write ups

BlogCamp India

2006-09-11T13:24:00.000+05:30

I attended the BlogCamp over the weekend & have posted about it in my WordPress blog. (that's where I blog now)

test post

2006-08-31T12:41:00.000+05:30

test

Being careful with your website

2006-03-01T11:06:00.000+05:30

Consider this example. You have a product offering at your website. And you have this page which says

XXXXXX provides an online office suite which allows customers to quickly create documents via a web browser. The customer types in their browser, chooses a letterhead design and receives a professionally formatted PDF file in moments. Customers do not require Adobe Acrobat, as the PDF files are created on the gOFFICE servers. The output from XXXXXX is of high quality. Have a look at this example.

Click on the example link and all you get is an error page :-( I dread something similar happening at our site.

Bloggoggle, good but ...

2006-02-21T04:55:00.000+05:30

Came across Bloggoggle from Steve Rubel's blog. Seems to be nice service but why have they made signing-in this difficult?

Compare this with what we have in Zoho Writer or Zoho Planner.

Reminds me of a recent Seth Godin's post on using 'illegible' capchas (it was ticketmaster.com that got Seth pissed off)

Njoy This Valentine's Day With a Difference

2006-02-04T19:57:00.000+05:30

Came across http://valentinehomepage.com.

Just blog about the site & get a 200 pixels spot for free. This seems to be a limited offer.

Go check this out : http://valentinehomepage.com

vtiger, Open Source CRM

2006-01-27T08:28:00.000+05:30

With Open Source, you get the product free, the code free & in case of vtiger, you get support free too. That is, till now. A blog post there now asks if the community that is being benefited can give bucks for support. A very valid request, I should say keeping in mind the point that the team that is developing the core project needs motivation & money to keep itself moving.

If you are an Open Source advocate, join the discussion there.

WordPress Splogs

2006-01-27T07:01:00.000+05:30

Google addressed the splog problem in blogger.com. & this was a welcome step for marketers advertising through Google Adwords. But seeing Google ads onWordPress based splogs causes concern. One such splogs network I found :

http://college-news-info.com/
http://www.cancer-news-health.com/
http://www.auto-info-news.com/
http://www.diet-info-news.com/
http://www.loan-info-news.com/

When is this going to be addressed, Google?

Chennai Book Fair 2006

2006-01-16T22:10:00.000+05:30

Didn't want to miss the trip I make every year. It was as usual. The fair keeps growing & they'd said there were around 250 stalls this year. Yesterday being the last day, the crowds were there & it was difficult entering many stalls. Didn't have time to visit all & had to choose prominent ones.

Had a look at Jayamohan's 'Kottravai', the much talked about book but then the kaapiyam-style writing was a little over my head. And had some faint remembrances when flipping through KiRa's Koballagrammam. Thought about buying SuRa's JJ:Sila Kuripugal but then changed my mind.

Books bought - To Kill a Mocking Bird (had always wanted to own a copy so that I can read it whenever needed) & 1984 (Orwell's masterpiece, another book I'd badly wanted to read). Bought Malcom Gladwell's 'Blink' (was impressed by his 'Tipping Point') on the platform & went to Spencers Landmark (so many blue shirted staff around!) & bought 'Guns, Germs & Steel' a book that Sandeep had recommended. Hmm, all these I hope to read atleast before the next year's event.

This is cute

2006-01-13T02:36:00.000+05:30

A Flickr enabled LCD photo frame for $250!

From the thinkgeek site :

ThinkGeek has the new and completely uniqueeStarling Wi-Fi Photo Frame ready for your hot little geek paws."Wi-Fi Picture Frame?" you respond quizzically with greatanticipation... The eStarling frame is a standalone Wi-Fi LCD photo frame that connects to a wireless networkand automatically displays photos e-mailed to it in a slideshowformat. Additionally you can specify an RSS photo feedfrom Flickr based on your own tagged keywords. You can even shootphotos on your mobile phone then e-mail them directly to youreStarling frame for display.

That's Google

2006-01-04T07:33:00.000+05:30

Google's way of celebrating Braille's B'Day! Cool :)

The first Mouse

2006-01-02T14:51:00.000+05:30

Scobleizer has some pretty pics of the first mouse, courtesy his visit of Douglas Engelbart. Here's a close-up shot

This is funny

2006-01-02T14:28:00.000+05:30

Hugh points to this funny post - Rules when dating Jack Yoest's daughter :-)

Towards a secure OS

2006-01-02T14:15:00.000+05:30

Thanks to Doc for the link, this post by Mike Warrot has some interesting points.

How do you know you've got a secure OS?

Simple...

When you can run ANYTHING on it, at ANY time, with NO FEAR.

Ifyou've got a secure OS, you'd be willing to take a CD from any randomperson on the street, stick it in, and run the damned thing because youknow your OS will only allow it to do exactly what you've specified,and nothing else.

If you've got a secure OS, you know that NOapplication can ever take over the OS, unless you explicitly given itthe capability to do so, and haven't revoked it.

If you've got a secure OS, you never have to run a virus scan again, EVER.

If you've got a secure OS, you can just get your work done, and get on with life.

Wishing Mike success.

How cable TV is the same everywhere

2005-12-01T18:12:00.000+05:30

Jeff Jarvis has a nice point on cable television.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is again pushing a la carte cable.

Like every cable customer, I resent paying for channels I don’t want. I hate sports. I cannot abide religious nuts. I don’t speak Spanish. I miss various demographic targets. I have no use for tons of channels and would prefer not to pay for them.

The set-top box offers a la carte TV to some extent clubbing channels but has got other issues. And for the Rs 100 we now pay in Chennai for the 'free' channels, we do get a lot of crap and I agree with Jeff - on demand or a la carte is the best way we can have more control over these media guys.

