How important is important interruption?

Few days a ago we meet Ms. Sukeshini Grandhi a PhD candidate and currently doing an intern for Nielsen Norman group, yeah the usability guru Jacob Nielsen, she was at our campus. Her work seems to be fascinating, she expressed her current passion, working on personal notification system (something like that) it is more or less like you don’t want to get bothered unless it is important. It is interesting, why, I get stupid calls from banks, vendors etc which actually bother my work.

How many phone calls did you receive which was actually important or felt it was important?
Most Managers become inefficient, and this is one of the factors, because of intrusion, interruption in work and so on.. Why not the people who work under him/her are more efficient. Their work is focussed, only when problem arise then need to notify the manager.

So here is a system Which I suggest to Ms Sukeshini Grandhi on the next generation Mobile phones and gadgets which will ensure that, you don’t get distrubed unless you need to hear what is important ( this is my wild Imagination, I am sure you can come up with something better).

something like a spam list for your email, you will have one for your hitech gadgets. Your registed users can interrupt your work, spam list users are handled by your mobile phone’s artifical intelligent voice interactive software (tell yours caller that you are busy, leave the number and the message will get back to you shortly), well all information are stored locally. Few exception or hack which is purposefully made for the spammers to reach you, they need to make a minumum of five calls to reach you. (This is going to be tough on spammers who would not like to try and burn their pockets), Even been thinking when at workplace, your gadget set on to a mounting stand would smartly recharge if necessary or update files from server and also that it knows you are at work and you don’t like to get disturbed. Only when important call arrives it gives you a ring

Why in the first place do we need keys for our gadgets why not just touch screens, view a large video, type things like you find one on the tablet PC or handheld devices (PDAs).
Voice recognition software has to play a major role, currently some mobile phones of Nokia has bare minimal voice recognition software so that you can use for voice dial, I think Bill Gates is on to this, his team is currently focussing on to the Voice recognition software.
Well the future seems to be interesting as more and more devices are converging in to one
Like Mobile phones currently plays FM radio, MP3 songs (ipod feature), Camera. What could the next thing “Voice recognition” and noftification when needed

Well I am looking forward for Ms. Sukenshini Grandhi to reply and have herself a blog so we all could interact.

Note: for those who want see her works, here is the link
Her Eyetracking project click here

Thanks to Rajendran, You could even see Ms Sukeshini Grandhi (right) with Radha Rajendran.

 

Technorati: usability, NNgroup, gadgets, phone, privacy, thesis, future, voice, recognition, software, nokia

Bachelors – Go get a life

I have couple of young friends, some just finished out of college and waiting for job and some as fresher’s out in my office and some who have enough experience in the job and stay Single.

I have seen these youngsters getting dated to the bright and colorful computer monitor, late in the evening chatting with friends using yahoo,MSN or any other messengers or even writing scrap books at orkut, or at Myspace or any other social gathering site. The good point they recognized the best place to hang around on the digital world, but miserably failed in the real world.

Some of my friends proactively hang around the floating population at Chennai’s Spencer’s plaza or at Cafe Coffee day, End of the day most of them make no friends out there.

So what is the point you saying I don’t have a Girl Friend or a Boy Friend.

What is the next step?
Now go get a life

 

Technorati: bachelor, friends, girlfriend, social, life, love

Want to have friend?

This is in continuation of my previous post Bachelors – Go get a life
I am just trying to kindle the fire in every one of you
What is the next step?

If you need a girl friend you need to follow these steps

Step 1: Listen
Learn to Listen (even after knowing this trick I do the same mistake often with my wife)

Step 1: Develop a thick skin
There is no more of I it is now WE, you can be a male chauvinist any longer.

Step 1: Communicate
Knowing the other person, I know this is the toughest part, as you may not know this person at all, know her friends, sometimes her friend may not look the best, but still you need to talk to her best friend/s.

Common mistake, just because she gave you a big vibe, doesn’t mean she is in love with you. She may have the intension, unless you take it forward nothing is gonna happen.

Step 2: No middle men
Learn to say that you care and not your friend going and saying, you care for her. If you don’t have the guts, you better sit at home with your dumb computer.

1. Mostly this happens when you start liking a girl at the first sight, never do this, this is a pitfall.

2. Move with all the girls you like the same way, only time tell who is good and who is not. When you are friends you don’t have the stammering problem or
   the starting problem, when you decide you need her or care more for her, EXPRESS IT, don’t wait…
3. A friend of mine asked his girl friend’s friend to communicate that he care for his girlfriend, believe me, every thing went the wrong way, after which he mustered courage and proposed his first lady.
4. A friend of mine got married to a girl who were friends for about 7 years and never said the word “I Love you”, they have a kid now.

One more topic which I will discuss later. before I wind up this topic, let me iterate, Most youngsters don’t look at the inner soul they get carried
away by the looks
Mind these words : A girl good in geography is weak in her history
Remember: Take time, listen, communicate and now it is all WE

 

Technorati: bachelor, friends, girlfriend, social, life, listen, communicate, middlemen, express, love, life

Fast & Steady relationship

This post is in continuation of Want to have friend?

