so-did-i

Links for 2009-10-27 [del.icio.us]

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 PDT

REST in WCF Blog Series Index | Demystifying The Code

Links for 2009-10-20 [del.icio.us]

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:00 PDT

Alternative Schools in India; Some advantages and Disadvantages « Punarjanman

Links for 2009-09-07 [del.icio.us]

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 00:00:00 PDT

JobSpice

Links for 2009-08-28 [del.icio.us]

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:00:00 PDT

BugTracker.NET Home - Free Bug Tracking
ZParse - Advanced Javascript Templating
A nice javascript templating engine.

Bus to Work

noreply@blogger.com (Ramjee) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:04:00 PDT

Finally!! After two weeks of endless postponements, I commuted by bus to work. The story goes like this.

I am big believer of walking to work. For the first two years of my professional life, I walked to work. However, somewhere during that period I had to accept the reality and get myself a bike. Initially for about an year, it was sparsely put to use on working days, I used it mostly on weekends to meet friends and my sister. Now, that was a good three years back.

Over the last three years, I got sucked into picking up my mobike for every and anything. That was when I met Srini, I knew him for about two years in Proteans, but it was only in the last few months that I got to work with him. He is one person who inspired me to commute by bus to work. He does it himself everyday. This inspired me to try the same.

This inspiration was not enough to pull me out of inertia, Sameer(though I never met him), his blog post about Indus (a nice gentleman, whom I met at BCB4) was the trigger. Ever since I was contemplating commuting by bus to work, it finally materialised on Tuesday last and man I am glad I made it.

I figured out that I kept postponing if it was a daily affair, that would be a huge step from the daily comfort. To overcome this mental block, I decided that I will do it twice a week to start with and then see how it goes. The next big question is which days?
Monday and Firday are out of question for obvious reasons. Two days in a row is ruled out as I don't fancy travelling by multiple buses, so that finally left me with Tuesday and Thursday.

Both these days, I took bus to office, and boy what a contrast it was! The first day was joyride, found a bus that left me at BTM just after reaching the bus stop. There was a private service which I took to the HSR BDA junction. Thursday was a two hour wait at the bus stop for the elusive Vajra bus direct to HSR BDA Junction.

There were a few observations I made over the past two trips.

There is nothing in Bangalore either online or otherwise which gives you an accurate description of routes on which the buses ply. I understand that the traffic is problem in Bangalore, but there is no excuse for not being able to get route information.
If you want to travel in comfort, better start before eight.
There are not many buses plying over very long distances(~20km). Most of the buses are medium distance(~10Km). If we have to go from one end of the city to the other, invariably we have to take at least 2-3 buses. Also, the connecting hubs are not many. Again no information available.

Now the Good.

You get to see many areas which you never noticed when on mobike.
You get to know precisely which area is which? I now know where difference between BTM Water Tank, Ragi Guda temple stop and so on. Earlier all of them were BTM!

I will keep writing more about my bus experience every week. Keep tuned in.

Follow me on Twitter: gantir

Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

Links for 2009-07-30 [del.icio.us]

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:00:00 PDT

iPhone Application Design Patterns — Flyosity: Mac & iPhone Interface Design

Links for 2009-07-17 [del.icio.us]

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 00:00:00 PDT

Six Revisions - Web Development and Design Information

Links for 2009-07-15 [del.icio.us]

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:00:00 PDT

The One To Be!!

noreply@blogger.com (Ramjee) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 22:42:00 PDT

I am in the process of migrating all my mails from gmail to my google apps account. While going through all the mails, I came across this which I wrote in a fit of inspiration about three years back. It pains me that most of what I said still remains true in my context. But it also gives me the inspiration to face the drudgery and move ahead. As the saying goes everything happens for our own good. This simple piece gives me new hope. Here it goes:

"How do I say what I have seen in the last 24 yrs of my life? What do I envison for the next five - six decades of life left in me. What did I do at this age of mine, that many of the greats have done much before mine.

At the age of 21 when he died, Galois was a mathematical genius. Though probably never given the due recognition during his life time, his contributions to the world of mathematics, and as an extension to computer science is widley accepted. Another great Einstein came up with the photo electric effect when he was just 26 for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1921.It is always debated why he was never awarded a Nobel for Theory of Relativity.

Sachin achieved cult status in his teens, Roger Federer is the same age as me but reins the tennis world today. If I start listing I can go on and on, on how many people have made it big before they reached the age I have now reached.

Now when I see back, what I have acheieved, probably none is remotley even close to what these people have done. Does that mean I am nobody? No, I am someone to all those people to whom I am dear, to all those people who are dear to me. I am someone in the making to be the one to be!!."

Follow me on Twitter: gantir

Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

Super Charge Firebug with FireTools

noreply@blogger.com (Ramjee) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 12:11:00 PDT

Check out FireTools a must have collection of Firefox extensions to push you to a new level of developing web applications. These set of Firefox extensions work with Firebug and simplify your web application developing/debugging process.

10 Useful Firefox Extensions to Supercharge Firebug is a post by Jacob Gube. The list contained 10 Firefox extensions which go a long way in helping develop Web applications. I find myself evangelizing Firebug and some of the extensions like YSlow to a lot of folks at the company I work and else where. Now the above list got me thinking if there is any way I could just push all these extensions to people without them asking me for names/links. That was when another new feature introduced in Firefox came to my aid.

This new feature I am talking about is Firefox Add-On Collections. This lets you create a collection of Add-Ons and share it with the world. Here's my Ode to all those behind these wonderful tools: FireTools.

FireTools contains the following Firefox Add-Ons:

I am missing the Page Speed Add-On that Jacob mentioned. If any of you can help me add it to the collection it will be great. Please go ahead and add the collection to your favorites. I will keep it updated with the Firebug tools that we cannot do without.

Follow me on Twitter: gantir

Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

Harish Hande: The Man who lighter the street

noreply@blogger.com (Ramjee) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 22:08:00 PDT

The Man who Lighted the Street

Selco may not strike a chord to most of us, but to lakhs of households and business who brave the realities of life with a simple on the face, across Karnataka and Gujarat, , Selco is literally the light giver.It gives me immense pride to mention that the man behind this wonderful organization is an IIT KGP alumnus. Let me introduce you to Harish Hande(Energy,NH,1990), an entrepreneur, a leader, and a beautiful human being. He was recently awarded the Boldness in Business in award by the Financial Times Group.

Harish started off with his story after IIT, on how the concept of Selco emerged out of his Ph.D, on rural electrification.(Your’s truly was late to the meet and missed out the initial few minutes, so will continue from there).

By the time I reached the meet, Harish was talking about his experience with the street vendors and how Selco solved their problems. A typical street vendor needs 3-4 hrs of lighting in the evening. He spends about 15 INR/day for renting out a kerosene lamp. A solar charged light with which would last about 6hrs can be made available to him at about 10 INR/day. Surely that is a winner.

But the challenge has not yet started. How does Selco make an expensive solar equipment affordable for the street vendor, who has no fixed income, who does not fit on the loan radar of all the banks, who is deemed a high risk? The answer to these questions is the story of Harish, story of Selco.

