WalkMe and 2009!

Dear Friend and Well-wisher :

Hope things are going great with you. Things have been pretty busy and hectic since start of this year, haven’t even gotten a chance to send my usual welcoming new year email. I thought I will combine that email with another element – WalkMe.

WalkMe was started sometime in December as a skunk works projects with some colleagues of mine. Our management liked it and last week we released it as a “Sandbox for Microsoft HealthVault” project. I’m really glad that this effort is seeing light of the day, I would love if you give a go and provide us feedback. Perhaps, put the widgets on our blog, twitter or facebook.

So – take out your pedometers (or use Manual entry), take WalkMe for a stroll… and walk with us!

2008 – started with an India trip. Myself, my sister and Maris had a great time visiting India. Unlike previous trips this time we kept some time to travel in India, and went around to Delhi, Jaipur and Agra – the quintessential golden Triangle. We had all kinds of experience – loved Jaipur, hated Agra and Delhi was alrite J. 2008 – end with travel as well ! Infact the same group J, myself, Vaidehi and Maris were in Mexico from Christmas to Jan 7^th. It was an amazing trip –we went from Mexico City, to Morelia to Zihuatenejo – loved the culture, crafts and the climate J. In August, my parents visited us for a couple of Months– we had great time showing them around in Washington, British Canada, California and the East coast.

I didn’t get to climb a lot last summer. However I was able to get up Mt. Baker, try some ice climbing and go for a back packing trip along Olympic coast. I also managed to finish the ride from Seattle to Portland with absolute zero training J. This year – I’m planning to improve on this front and try and be outdoors a little more. So do remind me that every now and then when you see me working too hard or spending too much time on computer.

On the work front it was really hectic and successful year. I was able to do some open source at Microsoft – help in a Ruby, PHP and Java library for your platform. I represented these libraries and effort in OSCON 2008. After write quite a few post about how to write libraries and code for HealthVault, my blog is featured on our MSDN homepage. WalkMe is my small drop in the next step of bringing helping bring some eyes ball and viral effect for HealthVault.

On the education and entrepreneurship areas – I finished my 9 month Certificate in Business Development course from UW (I started winesofeast of out of that course in April). I’m also delving in idea of creating a venture fund for startups focused on bringing change in India, currently we are looking for board of advisors if you have a recommendation please drop me a line.

Wont bore with much more, I’m going to put list all of my writings and activities for 2008 on my blog here.

Please do drop me a line and let me know how things are goings. Sorry I couldn’t be personal as much as I would have loved. So wishing you great little less than 11 months of 2009 ahead and keep in touch!

Cheers,

Vaibhav

Welcome 2009 - A month and 7 days later :).

As Promised here are my writings for 2008:

Welcoming 2008:

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2007/12/welcome-2008.html

Personal:

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/01/pillars-for-success-of-bdm.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/01/fixing-my-overheating-old-toshiba-a65.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/02/indian-stocks-for-long-term-investment.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/02/things-i-need-to-blog-about.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/03/maris-culinary-skills.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/03/ideation.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/03/to-be-or-not-to-be.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/03/salsa-fun.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-to-start-climbing-512.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/03/art-of-start.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/05/naked-ape.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/05/salsa-2a-class-one.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/06/visible.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/06/backpacking-south-olympics.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/07/mt-baker-climb.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/07/sponsor-my-ride-help-cause.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/07/small-city-india-and-change-we-need.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/07/how-to-make-best-sambar.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/07/how-to-make-best-sambar.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/07/ride-report-stp-2008.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/08/ma-and-bapu-in-seattle-week-one.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/08/we-struck-gold-what-next-can-we-build_17.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/08/vegetarian-nutrition.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/09/water.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/09/festival-of-forgiveness-michammi-dukdam.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/09/where-is-my-data-can-i-use-it-and-can.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/09/daily-dashboard-do-you-have-one.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/09/ice-climbing-newb.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/09/non-voters-cast-your-vote.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/10/fixing-my-aging-canon-s400-camera.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/11/nurturing-entrepreneurship-in-indias.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/11/trusting-future.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/11/shopping-time.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2008/12/happy-birthday-maris.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2009/01/writing-style.html

http://vitraag.blogspot.com/2009/01/mexico-trip.html

Professional:

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/01/redirecting-healthvault-applications-to-the-healthvault-shell/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/01/microsoft-volta/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/02/linq-to-healthvault/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/02/healthvault-opens-up/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/02/offlineaccess-sample/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/02/updating-changed-user-data-in-heatlhvault/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/03/openssl-and-working-with-healthvault/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/03/testing-your-application-on-older-versions-of-ie-web-app-compat-that-is/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/03/transforming-xsl-datetime-to-healthvault-date-time/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/03/seven-evangelists-and-a-bus-codetrip/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/03/visualizing-health-data/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/04/talking-to-the-public-methods-of-healthvault-platform/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/04/microsoft-and-opensource-a-new-age/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/04/long-tail-tale-getting-an-auth-token-sure-openhealthvault-can/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/05/extending-healthserviceactionpage/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/05/the-new-economy-computing-big-n/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/06/curious-about-whats-under-the-healthvault-sdks-hood/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/06/doing-user-authentication-with-healthvault/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/06/lighting-it-up/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/06/scheming-for-method-schemas/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/07/creating-a-healthvault-child-application/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/07/oscon-2008/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/07/whats-your-editor-personality/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/08/putthings-for-offline-access/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/09/social-bookmarking-contribute-to-tag-healthvault/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/09/well-you-can-svn-on-codeplex-now/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/09/interesting-healthvault-videos/

http://healthblog.vitraag.com/2008/11/security-resources-for-net-web-applications/

Entrepreneurial:

http://www.winesofeast.com/2007/12/04/presenting-wines-of-east/

http://www.vitraag.com/2008/05/welcome/

http://wiki.vitraag.com/index.php?title=Visible

http://www.winesofeast.com/2008/06/22/what-have-we-been-upto/

http://wiki.vitraag.com/index.php?title=IPhone_Development

http://wiki.vitraag.com/index.php?title=Karkhana

http://www.thekarkhana.com/2008/12/working-with-ajax-apis/

http://www.thekarkhana.com/2008/12/seattle-startup-resources/

Mexico Trip!

This Holiday season myself, Maris and Vaidehi spent some awesome time in Mexico. In the few paragraphs here - I will touch upon some of the great aspects of our trip.

Well, Why Mexico? Because it is warm, when its really the beginning of winter and gloom in Seattle and North America. I wanted to be in some place warm, I was up for doing a cruise but Maris want a more immersive experience and Vaidehi wanted to buy stuff :).

In our, 11days in Mexico we primarly tried to cover the central plateau. We started with the big bad Mexico City. Lonely planet and friend has suggested that the city is really a crime zone, and make sure you dont use the bug taxis. We were very careful of that fact, we just used the taxi's from a authorized center or calling the cental number. We stayed in Centro historico district in Hotel Gillow, it was a very great and convenient place. Centro historico was the place to be, the Zocalo had a huge ice rink (apparently world's largest outdoor rink) and the citizens lined up from 9 in the morning to enjoy their government's gift! Over the three days in Mexio city we thoroughly got acquainted with Mexican history and culture. I read a few pages in to the book "Mexico", it really laid out the lay of land from Teotihaucans, Aztecs , Mayans, Hernan Cortez, French, to Mexican revolution, General Santa Anna, to the PAN, and gave a perspective of why the current PRI gorvernment is so unique!

We thoroughly enjoyed the vegetarian food in Mexico City, especially the Restaurant Vegetariano on Madero and Cafe Vegetariano in Zona Rosa.

We took a day trip from Mexico City to the ruins of Teotihuacan.

From Mexico City we headed to Michaocan - the state of artists. To spend the New Years and immerse in traditional mexican way of living. We stayed in Morelia in a really well accentuated Mexican condo -

The orginal plan was to go to Patzucuaro but Maris and Vaidehi were more interested in the Monarch butterflies and they already did a tonne of Dulce and Artisanians shopping locally. So we headed the to santctuary and man! it was a million of butterflies, simply outstanding experience.


The New Years we relatively low key, we headed to this place Casa de Salsa after midnight in Morelia but it was not as packed as we expected...

