All posts by haikvr

vista

Staples Print Center’s gift to me – Khatra.exe

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Last weekend I went to Staples Print Center in Marathahalli – Printo has closed shop and moved out. And when I got home I plugged the USB drive into Vista and AVG Anti Virus did not complain – but I saw a program called Khatra.exe asking for Admin privileges to run.

Then I rebooted into Ubuntu and was horrified to see the files that were there. There were folders and lots of exes. Now I am upset with 2 entities here.
1. Staples Print Center
Printo always scans the flash drives ( even if it used to take time ) and not once they loaded viruses on to my USB drive. Wish Staples learns from their competitor and educates their employees to follow proper process ( I am sure Staples will have it in their employee handbook ).
2. Vista
I did not give administrative privileges to Khatra.exe, still it managed to copy itself in the registry in some 10 places, got itself added to startup , and had the guts to ask again for administrative privileges when I rebooted.
I am shocked that inspite of all the zombie Windows XPs on the net, Microsoft has not learnt a thing – it is still a MG road platform – anyone can come, sit, pitch their tent and start doing business.
I am seriously considering investing in Codeweaver or trying out Virtual Box for Ubuntu – Office is one thing that forces me to reboot to Windows. It has wasted a few hours of my time – imagine the billions of hours people will be losing all over the world because of poor security measures in the OS.
photos

Some random photos

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Photos shot on my Nokia 6630


with his Avva in Reliance Footprint while his Ma shops !

this is equivalent of commenting out the failing test because the entire build was failing ! forgot where I took this one.

in Lal Bagh or Cubbon park – one of them.
after Prithvi’s birthday party.
Achu, this is for you !
on the terrace – should be the world for this little ant !
He is a Royal Challengers fan, but was just being nice.

Next in human evolution – use mouth for carrying stuff, so hands are free to tweet and blog.

3Five8, interview, update

ApartmentAdda Interview & an update

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TheIndianStartup.com interviewed us recently – you can read about the interview in their blog.

Now for the update, my startup is no more a sole-proprietorship. It is now a Private Limited firm – 3Five8 Technologies Pvt. Ltd. When I started – sole proprietorship made sense – because it did not cost anything, nothing to register and I can concentrate on building the portal.
However, after the launch and after winning Adda’s first premium customer and the subsequent customers I dealt with all had this uneasiness doing business with a sole proprietor. I understood that sole proprietorship was not sufficient any more. Finally kicked off the process in April sometime – took close to 2 months in my case because of various reasons.
Having a Pvt. Ltd. company gives confidence to my customers.
And it did cost quite a bit :
1. It costs quite a lot to register…. around 27k.
2. Every year the company has to submit its audited finances – even if it makes a loss. This is again around 25k every year.
3. You cannot simply shutdown a company. The procedure is very cumbersome and one has to get NoCs from every possible nook and corner.
4. Had to deposit 1 Lakh as initial investment – or show assets worth 1 Lakh to start.
I cannot imagine what the formalities will be for making a Public Ltd. company. If I do it one day I will blog here 🙂
Are you wondering what is 3Five8? – There is a sound reasoning behind the name but I am still debating whether to explain it or let people keep guessing what it means !
books

Book reviews on my new blog

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I have started writing here in http://artofstart.theindianstartup.com. The theme mainly is books that are inspiring and valuable for an entrepreneur.

Here are the three posts I have written :
Follow your heart like Santiago – review of The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Blaze a new path like Howard Roark – review of The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Find the tipping point of your venture – review of The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
I will continue writing in this blog about technical things and a developer’s perspective of running a startup and of course my frustrations with that browser and that operating system 🙂
Articles

Find the tipping point of your venture

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“The Tipping Point” is another interesting book from Malcolm Gladwell. “Tipping points” are the levels at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable. He analyses how social epidemics start and classifies 3 kinds of people you will need – who will help your product/portal/message reach the tipping point.

Connectors : Connectors are passive information passers. “Hi I heard about this cool website…” – is what they will say – and they will say this to quite a few.

