வணக்கம் தோழா / नमस्ते दोस्त / Hello Buddy!

लोकाः समस्ताः सुखिनो भवन्तु

Lokāḥ Samastāḥ Sukhino Bhavantu
may all beings everywhere be happy and free, may the thoughts, words, and actions of my own life contribute in some way to that happiness and to that freedom for all.

I am Balakumar Muthu, an International Award-winning Entrepreneur, TEDx fellow, and Technologist, who received the Top 50 Asia Innovation Award from SingTel in Singapore, Red Herring Asia Award, Java Master Award conducted by Sun Microsystems and BenQ Siemens Germany and Top 100 Startups Award at NASSCOM Product Conclave (NCP).

With over 17 years of experience and strong expertise in Software Consulting, UI/UX Web Design, and Development. I specialize in architecting, designing, and building web applications to address both technology and business challenges across various domains, such as Software as a Service (SaaS), E-commerce, Usability, Cloud Computing, Enterprise Apps in Ed Tech, Retail Tech, Prop Tech, Med Tech, Freight/Logistics Tech, and Food Tech. Additionally, I have experience with Social Networking Services (SNS) and Blogging platforms (CMS/Wiki).

Early contributed member of World Wide Web Consortium (W3.org), W3C HTML 5 Working Group and Internet Society (ISOC) India Chapter.

Passionate about Indian and Japanese culture and philosophy, I am a practitioner of Hatha Yoga and an avid travel and culture photographer, documenting my journeys at CasualWalker.com.

You can ping me @ balakumar.muthu@gmail.com for all things exciting and engaging!

Awards & Recognitions, I have received


Awarded the "SingTel, Singapore - Asia's Top 50 Innovation Award” (winner lists) and the Winner of "Red Herring Asia Award" (finalists) for Technology Innovation.

My Startup was selected as one of the "Top 100 Startups" to get showcased at NASSCOM Product Conclave (NCP), Asia's largest platform for Product and Startup Companies to connect with Software Product leaders.

Selected at Google India - Interview as one of the Top 5 Finalists out of 16,000 + people applied. Created Google Kids – a search engine for kids prototype for demonstrating during my Google India Interview.

First Prize Winner of "Java Master Award " contest, conducted by Sun Microsystems and BenQ Siemens Germany.

Received Sun Microsystems Duke's Choice Awards - 10 Year Celebration of Java Technology and Sun Microsystems appreciation for my contribution to the early versions of Java Platform.

TEDx Fellow and Mentor for NurtureTalent Startup Boot Camp at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras.

My Previous Startup LoveLogger, the world's first Collaborative Blogging & Private Network for Pairs, which received a great response from Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and China. LoveLogger was awarded the “Asia's Top 50 Apps 2011 Award” (winner lists) from SingTel, Singapore. It was also featured in many popular magazines & portals from Japan, Korea, and China. This product was launched even before the current popular pair apps like Pairy, Between, Hey, Cupple.

Selected as the Official Honorary Reporter for the Korean Culture and Information Service of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

Early contributed member of World Wide Web Consortium (W3.org), W3C HTML 5 Working Group and Internet Society (ISOC) India Chapter.

My Expertise & specializations


I specializes in most aspects of Web business, including strategy, creative, design, development and it's growth. My strong expertise and experience includes Front-end development, UI/UX Design & Usability Expert, Branding, Content Management System (CMS), E-commerce, Software as a service (SaaS), Cloud Computing, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Singularity, Web Security, Firewall, User Onboarding, Typography, Developing Social Networking Platforms (SNS), Product Prototyping, SEO and Linux & Open Source Technologies.

My Personal Interests


I enjoy travel & photography, yoga, rock climbing, simple things — nature, reading. I love philosophy, art, culture, highly interested and passionate about the Indian, Korean & Japanese traditions, trying different flavors of tea, Wabi-sabi, Zen philosophy, making mistakes & learning from them, DIY hacks, and Western movies and Comics.

My Works featured at press / media


My works have been featured & covered by ZDNet Asia, Economic Times, British Council India, Times of India (TOI), Citizen Matters, Yahoo! Japan, MSN Japan, Infoseek, Japan.Internet.com, Livedoor.com, Google Blogoscoped, Netscape.com, Java.net, Webpronews, Planet Mozilla, Linux Toy, DeveloperIQ, Sina.com and many other popular Asian publishers. Java.net published my Java Duke Holiday Pictures from 1000's of submission.

Writings & My Contributions


Wikipedian contributed to more than 100's of Wikipedia pages in various topics in the Computer/Internet Technology category. Contributing writer of DeveloperIQ Magazine on the latest Web Technologies.

Curator of Casual Walker a Travel & Culture - Photography journal and guide, focuses on a wide range of visual stories - connecting travel, culture, places, events, art, reviews, technology & books. Casual Walker is ranked as the Top 75 Travel Blogs in India. view.

