Musings

People's Revolution: Why Iran failed and Why Egypt is Succeeding

2011-01-30T23:06:00.000-08:00

Hearing dramatic events happening in Egypt, I couldn’t help but wonder why certain “people revolutions” go further than others. I was reminded of a similar revolution in Iran recently which even though seemed to be gaining momentum by the day quickly fell apart. However, protests in Egypt seem to be taking a different turn and Husni Mubarak’s position seems to be increasingly marginalized.

To come to streets despite the threat of being shot down by government-backed armed personnel takes a lot of courage... a lot. But let’s not kid ourselves. A bullet is a bullet. Initially, when people turn to streets, local law enforcement is used to contain the crowd. Now, it is reasonable to assume that the local law enforcement has strong ties with the community they operate in and as such turning guns on them is not a choice many would like to make. As such, almost in all cases military is eventually called to contain the situation – army has no local ties and all armies are trained to strictly follow orders of their superiors (As a side note, I’ve heard that in Uttar Pradesh (a State in India), if protesters belong to largely one religion (Hindus or Muslims), the policemen sent to contain them are chosen from the other religion). This is where a make or break can occur for any people’s revolution and it resides mostly on a single person – Chief of Army. If the Army Chief chooses to side with the public, then the dictator can for all practical purposes pack the bags.

A couple of years back in Iran, where protestors lay siege of Tehran disputing the election results in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won, army chose to side with the government. The threat of the bullet in that case becomes very real and sure enough the protest quickly got dismantled. Similar situation unfolded in Myanmar in 2007 when army quelled the protest by Buddhist monks (Myanmar is ruled by the army). China’s Tiananmen Square revolution was similarly silenced two decades back.

However, a different situation emerged in Thailand few years back when protestors took siege of Bangkok International Airport against the policies of ruling government. The protest apparently had the blessings of the King of Thailand, most revered person in Thailand. As such, the army didn’t use a heavy hand in stopping the protest and eventually the Prime Minister of Thailand had to resign. I am seeing a similar situation unfold in Egypt where army seems to be taking more of an observer role rather than dealing with protestors heavily. So ultimately it boils to down one person or a group of individuals who control the army. If the generals decide that Mubarak is more of a liability then Mubarak is gone. I am sure Mubarak is anxiously waiting to know.

How to play "Are you smarter than a 5th Grader"

2011-01-20T15:45:00.000-08:00

I have been watching this program for quite some time now and besides learning some cool basic stuff (e.g., How many states are in Mexico? I had guessed 6... but the answer is 31!!!!) I found that none of the participants played the game "strategically". My guess is if they had, their winnings would have been higher.

Let me first explain how the game show works: There are 8 questions in total, each belonging to a different subject and there are 2 questions for each grade.. see above image.

Payout is proportional to the grade level i.e.,

Each 1st grade question gives $500
Each 2nd grade question gives $1000
Each 3rd grade question gives $3500
Each 4th grade question gives $7500

Since there are 2 questions for each grade, possible winnings are $25,000 (2*(500+1000+3500+7500)).

A contestant has to answer all the questions; he/she can only choose the order of answering questions. If a contestant fails to answer any question correctly then all amount earned till that point is forfeited. And here's where a contestant needs to be smart in choosing the "right" order for picking questions.

Most of the contestants start with 1st grade questions (most easy ones) possibly to experience a good start. But strategically speaking, they should start with the hardest question (i.e. 4th grade question) FIRST so that even if they miss it, they do not lose any money they may have earned till that point had they picked the 4th grade question later. Also, since there are 2 questions for each grade, within a grade, the contestant is better off choosing the hardest subject first. With this order, I think a candidate will end up earning more (of course above logic assumes that the candidate is more likely to correctly answer lower grade questions correctly than

What do you think?

PottyMouth! update

2011-01-19T11:17:00.000-08:00

PottyMouth! is a funny app that translates cuss words (including audio translations) in 8 languages (Spanish, Italian, German, French, Chinese, Russian and Hindi). We launched the paid version of the app on July 31 2010 and lite (free) version around Nov 15 2010. Here's a quick update on the app...

Downloaded in 60+ countries. Our top downloading countries are USA, UK, Canada and Australia in that order.
Rated as top NFL App on Appolicious
Highest Rated App on Appsafari
Downloaded by Timothy Jay, a renowned expert on swearing and a professor of psychology at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.

We will be shortly launching an NFL football sweepstakes (gift cards valued at $100 each) in order to celebrate colorful cussing by Rex Ryan and Anthony Cromartie! :-)

--- PottyMouth! supports healthy and playful cussing ----

Cross-selling iPhone Apps

2011-01-05T15:08:00.000-08:00

As some of you may know, I created an iPhone app last year, PottyMouth! The app translates popular cuss words in different languages along with the audio rendition. The app has been downloaded in 60+ countries and continues to grow. Now, the only way to buy the app is through app store run by Apple Inc.

While thinking about marketing strategy for PottyMouth!, I got an idea: Wouldn't it be good to package this app along with a similar product and sell it as a "bundle" e.g., there are several books on cussing on Amazon e.g., Creative Cussing and many others. It is very likely that the person buying this book could also be interested in buying PottyMouth! app. This would benefit all stakeholders: Apple (additional channel coverage), Amazon (more sales plus increasing stickiness with every increasing mobile apps users) and App developers (more sales).

How can this scheme be implemented?

For paid apps, upon app launch in the app store, Apple currently provides a certain number of download coders to app developer so that the developer can distribute these codes to people who may be interested in reviewing the app and who don't want to pay for the app.

There are 2 ways these codes can be used for cross-selling apps on a different website:

1. Apple has a tie-up with these online retailers and provides them with its database of apps. Online retailers can use "match-making" technology to find out which of their existing products match-up with the apps (e.g., most online retailers suggest similar products on a product webpage... Amazon recommends buying a group of books together at a discount). If the online customer is interested, he/she buys the app as well and gets a download code which can then be used to download the app. Today, revenue sharing model between Apple and Developer is 30% and 70% respectively. With introduction of another channel member, I'd recommend following share: 25% (apple), 15% (online retailer), 60% (app developer).

Pros:

. Doesn't require intervention of app owner.

. Allows simultaneous release of an app on Apple's app store and multiple online retailers.

Cons:

. Search & Mgmt. Overhead: Apple needs to have tie-ups with these vendors.

2. Developer buys the codes from Apple (at a discount) and then partners with online retailers to sell them to end customers e.g., app developer pays apple 25% of selling price of the app and then later shares the remaining with the online retailer: 15% (online retailer) and 60% (app developer); revenue sharing is essentially same as in previous case.

Pros:

. App owners are not restricted by Apple's online partners.

Cons:

. App developer needs to spend capital in buying the app codes and there is no guarantee that all these codes will ultimately be sold. To mitigate this, Apple can choose to forego revenue until the app is purchased by end customer although this could be difficult to implement.

. Managing several online retailers could be challenging for the app developer... in this case, I suppose a new syndicating entity may come which creates syndicating infrastructure; in this case it increases channel members by 1 i.e., App Developer, Apple, Syndicate Agency, Online Retailer, Customer.

Thoughts?

