November 2, 2008

	It was only fitting that Anil Kumble announced his retirement in Delhi, the scene of his greatest bowling effort, at the end of which he was carried off the field by teammates in an emotional farewell

Anil Kumble has announced his retirement from cricket, saying the finger injury he sustained on the third day of the Test helped him make his decision. The news was made public minutes after the tea break on the final day; Kumble then bowled four overs before the match was called off as a draw.

“The body was asking questions every day,” he said. “It was not easy to keep bowling the way I have been bowling the last 18 years, to keep going. The injury I had on the third day probably helped me make the decision.”

The captaincy now passes on to Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who already leads India in the shorter forms of the game.

Kumble made the formal announcement at the post-match press conference, at which he received a standing ovation from the journalists crowded into the room. He doffed his cap and sat down to speak to the media one last time as an India player and captain. He stayed composed throughout the conference, which took place minutes after the emotional farewell he had received on the field.

Kumble had decided to quit last night but took his time in letting his team-mates know, lest it took their focus off the match. “I did inform my team-mates, who I have played with all these years, one by one during the day,” Kumble said. “Then I informed the chairman of the selection committee just after lunch. I did inform the board as well.”

It took a “nasty injury” to finally push Kumble into retirement. He has had a shoulder injury before, and has been troubled by it, but at 38, the “pretty deep” cut proved too much. “You could see the flesh. There are 11 stitches,” Kumble said. “The doctor said I had to undergo the procedure under general anesthesia. I told him, ‘If you give me general anesthesia I’ll lose time, I’d like to go there and bowl.’ He said ‘Look, it’s a medical decision, not a cricketing decision.”

“The stitches will come out only on November 8, which is the third day of the Nagpur Test. I don’t think it was easy for me to bat or field. I wouldn’t have been 100% and I didn’t want to let the team down. Anyway I had more or less decided this would be my last series.”

Kumble has never given the team less than 100% and he said wanted to be remembered most for that. “I definitely put the team above self, right through my career,” Kumble said. “I believe Indian cricket has certainly gone further from the time when I started, in terms of results, not just in India but also abroad.

“And I am confident that with this young team, with a few of the experienced senior players still being a part of the team, we have an opportunity to dominate world cricket and be No. 1 in all forms of the game. In one-day cricket we’re pretty close to the top, in Twenty20 we’re No. 1, I don’t think we are that far behind in Tests as well and it will be great to see that happen.”

	Anil Kumble: “I kept getting responses from the body saying that you can’t. I fought that, I took various painkillers and tried all sorts of things, but ultimately one injury to the hand said ‘enough now’.”

An important part of that surge towards Test leadership would be a series win against Australia. Kumble said he will there in Nagpur to see whether the team can do that. “Ideally I would have liked to finish in Nagpur,” Kumble said. “At this moment, I don’t think I will be traveling with the team, but I will certainly go to Nagpur. I want to see Sourav’s last Test match, and also wish Laxman on his 100th. And win the series. That is the ultimate goal for all of us. I would like to be a part of that.”

It has been a long road for Kumble – 18 years – on which he has come across many highs and lows. “I had to go through a lot of things in the early part of my career,” Kumble said. “People questioning my ability, my fitness, my form, my bowling and the effectiveness of my bowling. I had to go through that then, now right at the end of my career, and even in the middle.

In that sense, after the shoulder surgery [in 2001], I’ve done exceptionally well to have played eight years. To have bowled so many overs and to have got so many wickets, the second phase was certainly more satisfying. We had a lot more victories, not just in India but also abroad: especially the Australia series in 2004, the Pakistan series after that, West Indies and England where we won. All of them were a challenge and to come out triumphant was special.”

The retirement decision, in the end, came easy for Kumble. “The body tells you how far you can go,” he said. “I kept challenging – as a cricketer you are always competitive, always saying, ‘I can do it’. Whether you can or not only time will tell. I kept getting responses from the body saying that you can’t. I fought that, I took various painkillers and tried all sorts of things, but ultimately one injury to the hand said ‘enough now’. I was also not bowling at my best and you want to keep performing at a level that you are satisfied with. That was not happening so I thought this was the right time to move on.”

For a moment as emotional as this, Kumble ended on a humorous note. “At this moment I would like to thank my family, my parents, who gave me all the encouragement, supported me and asked me to bowl legspin. Although I am still trying to find out how I can bowl legspin.

“Thank you all for all the support I have received right through my career. I’ve built some great friendships and met some fantastic people along the way. You’ll probably start calling me from tomorrow for quotes about somebody else. Give me a break for a couple of days and I’ll certainly take all your calls.” Like he has unfailingly answered the Indian team’s calls for the last 18 years.

Regards,
Abdur Rahim Jantu
Community Manager at dotnetshoutout.com
Mobile : +880-1714-246603
Tribute Homes, Apt #C1 Gulshan-2
E-mail    : abdurrahim@dotnetshoutout.com ,bossjantu@hotmail.com
Website   : dotnetshoutout.com/About

George Michael was Busted !!!

Naughty boy George Michael was Busted for drug possession this weekend in London.

The drug-toting singer released this for us all:

Jantu’R iPhone app/experiment.. Introduction

It’s finally here – the iPhone 3G. No, we mean that literally. It’s finally at our office and boy, are we excited! GPS, HSDPA purring under the new iPhone hood with a hefty number of software enhancements.

But all them software goodies are available for the first-gen iPhone too – so is it worth the fuss? It may as well be, but we never know before we take it out for a spin.

