Notes on BarCampBangalore6 – Day 1

• It was a long ride from Whitefield to IIMB which was not painful, but finding the NSRCEL inside IIM was . Although the person at the security desk directed me “Barcampaah ? Rightu.. Deadendu”, I was lost in that massive campus.
• The kick-off session was short and simple. A 3-min intro to BarCamp and a 30-sec intro by the people about their session. And oh, boy, there were quite a number of people who turned up there. So had to stand in the long registration queue to get the ID sticker (which was damn cool) and a very nice looking coffee mug with BarCamp printed on it (Man, these guys got money)
• Twitter seems to be a superstar here (mention of twitter gets a thunderous applause) and Microsoft Windows seems to be a very bad word. What else you need, to feel at home .
• While waiting in the queue I found a guy, talking about RoR. Came to know that he is, Prateek, the co-founder of the company, Muziboo. He is working alone in this project for to close to 10 months and his wife does the marketing for the company. Quite amazed to see an entrepreneur with a strong belief in his ideas.
• First session I attended had a title like “Challenges in launching a product”, it started off well but I did not get a heck of it after that. I felt it was too abstract. So started shuttling between the rooms for an interesting session.
• There was a session about designing a logo, which I came in very late and one trivia I got from this today is about the logo of the FedEx. Click here and tell me what else you find other than the text in it.
• The session, I that I liked very much was about “Multi threading and Async I/O” by Bhavin. Long time since I have heard a passionate technical lecture. It was very refreshing and good to know about the stuffs you learnt in the Operating Systems course at college. Thanks, Bhavin.
• Went into a session about Kwippy.com but it was almost over. They claim to be an advanced-twitter. I have requested a user for their web application. Hope I get an invite to know it soon.
• After a quick lunch (read as free and sumptuous), I was in a room where the discussion was about “Empowering the rural girls through education for the rural girls”. Like any other discussion, this also got hijacked, mediated and it was good. One guy working for an NGO in Bangalore was sharing, how tough it was to make the parents realise the need for education. Another lady, said about a project (Nanhi Kali) in Andhra Pradesh, where they lured the villagers by giving them basic medical attention. A gentleman was saying that some girls go to the school but the parents hesitate to send to school after the girls reach puberty, as the toilet facilities in schools at the village is very very poor. I remember there was a project kicked-off in Tamilnadu, where they wanted to manufacture and give sanitary napkins for the rural girls at a very nominal cost. Almost all the odds at our country are against the rural people.
• The last session I attended was the Rich Internet Application session. There was an good overview about the history and the trends about RIA given by Mrinal. Followed by a session about Adobe Flex/AIR and Microsoft Silverlight. It was a very good overview session, may be I have to dig in the net for some more info at the forums and blogs.
• I left for the day early, as I had to follow-up with my recent obsession of Cricket (be it ICL or IPL ) and follow my favorite team Chennai Superkings. And worse, I had to miss the session about “Unknown nuances of Kama Sutra or something like that” . Anyways it was a very good barcamp for a first timer like me. Looking forward for tomorrow’s edition of the BCB6….

Wiki Paint

My brother is doing a project in his college as part of his curriculum. He likes to call it as Collaborative Paint, but I like the term Wiki Paint. You know anything based or remotely connected to Wiki is cool and attractive in this Web 2.0 world (think of Chickipedia.com). Cool enough to get a coverage in our local newspaper
  
But anyways, I liked the concept of this Wiki Paint. I don’t know if there are tools already existing in the market, which does this (apart from the MSN NetMeeting’s Whiteboard, which of course is based on a software on your client).
For now, the Wiki Paint is very very rudimentary in its shape.But, when everything is in place (time and effort, which is less because he is still preparing for his exams), I think this could be used as the following:

• Editing huge posters and images
• Collaborative Designing
• Simple broadcast (it would be nice, if it gives the audio as well)

My brother told about this idea a year back and I was excited about this idea. When I said this to some of friends, many were skeptical about the business value and innovation behind this idea. Today, there is news about the Google India selecting few “product prodigies” and awarding them. And the first prize goes to a project, to the idea of “Collaborative Paint” for some grads at IIT Bombay. Congrats guys. So the race now would be who productizes this idea and markets better.

Now I don’t have to explain my friends about the business value and innovation !

Apple Safari and other thoughts

I never knew that Apple Safari was available for Windows, until few days back. Despite my unaffordability of a iMac or a Time Capsule, due to its price, I’m a huge fan of Apple and Steve Jobs. So I need not express, how happy I was .

The look and feel is really gorgeous and simple. Being a compulsive Firefox user, I always had complaints about the Firefox’s rendering. Safari’s rendering is the best I have seen so far. Its smooth and makes any crappy web page looks attractive.

Another feature that I liked about Safari is, its proxy and connection settings. It shares the settings with the Internet Explorer. Unlike Firefox which has a separate proxy settings of its own, Safari’s sharing with IE makes it very easy for me. I will tell you why, I have to set the proxy when I work from my office and have to disable it when I work from home. When I was using Firefox, each and every time I shuttle between my office, I have to go and change the settings in both the browsers. (My company’s products are not yet tailored for Firefox, so I cannot escape from IE :’( ). So now, the life is simple with Safari.

Extending the same concept, why don’t the browsers share the following from the Operating System:

• Browsing History 
• Form details (other than password, info like user id, name and address)
• Bookmarks & Favorites
• Plugins (why should I download and install plug-ins for each and every browser)

These features will make users to use as much as browsers as possible. Firefox has huge gamut of extensions, which I have not seen in IE or Safari. Safari’s cool and gorgeous UI. IE for websites which are lazy and arrogant enough to support other browsers. 

