Mr. Aggarwal

“One of our country’s greatest charms is the notion that achieving success is worth everything we have. Perhaps our greatest risk is accepting a culture of spending more than that to achieve it.” – Ashok Aggarwal

I put together these slides for some of the kids in my family and thought I would share with others; I think it is important that children understand some basic rules when using email to protect themselves as well as their family and friends. Any constructive input is appreciated.

I just found out about a phone number you can use to test your sound. It is designed for Plantronic headsets, but the idea can be used to just verify what other people hear.

The number is: (866) 210-2157

I then used option 3 to test how I sound and get the playback. I just ignore the Plantronic headset adjustment instructions.

I just bought and installed a new cordless phone system. Our previous system had seen better days — batteries on a few of the phones were not charging anymore and my tripping over the cords for the main base in my office caused it to drop enough times that it had begun to show its scars.

I didn’t shop long, but was generally amazed at how little this technology has advanced. I would have thought that phones would come standard with simple contact synchronization (with Outlook through cords if not with Google or other services over the internet). I also thought a standard feature might be some level of bluetooth integration with my cell phone so I could switch to the handset easily. I dare not expect any sort of rudimentary phone number lookup capabilities with internet services. I don’t even need a map UI — just simple scrolling of the first few numbers it finds — and let me lookup either residential or businesses. But nope, I will expect the exact same features I have had for 15 or more years.

But all those possible capabilities seem way too complicated to even dream of compared to the experience I just encountered while trying to setup the meager number of configurable settings on my phone system (if I can even call it a “system”) tonight. I went through to set up the voicemail access number for my phone provider —– no, I was past wondering why these phones don’t have visual voicemail built-in. After testing the setup, I realized I typo’d one of the numbers. ‘No big deal, I will just change the number,’ I thought to myself. However, though I could initially set the access number through the normal menus, I realized there was simply no way to change it. I had to dig up the manual online and was amused enough by the cryptic steps that I just had to share them (below).

Can someone PLEASE build some interesting land-line phone systems – many of us do still use them for a number of reasons, and I bet many more would if they had any decent functionality (especially with all this research coming out about the possibly negative health implications of cellphone use).

Steps for Changing Your Cordless Phone’s Voicemail Access Number
In order to change your voicemail access number, you must first erase it.
However, there are no textual menus providing any workflow for you to delete the number, let alone change it.
Instead, press {MENU}
Then dial {#}{3}{3}{1} ------ How on earth could I have guessed that???
Then, press and hold {CLEAR} until all digits are erased.
Then select {SAVE}
Then press {OFF}


I would not have been surprised if they next asked me to unplug the device for 20 seconds and plug it back in, followed by spinning around 4 times before attempting to setting the voice mail access code again.

All smooth rocks were once rough around the edges. – Ashok Aggarwal

10 guys in a room. 2 of them think before they take action. Each of the other 8 is greatly influenced, subconsciously, by the action of the one “thinker” he is closest to, regardless of any other variables or circumstances.

I am thankful for my old gigabit switch getting “louder”. As annoying as the sounds may get, I understand this as one last, loyal yelp to let me know he is about to die…which I appreciate as opposed to him just up-and-dying on me immediately without my having a replacement ready.

You’ve been good to me ol’ pal. Let’s ride this thing out with some hardcore, chatter-heavy database transactions. Maybe we’ll throw in some video streaming as well — maybe a nice Netflix movie in commemoration.

Anyone have an apropos movie suggestion(s)?

Point your mobile device to this with a QR reader and enjoy!

…and Japan’s gym memberships double in price overnight…

Pretty funny; amazing how much media attention this has gotten in the past few months:

Indeed, tragic is he who can never have enough. But worse is he who knows he has enough, yet he cannot bear helping. – Ashok Aggarwal

These people know their audience.

By the way, at the end, the translation for the Hindi voice-over is:

[the woman texts the husband]: “It’s been 25 years, but you still don’t understand anything about women.”

I don’t judge the nature of the problem or solution as much as I do the depth of their respective complexity and simplicity. – Ashok Aggarwal

This quote isn’t as much an epiphany as it is just trying to find a way of describing what I really like to do…every day. This notion of finding simple solutions to complex problems also describes the kind of people I enjoy working with. Are you with me on this?

These are all branded names of web browsers. I have been using FireFox and Chrome for a few years now. I only use IE7/8 for enterprise application development that requires compatibility with those browsers. After seeing such productivity gains myself by switching to the fastest browser available, I am starting to look into introducing FireFox into enterprises. It has certainly occurred to me that a quick description of a web browser is in order.

Notes:

1. A program on your computer, just like Microsoft Word
2. For Windows, Internet Explorer (also called its acronym, “IE”) is the default browser. If you don’t know which browser you are running, you are likely running IE.
3. At its basis, a Web Browser takes a web addresses (also called a “URL”) like http://www.mraggarwal.com as its input, and outputs the result on the screen, which is typically a web page.
4. There are four main Web Browsers on the market:
- IE (Closed Source by Microsoft)
- FireFox (Open Source)
- Google Chrome (Open Source by Google)
- Safari (Closed Source by Apple)

I found the following video to further help exemplify and provide another learning medium. I hope you enjoy it:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano defended her decision not to close the borders with Mexico, saying it “would be a very, very heavy cost for what epidemiologists tell us would be marginal benefit.”

Where was this logic with the handling of the economic crisis? That approach has really just been “spend as much as possible, as quickly as possible, without waiting to assess the benefit.” I always thought people working with numbers were supposed to be the most logical. And in a time when we are at the cusp of an epidemic with the “swine” or “Mexico” flu, I am more likely to accept questionable and conservatively irrational decisions.

I guess, something about reading that quote just got me thinking.