time to move ..

This was my first attempt at blogging here and it has been a good start.. but i always felt the need for more control, in terms of layout and design and hence, i have now purchased a domain with my own name.. and have starting writing a blog there..

henceforth, please visit blog.danishkhan.com to get my perspective on things in our lives..

adios

India wins the first ever Gold at Olympics

My heart just swelled up with pride as I heard this line...

"Ladies and gentleman please rise for the National Anthem of INDIA..."

w000t! what a superb feeling it is...just cant express in words.. I'm so proud of you Abhinav...



I ain't gonna write anything about this champ.. You can read about Abhinav and his achievements all over the internet.. he would be a hero soon.. but i just wish and hope that some more ppl get inspired by this video here and make me feel just the way i did when i saw that clip..

GO INDIA... :0)

OpenMoko Freerunner - Free your Phone

Neo FreeRunner is an open source cell phone which is designed to run Openmoko software and is the direct descendant of the earlier FIC Neo1973. Its a Linux-based touch screen smart phone with all the specs of a killer device. A very high resolution touch screen (1.7" x 2.27" - 43mm x 58mm) 480x640 pixels, 128MB SDRAM memory (Expandable), Internal GPS module, 802.11 b/g WiFi, 400Mhz processor, 2 3D accelerometers, helps switching to landscape mode automatically, Tri-band GSM and GPRS for North America (850/1800/1900 Mhz) and the rest of the world (900/1800/1900 Mhz), USB Host function with 500mA power allowing you to power USB devices, etc.

Openmoko is a project founded by Taiwanese computer and components manufacturer First International Computer, Inc. (FIC), which aims at developing an open source Linux based operating system designed for mobile phones. The open access of the phone's software, under the General Public License, started a new trend in the mobile phone industry, following which Google came up with their own platform called Android.

Using the OpenMoko platform, developers can modify the software's function and appearance. The software package will allow third-party applications to be written and compiled for it using C/C++. The computer-aided design (CAD) files for the hardware are freely available under a creative commons license for designers to modify.

The only thing missing from the package is a camera. But who knows, the modders/hackers/developers would soon come up with an hack to add a custom camera. Yes, that's the beauty of open source, its YOUR phone in a true sense and you can customize it to suit your needs.

Its priced at $399 (plus taxes) and is available to be purchased from their online store or local distributors in a few countries (including India). Going by the reviews on the internet, this phone isn't ready for the primetime yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if it beats the market leaders (read iPhone) in a few months from now. I am a member of Motorola Linux Development Community motorolafans.com and people have come up with some amazing mods and software for the Motorola phones, which hasn't revealed the source for OS, or doesn't have an SDK. Now, with all the source available, these guys would do wonders with this little baby, where they can take control over each aspect of the phone. (A few of them have already ported the Openmoko to their A780,A1200,E6 and E680.If you are interested to know more about this click here.)

It would be interesting to see the innovation this new openness would being to the mobile phone technology. I'm already excited...

Pre-Register your iPhone in India

For all of you who have been waiting for an official iPhone launch in India, there is a good news and a bad news. The good news is that Airtel and Vodafone has officially announced that they would be bringing in the iPhone here and have started to take pre registration requests too. You can pre-register here for Airtel and here for Vodafone.

Now, the bad news is, that there isnt any information about the launch date yet. Officals are still keeping mum about the date it would be made avilable. On contrary to my earlier beleif that we would get an unlocked iPhone, it looks like iPhone would actually come locked with the service providers and would make use of the services provided by the respective companies including the 3G services too. And this might actually be a reason for the delay in India, as we do not have 3G spectrum available to be used yet. The talks with TRAI are still on and if all goes well, the 3G services might start in a few selected circles by early next year. Now, this might translate to getting the launch date shifted to next year.

Another issue with the service provider locked iPhones might be the price. We all have been infomred by Apple that an 8Gb iPhone would cost only $499, what we dont know yet is the price of the package from the local service providers on which we would get the deal (iPhone + Service Plan). Logic says that Apple might have reduced the prices as they might make profit throught a revenue sharing system from these service providers in turn. So, iPhone might reach your hands with a similar price tag as the earlier version was or even more.

But all these are speculations at the moment.. and only time would tell which way the tide turns.. lets keep our fingers crossed while we wait for the launch.

MTV Roadies BattleGround - TV meets Web 2.0

MTV in collaboration Orkut has launched a new Reality TV show called MTV Roadies Battleground where contestants would be selected online through Orkut and all the activity would happen online on the official MTV community on the site. The proceedings of the show would also be telecasted on MTV.

