Coming up – Hyderabad International Airport

Photosynth : Arrange your photos in the “right” order

Have you ever worried on arranging, re-arranging your pics in a proper meaningful order? Or irriated by the way you have to navigate through the photos in a linear sequence?

Here is the solution from Microsoft….Photosynth…

Photosynth takes a large collection of photos of a place or object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed 3-Dimensional space.

With Photosynth you can:
· Walk or fly through a scene to see photos from any angle.
· Seamlessly zoom in or out of a photograph whether it’s megapixels or gigapixels in size.
· See where pictures were taken in relation to one another.
· Find similar photos to the one you’re currently viewing.
· Explore a custom tour.
· Send a collection to a friend.

Photosynth, Microsoft Live Labs’ first major Technology Preview. The actual application will be released in the near future, but we will be formally announcing the technology at SIGGRAPH in Boston next week. This project has been the result of a cross group collaboration with the University of Washington, Microsoft Research, recent acquisition Seadragon Software, PIX, and Windows Live Local.

The videos give a taste of things to come and a few of us also recently met with MSDN’s Channel 9 and Channel 10 who are currently running features.

Kevin Rose breaks on Calacanis

Atlast Kevin Rose, the Digg.com founder breaks on the offer made by Calacanis, CEO of Weblogs, Inc. Calacanis made an open offer to all the top diggers to use the latest re-built netscape.com instead of digg.com.

Kevin Rose has attacked calacanic on the latest diggnation podcast and on his blog throwing some personal commnt warfare at him.

My thoughts : When I first read about calacanis offer, I thought he must be a mad guy to offer this way. But later I found there is a cause and reason behind it. Actually, that is the actual economical model that any Web 2.0 firm should adopt.

Digg.com gets thousands of links and valuable comments from users and it does’nt pay a single cent out of it’s revenues. Kevin Rose and Alex does chit-chat about the links submitted and earn millions out of it? (when they sell digg.com to anyone :-)).

Infact these days you can find a pattern in digg.com’s post…most of the posts are created on one of the following topics…

01. Fire Fox “X” version released
02. How to make egg shape using only CSS
03. Gmail new feature released
04. One more vulnerability in Microsoft “X” product

Come on diggers, cut the crap….ofcourse the world of software is not limited to gmail and microsoft.

GTalk…and the Reality !

TechCrunch has published some facts about Gtalk (one of the many Beta products out there) usage on this planet(assuming google may launch GTalk for moon and it gets digged 4000 times).

The fact is bitter….as bitter as Gmail’s performance. Gtalk was ranked at 4th position with 1% of message traffic according to comsScore media.

NYT has its own version of the story published here

 So what do you think about these facts? people just talk about innovation and they don’t use it? I disagree on that point having seen the success of Fire Fox browser. The important factor in these failure is the lack of feedback and user study. Google search engine might be very smart in learning things automatically but not the managers who build applications at google on thier own. Some of these google products are half baked, and pre-matured born babies. These products gets lot of hype and no features with-in. GTalk stands in the front-row of such class. I wonder on one fact that who the hell want to chat with someone when they want to read mails in the same interface? That’s very funny.

oooooouch !

Had lot of fun tickling these bikini gals and making music out of it..:-)…very cool & creative…

Try it here…http://www.oooooouch.com/

Democracry…

GOOD News : Ban was lifted….:-)

http://www.ibnlive.com/news/government-lifts-ban-o…

The Department of Telecommunications of the Government of India has lifted the ban on blogs  following pressure from the Indian blogger community and the media. Even with the lifting of the ban several bloggers from BloggersCollective are getting ready to file a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Supreme Court of India against the Government censorship of the Internet.

Flash News : Blog Blockade will be lifted in 48 hours (Source : Rediff)

Helping hand from Pakistan :  This is a great gesture….The pakistani bloggers community is giving its helping hand to support all Indian bloggers to route thier blog links to pkblogs using a cool-nifty script…find more about it here….

