My wife keeps complaining that I am not creative in my gifts to her. So for our wedding anniversary last November I wanted to gift her something out of the world. What more can be more befitting than few "Acres" of land in Moon as a gift.

Few weeks back I read in Ananda Vikatan magazine about sites in the Internet for you to buy lands in the moon. So I went to one of the sites LunarRepublic referred in the article. The site is supposed to be run by a Society based in USA which aims to promote moon exploration and space science. The society is not owned or sponsored by any government so its legality is definitely in doubt. According to a UN resolution, no nation or individual has rights over moon so technically speaking your claim over land in moon may not be valid in future. All said, I found the idea interesting and the idea certainly novel for a gift, so I went ahead and bought two "Acres" of land in Moon in an area called as Bay Of Rainbows (Sinus Iridium) at Rs.2940 (~ USD 32/Acre) in my wife's name.  Today I got the certificate from USA brought from there by my co-worker coming to India.

I am going to give this to my wife in the evening and I am keeping my fingers crossed as to whether she will feel happy for this gift (or) I am going to get it royally from her for wasting Rs.2940 on something close to being a rip off

Registered claim of land in moon

Satellite image of the land I bought in moon

Anyways, the certificate (shown above) and the satellite image make me feel I got my worth for the money I paid!

Update: When I gave it to my wife, it was more of an anti-climax. The response from her was neutral & cold. I wish I had used the money on some "worldly" items.

Just like last two years, this year too I will be going for Mix '08. Now in its third year, MIX is a good opportunity for hearing about cutting-edge web technology, creative and business strategists all in one place and in an informal style. That's why I think it is worth for me to spend few thousands grands and a travel that will take me half-way around the world to attend Mix in Las Vegas.

It was told earlier that Steve Ballmer alone will be doing the keynote this year, so I was left thinking so it will be only "English" & "Business" talk with no new technology announcements. In a way of addressing my concern, Microsoft yesterday announced that Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie will join Scott Guthrie on stage as a keynote speaker at MIX08. Ray is expected to outline Microsoft’s progress card on their investments on the web platform, Silverlight & IE. Stay Tuned!

I finally finished reading the book "It happened in India", the reason I am saying finally is because that I have been reading this book for nearly 2 months but managed to complete the last 30 pages only today. The book is kind of an auto-biography of Mr.Kishore Biyani on the story of Pantaloons, Biz Bazaar & Central retail stores.Let me say at the beginning, I am a little biased in favour of Indian success stories - apart from being an Indian, the reason is because I feel there is a dearth of good books on Indian business stories.

The first thing that you notice when you pick the book is a close resemblance of the title It happened in India with Made in America (Sam Walton's classic book). When you start reading you will continue to see the unmistakable resemblance in the presentation format as well. The chapters are presented in a fashion of first person voice intertwined with quotes from various stake holders (business partners, employees & friends of the author). While reading the first few chapters this resemblance put me off a little as I thought Kishore Biyani had nothing original to say. Only after I finished nearly half of the book I realized how mistaken I was, the chapters starting to get interesting and the experiences outlined are very much India specific and original. Definitely Kishore Biyani and his team have to be congratulated on their exciting journey in the world of Indian retail and for brining many of the now common innovations. I was happy to read in pages 116-199, Kishore Biyani quoting Chennai's own Saravana Stores as the inspiration behind their Big Bazaar venture. He writes on how his team camped in Chennai visiting Saravan Stores every day for weeks in understanding their merchandise mix and pricing. The book tapers off towards the end where the author starts talking about his personal philosophies & beliefs on business.

Overall, a good book to read at an attractive price of Rs.99 (~USD 2.5)

I have a Nikon D80 camera and for best results I like to store the photos I take in Nikon's Raw file format (.NEF). The problem with this format is that very few programs know how to handle it correctly & fully.

Windows: If you want to view the files in Windows you need to install the plug-ins from Nikon, which installs the appropriate DLLs into Windows. With that in place you can open and view the files just like JPGs and GIFs in Windows Explorer. But in Windows Vista (Windows Photo Gallery or Live Photo Gallery) there is no option to convert the files from NEF to any other formats.

