Bottoms Up

Tiger Airways starts Cheap Flights to Singapore and Australia

alexdpaul — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 07:40:18 +0000

Tigers Airways is starting operations from Chennai and Kochi to Singapore and Australia.
Now a return ticket to Singapore is in the range of Rs.9000 only. Interestingly, Singapore Airlines has 49% stake.
Booking is only thru the internet, so you local travel agent will not tell you about this. Go and fill up all the flights!

http://www.tigerairways.com

Why Everybody Loves Raymond

alexdpaul — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:48:30 +0000

Last night, I caught up on the season finale of Everybody Loves Raymond. Got to know the people behind it. They explained the main story line. “There is regular guy whose parents live across the street” thats it. Every joke connects to the viewers so perfectly. I was wondering how they write funny every season, every episode. Think I nailed the answer.

No matter what part of the world you live a few thing remain the same.

Everyone has the same problem right. – Women ctrl freaks.
Marie and Deborah – In-laws never get along
Men – Remain the same

I loved the show, sad to see you go.

Tiger Airways Get Chennai and Singapore closer for less

alexdpaul — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 19:09:12 +0000

Tiger Airways, the no-frills-low-cost airlines is planning to launch operations from Chennai and Kochi. There are planning to start operations from November. The interesting part, the rates are supposed to sub S$300 (Singapore dollars) thats 8100 INR. I saw their Ads at Mustafa Singapore and their website confirms that they are planning operations around November.

Singapore is great place for vacation,everything is close-by. SMRT is great, connects almost every place and is damn cheap. I took a vacation to Singapore and really loved the place. My son relives every moment we spent at the Jurong Bird Park, Singapore Zoo, Underwater World and Sentosa Island. Singapore too is gearing up with a Casino coming up in 2009 and F1 Racing Circuit coming soon. Giving you more reasons why you should visit again.

I am sure Ppl from Chennai will flock to Singapore. If you get to stay near Little India, It is just cleaner Chennai. Almost everyone speaks Tamil. If you are a fussy about food, don’t worry you’ll get all the food you get in Chennai.

and… hey more than flying abroad, the pride, excitement and fun is actually is in coming back telling story of
my-trip-to-singapore… man we are so Indians.

Go on and fill those flights up!

Jamaica Hotels and Getting Around

alexdpaul — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 19:39:48 +0000

Accomodation in Jamaica is quite affordable especially if you are holding USDs. 1 USD= 66 Jamaican Dollars (as of Nov 5, 2006). Jamaican Dollars varies a lot, please check before you go. For an average US $ 50 to US $70 You can get good hotels like Courtleigh or Hilton. Though you can get cheaper accomodation stick to good hotels.

There is some Indian in the food

Relax…you get Rotis and rice in Jamaica. Yes, they says that there are a lot of Indians in Jamaica but I did not get to see anyone. Island Grill, KFC, Burger King. If you are a vegetarian you’ll love the red pea soup and pumpkin rice. You’ll get the exact Rotis and Channa masala too.

Party Party Party – Jamaica is the place

Take a wild guess what time the party starts in Jamaica….midnight 12. Yes. I was really amazed. Try the QUAD. It has 4 floors and each floor plays a genre of music and definitely one floor has reggae. Man… Jamaicans know to party, they dance till 4.30 am in the morning..no kidding. Hey mind you big parties are on wednesday only. It is like the weekend for them.

Jamaica Visa for Indian Nationals

alexdpaul — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 19:10:56 +0000

Jamaica Visa Not Required for Indian Nationals

Had to rush to Jamaica for a customer training. I making this post as we ran around a little for the Jamaican Visa. The first problem I hit upon was the Visa problem. If you have visiting Jamaica for less than 30 days you don’t need a Jamaican Visa. You’ll get a Visa on arrival. But wait there is a catch. If you are transiting through London, you need a DATV (Direct Airside Transit Visa).

Workaround Visa

If you don’t have time to get an DATV. You should get into an Alitalia flight through Milan or transit through Miami, US (oops, you need a US Visa) . As I had to rush I had to transit through US. Expect a lot of delays from Air Jamaica

Jamaica is Safe and there is no problem

I read a lot of Jamaica, most of the stuff that came upon Google had news that it is not a very safe place and all that. As far I know it is safe and cool to be around. I stayed in Kingston, Jamaica and travelled to Ocho Rios by a taxi. I did not see or have any unpleasant incidents.

Scott McNealy Steps Down

alexdpaul — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 18:46:03 +0000

Following this announcement, the wall street responded with 9% increase in Sun shares. Does that mean it is good news?

