Home / Archives for October 2011

IndiBlogger - a community for Bloggers

Blogging has become occasional in the work load of the college. Telangana agitation had made students not to attend the classes for a month, in that view college management added one hour per day for the normal working hours increasing the workload! Along with teaching, departmental work seems to be never ending one after the other. I was not having patience at the end of the day to type and post, making me off from posting regularly. In the mean while had applied for joining the IndiBlogger community.

I applied to IndiBlogger community twice, in the first attempt didn’t know what was the problem my account was not proved. Giving a break of almost one month or so again tried, that time also I had the fear of rejection. It took almost a week for my account to get approved. Even I forgot about it checking once or twice about its acceptance but one fine day received the confirmation from IndiBlogger confirming my blog being added to the community of bloggers and on a personal note I was happy that I joined a community exclusively dedicated for bloggers.

Submitted posts one after the after the other to the IndiVine (till now 12). IndiBlogger helped me to get the audience to my blogs. Every blog received liking of some senior bloggers on the community who may be blogging before I knew the words ‘blog’ and ‘blogging’. Learnt a lot of things about the community and fellow bloggers.

As mentioned earlier I couldn’t blog frequently but I submitted the posts to the IndiBlogger receiving good number of hits on my page. IndiBlogger is helping in getting wide audience and also providing a platform for the bloggers to know each other and their blogs. Hope to meet the bloggers in any drives or meets organized by IndiBlogger. Thanks to team IndiBlogger and fellow bloggers.

Corruption and Fraud in the name of Students Placement

Most of the students join for engineering course (any branch) mainly for the purpose of job. Within four years of study students will be eligible for placement and can appear for any of the companies recruitment process depending on the criteria specified by the companies. It has been deeply rooted in the minds of the students and their parents that engineering (especially in CSE/IT) is the best way to get settled in life. Many students completing their graduation look for industry jobs than other possibilities in the higher studies or research. Students will tend to attend any of the placement drives conducted on-campus or off-campus.

Most of the IT companies will outsource the recruitment process as it reduces the burden of visiting each college and conducting the placement drives. Many agencies and institutes have come up with the purpose of helping the companies in their recruitment process. They are just similar to the event management agencies. These agencies authorized by the companies acts as a middle man between the companies and colleges. Even there are rumours that these agencies visit the colleges taking huge sum of money to conduct drives and also from the students or management to hire the students. Sometimes college management pays the amount in order to maintain the standard of the college in terms of the placement.

Number of such middle man agencies is surprising increasing. In the same manner many fraud or unauthorized agencies also came into existence. These fake agencies are acting in the same manner as authorized middle man agencies taking money from the students assuring 100% placements. Usually in the race of placements students will not bother much about the genuine agencies and just fall prey to such fake agencies with the hope of better settlement in life.

Many agencies conduct drives in the name of popular companies without any connection with the companies. The condition is so worse that some of the companies have released the warning press notes recently regarding the institutes or agencies conducting the unauthorized placement drives in the name of popular companies. But identifying the agencies whether they are genuine or fake has become difficult.

The best way to identify is just by money factor whether an agency is asking money in each and every process of recruitment or registration as the companies hires students free of cost. But the drawback is if the genuine agencies itself charge money for recruitment, it is impossible to make out genuine or fake!

QR Code for Blogs

Was astonished to see a new kind of code in news paper yesterday, a reputed Indian company had advertised for the various posts and at the end it was mentioned that more information on Jobs can be got by the QR code. The code was looking like some Black patterns on White background. For a moment I was surprised looking at the code as I never came across such codes, only the one which I was well versed with is the bar code used in grocery shops and book stores. I thought it is something new technology and felt am outdated! Immediately searched on Google to know what exactly the QR codes are.

QR code is abbreviated from the word Quick Response code, it looks like small rectangle or something represented in the form of matrix. It is a kind of two dimensional barcode being first used in automobile industry for identifying the vehicles. Later got popularity as it is possible to incorporate artistic designs and logos in the codes itself.

There are many QR code generators available and can be used to get QR codes for URLs or on visiting cards. Almost all smart phone platforms supports readability of QR codes, the QR codes has to be scanned to get the information stored on it. The QR code has to be captured or scanned and then further processed using the suitable software to retrieve the information in the codes. Even the encryption can be done for the data stored in QR code.

Physical QR code printed on visiting cards or news paper can be scanned and upon retrieving the link will be directed to the information present in the code or to the respective URLs. This refers to hardlinking or object hyperlinking as it involves linking from the physical world objects. QR code reader is required to read the contents in the QR code.

After knowing what exactly QR codes are and how they can be generated I used the free QR code generator available on Kaywa for generating the QR code for my blog URL and you can see the QR code of my website below

qrcode

Now I can relax hoping am not outdated with QR codes anymore!

