Picasa

Not much work done in office today. Been triaging bugs and reviewing patches. Need to start full steam on the 50 odd bugs screaming aloud for Evolution Exchange Connector 2.1 release slated for sometime in mid-march.

My cousin, Feroz and his friend Najeeb, working in the nearby Wipro office on Hosur Road joined me for lunch today, and we generally chatted about work and other stuff. Took them around at the work place and was surprised to know that they have some space crunching at their offices. They accommodate about 3 more persons for every person in our office. That leaves room for very less privacy ;)

This weekend i downloaded Picasa , a image/picture management tool from Google, and was amazed by its simplicity and rich features. Its a must have tool for people having pictures on their desktop. Unfortunately, Google, is going the M$ way and has this only for M$ and not for Linux, though f-spot seems to be a very close match for this. I havent yet tried out f-spot and thats the next thing on the cards now.

Picasa has this cool feature where you can directly upload your images to the blog as i have done in the previous blog below. What fascinated me most was the speed with which the pictures got uploaded. I have a dial-up at home, and it just took about 10 to 20 seconds to upload this onto the blog, while uploading these pics on any other site, would easily take more than a couple of minutes for me.

Time for some work now ....

Ajmer Sharief dazzling in the night 

DDLJ in Rajasthan 

In the evening 

Train to Ajmer 

Belgaum 

Cognitive Engagement

Found this article on the web and was fascinated by how less focussed computers have made us at work :)

One interesting thing to note there is that M$ actually has hired a cognitive psychologist as a senior researcher for this purpose. Thats some food for gossip on how much money M$ actually spends for creating a user-friendly interface. [ Though i keep hearing that MAC is supposed to be having the best user-interface. ] While on user-interface, have a look at Google Maps and just get bowled over by the sleek interface they have. There is also an article which has diagnised the technology behind this sleek interface. Just waiting to see Indian roads on the google map soon :)

Something ...

Hmmm ... nothing great happening this week around. Lots of bug fixing at work, with all the new features being tested. We have parallel targets nearing now ... the 2.0 final minor release and the first major release for 2.1 ... so its a bit hectic at work.

Last weekend, attended my cousin's [ Abdullah ] wedding. It had been more than a year since i met my cousins and was really good to see them again. The worst thing was that, its just February first week and the summer has already started there. Was drinking water and soda like crazy all day long. I had recently bought a handycam and experimented with it for shooting the wedding. It was a great hit :) ... I shot all the events from the morning to the end of the wedding in a one hour roll and in the evening when the bride reached her new home and people were relaxing from the all day work, i played the roll and they were all sooo happy to see the whole wedding all over again :) ... They laughed at some really funny incidents that i captured and were amazed at the timing of the moments captured. I was myself surprised that some small incidents when seen in isolation look so funny :). Now i am struggling to find a good software to create a VCD from that roll.

Last week, i witnessed one more tie match in cricket. It was the second one day match between South Africa and England. South Africa were batting second and were in need of 60 odd runs in 40 od balls with 7 wickets in hand. Kemp and Gibbs were in, and watching Kemp hit the England bowlers all over the place was a treat. Eng had no way to win this match. Then came in the experienced Darren Gough and got a couple of good wickets. Gibbs and Kemp were back to the pavilion and even Pollock went back. SA finally needed 8 runs of the final over with 3 wickets in hand. The match had turned around completely. But England had finished bowling out all its good bowlers and captain Trescothik asked new comer Kabir Ali to bowl the all important penultimate over. The first over was a noball and was hit for a boundary !!!. SA needed 3 runs of 6 balls. The match was turning again. The next ball was a duck. The pressure mounting and SA lost a wicket in the next ball. SA now needed 3 runs of 4 balls with two wickets remaining. The next ball, SA lost one more wicket for a runout, and the match was running down to the wire. Finally, SA managed to score 2 runs and levelled the scores with still one ball remaining. The England wicket keeper used his presence of mind and was standing upto the wickets for the last ball and all the players inside the 30 yard circle. The batsman missed the short and started running, unaware that the wicket keeper had already collected the ball and stumped him to end the match in a tie. This match was some thriller to watch. This was England's only third tie ever.

ManU just 2 good for Arsenal

Spoilt my sleep to see Arsenal lose. Thats all that happened yesterday :( .. Was awake till 3 just to see this great team lose to the sheer skill and brilliance of ManU.

The first half was nothing less than a scintiallating encounter between two bitter rivals. One running on a high wave after winning five of their league matches out of 6, and the other wounded and hungry for revenge for what happened on Oct 24, 2004. The players were all charged up and there was a foul in the very first minute of the match. Both the teams played very attacking game. An attacking attitude physically and an atacking football as well. There was one attack for other. The first goal was scored in the 8th minute, a beautiful header by Viera from a Henry corner. Giggs scored the equalizer in the 18th minute. Arsenal were back again with a superbly executed goal by Berkamp. It was a very good first half and Arsenal were leading. They had to defend it and thats what they failed at.

The second half was full of some excellent football by ManU. They just over-powered the Gunners. Ronaldo was the hero for them scoring 2 of the goals in just 4 minutes and giving ManU the much needed lead which their strong defense lineup defended it really well. An unexpected goal by the substitute O'Shea in the dieing moments of the match drove the last nail in the coffin and it was all over for Arsenal. They had lost the battle for the championship to the resurrected Mourinho's men, Chelsea, and now are on the verge of losing the battle for even the second place.

I was really disappointed to see the lack of form of Henry. He had the ball with him but never ever converted them to goals. Well, the only consolation being that he was instrumental in both the goals scored by Arsenal. After a loooooong run of wins, Arsenal are seeing down the drain and i guess its time for them to bounce back with a bang. Waiting for the moment to see the Gunners go gung ho once again ....