Some rocking stuff, some not so

• MediaWiki - truly easy to install/use. Configuring options take a little figuring out tho
• Webmin - you almost cannot manage remote linux servers without this. I've installed it for my laptop too - lazy old me.
• Postfix - Sendmail replacement - making it work with LDAP, SASL took Siddhartha some figuring out
• Bugzilla - as always, easy, breezy. Need to figure out a concept of "views" for specific users though.

Some interesting blogs

• http://www.mobility4enterprise.org/
• http://gigaom.com/
  

Ups n downs

On the same day, within hours of each other, I had my near-worst and near-best startup moment!

The former made me question my existence, life, the meaning of Om etc, and the latter got me irrationaly excited like a kid. Both reactions were over the top, but these have become part of this new life, so all said and considered, its fun.

Corollary : "celebrating differences" is a great phrase - and a very important one to build a team around - but extremely tough to internalize. We all have layers of masks, and even in a mirror we see those more than ourselves very often. Often, these masks get painted by what we hear from others, and that both rocks and sucks.

OTOH, others do pay you for what you sell/give them. So their reportcards are not totally irrelevant, are they ?

Obviously, I'm running a little confused :)

Addendum:

Am i a biker at heart ?
Geek ?
Dreamer ?
Bum ?
Poet ?
Non-conformist ?
(for the heck of it ?)

A year today!

Aug 19th 2005 was my last day at the last job - its been a year! We're doing pretty good for a year old startup, I'd imagine - done with the first deployment (rollout pending - some other biz decisions at the customer's end), couple of more customers starting to, the first cheque already in, 6 people, sooo many more plans ahead, and possible funding options!

Sorry, no details till its all done and signed, but its been a really amazing year.

SMS vs mobile internet

95%+ of the users have plain vanilla services, including voice and SMS. Quite a few have GPRS capable phones, but hardly use them. Of the ones who do, few can be considered "regular" internet users on the mobile phone.

• does the low speed hinder usage ?
• costs ? sms packs now offer near-free smsing!
  
• do most savvy-enough users have the desktop alternative anyhow ?
• The time you're on the go is your 'internet-free' time ?
• m-browsing sucks cause of size/visibility ?
• sms is way better for communication - mail/messengers on the phone are too klutzy ?
  

What is it ? One company actually found users surprisingly willing to type upto a max of 45 word queries!

Would like comments from the few souls who do read this blog, even if its once/blue moon.

Update :

So, nobody, but nobody, reads this blog :)

Starring....

Have never spoken about the team!

• Ajay Sethi : Bossman, founder, marketing, strategy, sales, the "PhD" of the tech end
• Urs truly : Co-founder, design, dabble in this and that and all the threads, aspiring entrpreneurial student
• Gowri : The Java Guru of the team - and the coding guidelines committee
• Bipin : All the mobile world - he's founded companies, made, sold platforms, knows the dark alleys of the market out there
• Nikhil, Siddhartha : IIIT in-the-knows who know more about networks, installs than I knew there was to know, and I'm surprised they're fresh out of college!
  
• Shesha : Our US resident "Dr". She's moved recently and should be back in the thick of things soon.

Fantastic bunch of people, who all OD a bit of tea/coffee. Ok thats mainly Gowri and I who're responsible for corrupting everyone's tastebuds. And its a very 'campus-like' fell cause, well, we are in one!

ZiVA is hiring redux

If you're keen on doing sales/marketing for a startup, talk to us. Now that stuff is built and we have a few installs going, we need to ramp up on the selling hard and real quick. The formal JD (and the website, blog) will follow soon.

As always, smart keen brains interested in defining mobile search, especially the way it will spread in India, are welcomed with open arms. There's mining, IR, performance, peer-stuff and can-you-think-of-something-else to be done, and at Ziva, its your baby if you want to.

sameer D_O_T shisodia A_T zivasoftware D_O_T com if you're keen or curious.

Servers, hosts, DNS and Krishna Cafe

The too-late-for-a-real-blog-entry updates (this is becoming more of a sarkari circular/bulletin than a blog)

• learning oh-so-much about the mundane - hosting, dedicated servers, DNS bits and pieces
• Nettigritty is a real neat one, amazingly prompt support
• dedicated servers are EXPENSIVE in India, coz of bandwidth, I guess
• dedicatedNow are old timers, responsive and cheap! Very, very impressed

• Discovered CentOS - iimminent laptop 'upgrade' warning!
• Still cannot install mysql consistently across OSs
  
• Krishna Cafe opened up on Bannerghata Road - great food option tho a little expensive
  
• They inaugurated the Bannerghata Circle flyover - traffic has sucked since - do these bandaids really heal ?
  
• Nikhil and Siddharatha joined us a month ago - and we're doing way more already
• There are many forks in the road and we have to take one, maybe two
• Some news WILL happen in the next 2 months. All I can say
• Kozoru's byoms is geeky and fun. Popular ? Dunno yet.

New Address:

Ziva Software Pvt Ltd
#28, NSR-GIC Centre, Indian Institute of Management,
Bannerghata Road, Bangalore - 560076 India

Post-Shivku-Comment-Updates added - links to stuff, basically. Thanks dude.