All posts by haikvr

bangalore, chennai

Chennai Vs Bangalore

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Some people will live and die for a city. I am not one of them – and I will objectively analyze which city is a best fit for me – a 30+ year old dad, techie, non-pub hopper, digs Chettinad food and Saravana Bhavan, and who enjoys the beach. By now you know where my allegiance is 🙂
Beach Vs Mall
The beach might not be how it used to be 10 years back – but still the salty air and cool breeze are the same. No one can prevent the breeze from hitting me – and every time I go to Beasant Nagar beach it reminds me one of the fun times I had there – late night cricket, intellectual and mushy exchanges…numerous.
When I go to a mall I get blinded, suffocated and when I come out I feel drained of my energy and am happy to get out of the mall.
Chennai : 1 
Bangalore : 0
Traffic
Traffic has shot up everywhere – even in tier 3 cities. Chennai traffic is still smooth like butter. You wait only once in any signal – lots of flyovers and smart traffic management ensures you keep moving. Bangalore – uggh.  Driving is zero fun in Bangalore.
Chennai : 2
Bangalore : 0
Food 
Chennai has got great food at affordable rates.   Saravana Bhavan and chettinad joints are there everywhere – Karaikudi, Ponnuswamy, Anjappar – and you can get a tall Falooda for 75Rs ( in Anjappar ) with an umbrella. Try to get one like that in Bangalore for the same price. 
However, to Bangalore’s credit the type of cuisines are endless – konkani, mangalorean,egyptian…you name it – it is there in Bangalore. It might be costlier than Chennai but I would award equal points to both.
Chennai : 3
Bangalore : 1 
Chennai Super Kings vs Bangalore Royal Challengers
Awarding points to both. BRCs seem to be fighting back.
Chennai : 4
Bangalore : 2 
Cars

Chennai wins hands down. I spotted 2 Audis in a space of an hour. There are so many Mercedes. And once I was sandwiched between 2 Mercedes – felt as if I was being escorted like a rock star. Bangalore? Too many indicas, sumos – and even if an Audi R8 pulls next to me I will not notice – I will think it is a figment of my imagination.
Chennai : 5
Bangalore : 2
Weather

Ahem. Heres where things get tied.
Chennai : 5 ( wanted to give a negative score )
Bangalore : 5  ( awarding a whopping 3 pointer ) 
Bottomline – it is a tough choice. You go where your career takes you – rest of the things you can compromise and live and hope things change for the better. 
And finally to sum things up here is my haiku that I wrote when I was in Chennai.
Audi might have got its quattro
But Chennai still has its bovonto*

Dhoni might be from Ranchi
But he is now Chennai’s own Machi**
* Bovonto is a fruit drink looks black in color and bottle says – “does not have fruit juice or pulp”. Is as bad and unhealthy as a Pepsi or Coke and does not have an Amir Khan or SRK peddling it – but tastes fantastic. You can still find it in Chennai.
** Valid till he is bought by a Mumbai or a Kolkata team.
books, paulo coelho

Fight the Good Fight !

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Book Review – The Pilgrimage


The book is all about fighting the good fight!
When we were young we had dreams but did not have the skills to achieve the dream. Then we educate ourselves, and through apprenticeship learn the skills to achieve the dream. However while doing so we lose sight of our dream and when we have the skills – we do not fight for the dream. “Fight the good fight” – Paulo’s guide tells him – inorder to achieve your dream. 
The second interesting thing is – we all fight for a reward. We achieve a dream so we can get a reward. But we never think what we will do with the reward. Once you answer it – the process of achieving your dream, getting your reward becomes easy and more meaningful. 
Finally, during the course of the book you will realize how a devil is as important as an angel. Confused – let me explain from what I understood. Angel is the one that protects you. Devil always looks out for its own good and is selfish. Wondering how a devil can help you? Well – devil is the one who will help you inflict injury to your enemy – so if you can use your devil appropriately – he will not desert you in a fight ( to save himself ) but you can use the negative energy to inflict injury to your enemy – and win the fight.
I will not recommend this book if you are not a Paulo Coelho’s fan. Try Alchemist first and then come to this book – you might appreciate it. 
What I like in Paulo Coelho’s books is how he gives different perspectives to well established things (devil/angel for instance ) and how you can relate your life to the events in the protogonist’s life  as you are reading the book.
Now I am off to fight the good fight 🙂 
cricket, india

IPL 09 or Election 09 – which is the best entertainment?

