Moved!

The blog is now located at http://amit-wadhwa.blogspot.com .. Do check it out sometime.

Blogdrive is a great place, the move is more due to personal reasons than ones related to the actual blog.

Cost of Speaking too much

Well in the latest episode of The Apprentice(here in India), the guy I was kinda rooting for just got fired. And it wasn't because he screwed up in one of the task but simply coz he let his tongue take control of his brain. He let his tongue run out of control and called himself "White trash" in the board room. STUPID. The result he was fired instantaneously. I feel sorry for the guy since he was a talent powerhouse but then again maybe he was not that smart. He not only used a offensive term in the boardroom, he isolated himself from the product he was trying to sell and trashed himself in front of Donald Trump. His reasoning: "He calls himself that sometimes when he is kidding". Come on man, "You are in the board room of apprentice in front of Donald trump, You don't kid around here" He was probably very safe coz of his past performances and may be he was agitated coz of the fact that he didnt perform well in the task. Guess he would learn to shut up and stop calling himself that.

Now the task was to promote the latest Lexus 2007 model which had all these neat features, none of which seemed highlighted in the event of the loosing team. The other team really worked on the brand image of Lexus and the Luxury associated with it. They had a much bigger crowd there and it seemed a really well managed event.

There was a 2nd routine firing, that of the Project Manager Jenn.. Now, not only she didn't do a good job, she was pathetic in the board room. She was like these guys are great and didn't do anything to defend herself or to stand up for her the decisions she took. Adding to the injury was the fact that her opening presentation was poor coz she overlooked Sun's daily movement.

There are a few ticking bombs left there, and things should really heat up if couple of people who clearly aren't upto the mark are let go from the show.

Another intresting turn of event in the show was clear irritation on Trump's face when he was cut down by his over zealous assistant in firing making his points.

What a Sunday!

    Truly an amazing day in Sports. Hamilton rode beautifully in his Mclaren to win the US GP. Angel Cabrera, a guy whose name wasn't heard by many won the US Open Golf Tournament, overpowering Tiger woods who was staging a comeback of sorts in the 3rd and 4th after having a dismal first two rounds and Real Madrid are spanish league champs once again.

Lets talk about Madrid for a bit here, this is a team which was in shambles till the first half in season, All that money, the great names in the squad were upto no good. This was a team which was truly a shadow of the powerhouse Real Madrid of the past. But they managed a miraculous comeback with an amazing winning streak towards the end of the season to upset holder's Barcelona. Some have celebrated the success by praising the grit and determination of Fabio Capello and his team, others have whined about the One-on-One record deciding the top position instead of the Goal difference in the league.

One thing that was evident was the top fitness level of the team, it was evident that Madrid played much better in the 2nd half than 1st including the dramatic comeback against Espanyol when they were 0-3 down to win the match 4-3.

The same spirit was evident in the second half of the last game against Mallorca when they made a comeback from 0-1 to win the match 3-1. It was amazing that the best player on the field (Becks at that point) had to be subsituted to make the turnaround in the match.

With Becks and Roberto Carlos leaving this season and Reyes uncertain position. It would be interested to see which players will Madrid get for next season and whether Capello would still be there or not as the Coach

Hamilton Takes Pole at US GP

Lewis Hamilton has taken pole position for the US Grand Prix, bettering his fuming teammate Alonso once again.

Alonso was yelling last week that Mclaren is favoring Hamilton since he is british. Well, Fernando, its time to face the facts, this guy is beating your sorry a** on the race circuit.. You may be the current champ, but F1 greatness is not about being a great winne but being a gracious looser. This is the guy who was basically handed a race win by Hamilton due to team orders and he didnt have the decency to shake his head rather he celebrated like hell. Contrast this with the last season when Schumi was handed a similar victory by Massa, and Schumi had a grim face on his face.

My advice to Fernando, "Stop being a cry baby and proove yourself on the track". He has got more experience than the new kid on the block, same team, same car, and if he's still getting beat it means one and only one thing that he is being outclassed.

Ofcourse, Fernando was the only one of the few people who did not have the courtesy to acknowledge Schumi as one of the F1 greats last season. He probably thought it was his driving skills beating Schumi not his Car.. Time for a flashback for Alonso I think

The hottest title race I have seen

The Spanish league title would be decided on the last day. With three teams still in the race, this is certainly the hottest ever title race I have seen for a league title.

 Real Madrid was spared last weekend by a 20 second spell in which Nistelroy scored an opportunistic goal against Zaragoza (who played brilliantly) and Barcelona was struck by a late Espanyol equaliser after a couple of Messi goals. Meanwhile, Sevilla could only manage a draw against Mallorca. Surprisingly, All top 3 teams drew this weekend, nobody could have called that!

So we are heading to the last day with ball's in Real Madrid's court once again to win the league by winning their match against Mallorca

The Usability factor

Well, I was browsing the CNN Website Education section looking for an article (regarding ASU) of which I had an broken link (which I picked up from a forum)

Now, After the finding the link to be broken after a bit of grumbling I really had 2 options:
1) To give up on the article
2) To find the article myself

Well, I picked option 2 for no certain reason and tried the so-called "search" feature.

Now the problems I faced while using the search feature:
1) By default the search is a web-search and not a CNN.com search. I just don't get this, Why would anybody does this? I won't go to CNN.com to do an Yahoo search(this is what they use). This should be really simple to know, understand and do.
2) No section specific search: So I can't search in education section only
3) By default results are ordered by Date and not Relevance. This was really irritating. I was getting really weird top results due to this as the hits were sorted by date.

Though, I wasn't able to find the article using the search, I thought why not just browse to the date of the article (somewhere in april). I clicked on "more articles" link on the Ed section page and viola I was on a page that looked like had archived content but that was limited till May only. I wasn't able to find a link to older stories :(

A simple example of how Small things when overlooked can cause mayhem to a web site's usability.

Losing weight the right way

Now, this is an unusual entry for this blog... But you should really read this story [rediff.com]. I have had the pleasure of knowing this guy personally and can vouch for his words. What he suggests is common sense advice that is easy to learn and remember but quite hard to follow, but then 'life ain't easy'


Check out Rishi's site at:  http://www.commonsenseofloosingweight.com/

P.S. You may noy be able to get into the site due to bandwidth issues that has come up after  the article on rediff.

IITK site hacked

Well, somebody hacked http://www.iitk.ac.in/... considering IIT-JEE results came out a few days back.. who do u think did that ;)

Spanish league getting hot

OMG... Beckham is on fire.. Madrid's Marching ahead.. Will Barcelona be able to defend their title.. Certainly a nail biting last few weeks in the spanish football season!

US or UK

Well, they say life is unpredicatable.. I just found out how true it is!

On friday, Out of no where I was asked whether I can fly and report in the UK office on 4th June.. Supposedly for atleast 3 months. Opportunity of a lifetime you bet... But.. this would throw my MS plans in total haywire. Though I can join UA in Jan .. but still It would mean a a 6 month delay. Another thing that might affect is whether the bond clause would be applicable in the case I travel. Coz then I cant leave the job till March-April..

Got loads of thinking to do