Satellite newspaper kiosk in Chennai

International tourists and frequent business travellers who seek the familiarity of reading their hometown newspapers in print can now do so right in Chennai.

A satellite newspaper kiosk is a fully automated unit that receives the latest editions via satellite transmission. A copy is printed on demand. Some of the newspapers in the network include USA Today (US), The Observer (UK), Die Welt (Germany), Sports Nippon (Japan), Le Monde (France) etc.,

The price is about $5 a copy. The vending machine prints the copy within 3 mins. The technology is offered by a Dutch firm. Once the idea becomes popular, the vending machine is installed in malls, airports and other public places in Chennai.

Work place of the future - cube less office

Can you imagine working on a cube-less floor? Its not just cube-less floor, but no assigned seat. Just like in college, anybody can sit anywhere in the office. Can you think of working in that kind of environment?

But, many silicon valley companies including Cisco, Sun and Intel are casting aside the cubicle culture to save the money. Also these companies are thinking that "open office" culture improves the interaction and productivity. These companies found and analyzed that 60% of the company's cubes are empty because employees are visiting customers, telecommuting, vacationing or in meetings. Employees on average spend 20% of their work hours telecommuting.


Thank god, this culture didn't come to India yet. Otherwise, our tables will be completely occupied by laptops, water bottles, coffee cups lined up on the floor, wires/cables all over the floor and always there is somebody peeping into your monitor through your shoulder!!!

There are disadvantages of both fully walled rooms (less space efficient, like old US R&D centers) and low walled cubicles (more noise, like in many Indian companies). There should be considerably high walled cubicles which enable interaction and privacy to certain extent.

Courtesy: mercurynews.com

IndLinux - A computer for Indians

Most of the Indians (especially in rural areas) get basic education in their local language (non-English). Not all people who study English in India have a high command of the language. Many times language barrier becomes a bottleneck in bringing and sharing a lot of opportunities. With more than a billion people and lack of good infrastructure, the localized software will help India to reach rural areas.

India needs localized software to move to the next decade!

There are many companies that are providing proprietary software solutions for Indian languages (including Microsoft). But IndLinux is a project started by Prakash Advani and Venkatesh Hariharan in Dec 1999, that localizes tools used for Linux and other free software environments into Indian languages.

Currently there are teams for Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriaya, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu. The task of localization involves writing I/O modules, development of fonts, kernel enablement, word translation etc., The project always looks for volunteers to help them. Are you one of them? then go here.

For more details on IndLinux project visit: http://indlinux.org/

Binging on Junk food - you are risking yourself

“It’s time to make healthy changes in one’s life.”

Thought I would write down on Lifestyle Diseases since I have been reading about it in the newspapers so often.

If you are among those who think fat kids are cute and aren’t really averse to a little giggle at their size then this story is for you. It’s also for those who have made chocolates, high calorie snacks like pizzas, burgers, chips and aerated drinks a regular part of their diet and have left fruits and vegetables out of their meals.

I’m sure that at some time or the other we are reeled under the stress of too much to do or shortage of time to do. And, usually, the first casualty is our meal time. We grab whatever junk food we can find or fast forward and miss meals. It’s a crazy way to live. To relax and enjoy even the most basic of home cooked meals is an incomparable delight. I am a great believer in natural and slow home cooked food. With some common sense and imagination, one can make wholesome and appetizing food.

Did You Know?

Recently released figures from International Diabetes Federation has reported that over 70,000 children develop Type 1 diabetes every year and some 440,000 children world wide.

Obesity is the most important factor to develop Type 2 diabetes in children.

Obesity is linked to behavior, dietary habits and physical activity.

Obese people develop complex problems such as discrimination at work place, school and home. Moreover, health risks like high blood pressure, diabetics, high cholesterol, arthritis, kidney failure, stroke, heart attack are closely associated with obesity and lead to further complications.

