ameyas7blogspace@blogger.com

Distributed Social Networking: managing your profiles effeciently.

2009-03-01T00:48:00.000-08:00

Today all of us have profiles on almost every popular networking tool be it social like facebook, orkut, blogger, wordpress or professional like linkedin, Xing etc. The problem is every time you open a new a/c, you have to duplicate all your personal, professional information on every single site. Not only that .... you also need to find and import all your buddies from one network to another, get all your snaps moved, your calendar, applications, activities etc etc. its just hell of a pain for no good and may even take several days before you actually start utilizing it fully. And then soon theres gonna be another tool on the block and bang you gotta move everything all over again :( this just goes on and on.

Thankfully there is a concept called "Distributed Social Networking" which is picking up pretty well and will solve such issues. The idea is to use already published information and achieve interoprability between multiple sites/applications. They use microformats, standard APIs and common protocols underneath to achieve this. Some of the tools can also be used as plug-ins. For instance, DiSo-project are building plug-ins that can be added to your wordpress wchich will then serve as your central platform to manage your distributed content. Of course with interoperability there will be new set of issues :) but hopefully things will be ironed out in some time.
So for instance if you have an a/c with X site and want to add friends from Y site and assuming both X and Y support common protocols (microformats), you should be able do it easily or if you want to import your flickr stream into your page (this actually works today as well in many networking sites but not using microformats) or even you can add your own activities, streams from your a/c on X to your new a/c on Y. There are lot of things you can do with these, i dont want to duplicate the information ;)
Check out the references for more detailed insight.

References:
http://www.digital-web.com/articles/portable_social_networks_building_blocks_of_a_social_web/
http://blogs.sun.com/bblfish/entry/video_on_distributed_social_network

-signing off
ameyas7

my_Phone - just modded ....

2008-09-13T07:31:00.000-07:00

been really looooong since i last blogged. topic this time is .... modding. dun really wanna write another techie blog. not that i dislike 'em, they are good and contain pretty useful information but just dun wanna mix it with my blogroll :)

read the DISCLAIMER section at the bottom before you read this entry.
it all satrted when i was trying to install Yahoo ! Go 3. its a really cool j2me application with whole bunch of widgets, yahoo mails, maps bla bla bla .... so desperately wanted this, fortunately / unfortunately i got an error saying you need software higher than R1JC001 or something. after googling for a while, came across this tech blog which opened doors for me to the whole new world of modding.

initially it looked pretty complex and risky ... indeed it is, for beginners. but once you go through couple of tutorials, you have decent knowledge to take the first step. of course it is a "risky" business. flashing could actually screw up your phone royally (for those of you who don't know what flashing is .... flashing is a process by which you write some data to EEPROM im sure u must've read this in your CS books but now is the time to do it ;) and in the process, you would loose existing data if any). but this is the risk that makes you feel good when you do it successfully :)

fortunately fair amount of firmwares, patches, packs are floating around for k790i (and alike) and then i have been using this phone for almost 2 yrs now, so was willing to take the risk ;) and hell yeah ... it pays off. you can completely customize your phone just the way you want it. you can upgrade your phone's firmware, audio drivers, camera drivers, menu icons, menu layout and the list goes on. i burned the walkman's drivers to my phone, it worked well but ain't that great. i mean i can see the loudness has improved but nothing noticeable when it comes to the quality of sound. it will only work within the limits of the hardware :) of course you can modd the hardware too but lets leave that to the real pros ;) as far as camera is concerned there is no need to get rid of cybershot drivers and put custom drivers... well you certainly can do it but it already is one of the best. i also changed the menu icons. k790i has a very good display quality but if you are bored of the same old stuff, you can put your own. this is not same as the "theme" thing. a theme only modifies the background, foreground and style but not the layout, icons not even menu text. if you want to put your own menu icons, you will need 12 or 24 images for each menu item in selected/unselected state and then you write them to phone's file system. in fact the SE system was sooo impressive that the menu is xml driven and all you need to do is put your image's name/path in the xml. if you spend time understanding the menu structure, the layout, you can customize your entire menu. and beilieve me customizing menus are like simplest thing and completely follows WYSIWYM pattern. you can even have flash-based menus, wallpapers etc. you can get skins for your music player. the best part was to patch the firmware with an elfpack. SE phones (k790i) can be patched to run elfs which are popular in the *nix world. once your phone supports elf, you can run elves on it. not all elves work on all phones but you still have a support for additional format :) you can give a complete makeover to your phone.

need a kick-start?
gather all possible data such as platform, software version etc about your phone. go through forums (there are dozens of em) understand what you can do and what you can't before you actually begin. you will then need to download couple of tools likfe FAR manager, SEToolLite, XS++ etc. backup your GDFS using these tools. in fact back up everything you can. i lost all my contacts as i forgot to back up my data. :( you will need to hunt for firmwares for your phones depending on your platform and CID#. you can then burn the main firmware and filesystem. once you have successfully burned the firmware, first thing you might want to do is delete the data account, wap profiles etc. and put your own as im not sure how they might reflect in your bills ;) and then from here it all depends on what you want to customize, apply patches etc.

and last but not the least. finally i got the Yahoo! Go app working. its simply awesome. Yahoo rocks. anytime.

DISCLAIMER: Do not try this unless you know what you are doing. flashing can seriously damage your phone's hardware. some of the operations can not be undone while some can be. some operations can make your phone unusable and you may not be able to recover it. your phone's warranty gets void when you debrand your phone. try this at your own risk. this blog entry was written only to make you aware of such possibilities and to share knowledge. any damage/loss caused will solely be the responsibility of the owner.

- signing off
ameyas7

May 10th, 2008 .... Pangea day

2008-05-11T03:30:00.000-07:00

History
In 2006, filmmaker Jehane Noujaim won the TED Prize, an annual award granted at the TED Conference. She was granted $100,000, and more important, a wish to change the world. Her wish was to create a day in which the world came together through film. Pangea Day grew out of that wish. Watch Jehane Noujaim’s 2006 acceptance speech now.

The Pangea Day Mission & Purpose
Pangea Day is a global event bringing the world together through film. Why? In a world where people are often divided by borders, difference, and conflict, it's easy to lose sight of what we all have in common. Pangea Day seeks to overcome that – to help people see themselves in others – through the power of film. [source: official website]
The whole theme was to inspire a global community to keep aside the differences we have created and work towards the betterment of the human community in general.

It was an awesome show and I was really fortunate enough to tune into it (accidentally) at the right time. The show started at 18:00 GMT (11:30 PM IST) on May 10, 2008, locations in Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Rio de Janeiro were linked for a live program of powerful films, live music, and visionary speakers. The entire program was broadcasted – in seven languages – to millions of people worldwide through the internet, television, and mobile phones. The show went for almost 4 longgg hours (although I could watch it only till 02:30 AM). It mainly featured short films on various themes right from human emotions to borders and some other social issues. Each film was pretty unique. It was all soo perfect. I bet they must've hard time evaluating entries. Between these films, they had arranged interviews, musical performances etc. In fact, the whole show was so nicely organized and well co-ordinated I must say.

It was an international competition which got about 2500 submissions from over one hundred countries. Out of these 24 films were chosen to be featured in this event. The films were chosen based on their ability to inspire, transform, and allow us see the world through another person's eyes. Details on the Pangea Day films can be viewed here. The program also included a number of exceptional speakers and musical performers. Queen Noor of Jordan, CNN's Christiane Amanpour, musician/activist Bob Geldof, and Iranian rock phenom Hypernova are among those taking part.

During one of the interviews, they showcased a website http://www.wefeelfine.org/ This system simply crawls blog entries all over the world every 10 minutes and collects sentences begining with "i feel" or "i am feeling" and gathers all the related data like gender, location information etc they can even get the weather information based on the location and time. The application basically is based on the particle system where single particle represents one entry. The system also decodes the sentence and comes out with not just with a type of feeling(happy, angry, depressed etc), it even tries to judge the degree of the feelings. Based on this data they have written an applet depicts this information in the visual form. So the combination of colors, shapes, transparency and size represent the type, degree of the feelings. The concept was similar to tag clouds. You can even click on the particle to see the actual text entry behnid it or even a photograph (if it has one). The system also exposes its API under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Sharealike license So if you want to integrate this system into your system or website, you can use the API subject to license terms and conditions.

If you beilieve in OneEarth, then you would have loved this show. If you missed it, you can catch some of the action at their official website here and last but not least, if you feel inspired, do check out the events and how to take part section here.

- signing off

ameyas7

blogathon ..... constructive blogging ....

2008-04-20T11:02:00.000-07:00

ahhh its been two longggg months since i last blogged :) looks like i have become less active or is it the silence before some kind of a storm ;) ... lol. just kidding. i have been occupied with lotsa stuff these days. attending weddings, engagements n parties. march, april were quite eventful and lets not get into detailed list of events now.

oh btw if u blog as well, here's a treat for u .... blogathon. just few days back i got a mail from Tarun regarding this event . the very first thing that came to my mind that maybe this is not my type of event. i prefer to blog when i like and on topics that i like but when i actually saw the event details, the topics were quite interesting. now this is certainly one of the (though not the only) constructive uses of blogging. as a matter of fact, i was thinking on similar lines that there should be an official blogroll on ideas, suggestions to improve upon such things .... life in general. however not only it is difficult but it is practically impossible to go through sooo many entries and actually compile all the results. it would be nice to see the results (or just entrieof this blogathon.

initially this sounded like a marathon where everyone can run in any direction they want (as you cant really control the thoughts but thats the beauty of it .... isnt it? ). it can be a great opportunity to get ideas from diverse set of people this could virtually include anyone and everyone across the globe. so it would really be exciting to see the blog entries.

well if time permits, i would certainly try to have my "dream run" (it is for novice users who'd probably just run few kms. not the full length marathon) this year and a full one maybe next year.

- signing off
ameyas7

love i$ in the air ....

2008-02-18T06:44:00.000-08:00

"Love For Techonology" was the tagline for BarcampPune4 which was held at ThoughtWorks pune on 16th Febuary 2008. it was conducted in high spirits. it was one of the well organized barcamps i have attended. found it better than the last BarCampMumbai .... not that it wasn't good but just that this was better. i have always appreciated all the volunteers putting their time efforts into this. kudos to these organizers (of all barcamps ever held :) )

well the day started with some jRuby stuff which was not all that great ... as the guy was going too much into details. could have been better if ppl start with generalized concepts first and then dive into the details. easy said than done ... maybe... i never gave any session @ barcamps so not sure what could be the reason why ppl touch upon details directly (considering that the audience would be from mixed backgrounds) .... maybe time constraint ... not sure .... anyways.
the next session was on how to be safe ... cyber safety topic by Rohit Srivastwa the same guy who is one of the core members at clubhack. he spoke about various attacks including MITM and ARP poisoning including some demos to crack some of the volunteer's passwords ;) it was good to play around with.
the next interesting session was a guy (nick) named "Sidu" from ThoughtWorks. he gave us an interesting talk on "Why Ruby" he started with general stuff @ Ruby ... very basic stuff ... easy to digest ... simple language ... and then some compare n constrasts with the existing platforms such as java, .Net etc. it was good enough. after that the most intneresting part (the lunch). it was good as well. not better than BarcampMumbai ... IIT though ;)

post lunch, i attended the "e-discovery" by Chetan Gupta he works at Symantec. he had given a talk in clubhack as well. after that i headed to "The danger of search engines & how to protect" by Diwakar Goel (he has co-authored the book titled "Google Hacking"). it was really kool stuff. some of it was from his book but some tricks were new for me as i have not read the book completely. after that it was more of hanging around with fella-campers, getting to know other ppl etc .... this is the best part about barcamps.

so the day ended on a good note. and then i was also fairly impressed with ThoughtWorks in general :) the infrastructure, culture, agile thingy bla bla bla.
photos can be found on flickr here and my bits of memories here. despite all these, im sure i ve missed lot of action @ other sessions. but i was full already ;)
keep up the good work guys.

theres another barcampmumbai coming up in march and so is OWASP on 1st of March. lets see i'd be attending OWASP for the first time so pretty excited. the only sad part is i have to skip my trip to mumbai whenever i attend conf @ pune. but then this was certainly worth it.

