anyways...

Recently on twitter I read tweets about a book from a twitter contact. The name of the book is "Start with why", by Simon Sinek. It has intrigued me and while driving to and from work, and while thinking on all mundane stuff, I've started thinking with a why, and often times, try to question why, "why", while i am thinking on the stuff too?

It has been a good thought journey in these 2 days since i have read about the book's title & the intro note about the book by Simon Sinek himself, reading it will lay the base map in your mind too, of the stuff I am talking here. The intro note can be read here.

Thinking of all the stuff, I came across a tweet by @davidcrow, about a video clip of a Stanford university class lecture on creative out-of-the-box thinking. Sincethe clip was short, I asked David for a link of the full clip. David was prompt. I watched the link in many parts from office, re-winding and watching it over again overlapping a small portion every time. The clip was very inspiring and gave me the energy and thought threshold which all of us need, but never appears at the top of our list. Anyways after watching the clip, I thanked David for the wonderful resource, and wrapped up work to leave for home.

That night, at a family get-together, instant 3-word short blast of talk from the clip kept playing in my head. I was thinking how we all, just live by the tested and stable, and which is why dont appreciate or understand risks in entirety. The night ended, Bacardi did its job, shut-off my engine & I went to bed.

Woke up at 6 o' clock, the phone alarm is mute and testing my body-clock again today. Its a little proud feeling, my first win of the day, "there, i beat the clock" I tell myself, again today. Its just been a few days with this new body-clock thing working with me, and its a good feeling. Anyways...

This morning, at work, when things are usually slow, I checked my email which led me to my facebook page, in there, at the right side alerts scrolled, about all the people in my network, whom I haven't communicated for a while. Amongst them was my younger brother, Rahul too. Rahul, had his birthday on Oct 25th. While we spoke on phone and I wished him on his birthday, I never really took the time out, to reach him online. So, in facebook, I saw the wall posting by his friends and colleagues. I realized being brothers, how different we were & recently the increased distanced between us. It was nostalgic. Basically the point here is; little perhaps, but continuous communications is still better then, once a month, 1 hour telephonic chat!

Moving on from that thought, I realized in my own opinion on why people write autobiographies, and what it really says out loud. I felt that they write it to primarily tell people whom they lived, loved and liked, of their importance in their lives. To "thank you" in writing to all and for it to stay there for years to come. Maybe, also to kill the thoughts, of "I didn't lived it properly, I wish I would have done/not-done that..." and why not?! It's their last chance to confess to themselves and to re-emphasize things they did and why.

Also part reason of my blog is this too...

Anyways, so it has been a mix of thinking on the "why's" of the life and things while balancing it with life and love itself. So, Rahul, bhai, I love you, always had and always will.

I might have won against the messenger (my clock) but not the time itself. So, save yourself from writing an autobiography!to all other then Rahul, check the book out, get inspired and love.


Food for though: The one who said: "Pen is mightier then the sword", might have said that after testing out everything with the sword, not pen. ;)

Tech Days Toronto - mettles tested & knowledge ionized

Tech Days Toronto wrapped up, all well, house full with 1200+ folks from all walks of life!, on Sep 30th @ the Metro Toronto Convention Center (MTCC). I took a good long break and now am back to blog about it.

This article is going to be a long read. The train will run off-course thru the fields and sometimes on track too. There, I warned you!

It has been a very learning and blessed experience for me. I still recall the day 1, on Sept 29th, when I started out to the venue from the Go station in Cooksville, as the train ride would give me ample time to think on stuff while avoiding downtown Toronto traffic and parking worries. Among other things, I was also trying to think how it would all go, trying to look at it from a future point of view, as if what was going to happen was past. It was day 1 of 2, in my life when the gravity of things increased as if someone had placed a paperweight on my fabric-of-life. Everything gravitated in right there.

Entering the MTCC and all the way to the Speakers' Room was a breeze, glad I had the Speaker badge hanging off my neck :). There in the room I met Rodney Buike, who was the Track lead for the Windows Client track. Rodney & I were off to the presentation room upstairs to install s/w, demos and load VMs to the latest high-end Dell laptop which was nicknamed "Dellosaurs" by the team. While on our way up, saw Rick Claus, walking with other folks putting things together.


This reminds of the time I first met Rick. My first face-to-face with Rick was at the Windows 7 event at the MSHQ Mississauga early this year, where Rick was on the stage speaking to all of us (attendees). Rick's looks reminded me of my school friend Mukesh Bisht. Same intelligent looks, same style and sharpness of mind, I was amazed. I felt very comfortable instantly and went ahead to speak with him, after he finished speaking on stage. While Rick, treating me as every other attendee who would have some questions, asked me to ask questions I might had. I on the other hand, just wanted to say "hi" for the moment, tell how great the event was & how much he resembled my school friend. Well, that certainly didn't happened, so I ended up asking about his hat, and how similar it was to the hunter Van Pelt in the movie Jumanji. So, Rick laughed and then told me that the hat was actually a Tilley hat, known for it's lifetime warranty and endurance.

