Cactus Chords

It is with great pleasure and pride that I bring to you TweetMyPC. Have you ever wondered whether you left your computer running at home and wanted to control it remotely wherever you are in the world?

Now here is a state of the art innovation by my dear friend and partner Shoban Kumar. It is a very simple, 2 minute installation, masterpiece that gives you the power to control your PC from anywhere in the world. All you need to achieve this are

- A twitter id (which am sure most of you have)

- Download and install the application. You can download it TweetMyPC. It is FREE and SAFE.

Steps to install the application.

- Download the application from the link above
- Unzip it and install it
- Click on the icon that appears on your desktop (after this, you will see the icon appear on the bottom right corner of the desktop)
- Enter your twitter username and password and click on Save. It will hide the new window automatically
- You are all set to control your PC from anywhere now.

If you find some problems, then try this alternate option after installing;

- Goto Program Files, open the folder CodeGeeks, then TweetMyPC
- Right click on the .exe file and Run as administrator

How will I control my PC now?

Sign in to your twitter account from anywhere and tweet the following commands and you will be able to achieve the respective actions. You can find your commands here.

It is indeed a brilliant piece of innovation. This is version 3. The previous versions had crossed 18,000 downloads within a mere span of 6 months and with only two commands of shut down and lock compared to the present 30 commands.

Someone has also made a video on this application and uploaded in on YouTube which has earned 32,206 views, 222 ratings and 203 comments. Watch it here

It is that simple. Shoban has developed a series of applications that are up for downloads and if you are interested to know more or connect with him, you can follow his technical blog CodeGeeks.

Let me know what you think about this. For any doubts, you know where to reach me or Shoban.

Cheers!!!

image reference: http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/home/blog_data/5/5/images/PuppetMaster.jpg

Command	Purpose
shutdown	This command will shut down your computer after showing a warning and a wait-time of one minute.
restart	restartsyour computer after a warning and a one minute delay
standby	Don’t want to shutdown? Then you can make your pc go to standby mode with this command.
hibernate	This command will hibernate your computer after showing a warning and a wait-time of one minute
lock	This command locks your Windows pc – TweetMyPC will still continue running and answer to tweets
logoff	Locking the account is not what you want? Try logoff to log off your Windows-Account and close all programs
abortshutdown	You accidentally tweeted shutdown or hibernate? Don’t worry. You still can stop it by tweeting “abortshutdown” to stop it – if you are fast enough!
physical memory	As the name says, this command will let you know the free Physical Memory of your pc
virtual memory	Want to know the free virtual memory of your pc? Just tweet virtual memory
os	This is one of the command which does not have much value. Tweeting “os” will make TweetMyPC to tweet about your Operating System version.
ip	Know your pc’s internal and external IP-Address from anywhere in the world with this command
screenshot	Want to know what is happening in your pc when you are not around? Just tweet screenshot and TweetMyPC will take a screenshot of your desktop and post it to Twitpic.
getprocesslist	This is one of the very useful commands. On receiving this command TweetMyPC will generate a list of running programs, along with the process ID, and email it to a predefined email address.
kill <process id>	This is used along with the above command. Once you receive the process list you can close a program using the kill command.
download <URL>	Want to download an interesting video but you are on the move? Don’t worry – just tweet download followed by the download URL and TweetMyPC will download it for you and it will be ready when you return back. Note: Twitter automatically converts long URLs into short one using bit.ly. TweetMyPC can download files only if the URL is in the short form for security reasons. Please use bit.ly to shorten your URL before posting.
getfile <filepath>	Missed an important document and you are traveling somewhere? No problem. Just tweet get followed by the file path and TweetMyPC will email the file as attachment to a predefined email. Don’t know the path? Don’t worry. Just checkout the next command.
getfilelist <drive>	This command will make TweetMyPC to send you the list of files and folders in a drive. You can use this command to email you a file once you know the complete path of the file.
volinc	Increases the volume of the main speaker by 20%
voldec	Decreases the volume of the main speaker by 20%
volmute	Mutes the main speaker
volunmute	Un-mutes the main speaker
wallpaper <URL>	You found a nice image and want to use set it as background at your TweetMyPC-Computer? Just use this command with the URL of the Image to set it fast and easy from anywhere!
url <URL>	This command helps a lot for example if you find a website, a document or a download-file you want to review it at your computer. Then you can just open the URL by using this command, and see it at the screen when you are back at the pc. (the url has to start with http:// or www
powerstate	This tweets the battery-state (Charging or not, if power-cable is plugged in and how long the remaining battery-running-time is)
ping	When TweetMyPC reads this, it will answer that it is running and checks for tweets – This is really helpful to see if TweetMyPC is working and if your commands will have any effect. +fun link try it!
message <your message-text>	Thanks to this command you can send a custom message to your computer, which will be shown as message-box, so you can communicate with other people sitting in front of your computer or just send a notification to yourself to read them later.
stopscr	This stops the screensaver
darkscreen	darkens/turns off your screen for example to save energy or to hide what the desktop shows
print <URL>	TweetMyPC will download and then print the specified file – currently just .doc, .docx or *.pdf supported
<Custom Command> <optional with parameters>	This is the most interesting feature of TweetMyPC. You think the above list of commands is not enough? No problem! With this new release of TweetMyPC you can start any program or shell-command with parameters just by using twitter and this program! You can start any program you want by adding it in the CustomCommand-Window of TweetMyPC and then tweeting the specified name of it. But also you can just add parameters to the tweets. Thanks to this you can now for example start your torrent-client with the torrent download-url as parameter or you can open Winamp and play a webstream, local file or whatever you want. (Example: add %windir%\system32\cmd.exe in the custom-commands window and tweet “command /K defrag /M /U” – see http://ss64.com/nt/cmd.html