- signing off
ameyas7

shop online .... r we ready yet ????

2008-02-08T06:19:00.000-08:00

technology has certainly made our lives simple. internet has made it even better. today we do so many things online in our day-to-day life. book tickets, pay bills, trade, banking, shopping just to name few. i know that one should not blame anybody based on one incident, but then this blog is to make you aware of such mishaps so that you can avoid them.

well this is my "personal" experience. on January 26th, 2008 i ordered a Onida Candy DVD Player from HomeShop18. payment was done by credit card (not cash on delivery .... on second thoughts, i seriously feel that this is the best option to make such transactions hassle free) . after placing the order, i just called the customer care to know the expected date of delivery and i was told that it will take 10 working days to get the order delivered but that is the max time estimate. i was also told that since your payment has already been done, you might get it early. 10 working days even if destination is metro like mumbai. man can you beilive that, i have received international couriers in much shorter time than this. i got a verification call on the following tuesday to verify my name, phone #, card details etc. i was pretty happy as i was expecting it in some time after verification. they have off on saturdays and sundays i.e. 5 days week. i perfectly understand the staff is just human like us all. but then there was nothing to be manufactured. all you need to do after verification is deliver the product by courier which should not take more than 3-4 days even with the worst kind of a courier. i am not sure where the product is shipped from but i beilive NOIDA being their main office, they might be shipping from there.

Day 3 - 8:
i am waiting for the product to arrive and at times checking with the customer care. on 5th Feb i logged in to my a/c and checked the order status which said "Normal Courier ( Shipped on Feb 4, 2008 ). ( 2140315123 ) "

Day 9: Thursday 7th, 2008
i called up the customer care again just to track the status and i was told that the product was shipped on "6th February 2008" but i will be getting before 10th working day. i ignored the mismatch in the date of shipment.

Day 10: Friday 8th, 2008
i am still waiting but the product has not arrived till 4:00 PM i called up the customer care and i was told that wait for EOD which is 6 PM . just few minutes after i hung up the phone with the customer care, i got a call from ONIDA's andheri office / shop and was told that i wil get it today evening.

finally the product arrived in the evening and to my surprise they had sent some other model. i got Onida DFX-5957 model. the HomeShop18 price difference between these two products is Rs 600. i called up the customer care again to raise the issue and i was told that the exchange procedure could take "10 working days" but then thats the "max time estimated". i was like #&*^$&*#&*^&$*^*$. after a very heated conversation, i was told that give us an hour's time and you will get a callback.

and as you might have already predicted i am still waiting for the call ....
lets see how many "working days" do they take to call back.

few points to learn (check-list before you check-out):
1) go for cash on delivery option whenever available
2) always read the terms before you place an order
3) if the discount is not more than 20%, it is really not worth taking the risk and then traditional shopping wins over online shopping as you get to see, feel the product, zero waiting time and many other advantages.
4) always prefer some reputed site .... actually i was sold by the name of "Network 18" but then i was wrong so this totally depends on how lucky u r ;) and homeshop18 has certainly failed the "test of trust" and to loose goodwill over a dvd player is far higher a price to pay.
5) if anything goes wrong, keep this URL handy National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (click here) and/ or Consumer Online Resource & Empowerment Center
6) always make sure that you can hold one person responsible for this. apparently these customer care services are useless as you cant really hold any one single individual accountable if things go wrong.
7) ensure that the order can be tracked to the finest level. i.e. right from time you place the order till the time you get the product.

the mystery still remains unsolved as if they had shipped the product by normal courier on 6th Feb (or 4th Feb god only knows), then howcome the product is delivered by onida office in andheri. i assume that the mistake lies with HomeShop18 as the bill and the product packaging clearly says that "Onida DFX-5957" which looks like they received wrong instructions. i am not sure whose mistake it is but i am certiainly suffering for no reason. frankly speaking i really dont want to waste a single moment thinking about it. well that does not mean i will accept the wrong product.

after all this, i really wonder what kind of procedure is followed at homeshop18 that takes "10 working days" to deliver a wrong product.

- signing off
ameyas7

yahooooooooooo ....

2008-02-01T09:45:00.000-08:00

MS offers $44.6 bn to takeover Yahoo! everyone is aware @ the big news by now.
well with respect to the current condition, the bid sounds pretty lucrative. but if you consider the potential, it would not be a good move to accept the offer.

with the script price currently at $ 27.90 the market cap is about $37 bn and just check out the stock price chart for about past 2 yrs and the picture is pretty clear that its only past few months (with just few hiccups last yr) particulary from november 2007 the stock started falling down without any support on the lower side. but again i feel that its just temporal. i mean come on .... everybody goes through some rough times, you dont sell out so easy .... would you? if the shareholders decide to encash the oppurtunity, then it will be very sad day. $31 per share is not that great a price. i am not sure why it is sooo well received. i understand that it is around 60+% premium but then looking at the previous records, it doesnt really sound that HIGH.

personally i would not like to see Yahoo takenover by MS. i know they are going through rough times and with the Terry Semel's resignation, this could be the best time to make an offer but i hope they choose to hang-in there. ye i am big fan of Yahoo :P fairly impressed with their developer network particularly with the YUI and will always be. Yahoo rocks! but of course this is just my opinion /analysis :P hehehe
so will it be Yahooo or will it be Boohoooo ... only time will tell you my friend!

- signing off
ameyas7

together we fall ....

2008-01-27T10:13:00.000-08:00

welcome 2k8
HAPPY REPUBLIC DAY !!! (i know i know its late already but still :D)

not a great start for the stock market but then this is just the begining and theres lot more action left for the year. there have been couple of black mondays, fridays or shall we say entire week :) what a volatility! nifty dropped more than 2k points within a week and recovered few hundreds already. of course it will restore and things will be back on track and bla bla bla but what about the realized loss ? the blame game has already begun. there are good lessons to learn (for the novice traders like me) and every lesson comes with a cost ;)
1) go for hedging if you have considerable portfolio size
2) always have some cash (risk capital) at disposal and make the most of such drops.
3) never / minimize trade on credit basis.
4) keep safe distance from options and derivatives :)
easy said than done ... i know ... people just get dragged in the rally and then one fine day BANG its all gone. fortunately i had withdrawn lot of funds just few months back, even then i encountered substantial losses. but all is good if your overall position is in green. worst is i still wish i had more cash to pump in ... lol. no doubt this is a gr8 time to buy many good scripts provided if you have time and money for them to grow. frankly speaking this is just a part of the game (and is now reality :D) there was one funny SMS i got which said "saare zameen paar ... every script is special" hahaha

now all eyes are on the big ipos. reliance as well as future group. overall had a tough time last week. pretty depressing week. hopefully sunny days will be here again (soon).
the only exception was when Symantec stock went up by around 10% after the quarterly results were announced. not that i have many vested but it certainly is a gr8 feeling when you see it go up like this that too when the time is not really all that good. US economy seems to be heading towards slowdown. recession is just round the corner (that is what experts have to say) lets hope that it doesnt get too bad as the tremors will be felt all over the world.

about the weather ... pune is awesome during winter. it is pretty cold here in mumbai as well :) i just love winter. the weather is really good in pune .... i guess we had some 9 degree celsius min temp recorded for the season not sure if it fell down ne furhter.
well thats all for now. its past 12 already have to leave early morning for pune. time to hit the bed.

- signing off
ameyas7

clubhack 2k7 .... India's own International Hackers' Convention

2007-12-22T06:47:00.000-08:00

DISCLAIMER-:
This blog entry is absolutely based on my understanding about the topics. It is advisable to go through the presentations available here. You can also contact the respective speakers if you have any questions or need more information. I will not be held liable for any decisions made/ misunderstandings based on this entry.

after the barcamp, it was clubhack. this season is full of events :) and it only gets better and better. barcamp was an unconference whereas clubhack was more of a well organized conference. well that doesn't mean that barcamp wasn't well organized but the two were certainly different. in terms of content, clubhack was all about security. Officially put "ClubHack is one of its kind hackers' convention in India which serves as a meeting place for hackers, security professionals, law enforcement agencies and all other security enthusiasts". speakers included professionals from various fields like legal, security, telecom and even foreign nationals. sessions were started as two parallel threads. it was held on 9th December 2007. i know its been late already but then i was occupied with couple of other things so couldn't blog @ it.

the first session i attended was about hacking the firefox using the extension vulnerability bu Sunil. it was good and pretty scary as he showed a demonstration that data passing over https can be captured if the attacker manages to deploy his malicious extension into your browser. so the point is stay away from exentsions from unknown sources.

the second session was by Chetan Gupta (he is a symantechie too :D) he works for incident response team in Symantec. he showed us lot of tools to dig up data as a part of forensic investigation of any (cyber) incident.

third session i attended was by Rohas Nagpal. he is the president of asian school of cyber laws. it was also an interesting session. he mentioned 7 best cases in cyber crime. he gave us lot of knowledge about cyber laws in india. he spoke about the bazee case, the recent orkut case etc. the bottomline was beware of your rights and more importantly responsibilities of being a indian citizen. even the stupidest attempt to hack into your friend's mailbox can lead you into jail and of course some fine too :) best is stay away from the legal hassles :D

then i attended the crazy toaster session by Dror Shalev. it was real good as he actually showed the demo of hacking into network using a toaster connected as device onto a network :) the idea was how our home devices connected to the network can be used to compromise security. it was quite interesting though frankly speaking i am not sure if i got it right entirely ;) nonetheless it was really cool.

after the crazy toaster, i attended hacking web 2.0 session. personally speaking i found it ok types as it sounded more like a theoritical session or whatever. there was some useful info but not as good as others. then there was this VOIP session where these fellows told us about how VOIP if deployed incorrectly can cause security issues. they also gave us lot of demos which were cool as well. but unfortunately i could not figure out the exact weak point meaning where things went wrong.

presentations are uploaded on the site and can be found here (ref clubhack).
overall a BIG THUMBS UP to the event and of course to the co-founder Rohit Srivastwa. my bits of snaps can be located here. hope to attend more such events in the coming year.

- signing off
ameyas7

Test

2007-10-21T05:19:00.001-07:00

yet another Barcamp (Mumbai) ....

