I live to witness miracles...

Why Complicate Life ?

2012-01-04T13:45:00.000+05:30

Missing somebody? ...Call

Wanna meet up? ... Invite

Wanna be understood? ...Explain

Have questions? ...Ask

Don’t like something? ...Say it

Like something?...State it

Want something?....Ask for it

Love someone ? ...Tell it

Face Yoga ?

2011-12-18T22:17:00.006+05:30

Well, I finally decided to take out time & fulfill all the promises that I made. Here about what face yoga is all about & my experience so far:
Most of them hit the gym, do power yoga or play some kind of sports, just to keep their body toned and stay healthy. The question is what’s the exercise for our 52 face muscles? The answer is Face Yoga. I got myself trained on Face Yoga 3 years back by an expert face yoga certified friend Natasha. I enrolled only because the name “Face Yoga” sounded interesting to me at that time, but today I am a great believe of it, try practicing it often and very soon will start conducting face yoga workshops :)

FAQs

What is face yoga?
= The human face is a hardworking part of the body and there are about 52 muscles found in the face. Yoga exercises for face is the maintenance routine for motivating muscles and keeping the skin in place. Not only are there about 52 muscles but also a dozen bones, arteries, blood vessels and veins that assists your face to do the work that it need to. Your face muscles absorb and accumulate most of your stress and tension. Unless you allow those muscles to relax, they will get hard and there will be a strained look. Tense muscles also limit the amount of blood flowing to your face and the nutrients it needs by constricting the arteries. Yoga exercises for face plays a key role in maintaining a healthy skin and preventing wrinkles.

How different is face yoga from any other yoga’s?
= The muscles of the face are no different from the muscles of the rest of the body. Just as yoga routines work the muscles in the body, the stretches and movements in The Yoga Face tighten and tone the face muscles-and combat wrinkles.

What are other names for face yoga?
= Faceworks, Facial Workout

What face issues does face yoga solve?
= Face yoga is an effective way of staying away from wrinkles, double chin, fat of the face, aging.

When is face yoga to be done in a day and for how long?
= The Yoga Face is a new and completely natural alternative that can do anytime and anywhere-and in just minutes. You can do it while bathing, cooking, watching TV, waiting for signal on road etc. Just do it when no one is around you :)

Are there any side effects of face yoga?
= The only side effect is if people around watch you while doing face yoga, they might find you weird and may laugh out loud looking at your expression.

What are the benefits of face yoga?
=These exercises for face can help reduce the tension, make you feel and look more relaxed. Increased oxygen, reduce stress, increased muscle tone, wrinkles onset lowered, reduced face fat and complexion improvement.

Where and how can I learn face yoga ?
= Check these videos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WOI1Ce5L4A
Or else mail me at bhavsidd@gmail.com to know about upcoming face yoga workshop.

Which all part of face does face yoga include?
= It include exercises for Forehead, Eyes, Chin, Cheeks, Mouth, neck that help to feel relax from stress, tense muscles and improve blood circulation.

What if I am not a yoga freak, can I still do it ?
= You don’t have to be a Yoga freak, just let loose with those facial expressions and afterwards, your face will thank you.

Snapshot of how face yoga?
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1683326,00.html

What do you do in a face yoga class?
= Combination of traditional yoga postures along with face-specific exercises formulated to combat wrinkles through relaxation and tension reduction, and to tone the muscles as a preventive measure. To name few of the exercises:
Eye socket massage - for relieving tension and stress from areas around the eyes.
Cheek Squeezing - improve cheeks circulation by squeezing cheeks and grabbing bits of flesh
Relieving Tension in Forehead and Jaws - relieving tension in your forehead and jaws that could lead to headaches.

"Working out" with fun facial exercises such "Satchmo,"kiss," and the "Lion Face”. Trust me all these exercises would make you laugh a lot out loud and blow kisses to send love around the room.

Don’t regret regrets?

2011-12-03T18:51:00.002+05:30

“Things without all remedy should be without regrets; what’s done is done”.

Living a life free from regrets, always looking forward & getting strange to your past all sounds good, but that’s never going to be possible with humans.

So what are your regretting still ?

For not being true to yourself or to others, pretending to be nice in a relationship, missing your flight, leaving your previous job, lying, rejecting a date invite, cheating your dear friend, running away when someone needed you the most, playing with feelings, parents, tattoos, never expressing yourself, your school math scores or for taking our your frustration on the one who unconditionally loves you.
Well I have my own set of regrets & these filled my heart with pain, guilt & sorrow. This was the morning that I accidently bumped into this video of Kathryn Schulz: Don’t regret regret.

The only question I asked myself is “how long do I want to live hating myself, do I want to forgive for all that I did, said.” And then to find the answer I watched this video more than 10 times. It left me touched & with few messages which I found worth sharing with you all.

If you could change your past, do you think your life would have been better than today what it is ?

Friends we don’t have Ctrl + Z button in our life, accept your past as you can never change what you did or said. If your heart is full of pain, there would be no space for you to love people unconditionally. What will you get out of hating yourself; it’s just like a cancer which you implant in your body. It makes you weaker day by day.

Take any regret of your past and you will find saying to yourself: “Can this just vanish from my life”, “How inhuman I was”, “Can I kill myself”, “Why did I do it” and this is an infinite loop in which we live. The regrets you are living with are not as ugly as you think they are, so breakup the loop, move on, let go your fears, forgive yourself, explore yourself to vulnerabilities, risk, take up challenges & opportunities, accept failures & embracement’s if you have to… doesn’t this sound like living.

Make peace with regrets embrace it, in the ocean of regrets we all are together :) Laugh at them, sometime cry but never forget the lessons that these regrets brought in your life. The movie TinTin taught me that there are many around who would call you as failure, inhuman, unsuccessful, and capable of nothing; that’s not what you are. You are what you think you are. Live for your goals, dreams, do your best, feel pain when things go wrong.

The point is not to live life without regrets the point is not to hate yourself. Love all the imperfect things that you do & forgive yourself for all the mistakes & wrong decisions you took, as regrets doesn't remind us that we did it badly, it reminds us that we can do more better.

So go and discover yourself. Know what you want out of life, what you love, what makes you happy & what you want your story to look like. So as we create our story good luck to you all & myself :)

A Letter... reliving memories :)

2011-11-27T23:08:00.004+05:30

Few lines from the sweetest letter that I received from a dearest friend :)

Stay notorious as you were ....

waiting to get mad and laugh for hours together

far from all wicked thought’s in our own world

so holy and child like

Cherishing all those days in our life

Goose bumps remembering those incidents of our life’s

having brightest mischievous smile after playing all those pranks

Repented after doing all, but no more as these are the memories which I relive

I love u deeply and solely ..and believe me when I breadth last the wish I would have is to see you besides me and die laughing so that even god increases the time for me to complete my laugh.

What it is like being an Entrepreneur?

2011-11-26T17:06:00.006+05:30

Well my admiration for Entrepreneurs is an open secret then how could I miss recording my meeting with the wonderful friend Sushrut Bidwai. A tall young gentleman, an entrepreneur from last 6 year by choice. For me he is a guide book for entrepreneurship.

If I have to rewind the video of our meeting, I would look like interviewing Sushrut. So here's the report of the interview:

Being an Entrepreneur gives you opportunity to:

- create products

- do things in your way

- create jobs

- take up many opportunities

- meet smart people

It needs guts to step out of your comfortable zone and face all the risk/challenges you as an entrepreneur would face each day

India’s social elements mainly corruption makes existence of start-ups more difficult

Explore small towns of India to kick off a startup not necessarily always Bangalore or pune

Meet and interact as many people as you can, there is so much knowledge around

Its not an idea but the passion & an intent is what keeps the Entrepreneur going

Glamorous part of being an Entrepreneur:

- Being titled as Entrepreneur

- Freedom to bring in change

- Knowing your limitations

- Inspiration to many

Non-Glamorous part of being an Entrepreneur:

- Risk & challenge in every corner

- Less of social & carefree life

What it needs to be an entrepreneur:

- Passion

- Extrovert

- Just do it attitude

And there is where our drinks got over. We departed and I was back with a thought & smile to stay for ever.

Thanksgiving

2011-11-25T19:52:00.002+05:30

Here goes the things I am thankful for :

… a lovely matured younger sister.

… understanding & supportive parents always taking up my nonsense

… "miss u, love u , can’t smile without u, bored without u" message sending my no mad friends

… caring, admiring, inspiring, motivating colleagues

… my lucky home

… Linked, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, G+ connectors making me more than what I could be

… boy genius standing for me

… challenging job

… Landmark Education

… Endeavour believing my technical writing

….mentors & X-Bosses making me believe myself

… music enabling to relive my passion

… 250 worth earring named as TinTinee sparking like diamond

…“U r worth it “ messages on my office white board

… for all the smiles & pampering in return for a smile

…“Let’s run away & get married” project plan proposal

Finding its way...

2011-11-17T22:07:00.018+05:30

No cry’s and no tears

suffering the depths of pain & guilt

as the journey ends and another cannot begin

soul torn apart

voluntarily picking up memories

trying to hold something in palm & every time it’s gone

perhaps it is just not meant to be here.

In darkness the fear & pains remains,

to be healed only by a love that could cross oceans

with no stars to guide,

believing the power of its existence

love will find its way

just to reach the hidden door of the heart

Why let yesterday's faults overshadow tomorrow's dreams

2011-11-14T14:07:00.004+05:30

A well - known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20 bill. In the room of 200, he asked, "who would like this $20 bill?" Hands started going up. He said, " I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first let me do this."

He proceeded to crumple the dollar bill up. He then asked. "who still wants it?" Still the hands were up in the air. "Well, he replied. "What if I do this?" And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now all crumpled and dirty. "Now who still wants it?" Still the hands went into the air.

"My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value.

Our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feed as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value. You are special Don't ever forget it!

"Never let yesterday's disappointments/failures/ faults overshadow tomorrow's dreams"

Holding on with an idea

2011-11-12T20:46:00.005+05:30

Certain aspects of an idea that makes me hold on to:

Solving a problem that existed for a while.
Sleepless night with the pleasure & excitement of its implementation.
Non-stop talking about the idea with people around.
Brings newness in the market.
Integrates well with other component’s & products in the eco system.
Unlimited revenue generator.
Attractive enough for everyone to be a part of it.

Is telecom's voice business dead ?

2011-11-08T17:59:00.004+05:30

I think sadly YES, many of today’s voice players will be unless they can stop thinking like Telcos and adapt to new market realities – One of the take away from recently held Capacity Asia.

All Telco executives feel that there are still ways to make money in the voice business, but they aren’t the old ways of making money, and voice players better discover new ways and fast. The voice margins already so low, particularly in market like India, that being in the voice business is almost close to “slavery”. There is major impact from OTT players like Skype on the voice business, but Telcos had no one to blame but themselves for Skype’s success at their expense.

The Voice service providers are “so strangled by the telecoms way of thinking,” seeing India’s voice tariffs, which are so low. I hope that service providers might offer voice for free and make money from it in other ways, such as advertising. But no one will consider this because the shareholders still think like telecoms. They think inside the box when the only thing inside the box is a dead body!

Once a Facebook executive in Singapore was asked, “Since Facebook has 800 million users, why not charge them a dollar a month and make $9.6 billion a year? He replied: ‘That’s a telco’s mindset’.”
“Telcos are not good innovators. But they are good at engineering and operating networks. They don’t make apps, but they partner with those who do and layer our superior network and engineering experience, and come up with a better customer experience.

Telcos probably couldn’t execute a Facebook-like model where the experience is subsidized, but can create a local flavor of Facebook or Skype in ways that those companies can’t because Telcos know the local markets better.

One important point to note that:
1) The success of OTT services depends on the level of broadband penetration, which creates a distinction between developed and developing markets.
2) In Nepal, or India or Srilanka or Pak, OTT is not such a threat yet, so traditional voice is still thriving.

Recently KDDI’s mobile phone tied up with OTT player ie., Skype and want to make Skype as default option for voice on KDDI’s mobile phones. COO of KDDI says “Skype has had a big impact on our volumes, but we realized we can’t stop it, so we had to look at how to generate new business with it,”

So I feel still lot of business exist for Telcos, they can still rock provided they start thinking differently.

What was it in going blind ?

2011-10-31T23:14:00.005+05:30

First sight it was

felt different

safe and just so perfect.

knew it was all a planned game

closer as it could get

happier than ever

walking on a path with no sure destination

enjoying all that was coming

it was not the matter of anything less than a heart

touching & feeling it, realized its pureness

fine with all that was coming

fights, irritation, jealously, smiles, tears, completeness

and lots something which is still nameless

hard was it to accept all that was felt

so closed eyes tight to go blind

yes, self-cheated, but still happy

lied & pretended to what it was not

proved all wrong

running away and blaming all was the only safe option

far far away still not from those memories

please set me free, forgive me, unlearn me

move on…

set me free...

and they all lived happily ever after

2011-10-29T00:27:00.005+05:30

Well its late midnight here enjoying moonlight, my sleep seems to be a bit unhappy with me so I decided to hug my blog & write down my thoughts on a sentence which read “and they all lived happily ever after…”

I really don’t know who created this sentence…but yes, it’s my favorite line

As a kid I read this in many story books & it used to appear in most of the movies at the end.

But now that I am seeing the world around, this line just seems so unrealistic

Is it because of this, many of us believe that we do not need to work anymore as soon as we find the Mr./Ms. Right.

Is it because of this, so we believe that once we are married, nothing shall go wrong?

Once we are married, it will be IT? ( Happy ever after?)

If people do live happy ever after, then shall we just forget about all other emotion that come with us in one package?

If we do not know how to cry and how to be sad, then how do we learn to be happy? Will Happiness mean anything once sadness has been forgotten?

If I see around, people don’t just live happy ever after once they are married. They are working their marriage in order to learn their happiness.

The authors & movie directors craft a nice story & leave people with an optimistic view that life gets more beautiful when people from two different planet get together to live life together.

So, does it mean they don’t live happily ever after when they get married?

Well, No. They so live happily together if they work it together. But that doesn’t guarantee they will be happy all the time. They may fight, or they may disagree…but if they are both willing to work it out, they usually will come to a happy solution to it.

So how do you work it?

I cannot answer, but I guess that’s why we were born to find out.

Is that why most of us expecting everything should be “RIGHT” once we find the Mr./Ms. Right?

An Imagination world where customer is the king

2011-10-20T22:09:00.011+05:30

*Please note all the names given below are artificial as we now take a dip into the imagination world J

Lolob Laptop gives me an option to compose my laptop look & feel. WOW, so here I decide what would be the screen size, ask for a keypad that I am most comfortable with choose where my charging & USB points should be and color & style of my preference.

As I am working on what I would wear for my cousins wedding, I get my outfit but instead of I hunting at 20 diff stores to find the matching pair of shoes, Bollywoody Shoes makes me to upload my outfit picture & it delivers shoes of my size, preferred heals inch with matching color & beadwork all in sync with my outfit.

