I am shifting my regular blogging location from Blogger to wordpress. The new blogs' address is http://sriyansa.wordpress.com. Wordpress does not yet have the template manipulation capabilities of blogger, but it gives a lot of other functionality - categories, creation and hosting of pages outside of the normal blog, better support from Flock.
I hope the things that I need most viz. template manipulation and the addition of categories from Flock come sooner than later.
Friday, November 25, 2005
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Some things which caught my eye ...
For some time I had been hearing that Ojos Inc. was upto something big. Early this month, it came to my notice they had finally got the alpha of their first product Riya out in the market. And after a very very long time, I was truely astounded by a product. Mind blown, eyes popping out astounded. Nothing less. Since then have been putting off this post, so that I can write about the first hand experience with Riya; but the beta user thing is taking much more time than I had expected. The really great thing about this product is that these guys are not running around catching the latest wave of tagging, web 2.0 etc though they are all that. From the looks of it they have a solid technology behind their product, something that cannot be replicated so easily. Really cool. Their CEO, Munjal Shah, blogs about his experience with Riya here.
Two more of the the so called web 2.0 generation products caught my fancy as well. Library Thing, is your online book catalogue while TagWorld looks like an aggregation of Flickr, Blogger, del.ici.ous and Orkut.
The former clearly appealed to me because I have rapidly growing book collection and my Excel sheet, though adequate for now, leaves a lot to be desired. The other day a friend of mine wanted my book collection list to borrow some stuff and we ended up emailing three-four copies of the same file between. Having an experience like the one above, it can be understood, why some people think that the desktop, email, files metaphor is now truely groaning. As for the product itself it pretty clean and simple to use with some cool features. Tagging is simple. The upload UI however constrained also is easy to use. Syndicating of one's catalogue using RSS is default behaviour, which I thought was really nice. The initial uploading of the book data is painful. Even the upload tool they provide, "Swiss Army Knife" of file imports, shreds out only the ISBNs and adds them to one's library. Hard luck for people like me, for whom books means the title and the author. Plus the free service has space for 200 books. Heck even I have 200 books and that too from the last 2.5 years. Also the search is fairly comprehensive - search on books, tags or persons are allowed. I guess these guys are looking to become some kind of a Flickr of books thing.
TagWorld - your one stop web destination. I can almost see their tagline. They have got in a host of features allowing them to compete with Flickr, del.ici.ous and Blogger/Livejournal at the same time. The best feature I found here, after some hunting around is that one can upload files into ones account. True, can mail them to one's Gmail account and get the same functionality but this feature gives a hint that these guys are thinking big. Beyond the standard, cool yuppie, blogging site. But low marks in UI design of the pages (the ad palcement is pathetic... I know I am getting the service free, but still) and the general user experience. It took me 4-5 iterations to hunt around for a way to search for people. And they claim to tap into the social networking aspect of business.
Also in case one is interested in looking out for more such products, make sure you visit TechCruch.
Two more of the the so called web 2.0 generation products caught my fancy as well. Library Thing, is your online book catalogue while TagWorld looks like an aggregation of Flickr, Blogger, del.ici.ous and Orkut.
The former clearly appealed to me because I have rapidly growing book collection and my Excel sheet, though adequate for now, leaves a lot to be desired. The other day a friend of mine wanted my book collection list to borrow some stuff and we ended up emailing three-four copies of the same file between. Having an experience like the one above, it can be understood, why some people think that the desktop, email, files metaphor is now truely groaning. As for the product itself it pretty clean and simple to use with some cool features. Tagging is simple. The upload UI however constrained also is easy to use. Syndicating of one's catalogue using RSS is default behaviour, which I thought was really nice. The initial uploading of the book data is painful. Even the upload tool they provide, "Swiss Army Knife" of file imports, shreds out only the ISBNs and adds them to one's library. Hard luck for people like me, for whom books means the title and the author. Plus the free service has space for 200 books. Heck even I have 200 books and that too from the last 2.5 years. Also the search is fairly comprehensive - search on books, tags or persons are allowed. I guess these guys are looking to become some kind of a Flickr of books thing.
