Manish Agrawal

The Time Paradox: by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd

Manish Agrawal — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:55:21 GMT

The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life

Your every significant choice -- every important decision you make -- is determined by a force operating deep inside your mind: your perspective on time -- your internal, personal time zone. This is the most influential force in your life, yet you are virtually unaware of it. Once you become aware of your personal time zone, you can begin to see and manage your life in exciting new ways.

In The Time Paradox, Drs. Zimbardo and Boyd draw on thirty years of pioneering research to reveal, for the first time, how your individual time perspective shapes your life and is shaped by the world around you. Further, they demonstrate that your and every other individual's time zones interact to create national cultures, economics, and personal destinies.

Philip Zimbardo is professor emeritus of psychology at Stanford University and has also taught at Yale University, New York University, and Columbia University. His informative website, www.prisonexperiment.org, is visited by millions every year. Visit the author's personal website at www.zimbardo.com.

Why it is difficult to accept the realities of a downturn..

Manish Agrawal — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:05:44 GMT

Though everybody knows: "It is always better to come to terms with realities and accept things as early as possible..." but there is a in-built thought process in our mind (Sub-Concious Mind), which keeps pulling us away and makes the process of coming with terms to realities slow and painful..

Saush has written a great article about "why it is difficult to accept the realitlies of a downturn..."

Just by going thru this article, one can realize the common human mistakes, which if can't be avoided can definetly be made less painful.. just by looking at things in a different prospective..

Solar Roadways -- What a revloutionary concept!!

Manish Agrawal — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 10:18:39 GMT

Great work!! Scott and Julie Brusaw

What a great discovery.... It can solve so many major problems of the current world in one shot..

Video from: http://green.autoblog.com/2009/08/28/solar-roadways-get-prototype-funding-from-dot/

To check more details, you can visit the Solar Roadways website.

Join & spread the revolution by making others aware about it.

Cheers..

UUI - Ubiquitous User Interface

Manish Agrawal — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:32:30 GMT

Finally, The world is evolving towards a new mode of interaction.

Where human doesn't haveto give inputs to machines using some input devices like keyboard, mouse, touch etc. rather machines are made capable to understand human body movements and take inputs accordingly.

I will like to give it a new name UUI - i.e. Ubiquitous User Interface

Some examples of this are Accelerometer based inputs in many devices, Microsoft's new Project Natal for XBOX 360 .

Refer my previous blog posts on Sixth Sense, iPhone SDK showing accelerometer based input. And now have a look at this demo of Microsoft's Project Natal for XBOX 360:

It shows, how technology is gradually evolving

from Punch Card based instructions to Command line based instructions to Mouse / Digital Pen / Joystick to Voice / Touch / Accelerometer and now to Observation

for interfaces, from Console to GUI to IVR to UUI

What's Next ?? TUI -- Thought User Interface User can just think of an action and machine will understand :)

Sixth Sense -- What a Demo!!

Manish Agrawal — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:20:22 GMT

When you think out of the box, this is what is the possibility, you can make something so advanced with something so simple... and that also cheaper than the current available options....

Thanks to Parnav Mistry and Pattie Maes for such a brilliant work they have done.

I bet you will not be able to stop yourself from clapping after looking at the video / future.

If you can't see the below video, click here

--Manish Agrawal

iPhone SDK -- What a Demo!!

Manish Agrawal — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 04:24:36 GMT

Convert PDF to Word for Free

Manish Agrawal — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 01:33:42 GMT

Got a good link to convert PDF to Word and that too free.

I checked converting one PDF with Image and Page Header / Footer Margins. And bang it goes... it has converted it very nicely.

Only trade-off was the size of the document, it converted 386kb PDF file to 1.42 mb MS Word file. But never mind, as the quality of output was very good.

To access this tool click here.

Mobile 2.0

Manish Agrawal — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 14:26:58 GMT

This is a nice presentation prepared by Ruddy, capturing Mobile Trends and Mobile Products.

Mobile 2.0 @ Plugg

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: media retail)

Future of Mobile VAS in India

Manish Agrawal — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 13:49:38 GMT

Nice presentation on Mobile VAS in India.

