After 10 years I landed in Bangalore couple of weeks back to a swanky airport unlike the earlier HAL one. Last time I was at the airport, I could see a couple of television sets informing the arrival and departure of flights and the entire process of information was done manually. This means a person sitting in a PC opened a Power Point and physically moved flight numbers and this was clearly visible to all and sundry at the airport.
Now things are international standards and the best thing here is the Vayu Vajra or the Bus shuttle service. I dont think any other airport has this facility. And despite being the most developed state, the condition at Ahmedabad airport is worse than the worst public bus stands. Even today, you see those primitive Rikshaw guys pouncing upon you and virtually looting you. Many taxi services and systematic planning efforts at Ahmedabad failed miserably. Passengers are now at the hands of the ruffians and despite not being able to manage this petty issue, Gujarat call itself vibrant. But then I had thought why any one from the so called software capital didnt help the airport authorities to automate the system in Bangalore. Or for that matter why the so called great institutions in Ahmedabad, CEPT, IIM, NID failed to give a solution to these problems though they are teaching their students to tackle problems a million times harsh than this?
I called from Ahmedabad to a chain called The Fern where I have a corporate membership to know if I could get corporate rate in Bangalore too. The Ahmedabad Fern staff said they dont have a hotel in Bangalore where as a Fern Hotel exists in Anand Rao circle. The Bangalore guy said they dont have one in Ahmedabad. Oooh La. Why this corporate programme then?
I looked at the Fern Citadel Bangalore site and saw a package which I asked the reception guy to book and confirm. But he said there is no such package on their website. I went ahead booked online and got the same package. So much for Information Technology and hospitality integration.
Bangalore has changed a lot and so the new areas were alien to me. But then technology also has transformed and there is now all sorts of maps available. I chose Google and Waze to help me through the city. So without any hesitation, I started off to White Field in one of the hundreds of Volvo Services and no sooner I reached the outer ring road, my Vodafone 3G conked off. There was no data service at all. I switched on my other phone and the same result. I had shared my live location to my friend who would be coming to pick me up at Cosmos Mall. But his update showed I havent started my journey at all. The net result - we started sharing location the old way - through calls.
Whatever you term the country of, we are still a century behind where we should have been. I am now at the airport staring at the TV where Mumbai police has revealed they have cracked the Photojournalist gangrape case.
We are not concerned about all what should be. Most of our parties are fighting for petty causes and most of us just support them. I headed to Kochi where last time I was there, I didnt get any data service after Supreme Court banned Vodafone from sharing services from Idea. But to my surprise, I got it this time. may be the court has failed to get reporting from its representatives.
What do you do when you want to record every bit of your and your dear one's life and share only those which you think is best suited to share?
This is where Path comes in (www.path.com). I have been using Path since a long time and I record every moment of my life including when I sleep and when I am awake in Path. All my fuel expenses, ODO readings, where I am and why I am there are all recorded and the best thing is I share only those which I think is necessary to share. All other activities are private to me and my family and my diaries are private to myself. I have also noted each movie I have seen. You can only have 50 people inside your network.
In India, Path is not gaining the momentum it is gaining in the western world because we are obsessed with Facebook. We do not have the sensibility of privacy and we tend to share everything publicly. Worldwide it has more than 20 mn users and these numbers are awesome for a company which competes with the like of Facebook and Tumblr.
Available for Android, iPhone and iPad, this is a wonderful App that doesnt allow you to operate on web. You have to do everything on your mobile only. Why it is different from Facebook or Twitter? This is because it gives you the flexibility of privacy.
Now the new Path update comes with Premium subscription. It allows you to create an inner circle. It has also introduced a new feature called ‘Private Sharing’ which allows Path Users to select one friend or a number of friends that they wish to broadcast moments to. Those moments will appear in other users’ feeds with a lock in the upper right-hand corner designating that it was privately shared.
Imagine you have recorded every part of your life for a decade and after a decade imagine the feel of looking back at your life with each moment. This is where Path scores and Facebook fails.
You expect more from Path – especially for premium subscribers as it is in the process of raising up to $50 million more after total of $41 million from investors such as Redpoint, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Index Ventures, First Round Capital, Digital Garage, CrunchFund*, Jerry Murdock, Mark Pincus, Yuri Milner, Allen & Company, Greylock Partners, and other angels. Moreover it is opening its API to partner with content managers to bring more value.
Out of many easy to use Apps that Google has given us, Google Keep is one of the best and pretty useful. If you haven’t got it in your Android Phone, do it now. Here is the link :
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.keep&hl=en
Why is it useful? Three things. One it can remind you on your date and time and secondly the latest update can remind you location wise. You can pin point exactly where you want to get reminded. Say for example, you want to get reminded of certain things when you are Bangalore or a particular Hotel or office, you set it up and if your phone has a data connectivity at the time of reaching this place, you will be reminded for sure. And thirdly, your notes can be colour coded which makes it a pretty sexy App.
It is now a full fledged To-Do App and you will love it.
Yes, it can also store photos, make a list and everything you need for a quick note.
And everything is stored on your Google Drive which you can find here
http://keep.google.com
You can also get a Google Chrome Extension so that while on work, you go on jotting down your notes and it gets automatically synced on your mobile.
