Yet another Google product

Google has begun its chase after MS Office now....Google is coming up with a Spreadsheet to compete with MS Excel. Will this work?? You can read about it here

I personally feel that Excel has a lot more features and people are used to using Excel. Will all of them shift to Google Spreadsheet??
The big question "Is it a freeware?" If yes, Google has a chance of out beating MS.

So what do you guys think about this??

Long weekend!!

Finally the long weekend is almost here. People at work are all talking about their plans for this weekend. People have been talking about their Memorial day Weekend plans for almost 2 weeks now...Why cant people take a day off and turn a usual weekend into a long weekend??

I guess I am either going to stay at home and catch up on lectures or go on a road trip... I am 99% sure that I am going to end up doing the latter!!
Let me know what your plans are! May be I might end up in the same place ;)

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Most of you might have seen this video already. But I thought that I should write about it...

BBC had scheduled a live interview with Guy Kewney of Apple regarding the Apple Vs. Beatles lawsuit. But the interviewer ends up interviewing a guy named "Guy Goma" from Congo who is there for a job interview!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4D8w2v7IB8

It is a very funny video. A must watch!!!! I guess Goma did a real good job. If I were in his place, I am sure I would have freaked out... He answered the questions boldly even though he didn't know what he was talking. Listen to what he has to say very closely about the Internet.. But on the whole I think Goma did a good job of helping the show go on...

It is high time I posted here!!

It has been quite a long time since I posted.. Been pretty busy with shifting and settling down. Din't have internet at home until yesterday!!

Finally I have my access to the WORLD (Internet)!! Work has kept me occupied.. I work from 9.00 Am to 6.00 Pm and my supervisor makes sure that I am at work until 6.00 Pm.. Nothing to crib about... I am better off than a lot of them.. Atleast I don't have to carry work home.

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I followed the elections in Tamil Nadu and looks like DMK is back to power. Hopefully they will take 90% for themselves and give at least 10% back to the people of Tamil Nadu!!

Another interesting news is about Lok Paritran.. I just can't believe that they have already split. What a way to start. I think they made a big mistake of contesting at 7 places. Instead they should have stood at one place and concentrated on getting that one seat. According to be they are a bunch of learned idiots. Sorry to say this but after I read the news about their split and ego clashes in about 6months, what else can I call them?

Managed to survive

I am officially done with the Spring semester tomorrow!! I also managed to get a Summer Internship. Thanks a lot for all your wishes and encouragement during the SEARCH!

Cant believe that I have completed one year of my Master's..

The last week of a semester is always unimaginably hectic.. There are assignments, project submissions, presentations and exams... All this makes you feel like u wanna run away from school.. But I guess people somehow manage and pull it through..
At the end of each semester, I generally have the same thought.. Man this semester was the toughest.. But I know for a fact that I would say the same thing in six months again ;)

Jobs to look out for!!!

Came across this website which lists the top 100 companies to work for in the US!!

Thought it might be useful to people who are looking for jobs... also might give people who are working in one of these companies a good feel about working there!!!

Finally... Before I forget how to blog!

The past two weeks have been unimaginably hectic.. Assignments, presentations, projects as well as exams.. I am just waiting for this semester to end..

Too much of work makes you feel like u just wanna quit.. But I guess grad school is not about getting a 4.0 GPA.. it is more about hanging on with all the amount of work being thrown at you, being independent and most importantly "time management"... Most of us (Indians) lack the time management skills.. We tend to do things is the last minute and feel that things cannot be more tough on us.. I definitely fall into this category.. I hope that at least from the next semester onwards I will not procrastinate things!!
Lets wait and see ;)

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I got my Driver's license last week.. After infinite times of postponement and laziness I finally made it to the DMV and got it.. I am actually happy that I don’t have to go to that stupid place for another time, at least until my license expires!!

Dedication!

Last two weeks have been very hectic with back to back exams and assignments! Finally everything is done..

Today is a very special day for my family! It is my dad's b'day... More than that it is a very special b'day... I am dedicating my blog (not a big b'day gift) to him.

He has been my best friend, philosopher and guide. My dad and myself have never been like father and daughter.. We have been like great pals. He has taught me so much in life. Without my parents' blessing and goodwill, I will not be who I am today.

I have seen a lot of my friend's parents and seen how they are with their children. Most of them have this imaginary screen between themselves and their children. But my parents have always been very transparent and so friendly with my sister and myself that we always considered and will consider our parents to be our best pals.

May be the fact that they are so good to us and always put our happiness before theirs has been the reason for us to love our parents so much and always want us to be together...

I started missing my parents the day I landed in the US.. Now I am really happy that they were able to stay with me for a few months..

To my dad:

Dad you are the best human being I have seen all my life. You have always been a wonderful brother to your siblings, a great husband to mom and an amazing father.
I pray to God to give you happiness and health for all the years to come. I also pray to God that in all my next births, I should have the same parents and the same wonderful sister. Without the three of you I wouldn't even know what happiness means.

