Thursday, October 02, 2008

Web 2001

On their 10th birthday, Google have made their oldest available index online here. Try searching for some popular post-2001 events/inventions (iPhone, windows vista, iPod etc...) or just put in your name to check your web presence in 2001. Interesting...

Monday, September 15, 2008

No frills Spyware/Adware removal tool

Recently my home PC started behaving weirdly - throwing up unwanted pop-ups intermittently. When I checked up with running processes, there were few suspicious ones which were sending across my browsing pattern to some server in some remote corner of the WWW.

I already have Spybot installed on my machine and so I immediately ran a scan. "No threats found" is what it reported after scanning my machine for about 15 minutes. Okay, my fault, the definitions were not updated. Now, next logical step was to connect to the update server and get the latest definitions. By the time Spybot was updated, I helped myself with a cup a hot tea. Now I needed to run the scan again and I complied. Roughly 20 minutes of scanning reported some 15 problems. The thought that my browsing pattern will be private again once I hit the "Fix Now" button made me happy. But as they say, don't count your chickens before they hatch. Spybot said that since some processes were holding up few files, I will have to allow Spybot to run after the system reboots. Fair enough. Here you go.

After reboot, Spybot was smart enough to launch itself before any other program and start the scan. Another 20 minutes and again the same recommendation - "Please allow Spybot to run at next restart". By this time, I was already out of patience and started to look out for some tool that actually will clean my system rather than sitting there and scanning my system 10 times without actually fixing the problem.

My search ended with a tool called "FreeFixer". It was a small download and I was not expecting it to do much. To add to my skepticism, it completed the scan in less than 3 minutes. And then asked me whether I would allow it to delete few registry keys/executables. I complied again and it said, since few executables are locked by running processes, I need to run the tool again after restart. Not again, I said and then reluctantly rebooted my system and ran the tool again. It deleted the files which were locked earlier and said that my system is now clean. And to my surprise, it "actually fixed" the problem :-).

FreeFixer is worth downloading and a must-have on your system.

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Consumer Apps v/s Enterprise Apps - II

Continuing on my thoughts on Consumer and Enterprise Apps, here is some more food for thought...

I have been a big fan of desktop/client applications and over last few weeks I have been thinking on similar lines - as to what can be a valid case to have a desktop/client application? Or rather a non-web application?

While trying to find some space for non-web apps, it occurred to me that though web apps have been all over the place, they are yet to find user-base when it comes to enterprise applications.

Like, Google Maps is a cool app and it has a huge user-base but, at the same time, will Google Docs be able to match up to the user-base that MS-Office or for that matter Star-Office enjoys? I doubt.

Is it that web apps are for consumer and non-web for enterprise? Well - there will surely be enterprise apps that will move over to the web sooner or later, but at this point of time, I find it hard to visualize web apps taking over non-web ones, at least in case of enterprise apps.

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

An ideal piece of software...

Last few days I have been thinking upon what can be classified as an ideal piece of software. Even my previous blog post was indirectly related to the same topic.

Over last 6.5 years, I have been writing code (professionally I mean). Some of it has been used only by a bunch of people or probably never used and some of the code has been used by quite a few people (or so I think). I guess, for any serious software developer, the most satisfying piece of software or the ideal piece of software would be one that affects quite a few people and leaves a positive impact. There is no bigger pleasure than to know that the piece of code that you have written is being used by masses. People are actually paying to get hands on your work.

I wish I could write some more code which probably is being used by masses rather than churning up a website which probably will come and go by the time you blink your eyes...

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Consumer Apps v/s Enterprise Apps - I

A friend of mine forwarded me this blog post by a MSFT employee who choose to come back to Microsoft after working with Google for about an year.

While explaining the reason for his comeback to MSFT, the author, has provided some very good insights on how development at Google is poles apart from that at Microsoft. While reading this comparison, I could not resist thinking that Microsoft fits more into enterprise application development model while Google on the other hand, is more of a consumer application oriented organization.

If you ask me, both Google and Microsoft have their distinct positions in the Software industry. Neither, however, should try and barge into the space that does not belong to them. This is because if Microsoft starts writing the so-called “free” software, it will hurt their revenues badly as they are yet to develop that culture of churning out smaller applications at a faster pace. Also, as pointed out in the blog link that you sent, Google is not capable yet to churn out enterprise applications – probably because that requires a lot of planning and Google can be best described as ad-hoc software development organization (and I guess that is also not bad for them).

So would it be safe to say that while Google is for consumer apps, Microsoft is for enterprise apps? The advantage, that I guess, MS has is that it is easier to have a sound revenue model in case of enterprise applications while Google on the other hand will have to work hard to maintain their revenues as you cannot charge 100s or probably 1000s of $$s for a consumer app.

As a hard-core software developer, I would like a Google-like culture but as a Program Manager/Evangelist, I would prefer being at MS.

Or is there a place with mix of cultures? ;)