Adobe: At my laptop I use Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 and this has no plug-ins to open NEF (Nikon Raw) files, so I can't use the batch file conversion option of PS Elements. At my work PC I have Adobe Photoshop CS3 which supports opening of NEF format, but its batch conversion doesn't support conversion to JPG. I can't record a new action to do this, because in CS3 the RAW files are opened with a popup window (Camera Raw) which cannot be controlled through actions. I am able to convert individual files using Camera Raw of CS3 but batch conversion of multiple files (Nikon Raw files) at once doesn't seem to be possible with Adobe products out-of-box. 

Picasa: Google Picasa supports viewing of Nikon Raw files. Picasa also has the ability to convert the files to JPG while uploading it to Web. But it doesn't seem to have the option of converting a folder containing NEF files to JPG files and store them locally.

Irfanview: Finally, I turned to an old favourite of mine. Irfanview, this is a free software that allows viewing, editing of multiple file formats and supports slidesshow creation. I downloaded the base product and its plug-ins extension. With the plug-ins installed, Irfanview was able to open NEF files and using its batch conversion applet I was able to convert in seconds all my NEF files I had into JPEG files.

இரண்டு வாரங்களுக்கு முன் பொங்கல் விடுமுறையில் இந்தப் படத்தை சத்யம் திரையரங்கத்தில் பார்த்தேன். இந்தப் படத்தைப் பற்றி ஒரே வரியில் சொல்வதானால் இப்படி சொல்லலாம்:

“அதிக பொருட்செலவில் அழகான ஒளிபதிவில் முழுவதும் மலேசியா நாட்டில் எடுக்கப்பட்டுள்ள மிகச் சுமாரானப் படம்”.

ரஜினி நடித்த பழையப் பில்லா படத்தை நீங்கள் ஏற்கனவே பார்த்திருந்தால் தயவு செய்து இந்தப் படத்தைப் பார்க்காமல் இருந்து உங்கள் பணத்தை மிச்சம் செய்யலாம். இயக்குனர் விஷ்ணுவரதன் ஒன்றைக்கூட மாற்றவில்லை - சுத்த ஈ அடிச்சான் காப்பி.

நான் கொடுத்தக் காசுக்கு ஒரே ஆறுதல் - கறுப்பு உடையில் நயன்தாரா அழகாக வந்து போகிறார், சண்டை காட்சிகளில் வேகமாக செய்து அசத்துகிறார். எவ்வளவு யோசித்தாலும் இதைத் தவிர வேறு ஒன்றும் ஞாபகம் வரவில்லை.

I have been a member of an organization called INFITT from its inception around 2000. INFITT (International Forum for Information Technology in Tamil) a global, non-governmental, non-profit organization registered in California, USA. In Tamil known as "உத்தமம்" (உலகத் தகவல் தொழில்நுட்ப மன்றம்). Its main objective is to promote Tamil computing worldwide by bringing together professionals of Tamil IT, enthusiasts, Research Scholars and ordinary Tamils, so that Tamils can enjoy the benefits of all IT developments natively in Tamil environment.

Over the years I have participated in various working groups and activities of INFITT. Last year I was nominated as Chair to WG02 (Working Group 2 working on Tamil language related items with Unicode) and as Interim Vice-Chair. I am happy to write that now in 2008, we have successfully completed our elections at all levels (General Council and Executive Council) in a professional & transparent manner. I am honoured by the members for electing me unanimously to serve as their Vice-Chair for the period 2008-2009. I would like to thank all the members and Chair Dr.Kalyan for this honour through this post.

I just finished reading Men of Steel by Vir Sanghvi. Vir Sanghvi should be appreciated whole-heartedly for two things - first for writing a very needed book that compiles the stories of India's most successful business leaders and second for writing it in a lively, enjoyable format. The book is a result of compilation of Vir Sanghvi's articles that appeared on Hindustan Times Mumbai HT Leadership series and so each of them are not more than 2000 words.

The book covers well known people like Ratan Tata, Nandan Nilekani, Azim Premji, Kumar Mangalam Birla, Sunil Bharti Mittal & Vijay Mallaya. Apart from that about people I knew very little before - Bikki Oberoi, Uday Kotak, Rajeev Chandrasekha, Subhash Chandra & Nusli Wadia. It was revealing. Every aspiring Entrepreneur in India should read this book once.

