balakumar : think > than god | Award-winning Entrepreneur, Designer & Developer, Software Consultant, Creative DIY Hacker and a Geek

வணக்கம் / はじめまして / Hi, I'm Balakumar Muthu

I am an International Award-winning Entrepreneur, Technologist, received Asia Innovation Award from SingTel, Singapore, Full-stack Designer & Developer building Websites for more than 17+ years, Software Consultant for Japanese Companies, Creative DIY Hacker and a Geek based in Asia. Currently working towards the great mission to make the world a better place to work.

/ 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.

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

First Prize Winner of "Java Master Contest", conducted by Sun Microsystems and BenQ Siemens Germany. Sun Microsystems Duke's Choice Awards” - *** "Hello World(s)!" From Code to Culture: A 10 Year Celebration of Java Technology ***, Book. Sun Microsystems appreciation for testing early versions of Java Platform.

TEDx Fellow and Mentor for NurtureTalent Startup Boot Camp at IIT Madras.

Some of my previous Web products (View 1, View 2) have received a great response from China and Japan. Also ranked as world’s top 50 hosted blogging platform by Alexa.com.

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 expertise and interest includes Front-end development, UI/UX Design, Branding, E-commerce, IoT, Software as a service (SaaS), Cloud Computing, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Big Data, Singularity, AI, User Onboarding, Typography, Developing Social Networking Platforms (SNS), Product Prototyping, SEO and Linux & Open Source Technologies.

/ My Personal Interests

I enjoy travel / adventure, photography, rock climbing, simple things — nature, reading. I love Japanese culture, trying different flavor of tea, Zen philosophy, making mistakes & learning from them, DIY hacks, and a die-hard fan of JDrama, Western movies and Comics.

/ My Works has been featured in

Me and My works has been featured at ZDNet Asia, Economic Times, Yahoo! Japan, MSN Japan, 100shiki.com, Infoseek, Japan.Internet.com, Livedoor.com, Sina.com, Yangtse.com, Idoican.com, shm.com.cn[pdf] and many other popular Asian publishers. Java.net published my Java Duke Holiday Pictures from 1000's of submission.

/ Writings & My Contributions

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

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.

/ Contact & Reach me

Personally, you won’t find me on Facebook. To stay in touch or Want to work together? You can text me at: balakumar.muthu@gmail.com

Self- made man, the statue I greatly admire and the principle I strongly believe. "... left to his own devices, man will use his god-given talents to be creative, productive, and 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..."

"... get up, and set your shoulder to the wheel-how long is this life for? as you have come into this world, leave some mark behind. otherwise where is the difference between you and the trees and stones? - they too come into existence, decay and die..."
- Swami Vivekananda

Indian State, Kerala Bypass Microsoft Products !!

Southern Indian state, Kerala has made a great move to eliminate what it calls Microsoft's monopoly by encouraging schools and other public institutions to install free software. The move comes shortly after the state banned Coca-Cola and Pepsi for allegedly containing pesticide residue. M. A. Baby, the state's education minister, tells "It is well-known that Microsoft wants to have a monopoly in the field of computer technology. Naturally, being a democratic and progressive government, we want to encourage the spread of free software." >>

Sony Ericsson's Mobile Music Application Basics

Creating a successful mobile music application takes more than just knowing hardware and software. Check out the Sony Ericsson's developer series article which has a great insight about mobile music technology, how data compression works and compares MP3 and AAC efficiency, presents a technical overview of audio codecs including MP3, Ring tones, AAC and E-AAC+ and summarizes strategies for managing network bandwidth. A very good simple explanation about the Mobile music technology for mobile developers. Part 1 Part 2

Web2list : Web 2.0 Collections

Web2list project has a great collections entire Most popular Web 2.0 application. Web application are tagged in various categories, a great way to browse around the most innovative web 2.0 applications, along with who are linking them and their Technorati information. >>

Technology Behind Stephen Hawking !

Stephen Hawking the most inspiring Astrophysicist and the greatest genius of modern history since Einstein. In spite of Hawking suffers from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis [ALS or LouGehrig's disease], a disease that leads to paralysis by slow weakening of the muscles. Technology remains in true favor not for Hawking, but for us by making it possible for the Hawking to share his research with fellow scientists and the public as well.

Words+ allows Hawking to predict and complete words of sentences and the program also converts text to speech. It's word-prediction database holds up to 5,000 words and allows him to save thousands of set phrases that can be quickly retrieved and vocalized. http://www.words-plus.com

E Z Keys also doubles as an environmental-control unit capable of switching on/off appliances in the house. The program allows Hawking to turn on and off appliances, select his favorite CDs to play and control almost any device.
Hawking runs the program using several fingers in his right hand, where he still retains limited mobility.

