Juwal Bose Says

Team trip this year was to be something different as we had Eldhose married and his wife working with us. Hence the long time wish to make a 2 day tour was materialised. This called for a lot of planning and a lot more expenses. Full planning was done and perfectly executed by Eldhose courtesy of his college days when he did all the college tour organisings. Expenses were controlled with some wise decisions by the team. This time things were a bit more complicated as we had 2 offices at 2 different geographical locations. We had estimated 17 people to come and none to drop out as this was a premium event, but alas due to personal reasons many could not make it. Princy and Salini would have really liked to come, but there were more things that demanded their attention, hopefully next time we can have a full team event.

We needed to start at evening to reach mettuppalayam at early morning. Me and Dilip started from Palarivattom office at 8 pm to join the rest of the team for food at Aluva. After dinner we started off around 10 and reached Mettuppalayam at 3.30. We had booked accomodation at Asoka Inn. Every one were sleepy and most started sleeping even when we only had couple of hours to leave the place.

From Ootty Csharks Aug 2010

Day 1

We had arranged breakfast also from there and took off around 6.30 to the railway station. The Nilgiri Express was waiting for us. We had booked tickets earlier (something very wise to do if you wish to really get seats) and only the day before they had got confirmed.

From Ootty Csharks Aug 2010

Here are the details of the train travel. It was a steam powered engine, one of its kind. It was stopped once and restarted so it will be advisable to take this tour before they shuts down again.

From Ootty Csharks Aug 2010

I cannot possibly explain the whole journey where a train snakes through mountains, enters long tunnels, clutches to cliffs and passes over georgeous water falls and coffee estates filling all around it.

From Ootty Csharks Aug 2010

The 2 family got onto one coupe and all the rest were in another. Train had a 4 hour journey to make to reach ootty. It made many stops at different picturesque locals and stations where it also filled the engine with water. We could have photo sessions at these points.

From Ootty Csharks Aug 2010

Some of those stops were extremely beautiful and looked like out of a wallpaper.

From Ootty Csharks Aug 2010

But there were times when after few hours every one got contented and started sleeping off due to the last nights long journey. TA certain station the engine was changed to a diesel one and we continued onto ootty. We reached there to see ootty town covered with mist.

From Ootty Csharks Aug 2010

Suddenly rain started as though to welcome us and we all were terrified if this was the end of all our fun. Some decisions were to be taken fast and we decided to check in at our stay. The traveler was already there and had reached hours before the train. Our stay was at a most picturesque local called green county resort, although not much posh, yet satisfactory.

From Ootty Csharks Aug 2010

Misty mountains topped all around us ans we were all feeling the cold. Family couples were given individual accomodations when bachelors crashed into 2 rooms. After lunch we set off to botanical garden which needs to introduction. We spent a lot of time there even though partial rain try to play spoil sport.

From Ootty Csharks Aug 2010

I hope the couples too had a great time. I felt like the odd one out here LOL.

From Ootty Csharks Aug 2010

If you are interested in flowers and nature then this is your paradise. All kinds of vegetation was there and it was spread for acres.

From Ootty Csharks Aug 2010

We visited the Tea Factory after wards on our way to Dodabetta. That place made us buy some tea powder and home made chocolates for much higher prices than outside and made us late for the dodabetta entry. It had closed at 5 and we decided to call it a day. We had skipped rosegarden as everyone were feeling the cold and wanted to get back to the house. Had couple of beers and food at night and the team were terrified at the idea of a campfire. The cold was really too much for most of them but as the locals had later informed us, it was really low and a god given gift for us.

Woollen covers saved the day for us and we were all shivering while we slept that night. Next up Day 2.

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Adobe summit was held on August 25/26 at Nimhans convention centre, bengaluru. Me and Aneesh anand represented Kerala User group for the event. These turned out to be most valuable days for me as I had the privilege of meeting many of my twitter friends and flash veterans in person.
I have tried to aggregate some presentation slides found on slide share here
The summit page has all the presentations listed here.
The official photos of the event can be checked out here.

