SiliconVerse

Bye to blogger

2005-09-05T20:40:00.000+05:30

I have been using blogger quite some time now and it was great fun using blogger. From now onwards I will be blogging here , which we recently made up using wordpress.

Please do update your blogFeeds with http://feeds.feedburner.com/siliconverse/zUNE to get updated yourself about SiliconVerse (Technology, Business & Life in Digital Village).

Projection technology

2005-08-30T12:07:00.000+05:30

I came across a cool projector by iMatte which spares the presenter from blinding lights and eliminates grahics from the presenters body.

Cool, giving presentations is going to be much more comfortable now..

Animated blogpost link

2005-08-29T21:35:00.000+05:30

I have been playing around with lot of options I am getting through feedburner I found another good utility for feedburner users.

Users can create this kind of animated billboard to display their latest blog posts. Its just the matter of including few lines of html code which is self generated at feedburner.

It can be used at N number of places to advertise about your recent postings but I wish if it had enough flexibility to design the final looks,contents and dimension of this animated stuff.. I had no option but to add the same animation twice on top of my blog posts just keep items aligned.

NICE Alumni Group

2005-08-28T13:07:00.000+05:30

I have been moderating alumni group for my Alma mater on yahoo groups for around five years now. Year 2000, I have started with this e-group to bring in all NICE alumni on common platform and enjoy being networked.

Delighted to share, we have now good many numbers of alumni, probably atleast one from each batch. Though I find that total members on this group is no where near to the total professionals coming out of the campus, but anyways numbers are growing significantly.

I have put up a subscription link on the right side of this blog for getting directly to the mebership request page.

Hopefully fellow NICEians will have great time being instrumental on this Alumni group.

No Pulse in BlogPulse

2005-08-25T10:53:00.000+05:30

Mark and others have been happily using Blogpulse as it supposedly gives an idea about the traffic coming to the respective blogs.

Good rave commets we heard about it, but unfortunately I am having bad experiences or better I say got no chance to experience it at all.

I have registered this blog about a month or more and its unable to update 'posts' sections for it, probably there systems are already out of their breath or have some bugs to be fixed on their part.

Whatever be the issue, I have not heard a single line from them despite writing them via their own 'feedback' form..

Update: Jason Dowdell from Marketing Shift took my concerns to the CTO Intelliseek and he reverted back with positive comments and explaned why it takes so long to get enlisted. Yeah my blog is listed on blogPulse now

Google: One stop internet mall

2005-08-24T10:01:00.000+05:30

Google is gradually turning into one stop internet mall while they are continuosly adding internet based services in their product portfolio.

They has came out with talk.google.com where they say they" enables you to call or send instant messages to your friends for free–anytime, anywhere in the world"

Looks like its going to be a cool IM interoperable with other IM clients.. having interface to gmail account, gmail notifier, and gmail contact book. Probably soon they will have (or probably they will have it) features like

1. Search your friend on google and add on google talk.
2. Look for work meaning using "define:" service by google.
3. Interface with Google Map to find out your friends location.
4. A mobile client for google talk leveraging google mobile...

Here is a review on GoogleTalk by download Sqad.

Update:Its a warning bell for Skype.... I am getting very positive feedback from users all around. Users prefer using one tool rather than keeping several different tool for better interoprability between their functionalities.

Update: Looks like google is soon going to have an Internet browser

Japanese meetup @ Bangalore

2005-08-23T10:30:00.000+05:30

I posted earlier about Koyo, the fantastic Japanese speaking Bangalore group. We had a great time at last meetup where we sang and danced on Japanese lyrics.

As promised they have a website http://www.freewebs.com/koyoblr which details about various activities about the group, with a mailing list at http://groups-beta.google.com/group/KOYO .

Koyo has recently started alerts for jobs requiring Japanese skills. These Job-alerts are open for individuals who are member of koyo group.

There are more interest group in the line up, great going

Cheeers!!!

BSNL to launch Wi-Fi Services

2005-08-19T16:55:00.000+05:30

The state-owned telco that provides telecom services in the entire country except for the Delhi and Mumbai cities, will soon launch Wi-Fi Services at public locations. Installation of Hot Spots is already underway at various cities/ locations such as airports, railway stations, and universities.
The article has the list of proposed tariffs for wi-fi services. via Voice&Data

Attacked by spammers

2005-08-19T13:51:00.000+05:30

Since this morning, I am not sure what made my blog url http://siliconverse.blogspot.com so popular that its on target by spammers and I am getting big number of irrelevant comments on my posts.

Probably this morning I have registered my feed url http://feeds.feedburner.com/Siliconverse with FeedBlitz .

Is there anyone else experiencing the same? Anyways how do I go about spammers on blog.

Update: I have made "Word Verification" feature On provided in blogger, which means automatic comments will not be allowed and readers will have to see a graphic and type in the letters to be authenticated.

Get blog posts as email

2005-08-18T10:11:00.000+05:30

I have enabled multiple feeds for this blogs which many of the readers are using to read my posts. Still I find there is surely a need of subscription of blog-posts as an email.

I have added a new feature which enables readers to get an alert via email whenever I post on this blog. I am using Bloglet services which you can find at right sidebar of my blogpage.

So readers, if you are more comfortable using emails than Feeds, then get set go!!!

I am still testing this service, do let me know if you finds some issues in it.

Update: I have moved from Bloglet to FeedBlitz which seems to have better standing in blogspere. Bloglet was unable to deliver.

Stages of success

2005-08-15T16:55:00.000+05:30

Nivi quotes one of the oldies from Arthur C. Clarke,which goes like

“Like all revolutionary new ideas, the subject has had to pass through three states, which may be summed up by these reactions:

“It’s crazy — don’t waste my time.”
“It’s possible, but it’s not worth doing.”
“I always said it was a good idea.”

Similar to this, one of my mentor used to say that their are four states of social reaction for any of new work you starts:

When you start people laugh on your work.
Further down the line as you progress, people watch your action silently.
As you move ahead further, people starts doing the samethings and appreciates your work
Same set of people now follows you and become your followers.

Its quite a bit similar to the Chasm Theory by Geoffrey A. Moore which takes into account how market transits from technology enthusiats to the pragmatists and ahead..

Whatsover crux is, perseverance is the key..

Get Ready for GoogleNet

2005-08-15T13:32:00.000+05:30

Suppose google starts giving Wi-Fi access to people... and if that followed by advertising specific to user’s precise location.

The gatekeeper of the world’s information could become one of the globe’s biggest Internet providers and one of its most powerful ad sellers, basically supplanting telecoms in one fell swoop. Sounds crazy, but how might Google go about it? More…

Cities Racing to Build Wireless Networks

2005-08-15T11:34:00.000+05:30

As with the other global cities, Indian cities are also lined up in the race for wireless networks. Here comes Mysore as first Wi-Fi enabled Indian city.

Is citywide WiFi the cure-all for struggling municipalities? asks Michael Sciannamea and adds up by saying "Most likely not, but the offer of wireless access, free or paid, will attract people to areas of commerce, and that can’t be all bad."

I do agree with you.

Behaviors of the Blogsphere

2005-08-13T15:28:00.000+05:30

"Understanding the Scale, Composition and Activities of Weblog Audiences" a pdf report by comScore. Read Here

It may surely help guys understand that blogging is already into mainstream.