In western Countries, processed food items are the main cause of obesity; while In India, the main reason seems to be rapidly changing food patterns influenced by advertisements of sugary drinks, high calorie snacks and our increased dependence on technology. Moreover children are less physically active today due to the influence of television and computers. In India, more than two percent of the population is obese. Each year, this number is growing especially in urban areas due to changing lifestyle.

What can be done?

Working mothers have a bigger challenge, to ensure that their children do not go hungry and eat something and also due to lack of time, they end up giving quick snacks which add no nutritional value. It is important to increase the fruit and vegetable intake; substitute water or fresh juices for sweetened beverages and low calorie snacks for high calorie ones; increase physical activity and cut down the time spent before the computer and television. Parents and school authorities should encourage children to take part in sports and games either in school or through various clubs. It is preventable by proper lifestyle modifications. Food stuffs rich in saturated fat like butter, ghee, coconut oil should be restricted. Protein from vegetable sources, low fat milk and milk products, fish and lean meat are preferable. Thus only a few food items are absolutely forbidden.

Benefits of Exercise

Reduces blood sugar, blood pressure, triglycerides, weight and body fat, tones up muscles, strengthens heart and blood circulation.

Watch Your Weight

A simple calculation called Body Mass Index or BMI is used to classify people as underweight, normal, overweight, and obese. It is calculated by dividing weight in kg by height in meters squared.

BMI Guidelines:

Healthy: 18.5 to 24.9 kg per meter squared.
Overweight: more than 25
Obese: 30 to 39.9
Severely obese: more than 40

Additionally drugs like stimulants, appetite suppressants, antidepressants and medication to reduce fat absorption are prescribed. The disadvantage of this method is that most patients regain much of their lost weight and the average amount of weight loss is relatively small. Persons with a BMI of 40 or greater who can’t shed their weight through regular exercise and diet opt for Bariatric surgery.

It is necessary to prevent further increase in the number of children with obesity, which in turn can reduce the chances of them developing diabetics and other associated disorders like heart diseases.

The challenge is to marry the traditional healthy Indian lifestyle with the modern age generation. I hope the survey findings would prompt people to opt for healthy eating habits.

Rendezvous with the God - Provide your fingerprint!

Do you know where the world's largest biometric solution is implemented? It is in Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), a conglomerate of temples in Andhra Pradesh, India.

The biometric system is used here to control the crowd, rather than for enhanced security. The temple receive an average 50,000 pilgrims everyday, with the numbers fluctuating upto 1,50,000 on some festival days.

In this temple, pilgrim needs to register his/her fingerprint before buying the ticket and identify him/herself using the registered fingerprint at the time of darshan.

We see people complaining about fingerprinting in US airports as indignity. How many people know that you need to provide fingerprint if you want to visit this temple at Tirupati.

Thanks Giving shopping in US – a horrible experience

All I want to suggest is, please don’t sacrifice your sleep for the so called Black Friday deals in USA. The chances of getting a good (or best) deal is 15/600 (= 1:40). Tougher than cracking a medical entrance in India!!!

If you don’t know what Black Friday is: In US, its the day after Thanksgiving day, which is one of the busiest shopping days and all retail stores offer special sales on that day.

First time, I am in bay area during this Thanksgiving time. Lot of my friends told me that I am lucky because I get very good deals and can buy many things at cheaper price. I also thought the same and didn’t buy anything before Thanksgiving and eagerly waited for this Black Friday. The day has come and I saw at least 100 page news paper on Thursday and it took 2-3 hours to go through all ads in the news paper and the web. The hot deals were:

$299 Compaq laptop at circuitcity
$298 Compaq laptop at frys
$400 Sony laptop at bestbuy

All that you save from these deals is $150 (you can easily get same product on a different day from same shop for 150 bucks more, if you keep an eye on local news paper).

I decided to go for Sony. Bestbuy advertized that it issues tickets from 3am (you are reading right, its 3am) on first come first serve basis and opens the doors at 5am and there are minimum 15 laptops available through the deal. Whoever has the ticket should get the item by 9am, otherwise it will go to general public.