Its early morning & I am as usual getting late to my office, but I have put cloths to wash. As at home we don’t wear watch, standing in front of the machine I mostly keep estimating what the actual time it would be. So Timi Timi Washing Machine provides me an embedded clock & a radio so that I am with time & instead of listening to the noise enjoy Rafi’s songs.

Friends are very important in life, the worst part is that they remember how many times you forgot wishing them on their birthdays, so to save me from this embarrassment my color changing dialer FriendlyBee watch gives me an alert to wish my friends at 12.00 & surprise them.

House is everyone’s dream, a place where they live with their loved ones in happiness. So DreamBuilder gives me a house with the bedroom from where I can view the moon every night & sunrise which greets me early morning in all the rooms as I walk in. A home placed on the 27^th floor which rotates as and when I wish.

My mom’s the best cook on this earth, well I think all mom’s are J She dictates the recipe on phone & I write it down on a paper which I would obviously loose. Presenting KquickMic Microwave which gives me a embedded notepad to take notes of all the recipes taught to me by my mom & aunts & pull it out anytime from the database when I wish to cook it again for my guest.

Everyone’s buying a car these days & in a city like Bangalore parking problem is just getting major. Most of the time finding a place to park & later spending minutes in figuring out where you actually parked gets painful. SheCar will be so smart enough that it will take care of finding parking spot & will come driving to you as you start looking out for it.

In this online word I still believe a physical Greeting card means a lot. When my dad gets angry over me Say It greeting cards helps me design a musical card with lovely cover pic of me & my dad pretending to be angry & as he opens, it plays “ayo mere papa ko gussa jab aata hai”

Smartphone is supposed to be smart, when I am missing someone badly, ChupChup phone sends “Miss u” message. When I am trying to avoid my boss & he is trying to reach me, it should get into busy mode. With the kind of features these days the phones come out, be assured that the battery can’t retain for more than 20 hrs, so this ChupChup phone will chupke se as I sit over it will convert the body heat to power & recharge the phone ;)

Why is it that I should watch Simi garewal’s TV show “Most desirable” on Sunday 9pm when AirWatch operator gives me an option to watch any TV serial at any time based on my mood.

Nothing like cooking for your love. What if you are not the world’s best chef Nightingale Restaurant will create the ambiance based on your selected theme. Also with the assistance & guidance of world class expert chefs I would cook the entire dinner from my own hands & server it. How special that would be…

Well I am stepping out of this dream world & coming to reality. Sad to realize that when I (crazy) customer asks for some of these products or services, it’s just laugh out. It’s time that Manufactures & Service providers wake up & actually treat customers as King. My only request is design & build a product/service that fit peoples lifestyle & leaves a scope for customization.

Love As Eyes See It

2011-10-11T15:22:00.003+05:30

Life is just passing by.... do u have a say in it

We try our best to say it all the time. We regret not having said enough of it in our lifetime.

Saying it is one thing. Most of the time, we are just unaware of how looking at them with loving eyes is equally important.

And when they look at you, you know that they love you back.

Love as they see it.

Love as eyes see it.

Living as if there is no tomorrow

2011-10-07T09:32:00.005+05:30

Steve Jobs died, but because of all his great work and leadership he still lives with his quotes…

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday youll

most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Design is not just what it looks like Design is how it works.

Learn how to rethink your business, reimagine your products, and reset for future success

If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something —your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

You cant just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.

I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Dont be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other peoples thinking. Don’t let the noise of others opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful, that’s what matters to me.

"Vic, unless the Caller ID said 'GOD', you should never pick up during services".

Jobs skipped a meeting to take Laurene on their first date. The only question he asked was , "If this is my last night on earth, would I rather spend it at a business meeting or with this woman?". They have been together ever since :) Ask this question ones to urself & find answers for ur rest of life, "What if there is no tomorrow?"

Just do what you love….stay hungry, stay foolish.

These are the days of my life.

2011-09-10T22:45:00.009+05:30

I had been to Jogimatti which was my first treak ever. Completed a month in Huawei, meeting many new people every day, spending more time with loved ones. Hunting for a new property for investment in Bangalore, playing badminton on weekends, about to enrol for swimming classes “seriously” & my journey is going on. Thought of taking sometime out to note down things that I have realized & experienced more about life.

- Never judge, accept people the way they are, because you finally would realize that you were wrong.

- You cannot always make everyone happy all the time.

- People will never remember what you said but will remember you for how you made them feel.

- Once you make a decision, stick to it.

- It's hard saying goodbye.

- It's even harder saying goodbye to someone while they tell you they love you.

- It's scary when people know you so well, they predict what you're going to do and you still do it.

- Don't look for people to tell you that you did the right thing. If you think it's the right thing, then it probably is.

- Relationships can never survive in boundaries as they are meant to grow.

- Fear is ones biggest enemy; can’t forever keep running away from it. Face it & you shall conquer it. After which the happiness & joy you get is priceless.

- Realize who & where you are. Know where you wanna go…it’s always a leap that you need to take. Go for it & get ready to face all the emotions that come on your way. Trust me it’s all gonna be worth it.

- Bitching behind someone’s back does not make you best. Stand up & speak up upfront

- Always ask a question “Why” and you will discover miracles.

- Try to do those small things just for others happiness. People don’t expect anything but they deserve to be treated with respect.

- Smaller things in life give real satisfaction & joy. It’s just smaller things that the best things begin.

- Feelings can never be manipulated. One who is loved can never be hated.

- Don’t get upset if people make fun of you, be glad that you made them laugh.

- Everyone has their own set of problems, fears, sadness & aloneness what differentiate the best is the way they are dealing with them.

- Trust the one who remains & behaves the same even in your absence.

- If you can’t reciprocate the same at least respect the feelings.

- Give your best in everything that you do and make a difference – work, relationship, sports, art etc.

- No one is perfect, accept your mistakes & work on them. Life always gives second chance.

- Enough of running away, learn to face it…that’s what living is all about.

I'm enjoying myself so! I’m free, I'm happy, no regrets!

My weekend hobby "Moon watching... "

A letter to my best friend

2011-08-29T21:46:00.012+05:30

You and me. We wanted to live our lives in a tree. We played ‘aiming the ball inside the basket, hiding ourselves from professors while bunking classes, joined swimming classes just to enjoy the open shower (with our swimsuits on!). We walked every evening discussing what we’ll be, where we’ll be and who we’ll be with. We loved udhari ka vada pav with ketchup & green chillies. We named the trees. We scribbled Arabic bad words on the walls of our college. We love Bishop’s & singing at sunday mass. We love Pune. We lived together for 5 days in the mountains. I enjoyed getting wet in the rain and you hated to see me sneezing. You loved wine & I loved its color. You were my bodyguard & I was your lucky charm saving from dad & mom's scolding. We ate Bournvita powder late in the night. We loved Titanic and sang “Every night in my dreams....” during pyjama parties. I was like of your first love and you let it go. You supported my act of pretending to be a conceiving lady to run away from the cops. You desired to have a daughter like me & I wished a boy who would pamper me more than you. We rocked the dance floor and slapped may boys. We enjoyed spending our weekends with those cute looking orphan kids. Daydreaming of how we would seduce our love by wearing orange bikini saree while walking on the beach. My test car drive & you sitting next to me saying your final thanks giving to Lord. Pulling Bahadur uncles mustache, plucking roses from your neighbors garden & screaming out our favorite DJ’s name at the DJ war….gosh we have done it all. I have lived many lives in this time and enjoyed all that I never dreamt.

Yes, even if you are away from me…. you are in my every smile as I enjoy the rain
… you are in my every tear when I miss you in the dance floor
… no more credit cards can buy me the taste of our udhari ka vada pav

I hate new people loving you. You love new people loving me.
Jaannn Thank you for these memories.

Your handwriting is your mirror... know yourself

2011-08-18T17:21:00.011+05:30

I was always told that I don’t know how to judge people… I have this hobby of blindly trusting people and believe me it has never harmed. 2 years back my friend pulled me to Graphology learning workshop.

60+ aged cute looking and totally in love couple hosted the workshop.

Graphology was their PhD topic & were in India to spread awareness about this science. First day we were asked to submit our sample full paged handwriting. During the introduction round I said, “I wish to learn as I want to judge & know people I am dealing with”. On this my teacher told “Dear, u first need to know yourself & let that be the focus for your learning”.

He analyzed my handwriting and it was 95% true. After each class I was getting to know myself better & that was so satisfying. This workshop not only certified me as a “Graphologist” but did change my life at a crucial stage & I can say it is doing wonders for me.

Graphology is something that I have been interested in since then. Graphology simply means study of handwriting to reveal an individual’s personality.
> You can tell about a person’s nature, whether he or she is an extrovert or introvert,
> Whether the person is impulsive, artistic, materialistic,
> Is the person what he really appears to be or are there layers to his/her personality,
> Their strengths, weaknesses what they really are like
> Signature itself talks about you, parents, relationships, career, passion
> Yes, it can also predict future

Handwritings reveals SO much….I am so obsessed with it that I start off as soon as I look at hand written envelopes, receipts, medical prescriptions and even notes scribbled during a meeting –basically anything hand written and I can tell certain things about that person. Certain strokes correspond to different characteristics. A person’s handwriting is more or less consistent with the way he/she is as a person. If you are angry it will reflect in your handwriting. If you are sad, that too shows.

From my graphology experience I have seen people’s life getting more meaningful as soon as they work on their handwriting. Graphology is a science. Hand writing is a neuro-muscular function of your brain. Therefore every thought, and every emotion you feel reflects in your writing. Your brain is used to certain patterns which are pre programmed and it reflects in your writing. We are socially conditioned to be behave in an accepted way, which very often conceal our true nature. But our writing never lies. It is fascinating how much our writing reveals and Graphology continues to enthrall me.

so much so that a love letter becomes a sample in my term of Graphology

Be right in appearance wherever you are - part 2

2011-08-12T13:29:00.007+05:30

For a special date:

- Stay natural & look hygienic
- Study the persons taste and select your color & style accordingly
- Preferably red, orange, purple, black colors
- Don’t overdo that’s what will make u sexy
- Let your outfit depend on the venue & time of your date
- Do something with your style which makes u memorable eg: Tattoo,piercing, designer sleeves or scarf, unseen hairstyle, any unique accessory that define u and only you.

Attending a Wedding:

- NO red & too not much of gold jewelry
- Don’t dress up like a bride or groom (even if you are looking out)
- Respect the culture and dress up according to their respective tradition. Eg: don’t drape your saree in a gujarati style in a maharashtrian wedding
- Dress rehearsals is a must if you are the Best Man or Best Woman at the wedding
- If planning to get drunk and plan to rock on the dance floor: Men: avoid layering clothes and blazers go in for Indian ethnic wear. Women: No heavy or lengthy lengha, saree well draped (hope u get what I mean :-))

Getting ready for a Party:
- Birthday, anniversary, house warming, get-together, bachelor, pyjama party, divorce etc all sorts of parties...
- It’s difficult to list down the dress codes as each occasion is different. So ppl have this theme style dressing.
- While sending out the invite do mention the dressing theme eg: Bollywood, Jungle, Traditional , Tribal, Towel, Disney, Geeky, Historical, Rainbow etc

Visiting spiritual places:
- It’s a very sensitive issues, so lets be very careful while dressing up
- Tikkas & Bindis : NO – Church, YES – Gurudwara, A Must – Temples
- Westerns clothes still not well received in south Indian temples
- No designer or branded shoes & sandals… you'll know why

Traveling:
- Be comfortable. Avoid layered cloths & too much of accessories
- Long flight or connected flights carry an extra pair of cloths
- Avoid hairstyles & plaiting of your hair girls
- Shorts, Capri, spaghetti, tunic tops or flowery scarf and a jacket is a must

Movie/Theater show: - The funkier the better… go ahead with all ur experiments. In Spain I had seen bunch of teenage girls with painted face, lovely hats, uniform frocks with pencil heel sandals walking in to the theater… u see how it builds in the right excitement :)

And what for trekking? Well I really don’t know. Allow me to come back to you after this weekend as I am heading for an adventure camp.

“Keep experimenting… Style is something you cultivate when you know who you are”

Be right in appearance wherever you are - part 1

2011-08-05T13:50:00.007+05:30

It’s hard fact that most of the people including you and me judge a person based on what he/she wears. In my case most of the time my judgment has failed badly, as I said in my previous post, styling is more of experiments.

Sharing with you’ll some style tips for these special occasions:

Attending an Interview:

- No oily hair and don’t afford to have a bad hair day
- Avoid red & pink ties/shirts/skirts
- Girls please tie your hair, we are not here to win best hair award
- T-Shirts with bold slogans & prints plzz NO
- Pin your dupatta well & place it in the right position
- No dark makeup & strong perfumes
- No rolled sleeves & appreciate your shirt tucked in

As an Interviewer:
- Dress up causally & just try to be yourself
- Avoid bold colors, preferably White/blue
- Girl interviewing a guy “Please no lip gloss or dark eyeliner”. It’s distracting most of the time
- Stay away from drinks or smoke for a day before the Interview
- No raised colors…let Australian cricketers enjoy that style.
- No red eyes, don’t scare the prospective employee with the company work culture
- Guys don’t go extra miles or fall for doing stuff for your favorite female candidate
- Don’t smell as if you have jumped out of perfume shower, girls like me will faint

First week in new office:
- Don’t try outing new cloths; carrying something which you have always felt comfortable wearing.
- Be sober & not like F-TV models. Take time to understand the company culture & people’s taste with whom you would be working
- Avoid too many jewellery, exception to newly wedded bride :-)
- No bright colors – preferably black, dark blue, off white outfits
- Hair well pinned & no shinny headbands or clips

Participating in a conference:
- As you would be closely interacting with prospective business leads keep your nails clean & use mouth fresheners every 2 hrs
- No deep neck shirts or gowns
- Girls with long hair to be more comfortable go for French braid
- Avoid too much of colorful & mix & match outfits
- Cotton with thin border & no embroidery sareer are total YES.
- Black spegitte with blazers on formal cotton trousers looks NICE.

In a customer Meetings:
- Formal shirts/skirts tucked in with a combination of nice leather belt. Closed shoes a must
- If your presenting use gel to assure that even if you move your hair does not take weird shaped & makes you look funny
- Apply lip moisturizer or lip balm to avoid liking of your lips during the meeting
- Today I see most of them wearing denim jeans and its well accepted but with a formal color shirt or blazer
- Owning side & front slit skirts like me don’t worry - wear leggings. Yes back slit shirts are said to be formal in Europe.

While in a NGO activity:
- No fancy or branded cloths
- No formals just dress up with a simple nice quoted T-Shirt with pair of jeans
- Girls go with traditional Kutras & cotton churidar
- No skin show

Blog is getting lengthy hmmm…. Dressing up for a date, workshop, wedding etc all coming up in the next blog post.
*This is totally based on my experience & my conclusions. You’ll are totally welcome to put in your comments if you’ll disagree.

Only if I would knew when my last day on this planet…is

2011-07-31T01:11:00.003+05:30

“No, I don’t want to go by this way… can’t see the cancer patients battling with life”. See choose the other path & reached the ICU where her father was hospitalized, early suspect for Malaria. Ohhh Its “Sie” that’s what I called her. One, who married whom she loved, gave birth to a beautiful son, over trusted a friend, became a suspect in the eyes of her husband, got divorced, chose to study again, started staying with her parents and had the guts to fall in love again and fail.

