We run a pure Mac development environment with Macbooks and Macbook Pros for my startup in Bangalore. Recently, my maxed out Macbook lost its LCD backlight and had to be sent into the Apple Store (Imagine). Running a new startup without a computer to work with isn’t advisable, besides personal withdrawal issues. I realized that we need an extra system in the office so that if something breaks down, we have a machine to work with. Obviously, as a startup we can’t go around buying Mac Pros for redundancy.

So I chose to go the Hackintosh way. I got a 10.5.2 Hardware Compatibility List off the OSX86Project Wiki and speced out a system that was under $500/Rs.22,000 and started looking for people who could deliver the goods. I found ‘Pintu’ at Karnataka Computers who did the entire thing up for me. So this is what my config looks like:

• Gigabyte Motherboard GA-945GCM-S2L
• Intel 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo
• Transcend 1 x 2GB Ram
• LiteOn 20x DVD Burner
• NVidia XFX 7200GS 256MB
• 500GB Hard Disk Sata (a little extra)
• Netgear WiFi USB Adapter WG111v3
• Logitech Wireless Keyboard + Mouse Set
• Cabinet, SMPS, Wires etc.

It is such a smooth machine, that I ended up buying a 22″ LG Flatron LCD and making it my mainstay. My Time Machine backup had me up and running in a day - yes it took me that long to retrieve my data. Besides the slow data recovery, the only problem I had was that my USB devices need to be connected before I start up or restart my machine, I am hoping that its a fix that’s out there. Update: I upgraded to modbin 9.3.0 kernel and its all taken care of.

A working and powerful Mac desktop in under Rs.30,000/$750 in India. Awesome.

These guys did a bang up job at finalizing the configuration and delivering it in Bangalore within a couple of hours:
Karanataka Computers, 080-2229-0815
karanatakacomputers@vsnl.net

I just tried signing into my Flickr account and it kept giving me ‘wrong id/password’ message, making my heart skip a beat each time. But after five minutes, I was able to sign into My Yahoo! and now another 10 minutes later, into Flickr.com.

Did they just have a hiccup?

This was taken on a recent trip to Haryana with a friend of mine. At the top of ever-winding stairs was a row of these water taps, which were attracting bees like flowers. What was more interesting was that almost nobody else seemed to notice and used them without care.

This picture stood out for me and I finally got around to posting it here cause it reminded me of that whole day. I was with somebody influential and though we started the trip alone, within minutes we were followed by a whole posse which finally cleared up to form a 10 man entourage. We rode with this entourage in 3 cars all day long.

Yeah, it was interesting.

Silicon Alley Insider has very quickly become one of my top 10 daily reads. Almost everybody on this planet has an opinion about Microsoft courting Yahoo! and Henry Blodget is no different. What’s the most interesting to me is -

The problem is the way Microsoft has always framed the “cloud computing” transition:

• paid desktop software licenses giving way to
• free web-based software supported by advertising

A better way of thinking about the “cloud computing” transition, in our opinion, is:

• paid desktop licenses giving way to
• paid web-based licenses

Corporate applications will never be supported by advertising, and if Google really wants to unseat Microsoft’s Office monopoly, it will have to build up the same sort of corporate sales and service organization that Microsoft already has. Microsoft should stop trying to go into a business it doesn’t have to be in–advertising-supported consumer media–and concentrate on protecting the core corporate business it already rules–by committing wholeheartedly to Office Live.

Head on over to the SAI blog for the complete post.

There is a tiny revolution coming about in the ‘i-still-love-print’ industry. There are a bunch of things happening at the same time and its very exciting. Finally, there’s a mainstream product that you can think about getting your loved ones without thinking about providing customer support for life (for free) - the Kindle Two startups are now trying to replicate the experience of reading a book, flipping those pages in your high brow manner - Issuu and by Amazon. It hit the ground running and Big man Bezos had to concede publicly that demand was outpacing supply. So that’s e-text in your e-ink stained not-so-e hands.Now two startups are trying to replicate the experience of reading a book and callously flipping those pages in that high brow manner we all love so much - Issuu and BookGlutton.Both are handling a different niche. Issuu is more artsy and focused on design and magazines. BookGlutton seems like it’s grown up brother where you can join groups who are reading things you like or books from the public domain. Both allow you to publish or upload your own works as well and create community level tagging, access and all that good stuff. What I am curious about is how would the individual creators benefit beyond creative and convenient distribution. Monetization and copyright control are key issues in my mind and somebody still has to solve that problem.Here’s a video on how BookGlutton works -

Here’s an embedded version of ‘The Global Indian Magazine’ from Issuu (which I found to be a bit cumbersome) - Update - I removed this cause it seemed to break my blog.