14th career Grand Slam title, the French Open, and in the process has laid to rest any arguments whatsoever on who is the greatest player ever to pick up a tennis racket. He is.

Only 5 other men in history have managed to win all 4 Grand Slams in a career. He is now tied with Pete Sampras with the highest number of Grand Slam titles (14). The only man to reach 20 consecutive finals. He was the world number 1 for the highest number of weeks (247), highest career prize money ($48M+) ….

Federer holds virtually all possible records in Tennis. There hasn’t been a greater champion in history. And with the French Open title, he has immortalized himself.

And he is not just a great champion but a great human being. As gracious as he is on the court, he’s even better off it.

Married his girl friend of 9 years this April (someone he knew much before all the fame & success), lined up to be a dad in a few months, is not ashamed of crying in public (win or loose), always dressed appropriately (actually perfectly), is humble, humorous and courteous with the press and public alike, endorses the right products, is part of many humanitarian projects….I can go on and on..

Bottom line: A perfect champion. A perfect role model. And he is just 27.

To Roger Federer. The greatest ever.

Federer - From prodigy to supreme excellence

2009-06-07T21:57:00.003+05:30

Roger Federer the greatest man ever to play tennish, finally won the elusive french open title - The french open. He is now only the 6th man in the history of the sport to achieve a career slam. He also now equals the record of the great Pete Sampras's record of 14 slam wins. Well i am sure there is no stopping him now and he will now reclaim the wimbledon title from Nadal

All in the name of a fair trial!!!!!

2009-04-29T20:23:00.003+05:30

I am quite disturbed to see how Ajmal Qasab, a terrorist caught alive at the scene of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks is making the mockery of our judicial system. Apparently the gentleman now needs a flavoured toothpaste, perfume, newspaper and money. Call it the guts or his confidence in our judicial system.
I wonder why we are so hell bent on providing Qasab a fair trial - what do we want to show the world???

He should have been shot on the spot - well i would say it is not too late now either

Nothing to blog :(

2009-04-01T23:00:00.002+05:30

off late i have been so busy with my work that i have not been blogging since very long time. i see that my last post was on Feb 24 - that is one whole month without a post!!!!!!
Today i rushed back home to be early enough to blog:-

aber

DAMN THE BLORE TRAFFIC!!!!!!!!!!!

UPA claims credit for the achievements of "Slumdog Millionaire".

2009-02-24T20:32:00.002+05:30

I am amazed by the imagination of the politicians of my country. I am still wondering how remotely the UPA govt can claim credit for the achievements of "Slumdog Millionaire".

What the f*** is this? Oh i think the govt is claiming the credit for the simple reason that if slums were not to be there - then there would be no "slumdog millionaire"!!!!

Dilli 6 - Music

2009-01-22T02:52:00.001+05:30

Zareee zarree mein usi ka noor hai
Jhak khud mein woh na tujhse door hai
Ishq hai usse to sab se ishq kar
Ishq hai usse,
To sab se ishq kar
Is ibadat ka Yehi dastoor hai

Is mein us mein aur us mein hai wohi
Is mein us mein aur us mein hai wohi

Yaar mera Har taraf bharpur hai ..

Australian Open - An Imperfect Start for Mr. Perfect

2009-01-20T00:36:00.002+05:30

The tennis season for the current year has finally started!! Even though i am in stuttgart and the 10hr of time diff doesnot help me much , i am keenly following the action on the Rod Laver arena on the internet.

Day one of the austrilian open didnot spring any surprised except that my favourite player Roger Federer or the Magician, the Perfectionist as many call him had an imperfect start for his 14th Grand Slam conquest. The fact that it took Federer 141 minutes to pack up the 135th seed is definetely a worrying factor, but as long as he keeps winning who cares!!

I hope that this year is gonna be much better for Fedex when compared to the last year. It is high time that the greatest player ever to hold the tennis racket not only equals the legendary Pete Sampras's title records, but also gets well ahead of him. A French Open win would be the icing on the cake :-)

India - A colony of Britian??

2009-01-16T02:29:00.005+05:30

WTF is this!!! the external affairs minister of our country backs down on the demand for extradition of the terrorists involved in Mumbai attack and gives in to the wishes of the visiting foreign secretary David Muiliband. Will somebody please remind Mr Singh and his team that India is sovereign country and no longer a colony of Great Britain. The British foreign sec says that there is no need for Pakistan to extradite the terrorists and it can try in its own court - i was shocked to hear that the Indian govt has agreed to the proposal. Tomorrow the foreign sec of US would come and say that LOC be converted into border and then all the problems would be solved once for all, I hope the govt would protest at least then!
It is India was has been attacked and it is India which has to respond!! the international community was watching then and it would be watching even now!!! We have to respond and respond in a hard way!

Narendra Modi - PM in waiting?

2009-01-15T02:36:00.003+05:30

The top industrialists of the country have seem to have been overwhelmed by the persona of Narendra Modi. They say that Narendra Bhai is the "PM Substance". It is not a small achievement that in the times of recession Modi has got a commitment of $200 billion in 2 days flat.

The world is in recession China and India are slowing down, but it seems that Modi's Gujrat is firing on all the cylinders. No doubt that th Godra episode remains a stumbling block for the widespread acceptance of Modi, but the way he is transforming the state of Gujrat, many are prepared for look beyond that Godra.

Modi is clearly a man on a mission, a selfless mission to power his state to development and prosperity in a manner that has not been done in India by anyone anywhere, and at a scorching pace that even now seems impossible in any state except Gujarat. In a country where a hopelessly corrupt, unresponsive and inefficient bureaucracy has stalled India's progress with single-minded ruthlessness through the weapon of an all-pervasive red tape, in collusion with corrupt politicians, Modi has proved that impossible is nothing indeed.

Modi has become the beacon that has illuminated the truth that an honest, competent and visionary leader can single-handedly turn red tape into a 'red carpet' and get errant and arrogant babus to do their jobs as they are supposed to. No wonder Gujarat is by far the the best governed state in India and is motoring ahead of all other states. The most heartening thing is that despite so much of money being invested there, there is not even the whiff of a scandal anywhere. The absence of kickbacks to politicians and babus and a rare collective zeal inspired by Modi to get things done for the people is getting the world to rush to Gujarat.

Despite this near revolution that Modi has unleashed in a corrupt India that is being mirrored by Andhra Pradesh, our media, unfortunately, continues to treat him as a pariah, thanks to the shrill campaign of a few disconnected 'intellectuals' stuck in 2002. In a lively discussion on CNN-IBN on January 12, 2009, about the CNN-IBN Indian of the Year, Sagarika Ghose was blunt enough to voice the fact that, thanks to them, Modi will not be in any list where "a certain degree of the values of the awards are at stake". To them, politicians with suitcases full of looted money have been, and will continue to be, acceptable. But anyone who does not conform to their warped idea of 'inclusiveness', despite all evidence to the contrary, will have fight to earn his prize in the heat and dust of real India. They will not gift it to him in a five star hotel, no matter that he may actually be beyond all competition. That is saying a lot about the credibility of such awards, but who cares!

Fortunately, the people of India are far wiser than most of those who do the rounds of TV studios. They do not carry either fake ideological baggage or ulterior motivations to promote or pull down political leaders. They know well the difference between what is happening in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. They know that Narendra Modi personifies the symbol of his party perfectly as much as Reddy personifies the filth that is draining India. In this vast ocean of politico-bureaucratic muck, Modi stands out as the pristine lotus. Sure he is not the only one out there. There are a few, really few, others too, but he is clearly the tallest and strongest.

Narendra Modi is emerging as the transformational leader that India has been yearning for. With every passing day, that realisation is dawning on more and more of those who were violently opposed to him earlier. That is why Suhel Seth, once one of his greatest critics, is now one of his staunchest supporters. That is why the captains of India's industry have given him a 21-gun salute. That is why the people of India will pull him sooner rather than later to lead them and their country to long delayed glory.

The way the genie that unexpectedly emerged out of Satyam is growing despite best efforts to keep him covered, there is little doubt that, no matter how hard the government may try, the 'aam aadmi' will not be fooled. He knows exactly which face of India is represented by Modi and Reddy, now better than ever before. He is seeing the impossible being turned into a reality in Gujarat. He is also seeing in Andhra Pradesh the ugly underbelly of politicians from whom he had no escape earlier. He knows that he now has before him a clear choice to make. And he will make it wisely, no matter what efforts are made to confuse him with falsehoods yet again.

And entirely on a different note, had Modi been the current prime minister of our country i guess Pakistan would have already received the treatment it deserves for 26/11!!!

Diplomacy at its best ?

2009-01-14T00:21:00.006+05:30

I was appalled by reading this article. It seems India is now begging to the world not to sell arms to Pakistan. Is this the so called "diplomatic offensive" taken up by the Govt of India???

I fail to understand why we are hesitating to stamp our authority on the World. More shocking is the fact that we are pleading to countries like Ukraine and Germany!!!! Why dont we just declare that anybody who deals with Pakistan is not welcome in India anymore - no deals, no FDI, no more subsidies etc
In the current economic scenario the world needs India more than India needing the world...
Remember Germany is hoping that its sluggish auto sales would be offset by good sales in India n China, whats the point in pleading them? just say You can either have your cars in India or your submarines in Pakistan!
And as far as Ukraine is considered, it is already under a lot of stress from Russia for the gas pipelines, well we can always ask our good old friend to strike a better deal for us.

It is a well known fact that the world would choose India over Pakistan anyday.. so why not do it now

Slumdog Millionaire - Must Watch!!!!

2009-01-12T01:19:00.004+05:30

So, aside from knowing that it was directed by Danny Boyle, and that he’s a genius, I had absolutely no idea what to expect from Slumdog Millionaire. I had no idea it was set in India, no idea that it involved the Hindi version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, I had no idea about anything. I’m glad I didn’t know anything about the film, or else I wouldn’t have been so spectacularly surprised. It’s such a beautifully compelling love story, and so much more. It’s definitely a must see.

In many years or maybe in decades you may get a chance to watch such a wonderful movie, and this time it is called “Slumdog Millionaire”. A movie that not only tells a story but shows us a path beyond surviving in this world, a world where love and life comes really hard, very hard for most of us.

“Jamal, an 18 year old orphan from the slums of Mumbai is yet to experience the biggest day of his life. Each chapter of his life reveals the key to the answer to one of the seemingly impossible quiz game show’s questions. It’s the answers he learned through his journey of life and the love that ultimately made him a millionaire.”

Undoubtedly, this film is one of the best movie I have ever seen all these years. It is based on the book Q and A written by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup, a brilliantly directed movie by Danny Boyle & Loveleen Tandan (co-director), awesome music by A.R Rahman, the superb casting & performance on screen and the mind-boggling over all presentation. You like everything about it and so it is done perfectly, as if you are witnessing something that happened just in front of you, connected with unbelievably real souls of an unknown world. I felt like, the story is just another reality, shocking, at times scary, very profound and thought provoking. In the end, it’s the love that remained the gift for the life turned luck.

“Slumdog Millionaire” is nothing short of a heartbreaking, soul-stirring, breathlessly guided glimpse into a life worth celebrating. For that, and not that alone, the film itself deserves to be celebrated just the same.

Pakistan dares India, should we strike?

2009-01-11T00:34:00.000+05:30

The current government in India is led by ‘Babus’! Pakistan understands that and is having fun at our expense. Can you imagine Pakistan behaving this way if Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister? I would seriously doubt if they would have the courage to strike India should L K Advani become the next Prime Minister. Dr Manmohan Singh reminds me of the kid in a class who is beaten every day by the bully of the class and he goes to the principal complaining. We have heard a line from India for the past 10 years, “We are an emerging power”! If this is the way a rising power behaves, what would be the condition if it was not an emerging power? I dread to think! For starters, Manmohan Singh should take the ‘danda’ from the Bombay Police and give them AK-47 instead. He should them meet with the President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari and put the ‘danda’ up where it belongs!

There is something else the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh can do, he can buy a box of ‘Pacifiers’ on sale and distribute 11 of them to his cabinet, especially Pranab Mukherjee, and put the twelfth in his own mouth. His government talks a lot but does very little. Can you imagine if our government was not making empty threats but was busy in very quiet diplomacy and was seen preparing for the war? Shri Zardari would be washing his ‘crap’ every morning! We believe in non-violence but a little suspense could have the Pakistan Military “shitting in their pants”. Iraq war has taught us that military option is not always wise or productive. India has plenty of options available internally as well as on the world-stage. Depending on the goodwill of the United States is not one of them. We have atleast 120 Indian ambassadors working around the world, 20% of these should be retired or senior defense officials.

Aggressive diplomacy backed by credible defense posture could achieve lot more than empty bluster. Pakistan has found a cheap method of rattling India’s cage every now and then. We have not yet figured out how to respond. Indians are smart and resourceful people. If only we could export our ‘Babus’ to Pakistan, we would have a paralyzed neighbour. Our diplomats (IFS and IAS officers) are not really equipped to deal with international diplomacy in this 21st century. A six week course at an American University is not going to change their DNA. These are difficult changes that India would have to make some day. We must also re-examine our attitude towards out defense personnel. The sixth pay commission report is an insult to our officers and undermines our national security. Besides bringing their pay scales on par with their civilian counter-parts, their ranks must be up-graded to world standards.

Satyam - No more Sunderam

2009-01-10T23:40:00.002+05:30

The finance world has been rocked by the admission of fraud by Satyam Computers founder & chairman B. Ramalinga Raju and the investors vented their ire not only on Satyam stocks but also on the other stocks in the exchange, over the genuineness of the accounts. B.Ramalinga Raju’s resignation in no way amounts to penance or remorse as the India’s image in the world financial markets has already been tarnished and will take a credible time to regain the trusts of major financial institutions who play a major role in India’s financial trade.

Financial markets all over the world are in a turmoil and crisis and India, though in a little better position then other countries, was still in a vice like grip of a bear phase and the moment it seemed that bear phase will morph in to a bull phase, one Mr. Raju came out with a attitude of shotgun murrugan and shot down both the bull as well as the bear and then with a feeling of remorse came out with a holier than thou statement is nothing but a hogwash.

As a lay-man, it would be difficult for me to understand the finer details or get to the nitty gritty of the fraud, but one thing is for sure that when Mr. Raju was cooking the books as per his taste, were all the other chefs (read: Board Of Directors) were sleeping and Mr. Raju admitting his responsibility for the fraud does not acquit the board of their lacunae. This means only one thing and that is either the board of directors were just a decoration on the company’s annual reports or they are equally responsible for the scam and are now covering their stains by pointing fingers at Mr. Raju. They have convieniently forgotten that when you point a finger at someone, there are three other fingers that are pointing in your direction.

Secondly, the cooked books were audited by a reputed firm ‘PriceWaterhouseCoopers’ or well known as ‘PWC’, so will any one tell this lay-man as to what these so called professional and internationally acclaimed firm was upto and again it comes down to two options either PWC was not doing it’s job properly or there was some kind of hand in glove tactics. Any which way you look at it, I don’t buy the statements of the board of directors that they were not aware of the fraud as it is not the first time that the accounts had been manipulated or altered and the same were being manipulated for several years and I am also not selling the idea that Mr. Raju is only a fall guy, but what I am saying is that everyone including Mr. Raju, the present board of directors and the auditors have to take collective responsibility for this Mega fraud and the guilty should be severely punished in order to deter the future scamsters and fraudsters.

The statement of Mr. Raju in his resignation letter - ‘It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten’ - is amusing to say at the least and if nothing else. So in short he is saying that he purposely initiated this scam and then could not stop because of fear of backlash, but the question in moot is what made him initiate such a dangerous ride, in which the danger of being eaten up was right from the beginning at the time of sitting on a tiger. I understand from this statement is that even though Mr. Raju knew the dangers that lay ahead, he chose that particular path in order to stay afloat in a rat race and fill up the pockets of those around him as well as himself.

At this juncture there is nothing else we all can do except sympathize with the employees and the investors of the company and even the Government showing their true colours has promised to inquire in to this fraud. This will be easily one of the worst corporate moments in the history of Indian Corporates.

Furthermore, from the outset it looks that this scam is just the tip of the iceberg and there are more skeletons hidden in the Satyam closet, and when revealed the repercussions of the same can be easily acquire Titanic proportions…

We get what we deserve!!!

2009-01-10T23:31:00.000+05:30

This is old news, but it is worth a read today.

Roughly 12 hours after terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners in order to perpetrate unprecedented attacks on America, President George W Bush addressed the nation at 8.30 pm in a televised statement from the White House:

'Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. The victims were in airplanes, or in their offices; secretaries, businessmen and women, military and federal workers; moms and dads, friends and neighbours. Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror. The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. I've directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbour them.'

...Then, with the world watching, he stood atop a mound of World Trade Centre rubble, a bullhorn in hand, and proclaimed:

'I want you all to know that America today is on bended knee in prayer for the people whose lives were lost here, for the workers who work here, for the families who mourn. This nation stands with the good people of New York City, and New Jersey and Connecticut, as we mourn the loss of thousands of our citizens. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.' [rediff]

One and a half month after Mumbai's massacre, Pakistan is running circles around India even as fresh terrorists are hiding, escaping, attacking in the country, and preparing for more attacks after being trained in Pakistan.

We deserve these attacks and more as we show "restraint" and get slapped and kicked in the bargain...

Dump the IE.. You are Vulnerable

2008-12-17T02:39:00.001+05:30

If you’re still looking for a reason to finally switch loyalty from Internet Explorer over to one of many competing browsers, trust me, this is it.

A major flaw in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer that allows hackers to gain the password details of the user has been revealed.

This is not a rumor, it has been confirmed by Microsoft who in fact announced the discovery themselves admitting a “vulnerability in Internet Explorer” that “could allow remote code execution.” Not Good.

Microsoft are preparing an emergency patch to resolve the flaw.

MICROSOFT SECURITY ADVICE

Change IE security settings to high (Look under Tools/Internet Options)
Switch to a Windows user account with limited rights to change a PC’s settings
With IE7 or 8 on Vista turn on Protected Mode
Ensure your PC is updated
Keep anti-virus and anti-spyware software up to date

Unsurprisingly, “switching browsers” isn’t on that list.

“I cannot recommend people switch due to this one flaw,” said John Curran, head of Microsoft UK’s Windows group. “At present, this exploit only seems to affect 0.02% of internet sites. In terms of vulnerability, it only seems to be affecting IE7 users at the moment, but could well encompass other versions in time.”

To summarise, SWITCH. And better SWITCH to Firefox

Why is firefox so popular?

2008-12-12T01:42:00.000+05:30

Over the last 4 years, firefox is becoming more and more popular, and its market share is increasing by 5% each year over the last 4 years. But since one has to actively download and install the program (on Mac and Windows), why do people choose to download and install Firefox? Why not Opera, Safari, Konqueror or any other browser?

This week, several articles I read brought the breaking news that the market share of Microsoft’s internet explorer is shrinking to below 70% for the first time since 1999 (http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=1). Internet Explorer gained a near monopoly, simply by forcing it to the customers by bundling/integrating it with the operating system Windows, and I believe this is the major reason why this browser still holds such a big percentage of market share. Many people simply use the browser they are given, unless there is an alternative that has significant advantages.

On the other hand, apparently, the near-monopoly has made Microsoft extremely lazy, resulting in a browser that does not even meet the open web-standards, it is slow and has to catch up with alternative browsers. The lack of meeting open standards is an increasing frustration with web-designers and alternative producers of web-browsers like Opera (http://www.opera.com/press/releases/2007/12/13/). Having to catch up with other browsers is painfully clear when simply looking at tabbed browsing and extensions. The tabbed browsing was introduced by Opera in 1994 and only after practically all other browsers supported the “tabbing”, Microsoft introduced this feature in Internet Explorer 7, more than ten years after Opera did.

Also speed is in favor of Opera, when compared to the top-4 of the web-browsers, and also in this case, the market-leader (Internet Explorer) does not do a very good job (http://lifehacker.com/396048/speed-testing-the-latest-web-browsers). Firefox is left somewhere in the middle.

The only field where Firefox beats all competitors is when it comes to extensions. Though there an amazing amount of well-designed and useful extensions (or widgets) for Opera, and a few extensions for Internet Explorer, the real master of extensions is Firefox. Its open source code combined with a decent market share apparently is a very attractive combination to developers and resulted in more than 5000 Firefox extensions in just a few years (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/customize/), and the number of extensions is growing rapidly. There are many types of translators, weather add-ons, but also highly specific add-ons such as “biofox”, “FireMath” and “Water Levels of German Rivers” (if someone finds a more weird add-on please let me know!!!). The most curious extension that is being worked on is one provided by Microsoft and is called the Open XML Document Viewer, which allows you to view OOXML document right in your browser (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKSF6w0EK0s). Also the look of Firefox is highly flexible and you can install many different themes.

When looking at features like speed and innovation, Firefox and Opera are a close match and Internet Explorer is lagging far behind. Looking at the market share trends however, Opera and Internet explorer are no match for Firefox, probably due to the numerous extensions, though there might be several other small advantages that add to the popularity of Firefox.

Ain't Nobody like my Desigirl :(

2008-12-10T02:54:00.000+05:30

Well this is what i can say after beinng away from India since 5 months :(

dekh lakh lakh pardesi girls,
ain't nobody like my desi girl.
whoz the hottest girl in the world.
my desi girl.
my desi girl.
thumka lagaikey she'll rock your world.
my desi girl.
my desi girl!

But the million dollar question is Who is the Desi Girl? Keep guessing!!!

The rise and fall of Chrome!

2008-12-09T01:36:00.005+05:30

In a Computerworld report that summarizes recent Net Applications data, interest in Google Chrome has now died down to a standstill. Most of the people still downloading it are either night owls or from countries outside of the US, such as China, because the only activity is at night.Chrome searches have now fallen in line with Firefox. This, after a week or hype and unforeseen inmade it seem like Google was going to a) take over the browser market b) usher in the end the OS as we know it and c) probably make Google really rich.

