You've got to find what you love

Steve Jobs delivered the commencement address at Stanford on June 12

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Defining AJAX

Many of us guys have been using AJAX-enabled web-apps for quite sometime now. This article is an attempt at formalising what the term AJAX means.

Ajax isn’t a technology. It’s really several technologies, each flourishing in its own right, coming together in powerful new ways. Ajax incorporates:

• standards-based presentation using XHTML and CSS;
• dynamic display and interaction using the Document Object Model;
• data interchange and manipulation using XML and XSLT;
• asynchronous data retrieval using XMLHttpRequest;
• and JavaScript binding everything together.

Google is making a huge investment in developing the Ajax approach. All of the major products Google has introduced over the last year — Orkut, Gmail, the latest beta version of Google Groups, Google Suggest, and Google Maps — are Ajax applications. (For more on the technical nuts and bolts of these Ajax implementations, check out these excellent analyses of Gmail, Google Suggest, and Google Maps.) Others are following suit: many of the features that people love in Flickr depend on Ajax, and Amazon’s A9.com search engine applies similar techniques.

The Knowledge Fallacy

on ComputerWorld

Data supply doesn't create information. Information doesn't lead automatically to knowledge. Knowledge doesn't lead directly to action. Business action and impact are the goal. There's a distinct danger of the data warehousing and knowledge management fields overlooking this. Start with the people and their work, not the information.

To Pay or not to Pay ?

on Rediff

Call it the great 3G spectrum rip off. Or call it a short-sighted bid to garner money for the government. Howsoever mobile services companies see it, one thing is clear -- a huge controversy has erupted, with the mobile services industry split down the middle.
The bone of contention? Should the government charge mobile services companies for providing 3G (short for third generation) spectrum (or the airwaves through which mobile phone services are provided -- in this case, mobile services which will offer high speed Internet services and data services)? Or should spectrum be free?
The row broke out a fortnight ago when Tata group chairman Ratan Tata shot off a letter to Communications Minster Dayanidhi Maran urging that 3G spectrum should be paid for.

TRAI and Dhayanithi Maran have a big task at their hands leading India to a 3G nation.

Argument : Giving free 3G spectrum will help in promoting rural telephony
Counter-Argument : Even the current spectrum is underutilised. Talking about using 3G is rubbish

A: Paying for 3G would increase cost to the consumer
CA: Reliance and other GSM operators came in by paying huge fees. But actually brought down prices.

A: Auctions in Europe led to over-bidding and companies went bankrupt.
CA: Auctions were not held properly in Europe. Anyway, Indian operators are experienced enough not to overbid.

A: Paying for 3G spectrum will choke the growth of operators.
CA: 3G spectrum is an economic resource and makes no sense to give it away free.

And the argument continues ......