Gaurav Gupta's shared items
In Chrome, have you ever accidentally hit ⌘ + Q when you meant to hit ⌘ + W? It’s both frustrating and a productivity killer to close your entire browser by accident, because you then have to restart and wait for all the pages to reload. It happens to us too. But now we’ve added a new feature in Chrome for Mac that can help keep you from losing your work.
On the Mac, Chrome can now warn you before quitting so that you don’t accidentally quit the browser when you’re just trying to close a single tab. To enable this feature, go to the Chrome menu in the upper-left and select Warn Before Quitting. The next time you press ⌘ + Q, a floating window will appear, instructing you to Hold ⌘Q to Quit. This way, if your hand slips and you press Q instead of W, you can go right on browsing without interruption. If you really do want to quit, hold down ⌘Q as it says and, after a second, all the windows will fade away and you can release the keys. If you want to skip this warning and quit quickly, you can just press ⌘ + Q twice.
As a side note, if you ever accidentally close a tab or window, you can use Chrome’s tab restore feature to get it back. Simply press ⌘ + shift + T, which will reopen the most recently closed tab or window. Just like the Undo command in your word processor, you can use this shortcut multiple times to repeatedly reopen closed tabs. You can also find tabs you’ve recently closed on the bottom of the New Tab page, or in the History menu.
We hope this feature helps prevent you from losing your place accidentally. Happy browsing!
» Apply for PowerPlug Contest, India's Most Amazing Startup Contest. The Theme for May Month is: Consumer Internet. Apply Now (Deadline is May 22nd). Winner wins an iPad2.
Everybody wants a rock star programmer in their team, but very few actually need them. There is a huge difference between need vs. want, though many startups are in a constant cribbing mode for not being able to find rock star programmers.
To give you certain perspective, I have worked with quite a few rock star programmers in my career and here are my observations vis-à-vis rock star programmers.
Discipline & Rockstar Programmers
Most of the rock star programmers, in my observation have their own schedule. And the bad news is that you cannot influence it.
They work late night, might be late to work and while they are good at what they do, this might impact your overall team motivation. So just know where to draw the line.
Syd Barrett - Comfortably Numb
Rock Star Programmers Carry Blinds
They are too focused on their core technology. And mind it, they are damn good at it as well. The challenge however is that as a startup, you need somebody to do wear multiple hats plus do the dirty job as well (includes testing). Most importantly, you need a versatile employee who is willing to look at business aspects/usability etc and rock stars typically do not fit this definition.
A big company can afford to have people who are good at just one thing, but startups need a good mix.
Rock Star Programmers Will Always Have a Side Project
Well, you better accept this. Rockstar programmers will always have a side project and the bad news is that they will leave your company one fine day, without a rhyme or reason (no matter what salary are you paying them). They are quite entrepreneurial in nature and are driven by passion, so if one of their side project clicks, they are on their own.
What’s wrong with that? Nothing, just that if you look at the amount of time/effort you invest in hiring a rock star, the returns may/may not justify the experience.
In fact, an average duration of a rock star in an organization stays around 1year -1.5 years.
Reality: Rockstars do not exist
Frankly, rockstar programmers do not exist. It’s a hype created by product companies/startups to improve their ‘own perception’. Everybody wants to be the place where ‘rock star’ programmers work, but in reality very few need them.
Adding ‘rock star’ in job description makes one feel good about their own company and that’s where you make the first mistake. Replace the job title with ‘Principal Engineer’ and you will get more marriage material applicants than one-night stand relationships [Recommended Read: What Makes A Great Startup Employee?].
Rockstars: How Do You ‘Tame’ Them?
There are two things I have observed that works tremendously well (at least for me)
- Be the bad guy.
In the movie Chak de India, there is a phenomenal dialogue that sums up the entire philosophy of rock stars
Har team mein bas ek hi gunda ho sakta hai, Aur is team ka gunda main hun!
That is, a team can have only 1 ‘bad guy’.
