Till a couple of months back, Microsoft Exchange and (Pocket) Outlook combination used to be the epicenter of my productivity. I was almost addicted to the ActiveSync/DirectPush feature so much so that I was reaching out to my Windows Mobile at unearthly hours to check mail or to add a task. I used to continue my unfinished work at home seamlessly. At least 40% of my official mails were sent from Pocket Outlook on Windows Mobile while I was away from home or office. I did that not for an year or two, but for almost 8 years!

Everything changed since my departure from Microsoft. My new employer doesn’t support Push email feature on Windows Mobile (My wife is really happy about it!). And most importantly, my personal calendar, mails and tasks are totally out of sync. On top of it, I switched to an Apple Mac. Syncing my Windows Mobile with Exchange server gave me a complete peace of mind as every contact, message and calendar was on the server. Windows Mobile not paired with a backend Exchange server makes it completely useless and dumb!

Now my scenario is very different – I have an official notebook running Outlook that’s connected to my corporate Exchange server, my home PC running Windows Live Mail client connected to a bunch of email services, my Windows Mobile downloading mails from the same bunch of email providers, and of course Mac OS X Mail client configured to work with my GMail, Hotmail etc.  When it comes to managing a personal calendar, it is a chaos! I missed the luxury of accessing and updating my calendar from any device that I want to.

When I was switching my domain to GoDaddy, they offered me an option to try Google Apps. I signed up for the following services –

• GMail
• Calendar
• Docs

This conveniently gave me the customized mailbox, calendar through http://mail.janakiramm.net , http://calendar.janakiramm.net . I moved my mailboxes from my old hosting provider to my customized GMail backend.

With a little bit of experimenting I achieved what I have been looking for –

• One universal mailbox that pulls (through POP) mail from all other accounts hosted on my domain!
• One universal calendar that synchronizes across my office notebook PC, home PC, mobile phone and my MacBook.
• Contacts on the cloud in my mailbox.
• Just one Inbox to deal with irrespective of the device that I am using.
• My official and personal calendars completely in sync and my Windows Mobile up to date with my appointments.

You may ask me why not Windows Live Mail and Windows Live Calendar . Syncing Windows Live Calendar is not supported on Windows Mobile and I just found it very convenient to hit one ‘Sync’  button on my mobile phone to quickly synchronize my mail, calendar and contacts (just the way I did it when using Exchange!)

I plan to write another detailed post on how I got this working. All I can say is if you are using a Windows Mobile and want to exploit the Push capability, go pair it with Google Apps.

The desire to own a Mac started sometime back. Just after relocating to Bangalore, I visited the iStore in MG Road to check out the MacBook. That was during the Apple WWDC 09 event and after hearing about the new line of MacBook Pro, I have decided to wait. It was worth waiting! I bought the new MacBook Pro 13” today.

The whole process of purchasing has been very smooth. On Monday, 22^nd morning at 10:30, I casually called the Apple India’s toll free number (1800-425-4646) to inquire about the availability of the new MacBook Pro in India.  Honestly, I didn’t have any hope of getting the MacBook Pro anytime before August. It just got launched in US only a couple of weeks back. The call center guy who spoke to me was quite knowledgeable and courteous.  He spent time explaining me the configuration of MacBook Pro. He didn’t commit any specific time line but did mention that they will be shipped soon. Before the call was concluded he took my contact details and told me that one of the retailers will get in touch with me. At around 11:30AM, almost an hour after I spoke to this gentleman, I got a call from Imagine (run by Ample-India) who is the retailer for Apple. A lady by name Priya spoke to me and told me that if I make the decision soon, they will be able to get me the machine by end of this month. I was quite excited to hear that. I requested her to give an hour to decide on one of the two MacBook Pro configurations. After spending sometime on the Apple website, I could clearly see the differences but I couldn’t decide between the old 13” MacBook and the new MacBook Pro. Both of them have a 13” screen, the same processor and the same memory. At 2PM, I called her back and asked her suggestion on making a call. By 3PM, I received a mail from them with a bunch of attachments that explained the differences between the two and also links to the 3^rd party reviews and comparisons. Meanwhile, I also took the help of my friends on Twitter and Facebook in making the decision. By 5PM, I was absolutely clear that I am going ahead with the MacBook Pro.