TagWorld - your one stop web destination. I can almost see their tagline. They have got in a host of features allowing them to compete with Flickr, del.ici.ous and Blogger/Livejournal at the same time. The best feature I found here, after some hunting around is that one can upload files into ones account. True, can mail them to one's Gmail account and get the same functionality but this feature gives a hint that these guys are thinking big. Beyond the standard, cool yuppie, blogging site. But low marks in UI design of the pages (the ad palcement is pathetic... I know I am getting the service free, but still) and the general user experience. It took me 4-5 iterations to hunt around for a way to search for people. And they claim to tap into the social networking aspect of business.
Also in case one is interested in looking out for more such products, make sure you visit TechCruch.
Sunday, November 13, 2005
England beat Argentina :(
I like Argentinian way of playing football. Puritans may favour the quick passing game of Dutch while connosieurs of footballing beauty may prefer the Brazilian Samba. But none these sides present to a viewer the flexibility that Argentina offers. Their play is different against each team, moulding itself to exploit the weaknesses of their opponents. You will find them playing the quick passing game against an onerous defensive rival like Italy and yet switch to more catenaccio style of play relying on counterattacks, against a flashier opponent like Brazil. And the fact remains that most of the times they end up playing good football.
Sad then they lost against an England team. It was a friendly ... but then who ever wants to lose?
Sad then they lost against an England team. It was a friendly ... but then who ever wants to lose?
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Web 2.0, X Internet and all that Jazz
What exactly is Web 2.0? Tim O' Reilly defines it here. What then is X Internet? Forrester Research's G.F. Colony defines this here. Both of the above terms, especially the former, seem to be in vogue today and with almost no one very sure of what these mean. No wonder then that Joel Spolsky is slightly skeptical.
However, the fact that there is something afoot is hard to argue against. We are seeing a deluge of ideas today on how applications are to be built. WWW as a platform. Syndicate. Share. Tag. Rich User Experiences. Thin Clients. Quick release cycles. Products as services. Web 2.0 is more or less an overarching term that encapsulates these ideas. This ambiguous and pliable definition, is probably one reason why there are many who pose as Web 2.0 applications. The desired end product is however the same. Simple workflows for the user. And this goal is not new.
What then is new?
User expectations for one. The user today is not satisfied with static content from the web. He wants the content he sees to be dynamic as per his needs. If he wants stock quotes at the top of his website so be it. And if he is barely interested in the NY Times best seller list, they should not even occupy an inch of the precious screen real estate. He wants information painlessly and fast. The burgeoning expectations have in turn forced the major players to forget the old product management cycles, while focusing on quicker releases and frequent but painless updates. They have also forced them to think what the user really needs rather than what they think is good for the user.
And second, certain disruptive technologies [AJAX, RSS etc]. AJAX has shown that the richness of the desktop applications can be achieved with web applications also. RSS and Atom standards have made syndicating data [both in and out] relatively painless. Windows Vista will have RSS integration built into the OS itself, allowing application developers to use the incoming data in a myriad of ways we probably cannot dream about. But the best thing is that RSS today seems to be becoming a standard in which a considerable number of major players are investing in (except Google).
It is with this background that one has to see Microsoft's unveiling of their new live.com service. At the outset, one would be lulled into believing that this is just a clone of another Microsoft site start.com. In fact, the later is much better site with support for Firefox also present. The new site is half baked - not very stable. But it seems Microsoft is finally entering the world where Google seemed to be the only player. And a brief tour of what the Live service will offer in future will leave no pretensions about the scope of this endeavor or the fact that MS is entering the space in a big way. (That the half baked release might come back to bite them, as Joel here says, is a completely different matter.)
These steps are however small steps in the grand dream of finally allowing the user to have everything as a service rather than handing him the entire product in one shot. Everything in this world should be rentable, and more so those things whose frequency of change is high - like software. How it happens can yet be conjectured? Will the browser be the new OS? Or will desktop apps make a comeback? But the end result is can probably be taken for granted.
However, the fact that there is something afoot is hard to argue against. We are seeing a deluge of ideas today on how applications are to be built. WWW as a platform. Syndicate. Share. Tag. Rich User Experiences. Thin Clients. Quick release cycles. Products as services. Web 2.0 is more or less an overarching term that encapsulates these ideas. This ambiguous and pliable definition, is probably one reason why there are many who pose as Web 2.0 applications. The desired end product is however the same. Simple workflows for the user. And this goal is not new.