I and my friend started from hotel at 2:45am and reached bestbuy at 2:55am. I told my friend in the car that since it is very cold outside, we will be the first to reach there. We thought we will definitely get a ticket. My calculation was something like this: In US minimum wages (even for a laborer) is $9-10 per hour. Per day earnings for a laborer is $70-80. I don’t expect a laborer buys a laptop and I thought anybody who wants to buy a laptop get more than $200-$300 per day in bay area. The greatest deals on this Black Friday is not a big saving for them. There is no need to wake up in the early morning after having a delicious turkey dinner the day before. So I was very much sure that I will get the ticket. We were planning to visit other shops (frys and circuitcity) after grabbing the ticket from bestbuy. For a visitor like me, $150-200 savings is Rs 6000-8000 which is a great amount, so I can wake up early in the morning to catch up the deals.

We were shocked to see the crowd at bestbuy (Sunnyvale) at 3am. There were already 500+ people in the line. We were told that people stood in line from 3pm-4pm, the previous day!!! People got tents and there were mobile shops selling coffee and cookies!!! Yes, all this happened in USA.


OK. We know that there are 15 laptops available on the deal. But being little optimistic, we stood in the queue. The temp was 5C. You know what, there were at least 300-400 people piled up behind us by 5AM. At 4:30am, they started giving tickets for various items (TVs, DVD-players, GPS etc). Nothing reached us. At 5am, when they opened the store, imagine the situation when 700 people are inside the store picking things and wanting to pay the bill. I was upset and disappointed.

We were able to grab few small things, though they are not good deals. We stood 2 hours for the billing after that. Then we went to Frys at 11AM thinking that the crowd would have reduced and we can grab some things if any are left. I got few small things and went ahead to stand in the queue for the billing. You believe it or not, it was at least 1/2 km length. There were 60+ counters, but still it took us 3 hrs to reach a counter.

It was a nightmare for us on the Black Friday.

If you are in US, during thanks giving period, don’t think that you will get best deals. The fact is, there are only few deals and grabbing them is tough.

Are there any Indian software product companies?

I read somewhere (numbers may not be exactly correct): "India produces nearly 3,50,000 Engineers per year. Whole of Europe produces 1,00,000 Engineers a year and US produces only 70,000". I also read, " Many bright Indian minds (are we??) opt for computer job to become part of the Indian IT industry."

What are Indian best tech companies? Infosys, TCS, Wipro, Satyam and HCL. How many of these tech companies influenced the technology world? Answer is none. India didn't create IBM (that defined PC standard), Microsoft (cause for worlds popular Operating system), HP (famous for printers, enterprise servers), Google (you cant imagine world without search) or Sun (the inventor of Java).

The evident difference between these companies is that the former are service companies and later are mainly product companies. I am not undermining any Indian IT services companies. They achieved a lot so far. They helped build an Indian brand, brought global work cultures, introduced corporate governance. They are globally successful companies. But my point is they are not innovating enough.

Well, some of you might be wondering, what is the difference between service company and product company. Service company sells service. It creates software that is for a specific situation with relatively low level of leverage and reuse. Product company builds products that are useful for wide range of customers.

I agree that there are few software product companies in India, but they are small size. I feel that the time has come for Indian product companies. India has a very good brand value. Now for a good product idea, there are funds available in India and it is getting better everyday. And also many Indians with good product design experience are returning home.

But product companies are risky (normally only 4% succeed). Product companies need a higher level of innovation, higher technical abilities. But bigger risks always leads to bigger rewards.

Finally there is another question. Instead of building new product companies in India, is it possible to transform the existing big services companies into product companies? My answer is No. Its very tough because, a software services business is very different from a software product business. It will have different financing, different client interaction, different goals and different decisions. But there are few companies that made this transition before; Oracle is one such company.

GPS navigation launched in India

What is GPS navigation?

