Recently came across these 2 sites - Konfabulator and DesktopX that let you create widgets for your desktop.

Wow! - is what I came up with when I looked at the widgets created using these technologies. The widgets look really really cool. But as I played a little more with these, I noticed their biggest limitations - that they are not really meant to provide, as of now, very complex functionalities - things that are of more commercial importance. I wish they extend it further to add more functionalities like providing standard UI controls - that will allow people to use this technology in their commercial applications also and not limited to the “toy-applications”. I will hate to see people switching to the other technologies for the want of better framework - since I believe that they have the ‘coolness’ missing in many UIs.

Nevertheless, I am going to use the Stock-Ticker widget on my desktop to keep myself updated with the stocks in my portfolio! Apart from that, I am also going to play with the system more and create some custom controls generic enough to be used by other applications.

It was another of those weekend evenings when me and my friend were still working in our office and a brilliant idea of doing something other than work struck us. Watching ‘Black’ was the unanimous decision - I had heard a lot about this movie and had also unsuccessfully tried watching it last time I was in Chennai on a business trip.

Finally, went into the cinema with a lot of expectations - Man, I was blown away - what an awesome movie! It’s just hard to describe the feeling - when they say words are not enough - they mean exactly this. Amazing acting - Amitabh Bachchan, Rani Mukherjee, other actors and particularly the little kid playing the role of dumb and blind! I can say one thing - without knowing about all other potential Oscar winners from across the world - that it will be hard to beat this movie for Oscars (foreign movie category) this time.

Definitely one of the 5 best movies I have seen in my life so far!

Good news to start with - we are almost 2 months old company now and growing. We resisted the urge of taking up all the work that was being made available to us - to guard against over-burdening ourselves with services and not being able to devote time in defining the future of the company, to narrow down the domain of the work, to avoid burning us out pre-maturely and to deliberately not grow too fast. Not to say that it helped us since we were always busy - but it has been pretty satisfactory to be able to deliver something that many people are using now, gain more confidence in the process and then take the next big step.

What next - we are really looking for our 2nd set of employees - have rented out another office already - this is definitely exciting. The goal - good people, both freshers and experienced. The challenge - same old problem of finding good people.

Gotta be more creative in recruitment now!

So, right now, I am in a conference call with people in North America - and this is through Skype using their skype-out feature. I must say this is really cool - the quality is pretty good for the 2 cents per minute rate that they charge. Now that is less than the local call rate from my cell-phone.

I am going to replace all my international telephone calls with the Skype-Out calls now - doesn’t hurt to save money here

How does it feel to turn into an employer from being an employee? - I always used to think about this question and had many ideas around it. Big deal - used to be my initial responses while I was still in school. I never stopped thinking about this but, without the fear of exaggeration, I can say that I had not felt such sense of responsibility as I do now.

Turning into an employer is a major step - you have to take care of not only the clients, company infrastructure but understand that your true assets are people who work for the company. There had never been a stronger urge from inside to make sure that each and every employee get what they truly deserve (and knowing that they deserve the best) and do things the ‘right’ way. It’s not only because that would benefit me in return but because that’s the only way to grow the company. I have started to think more about the company than self. It’s really one of my deepest desire to see the people working for the company excel in doing what they are doing - and get maximum returns in a fair way.

But why am I writing this today? Simply because, it was very heartening to see these people putting in a very honest effort today in doing the projects assigned to them. Feeling of strange happiness and energy fills me today.

I am happy

Calcutta, 2nd Cricket Test match b/w India and Pakistan: After watching a great fightback from Pakistan in the last match, India decides to bat first this time. The experts say - it’s going to be an evenly balanced match b/w the two teams and provide a full entertainment package.

What I want: Sehwag blasting a double century - with almost 100% strike rate, Tendulkar completing his 35th test century, Rahul and Laxman demonstrating the class they are made of. I will love to see Bhajji in his own animated way and living up to his reputation, Pathan taking quick-fire wickets and …

Now, I am not asking for a lot. Am I?

Haven’t you heard from your friends to ‘Get a Life’ when they find you really busy doing office work - either long hours or working during the weekend. I have - till when I used to have a ‘job’.

Now, that I am running my own software company, nobody has made this comment so far even though not even a day passes when I don’t deserve to be commented on that. But I guess, people do realize that now this is my life - at least for a good time - until I prove myself and establish the company properly.

Note to self: Back to work - need to go home in a while for dinner!

You, probably, already know that I have started a company of my own doing software development work targeting both the Indian and the overseas market. Many of my friends have asked me to write my experiences on starting a new venture. I thought I will start a series to talk about this. This is the first part of that series.

Challenge # 1: Renting Property and dealing with Property Dealers - I know that you will laugh. It doesn’t really look that these things are even remotely related but these are. I would have thought the same, had I not experienced it myself. Some explanation for that - you must be aware that renting an apartment in a good society in India is not that easy if you are single. It’s quite a pain to convince people that you will not cause inconvenience to your neighbors and others in the society by living the life ‘bachelor way’. Now, add to that the fact that you don’t have a job. Business, in India, irrespective of its nature (unless you are Microsoft or IBM or Reliance or another big name) is considered less prestigious by people belonging to the lower class, lower middle class and even middle class to some extent. Now, the people renting out the properties mostly fall into the middle or the lower middle class and you see how difficult can it be to rent out a property for your residence.

Now, add another dimension to that - Property Dealers. Without the fear of exaggeration, generally speaking, I can say that this is the worst class of people I have dealt with. You can count on one thing that they will almost never speak the truth (they do it a few times and you really need to be smart to figure out when they are doing that). When they say the deal is final - they basically mean - yes there is an apartment which is vacant. So, you get the idea. And almost every landlord has problem if both the conditions are true:

1. You are single
2. You are running your own business

Lessons:

• When you rent out a new office, rent out an apartment with it unless you already have a place to stay in that area. It’s quite a pain to do that later.

Next: Challenge No # 2 (Communication Management) in the next post!

Drama - is the word that can be used to describe the events that are happening in Jharkhand after the assembly elections.

For a moment, assume that you don’t know what actually happened in the last few days and answer the following questions:

1. Under what conditions does a MLA visit the President of India?
2. Guess the vehicle used to bring in the MLA.

If you didn’t know and still guessed “brought in forcibly” as the answer to the 1st question and / or “ambulance” as the answer to the 2nd question - my salutations to you.

What a controversy? A decision by the governor of a state can create such a controversy that a political party had to bring all their MLAs in front of the President of India to prove that the decision was wrong! Interesting - how could the governor miss a simple fact that the party he invited to form the government definitely didn’t deserve to be invited based on the numbers. Or is he returning the favor to the party that helped him get the seat of the governor?

Whatever the reason be - I am ashamed to know that the governor had to make a decision that clearly looks incorrect. I am just keeping my fingers crossed to witness another case (sadly!) of bulk horse-trading in the state. Will it be successful? Will it not?