Though internet spreads the word at lightening speed, but i came to know about Ada Lovelace Day 3 days late.  Pardon my ignorance.

To quote from website http://findingada.com/

Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology

Who was Ada ?

Ada Lovelace wrote the world’s first computer programmes for the Analytical Engine, a general-purpose machine that Charles Babbage had invented.

Influences :

The computer language Ada, created by the U.S. Defense Department, was named after Lovelace

The name that promptly came to my mind of  woman in technology i admire is :

Leah Culver

She was founder and lead developer of  Pownce (a twitter clone), She has contributed to OAuth and many more open source projects and another important thing she writes code in  python .

Nowdays she works with SixApart.

Its not too late to celebrate i think, spread the word and tell the world about women you admire in technology.

• Why Sat Nav(s) are not for Indian customers : Intersting article and conversation on viability of GPS devices in India
• What type of feminist are you? : An argumentative conversation on noida rape case and incidents like this
• Quillpad has improved its multilingual editor .
• tweet : #punjabi word for the day : high spirits = chardi kala = ਚੜਦੀ ਕਲਾ

Most countries in modern history have built their wealth on the foundations of the oppression of powerless people. India is taking giant economic strides within a functioning democracy. We still have the time to resolve that we will not build our prosperity on the sufferings of ordinary people.

This quote is concluding remark of  HT Editorial written by Harsh Mander (Convener , NGO Aman Biradari )

Its blog action day today and there is call to change the conversation to Poverty. So  bloggers around the world today has put there views together for  88 ways to do something about poverty right now.

Some interesting views are :

• Stop buying junk to make yourself look pretty and donate it to homeless people and hungry people
• Stop being lazy. Find a way to do your job better so that you can save an hour a day, or be that much more productive
• Give comfort to the poor
• Support charity organization in your country. Reducing poverty may start in your nearest region.
• Donate your time and expertise to teach a class to those trying to find a new way to earn a living
• Fund educational programs for women

We can work in way to change ourselves first , Change the way we perceive the poor,  the way we deal with them.

The article i have quoted throws light on the way Indian poor has been marginalized by the state – industrial nexus, which can result in a disaster for both.  Its evident that Indian poor has not asked for its share from the new “Shining India”, they have sacrificed there labor,their lives and land willingly or unwillingly in a hope of better future. They have not got any thing out of it.

Its our responsibility to make them feel the part of rising India not . If we fail to do so , We can see results in near future , the Maoist insurgency is one such problem, that is called biggest threat to Internal security , rather than providing socio economic upliftment to the people of that area. We may face similar problems rising in more parts of India.

So its time to act and do our bit because little does matter.

I am making a donation to http://www.amanbiradari.org/ and will look for helping the cause by becoming a volunteer. You can do the same by doing your preferred mode of participation.

Its Arun, who made me aware of blog action day on delhi barcamp, Thanks dude.

Arun’s Presentation on blog action day

The Sprouted Delhi BarCamp 5 was exhilarating an experience, Although it was not as glittering as expected from the sponsorships and registrations.

The formal/informal inauguration was done by the behind the scenes slide show and video by picturulize featuring the key guys behind this wonderful unconference.

Then the talks/sessions proceeded, I attended a talk on Pylons and Schevo , It seems Pylons might be better than django in terms of modularity, but django has become a rockstar for python community and  django has much more active community than pylons.

The other talk i really liked was about Building a scalable architecture of web applications by Bhavin Turakhia, CEO Directi, It was very much power packed and a must see for any web developer.

The talk of the day was The Global Financial Crisis and India by Pankaj from Teknatus, It was very interactive talk and if we can get the video of the talk that would be far more informative, It tells about the harsh realities India might face in near future. Some keypoints of the talks were :

• Indian Economy is very much integrated  with global economy, so it is prone to be hit by global slowdown, we may see its consequences in coming six months or so.
• 30 years back Indian saved 70 percent of there income, These days it has gone down to 11 percent. So the if the economic disaster strikes, It is going to be a nightmare for many.
• The US financial crisis is result of sheer ignorance of US policy makers and same can happen to India

This presentation was a big hit with the listeners, it got extended to 90 minutes session from an alloted 30 minutes. The day ended with the coyright infringement talk by twilightfairy and how she fought with mainstream media big wig TOI for her rights .

