Shooting from Keyboard

Local Covid Info

2021-07-28T09:33:00.000-04:00

Few links for Local COVID Info:

JHU on Georgia: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/georgia

JHU/Arcgis on Forsyth County https://bao.arcgis.com/covid-19/jhu/county/13117.html

Data from State of Georgia DPH https://dph.georgia.gov/covid-19-daily-status-report

Sugary Cereals and deceptive pricing

2017-06-18T21:40:00.002-04:00

When you are walking thru Grocery aisle, you will see sweetest cereals with cheapest price.
I wanted to break it down for understanding.

You can find Nutrition facts from one of gluten free cereal from a leading brand below: (source: https://www.postconsumerbrands.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Pebbles_CinnamonPebbles.pdf)

Now Let's break this down.
This cereal contents two sources of carbs: a) rice b) sugar. As per nutrition facts, every 30 gram of cereal has 10 gram sugar. Essentially when you buy 15 oz of cereal (425 grams), it has 5 oz (140 grams) of sugar.

How does the pricing for this work?

Walmart sells a 15 oz box of serial at $3.12. That seem to indicate that 1 oz of cereal is $0.21 ($0.208).

But that is deceptive.
Walmart sells Great Value cane sugar at price of $3.02 for 4 lb, which is 64 oz. Which means price of 1 oz of sugar is $0.047. 5 oz of sugar comes to $0.23 (mind you, I have not pickup corn syrup or non-cane sugar which may be even cheaper - post doesn't indicate which type of sugar they have used)

Essentially
At $3.12, you are purchasing 10 oz of serial and and $0.23 worth of sugar.
Your net cost of cereal is $2.89 for 10 oz of cereal (and $0.23 for 5 oz of sugar). Essentially your cereals are costing $0.29 per oz (consisting of mostly rice).

Almost all cereal manufacturers are to blame for such products .While there is potentially no mechanism to make a gluten free cereal taste good - pumping it with sugar should not be the way to do it.

Google is mixing content in play store

2017-01-25T22:07:00.001-05:00

Google is mixing content in play store. You can see review of Apocalypse Now in the screenshot.

New Google Voice app is here

2017-01-23T21:23:00.001-05:00

https://blog.google/products/google-voice/ringing-2017-updates-our-google-voice-apps/

OpenLiveWriter and addig images and modifying blogpost

2017-01-23T13:53:00.001-05:00

Blogger uses Google Photo to store pictures. If you do modify a post using OpenLiveWriter, it uploads brand new copy of the pictures into Google Photo. This may create a mess as each update keeps adding pictures.

A work around is to post pictures to a different website and just embed links onto Blog.

Easiest way to find Delta skymiles redemptions

2017-01-22T22:30:00.001-05:00

It becomes extremely hard to find out availablity of fight as well as miles required if you want to redeem your SkyMiles on Delta.

Here is a trick that may help.

In place of trying to search a round-trip, just look for one way trip and try to get a 5 week calendar ; that will allow you to see across several days with options (see ATL-> LAX below).

While this may not look like a great thing to start with: consider an airport that Delta may not be flying to at all or if you are trying to get a peak period ticketing: See ATL—>BOM below where the flights are not availalble for redumption for some days or price shoot up to about 3 times:

Starting to use Open Live Writer

2017-01-22T22:22:00.001-05:00

My wish is to try and put a blog post every week. I was looking for a tool that can help me do this. I remembered good old Microsoft Live Writer. First link from Google search shows up a refererence to tool built in 2009 (I am sure there is a newer version too).

It was the second link that caught my eye – OpenLiveWriter. Screenshots looked very similar to Microsoft’s version and soon realized that it is based of Microsof’t version.

Good for Microsoft, that it decided to open it up and let community drive it (rather than have the code just die). May be Google can learn from it (I would love to get Picasa back).

New Google Voice?

2017-01-14T13:33:00.001-05:00

It seems that a new Google Voice is coming https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/on-small-business/wp/2017/01/12/finallya-new-google-voice-is-coming/

SaneBox - Review of a service that may be able to clean your mailbox

2017-01-10T12:18:00.001-05:00

SaneBox is a service that may be able to clean up mailbox (especially Yahoo whose spam filter is very week as of right now).

