Google does it again!

Google does it again! Its just amazing to see so many creative tools from one company!

The newest addition to the Google “take it home” toolkit is the M$ Word Blogger Plugin! Download it and install it. It adds another toolbar to M$ Word and voila!, you can create/update blogs right from M$ Word!

Yep, this post is from M$ Word! Let see this puppy works:)

Loch Ness

Under construction...

Uh! Quite a mystery, aint it? I love Scotland and the various native characters that add to the mystic of the place, as if it needs any more of it!

Recently, I saw an interesting movie by that name (Loch Ness). The story is very amusing to say the least:)

Maybe I should spend my next summer vacation in Scotland - this time as a traveller rather than as a tourist.

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Harry Potter it is!

This blog is in the works!

Nope, I'm not gonna be dissecting the 6th book nor would I be speculating about the next one. Its more about the Harry Potter mania and the 6th book release in Kepler's Book Store in Menlo Park, CA

...

Breaking the silence - At last!

Hmm. That was a long break I took! Being busy is not the only reason I can think of. There are plenty of well justified reasons:) (sure, like slacking off?)

Anyways, been a busy month, this 15July-15Aug. Changing a job is not easy - especially, if you put in a few eons of hours @ one place. The last 7 years or so, I have been with Sun Microsystems. It was a fun ride while it lasted. The first 4 years were remarkably exciting, but the last 2-3 years became a drag.

Change is good. My new work haven is Rearden Commerce - nope, its not that tough to say it. Soon enough you will all hear about the company:) Seems like I have joined this company in the thick of things - lots of customer deployments simultaneously going on. Exciting times ahead. And I'm just getting started.

Other than work, my charity organization has been keeping me awake late @ nite - sometimes I wake up with nitemares about selling tickets. Its hilarious - I'm not a paranoid creature, but this one is really testing. Organizing an event under a non-profit umbrella is a challenge - even though people are motivated by a cause, the thought process could be so different between individuals. Its like pulling a ship in 4 different directions and trying to make it move forward! But, sure is a lot of fun! You learn to tune out the crap and breathe in the positives, just in any other everyday work!

More on the next post!

Patagonian Ice Field

HBR

Now that my professional life is about to include management, its time to upgrade my managerial skills to improve my chances of success in the new bad world of management! Nope, my technical skills are not gonna be traded for managerial skills. Its more of an add-on, atleast I hope so:)

Towards that, I just started spending some time reading Harvard Business Review (HBR). I already am an avid reader of Economist towards boardening my perspective on a wide array of topics - I strongly believe that one has to develop a whole range of peripheral knowledge to be able to improve decision making and leadership abilities.

I cant believe it took me so long to find HBR - its such a great resource for any professional - not just senior managers. Anyways, I will post my experiences reading HBR from time to time.

For people who dont want to pay for HBR (its expensive - $99 a year for basic subscription, $129 a year for premium subscription), there is a free component, HBS Working Knowledge, that carries a few of the articles from HBR.

To illustrate its relevance and usefulness in everyday life, I found this article on corruption and bribe - Should I pay the Bribe? Over the weekend, a few of my friends in my charity organization circle were sharing our thoughts on corruption in India, and how corruption could be tackled. "Should I pay the Bribe?" is a case study of a foreign business operator's dilemma about oiling the official machineries! The structure of the case study is as follows:
- The premises of this casae is explained in detail
- 4 experts serve up their judgements as commentaries

As I expected, the answer to these question was a resounding NO. While I am happy to see the academics agreeing on principle, I am skeptical about business leaders following these morals. An anonymous , scientific survey among foreign businesses operating in a few countries would provide some useful pointers.

While reading this article, I found references to a few interesting websites that I have bookmarked for further reading:
www.transparency.org
www.c2principles.org (The Wharton School, UPenn)
Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2004

Enough for the day (previous day)!

"Working?" Session!

Yesterday, I had planned to chip away @ some of the long overdue tasks for the upcoming charity (Upakriti) event. Things like Posters/Flyers, Program Guides, Ticket Design were all predominantly buzzing in my head for the last 2 days or so.

