ceo-articles

2014-05-19T11:53:00.004-07:00

Data Options when Traveling Abroad

Check out these links.

http://www.fodors.com/news/travel-tech-best-data-options-when-traveling-abroad-5812.html : Generic advices

http://www.cellhire.com/ : Looks like a good option for Germany & Italy

http://www.cellularabroad.com/mifirental.php : Individual WI-FI Country Rentals from National Geography

2013-03-14T16:35:00.004-07:00

How to game Priceline to get the best deal on a hotel room

Click here to read this article by Dave Seminara

Other interesting sites as mentioned by Dave Seminara are as follows

Bidding for Travel
Better Bidding
Bidding Traveller
BackBid

Looking for guidance while buying things? Here are some smart sites/apps that can help you!

2013-03-02T11:25:00.002-08:00

I came across the following sites and an app that help you with recommendations on what are the things in demand and what to buy!!!

1) Decide.com

2) findthebest.com

3) sortable.com

You also have the following iPhone App that can help you with the recommendations when you are in a shop!

Arro

2013-01-06T00:30:00.003-08:00

How to upload the videos from DVD ( VOB files ) to YouTube?

It is very simple. One can simply upload the VOB files directly into YouTube without any conversions. Yoututbe accepts VOB files directly. Cool!

2013-01-06T00:26:00.001-08:00

How to edit Videos in youtube using youtube video editor?

After you upload your video to Youtube, you might want to trim it. Here is a nice video that explains what needs to be done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmPF1VQzQoM

2012-12-26T11:31:00.001-08:00

How to transfer photos from computer to the Iphone camera roll?

The easiest way is to e-mail those pictures to your e-mail account that you can access thru your iPhone mail client. Even when you have multiple pictures, it is very easy to multi select and attach all those pictures in one go to your e-mail.

Then, go to your iPhone and access your mail. Now, click the reply ICON and it comes up with many options. One of the option to save all the images in the attachment to your iPhone. When you select this option, it saves all the images into one go into your camera roll.

The advantage of putting your images in camera roll are plenty. I found it very easy/useful to access them thru Photo Streams from your TV, using Apple TV box. When you access your photos this way, you can see your pictures on your high definition TV with many special effects while paying your favorite music in the back ground thru your home theater. Great way to enjoy photos with family and friends!

Keep the Cell Phone bills to minimum during overseas travel ...

2010-12-12T10:22:00.000-08:00

After travelling all over the world and trying many different ways to manage my telephone bills and the data plans, here are my findings to manage the costs.

The best scenario is to have a cell phone working on WI-FI all the time. There are many IP based software APPs ( like Skype, Viber, Vonage etc )on the smart phones ( like iPhone or Android based phones and some other smart phones ) that work great and allow you to make and receive calls from anywhere in the world for all most free. Unfortunately, it is not easy to get connected to WI-FI during the over seas travel. So, while we can use our USA based smart phones while they are connected to WI-FI, we need to find other options to make and receive calls from anywhere during our travel. There are a combination of things that I do contain the costs. Some times, there could be more effective ways to handle these issues depending on which country you are located/travelling. Here are a few tips. These are only my views and my experiences. There could be better options that I am not aware of but like to learn. Please comment and share your experiences.

1) MagicJack and a Telephone: I carry this kit all the time with me during my overseas travel. This works best in a scenario where I am near a computer that is connected to Internet. I usually use this when I am in a Hotel Room and my Laptop is connected to Internet. Magic Jack is a small sized connected that gets connected to the USB drive on your laptop. You can plug-in the telephone on the other end. Voila. You now have a telephone working and all your calls to USA are free from anywhere in the World. Click here to learn more about MagicJack.

2) Use local Phone in the foreign country + Call forwarding thru LocalPhone.com: This arrangement works great to receive calls from USA or other countries into the local phone. Here is how it works.

Visit localphone.com, register and then buy a local phone number in your country. In USA, we pay around .99 USD/month to keep this number. The advantage with this number is that you can forward calls from this number to any international numbers. When I travel overseas, I take a local phone for rent in the air port and then forward my USA cell phone to the USA local number from Localphone.com and then forward the Localphone.com number to the rental cell phone. Make sure that the rental cell phone does not charge you for the incoming calls. Many rental cell phones in many countries do not charge for the in coming calls. So, when some one in USA calls to your USA cell number, that call can be received in the rental phone of any country. What you are paying here is to the Localphone.com for international forwarding. Their rates are quite reasonable for such an international forwarding compared to the roaming charges that we pay to the USA cell phone company. For example, I paid 14 cents / minute when I receive calls from USA to my Japan's cell phone to Localphone.com.

This is lot better compared to the roaming charges that I pay to my USA carrier.