Mobile Vas In India

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: bda bajaj)

Future Mobile -- nice Presentation

Manish Agrawal — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 04:29:18 GMT

How the future of the mobile web is going to change everything

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: fowa fowaexpo08)

If the above presentation is not very clear and is not making sense at few places, you can see the Full Video or Highlights of the Video also.

Google I/O 2008 - (Part 9) - ANDROID Specific

Manish Agrawal — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 17:47:03 GMT

An Introduction to Android by Jason Chen. Android is the Open Handset Alliance's mobile software platform. In this session, Google introduces Android and discuss their vision for more open, powerful, and us...	Anatomy & Physiology of an Android Patrick Brady (Google) Android has been designed as a modern mobile platform that will enable applications to take full advantage of the mobile device capabiliti...


Inside the Android Application Framework Dan Morrill (Google) Android is designed to be fast, powerful, and easy to develop for. This session will discuss the Android application framework in dept...	Building an Android Application 101 Jason Chen (Google) This session is a practical introduction to building Android applications using the SDK and developer tools. We'll walk through building a n...

Google I/O 2008 - (Part 8) - Python Specific

Manish Agrawal — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 17:45:38 GMT

Rapid Development with Python, Django, and Google App Engine Guido van Rossum (Google) Learn how to create great web applications quickly on Google App Engine using the Django web framework and th...

Painless Python for Proficient Programmers Part I ---- Alex Martelli (Google) Python is a popular very-high-level programming language, with a clean and spare syntax, simple and regular semantics, a large sta...	Painless Python for Proficient Programmers Part II ---- Alex Martelli (Google) Python is a popular very-high-level programming language, with a clean and spare syntax, simple and regular semantics, a l...

Google I/O 2008 - (Part 7) - AJAX Specific

Manish Agrawal — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 17:43:08 GMT

State of Ajax: The Universe is Expanding Dion Almaer (Google) and Ben Galbraith (Ajaxian.com) The Ajax revolution is complete: Sophisticated JavaScript user interfaces are nearly ubiquitous. Yet, ...	Advancded Gadget and UI Development Using Google's AJAX APIs Derek Collison (Google) The Google AJAX APIs can be used to build sophisticated Gadgets and UI controls for your website. For instance,...


A World Beyond AJAX: Accessing Google's APIs from Flash and Non-JavaScript Environments Vadim Spivak (Google) AJAX isn't the only way to access Google APIs. Learn how to use Google's services from...

Google I/O 2008 - (Part 6) - App Engine Specific

Manish Agrawal — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 17:42:10 GMT

Building Scalable Web Applications with Google App Engine Brett Slatkin (Google) In this session we'll cover techniques you can use to improve your application's performance when you surpass a sim...	Best Practices - Building a Production Quality Application on Google App Engine Ken Ashcraft (Google) Once an app is out of development and has thousands or millions of users, a developer needs to...


Working with Google App Engine Models Rafe Kaplan (Google) Google App Engine Datastore Models have a lot in common with existing frameworks such as ActiveRecord and the Django database API. Howeve...	Engaging User Experiences with Google App Engine John Skidgel and Lindsey Simon (Google) Web developers and designers can create full-fledged web applications with Google App Engine. Learn how to ...

Google I/O 2008 - (Part 5) - Gears Specific

Manish Agrawal — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 17:41:14 GMT

Gears Case Studies: Zoho offline on Gears, Buxfer secure and offline finance with Gears Raju Vegesna (Zoho), Ashwin Bharambe and Shashank Pandit (Buxfer) This talk presents two case studies on Gea...	HTML5, Brought to You by Gears Aaron Boodman (Google) HTML5 is a new set of proposed extensions to HTML that radically improve the capabilities of web applications. However, without implementation...


Creating a Client-Side Search Engine with Gears Brad Neuberg (Google) Come see how Gears can be used to create a client-side search engine plugged right into your web page! Learn how to add this f...	Improving Browsers in New Ways: Gears++ Chris Prince (Google) Google Gears has progressed by leaps since its initial launch -- and in ways that many developers may not realize.