The second day of barcamp started with an interactive discussion about blogging and as the participants arrived ,There was a talk by Barcamp4 and Barcamp5 Coordinator Piyush about Entrepreneurs and Marriages, as most of the Entrepreneurs face matrimonial issues , There was very healthy discussion about it .

Fabian form Ubuntu told the audience about its importance. A hackathon was called on by two young hackers Pratul and Parteek , but it turned out to be a ubuntu installation and  support session for newbies.

Nikhil from Medianama, interacted with enterprenures about there ventures. The day ended with a call to change the conversation to ‘Poverty’ on blog action day by simply arun.

You can search youtube and slide share with tag bcd5 for videos and slides respectively.

The Delhi Barcamp4 was quite an eye opener and great learning experience for me as it was first Barcamp. To quote from DelhiBarCamp5 blog :

The seeds have germinated.
A lot of sunlight and some water sprinkles have softened the outer shell.
Little sprouts can be seen carving out themselves.

Lets  see wats in store for this sprouted  barcamp, as for me my first barcamp as landed me into  job work with RouteGuru.com as I was tested positive with EBC’s(Entrepreneurial Blood Cells) (Really ?).

Looking at the sponsors list and talks/sessions , it seems it is going to be big. I am looking forward for the sessions on Python programming , Terracotta and of course lots of Entrepreneurship gyan.

Check the venue details here or simply sms “rg <your location in delhi > to bcd5” to 56767 to arrive at the barcamp reception.

Place : IIT Delhi Seminar Hall Main Admin Block

Date : 11th and 12th October (Saturday-Sunday)

Timings : From 10:00 AM to 6.00 PM (these are ought to be stretched as it is an unconference)

and yes we will get a free tshirt and free lunch there

so join the fun !

In my Google Reader, I have subscribed to the articles feed of http://www.sikhchic.com/ , which is an online magazine run by Sikh/Punjabi Intellectual elite from North America, and I came across “Beware… Punjab is being Invaded …Again!” which states and provides reference to a report by Tehelka.com :

The people of Punjab and India are being sold an ideology(Christianity) which has already proved bankrupt elsewhere, and now threatens the very existence of a society shaped by the incomparably rich and unique philosophy of the Gurus.

The other article “Punjab: Battleground Anew” states:

Conversions have been happening all over the world, including Punjab.  They are not likely to cease; after all, there is a smorgasbord of religions in the growing and global free marketplace out there.

But why all this emphasis on the small state of Punjab?

So i posted a comment to this article about my view point as :

The ground realities of christian conversions are:If not all, most of the conversions are by the people from dalit background/weaker economic sections. Now, why they turn to Christianity:

• The Sikh bodies are mostly controlled by either Jat /Arora Sikh communities, so definitely there is discrimination against the Dalits in Sikh shrines. To have a different identity, they find solace in another faith or sect, be it a Dera, Christianity etc. If you argue there is no discrimination you can watch this documentary “The Untouchables“  about the discrimination.

• Having their own temple/church/gurduara gives them a sense of economic/social independence from the economically stronger sections. But since the Christian prosleytizing organizations pump in money, it is easy for them to have there own shrine. But on the other side. the funding in Sikhism is bottom driven and SGPC, being dominated by Jat Sikhs /Politicaly nexed up, don’t/won’t provide any funds to Dalits for their gurdwaras.

These are the key reasons why Dalits are easily lured into membership in other sects and belief systems, despite the vested interests the latter invariably have. Sikhism has been neglecting them. Actually having conversion further segregates them into discriminated society.

In its earlier times, Sikhism was a social revolution. But nowdays, it has forgotten its mission. Where the emphasis is on building a different identity rather building a healthy social system. If you chant Guru Granth Sahib verses like mantras without telling their meanings, then there is no point in saying ‘Ham Hindu Nahin’.

Moreover the rhetoric of guarding our people from conversions will make sense , if they the discriminated get equal rights. Which is far from happening.

There has been acts of violance against the chritians converts in the southeren states like Orrisa by the Hindutva brigade. The reason being Hindutva and Chrisitinaity both have run campains to   convert the innocent tribals/dalits into their faiths and rnning their own schools , Nobody wants to work for their social upliftment , they just want to tag them as Hindus or Chrisitians. In the end they pay the price of being uneducated,improvished and Dalits, by getting killed and tortured.

There is no point in fearing from the conversions if there are anomalies in Sikhism which can not provide solace to certain people. Let them live there way . If we sikhsim can do something is run a campain for making them aware, providing them the means to have social /economic security, rather then safeguarding them or converting them back.

