kvrlogs

Tata Nano is back in the news - for all the good reasons - booking is open online and launch date has also been announced. Here are my top 3 reasons why Nano is actually good for all of us. 1. Nano will make better citizens out of us : Nano is going to congest the roads - which is a good thing. Now the lazy ones who always had better alternatives to commute will just give up driving and take to cycling, walking, take the public transport or try car pooling. One cannot drive on 1st gear for 20 kms daily - the clutch foot will hurt and petrol bill will bite like a vampire in the neck. Ouch. So these lazy bozos will now suddenly "discover" new ways of commuting - which are cheaper, cleaner,stress free and faster too.  Time to recommend two of my friends who are doing their part to change the world - Rohan Kini's pedal power - bumsonthesaddle.com Vipul Kasera's Car pooling portal - commuteeasy.com 2. Govt will make better Public Transport: This will be the second effect. ...

Today I was setting up a cron job and suddenly realized - Linux has been such a good friend to me all these years and I never recognized this fact. This post is how Linux has stood by my side silently and quietly helped me do difficult things easily, has never once failed me, is always there when I wanted, does not require me to pay, teaches me cool tips & tricks and is a joy to talk with - what else can you expect from your best friend. I will summarize some of the features I love linux for. 1. tail -f error.log I use tail command a lot. Only Textpad in windows world has something equivalent of it and that too is a little jerky and with large log files Textpad becomes slow. Tell me if there is a better alternative to Textpad and Notepad++ ( should I have to always manually reload in Notepad++?). 2. crontab Hats off to the geniuses behind crontab concept. Scheduling programs to run every minute to run on a particular day once a year - is so simple. Just by editing a text file you c...

And before I begin the usual disclaimer : This post is for the developers who have a startup idea for a click and mortar business ( meaning an online portal or a software product ) and not the traditional brick and mortar types. Hi there my developer friends and those developers who are contemplating a career as an entrepreneur and running their own startup. My recommendation - take the plunge - we have an unfair advantage already :) In the world out side of World of warcraft I chose my career as a developer - not a cook, not an artisan, not an F1 driver, not a manager - but a developer. And now in my current role as an entrepreneur I am patting myself for the decisions I took on all the career forks that were put in front of me - and kept choosing the paths so I remained a developer. Here is why being a developer/architect is perfect for an entrepreneurial stint. Advantages 1. You will save a ton of money on developing your product.Currently my expenses are hosting, printing, hardw...

First the disclaimer - I don't have the answer to the question - What is the secret sauce of these companies. It is a rhetorical question. Today morning I woke up to be greeted with iPod shuffle - and Apple has released a simple but very useful feature ( unlike the shuffle feature they bragged about in shuffle's first release ). Now shuffle can talk to you about the song or the playlist name - very neat. Most of the time when you are working out or driving - it is hard to switch playlists - now this feature has made it really easy to use an iPod. I hope Apple updates its firmware so my iPod classic gets this feature. But it makes me wonder how Apple can consistently come up with "cool" features. Is it the culture, is it because of Steve Jobs, is it some magic potion they put in the employee's food? I really wish Steve Jobs writes a book on Apple. Nintendo is in the same league as Apple. Their graphics is rudimentary when compared to PS3 or XBOX 360. But Nintendo...

Here is the top 5 list !! 5. I get to refresh my "political GK". For instance I had forgotten there was a person called Naveen Patnaik - had this election not brought the seat sharing issue - I would have totally forgotten him and I might have lost the Rs. 1 Crore worth question someday. 4. Pink Chaddis did have an effect after all. Now Mr.Muthalik is off to making sure this election is corruption fee. He has taken his eyes off the women of Bangalore - you can all drink and dance - till the election is over. 3. Newspaper has become fun to read. Can now read the goofups ( one politician in Karanataka in a rally thundered do not vote for party A - and just a week back he had moved to party A !! - its true ) 2. You will get to know how good your country is and how good you are doing financially - and at the same time turn another page and you will get to know how bad your country has become, and how pathetic you are doing financially.  1. No power cuts in Bangalore. It seems the...

