Biz Vision

The Man from Mars posted this link on the forums at work and it's straight up hilarious! I think I'm going to have to start watching Conan again...

I can't believe how cold it is out there today... Actually, I don't care too much with it being cold out there as much as it being too cold in my apartment. The Weather Office claims it to be -17 Celsius with a wind chill of -28 Celsius right now and with the leaky windows in my apartment, I'm in danger of losing a few fingers.

Usually, I don't mind my leaky windows since it brings down the temperature to comfortable (the temperature is controlled by the building's management but I'm surrounded by retirees so they like to crank up the heat) but I'm seriously cold today!!

I can't wait to start my vacation at the end of the week and go off to London, England (where it's currently 5 Celsius) and then to Mumbai, India (where it's 24 Celsius right now).

It's that time of year when everyone in North America huddles around their big screen TV (except me who huddles around my little screen TV) to watch the big football game while the rest of the world doesn't even know what the Superbowl is. And if they do, they still have no idea what the significance of a large plate is in a game called football when it's not even primarily played with the feet.

That's what I used to think some 10 years ago too but I'm quite a fan of the game now, although not so much of today's game. I really wanted to see the Patriots and/or the Saints in there but it wasn't meant to be.

Indianapolis vs. Chicago - They say defense wins championships. Comparing the Bears defense to the Colts offense, the Bears are more than capable of shutting down the Peyton Manning show. The Colts defense on the other had aren't guaranteed to stop Rex Grossman (despite him not being that special of a QB). Logic tells me the Bears should win however the Colts have looked better and better as they've advanced through the playoffs, which is almost reminiscent of the great Steelers team of last year. The bottom line is it's going to be a defensive snore but since I need to pick a team, advantage - Indianapolis Colts.

Here's an interesting business article I came across. It talks about strategies to break away from the competition. It doesn't get it to very much detail but it does enough to make me want to read the book the author is promoting - "Breakout Strategy: Meeting the Challenge of Double Digit Growth" by Sydney Finkelstein, Charles Harvey, and Thomas Lawton.

Site: BusinessWeek
Title: Planning a Breakout

Tuck management prof Sydney Finkelstein talks about his new book on how to leave your competitors in the dust

I'm planning on buying a spanking new TV sometime this year and I was talking to CJG earlier this week (or was it last week?) about how I know nothing about TVs. He was gracious enough to give me a run down on the technologies which was a really useful since I'm the kind of person that likes to do a little research before buying anything new. And then today I came across this slide-show on the making of a Plasma TV. Pretty interesting stuff.

Feed: BusinessWeek Online -- Technology & Science
Title: Slide Show: The Making of a Plasma TV

If you're one of the many people replacing an unwieldy tube-based TV with plasma technology, you'll want to see what goes on behind the screen

I don't usually have a lot to say about my personal life but today was the first day I started in my new job. Same company but I no longer work as a Software Developer - I'm a Project Manager now!

It's been over a week since I've known and it took a lot of self discipline to not let that one out. If someone had asked me 3 months ago about being a PM, I probably would have laughed it off but here I am in my new position.

There were a couple of key moments that made me realize that being a PM is what I want to do. Firstly, a certain PM at work planted the seed in my head and then my manager brought it up to me in the same week. They both thought I would make an excellent PM based on the work I was doing (feature-leading but focusing more on the project management activities).

Clearly I liked the project management aspect and the customer-facing role but I also enjoyed the uniqueness of everyday and not knowing what issues I would have to deal with next. I thrived on the chaos. I asked myself - "Would I really want to go back to being a code monkey if I'm no longer a feature lead?" I couldn't see myself doing it so that's how I knew that I needed to jump at the PM opportunity.

There are a couple of cool concepts discussed in the following article:

1. The ability to view empty parking spots from your dashboard. I'm not sure if there's a huge benefit here because you could still end up driving over to the spot only to find someone else beat you there.
   
   
2. Pumping tunes at the gas station. Pretty nifty but I'm sure they're not going to have my collection of favourite Hindi songs - not so much use to me.

Site: BBC News
Title: In-car technology drives forward

BBC Click's Ian Hardy looks at the latest motoring technology available in the United States.