MTV Roadies Battle Ground is an Online version of the popular Reality TV Show "MTV Roadies". The original format of the show has about 13 guys and girls selected from all across India through a series of rounds in the audition held at different cities. The participants then have to spend around 40-45 days together, moving from one destination to other on motor bikes. Through the journey, Roadies have to perform different difficult tasks to earn money, to win immunity, or to win advantage during the vote out s. Vote out is happens after each round of tasks and one roadie is sent back home. The Roadie who stands till the end, wins the title and all the cash earned during the journey along with the motorbike he/she has been traveling on. The show has already completed 5 seasons and is hugely popular amongst youth in India and its neighboring countries.

Orkut was recently awarded as the MTV Youth Icon for being the most popular online social networking site in India. The channel had created the community on Orkut for all the fans of the show. All the members in the community can discuss the happenings on the show and put up their opinions. This community too was a big hit and gathered thousands of members in no time. The USP of this community is that the moderators and owner of the community are guys from MTV itself who manage and put up relevant and first hand info on it.

Based on huge popularity of the TV show and the now the community too, the guys at MTV decided to take this a step further. They came up with the concept of having a show similar to Roadies, where all the action would take place in the cyberspace instead of outdoors.

Anyone who wants to participate, will have to create a profile on Orkut and add a little widget for MTV RBG on their profile. An entry form has to be filled and then GDs would happen at the community forum to select the 13 finalists. These finalists with compete with each other to perform some tasks online. The MTV RBG widget will keep you updated of all the action and my guess is that it will have to be used majorly to perform tasks, in case you are one of the finalists.

Orkut has recently added this feature to allow the users to add small applications(widgets) to their profiles and have fun using them with their friends. This concept was made popular by other social networking sites like facebook and myspace. Its picking up on orkut too, but with innovations like MTV RBG, it would reach a new level altogehter.

This marriage of reality TV with internet has been one of its kind in India and I must say this is a brilliant approach in capturing the attention of masses this way. All of the TV channels have their sites set up, and they encourage users to go online and vote for their favorite participants from a lot of other reality shows, but that isn't what i would call a real Web 2.0 approach. MTV RBG, however will truly qualify for that title. Web 2.0 is all about User Generated Content, collaboration, sharing info via different media, easy access to information through different channels and this concept has it all. Thousands of users would be participating online, sharing their stuff with other users, collaborating in real time. It would be an interesting trend to follow. True reality TV true Web 2.0.

Docstoc OneClick : Easiest way to upload and share documents online

Docstoc has recently launched a little utility which helps the users to upload the documents to their docstoc account in a single click. This utility known as "OneClick" can be downloaded and installed on the computer. Three new entries are added to your context menu using which you can upload any document on you computer.



In case you do not want to make your documents available to general public, you can choose to upload the documents as private by selecting the "email as private" option in the context menu. Using "email as public" will make the document appear in the site search results too.

One can select multiple documents to upload them all at once. The total size of selected documents can reach up to 50 Mb. All the document titles would be automatically generated as the upload happens. The uploaded documents will be available under the My Documents folder on the site.

The third option can be used for a normal upload, which lets you edit the document titles and tags for all the selected documents before uploading. You can also mark each document as either private or public through this interface.

One of the ubercool features of this tool is that as soon as your documents are uploaded, it opens up your default email client and prepares the body of the text with the links to the documents you just uploaded. You can then send this email instantly to any of your friends or associates. This would ease out the issues with sending huge email attachments and getting the mailboxes jammed. This utility is also being dubbed as the "Email Attachment Killer" for the same reason. The best part is that you can view the documents on site itself, there is no need to download the document just to view it. You can however download it too, in case you need it offline.

For more information on this feature you can visit docstoc one click.

3G iPhone 2.0 not in India on 11th

Its been now confirmed that India would have to wait for the official iPhone launch here. Bharti Telecom is rumored to start selling the iPhones by Sepetember this year. The iPhone will be version 2.0 with 3G support. The countries where it would be available from 11th July are:
Australia, Austria, Belgium (French/Dutch), Canada (English/French), Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland (French/German), UK and USA.

The pricing in India might be a little higher than the Rupee equivalent of the Dollar prices. iPhones in the US would be sold under contract of at least 2 Years but that format wouldn't be applied to the Indian business model, hence, the difference in price.

However, if local vendors are to be beleived, the next generation unlocked iPhones would be available in Grey Markets by the end of July and would be priced at around 20k for an 8GB model.

iPhone 2.0 rolling out on 07-11-08

WWDC 2008 happened recently and along with everything else, the biggest announcement was the launch of the next version of the Apple's most popular product till date, iPhone.

iPhone 2.0 will be available in around 15 countries 11 July onwards. with 3G capabilities with an array of new features thrown in. The price is the biggest surprise of all, an 8 GB iPhone would be $199 and 16 GB would cost $299. For the people who already have an iPhone, this would be exchanged for free.. for those who have an iPod touch there is a little price tag of $9.99.

