Category: Tech and Culture

Our culture is largely defined by the technological innovations we share with other humans.

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Life and Personal Tech and Culture

The end of “No-Smoking” signs on airplanes

Just how many times have you looked above your seat in an aircraft and wondered why they have those “No Smoking” signs at every row? I know I have! I think the last time I was on a flight that allowed smoking was in 1988. The aircraft had designated sections for smokers in every class, and the sign would go off a few moments after the plane took off.

Well, now days, almost every country has banned smoking in flight, making those signs pretty pointless, and constantly lit. In retrospect, what we really need are signs that tell us when it’s safe to use our portable electronic devices. I am glad this is going to happen as early as next year!
After this, all I need is a “No talking loudly” sign!

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Tech and Culture

My biggest issue with Open-Source tools

I am a big fan of developing web services using open source tools and open standards. One of the technologies I have extensively used in the last 5-6 years is J2EE. Backed by Sun Microsystems, it is a great platform to deploy phenomenal server based applications. Of course, there are other up and coming frameworks for developing all sorts of web services, but, holistically speaking, only Java and .NET are mature and active enough to be a universal web development technology.

Continue reading “My biggest issue with Open-Source tools”
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Economy India Life and Personal Tech and Culture

What would have happened if I went to college in the US

I wuld have probably dropped out. Yes, that’s right! I would have probably dropped out. I was in college during the peak time of the dot-com boom, and there’s no way I would have stayed in college and forgone the great opportunities in the economy back then.

Even in India, I was able to experience the rise of the dot-com era in a very spectacular way, and I am pretty sure that things would have been a lot different for me if I were in the US. Who knows, I could have been a millionaire by now, or a broke ex-CEO!

Sometimes, it feels good thinking about things that never were…

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Tech and Culture

A cheaper alternative to Blockbuster

I just came across this company called Redbox that directly competes with Blockbuster video for DVD rentals and sales. Basically, the business model is about setting up kiosks at various McDonalds and grocers that enable self checkout of movies. The price is $1 for a day and the return is due at 7PM the next day.

It makes sense because Redbox started out as a McDonalds subsidiary and is 47.3% owned by the people at Coinstar, who specialize in coin exchanging kiosks across the US.

At present, the only locations served by Redbox kiosks are Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Denver, St. Louis, Houston, Hartford, Washington DC, Baltimore, and of course the Twin Cities. I admit I have yet to come across any of their kiosks simply because I don’t eat at McDonalds, but after looking at the free rental coupons online, I might just have to give it a shot!

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Life and Personal Tech and Culture

It’s the initial setup that takes all the time

I am working on a new project, and what’s different this time is that since it’s not a coursework project, I am having to deal with requirements planning, engineering, and source versioning. Working in an academic setting usually means that the infrastructure is already in place, and you just have to start writing code. Hence, software projects have a short design to production time span.

In the real world, I am collaborating with others on project requirements, design documents, and various other nitty gritty. On top of that, I am having trouble deploying the JBoss Portal Server on my personal laptop. Once, that is done, I have to compile the source code I obtained from our CVS server to work with my AS. The actual coding is very straightforward if I could just get the AS running as I want.

I wish there was enough documentation out there for certain open source projects that would make deployment seamless. As for now, I am trying to justify spending time on something that seems so mundane on the outset.

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Tech and Culture

Switched to Gmail for Domains

I have switched to Google for managing my domain’s email from my hosting provider. The main reason was the growing email traffic that was consuming a lot of storage resources.

My first impressions of the free beta service are good. The interface is clear, and resembles that of Gmail. Every user gets exactly 2GB of email storage space, and there are 25 free users per domain. There’s no other difference compared to the basic Gmail service.

What remains to be seen is how long this beta remains free. I am enjoying it for free, but almost certainly would never pay for email hosting. Gmail is the only Google service I enjoy using routinely, and this is the only service of its kind.

What seems to be lacking, though, is the capability to migrate emails from my web hosting provider to Google’s servers. As of now, I am thinking of backing up all my previous emails using Microsoft Outlook, but it would be great to have access to them from within the Gmail interface.

For once, good going, Google!

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Economy Tech and Culture

The Net Neutrality Debate

I am sure everyone is aware of the raging debate over what is being called “Net Neutrality”. There’s a bill pending in the US Senate that deals with how our Internet experience is going to be fed to us in the coming years.

The first time I wrote anything about this ‘corporate plan’ was back in December 2005. The ISPs and telecom service providers were just opening up about this idea back then. What has become of the idea right now is a complete mess, a corporate disaster, and essentially undemocratic.

I supported the idea of charging premium content providers more for bandwidth/visibility services back in December. I still support that, but what this debate has evolved into is essentially trying to block content from a rival Internet content corporation in lieu of service fee. This is devastating, and is going to set up a wrong precedent.

Compare this to paying for long distance voice service. The pricing is generally based on interconnectivity of networks and load/traffic sharing. There’re no tiers of service. I don’t pay any less when I am calling someone on the BellSouth network than someone on the Verizon network. Then, why not the same with the Internet?

It is useless for me to argue about what is good or bad for the Internet. We all know those things very well. What bothers me is the kind of effect something like this could have on smaller content providers (blogs, personal websites, small scale companies) and those based internationally. Why are American Corporations so hell bent on curbing the free flow of information and content globally?

