blog

Kindle + Readability!

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 14:58:41 +0100

I am a proud owner of a Kindle. So proud, that I have recommended it to my friends and family. I have also demonstrated it, showcased it, and even lent it to a few of them to help them make up their minds on buying a Kindle.

Currently the only option to get a Kindle in India is to (somehow) get it from the US, or ask Amazon to ship it to you, wherein they handle customs etc. So you either travel or have someone get one for you, or pay up more money to get it online. Hopefully Amazon has plans to retail this wonderful product in India sometime soon.

The reading experience on a Kindle is awesome, to say the least. And it’s an amazing device for a regular reader (not a fast one). The experience of reading on Kindle is as close as it gets to read an actual physical book. Plus being an electronic device, you also get a dozen of other useful features. (Dictionary, Social sharing, Notes, Highlighting are the ones I use regularly).

You can buy books and get them wirelessly on your kindle in no time. Books that were not available before or that are costlier in paperback are now available within a few mouse clicks.

That brings me to Readability. Apart from books, a lot of content is created every day in byte sized chunks, on blogs and websites. And it is really difficult to read on the web. Apart from the obvious technology related shortcomings of reading on an LCD screen, most of the websites litter good articles with ads, plugs and what not.

Readability solves that problem, and gets the good stuff on your kindle for an enjoyable & distraction free reading experience. With its browser add-ons, you can reduce the cluttered article in a browser to a readable format and send it to your kindle for wireless syncing. So if you do read long-ish articles everyday, but would rather have a better experience doing it, Kindle + Readability is what you need!

Premier League Season 2010/2011 Review!

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 14:56:39 +0100

Although the English Premier League Season for 2010/2011 has ended almost a month ago, I have just found some time to review the predictions I made back in August 2010, and see how those panned out.

My Club
I expected Roy Hodgson to stick around and change the fortunes of my club. While the former did not stick around for too long, the later almost happened. With Kenny Dalglish taking the reins at Liverpool, enthusiasm and energy is once again visible in the team and we now play with a lot more flair and confidence. Although my prediction was for Liverpool to be in the top four all season long, the way things ended, we were quiet lucky to just miss on a Europa League position by finishing sixth.

Title Contenders
I had predicted that the title contenders will be Manchester United and Chelsea, but in the end it was a one horse race, and cost Carlo Ancelotti his job. Sad to see Manchester United winning the league again, but they were never really given a run for their money by anybody. I lose out again by predicting Chelsea to pick up the Premier League.

Rest of the Best
With Liverpool not fairing in the top four, both Manchester City and Arsenal get a place in the top four, while Tottenham had to make do with a place in the Europa League. And none of them was consistent enough to deserve anything more than this.

The Upper Mid Table
I predicted Birmingham, Aston Villa, Everton & Newcastle to finish up with the top half of the table, but Birmingham could not even manage to prolong their stay in the league and Newcastle finished 12th. In their place came Fulham and Sunderland, two teams I could not have thought about.

The Other Half
While I predicted a tight battle for relegation, what we saw was a bottom half as tough and unpredictable as any in recent seasons. My bets for relegation were West Brom, Blackpool & Wolves, but in the end it was Blackpool, Birmingham and West Ham who got relegated. And West Brom finished 11th!

So here is my prediction and final results side by side for a quick recap :

	Prediction	Result
Liverpool	3rd	6th
Title	Chelsea	Manchester United
Champions League	Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester City	Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City, Arsenal
Europa League	Arsenal	Tottenham
Relegation	West Brom, Blackpool, Wolves	Birmingham, Blackpool, West Ham

As you can clearly see, betting is clearly not an advisable career option for me :) !

12 Pillars for Happiness!

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 15:59:51 +0100

In the month of December, I had the privilege of visiting Indian Institute of Management (Bangalore) for attending a 5 day residential leadership program. Needless to say, it was absolutely brilliant. After 10 years in the corporate world, the academic program was a breath of fresh air and revitalized me and most of my fellow participants.

We had a range of sessions in the program, covering the topics of Corporate Entrepreneurship, Personal and Interpersonal Effectiveness, Leadership, Strategy, Branding, Execution, Negotiating etc.

In one of the sessions, we had a spirited discussion on Happiness & Passion. Our faculty for the session, DVR Seshadri, gave us the following 12 pillars for achieving happiness :-
Rise to your full potential
Set your own metric for success
Give rather than take
The only reality is now
This phase will also pass
Have an attitude of gratitude
Everything happens for good
The last shirt has no pocket
Strive for balance
Respond, not react
What we know is a small part of what exists
Change, and the world around you changes
These are the 12 pillars for a happy life for your body, mind, heart, soul & intellect, based on the foundation of your core values.

Brilliant!

Recent Readings

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 15:54:57 +0100

I have been reading a lot lately. Atleast by my own standards. This is partly due to a consistent inability to go to bed on time (lack of sleep), and partly due to a friend lending some good books to me. My recent readings are primarily fiction novels, but around half a dozen of business books are up next. Find below a list of some of the stuff I have read in the last fortnight or so :-

The Bridges of Madison County is easily the best love story ever written. Even if you have watched the movie, going through this novel is highly recommended. The Maltese Falcon is worth a read, but nothing more. The Laughing Policeman is a lot better though and you can feel the frustration of the lead character, until he is able to sort things out. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a fast paced pop novel with colorful characters and a gripping plot. It even gave me goose bumps a couple of times...