This is a post I wanted to write for a long time. Here are some screenshots of how Apartment Adda looked at different stages. October 2007 : I spent a weekend creating a prototype of Apartment Adda. Got an open source web design template from owsd.org and was able to quickly create a working site. We had one goal for our UI to begin with. When a user logs in he need not click on different pages to see what is happening in his or her Adda. In one click he should get to see all the updates and also get a bird's eye view of everything - without getting flooded with information. We finally came up with a dashboard design that will show the latest updates in nice little widgets - where each widget will act like a summary page for the detailed page. After this prototype was done we used this to brain storm about Apartment Adda and flush out the stories. Around September 2008 when I started full time development on Apartment Adda, I got one more template from oswd.org. Decided to go wit...

For a developer nothing in the world makes him happier than a green build. ( Well of course there are things like Wii, a power book, an iPhone, an Audi A4 - but they all cost..a lot.). There was one suite that was failing the build consistently for the past few days. I could have just commented it out and said to myself - will fix it later. It is as bad as Satyam's Raju inflating his accounts. Because the commented test will never get fixed ( trust me - it might get deleted but never fixed ) and more functionality will be built on this untested one. It is better to have a failing build than have a green build which just gives a delusion that everything is alright. Anyway, I fixed the tests - it took some time but got a green build in the end and the world feels alright !

At times when I feel bored, I will randomly pick an ip address from the logs and see where it is from ( http://ip2location.com ) - and wonder of wonders - this ip address originated from Renault's network in France. Hmm...when will Ferrari's computer browse Apartment Adda?

The  Congress spokesperson says that Congress has created a "conducive environment" that has led to the emergence of 'Achieving India' during the UPA rule and hence the oscar. Perhaps he did not see the movie ? The movie glorified India's slums and the filth that is associated with our country. And Congress has created a "conducive environment". Amen to that.  Please think twice before you try to take credit for everything.  And the news article :  http://in.news.yahoo.com/20/20090223/1416/tnl-oscar-wins-are-a-proof-of-achieving.html

In my blog post a year back (  http://kvrlogs.blogspot.com/2008/04/rendezvous-with-vista.html  ) I had given a favourable review of Vista. Now i take everything back that I said. Earlier I thought my Dell 620 ( had a Vista performance rating of 3.0 ) was not man enough to run Vista - so I was forgiving. But now I have a Dell Studio 17 which has a performance rating of 5.0 - and it is still troubling me.  Here are the reasons : 1. I have an apple USB keyboard with the mouse attached to it. Every time the machine comes out of sleep I have to wait 1 minute before it gets activated. And yes the year is 2009 and it takes such a long time for Vista to detect a USB device/hub. Good job. 2. BSODs - I see it 2 to 3 times a week. I still have not found a pattern and I do not have any freebies off the net.  3. I am in Bangalore and power goes off frequently. And along with it my internet connection goes off. Mostly I will be connected to Apartment Adda through putty and it will stop responding. T...

Hello Mr.Advani - err.."Ad"vani. You are killing me. You are there everywhere - wired posts, slashdot posts, lifehacker posts. One Mr.Obama had tremendous success by working the internet machine - but it will not work for you. Here is why. 1. Ads annoy people - especially if it is not targetted. Why should a prosperous India ad show up when I am reading about Pirate bay's defence or some tech forum topic.  If I am reading about a political blog or on some serious concern related to India then there is some sense. Just throwing money and plastering an ad everywhere will not work.  2. Is it a wholesome media campaign or your campaign team has bought a big bag of google adwords? I close my laptop, open Indian Express and if I read some thought provoking Ad it will sure impress me.  3. The "How" is missing. I agree Mr.Advani will try to make India strong prosperous and all that. And so are Mr.Manmohan Singh, Mayawati, Jalalalitha, Laloo etc.  - but "how" i...

You would have heard about facebook changing its TOS and reverting it back. Only google is allowed to own you and everything you create - no one else. Facebook tried to change this and failed miserably.  Perhaps facebook can change its motto to "We also claim we don't do evil" and perhaps people's perception might change and they can own the rest of the content google does not own. Jokes apart, I am liking facebook. I created an account a year back but only recently I got on facebook - and find so many of my friends partying over there. Facebook feels more mature than orkut and the applications seem to be well evolved.  I feel it is somewhere between Orkut and linkedin. And I liked the facebook page concept - created one for Apartment Adda   http://www.facebook.com/pages/Apartment-Adda/67354785534  .  25 things about me seems to be quite interesting - planning to write one sometime. Also planning to check out the facebook APIs.. watch this space for a facebook app fro...

