kvrlogs

The last decade of my life has been very interesting - I had to take decisions at various points in my personal life as well as in my career - a few times the choice was very clear, at times both the choices looked equally attractive and at times both looked equally hard and difficult. So how do we decide which one to take? The thumbrule I have is - take the harder path. By harder I mean - I might have to work harder, educate myself on something new, might have to let go off my comfort zone, let go off things I love. But this might not be the case always - at times the easier option was also the best option. So how do we know if the choice we had made is the right one? The answer is - we will never know. If there was something called time travel then perhaps we will know. So I tell myself - the decision I took was the right one - always. I never regret on any decision I had taken because I know just around the corner I have one more decision to make which will be harder than the pre...

Can anyone spot what is wrong with this picture? Look closely - there are no fuse carriers and the lines have been shorted by a thick piece of wire. Wondering what it means? - When an electric surge happens - there is no fuse that will blow and break the circuit. The surge will go right into the homes and kill all the devices which are On at that time - TVs, bulbs, mobile chargers... I am not trying to educate BESCOM electricians - they are lazy & crazy and they don't read my blog - but this post is about unit tests. Last week I answered a questionnaire for a friend of mine who is doing a course work about Agile - one of the questions was - Is it not absurd to write unit tests? The above picture is the answer to the question. Unit tests are like fuses - they blow up in your build and prevent a blow up in production in future. Commenting out an unit test is like shorting the circuit with a thick piece of wire - like in the above picture. For eg., when a developer forgets to do a...

Microsoft is fighting lot of battles - that is one problem of being big. OS : Windows vs OS X, Linux, Solaris, and now Google Chrome OS Email : Hotmail/Live vs GMail, YMail Search : Bing vs Google,Yahoo.. Database : MS Sql Server vs Oracle,MySQL,PostgreSql.. IM : MSN Messenger vs GTalk, Yahoo Messenger,IRC,Pidgin Programming platform : .NET vs Java.. Languages : C#,VB.NET,ASP.NET vs Java, Ruby,Python,PHP,Perl.. Mobile OS : Windows Mobile vs Android, OS X, Symbian.. Media player : Zune vs iPod, Creative, Sony.. Office Suite : Microsoft Office vs OpenOffice, Google Apps Browser : Internet Explorer vs Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera Gaming Platform : XBox vs Nintendo, Sony and now iPhone Vector graphics for web : Silverlight vs Flash, Flex My head is spinning. If you notice the ones on the right of VS - for instance Opera - that is their entire life - the reason for their existence. They are focusing all their energies and souls into their products -yet Microsof...

Have you seen the movie - 300? It is the story of 300 Spartans who defy all logic and fight against wave after wave of attacks by a much bigger Persian army. Technically it is a well made movie and is a good entertainer - but as an entrepreneur you can draw lot of inspiration from this movie. The Spartans were severely outnumbered - but they believed in their abilities, their training, the trust they had with one another - sounds familiar? :) As an entreprenur you will have to fight lot of battles - thought not as gory as Spartans. Fight against a well established player : Like the Spartans, when Apple started they had to fight IBM. When Pepsi started it had to fight Coke. You can find so many stories where a small company challenged the giant in the industry. If you are one of those entrepreneurs fighting a bigger player - keep going. If you believe in your abilties, in your team - even if it is small - you can win the battle eventually. Fight against established norms : Spartans did ...

Last weekend I went to Staples Print Center in Marathahalli - Printo has closed shop and moved out. And when I got home I plugged the USB drive into Vista and AVG Anti Virus did not complain - but I saw a program called Khatra.exe asking for Admin privileges to run. Then I rebooted into Ubuntu and was horrified to see the files that were there. There were folders and lots of exes. Now I am upset with 2 entities here. 1. Staples Print Center Printo always scans the flash drives ( even if it used to take time ) and not once they loaded viruses on to my USB drive. Wish Staples learns from their competitor and educates their employees to follow proper process ( I am sure Staples will have it in their employee handbook ). 2. Vista I did not give administrative privileges to Khatra.exe, still it managed to copy itself in the registry in some 10 places, got itself added to startup , and had the guts to ask again for administrative privileges when I rebooted. I am shocked that inspite of all ...

Photos shot on my Nokia 6630 with his Avva in Reliance Footprint while his Ma shops ! this is equivalent of commenting out the failing test because the entire build was failing ! forgot where I took this one. in Lal Bagh or Cubbon park - one of them. after Prithvi's birthday party. Achu, this is for you ! on the terrace - should be the world for this little ant ! He is a Royal Challengers fan, but was just being nice. Next in human evolution - use mouth for carrying stuff, so hands are free to tweet and blog.

TheIndianStartup.com interviewed us recently - you can read about the interview in their blog . Now for the update, my startup is no more a sole-proprietorship. It is now a Private Limited firm - 3Five8 Technologies Pvt. Ltd. When I started - sole proprietorship made sense - because it did not cost anything, nothing to register and I can concentrate on building the portal. However, after the launch and after winning Adda's first premium customer and the subsequent customers I dealt with all had this uneasiness doing business with a sole proprietor. I understood that sole proprietorship was not sufficient any more. Finally kicked off the process in April sometime - took close to 2 months in my case because of various reasons. Having a Pvt. Ltd. company gives confidence to my customers. And it did cost quite a bit : 1. It costs quite a lot to register.... around 27k. 2. Every year the company has to submit its audited finances - even if it makes a loss. This is again around 25k ...

