Shalin Jain's Little Red Couch

Pictures from DayTrip to Sedona & Jerome, AZ

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 20:56:17 -0800

See the full gallery on Posterous

Permalink | Leave a comment »

iStudio

Thu, 19 May 2011 23:16:30 -0700

Taken at Changi airport, singapore

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Singapore Again!

Tue, 17 May 2011 07:34:38 -0700

A day well spent in the lively city of Singapore. The entire city was on a holiday today. Few pictures from my point-n-shoot cybershot.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Permalink | Leave a comment »

For my baby

Fri, 06 May 2011 21:03:00 -0700

i dreamt

of a beautiful morning

a bright new day

tasting tears

with a smiling face

a little angel

came my way

held my hand

and said

'papa, lets play'

her sparkling eyes

had so much to say

I felt her love

and joy within me

7 may 2011

Shalin Jain

Permalink | Leave a comment »

I've become a father, a new phase begins

Thu, 05 May 2011 04:30:33 -0700

Akanksha & Me have become parents today of this little angel. One of those happiest moment that brings tears in your eyes. My gut feel feel months ago about *her* arrival: http://shalinjain.com/wishlist

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Inspired by people: Starting up, being focused & staying inspired

Sat, 16 Apr 2011 13:30:00 -0700

I have to admit this, whatever I have done in last 10 years for Tenmiles has been hugely inspired by people around me. I gave up on education soon after I joined College. I did enough to secure my degree and did everything to be surrounded by great minds.

Gautam Jain of Conceptworld was a huge inspiration to let me start a company at 18. Srinivas ramanathan of Eginnovations gave me early insights into building complex technology products. KS Sreeram, founder of Clay programming language, helped me turn my dreams into action plans and was largely instrumental in convincing me to stay-put with products.

And now, Swarna Rethas, who recently completed 7 years at Tenmiles makes me realize yet again in the power of people. Being backed by great people simply multiplies the strength of any company. There is no better metric that can excite you to remain in business and love the work you do everyday. It is an inspirational milestone and couldn't do without letting the world know about it.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Beautiful You

Sat, 19 Feb 2011 21:10:00 -0800

I wrote this little poem for my wife few weeks ago. We are extremely excited to become parents in a few months.

Beautiful You

In your eyes

in your smile

I see the reflections

of our unborn child

I love everyday

that goes by

thinking of our little angel

and the beautiful you.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Unboxing Macbook Air 13" (India)

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 11:04:00 -0800

PIctures of Unboxing Macbook Air 13" - Bought mine from Imagine Store, Chennai.
Side view of the box pack which sports the small apple logo. Like Macbook Pro packaging there is no name of the device on the top of the box. Just a picture (and it speaks!).

That's where the name is. Less is more.

Now, that's a beauty. Placed on a fairly thick black tray that has the Adapter and Installer media.

The small plastic flap lets you pull it and take out the macbook. Very simplistic and thoughtful design.

Under it, Guide, Installer and the adapter.

See the full gallery on Posterous

The power cord placed in the side. Add the cord to the adapter and it becomes a fairly long.

The reinstall drive and the quick start guide labelled Hello.

Sure, the Macbook Air is known for it's slimness - so lets stack it up along with iPad and see.

The thickest edge of the Air is slightly thicker than the iPad.

But's it's amazingly thinner on the other end.

This Macbook Air is a 13' model, that much more bigger than the iPad.

We'll time machine back from my Macbook Pro and then using the Migration Assistant to get it all into the Air was simple and hassle free. A lot of time saved and ready to be used immediately.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Go, get an MBA

Sat, 05 Feb 2011 20:38:00 -0800

Nine years go, soon after I finished my under-graduation, my parents told me : "Go, get an MBA."

Today, I told them your son's got a deserving MBA (read: MacBook AIR). And you need no CAT to get it, rather they ship a big wild cat. Designed in California and mass produced in China. They gave me a smile and asked me if it was something better than an iPad. (They really think iPad is the most fun and friendly device they have used. They don't need me around to help them with it).

My parents sure have moved on. They realize that everyone don't need an MBA to prove themselves and apple makes really user-friendly stuff that's worth the money.

Macbook Air is my third mac in last 6-7 years. Macs have really helped me focus on work, keep my employees happy and completely eliminate an IT specialist whose feed reader would be full of security updates and virus alerts.

Although, from pure tech specs perspective moving on from a heavy duty Macbook Pro to Macbook Air with lower specs sounds more like a downgrade. Lesser HDD, RAM, CPU and Screen size. But it still feels like a decent upgrade. Here is why:

It's lost all the flab. Really light weight and ultra thin. It's now a big feature for me - because I travel more often. I took little over 20 flights in 2010 and am likely to travel more often in 2011.
There is no CD Drive and Ethernet port. And yes, I don't need them. They are not a must have. Less is more.
HDD size is a clear downgrade but performance of Flash Storage is way superior.
Screen-size is smaller but not the resolution. 1440 x 900 at 13" is sure great. For screen-size, I loved my 12" PowerBook.