It turns out that Chrome is just another fast browser without any really compelling features that will make people switch once and for all. It may even just be merely a developer tool and not a real browser at all. Yet, there are a few things that have contributed to the flat-lining interest, issues that Google could still fix if they get busy, well - today or sooner.

1. Chrome is relatively stable, but minor irritants such as the undo bug make you wonder why you are using it. Chrome is not like a low-level beta app that sort of works and where you put up with bugs because it is so new and innovative. Instead, a browser is the main tool we all use every day, and it better work - we have no patience for buggy browsers like IE.

2. Google has not released an obvious Chrome 1.1 update yet to address bugs, although they have released point upgrades and you can get new versions through a developer program. Huh? A developer program? In Internet time, it has been eons since Chrome was released, and no one wants to figure out how a developer program works just to get a more stable version.

3. There were early concerns over how Google was going to use your private data. They fixed the problem, but a minor glitch at the launch of a social networking site like Lively is nothing compared to a minor glitch with a browser. Everything is more critical and higher profile.

4. Google tends to use very simple anchor pages for their products, but it also makes people think the product is under supported. I'm sure there is a Chrome support forum; the issue is that it is not easy to find and that makes the average user nervous. Are they serious about Chrome? Or was it just an internal browser they used for testing that runs fast and decided to release it publicly? Wait, that's exactly what it is.

5. As Opera has learned, you have to keep the momentum going. Google obviously move don quickly to hype Android and will be in Android mode for some time. Here's the reality check: Google is not Microsoft. They do not have several hundred people working on one product at a time. It's more like a few people or maybe 50. No one knows for sure except Google, but at least on the outside Chrome still seems like an internal project and not a serious product.

6. I wonder where Google can really go with Chrome. For starters, you can't really put advertising on the browser wrapping and on the pages as well. You can tie a search box to advertising, but they already do that with Firefox. It's kind of too late to really beef up the features, and that has never been the goal of Google anyway. Look at Gmail - it is about as barebones as you can get - it runs much faster than Hotmail but has nowhere near as many features. That minimalistic concept works okay with Web software, not as well when it comes to a browser.

7. It's interesting to note that Android is really the first Google product you will be able to hold in your hands - you can literally touch the interface. More importantly, it will be a product you buy - for $180 from T-Mobile. (Google does make an enterprise search appliance but that doesn't really count.) Everything else, including Chrome, is free and in persistent beta.

8. (Updated) Here's one last major issue with Chrome: compatability. I just tried watching a Netflix streaming movie and of course Chrome is not supported. It doesn't work with Movielink or Cinemanow, either. I can imagine that these kinds of sites have no plans to support Chrome, especially when many of them just started supporting Firefox or are still working on Firefox support. As with any software, Web site operators must consider the field: which browser is the most popular?

So will Chrome stick around for years? Probably. But my opinion today is that it rose to quick prominence and then died out just as quickly. It may never come back.

Why is Microsoft scared of Linux?

2008-12-09T00:26:00.000+05:30

Microsoft is frightened. Even Ballmer is telling users that they can skip Vista, which tells you everything you need to know about Vista's failure. In the past, Microsoft wouldn't have sweated this kind of flop. "What can users do?" they'd say. "Move to Linux or Macs? Ha!" That was then. This is now.

Today, major PC vendors are selling netbooks like hotcakes on a cold Vermont morning and three out of ten of those are running Linux. As my comrade in arms, Preston Gralla observes, "Microsoft isn't just worried about ceding 30 percent of the netbook market to Linux. It's also worried that if people get used to Linux on netbooks, they'll consider buying Linux on desktop PCs. Here's what Dickie Chang, an analyst at research firm IDC in Taipei, told Bloomberg about that: 'It's a real threat to Microsoft. It gives users a chance to see and try something new, showing them there is an alternative.'"

Exactly, and that's why Microsoft is rushing out Windows 7, which is a stripped down Vista SP2, as fast as they can and jerking out features so it will run on netbooks with minimal hardware. Gralla thinks Windows 7 will kill Linux on the netbook, I don't see that.

For all the mistaken excitement about Windows 7, the earliest anyone is going to see Windows 7 is the 2009 holiday season. That's eternity in Linux terms. Linux is already better than Vista and the equal to Microsoft's best desktop operating system, Windows XP SP 3. By the time Windows 7 appears, Fedora, openSUSE and Ubuntu will have all gone through at least two more generations of upgrades.

Windows is a slow dinosaur competing with the fast-moving Linux mammals. It's not a race I expect Windows to win.

Linux is already more stable, more secure, vastly faster boot times, and it's far less expensive than Windows. With efforts afoot to make desktop Linux even more new user friendly and its much faster evolution, I'm not worried about Windows 7 sweeping Linux off the desktop. But, I can certainly see why Microsoft would worry about Linux gaining a substantial, say 30%, of the desktop market or even more if Windows 7 isn't a rip-roaring success.

The days when Microsoft ruled the desktop are numbered and Windows 7 is Microsoft's frantic attempt to forestall the inevitable.

Joker n the Oscar

2008-12-08T02:50:00.004+05:30

Warner Bros has publicly begun its push with this Variety advertisement for Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight for a Best Supporting Actor nomination. Academy Award ballots are mailed on December 26th, polls close on January 12th, and the nominations are announced on January 22nd.

I hope that the "Joker" wins this time!!!

Mumbai blasts - What needs to be done!!

2008-12-08T02:39:00.005+05:30

We need to act and we need to do it now….here are a few pointers

Mumbai city, and its people, have been held hostage by 'militants'. This is a clear indication that we are on the global terror map. This was NOT a gang war. The whole reaction from the state and central machinery was slow. Now when we talk of steps to be taken there are a lot changes required on many fronts.

Our leaders need to resign
I am not all upset that the chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has been asked to resign. Shivraj Patil should never have been made the union home minister in the first place. Just as you need an able and responsible police director general and commissioner, we need an equally responsible and able home minister.

We want new leaders who will NOT just announce new plans. We want a timeframe within which we will see a new NSG formation, funds for security, funds to improve the lives of the police, whose morale is below zero. The state should improve training for Anti-Terrorist Squads, and new security agencies. They will procure on an immediate basis new guns, ammunition and weapons that will help our police force. Our poor baton-wielding constables have played a major role in foiling the plans of these hardcore militants. We lost 14 constables in this attack. The constables only had wooden batons. But let me tell you, the captured militant has admitted that they could not believe that even a constable chased them to bust their operations. I salute these heroes who were committed to their jobs and lost their lives so that the city could rest peacefully.

Accept that we are on the global 'terror' map
The minute we realise that foreign militants are using Indian turf for terror, we will be able to plan and activate various agencies from the village level to national. We will be able to get a holistic picture of international militancy. Many great scholars ridicule readers who love espionage and thrillers. But one reason I keep reading them is to get a perspective on global militancy. The way their minds work, the way they operate, from local to international networking.

Now when I heard that the Jewish couple was held hostage, it was a natural instinct for me to understand this is something larger than what the government authorities are saying. This was NOT an attack. This was a full-fledged militant war.

Activate ground workers, Khabris
You may ask how khabris can help in the war of terror? Well the fact that these militants ordered 200kg mutton from the local butcher in Colaba, who expressed shock, is a vital clue. This incident would never have gone unreported had our khabris been a part of the Anti-Terrorist Squad network or even part of the local police network. Let us not forget the 1992 riots, and the 1993 blasts that isolated many minority groups, especially Muslims. Most butchers are Muslims. The fact is had the informer network been active this information would have helped the police.

Security must be beefed up along our coast
In 1993, after Mumbai city was rocked by RDX bomb blasts, it was noted that how, due to poor coastal security, all the RDX came from across the border to the Raigadh and Konkan coast. Have we learnt from our mistakes? No. But if the PM or president is in town every helicopter is used to protect them. This should be stopped.

Instead we should have more regular air surveillance can spot suspicious movement along the coast. We need a more alert tourist police. Not those who drink at night and come along pushing a baton into people's stomachs, but those who check identification papers, and keep constant vigil.
We need a pro-active Coast Guard. This time round there were NO coast guard boats at the Yellow Gate when it was reported that few militants had landed using ferries from Porbunder. Three days prior to the attack, fisher folk had held protests on the seafront near Bandra. Our so-called alert Coast Guard had taken their boats there for vigilance.

A source in the CG admitted that the officers did not call back the boats, instead they let them remain at Bandra. This lapse has proved very dear to us. We can't afford such lackadaisical approach when we have a huge coastline.

We need more non-corrupt and efficient navy that doesn't simply use the Mumbai's ports to anchor their ships. We need khabris within the dockyard workers, staff and naval police, who will alert the navy. We need the navy to do its job with as much commitment as our local police have done in the last 60 hours.

Respond like the armed forces
Once we treat this issue like an insurgency we need to tackle and respond like armed forces. This whole combat operation that took place on Friday should have taken place on Thursday itself. The government and security agencies could have taken the hotel management into confidence, asked them of their preparedness for blowing up the building in order to kill the militants. The US armed forces deal the problem of militancy at their level. They utilise police in the city for local operations, maintaining law and order, however, the real operations are handled by top bosses in the US army. They attack at the ground level; they give a specific time for the exchange of fire but do not lose time finishing off the militants. They accept full responsibility for the civilians killed.

Instil fear in the minds of insurgents and militants
We looked as if the whole country was scared and so was our government. We need to study other countries. They talk tough; their body language is serious. The leaders of most countries do not look like they have stepped out of their beds, like ours did. We were completely at sea for 60 hours. We need to instil fear in the minds of the militants.

They need to realise Indians aren't soft. To the world we look like soft targets, which we are, let's accept that. Our leaders, negotiators and NSG or army need to talk tough. They must realise we are serious about dealing with this issue of terror war.

Electronic media needs to mature
Our electronic media is in its infancy. Yes, of course if we send young little reporters who have NO experience to cover a war situation they will treat it like common local crime. It was shoddy reporting. Anchors, who have sadly become icons and idols for wannabe reporters, conducted dramas and soap operas at the scenes where military operations were going on. They revealed the locations of the armed forces, the NSG, their movements and screamed out how these operations have gone wrong. This wasn't an ordinary situation; it wasn't local crime. I expected lot more mature reporting. We should have seen how the foreign media sent its experts - who by the way were oldies with grey hair. But the fact that you need experienced hands, who know the city well, the issue well, and who have experience in covering such disasters. Our reporters don't seem mature at all. The government should have blacked out the news channels right at the beginning.

Public needs to be more mature
The onus of a disciplined nation lies on us citizens. We are a very political race, Asians and Indians. However we lack manners and maturity. The government had asked its people to sit at home. So many revelled at home, had their drinks and holiday snooze.

Later they came out on to the streets. Bystanders, passersby, and absolutely lukkhas whiled away their time laughing at the media and wanting to see the attacks. The police totally failed in controlling the crowds. They in fact pushed the media behind a cordon, screamed and shouted at us. While they allowed the crowds to pile up near the places where combat operations were going on. People came with their pets, toddlers, infants and couples who took time out to romance near these three places. Mumbai has shown complete disrespect to those who fought for us and gave up their lives. People had too much curiosity and breached all norms and rules of civil society. Their children were shooting pictures with flashes -this was all within the one kilometre of the attacks!

People had come to 'see' and inspect these three spots. We are a nation that simply doesn't realise someone else's problem is one's own problem. Till we don't get affected the middle class is NOT concerned at all. We treat it casually and in an immature manner. We have to realise this is regarding our national security, coming to the sites and laughing, clapping, and treating it like a tamasha is a breach of our security, and shows disrespect to the hostages and our forces. We need to see footage of 9/11 to see how their citizens behaved and how they helped, rather than treat these incidents as a joke.

Live repoting!! - Banned??

2008-12-02T03:01:00.003+05:30

"Several foreign nationals are trapped in the Taj Hotel Mahal"

"The top management of a multinational corporation was meeting…"

"Terrorists are suspected to be on the 9th floor…"

"NSG troops are about to have arrived in Mumbai…"

"NSG commandos have entered the Hotel…"

The above is just some of the information telecast live by all news channels on last week's terror attack on Bombay.

News channels have an objective—to fetch the latest news and share them with viewers, much before a competitor channel does that. But I feel this habit of indiscriminate live reporting, while a combat operation is in progress, can be catastrophic for the success of the military operations against terror.

Let us just think for a while. Do we really need to know everything on a ‘as soon as it happens’ basis? I feel not. Whether NSG commandos have just arrived at airport, or have entered the hotel or are on the first floor or second at this moment, is not necessary to be revealed to the general public on a realtime basis.

Showing such news live, will be immensely useful only to terrorists and their supporters outside.

Consider this. The commandos only know that the militants are somewhere inside the hotel, but the militants know everything about the movements and positions of their pursuers through TV.

Like:

Who is on their trail (Army/ NSG/ local police, etc)
What is their ETA (estimated time of arrival), which tells them, how much time they have before a gun battle would begin)
Where they are right now, at the main entrance/ just entered their floor
How is the world responding? Is there pressure mounting on the government to succumb to the demands of terrorists to get the hostages freed (so that they can act tough during negotiation)?
How many of their friends are alive or dead (so that they can assess their strength)?
What has been the impact of their strike-how many police and civilian dead, the current morale of police, who all as been detained/suspected?
Live visuals of the street-to assess a possible escape strategy
What information about them the outside world has (which floor they are in, their head count etc. And much more…

In my view, all this information, while useful to viewers and relatives of victims, also helps the terrorists/ militants to consolidate their position and pose a greater challenge to commandos trying to hunt them down and/ or rescue the hostages.

Why is our media helping them by airing live all the sensitive information about the anti terror operations?

The common man does not need to know them on a live basis.

Can’t the information & broadcasting ministry think of banning live reporting during a hostage crisis? Let the channels air the news with a delay of few hours, so that the police and security agencies will have a lead time of few hours, wherein terrorists would be as equally uninformed as they are.

Please note that I am not advocating censorship. I am all for free speech and expression. What I am proposing, is that security agencies should have the power to impose a delay of say three to six hours w.r.t live reporting of anti-terror operations.

Let the TV channels record whatever they want, but they should be aired only after a gap of few hours. I do not think anyone loses anything with this.

The movie A Wednesday also shares same opinion.I feel the good old days of once in a day news bulletin was far better.

What do you think?

Why is Open Source/Community Developed Better?

2008-12-02T02:45:00.002+05:30

I have recently have debated (three times now) with a person I know over why open source and community developed software is better than software that you buy or that comes pre-installed on a computer. Our debates included Linux versus Windows versus Macintosh, Gimp versus Photoshop, and Internet Explorer versus Firefox versus Opera versus Safari versus Chrome. Wow, that's a lot of web browsers.

Anyway, just in case anyone was wondering, we are still arguing over which software is better, and I don't think we will ever stop, even if it is clear open source software has several advantages. What kind of advantages? Many: portability, enhancement, minimization, security, and dedication.

To begin, since the source code of open source programs is out in the open (hence the name), if one person wants to use the program on a platform that it is not available on, they might port the program to that new platform, and eventually a whole group of dedicated people will to manage the port will arise. This is all possible because certain sections of the code (which is available to everyone) are compatible across platforms, and the few sections that aren't might easily be changed.

Since anyone and everyone (with an interest) will view the source code, the internal workings of an open source program will inspire developers to enhance the current program, or create a new program completely based on the internal workings of a current program. Basically, open source programs produce other programs.

Since everyone who wants to is helping develop these programs, you can be guaranteed that the software you are getting successfully does what it has to in the least amount of code. The more people that work on a program, the more likely it is that there is going to be less useless code.

Yes, it's true that being able to view the source code of a program may allow hackers to develop bugs more easily for code, but this openness will also allow security programmers to more easily develop patches for the software and find the errors before they are exploited. What should minimize security actually increases it. The population of dedicated developers working on an open source program will also provide benefits when a bug is found: patches for this type of software will become available more quickly than patches for commercial software would.

Also, because the community is managing all this open source software, we will not have reluctant programmers creating this software. The people who are developing Linux, Firefox, and every other piece of free software are dedicated programmers who are doing this for their own personal satisfaction and the enhancement of computing all over the world. A person getting paid will not put their heart into the program. Sure, money helps in some aspects, but money can't buy love. (Wow, classic bollywood dialogue!)

So that's why open source and community developed software is better. I still don't see how my friend can argue with me. But I don't even care anymore. He can continue using Windows Vista, Internet Explorer, and Photoshop. Even if he has to pay a buttload of money for it all. Most people just pirate it all anyway.

Why Travel?

2008-11-20T02:06:00.000+05:30

The thrill of exploring the unknown,
The adventure of going down a road that you dont know,
The mystery behind the tun that you are about to take,
The feeling when you meet new people and you try to come across as interesting,
The realization that you get once you know that you are yet another human being,

are simply too rewarding and too tempting to make you seek travel.

What is the big deal about the Dabbawala of Mumbai?

2008-11-19T23:59:00.003+05:30

The big deal is that The Economist decided to cover a topic like ‘Dabbawala’ in it’s business section on July 12, 2008 issue. These guys go to the IIMs and ISB to give guest lectures on their style of "Management". It is a big deal that BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) produced a documentary on Dabbawalas and Prince Charles visited them in 2003, during his visit to India. The New York Times reported the growth rate of Dabbawalas in 2007 and Harvard Business School has produced a case study on the ‘Dabbawalas’. It is certainly a very big deal.

The system of Dabbawalas (delivery of lunch boxes) originated in Bombay around 1890s. Who actually started the service is debatable, but it was formally organized by Mahadeo Havaji Bacche, a migrant from rural areas of Maharashtra. The lunch delivery service was attractive because the distance between the residential areas and the business district in Bombay, made it difficult for the workers to go back home for lunch. Initially, some 100 unemployed Ghattis (men from the hills of Maharashtra) were contracted to deliver home food to a small group of office going people. Bacche tried to unionize this force in 1930 but failed. ‘Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Trust’ was registered in 1956 as a charitable trust. By 1968, the trust was converted to a commercial entity called “Mumbai Tiffin Box Carriers Association”.

The Dabbawala phenomena has prevailed over the last 100 years and more. Today, some 200,00 meals are delivered in Mumbai (Bombay) everyday, by approximately 5,000 strong work-force at a service charge of eight dollars or Rupees 325 per month. The Dabbas (Tiffin Boxes) are picked-up form the residences at 9:00 am sharp and delivered at the offices between noon and 1:00 pm. Once the lunch is finished, the empty Dabbas are collected and returned to respective homes by 5:00 pm every single day, six days a week. Indians work 6 days a week. The Dabbawalas are paid Rs. 5,000 ($125) per month on equitable basis.

Free market capitalism - Boon or Curse?

2008-11-19T23:27:00.000+05:30

Free-market capitalism has nothing to do with the current financial crisis. Competition was good then and it is good even today. Government intervention was bad then and it is bad even today. The main problem is the American over-confidence in their ability to manage events and crisis around the world. Europe is their alter-ego. They would rather not use their own brain but go by the American decisions. Just in case they use it all up! Asia talks about its own identity but catches cold whenever America sneezes. It is time the world asserts itself and not let some American bureaucrats set their agenda. It is time the rest of the world takes some responsibility.

Ronald Reagan changed America, starting January 20, 1981. He preached living larger than life. His clarion call was, “This is the greatest country on the face of this earth”. American lapped it up, not thinking exactly what it meant! All presidents since 1981 urged Americans to go out and spend to grow the economy, and they did. The people in the United States have spent 20% more than they have earned for the past 25 years. Now that the bills have come due, nobody has the money. This would translate in learning to live within your means. In other words, ‘Economic Contraction’! The economy would contract by roughly 20% in real terms and the consumer market would also contract by some similar percentage. The Europeans would follow like loyal subjects. It is time Asian countries show some leadership!

I can see me loving nobody but you, for all my life

2008-11-19T23:16:00.000+05:30

Have you been confused before, been depressed and angry at the same time? Your feelings for her, did it ever fade away. Have you seen yourself and her parting ways and walking away from each other? Have you even walked in those lonely roads, longing to be able to hold her again?

People speak less about their love when it is going good, but they speak so many things to so many people at once when it is going bad. Speaking at a really basic idiotic laymen terms, that is.

But you, I can see me loving nobody but you, for all my life.

So happy together…

GM Bailout - Go or no go?

2008-11-19T00:26:00.000+05:30

This really makes for an interesting case study. The largest US automaker GM has only enough money to last until Dec 2008. Banks don't want to lend money and the commercial paper market has dried up making it impossible for GM to raise money from the market.

Here are some of the facts:

1. GM employs 266,000 people. Together with its subcontractors employ close to 500,000.
2. For each car GM sells it loses about US$600 (vs Toyota which makes $700).
3. Because of unions, the hourly pay for GM workers is US$78 per hour. The US autoworker is paid in 2 days the monthly salary of a Thai worker on the Toyota assembly line in Thailand.
4. If GM goes bust, the estimated cost to govt in terms of lost taxes, unemployment benefit payouts etc is $200B. GM needs a bailout of $20B to remain a going concern.

The best thing to do according to George Bush is let it go bust - GM is has an uncompetitive business and it should be allowed to fail. Rescuing GM using tax payer's money will be a moral hazard - other uncompetitive businesses will want govt bailouts. It is not fair for the govt to use tax payers money to help some people (like overpaid autoworkers) and not others. The Democrats argue that it does not make sense to let GM fail because it will cost the economy 500,000 jobs and tax payers more money. Many analysts suggest the best and most practical way forward is to bailout GM and squeeze its unions and management for pay cuts and concessions...force a restructuring of the company to make it competitive again. Letting it go bust is just too horrendous to consider for the US economy which ia already falling off the cliff. However, if GM remains uncompetitive, it will need more infusions in the future. IMHO, whether to bailout a business depends on whether it will eventually become competitive.