Steve Jobs views on Education


We are blaming that Education is getting corrupted by the private colleges and schools demanding higher fees and donations but at the same time we ourselves admit that education standards have increased by these private colleges and schools. Days are gone that students and parents likely to turn towards Government Schools. Images of some village school will obviously come to our mind where the number of teachers is more than the number of students!

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was a college dropout but he had certain views on education and reforms in it. Steve’s views on education were interviewed by Smithsonian Institution and have published the excerpts of the interview. Even though Steve expresses his ideas on US education or education in general his views are valid for any country.

Steve’s views on Education as appeared on the Smithsonian Institution’s Oral and Video Histories of Steve Jobs. It can be found on the website http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/comphist/sj1.html too:

 “I'm sure it did. I'm a very big believer in equal opportunity as opposed to equal outcome. I don't believe in equal outcome because unfortunately life's not like that. It would be a pretty boring place if it was. But I really believe in equal opportunity. Equal opportunity to me more than anything means a great education. Maybe even more important than a great family life, but I don't know how to do that. Nobody knows how to do that. But it pains me because we do know how to provide a great education. We really do. We could make sure that every young child in this country got a great education. We fall far short of that. I know from my own education that if I hadn't encountered two or three individuals that spent extra time with me, I'm sure I would have been in jail. I'm 100% sure that if it hadn't been for Mrs. Hill in fourth grade and a few others, I would have absolutely have ended up in jail. I could see those tendencies in myself to have a certain energy to do something. It could have been directed at doing something interesting that other people thought was a good idea or doing something interesting that maybe other people didn't like so much. When you're young, a little bit of course correction goes a long way. I think it takes pretty talented people to do that. I don't know that enough of them get attracted to go into public education. You can't even support a family on what you get paid. I'd like the people teaching my kids to be good enough that they could get a job at the company I work for, making a hundred thousand dollars a year. Why should they work at a school for thirty-five to forty thousand dollars if they could get a job here at a hundred thousand dollars a year? Is that an intelligence test? The problem there of course is the unions. The unions are the worst thing that ever happened to education because it's not a meritocracy. It turns into a bureaucracy, which is exactly what has happened. The teachers can't teach and administrators run the place and nobody can be fired. It's terrible.”

'Akash' - the Indian tablet

The much awaited Indian made low cost Tablet ‘Akash’ was being released on 5th October by the central Human Resource Development Minister Mr. Kapil Sibal. The most attractive thing about this tablet is being the low cost and the idea of giving it to the students on still lower price by the Government subsidy is a welcome one. According to the press release ‘Akash’ is much likely to be available from the month of December to the students and may be by the next year to the general public. Till now ‘Akash’ is the low cost to be available tablet in the market so it has even raised the eye brows of many developed countries and multi-national companies.

The prototype of ‘Akash’ was released last year and the full fledged development work was done by Data Wind. The specification of the ‘Akash’ is it uses Google Android Operating System version 2.2 Froyo, 366 MHz processor with on chip Graphic Accelerator and HD Video Processor, has 2 GB internal memory expandable up to 32 GB and RAM of 256MB. ‘Akash’ has 7 inch resistive touch screen display and has 2100 mAh Lithium-polymer battery. Internet can be accessed using GPRS and also with Wi-Fi connectivity which is an added advantage. Aircel is likely to be the basic official network provider for connecting to the internet using its 3G SIM cards or even the 3G internet dongles can be used. Also it can be used as a phone!

The tablet is specifically developed to cater the needs of the students, the processor speed and RAM won’t be of much hurdle depending on the simple applications most likely to be run by the students. ‘Akash’ may not be useful for business applications as much as other tablets.

The reception of the tablet by the students and teaching community is of much curiosity as many students and teachers are not aware of technologies and using tablets. Training will be helpful for doing so. No product can be perfect on its first release, hope ‘Akash’ will also make some changes in its future releases and also the company Data Wind is planning for tablets as low as $10 making use of locally available components.

Waiting to see the ‘Akash’ effects on students as well as teachers!

Traffic Jam and bus smoke

People in Bangalore are very much used to traffic jams and pollution. But people new to Bangalore get suffocated in the traffic jams and pollution. The vehicles smoke can be compared only with that of Chimneys of large industries venting flue gases. I even wondered how people can travel in city buses inhaling so much dust and smoke always, later got used to it and stayed for few years studying for my graduate course. I heard and read from the books that Bangalore is quite famous for its culture, weather and food. But by the time I landed up in Bangalore everything was changed in the name of development!

Air Pollution

Was just going through the pictures I captured on my phone, one caught my immediate attention it was taken on a traffic jam near Hebbal fly over. On one side Government through forest department creates awareness about the environmental pollution and on the other side the Transport department contributes its share in the pollution!

