My last words to friend Thulasi... :-(

I was totally sad and dejected while I wrote this, I came to know the demise of my college friend Ilayadhulasidharan(we call him "Thulasi"). 

I was shocked to see a tweet about his demise by my friend. The saddest part of all is that he expired on 22nd September because of Pneumonia and we came to know only today.

                                    Hailing from a town called Kallakuruchi, Tamilnadu, Thulasi was working for Cognizant technologies in Chennai. I would call him at times and we share a lot of things, he was the only person with whom I had occasional contact after my college days, it's disheartening I can't do it any more. Needless to say, Thulasi was a very-hard worker and he made up his mind that he should get employed in a Software company after completing his UG. After months of hard-work in improving his communication skills, finally 9 months after his B.E completion, he got employed with CTS. It is such a commendable achievement as English was not the medium in the school he studied. He was doing well in his job before this Pneumonia plucked his life out of this world. 

                                  My regret is that I and my friends couldn't even see a final glimpse of him, by the time we came to know it was too late, nevertheless let his soul rest in peace. I convey my deep condolences to his family and relatives.

Thulasi! September 22 will always be remembered. This night is a saddest one in my life so far and I doubt I'll sleep without reminiscing those days of campus interviews which we attended together...

Tablets, what's the point?

It all started in Jan 2010 when Apple.Inc announced the launch of  Ipad, which received mixed opinions. Many technology bloggers didn't see a point in this as it was a nothing but an Ipod touch with bigger screen size . Apple's marketing skills and fanboism led to ipad success and they sold 3million Ipads in 80days, thats truck loads of it.

Smartphones > Netbooks > Laptops/PCs is how the anology goes, now it stands like Smartphones > Tablets > Netbooks > Laptops/PCs.

My question is, are Tablets really needed there in between?. After ipad's success story every other manufacturer planned to release a Tablet to catch-up with the competition. At present scenario a Tablet is a multi-media device, with bigger screen size, which does the same functions of a smartphone. Ipad didn't differ much, it ran the same OS on the iphone with no GPS, 3G/wi-fi only. A user normally can do anything what they can do on a Tablet with their Smartphone sacrificing screen size which isn't deal-breaker for many.

Samsung too has jumped into the Tablet band-wagon, with their Galaxy Tab they have streched a bit far and added phone functionality to it, which IMO is totally meaningless, imagine you making calls with a 7inch slab next to your ears. This device is a bigger sized one of their own GalaxyS smartphone. Every specification word by word, albeit the screen size, is same for both the devices. 

Cost factor: Is it any good investing in a Tablet considering the requirements of a normal user who wants to browse web, handling multimedia etc. Netbooks fits in this case undoubtedly with decent value for money, better specifications, smaller size(compared to laptops) with Windows or any Open source OS. In a long stretch Netbooks offer better functionality over these Tablets. Having said that our Government is planning to launch a low-cost Tablet which is for a different cause altogether. 

There are many tablets by different manufacturers namely HP, Notion-Ink, Toshiba etc. in the pipeline. I wish they come up with something which is an exact alternative to Laptops, netbooks atleast, instead of bigger sized smartphones. How many would prefer a Tablet over Netbook? comments welcome, I would not prefer it for now.

Thanks....