I am just back from a 24-hour trip to Bhopal, my hometown and my mind is full of several nostalgic moments I experienced in the last 48 hours. It started with a taking a red-eye flight alone - it's been some time since I've taken one of these red-eye ones alone; last few years I've either travelled with family or with some colleague in tow. As a solo traveler, there's that eerie botheration that I may take a nap and miss some important announcement like the Gate of my flight changing or boarding being announced. While I've never had any trouble like this, but the anxious botheration is a part of travelling solo and I experienced this anxiety after a long long time.    Then, of course, the emotional rush of being in your city of your birth and upbringing hit me as I took a taxi from the airport towards my destination. When the Taxi guy took a road different to what I'd usually take to get around, I gave him some instructions, only to realise that roads and land...

This blog completed 17 years today -  started this blog online in 2004. But I've been writing since far before - I had a lot of my handwritten posts locked in my drawer, even one unfinished and one completed science fiction. I was 22 when I started blogging and had gained access to a computer with a 24x7 internet connection only a few months ago. The first version of my blog from 2004 Over the last 17 years, I've written on several topics and in the process discovered myself. My writing style has undergone changes, personal posts with memoirs got replaced by views and viewpoints. Off late a lot of my thoughts find their way to Facebook and Twitter rather than here. But writing in prose is still my preferred method when self-musing on a subject. Whenever I've felt to think deeply on a subject, I start researching about it and the researched material usually lends itself to a blog post. To me, 2006 to 2012 was the golden period for blogging - this was a time when blogging we...

From flickr by webtreats My first foray into Social Media was by starting this blog way back in 2004, a time when many of celebrated bloggers of India (such as Siddin Vadukut ) also started blogging. Having been the editor of my school magazine and a geek during my engineering, Blogging came naturally to me as a mix of writing and technology. My exposure to Social Media has only grown since then, Orkut – later Facebook, Twitter and even Foursquare are my regular haunts now. Having been an early adopter myself, I often wonder that today when most people in my generation use Facebook (and Twitter), what sets early adopters apart. Upon pondering I discovered that for most regular users of Social Media, it’s a way to stay in touch with people whom they know in real life but do not get a chance to meet - cousins, present and past colleagues, schoolmates, batchmates from grad school etc. However, those who are early adopters live in two separate worlds. They in addition to ‘real life...

This blog was started on the same day 6 years ago - much has transcended over the internet and in my life since then. Blogging came, became a rage and slowly stabilized. The less serious bloggers moved to Facebook and Twitter while the serious (aka professional) blogs have morphed into full fledged content portals. For me sitting at neither end of the spectrum- 7 years and 515 posts later - this place continues to live with increased enthusiasm. Nevertheless over the years, this blog has (I hope!) improved in content - less personal updates and more meaningful posts whether on Socio-Political matters, Technology , Entrepreneurship , Education , Management etc or literary experiments such as Stories and Poems or occasional Philosophical Musings . In fact I have skinned the blog in the new template with an intent to make the site easily surfable and better presented in terms of the variety of content it offers. The blog is also reachable now from a new URL www.nikhilkulkarni.in - ...

I was musing over how popular are India-specific blogging services on Alexa - and here is what I found. The graph below plots RediffBlogs against BlogStreet and BlogPulse. Click on the images to see enlarged versions I have added BlogSteet [in Blue ]and BlogPulse [in Red ] only for comparison because they are pretty unknown services at least in India [BlogStreet is a coranking site cum blog directory (of Indian blogs) while BlogPulse is a blog metrics tracker (not focussed to Indian blogosphere though)] Observe that the traffic of RediffBlogs[in Green ] - is quite comparable to these 'unknown' services. Now I added RediffBlogs competitor O3 [in Cyan ] from Indiatimes.com to the comparison ... Just observe how the scale of the graph changes - BlogStreet, BlogPulse and RediffBlogs , almost vanish when traffic metrics from Indiatimes are plotted. Clearly O3 is way ahead of rediffBlogs - so much so that - if I were to decide the fate of RediffBlogs, I would shut it down! Link to a...

I haven't read a more classic piece since days .... Wah Manish - this is a classic post from you .... a sensational serial killer .... Six young girls had been murdered ... with their throats brutally slit open ... the girl had begun to doze in her seat ..... just how naïve and unsuspecting young girls can be..... ... marriage had been transformed into a dead corpse buried deep beneath a pile of painful memories ....  He should have thought of a better reason than that to get rid of me.... GO Read  it  ...

