Finally, Google Calendar is here! Now, being a Google fan, I ought to write a review for it and (probably) praise it.

But I will not. Since everybody else is talking about it. Go to any IT news site, its filled with reviews and comments regarding the new kid in the block. I would just give my opinion about it.

I think its a cool utility. Having a calendar online is really something. By integrating Chat in Gmail, they gave us a reason to keep our Gmail windows open throughout the day. Now with this thing in place, they have given us a reason for never closing it!

The interface is intuitive and would be a breeze for any Outlook user. They also have an option for sending mail invitations to guests in an event. Also, use of AJAX has resulted in a really dynamic and neat interface. I wonder if they have done some Phd. in UI :). There is also Gmail integration to detect events being discussed in mail/chat conversations so that they can be scheduled from there only. Now that’s a smart feature :).

I guess that the overall options should be increased and I am sure they are working on it :). Curently its a basic calendar wherein you can schedule events and send invites and alerts. Probably its just the trailer. The real thing is yet to come.

The war is taking up. Google is all set to bang Microsoft with its online bouquet of smart and neat products. No matter how much the likes of Microsoft and Yahoo! try, they are never gonna come close to Google in this race. Try visiting some of the pathetic Yahoo! services like 360. You will know what I mean. Windows Live! is receiving a good response from users but lets see what it has in plate for us.

Till then, start using the state of the art Google Calendar. It would really leave you thinking that its a bad Outlook.

Update:
Google calendar is now integrated with GMail. It can detect events being discussed in mail conversations and give an option towards the right (just above the adsenses) to schedule the event in your calendar! Cool eh? B-)

Continuing my previous post.

I have the Gmail chat enabled in my account! And it just rocks :). This thing is sooo cool!

They have designed it so perfect :-). Oh. Guess they must have hired some expert in UI. Probably a Phd. ;). Now this is what I call a communication system. There is no VoIP (*yet*), but I’ll keep my x*fingers crossed*x. You never know what these guys are upto or what they can do.

Just to give an example: Whenever you get an IM from any of your contacts, the color of the title bar of the window that appears is the same as the highlight color of that contact’s name in the contact list on the left. Neat.

Another thing is the dancing (rotating) emoticons. Although there are only a few of them. The dialog which appears on hover over a contact’s name is also neat.

In short, I love it! Although, I’d like the window’s name to blink in the taskbar when I get a message and I am working in some other window. Just like Yahoo! messenger or GTalk for that matter. Some people might find it annoying, but I guess its needed. Not the sound. Just the visual.

Google rocks!

Everything was fine befoer I went for lunch. After coming back, I unlocked my workstation and opened Gmail home page (I usually log off my mails accounts when I leave my PC for long). There it was. Something new from Google. After a long time, it was good to see something innovative from the ubiquitous owner of the web.

Gmail chat. No its not Google Talk if you are smart enough to use it already. This is a new concept altogether.

Picture this: Whosoever in your Gmail contacts is logged into his/her mail account, you can see them online! That too in a neat block on the left side of the page (Where the Invite thing is there). Ofcourse you will have an option to choose which ones should be displayed. Now this block (or whatever they call it) will be so dynamic (using AJAX) that it will give the look and feel of a regular chat IM. Isn’t that cool? Also, the PMs you send will not be nagging pop ups from the window, but another small block on the bottom right corner (You have the option to pop it up if you are so used to it). Now that’s what I really call cool.

All said and done, it seems that its going to be a hit with users. Atleast I am gonna love it. Not because I am a fan of Google, but because, its really an innovative concept. Really helpful in situations where the IM softwares are firewalled.

They still have not activated it on my account. They better do it fast else… Leave it, I cannot do anything anyway.

I read about this somewhere at http://www.aalaap.com (One of my favourite writers). Airtel broadband now offers double the speed during night (10:30 pm to 6am).

Aalaap wrote that he had enquired only in NCR region. I am a subscriber from Bangalore. Yesterday night, I got 256 kbps speed from my 128 kbps connection! Isn’t that cool? I mean, most of the people put their downloads in the night and sleep. This is really cool!

