Rakesh Agrawal's Blog — Founder, Investor, Houstonian

I frequently make international phone calls for personal stuff and work.

And AT&T really gets you if you want to make such calls over the mobile phone network. Here are some examples of AT&T’s international calling rates:

• India – $0.32 / minute or $3.49 / minute
• United Kingdom – $0.28 / minute or $1.69 / minute
• Germany – $0.26 / minute or $1.66 / minute

Sooo, what’s the best solution? First, let me say that there are 1,001 ways to get the job done. There are calling cards, callback services, Skype, Reliance CallIndia and everything in between.

What’s worked really well for me is my Google Voice account with the Google Voice iPhone app because:
1) The rates are low
2) Calls are made using the voice network so they’re good quality
3) It’s integrated with the iPhone contacts directory, so it’s easy

Here’s how to set it all up:

1) sign up for a google voice account at http://voice.google.com (be sure and choose the option to have it do more than replace your voicemail)

2) add your mobile phone to your google voice account (this is a simple process that will involve google voice calling you and your entering a 2 digit code)

3) now over to your iPhone… Install the google voice app (get it here). Sign in with your google account and assign a number to your phone.

4) add numbers you frequently dial from your iPhone phone book to the app’s “quickdial” menu.

5) now tap the number you want to call and you’re done!

Apart from the good call quality and convenience of being able to use your iPhone’s direcory, Google Voice’s rates are cheap. Examples:

• India – $0.02 / minute
• United Kingdom – $0.02 / minute to $0.24 / minute
• Germany – $0.02 / minute or $0.10 / minute

Once you start using the service, you’ll need to add some $$ to your Google Voice account– do that from the web-based interface. Enjoy!

I’ve long wondered why more people don’t mimic the Daily Show formula of combining real news with satire, sarcasm and comedy? Why couldn’t this be applied (to great success) in lots of other areas of news from celebrity gossip to local news to finance?

Along these lines, I read with some interest a few weeks ago that former TechCrunch writer Paul Carr’s new company’s first publication “The New Gambit” is going to try to do exactly this:

Our first publication, launching in January 2012 will be ‘The New Gambit’, a weekly news magazine that’s maybe best described as “the Economist as written by the Daily Show”. In other words, it’ll tell you everything you need to know (and maybe even think) about the week’s events, but it’ll make you laugh your ass off while it’s doing it. link

It seems every so often, I have friends that are headed to Delhi for a vacation and I’m giving them the same tips about places to shop at, eat at, etc. So here’s a permanent place on the web that I can point tp in future such situations.

NOTE: this list was put together by my amazing elder sister, Anu (who I would link to if she started a blog like I’ve been telling her to for the past 10 years… Anu, start a blog!). The shopping suggestions are expert-level, while the food and things to do lists are pretty sparse.

Shopping
1. N-Block Market in Greater Kailash I
* Mens Clothes at Ravi Bajaj
* Fab India – cotton textiles for whole family
* Corner Store- great book store and coffee shop
* Various home furnishing stores
* Anokhi–very vera bradley like (or it’s probably more accurate to say vera bradley now does stuff that’s very anokhi-like). Pencil cases, clothes, bedding, etc. Also will have a limited selection of dresses for the girls that can double as swimsuit coverups.

2. DLF Promonade and Emporio
* Couture US and European shops–not worth shopping at b/c luxury tax is 30% in India
* Book Stores with story times for kids
* Ritus for very cute western tunics and what not
* Kidology for high end kids wear (price points similar to expensive in the US but some very cute ethnic outfits–more western focused)
* Various for chappals, glasses (Dayal optical is located here and they are the ones in Delhi to go to for prescription glasses)
* DON’T MISS THIS BECAUSE IT IS LIKE A MALL IN THE STATES AND VERY KID FRIENDLY with range in price, quality, and look

3. Santushti
* Art
* Home Furnishings
* Clothes (go to Ogan)

4. Khan Market
* Kids Clothing shops–I cannot remember the names
* There’s also a Fabindia and Anokhi here
* This is supposedly Asia’s most expensive retail space per square foot!

