Sunday, May 10, 2009

Who is Fake IPL Player?

Time to start guessing. Don't know whether FIP (Fake IPL Player) will chicken out. Don't know whether FIP and Lalit Modi will join hands to make the biggest marketing deal of IPL 2.

But some research on the internet and I feel, FIP is Rohan Banerjee.

He's young, he's not got a chance to play international cricket (as he himself says in his very first blog post), he both bats and bowls (another revelation of his first post). He's always respected "dada", Sourav Ganguly, in his posts, which probably means he is from Kolkata (yes Ganguly has supporters all over India but somehow this is my gut feel. In fact I too am a great Ganguly fan). And he's already proven himself to be an Indian.

Anyway, all said and done, the dude knows how to write - it's not just about having the info, it's about the way he projects it, which entertains people (unfortunately at the cost of loss of dignity for quite some respectable people).

PS : Fake IPL Player, I feel bad for you that you cannot use Google Adsense, as that needs you to have an identity. But my gut feeling is you are going to make it big in real life - not through cricket, but because of the word "marketing". I already foresee Fake IPL Player T Shirts coming out. In fact, maybe this might also be the beginning of many similar things to come, where the saying "Diwaron ke bhi kaan hote hain" might come in, and people will start blogging it out. We definitely need it for Indian Politics if nothing else!

PPS : FIP, I know you are a Harry Potter fan - your post "Fights, flights and conspiracies" owes its title to "Fight and Flight" from a Harry Potter book.

Life at IIM Calcutta

In a sentence, IIMC could be described as 7 lakes, 6 terms, 5 blocks, 4 lecture halls, 3 hostels, 2 years, 1 soul, 0 regrets.

Things you’ll love and remember about IIM Calcutta

  1. It’s the once place where you sleep when daylight is just coming in. You’ll get used to a bright morning at 5:30 am itself, and darkness all around by 5:30 pm.
  2. The friendly nature of Bengalis – in the hostel messes, and in shops around.
  3. The non-RG culture of the batch – when they share Things to Do before exams from across the text books, class notes, and the internet.
  4. Extremely rigorous academics (And please, for the 100th time, IIMC is NOT chill!).
  5. Loads of clubs – for people with work experience it is a way of ensuring you do not “Rust unburnished”, and it’s a nice experience for freshers as well. With the clubs come loads of responsibilities, and applying loads of what you learn in class.
  6. An extremely strenuous summer and final placement week – trust me it takes a lot out of you! At the same time, this challenge is one of the greatest learning experience you take with you when you move ahead.
  7. The night outs – be it for exams, assignments, group work, or cultural events, or just to talk to friends – these are times you truly miss when you come out of IIMC. I so long for some more of those night outs!
  8. Hostel Life – Old Hostel (aka Ramanujan Hall), New Hostel, White Hall (Tagore Hall and Annexe combined) – all unique in their ways, yet wonderful to be a part of.
  9. Bird Shit – A careless walker can decorate himself with bird shit in some parts of the campus. In fact, at times it is inevitable. I doubt there is a single IIMCian who hasn’t got shit at!
  10. You get to do exactly what you want to do at IIMC. No, I do not mean you can laze. I mean you get to choose your interest, and take it ahead – be it for general studies, or specific sectors. And for each of the best sectors, the best companies line up with the best offers at the highest positions. And of course, IIMC did have the highest average salary this year across B Schools in India.
  11. An awesome campus – people actually lose their way when they come to campus – it’s so big, and really beautiful, with one of the biggest auditoriums (movies are also aired there), and one of the biggest libraries of Asia.
  12. Awesome weather all around the year – You never face the supposed dust / heat of the city – because of an extremely clean campus and the lakes which make the place cooler.
  13. And of course, the simple fact that you get to flaunt your IIMC logo filled T shirts when you go out of campus is a real feel good factor. And that lasts forever.
  14. The entertaining extranet and IP – well, all communications happen completely online at IIMC – be it general student discussions, or official notices from the PGP Office of IIMC – everything is done online. The best part is that the entire process is completely handled by students of the campus (a group called ISG). These days you’d find loads of campuses having started off their own websites – but very few campuses would have their college’s official site being handled by them – and being completely developed on a need basis by students interested in coding – For IIMC it is very beneficial as unlike other B Schools they don't need to pay a 3rd party for development, and for students it is great learning too.
  15. "Point no. 15 I'd like to add to ALL the awesomeness embodied in the points u've mentioned... IIMC has the knack of enveloping you in its warm embrace, and truly becoming a 2nd home for the wandering, searching, questioning selves that we are.
    This "knack" is symptomized (and also caused im sure) by the points mentioned in the post, most of which - Minimal RG, Extremely rich culture and inter-batch bonds, and finally, the incredibly awesome pple all around everywhere!", says Justin, a student of the Batch of 2010, IIM Calcutta
  16. "Other schools make make you a better manager, but IIMC makes you a better person.", says Hrishikesh, another student of the Batch of 2010.
Thanks to Justin and Hrishikesh for the last 2 points!