I would love to see the reactions that this post would evoke. Anyway, I have been frequenting parties for the past 2 weeks or so regularly as that is what I have not been doing for quite a while. I had recently gone to a party where we were subjected to a variety of intoxicants, nothing too hardcore, just a variety of alcohol ranging from tequila, absynth, vodka, whiskey, beer, cognac and what not and some sheesha with some weird tasting smoke in it..wonder what it was. Was kind of a high fundu party.

So we hit the party at around 8 pm and we are all pretty much high and blown by midnight and sat down to have a quiet drink and smoke after the 4 hour long, non-stop dancing and howling. Our throats were all croaky and badly needed to sit down for a while. One thing led to the other and topics went whizzing past us, a group of strangers. We were some 8 couples chilling at a friend’s farmhouse and some random guys who joined us. One topic which was discussed apart from work, bosses, business, drugs, relationships, electronics, cars, movies, music….. was porn. That topic kind of lingered in every one’s mind and was something that even after finishing the discussion had lasting side effects on the group.

After the discussion, there would be one guy who goes up to the other and says, dude, I don’t think that can happen or I don’t think this can happen then another one joins in. I too found myself getting deeper and deeper into it, when all the women….in fact the women were not even bothered after the discussion. They all went out to the garden to start munching away, except a few who stayed back to get the inside gossip.

The family of sub-topics that the topic of porn exhumed was surprisingly vast and debate worthy. If porn was a living thing, it would have won the critic award for the most discussed topic that night. We all crashed at around 5 am, out of which this topic devoured 2 hours. It is not because it isn’t normal, but just because this was the first time, at least with me, that people with no inhibitions (owing to the lovely spread of “starters” we consumed) were discussing about a topic that was not, rather never, discussed in a group with an equal demographic quotient (males and females) like the other topics. Porn was just a topic that would be merely brushed upon in private and quickly tucked away or ewwed by a few girls after which the guys would avoid talking about it. Probably later they would get together (only guys) and finish off the discussion. The best part was, this time we had the women pitching in as well and also asking us questions which they seemed to believe, unlocked the doors to what little mystery us males withheld.Pity,we are like open books. All you got to do is read, unlike women which have a book with a flap and a padlock on it with a 16 digit combination that requires a man to spend half his life figuring out the combination, the remaining quarter of his life, asking permission to unlock it and the last few years reading just half of the book and perish with the mystery still buried in the last few pages. And the best part is women are not all that complicated by nature. Its just hormones, all throughout.