I was at 73 when Shubham noted in an email to me that "The no. of posts u have made have been increasing each year... I hope that u will hit the 100 posts in a year mark this year ;-)" It was a worthy target to chase, as it was still September then - and I have made it today. I have been posting increasing number of posts every year. I started in mid-2004 and made 58 posts in the first year; the second year the number went to 85; last year, with no one to warn that I was nearing a century, I finished just short at 98. This year goes beyond hundred and its been great fun! However, another thing that has happened is that the average length of my post has reduced and most posts nowadays are more reactionary than proactive as they were in NITIE days. The lack of 'proactive' posts is also evident from the fact that I have hardly posted about my experiences as I used to earlier. For example this year I went to Kerala, made quite a few trips to Baroda (and nearby places), ...

I am going to speak on the topic of Blogging 2.0 at barCampMumbai2 today ... With this we also will open the registration for the beta of our web Application bloozler .... you too can check it out here . I have been working on this concept since more than 1.5 year now, since I made this blog post. Hope you all find it an interesting and useful webApp .... Here is the presentation I will make.

The tales of Rajnikant's popularity among public are all across newspapers, and TV channels (especially so after his latest flick - Shivaji - demonstrated 'rioting capabilities'). But now Rajni has touched down on blogosphere as well and this blog post bears testimony to the kind of storm Rajni can incite even among the net savvy generation. Probably the longest post on blogosphere - this post has 1134 comments !! I wonder if 'Big B' or even Google could match this. Representing, Maratha pride coupled with Kannad and Tamilian lineage [Ref: 1 , 2 ] - could he make a good president as well? GreatBong wonders ...

Hope you noticed the 'Link Preview tool' that I put up a few days ago. It displays previews to links embedded in the text so that you can take a look at the link without leaving this site. Its called 'Snap' and if you want it to put it on your website visit www.Snap.com . However, I noticed that it was a bit annoying to have a 'Snap Window' pop up every time you hover over any link - also because I put up quite a few links here. So, I have now disabled the 'Snap Window' from popping up on hovering the mouse on the link. Instead, you will see a small 'Snap Icon' after every link. To see the link preview, hover your mouse over the icon! Hope you like the usability quirk !

Searching information on your machine is nowadays more painful than searching information online - Windows search* companion sucks in comparison to a Google Search .... I discovered the way out by installing Google desktop on my laptop .. the good news is that Google Desktop's latest version 5 is available in Hindi. After Blogger in Hindi - this is the next tool to come out in Hindi. Google sure is surging far ahead of Windows in the vernacular desktop tools segment! *PS: Windows has subsequently come up with its own desktop search tool which does a decent job in searching but like any other M$ app - it crashes a bit too much. The interface is ok, but it does not show any 'text snippets' as in Google Search and the document preview takes ages to load and often causes the system to hang! Google Search UI Windows Desktop Search UI

On what can be termed as the most horrific onslaught of Indian Bureacracy on Blogosphere, the Indian goverment has asked certain blogs to be blocked. Initially reported by Indian bloggers in and outside India through their blogs, the case has now been confirmed by a news item on Rediff. Some Blog reports: Gaurav Sabnis Neha Vishwanathan - comprehensive summary Rediff News Item: http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/jul/20dot.htm As per Rediff, the Department of Telecom had "asked to block just some sub-domains hosted by those services" while ISPs "unintentionally" blocked the complete domains - Blogspot, Typepad and Yahoo! Geocities and more. The government "has asked Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to explain why action should not be taken against them for unintentionally blocking some Web sites." However, a spokesperson for the Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) said that ISPs had been asked to immediately comply with the government orde...

Which trend will be credited to have started in the year 2005? Reality Shows – but you had similar (albeit less orchestrated ones like Sa Re Ga Ma Pa) running even earlier; MMS – but again Podcasting or MMS are just improved forms of porn-exchange that has existed since we had earliest Sex sites on the net; Sensex – have you forgotten the dot com boom; Rain Havoc in Metros – no major precedents except the Tsunami; Blogs making news – ah! Any precedents here? I don’t have any. Indeed, blogs have emerged as sure opinion makers this year. Though, blogs usually cannot be counted in isolation – they created opinion while being supported by emails, instant messaging and websites – however, in the past one year Blogs have risen from being support structures to the web to being central themes around which the online world is slowly starting to revolve. Further, Blogs are rising in numbers ; overly optimistic estimates quote the number of Indian bloggers to 12 lakh – even a pessimistic figure o...

Dr Raghunath Mashelkar, quoted in a public gathering: Reading makes you wise, Speaking makes you witty, But, Writing makes you exact. Unless you write, you never know how much you really know and what you really don't know. My own experience of writing has been long ... I have been writing since 12 years of age... and since last year this Blog has provided a new dimension to my thoughts; writing has again become quite regular. I try to write my own posts after considerable research (wherever required) and also try to link up as much links as I can so that readers can travel to other related pages. This way I myself also get to learn or rather complete my understanding of the subject in question. That apart this Blog has also helped me to network far and wide - making friends with so many people across the globe and also revive some lost links with old friends. Some other of my posts on Blog(s) http://the-complete-man.blogspot.com/2005/07/indian-bloggers-are-sure-rocking-net_21.ht...

