iGoogle Xperience ....

hello

yes this is my second post in a day. no i aint inspired from the blogcamp just that i've been customizing my google home since morning and here's how it looks now. it is lookin pretty fancy and ye it does its old job (search) too ;)

iGoogle has been here quite for a while. but it was only recently with the development of google gadgets that we can see it burst like never before. you can convert your google home into your personal portal for almost everything that you need is available in the form of gadgets. earlier google came up with the concept of gadgets for their google desktop product. (well actually AFAIK gadgets originated with apple's mac) gadgets are like small utility applications which one can use in day-to-day life. today google allows us to add these gadgets to your customized home page as well. In fact not only google but many leading portal containers have started offering Google Gadget Support. For eg: IBM's WebSphere, Apache's JetSpeed, Liferay all have come up with support for Google Gadgets in their portlet containers.

So basically you get all your utils handy with you on google page so you can add gadgets which give you stock updates, quotes of the day, word of the day, weather, gamse, wiki search even Bhagavad Gita. Also you can categorize these gadgets into multiple tabs. You can add your own tabs as per your requirement. Want more ... yes you can develope these on your own too. Although there will be some learning curve involved there. You can find more about Google gadget APIs here. You will need to learn some technicalities but once you know how to write these widgets, google will allow you to host them on their site. isn't it cool?

I agree couple of other portals have been already providing these things like personalization and stuff for longggggg time now for eg: Yahoo. But I feel this will be more effective as this will be more like community devlopment which has proved itself in many cases. And then it was interesting to see google turn (evolve) into a portal whereas Yahoo has alwasy been one. There's no denying that Yahoo has also started providing similar widgets thing but I beilive they are still only for desktop.They are quite cool as well but I wouldn't start on that now ;) and then no matter who gets who but as a user we will surely get to experience whole bunch of cool things.
well thats all on iGoogle.

- signing off
ameyas7

missed BlogCampPune ....

it hurts .... having missed the BlogCampPune 07 all i can say is that.

well ye i had registered for the event and was looking forward for it. but unfortunately i am in mumbai @ my home and writing this entry. wish i was writing this live from there :( well if you know me personally and if you read it carefully "unfortunately i am in mumbai" you will surely know how terrible i'm feeling :(

i'm sure this event will be a gr8 fun. its not just about fun, its really a good experience to meet such kinda ppl, share stuff and go camping. BarCamp hasn't been here since long .... just a year or two i guess. the topics were good but its lot more than that. you will only come to know if you have attended one. mine is purely based on my last yr's barcamp mumbai experience which was awesome!

for those of you who still doesn't know what barcamp is all about ... click here. In short, its an unconference where ppl voluntarily organize a (kinda) workshop. its actually a multi-threaded programme unlike typical workshops and one can participate, discuss, blog, upload snaps, feeds (do whatever you want) at runtime. but the interesting part about is the people you come across. some of 'em would be real geeks. that is why i said more than the topics, its interesting to meet such people (works for me). many-a-times pure spectators are not allowed but this was not one such.

I aint a hardcore blogger, I am more of just blog-for-me type. I prefer to blog whenever I have time and sufficient thoughts/content. its not that I was keen on attending for the list of topics (nor I was interested in "make money from your blog" ;)) , its really a wonderful experience. Also I have always enjoyed attending conferences, seminars, workshops. I really missed this 1 tho. unfotrunately there was no company as well to attend but the people there would easily accomodate you in no time so that was surely not the only reason. well don't ask me the reason why i couldn't attend. i've never felt this awful before (for any conference)

well thats all for blogcamp.

life is going pretty cool. not much of a pressure. very much keen on watching Pankaj Kapoor's 'DHARM' so you can expect some thoughts on that. he is one of those REAL ARTISTS and also the theme sounds interesting so definitely worth a watch and I am surely not going to miss it :)

- signing off
ameyas7

future is here ....

well this entry is gonna be about some technological updates. well i dont really like to blog about i-fi stuff. not that i don't follow technlogy news but I prefer to keep it away from my personal space. but last week I came across a news which I thought I'd share here and it is really an outstanding concept.

M$ released their surface computing 'Milan' table top computer. basically its like a small coffee table with amazing features. check it live at http://www.microsoft.com/surface/ it was really fascinating to see the videos. it looks like some mind boggling gizmo gadget from some beyond 2k (and we really are beyond 2k now, its 2k7 already ;) ) movie but its gonna hit the market soon. the best part is it recognizes almost anything. although i didn't come across any detailed specs (on their site) but their videos give that impression.

basically it works with human touch as input and that too multi-touch screen which means a group of people can use it simultaneously. it makes sharing stuff so easy that you can simply place your digital camera, cell phone or any other device on top of the table and it will pop a menu ... its really cool. all you need to do is simply move stuff around here and there with your fingertips. thats next level of Drag-N-Drop.

well we all had come across apple's i-phone which is also multi touch screen with similar features for zoom , pan etc but thats not it. the good thing about the computer is that it can let you do umpteen number of things, like you can connect several devices, download/ upload stuff, do some online shopping just by laying out your credit cards on the table.... how cool is that.
detailed comparison here. maybe initially the cost may be high and they may target public places more than end consumers. so probably you'd get to see more of these in malls, cafeterias, pizzerias, all entertainment zones etc.

having said all of that, it would be interesting to dig more into multi-touch screen devices here. Also im not sure if this concept is originally from M$ or not. following links talk about some work on similar lines. looks like things like this existed since long. at least couple of yrs earlier.
http://cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/65
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vm_FzLya8y4

so whether M$ came up with the concept first or somebody else , we may not know but all I can say is future is good and future is here.

well thats all for the Milan. life is going pretty cool. I am having a great time in the new office. lotsa play + work. our whole team is planning yo go out for lunch on monday and we'd also watch pirates of the caribbean 3 post lunch. its gonna be fun time. monsoon has already hit here. so the weather is really very nice most of the time but then you really dont feel like working ;)
just kidding. ijoe (my ncst pal) might come over to pune next weekend and I might not come back here. so we(me, ijoe, prashant, ashwin and some of ijoe's friends) might chill out next weekend. lets see.

thats all for this time.

- signing off
ameyas7