Home / Archives for August 2011

Beware of Hidden Cameras

Hidden cameras have helped in exposing many of the scams and bribing cases which might have gone unnoticed or public. Hidden cameras working as spy cameras are being used in show rooms and shops to keep a watch on happenings in the premises. Hidden cameras are available in many shapes making it very hard to identify. Danger of such cameras is when the same is used for illegal purposes resulting in spoiling the dignity of anyone.

It is common that now and then everyone will be hearing of some scandals and video clips of celebrities or college students. Most of the times these kinds of video clips will be fake made using some image mixing software to spoil the reputation or dignity of a person in the society but if at all true those will be captured using hidden cameras. Easy availability of hidden cameras is also one more reason for the misuse.

The videos or the pictures captured will be used for blackmailing the concerned persons for money or for any kind of favors. If the demands are not met, the videos or image will be published on websites damaging a person’s dignity in society. Even though strict rules are there against this kind of illegal use of electronic media, they are going useless as the affected fear to move forward approaching cyber police.

The affected people of such cyber crimes will undergo lot of stress emotionally and there are chances that they lose interest and belief on everything and everyone. Always prevention is better than cure. Be careful when you are out of house. Some of the usually targeted places for taking videos or images are dressing rooms in some show rooms, hostel rooms and resorts which all like to spend time freely.

Many devices can detect the presence of hidden cameras based on some signals or waves which these cameras make use of. But availability of such devices is difficult and also expensive. It is better to be careful always outside as many invisible non-living things can be watching us!

Don't upload personal information on Social Networking Websites

Signing up in any of the social networking site is common. Along with signing up we need to enter pages of personal information starting from birth place to present job. Social Networking sites provide plenty of free space in which we can upload pictures, videos and much more. Socializing on these sites are much common, if you are member of any of social networking site you can read your friends’ status messages which even include purchasing of good quality ‘broom stick’. Even sometimes we also upload some of the messages and also share photos of trip or outings and any information regarding us.

If the images or videos are not set to private only to be seen by the members in the friend list anyone can see the photos and use the information publicly available. In few networking sites one can easily save the photographs of others just by right clicking on the image and opting for ‘save as’ option. There are chances that such that such saved photographs are being misused. It is always preferred to keep the photographs and personal information to be accessed by the people whom you know personally because sometimes unknown people can also be there in the friend list as there is no restriction that only known persons should become friends.

The personal information can be misused by anyone for illegal purpose making us to land in problem for the no mistake of ours. The purpose of socializing will lose meaning and it turns out to be something else by the series of problems occurring by the misuse. Try to keep the personal information to be accessed by the persons known to you quite well. It may not completely reduce the problem of misusing our personal information but certainly reduces to some extent.

The Social Networking Websites

Web 2.0 has changed our attitude towards life. Web 1.0 initially got popularity allowing only for one sided or half duplex mode of communication. It was only possible to read or see the contents uploaded on the server. Even having websites was a difficult task as the web hosting companies were rare and also the importance of web was not known much. Later web world has got transformed slowly into two sided or full duplex mode of communication in which both the readers and website owners can interact. Owning a website to upload personal content and images gained popularity. The two way communication between the readers and writers (website owners and bloggers) was termed as Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 also introduced the concept of social networking sites in which people can socialize or establish connections beyond geographical barriers! Social networking sites brought enormous changes in our lives. We are getting connected to our friends and relatives only through these online paradises. Totally unknown persons started to know about each other leading to friendship. There are many instances that friendships on social networking sites ended up in happy marriages and some times even death making us to think are we addicted to these more than required. At least few may remember of a woman committing suicide sharing the status of taking sleeping tablets. The status update was neglected and taken lightly by her friends but the woman lost the life sharing it on a social networking site! Even when the Carlton towers of Bangalore caught fire, the people inside the building were sharing the status of fire on their profiles.