Lewis Hamilton: a deserving F1 world champion?

2008-11-04T01:47:00.005+05:30

For those Formula One fans who committed to watch the deciding grand prix, they were rewarded with a dramatic race that saw Lewis Hamilton go from losing to winning the championship within the space of a few corners on the very last lap. The predictably unpredictable rain of Brazil's Sao Paula circuit started and finished the race and came within seconds of costing McLaren's Hamilton the fifth place he needed to secure the 2008 Drivers' title. As Ferrari's Felipe Massa crossed the line first, Hamilton was only sixth after being overtaken with two laps to go by the sport's other champion-in-the-waiting, Sebastian Vettel. But a slow final lap by Toyota's Timo Glock, struggling on dry tires on a slippery track, allowed Vettel and Hamilton to sail through to take positions four and five respectively. It was a typical see-saw race that just about summed up a season in which both Hamilton and Massa have had more than their fair share of unconvincing moments. Hamilton ran into the back of Fernando Alonso's Renault at the second race in Malaysia, but more embarrassingly crashed out of the Canadian Grand Prix in the pit lane, taking Kimi Raikkonen with him. Massa, though, looked like an amateur at the wet at Silverstone, spinning multiple times before finished dead last, and was comprehensively out driven by Hamilton at the tracks considered to be real driver's circuits: Monaco and Spa. However, the bullet-proof reliability that has helped Ferrari dominate F1 in recent years has also deserted them at times this season, with Massa suffering a couple of engine failures. These were compounded by pitstop errors, famously in Singapore, when Ferrari's auto-release system was engaged prematurely for Massa, costing the Brazilian the race. Hamilton, though, should also have been world champion before this final race. The farcical stewards' decision at the Belgian grand prix that relegated Hamilton from race victor to third, with the officials deciding to penalise the Brit for what to most people seemed a brilliant overtaking move on Raikkonen. Hamilton's performance in 2007 was more impressive overall than this year, but in my opinion the McLaren driver just about deserved to edge the title in 2008 - to become the youngest champion in F1 history. Out of the two drivers, Massa has looked the most consistent driver this season, but Hamilton has looked the better raw racer - with a number of skillful and gutsy overtaking manoeuvres. What did you make of the 2008 Formula One season, and did the right driver win the championship?

Socha hai??

2008-11-03T03:53:00.000+05:30

In the recent past,there's one song that's just blown me away..yup,a hindi song:).

Asama hai neela kyun.paani geela geela kyun
Gol kyun hai zameen?
Silk mein narmee kyun.aag me hai gaarmi kyun
do aur do paanch kyun nahin?
Ped ho gaye kam kyun.teen hai yeh mausam kyun
Chand do kyun nahin?
Duniya mein hai jang kyun,behti laal rang kyun
sarhadain hai kyun har kahin?
socha hai...
yeh kya kabhi
socha hai..
yeh hai kya sabhi
socha hai...
socha nahin,toh socho abhi..

**hats off to javed akhtar**
Probably these lyrics don't make literal sense..but,i just love the honesty of the lyrics.These lyrics make me think about the greatest gift given to man(which he rarely uses), thinking and ability to question..Children make the most use of their brain,because they question,the curiosity within them makes them question,even if it is as naive as "why don't i have a third ear?".But as man grows older,he loses his ability to question,he ignores it.He just flies through life,not bothering to stand,analyse and question,because it's just a waste of time.He wants to get on with his life,wakes up every morning,finishes his job,runs back home.He wouldn't dare to question "why doesn't the goverment do anything about the bihar floods?",because it's not related to him,its not his job.
I cannot generalize,but i can say,the greater proportion of the people fail to question.If it has been a long time since you questioned,look at the mirror now,and ask yourself"Where do i stand?","What do i look forward to everyday?"..you will discover a lot.

Hello - Hell No !!!

2008-10-21T01:57:00.001+05:30

Watched Hello!! yesterday...... 10 minutes into the movie, you get to realize why the name of the movie is Hello!! It is, I guess to ensure that people do not leave the cinema hall halfway....

Jokes apart, a truly horrible effort at trying to make a movie out of a book. For those of you who liked 'One Night at a call Center', by Chetan Bhagat, you will hate the movie..... And for those of you who did not read the book, you will hate the movie!!! The only thing that stands out at the end of the movie is the solace in the fact that Atul Agnihotri is a consistent guy. He is as bad at directing as he ever was at acting.... (Remember the song on the bike??!!)

Well, the movie starts off with an item number by Mr Khan with mind bogling lyrics as 'Bang Bang Bang, Boom Boom Boom'!! (what was he thinking!!) After the item number, he gets ready to leave when his departure is delayed due to a technical fault with his chopper!! While sitting there, Katrina Kaif sits next to him as she needs to use the charging unit for her laptop and that is the only place where she can get it. She then starts off the narration of a 'oh so pathetic' story on the condition that Mr Khan makes a movie out of it....

Focus shifts to Connexions, a fictional call center in every sense of the term..... It is a rainy night an everybody is getting ready to get to their shift in time. And whether you believe it or not, everybody has his sob story in life starting from the supervisor Shyam, son of divorcees Vroom, the ever dutiful wife Radhika, aspiring model Isha, aged Military uncle and the soon to be married to a NRI gal, Priyanka. They are all part of the same team which handles Customer care calls for an appliance company... They are all cribbing about their lives at work when we get to know that Shyam and Priyanka were going steady before they broke up and Vroom likes Isha.... Between all this, there is news of employee retrenchment by their manager Mr Bakshi, an America loving SOB manager.... Due to a system issue and rise in tempers, they all decide to take a break from work and go and booze before making their way to office... (Wonder how!!??)

On the way back, Vroom is drunk and so eh crashes through a construction site, the car thus ending up at the very precipice of an under construction 'something'(Never got to know what it was!!) here, amazingly, none of them are able to get any signal on their mobiles... And then God calls!!!!!

Most of the conversation is one sided and illogical.. Basically God asks them to stand up for themselves and follow their mind in what they do. After all this they go back to office, teach a lesson to Bakshi and stop employee retrenchment....

The way they stop employee retrenchment by increasing calls is phenomenally crazy!!! During a fire drill the same night, Shyam and Vroom convince everybody assembled that they have to receive more calls to enable retention. Therefore, the suggestion, call up all customers and tell them that there is a mysterious virus attack on the US through appliances (whoa!!) and by keeping on calling, they can somehow annihilate the attack!! (Basic premise here is all Americans are dumbasses!!!!) And thus all is well that ends well.

And hey BTW, if you are not bored by the sheer idiotic of it all, you come to know at the end that Katrina is God!!!! My God!!!

The movie to talk about in a few words is a slap on the book, a slap on the faces of each and every employee of the burgeoning back office industry through its potrayal and and therefore deserves a slap on the face of Mr Agnihotri, Mr Bhagat and all of the cast!!!!

Even if you are supremely bored, I suggest you watch a crappy movei on Zee Cinema or Set Ma rather than sitting through this joke of a movie!!!!

Is I-Banking dead?

2008-10-14T02:41:00.001+05:30

The depressing news on Lehman and Merrill Lynch has got me thinking (read: worrying) about I-banking's future. There's no sugarcoating the fact that last year, the five of the biggest banks on Wall Street were Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bear Stears, Lehman Brothers, and Merrill Lynch. Now 3 out of those 5 are gone.

What exactly is in the cards for finance guys coming out of business school who want to go into I-banking? I can imagine tons of offers being rescinded in the upcoming weeks/months. I guess this will put a lot of pressure on the other major career choice for top B-school candidates: consulting. Now it will be that much tougher to get into consulting as well. Plus with a weak economy, I can imagine consulting hiring will be down as well. This really sucks!!!
This from a Chicago GSB student posting on GMATClub:
*****************************
Today during a part of our orientation, we had a Finance professor explaining some courses of the curriculum, he started saying:"As you may notice, we have 2 major sub-concentration, one is for those who want to go to Investment, Portfolio and Risk management - also called sometimes as Capital Markets. The second I might as well not spend your time talking about as there are no jobs available, people call this sub-concentration Corporate Finance, and those who studied it used to be called Investment-Bankers."

Then, he said out loud: "For those who want to change careers to IB it's going to be tough, and my advise is not to do so, but as everybody says here: You know You best."

I didn't know if I was supposed to laugh or cry. But it's true, it's going to be HARD, extremely HARD for those seeking banking.
*****************************
So when will the finance sector start to recover? When will banks start hiring again? 2011, 2015, 2020, never again...? We'll just have to wait and see, but waiting of course is the hardest part. The future of I-banking looks bleek.

I found a really clever presentation through BW forums for anyone looking for a simple explanation of the mortgage mess that got Wall Street into so much trouble:

http://docs.google.com/TeamPresent?docid=ddp4zq7n_0cdjsr4fn&skipauth=true&pli=1

It sure cleared up any confusion that I had regarding the current situation. Doesn't make things any better, but it may bring a smile.

Stock Markets tumble!!!

2008-10-08T02:20:00.003+05:30

The world stared fear in its eyes yesterday. The stock markets went on a one-day steep fall starting with Asia followed on by Europe and finally hitting home in the US.

Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 3.58% to close below psychological 10,000 level at 9955. The Straits Times Index (STI) declined 5.6% to 2168, which was not seen since June 2005 (more than three years ago).

The various stock indices had fallen sharply losing between 58.7% to 25.8% from January this year.

6 Oct 08 2 Jan 08 Change (%)

Dow Jones (USA) 9955 13043 - 23.6

S&P 500 (USA) 1056 1447 - 27.0

FTSE100 (UK) 4589 6416 - 28.4

Germany DAX 5387 7949 - 32.2

Paris CAC40 3711 5550 - 33.1

Nikkei 225 (Japan) 10473 14691 - 28.7

Shanghai Composite 2173 5272 - 58.7

Hang Seng (HK) 16803 27560 - 39.0

Mumbai BSESN 11801 20465 - 42.3

Australia All Ord 4540 6434 - 29.4

New Zealand NZX50 2990 4033 - 25.8

STI (Singapore) 2168 3461 - 37.3

The credit crisis has moved on from US to affect the European financial institutions.

The fear now is that the world economies will slow significantly resulting from this financial crisis. It is a case of loss of confidence by investors after watching their investment portfolios dwindling in values by the days. They are cutting back on consumer expenditure hence hurting the economies in the process.

It is tempting to go into the stock market and buy shares of companies which have come off from their peaks and plumping new depths. The reality is when one buys into a stock and no sooner the share finds another new low.

The advices from most analysts have been that this is not the lowest level yet. It may still drop further and it may take six months to a full year in order to see a clearer trend for the stock market.

Rock On - A Review

2008-10-08T02:07:00.004+05:30

I was talking to a friend yesterday, and i got to know that she has not yet watched this movie yet.. So for i hope she will watch the movie atleast after reading this review!!

Rock On is a brilliant movie – a very simple concept converted into a brilliant motion film supported by terrific performances by debutant actor Farhan Akhtar and Arjun Rampal, and the whole cast ensemble.

Rock On makes you swing emotionally, making you laugh and cry, and teaching you to revel in the joys of life. It is a story of four friends who live music and run a rock band fondly named Magik. Things move good and then things turn bad and they move apart. They are again gelled together, courtesy wife of Farhan Akhtar, who is an affluent investment banker and a reticent. All four friends have moved on and chosen the path never meant for them.

I am sure all of us have had great friends during our school or college time and then lost touch with them. Now, due to Orkuts, LinkedIns and FaceBooks we are able to trace them; that’s good for you, but there are people who we lose in lives and even if we trace them on SNSs we will not contact them. Either we had a fight with them or things turned so sour that we are afraid to take an initiative. In any case, we are so engulfed in our current work-life balance that old contacts hold very little relevance.

Rock On glorifies this divide between 20s and 30s very well. All of us move on and hardly care for what has been left behind us. A once-talented poet has no inspiration to write and would waste his life doing stocks; a drummer would spend his life selling diamonds to beautiful rich women; a super-talented guitarist would never be successful because he is too ethical and over-sensitive in this manipulative and money-minded world; a keyboard expert would be lonely in India’s most crowded city. That’s what the four friends of Rock On become.

When life brings these four friends together again, they are now matured adults who want to prove nothing to the world but to their collective ego. When their hearts call out to be with each other, you know that finding reasons behind everything is not logical. Logic is for those who live life too seriously; those who live life, live it from their heart, they listen to their soul and are often termed crazy in the contemporary world. Rock On only makes me believe in this more.

Rock On shows that if you lose friends you are not fortunate to get them back always; they may be in the last stages of their life, and you will realize that you lost precious time. It makes you realize that the love you took so much for granted and left behind is now being embraced by your worst friend or best enemy. Not everyone is as fortunate as Farhan; he kicks away his love to only find someone more considerate and angel-like! We need to learn from this movie but also notice our script is not written by a benevolent Bollywood writer. It is written and destroyed by us.

I guess I have written more of a philosophical message than a movie review. You will love the music too! For me, the best movie of this year so far at least musically. I have now lost the count of the number of times i have played the tracks from this movie!

Jeffrey Archer - A Prisoner of Birth

2008-10-08T01:34:00.000+05:30

Jeffery Archer released his latest novel entitled “A Prisoner of Birth” and is now available in paperback. The title was most apt for the storyline that was written.

I spent past few days reading it and I could hardly leave the book. The storyline captivates you and you just wanted to read till the end to see how it develops and ends. That explains why I have not been able to blog for the week.

Jeffrey Archer still has his magic and able to weave a story that has its fair share of unexpected twists and turns. However, at most times, you would have expected the outcomes that you intended. In this case, it pampers and writes for the readers in mind.

Jeffrey Archer’s stint in the prison came through very well in the book. I believed that allowed him to write with such authority and convictions in that part of the story. It is real and believable. It takes personal experience, though not so pleasant and even traumatic, for writer immersed in the situation to write that well.

As I journeyed with the lead character in the story, I became the character wanting to do what he set out to do. Jeffrey Archer's major strength is in writing witty exchanges in the various criminal court hearings. You have to read it to appreciate and savour the power of the English language used, which is his native tongue.

I will leave readers to read the novel and experience it for themselves.

Microsoft new commercial with Bill Gates and Jerry Sienfeld

2008-09-13T01:21:00.002+05:30

I have one word to describe the new Microsoft commercial with Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld. Horrible.

The news is a bit old by now, but I thought I’d make a statement on the new commercial I just saw with Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld that takes place in shoe store. It really has nothing to do with the Microsoft operating system, or any of Microsoft’s products at all. It’s a stab at comedy, and Jerry Seinfeld does show a little comedy, but all it really did was make me say “what the hell?”

I find it sad that Microsoft’s new $300 million marketing campaign can’t do a little better than this.

Here’s the embedded video, as well as the direct link to YouTube.

Microsoft Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates Commercial

Linux Myths: Busted!

2008-09-13T01:10:00.002+05:30

One of the main reasons that most people are afraid to try Linux is because they have this preconceived notion about linux being too hard to use and difficult to maintain; or that they have to do something drastically differ ant and there is a steep learning curve to using linux. Most non-linux users are very ignorant about linux. So here is an attempt to dispel some of the myths surrounding Linux:

Myth# 1: Linux Installation is difficult.

This is fairly popular Linux myth. Maybe 5 years ago; I would have agreed with you, it’s simply not true anymore. Let’s talk about the most popular linux distro at the moment, Ubuntu. On a brand spanking new computer, if you were to install Ubuntu from scratch, you would basically have to follow that same configuration options like selecting language, keyboard type and username/password, as you would do in a new vista installation. On the upside, there is every reasons to believe that your linux installation will be finished a lot sooner than a windows installation; and there will be less restart, if any.

Myth# 2: I have to know the Linux terminal in order to use Linux.

False. There is absolutely no reason why a regular computer user can’t use linux for years, without having to use the terminal. Windows has CMD (or command.com, or now powershell) just like Linux has the terminal. It is meant for power users or developers to tinker with fine points of linux (or show off to their friends). Windows has a suite of applications that has no graphical front-end for server and system administrators (Windows Sysinternals anyone?), same holds true for Linux. One can also look at Mac OS X; which is based on BSD and has a terminal just like linux. But a Mac user will probably never use one in his lifetime.

Myth# 3: There is no one-click installation in linux. I have to compile everything.

Wrong again. Windows one-click installation is possible thanks to MSI windows installer; and just like linux windows also has it’s fair share of differant installers. In Linux, Debian and RPM installers (or package managers) are the two most widely used linux installers out there. They install applications the same way a windows installer installs an application, minus the step by step configuration. So this one is also busted. :)

Myth# 4: Linux Lack applications.

Just official debian repositories alone has more than 18000 applications. Lack of applications is the least of linux’s problem; just like windows, linux has many applications that performs the same task. You can also use Wine to run windows applications that might not have a suitable alternative for linux. You can find a list of windows applications that can be used with linux using wine; including photoshop CS2 and MS Office 2007.

Myth# 5: Can’t play my movies or use my itunes/ipod.

Wrong and wrong. VLC for linux plays many popular formats including, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, DVDs, VCDs, HD DVD and various streaming protocols, and with more than 96 million users; you can’t get wrong with that. itunes works fine with wine for linux, if for some reason you can’t get itunes to work you could always use itunes alternatives like Banshee, amaroK and Xine.

These are some of the more common myths surrounding linux, that I know of. I am sure there are many more that I didn’t cover. Personally, I use Vista, Debian/Ubuntu and (more recently) OS X; I love them all. Even though I have a soft corner for linux, it would be unfair for me to try to shove linux down all non-linux users throat. However, users needs to get the right informations so that they can decide whats right for them.

Federer a Champion Again

2008-09-09T23:37:00.000+05:30

Thirty-four consecutive wins in Flushing Meadows? Roger.

Five consecutive US Open Championships? Roger.

Thirteen Grand Slam Singles Title? Roger.

The best tennis player ever? Roger.

Roger Federer added another milestone to his tennis legacy after beating Andy Murray in straight sets 6-2, 7-5, 6-2 to win his fifth consecutive US Open Trophy. A feat not done in almost a century.

The win is a vindication for Federer that he is still on top of his game after a year that appears "disappointing" because of "so many losses" and "missing out" on the first three grand slam events of the year. Not to mention, slipping to number 2 in the world.

Look at the three phrases inside quotes above. For other players, the year Federer had is great enough. Roddick was quoted as saying he would gladly take what Federer had this year. Andy Murray said that Federer's year was phenomenal.

When 2007 ended, Federer is predicted to match and maybe surpass Pete Sampras' all-time record of 14 grand slams. He was that dominating then that a year with more losses that his previous years of supremacy and not winning any of the first three grand slam events looks like Federer is sliding downward.

Adding more to that notion is the rise of Rafael Nadal. He recently replaced Federer as number one in the world rankings. He captured his fourth straight French Open after demolishing Federer. He again beat Federer in the best epic Wimbledon final, Federer's best surface. And he added the Olympic Gold.

In retrospect, the turn of events could be a blessing in disguise. Before, all other players have an extra motivation to beat Federer. Now, Federer will have the extra drive to be on top again.

Frankly, all I want to see is for him beating Nadal in the French Open final.

The iPhone in India:My Take on marketing!

2008-08-30T02:04:00.002+05:30

Mobile telephony is set to reach the next stage of evolution after the two largest GSM operators, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar, launched Apple Inc.'s iPhone on last friday.

Paradoxically, the iPhone may have everything, yet nothing, to do with the changes it's about to unleash.

The iPhone launch by the two service-providers came after weeks of hype and hoopla, but sadly, proved to be a damp squib. Although the smart phone's amazing new features kept the "wow factor" intact, the long-winding lines that sprang up in front of iPhone stores elsewhere in Asia ahead of the launch were conspicuous by their absence.

The reason? The iPhone pricing is so steep that several potential customers were massively disappointed, even outraged, going by local media reports. The princely sum of 31,000 rupees for the 8-gigabyte iPhone and 36,100 rupees for the 16 GB version was too high for even such a cool gizmo.

Additionally, Bharti is asking for a deposit of 5,000 rupees, while Vodafone is reportedly seeking twice as much. What's worse, India has yet to auction the frequency spectrum required by mobile operators to start offering 3G, and a formal 3G launch is estimated to take up to a year. So even the rich, cool dudes who manage to get themselves an iPhone will only be able to enjoy the low-speed applications that they had access to anyway on their phones earlier.

During the April-June quarter, Bharti earned 350 rupees a month as average revenue per user, implying that the company's average customer can continue using the old phone for 9.8 years more, if he or she decides against buying a 16 GB iPhone, at a cost of 41,100 rupees (phone cost of 36,100, plus deposit of 5,000 rupees).

Put another way, a fresh graduate recruited by one of India's leading software companies will have to pay 1.6 times his or her pretax monthly salary of 25,000 rupees to satisfy an impulse to own the iPhone.

Needless to say, Apple needs to rework its iPhone pricing in India if it hopes to attract a respectable number of customers in this poor but rapidly growing economy. Even if it doesn't, other mobile operators and other handset makers probably have much to gain from the iPhone's launch anyway.

The iPhone's biggest contribution to India will likely be the power of persuasion it brings along. For every iPhone user flaunting the smart phone's cool features, there could be at least a dozen others who may want to upgrade their own phones to handsets that offer more features, but are more modestly priced. And several others may be tempted to explore the world of value-added services, in addition to voice and text messages.

The mobile services industry in India has thrived over the past few years as call tariffs continue to fall, even after seemingly touching rock bottom. As compared to around 16 rupees a minute or more in the late 1990s, local outgoing calls now cost 0.60 rupees a minute. Local service providers are currently adding an average eight million customers each month, making India one of the fastest-growing mobile-service markets in the world.