Invictus!

Sat, 16 Oct 2010 19:54:46 +0100

(A little bit of inspiration for all of us from William Ernest Henley)

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

The Premier League Season 2010/11

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 14:40:57 +0100

The big kick off of the English Premier League Season 2010-11 is almost upon us. From tomorrow, we will start the emotional roller coaster ride that comes with supporting your favorite football team in the premier league (in my case, Liverpool). My predictions for the season :-

My Club : Liverpool
With Roy Hodgson, I expect a turnaround in my club's fortunes this season. I also expect a more common sense approach and good football. Predicting my team to be in the top 3 all season, with a good chance at the cup competitions. And hopefully, no Lucas & Ngog.

Title Contenders : Manchester United & Chelsea
As much as I hate to admit it, but the battle for the title will be amongst these two. And I could not care less as to who wins it. (I would go for Chelsea, obviously)

Rest of the Best : Arsenal, Machester City, Tottenham
Only one of these to get the remaining champions league spot. My bet will be on Manchester City. I do not see Tottenham and Arsenal to be consistent throughout the season.

The Upper Mid Table : Aston Villa, Birmingham, Everton, Newcastle
These guys will offer a good game at home but will struggle on the road, and I think they will find themselves in the mid table comfort zone.

The Other Half : Blackburn, Bolton, Fulham, Stoke, Sunderland, West Brom, West Ham, Wigan, Blackpool & Wolves
Nothing to chose from. Three of these are going to go down. All of them will be anxious about their fate all season. My bet for relegation will be West brom, Blackpool and Wolves.

So here is my prediction for the premier league table :-

01. Chelsea

02. Manchester United

03. Liverpool

04. Manchester City

05. Arsenal

06. Totenham

07. Birmingham

08. Aston Villa

09. Everton

10. Newcastle

11. Fulham

12. Blackburn

13. Bolton

14. Stoke

15. Sunderland

16. West Ham

17. Wigan

18. West Brom

19. Blackpool

20. Wolves

Also, a warm welcome to Newcastle and Ian Holloway. Let the games begin!

New additions on sidoza.com!

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 06:40:25 +0100

I have recently added a comics & photography page on the website in the books section. Do visit and let me know how you find it. The photographs are coming from my flickr stream. Let me know if I deserve to buy a dSLR. tsk tsk...

In addition to this, I have also started another blog on tumblr, which you can visit here. After about a month or so on tumblr, I like it a lot and find it very easy to share videos, quotes and pictures from it. Its like twitter on steroids for me. Check it out.

Chirping birds or fail whales?

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 16:29:48 +0100

With its massive growth (50 million tweets a day) and adoption, twitter is becoming a part of our lives. More and more people and companies are flocking to the bird website, chirping about what's happening in there world.

Twitter has adopted a lot of ideas that worked for Google and made its service easy to use for all kinds of users. The very concept of tweeting (and retweeting), simple user interface, mobile & SMS integration, the API and the geo-location features make Twitter an attractive offering to users. Add to this the tens of thousands of developers writing desktop, web and mobile applications around twitter, make it more and more ubiquitous in our lives.

Over the past year or so, a lot has been said about the real time search problem and how twitter provides a perfect solution to this. Millions of twitter users are generating sweet 140 characters of content at a time. Content that is both fresh and spammy. The latter can be corrected, but its the former which makes twitter chirp and valuable.

Google's ranking algorithms can't take this real time information into consideration so quickly and efficiently. The very algorithm that took Google to the pinnacle of search engines is now becoming a hindrance in providing real time search results. The factors that Google considers before throwing out results for a particular user query, cannot effectively categorize and manage the burst of information that twitter users provide every day. Google's launch of the Google Buzz and including tweets into its search results is an attempt to recover some lost ground in this area.

All that remains to be seen is how twitter as a business can survive and grow. Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Its revenue comes from showing advertisements when this information is displayed.

Maybe search & ads can be an answer to Twitters search for revenues as well. But will this googling result in a chirping bird or a fail whale for twitter remains to be seen...

Shining eyes!

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 12:50:18 +0100

How do we define success? Ben tells us that the definition of success is not about wealth, fame or fortune. Its about the shining eyes.

Find below an amazing talk given by Benjamin Zander. It taught me a lot in a mere 20 minutes than all I have learned till date from my education, my books, music and you.

It teaches us about passion, leadership & motivation.

It talks about contributions and conversations.

About thinking big. About loss and dreams.

And, most important thing he tells us is to make somebody's eyes shine today. The true measure of your effect on this world and everybody around you is the shine in there eyes, and nothing else!

Thanks Chopin & thanks Ben!

Link clearance!

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 14:13:33 +0100

Here is a list of interesting stuff from around the interwebs...

Website & Social Media

Photography

2009

General

And some quotes to top it off...

"Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes."

- Oscar Wilde

"My doctor gave me two weeks to live. I hope they're in August."

- Ronnie Shakes

"The conception of two people living together for twenty-five years without having a cross word suggests a lack of spirit only to be admired in sheep."

- Alan Patrick Herbert

"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first."

- Mark Twain

"Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he's buying."

- Fran Lebowitz