Thanks a lot for everything dad. I know that I can't repay you. But I know that I can always love you!

Google can be fun too!!

I have heard a lot of people say that at Google you work 170 hours a week ;)

I thought to myself that people must be mad to waste their life just to be a part of something big and fast growing! It appeared to me that Google hires people who are nerds and who don't know what leisure means...

After looking at these pictures, I guess I am completely wrong.. People work at Google at the same time they reap their benefits.. They have a very relaxed working atmosphere...

Great salary, amazing stock options ($$$$), secure jobs (Hopefully), a lot of freebies, good competition and a lot of fun… What more can one ask for?

Random thoughts

This week has been a pretty good week.

Got my assignment grades.. Nothing to crib out (Thats good news!)

I finally got an assistantship at UFL.. I was initially on a departmental scholarship so only my tution was paid and din't get any monthly pay cheques...

Now my tuition is paid and so are my monthly expenses... I am so relieved.

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Can't wait for the Spring break next week. I guess I will staying in Gainesville, quite a few projects to complete.. Not exactly a break.. It is going to be more like a relaxed week. No work/classes just assignments and mid-term preparations :(

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Last week we had the Student President Elections. I was kind of amazed at all the canvasing they did. The candidates were out talking to a lot of the students and asking for votes. Around 10,000 people had voted out of the 40,000 students. That is a pretty decent turnout!

A few Interesting One-Liners!

I was randomly browsing (something which I do pretty often) and came across some very funny and interesting one-liners

• Regular naps prevent old age... especially if you take them while driving.
• Take my advice... I don't use it anyway
• Men are like Government Bonds, they take a long time to mature
• Marriage is a relationship in which one person is always right and the other is the husband!
• Forgiveness is giving up my right to hate you for hurting me.

Are we missing out on something??

I have been wanting to write about this on my blog for a long time.. But I guess I had better thoughts to engrave..

I am sure that most of us use GMail. By far they provide the largest Inbox Size...

But everytime we use Gmail, we are allowing Google to read our messages. What they do is mine messages from our Inbox and display appropriate adds on the right hand side...I am sure that most of us would have noticed this but wouldn't have bothered... I sure din't bother.

They are not posting these adds based on the Subject Line alone... I sent a mail with irrelevant subject and body. But I got adds only based on the body of the mail. This definetly means that they are prying on our privacy. They are doing this because we are allowing them to do it as long as we get what we want... Larger Inboxes!!

A day in grad school !

8.00 AM: Alarm rings, look at the clock and decide you will get up after 1 hour and make it a point to switch off the alarm!

11.30 AM: Wake up and realize it is almost noon and you have a class at 12.20. Have a half-bath wishing you could sleep for 2 more hours and cursing yourself.

Noon: Catch the bus and start chatting with fellow desies. Discussions range from cricket to revolutionize the American Government

12.18 PM: Enter the class along with the professor

1.20 PM: Wake up after a very strong dosage of “λγβδφ”. You had no clue as to what the professor was talking about coz you didn’t attend the previous lecture (Had other important work to do – was in the middle of an interesting chat conversation with friends in India)

1.30 PM: Go to the lab and start browsing the Internet. By luck you land up on the course website and find out that you have an assignment due that night (some 10 problems). Very confident that you can finish it on time, you carry on with other stuff…

1.40 PM: Log on to Yahoo / MSN Messenger and wait for friends to come online.

2.15 PM: Your friends have logged off and you have nothing to do.

2.30 PM: Grab something to eat in Subway/ TacoBell (Too lazy to cook or carry food from home)

2.45 PM: Go to work and speak to your supervisor about something that you should have completed a week back… Tell him you had some technical difficulties and troubleshooting which had to be handled.

3.00 PM: Sit in your cubicle and stare at the computer screen wondering what to do. Then remember that your parents had sent you a mail two days back and you still hadn’t replied. After sending mails start working!!

6.15 PM: Go home. On the way home, talk to some 3 people on phone and tell them how busy you are ;)

6.30 PM: Start off promising yourself that you will watch TV for only 30mins. End up watching TV for 2 hours.

8.30 PM: Realize it is your cooking turn and cook some random dish (Poor roommates)

9.30 PM: Finish dinner and suddenly remember that an assignment is due that night!!

11.00 PM: You are stuck with a problem. Call up Tanya and ask her if she knows how to do it.. She is in no better position than you. Crib to her for 10 min about how difficult this course is and how the professor is not considerate at all and gives assignments every week.

11.15 PM: Call up Vikram (a total stud and would have already submitted the assignment for sure). He tells you what you have to do (use β reduction instead of δ)

11.50 PM: You are finally done with the assignment and submit it. Sigh!!

12.00 AM: Your friend comes home and asks you if you want to watch a movie… You have nothing to do anyways!!

2.30 AM: Get back home after watching a totally stupid movie… You promise yourself that you are going to become disciplined and will start getting up at 7.00 AM everyday and will not procrastinate things anymore.

