I used to have a regular workout, three years ago. I couldn’t pay for it then and had to borrow my father’s money for the yearly gym membership. But then I started to earn money. And finally I had started to earn enough to pay for my workouts.

Unfortunately that is also the time that I had to quit my gym because I had no time for it after working hard enough to earn the membership fee.

Moral of the story, if you have to work too hard to pay for a gym, you may not have time to have a workout there.

And that is why I have switched to a home routine now. Check out hundredpushups.com

Currently I am in the middle of Week 2. I used to be able to do only 30 pushups in four sets. Today I managed 68 in 5. Try it out. I bet anything that you’ll like it.

23rd Augusst 2009, a red marked day on my calendar. I’ve already set alarms and sms alerts for this very special day. It is (or was) the day that Michael Schumacher got back in an F1 car.

Sadly, as I’ve just seen the confirmation on all news sites I follow, that will not be slow. The greatest enemy of cars, motorcycles, have seen to it that M. Schumacher is no longer fit for driving an F1 car. Therefore, My Life Is Average again.

However, in the scathingly tangy taste of disappointment, I am somewhat happy. He left at the top of his game with a race that really showed what he was made of. No need to come back now and ruin the dreams, right? (Ahem, Ahem, remember Michael Jordan anyone?

I’ve seen the greatest racer, the greatest basketball player, the greatest cricketer, (Not the greatest footballer though), greatest golfer, greatest tennis player, greatest swimmer, the list goes on. I guess I can be moderately satisfied with the emergence of talent during my lifetime.

Take rest Michael (Schumacher, not Jackson), we have your old race videos. They’ll serve to fill the void that you’ve left in F1.

P.S. How about coming back next year? Yeah? Yeah?

Great Quotes from a brilliant source

“Confidence is function of knowledge, You have to believe it. YOU MUST!”

“You have a beautiful mind. WHO CARES?”

“Appearance is so important. APPEARANCE IS EVERYTHING!”

So many other quotes are out their from this source. Just need your help in compiling them. Fire your collected quotes away in the comments. Lets see how much we can collect!

This one is very very simple.

Open Menu, go to Notes and write you reminder. Click Done. Select the note from the list, click options and select “Set on Standby Screen”. There you go, instant reminders for your activities.

I usually write a to do list and keep updating it on the screen. Have fun!

Edit: From reader Ulisses

<Hi, I found this great app for viewing XLS and DOC files. It read files very fast: http://rs58.rapidshare.com/files/36805406/Doc_Viewer
Tested on a Sony Ericsson W380i, works real great.
Found on this forum: http://www.esato.com/board/viewtopic.php?topic=153064
Cheers!>

It works. Thanks Ulisses

This is more of a workaround than a how to.

1. Install Opera Mini 4 (Visit http://operamini.com)
2. Start Opera Mini and visit http://mobile.google.com
3. Go into Google Docs (The direct link [skipping step 2] is http://docs.google.com)
4. Login with your Google Login and Password
5. If the document you want to view is in Gmail then you can simply go to http://m.gmail.com and click on the attachment link to view the file. If it is in your phone’s memory card, then follow the next step
6. Go into Google Docs from Opera Mini, select upload after logging in. Show the location of the file on your memory card. (The phone will ask if you want Opera Mini to read or Write to memory and a lot of other permissions, simply say “Yes”)
7. After the upload finishes, the document will be available for viewing at the list of documents at Google Docs.

I’m still looking for a Java application for this. But for the time being, this seems to be the only option.

Let me know if you find something at the comments,

T.A.L.E.N.T, though similar to the English(1) word “talent”,  is a machine level language used by Companies and Managers. 

T.A.L.E.N.T stands for Typically Asynchronus Language for Ensuring Notable Tension & temper.  The tension and temper, incidentally,  is caused to the other beings near a verbal exchange in T.A.L.E.N.T due to their complete misunderstanding of the ways of it. 

Little is known about T.A.L.E.N.T as it is only understood by the companies and another group of semi-humanoid beings called MANAGEMENT (MANAGEMENTs are covered in details in the 73rd edition of the Graduates Guide to the Corporates –GGC, an excellent book suitable for all individuals hoping to work in a company, completely unsuitable for anyone with the slightest bit of common sense).

 The beauty of T.A.L.E.N.T. lies in the fact that untrained ears consider it to be a meaningless exchange of bragging and blatant a$$-kissing. Following example defines the case in point. 

(The following conversation took place between two company managements, one higher in rank and a direct boss of the other) 

——————-

High Manger (HM): Well done! Pulled another 13 hour day, I see.

Low Manager (LM): Sir, with you as a leader, I never dream of going home. Who needs a wife when I have a job like this?

HM: Now, now. Work life balance is very important; we don’t want you to move away from your family.

LM: Boss, it doesn’t matter. My work is my motivation. The last big project we successfully implemented gave me more pleasure than anything I have ever felt. It feels good to be valued to be given so many important tasks.

HM: Yes, we like people whose work is their motivation. I personally feel I would still work even if the company stopped paying me.