There are a lot of improvements as compared to the existing iPhone but there are a few issues like video recording, MMS, A2DP Bluetooth, cut and paste support etc. which are still not addressed.

Another concern which i have being in India is the release date in India. I have been looking around to get that answer but its still not clear if 11th July roll out includes India.

Any which way, we might still be able to get the officially unlocked iPhones through grey market vendors at a little increase in the price i guess.. and even with the shortcomings iPhone 2.0 is a gadget I am looking forward to..

MarketHero - no risk stocks trading

A few years back, there was a site called Bollywood Stock Exchange (bwsx.com). This site was built on the idea of creating an online stock exchange where the stars and the movies can be traded with a virtual online currency. Being the bollywood buff that I am, I was totally hooked on to it. Sadly, after a year or so, that site was shut down. I don't know if the close down was because of the lack of users or funds or both but I really liked the idea of creating a virtual online stock trading site simulating the real world market. There hasn't been any other site, using this concept after bwsx and I always felt that this is a potential idea for a fun web2.0 site.

Today, when I was checking out some random blogs, I was pleasantly surprised by the site markethero.in. Its an online game, which simulates the Indian stock market with all the prices and indexes updated from the real world stock exchange. And its has almost all the features that I had in my plan.

It intends to be a fun site with easy and free way to get a hang of the stocks trading without any risk involved. One can buy and sell stocks traded in the Indian markets virtually and maintain a virtual portfolio. As soon as your account is created, you are given a million of virtual rupees to start off with. You can perform all the trading with your virtual money and can earn profits to rise up in the leader board. I not sure about the rules yet, but I guess, its about earning highest profits and win the title of 'market hero'.

The site looks like an internal launch and is in its initial stages of testing and fixes. Their blog says that the site, with the focus on the stocks and trading, would also have some social networking features, like ability to add friends, marking favorites and online chats.

The site has a clean and nice design, with Web2.0 mainly in focus. I wish if the navigation could be a little more intuitive, the only source of information is the blog and I couldn't really locate any contact information about the owners of the site.

On the whole, for me, it would be fun to get into virtual trading and hone up the trading skills, before I can actually start investing in the real market.

The registrations are by invitation only and i haven't got an invite yet. I will update my experiences here, once I manage to get in and explore further.

RIA calling

i have been reading and talking to a few ppl recently about Web2.0 trends and upcoming technologies, and RIA has been one hot topic in all of my findings..

Well its not that i have got to know about this for the first time ever.. i have been playing around with a lot of RIA tools on the net but now I'm getting attracted to build a few apps on my own..

I feel that this would be good for my personal and professional growth as well.. as a .net developer, the best option looks like learning FLEX and get of the bandwagon this way.. but i am still unsure if i should be learning PHP too.. i mean, its not essential for RIA or Web2.0 but still its one of the favorites with the developers..

I'm considering my options .. lets see what i get on with..

So thats your blog.. huh?

I had created this blog long back.. without targeting anything in particular to write about.. i just thought that it would be good to share my feelings about the day to day life with the world.. and probably would gather a few online frends..

Web2.0 and technology had been always a topic of fascination for me.. and after developing the initial docstoc.com .. it increased exponentially.. so the initial few posts had that in focus.. although Web2.0 wasn't (rather isn't) too rosy at that point in india and hence my exploration grew..

then... i joined twitter.. and met a lot of like minded ppl. I got a chance to read their blogs.. and i was like.. hell I'm just wasting my blogspace. These ppl inspired me to continue writing my blog.. but again the classic question.. what do i write about.. ?

i cant really write about my personal life .. (not yet.. i still have to gather a lot of courage to be honest..) .. so the other things which impact me are technology and bollywood..

I wouldnt rather write about bollywood.. i dont want to start a gossip column.. and for technology.. there are again a few unanswered questions...

i don't have any other sources of info than the web itself.. and most of those sources are already popular.. so informing about the new stuff.. which is already published doesn't sound like a good idea..

most ppl write about their experiences with the new stuff in technology.. but till now I'm just rediscovering what others have already discovered... sigh!. Wait a sec.. this can still be a good option.. i can have a different experience with the same thing.. hmmm.. alright, this one is kept for re-consideration..

there has to be something else with which i can safely make my mark.. if i want to be among the first ones to get the info about new stuff.. i would probably need to explore more avenues.. as opposed to just relying on the internet for updates.. And this one sounds fine... more resources.. regular updates.. new stuff to share... Good! i'll try this approach..

but, till then... yeah... this is my blog..

long time no see..

hey.. Mr. googlebot (i know, no one else reads my blog...) :) im sorry for being away for so long...

life can get tricky sometimes... i have been ported to bhopal these days for a project .. and i dont have a clue of when i can get back to b'bay..

anyway... now tht im a little settled here and the project work too has been running smoothly... i woul try and update this area more frequently ..
keep watching