Save a ton using Magicjack (VOIP device) during overseas travel

2010-03-20T22:54:00.000-07:00

This devise saved me atleast 1000 USD in my recent Europe trip.

It is a very useful device to carry, when you are travelling outside USA. It is very small. Almost like a bigger USB drive. Its interface is excellent. Connect it to your Laptop USB drive during your business travel. Other side of the device has regular telephone jack interface. While I am in hotel, I dis-connect my hotel telephone from the wall and connect to this Magic jack device. Its is this user interface that makes it so easy to use. Once it is connected, I use the telephone to call any USA number as I call from USA. So, this needs that our laptop is connected to internet. In business travel, our laptops are mostly connected to internet anyway. This device is very convenient to use from hotel rooms or home etc. as it connects to laptop. One of the drawback is that we can not use it while we are on road unless your PC is on and connected to internet. Similarly, receiving the calls is also not very convenient unless we are near the computer. But, it is the best way to call to USA during overseas travel, from hotel rooms from any where in the world. Here is the best part. It costs around < 40 USD / Yr.

6 Best Twitter applications to manage your Twitter followers

2009-10-25T16:05:00.000-07:00

There are many applications that help you manage your Twitter followers. Some of them help in mass un following and following. I personally found that these tools are not very effective as you like to be aware whom you are following and not following. ex. if you un follow in bulk, you miss many celebrities and important people ( who may not follow you, but you still like to follow them to get their tweets). After struggling with many applications, I found the following few to be quite useful.

1) Twellow : I found Twellow to be the No 1 application to manage your Twitter followers. I rate it high because, you can ask it to list all the people whom you are following but those that are not following you. While many applications provide this list, Twellow is unique in providing the people's profile as a part of the list. This is very important information for you to decide whom to unfollow selectively.

2) TwitterCounter : This application will show you how many new users one is adding per day. You can add TwitterCounter to your site / blog / social network.

3) Qwitter : It is also good to keep an eye on who is not following you anymore. Qwitter e-mails you when someone stops following you on Twitter with a message.

4) Twitterfriends : Find out the hidden network of Twitter contacts that are really relevant for you. I liked the quick stats that this app provides. You can also see who of your Twitter friends are online this very moment.

5) Mr. Tweet: I found this application to be quite useful in finding new and relevant people to follow. It will analyze your Twitter network, help you discover interesting people, and also recommends you to others.

6) WeFollow : One can find new and relevant followers with keyword search, of interest. It is good to list your profile here and use this site to find new people as well as get found by others.

Update on 01/20/2012

7) Manageflitter : I found that this site is easy to use to manage the followers. If you like to find who is not following you from the ones that you are following, this site is quite helpful.

McKinsey conversations with global leaders: John Chambers of Cisco

2009-07-13T07:14:00.000-07:00

Listen to the McKinsey conversations with global leaders: John Chambers of Cisco. John Chambers is always an excellent leader to hear to. A few take aways:

-CISCO always looks at every downturn as an opportunity. John claims that, during everydownturn, CISCO always gained market share and emerged stronger than they went into it, as they don’t look short term and are able to anticipate and invest into market transitions. CISCO is able to do this as they are cash rich. I am sure CISCO can afford to do that with their 34B cash.

-Move fast but not with out process a process behind it that can scale, have flexibility, and be able to be replicated. Moving fast without a process would be equally as bad as not moving fast at all.

- CISCO think we are entering the second phase of the productivity growth and it's all going to be around collaboration and network-enabled technologies called Web 2.0 that enable collaboration. CISCO thinks that they can use this downturn to catch up, move aggressively while competition is cutting costs and lead this wave.

This is a big bet for CISCO but looking at their past, hopefully they pull this off. We want them to.

- John's answers to a question on " What does this mean for your customers?" is quite illustrative and impressive.

Tweetie .. Excellent Iphone Twitter client

2009-05-16T07:30:00.000-07:00

Tweetie is the best iPhone Twitter client that I came across. 3 things that I like about Tweettie

- You can manage multiple Twitter accounts easily
- Check the Twitter trends ( best way to check the latest news)
- Retweet very easily

Watch new Videos on You Tube

2008-03-28T21:35:00.001-07:00

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

Stream live video fast to the world. Right from your phone

2008-03-09T09:38:00.000-07:00

Here is a cool tool QIK that allows anyone to stream live video right out of your mobile. Experience the possibilities .. amazing ..

Currently it supports streaming from Nokia phones only .. I wish to see iPhone support ..

CLick here

The Coming Death Of Indian Outsourcing ; Need to go up the value chain

2008-03-01T19:33:00.000-08:00

Here is a good article from FORBES on the "danger of death" for Indian outsourcing.

