“It’s more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy.” -Steve Jobs

Poster: A WordPress blog editor for iPad and iPhone

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| by | Apps, Technology |
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There are times when I don’t get time to sit with my laptop and compose my new blog post as I’m moving around a lot. But I do get many breaks which I tend to use for reading or tweeting. I could also use this time to write some short blog posts which I could publish to WordPress on the move. But this was always constrained – notwithstanding the primitive app from WordPress itself – by not having a good blog editor for iPad or iPhone.

Well, not anymore… Poster comes to the rescue.

Poster

Poster is a free universal WordPress blog editor app that not only is simple and elegant but also works perfectly.

It has all the necessary features that are required in a blog editor. Previously I had to compose the post in a text editor like iA Writer and later use the WordPress site to publish the final blog post. Poster takes away all the hassles and lets you to compose, edit, insert pictures and publish it directly to your blog. Due to its integration with WordPress blog site, you can set all other properties like categories, tags, post format and post status. You can choose to save it as a draft till you’re finished with the post before publishing to public. This kind of integration was the missing piece in posting blogs from iPhone and iPad.

Once you complete the setting and provide the credentials, Poster retrieves all the blog posts along with all other properties and you’re ready to blog immediately.

iPad

On iPad it works in both landscape and portrait mode. On iPhone it works only in portrait mode.

 

iPhone

iPhone version works exactly as it does on iPad. If you have both iPad and iPhone, you can switch between them (of course, after saving the latest version in each iDevice) without worrying about the format getting screwed.

One more feature which the heavy users of Dropbox will find useful is Poster’s integration with Dropbox. If you have stored your unpublished blog post in Dropbox, you can directly import it to Poster. Both HTML or text file work just fine. It also supports multiple blogs and you can change between the blogs with just a touch.

Final Thoughts

The app is very stable and I didn’t find anything that didn’t work as it was intended to. It’s a great app for regular bloggers who are mobile most of the time. And the best part? It’s free! Go grab it…

My rating

★★★★☆

Haiku Deck: A Minimalist iOS Presentation App

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| by | Apps, Technology |
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“Death By Powerpoint”.

How many times have you heard this phrase? I’m sure, many times; more so if you do have to present or being presented to, at work. A quick search of the phrase in Google shows result of 4.5 million hits!

No kidding.

So, it’s always refreshing when you come across an app that’s different.

Haiku Deck is one of them. This – iPad only – iOS app takes a minimalistic approach to presentations. One of the side effects of the presentation apps or software tools is, they provide too many features due to which they become bloated. Provide too many features and they will either be hardly used or the commonly used ons will be heavily misused, in the aesthetic sense.

The solution? Provide just adequate features that will restrict you to keep the aesthetics within check and don’t have the opportunity to make it mundane and boring to death. So, less deaths by Powerpoint! And Haiku Deck does that nicely.

Less Words. More Pictures. No Bullets.

Once you insert a new slide you can do only three things: add a picture, add text or choose a layout for displaying the text.

Less Words

In order to restrict the textual content, Haiku Deck provides option for entering text in only two lines. First one is for title and second for either subtitle or a short sentence. Using the layout option, you can place the text based on few options provided.

More Pictures

The best feature of Haiku Deck is the pictures.

One of the principle of good presentation is to have minimum text and more visual content. As most of us are not the creative kind, it’s difficult to create the visual content for our presentations. So comes the Internet to the rescue. But, it’s still a challenge to get the right match of the picture that you search for, specially the free ones or the ones under Creative Commons license. Haiku Deck makes this a breeze.

Haiku Deck fetches the picture from Internet which are licensed under Creative Commons. There’s a search option through which you can type in the term based on which you prefer the picture to be and Haiku Deck fetches hundreds of pictures that matches almost accurately.

If you enter the text before inserting any picture, it tries to fetch the pictures based on any of the nouns in the text. I found this to be a very clever feature as most of the time it was able to select the most effective noun and fetch pictures that matches the text.

That’s why this is the killer feature of the app. Of course, if you prefer you can add your own pictures too.

No Bullets

Need I say anything more?

It’s Not Perfect Yet

The current version lacks few features that are common to presentations: Animations and Videos. As for animations – according to me – not having is actually a good thing!

I understand from the app’s website that they’re working on next versions that will bring more easy-to-use features.

