Finally got my machine up and running with Ubuntu Juanty and got the mac4lin theme up and running.



Just a bit of work left on getting all settings for my partition right and then its full time on Linux again.

While reading on the DDoS attack on Twitter yesterday, I landed upon a page at cnet. The first thing that I noticed while there, is not the article or its heading, but this ad of Olympus. I later realized that this was a regular TVCs adapted for online! Hence the YouTube link below and not the original ad.

An attractive looking lady in slow motion plus one of my favorite hobbies, photography. It was catchy! I clicked on it to find out what PEN was all about only to land at this really stupid page. It just had a product shot and didn't tell me what PEN was. Which was on the last frame of the ad and the reason why I clicked. Didn't have any inclination to explore further and Olympus lost a little more money on this ad (either for the impression or the click).

I am sure that Olympus would be checking how this ad performed but what was interesting was the CBS feedback page on this ad. It set me thinking on how much research goes on, on online marketing & banners anyway. Firstly, what advertisers think is effective might itself be incorrect (difference of opinion between advertisers and audiences on ad effectiveness). Also, my take is that advertising measures for online ads need to be a lot more different from conventional media considering what consumers think of online ads (chart 2 below). And the fact that consumers are very frustrated by many of today’s popular types of internet ads. The feedback being sought by CBS was very much like for an TV ad. It reminded me of an article on number of marketers testing an email campaign.

A few charts below courtesy marketing charts.

I am having trouble with my passport renewal.

Have already done a few rounds of the the passport office and the nearest police station. This entire process is getting onto my nerves. Am wasting half a day again today, for the second time, to clarify the 'objection' (what this objection is, is a complete mystery) they have on my application. Am completely pained with the entire process and the snooty people (almost everyone, security to office boys to officials) there.

Will live tweet the proceedings, want to see how hilarious the entire process and my agony sounds!

Of late every website wants you to spend more time on their site. Realizing the current craze of people is of posting 140 characters or less, every social media site worth its salt has put in a similar feature and asks you a question to type in something.

Here's the sites that I am on, want me to say...

- Twitter: What are you doing?

- Google Reader: Have some thoughts to share?
- Orkut: Set your status here
- GTalk Status: Availability and Status
- Blogger: Post Articles & Status updates
- FriendFeed: Posts and Updates

- Facebook: What's on your mind?

- Linkedin: What are you working on now?

- Yahoo! Mail / Y! Messenger: What are you doing right now?
- Flickr: Status updates
- Yahoo! 360: What are you doing now?

Depending on the region you are in, I am sure there are a number of other social sites that you might be on. A few popular ones that I could think of - MySpace, Wordpress, Typepad, Delicious, LiveJournal, AIM, hi5, myYearbook, Friendster and Photobucket...

Now, that's a lot of sites asking you to be on them and keep updating!

A few days back, I saw Hans Rosling visualize HIV data in this presentation at TED talks. I was looking for (to purchase or create) such a graphing tool for quite some time (incidentally, my requirement is a combo of heat map, bar/pie chart & motion chart). A little research revealed that Google purchased Trendalyzer, the graphing tool used in this presentation, from his company Gapminder in March 2006. A version of it has been integrated into Google Spreasheets as Motion Chart.

Luckily, I found some Indian Mobile-GSM subscriber data during the same time, cleaned it a bit, added some data and here's how the trend looks...

Gave this question a long thought during the rains a few days back and realized I had answered this question in the B School interview I gave during my Engineering!

Not in any particular order...

• Infrastructure
  
• Education
  
• Health Care

These are the 3 fields I would like to be in long term. And, regarding my interest in Technology? I guess, it would be the "basic" and "differentiating" enabler to whatever I do in any of these fields.

Managed to get a download of all travels I did using my Amex. It makes for an interesting analysis.

Chennai was my favorite destination (for software trouble shooting), Delhi (for business) and Hyderabad (surprise! for personal work)

The first week is spent planning. Then, I slog a lot during mid month and do end of the month target achievement trips.

Again mid week is when I travel the most.

And overall costs have been fairly stable I should say except for the occasional foreign visits.
With the overall costs / trip coming down.