The Most Hated Company

Picture this about a laptop

It comes for as low as $299, ie Rs. 12K. Most expensive is $499, ie Rs.20k
Fully-featured laptop costs $69 less than the 16 GB Apple iPod Touch.
It’s $100 less than an Amazon Kindle e-book reader
It runs Linux (Xandros running KDE)- which is $30 less than Amazon.com’s discounted price for Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate
They first in market with flash based storage.

Now thats a laptop that i would buy soon. (Just dont ask how soon ’soon’ is, as i’m known for procrastinating)
This makes ASUS Eee PC hated by, well lets just say every major company. Now that includes – Microsoft, Apple, Dell etc. and Azuztek a.k.a Azuz the most hated IT company as of now.
Intel loves them coz they are running a Celeron processor.
Is this going to hurt OLPC after the Intel back-out? I dont know and frankly i cant just about predict or speculate anything about the OLPC project. Their $100 laptop is now priced at $200 and now without Intel … i just cant make out anything.
[Source of news - http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/]
[Image source - engadget]

Facebook Banned !!!

This is what happens when you talk about social-networking at a cafe …

[ news courtesy : Leader News ]

DOMPlayer and the Doom.

Creativity has no limits and the fact that people can go to any extend to infect you machine with malware, let me say comes as a total relief. After people has spend dollars securing their machine with the latest spyware remover, anti-virus, pop-up blocker and all the shit that you can get you hands on, there is no stopping a curious browser who downloads some thing and authorizes it to do some operation and ends ups in a deeper shit that he was before.

We all love torrent. The countless torrent files that you looked up on the net to download your favorite movie, would have at least made you thin, what you would have done with out those torrent sites. Its the same feeling you get when you thank George Bush for the oil that he is bringing in from Iraq and Kuwait.

So when some thought of the idea of infecting your machine with the help of torrent download and get paid $3 for doing so , has to be credited with the ingenuity of the idea. Here is the whole scenario.

You download a movie (most of the reports came up with the latest movies like Hitman, Beowuf, National Treasure : Book of Secrets) or an episode of your favorite series on TV. When you try to play it it says

“This video can only be played in DomPlayer, Visit Download.Domplayer.Com“

Like any other desperate downloader you visit their site :

Pretty neat site of a movie player, compared to VLC Player and Real Player. So you go and download the player, the Download button is right in front of you. So whats the big deal. Go ahead download the file… At this point i got suspicious and thought hey i never heard any of my friends talk about such a player, instead of installing it at the home PC (Windows XP), let me try to get an installer/player for Linux. That way its safe and its my Laptop, if anything gets screwd up i can just install all over again. Big Deal!!!

Web searches got me to couple of forums here and here. They talked about another player 3wPlayer by Wildman Productions(i have no idea who the hell they are).

In fact the real deal here is as reported from Best Security Tips is DOM Player says its clean but you call them up and pay them to activate the attack on your P. If that doesnt work they ask you to download 3wPlayer. Which is another piece of shit and load the malware to the PC free of charge.

Now that is a cool idea. You get paid to get infected like the way you paid to get protected. Over that you download movie files (AVI files) which might be renamed porno movies.

Literacy can be a PIA…

PIA is Pain In Ass and not Pakistan International Airlines.

Being a Mallu or Malayali (not being offensive in any way by calling myself a Mallu), i’m proud that when it comes to literacy we are doing fairly good as a state. So when this article came to my attention – 300% increase in violence against women in India’s most literate state – i did feel very bad. Being literate we were supposed to be as a model for others to follow and we all together portraying a wrong picture here.

But the i saw the other angle of that. They reached that statistics coz women in Kerala realized the power of law and that there are laws that protect them from domestic violence. They approached the law when in need. The clause that caught me is – “cases files”.

So all those state that say that there is only a marginal increase in domestic violence or that the stats have fallen, RETHINK!!! It could be because that people dont know about the law. Tell them about the law and then lets see.