I have started writing here in http://artofstart.theindianstartup.com . The theme mainly is books that are inspiring and valuable for an entrepreneur. Here are the three posts I have written : Follow your heart like Santiago - review of The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho Blaze a new path like Howard Roark - review of The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand Find the tipping point of your venture - review of The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell I will continue writing in this blog about technical things and a developer's perspective of running a startup and of course my frustrations with that browser and that operating system :)

"The Tipping Point" is another interesting book from Malcolm Gladwell. "Tipping points" are the levels at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable. He analyses how social epidemics start and classifies 3 kinds of people you will need - who will help your product/portal/message reach the tipping point. Connectors : Connectors are passive information passers. "Hi I heard about this cool website..." - is what they will say - and they will say this to quite a few. Mavens : Mavens are more factual. "Do you know you can get this and this done in this website..." - is what they will say. They analyze threadbare the features/shortcomings and will help the listener make a fair judgement of the product. Salesmen : Salesmen are more persuasive.  "You should be using this website because it will save you time and effort...." is what they will say.  They not only do the job of mavens - by giving you facts but they also will list out the adv...

"The FountainHead" by Ayn Rand is an eye opener in many ways. Howard Roark is an architecture school student who has a different philosophy on how buildings should be built. He wanted to build structures that will be aesthetically pleasing, economically meaningful, in tune with the environment and the building should make a statement. Whereas the industry was aping what the Gothic and romantic architectures of the past had built - with meaningless arches, facades and wasted space. He is thrown out of his college because he refuses to design the traditional architecture and struggles for work - but he never once compromises on his ideals . He waits and his time comes and the world accepts his style of architecture. It is one man against a well established industry who tries hard to keep him down. But the harder you push a ball into water - the faster it rises out and with more force - Howard Roark wins in the end. As an entrepreneur - you might have battles yourself - as you...

I was in school - 7th or 8th Standard is when I heard about Michael Jackson. I did not know how he looked, how he danced, how he sung - but I was already a fan. My friends who had listened to his music and seen video brought by their Amru uncle - told in such vivid details that MJ was already dancing in my imagination. Then I caught MJ on World this Week - hosted by Prannoy Roy - the only window to the world I had at that time. And what I saw was better than what I had constructed in my memory. Over the years I watched him fall from one disaster to another and prayed silently for him. And in 2000 he was awarded the greatest entertainer of the century by Mtv. And in his acceptance speech he said "You ain't seen nothing yet". Gave me hope - perhaps he has turned a new leaf and will produce another amazing album. Sadly the clock stopped for him. I saw a tweet from someone yesterday - "even my office peon knows about MJ" - that sums it up how great a person he was.

I love twitter. If you don't like twitter - still you can read this article - because you will get some fresh twitter bashing stuff 1. Boarded plane ! Oh you have a GPRS enabled mobile is it - oh it's an iPhone - so you are able to tweet till the flight attendant comes and asks you to switch off your phone and then give a dirty look to the guy next to you who has a Nokia 1001. 2. Good morning! Dood - I live in India - and its evening for me. Try to understand - the world is not flat how much ever Thomas Friedmann has made millions out of that statement. 3. RT this RT that ! Well even I RT that at times but not all the time.There are tweeters who live only to RT. At times Tweet something other than 1) and 2) and I will follow you. 4. #fail ! I fail you. I see so many fails that it depresses me. I wish the tweeters use some other hash tags..like #boo, #yuck etc. Be creative. Fail brings back school day nightmares. 5. I bought an iPhone 3GS Good for you. You can now tweet till the...

The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho This book written by the Brazilian author, Paulo Coelho - is a very very bad book - in a good way  - because it has the potential to change your life upside down !! You can finish it on a weekend  - 160 pages is all it is. It traces the journey of Santiago, the shepherd boy who goes in hunt of a treasure. This book will have a huge impact on your life. While reading and after reading it will leave you disturbed, questioning yourself, and if you had suppressed a dream - a dream of starting your own business, or learning something like guitar which you keep postponing, or going on a crazy bike ride to another city - anything - these dreams will come alive and will dance before you. The book teaches  you to follow your heart. It is as simple as that. In fact all of Paulo Coelho's books have this recurring theme - do not suppress your dream, you have one life and you have to allow it to go where it is destined to go. Do not restrict yourself saying this is ...

I wasted sleep yesterday night to watch Indians play test cricket and lose. And here is my advise to India - stick to IPL and do not bother about playing world cups.  3. Better Prime time In this world cup India matches start(ed) at night 10.00PM. Given that only Indians watch cricket how can they schedule all India games at 10.00PM? You are wondering about the non-Indians sitting in the stadium? -  they were brought to the stadium with beer - like how they do in Indian elections.  With IPL the game bends for you. Games start at 3.00PM to kill afternoon boredom at office and they give a break so commuters can fight the way through traffic and reach on time to watch the next match at 7.00PM. And go to sleep at night 10.00PM. Early to bed and early to rise - IPL is good for your health. 2.  Guaranteed Runs In IPL, any team will have 2 good bowlers and the rest will be like henchmen in movies who are there to be beaten up. So just save your wickets till the henchmen come on the scene. And...