Early on they realized that great technology which is not affordable is not useful. They had to understand the cash flows of the poor man. Harish provided a little insight into this. The poor don’t have the cash / financing abilities to make an upfront payment or guarantee a high monthly payments. But that does not mean they cannot pay, in fact they pay more for energy than we do. In the above example of the street vendor, he pays 450 INR/month!!.

How do you solve such problems? Understand the customer.

They sit with the customer, understand their problems both technical, social, financial, observe the conditions and come up with a solution. One outcome of this was the creation of entrepreneurs who provided solar technology at an affordable price and in the process profitable. In the street vendor case, one person provided the vendors with solar charged lights on a rental basis, and he was financed by micro finance institutions.

There were numerous other examples of midwives in Gujarat, the salt farmers in Gujarat, the flower plucker’s in Madurai, the street vendors of Bangalore, the farmers in Karantaka. Each of them a different challenge and each a different solution.

Harish says, that one of their philosophies at Selco has been “Not to take, No as an answer”. They strive to come up with practical solutions, than backing away saying technology does not fit in.

Another interesting aspect that Harish addressed is the people in his company. How he insists that all those who join Selco understand the finances of the poor. Narrated an incident where the CFO rejected a hike in salary as the company did not reach the goal.

Harish has a built a great team with him at Selco, most of his technical staff though low on qualifications are among the best when it comes to what they do. Harish makes it a point that everyone in the company grows. This includes the office peon, who is trained in technology and now is an expert technician, the driver who does sales and so on. This itself speaks of the company culture. Though they can earn much higher salaries, the employees are still with Selco because of their passion to what they do.

If I were to write on what Harish shared and my interpretations of it, I can write a book. Here, I will summarize his speech:

Think in terms of a solution, not just a product.
Technology is not useful, if it is not affordable.
Have respect for individual and what they do.
Innovation is finance is a key for creating sustainability.
Develop practical solutions.
Understand the user and develop products for them.
Think long term.
Long term takes lot of hard work, no quick solutions.

The following phrase which Harish mentions sums up Selco, “ Solar is expensive for the rich, affordable for the poor”.

TAA Bangalore chapter organized “Interface with Harish Hande” on 18^th April 2009. We started of at 4:30 and by 5:00 There was a motley crowd of about two dozen people. We ended the evening with the senior most alumni present V Seshmani(1969) presented a memento to Harish on behalf of TAA Bangalore.It was snacks and catching up with the junta. It was 3hrs worth the time spent. We congratulate Harish for all the great stuff and wish him good luck in the all his future efforts. You can find the photos from the event on flickr.

The following are a must read to know more about Harish and Selco.

Interview with Sramana Mitra .
Interview on Live Mint.
SELComment, Selco Blog

Ramjee Ganti (NH, 2003)

Photos: Kimi ( RP,1992)

Cross Posted on: www.iitkgpblr.org, www.iitkgpblr.wordpress.com

Follow me on Twitter: gantir

Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

Pyramids: The test of time...

noreply@blogger.com (Ramjee) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 00:11:00 PST

Facebook celebrated it's fifth birthday celebrations last week. Google is about a decade old. Microsoft is a little more than a quarter of a century old. Infy, TCS, Wipro all of these haven't completed there Goldeb jubliee's yet. The transistor itslef is just about 70 years.

To see the creations of Man which are over 4000 years or more was humbling. I leave the post of my experiences for a later date, for now just bask in the stories of mankind that these architectural marvels tell us.

Follow me on Twitter: gantir

Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

What two days of blogging can do?

noreply@blogger.com (Ramjee) — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 08:12:00 PST

A cursory look at the landing page of this blog will tell you that I haven't been blogging for a long time. If you had come here in the past two days you might have noticed my first post after 194 (:)) days. In that post, I had mentioned that three things to be done over a week, fortnight and a month. After three days, where do I stand? In this post, I talk about that, and also about what changes blogging has brought in me over the past two days.

It took me an humongous amount of effort to write the last two posts. Even after that I would not rate them more than 1/10. You see the point, my writing and abiltiy to think has gone down to a very lowly extant. Not only the flow of thoughts, but also my typing speed went down.I averaged about 30 wpm and coupled with the interupted thought flow, it would have been near 20 wpm. This from a high of 60 wpm around an year back.

Over the last two days, my thought train is getting better and typing speed around 40wpm. Thanks to blogging. I also seem to be reading more, and most important of all my grey cells seem to be working, the proof of which you will get to know at the end of this post.

The other two experiments, one of reading every day is progressing well albeit not as what I had initially imagined. I am reading, but I redefine the goal as reading a physical book every day for one hour. I miserably failed at the third stuff. Yesterday, for some reason I had to skip my dinner and the following breakfast. Co-incidentally their was nothing much on offer for lunch, so I had to buckle to my primal carvings.

Wow, I never imagined that short term focus can be so effective. Let me see how it works out in the coming days.Now the proof of my grey cells are the pictures on this blog. I shot them and edited them, and here they are .

Follow me on Twitter: gantir

Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

I am a fool !! I am fool!!

noreply@blogger.com (Ramjee) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:49:00 PST

Ever heard the story of the naked king who was fooled himself by running around naked and showing off to the world that his new dress. If you haven't heard of it, don't worry what we just have much more foolish act by us the citizens of India. I am referring to the egregious stupidity in the much hyped "$10 Laptop". How could someone be so stupid? It beats me. The stupidity is nothing less than running around shouting, "I am fool .. I am fool.. ".

From the very start I had no faith in the "$10 Laptop". Being an electronics engineer and following the travails of OLPC, I very well understand the impossibility of the task. However, the very involvement of three major engineering institues (VIT, IIT Madras, IISc Bangalore), I had a small hope that these folks will come up with a hand-held device(kind of a PDA) in the range of $50. My worry had always been that, I the tax payer have to foot the bill for subsidizing this instrument to $10. This was the line of thought developed after the announcement of the date.

It gives me immense pain at the loss of face(gizmodo, ars, tomshardware, fastcompany) 0f India in the international community. Already the ridicule is pouring in from across the world. It would have been far more better if they had accepted their mistake and dropped the whole idea of unveiling a brick.

It was surprising to me to note that, not many bloggers, nor the media saw through the fallacy of the whole business. Atanu Dey has an irrefutable argument against this concept, to quote him:

'The most compelling reason for totally rejecting this claim of a Rs 500 laptops is this: if the government, together with “students of Vellore Institute of Technology, scientists in Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, IIT-Madras” could pull-off a near-impossible technological miracle, does it not imply that the entire global computer industry is either totally incompetent or else it is a huge big scam which actually produces stuff at very little cost and then sells them at exorbitant prices."

Thankfully, the ISRO was not involved in the project, in which case doubts would have been raised over the veracity of India's achievement in Space. Amulya Gopalakrishnan writes why even a laptop at the price point specified does not mean much to the edcucation.

