Few months when the Petrol/Diesel shortage happened in India I decided I will buy an electric two-wheeler. Apart from the advantage of driving when Oil is scarce, I thought it will also give a personal satisfaction of being environment friendly. Of course, nothing is more "Green" than a bi-cycle. So about a month and half back I purchased the Ultra Velociti - an electric powered scooter. It runs only on Electricity with no Oil at all, the dealer claims there is nothing to maintain or service in the vehicle other than periodic Tyre Air-Pressure and Battery check.

Specifications of the scooter (* Under Standard Test conditions and a payload of 75 Kg):

• Speed    45 Km/ Hour*
• Range    50 Km/ Charge* (Each full charge takes about 6 hours)
• Vehicle weight    88 Kg

The only dealer I could find in Chennai when I searched was GEE GEE Motors in Royapuram, but they were willing to come down and give a test drive in my office. The scooter on road including Road Tax, Registration & Insurance costs about Rs.41,000/-. After paying the full money I had to wait for nearly 2 weeks before I got the vehicle complete with registration and Number - I don't like to drive vehicles without number and insurance.

Having been driving only a car for last several years, when this scooter arrived it was a experience of "Freedom" for me. I was able to go for local shopping in crowded market streets in West Mambalam & T.Nagar easily, without having to worry about parking and traffic. When I am driving this scooter and see the vehicles next to me I feel good that I am not polluting and I am spending negligible money for driving. Though the manual says maximum load is 120Kgs, I was able to ride it myself with my wife and kid comfortably - obviously a bit slower than riding it alone, but nevertheless you can. The one problem I faced was of charge, the power meter is unreliable - from full, once it drops to half it takes only few minutes to drop to zero. While it is in this region, it runs in kind of a stop-n-go motion. But this was because I didn't charge for over a week (though I didn't drive more than few kilometres as well), but it will be a wise idea to charge it every few days once - to avoid this problem.

 
(You can see the charger in the left picture, the other end can be plugged to any 5V socket; The Power-meter and Speedometer in the picture on right)

Overall I found it to be a great second vehicle. Can it be the only one?, I doubt. I feel the technology, power of the motor and the engineering have to undergo one or two more iterations before the first time two-wheeler purchaser can go for this, selecting this over a motorbike. 

Reference: GEE GEE MOTORS, 73, Mannarsamy Koil Street, Royapuram, Chennai.Phone: 044-43528008, 43528009

The recent issue of IEEE ITPro Magazine (July/August 2008) had carried a very interesting Editorial. It raised the question "A Moving Target: Try to Define the IT Workforce", where it pointed that job titles in IT industry were being invented and qualifications were shifting daily. It uses the US Bureau of Labor's List of IT Jobs and arrives at a suggestion of a short list of 3 distinct "identities" in IT today:

1. computer scientist
2. software engineer, and
3. IT Professional

In the above list probably it is easier to understand "IT Professionals" as a broad designation. And the other two as niches within that.

The authors Keith W.Miller and Jeffrey Voas clarifies those two roles in detail as "Both software engineer(s) and computer scientist(s) think of software artifacts as means to ends, but those ends are distinctive. A computer scientists sees the artifact as an object of study, a source of experiments and data to analyze.  A software engineer sees the artifact as a tool to accomplish a customer goal, a method to solve a practical problem. Both could be interested in exactly the same piece of software - perhaps even the same aspect of it - but their goals will likely be quite different". 

You can read the full article from here (for short time only unless you are a member) from IEEE IT PRO - JULY/AUGUST 2008

According to a recent release from market research firm Gartner where it listed the Top 10 disruptive technologies it believes will reshape between 2008-2012:

1. Multicore and hybrid processors
2. Virtualisation and fabric computing
3. Social networks and social software
4. Cloud computing and cloud/Web platforms
5. Web mashups
6. User Interface
7. Ubiquitous computing
8. Contextual computing
9. Augmented reality
10. Semantics

When I see a list like this with overused and often repeated items like Multicore and Social Networking (though both of them are important technologies in the next 5 years), I get a feeling they overshadow the others. If you ask me for one technology that is under-hyped from this list but most important it will be "Contextual Computing".

