Microsoft - Bizspark

Microsoft offers its software development applications as freebies to start-ups..Now this is wat I would call Social entrepreneurship!

Microsoft and social-entrepreneurship ??!!??
ahem, ahem - I can understand, this could sound like a joke (albeit the Melinda Gates foundation) But I am not kidding, indeed - MS has rolled out bizspark. In a gist, bizspark is a program exclusively aimed at startups.
Via Bizspark MS opens up its application arsenal (pretty much every other application in the market) for free usage.

Courtesy my very few friends who run/started up software concerns, I can empathize better the challenges they face. Yes,it becomes increasingly difficult on the balance sheet of a company at its start-up stage, if it were to be expected to invest on its softwares too. Even though, there are a huge list of open-sources available for free download/install, this offer from Microsoft will still be considered a irresistible, great opportunity/gift for budding/future entrepreneurs especially considering the Indian inclination towards MS products.
I am getting to witness MS doing this offlate... This is a good, refreshing and encouraging sign.

Intricacies now...
WATCH OUT FOR THE CLAUSES:
The company needs to be a startup with less than three years in business, it must be less than 1 million usd in annual revenue, it must be privately owned.
HERE'S THE CATCH
Supposedly, You get to use applications for 3 years time (I believe)
THE BUSINESS INTENT BEHIND THIS IS
obviously 3 fold,
1. Curtain Sun Microsystems from being the option of choice.
2. Expand .Net framework already impressive footmark across businesses
3. That if an application developed, will have to continue to use the application that it was developed with. So on the longer run MS will benefit.

If yu intend to sign up here's the program guide http://tiny.cc/ean6s

On the hind sight, I see Bizspark to reduce the unauthorized software usage (thats a rarity though). With so many said and done - Who knows, tomorrow we may get to hear/read about another world class organisation which had its roots traced back to a garage ;-) plus a near nullified investment on software (courtesy: Microsoft Bizspark)

DISCLAIMER ;-)
I seek no monetary benefits out of it. I just stumbled upon(Did I use that word. Ah! I am so addicted to stumble upon) MS website and found this. Thought, it ll be useful, if I share it. Now, If I by any chance stated information that weren't true. I apologize. That's not intended. Better refer MS for anything n everything on Bizspark.

Prioritize

Physical distances do bring in some mental distances too. One has to take that little extra effort to not let that distance make a difference to the relationship. If the relationship matters, we take that extra effort and find ways and means to communicate. Today we have so many mediums of communication, don't we? Life does have its twists n twirls. We have to fly with it. Given those constraints, we have to manage ourselves and hold onto things we want to. That is when life teaches us to prioritize.

Dudes/Dudettes/Uncles/(special Mention)Aunties ;-) reading this,
This philosophy is my lame attempt to pacify my jigree-dosts back in India, who I have not tring tringed since landing in the US of A...

Jigrees,
I am for sure tring tringing one by one amidst serious budget constraints...Please do not bombard me with bad worded emails..

Mumbai terrorists attack - The aftermath

I am mutual in emotions with my fellow indian bloggers (both resident and Non-Resident) who have expressed deep-anguish, concern, anger and contempt on the Mumbai terrorists attack. The aftermath of this inhuman sin performed by cowardly organisations aka terrorists organisations leaves us with much to ponder upon.

ILL-PREPAREDNESS:

The administrators chose BEST buses (Mumbai's Public transport buses) to ferry the NSG from the airport. Do we not have a faster alternative?

The flight that carried the NSG commandos to Mumbai had to come from Chandigarh and not from Delhi?

No water pressure to reach the fifth floor of TAJ.. The fireman had to use the ladder (and risk their lives to mad terrorists) to curb the fire down.

DEFENSE INFRASTRUCTURE

Has the DRDO ever mocked such an operation like this? If so,

Why did we not employ night vision goggles?
Did we choose not to? or do we not have one?

Why did we not even employ bot-driven-cameras?
That way they could have visualised things before entering in.
For goodness sake we are not in the 19th century.

Do the defense even know, there exists a technology called the flash grenades that could be employed to temporily blind people.Thus enter safely in...

I saw a hawaldar (Mumbai's colloquial term for police constable),
And his gun, a world war 1 souvenir -- A perfect antique piece.
Had he to shoot he would have to load one bullet everytime... (Such rifles should just be limited to NCC training)
On the other hand, the terrorist were equipped with MP6's, a german make automatic..
We need not use modern equipment, but we could atleast use the contemporary's.

