Year 2008 and me!

Year 2008 has turned out to be a good year for me. Some of the major events:

- I turned 21 years old on January 18 (ie legally eligible for "many" things in India)

- Organized Srishti 2008 and conducted the first ever SEO Contest by an Asian organization.

- Visited the holy mountain of Vaishno Devi (in March) after almost 3 years.

- Installed and configured a enterprise application (developed completely by me) for a Delhi based company.

- Completed my Undergraduation from IIT Roorkee (in May).

- Joined CommonFloor.com - a startup in Bangalore and worked on the product alongwith some SEO, SEM for the website (worked from mid-June to September end).

- Took an initiative to fight against global warming and pledged to provide a clean, green energy future to the upcoming generation.

- Joined Schlumberger and got relocated to Russia - Made my 1st International trip on 5th Nov.

- Went to the gym for the 1st time in December.

- Lost my 1st match in (Russian) Billiards.

Places I have been in this year:

(Hisar, Delhi, Bangalore, Roorkee, Haridwar, Vaishno Devi, Moscow, Noyabrsk)

This probably is the last post of the year. Will continue blogging in 2009.

Happy Holidays :)

Value of 500 bucks!

If some one gives you 500 bucks, what will you do with it?



Think before you spend!

Welcome Moscow!

I boarded the flight (SU-536) to Moscow, Russia on Nov.5th at 5am Indian Time. This was my first international flight and I was obviously very excited about it. I was about to join the most coveted company in my campus for non-CS guys.

Last few weeks were quite dramatic (regarding the VISA and other document related process).

Starting with delay in Letter of Invitation by a couple of weeks followed by mismatch in Russian translation of my first name. In Letter of Invitation my first name was translated as: митаншю. However, the consulate in India, translated it as: митаншу on my VISA. This meant that I have to go a little early to Moscow to get correction in MFA in Russia. After another week, there was a problem in Date of Birth on my Insurance Letter (1978 instead of 1987). Fortunately, that was corrected quickly!

After all the above problems, and a few more, I finally managed to get a ticket and fly to Russia.

Welcome Moscow!

I got accommodation from my employer in Holiday Inn for my entire stay in Moscow.

Moscow is a nice city if you leave out a very high population density and high costs for foreigners. Also, "Russia is for Russians". You will find almost all sign boards in Russian only!

I went to Red Square and Kremlin on Saturday, 8th November with 2 other newbies in my company - Rachel from Northern Ireland and Tonette from Norway.

WWW

In a recent conference, I got to hear a new definition of WWW - Whatever, Wherever, and Whenever!

For nerds: WWW means - World Wide Web

[Video] Art of the Start

I found this awesome video by Guy Kawasaki on "Art of the Start".



The top 10 things he mentions are:
1. Make meaning.
Increase the quality of life.
Right a wrong
Prevent the end of something good

2. Make mantra (mission statement) for your organization
Ex: FedEx: Peace of Mind
Nike: Authentic Athletic Performance
Target: Democratize Design
Wendy's: Healthy Fast Food

3. Get Going
Think Different
Don't be afraid of polarizing people
Find a few soul mates

4. Define a Business Model
Be Specific
Keep it Simple
Ask women about your business model

5. Weave a MAT (milestones, assumptions, tasks)

6. Niche Thyself
Ability to provide unique product or service
Value to Customer

7. Follow the 10/20/30 rule
You should have 10 slides in your powerpoint presentation
20 minutes
30 point font

8. Hire Infected People
Work Experience
Educational background
Love your product

Ignore the irrelevant
Hire better than yourself
Apply the shopping center test

9. Lower the barriers to adoption
Flatten the learning curve
Don't ask people to do something that you wouldn't
Embrace your evangelists

10. Seed the clouds
Let a hundred flowers blossom
Enable test drives
Find the influencers.

11. (Bonus point): Don't let the bozos grind you down.

What I learnt from this video: How many Macintosh guys does it take to screw in a light bulb? The answer is 1 - the Macintosh division employee who holds up the light bulb and expects the universe to revolve around him!