And to end -

A sales pitch for IIM Calcutta, prepared in 1 hour flat - start to finish, for a contest called MarGod at IIM Calcutta.

Ever thought why join IIM Calcutta?



http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=5k3COSEuFRg&feature=channel


Tuesday, May 5, 2009

BlogTwoDotZero 2.0 = Strat . In

Blogging is reaching stage 2.0 for me now.

While I would keep writing stuff off and on on this blog, a few of us from IIM Calcutta have also started our common blog - Strat . In

We are going to write about everything under the sun - but more importantly we will talk about the WHY behind what happened.

So do keep reading on!

Saturday, April 25, 2009

IPL and TV Advertising

When IPL had just started, I heard about this new advertising technique where advertising really broke into the game of cricket harder than ever.
At the end of every 10 overs of IPL, there would be a longer break for commercials, of around 8 – 10 minutes. And this information was given out clearly in all the media. The first question that came to my mind was – if the viewers already know this information, then will anyone actually bother watching 10 minutes of commercials waiting for play to resume? Would this not, instead, entice the user to change the channel when he knows exactly how long it is going to take before play resumes? This is fairly obvious. And if it is obvious indeed, can’t the advertisers predict this much? If people are not watching their advertisements for those long breaks, then are they really having any return on investment from putting up their ads during IPL?

On further probing on the topic, I realized where the flaw lay. When you use TV as a medium of advertising, it is very difficult to actually predict how many people saw your advertisement, and whether they actually observed it, or whether they actually made an attempt at analyzing the purpose of the ad, and finally whether that analysis converted to purchase. The only data that an advertiser gets is the popularity of the channel where ads are being shown, and the TRP ratings of the programme in between which the ads are being shown. And it is just on the basis of this that advertisers decide whether to invest in this channel / programme for displaying ads. In fact, it isn’t even the advertiser who looks at it.

Say you are Bru Cappuccino. To make your product famous you want to advertise on TV. So what happens is that you contact one agency for making your ad, and then another agency which acts like an exchange in between advertisers like you and TV channels. So the advertiser never actually “bargains” with the publisher of the ad. It’s all done by this intermediary exchange. Thus, you have no idea when your ad is going to show up, and more often than not, it is not effective. In fact, you might actually see the same Bru Cappuccino ad 3 times during the same programme broadcast on MTV (for example). So you pay for each of those 3 times, whereas you would have probably preferred if it had come 1 time each for 3 programmes. And the whole process is so much of a black box that ultimately what you do is just sign a cheque and give it to the advertising exchange.

So what happened in case of IPL? IPL obviously has better viewer stats than most other running serials on TV. So advertisers must have bid more in the advertising exchange for putting up their ads during IPL. Also, more advertisers would have signed up for putting up their ads on IPL. As a result, a whole lot of ad inventory was built up for IPL. Now, Mr. Lalit Modi must have done this calculation and realized that he cannot satisfy (or rather extract the last penny out) all the advertisers and their total view demands with just 59 matches (breaking it down to approximately 50-60 (20 + 20 over breaks + 20 wickets) advertising opportunities). He had more ad inventory to look at publishing. So what does he do now? He actually introduces a change in the game called “Strategy breakout” where each team can take a break to think back on how they should plan their next 10 overs. Looking at it from the perspective of cricket, this definitely adds a new dimension to the game – making batsmen resettle into their game – making the resettling period quite a wicket taking opportunity for the bowling team (as Sachin Tendulkar figured in his match against Deccan Chargers on 25th April. He was playing beautifully till the break, and when he came, he was completely unsettled, and lost his wicket in no time, and eventually his team lost).

