Got anything new to report? Min's MinIT update. Tuesday 11th May 2016

Well hello hello! How are we all? And did you enjoy summer?

I'm pleased to say that the 18:00 Semi fast to Watford has departed on time so that's rather nice. Unlike yesterday when there were big time track failures and I had to lean on someone for about an hour and 12 minutes! When you are my height, let me tell you my fellow passengers, can you wash those armpits before walking down to Farringdon please.

Looking around the tube, there are lots of  people looking busy, even the chap wearing sunglasses and I can see he's actually asleep. One lady is on her blackberry (remember those!) and tip tapping some emails about restaurants in Singapore to her work colleagues. I was going to recommend Saravabhavan to her, but perhaps not...

We also have a gentlemen looking at this

Hurrah! It's a story on Leicester City. My home town. Everyone thought I'd just jumped on the bandwagon, but realised that I may actually come from there as I say 'innit' after each sentence! Well done Leicester, you have put us on the map and we can move on from saying Leicester was famous for Daniel Lambert the fattest man in the world...

Anyways, on with the show.  

App review: Mondo. So a few months ago, someone in the lab told me about this super cool startup that was disrupting the banking industry called Mondo. Not heard of them? Neither had I.  I knew they must be doing something interesting as the Tesla UK CEO mentioned them on Twitter, so I went to their website and discovered it was more a case of 'shall we give you a card as you need to be supercool to have one' than dishing them out like they are some kind of new sweet ready for market testing. I applied and it said thanks a lot, your jokes are kinda of funny so we will put you on the shortlist at position number 37,365. Damn...Then at a recent Tesla Hackathon in the city, I met one of the developers, did the secret handshake and he let me have a card straight away. Yay! 

So what's all the fuss I hear you ask? Well I been testing it for a few weeks now and it is rather marvellous. In essence it's a card you top up from your regular bank account and then magical things start to happen. Being Indian, I thought, yeah I'll stick £10 on it and see how it works out. However, I discovered that the minimum initial top up is £100. Remember that's supposed to be a small amount for cool people and they must presume you have saved that whilst you wait it in line by saving 3p a day or whatever the maths say. (Sorry the analytics lab is shut now for the day)

As the developer chap said as he handed me the card, "I can activate your card right now if you like", I gritted my teeth and tapped in the bank account details. Well I used Mrs Min's bank account. Indian innit...

The card is beautiful looking and I've found just by pulling it out of my wallet leads to 23 people running over to be my friend. Yes it's that cool.

In essence the app that comes with the card notifies you with everything that's going on. For example, you use it at the ATM...it tells you. You use it at Tesco to buy a cheese and pickle sandwich. It tells you. Not only that...it shows you on the map where you used it. Hurrah! No more what is this transaction on the 17th of April with a cryptic name of AnSumrs...

It's kind enough to automatically classify the type of spend as it knows the shop (or merchant in posh language).

And the best bit, and this is super awesome, you can take a pic of what you brought or the receipt if you are billing that sandwich back to the company as you were kinda thinking about work stuff as you were eating it...

And there is more. You can use the app to send or receive money from other card holders and also a very nice feature where you can chit chat online to customer service. How wonderful, so I suggest you start saving those pennies now as at last count that queue is now 110,000.  Min marks out of 10.  9.87333

Quick look to today's Evening Standard and rather shocked to read that apparently someone gets stabbed in London every 53 seconds....Poor guy...

Boom, let's leave it there.

Wishing you a lovely sleep,

A small man called Min

Got anything new to report? Min's MinIT update. Thursday 14th April 2016

Well hello hello! How are we all?

Yes I know it's a bit late today, and it's 18:19pm but I've been rather busy at work today...

Anyway, it's been a wonderful 24hrs and yesterday I had a lovely guest come and see my "Small man called Min" show at that prestige venue, yep, the Harrow Arts Centre (the one next to the Waitrose).

It's been a few weeks since my last blog, so thought I should scribble down some of the things I've been up to.

So, cast your mind back to 31st of March. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about right? The world's most important launch of a product was taking place. Humanity was counting on it...

I couldn't get to a store as I had some work stuff all day so decided to order on line. The official launch was 8:30pm California time, and they decided online bookings would start an hour earlier.

Picture the scene...its 3:30am. It's dark, it's cold, I can't see cos I had taken my glasses off and the Apple Watch gives me a secret buzz on my wrist to say it's time!  Fumbling around, I pick up my iPhone and my credit card  (as you do) and tiptoed  into the toilet, so as not to wake Mrs Min.

