Venky Chinnathambi

I couldn’t help laugh at the following advertisement:

Clink on the image to enlarge it

Basically the highlighted text, in Tamil language, request the users to click on the google advertisements shown all over the screen. This pretty much violates google’s adsense ToS. I wonder how much money this site made so far with this innovative approach!!!

Funny note to Google: Wakeup and hire people skilled with every possible language on this planet to nix this issue. How about Tamil for a starter!!

Alright!!! enough is  enough - I am getting inundated with questions about myGPSid. We are still in stealth mode and our 4 engineers are feverishly working on getting the alpha version out within the next two weeks. Our goal is to launch the public beta in September.

Stay tuned for more details… We have so much work to do, but not much time left.

Email Flood

There was an interesting article on ABC News about email usage, Best Way to Annoy Your Co-Workers? Using  E-mails.

Even though I agree with most of it, a clear distinction between big monolithic companies vs Startup/agile companies are warranted.  For example in big companies, it is all about CYA. But in a startup environment, it is all about execution - mistakes are the norm, not the exception at small companies, and are part of everyday life. Meanwhile  big companies are all about job security. In other words, “Reply to all” is kinda mandatory in big companies, but a no-no for small companies.

Hopefully by now you are convinced that startups are different. Following are my recommendations;  email etiquette for startups:

1. Avoid using email as much as possible for internal communications - who has time to read email while working 18 hrs a day? Instead use SMS, IM or even phone calls.

2. Use email only for external communications to customers, investors and vendors.

3. Never use “reply to all” - every time you do it, you are taking precious time away from someone.

4. You don’t have to “CC” your boss on every email - if that is the case, you are working for the wrong company. This is not needed as long as there  is open communication within the team.

5. If you are getting more than 10+ internal emails a day, something is seriously wrong. Start looking  for a job or try to fix it if you are in a position to fix it.

6. Use collaboration tools like wiki to keep everyone updated, which is much better than everyone sending their status reports via email.

Bottom line, email has manfiested itself  into a monster on its own. Unless you take control of it, it would take over your life and eventually your company.

The Alibi by Sandra Brown

This is my very first book of Sandra Brown - I was skeptical at the beginning and was really surprised by the storyline and the twist at the end. This is one book where I was not able to predict the killer up until the last time - excellent job by the author.

If you really enjoy prediciting the story punchline, give this book a read.  I am very confident you will be suprised to know the real killer of Lute Pettijohn.

Kinky and the Christmas Pig

This is unlike any other Kinky’s book - the usual and typical cigars, talking cats and many more (which are Kinky’s trademark features) are missing in this book. Just imagine Kinky Friedman writing a Shrek-like story - the result would be The Christmas Pig.

The ending was different and unique, which may offend lot of folks out there. But if you are reading Kinky’s stuff, probably you are immune to such feelings.

Read this book only if you have time to kill and no other Kinky’s book to read.

The only thing more overrated than natural childbirth is the joy of having your own business!!!

- I really don’t know what it means to give a natural childbirth, but, oh boy!! I can speak for owning and running your own business - it is the damn hardest thing one could do in their entire life.

Following is a robot developed by robotics at the University of Pennsylvania, which is made of modules that can recognize each other. sounds like the Terminator movie. This video shows the future of self organizing robots, which will make human life much easier - hopefully they wont take over the world.

Life of PI

I would rate this as one of the best book I have had come across. Even though it is classified as a novel, it is a real story. The author was exceptional in bringing the story in a comical manner while preserving the core essence of the story. The first 50-or-so pages is slow; especially for non Tamil folks. However the author does highlight some of the things that are very part of the Indian culture. For example, the way Pi reacts to his father’s summon to teach a life lesson on the dangerous nature of the animals. Pi not knowing the reason for the summon, starts blaming his brother right away. Trust me, this is the usual behavior of Indian kids as they are very much afraid of their parents (especially father). Now I look back in my life, I find this situation very humorous.

The real story and fun begins when Pi’s family starts their journey to Canada by sea over the pacific ocean. I don’t want to give too much info; but the bottom line is that the ship sinks and Pi finds himself in a lifeboat with few other animals, including a Bengal tiger. His journey takes about 7 months to reach Mexico… enough of the details.

One must read the entire story, all the way to the very last page to see the real twist. This book should be definitely on your summer reading list.

By the title I didn’t mean that Microsoft is getting into anymore monopoly or legal issues. I had meant the company behind the infamous T-Mobile’s SideKick device. It is a very nice and cool device; I used to love their Telnet feature.

Is this Microsoft’s answer to iPhone and upcoming Android? Now developers have to deal with one more type of device when it comes to building mobile applications. Here is a killer idea; someone should write a wrapper application/software that could run an application on any mobile device - remember J2ME - of course, we need better UI feature set.

I recently purchased the ultra PC from Sony (model VAIO-UX-490N); amazing device. The screen is so small, but highly usable. It is as powerful as my laptop from 2 years back. You can put it in your pant pocket, but not the shirt pocket. I would love an even miniature version of this device with iPhone’s instant gratification features (the zoom in/out feature for photos), along with blue tooth enabled phone system - then I don’t need to have different devices like PDA/Phone, blackberry and laptop… may be technology will get to this point in another 3-5 years.

The one bad thing with UX-490N is that it comes with Vista!! Try connecting that to your printer or camera.

As usual, I woke up on the 14th and started wishing people Happy New Year and got a sticker shock - It is no longer the Tamil New Year!! Found out that Mr. Tamilmagan (karunanidhi) - serious pun intended - has passed a legislation to move the new year to January 14th. Come on, doesn’t he have anything better to do?

How would the western world react if someone changes the New year from Jan 1st to Dec 25th or the thanksgiving day!! The new year always starts at the beginning of the solar calendar year, which is the month of chitirai; similar to January for the western calendar.

I am pretty sure the next Tamilnadu chief minister will revert it back - wishful thinking??