A Day in Seattle

I visited Seattle Friday last week on a official trip with my CTO Srikanth of Apere inc. We were done with our work by 2 in the afternoon so we decided to get a glimpse of Seattle as we had to return the same evening, so thats what we did. we went on top of the famous Seattle Space needle . And we could see Seattle from one point. Here are some facts about this great city.

Christened "The Emerald City", Seattle is known as one of the most livable cities in the world and actually receives less annual rainfall (36 inches) than New York and Atlanta. Surrounded by lakes, rivers, Puget Sound, and mountains, Seattle is a recreation enthusiasts' dream. In the summer, water sports are only 10 minutes away and winter sports, such as snow skiing and snowboarding, are only 45 minutes away.
The greater Seattle area is home to 2.7 million people. Microsoft, Nordstrom and Starbucks coffee are based here. Seattle is also known as the birthplace of the recent crazes for grunge rock and espresso coffee. This area is the home of baseball's Edgar Martinez, glass art's Dale Chihuly, musicians Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Queensryche, Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart and Kenny G., software giant Bill Gates, maestro Gerard Schwartz, actor Tom Skerritt, writers Ann Rule, Robert Fulghum, and Tom Robbins.

Quote of the Day - Édouard Schuré (French Author)

"Modern man seeks pleasure without happiness, happiness without knowledge, and knowledge without wisdom."

Well I guess we all should look within to findout where we are heading. Yes we all want that elusive happiness but the irony is, unfortunately we don’t try to find this within us. We prefer to wonder around at lengths and beg for an answer with strangers, the so-called preachers, swamis, the astrologers and what not. But Mr. Édouard Schuré has summed it up so well. I thank him for this beautiful quote, which is nothing but “Our Plight in a Nutshell”. He teases us with his quote and points to what we don’t have in our personal libraries filled with scholarly creations and treasures of knowledge and technology , “Life in a Nutshell”.

Railway Station a glimpse of India Today and Yesterday

Indian railways is well known as the arteries and veins of India. It is the largest serving rail network in the world. But this blog is not about the Indian Railways but it’s about the station. The center of action, the gateway to the world of Indian Railway.

The Railway station, many of us as kids were fascinated by the very thought of going there, even now it makes me nostalgic and takes me back into my childhood. A railway station is a small world in its own right with its inhabitants and aliens, that’s us the visitors or the travelers.

When you enter a railway station in any part of India, it has its own culture which is unique to the railway station, but at the same time it carries influences of the local culture. The changing times , taste and culture is well reflects in a railway station more then any place. This makes a railway station all the more interesting.

The first thing that hits you when you enter is people … people and people…
But they are the very essence of it. This is the place where all of us are on the same platform “literally” J . The rich, poor young and old. You would not find this fusion anywhere else, in any city or place.

As you stroll through a platform, of course with constant nudging and squeezing you kind of lose yourself in this ocean of people, your ears reverberate with the constant chanting of food sellers, the “Chai walas”, the vada pav, dosa, idli, juce , minireal water, coffee you name it. Your eyes will get used to the constant movement of the men in red , the men in brown and the men in white, the porters who we all know as “the kuli” , the railway lines men and the famous Ticket collectors. (TO BE CONTINUED)

Poori in China !!!

We have been hearing about this BUZZ word "Global Village" a lot recently. Guess what it was always there. Recently I had been to a traditional Chinese restaurant to have my dinner with one of my friends in Beijing,China and by chance we came across a special verity of pancake which the locals call "jian bing", which looked and tasted exactly like our good old "poori", which is popular in all parts of India. I could not believe it so I took a photo with the waitress, bcoz that’s the only difference. (I mean the hands that made it and the face that serves it)

HARI in Chinese

I came to know today What it means to be HARI in China :)

When i was having my lunch with my frieds here in Beijing, Bi Hao and Yuanh hang. I asked them what dose thier name signify. Bi Hao explained that in chinese Bi is for blue and hao is for large volume of water. Then i posed the same question to Yuan, he told me in chinese yuan is long distance and hang is to sail, so effectively it means to sail long distance.

So in Chinese every name has a meaning, unlike in India whrere most of us are named after a god or godesses. In Chinese the way first name and last name are organized is also very different from that of west or India. For example, Yaun is actually the last name and Haung is his first name, but most of us in U.S or India see it the other way round. This is so privalent that we even reverese-spell Chao Mian which is actually Main Chao, in Chinees Main is for noodels and Chao is a way of preparition.

