dish antenna

Why set top box implementation in hurry?

Probably we are busy, our children want to watch Cartoon channel, Ladies don’t want to miss the never-ending saga.

There are a lot of projects which are moving in snail pace, but this process is with a deadline.

The worst part of these paid channels is that we continue to watch them with all the advertisements. Oh, OK HBO has new paid channels which boast of with no advertisements. Any more?

Earlier a lot of companies where making money, now the Government has a large share I guess in terms of taxes. Phew.

dish antenna

dish antenna

What Chennai means to me as a Photographer?

This post is a part of an initiative by Chennai Bloggers’ Club; a Facebook community for like-minded bloggers. Around 30 odd bloggers are writing about, What Chennai Means to Them.
This tag was before taken up by Jothi Vel Moorthi
http://jovemac.blogspot.in/
Who says “who never blogs :-) ” fortunately he does blog occasionally like me.

Mera Bharat Mahan. <3

How I got interested in Photography ?

Photography is my passion now my livelihood. I have faint remembrance of yashica electro 35 a range finder, film camera which was a proud and prestigious possession of my uncle who had just returned from gulf. The best part is that very few camera owners knew about the working technology. Most of them flaunt by taking few clicks of their relatives,friends and soon on. Finally when they are broke would sell them off.

I own one such vintage camera after my marriage. My father in law, who was a proud owner, never sold it nor gifted it to me or rather say that i forcibly took it from him for the love of photography.

For my 1st son’s birthday I bought a Olympus sp 500uz power shot type camera which was slightly better than the point and shoot. That marked the end of film rolls at my place. What I loved this camera was the macro shots and manual controls which a dslr has but had to dig in to menus to get the right settings.

When my 2nd sons was born I was still hanging around with my Olympus, a colleague brought a canon 1000D he took few photos of us. The picture quality and the results prompted me to buy the Dslr.

So I bought my canon 500D been shooting since 2007.

I always wanted to set out early in the morning for my photo shoots. Learnt that I had to kick two of my bad habits

  1. Smoking cigarettes
  2. Consuming alcohol

The side effects of late night alcohol consumption is that, if you tend to wake early you have bad head ache, yes I meant the hang over. Were as for the Cigarettes, if you smoked early morning, you know what happens, Nature call you first. lol.

Now I pass the blog tag to

VJ Eshwar, Loves to write a lot but fails to print the publish button :P

Panic Mode, Self Destruction mode – The future of Mobile Phones.

Well I did watch the movie Mission Impossible 1,2 & 3. I am taking this to next level, I think it is high time for Mobile phones to have this feature of Self Destruction mode. Why?

You should have heard about the excellent feature of Mobile tracker from Samsung. Wow -  Awesome, That Awesome didn’t help my friend to get back his mobile.

What is Mobile tracker?
The owner of the mobile phone needs to store 2 sets of mobile number on to Samsung phone. After which in any case some one changes the SIM card of that mobile with a new SIM card, Immediately a SMS is sent to both the registered numbers of the new SIM card inserted or mobile phone number is revealed. So that the Owner can track who is currently owning his/her mobile.

Now back to story…

My friend had recently lost his mobile tracker enabled mobile phone, in spite of he calling up the current mobile owner, the phone has not yet reached his hands. He threatens to throw the mobile in to a WELL, rather he returns the mobile of fearing a plot to get captured by Cops.

So here is my simple suggestion, I am sure the mobile manufacturers are listening

This phone should have these features

1) Data Sync

2) Panic Mode

3) Self Destruction Mode.

Data Sync: Why can’t all data be backed up instantly or atleast every day, week or month, Well I suggest that to happen automatically on a computer through Wifi or any other method possible. As soon as the user authenticates a particular computer and when the user is well inside the network it should back up the new updates, with out even bothering the Mobile phone owner.

Panic Mode: As soon as you loose your mobile phone, you send an SMS to your mobile phone with some unique keys. From then on any SMS on that mobile phone received will be forwarded to the desired number set by you, All voice calls in conference mode. The data card datas are completely erased.