Of course, this app shouldn’t be compared with other professional presentation apps like Keynote, PowerPoint or Prezi.

The app is free. It comes with five free themes that you can use once you download the app. Many more themes are available through in-app purchase; each one costing $1.99 each. You can also buy a theme pack.

Haiku Deck is just a fun way to make presentations more interesting and engaging.

My rating

★★★★☆

Haiku Deck Developer site

Fasting: It’s Mind Games

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It’s that month of the year where we apply economic sanctions to our stomachs. Yes, the month of Ramazan (or Ramadan).

I have many friends who know me well enough and they also know I fast during Ramazan; so no surprises for them. But, invariably every year there’s always someone new who is curious about the fasting phenomenon and want to know it better.

So, one of the most common conversation during Ramazan goes like this:

  • Friend: “Do you observe fast?” or “Do you fast during Ramazan?”
  • Me: “Sure I do.”
  • Friend: “Wow.” This is usually followed by a quick nod of appreciation.
  • Friend: “Do you fast for the entire month?”
  • Me: “Absolutely. All 30 or 29 days of them.”
  • Friend: “Oh, wow!” And the hint of amazement.
  • Friend: “So you don’t eat anything during the day?”
  • Me: “Nope.”
  • Friend: “Not even some juice or water?”
  • Me: “Yep, nothing external.”
  • Friend: “I heard you can’t take in your saliva also?“
  • Me: “Not true. That’s why I mentioned that you can’t take anything external.“

Now, won’t it be an amazing scene (yeah, gross too) where you see a horde of people on the streets, all of them doing nothing but spitting whole day long just because they are fasting! Since it doesn’t happen in reality, let’s not visualize that scene in our mind. Oh, you already did? Sorry about that!

Anyway, the conversation continues.

  • Friend: “Can you take medicines during fast?“
  • Me: “Well, first of all, if you are sick you aren’t mandated to fast. In case you fall sick after starting the fast, there’re provisions to take medicines as necessary.“
  • Friend: “I see. But still, it’s amazing yaar! How do you do it? I mean, not eating anything the whole day; not even drinking a sip of water. I can’t survive for more than couple of hours. Don’t know how you guys do it, that too for a month. I can’t do it even for a day!”
  • Me: “Umm, you know, it’s all the mind games!“, I respond with my mysterious smile.

I mean it when I said fasting is mind games. When I think about it seriously – how we’re able to fast without any difficulty, for a month; switching the body clock suddenly where we wake up at an insane hour of 3:30am to cook and eat by 4:30am; avoiding the temptation of eating the whole day – the answer I always get is: it’s simple; our mind has accepted to do it!

It’s simple because all we need in our mind is an anchor. And this anchor is anchored so deeply in our mind that makes it easy to do things that we would – in normal circumstances – think as difficult, if not impossible. This anchor could be different for individuals. It could be religion, environment, influence, motivation, physical fitness, faith or something else. But there’s always an anchor. For me, for instance, it started with the environment.

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iOS Apps for Google Analytics

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This is the first apps review in my blog. As I recently started this blog, I was keen to check out if there are any good iOS apps for Google Analytics. After some search it turns out, Google is yet to release an app from its factory; apparently it’s in the making. But, the good news is, there are plenty of apps already available in Apple’s AppStore; few of them really good ones.

I narrowed down on 2 Apps: Analytics Tiles and Analytiks 2.0. I selected these apps because of their user interface (UI) and user experience (UX). They stand out from the rest and do an excellent job of presenting the information in a beautiful way.

Of course, I’ll recommend what I like the most at the end of the reviews. Let’s get going.
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Entrepreneurs Aren’t Born; They Are Made

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Entrepreneurship is neither a science nor an art. It is a practice.
-Peter Drucker

I come from a place where entrepreneurship is in everyone’s DNA; at least in majority of them. Ambur – a historical town in the state of Tamil Nadu, India – deliciously famous for its Biryani, fragrantly famous for its Jasmine flower and infamously famous for its leather industry. I grew up and studied in Ambur till my graduation (thus the motivation behind this blog post), before moving to Trichy for my post-graduation.

As I have mentioned about myself in this blog’s introduction, I’m just a suit in IT industry (yes, I know some call it cubicle schmuck)! At the time of writing this, I’m working for a large IT company in Bangalore. But my childhood and early adulthood life was spent in Ambur in the backdrop of some amazing entrepreneurship ecosystem that’s growing and thriving even today. There were many lessons to be learnt that were part of my day to day life.