"The holes in traditional schooling can’t be fixed with a shiny green laptop. This is not to second the HRD ministry’s dark suspicions about OLPC, but a reminder that a laptop is empty and unproductive by itself, and the adoption of a technology must depend on the particular ends being aimed at, in each situation. "

Where do we go from here? Do we have opinion about this? Are we going to do something to stop such things in the future? What options do we have?

Photo Credits: Gizmodo, TomsHardware
Follow me on Twitter: gantir

Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

Marvinic Ramblings of a Melancholic Mind

noreply@blogger.com (Ramjee) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 21:52:00 PST

"Funny, how just when you think life can't possibly get any better it suddenly goes worst",
is what Marvin would say if he were to have a brain which is less than a planet. Why I refer to Marvin here, is not clear to me, so don't bother too much about it. I like Marvin a lot and just look for him in times like this. But if you still insist on knowing read on...

Nothing could have been more perfect than the last year, both professionally and personally. But deep inside there was a vacuous feeling. There was this sense of missing something, that something is not right. You see, sometimes you just feel like getting up, going to office, eating, having fun and at the end feel as if nothing that you did since morning makes any sense. While my mood has gone down the dungeons, I went in for some Good will hunting from the past, looking up for some of the bygone good times. And what better time can I think of than drooling over with laughter reading the "Hitchhicker's Guide to Galaxy". If something can make me smile even in sleep, it is this:

"Simple. I got very bored and depressed, so I went and plugged myself in to its external computer feed. I talked to the computer at great length and explained my view of the Universe to it," said Marvin. "And what happened?" pressed Ford. "It committed suicide," said Marvin and stalked off back to the Heart of Gold. I don't mean this exact line but the the character who delivers those lines Marvin.

Why am I blogging about this? after 194 days of absence from blogosphere, or for that matter any kind of writing except for the thousands of lines of code, that I spewed out in most robotic of fachions and hundreds of lines of documentation, at which I would certainly would not want to read.

I will tell you.

Digressing, Sample some quotes from Marvin:

I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed
Funny, how just when you think life can't possibly get any worse it suddenly does.
Do you want me to sit in the corner and rust, or just fall apart where I'm standing?
Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent anymore of it.
Why stop now just when I'm hating it?
Life, loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it.
I won't enjoy it.
Wearily on I go, pain and misery my only companions. And vast intelligence, of course. And infinite sorrow.
Well I wish you'd just tell me rather than try to engage my enthusiasm.
Pardon me for breathing, which I never do any way so I don't know why I bother to say it, oh God, I'm so depressed.

Put the above in context and visualize how he would say it or how he would make others feel about it! I just love him.

Suddenly, I realised the reason for the melancholy. I haven't been doing anything I like, in the last few months, no runs, no blogging, no meeting friends, no photography, no reading, no learning new stuff, no new habits whoa.. !! I can go on and on.

In fact, I forgot how to do these things. Now to fight these inner demons of Newton's First law, I have come up with a plan, a Grand Simple plan. One thing at a time for a few days. The first step in this plan is right here:

i. I will blog for the next Seven days. One blog post a day.
ii. I will read atleast one hour for the next Fifteen days.
iii. I will be a Vegetarian(eggetarian) for the next Thirty days.

Now, each of those has some chanlenges considering my present geographical status. But, nothing can be more challenging than the third item.

Where do we go from here?? Hear it from Marvin:

"Now the world has gone to bed,
Darkness won't engulf my head,
I can see by infra-red,
How I hate the night."

He paused to gather the artistic and emotional strength to tackle the next verse.

"Now I lay me down to sleep,
Try to count electric sheep,
Sweet dream wishes you can keep,
How I hate the night."

Credits: The images above are from filmtotaal and templates
Follow me on Twitter: gantir
Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

Mobile Fetish

noreply@blogger.com (Ramjee) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:47:00 PDT

I was talking to Swaroop the other day and we came up with this interesting concept. How about starting a company which makes niche personal electronic gadgets? How would it be if you can gift your mom a mobile phone which is customized to her(with larger key buttons)? How about customizing a mobile/radio/torch to your grand mom? And all this at an affordable cost. I understand the economies of scale, however, if such customizable products can come in the affordable range, doesn't it sound exciting. Read on for more...

We were discussing about custom mobiles. I should be able to order the features I need (ala. Dell), the look I need. An example might be having my families photo on the back of my mobile, or a key pad layout with just four names on it, or a mobile which can jump!!. Is this not possible, I don't think so. Sure there are some issues, read Swaroop's post to get a better hang of them. But that is where the never say die spirit lies.

What I had in mind for mobiles was something what Dilip Chhabria did to the cars. Have extensible kits, modify them, build prototypes. Does this not open up amazing opportunities on what can be built.

Mind you I am not referring to customizations which cost a zillion.Check out BugLabs, what I have in mind is something similar to start with.

What kind of products do you want customized?Is their a market for such products? Will you buy one such product?

Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

DCamp 2.0: Bangalore Design Camp

noreply@blogger.com (Ramjee) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:25:00 PDT

Looks or Function,Simplicity or Complexity, these are some questions that plague any product development teams across. When many such people who face these problems meet at a place to unwind and un-conference we have the Bangalore DCamp.

Design Camp or DCamp as it is known is in its 2nd edition. The 1st edition held at Yahoo EGL campus in Bangalore was a resounding success. Amit Pande, Muthu, are some of the key persons behind getting this edition to run.

The event attendees list contains the who's who from design fields in Bangalore. Register now lest you should not find place for entry. I am excited to meet the following people Sowmya Karmali, Umesh Gopinath, apart from host of other friends who are attending this event.

Let me know if you are going to be there.

Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

Where was I?

noreply@blogger.com (Ramjee) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:15:00 PDT

Going into the details and apologies and reasons for abandoning my blog for so long may be a bit too less for egregious nature of my irresponsible act. To bare the truth I am ashamed to say I was lazy in not even posting a post in a month. But, again this was a very happening period with Lot's to update all of you on personal, professional, blogging,running front. Though I refrain from any personal information on the blog, I believe there are a few things which should be shared. Go on for more...

First, I got married on the 29th of April to Harshada. You can find some of the marriage pictures here. Second, In the last six months, I was on three different projects at my work place. All of them very exciting and demanding on not just my time but also brains (do I have some?).
The third and the most important thing is what next? Ever since I founded this blog, it changed names, it changed themes, and it changed the core idea around which I blog. So much of change!! Continuing on the same vein this blog will continue to carry on my favorites of the season. Apart from that there is this new blog in pipeline "UXIndia" specific to User Experience in the Indian context. More details about this on coming Tuesday.

Coming back to this blog. There is a lot coming up. First the announcement for Design Camp Bangalore, then a few updates on the fitness front. A series of posts on how to run a marathon. My learning's from running a marathon and drawing parallels to entrepreneurship, other stages of life. Prepare with me for the Mumbai Marathon 2009.

This time it's not a empty promise. Technology has come to my aide in making this confident claim. Want to know how? Keep reading...!!
Thanks to all those of you who kept coming and commenting. I need all your support to start from scratch.

Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

I ran the Mumabai Marathon 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Ramjee) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 06:41:00 PST

It's been more than one and a half months since I last updated my blog. I tender an unconditional apology to all my readers. Please do drop by regularly from now on to read more of the stuff that interests you.

