I stay in NJ and had to get my vehicle inspected. I decided to try one of the State's inspection facilities. Initially I was a little uncertain about using the State's facility, usual hesitance towards govt services, but still decided to give it a try.
I was very impressed by their online services. The website was very informative and it clearly spelled out what documents are required and general information about the process. The best feature, hands down, was the way one could check the wait queue. In all their inspection facilities they have installed cameras which take a picture of the wait lines and update the website periodically. Check it out here. I found this very cool and extremely helpful.
Based on the status from the pictures, I planned my trip there. Once I was at the facility, I found it quite well marked and had no problems getting in the correct line. The staff was very cordial and polite and patiently answered a few questions I had. They then took the car and inspected it and within five minutes, I had the car back, with the car inspected and good to go for another 2 years.
The whole process was very simple and pretty well managed.
Kudos to the NJ DMV!
Monday, July 19, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Google imitating Bing?
I was surprised today morning when I browsed to google.com and saw a background image.
The first thought that cams to my mind was "Is Google trying to imitate Bing?". Bing changes the background image of their page daily and puts up very pleasant background images. It also adds some hot spots on their images that tell you about the image and link to more informative pages using their search. I was not sure that Google would try to imitate Microsoft for such a minuscule thing. I tried searching on why Google is trying to do that, but could not find any useful information. Then I looked up on how users find Bing's background image idea. I found that a lot of people found it useful and loved to see images of vastly varied spectrum daily. Many had commented that they found it very useful and was kind of their daily dose of general knowledge.
The only difference I found on the google home page was that you could upload an image to set as a background. The link is easy to miss, its on the bottom left of the page. That idea is also not new, I was able to do the same and much more on iGoogle.com using themes.
I love the Google Doodles, they are informative and innovative and eagerly wait for the next one. But as far as this background image, I am kind of disappointed and miss the plain simple google home page.
The first thought that cams to my mind was "Is Google trying to imitate Bing?". Bing changes the background image of their page daily and puts up very pleasant background images. It also adds some hot spots on their images that tell you about the image and link to more informative pages using their search. I was not sure that Google would try to imitate Microsoft for such a minuscule thing. I tried searching on why Google is trying to do that, but could not find any useful information. Then I looked up on how users find Bing's background image idea. I found that a lot of people found it useful and loved to see images of vastly varied spectrum daily. Many had commented that they found it very useful and was kind of their daily dose of general knowledge.
The only difference I found on the google home page was that you could upload an image to set as a background. The link is easy to miss, its on the bottom left of the page. That idea is also not new, I was able to do the same and much more on iGoogle.com using themes.
I love the Google Doodles, they are informative and innovative and eagerly wait for the next one. But as far as this background image, I am kind of disappointed and miss the plain simple google home page.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
The Problem with Yahoo Answers!
Yahoo Answers is a great platform for people to ask and find answers to their questions. It is also a great knowledge base and a continuously enriching one. Barring a few instances, the answer quality is very good and to the point. The answers are also very genuine because there is a huge community of users who rate and select top answers. It also helps users to anonymously connect to other users who can be subject matter experts and get guidance from them. There are no fancy widgets or apps, just a simple question/answer model and users get rewarded for contributing. Its a perfect example of user-driven content and information.
After using Yahoo Answers for a while, I have been noticing that it has started being (mis)used by the young children who are putting in their entire homework on Answers and are rewarding other users who give them complete solutions. Check out the Science and Mathematics category and you can easily find tons of questions posted by users asking for complete solutions with a promise of giving away points for total solutions. I think its totally acceptable if children use it to resolve problems where they are stuck or to get explanations on issues they seem to struggle with, but putting in no effort and posting questions should be totally stopped.
I understand its technically almost impossible to remove questions of these types automatically and putting human reviewers will take the entire shine off Yahoo Answers! After giving it a serious thought, I feel a possible solutions could be to generate a lot of awareness among users about this problem and allow for reporting such type of questions even after they have been resolved. And if the reporting threshold has been reached, the user who asked the question as well as the one who answered it should be warned and docked off some points. I know this will be very controversial and will generate a lot of string opinions, but i think in the long run, we owe it to the school going children.
After using Yahoo Answers for a while, I have been noticing that it has started being (mis)used by the young children who are putting in their entire homework on Answers and are rewarding other users who give them complete solutions. Check out the Science and Mathematics category and you can easily find tons of questions posted by users asking for complete solutions with a promise of giving away points for total solutions. I think its totally acceptable if children use it to resolve problems where they are stuck or to get explanations on issues they seem to struggle with, but putting in no effort and posting questions should be totally stopped.
I understand its technically almost impossible to remove questions of these types automatically and putting human reviewers will take the entire shine off Yahoo Answers! After giving it a serious thought, I feel a possible solutions could be to generate a lot of awareness among users about this problem and allow for reporting such type of questions even after they have been resolved. And if the reporting threshold has been reached, the user who asked the question as well as the one who answered it should be warned and docked off some points. I know this will be very controversial and will generate a lot of string opinions, but i think in the long run, we owe it to the school going children.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Framed by police
There is very little one can do when authorities turn against you and you are not even given a chance to explain.
I watched this video "Framed by police, youth decided to end his life" a few days back and it brought tears to my eyes. The video shows how few young men, going on with their routine lives are suddenly and unexpectedly hit by a bolt of suspicion that destroys their life as well as that of their families. They are falsely implicated of having links with terrorists and are arrested and tortured. Its shameful and disgraceful for the police that they indict people without strong evidence or proof. They should have investigated in some detail before creating a fake case against them. I totally understand that in today's time police are under great pressure to prevent and solve terror related crimes, but they need to also think that any wrong arrest basically destroys a life and devastates those of their loved ones. Investigative agencies need to be a bit more careful.