In unison with E Z Keys, Hawking's second helping of Assistive Technology is a small portable computer and a speech synthesizer strapped to his wheelchair. Using this technology, Hawking has been able to write countless scientific articles, deliver hundreds of lectures and write a bestseller books like, A Brief History of Time.

This technology helped us to hear him loud and clear, as Hawking unlocks the mysteries of the universe. Without the presence of this technology, solid breakthroughs in quantum physics and many of his thoughts on the universe would never have been recorded, and we would have lost tremendous input from a great mind.

Hawking states, "While I have lost the ability to speak, I have not lost my ability to think. These products were designed specifically for people, like me, who can't speak".

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[free ubuntu t-Shirts !!]

Cool Chumby

Bunnie Huang at FOO Camp have introduced a cool gadgets called Chumby. It is a low-cost, wifi-enabled information delivery device and is more accessible. The chumby is designed to let you stay connected to your Internet life in locations where it might be fun and convenient. It features a 266Mhz ARM controller, 32MB SDRAM, a 320 x 240 3.5 touchscreen display, WiFi, two speakers, audio in/out and a USB port. It can be controlled via the touchscreen or squeeze sensors on the casing. The internals can be easily removed from its housing and fit into another shell. It is expected to be available in March 2007. >>

Google Apps for Your Domain

Google releases beta of Google Apps for Your Domain, which will let organizations offer Web-based e-mail, chat and more and collaboration tools to our entire organization customizable with our branding, color scheme and content through the administrative control panel, and with no hardware or software to install or maintain. >>

FREE Ubuntu Dapper Drake T-Shirts !!!

I am one of the Ubuntu Linux Lover. To show my love, I am planning to give away two New Ubuntu Dapper Drake T-Shirts I have for absolutely FREE :) !.

[click to see the full size image]

[Front View : click to see the full size image]

[Back View : click to see the full size image]

T-Shirt specification:

Color : White
Type : Round Neck
Size : Large

This is what you have to do to get the Ubuntu Dapper Drake T-Shirt, you have to comment here:

1. I Love Ubuntu because ...
2. Next, upload your screenshot of your Ubuntu Desktop at Flickr.com or anywhere you like and just add the Image URL along with your comment.

It's open to everyone and the contest closes on September 18th 1pm GMT and winners will be announced on September 19th. I will be selecting two winners based on their comments and best desktop screenshot who will receive the Ubuntu Dapper Drake T-Shirts. I will also pay the postal charges and mail them the T-Shirts for absolutely FREE !.

Once the winners has received the T-Shirts; they have to send me their photos wearing the Ubuntu Dapper Drake T-Shirt, which I will be post it on this blog :).

So just drop in your comments.

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If you still haven't tried Ubuntu, you can get the free Ubuntu CDs from
https://shipit.ubuntu.com/and give a try.

Ubuntu is the most user friendly Linux ever created and easy to install, use, free of viruses, highly secured and perfect for laptops, desktops to servers, supports more languages. Even a novice can get started with Ubuntu in no time and it is supported with a rich documentation and lively active supporting forums.

Visit http://www.ubuntu.com/ to learn more. To contribute to the Ubuntu Community, do check out http://www.ubuntu.com/community

NO more Windows, Crashes, Viruses, Security threats, Nightmares !

Just make Ubuntu Linux, as your Primary OS today, you will LOVE Ubuntu :) and feel the power of Open Source community !!

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-- UPDATE --

Contest Ends! Winners Announced !!

First of all Big thanks for all the participants. It was really a tough time for me to select the winner, as each one of the comments is really amazing and want to give away the T-Shirt for everyone. But I have only 2 T-Shirts .

And the 2 winners for the Ubuntu T-shirt Contest are:

1. Brent
2. Ed Stewart

Winners, please send me your Posting Mail Address to me at balakumar.muthu[@]gmail.com. I will ship the T-Shirts this week sharp. Winners please don't forget to send me the photo of you along with the Ubuntu T-shirts, to publish it in my blog.

Thank you to all out there, who have participated.

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Balakumar Muthu

Logitech MX Revolution Mouse

Logitech has introduced Logitech MX Revolution a new cordless laser mouse with a free-spinning motorised scroll wheel it believes will help people more efficiently race through pages on their computer screens. It can scroll wheels that can traverse hundreds of pages in a single flick and spin freely for up to seven seconds. >>

Ubuntu Controlled DIY Cat feeder !