——————-

At this point, the unfortunate listener hacked the LM to pieces and delivered a fatal blow to the HM. In his last breath the HM gave the only translation of T.A.L.E.N.T. ever heard by a humanoid.

——————-

High Manger (HM): Well done! Pulled another 13 hour day, I see. (You inefficient moron, I can do your work in 10 minutes)

Low Manager (LM): Sir, with you as a leader, I never dream of going home. Who needs a wife when I have a job like this? (Go ahead then. And where is that promotion I have been busting my a$$ for?)

HM: Now, now. Work life balance is very important; we don’t want you to move away from your family. (Promotion? What promotion?)

LM: Boss, it doesn’t matter. My work is my motivation. The last big project we successfully implemented gave me more pleasure than anything I have ever felt. It feels good to be valued to be given so many important tasks. (Then I have no choice but to look for other options. There are lots of other places!

HM: Yes, we like people whose work is their motivation. I personally feel I would still work even if the company stopped paying me. (Go right ahead. We have lots of people standing in line for your job at much lower pay.)

——————-

T.A.L.E.N.T is universally understood by all companies in all part of the galaxy. Some say, the proficiency of MANAGEMENT in T.A.L.E.N.T is what promotions are based on in companies. As a result most people feel that the braggers, a$$-kissers and the completely talentless (not to be mistaken with T.A.L.E.N.T.less) are the ones to get promoted in a company.

Which, of course, is exactly what happens.

(1) English is a grossly underdeveloped earthbound language used by humanoids and semi-humanoids.It does not even allow the simplest telepathic, telemorbismic or even day to day conversation. Inter-Galactic Council of Language (ICL, which is shunned by Inter-Galactic Permissible Lingua (IPL) for the simple reason that they eat into their profits!) defines English as, “A Medicore language like method of communication which is yet to decide on a way of saying hello. The current mode of greetings in English include “Greetings”, “Good Morning”, “Hey”, “Yo”, “Wazzup”, “Yo Maan”, “Whatcha Cookin’” (What cooking has to do with greeting is the beyond the comprehensive intellect of ICL and IPL combined), “Yo Bro”, “Hiya Sis” etc. and the less used but infinitely  more meaningful, “Hello”.)

Final Edit: No need for hacks or workarounds. The latest dev channel build of 2.0.160 works perfectly with hotmail without any changes. Here is how to subscribe to the dev channel

Edit5: Now hack works in the Official 1.0 Releases.

Note something about the script. There are two dashes at the start of the script, not one large one.

Edit 4: Confirmed that this hack only works with the dev channel build of Chrome v0.4.154.33

Edit 3: At long last. A solution is available. With the developer release of Chrome v0.4.154.33 Chrome Developer Team has notified of a temporary workaround. Here is how it works,

Right Click on your Google Chrome Shortcut on Your Desktop and select properties

Paste this following code in the Target field in addition the text already there (Something like “C:Documents and Settings<Username>…Chrome.exe”). Make sure to keep a space after [Chrome.exe"] and then paste

–user-agent=”Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US) AppleWebKit/525.19 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1 Safari/525.19″

Note something about the script. There are two dashes at the start of the script, not one large one.

Click OK. Then open this new shortcut to browse Hotmail. This enables Hotmail to recognize Chrome as Safari. Chrome team has said they are trying to sort this out with MS. And those who thought this was a problem with MS not Chrome were absolutely right. This is a issue solvable only by Microsoft. Until that happens (don’t hold your breath), keep using this.

This hack should work with previous versions of Chrome as well. I’ve tested with Chrome v0.4.154.33 and worked fine with me. Just a suggestion, before you start browsing using the new shortcut just clear your browser cache for good measure.

If you want to use the dev releases (Extremely unstable releases) you can learn how to do it here. Please mind that sometimes the dev builds mess up (as they said they would) big time. For instance the current build v0.4.154.33 has serious issues with Flash. However, they usually patch up large glitches within a few hours, I’ve never seen any other software dish out updates so fast.

Happy Chroming!

Edit2: Still no solution. But if you are tired of the BS of MS please help yourself to this handy tutorial for migrating to Gmail.

Edit: Sorry all. I didn’t test out Hotmail properly before writing this. I couldn’t send mail, just like the previous versions. However, reading and other activities like sorting and storing mail seems to work fine. If you are having problems with facebook, please upgrade your chrome with devchannel. Then it works fine

It seems a few people are landing on my blog looking for a way to open Hotmail in chrome.

Here goes,

1. Visit Hotmail.com

2. Login

3. The resulting page says that Hotmail cannot identify your browser (Typical MS style, if you think it’s better than your own, pretend it doesn’t exist! Try ignoring Firefox now!). Near the bottom of this page is a link which says “continue anyway” or something on that mood. Click on that and you are good to go. And use the new 0.4beta of Chrome for better performance.

Take care

Which browser should you choose?

