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Operation Sinatra

2011-10-13

I love Sinatra! Both of them, the singer and the framework. Operation Sinatra is my latest pet project.

Don’t worry, I’m not trying to resurrect Frankie using Ruby, though some form of resurrection (and a little bit of killing) is going to be involved. What am I going to be killing you ask? Everything I know about Ruby and Rails.

To start from the beginning, I started coding in ruby mainly to hack together random side projects. As a person with a hacker mindset, I usually played with other people’s code tweaking it to meet my needs. The end result is that my ruby code is ugly. Even though I can usually get the code to do what I want it to do, I’m probably doing it in a round about manner.

The solution: Forget everything I have ever learned about ruby and learn it all over again from scratch. With ruby, I’m gonna also be spending some time on Sinatra. Hopefully this will make me a better coder and also get me back on top of my game.

Confidence vs Over Confidence

2011-10-13

A short post. What’s the difference between being confident and being over confident?

Confidence: “I can do it!”

Over Confidence: “Only I can do it!”

An odd week

2011-09-27

I’ve come to the realization that I have somehow managed to offset my entire week. To put this in perspective, due to my classes, I’m up by 7am on Mondays and Tuesdays. I don’t have any classes on Wednesday or Friday and my first class on Thursday is at noon. What has this resulted in?

Simple, a weekly offset. My weekend is now technically Wednesday + Thursday. I am on weekend mode on Tuesday evenings. And back to work on Thursdays at noon.

Why not just stick to Saturday & Sunday you ask? Well, it is possible since I obviously have no classes those days. But… I decided not to. 48 hours of continuous free time to focus on side projects that I want to make progress on is being handed to me on a golden platter and I am not an idiot to say no to this. Even the amount of distractions over the weekend are less (I get way less emails). I usually augment my focus on the weekends by leaving my phone at home (or taking it with me turned off).

Getting so much done that way and learning a lot too.

Since it has indeed been a long time since I posted an actual update, here’s what I’ve been up to recently. Since I’ve passed on the torch for all the stuff I was running, I’ve focused my attention on self development (to use a very cliche term). I’ve doing stuff all over the place that I enjoy doing. I’ve been playing with some Redis and Riak while priming my Ruby and PHP skills. I’ve also gotten my creative self going, working on designs for usable accessories and such for the devices I use day in and day out in my lovely moleskine.

Apple doesn't make money off the App Store

2011-03-07

I’m really getting fed up of all this bull5h17 about Apple making its billions by taking a 30% cut on all app store sales. That is not what is happening; This is not what Apple wants to happen; And this can be factually proven.

Last week’s iPad 2 announcement had 2 figures thrown out by Steve at the beginning of the event:

Over $2 Billion given out to iOS Developers
Over 100 Million iPhones sold

Now, let’s do the math of the first figure: $2 Billion is the 70% which makes, Apple’s 30% cut approx. $857 Million. That’s right people, not even a Billion bucks.

Onto the second figure. Those who have read any of iSuppli’s Bill of Materials reports for the iPhones, would notice that the iPhones (except the original) usually cost less than $200 to manufacture. Rumor has it that Apple gets its carriers to pay them roughly $650 per iPhone. Let’s assume that Apple makes $400 of each iPhone here.

$400 * 100 Million = $40 Billion

That’s right, Apple is making over 40 times on hardware sales compared to its App Store commission. Keep in mind that this doesn’t even include the iPod Touch or the iPad. People, please stop yapping about apple Billions from the App Store!

Note: This doesn’t mean that this is always going to be the case. Just at present.

DropQuesting and customer engagement

2011-01-15

Today was a very eventful day indeed. I spent about 3 hours of it dedicated to DropQuest – a puzzle challenge organized by dropbox. I ended up placing 206th and enjoyed every second of DropQuesting.

