Goodbye 2011 !! (What got my attention this year ?)

As we say good bye to this incredible year (2011) and welcome the new year (2012) it is time to look upon some of the important highlights of the passing year. I have made this list of events for the year 2011 keeping into consideration the events of relevant importance. I might have missed a lots of things as I only tend to care about stuff that I like. So in nutshell this list might not be the perfect list for everyone but it sure will be fun to read. I’ve tried to include most of the important events from the field of politics, economics, technology, social networking, personal and of course the incredible world of cinema and the movies that I saw. Hope you all like it and find it informational.

So here we go:

Jan 11th – Verizon announces iPhone on their network  and started selling the phone in February.
Jan 23rd – Political revolution started in Egypt and spread across other middle-east countries (Libya, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia)


Feb - Nothing much happened that got my attention. I might be sleeping for the whole month. Moving on.


Mar 2nd – Apple introduces iPad2 with lots of new features and slimmer design.
Mar 11th – iPad2 goes live ; 8.9 magnitude earthquake hit Japan (5th strongest since 1900)
Mar 20th – AT&T proposes to buy T-mobile for $39 billion (will becomes #1 US wireless carrier post-merger)


April 4th – Larry Page took the responsibility as Google’s CEO
April 28th – Apple introduces the White iPhone
April 29th – I ran my 1st 5K of 2011 – Illinois Marathon (This is my First 5K ever) – Champaign, IL


May 2nd – Osama Bin Laden killed by the US Navy Seals
May 10th – Microsoft buys Skype for $8.5 billion in cash
May 19th – IPO of LinkedIn – Target open price $45 per share, planning to sell 7.8 million share on its first day and will raise around $352 million.
May 24th – IPO of Yandex (Russia’s answer to Google)


June 4th – My 2nd 5K run of 2011 – Tuscola, IL
June 6th – Apple unveils iOS 5, iCloud and MAC OS X Lion at WWDC 2011
June 16th – IBM completed 100 years in business
June 28th – Google launches Google+ and joined the war against Facebook


July 1st – Watched Transformers 3
July 4th – My 3rd 5K run of 2011 – Champaign, IL
July 20th – OS X Lion released


Aug 4th – Dow loses 512.76 point (4.31% down), NASDAQ loses 136.68 points (5.08% down), S&P500 loses 60.27 points (4.78% down) – Worst day for the market since Dec 2008
Aug 5th – S&P downgraded the US debt rating to AA+ from AAA
Aug 6th – Watched Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Aug 8th – S&P downgraded the debt rating for mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to AA+
Aug 8th - Dow loses 634.76 point (5.55% down), NASDAQ loses 174.72 points (6.09% down), S&P500 loses 79.92 points (6.66% down) – Another very bad day for the market since Dec 2008
Aug 9th – Apple overtakes Exxon Mobil for the first time to become the most valuable public company (in any field of business).
Aug 10th – Another bad day for the market. DOW sheds 519.83 point, NASDAQ loses 101.47 point and S&P loses 51.77 point.
Aug 10th – At the close of the market, Apple ahead of Exxon Mobil for the first time ever and became the most valuable company in the world.
Aug 15th - Google decided to acquire Motorola Mobility for $40.00 per share in cash, or a total of about $12.5 billion.
Aug 18th – HP decided to abandon WebOS, and confirm its plan to spin off PC business.
Aug 24th – Steve Jobs stepped down as Apple’s CEO. Tim Cook became new Apple CEO
Aug 25th – Linux OS turned 20


Sep 6th – Yahoo board fired CEO Carol Bartz.
Sep 9th – Watched Warrior
Sep 12th – I got the First position in the company wide innovation challenge – Task 1
Sep 13th – Another first position in the company wide innovation challenge for Task 2, plus a 2nd position in Task 3
Sep 13th – Microsoft introduces new Windows 8 (beta) platform
Sep 17th – My 4th 5K run of 2011 – Savoy, IL
Sep 19th – Netflix rebranded their DVD business as Qwikster; Add Game rentals
Sep 19th – Google launches Google Wallet (Wireless payment technology using NFC as its underlying technology) on Sprint
Sep 22nd – HP board replaces CEO Leo Apotheker with former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. Meg became the 6th (counting the interim CEOs) new CEO of HP in the last 10 years
Sep 25th – Watched Moneyball
Sep 28th – Amazon introduces its first Android based tablet – Kindle Fire ($199).


Oct 4th – Apple launches voice controlled (SIRI) iPhone 4S along with iOS 5 & iCloud.
Oct 5th – Steve Jobs died at an age of 56
Oct 8th – Dennis Ritchie - Father of C and Unix passed away
Oct 10th – Netflix kills Qwikster (rebranded DVD business) before its implementation
Oct 13th – Raj Rajaratnam sentenced to spend 11 years in prison (finally some action taken against insider trading)
Oct 19th – Google unveils Android 4.0 a.ka. Ice Cream Sandwich (bundled with facial recognition, Android Beam and revamped user interface menu – Roboto)
Oct 20th - Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi was killed by revolutionary forces (Biggest triumph of the Arab revolution)
Oct 20th -  I Ordered White iPhone 4S (64gb)
Oct 23rd – iPod completed 10 years. Thanks you Steve for revolutionizing our music world
Oct 25th – IBM named Virginia Rometty as first female CEO
Oct 26th – Received iPhone 4S (our first ever) – good day…good day indeed
Oct 28th – HP decided not to spin off PC business


Nov 1st – Blog completed 1 year - Wow !!!
Nov 4th - IPO of Groupon – Target open price $20 per share, planning to sell 35 million share on its first day and will raise around $700 million
Nov 29th – American Airline file for bankruptcy
Nov 30th – DOW largest gain since March 2009 up by 4.24% (increase of 490.05 points)


Dec 2nd – Jobless rate drops to 2 year low to 8.6%
Dec 14th – Date with GMAT (scored dismal 370)
Dec 16th – Zynga (popular Facebook game maker) launched its IPO - largest technology IPO since Google. Shares open at $10, driving Zynga’s valuation to around $7 billion.
Dec 17th – North Korea’s Kim Jong II died. Kim Jong’s 29 year old son named as his successor.
Dec 19th – AT & T dropped its bid to own T-Mobile. The merger that fall apart will punish AT & T by making the company pay $4 billion to T-Mobile.
Dec 20th – Apple bought Anobit (flash manufacturing company based in Israel) for around $500 million.
Dec 22nd – Watched Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol
Dec 28th - Received official GMAT report and got a perfect score of 6.0 in the AWA section
Dec 31st - Apple's Design guru has been made a Knight Commander of the British Empire - "Sir" Jonathan Ive


That's it fellas. It is a long post and I thank you all for reading it.

I wish people around the World a wonderful and prosperous New Year. Hope you all will be able to make some resolutions for the new year and work towards making them true.

Enjoy and Have Fun !!!!!!