I don't know Gartner's definition of this term, but when I think of "Contextual Computing" and its possibilities it is mind boggling - sky is definitely the limit with this. Contextual Computing is applicable in both enterprise and in consumer facing applications. Particularly in the consumer space it is all about catering to the basic human emotion of wanting to be listened and get a feeling of being cared for.  Present day examples of this can be seen (roughly) in the Microsoft Office 2007 Ribbon user interface or more clearly in Amazon's recommendations feature. Even these two are just scratching the surface. All of today's software (Internet/Enterprise) applications are mostly designed for doing a single task at a time with the user interface and workflow almost linear, but in real world we are never linear, our thoughts are always in parallel running various tasks each triggered by the context at that time. This is were I feel "Contextual Computing" can make a great impact. For realizing the true potential of this the software development tools and all the other 9 technologies listed above have to evolve greatly. When computer scientists understand how to implement this, only then we will harness the benefits of the digital world to the fullest.

What are your thoughts on this , post your comments here.

From Chennai you can buy affordable Air tickets for international destinations including return (two-way) to say Singapore (Rs.15,000 with Indian/Jet) or Kuala Lumpur (Rs.21,000) or Bangkok (Rs.19,000 with Indian/Thai). These fares are still kept cheaper despite the fuel hikes due to the heavy competition and high load-factors. But travelling within India especially to Non-Metros (where you to do a hop from another Metro) tickets are phenomenally expensive. I knew about this but didn't realize the magnitude on how costly they can become until I started booking the tickets for my vacation to Jaipur and Udaipur from Chennai.

From Chennai to Jaipur, only viable options are to do a transit either in New Delhi or Mumbai. The normally recommended option (because of more flight choices) is to fly to Delhi and then go by Road/Train to Jaipur. I didn't want to go by Road as it will be little tedious and since I had only a week time I couldn't get the tickets in Train either. I decided to go with Mumbai as MAA-BOM is shorter taking only One-and-Half Hours, compared to Two-and-Half Hours for MAA-DEL and hence a little cheaper. After few tiring hours of browsing all Airline websites I booked myself for this itinerary MAA-BOM with Jet Airways and rest all with Indian Airlines (as they had more comfortable timings) - BOM-JAI, JAI-UDR, UDR-BOM, BOM-MAA. I normally don't prefer low-cost airlines for family vacations as their flights tend to get enormously delayed, with the only exception for this being Paramount Airways.

As I said earlier the tickets for this travel was very expensive. For one person Onwards (MAA-BOM-JAI) costs around Rs.13,000 and Return (UDR-BOM-MAA) costs around Rs.12,500.

For Jaipur to Udaipur, I thought I can go by Train. Surprisingly the trains between the cities run at odd hours - not convenient with a small kid. So I was left with going by Air even for this sector with one person ticket costing around Rs.5000. You can't drive from Jaipur to Udaipur as it is more than 450 Kilometres. We don't realize how big is Rajasthan (I had earlier assumed Maharashtra to be the largest state in distances between cities there)  until you go and see for yourselves. The Aravali hill ranges (one of the oldest in the world) there has created diverse landscapes, so in Rajasthan you have Deserts, Hill stations, Rich fertile valleys and rivers.

Having done all the Air tickets I thought I was good to go. On landing in Jaipur on 27th (Saturday) I got a SMS from Indian Airlines saying the 4th (Saturday) October flight from Udaipur to Mumbai is cancelled. So I started my vacation with first redoing my return ticket from Udaipur to Mumbai, this time with Jet Airways. That was not all, yesterday when I called to tele check-in in they said the Mumbai to Chennai flight was postponed from 5:55PM to 8:30PM (combined with this flight). With my earlier experiences I knew the Indian Airlines 8:30PM almost never leaves before 10PM, so I went ahead and cancelled it. Redid my Mumbai to Chennai as well with Jet Airways - this made it easy in transit as the baggages could be through checked-in to Chennai.