Next day you completely forget the promise!!

Didn't believe it until today!

When people told me that Indians try to insult fellow Indians in interviews, I didn’t believe it.. Today it happened to me.

I had an interview with Microsoft and guess what? I got a desi interviewer! That (#$%^&) guy was trying to contradict me in everything I said. I guess his sole aim was to make me feel like I know nothing and he was Bill Gates's guide! I wanted to give him a piece of my mind as soon as the interview got over but then thought that I would be creating a scene. But I am going to write a very strong mail to Microsoft about what happened today.

I was surprised when the interviewer started of by saying that the position I had applied for was not defined right in the website and that I should think about it.. Then he goes directly to the questioning sessions! No warming up whatsoever.

He was very impatient and was trying to hurry me up! I guess he forgot the meaning of the word friendliness and smile. Then he asked me some design questions. To most of my answers he said that it is not going to work out... The question was about designing an elevator...

May be I shouldn't expect the interviewers to know how to smile and be friendly!

I guess today has by far been one of the worst days of my life for more than one reason :(

Fresh from the farm

I have never been into Organic Food before but all that changed when I started doing my groceries at this Supermarket called Wards here in Gainesville.

This poor man's "Whole Foods" has amazing variety when it comes to vegetables and fruits and has a well stocked collection of lentils,wine,juices from all parts of the world.Infact they even have a really good collection of our own Indian pulses.

And the price? Much cheaper than Albertsons and Winn-Dixie and even Wal-Mart!! I got a 5 lb atta bag from the Indian Store for $4.50 two weeks ago.The same atta (fresh and better quality) just costs $3 at Wards!

It is just an amazing place to shop at especially if you are a graduate student since its price and quality is hard to beat! Although from the outside it doesnt look very impressive, its definitely the place to do your groceries here in Gainesville!!

GatorNights

We have this awesome concept of having fun on Friday Nights. We hardly spend anything and guess what we get some free stuff too!! GatorNights are Friday nights when there is a movie and other shows happening at UFL.. At 12.00 AM free breakfast is served. What more can a graduate student ask for?

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I saw the movie Paramasivam starring Ajith, Laila, Prakash Raj and others. Oh My GOD, Big Mistake!! I couldn’t see even one logical scene. It was totally absurd. How could somebody direct a movie like this? To top it all this movie was said to be the comeback film for Ajith.. I wouldn’t even call it a movie. It was 2 hours of nonsense.

Brewing money - Starbucks!

A place frequented by most of the students... Actually not only when they are students, even after graduating!!

Starbucks is the largest Coffee chain in the US. I should say they have proved as to how something started small can become a Big Hit! Every major city / Univesity town has atleast one Starbucks.. All the airports have one.

I guess one of the criteria for opening a mall in the US, is that there should be atleast one Starbucks Store!!

This article is a cover story about Starbucks..

Let me share my views of the success of Starbucks..

A cup of coffee (12 Oz.) prepared at home will cost at the most 80 cents [commercially].. For the same, at Starbucks we pay $2.99... No wonder why they are making profits ($$$$)

Wasted 2 hours!!

I watched the movie "In America".. It was a very long and boring movie.. I have no clue as to why I sat through the movie!! It is about a family from Ireland who migrate to the US and stay on illegally... To me it didn’t seem like a movie about a family's suffering... It seemed more like a depiction of what happens when one stays in the US illegally!!

My advice: "Don't watch this movie... Please"

Indian society

Reservation System for education is totally unfair. People dont get what they actually deserve. Because of this the quality of education as well as the output from industries seem to go down.

How did a few of us feel when we lost the opportunity to get into a good engineering college because of the existing education system (based on caste) in Tamil Nadu inspite of having good grades?Didn’t we think it was unfair? Didn’t we want equality? Then how come we accept this system?

I really hope to get answers to these questions sometime in the future. I would really like to see the day when the whole caste system is abolished and everything is based on merit and personal achievements and all of us are considered as fellow humans.

Journey from Aggieland to Gatorland

First of all wish u all a very happy and prosperous new year!

I should say that the transition from being an aggie to a gator has been pretty quick!
I am finally settled down at Gatorland.

Picture source : Wikipedia

University of Florida is an amazing place. The school is accessible from anywhere in Gainesville.
There are amazing shuttle services which run every 10 mins!
I really like this place. I guess this is one decision which I will never regret.

Already I have made quite a few friends here. And guess what, I am staying in a townhouse apartment!! It is soo cool. I am all excited about my new chapter at Gainesville.

House to Home

Finally my house has become home.
I should thank my parents for coming and staying with me.
I am now eating all good Indian dishes and I am sure that I have already put on 3 pounds!!!

So far my parents are enjoying their stay and I am waiting to take them out...
Just 12 more days and my school gets over.. Can’t believe that the Fall semester has come to an end so quickly... But no complaints that it is getting over ;)