Just in case you are interested, I am still maintaining other blogs, i.e.:

• S60Tips.com. A blog about tips, tricks and tutorials of using S60 smart phone, which is based on Symbian OS.
• Antony’s Mobile Blog. My personal opinion and views about mobile phone industry.
• Antony’s Life Blog. A blog about my personal life.

Wishing You a Merry Christmas…., originally uploaded by Antony Pranata.

Wishing You a Merry Christmas….

There are four web browsers included in this polling, i.e.:

• Services
• Web (S60 OSS Browser)
• Opera Mini
• Opera Mobile

Click here to participate the polling. Thank you in advance for your participation.

the processing of approaching prospective clients, typically via telephone, who have not agreed to such an interaction. The word “cold” is used because the person receiving the call is not expecting the call or has not specifically asked to be contacted by the sales person. It is often very frustrating and difficult for those making cold calls because they are often rebuffed, hung-up on and rejected by those receiving the calls.

It would be interesting to know how effective cold calling is. For me, cold calling is always annoying. I believe many people have the same feeling too. If this is the case, why are those companies still spending money to make cold calling? I have no idea….

Recently, I had a problem with the number of “cold calling” to my fixed-line phone number. I receive phone calls offering products or asking donations almost everyday. That’s why, I never pick up any phone calls to my fixed-line number any more. Fortunately, I never published my mobile phone number. Otherwise, I may have gone crazy.

Actually it was my mistake to publish my number to the phone book. Why did I do that? Because my phone provider (Telus) charges $2/month if we decide not to publish our number (see the screenshot below). It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?

I have just asked my phone provider to remove my number from the phone book. Hope this will reduce the number of cold calling. Otherwise, I have to change my phone number….

Well, there are some comments that this guy may have cheated, but I am still amazed…

Can you believe that the probability is more than 50%? Yes… I am not kidding, 50.7% to be exactly. How come??? There are 365 days in a year and there are only 23 people in a room.

I was very surprise too…. Honestly, I don’t have interest in probability and statistics, but recently I had to learn them to prepare my interview with Google. I have heard that they may ask this kind of questions.

Although I am not an expert in probability, I will try to explain how we get this number.

First, let’s start with a simple problem. We have 3 people in a room. What is the probability that two persons share the same birthday? Let’s take a date for the first person. The second person has probability of 1/365 to share the same birthday (we ignore leap year for simplicity). The third person also has the same probability, 1/365. We end up with 2/365.

Do we miss something? Indeed, yes. There is a probability that the second person shares the same birthday as the third person. Things are getting more complicated for 23 people.

How do we solve this problem then? We all know this formula from our class in high school:

P(two persons share the same birthday) = 1 - P(no two persons share the same birthday).

It’s easier to find the probability of no two person share the same birthday, isn’t it?

Back to our problem, let’s take a date for the first person from 23 people. The probability that the second person doesn’t share the same birthday is 364/365. The probability of the third person is 363/365. The probability of the fourth person is 362/365, and so on. So we end up in the following equation:

P(two persons share the same birthday) = 1 - (364 / 365) * (363 / 365) * … * (343 / 365)

P(two persons share the same birthday) = 50.7%

Update (28-Oct-06): Just additional note, Google didn’t ask me this question during interview. I just heard they may ask this kind of questions during the interview. Read this posting for an example.

you are at a party with a friend and 10 people are present including you and the friend. your friend makes you a wager that for every person you find that has the same birthday as you, you get $1; for every person he finds that does not have the same birthday as you, he gets $2. would you accept the wager?

For my case, they asked computing and programming questions. No brain teaser questions.

You may know that Google’s interview process is one of the toughest ones in the world. If you don’t know, try to search for “Google interview” and you will know what I am talking about. Honestly, I am pessimistic to pass the interview process. Google have been hiring the best engineers and scientists on this planet. Furthermore, most of their engineers are young fresh brilliant guys who are still under 30!

Well… let’s see tomorrow….

After contacted by Google, I was asking to myself: which Google products that I am actually using? Here is the list of them:

• Google Search. I believe everybody is using this service. According to SearchEngineWatch.com, Google has 43.7% market share in the US, followed by Yahoo! and MSN.
  What I mean by Google Search here includes Web Search, Image Search and Code Search. About half a year ago, I posted a blog about Some Interesting Things You Can with Google.
   
• GMail. If you know me in person, you may notice that GMail has been my primary email address for quite some time.
   
• Google News. This is the “newspaper” that I always read every morning. The nice thing about Google News is that I can personalize which news I want to read.
   
• Google AdSense. I use AdSense to monetize my web site and my blogs. Although it generates money for me, I still cannot make a living from it yet. Fortunately, after doing some optimization, my income from AdSense has increased significantly.
   
• Google Analytics. I use this tool to analyze the traffic to my web sites and my blogs.
   
• Google Toolbar. Nothing special, It is just a plug-in to my web browsers, Internet Explorer and FireFox.
   
• Google Earth. It is definitely the coolest online map that I have ever seen. Interestingly, my small home town in Indonesia can now be viewed via Google Earth. Thanks to Google team!
   