Chicago Fire: Lives that could have been saved...

2010-12-23T15:51:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, two of Chicago's firefighters perished when the walls of an "abandoned" warehouse caved in on them while they were looking for possibility of any humans (homeless people) that could have taken shelter in the building. I wonder if human detection technology can be used by firefighters to detect human presence in a building without entering the building. Similar technology is already being used for following purposes:
. Detecting humans (being smuggled) in shipping containers
. Detecting trapped humans in collapsed buildings due to earthquake

For example, check.. http://www.dklabs.com/

Moreover, the building had a known history of building code violations. If firefighters can be given this information at the time of the emergency call or on their way to the building (using a on-vehicle computer as cops cars do), then the fire chief can make a call whether to send in the guys inside the building or on the roof.

Business Idea - Automate Sending Birthday Gifts

2010-12-07T14:50:00.000-08:00

My wife and I don't have any kids so far but we go to (on average) one birthday party of our friends' kids every month. I am assuming for couples with kids this number would be at least 2 to 3. Now with every party, one needs to shop for a gift. You drive to a store, you try to find a gift suited for kid's age in the budget you set up.... moreover, we are not even sure which toys are "most popular" for kids of a particular age group. In all, I feel its the most tedious part of going to a party. I realize that for some people it may be a joy shopping for gifts but I suspect it will be a small percentage of gift shoppers. I verified the "tedious" nature of this task with a couples with kids. So here's a business idea...

How about you get a gift (nicely wrapped) "automatically selected and shipped" at your house a couple or so days before you have to go the birthday party? No driving to shops and hassle of finding something in your budget!

Here's one suggested way on how it could work:

1. Let's say an online toy vendor (amazon?) starts this "free" service in which you enroll.

2. You provide logistics information: shipping address, credit card, and a default budget for gifts.

3. Amazon also provides an online calendar.

4. Anytime you are invited to a birthday party, you add an event on the calendar which includes date of event, sex and age of birthday kid. You may also optionally set a different budget for that kid (let's say he/she is the kid of your best friend etc.)

5. Amazon figures out the "most popular" toy for the kid in that age range and ships it to you a few days before the party. This is the step that saves you a lot of trouble!

6. Since the calendar is stored with Amazon, it already has the data populated for the next year. Voila!

I think this presents significant value proposition for both end customers and Amazon and here is how:

Amazon:

. creates brand stickiness

. allows them to capture a "new" market segment (parents who otherwise would have shopped at a local store for a gift)

End customers:

. makes their life easy AT NO ADDED COST!

. Considering amazon does not charge state tax (for california at least for now...though this could change in future) at least customers in California enjoy a cool ~10% discount.

Thoughts/comments welcome... I am most curious to know if birthday gift shopping is a hassle or not for you.

Thanks,

Order of retrieval of Chile miners...

2010-10-11T13:40:00.000-07:00

I am sure most of you (if not everyone) is aware of Chile miners situation... they have been stranded more than 2000 feet below earth's surface for about 2 months now and will be rescued this week by using a special capsule. Now the catch is that the capsule can hold one person at a time... so given that there are 33 miners what should be the order of evacuation... note that these folks have been down there for 2 months now so they must be in an emotionally fragile condition and moreover there is always a possibility of things going wrong between the first and the last retrieval.

Given all of the above, if you were in charge of figuring out the order of retrieval, how would you do it?

After you have thought of your approach, check theirs at:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/10/11/chile.trapped.miners/index.html

(I think their approach is very practical... this could very likely be due to consulting from NASA folks).

In case you are wondering how important is order of evacuation, watch the movie "The Great Escape"...

Comments welcome...

Problem with USB thumb drives...

2010-06-26T14:31:00.000-07:00

... is that you don't find them when you need'em. So when do you really need the thumb drives... it is when you have to transfer data from your laptop/desktop/notebook to another computer. Then, why not put pre-package the machines with a thumb drive so that you always them by your side when you need them. I am pretty sure that at least desktop and laptop have enough real estate to house a thumb drive.

Thoughts?

MediaFLO

2010-05-27T22:24:00.000-07:00

Not sure if you have heard of this company before... at least I hadn't until it was mentioned in a course on strategy in my MBA classes. MediaFLO is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Qualcomm. Below I present a quick overview of the technology and my view on their current strategy.

TECHNOLOGY SUMMARY

FloTV is a technology that enables "broadcast" of TV channels to mobile devices (similar to channels you receive on your TV through DirecTV or Dish). Unless you have signed up with ATT or Verizon FloTV service, today you cannot "browse" TV channels on your mobile and then watch a channel you like. FloTV enables this. Even though current 3G technologies permit broadcast of video, it is a non-optimal solution i.e., it uses substantial air resources. Given that cell tower load has increased substantially in recent years primarily due to popularity of smartphones, service providers like ATT can barely maintain their voice/data quality and as such using the airwaves for "always-on" transmission of video is clearly not an option.

Note that FloTV is designed to work on a "separate" spectrum altogether (which is owned by Qualcomm of course) and as such FloTV will not impact voice/data quality on existing spectrum for service providers. This is the key advantage.

WHAT PRODUCT/SERVICE DOES MediaFLO SELL

MediaFLO markets their product as a "platform" that enables video content-delivery over air to be eventually seen on mobile devices (which is not only limited to cell phones - it could be purpose-built devices in your car to watch video etc.).

US ROLLOUT

Verizon (April 2007)

ATT (May 2008)

WHY FLO TV IS NOT MUCH OF A SUCCESS SO FAR

1. Marketing (red)

Its interesting to see how little ATT/Verizon spend on MediaFLO marketing even though this could be a revenue generating service for them. To me it seems, they jumped into this technology a little too early (peer-pressure?).

2. Coverage (red)

As a subscriber, I'll not be happy if I paid $30/month for this service and it stops working when I travel to other cities.

3. Cell phone manufactures (red)

For reasons mentioned earlier, only limited phones have MediaFLO technology (iPhone for one does not have it).

COMPETITION

Several…

DVB-H (European standard, backed by Nokia)

IMB (Integrated Mobile Broadcast; Endorsed by Vodafone, T-mobile, Orange, SingTel).

ATSC/NH (Advanced Television Systems Committee - Mobile/Handheld).

ISDB-T (Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting - Terrestrial)

[I'm not including pros and cons of each here; if you are interested in knowing about this, please let me know]

STRATEGY OVERVIEW

Would MediaFLO be more valuable

(a) as a division of Qualcomm vs. a standalone company vs. a division of a cellular network operator vs. a division of a cable/satellite operator vs. ???

My answer: For now, being a division of Qualcomm and later maybe as an independent company (my initial answer was an independent company but I changed it while typing my answer :-)).

First, lets look at who is included in the ecosystem of MediaFLO -- content-providers, wireless service providers, cell phone manufacturers and end-users (in that order).

Content is _the_ key in the current media world. As the margins on delivery medium (cable, satellite) are thinning out, the cable/satellite operators are moving towards owning the content (vertical integration). This was evident by Comcast's recent acquisition of NBC.

ISPs - they would love to enable any revenue generating service. Question for them is at what cost and how would it affect (if at all) the quality of their existing data/voice services.