Hi Jeff Bezos! How are you doing? Feeling recession pangs? Don't worry - you have got a solid business. You can recession proof further and consider expanding to India. When are you releasing kindle here btw? This is the one gadget I really really want.  I have 30 or so books in my reading list ( in shelfari ) and none are available in India.  I feel guilty when I buy books - dead trees and environment and all that.  I need to search - lot of times I would think of quoting from a book but feel lazy to go search through the book Can read multiple books at the same time But please please please do not do an iPhone in terms of pricing. Thank you. 

Last weekend we saw the movie "300" - the amazing story of a crazy bunch of 300 Spartans who bring the mighty Persian army to its knees - almost. Had I watched this before I started working on Apartment Adda , I might have only appreciated this movie for its slick production and technicality. But I was emotionally involved and felt charged up while seeing this movie.  The Spartans believed firmly in their abilities - all their life they practiced for this one day. They were able to draw all their life's experiences and lessons to this one fight - which they know is extremely hard and odds are stacked heavily against them. Yet, they hold on amazingly as wave after wave of attacks hit them. It is a fantastic story that will inspire you and push you to do things that seem daunting - just like running any startup. Like the Spartans, Apartment Adda is a lean team now  - and we are trying to build useful features, build a brand name, sell the product, support our customers, fig...

This time I experimented by starting to read 2 books  - Joseph Heller's Catch 22 and Strategies for Marketing which is based on Sun Tzu's Art of war. It is like eating a pickle and a rosogolla at the same time!!  I read how you should prepare for an assault in one book, and a little later in the other book read how Yossarin ( the main protoganist ) moves the bombing line in the middle of the night - so the attack gets called off. Both were fun to read - and can be summed up with the most used Indian word - "timepass".  Did I gain anything out of Strategies for Marketing so I can use some tips in promoting Apartment Adda ? - only time will tell!!  Wish Sun Tzu had written about how to market a Web 2.0 product - how to increase SEO, how to develop and maintain a buzz - now that would have been really useful to me! Did I gain anything out of Catch 22? It was hilarious reading and the end did get a little dark but good it did not end bad ( oops spoiled this one for you di...

Apartment Adda was launched on Nov 12th-2008 and today, Feb 1-2009, the 1000th "unique" visitor has visited our site.  It is a great feeling - something that we have created has been looked at by 1000 people - many of whom I might never meet or get to know. I feel as if I have shaken hands with those many people - virtually.  Some might have patted my back, some might have rubbed their chin, some might have just said a neutral hmm.. - to all those pairs of eyes - Thanks for visiting Apartment Adda.  Next milestone - 10,000th unique visitor.

" The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something." -  Randy Pausch This quote is from the last lecture delivered by Randy Pausch. There is so much to learn from his life experiences.

My week is getting better and better - like the saying when it rains it pours - one challenge after another is coming my way.  When you are living through one of these setbacks it sucks big time. You really wish it passes off fast and the proverbial bend around the corner comes so things suddenly become alright. From my personal experience I have started appreciating these setbacks. When I look back at all the setbacks I ever had - each one of them has helped me add an important skill/value. I once lost a job interview, and I became good in Performance tuning. We goofed up in a UAT drop and that lead to a foolproof automated deployment system. I lost a lead but now I know why and I am working on filling the gap. Each setback teaches something new.   How do we deal with setbacks? 1. Try to get to the bottom of a setback - I recently read about 5 Whys technique used in Amazon's fulfillment center. An employee cut his finger and they asked 5 Whys to go to the bottom of the truth. Its...

Today I was listening to Thiruda Thiruda - A.R.Rahman's 3rd movie which whenever I listen transforms me to the slogging days of 12th Standard. However, I was listening to Raasaathi en usuru ennuthilla and remembered the voice - Shahul Hameed - the unfortunate singer who died so young in a car crash near Chennai in 1998 or around that time. I was appreciating the intense song the way Shahul Hameed had song with so much passion and life - I felt sad. How unfortunate - he could have been a great singer with his high pitch and powerful voice. However, he still lives on. 10 years down the line, a soul thought about him. Isn't that wonderful. Very few can leave a mark on the world they lived - it is easy for artists - musicians, painters, singers, dancers, actors,writers. What will people like me leave behind? Anyway, Shahul Hameed - your voice is immortal. Thanks for the great song.