Bill Clinton’s influncing book and thinker

Thinkers and books that influenced Bill Clinton as he spoke in one interview to “foreignpolicy” magazine. I would like to read few books from the list and this is to remind me when I am next purchasing any book. List also includes few books referenced in his talk.

Paul Krugman
David Brooks
Ken Wilber (A theory of everything)
Tom Friedman (The world is flat)
Malcolm Gladwell (Tipping Point)
The Evolution of God (Robert Wright)
The Moral Animal (Robert Wright)
Nozero (Robert Wright)
The Origins of Virtue (Matt Ridley)
The Ends of the earth (Robert Kaplan)
The Clash of civilizations (Samuel Huntington)
The age of the unthinkable (Joshua Cooper Ramo)

And here is a list of 100 thinkers that foreignpolicy believes.

So my list of influencing people is growing as I live this only life I will be knowing.

On vacation

I will be off for vacation to one of the hilly area of the earth located in South India. Year end has been busy with so many things to clean up but most of them getting carried away for next years or next month’s work.
The mammoth work that I completed was writing of my year end official record (for coming appraisal). Heck, its sheepwalking like task but you got to do this each year. Its not bad but its boring as a trend when there is nothing significant to write. What I did is, picked up nice adrenaline surging words for corporate HR, as its easy for them to judge a task: achieved, completed, performed, awarded, won, etc (there are one page of recommended verbs).
Cheers!!

Nokia E63 and free Apps

I have re-enabled GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) on my mobile to just to keep floating on web if not surfing. Following software I am hooking at present on my mobile:
Opera Mini – a browser ( still miss the tab feature there).
Google mobile – For google search, maps, gmail, etc (its must have)
Scribe- To update blog easily, I am installing (just got this recommendation)
coreplayer – Its claimed to be like VLC player on mobile.
Slick - IM software still under development (reminds me of ayttm )

I will also like to have few tinny compatible games.(will update the list below).
Oh!! and my mobile is simple, cheaper Nokia E63. (recommend me compatible software if you enjoyed any).

Cheers!!

What Matters Now- free ebook

Recently I read Tribes the book by Seth Godin which was presented by my wife on completion of six month of our marriage. She silently picked this up from my reading wish-list. I enjoyed the trends observed by Godin and related to my prolonged net picked knowledge and my belief.
As I was finishing the book my curious eyeball rolled to recently edited Seth Godin “What Matters Now” which is available free (infact I got it hot as it came that hour). It’s a compilation of more than 80 authors who believe and understands “Now” and allowed to coin one word that is everything like courage, leadership etc. They further puts their meaning of the word for Now that will matter in one page which is good.

 I am out to write more about it, atleast the best three take-aways that I will be influencing to myself consciously for three months.

Talk by Scott Hanselman on Effectiveness

Scott Hanselman talking about effectiveness which is required for pro software guys who have to see all he pixel of information bubbling and pick one which colors his knowledge. Again not new but never bad to remind about time and effectiveness.
Video link

PDC2009 video list is up for download

Hurray!! I am all glad to see PDC 2009 videos floating. It was not there day before yesterday. I am starting a download spree and upload them to my watch-enable devices.
http://microsoftpdc.com/Videos

http://coolthingoftheday.blogspot.com/2009/11/pdc09-session-video-list-okay-so-i-lied.html
Thanks Greg Duncan once again for coming first with videos and tool to download

Hanselman did came up with powershell script to download this. I just always wonder how Hanselman get time to do so many stuff. How you manage Hman? How?

Almost nonimmune Firefox Add-ons

Following are the top five Firefox Add-ons that I have needed instantly whenever I have grounded it to machines. I am so much used to these that I remember them by name.

1. NoScript
2. ForxMarks or xmarks
3. ScribeFire
4. Read It Later
5. All-in-One Sidebar
6. ReminderFox
7. Cooliris
8. DownThemAll!
9. <misc but on need basis>

IE8 and Chrome browser are almost touching the ubiquity level of Firefox browser. For me only two reasons brings me to it. First is common among all users is the tons of good Add-ons and second is simple page search ( “/” keyword) rather CTRL + F.

Learning F# to catch up with PDC09

PDC 2008 was bold and beautiful with deep technical talks. I missed few things to catch when it came to changes in C# in support for functional and DSL (domain specific language) programming  or Language Oriented Programming. Cloud computing reamined a lesson to learn however I kept updated for parallel programming changes.

Before the PDC 2009 starts, I decided to teach myself to understand F# language.
What if you get set of problem to not only brain-teasers but also to test your programming skills. I started solving Euler’s  problem however I have a slow start.

Hop over Chris Smith’s blog  or Don Dyme’s blog (Both worked for F# language and wrote book on F#) and blue eyed links here-there to land proper F# resources. (http://blogs.msdn.com/chrsmith/default.aspx)

Powered by ScribeFire.

Reading: The Greatest Show on Earth

I wanted to read something different from regular story, technology, self-motivation or management kind of book and picked this latest book to read on. Will update once I am thru but liking it at present.

The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence of Evolution – Richard Dawkins

Here is a recent article titled: The Great Advances in Evolution, which is related to theme of my reading.

Microsoft releasing Windows7 today

Just to keep this date in this blog as a time-trace to past when I open this blog in future.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/