2007-10-14T08:25:00.000-07:00

yet another eventful weekend. saw bhool bhulaiya, laaga chunari mein daag yday (will talk @ it later ;)) n the big event ofcourse was BarCampMumbai2 after i missed BlogCampPune, i simply cudn have missed this 1 :D the venue was obviously IIT Mumbai campus. i just love to visit this place.

the camp was focused more on strart-ups, enterpreneurship and various technologies. the campers outnumbered the capacity, so they had to maintain a wait-list. there were large number of turn-out. so the event started a bit late at around 11:00 AM. the whole idea of barcamp is to move around and pick things that u like and walk-out if it doesn't interest you much. the first talk i attended was by some representative from Sun. it was for an undertaking by Sun for potential start-ups. The project is a good initiative ... chk out if u have a start-up or plan to open one. then there were some talks about issues that start-ups face, the general pitfalls etc. although it was a good session but i beilive that if you have an idea you are passionate about, if you are reasonable, it will certainly be a hit sooner or later. i know i am not the best person to comment on al this ;) but just trying to put my point across. next interesting talk was on storage topic. he covered RAID, DAS, SAN etc. the talk was by Mr. Bhavin Turakhia CEO of DirectI the topic and the content was good. although no rocket science but good deal of information .... some redundant .... but from the industrial perspective.

post this we headed for our lunch. the food (lunch as well as snacks) was simply good as usual. lunch sessions in such camps are meant to interact with other ppl while u hog upon the del.icio _us items. u get to meet lot of exciting ppl. most of the junta is geek types. post lunch, i got to attend this safe netizen talk by Rohit Srivastwa. it was quite an interesting session. just few months back i had found a vulnerability on a reputed cinema hall's website and had blogged about it (click here to read) so i was curious to know what should one do if he/she encounters such a vulnerability/ loophole and if he/she wants to be a responsible netizen. he gave me his blog entry (steps that he follows) click here for details. he happened to mention that always copy someone who is into legal / cyber department while dealing with the vendor as u never know when things turn back to u. for the movie hall thingy, i had actually preserved all the packets which showed the card information in plain text as an evidence but fortunately the vendor simply switched to secure policies and all was good :) but one certainly be needs to be careful in such matters coz even if your intentions are "good", u (might) need to prove that. then there was a launch of a site Bloozle which is about bloggin 2.0

after this we attended CreativeCommons session. we cud only attend last few mins but the concept sounded good. then we had somemgmt session n last but not least, there was a talk by Mr Rohit Nalawde on start-ups. he told us his story ... how things went for him. it was nice to hear it. overall thumbs up. coincidentally IITians also had their techfest today. it was nice to see the robots fight in the competition. you can spot some snaps in my picasa stream here .... snaps from my cellphone so do not show TRUE COLORS ;) .... apart from this, there were sessions on nokia developer forums, mobile video streaming compression techniques bla bla bla but i didnt attend them so not sure how well did they go.

having said all good, the closing session brought out some negative points about the way things were organized. i completely agree that there was a slight feeling of disconnection as the rooms were spread across two floors (unlike last yr's) also that there was lesser technical content this yr than last yr and some element of marketing propoganda was also observed. but then it din ruin the good things. also i disagree on some other points like having theme based content etc. cmon u guys, barcamp is meant to be unorganized. just gather n have fun. dun expect too much ;) also i must give credits to the volunteers (U GUYS ROCK!!!) keep up the good work. n hey .... if u missed it, theres gonna be another one in around Feb 08.

thats all for now....

signing off
- ameyas7

green green green ....

2007-09-23T13:24:00.000-07:00

sounds like the F1 lights going green to indicate start of the race and yes lot of things are packed with the same excitement these days. talk about stock market, cricket, rupee appreciating against dollar. india is going green in so many ways.

stock market hits all time high (although this isnt news anymore ;) it happens almost every quarter) just when fed rates were cut by 0.5 % markets were soo bullish giving lot many opportunities to book profits and many did. although the best strategy would be getting rid of those low (or non) profitable stock, book some profit, increase the liquidity while staying invested in more profitable stocks so that just when the correction follows, you have enough liqudity to ride on the rising wave (followed by correction). i know its hard to hold on when you have reached this highs. also get rid of IT stocks, for sheer appreciation of rupee against dollar. you can expect some more appreciation before it stabilizes (before RBI takes some action). i know it is very scary especially for ppl working in IT for various reasons including job security but at the same time i'd love to see rupee rise :) .... enough of financial talks now.

circket .... i know this is not my cup of tea but this is currently the HOT topic especially the 20-20 world cup (well not for me ... i have stopped following cricket since longgggggggg). it is interesting to see the new 20-20 pattern. i guess they have realized that ppl dont have that much time so they cut down it in half ;) but yea the grand finale is gonna be very exciting, where india meets (head-on with) pakistan. ppl (all over the world) have always enjoyed india - pak matches.

and last but not least green is the color of the season. lot of eco-friendly campaigns are gaining momentum. channels like cahnnel [V] are already providing tips on issues like global warming and other environmental issues. you can also find eco-friendly consumer durables like air conditioner, refridgerators, cellphones or even your furniture :) in your regular stores. i have come across so many products in last few weeks which are (claim-to-be) eco-friendly right from the paint used for painting the walls to organic items like soap, cereals and blah blah blah. you name it, they have it with an eco-friendly touch. and of course it is really a good thing for sure. after all we belong to the earth, the earth does not belong to us (quotable quotes ... wasn't me ;) ). just few months back i joined the "Ban the Bulb" campaign when Greenpeace volunteers had come to our company for awareness (and fund-raising). i know it is difficult to get rid of all bulbs in the house and put those expensive CFLS but any single ordinary bulb replaced with CFL will take a step towards the end goal. and when billions of ppl step forward, the journey becomes so easy. it is like that giant flywheel effect where it takes lot more strength for the initial few pushes but once the wheel gains the momentum, it is all set to run by itself.

well thats all for now .... i'm off to bed .... have to get up early n leave for pune.

- signing off
ameyas7

online security ....

2007-07-29T09:39:00.000-07:00

DISCLAIMER:
following entry is written with the intent to warn the users to be cautious while providing their sensitive information like credit card details while shopping online. all the analysis and judgement is absolutely based on my "current" knowledge about the whole concept and the readers are requested to make decisions based on theirs.

just few weeks back i was trying to book a movie ticket online and i realized that the site was not secure enough to provide sensitive information (credit card details). i realized that the form was being submitted over plain http instead of secure (https) protocol. my obvious attempt was to manually hit the https version of the URL but it failed. it took me back to the http form. i had to back off the booking plan .... i just prefer to play safe .... not that my credit limit is too high ;) but why take a chance. the theater was one of the reputed ones. i was really surprised coz it had the "Verisign Secure Site Safe Scrypt" logo on it. i clicked on the logo just to verify things, it lead to some auto-generated page for that site which said the site was authentic so that i was guaranteed that the recieving party (for the card information) was the one to whom the site belonged to. but it had some clause at the bottom which said "All information sent to this site, if in an SSL session, is encrypted, protecting against disclosure to third parties." what it implies is that if its not over SSL, you may not be guaranteed security against eavesdropping. that is very convinient, isn't it? this is obviously my interpretation of the statement and everything rest is based on this "assumption".

it is pretty much scary just to imagine that your sensitive information is going in plain text over wire. on second thoughts, i thought probably they must've used some new kinda technology which would encrypt and send even though it appeared to be plain http. i also thought that it could be the case of http upgrading to https (thats possible with http 1.1 though i could not entirely understand how it works) but then i tried submitting the form .... still there was no sign of https.

the only option left was to try capturing the raw packets just before they leave my machine. i verified that the information was going unencrypted by capturing few packets using a packet sniffer. well i wasn't much surprised to see the information flowing in clear text in the request packet .... i was expecting it, but just wanted to make it sure. its really very dangerous. i immidiately sent mail to theater authorities but there was no response. as far as the logo(certificate of authenticity) issuing authorities are concerned they have clearly mentioned that if not over SSL, it may not be safe. now usually anyone wouldn't look into details once we spot the security logo. but then its our mistake that we simply assume that everything is safe.
also i feel that the authorities should have issued certificate of genuine party / authenticity but safe scrypt could be misleading.

well is it the user , is it the certification/ logo authority or is it the theater authority to be blamed ... im not sure but the user would surely suffer if somebody exploits such flaws.

so before you provide such information, always ... always watch out for
1) https protocol
2) certificate information (giving public key of the party)
just to make sure its safe, at least going in the encrypted form.

- signing off
ameyas7

google on my cell ....

2007-07-15T01:02:00.000-07:00

no no no this is not yet another google oriented blog (actually even the earlier one wasn't but if u felt so :p)

ohh before you begin reading this entry, FYI ... i changed my blog template so now you can listen / watch any song from my playlist (its just few of my fav picks) while you read this space. i wanted to put this at the end of the entry but.... by then you'd almost be done with it so you would'n be able to enjoy the songs :) n hey i've also added "track your visitor" map at the end of the page. so now even if you dun put a comment i can see traces ;) its kool isn't it?

recently i downloaded google maps for my cell. its really kool. especially for ppl like me who lack road sense ;) ye i have hard time figuring out roads n maps not that im a traveller but even the city alleys can be confusing considering im still new to pune :) so hopefully this will make life easy. hehehe although i wont be using this thing often as i can afford to get lost n pay for the cab than to see those GPRS bills ;) lol just kidding. but this is really cool stuff. using *i-fi makes you feel good. i still remember i bought my old nokia 6610i with an intent to develop some j2me apps but that was way back in 2004 but unfortunately i cud not really nurture the idea. n today i have a much better cellphone but i still lack the dedication to make productive use of it. anyways someday ill write my own utils. as of now lets jus download n hav fun :D

just when i was finished with google maps exploration, i started searching for random apps / utilities and i found whole bunch of them. i found small utils right from some office apps, converters bla bla bla to some hacker stuff like discharging the cell battery, using the light to dim-bright n exploit the battery. of course i did not try those as my cell is too precious to test all these nifty little utilities ;) if u wanna try, lemme know ill pass on the URL. (disclaimer: try this at your own risk) even today i dont own a 3G phone but EDGE works for me. not all that bad. so if you are checking the real-time satellite images in the google maps it may take a while before it actually shows up but that's ok.

this mobile market is goin crazy. especially with such a HUGE customer base in asian countries, all the n/w providers are making loads of $$$$. imagine countries like india, china, japan singapore, malaysia they can provide GREAT market potential. that is why you can see all biggies entering this segment already. even yahoo has launched Yahoo! Go. you can expect some tie-ups with the mobile manufacturing companies. you wouldn't even imagine the amount of money these telecom providers make just with those stupid SMS to some 4 digit shortcodes for some contests, votes etc. well lets keep all that aside considering the positive aspect that its helping (contributing) in lot of other ways including economical growth.

yesterday i saw Die Hard 4.0 ... what was that? i mean c'mon have they started immitating bollywood ? hehehe. seriously it started out pretty well. it was al about cyber attacks into the public services. it wasn't all that unrealistic but later on it completely turned into the typical dumb movie. pretty sad huh. it was good to see F35 take off ;) but the whole concept was stupid. F35 tracing a VOLVO truck wow looks like choppers do not excite the general public anymore .... action effects are good but again some are really illogical. there was some guy who was even swifter than spiderman lmao. why cant we have some intelligent action movies. keep it simple but logical.

well thats all for the action this week ;)

- signing off
ameyas7

garaj baras saawan fir aayo ....

2007-07-01T08:24:00.000-07:00

well this week was a little hectic @ work. but it certainly ended in a pleasant way.

saturday morning i was reading this book called "Good to Great" by Jim Collins. this book is based upon various case studies performed by the research team consisting of top graduates from B-schools and the author himself. i'm not really fond of reading books but i have enjoyed case studies, philosophical, management related text. well this book was lying with me for almost a year and a half now but never thought of turning the coverpage :) actually i got this book as a prize for being a topper in the ITP training programme at Tech Mahindra. just few days back we had Tom Kendra visiting Symantec's India center and his talk sounded on the same lines of this book (i had read few pages just when i got the book and i could easily relate things almost instantly) . it created a spark and finally i'm reading it. i'm not done with the book yet. might write a seperate entry on it after i finish. the electricity went off in the noon and i had nothing to do so i was just passing the time by playing games, listening to songs on my cell.

at around 2 pm ijoe called up and told me that lets go out. we had absouletly no plans where to go but we just wanted to do something. jassi and hari had also come. ijoe and jassi were my NCST mates whereas hari lives in ijoes's apartment. it was raining heavily and we wanted to enjoy the rains and the obvious way was to go on a bike ride. so we started at around 2:30 pm. just 5 mins away from our place near shoppers stop we found that the LBS road was closed , the mall was flooded with water and they were actually using the pumps to get the water out as fast as possible. unfortunately the other side of the road was lucky and was not blocked. so some people actually smashed the divider and let the water flow on the other side. we also saw 1 maruti zen slipped into gutters. looked like the driver could not see the boundaries of the road, gutter or not sure what went wrong there but they had called for fire brigade to rescue.