Dhoni's Banana on eBay

Following is a piece of online commentary from cricinfo.com during the 1st innings (36th over) of India Vs. Sri Lanka (4th ODI):

A tired Dhoni is down on the ground and is eating a banana. He hands over the banana skin to Ojha who might or might not sell it on ebay.

35.6 Muralitharan to Raina, SIX, There comes the big hit. Almost expected. He cleared the front foot and slog-swept Murali over deep midwicket boundary. The runs are flowing here for the Indians. What can Mahela do?

Good (geeky -?) sense of humor .. :)

Russia Georgia Conflict and energy markets

How does the conflict between Georgia and Russia affect energy markets?

The conflict is now phasing from military to diplomatic stage. The conflict broke out on 7 August when Georgia launched an assault to wrest back control of the Moscow-backed breakaway region of South Ossetia, triggering a counter-offensive by Russian troops who advanced beyond South Ossetia into Georgia's heartland.

Following crisis talks in Brussels, Nato's 26 foreign ministers said in a joint statement that they could not have normal relations with Russia as long as Moscow had troops in Georgia.

"The Alliance is considering seriously the implications of Russia's actions for the Nato-Russia relationship," the statement said, read out by Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. "We have determined that we cannot continue with business as usual."

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Nato of bias and of trying to save the "criminal regime" in Tbilisi. Russia has dismissed a warning by Nato that normal relations are impossible while its troops remain inside Georgia.

How will it affect the prospects of Central Asian energy producing countries for independent export strategies? Europe will have to pay attention to Russia for the foreseeable future. They are highly dependent on energy pipelines for oil and natural gas. It will be interesting to see if these current problems make a difference in the energy sphere.

"Recent escalation in military engagement between Russia and Georgia poses a threat to certain key oil and gas pipelines which transit Georgia," the International Energy Agency said.

Is Russia's incursion into Georgia an initiation of what will become the slow process of reclaiming the former Soviet Union?

Welcome to the Stock Market!

This is one of the nice forward I have ever received:

Once upon a time in a village, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for Rs10. The villagers seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them.

The man bought thousands at Rs10 and as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort. He further announced that he would now buy at Rs20. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again.Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer rate increased to Rs25 and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it!

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at Rs50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on behalf of him.In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers. Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at Rs35 and when the man returns from the city, you can sell it to him for Rs50." The villagers squeezed
up with all their savings and bought all the monkeys.

Then they never saw the man nor his assistant, only monkeys everywhere!!!

Welcome to the "Stock" Market!!

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Learn how to invest and make profits from investing in stock market. Play for free in Virtual Stock Market.

India celebrates 1983 World Cup Win!

It was the 25th anniversary of the India's World Cup triumph, and Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his team marked the day with an emphatic 256-run win over Hong Kong in Karachi. This win was surely insignificant compared to the one in 1983, but nonetheless India would be pleased to begin their Asia Cup campaign on a high note.

India while batting first scored 374/4 in 50 overs and won by bowling out Hong Kong on 118 in 36.5 overs.

Suresh Raina (101 runs in 68 balls) got Man of the Match award!

CommonFloor.com: Meet your neighbors

While social networking websites (like orkut, facebook, myspace) allows you to find and connect with your friends, make new friends who share common interests, but will people use social networks to socialize with their neighbors?

CommonFloor.com provides a local social network for residents in apartments. The website creates password-protected Web portals for apartment buildings and housing developments, allowing residents to create profiles of themselves, share information and reviews about favorite local service providers and hangouts and discuss about the problems in their apartment buildings.

Living in the same apartment means residents share the same socioeconomic background, and giving neighbors information on things like where to eat and where to shop makes it very convenient for residents.

The residents at CommonFloor.com can

• Create their profile to introduce themselves to their neighbors.
• Get locality information through neighborhood guide.
• Create and learn about neighborhood events.
• See what others have to say about local service providers and add their own opinions.
• Get opinion on important issues from your neighbors through polls.
• Share documents of interest to your neighborhood.
• Buy / Sell items through marketPlace.
  

To get your apartment a common floor, visit CommonFloor.com

Grassroot movement to elect President

What began as a colorful Internet fluke has blossomed into a full-fledged political movement - one that Republicans and Democrats alike are reluctantly having to acknowledge.

Ok! This is fake