 At the end of the day, end users get best of all the worlds ! 

R.I.P Sujatha

One of the very few persons whom I have hated as much as I have loved. R.I.P to the Superhero of my time. Thanks for everything,

என்ன செய்து கிழித்தார் பெரியார்? – வே.மதிமாறன்

‘‘என்ன செய்து கிழித்தார் பெரியார்?’’
பனை ஏறும் தந்தை தொழிலில்
இருந்து தப்பித்து
தலைமைச் செயலகத்தில்
வேலை செய்பவர் கேட்டார்.

“பெரியாரின்
முரட்டுத்தனமான அணுகுமுறை
அதெல்லாம் சரிப்பட்டு வராதுங்க”
இது
முடிவெட்டும் தோழரின் மகனான
எலக்ட்ரிக்கல் என்ஜினியர்.

“என்னங்க
பெரியார் சொல்லிட்டா சரியா?
பிராமணனும் மனுசந்தாங்க.

திராவிட இயக்கம்
இலக்கியத்துல என்ன செஞ்சி கிழிச்சது?”
இப்படி ‘இந்தியா டுடே’ பாணியில்
கேட்டவர்
அப்பன் இன்னும்
பிணம் எரித்துக் கொண்டிருக்க
இங்கே
டெலிபோன் டிபார்ட்மென்டில்
சுபமங்களாவை விரித்தபடி
சுஜாதா
சுந்தர ராமசாமிக்கு
இணையாக
இலக்கிய சர்ச்சை
செய்து கொண்டிருக்கும்
அவருடைய மகன்.

ஆமாம்
அப்படி என்னதான் செய்தார் பெரியார்?

நன்றி : ‘இனி’ மாத இதழ், 1993 அக்டோபர்

Thamizh Poem by Arasu Balraj

An impressive poem in Thamizh

நாலாவது தூண்

தினத் தந்தி தலைப்புச் செய்தி:
பிறந்தார் பேரன்;
தாத்தா ஆனார் ரஜினிகாந்த்!

தலைப்புச் செய்தியே இப்படி என்றால்,
உள்ளே என்ன இருக்கும்?

சிறப்புச் செய்தி:
அதிசயம்,
ஆனால் உண்மை!

பிறந்தார் பேரன்;
தாத்தா ஆனார் ரஜினிகாந்த்!
ரஜினிகாந்த் தாத்தா ஆனதால்,
லதா ரஜினிகாந்த் பாட்டி ஆனார்!
ரஜினிகாந்த் தாத்தா ஆனதால்,
தனுஷ் அப்பா ஆனார்!
ரஜினிகாந்த் தாத்தா ஆனதால்,
ஐஸ்வர்யா தனுஷ் அம்மா ஆனார்!
ரஜினிகாந்த் தாத்தா ஆனதால்,
ஐஸ்வர்யாவின் தங்கை சித்தி ஆனார்!
ரஜினிகாந்த் தாத்தா ஆனதால்,
தனுஷின் அண்ணன் பெரியப்பா ஆனார்!

உங்களால் நம்ப முடிகிறதா,
ரஜினிகாந்த் தாத்தா ஆனதால்,
கஸ்தூரி ராஜா கூட தாத்தா ஆனார்!
ரஜினிகாந்த் தாத்தா ஆனதால்,
கஸ்தூரி ராஜா பொண்டாட்டி கூட பாட்டி ஆனார்!
ரஜினிகாந்த் தாத்தா ஆனதால்,
கஸ்தூரி ராஜாவின் ஒன்று விட்ட சித்தப்பா….

பிற முக்கியமில்லாத செய்திகள்:
டெங்கு காய்ச்சல் பரவுகிறது! அரசு மெத்தனம்!
கடன் தொல்லையால் விஷம் குடித்த விவசாயி சாவு!
–இன்னும் சில இது போன்ற சில வழக்கமான,
ஆச்சரியப்பட வேண்டாத செய்திகள்——–

வாங்கிப் படியுங்கள் தினத் தந்தி!
வாழ்க இந்தியா!
வளர்க நாலாவது தூண்!

Ratatouille

Anton Ego, the food critic in the movie, says

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.

Ratatouille, simply rocks

Larry, simply, Brilliant

Larry, you are truly a visionary…

Todoist

Of late, I have been stuck by the Control Freak bee. I heard about this GTD way of organising stuffs and 43 folders things. Sounded like a simple and uncluttered way of doing things. I also bumped across the site Todoist.com which is really a cool and amazing tool. The interface is very clean, neat and absolutely simple. So this is the list of things I liked about Todoist.

• Nice, neat and uncluttered interface
• Easy and simple queries. You can use simple shortcuts like od (overdue), tod (today) for searching the tasks
• Want to edit a task. Just click on the task (no submit to the server, no roundtrip, salute AJAX), start editing it. More than that, you can use shortcuts for the date. “next fri” is enough for the tool understand the date of the task. You can set recurring tasks as well.
• Tasks and sub-tasks can be assigned so quickly. There are lots of keyboard shortcuts, but me, a windows-sedated user prefer using the mouse.
• What else, you can get this integrated with GMail. From the GMail conversation you can create a task into Todoist.

I was also surprised to know about the people behind the site. Wunderkind must be the word to describe them. Two whizkids Amir and Armin are people behind this site. Amazing job guys.

Enough of my rant, go to Todoist now and check it out, how good it is.

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