Tag: technology

Microsoft – past and Future

This morning, I was talking exactly the same thing with my boss on the hallway. MS should just concentrate on the cloud – the azure platform. Build the developer community for it. Make sure it delivers data and functionality to every connected device. Bring office and sharepoint as services to the world. To every connected device. That is the future.

And was I surprised to read a blog post by John @gruber  on daringfireball.net today which pretty much ended on that same note. Very well written article I should say.

Read the article here. [link]

10 things you should never put in your resume

Disclaimer: This list applies only to resumes that you send to technology companies.

  1. No Superlative adjectives about your capabilities. No “superior knowledge of OOD”, or “exemplary customer orientation”. This sets a very high expectation, and even a very small flaw in your interview or phone screen, can make your resume look inaccurate.
  2. Do not convert educational grading systems. If you are in India, and your university marks were in %, put it that way. No need to convert to 4.0 system. If you were in IIT, there is no need to convert to a percentile system. You are just confusing the reader.
  3. Do not put in qualities that you are expected to have as part of any job. Example – “Been an integral part of every team I have been in.” This is understood.
  4. No jargon and defenitely no abbreviations. I do not know what SCCM protocol is, if I am not in the same industry.
  5. Defenitely no fluff. Put in only things that you know. If you have have cursory knowledge say so. I actually appreciate that more. I like resumes which say “Expert knowledge in foo; working knowledge of foo2; and cursory knowledge of foo3.” This makes me believe in you.
  6. Do not make me search for vital information. The first page should have everything that I need to know. If I am interested, I would need to flip the page.
  7. Please dont end the resume with Date of birth, Marital Status, Mother Tongue, and finally a statement stating all of the above is true to the best of your knowledge. This may be required for a Govt job, but not in an IT company.
  8. No photos. No clipart. No images.
  9. Do not put in too many fancy fonts. I like an uniform font through the resume. And no fancy fonts. Plain Arial, Times New Roman, Calibri/Cambria. Font size atleast 10 point.
  10. No references to internal technology and algorithms. This makes me wary of how well you respect your Intellectual Property of your current company. If you are loose there, so will you be in my company if I hire you.

Disclaimer2: The opinions in this blog post are strictly mine and have no relation to that of my employer.

Spam is no longer binary

Saw this statement in an article which was announcing the new tabbed Inbox for GMail (which I totally dig and am waiting for).

Spam is no longer binary.

I think this is very true these days. There are ofcourse some emails which are clearly 100% spam, but GMail and other webservices catch these pretty well. I rarely get any of these any more.

There are some of the other emails that land in my inbox announcing offers and getaways and deals. Most times it looks like spam to me, but there are times, when I let them be, because I feel there might be use for it later. A 50% offer on all best seller books in flipkart is something that looks like spam, but I may look it up some time.

Similarly, emails from my credit card company and/or banks. Most times I dont read them (except for the statements). But I am always afraid that there is some important information that these guys may have told me and that I may need to look up later (maybe during tax filing season!). Thank God for the Archive button in Gmail.

The third type of grey-spam are the social updates. Updates from Twitter, facebook, and LinkedIn. These are important to me, but look like spam to me sometimes.

The new tabbed inbox that is due to roll out very soon in GMail takes care of this, by separating these in different tabs, so that it does not distract you from the important actionable email.

tabbed

Read the FastCo article here about the new tabbed GMail

(pic courtesy – the same fastco article).

Google Glass Creepiness

5PointCafeGoogleGlassBan_2

Wow. This is creepy.

As I approached the line to the restroom, I took a deep sigh, thinking that I might find some respite from the hundreds of cameras strapped to people’s heads at the conference.

Yet when it was finally my turn to approach the rows of white urinals, my world came screeching to a halt. There they were, a handful of people wearing Google Glass, now standing next to me at their own urinals, peering their head from side to side, blinking or winking, as they relieved themselves.

Read the full article here.

Image courtesy blogs.cio.com

Turn your window into a power outlet

Wow. Just read this in Fast.co. This is still in concept stage. But if someone ever makes this, I want one. Please Please. A mindbogglingly simple solution. And its portable too.

Just see these images below and wow yourself.

solar1 solar2 solar3 solar4

(click to enlarge)

Read the full article here.

All images from the same URL above.

A Boy And His Atom – World’s smallest movie

Well, the first time you are reading the title, you are probably thinking (like I did), that this is going to be another animated short, but maybe this is really really short. Well no. It is the world in which the movie is shot that is small. This movie has been created by IBM by  moving actual atoms and molecules on a surface. Well, there are two reactions that are pummelling with each other in my mind — “IBM is the only place which can produce such an amazingly cool thing.” vs. “Engineering folks at IBM have a lot of time in their hands”. 🙂

For engineers like me, the cooler video is the next video – “the making of the movie”. Mind blowing.

Fitiquette

Read about this site on techcrunch. They just launched during their recent Disrupt event. I think its a great idea. There have been web sites where you can see digital mannequins donning clothes. But this site takes it one step further. It lets you customize the mannequin with your measurements. And then add on clothes. This is the one thing that was missing in online shopping sites so far. Folks who have a fit body do not need to worry about ordering from online sites. They typically would know their sizes (small, medium, large), or by their shirt sizes (39, 40, 42..), or trouser hip sizes (29,30,…). But for the larger majority of us, who are not *ahem* quite the perfect ‘mannequin’, we would like to know how a medium size from a certain brand and a certain fits me. Does it fall too short? Does it have too long sleeves? Does it make me look too short? Most of us have these reservations. And hence we like to go stores and try them on inside the mirrored trial rooms.

If it is what I read what it is, fitiquette solves this problem 100%. Lets you don clothes on a customized mannequin, and lets you view the mannequin in different angles, and pretty much do a virtual trial room experience.

Nice. Hope these guys make it big. Great going. After quite a while, I am seeing a startup solving a real world problem.

[fitiquette]

Of Rectangles and Rounded Corners

“Today’s verdict should not be viewed as a win for Apple, but as a loss for the American consumer,” the South Korean electronics firm said after news of the $1 billion patent infringement award by a California jury.

“It will lead to fewer choices, less innovation, and potentially higher prices. It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies.”

Statement from Samsung after Apple won the Patent case in a jury in California. I love the statement about rectangles and rounded corners. So true. I firmly believe, Apple played on the sentimental value of the jurors and the people by playing the “Made in America” card. I cannot believe how silly some of the patent charges are.