Year 2014 was very interesting for me both professionally and personally. It had its own ups and downs. Today I want to retrospect on 2014 and important things that happened around me!

2014 started with an exciting CES in LA where demos with M7450 and SLSI 44xx were shown. Proud to mention that I had been very heavily involved with the bridge implementation on SLSI 44xx and M7450. And in Feb 2014, I was in Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona with Ericsson modems business showing 5 different demos ranging from global device to carrier aggregation (CA) to CAT4 DL speeds on real live Ericsson back bones. Proud to say again that I was the one who coded all the demos in various technologies.

First of all, a very Happy New Year 2015 to all my readers. I am feeling pretty excited at the start of this year. Ericsson has shutdown the modem business and moved its modem workforce into core baseband business. Yes, I am now working as one. Telecommunications as a whole feels like a commodity especially after my visit to India where phones are being sold are cheap and way up in HW specs. The whole business aspect of Telecommunications is turning upside down with apps like Viber / Tango / Messenger, etc. taking charge of either calling over CS/PS or IP making the backend providers (networks/basebands) more of a data pipe. This is but a natural evolution. It would be exciting to see how the network providers / manufacturers will be able to maintain their steady flow of income to sustain, create and fund more business as well as maintain R&D capabilities.

My previous article http://t.co/XamFah9e8V shows how to install Microsoft XNA 4.0 refresh without VS 2010 for VS2013. In the meantime, Microsoft is kind enough to release a Community Preview version of VS 2015. And boy it looks amazing. It is fast, has a lot of functionality, and I basically am in love with it! Also Microsoft has released VS 2013 Community Edition which again is amazing. In short, Microsoft is going a very long way to please individual developers/hobbyists like me to lure them back to developing Windows (Store/Phone/Game) Apps. And I am happy that they are doing it. But back to the topic, installing XNA 4.0 refresh is a breeze for VS2015 as well. Of course we need to change the script a little bit. So here it is.

Today 21st October 2014 is an auspicious day for Hindus all over the globe. This is the first day of Deepawali commonly known as Diwali for this year. Deepawali is a 5 day occasion with each day signifying various aspects of spiritual/social life culminating into the super festival of Deepawali to celebrate the return of Lord Rama to Ayodhya after 14 years of Vanvas (exile) in the forest. I will write about that story shortly.

Today 9th September 2014 will be celebrated across India as the Ganesh Visargan Day i.e. the day when the idol of Ganesha will be immersed in flowing water in the belief that he will re-unite with his parents, the great Lord Shiva and Parvati. We had the opportunity to celebrate Ganesha festival for the first time ever in Sweden on 29th August in Malmö thanks to Skåne Hindu Center (SHC). At that time, I had prepared a presentation with a short story of Ganesha and its importance in our lives. One of the ideas was to get children and adults alike to understand the story and learn the moral values from it. I was not able to present it on that day as we were running late with different things but below is the story. Hope you enjoy it.

Interesting times these are in Sweden. We will have one of the most anticipated elections of modern times in Sweden. The people of Sweden need to understand that whatever and whoever they choose this time will set the tone for the future of Sweden. If Sweden wants to go down the path of full fledged development, reverse its decline of revenues, empower its youth and pave the way for the future generations, all of these and much more depends on the outcome of the elections.

It was a big day when the Narendra Modi government was sworn in the Indian Parliament. Never before had India seen such a great victory for a single democratic party! Never before did people celebrate on their own free will when the elections were over! Never before was the happiness levels, expectations and aspirations at their all time high for an average Indian! Even the Indians outside of India who were no longer technically Indians (having renounced their Indian Citizenship) were so very happy, outgoing and celebrating. I myself had distributed sweets in my entire team and with tears in my eyes, had prayed passionately and was thankful to God to finally free “Bharat Mata” from the clutches of evil, immoral, corrupt, blood sucking nexus that was the previous government.

I always have ideas on how to do things in a different way. Facebook today is like an aggregator with loads of information that can be mined/used to generate revenue/business for various simple ideas. Facebook is an excellent portal which not only provides avenues for advertising/social fall through, but also provides for instant access to millions of possible clients. If one is interested or trying to launch business, I think Facebook is a very essential part of bringing in direct customers and being a part of the social community advert networks. Google is one such other social portal which can be used for similar purposes.