Five songs that will never die

List of songs that will live on for generations to come. Feel to free add any if you think I’ve missed any.

1. Cry me a river – Julie London [ From ‘The Girl Can’t Help It‘]. More recently, Susan Boyle sang a cover of the same which is worth mentioning. This song is so weirdly mesmerizing that it excites me everytime I hear it. Can never get bored of this 🙂

2. What a wonderful world – Louis Armstrong [Live version,from the 1968 BBC Live sessions]. Don’t miss the piano fill-ins! The modern punk version by The Ramones is pretty cool too.

3.Fly me to the moon – Nat King Cole[Studio version]. Apologies, this isn’t the original video. And Julie London is here again on my list with her version of the same.

4. Somewhere over the rainbow – Judy Garland[From The Wizard of Oz]. Every version of this song is so different, but this is the happy and original one with no weird intermittent minor chords in between. I can never get over Eric Clapton’s version(watch Clapton belt it out from 2:50).This also features the fifth Beatles member Billy Preston on the hammond organ. Don’t miss Preston’s bird’s fly imitation on the hammond organ at 6.05).

5. Time of the season – The Dave Matthews Band[Live from the Red Rocks Concert]. I’m posting the cover instead of the original here because I like this more. And the funky Butch Taylor solo on the organ. The weird chord progressions in the chorus make it curiously amazing.

This is not a complete list, feel free to add on 🙂

Googphone vs the aapl iphone

Disclaimer:Please note:The views and opinions expressed on this site are solely my own and in no way reflect those of my employer.

The G1 and iphone 3G

The hype behind the release of the iphone 3G in India just withered away four days before the launch when Vodafone and Airtel announced that they’d be selling the piece at Rs.31,500/- That disappointed most prospective customers as they were expecting a price tag somewhere along the range of 15,000 to 25,000. 31,500 seemed to costly for most people specially when they observed their peers showing off the first generation iphones which they shipped it in from the states and had it unlocked all for a meagre 16 grand. Now that it’s been about a month since the iphone 3G has been released and the hype all but died out,everyone’s attention shifted focus to the release of the G1-the first ever Google Android powered cellphone which was launched in New York City. People have been speculating about how different the iPhone would be from the g1. I’ve been taking a keen interest on the g1 for more reasons than one. I see it on the long run as a move that will change the course of the mobile operating systems landscape. Just like the windows operating system entered the market with the IBM PC. And literally dethroned the mac.Apple might be making the same mistake again. This article is a really good read. This iphone is powered by the iphone SDK. An exceprt from the article about the openness about the iphone sdk platform.

The platform is far from open. Developers and their programs must be approved by Apple. This does not sit well with the dudes who write software, and it’s getting ugly among the rank and file. Apple, which has accepted then summarily rejected some apps after they’ve gone up, is doing a poor job of handling developer relations and is getting a reputation for being capricious. Some angry developers are already defecting to Android — the OS that powers T-Mobile’s G1 and will power all successive iterations of the Google phone.

Compass Mode street view

The g1 which is a newbie on the street has some really really cool applications. One of them is the Compass Mode. It combines the power of gps and streetview in one. Which means that if you’ve got the compass mode application running you can see live 360 degree streetview images from google maps on you’re G1 wherever you are(for now,just the UK and the States). Watch the Compass Mode demo here.

Coming back to comparing the iphone and the g1. These are the places where the android powered g1 phone scores over the iphone 3G in my opinion.

1.Open source OS(discusssed above).

2. It has a 3.2 megapixel camera,while the iphone 3G has a 2 MP camera. High end smart phone and just a 2.0 MegaPixel camera? My N70 which I purchased in 2006 has a 2 mp camera.

3.Text entry through a QWERTY style keyboard. I know most iphone enthusiasts will disagree that this point should be mentioned here but considering the fact that most of us are used to typing on a qwerty still keyborad,getting familiarised to a similar type of keyboard won’t take too long unlike the iphone.(Also the iphone multi-tap entry is not the best for people with fat fingers-I had a tough time entering my username and password in several places!).

4.Probably one big plus for the g1 is that it has a removable lithium ion battery. There’s a lot of noise being made about how the iphone could do better without the non-removal battery.