Socializing on social networks has resulted in youngsters spending much time on these with a curiosity to know about others especially of opposite gender. Hormonal changes in the adolescent create a normal attraction towards opposite gender and social networking sites helping to know the likings of the others. It will be more interesting to know that one of the popular social networking website was developed in knowing the likings and the relationship status of a person whose plan was to ditch her boy friend.

Social Networking sites also help in keeping in touch with friends, classmates and colleagues. Also, create a platform to discuss things freely and get guidance. Last but not the least a new disease ‘Social Networking Disease’ abbreviated as ‘SND’ will be reported from some part of the world soon and it will have the symptoms of ‘over addiction to social networking sites or spending too much time on the social networking sites’.

'Google Power Search' by Stephan Spencer; O'Reilly Media

Google Power Search written by Stephan Spencer is a good book on getting what we want using the Google Search Engine refining the search strategies saving our time and energy (utilized going through the irrelevant web pages)

Google has been considered as the alternate name to the search engine. Anyone referring to searching something over the internet, he/she will certainly tell ‘give it on Google’ or ‘find on Google’. Even though there are many search refine strategies are there, we spend much time on browsing through irrelevant documents and words straining ourselves. Instead of that, refining our search strategy we can directly land on to the pages having the information what we want.

The book describes everything in an easy go manner. We can modify our search strategies using simple words along with the word given for querying. One good example is, for getting presentations on artificial intelligence we can give presentations on artificial intelligence filetype:ppts instead of only artificial intelligence which returns tons of pages not having presentations.

Many of the Google tools mentioned in the books are being used widely and a few tools like searching pages of a particular language and setting geographical boundaries using search settings option is new. The Google database saves the information on the pages which were removed. The Google Search Engine also includes the ‘Page Not Found’ in the search results which is not the case with the other search engines. The book also has information on some tools like currency converters, calculators useful in day to day life.

PS: Received the soft copy of the book from O'Reilly for the review purpose

Free books for the bloggers to review

Before buying anything all will like to have the review or feed back of product from the users. With the advancement in the Information Communication Technology (ICT) it has even become very easy to get feed back or review of users over the internet. Many dedicated websites are there solely for the purpose of providing users experiences with the products purchased either through online or through stores. Even there are discussion forums where one can discuss regarding which is the best store to order something!

Similarly with the purchasing of books whether it is online or from book shops buyers will like to know the nature of book. But in case the book is a new release to the market, demand will be there for the review of the book. There will be limited group of audience for purchasing technology related books. The book publishers will also like to get the review of the book from readers. An idea is to provide the soft copy or ebook to a writer or blogger freely and get the review of the book.

In a way the book reviewing is beneficial to the blogger also as his blog site address get published in the review sections of popular book stores website address and review websites, indirectly increasing the page views and popularity of the blog site.

Many publishers are coming up with the idea of giving free electronic version of the book or soft copy of the newly published book to the blogger with a demand of submitting the review about the same. There are some of the guidelines to be followed while writing the review but there is no compulsion that the review should be in favor of the book. Depending on the blogger’s reading experience he can write review.

I came across two websites supporting the book review program namely BookSneeze and O’Reilly blogger review program. On BookSneeze we can request for the hard copy of the book also but on O’Reilly one can request for the soft copy. At a time only one book can be requested and further requests will be considered only upon the submission of review of received book.

I feel it is a good program as bloggers will get benefitted by the free e-book and also gets a chance to express his views about the book. Also it doesn’t require spending few dollars (at least) to purchase the book and wait till it gets delivered.

A Video which kept me off from blogging

Was not in a mood to post any blog from few days. Recently was watching a video sent to me from one of my friend. Had no mood to write any blog or anything watching the video. YouTube has vast collection of movies including some of the award winning movies, documentaries and personal videos. The video which I watched recently is still haunting me, the innocent kids eating the food which was thrown in to dustbin at the star hotels. Don’t know how many children are living their childhood in this condition.