REGULATIONS, LAW & ORDER:

POTA
India had a very effective law in POTA (Prevention of terrorism act). But it had to be abolished as result of one person's claim that he was wrongly victimized by the misuse of it (needless to raise eyebrows, he is no common man. He happened to be a politician). Jayalalitha, the then CM of TamilNadu misused POTA to seek political vendetta and put Vaiko behind bars for more than a year. Vaiko came back from jail, faced election, clung on to the ruling alliance and thus managed to abolish POTA act.
To deal with such terrorists, we certainly need a strict n sturdy law like the POTA!
CURFEW???
The Chief minister of Maharashtra amongst all blunders he committed throughout the whole fiasco went horribly wrong in estimating the intensity of the attacks. His delay to declare a curfew led increased number of onlookers on the streets where the operations were held. There was even chaos as somehow a rumor spread later the following day that there were resumed attack. What if the rumor were to be true? when there exists no clear information whether there are terrorists operating in locations other than the three, does it not become important to have curtailed public movement. The state government chose to be complacent and the central government neither forced a curfew. There needs to be a protocol.

POLITICIANS:

"Such incidents do happen sometimes in big cities"
looks like the Deputy-Cheif Minister of Maharashra, RR PATIL plagarised the much famed DDLJ dialogue "badi badi desho mein aisi choti choti baathein hothi rehti hai"
He is no SRK nor we the senorita-kajol.
My verdict - Gutter him!

The other patil (shivraj patil) who holds (I am sure he would be stripped off from the position in just a matter of days) the much coveted Home Ministry was very particular in having a well combed hairline. It was irritating to see such a class act for flawless sluggishness.
My verdict - Mr Patil you better get ready to do grocery shopping with your wife. you fit best there.

Here's the class act, the Chief Minister (Its just a matter of days before his head would role) finally made an appearance to the venue after, all the action was over. Guess wat? He accompanied his actor son and a film director!!
My verdict - Pack up Mr Deshmukh. Its time to pair up with ritesh and wear salwar kameez.

Modi!! What to say of him? He won the elections despite the Godhra riots. That in itself is a shame to the great state of Gujrat. This person sought political benefits by choosing to deliver a speech in front of the Oberoi hotel. He said, he intended to get into the hotel? Wonder what was he thinking of himself. Its unfortunate we had to bear such shameless acts.
My verdict - Modi was/is and will ever be an embarrassment.


The leader of the primary opposition party skipped the all party meating and chose to campaign for an election. He was not even ready to share a flight with the PM.
My verdict - The only way Pakistan could gain my respect is, only if they manage to seize n arrest him since he is on their most wanted lists.

Achudanandan! a cheif minister, more importantly a old enough man chose to say "Had Sandeep(Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan who fought to death during the operation) not been a martyr, not even a dog would have bothered to come by his house.
My verdict - I fail you Achoo(t)danand.

The Vice-President of BJP, Abbas Naqvi said, “women wearing lipstick and powder, have taken to streets in Mumbai, leading marches against the political class” so wats wrong in wearing lipstick Mr.Naqvi. Are you trying to say that being a politician is a dignified position that only Mahatmas can comment about.
My verdict - Mr Naqvi, your character showed up.

CRIME SCENE? oh really!!

There needs clear regulations on the public and the media as to how much close can they get, to a crime scene.

The Grenade launcher was unveiled even before it was installed.

Bharkha datt (along with atleast 20 onlookers and a cameraman)could easily walk into the aisle of the TAJ soon as they declared the operations were over! wth!

Protocol
While the rescue operations were half way, one could see rescued victims getting out of their hotels with their suitcases!! Did someone check the suitcases on their way out!

MEDIA

Unlike, its usual lusterlessness... The Media this time showed responsibility. No denying that. Somewhat different shortcomings this time. We gotto learn from our mistakes, shouldn't we? So here we go...)

Web pages of NDTV, CNN-IBN, TOI and et all
For a person like me (outside of India, and no access to Indian TV) the only way I could get to know the latest could be via internet streaming. For atleast 12-15 hours, there were hardly any live streaming.

Forget the live streaming, even news were updated much later in their web pages. I got authentic updates faster via twitter.

