I have finally decided to move to hosting my website.... Enough of putting up with the tripod's of the world. And tired of waiting for wordpress.com to come up with new plugins for all to use...
I need suggestions for a good linux based hosting facility that is flexible and also reasonable on pricing.
Longing to go out on a drive... I am dying to go out on a long drive To feel the wind hit my face as I ride The greenery I would see teases My heart would float as it pleases.....
I want to drive as far as I can.... I know not where I would want to go... To my wishes I would like to bow My heart would float as it pleases.....
Longing to go out on a drive... Longing to go out on a drive, I swear!
Getting repairs done at home is a nightmare... Ever got repairs / plumbing done at home? This weekend has been a nightmare... Had to get the tiles replaced in one of the bathrooms and the work was to start at 7 AM Saturday morning. It started at 8:30 AM on Sunday! And it is still going on as a write this entry (10 PM Sunday evening).
The workmanship is poor. Thought the expectations on quality and timeliness were well set in advance. Everything possible went wrong....
The delayed start. There are 5 people working on it! Wonder why? And there is no control or clue on when they will finish. Guess they are not used to estimating and sticking to a schedule.
The tiles were placed unevenly and with gaps in between, some tiles were cut with crude equipment to accommodate for pipes and the like. No one seems to be worried about the quality of the work done except me! No wonder there is a bunch of professionals in other industries who make money on "quality assurance". Never felt the need for it as much till today!
There is more... The workers did not initially tile the whole wall. The did it only for 6 feet instead of 7, though it was agreed with the contractor (Scope issue). The contractor had forgotten to inform the workers though he had bought (Procurement) all the required parts for them (Communication).
All of these activities are essentially elements of any Project! Why don't people run repairs and home improvements in a "Projectized" mode? Work habits in these sectors needs to improve? Is it the relatively low wagesthey receive or the attitude? Not sure. I am inclined to believe that it is low sensitivity to quality, poor training, lack of appropriate tool usage in the workers and poor planning by the contractor. The similarities are quite scary since these are these same problems that are the root cause for any IT project hiccups / failure!
We need a tools revolution in the country. We still use stone age tools (well almost). And common refrain is tools are expensive and we don't have the principal to plough in. I am not convinced. It is the attitude to tools. We are plagued by a lets-manage-with-what-we-have attitude. Reminded of Stephen Covey... "Sharpen the saw", he said.
Makes me wonder... Why can't we regulate these sectors... Get people to be trained and certified plumbers, electricians and contractors.
It would make a world of a difference to a lot of us. For me for sure. And I wouldn't mind pay more for better quality and predictability. Who wouldn't?
LJ Bot doesn't support posts with formatting! LJ seemed a great idea but I just discovered that the Bot doesn't support posts with formatting. That's a shame. (unless I am missing something here, let me know if I am). Nevertheless, I still think it is a great tool for quick posts. If Twitter can be workable - why not the LJ Bot via Gaim.
Post from Gaim via LJ Bot Trying out the LJ Bot that I ran into. It seems like a nice way to post a quick thought to one's journal. This sure cuts the"let-me-get-the-post-right" crap delays. The Gaim window where one types can be resized to allow for larger posts and the convenient tool bar allows one to do some basic formatting like what I have attemped! If you are wondering what LJ is check this link. It appers I would be using this tool more often. If only I could insert images.
Russell Peters the Canadian stand up comedian of Indian origin was in India and Bangalore for his first time to perform. I recollect the mention of Russel's show in Bangalore brought a smile to my face. The numerous nights we spent laughing till were in tears over a video of is show that was floating around the internet!!! His piece "sum buddy is gonna get hurt rrreal baadd” still makes me laugh. I was damn sure I didn't want to miss this one!
Russell has been doing standup comedy for the last 17 years. He is based in LA and is of Angle-Indian roots. His parents hail from Bombay and Calcutta. Russel and his team have under unconvential marketing techniques to gain visibility. They have used a massive word of mouth campaign to gain visibility bypassing mainstream media channels to propagate the Russel brand. Tickets for his shows typically sell out in 48 hours around the world and Bangalore was no different. His recent comedy "Outsourced" is extremely popular worldwide.
Russel admitted on stage in Bangalore that he was quite nervous of his Indian tour. He said he wasnt sure if the audience would react to his style of comedy and how he would be received.
The hall was full and the event was well organised with ushers guiding visitors to their seats. A bouncer / body guard was present for Russel's safety. There was firm warning against use of recording devices. The audience was informed that any violators would be evicted from the show!!!
The show was started by a comedian of American origin who set the tone for the evening with his fast moving sometimes electrifying quick quips and takes on popular Hollywoord flicks. This guy was so full of energy that was infectious. He got the audience in their groove and they responded by responding from time to time. Some of his takes included Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park and Mission Impossible. He did a great job of doing a Tom Cruise in Mission Possible. It was surreal! Makes me wonder if all professional comedian send in someone first to set the stage and get a pulse of the audience before they come on....
