The monsoon arrives!

Saturday, May 31 marked the arrival of south-west monsoon in to Karnataka. The monsoon arrived ahead of the predicted day of June 4. This is great news for those in Bangalore as it is going to be raining more or less everyday for the next four months. Unlike the north-east monsoon that has delayed onset sometimes, the south-west monsoon never fails and arrives predictably every year. Now, Bangalore is located such that it is covered mostly by the south-west monsoon. But the north-east monsoon that sets in around September also has a peripheral effect on Bangalore. That makes Bangalore really pleasant for most part of the year.

Getting ready for the Bangalore metro!

While it is going to take a good 3-4 years from now for the Bangalore metro to become operational, we should all get ready to welcome the service. I know we have to put up with narrow roads and traders have to put up with some loss of business. But ultimately, it is going to be good for everyone. The metro is going to reduce our dependence on roads. And, any developing or modern city should have more than one mode of transportation within the city. Am I seeing things in the future? Well, may be. I happened to use the "elevated" Chennai metro train service, and I was impressed. No traffic jams, no breathing in harmful polluted air, no signals - and importantly you arrive at your destination in a few minutes. I took the Chennai metro train from Thiruvanmiyur to Light House. A distance of about 10-12km by road. If I took a bus or car, I would take 45 mins. With the metro, I reached the destination in under 15 mins. This is just great. And if you thought the metro railway stations would look dull, you are mistaken again. The look is pretty aesthetic, and you can take an escalator to go up to the platform. Of course, the escalator is operational only in certain railway stations - but that's not a big handicap. All the stations come with parking for two-wheelers, and a few stations come with car parking too. I forgot the ticket price. The minimum fare is Rs. 5/- and this is dirt cheap. An auto-rickshaw would ask you for not less than Rs. 80/- and I am sure the MTC might charge more than Rs. 5/-.

What more can you ask for? I hope we get the Bangalore metro soon.

STC India Unconference in Bangalore (May 31, 2008)

It has been two months since I blogged. This is the longest gap in between my blog entries. For various reasons, I was really busy the last months. I just could not find the time to blog. Today, I attended the first "unconference" organized by STC India Chapter. The event was sponsored by Sasken Communication Technologies and FindNearYou.com. It would not be accurate to call the event a complete "unconference". At best, it can be called a "semi-conference" or a semi-unconference". The spontaneity of an unconference was missing, although STC India must get more time to get informal :-) But the topics presented, and the speakers who spoke were just GREAT. I would like to give the credit to Rajdeep Gupta, the Bangalore city representative. A couple of words about our sponsors. When I entered Sasken today morning, I was really impressed with the arrangements. Everything including the registration desk, coffee, lunch, and visitor badges was taken care of. There were people to ask around in case we had questions. We had people in the spacious hall carrying microphones to those who had questions, we had someone taking care of the projector set up and so on. I was really impressed with the arrangements.

The event was supposed to begin at 8:45am. However, we were able to start only by 9.30am. I started out by talking about activities of the chapter. I urged the audience to become STC members. I told them it does not cost much to become STC members. In fact, the membership rate is just about Rs. 10/- per day. Can't we afford that much? I attended almost all the talks today. In between, I took breaks to catch up with friends and make phone calls. The following presentations were really good:

• Introduction to Semiotics by Anil Pinto of Christ College
• Neuro-psychology and Technical Communication by Suman Kumar of CDC Software
• Usability Testing by Puneet and Sameer of Infosys. I really liked the "eye-movement" graphs. Really impressive
• Seven habits of highly effective technical communicators by Sandhya Prasad of BEA. Great topic. Highly interactive. Sandhya also included a quote from me, which was really cool!

I must mention that intermediate ring road that I had to take to drive to and from the venue was almost traffic-free, probably owing to the shifting of the airport to Devanahalli. This morning, reaching a Domlur venue from BTM Layout in 15 mins was just unbelievable. Btw, Sasken's VP Ramaraj mentioned that Sasken is planning to recruit 50 more technical writers by the end of this year. We had a short presentation by Mr. Seshadri of FindNearYou, which was cool.

A memo to yourself?

Do you regret you forgot a friend's birthday or wedding anniversary? I have always thought of using an "auto-reminder" service, but kept postponing the decision till about 2 days back. I would definitely like to wish my friends and relatives on days important or memorable to them. I don't want to miss anyone. I also don't want to ask them about their imporant days ever so often. I signed up for the free memotome service. Now I can keep adding any number of things I want to track, without having to remember or scratch my head. I know this is one of the oldest services available on the Internet and it might seem odd for someone to endorse this in the Web 2.0 era. But the simplest things are discovered late and are always beautiful.

Technical writer looking for a break?

Are you a technical writer in India looking for a break? STC India is conducting a 'Career Day' in Hyderabad next week (Mar 22, 2008). The following companies are sponsoring the event and looking to recruit technical writers:

• Citec
• Synopsys
• Computer Associates
• VMWare
• Siemens Information Systems Limited
• Sasken Communication Networks

You may send a mail to swami@mrmwrites.com if you want to register for the event as a candidate. The venue for the event is:

Auriga Auditorium
The V IT Park
Plot 17, Software Units Layout
Madhapur, Hyderabad - 500082

As a technical writer, you also get to attend interesting sessions in addition to exploring the job opportunities offered by these companies.

Toothpaste - small or big?

Last week, I read an interesting news article in Bangalore Mirror. It was about a research conducted by an independent organization on toothpaste packaging. I think this research is specific to India, but I am not sure. When you buy toothpaste, do you think it is better to go for smaller tubes or bigger tubes? A typical small tube of paste (75g) costs Rs. 20/-, whereas a bigger tube of paste (150g) costs Rs. 35/-. Obviously, you would buy the 150g toothpaste since you save Rs. 5/-. But the reality is a bit different. Assuming you take 2cm of paste everyday on your brush, you may use 75g toothpaste for about a month or 30 days. By the same logic, you should be able to use the 150g toothpaste for 2 months or 60 days. But you are mistaken! The 150g toothpaste can be used only for 40 days or 45 days. It is because of the diameter of the nozzle of the tube. Bigger tubes have bigger nozzles. So, in effect you use up more paste per day for the same length of paste (2cm). Apparently, this research was presented to the toothpaste companies and they are yet to respond.

NDTV's "Save the Tiger" campaign

I just signed up online for NDTV's "Save the Tiger" campaign. I fully believe in this initiative of NDTV. This has brought about a lot of awareness. NDTV has also got celebrity endorsement for this, which is pretty good. It is disheartening to note that there are just 1411 tigers left in India from over 40,000 in 1900 and 15,000 in 1990s. Of course, the tiger poachers and those supporting this illegal activity must realize the damage they are doing. Educating the public and powerful media campaigns are sure to bring in a lot of awareness. Here is the website for signing up: http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/savetiger/sthome.aspx