The industry's average revenue per user, meanwhile, has been testing new lows each quarter, as providers penetrate deeper into the country, bringing on board new customers who can't, or won't, spend more than Rs. 500 a month on their phone bills. Most of those customers have so far been quite content using just voice, and perhaps, text messages.

Getting customers to use value-added services such as downloads, or for bill payments, has been a bit of a challenge for local service providers so far. But that could change now, as the iPhone helps improve awareness about the possibilities and raises the bar of expectations. And all industry players, not just Bharti and Vodafone, will gain from the iPhone, whether or not Apple does.

Three Idiots - Five Point Someone!

2008-08-30T01:55:00.001+05:30

Wondering what would be the next flick of Aamir Khan? It’s Three Idiots. The movie has been inspired from Five Point Someone of Chetan Bhagat.

Neha will be played by Kareena Kapoor. I guess Neha’s dad Prof. Cherian, HOD of Mech Dept. will be played by Boman Irani. Hero of the book, Hari (Kumar) will be probably played by Aamir Khan, Alok (Gupta) by Sharman Joshi and Ryan (Oberoi) by R. Madhavan.

Shahrukh Khan was initially casted to play Hari and Kajol to play Neha. Later the star cast had to be changed. I am glad they did. Not that I don’t like Shahrukh but I see Aamir suiting Hari Kumar character more than Shahrukh. Yes, Kajol obviously would have been better than Kareena for Neha, the sweet girl next door character.

The movie is currently being shot and it is due for release in the early 2009. Hope it will be a smash hit.

Watch out for Ghajini release on December 26th, the day after Christmas, if you are a Aamir Khan fan, like me.

Let’s wait for this great movie to show us “What not to do at IIT”.

Microsoft Pulls on Firefox’s Tail

2008-08-30T01:47:00.003+05:30

Microsoft fired the latest volley in the new browser wars on Wednesday, releasing the latest version of Internet Explorer to the public. Microsoft wouldn’t need an ad campaign featuring Jerry Seinfeld if it came out with more products like this.

Earlier this summer, Mozilla, released the latest version of its Firefox Web browser. Mozilla made the launch the centerpiece of a campaign to set the world record for most software downloads in a 24 hour period, which it achieved in part because the record didn’t exist previously. Firefox now has about 19% of the browser market, according to Net Appliances Applications, up from 11% in June 2006. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer still has the lion’s share of the browser market – 73% according to Net Appliances – but that’s slowly eroding.

Microsoft isn’t letting its market share disappear unchallenged, though. The company released Internet Explorer 8.0 as a so-called beta, a version that’s not quite complete but still available for anyone to download.

My Confession: I use Firefox whenever possible, mainly because it has “tabs” that allow me to open multiple Web pages in one window. IE 8 has tabs as well, plus a handful of other cool features. One I particularly like: Microsoft has added “accelerators” that facilitate common tasks like emailing a Web site, mapping an address, or looking up a word. Just highlight text on a Web page and a accelerator displays the map or definition in the same window. The bad news: The accelerators that Microsoft includes are Microsoft products – the software giant’s mapping software, email program, and encyclopedia – none of which are my preferred tools.

There’s also a nice feature that makes tabs that are related to one another the same color and a button that shows miniature versions of all open tabs on one screen. Considering the number of tabs we usually have opened at any given time, these features could be real time savers.

I am not willing to switch just yet, but I am impressed with IE 8 and will definitely keep testing it out. I also can’t help but think that one reason there’s real innovation in the new version of Explorer is that Microsoft is facing real competition. Just imagine how cool the Windows or Office would be if Microsoft had real competitors nipping at its heels!!!

Oh by the way you can download IE 8 here

Federer Making His Final Stand at the U.S. Open

2008-08-24T01:31:00.002+05:30

I remember watching Roger Federer “battle” Pete Sampras in an exhibition match in March. It was something to see: two of the greatest tennis players of all time (and the best of the past two generations) facing off in the world’s most famous arena.

It was also a farce. Federer, killing time and cashing a check, played along gamely, losing points on purpose to keep the match close before the ultimate swatting-away of Sampras in the final set. Sampras worked hard enough, but his best years were a decade ago; at one point, Sampras swung and whiffed on an easy volley. The crowd groaned, Sampras scowled, and Federer, to his credit, resisted a giggle. The display did no favors to either’s legacy. But that wasn’t the point, at least not for Federer; it was a payday, yes, but it was also a way to turn himself from robotic tennis machine into a global superstar. The process was well in motion; he was setting up endorsement deals in Dubai, making Time’s list of the 100 most influential people, and getting photographed by Annie Leibovitz. But New York was the real prize. Making a major splash here could turn him from a notoriously bland Sampras-type into something closer to the marketing behemoth that is his friend Tiger. But you couldn’t help but wonder: For all the tangential benefits of goofing around with Anna Wintour and Pete Sampras, didn’t this guy have an actual tennis career to be working on? He was two major titles behind Sampras’s record of fourteen; this couldn’t be the right way to go about breaking that, could it?

And here we are, five months later, and it has all backfired. While Federer was playing in exhibitions, noted rival Rafael Nadal was planning his ambush, one that culminated in the epic Wimbledon final last month. Since that night at MSG, Nadal has usurped Federer in every possible fashion. He beat Federer in the French Open for the third straight year, won that Wimbledon, took over his No. 1 world ranking, and, for good measure, won a gold medal in Beijing. Meanwhile, Federer was looking more mortal than ever. Not only was Nadal beating him on a non-clay court (finally): Federer lost to James-freaking-Blake in the Olympics.

Theoretically speaking, if there were ever a time to remind the world that he’s Roger Federer, dammit, this would be it; Wimbledon has the tradition, but the U.S. Open is where stars are made. But, in the strange world of professional athletics, Federer might be too old to recover. He turned 27 last week, which seems young until you realize that Nadal, who finally vanquished his perpetual conqueror, is five years younger and clearly hungrier. And age certainly matters in tennis. Bjorn Borg won his last Grand Slam at 24 (and made an ill-advised comeback thirteen years later); John McEnroe’s came at 25. Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras are the exceptions, and they had styles more based in guile and volleys than Federer’s power; in baseball, they would say that Federer has “old player skills.” (Think Ryan Howard; when they reach a certain age, they tend to decline rapidly.) Federer has never been challenged like this in his career, and it’s an open question as to whether he has the desire, or moxie, to rebound in time.

Federer thought he would come into next week’s U.S. Open as the conquering hero, the superstar with all the glamour he supposedly lacked. That was the point of the Sampras exhibition and Anna Wintour friendship. Now? He has lost his top ranking, his theoretical “best player of all time” title, and, if you haven’t noticed, it’s not him who’s on the cover of the fashion magazines (and this one): It’s Nadal.

No Gmail in Germany!

2008-08-17T00:10:00.001+05:30

Whether you know or not!!!

2008-08-16T00:02:00.000+05:30

A recent movie's tagline says " When do you know it's love? ". Good question!!! Because I really wanna know when we know its love... After the other person gives the nod to our proposal?

Some of the cliches that would trace their source to mostly Bollywood would be
1) Sleepless Nights
2) Sudden attraction towards romantic movies and songs - esp DDLJ types!
3) Singing those songs or breaking out into a dance in the middle of the street
4) Day Dreaming and increased absent mindedness

These are some that I can think of right now. The rest is for you to answer. When do I know its love? When exactly???

Knol: Google Takes on Wikipedia

2008-08-15T23:34:00.000+05:30

Some people hailed the new Google Knol as an alternative for Wikipedia, but it’s not just for Wikipedia: it’s written chaotically by random people: both people holding PhDs and people who don’t know much about the subject. Knol appears to be more like the Web itself, but completely under the control of Google.

Every big corporation wants captive customers, and Google is afraid that its customers would be able to escape. People would search less on google and instead head off to Wikipedia for information, to Web 2.0 sites when wanting to browse something interesting and to their favourite shopping portal when in need to buy something. Knol is the solution, as Google holds the content on its servers and it can monetize it with adsense.

Wikipedia, because of its wealth of information, was indeed seen as a threat for Google, but they can’t do anything to their Search engine results to penalize Wikipedia somehow, because that would result in lower quality results overall and that could affect its market place. On many topics, the only reasonable article on this is the Wikipedia’s and Google is surely wishing it would be able to monetize it.

Knol allows, due to the way the Google algorithms work, that everyone can place in front in the google results with an article, so that they’ll be able to “steal” a part of Wikipedia’s traffic and control and monetize it.

Is Windows a virus???

2008-08-11T23:49:00.000+05:30

No, Windows is not a virus. Here's what viruses do:

1.They replicate quickly - okay, Windows does that.

2.Viruses use up valuable system resources, slowing down the system as they do so - okay, Windows does that.

3.Viruses will, from time to time, trash your hard disk - okay, Windows does that too.

4.Viruses are usually carried, unknown to the user, along with valuable programs and systems. - Sigh.. Windows does that, too.

5.Viruses will occasionally make the user suspect their system is too slow (see 2) and the user will buy new hardware. - Yup, Windows does that, too.

Until now it seems Windows is a virus but there are fundamental differences: Viruses are well supported by their authors, are running on most systems, their program code is fast, compact and efficient and they tend to become more sophisticated as they mature.

So Windows is not a virus.

It's a bug. So avoid the bug - Switch over to LINUX

Gaming on Linux

2008-08-10T02:02:00.000+05:30

Gaming is always described as one of Linux' achilles heels. And while its certainly true there are more good windows games than Linux games, I've been pleasantly surprised by what is available for Linux. Two of my current favorites:

Quake Wars: Enemy Territory

I was a big fan of the original Wolfenstein Enemy Territory game. I must have played it for hundreds of hours. Not only was it free, it was an absolute blast to play. Not as insanely fast paced as Quake or Unreal Tournament, set in a realistic looking and feeling WW2 environment with more or less realistic weapons and with absolutely brilliant cooperative teamplay.

W:ET now has a more than worthy successor called Quake Wars: Enemy Territory. ETQW remains true to the original in many ways. Although it has picked up some speed (or am I getting old?) and it is no longer set in a WW2 environment but rather something slightly futuristic, everything that made W:ET so great is still present. Wonderful maps and missions, gorgeous graphics, varied classes with different abilities and weapons giving a teamplay that is second to none. And it works absolutely perfect on Linux.

Here is an "instructional" video that shows off the game and might help you get started:

ETQW is no longer a free game, although there is a free demo with 1 large map (the one explained in the video above) which is already sufficient to have countless hours of fun. You can download the Linux demo here:
http://zerowing.idsoftware.com/linux/etqw/

World of Padman

World of Padman was perhaps my biggest surprise so far. This is a completely free and opensource Quake 3 Arena based shooter with a very original comic style. The graphics are nothing short of stunning and the whole game is so incredibly polished in every detail, its hard to believe it is not a commercial game.

The gameplay itself is not fundamentally different from other shooters, but the atmosphere most certainly is. With its comic style and "plastic" weapons (bubble guns to name just one), its perhaps also something you'd prefer to see your children play. But make no mistake, its fun for adults too! Here is the trailer (which hardly does justice to its actual visual appeal):

Download the full game here:
http://www.worldofpadman.com/

Federer, why do all good things come to an end?

2008-08-09T00:27:00.002+05:30

Among all tennis players that I admire, Roger Federer is the best player in the history of the game, I always thought that Pete Sampras was the best, but personally I believe that Federer has better skills, but of course Pete Sampras is a great a player and he was my favorite in the past. Other players that I cheered for where Steffi Graff, Martina Hingis, Justine Henin, Maria Sharapova, Ana Ivanovic, Novak Djokovic and Andre Agassi. But of course on top of them is Federer.

If you watch Federer playing, you will definitely notice how smart he is, I’ve never seen someone playing like him, the way he puts the ball on the line, the incredible back-hand shot that drives the opponent outside the field, not to mention the great aces. One can tell that his skills, his mind, and his amazing attitude are the reason that he ruled tennis for more than 4 years, being number one for 4 consecutive years is something that no one could achieve more than half of it.

Out of the 4 Grand Slam tournaments, Federer failed just like Sampras to win the Roland Garros, my personal favorite championship, when he announced that he hired a coach that specializes in clay fields I though it could be a good idea but I was afraid that he loses his outstanding performance on the rest of fields, and I’m not sure if this is what happened.

Unfortunately all good thing will eventually come to an end, this year wasn’t quite the good year for the this glittering star, throughout 2008 he couldn’t win any major title, not the Australian Open, nor the Roland Garros or Wimbledon, which I took for granted.

Tennis is all about concentration, if you lost it for a microsecond you lose the ball, and I guess this is what is happening to Federer, he is not focusing on the game, and so his results were really disappointing this year, but the good part is that he still got it, he still has his magic, he still shoots great shots, but he can’t focus, and so he isn’t able to win.

Now he is losing the number one ranking, which he kept for 4 years in row, to the player that I really hate, Nadal, I don’t know why but I really hate him, he looks so mean, he plays a lot of mind games, and what is worse is that he kills the game, the more the ball remains in play the better, the best part to of a tennis match is the rally, but then Nadal wastes like 15 seconds before he serves, I don’t really care if that’s legal, but it shouldn’t be more than 4 seconds, let the game be more vibrant, faster, more continues.

At the end, Federer will remain the best, even if he lost, and I don’t think I will enjoy tennis knowing that Nadal is number one, I just can’t. And the question remains, will Federer end up like Hingis? I hope no.

Where the mind is without fear...

2008-08-08T23:41:00.001+05:30

Where the mind is without fear
And the head is held high
Into that heaven of freedom,my father
Let my country awake ...
---Rabindranath Tagore

The Federer era - a tribute

2008-08-03T19:19:00.002+05:30

It’s official now: Rafael Nadal will supplant Roger Federer as the #1 men’s tennis player in the world. In two week, the rankings will show Nadal in the #1 position, thanks to Federer’s recent failures to match last season’s performances. Nadal certainly deserves it - now we wait to see how long he can hold on.

Federer’s reign as #1 may be over for now, but his period of dominance will not be forgotten. First off, he spent 235 consecutive weeks at #1. Before that, the record was 160 by Jimmy Connors; Federer surpassed that by almost a year and a half. The great Pete Sampras’s longest reign was 102 weeks. Here’s something even more incredible: Nadal has been #2 for 158 weeks, almost as long as anyone other than Federer was #1!. That means that for three years Nadal has been there, but he couldn’t get past Federer. Translation: Federer was consistently better than Nadal over that time.

Next, let’s compare Federer’s period of dominance with Sampras’s most impressive span of dominance. I’ve looked at the best five year performances for them. I’m including 2003 for Federer rather than 2008, since his winning percentage was better that year. For Sampras, I’m looking at ten years before Federer: 1993-1997. I’m going to look at their performances each year, then the cumulative totals. Specific title wins will be listed for Grand Slams, Masters series events, and the Tennis Masters Cup.

2003 Federer: 78-17 record, 23 tournaments, 9 finals, 7 titles. Won Wimbledon and Masters Cup.

1993 Sampras: 85-16 record, 24 tournaments, 9 finals, 8 titles. Won Wimbledon, U.S. Open, and Miami Masters.

2004 Federer: 74-6 record, 17 tournaments, 11 finals, 11 titles. Won Australian Open, Wimbledon, U.S. Open, Masters Cup, Indian Wells Masters, Hamburg Masters, and Canada Masters.

1994 Sampras: 77-12 record, 22 tournaments, 12 finals, 10 titles. Won Australian Open, Wimbledon, Masters Cup, Indian Wells Masters, Miami Masters, and Rome Masters.

2005 Federer: 81-4 record, 15 tournaments, 12 finals, 11 titles. Won Wimbledon, U.S. Open, Indian Wells Masters, Miami Masters, Hamburg Masters, and Cincinnati Masters.

1995 Sampras: 72-16 record, 21 tournaments, 9 finals, 5 titles. Won Wimbledon, U.S. Open, Indian Wells Masters, and Paris Masters.

2006 Federer: 92-5 record, 17 tournaments, 16 finals, 12 titles. Won Australian Open, Wimbledon, U.S. Open, Masters Cup, Indian Wells Masters, Miami Masters, Canada Masters, and Madrid Masters.

1996 Sampras: 65-11 record, 19 tournaments, 9 finals, 8 titles. Won U.S. Open and Masters Cup.

2007 Federer: 68-9 record, 16 tournaments, 12 finals, 8 titles. Won Australian Open, Wimbledon, U.S. Open, Masters Cup, Hamburg Masters, and Cincinnati Masters.

1997 Sampras: 55-12 record, 20 tournaments, 8 finals, 8 titles. Won Australian Open, Wimbledon, Masters Cup, Cincinnati Masters, and Paris Masters.

All right, let’s tally up the totals for those five-year spans:

Sampras: 354-67 record, 106 tournaments*, 47 finals, 39 titles. Won 9 Grand Slams, 3 Masters Cups, and 8 Masters Series events. (*- I’m not entirely sure about the total tournaments played since Wikipedia doesn’t say for him. I added his titles to his losses to come up with this number, but that’s assuming he went 3-0 in round robin play at the Masters Cup. Sampras very well may have lost one match in round robin play in some years. This total, though, is no more than five off.)

Federer: 393-41 record, 88 tournaments, 60 finals, 49 titles. Won 12 Grand Slams, 4 Masters Cups, and 13 Masters Series events.

That is flat out stunning: Federer rules every category of that comparison. He won more Grand Slams, Masters Series events, Masters Cups, and overall titles than Sampras. (In case you were wondering, the five year span I selected for Sampras was his career best by far. He won 39 tournaments in that period and only 25 for the entire rest of his career.) Federer’s overall record was tremendously more dominant than Sampras’s. Consider just these two facts:

In his entire career, Sampras won 10 tournaments in a season only once (1994). Federer did it in three consecutive seasons (2004-2006).
In a full season (at least 15 tournaments played), Sampras never had fewer than 10 losses in a season. Federer accomplished that four seasons in a row (2004-2007).

Here are a few more of Federer’s amazing records:

Grass court winning streak: 65 matches from 2003 to 2008. Second best: Bjorn Borg 41.
Hardcourt winning streak: 56 matches from 2005 to 2006.
Consecutive finals won: 24 from 2003 to 2005. Second best: John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg 12.
He is the only player to win at least three times in three separate Grand Slam tournaments (3 Australian Open, 5 Wimbledon, 4 U.S. Open).
He is the only player to win three Grand Slam tournaments in a single season three times in his career (Australian Open, Wimbledon, U.S. Open in 2004, 2006, 2007).
He has the record for consecutive Grand Slam finals reached: 10, from the 2005 Wimbledon to the 2007 U.S. Open.
He has a current streak of 17 consecutive semifinals reached in Grand Slam tournaments. Second best: Ivan Lendl 8. (By comparison, Rafael Nadal’s best streak, albeit current, is 3.)
Highest rankings point total ever: 8370 at the end of the 2006 season.
From October 2003 to January 2005, Federer won a record 26 consecutive matches against top 10 opponents.

I think this final stat tells Federer’s dominance story the best. In Borg’s streak of five straight Wimbledon titles, he lost a total of 19 sets. In Sampras’s streak of four straight, he lost 14 sets. In Federer’s five-year streak, he lost only 8!

Nadal may be #1, but he has a long way to go to ever be considered along with Federer as the greatest of all time.

RAFA ROLLS INTO FIRST PLACE

2008-08-03T00:57:00.002+05:30

Although i am still a federer fan - i guess this post on RAFA was much needed!!!!!

The tennis gods have opened their big, beautiful, tan, muscular arms and ushered our edible little tapa into the world’s number one spot, unofficially, but I’m still gonna declare August 1 a holiday. Rafa Day…Our baby ripped it like a Spanish warrior from the hands of a more than one opponent to climb over a Swiss Ego and land on both feet with class and humility, no?

Granted, Rafael Nadal’s official-official number one ranking wont be ‘acknowledged’ until he wins the tournament, Sunday, but even if he doesn’t, he has enough points in Cincinnati to overtake Roger Federer when the rankings are released on Aug. 18. “Yeah, very tough match” he panted after downing Nicolas Lapentti 7-6, 6-1 on Friday, “I was little bit tired…the weather here is very hot…important for me into semifinals, very, very happy…happy because I fight it a lot the last three years to be number one, but for sure be number one is always a goal, no?”

We have a new worlds number one, Rafael Nadal. Rafa said he would wait until “after Davis Cup for party.” However, after sitting in second place for 158 straight weeks on the ATP World rankings, I hope he’s chugging down a few glasses of wine his lady…after all, its not everyday you dethrone a man who was on a 235 week run. I will refrain from sending condolences to Roger Federer or making any kind of comments like Rafa deserves it because he trained harder, remained focused, and wasn’t busy texting his celeb-pals between sets in order to make sure they were watching him play. But I do hear Roger Federer will be carrying the Swiss flag at next Friday’s Olympic Games opening ceremony in Beijing-so that’s good, right? And it coincides with his 27th birthday, so I’m sure he’ll be just fine…

Congratulations Rafa for becoming the 24th player in the history of the ATP Rankings to hold the number one position and the third Spaniard to accomplish the feat, joining Carlos Moya (1999) and Juan Carlos Ferrero (2003).

Life is Beautiful !! It surely is :):)

2008-07-28T11:09:00.000+05:30

When I started blogging, I never thought I would write on a movie. But, the movie 'Life is Beautiful (Vita è bella, La)' impressed me so much that I started writing about it as soon as the movie ended. May be ... because, I did not want to loose the essence the movie.

I have been trying for many months to watch this movie. For some reason or the other, I could never watch it till this week. I had very high expectations of this movie as I had heard quite a lot about the movie. After the first half of the movie, I googled to see if this the movie I had heard of as an excellent story of a man who tries to save the life of his son in a Nazi concentration camp by comparing the day to day activities with an imaginary game. The first half of the movie looked like a romantic flick. Like any other love story, the first half has some standard scenes which viewers expect out of a romantic movie. Now that we are talking about romantic movies, I want to mention a movie (When Harry met Sally) I watched earlier this weekend. If you compare the first half of Life is Beautiful with 'When Harry met Sally', I think the latter scores just for a single dialogue in which Harry talks about male-female relationship. I cannot stop from referring to the dialogue and I am pretty sure many men would agree with the dialogue. Watch the video below atleast for Meg Ryan :), if not for the dialogue.

