Notion Ink’s working on Adam, Apple’s bring out iPad, so who’s bringing out Eve? Gender discrimination I say.. sorry jus kidding I say. With the number of tablets that’s coming out this year, I won’t be surprised even if someone brings out a tablet named Eve

…it’s for them. In case you haven’t heard yet, hundreds of angry comments were posted by people who landed on a ReadWriteWeb post, after searching for ‘facebook login’ on google. They thought RWW was the redesigned Facebook, scrolled down, saw facebook-connect, logged in using it and posted their protest. These people did not check the URL, nor the header and even ignored the message posted by RWW team stating that the site wasn’t facebook.

This bunch of users is not a rarity; there are tons of people — a few I know — who do this. The way they browse the web might sound hilarious — open a search engine, type the sites name (ex:yahoo.com in google search mind you) click the first result and browse. As convoluted as it sounds, that’s the only way these people know how to browse the web. Explaining or trying to educate these users might not be a solution, because for one, they just don’t care; two, they know one ‘method’ and don’t want to learn another. What’s required is a reinventing of the way information is consumed and web is accessed.

Devices like iPad just might be the way to go. Want to go to Facebook? No need to open a browser, then google, then search and then land on facebook. On iPad, iPod or on most modern mobile devices, all one has to do is press on an app. It doesn’t have multi tasking, but so what? Does it really matter for ‘people’.

Let me give a more personal example. My father is familiar with computers, because he uses them in office. But he is still not too savvy with it. So he bought a new laptop recently and he for one, is enthusiastic about using it and experimenting with things. Open settings, look around etc etc. I like that about him, because that’s just what I myself. Experiment. He’ll get the hang of internet after a while, but I can’t say the same about my mother.

She is also very smart woman and very enthusiastic about learning new things. But she is more by-the-book kind with technology. So make a mistake in one of the steps and she wouldn’t know what to do. But what if she was using a simpler one-click access device like an iPad? There wouldn’t be any ’steps to follow’ would there? No chance of being confused between email address and websites address would there? No I don’t think so.

iPad’s for them, sure media houses and music industry can call it their savior, but the only bunch iPad will save for sure are the less tech-savvy crowd who use internet. They need this device more than you and me. It may not have a lot of things but whatever it has it does really good.

Personally I like Notion Ink’s Adam (going by the videos that is)

Also read: Why I am Excited About the iPad

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A reader send in this sketch wishing happy birthday to DNA Bangalore. We had carried reporter's diary on our Saturday edition check out pages 7-14 and he made the sketches looking at the pics used in the entries =) What do you think?

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I see trend coming up and I don’t think it’s a trend at all — I’m talking about ‘jugaad’ here. I think it started off with this post by Sarah Lucy of TechCruch (she’s been writing a lot about startup scene in India = awesomeness) and now I see a story at Business Week on the same lines. My question… why the sudden hoopla about jugaad?

The basic funda behind  jugaad is to get the work done ASAP with minimal investments but aren’t there lot of people doing that already? The only thing new for someone from the west is the word and not the concept. Don’t believe me? Check out ‘There I’ve Fixed it‘ people have been doing all over the world through the years. It’s no different from one of the home made remedies my mom would come up with if an insect bit me. Jugaad is about meeting the demand without wasting much time.Real time blogging is jugaad. You add more info as and when it comes.

Jugaad is about satisfying the basic need, no added features, just one solid feature. It’s also about an idea, one brilliant idea which, if developed well could become something much bigger over time. To an extant Twitter two years back was jugaad. It just had one feature update your status message. No @replies, no lists, no organic RTs no nothing. It just catered to people who wanted to keep people posted about their whereabouts.

Jugaad is about desperation. I’m late for work and my vehicle just broke down. Autorickshaw refuses to go and what do I do? I hitch a ride. If you think of it, running a website via cloud is also jugaad. Going for shared hosting instead of a full server is jugaad. Using wordpress to design a website instead of developing a CMS+front is jugaad.

So why west… why go over over the top with jugaad? At best your efforts might help land the word in oxford dictionary, if it hasn’t already and may be a place in management books of the future. Apart from that the term doesn’t deserve more attention.

For a small group of people they were ‘heroes’, for us they were terrorists. Their heroes killed our heroes.

A few new heroes emerged.

Some heroes from the bigscreen became zeros overnight.

The same set of words, pictures and videos were used by media in as many combinations as they could have. But why?

The real criminal — a failed political, and intelligence system — went scot-free, after making a dozen promises.

Tears gave way to anger, to frustration, more frustration and to tears again.

The Earth has come a full cycle, so have we. But we will never forget will we? We shouldn’t, because nothing has changed.

#2611neverforget

I was at the recent tweetup with Shashi Tharoor in Bangalore, and I need to say it was one of the most enjoyable blogger/twitter meets I’ve been to. I wrote about the event in @DNA already, you can read it here and here. So the subject here is not Mr Tharoor who shares his first name with my father, but my identity crisis.

When I’m at one of these tech/social media events I feel like a double agent who is supposed to keep both sides happy. On one hand, I need to write a story about the event or spot a trend which could lead to a story; on the other hand, I’m required be my usual self, tweet-tweet at the event and interact with people I have met and those I have interacted online.

How do I prioritise? Editorji, can I take a day off today and just attend the event as a normal human being? I don’t think I can ever ask that question ever, it’s just not that simple.. never. How would it look if the sports desk takes a day off to watch ManU or Sachin (not cricket)?

Well there I was at the tweetup hearing Tharoor speak… I wrote as fast as I could, please do understand that me, pen and paper don’t get along well these days, thanks to my affair with computer. It took a while to get my hand to coordinate with paper and pen, I tried. I wrote a lot of notes, tried to write every word he spoke (big mistake!) and ended with a tired hand and aching fingers at the end of the day.

Now that’s what I ended up doing, what I really wanted to do was sit back, chill out, smile and join Manu and Nikhil as they cracked PJ after PJ and commented on every question and answer. Sheesh now that sounded nasty, trust me they weren’t nasty in any way. It was just  good humour.

Some say I’m lucky because I get to write about things I’m interested in. Really? Am I? Sure, it’s easier for me, but does that mean it’s good? I’ve heard of coders who code for fun and met a few who hate to code when not at work. I think in journalistic sense I’ll come in the latter category. Can I let my interested remain interests and my work remain my work. Because when both are mixed, at times, it becomes a heady cocktail that ends up giving me a bad hangover.

They say don’t mix business with pleasure, but it’s just the opposite when it comes to journalism and entrepreneurship. Can a film critic watch a movie without having to review it; can a sports correspondent watch cricket and not worry about all the adjectives that needs to be used in the final copy. (I think sports copies use way too many adjectives.. I’m not complaining, makes an interesting read); can a sub-editor read a newspaper without worrying about the typos and the stories missed; and finally can and would a photographer want to take a picture without worrying about perfection? The answer will be no for all these people, because that’s part and parcel of being a journalist, just like the coke ad which said eat cricket, sleep cricket, drink only coca-cola, it’s passion that drives this industry. No passion, no interest, no beat, no news.

I can’t stop writing about things that I write about as of now, because I don’t know what else I’ll write about. Is there a middle path? Any point in following it? I don’t know. But life’s an adventure, if this path doesn’t take me anywhere, I’ll clear the jungle and create a new one. In other words it’s not necessary to take the one not taken by others, you can always create your own. Just make sure it’s a 8-lane highway.

4 Liquid stages of life…
 

What a way to summarize the stages of life- without saying a word!

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