The weekend is upon us and that means at least 6 more hours spent glued to the TV. This weekend they fight it out for the NFC and AFC championships. Here are my picks:

New Orleans at Chicago - Didn't I already mention that Drew Brees is the best QB in the league and Rex Grossman isn't that special?? If Seattle can trouble Chicago (see last week's results) then the Saints definitely can take the win: New Orleans Saints

New England at Indianapolis - I still wasn't impressed with the Colts last weekend and I think the stat line on Peyton Manning in the playoffs this year is something like 1 TD pass and 4 or 5 turnovers. That's awful! New England on the other hand continues to impress me. Sure they got a couple of lucky breaks against the Chargers last weekend but they made the most of their opportunities: New England Patriots

I intend to watch a movie every weekend but for some reason it just doesn't happen. Actually the some reason being that I head to Toronto way too often! I think I've been to Toronto 5 out of the last 6 weekends and will be heading back there tomorrow and then again next weekend too.

In any case, since I decided to spend the Friday between the walls of my cozy apartment I managed to cross off another movie off my list. I just watched Superman Returns and it was definitely entertaining but it didn't quite live up to Spiderman 2 or Batman Begins. It left behind a desire for a good fight at the end. It's still one of the better movies I've watched in the last couple of months though.

Superman Returns (2006)
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Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest (2006)

With both the Rambling Geek and Kimota94 posting playoff predictions for the weekend, I thought I would throw mine in the mix too.

I didn't publish my predictions from last weekend but if you're willing to take my word for it, I'm 3-1 (my picks were Colts, Seahawks, Pats, Giants).

Moving on to this weekend:

Indianapolis at Baltimore - This one's the toughest one to pick for me. I don't think too highly of either team right now so I'm just going to pick the team I want to win: Indianapolis Colts

Philadelphia at New Orleans - This one's a no brainer. Drew Brees has been the best QB this season and will demolish the Eagles: New Orleans Saints

Seattle at Chicago - Another no brainer. I believed the Seahawks would get their act together the second half of the season but they didn't. I don't think Rex Grossman is all that special but he'll have no trouble overcoming Seattle: Chicago Bears

New England at San Diego - This is the best match-up of the weekend but it's an easy one to pick for me. Tom Brady and the New England Patriots have proven themselves over and over again in the playoffs. Phillip Rivers is good but having to face the Patriots in his first trip to the playoffs is asking a bit much: New England Patriots

I got around to watching 3 Hindi movies over the Christmas break! One was on my list, one was by popular demand and one was a classic from 1982 that happened to be on TV.

Angoor (1982)
Baabul (2006)
Dhoom 2 (2006)

Most people would probably agree that bullies are only a problem in high school but it would appear sometimes you just can't get rid of them!

I came to my little corner of the Internet, made my own little personal blog where I could post to a few times a month to create my little collection of favourite articles. It appears the world of blogging is ruled by the bullies though - "Blog or have your blog be taken over by comments!!".

And just like dealing with the classic school bullies, I only have 2 options:

1. Take the abuse and pretend like the problem doesn't exist
2. Prove my worth by beating the bullies at their own game

Considering option 2 would require me to post 8 times a day, I'll stick to option 1 thank you!

I just checked my blog and interestingly my 12 Days of Christmas post got dated to "Saturday, December 16, 2006". I've had my Firefox open and logged into the Blogger interface for 5 days now so it used the original date.

But for Kimota94 aka Matt's benefit I really have posted 3 times today!

Just to satisfy Kimota94 aka Matt I thought I would splurge and write a whole 2 posts today!

Some time ago I added a couple of lists on the side of my page (and for all the Agilists, yes they are prioritized backlogs) to demonstrate how abysmal I am when it comes to watching movies. My intention was to cross off the movies as I watch them but last weekend I was disheartened to find out that the Blogger interface doesn't let me use HTML when managing those lists. So here's backlog item #3 getting crossed off:

Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest (2006)

It looks like everybody who's anybody (at least Jim Hinckley and the Man from Mars) are embedding YouTube videos in their blogs and I'm not one to get left behind!

My sister sent me this one and I just can't wait to find my true love... so I can get my 3 butter chickens!