In this post I will write on my most treasured achievement in the recent times. Many of you might have known this, others you will get to know of it. I ran the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon 2008 on 20th of January 2008. A full "42.195 km" or "26.2 miles". For more on the experience of this run please go ahead.

[The Day Before]
It was a pleasant saturday after noon when I took a bus from Prabhadevi to Churchgate. I fell asleep in a ride of about 40minutes. It was not difficult to find the "Get Active Mumbai Marathon Expo" at the World Trade Center.I was impressed by the scale and publicity this event was I collected my bib(1615), met a few friends at Powai and headed back to Rohit's place by night. Got my running gear ready. In retrospect I believe Nike should sponsor all my Marathon runs.Draped in Nike from head to toe! (Nike shoes, Nike socks, Nike running shorts, Nike dry fit tee, Nike head band).

The most important thing the day before the marathon is food. I had a couple of aloo parathas and veg biryani and fruit custard.

[After the Run]
"13:57:**" was what the timer read when I saw the finish line. There were a group of people welcoming and congratulating me.(There was also a photographer who took some shots of mine, if your are reading this do send me those photos), I just grabbed a bottle of water and emptied it for the umpteenth time in the last 6hours. Collecting my timing certificate and the medal was a very sweet experience. Barely able to walk, I collapsed in the middle of Azad Maidan talking to my mom. Tears rolled down my cheeks while I was talking to my fiancee. I was just crying. A melodramatic scene indeed. I collected myself, limped back to the historic Victoria Terminus.

The feeling of running the full marathon was just overbearing. This was a significant moment in my life. I have never done anything in the arena of sports and running the full marathon made me speechless.

[The Run]
Mumbai is the city I love to be in. No wonder I chose to run my First Marathon (I don't consider half marathon's as Marathon) here. There was a cool breeze as I stepped out for the Azad Maidan at half past six in the morning on the run day. There were lot of people dressed in all the colors of the rainbow all way along. The crowd was just great, the crowds in Hyderabad run are pale shadow of the show here.

Once in the arena, I met Sesh another fitness enthusiast from Hyd. It was a real coincidence that he spotted me out in such a huge crowd. The run started with a huge roar and there was a sea of humanity cheering us all along.

The first 10k took about an hour, the next 5k about 40min. Then slowly the pace reduced, I was having pain in my right foot. 18k in about 2hrs+, the pain was increasing. I wanted to better my half marathon record mark, but took about 10mins more (21k in 2hrs 40min). The pain in the right foot was unbearable at this mark. It was just moving mile stones all the way since then. A few miles down the line (~25km ) I was just unable to walk. I would have collapsed.

It was here that I met Tanvir a journalist, we pepped up each other and those on the way to push ourselves. To add to the woe the traffic was opening up, which was a big de- motivator. At this stage I met George from kerala. He was officially the last man to finish the Marathon in last years edition and was determined to do better this time. We were joined by a bunch of others who were determined to reach the finish line.

To top it all there came a bus to pick up all the tired folks. This was one of the most difficult mental tests to pass. On one side the body forces you to consider the option of the comfort of the shade, on the other the mind wants to complete the marathon. It was tough but the will prevailed. It was not easy, there were no distance boards in the last 10km, the were water stops were far and few in between, the traffic was open, no body seemed to know how far we had to go, a complete chaos.

Once we reached the church gate, I pep talked another guy to run along for the final distance. We jogged to the flora fountain and from their just managed to give the final sprint to the finish line. All the while my poor foot was taking lot of pain.

[The Evening]
I could just barely walk, I had these boils in the groin area, blisters on my feet, and the worse of all my right foot hurt like hell. I could gauge the severity of the injury only when I was immobile for most of the next two days. Talking to Nalu, Mausi and good food at Mausi's place helped a lot in mental recovery.

[What Next]
I am planning to run my next full Marathon at Bangalore Mid Night Marathon in May 2008(if it happens in time), and will start my preparation from 9th February 2008. I will keep chronicling my preparation over here.

Tune in now to so-did-i, lot of exciting things coming your way.

Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

Founders at OCC, and a few break through Insights

noreply@blogger.com (Ramjee) — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 02:29:00 PST

December 23rd will be one of the memorable days in the history of OCC. For the first time since the inception in August, we had more folks who are founders/co founders of companies than those who are planning to. There were 7 startups and the discussions that ensued was simply of real quality. There were two key insights from this meeting. Read on for more.

We had an informal discussions for the first forty minutes then we decided to get on a round where each of the founders talk about their startups.

DyAnsys is a medical instrumentation company. Gunasekaran a co founder is an active participant of both OCC Chennai and OCC Bangalore was present. DyAnsys is mainly into manufacturing and marketing low cost medical instruments.

udrool is to launch it's products in first quarter next year. The co founder Vaasu had some great insights into Marketing and why all startups should have a marketing guy in the founding team. Later on in the discussion he provided some great insights. udrool is the company which has a few products in pipeline and has technological offerings from a consumer perspective in the domain of sales, content aggregation etc.

adventure advertising solutions is a web design, graphic design, marketing, brand building company. Harsha one of the co founders is a very passionate guy. These folks have done some good work and are on an expansion path.

Steadfast has a product called Pactus is "an application aimed at SMBs handling product sales, service and contracts. It is an “easy to install and simple to use” CRM Software".We had Anand, one of the co founders with us. An organically built company, now on the way to move to the next level.

flipkart is an online book store. It boasts of pretty huge collection of books and decent UI for the site. The founders Binny, Sachin launched this a few months back and have done a good job so far.

maxheap is a technology company and they are launching a product in the sphere of social networking. They launched a networking site for residents of an apartment by the name Common Floor. An interesting concept of building a site for an existing community of apartment owners. Sumit and Lalit the cofounders have done a good job and with the vision they have for the product let's keep our fingers crossed and watch them.

muziboo the original music sharing site which promises to get you an audience. Prateek and Nithya who recently got featured in Economic Times for their startup promis to provide an audience for your latent musical talents.

Take Aways:
i) Include a Marketing person in your founding team. Most of us being techies ignore this fundamental requirement that we need good marketing folks on the floor. Vaasu has rightly pointed out that there is a huge gap in Indian startups in the founders abilities in technology and marketing.

ii) This is one of the favorite topics around. What social networking models will work out. maxHeap with their CommonFloor is doing something that I haven't seen any of the Indian social networking startups do. Provide a platform for already existing apartment communities. This and ensuing discussion let me to the following key point on what kind of social networks will succeed in India.

Traditionally we in India have a a large number of communities. My family network, my work network, and a lot of other networks. We are different from the western society in that, we are a community based society than an individual based society. However, what we see in the social networking space is companies trying to push the US specific individual social networking platforms in our community based society. What we need is products which identify the problems which existing communities face and address those issues. CommonFloor is one step in this direction. I am sure companies which figure this out will be the ones which will make a mark.

iii) The other hot discussion topic is the gap between the VC's and the angel's in India. We all agree that their needs to be more and more angel's than VC's. But, most of the discussions stop at discussing this point than offering a solution. Vaasu has a very good idea which I feel is very practical and will take the entrepreneurial activity in this country to a different level. For now read on how Vaasu addresses the issue.

