Interesting Story

The Japanese love fresh fish. However, the waters close to Japan have not held many fish for decades. So to feed the Japanese population, fishing boats got bigger and went farther than ever.The farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring in the fish. If the return trip took more than a few days, the fish were not fresh. The Japanese did not like the taste. To solve this problem, fishing companies installed freezers on their boats. They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea. Freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer. However, the Japanese could taste the difference between fresh and frozen and they did not like frozen fish. The frozen fish brought a lower price. So fishing companies installed fish tanks. They would catch the fish and stuff them in the tanks, fin to fin. After a little thrashing around, the fish stopped moving. They were tired and dull, but alive. Unfortunately, the Japanese could still taste the difference. Because the fish did not move for days, they lost their fresh-fish taste. The Japanese preferred the lively taste of fresh fish, not sluggish fish. So how did Japanese fishing companies solve this problem? How do they get fresh-tasting fish to Japan? If you were consulting the fish industry, what would you recommend? Too Much Money...! As soon as you reach your goals, such as finding a wonderful mate, starting a successful company, paying off your debts or whatever, you might lose your passion. You don't need to work so hard so you relax. You experience the same problem as lottery winners who waste their money, wealthy heirs who never grow up and bored homemakers who get addicted to prescription drugs. Like the Japanese fish problem, the best solution is simple. It was observed by L. Ron Hubbard in the early 1950's. "Man thrives, oddly enough, only in the presence of a challenging environment." - L. Ron Hubbard The Benefits of a Challenge The more intelligent, persistent and competent you are, the more you enjoy a good problem. If your challenges are the correct size, and if you are steadily conquering those challenges, you are happy. You think of your challenges and get energized. You are excited to try new solutions. You have fun. You are alive! How Japanese Fish Stay Fresh To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies still put the fish in the tanks. But now they add a small shark to each tank. The shark eats a few fish, but most of the fish arrive in a very lively state. The fish are challenged. Recommendations

• Instead of avoiding challenges, jump into them. Beat the heck out of them. Enjoy the game.
• If your challenges are too large or too numerous, do not give up. Failing makes you tired. Instead, reorganize.
• Find more determination, more knowledge, more help.
• If you have met your goals, set some bigger goals. Once you meet your personal or family needs, move onto goals for your group, the society, even mankind.
• Don't create success and lie in it. You have resources, skills and abilities to make a difference.

Put a shark in your tank and see how far you can really go!

Relinquishing Control

Just one day after Google opened its maps service to outside developers, Yahoo has followed suit with a maps API of its own. But unlike Google's approach, which relies on JavaScript to embed maps into third party pages, Yahoo has built its offering using XML and requires developers to link to its Web site. Specifically, Yahoo! Maps API employs geoRSS, which is an RSS 2.0 extension that adds support for location information. Yahoo has also stripped out the need for latitude and longitude coordinates to make implementation easier for developers by simply using an address. Homing in on your desktop, Microsoft has also released an API for their recently launched MSN desktop search. Along with the Windows Desktop Search SDK also comes a command-line interface so that you can also search for things faster from within cmd. Why API? Relinquishing control appears to be the secret behind the success of a lot of internet businesses. This includes Google, Amazon, eBay and Flickr, all of whom have done quite well by giving more choices to the user. To quote from an excellent essay by Peter Merholz,

Many designers find it remarkably difficult to relinquish control. Designers will go to great lengths to control the user’s experience — popping up windows or resizing them, placing everything within Flash, cueing music. They get so caught up in controlling the superficial form of the product that they neglect to appreciate the context of the experience. Relinquishing control is becoming a requirement in all aspects of Internet businesses. Customers demand RSS feeds so that they can have information brought to them, on their time, and in their tool of choice. Tags and folksonomies shift organizational control to users. Customers are generating content on message boards and blogs. Craig Newmark of the shockingly popular Craigslist regularly polls his membership on core issues of his business. Relinquishing control is a scary prospect because it diminishes certainty. With control comes predictable outcomes that you can bank on. But in this increasingly complex, messy, and option-filled world, we must acknowledge that our customers hold the reins. Attempts to control their experience will lead to abandonment for the less onerous alternative. What we can do is provide the best tools and content that they can fit into their lives, and their ways.

Links How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Relinquish Control

The Ultimate Firefox Tweak Guide

If you're a Firefox user and want to get more mileage out of your everyday browsing, well this is the guide you've been waiting for. The guide should also satisfy all those people who're wondering, "What's the big halla about this Firefox thing anyway?" (excuse my hinglish). It is by all means a comprehensive 11 page guide covering every functionality aspect found in Firefox, from the very basic appearance and menu options, to advanced customizations in Firefox’s behaviour such as caching, net connection handling, plug-ins and web page rendering. It also has a top 10 extensions (or plug-ins) list which is definitely worth checking out. A must read for all Firefox users. Techspot's Firefox Tweak Guide

Google Maps goes mobile

Mobile GMaps is a Creative Commons-licensed application that’ll run on your Java J2ME-enabled cellphone (or other mobile device) to display both Google Maps and Keyhole satellite imagery. Supported Phones

• Series 60, 80, 90 Nokia phones (6600, 6260, 6620, 6630, 6670, 6680, 7610, 7710, 9300, 9500)
• MIDP 2.0 Nokia Series 40 phones (6230/6230i)
• MIDP 1.0 Nokia Series 40 phones (3300, 5100, 5140 — only map mode due to small memory)
• Sony-Ericsson phones with MIDP 2.0 (J300, K300, K500, K600, K700, K750, P900, P910, S700, V800, Z500, Z800, Z1010)

With the recent API release frenzy, we can only expect more and more such applications on mobile devices with access to the internet. Links Mobile GMaps Download Page Mobile GMaps WAP Page (for mobile access) Mobile GMaps FAQ Mobile GMaps Documentation

YubNub: a (social) command line for the web

YubNub essentially consolidates searching for information on the web in one growing command line style web application. It was created by Jon Aquino in a singe-day hackathon using Ruby on Rails. YubNub allows keyword based searches or access to information similar to what is available in the address bars of browsers like Firefox, Opera and Maxthon. In fact that's the reason YubNub came into existence! As Jon says in his blog,

I was tired of setting up the same Firefox keywords on each of the 5 computers that I use. By putting my keywords into YubNub, I can hit "am mark twain" for an Amazon search, or "gmap vancouver" for a Google Maps search, no matter which computer I'm on.

The beauty of YubNub is that anyone can help to extend it. If there is an existing web service with a submit form, they can add it pretty easily. But even more interesting is the adding of complex data-processing services (like validating an RSS feed, or converting webpages to audio using text-to-speech). There are already around 6000 commands available! To check out the list of commands, go to YubNub and type the command "ls" (what else!). You may also type "ls <search text>" to search for a particular command. For example the command "xe -amount 100 -from USD -to INR" shows a page which converts $100 to Indian Rupees at the most current exchange rates. YubNub can be accessed in many ways other than the web interface. These include a Firefox, Safari and IE integration, QuickSilver, a BASH script, a Windows command line application, a Dashboard Widget and even Emacs intergration! Trivia: YubNub means 'Hooray' in the Ewok language. (Ewoks are a fictional race in the Star Wars movies) Links YubNub.org - a (social) command line for the web YubNub applications 50 most used YubNub commands Jon Aquino's Blog Entry for YubNub