There are choices aplenty and choosing the best is hardly a task to take lightly. As I, a deadlocked Firefox fan, have recently found out, choice gets pretty difficult when upgrades arrive. Currenty I’m using Google Chrome for those Javascript heavy pages and Firefox for everything else.

So, which one is the best? Is it the ever trustworthy, feature and plugin packed Firefox? Or should we look to the shiny newcomer Chrome? Or is the answer, simple and trendy Safari? Or is it, God forbid, the monster from the house of evil, Internet Explorer?

Unfortunately, at this point I got really confused. There are features I love in all of these browsers. But none of them are perfect. If I absolutely had to live with just one, I’d live with Firefox, hands down. But is there no one to do them one better? Do I have to make sacrifices?

What if I didn’t have to? What if there was a browser which had the best from all of these and made a “Super Browser” which would be the ultimate browser of them all?

So, what would that browser be like (apart from the fact that they’d name it after me of course).

• It’d have the interface of Chrome. Simple, elegent, flowing and just too good to use. It’s an absolute joy to use. Most importantly, it has a ton of screen space and zero clutter.
• It’d have Firefox’s add-on support. And also that huge library of add-on goodies.
• Safari would donate the font rendering. Even the crappiest sites look like a beauty in Safari. Great going Apple, now hand it over. Please!
• Technology would come from various sources. Namely Chrome’s Sandboxing, Firefox’s security and customizability, and definitely Webkit.
• Opera’s start up dial and integrated downloader with torrent support would be lovely.
• I heard IE8 webslices are kinda nice. We could take that from Microsoft’s browser I guess, or not.

What else should be there? What are your thoughts?

Please leave a comment. And if you choose IE, be warned.

Bad things can happen.

At first I expected to write a detailed step by step HowTo for this. But having gone thorugh the process again a few days ago changed my perspective.

Zyb.com now has a very freindly and step by step instruction to help you set up your phone. You don’t even have to put in the settings yourself as Zyb can send you an SMS on your phone to automatically setup.

I wrote the last part a week ago. And throughout this week I have used all of Zyb’s services. I cannot emphasize this enough, it is an absolute gem of a service. From a mere storage space for your cell phone contacts it has moved onto a full fledged contact manager. Following are the best parts and also some parts that may need some polish on Zyb.com

1. Brilliant Contact Management: I imported all my phone, gmail and facebook contacts. Once in, Zyb let me merge the duplicates, add and remove details, connect face book profiles with numbers and best of all, sync them all back to my phone. Zyb also identified the contacts who were already using Zyb and updated their details from their Zyb profile. Cool!

2. SMS Storage, Photo Storage: Zyb rightly identified that contacts are not the only things I want to store. So they let me store photos and SMS as well. I just wish they could sync them though.

3. Duplication and Errors in Syncing: Yup! It’s not all sugar and cream. Sometimes I found duplicate contacts and sync errors which I haven’t yet figured out how to get rid of.

4. Things I wish they add: Best thing would be to pull contact details from facebook profiles. Another feature request, sync contact photos if possible.

Zyb also has a software for N-Series and smartphones which seems to be pretty nice. I haven’t had the chance to use it though. All in all, I give Zyb.com a 3.5 out of 5.

They can easily get full marks by fixing what they already have and by giving me what I want.

After a washout of the 3rd day, this seems to be heading towards an extremely boring draw. However, there may still be some hope for salvation.

If both captains have a chat and BD declares the 1st Inning without batting and NZ declares the 2nd in the same manner, we shall have a thriller on our hands.

What do you guys think?

Even though I started to write this quite a while back, I never got around to writing it in full. And today the point has already been made therfore this post is rahter reduntant.

That never really stopped me before and this time is not going to be any different in case you expect something different.

ICL has created two teams that have something in common. Both teams have a lot to prove and absolutely nothing to lose. While team Bangladesh has moved forward by winning agianst New Zealand, Dhaka Warriors are now fighting for their lives in ICL. So far, they have done quite a good job of it.

Why should we cheer for Dhaka Warriors?

1. They’ve given the cricket of Bangladesh a much needed thrashing. Cricketers, coaches and board execs needed a sudden wake up call from the state of complacency that they were in
2. Dhaka Warriors have made sure that BCB hunt for more talents. They’ve also made sure that people want to take up cricket as a career, because there are now other big money makers than just the national team
3. In the national team they didn’t gave me anything to cheer about in the last year. Now they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. I belive they’ll play a much better game from now on
4. BD won against New Zealand after these guys left, for that alone, I am greatful. I really am!

And lastly, I’m happy to have two teams to cheer for.

Go Bangladesh!

Best of luck, Warriors!

The phone rings in the background. An indiscrete noise inside a bland decor of red and white. Indistinguishable from all other rings except for the strength of it. I know it rings from the table beside mine.

I don’t pick up.

The gentleman at the “table beside mine” is on holiday. The phone rings for me.

I don’t pick up.

The printer comes alive, page after page rushes out. I wonder, “How much wood does this floor go through every day? How many trees?”
The phone keeps on ringing.

I don’t pick up.