Thinking about this in hindsight, I see a lot of things that built the customer relationship between dropbox and made all the customers happy. Firstly, the competition was a puzzle challenge and not a hackathon – which means that everyone can participate. Then you have the fact that everyone wins for participating. Dropbox promised 1 Gig of space for life upon completion but instead of giving it in one lump sum upon completion, the gradually gave out 50 -100 mb of space every 2 to 3 rounds. This kept people pumped cause as they are playing the game, they are winning.

Though this would have been a good way to attract new customers, the people who were engaged the most are probably the existing ones. There was an irc channel set up for this and there were hundreds of people in there chatting with each other hours before the event began. What were they talking about? DropBox! When you get your customers talking to each other about how awesome your product is, the new guys who is on the fence on whether to buy or not is going to buy. This is also a lesson for companies that screw over their existing customers to attract new ones – I’m looking at you Linode.

Lastly, the competition was interesting and fun in itself. And the exhilaration one feels when they complete each level – it’s almost primal. At one point in the competition, I realized that I was the first person to solve a puzzle (The 22nd one) and I was on my toes ready to win this thing. In the end, I placed 206th, which means no special prizes but damn! I loved it and don’t care to not have won.

I’d love to see more companies do similar events. Hackathons and puzzle challenges please, cause Ajai hearts puzzles.

Note: I’m a paying customer of Dropbox now.

Make it free and make money

2010-09-29

I was just reading Seth Gordin’s post on If Craigslist cost $1 and instant writers block cure. This got me thinking of the freemium model. I have heard both Chris Klaus and Jimmy Wales talk about this in the last year and use many tools that follow this model of revenue generation.

For those wonder what freemium is, it is a business model that works by offering basic services for free, while charging a premium for advanced or special features. Common examples of businesses that use the freemium model include wikipedia/wikia and Pandora.

Having a free product means people will use it more. You will have a larger community around your product and can reach out to hundreds of millions of users. On the other hand, a paid product will attract less people but create a more tight nit community around the product as well as your bank balance will soar (If you have a good product).

My question here is, is it too much to have both? When Pandora announced that they will be restricting users to 40 hours a month of free usage, it too me less than 3 seconds to click the link to subscribe for Pandora ONE. The value I get out of Pandora was well worth the $36 I pay a year. 95% of Pandora’s users will never actually reach the hour limit and are happy with the free version while the few power users such as myself are more than happy to pay for it.

Being the entrepreneur that I am [and also the cut-throat mercenary that I am], I believe that if there is money be made, make it!

So, here is my proposition for Craigslist: Keep what you have and launch another craigslist Premium. Craigslist Premium will charge $1 per posting. People who use craigslist can continue using the free version that is filled with spam listings and scams. There will be a small percentage of power users though who will recognize the value of the premium service and will migrate over to the premium version and start crunching out $$$ for Craig Newmark. And the best part still? It’s going to cost them practically nothing. Craigslist already has all the things they need for this to be implemented. The premium version will have the same features as the free version and craigslist already charges people for posting in certain sections.

Will the freemium model work for you? It all depends on a factor of how good your product is and how much you are giving away for free. If you give away too much, people won’t pay for the premium version; give away too little and they will not be attracted to try it for free. But one thing is for certain, it has to be good.

What does the iPad v2.0 need to succeed?

2010-09-27

RIM just announced the Playbook, their take of the Tablet. HP/Palm is probably going to come up with something by the end of the year and anyone who has fiddled with the Palm OS can say that it would be amazing on a tablet. Now, Apple was the first ones to the Tablet market and they do have the Apple Advantage [ people love to talk about them]. What do they need to do to succeed? Here’s my take on this and what I would really love to see.

Better Multitasking

Steve promised us multitasking with 4.2 but that is pretty much going to suck. It works somewhat well on the smaller Phones but the screen on the iPad begs for a better way to navigate between apps. My worry here is not about the implementation of multitasking itself as what we have now is satisfactory and it will get better. Work needs to go into the application switcher interface. Apple already has an awesome way to do this – they call it exposé and it’s on the mac. Exposé on the iPad will be amazing and made for that screen. Include some gestural way to access this [four finger downward swipe works great on my macbook’s trackpad.] The iPhone made a big deal about getting rid of buttons. The idea of clicking the home button twice to switch between apps is just annoying.

