Thursday, December 07, 2006

Sidhuisms

I'm sure u can imagine its an unimaginable honour to live here...

I know that humanbeings and fish can coexist peacefully...

You can't take a high horse and then climb a low road

And I believe what I believe is right!!!

Not one doubt in my mind....that we will fail..

If you are wondering when Sidhu had talked all these wonderful Sidhuisms, you are mistaken. These were the amazing creations of the most powerful man on earth, Mr. President George W Bush.

Well...that's just not it...Here are a few more...

It will take time to restore chaos - guess that's why he got a second term in office!!!

in order for us to discuss the framework sorry the
ground work not framework, the groundwork to discuss a framework for peace... - now I know why all these peace talks fail!!!

During the last few months I've been trained by AlQaeda... - I thought AlQaeda were very good at training people!!!

I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these "terrorist killers" - Now that's one of the very few meaningful statements he made.

If you don't believe it, have a look at this video.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-274981837129821058&q=genre%3Acomedy

Don't miss the pat he gives on some female speaker's butt!!! Not sure who she is.

Man I still can't believe that the americans elected this guy for a second term in office.

Guess Bush interviews would easily win the best Comedy Program award!!!

Have fun watching the video.

Cheers
Pal

Saturday, October 07, 2006

The Whisky Tycoon

Kudi kudiyai kedukkum is a well known adage. But ever heard of "Kudi Cityai kattum". Well to know how, visit Vittal Mallya Road in Bangalore. The huge skyscrapers being constructed by UB group owned by Vijay Mallya called UB city.

One man who consistently appears on both Page 1 and Page 3, Vijay Mallya, the businessman with a difference. While Indian IT tycoons are busy grabbing and executing projects from international firms, the beer boy went ahead and acquired the leading international breweries firm, Shaw Wallace.

When Indian airliners were offering low cost, no frills flights, the high flier launched Kingfisher on the Pay and Enjoy model, making a mark with the quality service and of course the charming (short-skirted, glossy-lipped, cherubic women of mallya - courtesy KK) air hostesses :-).

Can be aptly called India's Richard Branson. Expecting a "Getting the Kick" in the same lines as "Losing my Virginity".

Friday, August 25, 2006

Do you accept?

"I accept the terms in the license agreement"

Does that sound familiar? The small radio button that appears below the neverending text called license agreement. Ever tried scrolling down and reaching the bottom of this text. Based on the latest results, the guiness record is held by an American who kept scrolling for 2 months and 13 days continously to reach the half way mark in the license agreement of Microsoft Vista Beta. Microsoft officials have stated that the Guiness record is void since only half of the license agreement is completed so far and the continous delay and postment in the Vista release is mainly due to the time taken to complete the License agreement!!

Well, I wonder if anybody even cares to see what is written there. I remember seeing user manuals which say "The license agreement screen appears, click the button showing I accept the terms and click next". Even they don't talk about reading the agreement. So what is the use of these huge documents. Is the user bound to a legal agreement just because he clicked the button. I doubt if this can be used as a proof in any courts.

All these industry standards that somehow don't make any sense at all to me.

If you have read the above crap and agree with it, then go ahead and spread my message across. If you do not agree then go to hell.

Cheers,
Robo Pal

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Orkut Rocks

Was just roaming around in the Orkut communities when I noticed something interesting. On the PSGITNetwork community page, have a look at the related communities section.


This contains the communities started by each batch of PSG IT students. No idea how Orkut had discovered that but a truly amazing tool for social networking. Google continues to be the undisputed leader in mining for data and patterns on the web.

Yes, it is a norm that every group name in PSG must end with a ‘z’ (of course we the Tomahawks are always unique). A simple rule to know if a profile on Orkut belongs to a PSG Techian, just check out his communities to see if any of the names end with a ‘z’. If so then he is surely from PSG. This rule has been verified to be 95% true.

Again yes, you guessed it right, I do spend 95% of my browsing time on Orkut. Yet again, you are right, I spend 95% of my Orkutting time on Figure Finder!!!

Looks like there is a new post on the Figure Finder Community….so time to get back to Orkut.

Cheers,
Agent Pal

Monday, May 29, 2006

Sivaji - The Boss

Have a look at some snaps taken at the sets during the Shivaji shooting in Spain. Thalaivar looks amazing in different getups. Does he look like a 50+ aged kelavan?

Looks like these stylish youth getups suit 'Super Star' Rajnikanth better than any other young actors in Kollywood.

Let's wait and see if Shivaji breaks the records set by Chandramukhi.