May be this shirt quote is witty enough, Some one will finally love me

The origin of above quote is xkcd . Its human instinct to seek attention. Its deep rooted in our genes. The T-shirt quotes are one example. Same goes for the IM status.  The IM is yet another communication tool that has become part of our lives. Now we do set our IM statuses according to our mood or just for fun. So that friends around us might read our status message.

What about having an aggregation of all the status messages you ever set. Kwippy is here for that.

kwippy

Just add Kwippy as buddy in your gtalk or yahoo messenger and get going with the storing the status messages from your IM messenger to your Kwippy account at web.

There are lot of features that Kwippy provides:

• comment on the status messages.
• share posts,links as instant messages.
• have threaded discussions on a post
• make more friends on the webosphere.

To dig more deep into Kwippy, its different that twitter, pownce and other microblog services in away,I quote the official kwippy blog for this:

In kwippy, the whole focus is on the Instant Messenger. The friends list on the instant messenger is the most intimate friends list you can find, of all social networks. It gives the people in the list immediate access to your attention. People share their joys (i got a raise), sorrows (i flunked my english papers), their favorite links, and thousand other things through their status messages. And all these people also have a list of their closest friends on their list. And like in the real world when a real friend introduces you to another person, the chances that you hit it off are greater. There’s this trust thing which is automatic.

Moreover Kwippy is built on coolest technologies like python, django, jQuery, Nginx and memcached. They have loosely coupled the system into services, Their blog post about its architecture speaks a lot about its quality of service and proclaims its bound to scale well.

I was following the twitter downtime discussions, some one was talking about Why twitter was built as a CMS why not as is messaging service ?.

I feel the same for Kwippy , Can they integrate concepts of messaging system to the kwippy architecture?

I have affinity for Kwippy because its Made in India , I have personally met the Kwippy CEO/co-founder. The startup culture is not as happening and vibrant in India, Its on the brink of becoming a great startup environment, So Kwippy is yet another Indian startup that might become an cult/role model figure for startuppers.

Come on Kwippy dikha do !

Follow me at kwippy

I got a direct message on twitter from Shankar Bakshi about Chandigarh bloggers meet on Sunday. I was in huge excitement straightaway, I said yes, yes like i had found  some lost treasure.

So I was the first guy to reach the venue,then came Shankar the self confessed dot com guru and the other guys behind this meet up. We introduced each other briefly,  the meetup was brain child of Gaurav, who is studying at NIT Warangal.This guy was working on an idea to setup a blogging media company and a blog magazine in print was on the cards.There was Rajesh, who wants to spread thoughts on social issues like female foeticide.There was teen blogger Saurav around after that, He is 18.

The rain was pouring outside and the bloggers started to pour in too.Then came the girls to add charm into the evening. Preeti and Sukhbir were two SEO consultants/managers, who were working for a city based SEO/Software organization , the maintain companies blog. Preeti has a blog on SMS poetry.  A guy with specs came to me and asked, where is the blogger meet. This was Abhinav Sood born to a doctor couple, he was kept away from computers as much as they can, but the geek in him, won and he chose to be an engineer rather then a doctor. He is a successful blogger, means he makes money from it. He was really enthusiatic about meet and asked really nice questions to all others.

Then came Mohit Aneja, with his lovely wife Reet Aneja . He works with dell, and is really great designer and supportive guy. He had a story to share that he was top contributor to Yahoo answers and his account was blocked by Yahoo without warning as he un-intetionally posted link for a torrent site. So he started http://mohitaneja.com/ to share best practices as a slap to yahoo’s face.

The meet bacame vibrant with open discussion / introductions, Shanker shared his thoughts on how to make money with blogging and SEO, Gaurav on Indiblogger and future blogger events , Mohit on future meets and contributing sharing and working with each other. Two guys Sameer and Abhishek arrived in between. These guys have just bootstarpped a startup named vantagewebtech on Internet Marketing. They have worked for local SEO companies.Abhishek is a dog lover and wants to dig deep into blogging about dogs.

The discussion was enthralling , the coffee and snacks had arrived. Weather outside was awesome. I too was asked to speak about myself. I talked about my village background and how I started the Punjabi Poetry blog parchanve. Then about the tech blog and my tech ventures. I was emotionally charged up and was asked to recite any poem for the mehfil. So I recited Avtar Singh Paash.