Using innovation , India style

2005-08-13T14:55:00.000+05:30

Cows are revered as sacred among Hindus and are protected by law. Some 40,000 cows are thought to be roaming the streets of Delhi, posing a serious traffic hazard.

The authorities in the Indian capital have turned to RFID microchips to tackle the growing problem of stray cows roaming the streets.

A court had earlier ordered authorities in south Delhi to offer a reward of $45 to anyone delivering a stray cow. The authorities then sell the cow to a new owner but they are concerned people might take advantage by bringing back the same cow for quick money.

A $11 microchip in the cow's gut will now allow resident welfare associations to determine whether the cow brought to the authorities was a stray one or not. [Via BBC and this]

Automatic door... Japan style

2005-08-13T14:44:00.000+05:30

Here comes another real next generation innovation from new Tanaka Seisakusyo known as automatic door

The door is segmented into multiple strips and opens minimally according to the shape of the individual, animal or object that has to pass through. It also incorporates a security function that identifies people. The door is activated by the infrared sensors (the small black areas attached at the inner edges of the strips).

Its like vanishing into a magic wall...

The main aim of this invention is to better protect a room from dust, pollen, bugs, germs etc. It could also be used for room-size freezers. In addition, it helps save the energy needed for air-conditioning. [via this]

Picture-in-Picture for internet

2005-08-12T18:53:00.000+05:30

Most of us have seen Picture in Picture television sets which allows you to watch multiple channels at a go, Bitty browser does exactly same for websites.

If you want to view or display related information on your webpage from multiple sources and which you may want to see sometimes in small-mode and sometime in few-screen mode, this a perfect tool for you. You just need to follow an online wizard and get a small source snippet, which you can add to your webpage.

I am still thinking about various situation one would like to have this facility (probably streaming two movies simulatneously on big flat internet TV) guess you may like to check it out and share your thoughts.

Read this blog on Yahoo,MSN and more..

2005-08-12T16:56:00.000+05:30

If you enjoy reading this corner of the blogsphere i.e. my blog, there are now several other options by which you can read my blog without actually coming on to this page.

I have new feeds listed on the right sidebar of my blog, which enables you to directly add my blog's content to your MyYahoo page or MyMSN along with other usual contents like horoscope, weather, and more.

If you dont like to read blog on MyYahoo or MSN, you can choose some of the other feed readers
like bloglines , feedreader , feedburner and more, which allows variety of feed management features, drastically increasing daily dosee of information capsule.

Feed is one of the superb building block of web 2.0 which enable you to track the changes on internet you care about and to take action based on them. I am currently using bloglines as my feed aggregator which allows me to quickly peek into some 55 websites/blog daily.

To those who are new to feed can read basics about it here.

Skype movie

2005-08-12T09:41:00.000+05:30

Skype is One year old now. Its a great communication software 'that simply works'.

Here is a cool animated movie released by Skype on how to use it. Check it out here

Cisco eyeing Nokia

2005-08-08T10:14:00.000+05:30

Cisco Systems Inc. is considering buying the world's top mobile handset maker Nokia reports Yahoo News

None of the company has chose to comment on this news, but looks like somthing is there for sure.

Whatever, if this happens, it would considerably change the market dynamics when CISCO, the largest maker of Internet equipment (worth around $123 billion) adds Nokia's market ( around $71 billion)

PenTop Computers

2005-08-08T09:42:00.000+05:30

Computer loaded on pen, its cool, check it out here .

Unwiring Bangalore

2005-08-08T09:38:00.000+05:30

Intel has released a white paper on “unwiring Bangalore” that talks about the current net access situation in the city, possible usage models, technology framework, risks and advantages and proposes WiFi/WiMax combination to unwire Bangalore. [link]

Hopefully this happens.

Interesting Live video

2005-08-07T11:15:00.000+05:30

Web cams are old news, but its really interesting to see something of this sort.

I just saw a link on Aizu Wakamatsu station web cam from Joi-Ito's blog. Its a Live video streaming from a japanese railway platform.

The speed and the resolution are so high that you can see people walking and things flapping in the wind. You can hear the announcements and listen to the trains come and go. It's amazing how far we've come.

Note: You need a good quality internet connetivity to watch this without jitters.

"Band of Angels" Indian angel investor group

2005-07-28T16:53:00.000+05:30

A bunch of professionals-turned-entrepreneurs have quietly joined hands to float the Band of Angels, a loose association that is looking to fund new ventures at the earliest stage. These include some of the people I met sometime like, Xansa's and Indian Venture Capital Association's chairman Saurabh Srivastava, Flextronics Software Systems' managing director Arun Kumar, and others like Digital Globalsoft's CEO Som Mittal, Mphsasis BFL's CEO Jerry Rao, BPO evangelist Raman Roy,, Jobsahead's co-founder Alok Mittal, Naukri.com's co-founder Sanjiv Bhikchandani, Escorts Hospitals' head Naresh Trehan, Cyber Media's Pradeep Gupta, Lawyer Rajeev Luthra, India Abroad's founder Gopal Raju, and US-based entrepreneur Sanjay Bhargava.

Good news for budding entrepreneurs.

Look-and-feel does matter

2005-07-26T13:34:00.000+05:30

Many a times I found programmers complaining about the latest assignment they have, "designing a new GUI" or improving the look-and-feel. No fault on their part. Programmers may not necessarily be good product designer who can change the feel. Its in taste. Some programmers may enjoy doing GUI (self taught) and others enjoy only coding.

I blame it to the project manager here, as he is not differentiating the skills needed for the designing the look-and-feel and probably unaware about the need of a better feel. He may have some resource constraints but then its true that product coming out of lab is not going to be #1.

Doing look-and-feel may be un-interesting to some, but one of the most important part of the product. Its the first thing which the end user observe and make their buying decsion. We do change our mind based on the looks of the product like car or bike or TV...whatever. We are ready to pay few bucks more for an appliance which is more elegant even though it has 1-2
features missing than the other one with dull color and crappy design. It applies to software as well.

Ever wondered why iPod is so hot, whats there in iMac, which sells 2 million units in its first year. Look at plaxo, skype which neatly plugs into your exisiting softwares and leave the user with a wonderful feel. Its MUCH to do with how it looks and how consumers feel while they use it.

Meet Jonathan Ive who is one of the finest product designer we have in the globle who knows the important art of making a successful software product.

Art of making successful software

2005-07-22T18:40:00.000+05:30

Netscape was an open source attempt to kill the IE but Netscape succumbed. Firefox is another such attempt by Mozilla and is going good.

"Simplicity is the key to success everywhere", says Ross, You don't create a better browser for Windows users by developing it on Linux, would be my interpretation.

He shares rules for Creating Easy-to-Use Software:

Rule #1: all patches are not created equal. Second level of review that evaluates not simply whether the code is sound, but is it doing something useful. This is a departure from typical open source projects which gravitate to sound code belonging in the tree.

Rule #2: All users are not created equal. Firefox has a voting mechanism for bugs, but a lot of votes aren't necessarily heavily weighted if the source of the votes is regional or somehow. They also claim to be a meritocracy where peer respect is critical to having a voice in the community.

Rule #3: Make decisions and get a thick skin.

