Rumors move faster than Tsunami

Rumors of fresh Tsunami has created a lot of panic in Chennai. Lot of people are leaving the office fearing a new attack. Most of it has been fuelled by the fresh warning issued about a possible sea surge due to the aftershocks in Andaman.

Tsunami

The killer Tsunami has created devastation beyond anyone's imagination. I live in Chennai, about 2.5 kilometers from the sea. About 200 people have died in my town. Have been spending the last few days watching the TV. Trying to help the relief work through my organization.

I have six GMail Invites

I have six Gmail invites now. I don't have anyone in my friends list who are interested in it. I want to give it to people who are really raving for Gmail. If you are one of them, send me a note at faizee at gmail dot com and I will send you an invite, if I still have them...

Still settling at the new house

It's going to be a month since I moved to this new place. But, still I have a lot of those loose strings to tighten. I thought I will use the last weekend to get everything in place - but I had lunch and dinner invites on both the days that I couldn't avoid. My wife must have been happy as she didn't have to cook both the days. I don't know if I will be able to get everything done by this weekend at least. Already a lunch invite has come!

Busy Shifting House

I'm totally busy setting up my new rented house. I had to shift mid last week and had to buy a lot of things. Have been going around shops and managing my office work without taking a day off. Of course, less sleeping hours.

What I like about Gmail - I

The first thing anyone would like about Gmail is the hassle free sign-up process. I signed up in no time and it was one of the easiest and fastest way to start. There was not many questions to be answered at all. I loved it. I hope others follow suit as well.

One more invite!!

Interestingly, I received one extra invite (other than the six I got in the first lot) from Gmail. I gave it away immediately. Let me see if I get anymore.

All 6 invites given away

At last gave away the 6th invite as well. I'm not sure if I will get
any more invites.

--
Thanks & Regards,
Shahul Hameed

All the invites exhausted

Yes, I have given all but one away and the other one has been reserved for one of my colleague. It's very interesting that just a week back I was wondering if anyone will invite me and today I gave away 6 invites.

I got six Gmail Invites

I wanted to write about my first impressions on Gmail and its features but have been busy hunting for a house the past few days. I think I will be moving out of my current house once I find a good place.

I got 6 invites today from Gmail. Gave away the first one to my cousin. I had promised him that I will give my first invite to him. Haven't yet decided on the other five. I just want to make sure that I don't waste these invites. I know everybody is going to get the invite and I want to give it to real good beta testers. I will think about it.

Another 1 GB Free Email - From Rediff

It's interesting how Gmail's groundbreaking offer has opened up the market. Rediff (www.rediffmail.com) a premier Indian portal announced yesterday that it's giving 1 GB of free email (a la Gmail). It has already increased the mailbox of all its existing users and is offering the same to all new users. The maximum limit on a mail has also been increased to 10 GB. And they also would be releasing the many dormant IDs!

I already have an account with Rediff and without doubt, it is the
fastest email in India. The interface is also good.

With more email providers increasing the mailbox space, I think space is not going to be the differentiator for any of them anymore. Speed, usability and value added features are going to determine the market leader. Of course, those who don't raise their limit are going to lose out completely.

The essay I wrote for the Gmail contest

Of course, I didn't win the contest!

------------Essay begins-----------------------
I should get one of the Gmail invites you have for the
following reasons:

I'm a power email user and have been grappling for
space by deleting some real good mails that I receive.
I always have a problem when I receive mails with very
good attachments. I try to save the attachments in my
PC and delete the emails because I can’t save the
emails and attachments separately. There is no way
people can send me big attachments because they would
never reach me because of the upper limit
specifications of my current webmail providers. Gmail
is the solution I’ve been looking for so long. It will
be the answer to all my prayers.

I'm currently using about 3 personal email IDs (apart
from my official email ID) to manage my emails. With
Gmail, I can have all of them at one place and
wouldn’t have a problem finding them later because of
the advanced Gmail search technology. I have a
personal website and I receive mails from a lot of
people across the world. I don't want to delete them
because those are not just mails but valuable comments
from my website visitors. Sometimes, the initial
comments sent by the visitors evolve into great
discussions and I hate to delete some of them just
because I don’t have space. With Gmail I will get to
keep them all and read them again and again even after
many years.

I love new technology and want to experience Google's
Gmail technology. I want to test Gmail rather than
just use it. I think I can be of some help to the
world email community by providing valuable inputs to
the Gmail development team, as I have always been a
good critique. Whenever there's a beta available on
the web, I have even uninstalled a registered version
in my PC and tried out the beta. I worked as a User
Experience Engineer for about 10 months in my
organization before moving to a different role and so
can definitely provide some valuable feedback to the
Google development team from a usability perspective.