I had reached right on time as my bus from Kochi only reached at 9 am. Thanks to Anand and Gitcy for providing accommodation where i could freshen up and reach the event venue by 9.30. An auto guy did cheat me for Rs.80 for a drive from Madiwala to Nimhans, which actually was around Rs.40.
I was amazed to find Sunil Nair, from Ahmedabad User group just standing in front of me in the registration counter queue. We formed a good team and were together for the full event.
First event was Keynote bu Ben Forta and truth be said, i was just there to see him in person. The Session was basic overview of the platform and mostly evangelism. After the session we had coffee break were we saw the long queues forming up and lots of networking happening. After this there were parallel sessions running which gave most of us difficult choices to be made. I chose Spark Internals, PixelPlay, Realtime Social games, Object oriented concepts and PaypalX for the day. I missed AIR 2.5 and realtime web sessions which could have been real useful for me. One of these sessions about social and realtime gaming got cancelled and this was real loss for the game developer in me.
Met Himanshu Mody and Yash mody from Teknopoint, the main sponsors of the event. Himanshu gave me nice goodies – RIA badge, UG manager Badge, RIA Cup and Flash class diagram posters. A big thanks to teknopoint.

Meanwhile I met Vipin chandran, Team from Impelsys, Aneesh and team from Amrita, Muhammed Khan, Mrinal Wadwa, Saurabh Mathur, Harish sivaramakrishnan, Saurabh Narula, Mariam DH- The great game dev I was really looking forward to meet, Arul Kumaran from Singapore UG and many more. Great thing was meeting the 3 musketeers from RIA RUI via Prabhakaran.
I went ahead to check the device demos at the Adobe stall. I was really happy to see Csharks flash site loading easily on a nexus one.

Food at noon was excellent and i did skip one session time to communicate with all the people who had come for the event. Me and Aneesh tried for the Intel App-up key chain but lost.

Day 2 was basically for designers and yet more developers turned out.

From Drop Box

All the three keynotes were good ones and we got to know more about the sponsors and companies who put up the stalls for the event. I found iPlotz team as a sponsor for the event and felt happy to see a team from Kerala making it big. I chose Visual experiences with Flex, mobile design considerations, Multiscreen design, Less verbose AS3 and passion driven development sessions for the day. I really missed out on Brain power and Interaction do’s and don’ts which were both rocking sessions.

I could relate to whats Arul was talking in both of his sessions and passion driven development felt heartfelt. At the end of the day I had to rush back to catch my bus back to Kochi, but I was certainly a satisfied man. More than the sessions, the opportunity to meet these great people was well worth every effort. Congratulations to the Adobe Team and Saltmach for this wonderful experience. After the event I got the Tshirt, certificates and Adobe branded watch I also came across one of my seniors from college days representing TCS as they were one of the sponsors for the event.
Write up on IGDS event at same venue

Popularity: 1% [?]

60 kms north of Bangalore is the summer resort called Nandi Hills. Also known as Nandidurga, it was one of the summer retreats of Tipu Sultan. Nandi Hills was popular with the British too who built bungalows and laid out gardens here. Today of course, it’s a hot favourite among Bangaloreans who find this an ideal get-away for weekends.

So our Raj Bar gang decided to have a getaway to this place, courtesy yet again Aby. Me , Anish, Abraham and Anoop were once again together inspite of our hectic schedules and differences in geolocation. Original idea sprouted through Anish who found that Aby and HL were available, seemingly for one last time as Aby was getting married soon Aby took the car and we bought some drinks on the way from forum. It was a long drive and no one really knew the exact location and hence we got lost couple of times, but this one was a real carefree run, so no one really cared.

From Nandi Hills

On the way we had those drinks and HL was really in form mixing drinks with coconut juice. This eventually paid off as he totaled later on at the summit in a vomiting series we mallus call ‘vaal’

From Nandi Hills

There were lots of monkeys on the way and everyone got really inspired. The path to the top is like that of a hillstation’s which make us wonder how the whole city rush has all of a sudden given way to such natural beauty.