Ross suggests "the first thing we did in Firefox was throw out half the features, the second thing we did was copy the competition". The second issue is to have a brand that appeals to demographics outside of 19-25 males. Most of the Firefox promotion is occuring via word of mouth... blogs.

Some interesting stats about firefox:

Number of employees: 15

Revenues Source: donations, corporate sponsorships, and a $2m grant from AOL

Firefox Shortcuts

2005-07-22T17:10:00.000+05:30

I do enjoy working on Firefox and so does feld & rajat. Got some cool responses for my previous posts1, posts2, post3 . Infact one of the posts which Rajat linked with his blog had highiest number of hits in a day ( I use statcounter for it). Thanks Rajat.

Here is another tip shared by Feld.

"If you have multiple tabs, you can go to tab N by hitting Ctrl-N. If you are like me and can’t visually scan horizontally for numbers (e.g. I have to count from left to right to figure out which tab I’m at – minor dyslexia-like thing) there’s an extension that’ll number the tabs for you."

Reliance betting high on media

2005-07-21T09:58:00.000+05:30

Imagine all movie theatres connected to highspeed internet channel and the producer distributing his movie via a secured selcted channel, similar to how we see streaming video on broadband connection.

Reliance Infocomm is also in the process of installing a server (read as player) at Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City (DAKC), its headquarters in Navi Mumbai. The server will play laser discs (LDs) or DVDs, which ship audio-video (AV) content, for the digital theatres. It plans to distribute digital movies through its 80,000-km long optic fibre cable (OFC) network, which would be simulcast in digital theatres across the country, the newspaper reports.

The project, once kicked off, will radically change the distribution matrix of films and reduce the production cost and scene at projection room would no more be same.

Google goes on moon

2005-07-21T09:33:00.000+05:30

We have seen the power of Google MAP and Google Earth, now its time for MOON.

Google has started mapping moon at Google moon and tagged it with the places with various space expeditions.

Google says "Because we couldn't think of a better way to commemorate the first lunar landing, which occurred on July 20, 1969, than to give our users an opportunity to surf around the lunar surface themselves."

Any idea if moonland is on sale and I can mark my choice from google moon ^v^

Google is hacked !!!

2005-07-19T17:23:00.000+05:30

No no dont worry, as of now it is safe, but what if it happens.

"This is a lot of personal information in a single basket," said Chris Hoofnagle, senior counsel with the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "Google is becoming one of the largest privacy risks on the Internet."

Many Internet users like me, eagerly await each new technology from Google Inc., its rapid expansion is also prompting concerns that the company may know too much: what you read, where you surf and travel, whom you write.

Google says it takes privacy seriously. But its also a matter of concern. Anyways an interesting story to be read on CNN.

Google MAP can prove to be dangerous

2005-07-18T16:04:00.000+05:30

Have a look on the images, these are the satellite images of one of the most sensitive building of India. Its Rashtrapati Bhavan, official residence of President of India. And the source of these satellite images is Google's desktop application Google Earth.

Not only India, this excellent tool allows ANY individual to have satellite imagery of most of the part of the globe upto minute details as to the level of streets (as you can see below).

Nodoubt, Google Earth is one of excellent software we have in web 2.0 bringing in many unforseen business models, but isnt it making world, more susceptible to terrorist attack.

This can prove to be fatal and needs to addressed at global level.

Double vision TV

2005-07-16T11:44:00.000+05:30

Ever been part of an argument to view the TV channel of your choice the same time your family is watching a different show.

Sharp has developed the first liquid crystal display that shows two completely different images depending on where you are sitting.

Equipped with DualView, a TV can be showing news to everyone sitting on the right-hand side of the sofa, while those on the left (wearing headphones) could be playing a video game. It all depends on the angle from which the viewer is watching the screen. [times]

Selling Revolutionary Product

2005-07-15T09:38:00.000+05:30

Just read Tom's yet another great post on selling innovation.

He tells the fact with his own experiences with ITXC that, if you have a revolutionary product and if your sales pitch sounds like '...it will completely change the way...." or "...revolutionize the style..." your potential customer is bound to get scared of 'Revolution'.

All of us tend to resist the change until we find a new perspective and objectives to achieve whatever we are involved. So if you want to sell your product, just tell the customer that how your product is going to benefit his business.

Secondly, while you introduce new products to the customer, help them to realise the full potential of your product by participating in/with their team responsible for using your product. Sell them a product which helps them do their business better and help them use your product effectively.

Idiot box turning Intelligent

2005-07-14T17:38:00.000+05:30

We have been using the term 'idiot box' for TV but days are not far when Indian viewers will not call them so. They are turning into intelligent interactive boxes.

While Microsoft is already started pushing its Media center, which allows you to 'pause' and 'replay' the live programs, BSNL, Reliance Infocomm, and Bharti Tele-Ventures are working on pilot projects based on IPTV. Inface Reliance has had some understanding with Microsoft for IPTV projects.How is Microsoft-Media-Center different than Tivo, I am not sure. If someone can brief.

I have never used an IPTV myself, but I am sure its user experience would be enriching and a big step forward.

What Type of Cell Phone User Are You?

2005-07-14T13:51:00.000+05:30

Are you a:

Spindle Head, Shouter, Secret Talker, Corporate Cliche Meister, Useless Call Maker,
Crazy Talker, I Don’t CARE Where I Am or Who You Are, Stalker, “My Ringtone is Better Than Your Ringtone” , Generic Cell Phone Ringers, Cell Phone Driver, Right Hand/Left Ear, Considerate Cell Phone User.

See what Telepone Doctor has to say about you

Work permits may get stringent

2005-07-14T09:46:00.000+05:30

Changing the job while you are abroad is going to be difficult.

According to the resources, The new global work permit will be issued to the employer, not the employee, and will be related to the work that the workers are expected to do in the host country. Moreover, the employer will guarantee the return of the visa holders back to the country of origin.

So, if you want to leave your current employer while you are abroad, you will have to come back and reapply for the work permit .

Chat with Steve Ballmer

2005-07-13T09:37:00.000+05:30

Scoble at channel 9 has recently made up a short video while he ask some tough questions to Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, like

-Microsoft doesn't innovate, can you give us some examples of where Microsoft is innovating?

And more things about blogging at Microsoft. Check it out here

.mobi stands for mobile websites

2005-07-13T09:09:00.000+05:30

After approving .xxx for adult websites, new .mobi suffix was approved by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) at a Luxemburg meeting on Monday.

Soon we are going to see lots of .mobi sites around.

Evolution

2005-07-12T10:46:00.000+05:30

I am not sure about the source or the designer, but these are pretty cool.

Dont set your goals

2005-07-09T13:08:00.000+05:30

Offcourse not if you are not setting them to meet.

Goal-setting is everywhere. A sure part of serious management stories, management discussions, exec power speech...Everyone knows it's the right thing to do. we have got to focus. we have got to have goals and objectives.

Problem is, most goals are never met. Goal setting quickly becomes overhead. It takes time with no rewards. People stop believing that goals are anything more than management requirements that have little effect on day to day behavior.

"Just measure the goals you want to meet."
OR
"Set goals which are measurable"

As Joe points out: The root of the problem is that people make two big mistakes around goals:

* They set soft goals that cannot be measured("Improve customer support" or "Gain market share.")
* If they measure, they measure without reference to competition( It doesnt make sense if you stick to your internal goals even if your competitor is selling X times higher units)

In love with ...

