LinOSX TechnoMash

I stumbled upon HungryZone which was launched by the same folks who came up with HungryBangalore. I never used HungryBangalore before but when I saw that I can get reviews of restaurants around Delhi, I had to delve into HungryZone (there are a total of 10 cities covered by HungryZone).

I was pretty disappointed by HungryZone. I could not narrow down restaurants by PIN code, area, cuisine type, vegetarian or non-vegetarian, or any other criteria. Once I clicked on Delhi, I got an alphabetical listing of restaurants all over Delhi. Almost all of the restaurants had only 1 review.

To help them out, I looked around and found a restaurant, Machan, I had been to and added a review for it. The basic information that HungryZone provides about the restaurant is a good start but perhaps some more information would be helpful.

The concept behind HungryZone is great but there’s a great deal of footwork required to get restaurants to signup and accept coupons, take orders online, deliver, etc. It’s also a great deal of work to get people around cities in India to contribute their reviews of restaurants. Perhaps, HungryZone would allow users to add a restaurant and a review about it. For example, I went to Chonas in Khan Market today and the appetizers, main course, and service service was great!! Avoid the Strawberry “Cheesecake” though.

I recently arrived in Bangalore for a few day visit and drove past one of the new Staples office superstores. Walking into the store, I noticed all of the Staples branded items readily available at Staples stores in the US. What I liked was Staples has an “Apple Store” within. The US Staples stores don’t sell any Apple computers but this one did. The prices were marginally higher than what’s available at a pure Apple Store in the US but that’s to be expected with shipping costs and duties levied by the Indian government.

The staff was very polite needs some additional training on being able to answer customers’ questions and understanding/speaking both local languages and English. Overall, I was happy with my browsing experience. I would have purchased a few things if the store was in Delhi but I had no room to carry any purchases back to Delhi. I was told that the first Delhi Staples Superstore will be opening in March. Where? No idea.

I’m at FOSS.IN at the National Science Symposium Centre in Bangalore. Mr Atul Chitnis will be giving the keynote in just a few minutes, kicking off this year’s event.

There’s no keynote speaker at FOSS.IN. Instead, there’s a sampling of attendees (7) that are called up onto stage. Each of them will share the lighting of the traditional Diya to mark the inauguration of this year’s FOSS.IN