Health tip…

Have your breakfast within one hour of waking up. It boosts metabolism.

Movie rental services in Delhi…

I haven’t written anything in entertainment category till now. Thus, I start today…something that everybody is a part of and something that everybody goes if not more atleast once in his or her life time…i.e… Movies…

Recently some companies have started the movie rental services in Delhi and they are bieng flooded equally by new – memberships and onlookers (who visit these store just to browse what’s latest that has come in DVDs) both.

Below are three big services available in Delhi these days…

Seventymm: The large menu includes — apart from the usual suspects — some regional and world cinema as well as TV series from Mahabharata to Grey’s Anatomy (imagine a McDreamy marathon!!). Navigation is easy; subscriptions start at Rs 250 a month plus security (six movies a month; four days’ time limit per film). My friends told me, deliveries were a tad iffy, though —  they, waited for two days just to get some not so old movie picked up.

Moviemart: Currently restricted to south and west Delhi. The collection is smaller but as varied — movies, PC games, concert videos, Yoga demos et al. Plans start at Rs 499 per month plus security for unlimited movies. The response time is good. They let us select the exact movie we want instead of following the “queue” system of the others. Have’nt tried but is generally having good opinion of masses.

Bigflix: The huge collection (they are the biggest, and newest of the services) is well categorized and also includes documentaries and plays apart from a variety of English, Hindi and regional films and TV shows. Navigation and search is very easy. Subscriptions start at Rs 299 a month plus security for unlimited movies — no time limits except on very new films (48 hours in that case). This one is considered by far the best managed service by most in the city, with the quickest response time.

So easy now to give the crowded multiplex a miss!
Seventymm: 60600070 / www.seventymm.com; Bigflix: 39885454 / www.bigflix.com ;Moviemart: 41444877 / www.moviemart.in

Meeting with Startups…

I am lead convener for Startup Lunch Delhi Edition – 3 on behalf of CellStrat, a mobile technologies consulting company based in Atlanta (USA). Helping me are 8-9 other guys running their own startups (namely Routeguru, Ondamo, Zoomtra, Punyaa, ViewsPaper) or professional blogging services (namely http://praval.moved.in etc.) in India mostly in Delhi – NCR region.

We were meeting towards the end of the day after our busy day lives for discussing preparations of this event which is due on 6th. September ‘08. We were just 10 people in all but energy of the whole group was like that of 50 + people as if the day has just begun for all of us.

There were so many ideas coming from all over that it took me almost 90 mins. to summarize everything in a document later in the night. I sent that document around 02:30 Hrs. in early morning thinking that mostly people will see the next day. But to my amazement, I got replies from some of them right around 03:15 Hrs. It’s realy amazing to see and experience how much adrenaline gets pumped in when people run their own startups…

Now a days, I suggest everybody to start their own business instead of working for anybody else…it gives you more satisfaction then anything else…especially when you meet so many like minded highly passionate people…

Guy Kawasaki’s — Powerpoint Best Practices for Startups…

Guy Kawasaki has authoured a book “Art of The Start.”  In addition to being a good author/blogger, Guy was one of the very early Apple employees and more recently has been a venture/angel investor type where he has listened to countless Powerpoint presentations.  Presumably because he is tired of seeing poor Powerpoint presentations, he spends many pages in his book talking about Powerpoint best practices.  There were a few nuggets of Powerpoint wisdom among a lot of content about it that stuck with me a few days after finishing the book.

His mantra is that Powerpoint should follow a 10/20/30 Rule.  There should be no more than 10 slides in the presentation — very few people take away much more than one concept from a presentation, so all that other stuff is extra.  The slide presentation should be designed to last 20 minutes, leaving room for ample questions/discussion between slides or after the presentation.  Guy points out that the point of the presentation is typically to initiate a discussion.  He says the font should be size should be no smaller than 30 (Arial font).  Guy says that audiences read faster than you can talk, so that while you are up there talking, they are trying to read your slides and not listening to what you are saying.

He says that there are something like 60 animation features within Powerpoint and he recommends the less use of it the better.  His advice is to use your voice/body to emphasize when a point is important, not some fancy Powerpoint trick.  The only place he recommends using any of this is in going through bullet points on a slide, presumably to avoid having people read ahead.  Speaking of bullets, Guy suggests that bulleted slides should have one point with bullets and only one layer of bullets (lest you violate the 30 part of 10/20/30).

If you have some great Powerpoint tips, please do share them with us…