Assuming the thief is smart enough,  inserts a new SIM card, Panic mode automatically gets activated and any future communications are to shared with the 2 desired numbers already set by the owner of the Mobile phone. More of an enhanced mobile tracker. Let us say the thief is even more smart enough to have an SIM card inserted with little money re-charged, then SMS alone gets activated and when money recharged with sufficient money it should do with conference call.

Self Destruction mode: Assuming you spoke to the thief and is not ready for any deals. Then why the heck he should have your Mobile phone or even sell them. Start activating the Self destruction mode by just sending the SMS with a unique key, kindly note that SMS can be activated from any mobile phone. The mother board starts to melt down by alerting the user with a speaker phone voice activated for self destruction.

Happen to read from Seth Godin blog on

Gil lost his cell phone

I think Seth would appreciate my idea.

Kindly note: Mobile manufacturers, If you intend to use my idea, Kindly reward me. Let’s discuss.

Using Flash swf + Flash / JavaScript Integration Kit over HTTPS – IE issue fix

My product works over HTTPS and I had to serve a flash application, but there was one weird behavior in IE, the security Dialog box stated an Error

“This page contains both secure and non
secure items. Do you want to display the nonsecure items?” YES, NO

I was using Flash / JavaScript Integration Kit to embed my flash application as my application needed to communicate with Javascript variables.

I tried google to find some answers but was in vain. Finally started to look in to Flash / JavaScript Integration Kit js files to find the culprit. There was a hard coded URL in the js file “FlashTag.js”

flashTag += ‘codebase=”http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=’+this.version+’&#8221; ‘;

flashTag += ‘pluginspage=”http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer”>&#8217;;

All I had to do was replace http with https the problem got resolved

flashTag += ‘codebase=”https://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=’+this.version+’” ‘;

flashTag += ‘pluginspage=”https://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer”>’;

You can even question me why should I use Flash / JavaScript Integration Kit in the first place when I have the “ExternalInterface” Class. If you are targeting flash player less than 8 version.

Thought this should be a useful to some one who got stuck up with the IE security error dialog box.

Happy flashing…

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How Commercial Software, can fight against the Free Softwares?

Before you jumping in to making of a software you looked in to the market and realized there is enough market share. Now you made it, wanted to test them. You made it free as a beta Phase, you now started making commercial version of the same and by retaining the free version with limited features for people to try.

Guess what? A new player comes and provides a me too version of the software for free, only revenue channel being advertisement inside the product.

How do you fight the free version?

Now let us look at same problem solved by the big software companies, I am just taking 2 examples.

  1. Microsoft Windows VS Linux
  2. Camtasia snagit VS Firefox addons Screen Grab VS WINK (Free)

Microsoft Windows – People continue to make fun of the “Blue screen of Death” in Windows, but funny bone people continue to run their machines with the same Microsoft Windows OS at least the majority of them.

When the threat came from Linux for Windows, I remember every media said that it was death of Windows and even now people say that web will be the new OS, that is still speculative.

What did Microsoft Windows do?
If I am not wrong, they came with lot of advertisements to educate users about the benefits of using Windows. They came with Windows XP SP1, SP2 & SP3 and fixed as much as they could. They executed it well.

I believe the marketing spend on Microsoft XP could have been almost or significantly nil when XP sales was at its peak. Word of mouth still holds good in business. Techies still continue to say XP is stable compared to Vista and there is no major innovation in Vista, that people have upgrade to Vista.

To say, we are still dependent on Microsoft for most of our office productivity. Aren’t we?

The second story is the most significant one. Their product is easy to create and it requires less effort and they still continue to be leaders in their USP. I am taking about TechSmith the makers of Camtasia Snagit.

They did face the similar issue of free software from the open source community.

The popularity of Firefox add ons created a market slow down for Camtasia Snagit and on top of that was the Freeware software called WINK, it did almost the same functionality of Snagit and it was free and forums was available for support.

How did TechSmith Camtasia Snagit fight?
Camtasia Snagit 7.2.5 the earlier commercial version of the software was given free.