From Nandi Hills

We could see clouds making huge shadows over the villages and also see bundles of rain pouring over specific regions.

From Nandi Hills

There was a temple at the summit and we spent a lot of time talking and discussing old days. There was a good restaurant on top where we had nice food along with couple of drinks.

From Nandi Hills

It was late in the evening when we decided to head back. HL who had turned off after his ‘vaal’ session came online as soon as we started our descent. He entertained us for the later stages of the journey by telling us some stories on complex relationships
At the end of the day it was a unique experience as we were all busy people who had some how found time to get together from all different places. Such events will be missed now that most of us are getting married this year. Yet, cheers to friendship!

another trip with these people

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Team from Csharks consisting of Eldhose and me (Juwal) had this wonderful opportunity to attend Indian Game Developer Summit at Bengaluru on Feb 27, 2010.

From IGDS

We reached at the venue close to 9 am in the morning traveling through train from Kochi. Nimhans convention centre was a great venue and many of the attendees were already talking snaps of the place. Registration went smoothly and saltmarch kits were provided which included a laptop bag, brochures, timetable, lunch coupon, notepad and pen.

Going in what caught our attention was the first stall by Adobe. We for pamphlets on the flash platform and Adobe keychains. We were really happy to see Adobe as gold sponsors for the event as our primary development platform was Flash.

From IGDS

We being an online game development company, were focusing to attend many of those informative sessions on online gaming. But there were sessions covering different streams of game development with focus on 3D, social gaming and mobile development.

From IGDS

There were stalls by nVidia, Ubisoft, Playdom, Aiga and more which also included refreshments sponsored by Redbull.

The event started with keynote session by Carl Jones from Crytek. I had played all their games and was a big fan of Crysis. I couldnt hold onto my seats when he demoed the latest CryEngine3.

We had some coffee and snack after that. Meanwhile i had met Yadu rajiv, a veteran open source game developer from Trivandrum and also the team from Chayowo games.

From IGDS

I choose to attend ‘creating successful online games’ by Robin Alter of Kreeda games. He explained the methodology followed at Kreeda for their MMO game about to be released soon.

From IGDS

I missed out the nVidia session which ran in parallel and came to know that they were raffling some nVidia graphics cards to lucky people in the audience. If i was a student at that point, i would have only attended all nVidia sessions LOL.

From IGDS

Next session i chose was by Harish Sivaramakrishnan, tech evangelist at Adobe. His session was on creating, distributing and monetizing flash games. He informed us how easy it was to really deploy iphone games with the new CS5 version of flash. He also let us know more on the Shibuya platform for monetizing flash games on AIR marketplace.

From IGDS

Next session for me was ‘the business of online games’ by Tridib Roy. This was really important session from our perspective as he disclosed lots of statistics and information which we could use for our online game business.

From IGDS

We broke for lunch and had some networking with delegates from other companies. Eldhose had some meetings scheduled with dignitaries from same domain. I took the time to catch up with Harish and the Adobe team at their stall. Met Ramesh, hemant and Vysagh and we talked about some usergroup activities for 2010. The team showed great support for the interest that we had shown for the platform and promised to help us out with the upcoming special events with the Kerala UG.

I happened to see people enjoying 3D gaming in real 3D with goggles at the nVidia stalls.

From IGDS

Next up was a session on Ghajjini, the game made by FxLabs on Torque game engine. We wanted to know more about this as it was an IP from India and an engine for which we had license. Imran khan explained a lot about how they went about the whole project from concept to final marketing. This was an eyeopener in many sense.

From IGDS

Sumit Gupta had this excellent session on ‘preparing for the great indian gaming rush’ which focussed on the need to get started with facebook social games development. He explained why the social gaming arena is ripe for getting started and how all will benefit on the long run.