Here's an excerpt out of Tracy Swedlow's [itvt] newsletter about a free HD IPTV service. The website is called MyTVPal.com and offers up channels such as ABC News, NBC News and a regional FOX station for free. There are also tons of international channels for anyone from abroad who is feeling a little homesick.

1080P HD IPTV Service, MyTVPal.com, Launches

A service called MyTVPal.com--which claims to be the world's first 1080P high-definition streaming IPTV and VOD service for PC player and IPTV set-top box clients--launched last week. The service, which is operated by IPTV content aggregator, BB Entertainment, and powered by technologies from MatrixStream, a Bay Area-based provider of IPTV solutions (note: to access the service, consumers must have a broadband connection of 1.5Mbps or faster), currently offers over 700 free standard- and high-definition channels from around 70 different countries, and plans to roll out additional channels on a monthly basis; in the coming months, it also plans to offer what it says will be a "wide range" of VOD titles "for a low monthly cost." In addition, it says that user-uploaded content and DVR features will be available as a software upgrade for PC and set-top box clients at some point in 2007. MyTVPal.com claims to be targeting 10 million users over the next five years, and is currently offering a free trial of its PC player to consumers who register on its Web site. In addition, it says that it plans to release 100,000 MatrixStream 1080P IPTV set-top boxes during its first year.

I've spent the better part of this afternoon ripping apart my parent's laptop to replace a hard drive in it. The hard drive cost me $100 and I have a feeling it's only a matter of time until something else decides to fail on the laptop. Perhaps the motherboard is next...

In any case, how long is it before upgrades no longer make sense and it's time to drop $2000 on a new laptop. They do still cost $2000 don't they?? (Goes to find out you can get a brand new one for approximately $800).

On a sidebar, here's the manual that I used to crack it open: Compaq Presario 1600XL Service Guide.

I'll need it again when I put it back together... And yes, I know it's an ancient hunk of a laptop!

I never thought I would start writing about work in my posts but here's my very first one. We've switched to using Agile methodologies and 4 months in, I'm still concerned about the quality of code we're churning out.

My team initially got a free lunch since we were supporting an already matured product and management didn't want us to invest the time in an automated test framework. Having switched projects, we're now behind the rest of the teams in the quality learning curve.

It's also an area I struggle with as a software developer. There's more to it than just targeted testing. One of the members on my team summed up the right QA mentality quite nicely:

When you're testing you don't want to just test the functionality works, that's boring. You want to get creative and think about the different ways you can make it break, that's a lot more fun.

Anyway, my reason for starting this rant was to post this video by Ken Schwaber on Agile Quality. I haven't watched it yet, but I will soon.

Feed: Agile Planet
Title: Ken Schwaber talks about agile quality

Ken Schwaber talks about Agile Quality: A Canary in a Coal Mine.

I've always dreamt of having a GPS receiver in my car or on my cell phone. It's not so much that I need it but it does rank high on my list of cool gadgets to have. In any case, the following article got me excited and then I realized the definition of "budget-priced" is USD 259.99. I would pay a $100 or perhaps even $150 for one but over $250 is still way too much for a toy to play with. I would rather put $250 towards a Wii.

Feed: Engadget
Title: Axion rolls out budget-priced GEO-632 GPS unit

Apparently there's a gaping hole in the handheld GPS market, as it seems a new manufacturer takes its first dive every other week or so, and this time it's none other than Axion. Diverting its efforts away from those portable DVD players and iPTV gizmos, the firm is unveiling a budget-conscious GPS that pulls double duty as a pedestrian guide when not relaxing on your dash.

YouTube is the combination of taking Hollywood, previously the only producer of video-entertainment, giving that ability to millions of people around the world and excellent timing.  By excellent timing I mean launching at a time when the Internet has become a necessity in most households and the bandwidth required for video streaming is no longer a limitation.  I find it fascinating and what Google can add to the combination can make it even more fascinating.  The following article talks about how Google may turn YouTube into a gigantic revenue making machine with the use of advertising...

Feed: Wired News: Top Stories
Title: The YouTube Effect

TV advertising is broken, putting $67 billion up for grabs. Which explains why Google spent a billion and change on an online video startup. By Bob Garfield from Wired magazine.