Ajay Mungara's random scribble pad

Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s Battery Life

2007-07-09T15:18:00.000-07:00

Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s Battery Life

Thanks to Friedbeef's Tech for some very useful tips for extending the battery life when you are on the go. I wish I knew how much impact each of the tip on the battery life. Lot of the tips are really common sense, but couple of things that I was not aware of were "defrag you hard disk", "prevent the memory effect", and "turning off the auto save button".

Hope you find these tips useful as well.

The Simplest Weight Loss Tips No One Follows

2007-03-26T12:24:00.000-07:00

"Will Brink" has done an awesome job in summarizing some of very simply easy to follow tips. Really Useful Fitness Blog: The Simplest Weight Loss Tips No One Follows (with little to no effort).
Tip #1: never ever go food shopping hungry
I have done this and paid a heavy price, as I ended up buying so many "big bad" junk food items. You crave for food you know is bad for you, but buy it anyway because your body/mind is only thinking of food.
Tip # 2: never keep snack foods in the house
Absolutely - somehow you can very easily conquer your craving by the virtue of the fact that it is not easily accessible when you really crave for it.
Tip # 3: eat off of smaller plates
Simple to follow and a very effective strategy - I went to an all-you-can-eat-buffet last weekend and I successfully employed this strategy. I did not stuff myself to the brink -- always a good thing.
Tip #4: Know Thy Self
well, I have not done it yet, but I will definitely document my triggers and develop strategies to cope with them

I will add another tip to this list (my little value add to a very well written blog post by will).
Tip #5: Drink lots of water
hmmm .. simple enough? Although, drinking water alone does not directly help with weight loss, but it helps in portion control and is really good for your body. It is a habit you have to consciously develop .. I was somehow under the habit of drinking water only towards the end of a meal and not while eating -- but, once I started to develop the habit of drinking some water along with my meal made me eat less and I really felt contended with smaller portions. Easy portion control strategy!!

Freedom from Text Chat clients!!!

2007-02-27T09:38:00.000-08:00

meebo.com

Text Chat or Instant Messengers are becoming increasingly popular. If you are anything like me then you must have become increasingly dependent on text chat to connect with friends, family and business contacts. The popular clients such as AIM, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, MSN instant messenger, etc. all have one fundamental problem .. they are not compatible with each other. If you have one contact on one client and another contact is using another service then the biggest challenge is to have access to them both. I have a whole bunch of these clients installed on my laptop(which are really annoying because they take up a lot of memory) and the other problem being the firewall at my work place does not allow some of the clients to connect. I always wondered if there is a way to solve to this problem by allowing me to connect online at one place … then I came across Meebo which allows you to connect to any number of text chat services all in one window and the big plus being it is web based. I encourage you to try this out .. It is really useful.

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

2007-02-13T14:08:00.000-08:00

YouTube - Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

A great video from Michael Wesch that demonstrates the evolution of digital text to hypertext to web1.0 to web2.0. In this video Michael demostrates very simplistically the web2.0 in action. I really liked the definition where web1.0 is about linking information (websites, webpages, etc.) and web2.0 is about linking people .. people sharing, trading and collaborating.

Web 2.0 is all about creating a PUBLIC SPACE for ordinary users

2007-02-09T15:26:00.000-08:00

Last night I was browsing on some new social networking sites around the internet just to learn more about what they are doing to attract the conversations and build online communities. My day job is really all about building a network of developers using Intel technology and to build a vibrant software developer community. I happen to come across the top web 2.0 websites from eSnip. Looking at all these websites it seems like the overarching theme is really centered on creating a personal public SPACE easily for ordinary people.

Share personal views, stories, podcasts, photos, opinions, videos, etc.

Participate in online conversations, discussions, answer questions, etc.

Aggregate user driven content, blogs, feeds, comments, knowledge, etc.

Connect with people across the globe, make friends, exchange ideas, meet business contacts, etc.

Engage in conversations, discuss, chat, participate in a community, etc.

Web 2.0 is all about creating a personal public SPACE (Share, Participate, Agrregate, Connect, and Engage) for people in the virtual world of Internet. It is all about giving you SPACE in the internet for you to blossom, thrive and grow without any traditional restrictions. You own this SPACE and you share your personal life, opinions, pictures, videos, etc. I call it PUBLIC space because email also gave you a personal space, but it was private to you where you could connect with the world through your unique email id, but only a select few people you choose had access to your SPACE (and spammers!!).

Any company which can successfully create this public space for everybody to thrive and contribute are really going to be the winners in this new age of the internet evolution.

Movers 2.0 - Follow the Web 2.0 traffic trends

2007-02-08T12:53:00.000-08:00

Movers 2.0 - Follow the Web 2.0 traffic trends

Here is a simple website that lists out the top web2.0 sites with Alexa rank. Check out the graphs for each website that tell you the daily reach and page views. If you are web2.0 company then surfacing to the top of such lists means a buyer waiting for you .. and it could be your exit strategy. I had not heard of some of the websites listed here, so it is time to check them out.