What type you R, I and not comparing you with the honda type R cars, they are fast and reliable
Are you looking at 2 fast 2 furious relationship
remember it is not meant to last.
Most men do this mistake: before marriage they care for the first lady and they happen to wait for hours, they listen, they obey, they buy, they get and everything after marriage turns be like I, ME, Not you, not yours etc. do you know the reason
WHY?
There was actually no time for you to know eachother, you people got busy***. You never learnt about dislikes,hate,offend,turnoff
Fast Love actually means 1 night stand, Which I don’t encourage and I am not going to talk about that.

e.g. A distant relative of mine just got married and had been at our parents place for dinner, this guy would do any favours for this lady even ignoring my parents, Gosh was an embarrassing situation for my parents. Now they are divorced, reason – they didn’t understand eachother, SEX alone is not marriage.

If you looking for steady Love- Give time for friendship to blossom, Let both of you feel that, you can’t live with out each other.

 

Technorati: bachelor, friends, girlfriend, social, life, listen, communicate, middlemen, expressit, fast, steady, love, life

Howto screenshot as 300DPI

The other day we were working for the NewYork trade show Artwork and we wanted to take a ManageEngine Opmanager screen snapshot and make a billboard.
Task: What you see on the computer screen is 72 DPI where as on print what we need atleast a minimum of 100 DPI better one of 300 DPI

Howto:
Desire output

Using Adobe Photoshop and using your normal screen capture method ALT + Printscreen (to get the highlighted or active window) or just Printscreen (to get the entire desktop), you could get the desired 300DPI

Step 1

Capture your desired screen

Step 2

Open Adobe Photoshop and choose File ->New
enter the resolution as 300 DPI
press ctrl +v on PC please find the equivalent on Macintosh (Mac users please suggest the key equivalent on my comments area)

Step 3

Crop the desire area using your marquee tool

step 4
You are done, currently this screenshot is 300 DPI and by using your move tool move the screenshot to your desired artwork

Technorati Tags: screenshot, capture, printscreen, screencapture, 300DPI, 72DPI, DPI, opmanager, howto, manageengine, adobe, photoshop

Howto -Printing Background colors : browser setup

We have been working on ManageEngine -> Opmanager -> MSP product and faced a situation on printing reports.

Task Print graph:

The task was to print to graph which had the border and color filled.
we searched around IE and Firefox browser

Firefox was little intelligent – they showed the option under File -> Page setup



Well IE (internet Explorer) usability was bit tough they placed it under
Tools -> Internet Options -> Advanced (tab) -> on the printing section

Next time you want your reports to have the color filled remember to have these setup on your browsers.

Technorati Tags: opmanager, opmanagermsp, msp, manageengine, print, printing, background, options, trick, tips, printing background, reports, browser, IE, firefox, usability, howto

End to Anonymous Phone Calls & Privacy

I guess Citibank  is the first to be proactive to put an end to anonymous Phone calls, promotional mailers (spam mails). Yesterday I received a Mail from Citibank asking me for the preference of me receiving the mails.

I remember the same when I worked in Clasticon Solutions a year ago, My friend Navin told me that Citibank is planning on sending mails to all its customers, about the choice of mails which the customers would like to receive.

Well it took one year, but good they are likely to be the trend setters as the same may be expected from other banks and mobile operators like Airtel,aircel Hutch.

Here is the mailer which I received from Citibank

But one more thing is that Who ever designed this form is mean
Why don’t they like a customer?
Imagine, I would like to receive email’s but not phone calls- there is no option for me to list in the above form.
The brilliant IIM guys @ citibank suck

Technorati: anonymous, phone, privacy, clasticon, citibank, customer, relationship

Love & Road Safety

Those who love their wife, will not say NO to helmet

Does the above line find you some familiarity (Just translate in Tamil) - The above copy is from the Ad – Prestige Cooker

I saw this couple on the guindy road, chennai. Believe me there have been fatal accidents on the same lane. I would say they are really proactive and setting an example for others. 

I use to tell my wife to wear the helmet when she is a pillion rider, she fears for her hair all the time. Hope this picture should make her feel comfortable 

 

Technorati: road, safety, love, wife, bike, women, ladies, girl

tags: road, safety, love, wife, bike, women, ladies, girl

create Simple Custom DHTML POPUP

Follow the simple steps to achieve the popup, no use of prototype, moofx and other prototypes available on the net.

I have taken reference from Little Boxes in order to create the box centered for IE and firefox.