This blog is at its tipping point .... Kindly read Gaurav Sabnis's Blog (Refer to I am disconnecting my cable connection )[ http://gauravsabnis.blogspot.com/ ] and post a support message to Gaurav if you wish so. Also If you own a blog, use it to raise the issue. The whole bloggers and online community should stand by Gaurav at this time. Blogging is one of the most representative forms of Freedom of Speech and human expression – we all need to come together to protect it !!! Update Its 4.00PM around 5 hours after I made this post and by now there are around a 100 blogs who have posted in Gaurav's support (no wonder, 'coz Gaurav happens to be a popular blogger). Check out the first 10 pages on this search: http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&q=gaurav+sabnis&btnG=Search+Blogs ON 9th October, Jagan.biz published in support of Gaurav, what, it seems is happening now ... I quote - [ http://jagan.biz/modules/news/article.php?storyid=92 ] "The IIPM execs h...

Indian Bloggers are sure rocking the net .... And here are two of them trying to organise, what they call, Blogeratti. Visit their blogs to know more about this .... Saba: http://levelhead.rediffblogs.com/ Anubha: http://anubhasworld.rediffblogs.com/ So fellows ... enjoy the contest ... may the best one win ....

I am blogging from Office .... and I hope I don't end up like this . And for all those folks who share the same fate as me (blog from Office) - here is a useful link: How Not to Get Fired Because of Your Blog Wellssss I can't possibly use the same excuse of being busy for not posting regularly. I do have some time but the real problem is NET! I get time when at home etc but easily accessible net is what I am missing. So efforts have started - contacted the local Broadband Service provider as well as Sify . Should have net at home by next Monday. And then I would get time to post interesting things rather than this 'Dear Diary' kind of stuff. Blogging sure is fun and as this article says - "...there are only three motivations for keeping one [a blog] : information sharing, reputation building, and personal expression. And though any one of these may be the primary reason for a blog, no one maintains a blog for any length of time without eventually doing all three....

Discovered this Marathi Blog http://paamar.blogspot.com The latest post Lord Vishnu's performance appraisal [ http://paamar.blogspot.com/2005/04/celestial-appraisal.html ] is very hilarious ... The spirit of conserving one's language and culture online is really worth appreciating !!! Cheers to this dude!!! I wish to support him .. but sulk! I am not that good at writing Marathi .. probably would try out Hindi text someday.

Hey Dudes!! I have found you a respite from the dreary reading of my blog .. guess what?? A whole constellation of blogs!! Its been compiled by Anita Bora, previously Asst. editor at Rediff, now a blog enthusiast . . . Mussay Indians have become global citizen really . . . and they are sure dominant on the net !! The List : A compilation of Indian blogs. Growing every day. The Ring : A web-ring of Indian bloggers. Feel free to join. Of course, Anita decides whether to let you in ;) Anita's Site : Let me spin the world wide web around you . . . I haven't yet decided myself whether to join the ring!! But for the rest of this post, here is some Q&A inspired by Anita's FAQ on blogging . . . Why do you blog? I discovered blogging when I visited Manish Saluja's blog (Manish is a close friend of Shubham -my NITIE pal) I then found many blogs of my friends and other known personalities. That's where I started in April 2004 and I just loved the concept. I was...

Technology 23-Feb-2008 Extending the OSI Model Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 22-Nov-2006 Beta Wars Part 1 , Part 2 Economics & Entrepreneurship 04-Mar-2009 Entrepreneurship Education In India Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 , Coda 04-Dec-2005 Innovation = Invention + Insight Part 1 , Part 2 27-Jul-2009 Bloozle – the Startup that never was The Story , The Concept , Product Vision Mistakes , Product Development Mistakes , Environmental Factors , Conclusion Socio-political 26-Jan-2009 The Character of a Nation Part 1 , Part 2 16-Jul-2008 Politics of Clean Fuel Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 17-Apr-2008 Cities In India Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 26-Jan-2008 India Rising Part 1 , Part 2 15-Jan-2007 A Tale of two Indias Part 1 , Part 2 28-Nov-2006 Drutgamini Railroad Idea Part 1 , Part 2 15-Aug-2006 Independence Day Part 1 , Part 2 16-Mar-2006 1NDIA Part 1 , Part 2 24-Oct-2005 India Shining Part 1 , Part 2 14-Jul-2004 The Indira Sagar Project Part 1 , Part 2 Personal Undated Mast Hai Yeh Life (un...