ਕਿਰਤ ਦੀ ਲੁੱਟ, ਸਭ ਤੋਂ ਖਤਰਨਾਕ ਨਹੀਂ ਹੁੰਦੀ
ਪੁਲਿਸ ਦੀ ਕੁੱਟ, ਸਭ ਤੋਂ ਖਤਰਨਾਕ ਨਹੀਂ ਹੁੰਦੀ

ਸਭ ਤੋਂ ਖਤਰਨਾਕ ਹੁੰਦਾ ਹੈ
ਸਾਡੇ ਸੁਪਿਨਆਂ ਦਾ ਮਰ ਜਾਣਾ

Most treacherous is not the robbery
of hard earned wages

Most horrible is not the torture by the police

Most dangerous is the death of our dreams

The discussion moved on with this, a journalist Ravi arrived for reporting blooger meet for newspaper Hindustan. We decided about the things to do for next meetup. The reastaurent bill was paid by Shankar Bakshi , Thanks dude.  Looking for the next meetup, See you there.

Firefox achieved the world record for most number of downloads in a day. I was a downloader too. So i got this certificate From Mozilla. I am part of a world record for a browser that changed the world of browsing,challenged the market hegemenoy of Internet Explorer and created an ecosystem of applications around firefox with its addons and open source code.

firefox-certificate

If you are still using Internet Explorer, Don’t click the blue e now. Download cool new Firefox 3 and be a part of a revolution, you will feel the difference.

Its a bit weird post title, but i wanted to write about turbulent happenings in my professional life.

Though its not recommended to tell the World that you have been fired. Because it comes straightway into the mind that only inefficient guys are fired . Anyhow for me ,Our whole team of 30 guys was scrapped all of sudden. They said the global economic slowdown has arrived so the decision is directed from US office and they( Indian office guys )  have nothing to do with it.

It was a bit harsh for most of us,as there should have been some signals beforehand about the lay-off. Anyhow as we work in US styled corporate environment. Things like ethics or employee rights are a bit alien for the corporates. Capital is the only entity a corporation should think of. One should scrap off the resources that are liabilities. But the lay off could have been made smooth also.

Anyway i was hired by another local consulting company, they work on cool enterprise technologies. Looking forward to work with them.

Now the third thing , I was tagged by Manpreet , This is the first tag game i’d be playing. Its fun game.

I’m : a radical atheist, leftist, Idealist, feminist, environmentalist.

I think : more than I do

I know : quite a lot about everything

I have : a calm and thinking mind

I wish : i should contribute to the society

I hate : religious bigotry,chauvinism,fanaticism,exploitation.

I miss : my village

I fear : nothing except loneliness

I feel : feelings should not be turned into weakness

I hear : things that matter

I smell : roses in the nearby garden

I crave : for ghar di roti, lassi and makhan.

I search : Google

I wonder : how humans have been the superior race on the planet

I regret : not going for higher studies

I love : freedom

I ache : to live in village

I care : the ones who need it

I am not : an aggressive person

I believe : one has to make his/her own destiny

I dance : to any Punjabi Bhangra Hip-Hop Pop Song.

I sing : any song that comes to my mind, generally Punjabi , a sample :”Khaure tere vich kehri khaas khich nee, mainu shuru ton hee billo tere vich nee, Mummy ji dee noonh diss dee, Mera Dil nee parhaee vich lagda nee akhran ‘ch toon dissdee”

I cry : when deeply hurt, it happens rarely.

I don’t always : express myself well.

I fight : rarely but i want to fight for justice/rights

I write : to express myself, to share my thoughts,to contribute.

I win : friends

I lose : get up and try again

I never : give up

I always : try to be a better person

I confuse : helmet,keys generally when i am in hurry

I listen : to Ustad Nusrat ji,ghazals, random pop, Punjabi folk, duets and hip hop.

I can usually be found : in front of a computer, in a library/book shop, at home or office

I am scared : of nothing .

I need : to keep learning, keep growing, to contribute, to do something that adds value

I don’t have sufficient passers for this tag so i will pass it to some non bloggers :

Vinod

Chetan

Sohail

Sakooter

Kanwar Bajwa

Navjit Rai

Supreet Sahota

I have tagged two tech bloggers wish it goes well with there blogging style. I have tagged three non bloggers ,  wish they should enter the blogging world with this tag.