Co-organizer of Mozilla Firefox Party India, for the most early release of Firefox 2 and the IdeaCamp Pune. Regular to Tech meetups from BarCamp, BlogCamp, WikiCamp Unconferences to Sun TechDays, BEA Dev2Dev Days, Oracle Developer Forum, Google Developer Days and many other tech conferences. Attended Sessions with David Axmark, CoFounder & VP of MySQL and with Richard Stallman [RMS], GNU Founder Lectures.

Designer of DevCamp India Unconference Official event brand and WikiCamp conference India event brand, participated by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales.

Being a big supporter of Linux - Ubuntu & Open source movement, organized the "Ubuntu Dapper Drake T-Shirts Contest" to create more awareness and interest for the early versions of Ubuntu Linux.

My blog is Listed as 'Favorite Blog lists at Sun Microsystems' Web Blog in 2005. Blogging since 2002 and listed as the 'Top 10 Tech blogger' by 'Blog Street India' and rated as the 'Top 50 Tech Blogger' by 'Blogs Top List' in 2005 – 2007. My blog posts have also been featured at Google Blogoscoped.com, Netscape.com, Java.net, Webpronews, Planet Mozilla, Linux Toy and few other popular blogs. Made my own blogging site at Yahoo! Geocities as geocities.com/i5bala (screenshots) in early 2002.

Published Usability report on Yahoo! Flickr, MSN Hotmail and Rediff.com.

My Travel & Culture Photography


Contact & Reach me


Want to work together, grabbing a coffee, or say hello? Good! personally, I have zero presence on Facebook or Twitter. You can ping and text me:

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Self - made man
the statue I greatly admire & the principle I strongly believe

“... left to his own devices, man will use his god-given talents to be creative, productive, & prosperous. Using free will, he will better his own situation and that of those around him, thereby influencing in a positive way his own destiny...”

JavaOne 2005 Photo Gallery !!

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Watch the most interesting and more amazying JavaOne 2005 Photo Gallery!!. I could feel the passion and power of java by just viewing them :) !!. >>

Purina Pet Ringtones and Wallpaper

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Purina pet ringtones and wallpaper for your cell. If we visit the site, we hear the mournful squeals of a cat and the joyful yawp of a dog. >>

iPod Clickwheel Photo Animation

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Clickwheel, a new application to download simple user-designed animations onto the iPod Photo. What Clickwheel really does is take frames, which can come from Quicktime video, and download them to the iPod as slide shows. >>

Juggy, the Java Finch!!

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Juggy, the new mascot for Java Users. The Java User Groups Community and SouJava introduces Juggy, the Java Finch, the new mascot for Java Users and Java User Groups around the world. The mascot has been donated to all Java User Groups under the Creative Commons License. >>

Gmail changes its URL

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Gmail's URL was changed from https://gmail.google.com/gmail/ to https://mail.google.com/mail/. I have to modify my mailer!.

Sony Ericsson Reveals Five New Java 3D-Enabled Phones

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Sony Ericsson Reveals Five New Java 3D-Enabled Phones, wide screen landscape gaming, unique all-in-one music Walkman, stylish imaging, cool fashion curves and slim-line 3G UMTS are features combined with Mobile Java 3D gaming in five new mobile models. >>

Richard Stallman States His Income is From Speeches

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In an interview to TuxJornal, Richard Stallman admits that his income is from speeches "Aside from working, I like to read, eat delicious food, listen to music. I am paid for some of my speeches--not all--and that is where my income comes from." >>

iPod Alarm Clock Radio

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The iPod Alarm Clock Radio is wake up to our favorite tunes, AM/FM Radio, or the "bzzt bzzt bzzt" of the buzzer. High-fi stereo drivers provide superior sound. Measures 9.2inches wide x 5.5 inches of pure morning delight. >>

Automator in Mac OS X Tiger

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Automator in Mac OS X Tiger, lets us set up a workflow that consists of the actions those repetitive steps required to accomplish our task. Save the workflow as a self-running application, and we can have. >>

RMail: Feed Your Inbox RSS

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With RMail we can subscribe to any RSS feed. It also allows adding an email subscription form to our RSS feed. They are currently working on the following new features like Subscribe via OPML, Auto-discovery, Feed Validation, and Reporting for publishers. >>

New Google Service Searches Sites For Mobile Devices

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Google SMS search delivers regular search results to our cellphone in text-based format, but the new service they’ve just rolled out delivers search results specifically from websites formatted for mobile devices. This means that the results you get back from your searches will actually be viewable on your cellphone. >>

Apple Safari On Cell Phone

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Apple and Nokia are joined up to develop a web browser for Nokia's line Series 60 Smartphone line. Nokia said in a statement the new browser will use the same open source components as Apple's Safari Internet browser. Nokia added the browser will be available during the first half of 2006 and said it would continue to cooperate with Apple. >>

Queen Elizabeth II Buys iPod !!

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Australian news outlet Fairfax Digital reports that Britian's Queen Elizabeth II has purchased an iPod. A six gigabyte silver iPod Mini, to be exact. Fairfax Digital goes on to say, "...Prince Andrew, fourth in line to the throne, was reported to be behind the move..". iPod crazy strikes everywhere.

