The time flies really quickly. The days are passing by in blink of an eye. I always think of posting on the blog but end up posting on Twitter. So, this way, the blog never gets updated and all my thoughts get limited to 140 characters.

The days are passing by really smoothly. Returned from 10 day holiday around 15 odd days back. Enjoyed in Darjeeling, Pelling & Gangtok. (I had gone there in 2008 too). Parents and relatives are dancing on the head with great hope of Megha having a baby but this is not the right time. I keep telling them the same thing and they keep asking me the same thing. So, I guess, this is never gonna end.. or atleast it’s going to be a constant affair for next 2-3 years.

The work is keeping me really busy, the mind has become more like warehouse of ideas, the sad part is, the lock of this warehouse hardly opens. But I am not losing hope, I am definitely going to implement some of the ideas soon.

Technology wise, I think, I am in the best period where I have enough people now, who can work the way I want and implement the stuff exactly I want. Toying with few new ideas for BiteBank. The next few months are going to be really exciting in terms of technology. Working under “corporate” environment is slightly different. Few good and few bad experiences but great amount of learning.

Actually, I am game for the criticism and learning. That’s how we improve right?

Nothing much to talk apart from work. Just changed blog’s theme. This one looks really neat. Responsive design. HTML5 / CSS3 stuff. Also, got rid of crappy old About page and rewrote it with updated information.

That’s it for now. Will post more later.

Well.. it’s about the birthday.. No, I have not turned 37 yet lol…

Completed 30 years yesterday and my company Web1 completed 7. Not bad I guess.

This one is going to be a real quick post as I am leaving for Matheran in next few minutes and just realized that I totally forgot to post about my birthday on the blog. Really bad of me, I have started giving high importance to Twitter these days.

Gifts? haha yeah, I love to collect gifts (who hates though).. got truck load of clothes from Sister and Wife. I gifted myself iPhone 4S. Wife gifted me (again) a bottle of really nice perfume, loved it. Sister in law gifted me a cool Swatch watch.

I wanted to gift myself a Apple’s 27″ Thunderbolt Display but the new ones have not arrived in India yet, so I kind of saved money there. But that’s fine. I am gonna buy it soon. Frankly speaking, I have zillions of things in mind, when it comes to spending money on myself but sadly, I don’t have zillions of rupees in my account. I wish I had though haha

So Web1′s birthday.. 7 years.. feels good.. again.. like always, bumpy ride but I am quite happy with it. I can never be satisfied though but happy for sure.

I guess, time to move now.. people waiting for me outside..

Cheers,
Deep

Rest in Peace

I tweeted about this sometime back.. here is the exact tweet.. (which eventually becomes the reason to write this blog post)

I have been watching this Apple vs Android arguments since quite sometime.. and today was the day when I actually got pissed off and decided to note down few things.. I am really not sure what runs into the mind of Apple or Android Fanboys but let me tell you what runs in my mind and this might openup the minds of many fanboys or Apple haters with half knowledge about the product.

Apple vs Android – Sales: Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android are just operating systems. Apple’s iOS is a closed system which caters just to Apple owned devices. And Android is an open OS which can be ported into any device by the manufacturers. So, logically, sales of Android devices are always going to be higher than Apple ones. So there is no point in comparison here.

Now, if you ask why Apple does not allow to port iOS to other devices then the simple answer will be, it’s their choice afterall, it’s their own OS, they have every right to decide what they want to do with it. Google decided to keep Android open and it was their choice, that’s about it.

I have xx feature and you don’t have it: This started with Copy / Paste. All windows fanboys started saying, Apple did not have basic Copy / Paste options and what not but even first version of Windows Phone 7 did not have it. Android had it but there is no point in discussing this. Yeah, Apple did not have it. It was pretty basic thing but there has to be some reason behind it. (I am not the right person to answer)

One more funny thing is, whenever Apple announces some new features.. all Anti-Apple guys add the tag of “Innovation” and bash Apple about it. This happened with FaceTime to start off with. People laughed over it saying, we already had video chat in our old smart phones so what’s so new in it? The point is here is not about new, the point is about how to make people use that feature and how easy it is to use.

Even my old Sony Ericsson phone has video chat but it’s pathetic. It’s a hidden feature. There is Skype for desktop and phones but frankly speaking having a native video calling app integrated with the phone book is damn simple and anyone can use it. So the key here is, ease of use not the innovation.

