My New Desktop Wallpaper

I love wallpapers and seem to find some really cool ones here and there. This one closely reflects my way of thinking… here’s a snapshot of the one I had right before this…

 

10 Reasons Why You Will Love Microsoft’s Bing

Let’s face it – searching content is not easy. Google is the champ when it comes to search, but if you have faced the frustration of meaningless keyword indexed pages thrown at you, you know how hard it is to find what you really are looking for. Well, hold your horses, because all that is about to change. And “Bing” is the answer.

One look at some of the core features of Bing, and you know that it does wonders in many areas. Areas that Google should’ve long looked at, but didn’t because it was the only major player in the market. Slowly but surely, this will change. I think if the folks @ Redmond play their cards right, they may have a winner here.

Without further ado, let’s get down to 10 Reasons why you will love Bing.

1. If you love local searches, Bing just became your best buddy

I cannot begin to tell you how good the local search is. Type in “Italian Restaurants in San Diego” and you will see a list of local restaurants. Nothing great. This is similar to Google.

But wait till you click on any of the restaurants. BOOM! (No, sorry that’s not Steve Jobs demoing the IPhone). You suddenly see a neat score card and reviews on the restaurants w.o. leaving the site. Not only that, you get a map, with directions from all close-by highways.

Clicking on the map will give you directions from all the nearby highways, since who needs door-to-door directions anyways. I know how to get to the highway, so why don’t you tell me from there. Bing does it. And it does it great. I looked and looked for a very Rat-Pack style Italian restaurant with live jazz music, I started to miss those NYC nights, and lo and behold Bing gave me the restaurant I wanted. I couldn’t do that with Google. Yes, I did find the same restaurant on Yelp, but then again, now I don’t have to go to Yelp, as I can always view the reviews right on the same page.

You can now find local coffee shops, eateries etc without ever having to go to 3 different places.

2. If you love Sports/Games, Bing is Da man!

Ok, quickly, type Kobe Bryant on both Google and Bing. No really, do it.

Here’s what drab Google brings:

Nothing interesting by Google. some videos, a Wikipedia entry etc.

Compare that to what Bing brings:

On the left hand navigation you see items like highlights (which shows all his latest games first), dunks, stats etc. Then you see related searches which are really neat. But on the right hand side, you see all his stats on scores! Points on his last 3 games, Season stats etc. And not only that, but you see separate sections of results on Kobe Bryant Games, Kobe Bryant highlights, biography etc. So you can then narrow your search down to any category you want.

Try the same for the keyword “Padres” on Google and Bing. Note the difference. We’re talking an awesome user experience!

3. Compare Stock Quotes

We all have our stock tickers. Nothing special about it. But yea, Bing does do something really cool. Let’s type in “AAPL CAL GLD quote”. Lo and behold! Bing brings quotes!

Nifty!

4. Awesome Home Page

You’ve gotta give it to them. This is really the coolest stuff I’ve seen. Yes it was alive and working on Live search, but Live search was so yesterday’s search. For people like me, this is one of the most awesome things. I love to travel, and do things that are significantly different, like setting sail in Miami, or riding sled dogs in Alaska, you get the idea, and the home page opens up a completely new prospect of learning more and exploring the world in a better way. For me, this is my daily thing. What can I get from Bing home page today.

5. Hover On Page Summary

A small but cool feature, you can hover on the orange circle next to each link, and it brings you the text of that page. No need to click on the link to find out whether the page contains information you want or not. This seemingly un-interesting feature has itself really saved me a huge chunk of extra clicks i.e. click > hate the page > back button. It’s all about the small things in life. Pareto’s law to full effect.

6. Image Search

Great Image search. Period. Google…goodbye! No one can come close to image search like Bing. I searched for Eiffel Tower, but I only love pictures of Eiffel Tower, that were taken in the night. Here’s the cool thing, hover over 1 night pic (as shown in Fig 1) and then just click on “show similar images” and you’ll see results after results, all on the same page (i.e. no pagination) for the same type of images.

Not only that, you can categorize images by: size, layout, color, style and by People (where options are: Just faces, all, head and shoulders and other) and each of them work pretty good!

7. Video Search

Incase you haven’t heard, Bing is a porn lover’s paradise. Not to take credit away from the excellent feature that Bing provides, but it makes browsing porn (and other videos) really easy. You can hover over a clip and watch it all live in action without having to leave the page. If you decide you like the clip, click on it. In many cases, you still don’t have to leave the site. For someone who loves videos, this is a great place to be. You can sort videos by duration, resolution, screen size and source.