while some people were stuck at various places, some were trying to reach home as early as possible, we were out enjoying the rains and we decided to head towards the cyprus (near yogi hills) just about 15 mins away. when we reached cyprus, loadsa ppl were on the road enjoying the climate. it was a nice experience. we had vada-pav and then we decided to climb up the hills. this is the same hill which seperates the mulund-thane area from the western suburb borivali. you can also see The Sanjay Gandhi National Park sign boards in this area. we reached the first level of the hill. this is a place from where one can get the hilltop view of major parts of mulund-thane. now they have made a official base like structure so even civilians visit this place often and is quite easy to reach here. the view was damn good and the rains just doubled our joy. i wish i had a waterproof camera so i could share pics coz im really not that good at describing things. it was good but we wanted more :) so we decided to climb up some more (to the 2nd level as we called it) it was little difficult .... sort of small trekking experience. but it was worth it. we could see all the greenery and not just the concrete jungle. it was really good. we had 1 more level to make it to the very top but we left it for some other time sake :) rain started slowing down n so was our enthu level. we slipped 4-5 times while getting down, there were no injuries but climbing part was comparitively easier. we got down, had another round of vada-paav and cutting chai then we decided to go towards airoli-vashi side. we were completely drenched already. i mean we have been enjpying raing since almost 2 hrs now n still we were feeling the rain showers hittin us on the way to vashi. it was pretty chilled. climate was good we could see some part of nahur village (near the eastern express way) all drowned under the water. the rain drops were hitting our faces so hard but we were still enjoying it. then we reached airoli n some took a halt for 10-15 mins on some newly discovered road. we had a chit chat for while then we headed back. i finally reached home around 5:30 pm, hit the showers, had another hot cup of tea. felt sooooooo good :)

evening was nothing special. just watched TROY and went to sleep. got up late today. it was still raining. it just wont stop. there was no electricity today as well for quite some time. not sure whats the problem these days but apprarently the power shedding has been stopped.
saw 300 today evening. these movies have their own charm. i have already seen it in theaters but still enjoyed it again. great leaders, great men and great skills. it is quite interesting to learn about the ancient war techniques. they all had their own unique style. discovery has showcased many shows on this topic.

offnote iPhone was launched this Friday and im sure it mustv'e sold million pieces already. its definitely on my wishlist, so if you don't know what to gift me for my b'day, heres a hint :p (in your dreamsssss ...ohhh i could hear that) ye ye i am too sleepy already. hopefully it doesn't rain tomorrow morning. i have to catch intercity @ 7:15 am. i dun wanna miss that else it becomes hectic and definitely not a good way to start a new week.
phew ... too many things packed in one entry :) but can't help. i get to blog only on weekendz.
thats all for now.

- signing off
ameyas7

iGoogle Xperience ....

2007-06-16T02:00:00.000-07:00

hello

yes this is my second post in a day. no i aint inspired from the blogcamp just that i've been customizing my google home since morning and here's how it looks now. it is lookin pretty fancy and ye it does its old job (search) too ;)

iGoogle has been here quite for a while. but it was only recently with the development of google gadgets that we can see it burst like never before. you can convert your google home into your personal portal for almost everything that you need is available in the form of gadgets. earlier google came up with the concept of gadgets for their google desktop product. (well actually AFAIK gadgets originated with apple's mac) gadgets are like small utility applications which one can use in day-to-day life. today google allows us to add these gadgets to your customized home page as well. In fact not only google but many leading portal containers have started offering Google Gadget Support. For eg: IBM's WebSphere, Apache's JetSpeed, Liferay all have come up with support for Google Gadgets in their portlet containers.

So basically you get all your utils handy with you on google page so you can add gadgets which give you stock updates, quotes of the day, word of the day, weather, gamse, wiki search even Bhagavad Gita. Also you can categorize these gadgets into multiple tabs. You can add your own tabs as per your requirement. Want more ... yes you can develope these on your own too. Although there will be some learning curve involved there. You can find more about Google gadget APIs here. You will need to learn some technicalities but once you know how to write these widgets, google will allow you to host them on their site. isn't it cool?

I agree couple of other portals have been already providing these things like personalization and stuff for longggggg time now for eg: Yahoo. But I feel this will be more effective as this will be more like community devlopment which has proved itself in many cases. And then it was interesting to see google turn (evolve) into a portal whereas Yahoo has alwasy been one. There's no denying that Yahoo has also started providing similar widgets thing but I beilive they are still only for desktop.They are quite cool as well but I wouldn't start on that now ;) and then no matter who gets who but as a user we will surely get to experience whole bunch of cool things.
well thats all on iGoogle.

- signing off
ameyas7

missed BlogCampPune ....

2007-06-15T21:49:00.000-07:00

it hurts .... having missed the BlogCampPune 07 all i can say is that.

well ye i had registered for the event and was looking forward for it. but unfortunately i am in mumbai @ my home and writing this entry. wish i was writing this live from there :( well if you know me personally and if you read it carefully "unfortunately i am in mumbai" you will surely know how terrible i'm feeling :(

i'm sure this event will be a gr8 fun. its not just about fun, its really a good experience to meet such kinda ppl, share stuff and go camping. BarCamp hasn't been here since long .... just a year or two i guess. the topics were good but its lot more than that. you will only come to know if you have attended one. mine is purely based on my last yr's barcamp mumbai experience which was awesome!

for those of you who still doesn't know what barcamp is all about ... click here. In short, its an unconference where ppl voluntarily organize a (kinda) workshop. its actually a multi-threaded programme unlike typical workshops and one can participate, discuss, blog, upload snaps, feeds (do whatever you want) at runtime. but the interesting part about is the people you come across. some of 'em would be real geeks. that is why i said more than the topics, its interesting to meet such people (works for me). many-a-times pure spectators are not allowed but this was not one such.

I aint a hardcore blogger, I am more of just blog-for-me type. I prefer to blog whenever I have time and sufficient thoughts/content. its not that I was keen on attending for the list of topics (nor I was interested in "make money from your blog" ;)) , its really a wonderful experience. Also I have always enjoyed attending conferences, seminars, workshops. I really missed this 1 tho. unfotrunately there was no company as well to attend but the people there would easily accomodate you in no time so that was surely not the only reason. well don't ask me the reason why i couldn't attend. i've never felt this awful before (for any conference)

well thats all for blogcamp.

life is going pretty cool. not much of a pressure. very much keen on watching Pankaj Kapoor's 'DHARM' so you can expect some thoughts on that. he is one of those REAL ARTISTS and also the theme sounds interesting so definitely worth a watch and I am surely not going to miss it :)

- signing off
ameyas7

future is here ....

2007-06-02T10:14:00.000-07:00

well this entry is gonna be about some technological updates. well i dont really like to blog about i-fi stuff. not that i don't follow technlogy news but I prefer to keep it away from my personal space. but last week I came across a news which I thought I'd share here and it is really an outstanding concept.

M$ released their surface computing 'Milan' table top computer. basically its like a small coffee table with amazing features. check it live at http://www.microsoft.com/surface/ it was really fascinating to see the videos. it looks like some mind boggling gizmo gadget from some beyond 2k (and we really are beyond 2k now, its 2k7 already ;) ) movie but its gonna hit the market soon. the best part is it recognizes almost anything. although i didn't come across any detailed specs (on their site) but their videos give that impression.

basically it works with human touch as input and that too multi-touch screen which means a group of people can use it simultaneously. it makes sharing stuff so easy that you can simply place your digital camera, cell phone or any other device on top of the table and it will pop a menu ... its really cool. all you need to do is simply move stuff around here and there with your fingertips. thats next level of Drag-N-Drop.

well we all had come across apple's i-phone which is also multi touch screen with similar features for zoom , pan etc but thats not it. the good thing about the computer is that it can let you do umpteen number of things, like you can connect several devices, download/ upload stuff, do some online shopping just by laying out your credit cards on the table.... how cool is that.
detailed comparison here. maybe initially the cost may be high and they may target public places more than end consumers. so probably you'd get to see more of these in malls, cafeterias, pizzerias, all entertainment zones etc.

having said all of that, it would be interesting to dig more into multi-touch screen devices here. Also im not sure if this concept is originally from M$ or not. following links talk about some work on similar lines. looks like things like this existed since long. at least couple of yrs earlier.
http://cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/65
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vm_FzLya8y4

so whether M$ came up with the concept first or somebody else , we may not know but all I can say is future is good and future is here.

well thats all for the Milan. life is going pretty cool. I am having a great time in the new office. lotsa play + work. our whole team is planning yo go out for lunch on monday and we'd also watch pirates of the caribbean 3 post lunch. its gonna be fun time. monsoon has already hit here. so the weather is really very nice most of the time but then you really dont feel like working ;)
just kidding. ijoe (my ncst pal) might come over to pune next weekend and I might not come back here. so we(me, ijoe, prashant, ashwin and some of ijoe's friends) might chill out next weekend. lets see.

thats all for this time.

- signing off
ameyas7

living in a metro ....

2007-05-06T10:26:00.000-07:00

last week i visited a property exhibition in thane. the rates are giving tough competition to the skyscrapers. rates have increased by more than twofold in the past 2-3 yrs. although everybody knows that this is pretty much inflated price (especially in exhbitions and all) but people are still buying it. and the scary part is the minimum area is 2 bhk. although they claim that to be 2 bhk the actual carpet area comes close to 1 bhk in an old construction, as there is minimum of 25-35% of loading. so basically you end up paying that much extra. i understand that most of the projects which were put up in the exhbition were from some of the good quality constructions but still there is no way the rates can be justified.

frankly speaking there is not much of a difference in the buying capacity over the period of time. only the numbers are high. so if the income levels have gone up by X times, so have the property prices, in fact even more. the dream house still remains dream for most of us ;) although the availibility of loans and the general tendency towards taking loans has gone up and hence on an average people can buy their house (mebbe or may not be the dream one ;) ) at the age of 30
there is soooo much of demand. its totally seller's market as of now. the buyer has a very little say.

In india, there is sooo much of difference (in every aspect of life including standard of living, facilities, opportunities) between metro and non-metro cities (or we can say few good cities / states and other cities / states) that most of the population will try to migrate to these cities to make their dream come true. although i do not have the opinion that one should restrict these people, of course this is their country as well (in fact i'm a strong beiliver in one-earth, although that seems to be a dream thing). instead we all should try to improve all other cities /staets just to make them close to metros (or developed states). the govt. should make serious attempts in creating enough opportunities in such states. obviously one can't expect such changes in 2-3 yrs but at least some measures should be taken in that direction. this would help in several ways and the best is the country can grow as a whole rather than the growth being concentrated in selected few cities. also the NRI investment in real-estate could be one of the strong reasons for the prices to take a steep rise in the past 3-4 yrs.

there have been news about real estate market expecting a slow-down in around 2007. but i sincerely beilive that this will not happen at least next 2 yrs. only if the finance minister comes up with some stringent policy to discourage investment in real-estate, we can expect sudden drop in prices but that doesn't seem to be likely.

i have been thinking about investing in the real estate since last year but that time my capacity wasn't enough (rather it was too short) so i chose (did i have any other option ;) ) to wait. now that i can get reasonable amount of loan, i still can't afford to invest, as the prices have gone much higher than increase in the earning capacity. and i beilive if i don't make a move in the next few yrs, the gap might remain forever ;) just kidding. but yeah its always better to invest in real-estate as early as you can as the prices will keep on rising. very rarely we get to experience the downfall (last was in 95 if i'm not wrong).

well apart from all this, life is going pretty cool. i feel like i'm settled in symantec ;) its been 6 months already. so far so good and the future looks good as well :) having good time at work. started playing TT ocne again after long time. its great fun. its been long since i catched up on any latest movies. but would be going for spiderman -3 and Metro (im dying to see this one) hopefully it wont turn me down. the power shedding has reduced in mumbai. although recently pune has been experienceing power, water shortages. man ......... it's really sad. in a country like india and in cities like mumbai, pune there are power cuts for sevreal hours daily. well the issue deserves a seperate blog but probably some other time.

thats all for now.

-signing off
ameyas7

just another weekly journal ....

