Sachin G Kulkarni

Today Google changed it’s doodle specially for me to wish for my birthday….When I click on the doodle, it took me straight to my Google+ page…this is something I liked & hence this post…

Travel industry has seen significant growth in different branches from last few years. Experts in travel industry have recognized different service sectors and positioned their business accordingly in the market. Package Tours, cab Rental, Customized Group Tours, Train and Bus Booking are few major sectors which are being operated by the different business.

As all the above mentioned sectors are different by its operation no single business has dominance on all of them. Business problems, targeted customer, operation nature and business laws are not similar. Added to this, single business cannot dominate all the regions of world. Even if they do so they have to operate differently in different regions. Due to this huge diversity need for technology has risen. Experts in technology coined this sector of market as “Travel Technology”.

By definition, travel industry must concentrate on the core business problems like booking availability, tour pricing, connected trains and flights, traveler safety etc. However, in practice that is not just enough. Any traveler will check hotels and restaurants facilities before opting to travel and this has made travel industry to tie up with the hotels and restaurants to provide end-to-end solution. Travel industry banks on the technology to know the available hotels and restaurants in a region and vacant rooms at any point of time. Hence Travel Technology is defined as an application of information technology in travel, tourism and hospitality.

On the other hand, sector like cab rental has a completely different business problems depending upon their market they serve. Cab rental business serves a common people in a city which is generally termed as city taxi. Also few cab rental business provide cab service to IT/BPO companies which are being used as transport facility for employees. Both of these business models have different operation modes. Technology can help to organize, schedule and monitor the cabs.

Last few days ago I got a request from a client to develop a website just like naukari.com. My first reaction for that was “yes! I can develop a job portal for you”. Then he replied “I want it exactly like a naukari.com”. So after that I requested him to give me the list of requirements. He said “I need all the features of naukari.com”. He just wanted me to clone the website! Realizing this I happen to explain him why this doesn’t work. Today I am writing a blog about the same.

Cloning a famous website will not help you to establish the business. The straight forward reason for this is that a person who wants to clone a website generally does not have a domain knowledge in which he is trying to establish the business. Want to realize this? -read the above paragraph again wearing the hat as my client. Read his replies and think of his approach to build a business.

We term such a kind of business as “me too business “.  Mostly these kinds of businesses build all the features of a famous website without knowing the reason for that. In fact one thing these people fail to understand is the big websites found today were not big from day one. They started small, studied the market, established in market, found a problem to solve, built a product/business which solves the problem and adds the business value. That’s the right path to walk on.

The other reason that makes the “me too business” to fail is their lack of understanding of problem. These kinds of businesses try to solve the same problem what already existing website without understanding the depth of the problem. Building a product is not about giving many features; it’s about solving a real-time problem. In fact the software itself is worth nothing if it doesn’t solve the problem to the fullest extent. It’s not the software makes the product, the approach taken to solve a problem does.

Today one of my readers asked me following question via e-mail.

 “Which is the world’s best PHP framework in these days which have all the features, fast, robust, everything and developer using that can develop very good web application.

Second i want to know what is better for a web application using any frame work to develop it or just start it from scratch using PHP. Because some suggest that direct codes writing is better than using any framework.”

I choose to answer it here:

Here is post about one more session in mobile developer summit today. The title of this post is the also the name of session – The other side of usability. In one word it’s all about optimizing the apps for speed.

Here is the key takeaway :

1. Apps response time is crucial element to engage the users. Speed bottleneck can easily make the first time user to abandon the apps  and finally uninstall.
2. The wait loader can easily give bad impression about the apps. Hence avoid it wherever possible.
3. Load the text content first and then load the images. You can download the images in bulk in a single HTTP request
4. Do layout optimization. Avoid over drawing UI elements
5. Identify the bottlenecks and fix them. Below are the few way to identify the bottleneck…
   • Hallway usability testing
   • Competitor Analysis
   • Start using the apps yourself
   • User comments an feedback

This sessions had a good showcase on how the apps can be improved. The speaker shows the different version of an example app, improving it on next higher version.

 

Today I attend the Mobile Developer Summit in NIMHANS conventional center,Bangalore. This event was very well organized and was information filled. Mainly I liked two session of scott davis – One Web Many Screens , Mobile OSes : More than Android & iOS. I would write a post with collective of those two.

Here are key take away from the sessions :

1. Today users access you web app with many devices , hence one web & many screens . Giving the same user experience through out the device is challenging.
2. Apps must save it’s state on a device for every user  and resume back to the same state when switched between the devices
3. Apps must eventually learn it’s user behavior & get automated based on the same.
4. Apps can use GPS for location based automation
5. Apps must give instant activity updates across the device, across the OS, across the browser.
6. These days web has become a collection of different pieces which are loosely coupled.
7. Mobile devices can be integrated with other day-to-day machines like car.In fact car may be seen as a extension of mobile.
8. By next year the mobile OS spectrum may include few more OS like Tizen, Firefox OS, Ubuntu Touch etc
9. Big companies are trying to take a pie of mobile market .However the approach may be different  – Market Share or Profitability
10. Mobile OS , Mobile Hardware & Apps store are 3 elements of a mobile industry. Owning all of them by a single provider gives more control & market share. Hence Google , Apple , Samsung , Amazon are aiming at it.

I have just covered the major points of the whole talk. I would write more about them some times later.

That’s being said….I like the way scott gives the presentation. Good and engaging…

Today, I discovered that IRCTC is testing a new user interface. As per my observation not every request is routed to new interface, instead a random request is sent to this new interface after the user clicks on the “Find Trains” button.

At first I thought this new interface is public , however during my continued search for trains on different browser tabs I was landed on to the old interface. Hence I just took a screenshot of new interface.

To speak about new interface – it’s pretty good. Following are the few features I observed in the new interface:

Plan My Journey
The new interface includes few good enhancements.Now the auto suggestion for “To” & “From” station appears just after 1 letter is typed. Below the “Find Now” button a section appears after a click of “Find Trains” which help to filter the result by journey class – like 1A, 2A,3A,SL . Below that I  found 3 more sections like “Train Type” , “From Station” , “To Station” , for which I still wonder about the reason. May be “From Station” & “To Station” will list all the station which come between the specified stations before  search. As of now, these columns just display the specified stations before the search with a check box.

Few months ago , I reviewed a book from the well known published PacktPub. It was a book of about 64 pages titled “Instant Testing with Qunit”. As a reviewer , I should say that this is a  book for quick hands on Qunit. Click on the front cover of the book to know more about the book.

Being said that, To read  “about the reviewer” section and few sample pages of the book Just click here. 

I have read the softcopy of this book and hard copy  is yet to be delivered to me in returns to my efforts to review this book. I would update more about this one after I get my hard copy of the book.

I just found this infographics about startup via Facebook . Of course the money making is not a only factor for an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs will have a very good product idea . Even most of this Web Developers take a step ahead with their great product idea and find a startup.

 

 

As you all know I am a PHP Freelancer & Consultant in Bangalore & I use LinkedIn.com a lot. In fact I get most of my new clients in LinkedIn.com.

But, I do have a day job. Recently I saw a opening in LinkedIn.com & applied for it. And today I logged in to see  status & updates.Unfortunately I have found a security bug in LinkedIn.com. Below is the screenshot of the same.

Exactly what Happened ?