Google Press Center: News Announcement

2007-01-24T14:57:00.000-08:00

Google Press Center: News Announcement

I tried some of the new features of google groups announced today. I really liked the page customized look and feel with graphics along with file sharing. I think the drag and drop customization capabilities is really nice .. I am hoping that "blogger" takes some of the concepts to make the blog pages more customizable. Although, I should admit the new capabilities of blogger are right on target, but the drag and drop features for the google groups are really nice. Way to go google!!

How boring!

2007-01-19T12:00:00.000-08:00

How boring!-Bangalore Times-City Supplements-NEWS-The Times of India

There was a time where staying in a job for many years meant seniority and in turn career growth, but it has completely changed today. People have become very restless and want to see unprecedented and extraordinary career growth very quickly. There is a strong urge among young techies to learn enough about a technology to update the resume and move on to the next new thing. Based on my experience, I suggest that staying in a job or a project (not recommending for ever) for enough time goes a long way in shaping a strong & sustainable career. Both the extremes are bad … Staying in a job for ever or switching jobs/projects very frequently.

When you walk into a book store you notice all the tech shelves filled with books like learn something in 10days or idiots guide to something or tech dummies book, MBA in a week, etc. Well I really don’t think you can master any technology or topic in such a short time. You need to really go deep in a subject and eventually the learning process gets easily carried over when learning a different technology. As we have seen in the last decade or so …. Technology becomes easier and easier to learn and come to think of it … if you can master a technology in less than 10 days, don’t you think everybody can do it. So, what is your real career differentiator?

It is very important to learn the human and business dynamics in any project beyond the technology in order to successfully define your career. Trust me that the experience you gain by seeing a full life cycle of a project goes a long way in building the right momentum in your career. So, don’t get bored when you think you have learnt the technology associated with a project, look around and you will see opportunities to learn. (like the business process, the management dynamics, issues with support, etc. are all the other things you can learn beyond just the technology that will keep you from getting bored).

Do you have any Principles that guide your career decisions?

2007-01-15T16:09:00.000-08:00

What Next Syndrome

Changing a job is often viewed by many people as a ticket or short cut to career growth. I seriously believe in sticking with a given job till you attain a certain level of experience and become really good with what you are doing. You need to really spend some time in your job to overcome the initial hurdles in order to get really productive and then success & growth will automatically come to you.

I have mostly designed my career based on some principles partly imparted to me by my first real manager Jyotirmoy Chakravarty (also known as JC) @wipro Infotech. I can never forget some of the things he told me early in my career and I am really grateful to JC for his career guidance:

· If you are very comfortable with what you are doing then it is time to move on. He always suggested that you should not get very stagnant with what you are doing. He did not suggest that you change your job all the time, but he recommended that you take on more responsibilities and move outside your comfort zone.

· When it comes to your career buck stops at YOU. Never depend on your manager to design your career. He always told me that an employee owns his own career & employability and he is the one totally responsible for it, so do not look for your manager to define your career. Take suggestions/guidance from your manager or anybody, but ultimately your career decisions has to be owned by you and you alone.

· It is always YOU who can define the scope of your job. In any job he recommended not to wait for opportunities to come knocking at your door and he said do not always wait for your manager to tell you what to do. He was a big risk taker and he always fished for opportunities and ideas that went beyond the scope of his job. He said look around you closely and you will see opportunities which in turn translates to growth at your job.

· Know exactly when to move on. He always said that successful people know when the jump ship and do not wait for the ship to sink or wait for you to be evacuated. He always said that your career is much more than one manager, one goal, one location and one company. Oh well .. this is very hard to implement and I should admit that I have not been successful at this at all. You get easily comfortable with your location and with people around you ..and this clearly influences the choices you make.

Anyway .. JC shared this career philosophy with me almost 9 years ago and I am sharing it in this blog post today. I really have no idea where JC is right now .. but I would really like to thank him for being such a great manager.

So, do you have any principles that guide your career decisions?

My first impression of iPhone was great, but ...

2007-01-10T09:52:00.000-08:00

I was simply impressed with the innovation that went into iPhone and I was carried away by the coolness wave. But, I asked myself "is this product that great that I am willing to spend $500" ... and my conclusion is "not really or not yet" because of the following reasons.
30GB memory on my iPod is no match with the 4 or 8 GB on iPhone. Support for office tools like word, xls, ppt, etc. was not obvious .. if all I wanted to do was view photos & videos and listen to music then iPhone seemed great, but that is not enough. Since it support OS X I am sure it does support some office type funcionility, but 4GB memory is not enough to the job done. I am not sure about the battery life either. So, after succefully riding the coolness wave for a day or so .. the reality bullet hit me hard and I am not ready to shell out 500$ on this phone as yet.

