March 31, 2005

Gotcha !!!






Got you, didn't I ?!! It's always fun when you pull off something at a time when everyone is at their cautious best.

It took a wee bit of planning.
1) Start a week ahead with posting some innane stuff like flowers in the office.
2) Proceed with absolute silence for the next five days. Post nothing. (which was the most difficult part). Get people thinking.
3) Sign up for an community project like Blog Mela and deliberately delay the posting.
4) Then, sculpt a heart wrenchingly honest looking post. (it took me three days to arrive at the final draft)
5) Finally, sit back, relax and enjoy as folks walk straight into the trap! :)

Happy April Fools Day, Fellas! Thanks in advance for taking it in the right spirit guys.

Thanks for the nice comments, emails, phone calls, & SMSes. It was an effort to control my snickers and laughter, but hey, love you for the really nice messages. Come closer, so I can give you a nice hug. !! :)

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March 29, 2005



All Good Things Must Come To An End

and so should this blog. I'm shutting it down. It's time to move on in life.

Quick Disclaimer: I've neither been told by my company nor by a big newspaper to close my site. I'm pressing the end button on my own. And I have no regrets doing so.

I don't believe in continuing for the sake of continuing. No use continuing a blog by posting flowers from your office. Then, you know you've lost the sparks.

This is also one reason why I never got around to posting the Blog Mela. I've passed on the entries to Madhu requesting him to to post it. Apologies for holding it up.

I've told myself when I began to blog that I will carry on as long as I enjoy myself. This blog has been more for myself than for others. When it came to a point where I began to write for others, I knew something was wrong.

I didn't start this to make money. But now, I'm too preoccupied with Google Adwords and how to make more money.

I didn't start this to build big traffic. But now, I'm too preoccupied analyzing traffic patterns and how to build them further.

I didn't start this to become India's top blogger or to be the most influential one. But now that I have, I'm too preoccupied retaining that position.

Obviously, somewhere I lost focus. And I quite don't like that.

There are other exciting things I'm very passionate about. And I would like to focus my time and energy on them.

Blogging has been a fantastic journey. I totally, I mean *TOTALLY*, enjoyed it....which is why I can't wait to get started on a different one.

Bye Bye !


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March 25, 2005


Flora

Real pretty flowers at our office atrium.


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Blog Mela Announcement Coming Up

Selection being worked out. Will be published by early morning. Thanks for your patience.

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March 24, 2005

Photo Blogs Competition.



Some of the photo blogs are awesome. Visit www.PhotoBloggies.org. Voting closes in 4 days.

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March 22, 2005

Ever felt a strong bond with a person whom you have never met?

How about someone who is not born yet? I have. In a strong manner. I'm talking about my second kid who is still in my wife's womb. My wife is 6 months pregnant and can't wait for the next four months to move away.

I love to place my hand gently on my wife's swollen tummy and feel my kid move inside. That is an amazing feeling. At times, I get overwhelmed with emotions. It's tough to describe that in words... it's something you'll understand if you are a parent

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March 21, 2005


I did that?!

In the middle of the night, I got up to go to the loo to ease myself. It's a rather normal thing...until my wife pointed out that I had carried my pillow along!!!

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Buys

This is fantastic news! I totally love Flickr. I've been using it for all my images and they have saved me money in conserving my bandwidth usage. Infact, after learning that they are burdened heavily by the phenomenal growth of users, I was beginning to feel guilty of adding to their burden. I even contemplated buying a Pro account.

Now, Yahoo! will give Ludicorp, the maker of Flickr, a huge financial boost. This deal reminds me so much of the Google Blogger deal. Stewart Butterfield, CEO of Ludicorp deserves this huge deal just as much as Ev of Blogger did from Google.

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March 20, 2005

How You Could Be Better Than Rahul Dravid !

When Rahul came to pick up the Man Of The Match award for his match winning two centuries at the 2nd test against Pak, Ravi Shastri pointed to the prize, a TVS Victor, and asked, "Do you ride?" Rahul's honest answer surprised me. He said something like, "I still don't know how to ride a geared one." Boy! Now, that's a surprise. Especially for a guy who is coming in from the traffic jammed Bangalore.

