Jonathan Schwartz's Weblog

I am weighing how honest is htis person.. :) hey, no harm in visiting his blog.. after all he is senior guy at SUN

Raise me up, push me down...

Almost every company tries to make a formal system for employees promotion.. Right!! But one question that bothers my mind more frequently then not: you can raise someone up and push someone down using the same system :)

If it is said that one can move up the ladder if he will "do well.. now to do well you have certain parameters (for example, rapport with peers, work attitude, flexibility, punctuality, discipline etc) in which you have to show that you have reached some level. Now the problem, someone has done very well in productivity but he has not attained good points in lets say discipline.. Now those who are higher up can raise him by over emphasizing his productivity Oh! he is the winner, just look at his contribution in last quarter or else you can discriminate him badly His discipline has an overall bad impact on his team's efficiency.. Higher up, we need even more discipline and we can not afford to try him at that level without him first showing some more discipline. So i don't consider him as a candidate for this promotion at all

I was wondering how we can have a system which is comfortable to employees. After all these systems are made to motivate the employees, Aren’t they?
On this very topic!!! Still thinking, i am. :)

If you are looking for some good pointer on office politics try this. The Protocol Of Office Politics

Sketch in Middle

Why we do sketching? This is an important question that has started bothering me since one of the discussion I had on it. Is sketching a tool for research was another question? I got some clues from one paper: Design Oriented HCI.

What I understood (from what I read from that paper and the MID book) is: sketch falls in between if on left we have vision/idea and on right we have realization/ (external) representation. So, sketch is used to translate left-to-right and interestingly, also right-to-left. This indeed is an important thing when designing.

Rest, I still am interested in perusing if sketching itself is research or not.

Designe Oriented HCI

What do Prototypes Prototype?

What do Prototypes Prototype?

I still have to read the above mentioned paper but i read soemthing very simillar in MID textbook.. and

Here is what I found very amazing, never realizing before that I too am victim of this. People start evaluating the prototypes rather then a particular aspect that prototype is made for. Prototype should only be taken consciously as help in evaluating a particular aspect.

Tera Saath.. (Translation)

Hey. i know my translation sucks so if anyone wishes to correct any part then please do so, i will be greatful..

chal raha mei us rah pei, chor gayei tum jahan humei
(I am) walking on that very road, where you left me alone

Ankhein Kion yeah bhar gayee, Zindagi jaisay thum gayee
(my) eyes why are they filled (with tears), my life it's as if been put to stand still

Rothei kub tum, Na challa pata, hoyee khabar, hogayei jub gum
When did you parted (or got upset), i didn't come to know, when i came to know, it was when you were gone

Door hei woh, ub manzil meri, pehlei, payee jo kabhi
Far away, is my destination now, which earlier, i did had once

har ghari teri aas thee, baqui jub tak saans thee
Every click i wished for you, as long as i was breething

MUSIC…

Dil ko merei, yeah aas kion dikhai,
To my heart, why you gave the hope

Deni thee humko, jub aap nei judai
when you were to give parting

kion dikhai, jub thee hi judai
why you gave, when it was only parting

Ub aur kuch naheen hei, aur hum hum naheen hei..
Now there is nothing left, and I am not myself anymore

Hein wohi din, hei wohi raat, sub kuch yahaan, par tera saath
Its same day, Its same night, everything is same, but your companionship (or company)

Repeat (lastline)

MUSIC

Asmaan yeah, ronei laga, sub kuh dhundla sa honei laga
This Sky, has started crying, everything has started fading

Tu jo naheen, to kuch bhi naheen
When you are nomore (with me), then there is nothing (which matters)

Torei jo woh wadei, totei phir sub supnay
WHen promiss were broken, all dreams got shattered

Mushkil hogaya jeena, rothei jub yaar upnay
Living became hard, when my friend parted away(or when stopped talking)

jal raha hei meraa jeevan, katei yeah tanha pan
My life is burning, and this lonliness is byting me

yeah meri zaindagi naheen, yeah hei bus eik be bassi
this is not my life (anymore), this is only a powerless (or lifeless)

MUSIC..