Cell phone manufacturers could care less what technology they are embedding in the cell phone to enable mobile video as long as the technology is not expensive (could affect the manufacturer margin) and makes cell phone bulky. An exception to above is when cell phone manufactures have their own favorites (i.e., Nokia for DVB-H, a European standard). Amidst competing technologies, device manufacturers don't really know which technology to include in their product. This has been the biggest challenge IMHO so far in promoting broadcast video over cell phones and as such, I think this is the critical link in the value chain.

End users could also care less whether the live feed they receive on their cell phone is by using MediaFLO technology or something else (similar to the way we don't care how the wireless TV signal comes to our home). All they care about is following 3 things: content (which channels etc.), quality and price.

Given above, ...

1. MediaFLO cannot be part of cable operators like Comcast. Even though it would give access to content, it won't work well with existing customers like ATT/Verizon. (Comcast/ATT/Verizon compete on Internet/Voice front). Similar argument holds for MediaFLO being part of satellite operators like DirecTV or DISH.

2. MediaFLO cannot be a division of any cellular network operator as then pretty much it cannot sell its technology to a competing cellular network operator.

3. MediaFLO is best not part of Qualcomm as then it may not be able to have its technology embedded in cell phones made by world's largest cell phone manufacturers -- Nokia/Samsung/Motorola who are clearly against Qualcomm's monopoly. [I contradict myself here but I'll explain why I decided to go with Qualcomm later].

4. I do not see advantages for MediaFLO being an independent company. The only advantage perhaps is the delinking from Qualcomm (which is seen as the bully in town). Another advantage could be more subtle though important, is that of culture. Qualcomm is a company with strong licensing bent and having a strong engineering and litigation culture… I am wondering what options are off the table due to this association (I do not have any evidence to support my claim).

On a related note, MediaFLO announced recently (see their 2009 10K excerpt at the end) that it will be marketing directly to the consumer (presumably due to lack of marketing by ATT/Verizon). To me this strategy seems flawed, as I see MediaFLO as just an infrastructure service and it does not currently fall into customer criteria (content, quality and price) for using any broadcast video service. Quality perhaps. One can, however, argue the very successful "intel inside" marketing campaign -- a criterion that was used by consumers to buy intel-chipset based computers. But that situation was different in the sense that Intel had the bargaining power (vis-a-vis computer manufactures) whereas in this case arguably the cell phone manufacturers have the bargaining power (vis-a-vis MediaFLO).

5. This leaves us with following choice -- part of another company (couple of more options here: cell phone manufacturers or content providers).

First, I'll explore on the MediaFLO and cell phone manufacture angle…

As mentioned earlier, I strongly believe cell phone manufacturers are critical part of the value chain. Now, I don't know how feasible it is to package a "combination" of broadcast technologies in one device (my suspicion is that this choice is not feasible) and as such, in absence of a de-facto standard, most of the cell phones being shipped today do not have any such technology embedded in them. Moreover, certain manufactures may have personal preferences (e.g., Nokia for a non-qualcomm standard) which may be impeding growth of MediaFLO. To address this issue, MediaFLO could partner with Taiwanese cell phone companies such that it is able to put its technology on some of the best selling devices on each of ATT or Verizon networks. This implies partnering with iPhone (ATT), HTC (Verizon) and may be even Blackberry (both ATT and Verizon). This synergy will be most valuable for MediaFLO. This strategy can be executed best IMHO being as part of Qualcomm i.e., by leveraging Qualcomm's leadership in wireless space -- one option is to reduce the licensing fees charged to cell phone manufacturers). Very likely, cell phone manufacturers will jump at this offer as now their margins will improve. This, along with working with ATT/Verizon on pricing will very likely result in surge in customer uptake. With customers now considering support for ATT and Verizon's video service (aka MediaFLO) while buying new cell phones, it will put considerable pressure on Nokia/Motorola/Samsung who may then have to concede to this technology otherwise it will impact their cell phone sales in US.

The only reason it may make sense for MediaFLO to partner with content providers is that it would increase value proposition of MediaFLO solution. I believe that is best done outside Qualcomm rather than within Qualcomm (I do not have strong reasons to support this claim though).

(b) selling a bundle of device + transport + service direct to consumers vs. wholesale bundles to existing network operators (cellular or cable/satellite)?

Based on my argument above that MediaFLO is an infrastructure service, I believe they should not sell directly to consumers. I think they should focus on getting their technology be included in cell phones first.

(c) offering standalone mobile devices vs. converged mobile devices vs. targeting the automotive market?

I'd say for now its best if MediaFLO focuses on cell phones -- needless to say, more and more services are being provided through cell phone (email, browser, games) and as such it will be a natural extension to be able to see TV on such devices.

Borrowing from a Forrester Report in 2005 on the topic of mobile TV, the problem with MediaFLO is -

"misalignment of the service launch, handset availability, and user uptake."

WHO _MAY BE_ GETTING UNDER THE BUS

900 or so television stations (part of Open Mobile Video Coalition) that implemented ATSC mobile TV standard instead of FloTV.

Well, the fight is still on.

EXCERPT FROM QUALCOMM's 2009 10K

----

Our FLO TV Business. Our subsidiary, FLO TV Incorporated (FLO TV), formerly MediaFLO USA, Inc., offers its service over our nationwide multicast network based on our MediaFLO Media Distribution System (MDS) and MediaFLO technology, which leverages the Forward Link Only (FLO) air interface standard. This network is utilized as a shared resource for wireless operators and their customers in the United States. The commercial availability of the FLO TV network and service on wireless operator devices will continue, in part, to be determined by our wireless operator partners. FLO TV’s network uses the 700 MHz spectrum for which we hold licenses nationwide. Additionally, FLO TV has and will continue to procure, aggregate and distribute content in service packages, which we will continue to make available on a wholesale basis to our wireless operator customers (whether they operate on CDMA, WCDMA or GSM) in the United States. In fiscal 2010, FLO TV expects to offer the FLO TV service on a subscription basis directly to consumers in the United States. FLO TV plans to provide the services for use in personal television devices, automotive devices and other portable device accessories. These devices are expected to be sold through various retail and distribution channels.

Our MediaFLO Technologies (MFT) division is developing MediaFLO technology and marketing it for deployment outside of the United States. The market for mobile TV remains nascent with numerous competing technologies and standards.

----

MacPro Design

2010-04-09T01:33:00.000-07:00

MacBook Pro - features that can be improved

I recently got MacBook Pro laptop at my new job. Following are some aspects of the product that I believe could use a makeover:

1. Get rid of (very) sharp edges in the closing latch (see figure on right). Really, this is product design 101..

2. Make power button prominent…(it may be visible in the image on the side due to the special lighting in this image) but in normal lighting it is not that visibile; not sure if this is a marketing ploy to suggest that Macs don't need a power shutdown? :-)

3. Increase the length of power cord (this seems to be a no-brainer as currently the cord is too short) and reduce the size of the bulky adaptor at the end of the cord. Of all the design innovations happening at Apple, I wonder if someone is looking at the adaptor design... it seems it has been the same old bulky design since day 1 (I could be wrong though).