I am assuming that the soon to be announced new Macbook Pros are gonna be even more meaner machines but sure without Air's form factor. MacBook Air is easy to choose when you have been there, done that. When less is more.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Vedanthangal Bird Sanctuary in pictures

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 03:13:28 -0800

It was one of those rare days when I woke up at 3:55am without an alarm, all excited to head to Vedanthangal Bird Sanctuary. This bird sanctuary had been on my list of drive away day-trip from Chennai. And today was the day.
Planned by our friends at Tachyon Technologies, 14 of us headed out in 3 cars to the Sanctuary (and a bike!). About 80kms from Chennai with really good highway to drive on. We were there at 6am and that really is the best time to be there. Nov - March being the best months.
My photography gear - D90 and a 85mm prime lens - was sure not the gear for the location. But can't keep the shutter bug off me. Here are some of pictures from the roll:

See the full gallery on Posterous

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Pictures from my Recent Portrait Assignments

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 07:00:18 -0800

See the full gallery on Posterous

Will update my portfolio on http://shalin.in soon.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Windows you don't want to shut

Sun, 02 Jan 2011 04:44:54 -0800

Taken at Edinburgh

Permalink | Leave a comment »

3-tab limit: An experiment on productivity

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 12:31:00 -0800

I always seem to be in the middle of something. I think most of us with rich multi-tab browsing are often caught between writing an email, reading an article, updating twitter/facebook statuses and debugging some JS code. That is, if you don’t have an omni present web based IM, cricinfo scorecard, streaming music, google analytics, hackernews/reddit or a video on vimeo loading up. Wait, I am not going to talk about whether to multi-task or not. I want to deal with something smaller than that.

Endless tabs on your browser.

All seemingly useful. All wanting your attention right away. Everything that you always indented to do. You haven’t clicked up on some random banner ad that opens up in a new tab, not at all. You only realize there are too many tabs when you have to click on the little double-arrow button to switch to the newly opened CMD+Click (on mac) links or you just encountered the spinning color wheel (mac) or hour glass (win?).

At this point I would also like to admit I run multiple browsers at any given time. Typically Safari and Chrome. Occasionally, Firefox too. Most often there is a clear reason to do so.

Productivity

When I think about my most productive moments at work, I can only think of full screen code editor, writing something in an application like WriteRoom, reading up an interesting essay using the Safari reader feature or even writing an email in a desktop based mail client. In fact, even watching a movie on VLC on full screen results in almost no distraction. But then there is growl. In my interactions with some people who do really revolutionary stuff, take creator of the programming language – clay for instance, I found that he goes to the extent of turning off his phone and other devices to avoid being distracted.

So, Why does a lot of tabs bother?

Most apps that we use these days are turning out to be browser based. So, when you are at something productive, lets say a spreadsheet in google docs, you are continuously exposed to numerous tabs you have in the same application window. I think that hurts. Most blog articles end up referring to so many external links. To successfully understand a piece of article you often end up with few more tabs. And often, one of those links becomes responsible to distract you. I think this has been hurting my productivity. I have a feeling at times I haven’t done anything substantial enough or progressed much on tasks I was planning to complete. Then, I count the number of tabs open.

I am made to believe that I am more quick at replying to emails on my iPhone 3G than on the laptop (that is so geared for multi-tasking). I get more email done when I am away from work. Constraints surprisingly make me lot more productive. And I keep thinking about this Ted Talk by Barry Schwartz. So, I started thinking to myself – what if I had a limit on number of tabs I could use. Would it make me more productive? Would it help me stay more focused and get things done faster? Would it make it harder (unproductive) for me to reference stuff?

And I think it wouldn’t be that hard. There are already a few things that help us reduce the number of tabs on our browser. Before I list some of them down, I am going to do a check right away – I seem to have 7 tabs open. With only one tab with actual work in progress, 3 references that I used to write this article that I don’t need anymore but haven’t closed them either, 1 tab (twitter) is redundant considering I have a desktop app running for it too. 2 tabs where I have completed my tasks but didn’t close tab immediately.

I think having a tab-limit is going to do me some good.

Apps that help reduce # of tabs

Thankfully, there are many applications like RSS feed readers save you from lot tabs. Helps you save time by letting you read content you want without necessarily having to land in web browser. Well, if you read a browser based feed reader it still probably saves you many tabs. Google search introduced previewing a website before you visit them. I guess that helps you a bit. Instapaper helps you save things you want to read later and get rid of tabs you would have otherwise tried to save for the day. Desktop version of apps like Twitter (tweetie, echofon) help by alerting you when you have a mentioned or DM.

How many are too many

I think I would start with restricting it to 3. Most of us should find having between 3 and 5 tabs sufficient. It would be awesome if someone could actually write a safari or chrome extension to help keep the tab limit in check. That way you wouldn’t have to be conscious about it. I am not sure how I would measure the increase in productivity but I guess I would know if it worked. Maybe, somebody already does this well and know that it helps. Would you experiment?