TV advertising is definitely an effective technique of reaching your potential and existing customers. However, the way it is done can be really improved to ensure that advertisers can better calculate their ROI of advertising on TV. No prizes for guessing which form of advertising offers the best estimate for Return on Investment for the advertiser.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Google Profiles

Yet another product from Google. This time it is Google Profiles. It is a single stop for connecting all your Google Profiles (Gmail, Orkut, Picasa, etc.). So now you need to update stuff at just one place for it to reflect everywhere.

Apart from that, how I see it, for consumers, this is like a mini – Orkut. Mini because you don’t need to write about yourself for that 1 hour which it takes to make an Orkut Profile. This is just a 5 min exercise where you will put in your place of birth, where you have studied, and stayed. A few other details here and there. So if you want to search for people from your school who you haven’t contacted for years, you can use the Google Search Profile option which will take you to all people who are from that place. Orkut of course has a perfect search algorithm, where even if you make as have as an alphabet out of place, the search will not return relevant results. But Google Profiles use the regular Google search algorithm, which significantly corrects your search. A very plain example, if you search for “College of Engg TVM”, it will also return results from College of Engineering Trivandrum.

Now, let’s look at it from Google’s perspective. Why would Google want to do this (apart from the fact that it is useful for people in general :-)). This is to build a huge, structured database of characteristics of people. And why would they do that? To further improve their content advertising. You might have already noticed the ads you get on the right doing your Google searches or in Gmail. These are based on a lot of things like what you search for, what your previous searches have been, and what your IP address is. With the “what you search for”, they match it with keywords that advertisers have bought (called Google Adwords), and if there is a match, then they put up that ad. Similarly in Gmail, the ads you see on the right come up because some of your mail content looks like it matches with what an advertiser is hoping for when he / she is looking for a target customer. And finally, your IP address – that tells Google that you are probably sitting in India, or to be more specific, say Mumbai, and hence Mumbai based ads would be most relevant.

Google has always been trying to improve how they display ads to us. Some examples have been the Google SearchWiki – where if you have logged in to any Google account when you search, the results will be even more relevant to you, and you can customize how you see results. By doing this they were actually collecting what you search, and then improving their ads.

Now have a look at Google Profiles – they take basic data about you. Now with this data, they are going to be able to better make their algorithms to ensure the ads they put up are more relevant on their pages. This way there is a better probability that the ads would get clicked and therefore a greater probability that Google gets the money from ads.

To access your Google Profile, click here.

Monday, April 6, 2009

Blogging Ethics

In this new world of internet, blogging is slowly but surely taking centre stage. Blogging is not just about writing your thoughts - it is a new dimension in the world for a way of doing things. It is a marketing channel for advertisers to meet the long tail of the audience. It is a way of being acknowledged on the internet. It's a way of finding yourself in Google Search results!

Of course, with every new dimension that is added to the way we do things, there is a good side and a bad side. The good side, as mentioned above, is all about having the freedom to express your thoughts, and free flow of information. The bad side, is of course, abuse of this free service that has been provided. Some supposed bloggers use blogs to vent out their frustrations at being losers by abusing others in their blogs. Some people try and de-market some of their associations, be it their college, their work place, or some more successful peers.

But should such negative posts be punished? Of course, there is a simple way of filing an FIR if people want to do it - but at times, it is better that the immaturity of the negative bloggers be handled differently. Credibility comes not just by posting - but by posting sense. Otherwise it just shows the lack of development of the mind of the blogger.

Thus, while blogging is every person's right, I think it is also the duty of each blogger to exercise certain discretion in the language and comments they write on their blog.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Reducing File Size of Images

Ever since the inception of the Digital Camera, it has become far easier to secure every moment of our life. However, something that has been completely overlooked is the acute wastage of space that has come in with the improving technology.

With every new advancement, file size has been going up drastically. The average file size of a photo these days is 3 - 4 MB. However, these images are mostly viewed only on the computer, and rarely are they used beyond that. So while all one needs is an image that looks clear, and fits the screen size on their monitors, they end up using these heavy images, which of course take up a lot of space, and are practically not worth the effort.