That day Sie wasn’t sure that her life is going to take a major twist. All reports were placed in front of her & the doc says “Your father is in the 3^rd stage of cancer, you just have 6 months more”. Didn’t know how to react, asked no questions & went up to her god to ask “Why? Punish me, not my father”.

For a month Sie had almost visited all the top cancer specialist of her city, showed the reports & all had different recommendation & stories to say. She was confused & had lost the meaning of the word “Trust”. She just kept running away from home as facing her father was no easier. I accompanied her one such day to meet one such specialist & that day was the day of conclusion. He saw the reports and said, “Your father is at the last stage, take him anywhere on this earth you can’t save him for cancer forever. Stop torcuring him by getting those all medical test done on him, his body no more can resist. You have 5 months in hand. Make it the best for him. Let him live his life… he is a lucky man unlike us. Imagine what would you do if you knew your last day on this planet…”.

That’s the only day I had seen Sie crying out loud, yes because she had accepted the truth & was all set to batter for her father’s life. After this her only moto was to fulfill all her father’s wishes, major being a MBA. 2 months passed her family or closest people kept this secret from her father. They did all that he ever wished and desired for. Taught days were not very far. His body started giving up, tremendous pain in stomach, blood vomits, cuts in fingers which kept bleeding, hair & body weight loss…

4^th month in the mid night when her father was awake she went up to him and said, “Please forgive me for all the pains & hurt that I gave you. We just have 2 more months and I want to live every moment with you papa”. Cancer started playing its game badly and Sie was fighting it well. I salute this woman for never giving it up. Those 2 months, were the worst days of her life. Her father was on the bed 24/7, on saline, could only intake liquid, lost all hair & weight was not more than 36 Kg. He used to cry out loud with the pain & pluck bucket full of blood. Every night she was awake sitting next to her father with her books in hand preparing for 2 exams – MBA & father’s life. Cancer is one should disease which can make a father say to his daughter “Please kill me, I no more can live with this pain…”. Sie’s did all that a daughter could do for her father in those last days. It was his birthday & knowing that it’s her father’s last birthday made all the attempts to make it special. Till date she relives those memories & finds herself in the arms of her father.

The day stroked & he finally got peace when he took his last breath.

I wonder in today’s world where we speak of advanced technology, why we don’t have a treatment for Cancer. Why are the patients forced to die a painful death? Why could we hold on uncle for few more days so that he could see Sie’s MBA certificate?

I would like to leave you with these questions:

What would you do if you knew it was the last day with your parents?

What would you do if you knew your love is embracing death tomorrow?

What would you do for all those cancer patients who are left by their dear ones as they were cowards?

What would you do to not be in the place of Sie?

Life is short…make every moment special for the people you care, who knows if you would get another chance or not.

Wardrobe styling & Image makeover workshop

2011-07-24T07:59:00.009+05:30

A first impression is built by 55% look, 38% style, tone & body language & 7% what you say. Most of the time what we are and like is never depicted in our outfit. To avoid people misinterpreting you, we need to get our dressing & styling right. I participated in this workshop hosted by iReboot by Babita Jaishankar.

Color Analysis:

According to the color worn people make conclusions that you are conservative/introvert/extrovert, sophisticated, friendly, down to earth, business like. Skin tones are categorized as Cool tones or Warm Toned.

Cool Toned colors recommended – (Blue undertones) Rosy Pink, white, dark brown, true olive, ruddy-pinkish red.

Warm Toned colors recommended – (Yellow undertones) Golden, dark blue & green, ivory, NO black.

Body Style:

Body style is categorized in 4 types:

Hourglass- Balanced hip and shoulder width, defined waist
Triangle – Shoulders narrow than hips
Inverted Triangle – Shoulders wider than hip
Rectangle – Balanced hip & shoulder, no defined waist

After analyzing which body style you fit, select the outfit accordingly. Few tips:

Triangle: Outfit which adds volume to shoulders eg: Padding shoulders, puff sleeves, avoid sleeveless & tube tops, pocket less trousers, no frill skirts.

Inverted Triangle: Outfit which adds volume to hips eg: Frill Skirts, pocket trousers, pleated skirts, trousers, low waist trousers, anarkali kurtas.

Wardrobe basics:

Must have in Men’s wardrobe – Suite, Dress shirts (White & Blue), Trousers fit, Khakis, Statement watch, dark denim, cardigan/sweater, belt, shoes, ethnic wear, Polo’s & Tee’s

Must have in Women wardrobe – Skirt suite/Pant suit, formal trousers, Fitted jacket/Cardigan, Formal shirts & blouses, kurtis & chudidar, black dress & saree, watch, accessories, purse, closed shoes, dressy sandals, denim & tees

Skincare:

Before going to bed apply cleanser (to remove all makeup), apply toner and then moisture which has no SPF. Oil massage hands & legs and some Castor oil massage round the eyes. Morning avoid using bath soap on the face. Apply moisturizer which has 30% SPF with UVA & UVB projection.

Haircare:

Oil your hair once in a week. Add 1 spoon of Castor oil, 2 spoon of olive oil & 3 spoon of coconut oil. Warm it and then massage it. After an hour use shampoo for wash. Apply conditioner and serum after the wash. Hair wash is recommended twice in a week and not regularly.

Quick Notes:

- No pinks, orange and red outfit for Interviews

- A person who dares to dress out of the norm’s has a “I don’t care" attitude

- Thin and lean people fall in cool tone

- Red color indicated assertiveness & dominance, Blue (trust), Orange (no diet), brown (Negative)

- Shampoo with Conditioner is a big NO

- Night cream need not contain SPF

- Girls whose face is longer than compared to neck avoid closed neck outfits

- Darker lipstick makes u look aged

- Guys should read book “Style & the Man”

- Shorter people should avoid mix & match.

- Almond oil is recommended for face message

- Don’t step out without sunscreen

- Cosmetics brand suggested – Mac, Avon, Amway, l’orial, oriflamme

- Drink lots of water and intake fruits & vegetable & avoid cigars, alcohol. Include rock salt in your food

- Never use products having alcohol in their ingredients list

- While travelling to other countries, study about their dress & attire culture. Just because U care J

If you next meet me, don't expect me to be perfectly dressed. Don't believe all that's written about fashion go out try new stuff.... Its all about experiments & welcoming compliments & most of the time criticisms. Stay beautiful!

Drive me back… let me…

2011-07-21T09:39:00.006+05:30

I have not done some things,
and left others undone.
Drive me back,
let me re-do.

I have not cared for some souls,
and have hurt few others.
Drive me back,
let me re care.

I sacrificed some things,
and lost few others.
Drive me back,
let me reclaim.

I am suffering,
due to someone else’s offense.
Drive me back,
let me punish them.

I have ignored some moments,
and not noticed others.
Drive me back,
let me relive.

I kept silent,
and could never reciprocate.
Drive me back,
let me do justice to self.

I walked out of few life,
and they still can’t move on.
Drive me back,
let me bring back their smile.

I was spied,
and dictated to live life in not so my style.
Drive me back,
let me show them the value of a life.

I feared, shy,
and scared of losing & trusting.
Drive me back,
let and take a chance.

I acted weird,
and made them hate me.
Drive me back,
let me accept the proposal.

I was misunderstood,
and treated wrongly.
Drive me back,
let me teach them how to value a women.

I was trusted,
and made a part of their journey.
Drive me back,
let me tell them, “I am not worth it”.

Inspired by http://www.akshaysurve.com/blog/2010/12/let-me/

GENIVI Developer Conference India 2011

2011-07-19T09:30:00.004+05:30

2 day conference hosted at Hotel Taj and it witnessed some amazing participation from Tier 1 & Tier 2 companies. Was a great opportunity to listen to GENIVI board members talk, network with automotive players & hear about the roadmap & challenges from automakers.

My notes from the sessions:
GENIVI forum was established intending to drive innovation in Automotive infotainment system & to bring together Silicon guys to work with software providers to improve the deliverables.
Automotive was one industry which never worked in collaboration and GENIVI (G) wanted to break this trend. G is where they decide where to collaborate & where to compete. It addresses the common component that goes into making an automotive infotainment IVI system.

70% of the code which gets into GENIVI is generally Open Source. So its very important for the contributor to know the source of the source.

Automakers cost structure goes like: 10% in hardware, 40% BSP (Base porting), 40% Software Integration & validation, 10% building UI & UX
G takes care of what needs to go into an automotive platform. It’s completely based on Linux & currently supports Meego & Ubuntu. Its main intention is to develop components which are reusable. It has around 121 members & 24 new members in the pipeline.

Biggest issue currently is that we don’t have any GENIVI products, solution or prototype, however BMW promises to get its first GENIVI based IVI system out in 2013.GENIVI deliverables are:
- Specifications
- Reference base line
- Patches for projects
- GENIVI projects

G has technical experts in domains: Automotive, Consumer Electronics, Location Based Services, Media, Networking, and System Infrastructure. Currently it supports only Meego, Ubuntu and with no support from Google, Android has not been a part of the reference platform at GENIVI.

GENIVI Tools: Blog, Wiki, Jira (Action Item tracking), OBS (Open building system & code scanning tools) also have an option to use free tools – Fossology & back duck
GENIVI base code is currently not open but sooner or later will be Open Sourced under some license.

G Compliance process: Automaker submits the POC -> verification -> true functional verification -> Certificate authentication. So far G has no compliance logo designed.
Things that were lacking in G are Quality, security, testing, validation compliance standards

Show stoppers we see, in India contributing towards G: Lack of Expert groups in India, diversification interest in the consumer towards infotainment, lack of POC to prove G can make automaker’s life easy, help in driving innovation & delivering products on time.

Set of questions which GENIVI need to answer to make it a successful community:
- What’s the benefit for the end user
- How can the platform be developed to look Hack proof
- Motivate companies in being a part of the forum and how can existing members bring in more contribution

For me GENIVI looks very promising & if all it done as planned Automotive Industry will soon see Innovation wave.

New resolution: Backpacking & going offline for few days

2011-07-15T01:01:00.008+05:30

Going Offline:

Taking a break from online life and spending time in offline world is like finding yourself again & living in real. It has become sort of a new resolution of mine. It is fun to do such a thing and at the same time you get so many ideas when you are away from your laptop. We humans are not designed to think in front of a screen. I always believed that I think and as a matter of fact I do day dream a lot. I do chase some of my thoughts and have seen some of my day dreams getting real.

It was time to take a break and start a journey toward fulfilling my wishes for 2011. Perfect time & decided to visit Golden Temple at Amritsar. Excited! As it was my first visit to North India.
In these three days that I was away from the online world, I met myself again, I learnt & realized a lot, met new people, spent a lot of time with loved ones.

Delhi Airport:

Luckily we didn’t had direct flight to Amritsar we had to stop at Delhi Airport and we had 7 hours gap for out next flight. That was the time I got the ideas of having the following stuff at the airport:

- Mini Movie Theater: Where anyone can pick up this or her own CD and watch their favorite movie. I would have watched “Hum Tum”

- Library: I am not a book freak but yes I love watching people’s expressions while they are reading books. Trust me it’s really funny

- Swimming pool: That’s one thing that will make airport real heaven for me. I can keep my feet in water for hours and spend time listening to lovely music

- Park for kids: Better these airport guys design a park before I deliver my 5 kids, or else you can imagine airport to be a mad house.

- Kitchen: I hate eating food from outside. My friends who tease me, know this - Every time I look at the food, I thing I could have cooked far better than them.

- Pub: I can dance non-stop specially when the DJ plays the right songs

However in the absence of all these, God was great to me, he had sent over 2 lovely angels. I didn’t ever realized how the time passed-by while playing with them. The 6 and 8 years girls thought me some lessons of life:
- Just keep laughing out loud & smiling, don’t worry what the world would think. Your smile may just unknowing bring happiness in others life

- Never stops learning, life is gifted ones live it to the fullest

- Speak your heart out and let out our emotions. Stop cheating yourself
- Accept your weakness no one is perfect

It’s great to live like a kid throughout; at least you can look into your eyes when you face the mirror.

Golden Temple:Finally reached destination. Don’t understand these questions & I never found them worth answering:
“Why’s a south Indian visiting golden Temple?”

“Are you from Punjab?”
“Which part of Karnataka are you from?”
“How come your name sounds like a Coorge when you are from Mysore?”

Can we grow up please & stop judging, categorizing people based on their cast, religion & language.

Since school days I was asked to dream about Golden Temple. That dream got scattered but the marks remained. It was time to clean up the marks, move on & find a new path. As I stepped in & had a first look at the golden temple, I just couldn’t move my eyes off it. I loved spending hours sitting besides the holy lake and watching the temple. I had a wish, few thanks giving and lots of forgiveness to ask. I joined my hands to the almightily said a prayer for the well beings of few lives which at a time I never valued.

Amritsar Shopping:
Believe me it’s fun to shop at Amritsar. The Amritsar shopkeepers are real good sales guys, they should deliver talks at Management Institutes. I had no plans of buying a Lengha, logically because I am not getting married, even if I was, we at south India never wear lengha at such events. But this logical gal did buy a designer lengha, no clue WHY ? Simple answer could be, when I draped it just looked like it was designed & made only for me.

Lovely Punjabi suits, tempted to buy, exceeded my budget & finally to impress mom & dad I bought a saree too. Now you’ll can imagine after this exclusive shopping what pressure I would have from my grandma & family members.
*Warning: Go for a shopping to Amritsar only when you are about to get married or after marriage.

Waga Border:

Historical & patriotic place. Don’t know what craze I had about visiting this place. Gosh the people out there were MAD. It was badly crowded & everyone was ready to climb on each other. What race was that, some cheap crowd too & I would have bashed a guy if luck wouldn’t have hit us. Army guy told us to join a ladies queue which never existed. We somehow got in and this make me believe strongly about LUCK. Lovely drill, dance on patriotic songs and army parade was amazing to see. People shouting “Vande mataram” & feeling proud of being Indian.

My question is why this spirit is only for a while, when we step out, why do we start differencing people based on religion, women treated like object, girls given less priority over boys, parents wanting their children to be engineer, doctors & not get into army.

Its time Indians wake up & stop putting up masks.

Punjabi Food & People:This happens to me most of the time – 2 emotions run at one time. While I was travelling by auto cycle I was happy enjoying the ride, but when I used to see man almost of my dad’s age burning his blood and cycling all the ways tears flew down.
Nothing like rich Punjabi food – paneer pakoda, lassi, parotha all cooked & fried in pure ghee. Got to meet a lot of people talked with them about the life and challenges that they face. People are extremely friendly, they open up quickly, and they accept you quickly. Something that we in cities should learn. Life is hard there, they can hardly do anything after its dark (but they do so much during the day). Good Schools are rare. After schooling the choices of courses are very limited. People live a very community oriented life there.

What will remain always is the warm hospitality I received.

Coming Back Online:
Coming back online after a break is not easy. There are so many things to catch up. It took me two days to read and reply to all the mails, three days to read blogs of my friends, one day to catch up on twitter and one for all other social networks.