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March 19, 2005

Great Flash Presentation

A great flash presentation that shows how IBM helps in various businesses. Very nicely done. (Via MK)

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March 18, 2005

Invitation to watch film on founder of Aravind Eye Hospitals


Tomorrow, sunday at 3:00 p.m we are screening the inspiring and powerful film on Dr.Venkatasamy (or Dr.V as he is popularly called), the founder chairman of Aravind Eye Hospitals. I got to see the DVD yesterday and am so very inspired by the man.

Dr.V had a vision: free eye care. In 1976, he established his first Aravind Eye Hospital in a rented house with 11 beds in Tamil Nadu. Now the system includes over 5500+ beds to become the largest eye care, research and training hospital in the World. What's even more amazing is that this fast-growing, sustainable model has been possible despite the fact that two-thirds of the patients at Aravind are treated free of cost.

I mean, how can you provide free eye care to 70% of the patients and still be this successful. Amazing!

If you are in Chennai and are intersted to watch this program with us, please do shoot an email to me at kiruba [@] kiruba.com. I will send you the address and directions. Alternatively you can call me at 98415 97744. The show is to be screened at Smita's place who had shown a lot of passion and interest in Dr.V.

Recommended reading:

The Man and Vision behind Aravind Eye Hospital ( written by my friend Sankar for Indian Express who met Dr.V personally to write this article )

The vision of Dr.V (from BusinessWorld)

Top 100 Innovative Companies: Aravind Eye Care System, Seeing the future ( Red Herring)

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Deccan Chronicle for Rs.99

I saw a hoarding that said that ICICI bank account holders can get the Deccan Chronicle newspaper for a whole year for just Rs.99. I have an ICICI account and this offer caught my fancy.

Deccan is hyderabad's leading newspaper and they are soon launching in Chennai. An offer obviously to get a headstart before Times of India comes into the fray.

I was cycling while I saw this info on the billoard. Didn't bother stopping to note down the contact details knowing well I can always get them off the Net.

Bad decision. There was no mention of this scheme either at Deccan Chronicle's or ICICI Bank's website. Googling also didn't yeild any result. This is utterly sad. The marketing managers of both the organisations should be really dumb. They spend so much money on expensive advertising but don't have the common sense to put the info on their websites which is free. Grrr...!

Now, on my way home, I should keep an eye on that billboard.

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10 Reasons Why Blogging is Good For Your Career.

Tim Bray counters the recent hoopla about the hazards of blogging with a list of 10 reasons how blogging can help your career.

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March 17, 2005

Bharateeya Blog Mela

I'm doing this week's blog mela, an idea originally started by Shanti. The objective is to fish out the best posts made by Indian Bloggers. And I'm looking up to you to help nominate the post that has captured your fancy. You can find last week's winning nominations at Nilesh's blog.

Here are a few guidelines to help you out.

1) All posts between March 17 and March 23 are eligible, including these days.

2) All posts should be made by Indians or should focus on India.

3) The last day to send in your nominations is midight of 23rd, India time. The final list will be published here on March 24th.

4) Individual nomination is allowed but please refrain from posting personal enteries.

5) The link of the nominated post can either be added to the comments section or mailed to me at Kiruba [@] Kiruba.com.

6) Kindly take care to point the specific URL of the post (permalink) and not the URL of the blog itself.

Looking forward to an enthusiastic participation.

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March 16, 2005


Are you a computer game lover? READ THIS.




First, let me feed you up on the juiciest detail. Here's chance for you to become a closed beta pioneer of one of the most advanced multiplayer games you'd have seen. *And* you get some real cool free merchandise for doing that.

Now, to the actual post. My company Sify is soon launching A3, the first ever English version of this highly rated Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG). A3, based on the eternal power struggle between immortals and humans, has a compelling storyline of love, hatred and revenge that unfolds over several episodes.



This game is already live in Taiwan, Thailand and China. Infact, so popular is this game in China that there are already 4,000,000 subscribers and 2000+ fan sites. 'A3' reached 150,000 concurrent users on the first day of Open-Beta Service in China. A phenomenal opening.