It started off with why guys enjoy porn so much. Now there might guys who say, “Porn? Please…I am not one of those kinds”. The truth is, every guy watches porn, if not regularly, sometime or the other. Don’t even bother saying, I watched it by mistake or I was forced to watch it and did not enjoy it. That is like an insult to the twins hanging in between your legs and if Hue Heffner hears you saying that, he will wrestle you to death even at the age of 90. The conversation went on and on and went deeper and deeper to how porn was such a huge business and how much money lay in it. Not actually generating porn content, but merely by starting a website that hosts pornographic content would be a huge hit. The women just didn’t know how big the porn industry was and how badly it had affected so many people and especially couples in India, after the infamous DPS scandal.

For once, we all felt very very mature and learned and imparted knowledge on how some guys are cheap enough to shoot women or click images and upload them onto sites. We told them how they should be extremely careful when they are in public as to how they behave, speak and most importantly what they wear. They still did not get it and refuted us. We were left with no other choice. Yes, we decided to show it to them. Each one of the guys had some information on this. Mind you, the group comprised of corporates, top level managers in MNCs, artists, models and a couple of musicians. All of them had different perceptions.

We open the website to show them and an array of disgust and loathe was portrayed by the women. Yucks, ewwwws, what the fucks?, disgusting, inhumane, terrible, poor girl, why is she letting him shoot him and a guzzillion other remarks. We waited till all the remarks condensed and shut it down and then went on discussing the topic. The women blamed us for watching it and giving it so much importance and thus helping it grow. As if content privacy has been put to an end. We are guys and no matter what you say or do, if something like this pops up, it will be seen. We asked them one question, what if someone came up to you and said they had an MMS of one of Bollywod’s actors butt naked or caught with his pants down, would they watch it. At first, they said yuck, no way, while some of them agreed they would steal a watch and that is all we needed. We had proven our point. Nothing can be done about it. Porn has been the oldest form of craze and still is and will be for generations to come. It’s come to a stage whereby even Bollywood has soft pron movies, its taking over the world commercially.

Voyeurism is growing at an alarming rate and video streaming and pod casts is just acting as a catalyst to this growth. Just like the movie Untraceable, where the killer straps his victims to a contraption and puts it on a website and as more people view it, the faster he dies. It is not that, all the people want to kill him, it is mere curiosity. its human.

- Women have to take the initiative to end this by not letting their boyfriends click pictures or videos of their intimate relations.

- Women should not send semi or fully nude pictures across the internet to whoever it is

- Women should be careful when on bikes, parties, malls, stairways, while sitting, in hotel rooms, bathroom, of two-way mirrors etc

Man I could go on. It is really a shame to see that women have to go through so much, but its necessary if you do not want to end up in one of these sites. It is scary, you have no idea.

What do you think? Never thought I will say this, but professional porn is different from voyeurism and has to be put to an end. That can only happen if women take a conscious initiative. But the worst part is there are women still amongst us, who do not mind all this. They still consider that healthy attention.

Cheers,
Mith

image reference: http://images.dailyradar.com/media/uploads/showhype/story_large/2009/06/23/jennifer_aniston_upskirt_top_copy.jpg, http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_cqvQosDKKWk/Sgv4GORpZxI/AAAAAAAABAw/CfHSIz6txBA/s400/Famke_Janssen_Upskirt_top.jpg, http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2006/06/22/pcporn_narrowweb__300×393,0.jpg, http://izismile.com/img/img2/20090603/two_way_mirror_01.jpg

I stumbled up on this video and it is  hilarious. Being an ardent Star Wars fan, I could not believe my eyes and ears. This was hilarious. Before James Earl Jones (Lion King’s Mufasa fame) lent his voice for the Dark Sith Lord, Darth Vader, English bodybuilder and actor David Prowse delivered the lines from inside the Darth Vader costume. And believe it or not, for the voice over that gave Hollywood one of it’s most terrifying villains, James was paid a mere $7,000/- for the gig.

