Mystery of the Undersea Cables & Internet future

Last updated on: February 6, 2008 at 8:21 pm By Desh Kapoor

Given our earlier discussion on the cutting of the internet cables earlier, today the news came that a 5th cable was cut off (or powerd off?) and entire Iran went off the internet! So, all of a sudden the entire region of Middle East is infested with internet cables cutting ships. Apparently, all the clumsy sailors have converged in that area in the last two week? This is surely too much of a coincidence. Many players are meanwhile being blamed as Bonnie.net avers: * U.S. Government * Israeli Government * Aliens * Underwater Monsters * The Cloverfield Monster * Rudy Giuliani I would add Iranian Government, Terrorist organizations, and US telecom companies as well into this pot of suspects! 🙂 The more the merrier! Here is a picture of where these incidents have happened - (courtesy: Bonnie.net) Strangely, as we had feared that there is more than meets the eye. Egyptian Ministry of Communication has come out to say that no ship passed through that area where cables were cut (or at least on the surface, none did or should have!). Then how were the cables cut off? Read more

Close Shave

Last updated on: February 5, 2008 at 4:19 pm By Desh Kapoor

This is from the island of Saint-Barthélemy, or St Barts, in the French West Indies... the clearance is about 20ft. Even the scooter riders duck down... Only two fatal accidents have happened in all these years despite the this close situation. Story Source Read more

Skewed Priorities of the Indian ERP vendors

Last updated on: February 5, 2008 at 4:00 pm By Desh Kapoor

I remember when I first to US and was getting immersed in SAP, the guys who had started their careers in India (had done a project there) were outstanding in their indepth knowledge of SAP modules. The reason probably was that they got a wider latitude to experiment while implementing. The US companies followed a consistent methodology and people were more concerned about the documentation than actual experimentation! Over the years, I have seen the level and quality of SAP consultants coming out of India being drastically lowered. At first, I could not understand this drastic difference. Lately, I have finally been able to fathom the issue. The Indian IT majors acting like the Burra Sahibs made an almost conscious decision perhaps not to engage much in the Indian market. While their precursors - and much smaller now - Birla Software and Siemens Information Systems Ltd (SISL) started implementing SAP in India... and IMPLEMENTING is an important word here - the IT majors were happy doing support for US or European companies in SAP and other software. The result being that the talent pool hardly had any implementation experience now. Only support knowledge. Since these IT majors were the training grounds for most IT talent in India, they spawned a retrograde culture of low quality ERP talent in the country. Here is prime example: Read more

God is Great!

Last updated on: February 4, 2008 at 7:01 pm By Desh Kapoor

Is it the Monday morning blues.. that made me say this? Or is it ... 😉 Read more

Today's Song: Maine Shayad Tumhein

Last updated on: February 4, 2008 at 3:36 pm By Desh Kapoor

Maine Shayad Tumhein from the movie "Barsaat ki Raat" sung by Rafi (Music by Roshan & lyrics by Sahir) Like I said, until the Valentine's day, we will talk only about love now. Here is one song that is one of my top favorites in that genre. Sahir was a master lyricist and shayar. Listening to this song it is obvious why! He has used the verbal ironies so beautifullly that it is breath-taking! Ajnabi si ho magar gair nahin lagti ho Waham se bhi jo ho naazuk; wo yaqeen lagti ho. Unknown as yet, who does not seem like stranger; More delicate than a doubt; such a conviction you are! Sung beautifully by Rafi (and as I said in an earlier Rafi vs KK discussion, this is one of those songs which KK would have floundered BIG TIME coming even half way of what Rafi did with it!). Roshan the music director and the grand-dad of current super start Hrithik Roshan, was in my personal view, the greatest music composer for qawwalis. He single-handedly must have given half of at least the top ten qawwalis in Indian movies of all time! Enjoy the song below if you are reading this after Feb 8, 2008; otherwise play it on the left hand sidebar... Read more

Today I saw the future of Technology. Literally!

Last updated on: February 4, 2008 at 2:03 am By Desh Kapoor

My friend, Puneet Wahi, today showed me a site - which is unlike ANYTHING I have ever seen! It is the future. Today, I really saw the future. The site is ZCubes. It is the entire computing world IN a browser on a site. You can possibly do anything you want. The founders modestly call it Web 3.0! IT has MS Office functionality available free! So, what's the big deal? Even zoho.com and google docs have it... albeit a little watered down. Hmmm.... well zcubes' office functionality is way.. and I seriously mean WAY beyond what you get in the MS Office suite for over USD 300. Let's see for example Excel - you can do all that you can do in Excel, plus link your sheet to any conceivable database, or link two tables just by clicking on the cells, or calculate a bessel function values for starters... You want a powerpoint? You can create powerpoint out of any content - from the web... from your computer from websites and then create a self running powerpoint within a powerpoint! Read more