Feeling refreshed after a break!
Realized life is not the same for all and life is not in facebook, google+, twitter, emails, and flicker. It’s much more & I have lots to explore. I have just started my journey, wish me luck.

A secrete pray during my Barcelona trip

2011-06-23T11:48:00.006+05:30

My first visit to the most beautiful city & also first time at MWC(Mobile World congress), finally I thought it's time to blog about my memorable experiences.

Luckily this time I was accompanied by a lovely colleague & more of a friend. She is the most happily married women I have so far seen, carries an amazing sense of humor, a bad fortune teller & believes that I would meet my dream man in an airport.

At the Frankfurt airport we came across with a so called face-reader guy. These were his reading about my face, “ U r not married, we are going to meet on ### date at this same place, don’t take up the Barcelona street alone, someone will call out your name, be careful. Also you should stay away from alcohol”.

Flight to Barcelona was amazing & the view of the ocean was very pleasant & it was gearing my excitement. As we landed, realized that language is the biggest barrier here. Spanish people hardly talk English, what we could understand is just numbers.

My hotel reception guys were a bunch of jokers, very handsome, helpful indeed :) whenever I used to approach them, they all 3 used to give me a very funny & weird smile. Gosh guys are so difficult to understand.

Craze of tasting typical traditional veg-spanish food, made us ask for the bill before the food arrived as we didn’t wanted to fall short of money. Paid 54 Euros for 20% of stuff that I could digest.

Me & my friend got stuck in elevator with a crazy Spanish non-English speaker guy. Our mistake of taking a service lift made this man feel the happiest guy for that movement and he just couldn’t stop giving us flying kisses.

That Sunday evening dinner with my team members will always be memorable. At times I feel getting drunk is good- helps one forget worries, speak your heart out & just be yourself.

Learnt never keep your cellphone away from yourself, as it would lead you to not reading a important message & might just hurt someone. Why does it happen that you wish for someone be close to you and when its all happening we tend to run away. Well I was just not OK of my such wishes coming true.

At the MWC lunch time, all the Indians used to gather at the Maharaja restaurant & enjoy the look-like Indian food.

Valentine's day & decided to take up the Ramblas street. Love was in air that evening. Heart shaped balloons, flowers, lovers kissing on the street & music all around, that evening was really special. For the first time I felt like this night should never get over.

I was returning back to my hotel & here I heard someone shouting not my name (as the face reader predicted) but saying “Indian girl”.

We are so used to see queues at bus stand & railways stations in India, but after 6 pm at the MWC as the day end we used to wait in a big queue for the taxis. I used to freely walk out of the MWC campus, but had to struggle to get in again, as I used to forget my ID proof each time. I was a popular face for the security people.

Olympic beach was a treat to watch during the evening times. Best place for me in the entire city.

The experience of wearing Indian dress (salwar kameez) was interesting. You walk on the street and all will look at you as you are an alien. At the MWC I was requested for a photograph, and when I told them about my camera phoniness, it just sounded like a story for them. I was the colorful girl of the day where everyone one had black, white, brown formals on. I am so proud of being an Indian.

Ready to Eat was the only solution that was left, after the international Spanish food which I was totally done with. This madness of Indian food made me & my friend walk on the street in our night-suite to get into hotel cafeteria as we didn’t wanted to cross our team sitting in the bar that evening.

It was time to say goodbye to the beach city, but has it ever happened to you’ll that something caught your eyes & you forgot the whole world around looking at it. I left the city with a secret prayer.

From a Girl to a Women

2011-06-20T08:51:00.003+05:30

A feminist during her college days,

is career-minded and career oriented.

play the game of hide and seek with her suitor,

dare to stay happily unmarried all her life.

buy flowers for herself,

feel the wind on her face,

go camping, biking,

be shy, be bold,

trust men occasionally,

give that second chance to everyone,

be a romantic,

get emotionally hyped over nothing and cool down suddenly,

go on a diet, yet eat chocolates and ice creams,

love being a woman,

get high and stay high on life, love her man and her reflection,

learn to love herself,

kiss herself goodnight in the mirror,

break rules – lead the dances,

drive her man’s car,

manage his business, wear his clothes

yet know that he’s a man and she’s the woman,

get flattered,

wear latest fashion and wear fine diamonds

for no special reason,

lay down principles in her life,

go out for window shopping all alone,

know the way to her man’s heart,

never forget the girl within.

Analysis of source of competitive success

2011-06-17T13:03:00.004+05:30

It was a privilege being invited to be a part of Chief-Executive forum where Prof.Sharon Belenzon from Duke University shared his 3 case studies, giving a different prospective towards “Analysis of source of competitive success.

Cirque-du Soleil: Company which found the mantra of success in a dyeing industry like Circus

Strategic Analysis majorly includes how the market is moving & how we can bring more value to customers. A dyeing industry is where we see inability to Innovate. Prof shared the case study of Cirque-du Soleil a company which stepped in the dyeing Industry like circus and proved that with innovation profits are guaranteed.

Things that they did:

- Brought in new elements (music, theater)

- Raised the bar & expectation of the customer satisfaction

- Eliminating the threats (animals, risk acts)

They brought in new elements to circus and invented a new business model. The question was what if many players come into competition, can this business model be patented. We had a discussion on what could be called as Innovation. Is it about inventing a new thing from the scratch or is it about getting components & packaging to build a product. We got the answers when we took the example of the guy who claimed to invent car windshield.

MTN & Orange in Africa: Company which sales with financial weak customers

The key decision is in which industry you would like to invest and start a business. There is no industry which is attractive. Look at the following features before entering into any industry:

- Easy Entry

- Opportunities of problems to solve

- Scope for innovation

- Geography distribution

I totally loved the Game theory introduction. Coming back to this case, its difficult to sell a product or a service to poor customer, but products like Shampoo sashes, interest rate payable for load, prepaid cards are some great business model which proves that the profit margin is more when attempted to make sales to poor customers. From the case study quick things to learn, if a company plans to do business with poor customer market are:

- Build the product at a low cost

- Do mass production

- Thinks of innovative revenue model

- Innovation in service rather than the product

- Strategy to convince to buy the product

- Skilled ways to handle corruptions

Country wise economy model:

This session was a real eye opener, gave me a different prospective to look at the economy model of each country. US economy model is where resource allocation is totally in the hands of the shareholder i.e Market and that is why we see that they are able to handle recessions smartly. They have the ability to adapt to changes easily. On the other hand if we look at India economy it’s basically in the hands of Business groups like Tata’s, Birla’s and Reliance. The ownership & control is diversified and here is the problem. Intercompany Dividend tax has to be introduced, and then we would see a real completion in the market.

The question is why don’t we have some real big Indian IT product company ruling the world today? Why do we see few entrepreneurs making it big like Tata’s?

CEMEX: Company which could maintain a monopoly in multiple regions in a competitive space.

If we look at CEMEX, it’s a company which is spread geographically and has the highest price as compared to all their competitors. Let’s find the answer to why & what made them build this monopoly

- Look for the market where growth opportunity is more

- Country which is politically week

- Less competitors

- Keep the price high and invest only 60% of the total resources

- Be scalable based on the demand

My take away from the session:

Go to the industry which has many problems, link resources to those problems and drive in innovation. Success is in all industry but what’s important is how well you design your strategy and feel the market pulse and act.

Why is it so difficult?

2011-05-30T23:15:00.005+05:30

Why is it difficult to see your loved ones die, when we know death is certain...

Why is it difficult to forget the pain received due to someone else’s mistake, when we know forgiveness is great...

Why is it difficult to lose faith & trust on humanity, when we see our people doing evil...

Why is it difficult to maintain eye contact with friends after the break-up, when you know matches are made in heaven...

Why is it difficult to correct your teacher when its wrong, when you know knowledge is no ones ownership...

Why is it difficult to adopt a child, when we know it’s great to make a life than creating one...

Why is it difficult to accept mistakes, when we know apologies make you more stronger...

Why is it difficult to share money, happiness & smile, when we know it doubles the more we give...

Why is it difficult to speak the truth, when we know we are not what we pretend to...

Why is it difficult to compliment our competitors, when we know the race is long...

Why is it difficult to accept the fact that it was not worth me, when we know it’s the matter of luck...

Why is it difficult to stop them moving out of your life, when you know they are worth being a part of your life...

Why is it difficult to ask someone to stop loving, when you know it just happens...

Google IO – Day 2 Keynote

2011-05-13T23:08:00.004+05:30

Google IO second day was about the web and thus to Chrome and Chrome HTML5 OS.

Web GL: It brings graphics and animations in the browser display and accelerates all hardware. Impressive demos showcased: Thousands rendered sprites, 3d landscapes and even editors to create 3D content on the Web.
Best part of this technology - Angry Birds now on web for free in Chrome Webstore. http://bit.ly/meXXVB Have fun, but don’t play in office!
Speech to text on the Web: Using only a single attribute, it is possible for speech to text in web applications. We shall soon see many text boxes on the Internet with Speech logo. It’s a big step towards web accessibility!

Payment API for Chrome Webstore: The new payment method for the webstore will be easier for users and developers. Easy shopping with "one click" in the webapp. For developers, it is only a single line of code (Java Script) and this payment method is also possible in webapps in-app Purchases. Developers have to share 5% of their sales to Google.

Chromebook: Chrome OS with perfect combination of Google's Cloud OS was the big new. Samsung and Acer will be launching Chromebook based on chrome OS having unbelievable boot up in 8 seconds, costing $499. Its impressive to see how many activities which were done with a native client will soon be available on the Web. Working the same way and can still be made available offline. Google has open API for Web application development with the opportunity to be so well integrated into the system.

Google IO this year was not about any new innovative products like Wave or Buzz, but many new features and enhancements of existing products. Let wait to watch where Android and Chrome OS fit well in.

Lets ask Questions

2011-05-11T15:29:00.004+05:30

Questions make us think deep

Questions help clear vision

Questions change perception towards looking at things

Questions make us angry

Questions generate happiness

Questions make us stand out of the crowd

Questions make us wonder

Questions help in finding answer to some other question

Questions bring back memories

Questions generate ideas

Questions challenge us

Questions defines a problem

Questions resolve conflict

Questions make love

Questions make things clear

Questions define who and how we are

My message is “No Question is ever foolish, only an answer could be. Don’t be scared to ask questions… its always worth it. ”

PS: Pic is of my friends lovely daughter. This post is inspired by her. She can have 5 questions in 2 minutes for U

Google I/O: Day 1 Keynote takeaways

2011-05-11T09:18:00.003+05:30

Android growth rate : 100 million activated Android devices. 400,000 new Android devices activated every day. In all 200,000 free and paid applications available in Android Market

Android everywhere strategy: Based on this strategy, Google launched an Android@Home, which allows Android apps to discover, connect and communicate with appliances and devices in your home.

Android Open Accessory: These are set of API which will help developers start building new hardware accessories that will work across all Android devices. Hardware and software will be released in a reference design so Android can be plugged into fitness equipment, robots and other devices.

Ice Cream Sandwich: Android Ice Cream Sandwich is Honeycomb 3.1 and was an effort to create one OS experience and interface across multiple devices. Ice Cream Sandwich will bring everything we love about Honeycomb on tablet to phone, including the holographic user interface, more multitasking, the new launcher and richer widgets.

Multimedia cloud service: Google launched Music Beta , a new service that lets users to upload personal music collection to the cloud for streaming to computer and phones. Added Movies for rent to Android Market. Users can rent from Android Market on the web, and soon will be rolling out to Verizon XOOM customers.

Updates for a wide range of devices: Google is working to get tighter with partners to create a better experience. Open Handset Alliance, are working together to adopt guidelines for how quickly devices are updated after a new platform release, and also for how long they will continue to be updated.

Finally Android 3.1 will be Open sourced and will be scaling up to Google TV later this year. Day 1 was less of surprises but indeed it brought a smile to all the Google IO attendees as they all became proud owners of Samsung Galaxy tablet.

Mobile games going social

2011-05-08T20:50:00.005+05:30

Mobile games going Social

View more presentations from Bhavya Siddappa

Thanks to Silicon India for inviting me to talk at Gaming Conference India 2011.

My talk was categorized into 3 parts:

Started off with the market app statistics and prediction for mobile gaming. Listed down few of the mobile games developer’s challenges.

Then shared the mantra of how adding social element in mobile gaming apps can help overcome few of the challenges. Moved on by giving few of the social ingredients need to be included to make a great mobile social game.

Finally few words about the company I work for and few tips from our experiences being in this mobile industry for more than 10 years. What amazed me was audience getting excited after sharing Teleca’s E2E mobile gaming solution. As I promised on the stage here’s the link for the entire White paper. http://www.teleca.com/Home/solutions/end-to-end_solutions.aspx

My key message was “build apps which either saves time or kills time, and what could be best then the combination of social with gaming”

Take away from - Mobile Apps Conclave 2011

2011-04-30T19:02:00.010+05:30

Cellstrat was hosting the event which is a Market research, social media and digital company.

Pratapa, Vodafone Keynote:WAC was supposed to be big, we are making mistakes as we don’t think of users: but technology.
Apple gives WOW UX and Google’s interconnect and integrated help communication, all focused towards customers.
Don't sell technology sell experience to users.Users have no issues with privacy but it's about the control they have on their information.Life was simple when apple and blackberry were just fruits
Don't over engineering mobile app or try replacing it with traditional web app.
80% of Internet access in India will be from mobile in 2015
Future: Mobile Cloud computing + Mobile Web apps
eg: Mirror app is something which fits into our lifestyle

Panel- Mobile App go mainstream:App Market needs financial success.
Aircel is making money, but not developer’s
Developers face problem in reaching out to their consumers.
Consumer devices like mobile are very sensitive to UX
Questions like:- visibility of app
- marketing of app
- Indian vendors quote in dollars
- which platform should developers focus
- is mobile web a gr8 platform
- how to monitories the app -> premium, sponsorship, advertisement
- M-commerce future ?Service guys must wear content hat.
Focus on consumer and scale
User experience is primary, be creative and think how to market app from the day one
Mobile apps Indian startups are growing multinational. Lots of opportunities around and it’s worth taking a risk now.

Discussions around HTML5:- Native is going to go far ahead with the market competition thus web not being standardized will take some time to catch-up
- Key is to find the right hybrid.
- HTML5 is going to be the only choice of the developers, but the question is “when”
- Market forces will solve the problem of HTML5. It’s a gr8 platform which can't be ignored

Sridhar, inMobi “Mobile Apps and Web”:Due to market pressure we are forced to push our boundaries of creativity.

250M mobile Internet users from India

Unlearn the PC world to work in mobile space
Mobile Advertisements are great marketing tools
Mobile Advt are like mini app, going beyond text and banners
Mobile is not just a extension of PC web
Asians like advt in mobiles
Its marketer’s choice: web app advt or in-app advt

Sunny, Nuance: “Emerging Mobile Ecosystem”Cars are connected to whole lot of devices and is a big phone.
Connectivity is important let our kids not learn the word “buffering”
Collaboration of Telco + developer is needed
One time password regulation is a pain.
Amazon is pleased with the mobile payment revenue
Voice based social networking integration is futureIn all it was a great conference witnessing many entrepreneurs, visionaries and market researchers predicting the future of Mobile apps. Unfortunately the event did not touch upon the theme “The Mobile Web disruption”. Mobile future in undoubtedly great but it time to bring more innovation in the field of Mobile Web, mCommerce, accessibility for disabled people, enterprise.