People rush through the isle. Some with purpose, some with haste, others just for the sake of rushing. I see a familiar face. The face notices, acknowledges recognition with a perfunctory wave, rushes by. I never wave back.

The phone stops ringing.

My cell phone comes alive.

I don’t pick up.

I close my eyes.
I pick up my bag, throw away my tie, push someone out of my way, run to the door and never stop. Cars honk, pedestrians shout, children cry, beggers beg, dogs bark and I run. Streets give way to brick roads, brick roads to mud lanes, mud lanes to grasses, and finally, grasses to trees.
I stop running.

Green, quite, soft, mellow and kind, the forest seems unaware of my presence. I breathe the clean air, savour the silence and sit down on the ground again.

In the distance, a phone starts ringing again.

I open my eyes.

I don’t pick up.

Picasa 3 is a worthy update that any picasa user may try out. I am not going into a detailed feature review. But I am going to touch on a few things that everyone should watch out for when the final edition comes out.

Picasa Photo Viewer: This was the only option that picasa lagged. And now it has arrived. You can configure picasa to open files and browse through them all you want. The ribbon like picture sifter at the bottom of the screen is pretty handy. But few things are still required.  First, a setting for controlling the zoom level in the picture viewing window. I have some photos which look miniscule on my 20 inch. I need them to appear at a certain level of zoom everytime I open them. ACDSee had such an option and it made all the difference. Secondly, I need some control over the slideshow mode. The options setting from the picture viewer doesn’t let you do much. At least a timer control would be nice. But I loved the keyboard and mouse based zoom in zoom out and also faded and transparent background that shows the desktop while you are viewing a smaller photo. Oh, you can upload from the photo viewer as long as you are logged into the web album. Loved that part, makes photo upload a piece of cake.

Videos: Ever tried making videos from you photos? Quite a cumbersome task if all you want is to just put a track at the back and some captions at the bottom. Take it from someone who has used quite a lot of video editing options, Picasa3 is the best option for you to make videos out of your pics. The effects are pretty simple, and there are not a bunch of options for editing and text effects. But for making a simpe slideshow, video with a music track, customized timing, and text caption, Picasa3 is by far the best software out there. Best of all? You can directly upload to Youtube from the software

Collages: Now there is a lot more control over the collages you create. The previous pathatic click-and-hope-everything-turns-out-the-best approach is gone. Now you can rotate, change, mix and match and do a bunch of things to the picture pile you just created. Have fun with your background people. That’s what my collages are usually for

GeoTag: Does exactly what it says. Couple it with Google Earth and you can place your photos on the exact spot that they were taken.

Other things to look out for are the options to make posters, posting to blog and many other teeny tiny improvements. The overall sorting and shuffling and archiving and other functions are better. The whole interface contains little tweaks that make the experience a lot better. Try it out, you’ll see.

Some experimental features are also on this beta. And some of those should make it to the end product. And the one I want most is

Find Duplicates: I have millions of duplicates of my photos and I really need something to sort them out. The experimental feature doesn’t show all duplicates side by side, but that should not be a problem to fix. To the guys and gals at Picasa, “Please make this work right.”

Another killer feature would be the ability to export all your photos to a single place. Sort of like the iTunes music folder organizer option. There might be something already in Picasa for this, but in case there isn’t, “Could you please make this happen as well.”

You can download Picasa 3 beta from here

Ever since I had a job, I constantly found myself wishing for a guide of some sort. To be honest, I was not really interested in a guide of any sort, I wanted the guide that is the mother of all guides. I wanted a guide  that knew anything and everything about working in a company, knew when to oil your boss and when to oil your bosses boss, knew how to choose between jobs and how to find new jobs. I wanted the guide of all guides. Basically I wanted a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Since there is very little chance of finding one such guide on Earth (it may be stressed that such a guide is most likely in existence somewhere in the universe simply due to the vastness of the universe itself and the law of probability), I have decided to write one myself. Therefore ladies, gentlemen, androids and corporate slaves, welcome to,

The Company

According to the guide, the Company is the largest paradoxical being in the history of the universe. Anyone outside it’s influence want to be in it, and everyone in it wants to get out. The only other being that the Company is similar to is a Vogon. Therefore, by definition of a Vogon, a company is a large and unpleasant being mostly concerned with order among the people near it and a great fan of paperwork. It is not evil, in the sense of the word, but according to the people who has come into the contact of a Company, it is preferable to stay away from one. As for it’s love of paperwork, it is said that if the Companies were not in existence, there would be a lot more trees left in the universe. In fact, Composphere, the home planet of the Companies, was destroyed due to massive logging and paper-making leading to global warming and eventual destruction of the planet.

History of the Company suggests that they settled into various parts of the universe right around the time human race came into existence, roughly somewhere in the official galactic year of 420.666. Coincidentally, this is the year when Earth was declared off limits to all galactic being except the Companies.

Today Companies are spread across the universe in many forms. In the second capital of the Galactic Empire of Darth Vader, Companies are large leech-like creatures that try to suck money out of any unaware civilian near them. Unfortunately, during the process, the civilian usually dies.