Enter Russel! WIth all the applause!!!
The chap look so fresh for someone who had just travelled some distance to get here. He got down to the act of getting the audience engaged. His usual targets were a sampling of the audience with various racial backgrounds. He was smooth in reaching out to them and relating to them. He engaged some Swedes, locals and others in the audience. His quick one liners were quite humourous and they were able to relate to him quickly. He had a great start and the audience responsed really well for a large part of the show.
Somewhere past midway Russell seemed to run out of ideas and had to resort to some explicit humor, that I thought was brought it because sex has universal appeal and that a little over grossness does bring some applause in an audience that is large not used to discussing sex very openly except of course the younger generation. The audience had folks from varied age groups and this didnt seems to go down well with many of them albiet the youth. I could hear some frown around me and some perplexed middle aged folks who diddnt know whow to react escpecially during Russel's "dick-n-the-mike" antics. It is a different matter I was laughing like crazy!!!
A little of everything is always a good mix especially when it is in good humor. But I left with the Vintage Russell was not on nshow that evening and that this being one of his first with a very different audience left him scrounging for some creative ideas. Guess Russell needs more tours to this part of the world to get him into the "act".
We got to see the designs and work of Rajesh Prathap Singh & Ashish Soni @ Blender's Pride Fashion tour India 2006. It was a fun evening. Lot of Bangalore's glitzerati were in attendance. We did get to see Monoviraj Khosla in attendance as well.
Gorgeous looking women, great atmosphere and interesting fashion on display. Photos from the event are here.
The Spastics society of Karnataka is now 25! For the past 25 years they have (I quote) - Consciously, Conscientiously and Constantly endeavored to:
Maximising the potential of children with special needs
Inclusiveness in all aspects of daily life
Establising their rights to be part of the community.
The silver jubilee year is being celebrated with many programs. And guess what: the spastics children - 150 of them - are staging a musical show - Lion King - on the 1st of December.
It does nt get bigger than this. Be there to show your support and encourage the children.
They have live feeds from 5 locations - Brigade road, Basaveshwara Circle, Hosur Road (in from of Sasken), Mekhri circle and Bannerghatta road.
I found these feeds quite acceptable and neat. And I have been excited by the idea of checking the traffic in front of Sasken on Hosur road before heading off home from work.
Yes dil maange more... I wish there were Cams at the following other locations:
MG road (from Ebony restaurant on Barton center)
Cubbon road (from Manipal Center)
Trinity circle
Richmond flyover (atop the Satyam office)
Airport road junction from Diamond district
Forum mall junction
Kormangala 80 feet road junction
Indiranagar junction (from KFC, th view is great there)
Ulsoor lake (from Philips s/w building)
Meanwhile take benefit of these cams. Hope someone is reading this and more Cams get deployed. I also wish they had 360 degree cams and allow us to control some of these.... If wishes were horses....
Vamsee Krishna Kanakala from Viamentis gave an introductory talk on Ruby on Rails. He explained the reason behind the ruby on rails hype. He went on to demo some example of working with Ruby on Rails. Vamsee’s presentation was smooth and composed with excellent articulation while reassuring some of those new to it about its ease of use.
It was a proud moment for me to be at BarCamp Chennai and watch my brother unveil Taazza.com for the first time to an external audience. And what better place to do it than the the place we hail from.
It was a great feeling to see the interest it generated in the BarCamp audience. The questions kept flowing in and the excitement was palpable.
It surely is time to take Taazza.com to the next level.
I discovered this evening the pleasure of sipping coffee in the comfort of the cozy sofas at Coffee World. To top it all is their free Wifi access (Wireless LAN access).
They have a quite environment, that is nicely lit and serves a good assortment of sandwiches and of course coffee. I had a nice Cafe Latte and a Summer Veggie grilled sandwich.
They are reasonably priced considering that the place is quiet and not swarming with visitors like Barista's or Coffee Day.
They seem to be primarily Thailand based outfit, now foraying into India. Indian outlets in Bangalore and Mumbai. Bangalore outlets in Mota Royal Arcade (Brigade Road), Eva Mall (Brigade road), Vajram Complex Koramangala (near BDA complex).
Loot at the Annual Strand Book sale I visited the annual Strand Book sale. The third year back to back I have visited. And year after year I seem to loot the place.
This year the sale is on the 10th floor and there is only one floor unlike earlier years when there were two. This is their 10th anniversary year. 40- 80% discount is what they claim. It wasnt quite the case in many books. The nice part was there were few computer books... A welcome change! Sadly...Very few books on philosophy...The Management section lacked too much punch too...
