Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Blogging - What it leads to?

I just relaised two very important things about blogging.

I just found out that troutgirl was fired and i found out why she was fired (for blogging - i would really like to know what the organisation found offensive in the blog) and i now have an opinion about the her (ex-org) and about her.I feel a personal connection with her....i think this is great!

Now to the things i realised

1. Social Networks are here and now and very effective
2. Blogging can get u fired!



Thursday, August 26, 2004

G mail

i have 4 g mail invites left - interested -leave Mail address in Comments ! hurry !

Search tips

found some interesting tips at the yahoo search team blog site
excerpts
One is the "s:" shortcut in Yahoo! Messenger. Let's say you're on line with your Dad who is planning on doing some shop work. He's got an old desk of yours that he wants to redo but, since you were a messy child, it's currently coated in stain resistant, latex paint. He's worried that sanding might be a problem. After a bit of discussion you decide to do some research, and enter in "s:latex remover" into the conversation window and you both get to see a number of results that might be helpful.

Another semi-hidden treasure we offer is the inurl: prefix. This is particularly useful if you want to search for something which happens to be on a shared server. A good example is ibiblio.org (previously known as sunsite). This is a fantastic resource loaded with all sorts of different goodies, one of which is a herbal reference site (so we can find a nice anti-rickets supplement). By specifying a search like: site:ibiblio.org inurl:herbmed rickets we get a bunch of articles detailing what we're looking for. And a mental note to stop by the cafe and pick up a few oranges.


Find some interesting shortcut at http://tools.search.yahoo.com/shortcuts/

Worthwhile Magazine

this looks like a mag.that should be followed has Some pretty interesting Stuff -tomorrows work environment and what people are going to do -work on ! This mag. seems to have Some good authors backing it Watch it

Worthwhile Magazine

I got this link from one of blogs and find it quite interesting, it has some good authors backing it

it is going to deal with some very interesting about the work environment 'new world of work and talking about it

Blog from a tablet

this blog is coming from a tablet pc, i like this quite a lot i would defn. like For them to work on the handwriting recognition that said i should agree it is not that bad.
i was recently looking at some of the new features expected in the Next version of the o/s -lone star it has some pretty cool features for one the context tagging others include improved hand writing recognition and input panel is not down there when you are typing up there,input panel is upthere with the text area, So that should be good let me see if i can find the links for the video

Day Log - 26 August

i have not been keeping well, so things have been a little slow, i have just decided that i will share the interesting things that happened to me over the last couple of days.

1. Excel
Finished putting the last touches on a estimate that i have been working on, and realised that i need to move a table from one location to another, if i did that the formulas were getting screwed, so i needed to find a way to get around this,

So in comes KK(our in house excel expert ...i think it is the years of working on excel in the accounting business)

he tells me to make the refereances in the formulas absolute and then move them once i finish the move make them relative again...that did it... for those of you who dont know how to make it absolute/relative....go to the cell, press f2 to enable edit and then press F4 to toggle between permanent and relative.

A job well done at the end. saved me a lot of trouble.

2. Earlier in the day it has been a subroto bagchi day...why....read the welcome address he gave to the people at IIM(a)...thank god for email and the internet the content that you get to read is outstanding...i have been following bagchi very regularly in his BW(Business World) coloumn. QUite enjoy his writing style. Infact the first piece that i read by him which i totally enjoyed was a article on the "Making of the Mindtree" i would rate this as a must read.

Does anybody know if Subroto Bagchi maintain a blog, if not may be he should. Would love to read him on a constant basis.

3. Yesterday i visted the doc dad, He was there to get his Annual General Check up done and i to check out what i had decided would be viral fewer. My dad had spent the whole day running from pillar to post doing all the tests possible than, later somebody had to go to all the pillars and posts to get the results in time to show it to the doctor, Indian docs, clinic & hospitals can do with a lot of technology.

