Sunday, January 24, 2010
Water color painting
Tried my hand at water colors today after long time....can't really remember when was the last time I held a brush in my hands since school days. Painting is an amazing way to unwind and relax. If the painting had turned out to be good, then it would have been encouraging as well :)
But then again I remember "The 10,000 hour rule" from Outliers, where Malcom mentions that it is around 10K hours of practice that one needs. I just put in couple of hours today :)
Hopefully more hours will follow.
Here is a link to a good tutorial on water color painting:
http://www.watercolorpainting.com/watercolor-tutorials.htm
But then again I remember "The 10,000 hour rule" from Outliers, where Malcom mentions that it is around 10K hours of practice that one needs. I just put in couple of hours today :)
Hopefully more hours will follow.
Here is a link to a good tutorial on water color painting:
http://www.watercolorpainting.com/watercolor-tutorials.htm
Labels: painting, relax, unwind, Water colors
Friday, January 22, 2010
Outliers
I recently started reading Outliers by Malcolm Galdwell. It is an intriguing book. I have only read around four chapters so far.
The author talks about how our environment (location, culture, family, family values, etc) affects our success in life. It talks about intellect and to what extent it contributes towards being successful. Currently I am reading through the chapter called "The trouble with Genuises" and it is captivating.
More later.
The author talks about how our environment (location, culture, family, family values, etc) affects our success in life. It talks about intellect and to what extent it contributes towards being successful. Currently I am reading through the chapter called "The trouble with Genuises" and it is captivating.
More later.
Labels: Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers, Success
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Lets talk about Diamonds
First things first (though ten days late already) - Wish you a happy new year 2010 and wonderful decade ahead!
I just finished reading "Discover the diamond in you" by Arindam Chaudhuri. It is a fantastic book. Arindam takes the diamond to be a metaphor for us and then explains what things would make us i.e. the diamond in us. He talks about the 4 Cs of a diamond [carrat, cut, color, clarity] and then maps various key attributes for these. I would strongly recommend reading the book.
I just finished reading "Discover the diamond in you" by Arindam Chaudhuri. It is a fantastic book. Arindam takes the diamond to be a metaphor for us and then explains what things would make us i.e. the diamond in us. He talks about the 4 Cs of a diamond [carrat, cut, color, clarity] and then maps various key attributes for these. I would strongly recommend reading the book.
Labels: management, self help
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Onstartups - Dharmesh Shah
Recently I came across this amazing blog from Dharmesh Shah [http://onstartups.com]. It is simply an awesome knowledge base on experiences in and around startups from Dharmesh. Dharmesh recently gave a session [Insights from and around MIT] and I would strongly recommend it.
I found following two parameters from his talks/blogs pretty interesting:
1. COCA - Cost Of Customer Acquisition - This is the cost/expense involved in acquiring a new customer.
2. LTV - Life Time Value (of a customer) - This is the revenue made from an acquired customer.
As long as your LTV > COCA means you have potential to make profit.
I found following two parameters from his talks/blogs pretty interesting:
1. COCA - Cost Of Customer Acquisition - This is the cost/expense involved in acquiring a new customer.
2. LTV - Life Time Value (of a customer) - This is the revenue made from an acquired customer.
As long as your LTV > COCA means you have potential to make profit.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Top 25 coding errors.
Sunday, January 04, 2009
OAuth - API access delegation.
Wish you a happy new year!
I recently read about OAuth - a standard for API access delegation. The idea is really quite simple - multiple sites need to collaborate, but there is no open standard to allow for this. OAuth to the rescue. OAuth defines the protocol to be used by such web-sites which need to collaborate.
Consider that I have an account on two web-sites. Say www.photos.com, which allows me to upload and manage my photo albums and www.prints.com, which allows to order prints of pictures. Now I need to print my photos from www.prints.com and I would have liked to access some of my pictures from www.photos.com (on my behalf) and make prints of those. OAuth can help these two websites collaborate.
Here is how it works - I go to www.prints.com and put in my request to order prints. It asks me for the location of the pictures and I choose www.photos.com. Using OAuth it takes me to www.photos.com, where I am authenticated and www.photos.com checks about the images I would like to share with www.prints.com and for how long. Then after I have granted the authorization, www.prints.com can retrieve the pictures from www.photos.com on my behalf and generate the required prints.
The good thing is that you use your credentials only on that particular website (in this www.photos.com) and never need to share your credentials with other websites. Also, the protocol provides for things in a secure manner.
For further reading check out the following links:
http://oauth.net/
http://oauth.net/documentation/getting-started
Details about leveraging OAuth to interface with google apps:
http://code.google.com/apis/accounts/docs/OAuth.html
Google has provided for a neat playground for one to understand OAuth:
http://googlecodesamples.com/oauth_playground/
Happy learning in 2009!
I recently read about OAuth - a standard for API access delegation. The idea is really quite simple - multiple sites need to collaborate, but there is no open standard to allow for this. OAuth to the rescue. OAuth defines the protocol to be used by such web-sites which need to collaborate.
Consider that I have an account on two web-sites. Say www.photos.com, which allows me to upload and manage my photo albums and www.prints.com, which allows to order prints of pictures. Now I need to print my photos from www.prints.com and I would have liked to access some of my pictures from www.photos.com (on my behalf) and make prints of those. OAuth can help these two websites collaborate.
Here is how it works - I go to www.prints.com and put in my request to order prints. It asks me for the location of the pictures and I choose www.photos.com. Using OAuth it takes me to www.photos.com, where I am authenticated and www.photos.com checks about the images I would like to share with www.prints.com and for how long. Then after I have granted the authorization, www.prints.com can retrieve the pictures from www.photos.com on my behalf and generate the required prints.
The good thing is that you use your credentials only on that particular website (in this www.photos.com) and never need to share your credentials with other websites. Also, the protocol provides for things in a secure manner.
For further reading check out the following links:
http://oauth.net/
http://oauth.net/documentation/getting-started
Details about leveraging OAuth to interface with google apps:
http://code.google.com/apis/accounts/docs/OAuth.html
Google has provided for a neat playground for one to understand OAuth:
http://googlecodesamples.com/oauth_playground/
Happy learning in 2009!
Labels: authentication, authorization, OAuth
Friday, October 31, 2008
Algorithms and Dilbert.
Good, now that I have your attention due to the title of my post, I can begin....
Recently I came across this book "The Algorithm Design Manual". I have only been able to read couple of chapters from the book, but it seems like a good book. I would recommend it for folks wanting to refresh their algorithm academics.
On a side note, I recently purchased another Dilbert book - Dilbert and the way of the Weasel. It makes for an interesting read. Again I have been able to only read a couple of chapters from this book, but Scott Adams is truly amazing. Also, Scott is right! ;-)
Both these books are competing for my (precious) time. There is certainly a deja vu here (refer to my earlier post - ). Let the best book win a fair share of my (precious) time!
Stay tuned for more updates...
Labels: Algorithms, Dilbert