One simple solution to reduce file size and maintain good quality is by using Picasa. This is a Google product, which lets you view images on your computer, and also lets you upload images onto your Google Picasa account (upto 1 GB). So let me give you an example.

I just collected some of my convocation Pics (93 in number) which had a file size of 236 MB. I then opened this folder in Picasa, and right click on this folder in the Left Menu, and said, Upload to Web Albums. It then gave me the option of making a new folder in my online Photo Account, and then 4 options for file size to upload.

1. Original size (slowest Upload)
2. Recommended: 1600 pixels (for prints, screensavers, and sharing)
3. Medium: 1024 pixels (for sharing)
4. Small: 640 pixels (for blogs and webpages)

Now, since I wanted a decent amount of clarity for the convocation pics, I used the option 3, which is medium file size. I then uploaded this album online. Next, I went to the online web album and went into this particular online folder, and on the top left, clicked Download - Download to Picasa. This again downloaded my conovcation pics back to my hard disc. And this time, the file size was just 10.7 MB. And photos were of good quality too. So basically I reduced the file size by more than 20 times, I also have an online copy of the files, and in all, I have saved loads of space on my computer.

Let's all be responsible people and not waste storage space on our Hard Discs. This is a simple process for reducing file size and sharing it with friends as well. Of course there would be loads of ways of reducing file size - but doing it on a large scale, with no software installation required as such, makes life really easy.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Rankings 2.0 Continued..

So after writing my previous post, I got a call from some friends at IIT Bombay Shailesh J Mehta School of Management (SJMSOM), saying I missed their name.

Now here's my explanation for leaving them out.

So what makes SJMSOM special? It is a subsidiary of IIT Bombay that deals with MBA. The entrance examination for this is JMET (Joint Management Entrance Test), and out of the 20000 odd people who write this exam, only the top 300 odd people get into this college. A lot of its brand value is associated with the fact that it is part of a premier institute like IIT. This makes it more sought after.

If we check on www.stimator.com, it clearly says that for evaluating sub domains, they measure traffic on the main domain as well. And the SJMSOM site is www.som.iitb.ac.in, which is a sub domain of the site www.iitb.ac.in. If we try and compare on an absolute scale, SOM comes at around 26000 USD, which means it should be ranked 2nd. Of course, the number here is strongly influenced by the fact that it is under IIT Bombay. Therefore, I chose to leave out SJMSOM..

No offence meant to SJMSOM! Just that this rating needed absolute values.

~Thanks to Seksaria of IIT Bombay SJMSOM to make me clarify.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Top B Schools in India : Rankings 2.0, based on the value of their Website

There have been loads of ways of trying to rank these B Schools. Most of the methods have certain drawbacks or the other. I have tried and used a technique that is independent of human factors to try and come up with the rankings.

This is, the estimated value of the websites, as measured by a new technique. The technique involves the usage of thew website www.stimator.com which analyzes any website whose address is entered. It then does a valuation of your website, and returns its current value in terms of US Dollars.

This is primarily an analysis of their websites. I believe that the amount of traffic on the websites of these colleges, and how popular these websites are to the outside world is one of the ways in which the college can be rated. Greater the popularity of the site, more the reasons linked with it being one of the Best B Schools in perception. And, of course, B Schools are ultimately all about perception!

The estimated value is based on a whole lot of factors like Web Recognition, Web Volume, Popularity, Linking Data, Social Score, etc.


The ranking as seen here is

Some of the Top B Schools in India are

1. IIMA
2. IIMC
3. IIMB
4. SPJain
5. FMS
6. IIML
7. IIMI
8. MDI
9. XLRI
10. IIMK

If we take the Top 4 in this list and do a breakdown of their analysis, The IIMB site scores very low on the Social Score (0.84) as compared to IIM C (1.37), IIM A (1.67) and SP Jain (1.23). The rest of the factors are almost equal or in the approximate order of their overall rankings.


The website I have used to come up with these numbers is called www.stimator.com

I have not included certain schools in this list like IRMA, SJMSOM, etc. The reason for not including SJMSOM is here.

The reason for leaving out IRMA is that I have considered only the general MBA course related B Schools. Otherwise, IRMA would push IIMK out of this list of Top 10.