Mavens : Mavens are more factual. “Do you know you can get this and this done in this website…” – is what they will say. They analyze threadbare the features/shortcomings and will help the listener make a fair judgement of the product.

Salesmen : Salesmen are more persuasive.  “You should be using this website because it will save you time and effort….” is what they will say.  They not only do the job of mavens – by giving you facts but they also will list out the advantages in such a manner that will make the listener run and get it.

You have to spot the connectors, mavens and salesmen among your customers. The tried and tested advertising is word of mouth – it is very hard to get this kind of advertising, but this is the only way you can “tip” your business.

So – rethink your strategy. How do you get people to talk about your product – is it through doing more SEO, is it through meaningful articles on a blog, is it by talking more to your customers?  Wish I knew the right answer 🙂 – but it does raise interesting questions – and in the answers lie the strategy to help your venture reach its tipping point.

Some interesting quotes from the book :

“The three rules of the Tipping Point — The Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, the Power of Context — offer a way of making sense of epidemics. They provide us with direction for how to go about reaching a Tipping Point.”

” Acquaintances, in short, represent a source of social power, and the more acquaintances you have the more powerful you are.”

“Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do.”

Articles, ayn rand, books, inspiration

Blaze a new path like Howard Roark

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“The FountainHead” by Ayn Rand is an eye opener in many ways. Howard Roark is an architecture school student who has a different philosophy on how buildings should be built. He wanted to build structures that will be aesthetically pleasing, economically meaningful, in tune with the environment and the building should make a statement. Whereas the industry was aping what the Gothic and romantic architectures of the past had built – with meaningless arches, facades and wasted space.

He is thrown out of his college because he refuses to design the traditional architecture and struggles for work – but he never once compromises on his ideals. He waits and his time comes and the world accepts his style of architecture. It is one man against a well established industry who tries hard to keep him down. But the harder you push a ball into water – the faster it rises out and with more force – Howard Roark wins in the end.

As an entrepreneur – you might have battles yourself – as you are trying to blaze a new path, a new product, a new concept. You might be told many a times that your idea will not work. Listen to them to retune your product or offering – but do not get discouraged. If you have faith in your idea just stick to your guns – you will win in the end. There are so many success stories out there where perseverance and believing in oneself helped create an industry.

This book is a hard read – 600 or so pages – and it takes a full 100 pages before the pace picks up. And the first half of the book is quite discouraging because Howard Roark goes to the very bottom – but the second half gets very interesting and you can relish his victories. Somewhere in the middle while Howard Roark is fighting a battle, he gives courage to a drama writer  – to take the hard path. The advice he gives very much will apply to an entrepreneur.

Some interesting quotes from the book :

“Wheeling his bicycle by his side, the boy took the narrow path down the slope ofthe hill to the valley and the houses below. Roark looked after him. He had never seen that boy before and he would never see him again. He did not know that he had given someone the courage to face a lifetime“

” I don’t build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build!”

“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me”

Howard Roark you are my hero 🙂

Michael Jackson, obituary

MJ

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I was in school – 7th or 8th Standard is when I heard about Michael Jackson. I did not know how he looked, how he danced, how he sung – but I was already a fan. My friends who had listened to his music and seen video brought by their Amru uncle – told in such vivid details that MJ was already dancing in my imagination.

Then I caught MJ on World this Week – hosted by Prannoy Roy – the only window to the world I had at that time. And what I saw was better than what I had constructed in my memory.

Over the years I watched him fall from one disaster to another and prayed silently for him. And in 2000 he was awarded the greatest entertainer of the century by Mtv. And in his acceptance speech he said “You ain’t seen nothing yet”. Gave me hope – perhaps he has turned a new leaf and will produce another amazing album. Sadly the clock stopped for him.

I saw a tweet from someone yesterday – “even my office peon knows about MJ” – that sums it up how great a person he was.

twitter

Tweets that does not make sense..