After this intersting conversation i was very curious to know if there is any meaning for my name in Chinese, and HA HA there is and it is actually HA HA HA .. well my good friend Bi Hao told me that in Chinese "Ha" signifies laughter and "ri" signifies something good, luck and happnies, so HARI is good, happnies and laughter.

Movie - Banaras

Banaras is a movie that chants all the way “Truth is simple”. Very different movie, the director has made a genuine attempt to depicted Indian mysticism on the silver screen. Its good to see movie makers are coming out of the “Box Office” lately.

Movies like Banaras, Being Syrus are attempts to brake the stereotypical Bollywood formula. Looking at the audience response for these movies I feel Bollywood has long been underestimating its audience.

Banaras is a story about belief, love and mysticism. It is also about the city “Banaras”. The movie revolves around the city, its heritage and the souls that reside there.

Naseeruddin Shah is in a way the mail thread of this movie around him the story is woven, He plays the role of a “Baba” who inspires other souls to achieve peace and tranquility. Raj babbr, Dimple play parents of Shweta played by Urmila. Asmhmit Patel plays “Soham” opposite Urmila.

The story is contemporary with a blend of modern and ancient India depicted in the mystical city of Banaras. The cinematography is a masterpiece here, full credits for that.

There are flaws and of course there will be, but they can be overlooked considering the difficulty of getting such a topic on the silver screen. The director has overdone certain parts of the movie to embed the idea of mysticism in the movie which could have been avoided, but hey you might say he had that’s absolutely fine, so its just my opinion.

Gorgeous Urmila has again used her beauty and talent to turn on the silver screen. She looks great and has also delivered some awesome scenes. There are places where she is lost but well the subject is not simple.

Naseer is the centerpiece, his dialog delivery and expression is as mystic as the theme itself. He has done full justice to the character. His talks with Soham are very captivating both by content and delivery.

Yet again dimple has proved herself to a fine actress, shedding her glam image she takes on a mother and a mortal. She definitely has all figured out. Thumps up to Dimple. Rajbabbar plays a conservative yet compassionate Brahmin father. A very sensitive role handled carefully by this veteran.

All in all a beautiful experience, not an usual entertaining stuff one might expect, but a good one, and a must watch.

What's BlogShares

This is a funny concept, i liked it but not having the patience to go throught it in detail, any fellow blogger have any tips, plz put in the comments and that will help this lazy blogger.

http://www.blogshares.com/

Movie - malamaal weekly

Its a very funny movie, keeps you jumping all the time, lot of twists and turns. very good direction. Paresh Rawal as usual has done as great job, Om Puri has really done a good job, we are normally used to seeing him in serious roles, but he really makes us laugh out of control here.

Over all the movie is really good, one noteworthy thing is the absence of any so called BIG starts, no glam babes. I guess the character actors have decided to go on their own rather than dragging the stone faced ill talented bhatija/beta of some Director/Producer towards the limelight of fame and glory.

The story is about a village in the heart of India. Its about the people there and their story, the setting is usual, a cruel landlady and the oppressed "janta", but the fun which starts from this usual setting is what the movie is all about.

At the end 10 on 10 to the cast and the director

About me in Siliconeer.com

Siliconeer.com - May 2005 Edition

URL - http://www.siliconeer.com/past_issues/2005/may2005.html

Clipping :)

Santa Clara Adult Education and Mastermind Educational Services have joined hands in providing specialized trainings at non-profit prices to the community. Two unique job-oriented programs at Santa Clara Adult Education launched this spring provide candidates with real-world skills of systems administration and web technologies. The programs have been carefully crafted to enable job seekers understand what it takes to don the role of a systems administrator or a web developer.

The programs have been developed by Mastermind Educational Services Inc., a leading provider of UNIX and network security training. Mastermind CEO Deepak Vyas says that the programs fill the vital gap of providing the practical skills that employees look for.


“Most employers face a common problem while interviewing candidates for systems administration or web development positions, as the candidates do not possess the necessary ‘hands-on’ skills required on the job,” Vyas said. “Though they have theoretical knowledge in the subject, they commonly lack practical hands-on skills which the job demands”


Mastermind’s programs focus on setting up a network infrastructure for a simulated corporate environment that has multiple operating systems and has many different requirements. The training gives real-life experience in dealing with interoperating in such an environment, creating a domain structure, installing and compiling software for the development team, designing the backup strategy, configuring RAID, installing and configuring SAMBA, Email, FTP, DNS, Web services and network monitoring software.