Google I/O 2008 - (Part 4) - GWT Specific

Manish Agrawal — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 17:40:11 GMT

GWT and Client-Server Communication Miguel Mendez (Google) It's a rare Ajax application that doesn't need network access. To the despair of many a developer, though, there are almost as many ways ...	Reusing Google APIs with Google Web Toolkit Miguel Mendez (Google) We like to say that GWT brings software engineering to the crazy world of Ajax, and of course straightforward code reuse is a cor...


GWT Extreme! Ray Cromwell (Timepedia.org) In this session, see Google Web Toolkit used in exotic and creative ways to solve interesting engineering problems, from authoring OpenSocial apps that ru...


Using GWT to Build a High Performance Collaborative Diagramming Tool Alex Moffat and Damon Lundin (Lombardi) Lombardi Blueprint is a browser based business process documentation and diagramming to...	Video of the "Conversation with Josh Bloch" from Pearson Education's Voices That Matter: Google Web Toolkit conference.

Google I/O 2008 - (Part 3) - OpenSocial specific

Manish Agrawal — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 17:39:01 GMT

OpenSocial: A Standard for the Social Web Patrick Chanezon, Kevin Marks, Chris Schalk (Google) OpenSocial is an open specification defining a common API that works on many different social website...	Meet the OpenSocial Containers Patrick Chanezon (Google), Paul Linder (hi5), Kevin Tom (iGoogle), Sachin Rekhi (imeem), Max Newbould (MySpace), Manu Rekhi (Orkut), Eric Staats (AOL), Brandon Duncan...


OpenSocial Across Containers Arne Roomann-Kirruk and Lane LiaBraaten (Google) OpenSocial provides a common set of APIs that developers can learn in order to create applications that run on multipl...	OpenSocial, OpenID, and OAuth: Oh, My! Joseph Smarr (Plaxo) A number of emerging technologies will soon collectively enable an open social web in which users control their information and it can f...


OpenSocial Specification: What's Next for OpenSocial David Glazer (Google) OpenSocial is an open specification established by a group of social sites and application developers. While OpenSocial v...	Best Practices for Spreading Your App without Ruining the User Experience Vivian Li, Chris Schalk and Kevin Marks (Google) The OpenSocial API provides features that application developers can use ...


Apache Shindig: Make your Social Site an OpenSocial Container Dan Peterson (Google), Paul Lindner (hi5) and Chris Chabot (mijndomein.nl) Shindig is a new project in the Apache Software Foundation ...

Google I/O 2008 - (Part 2) - Google API specific

Manish Agrawal — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 17:36:40 GMT

Extend the Reach of your Google Apps Environment with Google APIs Jackie Bodine, Ryan Boyd (Google) and Ron Hess (Salesforce.com) Google Apps already gives your organization an out-of-the-(virtual...	Spice up Your Web Apps with Google AJAX APIs Mark Lucovsky (Google) Integrating Google Search into a website can be simple using the Google AJAX APIs. Mark will show how a few lines of JavaScript ...


Visualize your Data: Google Visualization API The new Google Visualization API lets you access multiple sources of structured data that you can display, choosing from a large selection of visualiza...	From Mashups to Mapplets David Day (Google) Mapplets are mini-applications that run within Google Maps, allowing you to add new feature or overlay your data directly onto Google Maps. These applic...


My Maps Editing API Keith Golden (Google) Want to know how to add My Maps features on your own mashup? Come and learn how to use some of basic map creation tools from My Maps features and add to y..

Google I/O 2008 - (Part 1) - Introduction

Manish Agrawal — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 17:34:51 GMT

Google I/O 2008 was a big event and exposed many Open Google technologies which can be used for making Internet Applications Fast, Easily & Economically.

It shows, at what speed Google is growing itself and making the Internet grow.

I will log the Video links, of this event, available on YouTube. I know it is already 5 months old, but I am trying to make a collection of some important ones (according to me), at one place...

I will divide it in 9 parts, and here goes the videos for Part 1:

Keynote for Google I/O 2008: Client, Connectivity, and the Cloud Featuring Vic Gundotra, Allen Hurff (MySpace), Steve Horowitz, Kevin Gibbs, Mark Lucovsky, Bruce Johnson, David Glazer, Nat Brown	Google I/O '08 Keynote: Imagination, Immediacy, and Innovation... and a little glimpse under the hood at Google Marissa Mayer has been with Google for 9 years, helping to build Google into one of ...


