It has just dawned on me that I have more work to do, that when I was employed. So many things to catch up on: emails, orkut messages, linked-in invites (ohh. Kristopher Tate is a contact now! Thanks Kris! ).

Talking of linked-in, the pressure from the ‘opening-up’ of facebook is showing. Linked-in has added several new features and made interaction much easier than it was before. Things are where they should be; A free member can get in touch with someone they know directly. No need for any introductions if you know a person. (you don’t need to know their mail id, either). Finally someone at Linked-in realized that they need to accelerate the rate at with the interconnections were formed between people. That’s where the money is.

I kinda like the Linked-in system. It is one of the most unobtrusive social-networking sites. It doesn’t send me a mail for every single action someone does (by default) and also let’s me turn stuff off! I like that in a site.

I recently quit my job at Novell. After more than half a decade of working 5 days a week and several hours a day, I get to spend my time doing only things I want to do. No more tasks that I have to complete, no more deadlines, no more betas to release (atleast for a few more weeks). I get some time to myself before take a deep dive into the job of chucking out code day-in and day-out.

Here are some thing that I thoroughly enjoyed doing in the first week :

1. Started learning RoR.
2. Check my email and respond!
3. Read all my feeds the first thing in the morning. 
4. Install all required software on my laptop.
5. Uploaded some pictures on zooomr. (yeah they are up and stable now)

I have started work on a small project in rails, which I shall announce once I have a working prototype.

Zooomr, for those of you, who don’t know it, is a photo-sharing site, that is developed and maintained by a single developer, Kristopher Tate. Thomas Hawk, the CEO, is a wonderful photographer, and writes a great blog, which you should check out.

If Flickr started web2.0 photo-sharing, zooomr is slowly moving the game forward. The latest version of zooomr, offers a bunch of new features, that are nothing short of amazing. Now, they are offering free pro-accounts for bloggers who use zooomr. (Marketing tip #1: Befriend the blogger). Ohh, btw, you can choose to use zooomr, on any blog service that allows you to add html to your post. I guess, that includes every single blog service out there!

It is comical to see how the country, in other words, the ones who rule them ridicule one of the most important posts in India. How can the political parties choose to gain mileage by being so very fragmented in choosing the next president. How can they even propose to elect people who probably have very little to show for themselves as imminent achievers in their respective fields?! For God’s sake, you are going to elect a president!

Well, in this fragmented, partisan election for the president, someone has the guts to root for Kalam, again! This was announced last evening, and by night fall, Shekawat hints at allegiance to Kalam. I think, by the time I leave office, Kalam would have retained his!

I saw an interesting poll, which pitted Kalam, against the other candidates. Check out the results for yourself. when in this country a huge cross-section can agree on something, then why don’t the politicians agree with it?! Why can’t we put rules, to ensure that every applicant to the post of the President, should have not contested in any elections, what-so-ever. Also, why can’t the people choose their president for themselves?! I think, it is about time that we revisited some parts of the constitution and ensure that we can use it to get our politics back into some decent shape.

Well, in the mean time, we need to watch the rigamarole that unfolds before us in the name of electing another president - Who shall it be?! That is the big question these days.

Technorati tags: election, president of india, presidential elections, president, Kalam