Also, please note that these details are as of Early February 2009. Some website avlues have slightly increased / decreased in the last 1 month. That probably means that the best way to make a conclusive decision is by taking an average over a period of around 6 months - 1 year.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

How to reduce Microsoft Word 2003 File Size

As you would all know, MS 2007 has far more features than MS 2003. One thing that often gets missed out is file size reduction in MS 2007. However, unfortunately, not everyone still recognizes docx or xlsx as official MS Office stuff, as they are still using doc, xls etc.

Now, in case you are in a situation where you have a MS 2003 word file which has a large size and you want to get it reduced. One way would be to convert this to an MS 2007 file. This way, the size is bound to reduce (Everything apart from image size). If you still have to submit an MS 2003 file only, you can then save this MS 2007 file as an MS 2003 file.

Just to reiterate

1. Take your large size MS 2003 file.
2. Save it as an MS 2007 file.
3. Resave it as an MS 2003 file.

And it's done!

Friday, February 6, 2009

Cricket 2.0

A news of IPL is just out that talks about the "One Over Eliminator" taking over the "Bowl Out" feature of IPL. Find out about this new feature for tied matches, as you read ahead.

The world of Cricket is no different from any other industry of the world. Even here, we have newer trends coming in everyday, with newer ways of serving the target segment.

At first, there were Test matches - the orthodox, real game of cricket. 5 days in the field, and a battle across 4 innings to have a possible winner.

With time, the spectators got more demanding - they wanted faster results and matches to be more exciting, as Test matches often ended in draws. This brought in the concept of LOIs (Limited Overs International) with a fixed number of overs per side (60). Seeing that this concept was emerging fast, Test matches sort of took second place. And with time, the number of overs became 50 a side.

Superior technology finally brought in the concept of a 3rd umpire, which made run out decisions more acceptable.

After this, things stabilized quite a bit. But everywhere around, new innovations were being tried. The strongest of these innovations was the Twenty20 concept. And with time, it also took part of the centre stage. There was an ICC World Cup for Twenty20 (obviously won by the best team, beating their arch rivals ;-) ) This led to a newer concept - IPL.

IPL has been ICC's baby. They have promoted it extensively, and kept innovating with it as well. With IPL, the focus is clearly shifting from hard core sports to entertainment. The "product" Cricket is now "packaged" for entertainment. This can of course have its own advantages and disadvantages.

Another aspect worth mentioning is the rate of innovation in IPL, like the No-ball rule which now includes a Free Hit. And now they have come up with the latest change in the next version of IPL - they have pushed out the concept of Bowl Out, and introduced the One over Eliminator. This would be like a Tie-Breaker, where each side gets one over to show their worth. They have to select 3 batsmen and 1 bowler form their team. If the team loses 2 wickets, then the team is "All out". Also, if the 2 teams are tied at the end of this contest, then the team that has hit the maximum number of sixes in their innings would win. If that too is same, then it would be the maximum number of fours that decides the winner.

How are they able to bring in such rules? First of all, because it isn't nations fighting against each other, it is just power performers. So, the spectator enjoys watching good shots from both teams, good bowling from both teams, and rarely goes back really disappointed with who has actually won the contest. Though it is difficult to generate that passion as a country against country match would bring in, it is well substituted with entertainment, and it is exactly as long as it should be. For example, if you have 3 hours to spare and nothing to do, you know you can use this as a source of entertainment if it is happening.

And that is why I call this version of Cricket as Cricket 2.0 - it reaches new boundaries at new levels and offers a lot of entertainment, without asking you to invest too much.

Is this the way ahead? Can IPL replace One Day Internationals (ODIs) and test matches? Do you like the packaging that IPL brings to cricket? Do write your comments on the Wall!

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Finally Gmail has folders! Find out how to use them

Google has finally decided to directly compete with Yahoo! in their mail service. In this post, I will explain how you can move mails into a folder, and later in the same post I will explain how you can apply filters in your mail so that a mail can automatically be moved to a specific folder.

Gmail, as you might have noticed has got a different template for its buttons now. What you may not have noticed however, is the "Move to" button in Gmail now.

If you select a mail from your Inbox, and click the Move To Button, it gives you the option of moving this mail out of your Inbox and into any existing folder (something they term as LABEL). You can also create new folders, which are then listed in the Left Menu (under chat) in your Gmail. When you click on the folder names, Gmail will accordingly show you the relevant mails.