One could see greedy bargain hunters as always and serpentine queues for billing.
Some books from this year's loot...
The last one sure does sound sensational....The book tries to suggest something quite different...
Amazon customers give these books the following rating: 5 (Jack Welch & the GE way), 4.5 (Trump, Fire your boss), 4 (Zig), 3.5 (Both sides of your brain, How to work a room)
Can wait to get started reading these... Got a busy Sunday ahead...
I walking down MG road this evening doing my usual routine. I walk down from the Brigade road intersection down till the St Marks intersection. I usually grab my few weekly mags at the news stand, my softee infront of Plaza and possibly a few ground nuts in front of Foodworld. I walk into some of the book shops to drool at some books that I'd like to buy for some day in the not so distant future...
I was noticing that the number of foreigners on MG road was at a record high. I crossed one every 6-7 feet. Quite an amazing influx of visitors from overseas to good old Bangalore. There was some incidents we observed as well...
There was this street site hawker holding a bunch of these plastic snakes that look so REAL! He ran into a bunch of overseas visitors and was trying his sales tricks on one of them. The man was for a moment shocked... he stared in disbelief...and blurted out...."What do you expect me to do with it?" Sounding very perplexed and matter of factly he said..."Why do I need one of these?"..... I was laughing and in splits....
A set of youngsters were walking down and approaching us briskly. There were this couple of white women walking ahead of us. One of these guys bumped into one of these girls...possibly intentionally...and the lady was founded cursing this bloke for his insenstitiveness. Bang-galored eh?!
I had the opportunity of hearing Swami Dayanada Saraswati today at the town hall in Bangalore. He has been delivering a series of talks on the essential verses of the Gita over a week. I was eager to hear him as I had hear that he was a good speaker with the ability to explain the verses in manner that is easily understood by the common man a.k.a people like me :)
I must admit that I am normally very skeptical with Swamijis and self styled God men. But since I always like to have an open mind, I put my thinking cap on and was all ears to hear this man speak.
The talk started at 6:30 PM and the hall was mostly full with mostly folks fifty years and above barring a few exceptions like me. The front benchers were swamijis and sanyasins(?) dressed in saffron robes with some upwardly mobile folks as well.
It took me a while to accept that a Swamiji could be so articulate in communication. He spoke in good english without any particular accent. He was clear and razor sharp in his communication and for the most part had my rapt attention. Time flew by and I was deeply immersed in the verse he was explaining for the next hour and a half. He was explaing the correlation between action and results as defined in the verse from the Gita. His use of anecdotes interspersed with jokes kept us all keep pace with him.
There are some questions that linger in my mind long after the talk:
- Why did he choose the name Swami Dayananda Saraswati? Is there in any way any relation to the Maharishi Dayananda Saraswati of Arya Samaj fame? - Is this another man out to build another cult following? No doubt he is very learned and has a fan following? - Why do Indians crave for someone to follow blindly and idolize? - Why doesnt the Arsha Vidya site not mention too much about the Swamiji's background?
What was comforting is the fact that the Arsha Vidya website does not position this man as a godman but merely as a learned swami well versed in Vedanta. That leaves me in a zone of comfort. Maybe I will go to listen to him next time around. He sure did provoke my curiosity in the Gita and set me thinking on what he had to say.
Well, people rave of McDonalds and their standardisation worldwide. Back in India, I guess Satyam iWay is slowly and surely setting similar standards in the internet service they are offering across the country. Here's why?
B4 I proceed, hats off iWay. Great job! And pray Satyam Computers whys dis you disvest is haste?
I was visiting Pondicherry and guess what I see iWay in almost all the places I wouldnt normally expect to see an internet cafe. 13 kilometers away from town in the ourskirts (thats a huge distance by Pondicherry standards even today)!
The best part is I can use the ID and balance I have in my Bangalore account over here at Pondicherry. In fact one can use it all over the country.
I knew this earlier, but seeing it work is the cool thing. A friendly neighborhood cyber cafe with all to familiar branding and predicable service experience, quality and cost!
Isnt that what McDonalds did to fast food over the US and around the world? When I travel in the US I know if I cant find anything else, there is a McDonalds around somewhere.
Now back home in India, I can travel freely and know that there is a friendly neighborhood iWay for me to surf the Net and be connected even when I am on holiday!
Thats the very capability Satyam iWay brings to me and I value it greatly! Next time I try I will research for the the iWay locations in the city I travel to before I leave. I already do that for ATMs now...
Withdrawal symptoms without the Net! "You are having withdrawal symptoms" is what I got to hear this evening when I was impatiently waiting for my PC to get free, so that I could get online.
How very true. Without checking my mail, using an IM, updating my web site... I shudder to think of these situations. I am most angry when my Cable Internet is down!
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
arunram's journal
impressed
curious