Author Archives: Harinath

Being more Creative

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Just got these points in an email chain and I found them very interesting read. Hope you enjoy too 🙂

1. Ignore everybody.

2. The idea doesn’t have to be big. It just has to change the world.

3. Put the hours in.

4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being “discovered” by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.

5. You are responsible for your own experience.

6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.

7. Keep your day job.

8. Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.

9. Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.

10. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.

11. Don’t try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.

12. If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.

13. Never compare your inside with somebody else’s outside.

14. Dying young is overrated.

15. The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.

16. The world is changing.

17. Merit can be bought. Passion can’t.

18. Avoid the Watercooler Gang.

19. Sing in your own voice.

20. The choice of media is irrelevant.

21. Selling out is harder than it looks.

22. Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.

23. Worrying about “Commercial vs. Artistic” is a complete waste of time.

24. Don’t worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually.

25. You have to find your own schtick.

26. Write from the heart.

27. The best way to get approval is not to need it.

28. Power is never given. Power is taken.

29. Whatever choice you make, The Devil gets his due eventually.

30. The hardest part of being creative is getting used to it.

31. Remain frugal.

Scorpio Service & Costs

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Owning a Mahindra Scorpio is a dream and you will not only need a bit of money, but also passion to maintain the car. It is no doubt a hazzle free SUV, but it sure needs your attention a bit. But, as long as you adhere to the service schedules, trust me, you can rock with your Beast.

Here is the schedule I followed for my Scorpio and amount paid:

Date At KM Service Type Amount Paid

10-06-2006 715 Free Rs. 0

01-09-2006 4704 Free Rs. 3,100

04-12-2006 9791 Free Rs. 620

29-01-2007 14,861 Free Rs. 1,160

08-06-2007 19,553 Free Rs. 2,900

29-08-2007 24,870 Paid Rs. 4,402

01-12-2007 29,695 Paid Rs.5,994

14-04-2008 35,149 Paid Rs. 7,482

17-06-2008 41,262 Paid Rs.8,495

11-08-2008 44,650 Paid Rs. 7,200

02-01-2009 49,785 Paid Rs.11,554 (Brakpad’s replaced and all oil’s topped)

07-07-2009 55,348 Paid Rs.3,885 (All Oil’s topped up)

31-11-2009 60,316 Paid Rs.13,885 (Clutch Pads changed and all oils topped)

10-05-2010 65,176 Paid Rs.8,325 (Break Pad’s Changed)

29-02-2011 70,565 Paid Rs.4,200 (General Service)

09-04-2011 74,550 Paid Rs.3,250 (General Service. Yes, did almost 5,000 KM in one month)

The first one is the PDI performed before the car is delivered.

KickStart.In

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Off-late, “Entrepreneurship” has received a lot of attention. Not that this was non-existent earlier, it is just getting the correct momentum in countries like India.

Recently, a young and self-motivated team has stepped up to create a platform for showcasing entrepreneurial ideas and promoting Entrepreneurship – KickStart.In
KickStart is a not-for-profit organization aimed at promoting Entrepreneurship. The team is young, energetic and comprised of Entrepreneurs, Professionals, Academicians and Entrepreneur-wannabe’s.
What does KickStart do?
Interesting question – we search for ways and avenues to show-case entrepreneurship and provide as much support as we can, to help people with Entrepreneurial spirit show-case themselves to the world.
In this regard, KickStart is organizing HeadStart, a mega event on the 18th, 19th and 20th January 2008 at Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore in association with Association for Computing Machinery, (ACM) a world renowned organization.
HeadStart
Imagine this – you have a great idea and have been working on it for quite some time. You went around trying to get the best of the feedback before you put in your life time into it. Getting a genuine feedback and commendable recognition is the most difficult part. You have questions on the integrity of people whom you approach and also the knowledge they might have in understanding what you would want to do. You also would like to share your idea with people just incase if anyone would want to fund you in anyway to get your idea rolling.
All the above are thoughts of a entrepreneur in making and wishing for a miracle to happen. We went through all these in our lives (if not all, most of the team members) and do understand that there needs to be a honest platform which needs to be created. KickStart was born with this thought in mind. With our experiences, we wanted to at least help people around us and want to ensure that you do not go through the same pain again and again, instead work on refining your idea.
HeadStart is a three day conference where we are inviting Entrepreneurs, Academicians, Industry Leaders, Venture Capitalists and Students.
During the conference, you will have opportunity to showcase your “working model” and share your idea with people around.
How do you show-case your “working model”?
The process is easy – Visit our website – www.HeadStart.in, and Nominate Your Product; It’s that simple. We have an eminent panel who are ready to share their valuable time to go through your nomination. The panel is the ultimate authority to short list nominations which will be allowed to show case during the event.
So, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and be part of HeadStart.

List of Incubation Centers in India

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Here is a list of Incubation Centers in India. Hope this helps to give you a starting point if you intend to start your own company…

Technology Business Incubator, Birla Institute of Technology, Pilani
Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur
Center for Entrepreneurship, SP Jain Institute of Management & Research
C-TIDES, IIT Madras
TeNeT, IIT Madras
Abhiyan, IIM Lucknow
E-Cell, IIM Kozhikode
TIME IS, Delhi
Science & Technology Entrepreneurs Park, JSS Academy of Technical Education, NOIDA
National Institute of Industrial Engineering, Mumbai
Entrepreneurship Development Cell, IIT Roorkee
Over a period of time, I will try to explore more into each of the above institutes and provide more information of their process.

