வணக்கம் தோழா / नमस्ते दोस्त / Hello Buddy!

लोकाः समस्ताः सुखिनो भवन्तु

Lokāḥ Samastāḥ Sukhino Bhavantu
May all beings find happiness and freedom. May my actions help bring joy and liberation to everyone.

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, Top 100 Startups Award from NASSCOM, Java Master Award & Duke's Choice Award from Sun Microsystems and BenQ Siemens Germany, and Red Herring Asia Award for technology innovation.

With over 17+ years of experience in IT/Software Consulting, with a particular focus on Japanese companies and strong expertise in Design & Product Engineering, UI/UX Web Design and Development for various B2B / B2C startups, SMEs, Enterprises, and several Fortune 500 companies. 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, Online Marketplaces, Social Networking Services (SNS), Blogging platforms (CMS / Wiki), Usability/Branding, Cloud Computing, Enterprise Apps in Ed Tech, Retail Tech, Prop Tech, Med Tech, and Logistics Tech.

As an entrepreneur, my journey began in 2007 when I founded LoveLogger, the world's first private social blogging platform for pairs, which received a massive response from Hong Kong, Japan, China, and South Korea, accumulating over half a million users before its exit. It was featured in many prestigious internet magazines, including Yahoo! Japan, MSN Japan, Infoseek, Japan.Internet.com, Livedoor.com, Sina.com and various other popular Asian publishers. I have also launched a couple of other successful startups, sold a few, and had a few fail.

An avid Travel & Culture Photographer, documenting my journeys at CasualWalker.com, which is ranked as one of the Top 75 Travel Blogs in India. Additionally, I am a Travel & Culture Media Reporter and have been selected as the Official Honorary Reporter for the Korean Culture and Information Service of the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism.

I enjoy meeting new folks and replying to all emails, so feel free to drop me a line and say hello to balakumar.muthu@gmail.com

Awards & Recognitions, I have received


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.

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.

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.

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 and the Winner of "Red Herring Asia Award" for Technology Innovation. 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.

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

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

I started tech blogging in 2002 during my early college days and listed as the 'Top 10 Tech blogger' by 'Blog Street India' and rated as the 'Top 50 Tech Blogger' by 'Blogs Top List'. My Tech blog is also listed as Favorite Blog lists at their Official Sun Microsystems Web Blog. My Tech 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.

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

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, Traditions, Indian Temples, Art Galleries, Culture, Events, Museums, Yoga & Vedas, Foods & Eats, Indian Dances, Wild Life, Hotels & Stays, and Nature and Living. It is ranked as the Top 75 Travel Blogs in India.

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 Expertise & specializations


I specialize in most aspects of Web business, including strategy, creativity, design, development, and its growth. My strong expertise and experience include front-end development, UI/UX web design and usability, branding, content management systems (CMS), e-commerce, software as a service (SaaS), cloud computing, social networking services (SNS), Amazon Web Services (AWS), enterprise apps in Ed Tech, Retail Tech, Prop Tech, Med Tech, Logistics Tech, and Food Tech, web security, firewall, user onboarding, typography, product prototyping, SEO, and Linux & open-source technologies.

My Personal Interests


I enjoy travel & photography, 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.

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...”

Google SketchUp 3D

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Google SketchUp is an easy-to-learn 3D modeling program. Using a few simple tools we can create 3D models of houses, sheds, decks, home additions, woodworking projects-even space ships. You can add details, textures and glass to your models, and design with dimensional accuracy. Once built, we can place our models in Google Earth, share them with others by posting them to the 3D Warehouse, or print hard copies. >>

Broth Ajax-based Global Mosaic

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Broth is a Global Mosaic, a massively multiplayer Web 2.0 application based on Ajax. The Global Mosaic is made of 1,000 colorful tiles that are shared by everyone. When someone moves a tile, others can instantly see it move on their screens. One of the Coolest made Ajax web application... require a simple registration for going the play. >>

Motorola Q Application Development

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Even before the release of Motorola Q, Motorola has added the Q to their website dedicated to help developers create new and interesting applications for its most well-hyped and anticipated smartphone. Motorola is marching towards the razar type of cool gadgets with more and much powerful high-end features like ergonomic QWERTY keyboard, 5-way navigation button and thumb wheel, 1.3 mega pixel Camera with photo light, Memory: 128MB ROM, 64MB SDRAM [configuration much higher then my pc ], miniSD expandable memory, Bluetooth 1.2, Advanced speech recognition ...>>

All about Steve Jobs !