One spelling mistake that caught my eyes - Airtel's Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal was spelled wrongly with his middle name as "Bharati". See the screenshots below - the left is from the book (wrongly given in that fashion throughout the chapter) and on the right is from their website.

For a business meeting tomorrow I had to come to Bangalore.  It so happened in the last 5 to 6 years that I almost always did morning-evening same day return flights from Chennai to Bangalore due to my schedules and my dislike for Railway stations. Considering the growing hassles of the hour-long queues in Airport securities and the praises I was hearing from my colleagues/media about the improved service in Indian Railways I decided this time to give Train a try.

Just now I reached Bangalore after travelling by Shatabdi Express that reached Bangalore Cantonment at 10.20PM (STA 10.05PM)  which started from Chennai at 5:30PM sharp. The overall experience was very good, I am certainly pleased and I want to do this more often than the flights - I guess this is more greener as well.  Comparing to Indian Railway's historic (lack of) standards everything was clean including the coaches, seats, toilets and above all the stations at both end.  I travelled in the Executive coach and the service was certainly good, they kept giving you something to eat through out the journey - Samosas, Cool Drink, Biscuits, Cashews, Wafers, Coffee/Tea, Soup, Dinner and Ice-Cream. I was surprised to hear that they had PA systems in the coaches in which they kept announcing things like crews names, delays, approaching station, time of arrival, etc.

Above all I liked the idea you can be connected through a data card through out the journey and keep working on your laptop catching up on your work. For instance, in the first one hour, I finished most of my pending emails and in the next few hours 3/4th of a book.

Keep up the good work Indian Railways, Thanks Mr.Lalu & Team for giving us a good experience.

MVP Award for the year 2008

MVP Award for the year 2007

I have been a Microsoft Regional Director (RD) from 1999 and I am happy to write here that Microsoft has renewed me as an RD for another two years. The RD program is a honorary title conferred to select professionals around the world who are passionate on Microsoft technologies. Over 140 software architects, developers, trainers and other professionals are selected by Microsoft as Regional Directors. The first thing to know is that, while we’re officially recognized by Microsoft and often receive inside information about forthcoming technologies, we are completely independent. We are not Microsoft employees.

Apart from being a RD, last year (2007) I was named as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) as well. I was given MVP in the category of Visual Developer - Solutions Architect. Recently, I was renewed as a MVP for this year as well. This entitles apart from other benefits, membership to a very lively exclusive email alias participated by all MVPs.  You can check out my MVP Profile here.

As of last week (Pongal week) this blog completed its four years and into its fifth year - unbelievable to see me having patience to do the posts. What is even more surprising for me is the number of pageviews I am getting for the blog. Though the time spent and bounce rates are below average, I am glad that for a personal log getting 6800 pageviews per month.

The last programme of TiECon yesterday was Pitch to VCs, several budding entrepreneurs presented their case for seed capital. I was surprised when I was invited next on stage to present on Vishwak's story (my good friend and our GM - Manigandan Gopalakrishnan had listed my name without my consent ).

Doing an elevator pitch in 5 minutes for Vishwak which has 10 years of experience and achievements is difficult. Hence I decided to be precise, to the point and highlighted them in 6 buckets (headings).

1. About Vishwak: When was it founded, what we do, number of people and locations
2. Solutions: That we offer and the need they fulfill in the market
3. Current Customers
4. Current Structure and ownership
5. Future plans of expansion
6. Why we are bound to succeed?

I was happy on the way I pitched and the fact my message was received well by audience. Of course, it will be fool-hardy to expect a deal from any investor with just a 5 minute pitch

Yesterday was TiECon 2008, an event organized by TiE Chennai to celebrate and recognize Entrepreneurship in the City. The event had lot of stardom with the inauguration by Dr. M. Karunanidhi,Chief Minister, Tamilnadu & Smt. M K Kanimozhi, Member of Parliament, Tamilnadu. Initially I didn't get the connection between Hon'ble CM and an Entrepreneurship event, then it got clear when the awards recognizing Entrepreneurship were given to eminent personalities like Mrs Y. G. Parthasarathy, Director and Dean, PSBB schools (Social entrepreneur of the year), and Dr Pratap C. Reddy, Chairman, Apollo Group of hospitals (Lifetime achievement). Ms.Kanimozhi (MP) in her speech talked about the similarities between Chennai Sangamam and TiECon but many in the audience including myself didn't get the connection.

