This Side of Paradise

A very oft used phrase, however in a very different context. This hunt, however is for that perfect laptop… here’s what I’m looking for Must have: Intel Core 2 Duo processor running => 2.2 Ghz< 8600 GT or an 8700 GT mobile graphics processor 15.4’ or a 17 inch running at WSXGA+ (1680x1050) at the least. Preferable resolution would be WUXGA (1920x1200). Should have HDMI out Can compromise on: Brand Hard disk size Battery backup weight Know of any laptop that meets these specs? Drop me a comment immediately :)

….yikes…! I dread to think of going out in that peak hour traffic near panjagutta or whereabouts. Had to go pick up the monitor today and hence took around an hour and a half to just travel between the pulla reddy building and lifestyle. As I was sitting idle in the traffic, I had a glimpse (wink wink ;)) of how my life could potentially turn out to be…

…when all of my devices choose to go down at the very same time. It’s as if they’ve all been conspiring together and chose the last couple of days to conk off one after another. It started off with the 19’ monitor of the desktop, would totally refuse to display anything above 640 * 480. The display would blank out and would show an error saying that the optimal resolution of the monitor was 1280*1024. Heck… that was what I was trying to drill into its digital brains.

…whole lotta leaving goin’ on…! first my bike, and now it’s quits to Fortune 9. That’s where office moved in Dec 2005 from our good ol’ office… after almost two years of struggling with the place, we call it quits from here tonight. We’re moving to a swank new mall (.. yeah.. mall) on road no.1, banjara hills…! never quite liked the place, and I’m sure it was vice versa too. Office life was never too good out here in terms of career and professional life. Had been to the new office on the 15th and for some reason, felt really comfortable at there, loved my new desk :)

I finally parted ways with my five and a half year old CBZ. She was the first bike I had truly earned all by myself. Here’s a small walk down memory lane: The Beginning The CBZ was probably the first truly sporty bike in India and it hit the markets around 2000, when I was in the final year of college. One look at the pic had me floored instantly… the neat sweeping lines, the aggressive front, disk breaks…wow. I knew that was the bike I wanted to have with me. Got into the job and finally saved up enough to get her in Jan ‘02. Went for the deep bottle green color as it was so rare…not many were on the roads then (…and even now). I still remember rushing out of the office at 4 that day to pick ’er up.

In my quest to make more room in my room, I’ve finally started moving out the desktops… I sold the old desktop and am now looking out to move another comp as well. However, the replacements have already been decided. For the regular day to day use, I’ve decided on the [vaio TZ] (http://www.sony.co.in/product/vgn-tz17gn?site=hp_en_IN_i) series - I had an encouter with it a few weeks back and I was absolutely floored by it. The 11.1’ screen runs at a super sharp resolution of 1366x768 and boasts an astounding 11 hour battery life. This translates into roughly 6-8 hours of normal use on battery. All this for an approx 1.5 kg weight with the battery.

I had this fantastic opportunity to be part of the information risk management forum at the client location. So, off it was to Bangalore again - the program was scheduled for a day, with various senior people speaking. The most notable among them being - Nandkumar Saravade - Director, Cyber Security and Compliance at NASSCOM. One of the very interesting discussions we had with him was an info sec accreditation similar to ISO 27001 which members of NASSCOM would use to benchmark themselves in the industry. Since offices in India serve various countries all over the world, the proposed standard would be trying to encompass information security laws across many countries. Any company having that particular security accreditation would surpass individual country specific requirements. Even a third party surveying/certifying firm like Gallup or Moody’s could actually define and administer these surveys and certifications. Great for the outsourcing business in India, and definitely a step in the right direction where information security measures are woefully inadequate when compared to the industry growth here.

I finished six years of professional life on Monday evening. It’s been a wild ride so far, there have been ups and downs, fighting against seemingly impossible situations and emerging out somehow. It’s been a time of learning new things and opening up to things which we never knew existed…! I think I’ve become a senior citizen in the company.. hell yeah…!! totally agreed :). Time to think of the future now…!

…for a man, but a giant leap for mankind!". that step has been taken, the leap is in the making! More later on…!

Was searching for something on the project share today and guess what…? found the movies we made for the company day in 2005.. shot over 2 days, with stellar performances by the people in the team, I was editing and rendering the movies till the last minute. Check out the trailer and then the actual movies… the trailer: movie: