Apparently, Creative has been releasing a whole bunch of audio cards whose drivers did not work properly in Vista, even though the boxes claimed that these were “VISTA READY”. Creative tells everyone that they’re working on building updated drivers, but they don’t seem to release these for ages. So a guy called Daniel comes along and builds a set of drivers himself and distributes these to desperate users on the Creative forum!

Now any sane person would expect Creative to be thankful to this individual and maybe even give him a job (Hell, he was able to do what the Creative software engineers couldn’t for so long!). Instead, the ‘VP of Corp Comms’, Phil O’Shaughnessy coolly comes along and posts this on the forums. He basically accuses Daniel of ‘stealing’ their intellectual property and order him to remove all links to the drivers! He seems to think that the Creative IP is far more important than millions of users who are stuck with cards that basically don’t work. Dumbass. And now that Daniel has removed all his links, we have a whole bunch of audio card buyers whose cards are nothing but hardware junk

Obviously the customers are mad – The news is spreading like wildfire and whole communities of gamers have sworn never to buy Creative products again! And our friend Phil seems to be missing (he hasn’t replied to any of the angry Creative buyers after his ‘brilliant’ post).

Now, seriously, what sort of a dumbass actually does something like this?! He’s the VP of Corp Communications for crying out loud.. Will someone from Creative please fire this moron before he ruins your company?

I stumbled on thesixtyone today.

Indie music?

I’m not usually a fan of indie music.. that’s ‘independent’ music or music by independent artists who aren’t backed by major labels.. I normally tend to stick to the big names and usually lean heavily towards rock music.. Lately, however, I’ve been starting to get bored with the 3000+ tracks I have on my ipod and so I started exploring.. and that’s how I came across thesixtyone.

digg for songs

thesixtyone is a digg-like website for music.. You can sign up as a listener or an artist.. As a listener, you can listen to a whole bunch of indie music from different genre for free.. and of course, as an artist you can upload your own music.. But you see, the problem with this is is that a lot of the independent music turns out to be crap and it can be really hard to sift through the junk to find the good stuff.. that’s where the digg like voting comes in.. the listeners basically vote up their favorite tracks (its called ‘bumping’ here) and the most popular tracks appear on the first page.. The result? You get to listen to the music that’s been truly vetted by the community.. I tried it out, and trust me when I tell you that some of the stuff over there is even better than today’s chart toppers!

points

Well, sounds good so far, doesn’t it? Except one little problem… gaming. Gaming is when an artist gets some of his friends to repeatedly bump his song up (even though it may sound like crap) so that he gets on the front page. To get around this, thesixtyone has a nifty points system. You start off with 90 points (i think) and you get points for logging in everyday or listening to new music. Every time you bump up a song, you ‘pay’ 5 points. Not only does this reduce gaming, it makes you think twice before you bump up a song.. So, only the really good tracks get a large number of bumps To make things more interesting, you get additional points if you bump a song that eventually makes it to the homepage (aka becomes popular). And the more points you have, the more ‘reputation’ you have in the thesixtyone community.. kinda like a social network.

what about the artists?

Well, I haven’t tried signing up as an artist (yet).. but I think thesixtyone has some sort of payment system for artists.. where users download a song for a fee and the money goes to the artist.. I’m not too sure about this part, so check out the website.

UI?

The UI is another big plus for thesixtyone. Very nicely done. Click on any song and it starts playing in a mini player on the top right corner of the screen. And the best part is that you can continue navigating through the site and the music keeps playing! You can play one of the homepage playlists (hot/new/week) or make your own.. and of course you can share your likes/dislikes/playlists/rants/etc with your friends (aka a social network).

Great site.. I checked out a number of sites before I landed up on this one and I think I’m gonna stay (at least for a while).. Do check it out – http://www.thesixtyone.com.

My last post as u can see was in April or something last year.. Actually I wrote a couple of posts after that but I haven’t migrated them over from my previous blog yet..  Meanwhile, I haven’t been completely idle either.. Check out laid back for some comic relief

Now that I’m done with college n all, I think (and hope) i have more time to write..

Here are some of the surprises:

- The highest paying job is Senior Database Administrator, raking in a whopping $93,000 a year! (actually I remember my databases prof at Stanford mentioning something like this… so this isn’t too much of a surprise

- Oh wait! Actually the highest paying is Anesthesiologist at $225,000! Woah!

