Jani & GTUG?

Jani — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:47:57 +0000

I was actually questioning myself on what made me take up this?

First & foremost, I am a technologist at heart and brands come next. While I was working at Microsoft, I have never shied away from admiring a competitive technology or an offering. I have always taken a neutral stand and spent considerable amount of time getting my hands on non-Microsoft technologies. I burnt midnight oil playing with Ubuntu, Fedora, JBoss, Apache Tomcat, Apache Axis, Apache Gerenimo and Glassfish. As a Microsoft Evangelist, that’s what prompted me to raise my hand when it came to engaging with Java developers or Linux enthusiasts. I have presented at many Linux User Group events and spent time with hardcore OSS fans. I always had an open and transparent discussion on technology choices with those developers that I met. Finally, I am a firm believer that the technology can have a much larger impact on the businesses and individuals than what we currently experience. The best is yet to come! I always see myself as an evangelist spreading the gospel of technology.

Second, I am super passionate about Cloud Computing. When Google announced Java support for App Engine, I signed up as an early adopter and ended up hosting my first app within 45 min! I liked some of the architectural patterns that Google adopted for its App Engine. I am equally excited about Microsoft Azure and delivered a couple of sessions at Tech.Ed that were well received by the audience. This is my new found interest and I am excited about sharing and demonstrating my understanding of these platforms.

Third, I am a big believer of communities, user groups and special interest groups. Way back in 1994, I formed a small community of Microsoft Visual Basic developers and we used to regularly meet at Irani tea joints near Osmania University in Hyderabad. Little did we know that one day Microsoft would brand this as a User Group and will have a dedicated team to foster these communities! I immensely benefited from these informal user group meetings and always find ways to contribute. Right after relocating to Bangalore, I found a great opportunity to start a community for Google enthusiasts here. This would enable me to put my experience to use and also find an avenue for sharing my learning and findings on Google platform.

Finally, I am not distancing myself from Microsoft. It is one of the fantastic companies on this planet and has some of the smartest and best people working for them. I have great regard for the leadership team and my ex-colleagues at MS India. My mother tongue remains to be C# and I can’t wait to upgrade my home PC to Windows 7 RTM. I am going to sign up for a series of talks on Azure for the Bangalore .NET User Group (B.NET). I look forward to engaging with my old team and actively contribute to the Microsoft developer community outreach efforts.

Janakiram MSV is a Cloud Computing Strategist specializing in industry's leading Cloud Computing offerings. Whether you are a developer, architect or an entrepreneur, he can help you get started on the Cloud Computing strategy. Janakiram comes with 10 years of experience in engaging with businesses on architecting enterprise solutions.

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My First Encounter with Google Apps

Jani — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:48:23 +0000

Till a couple of months back, Microsoft Exchange and (Pocket) Outlook combination used to be the epicenter of my productivity. I was almost addicted to the ActiveSync/DirectPush feature so much so that I was reaching out to my Windows Mobile at unearthly hours to check mail or to add a task. I used to continue my unfinished work at home seamlessly. At least 40% of my official mails were sent from Pocket Outlook on Windows Mobile while I was away from home or office. I did that not for an year or two, but for almost 8 years!

Everything changed since my departure from Microsoft. My new employer doesn’t support Push email feature on Windows Mobile (My wife is really happy about it!). And most importantly, my personal calendar, mails and tasks are totally out of sync. On top of it, I switched to an Apple Mac. Syncing my Windows Mobile with Exchange server gave me a complete peace of mind as every contact, message and calendar was on the server. Windows Mobile not paired with a backend Exchange server makes it completely useless and dumb!

Now my scenario is very different – I have an official notebook running Outlook that’s connected to my corporate Exchange server, my home PC running Windows Live Mail client connected to a bunch of email services, my Windows Mobile downloading mails from the same bunch of email providers, and of course Mac OS X Mail client configured to work with my GMail, Hotmail etc. When it comes to managing a personal calendar, it is a chaos! I missed the luxury of accessing and updating my calendar from any device that I want to.

When I was switching my domain to GoDaddy, they offered me an option to try Google Apps. I signed up for the following services –

GMail
Calendar
Docs

This conveniently gave me the customized mailbox, calendar through http://mail.janakiramm.net , http://calendar.janakiramm.net . I moved my mailboxes from my old hosting provider to my customized GMail backend.

With a little bit of experimenting I achieved what I have been looking for –

One universal mailbox that pulls (through POP) mail from all other accounts hosted on my domain!
One universal calendar that synchronizes across my office notebook PC, home PC, mobile phone and my MacBook.
Contacts on the cloud in my mailbox.
Just one Inbox to deal with irrespective of the device that I am using.
My official and personal calendars completely in sync and my Windows Mobile up to date with my appointments.

You may ask me why not Windows Live Mail and Windows Live Calendar . Syncing Windows Live Calendar is not supported on Windows Mobile and I just found it very convenient to hit one ‘Sync’ button on my mobile phone to quickly synchronize my mail, calendar and contacts (just the way I did it when using Exchange!)

I plan to write another detailed post on how I got this working. All I can say is if you are using a Windows Mobile and want to exploit the Push capability, go pair it with Google Apps.

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Jani & GTUG?

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