Open up to open source !

In a post some time back, I'd written about disliking Windows Vista, and having chickened out of installing Ubuntu. With a weekend at hand, and no intentions of hitting the books, I had to do something....well, Windows got the boot (pun unintentional) !

The whole thing took just 10 minutes, starting to ending. Another 5 minutes to install Skype, a Flash plugin for watching Youtube and other streaming videos, and VLC player, and there I was, all set...
I spent more time thinking about this, than I did on the actual installation. I had a friends laptop running a Youtube demo installation while I was working on mine. That way, I knew that I was on the right track, and which option to select and so on.

Now, everything on my laptop is free. FREE.
I love it.
Open Source rocks.
May the source be with you ! (mea culpa, that's a really bad one !!)

Oh, did I mention that my 3 year old laptop feels blazing fast now?

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A victim of it's own success ?

Will Facebook end up being the victim of it's own success ? Methinks so.
Sure, there are tonnes of arguments to be made, either way.
For: the TINA factor i.e. Google's ineptitude at Social Networking (Orkut & Buzz).
Against: Privacy, changing habits, blah blah (it's a long list)
In my highly biased opinion, there are two things that will be the deciding factors:


Fact # 1: Facebook Connect is increasingly connecting websites to Facebook.This trend will only accelerate. More and more websites will link to websites. You'll be able to use your Facebook ID on these sites too. Liking or sharing information will be seamless across websites, making Facebook a kind of one-stop-shop for all your needs.
This alone, virtually guarantees a somewhat safe future for Facebook. It's not disappearing anytime soon, that's for sure !

Fact # 2: Facebook started off only for college kids, and now has anybody and everybody on it.
Facebook became so insanely popular with the rest of the world because it was popular with the kids in college, to begin with. They spread the word, as it were. Now, everybody and his Uncle are on Facebook. There's a lot of stuff going on with it. A lot of eyeballs are on Facebook. It's mainstream now !!
This might just turn off the younger lot. They'll come up with something newer, edgier, and much cooler. And if half the world is using a website to socialize, then that website just lost its 'coolness'. So I see more and more youngsters drifting away from Facebook. Where? God know! But, there's bound to be a steady decline.

Will it disappear? No. It'll probably become something that does fairly well, something that a lot of people use, but something that is no longer 'happening'. Staid and boring. It'll become Hotmail !!

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OST : the rise and fall of the wannabe MBA

The beginning of an MBA
when everybody's out to change the world, get filthy stinking rich, "give back", whatever !!
I want it all,
We are the champions,
We will rock you....

Sometime later, when the deliverables start piling up......
Under Pressure !!

Very soon, when the exams are around the corner....
I want to break free

The exam results roll in
Another one bites the dust

PS: There I was, working late into the night on a submission. A "Queen" playlist on.
And since I was thinking of everything under the sun other than the submission at hand, I came across this particular selection (If this were a hollywood flick, this would be the genius seeing patterns in coded messages/symbols)....

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