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I love twitter. If you don’t like twitter – still you can read this article – because you will get some fresh twitter bashing stuff

1. Boarded plane !
Oh you have a GPRS enabled mobile is it – oh it’s an iPhone – so you are able to tweet till the flight attendant comes and asks you to switch off your phone and then give a dirty look to the guy next to you who has a Nokia 1001.
2. Good morning!
Dood – I live in India – and its evening for me. Try to understand – the world is not flat how much ever Thomas Friedmann has made millions out of that statement.
3. RT this RT that !
Well even I RT that at times but not all the time.There are tweeters who live only to RT. At times Tweet something other than 1) and 2) and I will follow you.
4. #fail !
I fail you. I see so many fails that it depresses me. I wish the tweeters use some other hash tags..like #boo, #yuck etc. Be creative. Fail brings back school day nightmares.
5. I bought an iPhone 3GS
Good for you. You can now tweet till the flight attendant comes to warn you.
and btw – you can follow me at http://twitter.com/venkat2 and I assure you I follow proper tweetiquette.
Articles, books, inspiration

Follow your heart like Santiago

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The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho

This book written by the Brazilian author, Paulo Coelho – is a very very bad book – in a good way  – because it has the potential to change your life upside down !! You can finish it on a weekend  – 160 pages is all it is. It traces the journey of Santiago, the shepherd boy who goes in hunt of a treasure.

This book will have a huge impact on your life. While reading and after reading it will leave you disturbed, questioning yourself, and if you had suppressed a dream – a dream of starting your own business, or learning something like guitar which you keep postponing, or going on a crazy bike ride to another city – anything – these dreams will come alive and will dance before you.

The book teaches  you to follow your heart. It is as simple as that. In fact all of Paulo Coelho’s books have this recurring theme – do not suppress your dream, you have one life and you have to allow it to go where it is destined to go. Do not restrict yourself saying this is all you were born to do – a 9 to 6 job, slogging at work day in and day out. Take risks, and let your heart decide what is to be done – and 9 out of 10 situations your heart will pick the right path.

Go ahead hunt for the treasure by listening to your heart – your heart already knows where the treasure is.

Some memorable quotations from the book:

“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

“There is only one way to learn. It’s through action.”

“Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World and it will one day return there.”

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”

If you are interested you can read what I wrote about this book a year back on my personal blog – when I was still working 9 to 6 –  http://kvrlogs.blogspot.com/2008/07/alchemist.html


cricket, ipl

3 Reasons why India should stick just to IPL

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I wasted sleep yesterday night to watch Indians play test cricket and lose. And here is my advise to India – stick to IPL and do not bother about playing world cups. 

3. Better Prime time

In this world cup India matches start(ed) at night 10.00PM. Given that only Indians watch cricket how can they schedule all India games at 10.00PM? You are wondering about the non-Indians sitting in the stadium? –  they were brought to the stadium with beer – like how they do in Indian elections. 

With IPL the game bends for you. Games start at 3.00PM to kill afternoon boredom at office and they give a break so commuters can fight the way through traffic and reach on time to watch the next match at 7.00PM. And go to sleep at night 10.00PM. Early to bed and early to rise – IPL is good for your health.

2.  Guaranteed Runs

In IPL, any team will have 2 good bowlers and the rest will be like henchmen in movies who are there to be beaten up. So just save your wickets till the henchmen come on the scene. And to support the super star batsmen are the flat pitches. There is guaranteed fireworks in every match.

World cup is so boring. It is like watching a one day – too many dots because of good bowlers. And the pitches are not flat. All the balls keep coming to the chest or face and poor Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, Jadeja cannot handle them  – so unfair.

1. You never lose

I was rooting for Chennai Super Kings till they lost. And Bangalore, my adopted city, reached finals. I conveniently changed my allegiance. You cannot do this with the world cup. Since India is gone I cannot start rooting for another country – there is no fun in watching a game without rabidly supporting a team.

In IPL and the Amru sports – like the world series or super bowl – no one goes home sad. At times you watch a game supporting for both the teams. I watched a world series once where I supported New York Yankees because of Derek Jeter and also at the same time rooted for Boston Red Socks – because they had flair and their players had unkempt hair and were such mavericks. 

So Modi, I hope you are listening. Increase the IPL games and we will all be winners.Â