From IGDS

I wanted to attend Yadu rajivs session on open source development but it coincided with ‘mobile game development’ session by Hemant. Hemant went about demoing the great Adobe Device central and Flash CS5 and showed how easy it was to create an accelerometer controlled game for your mobile device. He also controlled a PC client using a mobile device accelerometer control over a remote socket connection. For someone who understood the implications of the whole thing, it was huge

We had tea in between and got Tshirts and certificates from the counter. Eldhose, me, Yadu and harish hooked up after the sessions and had a great ‘Mallu’ time.

From IGDS

It was yet another of those unforgettable experiences, similar to one we had for Ficci frames. All thanks to the great event by Saltmarch, Wifi by Airtel and the great sponsors. We understood that our choices for the year 2010 were correct and got some solid information regarding online gaming sector. Looking for ward to a bigger event next time.

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We had a recent solar eclipse which was the longest for some decades to come. This made me realise that i had not posted about my Kanyakumari trip with my brother where the Sun had actually cheated on us.

The eclipse was beautiful and we watched the glory through some expensive video-graphic glasses as well as cheap Xray films. This one was an annular eclipse and hence the beautiful ring of fire was missed fro our place.

So me and bro embarked on this journey to KK, not in search of some search for inner meaning or greater spiritual good, but curious to see what the heck it was all about. It was holiday season being newyear and xmas week and we had not booked any accommodations. We thought it would be just fine to get on the bus and check out accommodations when we get there. Well we were wrong Now unless my good friend Shyam chand had not booked us tickets for the bus online through credit card over the KSRTC online registration we could have not even started the journey. It was total fun to walk into a fully crowded bus with as much people waiting outside to get in and claim our seats with a piece of printed paper. WOW! But although we got the seats, it was a pain and we could not get any sleep. We stated the journey at 9pm fro ernakulam and reached Trivandrum bus station at 2.15 am. We had some relaxing and late night tea. We found that the next bus to KK wa gonna start at 5.30 am. So we took platform tickets to the nearby railway station and tried to get some sleep on the benches there Now when we came back the enquiry officer didnt bother to tell us that the bus was at the other end of the bus station. We almost missed the bus as we ran to get the bus at the last minute and ofcourse didnt get any seats A main way point on the way was nagercoil, and we understood that we will have to make it back there to catch a bus back to Tvm.

As we started approaching the tamil district it started raining. It was drastic change in environments and system as we passed on from Kerala to Tamil nadu. We could only watch in awe at the robust cultivated land featuring all kinds of stuff. Bananas looked like coconuts It suddenly started raining and we were alarmed. Now some new info dawned on me, that always check the weather report before you venture into some natural beauty. We reached at KK early morning arounf 7.30 and started looking for accommodations. Those available were running at Rs1500 plus taxes and were premium non AC ones. After so walking around one agent came along and got us a normal room for Rs 500. I gave him 20Rs commission and saw that he got 100 rs or more from the hotel manager. We had to wait till the cleaning got completed for the rooms and checked in at 8.30. We walked around and did some shopping.

From Kanyakumari 25th Dec 09

We bought some seashells for Rs 50 each, a seashell garland for Rs 20 and white and dark ying yang pebbles for Rs 20 each. The shore area was full of shops and majority were selling sea shells. It was Sabarimala season and the crowd was full of ayyapans. We had expected to see some colorful crowd but were really disappointed at that. We could see the Vivekananda rock and the Thiruvalluvar statue.

From Kanyakumari 25th Dec 09

Idly vada costed Rs 25 and we were really hungry. To our disappointment we found that there were no beaches in KK. We had hoped to have dive at the ocean and spent some time swimming. We noticed a pebble catcher with e small sack who filtered the sea water and found pebbles and different colored stones. There were genuine looking pearl like stones being sold for Rs 10 each.

From Kanyakumari 25th Dec 09

We decided to go to the KK temple and got in the huge line. After some time we thought it was a waste of time and wanted to get out. In the on rush of the crowd we got into another line and were in front of the diety instantly. Now it cost us Rs 20 to take some kind of ticket and see her holiness Hmm. Outside the temple the prasadam was in the shape of a huge laddu. It cost us Rs 50 but then it surely made mom happy.
There was a building outside which was Ghandhi memorial and we took some time off to rest under it.