Mobile has a long way to make this world - Paperless and PC less.

Talk at MSRIT on Android being Open Source

2011-04-25T22:41:00.008+05:30

I was invited by VRGLINUG the GNU/Linux Users from M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology (MSRIT). Annually, Mukthi a premier, student focused, Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)event. It serves as a forum for promoting FOSS among the student community, and spreading an awareness of how FOSS can be a good alternative to proprietary software.

Mukthi 11.04 was hosted on April 23rd and 24th 2011, featured a host of talks by FOSS luminaries.
My talk was about: “Android is open, but let’s do it right”.
- Android overview
- Why Android?
- Open platform and Open source
- Android is Open, what does it mean for a developer ?
- Abiding to OSS policies

Some interesting questions I faced from the OSS enthusiast students:
- Why is honeycomb not open sourced by google ?
- How should we get over the fragmentation issues ?
- Can we integrate QT on android ?
- Can we program C/C++ on android ?
- Why new version builds on devices like Motorola etc take time ?

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Android is Open, so lets do it right

View more presentations from Bhavya Siddappa.

Some interesting comments from the audience:
“Android is not truly OSS”
“Android innovation speed is amazing”
“It would be great to see less prices android phones coming soon in the market”
There were some interesting talks by well recognized experts from the FOSS world, as well as professionals from the software industry. It was very well received by all.
I had fun interacting with the knowledgeable audience. One more memorable event for me :)

The message is very clear "OSS will never die and all thanks to the great community support and believers "

Windows Mobile 7 Meetup hosted by Mobile Monday Bangalore

2011-04-10T21:25:00.008+05:30

Few notes from the meetup: -
- The next big thing is Mobile and Cloud Computing.
- WP7 UI design is inspired by US Metro design.
- WP7 wants consistent platform experience to users across devices
- Cloud enabled push notifications
- End user customization
- Development Tools: Visual Studio 2010, Sliverlight, XNA, Blend 4 for app designing
- Currently 12 k apps in WP7 store
- Has a sandbox framework and no IPC communication
- WP7 learned mistakes from other platforms and trying to fill in those gaps
- No internal DB support, use isolated storage data on phone or place it on cloud
- 3 Philosophy : Apps running on Xbox, Desktop & mobiles all stored on cloud
- Users can enable only 15 notifications for 3rd party apps
- Inbuild Bing maps and Bing search API exposed
- XNA and Sliverlight rendering engine is different
- OEMs will need to compliance to specific hardware requirements
- High level device driver programming is a part of software stack programmed and managed by Microsoft
- Market place validated the app and then issues a licensing to public the app on store
- In India the payment gateway for market place is not ready.
- Kinect gaming, 3D, NFC & more enterprise features in the upcoming version of WP7.

WP7 Overview Slideshare: http://slidesha.re/hP7Jsx

I would say that WP7 is a smartly controlled mobile platform and it’s totally committed to the consumers and want to give an unique experience by developing cool and innovative apps with the support of the developer community.

20th International WWW Conference

2011-04-04T15:02:00.008+05:30

WWW Conference series provides the world with a premier forum about the development of the web. I had the privilege of being a part of this conference which brings together researchers, developers, users and vendor – all who are passionate about the web and what it has to offer, now and in the future. This time it was India which hosted the series in Hyderabad, a beautiful city know for its culture, technology growth and food. The 5 days conference was bifurcated into following tracks:

Keynotes: Dr.Abdul Kalam believes that the biggest hindrance in making the web truly democratic is the language barrier. Web has changed from 'What can I take' to 'What can I give'. web 3.0. Tim Berners-Lee the inventor of web wants every big company to convert all of it’s' data sets into semantic web formats and open it up with annotations. Advocating web apps for mobile rather than native apps.

Panels: “Connecting the next billion web users” panel summarized lets use TV_DVD and mobiles to get WWW into these rural areas and Web services must have voice embedding and internationalization for web accessibility.

Tutorials: “Web Retrieval” 270 millions web sites, 20 billion indexed pages, 1 billion users this tutorial had high queries to generate accurate, fast responses to search queries. “Linked Data” showed how it enables uniform access, parsing and interpretation of data and how novel wealth of structure data cab potentially be exploited for creating new applications. “Web of things” happened to be my favorite tutorial as it was addressing the concept of how web could be well accessed from embedded devices like TV, Mobiles, iPods, tablets and automotive entertainments systems.

Research Papers: World class Web researches presented their papers on Intent understanding, ranking, monetization, web security, social network algorithms, search systems. IBM, Microsoft, Yahoo and Google research labs had their own stand at the exhibition hall and showcased effective demos based on their research finding. Speaking to each of them I am totally convinced that the web is getting better day by day. Check out my Presentation:

Its the perfect time for Mobile Web

View more presentations from Bhavya Siddappa.

W3C track: W3C organized two “camps” over 2 days: on accessible multilingual Web and on mobile web applications. I was invited to talk on industrial prospective as to why “It’s the perfect time for Mobile Web”. My talk covered; 10 reasons why it’s the perfect time for mobile web, current challenges in the Mobile Web and finally demoed HTML5 apps working well on all the mobile platforms and mobile browsers in online and offline mode. Later half there were some interesting discussion on the native vs mobile web, HTML5 road map & performance.

Key thing from the conference was that Mobile Web is the future and all have the right for accessing web. Let’s all work towards making web accessible to all through embedded devices taking away the barriers of language, religion, cast and creed.
View Pictures at https://picasaweb.google.com/bhavsidd/WWW

Celebration of the power of Womeness at Office

2011-03-23T20:49:00.004+05:30

Pink, Green, Red, Purple, Orange colors all around… well the office looked very much like heaven, with the presence of the beautiful lovely ladies dressed up in ethnic wear “Saree”. It was all for the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day being celebrated at Teleca office on March 8, 2011.
The event kicked off with the inauguration of “Femme De Teleca” a networking forum for all the Teleca India Women’s. The main objective was to create a platform where women’s could share information, new ideas, and latest trends in business, fashion, lifestyle etc, a podium to express concerns, issues and suggestions.

But engineering business is basically a men’s world and Teleca India head Santosh Xavier begged to differ. He shared his thoughts on all his attempts to change this myth and encourage more women contribution in Teleca’s growth. Later followed a quiz making everyone recognize all women – past heroines, today's leaders and tomorrow's champions for what they have achieved and what is to come.

Women at times gets compliments for her beauty, looks, intelligence and always for here humbles and scarifies she makes, but this time it was awards given away to women’s for being well dressed, congenial, bold and gracious. Other set of awards were given to the ladies for exemplary performers at Teleca. Health, skin care and weight are major concerns for any women and thus a doctor was invited to talk on women related health issues and share key mantras to stay happy and gorges forever.

Later games, music, dance, song performance filled the atmosphere with lots of fun, joy and gave everyone a moment where she felt proud of being “A Women”. The message was “Bring in the difference, believe in yourself and the gift of being women!! Make everyday Women's Day. Do your bit to ensure that the future for girls is bright, equal, safe and rewarding.”

Experiment: iPad a learning tool to special kids

2011-03-13T15:43:00.006+05:30

SAP Labs tied up with Spastics Society for a social cause, the cause was to spread computer education to the mentally challenged and to kids with learning disabilities.

It was an initative by the SAP to bring in some difference in the society by conducting various computer workshops. As iPad brought in the revolution in the education domain, they wanted to experiment in a workshop where the volunteers train the parents of these special gifted kids to use it as a tool for educating them.

iPad was introduced in the simplest form:
“It a device which has within it the Sound+CPU+Display+mouce+keyboard packaged into one slimmest electronic gadget”.

Proud of participating as a volunteer and all thanks to my iPad for making be eligible for getting into this workshop inspite of being a non-SAP employee.
We had the following apps for the workshop categories in the respective category:
Learning: Dot to Dot Number Whiz, ABC , Kids Match, FirstWords sampler
Communicate: TapToTalk , BDayBragbook, Photo Animals
Fun: Virtuoso Piano, Eensy Harp ,Talking Tom

I was there to educate the kids and their parents on and about iPad, but the fact is, in those 5 hours I learnt many lessons of life:

Parent’s said: Life is not the same for all. It takes time to realize the fact that God had blessed us with a special child and gain courage to give the best life to our kid. We are proud of them for whatever they do with their disabilities. Every day is full of challenges and life gets more exciting when we face them and see our kid making all things possible and breaking his own boundaries and surprises us with his achievements and learning’s.

A mother of a one such kid said “I cry every day but with the happiness that god choose me to be the mother of such a kid, because he knew I can make a difference. I thank my son for bringing in the purpose for my living.”

Teachers: We provide intervention services to kids with Cerebral Palsy, Autism, Mental Retardation, Multiple Disabilities and Learning Disabilities. Every kid is so different and highly talented. It’s a challenge to understand them but we grow everyday with them.

Kids: These lovely innocent kids couldn’t talk to me but yes they communicated with me via their hand movements, eye contact and hugs.
Mayank’s eyes said, “I want to learn more as much as I can. Can do everything like you’ll. I have less time and want to say hello to the whole world”
Vishnu’s hand said, “Thanks for being my friend, be with me forever”
Sonu’s voice said, “I am the dude and I know what I wish to have at the age of 21”
Smrithi’s hug said, “I loved learning and playing with the iPad, Thank you!”

These kids are so cute and innocent, “Living life as it comes, with no complaints to God, always smiling, bestowing faith on all and enjoying every movement without the fear of future”

"The best things in life are free; I realized that it is in giving that you receive. I realize that I have gained 10 times more than what I have contributed. "
View Pics at : http://bit.ly/hxBMnT

Why do I dance?

2011-03-08T20:24:00.006+05:30

I remember when I was 8 yrs old my dad dreamt of making me a successful classical dancer.

He got me admitted to Bharatanatyam dance classes, which were during the evening time. To be very frank I hated dancing and found it funny. So here comes my big confession, I used to bunk my dance classes and play cricket with my apartment guys. Teacher went up complaining to my parents and that was when my dad’s dream broke into pieces.

I used to fail to understand why I was always pulled up in the school dance competitions by my teachers, just so that they give me good marks I used to join the dance rehearsals and perform. This went on and finally the day came: We were doing the candle dance, and my partners candle slight burnt my hand and I screamed out loud. The dance teacher without any knowledge hit me on my back hard via a wooden stick. I shouted back and threw my candles and stepped out of the rehearsal stage. That was an official goodbye to dance.

College days and parties invitations, hmmm
Friends B’day parties and they all loved music and dance. As usual I was standing out of the dance floor; all of sudden the D’j announced the best dancer gets a mobile phone… (this was 2002 where mobile phone were a luxury). Me and my friends (gr8 dancers) decided to win it at any cost. I got motivated and there was Bhavis making a comeback in dancing.
I don’t know how but I just remember that my name was announced as a winner. Gosh that evening was a turning point of my life. So now… I am happy…. I dance
I am upset…. I dance
I am angry…. I dance
I am tired…. I dance
I am crying… I still dance

I dance because I can express my feelings only though dance…

I don’t dance for a show
I don’t dance in parties
I don’t dance to win
I don’t dance to impress
I don’t dance to showoff

I dance only for myself; because I get to know myself better through dance.
(A room in my flat has got dedicated as the dance floor)

It’s all a curse…

2011-03-08T19:41:00.002+05:30

It’s a curse to be young
It’s a curse to be humble
It’s a curse to be sacrificing
It’s a curse to have fans
It’s a curse to be mentored by the best
It’s a curse to be having many well-wishers around
It’s a curse to have a perfect family
It’s a curse to have caring and non-selfish friends
It’s a curse to be beautiful
It’s a curse to be adored
It’s a curse to be lucky
It’s a curse to be blessed with all the freedom
It’s a curse to be a gracious dancer
It’s a curse to be well learned
It’s a curse to be an emotional writer
It’s a curse to be an exception
It’s a curse to be loved so much....

Believe me when I say, “It’s never too good to be so much blessed by God”.

Nokia + Microsoft look promising

2011-03-03T20:12:00.005+05:30

Everyone has a say on this, so let me take this opportunity to blog on why I have a positive view towards the partnership between Nokia and Microsoft.
As Nokia announced Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7 (WP7) to be its “primary” smartphone operating system moving forward; many felt betrayed, while I was seeing some positive sides here:

Positive key points out of this engagement:
* Microsoft back in game, positioned as “third mobile ecosystem” challenger to Apple’s iOS and Android
* Nokia handset fans will be looking forward for the first Nokia WP7
* Developers have once more option, to look out innovation and also earn money (get some free phones)
* With good Nokia hardware and Microsoft supporting the device with good enterprise capabilities with amazing UX, for-sure can win the minds and hearts of those Billion users with lower price featured phones
* Learning from the mistakes and weakness of Apple and Google they for sure have a long game to play in the Mobile Wireless market.
* Nokia will be targeting various price tiers with its WP7 range (not just the high-end) as it goes after mass market high volumes. A potential to significantly disrupt the current smartphone ecosystem.
* RIM under pressure as a “fourth” mobile ecosystem, while Intel must
* Merger of services assets, a good strategic fit as each firm has strengths in different areas; notably Nokia in mapping and Microsoft in search and advertising.
* Consumers the King; More competition, more innovation, more business opportunity, more devices and more fun in learning and sharing.

My Message:
“Agreed that Android 3.0 is flooding the market and hers coming the iPad 2 killer, with some bad history I still think that this partnership built on huge risk will have something big to offer to the Consumers & developers if they play the game smartly and quickly”.

Few things that they need to do is:
• Build up the infrastructure for the develop community to come and build good applications
• Get on with forming a partnership community asking partners to contribute to the platform and drive innovation quickly
• Get the Nokia WinMob7 featured phone ASAP in to the market
• Evangelize and make people aware about the platform architected
• Openness is the key here with perfect blend of security control and freedom for anyone who wants to contribute to the platform for making it better and best.
• Indentify the market where they want to make a difference and rule.
• Believing in the policy “Your success is mine”.
• Build smart phones which my Grandma can use with ease.

What’s like being a Technology Evangelist?

2011-02-26T00:00:00.009+05:30

Well I have been asked by many this question and then I though let me blog the answer so that next time anyone asking me this, I can redirect them to this page and increase my page hits ;)

It’s a big story of how I wished and dreamt of being an Evangelist, to tell in short: While I was doing my masters I got this craze of being an Evangelist while my classmates wanted to be Software Engineer, Business Analyst, Test & Quality manger, PM etc.