Really kool phone service

2007-01-10T09:16:00.000-08:00

JAJAH - web-activated telephony
I tried this phone service yesterday and it is simply an amazing service. Jajah is an innovative phone service that integrates with your regular phone device(phone to phone) thus you can talk without the need for any headphones, speakers or having to install any software. It stands true to its tag line "free your voice".

You simply register your phone number on the website and then you ask your family/friends to register (they can be anywhere in the world). All calls to & from Jajah users is free. You place the call using their website and both the phones ring and you talk for absolutely free. Depending on the type of phone (mobile or landline) and the country you are calling to or from Jajah charges a very reasonable fee.

I was naturally concerned about privacy of my calls as all calls are routed through Jajah, but the website claims that the service is absolutely secure. This is my mind is the future of telephony. Try it out and let me know your experience with this service.

Apple - iPhone - WOW it is amazing

2007-01-09T15:14:00.000-08:00

Apple - iPhone

WOW .. it is simply an amazing innovation. Everything about this phone is really cool. I simply love the touch screen, key pad less integrated phone and iPod. They have even put some sensors to control the brightness of the screen and they seem to have eliminated the problem of accidentally operating the touch screen display with your ear. It supports Bluetooth, WiFi, Web Surfing, email, video, music, etc. and happens to be ergonomic from the looks of it. Hmmm .. I will probably wait for a couple of months for the prices to come down before buying it. iPhone is on my list of things to buy in 2007.

Time also has a good article that talks about the innovation behind the iPhone.

I am starting to love Google Reader

2007-01-09T13:51:00.000-08:00

Google Reader (100+)

I am begining to like Google feed reader. I have tried various readers over many years and most of them were desktop versions with a major limitation being they are tied to your computer. Couple of months ago my laptop crashed (I did have a good data backup, but it did not include the feeds) and in the process I lost all my favourite feeds. This time around I was really keen on an online feed reader and I am really glad I choose google reader. It works very well with the Firefox browser, but it is not working at all on IE or Maxthon (my other two browsers).

All I wanted to do was book a train ticket online

2007-01-08T12:48:00.000-08:00

India is well regarded all over the world as a hot destination for software technology. Last time I was in Bangalore I was simply amazed with all the technological advancement where a pan shop owner, a vegetable vendor, a bus conductor were carrying cell phones and all the internet café were filled with enthusiastic students. I have no doubts about the advanced software skills India has to offer, but I am really not impressed with the basic utility type of websites to get your job done online.

I heard that The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation has introduced online booking for train tickets and I wanted to try out this service. All I wanted to do was book a train ticket online from Pune to Bangalore and I was thinking in my mind that this should be easy.

Alas!! not really .. website The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation is not only confusing, but it is very very poorly designed. Too many ads on this page, it forces me to login for finding any useful information , the registration is too cumbersome and even after all that it does not really show the availability, etc. And after trying for about 30 Mins I gave up. I thought calling an agent to get this done would be much easier. If a tech savvy person like me is turned off by the design .. I can only imagine the plight of an ordinary user.

I wonder why can't the web designers for Indian Railways learn from so many examples all over the internet to come up with an intuitive design. I think users like me have to wait another couple of years before attempting to conduct business online in India.

New York and recycling

2007-01-08T11:36:00.000-08:00

I was in New York city for the holidays and stayed with one of friends in Hoboken. I was really surprised to see the pervasive use of plastic without any concern to the environment.

Being from Oregon I learnt to really care for nature, our environment, global warming, etc. I really take time to sort things for recycling for example use proper recycle bins for plastic, aluminum cans, nickel cadmium batteries, card board, paper, etc.

First thing I noticed in New York city is that there is absolutely no recycling system is in place -- everything goes into the same garbage. I was also told that recycling as a concept does not exist in the east coast (even if it does it is minimum)… I could not stop thinking about it all the time I was in the New York city.Maybe the city takes care of sorting the garbage for recyling and does not throw that responsibility to the consumer, but asking the consumers to do this basic sorting of garbage goes a long way in building awareness. .. I sure hope the concept of recycling comes to play very soon in the east coast especially in the New York city before it is too late. This is my rant for the day!!!

Blogging at Intel

2006-11-03T21:40:00.000-08:00

I have started to actively blog on Intel Software Network website externally. Well .. it is targeted specically around Manageability related technology. Do check out my blog. Well, this is not the only reason I have not been active here .. I will get back to scribble my thoughts here soon.