The web pages of these Media orgs were flooded with flash based commercial content. I had to uninstall (disable) flash. I agree they aren't non-profit orgs. But at the same time, on emergencies situations like this they should have a ready to operate mode developed were in they run the usual html based commercial. They gotto realize there are thousands worried men/women across the globe relying only on their updates.
Amateur/Annoying TV anchors
To name a few:
Rakshya shetty
Kajal Iyer
Yogitha of CNN-IBN
No blaming them, their caliber was limited to bollywood, cricketers gossip and Ganpathy-baba-moriya coverages

NDTV atleast managed with Bharkha Dutt and Srinivasan jain taking turns.

One Hindi-TV-channel journalists even urged the Home Minister to repeat the same words in the Hindi version all over again.

PAST:

The picture below is a testimony.


(double click to see a bigger version of it)
I hope the terror attack doesn't turn out to be another of unsolved misery.

PRESENT:

All that we could possibly do is to condemn the acts via blogs, SMSs and (provided with a chance) a TV snippet. Well observe a moment of silence and march a RDB style procession. I am certainly not bullying these, these are ways to pressurize the government.

FUTURE:

What we could do (with assistance from the media), is to prepare a list of
- What we expect the government to do.
- What infrastructure enhancements we want to see in our cities.
- What kinda security uplift we would desire.
etc, etc.
Run a campaign,
Publicize (across the country) action items to the extent possible,
Get the government to COMMIT N act upon the list.

This way we could expect to see some thing in real to happen.

Vetal(am) in me!!

It was a typical sunday,he had just woke up from a deep saturday night hangover.
OOff !!"I swear i will not drink again",Now this is a promise he breaks every weekend.
"Suren jaldi se ek Cofee lai aa"
its quite sometime since the bed coffee was ordered...
No signs of the coffee,
No signs of the cook suren either.
"Sunday ke din ye bhi saala chutti pe chale jaatha hai"sighed this gentleman.
"Chetan.. Chetan beta..
Arey koi hai.."
Wondered Where everyone are?

Before he could get a coffee for himself,he dropped by his son chetan's room to check if he had anything for lunch and breakfast. He noticed a new placard at the room door, The calligraphy was fairly difficult to read,the yester nite's rum added to his misery, with much struggle he managed to read the content "Tune into the chetan's den"
That's Funky !! he said to himself.

The room looked as if a tornado had just hit."This place is a real mess..no wonder why chetan calls this room his'den'.. Kids these days beleive its a fashion to live disorganised".

Despite chetan's absence he lectures his frequent dialogue "when i was young my dad was more concerned on discipline and tidyness, the old man was not bothered about my education." He consoles himself throwing the blame on the demands of the contemporary world,which inturn pushes him to thrust the kid with social inhibits, lifestyle, western-etiquette-adoption blah blah..

As these thoughts occupied his minds, something flashy caught his attention... He had to stretch himself to catch hold of what he guessed to be a filmfare magazine,
The guess wasn't true.

He was shocked to find porno magazine from chetan's haversack, his shock worsened when he found a pile of similar porn stuff from chetan's closet. He wondered how he got access to all these it's early for him to get into porn.
chetan's just 13 now!!

He grew mad,
He was so restless that he could barely light the Davidoff(cigarrete) stick, took two unusually deep puffs.He felt, its appropriate to smack Chetan right onto his jaw strong enough to dislocate it.

It was all set for him to blow all the agony out on Chetan.Fortunately for Chetan he didn't turn up shortly.

Minutes incremented to hours..
His anger eased off, his thoughts sharpened..
He replaced everything carefully to wherever they belonged to,
Just to make sure the cigarette odour was no more,
He helped all the windows open & Switched on the fan..

It reminded himself of his college days, the perturbation in smoking at home without the parent's knowledge doesn't seem to have changed a bit but for the subtle difference 'It's his son's turn this time around.

The following few days passed with all the regular routines yet they all looked so strange. The only reason perhaps,He is more observant and vivid these days.
Chetan's friends seem to spend a lot more time at his room than what was normal.
The number of guys who haunt chetan's place looked unusual too.
Chetan always used to play computer games and whenever he played he'd always have the speakers on,but these days he is always seen using the headset.
Browser history's been deleted after every time he sits on the internet.
Chetan spends a lot of his time in the bathroom.
He sleeps extra hours, he had become thin.

He wondered why his kid has started tampering the freedom he's been given with.He felt, that if Parents choose not to intrude into children's privacy doesn't mean they will never meddle with it,It all depends on how good the children respect this courtesy.