2005-07-09T11:56:00.000+05:30

The soaring popularity of SMS has inspired 52 year old musician Remo Fernandes to compose a pop track: 'Love on SMS' in his new album. In the video, Remo plays a Pied Piper kind of character who helps a young boy fumbling to declare his love for a girl. Remo hands him a cellphone and tells him "SMS is the way to do it."

Over a billion text messages are sent every month by India's 56 million mobile phone subscribers. SMS is especially popular with young people for whom the mobile phone is a welcome and private channel of communication with members of the opposite sex. Especially important in a country where 'dating' still does not enjoy widespread parental sanction.

Sudoko coming on mobile

2005-07-09T11:18:00.000+05:30

Now a days my regular morning start with solving a sudoko which is now a daily feature of Times-of-India largest english daily in India. Thanks to Abhishek who first introduced to me.
It was a instant hit.

Finally, Sudoku, the Japanese game, is making its way to mobile subscribers in India via Airtel who will be launching this service soon.

Sudoku, a game involving filling in numbers in the grid in a particular way that each column and row has numbers from 1 to 9, has become globally popular.

Contactless recharging of mobile phone

2005-07-08T16:38:00.000+05:30

Remember!! A buzz about the ability to recharge the battery of mobile phones via sending some SMS on Reliance CDMA network?? This news was on high around for few days last year.

We tried to figure out how that would have been possible..via SMS. One of the ideas was probably by sending a binary SMS, the threshold value for the battery is reduced to some extent enabling the user to use their mobile phones for some more time. Anyways, that news was junk as we never saw any official claim from Reliance nor any demo.

But contactless charging is now feasible. NTT DoCoMo and Panasonic have experimented a contactless recharging system that allows to recharge a FOMA phone by simply placing it on a recharging pad.

The system uses electromagnetic induction to send recharging electricity to the battery. Contactless electricity delivery is made through a pad that has a coil for transmission, and a reception coil inside the handset.

DoCoMo have absolutely not idea when the system will become commercialized. [via textually.org]

In search of 500 rupee seat

2005-07-08T12:16:00.000+05:30

12:00 midnight, I was gazing laptop screen with my half slept eyes. I wanted to make sure this time that I get a low cost air-ticket to New-Delhi in AirDeccan, first of its kind (no frills) operating in India. As usual there was no new updates/announcements on the airdeccan website and no clue as well. Their online seat booking menu was showing all dates till 2006, though reservations were only available upto Aug 2005. Tired and bedeviled, I left for the bed, as was for past few days, In search of 500/- seat. This midnight exercise usually followed by early morning brisk browsing for same.

6:30 Am, half heartedly doing my morning rituals, I was surpurised to find that I cannot open the booking website for this airline. 5, 10, 15, it took some 15-20 minutes to schedule a booking. Adding up to my frustation, I couldnot find any reservations near to my planned vacation and non near this magical 500 figure. Thought I might have chosen wrong dates to travel, probably overcrowded for festive reasons, I tried some different dates for my round trip journey. But of no use...

Wondering, if common people are getting some of those 1/- , 500/- tickets out of this much advertised scheme. Formal announcement of opening new bookings happens around 7:00 AM (thats the time we usually see morning edition newspaper sliding inside our doors). Too late... none of the 6000+ seats of 500/- rupee value was seamingly available.

Looks like there is big role which is being played by booking agents, who are booking seats in bulk for their customer or their are some insiders ....

Whatsoever be the reason, I am still in search of 500 rupee seat.

update: rediff.com announces "Air Deccan releases 3,300 tickets at Re 1" at July 08, 2005 O4:23 PM, after more than 14 hours of the actual release of seats. There are no 1/- ticket left by this time :))

Personal world map

2005-07-07T09:29:00.000+05:30

World is shrinking and so is air travel prices, making it more and more affordable to common man.

Personalworldmap is an online application which helps user find out what international destinations one can visit given the time & money constraints...

If they can link their application to online seat booking along with some comparitive data on rates this can turn out as great travel planner.

Crorepati Indian CEOs

2005-07-06T12:46:00.000+05:30

Just five years back, the number of crorepati CEOs was just 41. It swelled to 96 in 2002-03 and 162 in 2003-04. As many as 40 CEOs joined the list in 2004-05. Now there are over 200 Indian CEO who are crorepatis.

S Ramadorai, CEO & MD, Tata Consultancy Services: Takes away 5Lakhs per months.

S M Trehan, MD, Crompton Greaves Rs 6Lakhs per month.

Vivek Paul, who left Wipro last week, took home Rs 7.15 crore (Rs 71.5 million) as vice-chairman.

Wockhardt promoter Habil Khorakiwala was paid Rs 7.01 crore (Rs 70.1 million)

Blue Dart managing director Clyde Cooper got Rs 9.94 crore (Rs 99.4 million) with one-time
retention compensation of Rs 6.80 crore (Rs 68 million).

More details on Rediff

Wana buy new mobile phone 2

2005-07-05T10:30:00.000+05:30

If you're a confused cell phone shopper, CNET's buying guide tells you what you need to know.

New York Times lists 10 buying tips:

1. Pick a service provider
2. Carrier basics
3. Choose a plan
4. Points to remember with service plans
5. How to pick a phone
6. 10 key features to consider
7. Phones by personality
8. 5 steps to buying or upgrading your phone
9. Should I get a smart phone?
10. I like my phone, but what else can I do with it?
11. See our expanded carrier chart

Read the details here

Passion

2005-07-03T13:30:00.000+05:30

A lot of the recent discussion about Steve Jobs’ Stanford commencement address centered around his statement that “You’ve got to find what you love”. This is good career advice but it takes more than love or passion to succeed.

If you’re going to do something you’re passionate about, make sure you’re good at it too and it makes $$$.

As Nivi, articulates, You should do something

You’re Passionate about.
You’re Awesome at.
That makes Money.

It’s not good enough to be passionate. Steve Jobs and The Beatles followed their passion and did well. But a lot of other musicians and entrepreneurs also pursued their passion and got nowhere fast.

Google as a homepage

2005-07-03T13:08:00.000+05:30

Google has been home-page for many of the internet users like me. Now its turn for the mobile phones to house google as its homepage.

T-Mobile has announced it will use the Google homepage as the entry page for its mobile Internet service, in a bid to encourage more of its users to log on to the Web via their mobiles.

The deal is part of the mobile network operator’s new strategy to offer its subscribers full access to the Internet, as opposed to network branded portals that restrict access to selected sites.

Venture capital Feed

2005-07-03T12:04:00.000+05:30

Along with other aspects of running a startup, timely raising money can be one of the tough & essential part. Entrepreneur not only needs to prepare himself with presentations/business-plan, he/she needs list of investors which have had interests in the similar domain. Zeroing in correct set of investors could be difficult and time consuming. You need more than one contact as you never know which is going to click.

Lately, I have been bookmarking various Venture Capital firm's websites on del.icio.us, which now has listing of some of the active investment firms.

This can be a good source for entrepreneurs looking to raise revenues. Check it out here.

Its RSS feed is also available here

Asia leading wireless development

2005-06-29T17:27:00.000+05:30

A PDF report from Lehman Brothers reveals that while we're still debating 3G in U.S., companies in Asia are pondering 4G...