Oh yeah, about the free merchandise. I got to take a look at the box of goodies and they are awesome. A black tshirt with a superb emboss of the game characters, a cap, kickarse posters, postcards, a CD containing the game. You can get all this free by registering at the site. The beta registration closes tomorrow, so suggest you hurry up.

Another reason why I'm posting this is because of Wasim. He has been my rowing partner for many years and a real good buddy. He is part of the game division and I've seen the passion and the dedication his team is putting in. Here's to them. Cheers!

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Answers to the Brand Equity Selection Quiz

Here are the answers. Thanks to all those who attempted the quiz. There was a surprisingly high number who mailed in your answers. It was fun setting up the questions. I had a good time. Infact, I'm thinking I should do this more often.

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March 15, 2005

Conducting a Selection Quiz

I was invited to conduct a quiz at Sify to select a team which would represent the company at the popular Brand Equity Quiz. The participation fee is pretty steep and Sify would sponsor the winning team. Last year, Sify had won the Chennai leg and there was pressure to field the best team to do an encore.

I had prepared a written quiz consisting of 25 questions to be cracked in 15 minutes. I had conciously made the questions tough, keeping in mind the high standard of the Brand Equity quiz and the crazy questions that Derek O'Brien would ask. It was last year Chennai round winner, Vishwajeet, who got qualified along with Piyush.

Here are the quiz questions. Why don't you try cracking them? I'll provide the answers in a day's time.

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March 14, 2005

Musical Resume

This guy has definitely put in time and effort into his resume. He'd probably get hired faster as a Flash designer than as a software developer.
(via Kumar)
P.S - Wow! This guy, Alexandre Gueniot, has been hired by Microsoft for their office graphics team!


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Currently Reading

We think we know our english very well. That is, until you read through this book. Some of the learning makes you sit up and splat your forehead. It's interesting what a simple reading of this book can really clean up your english. I needed it!


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March 13, 2005

Sun's Blogging Policy

I finally got around to fishing out a corporate blogging policy. With quite a few people getting into trouble with their company, it maks sense for us to be careful. This policy, published by a Sun employee, may be Sun's but it holds good for any corporate company. Be sure to read it.

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March 12, 2005

Why you gotto be careful with bloggers!!


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Chennai Wi-Fi spots

I'm collating a list of Wi-Fi hotspots in Chennai. (both public and private places) The list below is what I know of. Can you help add to the list?

1) Chennai Airport.
2) Tidel Park ground floor
3) Sify IWay cybercafe at Adayar
4) Cafe Coffee Day outlets.
5) Chennai Railway Station.
6) Sify Ltd.

I'm sure there are more. If you know, please add them in the comments section. Thanks.

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March 11, 2005

Personal Visiting Card


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March 10, 2005

The Laptop Update.

My office has given me a Toshiba Satellite. Its a slightly oldish model but it works like a charm. With my immediate need taken care of, I've deferred my decision to buy a laptop by atleast a month or two.

Here's what my research shows.

DELL : Rejected outright. Shamefully, they have no service centre in Chennai. If the laptop needs to be services, then we'll have to courier it to Bangalore. That's crazy. Besides, not only are the models expensive, their sales executives suck. When I aksed for a brochure, they mail me a zipped word file with a PDF embeddd inside. Result:the file doesn't open. Duh!

SAMSUNG : Rejected. Expensive. Period.

TOSHIBA : Rejected. Don't like the design. Heavy. Expensive.

COMPAQ / HP : Rejected. I absolutely didn't like the looks of their Centrino models.

IBM ThinkPad : Stands a chance. I like the performance, the sturdiness and the 'nipple'. Don't like the ugly moronic design. Heavy.

ACER Travelmate : Stands the best chance. Nice design. Sleek. Like the silver colour. Angled keyboard with soft touch keys. Affordable. The most cost effective centrino model in the market. But a few people advise against buying an Acer. So, the negative opinion is holding me up a bit.

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How Miscommunication Takes Place in Office


Worth checking out.

(via JK)

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March 09, 2005


Phew! We got the School we wanted!

I can now heave a huge sigh of relief. We got admission to AVM Rajeshwari School, which we were really hoping. Here's why

- This is probably one of the very rare schools which has only one section in each standard. I'm against schools where I find sections running to half the length of the english alphabets. ( LKG A, LKG B, LKG C....)