What is the difference from earlier? Earlier, Google only allowed you to Label incoming mail with whatever you wanted. Those mails would remain in your Inbox, though you would clearly be able to see their label there itself. This wasn't particularly convenient - especially compared to Yahoo mail, where the design of folders just rocks. This new feature from Google completely changes the equation of competition between Yahoo mail and Gmail.

Now, one feature of Yahoo which is still better than Gmail is Filtering. You can easily make a mail move to a particular folder using filters. However, this feature is not directly there with Gmail. However, there is a small workaround with which you can replicate the Yahoo feature.

Say you want to move all mails you get from xyz@gmail.com into a folder called XYZ. You need to perform the following steps to complete the action.

1. Click on Settings in Gmail at the right Top of the browser screen.
2. Click on Filters in the Top Menu under Settings
3. Click on Create a New Filter
4. At the top of the screen, you would now see various ways of making a filter. In this case, we want to move all mails sent from xyz@gmail.com into a folder called XYZ. So, first enter xyz@gmail.com in the From field at the top. Click on Next Step.
5. Now, you would see multiple options of what can be done with these mails. Here, you will need to select "Skip the Inbox (archive it)", and also select "Apply the Label", and specify the label name or create a new one.
6. You can now apply the filter to existing mails as well as new mails by selecting the checkboxex accordingly.
7. Save your filter, and test run it to confirm.
8. So the next time xyz@gmail.com mails you, the mail would automatically go to that folder, and what's more, it will even be highlighted as XYZ (1) when a mail comes.

In case of any queries, do write them on the wall

Monday, February 2, 2009

Google Products : Google Reader

Google Reader is a product of Google which still hasn't hit the complete set of consumers. Here's an explanation of what it is all about, and why it is really useful.

Internet is growing fast, and with that, so is the information available on the internet. Google is one company of the world which has been working really hard on collecting and arranging this information. Imagine being in an internet space where you didn't know how to search for relevant information! I remember a time when I would not remember a website address and would spend ages trying to get the address right. That problem doesn't exist today!

Coming specifically to how Google Reader helps now. Let's take an example of the Gmail Blog.

How would you keep track of when it is updated? Should you go to the Gmail blog once in a week? Or once a day? How would you remember whether you have already read this article earlier or not? Further, what if you read multiple blogs / news articles online? Would you go to each website and look for information updates?

Google Reader is a one stop solution for all these problems and many more. All you need to do is, go to Google Reader and click on "Add a Subscription on the Left Top of the window. Here, you could add any blog / news address directly and Google Reader would feed the data from that site directly into this interface.


This way, you never need to go to any of those blogs again. Google Reader is exactly like an inbox of mails, where each mail is an article that has been posted on the blogs you are subscribed to. Another huge advantage is "Search". Google Reader lets you search in the blogs you are subscribed to. This guarantees relevant results, as you are specifically defining which blogs / news articles you want to refer to.

For example, if you subscribe to NDTV news today. Now, you want to search for last 5 years of news on a specific company. You could search this NDTV feed, and it would give you all results of when news was published by NDTV on their online channel.

Do subscribe to the Wall on the right menu on my blog, and ask me any questions you have in mind.

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Google - 2 errors in 2 days! And yet they just rock!

Google has made 2 errors in 2 days!

1. There was an error in their Google Search code, because of which every result that was published by the search was tagged with "This site may harm your computer" for around 40 minutes.

2. Google's spam filter issue : Google sent some non - spam GMail mails into the Spam folder by mistake due to some error in their Spam engine malware filters - which they are now reversing.

Why Google still rocks is, it has come out in the front, clearly explaining that these were human errors, and they have apologized for them on their blog.

Check out the following links to see what they had to say.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/this-site-may-harm-your-computer-on.html

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/this-mornings-spam-filter-issue.html

Google has always been close to its users, something that is really outstanding about their culture! Who said a brand cannot make a difference!

Chrome Vs Firefox : What's different in these browsers?

Google Chrome - a browser that took up 1% of the browser market share within hours of being launched - so clearly speaks volumes about the Google Brand!

Firefox - if you look at it in Bollywood's terms - I would say it is like a star who was made without his / her father being in the Bollywood industry - purely because of its merit, and useful features.