8. Shopping

Cashback works! Type in “Canon Rebel XT” and you’ll see neat little sections like – Shopping, manual, instructions, driver, case, parts, images and videos on the left hand nav. Clicking on a camera actually gives you all the information you need: Product Details, User Reviews, Expert Reviews (a must!) and Compare Prices

9. Travel

Farecaster was a great application. Now that it is integrated in Bing, it’s even better. Looking for airfare deals, trends, or hotel deals etc. Look no further. Bing does it for you. Type in “Airfare to Seattle” and you’ll see a section with prices from cities right on the search page. Click on more deals and you’ll see the other page.

We all know how Farecaster works so I won’t delve into much detail. But it does great. I know I am going to use it again and again; until I find that right deal. You can also directly check your flight status by typing in the keyword “Flight Info”

10. All those other things

Then there are the other things, A TON more if you ask me.

a) Typing in UPS can let you track your package right there

b) Typing in a Movie name will give you all show times right there. You can also see the IMDB rating right on the same page. I really don’t even have to leave the page.

c) Better Health Info, integrated with Mayo Clinic etc

d) Type in word Traffic and you get a heat map with live traffic feedback

e) Great celebrity search, rankings, etc

f) Type in “weather” and you get the weather forecast

g) It remembers your searches. You can save searches

h) Type in a car name and you’ll get all the details for e.g.: Honda Accord

i) Calculator, Instant Answers etc etc

These are all the good things Bing has to offer you. By habit, we are so used to Google (me included) that we find it hard to believe that someone out there can actually provide a better service. I started with a whole lot of hesitation, but slowly I completely phased Google out. There are only certain things that Google does very nicely, like searching for a really old book that can’t be found anywhere. Google has the answer. But for most part, I use Bing because I know I get more meaningful results and I can quickly jump on to a category of my choice.

There are some quirks with Bing though, if you type a spelling incorrectly, it does not give you what you are looking for. I am sure as time passes by this will change.

I would love Bing to integrate with real-time streams like Twitter and Fbook. I know MSFT is already venturing in this area. So that would be great.

So why am I writing this? No I don’t work for MSFT. I did not get paid by MSFT to write this. I am writing this because I am a big fan of healthy competition. Anyone, and I mean anyone who has done business with Google for their campaigns knows how hard they make it for businesses. We are at their mercy, they can raise costs when they want and by as much as they want. There is no *logic*. A healthy competition in this area will put Google back on ground.

For a business model like that of Google, even a 10% decrease in share means tremendous change in revenues.

For customers like us, this is even better, because it gives us the best of the best.

Bing is also a great product and that makes it even better. Give it a whirl, I promise you won’t regret it.

Rainy Day Ramblings

I was chatting up with a couple of friends last weekend about life, money, women and all the good stuff. You know, stuff that sounds interesting especially when vodka is screaming down your veins.

We were talking about how in the past we lived linear lives. “Linear Lives?,” you would ask. “What in the name of God is that mate?” Well, it’s a term I invented to explain this part of our lives that many live unknowingly.

Most of us think about living like this:

“When I turn 30, I want to start my own business.”

“After I get my promotion, I want to take a vacation.”

“When I get my physique right, I am going to head out to the beach.”

blah blah blah. It never ends. Constraints over constraints over constraints over constraints. Don’t stop living because you can’t get some aspect of your life right. Live it while you are making it right.

You get the picture. Everything is linear. The chance that situation Y will occur depends largely on situation X. This in my mind is a great folly in thinking.

We have always been told, wait till you finish your education, and you can then do x, y and z. Do not do a, b or c until you have finished 1, 2 and 3.

The world tells these things to us, and we continue on. Life goes on. Many don’t even realize it; forever. I propose that we have multiple streams going on simultaneously. Push yourselves to the limit. If you have been waiting to take that vacation, TAKE IT NOW!

If you have been holding to start your business until you turn 30, DO IT NOW.

There is no such thing as waiting for tomorrow. While you sit here and wait for that picture perfect moment to arise, life is passing you by. In this faster-than-the-speed-of-light age, there is very little time to waste. Every day, that you sit and waste, pushes you back.

There’s only one situation in which I would recommend following the “Linear Life” principle, and that is, to get out of debt.

There is nothing worse than being in a financial crisis. You need to put that behind you one way or the other. And if that means, working 3 jobs, so be it. But your first goal should be to figure out how to get out of debt. Not only how to get out of debt, but to also create a vehicle that produces unlimited riches for you. For many that is starting their own business, for others it is finding a means of generating residual income etc etc.