Although, there can be many reasons for the same. Either Airtel isn’t getting enough customer base to meet the bandwidth it has, and is hence, distributing it to the subscribers. Or, probably this one is more sensible: many non geeky subscribers just shut down their PCs at night and sleep! Hence, the available bandwidth increases and instead of just letting it go waste, they are distributing it among the geeky subscribers. Now that’s some geeky move!

All in all, the move is really appreciated and will surely help Airtel to retain customers and lure some more. Apart from this, I think its one of the businees strategies of Airtel to capture the market extensively before other major players ike Reliance and Tata start their services.

Speaking of Reliance, I have a gut feeling about the Ambanis and the Tatas not entering the broadband bandwagon. I think its the calm before the storm. Probably they are planning for another revolution. The broabband revolution in India. Just like the mobile revolution (Remember the ads “Roti kapda makaan aur MOBILE”?). Probably Reliance is planning to launch its broadband using WiMax.

Whatever it is they are planning, until they launch their services everyhere, Airtel broadband rocks!

Update: The speed during normal working hours (6 am to 10:30) pm has reduced significantly! Infact, its pathetic. Now I know, nothing in this world is free 🙁

The other day, i was chatting with a friend of mine who lives in Shipra. He was in his room in shipra. He asked me whether i have Hyderabad blues 2 songs. I said no.
After some time, Anuj came to my room and said that he has those songs. I copied them from his system. I informed my friend in shipra(who was still online) that the songs are here. He asked me to mail them. I said are you serious? One song was 13 mb large. he could easily take it on a CD RW the day after. But he was very eager to listen to the song.

That’s when Gmail came into rescue. The great email service offers 1 GB of space with unlimited(ofcourse < 1GB) attachment size. I mailed him the song. Then another song and then also mailed him some softwares. Somehow from the inside, i was feeling happy. Thets what i want to elaborate in this article. We are finally using the next generation communication services! Imagine honestly. how many of you even thought of mailing a file more than 5 or 6 mb in size a few months back? But this great company changed everything. And above all, its email service is not even publically launched yet! Goggle launched the Gmail beta and invited a few people to test it. Those few elites were given some invites to invite whomsoever they want. And the chain continued. Somehow, the chain also reached our hostel to a person who doesn’t want his name to be written here. He passed on the privilage to me. For a few days, we really felt proud and differentiated from the others. Well, all gud things must come to an end. Both of us got invites. we invited many friends and now, many of us have spare invitations left! The point i m trying to make here is that Gmail, just by announcing that it would be offering 1 GB of space, shattered the roots of the major webmails in the world. Soon after, our own desi Rediffmail joined the spree and converted the accounts to 1 GB!!! following Yahoo(which now offers 100 MB space). The attachment size was also increased by a few megabytes. Hotmail has recently announced to convert the accounts to 250 MB.

In the meantime, another mail service opened. Aventuremail. It claimed to offer 2 GB spae. But again. Its registerations closed very early and are still not open. Another service Youvegotpost.com, started offering 1 TB!!! But soon the size reduced to even 20 MB.

Returning to the main topic, we started sending songs and softwares to each other using Gmail(even in the hostel). Although the process was slower, but we felt a little motivated to do so. It really feels good to say to someone “Hey, i have sent you an mp3 on your gmail account. Listen to it and tell me how it was.”

So, we are finally here. in the age of next generation mail service. Where people can send files mbytes in size. But i’d also like to make another point here. Not every player had the stamina to survive in the market as is evident from the results of aventuremail and youvegotpost. Google was smart enough to increase the number of users gradually by using invites. Yahoo also made it by increasing only to 100 MB. And Rediff? it does not even has much accounts to fear that it will fall. Aventuremail and Youvegotpost took a wrong step by straight away offering their services to the public.

Here comes the jist of my previous blog. “Why do we compete?”

Google doesnt need to compete with anybody. Its mere announcement changed the paradigm. Just imagine what will happen after it launches its services for public! Rumours are that Google is also developing its Instant messenger using orkut. I’m sure people will divorce Yahoo and MSN and marry google. They really are making the world a better place to live. What did other companies do? They just increased their storage capacity and finished! Whereas, Google is constantly trying to provide the best it can to the public. That is why it is miles aheah of the rest. There are higher limits to everything than one can imagine.