What then is new?
User expectations for one. The user today is not satisfied with static content from the web. He wants the content he sees to be dynamic as per his needs. If he wants stock quotes at the top of his website so be it. And if he is barely interested in the NY Times best seller list, they should not even occupy an inch of the precious screen real estate. He wants information painlessly and fast. The burgeoning expectations have in turn forced the major players to forget the old product management cycles, while focusing on quicker releases and frequent but painless updates. They have also forced them to think what the user really needs rather than what they think is good for the user.
And second, certain disruptive technologies [AJAX, RSS etc]. AJAX has shown that the richness of the desktop applications can be achieved with web applications also. RSS and Atom standards have made syndicating data [both in and out] relatively painless. Windows Vista will have RSS integration built into the OS itself, allowing application developers to use the incoming data in a myriad of ways we probably cannot dream about. But the best thing is that RSS today seems to be becoming a standard in which a considerable number of major players are investing in (except Google).
It is with this background that one has to see Microsoft's unveiling of their new live.com service. At the outset, one would be lulled into believing that this is just a clone of another Microsoft site start.com. In fact, the later is much better site with support for Firefox also present. The new site is half baked - not very stable. But it seems Microsoft is finally entering the world where Google seemed to be the only player. And a brief tour of what the Live service will offer in future will leave no pretensions about the scope of this endeavor or the fact that MS is entering the space in a big way. (That the half baked release might come back to bite them, as Joel here says, is a completely different matter.)
These steps are however small steps in the grand dream of finally allowing the user to have everything as a service rather than handing him the entire product in one shot. Everything in this world should be rentable, and more so those things whose frequency of change is high - like software. How it happens can yet be conjectured? Will the browser be the new OS? Or will desktop apps make a comeback? But the end result is can probably be taken for granted.
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Books in the past few months
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy - A true classic. Anything more than this and less than a book will not do justice to this tale.
Embers by Sandor Marai - Two old men talk throughout the night, reminiscing about and recreating that fateful day which destroyed the marriage of one, the love of another and the bonds of friendship between them.
Arabian Nights and Days by Naguib Mafouz - Mafouz at his best. His prose, lyrical and magical, seduces the reader into a world of Djinns and Sultans which stays with him long after the book is finished.
Ports of Call by Amin Malouf - From the French resistance to the shimmering cauldron called Beirut, Maalouf chronicles this love story with an empathy and poignancy that is altogether ethereal.
The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami - Out of the world. With a dash of mystery and philosophical ramblings thrown in. Trademark Murakami.
The Gladiators by Arthur Koestler - What is revolution? Koestler takes a hard look at this question in this tale of Spartacus, the gladiator who became a revolutionary, challenging and shaking the mighty Roman Empire to its foundations.
Indian Unbound by Gurcharan Das - Part biographical, part journalistic this is probably one of the best books on Post-liberalisation India in particular and India in general. Eminently readable and scattered with anecdotes - the image of India as a wise Elephant rather than an aggressive tiger makes a lot of sense.
Embers by Sandor Marai - Two old men talk throughout the night, reminiscing about and recreating that fateful day which destroyed the marriage of one, the love of another and the bonds of friendship between them.
Arabian Nights and Days by Naguib Mafouz - Mafouz at his best. His prose, lyrical and magical, seduces the reader into a world of Djinns and Sultans which stays with him long after the book is finished.
Ports of Call by Amin Malouf - From the French resistance to the shimmering cauldron called Beirut, Maalouf chronicles this love story with an empathy and poignancy that is altogether ethereal.
The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami - Out of the world. With a dash of mystery and philosophical ramblings thrown in. Trademark Murakami.
The Gladiators by Arthur Koestler - What is revolution? Koestler takes a hard look at this question in this tale of Spartacus, the gladiator who became a revolutionary, challenging and shaking the mighty Roman Empire to its foundations.
Indian Unbound by Gurcharan Das - Part biographical, part journalistic this is probably one of the best books on Post-liberalisation India in particular and India in general. Eminently readable and scattered with anecdotes - the image of India as a wise Elephant rather than an aggressive tiger makes a lot of sense.