Global Positioning System (GPS) is a system that communicates with satellite to trace the location and position of vehicles on earth (This technology is widely used in mobile phones also).

How is it useful in cars?

A GPS enabled simple, smart and sleek gadget can be mounted on a car that determines your current location. This gadget accepts any destination and the navigator in the gadget will guide you, turn-by-turn, with graphical map instructions supported by voice prompts. Search for points of interest (nearest ATM, nearest shopping centre, nearest petrol pump, nearest attraction etc.,) will be available.

Where is it available in India?

MapmyIndia Navigator is currently available in two hardware models: Delphi and AMAX. These devices comes with pre-loaded maps that give complete coverage of streets and points of interest in 18 major cities.

"MapmyIndia Navigator" is currently available with car accessory and consumer electronics dealers in major cities. It is also available online via Indiatimes and MapmyIndia.com.

Want to know how it looks?




How much does it cost?

Techtree reported that in Delhi, the device costs Rs 21,000 while in other states, it comes for Rs 22,000.
Indiatimes is showing price range as Rs. 16000-19000 for online buying.

Is it worth in India?

In countries like USA, where there are names for each road, number for each block (building) the GPS gadget may be most reliable, intuitive and accurate. I doubt how much this will be useful in India, where roads dont have names. Even there are names for some roads, they change if government changes. Also, in India wherever you are, there are local people (or) auto-wallah who can tell you the best way to reach certain destination. I know most of us prefer that way, because roads become unusable or change (two-way to one-way) frequently in India and only local people will know better.

If you are a gadget savvy and have a car, tryout one.

courtesy: techtree, mapmyindia

This is how nature smiles on us!

I got this picture from a friend. Its nice, just sharing with you.

First time a Telugu film released in US before India.

Yes, first time in history, a Telugu film is released in US before India. “Happy days” by Sekhar Kammula is a well directed movie that showcases the present young generations trials. This was released in US on 28th Sept and in India on 2nd Oct.



Watching this movie makes you feel good and noble about you. This movie deals with the 4 years college life in an Engineering college. It’s a wonder that Sekhar has done in this movie.

When asked “what is the reason behind releasing Happy Days in US before India?”, the director says, “my commitment towards my word: I promised a release date to my USA distributor”. “Happy Days is a film to which you can even take your Tamil and North friends along with you as 90% of NRIs have engineering background. I am sure that Happy Days will cross language barrier in USA.”, he adds. (source: idlebrain).

Don’t miss Happy Days. Savour that nostalgia.

Forgot Linux ‘root’ password? How to reset?

I forgot the root password. How do I login now?

This is a common question asked by people especially if they didn’t boot their computer (with Linux) for a while. Here I am giving a way on how to reset root password from a Linux system.

Please note that you can not perform this remotely. You must be physically at the computer.

• reboot the system
• When you first start the computer, the GRUB screen appears. Select Linux that you want to boot into, but press the ‘e’ key instead of ‘Enter’ (to stop the grub).

• Hit ‘e’ again and you will go to different screen
• Select ‘kernel’ as choice, and hit ‘e’ on your key board.
• Type ‘single’ (or 1 in some versions) to enter ‘single user’ mode and then enter ‘b’ to boot. ( now your system is in single user mode as root)
• Now you can change the root password by using ‘passwd’ command

Now if you reboot the machine, you will be able to login with new changed password.

Bangalore vs Chennai vs Hyderabad

I am not going to compare the general good and bad things of these cities. A very nice comparison of that kind can be found at eNidhi.

Well, over the years, many parents, students, friends asked me questions like:

- My son is passing out this year, which city is good for him to find a job?
- I have done a course on Mainframe, where should I search for a job?
- Which city has more opportunities for SAP?
- etc.,

Here I am trying to find answer for these questions through (somewhat) realistic data. In the process I have found some interesting stuff that I will share with you.

I have these numbers in front of you that indicate the approximate (relative) number of jobs available in each city. I hope these numbers themselves answer the questions.