I guess I underestimated the amount of work I had done during the week and didnt realize that the weekend winddown syndrome would hit me! Thats precisely what got me today. Right from the early moments of the day, lethargy set in and wouldnt leave me to my normal hyperactive self.

What was broadcasted as a "working" session turned out to be a lot of socializing - which, by in itself, is not unimportant! OK, I dont have to be harsh - in reality, we did achieve a few things. Oh yeah, credit it as "team building" or some such fancy exercise and you have a nice twist to the day's activities.

It turned to out to be quite a day of conversations - ranging from socio-political topics to almost mundane uneventful chit-chattery.

Unexpectedly meeting some old friends instead of turning in earlier was fun too...

What does all of these "fun" mean for today? Get down to business and prepare for the week ahead...

HQ - Prolific Oven

Prolific Oven, what would I do without your free Internet connection! PO is my HQ(Head Quarters) for anything creative. Maybe its the Chai Tea or just the sight of exquisite baked goods or maybe the sweet smell of the cakes - Dont know! The place just rocks! I can sit here all day long and "actually" get work done!

I wouldnt be surprised if these folks start charging me a "squatting" fee - and I might just pay it as well:) Its so close to Sun Micro and yet, so far away from all the chaos of a workplace as well. To top it all, there are "other" attractions too;) (read eye candies, if I'm that jobless - hey, I'm only human;))

Thinking of SUNW, there is not that many days left in my life with SUNW. Come 20th of this month, it will be sayonara Sun Micro. After almost 7 years @ Sun, I can safely say, been there and done that @ Sun. Now, off to learn something new and refreshing!

Starting from July 25th, I will be working with a small company (80 people) named "Rearden Commerce". Rearden - a name inspired by the Ayn Rand novel "Atlas Shrugged".

Exciting Summer!

What's extreme excitement about spending a week off (forced vacation) from work at home base?

Huh? Not working could be a easy answer, but a wrong one! It would be boring to spend too many days off from work if not for all the things that I have been busy with the last few days.

How about this for a supposedly quite period? Coordinating an event for Upakriti. Running behind sponsors, artists, volunteers & patrons, all with their own quirkiness to boot - if you could call it fun - could be a lot of excitement. If there is one sure path towards a sales job, this would be it. Its a difficult job and I'm learning how hard it could be, while immensely enriching my life with this experience. Have a few more new friends down in the South Bay (SF Bay Area) and a lot more people look the other way at the thought of me:) I cant have a civilized conversation with anyone without delving on Upakriti or the event or the poor conversationist's wallet;) Despite all the fad about "working with a non-profit", the actual grind is much less sexier.

So, thats what is keeping me up. And if in the anxiety of executing some of these tasks, I spend time reading "The Egyptologist" or "Prague" up until late in the nite/early in the morning, who could blame me?;)

Hello from Google:)

Amazing! Google seems to have an ever lasting list of tools to enhance our lives! The latest is Hello . I would recommend this to any active blogger (especially, the ones who blog @ Blogger) - how did I live without Hello? Well, pretty easy - I didnt blog outside of work for all this while? Hmm... Did I live in the same sphere as everyone else? Atleast now, I have decided to put a solid foot down on the green planet... (oh, dont get me started about the Green Planet)

London 2012, it is!

London 2012

IOC is an amazing organization - completely democratic voting process from all the representative nations! I thought their election process should be televised live - there probably would have been a decent number of viewers as opposed to some of the Olympic sports;) Dont get me wrong - there are so many games that I cannot pretend to like them all!

Anyways, I would have really loved to see which member country voted for which location. Wouldnt that be something? Alright, I will say it outright - I think there is a significant amount of political wrangling (arm twisting) in selecting a host nation and I'm not sure whether I would have agreed with the choice of my country's representative! That brings up even more questions - Should normal Joes/Janes have a say in how your country's rep votes? Maybe there should be a Gallup poll or some such thing:)

Anyways, I would love to see an Olympics hosted in Africa - pick any country you like - or even better, pick a bunch of countries close to each other and make them all co-hosts? The 110 or so member nations pitch in and build the entire infrastructure for the games - thus providing locals training in infrastructure building and employing them(albeit temporarily). Also, all the proceeds should go to the host nations. Wouldnt that be something? UN, you listening?