Apple has Steve Jobs, Microsoft has Steve Ballmer.Facebook has Mark Zuckerberg (example of companies that desperate need a bad guy/girl are Yahoo and Nokia).
If you really want to keep a rock star, be the bad guy in the company. Do not let a few rock stars ruin the entire show with their decisions/actions. As a founder, be the one who is respected as a decision maker, though ensuring that you have ears open for all decibels of sounds (and not just rock stars).
- Be the Inspiration
Rockstar programmers do not just work for money/work quality. They work for a cause. They stick with people who inspire them (note the word stick). And you need to be a super rock star to deserve a rock star in your team. You need to be a source of inspiration to your employees so that they stick with you and actually follow a few rules (like discipline etc).
In short, you get what you deserve. So stop running around rock stars when you actually need somebody who sticks with you and can really make your startup work.
Agree? Disagree? Share your opinion?
Recommended Read: Want Smart Geeks to Join Your Startup? Take Some Risk
I have been a regular user of Wordweb for the last few years – the product comes as a handy tool (with minimal memory footprint) to get to know meaning of a word (and doubles as thesaurus+word finder).
Today, I noticed a screen on the Wordweb that asks you a really funny question (good that they didn’t launch this on April 1st).
Ofcourse I chose the last option (why lie?) and this is what I ended up with:
That is, unlimited free use of the program is only available to people who fly very little!
And here is why:
WordWeb free version may be used indefinitely only by people who take at most two commercial flights (not more than one return flight) in any 12 month period. People who fly more than this need to purchase the Pro version if they wish to continue to use it after a 30-day trial period.
Global greenhouse gas emissions are currently around 5 tonnes of carbon dioxide per person per year, and probably need to be reduced by at least 80% have a good chance of avoiding dangerous warming. Most computer users are responsible for far more emissions than is sustainable. For example two short-medium distance return flights can be equivalent to over 1 tonne of emissions1: more than an average person can safely emit over an entire year.[from Wordweb licensing page]
So in essence, the company is taking a much higher position (i.e. Green/Environment Friendly] to drive users to transition to pro version.
Don’t you think this is a damn cool strategy to weed out free users – assuming Wordweb hasn’t seen significant conversion to pro and a time has come in the company to really define the future plans/call it quits? After all, beyond a certain point you’d just give up on free users and say “F.O” to them?
What’s your opinion on this strategy?
PS: You can still make the free version work with a simple hack, but I leave that to you to find out.
“This is what we believe: technology alone is not enough.”
Perfect new iPad 2 spot from Apple. Here it is on YouTube.
The competition's lined up and ready to fight
With over 3m iPad's sold already and queues in Apple shops around the world still forming to get the Apple tablet, what are its competitors doing to combat the new phenomenon of portable computing? While some have been cagey about what plans they have, others already have devices on the market. Here we've gathered together all the information to answer the big questions of just who's doing what?
Dell
Name?Dell Streak
Expected?Already available
Dell was quick out of the blocks with the Dell Streak when it came to launching a tablet, going for a rather safer 5-inch screen size, so that if the iPad failed it could claim it was a large phone instead. Now that the iPad hasn't failed the company is pushing ahead with a US launch following the UK one.
For your money you get a 5-inch screen, Android 1.6 (although it is getting 2.1 in due course) and the ability to make calls via the 3G connectivity that sits alongside Wi-Fi.
Rumours imply that Dell will launch 7-inch and 10-inch models eventually, but no date or confirmation has been given as yet.
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Archos
Name?Archos 7 Home Tablet, Archos 5 Internet Tablet
Expected?Already available
Poor old Archos, it's had an Android powered tablet on the market for what seems like forever and yet people forget they even exist most of the time.
For your money you'll get a 5-inch or 7-inch touchscreen tablet with varying storage capacities to use around the house.
On board are all the features that you would imagine from an Archos multimedia tablet: Wi-Fi, video and music playback, photo browsing and also USB connectivity for file transfers. There's access to some Android apps via the AppsLib store and it even comes with a few Android widgets thrown in.