Do you want to know why they made it free?
The story goes like this in the Indian shop vendors or Medical Shops, If you ask for a medicine and if it is currently out of stock, they will send one of their members to collect the same medicine from the medical store just opposite their store or even few streets away to procure the same and give it to their customers. It is that the customer gets a feeling that any medicine he needs can be obtained. And that he will come back to the same medical store if he needed one.

TechSmith didn’t want end users to try free software instead allowed users to try the previous commercial version for free.

I use Camtasia Snagit free edition as I experience the reliable, proven and easy to use screen capturing/recording software. BTW, I have already tried the software and its features, and even know each and every interface. It is just that it is easy to use, Comfortable. The only feeling being left out, that I am unable to use the advanced features, which are available in the current commercial version.

For the extra mileage they have contributed few projects called Jing Project and ScreenCast
That takes care of community etc etc

Final Notes: Winning over Free is difficult, but not impossible. If you believe in Free, you can’t win over Free. Undo the learning and fight against Free. If you wish to.

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Egg logic – apply to reduce Fuel price

The below mail was forward, I think it is worth a read for people who want to reduce the price of Petrol. If not many, I would like to still support this movement. Wish there was some website to educate people.

A man eats two eggs each morning for breakfast.  When he goes to the
grocery  store he pays 60 cents a dozen. Since a dozen eggs won’t last
a week he normally buys two dozen at a time. One day while buying eggs he
notices that the price has risen to 72 cents. The  next time he buys
groceries, eggs are 76 cents a dozen.

When asked to explain the price of eggs the store owner says, “The price
has gone up and I have to raise my price accordingly”. This store buys 100
dozen eggs a day.  He checked around for a better price and all the
distributors have raised their prices. The distributors have begun to buy
from the huge egg farms.  The small egg farms have been driven out of
business.  The huge egg farms sell 100,000 dozen eggs a day to distributors.
With no competition, they can set the price as they see fit. The
distributors then have to raise their prices to t he grocery stores. And on
and on and on.

As the man kept buying eggs the price kept going up. He saw the big egg
trucks delivering 100 dozen eggs each day. Nothing changed there.   He
checked out the huge egg farms and found they were selling 100,000
dozen eggs to the distributors daily. Nothing had changed but the price of
eggs.

Then week before Thanksgiving the price of eggs shot up to $1.00 a
dozen. Again  he asked the grocery owner why and was told, “Cakes and
baking for the holiday”.  The huge egg farmers know there will be a lot of
baking going on and more eggs will be used. Hence, the price of eggs goes
up. Expect the same thing at Christmas and other times when family cooking,
baking, etc. happen.

This pattern continues until the price of eggs is 2.00 a dozen. The man
says, ” There must be something we can do about the price of eggs”.

He starts talking to all the people in his town and they decide to stop
buying  eggs. This didn’t work because everyone needed eggs.

Finally, the man suggested only buying what you need.  He ate 2 eggs a
day. On the way home from work he would stop at the grocery and buy two
eggs. Everyone in town started buying 2 or 3 eggs a day.

The grocery store owner began complaining that he had too many eggs in
his cooler.  He told the distributor that he didn’t need any eggs.  Maybe
wouldn’t need any all week.

The distributor had eggs piling up at his warehouse.  He told the huge
egg farms that he didn’t have any room for eggs would not need any for at
least two weeks.

At the egg farm, the chickens just kept on laying eggs.   To relieve
the pressure, the huge egg farm told the distributor that they could buy
the eggs at a lower price.

The distributor said, ” I don’t have the room for  the %$&^*&% eggs
even if they were free”.   T he distributor told the grocery store owner
that he would lower the price of the eggs if the store would start buying
again.

The grocery store owner said, “I don’t have room for more eggs. The
customers  are only buying 2 or 3 eggs at a time.  Now if you were to
drop the price of eggs back down to the original price, the customers would
start buying by the dozen again”.