We human beings have advanced so much even we can reach the Moon and come back. But at the same time there are fellow people who are struggling for meals. I am not speaking about the condition of a single country, the countries which are thought as rich also have people who struggle for a single time food. The agricultural lands are also getting reduced in the names of townships and modernization. Don't know how the future will be, if at all any war takes place again on this Earth that will be only for food.

Free Anti-Virus software for Genuine Windows

Computer viruses have become very common and found either in computer or with the pen drives. Pen drives have become popular as he active carriers of computer viruses from place to place. Computer virus is also a program written in any of the programming language similar to the writing of program for the development of some useful software. Virus in simple is also computer software developed with an intension of destructing data or interrupting the work going on over the internet world. Coincidently these viruses are having the names of celebrities, making these celebrities to scratch their heads consulting the hackers to prevent popularizing their names in the other way. The demand for anti-virus software is high and many companies with a label of providing 100% virus free software companies are competing in the market.

Some of popular anti-virus software in demand is Kaspersky, McAfee, Avast, Qucik Heal and Norton. The list is changing with respect to the parameters and every year some new anti-virus software will be added to the list. Many of these software are available free and it provides only limited protection against the threats. Having Anti-Virus software without internet also doesn’t help as all anti-virus software requires periodic updates. In the periodic updates, new anti virus definitions will be loaded and gives protection to the computer.

Microsoft is also providing a free anti virus software for the genuine windows users. The anti virus provided by the Microsoft can be easily downloaded from the Microsoft website or the downlink can be easily got by searching ‘Microsoft Security Essential’ in Google.

‘Microsoft’ security essentials provide security against some of the computer viruses and keep the system in a good performing condition. More over its freely available and it updates fast compared to the other anti virus software. Computer Viruses mainly spoils the data i.e. corrupts the data making it inaccessible. Also, there are viruses specialized in hacking the data present on the computer hard disk. Be careful about some of the software which scans your documents online there are chances that they may be the hacker’s tools for accessing your data.

'Telangana' state is not required

Andhra Pradesh particularly Hyderabad region is burning with issue of declaring Telangana region as a state. Telangana region is consisting of only ten districts and the remaining districts will be the left over Andhra Pradesh. Major demands of people who want Telangana to be a state is to include Hyderabad in it and are not ready to form the state without the Hyderabad. Hyderabad is the capital of undivided Andhra Pradesh state, people of all twenty districts will come in search of job or for any purpose to Hyderabad as it is the hub for many industries particularly the IT companies.

If the Telangana region is declared as state then the central government will be under pressure to declare many regions as state. A small district in Karnataka, Coorg is also demanding for ‘state’ status and the same with the people of Hyderabad-Karnataka region people, they will get strong reason to demand for the ’state’ status. The cost involved in forming a state is enormous as a state requires all the governing bodies to run the administration smoothly headed by the Governor.

Andhra Pradesh was the IT hub before Bangalore came into picture. Andhra Pradesh has more than seven hundred engineering colleges and majority of students are opting for jobs in Hyderabad region itself. Many IT companies are located in the vicinity of the town. If Telangana is declared as state, people of other region (excluding Telangana) will be treated as other state candidates and will be considered as non-locals for availing many of the schemes (mainly educational fees reimbursement) currently running by the Andhra Pradesh Government.

Presently the cost of living is quite cheaper at Hyderabad compared to other cities of India. The main food crop of Andhra Pradesh is rice and it is also considered as ‘rice bowl’ of India. The districts coming under the Telangana region are not having good agricultural lands with high yield. But the regions excluding Telangana are the major rice growing areas. Also the ports which accumulate a very good source of revenue to government will not be included in the Telangana. If the Telangana region is declared as state then the food has to be imported or purchased from other states which in turn increase the burden on common man.

Only a few who are interested in enjoying the political power are demanding for the Telangana state only for their benefits misguiding the youth and general public. Common man struggling for two course meal per day will don’t get any benefit and in turn it will become difficult to lead life on his small earnings making life miserable. It will be better not to consider the request of only few people demanding for the ‘Telangana’ state for their political benefits, undivided Andhra Pradesh will be much better than divided one.