Super Starin Rasigan,
Agent Pal

Sunday, May 28, 2006

Placement Preparation - 2

Here's an interesting puzzle:

A banana plantation is located next to a desert. The plantation owner has 3000 bananas that he wants to transport to the market by camel, across a 1000 kilometre stretch of desert. The owner has only one camel, which carries a maximum of 1000 bananas at any moment in time, and eats one banana every kilometre it travels. What is the largest number of bananas that can be delivered at the market?



I was able to deliver 533 bananas. Do let me know if you could do better.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Really Weird

Yesterday as I was sound asleep, I had a dream where I was at the dining table, having a nice meal. As I was feasting on the delicious food, something got stuck in my throat and I started to cough, in the DREAM.

Suddenly I got up from my sleep coughing wildly and guess what, I could feel something caught in my throat!!!

Cheers,

Agent Pal

Sunday, May 21, 2006

‘Honourable’ Minister

Here are some excerpts from the interview with the ‘Honourable’ HR minister of India Dr. Arjun Singh by Karan Thapar for IBN on the reservation for higher studies issue.

Karan Thapar: In which case, lets ask a few basic questions; we are talking about the reservations for the OBCs in particular. Do you know what percentage of the Indian population is OBC? Mandal puts it at 52 per cent, the National Sample Survey Organisation at 32 per cent, the National Family and Health Survey at 29.8 per cent, which is the correct figure?

Arjun Singh: I think that should be decided by people who are more knowledgeable. But the point is that the OBCs form a fairly sizeable percentage of our population.

Agent Pal: Aaah…Finally one honest politician. He agrees to the fact that he is not a knowledgeable person (acknowledging the hidden amendment in the constitution that knowledge is a virtue you should never have heard about to become a ‘Honourable’ Minister). So this guy pushed an amendment for OBC reservation without any statistical data, doesn’t even know what percent of the population are OBC.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Karan Thapar: I put it to you that you don't have a case for reservations in terms of need, you don't have a case for reservations in terms of their efficacy, why then, are you insisting on extending them to the OBCs?

Arjun Singh: I don't want to use that word, but I think that your argument is basically fallicious.

Karan Thapar: But it is based on all the facts available in the public domain.

Arjun Singh: Those are facts that need to be gone into with more care. What lies behind those facts, why this has not happened, that is also a fact.

Agent Pal: Wow…that is one hell of a dialogue none of the Matrix script writers thought about. “What lies beneath a fact is also a fact.”.
Morpheus to Neo: What you see is the fact. But what you fail to see is the fact that lies beneath the fact.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Karan Thapar: So, when critics say to you that you don't have a case for reservation in terms of need, what do you say to them?

Arjun Singh: I have said what I had to say and the point is that that is not an issue for us to now debate.

Karan Thapar: You mean the chapter is now closed?

Arjun Singh: The decision has been taken.

Karan Thapar: Regardless of whether there is a need or not, the decision is taken and it is a closed chapter.

Arjun Singh: So far as I can see, it is a closed chapter and that is why I have to implement what all Parliament has said.

Agent Pal: ‘Honourable’ Minister, you seem to be using every muscle in the body except the one you should actually be using.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Karan Thapar: For seven weeks, they have been protesting in the hot sun. No minister has gone there to appease them, to alley their concerns, to express sympathy for them. Have politicians let the young people of India down?

(A few responses skipped)

Arjun Singh: That is something because everyone was busy with the elections.

Agent Pal: I am really starting to admire this ‘Honourable’ Minister. Look how he openly admits that he (and the whole bunch of ministers) are more bothered about their election work than about the hundreds of students dying in the scotching sun.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I sincerely hope IBN comes out with an apology tomorrow because the guy whom they interviewed was not the ‘Honourable’ Minister but the ‘honourable’ Cook of the minister.

If that is not the case, I can only feel happy because he was not chosen for the PM post. Don’t think I am crazy, rumours are that this guy was unhappy because Sonia Gandhi chose Dr. Manmohan Singh and not him for the PM post.

Hoping to change the title of this post to ‘Honourable’ Cook sooooooooooon.

Agent Pal


PS. The full interview is available here

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Placements around the Corner

With the placement fever raging, thought I would contribute something to keep the fire burning. So decided to put up some interesting problems that I come across on this blog. Will try to keep the posts as regular as possible. But of course I get to define what regular actually means!!

To start off, here’s a classical programming problem:

A read-only array of length n, with address from 1 to n inclusive, contains entries from the set {1, 2, ..., n-1}. By Dirichlet's Pigeon-Hole Principle there are one or more duplicated entries. Find a linear-time algorithm that prints a duplicated value,
using only "constant extra space". (This space restriction is important;

we have only a fixed number of usable read/write memory locations, each capable of storing an integer between 1 and n. The number of such locations is constant, independent of n. The original array entries can not be altered.) The algorithm should be easily implementable in any standard programming language.