• Google Maps for Mobile. I have been using the mobile version of Google Maps in my smart phones. It has been featured in my blog, S60Tips.com, as featured freeware and 10 must-have freeware applications for S60 phones.
   
• Google Personalized Home Page. The first home page that I always visit everyday each time I turn on my computer.
   
• Google Picasa. This is my primary photo organizer application.
   
• Google Web Accelerator. Just downloaded this tool a couple of days ago, still don’t know whether it really improves my browsing experience or not.
   
• Google YouTube. Although YouTube has just been acquired by Google last week, I want to mention it here too. I am not an active YouTube blogger, but I have posted some personal videos there.
   
• Google Translate. This is a very useful tool to translate text from one language to another. I had experience chatting in Chinese with a friend although I don’t speak Chinese at all (I just use Google to translate everything for me… :)).
   
• Google Pack. A small application from Google that allows me to download important Windows applications, such as Adobe Acrobat, FireFox, Picasa, etc.

There are some other Google products that I use rarely because I prefer similar products from their competitors. Here is the list of them:

• Google Talk. An instant messaging that I rarely use. The reason is simply because most of my friends are using either Microsoft’s Live Messenger or Yahoo! Messenger.
   
• Google Blogger. Blogger used to be my weblogs before I decided to move to WordPress. My last post is still available at Blogger even until today.
   
• Google Reader. I tried this service once, but I don’t like it. I am currently using BlogLines to read my feed subscription.
   
• Google Finance. Perhaps it is just a matter of taste, but I like Yahoo! Finance more than Google Finance.
   
• Google Blog Search. Although Google is the king of search, for some reasons, I prefer to use Technorati for blog searching.
   
• Google Docs & Spreadsheets. I don’t know why I am still addicted to Microsoft Office. I know it is not good; perhaps I have to start using non-Microsoft Office applications from now on. Last time, I was very lucky to get huge discount of Microsoft Office from my company.
   
• Google Calendar. Same as Google Docs & Spreadsheets, I am still addicted to Microsoft Outlook….
   
• Google Desktop. It is supposed to be a cool desktop search application. Unfortunately, when I installed it last time, my computer is getting slower. That’s why I decided to uninstall it completely.

Sun Microsystem’s CEO, Jonathan Schwartz, has posted an interesting blog about the future of mobile phones, Just Ask a Teenager. Yes, yes… I hear you are asking, “Are you sure Sun’s CEO is talking about mobile phone?” Shouldn’t he talk about ultra-fast multi-processor server or the most secure and reliable data storage. Well, not this time…

Here is what Jonathan said in his blog:

…But considering the volumes - nearly 5x the number of people buy a phone each year, than buy a PC, the conclusion seems obvious. And I don’t know about you, but when I sample my nieces and nephews, even those in the USA, with “which would you rather have, a new iPod, a Motorola RAZR, Danger’s HipTop, Microsoft’s XBox or Windows Vista?”, I get a pretty consistent answer. (Hint: it ain’t Vista.)…

I think this is just confirmation that we are on the right track. Mobile phone (or “cellular phone” as they call this gadget in the US) may have a chance to replace handheld and laptop in near future.

Unfortunately, I have no idea what I have done so that my Yahoo! Messenger is very hungry now…

After googling this problem, I have found some interesting links below:

• With the latest version of Yahoo messenger, why does CPU usage hit 90% and memory usage continually increase? - The suggestion is to switch back to Yahoo! Messenger 7.
• [Y!M] Re: Watch out for Yahoo Messenger eating up your CPU cycles! - The problem could be because of one of the Yahoo! plugins.
• Yahoo messenger.exe 100% cpu usage - Only a thread of discussion, no real solution yet.

Any other hints???

I am so interested reading posts from Engadget saying that Zune is not compatible with PlaysForSure.

The service and device will not be PlaysForSure compliant, meaning you will not be able to use your Zune player with Napster or Vongo, for example. This will be an entirely new system. Microsoft will continue to support and develop for their PlaysForSure initiative, but all things PlaysForSure are handled by two entirely separate division that will not have any crossover.

Why is this so interesting for me? Zune comes from Microsoft (although it will be manufactured by Toshiba). Microsoft has launched an certification program, called PlaysForSure, for media services and devices. The goal of PlaysForSure is interoperability. It means I can buy songs from any services, such as Napster, URGE or MSN Music. Then I can play them in any devices, such as Creative Zen or iRiver. Furthermore, I can also play them in my PC using Windows Media Player.

That’s the whole idea of PlaysForSure, which is good for customers. Songs from any services can be played in any devices. Why don’t Microsoft make Zune compatible with PlaysForSure then? Perhaps they want to make money from Zune online store, just like what Apple have been doing with iTunes. I guess Microsoft don’t make so much money from the device itself, so they have to find another way to earn money.

Well, as a customer of PlaysForSure, what should we do? Our songs from Napster won’t even play in Zune. Do we have to buy the same songs to play them in Zune? Well… we can strip the DRM off using FairUse4WM and then transfer it to Zune. However, it’s not the way Microsoft want us to do, isn’t it?