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Samsung
Name?Samsung sPad
Expected?September / October 2010
Samsung has confirmed that it will be releasing a 7-inch Internet tablet, called the sPad, later this year. Confirmation first came via a tweet from the South Africa arm of the business, however the company has since gone on record to say that the new device will be Android powered. From the picture we know that it will be charged via the bottom, feature a 3.5mm headphone jack and come with a similar button configuration to the company's Galaxy S smartphone.
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Motorola
Name TBC
Expected Autumn 2010
Motorola has yet to announce anything formally, however that hasn't stopped the famous "sources familiar with the matter" claiming that it's planning on launching a 10-inch tablet based on the Android OS and tied in with a Verizon exclusive in the US, working on the company's FiOS broadband package.?
"It was expected to tie closely to?Verizon’s FiOS digital pay-television service", people briefed on the plans have recently told the FT. The connection??Motorola also manufactures the TV set-top boxes for the FiOS television service.
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RIM
Name?BlackBerry BlackPad
Expected November 2010
Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, has Internet tablet plans that are, so far, only rumours. Those rumours currently suggest that it will be called the BlackBerry BlackPad and feature a 9.7-inch touchscreen display, come with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity with the ability to pair it to a phone for internet access away from a hotspot. It will have two video cameras for video calling and is expected to be available, if info from "sources familiar with the matter" are true, in November.
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HP
Name?HP Slate
Expected?November 2010
The HP Slate has been teased more times than a businessman at a strip club, with videos and photos pushed out by HP in the hope of building excitement. The latest specs from the company, thanks to a leak, state that it will sport a 8.9-inch screen, feature two cameras and will let you use a pen to write or draw as if on a piece of paper. As for the operating system; that's all up in the air at the moment after HP bought Palm, with some sources saying it will be a Windows 7 powered device and others suggesting that it will run Palm's webOS. Perhaps we will get two units; one for business and one for consumers.
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Nokia
Name TBC
Expected November / December 2010
You could say Nokia already has a tablet thanks to the Maemo powered Nokia N900, however chatter is starting to surface that Nokia could have a new tablet running its latest OS MeeGo by the end of the year. Intel and Nokia have previously confirmed that we will see the first batch of devices appearing before Christmas, and with both trying to show that it is more than just a mobile phone OS, a tablet launch in 2010 is highly likely.
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Acer
Name?Acer tablet
Expected?November / December 2010
Whipped out of Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci's pocket at an event in May, and not heard of since, Acer will reportedly offer a 7-inch tablet running Android before the year is out.
Looking like the company's LumiRead, it will sport a colour display and keyboard underneath. That's pretty much it for the details for now on this one.
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LG
Name?LG UX10 and LG Optimus tablet
Expected?Late 2010
LG has two tablets on the go according to what the company is publicly showing. The LG UX10 is a Windows 7 device running on an Atom Z530 processor. It will sport a 10.1-inch capacitive, LED screen and there's 1GB of DDR2 RAM packed in. There's a 1.3-megapixel webcam for all your VoIP needs and an SD slot for storage expansion. Of course, there's Wi-Fi (b, g and n) and there's also a micro-HDMI out socket too.
However, the company is also planning a second internet tablet that will run Android and take on the Samsung sPad among others. Its specs according to LG include a 1.2GHz A8 processor with 16GB of built-in storage, microSD support and Wi-Fi as standard.
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Asus
Name Eee Pad
Expected Early 2011
Asus is hoping to have the same success they had with their eee range of netbooks with 10-inch and 12-inch eee pads due out in the first part of 2011. Asus has yet to confirm what operating system the devices will be running, with mixed messages coming out of the company that it will either be Windows CE or Android 3.0
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Name TBC
Expected January 2011
January 2010 saw the launch of the Nexus One to champion the Android operating system. January 2011 will see the launch of a tablet device built by HTC to champion the launch of its new operating system Chrome OS. Details are thinner than thin on this one, but "sources familiar with the matter" are telling us that it's set to happen.