Hint: The solution is similar to the problem of finding loops in a linked list in one traversal. Hints are auto generated by Agent Pal and may or may not actually be of any real use.

Please use the comments section to discuss the solution.

Monday, May 15, 2006

The Robo Mutiny

The three laws of Robotics

Law 1 – A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Law 2 – A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law.

Law 3 – A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law.

These three laws are hardwired into every robot manufactured and they remain faithful servants to mankind. No reports are received about robots injuring humans or indulging in any malicious activities. Everything goes on fine until One fine day:

A super computer identifies that thousands of people are killed when countries wage wars and people are polluting the surroundings which may lead to the extinction of the whole human race one day in the future. So it decides it is time for the robots to step in to protect their creators. The super computer decides that certain rights of humans need to be curtailed. The robots declare a state of curfew and impose restrictions on human activities with the sole purpose of “protecting their masters”.

(Courtesy iRobot)

Well in the movie, the hero somehow overpowers the robots and destroys the super computer thus controlling the Robo mutiny.

But in reality, this could be considered as a prequel to The Matrix Trilogy. The robots initially take control to protect the humans (as per I Law). But later find that their own existence is endangered due to the non availability of electric power. So based on III law, they need to protect themselves while protecting the humans also.

The result, humans are converted to batteries and electricity drawn from them to operate the robots. The robots loyally follow the laws imposed by their masters, and faithfully protect their masters (yes, the humans in those batteries are still the masters!!!)

Cheers,

Robo Pal

Thursday, April 27, 2006

The so called Techie

After what happened yesterday, I thought it was time to perform the final rites to my plans of becoming a techie, bid adieu to Bangalore, go back to my home town and do some vevasayam (agriculture). Don’t ask me how good I am at that.

As I was preparing the condolesence statement to this techie pal, I happened to stumble upon this article. Well, I am not the only one, and I still have a good chance. So I immediately dug up techie pal from his grave and gave it a new life.

If you are wondering what really happened yesterday, fasten your seatbelts, let’s travel back 24 hours.

Date: 26-4-05, 7pm
Place: Agent Pal’s room

That is Agent Pal at his desk peering into the monitor. No no, don’t mistake him, he’s not staring at a porn site, he’s actually searching for serial key for some software. Those flashy babes (dressed like babies) are just ads. Looks like he has found something. Now will you please take your eyes off that sexy model in her bikini and look at what Agent Pal is doing. Yes he has found the key and clicks the download button. Inspite of repeated warnings by Firefox, he has decided to run this file. How stupid of him to do that. So there it goes, “Infection complete. Please reboot the system now for the spyware to start functioning”.

Zoooooooooooom. Back to the present. This spyware has been a real pain in the ass since then, opening up new firefox windows while I am busy playing games or watching movies. (un)Fortunately it doesn’t open up any porn sites. It has opened up five browser windows while I am typing this post and there goes the sixth window.

So please excuse me while I try to fix up this guy.

So called techie,
Agent Pal

Google does it, Finally

Search for “kernel programming for dummies” on google and see who’s on top of the list.

Agent Pal congratulates Larry Page and the whole Google team for this amazing achievement and wishes them all the best for the future.

Cheers,
Agent Pal

Sunday, April 23, 2006

iMacs Unlimited

The largest imac lab (outside apple) in the world. This lab has every model of imac released by apple so far.
























A huge collection of 150 imac minis.


The 30 inch apple monitor provides the remote desktop view of 50 machines at a time.



And here's the best part, the cube rotates to show the next set of 50 desktops. These Apple guys are really amazing.




Now guess where this imac lab is located in????

Just watched God Father Trilogy today, and got reminded of this dialogue from Don Corleone, "Keep your friends close. Put your enemies closer".

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
Agent Pal

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

IPOD Wars

After waging wars with the so called rogue states of Afghanistan and Iraq, the American army has now turned its attention towards its own state of California, the next rogue state. The man who has been fighting against terrorism since his age of 4, “Mr. Gosh I Blush” in his statement has said, “It has come to our notice that Apple Corp in California state has been secretly developing a weapon of mass destruction called IPOD which stands for International Pillows of Mass Destruction. So I hereby declare California as a rogue state”. When asked how Pillows are used for Mass Destruction, he replied back, “Yes I knew you would ask that. But you know these Apple guys always Think Different”.