Lee Holmes has modeled a Ubuntu Linux controlled DIY cat feeder and water dispenser. Holmes basically, uses his JasJar PDA phone to SSH into the box, and feed the cats on demand just by running the script. Check out the video to get the real view. >>

58 Most Useful Java Ebooks !

Checkout the great collection of free ebooks on Java Technology. It includes 58 most useful books on Ajax, Swing, Hibernate, XML, J2EE, Design patterns, Apache, Java 2D, 3D and much more. >>

10 Ways to Find out, Whether You are Suffering from Internet Addiction Disorder [IAD] !!

Internet Addition Disorder [IAD] refers to pathological obsessive Internet usage. The criteria for this disorder are similar to those for substance abuse disorders, leads to severe causes. The following criteria were used for assessing, whether you are suffering from IAD. If a person meets four or more of the 10 criteria, he can be diagnosed as suffering from IAD.

Do you go online to escape problems or relieve feelings such as helplessness guilt, anxiety or depression?

Do you feel preoccupied with the Internet or online services and think about it while offline?

Do you feel a need to spend more and more time online to achieve satisfaction?

Are you unable to control your online usage?

Do you go through withdrawal when offline, such as increased depression, moodiness or irritability?

Do you feel restless when attempting to cut down or stop your online usage?

Do you lie to conceal how often and how long you stay online?

Do you risk losing a significant relationship, job or educational or career opportunity because of you online use?

Do you keep returning even after spending too much money on online?

Do you stay online longer than originally intended?

Are You are Suffering from Internet Addiction Disorder [IAD] ?? I think most of us are with the IAD !

Second Life Goes Virtual Real

Second Life is an open-ended virtual world with hundreds of thousands of users. In it, players can fly, wear fantastical outfits, build nearly anything they can imagine and participate in a sophisticated economy with hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of transactions conducted each week. Unlike most other virtual worlds and online games, nearly all of the content in Second Life is created by its users. Residents can attend class even run businesses. Soon We may do the same. Check out what it look like. >>

Best Firefox Extensions !

CNet has listed out a great collection of Firefox Extensions. Some of them are well known but some are less known and most useful extensions. They are listed in 3 Volumes along with a collection of other users Favourite Extensions. >>

8 Simple Steps to be More Creative !!

Every one is born creative, but only few feels it and here are some steps to catch up the creativity flow:

Look Closely ! Creativity starts with sensory perceptions; seeing, hearing, smelling, touching and feeling. Study it and empty yourself of all ideas about it. Keep on studying until it gives you news about itself. That's the creative way of sensing the world. Sensory perceptions in turn trigger memories. The creative process is set in motion.

Catch the Stirrings The first stirring of a creative idea may come from a memory, a new way of seeing something or a prompt from another person. Often the stirring will occur while our mind is occupied with something else. While the left-brain is away, the right brain will play.

Explore freely and Energetically Then a period of exploring and gathering may begin. Gather whatever comes our way. Save the shaping for later. This is the time to try out, have fun, make mistakes, act foolish, be surprised, think what if ?

Don't become Impatient Next, many creative thinkers go through a period of resting and waiting sometimes called incubation period. The idea may seem to be forgotten, but the brain keeps working on it subconsciously, trying out different angles.

Creativity begins After all the preparation, inspiration may strike. It is tempting to see inspiration as the destination and reward of thinking. But inspiration is more like a launching pad. The fun, the work, the real creativity begins there. Belt yourself in and take off.

Catch new ideas As we work out the details of our creative idea, keep the spirit of creativity alive. Except to catch new ideas as they stir up from our field of thought.

Swerving along For inspiration to last, the creative thinker must soon begin shaping thought [by drawing, sculpting or in just writing]. But don't force yourself to work straight through from start to finish. Our inspiration may lead you from the center to the shores or from puddle to puddle. Work out connections later.

Finally Fine-tune ideas The last phase of the creative process is revising or reworking our thoughts or writing in order to make it a more creative expression of the idea. Make the spirit of our imagination sparkle even in the tiniest details.

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Note: I found it interesting, so I thought of sharing and it really works. Got any other steps to flood up the creativity process? Do drop in.

Tough Protection for Our Gadgets

CNet shows how to tough protect our laptops, PDAs, iPod and luggages that won't get beat up in airplane cargo or any other accidents to protect our most valuable datas. >>

Open Sourcing Java won't Change Coders Life !

Sun Microsystems Chief Open Source officer Simon Phipps, speaking at a briefing said that coders working with Java don't care whether the source code is available and Java SE open source won't make any difference to the majority of Java programmers. I feel his statement is quite true. >>

25 Sites We Can't Live Without !

Time Magazine lists out 25 Sites we can't live without using them. The list consists of Google, Blogger, Flickr, Yahoo, Amazon, Craigslist and other quite interesting websites we really can't livein without them on the Net. >>

Blogger Cool New Features !!