Food habits of the Company are variable in nature. But they usually prefer money. When in short of money Companies have been known to have cannibalistic nature. Large Companies, when hungry, eat smaller Companies.

Companies have a habit of sharing small portions of their food with people around them. That is why beings who like money tend to be around Companies.

What to do when you face one in a dark and blocked alley?

Most people say that you deserve to die because you let yourself get caught in that position. Others say that running or fighting is futile. Any fight with a Company can only be won if you have another Company’s support.

If you are all alone in that alley with no hope of help from anywhere.

Take a piece of paper and a laptop and pretend to be hard at work.

It helps.

I recently took a trip to Mymensingh and Sherpur during my blissful month long holiday. To be frank, it was one of the most wonderful surprises I have ever come across. Beneath the industrial development, horrible roads and absolutely ghastly electricity supply lies a beautiful world of nature. Have a look for yourself.

I stayed at Hotel Mustafiz in Mymensingh for the trip – Clean and well maintained with guarded parking and a filling station in front. Can’t ask for more, can I?

I ate at two restaurants  – ROM 3 and Sarinda. Both served excellent food in a moderately clean interior. I’d recommend both

I took my own car as I couldn’t find anything for hire in Mymensingh. In case you are planning to go without a car, make sure that you hire one from Dhaka. The other modes of transport are not very friendly and definitely not comfortable

And if you can, get someone like my friend Ahmed Raihan Ahsanullah to go along. Thank you for everything brother, it was an absolutely marvellous trip.

And last but not least, if the wheel of your car happens to get stuck in a dirty clogged drain, people will gather around to see the spectacle. They will suggest that you let the tiniest one of them a chance to pick up the car by hand and drop it on the road. They’ll not listen to your requests of keeping clear of the drain and eventually someone will fall in it due to his infinite enthusiasm (at this point some of the people looking at the car will get distracted and will put their attention on the man in the drain). They’ll come even closer when you’ve managed to raise the car by a jack and are trying to build up revs to get up from the ditch. They’ll again ignore when you warn them of being hit by a barrage of sh*t laden drain water. And in the end some of them literally will get a mouthful of the foul smelling garbage from the drain and only then will they retire.

Trust me, this is what happens.

At least, this is what happened when my car got stuck.

As the initial hype (and what a hype it was) about Google Chrome dies down, people have started to post tips and tricks of customizing it to their need. Links to these tips are available below which shall be updated as more Tips and Tricks show up on the web.

1. Change the default Blue Skin to Black – Million thanks to Upnishad from GeekPedia
2. Put the home button on the toolbar – a silly one, I know, but still I saw people asking this in some forums. Thanks goes to Technipages and others who wrote a Howto for this
3. Download Google Chrome Portable without Google Update – Thanks to Caschy
4. Block ads in chrome (adblock replacement) – Two ways of doing this as far as I have found

Privoxy – Here’s how to use it with chrome – Thanks goes to Boris Fritscher

Admuncher – Sorry, can’t find a Howto for it

This is the list so far. Will update as for TnT rolls in. Cheers

Before going into a feature for feature review of Chrome and Firefox I’d just like to point out something. At this point Chrome is at a very early Beta. It is supposed to be buggy and underperforming than the others. I shall point out where each browser does well. In the future whoever builds on their own strengths while copying good stuff from everyone else will be the final winner.

Feature against Feature Review:

• Startup Time and Speed: This is what got me interested in Chrome. Even in my Core 2 Duo, 1 GB RAM mahcine FF takes a second or two to fire up. But Chrome was almost instantaneous. I open and close my browser quite a few times over the day, those two seconds matter to me. Period. Chrome also performed pretty well in processing Java based apps like Gmail. FF 0 Chrome 1
• Memory Management: Conceptually Chrome is a clear winner with seprate tab processing and stoppage of memory leaks. However, it still doesn’t play well with some of the plugins, especially Flash. So a visit to Youtube and other flash based websites are quite disastrous. This has been an improvement area for FF for too long, particularly on the issue of memory leaks. I’m just sad that Google got the concept right on this early beta. (I’m a FF fanboy) If you use non-flash websites and open a few tabs, Chrome takes much less memory. Closing the tabs also frees up more memory in Chrome than FF. FF 0 Chrome 2
• Look and Feel: Chromes tab-at-at-the-top, omnibox, translucent windows, lack of a statusbar works for me. I like the small animations in moving tabs, starting downloads,  closing and opening windows, reattaching and reorganizing tabs. They just make a mundane task a little bit bearable. I also like the option to use web apps through stand alone shortcuts. FF 0 Chrome 3
• Javascript and Other Support: Yes chrome was faster, but it still does not play too well with a lot of Google’s own websites. And in some Ajax based sites, particularly Facebook, it couldn’t process some codes properly and they showed up beside text boxes and other places. For now at least, FF 2 Chrome 3 (This is worth 2 points to me on any day)
• Plugins and Customizability: Chrome doesn’t even come close to FF. A lot of Chrome and Operas features can be mimicked through plugins. This advantage alone is worth three points to FF. However, I should point out that Google plans to bring plugin support to Chrome and if only a few major FF plugins make it to Chrome then the whole game would change. FF 5 Chrome 3
• Omnibox vs. Awesome Bar: I’d say I like both. Neither is a clear winner yet. I like the search engine integration in chrome. But FF is better at giving suggestions from history and bookmarks. Somehow I felt Omnibox was a bit confusing, but that maybe just from lack of familiarity. But all in all it’s a draw. FF 5 Chrome 3

