Personal blog of Prasad Ajinkya
At 13 Llama Studio, we have no qualms of handing over the code base and giving away the ownership of the code to the client. The way I figure it is this –
Since most of the work we do is based on derivative works under the GPL license, the source code by default needs to be included as part of the deliverable. Yes, we build multiple interesting things with WordPress, but WordPress as a platform is under GPL.
I have been playing DOTA2 for about a year and a half now. Ever since it was available on Steam, and the multitude of patches that came in. For the past 3-4 months, one thing that I have seen in the DOTA2 community is the hype of Techies.
It’s been a tumultuous month at 13 Llama Studio. We recently shifted to a new office and are currently handling multiple projects … projects where someone has to bleed to take it to its logical conclusion. I do not mind the bleeding, as long as I manage to do a job well done in my mind (more on this later, this requires a heartfelt post). Here’s what I have been reading and bookmarking in the past few days months.
A great metaphor on how the publishing industry is changing. The folks at CopyBlogger are always a constant source of inspiration and ideas for budding bloggers. However, this story also talks about how the publishing industry is slowly changing. The Great Gate used to be publishing houses and authors used to clamor to get their books published.
With internet and blogging, all of this has changed, and now power is back to we, the people!
The story of how the developer has become so central in the new paradigm of a tech enabled organization is strongly aligned to how I have seen my own career progression. It’s a great piece on how Cloud technologies are giving better results than Enterprise Software (which is often considered slow and bloated).
Here is an article from the other side, the Enterprise. Link this article with the one I just shared above and you will see the fear of Enterprise Architects and software providers who supply to Enterprises. So what is the Enterprise’s answer to Cloud computing … a private cloud of course!!
Does that help cut costs, well if you work at it, you might get operational efficiency, however the Total Cost of Ownership is always high. The way things have been running are changing, and agencies which rely on businesses have to follow suit.
Moz has not only become the go to community for Search Engine Optimizers, but also for all things related to increasing traffic via organic methods (read not PPC).
The article shares how to go about understanding the people who visit your site. It’s fairly indepth and requires for you to study it .. yes not read, but study! I’d suggest 1 skim while at work, and then a slow line by line comprehension when alone and free from interruptions.
There are days when that sound is the most appreciated.
Desperately trying to keep this series to a one a month affair, so that my blog does not look like a link farm … eep! I am even afraid to type that … but I have to say this .. I don’t want my blog to end up being a link farm. There I said it!!
Having said that, there were quite a few articles which I wanted to share this month!
Computer.org put together this list of algorithms which had the greatest influence in the 20th century. Now, that’s a lot to think about … some of the algorithms which are mentioned, I had studied as a student! I would not say cutting edge, however, they did have a huge impact.
Funny, I did not see the Y2K or the Bubble Sort algorithm (which every green gilled programmer ends up using).
I am a big fan of Darren Rowse and the words of actionable wisdom he shares on ProBlogger. Every blogger wants comments on his posts and although I haven’t had much comment love from you folks, I would still prefer genuine comments as opposed to spammy comments from Black Hat SEO agents.
In this post, ProBlogger teaches how to correctly post comments on popular blogs. It’s a great way to get noticed, start interacting with like minded people and get some trickle down traffic on your blog.
In India, Google has a huge 97% market share in search engines. That’s huge! If you have been an internet user in the past month or so, you would have noticed a slew of Ads on Google Search. Warming and touching this Ad reminds us of how we use search and how Google search is now accessible for mobiles.
I am not going to give the answer away, read this article on Medium!
Starting an organization is difficult. Especially when you have to arrange the financial support to aid your endeavour. This article on Edupristine helps us in finding different ways in which one can raise money to fund their venture.
This article is close to me for personal reasons as well .. not only have I worked with this organization, but also I am trying to start an organization and this article has come of use already!
Step aside Big Data, there is a new buzzword in town … it’s Deep Learning!!
Yes, we already have Neural Networks, and Machine Learning … Deep Learning goes a step further. Do take some time and read this. It’s on the climbing slope of the Hype Cycle right now. If you can talk more about it, it will get you noticed 
It is not often when students talk in awe of their teachers. I have been fortunate to have met such teachers … some of whom I have already mentioned in the past.
In this case, the university staff were on a strike, but the professor still went on to teach his class and emailed them in advance to come attend that lecture. It’s a heartfelt email where the professor brings the focus on the value one must place on education and how individuals should look at learning.
On 16th April 1853, India’s first passenger train journey began. It started from Bori Bunder in Mumbai, all the way up to Thane. This was a distance of 32 km, wherein 3 coaches were hauled by the engine. Thus started rail transport in India.
This piece of history came to my notice not because of the local channels, but due to it being covered prominently by international websites such as Google (see their Doodle above) and the detailed article on Wikipedia.
What started off as India’s first passenger train journey, is now a multi-crore business and one of the few profitable industries run by the Government of India. Some of this credit needs to be given to Laloo of course, however what works for the railways is the availability of transport, the cost and it’s efficiency.
I recently traveled from Mumbai to Baroda in the Rajdhani express, and although the quality of food being served has declined over the past decade, the service and efficiency of things have gone up. The entire journey is orchestrated with your travel and you can even predict which course will be served to you with the station that is approaching. So all in all, I would say we have gone quite far since India’s first passenger train journey.
Kudos to the Indian Railways!
I know Mahul through CrazyEngineers (CE), and was in touch with him recently with regards to changing the link to my blog (was getting a fair amount of 404s!). During this time, I chanced upon one interesting post he had written on Inequality and Fairness.
In fact, to a certain degree, I agree with Ayn Rand’s theory of objectivism, and agree with the concept of the free market in principle. I am the firmest believer that people should not be given anything for free, because it acts as a deterrent to motivation to work hard, which, at the end of the day, is what creates value in a society. In principle, everyone should have an equal opportunity to succeed in a free market, and whatever product holds the greatest value should be the one to succeed.
Here’s an excerpt from the post, I (go on, read the rest of his post in the link I provided, then come back and read this counter post!).
In real life, there are no ideals. There are no whites and blacks … there are 50 shades of grey :-)
People do not get equal opportunities, because those opportunities are the fruits of their predecessors. Mr. Anil Ambani is living in such an abode, because of the efforts of his father (who came from very humble beginnings). How he managed to get there is a different story … but lets not write-off those efforts which ensured that his children get better opportunities than the common man.
The beggar on the street is getting no opportunities not only because of his circumstances, but also because of his lineage.
In a real free market however, this is hardly the case. Because the humble 5 rupee lemon soda, though holds more value, is significantly less likely to succeed.
The humble 5 rupee lemon soda does not come with an international FDA approval. Pepsi, Coca-Cola and other pesticides do :-)
Sometimes, it’s the overheads which have to be set off. It might be true that the concentrate costs INR 1 to produce, however if you add the advertising, marketing, inventory and distribution costs on top of it … not to mention the corporate salaries … then INR 10 does not seem that high. What’s more important that people are willing to purchase it at that price point.
As a service/commodity provider, I would always go for value based pricing! Which is what a true real free market would behave like. However, we are in no real free market … there is a regulatory body and the price is capped at the Maximum Retail Price (MRP).
Life is not fair, people are not equal.
Your efforts will pay dividends for your descendants … and other people will say that they are lucky and life is not fair :-).