It is already the end of October and Happy Halloween to you all. Given the wide power outage in CT due to the storm this past weekend, I am not sure how much trick or treating is likely to happen. I remember the days of planning for Halloween with our children, initially my wife yielding to their customized costume choices and then over the years, preference for what is available in the stores that is the latest and greatest to ordering them on the web. We all have gone through the years when there were scares about candies laced with poison and other things to worrying about the amount of sugar in take that a day like today brings. I think this is all fun.
Sept-Oct also happens to be a festival heavy month for us in India. Since Hindu calendar is lunar, our festivals do not fall on fix dates or sometimes not even in the same month. Two major festivals – Navaratri and Deepavali (also known as Diwali in the North) – are celebrated during these months. Deepavali is like the Christmas equivalent for us in terms of the way it is celebrated.
(more…)
Things got a little bit out of hand this past week. On Friday night we went back to CT. I came back to Boston on Sunday to go see the Patriots. An exciting game that Patriots managed to win. That night, I went back home very late. Since I was unable to find a reasonable flight from CT to Philly (where EDUCAUSE conference was held), I decided to take the Acela express. This required me to get up very early and go to New Haven, only to find that the train was 45 minutes late. However, it was a comfortable ride and the difference between flying and riding the Acela in terms of the time spent was roughly the same.
The free WiFi on Acela was unreliable. So I used my Verizon 4G MiFi which also was not reliable. I bet I had far better luck with my 3G when I used to ride Metro North. Could this be because of WiFi interference? Could it be because Acela was going fast? Who knows? We need more reliable connectivity. I was pleasantly surprised to see Acela full both ways!
(more…)
After many days of great weather, today is a dreary day. It was pretty bad last night that I had to watch Texas vs Detroit play in ALCS. I recognized very few players and besides I didn’t care about the outcome. While watching that and this morning, I heard about the dismantling of the administrative structure of Red Sox (as well as players feeling unhappy) after several successful seasons.
I also noticed that a Google Engineer “accidentally” shared a communication written primarily about the bad management practices at Amazon and then about Google. I have “accidentally” in quotes because I am always suspicious when smart people claim to do things like this or lose a “to be released” iPhone in a bar accidentally, so I think it was intentional. On the other hand, what do I know?
(more…)
I was saddened to hear about the death of Steve Jobs last night. I have been a user of many of the Apple products from day one like many of you are. Steve was one of those rare visionaries who revolutionized the usability of computing devices by anyone. How many iPhone or iPod users ever used a manual to start using the device? I was also one of those folks who were in love with the NeXT operating system and I remember installing it and using it for a long time in the early to mid 90’s. He will be missed very much.
Yesterday, I spoke at the Academic Council regarding the two major projects that we are currently engaged in – Sakai and Google Apps for Education. I showed the current state of affairs, such as how many courses are using Sakai, to what extent and which tools of Sakai are being used the most. It turns out that the resources and forums are the two mostly used with tools such as Assignments and Gradebook usage picking up.
(more…)
It is already the end of October and Happy Halloween to you all. Given the wide power outage in CT due to the storm this past weekend, I am not sure how much trick or treating is likely to happen. I remember the days of planning for Halloween with our children, initially my wife yielding to their customized costume choices and then over the years, preference for what is available in the stores that is the latest and greatest to ordering them on the web. We all have gone through the years when there were scares about candies laced with poison and other things to worrying about the amount of sugar in take that a day like today brings. I think this is all fun.
