Pune Bloggers Meet

I am too surprised, I cannot believe this, nor can my friends and family can believe this “I didn’t spend my last two weekends in so called second home “My Office”.

Whom all do I need to thank for this –

Pavan Soni - WiCamp Wipro, 30^th May 2008

Akshay Surve – SocialSync , 31^st May 2008

Divya and Suresh – Newly married couple met me on 1^st June 2008

Tarun – Bloggers Meet , 7^th June 2008

I had a great experience and lovely time in all the above meets. Frankly speaking I am falling shot of time to put up a post briefing about the above mentioned meets, but to start off - hers a jest of how great was my yesterday’s day.

It’s always a nice experience meeting up with like-minded people.

Tarun had planned up a Pune Bloggers meet on 7^th June 2008.

This time the venue wasn’t a camp, collage campus or some organization, for a change the meet was in a Hotel @ “Hotel Green Park - Baner”.

Jaslene was accompanying me for this meet. We had planned to move together in my car, but as she knows that when I am in the 4^th gear I forget where the brakes are, she changed the planed and asked me to set behind her Deo and drove me to the venue (Trust me she is the best driver).

It was the first time I had been to this hotel and the interior looked great. We reached at 12.30 pm sharp and caught a seat where the booking for the bloggers meet was done.

15 Bloggers turned up for this meet. We started off with an Informal Introduction. Hers what they said and I discovered about them in the meet in a passive voice:

Raman -> A senior retired gentleman from corporate, interested in starting off his own blog, inspired by his friend bloggers and finds technology out of his scope. He was very curious about BarCamp – but was surprised to know that it’s to do with technology and nothing to do with drinks or boozing. Looking at him a thought just strike me – when my dad will be of his age will probably start off his blog if not now.

Amit - > Belonging from an Air Force family, for a change is into IT and deeply in love with PHP. Liked one idea of his – on his weekend he keeps 5 post typed out and just publishes them every day. He carried a gentle smile and Thank god didn’t debate with me as he is popularly know for debating with java guys :-)

Priyank - > Blogs about technology and makes it look very simple as he believes that apart from bloggers, people on this earth do not believe in passing out knowledge to others. He is a quite observer and knows how to put across complicated things in simple manner. Looked very excited about the Flex meet and is all set to contribute his best toward the NGO. Kudos to you for coordinating and arranging the venue for the meet.

Krishna - > Looked very young and was very observant. A good listener and totally into Flex.

Rohit -> He never introduced him self directly as a Hacker or as a Project Manger. But said that he blogs at three different places – Personal blog, Google blog not owned by Google and at Club Hack. Believes in multitasking and has all interesting stories about Cyber crimes. Has so far done a good job in organizing of Barcamp, Bloggers meet and Hackclub.

Harsha -> Introduced him self as a lazy blogger and left infosys because people get salary for not working in this topmost MNC. Heard about him that is the best photographer

Pramila-> From ITVidya and by profession a Project manager, and says is barely managing anything. A MBA from MIT. Has her own blog, but is more interested in blogging at others blogs and posting comments. When she had a first look at the SDLC life cycle, that’s the time she knew that it’s a vicious circle in which she will never get into it. Always felt guilty for not contributing any thing to the society and is very much keen in joining Pune SocialSync project.

Shachin -> A proud owner of the blog called “ Tasty Khana”. He has a tie up with almost all restaurants and hotels located in pune. Any one planning for any events, do consult and booking of the venue through this blog. He is also working for an NGO where he and some of his friends teach the underprivileged kids.

Meetu -> Very bubbly by nature inspit of being a mother. Her love for Hindi movies came before love for blogging. Makes it a point to see every movie first day first show. Blogs about hindi movies and her comments about Sarkar Raj was “I didn’t like Sarkar but liked Sarkar Raj”. If ever I decide to watch any movie, will for sure visit her blog to check out if it’s going to be worth it.

Isha -> Introduced her self as Krity’s sister. But to add on to her introduction she is a bengali speaking girl all set for her higher secondary exams.

Krity-> A simple and down to earth girl. A MCA student. Very much into designing then into programming. Is very creative and helpful by nature. Not so far decided to start off her profession in an enterprise manner – believes falling short of publicity.

Jaslene -> Apart from being my friend and a co-member of Great Foundation NGO she is a blogger too. Blog about stock market and by profession a financial analyst.

Tarun -> Popular Blogger, Business Analyst by profession, photographer by choice and Friendly by nature. Blogs about every thing happening in his life, In short his blog reflect his life. A organizer of barcamp and blogges meet. Loves pune but located in Mumbai due to his job. Hates when people calling him blog guru. Nothing can let his spirit down –even if his bus gets punctured or gets delayed for the meet for which he had planed the most.