To summarize, Chrome is not ready for mainstream yet. It excels in unchartered territories, but lacks in the common ground. I can guess that Chrome will learn to play a lot better and will sort out a lot of the kinks. I am amazed that Chrome works with so many websites at such an early stage. If they listen to the feature requests and bug reports (which I think they will), Chrome has the potential to be at the top. However, I’ll be sticking to Firefox for the days to come. Having said that, I’m not going to uninstall chrome either. Because when Chrome hits 1.0

I just might switch.

Edit: As borisattva has pointed out, there is a new and updated beta version available at the website http://code.google.com/p/gadjet/downloads/list . I haven’t tested it out yet. It is a beta version so be a bit cautious. Thanks to borisattva for pointing it out.

This is a very simple method of a rather complicated process. Thanks to the people behind gcalsync Project for making it happen.

This is a little java application that connects to your google calendar and downloads the entries. Unfortunately the upload function created duplicates in the online version so I had to disable it. Another backside is that it doesn’t understand repeated events. But it still beats not having calendar syncing at all. Here is how to do it.

1. Visit http://wap.gcalsync.com on your mobile phone or http://www.gcalsync.com on your computer. Then download the signed version of gcalsync.jar (it is available on the front page)
2. Follow the installation instructions, that is, press yes on whatever the phone asks (for using the file downloaded in your computer file, transfer the gcalsync.jar file to your phone via bluetooth or cable)
3. Start up gcalsync from the application menu (I’m guessing you’d be saving it under applications)
4. It will ask for your google email and password. Put in your complete google email address i.e. “yourID@gmail.com”. Press “Save”
5. Go to Options>Upload/Download and uncheck the box beside upload and press “Save”
6. You can customize your sync period. I usually sync for 30 days ahead and 1 day before. You can change it under Option>Sync Period
7. Press Sync. It will ask to connect to internet, then to read user data and then to write user data. Say yes to all of them and you should be done. Trouble shooting tips are available here. Scroll down, when you reach the page, for tips.
8. In case the software can’t connect to the internet, or read/write user data then exit the application. Go to Application>put the cursor on gcalsync and press More>Permissions and then set
   • Internet Access to Ask Once
   • Read User Data to Always Ask
   • Write User Data to Always Ask

And that should sync your google calendar with your Sony Ericsson W810i.

Keep organizing!

Google Chrome is the new browser from, uh, Google. It is the search behemoths take on the frontier mostly dominated by Internet Explorer (IE) and Firefox. Till august, according to Browser Statistics, IE had 50.6%, Firefox had 43.7%, Safari had 2.6% and others had 2.6% share of the worldwide browser share.

The obvious question at this point is where will Chrome fit into that mesh? Will it capture the market from IE or will crash onto the others. Being a loyal Firefox user and lover myself, I felt the threat for my faithful companion. Therefore, I applied the first rule of battle, to defeat your enemy, know him first. Here is my take on the first public beta of Google Chrome.

1. Interface: Firefox has a pretty good interface with the option to add anything and everything with the help of plugins. I’m sorry to say (as I wanted Firefox to win), Chrome blows it away. The simple clean interface with just the right options blew my mind completely. I love the recent site screenshots, the one-box-for-everything, the graying out of the coding mumbo-jumbo part of a url. The tab system is simple, yet very effective. I just wish they’d include a theme support so that I could change colours. Creating application shortcuts is a wonderful new option. Mozilla had a project called Prism which did the same thing but you had to load another software for it. This one is much better.
2. Speed: This is where chrome shines. All google apps work much faster, as you’d expect. But other apps are not behind. Facebook works much better than it does on my firefox and so does the other java based websites. It’s mind blowing!
3. Feature: Chrome’s best features are much deeper than its skin. It manages memory much better. My plugin laddened firefox takes up more than 60 megs when it starts up, chrome started with only 40. And the new tabs took much less space as well. And most amazingly chrome supports those features already (well, most of them. I’d like to have flashgot, sxipper and adblock please!). For more details on behind the screen advancements, check out this fantastic Comic based document.  As for the visible features. Let me take on them one by one.

One Box for everything: Works for me. However, the search suggestions take some time to load in slower connections. But the same thing is present in Firefox, no big improvements there

New Tab Page: Like Opera’s quick dial page which you can mimic in Firefox with a plugin. I like that it updates based on my recently visited pages and their frequency. However, I’d like to have some control over what stays where. That is, I’d like to organize the box links, put in links that I want to appear there and change icons for each link box. One other thing that I like is that if you open a link from a page in a new tab the tab opens right next the page you linked from. Nifty!