Other awardees were:

• R. Subramanian, Founder and Managing Director, Subhiksha (Extreme Entrepreneur of the year)
• R. Sarabeshwar, S. Sivaramakrishnan and V.G. Janarthanam, Founding Members, Consolidated Construction Consortium Ltd (Entrepreneur of the year)
• Hemu Ramaiah, CEO, Landmark (Woman entrepreneur of the year)
• S. Abhay kumar, Founder and vice-chairman, Lifecell (large start-up entrepreneur of the year)
• Vivek Anand, CEO, FitnessOne (small start-up entrepreneur of the year)
• Raju Venkataraman, President and Chief-Operating Officer &
• Firstsource (Serial entrepreneur of the year)

You can view short videos of the event including the CM Address and Award distribution from ChennaiOnline.

PANELS

There were 3 panel discussions during the day, I have just managed to cover below the first panel on Emerging Trends in the Retail Industry.

Vivek Anand of FitnessOne talked about their emphasis on excellent equipments, world class training to trainers, hygiene, etc. He talked new opportunities that are available for Aesthetic & thrill seeking industry. And with the competition from organized retail how existing stores are upgrading to new consumer experience and the big opportunity here. He quoted that Top 10% of income group in India consume 30% of retail. A company can compete on price, compete on service, compete on innovation - but you cannot compete on all three.

G.V.RaviShankar, VP of Sequoia Capital talked about speciality stores like Coffee Day, Printo (Digital On demand printing)

Hemu Ramaiah, CEO of Landmark Books talked about how when she started 30 years back no one heard about Outsourcing. She talked about a list of emerging outsource opportunities that budding Entrepreneurs can think of starting: 

1. Infrastructure (Property, Real Estate Broking, Project Management, Visual Merchandising)
2. HR (Outsourcing Recruitment, Outsource People)
3. Training (Even basic speaking is bad in India today, language, Skill Gaps)
4. Store services (Housekeeping, Security, Software, Retail Auditing)
5. Backoffice Operations / Logistics, Imports/Clearance, Buying (Sourcing Agents)
6. Marketing (Analytics, Data Mining, Shopping trends and shopping habits, CRM, PR, Media Design, Event Management, Web Design Outsourcing)
7. Quality (ISO Certified, Balanced Score Card, Customer Satisfaction Survey)
8. Banking & Finance (VC Funds, Business Plans)
9. Travel/Tickets.

I enjoyed the last panel discussion moderated by K.Pandia Rajan, Ma Foi and he did a wonderful job in that. I liked his quote of "Punarapi Jananam, Punarapi Maranam" while saying talking about Serial Entrepreneurship. Other panelists in that session were:

• Sharad Sharma, CEO, Yahoo! India R & D
• Srinivas Balasubramanian, Chairman & CEO, Photon Infotech
• Rajesh Jain, CEO Netcore
• Mahesh Murthy, Partner, SeedFund
• Satya Prabhakar, CEO, Sulekha

KEYNOTES

Captain Gopinath in his Keynote spoke about "Dare to Dream and Do It. Most important for an entrepreneurship is to live it more than anything else. To be Uncompromising & to listen to your inner voice. To Pursue that vision to the exclusion of everything else". He spoke about how he grow from being Army Officer to a Farmer of 40 Acres borrowed from his uncles in which he did Silk Farming, starting an Helicopter company with an ex-army colleague when India had only 20 Helicopters in civil sector and finally to his successful venture Air Deccan. He stressed on the need to Dream big and act fast. Air Deccan collects more than USD 1 to 2 Million every day. Talked about how Accenture was slow to respond when Air Deccan initially wanted them to build their e-ticketing software and then how they went with a small software company for developing in the early days.

There were other keynotes as well made by the following eminent personalities during the day.

It was educative to hear each Entrepreneurship's struggle to success story.  Mr.Thiagarajan's speech in Tamil (who was the exception to speak in Tamil, even CM spoke in English) was disappointing as it was nothing more than an inaugural address and was consumed in praising Tamilnadu CM.