The recent example in this is, Siri. People started assuming lot of things and started cooking up funny stories. I was going through some tweets. One guy was even arguing on baseless stuff like “If Apple bought Siri then why it killed it from the App Store” haha this was really funny to ask. If Apple bought it then don’t you think it’s their right to do whatever they want with the Application? Do you see Tweetie anymore after Twitter bought it? haha

Siri is innovation. Yes it is but not by Apple but by the guys who built it. The role of Apple comes in terms of making the application much better than earlier and integrating with the core of the system.

Now, why Apple does not allow in iPhone 4 or older version is their business decision and it does not make any sense to argue about it at all.

Patent wars: Apple sued Samsung for using their patented stuff without  taking permission from Apple. And many Samsung fanboys started bashing Apple. (Without even knowing what were the reasons for Apple suing Samsung) From what I understand, the patent wars are mostly (obviously not all) related to the business than the technology. It’s an open fact that Samsung openly copied many things from Apple. Their app screen looked exactly like iPhone’s, the icons, the box and even the power adapter haha

The simple fact behind these patent wars is, increasing sales of Samsung’s Galaxy phones is hurting Apple. It should hurt why not. Let’s assume that, if your competitor copies part of your product and sells it without your permission then wouldn’t it hurt you? Won’t you try to stop them from doing it? I will definitely do it. Anyone will do it.

So let’s not take these patent wars personally.

Processor Wars: This one is another funny war. My phone has Dual 1.5 GHz and it’s 6 months old. Your phone has just launched and has only 1 GHz processor. Yea Okay, it’s possible but do you actually need that much of processing power on a phone? I am okay with whatever processor iPhone 4 has even processor in 3G worked without any issues with the older version of iOS.

The list is just never ending.

But the point here is: Is it even worth criticizing Apple for every other statement they make? Yeah, they must have made few wrong decisions, they too must have killed some products but everyone in the business does that. The simple fact is, everyone loves to copy Apple. They started with iPhone and everyone started copying iPhone and introduced touch screen phones. Same features and what not.

How many phones in the market are usable? Android has reached a good level just now. Samsung Galaxy 2 is something really good from Samsung but that surely does not make Apple products bad. Apple’s sales is increasing. Be it iPhone or Macs. Obviously it won’t reach the level of Android devices or Windows based machines (Unless these 2 giants make some huge mistakes) but it’s growing really well and I don’t think it’s growing so much just because of the hype, there is definitely something good about the product which is helping the company to generate the sales.

So, finally, ending the long article. Let’s not crib about Apple or Android all the time. Let these 2 giants fight and compete. We will eventually get a better product in the end haha

And yeah, I love Apple products. I use iPhone, iPod Touch, Macbook Pro and Mac Mini and Apple’s 27″ Cinema Display is in the wish list already. The next recent purchase is going to be iPhone 4S so I can gift iPhone 4 to my wife haha But that surely does not make me Android or Windows hater or doesn’t even make these 2 products bad. They both are good at their own places but I love Apple products and that’s about it.

Cheers,
Deep

Image Credit: The raging battle between Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android by Tsahi Levent-Levi

I have been hunting for a robust LAN (Intranet) Messenger software for quite sometime. I even tried few messengers, bought a better one (Outlook Messenger) for 25 users but I was still not happy with the performance.

Recently, I came across open source messenger server called OpenFire. It’s basically based on Jabber (XMPP) server and provides web interface to handle the server and various settings. (Incl. users and groups obviously). OpenFire made my life easier because, it can directly interface with Active Directory (LDAP) and import all the users and groups automatically. The installation is pretty simple too. I installed it on my Windows 2008 R2 just by running an exe file and going to few configuration steps. (OpenFire is available for Windows, Linux and Mac)

Yes, I did face some issues while connecting Openfire with LDAP but I think that was more or less due to my lack of knowledge in Active Directory management.

Once the server is setup,  you can use free messengers like Pidgin (Windows, Linux, Mac), Adium (Mac), iChat (Mac). Select XMPP or Jabber from the list of servers and login.

I am not going to write a guide for installation and setup as there is plenty of good material available online. I will simply share some important links here:

- OpenFire Installation Guide
- OpenFire LDAP Guide
- Connecting to OpenFire Server using iChat
- Connecting to OpenFire Server using Pidgin

I guess that’s it. I hope this helps you to save few dollars.