I fear that the Internet could have the same kind of future as radio or television – useless, and too moderated, commercial.

Watch this video – http://www.coanews.org/internetfreedom.html?page=netfreedom

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Economy India Tech and Culture

The H1-B program brings in mediocre people ?

As expected, the H1-B quota for FY 2007 has filled up in less than 2 months since it started awarding those worker visas. This is a record. Last year, it took until the middle of August for the quota to close. This is going to ignite some major debate within the econo-political ecosystem as more people find out that they cannot hire experts from abroad.

Now, I have to say, some Indians speak the dumbest things possible if they have to make a point. I guess it’s just in our blood. Take the example of IEEE’s VP for Career Activites, Ron Hira. He is definitely not Indian by birth, but has Indian roots. Read what he says in this article in IT World about the H1-B cap.

Under a bill passed by Congress in 2004, the first 20,000 H-1B applications for workers with master’s degrees or higher are exempt from the cap. As of Thursday, the immigration agency had received about 5,800 exempt applications, it said.

With about 14,000 exemption applications still available, that suggests that some companies are looking primarily for cheap labor, Hira said. “That’s at least one indication that there’s not just geniuses coming in,” he said.

Yes, so basically, only the IT workers who have graduated from an American University at any point in their lives are geniuses. This is more disturbing than amusing. I guess what he’s trying to say is that all those workers outside America with decades of experience under their belts are somehow still inferior to that foreigner who just graduated from some shady small league school. Or maybe he is trying to say that recruiting companies are so stupid that they hire low wage foreigners from outside the country when they could essentially do the same from within the country!

I wonder what kind of a salary negotiation power advantage is held by a foreigner graduating from an American university compared to someone graduating from a foreign country. What is stopping an IT company from paying less to the foreigner already here in the US on a different visa? Does IT experience really not count when trying to find a job at a globally competing company?

I guess I am now an elite foreigner simply because I hold not one, but two degrees from an American university. I have a salary edge over other “regular” H1-Bs.

What about people who are “also” qualified but cannot enter the US?

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Life and Personal Tech and Culture

I am 2 degrees away from Bill Gates

According to the Six Degrees of Separation theory, I am now connected to Bill Gates through a 2 degree long chain.

Here’s my Chain:

Me
|
CliffyB
|
Bill Gates

CliffyB is the lead game designer for Epic Games in Raleigh, NC. I met him for an informal lunch in late 2004 because I was interested in learning more about the gaming industry. He designed one of my favorite PC games, Jazz Jackrabbit, more than a decade ago.

It is amazing how motivation and inspiration guide you towards your aspirations. This guy is a college dropout, and just had one goal in life; to make it big in the videogame industry. I would say he has achieved all that and more. Currently, he’s working on the new XBOX 360 game called “Gears of War” that is supposed to be the biggest game of this year.

CliffyB recently met Bill Gates for the first time ever, and you can see him with BillG in the videos posted at this blog. Watch Bill Gates say that Microsoft is counting on Gears of War for the success of their Xbox 360!

Now, I just need to shorten this chain…

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Tech and Culture

Google is starting to lose it

Everyone loves Google. The media loves to talk about Google’s “innovations” and the way they have revolutionized computing. I, frankly, never understood what the big deal was. Sure, Google changed the search business, but that’s the only innovation they had going for them, adsense/adwords notwithstanding. AdWords brings in a substantial portion of their revenues, if not the biggest. And even that is starting to lose its lustre thanks to greater pressures to generate more cash. Robert Cringely, of PBS fame, took a jab at the AdWords algorithm in his latest column.

An AdWords advertisement I can see why Google would let go of quality control in their AdWords service. After all, who cares about quality when it brings in the cash. If poor quality advertisements show up on my blog, it is my fault, not Google’s for having keywords in my content that link to pitiful ads.

The ad on the left was showing on my blog this morning, and since it seemed intriguing, I clicked on it. Now, before you say Click Fraud, let me tell you that you don’t get paid for clicking on your own Adsense ads since your IP address is tracked. The ad gave me the impression that I would somehow be able to download Windows Vista Beta 2 if I clicked on it, and so I did, only to pull my hair later. Why would Google do anything to instigate such a response? I thought one of their corporate philosophies was not being an evil company? What I saw on my browser was like an “adfarm”.

Google ads link to more ads!

Yes, someone was ingenius enough to pay for AdWords, and then have his keywords linked to a webpage with more ads (using a service called AdBrite) to generate net income for himself. As you can see, the webpage is pretty deceptive, and if you’re an unknowing scavenger looking to lay your hands on Windows Vista Beta 2, you would probably try clicking on 3-4 different links before you realized that it’s all a sham.

Where is Google’s quality control? Why am I being forced to carry these stupid advertisements on my blog? What should I do about it? I am thinking I should stop using AdSense altogether and switch to Yahoo! Publisher Network or something else. Quite simply, I am dismayed by this, and am starting to hate this company (Google) now.

I don’t know if I should react so strongly just because some company that pays me with half a peanut for every click on the ads it places on my blog tried to tarnish my content with its repulsive, unmoderated ads. Maybe I am overacting. I wonder how many people have had an experience like this.