For the Love of Dosas at the House of Dosas (HoD)

Amazing. This place is amazing.

If you like dosas, you’re gonna love this place. Located in Banjara Hills (Hyderabad), quite close to RK Cineplex, ‘House of Dosas’ makes a perfect hangout destination after a movie at PVR.

Just as you enter, you’ll notice that this is one cozy place with very nicely and creatively done seating arrangements. There are table and chairs for groups on one side and high chairs and long table (like those found in bars) on the other. Just as you lift your eyes up the seating arrangement, you’ll notice a large number of colorful post its on the walls adding to the ambiance of the place. These have supposedly been put up by customers giving their reviews, recommendations, suggestions or just making a mark on the wall putting their names with their loved ones. Then there’s an open kitchen at the other end of the restaurant, so you can see as the deliciousness is being cooked.

I went to this place after my visit to PVR the other day. The plan was to take a small bite here and then take a wholesome meal somewhere else. But then after eating a bite here, we just couldn’t stop eating. We gave a start with the Podi dosa, this was the first time I was eating one. The dosas and chutneys were served in nice custom made plates and bowls. It looked like they were made out of some form of paper. Just above the table there were lamps hanging from the ceiling, making it look even better. Then we just kept eating more and more, ordered another Podi Dosa, then a Pizza Dosa, and then an Erra Karam Dosa, then….

To add a cherry on top, we had a Coconut Ice Cream from another shop nearby called House of Pops. Just after we were done eating, the owner of the place approached us. He appeared to be a nice, down to earth and a humble person. He told us about how he started the restaurant, how much effort he’s putting to make it an awesome place, which it is. He talked about everything from his financial to sentimental attachment to his business. Basically he talked a lot. But then we had to leave and get back to our place as it was already late night.

All in all, it’s an awesome place with yummylicious food and reasonable prices. Worth at least a visit if you’re at Hyderabad, or happen to visit anytime.

My experience with Uber

I had a pretty bad experience with the Uber cab service recently while I was returning from Bangalore.

I was going from my office in Bellandur to the Airport. My flight was at 5:45pm, and I called the cab for 3pm considering an extra hour if anything happens on the way. Actually, a lot happened.

On a ride that should have taken around 1 hour, it took me more than 2 hours to reach, because of which I missed my flight and had to pay huge amount for that.

First, the driver (Mallikarjuna) accepted the trip and then called me and said that he is not willing to go. Why did he even accept the trip if he was not willing to go?

Then, the next driver (Shyam) didn’t appear on time. Then he drove so slow like it was the slowest vehicle on the road. Then in the halfway, the car stopped, and he said it would take at most 2 min to start again. So, i waited. Even after me asking him if it would take more time, he didn’t inform me. Then he stopped the trip and asked me to get another cab. Why was he even driving the car, if it was not in running condition? Even if he was driving, he should have told me before the trip about that.

Then I tried to get another cab on Uber. Some driver (Ganesh) accepted. I called him multiple times, but he didn’t pick up the call. Then he said he would be reaching soon. Then after quite some time, he picked up and asked me to cancel the trip as it would take him a lot of time to come to the pick location. Why did he say that he would be reaching soon, earlier? And Uber charged me cancellation fee for this. What would you call such a service!

After all this, it was already late, so I picked up Airport taxi, and went straight to the Airport. Because of all this, I missed my flight and had to pay more than Rs 8,000 for that. Uber, you should be paying me back for this. Whose mistake do you think it is? That too multiple times.

Having such a experience, I would never recommend anyone use uber cabs. The other services might charge a bit more, but are far more reliable.

Virtualization vs Cloud Computing

“Cloud Computing” might be one of the most overused buzzwords in the tech industry, often thrown around as an umbrella term for a wide array of different platforms, services, and systems.

It’s thus not entirely surprising that there’s a great deal of confusion regarding what the term actually entails. This may be because cloud shares so much in common with virtualization technology.

Its not just the layman getting confused, even tech savvy people are not very clear about it. According to this post 70% of what admins term private cloud don’t even remotely fit the definition.

What constitutes cloud vs virtualization can be confusing, so lets get this straight.

Virtualization

While server virtualization is the industry standard, it is worth defining virtual data center, so that we can clearly see how it differs from a private cloud. Simply said, virtualization abstracts workloads from hardware. Taken further, this abstraction allows for the pooling of storage, network and compute resources that can be dynamically allocated on-demand. But a pool of centrally managed resources and automated provisioning does not make a cloud.

There are several different breeds of virtualization, though all of them share one thing in common: the end result is a virtualized simulation of a device or resource. In most cases, virtualization is generally accomplished by dividing a single piece of hardware into two or more ‘segments.’ Each segment operates as its own independent environment.

For example, server virtualization partitions a single server into a number of smaller virtual servers, while storage virtualization amalgamates a number of storage devices into a single, cohesive storage unit.  Essentially, virtualization serves to make computing environments independent of physical infrastructure.

You might be wondering that this sounds very similar to cloud computing. No wonder, as Virtualization is the foundation for a cloud.

Private Cloud

Virtualization is the foundation for a cloud. The best way to understand it is to think as if cloud computing is a service whose foundation is the technology Virtualization. Virtualization differs from cloud computing because virtualization is software that manipulates hardware, while cloud computing refers to a service that results from that manipulation.

Even many IT pros have trouble understanding exactly what a cloud is and whether they need one, given the generous use of the word “cloud” in today’s market. In many cases, vendors eager to capitalize on the cloud craze simply rebrand existing products with the word “cloud,” a practice called cloud washing.

the NIST says cloud computing is a model for enabling on-demand network access to a shared pool of resources that can be rapidly provisioned with minimal effort or interaction. In order to be called a cloud, under this definition, your infrastructure must have five essential characteristics.

