Moments so Far ...

Who pays for your phone? You. Unless its gifted or won in sweepstake. Who pays for the internet or the data plan? You. Unless you can somehow get through so many wifi routers broadcasting/screaming, come ride on me. Who collects the data? Mobile Apps. Websites. What data they collect? who are you? where are you? what are you doing? Who is paying them to collect your whereabouts? You. Who is making money?  They. AArgh. How come there is no " You " here.  How did it happen? How did you missed the when it was rising? How did you fall into the " free " trap?  When a book is published the creator/author gets commission on every sale.  When a meal is ordered the owner gets part of the whole as profit.  You are the owner of your coordinates. You are the author of your life story.  Why don't you get paid for it? Why don't you get commission for it? How can we claim back the privacy? How can we protect so that...

The Free to Use Model Internet is inundated with free services. You can use them for free and you will not be charged a penny. But have you gone a little further and explored what happens once your usage leaves you and reaches the service provider. And from the service provider how it lands up into the valley of other service provider and so on and so forth. Did you know that the Google Maps traffic update is due to your owning the Android phone and your moving around with it in your pocket? The ad in gmail is due to the content inside your email. Similarly, for other ad networks. Lets talk about few more models. You use a flight itinerary app. It gives you notifications on flight delays, nearby hotels at destination etc., And its free? Why? Because your itinerary is now with app. The backend knows from you are, where you will go and when you will go? How much time will it take from the app to the duty free shop, nearby hotels, airport taxi providers know that? And who wil...

You say Hi, I am Dhaval.   You get - Ah Hi, I am so and so. Sometimes there will be awful pause. Sometimes you will be hungry to spit out something like    "I have this great ideas and I wanted it validated. You have been in this business for so long. Can you obtain your valuable advice for free?"   If you are lucky you can get , "Yes, Why dont we meet sometimes later at leisure so that we can do justice to your idea?"   If you are not then you will be thrusted a visiting card and the reciever will switch over to more activity elsewhere.   There could even be curiosity from other end and you could get "So, what do you do?" You were waiting for this and you start   "I am freelancer. I mostly develop apps on Google app engine , essentially in python and sometimes in java and google scripts. My focus is integration app that talks to various APIs offered from Google Data/Docs/Analytics/Adwords, Facebook , Twitter , Salesforce , Zoho " Ti...

Image via Wikipedia Startup saturday is organized by headstart.in on every second saturday of every month for the past few years. Headstart.in is a great initiative by a group of go-getters about few years back. The venue is mostly a conference room in IIMB bangalore as the initiative is supported by NSR Cell. I have soaked my hands in freelancing for about a year and felt qualified to attend such a meet. My nerves betray me when I try to get social. This time I was adamant to push my luck. I have been alone for so many days. No team in physical form around. Social isolation . Lost connection with regular job goers and their pristine topics. Facebook was constructing their social graphs and what was I doing here in isolation?. A man alone in single island is good for a few days but then you need to ride the dolphin/shark/whale based on your luck and your accompanying stars. And I bit the social bullet and here are few glimpses. If you are not used to it then it could ...

Image via Wikipedia   Why should you have stunning performers as coterie? Why should you respect mediocrity but cannot endure them as colleague? You should respect individuals for their existence but not someone to share your workspace with? You could be mediocre too but you will not grow in company of mediocrity?    The reason large organization are difficult  is because they become precise with mediocrity and cannot live nor sustain the chaos required for creativity . This could frustrate you after a while.    Process is good for efficient systems, mostly found in manufacturing or in safety critical systems found in healthcare and space missions .  But in software you need to allow your self to get creative. Produce products that you love to create and that folks around love to use.    Excellence and chaos go hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder. Do not be angry when you fail miserably as chaos can cause confusion and defeat....

If you are a freelancer and obtaing your payments through online inward remittances to India then you will run into either Paypal/MoneyBookers or one your Bank with their wire transfers services. The charges levied by both paypal and  moneybookers are of similar nature and you end up paying around 5% of your forex amount for inward remittances to India . This is especially true after incidents of past few days in which paypal had to respond to and function within the purview of Indian tax law . It is better to sign with a bank that gives cost effective wire transfer charges. Let me know if you know of any. SBI works through Standard chartered and they charge about $20 for intermediary services. This adds on to the $30 that your client or online marketplaces like odesk adds to your online services fee. Thus its always $50 no matter what amount you recieve. So they become effective means if you have amount crossing over $1000 per transaction and that does not happen ofte...