5. Crescent
* Indian Couture/Designer outfits–Designers like Satya Pal, Manish Arora, Rohit Bal, Ritus, Musafar Ali, etc.

6. South Extention
* Heritage – best selection of kurta pajamas for men in Delhi

7. Cottage Emporium in Connaught Place
* Handicrafts from all over India that are authentic with govt controlled pricing. Great place to buy little trinkets for kids friends also have a wonderful selection of furniture, tables etc. Kids will enjoy this tremendously–ours did.
* Also a great place to get art pieces for your home, whether it’s a sculpture or a painting.

Things to do:

* Take kids to Delhi (Dilli) Hut–out door mela with stalls of handicrafts. KIDS WILL LOVE THIS. Ours went numerous times.
* Walk at India Gate at Night
* Rashtrapati Bhavan
* …various Delhi sights

Food:
Zest at DLF Emporio (great place to go as a couple–you can take kids, but I would go for an earlier dinner)
Manre

All the five stars have good food….I’m a bit dated in this department b/c things have changed so much. The two I have mentioned were wonderful! Old places that are tried and true:

1. Maurya Sheraton
2. Taj on Mansingh Road
3. Oberoi
4. Aman
5. Imperial

The grand opening of Tesla’s Houston Store is happening this weekend! Saturday October 22 from 10am to 9pm and Sunday October 23 from 11am to 7pm.

I have a Tesla Model S on reserve and I’m 1500 on the waiting list of 5000. I’m glad to see them launching a presence in Houston because it should eventually mean they’ll have some service infrastructure here. If you’re interested in learning more, I toured the new Tesla factory in Fremont a few weeks ago.

Flyer shown below…

File this one under solutions to random things that could make you pull your hair out…

If Windows 7 thinks it’s smarter than you and keeps telling you “The best driver software for your device is already installed” when you’re trying to update a device driver to something you KNOW is a better driver, here’s how to get around Windows 7’s “smarts”…

What lead me into this situation is:
1) I chose “Update Driver Software” from Device Manager (in my case, my a monitor that was showing up as “Generic Non-PNP Monitor”)
2) Then I chose “Browse my computer for driver software”
3) Then I chose the directory with the CORRECT driver and
4) Finally I’d get the message “The best driver software for your device is already installed”.

Argh! After doing this a bunch of times, I figured out the right way to address this… It’s actually pretty simple.

1) Choose “Update Driver Software” (SAME as above)
2) Choose “Browse my computer for driver software” (SAME as above)
3) Choose “Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer” (DIFFERENT!)
4) Click “Have Disk” button (DIFFERENT!)
5) Select the directory with the correct drivers and then select the monitor make/model
6) You’re done! Congrats, you’ve outsmarted Windows 7! 🙂

In the last few weeks, I haven’t dialed a single phone number and I love it! So how am I making phone calls? Using:
1) Google Voice account
2) Google Chrome, and
3) the Google Voice Add-on for Google Chrome.

Here’s how to set it all up:

1. Create yourself a Google Voice account
• Sign into your google account and then visit http://voice.google.com/
2. Add your phone numbers (mobile, office, home, etc) to your Google Voice account
3. Install the Google Voice Extension for Google Chrome, available here in the Chrome web store: http://goo.gl/TidpC
4. Now, anytime Chrome sees a phone number in your browser, it’ll become a link. When you click, it’ll ask you where you want to take the call and it’ll call you there, and when you pick-up, it’ll connect you to the number you clicked on.
5. No more finger dialing!

I often find myself describing what I’ve observed and learned about Montessori education so I liked the summary of Montessori in this Harvard Business Review article (“Montessori Builds Innovators”) taken from Wikipedia:

• mixed-age classrooms, with classrooms for children aged 2½-or-3 to 6 by far the most common,
• student choice of activity from within a prescribed range of options,
• uninterrupted blocks of work time,
• a Constructivist or “discovery” model, in which students learn concepts from working with materials, rather than by direct instruction, and
• specialized educational materials developed by Montessori and her collaborators.