London is a pretty neat city - I love it. I wouldnt mind travelling there to see the Olympics. B/w Paris would have been alright with me as well... Its really not much to choose from, is it?

Travel Sites!

Travel sites I absolutely love:

http://www.bootsnall.com/
http://thorntree.lonelyplanet.com/
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/

Sample mugshot uploaded using Hello

My mugshot

Mar Bravo Beach in Ancud, Chile
Date: Jan 11th, 2005

The Egyptologist

So, what has kept me alive and busy the last few days? First off, I cant really claim to be busy body the last few days. The July 4th break and an extended Sun Microsystems forced summer siesta has given me plenty of free time to enchance my spirit - albeit sending my sleep pattern out of control yet again! For a change, I'm in town (Pleasanton, CA) during the break and not working. The last six months have been busy and I have much to catch up on - books and magazines that I subscribe to.

Last Friday, a perfect summer's day, I wandered around and found myself in Keplers Book Store in Menlo Park. While browsing for some easy reads for the next few days, I picked these 3 titles.

Prague - Arthur Phillips
The Egyptologist - Arthur Phillips
The Unfolding of Languages - Guy Duetscher

Now, moving on to the choices of books - well, I have a fascination for far away places - anything that inspires travel, learning about new places, history etc. is inspiring. Yes, looking for some new energy. So, Egyptologist and Prague fall under the travel section for me - fiction, but interplayed nicely with destinations of my choice? - brilliant!

The book on Languages was surely for kicks - Recently, I had a prolonged argument with one of my volunteer collegues (My current favorite volunteer organization : Upakriti) about language. For me, language is pretty basic - its to facilitate me to communicate with the world, period. As long as I can effectively accomplish that, it doesnt matter what language I speak. Yes, English is my language of choice - atleast for now, even though Tamil is my mother tongue and I speak passable Hindi. Mind you, English has served me well. I wouldnt mind learning Spanish or French. But, thats about it - I would much rather spend my energy on something more interesting and useful. Ofcourse, I wont mind dabbling in other languages when the need arises.

Anyways, back to Eyptologist...
It is an interesting narrative. The style of writing is pretty unique - a potpouri of active journals, letters and authors edit. For the first time, I saw different fonts being used different characters - to some extent, the soliloquy of few pages of a certain character at a time allowed the use of this style. It would have been awkward, if it was a dramatic, conversational writing.

Kept me in it for the journey for sure. The clever mingling of fact and fiction is another aspect that really makes it a worthwhile reading. The story of the main character (Ralph Trilipush) intertwined with the story of the famous curator, Howard Carter, of the King Tut fame was fascinating. Now, I'm looking for a real biography of this dude - Howard Carter.

As it so happened, as I was reading this book, I had a National Geographic (June 2005) edition with "The new face of King Tut" staring at me all the time. A pharaonic invitation to visit Egypt? A round trip ticket and a red carpet would be even better:) Not that I dont want to go to Egypt - I absolutely would love to visit the mummies and dig some dirt in the Valley of the Dead.

Is this a new age of "novelism" or what?

• Both the books, Egyptologist and Prague, seem to contain atleast a 2-page list of endorsements for the book even before the book begins
  
• Another sort of outlandish marketing idea is to include a list of "Book Club Topics for discussion"
• Websites for individual books (hmm...why not make a movie at the same time too?) - well, since there is a website, atleast make it a little bit more interesting please (a la Dan Brown/da vinci code contests would be a first step)
  
• Book Tour Schedule - well, atleast someone is having fun!

I would rather have the quality of the books speak for itself rather than these gimmicks to increase readership - seems very Hollywoody... I would much rather prefer and live with Amazon.com providing me with a list of books based on my past/current interests/purchases.

Anyways, despite all my rumblings about the marketing ingenuity of these new age books, I still liked The Egyptologist - if not for its content, atleast as a light hearted eye opener to Eygpt, its treasures, the treasure hunters and the greed that binds them all (from the kings who hope to carry a whole lot of gold to their grave to robbers who loot them)

Now, I'm all set to read Prague... if only, the accolades were hidden somewhere towards the back of the book...