Aawaara

Chrome doesn’t fire focus/blur events when someone uses mouse to click a checkbox/radio button

Since I already have wasted a lot of time, figuring it out, therefore it is better that I write it down for future reference, and may be someone else finds it useful, and can save a few hours!

As the title suggests, Safari and Chrome do not fire focus/blur events when the user uses the mouse to access checkboxes or radio buttons. It will work fine when you use the <Tab> key, but mouse click wouldn’t work as expected. It works perfectly in firefox. Here is an example:

http://jsfiddle.net/54y69/147/

Try it out on different browsers to experience the difference.

The fix is to associate the function with the click event. In my case we highlight the label when a form field is selected. So, I fixed it for checkboxes by binding to both click and focus events. Below is the pseudo code:

$('<selector>').bind('focus click', function(){

// Custom code

});

On a lighter note, how about banning all browsers except Firefox… ;)

In my opinion that is the easiest and quickest way to World Peace!

UPDATE: Mac version of firefox behaves similar to chrome. Thanks to Manoj for pointing that out. Filed a bug with Mozilla here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=756028

How to change Active Admin default for records per page (pagination)

Add the following to initializers/active_admin.rb:

config.default_per_page = 50

Posting it here because I couldn’t find this information in documentation, or elsewhere.

Why Entrepreneurship isn’t a bad idea…!!!

In spite of the fact that India is a difficult place to be for entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurship is highly under-rated here,  I still think that Entrepreneurship isn’t a bad idea! I am completely aware of the fact that we are a part of a risk averse society which translates into:

• Fear of failure, whereas our American counterparts wear failure as a badge
• Lack of social recognition and acceptance for entrepreneurs
• Less (read negligible) angel and seed investment
• Serious lack of early adopters

But those are just facts, figures and ground realities, and interestingly entrepreneurship isn’t about facts and figures. It’s exactly opposite and is about being disruptive. It’s about swimming against the tide, because therein lies the fun. If everyone could do it, then everyone would do it, and it wouldn’t be so much fun. The rewards wouldn’t be so satisfying, if they were achieved so easily.

The entry barrier for entrepreneurs, and especially for web start-ups has been eliminated. Open source technologies have reduced the cost of entry for entrepreneurs so much that we don’t even need to think twice before venturing out. Thanks to the community for being so wonderful. It re-establishes our faith in humanity! World class infrastructure  and hosting is now available to us at dirt cheap prices. Gone are the days when only enterprise audience deserved that, and everyone else was served junk, and that too would cost an arm and a leg. We live in the age of cloud, and a ton of thanks to a bunch of start-ups that changed the game completely, and made it a level playing field. Forget about money that you need to start up, because you don’t need any. All that you need is commitment and hard work. Shut up, and go build something.

The best part about entrepreneurship is that you learn a zillion things along the way. Things which you wouldn’t have learnt otherwise. Even if I leave aside the technical aspects, everything else that I have come across, and the inherent value in it has been fabulous. If anyone else would have ever told me all that, I wouldn’t have paid attention, believed or understood. So I don’t want to be that ‘anyone else’! Go and learn it for yourself.

For people who have been waiting since long for the right time to get started, there isn’t any such thing as the “right time”. Jump in now, as you have nothing to lose here. It is a sure win situation - either you get it, or you get the lessons. And even if you get the latter, those lessons make you a far better person than you were, and make you better prepared for the next time when you start again…!
Even if you fail, at least you tried to create some real value, which maybe other people didn’t understand… ;)  
People may want to differ with that, but I like to think it that way…and that’s what entrepreneurship is all about - there are no set rules. Hadn’t there been so many unknowns, it would have been just another day job.

And in the worst case scenario you will fail, and that worst case scenario occurs for 99 out of 100 start-ups. You will fall flat on the ground with your face down. Failure is the default for every start up, but even if you fail, you now know how to handle failure, which is an incredible virtue in itself,  and still have those zillion things with you that you learnt along the way. See, there is so much value even in failing, that I don’t even need to talk about what you get if you are heading North, towards the success highway!

Because when you look back,  you will be more disappointed by things that you didn’t do,  than what you did, and there will always be that voice at the back of your head - ‘If I had done it that way, then maybe…’ Therefore take that leap of faith now…!!!

Beyond Words…

This man and whatever he has done is beyond words! Now this is what you call a go-getter…!!! And best of all, he did it silently…without all the hoopla…hats off…!!!

www.barefootcollege.org

Are startup event organizers just another bunch of startups selling false hopes?

