Tribute to a Star- Michael Jackson, The King Of Pop

June 25th, 2009, was a sad day mourned by millions around the world. The death of Michael Jackson (MJ) came as a shock to many. He was undoubtedly an extraordinary performer with signature dance moves.

The media coverage of his death picked-up heat on Friday. Every channel I surfed, from CNN to VH1 to MTV and even BBC, were splashed with special dedications and videos on the life and music of the star. In all honesty, I was surprised by the coverage. But, as I thought about it I realized that MJ did not cast his magic spell on just one generation, his influence spanned across generations. His talent, passion for music and performance is admired by our parents, my generation (Gen Y) and even the latest millennials.

He had a 30 year solo career. Ironically his best was from his earliest years and it still packs a punch years later. MJ started his career at the age of six in The Jackson Five with his older brothers. Since then his music and moves have taken a special place in the music world. Many a MJ impersonators have earned a decent living trying to imitate him. Of course no one come close to the real MJ, and his legendary moon walk. In that sense he has contributed significantly to the society, by indirectly influencing many a lives. Of course his ‘USA for Africa’ cause was a grand success and industry's leading artists such as Ray Charles, Bob Dylan and Randy Jackson looked up to him for guidance and direction as they collectively contributed to a noble cause.

Throughout his career MJ sold the highest number of albums of any artist. His earnings add up to about $750m. MJ’s 1983 title track of the “Thriller” album, for which he spent an unprecedented $500,000, is a 14-minute creation that by all means is an epic. Despite this and many other successes, his hunger for perfection consumed him, eventually putting him in debt as he borrowed large sums to produce his music. It is rumored that at times MJ dropped as much as $30m on an album just fine tuning it, to make it a perfect masterpiece. This obsession combined with an extravagant lifestyle, including his NeverLand ranch, eventually put him in deep debt estimated at ~ 400m.

While many labeled him as “Wacko Jacko”, a title that is likely to stay with him for a long time, and considered him reckless, he was undoubtedly one of the best musicians the world has ever seen. Regardless of his imperfections, I believe that history will judge him as the greatest performers of all time, giving him the much deserved place amongst the world’s best artists.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtyJbIOZjS8

Cultural and Societal Differences between the US and India.

Here is a slide to offer you a brief overview of my lecture on Cultural and Societal Differences between the US and India. You can find more details here:http://sajjankanukolanu.blogspot.com/2008/12/cultural-and-societal-differences.html

Squisito (Italian for Delicious)

That is how I would describe the dinner I cooked tonight.

I made Penne, in mild tomato mushroom garlic sauce, with zucchini, orange peppers and caramelized apples. It was delicious.

If you have never tried apples in pasta, you should.

This is how I cooked it:

- Boil water and add pasta till soft.

- Fry apple in olive oil and syrup till golden brown.

- Simultaneously stir-fry zucchini and peppers on the side in a table spoon of garlic and

olive oil.

- When zucchini turns golden brown add caramelized apples to it. Mix well. Turn

stove off. Cover for 5 to 10 minutes.

- Add tomato mushroom sauce to your liking in a skillet. I would recommend two cups.

- Add pasta, mix and ENJOY!

Sit comfortably and enjoy the garlic and vegetable flavor with the sweetness of caramelized apple as it satisfies your craving while provoking your taste buds.

What does Google Sites mean to us?

Google sites, launched Feb 28th as part of Google apps, is a cool application that will help any one create a site that can be used to share documents, videos, picture etc. The owner or admin of the site can also give his/her group permission to edit and post. This concept of information sharing has been picked from Jotspot., which Google acquired in late 2006. Jotspot was a wiki based company that allowed for a long list of application to be integrated together.

I definitely see Sites picking up some traction with such groups as high school and college students and very small businesses.

I know many colleges today use Blackboard to facilitate information sharing between professors and students. This is used to post class notes, share presentations, exchange e-mails with individuals or groups etc.. I think Sites application now gives students and teachers alike a new opportunity to create something more personalized and customized for their class or group. For example: creating a customized site for summer sessions or special projects. Students can also use this to plan campus events.

I think this application will add tremendous value to small businesses that stayed away from building their websites. With this tool they can now create a site in just few minutes. Of course Google has not introduced e-commerce feature to this application yet. But with Google Checkout already available, I can see Google extending this feature as an ‘option’ in the future. This opens up doors for Google to generate additional revenue from small local businesses.

Having used this app and created my site, I think this tool has many features that have been picked from Google owned Blogger.com (through Pyra Labs acquisition). Some of the key similarities: ability to customize the page and the layout (dragging elements of the page for example, though it did not work every time I tried), the layout for the color and font edits is strikingly similar to Blogger.com (pops up at the top of the page, with a preview below). It is interesting to note other similarities as well. To me this application seems more like a hybrid between Blogger.com and Jotspot concepts and technology.

I think this is a good application with areas to improve; I found it to be very slow at times especially when editing content (Blogger continues to be fast all the time), Google can probably make this more intuitive, some things like “Navigation” are hard coded, users will benefit from more templates (not just colors, but different layouts) and of course their help center can use more additions which I am sure will happen as more and more users start using this.

Regardless of how successful the tool is now or which segment of population this may appeal to or how much revenue it generates for Google, I like the fact that Google is continuing down the path of free, user friendly and customizable tools for its users to share information. While small businesses can definitely benefit from this, I think this application will help creates sub communities of individuals who more than ever are willing to share information with each other.