mere funde

After dragging my feet on it for ages now, I finally got around creating an IP Blog Search engine using the Google Custom Search. You can access the search engine here.

I got the list of blogs for the search engine here.

This is why - they are distasteful, and they destroy the usability. Ads should not be larger than the actual post under any circumstance.

As are Facebook ads. I thought Google knew better about ads.

I was tired of writing and rewriting and then editing the BSchool essays, and wanted to hit the bed. God knows why I opened up GReader!!

Anyway - I saw this article on how to jazz up the Windows desktop. Pretty useful and fun I would say. 10 minutes later, I had finished downloading and installing RainLendar and RocketDock.

And then I thought how about syncing RainLendar with GCalendar. After some googling GCalDaemon came to rescue. I used the instructions on their website but the damn things wouldn’t work!!

At Step 3 you would need to edit the location of the iCal file. Also, the sync by File method is not enabled by default and you would need to do it manually. Finally, I had a perfect system of syncing my calendars, and combined with an SMS service provided free of cost by Google, I have myself a perfect alert system. Wow!!

Hang on. That’s not all. As I browsed the GCalDaemon website, I saw that I could use it to run a local LDAP server and replicate the Google Contacts within my Thunderbird system. By now I knew what needed to be done [enable LDAP] to get it up and running. At around 2 in the night, I had finished doing all this and was really satisfied with myself. I now have a less cluttered desktop, which not only looks awesome (I use this as my wallpaper), but is extremely useful!!

Here is the response from the Indiaplaza team to my email:

Dear Amit Kumar Goyal,

I understand your feelings and I regret for the long time delay in delivering your order ####.

As the issue has not been resolved at the specified time duration, I have escalated this issue to our higher authorities.

We would track on this issue on priority and have the issue resolved soon.

I once again request you to bear with us for the extra time taken.

Warm Regards,
Kannan.S
Indiaplaza team

Here is my reply:

Hi Narinder & Shazia & Anthony & Kannan,

You guys rock!! Thanks for escalating this. I am at a new level of customer satisfaction (I must control my emotions else I might die of happiness). They have escalated my problem. God - how can you be so kind and shine your light on me?? I thought we were waiting for Judgement Day for this to be done.

By the way - can we decide on when we could follow my list of steps (see email below). Its ok if you guys want to take it up next year, or the year after, or whenever you think you will be able to “track on this issue on priority”.

And no - you don’t understand how I feel about you guys. And no - you don’t regret the situation. And no - I don’t want to bear with you, but then I don’t have a choice, do I??

I know the book is still not going to be delivered, but what the heck, humor yourself folks.

Best regards,
Amit

The beginning.

This is a copy of the email I sent to Indiaplaza today.

Hi Narinder & Shazia & Anthony,

Your customer service just blows me away!!

Thanks for the brilliant work. You guys haven’t obviously delivered the book till today. That after you guys called me on Monday and assured me that the book would be with me on Wednesday!!

And I was unceremoniously put on hold for 20 minutes when I called up today (again - I have spent more than Rs. 50 on calls to your clueless helpdesk so far).

I think, and correct me if I am worng, that you guys have no clue of how online shopping works. The sensible thing to do was to ship me another copy (Wow! See - this ain’t rocket science), while you checked what happened to the original.

Here is what I want - and I hope you guys understand - so I have put it in simple steps:
1. Cancel the (damn) order. I have bought the book.
2. Refund me my money - that seems to be the fair thing to do.
3. Pay me the interest on the my money - I would like it, even if it is in paise. You can decide the interest rates.
4. You know what - I will not ask you to refund my money I spent on calling you, and since this is not America, I can not sue you for mental anguish. Actually - I can not sue you for anything - I am sure you have imdemnified yourself against it by your T&C. And really I don’t care. If you want, give me my money back, else you can go have a pizza for the same amount.
5. Grow up and learn how to do business!!!

Best regards,

LinkedIn is a great professional networking tool. I have used it often to get answers to professional queries, and have also benefitted from the questions and answers posted by others.

However, I was checking up something today when I saw this strange trend where people reccomend someone else, and the same set of people reccomend them back. I mean no harm done, but its wierd when a person has 20 odd reccomendations and you notice that a majority of them are from the same people they have reccomended. It’s like you scratch my back, and I will scratch your’s.

Maybe LinkedIn should institute some method of highlighting such reccomendations. Any thoughts??

The schools have been shortlisted, and the real work begins with some 25 odd essays to be written. I am applying at a mix of schools ranked between 10 and 40 by FT - and the ranking was not my criteria. Though required, I am amazed at the kind of questions that schools frame for the essays. Anyways - the deadlines are approaching fast with most round one deadlines falling in October. I hope I can apply to as many in R1 as possible.

Meanwhile, the MBA apping process does give you some rude shocks. Explaining to someone else your achievements is a damn tough task. I thought I had a good profile, and yet when I got down to making my resume, I could not even fill a page!! [And I have heard of people who need to cut down :(]

Hoping that the final result is better

.. to all the teachers who ever taught me. You folks have made me what I am today.

Some that deserve special mention (in no particular order) are Mrs. Gulati, Mrs. Das, Father VT Jose, Mr. Johnson, and Mrs. Francis (all from Don Bosco, Siliguri), Mr. Upadhyay (BPS, Pilani), and Dr. D (AKD) and Mrs. Sangeeta Sharma (BITS, Pilani).

Thanks for teaching me so much - both inside and outside the classroom.

Also, there are a lot of people from my workplace who would walk into this list, but that is saved for some other occasion