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I feel Election 09 is more wholesome entertainment than IPL 09 – here is my top 5 reasons.
5. Cricket is a boring sport and IPL is trying to make it interesting and is quite successful in it. Politics has been the world’s most oldest profession/game/sport and Elections make it really interesting. So no contest in this front.
4. IPL has got too many statistics – Net run rate, Batsman’s average, Bowlers average – it all confuses me and is too much for my mind. I like what Election 09 is going to throw up – all within 545 seats distributed among 1025 parties – and you can play the permutation and combination to see who can make the magic 272 – except make sure you dont club the 2 big parties ( now why don’t they partner for a change…that will be fun!)
3. IPL needs gimmicks like cheer leaders, bollywood actress and actors to keep people glued to the screen. Netas need no help from any quarters. They goof up enough, say outrageous things, call names of their opponents – its like reliving kindergarden once again. 
2. IPL is short lived. You have it for a few weeks and then its all over. But Election 09 is going to continue for ever – according to most of the predictions it is going to be a hung assembly. It is bad for the economy but good for TV, Newspaper, Coffee machine gossip. A humble farmer, a 10000 shoe owner, a buffalo milker – everyone has a chance to lead us now. Tell me can IPL give you so much of thrill – that too not for just a couple of weeks – but for the many months to come? 
1. Best reason of all – IPL is a non entity in the world’s eyes – except Australia, SouthAfrica, Indian sub continent. No not England – they invented Cricket and pushed it down our throats – but now have switched to Soccer. But Election 09 will keep Mr.Obama, Zardari, Sarkozky, Putin – all glued to the television sets, twitter accounts or whatever – to find out how the political landscape is shaping. Which language should these leaders start learning – the language of the cows, language of the soil, language of kids ( hehe 🙂 )? 
We are giving them nervous breakdowns – because like it or not India is on the highway to becoming a super power and Election 09 is going to be a major event in the World’s history. IPL is a mere blip. Forget Mc.Cain vs Obama battle – that was nothing. Lets watch Congress vs BJP vs Third Front vs We-are-not-the-fourth-front vs The-unknown-front-to-be-formed after election front.
So, get ready by stocking up on Filter Coffee. Cut down on your morning jogging routine to give more time for reading Newspaper. Things are going to get very interesting. Trust me – you will not bother reading the sports page.
 
tech choices

Tech Choices a StartUp Developer has to make

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The eco system for programming languages and frameworks is well evolved – and is continously evolving. As a web developer you are faced with many choices. I have tried to capture some of the options I had to evaluate for Apartment Adda. I have left out the esoteric languages and frameworks which have not become mainstream yet.

Programming Language – Java, PHP, Ruby, Python

This is the first decision a developer has to make and might be the easiest choice – pick the one where you have the most expertise. However if you are well versed in more than one language – pick the one that will suit your startup – based on the funds you have ( cheapest to host will be php to Java hosting being expensive) , speed at which you want to release ( php/rails being fastest to Java being the slowest ), team’s expertise ( java developers being easy to find and ruby developers being hard to find ) etc.
Framework Choices – Rails, ActiveRecord, CakePHP, Spring, Hibernate, Django..