The distributors sent that proposal to the huge egg farmers but the egg
farmers liked the price they were getting for their eggs but, those
chickens just kept on laying.  Fin ally, the egg farmers lowered the price
of their eggs.

But only a few cents.

The customers still bought 2 or 3 eggs at a time. They said, “when the
price of  eggs gets down to where it was before, we will start buying by
the dozen.”

Slowly the price of eggs started dropping.  The distributors had to
slash their prices to make room for the eggs coming from the egg farmers.

The egg farmers cut their prices because the distributors wouldn’t buy
at a higher price than they were selling eggs for. Anyway, they had full
warehouses and wouldn’t need eggs for quite a while.

And those chickens kept on laying.

Eventually, the egg farmers cut their prices because they were throwing
away eggs they couldn’t sell.

The distributors started buying again because the eggs were priced to
where the  stores could afford to sell them at the lower price.

And the customers starting buying by the dozen again.

Now, transpose this analogy to the gasoline industry.

What if everyone only bought $10.00 worth of gas each time they pulled
to the pump?  The dealer’s tanks would stay semi full all the time.  The
dealers wouldn’t have room for the gas coming from the huge tank farms.
The tank farms wouldn’t  have room for the gas coming from the refining
plants. And the refining plants wouldn’t have room for the oil being off
loaded from the huge tankers  coming from the oil fiends.

Just $10.00 each time you buy gas. Don’t fill it up.  You may have to
stop for gas twice a week but, the price should come down.

Think about it.

As an added note…When I buy $10.00 worth of gas that leaves my tank a
little under quarter full. The way prices are jumping around, you can
buy gas for $2.65 a gallon and then the next morning it can be $2.15.
If you have your tank full of $2.65 gas you don’t have room for the $2.15
gas.

You might not  understand the  economics of only buying two eggs at a time
but,

you can’t buy cheaper gas if your tank is full of the high priced stuff.

Also, don’t buy anything else at the gas station; don’t give them any
more of your hard earned money than what you spend on gas, until the prices
come down…”

just think of this concept for a while.

………………please pass this concept around….reaching out to
the mass ..the world …..the universe

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Honda hybrid now in India

Good news for people in India who care for the environment, but the cost of these cars will be dear to their pockets. With 104 percent duty levied by the Indian Government the ex showroom price would be 21.50 Lakh INR.

Here are the details about the new Honda Hybrid from the Honda Indian website

Wish there are more buyers, so that Honda thinks about having a plant in India, as we could see the prices of these cars coming down.

My best wishes for the Honda Team – Power of dreams
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FaceBook killer – Bravo Google Friend Connect

Seems like Google wants to embrace the non social networking sites to be part of social networking sites.

If you thought Myspace, Ning and Facebook made a killing, Please welcome the new Kid on the Block – Google Friend Connect. Do check the introduction video for more elaborate answers.

I see a lot of traffic to be increased to the personal or corporate websites too. All you need to do is sign up then embed few piece of code in to your website and let your friends and customers do the talking (bring the traffic back to you)

How does the traffic happen?
When ever a visitor visits a site and interact, their interactions are being reflected as updates in to the social networking sites which they belong. The updates are not mandatory, if wished, the interactions are reflected.

Corporate sites could integrate friend connect to have more authentic users

Personal websites could bring all friends buzzing among themselves and create new friends too

Bravo Google
An approach to fight spam is unleashed.

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Banks in India do operate through 3rd party.

In India privacy doesn’t matter much, at least for the common man. And We Indians don’t make much use of all the facilities that the Banks offer.

Things I learned:
I did have a bank account with ABN Amro for 2 years till 2004 and the minimum balance was 10,000 INR, which of course I didn’t have, so the interest started to eat in to the balance money which I had in my ABN account.

Lesson 1: If you can’t maintain a minimum balance please close your account. Then don’t blame the bank.

The interesting part comes here check this image below, click on the image for a&amp;amp;nbsp; larger view

I had closed the account in 2004 and still been getting the updates in my email account from the bank. So that means they don’t have a system which notifies that this account is closed.