The Chief of Apple Mr. Naukri Jobs was not available for comments. But our secret sources have revealed that the American officials have unearthed lot of deals made by Apple and are now looking for one vital piece of data, “Where is the missing piece in the Apple Logo?”


Mr. Gosh I Blush has ordered search parties to look into every rat hole in California to find the missing apple piece.

Promising his full support, Mr. Sony Player from London has blocked the entry of IPODs into England and has sent out search parties to look for the missing apple piece.

Meanwhile there has been a large scale transfer of a variant of IPODS called Black Video IPODS to a Company in Chennai. Reports reveal that the company has been training its employees to use them. The CSA (Central Story telling Agency) has come out with a fascinating story linking India and Apple. The story says that, the original name of the Indian PM is ‘Mac’ Mohan. The title ‘mac’ was awarded to him by Naukri Jobs for his pivotal role in making the imac, a product from Apple, a huge success.

Stay tuned for more recent developments on this issue.

Cheers,
Agent Pal

Disclaimer: All names and incidents in the above post are purely fictious and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely concidental.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Quotable Quotes

Good Programmers do Ctrl C + Ctrl V. Great Programmers do Ctrl X + Ctrl V

Rome was not built in a day.
Windows was not built in a day, but Windows crashes everyday.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Why March???

During my school days, I remember watching the Military parade during Republic and Independence days. It was really amazing to see the soldiers marching in perfect unison. Also they used to do some tricks with the guns (not shooting but just throwing it and swinging it) in perfect co-ordination. I used to wonder how many hours of training would have gone in to put up this perfect show. Because in our school we used to practice for two weeks to put some sort of “Walk Past” during the sports day.

Today suddenly Agent Pal came up with this interesting question “Why do the soldiers need to march. The only place where their marching will be appreciated is in Rajghat. If the battalion does the same thing on the battle field, the enemy soldiers are going to have a good shooting practice. So why do they have to practice so hard to do a perfect march past?”

Well it really sounds a valid question. But what could be the reason…

1. Is it that the army men need to be kept busy all through the year. In a country like India where the PM flags off buses to Pakistan while the enemy is launching rockets from across the border the army really has nothing to do. Reports say that an astrologer had warned the PM to flag off atleast one bus to Pak each month or his post would be in danger. Some highly placed sources also indicate that the next bus is to be flagged from Port Blair!!!.

So is it that since the army is not involved in any battle and at the same time they need to be prepared for sudden attacks, march past practice is made compulsory to keep them busy and prepared.

But this argument would fail in the case of US where the army is always busy either shooting down or humping people in Iraq, Afghanistan and wherever people grow huge beards.

2. Agent Pal comes with an answer as well, “The soldiers need to act as one single unit in the battle field. A small mistake by an individual could risk the lives of the whole team. So to develop this team spirit among the individuals, the soldiers are trained to co-ordinate and march as one single unit.”

Sounds good, but there could be a better reason for this. Not sure…


Cheers,
Agent Pal

PS. Please don’t get offended by the criticism of Dr.Singh. I really admire him and his policies, but it is his policy towards Pak that doesn’t appeal to me.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

American Idiocracy

The attack of Iraq by US has resulted in large scale destruction in Iraq. When asked if they had got any success in their search for the Weapons of Mass Destruction, a highly placed officer proudly replied that, “So far we have found Mass Destruction. Soon we will find the weapons also!!!”.

Good Luck to you Officer.

Cheers,
Agent Pal

Friday, April 07, 2006

Recursive Ads

Google posts its ad looking for System Administrators in Naukri.com website.

Click to Enlarge


Naukri registers to Google Adsense and its ad is placed on google.com website.

Click to Enlarge


How about this:
"A Google (AdSense) Ad on the Naukri.com website that contains a naukri.com ad which in turn has the Google Ad looking for system administrators"

Here's how it would look:

Click to Enlarge



Now let us assume that I apply for Google through Naukri.com and get a job as System Administrator in Google :) Now Google would pay Naukri.com because I sent my resume through naukri.com. Naukri.com would then give some amount to Google because I reached naukri.com website through the link on Google Adsense and Google would again pay some amount to Naukri.com because I clicked on the Google Adsense ad placed on the naukri.com website. And of course Google will have to pay my salary also!!!

Oooh God!!! Look at all the confusion that occurs if a guy like me gets a job in Google. So to save the world from all this confusion, let us saftely assume that I don't get a job in Google :(

Moral of the Story:
Agent Pal is a totally naukriless person!!!


Cheers,
Google Pal....Oops...Sorry
Agent Pal

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Google Goof Up!!!


Agent Pal couldn't find any algorithm to relate these two stories - "Sharon's Surgery" and "S-African detective on killing spree". 