4. "Think Global Act Global" - This is a punch line that most of you that read management material would have read at one time or another. But i think this has great relevance to companies in India today particularly in software/hardware products..We need to start devlivering software, hardware and content which is truly global in its outlook. Also i think there is another important point, our organisations can be focussed now on the localmarket but they need to have a global outlook few companies are making forray into the international arena, but this is too few and far between...it should be the norm/rule not the exception.

5. Entertainment Content - While at home i spent a lot of time yesterday in front of the "idiot box"(a term i havent used in a long time) only to realise the content is downright loousy there seems to be nothing interesitng on television ever...the same serials which i liked say three years back are the only ones that are viewable even now and some of them were reruns(older series etc)

7. History of the CIO

Monday, August 23, 2004

Coffee - Technology - Chennai

Technology in "Nambo" (colloquial for "our") Chennai,

This weekend, I visited cafe coffee day a coffee pub in "Nungambakkam". Let me give you a little back ground about this place, it is extremely busy and they serve some pretty good cold coffee, It is like to place to see and be seen in the youngsters circle, - I think that will give u an image of the place I am talking about.

Here I was with a couple of friends all ready to order we signed the waiter over and began placing our order, then came the surprise, this guy pull out a, if I remember right limpman handheld device, in which he begins taking our order, I was immdly interested and that guy had to walk me thru the complete system and how it functions what are the interfaces ..the complete works basically.

The waiters with the handhelds enter the order data and print out a order confirmation note and give it to you, immdly the central server which is connected wirelessly receives the order and the back office(in this case the kitchen) begins processing the order after sometime, the waiter goes across picks up the prepared order and just delivers it to us.

I was curious and asked the waiter , what benefit this system offered him, he gave me a long explanation but I think the jist was it that it reduces the time and effort he has to spend everytime going back and forth between the kitchen and the various tables he is waiting on...it gives him more face time with the customers - which I think is very important.

Overall this was quite a surprise, but its a good things, See more of it happening....

Friday, August 20, 2004

The Week

The week has been quite hectic, to say the least i am still wondering what it is that i managed to accomplish this week than after sometime i am forced to think what does that matter, i dont think i managed much even last week. But time just seems to be flying.

Well now that week has come to an end i can spend some time catching up on some of the pending reading.

This weekend its going to be a combo between working at home and reading @Beyond the last Blue Mountain" - JRD Tata and Leading Revolutions.

Hope to have a relaxed weekend and come back on monday all guns firing.

Well if you are wondering , why instead of heading home i am sitting and putting in this note, it is simply because i am waiting for the back up of the my office pc into my external drive to compelte so that i will have all the stuff i need to work from home.

This weekend, i have some interesting notes planned on the subjects of

1. Software Factories
2. Team Organisation
3. Personal Objective Management
4. Personal Content Management

[i realise i plan to do way too many things - let me see how many i accomplish 50% hit rate will be excellent]

Wednesday, August 18, 2004

Analytics & Customer Behavior

An excellent article on how technology helps with anticipating customer behavior,

Excerpt

“Know your customers and give them what they want” is the fundamental principle of marketing.

This principle is simple in theory, but increasingly challenging to put into practice. Short of being a mind reader or having a crystal ball, it’s difficult for marketers to know what’s on a customer’s mind today, or anticipate what the customer may need or want tomorrow.

The challenge doesn’t stem from lack of customer data. The fact is, customers and prospects are giving us information about themselves all the time. Through every response, customer contact, event, transaction and Web site hit, they reveal something about themselves.

Databases are chock full of these useful tidbits, and call centers and other customer management systems are overflowing with details about customers and contacts. The challenge is that raw data does not have value per se; it needs to be turned into useful information.

That is where analytical technology comes into play. A philosopher once wrote that finding the patterns in the randomness of life is the way we create beauty and make art. A similar statement could be made about analytics, which find patterns in the randomness of data so that you can discover valuable information and gain insight.

Product Pricing

Well, This is a well written article on Product Pricing by Eric, a must for everybody in the software industry, we need to understand at the end of the day how the money comes in to pay our salaries.