I find it really surprisingly how Indian Airlines is able to get away with these changes and cancellation without worrying a bit about customer satisfaction. It can't be load-factor as the only reason, as even the Jet Airways flight from Udaipur to Mumbai was only 50% full but still they flew and nearly on time. So next time you are travelling with Indian Airlines (Air India) have back-up plans ready (or) fork-up more money the first time and go with Jet Airways or Kingfisher.

Note: For government (AAI) owned Airports that too Non-Metros Jaipur and Udaipur airports were both clean and good looking. The Udaipur airport was the best with its newly done exteriors and modern interiors & rest-rooms.

From Venkatarangan's Jaipur Photo Album (See the other photos as well)

We had a wonderful trip last four days, no rain and we got clear views of all places we went. As I said in the previous post we stayed in "The Trident", Jaipur. Trident is on the highway going to Amber fort, opposite to Jal Mahal. When I booked after seeing the hotel in their website, I thought the Hotel is on the river bank (as shown in the left photo below) and it will be great.  When I actually went there I realized that the hotel is on the other side of the road, and in between there is a park. One good service in the hotel is that of "Kids Club" where you leave your kids safe and they have toys, TV, books, games and trained people to take care. My son Vaageesh loved the place, I wish all other vacation hotels adopt this. The view from the park to Jal Mahal is beautiful but the park maintenance and cleanliness have to be improved greatly.

Day 1: In Mumbai we had few hours for transit from Chennai to Jaipur, I decided to go out of Airport rather than spend few hours inside. We took a taxi and went to Oberoi Mall (Dindoshi, Gen AK Vaidya Marg, Off Western Express Highway) which is probably the closest mall to Mumbai Domestic Airport. It took some 20 minutes one way, we had a good time there and had a great UP style vegetarian Thali (set lunch) at Sanskriti restaurant. We arrived in Jaipur in the late evening and after check in I went to their travel desk (which is oddly not manned by the Hotel but by Avis). When I approached the Avis representative, for planning my itinerary for sight-seeing next few days, he was only interested in selling his "Car Rental" services. He started the conversion by saying and then repeating Avis'es full-day/half-day charges, I had to raise my voice before he started to talk about the itinerary. Though he said it was not required, I insisted on having a "Guide" to accompany on both the days so that we can understand what we are seeing.

Day 2: On the second day we started around 9:30AM and went first to Amber Fort, which is near-by to the Hotel. The fort is not at a high altitude so the car journey to the top took only few minutes. If you wish you can travel royally in a Elephant Ride to the top which costs about Rs.550 per person. Amber fort has a beautiful palaces used by the kings then - a Summer palace and a Winter palace. We then went to see the Madhavendara Palace inside Nahargarh Fort. The palace has 9 compartments for king's 9 queens - it struck me if the king married once more for 10th time, he would have had a tough time expanding the palace!. Each Queen's compartment is self-contained with a Kitchen, Bedroom and Living area - you can see most of these rooms intact with the furnishings & fittings removed. The top of the fort has an excellent view of the entire Jaipur city. Our guide Mr.Rajiv did a great job in showing us all the places and explaining it in detail. (You can see the photo album for more details on what we saw).

For lunch we went to Pink City Restaurant which served good Thali and you can see the cooking clearly as they have an open kitchen. After lunch, we went to Jaipur Mall we saw how the block printing is done in textiles using natural vegetable colours.

Our guide recommended us to try staying in heritage hotels like Samode Haveli in our subsequent trips to Jaipur.

In the evening: We went to the famous tourist restaurant - Chokhi Dhani which is nearly 1 Hour drive (closer to airport) from Trident. It is a theme restaurant on a wide open space modelled like a typical village market of Rajasthan. Entry fee is Rs.300 per person which includes Dinner. They are open only from 6PM to 11PM. My son loved the rides - you have camel rides, elephant rides, horse cart rides and more. There is also model Rajasthani village houses for you to see. We stood in the dinner queue for over 30 minutes before being let in (crowded). The seating was in the ground with traditional low-height table for eating. The food was rich with lots of butter and ghee in almost all dishes- so be careful to eat limited if you wish not to gain weight. You can unlimited helpings of all the served items.

Day 3: Today we had another guide Mr.Vijay Singh for our city tour of Jaipur. We saw Hawa Mahal from road, I believe there is nothing much to see nowadays inside. Then we went to Birla Mandir and had a good darshan there.  