I'm one of the earliest users of email in India. I'm
not sure how many users in India (who live in India)
currently are beta testing Gmail. I think some good
representation from a region that has about 20% of the
world’s population will help in Gmail having a good
sample of beta testers. I'm also one of the earliest
webmasters in India. I created my personal website as
early as 1998 (when internet as a technology was just
dawning in India and was a privilige of few big
corporates). I’m currently employed as the webmaster
of a software services company that employs over 11000
employees across the world. My experience and
expertise on the web technologies should qualify me as
a good beta tester. I strongly feel that I should get
one of the invites you have.
-----------end of essay-------------------

I have got Gmail

Oh! I got it! Interesting sequence of events. I was searching the net for all the Gmail invite giveaway contests and narrowed down to one that said that I need to write an essay on why I want gmail. I think I did a fairly good job at it. They had 6 invites to give away and with just under 20 entries I was entertaining great hopes of winning it. But, today when I checked the winners name, I wasn't one of them. I was disappointed but started looking at other opportunities. Meanwhile, when I logged into my blogger, I had that Gmail Invite waiting for me! "As an active blogger...." I got the invite. More about Gmail in future posts.

Yahoo's upgraded email service

Initially when I was using the service, even though there was a mild change in the interface, the size of my mailbox was saying 6 MB. But, now I can see that increased to 100 MB. And I think this is happening for all the Yahoo users, irrespective of how long they have been with Yahoo and their locations. Even if you subscribe new now, you will get 100 MB of free space! In fact, people should be thanking Google for making Yahoo to open up. More competition is good for the consumers. More competition please!

Yahoo upgrades its Email Service

Just as we all are waiting for a Gmail Invite, Yahoo today upgraded its service by providing 100 MB of space and an improved interface. I'm not sure if it is providing 100 MB of space to all the users effective today because I read it as that they would be gradually increasing the space starting today. But, I have got a mail from yahoo citing that my service has been upgraded. While I'm certainly happy about this, which will certainly keep me continue with my Yahoo account, I would really like to have the experience of Gmail. Let me see if I get the invite before GMail is open to all.

Six Sigma Training

Today is the last day of the 5 days of rigorous six sigma training. I'm feeling much better today at the prospect of getting back to my regular work schedule and sleep cycle. As the training is scheduled at a far away place, I will have to start to the training about 1:30 hrs earlier than I leave for the office and my sleep cycle has been affected for the past 1 week.

We have been taught the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and Control) techniques of the Six Sigma upto the Analyse level. We should be starting work on these. There is another week of training coming in two months for the Improve & control phase of the project.

Shipwreck and Gmail

I don't know how many of you know the shipwreck competition. It's a game that we used to play in our school cultural competition. The game goes like this. Assume that the ship that you are traveling is damaged in an iceberg collision (a la Titanic!) and there are only a few lifeboats available. Each of the competitors will be assigned a 'individuality' and they will have to justify why they need to be on the lifeboats. For example, one may be given the identity of Napoleon and she will have to speak why she needs to live.

On a similar analogy, I thought I will write a few points on why I should be sent a GMail invite:

I need to be sent an Gmail invite because:

1. I'm one of the earliest users of the webmail in India. I'm not sure how many users in India are being part of the initial users of Gmail. But, if they do I'm happy but I should be one of them atleast now!
2. I'm one of the earliest webmasters in India. I created my personal website as early as 1998 and was also a Geocities.com volunteer.
3. I'm one of the initial members of the open directory project.
4. I'm the webmaster of my company's corporate website. My company is a 11000 strong, over $350 million company
5. I'm a great critique and love to do beta testing. Whenever there's a beta available I wouldn't mind uninstalling a registered version and trying out the beta.
6. I have a personal website and I receive mails from a lot of people across the world. I don't want to delete them because these are not just mails but valuable comments of my website visitors. Gmail would help me to have all of them and revisit them whenever I want.

Please send me the invite.

Why I need Gmail now?

1. I'm a power user of email
2. I'm currently using about 3 personal email IDs (apart from my official email ID) to manage my emails.
3. I love new technology and want to experience Google's Gmail technology
4. I don't want to have some of those lengthy email IDs
5. I want to be one of those priviliged earlier ones


Are these enough reasons? Oh priviliged ones, please send me an invite.

Craving for GMail Invite

I'm one of the earliest embracer of the web technology in India as early as 1998. My first email was with one company called as wwdg.com. I'm not sure if they continue to exist. And I tried to grab as many free emails I can from Usa.net, Hotmail and Yahoo.com. Over the years yahoo has been my primary email ID. But, I have always had problems maintaining the mailbox space under 80%. When Yahoo increased its free mailbox to 6 MB I was overjoyed. But of late, I have been finding it difficult to manage the space. Of late, I'm using one other email ID with lycos to handle some of my emailgroups' emails.

When I got to know about the Gmail offer, I was one of the happiest person but sad that I don't have the ID yet. I learn that there are more than 1000s of people who are already using it and also invite others. But, I'ven't got an invite yet.

Is there anyone out there who can send me a Gmail Invite? Reasons that I want it are in the next post.

Six Sigma

I'm on a Six Sigma training now. My company is committed to go the Six Sigma way and I have been identified as a Black Belt designate. I think I will have more to blog on Six Sigma as days goes by.

Why this blog?

I'm new to blogging and thought I will start with my favorite subject of Sufism. But, due to my current situation, I have more to blog on a whole lot of other things and thought will create a separate blog for that. I hope this is of some use to someone out there!