On Tuesday, I was working from home when I got a call from Priya again. She mentioned that they got the very first consignment of the new MacBook Pro with just 3 pieces. She wanted to find out if I am ready to pickup one today! I enquired about availing the student discount if I buy the machine on my cousin’s name who is an engineering student. I was all excited to know that I could get the same machine immediately with the student discount. In the evening, I rushed to the Imagine store at UB City located at Vital Mallya road. My item was ready and I also purchased a Mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter for hooking up my MacBook Pro to a projector. I was thrilled to learn that I am one of the very first customers in India to own the new MacBook Pro and obviously the first customer in Bangalore!

I met my good friend Deepak Gulati (He runs the Indian Mac Users community which provides very useful tips to Mac owners) who influenced me in switching to a Mac! We went to Café Coffee Day where Deepak spent some time with me demoing the coolness of Mac OS X!

I am quite delighted with the whole purchase experience and no wonder Apple has such loyal customers worldwide.

I can’t wait to download and install Java SDK, Eclipse, Google AppEngine on the Mac. All my demos for my Eclipse sessions at Eclipse India Summit will be now delivered on my own MacBook Pro!

This Tech.Ed was absolutely special to me. It was the last session of the last day of Tech.Ed India 2009 and it was also the last Tech.Ed event for me as a full time employee of Microsoft. I have been associated with the Microsoft Tech.Ed brand since 1999 and have delivered more than 20 sessions across 8 Tech.Ed events! I ended my MS tenure with an act that I always enjoyed doing – Deliver a session that my audience would love!  I thoroughly enjoyed the whole process of preparing, coding and delivering my .NET Services and Windows Azure Code Camp sessions.

Today I received my speaker feedback ratings and it is heartening to see that my session on .NET Services is rated as the best session in the Cloud Computing track.  Thank you!

I want to thank Saranya from DPE, Microsoft India. She owned the track and worked with the speakers to deliver the best content.

Today Niraj & I presented at Tech.Ed 2009 Community Event in Bangalore. This is organized by one of the most vibrant Microsoft communities in the country – B.NET. The organizers managed to get almost the same set of speakers who presented at Tech.Ed 2009 event held in Hyderabad last month.

Though the session started with a few audiences, the hall was 75% full by the time I reached the 3rd slide of my deck. I felt that the audience were very mature and asked good questions around Workflow, WCF and Cloud Computing.

As promised, I am making the slide deck that we used available here for download.

Congratulations to Kashi and other passionate managers at B.NET for delivering a stellar event!

My special thanks to Vinod Kumar who accompanied me for this session and made me reach on time.

After taking a break for more than a month, I am back in action. I have gone through a major shift.

I switched my job from Microsoft to Bell Labs. Relocated along with my family from my native place, Hyderabad to Bangalore. Got my son admitted at a new school.

On top of all this, my web hosting company messed up my blog big time. I lost most of the content and worse – I cannot even access my folders. So, I have decided to move away from them to a reputed hosting company, Go Daddy. Along with that, I have also decided to go for WordPress 2.8 as my blogging engine. Though I have decided on the current template, I am yet to fully exploit the capabilities of WordPress and the template. I plan to do this gradually. I also want to get back my old blog posts from the archives and integrate it with my current blog.

My focus areas have also changed. While I am still an evangelist for technology, my day job is all about driving the strategy and operations. I am making a conscious move towards business management from technology.

On technology front, I continue to be focused on Cloud Computing. I have also decided to give a shot to Google AppEngine. I would love to post my findings and share them with my readers.

All in all, I have started everything afresh. I will share my learning and experience as I go through this transformation. Stay tuned…

Update – Just realized that I also lost my username and password for FeedBurner during the Google take over. My blog’s feed can be found at http://feeds.feedburner.com/janakirammsv. So, I am establishing my digital identity all over again!