Last month I attended a SPIN Chennai program on Balanced Scored by Mr.Sudipto Marjit. Offline when I was speaking with Mr.Marjit he noticed the book I was reading (while waiting for the talk to start) - Profitable Growth Is Everyone's Business by Mr.Ram Charan. Immediately he recommended that I also read Ram Charan's What the CEO wants you to know?. I did exactly that this week and here is the review.

The first thing that strikes about the book (USD 20, INR 428) is its attractive title and the second is its thin size (about 140 pages). Before I say anything about the book I must say that this is a must read for anyone in any Business and it doesn't matter whether you are working, managing or leading a business. Having said that the book can be a let down if you had focused too much on its lofty title. The book should have been titled "What everyone in business should know" or better "Quick start manual for businesses" . Let me give you a brief review of the book's coverage:

• If you were wondering for a better term for saying "Business is in her blood" or "His gutfeel on business" Ram Charan has coined a beautiful phrase "Business Acumen" and he introduces the term and what it means very well.
• Introduction and simple english explanation to business speak like P/E Ratio, Return on Assets, Sales Turnovers.
• He introduces an simple formulae of R = M x V, where R is return on assets, M is After-Tax Margin and V is Velocity or Inventor turn. I found the way he talked about Velocity as a very useful idea.
• Need to have Right People in Right Job, the importance of Coaching
• Ram Charan introduces one more term "Social Operating Mechanism" which basically is how to motivate people at all levels and have them connected seamlessly as a team all the time

Overall a must read for every business person. Thanks Mr.Marjit for recommending this book.

தமிழ் மையம் என்று ஒரு தன்னார்வ நிறுவனமும் தமிழக அரசின் சுற்றுலா மற்றும் கலை வளர்ச்சித் (ஆம் இந்த துறைகள் கூட தமிழக அரசிலுள்ளது என்று நாம் இந்த நிகழ்ச்சிகள் மூலம் தான் தெரிந்துக்கொள்ளலாம்) துறையும் போன வருடம் முதல் ஆண்டுதொரும் நடத்தும் திருவிழா சென்னை சங்கமம். அதற்கு அழகான தலைப்புக் கொடுத்துள்ளார்கள் - திருவிழா உங்கள் தெருவிழா.

சென்னை சங்கமம் சென்னையிலுள்ள பல்வேறுப் பூங்காக்களில் பொங்கல் நாட்களையொட்டி நடைப்பெறுகிறது. அழிந்து வரும் கிராமிய கலைகளான - நடனம், தெருக்கூத்து, நாடகம், களரி, இசை, பாட்டு இவைக்களுடன் இந்த ஆண்டு கிராமிய/மாவட்ட உணவு வகைக்களையும் நகரமக்களுக்குக் கொண்டுவரும் நல்ல முயற்சியாக இது எனக்குத் தோன்றிகிறது. அதலால் நேரில்காண மைலாப்பூரிலுள்ள நாகஸ்வராவ் பூங்காவில் நடந்த நிகழ்ச்சிகளை இன்றுப் பார்க்கப் போனேன். அரசு நிகழ்ச்சியென்பதால் அமைப்பு சுமாராக இருக்கும், கூட்டமே இருக்காது என்று எதிர்ப்பார்த்த எனக்கு இரண்டிலும் மகிழ்ச்சியான ஏமாற்றம். நிகழ்ச்சி மேடை மற்றும் பூங்கா சுற்றிடம் (மக்கள் அமர வசதியாக ஜமாக்களாங்கள் கூட போட்டு வைக்கப்பட்டிருந்தது) அழகாக அமைக்கப்பட்டு நல்ல முறையிலிருந்தது. முட்டி மொதும் கூட்டமில்லையென்றாலும் ஒரு நூறு பேர் மேல் வந்திருப்பார்கள், நிகழ்ச்சிகளுக்கு அவர்களிடம் நல்ல வரவேற்பு. ஒரு பூங்காவிலிருந்து இன்னொரு பூங்காவில் நடக்கும் நிகழ்ச்சிகளைப் பார்க்கப் போக பஸ் வசதி கூடச் செய்யப்பட்டது மகிழ்ச்சி. பாராட்டுக்கள்.