This was only 30% introduction of these bloggers whom I cam across in the meet. There’s lots to be discovered about them which can be done only through there blog being remotely located.

After the brief introduction we had some interesting questions and discussions taking place like during the lunch:

What’s the difference between blogspot and wordpress?

What do we want to achieve with such kind of meets?

Why is Barcamp named so?

Why don’t we have a NGO helping out bloggers?

How do we treat negative comments in our blog?

How to start with photography as a hobby and career?

Why don’t we have PHP meets as of Java meet?

And many more interaction that took place one to one or many to many in the meet?

We signed out at 4.30pm by exchanging visiting card, shaking hands, thanking the organizers and with a commitment that we will be there and keep contributing our best to the Blogsphere.

In shot this was not and end to our meet, I see it giving a new start like:

Tarun, Harsha and Sumit - Photography group,

Kriti - new assignment from me and Shachin

Amith – PHP group

Raman – kick start to his blog with the assessment of Amit and Priyank

Me and Jasu – PuneSocialSync

All the best to all for your new assignments!

Looking forward to meet you guys again.

Barcamp back in Pune on 17th May 2008 @ Persistent

Hi Readers,

BarCamp is an " unconference" - organized by attendees, for attendees that is taking place for the 5th time in Pune on 17th May 2008.

BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from participants. The name BarCamp was inspired as a complement to FooCamp.
It's an open, welcoming event for geeks to hang out with wifi and smash their brains together.

And with professionals, entrepreneurs and student coming from all over India, this is the best platform possible to discuss new ideas and concepts.

Every one can be a part of this event either by helping to take notes on the wiki, blogging the event, helping to promote the event, or helping with logistics or by attending to the session getting delivered. If you are looking forward to present or deliver any sessions on any topic please be free to update your name at the link given below.

For registrations please log on to

http://barcamp.org/IdeaCampPune

Details about the Venue & Session Schedule is updated on the link.

Looking forward to meet you people out there !!!

Blogathon Day 3: Entertainment - Need to get Regional cinema beyond Bollywood

India is home to one of the largest film industries in the world. Every year thousands of movies are produced in India.

India is a large country where many languages are spoken. Many of the larger languages support their own film industry. Some of the popular regional film industries in India are Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, and Punjabi. The Hindi/Urdu film industry, based in Mumbai, formerly Bombay, is called Bollywood.

“The major challenge that the regional cinema needs to address is of how to widen the audience base”.

Many workers from regional industries, once established, generally move to Bollywood for greater spotlight or opportunity. An interesting example of this phenomenon is the famous music director A.R. Rahman. He started his career in Tamil film industry and later moved to the Bollywood.

Bollywood movies were screened with subtitles in not only the domestic but also in the international market, the same could be done to encourage regional cinema.

Screening of regional cinema at subsidised tickets.

The government should taken measures to promote regional movies like rentals in the film city studios on discount, entertainment tax should be waved off.

It is unfair to compare Bollywood industry with regional cinema since the budgets were different. While a regional film’s budget could be between Rs 40 lakh and Rs 75 lakh, a Hindi movie’s budget could run into crores.There is a serious need for the publicity of regional cinema.

The regional film industry needs to plan for corporatisation, financing of movies, distribution and marketing of films in not only India but internationally as well.

Regional cinema industry should consider new mediums like Internet, international film festivals to reach out to newer audiences.

I believe Regional cinema are more prolific, fertile in ideas and acknowledged by world audiences, but is struggling to survive mainly because marketing is its weakest link.

Blogathon Day 1: Infrastructure - How can we improve the traffic condition in our city?

Let’s take a complete U-turn to make a difference

So called Oxford of East “Pune” for all the good reasons fail to impress common man when ever the talk is about traffic.

Pune’s traffic has gone to the dogs. Total chaos. ………

No one follows the rules as everyone makes their own.

And

“Who is to be blamed?”

Pop this question to anyone and the answer could be anything from the traffic cops, to suicidal rickshaw drivers, to the youth who zip around showing off to their girlfriends.

"I realized that to come out of this vicious circle of the 'blame game', not someone, but infact all of us as citizens need to take the initiative."