2007-04-15T11:10:00.000-07:00

wow again a months gap between two blogs :) am i getting really busy ;) ? or am i being lil lazy :)) ? or mebbe theres nothin much happening here.

again an end of another weekend. tom is (in fact its already) MONDAY. time is ticking out. days are passing by so fast. i cant beilive this month end i'll finish 6 months with symantec :)
past week was lil hectic. i missed my train (to pune) last monday ... i was at the (nahur) station on my usual time and i was waiting for a slow local to thane but man no train came for almost 15 minutess and by the time i reached mulund, intercity had crossed us already :( i was stunned for a moment. actually lotsa ppl missed the train that day, we could make out that when we reached thane but the worst part was i had the tickets for sabu and mehul, they had the printout but the identity was on my name ... fortunately they reached safe n sound :) luckily there was one more guy in my compartment who missed it as well. we had to take a bus to pune. he was working with IBM. we had a good time. but it took us around 4:30 hrs to reach n we touched down pune @ 12:30 pm. it was so damn tiring. i missed utkarsha (he usually takes us in his car but he had to go on sunday for some urgent work ... and luckily tom i'll be goin with him :) ) great way to start the week. the week as such was pretty good. i am now working on another product for some time. so have to sit late (till 9-10) for conf calls but this will be done only in the initial stage, 1-2 weeks later we'd be back to normal timings. hopefully this change turns out to be +ve for me. n i am quite looking forward for this. lets see.

Ashish (my Tech M friend and Abhishek's bro) is in town. he joined TIBCO recently and will move with us soon. Abhishek (my roomie) left for Singapore yday nite. i, ashish n abhishek watched Bheja Fry on thu night. it was a premeire show :) ... it was damn cool. AWESOME expressions by Vinay ... Ranvir has been given some weirdo look. he has done well but he cud have done gr8 with natural looks as well :) both are amazing actors. its such a low budget movie but is really cool. its been a longggggg time since i saw a good movie. while coming back as well i had tuf time. i reached here at 1:30 am :( missed my last train so had to take an auto from chembur till home.

sat was pretty cool. had fun with RC waghya sutlej maggy mita. we played uno @ waghya's place for a while then we went to some dhaba .... i usually dun eat non-veg so theres no Q of me enjoying dhabas ;) but others were enjoying it. i came back late night. sunday whole day i spent relaxing, watchin tv, sleep etc.
well thats it for this time.

- signing off
ameyas7

Pray For Me Brother ....

2007-03-11T12:14:00.000-07:00

in the past 2-3 days i have come across incidents which inspired this blog.
i'll particularly talk about the inequality in income distribution in india. of course there exists inequality in every part of the world but im jus puttin down what i saw.

i travel pune-mumbai every weekend. sometimes we come in Utkarsha's car, sometimes by volvo / train. this weekend we took the train and on our way back utkarsha bought some magnetic toy for his daughter. small kid arnd 10-12 years old was selling those items. out of curiousity utkarsha asked him that how much do you make by selling this. that fellow also innocently told us that he makes around 2-3 rs per piece and sales are around 15-20 pieces a day which comes to like 50-60 rs per day. and im sure there must be someone on top of him who might be eating the major share of profits (whatever that was). now thats really a meagre amount of daily earnings whereas everytime i come to mumbai my weekend expense (travel + entertainment) cross the weekly income of that fellow. i know its not a good comparison but the gap is just tooo high. i have seen ppl earning around 50k p.m. (well thats not my monthly income in case if you were thinking ;) .... just fairly common range for people around me with 3-4 yrs experience). utkarsha n i were just discussing how these people might be earning their living.

yesterday we had been to aamantraan (one of the good restraunts in mulund). we had gone there for wining n dining no occasion as such. actually my friend got his wife alongwith him so we had to choose a good quality family bar n rest. while we were having dinner some 10-12 kids walked in. all around 15-16 yrs old. each one had cell in hand alongwith some other flashy stuff. each one thought themselves as richie rich (lol i miss watching all the toons this wasnt my fav but used to watch it) it was someones b'day treat. we started discussin how we used to celebrate our bdays (if at al ;)). after the dinner we went to naturals (famous icecream parlour) and had icecream. swapnil called and he wanted to go to some dhaba (food joint especially for travellers / truck drivers etc.) we all went there ... me, RC, magrya and swapnil. i, RC and magrya were full, so we din have anythin much but swapnil ordered his food. these dhabas are very cheap but they make some of the tasty dishes. although i have never tried one as i hardly enjoy non-veg and i dont like unhygenic places (at least not anymore .... with an exception for pani puri places ;) ). we were having a gala time as we had met after long time. n while we were enjoying we just had a look around and it was majorly occupied with truck drivers n other ppl. again we touched upon the subject "how much these ppl must be earning on a daily basis" and especially considering the labour involved, long journeys that was hardly anything. but thats how it goes here. labour is dirt cheap here in india.
so the question arises is the difference in income distribution justified ? i understand that we are all educated people n we have earned our degrees n we do not fall into the labour category bla bla bla. but still from Rs 50k p.m. (again wasn't me ;) ) to Rs 1500 p.m. how can one justify that ? in fact at times i've felt that getting an education is also luxury for some people. we had a guy in our class who had to drop out after 12th due to family reasons and beilive me or not he was more talented than i was. but he had to take the correspondence route (for basic graduation) so that he could earn while he earns his degree.

we must admit that income inequality exists in every part of the world and prefectly equal distribution (if we can ever achieve it) would again be an injustice to life (thatswot i feel) but again the question arises "how much inequality is fair enuf?"

al that being said i wud say that these ppl are still far better off. recently i came across an NGO called wateraid(click here) which provides clean water to those who dont have an access to pure drinking water. these include africa and other parts of the world, some parts of india as well. this organization is dedicated to solving ppl's drinking water problems. clean drinking water is everyone's right but unfortunately its a luxury for some of them. its hard to beilieve but very true.

today i came across A R Rehman's new track "Pray for me Brother". he has shown his talent once again and came up with this album all by his own. this album supports a very nobel cause. He is a passionate supporter of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG's), which is a set of promises to end poverty around the globe, hunger and disease by 2015. Hope we all can contribute something towards it.
originally i had thought of "income inequality ... how much is fair enough?" as the title for this blog entry but the rehman's title perfectly fits there :) hope he wudn have any copyright issues else i'd have 2 say pray 4 me bro ;)

now to conclude:
well most of you will criticise that its easy to feel bad but what have you done about this?
i'd say that if you experience this 10 times, probably 11th time it'd result into some action. and then i'd still refrain from donating to beggars across the road as there the genuineness of the whole situation is questionnable. so better donate to NGOs if you ever feel like.
and i'd also not say that one should feel contended with what he/she has. that will stop you from growing. but rather try to share some % (however small that may be) of your growth with the society and you will make the whole society grow and then its only human to urge for more.

- signin off
ameyas7

time to get back to work....

2007-01-21T03:29:00.000-08:00

happy new yr to al of u al.
i know its been long since the new yr but better late than never
well i spent my new yr eve with ijoe, swati , ashwin n hari @ IIT campus. it was very unusual way to spend a new yr's eve but we had great fun. we all gathered @ ashwin's place. he lives in iit mumbai campus. after a while we had our dinner ... guess where .... @ IIT canteen n it was good :) then we just roamed around in the campus, visited the lake and took few snaps. smoe of them were orkut type ;) some were really good. then we visited some hostel roof-top where ppl were enjoying the new yr. we hanged around there for a while. unfortunately i had to resume office on 1st jan (we dint hav holiday on 1st :( ) so i left @ 2:30 AM others went to matheran (bike ride) to see the sunrise. i never thought they would make it till the top by the sunrise ;) but they got some proofs ... lol
then next week i had taken leave for my sis was here. we had blast. yash has grown up so fast :)
he is still sooo cute. we saw bhagam bhag ... no comments on the movie ;) we went go-karting, bowling ... in short had great weekend. then monday we visited my uncle's place.
on tuesday i was supposed to go back to pune. i had planned to come back on thursday n take off on friday but din work out well. so i cudn come back to see them off :( ... they went back on friday morning (dawn).
last weekend i saw guru with my parents. it is quite a good movie. it had to be... as ash was there ;) but i really din get if they were trying to show AB as good / bad. he just goes money money money all the time .... also in the end they have rushed up with the things. anyways it wasn't all that bad.
so all the fun time is about to get over and its time to put on the work pants ;)
next week we will be releasing the prototype of our product. but since we are on schedule so nothing much to worry about. so far soo goood.

well thats all for now. stay tuned for more.

- signing off
ameyas7

its a SONY ! .... my new year resolution (2048 x 1536)

2006-12-30T11:08:00.000-08:00

fnially i made up my mind and bought new SONY Ericsson K790i its one of the best camera phones that exist today. it was also featured in Casin Royale (that was special edition K800i though). it has got SONY Cybershot digital camera with 3.2 megapixel ... picture quality is awesome. you can view some samples on my flickr stream. it has got almost all the functions of a (basic) digital camera like auto focus, macro mode, scenes, stabilizer, panaroma, red eye reduction and blah blah blah .... best of all it has real xenon flash (unlike LED flash with many mobile cams). it also comes with BestPic feature whereby it takes around 9 shots in 1 second and then you can pick the best picture (moment) it is useful when the object is moving. you can even moblog (publish on blog) the pictures instantly.

it also has e-mail , RSS feeds , good quality web browser and PlayNow (whereby you can download the track information given a piece of track). i am not too mobile savvy so i really havnt configured GPRS or any net connetcion ... i can simply manage with the bluetooth. Both USB and bluetooth are of version 2 which means lesser transfer time. it also comes with EDGE. its always better to get as many features as you can ;)

the display is quite cool and stylish as well. it comes with very vibrant colors. looks like i can market this thing easily ;) (if i had to). But on the downside, the menu is not very user friendly i guess that goes for most of the SONY phones. also i had heard that the earlier models had problems with the joystick in the long run (i just hope this one doesn't have any :) ) i miss my nokia badly. this was one of the main reasons why i was not very keen on buying SONY phones. they should seriously consider putting some time designing user-friendly menus. Nokia rocks in that area. another thins is it can certainly play music but it doesn't belong to the walkman series (alas) ... i wish it did. the sound quality is not all that great. when you put on the speakers the voice really cracks ... the maximum volume level is also quite low. you really dont feel the vibe whatsoever. but then its not that bad either. and you get decent sound with the earphones plugged in.

the memory stick is again unique M2 micro which is not so common / popular. also the size is very less just 64MB (of course it is expandable) but when you see the camera in action, it RULES.

so it basically is a digital camera with phone ;)

and with 3.2 MP, my new year resolution is gonna be 2048 x 1536 ;)
happy clicking.

wish you all a very happy and a prosperous new year.

DISCLAIMER NOTICE:
all these are my personal opinions / experience about the product. reader's discrimination required. (i should reduce watching discovery shows ;) )

cheers
-ameyas7

its party time .........