- Each class has no more than 32 students and a Teachers to Students ratio of 1:8 is something to vie for.

- This school has one of the bigger playgrounds I've seen. And they give importance to extra curricular activities. Yeah, playground was part of my selection criteria.

- This school is in the next street to my home. I went to my terrace and tried throwing a stone. It nearly landed at the school! ;)

- My daughter's best friends study here. So there's good company.

Now you know why. When my wife called me to say the news, I whelped in joy. I must've done this a little loudly 'coz my entire dept heard the news and now they have demanded a treat!! That's happening tomorrow! Whoever said children's education is expensive is so very right!! :)

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March 08, 2005

Cricket Commentator

I've been invited to the panel of commentators at Sify.com to cover the ongoing India v/s Pakistan cricket series. Sify.com offers live audio commentary from its digital studio.

I will doing only an hour of commenting. I haven't started yet. I'm in the 'soaking-in-the-atmosphere' stage. I might begin from the second test onwards.

This isn't part of my work and I'm doing this more out of interest. So I want to make sure that this doesn't clash with my regular work schedule. This is something I like about my company. Employees are encouraged to try out their talents and given ample opportunities. For example, the girl who modelled for Sify's Way2Talk telephony service is from our e-learning division. The smart guy on our company website is from the Enterprise Solutions division.

Frankly, this is my first try at commenting at such a level. Heck, this is my first try at ANY level!! Am I awed? You bet! I'm looking forward to the challenge.

This live audio commentary service should be a boon for folks outside India who don't get TV coverage. The audio commentary should really complement Cricinfo's excellent ball by ball text update.

Check it out and let us know your views.
P.S : Bad weather delays start of second day's play. So, check out when play resumes.

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March 07, 2005

Invitation to a Blogger's movie screening

Arun Vaidyanathan, a software engineer who works for Polaris at New Jersey has come down to Chennai for a three week vacation. While software is his profession, movie making is his passion. ( Is this the season or is it just me?!!:) Today, he is screening six of his short films that he shot while in the US. The total duration for the entire films is less than an hour.

He called me up yesterday (and reminded me today) about his special invitation to bloggers in Chennai for this private screening. So, consider this as a personal invitation from Arun himself.

Here are the details

Venue : Sridevi preview theatre New # 14, (old # 46-A),Vijayaragava road, T Nagar, Chennai - 600 017

Landmark : Behind Hotel Residency (old one)

Day : Today (8th March, Tuesday)

Time : 6:45 P.M

Arun's phone number : 98417 82453

Here are the movies he is screening. Move your mouse over images for the title of the movie and click to read more about them.



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Mylapore : Where time stood still

We went to Mylapore yesterday to shop at Rasi Silks. I took the chance to stroll around and soak into the real unique character around the tank. I love the old world charm of Mylapore. It seemed like I travelled back some 40 years.






































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March 06, 2005

Interviewing Sudhish Kamath



I heard about Sudhish first when he came to cover our victory at the rowing championships quite a few years ago for The Hindu, the newspaper where he works. But the time he really caught my fancy was when I came to know that he was directing a movie 'That Four Letter Word' (TFLW). I'm always impressed with people who do stuff that's beyond their regular line of work.

My rowing mate Nikhil was a good friend of Sudhish and I keep hearing about Sud's passion for his film.

Ever since Sud started his blog, I've been a regular reader and have developed what is called a blog friedship.. where you've never seen the person but you get a feeling you've known him well!!

When I read about the call for volunteers for an 'item song' that Sud is shooting for the film, my heart imediately went out to him. I wanted to do more than wear just a kerchief and dance. I'm sure I could help better. I strongly felt its important to support Sud's dream, his five year labour of love. And that's when this idea of interviewing him came by. I wanted others to know his passion for his film 'TFLW' and equally important, to help him in his effort.

We met up at Coffee Day on Cenotaph road. Over Tropical Icebergs and Cappuchinos, we discussed about the film. Sud's almost fanatical obsession about the film was evident from the discussion. Read the interview.

Read the interview here.

Learn about the Cast & Crew

Help spread word about sponsorship.

