I was in Sri Lanka for last two days on invitation from Microsoft (Sri Lanka) to present on their DevDay 2007 event. The event happened in Mount Lavinia Hotel and I stayed there as well. What a beautiful place this is, with clean unspoiled beaches and adding to the vintage effect given by a Railway station right in the front of the hotel. Imagine the place that has Railway Station in Front and a long unspoiled beach on the other side. The hotel itself has 200 years of history starting as the house of the British governor and moving to various owners. Check out the photos of the place below:

MT. LAVINIA Hotel 16 OCT 2007

Microsoft gave me a beautiful gift, which was a replica of Sigiriya style of art of a Fresco maiden holding flowers. The replica was done on a irregular shaped stone giving it a genuine antique look - may be this is what made the Sri Lankan Customs question me on whether I am smuggling out one of their antique piece out of country. Of course, they allowed me to take it after they found it to be a replica. I have given below the images of the original painting (Left) and the replica (Right) I got.

Earlier today when I was doing a WPF demo in Colombo for Microsoft DevDay 2007 I wanted to show the new Solitaire and  other games rendering smooth UI in Vista. But I didn't find any of the games in my demo laptop. The last I have used the games in Vista was when Vista was in Beta and in Vista Ultimate edition. On further investigation and looking into other Vista installations (Windows Vista Enterprise x64, Vista Business x86) I realized that games are not installed by default in these editions - obviously why do you want them in a business edition of the OS?. The good news is that you can go Programs and Features applet in Control Panel, and install the games. Immediately upon installation, I played and won a game with Solitaire. Hip hip hooray!!!

சுமார் இரு வாரங்களுக்கு முன்பு மக்கள் தொலைக்காட்சியில் என்னை பேட்டி எடுத்தார்கள். ஒரு இருபது நிமிடங்கள் ஒடிய இந்த பேட்டியில் என்னால் முடிந்த அளவுக்கு பிறமொழி கலக்காமல் தமிழியில் பேசினேன். எனக்கு தாய்மொழித் தமிழ் என்பதால் தமிழில் பேசுவது கடினமே அல்ல. ஆனால் அலுவலுக்குக்காக தொழில்நுட்பங்களை ஆங்கிலத்திலேயே பேசிப்பழகியதால், தமிழில் கணினி மற்றும் செல்பேசி முன்னேற்றங்களைப் பேசுவதில் சிறு தயக்கம் அவ்வளவு தான் .

இந்த நிகழ்ச்சி நாளைக் காலை 8 மணிக்கும், மாலை 11 மணிக்கும் ஒளிப்பரப்பாகிறது. மறக்காமல் பாருங்கள்!

Video: TNCV Interview in Makkal

If you are like me who has multiple mail profiles configured in Outlook 2007, you will be tired of selecting the profile everytime. Instead using command-line switches (parameters) for Outlook.exe you can create a shortcut for each profile that you want to run. For example I have a Profile (configured using the Mail Applet in Control Panel) named "Vishwak" and another named "Hotmail". So to run the Vishwak Profile I create a Shortcut that points to:"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\OUTLOOK.EXE" /profile Microsoft

Needless to say, the above path is specific to my Vista with Office 2007 machine. To learn on more switches and what they can do read this article from Office Online.

Like I have written earlier Outlook.exe switches can also be used to do tasks that are not exposed in User Interface like cleaning rules, etc.

I had a small accident with my car of 6 months a Honda City ZX GXi today. Thank god, no one was hurt and more important only my car got damaged. It happened while I was driving and about to stop for the Traffic Signal to take the Right Turn in Mount Road/South Usman Road junction.  My son was sitting next to me and was constantly asking me one question or other, there was an Ambassador coming from behind trying to go straight and honking nonstop. Disturbed by the horn sound, distracted by my son's queries I turned back, and the next moment my car banged into the Mahindra Jeep in front of me which had stopped for the signal. The front of my car got hit badly but we felt no impact in the passenger cabin. Since it was my fault, I apologized to the other driver and came home feeling bad for driving carelessly. I am sure Honda will charge me a minimum of few grands of rupees to fix this, let me check with them!

Just like every other year, we had a wonderful Golu (Display of Dolls and Idols) festival celebrated in our house this year. Instead of keeping it in Steps fashion this time we had a linear display.

Navarathri Golu 2007

Cybermedia (Publishers of PCQuest and Dataquest) have a job's portal at Cybermedia Dice. Recently I was interviewed by their reporter Harshitha B Hegde, and here is the summary of the coverage:

"Vishwak Solutions is a decade-old company offering successful desktop and mobile portal solutions. T N C Venkata Rangan, the founder CEO of Vishwak, shares his views on the market growth and career prospects in portal development". Full Article (PDF) is published here.

This is sensational at the same time scary. As the saying goes "the higher you go, the harder the fall ". India's Stock market index today closed just 150 points short of the 19,000 mark. This is happened within few days of it crossing 18,000 and few weeks after crossing 17,000 mark. Though the fundamentals of the Indian Economy now is doing good, I am not sure it can handle so much money coming in so fast. Now any bad news that can affect the sentiment of the investors either internally like fall of this government or externally, will likely to trigger a huge fall. Such a fall can wipe out few hundred thousand millions in days and push into a burst. This scene is not very different in other Asian markets, everywhere fund is pouring.