Even though the report said all that about Kerala, it still quotes this -

But change could happen fast in Kerala, thanks to high levels of literacy. Greater awareness, redressal mechanisms, etc. could help women move forward, as has been seen in recent times.

Thats why i say Literacy can be a real Pain in the Ass at times …

SMS Gupshup – Its just a message

I met at Abhishek Thakkar at Barcamp Bangalore 5. A guy i got to know better only on the second day. We were the two guys who came early for a BarCamp on a Sunday. So what we went to the canteen and were the first to start the breakfast for the day.We chatted on, he a Mumbaikar, big fan of north-indian food and a real techie. Infact he wants to shift the office to Chandigarh for two reasons – the food and the girls. I couldn’t agree more. Food and Girls what a combo. What a combo!!!

Now thats not the topic here.

We happened to talk about SMS Gup Shup, the company that he represents, and the amazing idea that they have. So the stats goes like this -

April they go Alpha
May they go Beta
Nov they are close to a million (if you dont know what a million is … its 1′000′000 users)
The number of users doubling every 40 days

Now thats a growth. What makes them click? What is so great about SMS Gup Shup? What made we mutineers start a Mutiny group in SMS Gup Shup as soon as he told us what it is?
The whole idea behind SMS Gup Shup is to get connected via SMS, its a blog, its a mobile orkut and its much more. It works like this.

You create a group
Invite friends to join in or they subscribe to you
You post SMS-es and it reaches all your friends
Whats you cost? 3rs
How many you reach? That many people, who have joined your group.
Catch? – No catch!
How to do it? – Just SMS for all the above steps

Now how does that sound??? Its cool i say. Imagine you want to tell all you friends how good or how shitty a movie is, right after you saw it? You start messaging and goes on adding people to the list and then you send.

By the time the last message is sent. They would have as well seen the movie.
Instead what if you can send in one message … cool isn’t it …

Here are the steps straight from the site…

GupShup from Mobile

Start a Group – 3 simple steps to start a Gup Shup from your mobile phone:

• Create your group by sending an SMS to 567673434. Example:
  CREATE mygroup123
• Invite friends to your group:
  INVITE 98200XXXXX 99203XXXXX
• Send group messages to 567673434. Example:
  Hi, am Arun and this is my group for movie reviews.

Join a Group – Get messages from your favorite groups on your mobile phone

• To subscribe to group, sms JOIN followed by the group name to 567673434. Start your GupShup now! Example: JOIN GupShup

Come lets start GupShupping – Staying in touch is now just a message away…

Backronym

(I typed the title for the post and just wandered off into the abyss of the internet boy there is lot of information out there, just to keep me busy for a 100 years)

I came across the word WOOT. How do i know the word? WOOT, W00T, W007.. hmmm looks very familiar. I know it stands for something but what. Dug into Wikipedia and there you go,
WOOT – We Own the Other Team
A gaming term.. wow.. Hey its a what .. back-ro-nym.. BACKRONYM!!!

Ok So what on earth is a Backronym. Hey i didnt miss spell Acronym!!!

Wikipedia explamins Backronym as – is a phrase that is constructed “after the fact” from a previously existing abbreviation, the abbreviation being an initialism or an acronym.

Make what ever sense that you want out of that. Ok here are some examples that will make it clear

WIKI (Hawaiian for quick) – What I Know Is
Adidas – All Day I Dream About Sports
KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid! or Keep It Sweet and Simple
PERL – Practically Everything Really Likeable
PCMCIA – People Cant Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms
PHP – PHP Hypertext Processor
LAME – Lame Aint an Mp3 Encoder

and the very well known – GNU – GNU Not Unix

Share with me anymore bacronyms that you know.

I love You BOSS = Better Salary

What does BOSS stands for Beholder Of Stupidity and Stubbornness?
When was the last time you kissed you boss’ butt for a better hike or to earn a vacation?
Ok then how many of us has really kicked your boss’s butt?
At some point or the other we might have done both. If you have not tried the second one, look for an example to follow, follow a person who has done it ( like me , i have to warn you about the side effects, i’m currently job less, but i’m happy at the least).
Last Sunday Times of India had an article titled – “The BOSS is always right!”. I recommend reading the article as it shows some real interesting points in your office-routine that you might have overlooked.

