Useful open source software

A logging library log4c:
http://log4c.sourceforge.net/

Quick how-to for using the library can be found here

New Venture

I am thinking of starting a new venture but unsure how to go
about the whole process. Having worked more than a decade
for others it is time for me to do something different.

I have lot of experience in product development and software
development. How can I translate this into profits?

I have already taken the decision based on my friend's projections
about the business. The plan was to initially help him with his
projects. 2 months down the line, I realize that he has no more
projects! So much for projections..

Now having taken the leap, my challenge is to how do I do a
course correction. I have taken corporate trainings for sustaining
myself but it slowly becoming overwhelming. I need to delegate
some of the work to people who can do the nitty-gritty and myself
do some executive work so that I can have something in the pipeline.

The major issue for me is to how to look for prospects. I do not many
people who can give me software projects. The cold calls for some of
the people I knew did not produce anything tangible. There is my ex-colleague
from ABB days and he has promised me some breaks but it is going to
be a while before something materializes.

I am not sure about the strategy to follow to go about building the business.
I am taking a cautious approach so that it would be easy to bail out if
necessary. Some of the potential things that I could are as follows
(in no specific order)
1. Provide training
2. Write a book (already some material is available with me)
3. Develop a general purpose hardware.
4. Distribution of foreign company product
5. Execute turnkey projects (This is my real interest, but there does not seem to be
many opportunities; atleast I don't know of many)
6. Develop software components (like network stack, specialized drivers, middleware)
Again the problem would be later how to sell this.

Immediately I face the challenge of earning some money. I have taken up a
consultancy project. This would require me to travel to South Korea and will put
me off for 2-3 months. (The chicken and egg kind of startup situation).

While I decide on the best course of action, hope someone could give me some
lead as to how best to begin this journey.

Games people play in Business

Misrepresentation..
This is fairly common happening..especially to win a contract or a deal and when invoicing..

Customers:
1. Requirement Creep..
Get a quote and then modify the requirements for that quote.

2. Not approving the deliverables.
Insist that a delivery is not complete and does not meet the quality critieria.

Happiness

How does one measure happiness?

Jeremy Bentham had a motto: "the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people". He devised "Felicific Calculus" to put a number on the amount of pleasure and pain.

Bentham's method grades pleasure and pain in 4 categories : intensity, duration, certainity and
remoteness. By adding up the score one can calculate the degress of happiness or sorrow.

Economists tried to define happiness by giving some formulas. Paul Anthony Samuelson suggested a simple equation :
Happines = Consumption / Desires.

By this model, if one wants to increase happiness the one must increase consumption. This equation was criticized for stressing materialism but it reflects eudemonism more than people think.

It is the same way by which monks are able to reach happiness by reducing their desires until the very end of life.

The late US humorist James Thurber said: "Even a llama should stick to his mama". Meaning, discontent in one situation would not necessarily lead to happiness in another.

To say that, however, is not to justify fatalistic attitude. It only calls upon to delink one's inner states of mind from external fluctuations and factors. Very often we convince ourselves that our life will get better after something happens - after we get that job or contract or the relationship or.. But that does not 'fix' our happiness.

One always wants more until one realizes that there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way!

Eclipse code development tools

A word about releases:
Mx : Milestone release
RCx : Release Candidate
n.m : Major stable release

The new CDT 3.0 release for Eclipse3.1 is out at:
http://download.eclipse.org/tools/cdt/builds/3.0.0/

H.264 codec for streaming multimedia application

01 May,2005
Now we have some atleast a good starting point.
The client has mentioned about the target application:
Encoder for Mobile surveillance.
Decoder for IPTV/HDTV applications.

Specifications:
Mainline Encoder for encoding CIF at 20 fps.
Baseline decoder for decoding D1 at 25fps.

I found a reference implementation for the H.264 codec at the
Fraunhofer site. The link is here.

The streaming of video data over IP network is
handled using RTP protocol. Information about
this would be posted here.


Links
Reference code:
H.264/AVC software - JM

Tools

Standards

Useful Information

Companies

Tutorials
H.264 at vcodex

Bluetooth Development

Just got started on Bluetooth. I hope to master this technology coming from an embedded, networking (Cisco experience) and Application development background.

I saw somework specific to Bluetooth+Java. Do not have a hold on Java. Its been more than 5 years with this and looks like it needs to be kindled again!


Links:
Benhui Bluetooth site