Off to Bentota Beach in Sri Lanka

I am making a side trip to this beach resort in Southern Sri Lanka for a few days. Depending on the internet connectivity there you may see some posts or piccs on my flickr feed. http://www.flickr.com/photos/drbeachvacation/

Cheers!

Hyderabad.aero

The Hyderabad airport is very impressive, I am told that currently it is one of the best airports in India. What I liked about this airport/

a) The paid porter service at a fixed rate. ( I always was weary of the free service which always resulted in a bargaining match for tips)

b) Baggage was very quick.

c) The airport runs coaches from the city to the airport and costs Rs.150 ( about $4)

d) The airport uses a domain name that makes so much sense. hyderabad.aero . imagine being able to find your airport by just typing the .aero domain extension.

Now I hope I can say the same thing 5 years from now. :)

FaceBook or Yaari Indian Social networks

I read the article Cyber campus by Jhilmil Motihar in the India Today (July21st issue) with great interest. In India many users join popular Social Networks like Orkut, Facebook and also Indian Social networks like BigAdda, Yaari, ApnaCircle, Minglebox, Jhoom, ibibo, Desimartini, ilaaka.

I am a member of ibibo.com and have heard of BigAdda because that is where all the Bollywood film people like Amitabh Bachan have their blogs. The India today article is a good read. How many of these Indian Social networks will survive? When will people in India  catch on to Ning.com and have their own personal/family social networks at almost no cost?

FaceBook Local ads in India

I am sitting in Hyderabad India on vacation and I am looking at my Facebook page and I am happy to see my Feeds have sponsored ads from India. This is a no brainer but then my thrill comes from the fact that Indian advertisers are on Facebook.

The ad that I got on my feed was for naukri.com an Indian job site and the ad on the left bar with a picture is for Hotel Polo Towers in Shillong in India.

I have had that Facebook advertising is not as successful Stateside even though the ad rates are very low( I may be completely wrong). I am wondering how the Indian advertisers are faring. Do you know the answer? Please comment here.

 

Thanks.

Summize and Twitter

I was pleasantly surprised to see my bookmarked URl for Summize.com suddenly become http://search.Twitter.com . Twitter has bought Summize. Cheers ! to both the companies. Twitter's search sucked and when Summize came up with a great search interface Twitter bought them. Great move. Of the services for Twitter search that I used Terraminds, Tweetscan and SUmmize, I liked summize and stuck to it . I look forward to new features and a continuation of the Summize roadmap.

My Laptop Powers off without explanation

I now wish I had brought my work laptop a IBM T42 instead of the HP Pavilion dv5000. I just lost my 4th blog post I was composing as the laptop powered off without any notice. last year with the T42 i never had this problem. Granted this year its very hot here but from a company lie HP I would expect a better way to handle the heat issue. This is my 2nd version of this blog post as the last one I lost again due to the shutdown. I guess I will have to grin and bear it for the rest of this trip.

Anyone else having such an issue with HP laptops?

Thank God my Phone has Internet

I wondered where it would make sense to browse the web on your phone than your PC. I found the perfect use case. I am in a place called Warangal and the Internet connectivity on my laptop data card is abysmally slow. On the other hand my N95 with a Airtel SIM card and GPRS Internet turned on lets me go through my email comparatively faster.

Getting a phone connection in India is very easy. You have to provide proof of who you are and where you stay. Plans vary a lot ad so do the charges. In order to have my internet on I just send a SMS message everyday and I get unlimited browsing on my phone for about 50 cents.

There were over 100M cellphone subscribers in India in 2007 and its likely to exceed 350M by 2010. That makes it a market larger than the US which currently is at 255M.

Lots of things to say how things work in the Indian cell phone marketplace.For now its very different that the US cell phone market

My Flickr pics are going places

My friend Michelle Riggins of Batch Blue alerted me that one of my pics made it to the Pop!Tech magazine article http://www.poptech.org/blog/index.php/2008/07/03/consumer-reports-glimpses-of-futures-past/. Wow atleast some of my pics are famous:)

if you want to take a look at my Flickr feed :http://www.flickr.com/photos/drbeachvacation/

Web 2.0 and Customer Service for Small Business - Saul Colt

Saul came over to Network Solutions this week to discuss the world of Web 2.0 and small business. Keeping his presentation light and humorous we found out that he is an avid collector of Nike Air Force One’s (cool Basketball shoes), he loves cupcakes and wears funny t-shirts.

read more | digg story

Swami on vacation

Swami on vacation
Originally uploaded by shashiBellamkonda

I am on vacation for 4 weeks in India. I am looking forward to this trip and along with taking time off I plan to catch up on some blogging. Does that sound like a vacation?

Where are you going for a vacation this summer? Would love to get links and comments.

Dad Where did you get the pop corn ?

Barber Shop

9729 Traville Gateway Dr
Rockville, MD 20850 (301) 251-2891

On Yelp you will find a review I did on the Barber Shop in Traville gateway center in Rockville . I love the place. Now you are asking yourself - What can be different in a barbershop? I actually look forward to going here. Dimitri who I think is the owner takes care of you. I know they use warm foam when they are almost finished to scrape any left over hair which is very soothing. They provide great conversation and best of all you can sit and eat pop corn or take it away when you leave.

That is what I did today  and my kids loved the popcorn. Guess which barber shop they will suggest to anyone who asks them?

I would normally have this review on my blog http://eatcurry.blogspot.com. I decided to write it here because it relates to social media and the talk that Rohit Bhargava gave at Network Solutions.

Rohit has several examples in his book " Personality Not Included" and after reading the book i am trying to recollect the personalities in businesses that I remember  from Mani at the book store in Bangalore airport to the the nice perosn at Travelers insurance ( can't remember her name now) there are a lot of people we meet in businesses that make an impact on us.

Today at the Traville barbershop Dimitri had a day off so I settled for the popcorn !

Visiting the Digital Dentist - Small Business blog post for 07/01/2008

3 years ago I blogged about Maryland Dental and today I found myself once again in the patient's chair. As Dr. Daney was poking me with sharp objects the only thing in my mind was - How do I blog about this? Obviously I couldn't hold the N95 and point it to my teeth. Even if the logistics were impossible who would want to see me scream ?

So I did the next best thing got Dr. Daney on video after the cleaning was done.

Paperless office wow, here is a green dentist :) If you are in the DC area specially Maryland and are looking for dentist I would recommend Dr. Shoba Daney.

You also get SWAG when you finish

How is your experience with your dentist? What do they do that is different from other dentists?