I know that I am putting skeletons in my cupboard with this post and it will come back to haunt me some day. I am still okay with that because it isn’t a deterrent strong enough to prevent me from speaking my mind out…give me something better… ;)

The story goes something like this:

• Someone contacts me at [email protected] and the content has the term “globalization” in it with some other gibberish. Later he suggests to attend startup events (and one event in particular which is due in a week) to get networked and leverage it to take the product to the next level.
• I don’t get any pin pointed or constructive feedback/suggestions despite writing back a couple of times to know the thoughts exactly.
• A few days later I get a ping asking about my plans to attend the event. I try to know the person better and come to know that he hasn’t tried his hands at entrepreneurship yet and has no plans for the near future. “I am learning all” is what I get.
• Final sales pitch says “You can meet evangelists who might be interested in your product” : I didn’t know that it was that easy!
• Then out of curiosity I check whether the person concerned has registered at BillBaba.com. Negative! Now I certainly doubt his intentions.
• Of course, I didn’t attend the event… ;)  I am almost bankrupt and I can think of a zillion better ways to spend that money.

I had been thinking about this for a long long time now, and what pushed my thoughts in that direction is the amount that these people charge for tickets which ranges anywhere from 3000 bucks to 10000 buck in India. Exorbitant by my standards as a bootstrapped entrepreneur who earns a big zero and could use this money on something better like a few months of hosting or some adwords credits. Okay, I may be exaggerating here, but I still don’t get how and why are the tickets priced so high. Why not make it a free event? Does it result in every Tom, Dick and Harry turning up for the event. Does that really defeat the purpose, or on the contrary accomplishes the mission which the event organizers had initially envisioned - get everybody interested in startups. I am sure that they wouldn’t have to pay from their pockets as the sponsors will queue up to get so many more eyeballs.

The soft spot that these events try to hit on is VC money. We entrepreneurs are really emotional about money and will even spend money to get more money. I don’t buy what they are trying to sell here - networking and it’s by products like VC contacts, evangelists, mentors, etc. Does it happen that way? I seriously doubt that. Can I walk up to any VC in that event and pitch right there and then. Even if I do, does that really matter. Will it be any better than a linkedin introduction or an email? Will I be able to find mentors there? A person who is too busy to even answer emails, how will he carve out time for you then. And if someone wants to help, thou shall be helped, and he/she doesn’t care whether you attended the event or not! Okay, I do admit that I am bad at networking, but I will be bad at networking at the event too. Will it be any different there?

Still, I have immense love for startups of any kind as I can connect to them at a personal level. Therefore I have taken extra care to hide/modify the details of the event so that you don’t investigate and try to pin point the event. The story in fact is even more interesting and can be broken into parts, but that gives everything away. I have waited a bit and ensured that the event season is finished so that you cannot take advantage of the timing of the post to point it out. See if you are smart, I am smart too… ;)  Additionally I am not saying that these events are a waste of time (awesome people, talking awesome stuff - I do watch the available videos), and you may find suitable uses for yourself. It also adds great value when you are on stage and doing the talking. You may get more than what is promised in that case. All I am saying is that I personally find it unethical to tap on an entrepreneurs need for money to make money for yourself. Period!

PS: I may be missing something here and will be more than happy if someone can point that out to me.

Stop TRAIng idiots - You think you are here to solve problems, we will create more!

The motivation for this post is the termination charges of 5p/sms that come into effect from 25th Oct, 2011 via the latest TRAI notification, latest in the series of oppressive regulations (w.r.t to entrepreneurs). For anyone who thinks that 5p/sms isn’t much, the truth is that it almost doubles the cost, and is even more than an increase of 100% if you had high volumes.

Statutory Warning: I will not be subtle in my criticism. If you are satisfied with what you are getting, and don’t give a damn about what you may be missing, or have turned a blind eye towards killing of innovation, and the limitless possibilities that sms communication could have, this post is not for you. Please note that no one is endorsing spam here, but terminating all communication cannot be the solution to those pesky SMSes. For people who have heart aches due to name calling, you have been warned. You may choose to opt out (of all communication by subscribing to NCPR/DND list), and discontinue reading. Just ensuring that this is no unsolicited communication… ;)

The story so far:

• Airtel exits bulk sms space in september 2010
• TRAI comes up with a set of regulations in March, 2011
• Implementation postponed indefinitely due to obvious faults
• TRAI again comes up with a similar set of regulations (I still don’t know what they were doing for 6 months), which come into effect from 27th Sep, 2011
• People point out the problems and there is a lot of hue and cry. The big/small players (businesses, startups) are worried at the inherent foolishness of the regulations
• I write an email to TRAI, a minister and people in Nasscom and TIE pointing out the problems. Haven’t received a reply till date, not even an acknowledgement from anyone that the problem even exists
• Within 12 hours of the new regulations coming into effect TRAI issues an amendment that exempts the big players (facebook, twitter, linkedin, google, justdial, etc.)
• TRAI comes up with a 5p/sms termination charge that comes into effect from 25th Oct, 2011 and the money goes to the receiving network
• Ecommerce players (probably I don’t need to name the bigger players) are exempted from this termination charge
• Airtel stands to benefit the most due to the recent termination charges, as they have the largest network and they have already exited the bulk sms space (so they don’t need to pay anybody)

For those of you who still don’t get it, or are feigning ignorance, I’ll put it down it words. The inferences:

• When I first read that airtel was lobbying hard for these regulations, I wasn’t sure enough. As someone has said- the end justifies the means, and by looking at the end I am now able to connect the dots. A pure win situation for airtel and probably they will be making more money than what they would have if they were in the bulk sms space. They don’t pay anybody and everybody pays them, and they get paid more money (5p) than what the bulk sms service provider earns (2-3p) in the first place. Pure Profit!
• The regulations didn’t work, and TRAI seems to be admitting to that by introducing the termination charge, or is there something else to it. Time and again I am reminded of the fact that India is the land of opportunities is you know the right people, and have the right amount of money to spend on them. Whatever happened to that policy on fine for more than 5 violations, nobody seems to care. Do we have any data which tells us that it failed, and to justify the introduction of termination charges? Weren’t the regulations foolish in the first place? Don’t we need to correct them first before introducing new ones?
• The world isn’t fair. There are no guardian angels in the world of entrepreneurship. Everybody is for himself (maybe that’s the fun part and makes success more sweet and enjoyable). If you are a big player, good for you, and if you aren’t - $@# & off! Bad timing dude.

In your ‘Pursuit of Happyness’ - “You can only depend on yourself. The cavalry ain’t coming.”

So what’s next from our entrepreneur friendly government - email regulations, facebook terminations, twitter reverberations!
 

The unanswered email…[An open letter to TRAI]

Below is an email which I wrote just before the not so good (bordering foolish) TRAI regulations came into effect. The email still remains unanswered, in fact none of the people involved ever acknowledged the email or the problem itself. So I am posting it as an open letter to TRAI.

Mail Sent to:

1. TRAI 
2. A minister related to industries who is young and tech savvy enough to leave his email address on the ministry site
3. A few people in NASSCOM
4. A few people in TIE

Date: Sun, Sep 25, 2011 at 10:13 PM

 
Subject: The ‘Telecom Commercial Communications Regulations’ are a blow to entrepreneurs and the ecosystem.

Dear Sir,

First things first - I too have been a victim of pesky calls and SMSes quite too often and totally agree that something needs to be done about that, but stopping all communication cannot be the solution. You need to distinguish between good communication and bad communication and treating everything the same will create problems for everyone, especially for young entrepreneurs. We already face a lot of problems everyday and this is a serious blow to the fragile ecosystem available to entrepreneurs in India.

Here are some of the problems that I think a lot of entrepreneurs in the web domain will be experiencing due to the new guidelines:

2) The transactional category is fixed and everything else is classified as promotional. We also send messages which are transactional in nature. There may be cases where the user has subscribed and paid for those messages.

4) The identifier will now we a number (unique id) instead of the short code (DM-SERVICE). That means the user does not know from whom the message is coming. Previously a user could delete spam messages without actually reading it, by just looking at the short code. Now one will have to go through all the messages to filter out useful messages from the useless ones.

The regulations completely take away an area to innovate from young entrepreneurs, which I don’t think is fair enough. The counter argument may be that if a user wants such services then he/she can unsubscribe from NCPR, but that is something like inviting spam and the user will not do so. The regulations seem to be squeezing our user base and restricting out thought process. For a normal subscriber it’s a case of - either you get everything or you get nothing, you don’t have the power to choose.

Hoping for a positive response.

The computer world as we know it today: How it all began - innovation, competition and cheating as well…

A must watch for anyone who is interested in technology, or just business, or even if you are not. A rare documentary where a few boys challenged the likes of IBM (which was way bigger then), and pulled it off with sheer grit and a desire to excel. The stories you always wanted to know…but beware, it isn’t a fairy tale!

Grab your popcorn and have a seat. This is a 3 episode (which has been cut down to 6 parts per episode on youtube) film and first premiered on PBS in June 1996. Around 3 hour of computer history that you must know.

You may have always thought that windows was copied from mac, but even mac wasn’t original and was an offspring of a research project at Xerox - a company which had built something so great, that it didn’t have the slightest of idea as to how great it was, and just threw it away. Even DOS wasn’t original, and was just an opportunity presented to Bill Gates, which he grabbed with both hands. For all this, and much more you shouldn’t be reading this anymore, and watching the video instead…!!!

And don’t forget to thank me for showing you this… ;)

How to add scope/permissions to a facebook app when using Koala gem

I keep forgetting it again and again and spend too much time searching for it on google with no success, and finally look at the source code. Then I think that why didn’t I look at the source code in the first place, and why do I most of the times rely on google to solve the problem……what if there was no GOOGLE….. ;)

So here it is…a step in that direction (self help, and maybe help for others whose first instinct is to search on google), for the record:

Koala::Facebook::OAuth.new(app_id, app_secret, callback_url).url_for_oauth_code(:permissions => “email,publish_stream”)

You need to pass the scope as an argument to url_for_oauth_code method.

And for anyone who wants to realize how easy it was if my first instict was to look at the source, here goes the source code:

RIP Steve Jobs! The visionary, the rebel, the legend…

Even though I have never used an Apple product (and haven’t been a great fan either, owing to the high price points), but Steve Jobs has always been an inspiration, a guiding light, and I feel a great loss today. The gap created will not be filled for a very very long time.Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

“Steve Jobs”