I clocked the last 2 runs at an incredible pace ( by my standards )

10Kms in 1 Hour 2 minutes.

If you are a pro I can hear your chuckle. But this is a 37 year old who had not run or worked out till 35 years of his life – and was never those athletic types.

And here I am – clocking better and better timings.

July 2012 I did 10K in 1 Hour 8 minutes

May 2012 I did 10K in 1 Hour 18 minutes

Nov 2011 I did 10K in 1 Hour 35 minutes

Feels as if my pace is increasing. The real reason for better timings is nowadays I don’t take any breaks while running – not even slowing down for a walk. I am getting efficient in running. My pace seems to be the same.

I am growing well when it comes to running!

And this makes me happier.

But this happiness will not last long. I will be gloating over this 10k timings for another 2 or 3 runs and my happiness will wane. Then I will be setting a new target – either 10k under 1 hour or 12.5k.

Why I am doing this? Why am I not satisfied with my new timings? Am I greedy?

This running-growth-happiness is – I believe – is human evolution in a nut-shell. We always keep looking for faster, stronger and higher records.

Recently I heard an Oxford University lecture on brain – “Dopamine” floods the brain when the records get broken and makes the brain happy. And the brain wants more and more records to get broken because of this. This is a positive feedback cycle – which in turns lifts mankind as a whole.

Marathon ( 42 Kms )  was once the ultimate test for human endurance. But the last few years runners are pushing 100Kms and more.

Take any other field – we have invented Flights and can travel to anywhere around the globe quickly – but why aren’t we resting on our laurels – why are we exploring Space Travel – why do we rejoice when records get broken – be it the Olympics or the world record for maximum hot dogs eaten?

Because in Growth lies our Happiness.

And in Growth lies our evolution to a better species.

Sorry if I have disappointed you since i did not touch on the negative aspects of growth that leads to  global warming, amassing illegal wealth, corruption etc. in this post – I am on a runners high now 🙂

Few weeks back I was reunited with Starbucks. And here is the story.

Way back in 2001, I was a FOB ( Fresh out of the Boat ), in Louisiana State University ( LSU ), Baton Rouge. While roaming around the campus I came across this Coffee shop in the campus Bookshop which was serving coffee at 4$. And it had a funny name – Starbucks.

Right opposite it was McDonalds – and for 4.5$ I could get a good filling burger, french fries and a large coke drink – enough for that day’s hunger needs. ( it was 2001 – I was still young and was burning Bank of India loan money and was in the midst of an economic downturn in my life. ). I added a mental note to check this coffee shop someday.

I don’t remember when I had my first cuppa – would be after I got an assistantship most probably – but for a coffee addict the taste and caffeine kick was out of the world. I remember I had a Caramel Frappuccino and it had stayed from that day since as my favourite.

Much later, in 2006 when I started work at ThoughtWorks, Chicago, when I stepped out of the train station there was a Starbucks. It became my daily ritual to pick up a Grande Non-Fat Cappuccino – yes I became health conscious and reserved Frappuccino for those special occasions. After a few days (  or weeks ), the Barristas knew my pattern and the moment they saw me enter the door, they will immediately place an order. I will join the queue and by the time I reached the cash register, the drink will be ready and I will get it in my hand immediately ( other muggles had to wait for their drink after paying!).

Forgot to mention – everywhere I went they will have problem calling out my name or writing it on the cup – Venkat was so difficult for Americans to pronounce!

Then in mid 2006 we moved back to India ( http://kvrlogs.blogspot.in/2006/06/moving-back-to-india.html ). Starbucks was #10 in the list of things I missed the most. Perhaps I can strike it out now.

Every time when I got into a CCD or a Barista – I would wonder – when will Starbucks come to India. Sometime in December 2011 I read a news item that Starbucks in Partnership with Tata is coming to India.

Later I read the first Starbucks is to open in Mumbai in October 2012. I was even more excited – as I am in Mumbai now.