4. Provide standard DB-9/DE-9 VGA port on the laptop (for being able to connect laptop to standard monitors). Currently, one needs to carry a separate dongle to convert from Apple's proprietary DisplayPort interface to the DB-9 and believe me its a pain especially when you are about to start a customer preso and....

5. This problem is a unique one and may affect only certain people :-) I wear a metal strap wrist watch and typically wear it at the end of my wrist. Now, since MacBook Pro's shell is made of metal, typing on the keyboard causes the two metals to rub against each other and that is not pretty. To avoid this, I either have to take out my wrist watch or move it up the hand a bit so that it does not interfere with my typing. The usual Dell/IBMs have a plastic shell that used to work well with my wrist watch but oh well !

Saving energy costs by a simple design change

2010-01-31T10:35:00.000-08:00

Think of the last time when you operated a 2-handle faucet. Which handle did you turn first? Was it the left handle or the one on the right? Chances are that if you are right-handed, you turned the left tap first and if you are left-handed you turned the one on the right first. If this was any different, please let me know; I'd be curious to know.

Based on quick internet-based research, it seems that the installation instructions for most 2-handle faucet systems indicate that hot water be connected to the left handle and cold water be connected with the right one.

Given that almost 80% of population is right-handed, what that means is 80% of the times when a faucet is operated, the left handle is operated first, which delivers hot water. Now, I do not have data on whether people prefer hot water when they first operate the faucet but I'd guess that there is a significant combined percentage of people who either prefer cold water or who don't care versus the ones who prefer hot water at the first go.

Given above, to reduce energy costs one may want to interchange the hot and cold water connections at the time of installation i.e., connecting hot water to the right handle and cold to the left handle. This of course can be interchanged if the premise has predominantly left-handed folks. Better yet, with a simple design change, this configuration choice can be made dynamically by having a knob that controls the flow of the water to either handle.

The savings achieved at a single premise due to this change depends on several factors - frequency of opening tap, percentage of left-handed/right-handed people using a particular tap etc and may not be significant however economies of scale can be achieved if the modified faucet was used by a large population.

Canceling Vonage phone...

2009-08-10T13:31:00.001-07:00

Vonage... the name conjures up so many good things in life. 1 low flat monthly fee, the ability to take your phone anywhere, no hidden charges...really!

However, for the last one year we have had trouble with the service. If we are downloading data from Internet, voice quality on Vonage phone goes south (well I realize that both data and voice are sharing same Internet link to the home). And sometimes, the voice quality will go bad for no reason (we have all read news reports about cable operators and ISPs giving some special treatment to Vonage ;-)).

Anyhow, I finally did cancel the Vonage service due to it being not compatible with the home security system we just installed. When I called 800 number, I was quickly transferred to a customer representative who very politely handled the call. Upon mentioning my reason, he referred to a website "alarm.com" which provided home security service/products that are compatible with Vonage (interesting!). Anyhow, when I asked how much I will be returned back for the service I did not use for this month (Vonage takes payment at the beginning of the month for the service to be provided for that month)... he told me zero! Vonage does not pro-rate the monthly charges and may be it is mentioned in their not-so-brief contract (an industry standard BTW). Now the amount owed to me was insignificant but I found it a little odd that a company will charge for a service that it did not really provide. So much for good things in life.

Chrome enhancement

2009-08-06T15:04:00.001-07:00

In an earlier blog, I had mentioned about a Chrome enhancement: To be able to view the content from 2 or multiple tabs simultaneously. This would be helpful if you need to compare data from multiple Chrome windows.

Today, I'll mention another enhancement which I believe is equally powerful but on a priority scale I would give this one more priority.

If anyone of you has gone through experience of crashed/malfunctioning hard-drive and have a new hard-drive installed or have an existing hard-drive reimaged, you would probably understand this pain point: you lose the bookmarks of your browser quite a few of which you very likely aggregated over a period of time.

I know one can try to extract the bookmarks from the old hard drive... but how about the following:

Since most people using Chrome anyways have a gmail account, how about Chrome having a facility to upload the bookmarks (could be done automagically as well) and have a facility to download them to Chrome as well. This has multiple benefits:

1) In case of crash/reimage (as mentioned above), you can restore your bookmarks by literally doing one mouse click.

2) Let's say you are working on a different computer and need to access your bookmarks, you would have them readily available. (provided there is an option to delete the bookmarks when you are done without interfering with existing bookmarks on the Chrome that your friend is using.

3) (Google would be happy this)... Google already targets ads on gmail based on your personal emails. They could also target ads based on URLs (or their content) that you have bookmarked.

Seems to be win-win....

Bluetooth for cordless phones

2009-08-05T22:40:00.000-07:00

By making driving while holding cellphone illegal in California, the lawmakers have obviously given a big push to the use of bluetooth headsets that have pretty much become a common sight now. And honestly even though some of us may gripe about spending money in buying a headset (including yours truly), the benefits of hands-free talking are almost instantly felt. So far so good.

What happens when the same user is using a cordless phone at home? (As regards to why users may prefer using a cordless phone at home versus their cell phones should be a no-brainer; talk to anyone who ever dared to exceed their day-time minutes and thereby incurring the wrath of cell phone company's per minute charges). Coming back to the original question, the same user who is used to using a bluetooth headset while talking on cellphone would want the same ease of use while talking on cordless phones. One would almost think that the cordless phone manufacturers would have incorporated Bluetooth in their gigantic (relative to a cell phone) handsets.

Its time for a reality check....

Panasonic (world #1 in cordless phone sales)

None of its cordless phones have bluetooth capability. However, they do sell a model which allows one to "link" one's cell phone to the cordless phone over bluetooth so at home you would use only one phone ... your cordless phone. However, the phones handsets do not have bluetooth capability for pairing with a bluetooth handsfree.

http://www.panasonic.com/consumer_electronics/telephones_central/bluetooth_phones/default.asp

Vtech (World #2)

They are doing much better with their high-end models having a bluetooth capability for both linking with cell phone and also pairing with a bluetooth headset. It seems as of now this feature is available in only 3 models (I am assuming that the cost of adding a bluetooth transciever in a cordless phone will only be marginal considering that the technology is fairly standardized and as such I'd expect bluetooth to be a must-have feature in all cordless phones). Vtech currently provides Bluetooth capability in only 2 models:

http://www.vtechphones.com/vtechui/store/dsp_products_list.cfm?parent=23644

Gigaset aka Siemens (World #3)

They seem to be doing the best of all by having multiple phones supporting Bluetooth but I must say that even though their phones look the sleekest, they ccompensate their strength in design by creating a technology confusion... have a look at their website and you will see acronyms like ECO DECT (I had heard DECT but what the heck is ECO DECT), HDSP, HSP....

Though I am by no means a professional marketeer, how do they imagine the potential buyers of cordless phones understanding and appreciating this complex terminology. Even though the observation is definitely not new by any means, I fail to understand why companies fail to empathize with their customers.... please talk to us in a language that we speak, understand and appreciate and hey, we will reciprocate by making more money for you!

Uniden (World #4)

Let's not go there....