In one of my job interviews I was asked “What’s your dream role?”
I said “I want to be an Evangelist”
He smiled and said “Why and what do you think an Evangelist do?”
That was the point from where I started finding answer to this question:

- A Evangelist (E)is an inspiration for many
- E motivates people to gets their hand dirty into the technology/product
- E is a very close to salesmen but they will shares the facts of the product and technology with the masses
- E plays around the technology and then shares the learning with the world through a blog post, SNS like twitter or in respective technical forum.
- E works closely with the developer community.
- E is a link between a product engineering team and the outside community using and developing code based on the product.
- E shares the best practices and indentify the bugs around the product/technology
- E is a good predictor and has the perfect pulse which feels the market trends.
- E talks in the camps, meetups, and conferences and tries to reach out to max audience.
- E develops demos around the technology and judges the strengths and its weaknesses
- E has to answer all the technical questions and at times have to sit with the developers debugging the code and resolve technical issues.

Evangelist is born to learn, speak, share, sell and inspire the masses towards the technology or product they are passionate about.

My Grandma fails to understand all this and thus for here Evangelist mean being paid for doing social service in Information technology.
When my dad gets to hear a compliment, “I love when your daughter talks technology” then my dad in his heart would be saying “I would have loved to see her as a great classical dancer then a Technology Evangelist”.
So here’s my answer to my dad “I enjoy being an Evangelist, this birth as a Technology Evangelist but promise in my next birth as a classical dance Evangelist”.

Mobile World Congress 2011 as expected with less surprises

2011-02-24T01:02:00.003+05:30

It happened to be my first MWC and thus you could guess how excited I was. I was sharing the space with the 60,000 people from 200 countries gathered in Barcelona from MWC.

It was a week –long parade of technology, gadgets, networking, parties, celebrations of awards and also the fun of witnessing some innovation and opportunity that mobile brings to business.

I have captured all the announcements, launches of gadgets, introduction of new technology and company’s strategies in this presentation with some pics. Hope you enjoy going thorough them.

However following were the key strong highlights and message that I took back from the event:
Android is everywhere and is getting larger day by day: Google mobile OS stole the show. More than 200,000 ppl a day buying an android phone, confirms how serious is Google about Mobile and how good then can be in marketing too

Games on the move: Sony Ericsson launched its much-anticipated Xperia play handset, which will forever change the way people think about Smartphone’s and mobile gaming. Angry birds with 3D on Windows Mobile phone, will be worth a wait.

Mobile gets social: Foursquare, twitter and Facebook SNS are now a major part of the mobile dictionary. Phones are sensors connected to the network, when we use them, they can help us understand the intent we’re giving to our loved ones.

Noika and Microsoft Friendship: Can estimate the level of commitment as the announcement was on the Valentine Day. As they wished to create a challenger now its goanna be three-horse race. Whose betting on what ?

Mobile Payment: NFC (Near Field Communications) are changing the way mobile devices will be used in future. It provides consumers with a convenient way of buying goods. So the question would be when someone leaves from home” Did u carry your Mobile Wallet?”

World of Tablets: Every device manufacture understands the power of a tablet and thus we see Motorola, HTC, Samsung, Blackberry and Apple all in the game. With features like Enterprise, video conferencing tablets will soon become commonplace in offices and homes.

Mobile Web the future: Consumers want to view or access the same content across a number of devices and not to be restricted by any OS, device or network.

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Mobile World Congress 2011 Overview

View more presentations from Bhavya Siddappa.

I have lots of stories to share, some funny and some very interesting. So why don’t ull test your patience meter, till I post them on my blog.

In the mean while enjoy watching my MWC http://bit.ly/h83wjS
and Barcelona pics http://bit.ly/g6TS8S
don’t make an attenp to search me in the pics.
*(For those u don’t know I am suffering from cameraphobia).

What all did I get back from the Andaman Islands

2011-02-03T23:41:00.018+05:30

Note: The content was blogged on the last day of my vacation i.e 23th Jan 2011

As I sit beside the swimming pool, my feet’s relaxing under water, eyes gazing at the clean sky with the full moon biding me farewell; I decided to skip my sleep, blog and wait for my early morning flight from Port blare back home.

Islands – I unwind and found inner peace, I felt fulfilled and I relished in this taste of paradise. I have made up my mind to settle-down in an island after retirement.

Beaches – Loved playing with the waves as they roll in, while a wave crashing into the sandy beaches brings a squeal of delight. Every wave that hit me, made me stronger to fight back and smile over.
Forest – As I drove deep inside the forest, saw few of the tribes, realized its a world for some and who gave us the right to wipe them off and construct IT parks, 7 start hotels etc.

Coconut drink – Natures own soft drink, one of the healthiest drinks and I am happy being a tee-totaler. I can compete with anyone in having the max number of drinks.

Cellular Jail – Dreaded jail with 698 dingy cells, the freedom fighters spirit is very much alive here. Confession: I realized the value of freedom then.

Corals - Its not the debate that if they are marine plants are animals, the fact is they are really beautiful. Some hurts give you pleasure; I felt the same when my foot got hit by a lovely coral. I still have the mark and when I look at it, I just smile.

Mangroves –Rare things are always lovely. Andaman is very famous for them. It’s said the presence of mangrove ecosystem on coastline saves lives during cyclones and storm.

TSunami - It’s the tidal wave which has the power of taking away thousand of life’s at a time. When I spoke to some of the localities, I can still feel the pain deep within their heart. History can never forget this deadly episode.

Volcano - How does one know when the earth is upset or angry with humans? Well the answer should be Volcano. So let’s take care of our lovely planet.

Havelock - Thanks for wishing and blessing me on my birthday. I will dream of this island of heaven, wishing and hoping I will be there again someday.

Snorkeling - I have been a bit of adventurous since my childhood days. How could I miss the opportunity of saying “Hi” to the beautiful marine life of Andaman Islands.

View more pics here: https://picasaweb.google.com/bhavsidd

How the year 2010 had been for Android

2011-01-10T23:39:00.007+05:30

Jan:
-Year started off with the release of Android SDK 2.1
-Google launched its first phone Nexus One on 2.1 running Flash 10.1
-Motorola Backflip with Yahoo as a default search page, LG GT450 Android Phones got launched
-20,000 units of Nexus1 were sold out in the opening week

Feb:
-With the introduction of live wallpapers in Éclair version, users started enjoying richer, animated, interactive backgrounds on their home screen.
-There were many edge cases in the service lifecycle that made it very easy to accidentally leave a service running; new APIs in 2.0 make this much easier to deal with.
-Android SDK introduced a new UI for end users to monitor and manage the running services on their device.

Mar
-With the help of Voice-enabled keyboard feature in 2.1, one could dictate message instead of typing it.
-Android NDK r3 version released
-Google Labs released Gesture Search App for android

April
-Google started working on Android Tablet
-Google confirmed Android 2.1 downgrades Image Quality 2.0
-Android twitter app from google was made available in the app store, this app brought in an evolving Android UI design patterns.

May
-Google Developers day – Google IO was hosted and it got an awesome response and support, for the first time the keynotes were live streamed.
-Android 2.2 (Froyo) was introduced with features: Cloud to Device Messaging, Dalvik JIT etc
-Through the new app market feature, users could report bug and developers were able to receive crash and freeze reports from their users.
-Google Latitude API were made public

June:
-Android 2.2 SDK and NDK R4 both were available for download
-An application which violations Android Market Developer Distribution Agreement or Content Policy or any malicious application that poses a threat, google developed technologies and processes to remotely remove an installed application from devices.
-Logitech brought Android iPhone apps for Google TV
-This was beyond imagination, but it came true: iPhone 3G was running Android 2.2
-French, German, Italian and Spanish speakers started enjoying using Google Voice Search

July
-As android 2.2 supports application installation on SD card, this gave users room for many more apps, and benefits to apps from games categorie.
-Swype came to Android virtual keyboard
-Android Market welcomed Korea
-Google announced the release simple and free service provides a secure mechanism to manage access to all Android Market paid applications. At run time, application can query the Android Market licensing server to determine the license status of your users. It returns information on whether your users are authorized to use the app based on stored sales records.

Aug:
-It was interesting to see new players like Spice Mobility, Dell, Micromax launching Android devices
-Samsung Galaxy S got launched, which till today is sold like hot cake.
-Google Android overtook Windows Mobile

Sep:
-Android 2.2 started to see wide adoption
-2007 when Google announced Android, Andy Rubin said “We hope thousands of different phones will be powered by Android.” But at this stage was growing beyond phones to new kinds of devices.
-Samsung Galaxy Tab was announced and it was said to be a wake-up call for Android developers. It was scary for the developers as they had never seen a screen like this on an Android device before.
-Launched Voice-Action in the new Google Voice Search for Android — an awesome new way to search faster.
-Developers from 20 more countries were now able to sell paid apps on Android Market.
18 additional countries were now able to purchase paid apps from Android Market.

Oct:
-There was lot of buzz happening around about Google TV and Galaxy Tab
-Android was quickly moving to hardware that are increasingly different from the smartphone devices, having lack of features like GPS, accelerometers, and video cameras
-Google announced the mobile editing capabilities for Google docs on android and iPad
-Adobe AIR 2.5 cross platform runtime environment for android released

Nov
-Showing content ratings for all applications on Android Market. This provided users with additional information to help them select the best applications for them.
-U.S Military people favored Android and they all owned an Android phone
-Google Map 4.6 with new features in its Location Based Services was released for android

Dec
-Google with partnership of Samsung launched Nexus S with 2.3 android sdk with support for NFC
-Google Map 5.0 was released which was faster, supported offline & -iIn 3D look
-Android Market Client Update; more payment options in android market
-Skyfire the popular mobile browser released 3.0.1 for Android
-Google launched a new eBook store to read digital books optimized for android devices running 2.1
-Andy confirms google activating 300,000 Android devices per day

Conclude:
When google launched the Nexus One, they thought this would be the flagship mobile device for their new Android operating system. The Nexus One served as the blueprint for Android devices, which exploded across most major mobile carriers. With their open approach and flexibility in what carriers and manufacturers can do with the OS, Android’s numbers grew. Android began to surpass the iPhone

As android became more popular, there was talk of fragmentation of the apps ecosystem and the operating system itself. With frequent updates from Google, but carriers dragging their feet on sending updates to their customers, the problem seemed serious for developers and Android fans. Fragmentation may soon become less of an issue as more handsets are updated to the latest Android OS, but still its wait and watch.

If you need a phone or a tablet with an advanced OS but are turned off by Apple’s “closed” nature of premium pricing, Android is the device for you.

2010 came to an end …I take a break and reflect on the year gone by.

2011-01-05T19:28:00.010+05:30

Jan – House warming of my newly bought house. My family, relatives, friends and colleagues attended the function and made it memorable. I could say my dad was the happiest person that day :)

Feb – At IBM we completed our first Android project and I was lucky to be given the opportunity to do the presentation in front of Global Delivery Team. That was an unforgettable day for my team when each of us received an appreciation mail from the GD leaders.

March – Got an opportunity to work with Mobile Monday Bangalore team to host the first of its kind, Mobile Developer Conference. The event turned out to be a big success, so much that people ask me when we are planning to have MODC part 2 in 2011.

At the end of the month I was officially married to Android: P, as I was honored as an “Android Evangelist at GBS”.

April – As I believed in giving blind person vision by donating your eyes, I donated my eye to Eye Bank Association of India.
The question is "How would u continue to live after u are gone"
"I will live my eyes to an eye bank and help someone see this beautiful world through my eyes."

May – Got busy with my passion, conducted Android trainings at IBM. If my math is right, trained around 50 + Java professional on Android Application development.

We had our All Hands Meet (AHM) for O2 Uk at Royal Orchid. After this event, I was known as Miss Entertainer and it made me realized that I am more than a bathroom singer. It feels nice when (now) my X-colleagues call me and mention they liked the way I sang my favorite song “Words” at the event.

June – I was enjoying my life at IBM and I was very proud of being an IBMer.
IBM is always been an innovator, and it gave me an opportunity to prove myself.
My idea got a business approval, did the coding & when it went live the feeling was just out of the world. I could say it were those 5.5 million customers, who inspired me :)

I was playing all my dream roles: Programmer + Team Lead + Trainer + Evangelist, + Anchor + Singer & also a News Letter editor all at a time.

July – Time for celebration as I completed a year in Bangalore. Like to thank all my friends and relatives for welcoming me with open arms and making my stay so lovely.

Life was just too good and perfect, but then I decided to take up new challenges and move from a service company to a product based company – Motorola. My fascination towards Moto devices tempted me to be a Motorolan.

Aug – Joined dance classes, where on weekends I was learning Hip-Hop and Jazz on weekdays I was learning contemporary dance form. Dance is my all time passion, and I just dance for myself.
On the other side, I was having fun developing enterprise application for Motorola most talked and most wanted android phones.

Sep – People called me fool when I rejected my x-Company Oracle's amazing job offer;

and most of them called me insane when I did not took up the Google India job opportunity.

I never thought that I would be offered a documentary film to act in (it was based on a classical dancers life), I rejected it saying "I am suffering from camera phobia".

I knew that I hurted most of the people at this time (specially my google friends); but it was the time where I was trying to understand what exactly I wanted to do out of my life and career.

I was bided an emotional farewell from the company where my stay was the shortest. Till then had no idea how much I was wanted, adored and popular at Motorola… that was the most emotional movement of the year and I will cherish it forever.

Oct – I started my career again as an Evangelist and I was happy being a part of Teleca.

To bring ADL in India was a dream of me and few of my android passionate friends and we finally made it happen.

London was calling me at the end of this month and I started off for my first international visit.

Nov – I had some of my best time in London
Participated at Droidcon and Planet of Apps Europe, meet some amazing people and leant a bit more about life.

Conducted a workshop at Mobile Developer Summit, Bangalore and spoke at Bangalore Android Meetup about Dual Display for Android

Dec – I was now officially a part of Teleca Global Solutions and marketing team, and my job profile got carved well. I was happy of what I would be doing henceforth.

When you win a proposal you feel good and I was floating in this feeling.

As the year gave me lots of success, joys, happiness, fame, money and a goal, I planned to celebrate it in my home town with my family and friends.
Visited Pune after a long gap of 1 year and the traditional + rich with culture city again hugged me with lots of warmth and love. Visited my school and met school friends, took a walk around my collage campus. As it took me to a flash-back, I said to God:

“Give me some sunshine
Give me some rain
Give me another chance
I wanna grow up once again”

Wish list for 2011

2010-12-30T17:06:00.018+05:30

Not many but few Wishes for New Year 2011

* ~~Stopover 3 different lovely cities across the Globe.~~

* ~~Celebrate Birthday on an island.~~

* ~~Tag on my passion without failing once in a month~~

* Sponsor an orphon child

* Conduct atleast one face yoga workshop

* ~~Minimun two blog post every month~~

* ~~Find someone who knocks me off my feet~~

* Thanks Giving at Golden Temple

* Bake whats called the perfect Chocolate Cake

* ~~More of tech talks and blogging~~

* ~~Keep up the smile no matter how worst things get~~

* Stand on the cities tallest building, kiss the sky and sing my favorite song

* A day in a Jungle

* Play an Adventure sport

10 things I can't live without

2010-12-19T21:04:00.008+05:30

Apple Milkshake : Almost addicted, can't kickstart my day without it

Internet : As it connects me to my family, friends, colleagues and my blog, twitter followers

Dessert : I don't have a sweet tooth but a sweet teeth

Job : It defines me, enriches my learning and adds to my knowledge

Laughter : The best medicine and gives me the push to go ahead and solve any problem

Blog : My best friend with whom I can share everything and it never complaints

Compliments : It keeps me going and motivating

Pay check : Money, money I don't need it, but we all can't live without it... True fact

Miracles : As I say "I live to witness miracles"

Music : I believe dance is the best form of exercise and stress reliever

Why do most of the Hum Tum Stories end Unexpressed?

