Cloud computing , where we are heading

It has been hectic week , we have so much buzz around the cloud or is it that I have been extra time on learning the cloud I don't know. I see every where something that cloud can do better, Google has just made available CR-48 which I am pretty exited about , and I would like One myself this is so much better than your usual windows laptop , for the fact that all that it has is browser to take to service you use , SaS( software as service ) is taken to next level , and in the age of the social networking this is pretty much what you expect the flow to go .

I have been trying out the Chrome plugins like rock melt which is offering me the neater way to track my social circle and also cortex which is neater way to share both these ectension solving the consuming and producing the content for the social circle , now chrome laptop gives the launch pad for these kind of service
these are innovation platform but then it brings me to all important fact how they fare against the open software .

Fact that these components including the facebook , has been built around the open source software but they themselves are closed in nature , the guys handling these services control what you can do and can't do no better than what MS guys were offering

though it is scary proposition to think that all your data is residing in the cloud but sooner or later that is the way it is going to be , fact is that are you on that wagon or not .

Nokia N8

I had chance to play around with N8 using released software version over weekend, I must say the handset has matured nicely from June when I started to use . I had taken above picture in dim light condition and result is not bad either . Highlights for the buyer
1) Camera and video recording with HD , so if you are using phone as primary camera to capture the day today life then this is device for you

2) USB OTG is something I like , as I have habit of sharing the songs and copying from my friends , this helps be get job done without having to go to my laptop . you can plug in the memory stick and directly copy from pendrive to phone

3) If you are fan of listening the music on your speakers or HD TV , then this device gets the job done , of course wifi option for this using DLNA would have done good

4) Absence of Qwerty keyboard in portrait mode is some shortcoming , but loyal Nokia fan this is non issue

5)With power under the hood less compared to 1 GB android devices , it gets the job done good and multitasking is way ahead than anything in market

6) coming to UX , it is not there yet but certainly it has been improved lot with Ui responding sensible to the touch and menus placed in right place to be handled by the touch

if you want to buy N8 buy it for what it is and not for what is not . It is not Apple but it has everything with unlimited music , turn by turn navigation push email , Dolby , HD support that is more than enough bargain for the 25K indian Rs you spend .

Cross over Andriod

Andriod has been steadily gaining ground over the past year , 2009 when whole world was looking for something new to offer this came as life saver . There had been huge opening in the market where elitist were served by Apple's and features were done by Nokia and other Senzhen eco system . The whole middle tier guys who wanted all the features and much more in the lower price point were made to content with sloppy Nokia S60 based and SE UIQ based devices . No ecosystem and there is no opportunity to create value to developers or for users . Google studied and spent some right change from the kitty to buy android and create ecosystem around it .
They showed that devices can offer much more at lower price point and developer ecosytem can be developed even at this price range . Suddenly you can see the OS took off like person on steroid. Soon you have every tom dick and harry announcing the Andriod based phones , and hard balls like China guys took it branched and made there own flavour of it . Going by current trend Anrdoid is expected break dominance of Symbian OS and create space of it self .



but it is not surprising to see how this OS can be disruptive . Manufactures are taking to various devices , Toshiba just now announced Android powered laptop
This is serious challenge what Microsoft has faced since Linux made futile attempt to penetrate the Laptop market . The times have changed eco system is not as divided as when Linux tried to market bid . Google guys have learnt to keep the flock together and if they continue to roll out the version which they have been doing from early 2009 no doubt that they find on right side of many OEM's .

To offer serious threat to Apple OS this needs to make it to the living room to offer the digital lifestyle and to begin with TV's would be Nice place to your OS .

with TV's hooking themselves up to network to consume the Media from network then we have last frontiner of the Home entrainment broken and we can then expect that Andriod can mount serious challenge .

It will not be surpsring to see only two ecosystem flourish but is it good for consumer ??

How to stand up for autowalas

The System
Note the vehicle number (KA-XX-YY-ZZZZ) and email the details to transcom@kar. nic.in. Based on the prefix XX (for example KA-01), complaint will be sent to one of the ten RTO offices in Bangalore and adjacent taluk areas.
Alternatively, one can also call these offices at the number given below based on the vehicle number prefix and directly lodge a complaint.

Vehicle Prefix (KA-XX) Bangalore location Phone number

KA-01 Koramangala 080-25533525
KA-02 Rajajinagar 080-23324104
KA-03 Indiranagar 080-25254310
KA-04 Yeshwantpur 080-23376039
KA-05 Jayanagar 080-26630989
KA-41 Gyanabharthi 080-28602833
KA-50 Yelahanka 080-28561366
KA-51 Electronic City 080-25735522
KA-52 NeelaMangala 08234-285598
KA-53 KR Puram 080-25617951
Once the complaint is received at the corresponding office, a notice is issued to the address of the vehicle’s registered owner, requiring him/her to turn up at the RTO office within 7 working days. Every RTO has about 10 IMV’s (Inspector of Motor Vehicles) who seize the vehicles which don’t report to the RTO.