Following the phenomenal success of BING ( aka - Bing is not Google) which is actually Microsoft's Live search renamed and a 100 Million dollar marketing budget , Microsoft is preparing more product launches along similar lines. PINIP - Pinip is Not iPod. Bloggers will go crazy with this name - Zune never had the hipness to it. Along with a 1000 Million dollar budget, they can use the money to buy it off the shelves and prove Zune has more market share than iPod. MINO - Mino is not Oracle. With Oracle now owning MySQL the rich and poor use Oracle's databases. By renaming MS Sql server with a jazzy name like MINO - Oracle will have to forego hogging the database market and instead concentrate on reviving the companies it killed by buying them - like PeopleSoft, Sun etc. VINOSX - Of course you guessed it right - V is not OS X and is actually Vista repackaged. Difficult to pronounce but with a 100000 Million dollar marketing budget with lots of youtube ads, banner ads, televis...

The last couple of days I am watching Tamil TV Serials - during lunch and dinner. I have to socialize with the guests who are visiting us. It will not be manners to read a book when guests are around you see. So here is how I entertain myself. 1. Watch the side actors . Usually the main heroine ( no heroes ) will be talking a few pages of scripts in one go. And time to time the side actors will keep looking at each other. It is so funny. At times one actor will try to look at the other - and she/he will be listening intently and will not look. 2. Watch for mistakes . There are so many. Usually when there is a large crowd there will be 5 or 6 people who will never get a dialogue. Keep looking at them - and they will keep seeing into the camera now and then. 3. Guess the cliche statement that will emerge out of the actor's mouth. You will win all the time. "Enn uyiruai kuduthaavathu unnai kaapaathuvaen" "Vaanga. Coffee saapidureengala" "Nalla mugurtham paar...

Finally I have made the jump from Windows to Linux - the 3rd time. First 2 times I did it when I was on a J2EE project ( weblogic environment ) and a SOA project ( Tomcat ). Once I rolled off the projects again I had to go back to Windows. Now this is the 3rd time I am switching and along with it the development environment of Apartment Adda to Ubuntu and I will be here for quite some time - perhaps till I get a powerbook ;) The build and production are already on linux - so it was easy to make the switch - the scripts were all working. A few things were holding me back - like Nokia PC Suite, ITunes, Chrome - but I am feeling better already for having made the choice. 1. Ubuntu 9 is slick, good on eyes and blazingly fast My thumbrule for judging the performance of an OS is - everything should launch like how a notepad launches in Windows XP ( vista notepad takes longer than XP notepad). In Ubuntu most of the apps meet the critieria. Ubuntu boots really fast and is immediately responsiv...

It is easy to accurately predict who all will lose in this election. A fractured mandate is bad for the country.  Here is my list of losers because of this election 09. 1. Environment With the makeshift horse traded government trying to hold on to power on a day to day basis - the environment will never show up any where on the radar. Instead we will see environmentally unfriendly projects getting sanctioned at a furious pace - because even before the PIL can be submitted - the minister in charge might be replaced and a new government would have come. Make hay while the sun shines will be order of the day. Sorry Earth. 2. Economy I feel sorry for the poor sods (including yours truly ) who have sunk their money in Stock Market . I am predicting market to fall to 8000 in the next few months. The parliment will be run by everything other than pragmatism. With the netas whims and fancies changing on a day to day basis - and along with it the fluctuating majority - and along with it the mar...

There is this age old debate - should you specialize on a skill, or generalize and become a jack of all trades? Heres a quote that answers the question : “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, and die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” – Robert A. Heinlein — from The Notebooks of Lazarus Long There are exceptions - but as a generalization - the above quote is spot on. In any career you will have your main stream ( BA, Developer, QA, Architect etc. ) - but to become really kickass in your stream - you have to develop other surrounding skills. Where I am coming at is - as an entrepreneur you will be forced to don many hats. I have met a few entrepreneurs who will dig ...

Some people will live and die for a city. I am not one of them - and I will objectively analyze which city is a best fit for me - a 30+ year old dad, techie, non-pub hopper, digs Chettinad food and Saravana Bhavan, and who enjoys the beach. By now you know where my allegiance is :) Beach Vs Mall The beach might not be how it used to be 10 years back - but still the salty air and cool breeze are the same. No one can prevent the breeze from hitting me - and every time I go to Beasant Nagar beach it reminds me one of the fun times I had there - late night cricket, intellectual and mushy exchanges...numerous. When I go to a mall I get blinded, suffocated and when I come out I feel drained of my energy and am happy to get out of the mall. Chennai : 1  Bangalore : 0 Traffic Traffic has shot up everywhere - even in tier 3 cities. Chennai traffic is still smooth like butter. You wait only once in any signal - lots of flyovers and smart traffic management ensures you keep moving. Bangalore - ug...