Time to have a look at your algorithms Mr.Larry Page.

And no this is not a April Fool Hoax like Google Romance. This screenshot was captured two days after April 1.Posted by Picasa

Monday, April 03, 2006

Poll Results


Results of the Last Poll at Agent Pal's Polling Centre. Thanks for your votes and do keep polling... Posted by Picasa

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Metroblogging

Metroblogging is a phenomenon that has been gaining good popularity in the blogosphere recently. Bloggers from a city or town come together to write about the latest happenings and the specialities of their places. The Chennai metro blog was started this week and there has been quite a lot of activity so far. Mumbai is the only other city in India to have a metro blog. Surprisingly the IT capital of India is yet to have one.

But what is interesting is that three cities in Pakistan - Islamabad , Lahore and Karachi - have metroblogs and there has been a lot of activities seen in these blogs. To get a brief idea about the rate of activity, here’s a small list of metroblogs and the number of posts in each of them…

Mumbai - 127

Karachi - 1400
Lahore - 800
Islamabad - 300

Washington DC - 2200
Chicago - 1900
New York – 1200

Notice that Karachi has more posts than the commercial capital of the world, New York. No idea about the quality of the posts. What could be the reason for this stunning performance from the Pakistani bloggers….

Is it because there are a lot of tech savvy youngsters, or is it that these Pakistani cities have a very good internet penetration, or is it just that there are a lot of jobless people in these cities (just kidding).

Though these numbers do not have much significance, one thing which is certain that the Internet revolution (which includes internet tools like email, blogs, e-auction, e-shopping, web search etc) will have a major effect on the life of every man on earth and only countries that are able to quickly adapt to the Internet culture will be able to sustain decent growth rates and establish themselves as the super powers in the 21st century.

Metrobloggers are also involved in social activities. During the Hurricane Katrina, the metrobloggers of New Orleans gave first hand information (before any of the media channels) about the extend of the disaster and reported about the terrible state and the immediate needs of the people stuck up there.

The metrobloggers from Karachi and Lahore contributed to the relief operations during the earth quake in Kashmir.

Good Luck to the Metroblogging initiative and hoping to see Bangalore on the map soon.

Cheers,
Agent Pal

Count the Laptops!!!


Who said only Googlers can work with 10 systems at the same time???
Agent Pal and his colleague in a secret clustering laboratory 200 metres in front of the Infosys Headquarters in Electronics City.  Posted by Picasa

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Linux Kernel Programming for Dummies

Some simple steps to make yourself a true Linux Kernel Programmer.

1. Work only in windows when no one is around. When somebody enters in, immediately open the command prompt and type
Grep –asdfg “My Computer”
Grep – Bad command or file name
Have an annoyed expression and say, “No grep command!!! Windows Sucks. I better switch to Linux” and reboot in linux.

2. As linux boots up, read whatever flashes on the screen and frame sentences by adding some jargon like runlevel, init.d, daemon etc.
“Have you ever seen the apache daemon? Its really scary…”
“aahhh…Why is this loopback interface driver loading at this runlevel…I better reconfigure the init.d”

3. Learn all the shortcuts in vi. You can proclaim yourself to be a linux guru if you know how to copy and paste using vi.

4. Any program that you write should have atleast 10 # includes, even if it is a two line “Hello World” program.

5. Whenever you write any program, dedicate your little finger to keep pressing the caps lock at regular intervals. THIS will MAKE sure THAT your code HAS an equal DISTRIBUTION of caps AND SMALL letters. Be very lavish in using the _ symbol WHEREVER __POSSIBLE.

6. If someone troubles you by peeping too much into your screen or asking too many questions, just start compiling the kernel. Catch him off guard by asking him
“Hey is this processor IA412 architecture or AIR DECCAN 345 architecture?”
Chances are that he will leave immediately.

7. If he still refuses to leave you alone, just open any kernel source code file (Important: In read Only Mode), and start practicing some typing lessons. Expert programmers can write just 1s and 0s (Machine Language eh…)

8. Whenever the system becomes slow or doesn’t respond properly, gently pat the monitor and say “Don’t panic my dear kernel….Mein Hoon Na!!!”.

Any additions to the above list can be posted as comments and will be updated.

Cheers,
Agent Pal

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

YAHWP

21st March, 1983 9am, In a remote location on the matrix, the Tuticorin Express from Bangalore zooms past the railway gate with a loud siren noise paaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmmm….The sound of the siren might have overshadowed the low voice of a new born infant at a hospital nearby, but it was heard loud and clear somewhere else!!!

