Google +

Google is trying to get social like facebook....

Thus they come up with a 'new' (??) product in their list.. which is called as "Google +". I tried this 'Google +' for few hours and what I see is functionality is same but google has changed the way they do it.. e.g. instead of 'Groups', 'Communities' etc on other sites they have come up with a different concept like 'Circle'.. This is good in terms of design, appearance and the way we use it.. The word 'Circle' relates more to the certain groups e.g. we say my college circle, my friend circle, my sports circle, my social circle, my study circle etc.. So +1 to google for this.. :) and the +1 button itself.. we use this sign in mails, mailing lists, forums etc.. which relates us directly with the concept. 


The concept of 'stream' is very much similar to 'wall' in facebook, profile view of Google + is almost same as that of facebook, they could have done some improvement over here.. e.g. there is +1 button, there are friend suggestions, there are status updates, there are link to go to your friends, account settings, circles etc.. Only one area of improvement is to have bigger profile picture with high resolution. This is where I will give +1 to facebook.

Another thing which I do not like about this Google + is it is fetching all the data from your connected google products e.g. blogspot, gmail, picasa etc.. which is killing privacy. I would like to keep my friends and friend circle different than my professional circle..

Anyways I know that, google will surely come up with many more modifications and additional functionalities in this. So will keep writing about those in future..

Trip to Matheran

I visited Matheran few days back. It was my first trip to Matheran with my wife. The atmosphere and surrounding lives upto its reputation. Enjoyed the trip. still.. there are few suggestions for the Matheran Municipal Corporation and Maharashtra Government which would be great help to other visitors. Also I have few tips for the first time tourists.
Suggestions:

• Could not see any location map in Matheran, I have seen "You are here" type of Maps at many locations in Konkan, this could be big help to tourists to find various 'Point' locations
• There are some direction boards but those are not at all readable
• Mode of transport is only horses and 'Baggi' pulled by humans, which creates lot of dust and its very difficult to walk on those roads. Some provision must be made to avoid this.
• Its a very good move of not allowing vehicles at Matheran, but government can introduce some solar vehicles which can be taken on rent by tourists. This could be really good option to horses and Baggis
• Its very funny that vehicles are banned to control pollution but plastic bags and cans are not banned, though there are boards which say that, "plastic are banned and if someone spreads plastic garbage there is fine of Rs.50/- to Rs.500/- " But still every shopkeeper uses plastic bags, plastic mineral water bottles, cold drink cans etc.. which are creating non-disposable garbage at this beautiful hill station.

Tips for First time tourists:

• if its Summer, don't to Neral station to get the toy train to go to Matheran, this is not the best option. The train journey in Summer is very boring and its time consuming too..
• Instead hire a car and go to Dasturi Naka (Taxi stand of Matheran). From here you have to walk or take a horse to go to your hotel.
• Get a good pair of shoes (even ladies) because its very hard to walk in Matheran with slippers or floaters or sandals etc.. Many girls prefer fancy sandals and they cannot walk over there, and then they have to purchase some shoes over there.
• Get some scarfs to protect yourself from red dust. When a horse pass by your side it throws lot of dust.
• Don't worry about lifting your luggage, you will get many coolies over there.

Please do not carry any Plastic, if at all you have any Plastic material with you PLEASE DO NOT throw it on the hill station.

So thats all I can share with you. Keep sharing your experiences after your visit.

Be aware about some Facebook Applications

To all Facebook lovers and Facebook addicted people...

These days many FB apps are sending chat messages to the friends in your list, be aware of these apps as they might just want to use your personal/private data.. 

when you install any application you give right to the application to access your private data.. which is BAD.. Many apps like "who viewed ur profile" can be dangerous.. Sometimes these applications send messages to your friends on your behalf, access your and your Friend's private data (for which they have set privacy setting "Friends Only") and use the information for commercial purpose.

I have also seen some applications post some porn links on your profile which may damage your social image. If at all you see any link posted on your profile which is offensive please remove the link immediately and if you see any application connected to this link then remove the application too.

In the next blog I will write about some more privacy settings tricks of Facebook..

Have a Safe Browsing and Happy Facebook life.. :)

What is Cloud Computing?

Everyone is talking about cloud computing these days. Let the person be IT or non-IT everyone is using this phrase, some of them know what it means some of them do not know. Let me explain to those who do not know.

Let us start with the word Cloud. Cloud has no shape no size, you do not know what exactly lies behind the cloud you are looking at, this is called as Abstraction in IT language. 

What was the need of cloud computing?
Human being started barter system in old day, reason was to exchange the goods you have with the goods others have. Later on people started exchanging  for food, shelter, clothing. This is also called as resource sharing. because i have something in excess i can share it with someone and get something in return. This was origin of could computing concept.

These days many companies have servers racks. which are not used at their full capacity. Many times servers are idle. To make use of this idle time and to get some ROI, companies decided to rent out their computing power for others for some limited time.

There are many companies in non-IT domain who want to use IT services but do not want to invest heavily on the IT infrastructure and maintenance of that infrastructure. So.. these companies started using infrastructure of above mentioned companies for some fees.

Obviously there are more companies in the world who want to use these services than the companies who have already invested in infrastructure. So some more companies started creating infrastructure to provide only cloud computing as service.

This sharing idea can be also implemented as subscription. Thus there are 3 variations of this cloud computing idea.
1. SaaS (Software as a Service)
2. PaaS (Platform as a Service)
3. IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)

Will write more in next blog..

Pune Traffic Police

Before some time I posted a Pune traffic problem on facebook page of Pune Traffic Police and to my surprise I got reply from PTP that the complaint is forwarded to concern department. I was so amazed to see the reply in just 15 minutes.

I heard about of facebook page few days back but never visited it. Today i saw a friend posted on the PTP wall and got reply to his post, so I tried doing same and got the result.