I could not go to the first day opening show – but went on the 2nd week. Took a train from Kandivali to Churchgate ( 1+ hours ), was a nice 20minutes walk from Churchgate to Fort, stood in line and ordered – you can guess it – a Caramel Frappuccino. Waited for the drink to arrive – the Barristas this time had no problem calling out my name.

Sangeeta found a table and chair in the mezzannine floor. Settled down and took the first sip after so many years.

Bliss!

Yesterday morning I woke up to see the news of the passing away of Moorthy Uncle in our Apartment Complex. He was an enthusiastic retired Bank Manager – full of knowledge and vision – and it’s a big loss to our community.  He was an initiator of eco-projects and also kept a reality check on us in our Association dealings.

I was sad initially but then started thinking – every year some 10% of the people I know are bound to pass away. When Steve Jobs passed away I got sad. Some day the other people I “worship” are all going to pass away.

Wouldn’t life be too depressing? – to wake up every day to mourn.

Perhaps it’s time I take a second look at death and look in its eyes. The souls who are here are done with this adventure – Jobs created the PC industry, Tablet industry, Phone industry, Moorthy Uncle in his stint as a Bank Official must have made a difference to many lives who I will never know – but I know that he started eco projects in our Apartment Complex.  Now they are all off to their next adventure.

This brings us to the 2 different philosophies on death.

Eastern Philosophy

It’s about re-incarnation and the soul moves on from one set of experiences to the other. The soul experiences all it can in this lifetime, and learns new things – and this does not go waste. These experiences/learnings get carried over to the next life time. That’s why some people can always do certain unbelievable things that makes us wonder and say “he just did it as if he was born knowing it”.

This teaches us to treat nature with care. I better save this earth, as next lifetime when I come here I need to breathe.

Western Philosophy

For a long time I believed this side of the story. This life is one shot, it’s one opportunity that we have got – so we better make good use of it and not squander it away.

Try as much as possible to “experience” and “live” life. Make the most of this one opportunity to experience life. After this there is going to be none. zilch.

Love this thought – and in fact have been living my life based on this. I got bored after a couple of years in my salaried life ( TCS 2 years, LSU 2 years, Compuware 1 year, Thoughtworks 2.5 years ) and got an urge/itch to move on to a new adventure.  Exception being 3Five8 – my startup – this is my fifth year – and each day is still an adventure.

There are some down sides to this western philosophy – shining example is the Obama land – they live life like there is no tomorrow – over consumption, destroying hectares of land for a Sunday morning coupon newspaper, gas guzzlers… and in spite of the Katrinas and Sandys they are still debating – is the globe really warming?

The good thing about this is – when Steve Jobs got to know he had little time left of this life – he did more of the living. He was so focussed he pulled out an iPhone and iPad – and set the entire human civilisation on a different path. ( Ok thats a little too hyperbolic but one cannot deny that he made a huge dent ). Had he just given up and sat depressed and prayed for a longer and healthier stint next time – what a bummer our life would have been. We will all still have the horrible touch screens of Nokia phones and twitter/facebook might not even have taken off.

What is the takeaway for me?

When someone passes away – instead of feeling sad and depressed – I will try to know more about the adventure they had in this lifetime. The difference they made to others.  Talk to their closest friends and relatives – about the moments they had together. Appreciate and remember their adventure.

Try to find areas of inspiration. There is a reason why everyone is here and try to find out the reason this soul was here. We are all here to keep pushing mankind to the next level – one step at a time – getting inspired and inspiring others.

So death is a lot more than mourning and depression..

iPhone5 is around the corner.

Rewinding back to 2008 when iPhone was introduced in India. I was working in ThoughtWorks that time, and I badly wanted the iPhone. I had read so much about it and I was in awe.

And the price was quoted – ( around 30k – dont remember ) and I was floored. I didnt buy one as I was hoarding cash towards doing a startup. I envied the iPhones which some of the lucky bachelor guys had splurged themselves with.

Fast forward to 2010 – iPhone3 was introduced at around 36k I guess. I went and bought Samsung Galaxy S for 28k which looked like iPhone and had this Android thingy on it.