… It’s nice to imagine that success of your career depends on your basic competence at your job, but promotions, and other perks depend on how well you can manage your boss …

… Bosses may have their share of idiosyncrasies and shortcomings. Yet, invariably, there will be value and contribution beyond mere passage of years, particularly in the organisation’s context, which got them up the ladder on this organisational pyramid.
Minimally, this would be better understanding of organisational priorities, managing boundaries across units or departments, decision making and review processes — often not evident to employees, especially new hires.
Unless the boss is new…

Well all the Boss Bashers, including me, need to take some time off and just think about it. But yet there are those who wont understand and u can never comprehend. For them i suggest switch to evasive maneuvers.

Rediff had an article titled – Are you your boss’ chamcha?, asking its readers if its necessary to be a Boss-butt-kisser. There were some really interesting responses. Some one actually penned a poem and here it is

When I Take a long time to finish,
I am slow,
When my boss takes a long time,
he is thorough

When I don’t do it,
I am lazy,
When my boss does not do it,
he is busy,

When I do something without being told,
I am trying to
be smart,
When my boss does the same,
he takes the initiative,

When I please my boss,
I am apple polishing,
When my boss pleases his boss,
he is cooperating,

When I make a mistake,
I’ am an idiot.
When my boss makes a mistake,
he’s only human.

When I am out of the office,
I am wondering around.
When my boss is out of the office,
he’s on business.

When I am on a day off sick,
I am always sick.
When my boss is a day off sick,
he must be very ill.

When I apply for leave,
I must be going for an
interview
When my boss applies for leave,
it’s because he’s
overworked

When I do good,
my boss never remembers,
When I do wrong,
he never forgets

        by Gangotri

Way to go, its one of the best. And sadly, but truth can never is denied, people agree that its necessary. Here is a comment by Chirantan

A board with following two clauses should be hanged on backside of boss’s chair -
Clause No.1- Boss is always right.
Clause No.2- When you feel boss is wrong then refer to clause no.1

Just read through and it is a good article ..

OMG!!! GTG .. there is a blip on my B.I.D.S. (Boss Intrusion Detection System) saying my BOSS is approaching a target (oops its me)

16 or 61 ??? WTF!!!

Daily Mail – We’re 16 from the back but nearer 61 from the front

WOW !!! but wait …

I’m depressed .. Cant even approach a girl by her looks

E-mail Stress => STRESS++

As if the whole STRESS thing was not enough stressful, here comes another STRESS that is stretched out to be stressful. Its the new kid in the block- EMAIL STRESS

Daily Mail Reports

According to new research increasing numbers of workers say they are swamped with a never-ending tide of messages.
Trying to keep up with a stream of incoming mail interrupts normal work and leaves staff tired, frustrated and unproductive, it concluded.
Employees also feel under pressure to check and respond quickly to emails, with some checking their inbox up to 40 times an hour.

Well i have my own reasons to agree to that. Ever tried missing out to reply to a mail by your boss, ever missed out to reply to a mail by your client. When everyone is running after money, they what to extract the last bit of juice out of you. Think about the stress that you are under if you miss out a mail, the endless reasonings that you would have to give. So i just keep checking the mails regularly.
But i have to admit, that is not the entire problem. I check my mail box and if i dont get any mails, that too is a cause of worry. Feels like people forgot me.

Read more here
Daily Mail – Workers suffering from ‘email stress’
Psych Central – Email Stress Overwhelming to Some Workers
Ars Technica -E-mail stress slowing down workers, say researchers

Is there anything that we can do to avoid this? Life is already stressed, but not checking mails is not an option too. May be we should have a definite time during the work time called, mail response time, where only a person need to read and reply to mails. Its not a bad idea either.

bar[camp]04 – I’m ready, here i come

Here i’m, all ready and excited. The Blog’a'lorean’s meet was exciting, this is going to be rocking.

See ya all there for the event.