Manchester United - a mid season review
Doomed for the season? Out of the title race? Maybe yes. Watching the 4-0 defeat by Boro at the Riverside, I would be hard pressed to argue otherwise. It is not the scoreline nor the dominance of their opponents for the entire 90 minutes that has elicited these comments. It’s the way Man U played and the character they displayed when the chips were truly down.
If it is one thing Manchester United have displayed throughout the Ferguson years, it has been their never say die attitude. Their famous last gasp goals, which on numerous occasions have clinched them points and titles are a testament to this. Coupled with their penchant to take everything that comes their way and finish it has made them one of the biggest and most respected clubs on this planet. Sadly however with all the talent the current crop of players have, they lack these two attributes to a large extent. It is often said that greatness of a team is really put to test, when they do not play well. Getting those scrappy goals and making those last ditch lunges on a opponent rushing past or to intercept a finely threaded ball is the true test of the hunger of the players - and this hunger is what makes a team great and what Man U lacked today.
This criticism might sound too harsh, because the team today lacked probably 4-5 first team regulars - but it was also the team on which Manchester United are resting their future hopes. Rooney, Ronaldo, Fletcher all are slated to be stars of tomorrow. But apart from Rooney and Alan Smith, nobody displayed an ounce of urgency on the pitch. Some players were playing as if the score was not three nil against them but for them. Seniors in the team like Scholes and Ferdinand rather than lifting the young side up were in fact the most culpable. True Middlesborough played the best match of their season so far. But why did not Manchester United players rise to the occasion and do the same? And it is not a rant based on a single performance. The last Champions League match against Lille also we saw this lackadaisical approach.
In the past few years a lot of players have come into the side who promise a lot and deliver little. The number of good crosses Ronaldo put in today compared to the number of fancy stepovers he did on the byline was abysmal. For all the running he did and energy he displayed, Park Ji Sung rarely created anything. For all his purported comfort on the ball, Flecther gave the ball away way too easily and needlessly on numerous occasions. And less said about the performance of Ferdinand, who at the start of the season held the club hostage over his salary as the best defender in the world, the better. In comparison, Beckham with all his deficiencies rarely delivered a bad ball, Giggs matched his trickery with the goals he scored and created for others and Keane inspite of being booked never shirked away from making a strong tackle. And they did this consistently and often when the team was down lifting up the morale of the entire team. More than ability this requires mental fortitude.
There are key pieces which are missing in the current side, without which ManU will probably not regain their former glory and enough I believe has been said by me on this before. But more important is the resurgence of the attitude of fighting to the last gasp and taking those half chances. Because without those regardless of who comes in Manchester United are going to lose. As for making up the 13 points gap on Chelsea, well it looks impossible. The current crop of players probably think so already.
If it is one thing Manchester United have displayed throughout the Ferguson years, it has been their never say die attitude. Their famous last gasp goals, which on numerous occasions have clinched them points and titles are a testament to this. Coupled with their penchant to take everything that comes their way and finish it has made them one of the biggest and most respected clubs on this planet. Sadly however with all the talent the current crop of players have, they lack these two attributes to a large extent. It is often said that greatness of a team is really put to test, when they do not play well. Getting those scrappy goals and making those last ditch lunges on a opponent rushing past or to intercept a finely threaded ball is the true test of the hunger of the players - and this hunger is what makes a team great and what Man U lacked today.
This criticism might sound too harsh, because the team today lacked probably 4-5 first team regulars - but it was also the team on which Manchester United are resting their future hopes. Rooney, Ronaldo, Fletcher all are slated to be stars of tomorrow. But apart from Rooney and Alan Smith, nobody displayed an ounce of urgency on the pitch. Some players were playing as if the score was not three nil against them but for them. Seniors in the team like Scholes and Ferdinand rather than lifting the young side up were in fact the most culpable. True Middlesborough played the best match of their season so far. But why did not Manchester United players rise to the occasion and do the same? And it is not a rant based on a single performance. The last Champions League match against Lille also we saw this lackadaisical approach.
