New Year… Renewed Commitment

Prague Astronomical Clock
Prague Astronomical Clock – 2008

Change, it is said, is the only constant. Nothing but time can best exemplify the notion. So, as clock ticks and calendar changes and we enter 2012, it is time to change some things – for the better.

I have often created lists of things that I intend to do better year after year. I have been successful at times in forming those good habits and making them part of my life. This time around, I am ditching the lists altogether and trying to extend the motto of my life from last year – keep it simple – into this year and hopefully beyond. There are no big resolutions, just three simple things…

  1. Workout regularly
  2. Create simple goals
  3. Blog often

Am hoping I’ll be successful without any list this time. Here’s to 2012!!

Failure to deliver and respond – Willow.TV

Since my last trip to India in the Fall of 2010, I’d been wanting to re-connect with the game that I grew up playing – Cricket. Coincidentally, 2011 happens to the be the year of the Cricket World Cup. For every Indian that I have come across there is only one thing that beats Cricket, Bollywood, maybe.

Anyhow, convinced that I will watch as many games as I can, especially over the weekend, given that most of these will start around mid-night here in the San Francisco Bay Area, I looked at the available options to watch these “live”. After a short review, Willow.Tv came across as an option that gave me the flexibility to watch it pretty much from any place that I could get network connectivity. So, I coughed out $129.00 to Willow.Tv which claims to be “… the largest broadcaster of Cricket in the United States and Canada since 2003…” on their website. Smooth credit card transaction and I was excited that I will get to finally watch India play co-hosts Bangladesh in the opening tie.

First delivery of the game was sent smashing to the boundary and I was really beginning to enjoy it. Third delivery had just been delivered and *poof* my screen went blank. I kept refreshing my browser (love Chrome by the way) and kept getting the “Service Unavailable” message. I kept my MacbookPro aside and went to iPad to see if that worked. Nope. Nada. Nothing.

What followed for the next 50 or so mins. (10 overs to be precise) was just disgusting and ridiculous at best. The site was not reachable at all and Twitter messages from other subscribers started to roll in from around the world. The Twitter handle of the Willow.Tv (@willowtv) and that of it’s CEO (@mysorepack) just failed to engage and respond to the angry (reasonably so) subscribers.

For a service that charges a premium ($129) to provide such a prestigious event and claims to be the only “official” provider to fail like this at the start of the event and not take any responsibility or provide a venue for subscribers to reach-out in case of issues is beyond comprehension.

I am personally going to write to Willow.TV and seek some refund for the “Loss-of-Service”. At the time of writing this (2:10 AM PST), my feed is working but I still see plenty of subscribers on Twitter not being to watch their country play in this opening match.

If there are other users who would like to join me in reaching out to Willow.Tv for redressal, I request you to leave your Twitter handles as part of the comments. Please feel free to provide your comments but refrain from abuse.

Addendum: Thanks for pointing the issue around HD stream @willowtvsux. Yes, we paid for that and are not getting that either. Another reason to take this matter to the next level.

Looking for a CTO

We are going full steam ahead with getting our startup off the ground. We are looking for someone to come join us at the ground level and take charge from a technical standpoint and together get to our next key milestone of launching the beta product.
We are looking for a web savvy individual who takes ownership and can work in a fast-paced environment. The person must have a solid, hands-on technical knowledge in the web domain. Some understanding of customer relationship management (CRM) systems will be great to have but not a requirement. If you have some RoR or Java, Javascript, AJAX, mySQL, CSS, HTML experience and would love to be a part of a startup that is set to disrupt the market landscape – please drop me an email with some information about your background or resume and contact information.

How A Web Design Goes Straight To Hell

Found this really interesting post about how the so called “experts” of their own business can influence (in a bad way) a decent design into something totally irrelevant and flat out wrong at times. All in the name of “I know what I am doing…”

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell

CREDIT: The OatMeal.Com

Govt. is all bad? Think again…

From Fark.Com Forum via Matt Linton on FB

“This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regualted channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my disease-free breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking my non-toxic vitamins which were approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time as regulated by the US congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I took my National Highway Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by the local, state and federal departments of transportation using the fuel I bought which was regulated by the environmental protection agency and currency regulated by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US postal service and drop the kids off at their public school.

After work I drive my NHTSA approved car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes, fire marshals’ inspection and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

Then I log into the internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and post on freerepublic.com and fox news forums about how SOCIALISM is evil and BAD because the government can’t do anything right.”

Beginning of a journey…

While numerous small steps and giant leaps have been taken in different domains, I never personally caught the fever of posting my thoughts as feverishly as I have always wanted, here’s to a beginning. And this time, I intend to take this far and be involved on a regular basis. Here’s to my beginning on WordPress and to the world of blogs.