I instantly became a fan of this sharp, smart, fluent-public-speaker-geek, who came out so warmly even to people like me.

Alright back to TechDays now; So, after all was set-up with the Dellosaurs, I ran downstairs to the welcome and keynote hall to grab some breakfast first & then to listen to the keynote/welcome address. Was thrilled and excited to see the crowd of Tech geeks & how they got-together with their peers on the round dining tables spread across the hall & started out chit-chatting while grabbing something to eat after the welcome keynote. Met Rick there again, while he was manning the stage. Man, this guy was everywhere!

Back in Speakers' Room, everyone was sitting there around a huge rectangular table with their laptops heating it up, working their way thru the slides and demos. I joined them and thus my day started out.

Few minuted later, Day 1 Session 1 was about to begin, & being a bollywood fan, I didn't wanted to miss out on it (1st day 1st show)! Next, I was standing in the Windows Client hall, jam-packed, people standing as the seats were all occupied. The CMS guy I met a day earlier, Christopher Diachok, was standing on stage with his hands folded at back, giving a sharp MIB look. I waved at him and let him steal the show. Chris was sharp, went smooth and in-control & took 2 sessions back to back. The guy had a sore throat, when he met me back at the Speakers' room. Nice down to earth guy, never knew he had so many Microsoft designations behind his name.

After Diachok's first session, I was on my way back to the Speakers' room to work on my presentation, on my way, I could see attendees around the "ask the expert" zones, queing up their "asks" :)

My session was on Day 2, and it went well. So, was I told by the session attendees! Anyways, all this long story short, guess what I want to say is, Microsoft TechDays is a knowledge-jam-packed event, & you will be surprised to know, after you attend events like this are:
1. there's at least handful of horses running faster and quicker then youself!
2. interacting with other attendees gives you more insights into existing issues and more resources to learn
3. the geeks at Microsoft have a lighter side as well, you will be glad to share your stories with them, and they will complete the rest :)
4. the msdn goodies are worth it!
5. maybe if someones' eye catches you, you could be very well presenting a session next time!

You might want to have a look at the TechDays picture I clicked, posted on flikr here.



A solid piece of article stays at TechNet Blogs:
http://blogs.technet.com/canitpro/archive/2009/10/09/microsoft-techdays-toronto-2009-wraps-up.aspx

TechDays Canada 2009

Microsoft Tech Days Canada 2009 is scheduled beginning September 09. Early bird registration is still available, which means you pay $299 instead of $599.

Its an awesome event, from all the exposure I've got of it till now. It's a 2 day event full of 40 amazing sessions, divided in 5 tracks, covering 7 cities throughout Canada. It gives an excellent opportunity to soak stuff first-hand, and not-to-mention the marvelous opportunity to network with Microsoft Pro community members, & like-minded IT professional just like you.

What you take home with you is;

• a TechNet Plus subscription, giving you - Full-version software for evaluation - without time limits – including Microsoft operating systems, servers, and Office System software along with a free subscription to TechNet Magazine among other goodies
  
• first-hand exposure to all the new and enhanced stuff with exposure to the community
  
• business cards of the people you networked with!
• advantage of knowing tools and technology and pursuing it before it hits the market this fall.
  

It's confirmed & am excited and to be a part of this awesome event as a speaker on one of the Windows client session topic. More will flow to you, keep checking techdays.ca for information.

Whenever something like this is going to happen, I tend to think it from the points in time where it is actually happening & after it has happened! (Call it parallel universe, as per Joey deVilla's line-of-thought) I drive my thoughts from those future points in time to see how I need to be placing myself now, whats my line of action which will lead me to the finish point, what attitude/skills it asks for, enabling me to make it to the point in time, I want me in.

This theory actually comes from a yoga technique, as I was told about, which tells to look back at things from the point in time you want it to reach or attain, and then from there, walk backwards to your current position in time. This will help you make decisions more accurately and will give you a clearer picture of the path that needs to be followed.

Well, for now, I ask you to do the same with your existing point-in-time status, see for yourself how TechDays can turn things around for you! Give it a thought... ! :)


Namaste!


Kamlesh Chandra

The case of Cloud computing

First when I read about the cloud computing buzz, i thought of it something related to the network intricacies. Then I read about it further, online and at various technical blogs, and realized it isn't the case.

People wrote about it from various viewpoints... risk transference, data integrity controls, handing over your confidential data to the big brother and so and so forth...

To get a grip of cloud computing you may want to visit Kai Axford's blog Kai is is a Senior Security Strategist in Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Group. His is the blog I follow regularly along with Mark Russionovich's.

From a hypothetical point of view, my view towards the cloud is that, it could eventually lead to layers of the internet. I had read about this when web 2.0 was coined. There were articles which first talked about it. Vint Cerf, the father of the internet himself opposed the idea and had said that the net was there to be free and available.