Read/WriteWeb: Search 2.0 vs Traditional Search

2006-07-21T08:43:00.000-07:00

Read/WriteWeb: Search 2.0 vs Traditional Search

Although, search 2.0 seems catchy and following the ever growing fad around web2.0 but I think the whole concept of social networking and users driving the relevancy as opposed to a search engine is a concept nobody can dismiss. The new era of community driven search engines is where you will find the "next google". I am really impressed by "swicki" and "rollyo" as they enable you to narrow your search based on the collective wisdom of the community thus making the results more relevant.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3

2006-07-20T22:01:00.000-07:00

My favorite internet browser for sometime has been Maxthon. I simply love the tabbed interface and the important "Ad Blocker" capability. I also use Maxthon as my RSS feed aggregator. Couple of downsides of Maxthon include the support of custom toolbars like google toolbar and del.icio.us buttons.
The promise and capabilities of Microsoft IE 7 seemed pretty good, so I decided to install the beta 3 product. I have been using this only for a day ... and my first impressions are really POSITIVE. It appears to me that Microsoft is finally listening to its users and have incorporated some of the key capabilities that I have come to expect from any browser (like the tabbed interface, integrated RSS capabilities, popup blocker, etc.). I will blog more about my experience with IE7 after I start using it more regularly.

Reinventing this Blog

2006-07-20T15:20:00.000-07:00

I plan to reinvent this blog and bring some clear focus to it. Originally I wanted this blog to be purely a collection of ramdom thoughts and notes with the target audience being just me and maybe a couple of my close friends, but I have realized that this lacks passion around any specific topic. So, I intend to reinvent this space to talk about my passion which is all about web and mostly around web2.0. "Tune-in" to hear me rant about all the great things happening around this amazing phenomenon "web2.0".

Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years

2006-05-17T07:44:00.000-07:00

I often spend time looking at new book releases related to Technology & Marketing and I have actually noticed this trend of “learn X in Y days” type of books. If you seriously believe like I do that it takes time, effort and practice to master any new thing(spoken language, programming language, some new technology, etc.) then you must read this article as it clearly reinforces this message.

Dog Mountain Hike (Columbia River Gorge)

2006-05-15T09:32:00.000-07:00

I went for the dog mountain hike this weekend. I think this one ranks as one of the best hikes around the Columbia river gorge area at least during this time of the year (May – June). The best part of the hike was the spectacular wild flower blooms around the trail. I think we picked a perfect day for this hike because it was not too hot and it was an incredibly clear day. Very clear unobstructed views of Mt. Hood, St. Helens and Mt. Adams …. Not to mention the stunning views of the Columbia Gorge.

Hike: Dog MountainDetails: 7 mile loop with a total of 2900 ft. elevation gain. Rated as Difficult because of the elevation gain.
Views: Unobstructed views of the Columbia Gorge, Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens and dazzling wild flower blooms in May/June
Notes: Carry plenty of water, require good shoes (some loose gravel at some spots), and a light jacket (it can get a little windy closer to the top). You will need to carry the NW forest pass for the parking.
Directions:Take 84E (exit #44 cascade locks), Cross the Bridge of Gods, right on Washington highway 14 (12 miles) and you will see the dog mountain trail head on the left.

How to stretch your major muscle groups

2006-02-19T15:07:00.000-08:00

I am begining to see the great benefits from stretching after a regular cardio routine. A 10-15min stretch after the cool down period can make a big difference the next day, it basically gets the body prepared for the next day and prevents long term injury. Check this great link from Mayo clinic http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/stretching/SM00043&slide=1 for some regular routines.

Math will rock your world

2006-01-26T07:47:00.000-08:00

I really feel that this article is a must read for all the mathematics professors out there, because universities should teach mathematics from a practical stand point. Most of the focus in schools is highly theoretical and it would be really great to give some real life examples where these theories can be applied and put to practical use.

Also, my secret intention here is to influence my Mother-In-Law who happens to be a Mathematics professor in the Mysore University. I would like to see that see adds a practical touch to her classes. :-)

iTunes Phone

2005-09-08T19:19:00.000-07:00

I recently purchased an iPod color (30GB) as a gift to my wife on our wedding anniversary. Both of us have really fallen in love with this product. Excellent usability features and really elegant design. The best part of the interface is the famous iPod dial. When I heard that Apple has introduced a new iTunes compatible cell phone the first thing I wanted to see the product interface and frankly I was very disappointed to see the dial missing. It almost looks like a regular motorola phone with a MP3 player built in with the iTunes software. What happened to the creative Apple design in this case? Looks like they were really in a hurry to release this product. I am sure the next version of the product will be very different ... so I am going to wait before buying this product.

Visual Studio: Contract First Web Services Interoperability between Microsoft .NET and IBM WebSphere

2005-07-14T13:32:00.000-07:00

Visual Studio: Contract First Web Services Interoperability between Microsoft .NET and IBM WebSphere

I am presonally a big fan of contract first webservices development, but I don't think there are any good tools that support this form of development. At the end of day we should be able to define a contract that ensures interoporability, versioning and specifies the intent of the service (including the interface, all the business exceptions, usage model, etc.) and then eventually generate code from the contract. The challenge is to keep the contract and the code in sync, and this cannot happen without having some kind of an integrated tool along with a well defined change control process (change in this case is any change in the contract, theoritically the contract should not change, oh well the reality is that it does all the time). I have seem some tools which illustrate the concept with some very trivial examples, but I have not seen anything that can scale to the enterprise needs. While we wait for the industry to come up with some tools .... we should make sure that one person or a team of people with a good understanding of the business capability around the service should manage the contract.