Lesson 2: If you don’t want to receive spam mails kindly update your details with the bank

When talking about updating&amp;amp;nbsp; here is one more interesting image down below, click for a larger version

The login didn’t happen at ICICI and the check the regret message dated Aug 14th 2002. Abandon pages still exist on the server. check this link
http://www.icicibank.com/Regret.html

you should still be seeing this link.

BTW Citibank is no exception. They keep sending SMS and calling me up to let me know that they would be interested in increasing the credit limit increase to higher amount, Which I am not interested and had told over the phone to update their system that I am not interested in that offer.
Click on the image below for a larger view

Lesson 3: Never submit online forms with your personal details unless you are quiet sure that your private data remains private

I do remember the advertisements on banks offering loans use to exist on some 3rd party sites. When clicked on the link it would take to a banner landing page. How many of you checked for the privacy of your data, i.e on which server does that page exist. Assuming if you clicked on X bank banner did you land on X bank website.

And we continue to scream at our Mobile service provider that the DND system is not put in to use.

How many of us use Bank by Phone for the following?

  1. Deposit money
  2. Withdraw money
  3. Demand Draft / Pay Order
  4. checkbook request

And we continue to say that we had a long wait at the bank.

Lesson 4: Use Phone by Bank or Internet access to finish your work. For 50 RS + taxes will be much lesser than your precious productive time at work and less on your fuel expenses.

OK, I accept that there are quiet a few banks which don’t offer the above, but will have to change in due course of time.

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Can TATA or BAJAJ make 1 Lakh rupee Truck?

Does TATA or BAJAJ really care for Indians?

Indian consumers bought about seven million two-wheelers and one million cars in 2006/07.
Source

The Solution:

according to Ratan Tata, the company’s 70-year old chairman: — “That’s what drove me — a man on a two-wheeler with a child standing in front, his wife sitting behind, add to that the wet roads – a family in potential danger,” Tata wrote on the company website.

I have heard the similar kind of statement twice. One from our Reliance Ambani and one from Henry Ford.
The Reliance one actually helped many, to lower the cost on Phone calls.

Well If TATA brings Buses for 1 Lakh rupee that makes lot of sense in helping Indians. I know this is an exaggeration.

What will be the impact, if the 1Lakh rupee car Tata Nano becomes a hit?
In 2006-2007, Indian consumers bought 70 Lakh two wheelers and 10 Lakh cars. Source The equation for the coming years could be 35 Lakh low cost cars which could hit the Indian roads. My questions are simple, Whether our roads are built to bear that kind of traffic explosion. What about the pollution and What about the parking space in the city malls for consumers.

Who are the actual beneficiaries?

I don’t blame any businessmen for that matter. Any businessmen who finds opportunity will exploit it. Why can’t people understand the TATA’s and BAJAJ new venture in to cars and how about few more foreign car makers (Adding fuel to the fire) who are trying to make a mark in to the Indian consumers market.Why are the Politicians keeping mum?
End of the day they actually know that the cars can kept in their garage there will issues and they will come up with a solution which will benefit them. Let us say the solution would be to invest in more infrastructure like roads, parking lots etc etc
The solutions are costly only for the middle class people not for the rich and not for the business class and certainly not for the politicians.

Do the Government will make more money?
YES, certainly. How?

  1. The CC of two wheelers at a maximum is only 300 CC on an average. Hence the registration cost is going to go up by 600 CC and Odd.
  2. The road tax
  3. Then the Insurance cost (education excess) etc.

Why are the BAJAJ’s in to the car scene any Ideas?
Potential threat from the TATA’s One man’s dream car.

  1. Auto ricksaw could be easily replaced with a comfortable 4 seater by looking at the cost, not much of a difference. Well seems like their own Indicab could get in to trouble with in city limits.
  2. A Bajaj two wheeler at an average cost 50,000 Rupees, What about the new 4 wheeler another 60-70K on finance could solve the middle class problem of 1 Man’s Dream.

If not now, it is never for the BAJAJ’s to be in the market.

 
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