Vaidehi and Maris - fell a litle ill do we decided to take a rest day. Go do some grocery shopping and cook at home - ! Maris made awesome soft tacos... and hey my side dish (yet to be named concotion comprising kidney beans...) was amazing...as Vaidehi will vouch....


We headed from Morelia to Zinhuatenjo...lovingly called Zihua just near the popular criuse ship base of Ixtapa. The bus ride to Zihua was very scenic..i never imagined that Mexico would have such a variety ..coming down from central coast to the sea level brought in the much needed and sought after warmth. Our hotel was right on the beach playa madera. I loved this beach the most (compared to the other much commercialized ones), for next three days i was busy catching the waves :). We took a small trip to neary by Manzillino beach which has coral reef just near the beach and did some snorkelling, man the girls went mad.... they just didnt want to go home. I gave up after an hour, but Vaidehi and Maris snorkelled for like 2.5 hours!! It was lovely, colorful and warm!!!



On our last day, we did a tonne of shopping in Mexico City (Centro Historico), some cute silver jewellery and Tequilla....



To summarize, it was a really great trip - we indulged in the histroric, artistic, rural and beach Mexico. It was nice to see, that in this third word country the state of toursim is really a notch up 0 - the buses were we took were really comfortable, hotels very tuned to the traveller and people very helpful! It was surprising that with very little spanish between myself (I specialized in numbers) and Maris (she specialized in directions), we could navigate the Hispanic world and have a great time, may be this calls for a revisit - sometime in future .......

Writing Style

Being a non-native English speaker and writer as you can read my writings, they are not perfect. The way i choose to write is very conversational and grammatically incorrect. However, I'm taking up a New years' commitment to improve grammar, diction and clarity of my writings.

I tend to use simple, direct sentences but i dont vary the length of the sentences not do i mix clauses to sound them interesting. So inspired by some advice from Strunk and White, I'm going to try and experiment with my writing style.

One other problem I run in to is I dont tend to think the way i write. Infact, sometimes i think in several different languages (including symbols), this being a by-product of growing to learn 3-4 languages. I'm going to try and think as I write and force myself to think the way i write. I hope that this exercise will improve the clarity and thought process of my written work, and may be also improve the way I think.

So here it is New Years' resolution #1 - improve grammer, diction and clarity of my writings.

Happy Birthday Maris

From Maris' Birthday

From Marrakesh, to Century Ballroom to fighting with Snow balls on first Seattle snow of the year - it was great celebrating Maris' birthday. The pictures are shared at:http://picasaweb.google.com/vaibhavb/MarisBirthday.

Shopping time

I keep a wish list of things i desire :). However with the coming shopping season and Black Friday i thought this is the opportunity to make a comprehensive list of things we need to buy for everyone and make up for Diwali and not doing household chores in general.

Trusting the future

I was looking at some personal finance website in India, like this one and this one. Its appalling to see no worth-while content in the Indian scene vs great tools like Mint and Wiki-Invest on this side of pacific.

Anyways i think that this is a great time to take stock of one's financial health. The stock market and various other financial instituions around the world are facing a grim crisis. If you are a believer magic free market even in face of un-controlled and bottomless stock markets, then its a really great time to invest. However the big question is where to invest? Which stocks to pick and oh yes do you make up your portfolio in these times. Over the next few weeks i plan to address this very issue.

To make a modest start I'm ruling out any form of option trading, as the markets are really volatile, and i'm also going to rule out any chance of investing more that 40% of my savings in the cheap stocks.

Now once we rule out that. With a modest budget of $800 per month what can one do? The strategy i want to pick is buy stocks which were ridiculously high at one point and are dirt cheap (prefarably $1) now. However i'll only pick companies how have _real_ assets and a _positive_ revenue in this mix. So what are these companies? F?

View the full F chart at Wikinvest

What do I do with rest 60% well, the dollar to rupee conversion rates are substantially high these days (possibly highest in last 3 years), so i'm going to try and send that money back home to India. I'm not sure though if i want my father to invest that in stocks. He is stock broken full time and has tendencies to over do it. So i'm going to cap that may to 20% stocks and rest as cash. Lets see though, it has to work THE man.