Archive for November, 2006
Boys Toys: Nothing beats this!
I can live with the fact that i am a kid at heart…not just heart, make that mind and soul …and in order to be true to myself and keep myself interested, intrigued and engaged i’m constantly on the lookout for more toys…
As a child, i was fortunate enough to have parents who ensured i had the right toys to think the right way…..so Lego blocks, my Technic bucket, assorted ‘dinky toys’ (over 80 of them), a railway set, Atari & a ‘Media’ gaming set, tonnes of ‘101 in one’ gaming catridges (and the list goes on) kept me busy…with the advent of the PC…the PC became the new toy… i spent most of my college life playing NFS (something i’m not sure i’ve grown out of)…and once the PC / Mobile Phone combo arrived, they suddenly turned into all the toys I needed…
In college, i became a gaming enthusiast, and once i started working with Juno i discovered the joys of unix, daemons, servers & the internet. While the internet is by far my biggest toy / playground (i’m on the threshold of starting to develop a 3D Vision of it - Audience, Tech & Brand), the PC & Mobile combo isn’t far behind…. can we ever get enough of whats new….think of it …. Windows OS - Symbian OS, Office 2007, PC Apps - Java Apps - Symbian Apps, Web Services, Plugins for Firefox, Yahoo! Widgets, Microsoft Gadgets, Google Gadgets, Opera Widgets, Float’s Mobile Agent, Bluetooth controls, p2p, torrents, advanced charting tools for excel, Second Life, Comscore Stats, Forrester Data, eMarketer Info, NFS, Search Engines, Blog Tools, Wordpress, Rich Media, Web 2.0, rss, Syndication, and this list goes on and on and on…. could anything ever tear me away from a world centered around the PC / Internet?
Till two weeks back, i honestly believed i had access to most of the toys i wanted…(except my imaginary auto collection) and was relatively content with the toys i could afford…. and then, De introduced me to a concept called MindStorms NXT. Made by Lego, the guys i owe my sense of reasoning, logic and proportion to, this is the stuff dreams are made up of!
Mindstorms is about building Robots… not tiddly fink $0.02 robots….but robots with base functionalities that include Light Sensors, Touch Sensors, Sound Sensors, a programmable brain, intelligent robots that walk, have ultrasonic sensors to make the robot see, a 32bit microprocessor, 4 input / 3 output ports, USB / Bluetooth compliance, a speaker, display and the Lego Mindstorms NXT software which allows you to program your NXT and upload new programs via USB or Bluetooth connectivity. The software, comes with building instructions & programming guides to easily begin constructing and programming. As simple as Lego, as complex as Asimo; they might as well take rizla’s tagline - It’s what you make of it!
If the base functionality isn’t enough for you the software you could scale up to NXT Extreme!!!
Since Mindstorms is open-source you can use the SDK (Software Development Kit) which includes the NXT driver interface specifications and tools to create 3rd party programming environments.
The HDK (Hardware Development Kit) includes documentation and schematics for the NXT and all related sensors. This enables you to design and develop your own sensors and actuators that can interact with and control the NXT through various digital and analog interfaces.
And to top it off, the Bluetooth Developer Kit can be used to create apps for various Bluetooth devices to communicate with MINDSTORMS NXT robots.
So to put it in perspective, one of the simplest things you can do with your mindstorms, is have your Mindstorms crawl the room on voice command (via a bluetooth headset or voice) , spot a red object, send a photo of the object to your phone, send a command to play the file crisis.wav on your computer, then turn around and come back at 2x the pace. If the lights go out during this period, then move to the closest corner, turn on all its lights, camera and beam the video to a remote ftp server.
So what does Mindstorms cost …. you wouldnt believe it - USD 249!!!!!!
However, that is $240 more than i can afford at this time and so i’m setting up a paypal fund so that nice people like you can contribute a dollar each to help me live my dreams! (does that sound convincing enough 
… the paypal account you can pay into is gautham@maediratta.com … my top 10 donors get my inventions named after them and some emotional satisfaction and most importantly some ‘very good karma’)!
Here are some cool links:
The coolest Mindstorms applications : LEGO MINDSTORMS Hall of Fame
The team that built Mindstorms: Meet the MDP
NBC (Next Byte Codes) http://bricxcc.sourceforge.net/nbc
Microsoft Robotics studio http://msdn.microsoft.com/robotics
HiTechnic Products http://www.hitechnic.com
Mindsensors.com http://www.mindsensors.com
How to use Yahoo! Social Media tools effectively
Social media consists of Blogs, podcasts, wikis, RSS feeds, and social networks; nexgen tools that bring sites, users and communities into a dynamic, ongoing conversation. Syndication and sharing are key to social media since they accelerate the (r)evolution of that specific content/page.
Yahoo!’s dedication to social media and variety of offerings to its users is well known. Many webmasters and bloggers miss the opportunity to drive boats of traffic from the biggest portal on the internet by using these tools effectively enough.