How not to organize a retail store

2009-07-06T02:17:00.000-07:00

If you have visited Kenneth Cole store in Valley Fair Mall, San Jose you may probably know what I am talking about. Out of so many times I have visited the store, I have hardly bought anything. Why? For one, they do not seem to have any variety in any of the products they carry. There are so few designs, so few choices that even when my catches a unique design and I want to look for more, I see none which is a big disappointment. Second, the store is organized in a somewhat haphazard manner which confuses the customer. Women's clothes are at the entrance and then again at the back of the store, mixed with men's clothes. Then there is no clear section for trousers, full-sleeves or half-sleeves shirts and mostly clothes are hung so close together that they do not offer a quick sneak preview to the browsing customer. I love Kenneth Cole brand as I have been really happy with however many products I have purchased from them. The brand is strong but the product display really lacks character.

On the contrary, the Armani Exchange store in the mall is a complete opposite. Even thouh AX has only roughly half of the space that KC has, AX store is organized in a much clearer and cleaner manner which provides for a good customer browsing (and hence customer purchase) experience. I have also noticed that AX store gets much more fashionable items (and replenishes them at a faster rate) as compared to KC.

I am sure KC will do a turnaround some day.... at least if someone is keeping a watch on the store sales. As for me, I will continue visiting the store hoping to see a better KC.

Unsympathetic news reader?

2009-06-08T02:21:00.001-07:00

While watching report of Air France tragedy on CNN, I noticed an odd thing; the news reader on the left side seems to have a little smile on her face. I don't know what was running through her mind at that time but the expression on her face was quite disrespectful, to not only the people who lost their lives in this terrible tragedy but to their families and friends as well. I hope such behavior is not repeated.

Air france tragedy

2009-06-04T06:22:00.001-07:00

As we have all heard by now, Air France went down in Atlantic few days back on its way to Paris from Rio. 228 people all dead. Was it bad weather... complete failure of electrical systems, it seems no one will ever know as from the media reports it appears that it is highly unlikely to locate the black box considering that it may be at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean or stuck in the mountainous region in that part part of the Atlantic. This made me think why don't they make black box to be floatable. I googled it and came across the following:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090603083335AAxBlmS

Particularly, I found following reply from a person named "propman" quite relevant:

------

Cockpit Voice Recorders (CVR) and Flight Data Recorders (FDR) would certainly be easier to locate if they floated but there are serious engineering problems to overcome. The recorders are usually located in the rearmost compartment, near the centerline of the fuselage and as such is surrounded by the structure of the aircraft. This is done to provide the recorders with as much mechanical protection as possible in a crash. The recorders can also record up to several dozen (in the case of FDRs) channels of information. This means the electrical connectors are very large and require a bit of work sometimes to disconnect. The recorders are also big and heavy.

In order to separate the recorder from the aircraft would require some mechanical means to eject the unit from the aircraft during the beginning of the impact event, before the tail structure became distorted. The “Launching Charge” must not present any danger of starting a fire and be powerful enough to push the recorder a safe distance from the plane. Think of an scaled down ejection seat, only pushing against a heavy steel box. The box would still be heavy since it would need to suvive the crash in case it didn't eject. The electrical connectors must also release instantly, completely and reliably. Perhaps just cutting the wires with a squib charge.

Now we have to get the box to float. Floatation foam is simple enough, but the shear volume required would make an already unwieldy box even more difficult. Perhaps a self inflating bag, like a life vest? That may work. And if the box is floating, an Emergency Locator Beacon (ELT) would assist in locating it. The recorders are already fitted with a device for finding it if it sinks. This device is called an Underwater Locator Beacon (ULB) and is NOT part of the recorder but is separate and located on the outside of the recorder case attached by brackets.

There we have it: Recorders that jettison from aircraft during impact and float.

So why don’t we have them?

The answer is MONEY.

To design such a system and maintain it would not only cost a large amount of money, but that cost would provide a disproportionate cost-benefit. That is to say it’s not worth it. The purpose of the recorders is to assist in crash investigation but they are not the only source of information and as such are nice to have but not absolutely necessary.. Besides, there have been recorders that have been recoverable in water crashes by other means. Very few have been ‘lost’.

Perhaps in the future we may have a palm sized combination CVR-FDR that weighs mere ounces and be mounted on top of the rudder under plastic film....

Hmmmm……Maybe……..But not today.

----------

LTTE is gone. What Mahinda Rajapaksa must do now...

2009-05-18T14:37:00.000-07:00

It is time for the world to congratulate Sri Lankans for having taken out LTTE, a home grown group of separatists who had used terror and suicide killing to further their agenda. The approach of using terrorism as a means of achieving an independent state has seldom worked (it worked in case of Nepal Maoists whose main agenda was to give equal rights for lower-caste people). To understand more about Maoists and its movement refer to these (BBC, Time) links.

In any case, at this juncture in Sri Lanka it is important that President Rajapaksa works towards providing a equitable life for Tamilians in Sri Lanka otherwise it could be a matter of time when someone fills in the shoes of Prabhakaran.

Name of countries and the radical groups that are known to use violence

Country Radical Group Why Status

Peru Shining Path Marxism Ongoing

Nepal Maoists Marxism Currently form the official govt. of Nepal

Sri Lanka LTTE Separate State Eradicated

Columbia ELN Marxism Ongoing

....

Popular phrases by profession...

2009-04-04T21:51:00.000-07:00

What do people belonging to a particular profession/situation say most often :-)

A Witness: I don't recall...

A Manager: It depends...

A Lawyer: I object...

Design Gotchas

2009-03-17T09:24:00.001-07:00

Apple is known for its cool, innovative and user-friendly designs and rightly so: iPods and iPhones have revolutionized the otherwise lackluster electronic consumer product market. However, it is equally surprising when a design conscious company makes some very obvious design blunders. I recently bought an iMac and as much as I was amazed by the beauty of the product, I was disappointed to see the extra-ordinarily short keyboard and mouse wires. Even if I place the desktop at an arm length, the mouse wire comes really short. Sometimes I like to place the keyboard on the tray, in which case the keyboard wire falls short. Honestly, this is frustrating. Moreover, I was hoping to not get a laptop-sized keyboard with a Desktop computer. Maybe they could have packaged an ergonomically designed keyboard with Bluetooth (so that I can reduce the wire clutter on the table).

I am reminded of another product design annoyance from an otherwise design conscious company - Ikea. Ikea never stops to amaze the new shopper setting a step in their store and even for the regular shoppers it is a pleasant experience looking at the diverse and beautifully arranged room settings. On my first visit several years back, while I was enjoying the unique experience, I remember almost feeling disoriented in the big showroom; easy navigation in a store with large real estate is a rare phenomenon. In any case, the design gotcha that was most glaringly obvious was when I went to the check-out counter. The conveyor belt was quite narrow and it was difficult to place even modestly small items on the belt. It could be a small thing but it was definitely a bit annoying to try manage putting all the products on the belt. If you have been to Ikea, I'd be interested in knowing your thoughts.