Deepak Vyas, the chief architect of this program, heads the systems administration workshop. Haricharan Ramachandra, who an enterprise application developer who provides Java trainings at Mastermind, heads the Web technologies job-oriented program.

“The web technologies program gives participants an opportunity to develop enterprise web applications as a team working towards a common project, and creates an environment where candidates take up different role as team leaders, developers, test engineers, etc, and develop system specifications, design documents, test plans, to implement and deploy a real-time corporate portal,” says Ramachandra.

Grand Canyon in India !!!

Recently I had been to Mahabaleshwar, located near Pune (Maharastra, India), hardly 100 Km away towards Satara. What I saw was something out of the world. As I was gazing at the divine art work, I was awe stuck and my thoughts started wondering in different directions.

4 years back I was in Grand Canyon, U.S.A, Arizona. I went on a visit to Grand Canyon with my friends and what I felt there was very similar. I had then thought “Grand Canyon” was nature’s master piece and as they rightly say one of the natural wonders. I strongly felt that there can be nothing parallel to it, but here I am standing in disbelief. I felt like a new born sleeping in his mother’s lap for the first time and feeling that there can be no better place in the world and then she takes him in her hands and gently holds him close to her chest, he goes to sleep instantly with the same comfort and thus learning his first lesson of life. “Mother is infinite”.

I was lost in the intricate folds of the canyon walls and again my thoughts started to flow as through flowing through those folds. Nature has blessed all of us with the same beauty, land, sun, stars, mountains and canyons but she left us to shape our vision ourselves. Canyons and mountains are same everywhere , but it’s up to us whether we dig it up to produce cement or admire it with respect.




Growth is essential for a nation or an individual, but it’s a matter of cost. The cost we pay for the growth. With the depleting forest reserves and maddening expansion of polluting cities, Mahabaleshwar and Grand Canyon are still standing as walls against the greed and insanity of humanity. These are treasures of love and beauty which once we had in abundance.

Companies that I follow !

http://www.ingres.com/ INGRES Business Open Source

Open source database solutions that provide enterprise-level functionality, services and support are revolutionizing today’s marketplace. Companies no longer need to pay excessive licensing fees for the right to use a highly scalable, highly available, and high-performance database platform. Open source allows companies to deploy flexible, less complex solutions that are not bloated with excess functionality allowing database engineers and administrators to be more productive and able to focus on more mission-critical projects. An open source platform gives enterprise customers and developers the freedom to choose the right database solution for their specific business need.

It has a very impressive management team. Finally there is a choice for the customers.


http://www.rti.com/ Real Time Innovations

-- A real time Integration/Middleware Company

Real-Time Innovations leads the real-time information networking industry with the most resilient and high-performance software solutions. Its products and consulting services provide the technology for national railways, air traffic control, traffic monitoring, mission-critical combat systems, financial transaction processing and industrial automation. NDDS (Network Data Distribution Service), RTI's flagship software product, connects multiple sources of real-time data and seamlessly integrates complex networks of independent devices into a logical whole.

RTI, a spin-off from a Stanford University robotics research group, has grown to support thousands of customers. Raytheon, Nikon, Omron, Applied Materials, Schneider Automation, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Harmonic and the U.S. Military rely on RTI technology for their distributed real-time systems.

RTI also has an active presence in standards organizations including Eclipse and the Object Management Group (OMG). Most recently, RTI is serving as the primary author for the OMG's new Data Distribution Service (DDS) networking specification. The DDS for real-time systems standardizes the software application programming interface (API) by which a distributed application can use Data-Centric Publish-Subscribe (DCPS) as a communications mechanism. Since DDS is implemented as an infrastructure solution, it can be added as the communication interface for distributed embedded applications.