Google Chrome had one feature that really looked good initially - On opening a new tab, it would give a visual display of your most popularly visited sites, so you could just click on that site directly. However, two things that I can say to this are,

1. This feature isn't particularly sought after for normal users, because typing in the address is any day faster.

2. With Google's new toolbar, Firefox automatically gets this feature.

One other feature about Google Chrome that is different is the address bar. Here, if you, for example, start typing in "rediff", it automatically fills in the rest in the address bar itself, so you can directly press enter. In Firefox, the best result of what you have typed comes only in the options below in the drop down that comes up, so you have to press the down arrow key atleast once to make the match. This is extremely comfortable for users. Of course, it is a question of getting used to.

One more difference between Firefox and Chrome is in terms of RAM usage. While Firefox has just one full component of RAM Usage (use Control + Shift + Escape to check this), Chrome divides each tab that is opened in the same browser into different components of RAM Usage. To put an example, if Firefox has 3 tabs open, each taking 30000 K, then the RAM usage would show 90000 K for Firefox. However, in case of Chrome, you would see 3 different lines for processes, each showing 30000 K. This structure has a clear advantage. In case one of your Firefox tab crashes, you have to shut down the entire Firefox system. However, in case a Google Chrome crashes, you only need to close that particular tab. This way your other work can continue without restarting the browser.

The restore session feature : This is automatically enabled in Firefox. However, in Chrome, to enable the restore session feature, you need to go to Settings - Options, and then in the Basics Tab, you need to select "Restore the pages that were open last" under startup. However, the important thing to note here is that the sessions that are restored in Firefox also login the user automatically into any online session he / she might have been part of. For example, if you are logged in to Gmail when you close the browser, Firefox will more often that not log you back in to your mail when you restore the browser. However, in case of Google Chrome, all sessions are expired, and you need to relogin to activate the sessions again. While this definitely makes Chrome more secure, probably for personal computers the Firefox feature of restoring sessions is better.

Finally, the screen size - Chrome doesn't let you install toolbars, hence the entire space at the top is empty, making one feel that there is more browser space. Which is true in a sense, though the same can be achieved in Firefox too, by disabling a whole lot of toolbars.

Overall, I would say both these browsers are quite useful, and in most cases can be used alternatively. And of course, both are miles better than Internet Explorer, which has degraded since IE 7 was launched. Not only did they have that security breach issue, the IE browser is also pathetically slow. In fact, Gmail actually advertises Firefox and Chrome as a Top Link if you login to Gmail through Internet Explorer.

Google's New Toolbar : Google Toolbar 5

You can download Google's new toolbar from here

This toolbar gives the Google Chrome feel in Mozilla Firefox. For example, when you do a Control T for a new tab, it lists your most recently visited pages, which can directly be clicked and accessed. Installing is quite simple and as always, free!

How can I change the name of my blog in blogspot?

All you need to do, as I just did, is the following:

1. Login to your Blog, go to Dashboard
2. Click on Settings for the blog
3. Go to the tab (at the top) called Publishing
4. Change the name of your blog (subject to availability)

If you have put stuff like Google Friend Connect on your site, a few reconfigurations will be required. You will get the following error "This gadget is configured incorrectly. Webmaster hint: Please ensure that "Friend Connect Settings - Home URL" matches the URL of this site."

To get rid of this problem, you will have to go to http://www.google.com/friendconnect, and then click on Site Settings in the left menu, and then change the name of the Home URL to the new name, and then save changes.

Similarly, for Google SMS Channels as well, you would have to change the blog name in the SMS Channel under http://labs.google.co.in/smschannels.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Welcome to IIM Calcutta!

A sales pitch for IIM Calcutta, prepared in 1 hour time - start to finish!

Ever thought why join IIM Calcutta?

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=5k3COSEuFRg&feature=channel


Friday, January 2, 2009

Happy New Year!

Like a professor at IIM Calcutta said,

pranaya Kumar Swain
1/1/2009 11:30:00 AM

Happy New Year

Here is wishing you all an extremely prosperous, recession-controlled, financially-stable, job secure, debt-free, investment-profiting, promotion-assured, hike-replete, war-free, air/water/rail/road-safe, earthquake free, tsunami free, terrorist-free, friends-filled, romance-blooming, healthy, joyous and cheerful New Year 2009!

Cheers,
Pranay