This report includes some good details on India and also describes in detail the various next generation 4G alternatives such as WiMAX, CDMA2000 EV-DO Release A, HSDPA/HSUPA, TD-CDMA and Flash-OFDM.

Google going bullish

2005-06-29T13:02:00.000+05:30

Ram Shriram, an Indian by origin was the first to invest in the Google , helping Google duo setting up out of their college dormitory and then to raising more capital and...

Since then, Google is touching the moon, Google shares touches $300 for the first time and are now up 260% since IPO.

Wondering how much would have VC firms and individual LPs have made money, check Burnham's post to find out how Kleiner and Sequoia Turned their $12.5M into $4.3BN

Fish Philosophy: Choose your Attitude

2005-06-28T09:57:00.001+05:30

I was reading FISH, gifted by my long time friend Upasna, and I really felt sharing the essence of this thin yet strong book with all of you.

WE ALWAYS HAVE A CHOICE
THE WAY WE DO THE WORK,
EVEN IF THERE IS NO CHOICE
FOR THE WORK ITSELF

A must read for all the professionals....

10 Ways to Improve Cellphones

2005-06-24T10:13:00.000+05:30

PC World’s Grace Aquino has come up with a list of 10 things she believes manufacturers should do to make handsets work better. They are:

10. Improve the Design
9. Label Phones With the Model Name
8. Enable Every Aspect of Bluetooth
7. Add a USB Port—and Supply a Cable
6. Simplify the User Interface
5. Enhance the Speaker and the Microphone
4. Make It Easy to Unlock GSM Phones
3. Allow Data Backups on Carrier Servers
2. Improve Network Coverage, Especially for Voice Calls
1. Improve Overall Performance

Michael says "Some of these are fairly obvious, but she makes good points, especially with numbers 9, 8, and 4."

Delete SMS remotely

2005-06-22T15:46:00.000+05:30

Ever been into embarrassing situation of sending an sms to a wrong person, containing not-so-formal stuff...

Samsung has a solution for you.

Cellular News reports that Samsung has been awarded a patent (US2005124360) on a method of sending an SMS to a handset then being able to later send a "delete" command to the same phone to erase the SMS from the handset memory.

The patent is apparently aimed at people who mass broadcast messages and accidentally include incorrect people in the mailing list.

How about we use the same technique as a Digital Right Management Tool. As soon as a mobile user has read the SMS ( MMS??) , send a 'delete' sms command, so that it cannot be forwarded ahead to another phones... ^_^

Visualise your Radio

2005-06-22T12:43:00.000+05:30

'Visual Radio' – The service allows listeners to tune in to FM radio and at the same time, view interactive information and graphics on their Nokia mobile handset. For example, one would be able to see the title and artist of a song playing on the radio, and participate in radio station promotions and various quiz programs interactively. Promoted by mobile major Nokia, a lot of FM broadcasters vying the increasing subscriber base in India – the concept is currently being evaluated by many with pilots in the offing.

“This would be a good way to merge synergies between a FM broadcaster and a telecom service provider. As both of them are looking at ways to increase profitability – technology driven concepts like this would make a lot of sense in developing markets like India,” Isokoski added.

Wondering, if we could have named it Interactive Radio analogous to Interactive TV.

Flickr Album

2005-06-21T13:06:00.000+05:30

Wanted to share a cool tool with you all, Flickr Album, which captures all of my pictures on Flickr and produce an album based on tag.

The best thing I liked is the realistic presentation of the album and feel of turning the real life album leaf..

Just created an album for Bangalore-Japanese meetup which we are having frequently, everytime with new zeal.

Here is the link for the album

Update: To see the pictures in the album, place mouse on the right bottom corner of the album. A fold will appear, drag it (while left mouse is pressed down) towards left, as if you are turning the page.

Who Will Google Buy Next?

2005-06-21T11:09:00.000+05:30

News of Google outage coming again from OM . Though this time I have not heard the same from anyone else, I am sure increasing complexity in internetworking real data & growing size of subsidiary menagerie at Google are playing role in it.

Google, the Internet behemoth, is snatching up small companies left and right. Gautham sends me a link to a Andrevan post, who discusses possibilities for Googlification for some of the yet-to-acquire companies based on his analysis on acquired ones. Read here

Some of the aquisitions they made so far are Deja, Picasa, Blogger, Outride, Applied Symentics, Kaltix, Blogger, Keyhole, Zipdash...

skyping

2005-06-17T18:49:00.000+05:30

We all liked and embraced Skype, Internet telephony that just works.

Video calls are coming to Skype, thanks to vSkype, a plug-in developed by Santa Cruz Networks. The company has just released a public beta, which for now works only on windows machines.

vSkype Beta allows users to securely conduct video calls in groups from 2 to 200 and share applications, spreadsheets, presentations, or photos with others on a call. In future releases users will be able to download and play Santa Cruz Network’s games with other Skype users and access our library of camera personalities, wallpaper, and drawing tools. Professional users will be provided with various call controls, white boarding, meeting moderation, bandwidth control, and recording and archiving tools through their network of partners.

More on GreaseMonkey/Firefox

2005-06-17T09:46:00.000+05:30

After I posted "Enhance your internet experience with firefox" yesterday I got all sort of offline message pointing me towards different web browsers. Sunil was using Opera & Abhishek is more fond of Avant.

One of the cool features I like in Firefox is GreaseMonkey which allows me to add in new features seamlessly to the websites you use more and more....

Today I found a new script which allows you to add 'Delete' button to your very gmail page, which adverdently Google team avoided as they were giving away 2GB for mailbox and felt it would be time wasting effort to put a 'delete' button along with other buttons.

Now I will not have find for the 'move to trash' link in the drop down menu, atleast for deleting junk mails which are on all time high.

Enhance your internet experience with firefox

2005-06-16T09:22:00.000+05:30

I shifted to Firefox lately from IE because: It supports tabs & It is claimed to have better security mechanism. Even being a heavy weight application consuming lot of memory resources,

I use Firefox advertently, probably because the team is working on cool utilities like Greasemonkey.

Now Feld posts an article on how to tweak and speed up the firefox performance.

If you are a Firefox user on a high speed line (don’t try this on dialup), try the following:

Go to the address bar in Firefox and type in "about:config"

Look for the following lines:

network.http.pipelining = false
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests = 4
network.http.proxy.pipelining = false

Change them to (by click/double-click the line):

network.http.pipelining = true
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests = 30
network.http.proxy.pipelining = true

This configures the browser to make 30 requests at once and not wait for a reply to the request before making another request

Then you need to create one new option:

Right click anywhere on the page and select New-> Integer.
Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay"
Set its value to "0".

This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives. You need to restart Firefox for this to be enabled. On sites that support pipelining (not all do) the results are dramatic.

It exploits the HTTP pipelining feature of HTTP/1.1, which allows multiple HTTP requests to be written out to a socket together without waiting for the corresponding responses, resulting in dramatic improvement in page loading times, especially over high latency connections.

I am still to find out what all popular websites supports HTTP pipelining, but I am sure enabling pipelining will not only result in better user-experience but also help reduce the traffic across the internet pipe.

Give it a try .....

Terrestial Radio in danger

2005-06-15T09:57:00.000+05:30

Terrestrial radio is under assault. The attacks are coming from all sides — satellite radio, iPods, subscription music services, broadband radio, and podcasting. Given all that, the $20 billion a year radio industry has to reinvent itself. Fast.