Another company whose name comes into my mind in this scenerio is Reliance Infocomm. This company was concieved by Mr. Mukesh Ambani more than 5 years back. That was the time when, what to talk of mobiles, even land lines were not so common. Having a P&T telephone was considered to be a thing of pride for a middle class family. there were schedules for rates – 1/2, full, quarter and that bugging “All lines to this route are busy. Please try after some time.” Mobiles were considered a rich man’s things and were used rarely due to high rates and that too for voice calls only.

Now picture this –
At that point in time, this great man and his great father imagined a world of this time. A time when mobiles will be so common that even Rickshaw wallah, electricians and Dhobis will have their personal mobiles. They forsighted that voice calls will not be the only usage of a mobile. It will be used for DATA calls and multimedia content as well. Could any of us even think of such a thing at that time? And even if we could, we didn’t have enough money to put it in motion (LOL). But again they could forsee beyond imagination.

And yes, they have made it. The 24,000 crore Reliance Infocomm is here. With not only offering mobile services, but also offering enterprise communication, storage, and computing solutions to corporates. Evidences are that they are rolling out their set top boxes codenamed “Netway” next year. This little box will give you hundreds of channels, broadband internet connection, an IP phone and many more things which you cannot even imagine (but i can as i have read their document on Netway. If anybody wants to imagine, drop me a mail, i’ll send you the document) for a few hundred bucks per month!

Again reliance is not competing with anybody. This is quite evident from the fact that their call rates are way below the others. Had they been competing, they would have kept their rates a few paise below the others and waited for someone to drop. But no, just as Google initiated the space war in mails, they initiated the price war in mobiles.

Both the above cited examples remind me of a saying by Dough Larson i saw on the wallpaper of my friend in the first paragraph:

“Some of the world’s greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible.”

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A few days back i had gone to my paternal uncle’s home in Meerut. He told me that he is shifting from Airtel to BSNL. Upon enquiring why, he said that BSNL call rates are cheaper than Airtel and it also provides cheap and wider roaming. I couldn’t say anything as both of his points were valid.

I went to the market to get a few things for him. Suddenly i remembered that i have sliped one of the items off my mind! Not to worry! when will the flappy mobile phone in my pocket be used? This is the perfect situation! I asked the shopkeeper to wait and very proudly removing my phone from the pocket, dialled his mobile number.

A long engage tone. Redial 1nce, 2wice, 3rice, no hope. The shopkeeper slowly pushed his DOT phone in front of me. I called my uncle and bought the choke for his 20 watts tube rod.

Desperate and irritated and angry, i called up the customer care. Sorry sir, the system says “Roaming customers in Meerut may face problems in calling some or all BSNL customers”. The problem will be solved as soon as possible. Firstly, Reliance and BSNL customers cannot send SMS to each other and now this! My uncle knew a GM in BSNL. I asked him about the SMS thing. He said there is no problem from BSNL’s side, only Reliance has to do some software or hardware upgrade. I dropped a mail to the Relliance Infocomm’s CEO thru their website regarding the same subject. Out came the expected reply – “Everything is fine at Reliance’s end, only BSNL has to do some software or hardware upgrade”.

After returning back, i went to a Reliance web world. I told the customer care girl that i am unable to make calls to BSNL customers while roaming. She litrally cut my sentence and told me very proudly that i must have gone to Meerut! And the problem is expected to sustain for some time more. I wondered if everyone knows the problem, then why aren’t they solving it?

Yes! thats it! i got it!

What?

The million dollar question is – What is the problem?

The problem is not that BSNL or Reliance or any 3rd company has to do some hardware or software upgrade, instead the problem is despite knowing the bottleneck, they are not trying to remove it. The SMS problem is pertaining since the launch of Reliance Infocomm’s services. But still, it seems nobody is trying to solve it.

When?

When will they solve it?

God only knows. Customer care people always say – “Sir, this problem will be solved within a month”.

Why?

Why aren’t they solving the problem?

Probably because both are the biggest contender to each other.

Where?

Where do we find ourselves?

Being crushed at the bottom.

I thought deeply about the “What” problem.Then i analyzed that people in India are, by default, lazy. They will let things go wrong, unless it affects them.

Why don’t we understand that if everyone will take care of others, no one will
have to take care of one’s own self!

The future holds great things for all of us.
And BTW, did i mention that got a 40W choke for my uncle’s 20W tube rod and it burnt!