The Whack Factor

I just listened to this podcast - an interview with Motorola's CEO Ed Zander.

I got the link from the ZDNet podcats where he talks about leadership. This is the interview where when asked about the iPod Nano he says 'screw the nano'. :-)

(Of late I have been listening to many podacasts - more of the business kind. Plan to write a podcast on that too)

Leaving that apart, I liked listening to the entire podcast. Leant a lot of things. He ends the interview telling about the whack factor by which he means in this age they have to watch out for competition - else even a $12 billion dollar company like Motorola can get kicked out.

He also mentions in the interview - the two main points that differentiates a leader from a manager are:
a. whether you have a succesor or can coach someone
b. you have a vision (and I guess can communicate the vision to your team and motivate them)

I concur on those two points.

Will write on what and how I am using using Podcast. Meanwhile you can get know a bit from Wikipedia.

Vertical Search

In Wikipedia has a nice article and also explains what 'vertical search' is:

The web produces new and exciting ways of accessing information and has since produced several specialist websites known as vertical search engines. Unlike traditional search engines like Google, these tend to specialize in one area, for example Totaljobs, whose search engine would only return information about job openings. One website that has gone a step further is Yumgo. Yumgo is what the future may be when it comes to accessing infomation as it enables users to group together all their various vertical search engines' preferences onto on page. This means it is possible to have Wikipedia, alongside other verticals like, IMBD, Yahoo, and Ebay.

I also recently heard a podcast at www.podtech.net in this particular episode where she talks about a start up in vertical search.

Examples of vertical searches:
1. Job search site that I came across is SimplyHired. It is really cool. Agregates job from each place. Also I think does a mash-up with google maps. very cool uh?? Read this article in ZDNet about the site.

2. Om Mallik mentions about real estate vertical serach called trulia


The concept of Google Maps Mash-ups is really cool. And Even Microsoft has made a open API for its virtual earth which is also pretty good. I shall talk about them next blog. Then these will lead to then to a blog about Web 2.0.

Hope this article didn't have tooo many jargons. But guess what this is the latest technolgy.

Bug Me Not

Check this article out at eHow.com. It talks about a site called BugMeNot.com which can be used not to register in sites you just need to access once in a life time kind of thing e.g certain articles in newspaper sites or something.

It creates a username and password and viola!! you get access immediately!

THE END

Cygnoir's blog post is very cool in a way that she has closed her blog when I am begining.

Quoting her just in case she closes that link

It's been nearly seven years since I began this journey, this meandering of bits and bytes. Sometimes I knew where I was headed, and sometimes I didn't, but I always knew I'd get somewhere.

And here we are at somewhere: the end of this journal. Here I am, and I don't want to walk this path anymore. I don't want to describe the interior landscape in such excruciating detail. I don't want to ping the masses instead of confiding in friends. I don't want to worry about whether or not what I share here will be read. I don't want to live my life through a lens of what I'll write about it later.

I just want to live my life.

Thank you to those of you who have shown me kindness. And to those of you who have shown me the opposite of kindness, thank you too. I learned more from you than I cared to admit.

Be good to each other and to yourselves.

My next post will be talking about the purpose of this blog ... coming soon.

How to Build a computer

Well I have been reaserching and also wondering what type of computer to build for sometime. Found this link from heaton research - pretty cool.

Now this raises a point why would I want another computer - a desktop that too?? I already have a Mac mini - that I am very happy about. I have a office laptop and I also great. But then why a windows desktop? So, here are the facts:

1. I want to do video and photo editing and so I need a fast machine.
2. Mac does suck sometimes - check this nice article by Russell
3. I do miss windows - most of the latest free apps come on windows and I can't try them on my mac or office laptop.
4. Also plethora of p2p software.

The configuration I am looking at:

AMD 64 bit, 256 MB video card, 160GB HDD and dual monitor support and ability to have upto 8GB Ram on the motherboard.

I am saving money for that! Can anyone convince me not to have that beast? I may end up pouring a $1k on that including the 19 inch LCD Monitor. Waiting desperately for Thanksgiving.

mystery of the title??

I just started work and am using 'Ant' - a java based program to compile and build java programs and lot of my unix commands are similar and hence I thought this would be apt - as I am rebuilding life ...

will be bloggin more regularly now! do come back.