Headquartered in Silicon Valley since 1991, RTI is a privately-held company.

http://www.bigbandnet.com/ BigBand Networks

-- Innovating Voice , Video and Data

BigBand Networks is a leading provider of platforms for broadband multimedia services. These platforms are built on open technologies uniquely capable of communicating and processing video, voice and data for best delivery throughout networks. The company's field-upgradeable architecture combines advanced hardware and software technologies for high performance with agility to optimize for each service supported. This enables network operators to cost-effectively expand revenue-generating offerings of rich content and advanced, interactive services. Services supported by BigBand Networks' platforms include high-speed data, voice over IP, digital broadcast television, HDTV, transport of high quality video, local advertising, VOD and iTV.
Founded in 1999 with headquarters in Redwood City, California, BigBand Networks has a growing, global base of customers in cable, telecommunications, satellite and terrestrial broadcasting. Deployments span North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia. In the North American cable market alone, BigBand Networks' customers include seven of the top ten operators, and the company's platforms provide live services to more than 20 million digital television and broadband Internet subscribers.

http://www.edgeio.com/ edgeIO -- The Web 2.0 Creglist

A search engine for classifieds on blogs. (The following is from www.siliconbeat.com)

Let's say you post a classifed ad on your blog. You tag it with the word "listing," and Edgeio will spot it and add it to its database. You add more tags (e.g., "San Francisco" and "couch") and these give your post/ad a way of appearing in the appropriate category within Edgeio.

Basically, he explains, once you've listed an ad on your blog or site, you go to Edgeio and register. It's what Edgeio calls "claiming your blog," whereby Edgeio authenticates a publisher. Edgeio can then point readers of the classified to the original place, i.e, your blog, where you listed it.
(The following was from www.siliconbeat.com)
It is just launched .. so need to see how it goes...

http://www.vyatta.com/ VYATTA

- The Open Source Router .... Finally Opensource is back in Networking ....

It all starts here. When the Internet was first created, it was built with open source infrastructure. Somewhere along the line, closed source products became the norm. Vyatta is working to restore the open environment and culture of the Internet's past by developing a line of enterprise-grade, open source, network infrastructure products.

Something about Chico

There is Something about Chico that is always mystic to me. Are you thinking why it would be so? To give you a background I did my Masters in Computer Science in California State University, Chico. I was in Chico between 2000 and 2002, during my year and half stay in Chico I developed a bonding with the place and people. I sometimes wonder at myself for developing such a bond with a place which is thousands of miles away from my home (you might have already guessed from my name, I am from India). But yet I would call Chico my home town.

As I am used to analyzing my self ,(That’s one of the many side effects of being a programmer that you tend to draw a “State Diagram” for everything and seldom realize there are things beyond logic) . I tred looking for the reason behind the feeling that many who have studied or stayed at Chico share. Here are few snapshots from the Logs that I found after inserting few debug statements in my Kernel.

Chico is a small University Town. It has a very personal touch to it that very few cities have. People here are very friendly and helpful, you get a “Hey”, a “What’s up” or a warm smile as you pass thru the calm streets flanked with lush green vegetation. A City of few thousand inhabitants out of which one third might be students. It has a healthy mix of people from various nationalities, race and culture as any University town might aspire to have.

The University is small in terms of its real estate but has no dearth of courses and good professors, I will be writing more on that in my future blogs.

The laid back attitude of the town with it’s pleasant persona still unpolluted from the waves of urbanization gives you a sense of assurance about the existence of sanity in today world, But yet this town is not backward in any sense. The University is central to this town and boasts one of the best infrastructures that you would find in any University with latest research and lab facilities. This Synergetic coexistence of the new and the old, technology and serenity, economic growth and elegance of the past makes Chico a rare City in today’s context.

If you want to know more about The University check out www.csuchico.edu

A job advertisement from the future . . .

"Wanted:Head of Corporate Communications for a fast growing Silicon Valley startup. Competitive salary and stock options. Candidates must have a Google Page Rank of at least 5. And/or an Alexa rank of at least 750,000 or better.Candidates with at least 1,000 Google hits on their name are also eligible. We will also accept web site traffic numbers from your posts/articles on third-party web sites. This is a senior VP level position. "

- from http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2006/02/a_job_advertise.php

I found this future JOB ad very interesting. on a hind sight one can say Blogging has come a long way from a Geek’s online Journal to a very strong media today or as some call it “The Disruptive Media” . But in the end I feel it is the content that matters. The good thing about Blogging is it’s reach and also it is cheap :-), That’s the reason it has taken the form of a movement and has a promise to empower the common mass. If we go back in History the print media did something similar and was fuel to many movements. As always society gains from innovations and creative minds. If you are curious about the Job Ad above, you can get more details about it in www.siliconvalleywatcher.com