So what’s a radio executive to do? Industry insiders are excited about high-definition radio, which marries analog and digital signals and sends out a hybrid data stream. HD radios then decode the two types of signal and play them back as separate channels. ...more

This isnt looks impressive to me as the only benefit I could find out better use of bandwidth. Providing specialised stations may lure some of the music lovers, but ipods and others have a big catalogue too.

Unified rates for Indian Telecom

2005-06-15T09:20:00.000+05:30

India is heading towards a new paradigm, where there will be no distinction between the local and STD calls.

"There would be uniform rates and a ‘OneIndia' approach" says Dayanidhi Maran (Union minister for telecommunications and information technology for India)

Its indeed an applausable effort, resulting in affordable telephony, greater density and offcourse boost to economy due to reduced operational cost for small shops.

We look forward to have Unified Numbering Scheme as well, where in the telephone number remains the same irrespective of the service provider one opts for.

Poker Billionaires

2005-06-10T11:09:00.000+05:30

Last month I came across 2-3 RFPs incidently both from guys connected to UK and both wanted to developed online pocker stuff. I was just thinking why is that UK guys is suddenly falling in love with online pocker...and the news broke.

Party Gaming , an online poker/gambling company based in Gibraltar is all set to go public in London with a valuation estimated at around $10 billion. Interestingly two of the three key minds behind the setup are Indian. Anurag Dikshit (now Billionaire at 33) helped hack together the back-end for the site along with his college pal Vikrant Bhargava.

Company with 1100 employees (with 925 in India) with a call-center at hyderabad. Amazing !!

Media or technology

2005-06-08T09:41:00.000+05:30

Google is not a technology company..... but is a Media company. This rationale arises from the fact that 99% of their revenues come from advertisements, making them largest media company in the world(larger than Time Warner)

Google market capitalization is raised to $80.8 billion. Media or Technology, young Google is undoubtly the most valuable company.

Vending Machines

2005-06-02T14:10:00.000+05:30

From coke to mineral water to condoms... now its turn for electronic gadgets available on vending machines.

Hartsfield-Jackson International in Atlanta,world’s busiest airport, installed machines vending iPod minis and Shuffles as well as digital cameras, photographic supplies and batteries.

FlashForward: AC 2038: Enter gender, skin color, hair style, built... and press ENTER to get a customised kid.

Summer Camps

2005-06-02T09:36:00.000+05:30

With mercury rising the column, every summer marks gamut of camps ranging from dance classes to trekking to...whatever.

Incidentally, this summer I found two different styled Summer Camps facilitated by big names:

1. Google has come up with a Summer of Code program for students interested writing Open source softwares. A win-win situation for everyone.. check it out this flyer

2. Paul Graham's Summer Founder program for budding entrepreneurs. Its intake is closed as of now, but surely worth watching its activities.

Interesting !!

Government planning to tap bloggers

2005-05-18T14:14:00.000+05:30

With blogging having attained the status of most pervasive corporate PR tool, now its turn for Indian government to makeup its image using blogging.

If you are a serious blogger, the Indian government may just open its doors to you!

India is in the process of framing rules for granting accreditation to internet journalists and bloggers for the first time, taking a reality check on an evolving world of net writers who could shape opinion and who have already been granted access to official corridors in countries such as the US.

Complete story on EconomicTimes[you need to login using indiatimes ID]

Indian GSM operators for HSPDA

2005-05-17T18:52:00.000+05:30

At one hand where TRAI is still working out the regulations for 3G mobile based services, GSM operators in India are already eyeing for HSPDA, which allows five times faster access rate as compared to current 3G standards.

In the race to offer higher data speeds to mobile users, GSM-based operators are now looking at deploying the latest technology called the High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) that promises to offer speeds that are five times faster than current 3G technology. [viaThe Hindu Business Line]

The move is aimed at countering the challenge from Reliance Infocomm's EV-DO (evolution data optimised) technology based on the CDMA platform.

With 14mbps of speed, its going to be major step towards the PC-mobile convergence.

Broadband through gas

2005-05-17T18:31:00.000+05:30

Soon broadband over powerline will be the stale topic to discuss about as an innovative way to access internet.

A San Diego-start-up, Nethercomm Corp., is promising that it can deliver up to 10 gigabits per second broadband using natural gas pipelines.

The idea here is to encode the broadband signals using ultra wideband and beam them through the pipeline, and then at the gas meter, the signal is offloaded (using Nethercomm equipment off course) to on-the-premise wireline or wireless networks.

Do you feel like Wow!!

Nokia Challenges imagination

2005-05-17T17:32:00.000+05:30

Nokia has openned a lounge for dreamers..............yeah dreamers who can dream & imagine about the cell phones. Cell phones as a pervasive, omnipresent tool.

It challenges to break the fence, the way you want to see & feel the phones..... probably you need to think again about mobiles as a small black box as a kid and start thinking otherway round.

Here is the link Nokia

Truely personal mobile devices

2005-05-17T16:27:00.000+05:30

Mobile devices have been quoted as being 'personal' for many of the known reasons. It plays music for you, acts as camera, blogger tool, communication tool, it remains with you ....et. al.

But what it would be like if it can collect your personal behavioural statistical data as well...

Jennifer Bove's thesis project explores the changing role of the mobile phone as a personal device, and how it could be adapted to better fit an active context. [via we make money not art]

If mobile can capture & act on physiological data, we can soon have theme settings according to your state of motion and or your mobile can automatically dial-up your family doctor when you are struck with heart attack....

Making Wrong Code Look Wrong

2005-05-12T11:24:00.000+05:30

I have been reading posts by Joel on software for years and here comes a yet another tip for budding programmers.

He eloquently describes how "Making Wrong Code Look Wrong" by giving a analogy with a bakery supported by simple yet explanatory web-based programing example.

He says "This business of making wrong code look wrong depends on getting the right things close together in one place on the screen. When I’m looking at a string, in order to get the code right, I need to know, everywhere I see that string, whether it’s safe or unsafe. I don’t want that information to be in another file or on another page that I would have to scroll to. I have to be able to see it right there and that means a variable naming convention."

I am sure, this is not just useful for new programmers, but also an eye opener for some non-technical managers who tries to boss around. Tom has a wonderful post tackling non-technical boss genre.

Is that really Accelerating?

2005-05-12T10:24:00.000+05:30

For the users who were bit late installing Google Accelerator, google says no to them. They are already full of the capacity.

I saved around 2.3hrs for approx 18 hours of search using google accelerator. That makes just 0.127% of decrease in search time.

Om questions about the need of this product itself and relates it to the google hype & possible data spying as pointed out before.

Blowing up Internet business model

2005-05-11T15:08:00.000+05:30

Ever felt the need of a crosswebsite information while looking for a book or a particular topic of interest. How about if we can fetch & display related information from parallel portals while making some purchase decision.....

GreaseMonkey, a latest extension for firefox web browsers allows us to do so. It allows you to select, mix and present contents from various websites, to be displayed as and when required.

Its a fabulous toolfor end user for new web experience, providing enormous amount ofdata mining and intelligently meshing for new product ideas, but its going to be a challenge for the e-commerce websites to tackle the direct comparisions on thier websites itself.