2006-12-17T04:12:00.000-08:00

alright now ... yet another late entry.
we had our (SYMHUNGAMA - Symantec event) annual day last sat .... n guess wot EUPHORIA had come. CAN U BEAT THAT? of course i had to stay there on saturday (but yeah i caught the next bus to mumbai just as the show ended :D )
the party was really good. it reminded me of last year's BASH by the JOSH (Tech Mahindra group) and there was obvious comparison. The scale of JOSH was really very BIG but this party ROCKED.
talking @ euphoria ... i have loved the band since the maeri song. it was just too good and the concert experience was just awesome. actually it was more like a corporate show than a concert and obviously you wouldn expect headbanging there :) but still it was good to see them on stage. Those guys r just fulllllllll of energy especially the lead singer Dr. Palash Sen. i got to experience some of their best collections LIVE.

the last song had a wonderful shayari
marne ke baad bhi meri aakhe khuli rahi,
aadat padi hui thi inhe intezaar ki ....
jab se tumhe dil se bhulane ki kasam khayi hai,
aur pehle se bhi jyada teri yaad aayi hai

awesome ...isnt it :) i could go on and on with euphoria but it is something which can't be expressed and one should experience on his own.

on the work front, life is pretty good. i am currently working with active directory ( i had no clue of that before few weeks and now im getting the hang of it) but its kool :) have pretty much finalized on my acco in pune. so so far soo good.

me, parag, deepak and sheetal met yday @ The Hub ... co-incidently we met tameshwar who had also come there for shopping with his wife. vaishali , gauri n prachi gave kalti as usual ;)
me and parag have been buddies @ MET, Xoriant, Tech Mahindra. others are my Xoriant buddies. Sheetal is going to US for MS, hence we all had planned to meet up.

and last but not least, my sis is coming here on 28th Dec. so its gonna be the best time of the year. Unfortunately Ill be in pune most of the time but will be here on weekends and will try for 2-3 leaves as well :D lets see. Unfortunately I could not order my laptop :( it was late alredy. but never mind Yash (my nephew) s gonna be here again :D Am I in the state of EUPHORIA already ;) ?

- siging off
ameyas7

reincarnation ....

2006-11-11T22:01:00.000-08:00

hello there,

if you remember (and if you had noticed ;) ) i used to write "Java soul trapped into C++ body" in the about me section of my blogspot profile. well well now this soul is set free and found a new java life :D ... finally.

i did not quit Tech M only because i wanted to work on java. there were lot of other personal factors involved which obviously i'd not prefer disclosing in public blogs. otherwise i could have sticked with Tech M for couple of yrs more.

i have joined veritas (symantec) on 1st Nov. the work culture is just too good and so is the work. its a great opportunity to work on a project which is still at the requirements stage. so i get to experience the entire SDLC and with veritas (symantec) its like "sone pe suhaga" :) the technology is obviously java ;) ... so far sooo goood. also the company strength isn't as BIG as that of Tech M. i mean worldwide they might be having huge workforce but in my branch there are only around 300-400 employees. of course they have couple of offices in pune itself. but in Tech M the worldwide workforce might have been equal but in our branch we had around 1.5k-2k ppl. thts quite a number ... but yes working in an office with high # doesnt signify anything. and also it has its own disadvantages. you dont really get that much visibility. so everything has its own +/-

but i miss mumbai badly. yes, i had to move to pune. thankfully prashant (my ncst friend pashya no.1 ... i bet you figured it out the no. 1 thing ... lol ) came to the rescue and am staying in his apartment for a while :) living independently is also a good experience ( actually theres no choice ;) ) but mum-pune isnt al that far so ill be here almost every weekend or at least once in a fortnight. the only major problem with pune is local commute :) public transport is terrific in pune. i wonder howcome noone ever realized the need for improving it.

me, pashya and 1 of his friend had gone for dinner to celebrate my bday :)
also we had gone for team dinner on friday night.

well thats al from me. its been longgggg since i blogged last time. i was busy with all of these interviews and other things. and probably will be occupied for some more time until i settle down properly :) and then unfortunately i dont have a pc @ my home. (i cant imagine im living without net or even a PC :D ) but soon things will be back on track.
till then Adios, amigos

- ameyas7

happiness and you

2006-10-02T21:31:00.000-07:00

i happened to attend a meditation session 1-2 months back in our office (ye i have just too much of time @ my disposal ;) ) that guy casually mentioned that "happiness is dependent on efforts and expectations" (i do not really remember the exact sentence ... its been lil long n i was occupied with other personal stuff so these thoughts had taken a backseat for a while) and that was sufficient to ignite a spark for me. and after a lot of thinking i have related many things together ;) and come up with my own thoughts (in addition to his statement) :D

most of the times we associate happiness with tangible things / assets.
but two people with same set of assets are equally happy ? no .... why? coz lot of other factors play role.
the general level of happiness is dependent on the aggregate result of individual happiness achieved from various processes/actions.
at a lowest level of granualirity i.e. happiness from one particular act / process, is a complex function of efforts, expectations, outcome and last but not least personal objectives in life (these r the minimal factors and the list may not be exhaustive ;) )
where inputs = the value of inputs (time, efforts, money) that go into achieving something.
expectations = the minimum outcome that we expect from the process (this also determines the level of satisfaction)
outcome = the actual outcome of the process.
personal objectives = how the process/ actions have contributed towards the overall personal objectives of an individual.

ceteris paribus (all ther factors being equal .... my fav phrase from economics ;) this wud go in all of the definitions lol)
inputs: inputs show an inverse relationship with happiness. i.e. more the efforts lesser the happiness and vice-versa.
expectations: expectations also show an inverse relationship with happiness.
outcome: it shows a direct relationship.
meeting one's personal objectives: this also shows direct relationship.
the weights of these factors vary from person to person.

i used to argue with my friends that the so called upcoming stars who make crores of rupees overnight based on some soap (TV) contests and on general public (who really have no clue wot the contest is about ;)) votes mus be really lucky coz the people who were in the judges' place actually took years of hardwork to earn that much of $$$ , fame (some may not have earned so far) . i agree that even the contestants put in efforts some have actually been performing since their childhood ... i really appreciate their true talent but its's nowhere compared to the one who r judgin them and frankly speaking most of the times u'll see that the winner is decided based on the votes from general public (mob). Y is life so unfair ? but when i gave it a deep thought i realized that happiness is not only about $$ n fame for these (judges the real artist) ppl. in the process they have also contributed towards their personal objectives and i was ignoring that factor earlier. for a true artist its the joy of performing rather than expecting appreciation (fame, $$) from the public. also if u notice .... those who made it overnight are more or less lost in the crowd now and the newer upcoming stars have taken their place and it continues. so basically easy come, easy go.

out of all the factors, only inputs and expectations can be controlled by an individual rest are not predictable. so the point is try to concentrate on things which can be changed. that is what is mentioned in bhagwadgeeta "karmanyewa adhikaraste, ma phaleshu kadachanam" ( i aint really good at sanskrit so plz excuse any typos) i.e. do ur duty without expecting any outcome. so when you lower down your expectations that does not mean that your actions have no objective. end objective and expectations are totally different things.

sometimes u'll find that the inputs are high, outcome is not what we really expected (in short the process was a failure) but still the person might be happy coz in the process he has contributed towards his long term goals. this often happens with ppl involved in R&D, scientists, artists etc.

having said all this .... it is really very hard to put it in practice and will require some concious efforts (and you may alos feel that it will ruin the entire happiness .... lol) . but then with time it'll come easily. you will be surprised if i tell u that healthy breathing techniques also require concious attempts initially :)

most of u might feel we already know al this but its the joy of relating things, putting them together and sharing through blogs is what caused this action ;)

- ameyas7

kabhi alvida na kehna .... unleashed

2006-08-24T07:43:00.000-07:00

finally i saw the movie yday. i always wanted 2 see this 1 bcoz i knew it'd be something very different. i am neither KJ (karan johar) fan nor i enjoy his typical triangular series but this movie had a strong baseline. of course many ppl hated it for the story line itself.

well heres wot i have to say @ the movie.
i'd give plus to the theme. din bother much about anyone's acting. no1 has acted badly but not very good either. mr bachhan has been given the role of a weirdo ;) but he has performed quite well in that as well :D

the story revovles around 2 couples. both r goin thru emotional trauma and how they end up parting from each other n then moving on with life. well i'd not comment upon _THE_END_ of the story as its quite hard to put urself in any of those characters shoes (especially when u dun have the shoes :)) meaning when u rnt really married ;) ). the theme is nice but KJ has failed to portray it properly. u can understand why rani n abhishek , preity n srk depart but i din really get why rani n srk come together. it looks more like just falling in love with the person whos goin thru the same phase as urs. that can serve as a base for friendship but not love for sure. he cud've shown more convincing events to show them coming 2gether. mebbe he din have time ;) lol ... but he cud've cut upon all crap jokes n unwanted events. in short he has failed to portray rani n srk comin together. i found the movie just too complex.

(thankfully) it does not happen with every1 of us but yes its quite practical n very much possible, tho it falls under very very rare % of scenarios. n thtswot i liked @ the movie.
many of my friends hated this movie coz of the ending n they found this whole thing bigtime crap. but then there are as many opinions as # of people. sometimes ppl want to accept only all the good things but then in reality most of the harsh facts come in surprise packages.

again i'd not prefer to comment if their actions (divorce n then 2nd marriage) are acceptable (right) or not. i have no clue about how it might feel but i'd not blindly say that it was wrong.

ye ye i know it was just a movie n i shdnt be thinking soo much about it :p but then it happens not always tho ;)

signin off
-ameyas7

spirit / ashamed ?

2006-07-12T10:56:00.000-07:00

11 July, 2006 it was just another day in our life (till evening) . arnd 6:00 - 6:30 pm we were having penalty shootout (organised by JOSH group) contest in our office premises. we were practising (playing) football having gala time. we had no clue what had happened few miles away. few mins later we went up and came across the shocking news ... 2 blasts happened in mumbai .... 5 died. i did not take it much seriously as i didn't know if it was just a rumour coz every1 seemed to be normal few mins back. then we started browsing news sites n the number of blasts, victims went on rising from 2 to 7 ..... 8 blasts in a span of 11 mins time. yet another event shocked mumbai and the spot chosen was the lifeline of mumbai ... the railways. luckily every1 in my family was home n i had spoke 2 my dad just few mins ago so i was quite ok but was worried @ one of my college friend who stays @ meera-bhayander rd. area n also few of office pals whom i met @ 5:30 when they were swiping out. the blasts took place exactly an hour later which means they wud be in the nearby area. i tried calling them but all the lines were jammed.

finally i left for home @ 7:40 pm and reached home arnd 8:45 pm so luckily no hassles for me at all. kudos to the office bus :D its a royal luxury in such times ;) just kidding. after i reached home, i went online ... just like i do every other day :) lotsa msgs started popping up. few of my friends who wanted to reach their family back here in india but they cudn get thru so i was tryin for a while. but no luck till past 9 pm. being online is a good way to communicate especially when al the phone lines r enggaged / jammed. my sis had also called but i wasnt home then. one of my friend told me that all the friends who were expected to be nearby jogeshwari were safe at their relative's place. so a sigh of relief. next day i came to know that they were just a train behind the 1 that was blast. who can even think that a missed train can really make a difference of life n death but ask those who missed that train.

i was checking the news on TV .. lot of stills, videos, interviews .... ppl were blaming the police, RPF , govt ..... yes i agree that its but natural to react in this way but somehow i feel even they cudn't have done much of a difference. it was the local public who came to the rescue of these victims.

today i got loadssssssssssss of mails ... came across newspaper's headlines ..... mumbai back on track ... mumbaikar's spirit ...... ppl r resuming for work .. this n that ... lotsa celebrities gave their opinions about the SPIRIT ....... but if u think carefully its only people like you and me who didn't really suffer the tragedy went back on work just like any other day ... but will things be the same for those who actually suffered the tragedy... those who lost their loved ones those who suffered serious (permanent) injuries. will life ever be back to normal for them ? will compensation really help ?
yes of course i agree that they will come over it someday but its gonna take some time.
but when everyone else is talking about the spirit, i feel "we really dont have any other choice" we are just trying to hide the facts but hiding facts wont change the situation. its a real shame that such incidents are happening quite often. i seriously dont know why we treat failure of the system as spirit of mumbai ? its high time we should realize its the helplessness of the city rather than the spirit. i think we are getting used to such incidences ... we are ignoring severe incidents (like yday) under the tag of SPIRIT. "ab to aadat si hai mujhko .. aise jeene mein ....."

but during the news i also saw many volunteers forming a longggggggggg queue to donate blood to help the victims in every possible way .. many local students also gave shelter to needy ones in their hostels ... lots of food, water n basic necessities being distributed ... even the media (news channels, radio stations) acted as a messenger for needy ppl, they also gave out the good amount of info as to which victims have been admitted to which hospitals, their contact numbers etc ..... only these small fraction of people DESERVE the SPIRIT tag others were just being a part of the crowd. my hats off to that fraction of mumbaikars.

but despite all the trauma, the mess was cleared overnight and things were back on track (for u n me)

i hope someday the situation will improve and we can really show the true spirit of mumbaikars and stop being a part of crowd.

