Steve Jobs announced new advancements in the iPod family earlier this month. To being with, download of Hollywood movie titles for the iPod via the iTunes Store. I just checked it and I was surprised to find some top titles over there. All time rocking studios including Miramax and Disney have pledged support for this service and already one can the results at the store. The a whole new range of colours for the iPod Nano and the new sleek design for the new iPod Shuffle.
The TCS Marketing Workshop
I am just back from a 2 day enjoyable marketing workshop which was aimed at introducing the various departments, spread across the nation. It gave me a good opportunity to know the team members closely and their roles and responsibilities in the commune. The workshop was organised in the pleasant surroundings of the Retreat Hotel at Madh Island near Mumbai.
Long Live Surfunion
For those of you wondering what happened to SurfUnion, here’s some bad news – the forum got affected in last week’s hacker attack with all its data destroyed. I called up Ron who had been its caretaker for many months and could sense the shock and awe over the phone, that dismayed look on his face. The plans to resurrect it are being put on hold for the time being.
Sadly, Surfunion died an unsung death. In its last days, there was little traffic and virtually nothing being generated which would have created some amount of interest amongst the community. Eventually it was left to survive on its own, with even its creators staying away from it. The greatest achievement of SU however would always be the network it created of local designers (Mumbai members had a strong presence on the forum) through MegaMeets.
Good Bye and Good Luck SurfUnion. I will miss you always!
Resurrection
Murphy’s Law – “If anything can go wrong, it will”. My belief in this quote was strengthened last week, in a mail from my host informing me about a serious security breach by an hacker. The maniac rid 16 servers of its valuable data and left me high and dry. I did not have a backup of my blog entries, nor did my respected hosting service. Luckily I had a backup till March 2006 which I am now presenting to you. Please understand that some sections of the blog are yet to be made live and some content might need some polishing. I will take care of those problems eventually.
After such a terrible loss (I am partly responsible for it as well), there was no chance about staying with Webhostplus. After extensive reviews, I shortlisted Bluehost for my website. As of today, the service seems to be pretty good.
The loss is irreversible, the trauma is unbearable but it was good lesson for me to learn – always take backups on the PC! The resurrection is completed and it’s not happening again, I promise.
A ‘Raj’ is Born
It was the most expected moment of 2006 when Raj Thackeray, the young turk announced the formation of a new political party the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) yesterday at a grand rally in Shivaji Park, Dadar. The flag of the party was unveiled much earlier – that of green, saffron and blue stripes and what most believe depicts the 3 communal fronts of Muslims, Hindus and the Dalits. The message was loud and clear. He’s taken a great leap by breaking away from his uncle’s agenda of appeasing the hindus and fighting for hindutva by embracing the 3 together.
I admire Raj more for his cartooning calibre than his political. He’s a commercial artist like I am from the JJ School of Art. I was once a spectator at his art exhibition in the year 2000 called ‘Chehere Mohere’ (marathi) where he had shown his prowess with the pencil. The 38 year old has got charisma no doubt and he’s one of the few maharashtrian mass leaders which the Sena would have liked to stay behind. The MNS according to Raj will fight for the ‘sons of the soil’ and will practice the politics of development. The party promised to stay away from vote bank politics and instead be a modern, secular party.
I am happy for one reason that Mumbai has now got a leader and party of its own. Atleast we have a hope of something substantial happening in developing this island into a world class city. I hope Raj does not disappoint me.