Given below are a list of tools, what they offer and relevant URLs
blo.gs - a pinging service to broadcast updates
del.icio.us - social bookmarking site that allows users to attach tags to saved entries. These tags allow users to attach keywords to their bookmarks. Since no webmaster, blogger can cover every relevant keyword in his description of his page in meta content and reflect them well enough in his keyword density, delicious tags are a useful way of allowing users to generate content on your behalf and thus drive more relevant traffic organically. Especially useful for niche topics. You can include an ‘Add to del.icio.us’ button to the bottom of every post thus turning your users to evangelists.
Save to MyWeb 2.0 - Allows users to save, share and re-visit your sites pages. MyWeb Tools are numerous and consist of everything from buttons to save to myweb which you can include at the bottom of your post to Badges & APIs.
Y!Q: Sounds like IQ and allows you to provide related searches and information to your users at the mouseover! Users love sites that provide them the worlds information in the easiest manner. Y!Q allows you to offer your visitors a more wholesome experience. Recommended for advanced bloggers as the install is a more complex.
Add to My Yahoo!: My Yahoo! is amongst the most popular services that keeps Yahoo!s users engaged. The ‘Add to My Yahoo!‘ button allows your RSS feed to be integrated into a users personalised page thus allowing him to find you in his daily dashboard of online updates. Whenever your blog gets updated he is automatically notified on his next login to My Yahoo!
Similarly you can add buttons for users to post your content and on their 360 Pages, and get them to build buzz around your content. Similarly you can upload your podcasts onto the popular Yahoo! Podcasts and display what users think of your podcasts on your own site thus adding to the credibility of your content.
This week Yahoo! also released some easy-to-plug-in (interactive) Social Media Optimisation Tools for anyone who creates content on the internet (publishers, podcasters and bloggers) making it extremely easy for users to share, save, recieve updates and blog about your content. These tools are in multiple formats and can be customized to the look and feel of your site.
Feel free to email me on ‘gautham at maediratta dot com’ if you have any questions.
quaero quero ergo sum: Search Engines & Descartes!
Gaurav Pradhan enlightened a couple of us on the true story behind ‘cogito ergo sum - i think therefore i am’ and i have ‘been’ eversince :). So much so that i found myself on a an English Latin Translation Site to check for translations for ‘i search’ and promptly titled this one ‘quaero quero ergo sum’.
Thanks to Capitalism, Democracy AND the Internet we live in an age of opportunity, in an age where doubt is something you address on a Search Engine.
IMHO the assurance that the answer exists out there somewhere further fuels curiousity (doubt). Living in an age as complex/connected as ours, multiple cycles of doubt, resolution, discussion, further doubt, further investigation….leaves little time for existential concerns. While cogito still holds water, quaero quero holds the key to success.
PS - So much for my $0.02, De coined ‘cogito ergo tum’ - ‘I think therefore you are’ years ago! The latin-hindi probably has Descartes turning in his grave but i don’t think De ‘thought’ about it!
quaero quero ergo sum: Search Engines & Descartes!
Gaurav Pradhan enlightened a couple of us on the true story behind ‘cogito ergo sum - i think therefore i am’ and i have ‘been’ eversince :). So much so that i found myself on a an English Latin Translation Site to check for translations for ‘i search’ and promptly titled this one ‘quaero quero ergo sum’.
Thanks to Capitalism, Democracy AND the Internet we live in an age of opportunity, in an age where doubt is something you address on a Search Engine.
IMHO the assurance that the answer exists out there somewhere further fuels curiousity (doubt). Living in an age as complex/connected as ours, multiple cycles of doubt, resolution, discussion, further doubt, further investigation….leaves little time for existential concerns. While cogito still holds water, quaero quero holds the key to success.
PS - So much for my $0.02, De coined ‘cogito ergo tum’ - ‘I think therefore you are’ years ago! The latin-hindi probably has Descartes turning in his grave but i don’t think De ‘thought’ about it!
GO, Get ‘em Tiger!
Today is the first day of the rest of your life…What have you done that will last for eternity? Face your fears, live your dreams…GO, get ‘em TIGER!
What Media Mix Modeling WON’T Tell You
This has to be one of the most realistic articles i’ve read in a while…the only issue from an indian perspective is marketers in india are SO BLOODY oblivious to what the blogosphere and cybersleuths are talking about it sucks!
Marketers: Ignore at your own peril!
What Media Mix Modeling WON’T Tell You
By Tom Hespos
I am often asked how a brand should allocate its media dollars to achieve the best possible ROI. This is a topic that media planners constantly think about. Some media agencies even have proprietary technology that helps determine the appropriate media mix for a client. Some media agencies even have proprietary technology that helps determine the appropriate media mix for a client.
One area I find somewhat lacking in attempts to address the question is, just how interactive factors into the mix.