And it was one of the best buys. I started on 2G and could SSH to my servers smoothly.  Later 3G came along and there was no looking back. I was available round the clock – I can process all my emails, view attachments, chat during the long train journeys between Mumbai and Bangalore, could upload Photo tweets, download podcasts while running if I was bored – in short – could go around freely without lugging my laptop.

2 years down the line, I am reading about iPhone5 once again ( they are quoting 45k ) and Samsung Galaxy S3 is around 33k and will drop down further after iPhone5 comes to the market.

The heart still says iPhone. The mind says SGS3. I am torn.

I use OS X primarily and appreciate the nice touches and “appley” things – these are present in the iPhone too – both the OSs are merging. Also the reminders, notes – all are seamlessly synced.

However Google is now innovating like how Apple used to. The notifications, easy access to turning on/off wifi,gps etc.. changing the bottom perm icons, the lock screen displays – so many things can be customised – which cannot be done in an iPhone.

But still I long for the consistent and solid interface of the iPhone. The apps all have the same responsiveness ( perhaps because they uni task unlike in Android ). iTunes is there – ( I use double twist in Android but it sucks ). The ones that I use the most are there in iPhone.

However, in the Android world I have been riding on the Cyanogen mod ROMs for the last 1 year or so. I like the “hacker” satisfaction I get on my SGS. Will I get it in iPhone5?

I am still not in the market for a replacement phone yet. The trusty SGS is still chugging along fine. I am on Ice Cream Sandwich and very much satisfied. The phone feels almost complete ( except for a good music player).

But the geek in me is getting restless. Who will win – iPhone or SGS3 or the old war horse SGS. Stay tuned!

Updated as on Nov 12,2012 : iDid. More to follow

Last weekend we made a trip to Gorai Beach – in the northern part of Mumbai. Even though it was a Sunday it was empty!

We took an auto from Kandivali East from our home. The auto guy asked us how do you want to go – trick question. The wife smartly answered – whichever has less traffic. The meter reading came to 7.3 ( return it was 5.5 ) – and he took us for a ride through winding roads.

We reached the Gorai Creek and got into a Ferry. Many had come with their 2 wheelers and I was wondering why they will need it. On the other side it became apparent. The beach was quite far. Autos were plying for Rs.50. Horse cart was Rs.80. And its fun to take your own 2 wheeler if you can. Worth it.

And the beach was dreamy! – not like the Chennai ones with sand getting into ones toes. The sand was black and wet. And it was a huge beach. We had to walk half a km to reach the water – which was very shallow.

The car waalae had brought their cars and were driving it really fast splashing! I was looking at them expecting someone to drift.. but no one did – boring Indians.

We had a betting game on which snail will go out of the box first!

The last Ferry is at 9:30PM. For the beach to ferry ride the Auto guy charged Rs.60. I made a mistake should not have asked – should have just got in and directed him to Ferry place and quietly given Rs.50. The auto guy was saying the rate will keep increasing as time goes on. He did have a point – he had to return empty from the Ferry spot.

We got back to the creek had dinner at Deccan House/Place ( food was good but nothing memorable ) and got back home on a honest auto.

Next trip we are planning to visit the Pagoda – which is a detour from the Gorai beach ( auto was quoting Rs.80 ) – had we started earlier we could have covered both places.

I always thought the 4 Hour Work Week book was a scam. This is a shining example for the adage – Do not judge a book by its covers.

This book is a Whack on the side of the head  ( another good book! ) – made me rethink what I am doing with my life.

Here are the important take aways :

1. Work less for Better Productivity.

I did not end up working 4 Hours per week ( yet 🙂 ). But I definitely work lot lesser now. However I am more productive than before.

What am I doing different?

a. No more FB, Twitter, Google Plus ( adding for posterity’s sake…I had to think hard to remember what was the other one )

b. No more checking and responding emails round the clock. I batch them. Best part is some of the issues will get resolved by itself by the time I check. Now I check emails around 10am ( when I come to work ), 2pm ( after lunch ) and 5pm ( before the team goes home )

c. Give aggressive deadlines. I have started biting more than I can chew – and guess what I chew more nowadays! – This is the insight I got from Goal 2. Having cushion is bad.