1st Customer of HYC

2009-03-09T00:14:00.000-07:00

Today, I drove my first customer of Help-You-Carry. She was an old lady living in San Jose. She had gotten information about HYC from Los Gatos Senior Center and she wanted to utilize the driving+shopping service, as she couldnt drive herself. My wife had accompanied me this time and that helped: the lady was using a walker and having my wife helped in overall logistics. Also, while the lady was shopping in the Target store, my wife and I did some of our own shopping. Overall it took about 3+ hrs from the time we left our home to the time when we were back. It felt really good to be able to help someone!

Does California owe money to you?

2009-02-24T18:21:00.001-08:00

Heard this on a local news channel:

Go to the following site and enter your name/city information to see if you are owed some money (at least I wasn't)

http://scoweb.sco.ca.gov/UCP/

Thank you Apple for listening!

2009-02-24T11:18:00.000-08:00

I have had the iPhone for more than a year now and I was experience dropped calls very often. More often than note, my phone will go to voicemail and I will hear the voicemail beep roughly about 10-15mins after the call was placed. Obviously, my wife was not happy about this. But I carried on with my iphone hoping Apple will fix the "minor" glitch. And so it did.

http://www.apple.com/iphone/softwareupdate/

Amongst the list of new updates, Apple mentions at the end of the list:

"Decrease in call setup failures and dropped calls"

Thank you Apple for listening!

Volunteer Lawyers

2009-02-21T19:19:00.000-08:00

I just came to know about this wonderful volunteer program that provides 20 min free legal consultation. Its called "Lawyers in the Library" program. It runs out of King Library in San Jose. There are other locations as well. The following link also contains pointers to similar volunteer efforts.

Check out:

http://www.sjlibrary.org/about/locations/king/lawyers.htm

Counter intuitive!

2009-02-17T13:21:00.000-08:00

As many of us already know, California State is in deep red. At a high level, I wonder why the 8th biggest economy in the world is $41 billion in deficit. Sure we had the housing bubble, reduced corporation tax due to lesser profits.... but does that all add up to $41 billion. I am curious to know the reason for the shortfall. I quickly googled it but have not yet been able to find any analysis on the issue. So, I turned to the source of information:

http://www.dof.ca.gov/budgeting/budget_faqs/

There is a lot of information and I will be analyzing it in coming days but for starters lets look at the sheet that details of the distribution of California State employees for different functions.

http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/BudgetSummary/BS_SCH4.pdf

Number of "Executives" is proposed to increase from 14,303 to 14,787 from 2007 to 2009 (a 3.3% increase).

Number of "Resources" (a very vague term) is proposed to increase from 14,509 to 15,616 (a 7.6% increase).

During the same time the number of K-12 teachers is proposed to decrease from 2903 to 2848 (a 1.8% decrease).

Now, when the state is going through a financial crisis, I am wondering why we are creating more "Executive" level positions. Moreover, I am curious to understand what functions "Resourcing" covers. Decreasing the number of teachers, quite unfortunately, seems to be the easiest thing to do but I wonder if anyone considers the long-term impact of such decisions.

What is Leadership?

2009-02-14T17:51:00.000-08:00

Leadership is a loaded word; it means so many different things to different people that often the essence of the word is lost in lofty definitions. My tryst with leadership comes from my job as a manager at my workplace where day in and day out I am in situations where someone looks up to me to make a call. I may not know the right answer; in fact there may be none but that is where the leadership gets defined. I not only need to make the decision but I need to get everyone on board with it. Leadership is about passion of one becoming passion of many and that I believe defines the essence of being a true leader. Leadership is about character and integrity... it is about having the backbone, accepting when you make a mistake and also sticking by your call which you firmly believe in even if you meet with resistance. Leadership is about inspiring the backbenchers, making them believe they also can.

I embrace leadership more naturally now than I used to earlier and it is fun!

Do you like your Martinis up or over?

2009-02-12T23:06:00.000-08:00

Ok... so I started the bartending class this week :-) It is an absolute fun being behind the bar but it is not as easy as I thought it would be! I know how to make around 30 drinks and the variations of them thereof. Learning the lingo is a big part of the job e.g., when someone says give me a drink "mex style" they mean add 1/2 ounce of Tequila in the drink, and then there are terms like against the wall, with a little english... I know what they are asking for. I hope to learn the skill by next month... and then I'll be looking for internships!

Why Apple TV does not sell well?

2009-02-05T13:15:00.000-08:00

First, I love Apple TV. Because of it, I have been able to listen to music more often, entertain guests with funny youtube videos, and see long forgotten photo albums. However, for the all good things Apple TV does, there are so many others that it doesn't do so well, which probably explains why the product didn't take off in the market.

1. Apple TV has only supports HDMI and Component Video ports for connecting to TV; older TVs have neither of them. Just by that, the market reach of the AppleTV reduces substantially.

2. Oversimplistic remote. Apple is known for cool and functional designs. However, AppleTV remote is way too simple. Desired options: a) control volume, b) TV option to choose HDMI port to use (currently, first I have to use TV remote to first switch input to AppleTV HDMI port and then use AppleTV remote). c) one-button-play (as the name suggests, with the press of one button I'd like to listen to music on AppleTV)

..to be continued.

Open letter to California Senator Ms. Elquist

2009-01-24T12:52:00.000-08:00

Dear Senator Alquist,

My name is Sandeep Jain and I am a resident of the city of Santa Clara.

I care deeply about state of California and with this letter I want to bring to your kind attention the pressing issue of water scarcity in California. On its website, the Department of Water Resources mentions that “California is facing the most significant water crisis in its history”.

I would like to suggest one approach which can help save several millions of gallons of water per year – through the use of waterless urinals in public places.

States of Arizona and Oregon have already enacted bills and to this effect.

Arizona Bill 2276 (effective Jan 1, 2005)
http://www.azleg.state.az.us/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/46leg/2R/adopted/H.2276-SE-ENV.DOC.htm

Oregon State Plumbing Board Ruling (effective around Jan 7, 2005)
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4184/is_20050107/ai_n10047708

I sincerely request you to enact similar law for the state of California.

Your kind attention in this matter is most sincerely appreciated.

Thanks & Best Regards,
Sandeep Jain

Help-You-Carry (more...)

2009-01-22T16:38:00.000-08:00

Last week I sent out emails to Senior Citizen centers of Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Campbell, Cupertino, Fremont and Los Gatos. I got strong interest from Cupertino city.

I met with the co-ordinator at the Senior Center today and she mentioned that the service would be quite useful for 15-20 seniors she serves. She also promised to discuss this service with other organizations working for seniors.

I am happy to see that the effort is progressing!

Help-You-Carry

2009-01-17T19:29:00.001-08:00

I started Help You Carry (HYC) this week after seeing the discomfort certain people have in carrying basic shopping items.

Help-You-Carry (HYC) is a volunteer effort to help people with disabilities and old people to carry shopping items.

Logistics:

1. Send email to helpyoucarrry at gmail.com to schedule time/pick-up
2. Proposed time: Sundays 1-5pm.
3. Currently servicing requests within roughly 20 miles of Santa Clara.
4. If you do not have your own vehicle, HYC can bring its own car.
5. Pick up from home and drive to the shopping place (preferably close by)
6. HYC will help in shopping and picking items and finally delivering and dropping them off at pick-up place.

