Archive for April, 2006

Nepal

Thursday, April 27th, 2006

I’m not quite sure how much the news of the Nepal student protests resulting in reinstitution of parliamentary powers has been making the rounds in the West, but in India this is getting top billing. Justly so, the voice of the students has been heard and the King decided to act in the interest of the nation rather than fighting the people and losing total power in the process.

For better or worse in the interim, these kinds of democratic movements are necessary.  The French youth who protested against the government labor issues hurt themselves, but the will of the people should stand supreme irregardless of material outcome.

Coimbatore

Wednesday, April 26th, 2006

I’m in Coimbatore, India for a few days after Bangalore to catch-up with some relatives before heading North. I was finally able to upload some photos after being broadband deprived for the past few days.
BarCampBangalore-2006-04-22_3

Pictured above is Pete Deemer, CPO of Yahoo, talking about agile project management at BarCampBangalore held at the Yahoo Bangalore offices on April 21st.

BarCampBangalore-2006-04-22_5

Pictured above is Chad Dickerson who also works for Yahoo talking about “Yahoo Hack Day.”

BarCampBangalore-2006-04-22_7

Pictured above is an old school wiki.

More photos from BarCamp here.

BarCampBangalore

Monday, April 24th, 2006

I was in Bangalore this past weekend for BarCampBangalore and I can honestly say:  It was one of the most worthwhile events I have attented in quite some time.  I met some very nice and intelligent folks who I will blog about when I can find something other than dial-up.  I had the good fortune of meeting people who I consider to be current and future leaders of the technology movement that we currently find ourselves a part of.  Pete Deemer, Chief Product Officer of Yahoo, lead a discussion on Scrum project management wrappers that essentially pushed me over the fence as to whether to implement such for my new venture or not.  After hearing him speak, I can think of no other way to efficiently come to market.  BarCampBangalore was that important and I’m glad that I attended.

I’m currently in the remote interior of South India where broadband isn’t quite so common, so it’s near impossible to upload any photographs and such though I have taken quite a few already.  It’s hotter than Hedes at the moment here and the humidity is equally as brutal.  Most adult Indians don’t wear shorts in the South (though they should really give it a try) but I have been pushing the bounds by wearing them anyway. 

Enterprise Search (continued)

Wednesday, April 19th, 2006

(Full disclosure: I worked for EMC/Documentum until recently.)

I have blogged about enterprise search before here, here and here. By the way, what is with the blogging trend where people link to themselves using the famililar “here, here, and here” moniker? And many bloggers seem to be “musing” about something or another when we previously just “thought” about something.

Google’s most recent foray into the enterprise will probably be on par with their other endeavors: they’re always late to the game, but then they usually dominate by half-time. Federating disparate databases and applications as part of the search paradigm for business users is at least 7-8 years old. The major Content Management vendors have been doing this for ages: IBM (acquired Venetica), Documentum (acquired Ask Once), FileNet, Autonomy, Interwoven, and the list goes on. They all index each other’s content in addition to most ERP and RDBMS applications. They all have some creative ways of presenting clustered results from a federated search.
What I find interesting is that enterprise search has crawled its way out of the traditional realm of the Content Management vendors and found itself squarely in the hands of new storage infrastructure players like Scentric, Kazeon, and Abrevity — though I can’t say that I completely agree with their approach.

Google will likely popularize the technology in general. It’s obvious that enterprises are all acquiring applications that have their own unique data models that results in a myriad of challenges from a usabilty perspective. Enterprise search is one way of tackling the problem that presents the user with a very familiar interface: a single search dialogue.

Happy Birthday Kim Il Sung! (belated)

Monday, April 17th, 2006

April 15th marked the 94th birthday of Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s founding leader. I continue to be fascinated with the hermit kingdom and their cult of personalities. I watched no less than 4 documentaries this past week on North Korea. It’s amazing how well the North Korean gov’t has orchestrated and executed on their plan to brainwash their people. They actually believe that a thousand cranes descended upon the city and carried Kim Il Sung’s body into the mountains. Literally, they believe that this happened — not folklore or legend — but truth. Coupled with a policy of complete isolationism, the government has been incredibly skillful at exploiting cultural and religious beliefs of the Korean people. Though unification is a genuine hope for Koreans on both sides, it won’t come without a huge cost for South Korea to absorb the ill planned economy of their brethen to the North.