Facebook's Paid Membership

Social Networking giant ‘Facebook’ is going for paid membership and the members of facebook should sign one or the other kind of membership for retaining their accounts. Such a rumor was spread on internet few days back and many walls (on facebook) was decorated with the information on different levels of memberships and the related cost. The message spread so quickly within no time many discussion and query forums were filled with the question strings linked with the questions pertaining to it. The reason behind many people panic about the costing of facebook is it has become inevitable with our daily life.

Most of my friends don’t even sleep without having a look at facebook account. The interesting thing is it also allows us to know about others a lot. Stalking can be done legally! Facebook has members more than enough to declare it has a country with a population of more than fifty million. If enough space was available on this Earth even facebook users might have sat for strike demanding separate country. Many believe that Windows (of Microsoft) and Walls (of Facebook) rock the world.

Recently I read on one of the popular technology blogs, that facebook has received one trillion page hits. Number of users socializing is increasing making people addicted to these. Whatever may be the addiction if facebook steps for paid membership as many as 90% percent of its members stop using it. The majority of users are students not having enough money to buy membership and will turn towards other websites offering free memberships! Facebook has invested enough on data storage centers and many things so it won’t take a decision affecting the member count.

Facebook has seen a sudden increase in Advertisers turning to it ready to pay any cost. Making advertisements to reach to a particular section of audience is an added advantage. No where else in the web right now doesn’t have the advantage of targeted ads reaching wide audience of particular age group, country and location etc., Facebook is earning decent money from its advertisers and in the last year alone it generated a revenue of around 6.4 billion US dollars. This year the expected revenue generation from advertisers will be twice as that of last year according to an expert analysis.

Facebook will not step forward for paid membership taking chance with its members or account holders. Facebook users can relax!

Passive Smokers are in more danger than the Active Smokers

‘Prohibition of Smoking in the Public Places’ rule was passed by Indian Government on 2nd October 2008. Two days back again we celebrated one more Gandhi Jayanthi remembering Gandhiji and his words. October 2nd is observed only as ‘dry-day’ as almost all the bars will remain closed. But even after three years of passing prohibition of smoking in public places has not made any significant difference.

According to a survey performed last year, the number of smokers has significantly increased compared to last years. People exposed to smoke will be having higher risks of lung disease. Over the years there are chances that lung alveoli will be damaged, blood enters into lungs creating problem in breathing and sputtering blood. People who have enjoyed smoking for a long time, had many kinds of ailments in their old ages compared to others. This is the story of active smokers.

Passive smokers are those inhaling the cigarette smoke left by the others also referred as second hand smoke. Passive smokers are in high risk factor compared to active smokers. Sounds crazy? The reason behind it is the tobacco present in the cigarettes has anti-carcinogenic property along with the carcinogenic property. As long as smokers don’t quit smoking they will be slightly protected by this anti-carcinogenic property. But the same people when they quit smoking are more prone to cancer than anyone else. But for passive smokers the carcinogenic factors present in the smoke causes adverse factors.

Even though there is strong rule on prohibition on smoking, the strict implementation is not yet done. Awareness has to be created rather than punishing or implementing something strictly.

I came across a few lines Gandhiji wrote on smoking in his auto-biography a century before: ‘Ever since I have been grown up, I have never desired to smoke and have always regarded the habit of smoking as barbarous, dirty and harmful. I have never understood why there is such a rage for smoking throughout the world. I cannot bear to travel in a compartment full of people smoking. I become choked.”

Life is to Live

To pass time on unexpected holidays I will get the news paper. Solving puzzles is fun. Apart from puzzles and some fun, news paper will have news on political issues and death news. Political issues are at peak covering major portion of any news paper, news agents need not worry much about getting news. Second or the fourth page in almost all news paper will be filled with local information on accidents, suicides and tributes to the departed soles. No one is permanent on this Earth, one or the other day we should leave this place. Even if we try to stay here permanently also we won’t survive.

Leaving the deaths after a certain age, the saddest part is of suicides. The suicidal rate is ever increasing and the reason for committing suicide is much ridiculous. We have only one life, we don’t know whether we take re-birth or not it doesn’t matter much as we won’t know what happened in the earlier birth!

Some of the recent happenings really figuring out that we are unable to withstand even the simplest facts. Committing suicides for scoring less in examination, not getting proper attention from boy friend/girl friend, unable to find a job easily and even getting scolding from the parents/teachers have become major issues for committing suicides.

Even we are failing to face the simplest realities in life. Leading a normal and contented life is very difficult than it appears to be. Every one can’t expect the things to happen as he/she likes to. One should be optimistic and take challenges to face life. The tragedy is that the so called premier institutes of the country are preparing our students only for the sake of making money not concentrating much on the over all personality development of the student (many institutes impart soft skills in the name of personality development.)

We are here only for once, enjoying the life is important. Life is to be lived, not to be wasted.