The penalty levied from the auto-waalas is rs.100 under section 200.

The various offences among others for which one can lodge a complaint

Refusal to come to destination (Any destination! !!)
Demanding excess fare
Using rough language
Cheat the public, for e.g. taking longer routes.
Faulty Meter
There is also a helpline number - 080-22353785 available Monday – Saturday from 10:00 am - 5:30 pm on which one can call to lodge complaints.

The numbers speak for itself
I was shocked when I found that the Koramangala RTO office received only 5 complaints a month. With over 1,00,000 autos plying on Bangalore roads, shouldn’t it be like 5 complaints a minute?

What’s wrong with the system?

Lack of Awareness among the Bangalore citizens
The system is inefficient in data gathering- emails or phone calls cannot be stored and processed properly, leading to ineffective use of these complaint data.
Converting these complaints into notices issued to vehicle owners is still a manual process
Limited government officials to handle
So, will our impatience always have to take a backseat? Can something be done to improve/compliment the system to make it more effective? Will we get a better platform to raise our voices democratically?

It is time to make Kill

How may times it happen that the situation you are in is hopeless and that you are falling to what seem to the end less pit . It is quite common as indivdual we go through these expereinces but it is also quite common to see compnaines go through the same .
In my opinion Nokia was ( Is ?) going through such thing and what I was expecting was that Apple new version of Phone IPhone 4.0


Now after reading what is big leap and listening from marketing guru it is much evident that they have not maid giant leap which I was expecting giving chance to Nokia to straighten the things out

1) Improve the UX , and make available on the series of handset not just one handset
2) Make aware all the great features we have
3) Ask developers to work on QT offering
4) clearly make Nokia as preferred brand for youth


remember apple are very good in all the above , Android is only running for it is from Google stable other wise they have same draw back of maintainability that other OS suffered

Revolutionary to evolutionary

Many individual or organization who are leaders of today fail tomorrow , if you look at pattern of failure one thing comes out as more important factor than others that is pace with which individual or organization adapt to changes in the environment .

Like wise friends who were brilliant to in school fail to gain foothold in college , as there needs to change in the way you study to make good in college . Guys in college top list fails to mail cut in the life after that as it is whole new ball game

so though every one every where adapt to change in this fast pace world evolutionary change isn't enough it is of paramount importance that we adapt the revolutionary change . take for example Mobile industry new entrant with revolutionary new set of game rules changing the way today's market leader adapt to change , with leaders having too much at stake fail to adapt with Revolutionary changes and instead go for evolutionary changes which might not be apt way to answer the competition

so go ahead without fearing of loosing the battle bring that Revolutionary change and win

New Business Opp

With ever increasing integration of the Ad platform into mobiles opens up whole new market for the new entrepreneurs to bring in disruptive changes to the traditional add media .
Handset becomes very personalized media to reach the consumer in never before way, a personal and emotional bonding could be developed . Imagine that I am near the movie theater and in dilemma on which movie to see , then all of sudden a add pops up on my home screen with trailer of the movie and then I make up to see that one .

now all that is needed for adv is to catch the right person @ right time it could be based on the location interest or any other method . Similarly in book shop new book promo could be pushed to the phone to enable them to listen to author directly before making the decision to buy .

If it take further , I set the adv as by RBT , and every time a call comes in to me adv promo is made to listen as RBT and in turn ADV credit me with some talk time

as I always I think this will be first adopted by the Pron industry before mainstream guys will notice . I see lot of potential in that and again I think is it right time to start new venture

what it takes to be a Entrepreneurs

It is quite often that I have these fantastic ideas that are enough to start business of my own and put on my entrepreneur hat but quite often I backed down it is more often than not that I fail to qualify in below questions

1) Am I willing to risk my steady income and embrace the unknown
2) Am I ready to see my dream fall apart
3) Do I succeed in relationship , when I embrace work 24/7
4) Do I realize that I can hire smarter people than what I am and can I get out of the way
5) Am I willing to share the success with others
6) There are other many smart people why they haven't tried it out ? and why they work for others ?

so until I pass in them I won't have courage to take it further no matter how tempting it will be