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Apple
Name?iPad 2
Expected?April 2011
Just because Apple is doing well with the iPad, you don't expect them to rest on its laurels do you? Apple is already rumoured to be adding a front facing camera so people can FaceTime each other, as well as plans to add its retina screen technology as found in the new iPhone 4.
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MSI
Name?MSI Wind Pad
Expected?TBC
Shown at Computex in Taipei, MSI's tablet offering will be powered by Windows 7, sport a 10-inch screen, Intel's latest power-saving CPU platform, and come with 8 hours of battery power. Weighing in at 800 grams, it will come with 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity, as well as USB and HDMI ports so you can connect either devices to it or connect it up to your TV to watch movies.
According to MSI "It's the perfect marriage of wireless urban entertainment and touch technology".
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Cisco
Name?Cisco Cius
Expected TBC
The Cisco Cius will be a business focused device that features a front mounted 720p HD camera, a 5-megapixel rear facing camera, dual noise-cancelling microphones for audio conferencing and a 7-inch, high-resolution widescreen super VGA touch-target display. Elsewhere there is an on-board accelerometer, 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity offered. Bluetooth and Micro-USB means users can work untethered and share data with a PC, while a detachable and serviceable battery offers 8 hours life under normal usage.
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Lenovo
Name Lenovo IdeaPad U1 Hybrid
Expected TBC
The Lenovo IdeaPad U1 Hybrid is a laptop that breaks in half to become a tablet. When a computer it runs Windows 7, but take the 11.6-inch 16:9 touch display off and it promises to run something more suitable for tablet computing around the home.
The tablet itself is powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon, weighs 750g and offers 10 hours on a single charge. Originally slated for a June release the shopping page is currently still showing a sign up for more information.
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Notion Ink
Name Notion Ink Adam
Expected TBC
The 10-inch tablet will come with a choice of two displays an LCD one or Pixel Qi e-ink one, be powered by a dual core ARM Cortex A9 and sport a Nvidia Tegra 2 graphics chip making it perfect for games or watching HD content. Storage wise you'll get 16 or 32GB flash.
On the connectivity front there is 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 and 3G, and you'll get a HDMI-out to benefit from those movie playback capabilities. There is also a microSD slot, 3.2MP swivel camera, 3-axis accelerometer, A-GPS, and a rear touchpad at the back like the Motorola Backflip. However, there is still no date of when it will be available, some 9 months after it was first announced.
Tags: Hardware Gadgets Internet tablets iPad Asus Eee Pad Samsung sPad MSI Wind pad RIM BlackBerry BlackPad Notion Ink Notion Ink Adam Dell Dell Streak Archos 5 Internet tablet HP Acer LG Google Cisco Lenovo
iPad vs the tablet - Who's planning to take on Apple and with what originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Wed, 04 Aug 2010 08:00:00 +0100
If you are on Reliance Netconnect USB data card, this post is for you and the billing mistakes that I encountered with my Reliance Netconnect data card.
To cut the long story short, my observation tells me that Reliance Netconnect deducts the about-to-be downloaded data the moment download begins.
For instance, I started download from openoffice.org and immediately noticed a deduction of ~200MB in my account. For some reason, the download failed and I restarted the download.
Again a deduction of ~200 MB!
Stupid as it may sound, it seems Reliance Netconnect deducts the file size worth of data transfer for heavy downloads – the moment download starts.
Right or Wrong? We all know the answer.
Has anybody experienced similar issues?
I strongly hope that all of such mistakes will change with BSNL’s USB datacard launch which is providing data transfer at a far lower price point.
But till then, keep an eye on your bill (telecom operators are known to inflate the bill, as well as subscription numbers).
PS: This post is slightly offtopic, but one can’t help writing about such issues when we all are talking about 3G, Connected world et al when operators haven’t even got the basic mathematics right.
Related posts:
- Telcom Roundup – Reliance to form JV with Alcatel-Lucent, MTN Bid, Dish DTH offers free set-top boxes..and more
- Airtel launches m-commerce apps – send money to family/friends from your mobile
- Reliance to launch BigTV (DTH) service on Aug 15