I'm rather glad she didn't wake up, especially after that last misunderstanding of me in the toilet with my phone and card and a lovely woman on the other end of the line...

The registration was open and quickly tapped in all my details and provided the company with one thousand of my British pounds!

Job done, and went back to sleep, till 4:30am...the main event!

Still no idea what I'm talking about right? Well it was the launch of the Tesla Model 3, the mass market version of the Tesla Model S. 

Yes folks, I was one of the 115,000 people around the world who had reserved a car that no one had seen, but just wanted to be part of something special. (Being Indian I had read the small print and seen that the deposit was fully refundable so that was all good. Come on, we Indians don't like to take risks you know, and explains why we don't leave the house once Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi starts at 9pm...)

The car is launched and it's an absolute beauty and rather than the gossip that they will only show pictures of the design, Elon Musk showed the world actual drivable cars! Yippee and shabash!  

The cars have a lot of the features of big brother Model S, but likely to have the next generation of autopilot, has supercharging, minimum 215 mile range, a 15" display shared between driver and passenger and there is talk that the car may have a heads up display! Wowza! Not bad for a £35k car that also looks very cool!

Turns out that quite a few people also thought that and there are now 335,000 pre orders. Even though the car won't enter production till late 2017, and unlikely to come to the UK till 2018 or later. Still as an existing owner, I will get first dibs (or it could be just that they are making the ones with the higher seats first...). Min marks out of 10....10.

Ok, so now the real reason for the delay in bringing you the blog. It's taken me a couple of weeks to deal with a trauma event.

So, I had being doing a comedy tour of Europe and had just finished in Amsterdam, teaching some youngsters how to do comedy, and I was flying back from Amsterdam.

We all get on the plane. It's packed. We all buckle in and 10 minutes later, there is an announcement on the tannoy saying the pilot will be arriving shortly.

15mins go by and eventually the dude turns up but he is accompanied by a dog and wearing dark shades and holding this stick!

Nice one I thought, watching him from the first row (need the extra legroom- worth paying the extra), he's obviously read the blog and trying the comedy...

20 mins later we make it to the runway, and the plane is getting faster and faster, and I think any moment now it will pitch up and take off...errrr nope. Still getting faster and everyone starts looking at each other wondering what's going on.

10 more seconds go by and I can see the edge of the runway. (If this was a scene from that Fast and Furious movie, it would have been fine as that runway lasted about 15 minutes of the movie!)

As panic started to increase some people start to shout and scream! 

3 seconds later, and the plane finally lifts off.

The captains door was a little ajar and I overheard him say...."one of these days, they won't scream and then I'm going to be in trouble"....

Boom! Thought I'd do something a bit longer than my usual one liners.

Sorry it's a bit long today, and it's nearly midnight but we did have a lot to catch up on.

Wishing you a lovely sleep,

A small man called Min

Got anything new to report? Min's MinIT update. Saturday 5th March 2016

Well hello hello! How are we all? Yes, I know it's Saturday, and I'm not actually on the Met line as we speak, but I did a blog last night on my way back, but my phone crashed just before I had a chance to post. :-(

But as Spiderman said, "with great gadgets, comes great responsibility", I knew the right thing to do was to have another go at doing it.

I have two topics to talk to you about today my lovely people. 

Gadget 1 - Sky Q

No, this isn't the the new name for the "sponsored by" James Bond tech man, but the next generation Sky box. As you would expect, I spent some time doing extensive research (youtube) to see what it was all about, and because I know how you depend on me to advise all 10,000 of my followers on these things, I took one for the team and decided to upgrade my old box. 

I decided to get the Sky Q Silver version rather than the basic one as if you are going to upgrade, then you might as well do it properly right? This one comes with a 2TB capacity (that's 350 hrs of HD recordings!...and if that still too hard to imagine, well it's about 3 bollywood movies, or a couple of star plus episodes including the 349 hrs of adverts of 'it's claim time yaar'.

And then we have 6, yep 6 tuners, rather than 2 in the old box. That means you can record 4 different programmes and then watch a 5th!, as you do!  You can also watch picture in picture whilst doing this, as no one just watches TV anymore without thinking, surely there must be something better on...

So, now we are recording all those programmes, move onto your tablets, as it lets you watch 2 different programmes on that too. Wowza!  They have this thing called "Fluid Viewing", which means you can pause a programme downstairs, and then continue where you left off on another TV, or device. It also lets sync to your ipad so you can continue watching the programme on the Met line. A bit like we have been doing with Netflix for a while. However, this is nice, as it copies it down, rather than relying on streaming it.