I am wondering why mozilla developers named it 'Greasemonkey'...probably it makes the vertical search deep across the web as smooth as grease for monkey ( after all we all inherit from them ;-) )

This is how one can use greasemonkey..

You just need to have
1. Firefox 1.0.3
2. Greasemonkey Extension

Now you are all set to go.. you can write your own customised scripts or otherwise use some of the predefined scripts i have tried:

1. Greasemonkey can add persistent searches to Gmail with such transparency that you forget Google doesn’t provide this feature.

2. Greasemonkey can insert prices from competitive booksellers right into Amazon.

3. Greasemonkey can reduce the friction to using vertical search sites by automatically running vertical searches based on the context of your current web page.

How about if we can have ratings for different movies and price & availability for local theatres...or a cross blog script which displays a latest post on a hot topic like this..

ScanSoft to acquire rival Nuance

2005-05-10T10:06:00.000+05:30

ScanSoft Inc., a maker of speech recognition software, said Monday it has agreed to acquire rival Nuance Communications Inc. for $221 million. [via silliconvalley]

If I remember, in Q1 2003, ScanSoft buys out SpeechWorks, one of the successful speech technology company and not this a turn of Nuance making ScanSoft largest speech technology product and service provider company.

Microsoft challenge for Indian geeks

2005-05-09T10:43:00.000+05:30

In a yet another attempt to tap the indian potential, Microsoft has announced a Challenge for Indian IT geeks.

"Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt. Ltd. invites you to put your genius to test to create the next Killer Application using the forthcoming development tools and mobile platforms in Visual Studio 2005 (Whidbey) and coming up with the most ingenious Tips-and-Tricks for Windows Server 2003 deployment." Complete info

Earlier Microsoft has announced global challenge for next generation OS design

Gemini

2005-05-05T14:56:00.000+05:30

Gemini,
originally created by Ruchit.

Its wonderful a wonderful tool to become picasso..

www.mrpicassohead.com

Adjacent are my strokes.. I named it 'Gemini 'click on it to zoom.

Google mining web

2005-05-05T11:27:00.000+05:30

Google is out with their yet another tool known as Google Web Accelerator.

"Google Web Accelerator is an application that uses the power of Google's global computer network to make web pages load faster. Google Web Accelerator is easy to use; all you have to do is download and install it, and from then on many web pages will automatically load faster than before." says google.

After the installation all web access happends via google data server ( with some exception to secured connections) and probably caching in all your web activities(see privacy note).

I tried installing it on my machine with Mozilla but could not see the icons on the browser tool bar...its in beta says the google....Lets wait and watch the response from the the geeks if they scream again for subpoena

Cut the fence

2005-05-04T15:57:00.000+05:30

One of the biggest inability of mobile operators to cash in the data services is because they believe they know best what any user would want to do with mobile data, and therefore keep their gardens fenced up high & tight.

Mike Masnick takes example from the Recording industry and advocates more involvement of Operator during the content development process and facilitating the small content innovators.

Best results come out when a company have the resources at the disposal as that of a big companies and act fast like small companies..

There are some good example amongst the operator's itself like KDDI which keeps just around 9% of the content revenues as against European and Indian operators which ranges from 50-80% and passing meager. If not getting directly involved in the content generation, giving away the bigger pie portion to developers supports the ecosystem.

Most innovative IT companies

2005-05-03T15:56:00.000+05:30

Google is at position 2, Microsoft at 28, enough reasons to scare Bill gates.

"They're masters of technology and innovation. They're global thinkers driven by strategic vision. They're nimbler than Martha Stewart's PR team. They're The Wired 40."

See the latest rating by wired.com

Bill Gates on mobile

2005-05-03T09:23:00.000+05:30

Gates believes the cellphone is THE platform to develop (and so do I), the portable space you have with(or will have soon) media players, cameras, GPS, digital wallets, Streaming entertainment and more..

Complete Interview by Engadget

Success Mantra for a team: diversified views

2005-05-02T10:05:00.000+05:30

I do totally agree with Matt's view who says:

A management team that finds itself 100% in agreement, 100% of the time, is in trouble. A management team that can have disagreements and use that tension productively to drive decisions is much better off. Building such a team requires the CEO to seek out executives who view the world differently, who have the courage to speak their minds in the face of strong opposition, and who have the ability to see different points of view.

I have seen atleast one company which headed towards the downfall as the middle level manager(s) dont have courage to speak out their minds....the team broke apart.

Microsoft Challenge

2005-04-27T14:22:00.000+05:30

The start something thing for Microsoft is a contest for designing the next generation OS/ Windows PC. They are going to give someone $125,000.

The Challenge
Rethink the Windows-based PC experience today and the role it plays in people's lives. Envision how the digital lifestyle—from personal productivity at work or home, to entertainment, mobility, lifestyle and form—all play a part in development. Think big, be bold, and inspiring, but pay attention to sustainable technologies, and ecological and environmental innovation."

Blogs Will Change Your Business

2005-04-26T11:08:00.000+05:30

"Look past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up...or catch you later" -Bussiness Week

Blogging making it to International BusinessWeek cover story.

OutSourcing: Out on sea waves

2005-04-22T09:57:00.000+05:30

Geeks are enthralled by the story that a San Diego company called SeaCode is purchasing a cruise liner, is then going to pick up a shipload of 600 Indian coders, and park the boat in international waters three miles off the coast of Los Angeles. That way outsourcers can pay Indian prices but enjoy proximity and local time zones.

Source:Sea-code

SeaCode claims to have raised the capital to buy the boat which could cost as much as $300M and will hit their first port-of-call in months.

It sounds silly to me... lets wait & see how is that different being porting Indian code talents to foreign lands.

Read more here

And a fabulous team

2005-04-20T19:58:00.000+05:30

You need something inside and few things outside. Importantly you need a fabulous dedicated team to work with you.

Jeff Wuorio shares 6 tips to hire technology pro:

First, evaluate where in your business a tech pro will fit best.
Make sure your hire can build a bridge.
Have candidates show you documentation of their work.
Make certain whoever you hire has people skills.
Make sure your tech pro has broad expertise.
Map out your interviews strategically.

Read the details here.

The Startup Ecosystem

2005-04-20T19:45:00.000+05:30

Its not just you need to have it in you to make it big, you need to have a conducive ecosystem as well.

"The things that makes any area conducive to business creation (the Bay Area or Boston or Austin or wherever) are an entrepreneurial culture and a supportive ecosystem of institutions and professionals. While it is certainly possible to create great businesses without those things, it is far more challenging. Places like the Bay Area tend to have a disproportionate number of individuals who are willing to bet on risky ventures. And they have a disproportionate number of lawyers, bankers, investors, accountants who have an expertise in business creation. In combination, all these things are self reenforcing and create an even stronger startup culture, which in turn creates a stronger drive towards business creation, which in turn fuels an economy of startup-focused service providers, which in turn lubricates the funding process, which in turn promotes startup growth, which in turn creates an even stronger startup culture, and so on" - David on VentureBlog

Japanese meet@ Bangalore

2005-04-19T10:04:00.000+05:30

Coffee day, Brigade Rd.
Bangalore, India

My short stint at Tokyo back in 2003 gave me a glimpse of what Japanese culture is. And that led to my interest to learn more of Japanese language and japanese culture.