Fragrant & Local:

Although in a much smaller scale than the other two industries, Ambur is famous for producing the extremely aromatic Jasmine flowers. It became so popular that the flower was also known as ‘Ambur Malli‘. The produce is not only sold locally but also in neighbouring towns and cities like Vellore. Locally it’s used during functions and festivals. It’s almost mandatory in wedding functions where both bride and groom are laced heavily with the garlands made out of jasmine flower.

Jasmine Flower

Also, Tamilians have this wonderful tradition where women wear these jasmine flower on their head; made into a bunch by stitching it together with thread. It not only looks good, but smells amazing too! This specialised market opportunity has enabled a small industry of florists who specialise in supplying some really creative garlands to the wedding and other functions. Of course, they also sell to normal customers on regular days. Some of these florists have become very successful and are running this business for the past few generations and the art has been passed on to the newer generation. These florists are true entrepreneurs though they may not be sophisticatedly laptop-totting ones. As the population has grown, so has the number of florists.

Delicious & National:

I can bet that almost everyone traveling from Chennai to Bangalore via Ambur by road would be familiar with the term ‘Ambur Biryani‘. Yes – Biryani – the same quintessential, mouth-watering delicacy that makes one drool with just the mere mention of it!

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Stop Motion Light Painting with an iPad!

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| by | Technology, Videography |
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Making Future Magic: iPad light painting is a short film that showcases not only a bit about the process, but also the end result — art in motion that features typography and the ubiquitous “glowing rectangles” that inhabit the world.

This is yet another excellent example of the creative usage of iPad. It never ceases to amaze me. And there still are many naysayers who have their head in the sand and say iPad is only for consumption and not for curation. This is curation, I say!

Design Matters

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Design Matters Image courtesy tweepi.com

Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.
-Steve Jobs

Design is a self expression. Design is not a thing; it’s a way of life. Design is not eye-candy; it’s the inner identity or the soul of the company. There are hundreds of books written on design and this topic is not new to many. But what is surprising is how little many of us are appreciative of design. Many make the mistake of taking design for granted with the false satisfaction of how any product looks from outside and how it functions. In an era of such huge technological advancement, many still fall in to the trap of specs and features. But the design is just not skin deep. It’s a definition of the self-being.

Once the design becomes the driving force of the company, it also becomes synonymous with the brand of the company. Quick test: if you’ve to choose between Apple and Motorola for their design, honestly, which one would you choose? No surprises there.

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A New Beginning…

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Alright… I’m taking the plunge!

The reason why I’m calling my first ever post in this blog ‘A New Beginning’ is because this isn’t my first foray into blogging. I had dabbled in blogging – albeit not seriously – in the past; an experiment that, to be honest to myself, didn’t go the way I imagined. I was always intrigued and fascinated about the blogging phenomenon. Also it wasn’t like I had any dearth of topics to blog about. It’s just that I lacked motivation to write.

So, what has changed now? Well, for one, I’ve got enough motivation now to be consistent and write regularly! That’s a good enough reason for me. Second, I’m working on something exciting and if all goes well I’ll be sharing the good news with all very soon. Not just the good news alone, but my journey as well. So, stay tuned on this one…

What am I going to blog about? In addition to some topics that I’m really passionate about – entrepreneurship and technology – I’ll also share my thoughts; random thoughts on topics that interest me in my day to day life.

Serendipity

I’ve titled my blog ‘Serendipity’ as it’s one of my favourite English word! Below tabs show the meaning or definition from Dictionary and Wikipedia. Since I liked the Wiki definition better, I’m showing it in the front!

A “happy accident” or “pleasant surprise”; specifically, the accident of finding something good or useful without looking for it.

The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

I believe I like the word Serendipity because I have experienced it in my life on more than one occasion (this will be a topic for my future post!). It’s also a sheer coincidence that when I was looking for a good theme for this blog (on WordPress), out of more than hundred of them, I happen to like the one that was titled … wait for it … Serendipity! I kid you not. So, this was yet another – yeah, I’m going to say it – serendipitous moment for me! As we go along, you’ll find many more references to serendipity in this blog.

Alright then, off I go…