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March 05, 2005

I Got My Cheque



It felt good to wake up today morning to find this one from Google. Ok, the google policy states that we shouldn't discuss about revenues from Adsense in public. You break the rules, and they can pull the plug.

I thought about for a few minutes about the risk of making a post on this subject.... and then I decided I *should* go for it. The main reason being people should know that money from Adsense is for real. It's only when you see the cheque in your hand, do you absolutely believe in the Adwords system. And I'm doing this so all of you know this for sure. In a way, I'm doing Google a favor. A real world testimonial is far more powerful than any paid advertisement.

P.S - I was kinda tempted to post a picture of the cheque itself (after smudging out the numbers). But *that* would've clealy violated the rules for sure. So I played safe.

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Attending Interviews Today

It's been an exhausting day. I had to attend two interviews. School interviews, mind you. Job interviews, I can handle. But these....boy, I tell you. It puts you under more pressure because you know that your daughter's place in a good school depends on *your* performance.

All these interviews are for my daughter's admission into L.K.G. We wanted to move her out of her present school 'coz we felt she deserved a better school.

The good news is that the interviews went on great. We *passed* !! We've got admission in one school while we are fairly positive about the outcome of the second school. Should know the results by wednesday.

Am I relived or what?! :)

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March 03, 2005

Cycling & Me

Those who have known me, know my passion for cycling. What most don't know is that I'd love to sweat. Profusely at that. And I love the heat. Love Madras for that. Yeah, I kinda understand that quirky look on your face! :)

To me cycling is more than just a mode of transportation. It's a time I spend with myself. To think. To daydream. To plan.

When people ask me how do I travel to work and when I tell them that I cycle, there's usually a look of agast on their face. I mean, what kind of guy would want to cycle 26 kilometers a day. They look at all the strain, the hardwork, the grime. As for me, I look at the joy of pain as lactic acid grips my thighs, I look at a chance to push myself harder, test my boundaries, I look at a great way to keep fit, I look at it as training ground for the marathon and the upcoming rowing season.

A few snapshots..


That's me at my apartment starting to office. I usually lug a big bag. It contains my set of office dress, formal shoes, lunch box, diary, books and a few other stuff. People kid if I'm on an himalayan expedition. The stuff around my neck is the MP3 player that gives me great company. I just so love the new cycling helmet which Kamala presented to me. She got it when she came in from the US two weeks ago. It's super light, fits snugly and feels great.



That's me at Tidel Park, where my office is. I usually don't just pedal to office. I power pedal. In other words, I can kick anyone's butt when it comes to cycling. I may be a bad marathon runner, but I pride my cycling. I cover the 13 kms distance from Virugambakkam to Tidel Park in sub-32 minutes (counting in the peak hour morning traffic). And I don't have a geared cycle. Oh, that's on my next buy list.



That's me at my office wash room. We have a super shower room and I love the gush of cold water. Like I said, I love to sweat. I get a high when the blood hits my head, the veins throb, the beart beats wildly and your lungs frantically grasps for air. One of the best compliments I've had is when a colleague once stopped me and asked seriously, "Kribs, is it raining outside?" !!

:)

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How To Get Fired From Your Company!


I got this ad from an Infosician. So I guess it should be pretty authentic. The guy in the picture must've thought he is being pretty creative. So he comes up with a pretty funny spoof of Infosys' recruitment advt to impress some of his colleagues and friends. Before he realises, it spreads wildly amongst IT companies. Hopefully it doesn't boomerang on him

I don't know his current status at the company. It would be a shame if he gets dooced. I sure hope his boss and the HR honchos have a nice sense of humour. Could someone at Infy fish out some info.

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Yahoo! Netrospective

10 years, 100 great moments of the Web. Must visit!

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Survey to better understand blog readers

Blogads.com is sponsoring a survey which aims to understand blog readers better. The good point of this survey is that the results of the survey will be shared with all. It's a pretty longish survey but nevertheless I took it. If we are to benefit from the result I guess it only makes sense by adding more value by adding in your own input. I'd recommend you guys give it a spin.

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March 02, 2005


S-Anand has a unique commenting system that he handcoded to his website. Looks like it has a small bug, but you get an idea how it works.

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