Vijay Krishna's Notes http://vijaykrishna.posterous.com Most of my notes as a student of computer software and everything around it. posterous.com Fri, 25 Mar 2011 05:54:36 -0700 Startup http://vijaykrishna.posterous.com/startup http://vijaykrishna.posterous.com/startup There is this whole new revolution taking place with a sudden escalation in the use and making of software tools and products and the internet. There is so much one can seem to do and achieve nowadays. Almost every other person seems to be getting the next big idea and launching it to make decent wads of green. Well, many, like i did in the first statement of this post, are claiming this to be a direct effect of the explosion internet and software. But then again, there are other factors. For starters, the lack of good jobs. Let us face it. The IT Boom may have gotten in a lot of jobs around the world, but the fact remains that these are nothing jobs. They do not have nay perks, no security, zero retirement plans, and the ability to support only a single person. And let us face another fact. The number of intelligent people in this world are increasing, else this wave of entrepreneurship would not have been this sustainable. The number of smart people in this planet have outweighed the number of good and well paying jobs. Look at it this way, before Google and Facebook came to the big stage, all an IT professional could talk about was working for MS, IBM or Yahoo one day. And then came along Google, followed by FB, and they became the next big firms to work for. Every time there is a new firm which comes on to the big stage, the aspirations of the job seeking crowd becomes more and more tangible. And this is possible only if regular graduates and engineers look at starting something new of their own. Why i spoke of Google is because it is the 2nd reason for this startup craze. You see, before Google, all the other firms were formed ( i.e. were startups) back in the 80's. It was almost like  everyone forgot the meaning of the word entrepreneur. They could not look beyond working for existing establishment. The Google and Facebook stories have changed exactly that. They are the modern day startups, who have gone on to challenge and dominate global competition in their areas of expertise. Funny story is that before they came into being, they already had people working on similar products and software, which was being commercially used. Be it search or social networking. Yahoo search and Orkut came before Google search and Facebook. Yet, they triumphed over them. And mind you, both Yahoo Search and Orkut were good and popular products in their time. This very fact, that the new kids on the block could show the way out to the old ones, and that too so quickly has showed people that if your idea is worth it, then there is really very little stopping you. Self employment is a concept that is gaining popularity as days pass by. Now people have gone beyond the idea of making it to the big screen. They are contended with being simple one to two man teams making some kind of profit from some kind of business. The idea of being a independent consultant or a free lancer is also setting well with the new young guns today. The whole scenario looks so promising that even kids, from both schools and colleges are doing well with the whole process of making money. What ever be your qualification, if you have an idea you can sell, then this is a fantastic time to invest some time and startup. Its time to make hay while the sun shines folks, and this hay sells!

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Fri, 11 Mar 2011 13:55:24 -0800 The Marriage Code http://vijaykrishna.posterous.com/the-marriage-code http://vijaykrishna.posterous.com/the-marriage-code While attending a typical south Indian wedding today, i got engrossed in the ceremony and its proceedings. Every hour there was a puja to be done and it was kind of maddening to be very honest. So, while this madness was going along it normal course, i started taking some interest in the prayers being offered to the Gods and started to ask people as to what they meant, (they were being chanted in Sanskrit), i noticed that every now and then the priest would ask for the bride's or the groom's name. Very so often he was also asking for the names of the parents. At places the priest was asking the couple to do a thing or two by giving them explicit instructions for the same.That is when a brain wave came to me, which might probably leave most of the priests unemployed when it comes to performing such ceremonies and prayers. The whole thing is (simply put) a chunk of code (the prayers) which is wrapped around a function or method with names of the bride, groom and their parents as parameters. The so called instructions given by the priest are nothing but messages being passed from the function to its environment. So, in the view of the statement just made, why can we not have systems which can automate religious ceremonies and prayers? Imagine the amount of efficiency we will get with doing something like that. There will be no bloopers by the priest. There will be no requirement for the priests to come all the way to the actual venue of the event to perform the ceremony. Thus you save a lot of money in transport costs and staying expenses if the wedding is actually in a remote area. You can quicken the process if you want. If you want to involve the human element, you can actually have the priest perform the wedding from a distance. Distance worships!! All this can actually enable the priests to perform various kinds of ceremonies and functions at the same time at different locations in the world. If this whole this kicks off, then you can actually get this whole software/system, as an opensource system, which you can download at zero cost from the internet, and all you would then require is a PC to run it. We will then have Microsoft shipping a MS Prayer in its Office Suite of Software and Google will throw in the same thing free of cost on Google Docs as a part of its cloud applications. You will actually have a lot of variety to choose from. There will those running on just Linux or Windows or Apple. For Windows you will get the pirated versions. WOW!!! With this idea, you have actually linked piracy with worships, prayers, and weddings. In order to avoid that bad notion of piracy being associated with such sacred events people might actually buy the costly license and for once there will be a software with no issues of piracy. Or, watching this notion by the people, Microsoft might actually overprice the thing, thinking that people will bear the whole cost burden. And then, people might actually show up their true colors and go with the pirated version anyway. You might actually have one religion accusing the other to have pirated the systems associated with their religious ceremonies. You will have riots in the name of software. International religious conventions will be convened to solve the menace created with this software. Vatican might feel threatened by this use of science and technology and the Pope will then vehemently opose it. Looking at all this, i guess its better not to go into something like that. But then, come to think of it: The world's economy, religious sentiments and power vendors will feel threatened with this single software. :) Worth trying to find out?