"India needs not USD 40 billion VC funds, but 40 million angel funds. There is an imbalance that needs to be addressed in the Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem.

google had a Ram Shriram much before they had a VC. What India needs are many more such Ram(s). Where are they ? There are just a handful of angels or angel firms to to the dozens of VCs. A clear imbalance in the ecosystem.

A proposal should be made to the Govt of India to give a tax break for anyone or any company that makes a seed investment with a ceiling of USD 1 million. Or be even bolder and pardon black money that gets invested as seed capital The administrative mechanism can work on similar lines of giving money to charity.

This will inspire the many hidden Rams, who want a little incentive to make the leap. Bodies like TIE and NEN can channel these seed funds, as individual angels might not know the process.

We need the support of the press to champion this cause along with Entrepreneurs. Imagine an India bustling with entrepreneurs ! Isn't that what built America ?

Vaasu
"
Brood over it. A simple but very practical stuff according to me.

I will write about this in more detail in a later post.

Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

Redesign the Marker

noreply@blogger.com (Ramjee) — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 02:42:00 PST

For a very long time since I decided upon UX as the theme for this blog (apart from things happening in my life), I vied for some original content. I tried to put some reviews and my interpretations. I also borrowed heavily from existing blog posts. I wanted to start a series of posts where I discuss some of the existing products and put open questions to you all on how to improve these products.

Once I have some clarity on what product design I want to work on, I will take up one at a time and start executing the concept.Towards that end this is my first post, where I will discuss some of the short comings of the present day white board marker.

All of us are familiar with a white board marker. How many of you had issues using it? You might say what issues in using a white board marker? Let me list it down for you and I request you to observe the next time you come across one.

i) I would never know if the marker has ink in it or not.
ii) The writing tip is invariably flattened after a few uses.
iii) It is difficult to find out why the marker is not functional. The ink is over or the writing tip is bad.
iv) The cap that is used to cover the tip does not fit properly at the back. Most of the times it falls down.
v) The shape of the marker is round. It rolls on most surfaces.
vi) Almost all the markers I used have a plastic cover around it. It peels of and distracts/interferes with the free flow of writing.

Now, I don't see any reason why the design cannot be improved. What do you think? What are your suggestions.

Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

One in a Million!

noreply@blogger.com (Ramjee) — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 08:01:00 PST

An amazing shot. I envy and appreciate the photographer who took this shot.

I just can't stop appreciating it.

Thanks to Leo for the source. If any one knows the original source do let me know.

Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

Usability Review of Kindle

noreply@blogger.com (Ramjee) — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 07:57:00 PST

I found this excellent review of the Kindle, Amazon's new Wireless reading device. No point going in talking about it as it is one of the best reviews I have seen in the recent past.

A small snippet here. Check out the full review at "Well".

There's a little styling going on here.

While the overall shape seems to be well proportioned and balanced (considering the plain volume alone), I don't get the reason of being of these angled cuts. Does it add comfort when holding the device or interacting with it ? Does it help to frame the text better ? Does it relate to some cultural meaning ? As from today, I'd like to get a clue. To me this is just a subjective decision, style for the sake of it, and it hangs in there as a hair on the soup. Same feeling about the progressively slanted keys of the keyboard. Style is good, but it needs to be backed up with purpose.

Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

My First Half Marathon: Hyderabad 10k run

noreply@blogger.com (Ramjee) — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 06:29:00 PST

Not every day in your life does your good friend get married. Not every day in your life you run 21km in about two and a half hours. Not every day in your life are you faced with a decision to chose one over the other. That is precisely what happened to me last weekend. The title of the post tells you which one I chose, read the rest of the post for why I made such a decision and of course my experiences of My First Half Marathon ever.

Why I skipped my Friends Wedding
It was an innate desire to prove to myself that I am capable of achieving what I want to, that made me skip my good friends wedding. As some of you know, I am a Scanner by personality. Except for getting into IIT, I don't credit myself with any tangible achievement. I have dabbled in many a things but without any end result. I set out to change this and the first in line is running the Marathon. I don't know if I can convince any of you or this good friend of mine with the above argument, but in my mind I had no option but to run at least one Half Marathon in 2007.

The Preparation
It all started with running the IT city run on May 19th in Bangalore Mid Night Marathon. I am a lazy bum to the core, when it comes to anything to do with physical activity. With the help of the knowledge I had about my self, I started telling every one who cares to listen about my intent of running the full Marathon in January 2008 at Mumbai (I still have to run this). That set the tone for the rest of the things. I came across a fun group which runs with all seriousness, The Greater Bangalore Hash. I got to run a lot and also meet some very nice people at the hash. I missed only one Run at the GBH. Running the cross country and haring a couple of runs gave me good confidence that I can run the Half Marathon.

Apart from hash, I enrolled my self at a nice plush Gym. The gym and hash helped me not to become lazy for a long period of time. Not more than two weeks at a go.

Leading to the Run
I planned to run the Half Marathon in Bangalore Marathon, but the dates eluded me till date and I am sure the organizers will have a "Bangalore Marathon 2007" in 2008 or who knows in 2009 or beyond. Luckily for me, the Hyderabad 10k and Half Marathon was around the corner.
The online registration was pretty simple. I received my bib and the t-shirt by post in time (though not without follow up).

The last week before the run, I exercised myself without stressing out any body part. My trainer at the gym was excellent in helping me out on this. Two days before, I just stopped any physical activity and was just building my reserves. (read eating a lot ;) ). One thing I took care of was not to eat anything which my system would not accept. Over the last few months, I have a good understanding of my digestive system.

The Run Start
Woke up by 4:30 am on the day of the run, and was at the venue by about 5:40am. Collected the automatic timing chip. As is with any Indian event, there was enough confusion at the counter which distributed the timing chips.

I was impressed with some of the arrangements at this stage. (The mobile toilets, water supply). The public announcement was a big let down, the RJ who was announcing did not have clue on what are the necessities/needs that need to be addressed. With about 200 people for the Half Marathon and a few thousands cheering the run got started at 6:30 am.

First 15km
The enthusiasm and support was simply superb. The traffic arrangements were outstanding at this stage of the run. From People's Plaza to Lumbini Park, Abids, to Charminar, the road was kept clean of any distraction by the Traffic Police. Hat's off to them for such great cooperation and help. There were water stops, just at the right points. However, it would be nice to have water stops every 2km.

Watching the Charminar in all it's splendor was a feast. At this moment I made a wow to myself that I will run the Marathon's in as many cities as possible, just to be able to see some of the places over there, which is not possible other wise. Frequent chants of Dhoni Dhoni lifted my spirits more. (I have long hair locks).

We returned Lumbini Park along the same route.It took about an Hour and 40minutes to cover this distance. Except for a little pain in the heel and the incessant cough which was my friend for the last three weeks, I was in a good position to finish the run in 2hrs and 10-15minutes.