CLick Here for the article from FORBES

I totally agree with the author's views. It is time for the top management of Indian SOftware Houses to think beyond the low end services game and move up the value chain by start producing innovative products. This fact is very evident if one looks at the balance sheets of these large Indian comapnies like INFOSYS, TCS, WIPRO, SATYAM etc. The revenues from products is 0 to 2%.

Innovation is one part of the story. Some of these companies did come up with some software products in the past but never were successful in creating the global brands. It is not easy for the management and sales force to adopt to this new business model. It is not a rocket science but needs focus, commitment and will to take risk. There are handful of Indians who has this expertise. These sales experts cannot do much when they do no thave mamageemnt support. Today, they all go afetr easy money with short sales cyles.

The sales cycle for a body shop could be anywhere from 1 day to 1 month, where as for an outsurcing project it could be anywhere from 1 month to 6 months depending on the size of the deal.

The product sales cycle could easily be anywhere from 1 yr to 5 yrs, depending on the customer profile. One has to invest in time and money in marketing, building the prodct brand, acceptance of the product by the customers, testimonials from customers etc before one takes off.

Americal companies and the teams are masters in executing this business model, over the time. Indian companies need to learn this game. One way to do this is to induct and integrate the American expertise. This is where the Indian companies are still struggling. It is easier said than done to do this due to many factors. The long sales cycles of the products is something a company with outsoucing business model ( short sales cycle) can not digest easily. The associated cultural changes pose problems too. It took 25 yrs for Korean gaints like Samsung to understand, overcome the cultural barriers, integrate and finally win the US markets. Do the Indian companies have such persitance? I think they have no option.

,

Free math courses online

2008-02-26T20:44:00.000-08:00

Here is an excellent resource for people looking for Educational Portal. In perticular, check out all those free math courses online from top schools ..

2008-02-16T23:44:00.001-08:00

Earlier, I recommneded thi sbook and provided the audio book link. I got my audio CD and felt that one should own the actual hard copy of the book also. Very good book that explains the definition of good profits and the importance of good profits for long term sustainability and growth of the company. Here is the link.

2008-02-16T23:24:00.000-08:00

I was reading TIm Ferriss blog and decided to buy the following 2 items.

1) Ultralight ION Jacket for my travel. The Marmot Men's Ion Windshirt fits in your pocket and weighs only 3 ounces, making it ideal for ultralight backpacking.

2) Kiva Key Chain Convertible Pack, Blue : The "go anywhere, fit anywhere" key chain pouch that becomes a pack.

2008-02-14T11:38:00.000-08:00

Here is a powerful book if you want to know the power of American Capitalist Economy on the whole world ..

2008-01-23T19:02:00.000-08:00

The 4-Hour Workweek

Here is an another very interesting book for those who wants to be extremely productive .. many tips on American productivity. The author ( Timothy Ferriss) comes strongly from his viewpoint on what a beautiful life is. Some of us may not agree that. However, his tips on how to be productive are quite informative, revealing and sometimes controversial. He also gives pointers to excellent tools and resources for small businesses, which I found very useful. It is amazing how he won kick boxing championship with very little practice. As I mentioned thought we may not agree to some of his views, on the whole it is an excellent book one should not miss reading.

2008-01-10T23:33:00.000-08:00

Here is a very good video from Google tech Talks on

“Competing on the basis of speed” .

A must see for all the software developers.

2008-01-10T09:59:00.001-08:00

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

Jott : Fantastic application that interfaces voice to many applications.

2008-01-07T08:30:00.001-08:00

jott : Cool productivity application : Amust have for everyone

1) It is free
2) It converts your voice into e-mails, data beses and even blogs. Amazing.
3) It has links to many popular 3rd party applications/sites

Ex. You are driving a car and you fixed an appointment with one fo your friends/doctor. You nee dto enter this in Gooole Calender. All that you need to do is call to the tel number provided by Jott and leave a voice mail with time, date and with whom. Boom. Your Google calendar is updated and a mail is sent to your in box.

Another scenario. You stopped car and filled gas. You call Jott and tell your expense information and it is automatically updated online at another free app xpenser. I found this extremely useful to track my expenses. I can go online at my convenience and analyse my expense reports.

I believe that this is going to be one of the most sought after Voice Recognition appication. I am sure that you would see its aintegration to many applications in 2008. Bravo to the team that developed these smart applications.

2007-12-30T08:25:00.000-08:00

The secret of raising smart kids : good article from Scientific American

2007-12-30T00:26:00.000-08:00

Explains the difference between good profits and bad profits linking them to customer satisfaction : very good book to read ..

2007-12-29T22:17:00.000-08:00

An excellent book on innovation ..