Carbon offsetting

With the volcanic ash disrupting the airspace over the Europe (http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/04/icelands_disruptive_volcano.html)
airline industry are grappling with losses in tune with 200 million USD a day , amounting to loss more than 1 Billion dollar , re-enforced only by dropping of airline stock in wall street yesterday .

people are going extraordinary length to reach there home , some are stranded in Asia for long time to come , this is just again revealed how devastating the nature can be . with all this closure of traffic in air resulted in welcome relif to carbon offsetting , a airline on avg emits more carbon than avg family car in year with this many flights been banned this is welcome sign .

wish IPL people learn some carbon offsetting

What is Rational and Irrational

what is Rational and Irrational,it is all in point of view , My wife scolding me that I behave Irrational when I spend insane amount of time on My Mobile device , for me it is perfectly rational ,when I am trying out something new to build up my Knowledge .

The Same rational and irrational behavior guide our every day decision making .Like when Britain Introduce the Needles for Junkie whole world said it is irrational behavior , but to me it looks like rational behavior , thinking how much NHS would have paid to treat the Junkies to Aids which will eventually occur by sharing Needles .

Same is case when New Phone like IPhone came into the market with so much delay everyone taught they are irrational in coming with limited set of feature and even no multitasking , but they were rational as they studied how clunky the uX was in existing market , it makes sense to study the competitor , carefully select the points on which you would do the better than existing player and then play the game

so I think we all need to Irrational to be leaders , that takes some courage to take that first step

21 REASON NOT DO PLANNING

The concept of planning has a very intuitive appeal, irrespective of the type and size of endeavor. Who wouldn’t want to undertake an activity without a little bit of upfront planning? Will you take your car and just head out for the next family weekend in the neighboring town – without first checking if your car is roadworthy for the long drive, has enough gas, or needs a visit to the garage before the long drive? Will you buy a house without first checking your cash flows and other commitments for the next couple of years? Will you get your kids admitted to the nearest school you come across, or you will do little bit of investigation and plan is based on your specific needs and child’s comfort?

Still then, it comes as a great surprise when many among us disregard the benefits of planning things upfront. While they might still succeed in a trivial pursuit, for it might present very predictable outcome, require relatively risk-free approach, is generally easy to recover from a bad position, have virtually all resources at one’s disposal, etc. While such trivial ‘projects’ might not demand a rigorous planning, we should also note that often such planning is a very intuitive process, one that happens very effortlessly and unconsciously in our minds. Such planning, or several of its elements, have been executed so many times that one doesn’t have to think of anything else – it just happens. To an untrained eye, it might appear like a careless approach where nothing is being planned, and yet the actors seem to be in supreme control – it is nothing short of magic! However, let the vision not get the better of logic.

However, for any non-trivial problem, or a trivial problem with a few key changes, or some last-minute unpleasant surprises, the life is not that easy. They transform into wild beasts that don’t obey their masters anymore, they behave randomly (or at least unpredictably), and unless you address them proactively, they are only more likely to make things increasingly difficult for you. What follows then is the endless loop of firefighting . So, why is it that some people refuse to plan their projects, choosing instead to clean up their mess over long evenings and frustrating weekends over the next several months? Here are some of the reasons that I have come across:

1. Our project is too large to plan
2. Our project is too small to plan
3. Planning is waste of time and effort – I’d rather be coding right now!
4. Planning commits me to something that I must stick to at all times, even when the world around me has changed.
5. Publishing the plan will expose buffers in the plan to project team members
6. The project is evolving and the situation is changing on a daily basis
7. We are too deep fire-fighting the project – have no time to plan at this point
8. Why plan things that are too simple, and as for things that are too complex – well, you anyway can’t manage them, so why plan?
9. We believe in adaptive processes rather than a predictive planning
10. We do burn-down chart which is better for projecting the delivery date
11. This is just a simple porting work
12. Next 2-3 months we will be doing real research. There is no way I can manage that effort to a plan!
13. We can’t estimate number of bugs we will get in the testing phase, and hence can’t plan for those phases
14. All real work happens in nights and over weekends. Plans have always failed us.
15. Doing estimation won’t speed up the project – it will take the same time even without an estimation
16. We do Agile
17. We do Scrum
18. Plans are anyway changing all the time
19. I have the project plan – here it is in the gantt chart
20. Our project is diferent – planning will stifle the innovation and creativity
21. Any version 1.0 product will be like that only!

You might have seen variations of these, or brand-new excuses. Feel free to share them here. We need to deglamorize these lame excuses for they serve no one’s interests. At best, they handcuff us into existing methodology, and at worst, they ensure project immortality (discussed above). Both are fatal for your project’s success.

What’s your excuse not to plan your project ?

