[Random] The future is shining. Maybe. Not really.

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When I look at my grandfather's (Kesavalu Naidu) picture, the first question I wanted to ask him is... when did he go bald? LOL. I wish I inherited only the "lu" and not the genes. He is my paternal grandfather and since he died when I was very young, I do not recollect anything about him. Since they did not have lot of pictures then, all I get to see is one picture and that is a picture of a bald old man. That picture had no effect on me for a very long time, until now. :). Since I scanned it recently to preserve it digitally (and scare my son in the future), I stumble upon it more frequently than required and whenever I do that my hand naturally rises, goes to my head and scans through to see if I have hair.

No. I need not worry. I inherited lot of my genes (as a biology student i know that all it takes is one screwed up gene to cause baldness... but I bet... the odds are in my favor) from my maternal relations. My mothers father is full of hair. White hair!! I can live with that.

But looking at the brighter side of things. It's going to be simple, clean, shining and easy to maintain #balding

P. S - This post was meant to be funny since I don't give a damn about having/ not having hair. No. That's a lie. No. Really. I am not very concerned about it... but why ask for trouble and so I would prefer to stay hairy.

[Technology] What should Microsoft Office (Outlook) team should consider doing?

Reading Time: LT 2 Minutes

You have read about my rants on the email client that sucks the most. When you are complaining about something, the chances are you have a model (Ideal) in mind. When I wrote that post on Lotus Notes, I had Microsoft Outlook in my mind. Microsoft is still the best mail client out there. But it is not the perfect one... there are areas where it can improve. Here are couple of basic stuff they should have done 10 years back.

• When I send an email to a distribution list in which I am also a part, please do not send it to me again.
• Check if there is a subject before sending an email. If not, please prompt. I deal wit it by by having a macro written. Find it here. It works.
• When I go to a sent item and do a reply/ reply_all (which you do a lot when you follow-up), please make it convenient by including the others in the "to" list and not myself. Why would I send a mail to myself? Gmail does this brilliantly.
• Option to duplicate calendar items. That inferior Lotus Notes has this option... why not you? It is actually very convenient in many cases.

On a completely different note, I know you (Microsoft) has been trying and experimenting hotmail (Live mail... if that is what you want to call it) with various formats, styles and user experiences... but why not adopt what you have for Outlook Web Access (OWA). It's so perfect and the familiarity (Thousands of corporations use outlook) of that UI will make people adopt very easily. You can squeeze in that "ad" of yours somewhere in that UI.

PS: This is based on my experience with Outlook 2007 and 2003. Have not used the 2010 yet. Great if Microsoft has already taken care of these.

What do you guys think? Are there more no-brainers that outlook should take care of? Share.