- ameyas7

what a header

2006-07-10T10:29:00.000-07:00

finally azzouri s made it. they were a good team but i am not sure if this entire worldcup was a fare game. just toooo many foul plays. its really depressing when u see worldclass players making all such false appeal, all sorta drama n even intentional injuries.

starting from quarter finals
argentina vs germany: first of all argentina's goal keeper got injured. franco came as a substitute. no doubt that germans were strong but u never know what twist the game wud've taken had the keeper been there :(

portugal vs england: portugal player c. ronaldo sets a trap for rooney n rooney's out. beckham gets injured. 10 vs 11 still england made it to penalty shoot-outs but were not fortunate enough to make through.

brazil vs france: zizou shows gives a cross to henry (amazin pass n well collected by henry) it had to be a GOAL n it was. brazillians had all the stars but their main problem is they lack co-ordination n their defense is _POOR_ there was no1 to cover henry when he scored against the brazil. how cud they make such a big mistake. but they din have that golden touch throughout the tournament. Ronaldo must retire now. Ronaldiniho has great skills but he cudn't make a way for his team. although i must agree that brazil was the only team which truly showed sportsmanship under any circumstances.

italy vs ukraine was a good match though.

semis
germany vs italy: it was tuff1 n both the teams were strong enough but azzouris scored 2-0 in the last few mins of extra time. n it was good1.

portugal vs frrance: i thought it'd b piece of cake for french to get portugese down. but they were equally good. or mebbe the french wanted to keep themselves away from the rowdi game from portugese lol.

n then the grand finale
azzouris vs france: the most disappointing match in many ways. french were given a penalty in first few mins of the game. frankly speaking it wasn't a foul. but zizou took then shot n it had to be GOAL. later on Materazzi scored on french. that was real good1 ... i must agree. then there were cuple of misses. Zizou made a superb header but Buffon saved it. both were too good.
n then few mins later Zizou gives a headbutt to Materazzi n he was given a red card. every1 knew by that time that the game was over for french.
it was pretty much irresponsible from Zizou. especially considering
1) it was his last match of his outstanding career
2) captain is supposed be more responsible. he shd be the last 1 to jump off the boat should the boat drown.
3) it was worldcup finals. the stakes were toooo high for something stupid like that.

but he's a good guy n im sure if Zizou has done it, there must be something serious that happened between those two n no1 knows it yet. i'm still waiting to listen to his side of the story. i just cant take that he made such an irresponsible act for no reason. but then if one thinks rationally, no matter what the reason he shouldn have done it n red card was pretty obvious.

it is the talk of the town n every1 s sayin that it was a major blunder on his part but we fail to understand what went through his mind. he was under tremendous pressure. score 1-1, worldcup finals, his last match of the career, missed header, Henry was out(substituted) , the pressure to win the match n Materazzi incident simply added sparks to cause the explosion.
but i still doubt if it was a burnout from the match pressure. Zizou can deal with such a situation with a very cool head. so only he n Materazzi can explain what went wrong. but even after all this noone can deny his talent. he was simply a one-man army.

overall it was entirely messed up worldcup 2006. but good entertainment for last one month.

n on the tennis front Roger Federer wins the wimbledon title. this guy gets better n better every match. kudos to him.

- ameyas7

life i$ calling where r u .....

2006-06-30T22:29:00.000-07:00

boy'o'boy. What a comeback ! Going against Gravity ;)

30th June 2006, somewhere deep within I had the intuitions @ good things coming my way.
first I could catch the company bus on time (lol this is also one of the rare phenomenon ;) jus kiddin) but lotsa good things happening since last week. looks like life has taken a U turn.

well this graph is @ NSE index.... hehehe, no no I haven't invested all my savings in stock n I don't _solely_ depend on it ;)
but (the myth:) somehow I have seen the NSE index n the graph of my life go hand-in-hand (the fact: just couple of coincidences but in short period) so if you need a foreword @ nse index consult me @ the happenings in my life .... hahahaha

also got an opportunity to work on TIBCO Businesswork. we are migrating from TIBCO IM to Businessworks. I always wanted to be part of this but was not till yday :)

such a perfect way to end the week/month. Wow I can hear some $$$$ sound in my bank ;)
ye got all arrears n my first sal after the raise :D

12 days to go b4 Piyush (1 of my best friend) lands here :) the countdown begins. he'll b in pune though, we'll meet on weekends prob.

worldcup is getting better n better every day. unfortunately argentina is out :( They are great players. I liked them because of their teamwork n selflessness. Its like no1 is a star but at the same time every1 is :) other teams majorly depend on their star players. I feel pity @ the star players when others fail to support them :) and thats where argentina had the plus side. Nonetheless all the penalties (by germans) were on target. It was a damn good match.
Well if you have missed the action, you can watch all the goals scored so far in the FIFA Worldcup 2006 here

last but not the least .... rains have started to pour in n looks like we'll get some holidays this year as well. it happens only in india ;) ... lol

signing off
- ameyas7

life is a rOLLerCOAster ......

2006-06-28T11:32:00.000-07:00

at last some good times in my life. got my first raise :) it feels good however sad increment might be lol :D

i had been to dapoli last sat sun with ncst friends ... it was amazing experience .... we had BLAST.
well that is pretty much clear from the flickr stream "dapoli_apnasistgang" tag.

we were 10 of us (ijoe, cjoe, me, deepak, ketan, rashna, sanju, puja, poonam, megha) . we had hired 1 qualis n cjoe got his car. we had planned to leave at 6:30 am but we started off late as usual @ arnd 8 am n the latecomers were none other than me ijoe n cjoe.
we enjoyed the journey as well. we took few wrong turns, paid tolls in wrong places :)) but we enjoyed every single moment of the picnic. all the married couples, deepak and spinsters were in qualis n myself ijoe n cjoe were in alto (cjoe's car). we used to stop almost anywhere we felt like. after few stops the qualis people gave up waiting on us :)) we also visited some cave like structure on the way where we enjoyed a small treck. finally we reached dapoli at around 2:30- 3 pm. had our lunch, took some rest and then we left for murud beach. the water was bit mirky there. but still we had fun. then after some photo session we came back to our hotel (actually it was a bunglow). unfortunately those who arrived first didn't have the keys so they had to perform some stunt, like entering through the window and then opening the backdoor for others to get in :))

after that everyone took a shower n then there was wining n dining program ;)
after the dinner we played cards for a while n then 4 of us (ijoe cjoe me n deepk) went for a nightwalk n we were roaming around till 1 am we also shot some snaps, tried to capture all ghostly images ;) we could have roam around whole night but ijoe didn't want to miss argentina's match so we came back
next day we had planned to visit kelshi beach which was supposed to have white sand. we planned to leave early morning but could not get up till 8 am ... then we did some creative photo sessions n finally we left the place after taking the breakfast at around 10 am. after longgggggggg 2-3 hrs of journey we reached kelshi n there was no white sand at all in fact there was no sand at all .... hardly any. also the water was total give up so we decided to return to the base. of course i was the 1 to blame ;) so they even tried to put me into that dirty water ;) but im da superman. 1 vs 4 :)) but still they cudn succeed :D

while coming back we found one more beach which was much cleaner n was really good. so we took a halt and statred playing there ..... the beach was lil risky so we din go much deep. but even the knee-deep water was having great force to bring us down. but we had fun ..... in fact that was the best time we enoyed during the picnic. after some time we left as we were gettin late and wanted to avoid the night travel. we took another halt on the way on other beach .... actually we got down to enjoy the rains but there was a beach nearby but other gangmembers controlled us not to enter the beach again as they knew it'd take arnd an hour to get out of there :)) but rains n beach is an awesome combination :) though some people dun like the idea, i'd say "try it to beilive it"

finally we reached our place at 3 pm we had quick lunch (i was the last 1 to get up as usual ;) )
we left dapoli at 4 pm and started our journey to home.
on da way we took a halt at some waterfall, took few snaps. all the alto ppl became Himesh Reshmia's fan as every 2nd song on the radio was by him. we also took a snap in his pose ;)
in short it was the best picnic ever for me. i'm sure it holds for others as well :) yes we missed all those who cudn make it (prashant, swati, priya, dheeraj, sagar, devu, vikram n their respective soulmates ;) ), they better not give any excuses for next event.

the climate was awesome there. the clouds, grass , flowers, everything was so colorful and beautiful. in dapoli u'll feel like its hill station but at the same time u can enjoy the sea-shore.
and yes still i haven't seen dabhol power plant, the white sand beach and the doplhins yet. these are sufficient reasons to make a 3rd visit there ;)

all the credit goes to poonam for organising things in such a short time n of course the credit for idea goes to me ;)

3 cheers to dapoli n the apnasistgang.

-ameyas7

time is money ....

2006-06-21T08:59:00.000-07:00

this is what we learn since our childhood but i have realised time is much more than money
money once spent can always be earned back but time spent is gone forever and will never come back.
the worst part is most of the times people (including me) realise it only when it is too late and unfortunately the history repeats itself over and over.
so stop wasting time coz every single moment is important. your future relies on how you act now.
well these are very simple things in life and we all are very much aware of it but ever wondered why we always overlook it.

- ameyas7

watching the sun go down ....

2006-06-17T01:38:00.000-07:00

as i write this, i recall the first line of my last blog entry ... i've got the answer..... do i need to say anything anymore.....

well this week was going good initially but things got screwed in the later part. somehow i had strong feelings that things were goin wrong but was just waiting to see it come true ... did i really have any choice ?

its similar to watching the sun go down. in your life you'll come across many situations where you will feel the pain of watching things coming to an end.... but when there's sunset on this side there's a sunrise on the other and always remember that the sun will rise once again ..... and thats wot life is all about ... welcome to the real world.
but then there are also eclipse like conditions which are more temporary in nature.... was it an eclipse or a sunset ? .... only time will tell my friend.
wow such a creative pain im going thru :)

yes finally i got my (right thumb) nail removed .... it was painful .... but as the new 1 was coming had 2 get rid of this ..... for those of who didn't know ... it was hurt arnd 1.5 mnths back in some stupid accident and got worse over time.

agar nail tuta to itna dard, socho agar dil tute to kya ho ;)

- ameyas7

crisis time

2006-06-10T08:28:00.000-07:00

cud it get ne worse than this? but hope this phase wont last long.

the only good thing this week was i saw fanna. cudnt wait nemore 2 see that :)
its a good movie. the end sux cud've been much better..... but otherwise everythin (the shayari, songs, dialogues, kajol all r damn good). aamir looks pretty old now but still he has acted well (as usual).

another gud news was piyush (1 of my best buddy since school) is comin next mnth on a business tour. tho he'll b in pune ... we will have blast (every weekend :D )

stock crisis still continues altho sensex went up on friday but i dun think it will continue 4 long monday noon or max by COB monday it shd again come down.

on da work front: not much of work nowadays .... lil relaxed.

worldcup fever has begun n the germany - CRC was a gud start.

-ameyas7

its raining men .....

