Shalin Jain's little red couch

Google talk

If you are on windows you'll find google talk as a good relief. It's ultra light weight and fast. Download it here. Enjoy! Adium remains unbeatable and does support google accounts. Nice to see google copying Adiums feature thou.

Cartooning: Calvin & Hobbes

Oh yes, I have grown up to be a great fan of Calvin and Hobbes. And after a break of almost 6 years I attempted to sketch. I am not a great artist but I don't hesitate to attempt. Let me know what you think!

[How am I supposed to learn surgery if I can't dissect anything?]

Test drive our new product!

It's been over 8 months since we released a new product. This september Tenmiles will turn 5 years old and we would be a rolling out a brand new product developed in QT.

We are seeking beta testers for the product. Please email or simply leave a comment if you would be keen in beta testing the product. The beta should be out before this weekend. If I kept you wondering about what our new product is, here is the splash screen that should explain.

Stay tuned!

Doing it without MS Office

MS Office is a great tool, there is no denial to the fact. However, I think it's very easy to live without it. And save a lot of Money.

After moving to macintosh the first good enough reason to stop using office products is availability of TextEdit. TextEdit is the basic text editor shipped with Mac. It is not only is capable of opening word files but it's amazingly easy to use.

However, for a very advance use like writing product manuals for a moment I thought I need the advance TOC management and other advance word features. So I started looking at the open-source world for a tool that can help me achieve this. It didn't take too long for me to find one. And after having a peek into what it offers, I really thought MS Word sucks. I had discovered LyX.

What is LyX?
LyX is a document preparation system. It excels at letting you create complex technical and scientific articles with mathematics, cross-references, bibliographies, indices, etc. It is very good at documents of any length in which the usual processing abilities are required: automatic sectioning and pagination, spellchecking, and so forth.

It's free, open source, supports postscript and PDF format. It's developed in QT which means it's available for most platforms including Windows, Linux and ofcourse Mac.

Our new product swf2exe studio for flash would be shipping user manuals written in LyX. Really, there are amazing products that beat ms word both in usability and features. I know it takes time to get out of the 'perceived ease of use' belief that's conveyed by demonstration effect.

Candy, Coffee and Cocaine: Job life cycle

This article should help students and serious career aspirants make a better decision for their future. This article specifically discusses the 'trend' of joining an Indian IT company. Last but not the least, I assume you are a kind of person who wants a (more) challenging and interesting job. So lets begin!

Candy: For the innocent
Coffee: For the grown up
Cocaine: It gets on you (or gets you on)

A typical fresher joins an IT company for exactly one reason, payscale. No one else offers an educated illiterate a 200k+ pa from day one. So if you are one those who has or are likely to start with that payscale, you probably think you have done your parents proud. I am sure by now you would be wondering 'Oh! by the way, so what is wrong in taking up a job like this?'. Good question.

A candy is what typically a kid licks. He is not aware about the ingredients of it. He wants it because the other kid next to him has one. He wants a pink one in particular because that's the most popular among them. And the kid with utmost innocence gets addicted to it. Your candy is your payscale. It makes you happy. But before taking up a job do you really know what exactly is your role. If you like to code which language will they put you on with? If you don't like to code would they actually put you in a job role that doesn't demand programming? On what grounds would you actually get promoted? How much of real technology would you learn? Of course many more questions. Most students don't want to even ask such questions 'coz they don't want to risk loosing a 200k job. Even if you did, they won't have an answer but they will still manage to sell you the job. Having said this let's discuss some pitfalls and understanding of the industry.

Everyone is welcome
If you are an engineer from a decent engineering college you would have noticed the on and off campus recruitment figures of your seniors or your own batch. Wow, 75% of your class is either in TCS, InfoSys or Wipro. Now think about people in your class you thought was a good for nothing guy, seriously, while he did score he was actually just a bookworm. Think, how can the best of the companies hire all sorts of people?

Why is this mass hiring?
Like all other businesses, IT is also about demand and supply. As a new industry demand has been ever growing. To meet the supplies these companies make a projected resource requirement. They hire this resource and mostly they are the 'buffer' lot. They put you on training mode so that you feel you are not wasting your time. They will train you on almost everything, from php, c++, mfc to java, j2ee, unix. And then when the new demand arises you would be on a real project.

Bonds makes Bonded Labor
Single-sided employment bonds are very common among the best of the IT companies. Mostly freshers sign a bond and seldom know why the company wants to keep them bonded. It typically gets very frustrating when an employee is kept 'on bench'. And it's quite difficult for one to break such bonds using a legal course. Ideally, never sign a bond.

Innovation and technology
These words are best used by these companies outside the company. In media, annual reports and talk shows. Even for companies like Microsoft and yahoo it's difficult to innovate because the company is busy managing 1000s of people that they have rather thinking about innovation. Google with a much smaller team re-defined search and email.

So, don't fall for the candy.

Ofcourse, it's a difficult situation to escape. To most there are hardly any other options available. So with a lot browsing, chatting, paper work and a little real work you get addicted to the coffee. At the best, you switch companies for a change. After over few years of drinking coffee you would realize two things: 1. You have wasted your youthful years (unexploited talent) 2. You are addicted to the coffee.

After about 4-5 years of service, dealing with useless boss and a under-talented team it's becoming a boring job. You are also stagnant at 500k+ since quite a while now. Money starts becoming a secondary factor and quality work takes priority. The candy is lost out to a strong coffee.

With a family and growing expenses you feel it's very risky to start something on your own. At the worst you can become a consultant to some company, maybe the same. At-least this way you can earn more, gain more respect and be able to fire employers whom you don't enjoy working with.

Again most people don't manage to get out of the coffee addiction. They have lost the risk taking attitude and also the creativity over the years. They in-fact reach the stage where they cannot loose their job at any cost. They are willing to compromise but not challenge the situation. You like onsite opportunities as project manager but don't appreciate the kind of work you are given. You don't like what the other project manager whispers in your boss's ear. Ego makes friends. You end up managing people than managing the core project. You know it's bad but you are addicted. Just like Cocaine.

Think out-of-the box before it's too late. Lift up your benchmarks and stop behaving like a sheep in a herd. Make your own way. There is more to technology beyond outsourcing and head count business. Respect your talent.

Mangal Pandey: Impressive, Inspiring and amazing!

The first thing you would want to do is stop comparing it to movie like Lagaan and Bhagat Singh. This movie brings a new freshness and perspective to Indian Cinema.

It's the story for a SIPOY called Managal Pandey who began the first revolt against East India Company rule in India. The story is not very gripping but that's were it makes a big difference. Aamir Khan who plays the role of Mangal Pandey is so much into the character. It's not being a Hero or how he inspired the freedom movement. Moreover, it's about how a man realizes the true meaning of freedom, self respect and courage.

This movie completely revolves around Mangal Pandey and William Gordon (Toby Stephen who plays the role of Captain in the East India Company). Toby has quite a role and he lives up to it. Rani Mukhurjee and Amisha are more like guest apperances as they don't drive the story. Rather they are very aptly used in the movie.

This movie is a must watch. The look in the eyes of Aamir Khan and Mangal Mangal Song is what you would take back home. Aamir khan is a legend in making!

Clicking kids - I love it!

It's amazing to click kids. They are very beautiful and their inquisitiveness towards the camera and sometimes the photographer is amazing. I had opportunity to click another cute kid in the neighbourhood. Here are the results:

Krish in a big hat:

Krish, wondering

Krish, fun with toys

Krish, toys and the sky

Please do drop in your feedback!