கி.மு. கி.பி., இது மதன்  அவர்கள் எழுதி குமுதத்தில் வெளியான ஜாலியான சரித்திரத் தொடர்.  எனது நண்பர் பத்ரி ஸேஷாத்ரி அவர்களின் கிழக்கு பதிப்பகம் இதைப் புத்தகமாக வெளியிட்டுள்ளது.  நான் இந்தப் புத்தகத்தைக் காசுப் போட்டு வாங்கவில்லை, போன வருடம் கேஸவன் கம்புயூட்டர் நிறுவன விழாவில் ஓசியாகக் கிடைத்தது . அதனால் தான் என்னவோ இதைப் படிக்க இவ்வளவு நாட்கள் ஆயிற்று.    

சரித்திரத்தைக்கூடச் சுவையாகக் கொடுத்துள்ளார் மதன். அதற்கு அவரை நாம் பாராட்ட வேண்டும்.   ஆனால் தலைப்பை கி.மு. கி.பி. என்று வைத்துவிட்டு கிமுவில் நடந்ததை மட்டுமே எழுதியுள்ளார் மதன்.  அடுத்த பாகம் வருமோ என்னவோ யார் கண்டார்?

நியாண்டர்தால் மற்றும் ஹோமோஸேபியன் என்று மனிதன் தோன்றியக் கதையில் ஆரம்பித்து, பாபிலோனியா, எகிப்து, கிரேக்க நாகரிகங்களை விலாவாரியாகச் சொல்லி இந்தியாவின் மௌரியர்களின் வீழ்ச்சுயில் புத்தகத்தை முடித்துள்ளார் மதன்.

I just finished listening to this Audio book. The book is by former CEO of IBM Louis Gerstner - the outsider who was responsible for IBM's spectacular turnaround in 1990's.

The first time when I read the paper edition of this book was soon after its release in 2002. Those were early years in Vishwak, when I wanted to be more of hands-on in technology and I was reluctant to take up management responsibilities that were being thrown my way everyday as CEO of a company. This book along with Jack Welch's (Jack: Straight from the Gut) definitely stirred up my interest in management, growing and winning. When I graduated as an engineer just like every other fresh engineer I thought all managers are like Dilbert's Pointy Haired boss. This book and several others I read during the time, certainly demystified and clarified to me that management is also a science that can be learned by reading & practice.

If you are a manager of a division or a CEO this book is a must read and I am sure it will inspire and motivate its readers, just like it did for me.

Every Indian Engineer was made to feel proud yesterday. The event was unveiling of Tata Motors dream project the world's first Rs.1 Lakh (USD 2500) car - Tata Nano. When first talked about 4 years by Mr.Ratan Tata noone believed it to be possible that too by an Indian company. Thanks to the ingenuity and hard work of Indian Engineers it was made possible and demonstrated yesterday. From being an under-dog in the world's automobile scene, India overnight has graduated itself to the premium club of the GMs & Toyotas. With this Tata's have made themselves more than qualified to be the future owners of Jaquar & Land Rover.

I found it heartening to see the congratulatory message from Anand Mahindra, managing director for Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Motors’ primary competitor “I think it’s a moment of history and I’m delighted an Indian company is leading the way”

I came across this PDF from Microsoft Auto that talks about how a new Microsoft technology developed in partnership with Auto majors will help drivers manage and make voice requests to make a call, select and listen to music and more. Interestingly the technology is supposed to work with all major mobile devices (including Non Windows Phones), Zune, IPod and more. I hope it lives to the promise.

Finally, as always the availability is currently limited to USA.

I got the first phase of my pilot program to have my house moved to Digital Media done. I thought the toughest part will be the purchase(choice), installation and wiring of the hardware but it turned out to be the easiest part. I got my SqueezeBox connected through wireless and playing audio (WMA/MP3) from my PC seamlessly, my XBOX 360 connected through Ethernet to my PC with the media shared using Windows Media Player 11/Zune Player Sharing. Windows Media Player (or equivalent Zune) sharing was much better and easier to setup and use than Windows Media Center especially since I didn't want Live TV through this setup at this phase.

I wanted the digital media files to be playable with my XBOX 360 and with Zune Player (so that I can watch/hear on the move). The toughest part was finding a software that will rip (copy) the media from the Video CDs and DVDs that I owned. This was the main motive behind buying the XBox 360, so that I can protect the CDs from my son scratching while trying to put it in the DVD player. Audio conversion from Audio CDs was easiest with Windows Media Player doing a great job in converting it to WMA or MP3 - both of the formats played well with XBOX & Zune. Video was the most difficult. First because of the DVD Copy Protection and then finding a reliable software for doing the copying to PC. 