5.Battery life’s longer too-The stats I have with me say that the G1 android phone has a standby time of 402 hours on 3G. The iphone in sharp contrast has 300 hours of standby time.It offers 350 minutes of talk time where as the iphone offers 300 minutes of talk time.

The iphone has a lot to offer too.

1.Larger screen size(3.5 inch whereas the g1 has a 3.1 inch screen).

2.You can use you’re regular 3.5 mm standard headphone jack instead of the propreity mini-USB plug that the g1 offers.

3.Supports Microsoft Exchange. Some detailed info here.

4.Has the classy tried and sucessfully tested ipod feel and touch to it.Has sold more than 10 million units so far-testimonial enough!

 

The dark horse will have the final laugh?

Both the phones sadly miss out on some regular features us Indians use a lot. Neither have a forward sms option or a video shooting functionality. Enter second murderer-Nokia N 96. Which covers all of these features,but where does it stand in the new generation of smartphones market-wait till November end. 

Final say: In India, it’s the Nokia that will lead the way. Not the iphone or the g1. It’s the N series that will always have an upper hand thanks to it’s user-friendly interface and reputed mobile brand image.

Another brick in (the) wall street

 

I chanced upon some interesting(read:distressful) figures about the number of job cuts there have been over the years in the financial sector:

1997— 37,159
1998— 62,366
1999— 60,834
2000— 55,272
2001— 116,647
2002— 89,210
2003— 51,784
2004— 97,945
2005— 50,503
2006— 50,327
2007— 153,105
2008— 102,957 *

* Mind you these figures don’t take into account the very recent Lehman brothers bankruptcy and Merril Lynch take-over crisis. To be added to this large figure is the 25,000 Lehman brother employees across the globe and also the many Merrill Lynch employees who’ll face a sacking with sure job cuts after the acquisition by the Bank of America.

If you’re wondering what the real cause behind the spike in 2007(from 50,000 to 153,000) is,its because of the lay offs initiated and executed by most US mortgage firms.

After a lot of reading it is in my humble opinion that the Lehman Brothers demise was an inevitability. In 1998,the company was first accused of having most of its assets spread over various kind of bonds and in the debt market rather than in the stocks. It has had a history of trading in high risk bonds so much so that one of their gambles with a bond made their market price slump by over 70%  over a period of just three months. They escaped then,but never learnt from their mistakes. A similar kind of a nightmare by the name of sub-prime mortgages got the better of them this time.

The repecursions of such a huge disaster will obviously have its consequences. As we noticed through the day, stock markets in Asia crumbled particularly in India where the BSE crashed by 700 points. The rupee got stronger, which will have its adverse effects on our beloved IT companies which employ the maximum number of Indians. The impact will be hugely felt here in India specially with most of the IT firms working hand in hand with a lot of these bankers. For instance Satyam which used to handle a chunk of Wall street projects faces a tough tough quarter ahead of it. They’ve decided to pack of 9% of their employees and as of today their share plunged by 9.5% to INR 368.50.  Surely the big two Indian IT firms will be hit by this crisi.Though they’re not admitting it right now,their stocks speak for them.Their shares fell by 6 and 4% respectively.

To give you a fair idea of how much money has been lost by the big wigs of Wall Street just because of the subprime credit crunch(the term btw is now officially a part of the English dictionary),see below:

Citigroup: $40.7bn

UBS: $38bn

Merrill Lynch: $31.7bn

HSBC: $15.6bn

Bank of America: $14.9bn

Morgan Stanley $12.6bn

Royal Bank of Scotland: $12bn

JP Morgan Chase: $9.7bn

Washington Mutual: $8.3bn

Deutsche Bank: $7.5bn

Wachovia: $7.3bn

Credit Agricole: $6.6bn

Credit Suisse: $6.3bn

Mizuho Financial $5.5bn

Bear Stearns: $3.2bn

Barclays: $3.2bn

With AIG steering clear of the crisis by being allowed to borrow from its subsidaries,things wouldn’t have gone as worse as feared on this very Monday. Hopefully Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley will have some face saving figures to announce when they come out with their earnings and forecasts on Tuesday. Fingers tightly crossed till then.