Once you have that going for you, nothing in life can stop you. The world has changed a lot. A real lot. You can now put your skills out for people to critique in a matter of minutes. Think you are a good singer? Record a song and put it on YouTube. Think you can act well? Find at least 10 online audition sites and put your video out. You will receive instant feedback.

Another thing I strongly believe in is the IN-OR-OUT principle. I don’t like being in a limbo. I’d rather get IN and enjoy life or I’d rather get OUT and learn my lesson from it and move on. I think a lot of people procrastinate everything in life because they fear failure.

My friends, there is no such thing as failure. It’s all feedback. Feedback is what matters and that is what changes life. You think Honda would’ve been where he got with fear of failure? You think Abraham Lincoln would’ve made it as a president with fear of failure? Put yourself out there. Get tested, in every way possible and life will be more fun.

Don’t forget your goal, consciously work towards it. The journey is what matters, the destination is just an outcome.

Wow, a cup of tea tastes so good when you write about stuff that means a lot to you.

Photography Revisited

Have been doing a lot of cool things with my camera. I always forget how much I love photography until one day I am out with my camera and I end up taking pictures that just look so good.

View Full Album

Enjoy!!

30 Days to change your habits

It's true. It takes about 30 days to change your habits: break old ones or get new ones. For e.g. if you want to take up running, you need about 30 days to get to a point where you become a runner. Same holds true if you want to start working out or stop the information overload that you often subject yourself to etc.

Changing habits requires a couple of very important things:

1. Reason
2. Resilience
3. Follow-Through

REASON
Unless you have a reason for change (and a very good one at that), you are not going to be able to cause a change. The process of wanting a change often begins with a reason. But the reason has to be grounded well. Superficial reasons usually lead to disasters. "I want to lose weight so I can look good in my clothes," is a very superficial reason. 90% of people never follow through on their changes because their reasoning isn't solid enough.
"I want to lose weight so I can live a healthy life and live longer and play with my grandchildren while I am old," on the other hand is a solid reason. Try, "I want to run a marathon when I am 80yrs old."

Your reason for doing something needs to have enough purpose and meaning for you to get up and follow through with your changes each day until your objective is met. This is the only known way you can follow through.

RESILIENCE
Resilience is everything. It is the ability to stand and face the challenges that may arise in the changes you are about to bring. Every action causes and equal and opposite reaction. When you try to change, you will be pushed back, but your reason for change will make you stronger. Your unyielding attitude will make you succeed.

Resilience can be built up by using the Gradual Setup philosophy.

Say you want to change a bodily habit. If you were to just go and start making immediate changes, your body will react in a negative way. You see, your body is smarter than you and it does not like sudden changes.

Some very good examples of how your body reacts when you make rapid changes:

1. If you wake up at 9am every day, try waking up at 7am one day and see what your body does to you.
2. If you don't work out at all, go to the gym one day and just push a whole lot of weights and see what your body does to you.

It goes to prove a very important point, changing habits is better when it is gradual. Gradual shift is a good shift.

When you want to start getting up early, don't just wake up at 7am instead of 9am all of a sudden. Take your time.
For the first couple of days wake up at 8:30. Then for the next couple of days wake up at 8:15. Then 8, then 7:45, then 7:30 and then finally 7. Give yourself enough time and spread to get comfortable to waking up a little early than before.

All great things have a great foundation. Make this initial setup phase a precursor to how you want things to follow. Reinforce your beliefs, outline your vision a little more clearly during this phase. Believe.

You have now formed the habit. The next challenge is to keep it and not revert back to your old ways. This is the toughest phase. Many people make it to the end of the tunnel, but give up because they don't see the light.

FOLLOW THROUGH

At the end of the tunnel lies light. Light that will grant you the joys of the day. Light that gives you the gift of color.

It is the journey that makes the destination worthwhile. The process and what you learn in the process that makes your new habit worthwhile.

Every thing you did in 1 and 2 counts towards 3. If you don't have a good enough 1 (Reason), then your 2 (Resilience) will be weak. If your 2 is weak, 3 is almost a guaranteed failure.

If you have a good enough 1, but not that good a 2 (i.e. you did not take time to adjust to your new habits) then 3 will work out for a while, but eventually lead to failure.

It takes a solid 1 and a rock hard 2 for you to completely develop the new habit to a point that it becomes a part of you. Apply this to any skill, habit you want to develop and you will hopefully reap the fruits of your hard work.

Push the "RESET" button already

I have often been tested in ways I cannot imagine. Each experience has been mind bending and almost paralyzes me to a point where I cannot think for a little bit. And then through some magical way, something works out and life moves on. That's the way life works. Easy come, Easy go...sometimes high, sometimes low..

