Baron Funds Update

One of the funds in my portfolio must be Baron's so I received a note from them in mail.

Effective 30 days from the date of this Supplement, in connection with Baron Asset Fund, the definition of mid-sized growth company is one having a market capitalization of $1.5 billion to $12 billion at the time of purchase. The Prospectus of the Baron Funds, which currently defines a mid-sized company as one having a market capitalization of $2.5 billion to $10 billion at the time of purchase, is modified as follows: ....

This reminds me of the way you reduce the people living under the poverty line: reduce the line of poverty. Signs of the times we live in.

R.I.P. Good Times - Sequoia Presentation

Sequoia gave this presentation to all the CEOs of their portfolio companies. Gives you some idea about the severity of the crisis and the indication of the times to come.

Khuda Ke Liye

खुदा के लिए (In the name of the God)

Just saw this Pakistani movie yesterday. I must commend the effort of the writer and director Shoaib Mansoor to make such a movie at this day and age. Technically, it starts out very choppy hopping between Chicago, London and Lahore but from midway onwards, the flow gets better and the movie becomes gripping. Lots of the scene sequences, choice of words in dialogues and dialogue delivery sounds amateurish but when you have a big crew and a massive project like this, its hard to get all the players at the same level of professionalism. Overall the actors Shaan, Fawad Khan and Iman Ali carry the movie forward smoothly. Shaan's acting is cool and smooth but his father is very awkward and lifeless. Fawad Khan and Rasheed Naz' role is well done. Iman Ali is beautiful especially in her afghani dress. Naseeruddin Khan has a very small role but one in which his talent and experience shows. The highlight of the movie though, at least for me, was the court scene where Naseeruddin Shah's character talks about various conteporary issues as they relate to Islam and his interpretation. The music is very good and limited to its place in telling the story rather than being a nuisance as in many bollywood movies.

The movie, I have heard, has broken box office records of all times in Pakistan and aptly so. It has also started a debate among the moderates and the fanatically orthodox on the topic that now affects the whole world, religious fanaticism.

Fly Through your Wall of Pics

This is one of the most creative firefox plugin I have ever seen. It makes the collection of pictures come alive in a clickable, zoomable, browsable wall of pictures in full screen.

All the major pictures and social networking sites are supported including the results page in google, ask.com and yahoo image search.

Thanks to JG for this. You can download the plugin at www.piclens.com

iPhone II vs. nuvifone

The battle is on. Garmin is back with a vengeance. Introducing nuvifone.

iPhone is clearly a leader in the cool smart phone segment but it lacks some key features. GPS, 3G support and VoIP calling over Wi-Fi to name a few. Some of these concerns might be addressed by the new GPS-Phone that Garmin has just announced. Knowing Garmin (I own a Nuvi 660) I know that they will have a very usable UI and it will be pretty responsive, unlike Windows Mobile devices.

The only thing that can stop me from buying this, is availability of good applications on its proprietary OS. iPhone doesn't have an open OS like Windows as well but there are good enough applications and I am assuming it works well with Windows. Also, its price has to be very competitive if it wants to break Apple's market share in this segment.

Key Features:

• 3.5inch touch screen (Although, it might not have multi-touch surface which allows you to zoom-out by pinching)
• Quad band phone
  
• Millions of points of interest (Its a Garmin with build-in GPS!)
  
• Google search sorted by distance from where you are
• Turn by turn voice-prompted direction (Its a Garmin with built-in GPS)
• "Where am I?" feature lets users touch the screen at any time to display the exact latitude and longitude coordinates, the nearest address and intersection, and the closest hospitals, police stations and gas stations
  
• Helps drivers remember where they parked by marking the position in which it was last removed from the vehicle mount
• Garmin Online - an online service offering constantly updated information such as real-time traffic, fuel prices, stock prices, sports scores, news reports, local events and weather forecasts
• Built-in camera (Mega pixels not known). It automatically tag the pictures with exact latitude and longitude reference of where the image was taken. The user may then save the image so they can navigate back to the location, or email the image to a recipient who can navigate directly to the location.
  
• Provides direct access to millions of geo-located landmark and sightseeing photographs available through Google's Panaramio picture sharing site
• Integrated media player to handle MP3, MPEG4 and AAC files
• 3.5G mobile phone capability with an internet browser (HSDPA support)
  

Engadget has some more pictures with the release anouncement.
Yahoo press release.

Via Del Corso picture in the Rome Schmap Guide

One of the pictures that we took in Rome got included in the Free Guide for Rome in 2008 - The Schmap Guide.

It's a good endorsement of my composition. The picture was taken using Nikon Coolpix 5200, a 5 Mega Pixel Point and Shoot camera.