From East to West - Almost

The above sentence captures my journey in the last 19 months or so. Yes !! From the shores of Marina in Chennai to deccaan plateau to the current Santacruz beach in California, for me the world around has come from East to West.

None of the past 19 months have been less exciting than its previous ones, every month promised something new, something dramatic or something topsy turvy. Right from the haphazard transition from India to US to snail pace movement from East Coast ( US ) to West Coast. In between were some really wonderful moments, unforgettable journeys to Canada and Florida and in and around the Upstate of NY.

Rochester probably was the best place I could land into when coming to US. Not so small, the imaging capital of the world, home to the famous lake effect snow points along with Syracuse and Buffalo, courteous people and a really wonderful place to live in. That's Rochester in nutshell. Some wonderful things about Rochester which I miss in the sunny silicon valley of California are :

1. SNOW - I know I can get it if I hit Sierra, but the luxury of snow at your feet and playing around with it is something incredible.
2. Finger lakes - Have visited some of them and needless to say they are the best places to relax.
3. Working @ Kodak - the pioneers of Imaging, great team to work with.
4. Cricket @ Rustic - As wonderful are the apartments, so is the pleasure of playing and meeting people there.
5. Community of Wipro - Probably the best off-work interaction with colleagues in my career, if this community wasn't there, life would have been surely as white and bland as a snow packed lake.

As it was destined to happen, events lead to yet another change, this one not happening in January for a change but yes, it happened in June. Moved over from an Indian MNC to a French MNC. Hopefully the changes stop for good now.

Back into the land of the Silicon Valley, the Indian occupation seems more powerful than US one on Iraq and for good too. Though technically we never invaded, but now we own this as a Indo-Sino territory. Plenty to be happy about here, including the most pleasant weather, nearby San Francisco, Sierra Nevada, long beaches and yes the world famous Sequoias. Hoping to discover more of California than did the gold diggers of the past.

Nouveau Experience - Le Windows Vista RCx

Whoooo . .

Its been a terribly long pause for me to come back to blog once again. Well, something got excited me so much, that I couldn't stop myself putting it down on the web.
After coming over to the home of the "Internet", I have been happy to utilise the unlimited acess and decent speeded "broadband" connections to cater to my unsatiable desire of HUGE software downloads and evaluate them for my curiosity and knowledge. Being a long time member of "Hotmail" has done good things to me, I got to be on most of the Beta programs of Microsoft and got to evaluate anything from Windows Live mail to the Windows Vista RC program.

To sum it up, it is always exciting to be testing and using the "gen-next" technology when others are still coming to terms with the current market techs in offer. Here are some insights into what some of the new gen-next tech offers from Microsoft family.

1. Windows Live mail - Absolutely perked up from the native "Hotmail" interface, works slightly slow,, but the user efficiency is hugely increased, the spam filter works good and the GUI is exciting than ever.
2. Windows Live Messenger : This one looks more of a cosmetic upgrade with Yahoo! inter-connectivity to bridge the gap between the world's 2 heavily used IM apps. Nothing more to write about, except complain for the bloated size and large memory foot print.
3. Windows Live Desktop Mail Beta : This is a new incarnation of "Outlook Express" which I was sure was going to go away after being abused by spam generating Trojans and other windows vulnerabilities. Surprise, Windows brings it up to speed to look and feel like Windows Live mail and adds RSS option to it to make it worth the attempt even though there is not much exclusive to write about this app, but till it is free, why grudge.
4. Windows Vista RCx ( Build 5xxx) : The upcoming OS has been a platform of discussions, abuses, puns and internet gossip for over 2 years now. Getting to test it was an absolute experience. It all started with downloading Beta and then running into problems with upgrading the current home system with this version. Along came RC1 version and that opened the real possibility of testing out the new features and noticeable "drops" from XP. I wouldn't want to go all way to say what is good and bad, coz you can google and read site loads of info on that. All I would want to say is :

• If you liked XP / MCE, you would love Vista for candy floss.
• If you hate bloated OS, you would damn Vista
• If you loved security of Windows NT, welcome to the new "Avatar" which grabs your attention a little too much than required.
• If you love fast running OS on high-end systems, definitely check out Windows Vista

Something which really raked up the storm was the "Licensing" terms of Windows Vista referring to limited migration of the copy of the OS to systems. Never was such a strong outcry seen on something which has been the pinching factor for Microsoft. Maybe, they tried to be smart for one more time and had to be "shown" their place again by the people who have made it, what it is now.

I would wait and see how the pricing rates go with the customers. I would definitely watch for some "slick deal" on getting the Ultimate version of the OS, possibly FREE !!