The "Ready for a New Day" Launch Tour made its 2nd stopover in an Indian city in New Delhi yesterday. I attended the business event where Microsoft showcased Windows Vista, Office 2007 System & Exchange Server 2007 to businesses and how they can impact Business Productivity and "lower costs" .

Doug Hauger, Chief Operating Officer of Microsoft India delivered the keynote address. It was a quite informative event overall. The bits I liked more were the EPM presentation by Frank Galahad, the Windows Vista deployment session by Richa Patni and the session on multi-lingual support from the public sector track which I attended simply out of curiosity and was amazed to find out that Vista will be made available in 13 Indian languages. Although I am always "for" English until universal translators come out of the StarTrek universe and are commercially mass produced, it's great to know that Microsoft is investing quite a lot in supporting multi-lingual solutions.

Among the disappointing things about the event were - there was no developers track which has infact been there in the "Across America" Tour. And neither were any sessions catering to Small Businesses. That's particularly disappointing because I was representing a small business myself. I'm know there isn't much utility of Project Portfolio Server 2007 for any small business. But I'm sure a session dedicated to Exchange & SharePoint Server in a small business environment would have been appreciated even in the American Tour as I found out that were no small business session in them either. And a couple of speakers weren't as good as you would expect, I couldn't help but laugh when this gentleman from Southern India (I'm not judging his technical caliber) would pronounce environment as - "envy" + "Ron" (as in Ron Howard) + "met" (although if you pay attention you could hear the faint accent on "N"). I firmly believe a good command over spoken language is a must for any public speaker. And there was this lady (the room was packed, so you gotta know she was a looker) but I rather not say her name for the sake of decency (I am a nice guy impersonating as a bad boy), but her session on Vista security (not actually the topic of her session) was really appalling and I'm not acting out like Simon Cowell as I have just got off watching American Idol it's because she deviated so much from her agenda into topics that were from other speakers and there were many instances where you could tell she seemed a little lost.

The year 2006 has gone by, and a new year is here bringing new hopes & aspirations. Perhaps I am like billion others who feel the year slipped away rather quickly than expected, but this subjective perception of time does happen when you're in a retro mode. Anyways, I would want to reflect upon what this past year has been like for me.

Let's start on an optimistic note: things I am proud of or  happy about.

I knew from the start of the year that if I ever had a chance to be able to work on .net this was it. It was now or never, as I realized I had reached a point in my career where I had already been working with PHP for a considerable amount of time and still didn't felt that "connected" to it. Don't get me wrong, I am pretty good at it! (Modest way of saying: I kick ass ). But I am a person who believes in always doing things with passion, which I am afraid I haven't felt much; over the past 3 years. It's not about mindless egoistic babble over language or platform superiority, its simply about personal choice. In short I am happy with whatever little work I have done in .net over the year.

I am also very happy that I gained a great friend over this past year. I have to admit that after the loss of my best friend in the 2nd half of 2005 I had suddenly become very cut-off from my other friends and found myself to be very lonesome for a significant amount of time. I was separated from all of my close friends by geography, and there was nothing any of us could do about it. I am proud to have found a really good friend in Amit at the time it mattered most. After my brief social blackout from the chickenpox I acquired (courtesy my younger brother) during summer, I saw a couple of my much close friends and learning a good thing or 2 really boosted my self esteem. And I gotta tell you again, unless it's eradicated like small pox, get yourself infected or better yet vaccinated from chickenpox before you or your kids (cause I think this advice is more apt for them than you) are 10-12 years old. Because getting chickenpox at an age when your physical appearance matters the most; is gonna play a real party pooper!

I have never heard Meja after her hit "It's all about money" (not counting "Private Emotion" with Ricky Martin) but her solo hit is ironically quite insightful considering it's a pop song and the fact she would fit into the 1-hit wonder category. The last year wasn't as bad as I would always rant about. I am funding my brother's MBA education. That is one thing to be proud of, I think!

Well if that's an introspective of what was good about the last year, here's what I wish would have been better. I wish I could have done much more work on .net, I wish I could have been more productive, I wish I had patched up or at least made one appearance with some of my estranged friends. I wish I had less episodes of migraine than the year before that. O and lastly - I know every one would agree with me on this - "I wish I had more money" than last year.

I wish I had more time to refine my :"List of Resolutions for 2007". Perhaps I will, a bit; soon.

1. Make the switch in the 1st half of this year. (No don't get a heart attack thinking I will buy me a Mac, when that happens you must know Armageddon is near, just kidding.). It's time to move towards greener pastures. Meaning more money or better career prospects.
2. Every blogger's usually has it: Blog more!
3. Spend time with friends more often. Get in touch with estranged/distant friends and more importantly, stay in touch with them.
4. Be less like Mulder. Be great at what I do, but not share the same trait Fox Mulder shared with David Duchovny, go figure... sorry I won't say more than that.
5. This is pretty vague at the moment, but I will like to bring some form of measurement for it in the future - be more productive.