Last 6Km
As we entered the turn to enter Tank Bund, I realized my above conjecture is just that. There was a sea of humanity in all colors who were blissfully part taking in the 10k run. There was no way I or any of the others who were running the Half Marathon can run. We had to stop, reduce our pace and at some places forced to walk.

This was very disturbing and affected my pace. Nevertheless I kept moving. Another very disturbing thing was dual distance indicators for the 10k and 21k folks. It was lot confusing and in the end it ended up worse as the Half Marathoners were supposed to finish of 1km ahead of the 10km'ers but there was no indication to that effect, and we were made to go the extra km to the finish line. I still don't understand what was on the minds of organizers. Finally with great difficulty I made it to the finish.

The last two km were difficult, where we walked for most of the time. I even had mild cramps at the 1km mark, but could wade through.

F***ing Organizing (excuse me for the expletives)
Running the Half Marathon was not as difficult as it was to wade through the crowd and trying to find out what to do next.
i) None of the volunteers/people with all access cards seem to have any information about what the runners who finished the run should be doing.
ii) Worse, each of the person we talked to directed us to a different place for collecting certificates.
iii) A few volunteers were rude enough to shove and push the runners.
iv) There was a live band going on by a DJ,his group and some filmi actress from Mumbai, all the people were engrossed in it than attend to any issues with the runners.
Above all, there was utter disregard for the sport and the sportsmen. It hurt a lot that very old people who ran the half marathon were shoved and moved pillar to post. I am very sorry that none of the tv channels/ new papers failed to report this. Amidst all the euphoria it was lost that the people who made the event a success were reduced to just no bodies.

I still don't have the exact timing, in spite of paying for the timing chip. There is no information on the website regarding this (72hrs after the event).

Update: I now have the result, I stand 93rd with a timing of 02:24:24.

In end it was a good event which could have been great.

Personal Scores
On the personal front, I am now confident of taking part in the Mumbai Marathon. (I have a small issue with my Left Hamstring, hope it doesn't impede my Mumbai participation).

Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

so-did-i The Story Behind

noreply@blogger.com (Ramjee) — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 20:30:00 PDT

It was a dark lonely night. Though it was not raining, the sky was overcast and there was a sinister darkness all around. To add to the gloomy mood was the heavy wind, raising the dust, waiting to make me a part of it. For some lost moments in my history, I did not know what happened. When the senses came back with the urgency of a kolkata tram, I uttered "so-did-i" survive that?

Hold on! that is not the story behind this blog and me. Why this interest to tell about the story behind this blog? I was lazy all this while not to tell this. Though it is not as dramatic as the narration above, it has some elements to it which might interest you to probe things further.

Past
I used to have and still have about three - four more blogs, which have no posts for ages. That is not to say that they lack good content. Those of you interested might read my Israeli journal at The Haifa Post, Stories from the Nether is a where I write my short stories, you can find some timeless stuff in the technology domain at Techno Whizz. This blog so-did-i used to have a different url, and I don't remember it any longer.

The Story
It was some time in the spring of 2006 that, I an incorrigible optimist found myself at the abyss of despair and disillusion. It was around this time that the titanic of relationship hit the iceberg.Aound this time, I came across this small simple book Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss. The book talks about the usage of punctuation and how it effects the meaning. The following is what Wikipedia entry says about the title.
"

The title of the book is an amphibology, a verbal fallacy arising from an ambiguous grammatical construction, and derived from a joke on bad punctuation:

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.

“Why?” asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

“Well, I’m a panda,” he says at the door. “Look it up.”

The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. “Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”

"
It was amusing and thought provoking at the same time.

I was not interested in anything at that time, was just moving through my work mechanically. It was at this juncture that I hit upon this book and was immensely drawn towards the spirit of the content. A few days later, I felt better and started blogging again.

I felt an urge to change the blog url. Inspired from the book sighted earlier, it became so- did- i. The thing in my mind was "so, did i come out of the depression?". And suddenly it struck me that the words "so did i" meant different things, depending on where I position the punctuation. And thus was born this blog christened.

Growing pangs
The title of the blog during those days was "i Think, i Wait, i Fast" my favorite quote from the book titled Siddhartha written by Hermann Hesse. My life also took a different note about this time, I decided to quit a well paying job at Intel to tread the path of entrepreneurship. The focus of the posts shifted to technology and a few random things that I wanted to write about. I was brimming with enthusiasm and the title of changed to "iDeas gAlore", an inspiration from pluggd.in when it was called "idea Labs".

I left the entrepreneurship path in the month of February 2007 and a little after I got my current job, i started blogging about startups in India, entrepreneurship, and lot of other things. It was around this time that I got interested in design, usability and user experience. A lot of layout changes and design changes later, you see the blog in its current form. It is a very tough job to maintain posting regularly, but I believe I did a decent job till now. The learning I got from blogging is immense, I also got to meet some amazing people through it. There is nothing in this world for which I would give away my blogging.

The Future
As mentioned earlier, it is increasingly difficult to maintain the expectations that this blog has raised. I am very happy that people know me my by the blog name rather than my given name. This blog now has become a center for usability and design. I will keep writing on those topics for some time to come with occasional drifts to startups, entrepreneurship, and all other things that interest me.

Thanks to all of you for reading this blog. Would love to hear from you on what you feel about this blog.

Related Posts:
Entrepreneurship Presentation at NirmaLabs
To My First Love
Weaving Magic
The Girl at Night

Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

Design is Back!! Are you there!

noreply@blogger.com (Ramjee) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 20:53:00 PDT

Design is Back was the punch line of the Microsoft Expression around the Clock, Global Designer Conference at Bangalore. For a detailed account of what happened check out techbangalore (aka. Prashant). In this post I will talk about Expression, and some of the people I met at this conference.

The number of people who attended the event were far more than the place could accommodate. Not surprisingly it was cramped to the hilt. The logistics guys have done a very bad job.After a wait which seemed like an eternity, we were introduced to Shelly Armstrong, a vivacious lady, she presented on how Microsoft cares for design and what designers should do to have more impact in their organization. I would have loved to put the presentation here for all of you (will do it, if I can get it).

Next it was the turn of Supreet Singh and Pandurang Nayak, most of the presentation was similar to the stuff I saw at dCamp. The different part was a typical designer- developer tuff on stage. What came out of it was a showcase of Expression's ability to integrate with VS. I was impressed with the way the design and development could be done so independently. The live application that they made in less than ten minutes was really impressive.If you or your company has something to with developing applications for the end user, you cannot ignore this new way of doing things.

I met some familiar faces Hrish, Harish, Param. There was a lot to learn from the interaction between Param and Harish. Finally, my wish to meet Umesh Gopinath came true. There were Vinod and Upma from Aditi, these folks are interested in UX and have a blog uxunleashed (I have some company!!). I gave Harish and Upma earful of the story behind why my blog is named sodidi ;). Will share with you in the next post. There was a lot of interesting gyan from Umesh on how one should blog about usability.

Coming back to Microsoft and Expression, in my latest project, I use Expression Blend and am impressed with how we can do things much better and faster. I always wanted to nominated an MVP but never was impressed enough to develop my expertise in any of the MS technologies, Now I see an option, let me and the one above (god) decide on Expression's fate in my hands!