Heard from friends : Blockade still continues…seems some ISPs have removed the restrictions already and the banned blog sites are now accessible. well, the real good news is not yet out 😦

Wired Coverage :

“In its efforts to shut down extremists blogs, the government ended up blocking all access to several websites, including the popular Blogspot.com. That brought calls from angry internet users and software executives on Wednesday. They called for the Indian government to reopen access to the sites.

“The Indian internet service providers don’t have the technological wherewithal to block specific blogs on a blogging site. Consequently, they ended up blocking the entire site,” said technology expert Pawan Duggal.

Gulshan Rai, director of the state-run Computer Emergency Response Team of the Information Technology Ministry, said the government order targeted four blogs hosted on blogspot.

“There’s no attempt to block blogspot.com from our side,” the Hindustan Times quoted him as saying.

On Wednesday morning it was still difficult to access blogs on that website from India. Angry Indian internet users exchanged e-mails and flooded message boards with postings in protest.

Kiran Karnick, president of The National Association of Software and Services Companies, the country’s main information technology trade group, said his organization would take up the matter with the government.”

India is the world’s largest democratic country…once upon a time. It’s a shame to add the last part, but it seems we are successfully heading towards that destination.

Indian government now successfully have shutdown the access to all blogspot, typepad and geocities blogs at ISP level. This is a serios violation of primary rights possessed by all indians by means of Indian Constitutional Law.

The right to freedom is one of the most important fundamental right that have been granted to us by the founders of Indian Constitution. This right allow every citizen of India to be free from the ancient form of slavery. This fundamental right is described in the constitution as:

All citizens shall have the right-

• “To freedom of speech and expression;”
• To assemble peaceably and without arms;
• To form associations or unions;
• To move freely throughout the territory of India;
• To reside and settle in any part of the territory of India;
• to practise any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business.

India Uncut coverage on this Disaster

My heart feels burnt when I see India beside countries like Pakistan, China where freedom and democracy has no meaning.

This is what you will see on pkblogs.com homepage

Is your blog blocked in India, Pakistan, Iran or China?

If Yes then you can still access your blog anytime using pkblogs free Blog Gateway.

Updates & Tracking:

Scoble Says “It Sucks” : http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/07/17/blockin…

Global Voices Online : http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2006/07/17/india…

Desipundit : http://www.desipundit.com/2006/07/15/blogspotcom-b…

Protests by Bloggers : http://censorship.wikia.com/wiki/Protests_By_Blogg…(add your protest here)

Coverage by The Hindu : http://www.hindu.com/2006/07/19/stories/2006071902…

Join Blogger’s Collective @ Google Groups : http://groups.google.com/group/BloggersCollective

RTI Petition against Telecom & Dept of Information Technology : http://baxiabhishek.spaces.msn.com/blog/cns!8A8DB0…

List of Banned Sites in India : http://censorship.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Sites_Ban…

Sun and Web 2.0

Now don’t look at me with that face expression :-), yes atlast I was able to find some content on Ajax from the “network computer” company…

Enjoy this 10-week Ajax programming Online course from Sang Shin, Sun Microsystems.

http://www.javapassion.com/ajaxcodecamp/

Sysinternals is now part of Microsoft !

Microsoft has aquired the great & famous Winternals (Sysinternals website) and employed the famous kernel specialist Mark Rassinovich as technical fellow in Platform and Services Division. Wooww, this is really a good news for Microsoft itself.

Read more @ mark’s blog

Mini WordPress on Windows Live!

WordPress guys have developed a mini wordpress blog gadget for Windows Live. That means you can now add a mini portlet kind of area on your windows live home page.

Check the instructions here on how to add this gadget.
http://wordpress.com/blog/2006/07/13/mini-wordpresscom-gadget/

I wish, there will be a mini-wordpress gadget available soon on Windows Vista Sidebar too 🙂

This is my first post from my mini-wordpress gadget.

That’s the way we work dude…

Programmer to Team Leader :
“We can’t do this proposed project.**CAN NOT**. It will involve a major design change and no one in our team knows the design of this legacy system. And above that, nobody in our company knows the language in which this application has been written. So even if somebody wants to work on it, they can’t. If you ask my personal opinion, the company should never take these type of projects.”