NOMAD for MAC

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If you have a MAC and a Creative NOMAD range of Music player , then you must be wondering how you would get to connect your music player to the computer. You can download XNJB and install on your MAC which can help you to synchronize the player with MAC. Visit www.wentnet.com for more information. Thank you Richard. You really helped people like me 🙂

BarCamp Bangalore 5, Winter Edition

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All preparations for BarCampBangalore 5, Winter Edition are going at extreme speed. This time, participation in the organizing committee has been more than three times the previous teams. Its great to have so many people willing to participate and make this event the most happening BarCamp in the world.We had our first planning meeting around 14 October and the main point of our discussion is the way the camp should be structured. Last BarCamp was the Collectives edition and we had more than 600 participants. The main feedback we received was that the collectives were diluted (we had around 25 collectives) and people could not get a chance to attend other collective sessions as they were clashing with time. Jace tried his best to schedule the events, but it was really a tedious task. Anyway, coming to this discussion, the main input was that we should streamline the collectives, have more focused sessions and get in more people to participate rather than just being spectators. This time around, team has been planning to have 2 sessions each during one part of the day on both days, so that the sessions are streamlined. Which means to say, you have 2 session in the morning and 2 sessions post-lunch on the 17th and 18th November 2007.The venue remains same, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.Visit BarCampBangalore home page and mark your calenders for the event.

Canon Rebel XT

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After a serious research and hunting for a cost effective camera, I zeroed in on the Nikon D40 earlier. However, after a little more research and analysis I decided to go for the Rebel XT, the EOS series Digital SLR from Canon.

This is a 8 MegaPixel camera which came with 18-55 MM lens Kit. I will not speak more on the technical configuration, as the camera model link above will give you all the details (even those which I will not), but will speak a little bit on my experiences.
Well, the first think I will need to admit is the ease of use of the camera. The menu is very user friendly and you will not need to go through the manual too, if you have already handled a point-and-shoot camera before. I felt that the operation is much better and easier than point-and-shoot and also other cameras in its category. I have been using a Pentax ZX 50 Analog SLR camera for about 6 years now and recently bought a Nikon Cool Pix point-and-shoot just to capture small moments when I do not carry my Analog SLR.

Buying my Mac

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As I mentioned in my earlier post, I was serious about the Mac this time when I came to the US. As per my itinerary, I would be in Kansas City
on the 26 October when Leopard would be launched by Apple 🙂 For the first time, I would be traveling when something is being launched by Apple.
On the 26, I came back from work and was trying to check Apple’s website to see if the store on the Plaza would be open. Just then my friend called me and said that they were coming through the main road and saw a huge line in front of the Apple store. I
wasted no time, just ran to the store and found a huge line. It
was 6:15 PM and I was there, about 1/2 KM from the store wondering if I would be able to make it to buy a copy today. The store was distributing coke and water to people who were standing…

At around 7:15, entered the store to first be invited by a cool black T-Shirt freebie. Then the store attendent asked me what I was looking for? I told her and was guided to another counter for only computers. I told that person what I wanted and lo! my Mac

his arrived in front of me 🙂
I am really enjoying this great PC.

Am really amazed with the usability it has and I do not think I would enjoy working with a Microsoft OS anymore. I do agree that I would take some time to get acquainted with this system, but wow! what an amazing computer this is…

BangaloreIT.In – A new look

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On the 17 October, I, along with Arun, Saurabh, Prasanth along with few others was invited to meet Mr.Vidyashankar, Secretary to Government of Karnataka, India for an introduction and Q&A of the new version of BangaloreIT.In, a mega event showcasing Information Technology, Bio-Technology and Science & Technology event organized by Karnataka Government every year during November.
We were given an appointment time at 7 PM and we were in his chamber by around 7:15 PM. The discussion lasted for almost 2 hours, but I had to leave a bit before. Here are few key highlights of our interaction with him:

IT Infrastructure in Karnataka, an Overview of Present and future….

  • IT in Karnataka contributes to 26% of GDP and nation contributes to 4.7%
  • This will cross 50% by 2010
  • There are 4,90,000 people working in the IT sector
  • Karnataka has more than 225 organizations in the BT sector
  • Karnataka has more than 1,900 organizations in IT sector
  • All Fortune 500 organizations in the world have presence in the state
  • Karnataka will have its First Knowledge City in the country in an area spanning 10,000 acres. There are 5 townships planned around Bangalore
  • When organizations buy land for their offices, they will also need to take land for providing residential accommodation. This will help de-congest the city.
  • The 10,000 acre Knowledge City will have 25,000 Square Foot built up area.
  • The first township is coming up at Bidadi, a suburb in the south of Bangalore.
  • The Bidadi township is to be completed in 3 years and will have 13-14 Software Export Zones.
  • Lowest agricultural land has been acquired for this project.
  • Total investment of Rupees 60,000 Crores.
  • At the present rate of growth, Bidadi Knowledge City will suffice until 2015.
  • There were 32 Bidders for the Project and 1 has been shortlisted.

BangaloreIT.In – Redefining the Technology Event…

BangaloreIT.In is being organized for the last 5 Years in Bangalore during November every year. The first two editions of the event have a great success, and after that, there has been a downturn in organizing the event, with the key objectives not being met…

This year, the Government has realized the importance of showcasing the event in a better fashion and ensured that all steps are taken from the beginning to re-invent the entire show. 
The Department of Science and Technology has announced the dates of the event well before and ensure that it sends out invitations to various organizations and country representatives to help them block their calenders. 
This year, the event is happening between 29 October and 2 November at the Bangalore International Convention Center and all measures are taken to ensure that there are no troubles to reach the venue in any way. Special bus’s have been organized periodically from central locations in the city to ensure convenience. 
PS: As I write this post (it is late though), I am traveling on business and misplaced my notes 🙁 Am trying to recollect as much as i can, but would promise my readers that i would ensure that i come with more information from next time..
Read more in detail on Prasanth, Saurabh or Arun’s Blogs.