ExpertDabbler

• This country remains peaceful when the terrorists are busy preparing or when they are just plain taking rest.
• Some parts of Mumbai, Old Delhi, Hyderabad, Malappuram, Bengaluru, Gulbarga, Uttar Pradesh, Coimbatore, Chennai, Tirunelveli and Ramnad districts are parts of India only in map.
• There are stories about how Malappuram has its own telephone exchanges not run by Airtel or BSNL but by locals, and reports about movements in places like Dindigul where shops and businesses are sponsoring activities which ensures the young guys get 72 wives when they reach paradise dying for their religion.
• All the attacks are being made by the Hindu groups and not by ‘appaavi muslims’, according to a tamil muslim blog.
• The PM wants to teach a lesson to ISI, that is why they are planning to show the hard evidence collected so far, perhaps this will be a lesson for the ISI not to leave any such evidences when they carry out their next attacks next month.
• Salutes to NSG, Army, Police, ATF, who are brave by profession. Royal salutes to the Taj Staff and Oberoi staff, father of Sandeep Unnikrishnan, the husband and brother of Sabina, the Times of India editor who were brave beyond definition.
• For now, it is of paramount importance that the ‘secular fabric’ of this nation has to be protected till it can be safely handed over to Al-Qaeda who are in the process of establishing an Islamic Empire which includes an Indian province.
• I am a sleepless, disgusted Indian living in hopefully ‘Indian’ parts of the Indian city which can be accessed better by boats than by motor vehicles.

Five and a half years and 1018 posts is a good time. I’ve been blogging on and off in my own personal space and in some friend’s websites ever since 2001. The thing is I do not care if someone reads or not. I do not get those about ‘what will someone think of me’ thoughts while writing. I write as if I am alone in this world.

But as much as I love writing, I am losing out on the professional front. I’ve always wanted to do a professional blog, and read more than I am doing currently.

This blog has been very nice and good to me. This has helped me learn lot of stuff and network with lot more people much better than me. But off late this is getting too predictable. So for now, I am moving out to some other new subjects and new blogging space which needs more anonymity and struggle than what expertdabbler.com can provide.

I may come back after a while, but not sure when. I will keep tagging my older posts in the hope that I will feel the need to write here.

Thanks to Mani for hosting this and to P~ and S~ for making me write. Thanks to my dear readers who kept up with me in site visits and RSS feeds.

Congrats to the new President of the most powerful country of the world.

Its only fitting that a guy who talked more sense and who showed more sense in electing a better VP candidate won.

Let’s hope he revives the biggest economy in the world.

There is a contest going on in my org. The contest is to come up with new innovative ideas, concepts. A suitable working prototype will do. The winning proposal will fetch lots of US dollars. I personally think there is too much of romanticism with all this tech product companies being innovative and creative and so on. You need not be the next Google to survive. Once your product is out, most of the times you can help yourself with open eyes and ears. While being the next Google is great, some basics are more important. For e.g using your own product in real life as much as possible.

If you are running an ‘arisi mandi’ you better cook your meal from the rice you sell. If you can’t, that speaks a lot about your rice. Same applies for software product as well.

As far as I have seen, very few employees use the product they develop and design even though they can. Nor do they use the competitor’s product. Nor do they read the feedback from real users - the email compilation of which is received every single day. Nor do they read the web to see what the people at large have to say about what our product. Most of the junta come to office and leave early so that they can take care of the family. They are very clear, for them the product is their family and children.

In this scenario, does it really help to come up with all these contests? If only all good prototypes had resulted in great products, everybody would’ve been a millionaire by now.

If we can use this product more often, and truly listen to what customers say, we have enough work to do for the next year or two. We have gunnybags of bugs to be fixed. Feature request initiatives can happen from the bottom. We can be working on real problems, whatever!

http://www.hindu.com/2008/11/04/stories/2008110459350300.htm
Chennai IT is hitting rough weather for sure.
Today I got the news that my ex-employer is cutting down as well. Reason? Credit crises. It’s all a connected world, baby! This is precisely the reason why we IT coolies had more to write on that damn thing. We would not have bothered half as much had we been probationary officers in Dhanalakshmi Bank.

To my mind, a blog is like a virtual tea kadai/barber shop conversation. The blogger is the guy who reads out the Daily Thandhi loud to stir up a discussion because he is vetti (especially non-commercial personal blogs like mine). A commentor is the person who is the virtual equivalent of someone taking part in tea kadai discussion. There is no compulsion on any party, the blogger can stop reading his Daily Thandhi, the listener can move on to another tea kadai. Anything goes so long as basic decorum is maintained. Nobody is right since nobody is an expert even though some precious insights may just as well emerge despite the air of ignorance.

Okay, so who takes the role of abusive anonymous commenter then? I guess he should be the one whose main job is to pelt stones at political rallies. The same sort of people who do graffiti in train toilets. Worse some even do not close the door properly while rendering their toilet masterpieces.