A small note on increasing the Ad impressions

Was running an experiment with my blog, trying to have maximum impressions on the advertisements displayed in the blog. Number of visitors to the site depends on the quality of content. But increasing impressions on the advertisements depends on the bloggers or designers. Increase in impressions also helps in increasing the reach of audience to the advertisements and in turn increase in revenue. For the beginners or the newbies, increasing the advertisement impression is making more people to watch the advertisement getting displayed on your website or blog site.

Usually most of the bloggers put advertisements either on the right side of the blog (reader’s right side) or on the top of the blog and rarely a few place advertisements at the bottom of the blog. It is the human eye mechanism that visitors to your site mostly concentrate on looking advertisement on the right side than on the left side. Also, readers won’t be interested in reading all the contents on the page unless they are very much interested in the blog’s content, otherwise they will just turn to other pages quickly. Getting accurate and quick information will be the aim of readers.

Having maximum advertisements at the top of the page before scrolling the screen only increases the advertisement impression. Many websites will be designed such that the top of the page will be full of advertisements, even though it is considered not a good web designing practice. Money also matters! Having good content or hot topic on the page drives the traffic however may be the content and layout design of websites.

When more than one advertisement is present side by side, definitely different advertisements will be appearing. Interested people may click on any of the advertisements, that way the probability of people seeing the advertisement will be more.One more issue currently being discussed everywhere is about recession, how hard it may hit the employees all over the globe. Many people will look at blogging also as an alternative job in case they are thrown out of the company. Competition on providing good quality posts will be more than ever.

To look the web page to be decent and also to receive high advertisements impression, have one Ad at the top of the blog o website page and the other on the right side of web page and if the page doesn’t look ugly or too much glued with Ads put one at left side of the page also making the content to appear in the middle of page.

Every question can be reduced to have answer - Yes or No

Holiday also irritates if no work is there. Unusual holidays are welcome on week days but regular one on Sunday sometimes creates a big question how to spend whole day. I was in same situation yesterday as am in Hyderabad. No known places or people to visit so had to spend all the time in room. Thanks to the internet and television, yesterday spent much time on these. Browsing through the columns of news paper editors and some bloggers is my favorite job when I don’t have any idea on how to spend time. While browsing I was landed on a page having some information on Richard Branson owner of nearly three hundred companies with a brand name ‘Virgin’. Even one year is not enough for him to visit his companies even if he visits one company per day. I don’t know much about his company or its success. His Virgin group of mobile didn’t do that much well in Indian market. But his principle of business and decision taking capacity is amazing.

One of his article aroused interest in me in which he justifies that every question can be answered just by two words Yes or No. Whether the question is complicated or simple but it can be answered. A complicated or a complex question can be divided into simples ones and can have answers with just Yes or No. I started applying same to whatever question I had in mind and also on things which took years to arrive at a solution.

Richard Branson also describes how he took major decisions on his business just by answering a few question Yes or No. When every question can be answered by just Yes or No then why do people takes days, months or years together to arrive at a solution is the prime question he throws at us! The problem is fear of taking risk. After getting into a comfort zone we fear to look beyond. We will be soon inspired by Richard’s way of thinking and taking decisions even on complex issues.

There are many books and articles published on Richard’s works. They are all best sellers and he has a group of followers too. Over all he impress readers by doing things which he loves to do listening his heart.

Also, the speed in which we take decisions is also important as it keep us front. Taking decisions quickly on complex issues just by Yes or No really helps when we are truly ourselves without wearing any masks.

Don't keep simple passwords

Online community is growing very fast. Everyone is getting exposed to online transactions as it is considered to be convenient and easy than standing in the queue waiting for the turn. All kind of utility bills, any kind of purchase and transactions of few hundreds to lakhs can be performed online with the help of internet. Getting desired usernames for email addresses or anything online has become difficult as the simple possible probabilities are exhausted making the new users to experiment with the combination of digits or some special symbols like ‘ . ’ or ‘ _ ’ or with some kind of extension to the desired name. Similarly, passwords may be same even though different usernames. The chances are high that the individual’s passwords can also be same.