There are some other features that will be launched later in the year, such as 4K, and using your voice to control the remote control. The new interface is so much nicer and very easy to use. 

Check out the remote control. It has a touch pad in the middle which is great to use. It comes with a regular more traditional remote as well, so you can cover that one with plastic my indian friends. 

When the Sky people came on Monday, they said I was the first customer to get it (excluding Sky staff), as that because of my blog fame, Rupert had said something along the lines of 'make sure the small man from Rayners Lane gets it first'.  It came with a new router hub, which is miles better too, and the multibox old sky box upstairs was replaced with a new mini hub, which also works as a hotspot, so you get a better signal upstairs too!

So, I'm sure you are wondering, how much does all this tech cost, do I need to get another part time job in Iceland to cover the extra premiums. Well, that was the nice surprise. As we have lots of the sky package, TV, phone, Unlimited Fibre Internet, 2 sky boxes, those indian channels etc, the additional premium was only £1.50 a month. Neat huh. 

Ok, so you have to pay £150 for the Silver box and installation, but that was always going to be a one off cost, that I will tell my accountant to depreciate over the next 3 years...Min Marks out of 10...9.3562.  

Gadget 2 - Tesla Update

As some of may know, as I've kind of mentioned it every couple of minutes, one of the best things about owning a Tesla is that every couple of months, it learns new powers. As you may recall from a previous blog, it recently learnt kung fu...

Anywhoo, yesterday, we finally received the Summon update. They got it in the US a couple of months ago, but the rest of the world was waiting for regulatory  approval. 

Imagine the scene. You are in St Ann's Car park in Harrow, and there is only one space left that everyone else has left, as it's the one next to the big pillar and the man with the Range Rover (why do Indian people always feel they need to have the biggest cars?) who has also parked over the white line as he can't see that far down, so the parking space is even tighter. 

Well, worry not, now we have Summon!  Simply line up the car and then everything 'get out' (did you do that last bit in the terminator voice) and the car will go and park in the space by itself! You have to use the app to press the button and the sensors will make sure that you don't go crazy and reverse it off the top of the building...It also means that now when I get to my garage, I can just get out, as it opens the garage by itself and pops itself in there by itself. Well done KITT, shaabash and well done. 

Ok, people, let's leave it there! Wishing you a lovely weekend and a lovely sleep!

A small man called Min

Got anything new to report? - Min's MinIT Update. Tuesday 9th February 2016

Well hello hello! How are we all?

Here we are on the 17:52 Uxbridge train and yep it's rammed. Lots of busy people doing busy things. Let's have a look...

Woah, got worried I got on the wrong train for a sec as the chap was reading the Sunday Times on his iPad. He's scanning the property guide and I've learnt that houses in Cornwall are cheaper than in London. Not sure if my zone 5 ticket will work that far out though...

The man opposite is reading some kind of academic paper about scalar products. He's yawning a lot so it's probably as exciting as it sounds...

Tech Product of the week: As many of you know, I'm rather into saving the world at the moment (that was my business case for getting the Tesla), and last week I had some solar panels installed too. I did all the research regarding the tech (as you do), how they work, how long the payback, if the Sun shines in Rayners Lane, that kind of thing. I was umming and arrring about it the last few weeks and then decided to go ahead and get them fitted. 

And what was the killer reason I hear you ask? Was it because it's a good thing for mankind to do as fossil fuels are running out? Was it because the govt had annouced that they were cutting the rate you would get for generating electricity back to the grid?  Nah, I only discovered that it came with an iPhone app!!  

It's rather fantastic, and It's great at telling me all kinds of amazing stats that I'm wowing my fellow met line passengers with each day. Things like how much CO2 gases I've saved, the number of trees saved and how much money I've made thanks to the sun. Yeah ok, so I've only made £1.73 so far, but that's because we have used most of the juice generated in powering all the other gadgets in the house! 

Advert of the week: Here's to flexible working. Wowza, that's so clever...flexible and then some people doing flexible things..Ho Ho my sides....not...

It's a bit dark outside, and I forgot to charge my watch this morning, so just asked this chap standing next to me from Sotherby's what the time is. And he goes 6.18...6.18...6.18...6.19...6.19...

