Trying to make sense!

The Indian flag shines @ Riyadh

I decided to celebrate this Holi in Riyadh. Well, not really. But that is how it is. I somehow landed up here.

So what did I expect to see here? Actually no expectations. I did not realize that I am headed off to a desert until the plane touched the King Khalid International Airport @ Riyadh. You immediately notice the dryness and the desert. The airport was quite deserted, like the surroundings. Surprisingly, very few airport staff. The immigration counters were also deserted. I had to wait for sometime before I noticed a few people coming up to the counters. Since there were too many people in the general queue, I took a chance and got onto the Diplomats queue behind a few ’smarter-looking’ people. To my surprise, I was cleared off the immigration formalities without being asked anything. So far so good. I claimed my luggage which was lying off the conveyor belts and went for an additional luggage scan. Again the guy monitoring the scans seemed to be extremely cooperative and carefree. I just took my luggage and came out of the airport.

I got onto the taxi and once the taxi was out of the airport, the infrastructure looked as good as any other city in the world. I bet, in Riyadh, if you stay for a couple of days, you will notice all great cars under the sun.

So while we were cruising along the highway into the city, for a moment, I though I saw the Indian flag. I knew that couldn’t be the case. And again! I saw an Indian flag. And again! I didn’t believe. To my surprise, the Indian and Saudi flags were hoisted alternatively along the roadway into the entire city. What was going on? Was my visit so important? Kidding. But it was something I couldn’t comprehend. It was yesterday when I read the news that our beloved Prime Minister is here on a historic visit. And guess what, King Abdullah gave an unprecedented welcome to our Prime Minister along with his entire family. And the people here say, that this is, by far, the most warm welcome anyone has ever received by the King himself.

Good times to be in . More about Riyadh and SA later.

Never ever I have realized the importance of proper documentation until I decided to try out Shibboleth, an open source web single sin-on solution.

Shibboleth is supposedly the best open source alternative to achieve web single sign-on across applications, against more established enterprise offerings such as IBM’s Tivoli (TIM and TAM). While I do not intend to talk about the purpose of such solutions, I want to emphasize the importance of documentation for any product like this. It has been over a week that I have been trying to set-up a simple end-to-end SSO in my local environment using Shibboleth. But in the absence of proper documentation, it has turned out to be a nightmare!

Before I decided to adopt Shibboleth, I had very scary reviews about its complications. Almost everyone who had tried it mentioned that it is quite a complicated nut to crack.  Also, in spite of being the best offering, the adoption rate of Shibboleth does not sound great (at least in my knowledge).

Now, when I have gone through the entire process and close to get it running (well almost done!), I realize the root cause of the perception. The product seems good, but the documentation is horrible! It can confuse the hell out of you. In the absence of proper documentation, you are left upon your own to research through and get it up.

I am thoroughly convinced that a product/solution’s documentation is as critical as its architecture or features, UI or whatever. An OK product with a good documentation is better than a good product with bad documentation. Documentation can make or break your product!

Although I am myself not too good at it (more so out of less interest), hats off to all those people who are involved in great documentation and enabling people realize the product’s true potential.

I usually do not post my work related stuff. However, this one deserves a post!

Over the last couple of weeks, I got an opportunity to be a part of a demo, whose scale dwarfs all the projects I’ve been so far associated with (barring one during the early stage of my career). And the client was none other than the Indian Air Force!

My role in the entire solution was quite limited, so I got an opportunity to observe and understand what goes behind the scenes in such high net worth, high risk bids. The proposed solution spanned across various aspects of [...] Continue Reading…

Google Voice Dialer (courtesy TechCrunch)

Google and Apple certainly fall on the opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to the business philosophies.

Google is more of an open book while Apple is a closed one.

With ‘Google Voice’ being released last year, Google had created an iphone app for the same. However, Apple hadrejected it citing direct business conflicts with iphone’s core voice and messaging features (it could have been more of an AT&T decision):
Apple Is Growing Rotten To The Core: Official Google Voice App Blocked From App Store
Now Google responds with this:
Google Voice Does An End [...] Continue Reading…

The Free Reebok Watch!
Yes you read it right! Read this post all along and I will give you a free Reebok watch worth Rs. 2499/ 2599/ 2999.
Almost every other company is offering a free Reebok watch with their products/ services. It has been over a year now, and this has shown no signs of abatement. Interestingly you can get this for free even if you are buying products/ services for as low as Rs. 500 or so.

What’s wrong? What are the companies trying to sell? Their products or are they using Reebok’s brand to push their products? And [...] Continue Reading…