  1. On-demand service
  2. Broad network access
  3. Resource pooling
  4. Rapid elasticity
  5. Measured service, or pay-per-use model

If you’re looking at what appears to be a server environment which lacks any of these features, then it’s probably not cloud computing, regardless of what it claims to be. Simply calling your virtual infrastructure a private cloud doesn’t make it so. Its quite common for people to see clouds when there are none.

Do you really need a private cloud?

Now, as we know what actually virtualization and private cloud means, it would be easier to decide whether we actually need a Private cloud. In addition to the confusion about what cloud is, there are also a lots of confusions about what private cloud has to offer.

Many people think that getting a private cloud is about cost savings. The real benefits come from self-service, resource tracking and the flexibility to meet changing resource demands — all of which may or may not bring about cost savings.

The decision solely depends on whether the benefits a cloud provides, are really going to help you in any way, will it improve your services or make managing them easier. Deploying to cloud only because of the cool benefits it offers would not be a very good idea.

I mean, if you have or can get an infrastructure, that can easily cater to your needs and cover your use cases, but is missing some point to be able to be called a cloud, so what! Then probably, you don’t need a private cloud! Why get it just for the sake of getting it!

If self-service, resource tracking and the flexibility to meet changing resource demands is what you need, then private clouds are the way to go!

 

Have an Idea!! Where to start?

You have a killer idea for some app (web or mobile or anything), but don’t have a clear idea where to start.

You know the signs. You can’t stop thinking about it as you fall asleep at night.  Your mind wanders back to it when you know you should be doing your assignments. Sometimes even watching movies feels like a distraction. You can’t help but you feel like there is something waiting to be done by you, there is some space for you reserved on the internet waiting to be deployed by that killer idea. You have the killer idea but you can’t put it to rest until you build it. You have only a little idea about development and have no idea how to get started.

The important thing to remember is that whatever you feel inspired to build, you should build it now. Just start. – Execute

Iterative loop.
Minimize total time through the iterative loop.

Validation

Well, the most important thing I think that you should start out with is validating your idea. Before you even think about spending a whole lot of time on it, you should first ask yourselves the question that how unique your idea is? Does it really solve a problem? Does it make someone’s life easier? Before you get too excited and start spending your time and resource, you should first validate if there’s really a need for it.

The best way of doing that, according to me is sharing it with as many people as possible. Don’t ask people who are definitely going to appreciate it no matter what. Ask people who will be true to it, and preferably the people who will be influenced by the idea. You can also create a landing page for your product or service and see how many people sign up and are really interested in it. That might give you a rough estimate of the validity of idea.

The category of App

One more thing that needs to be clarified is that “what the app is about?”. How are people going to use it? Is is going to be a web app, an android app, an iOS app or all at once? Its usually difficult to design considering all at once. You should concentrate on one platform, but keeping in mind the possibility to branch in future as it might affect your design.

Technology

The next question comes out to be, what technologies am I gonna use to build it? This will drastically affect how you are going to proceed. If your app is going to store any data on the web, then you should consider service oriented architecture. What that means is that you develop your system such that information and functionality are available over the web as service calls that any app or program can make and use.

Web Development
Key aspects of web application development

If you are considering a web app, you can go with the conventional LAMP stack, or the newer MEAN stack, or any other option that exists. The decision is important and should be taken in the beginning as it would be difficult if you decide to change the platform later.

Imagine your idea involved videos being deployed for the users. You might make the mistake of tightly integrating you r website with the database of videos, and each video might be returned decorated with JavaScript, HTML, etc. to make it look perfectly the way you want. Now if you want to use the same videos in your mobile app, this all can do anything.

Instead, the better approach would be to break down the data into simple format (usually JSON) and serve that to whoever wants it, whether it is web client, mobile app, or game console, or whatever. Also if you expect your database to grow exponentially, then you might wanna consider NoSQL database such as MongoDB.

Investment

There is only a little bit of investment involved that wouldn’t hurt you. You definitely need a computer to code. Better computers make it a bit faster but not a big deal. If you want to go into iOS app, then you need  a Mac. Other than that the toold used for development are usually free. Registering and hosting apps on web or app store costs you some amount of money per month or per year.Google Play charges you a one time fee of $25. If you know that your idea is great then it should be of least concern to you.

Now, grab a cup of coffee and start development!!

After you have decided what you going to make and what you are going to use to make it, its time to start out on the project. You might wanna consider getting help from other people who are already good at these skills. After setting your goal and timeline for the development, start the implementation on some version control system (I would suggest git). Now its time to show the world what you have got!! Happy journey ahead.

Let me know in the comments section below if you have made something cool.

Bonus content

If you are starting out on web development then here’s a nice video to start out with

Hello world!

I have lately been thinking of writing blog. Earlier I started with Blogger but I didn’t like it much. There is very little customization possible there (a post coming soon on the comparison). Even other platform like WordPress.com are limited in some way or the other. What I wanted was full control over my site. I wanted it to be my personal blog. The service WordPress.com lets you get started with a new and free WordPress-based blog in seconds, but varies in several ways and is less flexible than the Open Source WordPress you download and install yourself. So, I went with WordPress.

Welcome to the blog.

Myself Aseem Patni. If you don’t already know me, you can visit my site to know more about me or mail me

So, this blog is mostly going to be about technology, programming, and maybe also my experiences and learning. I might get some random ideas at some random times, so there may be some off-topic posts.

I believe in sharing information with others. I want to share things that matter. So, this is my platform for doing the same. You can expect regular juice for your technical lust here. Please feel free to comment and share the posts. Your feedback is really appreciated.