For many banking transaction it is mandatory to have combination of upper case - lower case letters and special symbols, this itself is enough to know how important it is to have strong passwords. Many hackers working online 24*7 to access secure information causing disturbance to your work. All the companies have felt the heat of hackers and have high level skilled employees to work on the security architecture in an unbreakable manner. But still hackers peep-in by hook or crook. Somewhere, in the last year even the Orkut one of the popular social networking site at that time was hacked and created havoc in its users. Also, the popular websites and email addresses of celebrities were hacked and misused. It is high time to choose strong passwords.

Many times it so happens that for the sake of remembrance we keep passwords simple and keep birthdate or loved ones name as passwords. Hacking need not be done by any unknown hacker, it can be by known persons also for having fun or for the curiosity to know what is there inside your accounts. Don’t keep such simple passwords. Even there is software which can hack your account just by knowing how many digits are there in your password. Also, many companies provide two kinds of passwords, static and dynamic. Static will be the one which will be same always and dynamic will be the randomly generated password by a dongle.

Have password with combination of upper case and lower case letters, minimum of one or two numeric digits and special characters. It is better to have upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers and special characters alternatively rather than keeping them in order one after the other.

Think before using spoons for eating

Eating using spoon has been considered as standard and regarded as one of the table manners. Using spoon not only helps in keeping our hands clean but also helps in keeping food into mouth at a time in a limit. Without spoon one can eat more or less depending upon his capacity of holding food in fingers or palm! Eating with spoon reduces the embracement to a certain level as one can only eat according to the food holding capacity of the spoon. Don’t take spoons of larger size, it may seem to others that you are eating with serving spoons. At the same time increased use of spoons in public places raises the questions whether the spoon is properly cleaned or it is just crow bath! Crow bath is a popular term used in south India for the people who take bath as that of crows just to sprinkle water and claim they have done with the bathing.

Spoons will be made up of stainless steel and at public places care will not be taken that good quality steel spoons are used. Spoon will be held with the help of small handle like structure and used to eat food. The problem is sometimes the spoons will not be cleaned properly they will have sticky oil like substance on it or if you just look on the other side of spoon you will see some food or detergent material get deposited in the corner joining spoon handle with the spoon base. There is good chance that the deposited material will be swallowed while we keep the spoon base inside our mouth or chances are also that it get mixed with the food when we take food from the plate. The deposited material mainly consists of left over food particles without cleaned or of detergents which are not washed properly. Take care that the spoon you choose is free from such deposited material on its backside.

It is advisable to boil the spoon in hot water to remove oil stains on the spoon after washing with the detergent. Keeping spoon in the hot water or just pouring the hot water on spoon doesn't help much. A recent trend in hotels is to keep the spoons in a bowl of water (may be hot water turned into cold by the time users take it), it will not do any wonder it will just keep the spoons wet. Avoid spoons which has deposited material on its back side, it will get mixed with food resulting in many diseases.

At home as we are living in the divided families it won’t be of much risk as the users of spoon are less. But the liking to eat outside is more in the divided families compared to joint families. Whenever you got to hotel or restaurant make sure that the spoons are cleaned properly. Don’t get any diseases in midst of having fun eating outside food.

Better idea is to use fingers than the spoons but the wise use of it for eating food without embracing people around us rests only with us!

Millions of people are watching you our beloved elected members

Politics is not comparable with anything. If at all it is compared it will spoil the dignity of compared word. Nothing can be equivalent to politics. Today politics has become the play of dirty people with few exception (exception is only till the revealing of what they have actually done.) There is no ethics or value based politicians, all are money based politicians. A person who is in a party will surely change to other for the reason of money, may be this only is called value (money has value) based politics. Some of the current developments in the state and central governments and the criminal cases against our own elected members confusing us whom to believe and whom not to.