But the question is who will start and how will the image of pune’s traffic change in the coming time

The Answer is - let’s try out the 10 magical tips to improve our city’s traffic

1. Public Transport: Use public transport and avoid using private vehicle. Travel together if the destination and time is the same.
2. Improve the public transport: To attract common man towards public transport have an effective transportation plan. Get good buses, make separate lanes for buses and make it easy for people to buy bus tickets, build peripheral walkways.
3. Bus Stops to be moved away: We have bus stops after every 1 Km. as a result the bus stops at every stop and adds on to traffic
4. Alternate way of punish for Traffic Violators: Instead of taking fine from them punish them in a different manner. Like asking them to manage the traffic for 20 min or educating people about the traffic rules
5. Subways / Skyways : Bring up more no of Subways or Skyways on the roads which face heavy traffic every time
6. Driver must follow strict traffic rules: Major reasons for traffic are when few people do not follow rules for some reasons and others have to face the consequences. Lets us all keep in mind when ever we are breaking rules, that this is going to be at the cost of someone’s life.
7. Sign Boards: To be added and improved at all places in the city.
8. Alternate Roads / route: Provide sign boards to tell alternate way to reach different destinations and divert traffic during rush hours. Lay roads especially on alternate routes to distribute the traffic.
9. Attitude: Build in a right attitude while driving - avoid driving fast, competing and attending calls.
10. Accidence: Instead of surrounding around the accident place and jamming up the traffic try to help other to move ahead and free up the place.

*****************************************************************************************************************************

I post this in response to a topic provided by Blogathon India. Its an event where Bloggers discuss their ideas and raise their issues and concerns over certain aspects by posting articles on certain topics provided by organizers of the event।

Unique celebration of Holi and April Fool day @ my office

Holi: The celebration plan by our Business HR was a big surprise to our department. It was a pleasant evening at KPIT terrace as it was drizzling at Hinjewadi. We all gathered at cafeteria were the holi’s natural colors, sandwiches and cold drinks were waiting for us. Every one was busy applied colors on each other. It was a bad luck for our team as we all were in blue ( every Friday our team decides upon the color for the day ) never mind any thing for the cost of enjoyment.

Got back to work, in that colorful Awatar।

Shiva there, with his great Photoshop work in the pitcher.

My Operations Manager comes up to me with a box of chocolate ( KitKat & Dairy milk )

Wished me “Happy Holi” offered me and asked me to distribute it to every one.

I was feeling good initially but didn’t know it was going to be so risky. As I approached every one started picking up two and shamelessly instead of wishing every one Happy Holi I was asking people to take only one. Some were wishing me Happy birthday ….some were not ready for dairy milk as they wanted Kit Kat.

In all I found this unique – never had i heard chocolate been distributed in an organization and that also for Hoil.

I doubt KPIT having a tie up with Cadbury

April Fool: As usual our business HR coming into our department with pink, blue and yellow chart paper. Offering every one and asking up to pin it up on our back. It was all for a game. Where in any one can leave back a comment on that chart – off course taking good about the person.

The person whose chart has the highest no of comments wins the prize.

Every one was excited started running behind each other to add in there comments.

I went to every ones desk with my black pen left back a comment.

This was a nice game as it helps you in knowing what did you like about this person as a result you share the same work location and feel proud to be called as a college.

I don’t know who will win but yes if there would have been a prize for the person who wrote the maximum comments – there is no one to compete me for this।

I was camping @ Pune Barcamp4 on 16th Feb

It’s always been a great experience to be at Barcamp.

PuneBarCamp4 was at ThoughtWorks.

I landed up at 11.15am & got my self registered.

The sessions were in full swing. I attended Ajax session which was presented by Atul and Sumit. When they were taking questions from the audiences I went ahead asking them if they could tell some drawbacks or limitations of AJAX. Some of my misconceptions were cleared when Tarun , Atul and Sumit tried answering my question.

Followed by which I attended a session on Why Ruby presented by Sidu.

He got us introduced to Ruby as:

• A very simple & easy programming language
• Strongly & dynamically typed language
• In Ruby every thing is an Object – Classes too
• JRuby for Java Developers & IRuby for Dot Net Developers are more stable compared to Ruby.
• InBuild classes can be reopened.

No doubt Ruby makes life of the programmers easy but at the end let’s not forget that will have to compromise on the Garbage collection & Platform dependence.

After having a wonderful lunch I walked in for a Demo on Webaroo2 by Kiran Thakkar.

Will soon come up with a post on Webaroo2

When Tarun was shooting he asked me about my experience of being at barcamp I said

“I really enjoy being here as we get to meet & interact with like minded people about whats new & hot in the IT World. It is far better then a class room teaching as it has no code of conduct or rules to be followed. Less of theory & more practical overview about tools & technologies.”

For those who couldn’t make it up for puneBarcamp4 –

barcamppune

Photos on – http://flickr.com/photos/barcamppune/

& Videos are uploaded at - http://youtube.com/barcamppune