Thought Garage

It looks like US IT Job demand might grow in the days to come, irrespective of rise in out -sourcing and weaker economy, partly due to baby boomers. If that is the trend, we will definitely see a huge rush for H1Bs again this year as well.

US software programming jobs took a real wacking at the end of the last recession, but bounced back since—in spite of the offshoring trend and the rise of the Indian tech services industry. Now we’re heading into another recession, it seems. Will US software programmers lose out again? I’m betting no. The reason: The impending retirement of the babyboomers. Already, a lot of federal government programmers are retiring, since they’re reached the retirement age of 55. This factor—combined with low graduating rates for computer science majors—is already causing a shortfall in US programming talent. I believe that whatever cost cutting that’s done by companies during a recession will be more than offset by the software talent shortfall. Five years from now, US programmers will be in even greater demand.

Bangalore Tigers US IT Jobs: Which Way is the Wind Blowing? – BusinessWeek

I heard this phrase in the last few days for more than 100 times, as we were getting ready to bring a new member in to our wonderful family; "Call me If you need any help".

I was very happy to see so many of my friends offering help in the time of need. I was really thinking of using some help as there are so many things to take care of and so little time was left before the big day. So I listed down the most important things to do one day and tried to figure out who to call for help.

I quickly realized that they are so simple things and most of them just take under 5 minutes, I wasn’t sure whether they are worth calling up your friend, ask about their schedules and request help to get those things done. And many a times, everybody have their own weekend plans. So need to coordinate, not to disrupt their plans. None in the list is so big enough that needs a call, explanation, adjustment and coordination. Not that my friends won’t oblige, but are they worth asking for? After a few minutes, I was little frustrated too. So many friends offered to help and I couldn’t ask them anything that would really save my time and effort.

While I sat there quite perplexed and getting ready to work on the next thing in my list, a friend called me, ‘Hey I am going to the Walmart in a few minutes. Do you have anything I can pickup from there’. Aha. Thank you so much.  Of course I had a few things to pick up from Walmart.  That call did the trick.  He really saved one time consuming trip to Walmart. And, one thing off the list.  

And the best thing happened a little later. Another friend just dropped by to see me and helped me with whatever I was about to do. Thanks a ton man!!

Lesson for me and everybody

If you really want to help your friend in times of need, please don’t say, call me if you need any help. Just go and help. There will be 100s of simple, silly and boring things your friend may never call your help for.  But you can save his/her day by giving a hand to get rid of a few of them.

Google products while look so simple and are always on a feature diet (compared to other traditional web as well as desktop applications), always amazes me with continuous innovation and features that I am looking for and quite useful to many. Latest such distinction comes from Google Spreadsheets.

Google recently announced a new feature: forms. By combining spreadsheets with bulk e-mail, the new function (which was revealed on the Google Docs blog) lets a spreadsheet author send out a mail with fields for recipients to fill in. As they do, the spreadsheet gets completed. It’s a real-time survey that pumps data straight into a spreadsheet. It’s also another example of the difference between desktop software and web-based applications.

Source: Rethinking the Spreadsheet: Google Forms and Live Data

Here are some unbelievable (I couldn’t believe when I first read) thoughts, though appears to be supported by numbers and research. 

Poor People More Likely Use Yahoo, Those Better Off To Use Google
New data released by Hitwise yesterday shows that there is a socio-economic difference between those frequently using Yahoo and those more frequently using Google. [via TechCrunch] Yahoo is strong in “struggling societies,” “blue collar backbone,” and “remote America,” where as Google obtains higher use in “small town contentment,” “affluent suburbia,” and “upscale America.”

Drugs for nerve pain, bipolar disorder linked to thoughts of suicide
The Food and Drug Administration has warned that a group of drugs called anticonvulsants can cause some people to have thoughts of suicide and to attempt suicide.

I am not sure whether Google is mostly used by affluent and upscale while Yahoo is being used by poorer sections. I certainly use Google while my lot more affluent and upscale friends still use Yahoo. May be, me and my friends are not that common! Well, a distinction at last.

I find it very hard to understand how a medicine force you or let you think about a certain thing like suicide? If that is possible why not make medicine that force or let people think happy and solve the issue of depression once and for all?

Looking to design your web page themes, you must look at these links (got via Seth’s blog)

Especially online, where there are so few cues and so few choices.

This page of color choices will change your life. A lot. For the better.

[PS Michael recommends this page from Adobe. And finally, this and this came in as well... who knew?]

Source: Color matters