In Karnataka illegal mining report submitted by Justice Santhosh Hegde has helped to understand what our beloved elected members have done in just few years of their term (also the power). The same report resulted in resignation of Karnataka Chief Minister. Even though CM and his subordinates name is clearly mentioned in the report, they are not ready to accept the fact and till today claiming they have not done anything showing the victory sign wherever they go! The power which our elected members got is not permanent and will end after the term. But our members are acting as permanent or may be the confidence that they won’t get elected again. It almost took a week for the new elected to sworn in as the chief minister of Karnataka because of the high drama played by the earlier chief minister in front of high command. Millions of people not only in India, all over the world watched what our beloved chief minister did in bringing glory to our nation and state.

Central Government is no exception scams of thousands of crores are just getting closed highlighting (to console people) one or two accused. Our own elected members don’t even mind in physical fighting with the members of opposite party. No code of conduct or rules for these members while the common man is axed for minute mistake or breach of conduct. Elected members are in no way concerned about health, education and providing facilities to people which should be their duty but our elected members are lobbying for the cabinet ministry or for president posts of boards and organizations.

Younger generation is slowly losing interest in elections, voting and in over all politics. Unknowingly and slowly a feeling of no one is good and nothing is clean in politics is being occupied in our young minds. Only appeal to our elected members is ‘we have elected you with a hope that you will bring change in our lives. Don’t spoil the dignity of nation in front of whole world, millions of people are watching what you are doing.’

Getting ready to go for Hyderabad

Completing a semester at Goa, I left there as it was nowhere fetching me anything. Assurance of giving job of working as research fellow given by the faculty in the department also turned to be just a false assurance later offering the job to other candidate based on the nativity. I was not a Goan, didn’t have any option than leaving the campus. Applied to many places for job, as it was the middle of semester I didn’t get any job in academics but few assured to take me in the next semester making me to move to native and stay till the next academic year.

Back in native taught biology and mathematics to students for the last few months. It was a good experience to teach the innocent students of small town. Popularity as a good teacher inspired more to learn things well before teaching to students. Recently I had joined a minority college for teaching mathematics. Everything is coming to an end as am leaving to Hyderabad. New assignment is to teach the engineering students, the probable course I need to teach is Data Communication Networks. Data Communication Networks was a subject which I studied some three years back and now I need to teach the same to students of other university.

I heard that Hyderabad is a quite place, recently in news for some communal disturbance of Telangana. Going to Hyderabad in search of new opportunities and setting my career right hoping everything will be fine. Looking forward to know what Hyderabad has in its bowl to offer me as I will be there at least for two years till I finish the Post - Graduate studies.

Enjoying the pain

Train journey is preferable for long distance travelling. High fair for bus had made people to opt for train journey whenever they can. The ticket booked in advance also doesn’t get confirmed as the confirmed travellers list will be huge. I felt the same while coming back attending the Yahoo! Open Hack India 2011 from Bangalore. Even though I booked the ticket as soon as I got the confirmation on registration, my ticket was in RAC status. (RAC – Reservation Against Cancellation) It didn’t get converted into ‘sleeper’ even after the chart preparation. In railway station also travellers were more many couldn’t get seat to sit in general compartment. General compartment was like fully crowded bus.

Train travelling with confirmed ticket is fun only if everything goes fine. Sleeper coach will be in demand always but sleeping near side window seat is difficult. The side upper and side lower seats are difficult for tall people to sleep. Only people with height less than five feet can sleep comfortably. Otherwise the difficulty with sleeping folding the legs is like enjoying the pain. RAC ticket if doesn’t get converted into sleeper or any other class one should sit and travel with the co-passenger. Luckily, my co-passenger in the train journey had his wife in other coach indicating his liking to travel with his wife. I was happy as I can sleep and travel but the happiness didn’t last for long as I had difficulty of travelling folding the legs. Didn’t get proper sleep as I couldn’t turn legs or turn myself in sleep. Reached Shimoga by next day morning and it took almost a day to become normal from all pains!