Recently I completed listening to Tom Friedman's " World is Flat " on an audiobook had to agree with a lot of his statements, especially given how my life has been spawned over several countries and continents in the last decade. But when it comes to...

Late June, I had managed to get myself 2 tickets within a week which were to be contested at the Bellevue Court and one at the State court. The fines for the infractions were initially to about $300 (total) though the potential damage it could do to my...

If you are away from your office for a while at Microsoft - then dont expect it to remain intact by the time you are back. While I was out for MGX 2006 (Microsoft Global Exchange - Akin to the global sales-Kick off meeting at the ending of every fiscal...

Last Friday the Annual Sunset cruise in Seattle had its 2006 version kick off at Pier 55 even grander than last yr! The Seattle Business School Alliance which organizes this every year gets about 320+ MBAs from the region to congregate on a cruise for...

Less than a month ago I had the opportunity to catch up with Jenna Adorno and she blogged about it too at Jobsblog which really was more a lunch to get to know the new face behind the Jobsblog than anything. Jenna shared her true passion for recruiting...

Before Christmas on my first attempt to buy a Nano on the internet I was scammed by some scam artistes who had a history of scamming and changing their names. Ofcourse having bought everything on Ebay from books, to batteries, to digital cameras to even...

Another of my longfound truths of life was deemed false today. LongFound Truth of Life # 671: "Any email that usually starts with the words - "Congratulations" is a Junk Mail from a newly minted "multi-Millionaire" from a faraway country to wants your...

Scott Adams in his blog today makes a passing point abt "competitive strategies", and I quote: "And what’s up with the people who pray for material things? If you believe that God answers prayers for merchandise, it means the gap between the Almighty...

Two words Heather - Marketing Power. That's my answer to Heather's " Does not Get it " question when she focuses her attention on IKEA and its maniacal shoppers . Allow me to respond with an even better example of MarketingPower that drove customer buying...

The New York Times the other day talked about the problem with business meetings about too much time being spent in meetings per week . The Average as you can see from the graphic on the left is 4.34 hrs spent per week and about 2.28 hrs for Males and...

Yesterday, Levitt wrote this wonderful little piece about the Ukranian win over the Swiss in Penalty kicks where the Swiss apparently "took his advice" and shoot in the middle of the goal and Lost. The advice I refer to is his paper on the predictions...

"So Does Microsoft sponsor H1B visas!?" Aaah - how many times have I heard that question asked of me. Jenna Adorno (the JobsBlog headhoncho) now that Gretchen is out doing her thang at JobSyntax has a small little write up on this issue .. and for...

Apart from the downtime and long hrs at work spent at work migrating across to Vista and back from XP there was one casualty this weekend. I lost one email during all the " pst chunking" A West Coast blog reader of mine (actually she was Heather' s...

Now *This* is Coolness! Everyone whoz anyone knows that the chances that the person sitting next to you in an airplane is paying the same airfare as you is extremely low especially in the US airfare industry. There have been several interesting websites...

There have been tons of discussion around " Flashy Car Colors leading to tickets ", but do speeding tickets happen in pairs (read: within a week) ? Well based on my experience in PA and in WA, and some of my friends here at work (who shall be unnamed...

On my migration from Office 2003 to Office 12 - Outlook went from slow to Stop. After long calls with the IT Helpdesk the problem was resolved. My PST files were 1.8GB big, the recommended size is about 1 GB. It took a good part of 4 hrs to chunk...

Chalk this one on my list of Stupid things to do. Given that Office 2003 on XP was running as fast Daffy Duck on a marathon - what was I thinking when I decided to upgrade to Office 12 on Vista at that. The pointed Fingers are aimed at a certain Felipe...

Quite interesting that when India makes it to the covers that the foto to be chosen (Left) is a Bharathanatiyam dancer from South India. Especially when you realize that 5 out of 7 ppl polled typically would have said that the TajMahal as the first thing...

Talk about real-time info.... Office Server Recruiting Reception Wednesday, June 14, 2006, Building 31 Cafeteria 5-7PM This event is for external candidates and Microsofties.....bring your friends (or their resumes)! Please attend our Recruiting...

Before u read any further - do realise this post is more a reflection with interest and NOT an endorsement, support or remark of any kind. Last week's update when we opened up Vista Beta2 Download came with a usage warning on June 9th that high demand...

Google Current - a brief really hip TV Segment on what people are searching for online being showcased on Current TV an interactive cable channel. Shouldnt be long before this becomes pop-culture and behavioral trends of searches and reasons to search...

Back in March, I had hosted on behalf of Microsoft and the WWESS Recruiting committee (this is was much before the last reorg ofcourse) The Annual Tepper Students @ Microsoft Day and thanx to my extended 2-part blog-hiatus the update is coming now! Oh...

Remember the mainframe concept of consolidation? Where all the CPU power, rules , data are all in one central server - and if that crashes all hell breaks loose? Well the way I maintain my wallet is not too dissimilar to that. All credit cards, cash,...

May 31st was the 1st year anniversary of my tenure here at Microsoft. And what was a year and feels like five - there are 10 learnings that I can enlist: Keep your boss happy. Keep your Admins happier. Change is Constant because of Reorgs ...

Vervago's PQA - Precision Questioning and Answering training is an artful application of science to get to the root of complex issues through simple questioning - where the rule is to respond to the unambiguous thoughtful question in a word, number or...