Sriks Thoughts

Starry-eyed startups & search for excellence

2010-01-14T01:04:00.000-08:00

A few friends & I are trying to organise a conference called TEDxHitechCity.
The experience has been refreshing.
Getting to meet so many intresting people, from such different areas.

One such meeting today was with Sachin Rahlan of NotionInk
Sachin agreed to come & speak at our event and also demo his device.

While I was seeing him struggle to communicate with one of the admin staff, I asked the inevitable question, why Hyderabad. And his answer was "We strive for excellence and will go wherever, we have to, to get it"

Notion ink is developing a tablet/netbook/e-reader (however you want to call it)
They have got a phenomenal response for their prototype at CES2010 and are working overtime to get ready for a launch in June/July. Final details, pricing, availablity etc are under wraps . Look for some annoucements at World Mobile Congress in Spain in February.

Google Reader adds “Send To” feature

2009-08-14T00:24:00.000-07:00

Testing the Send to Feature of GR.

Google Reader adds “Send To” feature:

I’ve wanted this forever. Google Reader just added a feature where you can send items directly to Twitter, Reddit, and a bunch of other places:

To enable it, click on “Settings” in Google Reader and then click on the “Send To” tab to choose which services to add. Note: make sure you disable pop-up blocking so that Google Reader can pop-up a new window on twitter.com (or wherever) to share your item. You can even add custom services:

Suppose I subscribed to a bunch of different blogs, or subscribed to the Twitter feeds of a bunch of people. I could make a custom link that sent individual items to (say) a custom web service that I wrote. For example, any time I saw someone report a Google bug, I could send that to a web service that might let appropriate people triage or vote on that bug. I love the flexibility behind this feature. Thanks to the Google Reader team for adding it!

Book review by Ross Dougthat

2009-07-07T22:31:00.001-07:00

Book Review - 'Digital Barbarism - A Writer’s Manifesto,' by Mark Helprin - Review - NYTimes.com

... “Digital Barbarism: A Writer’s Manifesto,” is a vindication of the aphorism about the perils of wrestling with a pig. (You get dirty; the pig likes it.)

Mr. Grumpy

2006-05-18T09:02:00.000-07:00

A little grumpy having woken up from sleep.
Notice the Oliver Hardy chin? There is not going to be a jaw line on this face is there?

Tai Chi or Bharatanatyam

2006-05-18T08:53:00.000-07:00

Sriks Jr. displaying some gesture... not sure if it looks more like Tai Chi or a dance mudra from Bharatanatyam.

Sleeping like an old man

2006-05-17T10:58:00.000-07:00

I am being bombarded by so many child rearing tips/myths/superstitions that I am paralysed on what to do sometimes.
One of those was that you should not let the kid lie on its back.
So when the nurse expertly balanced him on his side (I have not got the knack yet, he just turns-over to his back when I try) I thought I would take notes & learn from the master.

FYI Srikant Jr. held this position for close to 2 hrs..a record of sorts.

Shades of TINTIN

2006-05-17T10:13:00.000-07:00

Notice the teeny little cowlick..reminds me of Tintin.

Incidentally a big fight is going on in the naming front..
Suggestions received so far include..
1. Siddarth
2. Anirudh
3. Varun
4. Aprameyan
5. Lakshminarayanan (in memory of both our grandmas)
6. Vishwamohan
7. Hemarangan

As you can see a lot of suggestion do end in N. This indicates a high probablity that the kid is south-indian. But a NAN ending pretty much seals its fate :)

Jump in and add your suggestions...counting begins in 1 week.
Results to be declared on 19th ;) Click on the comments link below.

Face only a mother could love?

2006-05-17T10:08:00.000-07:00

A slightly disoriented Srikanth Jr.

The New Arrival

2006-05-17T10:05:00.000-07:00

Where there is a will..

2006-01-29T10:04:00.000-08:00

I know that this might sound like a scam, but this guy did make it all the way.

Kind of ironic though that his original reason to do this was to go to University but
since it became a success he has effectively droped out of college.