I praise the lord for James Earl Jones being chosen as the voice. Kudos to George Lucas. But I guess there wouldn’t be a better choice would there now?

For more Star Wars trivia visit Star Wars Trivia

Enjoy!!!

Something I came across. The music and the video in HD is just fascinating. Hope ya’ll like it

Cheers!!!

Ive not done my MBA though would love to do it someday. In marketing there are the four basic P’s. Guys who already know this, please excuse me if I am stating the most basic concept you are aware of. But to me, marketing and selling lies between the first P and the last P and ends right there. I do not want to know anything else.

If you have the four P’s namely Product, Price, Place and Promotion figured out, then its fun. But if you do not have it figured out, it is even more exciting because you get to work on it. It is like surfing through a wave tunnel. Though you have a vague idea when the wave is going to come crashing down, you still are doubtful about reaching the other side. But one thing you are sure about is, even if it comes crashing down, eventually you have to surface and try and try till you sail through the tunnel to the other side. What are the things that constitute the 4 P’s and what all did we have. I sat down and did some research and found out the following;

Product – Functionality, Quality, Appearance, Packaging, Brand, Service, Support, Warranty or Reliability in our case

Price – List price, Discounts, Financing, Leasing Options, Allowances

Place – locations, Logistics, Channel members, Channel Motivation, Market Coveraage, Service Levels, Internet, Mobile

Promotion – Advertising, Public Relations, Message, Direct Sales, Sales, Media, Budget

Now out of these aspects what all could we harness at Spurr at this time, just 2 months after soft-launch?

Product - Functionality (check, but always room for improvement), Quality(check), Appearance (check, but we required more user beneficial content as well as information on the site), Brand (we were trying to build it, so that was a NO), Service (check, when we start out, that is the only thing we can promise, service. Without good service you will not last in the industry), Support (check), Warranty or Reliability in our case (check)

Product was taken care of and was in good shape. Phew phase 1 complete

Price – List price, Discounts(check, we were ready to give it out for free), Financing (Hmmm…being a self funded firm, money was flowing out of my pockets like anything. We were managing), Leasing Options (currently no, but we could go on a license model later), Commissions (check, we were ready to give out commissions to those who were willing to help us out. That is how it works anyway, initially till we gain traction in the market)

Pricing was  a major issue for us as we were the first in this business approach and we did not know how much to charge. We had wasted a lot of money, effort and time. But then we also had to think from the students point of view and the college’s. I thought, if it was me, let alone pay for it, I would not even use it, unless there was something useful in it for me during exam time which would be there for sure. So that was our next aim, CONTENT. We had to source content from different places somehow or the other. But how?

But regarding the price, we thought we could get away by charging whatever we wanted. We decided an initial set-up fee from the college and keep it free for students as you know they are the essence.

Phase 2 – Believe me, we couldn’t have been more wrong about our notion.

Place – Locations (check, we decided to target the metropolitan cities), Channel members (none), Channel Motivation (none), Market Coverage (check, we were looking at the whole nation), Internet (check, we had created pages on facebook, twitter and spread the word), Mobile (not yet, but was in the pipeline)

Phase 3 – Not impressive at all, but we had to start from somewhere

Promotion – Advertising(couldn’t afford it. But printed some posters, then decided we will use it at a later point in time), Public Relations (way out of budget), Message (check, we knew what we had with us and how it can benefit its users), Direct Sales (check, this was our only option), Media, Budget

Phase 4 – Our promotion phase had to wait a little while more. We wanted to prove our model first.