In the past few years a lot of players have come into the side who promise a lot and deliver little. The number of good crosses Ronaldo put in today compared to the number of fancy stepovers he did on the byline was abysmal. For all the running he did and energy he displayed, Park Ji Sung rarely created anything. For all his purported comfort on the ball, Flecther gave the ball away way too easily and needlessly on numerous occasions. And less said about the performance of Ferdinand, who at the start of the season held the club hostage over his salary as the best defender in the world, the better. In comparison, Beckham with all his deficiencies rarely delivered a bad ball, Giggs matched his trickery with the goals he scored and created for others and Keane inspite of being booked never shirked away from making a strong tackle. And they did this consistently and often when the team was down lifting up the morale of the entire team. More than ability this requires mental fortitude.
There are key pieces which are missing in the current side, without which ManU will probably not regain their former glory and enough I believe has been said by me on this before. But more important is the resurgence of the attitude of fighting to the last gasp and taking those half chances. Because without those regardless of who comes in Manchester United are going to lose. As for making up the 13 points gap on Chelsea, well it looks impossible. The current crop of players probably think so already.
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Trying out this post from Flock
Blogging might become much more easier than ever before. The reason: Flock is here. A browser based on the Firefox codebase it makes many of the standard browser tasks much easier. As I was going through the feature set, I realised that what Flock has done is not introduce any new technologies but make the existing ones more accessible and easier to use. However big a fan of del.icio.us you may be [I am a big one], it would be preposterous to say it is user friendly. Using it well requires the understanding of nuances of tagging and folksonomies as opposed to our folder based taxonomic way of thinking. It is not a easy thing. What Flock aims to deliver is a bridge between these new concepts and the existing ones, making the user experience seamless and yet so much more enriching.
As for me I might finally be convinced to stop writing on one note and then copying it to blogger. :)
Monday, October 10, 2005
Education, Business and Blogs
This week as I was browsing the blogsphere, I realized that a revolution of sorts was happening amongst the Indian bloggers. The issue in question was that of the nature and authenticity of the claims made by IIPM, whose flag bearer Arindam Choudhari is often listed amongst the top Indian management gurus.
Jammag, a little known publication tried to delve into the high claims made by the IIPM ads, and came out with an unflattering article regarding the veracity of these claims. Another blogger Gaurav Sabnis links to this article and expresses his own views . IIPM serves legal notice to Sabnis, which to me sounded more like the eternal Bollywood riff-raff "agar tumne hamara kaam nahin kiya to …". The issue heats up in the blogsphere with some apparently disillusioned souls coming out strongly in support of IIPM, by personally attacking Rashmi Bansal (the author of the Jammag article) and Gaurav. To have some fun type IIPM in Blogger search and follow the links.
The whole issue can at extremes be stated as a new direction of social movement by responsible people or a cheap smear campaign to generate some thrills in normally placid arena. Truth however is the fact that, IIPM over the last few years has invested heavily in advertising, especially in newspapers. Arindam Choudhuri has written best-selling (and in my opinion crap) books and has even directed a movie. On the face of such heavy media bombardment it is perfectly normal for an individual or an organization to look into the truthfullness of the tall claims. And that is exactly what has happened and IIPM has not come out of it looking too good. And like a truant child who has been discovered of his misdemeanors, it is creating a ruckus.
Jammag, a little known publication tried to delve into the high claims made by the IIPM ads, and came out with an unflattering article regarding the veracity of these claims. Another blogger Gaurav Sabnis links to this article and expresses his own views . IIPM serves legal notice to Sabnis, which to me sounded more like the eternal Bollywood riff-raff "agar tumne hamara kaam nahin kiya to …". The issue heats up in the blogsphere with some apparently disillusioned souls coming out strongly in support of IIPM, by personally attacking Rashmi Bansal (the author of the Jammag article) and Gaurav. To have some fun type IIPM in Blogger search and follow the links.
The whole issue can at extremes be stated as a new direction of social movement by responsible people or a cheap smear campaign to generate some thrills in normally placid arena. Truth however is the fact that, IIPM over the last few years has invested heavily in advertising, especially in newspapers. Arindam Choudhuri has written best-selling (and in my opinion crap) books and has even directed a movie. On the face of such heavy media bombardment it is perfectly normal for an individual or an organization to look into the truthfullness of the tall claims. And that is exactly what has happened and IIPM has not come out of it looking too good. And like a truant child who has been discovered of his misdemeanors, it is creating a ruckus.
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