But boy, the second half of the movie (Life is Beautiful) is awesome. I have to look for adjectives to describe second half. The main character (Guido), a jewish italian is happily married to a non-jewish italian (Dora) with a kid (Joshua). A typical happily ever after family. But it does not remain so after the German invasion. The Jews are sent to Nazi concentration camps and the rest of the movie is just awesome. In order to refrain Joshua from getting negatively influenced in the Nazi concentration camp, Guido attempts to portray the life in the camp as a game. A game in which the first person who wins 1000 points wins a tank, a big tank. Guido cleverly discourages Joshua's attempts to return home by telling Joshua that they are leading the game. And the game continues till Guido sacrifices his life only to make Joshua victorious. The manner in which Guido mimics the walking style of Nazi soldiers even in the face of death is beautifully presented. The rest of the events unfold in a dramatic manner and you can feel the emotions going through Joshua when he notices a big tank approaching him.

If Guido can smile in the most challenging conditions and let Joshua spend the worst time in the history of mankind in a cheerful manner, I am sure everybody could take a leaf out of this movie.

Now lets play around with the story line a little bit. Imagine what would have happened if there had been another Guido following similar strategy. Lets call the two fathers Guido-1, Guido-2 and the two kids Joshua-1 and Joshua-2. The fact that the first person who wins 1000 points would win a tank could result in competition between the Joshuas. Now, there are two kids with the common goal of winning 1000 points first for the lucrative prize. Will this be a classic example of survival of the fittest? Will the Life be beautiful in this scenario? Will Darwin be proved wrong? Going by the general principle, it is unlikely.

Creativity apart, I consider this movie to be one among my all time favorites (Oops.. I have to update my orkut profile). And I suggest readers who have not yet watched this movie to seriously consider watching once. I bet, it is definitely worth every penny and every second you spend on it.

The Top 50 Proprietary Programs that Drive You Crazy — and Their Open Source Alternatives

2008-07-25T20:38:00.000+05:30

Not every proprietary program can drive a person crazy, right? Some, like Norton Ghost, are superb tools for anyone to use. But, the fact that these tools are proprietary can drive open source fanatics up a wall. It’s not the price of the software that makes the real difference (although it’s a reason to migrate from one software to another for many people); it’s the idea that proprietary software comes with boundaries that keeps the user experience confined to…well, being the user. That’s enough to drive any developer crazy.

The following fifty proprietary programs are listed in no particular order within broad categories along with their open source alternatives. In some cases you could probably write your own book on frustrations with the proprietary programs shown here. In other cases, you’ll discover that the open source alternative isn’t quite up to snuff yet. And, in other cases still, you’ll learn that some proprietary programs are real gems, but that the open source advocate can replace those gems with equally shiny objects from the open source repertoire.

Basics

Windows Vista OS to Ubuntu OS: This is Microsoft’s operating system (OS), and even Microsoft fans have become disillusioned with this product. Open source OS alternatives have expanded; but these OS often are difficult for the average user to install, learn, and operate. Why deal with it when Ubuntu has become so easy to use that even the most computer illiterate can jump into this operating system with very little time spent on a learning curve? In fact, users can purchase a Dell computer with Ubuntu already installed. Remember, however, that when it comes to using open source software that the open source community often focuses on applications that can be used through Windows, Mac, Linux, or Unix with the majority seemingly devoted to Windows.
Internet Explorer Browser to Firefox Browser: Sure, Internet Explorer (IE) is free; but, that’s because it comes packaged with Windows’ operating systems. Free is far different from open source software, where users have more control over how that software works. While you might feel more comfortable with a proprietary operating system, you can still use an open source browser like Mozilla’s Firefox, an exceptional product that expands its use with ‘add-ons‘ created by avid users.

Office Suites

Microsoft Office to OpenOffice: If the price makes you feel that Microsoft has worked you over, then switch! If you compare Microsoft’s Office with other products, then you’re looking for something that includes an email client, a word processor, a spreadsheet tool, and a multimedia presentation application. The only product that provides a competitive edge against Microsoft is Google (that includes Gmail, Google Docs, Google Presentation and more). But, some would argue that Google isn’t truly open source. So, the next best bet alternative would be OpenOffice, an open source project that includes everything you’d find in Microsoft Office except the email client.
Mactopia to NeoOffice: Another Microsoft office suite, but this time meant for MacIntosh computers. Try NeoOffice instead. NeoOffice® is a full-featured set of office applications, including word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, and database programs for Mac OS X. This suite is based on the OpenOffice.org office suite, but it has integrated dozens of native Mac features and can import, edit, and exchange files with other popular office programs such as Microsoft Office.

Office Tools

MathWorks MATLAB to Scilab: MATLAB is a highly used application for numerical computing. It provides a programming language that allows users to work with numbers in any possible way imaginable through visualization. Scilab is the open source alternative to MATLAB, and it provides visualization of numerical data just as MATLAB does. Scilab is partly compatible with MATLAB, and both tools are suited for Windows, Linux, and UNIX.
Microsoft Access to Kexi: Microsoft Access is a versatile tool for creating database-driven applications and to maintain office or personal data. Access contains an embedded database engine, but it also connects to other databases through ODBC. On the other hand, Kexi allows users to design forms to gain access to and to create data, just like Access. Kexi also contains an embedded database engine and it can import data to Microsoft Access databases. Plus - Kexi is open source, whereas Access belongs to Microsoft.
Microsoft Word to OpenOffice Writer: If you want to break that office suite down and begin to replace the suite item by item, then you can start with this product first. Writer is the word processor component of the OpenOffice.org software package that is similar to Microsoft Word, and with a roughly equivalent range of features. Writer can be used across a variety of platforms, including Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris. Writer also includes the ability to export Portable Document Format (PDF) files with no additional software, and can also function as a WYSIWYG editor for creating and editing web pages. One plus over Word is that Writer carries functions and number formats in its tables from Calc, OpenOffice’s spreadsheet application.
Microsoft Excel to OpenOffice Calc: Another Microsoft product, Excel still carries its productivity pluses as a spreadsheet, but it no longer carries an air of absolute necessity. Google’s Docs can bring an online, sharing atmosphere to your spreadsheets now. As for a truly open source product that can replace Excel, try OpenOffice.org Calc. This tool provides full spreadsheet functionality incl. a huge number of statistical and scientific functions, pivot tables and charts.
Microsoft Visio to Dia: Visio actually is a great application that allows users to go from complicated text and tables that are hard to understand to diagrams that communicate information at a glance. The only thing that spoils the context is the fact that this software is that it’s not open source. Instead, use Dia, a GTK+ based diagram creation program for Linux, Unix and Windows released under the GPL license. Dia was ‘roughly’ inspired by Visio, which should make this tool easy for transition.

Productivity

Blackboard to Moodle: Blackboard has been the CMS (Course Management System) ‘industry standard’ for educational purposes for many years. This program allows instructors to build courses, manage student workloads, and more. But Moodle has gained significant ground as an open source alternative to Blackboard, as it helps educators to create effective online learning communities in a scalable package that costs nothing to use.
Box to Cabos: If you’re into file sharing, you’ve probably heard of Box.net, if not used them. Not only can you share files, Box allows you to store your files securely online, allowing you to access them from any computer, phone or mobile device for a fee. Cabos, another file sharing program that’s open source, provides simple sidebar user interface, firewall to firewall transfers, proxy transfers, Universal Plug and Play, iTunes + iPod integration, “What’s New?” searches, international searches, and more. All you need is Windows 2000 or later. Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later. Mac OS 8.6 or later. Granted, you don’t have the file storage capacity, but at least you can share files with Cabos without that extra storage capacity.
Microsoft Project to Open Workbench: Microsoft allows users to control project work, schedule, and finances, and effectively communicate project data to other users. But, it costs to do that with Microsoft. Instead, use open source Open Workbench to accomplish exactly the same project details for free. When users need to move beyond desktop scheduling to a workgroup, division or enterprise-wide solution, they can upgrade to CA’s Clarity™ system, a project and portfolio management system that offers bidirectional integration with Open Workbench.
Mindjet to FreeMind: Mindmapping is a way to share ideas among individuals and groups for productivity. This type of activity takes time, but it saves time. So why should you pay for a product when you can save money by using FreeMind? This latter product will accomplish all the Mindjet does and more. That “more” is the fact that FreeMind is open source.

Graphic Programs

Adobe Illustrator to Inkscape: Adobe’s vector drawing system is one of the best in the industry. However, like Photoshop, the price can be prohibitive for some designers and artists. Try Inkscape instead, an open source vector graphics editor similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X. Inkscape uses the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format and it supports many advanced SVG features (markers, clones, alpha blending, etc.). Finally, the streamlined interface is easy to use to edit nodes, perform complex path operations, trace bitmaps and much more.
Adobe PhotoShop to GIMP: Even if you’re paying for upgrades instead of the original package, the price for Adobe’s Photoshop can be prohibitive for some photographers and graphic designers. Try GIMP to see if this open source tool can’t provide you with all the power you need for your photography and graphic design needs. GIMP stands for Gnu Image Manipulation Program, and it’s the solution that comes closest to emulating the Photoshop environment.
Adobe Premiere to Avidemux: Premier is state of the art real-time non-linear video editing for any format including High Definition (HD). Supports 16-bit color resolution, GPU accelerated rendering for faster effects and even advanced DVD authoring. On the other hand, Avidemux provides Windows, Mac, and Linux users with an easy-to-use open source tool for DVD/DivX converting and editing. Avidemux also has scripting support for automation and even offers DVD authoring with the addition of the open source software, dvdauthor.
AutoCAD to Archimedes: AutoCAD is an AutoDesk tool used by any designer who creates design drafts - mostly architects. Archimedes is an open source computer aided design (CAD) alternative that focuses primarily on architectural design. AutoCAD definitely has the winning score thus far, but Archimedes shows promise. The latter program contains all the drawing features a designer would need, but its interoperability is weak. Designers still can export scalable vector graphics, so there’s a real market for this open source tool (this opinion isn’t based upon Archimedes’ newest release).
Microsoft PowerPoint to OpenOffice Impress: You can make a move away from this Microsoft tool with the use of Google’s Presentation or with OpenOffice’s Impress. Both tools represent full-featured presentation applications that allow users to create and modify diagrams and pictures right within the application.
Microsoft Paint to Tux Paint: While not a serious graphics program, it is widely used by many computer users, mostly children Try Tux Paint instead of Paint, as this open source product stands apart from typical graphics people edit software (such as GIMP or Photoshop) in that it was designed to be usable by children as young as 16 months of age. The user interface is meant to be intuitive, and utilizes icons, audible feedback and textual hints to help explain how the software works.
TruSpace to Blender: Caligari offers a range of products that enable designers and artists to produce 3D images - at a hefty price. Blender, on the other hand, provides one tool that provides full multiresolution sculpting capabilities with 2D bitmap/3D procedural brushes (Paint, Smooth, Pinch, Inflate, Grab) supporting symmetry. And, that’s just the beginning of Blender’s capabilities. This open source software is free to download and use.

Web Editors

Adobe GoLive CS2 to Mozilla SeaMonkey: GoLive is an integral part of the Adobe Creative Suites products, so it works with your InDesign documents and allows those documents to be converted to Web pages. But, you might want to try Mozilla’s SeaMonkey before you commit to the total Adobe suite option. The Mozilla SeaMonkey project includes a Web-browser, email and newsgroup client, HTML authoring program and IRC chat client. The Composer is simple but it handles tables, CSS, positioned layers and more without sweat. Add-ons currently include Scribefire, the blog blog editor that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your blog.
Adobe Dreamweaver to NVU: While this tool is a powerful WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editor, other options exist that can save money. NVU (pronounced N-view, for a “new view”) is a complete Web Authoring System for Linux Desktop users as well as Microsoft Windows users to rival programs like FrontPage and Dreamweaver. Use NVU to create Web pages and manage a Website with no technical expertise or knowledge of HTML.
Macromedia Flash Professional to OpenLaszlo: Developers use Flash to create multimedia events on the Web. Since the program utilizes vector-based graphics, it provides a venue that goes beyond the Web. As an open source product, OpenLaszlo provides developers with a platform to create zero-install Web applications with user interface capabilities of desktop client software. In other words, OpenLaszlo applications developed on one machine will run on all leading Web browsers on all leading desktop OS. These applications, like Flash, provide animation, layout, data binding, server communication and more.
Microsoft FrontPage to Bluefish: While not as powerful as Dreamweaver, FrontPage is a widely used proprietary application used to create Web pages. Take a gander at this list to understand your many open source options for HTML editors. Try Bluefish as one option that can save you money and, possibly, time.
Windows Notepad to ConTEXT: Yes, you can get the world’s most versatile HTML editing tool absolutely FREE when you purchase Windows version 2.0 and above. But, why would you want to do that when you can work with open source ConTEXT? This application is a small, fast and powerful freeware programmers text editor, developed to serve as a secondary tool for software developers.
Altova XMLSpy to XML Copy Editor: XMLSpy is one of the most popular XML editors on the market today. Its editing features and support for both schema and DTD development along with XSLT, XQuery and XPath development make it an ultimate XML tool. As an open source alternative, XML Copy Editor is a versatile XML editor primarily focused on text editing with XML files. However, XML Copy Editor provides many other features including validation of DTD and XML schemas - as well as XSLT and XPath with tag-free editing. Both tools are Windows applications.

Publishing

Adobe Acrobat to PDFCreator: Yes, you have a free trial to create a PDF through Adobe. However, this PDFCreator easily creates PDFs from any Windows program. Use it like a printer in Word, StarCalc or any other Windows application.
Adobe Framemaker to DocBook: Adobe Framemaker software represents a powerful authoring and publishing solution for technical communicators who want to author and publish technical documentation in multiple languages. While this software is reliable, so is DocBook, an open source publishing tool. Additionally, you have access to all the free wikis and documentation that shows how to install, use, and customize the tools and stylesheets.
Microsoft Publisher to Scribus: When it comes to Desktop Publishing (DTP) Microsoft’s Publisher provides more control over document elements than Microsoft Word through a DTP-oriented approach. However, professional users still consider this program an entry-level application. Since it’s part of the Microsoft Office Package, many users will find its costs negligible as well. With that said, Scribus offers an open source DTP alternative. Scribus brings award-winning professional page layout to Linux/Unix, MacOS X, OS/2 and Windows desktops with a combination of “press-ready” output and new approaches to page layout. Scribus supports professional publishing features, such as CMYK color, separations, ICC color management and versatile PDF creation.

Communications

AIM to Pidgin: Give it up. AIM, AOL’s Instant Messenger, no longer rules. The open source alternative is Pidgin, a multi-protocol Instant Messaging client that allows you to use all of your IM accounts at once. Let’s break that down: No matter if you use Windows, Linux, BSD, and other Unixes. You can talk to your friends using AIM, ICQ, Jabber/XMPP, MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, QQ, Lotus Sametime, SILC, SIMPLE, MySpaceIM, and Zephyr. Can AIM do that? No? Well, then.
FeedDemon to RSS Bandit: FeedDemon for Windows constantly searches through feed search engines with keyword-generated searches as well as generalized searches. It also allows offline reading as it ‘prefetches’ your subscribed feeds. NewsGator also synchronizes with FeedDemon so you can gain access to news without your computer. Except for the fact that FeedDemon isn’t open source, it’s an ideal, robust reader. But, for open source fanatics, RSS Bandit provides an equally robust alternative RSS and Atom reader that allows you to keep track of all of the news feeds you follow. Its newspaper view can be customized and the templates are compatible with those used in FeedDemon. Plus, RSS Bandit allows you to synchronize everything with NewsGator online. Finally, RSS Bandit also provides access to news on news servers (similar to Google Groups) - it uses NNTP to read and post to newsgroups anywhere on the net. It integrates to Google Groups by linking to posts on their website.
Microsoft MSN Messenger to aMSN: Microsoft offers MSN Messenger to the masses as freeware on Windows, and it’s grown from a simple IM application into a trendsetter in a competitive market. Features include voice and video chatting, gaming, remote support - on top of that it allows connection through mobile devices when you are not near a computer. aMSN, the open source Windows alternative to MSN, aims to mimic its proprietary competitor as much as possible. Most of its extra features are added through plug-ins. You can add, at your leisure, POP3 email support and translation, voice clips, Webcam support, Chat logs, Conferencing support and more.
Microsoft Outlook to Thunderbird: Say that you decided to switch to OpenOffice, but you need an email client to replace Microsoft’s Outlook. Try Mozilla’s Thunderbird, an application that carries a similar interface and that is easy to use. Additionally, you can use Lightning to integrate Mozilla’s Sunbird calendar application with Thunderbird.
Skype to Wengophone: Skype is a very strong freeware internet VoIP (Voice over IP) product in the telecommunications industry. It started with a simple and free PC-to-PC telephony, but today offers full integration with existing telephone systems. Skype today also offers voicemail, video conversations and sending SMSs. Its open source alternative, WengoPhone, also provides free PC-to-PC calls as well as chat and video conferencing. Created by Wengo, this phone also can provide SMS and call-out features that allow users to communicate with any phone at reasonable prices.

Media

iTunes to Songbird: If you’re accustomed to the equation where “Apple + iPod + iTunes” equals a ton of money, then you might consider a switch to Songbird. Songbird is an open source player and a platform committed to “playing the music you want + from the sites you want + on the devices you want.” Songbird thereby challenges the conventions of discovery, purchase, consumption and organization of music on the Internet.
Nero Burning Rom to K3b: Nero Burning Rom is a popular tool to burn CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs. This software includes backup, cd copying, audio features and more, and it’s easy to use. But, it’s not open source like K3b (Windows). This latter program creates and burns CDs and DVDs, including ripping with DivX/XviD encoding, DVD copy, ISO burning, Video CD (VCD) creation, Audio CD creation for almost any audio file, CD-TEXT support for audio CDs, support for DVD-RW and DVD+RW and much more. Oh, and did we add that it was easy to use?
Quicktime to Darwin Streaming Server: Apple’s QuickTime 7 Pro is good for everything from creating podcasts to transcoding media in more than a dozen formats. And, the software isn’t that expensive when compared to other products. But, why not use an open source application that shares the same code base as Quicktime Streaming Server? Darwin Streaming Server is an open source project that’s perfect for developers who need to stream QuickTime and MPEG-4 media on platforms such as Windows, Linux, and Solaris.
TiVo Desktop to Galleon.tv: Tivo-to-Go users were disappointed to discover that their Tivo software wouldn’t work with Windows Vista. Some answers to this problem included spending more time and money on various solutions that might work to restore that software’s functionality. One solution included using the open source software, Galleon, instead of trying to “fix” Tivo or Windows Vista. Galleon is a free open source media server for the TiVo® DVR which allows you to enjoy many kinds of content and interactive applications right on your TV. The server runs on your home computer and organizes your media collection so that they can be viewed on your home network. Galleon also brings Internet content and applications to your TV.
Windows Media Player to Miro: This application seems ubiquitous…no matter what you try to open, Windows Media Player is in your face, right? Well, replace that in-your-face attitude with Miro, an open source program that turns your computer into an internet TV. Miro has 2,500 unrestricted channels with a huge selection of HD content. Plus, you have access to any publisher with video RSS feeds, including anyone on YouTube, Revver, Blip, and many, many more.

Utilities

CuteFTP to Filezilla: Sure, CuteFTO is cute, but it’s not free. Sure, it’s reliable, but so are many other File Transfer Protocol applications. Try Filezilla, a fast FTP and SFTP client for Windows with tons of features - easy to install, easy to use, very reliable, secure, and open source.
iBackup to ZManda: Who can you trust with your backup files? It’s difficult to decide, as price alone means nothing. You want safe, reliable servers or tools that can keep your backups available and intact. iBackup has proven to be worthy of that task, but you might want to look at ZManda as well. This open source solution protects more than half a million of servers and desktops running various versions of Linux, UNIX, BSD, Mac OS-X and Microsoft Windows operating systems worldwide. Not only do they backup information, they’re into recovery as well.
Norton Ghost to Partition Image: Norton Ghost isn’t a shabby backup system, as it’s a complete tool that backs up everything but the kitchen sink. If you have a complete disk failure, Norton Ghost can bring it back to life on a new hard disk (although you don’t need to make a complete backup every time). You can take this backup to external drives, CDs or DVDs. If you’re an open source advocate, however, Norton Ghost doesn’t cut the cake. You’ll want something like Partition Image (for Linux) or Ghost for Unix (G4U) for Windows or Unix users. Both tools are disk cloners that act differently, but they’re as robust as Norton Ghost. Read more at their respective Web sites before you make the jump. (For a complete rescue disk including Partition Image see SystemRescueCd).
Rational Purify to Valgrind: IBM’s Purify is a well respected and much used debugging tool. It uses topnotch memory corruption and memory leak detection to keep hard-to-find bugs from any application. As an open source alternative, Valgrind also detects leaks and other memory related programming errors. But, it also detects threading bugs and includes a call-graph profiler that detects bottlenecks in code. as well as threading bugs. A user might say that Valgrind is better than Purify, even if it is open source.
WinZip to 7-Zip: Some of us grew up with WinZip, so it’s sad to say goodbye. But, we all gotta leave home at some point, and when the open source 7-Zip beckons, maybe you should heed the call…

Security

Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal to Winpooch: Kaspersky Anti-Virus probably is among the top products on the market for Windows-based anti-virus tools, mainly because it’s well known for its outstanding detection rates. It commits to multiple tasks as it protects against viruses, script viruses, checks file archives (such as zip files) and removes viruses from mail. It also provides protection against spyware as well as adware. As an open source alternative, however, Winpooch also scans files on your computer, detects malware, and prevents all the viruses, trojan horses and other problems that Kaspersky hunts down as well. Winpooch, by the way, adds a real-time scanning capability that ClamWin (noted below) lacks.
McAfee VirusScan to ClamWin: McAfee is well known as one of the oldest companies in the anti-virus market. Many individuals need to deal with this software company, as its tools come packaged with many new Windows OS computer systems. The plus side to McAfee is that it is reliable and that it offers 24/7 support. The downside is that it’s not open source. ClamWin, on the other hand, is a free Antivirus for Microsoft Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/2003. It features high detection rates, scheduler, automatic download of virus database updates and a plug-in for Microsoft Outlook. As noted above, ClamWin doesn’t provide on access realtime scanning, but when combined with WinPooch, this capability is added.
Norton Personal Firewall to WIPFW: Many people could work with Norton in their sleep, as this company has been around that long. The Norton Personal Firewall for Windows will monitor and check all Internet traffic and it will reject any attack or intrusion attempt. Ubiquitous popups and permissions are part of the game, as it seems that each new Website carries its own set of Norton no-nos. As an alternative, WIPFW is a firewall for Windows based on IPFW for FreeBSD UNIX. It provides virtually the same features, functionality, and user interface as Norton Personal Firewall. The big difference? WIPFW is open source.