2010-12-11T00:42:00.007+05:30

Tum and Hum met for the first time like strangers

Hum said something logical and Tum laughed out loud.

Hum kept wondering, while Tum realized that he has lost his most precious thing

Tum dreamt about Hum while Hum kept dreaming about how true love would be like.

Tum looked forward for one glimpse of Hum, while Hum kept running far from reality and hiding face from the world

Tum waited to hear “Hi” and a smile from Hum, while Hum was scared to look into anyone’s eyes.

Tum will dile Hum number, but would cut it before it rings

Tum bought roses but did not gather guts to offer Hum, so scattered its pedals on the steps Hum used to daily walk up at. Wishing that they get blessed by her feats.

Hum looks at the pedals and feels bad, carefully takes her steps so that none of the pedals get stamped by her.

Tum expresses his feeling in a mail, but instead of clicking on Send he saves it as Drafts

Tum will watch Hum from far and adored and respects here Indianess.

Hum carrying a bindi on her forehead wearing a salwar-kameez passes by Tum with eyes down lost in here own fantasy world.

Tum sitting opposite of the table that of Hum.

Hum smiles at all and every time Tum expected exclusively one for himself.

Tum rushes to the library to grab the same book he saw in Hum hands

Tum stood behind Hum when she’s purchasing pastries and buys the same pastry which was adjacent to the one she picked.

Tum bought a lavish car wishing to take one day Hum for a long ride

As Hum was getting wet in the rain, Tum steps out of his car and walks to share the same lucky rain drops with her.

All so silent but not in real….lots happening.

The world around Hum and Tum could witness all this but were speechless.

The day came where Hum and Tum story came to an end.

Tum organized a Farwell for Hum as he was happy to see Hum heading towards her dreams.

Love is not about expression, its all about feeling.

Its not that Hum didn’t felt Tum feelings, she knew it all….just that she could not overcome here fear of being loved.

She will always respect and treasure the Love and adoration she received.

Thank You!

Confession from a so called Android Fan Gal.

2010-12-07T22:46:00.005+05:30

Yes I bough the iPad and when I said this I know it hurted most of them. So I am not doing any justification on this here, just expressing and sharing my thoughts about iPad.

It all happened during my visit to London last month.

I was at Planet of Apps Europe Conference and luckily was sitting next to BBC Technology Correspondent who was hosting the event for the day. He had 2 devices & no price for guessing – Apple iPad and Samsung recently launched Galaxy Tablet.

We started the conversation and when I asked him “What are your thoughts on Samsung Tablet” he took both the device next to each other and started comparing.

To summarize my observation:

Browser experience, typing experience & video rendering on iPad was far more better then the Samsung tablet. On that sadly Samsung Tab is overly priced and the touch pad is not very responding.

Then my dear boss handed over his iPad asking me to play around with it….that was actually the beginning.

I was falling for iPad as I started :

- Playing games

- Watching youtube videos

- Checking and replying to mails

- Updating my Facebook status

- and tweeting from the iPad twitter app

- Making notes

- Reading an iBook

When I was back to my hotel, I was actually missing something and was hating to work on my laptop, asking myself a question “Have I got used to iPad ?”

I got the answer and early morning I went to the Apple store on Oxford Street and bought my iPad.

The question here is “Did iPad got sold here or its me which got totally sold out for iPad”

As I was back to India….

Mom said- “U were supposed to buy an android phone, has the size of the phone increased these days?”

Sister said- “How could you buy a mac product?”

Dad said- “Why a gadget, why not branded watch, cloths, shoes & diamonds?”

Friends said – “U are an Android betrayer”

But my 6 yrs old niece simply loves playing with iPad and I am happy to see a smile on here face.

I am still passionate about android, but the fact is if a gadget can bring in smile on a face…its any time worth-it.

A good friend Soham Mondal made a productive use of the iPad and here are his thoughts on the iPad (1.0) after a week or two of using the iPad

Pros

The web-surfing experience. Apart from the lack of flash, the surfing experience on the iPad is unparalleled to any other device. The zippy touch + screen size experience is much better than that on any desktop or laptop and the galaxy tab doesn't even come close!
Videos/Youtube. If you like watching music videos or youtube vlogs/flicks, there is nothing like the iPad, you can now watch videos while you lie down on the bed or while you wait for your cab to reach the office car or anywhere the go, it looks great and feels very convenient to use
Apps. Some apps look and feel downright amazing on the iPad, games n newsreaders feel right at home here!
Battery life. 7+ hours while watching videos and surfing the net over wifi is no small achievement
Form factor, screen size. Apart from the weight, everything feels just right! It is sleek and very portable.
You can pair your apple bluetooth keyboard to the iPad to have a mobile workstation on the go, this is a really practical and powerful solution for mobile-workers!

Cons

It is a tad too heavy! Yup, you won't notice this when you first hold it, but if you plan to read books or watch videos while you hold it, it really weighs down on you. This is easily the biggest flaw of iPad 1.0 and I'm sure apple will work on a lighter frame for the next version of the iPad!
Speakers. One (mono) speaker just doesn't cut it these days. On top of that, the speakers are dry and weak and just do not do justice to the videos played on this device.
Apps. Apart from the handful of good free apps, most apps are either outrageously priced(some even free on the iPhone) or just not present. Either way, you can't really complain considering that the iPad has just been around for less than a year.
Youtube! Unless you jailbreak the iPad, the youtube player defaults to the highest resolution for videos. In other words for some videos it will default to 720p or 1080p and you have no way to reduce that and u can expect videos to buffer forever for most contemporary channels over 2/4 mbps connections.
Lack of camera(s), this doesn't really matter to me but many people might object to the lack of a front facing camera for video conferencing!
Lack of a back button. You would be surprised that I would complain about this but after using an android device for the past few months you cannot live without a back button. It is so practical and jumping back to the home screen or using the software back approach is not practical most of the times!

All in all, it is a great device, you wouldn't really think you'd need one until you actually get one. It is great for watching videos and surfing the web and I've actually started using my laptop less after getting this. However, I would definitely want it to be lighter and with a better speaker, if that's the case I would definitely not mind going in for the iPad 2.0 wifi + 3g version!

Final confession: I enjoy all the attention that I get when I carry along with me my iPad.

Good Resources to start with Android development

2010-12-03T19:50:00.002+05:30

These are the blogs, websites which helped me and is still helping me in my Android Learning Journey:

Official Google Android Site developer.android.com

Good Android Videos and learning from DroidCon http://skillsmatter.com/event/os-mobile-server/droidcon-london-2009

Android Development Tutorial - Froyo http://www.vogella.de/articles/Android/article.html

Android People http://www.androidpeople.com/

Android Market http://www.android.com/market/

Android Stack Over Flow http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/android

Android Blogging and hard code programming http://risesoftware.com/

Android World class trainer http://marakana.com/training/android/

Oreilly Trainings http://training.oreilly.com/androidapps-java/
http://training.oreilly.com/androidapps/

Android UI http://mobiforge.com/designing/story/understanding-user-interface-android-part-1-layouts

Good Friends Good Android learning site http://www.androidcompetencycenter.com/

Android Open Source Projects http://sites.google.com/a/android.com/opensource/projects/

Code Android Singapore http://sg.codeandroid.org/

Android Development Community http://anddev.org

Useful site with information on getting started http://code.google.com/android/index.html -

Developers blog androiddevelopment.org/

Android community with articles, forums, blogs, etc… androidcommunity.com/

Android Walking City http://awalkingcity.com/blog/

Tricks on Android http://www.jsharkey.org/blog/

Android Code & Apps http://www.tomgibara.com/android/

My life with Android http://mylifewithandroid.blogspot.com/

Android official blog http://android-developers.blogspot.com/

Android Developer Tutorials http://developerlife.com/tutorials/

Android OS News, downloads & Tutorials http://www.helloandroid.com/tutorials

Warrior Point http://www.warriorpoint.com/blog/

Android Blogger http://androidblogger.blogspot.com/

Android Linux kernel posts http://android.noisepages.com/

Android News http://www.talkandroid.com

SQLLite DB in Android: http://www.reigndesign.com/blog/using-your-own-sqlite-database-in-android-applications/

I am forced to blog this….joys of getting mails & tweets asking them to guide them through their android learning.

Hope you’ll find it useful… have fun with Android learning.

Talk on Dual Display for Android

2010-11-29T22:20:00.002+05:30

It was a privilege to be a speaker at MODS – Mobile Developer Summit 2010 and BAUG – Bangalore Android User Group.

MODS:

Mobile Developer Summit hosted on Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at NIMHANS Convention Center, Bangalore. It featured a convergence of thousands of developers, technologists and industry players from the mobile and web developer communities. Startups, investors, mobile carriers and device manufacturers benefited from better understanding the latest technologies that will define the mobile market of tomorrow.

BAUG:

Bangalore Android Meetup group is targeted especially towards Google Android Developers and people who are linked to Android in some or the other way. Aim of the group is to share Android specific knowledge and networking among the Android enthusiasts. They have monthly meetups to discuss & share anything related to Android.

My talk focused on addressing the following questions:

- What is Dual Display?

- Why Dual Drift is the next Generation?

- How android renders on Screen?

- Various solutions / design approaches for Dual Display

- What are the Technical challenges faced?

- What’s the role of Surface flinger, Window Manger?

- How best a dual display can be used in Application Development?

What got the delegates excited was when we shared the Full Dual display solution implemented in MWC 2010 by Teleca with collaboration with Texas Instruments.

Check out the Presentation:

Dual Display on Android

View more presentations from Bhavya Siddappa.

When taken a pool from the audience 70% of them said they will not like dual display on smartphone, but will like it in Dashboard, TV & eBook reader

Questions received from Delegates:

- When will google support Dual Display

- Which is the best design approach

- Has teleca contributed Dual Display solution towards open source

- When can we expect dual display ebook readers in the market

Feedback received from Delegates:

- Dual Display looks good for TV, Dashboard but a big no to Smart phones

- Smart phones with dual display will have issues in running existing android applications

- Today where we talk of reducing cost of android phone, dual display will actually work in reverse to the pricing structure.

- There are more challenges in the Dual Display, however the scope for innovation from application development is great.

Compliments received from Delegates:

“Very energetic talk”

“Eye opener for me, as I being an application developer never though of it”.

“I came all the way from Gujarat, to listen to your talk…indeed worth it”.

“We wish you to do some android technical writing for our Magazine”.

‘I didn’t get an opportunity to blink my eyes for a while”.

Hall at MODS for my talk was houseful; I appreciate few delegates sitting on the steps and few standing throughout the talk. The best memorable part was when a gentleman close to my dad’s age come up to me saying

‘Hi, Thanks for the energetic talk, I am looking of getting into Android, would you bet on it for the coming few years”.

I said “Yes, you should totally and it’s a right time”.

I did my Job as an Evangelist, but why is that when I try telling my dad about my passion for Android, its just another platform for him or say its his enemy as android takes up lot of his daughter time :)

Me @ Coffee with Karan

2010-11-24T23:34:00.000+05:30

People want dreams to come into reality,

But in reality I wished to be @ Coffee with Karan in one of my dreams and yesterday my wish came true.

If I could recollect the dream well, these are the questions Karan asked me and my answers for them:

1. What turns you on in a man?

> Sense of humar, intelligence & the way he treats kids

2. If you were not a Technology Evangelist what would you prefer being?

> Fashion Designer / VJ or a dessert Chef

3. Who’s your woman of substance?

> Sushmitha Sen & SudhaMurthi

4. What’s your aim in life?

> Be an entertaining wife & a gr8 mom of 5 kids

5. What’s your best feature?

> Eyelashes

6. Cheesy pick up line on you?

> "Can you prove me wrong that you don’t get dimple"

7. If you could go back and change one thing in your life what would it be?

> Slap a person whose position held in the society stopped me from doing so few years back.

8. One thing that people don’t know about you?

> I have a beauty spot on my right hand palm

9. Best rumors about you?

> I getting married thrice / Date only Google or Microsoft guys - thanks to my twitter followers

10. What’s your biggest fear?

> Fear of falling in love and being loved

Karan was just about to announce me as the winner of the "Coffee gift hamper", in the mean while my alarm ran and I was out of the dream :-(

Not so usual, but some pleasant, surprising and scary times in London…

2010-11-20T13:21:00.000+05:30

Landed at Heathrow Airport, knew why I am here for, but not sure of what’s installed for me in the next 10 days in this beautiful city London.

Was supposed to get a pickup from the Hotel but due to a slight delay in the flight arrival, missed it. I believe in destiny and my almighty, thus I met an angel who helped me buy my tube ticket, assured that I catch the right tube and get down at the right station to reach my hotel. The journey with her was amazing and now we are friends for lifetime thanks to Facebook.

Being an Indian makes you eligible to get discounts in stores operated by Indians. Can’t give details on the stores name, add etc. but if my math is correct I earned around 126 pounds discount…experimented Advantage of being an Indian.

I was put-up at Covent Garden Travelodge Hotel. One of the amazing hotel I would recommend not because of the special privileges I got but it’s really worth a stay. They made me feel special:

- Gave me a double bed room on the 12^th floor window facing the High Holborn street

- Served breakfast in my room

- Wake up call and allowing me to play loud music at night.

- Providing me with London’s bus, tube & street map for FREE & more help in understanding the map.

Special thanks to them for all the extended help and making me feel secure.

It was evening time & was kind of drizzling. Waiting for my friend next to Covent garden underground station. A man dressed up in an off-white blazer Mr. Z walks upto me and we had following conversation, which till today I am trying to interpret:

Mr Z: “Hi”

Me: “Hi”

Mr Z: “You are pretty”

I was not sure, what to say. So as a formality I said “Thanks” by putting on an artificial smile.

Mr Z: “I am ….” I don’t remember what his name was

Just for the sake of formality I said “I am Bhavya”

He offers his hand and again just for the sake of formality I offered my hand, and that was my big mistake.

He bows down, kissing my hand said “You are really pretty”.

I was very scared, and pulled my hand gently back.

Me: “I got to go.”

Till today I don’t know what this meant and if I acted in a right manner or not.

It was early morning time, waiting for my bus to arrive. I saw a middle aged lady, weirdly dressed trying to cross the road from last 5 min. She somehow was scared of crossing the road. Don’t know why, I got a though of approaching her for help. She was busy gazing and trying to judge the right time to cross the road, I stood next to her and said “Excuse Me, can I help”.

As she heard this, she filled her eyes in anger and started screaming “Go away”. I was stunned and couldn’t move my legs. She started coming towards me in speed and I got scared, I ran and she started following me. She was screaming & was running behind me and at that time I was dam scared and decided to leave people alone irrespective if they are in trouble.