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If you are a big fan of Apple and Steve Jobs like me, do checkout the most amazing absolutely everything, fantastic stories, unseen photographs and a great website about Steve. Don't forget to checkout his greatest speeches and videos too. >>

How to Crack Microsoft Windows Passwords !!

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Madison Parks shows how to crack Microsoft Windows password in easier simple steps using Cain & Abel. It shows how to crack password even if u don't have Admin rights to install any software... doesn't sounds cool... check it out .... >>

Converting Video to 3GP Mobile Format !!

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This guide from blank-thoughts show us how to convert video to 3GP which is more suitable for playback on most cell phones. Just by downloading a 3GP video converter, Imtoo 3GP Video converter the steps seems to be more simple and easy to do by anyone.>>

i4Giveu : Web Space for Confession

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i4giveu allows people to post confessions and ask for the community’s judgement. Confessions can be posted anonymously and are tagged for easy browsing. It just launched, and some of the confessions seem a little canned or just plain dumb. And while this isn’t any kind of substitution for real therapy, the popularity of sites like PostSecret suggest that people really do like to tell their secrets on the Internet. Every Confession is ranked with the Forgiven or No forgive ranking. Some Confession are really bit wired. >>

Top 10 Strangest Home Gadgets !!

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We have seen the strangest iPod accessories, Lego creations, and even MP3 players, the editors of techgadgetforums bring us the Top 10 Strangest Home Gadgets. Never heard of such Gadgets like World’s First Digital Plant,Erasable Shower Tablet and some are really quite strange to me and must be to most of us ... >>

AjaxTunes

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AjaxTunes is a web-based media player that lets you play, pause, forward and rewind high-quality streaming music straight from the Internet on any computer. It has been preloaded with a demo account containing more than 25 songs encoded at 192kbps from different albums and a great mix of playlists from select artists. Or, create our own music locker and choose from over 40,000 songs to create your personal playlists. >>

Apple Remote Desktop 3

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Apple Remote Desktop is the best way to manage the Mac computers on your network. Distribute software, provide real-time online help to end users, create detailed software and hardware reports, and automate routine management tasks — all without leaving your desk. Featuring Automator actions, Remote Spotlight search, and a new Dashboard widget, Apple Remote Desktop 3 makes our job easier than ever. >>

Computers on Stamps

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Look at this rare collection of stamps about computers. They immortalize key players in its evolution and honor the inventions themselves. Images and captions were provided by Larry Dodson, author of Computers on Stamps. >>

Few Things We Didn't Know About Apple's iPod!!

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Alexander Wolfe lists some of few things we didn't know [or know less] about Apple's iPod. This information are some little-known facts and helpful workarounds that can help us get more mileage out of our music experience. I learned few things about iPod only from here... good short note. >>

Cool Nokia Secret Hacks/Codes !!

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Check out this interesting Nokia series phones secret hacks, they also unlock some hidden functions. These codes are often reffered to as "Nokia Secret Codes" or "Nokia Hacks". Use the codes at your own risk, hope most of the Nokia models support this codes... do check it out.... >>

Looking into Ubuntu Linux 6.06 New Release !!

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Ubuntu is one of my and most of us Favourite Linux distro, starts with the breadth of Debian and adds regular releases, a clear focus on the user and usability and one of the really cool gui i have seen and supports most of the hardware devices. Here is a look of Adam Doxtater at the latest pre-release copy of what Ubuntu 6.06 has got for us. >>

Computer Promotional Photos in 60s and 70s!!