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Mon, 14 Feb 2011 17:09:42 -0800 An Early Draft: IC 2009 http://vijaykrishna.posterous.com/an-early-draft-ic-2009 http://vijaykrishna.posterous.com/an-early-draft-ic-2009 This was a portion of one of the 1st drafts I wrote with Kuldeep and Nagesh for our Mobile and Online Voting System, when we took part in the Imagine Cup 2009. We went all the way to the Semis of the Design for Development Award, after which we choose the University Exams over IC. I still have fond memories of those hours of intense brain storming, when the mind was free of technology and strong with ideas and concepts. Take a look at what we came up with. The ELECTION If every section of the society worked towards its own progress successfully then there wouldn't be anything to worry about, barring the conflict of interests between people which can be resolved through amicable means. However, that can never be true as, not all are fortunate in that regard. And thus the need for an unbiased governing body which can look to everyones' welfare. However, if this governing body isn't elected properly by taking everyone's opinion into account then there is bound to be some section of the country that will be left behind(in the race of progress and development.) The lack of interest or inability of the people to participate in the process of electing their own governments has become an acute problem for many developing and under developed countries over the past few decades. This hampers the formation of stable and proper governments. In such a vacuum of good governance one cannot expect a country to meet The Millennium Goals set in front of us by the United Nations irrespective of any measures that are taken otherwise. The voter turnout for an election is generally low and many factors are attributed to this:
  1. The lack of time for many, due to the wait in the long queues.
  2. The lack of interest amongst the younger generation(18-30 yrs of age).
  3. The inability of people to vote from their electoral zones due to their unavailability in their respective zones during elections (due to migration to other areas for higher education, business,employment, etc).
  4. The inability to reach out to the poorer sections of the urban population.
  5. The inability and the inefficiency to reach out to the remote and rural areas of a country.
Thus, there is a lack of an efficient, fast and reliable voting system that can mitigate the above mentioned problems. The SOLUTION With the growing number of INTERNET and mobile phone subscribers in the developing countries, reaching out to the uninterested and remote population of a country for during elections can become more efficient, faster and simpler. With the use of INTERNET, a mobile platform and short messaging service (SMS), people can cast their votes through their mobile phones and their personal computers sitting at home or while on the move. If votes can be cast through mobile phones then the people in the rural and remote areas  can easily participate in the elections on a much more regular basis. The vision of villagers having mobile phones with the SMS application, is no longer a vision of the future. It is happening and it is time that we took full advantage of it. Further, a person would no longer be required to be present in his electoral zone for casting his vote. He can simply specify the same over the Internet or a Mobile SMS. Plus, as far as those people who are pressed for time, they would no longer have to worry about standing in long queues and “wasting” their time. They would now only have to shoot a text message for their vote to be counted. This use of the Internet and the mobile services would not only make the entire process of voting faster but more secure. Against the usual fears of a hack or data corruption of the system, we believe if the entire system is designed properly then all these baseless fears can be easily cast away. After all, we are living in an age where we trust computer based systems with our hard earned money, then why not our votes? To further amplify the basis of the just point, Booth Capturing will be virtually non-existent. The amount of violence can be drastically reduced on the election days. People will no longer be bullied into casting their votes against their own choices. All these factors will contribute in the overall increase of turnout during elections and will also help in holding voters for the future. Adding on to the list of advantages, this form of voting can reduce the costs involved in voting exponentially both for the government and the common man. No longer will, countries have to sit in a vacuum of  leadership while the results of elections eat into months. Electoral results will be processed in matter of days and speed up the formation of Governments. Thus, reducing money and time to very large extents.

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Sat, 22 Jan 2011 18:18:22 -0800 Change the World or go home. http://vijaykrishna.posterous.com/change-the-world-or-go-home http://vijaykrishna.posterous.com/change-the-world-or-go-home
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The Blue Monster @ Microsoft
Scary? Don't be. This is what you will find on a few doors at the MS HQ. It can be interpreted in many ways. But, I chose to interpret it in a manner i will never be able to understand. Changing things is a very difficult thing to do. Changing the world is almost impossible. For most parts of our lives we end up trying to solve tough problems and manage to make the best sense of what life is, in our own context. To speak specifically about coders, they, we try to work out solutions for complex problems and feel elated about it. To be intelligent is good. But, what good is anything, if not met with true purpose. For me, true purpose is something that which brings change for the good. Something that makes lives better. Something that inspires me to do more, that which i am already doing, not because i am good at or need to be better at it. Instead because, it brought a smile to someone's face. While i was being an intent listener, someone today told questioned the point of doing research if one has to watch its results from one's grave. And i asked my self what would have happened if every great discovery or invention was viewed with such contempt. I do not hope or expect to effect direct change in some life in the poorest corner of this planet. I hope that what i do today, hopefully be used to change things in this world. It is with that simple idea that i wake up every morning. This was an abstract post meant to ask you one simple thing as a coder and a person of science and technology: What have you done to change the world around you? And how did you use technology to do it? Still thinking? Worried that whatever you have done was of no use but yo your own self and no body else's? Scared? Don't be. Because, it is ok to be like that. It is ok to be intelligent for your own next increment in pay. It is ok to be who you are. Change is difficult. Unless of course, you want to change and that is a start.

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