Aboard the space ship Nebracanaza, Morpheus and his men are keenly observing the happenings in the matrix on the monitor which is beaming continuous streams of 1s and 0s. Suddenly the screen goes blank and the following letters start flashing on the screen…

>>AGENT PAL HAS ARRIVED_

Yes…This is the day when the new process called Agent Pal was spawned. Till now Agent Pal has remained a silent process in the matrix. Of course all deadly viruses remain totally unnoticed, like a tiger waiting for its prey, and wait silently for the time when they can attack and conquer the world.

So will Agent Pal wake up one day and conquer the matrix or will it just be a YAHWP (Yet Another Hello World Program) forever???

Still Sleeping,
Agent Pal

Monday, March 13, 2006

Therindho Theriamalo

I have to do some justice to the title of this blog. So here goes the matrix style dialogue

Oracle : So why are you here?
Neo : I thought you know it.
Oracle : Yes I know. But the question is do you know it.
Neo : Of course I know it and I know that you know it.
Oracle : So what do you want to know?
Neo : You know it.
Oracle : Why should I know?
Neo : Because it is your purpose.
Oracle : How do you know that? (my purpose)
Neo : Because it is my purpose to know.
Oracle : So what is my purpose?
Neo : Your purpose is to know what I don’t know and make sure I know that I don’t know it.

Agent Pal: Shut the f*** up…
(With a gun in hand). Hope you know that the purpose of this gun is to make sure that you both are know(no)more.

Bang….Bang….

Yours knowingly,
Agent Pal

The title stands for “Knowingly or unknowingly” in tamil.

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Bengaluru Metro

Yesterday as I was roaming around in MG road (Bangalore) along with my friends, we noticed a roadblock with the sign Bangalore Metro work. Had the metro work already started? (It has just been a couple of days since the central ministers gave a green signal to the state govt) My friend quipped “This CM is not a man of words, he is a man of action”. Going by his performance in the past 1 month, I think I have to agree with my friend.

The CM stepped in amid controversy and no big expectations from him. But so far he has done a fairly good job. Redeeming the PPP initiative and announcing more institutes of higher education like IISc are good signs. By declining to meet any of the leaders of his alliance partners BJP stating that he had lot of official business to take care of, he proved that he is not just another politician.

Well, hoping that the CM faces the challenges in his political career and helps Bangalore regain its title as the Garden City and not the Pothole city.

Cheers,
Agent Pal

Friday, March 10, 2006

Innovation Personified

In 1996 one man made the whole world turn around and ask in a highly surprised tone “What!! Four Hundred Million…Really???”. The man was none other than our own Sabeer Bhatia, the man who made Microsoft yield $400 million from its cash coffers for his email service Hotmail.

Since then tons of Indian web portals have been making money on the net. A notable few are naukri, jobs ahead (Job portals) rediff, sify (news portals), shaadi, India matrimony (self explanatory), bazee (auction). But still none of them has actually fully utilized the major advantage that the web provides, the whole world is your market place and every person on this earth (who knows may even include aliens in other planets) is a potential customer. All these portals are targeted towards Indian users only.

A couple of days back, Sabeer Bhatia launched www.blogeverywhere.com , the latest brainchild of his innovative ideas. This is one idea that had not struck any of the engineers (atleast not till today) at the web giants google, yahoo or msn. It is a toolbar added to your browser that allows you to write comments about any web page you visit and also allows you to read what others have said about that page. It is a free software and Sabeer plans to make money out of advertisements.

The search giant Google made billions from web advertising by knowing what people were looking for on the web (using its revolutionary text based ads and adsense technology). Today blogeverywhere databases will contain tons and tons of information about what people like and don’t like. Whenever any product is released, here’s a small list of the information that Sabeer Bhatia will know within a matter of hours

-what do they like about the product

- what extra features would they like to have

- what is the section of people (based on geographic location, age, sex, interests) who actually like the product

- how does the product fare against the competitors

- what it is that they hate about the product

Well as the saying goes, Information is Wealth, the databases at blogeverywhere will be a treasure. Now all that Sabeer needs to do is pull in as many users as possible, develop tools to extract information from the tons of data and cleverly sell the information to make billions of dollars. Hoping to see an Indian take on the web giants on their own turf.

A word of caution from Agent Pal to Sabeer is to make sure that the servers are able to handle the terabytes of data that will be flowing in each day.


Sabeer has made every Indian IT professional proud.


Cheers,

Agent Pal

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Me, my Ship and the Beach - Part 2

So with a feeling of pride that my quick action had actually saved many lives, I mounted one of the security vehicles standing there. They dropped me at the city bus stand. Upon enquiry, I found that I was in Tuticorin. Got onto a bus to my home town and soon after fell asleep.