This one's funny

2005-12-01T16:34:00.000+05:30

Watch this : http://www.youtube.com/watch.php?v=JjvzQm4bJ8s

Thanks to Badri

testing trackback

2005-11-24T12:27:00.000+05:30

Its been tough to make the Trackback feature of blogs work for me. I reference so many sites in here & it would be good have my blog entries be displayed in those sites. About.com had an article on Trackback. Testing it out here. Let me see how it works.

http://www.shaicoggins.com/index.php/trackback/63/72DpJBmU/

Flash agitations in Chennai

2005-11-21T12:19:00.000+05:30

There was more rain today morning in Chennai & the roads got flooded as usual. Traffic on the Tambaram-Velachery strech got affected due to agitations. Not sure what their actual demands were. There were lots of office-goers walking towards Vijaya Nagar, Velachery today morning around 9 am. Anyone has more news on this?

All banks are the same across the world

2005-11-18T20:11:00.000+05:30

Seth Godin writes :

A door to door salesman just walked into our offices in Irvington.

Tough job.

A job usually reserved for people selling advertising or janitorial services.

This was an assistant Vice President at Citibank. He's wandering the halls, door by door, trying to sell business checking accounts.

We get pestered in India too by banks like HDFC, HSBC cold-calling us to offer 'free' credit cards, personal/home loans etc. Hmm, the banks have too much money. Wondering whether its the signs of a good or bad economy?

Fall & after

2005-11-17T06:39:00.000+05:30

Had the first fall from my Scooty Pep in a minor accident last week. As I turned a corner, a car hit the rear (not so fastly, thank God) & I fell over. Thankfully it was just bruises & no broken bones. I'd put the indicator & there was the beep coming but the light had failed. Apparently, the recent rains had a role to play, shorting the circuitry.

All's well now & my Scooty looks great after the service.

The BusinessWeek Maze

2005-11-16T23:33:00.000+05:30

Been to the Techbeat section of Business Week y'day. There was this article summary by Rob Hof titled "Meet the Web Smart 50". Wanted to see the companies that made up the Top 50 and gleefully clicked the link. Only to be taken to a page which had all the info except the one I wanted. There was this topic named "Best of the New Web" under the TECH SPECIAL REPORTS which when clicked led to this page. And there there was a link under the EDITOR's PICKS topic which finally had what I was looking for. Hm, nice experience. Hope I'll not be troubled to visit BusinessWeek any time soon again.

Another Microsoft in the making?

2005-11-16T05:26:00.000+05:30

Ethan Stock of Zvents is pissed about Google. Shows the increasingly visible "I'm BIG & I don't care about my customers" trap that Google has fallen into.

Amazon Pages

2005-11-09T11:26:00.000+05:30

Amazon has announced a book-scanning project ... The Amazon plan will scan copyrighted books and let readers search through them. It will offer paid online access to parts or all of the book, and the payment will depend on the book, and on how much of the book someone wants available.

There's also an option to buy the physical book, and then have access to the full text of the book online as well.

This keeps everyone happy. Copyright holders are paid fairly for their works, and readers can buy only portions of books they want to use.

With Google Print mired in legal battles, this slightly modified move by Amazon has surprised everyone. More at http://www.networkingpipeline.com/blog/archives/2005/11/amazon_beats_go.html

ps: Google now scans public domain books that were never subject to copyright or whose copyright has expired. For books not in the public domain, Google shows small snippets of the work unless the publisher or copyright holder has given them permission to show more.

Sensationalism

2005-11-08T23:44:00.000+05:30

A news article in chennaionline.com says

Production in the Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC) in Cuddalore district was affected as water had entered three of the mines, an NLC official said.

An NLC official said that? What crap. NLC has got open mines and there is no point of water 'entering' the mines! Water is always there at all times of the year in almost, if not, all mines - whether open or closed. When you dig earth out to depth of 40 metres & more, ground water comes out & there is a separate Ground Water Control (GWC) department at NLC whose sole job is to pump water off & use it else where. Usually, during heavy rains, the water levels rise & the GWC folks find it difficult to pump the excess water. Thats what happens whenever it rains & not as these guys report.

Update : Seems chennaionline isn't the only one reporting this. outlookindia too has the same thing to say. Now, combine sensationalism to plagiarism (who copied who?) & you have such poor journalism.

A noble gesture

2005-11-08T23:08:00.001+05:30

The organs of twelve-year-old Ahmed Ismail Khatib, a palestinian boy mistakenly killed by Israeli army have been donated to 6 Israelites.

The BBC reports:

Ahmed's kidneys, liver, heart and lungs were transplanted into Israelis including Jews, Arabs and a Druse girl, medical officials said.

The girl, aged 12 and from Israel's Bedouin Arab minority, received Ahmed's heart, bringing to an end a five-year wait for a transplant.

Her father, Riad Gadban, called the donation a "gesture of love" and said his daughter was regaining strength after the operation.

Salutations to the boy's parents.

A noble gesture

2005-11-08T23:08:00.000+05:30

The organs of twelve-year-old Ahmed Ismail Khatib, a palestinian boy mistakenly killed by Israeli army have been donated to 6 Israelites.

The BBC reports:

Ahmed's kidneys, liver, heart and lungs were transplanted into Israelis including Jews, Arabs and a Druse girl, medical officials said.

The girl, aged 12 and from Israel's Bedouin Arab minority, received Ahmed's heart, bringing to an end a five-year wait for a transplant.

Her father, Riad Gadban, called the donation a "gesture of love" and said his daughter was regaining strength after the operation.

Salutations to the boy's parents.