Sonic Software

2005-07-14T13:21:00.000-07:00

Sonic Software

Looks like a session worth attending ... I feel it is very important to look into the monitoring and management aspect of SOA.

Fusing enterprise architecture - Express Computer

2005-02-26T12:18:00.000-08:00

Fusing enterprise architecture - Express Computer

The key challenge for adopting SOA in the enterprise is the decision on sizing the service. What I mean by sizing is the problem that services that have too many capabilities built into it are not very flexible because of too many dependencies and difficultly in managing the WS contract, and on the other hand if the service is too small then it cannot be directly used almost to a point where it is not useful. I have seen business team spend huge amounts of time to determine what should go into a service and what capabilities emcompass a complete business function.

Internet access over power lines gains momentum - Jan. 19, 2005

2005-01-25T08:42:00.000-08:00

Internet access over power lines gains momentum - Jan. 19, 2005

WOW!! this is really impressive. BPL technology has been on the works for sometime, but it is starting to see its way out of the research labs into practical implementations. Although, they still some key issues to work out before it can be adopted on a wider scale and they have to compete with the wireless technologies, which is getting better and cheaper.

Clues may point to Google browser | CNET News.com

2005-01-25T08:36:00.000-08:00

Clues may point to Google browser | CNET News.com

I really see that in the next couple of years Google will start getting into the Microsoft Turf like Operating Systems, Databases (search based) and Office products. All this may be really good for the consumer because we may start seeing some innovation sparking up and the technology that shall meets the end-user's expectations.

To Software Architects: Serve End Users, Not Your Egos

2005-01-16T09:29:00.000-08:00

To Software Architects: Serve End Users, Not Your Egos

Dave is dead-on, absolutely right. Software architect has to ensure the documentation or the artifacts he delivers is actually usable. The documentation should be designed to suite the needs of the consumers or architectural stake holders (Business, Engineering, Dev, Quality, support, Data teams, etc.) and it is not meant to be compliant to some industry buzz which will be totally obsure to the actual consumers. Architects should thrive to communicate the most complex probelms is the most simplistic terms.

TheServerSide.NET - Predictions for 2005... Straight from the Magic 8-Ball

2005-01-12T15:23:00.000-08:00

TheServerSide.NET - Predictions for 2005... Straight from the Magic 8-Ball

I really liked this prediction ....

Development Driven QA
Test Driven Development will continue to gain popularity amongst developers as more and more of them take to writing unit test scripts. In an interesting twist, QA engineers will determine that the best way to test these scripts is to write the actual components starting a new movement called Development Driven QA.

Anti-Spyware from Microsoft

2005-01-07T11:20:00.000-08:00

Finally Microsoft is trying to do something to curb this problem.

I installed the AntiSpyware software-Beta directly from the Microsoft.com website
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

After using the anti spyware, I noticed that it detected some spyware on my PC which the SpyBlot software was unable to detect. The speed has increased and I can surf internet faster.

They could have done a better job with the tool UI.

Giant tsunami leaves millions homeless, thousands missing

2004-12-27T13:52:00.000-08:00

All,I am sure you are all aware of the disaster that has struck South India, and the natural calamity has left thousands of people dead and millions homeless along the costal areas of Tamil Nadu, Andhra and Andaman Islands.

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/000200412272101.htm?headline=Tsunami~toll~crosses~24,000;~massive~relief~work~underway

http://www.newindpress.com/gallery/show.asp?Topic=-1031

I am making a small financial contribution ($100) towards the relief fund setup by the Prime Minister of India and to the doctors without borders.

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/
http://www.ndtv.com/template/template.asp?template=tsunami&slug=PM+urges+donations+for+relief+fund&id=65860&callid=1&category=National

I strongly encourage all of you to do the same. I am sure this money will go a long way in helping those who have lost their loved ones and to those whose entire life-time of assets has been completely wiped out. It is after all only a small percentage of your pay check.

nokia 6620

2004-10-15T15:42:00.000-07:00

Arggg ... I had to return the new Nokia 6620 phone. Here are the reagons why?

Pros:

I like the bluetooth capability
Sync up with Outlook calendar, notes, tasks and contacts
Good form factor
Expandable memory slot (although you have to replace the existing one if you buy a new memory card). But the built in memory should be good enough for most of the functions
Good Battery life

Cons:

Key pad is rather small
DOES not sync up with outlook email. The software Nokia PC Sync does not support this capability. Only way to do it is to set the email as a POP3 or SMPT email account and sync up email via Internet
I thought this phone was really bulky for the capabilities it provides
The speaker phone is weak ... hardly a speaker phone in my opinion
Nokia PC sync software has a very poor UI

I had to return the phone because it does not support the email sync up using bluetooth and the phone was really bulky. After using a flip phone for so long ... I realized that I prefer a flip phone.