Hein wohi din, hei wohi raat, sub kuch yahaan, par tera saath
Its same day, Its same night, everything is same, but your companionship (or company)

Life By Shaghab (Edited)

Life By Shaghab

Lost life was found in the ashes
Dearest story died in bitter clashes
Darkness fell when i lost flashes
Soul went down, full of gashes

Night was the answer to the white
Like black a solution to the light
Darkness fell when pride had smashes
When trust fell from the wished height

I was thinking if I had found you
But still I see is nothing but blue
Darkness fell when star met clashes
I died with poise, coz I had to

No-nonsense email client

I intend to develop an email client having standard features with greater usability for handling information overload. The main design goal will be around the rule “Read what you want”. So it will primarily be a research based project where feedback from different reader types will be taken in account and an client will be developed that is not only futuristic but more important usable. Emphasis will primarily be on what to display and how to display. I don't know even a single email client who is even 50% usable when there are lots of unwanted emails are coming (i.e. spam and teasers). So instead of wasting my time on skimming through that turn out as spam i want to develop something that can help me in this regard. Earlier approach to this problem is to use spam filter but we human don't trust computer when it comes to filtering so i believe better idea is to do most of the filtering stuff manually but make it so transparent that no one feels any extra load in doing so. For example, instead of next we can have various next e.g. NEXT (Mark reader as trusted, Mark mail as Reply needed, etc).
As secondary defense against unwanted email client will support easy to develop SPAM filters. But that is not primary focus at least in version 1.0. Version 1.0 is all about making it easy for you to read what you want. Think about a scenario where you receive an email form a specific sender who is most important you. Traditionally you get color highlighting option or Flag how about remembering who is important to you and just always display unread email form them on top of everything else. This is just an example, all i want to do is to reinvent email client when now we know what the issues with their usability are. That is what I hope. Its usability which is important.

Graphics MS

i want to leave ISE for graphics.. Ali want to leave EMIS for graphics.. omar want to leave wireless for SOC. and now this guy he comes from LTH and says he want to leabe SOC for EMIS..

Why cann't we be always happy...

stupid bugs

on his bed some guest is sleeping and i am still awake after fighting major part of the night with stupid bugs..

the one that was surely the most stupid of all was passing an object to a vector and then using the object somewhere else where its value was changing.. It took some time and some luck to actually figure out why the values in vector were getting changed.. now don't blame us we are awake for like 20+ hours..

He Rules

May be he don’t like his comments to be published online with name.. So I am hiding his name but this professor for sure rules.. His answers are simple and to the point.. I hope I can become that clear minded. Amin

QuestionMy perception is this that all the courses in Swedish universities are offered based on the feedback from industry. So i was wondering what was the actual motivation behind starting "Interactive System Engineering". Is Sweden looking for professionals in this area? If yes is it for some industry or research. AS far as I know Sweden is taking part in two of the "Disappearing-Computer" initiative. But I guess there should be more reasons then this to start an international program. I hope sir you can tell me something, which will be helpful in deciding my career.
Answerthe actual motivation is not direct demand from industry but our perception of future developments based upon our research experiences (as you have noted e.g. the disappearing computer research).

QuestionAlso, sir I had some other options available for studies. I have refused all of them apart from one which was TUCS (partially because of higher percentage of paid thesis grant + flexibility in coursework design).. But as far as I know KTH is higher ranked then TUCS and Interactive System Engineering is more futuristic than most of the software engineering fields). But what I don't know is the standing of KTH in Computer sciences in Nordic region. Sir I hope you can give me some personal opinion on research and education standard of KTH vs. others.
AnswerMy personal opinion is that KTH has an excellent research and education record which is in the top league in Europe, and probably also worldwide


QuestionLast but not least, Sir what you think is better keeping in future IT demands. Specific MS or General MS. I have seen that most if the USA MS are very general as compared to EU. And Swedish MS are very specific.
AnswerKTH offers both general and specific M Sc courses but I feel that the specific ones are the best bet for the time being as there are more than enough general educated scholars around