I sat thru one of Scott's keynote speeches at Suntech days in Blore. I wanted to ask him a few questions. He is a busy person, I couldn't ask him then. Here it is:

Why is Sun spending a lot time and money on "growing the ecosystem". Sun was defining the standards, drafting JSRs when the vendors who quickly implemented JSR walked away with the money
Why did you lock your key resource, "James Gosling" in implementing the Brazil Healthcare project and evolving a matured Java instead of getting him on a new venture to compete with PHP, Ruby on rails and so on
Why are you not in search engine or latest conversation in the market

I hope all of you remember how Bea walked over Sun

——————————————————

Bea implementing the Application Server specification and walking away with the leading app server position. Now they have lost it to IBM WebSphere. Anyway they have made all the money.

Sun was almost forgotten. Does anyone remember

iplanet application server
Sun Forte for Java
Sun One Application Server (Java System Application Server)
Java XML-RPC

Are we going to see the Sun rise again. Bye Scott

Thirsty Customers, Water and Lemonade

alexdpaul — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 19:01:06 +0000

This is how I exactly felt when I briefed a customer about the complete solution that was coming out in Q3. When the customer is thirsty and when he asks for water, give him what he wants, do not talk about the lemonade. Do not loose customers to build a future solution.I had a moment of truth and I realigned the team to give the customer what he wants.

When the customer is thirsty and he wants water, give water for free. He will not mind paying for the lemonade and Ice later.

Caged Lions Manifesto

alexdpaul — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 07:28:35 +0000

Who are Caged Lions?

Every man (Lion) is born free and then he gets married. POOOF before you know we have a caged lion.

What is the Caged Lions Manifesto ?

The CL manifesto is an essential survival guide that will help for recently CLs and the soon to CLs to understand and manage situations. It will help you enjoy and help you with tips on how to play around in the cage.

Evolving Caged Lions Manifesto

This manifesto aggregates the experience of lions in wild, in cage, and rotting in cage. Feel free to add and edit, share (Caged Lions have the freedom of doing anything )
Before Cage there was Wild Freedom

———————————-

You were born free
You decide where you want to go, at what time, wearing what you want.
You decide the speed of your bike or car
You have to urge to choose and marry a partner to meet your taste
You don’t get the Agni Nakshatram joke – When Jankaraj jumps and says “en pondati ooruku poita”

You + Friends

You decide your friends / girl friends
It is perfectly ok to drive at 11 pm in the night with you friends for just a tea or snack
You are free to plan a trip with your friends to any destination
You can make fun of your friends and still be great friends with them
You don’t have to tell your friends “You are my best friend and I love all the time I spend with you”
You don’t have to think much to buy a gift, you can buy a shirt (or any damn thing) at random or throw a party at any local bar
It is perfectly ok for you to forget your friends bday
There are no special days to remember viz first time you met or first you got something ( or any crap)

… contd

ITIL is essential, plan for it

alexdpaul — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 06:36:17 +0000

“ITIL is not for me, all those lengthy process really complicates my system”**

this is what most small businesses feel. ITIL is not about being big or small it is about being efficient with your resources. It is not a standard that says, you must implement everything to be compliant. It is a set of best practices that offers you pick what work best for you.

ITIL is for ALL

Just cruise thru this whitepaper, it will get you started on ITIL and how it is very relevent to growing small biz

“Businesses Must Grow, Not Problems“ or Download PDF and read later

there is a spanish version too, thanks to Javier Arcal, ITIL Practitioner

Si usted es no puede leer inglés, intenta la versión española

Los Negocios deben crecer, No los Problemas

As most of the ppl feel that ITIL is a hard standard, here is my attempt to give ITIL an image makeover:
ITIL is cool and refreshing

** All those who have been thru the ” ITIL is for you” talk. please bear with this post

Suggestion for the new Stormhoek Label and bottle design

alexdpaul — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 00:52:00 +0000

Let’s Get Started

The Stormhoek Label must initiate 3 Important Conversations

1. The Viral Freshness Matters Story

2&3.WineBars and Everyone’s Conversation:

Stormhoek must be more than the wine.

2.”’Winebar Conversation”’: It must be medium for Bar Owners to communicate to their
customers. Bars already stocking Stormhoek can get a free mention in the label and
canpromote their offering later for a small price.

3.”’Everyone’s Conversation”’: Everyone must be able to connect to the Stormhoek label to
place their own crazy and personal messages.

Stormhoek New Bottle Design

How about releasing a “Stormhoek Mobile Edition”. If “Freshness matters” it shouldn’t designed to stay on the shelf, right?. You need to have an iPod-smooth bottle at size to target pockets and backpacks(bags) that people will carry around.

Sorry for the bad image pulled out from a powerpoint

Stormhoek’s New Bottle Design Idea