Even Faster Web Sites Steve Souders (Google) Steve's book High Performance Web Sites describes the 14 best practices he developed while working as the Chief Performance Yahoo!. YSlow, the Firebug ...	Underneath the Cov I/ers at Google: Current Systems and Future Directions Jeff Dean (Google) Over the past several years, we have built a collection of systems and tools that simplify the storing ...

Campfire One: Introducing Google App Engine

Manish Agrawal — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 15:36:38 GMT

Part 1:Google App Engine enables developers to build their web applications on the same scalable systems that power Google applications.	Part 2:Google Software Engineer Brett Slatkin builds and deploys a sample guestbook web app on top of Google App Engine.


Part 3:Google Tech Lead Kevin Gibbs walks through the Google App Engine stack: 1) scalable serving infrastructure; 2) python runtime and libraries; 3) SDK; 4) web-based admin console; and 5) scalable data...	Part 4: Python creator and Google Software Engineer Guido van Rossum describes his work on the Google App Engine product; its support of Python; and why he's generally excited about the initiative. For mo...


Part 5: Google Product Manager Pete Koomen walks through Google App Engine's web-based admin console. For more info on Google App Engine: http://code.google.com/appe...	Part 6:Google Product Manager Paul McDonald walks through a number of sample web apps built on top of Google App Engine. He also describes Jaiku's in-progress port to Google App Engine. For more info on ...

For more info on Google App Engine: http://code.google.com/appengine

I know it is little old... but I have seen this today only and it is great!!

Intro to REST -- nice YouTube Video

Manish Agrawal — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 14:21:43 GMT

Thanks Joe Gregorio for posting the Video. Good work!!

SCRUM Development Process -- by Ken Schwaber

Manish Agrawal — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 10:12:17 GMT

This is a great PDF, written by Ken Schwaber. Summary of it can be taken from the below table:

GPS - Tracking of BIAL (Bangalore International Airport) Buses

Manish Agrawal — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:45:10 GMT

Shiffin.Com has come-up with an exciting tool for GPS tracking of BIAL Buses over Google Maps.

This tool is very good and provides not just the location of the bus, but also keeps the pin moving in real-time as per speed of the bus. You can highlight the route (path) of individual bus and even Zoom-in to check the Satllite Image (static) of the location where the bus currently is. More-over it shows the Bus No. and even speed of the bus also.

Bravo, Great Work guys!!!

Some screenshots:

Google Chrome - New Browser & Googles simplistic approach

Manish Agrawal — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 21:07:51 GMT

It is a very nice browser.. is the feeling, I got after using it for an hour or so. So the first impression is good.

But I can't write this blog post using it. So there is lot to be still done. For example it doesn't shows the RichEditBox toolbar as shown below over the Post Body entry box.

Similarly it is unable to show XML content as XML and renders it as html (without tags). These just some examples, I am sure Google will incorporate all such features in coming releases.

The things which I liked about Chrome are:

Smart use of Screen space (as default feature), providing maximum area for viewing
Smart use of Status bar, by only showing when it is required
Google Search directly from Address bar
Drag tab out to create new window or gather multiple tabs into one window
FAQ for web developers
Comics interpretation of key engineering decisions
Hold Back/Forward button to see history
Web Inspector: to see the elements and resources associated with the component by right clicking on it, including a hierarchy view of the DOM and a JavaScript console.
Treating Tabs as independent process (great lesson for Microsoft to improve IE's never ending Crashing problem)
Open Source
Text Area Resizing option. Click & drag the bottom right corner of text area to resize.

As this is from Google the company which believes in releasing of rock solid products. And Chrome is still in Beta, so I will not mind the shortcomings and would wait for more features to be added.

Great work guys keep it up...

links:

Download link

Features page

Can techies be good/ successful Product Managers?

Manish Agrawal — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 11:05:55 GMT

Till now, I use to create Posts marked, Post I liked. But for this one I would like to say, Question I liked:

Anant Mishra has asked a very interesting question on LinkedIN. And so are the answers. (I mean interesting).

Being a Technical Product Manager myself, I couldn't stop myself from blogging about it.

Click here to see the Answers.