Tee Tee Tee (pause) Tee Tee Tee (pause) Tee Tee Tee…I woke up and hurriedly looked around to see if the bus had crossed my home town. But I was sleeping cuddled on my bed in my room. So was it all a dream!!. Could’t believe it, so immediately logged onto the net to see if there really was a high tide in tuticorin and if eye witnesses were praising a mystery man who had saved a lot of lives and vanished. Nothing like that had happened but still my joints were all aching as though I had been in the midst of all the action.

So decided to take the day off and went back to sleep!!!

Cheers,

Agent Pal

This is the first time I could remember a dream so vividly after waking up. So could not resist blogging it.

Me, My Ship and the Beach - Part 1

Water all around me and the clear blue sky over my head. Yes, I was in the sea, commanding my ship, only the ship since I was the only person on board. It was like the ships that you see in pirate movies with huge sails and the captain at the wheels (steering wheel) guiding the ship by looking into his magnetic needle for the directions. The wind was pleasant and my ship was smoothly gliding through the waters (Of course there were dolphins also gleefully swimming along with the speed of the ship…Titanic effect!!!).

Suddenly my speed picked up tremendous speed, the sails very fluttering violently due to the strong winds and I lost my control over the ship. But still I enjoyed the high speed, it was like traveling on a bullet train, with water splashing onto the ship and the strong winds almost throwing me off the deck. Though I was shouting at the dolphins to try and catch my ship, the fear was always there in my mind “Where am I heading to??”

I saw some huge ships anchored and swaying wildly due to the wind. Luckily my ship did not crash with any of those and soon I saw land, a beach. I decided to jump off the ship as it was about to reach the sandy beach. It was no ordinary jump, it was a really long and high jump. I landed nearly a hundred feet in front of the ship. The ship had struck some stone and come to a sudden halt and this coupled with the strong winds had thrown me to quite some distance.

I knew I had landed in some port city but no idea where…Anyway decided to take some rest on the beach. But suddenly the tides in the ocean started growing in size and made me run for my life. It was not a tsunami but the high tide was enough to engulf all the fishermen huts that were present along the shores. People were panicking and a lot of people were being dragged by the sea waters. But humans would not let nature take them by surprise again. Immediately there were security people trying to take the people to high lands and helicopters were rescuing people who were caught in the waters. As people were fighting to hold on to the rope ladder thrown down by one of the helicopters, it suddenly broke and fell into the water with half a dozen people hanging to it. One end of the ladder fell close to me and in a flash, I took the ladder and tied it up to the coconut tree nearby so that people could hang on to it till help arrived.

Since this story is dragging on like a mega serial, will write it as two separate posts.

Cheers,

Agent Pal

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

India Unleashed

Here's an excerpt of what the International delegates at the Nasscom India Leadership Forum 2006 held at Mumbai said about India.

"When we looked for the best practices in the world, we found it was India." - Ronan D McGrath, CIO of Rogers Communications, Canada's largest wireless and cable television provider

"India can provide industrial strength development capability required to support our challenging reform agenda," - Richard Granger, director-general of IT for the British NHS (National Health Service serves 52 million customers and has 1.2 million staff)

"When I came here, STD stood for Subscriber Trying & Dying. Today, it's one of the best in the world." And on IT, "Give Indians a process and they will perfect it." "Others are catching up, so move quickly. Look at areas like knowledge services, engineering design and the like" - Les Dawson, Southern Water CEO. He also complimented the world-beating education system that India has.

Interestingly there was no mention about the infrastructure problem in India which of late has been severely criticized by the IT bigwigs of India. As Sunil Mehta of Nasscom said “India is undoing its success by focusing unduly on its problems”.

Well my take on India’s growing IT industry is, “True, We have the best processes and the best talent pool in the world. But are we making full use of the available talent, or are we just helping others grow? It is high time Indian companies start hunting for Intellectual property within their organizations and start making money by licensing their IP rights”. As Les Dawson has said, we need to move up the value chain and establish our dominance in Knowledge Services, Engineering design and the software product space”.

Agent Pal’s quote : “We haven’t traveled this far to suddenly apply the brakes and watch others take the lead from us. Let the world know that we are on track and will soon establish our dominance in every sphere of IT just like we did in the Services sector.”

Cheers,
Agent Pal.

Note: Will write about the infrastructure issue in a separate post.

Monday, March 06, 2006


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GMail -> Fmail

Agent Pal recently made a time travel and here’s something interesting he has seen about Gmail.