And so set-out for meetings with a lot of balls, stories and more stories. Met at least 4 of India’s biggest institutes (biggest from a wasting-money-for-branding-the-institute point of view) and told them about this. Two of them showed interest and are on hold now and the other two shot it down that moment. Out of the two who shot it down, one of them went to the extent of saying, “What have you made? Do you think this will ever work? I highly doubt it” and went on criticizing www.eduvis.in

He told me on my face. “See Mithun, all said and done, the reason why I do not see this of any use is because, we can not brand our college with this. We do not care about what the students get from this. We can not pay so much for just uploading videos of our college on a website. If students do not get a chance to do their labs, experiments, it is their fault.” I was fighting a lost cause. I just kept quiet and listened to him with a smile. Because, you cant say which idiot might say something that can help you in future. I believed in my product beyond anything, but maybe from his point of view, it was useless. While he was telling me this and that, the office boy got us a plate of samosas, tea and chips.

As it is, the bum had told me my product was useless and once when I lose interest, I don’t care how shameless I come across. I devoured every bit of it with the same smile on my face. To buy some more time to finish the chips I asked him what else does he think is useless in my portal and that rodent went on giving me more drawbacks. One thing that made me wonder was, “Does he even think before he talks? In the initial presentation, I gave him, I had just mentioned all the answers to his questions and here he was phrasing those questions again, but this time as a drawback”. Bid him farewell and left. But I am looking forward to that day when that very college will come and register with us. Hope it happens. If not, what dya know, that guy was right afterall.

The trip across 4 states was the worst I have ever had. To keep costs at a minimum, I took buses instead of flights. Trains were not available on such short notice. I forgot to pack my warm clothes and I step onto Jaipur soil from a heat of 25 degrees in Pune to a 2 degrees. My nose went numb and my lips went dry. I cursed myself for not listening to Aayush. He had warned me in Pune. The incidents in Pune, Mumbai, Jaipur, Jalandar, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Delhi and Gurgaon can cover a book in itself. It was the most horrible trip of my life, incidents wise with accidents, delayed bus trips, kids puking, food poisoning and many other cute little “shit”uations one might not want to be in while traveling.

to be continued…..

image reference: http://www.netmba.com/images/marketing/mix/mix.gif,

Pain in the ass… So many things going on, I do not know what to concentrate on. My processing power is a bit too slow …I make a trip and visit my saviors Shoban and Sreenath in Kerala to decide on the upgrade. We have a round of 3 lengthy meetings where we decide what the site should look like and the new layout. But we did not have a design. So we turn to a professional firm for help with the layout, design (Graphical User Interface) GUI. Nisha who is a master at research starts her work and finds out 6 firms that could be of help to us. After a round of group research and discussions, we narrow it down to one firm as the rest were way too overpriced. How wrong could we be? We discuss with two of their employees, who love the idea and want in on it on a passion perspective than a project point of view.

Being a start-up exactly what we need, people who can work for future benefits that short term costs. Eventually, we finalize on the new design and we get the quote from the new firm…..I nearly popped my bloody balls looking at the quote INR 117,000/- Yes, you read right, one lakh seventeen thousand rupees. I didn’t even bother looking at the detailed proposal they sent and turned it down that very instant. Another moment when you realise that, finding a team that will stick by you and share your dream is a boon. Everyone works for money. All are puppets to the bills. No one works for free, no one works for passion unless they actually feel it is worth it.

These guys though said they were really excited to work on it, didn’t mean it. What the hell. What next? Look for a designer.

Who do I turn to? Nisha. She was amidst launching her own label as shes a fashion designer. Amidst all her work she, without a word she gets to work and within no time we have a brilliant design ready. But since she was not a professional website designer, the CSS part had to be done by someone else. I ring up Arun, another friend of mine who helps me out with quick development jobs. If there is anything Arun hates, its CSS, but the poor guy helps me out anyway and sends the files to Sreenath. A classy design along with some technical layout is a perfect portal. We went to work the very next day and decided to launch the upgrade on the 1st of December. Sreenath is on it, toggling between a part-time teaching job, he ensures that the new portal is up and running by the 27th of November to leave 3 days of day and night testing by 10 professionals. We were working round the clock, reporting bugs, fixing them, re-testing them and testing the portal again.