Dynamic Tabs: Detaching tabs from windows reattaching tabs together in one window, again, works for me

Crash Control: Marvellous. I just don’t know how many times I’ve wished that one tab would trash the whole browser. Thank you! Thank you so much!

Incognito Mode: I know a few people who might switch just to have this option . In this mode whatever you browse is excluded from cache and history. For those who browse in the office, this might make all the difference.

Safe Browsing: Just like firefox, identifies dangerous and suspicious sites. No big leap over FF as far as I can see.

Instant Bookmarks: A direct steal from Firefox 3. You copycat, you! It is an excellent option for one click bookmarking, I just wish they’d automatically categorize it as well (You listening Google?)

Settigns Importer: Makes the transition very simple. Same as FF

Download Manager: A beauty in itself. Simple interface, wonderful search option and excellent handling of downloads. However, it doesn’t support download resuming which is a huge letdown. Another thing that I’d love to have is multi-part downloading and built in torrent support (the last one is a bit too much, I know. Still keeping my fingers crossed)

Look and Feel: This is where chrome is a clear winner than both FF and IE. However they still have a thing oe two to learn from Safari. The tab animation, drag and drop animation, download animation everything is excellent looking and quite informative. Kudos to Google for this one.

All in all, Chrome is an excellent browser in the making. FF could definitely learn a thing or two from here. As for IE, I haven’t used it in the last 2 years and will not be using it anytime soon. They better learn a lot from these two. Better still, Microsoft could simply replace IE with FF as the default browser (like that’s gonna happen!).

As for me, I am not switching to Chrome right now, but (I’m sorry to say this FireFox, I really am)

I just might.

Motherload is a simple online mini game that is addictive to say the least. It is definitely not suitable for work, not for it’s contents but for the damage it can do to your working hours. Check it out.

It is one of those mini games that you start to play and think, “Pathetic! Who would spend their time on this?”. And then you end up playing it over several hours at a stretch. Thanks to Xgen Studios. You can also find this game at miniclip.com

Rating; 4.5 out of 5

W810 along with a lot of other phones have an option under messages called “My Friends”. This service is an excellent option to connect to your messenger service without running a third party application.

Here is how to do it,

1. Register at Yamigo.com [there are other services like mobjab.com etc. offering the same service. Check out this wiki for more details]
   • This is a mobile messaging service that lets you import your contacts to the yamigo server and then chat with them from your phone
   • After completing registration, go to the link “user details” on their home page and insert your MSN, Yahoo! or AOL login details
   • If you wish to see your full contact list on your phone then make sure to check the option “fetch contacts”. Then you can see both online and offline contacts. Otherwise you will only see the online ones
   • If you can, donate a little something for them. They are running a free service without any support from anyone
2. On your SE phone go to Menu>Messaging>My Friends>More>Settings. Then make the following changes
   • Click Server Setting and put in the following
     • Username: <your Yamigo username>
     • Password: <your Yamigo Password>
     • Server: http://www.yamigo.com/wv/control
     • Internet Profile: <Your Internet profile> (not WAP, all GrameenPhone users to use GP-Internet)
   • The Other options are self explanatory
   • Click done and you are good to go
   • Now you can login to your messenger service by selecting login from the My Friends menu
3. Important note: “My Friends” will keep using bandwidth if you are constantly logged in, but it is quite minimal. Since Yamigo is a free service they might shut down any day if they don’t get new funding. Keep that in mind as well. Some carriers in some country allow IMPS messaging through their own servers. Contact your carrier for details on how to use them.

Following are the steps I followed to get Gmail working on my phone.

1. You’ll need two certificate files which are available here. Download the zip file, extract it to a folder, then send both the certificates using bluetooth or cable to your SE phone. Send them one at a time otherwise they won’t install properly. After you send them to your phone you’ll get a prompt to install, press yes and repeat the same process for the second certificate.
2. Then Go to Menu>Messaging>Email>Settings>Account Settings>New Account
3. Add an account name (i.e. bob’s gmail etc.)
4. You’ll see a screen with your account name at the top. Then enter the following settings in the corresponding sections
   • Email Address: yourlogin@gmail.com
   • Connect Using: Your Internet accessing profile (for GrameenPhone users it is GP-Internet)
   • Connection Type: IMAP4 (I prefer IMAP for gmail, you can also use pop3)
   • Incoming Server: imap.gmail.com (for pop3 use pop.gmail.com)
   • Username: yourlogin@gmail.com
   • Password: Your Gmail Password
   • Download: Headers Only (Keeps the data usage to a minimum)
   • Check Interval: Off (Any Automated setting uses data. I use a 12h interval)
   • Outgoing Server: smtp.gmail.com
   • Username: yourlogin@gmail.com
   • Password: Your Gmail Password
   • Allow Connection: Any Network
   • Auto Connect: Off
   • Your Name: <your name>
   • Signature: <Anything> (This will be attached below every mail you sent from your phone)
   • Copy Outgoing: yourlogin@gmail.com (so that you have a copy of the mails you send from your phone)
   • Encryption:
     • Incoming Server: SSL
     • Outgoing Server: TLS
   • Incoming Port: 993
   • Outgoing Port: 587
5. Press Done
6. Select Your Account Name from the list of accounts
7. Go back to Email>Inbox
8. Select Send&rec
9. Gmail is set up on your phone

For a simpler method you can also install the Gmail Java application which is available at http://mail.google.com/a

Use your mobile phones browser not Opera Mini, otherwise it won’t recognize your phone model. However, you can’t send attachments from this software.