2. No more news. 

I had stopped reading newspapers long back. But I will keep myself up to date on Twitter and news sites. Of late I was feeling that what I am reading is totally biased and “news” as I always thought was someone’s view and that too with an agenda. ( reminds me of a  Hindu Ad I saw in 2000 on Mount Road – we offer news without views ).

So I gave up news entirely. I have no idea what games are being played, what scams are being unearthed – what plan is being hatched for the tax money that I am paying. Instead I hear it from friends or glance at the headlines on the newspapers lying on the floor as I walk down the stairs in my apartment. ( ps : almost 90% read Times of India and 90% of the time there is no news – only a big Ad on the front page ).

3. Non Work Time.

a. I go home by 7:00pm. Earlier there was no end time. Since I am working on a startup I should put 80 hour caffeine filled weeks right? Wrong. We need not burn ourselves to reach our goals – we have to just work smart.

b. I take Sundays off and don’t take up any work.

c. I removed the email icon from the home screen of my phone. I can still reach by going to applications but this has reduced the threads running on my head.

d. Most importantly – if I am in a train or just woke up or going to sleep or going for a run and I cannot work on it or respond – I simply don’t open emails. This simple discipline has made a big difference to me.

So – this is me. If you don’t find me on twitter or facebook and want to talk to me – call me or email me or use ApartmentAdda contact us page like one of my acquaintances! And btw – I will be calling you too – I am going to do social networking once again!

CRM

3 years back, we had a decision to be made in the team. Should we use a CRM software like Salesforce, HighRise or get an open source one like Sugar CRM, or build one in-house.

For a Bootstrapped startup “money” is this big fat guy sitting across the table, without a care,  smoking cigar and blowing rings in the air – while we fight it out. He finally clears his throat and says – to hell with your arguments this is what you should do – and he leaves the room.

It was decided for us – and we decided to build a simple CRM in-house. The interface is not fancy, no configuration  was necessary – because this is a square peg fitting exactly into a square hole and had no unnecessary reports, and no data upload was needed.

We started with simple categories – Boo, Cold, Warm, Hot, Super Hot, Win.

It did not make sense – so we changed them to Boo, Uncategorized, Nurture, Qualified, Demo, Propose, Negotiate, Negotiate Critical,Collect Cheque and Win.

Whenever the team says – man this sucks or can we have this – it got built. Now we have a stable CRM with even more cool features which a third party can never give – like activating Trial for a customer or giving a demo link just with a click.

And how much did this cost in real money? Almost nothing but did take away precious Developer Hours which could have been spent on the actual product. The pay-off happens in the long term.

Helpdesk

Couple of months back we looked at another pain point the team was facing – Support. We have a good volume of Support queries coming now – and is usually spread across phone calls, emails to various members – and we hired a few more folks and the chaos just kept multiplying.

Again we started looking around and there were lot of good options – *desks – on a monthly billing basis. And this time we locked the money man out of the meeting – as he wins all arguments hands down – while we brainstormed what was the best way.

Finally we decided to build it in-house again – and the reason that won the argument was automation. Our users can email us or raise Support Tickets online, reply to them by email – and it all gets into this Support system – the usual Support Ticketing workflow. All tickets can be monitored centrally now – and if someone in the team is off or is stuck with work – one of us can step in and take it over.

The best part is – we can now build lot of automations – we can easily copy the moderator of that user’s ADDA, we can trigger a password right from the Support ticket itself etc..  and many more automations that can be built by observing the nature of the tickets over a period of time.

Again – does not cost us in real money – but in precious Developer hours. And btw – we can have unlimited users, unlimited tickets.


Why you should Outsource?

This is not our “core”. There are companies who are doing this for a living and they have figured out what is best. We might be “wasting” precious developer hours and analysis re-inventing the wheel. We might be “missing” out on the industry “best practices”.