Blogger has added lots of cool new features in its new version of Blogger like the most asked Categorizing our posts with labels, Create a private blog, lots of Fresh new templates, Fast publishing, Control who can read our blog and lots more great features we all love!. >>

Soap : Mid-air Mouse

Soap is a pointing device based on hardware found in a mouse, yet works in mid-air. Soap consists of an optical sensor device moving freely inside a hull made of fabric. As the user applies pressure from the outside, the optical sensor moves independent from the hull. The optical sensor perceives this relative motion and reports it as position input. >>

Tracking Terrorism with Technology !

Popular Science explains how Tracking of Terrorism made with Technology and how toxin sniffers, missile jammers, dirty-bomb detectors will improve the new security model and helps us to travel safer and peacefully. >>

Defcon : Largest Hackers Meet !!

Checkout the CNet's coverage on Defcon, the world's largest Hackers Meet, more than 6,000 hackers and other attendees gathered in Las Vegas. To participate, one have to prequalify by answering questions ranging from hacker trivia to computer forensics to Web server administration. Attendes include crakers to Federal Intelligence police circles. Check out the loads of great cool action! >>

Web's 15th Anniversary Milestones

August 15th marks the anniversary of the public availability of the World Wide Web. Since August 6, 1991, when Tim Berners-Lee's invention went live, the Web has grown exponentially and has fundamentally changed how we work, live and play. Today, the Web continues to evolve, and with the advent of Web 2.0 technologies, is driving a new era of participation. Check out the Sun Microsystems lits of WWW major Milestones in the history from 70s, 80s, 90s to 2006. >>

Yahoo! Search Builder

Yahoo! has launched Yahoo! Search Builder, a tool that lets us to customize search on our web site. They provide option to choose background, border colors to tailor the look and feel of the search experience to match our site and add our own logo. >>

Interesting 25 Robot Resources !!

http://www.botmag.com/articles/vex_1.shtml

http://mindstorms.lego.com/

http://www.hitecrobotics.com

http://www.asimo.honda.com

http://www.cs.uu.nl/~markov/lego/links/index.html

http://www.ugobe.com/pleo/index.html

http://roboraptoronline.com

http://www.phidgets.com

http://www.robotstore.com

http://www.howtoandroid.com/HowToBuildRobotHead.html

http://www.robotmarketplace.com/store.html

http://www.robotroom.com/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/robots/techlab/

http://www.cs.uu.nl/~markov/lego/

http://www.streettech.com/robotbook/

http://www.robotics.com/rbfd/index.html

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lmstorms/building/

http://homepages.which.net/~paul.hills/

http://www.hobbyengineering.com/SectionRA.html

http://ranier.hq.nasa.gov/telerobotics_page/coolrobots.html

http://prime.jsc.nasa.gov/ROV/nlinks.html

http://robotjapan.proboards12.com/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/robots/techlab/sub_selector.shtml

http://www.zyra.org.uk/nasabots.htm

http://www.robot-japan.com/Articles/index.asp

http://www.ifi.unizh.ch/ailab/robots/robots-a.html

Web2 DNA Art

Web2DNA analyze a website we provide and crunch it to little bits and spit it out as a graphic representation of a human DNA. The brightness of the lines is determined by the importance of the tags in terms of structure. Basically a semantically rich site will appear brighter than one with messy old-style code. We can determine the richness of text on a site. >>

iCapOpener : iPod Shuffle Opener Accessory

iCapOpener, an iPod Shuffle accessory designed by Trujillo. It fits onto the one end of the iPod Shuffle player and acts as a bottle opener. Nice useful tool comes in handy when we are in parties. >>

Capture the Map : Strategic Game using Google

Capture the Map, a strategic game using Google Search. The search results are located geographically using the Netgeo database and "captured" on a world map by virtual pins. By selecting a search queries, the players can occupy specific places on the world map. Next the computer tries to explore alternative cities or countries to occupy, until all pins are used. >>

Novell's Linux University for Developers !!

Novell's Linux University for Developers, is a collaborative initiative by developers, designed for developers to share their knowledge on how easy it is to create software on Linux. The content on this open community site is geared towards showing and doing using flash-based, interactive lessons, rather than articles or lengthy documentation. Very interesting stuffs, all Linux users must join and checkit out!! >>

Creating Your Mobile Site with itsmy.com !!

GOFRESH’s itsmy.com allow us to create mobile pages within a couple of minutes to create a simple mobile homepage with just three steps:

1. Get your mobile phone
2. Go to your mobile phone’s browser and link to http://mobile.itsmy.com
3. Next, click on “LOGIN/WELCOME” and create your personal nickpage.

within a second your site, will be ready like yourname.itsmy.com which can be accessed using any of the mobile devices... do check it out. >>