Installing Apache, PHP, and MySQL on SUSE LINUX Professional

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Here is an interesting article about installing Apache, PHP, and MySQL on SUSE LINUX Professional. Explained in simple terms. >>

StarWars Episode III Helmet

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Target (of all places, right?) will sell the Darth Vader Episode III Replica Helmet starting in November. This fiberglass cast replica comes with a display stand and plaque and according to the description "is molded from the same CAD-generated master pattern used for "Revenge of the Sith. You can also wear this helmet comfortably which truly makes this the ultimate Star Wars accessory. >>

IBM to Simulate the Entire Brain

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New Scientist is reporting that IBM will attempt to simulate the "entire brain" in collaboration with the Swiss Brain Mind Insititute using a specially modified computer system dubbed 'Blue Brain'. >>

Uncyclopedia

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Uncyclopedia is an encyclopedia full of misinformation and utter lies. It's sort of like Congress or Parliament. Unlike Congress or Parliament, however, we do have a sense of humor. >>

Write Letterz n ...

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PC World's 100 Best Products of 2005

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Top three products of PC World's 100 Best Products of 2005, are received by my favourite :) technologies. >>

1. Mozilla Firefox Web Browser
2. Google Gmail Web Mail
3. Apple Mac OS X Version 10.4 (Tiger) Operating System

Gmail HardDrive

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Gmail HardDrive.com makes it easier to store files on your account, by creating a simple interface with an upload mechanism. Although it's good, but we have to give our password to them, that seems to me very bad :(. >>

iToilet !!

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Just another quite interesting way ;) to use our Apple's Mac Mini. >>

How Easy is it to Switch to Linux?

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Read this article on How easy is it to migrate from Windows to Linux? as outlined by Mark Rais, senior editor at reallylinux.com. >>

Glowing iPod shuffle

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Pacific Rim Technologies has added this nocturnal version to its current range of silicon Gel Shield cases. Beware though, as strutting around the streets at night with one of these proudly glowing around your neck is probably about as wise as wearing a fish-head suit in shark infested waters. That's a cool one. >>

Want to Dress up Steve Jobs ?!

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Want to dress up steve jobs apart from his usual black mini turtle neck and blue jeans, then checkout the joy of tech flash page to dressup him in different cool styles :). I just like it! >>

GIMP Tip: Using Clone Tool

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The GIMP editor although seems to be bit cluttered, offers a lots of great features to image manipulation easier than most people think. Here is a simple, good tutorial by Jason Jones on using GIMP's Clone tool. >>

Google Sitemaps

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Google Sitemaps inform and direct crawlers, to expand the coverage of the web and improve the time to inclusion in Google's index. By placing a Sitemap-formatted file on our webserver, it will enable Google's crawlers to find out what pages are present and which have recently changed, and to crawl our site accordingly. I think, it help a lot in Google's mission to deliver results and to get content into the engine faster. >>

Juicy Fruit iPod shuffle

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Look at the Cool Juicy Fruit iPod shuffle. >>

Blood Tests Using Cellphone

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Researchers in Sweden have developed a way to perform basic blood tests with a cellphone. The whole set up consists of a little disposable microfluidic sensor that connects to a cellphone. The sensor, which is powered by your cellphone’s battery, displays results as different light signals on a chip; you’re then supposed to photograph the chip with the camera on your phone and then send the pic off to a doctor or lab for analysis. >>

Long Waiting for Longhorn ;)

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This is the young man who decided to wait long for Longhorn ;) . source: secretgeek.net.

Gamers' Manifesto

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Read the interesting Gamer's Manifesto, the 20 things a gamers want from the seventh generation of game consoles, quite interesting to read :). >>

Make Your Own Skype Phone

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A good and simple hack on make our own Skype phone out of a old useless cordless phone. Interesting to read and must be tried out in our old phones [only]. . >>

Customise iPod ClickWheel

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iPodStyles is flogging a horde of WheelFilms for both regular-sized iPod and iPod mini, including tattooed, fabric-covered and cow hide versions. Not exactly the most deluxe iPod accessory out there. >>

iPod integration in Mercedes Benz

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Mercedes Benz is claiming that they have the most advanced iPod integration in it's B-Class new low end luxury car, will come with an option to have an iPod integration kit built in. The iPod is tucked away in the glove compartment (where it charges as well) and you navigate using buttons on the steering wheel and the song info shows up on the driver's display. >>

Xerox Alto Computer

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Xerox Alto Computer, the revolutionary machine which is responsible for all this mad techno craze has been born 30 years ago. In 1972, Xerox Corporation decided to produce a personal computer to be used for research. The result was the birth of the Alto computer in 1973 , whose name comes from the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center where it was developed. The Alto was the result of a joint effort by Ed McCreight, Chuck Thacker, Butler Lampson, Bob Sproull, and Dave Boggs, who were attempting to make a device that was small enough to fit in an office comfortably, but powerful enough to support a reliable, high-quality operating system and graphics display. WoooW... technology changed alot within 30 years ago!!


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