On top this, Rupee is appreciating day by day. From Rs.44 a year back it has reached Rs.39.5 and is heading quickly to Rs.38. This is making Indian Products (whether it is Leather, Garment, ITES and to lesser extend Software) unviable in abroad markets. And Central government is merrily encouraging the rise, as it helps them to buy oil with lesser rupee. We can't also blame the government has their Left coalition partner are giving them no room to increase the Petrol Prices, inspite of oil is at an all time high of $85 per barrel.

One thing is certain - for everyone in business and money markets, challenging times are ahead soon.

Microsoft have released for some time now preinstalled and preconfigured Virtual Images (in Virtual PC VHD format) of Exchange Server and SQL Server for evaluation. The list is expanded to cover many more of MS softwares including ISA Server, BizTalk, System Center, Windows Server 2008, Vista Enterprise and Office 2007. There are also candidates that are time consuming to install and configure like MOSS 2007 & VS 2005 Team System. With these images, all you have to do is download them and run the VHD files with Virtual PC or Virtual Server (both are free from Microsoft). It can't get easier than this.

At some point I guess all server software will come in this fashion, even for production environments. Whether it is Windows or Linux, Server software are becoming more and more complex to configure and secure that it is only logical for Product companies to give them precooked and ready to eat.

You can download the images from microsoft.com/vpc

Microsoft demonstrated their Multipoint technology where two people can use one computer at the same time.

I am in Microsoft India's i3 2007 event in Leela, Bangalore. Many eminent speakers are talking today about how India is innovating.

Mr.Ravi Venkatesan talked about "How a World Bank report that says India's GDP can become 5 times of what it is today. As a country we have learned to innovate around constraints. Look in the Mobile phone industry where we have the lowest ARPU but still some of the highest urban teledensity. Take say Tata ACE or other innovative products built on Shoe string budgets when compared with rest of the world. Take for instance a gentleman from Chennai is able to produce solar power heated water. The challenge is to accelerate these sparse and spread innovations. Only 16% of Manufacturing industry in India have forward planning for human resources, in China it is 92%. We have done a bad job of applying IT within the country. Investments in IT in India is only 3.5% GDP same as Bangladesh & Sri Lanka. Today we are talking about Innovation from India, Innovation for India, Innovation with India. India has over 8 Million SMEs and they are the primary employment drivers and only 2 Million of them use computers other than Mobile. In Tirupur we have a model for Software plus Service model for garment industry by paying Rs.5000/2500 per user. Our DPE team is going to work with Startups in enabling them with technology, opening doors, connecting to venture capitalists"

Ramgopal Subramaniam from Aztecsoft did the demo of their Tirupur Garment cluster for SME.

Prof.Sadagopan talked about "I will talk about Innovation East of Bangalore, West of Bangalore and lastly in Bangalore.

1. For example nearly a decade back In Tirupathi, we developed a system where by each pilgrim got a barcode tag which replaced physical queue with a logical queue. It costs 10paise and over 26 Million people have used it so far. Later we found that the pilgrims took bath in the template tank, so we moved to water proof tag. Now we have extended the system to Internet. Initially critics said illiterates will oppose it, but they support it b'cos they don't have the bribing opportunities that literates have. To make it India it got to be Absolutely low cost, reliable  and easy to use.
2. Moving West, in Udipi we have a company called Robosoft serving Marquee Top 5 Japan companies for Device driving with over 2000 people and he calls his place Silicon Beach, this proves innovation can happen anywhere
3. In Bangalore - From JP Nagar few years a 30 people company managed to make USD 6 Million for a gadget that unwired iPod. They are closed now, but the point that innovation can happen from anywhere.

Most of the innovation can happen from most unusual place. So India innovating should be India innovating from anywhere in the country.

There is a social dilemma, because in India everyone wants to be developing software, but the bigger opportunity/large number of jobs are in maintenance of software/business. The message should somehow reach the youngsters and that Maintenance is cool. Even in Microsoft, people will like to first go to MS Research, then to MS Labs finally to Sales or Support. But most of the challenging work happens in Support.

Automotive and Retail are the next booming industry and both are IT intensive"

Srikanth Rao of Affordable Business Solutions says the "biggest gap of man power exists for SME players. They can't train people because if they train the trained resources will quit. If you can do a solution at less than 10% of the overall cost to company and produce 20 to 30% cost saving, you got it"

One of my good friend and well wisher is Mr.Siva Pillai, Computer Officer of Goldsmiths College, UK. It is interesting on how we got acquainted. That was way back in 1996/97 when we were both members of a Tamil IT Interest email group. Then in 1998 when I visited London I was treated to be a guest in Siva's house. From there over the years our two families have become good friends.

Coming back to this post, I am happy to learn last week that Siva has won a well-deserved award - it is a European Award for Languages for this year. This was for his work on the Tamil Primary Language and Family Learning Project which has made a significant impact on parental involvement in education and learning of the Tamil language in the Downham (UK) area.

You can read full article here published this month in the CiLT UK Magazine where Siva Pillai describes the project's development and continuing success. The full list of 2007 winners can be found here.

People who know Siva including me are certainly not surprised for this well deserved award for him. Even at the age where he has grandkids, his energy levels have to be seen to be believed. Above all his passion to help children (குறிப்பாக புலன் பெயர்ந்த தமிழ் குழந்தைகள்) to learn Tamil language is infectious. He has several works to his credit on this topic, including the recent project for Learn Tamil - through English (Primary) were he helped the founders.