About the Event:
Umesh
Vinod

Links:
Expression Blog
Expression Web Team Blog

Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

PR Blunder, Pithching to Bloggers the Wrong way.

noreply@blogger.com (Ramjee) — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 08:09:00 PDT

I recently got a comment on Buying Digital Camera Guide for Dummies. Now why am I writing about this comment? If it were a spam comment I would not have given a damn. However, it was a PR pitch. In an earlier post I analyzed some good ways and some not so good ways of emailing your customers. In this post, I will talk about some fundamental mistakes you can do while pitching to bloggers, and mistakes you should avoid. Read on for more.

The company in discussion is mapmyindia, and as mentioned earlier, a certain person by the name Tarun Gupta left a comment on by blog post. The comment is for all to see over here.

This guy did not even bother to address me by my name. I am sure he did not even bother to find out.
Did this guy, read even a single post of mine? I don't think so. I don't even think he saw my profile(he posted the same stuff as comment on two other blogs of mine).
Why the heck should I use their widgets in my blog?

It really annoys me and am sure annoys you my readers, to come across such irrelevant comments. It is very sad that a company like mapmyindia for which I had admiration until this incident should stoop to such cheap tactics. (I am even averse now to take their name).

Blogosphere is abuzz with what not to do while pitching to bloggers, but I guess it falls on deaf ears of these folks.

Jennifer Laycock has a list of 5 mistakes that can cost you dearly when pitching to bloggers.

Use the right name. (This guy got that wrong)
Don't lie about reading a blog (Again wrong on this front)
Check to see if a blogger accepts pitches (No sign of this)
Don't pitch irrelevant products( partially guilty)
Don't make assumptions(What do you say?)

What you have to realize before it's too late is that bloggers are not like traditional media. They are here for a passion not for dough. So any amount of goodies, pitches cannot earn you their trust. But, that is not to say that bloggers are a bunch of stubborns. The way to get closer to bloggers is through conversation over the blog. Yes, it is a bit hard but you don't have a choice as you can see in this case of me vs mapmyindia.

What do you feel? What did you do in such situations? Am I right in not endorsing the product?
Please leave your comments.

Must read Links:
Some thoughts on pitching Bloggers
How to Pitch Bloggers
Pitching Bloggers: 10 things that make bloggers angry
Blogger Relations 101

Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

Must read Usability Stories

noreply@blogger.com (Ramjee) — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 05:05:00 PDT

Here are four links which every person especially those in usability should have a look at.

Kim from cre8pc talks about the scary stuff behind website Usability reviews. An accomplished Usability expert, I agree with her on the travails of a Usability reviewer.

You don't need an introduction to Smashing Magazine if you are in the world of Design. Vitaly and Sven discuss 10 usability nightmares you should be aware of. It's a detailed post featuring atleast one site for each night mare.

Chrys Bader of Clever Cookie talks about the best and worst logos of the century. Though not in agreement, it gives a new perspective.

Barbara Krasnoff talks on information week about the download duel she faces while downloading from IBM and Open Office. I am sure you have seen this a 100 times before.

Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

Buying Digital Camera Guide for Dummies

noreply@blogger.com (Ramjee) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 08:12:00 PDT

One more guide telling you all about what a digital camera is, what mega pixels are how the digital camera is different from the film camera so on and so forth. No, I am not going to talk of all this. If you have landed up at this post (out of millions and millions), you are pretty much sure that you need a digital camera. If you are looking out for a one line answer that this camera is the best, go and buy it, you are mistaken. You may very well go to numerous other sites which offer the comparisons. Over time I have seen many friends and colleagues ask me on which camera to buy, which is good (they compare two different segments) and so on. This guide tries to bring out the practical aspects to be considered while buying a camera. Mind you this article is written with an average Indian context, it may not apply for others.

Before, I proceed further if you want some good tutorial on Digital Cameras have a look at photo.net. There is another article at the same site on What camera to buy? You can check out a some tips here. A configurable comparison of the camera, prices based on their features is available here. Now is the time for you to make a choice, if you are a serious photographer, this post is not for you, if you need a camera just to capture those golden moments carry on.

Before proceeding ahead, please decide you need a camera and not a hand-cam. I am no expert in hand-cams and you would do better to ask someone else. I will take on one feature at a time, what I feel are important in the order of importance.

1) What kind of a human are you?
You lead a very peaceful life, and you need to capture those languid moments of life.
You are a party freak, and want all those nice girls in your album.
You are a back packer who hitch hikes at the word go.
You are an eternal romanticist with family and kids.

What the hell does this to do with buying a camera?
The answer to the above is very important. For example if you are the second type, you might need a ultra thin, large display, huge life camera. In the third case you might need a rugged, compact, dependable, huge storage and store pics in multiple formats, conserve power etc. The other two categories, you need to decide for your self. And I will help you deal with it as we go ahead. This guide is for any body who has no plans of turning pro.!!

2) What is your budget?
You are son of Ambani. (The world is yours, if your dad agrees)
You are like me, who has to slog for his daily bread. (hmm.. <20k)
You are a parasite who nourishes on someone else's blood.(<10k)

First decide how much you are willing to shell out, with a stretch limit. There is no limit that you can shell out on these gadgets, so know your limits. Also mind you, the budget should include not just the cost of the camera but also of all the accessories needed. (These days cameras need more accessories than mallika sherawat.)

3)How will you use the photos?
You will frame the photos in your hall.
You will blowup the photos for a present.
You will share it on Orkut.
Which photos??

Depending on what use you will put the photos to decide the mega pixels you need. In my opinion most of you just want to share them with friends and family. In that case a 5MP is good enough. It is sufficient for a 6x4 print.

If you have come this far, you have made the major decisions. Now there are a few things that everyone irrespective of where they fall need to take care. I will go about just as above, but its not according to the importance, all are equally important.

1) The battery is the most important part of a digital camera. Don't for one in which you can put aa cells, even if rechargeable. They just will not do. Go for lithium ion based or ni-cd based. They are compact easy to handle and generally last longer and mostly come with the charger or have an in circuit charging capability. Check the weight of the camera with and without the battery.

2) An extension to the above, see to it that the manufacture specifications specify the no, of shots/length of time the battery will last. The higher the better.

3) How many photos do you need? These days the camera comes with a laughable 16Mb internal memory. My cell phone is better in this regard. Make sure you it supports at least one of the formats, CF or SD. Ensure that you can add how much ever more memory you want.

4) Adding on to the third point. What all formats does your camera support, jpg, bmp, raw etc. This helps you to have some simple trade offs in quantity without a large trade off in quality. Ok Ok purists out there don't scorn at me, remember this is a practical guide for dummies.

5) What is the optical zoom? Every sales man talks about zoom (very cleverly hides the word digital). So make sure you know what the optical zoom, and don't carried away to be talked into that optical and digital zoom are same. 3x is bare minimum, and 5x will be great for our purpose. Though no harm in going for more, except a hole in the pocket.