Sony Ericsson W810i

I have been using a Sony Ericsson W810 for the past few months. And every now and then I am quite tempted to buy an HTC, iPhone, Android, what and what not. However, apart from money, I have found quite a few interesting functions in this little candybar phone to keep me away from those till today.

This little phone is capable of

1. Sending and receiving email (IMAP4, POP3) even from your gmail accounts with attachments
2. Direct access to messenger service with all day login
3. Syncing with Google Calendar
4. Online bakup of contacts and calendars via Zyb.com
5. Document viewing (PDF, DOC, PPT) using Google Docs
6. Setting reminder notes on screen
7. Running special diagnostics tests (that’s not really useful but might come in handy when you are getting a used one) -
   1. >*<<*<*
   2. < means left joystick
      > means right joystick
      * means *

A Year After I started to write, It’s finally done

This one was sung by Nijhu from 10th Batch

If you like it then give it a thumbs up. Stumble It!

Vocal: RIzu and Nadia

Keyboard: Tahsan

I’ll post the other songs soon.

searchin for the right direction by Jot.de

Following up on my previous post, a new argument has reared its head. But before that let us take into account my comrade, Muaz Jalil’s, arguments into consideration. Being the most important resource does not mean it has to be “non-expendable”. And humans tend to be a risky resource because they have the free will of walking out of your office any time they wish.

Let us look into what makes a resource “the most important” resource. The importance of a resource depends on it’s availability and substitutability. These two combined create the value (in monetary and all other value terms) for a resource to the company. If a company was situated in the middle of the Sahara Desert it’s most important (and valuable) resource probably would be water. Therefore Muaz is absoultely right in saying that experienced and skilled Human Resource is still the most important resource for most companies. And yes this resource is also the most risky resource of all.

And companies do not like risks. They do not like it at all.

And this is where Naser, another friend of mine, comes in with his thoughts. He feels HR today has the purpose of making each and every employee dispensable.

Why shouldn’t they?

It is the task of every function to reduce the riskiness of a company and increase it’s profitability. If we look at the recent trends at high performing companies globally we shall see a steady move towards outsourcing core resources. AMD is apparently in the process of outsourcing their chip making factories, their core business. And they are being applauded for it, because it reduces operating cost, increases efficiency and, above all, it reduces risk.

Human Resource, being the most important and risky resource, should come under constant scrutiny and changes to reduce its significance. The function of HR, in the 21st century, should move. HRs role of obtaining, developing and retaining talents should now change. To what, you may ask.

The new role of HR should be in making talents dispensable, breaking down work practices to make work roles generic. so that anything that can be outsourced, is outsourced.

Because only then you shall enough money for those who are actually indespensable and can never be replaced.

In every major HR text that I have come across, they always have the same introduction. “Human resource is the most important resource for a company.” But if truth is told, is it really?

All of us are employees of a leagl entity called “the company”. It is a curious existence to work for. It has no mind of it’s own, no thoughts, no judgement and no plans for its own existence. Yet, it has a path, a goal, an objective and a definite purpose. And people who work for it provide it with the mind, thought, judgment and plan to fullfill that purpose. A company needs people to prolong it’s existence. But hypothetically, a company would still survive without people.

Unless each and every employee is gone, companies need not care about the people they lose. For every job, every post,  every talent, there is a replacement available. Yes some talent are so important that losing them might hurt a company in the short run (Yahoo!, AMD). But in the long run a business entity with the right goals and objectives will get the replacement and will soon be on its way to the podium.

Resources are important, but one resource is hardly more important than the other. Human Resource is not the “most” important resource. It is a resource like everything else. It is perishable, replenishable and above all substitutable.

How? Suppose your whole finance department quit today, what will you do?

For 7 days you can make do with limited payouts and zero money transaction. And you can use those 7 days to evaluate 5 agencies who are willing to provide the same service under their own management with a similiar or even lower cost.

At the end of the day, my argument is this, HR is an important resource which is required for a company to reach it’s goal on a timely and efficient manner. But it is equally important as any other resource and does not require the special attention and care that any HR book may suggest. Just like raw materials, you need to make sure your Human Resource is of good quality, is preserved right, is processed right and is properly stored in the inventory.

And you should make sure that, just like your raw material,you have an alternative supplier for your HR as well.