2006-06-02T11:21:00.000-07:00

yet another week endz.
highs-lows still continue in almost everything :)

the rain has started to pour in. every1 is hoping that the last year tragedy does not repeat. but unfortunately things do not look really good as of now.
but nonetheless i (we al) luv rainy season than any other season. especially i luv 2 visit sea shore during rainy season. its an amazing experience. (even if u have no company .... lol :p)

had stuck up with some problem @ work. quite an interesting piece of work. it was on TIBCO. needed some form of communication between jvms. the problem was solved with some other approach but while hunting i found some cool stuff JBossCache for distributed cache across jvms. altho it was not approved for other issues but it really is cool thing.

we had small party 2de for sooraj's bday n farewell to raksha (colleagues @ work). shes leavin for b'lore tom. poornima left last week n raksha will follow her wherever she goes ;) thtswot best buddies r al @ :D

last week alonso made it to the podium 1st place @ monaco .... kimi cudn make it till end. his engine smoked up b4 finish. but it was a good race tho. monaco is known 4 challenges.

saw beyond tomorrow on discovery jus now .... they were showing Bionic Limbs for disabled. one of the gr8 inventions. then there were few more inventions n lastly self-chilling beer can :)
wot a perfect way 2 end the week ;) jus after this show there was a show on psychic helping detectives to solve criminal cases. beyond tomorrow back to back with psychic show ... pretty much contradictory stuff in 1 hr. :) thts wot i enjoy .... exploring extremes.

waiting for some football action ..... n of course appraisal :D

cheers
- ameyas7

ATTITUDE

2006-05-29T11:47:00.000-07:00

well attitude is a misapprehended term. many ppl consider having an attitude is a bad sign while in reality we all have attitude.

Attitude: A complex mental state involving beliefs and feelings and values and dispositions to act in certain ways.

so u alwayz beilieved there are two types of attitude positive and negative.
positive: those who assume or shud i say hope everything will be smooth and jus keep going against all odds to achieve their goal.
negative: those who lack self-belief and simply quit even when they have the potential.

well that does not mean you show the same attitude in everything. how you deal with things is also subject to other factors including your past experiences. but more or less people tend to be on one side of the court most of the times.

if you observe people carefully you will find another type and im one of them
it really works [for me at least]

conservative: blend of both positive, negative ... just pick the best of both worlds. give ur best but be prepared for the worst and most of the times u'd achieve more than wot u'd if you were only +ve .

if you stick to positive you run into a risk of overconfidence whereas being negative doesnt help either. so getting the balance is the key.

so if you ever thought i have -ve attitude, the secret is now unveiled ;)

- ameyas7

patience pays

2006-05-22T10:43:00.000-07:00

this looks like an abyss or even cardiograph :)
ye almost every1 skipped their beat today when the sensex came crashing and the circuit breaker was applied. no1 was even sure if it'd continue, looked like the recovery would take months. but after an hour or two market opened again and fortunately showed some signs of recovery. hopefully things would be back on track by this weekend. this is the best time to invest (trust me if u have the $, this is the best time to pour in, u'll get returns like nething if u ride the wave now)
if u r still under loss (like me) jus hang in there for a while. afterall patience pays.

- ameyas7

absolute introvert

2006-05-20T23:33:00.000-07:00

WARNING: If you get drowned in this blog , you will need to devote considerable amount of time to go thru it. so if u r not free (like me) at the moment, bookmark this n go thru it later.

came across an interesting article on introverts n realized this is sooooo me :)
on googling landed up with detailed info on
1) myers-briggs theory on personality types
2) introverts personality traits.
Also went through this link for types of personalities (same stuff actually but have some short tests here 2 identify ur type). on taking the test, my type was INTp
If you want to know more about my personality type ( click here ) this is a must read.
if u've ever wondered why i never hav a smiling face for the camera (most of the times i have to try, even tho i have a smilin face otherwise ;) ) go throuh this article.

only 25% of ppl r introverts. feel good @ it :p i've never enojyed crowd neways ;) lol
introverts reacharge themselves they receive energy from within rather than from the outside world. <web-extract > They can't get lost in the energy of the crowd the way extroverts do but keep a strong sense of self that often makes them feel highly self conscious. But with a strong sense of self, introverts are not easily swayed by others' opinions. </web-extract >

if you know me for more than 4-5 yrs. u'd certainly agree with me(being an introvert). introvert is not the one who has no friends or no1 to talk to but its lot beyond that. there are "social introverts" i ain giving u links on this :p (not spoonfeeding ;) go google urself. so even if u find me jabbin all da time, deep down im really an introvert. note that introvert is not same as stage fear or being isolated all da time.

as most of u know i do not enjoy reading books (except technical) but yes i've always preferred reading artciles, columns. they r short n sweet. mostly scientific, realted to humans (absolutely nething n everything @ humans right from human body to mind,soul etc.), scoail issues and technical as well. i've enjoyed watchin discovery shows than movies. i prefer reality over fiction, well fiction does not include beyond2000 shows on discovery ;) hahaha.

about me, wot u see on the surface is completely different view than wots deep down. its like an ocean of emotions ... on the surface u might find me as calm n quiet (emotionally) but deep inside there r changes, erruptions happening constantly. dun try pushin me beyond my limits or else u'll get tsunami :))

well this is all what i've to say. go thru the links, take tests, let me know wot ur type is. beilive me its a gr8 feelin to discover thyself.

signin off
-ameyas7

not such a good week(end)

2006-05-20T12:22:00.000-07:00

its been a pretty hectic week. work pressures plus suffered financial losses in stock :( going thru bad times (or shd i say correction factor) .... i've alwayz been pro-globalization but sometimes it can b painful :) the market is goin absolute haywire. actually this is a good time 2 make investment but im broke now ;) got no more fundz 2 put in for stock
neways need 2 hang in there for some time (no other choice lol)

the reservation issue is getting lot of rage here. it was bad 2 see all medical students been hit badly by police. i wish 2 see reservation-free india the whole concept has no base. heres a nice article on indian reservations (link shared by rishikeshshetty, ncst pal) lot of demonstrations/protests against reservation issue by students/professionals. why cant we simply stop using castes, afterall its only a man-made attribute. instead of providing reservations, govt shd provide scholarships/financial aid etc. ye ye every1 knows that but can (are) we really do(ing) something about it? i guess we all want to do something about it to change it but dont know wot to do. stay updated @ news on reservation issue here n chk out wots happenin in ur town n do participate if u can. i do not beilive in online petitions. the whole concept is meaningless. coz 1 person can put entry as many times as he/she desires to. so it doesn make ne point.

have to go to office tom eve for production work. working on sundayz is BAD except for pizza party ;) but then its only for 3-4 hours so not that bad. so overall not a good week n weekend as well.

-ameyas7

Changing Minds....

2006-05-17T11:37:00.000-07:00

have u ever been criticised to change your opinions/views on certain things ?
well i belong to the "changing minds" category. and why not. what is wrong with reviewing your own views. most of the times our views are based on certain premise. but as time passes n facts emerge, one must revise his/her views. many ppl would relate maturity with CONSTANT/STABLE views. i'd rather say its only human to change n adapt to the changes.
in fact i beilive that it is one of the best things about humans. this reminds me of couple of shows/seminars on machine learning systems. earlier machines were built with some programmed chip which would simply do the routine job. but great amount of effort has already been put in building systems which would rather self-learn its job. people are trying to build machines/systems which will mature over time by learning the facts.
lets not get more into it.
but i have seen ppl would hesitate to accept that their views being different than what it was earlier. i simply fail to understand why. if you have strong reason/base jus go ahead with the change.
so the bottom line is constant review of your views will lead to mature views.
have u reviewed ur views 2de? (nice tagline ;) hahaha)

Getting Philosophical

2006-05-14T09:11:00.000-07:00

was just thinking about atul chitnis's session on how size and distance are related. he showed a simple example to illustrate that many factors contribute towards the effectiveness/usefulness of a thing. n u cant ignore any of them. he simply asked us if the clock on the wall was bigger than your wristwatch. well if u compare them side by side the wall-clock is much bigger in size but when the wall clock is hung on the wall, its prob at a much longer distance than ur wristwatch n thus u'll find wristwatch 2 b more effective.
well theres not much of a connection of his statement with what i've concluded :)) as he was simply talkin about mobile computing and its problems. but somehow i've landed with the following thoughts.
when u r actually going through problems, you will always feel that this is the biggest problem but few yrs down the line the same problem will appear to be really small. so basically as u travel the distance in time, even the biggest problem then, will appear to be the tiniest. the point is always try to have a birds eye view when u r dealing with any problem and soon u'll realise dealing with any problem is no problem at all.

-ameyas7

Yahoo! mail beta

2006-05-14T01:12:00.000-07:00

got yahoo mail beta invite few days back. n it rox.so live mail is in. got gmail, hotmail (windoz live), Y! mail all r into live clients.

every1 luvs gmail. somehow i dun use it as much as yahoo or hotmail but their concept is unbeatable. but im stil attached 2 Y! mail.

windoz live mail is good as well but kinda buggy as of now. i have to open my box 2-3 times (encountered quite often) in order to get in. not sure if this is bcoz of my resoultion size. also many a times it hangs after attaching the file. it sux coz uve already waited for it 2 attach the doc n then u have 2 close it down.

yahoo mail beta rox in its own way. pretty smooth n classy in style (as always) it looks stunning and when u open the mail, it opens it as a new tab rather than jus opening in ur inbox. so u can switch back n forth between mails/box. u have to use it to beilive it. so far no bugs with Y! beta. nice mailing experience. need 2 explore more.

- ameyas7

Barcamp Mumbai

2006-05-13T22:46:00.000-07:00

heya folks,

Barcamp: bunch of geeks, gadgets, samosas, WiFi connection, tea, coffee and geek talks put together and best of all it is free.

i attended barcamp mumbai today. it was gr8 to see all geeky (tho im not1 yet) ppl / stuff in town in action. well thanks to vinayak (vincrazy http://vinayakh.livejournal.com/ ) for sharing the info. the session started with sms based applications ... it was good 1 .. tho nothing gr8, idea was simple yet cool. then there were talks on AJAX , RIA (sounds like some babe ;) ) but stands for Rich (sexy) :)) Internet Applications jus like ur yahoo beta mail, windoz live mail etc. got a chance to get an overview on open laszlo, flex. talkin @ flex one of my ncst friend rishikesh (tho we havent yet met so far :) jus yahoo pals) is working on flex development team with adobe. flex is the adobe's coolest product for developing RIA solutions.

barcamp is not only about techy stuff but there were few generic / non techie talks as well. there were kaustubh and shreyas (founders of infinity radio). they rocked the show :D well they actually du that everyday so nothin gr8 for them ... hahaha ... they run an online streaming radio which streams "virgin" indian (independent) music rock / folk / heavy metal / devotional nethin n everything. YOU VE GOT TO CHECK THIS OUT NOW! http://infinityradio.info/ basically they are making an attempt to provide a platform to the bands who have the potential. and the entire hosting expenses go str8 from their pockets as of now. 3 cheers 2 em.

then there were some techie talks on LISP emacs hackin n few others. we also had a session on WEB 2.0 (i am still not clear with the scope of web 2.0 apps :)) ) then we saw some cool gadgets , apps. there was also a session on hosting pictures on your own websites rather than using flickr or other hosting services. ( by Tariq http://www.tariquesani.net ) Atul ( http://atulchitnis.com/ ) gave a session on mobile computing. it was also quite good n interesting.

you can expect some flickr action at this tag http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/barcampmumbai/well overall it was a good camp. though it wasnt like other conceptual seminars @ IIT but it was more of sharing knowledge, more on technical side. and then chai , snax n lunch were good as well :D also got wikipedia webpack dvd by webaroo.

last but not the least saw kororaa linux distro which can actually let u revolve (ye u heard it correctly "revolving desktop" XGL graphics http://www.tuxmachines.org/node/5476 ) ur desktop in all 4 faces ( as if it was cube) it was way too cool, also u cud set transparency n some other eyecandy stuff. i kno i kno sun's glass will offer lot more but it was gr8 to see this in live.

so well thts all @ barcampmumbai'06

me signin off for now
ameyas7

My first blog on blogger.com

2006-05-13T13:10:00.000-07:00

heya ppl,

well well this is my first blog here. i do blog on yahoo 360 though not frequently but have couple of blogs there. from now on ill replicate all my blogs on here as well :)
for my earlier blogs n more info check http://360.yahoo.com/ameyas7

cheers
ameyas7