Step 1
Create style sheet – save the below content as “fxpopup.css”

body {
	margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
	padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
	font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
	/* specify your background color here */
	background-color: #FFF;
	}
p {
	font-size: 12px;
	line-height: 12px;
	}
.tiny {
	font-size: 9px;
	line-height: 16px;
	margin-top: 15px;
	margin-bottom: 5px;
	}
#rt{
	float: right;
	margin-right: 10px;
}
#rt a{
	color: #CCCCCC;
	text-decoration: none;
}
#rt a:hover{
	text-decoration: none;
	color: #FFFFFF;
}

#top {
	padding: 1px;
	border: 1px solid #ccc;
	background: #666;
	height: 20px; /* ie5win fudge begins */
	height: 20px;
	margin-right: auto;
	margin-left: auto;
	}
html>body #top {
	height: 20px; /* ie5win fudge ends */
	}
#left {
	position: absolute;
	top: 120px;
	left: 0px;
	margin: 20px;
	padding: 10px;
	border: 0px solid #FFFFFF;
	width: 150px;
	width: 120px;
	}
html>body #left {
	width: 120px;
	}
.gecko #middle{
	width: 700px;
}
.ie  #middle{

}
#middle {
	padding: 1px;
	border: 5px solid #ccc;
	background: #666;
	margin-right: auto;
	margin-left: auto;	

	}
#right {
	position: absolute;
	top: 120px;
	right: 0px; 	margin: 20px;
	padding: 10px;
	border: 0px solid #FFFFFF;
	width: 150px;
	width: 120px;

	}
html>body #right {
	width: 120px;	}
pre {
	font-size: 12px;
	line-height: 22px;
	margin-top: 20px;
	margin-bottom: 10px;
	}
#info{
	font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
	font-size: 14px;
	font-style: normal;
	line-height: normal;
	font-weight: bold;
	font-variant: normal;
	color: #FFFFFF;
	text-decoration: none;
	float: left;
}
#overlay{
	position: absolute;
	z-index:90;
	width: 100%;
	height: 100%;
	top: 0;
	left: 0;
	min-height:100%;
	background-color:#000;
	filter:alpha(opacity=60);
	-moz-opacity: 0.6;
	opacity: 0.6;
	display: none;
}

#popcontent{
	position: absolute;
	z-index:100;
	width: 100%;
	height: 100%;
	top: 0;
	left: 0;
	display:none;
}

Step 2
Creating the HTML content

Import the fxpopup.css

Step 3
Place the below code after the <body> tag

<div id=”overlay”></div>
<div id=”popcontent”>
<div id=”top”>
<div id=”info”></div>
<div id=”rt”><a href=”#” class=”tiny” onclick=”parent.closeme();”>X</a>
</div>
</div>
<div id=”left”></div>
<div id=”middle”>
<pre>
</pre>
<div align=”right”></div>
</div>
<div id=”right”></div></div>

Step 4
Create the JavaScript – save the below code as fxpopup.js

document.getElementById(‘middle’).innerHTML =”<iframe align=\”top\” frameborder=\”0\” scrolling=\”auto\” width=\”100%\” height=\”400\” name=\”ifr\” id=\”ifr\” ></iframe>”
var IFrameObj;
IFrameObj = frames['ifr'];

function openpopup(url,w,h,heading){
document.getElementById(‘overlay’).style.display =’block’;
document.getElementById(‘popcontent’).style.display =’block’;
document.getElementById(‘top’).style.width = w +8+”px”
document.getElementById(‘middle’).style.width = w+”px”
document.getElementById(‘middle’).style.height = h+”px”
document.getElementById(‘ifr’).style.height = h+”px”
document.getElementById(‘info’).innerHTML = heading;
IFrameObj.location.href=(url);
}
function closeme(){
document.getElementById(‘overlay’).style.display =’none’;
document.getElementById(‘popcontent’).style.display =’none’;
}
// usage instruction – openpopup(url,width,height,heading);
//openpopup(urle,800,700,’Page Heading’);

Step 4 – calling the popup function on the a hyperlink
<a href=”#” onclick=”openpopup(‘yourpopuppage.html’,800,500,’your title’)”;>popup link</a>

You are done
Popup tested on IE7 and firefox 1.5.0.6

Ensure to call the css and js

call the js file at the end of the page.

Here is the link to the working sample as a zip file

Technorati: dhtml, popup, custom, popup, xhtml, javascript, css

tags: no, prototype, css, javascript, dhtml, popup

Adventnet Japan

I like japanese people for 3 reasons, They are kind of inspiration when it comes to work for me.

1. Hardwork – I don’t have to comment
2. Perfection – ” “
3. Respect – he would bend his head down thousand times (bow) while we had a conversation

I am about to introduce Yoshiyuki Sone, collegue of mine who works at Adventnet Japan, he is the sales specialist. He has all the above qualities and one more exceptional reason for me to talk about him

His Hair style rocked Adventnet Chennai, He had been here yesteday meeting all members of the Opmanager Team, beleive me he was the center of attraction

So here he is

Click on the image to have a larger version
Well actually it is 4 reason for Yoshiyuki Sone, I asked him how does he maintain his hair style, do you apply Hairstyling gel, He said  “Yes”
cool personality

Technorati Tags: adventnet, opmanager, team, japanese, hardwork, perfection, respect, japan