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.

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.

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.

Zapak, Big Adda, Big Flicks, Jump Games and the whole BIG thing (Movies & Music) are owned by the company, which may be heading towards an IPO soon. This is definitely big news for the Indian industry and the value this market holds for the next little while.

I am in the middle of rapid prototyping a new Rails based web application for India and we are coming up with multi-platform interface for it and I thought, “why not for the iPhone?”. So I started researching the other sites out there that iPhone compatible and after a bit of search came across a great resource - World of iPhone Links, updated frequently and sorted alphabetically this is the ultimate iPhone sites list so far.

Second in the US (behind RIM) and third globally (behind Nokia and RIM) Apple is now a global force in the smartphone market. Any new web application/service cannot ignore the iPhone or the Nintendo Wii (more on that soon).

There’s a lot of buzz about a new beta release today from Israeli startup Oovoo - Free calls to landlines and mobiles in the USA and Canada till March 1, 2008.

Features -

• Six person video conferencing & chatting
• Record calls
• Call long distance (free for 3 more weeks)
• Find & add friends
• File transfers
• Sidebar view (Vista)

The most interesting of their experiments is My Oovoo Day With… which gets the top bloggers to interact with their audience beyond their blogs posts and comments. Beginning on Feb 10, this week long experiment will be something that I am looking out for.

Apparently, this is a Windows only release, but Mac users rejoice - I found this link for a beta alpha download for OS X (though I haven’t tested it on my 2.2ghz santa rosa). Also, check out the Mac Forums at Oovoo.

Update - Thanks to Scott, I now have the beta version for Mac as well. Check out MyOoVooDay.

Update - Turns out that even the beta version doesn’t have the free calling, that’s PC only. Sucks.

I don’t know how lost I was in my own empty space that I missed the launch, the success of ‘Breathing Under Water‘ and the phenomenal return of Karsh Kale with another favorite of mine, Anoushka Shankar. This is a co-produced album that in my opinion returns Kale to his roots. Tracks like Sea Dreamer feat. Sting and they bring in the grand-daddy of sitar, Pandit Ravi Shankar for Oceanic Pt. 1 & 2.

Not to be left out, Karsh’s favorite and a great voice of his own - Vishal Vaid. ‘Abyss’ stands out as the track and is one of those evergreens that will be on my playlist for a long time.

All of these stories pass through time
All these verses and rhymes
All these heroes and crimes
changing water into wine
- Abyss, Breathing Under Water

Breathing Under Water - Abyss (sample)

I hardly run across a software project that really excites me. But when it happens, its euphoric. For the longest time I have been a proponent of the Xbox Media Center (XBMC). Whether its against the AppleTV or Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 (forget the Wii for media), its stood its ground. I even read an interview of good ol’ billionaire Bill Gates praising this open source piece of work. Ever since I have become the proud owner of Jobs’ Macbook I haven’t looked back and had to sever my ties with all things Redmond.

But I just ran into the OSX XBMC Project and I feel like a kid again. I am planning on supporting this development in the small way I can (thank you paypal), so if you want and can, please do! They have just gotten video working and I can’t imagine a consumer release taking more than a few weeks.

Sure I have Perian on Quicktime, YFlicks, VLC, iPhoto and iTunes to take care of all my media needs. But I want to do it all and more under one hood. It’s not really possible and unless Lord Jobs updates Front Row on Leopard with the new Apple TV firmware, XBMC doesn’t even have a real competitor.

My favorite Media Player on my favorite OS! Thank you Elan, Cayce and Scott.

Update: The guys over at OSXBMC just released a full package for v.0.1. Check it out.