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Wishlist

Sat, 06 Nov 2010 13:30:00 -0700

She thought
I could count the stars
all of them
one by one

She thought
I could call the santa
make a wishlist
and get it done

She thought
I could cast a spell
toads to prince
and ogres as well

She thought
I could change the world
stop all wars
all at once

my little daughter
is building her list
of what daddy could do
and someday he will

7 Nov 2010
Shalin Jain

Permalink | Leave a comment »

The Minimalistic Homepage: About.Me

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 11:02:00 -0700

I am a big fan of minimalism and about.me seems like the one page website you would want to have. One page that carries your personality and vision. And here is mine: http://about.me/shalinjain

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Scary tag line & product description

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 23:57:32 -0700

You cannot be more explicit than that.

Do you think people buy your adjective and superlative filled tag lines?

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Two point something

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 22:05:00 -0700

Spotted a huge billboard on my way from Bangalore airport to the city that read Men 2.0. Looked like television series, um, on the just upgraded version of men?

Ever since the web got 2.0, everything else in the world is catching up upgrading their first version. Next iteration 3.0 is treated as fake and impossible. 2.0 here is to stay.

When was it last you noticed two point something?

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Memories of the beautiful city of Edinburgh

Sat, 16 Oct 2010 02:11:03 -0700

See the full gallery on Posterous

Permalink | Leave a comment »

11 Reasons Why I Switched from Wordpress to Posterous

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:43:53 -0700

I have had quite a few people ask me why I switched from Wordpress to Posterous. Thinking of it there are only a few reasons that triggered it. Having switched (in less than 4 hours of work) I realize there is more to it. Before I begin the list, I would like to clarify that this post is not about Wordpress vs Posterous. Wordpress is a great blogging system, feature rich, customizable and most business ready blogging system. So, here is why I switched my personal blog:

Security: One of the biggest pain managing a hosted wordpress account is the security. Since it is so popular, it is prone to frequent attacks. I realized I spent too much time in upgrades - core, plugin, themes. I started looking for hosted alternatives.
Missing Price Tag: Wordpress.com forgot to put a pricing for their hosted service that would work for custom domains. I tried desperately looking around but couldn't figure the pricing. I almost signed up for typepad but realized their templates were probably most awful. I was left with Tumblr & Posterous as my choices.
Following Convention: I prefer to follow Conventions over Configuration. Like, Rails (dumped PHP), Safari (dumped FireFox) and Posterous (wp).
Choices: Wordpress has too many choices (themes and plugins) and no editorial recommendations. I have spent so many hours looking at 100s of themes and then finally ended designing/writing my own. Paradox of choices and never been happy.
Built in push: Write once push everywhere as default feature in posterous impressed me.
As good as email: Post via email. Though Wordpress clearly has this feature for years it does not do a few things right - like handling media. I love the idea of posting using email. Somehow, on a mail client words flow faster than in any WYSIWYG editor. No login required to post.
Easy to import: Switching was easy. Thanks to both Wordpress and Posterous. Hard to procrastinate this decision if you made up your mind.
Minimalism: Posterous approaches blogging from a minimalistic perspective. Its simpler than tumblr. Both for management and the blog.
Mobile Ready: A nice little perk is your blog is mobile ready. I am not sure if all themes are mobile ready but I think a majority of them are.
In place updates: This would be a minor one but adding tags, deleting comments can be done while you are actually viewing the blog post.
Blog more often: I bought their story when they told me that I will be able to blog more often. And now time would tell.

Posterous is fun, clear and easy. If you have a hosted Wordpress installation on your custom domain, Posterous might be for you too.

No? Try: http://blog.posterous.com/top-five-reasons-to-switch-from-wordpress-to

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Wordpress to Posterous: The Missing Guide

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 23:13:00 -0700

Swtiching from Wordpress to Posterous is fairly straight forward and made easy by folks at Posterous. And if you are still looking for a reason to switch, read: Top 5 Reasons to Switch to Posterous

The import is actually pretty simple, export content from wordpress, upload the XML and posterous does the job. That's it. But here is something you might want to know/fix during the process.

Media: Ensure there is no missing media on your existing blog. Posterous imports everything permanently - any missing images, files will not get imported.
SEO: If you were on a custom domain earlier (self-hosted wordpress) you don't have to worry about SEO, Posterous will retain the URLs after import. Newer posts will only follow posterous convention.
Pages: The importer does not import your wordpress Pages, you still have to do it manually.
Comments: Make sure you clear your spam before import. Bulk spam detection and deletion is easier in wordpress.
Large Blog: If your wordpress blog is fairly large, export in batches. The importing at Posterous couldn't complete my 250+ post imports at once, so I had to break it to have it successfully import everything.
DNS: If your DNS is not managed my Domain Registration Service, you would need to make a A record change at your existing web host where your wordpress site is hosted. A good reason to retain your current web host is for the email service.

Enjoy the switch.

Permalink | Leave a comment »