In most of the cases the framework and language decision will go hand in hand. If you pick Rails and active record then you will be going with Ruby. If you pick Spring,Hibernate – then you will pick Java. In the end it all boils down to the passion and expertise you have with the languages and frameworks.
One advice I have here is – do not pick a language/framework to educate yourself. You can try to learn from a hobby project – but not with a startup. The honeymoon period is only till your launch date when you can learn/play/experiment. But after launch you cannot go back on any of your decisions – and you cannot afford to have downtime, bugs or incomplete features – customers these days are spoilt with high quality and feature rich applications like Gmail, Facebook etc. and they will expect the same out of your product too. So picking a language/framework where you are The Guru will save you from lot of trouble.
Database – MySQL,PostgreSQL

Tough choice here. Both are equally good. MySQL wins the popularity contest.
Javascript Frameworks – Dojo, MooTools,Prototype,Scriptaculous

Try looking at the showcases each framework provides and also look at the sample code. Pick the one that will suit your design and also factor in the size of the compressed file. I do not understand why the browsers won’t include the javascript framework in their installers.
Development OS – OS X, Linux, Windows

Sometimes you are forced to work with an OS ( Windows because of Nokia PC software which will not work in linux). Some times you have no choice but to work with an OS ( linux for hosting / build machine ). Most of the time, for a startup, you will not have money for luxuries so you can only drool at OS X screenshots. Sigh.
Hosting – Shared or Dedicated

Avoid shared hosting. It will be the cheapest option – but you will have trouble later with ip address being blacklisted because a spammer was sitting next to you. Dedicated hosting costs a little more but it will be worth it and also you get full control.
GWT

A developer’s dream come true – need not touch javascript. If you choose GWT most of the tech choices are already made for you.
HTML/CSS : Table vs DIV

I don’t have enough expertise with DIVs so I built my layout with Tables – simple as that. Even though I hear lot of advantages of DIVs I decided to go with Tables – looks great even when browser is resized, resolution is changed, some content decides to grow out of hand etc.
Richeditor frameworks – YUI Rich Text editor, TinyMCE, NicEdit

No clear winner – each has its own quirks and strong points. This one you can easily change even after going live.
IDE – Eclipse, IDEA, Netbeans

Perhaps IDEA might be the first software license I purchased. There are open source alternatives for almost everything – Office, Photo editing etc. But IDEA burns all the open source alternatives to ash with its blazing speed and shortcuts.
I guess this covers most of the choices I think I made. Do point out any choices I might have missed and any better alternatives you have come across.






pleasures of life, walden

Walden – I give up!

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With much bravado I began reading Walden by Thoreau. After completing Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Ayn Rand’s Fountain Head and Atlas Shrugged – I thought I can take on anything.

I tried reading this book off and on for the last 3 months. During this time I finished reading a lot of books ( I read in parallel and have atleast 2 books that I keep alternating ) – but I never got beyond 20 pages of Walden. 

I can safely apply a quote of my friend, Akbar – “it is a lot of tedious nonsense” – he used it for the Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. 

Thoreau brags about his minimalistic life. But he has not seen the iPod, iPhone, Audi A4, Wii, Internet, Kulfi icecream and so many good things in life – why the heck will I let go off enjoying them or not work hard towards achieving these pleasures.
Second reason why I gave up was I never quite got the writing style of Thoreau. I would read a page then at the end of it will realize – man I have been dreaming of something while reading it – It was like reading the Power Electronics book once again. I would again read the page and still it will not make sense. After the reading streak in me that began with Ulysses in Dec 2007 ( when I started commuting by Volvo to work ) – this is the first book I am giving up. Sorry Thoreau – I have to disagree with you on your philosophy, your writing and your style. Perhaps English and Literature enthusiasts will praise you all over the world – but not me. I stand by my statement. 

Now where is my minimalistic iPod – that I like !

environment, india, nano

Why Tata Nano is good for India, Environment and everyone

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Tata Nano is back in the news – for all the good reasons – booking is open online and launch date has also been announced. Here are my top 3 reasons why Nano is actually good for all of us.
1. Nano will make better citizens out of us :
Nano is going to congest the roads – which is a good thing. Now the lazy ones who always had better alternatives to commute will just give up driving and take to cycling, walking, take the public transport or try car pooling. One cannot drive on 1st gear for 20 kms daily – the clutch foot will hurt and petrol bill will bite like a vampire in the neck. Ouch. So these lazy bozos will now suddenly “discover” new ways of commuting – which are cheaper, cleaner,stress free and faster too. 
Time to recommend two of my friends who are doing their part to change the world –
Rohan Kini’s pedal power – bumsonthesaddle.com
Vipul Kasera’s Car pooling portal – commuteeasy.com
2. Govt will make better Public Transport:
This will be the second effect. Now the Ministers and their entourge cannot zip through the roads anymore. How much ever the policemen try they just cannot control the Nano army from invading the roads. So our smart ministers will device ways to shepherd people into buses and trains – so the roads are relatively empty for them to zip past. 
3. Nano will go green:

It is just waiting to happen. Hackers will soon throw in a few batteries and a electric motor into a Nano – so for less than the cost of a Reva you have a better looking 4 door car. Then Tata will think – why don’t we do it ourselves and Tata will launch an electric Nano and suddenly the environmentalists will have to reinvent themselves to criticize Nano – like how it is using Steel and Lead and Arsenic and how bad it is for the environment.
I for one welcome the Nano overlords 🙂
linux, tools

My Best Friend Linux

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Today I was setting up a cron job and suddenly realized – Linux has been such a good friend to me all these years and I never recognized this fact. This post is how Linux has stood by my side silently and quietly helped me do difficult things easily, has never once failed me, is always there when I wanted, does not require me to pay, teaches me cool tips & tricks and is a joy to talk with – what else can you expect from your best friend.

I will summarize some of the features I love linux for.
1. tail -f error.log

I use tail command a lot. Only Textpad in windows world has something equivalent of it and that too is a little jerky and with large log files Textpad becomes slow. Tell me if there is a better alternative to Textpad and Notepad++ ( should I have to always manually reload in Notepad++?).
2. crontab

Hats off to the geniuses behind crontab concept. Scheduling programs to run every minute to run on a particular day once a year – is so simple. Just by editing a text file you can schedule your programs to your needs.
3. CLI

I can do “anything” from the command line. It is much faster, can pipe actions, can script them and much more.
4. VI Editor

Navigation, search, replace – cannot be any simpler and faster. Emacs fans – I know you guys can get it done too – we are brothers here.
5. Permissions

Read, Write, Execute permissions – the first thing I learnt in Unix land and lets me sleep peacefully at night!
6. No License hassles

This is the biggest reason why I love linux. I can download it, burn it, install it in my machines and not worry about the license or legal issues. For a startup with a shoe string budget – this is a boon.
Of course there are numerous other benefits – lack of viruses, malware, great performance even in lowly hardware, ease of installing applications and countless others.
To all the people who have contributed to Linux – my sincere thanks.