Financial

Authorize.net to OpenSSL: Granted, Authorize.Net’s preferred payment gateway connection, Advanced Integration Menthod (AIM), provides the highest level of customization and security to merchants for submitting transactions online. But, why pay for a secure SSL when you can get an open source product for free? The OpenSSL Project is a collaborative effort to develop a robust, commercial-grade, full-featured, and Open Source toolkit implementing the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL v2/v3) and Transport Layer Security (TLS v1) protocols as well as a full-strength general purpose cryptography library. A worldwide community of volunteers uses the Internet to communicate, plan, and develop the OpenSSL toolkit and its related documentation manages the project.
Microsoft Money (Plus) to TurboCash: While Microsfot Money Plus is much more than a personal accounting software, Turbocash can boast that claim plus more. Turbocash is open source and free to use. In fact, you might compare TurboCash more to Quickbooks than to Microsoft Money. However, as a personal finance tool, TurboCash is much more user-friendly to the average home budgeter than Compiere.
Quickbooks to Compiere: Few people are unfamiliar with Quickbooks, as this software has made its way into many a small business computer. If you feel that few opportunities exist to switch, think again. Compiere, produced by Global Era, provides one solution to open source ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solutions for any small to large business. Compiere 3.0 marks the introduction of Compiere Professional Edition, a new premium offering targeted at larger organizations that require more advanced services and commercial licensing from Compiere.

FRIENDS - My favourite TV Show

2008-07-23T20:55:00.001+05:30

One of my friend asked me " you say that u r a big fan of FRIENDS than how come your blog doesn't contain any posts on it? " So here is my first post on my favorite TV Serial

This post is intended to introduce you to the sitcom. Just a brief about the series and the characters.

Friends is a sitcom about a group living in the New York City borough of Manhattan that was originally broadcast from 1994 to 2004. It was created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, and produced by Kevin S. Bright, Marta Kauffman and David Crane. The show has been broadcast in over one hundred countries and still continues to attract good ratings for its episodes in syndication. The final episode of the show was watched by an estimated US audience of 51.1 million.

The friends are:

* Jennifer Aniston as Rachel Green, a waitress for Central Perk who later gets a career in fashion management at Bloomingdale’s and later at Ralph Lauren.
* Courteney Cox Arquette as Monica Geller, a neurotic chef who works at several restaurants throughout the series.
* Lisa Kudrow as Phoebe Buffay, an eccentric masseuse and musician.
* Matt LeBlanc as Joey Tribbiani, a definite player and struggling actor who becomes famous for his role on Days Of Our Lives as Dr. Drake Ramoray.
* Matthew Perry as Chandler Bing, an executive in statistical analysis and data reconfiguration. He later gets a job in advertising.
* David Schwimmer as Ross Geller, Monica’s older brother, a paleontologist working at a museum of Natural History and later a professor of paleontology at New York University.

Storylines and format

The first season introduces the six main characters and establishes the love Ross has felt for Rachel and she was his true love and would always be since the characters attended high school. Several episodes revolve around his attempts to tell her how he feels. She eventually finds out in the season finale. Meanwhile, Ross’ lesbian ex-wife Carol is pregnant with his baby. This puts him and Carol’s partner Susan in an awkward position. When the baby is born at the end of the season, Ross, Carol, and Susan agree to name him Ben. The episodic nature of the season sees the other characters having multiple dates, many of which go wrong (Monica dates a minor in one episode, for example). The recurring character of Janice (played by Maggie Wheeler) is introduced as a girlfriend Chandler breaks up with in an early episode but frequently returns to him through the ensuing ten seasons.

The second season features more serialized storylines; it begins when Rachel discovers that Ross is dating Julie (played by Lauren Tom), someone he knew from grad school. Julie returns for several episodes early in the season. Rachel’s attempts to tell Ross she likes him mirror his own failed attempts in the first season, though the characters eventually begin a relationship that lasts into the following season. Joey, a struggling actor in the first season, gets a part in a fictionalized version of the soap opera Days of Our Lives but loses the part soon after when he angers the writers by saying in an interview that he writes many of his own lines. Tom Selleck begins a recurring guest role as Richard Burke partway through the season. Richard, a friend of Monica and Ross’ parents who is recently divorced and with grown children, is 21 years older than Monica; in the season finale, they end the relationship when they realize that he does not want any more children and she does. The second season also served to deepen Chandler and Joey’s friendship. This becomes especially apparent in the episodes in which Joey temporarily moves out and a creepy guy named Eddie moves in.

Season three took on a significantly greater serialized format. Rachel begins working at Bloomingdales and Ross becomes jealous of her coworker, Mark. Ross and Rachel break up after Ross sleeps with the hot girl from the copy shop, Chloe. His insistance that he and Rachel were “on a break” becomes a running gag through the remaining seasons. The two show significant animosity towards each other through the second half of the season, though the cliffhanger ending suggests the two reconcile. Interestingly, the first episode after they break up doesn’t focus on the two of them, but on Chandler, who’s having a very hard time dealing with the situation, as it reminds him of his parents’ divorce. Phoebe, established as having no family, except for an identical twin sister, becomes acquainted with her half-brother (played by Giovanni Ribisi) and in the finale discovers her birth mother she never knew she had (played by Teri Garr).

During the fourth season, Lisa Kudrow became pregnant. To explain away her pregnancy, a storyline was created whereby Phoebe became a surrogate mother to the children of her brother and his wife (played by Debra Jo Rupp). Ross and Rachel briefly reconcile in the premiere but soon break up again. Mid-season, having moved on, Ross begins dating an English woman called Emily (played by Helen Baxendale) and the finale, featuring the wedding of the characters, was filmed on location in London. Chandler and Monica sleep together after a wedding guest mistakes Monica for Ross’ mother. Rachel attends the wedding at the last minute, intending to tell Ross that she still loves him, but she is sidetracked when Ross replaces Emily’s name with Rachel’s while saying his vows.

The fifth season follows Monica and Chandler keeping their new relationship a secret from their friends, while Ross’s marriage to Emily ends before it even started, following their wedding (Baxendale’s pregnancy prevented her from appearing on-screen in all but two episodes). Monica and Chandler’s relationship becomes public and on a trip away to Las Vegas, they decide to get married. On a cliffhanger, Ross and Rachel drunkenly stumble out of the wedding chapel.

In the sixth season premiere Ross and Rachel’s marriage is established to be a drunken mistake and the two get a divorce (Ross’s third). Monica and Chandler move in to her apartment together and Rachel moves in with Phoebe. Joey, still a struggling actor, gets a part on a cable television series called “Mac and C.H.E.E.S.E”, where he stars alongside a robot. Ross gets a job lecturing at New York University and starts dating a student (played by Alexandra Holden). Bruce Willis makes a three-episode cameo as her father. In the final episodes, Chandler decides to propose to Monica until he thinks she is catching on at which point Chandler starts acting like his old commitment-phobe self to throw off Monica. For a brief moment Monica considers going to back to Richard, who confesses to her that he still loves her and is willing to have children with her. Monica gets wind of Chandler’s idea, and attempts to propose to him but breaks down in tears and cannot finish. Chandler then asks her to marry him and the show is ended with celebration with many of the friends who were standing outside the door.

Season seven largely concerns various wedding-related antics by Monica and Chandler. Joey’s television series is cancelled but he is offered his old job back on Days of Our Lives. The two-part season finale follows Monica and Chandler’s wedding, with guest stars that include Kathleen Turner as Chandler’s transvestite father. The closing moments of the season reveal that Rachel is pregnant.

The eighth season’s first episodes follow a “Who’s the father?” format, with the father revealed to be Ross in episode two and Rachel telling him in episode three. Joey begins to develop romantic feelings for roommate Rachel (who moved in with Joey after the fire at Phoebe’s apartment left them with only one bedroom) and when Joey’s feelings are revealed things become awkward for the two. Eventually their friendship returns to its status quo but in the finale, following Rachel’s giving birth to a daughter, she accepts an accidental proposal of marriage from him. The season was regarded as a return to form for the series; its ratings increased as viewers tuned in for comfort following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series.

The ninth season follows Ross and Rachel living together with baby Emma after she and Joey clear up the misdirected proposal. She soon moves back in with Joey after a fight with Ross. Monica and Chandler, inspired by Ross and Rachel, decide to conceive a child of their own. They seek medical advice after several episodes of trying for a baby and discover both of them are physically unable to conceive. Paul Rudd appears in the recurring role of Mike Hannigan, a new boyfriend for Phoebe. Hank Azaria returns as David “the scientist guy”, a character originated in the first season, and Phoebe must choose between the two in a touching finale, deciding to choose Mike. The finale is set in Barbados, where the group goes to hear Ross give a keynote speech at a Palentologist confrence. Aisha Tyler appears as the series’ first recurring black character. Tyler plays Charlie, Joey’s intelligent girlfriend.

The tenth season closes up several storylines; Monica and Chandler decide to adopt a child, meeting Erica, a birth mother from Ohio (played by Anna Faris). Erica gives birth to twins in the series finale. Phoebe and Mike get married towards the end of the season and Rachel takes a job based in Paris. Ross declares his love for her and they resume their relationship (not making any mistakes this time) in the season finale, while Monica and Chandler move out of their apartment into the suburbs. Joey is upset that everything is changing. It is assumed that Rachel never went to Paris afterwards, she stayed in New York. In the series finale, Chandler has the last line of the show, asking “Where?” when the six go out for coffee.

Anything for You, Ma’am - The review

2008-07-23T19:49:00.004+05:30

For some reason I feel that Tushar Raheja, at the time of writing his book Anything for You, Ma’am, was in the wrong place. Nope, he certainly is not the kind of student you would want in an IIT; leave that for the throngs of guys me who slog for years trying to get in (and miss by a mere 50,000 other guys).

If Chetan Bhagat is “the biggest selling English-Language novelist in India’s history”, Tushar seems like the perfect guy to steal that crown. Although a little skeptical at first, when I was told the book is similar to Chetan Bhagat’s novels, I got tricked into spending 100 rupees on it. I would later realize that the money, actually, did not go down the drain.

The book revolves around an IIT Delhi student Tejas Narula, who is determined to meet his beloved sweetheart Shreya who lives several thousand kilometers away in Chennai. However he learns that she would not be able to come to Delhi, as was planned earlier, thanks to her villain of a father who cannot stand the prospect of his daughter being in a relationship. So what does our Knight in Shining Armor decide to do? Well, he draws up a plan to bunk his industrial education tour to Pune, and instead head off to the tropical land of Chennai to meet his Princess.

Obviously, the execution wasn’t that simple, or else this book would never have been written. Luck, or Mr. Fate as Tejas calls it, decides to add spice to the tale at regular intervals. First, you get three teachers getting soaked in soda, resulting in a trip to the Disco for our hero. Unfortunately for Tejas, this Disco wasn’t a place that rocked. It was none other than the infamous Disciplinary Committee of IIT-D (one of the similarities with Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone).

During this, it so happens that one of the teacher who was drenched in the soda shower happens to be the person who was indispensable to Tejas’ plan, and now the jolly old teacher had made it his life’s mission to haunt our Romeo. But having promised his Juliet that he would meet her, Tejas decides not to lie low and give in to Mr. Fate’s work. There begins a more-than-eventful journey of Tejas to meet his lady-love.

Looking back it later, there would be several errors that one could point out. The story and its treatment is so Bollywood- ish and borrow generously from its mindlessness and non- believability. There are coincidences galore towards the end of the story and one cannot help wondering whether such things can really happen in one’s life. It definitely is to Tushar’s credit that he still manages to keep the reader’s interest afloat with his warm, lucid and humorous style. However, at the end of it all, one does feel that a length of 230 pages was not really required for a plot as silly and pedestrian as this. I would not call this one great, but it would still qualify for a “Time pass” read!

For those who manage to associate with the characters, the time spent would be very enjoyable.:-)

Is Ubuntu for you?

2008-07-22T21:21:00.003+05:30

Found this amazing image on the internet - So go ahead and find out if Ubuntu is the chosen one!!!

BRIC theory is profoundly flawed?

2008-07-22T20:36:00.005+05:30

The other day I had a very interesting discussion about BRICs with my friend. He was of the opinion that still a lot has to done to challenge the might of the US - and basically BRICs was a flawed theory . Here is a summary of the discussion.

For the starters BRICs theory was first introduced by Jim O’Neill, managing director of Goldman Sachs (investment bank) in 2003. The four BRIC countries are, Brazil, Russia, India and China. The Goldman Sach’s thesis contemplated that the economies of the BRICs are rapidly developing and by 2050 will eclipse most of the current richest countries of the world. This theory appears to be more of a wishful thinking rather than a hard-headed economic analysis. I do not see the fundamentals existing in any of the four mentioned economies, for a sustained economic expansion. These are certainly a group of exciting possibilities, besides Mexico, South Africa, South Korea, Vietnam and others. It is important to measure all these countries against some basic conditions and parameters. There are a lot of essential elements that made the Western World rich and powerful.

The first condition is a stable political environment. There can not be any long-term political stability without the consent of the governed. This consent must be reaffirmed periodically, not later than 4-6 years. When a government looses the confidence of the governed, there must be a peaceful transfer of power as and when necessary. A single party in power breeds corruption, cronyism and stalemate, no matter how well intentioned. No country in the world has sustained growth and prosperity over long periods of time, without a political consensus. How many of the BRIC countries would qualify in this test?

The second and probably the most important condition is the ‘Rule of Law’. Every country must have a written ‘Constitution’, giving equal protection to all it’s citizens under all circumstances. There must be an independent Judiciary, capable of interpreting the laws and providing justice to all including the foreigners and international agreements. The government must be accountable to the Courts and Justices. The Executive and the Legislator must stand by the law of the land. Without the rule of law and the transparency of justice, long term trade and agreements can not be sustained. Where do BRIC countries stand on this - particularly INDIA?

Another important condition for the ‘Emerging Economies’, is the development of Intellectual Infrastructure. We are not just talking about basic educational institutions, we are talking about the world-class universities and research laboratories. How many countries around the world have centers of excellence like Stanford, Harvard, MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Cambridge and Oxford? How many countries produce innovators like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jerry Yang, Larry Page and Sergey Brin? Surely we do have Ratan Tata, Narayan Murthy, but they very few in number.Would Brazil, Russia, India and China, encourage students from around the world to come to their Universities and do research, find jobs, raise families and then become full citizens of their countries?

Immigration has been the foundation of an idea called “America”. The United States of America was founded by immigrants. Few would know that even their ‘Revolutionary War’ for independence was fought by Irish immigrants who were not even born in America. Hundreds of thousands of people come to The United States every year and over time become permanent residents and finally citizens of this country. It is the genius of these immigrants, that has fired the imagination of the US. Immigrants have rejuvenated the creative instincts of this ‘Economic Power House’. If BRIC countries and others around the world aspire to be the great powers of the 21st Century, they would have to learn to live with others, in peace and harmony.

THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION

2008-07-22T20:19:00.005+05:30

I have now lost the count of how many times i have watched this movie..

So here is my first movie review:

Cast: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman

Director: Frank Darabont

Screenplay: Frank Darabont

Genre: Drama

Running time: 2 hrs 25 mins

CRITIQUE:

This has got to be one of the most enduring classics of our time. This is a superbly-written and directed film about a tale of hope, friendship, redemption and forgiveness that’s subtly enclosed under the outer shell of a prison movie. And when it speaks its bitter truths and hard-hitting realities, it goes straight to the heart. THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION could have been a film that easily strays into melodrama and over-sentimentality, but its assured direction from classy filmmaker Frank Darabont makes sure it delivers its points, and its writing makes it all the more compelling to sit and watch.

What could have also been a prison break movie, one expects bullish characterisations of thuggy personas, stereotyped in prison films, with added violence and brutality. However, SHAWSHANK retains its dignity and gives more spotlight on the importance of storytelling in a gentle, quiet and dignified manner. We meet Andy Dufresne (an excellent Tim Robbins) who was wrongly sentenced of life imprisonment for allegedly murdering his wife and her lover. The film never says he’s guilty of the crime, and lets the audience ponder of his ambitiousness. The Shawshank Prison becomes his lair but neve his barricade. He led a clean life, albeit being molested, and found an unusual friendship with one of his inmates Red (Morgan Freeman delivers his seemingly best here). The narrative point of view shifts to Red as Freeman becomes the narrator, as he starts to identify himself and his wonderment to Andy’s deep-seated acceptance of his fate, as he claims his innocence despite of all the lies around him. This becomes his hope, and he never fails, to which leads to his mostly deserved freedom.

Based on Stephen King’s novella “The Shawshank Redemption and Rita Hayworth” (no, it’s not horror fiction, presumably King’s first non-horror writing piece), the tale transforms seamlessly to provide both a heartwarming and heartbreaking sincerity. Anyone who isn’t moved by the inexorable determination of Andy and his belief of the human spirit is a stone-cold anti human. Who doesn’t resolve to tears when Andy ambushes the Head’s office only to put on a classical music for the rest of his jail mates to hear outside? Who doesn’t feel touched by Freeman’s exposition of the old librarian who achieved freedom finally but remains “institutionalized”? It gives us the choice, either to “Get busy living, or get busy dying”.

VERDICT:

THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION is one of the most life-affirming films a human being could ever see – and when it does, it stays and will always do. This is beautiful, compelling, uplifting stuff.

First experiences with Ubuntu 8.04

2008-07-20T20:41:00.001+05:30

Last week I installed the newest version of Ubuntu on my PC. I had just recently started using Ubuntu (7.10), and was already quite impressed. Naturally I was looking forward to the new version, and I was not disappointed. Here are some of my first impressions.

First off, the installation booted quite quick. Even faster than a fresh installation of Windows XP, if I remember correctly. Out of the box, the look and feel have a nice atmosphere, but some people will find it slightly boring. After installing some nVidia drivers and the advanced Compiz configuration program, I was able to set some very funky display effects. I especially like the idea of my different desktops being represented as a cube. And the graphics look very smooth and polished. Visually there was nothing more I wanted to tweak immediately.

I'm typing this article in OpenOffice, and find the experience quite pleasant. I'm no stranger to OpenOffice, but in this particular default installation I found one thing which was not quite wrinkle-free. The spellchecker kept underlining very common words, like “experiences”, and “disappointed”. Finally I discovered that changing the language settings to “English (USA)” instead of “English (South Africa)” yielded much better results.

Next, I noticed that the font being used in this document wasn't Arial. I opened the font drop-down, but couldn't find any of the fonts I am used to on Windows. Google to the rescue. I found out there is a package called “msttcorefonts”, which you can install to make such fonts available. Much better!

Next, I played with audio and video. As soon as I inserted the CD, the program immediately populated the display with the track names. After another few clicks (changing some preferences), the extraction began, and was finished within minutes. Very impressive.

My impressions of video handling were mixed. My first try was to play a DVD. No luck there. The movie player had some problem with playing the disc. Fortunately, it offered to search for the missing packages, and install them with minimal effort. Great, I thought. But after that it still didn't work. A few Google searches and about 20 minutes later (with a few additional packages installed), DVDs finally played. Except that the player skipped the menu and started with the first track immediately. When I couldn't fix that, I decided to install VLC. This yielded much better results, and everything now worked as it should have in the first place. After doing some research about DVD codecs, I now know why this process had to be so difficult. Since (most) DVDs are encoded with proprietary codecs, these can't be included with the default installation of Ubuntu. And that's why you have to install them yourself. But I did have a pleasant experience with video nonetheless. I successfully loaded several AVI files without having to install a single additional codec or package. Not bad.

With Ubuntu 7.10 I tried to install the Linux Port of .NET, Mono. That went without a hitch, but I couldn't get MonoDevelop installed. I haven't tried it with Ubuntu 8.04 yet, but I suspect that this is not an Ubuntu related issue anyway.

I must say that I am impressed with the selection of pre-installed software that comes with Ubuntu. It's a very useful collection, and for most everyday tasks you have everything you need. And finding and installing other software is quite painless. The Add/Remove program provides you with a world of software available for Linux. And if you can't find something there, chances are you will find it using the package manager. And what I love even more is that you don't need to worry about package dependencies. If a program you are installing needs another package to function correctly, Ubuntu will install that package for you. Very handy.

Overall, I'm having a wonderful time with Ubuntu. And even though I understand why some people with less technical knowledge might find Ubuntu slightly difficult to figure out at times, I love figuring out little “challenges” now and again. At the moment I can't switch to Ubuntu completely on the laptop yet but plan to move to Ubuntu on my home computer completely. So far I haven't found a single reason not to.

