Noulakaz

The blog of Avinash, Christina, Anya and Kyan Meetoo.

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Launching ThreeBags for technology recommendations

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20091221-threebags

I am proud to announce the launching of my new recommendation website called ThreeBags and which is accessible at

http://www.threebags.com/

ThreeBags showcases the best basic, value and prestige mobile phones, smartphones, digital cameras, MP3 players, LCD televisions, home cinema systems and laptops available in Mauritius.

Naturally, ThreeBags relies 100% on open source software and, in fact, uses Linux, MySQL, Java, Spring, Hibernate, C3P0, Jakarta Commons, etc. Interestingly, I considered using PHP initially but I wanted to have a go at Enterprise Java using Spring and Hibernate and I think I can say that this combination is very powerful, somewhat complex to learn and rock solid (as far as I can see.)

 

A few months ago, I realised that even though technology surround us, choosing and buying a technology product is tough: too many buzzwords, too many models, too many shops and so few people willing to explain things clearly. This is how I got the idea about ThreeBags: a recommendation website with seven categories of products (from mobile phones to home cinema systems) and three recommended products per category: one basic, one value and one prestige model. One interesting aspect of ThreeBags is that you can specify your budget and let ThreeBags give you an optimal set of technological products within that budget.

You will notice that there are no advertisements on ThreeBags. Additionally, I do not get paid by anyone to recommend a specific product. My evaluation criteria are product features, design, availability in Mauritius and price only.

Visit ThreeBags at

http://www.threebags.com/

ThreeBags also has a blog which is accessible at

http://blog.threebags.com/

Of course, constructive criticism is always welcome :-)

Why I blog less now

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While reading Dan Cederholm’s blog, I found this small gem:

Like anyone who used to blog with frequency pre-2005, I’d like to post here more often — not just to fill up bits and bytes, but to write again. Remember when blogs were more casual and conversational? Before a post’s purpose was to grab search engine clicks or to promise “99 Answers to Your Problem That We’re Telling You You’re Having”. Yeah. I’d like to get back to that here.
Then again, history teaches us that it probably won’t happen.

Like anyone who used to blog with frequency pre-2005, I’d like to post here more often — not just to fill up bits and bytes, but to write again. Remember when blogs were more casual and conversational? Before a post’s purpose was to grab search engine clicks or to promise “99 Answers to Your Problem That We’re Telling You You’re Having”. Yeah. I’d like to get back to that here.

Then again, history teaches us that it probably won’t happen.

I guess this is why I blog less now.

Incidentally, I have been listening to a lot of Electroclash (aka Electro IV aka New wave III aka Synthpop II) during those past months. Fischerspooner is excellent. It’s healthy noise…

Google G-Mauritius Day 9 in the news

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Google engineers held a two day conference on 3-4 September 2009 to give a technical overview of key Google technologies (like Google Maps and Earth, Open Social, Friend Connect, AdSense, AdWords, Analytics, the App Engine, the Web Toolkit etc.) for software development and for enhancing business processes.

During the news item, I explain how important it is for a major IT company like Google to come to Mauritius and how beneficial Google technologies can be for the local economy.

 

I am always in awe of how easy it seems for Google to create new technologies mostly out of thin air in a very short amount of time. For example, I use Gmail on a daily basis and, seriously, I don’t think that there is anything as good as it elsewhere. The beauty of Gmail is, of course, that it was created by someone out of passion during his 20% of free time that all Googlers get.

Naturally, the essential word in the above paragraph is seems. This is because nothing could be further from truth. Google succeeds in creating great products and technologies because it only recruits the best (and, ouch, I know that…) and encourage them to innovate.

During the conference, someone asked a really bizarre question: “Were we going to receive training certificates at the end?” This is bizarre for two reasons (i) the conference was not a training course and (ii) we already had received more than a mere piece of paper: the Googlers were sharing their knowledge with us! Once more, lorsque le sage montre la lune du doigt, l’imbécile regarde le doigt…

[This video is extracted from the MBC national TV news bulletin.]