Interview with Amazons Boz

Interesting article about jeff bezos, an entrprenuer with a difference, i like the by line used in this site "Amazons founder is a study in contradictions".

via Harvard Working Knowledge

Monday, August 16, 2004

Nokia 7610

I was using a nokia 7610 this weekend and let me assure you it s pretty cool phone, both in aesthetics and functionality,

the camera is outstanding , I was watching a movie at the theater and I used the phone to do some video recording about a min of the movie and then played it back, it was just too cool. I have transferred this video to my phone(ngage) and have been playing it and showing it to everybody and they are really blow by the clarity of the picture and sound.

If you want a good camera (video and still) this is a phone for you.

for the rest of the review you can read it a russel beattie's blog.

There are two very evident problems with the phone,

1. Battery Life...Pretty poor
2. Application Speed, Like if I open a folder it takes quite some time

Saturday, August 14, 2004

Python

Python has started swollowing me,

Reading all around about python, i have decided to try my hand at it, well other than just the viral marketing, i need something like python with which i can hack together some programs quickly.

One other reason to start working on python is i want to work on RDF,

Let me see how much time i will be able to spend on it over this weekend.

Friday, August 13, 2004

Facts - Software Industry

Interesting facts that i just read

- US spends 250 Billion US $ per year on software Development projects.
- There are 175000 projects per year
- Only 16% of the projects finish on schedule and in budget
- 31% of them are cancelled - due to quality problem causing a loss of around 81 Billion US$
- 53% exceed thier budget by 189% for losses to the tune of 59 Billion US$
- Projects which are completed deliver an avg of only 42% of the originally planned features.

Thursday, August 12, 2004

Files Management & Backup in Windows

Interesting links i have found off the office blog

This provides you with the list of 7 tips to manage your files better

How do you back up the data on your windows machine,

I am in the process of trying to back up my data, lets see how well the functionality works.

Monday, August 09, 2004

Bluetooth HandsFree

On my way back from Taiwan last month I had some transit time at Singapore and ended up buying a blue tooth hands free for my GSM phone, its a big boon particularly since

1. I drive a lot
2. I use the phone a lot
3. I have an ngage which is not very convenient to use(talk with)

This weekend I spent a lot of time reading various blogs, most of my weekend went just catching up on pending activities which includes sleep and reading - both blogs and books.

I was just thinking with
1. Skype..or VOIP program becoming more and more popular.
2. Voice Enabled programs becoming the norm

Is it not time for some of these peripheral manufacturers to come out with a bluetooth handsfree for this ...well I think there will be a lot of takers and it can work with PDA(particularly since Skype is already available with them) it makes a lot of sense.

Thursday, August 05, 2004

RSS - New Use - 1

In my last post I had mentioned one of the new uses of RSS, well as I comment, I had stuart(anonymous) tell me about another, this functionality i find pretty good, particularly to go deal hunting.

Basically the site lets you register and select your preferred vendors, and then forward keeps you updated(via RSS at your aggregator) about stuff/deals etc available on those sites,

For More Details
http://www.realsimpleshopping.com/info/faq.php

Its functionality though simple can be can generate significant marketing for the vendors, this is in simple terms selective push based communication (who said that was simple....).

Let me try it out ....will keep u updated,

Also I have two questions -
1. How do these guys get the information from the various vendors ? - technology Q
2. What is their revenue model, or how do they plan to monetise this? - business Q

RSS - New Use

On my link blog i had mentioned about the RSS Calender facility that is now available well i registered on it and people who want to subscribe to my monthly schedule subscribe to http://www.rsscalendar.com/rss/feed.asp?t=m&k=0913e2e6049a59306f85c213277a5253, No i cant think of any reason you might want to, but just in case.