Everything looked fine and working well other than a few minor technical glitches which could be solved within a couple of days. All that was left was the sales part. We had EOIs from institutes like Symbiosis and IIPM and several engineering colleges in Bangalore. This interest by customers kept us going. At least we were sure, people wanted it or at least were curious about it.

Like they say charity begins at home, I went and approached my college to see what they would say R.N Shetty Institute of Technology. They listened to the whole presentation, fired a few questions, discussed amongst themselves and got back to us within two days with the cheque. They loved it and purchased it. But purchasing alone will not do, they had to upload content onto it. So we aided them to upload videos of lab experiments and the campus etc. All this with the first simple design we had. For a new user, it was not a catchy website at all. But when WE look at the hard work we put into it, it was the most beautiful site.

So far, we had our first client, content on the site, more clients interested. Meetings lined up with well known group of institutes, what and how else could anything go wrong? Keep following my posts regularly to see how life gifts you with the weirdest of opportunities and craziest of circumstances. No matter how beautiful life is, there is always something waiting for you that will turn the whole thing around. So make the most of now, so you can sail through the bad times for there are no regrets. Live your life to the fullest…….

to be continued……

image reference: http://www.gftgroup.com/Petrana_presentation.jpg, http://www.hotelmarketingstrategies.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/group_discussion.jpg

Devdutt Patnaik, the Chief Belief Officer (never knew that designation existed eh?) of Future Group (owner of the retail chain Big Bazaar) gives us an insight on the vast difference in the mythologies of the east and the west.

How various myths and legends end up in affecting the business methodologies and ways. He delves deep into the fathoms of how mythology in the west preach about ONE and the mythology in the east preach about INFINITY and also a possible explanation to how Indians might have come to invent the number 0 (zero).

In this gripping discourse, there isn’t one moment that you would wonder what he is talking about as every topic and line he touches is executed with the utmost finesse. This video will be a treat for those who have a taste for mythical trivia, facts and theories

I hope you all enjoy this video and gain something from it, after all, we all from the east and we know exactly what the hell he means.

Cheers!!!

The long awaited Nokia E-72 was unveiled by Nokia and my oh my what a piece of machinery. Ahead of its predecessors by not just a mere software upgrade and a feature or two;

the Nokia E-72 is highly user friendly, sleek, handy, and of course the software upgrade, a mammoth 5 mega pixel camera with flash, fading backlight, dictionary, multiscanner, 3D tones, mere 128 grams, Five-way scroll key,  Accelerometer sensor for auto rotate and tap-for-time,  Optical trackpad, wifi, bluetooth, usb, Digital compass, turn to silence a call, a video and audio player that can play practically anything,  Document editor (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF),  Flash Lite v3.0, Printing….

And I have been craving for one of these after surviving with my E-61i for nearly 3 years. Eventually I went and got one and man am I in love with it. You get all the accessories you require along with what I need the most which other phones do not provide, a sheath. Superior, classy and stylish.

If anyones planning to buy a new phone try this and you will not regret it. After all its a Nokia

Cheers!!!

image reference: http://www.gsmarena.com

At last, the basic product was ready.  We could have colleges register, students register, upload videos, view videos etc. The design was very plain. White background and a hint of blue here and there. The site was barely a portal but we had the functionality up and running. A few questions kept bothering me all the time.

- Now how could we prove this model to the market?
- How many of them will buy this?
- Will it be as useful as I thought it would be?

All these thoughts kept bothering me. I was beyond nervous. My last two posts were about how problems and challenges just don’t stop coming. Check this out….weeks before our soft launch, one of my partners decides to bail out as he had just gotten married and did not know whether he was up to the task. Though the whole team expected it, we were kind of taken aback on the sudden decision he made as he was the one insisting to join us in the first place. It does harm when you actually feel like you have a team to help you fulfill your dream and wake up to see that one member has decided to leave. Friendship and business are two separate worlds and the sooner people understand that, the better. We are still best of friends, but will never do anything professionally. Re-working the agreement, his resignation, re-filing of agreement and all the formalities took a good 2 and a half weeks and till then I could not start a bank account owing to all the changes in paperwork.