Once SaneBox is configured to connect to your Yahoo account, it goes over various mails (and you can train it to classify mails in specific ways).

For some reason SaneBox classified lot of spam as News and moved it into a folder called as SaneNews upfront. As I had lot of spam in my folder it seems overwhelming at first to go thru. My thought is that once you start using it, it becomes easier as you are only processing new delta emails.

While SaneBox requires a subscription to use, it probably should also build a monetnization based on advertisements. Yahoo seem to be putting in ads in empty SaneBox folders (they are empty to start with). Here is a snapshot of an ad it showed within Yahoo UI.

2017-01-08T12:19:00.000-05:00

Here is a movie worth watching and spreading:

Google doesn't get branding

2017-01-02T13:51:00.001-05:00

Hello.com

Google had acquired Hello.com along with Picasa. Hello.com was first instant messenger that had "exchanging" pictures as a core functionality (Predated Instagram by a decade). Google chose to kill the product (in place of merging it into Picasa itself http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/05/picasas-hello-discontinued.html )

Google could have used Hello.com branding for several of its products as an option:

Google Talk could have been changed to Hello.
Google Voice could have been named Hello.
Google Hangout could have been named Hello.
Google's first phone offering (Project Fi) could have been called Hello.
Google could have named its newest IM as Hello in place of Allo.

Google chose to do none of that. Hello.com is now a new social network created by Orkut Büyükkökten - founder of Orkut.

Accenture acquires Kurt Salmon

2016-12-16T23:16:00.002-05:00

It is interesting to see Accenture acquiring Kurt Salmon.

https://newsroom.accenture.com/news/accenture-completes-acquisition-of-kurt-salmon-expanding-strategy-capabilities-in-the-retail-industry.htm

That brings lot of my friends into Accenture.

Is Etihad playing Coke with Delta?

2016-12-16T23:14:00.000-05:00

It seems to me that Etihad is taking stake one by one into each of smaller Delta code share in Europe and Middle East (Old Partners, New Partners)

Here it is for Comparison:

Airline	SkyMiles	Etihad
Group1
KLM (owned by Air France)	yes
Air France	yes
Aeromexico (Partially owned by Delta)	yes
AlItalia(Partially owned by Etihad)	yes	yes
China Eastern	yes
GOL (Partially owned by Delta)	yes
Virgin Atlantic(Partially owned by Delta)	yes
Virgin Australia(Partially owned by Etihad)	yes	yes
Group2
Air Europa	yes
Kenya Airways	yes
Tarom	yes
Saudia	yes
Middle East Airline	yes
CodeShare
Jet Airways (Partially owned by Etihad)	yes	yes

There are more:
https://www.etihad.com/en/about-us/our-partners/
https://www.etihad.com/en/about-us/our-equity-partners/

It will be great if Etihad joins skyteam along with Jet.

2016-12-05T12:33:00.000-05:00

Russia's arms sales rising while America's drop - CNNMoney https://t.co/IzbnlNfvtX. This will change now.
— chiragsanghavi (@chiragsanghavi) December 5, 2016

But I think this is going to change with Trump Administration. I don't expect America's arm spend to go up, but I do expect America's arm sale to go up.

OnHub and Wifi

2016-12-02T22:17:00.001-05:00

Google has finally started merging OnHub and Wifi into one and that is a good thing.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/google-onhub-app-renamed-google-wifi/

Amazon then and now

2016-11-30T22:28:00.004-05:00

Original webpage of Amazon was so much clutter free and clean:

Now Amazon looks like a mess (It is still manageable when you are not logged in, but if you are logged in - it will be cluttered with suggestions based on your search history).

Concept of Navdy is great, just it is too expensive

2016-11-02T15:33:00.001-04:00

There are many hands free and navigation projection systems from various vendors.