Nokia Car optimized solution

There were several announcements from Geneva motor show about Nokia’s collaboration with automotive industry regarding terminal mode. and there will be Nokia phones supporting this feature from next year with at least one company selling compatible head-unit at the same time. There are many nice things we can do once mobile phone is connected to car, and this is activity will establish basic connectivity for future extensions.

It was long time since Nokia got any positive feedback from engadget, but this time, engadget seems to be positive.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/03/nokia-and-alpine-integrating-handsets-into-cars-bringing-ovi-ma/

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/04/nokias-terminal-mode-spotted-in-the-wilds-of-the-geneva-motor-s/

http://pressbulletinboard.nokia.com/2010/03/04/nokia-partners-with-automotive-industry-to-introduce-terminal-mode-a-new-industry-standard-for-connecting-smartphones-to-in-car-infotainment-systems/

so our team’s work will be used in couple of millions cars easily , one more thing to brag about or get stoned about depending on how we deliver the solution J

Budget and implications on my life

Every year India puts forward the budget before the eagerly waiting capitalist and charted accountant , who are watching with hawk eye, as to how finance mister will close the loophole which they were expoliting for the past year, and what new loophole in system will emgere so that they can fully utilize .

Some of the big corporate houses have mastered th art and used this time and again to fullest possible manner , however this year Budget also included many salaried personnel for change with tax relif for many software engineers ( 8 to 10 lakh ) it has ensured that some vote from educated mass can be banked on . Another +ve is that India and Indians how now realized how world depends on our consumption habits, it is paried more for it's orgnaic growth compared to china which seems to me of more induced .

the budget however has bought some tough days for us , with my petrol car which I had already using on avg 200 IKM for month has become pricer to run with increase in petrol and cooking gas is one such thing that is bound to happen ,

with wife yet learn the tactis of using less dal to make good Rice and dal curry it is exepcted that our budget will increase slightly . this month I am already down by 20 K with series of expensive take outs .

anyway life has to continue hope my boss grants me nice increase , it has been two year my salary has caped .

Trirupati visit

It has been long wait for me to visit the Lord , but finally it all came together on 18th and it was trip worth wait .

First we decided to take the package tour as it was less of hazalle , so after some searching we zeroed in on ITDC package from Bangalore to Tirupati , it costed 1600 per ahead and one day return what more can you ask for .

Trip started from our boarding on the bus on the race course road @ 8:30 P.M in the night and then we arrived @ Tirupati on around 3:00 in the morning , though road is underconstruction for some part but they are preety good .

The as part of tour package we were given the deluxe room for freshing up , we took bath and coffee and room was available for 2 hours which was sufficent for us . then pcakage guys took us to Lor padmavathi temple around 6:00 A.M and back to Hotel Grand where Breakfast was given ofcourse not part of the Package .

The they had arranged link bus , as private travel buses are not allowed to Tirumala , all boarded and they took us to main temple @ around 8:30 A.M and we were given Rs 300 ticket for shigrah Dharshna , which took us about 3 hours to reach the inner temple . The sight of Lord was divine and overwhelming , with people chatting his names on last note of there vocals it all made worth the visit .

after seeking blessing and offering od our share , we hurried back to bus as per the guide instruction and came back to Tirupati for lunch and then departed for Bangalore . it was 7:30 in the night when we landed on KrPuram Bridge .

MeeGo

MeeGo www.Meego.com

Moblin and maemo are merging! taking the best pieces from these two open source projects and are creating the MeeGo software platform. with focus on making platform flexible, technically challenging and ultimately, something that can change the world.

however details are not yet available, both of them used the different version of the Linux , now it is not clear how it will be merged . Alos about Nokia had it's own Orbit Ux, Moblin had one more how it will be rolled out for the software developers is something to look for .

Already developers are confused of two platforms from Nokia stable , S60 orbit , and memo. now this hope some sort of stream lining happens in the long run .

But the prospect of Nokia and Intel tie up comes as strong relation ship especially if Atom is put to use in better manner

Why sleep eludes

what could be more frustrating than the fact that you are missing good night sleep , and your partner is deep in sleep. Some time I feels jealous of her , how easily she is able to get the sleep, every time I decide to sleep, my brains enters into this over drive and too many things start to roll out at once .

taught clog the same way as taxi drivers does on the Monday morning on ITPL road , you become restless , you shift positions to suit you body nothing works , stills taught flowing , funny thing is that they are never in order , just random taught some time they are so bizzare that they absolutely no use in my immediate or in distant future .

when this happens your body becomes restless and you get the cold and harsh look from your partner which is que for you to get out of the bed and spend the time in front of the TV or in front of my laptop .

I eny those guys who never miss sleep .