Eventually September 12th, we do the soft launch. We had nothing more than 2 technical guys (Shoban, Sreenath) and 3 marketing guys (Nisha, Aayush and myself). We did not know where the hell it would go, what was going to happen and whether we are going to be laughed at or embraced. I contact Aayush, the marketing backbone of the firm to fix up meetings with institutes in Pune. He does a swell job and within no time,we have met colleges in Pune and they loved the idea. The students praised us as they were looking for a portal to upload their work. We also had features in the platform that the colleges thought was a myth and thus welcomed us. But something was missing. Money…..

Even though we impressed upon the institutes, the money was not flowing in. People were waiting for someone to start using this portal to its hilt to see whether it is actually useful. You know one of those things…..The technical team, who has been with the previous venture of mine and seen no results starts to get impatient. They wonder if this will ever work out.  Making people buy your product is the hardest part of business.  I explained the same to the technical team and they were more than supportive. I do not blame them one bit. If I were in their place, I wouldn’t join them in the first place. But they still did, that shows passion always lies a step above money. It is hard to actually ask for a team that actually understands you and in fact sees the company as their own as much as you see it yours.

So the product is out, people like it, but there are certain factors that we have to incorporate before we can go big. We had gone a good month and a half with the soft launch and gotten a good response. A new design, more features. Till now we were just a video sharing site for educational institutes, but we needed something more for educational institutes that matter like pdf, presentations, images and audio etc. Bloody hell, we didn’t have time for that. That meant changing the whole architecture yet again. Why didn’t I think of it earlier? But I guess this is how we get to learn things. Only once we released the product will we know what is missing so we can upgrade it just as Guy Kawasaki said. So what’s next? Upgrade…..

to be continued……

image reference: http://www.fineartphotoblog.com/wp-content/uploads/the-show-is-over-say-good-bye-800.jpg,

One of the greatest challenges while working in a start-up is funds. Money is always, always a nightmare. We did not have a server to host the portal initially. To purchase a server, I had managed to accumulate some funds, thanks to my father and friends who were kind enough to loan me some. But we needed a credit card. That, unfortunately landed on a weekend and thus made it hard for us to find one as none of us broke bums had one. Who would give me a credit card? I was jobless, no income, penniless.

We finally managed to purchase the server to find out that one of our crucial modules isn’t compatible with the server and is creating problems. Another couple of nights of tension, phone calls, cigarettes, air castles tumbling down. Amidst all the tension and heightened haste, the technical team manages to find a way out. Something I have learned with time, there is nothing that can’t be done with technology. If it is done before, it can be done by us. All that separates us is the fund involved and thus the time.

The tech team also did not have a proper working internet connection to work with. The torrential rains ensured that there was no power when you needed it the most. They had to work offline most of the time. We could not coordinate with each other through phone as we ran out of balance after 2 to 3 conversations. The internet was out due to rains and power kept fluctuating. Kudos to Shoban and Sreenath.

3^rd September 2009, we run into some major technical issues during testing of the platform, which could be solved, but would pile on an extra two days to the soft launch. I don’t know why I worry so much. I felt like everything slipping away. The tech team took the role of a shrink as well as assured me it would be rectified in no time. What you need most at such times is moral and mental support. Blessed I am for my supportive parents and girl friend who never left my side and ensured my tension was kept at bay and for a team that is more of friends than work mates.

The problem was slightly more serious than we had expected it to be and thus it piled on a good 4 days to the soft launch. Alls well that ends well, the tech team rectified the problem and we decided to push the launch date by a week to be safe. We subjected the platform to heavier testing. Thanks to all my friends who helped me out in testing the platform thoroughly.

to be continued……

image reference: http://cactuschords.in/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Money-stacks.jpg