Water Conservation: Another milestone to reach

2009-01-17T19:17:00.001-08:00

In 1994, US Government released a mandate that restricts the capacity of single toilet flush to no more than 1.6 gallons of water. It was a great step to reduce water consumption across every household in US.

If you wish to learn more about water conservation standards mandated by US and individual states, check the following site:

http://www.facilitiesnet.com/bom/article.asp?id=2734

Through this site, I came to know that in Arizona and Oregon, water cannot be used for flushing in urinals! I haven’t been to either of the states so far, but will be on the lookout.

I suppose there is one more way to substantially reduce water wastage: Push-button water-control for showerheads.

Most of us have a lever based water-control for our showers. At the time of entering bath, one has to fiddle around with the right setting of the lever to get the desired temperature of the running water. Due to the effort involved in doing this, I suspect if anyone turns off the shower while soaping. And this is where the problem lies. Assuming an average bath time of 10 to 15 minutes, I would suppose one spends roughly 20% of the time is spent in soaping (during which running shower is not required), we end up wasting around 5 gallons of water per bath (federal standard mandates water flow rate of showers to be less than or equal to 2.5 gallons/minute). Now, if we had a way to turn off the shower at the push of a button and restart the shower which delivered water at the same temperature as before, we can save 5 gallons of water per bath!

Doing some rough calculation (see below), based on Santa Clara country water rates, a family of four will save the following:

Total water savings/year = $9.80 (modest)

Pride in saving 7300 gallons of water = Immeasurable

Calcuations:

Water usage per year = 365 * 5 * 4 = 7300 gallons

Water rate for Santa Clara, CA = $0.877 per Hundred Cubic Feet (HCF)

1 HCF = 748 gallons

Total cost of water usage per year = 7300/748 = $9.80

Doing some rough calculation based on US population, the average savings per year comes to be around 456 billion gallons of water!!

HDMI - a useful feature it lacks

2009-01-14T01:48:00.000-08:00

When you connect a device to your computer through USB, you may have noticed how the computer “recognizes” the USB device and displays the name of the device in the directory. USB standard must have a provision which allows for easy identification of devices connected to the computer through USB.

Let’s move over to HDMI. A High Definition television (Plasma or LCD) contains usually a few of those (1-4 ports). Now, usually multiple HDMI ports are in use simultaneously e.g.,

HDMI port 1 connected to Cable box

HDMI port 2 connected to DVD/Blue-Ray disc player

HDMI port 3 connected to Game console (Playstation/X-Box)

....

The trouble comes when you have to switch the input to the TV from one HDMI port to another. Since HDMI standard very likely does not have provision of device identification, my TV just displays “HDMI port 1, HDMI port 2,....” leaving me to guess which port is connected to which device.

I wish HDMI had device identification built-in in which case the TV could have displayed “HDMI-1: Cable, HDMI-2: DVD,...” or something like that making it really convenient to change the inputs.

Israel War

2009-01-14T00:51:00.000-08:00

Every war has its beginning. This war probably had its beginning in Jan 2006 when Hamas defeated its only rival Fatah in the Parliamentary Elections of 2006; Palestine people were ready to give Hamas a chance to resolve the Israel-Palestine situation. It is notable that both political parties -- Hamas and Fatah -- have militant factions, though only Hamas has been declared as a terrorist organization by several countries. Fights between the two militant groups are quite common, however the situation took a different turn in Jun 2007 when Hamas successfully rebelled against the Fatah party and took control of the Gaza strip. After that war, Palestine Authority took control over West Bank, a distinct part of Palestine and Hamas took over Gaza.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Palestine_Map_2007.gif

Since the power shift after Jun 2007 conflict, Hamas has fired rockets into Israel territory essentially trying to escalate the bigger Palestine-Israel conflict. To stop the rocket attacks and very likely to disengage the Hamas, Israel attacked Gaza in Jan 2009. The war still continues with no hope of ending; UN resolution on ending the war continues to be stalled with key members in UN Security Council not backing such a move.

The war will however end one day. I suspect that with the kind of terror civilians in Gaza have seen will further fuel Hamas's purpose. Maybe Israel needs to fight this battle differently by turning the civilians against Hamas. May be during this ongoing conflict, Israel can show a humanitarian approach by offering to take care of injured civilians women and children. Such a move will not only help in saving lives, it will also help Israel tremendosuly in gaining civilians vote of confidence.

Middle East Mayhem

2009-01-05T12:40:00.001-08:00

World is divided between right and wrong. Someone's right could be someone's wrong.

In the case of middle-east conflict, the root cause of the matter seems to be that Hamas (an organization that publicly uses terrorism as a means to achieve its goals) is leading Palestine (vs. a much more diplomatic Palestine National Authority). However, Hamas came into power through democratically held elections. In that sense, one would suppose Israel's real issue is with Palestine people and not Hamas.

If at all Israel needs to amend the situation, it needs to wage public opinion against Hamas. Lets face it, no one wants to see their homes getting bombed and their children, women and youth being killed. By attacking Palestine, it could be prompting more civilian Palestines to think or be like Hamas. A moderate individual from Palestine could now very well decide to become a revolutinary now. What good can it do for Israel?

Instead, Israel should have focused first on diplomatic means to resolve the issue. With "new" US government support, they could have possibly gone quite far with it. As any able statesman would agree, there are subtle ways of turning people opinion against a Government that uses means of terror to rule. At the end of the day, a civilian living in Palestine cares no less for peace than a civilian living in Israel.

Another thing that this conflict brings out is a template for other countries to follow in future. UN clearly seems to be an ineffective organization, sadly, yet again. [after its failure in Darfur and continued failure for improving situation in Zimbabwe]. In near memory, UN has never been able to take any concrete steps for benefit of people; they always seem to be bound by the diplomacy of the Security Council. UN , for all practical purposes, has been reduced to a red-tape organization. As regards US, they have officially endorsed Israel attack. The other day, I was watching an interview of Dick Cheney. He responded that Israel did not seek"US okay" before starting the aggression.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052558.html

I wonder why anyone needs to take an okay from US before trying to solve their international disputes. They should be going to UN; but oh well, I just mentioned earlier how efficient UN is in solving such problems, so never mind. Coming back to response from US, does that mean that US will now endorse any such similar actions by other countries as well. Does it mean that any country can now attack Somalia if their vessels have been attacked by Somalian pirates? How about Pakistan and India situation? Routinely, terrorists from Pakistan (whether they are State sponsored or endorsed is disputed though) cross the border into Indian territory and rage a proxy war there. If India attacks Pakistan, will US or World react similarly as it has done in recent Israel-Palestine conflict.

When will we stop this hyprocrisy? When will our leaders actually start caring about the people who do not want war, but to be able to live peacefully? Why cant diplomacy be in vogue again?

I am definitely not pro-war and I firmly believe that any sort of aggression should be used only as a last resort.

Chicago Circus

2009-01-05T12:31:00.000-08:00

May be Roland Burris really reserves the Senate seat. However, I fail to understand how any self-respecting man would want to be elected to the Senate by an alleged (though very clearly) corrupt Governor. If Burris thought he was the rightful candidate for the job, why he did not wait for allegations against Blagojevich to be cleared or the next Governor to be elected.