From Kanyakumari 25th Dec 09

Now it was time to visit the vivekananda rock. The line was huge but it was moving at a steady pace. There were 2 boats shuttling to and fro from the rocks taking visitors. We got it one of those and had a rollercoaster session untill we reached the rock.

From Kanyakumari 25th Dec 09

We could see the multicolored sea in a 180 degree view. The statue was very close but not accessible due to renovation work. We took some photos and planned our way back as we had to have some food. We had 3 chappathis and Chillichicken from the rarest of non-veg hotels around there. It cost Rs 185 and was a bad decision. It was evening and we were looking forward to seeing the Sun set. We approached the view tower and took tickets for Rs 3.

From Kanyakumari 25th Dec 09

But it was really cloudy and we could only catch half of the sun in the horizon.

From Kanyakumari 25th Dec 09

But we enjoyed the ravishing sea and its terrifying savageness.

From Kanyakumari 25th Dec 09

So we decided to stay for the night and try watching the sun rise early morning. We had the idea to try booking the KK express train and got into an internet cafe to check for schedules. We decided to walk to the railway station and check for the train details and if possible book a ticket. We found a beautiful girl at ticket counter and she explained that there is no need to book tickets as we could easily get sleeper tickets in morning itself. We bought pirottas and chicken fry from a local thatukada for Rs 65 and a KF beer for Rs110. After some freshening up we went for a walk and felt the night breeze.
We slept sound that night and woke up at 5.45 to see the sunrise. Sun cheated us bigtime this time around and it was no where to be seen. So we packed up and went to the railway station to board the train at 10.30 am.

From Kanyakumari 25th Dec 09

We had lots of vacant seats and had a relaxed journey back with bro sleeping it off on the upper berth. So we could not see the sun rise or set in its glory. I will be visiting KK again to see the view, but that time i am gonna check the weather in advance.

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As part of my interest in Adobe technologies, I had been part of Kerala Adobe User group. Trying to build a community of Adobe technology users to share info and support each other. I have hosted the UG site at godsowsdevelopers. We had a very successful user group meeting at Oberon mall on 12th Dec 2009. Being the first meeting it was conducted on an unofficial manner in order to measure the attendance and support of the members and as a bench mark to plan ahead for future meetups.

From Adibe User Group meet 12th Dec 09

I would be entirely grateful to Mr. Vipin Chandran and all the members of Toobler for making the event a success. Majority attendees were from toobler under the guidance of Jerry and Bobbin. We had SEO specialists, PHP expert, Artists (award winning at that), cold fusion expert, Flex and flash developers.

From Adibe User Group meet 12th Dec 09

We started off when the team from toobler reached us. We were joined by Musavir and couple of others later on. We had general discussions, introductions and the distribution of the Adobe goodies. We venue was not exactly suitable for open discussions as there was this music going on. Yet once vipin joined us things heated up as he took everything into control with expert views and opinions from his vast experience with Adobe software.

From Adibe User Group meet 12th Dec 09

Later on we decided to have a stand up talk anchored by Vipin where we had some discussions on web services, flex 4, Cold fusion Builder etc. He advised on how to move forward with the group and gave some valid points regarding other User groups and meeting which he had known in his 9+ years of industrial experience.

From Adibe User Group meet 12th Dec 09

We all had a lot to learn from the bits of info he was sharing. He also told the team about planning the next meeting more officially with dedicated sessions and support infrastructure. Later on we planned about spreading awareness about the user group among other IT companies and institutions and taking it to the next level in 2010. We have decided to conduct next UG meet in Kochi itself at a more dedicated meeting space with projectors and sessions. All those who missed out on this one are welcome to join up and be active in strengthening the activities and spreading the news.

Special thanks to all those who attended

Popularity: 9% [?]

So I had the opportunity to take a full day workshop on Blender at the Engineering college, ASIET at Kalady. It was organised as part of the software freedom day by the Computer Science students at the college.