The only good thing about this whole episode is that atleast the judiciary is doing their job well even though they take their own time. Another aspect is how we, the common people tend to discard or distance ourselves from people who are under suspicion without trying to find out if the person is really guilty or not. We are quick to form opinions and stick to them even when they are wrong.
I hope the affected youth get their pride back and are able to find good jobs and have a better life for them and their families. God, please give them a lot of good luck!
I watched this video "Framed by police, youth decided to end his life" a few days back and it brought tears to my eyes. The video shows how few young men, going on with their routine lives are suddenly and unexpectedly hit by a bolt of suspicion that destroys their life as well as that of their families. They are falsely implicated of having links with terrorists and are arrested and tortured. Its shameful and disgraceful for the police that they indict people without strong evidence or proof. They should have investigated in some detail before creating a fake case against them. I totally understand that in today's time police are under great pressure to prevent and solve terror related crimes, but they need to also think that any wrong arrest basically destroys a life and devastates those of their loved ones. Investigative agencies need to be a bit more careful.
The only good thing about this whole episode is that atleast the judiciary is doing their job well even though they take their own time. Another aspect is how we, the common people tend to discard or distance ourselves from people who are under suspicion without trying to find out if the person is really guilty or not. We are quick to form opinions and stick to them even when they are wrong.
I hope the affected youth get their pride back and are able to find good jobs and have a better life for them and their families. God, please give them a lot of good luck!
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
The upcoming threat to Google - iAd
Few days back I wrote about the iAd program from Apple. I truly believe that it will redefine the concept of online advertising. According to a survey in 2009, there are around 4.4 billion mobile phone users as compared to around 1.5 billion Internet users. Of the 4.4 billion, 1.8 billion are smart phone users. The rate at which smart phone users are growing is alarming and much faster than Internet users. More are more people are today browsing the Internet over mobile phones and more and more companies are developing custom mobile apps. This will automatically lead to a shift from desktop based online advertising to mobile based advertising. What Google did with online advertising, Apple plans to do in the mobile world. They have the biggest share in smart phone market and it will continue to grow as they launch the iPad.
Almost all of Google's revenues come from selling online ads. To maintain their dominant position, Google needs to quickly devise a totally new program for the mobile platform and counter the threat from iAd. I tried their current mobile advertising solution, but its falls quite short of expectations if You have used their desktop based advertising solutions. Google has a good mobile platform of their own - Android, and that's growing slowly but steadily and they can use that to leverage their mobile advertising. The stakes in this field are very high and although I am a big fan of Google products, I have a feeling that Apple might dislodge their dominance in online advertising in the years to come.
Almost all of Google's revenues come from selling online ads. To maintain their dominant position, Google needs to quickly devise a totally new program for the mobile platform and counter the threat from iAd. I tried their current mobile advertising solution, but its falls quite short of expectations if You have used their desktop based advertising solutions. Google has a good mobile platform of their own - Android, and that's growing slowly but steadily and they can use that to leverage their mobile advertising. The stakes in this field are very high and although I am a big fan of Google products, I have a feeling that Apple might dislodge their dominance in online advertising in the years to come.
Monday, April 12, 2010
iAd - The Game Changer in Advertising
On April 8th 2010, Steve Jobs made another jaw dropping presentation on the iPhone platform and its new features at the Apple's iPhone OS 4 event. I was amazed at the rate with which new apps are being developed and more amazingly the rate at which people are downloading and using them. All the new features specially multi-tasking, VoIP and folders are great and will make iPhone platform even better, but the biggest one that caught my eye is iAd. Check out the slides at 10:49AM and 10:50AM. Assuming Steve is giving the correct data the three slides that show the numbers game are very very powerful. They show the enormous opportunity that lies in front of advertisers to use the iPhone platform as the next gen in online advertising. It provides them with a perfect platform for targetted and focused advertising. I feel it is much more commanding than web/Internet advertising since in case of mobile advt, the advertisers can actually identify their users. They can know about their habits, usage patterns, geo-locations and routines by placing their ads on specific apps. These ads will also have a better ROI since the platform they run on will be with the users all the time, Internet ads cannot boast of that. The only problem I have with iAd is that is is tied to the iPhone OS. I would have loved it to be platform agnostic so that one could utilize it on Blackberry's or Palm OS or Windows Mobile. But going by Apple's history, that would have been a total departure from their strategy of having everything Apple :)
But overall, I give it a big thumbs up and am sure that advertisers will be quick to grab this huge marketing opportunity.
But overall, I give it a big thumbs up and am sure that advertisers will be quick to grab this huge marketing opportunity.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
We the engineers
A group of managers are given an assignment to measure the height of a flagpole. So they go out to the flagpole with ladders and tape measures, and they're falling off the ladders and dropping the tape measures. The whole thing is just a mess.
An engineer comes along and sees what they're trying to do, walks over, pulls the flagpole out of the ground, lays it flat, measures it from end to end, gives the measurement to one of the managers and walks away.
After the engineer has gone, one manager turns to another and laughs: "Isn't that just like an engineer? We're looking for the height and he gives us the length!"
An engineer comes along and sees what they're trying to do, walks over, pulls the flagpole out of the ground, lays it flat, measures it from end to end, gives the measurement to one of the managers and walks away.
After the engineer has gone, one manager turns to another and laughs: "Isn't that just like an engineer? We're looking for the height and he gives us the length!"
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