I've temporarily started blogging(not much though) at http://ram.redanyway.com. Well it started with me not being able to add their widget on my blog here on livejournal. I met these guys in Ahmedabad and wanted to give it a try. I will be writing here too, but I still do keep reading all my friends' posts here and commenting on them.

Edit: Now a feed exists for my new blog, which can be added to the friends' list. Thanks  mystic_life  for creating the same. The new feed is ramprasad2

We guys were featured in the Ahmedabad edition of the DNA.

It's been only a week and it feels like I've been here for a long time. The campus is really good and am really enjoying my time. It feels like I'm back to college. We pull each other crack jokes as well as discuss intensely about our projects and our work which feels really good. The other major thing that we are allowed to roam around inside/outside the campus at anytime we want. I remember my college days which was kind of sick where we were supposed to get inside the hostels by 7.30 and nobody is allowed outside.

Gujarat is more a vegetarian and dry state, but I like the food in here. The city is lively in the evenings and people roam around even after 11(it is because of the heat and it is difficult to roam around in the day time) which is unlike Bangalore where the city sleeps by 11.00.

The facilities are good, we have access to all the outdoor games which I hadn't played for a long time and we also have a Wii here :) We have been getting a lot of mentors and more are on their way.

I'm learning Hindi since everyone around me is speaking in Hindi and finally an intern is joining us the coming week.

We made it to iAccelerator 2009 edition along with 5 other startups. iAccelerator is a ycombinator style fund based in India. We will be incubated at IIMA. I hope it is going to be great working with like minded people around us. Looking forward :)

It's official, Oracle is finally buying Sun for a total of $7.4 Billion.

What started out as a deal between IBM and Sun and after IBM Sun didn't work out, one of the major contenders seemed to be Oracle. Hope Sun is in safe hands and the Java, mysql community lives.

More on the deal - http://www.sun.com/third-party/global/oracle/index.jsp

This is the ad that I saw on myspace's home page.

Following things that I'ven noted to make yourself popular on the web (the list is not in any particular order)

1. Use Twitter
2. Be on facebook. Make your profile public. Facebook provides detailed control of what information you want to make public. Have a page on facebook for your brand/product
3. Use LinkedIn. Join communities. Ask questions and answer questions
4. Write a blog and post it often
5. Use IRC
6. Join technical/non-tech mailing lists

Update: After I wrote this, more things are listed here - http://onstartups.com/home/tabid/3339/bid/9008/Startup-Marketing-Tactical-Tips-From-The-Trenches.aspx

We got the game ported to myspace and orkut. We had them previously on our website and on facebook. Play Now and Have Fun!

Links : Loop the Loop on Myspace
Loop the Loop on Orkut

I'd been to the HP Service centre to get my battery replaced. After I filled up the form, I surfed through their policies/Terms and Conditions on the back of the form when something this phrase caught my eye "HP is not liable for .....fire, power act of gods and ......".

I certainly didn't expect such a phrase. It could have been natural calamities or atleast acts/forces of nature.

What do aethists have to say about this ? :P

Many a times I keep thnking about languages and this is what I've observed.

English is one language where letters have different sounds inidividually and different when part of a word, whereas other languages like Tamil or Hindi have the same sound when said individually or when they are part of a word.
Thus a word like 'Amma' in Tamil when pronounced is simply the sounds of each individual letter 'Aa' + 'im' + 'ma' whereas the word mother, each letter sounds different when the word is spelt and it has a different sound when the word as such is pronounced.
So probably Hindi or Tamil and such languages are easy to learn and read

One thing that was common between Hindi and English is the last letter of every word - in both languages they end with the short sound('it', 'il' etc. I don't know if it is supposed to be called the short sound).

And finally I figured 'OK' is one word in English where the letters of the word have the same sound individually as well as in that word :) Probably 'okay' is the right word

Guess, I've been jobless!

