Computers

Life as an exhibitor - Days 1, 2 & 3

October 7th, 2007 Comments Off

Life as an exhibitor - Day 0

August 3rd, 2007 No Comments »

One of the many odd things I do, other than being a Doctor trying to run a hospital, is run a software development company. We develop medical software and almost anything under the sun people ask us to develop as long as they pay us good money (or even bad money - as long as it’s not counterfeit). This year we decided to exhibit our software solutions at Medicall a “Hospital needs Expo” in Madras. We’re concentrating on PACS software and VoIP PBX server. This is the first time we’re doing anything of this sort so I thought I’d write up my experiences.

The expo runs for three days from the 3rd of August to the 5th of August. An advance team from left on the 2nd to set up the the demo hardware and displays in the booth. They reached the venue at 8 p.m. Although the hall was supposed to be ready for occupation from 4 p.m. all that they could see was an empty hall! Work was still going on in getting the cubicles ready. The team just checked into the hotel for the night with a plan of getting things ready in the morning. I would also be joining them by then.
If anyone would like to check us out, we’re at booth 113 in the ‘B’ hall under the name Raster Images.

Writing about my exhibiting at a expo reminded me of something I read earlier this year called Should I Exhibit At Macworld? (there are 4 parts I recommend you read them all.) Although the contexts are different, there are a lot of similarities.

2b73

Happy Birthday to the iPod

October 23rd, 2006 1 Comment »

It’s 5 years since Apple introduced the iPod. I still remember sitting in my office at ATS/Vertex in Cleveland, checking the net to find out what the promised ‘Special’ announcement was all about and being disapointed on finding out that all the hype was about a Mac-compatible MP3 player for $399 with a 5GB hard drive that put “1,000 songs in your pocket.” The rumours on the net were positive that Apple was going to introduce the ‘Next Generation’, ‘Ground-breaking’ PDA. Needless to say, the reactions on the net were uniformly bad.

Over the next few months reports started trickling in about how great the iPod was. Soon the price for the original 5GB model was reduced to $299 while a new 10GB model was brought in at the $399 price point.

A little later, I managed to snag a refurbished unit for $199. I too got a chance to see what all buzz was about. I was hooked. Those days I was still a windows user and I had to purchase additional third party software to use it. Words could not describe how great this device was. Like most Apple products, it had to be used to be appreciated. The iPod was my constant companion till I lost it last year.

It’s funny to look back at some of the comments in various forums on how crazy and out of touch with reality Apple was if they thought people would spend so much money on an MP3 player. There were also other critics pointing our that there were ‘Better’ models that were cheaper from other manufacturers.

All these arguments were repeated when the iPod mini was introduced in 2004, with a 4GB hard drive, for $249, while the regular sized 15GB iPod was only $50 more at $299. Critics uniformly said that it’d be a flop since most people would opt to pay $50 and get 3 times the capacity. The iPod mini went on to become the most popular model before it was replaced by the iPod nano

Fast-forward to the present. Apple is the undisputed leader in the Personal Music Player (PMP) space. They’ve sold more that 67 million device to date. The iPod has brought buzz back to the company driving stock prices to fantastic heights. Apple now has $10 Billion in cash reserves.

As for me, I now have a 5th generation black iPod which can also play video. I am also almost exclusively a Mac user.
Here are some links looking back on the 5 years of the iPod:
BusnessWeek: The Apple iPod Turns Five
CBS News: iPod Turning 5: ‘The Perfect Thing’
Playlist: Analysis: How the iPod changed Apple’s fortunes
Newsweek: Q&A: Jobs on iPod’s Cultural Impact
Wired News: Straight Dope on the IPod’s Birth

Negative views expressed at the time of launch, 5 years ago:
Apple’s New Thing - Mac Forums

The Entrepreneur Of The Decade - Steve Jobs, 1989

March 18th, 2006 1 Comment »

No, I haven’t got the decade wrong. I just came across an old interview Steve Jobs gave Inc. magazine in 1989 when he was nominated as The Entrepreneur Of The Decade. What’s amazing is how true his visions on the future potential of the computer industry & quality have turned out.
A little historical perspective: The Personal Computer revolution* was just into it’s second decade. At the time of this interview, Jobs had co-founded three companies (Apple, NeXT & Pixar), kicked out of one (Apple) and been instrumental in launching three major computer product lines (Apple II, Macintosh & NeXT Station) that have had a lasting influence.

A personal perspective of that period: The first computer I was exposed to was the Sinclair ZX81 in 1982. This was followed by the BBC Micro. However the computer that has always been closest to me is the first computer I owned, the Apple II Plus in 1983 decked out with the works. It came with the works, 48kb standard RAM with the 16kb expansion card to make a total of 64kb! It also had a 5¼” floppy drive!! Other features included S.A.M. – a speech synthesizer card and TV output card. This was followed by an even better Apple IIe.