Better Tabbed Browsing

Once again, an issue of translation between iPhone and iPad. The same things won’t work that well on the different sized screens. While the iPhone implementation of tabs works great for the small screen, the iPad has a larger screen which justifies real tabs.

Better Screen

The iPad was good when it launched. Great resolution for something it’s size. Then came the iPhone 4 with its Retina display. That screwed the iPad over. What does the iPad need to stay ahead in the game? Not asking for a Retina resolution screen – that would kill the battery life. Give us 1080p.

Noticing a trend here? I’m not asking for anything new at all. Just asking for what is there to be done better. You’re on the right track. Just make sure you stay on it.

Sony beat the Apple TV WITHOUT Google TV

2010-09-04

I love Apple. I own a macbook pro. I own an iPhone 4. I wish I owned an iPad. I really don’t see myself buying an Apple TV anytime soon.

Not because it isn’t a good product, its just that I already own a much better one. No this isn’t some hacked together Boxee setup. Its my 32" Sony Bravia TV (which I love). Yes, just the TV. Nothing hooked up to it. Just the TV.

Let’s see what the Apple TV offers:

Stream TV episodes and movies purchased on iTunes
Watch Netflix
AirPlay (which is kind of cool but inherently flawed in the fact that when I switch it to the TV from say my iPad, I’d like to use the iPad for some other task.) Now most people don’t realize this and guests usually do a double take when they see it, my TV has some apps that come bundles with the TV. And guess what, they can kill the Apple TV any day. Here’s some of the stuff on it:
Netflix
Video on Demand provided by Amazon AND Qriocity
Youtube, Yahoo, Dailymotion, CBS and blip.tv
Pandora (listening to it right now) and Slacker Radio
Picture frame mode with Picase, Photobucker and Shutterfly hook-ups
Coming this Fall: HULU Plus

See what I mean. I already have something better than Apple TV. It’s my TV. And the TV table looks a lot cleaner too without ANOTHER box on it.

And may I point out that the HULU Plus makes my TV better than Apple TV ;–)

Postscript: Apple, please take this as a challenge and fix the Apple TV. I’m pretty sure you have the potential to make something awesome.

Hacker News Comments

Free Kindle anyone? How Amazon can dominate ebooks

2010-08-27

Everyone says that the Kindle and the Nook are dead because of the iPad’s iBooks. Not so. There is a way for the Kindle/Nook to win the ebook market from Apple and basically turn Apple into a non-competitor.

First, we must look into how Amazon and Apple make their money. Amazon makes a profit from the sale of each item (and in this case: books). Apple on the other hand makes very little profit off of iTunes or the App store. These exist solely to complement their hardware products such as the iPods, iPad and iPhone which they sell at humongous margins.

Now, the regular consumer is probably going to go get an iPad cause of all the additional functionality (movies, game, the INTERNET!!!). But most people who own a Kindle still use it cause Amazon has a much better selection of books and better prices.

So, here is what Amazon needs to do to dominate the ebook market – Give the kindle away for free. Ya, you read that right. Let’s see, the 3G Kindle retails for $189. Keep the price the same. Even a freshmen Economics major will tell you that giving something away for free means you are kinda gonna be broke soon. Sell the kindle for $189 and everyone who buys the kindle gets $189 to buy books from the Kindle store.

Now, you are giving all those avid readers out there a really big incentive to buy the Kindle. They all want one. And once they have it in hand, they aren’t gonna stop buying books. Amazon knows this already. They call it Amazon Prime. And guess what, they started giving it away for free this summer (to college students).

I somehow managed to make the CoC's Homepage Feature

2010-08-25

Yup! I’m on the big bad banner on the front page of the Georgia Tech College of Computing’s Website.

Here is a direct link to the article here.