DVD Copy protection

I don't understand this at all. Why should the Media houses treat me (a paying customer) like a criminal when all I want to do is to convert a legally bought content to a format that is convenient for me to store and watch. On top of this is stupid DVD Region code. When I am allowed to legally buy a DVD from any country I visit during my travel, why can't I watch it in my home DVD Player. Adding to the woe is the situation in India where DVDs are sold in both Region 2 and Region 5 codes with one not playing on the players with the other mark. An instance was the Inconvenient Truth DVD Indian Edition from Saregama that I bought recently was Region 2 whereas as per DVD Region Code chart it should have been Region 5 for India.  Because of these stupidness of the technology used, I have to rely on software that will overcome the protection and copy the media to the harddisk.

For this task I found DVD Decrypter (shown in right) to be the best. Don't waste your money by buying any of the software that claims to remove automatically the CSS copy protection. I have tried almost the top 15 software on the Internet and all of them are not worth the trouble and don't even come close to the reliability, quality and speed of free DVD Decrypter. Only challenge will be to find a reliable site to download the software since it is banned in few countries, Wikipedia and Google might help you on the search.  After using DVD Decrypter I am ready to the next step. Note: I tried softwares that claims to do both the removal of copy protection and ripping to MP4/WMV but they were produced output videos files that were pathetic quality and unfriendly to use.

Encoding Software

After downloading and trying nearly a dozen software from the Internet I finally settled down to Nero Recode. Almost all of them had one limitation or other. Remember I wanted the output to be played both in my Zune and XBox 360 not a easy combination.

• First was Windows Media Encoder did a reasonable job but was very slow and didn't work well with DVDs.
• Convert2Zune  - this was a free script from my fellow Regional Director Vinod Unny. This uses Windows Media Encoder as the backend and had the same drawbacks of that, except that it automated the steps.
• Next was Video VLC Media Player - this was the only reliable software that does both removal of CSS and encoding to WMV well, but the downside it was very slow in its conversion.
• PQDVD - I bought this based on recommendation from my industry colleagues to convert videos to Zune format. Though it initially seemed to work well with DVDs, I soon realized it was unreliable and pathetic for VideoCDs. 50% of the time it produced videos that had audio out of sync by several minutes!
• Nero Recode - Here comes Nero Recode. The software doesn't remove copy protection, but once you have crossed that bridge using DVD Decrypter there is no software that comes close to the speed and reliability of Nero Recode. Couple of points I learned that you need to be before you can start using it.
  • If you choose the profile as default Nero Digital Profile the output file doesn't work with Zune and XBOX. It produces MPEG4 files that uses proprietary Nero Digial Codecs that works only with Nero Digital Certified Media players - obviously Zune and XBOX are out of that. Initially I gave up Nero Recode because of this, but later learned the next point from a forum post.
  • You will have to choose the second profile in Nero Recode called "Nero Digital AVC" which produces industry standard MPEG4 files. The output files thus produced play natively with Zune Player. To make them play in XBOX 360, you need to do two things. First is to use Zune Player Sharing option over Windows Media Player Sharing. Second, go to XBOX 360 and play one of the files - it will automatically prompt to download an optional media update (below screenshot). Once you download and install it, your XBOX 360 can now play seamlessly the MPEG4 files.

Problem solved, case closed. Everyone lived happily ever after

For 17 years or so, Bill Gates has done the keynote at CES and this year is claimed to be his last year. At the show yesterday they had shown a funny (imaginative) video of last day of Bill Gates at work in Microsoft. You can have a Good Laugh, check it out. 

Bill Gates Last Day CES Clip

Last month returning from a trip to Danvantri Temple, Walajapet went with my family to Sripuram Golden Temple near vellore. It is built by Sri Narayani Peetam and is situated some 5Kms from Vellore downtown. When we went thousands of people were in the temple, after locking you in cages (like in Tirupati) they send you in batches to control the crowd. I suppose most of the crowd visiting were curious and interested to see the new golden temple rather than the deity. The temple, covering 55,000 sq ft, has intricate carvings and sculptures in gold. Except for the pathway, the entire structure has been made of gold and copper. About 400 goldsmiths and coppersmiths, including craftsmen from Tirumala-Tirupati Devasthanam, have completed the architectural marvel in gold in six years. The approximate cost of the temple is Rs 600 crore.Visit the official website here for more details and photos.