Follow up Blog

There are so many of my blogs/thoughts that i wanted to write follow ups on so here is part 1,

http://rais-thougts.blogspot.com/2004/07/i-am-midway-reading-bookre-imagine-by.html

Visit tom peters site and you can down load the slides he has used in various presentations in this year, with the book they are very usefull in preparing a note on your own thoughts or views on the subject, i am planning to but some of the slides that he has with the notes included let see how good they are, i am totally sold on the book.

http://rais-thougts.blogspot.com/2004/07/link-blog.html
The link blog is coming along pretty nicely, bloglines is doing a really good job, i like thier simple yet very usefull facility which allows you to email to friends/collegues blog u think they might be interested.

For those who dont know , bloglines is a web site(sounds really bad) which is an online aggregator for all your blogs, you can create an account thier and subscribe(rss, atom) to all the blogs that you are interested and use it as a single point of contact.

Reader Protests
Martin Fowler, Had said he uses xml to write his books, i am getting hooked to the same idea, in my last post i mentioned about the paper i was writing well, this paper is going to be written in xml and will be made available for reading in html and PDF formats, still getting my hands around xsl, so the asthetics can do with a lot of improvement.

Incedently, Just out of curiosity i have downloaded Ruby which i am evaluating to fill the post for the "primary language to hack up quick tools together" lets see how that comes along it will be a long term activity as it is a priority 3 activity,

Ha that reminds me of something else that i did last weekend, it is usually when we have less of something that u really value it right!!!, well off late i have been having very little time, so i decided it is "time" i did some serious reviewing - time management, well that is exactly what i did. Pulled out excel sheet(yes yes excel) and worked out how my time during the week is getting distributed, then sat and broke down all my activities that i need to do at this time and put them into 3 buckets, priority 1,2 & 3. For the next month atleast i have very little time for 3 level activities. - More on this excel sheet later.

http://rais-thougts.blogspot.com/2004/07/soa-here-is-really-good-post-on-soa.html
IBM is conducting a workshop here in chennai on 13th about SOA, i am going to try and attend that is if i am in town..

Reader Protests

Kk one of the few readers of my blog is not very happy with the frequency of blogging, kk -I know and will do something about it.

But work has been hectic and for some reason once I get home, I don't feel like opening up the laptop,

Also most of my "writing time" is focused on a paper on real time technologies and their future that I am writing...it is coming up pretty well.

Sunday, August 01, 2004

Well Read Weekend

This weekend was spent mostly reading various books,

list
1. Straight from the Gut - JW - Re Read
2. Count your chicken before they hatch - Arindam Chowdry
3. Business World - Weekly
4. Re Imagine - Tom Peters
5. HBR

It felt really good spending all this time reading....I am really beginning to enjoy this.

Some pieces from these various reading sessions that were thought provoking are listed below ...I am going to keep updating this blog

1. Tata takes over the Daewoos commercial vehicles division, this is not the biggest deal in terms of financial size, but it is in a segment which is of great interest to me, Automotive. Business world did a cover story on it, the article was pretty well written. Need to find a book about ratan tata..better still would like to meet, not that it is going to happen in the near future..but still. In the article they mention how he arrived in the daewoo plan in ghunsan in a public taxi..yeah yeah..the kind that you put your hand out and stops and you tell him where you want to go...the kind that you and I use not the CEO/Chairman...of Tata & sons right !!.


2. Subroto Bagchi, For those who dont know he is the COO of an IT Services Company in India called Mindtree and every other week write a column in the Businessworld India..., In this weeks article he talks about mentoring...it is really very different(a lot more) from what today's corporate have made it out to be - Right!!!.

Excerpts

The term comes from Greek mythology. Telemachus, a young prince, needed protection as his father Ulysses was going away. Goddess Athena took the form of a being - half-woman and half-man - bearing the name Mentor. There is deep symbolism in this myth.

3. Just notes / points from Re-Imagine

We are in the baby stages of the Infotech revolution

total re invention of a job takes only 15 years

Don't own nothin if you can help it

Artificial Intelligence is the only way of the future

Remove every iota of bureaucratic Bull shit from the system

....more later