App of the week: MSRQD. Yeah, ok doesn't roll of the tongue but it's a cracking app. They actually showed it  on the One show yesterday. First useful thing I've learnt watching it. Picture the scene, you always fancied yourself to look a bit different to how you actually do. I for example FREQUENTLY get mixed up for Leonardo Di Caprio ( if I had a £1 for everytime someone stopped me to ask how I made it alive on the Titanic)..and with this app I can be him, or a Mexican. The app is really cool (and yes Indians, it's free too) as it augments the face onto a live feed from your camera. You can make videos too, so I may do my next blog as a vlog appearing as a polar bear. Let me know if that would be of interest! Min marks out of 10. 9.8654

TV update: I watched a programme on iplayer about some people who had become celebrities and started to earn millions of pounds by filming their daily lives and showing the world how they went about their day including highlights such as brushing their teeth and going to the shops. There was this chap from Watford who started off just showing himself playing Grand Theft Auto and now he has expanded to being a rapper and doing concerts! Wowza! He earnt £4.5m last year and he doesn't even do one liners...

Ok, time to check the solar app again to see if I've made £2 yet, so let's leave it there!

Have a lovely evening and a great sleep!

A small man called Min.

Got anything new to report? - Min's MinIT Update. Monday 25th January 2016

Well hello hello! How are we all? Yes, I know it's been a while, but I've finally finished all my New Years parties so thought it was time to bring out this years first blog!

Firstly, thank you so much for all your likes, connecting on LinkedIn and yes people the dream that I first had in 2012, has finally come true. We have hit 10,000 connections! Hurrah and shabash I hear you say. Some say that I should have used the last 4 years for a higher vision, like ending world poverty or bringing electric cars to the masses, but I thought I'd get to 50,000 likes first...by 2017...small steps right, but then again at 5ft 2, they always were going to be.

So, we are on the Met line and yep, I'm standing.

A quick update on the car, as you know it gets new powers every few months and recently it learnt how to do perpendicular parking like you need to at the supermarket or multi-storey car park.  As soon as I got the update, I went off to Rayners Lane tube station round the corner from me, to give it a go and get a full tank of electric charge (£1.50 on Sunday...Indian innit). It is simply amazing and so much better than my usual attempts. The only thing is that now I have no idea to both parallel park or do this bendy parking as the car does it. Oh well, more time to hone those one liners I guess. One of the features currently being tested in the US, which hopefully comes to the UK soon is called Summon, which allows you to get out the car, and it parks itself in the garage, including opening and closing the door. That's another party trick I'm looking forward too!

Let's have a look around the tube... Woah what is that! Is there an animal on the loose...

Phew, no it's just someone wrapped up. Perhaps she is on her way to New York or something...

Advert of the week:

Different money. Short term loans done differently. Wowza! Who is coming up with these ads and company names. All I could think of was that TV programme, Different Strokes. With that cute American kid who was my height. You did the tune when you read that last bit too right? Diffferent strrrokes...well you did now...

There is a lady holding some flowers upside down. Nice. Having had a look at the label, it says 2015 Retail Industry awards. Err, perhaps it might be time to get some new ones lady, as I think everyone is getting tired of your showing off by now?

App of the week: Latest Free Stuff. So who saw the dude on Dragons Den who came up with this idea. He was like the Indian version of that money saving experts dude. The dragons loved it, especially as he had money in the bank, not spent anything on marketing and had a big customer base. The idea is that the app shows you what lovley freebies you can order from new products to a sample lotion potion. They have a team who scour the interweb everyday for the daily deals!  It's a great idea and those baby nappies I got last month have meant I'm saving loads on Andrex toilet paper...and I don't even have a baby. (In this cold weather, no one even notices the extra padding ;-)

It's a bit clunky as you need to enter your details for every freebie you want but hopefully, in the future, you can store all your standard details and just press on the free stuff. I'm happy to just have a 'it's free right, just send whatever you found without asking me'. After all, it keeps my postman in a job and I do like to give a little back to the community from time to time.

Right, got to Harrow on the Hill, and got a seat so let's call it a day now. 

Oh, and just a quick shout out to my dearest wife. Happy 22nd Anniversary dear...fingers crossed, the postman will have your presents tomorrow. I really hope she likes Coke Zero...

Have a great sleep and promise to do more regular blogs in 2016!

A small man called Min...

Got anything new to report? - Min's MinIT Update. Thursday 8th October 2015

Well hello hello! How are we all?

Yes, I know this is rather late and the man driving the 20:52 to Uxbridge said exactly the same thing to me. I've been do a work event to celebrate black history month and heard some inspiring speeches! 

This is me with my army buddy, Ashok.

The tube is 73% full which is rather impressive for this time of night I thought and yes it's mostly touristy types.

Right let's have a look around to see what characters we have at this 'mad' hour.

Hello lady. You must be out of town as everyone knows you shouldn't eat your macdonalds 3 course dinner on the tube. I'm really only jealous as I only had some yam canapés earlier...