It was a long walk to the temple and inside the temple - as they make you walk a kilometre or two in a path formed in the shape of Srichakram (the holy sign of Vaishnavism in Hindu Religion). The main temple and surroundings have been done built aesthetically and maintained very well, the whole place is so beautiful and calm.

As I have written in the past I like Irish Folk songs. So the other day while at Crosswords I saw & picked up the CD "Ireland - The greatest songs ever". One song among the 12 songs in the album impressed me a lot and in the last few days I have listened to it several times.

The song was Four Pence a Day by Tola Custy & Cyril O'Donoghue. Surprisingly my 4 year old son has taken a liking to it and he demanded I play it twice today!.The song talks about the hard working conditions for Four Pence a day as salary. 

You can sample the songs from this Amazon page. If you like Irish Folk Songs this is a good album but the price at Rs.395 is damn expensive. You may be able to buy the few good songs online for much cheaper price. 

Over the few years our team size in Vishwak has grown from less than 50 to over 150 now. This means as the Chairman of the organization I don't get to meet every team member individually, have a chat with them and get to know them better. So few months we experimented with a program titled "Coffee with Venkat", obviously inspired by the TV talk show by a similar name. This is a bi-monthly event normally held on the first & Third Saturday's of a month. A few randomly selected team members spend an hour over coffee to have an informal chat with me. Only one condition - no work related topics. I have done over half-a-dozen of this programs so far, and mostly the topics they choose to talk are around their aspirations, ambitions, school/college days and future plans. Every time after the program I feel extremely energized and inspired. I highly recommend this to every business or organization heads. 

I use a Windows Smartphone (HTC s710). Few weeks back while attending a professional presentation I took down some notes and saved it in the SMS "Draft" folder. Today I wanted the text available in  my PC so that I can use the contents, I didn't want to retype the whole text (it was few SMS messages long). SMSing to my same number won't work & Windows Smartphone OS doesn't have a copy-paste option - had it got that I could copied and pasted it as an email.

Finally I found a way, I have a PCMCIA Internet Data Card in my laptop from Tata Indicom. I sent the SMS to that number, then opened the data card software which showed all the SMS (as seen in the right hand side image) in a textbox, I copied it from there.

Isn't this a neat solution?. Only drawback was that I had to pay for 4-5 SMS messages though

It was exciting to see the Indian economy growing closer to becoming a mature economy. My random thoughts below on the subject as a novice.

You should give credit to the brothers (Mukesh and Anil) because in the last 2 years after their split-up it is amazing the amount of wealth they have created for themselves and their shareholders. The overall market capitalization of Reliance Industries and ADAG after the split-up is multiple times of the value when they were as one single unit. So it is not surprising if you are wondering like me whether the whole story of differences between the brothers and the split-up episode was orchestrated. Anyway it is, the split-up seems to be only for the good and has made all the stakeholders more wealthier and happier.

Today Reliance Power announced their IPO which they are claiming on TV to be India's largest public offering. The IPO opens on January 15 and closes on January 18 in the price band of Rs.405-450/share. They have announced incentive for individual investors by the flexibility to pay say Rs.110 or so while applying and the balance within 21 days from the date of allotment and a 5% discount. You can read the full news here.

Having bought the DVD several months back, I managed to watch the movie "Guru" staring Abhishek Bachchan yesterday. The story was widely rumoured to be based on Reliance Dhirubhai Ambani's life. Abhishek definitely has done a superb performance in the movie coming as the ambitious businessman. Though Aishwarya Rai comes throughout the movie, she has very little role and leaves no impact.

The first half of the movie, where Gurukant Desai raises to fame fast was well taken, but the second half resembles more a routine Hindi Movie with a fight (not physical) and the Hero winning at the end. Overall, if you remove the Reliance Ambani connection from your mind, this is a very ordinary movie - Director Mani Rathnam could have done better.