6) How do you download the photos to your PC? It should have a USB connection. Many cameras have firewire (not as pre-levant as USB). Make sure you have the USB or at least an USB adaptor.

7) The screen is an important part of the camera, ensure it has good contrast, configurable time after which it switches off.

Screen all the cameras in the market based on the above criteria, I am sure you will left with hardly 0ne or two. This the time when you will be in a dilemma like I was some time back. At this point it's unto you, I have done my job of helping you find the Camera for you.

All the best shopping and yo! happy clicking.

How to make good use of your past Posts? Use MineKey!

noreply@blogger.com (Ramjee) — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 08:49:00 PDT

Information overload is a big issue. Take this blog for instance, we have about 140 posts on this blog. Many of these posts don't lose their relevance with time, but they get hidden in the vastness of the web. This is a challenging situation for any blog publisher. How do you as a publisher ensure that readers of your blog, find more posts from your blog or other sources according to their interest? One product which might help you address this issue is the Minekey widget. In the following post, I will go through the user experience of Minekey.

The Website is clear of all clutter normally associated with widget sites and has good navigation. Using the widget or seeing any related statistics requires one to login. The Signup screen is pretty simple requiring minimum details. Providing more details like Gender, Date of Birth is optional and can be done at a later time. The login name is by using an email address, saves us the trouble of remembering one more login name. It would be great if they can integrate with OpenID.
A few glitches while entering the Date of Birth are
i) The Date field is only one digit wide, hence it's two digits dates are not visible.

ii) The minimum year is 1940. (Oh! oh! I am 67 and should not blog!!)

Next comes, the most important, the Widget itself. Creating the widget is pretty straight forward and intuitive. One excellent thing, I found is the ability to change the size of the widget easily. Not many widgets give this feature.Good job here. But again here it's not without blemishes.
i) There is label with "1" in it(see the figure). What is the purpose?

ii) Once you click on add widget, a transparent overlay comes up. Check for your self the two screens below and you will know what I am talking about.

iii) The widget colors itself is a problem, the cheerful theme widgets don't come in a wide range of choices. In the Fully Customizable mode, I cannot customize the border styles. I don't see a reason for not providing a fully customizable widget.

Clicking on My Reports takes you to details of the statistics about your reports. A good looking simple functioning UI greets you. I am happy with the reports being available for today, yesterday, Last 7 days, Last Month and overall. Ability to check stats over a date range would be nice to have. However, what I as a publisher would like to see, is more details on "Articles Clicked Through". Currently it is just statistics except under the Today and yesterday mode. Ability to see these statistics will give me more idea on the interests of my users. I don't see why this is not being done currently.

Another interesting feature is the My History. This is shows me the list of all the articles I clicked on various Minekey widgets. I can also share this history with others. A good thing when you are trying to build a community around your widget. Except for this, I don't see any other use for this. Also, I see a bunch of bananas next to some items, what do they mean? I have no clue.

To summarize, I feel this is an excellent tool in the hands of publishers. However, what bothers me (the reason you see it at the bottom of my blog and not on the top side bar) is the limited ability to customize the widget. The experience using the site is good, a clean and and simple interaction across.

Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

It's Puzzle time after a long time!

noreply@blogger.com (Ramjee) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 07:50:00 PDT

It's been ages since I posted anything related to puzzles. I just came across this beautiful post by Jeff Atwood where he talks about some of the Classic Computer Science Puzzles. This post made me nostalgic and took me back in time to my college days. Though not a puzzle Ackerman function fascinated me a lot. You can read more about it in a previous post of mine. Coming back to Computer Science Puzzles, many of us feel they lack the real life implications. I disagree here.

Check this post of mine where I discuss how Domino's has to apply a variation of TSP to solve their delivery issues. The Graph coloring problem is a something that is visible to all of us who have anything to do with maps. Yes, I do agree most of the problems may not find a direct application to the things that we do daily. But, if we think a little some of the real life issues can be addressed with these theoretical stuff(not all mind you!).

With this I stop here, and reproduce the puzzles that Jeff refers to in his post.

"

Dining Philosophers Concurrency and Deadlocks	Five philosophers sit around a circular table. In front of each philosopher is a large plate of rice. The philosophers alternate their time between eating and thinking. There is one chopstick between each philosopher, to their immediate right and left. In order to eat, a given philosopher needs to use both chopsticks. How can you ensure all the philosophers can eat reliably without starving to death?
Travelling Salesman P=NP	A salesperson has a route of cities that make up his or her beat. What's the most efficient sales route that visits each city exactly once, and then returns to the home city?
Eight Queens Algorithm Design	Given eight queens on a standard 8 x 8 chessboard, how many unique positions-- exclusive of rotations and mirror images-- can those eight queens occupy without attacking each other?
Two Generals Communication Protocols	Two armies, each led by a general, are preparing to attack a city. The armies are encamped outside the city on two mountains separated by a large valley. In order to capture the city, the generals must attack at exactly the same time. The only way for the generals to communicate is by sending messengers through the valley. Unfortunately, the valley is occupied by the city's defenders, so there's a chance any given messenger will be captured. Each general has no way of knowing if their messenger arrived. How do the generals coordinate their attack?
Towers of Hanoi Recursion	You have a stack of discs, from largest to smallest, that slide on to the first peg of a three peg board. Your goal is to move the entire stack of discs from the first peg to the third peg. However, you can only move the topmost disc of any peg, and smaller discs must always be placed on larger discs. How many moves will it take?

"
Do you know of more such puzzles? Drop in the comments section. Nothing can be more fun than solving a hard puzzle.

Related Posts:
The Domino's Dilemma
Challenge Your Computer
Crazy Guy on the Plane
Catch the Chicken

Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

Fundamental Email Mistakes

noreply@blogger.com (Ramjee) — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 20:37:00 PDT

A few days back, I have written about Delighting Users with Email in Three Simple steps. Immediately after I published that post, I got another email from a company called MineKey. You can see the screen shot of the mail below. What impression does it leave about this company?

Dear Blogger: Don't I have a name??
I am excited to let you know: Ok, so What?? What is in it for me?. See the difference it makes, if we rephrase as "You will be excited to know"
Syndicate your Blog posts: Understand your end users. They are bloggers alright, but they may not be in the same line as you on the technology front. Tell them in plain simple terms. Have a simple,"Reach Wider Auidence" for the subtitle and then explain the technology behind.
Uploading your OPML: Use action oriented language. "upload your OPML". Same with the joining the published network, use action!!
Please let me know: Compare this with the way Briow requests for feedback. The users have to take time to provide you feedback, so respect them and their time.

Also check out the above message at the fag end of the mail. (I scroll down more than a page to get to this). Not only was all the scrolling unnecessary, but also this message at the end robs of the slightest sympathy I have for Minekey.

Remember in an email, you are writing to a real person and marketing your product to him/her. Break away from your corporate mould and speak human.

PS: Being a IIT KGP alumni startup, I have soft corner for Minekey and want them to succeed big time, in spite of being disappointed with their offerings. The main reason for this disappointment, some simple small things that are they are doing wrong. In a near future post, I will review the user experience of Minekey.

Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.