Anthony Tongbram’s Blog

Less than one month into 2008, in the technology community the money and investments all appears to be flowing to open source. Just recently open source database software company MySQL was acquired for $1Billion by Sun Microsystems and open source adserver OpenAds received $15.5Million in Series B VC funding. While 2007 saw the acquisition of numerous online advertising entities like DoubleClick, Right Media, 24 Real Media and ADTECH the early money for 2008 is flowing to open source entities. Why is this occurring and where is open source headed both as a community initiative and for major corporations?

With SUN opening up, Mysql was a very good fit. This is also an immensely good opportunity for Indian IT companies to look beyond the SAP, SOA implementations.

While many speculate how open source entities generate revenue the growth of these popular applications like Linux, Joomla and WordPress and the MySQL acquisition showcases the tremendous growth in this sector.
[Via Email from 5W PR]

There will be lamp posts….but only good for the dogs. What with thieves on a rampage stealing the copper wires. With the ongoing astronomic rise of the prices of precious and base metals, thieves are targeting the copper wiring in the lamp posts.

Park officials said more than a mile of copper wiring has been stolen from lampposts in the East River Park and along highways, costing the city thousands of dollars and leaving many areas without proper lighting to curb more crime.

[link]
And I thought these happens only in India. It was rumoured that Reliance employed local goons to safegourd their cables when they were laying the country wide fibre optic network, not just to curve the loss of cables from thefts, but to prevent the delays due to such loss.

Where I go for work, there is this Central Library. Well, libraries have books, and I haven’t read a book in a while, so there I went with the intention of picking up a book or two. Books, I didn’t bring any but how could I? There were rows and rows of my favorite movies, well cinemas would be a better word.

We don’t get too many World cinemas back in India, and there is this guy at Pallika Bazaar who sells DVD copies, the source is limited. And the library was a… well, “Porn to my eyes” ( That is the best I can think of for my eyes).

I have a good collection of Akira Kurosawa back in India. And I watched two here. Stray Dog and Ikuru. I don’t want to watch more AKira Movies. Each time I watch one, re-run or a new one, I have this funny feeling of being a born again film maker. Like I could really make good movies. And act, now don’t laugh! Blame Akira!

I am watching at one a day. This weekend I finished 3, and all were exceptionally good. If you get a hold of a copy, you should watch The lives of others (Das Leben der Anderen). You will not foget it!

For the past half an hour, I have been trying to make some buys, so that I could at level out my losses, or even make a profit, and I can’t bloody log into my account. The internet speed is like a freeway here, and I can continuously stream youtube, but our Icicidirect won’t open. What is the use of an internet trading account if the website cannot respond on such a critical day? Just because I can’t login, I don’t know if I will lose potential profits, or even make a loss. Because my portfolio is lying unattended when the market is fallen by more than 1500 points.

This is trading account for god’s sake. Why would I need an online trading account if I were an IPo investor. I buy and sell shares according to market movements and I bloody want the service provider, whom I am paying a premium, and brokerages in thousands, that they at least provide me with a website that is not DOWN. For god’s sake. I had a kotakstreet account which I closed because I thought they had an IT insufficient infrastructure. I am paying a brokerage about 1% with ICICI, which is about 300-400% average brokerage, just because I thought they had a robust IT infrastructure and won’t fail me.

I definitely don’t recommend icicidirect.com as the preferred broking services, even after spending more than 4 years of trading and brokerages that I can’t even think of. It sure is time to switch to a new provider. If you know any Net trading set that was not do today, do let me know by adding a comment.

And the brokerage that I paid in the four years. All for nothing.

Mihir Bose writes something very interesting. Apparently Harbhajan Singh did not call Andrew Symonds ‘monkey’ during the episode at the Sydney Test that provoked the recent cricket crisis between Australia and India. He actually said “Maaki”.

Thank god Symonds heard it only as Monkey and not as Maaki, not that he would have understood. If calling him by the name of a very distant primate relative could stir up such trouble, imagine what would have happened had he understood what Harbhajan said that moment. I mean, we are used to the words Maa ki or Bhen ki, since it is spoken minus the word that has an obvious reference to a certain female genital part, But Maa ki only refers to that, and it is a swear word that would not be taken in good light if it were translated in the true form.

Well I have explained more than I should, but Monkey or Maa ki, it shows a very high level of immaturity on our part.

I love blog meets, and I try never to miss the chance of meeting new bloggers in a City. I attended my first blog I guess in Mumbai, and my last one was in Delhi when I first came to Delhi.

It is time now for the Delhi Blogger meet again, but alas! I  would miss it. I am not in Delhi at the moment, and won’t be back till Feb end or March. I am hoping, we could organise these meets more frequently so that there would another meet by the time I reach in Delhi .