I felt elated when I found a japanese speaking group in Bangalore who shares the same enthusiasm. It was really fun to be amongst them and we had fun at coffee and over korean delicacy.

This group is soon to have a website and an e-group to form a common interaction platform. Will post as soon as its up.

We are meeting again at International Marathon on 15th May. Looking forward to have lots of fun filled learnings :)

Do you have it in you?

2005-04-15T14:46:00.000+05:30

"The best way to become an entrepreneur is to jump into the water and get your feet wet", said several successful businessmen at the Harvard Business School Entrepreneurship Conference.

I am just wondering if there is someone who knows about Hotmail story and does not get impressed by Sabeer. Though he was not a college drop out unlike other tech stalwarts, Bill .... above HBS conclusion still holds true

University checks attendance by phone

2005-04-14T11:54:00.000+05:30

A Japanese university has started using mobile phones in a new plan to thwart attendance cheats.

"Under the plan, students at Aomori University, upon entering a class, must use a mobile phone to e-mail a number their teacher will show them as the lesson begins. This number connects to a college administrators' site.

Administrators then randomly select five to 10 students who have claimed attendance and send them a reply.

Those receiving the reply must stand up in the classroom and give their name. The random selection aims to prevent students from helping absentee pals skirt the attendance requirement."

via [textually.org]<[News.in]

Bluetooth(ed)

2005-04-12T19:54:00.000+05:30

I just configured a bluetooth usb dongle with my old compaq laptop with nokia 6600 phone.

<-- some of the fantastic pics to share with, which i transferred using new personal bluetooth network.

I would have preferred flickr's mobile option for directly posting those mob-pics to blog, but that dosn't seems to be working perfectly with Nokia 6600.

Any ways, keep looking for more pictorial presentations on this blog...

Plaxo is safe & great

2005-04-06T15:04:00.000+05:30

I stopped using Plaxo for a while after I heard from some of my friends that it keep my personal information in the personal domain & probably that may result in lot of SPAM to me and to other on my contact address book.

But then I got interfaced to Stacy ( Plaxo's Privacy officer) via by friend Mark who is working with Plaxo. I have raised the same privacy & spam issue to her and Stacy reverted with following 6 point privacy practices they follow:

- Your Information is your own and you decide who will have access to it.

- You maintain ownership rights to Your Information, even if there is a business transition or policy change.

- You may add, delete, or modify Your Information at any time.

- Plaxo will not update or modify Your Information without your permission.

- Plaxo will not sell, exchange, or otherwise share Your Information with third parties, unless required by law or in accordance with your instructions.

- Plaxo does not send spam, maintain spam mailing lists, or support the activities of spammers.

Makes sense...isnt. I am back with plaxo now and I am also trying their wap version.

Users dont know what they want

2005-04-05T19:41:00.000+05:30

If you are into a company which makes products, and you feel that the best approach to build a product is to ask the end-user what do they want, probably you are WRONG.

Few of the great products which have been built around till date in software domain are created on & around "fabulous ideas" and not on the feedback from the end-users. Reason being, end-user is not an expert on it and does not understand what that technology can do for them( otherwise the end-user would have invented something and you would have been the end user)

Marc Andreesen’s invention of the modern Internet browser is one example.

Tim Berner-Lee’s invention of the WorldWideWeb without which there would have been nothing to browse is another example.

Offcourse user's feedback is necessary once the product is out of lab, but as truely said by Tom, users dont know what they want.

Tom, thanks for sharing this wonderful peice of information. I am literally too young to remember about VisiCalc, the first ever computer based spreadsheets.

R World: Ringing the cash register for Reliance

2005-04-05T10:24:00.000+05:30

Reliance Infocomm (a Reliance group company)has made their R-world services( CDMA based internet browsing facility) pay-by-use on this April 1st, but it has already crossed the figure of 1 crores rupees in just 2 days!!

Few of the reasons which I percieve for this huge quick money generation is their announcement strategy.

Reliance announced it on April 1st, which is a International fool's day and probably people did not took it seriously.
There was enough rumours for about a year in the market that R-world can be made pay-by-use but there was not enough advertisements stating the official start of pay-by-tarriff model of R-World.
Their announcement of the pay-per-use tarriff with ODI going on between Indian & Pakistan. India has big cricket fans.

Though Reliance infocomm has done good job providing various Value Added Services, there are many issues which still makes the enduser many a times miserable using Reliance phones. Hope we have better, faster & stable services with proper customer support (Their customer service agents really sucks).

How To Become A Hacker

2005-04-01T15:51:00.000+05:30

I got some good comments online as well offline for my previous post on Hacker. Some of them have confusions between debgging & hacking and few are asking whether I want to be a hacker.

Sure, I am not trying to be a Hacker ( dont know if this happens by chance while I meander through the SiliconVerse-a Digital Universe). I just love to share the information & probably this is one of the spirits I have in common with hackers...

Here is one more interesting article on "How to become a Hacker".

The word "Hacker"

2005-03-31T12:44:00.000+05:30

Steves Jobs and Wozniak

During my college days, my classmates started calling me hacker, when I cunningly fished few of them into my trap ( that was running on old Novell network) and did some silly tricks. They didnt knew that they are unknowingly demeaning the word Hacker.

Just wanted to share a wonderful essay by Paul revealing myths & mystries behind the word Hacker.

Human Area Networking Technology

2005-03-29T14:44:00.000+05:30

NTT DoCoMo have developed a technology they call RedTacton, "which it claims can send data over the skin's surface at speeds of up to 2 Mbps -- equivalent to a fast broadband data connection. Your body could soon be the backbone of a broadband personal data network linking your mobile phone or MP3 player to a cordless headset, your digital camera to a PC or printer, and all the gadgets you carry around..." [via wirelesswatchjapan]

Can you forsee yourself syncronising & dumping your thoughts directly to a blog like this !!!

Want to analyse psychology: Observe ringtones

2005-03-28T18:32:00.000+05:30

I know that someway or the other, the cell phone you are carrying conveys the individual's status in the society, which inturns depends on their spending capacity.

For example Nokia's series system. Nokia has considerably differentiated his mobile product line up. Larger the series number costlier is the device ( offcourse with richer feature set)

Nokia Series 90
Nokia Series 80
Nokia Series 60
Nokia Series 40
Nokia Series 30

But never knew that they can be used to reveals a lot about "Personality and flaws".

A survey by British company Tesco Mobile has revealed that, people who constantly change their tone to whatever is currently in the charts are unreliable characters.

Those who opt for classical music are regarded as pretentious, while ageing rockers can be easily identified by their polyphonic versions of classic tracks such as The Who's My Generation and Boston's More Than A Feeling.

If a phone boasts its owner's voice, or their partner or child, it means they are self-obsessed.

Men with rude or animal sounds as their ringtone are immature.

The survey also found 21 per cent of folk think having a standard phone ringtone is "uncool", indicates a lack of daring and fear of technology.

A quarter of phone users admit the first thing they do after buying a new phone is select a ringtone.

A post from ringtonia

Belated Happy Birthday Java!!

2005-03-28T10:07:00.000+05:30

Java turned 10 on 23rd this month.

Though there isnt any announcement I heard from Sun, to mark this anniversary, Java has long way to go. Here is its evolution history arranged chronologically.

Congratulations James Gostling