Why Federer should have won the Wimbledon Final?

2008-07-20T13:46:00.005+05:30

I can't believe i am still thinking about the wimbledon final!!!

There can be no doubt about it: sport does not get any better.
Sunday’s battle was the greatest Wimbledon final of all time, the
perfect match in every respect except one: the wrong man won. My
admittedly biased view (I’m a Federer fan) is that poetic justice, and
the narrative arc of the match, would have been better served by
Federer, and not Nadal, triumphing in the dying light. Here are five
reasons why:

1) Comebacks make for the best sporting stories, and a victory for
Federer would have been the most remarkable of comebacks, eclipsing
Murray’s against Gasquet in the fourth round.

2) The greatest sporting performances are those in which a player
reveals, in the course of a match, qualities that no one suspected
them of possessing. Nadal didn’t reveal anything new during Sunday’s
final; we knew before it started that he was a player of machine-like
strength and consistency, able to maintain a certain level of
performance whatever the situation. But few people could have
suspected that Federer was capable of such bloody-mindedness, such
courageous determination to stay in a match that he should have lost
in three sets. Steeliness isn’t a quality one associates with Federer,
largely because he has never had much need for it; his talents mean
that he has rarely had to fight.

3) Federer is, though only 26, like the king whose grip on power is
waning. He clearly does not feel ready to hand over power, and there
is something both heroic and tragic about the spectacle of him
clinging so desperately on. It matters, of course, that Federer is
such a likeable king; few people felt much sadness, for example, when
Sampras was toppled. It would have been a glorious act of defiance had
Federer managed to resist Nadal’s onslaught.

4) Surely a player as great as Federer deserved to beat Borg’s record.
In many ways, he has been unlucky that his career has overlapped with
Nadal’s - the best ever clay court player. Had it not done so, he
would surely have won at least two grand slams by now, equalling Rod
Laver’s record. So it seems almost cruel that Federer should have been
denied the chance to break Borg’s record as well.

5) Federer’s backhand passing shot to save the second match point in the
fourth set tie-break was so brilliant, in the circumstances (and
remember his backhand hadn’t been working very well up to that point
in the match), that it alone deserved to win him the title.

Federer - Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever

2008-07-15T21:23:00.004+05:30

Here is one of my favourite posts on Federer taken from an old paper way back in 2006!!!

Almost anyone who loves tennis and follows the men’s tour on television has, over the last few years, had what might be termed Federer Moments. These are times, as you watch the young Swiss play, when the jaw drops and eyes protrude and sounds are made that bring spouses in from other rooms to see if you’re O.K.

The Moments are more intense if you’ve played enough tennis to understand the impossibility of what you just saw him do. We’ve all got our examples. Here is one. It’s the finals of the 2005 U.S. Open, Federer serving to Andre Agassi early in the fourth set. There’s a medium-long exchange of groundstrokes, one with the distinctive butterfly shape of today’s power-baseline game, Federer and Agassi yanking each other from side to side, each trying to set up the baseline winner...until suddenly Agassi hits a hard heavy cross-court backhand that pulls Federer way out wide to his ad (=left) side, and Federer gets to it but slices the stretch backhand short, a couple feet past the service line, which of course is the sort of thing Agassi dines out on, and as Federer’s scrambling to reverse and get back to center, Agassi’s moving in to take the short ball on the rise, and he smacks it hard right back into the same ad corner, trying to wrong-foot Federer, which in fact he does — Federer’s still near the corner but running toward the centerline, and the ball’s heading to a point behind him now, where he just was, and there’s no time to turn his body around, and Agassi’s following the shot in to the net at an angle from the backhand side...and what Federer now does is somehow instantly reverse thrust and sort of skip backward three or four steps, impossibly fast, to hit a forehand out of his backhand corner, all his weight moving backward, and the forehand is a topspin screamer down the line past Agassi at net, who lunges for it but the ball’s past him, and it flies straight down the sideline and lands exactly in the deuce corner of Agassi’s side, a winner — Federer’s still dancing backward as it lands. And there’s that familiar little second of shocked silence from the New York crowd before it erupts, and John McEnroe with his color man’s headset on TV says (mostly to himself, it sounds like), “How do you hit a winner from that position?” And he’s right: given Agassi’s position and world-class quickness, Federer had to send that ball down a two-inch pipe of space in order to pass him, which he did, moving backwards, with no setup time and none of his weight behind the shot. It was impossible. It was like something out of “The Matrix.” I don’t know what-all sounds were involved, but my spouse says she hurried in and there was popcorn all over the couch and I was down on one knee and my eyeballs looked like novelty-shop eyeballs.

Anyway, that’s one example of a Federer Moment, and that was merely on TV — and the truth is that TV tennis is to live tennis pretty much as video porn is to the felt reality of human love.

Journalistically speaking, there is no hot news to offer you about Roger Federer. He is, at 25, the best tennis player currently alive. Maybe the best ever. Bios and profiles abound. “60 Minutes” did a feature on him just last year. Anything you want to know about Mr. Roger N.M.I. Federer — his background, his home town of Basel, Switzerland, his parents’ sane and unexploitative support of his talent, his junior tennis career, his early problems with fragility and temper, his beloved junior coach, how that coach’s accidental death in 2002 both shattered and annealed Federer and helped make him what he now is, Federer’s 39 career singles titles, his eight Grand Slams, his unusually steady and mature commitment to the girlfriend who travels with him (which on the men’s tour is rare) and handles his affairs (which on the men’s tour is unheard of), his old-school stoicism and mental toughness and good sportsmanship and evident overall decency and thoughtfulness and charitable largess — it’s all just a Google search away. Knock yourself out.

This present article is more about a spectator’s experience of Federer, and its context. The specific thesis here is that if you’ve never seen the young man play live, and then do, in person, on the sacred grass of Wimbledon, through the literally withering heat and then wind and rain of the ’06 fortnight, then you are apt to have what one of the tournament’s press bus drivers describes as a “bloody near-religious experience.” It may be tempting, at first, to hear a phrase like this as just one more of the overheated tropes that people resort to to describe the feeling of Federer Moments. But the driver’s phrase turns out to be true — literally, for an instant ecstatically — though it takes some time and serious watching to see this truth emerge.

Beauty is not the goal of competitive sports, but high-level sports are a prime venue for the expression of human beauty. The relation is roughly that of courage to war.

The human beauty we’re talking about here is beauty of a particular type; it might be called kinetic beauty. Its power and appeal are universal. It has nothing to do with sex or cultural norms. What it seems to have to do with, really, is human beings’ reconciliation with the fact of having a body.⁽¹⁾

Of course, in men’s sports no one ever talks about beauty or grace or the body. Men may profess their “love” of sports, but that love must always be cast and enacted in the symbology of war: elimination vs. advance, hierarchy of rank and standing, obsessive statistics, technical analysis, tribal and/or nationalist fervor, uniforms, mass noise, banners, chest-thumping, face-painting, etc. For reasons that are not well understood, war’s codes are safer for most of us than love’s. You too may find them so, in which case Spain’s mesomorphic and totally martial Rafael Nadal is the man’s man for you — he of the unsleeved biceps and Kabuki self-exhortations. Plus Nadal is also Federer’s nemesis and the big surprise of this year’s Wimbledon, since he’s a clay-court specialist and no one expected him to make it past the first few rounds here. Whereas Federer, through the semifinals, has provided no surprise or competitive drama at all. He’s outplayed each opponent so completely that the TV and print press are worried his matches are dull and can’t compete effectively with the nationalist fervor of the World Cup.⁽²⁾

July 9’s men’s final, though, is everyone’s dream. Nadal vs. Federer is a replay of last month’s French Open final, which Nadal won. Federer has so far lost only four matches all year, but they’ve all been to Nadal. Still, most of these matches have been on slow clay, Nadal’s best surface. Grass is Federer’s best. On the other hand, the first week’s heat has baked out some of the Wimbledon courts’ slickness and made them slower. There’s also the fact that Nadal has adjusted his clay-based game to grass — moving in closer to the baseline on his groundstrokes, amping up his serve, overcoming his allergy to the net. He just about disemboweled Agassi in the third round. The networks are in ecstasies. Before the match, on Centre Court, behind the glass slits above the south backstop, as the linesmen are coming out on court in their new Ralph Lauren uniforms that look so much like children’s navalwear, the broadcast commentators can be seen practically bouncing up and down in their chairs. This Wimbledon final’s got the revenge narrative, the king-versus-regicide dynamic, the stark character contrasts. It’s the passionate machismo of southern Europe versus the intricate clinical artistry of the north. Apollo and Dionysus. Scalpel and cleaver. Righty and southpaw. Nos. 1 and 2 in the world. Nadal, the man who’s taken the modern power-baseline game just as far as it goes, versus a man who’s transfigured that modern game, whose precision and variety are as big a deal as his pace and foot-speed, but who may be peculiarly vulnerable to, or psyched out by, that first man. A British sportswriter, exulting with his mates in the press section, says, twice, “It’s going to be a war.”

Plus it’s in the cathedral of Centre Court. And the men’s final is always on the fortnight’s second Sunday, the symbolism of which Wimbledon emphasizes by always omitting play on the first Sunday. And the spattery gale that has knocked over parking signs and everted umbrellas all morning suddenly quits an hour before match time, the sun emerging just as Centre Court’s tarp is rolled back and the net posts driven home.

Federer and Nadal come out to applause, make their ritual bows to the nobles’ box. The Swiss is in the buttermilk-colored sport coat that Nike’s gotten him to wear for Wimbledon this year. On Federer, and perhaps on him alone, it doesn’t look absurd with shorts and sneakers. The Spaniard eschews all warm-up clothing, so you have to look at his muscles right away. He and the Swiss are both in all-Nike, up to the very same kind of tied white Nike hankie with the swoosh positioned above the third eye. Nadal tucks his hair under his hankie, but Federer doesn’t, and smoothing and fussing with the bits of hair that fall over the hankie is the main Federer tic TV viewers get to see; likewise Nadal’s obsessive retreat to the ballboy’s towel between points. There happen to be other tics and habits, though, tiny perks of live viewing. There’s the great care Roger Federer takes to hang the sport coat over his spare courtside chair’s back, just so, to keep it from wrinkling — he’s done this before each match here, and something about it seems childlike and weirdly sweet. Or the way he inevitably changes out his racket sometime in the second set, the new one always in the same clear plastic bag closed with blue tape, which he takes off carefully and always hands to a ballboy to dispose of. There’s Nadal’s habit of constantly picking his long shorts out of his bottom as he bounces the ball before serving, his way of always cutting his eyes warily from side to side as he walks the baseline, like a convict expecting to be shanked. And something odd on the Swiss’s serve, if you look very closely. Holding ball and racket out in front, just before starting the motion, Federer always places the ball precisely in the V-shaped gap of the racket’s throat, just below the head, just for an instant. If the fit isn’t perfect, he adjusts the ball until it is. It happens very fast, but also every time, on both first serves and second.

Nadal and Federer now warm each other up for precisely five minutes; the umpire keeps time. There’s a very definite order and etiquette to these pro warm-ups, which is something that television has decided you’re not interested in seeing. Centre Court holds 13,000 and change. Another several thousand have done what people here do willingly every year, which is to pay a stiff general admission at the gate and then gather, with hampers and mosquito spray, to watch the match on an enormous TV screen outside Court 1. Your guess here is probably as good as anyone’s.

Right before play, up at the net, there’s a ceremonial coin-toss to see who’ll serve first. It’s another Wimbledon ritual. The honorary coin-tosser this year is William Caines, assisted by the umpire and tournament referee. William Caines is a 7-year-old from Kent who contracted liver cancer at age 2 and somehow survived after surgery and horrific chemo. He’s here representing Cancer Research UK. He’s blond and pink-cheeked and comes up to about Federer’s waist. The crowd roars its approval of the re-enacted toss. Federer smiles distantly the whole time. Nadal, just across the net, keeps dancing in place like a boxer, swinging his arms from side to side. I’m not sure whether the U.S. networks show the coin-toss or not, whether this ceremony’s part of their contractual obligation or whether they get to cut to commercial. As William’s ushered off, there’s more cheering, but it’s scattered and disorganized; most of the crowd can’t quite tell what to do. It’s like once the ritual’s over, the reality of why this child was part of it sinks in. There’s a feeling of something important, something both uncomfortable and not, about a child with cancer tossing this dream-final’s coin. The feeling, what-all it might mean, has a tip-of-the-tongue-type quality that remains elusive for at least the first two sets.⁽³⁾

A top athlete’s beauty is next to impossible to describe directly. Or to evoke. Federer’s forehand is a great liquid whip, his backhand a one-hander that he can drive flat, load with topspin, or slice — the slice with such snap that the ball turns shapes in the air and skids on the grass to maybe ankle height. His serve has world-class pace and a degree of placement and variety no one else comes close to; the service motion is lithe and uneccentric, distinctive (on TV) only in a certain eel-like all-body snap at the moment of impact. His anticipation and court sense are otherworldly, and his footwork is the best in the game — as a child, he was also a soccer prodigy. All this is true, and yet none of it really explains anything or evokes the experience of watching this man play. Of witnessing, firsthand, the beauty and genius of his game. You more have to come at the aesthetic stuff obliquely, to talk around it, or — as Aquinas did with his own ineffable subject — to try to define it in terms of what it is not.

One thing it is not is televisable. At least not entirely. TV tennis has its advantages, but these advantages have disadvantages, and chief among them is a certain illusion of intimacy. Television’s slow-mo replays, its close-ups and graphics, all so privilege viewers that we’re not even aware of how much is lost in broadcast. And a large part of what’s lost is the sheer physicality of top tennis, a sense of the speeds at which the ball is moving and the players are reacting. This loss is simple to explain. TV’s priority, during a point, is coverage of the whole court, a comprehensive view, so that viewers can see both players and the overall geometry of the exchange. Television therefore chooses a specular vantage that is overhead and behind one baseline. You, the viewer, are above and looking down from behind the court. This perspective, as any art student will tell you, “foreshortens” the court. Real tennis, after all, is three-dimensional, but a TV screen’s image is only 2-D. The dimension that’s lost (or rather distorted) on the screen is the real court’s length, the 78 feet between baselines; and the speed with which the ball traverses this length is a shot’s pace, which on TV is obscured, and in person is fearsome to behold. That may sound abstract or overblown, in which case by all means go in person to some professional tournament — especially to the outer courts in early rounds, where you can sit 20 feet from the sideline — and sample the difference for yourself. If you’ve watched tennis only on television, you simply have no idea how hard these pros are hitting the ball, how fast the ball is moving,⁽⁴⁾ how little time the players have to get to it, and how quickly they’re able to move and rotate and strike and recover. And none are faster, or more deceptively effortless about it, than Roger Federer.

Interestingly, what is less obscured in TV coverage is Federer’s intelligence, since this intelligence often manifests as angle. Federer is able to see, or create, gaps and angles for winners that no one else can envision, and television’s perspective is perfect for viewing and reviewing these Federer Moments. What’s harder to appreciate on TV is that these spectacular-looking angles and winners are not coming from nowhere — they’re often set up several shots ahead, and depend as much on Federer’s manipulation of opponents’ positions as they do on the pace or placement of the coup de grâce. And understanding how and why Federer is able to move other world-class athletes around this way requires, in turn, a better technical understanding of the modern power-baseline game than TV — again — is set up to provide.

Wimbledon is strange. Verily it is the game’s Mecca, the cathedral of tennis; but it would be easier to sustain the appropriate level of on-site veneration if the tournament weren’t so intent on reminding you over and over that it’s the cathedral of tennis. There’s a peculiar mix of stodgy self-satisfaction and relentless self-promotion and -branding. It’s a bit like the sort of authority figure whose office wall has every last plaque, diploma, and award he’s ever gotten, and every time you come into the office you’re forced to look at the wall and say something to indicate that you’re impressed. Wimbledon’s own walls, along nearly every significant corridor and passage, are lined with posters and signs featuring shots of past champions, lists of Wimbledon facts and trivia, historic lore, and so on. Some of this stuff is interesting; some is just odd. The Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum, for instance, has a collection of all the various kinds of rackets used here through the decades, and one of the many signs along the Level 2 passage of the Millennium Building⁽⁵⁾ promotes this exhibition with both photos and didactic text, a kind of History of the Racket. Here, sic, is the climactic end of this text:

Today’s lightweight frames made of space-age materials like graphite, boron, titanium and ceramics, with larger heads — mid-size (90-95 square inches) and over-size (110 square inches) — have totally transformed the character of the game. Nowadays it is the powerful hitters who dominate with heavy topspin. Serve-and-volley players and those who rely on subtlety and touch have virtually disappeared.

It seems odd, to say the least, that such a diagnosis continues to hang here so prominently in the fourth year of Federer’s reign over Wimbledon, since the Swiss has brought to men’s tennis degrees of touch and subtlety unseen since (at least) the days of McEnroe’s prime. But the sign’s really just a testament to the power of dogma. For almost two decades, the party line’s been that certain advances in racket technology, conditioning, and weight training have transformed pro tennis from a game of quickness and finesse into one of athleticism and brute power. And as an etiology of today’s power-baseline game, this party line is broadly accurate. Today’s pros truly are measurably bigger, stronger, and better conditioned,⁽⁶⁾ and high-tech composite rackets really have increased their capacities for pace and spin. How, then, someone of Federer’s consummate finesse has come to dominate the men’s tour is a source of wide and dogmatic confusion.

There are three kinds of valid explanation for Federer’s ascendancy. One kind involves mystery and metaphysics and is, I think, closest to the real truth. The others are more technical and make for better journalism.

The metaphysical explanation is that Roger Federer is one of those rare, preternatural athletes who appear to be exempt, at least in part, from certain physical laws. Good analogues here include Michael Jordan,⁽⁷⁾ who could not only jump inhumanly high but actually hang there a beat or two longer than gravity allows, and Muhammad Ali, who really could “float” across the canvas and land two or three jabs in the clock-time required for one. There are probably a half-dozen other examples since 1960. And Federer is of this type — a type that one could call genius, or mutant, or avatar. He is never hurried or off-balance. The approaching ball hangs, for him, a split-second longer than it ought to. His movements are lithe rather than athletic. Like Ali, Jordan, Maradona, and Gretzky, he seems both less and more substantial than the men he faces. Particularly in the all-white that Wimbledon enjoys getting away with still requiring, he looks like what he may well (I think) be: a creature whose body is both flesh and, somehow, light.

This thing about the ball cooperatively hanging there, slowing down, as if susceptible to the Swiss’s will — there’s real metaphysical truth here. And in the following anecdote. After a July 7 semifinal in which Federer destroyed Jonas Bjorkman — not just beat him, destroyed him — and just before a requisite post-match news conference in which Bjorkman, who’s friendly with Federer, says he was pleased to “have the best seat in the house” to watch the Swiss “play the nearest to perfection you can play tennis,” Federer and Bjorkman are chatting and joking around, and Bjorkman asks him just how unnaturally big the ball was looking to him out there, and Federer confirms that it was “like a bowling ball or basketball.” He means it just as a bantery, modest way to make Bjorkman feel better, to confirm that he’s surprised by how unusually well he played today; but he’s also revealing something about what tennis is like for him. Imagine that you’re a person with preternaturally good reflexes and coordination and speed, and that you’re playing high-level tennis. Your experience, in play, will not be that you possess phenomenal reflexes and speed; rather, it will seem to you that the tennis ball is quite large and slow-moving, and that you always have plenty of time to hit it. That is, you won’t experience anything like the (empirically real) quickness and skill that the live audience, watching tennis balls move so fast they hiss and blur, will attribute to you.⁽⁸⁾

Velocity’s just one part of it. Now we’re getting technical. Tennis is often called a “game of inches,” but the cliché is mostly referring to where a shot lands. In terms of a player’s hitting an incoming ball, tennis is actually more a game of micrometers: vanishingly tiny changes around the moment of impact will have large effects on how and where the ball travels. The same principle explains why even the smallest imprecision in aiming a rifle will still cause a miss if the target’s far enough away.

By way of illustration, let’s slow things way down. Imagine that you, a tennis player, are standing just behind your deuce corner’s baseline. A ball is served to your forehand — you pivot (or rotate) so that your side is to the ball’s incoming path and start to take your racket back for the forehand return. Keep visualizing up to where you’re about halfway into the stroke’s forward motion; the incoming ball is now just off your front hip, maybe six inches from point of impact. Consider some of the variables involved here. On the vertical plane, angling your racket face just a couple degrees forward or back will create topspin or slice, respectively; keeping it perpendicular will produce a flat, spinless drive. Horizontally, adjusting the racket face ever so slightly to the left or right, and hitting the ball maybe a millisecond early or late, will result in a cross-court versus down-the-line return. Further slight changes in the curves of your groundstroke’s motion and follow-through will help determine how high your return passes over the net, which, together with the speed at which you’re swinging (along with certain characteristics of the spin you impart), will affect how deep or shallow in the opponent’s court your return lands, how high it bounces, etc. These are just the broadest distinctions, of course — like, there’s heavy topspin vs. light topspin, or sharply cross-court vs. only slightly cross-court, etc. There are also the issues of how close you’re allowing the ball to get to your body, what grip you’re using, the extent to which your knees are bent and/or weight’s moving forward, and whether you’re able simultaneously to watch the ball and to see what your opponent’s doing after he serves. These all matter, too. Plus there’s the fact that you’re not putting a static object into motion here but rather reversing the flight and (to a varying extent) spin of a projectile coming toward you — coming, in the case of pro tennis, at speeds that make conscious thought impossible. Mario Ancic’s first serve, for instance, often comes in around 130 m.p.h. Since it’s 78 feet from Ancic’s baseline to yours, that means it takes 0.41 seconds for his serve to reach you.⁽⁹⁾ This is less than the time it takes to blink quickly, twice.