An immigrant's life in this country is hard. If you are not overwhelmed by the excess of legal papers, you are likely to be challenged by the endless deluge of Visa constraints, the important dates like your extension for the work visa, your Green Card application dates, papers and the list goes on and on. Sometimes I feel so drained by the excess stress imposed by the uncertainty of things that I just can't think straight.

That's when I really need to sit back and regroup and re-game. I need to push the RESET button already.

Life doesn't have to be hard. It's your perspective that makes it hard. To change your life, you have to change your perspective.

A great friend of mine once taught me a great technique. It's called the Golden Bubble Technique. Every time you are going to act on while in a helpless situation, or if you don't know what your next step should be, just use the Golden Bubble Technique.

GOLDEN BUBBLE TECHNIQUE

Visualize yourself in 3rd person and step outside from your body and look at yourself and the current situation inside a Golden Bubble. What do you see? Disconnect your emotions and just focus on what seems to be the most plausible action. See yourself in ways you have never seen yourself before. Analyze from the outside. It's a tremendous experience. The golden bubble will disconnect your thoughts from all the negativity and reinforce some light and positive attitude. Very important. Many a times the Golden bubble will spit out the answer so fast, that you almost think you're stupid for not knowing it.

It's called selective disassociation.

Pushing the RESET button implies a lot of things. Here are some that are very important:

1. Slow Down
I cannot begin to tell you how important slowing down is. I was so stressed by a particular situation today, it almost made me cry. Made me feel I cannot control things around me. But i soon realized, what's not in my hands cannot be controlled by me. If fate has something ugly in store for me, I am ready to take it on...head on.
I just slowed down. I sat down on my couch, set back the recliner and just chilled out. Listened to really slow music... "Amos Lee - Arms of a woman", and just closed my eyes for a moment. Slooooooow Downnnnnn.... breathe in slowly, breathe out, and as you breathe out, just get rid of all that instability your devious mind causes.....

2. Write Down your Feelings
Many times you will feel helpless. Keeping emotions in your head does not help. What helps is verbalizing using the right phrases and words your exact feelings. Doing so does the following: it frees up all the junk you kept re-iterating in your mind. It gives you a more rational way of associating your emotions. People usually don't have many adjectives to describe their emotions. Most of them describe their emotions using: Unhappy, Tired, Frustrated.

They say the more you can enunciate your feelings, the better person you become. So if you are exhausted, say you are exhausted. And so for unhappy, helpless, challenged, insecure, jealous etc.

3. Know that you're not the only one
Not only that.... you probably have it better than most others. I was once not happy with the way things were going on in my life. I had a week of arguments with my girlfriend over things that really don't matter at all, but we fought and fought. And then one day, while she was gone, I watched the movie, "City of God." Within 20mins of the movie, I just realized how fortunate I am. You see those little trigger happy kids, shooting and being shot and you realize how lucky you are.

My mind raced back to those days in Bombay where I would stand on one foot in a jam packed train compartment, praying to God that I don't lose my bag which was somewhere around my arm, just because it contained one of my most precious things, a photograph of me and my crush at that time :)

If I pulled off that, I can pull off anything. People who have lived in 3rd world countries know what real pain is. Real pain is not having clean water to drink, or water to bathe on days, or continuous electricity, or luxurious cars, or free roads and a peaceful drive on the streets. Real pain is when you get old before you are old.

If you think you've had it with things, just flip your channel to CNN and see how many global crisis' are going on right now. Do you really think you've had it that bad?

Well, we'll continue more when I write again. Life is too fast, unless we devise ways to slow it down and make it worthwhile to stay.

Until then.

Love,
Anup

Happy New Year!

I would love to wish all my readers a Happy New Year.

Looking back at the last year, I can tell you things have changed a lot since! I am no longer working 12hr days! I am having a great time working from home and working on things that are really important to me. I am absolutely enjoying life to its fullest.

2009 is going to be a very personal year for me. It will be a year of tremendous paradigm shifts. It will be a year that dictates the next 4-5yrs of my life. I can already feel the good stress when I wake up and I am excited to see what fate has in store for me.

Once again, I wish all my friends and readers a very Happy New Year!!

Let's start the good times...

Martini of the Day - Dec 30, 2008 - Tangerine Martini

This great martini comes courtesy of Tower23, a great hotel bar in Pacific Beach! This place is a personal favorite hangout place!
This is officially the last martini of the entire Martini series, and I was very impressed by it!