The adverts are quite boring in the carriage today so let's skip on to the main event...

App of the week: Bla Bla Car. Picture the scene. You are heading to Leicester for the weekend to stock up on some masala chips and toilet rolls (they are sooo much cheaper up north) and you think to yourself....hmmm, I'm not using the full capacity of all my 5 seats, and I'm quite up for having some company along the way. What to do? Did you do that last it in an Indian accent? Err racist...

Well this is where this lovely app comes in! You can either be a driver and offer seats for sale, or you can look whose going up the M1. (Other motorway and destinations are available). 

To make sure the driver isn't a total nut head, everyone gives them a rating from 1 to 5, so you can make sure you can get your masala chips and rolls rather than ending up in someone's cellar for the rest of your days...

As I only had 1 canapé, I did think of taking Gaz (28 y/o) up on his kind offer to head north at 10pm tonight, but he's said no food and I'm starving as it is...

It will be interesting if this becomes the new uber for more long distance travelling. And the reason it's called Bla Bla Car is so the driver can signpost on his profile if they are a chatty gezzer (Bla Bla) or more of a 'don't talk to me yaar (Bla). I'm thinking of giving it a go so will keep you updated on a future blog. Min marks out of 10. 8.573. 

Congratulations of the week go to Tu Youyou on winning the Nobel Prize in Medicine and for being the most confusing person to sing Happy Birthday to...

Err right...best leave it there. Gonna try and steal a French fry from the tourist lady... Have a lovely Friday and a great sleep.

A small man called Min

Got anything new to report? - Min's MinIT Update. Thursday 24th September 2015

Well hello hello! Isn't this a lovely surprise. Yes, I know I normally do my blogs on a monthly basis these days but just felt like doing a blog special today.

So this evening, I left work to go to an external event all about visualisation in Shoreditch. It was billed as an exclusive event and I was given a special black card invite which I needed to show to get in. I thought to myself, woah, I wonder if Elon Musk or Kevin Spacey are coming as I'm sure they only go to things where you have to show a black card to get in...

Anywhoo, so I told Mrs Min that don't wait up, and make 3 less chapatis as I'll probably be fed and watered with the finest that Shoreditch chefs can offer. (Yes, I was hoping it wasn't going to be bloody mushroom risotto or pumpin butternut squash as it tends to be for us wierdo veggies)

I did the apple maps navigation and synced it with the watch so I could get the secret taps to show me the way to the gig. I analysed all the permutations and decided to take the 1min longer route along the main A10 route out of Liverpool Street rather than being mugged down some back alley, as my watch told me that sunset wasn't that far away...

Flashback: Just remembered many years ago we came to a wedding in London  and the groom had hired a coach from Leocester to get us there. This was before mobiles phones and google maps was invented. So we get to London to pick some more random relatives up from Harrow and my uncle who lives in Lanndan town tells the driver that he knows the way to the wedding (school) hall so sat next to the driver. 2 hours later we finally get there and everyone is huffing and puffing as to why it had taken so long and the bride and groom had already started to do that bit where they go round and round a bit connected together so they don't run away. ( Can you tell I'm a Brahmin and know my religious stuff...)

So everyone is shouting at my uncle to say why the hell did it take so long for what was supposed to be a 30 minute journey. To which he says those immortal words..."I only know the way the bus goes"... 

That was my Ronnie Corbett way of saying that I thought I'd stick to the main road. Ahem...

How was the event I hear you cry? Well it was in a warehouse and I thought, ok this looks cool, maybe I should have worn my purple trousers and grown a beard for tonight. I was already antisipating who were going to be the guest speakers, would Kevin be giving anything away about the plot to House of Cards Season 4...would Elon be rocking up in a Model X, that kind of thing. Perhaps they had discovered some amazeballs way of visualising data. 

The host asked to see my black invite only card, and at that stage I was rather worried as I hadn't actually registered and was given the card by a colleague. Would it be a case of 'so close but not quite'. She looked at the card, I did my sad cute face and she let me in. Whohoo!!

So how was this super cool event I hear you asked. Well 3 minutes later I was done. They had stuck some 'information is beautiful' style things on the wall and err that was it!!!  No Kevin, no speakers and a bloody 0.3mile walk to Liverpool. Oh well, at least they had a go at spreading the word on analytics...

Walking back and I did realise that London is rather beautiful though. Check out this pic of the Gerkin...

I've made it all the way to Finchley road now and got the wifi signal back so told Mrs Min to get the rotlis back on..

I've got an amazing app to tell you about but will save that for another day as I've gone on a bit today.

Hope you have a great sleep!

A small man called Min