All valid arguments.

Actually we have Outsourced many flows which are not our core – perhaps will write about them in another post.

Do it yourself or Outsource?

Here is some criteria to use :

a. How much money is in your kitty?

b. What is the long term strategy – 1 year, 5 years, 10 years or more?

c. How “core” is this for your startup?

d. Can your development team “sustain” if you do it in-house?

e. Are your processes established or are you iterating? 

What has been your experience – Do it Yourself or Outsource it?

Last weekend I went to a mall and was playing with an iMac – what a beauty it is. Apps were loading with one click and they looked beautiful on a gorgeous display. 

I got home and checked my 13″ Mac book pro which is nearing its complimentary 1 year warranty  ( debating whether to bite the expensive Apple Care or going Commando ). It was slow. Really slow. I longed for the spiffy machine I once used to have.

This put me on a hunt and meanwhile set up development environment in Windows and worked on it for a day to see how things are.

Here is the bitter truth – Apple Fans – OS X Lion sucks at Memory Management. The net is ablaze with cribs and complaints on how poorly Lion manages memory – inspite of Macs being blessed with super powerful processors and enormous amount of RAM.

Still I would vote OS X Lion to be the best in class for Productivity and by the amount of things one can get done all under one roof.

I could not work in Windows – even though it was blazingly fast and responsive – could not get used to the shortcut keys ( in spite of swapping the Control and Windows key ), kept rotating the monitor on some combinations, no quick look, Alt-tabbing was painful, no full screen… and most of all – there is no CLI. ( No – cygwin is not a CLI )

I got back to Lion and tamed it ( or rather Lion tamed me ). 

Here is a list of things I did to get back in shape – use it at your own peril.

1. Run as many apps as possible in 32 bit mode.

Do a Get Info ( Command-I ) on the program in Applications and choose 32 bit mode. Its a shame isn’t it – but it reduces memory footprint
Safari
PhpStorm
Sparrow
Chrome
Firefox

iChat didnt launch in 32 bit mode. I switched to Sparrow – so not sure of the benefits / effects of Mail.

2. Remove all fancy icons from the menubar.

Here is a screenshot of my menubar – only Spotlight icon is there – couldn’t remove it.

No Volume control, no Network Icon, no date and time ( useless since calendar never opens anyway ), no blue tooth icon, no display icon ( why did I ever have it there? )

The reason is to tame a process called SystemUIServer. This grows and grows and hogs almost a Gig of RAM. Now you can always kill it and recover some memory – but removing all the icons from menubar keeps this one at bay.

There are other benefits –  it is like being in a Zen like state – no distractions and if I want to know the time I do a date command on terminal.. feel like a true geek.

3.  Inactive Memory

This keeps creeping up and suddenly it would have taken more than a Gig – and what does it do – Heaven Knows ( Steve you there? ). Anyway there is a nice command “purge” – run it – system freezes for a moment and then you get back some free RAM.

Here is the before and after of running Purge – ( like those Gym Ads). Btw – this is the Activity Monitor icon tracking the Memory usage – what a nice idea Sirjee to use icons as indicators.

Did you see the Green ( Free Memory ) just eat into the Blue ( Inactive useless Memory ) – almost 600MB got recovered.

Now I work with activity monitor pie chart always on. When the green disappears I either run Purge or close down some unused Applications.


4. Close down everything

From the beginning of time – OS X does not quit when you close an application – it only closes the window. And these processes sit quietly eating 100+ MBs.. and these add up. Now I am retraining myself to do more of Command Q instead of Command W.

5. Turn off unwanted features – everywhere

The bloatware called iTunes has a social networking module, a sharing module, a DJ module, a Genius Module…. and so many which I never use – turned off all of them. Also shutdown dashboard, spotlight ( I am used to spotlight so not sure how i will fare ). Also turned off fancy animations etc. – even though we have been brainwashed into believing that GPU is the one that does all the GUI work – I refuse to believe this BS anymore – Lion is seriously broken.