My Interview on Pakistani Spectator

Last updated on: February 3, 2008 at 8:21 pm By Desh Kapoor

Today my interview was published on Pakistani Spectator - a Pakistani blog. I think it is a great blog to read about things on Pakistan. Here is an excerpt: What is your perception about Pakistan and its people? I think people are always the same but the state is what creates issues in the world. I feel that over the years, the Pakistani leaders have made some horribly wrong choices – which are showing up their ugly head now. Also, Pakistan took the easy route of using its geography (strategic location) as opposed to the talent and strength of its people as its greatest asset to negotiate with the world. I think that was not a good move. A country is after all its people and only they can create or destroy it. I have found Pakistanis to be incredibly talented. Small country, but lots of awesome talent in all areas. Read more

MY first Sanskrit Class – Monism vs Monotheism

Last updated on: February 3, 2008 at 7:10 pm By Desh Kapoor

Last week I started my first Sanskrit class at the local Arya Samaj temple. This was followed by a class on Upanishads. The dedication of the Acharyas (teachers) is indeed praise-worthy! It is really a privilege to be taught by some of the most learned people in this area. Both the Acharyas are very learned in Vedas and Upanishads. While the Sanskrit teacher (Acharyaji) has had his grooming in the लौकिक or Literary Sanskrit, the other Acharyaji has been groomed in वैदिक Sanskrit. So their interpretations have different meanings and perspective. Both the forms of Sanskrit were different as in how a word is interpreted. For me, it was a unique experience! I have marvelled at the loftiness of the ideas and thoughts of Vasistha in Yoga Vasistha and of Krishna in Bhagwad Gita, so it was another experience - in the original language - to marvel at the high level that human thought had risen to! The Sanskrit class typically starts with a shloka and the first Acharyaji translates that for us. This was the shloka above. Its basic intent is very similar to the Gayatri Mantra in that it says - Before the creation (or manifestation), that who was self-illumined and the Lord of every thing; That who holds the earth and the Universe, do "His" (or Its) Upasana with all your Love. Now, there are a few words that are very important. 1. एक: - I asked the question whether it meant "He" is the ONLY ONE, or "He" is the ONE ONLY. Acharyaji then differentiated for me in a very nice manner between Monotheism and Monism - which is what I was trying to get at. He believed in the Monotheism as Dayanand Saraswati had defined it. He went on with that interpretation and averred that Vasistha's interpretation in Yoga Vasistha was not properly understood by the Advaitists. We shall revisit this a little later. Read more

Drupal community but WordPress Blogs

Last updated on: February 3, 2008 at 7:24 am By Desh Kapoor

I use Drupal on this site - Drishtikone - and WordPress on Businessmusings.com and BIMusings.com. One reason why I dread this decision is because drupal puts a lot of load on the server while wordpress is easy on that front. Plus there are more themes for WP than for Drupal. For a person who does not know much programming and does not have the time to keep messing with the themes - Drupal themes pose a challenge.. as some work in Firefox but not in IE or vice versa! After a long search I have found one that I like for now - denver. But that is not really a whole lot of choice! However, Drupal is a powerhouse for community features and functionality. No other OS CMS comes close. Its flexibility and scalability is great! However, it is also a fact that too much functionality activated can slow it down a bit. So you see it is a tough decision. When you start a blog (for the time being) hoping to take it to the level of a community - then Drupal is a great option.. but that may happen in the distant future. So, until then you will have to live with a lot of load and power. Now I will not have to regret this decision - for we have the ultimate solution - a Drupal/WP plugin. The features include: * Single sign on, once you logged in to Drupal, you also logged in to WordPress. And also when you logged out * Synchronize user profile data between Drupal and WordPress Read more

Undersea cable disruption: is it a terrorist attack?

Last updated on: February 2, 2008 at 7:35 pm By Desh Kapoor

This morning I tried to call Citibank NRI center line - which took me to India. It took me 4 attempts to connect and the person on the other side said I was lucky that our conversation did not cut off within 1 minute! The voice quality wavered from minute to minute. The reason for all this was lying many feet below the sea in Middle East! Another terrorism attack? Possibly! Can't say right now.... but it has all the signs. Two things: 1. see this picture from guardian below.. and the full length here. 2. Raj points out that it is NOT a terrorist attack but the work of a clumsy ship. In the last one week, 3 undersea cables have been cut off in Middle East. The third one was a cable 56 km from Dubai between Oman and UAE. The other were near Egypt. The cause has not been known! This is caused huge disruptions in the internet specifically for the Asian BPOs. This, coming at a time when the stock market is in doldrums shows that if this could be coordinated action of a few gangs around the Mid East seas, the impact on world economy could be unimaginably disastrous! Imagine 10 cables being cut in more than two places in several areas. Can you imagine the disruption? Many of the biggest companies rely on this network for their money transfer, work, voice etc. The economy will be shattered! Read more