CNN quotes "Burris, 71, is a lifelong Illinoisan and one of the state's most accomplished African-American politicians."

However, Burris recent actions seem to point at his desire for the post of Senator more than anything else. And that clearly does not seem to an action of a deserving leader.

The Ad they should show in MBA schools

2008-12-11T21:47:00.000-08:00

ShamWow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwRISkyV_B8

ShamWow is a paper towel substitute that can soak tremendous amount of water. The guy in the ad does an awesome job in selling the product in the ad. Both content and delivery are quite admirable.

Search for email on iPhone

2008-12-11T09:44:00.000-08:00

Problem:

Yesterday, I spent roughly 25 mins to look for an email on my iPhone. I needed to call a friend and his phone number was in that email.

Workaround:

Even though it should be obvious by now, email interface on iPhone should provide an interface for searching through email. Considering that IMAP4 (the standard protocol that is used to download emails from the email server to any device) provides search capability, it shouldn't be hard to implement this feature. I hope to see this in new release of software on iPhone.

Product Analysis

2008-10-04T15:23:00.001-07:00

Google chrome

Problem:

Actually this issue is all browsers supporting tabbed browsing, but I was hoping Google Chrome would fix it (or may be it is in their todo list). Often times, I feel the need for seeing content of web-pages from multiple tabs "at the same time"... the only alternative I have at that time is to CTRL-TAB b/w the tabs which is a painful process. I feel that this problem is a generic one and could be faced by many others.

Suggestion:

A similar feature has been implemented in editors used in UNIX... I know of at least "vim" that has this feature (:vsp #short for vertical split). For internet browsers, my suggestion is following:

1) For each tab associate a number (I believe it is already done), that will be displayed along with the tab (new feature) so that one does not need to count to find the exact tab number (espeically if you have multiple tabs open).

2) For displaying multiple tabs together, user enters CTRL-S (lets say), then enters the tab number for all tabs that need to be displayed together and then again enters CTRL-S. To go back to individual tab display user could enter CTRL-S in the unified window again.

There are few important things to note here:

a) Zero use of mouse

b) Using same CTRL-character sequence for both starting and ending the unified display. Moreover, since 'S' key is placed very near CTRL key, it is easier to press both keys together.

Course reviews done at universities

Problem:

A 'course review' is more of a process rather than a product but anyways I'll comment on this since I believe the way it is usually conducted does not fulfill its purpose. Considering that the prestige of a school is as good as the quality of education being imparted, it is of utmost importance to get the feedback process right (to be effective, any mechanical or functional system needs a feedback loop!).

Course reviews are typically done in last class in last 5/10 mins of the course. I'd suppose this is the time, when a student is either thinking about rushing to the next class for final presentation or exam or getting back to home. The problem here is that the student's motivation in filling out the form is minimal at the time reviews are done. That needs to be fixed.

Suggestion:

I'd suggest using _first_ 20/30 mins (lets say) of last class for review. Now, if I think of myself as a student staring at a paper for next 30 mins, however much I am disinterested in the process, I'd put at least some information there. Moreover, students who are genuinely interested in providing feedback would utilize the time to provide a more thoughtful review.

After that, I'd suggest to have the feedback be read by a third party who reviews the comments and provides summary to the Head of the Department and the professor.

And, after all this, I'd have the summary (% of students who thought that the course contents were good and that it was well-taught) be put on course website for future students reference. Considering the amount of money that is spent on college tuition, I'd think it makes sense to provide past-students feedback of a course, so that students can then make a better decision about which course elective to take.

Gmail

Problem:

IMHO Gmail's UI is an example of how UI should not be designed (it is indeed more surprising that the product is from Google known for its simplistic yet powerful UIs).

Issue#1: Too many mouse movements

When you are logging, mouse is towards right side of the screen (that's where user/password need to be entered). However, after logging in, mouse travels towards left, as you would start going over the emails (because the sender of the email is displayed on left). Once you find email of your interest, you would click on it. If you would like to reply, you would need to travel mouse pointer to right again (i.e., 3 left-right mouse movements so far!). If you are thinking whats the big deal with this, think about people with RSI/tendonitis/Carpel Tunnel (which is BTW an increasing % of computer users).

Moreover, if you need to forward the email, it is tricky. First, you would realize quickly that there is no button on screen which says "forward". After that you'd guess that it will probably be under drop down menu under "Reply" button. Now to do this, one has to put the mouse pointer at precisely the drop down arrow and then click. This could be cumbsersome especially for people with hand injuries with repeated use of keyoard.

Lightreading.com message boards

Problem:

Oftentimes, I am looking to read the messages in a "single" page and not clicking every time for every response I am interested in which is quite a painful thing to do (and time consuming as well).

Suggestion:

There should be a "view all" kinda option where in one single web page you can read everything.

Temperature controllers at home

Problem:

Dont know about other folks but even though I am an engineer, I have not been able to figure out with much ease how to control various knobs on the thermostat - e.g., lets say I want to make sure that at night when I sleep the AC should run for only 1 hr and then shut off and then start again at 7am and then shut off an hr later - I am sure it is possible to do this just that it is not fairly obvious how to do that. On top of that when you need the product manual you wont find it! (murphy's law).

Suggestion

In such devices, make a slot to hold the documentation - there is no better place to shelf the documentation manual then in the product itself. Actually this can be extended to other similar products e.g., water-controller device that regulates water for backyard.

Bluetooth Car Device

Oftentimes, products miss to address the very basic problem that they are supposed to address.

I came across such a product recently - Roadmasters VR3 bluetooth speaker for cars (http://www.roadmasterusa.com/vr3_bluetooth.html). I bought this from Costco for roughly $40.

One basic problem is the sound is not loud enough! (its natural to assume that with traffic and ambient noise, the volume really needs to be loud). I wonder how such basic tests are missed in product design.

Other problemI found was that LEDs are not bright enough - it is not clear whether the product is on or off.

So no matter whether the product purports voice-dialing or having a built-in DSP chip for cancelling echo, I am going to return the product to Costco and look at alternatives.

New product ideas

2008-08-30T15:52:00.000-07:00

Search on Songs
I have roughly 3000 songs on my iPoD/iPhone/iXXX; however I cannot hear the song I want to hear when I want to hear it. It is a pain to search for song I am interested in. We need a way to quickly search the songs based on song data (more than what CDDB provides).

References
CDDB:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDDB

Internet Kisoks in big shopping stores

How many times have you looked at a shelf of similar products and wondering which one to buy. This is especially true for electronic items. In my last visit to a local electronics store, I was looking to buy a printer and there were so many options that it was difficult to decide. It was not clear if I am paying more for a printer, what additional features I am getting. This problem has been solved for internet buying where you can compare the features of similar products by comparing them feature by feature in a table format. Only if this was available for in-store shopping as well....

Data mining
There is no better way to understand your customer then analyzing in-store data of purchases. This is as real as it gets. Some of the uses of this data are:
1) Customer buying trends
Helps store to decide what to keep, how much to keep... per store!
2) Selective coupon marketing
A vegetarian customer will very likely trash coupon for frozen ham.