TIP: If you plan to buy any phone from the local AT&T wireless, do your research using google and they usually match the price on the device (they don't match the accessories). I was able to get the phone for about $100 less asking them to match the price.

Desktop Google search tool

2004-10-15T15:39:00.000-07:00

This is really cool. I have started using this tool and it really does a great job ... finally I don't have to depend on the sluggish File explorer search capability. I am still figuring out all the capabilities it supports like wild card search, etc. I will blog about this as soon as find out more.

2004-09-18T09:01:00.000-07:00

I went on an adventurous camping trip with a very good friend Subbarao. We camped near the Wollawa Lake and the Hells Canyon wilderness. Here are some pictures from the trip … pictures speak for itself the beauty of this place.

IMG_0183.JPG

IMG_0107.JPG

2004-08-28T16:46:00.000-07:00

Gmail - Inbox

Great!!! Finally, I managed to get a gmail account and it really rocks. Awesome speed, 1000MB of space, search capability for finding emails, keyboard short cuts is nice, etc. I wish they had some more work on the adding some more attributes / details for the contact list, but other than that it is really nice. I will be making this gmail account as my primary personal email account.

2004-03-08T01:30:00.000-08:00

I went to a beautiful trek last weekend (02/27-03/01) with a group called “Adventura”, an adventure club in Infosys. I spent an exhilarating weekend with a bunch of highly spirited and fun loving people.
Trek details:
• ~10Km one-way to Kodachadri, ~2500ft elevation gain
• ~2KM one-way to the Cave, ~450ft elevation gain

The key highlights of the trip were:
• Positive spirit and enthusiasm created by the Infosys crowd through out the trip
• The beautiful evening swimming in the warm waters of the Arabian Sea while watching the spectacular sunset at the baiyandoor beach.
• The breath taking view of the sun-rise on top of Kodachadari
• Beautiful hike up and down to the Cave (the cave itself was not worth the hike)
• Magnificent view of the clear sky in the night
• Marvelous sounds from all the birds and insects dwelling in the wilderness
• Incredible views of the serene and unruffled landscape

The overall experience was very delightful and pleasant.

From Bangalore take a train to Shimoga.
From Shimoga you have to catch a bus to Kollur or Biyandoor
You have to go to the kodachadari base (start the trek on the jeep trail)

Few Pictures from the trek:
Kodachadari
DSCN0610.JPG
DSCN0612.JPG
DSCN0621.JPG
Sunset 1
Sunset 2
Kodachadari
Kodachadari
Kodachadari
Kodachadari

2004-01-27T22:30:00.000-08:00

It is a well known fact that companies that are the market leaders in one technology wave fail to catch on to the next wave. Usually these shifts happen with the advent of new disruptive technologies. Take the example of companies like Lotus, Word perfect, Apple, DEC, Ingres, and SCO to name a few. Every one of these companies failed to make the required changes to embrace the disruptive and discontinuous change.
Intel is the current Market Leader with Micro processor technology. Intel as a company has been doing a lot of thinking and investment in the area of “what is the next thing after semi-conductors? Can a multi-billion dollar semiconductor industry survive if a new discovery revolutionizes the whole computing industry?”

A Quantum Computer could solve a problem in few months that would take millions of years for a conventional computer. Using the principles of quantum dots, Quantum physics describes the special rules that apply to atoms and subatomic particles. One principle is that when you observe a particle, you change it. If a particle can be in one of two states, for example "up" or "down," it only settles on one state when you look at it. Before you look at it, it can be in both states at the same time. Conventional computers process information as "bits."

A bit can be a one or a zero. A string of eight bits can represent a single number from zero (00000000) to 255 (11111111). In a quantum computer, bits can be both one and zero at the same time. A string of eight bits can therefore represent all of the numbers between zero and 255 at the same time. (Source: Science daily)

Think of using atoms to manage states instead of transistors in a semi-conductor chip. This will completely revolutionize the way we have known about computers, all the billions of dollars invested in various manufacturing plants across the globe will be rendered almost useless and Intel the market leader in microprocessors will have to find something else to do.

Biological computing may be the next big threat to the whole silicon industry. You could possibly use biological particles like bacteria and viruses to control your state and use billions of them in a space that can only fit 1000 transistor today. Biological particles will not have the problems of heat, transmission and power that we have today, the system designed today can become more powerful tomorrow when the bacteria or virus replicate. All this completely changes the way we use silicon, the systems designed with bio-chips may be millions of times faster than the silicon based, there will be simply no match with the computing power. It is like using diodes instead of semi-conductors to manufacture PCs.