Building upon what I read then, I think in long run something along these lines will be implemented. We have cloud computing coming up, we also have the "red dog" - the cloud utility platform from Microsoft coming out. And we have SaaS (Software as a Service) & PaaS (Platform as a Service) too. Am just wondering what the ecosystem will be of all these technologies coming and fitting into a system!

On a lighter note, this parallel thing reminds me of Deepak Chopra's statement in one of his lectures about how parallely things happen in the universe, all of which contribute in their own way and lead one to another.

Right now, I feel, this as an attempt to unify access to data; bring coherence to all the parts (data, controls, service and providers); and also feel that this has been going around for some time now!

Perhaps we are right now exactly in the beginning of the next big techical leap!
here's the visualization; I guess everyone has seen the movie "Terminator 2", remember the scene when the T1000 walks in liquid Nitrogen, freezes up, and shatters to small pieces when Arnold fires at him saying "Asta-lavista-baby!" ... and then when temperature rises, all the parts starts melting down and joining to one-another, until the whole thing comes together in liquid on the floor and forms the T1000 back!..... i feel maybe this is the parts uniting stage, technologically!

Disclaimer: i might be wrong too.... ;)

Singularity University !

Wow! now it has stopped... the churning of my mind! I came here to write about this University, but thoughts kept brimming, and to save them from over-flow, i placed them here. If they make u laugh, awesome. If they make u think, that you think likewise too... then ping me back !

Singularity University is (directly from their website http://singularityu.org/about/):
"Singularity University, based on the NASA Ames campus in Silicon Valley, is an interdisciplinary university whose mission is to assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies (bio, nano, info, AI, etc.), and apply, focus and guide these tools to address humanity’s grand challenges."

Since this is a new start-up, I expect this to evolve to a place where you can go, with your thoughts and ideas, and evolve them into grand solutions for grand challenges. And, expect it to not only invite leaders, but to anyone who has the interest and thinking potential for it!

Just like, you don't find a problem in your code and someone else does, likewise, a fresh new-mind can learn and see things differently and find problems and solutions, compared to a conditioned mind, which is sunk deep into the topic.

Links:
Singularity University: http://singularityu.org/
Singularity on Picasa: http://picasaweb.google.com/singularity.univ

..............

dreamer...

...
Alright, before I go ahead, sometimes I have pondered on why and how, I think so much and dream so much. I mean literally "dream". Well, most have laughed on my nap taking skills. When I am doing nothing, I hibernate, un-intentionally ! And, in my dreams I have seen most amazing things otherwise un-thinkable. I have seen a complete movie, a complete live and running story, of characters i haven't read or was told about! So, I had a thought, on when I will be able to attend a skool where I could go-in and enrich my thoughts, share them, challeneg them and bring out the best in me. A skool where, my physics or maths grade would not make me feel holding-on-tight!
What I am today, is what values more then what I was in my skool. For, those who were best in that time, have conditioned themselves into specifics of things. I on the other hand maybe still have an open-mind, and a mind which is sparking. Maybe its time to pull the cord, or turn the key... and start it run !

I know what most will say... ;p

Following is the link to a video worth watching about, changing education paradigm:

....

Singularity !

On one hand: it appears like the diversity of people in this world is coming to a halt! That's pretty alarming! It questions the survivability of human kind.

We have all the intellectuals, philosophers, students, strategists and what-nots all around. As if we are not reaching closer to the unknown but more farther from it! and therefore the word "singularity". Singualrity is defined as; "A point in space-time where its curvature becomes infinite. Big Bang is an example of a singularity."

My focus is on the word "infinite", for it tells me, again the closer we think, the farther we are from the unknown, and the input reason is, because our evolution has almost come to a halt.

As the modern science puts it; It all started with a single-cell organism, which was a female by deafult, and there were no other sex, yes, no "male" sex. They would after a process and period of time would reproduce. Survival was not a requirement, coz they all survived. Then with changing environment and time, it split into male and female celled organisms. Reasoning provided was, of survivalability! If the cells split to male and female, then they would be able to go "out" and reproduce with other cells, and the off-springs would be more diverse and adapt to the changing environment and also coz this would neutralizes an issue in the DNA structure of one organism with the others and vice-versa.

Now, after so many permutations and combinations, I am starting to feel that we have run out of numbers and therefore diversity!

By streamlining humans to one-kind-of-wisdom, we have in a way killed their unknown abilities or discoveries, which they would have done. Maybe we could taught them on how to learn, instead of making them learn by the book, and only learn 5 subjects in 1 year! I maybe be completely wrong, and maybe I might contradict myself in the coming times, but this reminds me of "Osho", who said in one of his lectures that "one who keeps learning has to contradict himself not once but many times...."





On a lighter note, mayebe we need to mutate and need to make aliens arrive ! who knows... (the long ears might be listening in) :)

I also liked: Osho http://skashliwal.wordpress.com/category/random/