There are 2 processes which will start hogging memory like crazy – LoginWindow and UserEventAgent and you will need to keep an eye on these 2 culprits and closing unwanted applications and turning off unwanted modules is the key I guess.


6. The Strange story of coreaudiod

Go ahead take a look at the CPU usage of coreaudiod – it will be singing why this Kolaveri D right now. It was using some crazy number like 50% and at times shot up to 120% ( I dont understand % more than 100 ).

Restarting it will jump right back to the crazy processor usage numbers. Folks at Apple Support forums advised to plug a headphone into the socket, some said remove Ambient noise reduction. I stopped the notifications sound also. Still no luck.

Then I started iTunes and the process dropped! Weird ! Now iTunes was consuming some crazy RAM – so I shut down and coreaudiod made a brief appearance and went away to its nice 0.0% usage.


7. Some good habits

I will be shutting down the laptop every night before going to sleep.
I will run the nice jobs Onyx has.
Will also not run anymore fancy apps ( Better touch tool you are an exception ).
I would also burn the installer to a DVD – i do not have the bandwidth to download 4GB – so I am unable to do a fresh clean install.

So thats it – looking forward to Mountain Lion and hopefully someone in Apple Team is working his Apple off in fixing the Memory issues.

And as we were speaking – my free memory has dropped to just 13 MB ( almost 4GB is being eaten up ). iTunes is now fighting for the crown.. ugh.Time to kill this sucker and run purge… all for the love of OS X.. sigh.

My crazy nation – India – is the one I am talking about. It is getting really boring day by day.

Zero sense of humour among the ruling class


They do not get a joke. Sometime back an enterprising guy created a video called Manmohansingham – it was very funny and if I was Manmohan Singh I would have sent him a free iPad.  Instead that poor kid got a threatening letter and a take down notice was issued to all the sites hosting it.

The list goes on and on – the Prince / PM in waiting does not joke at all. He is so young ( mid 40s I believe ) and he is going to be in play for the next 40 or so years – and I am getting choked thinking how I will spend the second half of my life – in utter boredom.

Recently the center that spends our tax money – was busy enacting drama on a funny cartoon from 1950s.. now this puts all the cartoonists in self doubt.

To be honest – I am only being partly true – I am getting good entertainment from the ladies – Selvi Jayalalitha ( 1 year = 100 years equivalent of achievements ), Mamta Di ( jailed a poor professor for a cartoon ), Mayawati ji & Election commissioner ( pink elephants ).

Would request the men folks to open up and have fun.  Else I will start campaigning for the above said ladies in the next election – Seriously.

On a related note – I stumbled upon http://textsfromhillaryclinton.tumblr.com/ – and Mrs.Hillary Clinton joined the fun herself – how cool is that. My vote is for her – if she ever runs for a post in India. Lucky Americans.

Cricket and IPL


The first one was novel. Second one was ok. Then it became disgusting multiplied by the number of Sixes being hit in each episode. Staged controversies, team owners soap opera, the fixed nail biting finishes. The good game is being hurried to death like a diabetic patient eating in a Sri Krishna Sweets Buffet.

Then there is the God of cricket. Hits his 100th 100 on a flat pitch against a minnow and the team loses – not only the match but the tournament as we didnt qualify for the finals because of this important match. And yet he celebrates. And declares he is a commercial artiste to avoid Tax. Yuk.

Sun Control Films

A Honorable Supreme Court Judge orders all sun control films to be removed from all cars except a) the Z class – the rich and famous. b) the ones that came tinted with the glass from manufacturer.

What appalls me is no one seems to be bothered about the consequences. For a tropical country like us we are now going to burn more fossil fuels ( yep – this is a high blood pressure patient eating an all you can eat Pickles buffet ), zero privacy at signals, cell phones/laptops no more safe if left in the car – a new can– crate of worms – are being opened as we are speaking.

It is suffocating, hot, boring.. like watching Doordarshan’s shehnai program they usually play when an ex-PM dies – on a Sunday afternoon.

Yours truly
A Depressed Indian Citizen.