In 1990** I moved to the dark side - I got my first IBM compatible, a 386DX with 4MB RAM and an unbelievable 80MB Hard Disk Drive. I remember making 5 partitions of 16MB each since I didn’t know what to do with that space! I also had the first VGA*** monitor (monochrome though) in town – I would have visitors just to have a look at the monitor. 640 x 480 was an unheard of resolution.

We are now coming to the end of the third decade. Steve Jobs is now back at Apple as CEO ( Apple paid NeXT $400 for the privilege of being taken over and got CEO for free). Since the interview, he’s made Pixar into an animation powerhouse with a string of hits, sold Pixar to Disney and became their largest shareholder, successfully metamorphosed the NeXT OS into Mac OS X, launched the iPod (41 million sold so far) and the iTunes Music Store (1 billion downloads).

Footnotes:

* The Personal Computer revolution for all practical purposes started when the Apple II was introduced in 1977.

** It would be 2003 before I saw light and switched to a Mac.

*** My first VGA monitor lasted all these years of continuous use before giving up the ghost last month.

20ad

Google’s new bid to store all the world’s email

February 13th, 2006 1 Comment »

For all fans of Google Mail who wish you could have it customised for your domain, hope is at hand: GMail for your Domain aims to do just that. Right now it’s isn’t even Beta but you can sign up and hope to be selected for the trial.

What to do you do with those empty Whiskey Bottles?

February 12th, 2006 No Comments »

The weekend’s over, you’ve been partying at home, your mates have left and your place is full of empty bottles. What do you do with them? Throw them out? Not if you’re a computer nerd.

Introducing the Whiskey PC!

iTunes 6

October 26th, 2005 1 Comment »

Apple released the latest version of iTunes recently & I’ve been wasting a lot of time with it. Let me go to the beginning, it all started when I fell sick a few days earlier. iTunes added a new feature, the ability to store lyrics within the ID3 tags of an MP3 file. I was bed ridden and with nothing better to do, so I decided to go through my music collection and add lyrics to all the songs. I started of by doing it manually (i.e. Google search, Copy/Paste). With 24.86 GB of music (5538 individual songs, 15 days & 10 hours of constant playing) it became obvious that I would never accomplish this side of Armageddon (after which music seems, kind of, irrelevant).

I started looking for something automated (I was using a computer after all, shouldn’t it be doing all the work for me?) I came across pearLyrics that does the work for me. The catch, like all good software, it works only on a Mac Luckily my Apple PowerBook has risen from the dead.

It works by fetching the lyrics when the song is played in iTunes. So for the past couple of days my laptop has been going through my music collection, updating the lyrics. I just reached (The) Clash as I type this. It’s going to be a long time before I reach Zucchero.

I’ve discovered knowing the lyrics while listening to songs, enhances the experience. Reading the words makes me realise I’ve often been singing the wrong words. I’ve also discovered some gems that I previously was unaware of, hidden in the song.

1f4d

Rackmounts II

October 3rd, 2005 1 Comment »

Yipee! I’ve just installed my first rackmount server. It took me a while to get the rails aligned correctly but after mych labour and trials, it’s finally in and working perfectly. After all that running NetWare 4.11 on it seems like sacrilege. Well, if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it. I should be getting the latest versions since I’ve signed up for Novell’s DevelopperNet.

It looks cool but do you know what would make it look cooler? Blue LEDs. I have photos up soon. Now, if only Abel would get me the missing mounts for the other rackmount cabinet, I’d have a second rackmount. Two rackmounts beat a single rackmount anyday! Able get of your butt and get me the missing parts.

Rackmounts

September 29th, 2005 No Comments »

Today I got my first Rack mounted cabinets. It probably wouldn’t excite anyone other than a geek! They look cool in black. I hope to have them ready over the weekend.

Abel brought them over from Coimbatore in person. More important, he brought the two sets of Abosolut miniatures I’d gifted him and Vijay a few years ago. I have a set with me - that make three sets. This is the first time we’ve been able to get all three sets togehter with the three of us available at the same time.

Looking forward to meeting Absolut Citron, Mandrin, Vanilia, Kurant & Peppar!

(This Post was written before I got my blog online)

Suresh’s Random Ramblog

Life as an exhibitor - Days 1, 2 & 3

Life as an exhibitor - Day 0

Happy Birthday to the iPod

The Entrepreneur Of The Decade - Steve Jobs, 1989

Google’s new bid to store all the world’s email

What to do you do with those empty Whiskey Bottles?

iTunes 6

Rackmounts II

Rackmounts

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