Slumdog Millionaire

Went to see Danny Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire" while I was in London. Here' my two cents: not bad. Really not bad. A must see.

Danny's techniques to move a spectator to tears are trite and transparent at a first glance. IF it was fiction. It is not. That's actually the way things were/are in Mumbai, as far as I know (we cooperate with some outsourcing partners in India).

I personally always liked Danny Boyle for "Trainspotting", "The Beach" and "28 days later" (one of the best horror movies I've seen), and I was so afraid to be kinda "biased", that I kept searching for the reasons, what's bad in "Slumdog"... Until I relaxed and realized that the movie is actually quite good.

Two questions bother me though: first - would it earn a 2009-best-picture if it was an Indian movie by Indian director/producers? And second - why all the "bad guys" are hindu, and all the "good guys" are muslims?

ACH payments

Just a quick note to let our customers know that our e-commerce provider, Plimus, has added the ACH (also known as "e-checks") payment method, so now Jitbit Software accepts ACH for US-based customers.

Web 2.0 thoughts and Privacy Policy Generator

In my humble opinion, "Web 2.0" is not about "let's transform all software into web-services". After all, this is true for so called "data-oriented" software only -- like text-editors, personal finance apps, email tools, maybe even graphical editors some day. But you will always need an operating system, a browser, finally, a network driver to get to the net (and who knows, may be a network switcher also).

Speaking of online services. I have a friend who also runs a mISV. I personally disagree with what he has done, but he has restricted the Internet access for his developers' computers. Still there's a couple of 'public' computers in every room which are connected to the Internet, and anybody can use it anytime to find some helpful answers, surf the Web or even relax and play some online games or read funny blogs. But no Internet at your workplace. It's like having a recreation room with a PlayStation in it... So, my friend claims that the devs productivity got high as never before. Without the Internet.

So, back to "Web 2.0". I guess "Web 2.0" is not about "lets move everything to the Web". It is about online presence. It's about - stop saying "visit www.thing.com for more" at the end of your commercial, and start saying "enter 'thing' in Google for more" instead! It's when creating your company account at Twitter, Squidoo and LinkedIn is as important, if not more important, than registering an Internet domain name.

BTW, found a nice online Privacy Policy Generator, you might find it useful: http://www.dmaresponsibility.org/PPG/.

UPDATE:
Speaking of "what is Web 2.0", here's a nice video:

Twittering from Skype easily

For those of you who wants to improve their online presence - here's a simple way to send Twitter-updates right from your Skype account:

1. Add twitter4skype to your contact list.

2. Send this text to him:
#account
yourTwitterUserName
yourTwitterPassword

3. You will get a "twitter4skype Registration complete" message

That's it! Now all messages sent to twitter4skype are posted directly to your Twitter page. Moreover - updates from your Twitter-friends are being sent right to your Skype chat window (can be turned off anytime).

P.S. Send "#help" to twitter4skype anytime to get short help.

Google AJAX API Playground

While we're considering using Google Charts in our web-based Help-Desk ticketing software, Google has published Google AJAX API Playground. It is a place with more than 170 examples of using eight Google Services (Maps, Earth, Charts etc.) through their APIs. Worth a look. Must see!

BoS 2009

Neil Davidson of Red Gate Software has posted a beautiful, emotional and inspiring video about the Business of Software conference he runs every year.

Thanks, Neil, for what you're doing. I wish I could join you all guys at the conference this year (damn I hate to be overseas).