Then we went to Jantar Mantar (which is near city palace) the centuries old Sun Dials and other instruments which were way ahead of their times in their accuracy of readings. The large instruments there are believed to be used for both Astronomy and Astrology. Our next stop was City Palace.  We saw the 350Kgs Silver urn used by one of the earlier Kings to carry Ganges water during his visit to London. Apart from the usual items that you will see in a palace, there was a huge display of weapons in the Queen's Area of the palace. It had variety of daggers - one that can open up and be turned for maximum damage to the victim, one that shoot apart from the cut, 15Kg swords, metal helmet cutters and more. The kings seem to have spent a lot of money and talent, on fighting wars and building weapons. (You can see the photo album for more details on what we saw)

We had lunch in Peacock Restaurant which had a decent food but a very ordinary service, so if you are not near-by you may want to skip this restaurant.   

In the evening: We went for shopping to Jaipur Haat (which was walkable distance from the hotel) and bought some traditional style dresses. The varieties and the service was excellent, though the dresses were little pricey.

Day 4: We left this day intentionally free, spending the time relaxing in the room. In the evening we went for a walk to Jal Mahal (the mosquitos were too much on the road, making it difficult to walk).

With Dasara holidays for my son from today for a week, we wanted to go somewhere for a small vacation. My initial plan was to go to Bangkok - idea was to combine it with a business conference there and then extend it for next few days for vacation.  Unfortunately that conference got cancelled a week back and I was left scrambling for options. With only a week left, the usual international locations got mentioned and dropped due to lack of time to plan and book - including Nepal (may be next time I will do this), Malaysia & Singapore (we have been there), HongKong (I am going there for few days this month-end) and Dubai (there is no sightseeing apart from shopping I was told). So it has to be within India.

We have been to many places in South India including almost all the favourites. Our memorable once were those to Mysore (especially the Palace), Kabini, Hoysala (Hasan), Kumarakom & Coorg. So we wanted some other place, the only condition being it got to have something that interests a 5 year old (my son). So after many arguments between myself and my wife over the places (Sikkim, Shimla, Dargeeling, Andaman Islands, Gwalior, Goa featured in our deliberations) we picked up "Rajasthan" and managed to get rooms booked with "The Trident" in both places. So finally we have started our trip today to Jaipur and then to Udaipur.

I was surprised by the first page of Economic Times newspaper today. First there was no colour it was all Black, then the headlines. For about 15 to 20  minutes I was left scratching my head trying to make sense of the headlines I was reading and re-reading.

The headlines were:

- Sensex hits year's low at 2832 points (I even checked the latest stock market figures in TV after reading this)

- Now, pay your bills via ATM (haven't this feature been there for years now? )

- Infosys income rises 115% to Rs.98.43 cr (Something was wrong here, they do more than that figure in a week now)

- Incoming calls are now free and Rs.4 /min for outgoing calls (This is when I started becoming suspicious)

- Crude Near $10 (Now I know for sure this is a prank, looking up the mast-head I saw the date as September 1998)

It turned out to be a prank by Economic Times to "Commemorate 10 years of the Economic Times Awards" and the great journey Indian Inc. has made in the last 10 years. Very nice work by ET, kudos to their team who imagined and pulled off this coup.

Last weekend, I went to this much talked about Tamil Movie - SAROJA. Directed by Chennai 600028 movie fame Venkat Prabhu (son of Music Director Gangai Amaran) movie was certainly enjoyable. The story is all about what happens when 4 friends on a red colour van (Nice looking van shown above) get lost on their way from Chennai to Hyderabad. The whole story happens in one single night where they cross path with a kidnap gang and how they finally escape from them. The director has done a fabulous job in keeping the action alive scene after scene, you are almost left wondering what's going to happen next. Definitely a new kind of film in Tamil Cinema. Excellent performance by the relatively new faces to Tamil cinema with the veterans Prakash Raj and Jayaram also doing their roles well. I really liked the place where the main villain behind the whole plot is revealed only in the last few minutes and his background story is shown in few quick slides.

A must see for every Tamil movie buff.