developer, lessons learnt

5 Advantages and Disadvantages a Developer has when running his/her own Startup

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And before I begin the usual disclaimer : This post is for the developers who have a startup idea for a click and mortar business ( meaning an online portal or a software product ) and not the traditional brick and mortar types.
Hi there my developer friends and those developers who are contemplating a career as an entrepreneur and running their own startup. My recommendation – take the plunge – we have an unfair advantage already 🙂
In the world out side of World of warcraft I chose my career as a developer – not a cook, not an artisan, not an F1 driver, not a manager – but a developer. And now in my current role as an entrepreneur I am patting myself for the decisions I took on all the career forks that were put in front of me – and kept choosing the paths so I remained a developer.
Here is why being a developer/architect is perfect for an entrepreneurial stint.
Advantages
1. You will save a ton of money on developing your product.Currently my expenses are hosting, printing, hardware, internet charges, business cards, logo and stylesheet design. I don’t pay myself yet – so it has been light on my pocket so far. If you had to hire developers it will cost a lot in building the prototype, the first release, maintaining it, enhancing it – software as you know very well is not static and development costs will keep growing.
2. If you are not a developer and employ a team, then you are at their mercy on the quality, deadlines, technological choices, performance etc. But being a developer you know first hand how to ensure your product is kick-ass on all fronts.
3. Intuition – over a period of time you gain these gut feelings for various scenarios. From a simple login page, to a complex account reconciliation screen. You know what will work and what will not work – it saves lot of headaches and rewrites down the line because you can do it right the first time itself.
4. Database design – if you are a developer who also can do good database design then you will do really well. You can do complex stuff easily without taking performance hits. Did I hear ORM – you cannot marry a dog and a cat – accept it. OO and relational tables are different species. ORM will be attractive initially but in the long run it will create lot of issues and you will be writing queries in your mapping files.
5. Process – Next to database design is the process. You can be a BA, QA or PM and as long as you are clear about the process you can release a bug free product on time. Developers have a huge edge here because we are the process ! And if you are an Agile devleoper – you will rock as an entrepreneur. Will be writing a post on how Agile process for an entrepreneur is like mock object for an unit test 🙂
Disadvantages / Short Comings
1. As a developer I am not hard wired to do Business Analysis. I once did a showcase when my BA and PM were held up on something and I learnt an important lesson. Even though we solve and implement complex business problems – when it comes to analysis and presenting our solution – we don’t do a great job. At times there might be a feature that excites you as a developer but its not a big deal for customers and the reverse applies too. When you try to sell your product you should identify these things and let go off your turn ons ( ajaxy sortable tables..but customers wont even notice it ) and developer humility ( like SSL is no big deal but still you have to talk about it – it is important for customers ).
2. Being a developer I get carried away in trying to solve a non existent problem because it excites me. Since there is no hawky PM or a BA to convince that this cool thing is really needed – I just go ahead and do it and waste my time. I had to discipline myself in not going into these tangential excursions because time and effort is limited and I have to use it effectively.
3. Verbal communication – developers talk less and let the code / product do the talking. But as an entrepreneur you have to talk to lot of people about your product, your business. It is a new skill that you will be forced to acquire – and I feel this is an important addition to your skillset. Imagine a developer who can make a pitch – nothing can be better than that !
4. Written communication – Developers hate documentation. But now you have to write the FAQ, the sales pitch, the What and the Why, email broadcast on new features and the 1001 things. I am still learning the art of writing about my product so it has the right tone and there are no ambiguities.
5. Wearing a quality hat – This is the biggest challenge I have had so far while developing Apartment Adda. There are so many edge cases that as developers we do not think – we always try to make the product work and do not try to break it. You will have to do some serious rewiring of your brain 🙂
In the end – as a developer you have a huge advantage and a few disadvantages – but you can overcome these if you put your mind to it.
So if you have an idea you wanted to work on – go ahead and start working on it. Being a developer you are well equipped and have enough ammunition with you already.
apple, inspiration

What is the secret sauce of Apple,SAP,Nintendo…

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First the disclaimer – I don’t have the answer to the question – What is the secret sauce of these companies. It is a rhetorical question.

Today morning I woke up to be greeted with iPod shuffle – and Apple has released a simple but very useful feature ( unlike the shuffle feature they bragged about in shuffle’s first release ).
Now shuffle can talk to you about the song or the playlist name – very neat. Most of the time when you are working out or driving – it is hard to switch playlists – now this feature has made it really easy to use an iPod. I hope Apple updates its firmware so my iPod classic gets this feature.
But it makes me wonder how Apple can consistently come up with “cool” features. Is it the culture, is it because of Steve Jobs, is it some magic potion they put in the employee’s food? I really wish Steve Jobs writes a book on Apple.
Nintendo is in the same league as Apple. Their graphics is rudimentary when compared to PS3 or XBOX 360. But Nintendo consistently captures the imagination of gamers – with their innovative products like Wii or a DS. Why is that Nintendo alone is able to rewrite the rules, while Sony,Microsoft keep staring like lost puppies.
SAP is another company I admire – they have built this really complex software that runs heavy business and does complex transactions – between continents, between various industries and suppliers, between various systems, databases. How did they achieve it? What is the secret process they follow – is it XP, Waterfall, RUP or some unique Technik.
There are so many successful companies and each one of them have a secret sauce.
What is the secret sauce my startup has?
election

Top 5 reasons why I love Election 2009

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Here is the top 5 list !!

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