Rajan's View

The world at large has been going through a phase of VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity). Some say that this is the new "normal". Although, this term was initially coined by the US Army War College, it applies to the world of business and markets as well. As a result, the VUCA conditions impose more strain on IT departments to deliver solutions that are sustainable and flexible. There are several structured techniques one can employ to manage this scenario. One of the techniques is called - "Nine Windows". This technique looks at two dimensions - time and space. The time represented as past, present and future. The space dimension is modelled as - super system, system and sub system. Nine Windows As an IT architect, a lot of my time is spent working with teams on solution architecture and implementation. Sometimes, when there are several or competing options available, I use this technique. Typically, there is a tendency to focus...

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well if one has not dined well." ~Virginia Woolf Cupcakes made by my co-conspirators and me. One of the recent trends all over the world has been the popularity of cupcakes.  I suppose people are becoming more health and wallet concious. Added to that is the creativity from the deli and patisserie establishments. I have found baking always a bit tricky because one doesn't often have a chance to course-correct if there are any mistakes in the cooking. You get to see the results only at the end. So far, my attempts at baking have been hit-and-miss. So, I thought of giving a bakery class a shot. I went for a weekend class at Spoonful of Sugar in Bangalore .  If you are in Bangalore, you should give this class a go. Chef Yuvna Damani took us through all the steps in making the cupcakes and the icing. All the participants then had to make their own too. We made vanilla, chocolate and red velvet cupcakes with various icing o...

Posted by Rajan Manickavasagam July 17th, 2013 Rating:  5  out of 5 Calvary Cemetery in Queens - by Wikipedia User  Plowboylifestyle The album ' The Blessed Unrest ' by Sara Bareilles has just been released. It contains a superb collection of songs imbibing pop, soul and jazz musical styles. The outstanding song in the album is ' Chasing The Sun '. I would recommend this song and even the entire album to anyone. The song is sung from the vantage point of the cemetery in Queens. The photograph aptly captures the essence of the song. We spend our lives chasing our moment in the sun. Everyone is keen to see the skyscrapers in the city but there are over 3 million tiny skyscrapers in the cemetery too. There are songs in the past that eulogised the hustle and bustle of New York, like - 'New York Minute' (Don Henley), 'New York, New York' (Frank Sinatra'). This song captures New York in a more reflective mood. Sara's voice is str...

I recently participated in a Hackathon organized at my company. While, I am not at liberty to tell what the hack was, I can share the experience though. We all usually have ideas brimming about how we could improve or change things. A lot of times, one does not get the time to act on those ideas. Sometimes, these ideas require time, people, resources, money etc.  Our Hackathon got off to a great start with music by Daft Punk - 'Doin it Right'. It certainly set the tempo. Focus It is easy to get carried away with the ideas. Learn to focus on the idea. Once, you have something in mind, explore it in more detail and flesh it out. Bounce the idea around with different people to get various perspectives. Perhaps, you may fall in love with the it or just drop it. If you must, fail quickly and learn from it. Team Unless, you are planning to go it solo, get a great team. Ensure that there are diverse skills, experiences, even temperaments. The most fun you will ha...

In the world of services, a challenge we will face is the granularity of a service. As a principle, it is recommended that a service should be granular. As more and more services are built, this allows developers to 'compose' or 'combine' the services to achieve a desired feature. But, this has a potential pitfall. Often, there may be a need to combine the services  in a certain way. The options are either to modify the service or to have another service on that does the ​aggregation. There are pros and cons both ways. Here is an interesting example from 3Scale - http://3scale.github.io/2013/04/18/accelerate-your-mobile-api-with-nginx-and-lua/ . And, an equally interesting article on being pragmatic vs dogmatic - http://dlo.me/archives/2013/04/16/there-is-no-right-way-to-develop-software/ . If  you are building services/API, there may well be a case for sometimes being pragmatic or dogmatic or both! You may need to evaluate each scenario ...