Product from Navdy looks great - and has plenty of potential - just that it is "expensive". With right price, it will get great market (or I think Google needs to review it - as an extension to Android Auto - for the cars that don't have Android Auto).

https://www.navdy.com/#discover

Now you can get Skymiles for AirBnB stays

2016-11-02T12:31:00.001-04:00

Delta now offers Skymiles for stays done at AirBnB - that just goes on to show that AirBnb is now becoming a legitimate competitor for hotel industry.
Sign up here

https://www.deltaairbnb.com

Amazon Kindle is more expensive then Amazon Fire

2016-10-27T11:50:00.001-04:00

Unimaginable has finally occurred.

Now Amazon Kindle is priced higher than Amazon Fire tablet.

It just goes onto show that Amazon is possibly making more money off purchases on fire (such as games, apps rather then books - that one can buy on Kindle).

Overall Kindle still stays a great tool for focused reading. So much for Sony to build this technology and build initial eReaders.

Click here to buy Amazon Fire Tablet. If you want to perform focused reading, and need kindle click here.

Overview of additional Nest changes

2016-10-20T22:06:00.001-04:00

Here is an overview of changes to nest API. http://www.slashgear.com/now-nest-wants-to-make-the-smart-home-more-discriminating-20461010/

New mode introduced in Nest

2016-10-19T19:41:00.000-04:00

Nest Thermostat will now offer a new mode called as "ECO". ~~This is in addition to Home and Away mode already offered.~~ This mode replaces "Auto-Away" and "Away". To me, that is confusing in some way. Nest should have merged Away and Auto-Away into one mode called as "Away" and should have introduced a new mode called as "ECO" - that can be selected by user while they are in the home itself.

I am yet to see a Google Home Automation blueprint overall - ~~but separating ECO mode from Away mode (that many users were using manually) is one small step in right direction.~~ I am trying to understand their reasoning.

Read Nest's post here:
https://nest.com/blog/2016/10/17/say-hello-to-eco-temperatures/
and
https://nest.com/support/article/Learn-how-Eco-Temperatures-work-on-the-Nest-Thermostat?app=true&country=US&locale=en_US

Some unanswered questions:
1. What all generation of Nest will support this mode? Answer: All 3 - 1st Gen, 2nd Gen, 3rd Gen https://nest.com/support/article/How-to-manually-switch-your-Nest-Thermostat-to-Eco-Temperatures
2. How does it impact auto scheduling? I would think that it should have an impact on Auto Schedule where it should start changing expected temperatures if this is a regular event.
~~3. Can I choose two different settings? one for Away and one for ECO?~~

Picasa Blog: Moving on from Picasa

2016-02-14T08:53:00.001-05:00

Picasa Blog: Moving on from Picasa

Bad news for users. Google needed to merge photo uploader into Picasa, they need to learn to improvise rather than cannibalize apps.

Softcard and Google

2015-03-04T20:44:00.000-05:00

This popped up into my email today.

Essentially Google has bought Softcard IPs (and not the company, which is interesting) and is shutting down the app eventually.

But will Google Wallet work on non-Google phones such as Samsung Galaxy III and all where Softcard does work?

The NFC implementations in Google Wallet and Softcard are done differently; It would have been good for Google to provide both implementations in its app so that it can work in both scenarios (with secure element and without needing one?)

Also there is going to be change in the market with Paypal coming out of eBay, EMV implementation and existing mobile payment solutions such as Square creating new type of innovations.

Google buys IP of Softcard

Google's MVNO | Sprint/T-Mobile merger

2015-03-02T22:47:00.001-05:00

With Google's MVNO, is there a reason for Sprint / T-Mobile to merge ? To me, it is almost as if Google has acquired both of these companies now at once. The MVNO allows Google to create phones and operate them on either of the network. Most of the customers who will flip to this MVNO will be from T-Mobile and Sprint itself.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/02/google-sundar-pichai-mvno/

Flint | App for credit card processing

2015-03-02T22:03:00.001-05:00

I was expecting to see something better coming up for credit card processing, till I saw Flint. Flint lets you charge a credit card by "scanning" it. That is just taking its picture using Flint App.

It says that it will not store info on the phone, but will they store the numbers? and how about EMV compliance?

Their process to me is same as entering a credit card number on a web page ala paypal. I still prefer paying thru Square.