I recently started seeing a lot of movies, most of them downloaded from some torrent site and I get to watch one movie a day on an average. Fortunately movies give me some kind of diversion and entertainment. Though I do some reading now and then, the interest for movies has been ever increasing and it looks like I will never be bored or I'll never stop. Sometimes when there are scarcity of movies(I have a huge collection of movies mostly English and a few Tamil and when I've got no new movies to watch) I start re-watching some of them and that's why I've watched movies like The Matrix, "A Beautfiul Mind" and many such movies umpteen times. Sometimes I get to think why do I like or be obsessed by movies so much and I remember my school and college days and I didn't like TV much and atleast during school I wasn't allowed to watch much TV(my parents felt I guess I shouldn't be spoilt) and maybe I'm making up for it. I don't watch TV these days. I sold the TV that I had and maybe it is that. I do believe that I make something, I learn something out of them(atleast most of them, some are purely for entertainment). Anyway movies have almost becoming a part of my every day chores. I hope they are for the good.

I had wanted to run this marathon, but lost interest mid-way I guess probably because of lack of company, though an excuse wouldn't help anything. I'd heard about the marathon about a week before the actual date in Dec and I'd felt happy that it got postponed to about a month later. I felt that time I would have enough time for practice, though I didn't practice but for one day in-between. I feel bad I didn't make it. Damn!. I've always liked long distance running from school and marathon events make me run most of the days, since you ought to practice before a marathon. I remember school where we used to run almost everyday for 7 continuous years. I guess I ought to buckle myself and will do

Loop the loop is the latest game that was developed at hashcube. The game is available online at http://www.looppuzzle.com and also on facebook, so facebook users can play it right inside facebook at http://apps.facebook.com/looptheloop/ga.php

This game is also known by other names Slither Link and Fences. The rules of the game are very simple. The objective of the game is to form a single loop with the numbers as hints. The numbers in each square indicate the number of lines that can be drawn around it.

Here is a snapshot of puzzle that was solved - http://picasaweb.google.com/r.ramprasad/Tech#5286935673642157698

Have fun!

ramprasad's friendsCollage

Wish all readers a happy and prosperous new year.

When I'm walking, I generally tend to think about something or the other and my friend and me started playing games. One game is where we come across a name(any name), a shop's name, or a dish's name and we try forming as many words as possible by shuffling them. For instance, we saw this signboard BAR-T(no idea what it means) and we started coming up with 'bar', 'rat', 'at' and so on. It is amazing sometimes when we come up with words that we haven't used for a very long time. Another game is we note down a car's registration number(usually 4 digit) and try to find whether it's a prime in our head. We intend to try dividing the number by all the prime numbers from 3 until the square root of the number. I usually go upto 29 and give up. I've played it so much that I remember 13's tables and 17's tables very well. These days I do it even when I'm alone and I just lose track of time. What a way to spend when I'm bored!

So here we go - A Startup in Ooty atlast and there is a vacancy. Job Descriptions and remuneration check out http://lawgon.livejournal.com/54990.html

Ladies Coupe is a women-centric novel. It is a story about a woman named Akhila who goes on a journey to Kanyakumari alone, the first time and is about people she meets on the train and their stories. It broaches the subject of whether a woman can live alone. The book is a bit boring and a slight drag. The author is Anita Nair.

I'm liking my freerunner, more than ever. Though there are some annoying bugs, but still the features and the things that I was able to do with my phone weigh more than the disadvantages. I'm sure these bugs would be solved soon. I was able to play around with a bunch of stuff. Dual boot, pidgin, GPS and all of them work seamlessly well, without any problems. I want to try out DOOM. The video of DOOM on freerunner was impressive.

An amazing book, that I just completed. It is a collection of interviews of many startup founders and tells you the true story of what really happened the early days of many companies and also gives you an insight of what to expect, the caveats, problems. It is definitely a must for entrepreneurs and does give a lot of confidence and motivation on people doing a startup.