Food for a king The galouti kebabs are known to be first cooked in the kitchens of Awadh royalty. One could say that, they are an indian version of meat patties. They are supposed to be very soft and legend has it that the dish was first created for a 'toothless' nawab in Lucknow. This recipe is my take on this legendary kebab. They can be had on their own with chutney or as a filling in a burger or kati roll. Contributed by  Rajan Manickavasagam . Published  17. February 2013 Chicken Galouti Kebabs Ingredients 1 teaspoon of salt (or to taste) 1 tablespoon of crushed black pepper  2 tablespoon ginger garlic paste 1 chopped red onion 3-4 diced cubes of raw pumpkin 1 chopped green chilli 1 teaspoon red chilli powder 1 teaspoon of turmeric 1 tablespoon of garam masala powder 1 cardamom 1 bay leaf 1 mace 1 teaspoon of fennel 3-4 tablespoon of butter or clarified butter 500g of chicken mince Instructions Season the chicken mi...

Posted by Rajan Manickavasagam December 29th, 2012 Rating: 5 out of 5 Usually, covers of old songs pale in comparison to the original. The recent rendition of 'Power of Love' (originally by Frankie Goes to Hollywood) by Gabrielle Aplin goes against the convention and how! Gabrielle is a young and upcoming singer from Wiltshire, UK. She has been famous on Youtube with covers of other songs. The song is a haunting ballad with the strong vocals accompanied by the piano. Her voice is controlled, smooth and restrained. Throughout the song you expect her to break free with the vocals, but the restraint remains to the end, making the song stand out. This song was also used by the UK retailer John Lewis in their Christmas TV advertisement, with telling effect. It also captured the no. 1 spot in the UK charts and has been in the top 10 for a couple of months now. Hope we get to hear more from Gabrielle in future. Meanwhile, listen to the song from the link below....

As we enter the peak shopping period across some countries around the world, competition is increasing to capture customer's attention. For the past few years, there have been various techniques used in online, mobile trading channels​ to attract customers. Companies have resorted to building widgets, affiliate tools, price comparison websites/apps etc. The impact of 'showrooming' is only becoming too apparent in markets around the world. Recently, the 'pitch' to the customer is getting even more aggressive. Some recent notable developments - Windows 8 allows searching within applications (through the charms feature) - http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows-8/charms#1TC=t1 Amazon Search now baked into latest version (12.10) of free operating system Ubuntu - http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/11/how-to-install-a-dedicated-amazon-shopping-lens-in-ubuntu In some countries, default homepage of Mozilla Firefox browser has link to shopping ad...

In my previous article , I compared the evolution of google and bing. Now, google seems to be going deeper into it's knowledge graph.  The changes are becoming apparent for multi-word searches where a context can be derived. Try searching for  'daniel day lewis movies', 'tolkien books', 'murugan idli shop in chennai', 'london theatres'. The search results are completely transformed. I have to admit, I personally like the results. The results have a bit more coherence and context, not just a list of links to sites.  Search results from google.com on 27-November-12. Click image to zoom. As with everything, there are both pros and cons to the knowledge graph. Pros: Use curated content in the knowledge graph to offset the current lack of integration with popular social networking sites like twitter and facebook. Mitigate the risk of content moving behind paywalls (example - news) or state intervention (as being proposed in France, Ge...

Savour the time Turin is one of Italy's foremost industrial and cultural centres. Befitting that status, the slow food movement started from this city. Turin recently hosted the international slow food festival . Today's recipe is a tribute to the slow food movement. As much as the food, it matters that you also savour the time you spend making it. Sambar is a pretty common dish in south India. Here is a variation with some mango in it. Contributed by  Rajan Manickavasagam . Published  25. November 2012 Mixed Vegetable Sambar Ingredients 1 green chilli 2 tablespoon vegetable oil 1 chopped red onion 1 tablespoon ginger garlic paste 1 sliced drumstick 2 diced small aubergines 1 diced raw mango 1 diced tomato  1 teaspoon of salt (or to taste) 1 teaspoon of turmeric 1 tablespoon of sambar powder 1 teaspoon of red chilli powder 1 cup of moong daal (split yellow lentil) 1 teaspoon of asafoetida 1 tablespoon of crushed black...