Saturday, October 8, 2011

Tribute to Steve Jobs

When I tuned to a news channel on 6th October morning, I couldn't believe Steve Jobs had died. It's not that he couldn't be died, for that matter, I knew he was suffering from a rare form of pancreatic cancer and I knew his liver was transplanted, but it was something which I didn't want to happen so soon. If one does not want 'something' to happen, then he would not believe at the moment when that 'something' happens really.



An year ago, I knew very little about Steve Jobs. Many of my friends were buying iPods and iPhones. I always thought they were not worth their price. Little did I know I was wrong. I was under the assumption that they were hyped until one of my friends presented me a third generation iPod shuffle. Along with, he handed over me a letter where in he had told me to use a wonderful product created by a genius, named Steve Jobs. I fell in love with it the moment I started using it. It's single LED which glows in different colors for different purposes, it's sleek size, single interface to go to next song, to previous song, to read out current song, to change the playlists and to inform how much battery charge is remaining and above all, amazing quality and effects of the music showed me to what extent I was wrong in assessing the Apple products. I became his fan.

What followed after was my interests in his biography. I went through about his way of seeing the potential of commercial success with the hobby projects, about his entrepreneurship, about starting Apple, coming up with Macintosh, about getting fired, starting new company, and taken over by Apple to have a very successful second innings in there, about his coming up with iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad and becoming iCon. I also read about his being adapted, two fathers - one legal father and another one biological father, about two marriages, controversy surrounding his daughter, diagnosed with cancer etc., on personal notes.

Though he was mentioned in the same league of great CEOs like Henry Ford, he was always criticized for not spending his enormous wealth for philanthropic purposes as Gates or Buffett did.

One of my colleagues told yesterday he was going to buy iPhone 4S as a tribute to Steve, I thought I should offer my tributes by writing a blog post about him and this is the result!

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Hassan Travel 2 - Manjarabad Fort


Having finished lunch at Hassan, we didn't go to hotel that was booked for us. Instead we continued on NH48 towards Sakaleshpur for our next place - Manjarabad fort.


It is on a hillock beside NH48 at a distance of 7 km from Sakaleshpur towards Mangalore. There is a village by name Donigal where trucks stop for a cup of hot coffee. The path adjacent to these shops, rather canteens, leads to Manjarabad fort. The fort was constructed by Tippu Sultan, then king of Mysore. Started in 1785, it took 7 years to complete.



Primarily, the star-shaped fort was constructed as part of defense strategy to see British Army from Mangalore. Also, it was used to store ammonium, horses, and a secret tunnel to Srirangapatna, capital of Tippu Sultan. However the tunnel is closed now. There were lot of chambers and we were told they were used to house horses, used as kitchens, bathrooms apart from storing war weapons. In the middle of the fort, there is a well/pond with 'plus' shaped stairs leading to it, which was the source of water back then.



It was drizzling when we went and we drenched. However we didn't quite feel it since our minds were filled by the spectacular view of western ghats the fort was providing.




This is Manjarabad fort from Google Maps, satellite view


After about an hour, we got back to our car and returned to Hassan.

Hassan Trip Loc 1 - Shravanabelagola