From Drop Box

I had prepared a lot this time around which covered all segments of character modeling and animation. Mr. Vishnu from the college who had contacted me for the workshop, had mentioned that all students were interested in character development. College turned out to be highly disciplined and all the students were already present and seated when i arrived. Was a bit late for that matter and thanks to some real driving from bro’s part, we reached almost on time. Manoj was with me for the workshop. I had a meeting with the principal and HOD at the principals room. We talked about how 3d art can be used for inter college competitions and the betterment of students.

From Drop Box

I used my mac mini for the demonstration and blender worked just fine. The students helped screen the 2 ope movies in blender. I also showed them some games which were developed in blender along with final character rigs for some of my characters and some professional characters.

From Drop Box

The sad thing was that, i could not even take 20% of what i had originally prepared. Well but i hope i had instilled some interest among the students there.

From Drop Box

Session at Amrita

Popularity: 29% [?]

Thats a funny heading, i know. But then i felt we were all a little bit older and reserved this time around for the team trip. May be it was because of missing Vijesh and the eye sore-ed Rajesh. But then it remains a fact that we all were older and when we saw the gang of college students enjoying under the waterfalls, nostalgia and old memories rushed in. So it was time for another Csharks teamtrip, another year completed for Csharks and a recession year at that too. As the majority didnt want to walk too much as last time it was full of trekking, we decided to keep it simple by visiting Munnar and near by places.
First stop was the inevitable Cheeyappara Kuth, waterfall on the way to Adimali.

From Munnar Trip Csharks Aug 09

It was rainy season and both Valara and Cheeyappara waterfalls looked awesome. We had to pick up princy on the way as we were leaving early morning. My mother was there as a senior security officer for Csharks. Next stop was echo point, which was just an echo of the old spot. No more real echo, but the scenery was breathtaking. There was a confusion whether to go for boating or not, we decided not to. We had a shopping spree around that place and Abhi was eager to get going.

From Munnar Trip Csharks Aug 09

Now it was time for the awesome tea slopes of Munnar. cannot explain their beauty as you just have to see the whole horizon filled with tea plantations.

From Munnar Trip Csharks Aug 09

We had photo sessions around Echo point and in between the tea plantations. The leeches were severe trouble and all were suddenly over conscious. As usual i saw a leach trying to enter my shoes. Shyju got one attached to himself. Kailas came to rescue with a match. The next stop was Topstation. There was an entry fee of Rs15 per person and we got a discount at that place. We could get magnificent views of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. This place actually belonged to Tamil Nadu.

From Munnar Trip Csharks Aug 09

We walked down to the different view points and took some single photos. We also had access to wild oranges and we ravaged the orange tree. We enjoyed the beauty of the place for some time and decided to spent some time and have food at Kundala. Kundala had it all, but also had rain. It was a beautiful place with a dam, boating, a pine forest and horse riding. Initially it was raining and the boats were not being engaged.

From Munnar Trip Csharks Aug 09

We decided to have some food. Breadomlete was the only option available.

From Munnar Trip Csharks Aug 09

After food the rain was gone and team formed groups to go for boating. It was 1 hour row boating and pedal boating. Shyju and Abhi who led the row boat took some time to get used to the thing. They were initially going in circles.

From Munnar Trip Csharks Aug 09

Me and Eldhose went for horse riding based on the excellent negotiating talents of Eldhose. I cant explain how the riding was on such an open forum, but lets say it was an unforgettable experience. I recommend all males try it once.

From Munnar Trip Csharks Aug 09

On the way back we spent some time at Mattupetty dam and had some shooting practice. Some among the team had troubles with their stomach due to untimely food, but then it was sorted out. We had food at a basic restaurant at Adimali on the way back. We were curious of rajesh’s red eye but it turned out not to be a problem. Abhi had a bit of a altitude trouble when on the way back he had a stomach cleaning session.We were back early when compared to the other tours. We dropped princy at her place and got back safe to our office complex.

Other Csharks trip 1
Csharks Trip 2

Popularity: 52% [?]