Now you can decide which city you want to land to find your dream job. Though this table is accurate, this is not complete as it does not indicate the competition in each city (Ex: there may be more job seekers in Bangalore than Hyderabad, so the success probability in Bangalore might be less than Hyderabad though Bangalore has more jobs than Hyderabad). I was not able to get data on 'number of job seekers' from each city. But I feel that the data given here will be useful to some extent.

Other interesting stuff

- Not only the software exports, but also the number of job openings proves that “Bangalore is hottest for IT”. Though Bangalore is suffering from creaking infrastructure problems, the city still continues to be the hottest for IT companies.

- Though Chennai and Hyderabad has comparative number of jobs in other areas, Bangalore is exhibiting over whelming majority in product jobs (VLSI/systems-programming in table-1).

How the data is collected

1)Entered naukri.

2)Searched jobs with
- Location "city name"
- Functional area "functional area"
- Keyword "Technology"
- Job Type "Company jobs"
- Freshness "less than 30 days old"

Finally, I agree that one can get more number based conclusions by googling it a bit (or by looking at data in job sites). Please let me know if you attempt and analyze the relevant data.

DNA Computing - The future of computing

Advances in biochemistry show that living cells are much better at computing than the traditional silicon based chips.

Instead of traditional silicon based computing, DNA computing uses DNA molecules that has the potential to perform calculations many times faster than the worlds fastest computer. Also DNA computers will be capable of storing billions of times more data than the traditional PC.

The computing capability of DNA is first demonstarted by Leonard Adleman by solving the famous traveling salesman problem.

So is the silicon computer gone? No. The DNA computer may be able to solve NP-Hard problems efficiently , but the PCs (and traditional silicon based computers) are most practical and can let you play games and browse Internet!!!


Exited?? Want to know more about DNA computing?
Wikipedia
How Stuff Works

Sardarni's Letter ... Joke

Courtesy : Got from a friend.
All sardars, please take it in lighter sense.

Sardarni mother wrote a letter to her son! Pyaarey puttar,

I'm writing this letter slow, because I know you cannot read fast. We don't live where we did whenyou left home. Your dad read in the paper that most accidents happen 20 miles from your home, so we moved.

I won't be able to send you the address as the last Sardar who stayed here took the house numbers with him for his next house, so that he wouldn't have to change his address. This place is really nice. It even has a washing machine situated right above the commode. I'm not sure it works too well. Last week I put in 3 shirts, pulled the chain and haven't seen them since. The weather here isn't too bad. It rained only twice last week. The first it rained for 3 days and second time for 4 days. The coat you wanted me to send you, your Aunt said it would be a little too heavy to send in themail with all the metal buttons, so we cut them off and put them in the pocket.

Your father has another job. He has 500 people under him. He is cutting the grass at the cemetery. Your sister had a baby this morning. I haven't found out whether it's a girl or a boy, so I don't know whether you are an Aunt or Uncle. Your uncle, Jatinder fell in at the nearby well. Some men tried to pull him out, but he fought them off bravely and drowned. We re-cremated him and he burned for three days.

Your best friend, Balwinder is no more. He died trying to fulfill his father's last wishes. His father had wished to be buried in the sea after he died. Your friend died while in the process of digging a grave for his father. There isn't much more news this time.

Nothing much has happened.

Love Mom.

How to sleep using select() call

On many UNIX systems, the sleep() system call does not support msec granularity. But using the select() system call, the process can sleep at micro sec granularity. Here is how it can be done to sleep in milli sec granularity:

/*
* sleepms(): sleep (msecs granularity) using select.
*/
int sleepms(int msecs)
{
struct timeval timeout;
if(msecs == 0)
{
return 0;
}
timeout.tv_sec = msecs/1000; /* in secs */
timeout.tv_usec = (msecs % 1000) * 1000; /* in micro secs */
if((select(0,NULL,NULL,NULL,&timeout))==-1)
{
perror("select failed\n");
return -1;
}
return 0;
} /* sleepms()*/