This must continue forever, this will definitely solve (Rather reduce) many Pune Traffic Problems. Thanks to the PTP team who is doing this job. If people are getting so prompt reply and prompt people will definitely follow the traffic rules and wear helmets and seat belts.

My best wishes to PTP.
Pune Traffic Police website: http://punepolice.gov.in/traffic_branch.html
Pune Traffic Police Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pune-Traffic-Police/148036915234615

Information Technology Policy Of Maharashtra Government

Yes.. there is a policy in Government of Maharashtra(India) which has suggested certain things that would be followed.
Good thing is that government has realized that 90% of the IT business is spread across only 7 districts in India(including Pune and Mumbai), so now they want to spread this in Nasik, Aurangabad and Nagpur because these cities have that kind of potential.
The steps are:

1. To provide world class IT infrastructure to people
2. To make people computer literate
3. Computerize government procedures to maintain transparency 
4. Grant upto Rs.15lakh for institutes for setting up computer labs
5. A dedicated center will be set up as a part of Pune University to create digital library
6. A Software university will also be set up
   

There are many such points mentioned on the website, I wonder if people know about this..?

But I did not found anything about Linux & Open Source in this policy. Maharashtra Government should seriously stop promoting MS-CIT course by Microsoft and start promoting FOSS (Free and Open Source Softwares) in Eovernment and in Education too.

I look forward to see each and every district in Maharashtra to have a IT-Park. :)

Source: http://maharashtra.gov.in/english/dit/mission.php

Did you know that your iPad can administer your Linux box?

This is something new to me. Apple is known for their cool design and Linux for the security, customization, stability etc. There are many Linux lovers like me who are also impressed by cool designs of apple products!!

We can administer Linux box with an iPad using SSH & VNC. Recommended OS for iPad 4.x or greater, though it works on previous versions, you cannot use multitasking feature of iPad if OS is less than 4.x
Following are the steps to follow:

1. Download any SSH client from Apple's App Store
2. Generate SSH key, setup tunnel and X Server 
3. Choose KVM server as connection, use IP, hostname and username from your Linux box and enter password when you are prompted.

For more details refer this link

Scratchable Devices!!! Have you heard about them?

No No No.. Its not about itching.. The device does not stop itching :)


I am talking about some technology, in Rutgers University a project is going on which will allow end-users to write programs to operate household appliances like lamp, alarm clocks, coffee machines etc..

The language used is called as Scratch Language. Using this you can enhance functionality of your Scratchable devices. The technology used is UPOD.

Using UPOD's interactive interface you just have to drag some blocks and write your program.

For more information on this visit http://scratchabledevices.com/

Patni aquired by iGate

What a News at the start of 2010!!!!!!!!!

iGate and Patni works in Insurance, Healthcare, Life Sciences, Banking & Financial Services, Retail, Manufacturing, Logistics & Transportation, Telecom, Energy & Utilities, Product Engineering, Media & Entertainment, ISVs, Mortgage etc domains. Both the companies are working in similar domains and verticals, this is the reason that this acquisition is very important in the world of IT.

The transaction value is $1.22 billion, including mandatory open offer to the public stakeholders of company. The acquisition process will complete by mid 2011 & iGate is expecting profits by 2012.

The combine revenue of after acquisition would be near to USD 1 billion

Source: http://www.igate.com/newsroom/press_releases.php

Dimdim aquired by salesforce!!

For those who do not know what this Dimdim is:
Dimdim is an Open Source project, which is used for online meetings & web conferencing. It is real-time, rich-media & web based. It allows chatting, talking, slide show, desktop sharing etc.. That's the reason it is popular among Open Source people.

By buying Dimdim for $31milion in CASH salesforce has added one more great product in their pocket. I don't understand how these deals in Cash take place at this higher level!!!


The acquisition took place on 6th Jan 2011..

According to news, salesforce.com got extra userbase of 60000 chatter customers!!! Good Luck Salesforce.com!!!!

interview in google

This was very exciting!!!!

After clearing 3 telephonic interviews I was called for face to face round in Google, Hyderabad (India). It was exactly 1 month back.. The profile was related to Linux, Networking and troubleshooting. I loved the way they take interview.. e.g. instead of questions like:

• what is samba? how to setup samba?
  

they were asking

• when do you setup samba?

So the idea behind every questions was to check how do I think, what are the ways of solutions I know. Some other questions for your reference are

1. A user is not connecting to internet, how will you troubleshoot the problem?
2. Number of ways of installing 500 new machines? what is the time required to setup these machine? which is the fastest way?
   
3. What are pros and cons of network installation and kick-start?
4. Difference between firewall and proxy, some scenario where these are useful
5. DMZ
6. VPN
7. cloud computing etc..

I faced 2 video conferencing rounds and a face to face round. It was good.

The atmosphere and view inside google office was awesome.. as expected.. :)
The accommodation was excellent.

I enjoyed the stay and interview a lot. After 10/15 days I got a diplomatic mail from google like..
"interviewers are impressed with your knowledge but the current job profile is not best match for me, so we'll get back to you as soon as there is opening related to your profile"

Anyways, it was a great feeling to visit Google for an Interview. I hope I'll make it next time. :)

After Long Time

Guys...
Writing this blog after long time almost year n half....

It was not that i was tooooo busy.. but there were some priorities than writing blog.. but now i have decided that i will keep writing blogs..

But what made me write today after this long time is very important.. its about IT-Milan 2010-2011 Pune. I met some people in IT-Milan event today, which inspired me again to start writing blog.

I was also part of conducting quiz competition in IT-Milan. Response was good from SY/TY students, but freshers were not much interested.

Now I am waiting for tomorrow's sessions, some very good speakers and good topics to listen..