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Check out this computer promotional photography sent to newspapers in the 60s and 70s. Back in the old days, the time of IBM and Uniblab, a picture of a computer required a wide-angle lens. It‘s amazing to see such big mammoth machines from the quite old days. >>

Top 10 strangest Mac Mods !

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Top 10 strangest Mac mods at TechBlog. Johnathan Ive's blood would surely boil if he were to feast his eyes on such mutant Mac modifications as the NecroMac of the PowerMac G4 Aquarium Cool and some Funny mods... you may try ...>>

My Visit to Dev2DevDays 2006, Chennai – India !!

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This week, I received an invitation for attending Dev2DevDays2006 on 12th in Chennai. The presentations and live demonstrations, is designed by expert developers to help us enhance our understanding of BEA's Blended approach to working with both Open Source and commercial technologies. The Experience was quite GREAT and the whole event was wonderfully organized by BEA and Sponsored by AMD.

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Schedule for the day

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Introduction to BEA Dev2DevDays2006

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Pieter Humphrey is a Senior Product Marketing Manager with BEA, focused on BEA tools. He has extensive mentoring and instruction experience with clients on the BEA WebLogic product line since joining BEA in 2001, working as senior systems engineer.


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Rajah Balu is an Engineering Manager with BEA India (R&D), focused on Interoperability between all of BEA WebLogic and AquaLogic Platform Products. He has worked as a Senior Architect with BEA Partners team in USA and in EMEA assisting Global Sis and ISVs with application Architecture and Design support. He gave us the Live Demos

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BEA Workshop Studio

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AJAX Interaction


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Great Live Demo by Rajah Balu, Engineering Manager of BEA Systems

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Execution Environment: Tomcat, WebLogic Console, JRockit

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Hibernate Data Persistence

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AMD64 Technology Overview

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BEA Dev2DevDays2006 Diamond Sponsor AMD

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We not only had talks about HOT topics, but we also had some COOL stuffs too !! :)

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Shuffle for the BEA Free Certification Exam and BEA Workshop Studio


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Me, Pieter Humphrey of BEA System, Inc. and My Friend Vipin Thomas


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BEA Dev2DevDays2006 Program Materials and BEA Tools and Technical Resources CD

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Guess What is this ??

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It’s a Cool Dev2DevDays2006 T-Shirt!!

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I would like to thank BEA System Inc. and the Sponsor AMD for conducting Dev2DevDays2006 in Chennai, The whole session was very informative and more interactive and very BIG thanks to Pieter Humphrey and Rajah Balu for answering all our queries patiently … Thank you BEA System Inc. !! :)

--
Balakumar Muthu



7 Comments:

At 9:19 PM, Blogger Rajanikanth said...
Pretty Interesting i m really waiting for tommorow morning to attend the same.. Thanks for the information.
 
At 9:53 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...
Very intersting one, I am eagerly waiting for tomorrow morning to attend the Dev2DevDays2006. I feel proud to get a seat in the Conference. - Job Jebaraj
 
At 6:34 AM, Blogger amitnme said...
After going through your blog.. i can help running to the Bangalore version of it tomorrow.
 
At 5:56 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...
Thanks for posting these snaps. i could not attend this.
 
At 3:54 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...
Tomorrow’s session seems to be very interesting and interactive and I am definitely look for it in Hyderabad.
Thanks for the Info Bala.
 
At 10:54 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...
After missing the chennai Dev2DevDays 2006. On 25th April 2006 i attended the Dev2DevDays 2006 in Hydrabad. I feel great that i got a seat in the conference and got an oppertunity to share my knowledge with the attendees.

" Dev2DevDay2006 in Hydrabad is so Simple but Much Powerful "

Thanks to BEA for such a conference.

Thanks
Sabarish
 
At 3:08 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...
Hi,

If you have BEA Dev2DevDays2006 Program Materials and BEA Tools and Technical Resources CD then upload it.

I register to attend session in mumbai, but unfortunately i was very busy on that day.

Thanks and Regards,
Rajendra


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