2004-01-27T22:27:00.000-08:00

As we all know, patenting has become a very familiar task in the research landscape. One critical question remains: whether intellectual property is fundamentally inconsistent with the norms of research science. Although, we are likely to ask more questions around what sorts of research discoveries should be patented and about how proprietary research tools should be disseminated in the research community.
Intellectual property has been an important phenomenon in research science. According to me it is absolutely essential to preserve the benefits of intellectual property while minimizing interference with the progress of science.
When large corporations are investing so many dollars on research and often the goals of the competitors are similar. It is very likely the output will be similar or pretty close, then how does one really qualify infringement.
In the global landscape, the validity of the patent is largely questionable in many countries. Making sure you are protected in every country is often very expensive and some countries don’t have the intellectual property rights as in U.S. How does a corporation deal with global infringements?
I am not suggesting that corporations should not harvest IP, but in many cases they are going over-board with IP protection. Patent the core-technologies and the technology that is going to be market differentiators but not every new thing you come across.

2004-01-15T08:50:00.000-08:00

One of my resolutions for this year was to start blogging more often. I found this interesting article that talks about the future of wireless technology, it addresses some of the issues of who pays for the WiFi connections. Wireless capabilities cannot be restricted to a confined boundary or location .. so how do you compete against free wireless service providers .. if wireless connections does become free then it become like internet where it will extremely difficult to force customers to pay. In my opinion Occasionally Connected Computing will become the norm with the cost of the bandwith will become so cheap that it won;t be worth charging the customers.

Techweb > News > WiFi�s Future: Paid Or Free? > Want Free Wi-Fi With That Latte? > January 14, 2004

2003-12-30T11:22:00.000-08:00

Bangalore metro rail work to start next April - The Economic Times I really hope the karnataka gov is serious about considering a alternative to the massive traffic problems in bangalore. Last time I visited bangalore in Dec 2002, I was amazed to see the explosive growth of this city. All the other mass transport plans never saw the light of the day, hope this is not one of them.

2003-12-29T11:05:00.000-08:00

Wishing you all a very happy and wonderful new year (2004).
I really hope this year will enable me to do more of blogging.

Regards
Ajay

2003-11-24T15:02:00.000-08:00

webservices.xml.com: Web Services Acronyms, Demystified [Jan. 09, 2002] A very good article, although written in Jan -2002, gives a high level overview of some of commonly used web services acronyms. Lots of new protocols and WS standards have been since added.

2003-11-13T14:39:00.000-08:00

Testimony of Dr. David R. Criswell: Senate Hearing on "Lunar Exploration" | SpaceRef - Your Space Reference. Save the environment by harnessing the solar power generated and beamed from stations located on the Moon . I personally think it is going to take a couple of decades before this technology can be made practical. But this possibility can save our envioronment on earth, this can also bring down the cost of producing power significantly.

2003-11-07T14:17:00.000-08:00

Sessions

For those of you who missed the action in Microsoft PDC. All the material from various PDC sessions where you can find information on latest and greatest MS technology and products.

2003-11-03T12:51:00.000-08:00

ScienceDaily News Release: Quantum Computer Could Solve Problems In A Few Months That Would Take Conventional Computers Millions Of Years. This is clearly a disruptive technical innovation that can change the way we look at computing power today. In a decade or so we will reach a saturation point with the semi-conductor technology in terms of die size and speed, quantum computing has a very good chance of being the next leap in scientific development. The challenge will be to find the supporting applications requiring the horse power in the consumer market. Can anybody think of applications that require the computing power other than games in the future?

2003-10-31T09:17:00.000-08:00

Steve and I went for a beautiful hike in the Mt. jefferson park last weekend. To get to the hike is about 1.5 hr drive from Portland, Oregon.

Driving direction:
From I5 sounth (south of salem) take 22 west. Immediately after the mile post 60, turn left into white water rd (it is very easy to miss this turn). Follow the dirt road for 6 miles till you hit the trail head.

Total Hike distance is around 12 miles with a toal elevation gain of 2,100 ft. You have to hike along the ridge line (on the pacific crest trail) with the beautiful view of the forest below and the Mt. Jefferson staring right in front of you. Finally you will reach a series of beautiful lakes called the bay lake, strout lake, heart lake etc. A wonderful day hike with some spectacular views.

some pictures are attached

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2003-10-13T11:05:00.000-07:00

I am taking an interesting class this quarter called the organization change management. Some of suggested reading material seems pretty good. I will post more about this class as it progresses.

2003-09-25T12:39:00.000-07:00

This is the executive summary (Marketing part) for my MBA class business plan. I think the product One-Card has a lot of potential ... there is a clear market need, we will see how the business plan progresses.