The best part in London is we not only meet friends but we meet friends of friends and be friends of friends. I made some of the best friends in London and learned a lot about how they see and live life fully.

Lovely time at friends hosted Holloween party. Met most of them for the first time, but the kind of love I received from them made me feel that we knew each other from ages. We always say of living the day as if it’s gonna be last day of our life, but I found them living this say in real.

That was the time where I wanted to rock on the dance floor, sing out loud, get over my shyness but my old memories kept coming over as I was missing my 3 best College friends.

- We used to fight with our parents to get approval to attend evening parties

- As we used to step on the dance floor, we assure some1 amongst us wins the best dancer price.

- Forget about drinks, they used to not allow me to drink cold drinks too and acted as body guards.

Still can’t forget the time when they bashed a guy who dedicated a song for me in one of the parties. I have no complaints then, nor so do I have any now. I remembered them every second throughout the party, wished that a miracle happens and god lands them next to me. It was too late IST to call them and cry out loud telling them how much I miss them.

But miracles do happen and specially with me as “I live to witness them”. There was a girl in the party who came to me and said “you look like one of my very good old friend, I miss her a lot, and can I hug you”. The miracle, she kissed and hugged me, with few tears in her eyes.

I enjoyed my travel by bus, Once a young gentleman sitting in front of my seat asked, “Are you from Asia ?”

Me: “Yes, from India”

Gentleman: “I am a photographer; I believe Asian girls are good looking”

Me: “Yes, they are. Thanks!”

Gentleman: “Can I click few of your pics for my collections”

I was put in an awkward position, I wanted to help him, but as I am suffering from cameraphobia I had to decline. He just said “It’s a smart way of declining; I now agree Asian girls are smart too, bye”. I just realized from this episode that you are not alone, you represent your continent and it’s a very sensitive issue and I should I have managed it well. Hope his perception about Asian girls doesn’t change drastically with this act of mine.

Getting lost every evening my way back to my hotel after shopping, was a common this now…. Thanks to the lovely London crowd who used to help me find my way. But that evening was special, I bumped into an India small family for help. It was a guy with his parents who took the effort to drop me back to hotel safe. On our way, we spoke a lot and they made me so comfortable as if I was a part of their family. As we were about to say goodby to each other, Uncle asked me for my families contact number and I was dam surprised, don’t ask me why and I confess I gave a wrong contact no…. I am sure god will forgive me for this.

I believe that if you love someone deep and close your eyes, remember them…. miracles happen. One more miracle in my life. I was walking on the London riverside and got tired thought of resting for a while, mentally tired as I was missing my family & my grandma big time. I closed my eyes & wished that they were with me that time. When I opened my eyes, I saw a sweet looking lady almost of the age of my grandma sitting next to me. I couldn’t hold myself I started the conversation with her

Me: “Hi, may I know what’s the time”

Granny: “You today’s youth don’t carry a watch, its all smart phone world”

Me: Smiled, “Yes, it is….but a smart phone can’t get me my grandma physically next to me now”.

Granny: “You are missing here ?”

Me: “Yes, she is just beautiful like you, I picked up a line to just start talking to you. I see here in you”

Granny: “Lovely coincident, I m missing my granddaughter who should be of your age…currently in Australia."

We spoke for a while I enjoyed her kiss on my forehead, a blessing forever.

I am crazy about Facebook, Skype, enjoy products of Intel, Sony Eriscon, Blackberry, coca cola and using services of Google, O2, British Airways I felt privileged of getting an opportunity to interact to them, ask questions, exchange business cards and share the same table at the conferences. I will cherish my every minute spend with them.

Last day in London was not less then a big Bollywood drama scene.

I had checked in my bag and had 3 hand bags ready to fly back to my home land. As I was boarding my flight I suddenly felt that my shoulder are so light and that made me realize that I have misplaced my Laptop bag somewhere in the airport. I actually screamed loud, informed the cabin crew about this. I lost my head as it was not only my laptop, but I had my newly bought ipad, traveling, medical card and important office documents. I just couldn’t afford to loose the bag at any cost.

In a panic mood, warned the cabin guys that if I don’t get my bag I am not gonna board the flight. Kudos to the entire team, they worked out hard and got me my bag within 10 min, don’t ask me how they managed it. They were so kind that they delayed the flight by 5 min. It was a big drama, all my fault and poor all in the flight had to suffer. My next big unusual miracle I witnessed.

Finally I have to agree, when people call me lucky.

Planet of Apps Europe 2010 – Day 1 “Developer Day”

2010-11-18T14:36:00.000+05:30

Keynote talk on Delivering Differentiated Apps and Maximizing Revenue with BlackBerry: by Tyler Lessard

Gets on the stage to Introduce Blackberry’s strategy, ”Super apps” are application that people use every day, as opposed to disposable ones. They are launching “InApp” payment, but believe that the future is most likely free apps with added features purchased within the app. They are connected with operators to open operator billing, enabling customers without credit card to access the servies.

Advertising is become a big part of their offering and Analytics are becoming a full part of the platform. BBM will be soon open to developers in order to support building a Social Platform. RIM will have right device to support Adobe technology.

BlackBerry PlayBook is delivering a high end internet experience. They didn’t wanted to take phone platform to make a tablet so they went for a full fledge high end computing OS” – That was the move of buying QNX.

Keynote Presentation: Building applications that utilize location-based services : by Raimo Van from Layar

Started off by saying “We’re adding experience on top of your world”. The Layar ecosystem is composed of 3 parts: Publishing on your computer, a Discovery Browser and a Player Browser. Just as Youtube, they decided that the player should be available for developers to integrate it in their apps. Challenges are on the side of sensors, integration and testing, porting.

They have 1m + users worldwide. Concluded by saying, “don’t be an app, be a platform/browser don’t do it alone!”

Powering Communities to create an index of the real world: by Jan-Joost Kraal from eBuddy

eBuddy apps are on iPhone and Android. They use in app ads. The click through rate is higher on a native app than on a browser version.”. Being having issues with the iPhone SDK advertisement platform they choose AdMob platform and are happy with the results. For mobile advertizing

funding model, a lot of traffic is needed.

Discoverability/Findability is an issue. So they changed their name to ‘eBuddy messenger’ because people search for ‘messenger'. HTML5 looks like a good opportunity but they are lacking the distribution channel.

Partnering with social media to achieve profitability: by Romain Ehrhard from Tellmewhere

Tip: “Use the social network to kickstart your community, Make sure that you still remain independent from the social networks, you never know what happens”.

Branding is important. Don’t have localized name, fails to work for internationals.

Build vs Buy? – What will lead to long term commercial success?: by Dave Addey from Agant

Do you really need an app, or do you just want one? Apps are there to kill time. We know where you live! We also know where you are. Next train home – one button that let you know when your next train home is, so that you can get one more pint at the pub.

If you have a great idea and you know it makes sense, go for an app, but just do it well. They think that iOS is the best platform: stable, appstore, being long time in the business and have a established platform.

Apps vs Browser: by Mark Curtis from Flirtomatic

Currently it is very hard to make browser compete with app because; Touchscreen UI brings expectations of Sideswipe, Pinch and expand and Access to key functionality like camera, gallery, GPS. Now Google pointing the way for HTML 5.

Both need to capture attention in noisy market and advertising works but hard to sustain. Viral on mobile not yet as effective as web. Browser search becoming very cost effective, but where is app search ?

Droidcon London 2010 – Day Two 29th Oct 2010

2010-11-16T15:47:00.000+05:30

It was more of traditional conference the second day. Main topics were User Experience, Android development in general and a little about marketing.

Excellence in the Android User Experience: Romain Nurik from Google

Presented on how to create applications with great UX and great UI, Extended his talk with Android Design Tips with some additional info on giving users great first impressions, and some new prototyping and asset generation tools that have become available.

Android User views: Ilicco Elia from Reuters Mobile

The App Store is not about the app, it’s about people, it’s about the edge that people believe they will get from the app. In-app purchasing is seriously lacking.

Growing the value of the application network: Christophe Francois form Orange

It was great to see Orange committing so many people and so much time to Android. Orange focusing apps: Orange TV with premium events, Connectivity & customer care, News, radio, Orange Map.

Creating Killer Location apps: Alex Housley from Rummble

Location is not a feature: it’s now one element of context. Friend finders have been done to death, similarly, there will be opportunities working with existing big players in location “Where there’s a number

there’s a game…”. Rummble API are available for finding people, places, reviews, check-ins.

Android & CouchDB: Aaron Miller from CouchOne

CouchDB is a non-relational database (NoSQL) that stores JSON documents. Instead of queries, create “views” that allow fast lookup by keys. DB is highly durable. Good at multi-master replication and can easily write to any server. Its really powerful on a phone as it can sync with a server or with another phone and can have multiple DBs on net syncd to a single DB on phone.

Monetize your apps in emerging markets: by Chua Zi Yong from MoVend

He discussed the concept of marketing your apps to emerging markets. For a lot of people in emerging markets the phone is the only access to the internet, social networking, and gaming/entertainment device.

He had some interesting statistics on mobile phone payments. Asia Pacific accounts for $62.8 million in mobile phone payments and the rest of the world only accounts for $45.8 million. The market for mobile app revenue is estimated at $135million for 2009 and at $4 billion for 2010.

Market is extremely fragmented; android market does not exist in certain countries. Tip: Try to get your application pre-loaded onto a phone and target what specific users like.

Android has a “dude” problem: by Belinda Parmar from Lady Geek TV

When surveyed only 5% of women said Android for their next phone, 57% said an iPhon

e. BUT… more women than men bought smartphone in the last 6 months and more female gamers 25-35 than men. Forrester did some market segmentation on women gadget owners:

37% self sufficient, tech savvy
35% neutral, little engagement, low willingness
28% opportunity

Women feel overwhelmed and confused by choice of Android devices. They are twice as likely to have never downloaded a single app as it don’t see most of the apps as relevant to their lives. They want apps to solve a problem, to answer a question. Recommendations: solve a problem, entertain, don’t educate.

Turn good ideas into great apps: by Reto Meier

Shared more details on deadly sins & glorious virtues for android applications. Same Goog

le IO 2010 talk

& slides were repeated.

Android beyond the phone; Tablets, eReaders, and more: by Karl- Johan

Dell Streak uses

mDPI resources but has much bigger screen. Android dual scr

een displays and e-Ink displays behave completely differently. Custom device manufacturers are really keen to have apps on their devices. They’ll expect a 20-50% markdown, but no need to pay app store fees. ViewSonic ViewPad 7 now available in the UK for £399: Having 800x400px display and runs Android 2.2 and Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPRS & 3G.

The Snapdragon Mobile Development Platform: by Qualcomm

Qualcomm is taking on a new role of being the link in the ecosystem, ensuring that there are great apps for the ecosystem. They want to make sure that apps work well. Snapdragon is a system on a chip for ARM-based CPU, GPU, rich multimedia, GPS, 3G, Camera, power management.

Android reuse models: by Mark Murphey

He discussed some of the ways in which we can reduce lots of

android developers reinventing the wheel everytime we need something. There are a few methods that a developer can use for distributional: Souce Code, As an Application, as a jar or Library.

Libraries can be used to solve problems for people who want free and paid versions of the app, and don’t want to maintain two versions of the code. He went on to discuss that we need a place to collect code to reuse and mentioned building a community website for this purpose, also saying “I can’t write a website to save my soul, I ain’t doing it!”

Future of Android Panel

Ewan MacLeod moderated the panel:

Questions faced by the panel:

We’re still on the dream phase for Android: consumers “only buy one Android device”… Will consumers retreat to “something familiar”?

Nokia is still a big player but no longer in mobile developed countries
Android has challenges with fragmentation
One challenge for Android is capturing lower end, but high end phones will trickle down
Breadth of Google’s web services provides a very strong disincentive to leave
Google is encouraging OEMs & operators to fight amongst themselves to get great user experience

If I was your fairy godmother, what would you wish to change in Android?

A decent automated testing framework on a range of devices
A working billing infrastructure
Developers making sure that their app manifests include clearly defined API access and permission
Google to be a little more open about what they’re aiming at and what they’re not, to provide some reassurance
Better way of getting hardware acceleration support.

Droidcon London 2010 – Day One 28th Oct 2010

2010-11-15T17:24:00.000+05:30

It was the first day, with unplanned, unprepared barcamp-style presentations! It had a nice range and quantity of low level programming tips and higher level business tips in such a short space of time. Here are just a few higher level insights, observations and thoughts…

Sony Ericsson’s gave few tricks on Android UI: Advising developers not to do long running tasks in the UI thread, to use Handler & Service classes for longer lasting processes and to use Toasts to show quick popup status.

Location Services by Cloudmade: They will support Android later this year with a Maps SDK, based on OpenStreetMaps. Map data comes as you need it and is stored locally on device. Location-based advertising is related to a network that finds highest value ads from other networks.

No one in the audience was able to say they were making money from LBS.

GPS on Android is still seen as a battery hungry.

Another Interesting thing was to know that Motorola went to use Skyhook instead of Google location API on Android, the way they would get data for their customers WiFi location. Google forced them to switch back to Google location and Skyhook now suing Google.

RESTProvider: Carl from Novoda spoke on how it makes a RESTful API available as a Content Provider. He also demonstrated Unit testing of android classes without emulator.

App Analytics from Capptain: Demonstrated combining in-app analytics with CRM. SDK is available in Android and iOS. It has new analytics capabilities like how long users are spending in each

screen of your app, real-time analytics — can monitor where people are in your app right now, crash logs with device, firmware, etc details.

Git on android: A guy from who works at the guardian walked through all the problems he came across when trying to use git on android and how using open source goodness he could simplify a lot of trouble by simply extending pre-written code and even create work arounds for troublesome bugs.

Meta Market Model: Mark Murphey talk tied in very nicely with problems regarding using alternative markets. He created a brain storming session on the market problems and what can we do as a community to help improve this. Some of the good problems highlighted were: Comment spam, Not enough screenshots, Analytics, Refund policy too leaniant, Downloads don’t work.

Market is a closed club, OEM’s who don’t agree to the rule book don’t have access. And simply creating a app store for each carrier/OEM etc. isn’t a viable solution which

Mark summarised with a brilliant quote: “those who complain about fragmentation you ain’t seen nothing yet”.

So he came up with an idea about having a single open feed of android applications that all the market applications can hook into. So this would work as some sort of extended atom/rss feed (just add namespace) with open access which could benefit from the standards introduced and the maturity of the software already written. This sounds like a great idea but will obviously need a large amount of momentum to succeed. Mark said that instead of us complaining at Google to fix the market we should fix the market problems ourselves.

Day ended with a nice Tip from Tech hub:

“Devs arn’t always design focused, should assume users are complete idiots and don’t understand anything.”

Teleca Stand: Teleca got lots of android developers coming to our stand and wanting to know as to what Teleca into. The following demos just didn’t fail to amaze them: TI Dual Display, Android ported on Freescale Imax 53 board, MeeGo phone, AIM app totally based on Open Source.