Apple iPhone 3G official images

Key features:

• 3.5″ 16M-color TFT display with a resolution of 480 x 320 pixels
• Quad-band GSM support
• Tri-band UMTS support with HSDPA
• Built-in GPS receiver
• Wi-Fi
• 8 to 16GB of onboard storage
• Accelerometer, proximity sensor and ambient light sensor
• 2 megapixel camera
• Silky smooth user interface with multi-touch user support
• Unsurpassed web surfing experience
• Push email with MS Exchange support
• AppStore access for direct application download and installation
• Redone rear
• TV-out port

Main disadvantages:

• No video calls over the 3G network
• The handset wobbles on hard even surfaces
• There are a number of messaging downers
• Camera has no auto focus, nor video recording… nor any settings at all
• Safari browser doesn’t support Flash and Java, doesn’t have a download manager
• Bluetooth support limited to headset use only (no A2DP or file transfers)
• No office document editor
• No copy/paste functionality
• You cannot sync Notes and TO-DOs
• No memory card slot (but knowing Apple there will never be one)

Now, since we’ll be heavily comparing the old and new iPhone, how about the following arrangement – the first one we’ll call Number One and the newbie will be Number Two. Sorted. Wait a minute, no good? Crap, we knew it. OK then, the first one will be the iPhone 1G (as in “generation” of the device), while the new one will still be iPhone 3G (as in “generation” of the wireless network). That might sound inconsistent, but it’s short and we like it this way, so before you go ballistic in the comments section, remember Number One and Number Two.

The iPhone 3G 16GB (White) in hand

So, back to the drill – the 3G-enabled iPhone was rumored ever since the iPhone 1G surfaced last year. Now that we have the real thing in our hands, it doesn’t seem that groundbreaking anymore. Nevertheless, there are quite a few things to cover so we think reviewing it in detail is worth it. There’s the updated design, the new white color (which we happen to have), the new iPhone 2.0 firmware/software/OS (call it what you will) with AppStore on board, the push email functionality and, finally, the GPS and HSDPA topping.

The Apple iPhone 3G

We will also be on the lookout for improvements in terms of audio quality, loudspeaker volume and camera image quality against the iPhone 1G.

Seems like quite a workload, so let’s waste no more time and get to it. Join us after this short break for more on the iPhone 3G.

Regards,
Abdur Rahim Jantu
Community Manager at dotnetshoutout.com
of Operations at kigg.com
Mobile : +880-1714-246603 off :Tribute Homes, Apt #C1 Gulshan-2
E-mail : abdurrahim@dotnetshoutout.com ,bossjantu@hotmail.com
Website : dotnetshoutout.com/About

I’ve had a little something to do with a bash called @media (vivabit.com/atmedia)
for almost as long as the HTML Dog book project. Thanks to everyone who has
made that possible, including all of those who have attended it. It has been a great
example of a genuine appetite for pushing best-practice web design and development
to their limits, and it has kept my enthusiasm and passion for the subject
fresh. @media and HTML Dog are my babies, so they must be related.
I have always regarded New Riders as by far the best, most discerning, and most
respectable publisher of Web-related books. It has been a roller-coaster ride, but I
am very proud to finally be a published New Riders author alongside so many great
Web heavyweights. So, to the publisher, and extended family and friends, thanks to
David Fugate, Linda Bump Harrison, Darcy DiNucci, Marjorie Baer, Nancy Davis, Joe
Marini, Doug Adrianson, and everyone else involved in building this quality culturally
infused slab of ink-sprinkled reconstituted plant fibers.

Acknowledgements
A good website follows conventions to keep users happy and responsive. I can only
assume that a good web design book should do the same. So here are some people
“without whom this would not have been possible.” Or something like that…
To my mother, for her share of my genetic material and all of the environmental
stuff, for buying me my first computer, for putting up with my Kevin & Perry teenage
crap, and, most of all, for forbidding me to get a Michael Jackson perm at the
age of 10, ta, Ma.
Even though her grasp of language is somewhat limited, for frequently walking
across my keyboard Nutmeg, the feline member of the family, should probably have
a co-author credit. At least blame any typos on her.
I am proud to be a member of such an open, intelligent, friendly professional
community. Andy Budd, Andy Clarke, Jon Hicks, Jeremy Keith, Drew McLellan,
Rich Rutter, Mike Stenhouse, and the rest of the Britpack (and the mighty Pub
Standards, for that matter) have been an invaluable source of discussion, ideas,
and constructive criticism, and have become good friends to boot. And there’s a
plethora of luminaries further from home who have influenced me, and this book,
in one way or another: Doug Bowman, Dan Cederholm, Joe Clark, Charles Darwin,
Molly Holzschlag, Steve Krug, Jakob Nielsen, Valentino Rossi, and Jeffrey Zeldman
in particular. Through raising awareness, it’s due to many of these people (and many
more), and organizations like the Web Standards Project (webstandards.org) that
the quality web design landscape is a much lusher one now than it was even a few
years ago, so thanks are due not only for their influence, but for making books like
this, and interest in them, possible.
Dan Webb (danwebb.net) has been the single most influential person when it comes
to HTML Dog (site, book, and philosophy). From working together on numerous
projects across the years to idle pub banter (across even more years), Dan is the
first person I talked with about web standards, long before the emergence of that
hat-wearing dude’s little orange book, the person I have discussed around 43,082.6
aspects of web design with, from liquid layouts to accessibility to Microformats
to the absurdity of the term Web 2.0, and the person who has proofread, edited,
tested, and critiqued pretty much every single article and website that I have ever
been involved in.

Regards,
Abdur Rahim Jantu
Community Manager at dotnetshoutout.com
of Operations at kigg.com
Mobile : +880-1714-246603 off :Tribute Homes, Apt #C1 Gulshan-2
E-mail : abdurrahim@dotnetshoutout.com ,bossjantu@hotmail.com
Website : dotnetshoutout.com/About