BMW 2002 Update

Monday, April 17th, 2006

BMW2002-2006-04-13_4

The engine and the transmission are back in the 2002. I expected more to be accomplised upon my most recent visit, but I have come to also expect things not to happen nearly as fast as I was promised.  It’s supposed to get sanded and primed again soon before getting final exterior paint. I’ll be getting a substantial discount for my patience throughout this process — that’s a promise from which I won’t back down if challenged.

New Orleans Mayoral Race

Monday, April 17th, 2006

The New Orleans Mayoral fight will be an interesting race to watch.   Nagin faces 22 opponents and near complete opposition from the Caucasians that once voted for him, but new found support from African-Americans that once opposed him.

Link:  A mayor in trouble

India Offering H1B Visas To Americans

Tuesday, April 11th, 2006

No doubt, it’s true and predicted to rise.  Add me to list of 800 Americans seeking opportunity in India.  Rather ironic, no?  Hundreds of thousands of Indians flock to the West seeking H1B visas or even better — permanent residency while scores of Westerners line-up to invest in India.  That’s globalization and I love it to the core.  Free trade (of labor amongst other things) and exchange of ideas is part of what constitutes a democracy to me.

Linky: Americans seeking jobs opportunities in Bangalore

LoudSpeakers At InternmentCamp #022

Monday, April 10th, 2006

I skipped a podcast last week, so I’m playing catch-up with selections from my latest listening pile. Konono No. 1, from the Congo, helped me connect the songs with their record entitled Congotronics. The AMG review of the record is a must read. Fascinating stuff — they created their own amp system!

Here’s a tracklist:

Rainer Maria - I’ll Make You Mine
Ms. John Soda - Hands
The Lovely Feathers - Breakfast Cafe
Mates Of State - Think Long
Plus/Minus - One Day You’ll Be There
The Radio Dept. - A Window
Clearlake - No Kind Of Life
iForward, Russia - Twelve
Rogue Wave - Manna
Ambulance LTD - New English
Cities - A Theme
Neko Case - Hold On, Hold On
Ghostface Killah - Three Bricks

To play with iTunes:
1. Download iTunes version 6 and install it
2. Select Advanced, Subscribe to Podcast, and enter this into the dialog:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/internmentcamp/loudspeakers


LoudSpeakers At InternmentCamp.

Alternately, you can play the mp3 here.

Burn Another Citroen, France Youth Job Contract

Monday, April 10th, 2006

The people spoke.  Well, they burned a bunch of cars in protest to the youth job contract which would have given employers the ability to terminate the employment of younger workers within two years.  With youth unemployment at nearly 23%, it’s widely thought that the job contract would have actually increased employment in that demographic.  My recommendation:  do away with minimum wage.

JBoss Acquired By RedHat

Monday, April 10th, 2006

So the acquisition rumors some months ago were half true. Atlanta based JBoss is being acquired by Raleigh based RedHat for $350M with a $70M earnout. It makes a ton of sense for RedHat to own JBoss in my opinion. They’re both based in the South and both are fundamentally open-source initiatives, but more importantly they target a very similar enterprise customer.

In my opinion, it makes more sense for a vendor like JBoss, that primarily is known for their application server, to be owned by an OS infrastrastructure vendor like RedHat than by Oracle.  RedHat’s stock price today indicates that the analysts are bullish on the acquisition news as well.  The investors should be happy with the exit terms, considering they only invested $20M.

BarCampChennai

Saturday, April 8th, 2006

BarCampChennai was held this weekend in uh, well, Chennai.  I was originally planning on attending since I was to be there for other business, but unforseen circumstances delayed my arrival.  It looks like it was indeed informative and fun.  Hopefully, I will be in India for the next unconference.  It’s amazing how the BarCamp phenomenon has spread to India.

50mm

Saturday, April 8th, 2006

dogs

Originally uploaded by 50mm.


She’s so good. I can browse her photographs for hours on end.

YouTube Raises $8M From Sequoia

Wednesday, April 5th, 2006

The most recent $8M from Sequoia puts them at $11.5M total.  YouTube recently announced that they were limiting the running minutes on videos uploaded to the site in order to reduce the amount of copywritten content.

If I was an IP attorney, I would be incredibly concerned with the legal ramifications of making money on the backs of copywritten content.

Pronunciation Of Iraq

Monday, April 3rd, 2006

Sometimes small things just bug the shit of out me. One of those things that drives me mad is the pronunciation of Iraq by my fellow Americans. If we’re going to invade a country the least we can do is pronounce it properly.
Wrong pronunciation: “I rack”

Wrong pronunciation: “I rock”

Correct pronunciation: “E rock” (rhymes with “we rock”)

Bonus points: “E r-r-r-ock” (roll the ‘r’ and you score higher)

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