Nostalgia

Great ad films, great music.

I am Chevrolet – v1

I am Chevrolet – v2

Excellent ads, I was looking for these ad films for a long time.

Marketing Worth Remembering!

I was still in school when TVCs introducing a new brand called Chevrolet screened across channels of all genres from sports to vernacular entertainment. The well orchestrated brand entry aided by spectacular launch campaign commercials helped the brand win the hearts of millions right from its launch. I have chosen to blog on this topic for two reasons: i) I like brand entries and launch campaigns for a fact. ii) Like I mentioned in the first post of this blog, I can never resist the temptation to blog on brands that are so close to my heart.

Dwelling deep into the launch commercials one would find that the TVCs were simply stunning. The message was about a bold brand yet it was conveyed in such gentle fashion that it sparked of a mild curiosity among viewers on what this new campaign called ‘I am Chevrolet’ was all about. Igniting that…

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The Twelve-Factor App

A write-up on practices of developing / deploying a saas app – http://www.12factor.net/

Relative nature of pain and joy

Pain and difficulty are relative and experience-dependent, so try not to judge others for having had it "too easy".

Similarly, joy and happiness are also relative, so try not to look down on people who have differing views of what "fun" is.

From a quora answer to the question What discovery, insight or piece of knowledge has transformed your view of the world in adult life?

Science and Spirituality

Found this great video from an answer to a quora question

Dr Quantum–Double Slit Experiment–Reality and Illusion (Maya)

Found a few more videos from the same documentary

Understanding 4th Dimension

Entanglement

 

What we perceive as reality is based on our thoughts and thoughts are really powerful. If will help us understand Illusion or Maya.

There is no duality, every thing is still connected.

Eventually science will come to the same conclusions of the wisdom from the Vedic age.

Quotable quote: On the relativeness of suffering

To draw an analogy: a man’s suffering is similar to the behavior of gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the "size" of human suffering is absolutely relative."  – Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-single-wisest-thing-youve-ever-heard-or-read/answer/Alexandra-Pell

Mobile: Cross-Platform toolkits

Yesterday I attended an event from Thoughtworks – Thoughtworks Technology Radar. Thoughtworks Technology Radar has positioned Cross-Platform toolkits for mobile development in the ‘Hold: Proceed with caution’ ring. Around an year ago Martin Fowler wrote about Cross-Platform toolkits for mobile development here.

Fowler’s conclusions in his bliki entry 

 

• Don’t use cross-platform toolkits
• For maximum reach: built a web app that looks like web app
• To appeal to a particular platform: build a native app for that platform, with a experience design based on that platforms interaction style

In the footnote he highlighted a scenario where using a cross-platform toolkit may be valid –

Use a cross-platform toolkit – but you write a different app, with a different experience design, for each platform you build for. The gain over doing this with native code is that you have a single platform for your developers to use and can get some reuse of common code (particularly non-UI code)

I recently read a comprehensive study of Cross-Platform Developer Tools 2012 – Bridging the worlds of mobile apps and the web (VisionMobile The Clash of Ecosystems report). This what they had to say:

The outlook for cross-platform tools

• Cross-platform tools will evolve from productivity tools for developers to strategic assets in the battle of ecosystems
• As the platform landscape remains fragmented for the foreseeable future, cross-platform tools will become “business as usual” for most mobile developers
• Cross-platform tools vendors will differentiate by reaching across the app lifecycle
• Specialisation and segmentation in cross-platform tools

1. Games
2. enterprise
3. media apps

• Cross-platform tools will be complementary to native SDKs, providing effective solutions for developers making less demanding apps that can perform well while not having access to bleeding edge features
• Cross-platform tools are taking HTML further than web browsers can, by unifying the authoring side, rather than the runtime side of the app
• Component marketplaces becoming an essential feature of successful cross-platform tools
• Cross-platform tools allow developers to reach platforms they otherwise could not. CPTs lower entry barriers, for example allowing web developers to create native smartphone apps using only HTML and JavaScript. They can provide easy-to-use languages and development tools, and facilitate modular development and software component reuse. The result could be termed a “democratization” of software development
• The next frontier for cross-platform tools – and the next major point of vendor differentiation – will be catering to multiple screens

 

I am towards VisionMobile report’s outlook and the footnote from Fowler. Interesting to wait and watch who will be right here.

The secret to you

Once upon a time, not so long ago there used to be a great team. It used to play this video on a daily basis for sometime. I just remembered the great team and the great moments when I saw this video again. Inspirational video

Quotable quotes

"The trick is in what one emphasizes.  We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong.  The amount of work is the same."
— Carlos Castaneda

"Don’t do something permanently stupid, just because you are temporarily upset." – Unknown

Quora & Stackoverflow

Some interesting thoughts –

http://www.quora.com/Why-does-StackOverflow-have-such-a-prickly-community

http://www.quora.com/Why-do-some-people-prefer-Quora-to-StackExchange

Not that it makes any difference, I personally do not like the community at stackoverflow. But it is just my personal opinion. No two things the information they provide is awesome, But they are community of programmers (read programmers == a class of elite people with dismal social skills, I am programmer too and I understand).