- The highest paying engineering job is Project Engineer followed by Civil Engineer ($57,200)! (I would have expected Computer/Electrical/Bio engineering positions to pay better)

Prashant.

First of all, this is a 4 months delay – hardly anything compared to the years that Vista was delayed. This is not such a big deal. Not even to the hardcore mac guys. Why? Apple will only be delaying the Leopard so that they can thoroughly test it before releasing it. The actual OS will be complete by the WWDC in June as originally planned, but they will not have enough time to QA it before WWDC. And so, Apple is going to release a Beta version of the Leopard to the developers at WWDC for free. This will definitely keep them happy – for a while.

Many claim that this move signifies ‘Apple abandoning the mac for some toys’. While this does initially look like the Mac were abandoning its staple Mac OS for the unpredictable and risky iPhone venture. But lets take a step back and look at the options that Apple had at this stage. Just a few months ago, the iPhone announcement received massive media coverage – almost every single publication (tech and non-tech) had something to say about the iPhone – and in most cases, the feedback was positive. The Leopard, which was announced a couple of Macworlds before the iPhone got almost no coverage when compared to the iPhone. While the Leopard ‘represents’ the Mac, its delay isn’t such a big deal actually – especially when you compare it to what might have happened if Apple announced that they were delaying the iPhone.

Some argue that Apple has no right to give the excuse of insufficient manpower. They say that Apple should have no problem spending a little more money on hiring more engineers. Well, a look at the career section of the Apple website does show that they are hiring feverishly. However, hiring cannot help them solve a short-term problem like this. They had to shift resources.

It is also wrong to assume that the iPhone is completely independent of the ‘Mac’. iPhone runs the Mac OS and its potential to turn PC users to the Mac is incredible. According to John Welch , the iLife, the iPhone and Final Cut Pro are all doing one thing – bringing back attention to the Mac. The iPhone is perhaps going to have a stronger influence on getting in new Mac users than the Leopard itself.

Therefore, concerns about Apple fumbling around are definitely misplaced. Steve and his guys know what they are doing and they seem to be on the right track. If all goes well, lots of people are going to be really happy when the iPhone comes out. And they will be pleasantly surprised to see Leopard when it does get released.

Prashant.

Check out my portfolio and analyses at Socialpicks.com

He suggests that the reason why non-durian eaters avoid durians may not be the stink at all.. And so, solving the stink problem may not result in a new breed of durian eaters… He goes on to explain by saying that non-customers are not the right people to get feedback from. This is because, in most cases, they are telling you why they don’t buy something as opposed to what will make them buy that thing.

Interesting point and it kinda makes sense… Check out the post here.

Prashant.

Photo courtesy: Peter Emmett

Hot Hot Heat

The best part about this article is how they ‘analyze’ the lines of the song with flowcharts and venn diagrams n all… Good stuff!

Here are some interesting lines from this ‘song’…

I’m hot coz I’m fly/You ain’t coz u not!

and check this one out…

I could sell a mil sayin nothin on a track!

I haven’t heard this song yet, but I sure know how its gonna sound Haha… How do people listen to this kind of stuff?!

Prashant.

Today Thu, Apr 12

10:00am 4218 Presentation
05:00pm EE4401 Term Paper deadline
6:00pm EE4210 Presentation

In this presentation, Prof Rosling uses these beautiful animations to disprove some myths and misconceptions about the state of the “Third World countries”. What I love about this presentation is the incredible amount of energy that this guy has. He mixes in humor, excitement and drama to capture the attention of the audience. Good stuff Check it out here…

Btw, if you are looking for some great speeches and presentations by visionaries, you should check out TED – Technology, Entertainment and Design. It’s an annual conference where thinkers and visionaries from around the world come down to share their thoughts. These are some of the TED Talks I found powerful and inspiring:

U2′s Bono on Poverty in Africa
Steven Levitt, Author (Freakonomics)
Richard Dawkins, Author (The God Delusion)
Jeff Han, Inventor of Multitouch Technology (a la iPhone)
Al Gore on Global Warming
Majora Carter on community building in the Bronx

Prashant.