Firefox - 3b5 has saved the day

I had all but given up hope from firefox. Newer versions were coming in thick and fast (which meant browser restarts) and each version felt slower than the previous one.

Enter Firefox 3 beta.

Its leaner, faster and yet packed with even more features.

The search-within-the-address-bar (as I call it) is simply superb. Its going to change the way I think while typing an address in the browser's address bar. To revisit a site, you just have to think of a word which appeared in either the hyperlink or the title of the page and firefox shows it neatly in a drop-down.

Try it today!

The problem with growth

Growth is generally equated with success for a company. But it doesn't have to be true all the time. Here are my top few reasons why.

Finding suitable talent

While growing rapidly, it is important to realize that the pool of talent is most likely not going to expand at the same rate. Now when there aren't enough suitable people available, It is easy to fall in the trap of lowering expectations from prospective employees just because there aren't enough good people available. (In the hope that the good ones will carry them through) While there is some merit to this argument, it is invariably stretched too far. In such a situation, if a company keeps hiring aggressively, it probably does okay for some period of time (until the lack of good results from these people manifests itself in the results). After that, the customers generally realize that they should be moving on. Maybe this is why some companies which rise meteorically fall at the same rate.

Imbibing the vision

The more the number of people, the harder it is to find people who subscribe to the vision of the company and whole-heartedly feel that they are a part of it. A more aggravated version of this problem is that the company becomes like a machine with many parts which aren't working in synchronization towards achieving a common goal.

Management overhead

This is probably the least of the worries, but cannot be ignored completely either. Many companies fail at effective project management. And if its happening for a company, it can only get worse when as they become larger in size.

Managerosis

managerosis noun :

A corporate disease characterized by the infestation of an organization hierarchy by Managers; most of whom add no value.

Now reading...

I liked reading when I was a kid. Somewhere down the line, I just lost that habit and the desire. Maybe it had something to do with my obsession for music and playing the guitar. But now, I think (or hope) its coming back slowly. And what a difference it makes! Its not just the knowledge you gain from the book that counts. It also changes the way you look at things. I know that sounds cliched, so here's an example. I recently got a copy of Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture by Martin Fowler (thanks to my growing interest in my work and meeting great people like Tom from ThoughtWorks). While I'm reading it, I am exposed to the thinking of the co-authors as well. And soon, I might start looking for their books, which exposes me to more and more ...

The bottom line is that if you feel passionate about something, get a book by a leading personality in that area. In the worst case, you'll be just reading a book. In the best-case, you'll be transformed.

Spam can be interesting

Here are my top 3 emails today with the most interesting subject line -

1. I carry a bazooka in my pants, walking around.
2. One inch just leads to another, and 9 inches leads to the ultimate women pleasuring machine.
3. Okay. I admit it. I'm just here for the sexual thrills.

I find them quite hilarious.

What's common in an inkjet printer and an electric toothbrush?

Printer ink is way more expensive than it needs to be. I did a bit of googling to see if someone else thinks so too. I stumbled on an article which says that printer ink costs $13,000 a gallon. Printers are being made cheaper by the manufacturers whereas ink prices have soared.

In another story, I noticed that in the local store, an electric toothbrush costs as low as $10 and a set of 3 toothbrush-heads cost $32.

Consequently, whenever I feel that my toothbrush head is wearing off, I am tempted to throw it away and buy a new one rather than going for the pack of overpriced toothbrush-heads. Also, in the long run, people will end up spending more since the part that needs to be replaced frequently costs so much more.

Isn't the best way to control the huge amount of plastic waste that we generate is to simply make stuff that lasts longer and doesn't need to be chucked out of the window every few months?

Its sad that for instant gains, companies are all too ready to hurt the consumers; and the environment; in the long run.

I cannot believe that Microsoft have linked to "Autumn colors screensaver collection" from their website and mentioned the words "Try it for free" as well.
I don't know why they would want to even have that on their website (Which apparently reads "tech"dot msn.com :) )

Does anyone want to pay for this useless piece of software that I wrote in 1997?

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Now playing: Iron Maiden - Invaders
via FoxyTunes