Do Not Drink Coffee/Tea - But Why?

You would come across our elders and other moral scientists, god men, spiritual leaders and other preachers asking people to refrain people from drinking coffee/tea or consuming garlic and onions.  

Have we ever thought why?

I recently happened to listen to a spiritual discourse rendered by the renowned scholar Velukkudi Krishnan.  He too told the same.  DO NOT DRINK COFFEE/TEA.   DO NOT EAT GARLIC AND ONIONS.    Though I am not convinced by the reasons he put, I feel this could be the reason.

Man is an addictive animal.   Once he gets addicted and attached to something, he latches onto it for the rest of his life till he gets addicted to something else which automatically De-addicts him from the previous thing.   Affection is good, Addiction is not.   Coffee, Tea, Garlic and Onions are addictive agents.   Once you get latched onto it, it is difficult to get rid of them.   But, like I said before, they also act as a de-addiction agent.   Let us suppose, someone is a chain smoker but doesn't have the habit of drinking coffee/tea (could be rare, but just assume this for the sake of argument).    If he starts consuming Coffee, he soon gets addicted to it.  This addiction helps reduce cigarette smoking.  So, this is good in one way or other.   

Windows 8

Download the 64-bit Preview ISO image and installed it on my Toshiba Satellite C600 laptop. 

Installation was smooth - typical windows installation with no hickups.   Booting was smooth.   They made the windows startup extremely simple.   Could have added some color and flash to it.  




The windows start screen is a step forward.


This is impressive.   That boring old start button which we have been seeing Windows 95 is gone!!!!!
Looks similar to my friend's windows mobile phone which he bought recently.  Gives me a feeling that Microsoft is tying to bridge the mobile and desktop world with common UI which is fascinating and a way forward. 

The UI looks impressive, dashing and much better than its predecessors.

I could install a lot of applications with no trouble....like

Pidgin messenger,
Groupwise Client,
Office 2007
Google Desktop Search
Bitdefender

No issues running these....

Looks like the Windows Preview release is stable as Windows 7 itself

Software Engineers must be trained to THINK!

On the other day, I was listening to an interview of Neville Roy Singham, CEO, Thoughtworks.   He brought in a very interesting point regarding the notion of software thinking rather than software training.   According to him, good software is hard to write because it has to go through a lot of thinking process.  So, it is not the training in software that would create a software architect but the deep thinking would do that.   Many software companies in India and US recruit untrained software engineers, but spend a lot of time training them.  

The analytical and problem solving ability differentiates the average software engineer from the best.  

Educational institutions which impart software training should emphasis on software analytics and software reasoning.  I call that CLEAN ROOM SOFTWARE TRAINING.

If we do that, we will have more softwares engineers writing clean useful intelligent code.
 

STOP FEEDING MICROSOFT!

I was talking to my friend yesterday who works as a system manager for a company based in Bangalore, India.  They have many hundred Windows desktops running Windows XP.  All their softwares work fantastically on Windows XP.   They are planning to move to Windows 7, not because there is something that doesn't work on Windows XP, but just because Micorsoft is will be discontinuing Windows XP support very soon.

They don't want to take chance! 

Windows XP Support ?  What does that mean at all?

I asked him a simple question?
    How many times did you go to Microsoft for seeking any kind of support for Windows XP?
    The answer was ZERO times.

That's true, there is no real need to go to Microsoft for any kind of desktop support. 
However, they keep sending important updates such as security updates (almost daily!) which you
choose/do not choose to install.  Some of them break your existing application or makes your
system perform slower and then you get the fix for the what they broke later thru the same
support channel.

Your Antivirus Software would protect you better.    

My friend agreed that he did not remember any time when they had to go to Microsoft or
Microsoft's trusted partner for any kind of desktop support. 

So, it became evident that for his organization, there is no real need to move to Windows 7. 
There could be only three reasons   
    1.    "Because" others are upgrading...
    2.    "Because" Microsoft is not going to support Windows XP anymore
    3.    Company policy!

He finally agreed to the underlying philosophy and felt sorry that his company would be spending
lot of worthless money in this case and he can't stop that from happening.  After all, he is just
a paid system manager who is asked to do as per the company's policy!

So, friends, this is what has been happening for the last 17 years since Microsoft launched
Windows 95.  The craze of "Unwanted upgrades" began just few years later
     Windows 95--->Windows 98----->Windows ME------->
    Windows XP------->Windows Vista------>Windows 7------?

..........and now you understood how Bill Gates became the richest man in the world and how
Microsoft enslaved the corporate world..........We fed them........just for nothing!

So next time, when you hear the next version from Microsoft, think many times before you buy it.