Swadeshi

2006-01-29T09:45:00.000-08:00

The term SWADESHI making a comeback though in un-expected form from a foreign source

Swadeshi

COSTCO's CEO on why taking care of your employees makes business sense

2005-07-26T04:27:00.000-07:00

In an age of corporate cut-throat competition to cut costs, COSTCO shows why taking care of your employees is a good business strategy.

After reading how McDonald's & Wal*Mart and a host of other retailers use temps, minimum wage workers & skimp on benefits to keep costs down, this comes as a refreshing change.
NYtimes article here

Also another one on why Toyota is moving north to Canada inspite of better tax breaks from Texas. (The answer is in Education & Healthcare, the unfortunate victims of the dying welfare state)

New interface for Pen based computing

2005-07-22T00:21:00.000-07:00

Going beyond Palm's "Graffiti" allows you to enter alphabets with stylus gestures.
IBM's SHARK does the same for words! With each gesture you can enter a word at a time!

Fold n Drop

2005-07-21T22:52:00.000-07:00

A nice alternative to "drag n drop"
Bringing a french touch to the UI

Google Moon?!?!?!?

2005-07-20T21:09:00.000-07:00

Following in the footsteps of Google Earth is Google Moon

Check it out
Psst: Zoom in all the way for some insight into the structure of the Moon!

Spoilt for choice

2005-07-15T00:30:00.000-07:00

We have come from a time when the government thought 15 varieties of toothpaste was an economic waste, to a time when we are spoilt for choice in most things that we want to buy.
Bet Ford who said you can have it in any colour as long as it is Black will be turning in his grave now.

But sometimes I wonder if more choice is better.
I thought there would be some commodities where you cannot have too many product variants...
apparently I am wrong..Ck this site if you want to add some salt to your life.

Productivity tools

2005-07-13T23:34:00.000-07:00

Useful tools to improve your productivity...

As in, if you are overworked you can take a break here & get back to work & be more productive :)

KAP (Kite Aerial Photography)

2005-07-13T21:24:00.000-07:00

Adding another dimension to photography, going over the top!

KAP is a great way to get areial shoots without hiring your own helicopter or plane or satellite.

Give GoogleEarth a run for its money by posting your own snaps of your neighbourhood.

Check out Scott Haefner's KAP page for some stunning snaps.

Pampered bottoms & backs

2005-07-13T00:30:00.000-07:00

After reading Blink I look at chairs in a new light.
Thought this in not the Ferrari of office chairs it comes pretty close

Inspite of Corporate governance,
I will be getting myself one of these when I get my VC funding

http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/000891.php

Intent driven search from Yahoo!

2005-06-06T08:57:00.000-07:00

OK..Finally something new & cool & it is not from Google!!!

One of the biggest drawbacks of search technology is that it is keyword based
& doesnt provide a mechanism for specifying intent(why we are looking, for what we are looking for :) )

Yahoo seems to have comeup with something in this area.

Though I am not sure if Shopping V/s research dimension alone will be enough.
Ck it out at Yahoo! Mindset Search

AJAX the new Buzzword

2005-06-06T08:49:00.000-07:00

AJAX (asynchronus JavaScript & XML) is the latest buzzword in Nerddom.
It probably has had the shortest concept to WSJ time of tech trends.

Basically it is an approach to provide a richer client experience, by breaking the tight coupling between, user events & the request-response round trip to the server.

This basically gives the developer an opportunity to provide a higher responsive user-exerience.

Sadagopan's weblog on Emerging Technologies,Thoughts, Ideas,Trends and Cyberworld

2005-01-12T00:49:00.000-08:00

Came across this blog on a website trying to tbe the Academy Awards of Indian Blogs
Intresting Stuff
Sadagopan's weblog on Emerging Technologies,Thoughts, Ideas,Trends and Cyberworld

Are the people wise ?

2004-05-11T02:33:00.000-07:00

After seeing 2 defenitely performing governments being voted out (Madhyapradesh - Dig Vijay Singh & AP - Chandrababu Naidu) one wonders if democracy in India is on the right track?

Sriks Thoughts

2004-05-10T20:21:00.000-07:00

Ramdom thoughts on what holds my attention at the moment