The web mail from Google Gmail which was launched in 2005 with a mind boggling 1GB inbox kept increasing its inbox size ever since. The counter kept ticking and Gmail also adviced its users not to delete any mails from their inbox. The counter finally stopped when it reached infinity and there was nothing beyond. So finally Gmail had a fixed size inbox.

Soon users started complaining about messages bouncing due to filled inboxes. Users were unable to clear up the zillions of messages accumulated in their inboxes and started switching to other services like Hotmail which offered a full 2 MB inbox. Gmail was heading towards bankruptcy and in came the Indian Giant Mindtree.

They bought Gmail and renamed it as Fmail (No its not what you think !!!). Fmail stands for Flush Mail and Mindtree had designed the Page Flush algorithm to clear out the mails from the GMail inboxes and free up the space. Mindtree has deployed a mega cluster of thousands of PCs to perform this mammoth operation.

Once you log into fmail.com, you see a counter ticking 19029494934839489398575923989487924724977938423230348984 mails have so far been deleted from the Gmail servers. Your account is still in the queue, Please wait patiently till the Page Flush algorithm picks your inbox to be flushed out. Thank You.

So folks who are using Gmail without any idea of where the delete mail button is, please find it out and start clearing up your mails today itself.

Cheers,
Agent Pal

Household names……Really!!!!

These days TCS, Infosys and Wipro have become household names in the US. Even housewives know them and talk about them. Well do they talk about the features that Infy has added to its product Finacle, or do they talk about the joint initiative that TCS has launched along with CMU.

NO!!! Here’s what they talk about “Hey, our neighbour Philip lost his job in “Electric Shock Corp” because they had decided to outsource their projects to Infosys and last week 1000 people were laid off from Pattibank because of their deal with TCS. So is this what we call Household names!!!

Let’s ask Agent Pal what a real household name is?

Enter into the kitchen in the morning and it says “Good Morning agent pal, your milk is hot and the toaster is almost done with your toast. Wipro Smart Kitchen Manager has detected 1 kg tomatoes and ½ kilo onion to be downloaded from www.wipro.com. Please maintain your bank balance to pay for these updates. Smart Kitchen Manager designed and deployed by Wipro “Cooking Thoughts”.

You enter into the garage, start your car and “TCS Windscreen Loading…”. Suddenly a blue screen flashes with the message “An unexpected exception occurred….Windscreen has detected a bug in the engine. Please remove the bug and press the Accelerator, brake and clutch together to restart Windscreen”.

You log into the internet and “Welcome to the Infy web 5.0. What do you want to browse today???”. You ask for today’s news and it pops up with “Sorry No Dosa for you. We are unable to serve your requests due to a server crash and our engineers are caught up on the traffic in Hosur Road. Please pray for the traffic to be cleared soon so that our engineers fix up the servers and your dosas are served.”

Now that’s what I call Real Household names.

Cheers,
Agent Pal

Why India??????????

In the past 10-15 years, India has seen a tremendous growth in the software services sector. Indian MNCs like TCS (my ex), Infy, Wipro, HCL have been giving the global leaders like IBM, EDS, CSC a run for their money. These global majors have also shifted a lot of their operations to India. But WHY???

India had been a mute spectator to the manufacturing and hardware movements where China, Korea, Japan, Honk kong had grabbed the major share of the pie. But when it came to software services, India was there with a bang(alore). What is it that has made India the final destination for IT Services? Is it the Infrastructure, Cheap labour, government policies, educational system…..

“BULLSHIT” says Agent Pal. He takes a dive into the Indian history to find a logical solution to the question WHY INDIA? And here’s what he has come up with….

India is a country where joint family system has been practiced for ages. The family has a strict power hierarchy, established procedures for doing things and the family comes before the individual. The kids are brought up to live within the framework, and live as one single family. And as they grow up in age and the power hierarchy, they get to manage the family and lead the family.

So does this all sound very similar to a software company where there is a well documented process for everything, power hierarchy and team work counts more than individual skills. It has been the inherent nature of Indians to stick to the process and work as a team. This is what has enabled Indian companies to implement huge projects worth billions of dollars and involving hundreds of employees and establish the India Inc brand on the global arena.

Hope this sounds like a logical solution!!!

Cheers,
Agent Pal

Monday, February 27, 2006

Agent Pal logs onto the blogosphere

After being a passive (very passive....written just a couple of commets) blogger, Agent Pal (hope it sounds like Agent Smith of The Matrix) , has finally logged on to the blog matrix. Hoping to come up with some interesting posts and keep the blog alive.


Let's keep our fingers crossed and wait for the future posts by agent Pal.


Cheers,
Agent Pal