Chetan needed to be taught what is right else Chetan might have adverse effects physically and mentally.
He was thrown into a kilter whether to speak this out with Chetan or try to adopt some other way which helps Chetan come out of this.. Simultaneously, he didn't wanted to be involved directly as he was afraid that Chetan might get offended.
Yes, the only thing that stopped him right from the word go was the lone consciousness of not to embarrass his son.He was worried on how bad its gonna hurt him. The worst thing that could ever would be if the kid gets too worried n often whines with guilt.As a parent its perfectly normal for him to fear of possible psychological issues that may arise.



Dudes/ Dudettes, Sir/ Ma'am Whoever reading this...
To be honest i 'll have admit my disabilities of an amateur writer to narrow down an immaculate solution to this very common issue.

What if , you are the parent here ??
Spare me if this reminds you of the Vikramadithya/Vetal(am) soaps. Leave you comment (you may choose to be anonymous if u want to)

Adam and 'why Eve?'

Be it Bollywood, Kollywood..Even Hollywood for that matter …
Quite a lot of cameos that I had watched so far, there is this weird scene… wherein the hero before getting introduced to the most gorgeous girl ever (the heroine of course) practices himself..

”hhiii!! I am Rajesh”...

For a guy who smacks 20 scoundrels at one go and that too with ease and style..I would say its absurd…
Why would these flicks bore us with such monotony?
Should it be lack of innovation? I suppose not...

“Movies are perpetually a rational dimension to real life”
If this were to be true, then it should have happened to a lot of you in real life.

To that little population who shrug it off saying, "never felt like":
Aren't you of the kind who tend to say the ‘grapes are sour'...
(Without actually tasting it)

Why would a companion mean so much?
Is it simply because most have one.
Nopes...It's actually because, your life needs an evidence.
It’s ur companion who bears that evidence.

It ain’t cool anymore to live only for yourself.Come on boy, be a man.
If you ever find your kinda girl just go ahead practice your version of ”hhiii!! I am Rajesh”...

When the blues had no clues

(way back in 2k6, when the Indian cricket team lost to Bangladesh and eventually made an early exit from the world cup)
The agony to see at least 300 million in revenue dumped (considering the amount of money pledged on advertisement and tourism) and to see the hopes of 100 million people buried deep into the coconut land was just WORST.
It was a dismal, lethargic and pathetic display of what's (once)called the Gentleman’s game. And now, it rather has turned out to be a game on numerous people’s emotions. I am sure, not many would be as disappointed, had the 11 men delivered a fight with an unfathomable resistance. Instead, what we had to witness was a timid, humiliating submission.
I still couldn’t bear the commentator bugger saying the words “Demise of India” God damn him. They say they are the ambassadors of the country. Fuckin what they managed are lame words “India Demolished”.
11 shoulders dropped the might of India. When one forgets the most vital armour called 'the spirit' back at home, his arsenal looks no good. The least they managed to achieve was to gain my appreciation for their respect to the opponent’s "never say die attitude".
No reason why I see a few wet eyes.
Please don’t bother so much “They don’t deserve a fitting Farewell”

~' cOlleGe Da '~

(I Wrote this sometime last Year)


I feel devoid of all those gr8 ppl who made days memorable.
yes ! this is to honour Crescent 2006.

Their exceptional charm is built upon their extra-ordinary brains and great hearts.2002(aug) - 2006(may) it was heaven on earth and the credit goes to u all.
The gaint audi and our eccentric juniors..
The historic tree and the juvenile canteen..
The long aisle and the Otteri bus stop..
The old laboratories and the dangerous staffs..
Never workin cooler N d much scribbled toilet..
The dusty gallery and the hardly used library..
Hilarious Princi's N d always bribed watchmen..
The ever crowded officeroom N d huge stairs.
And ofcourse,our eventfull classrooms !!
Will all cherish our beautiful days.
Hats off to u guys.
U Deserve my heartfelt gratitude for sharing with me, an illustrious 4 years in college.

More special is my feel for my class "u guys are awesome" great days are they that i spent with u.Heavy heart,that i had to asimilate the fact that this will not happen again.
so badly wil i miss evryone in Crescent.
This may sound epical but i cannot hold this for myself.if there is a better way to honour you all, am for it also..
sure that everyones gonna make it big,,more certain is the fact that we will miss each other..

With a heavy heart i hope to see evryone of u 'happy n prosperous'
......................................adios...................................