Team Leader to Project Manager :
“This project will involve a design change. Currently, we don’t have any staff who has experience in this type of work. Also, the language is unfamiliar to us, so we will have to arrange for some training if we take this project. In my personal opinion, we are not ready to take on a project of this nature.”

Project Manager to 1st Level Manager :
“This project involves a design change in the system and we don’t have much experience in that area. Also, not many people in our company are appropriately trained for it. In my personal opinion, we might be able to do the project but we would need more time than usual to complete it.”

1st Level Manager to Senior Level Manager :
“This project involves design re-engineering. We have some people who have worked in this area and others who know the implementation language. So they can train other people. In my personal opinion we should take this project,but with caution.”

Senior Level Manager to CEO :
“This project will demonstrate to the industry our capabilities in remodelling the design of a complete legacy system. We have all the necessary skills and people to execute this project successfully. Some people have already given in house training in this area to other staff members. In my personal opinion, we should not let this project slip by
us under any circumstances.”

CEO to Client :
“This is the type of project in which our company specializes. We have executed many projects of the same nature for many large clients. Trust me when I say that we are the most competent firm in the industry for doing this kind of work. It is my personal opinion that we can execute this project successfully and well within the given time frame.

BlogCamp : Bloggers meet the BarCamp way…

 

 Bloggers from chennai, India are trying to gather at a blogging BarCamp in september. They have started the planning and execution already. You can visit their web site and see the progress here : http://blogcamp.in/

In their words..

India’s Biggest Unconference on Blogging, Podcasting, Videocasting & Social Media

Venue : Chennai
Date : Tentatively September 9th and September 10th of 2006.

“This barcampish event will be INDIA’S BIGGEST & THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE blog event ever conducted. This event will aim to push the bar way up. There will be exclusive tracks for blogging, podcasting and videocasting.

The unconference will be a rich mixture of workshops, practical demos, presentations, interactive quizzes, lectures, iron-man challenges, debates, group discussions and games.

This event will be global in nature as arrangements will be made for participants from around the world can participate via video conferencing. Not to mention live blogging, webcasting and podcasting of all the sessions. ”

If this camp becomes a big success, I am sure bloggers in the other cities in India would definitely start planning around one like this…I wish them a great success.

Go Live! with Yahoo! now :-)

World’s Most Dangerous Road

Here it is ..(Some hill road in bolivia)

http://javimoya.com/blog/pics/200607/bolivia.htm

BarCamp Hyderabad 2

Barcamp hyderabad is all set to rock again. “A BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from attendees. Learn more or organize your own Barcamp!.”

This time the venue is Microsoft Campus, Hyderabad. Watch out this space for more news..

 

Quick-Kill Project Management

Andrew and Jennifer tells us how to do project management when you are asked to complete your project yesterday itself. I have had numerous experiences in this through out my software development career. This article reminds me some of those and makes me feel funny and sad both. Even now i cant understand why most of the managers can’t bridge business and development so effectively? (Atleast in india where people run to get projects by hook or crook).

I am currently reading a great book “One minute manager“. I would say each page in that book shows your manager in different angle and presents you the right angle which it should be. All Indian Software giants should make it mandatory for thier managers to read this book.

Coming back to Quick Kill Project Management…It uses 3 techniques to achieve results in a neck-to-neck situations in project delivery.

Vision and scope document

Work breakdown structure

Code review

Using the above techniques, we will be aiming to kill only the most pressing project problems instead of spreading the panic across the system.

Keep safe your documents in a private folder…

If you are Genuine Windows XP user, you can enjoy this tool which keeps your documents and important files a password away from others…

Microsoft Private Folders 1.0

Groups works better than Best Individuals

We know this fact right ? 🙂 Yes….but here it was proved scientifically…

Groups Perform Better Than the Best Individuals on Letters-to-Numbers Problems : Effects of Group Size