 I got a message on facebook, and was overwhelmed by the number of people who have sent thier confirmation: If you haven’t yet, and you live in or near Delhi, and you write or read blogs, visit http://delhibloggers.eventbrite.com

Here’s a list of confirmed members so far.
Zabeeh Afaque
Blog: http://www.mediaactivist.blogspot.com
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Anouradha Bakshi
Website: http://www.projectwhy.org
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prabal banerjee
Website: http://www.goip.co.in
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Akash Bannerjee
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Sunandini Basu
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chetan bhattarai
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Indrojit Chaudhri
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Apurva chaudhry
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Twilight Fairy
Blog: http://www.twilightfairy.in
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Ankur Gupta
Blog: http://ankurg.info
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Uma Iyer
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Ravi Kapoor
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Urvi Khanna
Website: http://www.autsun.com
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Rajesh Lalwani
http://www.blogworks.in
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sunny lamba
Blog: http://sunnywinterz.blogspot.com
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Just Mohit
Blog: http://unjustly.wordpress.com
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Mayabhushan N
Blog: http://ardh-satya.blogspot.com
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Shashwat Nagpal
Blog: http://www.shashwat.in
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Nikhil Pahwa
Website: http://contentsutra.com
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Ashutosh Pradhan
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Vyom Prashant
Blog: http://asksar.rediffblogs.com
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Gurinder Raju
Blog: http://endsandmeans.blogspot.com
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Gautam Saluja
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Swagat Sen
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Ankur Sethi
Website: http://www.ankursethi.blogspot.com/
Blog: http://stillpics.blogspot.com/
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Hiren Shah Shah
Website: http://mypyp.wordpress.com/
Blog: http://wplay.wordpress.com/
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Prabhat Sharma
Website: http://www.horizonit.co.in
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Rupali Bajpai Sheryari
Website: http://www.linkedin.com/in/bajpairupali
Blog: http://sakhiscribbles.blogspot.com/
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Sanjay Shrivastava
Blog: http://flickr.com/photos/copysanjay
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Lalit Singh 

Blog: http://lalitsingh99.blogspot.com/
Anyway all those who would be there, enjoy! and keep us updated

Did I say that I will start updating my blog every day? It wasn’t meant to be a New Year’s resolution, but now that I have broken it, so be it.

Anyway, 2007 would be the most uneventful year, ever. But surprisingly it went away pretty fast.

I shifted to the NCR around end of 2006, and I got fairly adjusted to the Delhi chill by the start of New Year. Oh and I learnt driving in the Fog. Visibility? Just the bonnet.

2007 new year (that was last year) was a small affair of wine and dine at my place with some close friends, and past midnight I had to go a friend’s party when there was this fog suddenly, and we had to turn back.  

I loved the winter though, but was not too prepared for the delhi heat. My AC broke down on the hottest day of that year, and swore that I wouldn’t stay another summer in Delhi, which seems unlikely, now, though. Did I mention that the power also went, just when the AC guy came after a long wait.

2007, I also made huge losses in the derivatives segment. When the market touched unimaginable heights, I went short, again and again and again, thinking that the market shouldn’t be so high, and justifying my act by telling myself that I was hedging my portfolio, even though I was buying HUGE lots of Nifty Puts. Well some people never learn. Some stocks did exceptionally well though; RPL, India Bulls, Ashapura, Sesa Goa, Era Constructions. But I was never born to be a hedge fund manager. Oh even the slot machines would agree as I learnt recently at Vegas.

2008, I will stay away from derivatives. I will stick to my good old stock picking, and once picked, STICK to my “buy and forget” strategy. Help me God!  

Blogging took back seat. 2007 was a year when I spent the most unproductive time online. Well, thanks to the social networking sites, aka orkut and facebook and user generated sites aka Digg. Now on less of social networking, except for business networking, and more of blogging.

Ah back to blogging, there will be Industry watching, stock watching, dashes of bollywood, NextGen technology, Manipur, North East India Politics and lots of personal stuff, and pop culture like the good old days. And how come a music maven never writes about music? More music to come! And Cinema!

And lots of weird WTF posts to come.

Now is the time to update your blog rolls and feeders.

Happy 2008!

Welcome to tongbram.com. Many of you know me from Anthonysmirror or Bachelor cooking! I haven’t blogged for a while now, not because I ever got bored of blogging, but I just couldn’t find the time to update it more frequently. Perhaps I had been spending too much time on the so called social networking sites. Oh Yes, If I remember correctly, it was Digg and orkut that took away my blogging time… Oh it is all coming back…

Well I am here now, hoping to be back among bloggers, and maybe wake some old bloggers like me who have been hibernating too long.. Watch your comments and emails..

Welcome me back!!!