The upshot is that pro tennis involves intervals of time too brief for deliberate action. Temporally, we’re more in the operative range of reflexes, purely physical reactions that bypass conscious thought. And yet an effective return of serve depends on a large set of decisions and physical adjustments that are a whole lot more involved and intentional than blinking, jumping when startled, etc.

Successfully returning a hard-served tennis ball requires what’s sometimes called “the kinesthetic sense,” meaning the ability to control the body and its artificial extensions through complex and very quick systems of tasks. English has a whole cloud of terms for various parts of this ability: feel, touch, form, proprioception, coordination, hand-eye coordination, kinesthesia, grace, control, reflexes, and so on. For promising junior players, refining the kinesthetic sense is the main goal of the extreme daily practice regimens we often hear about.⁽¹⁰⁾ The training here is both muscular and neurological. Hitting thousands of strokes, day after day, develops the ability to do by “feel” what cannot be done by regular conscious thought. Repetitive practice like this often looks tedious or even cruel to an outsider, but the outsider can’t feel what’s going on inside the player — tiny adjustments, over and over, and a sense of each change’s effects that gets more and more acute even as it recedes from normal consciousness.⁽¹¹⁾

The time and discipline required for serious kinesthetic training are one reason why top pros are usually people who’ve devoted most of their waking lives to tennis, starting (at the very latest) in their early teens. It was, for example, at age 13 that Roger Federer finally gave up soccer, and a recognizable childhood, and entered Switzerland’s national tennis training center in Ecublens. At 16, he dropped out of classroom studies and started serious international competition.

It was only weeks after quitting school that Federer won Junior Wimbledon. Obviously, this is something that not every junior who devotes himself to tennis can do. Just as obviously, then, there is more than time and training involved — there is also sheer talent, and degrees of it. Extraordinary kinesthetic ability must be present (and measurable) in a kid just to make the years of practice and training worthwhile...but from there, over time, the cream starts to rise and separate. So one type of technical explanation for Federer’s dominion is that he’s just a bit more kinesthetically talented than the other male pros. Only a little bit, since everyone in the Top 100 is himself kinesthetically gifted — but then, tennis is a game of inches.

This answer is plausible but incomplete. It would probably not have been incomplete in 1980. In 2006, though, it’s fair to ask why this kind of talent still matters so much. Recall what is true about dogma and Wimbledon’s sign. Kinesthetic virtuoso or no, Roger Federer is now dominating the largest, strongest, fittest, best-trained and -coached field of male pros who’ve ever existed, with everyone using a kind of nuclear racket that’s said to have made the finer calibrations of kinesthetic sense irrelevant, like trying to whistle Mozart during a Metallica concert.

According to reliable sources, honorary coin-tosser William Caines’s backstory is that one day, when he was 2½, his mother found a lump in his tummy, and took him to the doctor, and the lump was diagnosed as a malignant liver tumor. At which point one cannot, of course, imagine...a tiny child undergoing chemo, serious chemo, his mother having to watch, carry him home, nurse him, then bring him back to that place for more chemo. How did she answer her child’s question — the big one, the obvious one? And who could answer hers? What could any priest or pastor say that wouldn’t be grotesque?

It’s 2-1 Nadal in the final’s second set, and he’s serving. Federer won the first set at love but then flagged a bit, as he sometimes does, and is quickly down a break. Now, on Nadal’s ad, there’s a 16-stroke point. Nadal is serving a lot faster than he did in Paris, and this one’s down the center. Federer floats a soft forehand high over the net, which he can get away with because Nadal never comes in behind his serve. The Spaniard now hits a characteristically heavy topspin forehand deep to Federer’s backhand; Federer comes back with an even heavier topspin backhand, almost a clay-court shot. It’s unexpected and backs Nadal up, slightly, and his response is a low hard short ball that lands just past the service line’s T on Federer’s forehand side. Against most other opponents, Federer could simply end the point on a ball like this, but one reason Nadal gives him trouble is that he’s faster than the others, can get to stuff they can’t; and so Federer here just hits a flat, medium-hard cross-court forehand, going not for a winner but for a low, shallowly angled ball that forces Nadal up and out to the deuce side, his backhand. Nadal, on the run, backhands it hard down the line to Federer’s backhand; Federer slices it right back down the same line, slow and floaty with backspin, making Nadal come back to the same spot. Nadal slices the ball right back — three shots now all down the same line — and Federer slices the ball back to the same spot yet again, this one even slower and floatier, and Nadal gets planted and hits a big two-hander back down the same line — it’s like Nadal’s camped out now on his deuce side; he’s no longer moving all the way back to the baseline’s center between shots; Federer’s hypnotized him a little. Federer now hits a very hard, deep topspin backhand, the kind that hisses, to a point just slightly on the ad side of Nadal’s baseline, which Nadal gets to and forehands cross-court; and Federer responds with an even harder, heavier cross-court backhand, baseline-deep and moving so fast that Nadal has to hit the forehand off his back foot and then scramble to get back to center as the shot lands maybe two feet short on Federer’s backhand side again. Federer steps to this ball and now hits a totally different cross-court backhand, this one much shorter and sharper-angled, an angle no one would anticipate, and so heavy and blurred with topspin that it lands shallow and just inside the sideline and takes off hard after the bounce, and Nadal can’t move in to cut it off and can’t get to it laterally along the baseline, because of all the angle and topspin — end of point. It’s a spectacular winner, a Federer Moment; but watching it live, you can see that it’s also a winner that Federer started setting up four or even five shots earlier. Everything after that first down-the-line slice was designed by the Swiss to maneuver Nadal and lull him and then disrupt his rhythm and balance and open up that last, unimaginable angle — an angle that would have been impossible without extreme topspin.

Extreme topspin is the hallmark of today’s power-baseline game. This is something that Wimbledon’s sign gets right.⁽¹²⁾ Why topspin is so key, though, is not commonly understood. What’s commonly understood is that high-tech composite rackets impart much more pace to the ball, rather like aluminum baseball bats as opposed to good old lumber. But that dogma is false. The truth is that, at the same tensile strength, carbon-based composites are lighter than wood, and this allows modern rackets to be a couple ounces lighter and at least an inch wider across the face than the vintage Kramer and Maxply. It’s the width of the face that’s vital. A wider face means there’s more total string area, which means the sweet spot’s bigger. With a composite racket, you don’t have to meet the ball in the precise geometric center of the strings in order to generate good pace. Nor must you be spot-on to generate topspin, a spin that (recall) requires a tilted face and upwardly curved stroke, brushing over the ball rather than hitting flat through it — this was quite hard to do with wood rackets, because of their smaller face and niggardly sweet spot. Composites’ lighter, wider heads and more generous centers let players swing faster and put way more topspin on the ball...and, in turn, the more topspin you put on the ball, the harder you can hit it, because there’s more margin for error. Topspin causes the ball to pass high over the net, describe a sharp arc, and come down fast into the opponent’s court (instead of maybe soaring out).

So the basic formula here is that composite rackets enable topspin, which in turn enables groundstrokes vastly faster and harder than 20 years ago — it’s common now to see male pros pulled up off the ground and halfway around in the air by the force of their strokes, which in the old days was something one saw only in Jimmy Connors.

Connors was not, by the way, the father of the power-baseline game. He whaled mightily from the baseline, true, but his groundstrokes were flat and spinless and had to pass very low over the net. Nor was Bjorn Borg a true power-baseliner. Both Borg and Connors played specialized versions of the classic baseline game, which had evolved as a counterforce to the even more classic serve-and-volley game, which was itself the dominant form of men’s power tennis for decades, and of which John McEnroe was the greatest modern exponent. You probably know all this, and may also know that McEnroe toppled Borg and then more or less ruled the men’s game until the appearance, around the mid-1980’s, of (a) modern composite rackets⁽¹³⁾ and (b) Ivan Lendl, who played with an early form of composite and was the true progenitor of power-baseline tennis.⁽¹⁴⁾

Ivan Lendl was the first top pro whose strokes and tactics appeared to be designed around the special capacities of the composite racket. His goal was to win points from the baseline, via either passing shots or outright winners. His weapon was his groundstrokes, especially his forehand, which he could hit with overwhelming pace because of the amount of topspin he put on the ball. The blend of pace and topspin also allowed Lendl to do something that proved crucial to the advent of the power-baseline game. He could pull off radical, extraordinary angles on hard-hit groundstrokes, mainly because of the speed with which heavy topspin makes the ball dip and land without going wide. In retrospect, this changed the whole physics of aggressive tennis. For decades, it had been angle that made the serve-and-volley game so lethal. The closer one is to the net, the more of the opponent’s court is open — the classic advantage of volleying was that you could hit angles that would go way wide if attempted from the baseline or midcourt. But topspin on a groundstroke, if it’s really extreme, can bring the ball down fast and shallow enough to exploit many of these same angles. Especially if the groundstroke you’re hitting is off a somewhat short ball — the shorter the ball, the more angles are possible. Pace, topspin, and aggressive baseline angles: and lo, it’s the power-baseline game.

It wasn’t that Ivan Lendl was an immortally great tennis player. He was simply the first top pro to demonstrate what heavy topspin and raw power could achieve from the baseline. And, most important, the achievement was replicable, just like the composite racket. Past a certain threshold of physical talent and training, the main requirements were athleticism, aggression, and superior strength and conditioning. The result (omitting various complications and subspecialties⁽¹⁵⁾) has been men’s pro tennis for the last 20 years: ever bigger, stronger, fitter players generating unprecedented pace and topspin off the ground, trying to force the short or weak ball that they can put away.

Illustrative stat: When Lleyton Hewitt defeated David Nalbandian in the 2002 Wimbledon men’s final, there was not one single serve-and-volley point.⁽¹⁶⁾

The generic power-baseline game is not boring — certainly not compared with the two-second points of old-time serve-and-volley or the moon-ball tedium of classic baseline attrition. But it is somewhat static and limited; it is not, as pundits have publicly feared for years, the evolutionary endpoint of tennis. The player who’s shown this to be true is Roger Federer. And he’s shown it from within the modern game.

This within is what’s important here; this is what a purely neural account leaves out. And it is why sexy attributions like touch and subtlety must not be misunderstood. With Federer, it’s not either/or. The Swiss has every bit of Lendl and Agassi’s pace on his groundstrokes, and leaves the ground when he swings, and can out-hit even Nadal from the backcourt.⁽¹⁷⁾ What’s strange and wrong about Wimbledon’s sign, really, is its overall dolorous tone. Subtlety, touch, and finesse are not dead in the power-baseline era. For it is, still, in 2006, very much the power-baseline era: Roger Federer is a first-rate, kick-ass power-baseliner. It’s just that that’s not all he is. There’s also his intelligence, his occult anticipation, his court sense, his ability to read and manipulate opponents, to mix spins and speeds, to misdirect and disguise, to use tactical foresight and peripheral vision and kinesthetic range instead of just rote pace — all this has exposed the limits, and possibilities, of men’s tennis as it’s now played.

Which sounds very high-flown and nice, of course, but please understand that with this guy it’s not high-flown or abstract. Or nice. In the same emphatic, empirical, dominating way that Lendl drove home his own lesson, Roger Federer is showing that the speed and strength of today’s pro game are merely its skeleton, not its flesh. He has, figuratively and literally, re-embodied men’s tennis, and for the first time in years the game’s future is unpredictable. You should have seen, on the grounds’ outside courts, the variegated ballet that was this year’s Junior Wimbledon. Drop volleys and mixed spins, off-speed serves, gambits planned three shots ahead — all as well as the standard-issue grunts and booming balls. Whether anything like a nascent Federer was here among these juniors can’t be known, of course. Genius is not replicable. Inspiration, though, is contagious, and multiform — and even just to see, close up, power and aggression made vulnerable to beauty is to feel inspired and (in a fleeting, mortal way) reconciled.

Why Federer v Nadal was simply the greatest sporting event I've ever seen

2008-07-15T21:11:00.003+05:30

Do you concede that we might just have got a little carried away when Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer fought out what John McEnroe and Rod Laver believe to be the best Wimbledon final anyone has ever seen?

You may think that it needs to be done, if only as a mark of respect to all those who had gone before, men like Laver and Borg and McEnroe and Sampras and, perhaps not least, Goran Ivanisevic, who came as a wild card after three final defeats and distilled all his passion for the game into an unforgettable victory over the formidable Australian Pat Rafter. But then I don't.

Indeed, the stronger inclination is to return to SW19 and hoist a flag or plant a tree and reaffirm that here, on Sunday 6 July 2008, we not only saw the greatest tennis match ever played, we were also given, cleanly, beautifully, the very essence of all that is best in sport and in a way I had never quite seen before and do not confidently expect ever to see again.

Maybe we should try to define the best of sport. It can come in a variety of forms but always it must be underpinned by a purity of effort, a refusal to hold back on anything of yourself, even in the most discouraging circumstances, and when we see this, as we did on Sunday as the day stretched into the night, we can only hope for one ultimate bonus. It is that the competition is so balanced, and so intense and brilliant, that it is only in the very moment of victory that we can draw a line between the victor and the vanquished and that even when this has happened, we know as surely as we have known anything of what we have seen in any sports arena, that if the prospect of defeat had become unbearable the one who suffers the pain of it is not diminished in any eyes but his own.

Who could not say this of Roger Federer after he brought himself back from the possibility of annihilation so superbly that the obituaries being penned even before he stepped on to the Centre Court against his strong and magnificently competitive young challenger were made to seem premature to the point of bad taste?

No, we do not know how Federer will respond over the months to the loss of his Wimbledon title, but it should not be forgotten that, at the age of 26 and after recovering from a bout of glandular fever, he long ago negotiated the challenge that now faces the precocious boy-man from Majorca. It is the one that comes when you have exceeded all your hopes and then wake up one morning wondering about the health of your appetite – and your eagerness to go on repeating all those days of self-sacrifice, of continuing to see your sport as the core of your life. If Roger Federer proved nothing else on Sunday, he did that, and then when you consider the scale of his recovery and the fineness of his eventual defeat and all the searing virtuosity that had preceded it, is it not fatuous to believe that this was the end of something that for so many years was unique?

You could see on the faces of Nadal and Federer how much this match meant to them, both at the start and the finish. Nadal had ecstasy at the end and Federer, it seemed, the deepest resolution to revisit this place and make a different result. Yet even as you speculated on how they would readjust to their new situations, you could not but return to the astonishing inspiration and facility of the tennis they had produced under pressure that, plainly, neither of them had quite felt before.

Nor, when you left Wimbledon, could you ignore the question that beat in your brain and tugged at your heart: had anything you had ever seen of sport before touched you so deeply, not so much in the spectacle of it – though heaven knows it was breathtaking enough – but in the spirit and the conduct and the ambition of the men who made it?

Yet, still, the belief here is that there was something unique about what happened on the Centre Court.

A lot of it was to do with the balance of the match and how that was recreated only after Federer, who had come over his years as Wimbledon champion to represent so much more than mere versatility, had to remake himself under the gaze of so many who had arrived convinced that it was to see him crack. Well, he didn't crack; he was broken for a while and it was the sight of him recovering his game and his pride that was the most compelling ingredient of all.

Partly this was because it meant that no one could say Rafael Nadal had merely presided over the disintegration of a great player. No, in the end this ferocious and engaging young sportsman was not pushing aside a parody of possibly the most naturally gifted champion tennis had ever seen. He was engaging him on the highest ground their sport had ever occupied, and he was doing it with phenomenal power and skill and application.

The warming effect will certainly last this one lifetime.

Firefox vs. Internet Explorer - Which One I Like Better And Why

2008-07-15T20:44:00.006+05:30

Here's classic joke that relates directly to many Internet explorer users:

A man goes in to see a doctor. "Doc, whenever I lift my left arm, I get a shooting pain in my shoulder. What should I do?" The doctor replied, "Stop lifting your left arm."

I think many of us are in the position of that man, and today I'd like to act as your physician. Except that I'm not going to talk about left arms and pains in the shoulder; I'm going to talk about a piece of software that causes us pain in a different part of the body - Internet Explorer.

When Firefox 1.0 first surfaced and gained popularity, I wasn’t sold on it. This was namely because I was turned off by its lack of integrated embedded audio support, and whispers of the need for all these plug-ins and add-ons and widgets and this and that. It really didn’t seem so inviting.

I find some people also hate Firefox. Most people are afraid of the whole “change” thing, which is understandable. Others fear downloading another program on their already super slow and bugged up computers.

For me, the reason I liked it better was because it ended up making my computer faster and safer. How so from just a browser?

When I used Internet Explorer 6, my computer used to always get really buggy and slow. Sometimes it was trojan viruses that found their way on my computer through IE6, other times it was just, well I really don’t know. I found myself reformatted my hard drive ever 4 to 6 months with the amount of spam raging all over the internet. I could go on and on. Look, let's be honest with each other. We all know this is true: IE is a buggy, insecure, dangerous piece of software, and the source of many of the headaches that security pros have to endure (I'm not even going to go into its poor support for Web standards; let that be a rant for another day). Yes, I know Microsoft patches holes as they are found. Great. But far too many are found. And yes, I know that Microsoft has promised that it has changed its ways, and that it will now focus on "Trustworthy Computing." But I've heard too many of Microsoft's promises and seen the results too many times. You know, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Who's shamed when it's "fool me the 432nd time"? Who's the fool?

Ever since I started using Firefox in early 2007, I have NEVER needed to reformat. It’s awesome, alhumdulillah. I had always heard Firefox was safer, but this was just proof in the digital pudding. My computer is running just as fine as it was out of the box, and I haven’t reformatted in almost two years. Since January 2007, I was sold on Firefox 2.0 and currently Firefox 3.0.

All software has bugs, and none is totally "secure". As has been said so many times, security is a process, not a product. So I'm quite aware that Firefox has had security issues, and will have more in the future as sure as the sun rises. But the record so far with Firefox has been positive. Security issues are not common, but when they are found, they are openly discussed and fixed quickly. This is very good, and security pros should appreciate such responsiveness.

I know IE7 was released over a year ago and is supposed to be a massive overhaul of the now defunct IE6. But ask any Firefox user, it’s just Microsoft’s reaction to the wildly popular Firefox. I’m not saying it’s not good, it’s a LOT better than IE6. But it’s just not as solid as Firefox 2.0 - leave alone Firefox 3.

Check out the ratings from the CNET.com Prizefight between the two.

Test	IE7	Firefox 2.0
Ease of Installation	5	13
Look and community	12	15
Tabbed browsing	11	13
Cool new features	9	11
Security and performance	10	12
TOTAL	47	64

Firefox still rules the browser roost for now, despite a much improved version of Internet Explorer. The most obvious new feature for IE 7 (tabs) has been in Firefox forever, and the security additions from Microsoft aren’t enough for us to allay concerns over new possible exploits. Lastly, the extensibility of Firefox is its knockout punch, and IE’s add-ons cannot compare. The flexibility and customizability of Firefox might be best suited to more advanced Web users, but it has earned its spot at the top of the browsers. - CNET.com

In any case, to each his own. Some people just like IE better for just preference’s sake, which is totally cool. Others love Firefox and the awesomeness that it brings.

What about you guys? Which do you like and why? Got another browser you like better than Firefox or IE? Or are you just a blind hater and think all other browsers stink? Let’s hear what you guys have to say.

Why is Open Source/Community Developed Better?

2008-07-15T20:22:00.004+05:30

I have recently debated (three times now) with a person I know over why open source and community developed software is better than software that you buy or that comes pre-installed on a computer. Our debates included Linux versus Windows, Gimp versus Photoshop, and Internet Explorer versus Firefox.

Anyway, just in case anyone was wondering, we are still arguing over which software is better, and I don't think we will ever stop, even if it is clear open source software has several advantages. What kind of advantages? Many: portability, enhancement, minimization, security, and dedication.

To begin, since the source code of open source programs is out in the open (hence the name), if one person wants to use the program on a platform that it is not available on, they might port the program to that new platform, and eventually a whole group of dedicated people will to manage the port will arise. This is all possible because certain sections of the code (which is available to everyone) are compatible across platforms, and the few sections that aren't might easily be changed.

Since anyone and everyone (with an interest) will view the source code, the internal workings of an open source program will inspire developers to enhance the current program, or create a new program completely based on the internal workings of a current program. Basically, open source programs produce other programs.

Since everyone who wants to is helping develop these programs, you can be guaranteed that the software you are getting successfully does what it has to in the least amount of code. The more people that work on a program, the more likely it is that there is going to be less useless code.

Yes, it's true that being able to view the source code of a program may allow hackers to develop bugs more easily for code, but this openness will also allow security programmers to more easily develop patches for the software and find the errors before they are exploited. What should minimize security actually increases it. The population of dedicated developers working on an open source program will also provide benefits when a bug is found: patches for this type of software will become available more quickly than patches for commercial software would.

Also, because the community is managing all this open source software, we will not have reluctant programmers creating this software. The people who are developing Linux, Firefox, and every other piece of free software are dedicated programmers who are doing this for their own personal satisfaction and the enhancement of computing all over the world. A person getting paid will not put their heart into the program. Sure, money helps in some aspects, but money can't buy love. (Wow, Classic bollywood line!!! )

So that's why open source and community developed software is better. I still don't see how my friend can argue with me. But I don't even care anymore. He can continue using Windows Vista, Internet Explorer, and Photoshop. Even if he has to pay a buttload of money for it all. Most people just pirate it all anyway.

Why I love Linux?

2008-07-07T21:05:00.000+05:30

I guess this explains it:

FRIENDS - My favourite TV Show

2008-07-07T20:22:00.001+05:30

One of my friend asked me " you say that u r a big fan of FRIENDS than how come your blog doesn't contain any posts on it? " So here is my first post on my favorite TV Serial

This post is intended to introduce you to the sitcom. Just a brief about the series and the characters.

The friends are:

Storylines and format