I. Executive Summary
One-Card is a convenient, secure and practical digital card product and service. One-Card aims to eventually replace the traditional bulky wallet with a single easy to carry digital solution.
The Product
Multiple current offerings of plastic money, digital money and various membership services will all be rolled under one standard One-Card interface. The patented technology behind the product called “One-Card common cryptographic interface” has combined existing proven technologies in creative ways to support the digital card infrastructure. One-Card works with existing infrastructure, making it widely acceptable.
Market
We will supply an added convenience of One-Card to the rapidly growing PDA users who currently carry many cards. This market has been well established, Gartner predicts PDA sales of 33.7 million by 2004, up from this year's projected 13.7 million. Of this number, a significant number is held by the small business owners. Many small businesses have some pretty complex purchasing requirements, this is where the One-Card product provides valuable services to organize and manage all credit transactions securely. The small business owner is the primary target market segment for this product.
Objectives
Security and privacy of customers will be key objective along with supporting numerous value-added services that enhance the value and developing a strong global retail channel for making this product widely available and acceptable.
Mission
Our goal is to establish One-Card as a market leader in digital card solutions by forming a network of users and vendors with emphasis on security and standardization of card technologies. Enhance the acceptability by licensing the standard interface to other product manufacturers and vendors.

2003-09-21T21:08:00.000-07:00

With E-mail Dying, RSS Offers Alternative. An excellent article that describes RSS as an viable alternative to using email as means of reaching subscribers. Using email to generate newsletters or daily, weekly content summaries through subscription is annoying to users thus gets trapped by junk mail filters. It is very clear that the industry is rapidly adopting syndication as a means to reach customers.

2003-09-19T23:09:00.000-07:00

I finally placed an order for a new laptop. I bought Dell's Inspiron 300m
Dell - Dell Home Systems Inspiron 300m Notebook with the following additions..
60GB hard disk instead of the standard 40 GB.
Dell TrueMobile® 1300 WLAN (802.11b/g, 54Mbps) miniPCI Card (I think having 802.11g support is a great to have)
128MB dell USB key
24X CD/RW / DVD combo (I was tempted to buy the DVD RW .. oh well) ...

2003-09-19T22:37:00.000-07:00

Turn home number into mobile one. The most important feature that I am looking for is the capability to keep the same phone number even if I change the service provider, better still keep the same instrument (phone) as well. Hope all this changes happen as soon as possible.

2003-09-19T11:27:00.000-07:00

Sluggish PC?

In case you started to notice a decline in your computer's performance over a period of time, it may be because of many unwanted tasks that are running in the background, read this article for find out more details.
Possible solution:
Run msconfig and go to the startup tab where you will notice all the processes that get started during startup. Disable processes that are not needed, you can find out more about what they do by going to this web site .

2003-09-19T10:28:00.000-07:00

Microsoft to Test 'Voice Command' for PDAs, Phones. A person walking next to you can erase the data on your device by just talking ... alright I am kidding. We need a better way of controlling and communicating with our mobile device .... voice activated dialing is any catching on and I think this is a step in the right direction.

2003-09-18T16:14:00.000-07:00

Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows: "Longhorn" Alpha Preview. I am not particularly impressed by any new longhorn features yet.

Few comments
New welcome screen -- can I plug my own screen which should be fully customizable?
Start Menu -- my contacts is useful .. but will I upgrade for this feature ... the answer is NO.
I don't clearly understand the benefit I would get from my hardware as opposed to the device manager.
My Computer --- Disk space is currently available as a tool tip .. maybe a marginally better way of representing the disk space.

I will update this post with more comments on longhorn.

2003-09-18T12:34:00.000-07:00

Tinny computers, I always wondered how the actual usability will look like when the technology gets smaller and smaller. I am confident that technology hurdles are easy to overcome compared to the application, usability, privacy and security issues. Thinking about usage scenarios or what I call business innovation ahead of the technology innovation is going to be critical for succeeding in the future.

2003-09-16T19:00:00.000-07:00

Red vs. Blue PDC Video All roads leading to the Microsoft PDC conference. It is a very well done video .. comment on the developers is pretty funny :)

2003-09-16T18:51:00.000-07:00

I have started focusing on the marketing plan that needs to be completed for the MBA class. The idea for the marketing plan is called one card, the concept of consolidating all your credit cards, debit cards and memebership cards into one easy to use smart card.
Lots of problems with the infrastructure change and general customer acceptability. I will be blogging more about this work as it progresses.

2003-09-16T12:41:00.000-07:00

FeedDemon RSS newsfeed Reader for Windows happens to be the best RSS reader and agreegator I have seen so far. This has some nice capabilities like groups, channels etc.

2003-09-12T22:56:00.000-07:00

The best way to determine whether or not your .NET component belongs in the Global Assembly Cache (GAC) is to answer the following 2 questions:
• Do you expect many applications to use your component on the same machine?
• Is there a significant disk requirement by your component?

If the answer is “yes” to either of the above questions then the component can potentially be installed in the GAC.

2003-09-12T15:09:00.000-07:00

Location for my random rants on technology and architecture.