Microsoft Touch Mouse

Long wait is over. If you ever wanted the touch gestures of Apple’s Magic mouse on windows, Microsoft unveiled the Touch Mouse - A new multitouch device designed for windows 7 that lets people click, flick, scroll and swipe while interacting their PCs. The Touch mouse by Microsoft Research and the Applied Science Group, combines the virtues of a mouse with the rich natural language of gesture that lets people interact with windows 7 in a more intuitive way.

Touch Mouse lets people do everything they are used to doing with a mouse, such as point and click, but also adds gestures with one, two or three fingers.

One finger: People can manage documents or pages by flicking to quickly scroll, pan and tilt.

Two fingers: Manage windows, letting people maximize, minimize and snap

Three fingers: let people navigate their whole desktop, showing instant viewer

Be sure to watch the demo video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVsFcKd6NjU

-Aslam

The Foundation of Leadership

The most important quality of leadership, the one quality for which you want to be known, is extraordinary performance, with the goal of achieving extraordinary results. These results then serve as an inspiration to others to perform at equally exceptional levels. People ascribe leadership to those men and women who they feel can most enable them to achieve important goals or objectives.



Why People Respect You

We develop great perceptions of those men and women we can count on to help us achieve what is important to us. Men and women who make great sales, or who establish admirable sales records, develop influence in the minds and hearts of their coworkers and superiors. They are spoken about in the most positive way.



The Halo Effect

Men and women who are responsible for companies or departments that achieve high levels of profitability also develop charisma. They develop what is called the "halo effect." They are perceived by others to be extraordinary men and women who are capable of great things. Their shortcomings are often overlooked, while their strong points are overemphasized. They become charismatic.



The Source of Charisma

Charisma actually comes from working on yourself. It comes from liking and accepting yourself unconditionally as you do and say the specific things that develop within you a powerful, charismatic personality.



Be Determined and Purposeful

When you set clear goals and become determined and purposeful, backing those goals with unshakable self-confidence, you develop charisma. When you are enthusiastic and excited about what you are doing, when you are totally committed to achieving something worthwhile, you radiate charisma. When you take the time to study and become an expert at what you do, and then prepare thoroughly for any opportunity to use your knowledge, skill or experience, the perception that others have of you goes straight up.



Accept Complete Responsibility

When you take complete responsibility and accept ownership, without making excuses or blaming others, you experience a sense of control that leads to the personal power that is the foundation of charisma. When you look like a winner in every respect, when you have the kind of external image that others admire, you build your charisma. When you develop your character by setting high standards and then disciplining yourself to live consistent with the highest principles you know, you become the kind of person who is admired and respected everywhere. You become the kind of person who radiates charisma to others.



Focus on Results

Finally, when you concentrate your energies on achieving the results that you have been hired to accomplish, the results that others expect of you, you develop the reputation for performance and achievement that inevitably leads to the perception of charisma.



You can develop the kind of charisma that opens doors for you by going to work on yourself, consistently and persistently, and becoming the kind of person everyone can admire and look up to. That's what charisma is all about.



Action Exercises

Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.



First, ask yourself every day, "What is the one thing that I and only I can do, that if done well, will make a real difference to my company?" Whatever your answer, go to work on that.



Second, decide upon the most important results you can get for your company and make sure that you and everyone else is working on those results every hour of every day.

Shared by -Haroon
Article by - Brian Tracy

PKI -Intro

I was constantly pushing back the blog writing due to work load and somehow whenever I planned to write, something will come and I will think, lets do it later, after doing it couple of times, reminded me that sometime even the lowest priority item becomes as top priority and time management stuff flashed, so what did I do,  I said let me write it now and as I think, I started writing one of my fav subject, PKI

Very few people know that I am a certified PKI architect by none other than VeriSign-New York. It is different story that I have to fly all the way across the ocean in year 2000 to understand what it is, OK will tell the story some other time and lets get back to the topic PKI.

Any guesses, what PKI stand for..................................   OK it is Public Key Infrastructure and before you read further, will share something very few of you have tried in browser. If you are using IE, then click on Tools--> Internet Options and then Content and then Certificate. Click on Intermediate Certification authority and other tabs and you will see host of certificate. The certs are linked closely to PKI, lets see how and learn basic components of PKI before we see advanced

 What is a Digital Certificate? 

• Digital equivalent of a driver’s license, employee badge, or credit card
• Binds a public key to an identity
• Our CA issues two types at this time:
• Personal certificates
• Site certificate

and how do you verify it is authentic, The authenticity of the certificate is guaranteed by the digital signature generated using the CA’s (Certification Authority ) private key. Thus CA is a key in this chain for PKI for ensuring people are the one they claim using their Private Digital Certs (aka Private Keys)

 Digital Certificates are issues to users and sites (must for sites having https secured transaction). Serves up digital certificates that carry public key material 1.Name 2. Ccertificate number 3.Assurance level of certificate.
Certs are used to encrypt confidential data, ensure data integrity, authenticate the owner, and provide a means of non-repudiation

There are two keys generated at the same time of certificate generation a private key and public key.

Private Key

Protected by owner
Used to sign messages
Used to decrypt messages
Kept in physical possession of owner

Public Key

Distributed freely and openly
Used to verify signatures
Used to encrypt messages
Kept in individual public key “certificates”

John sends a encrypted message to Bob using Bob public Key (available with all), now he is assured that no body can open the encrypted message except Bob as it required Bob private key, which is only with Bob. Thus an ecrypted message can be transfered and ensured that only the receipent gets and view it. 
 
Now more later in part 2 of PKI  till then happy googling "PKI"
 
regards
Sajid 

 


 

Value Time!!!

Imagine there was a bank that credited your very own account each morning with a large sum of money. But, it carried over no balance from day to day. Every evening it deleted whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out all of it, of course!


Each of us has such a bank. Its name is - Time. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft.

Each day it makes a new deposit for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours. There is no going back. There is no drawing against the "tomorrow." You must live in the present on today's deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, and success!

The clock is running. Make the most of today. And remember that time waits for no one. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. But today is a gift. That's why it's called The Present!

Contributed By:
Talha Khan
Accounts & Administration Exec.

7 requirements for building your cloud infrastructure (Continued)

Part - II

4. Reliability, Availability and Security
While the model and infrastructure for how IT services are delivered and consumed may have changed with cloud computing, it is still critical for these new solutions to support the same elements that have always been important for end users. Whether the cloud serves as a test bed for developers prototyping new services and applications or it is running the latest version of a popular social gaming application, users expect it to be functioning every minute of every day. To be fully reliable and available, the cloud needs to be able to continue to operate while data remains intact in the virtual data center regardless if a failure occurs in one or more components. Additionally, since most cloud architectures deal with shared resource pools across multiple groups both internal and external, security and multi-tenancy must be integrated into every aspect of an operational architecture and process. Services need to be able to provide access to only authorized users and in this shared resource pool model the users need to be able to trust that their data and applications are secure.

5. Integration with Data Center Management Tools
Many components of traditional data center management sill require some level of integration with new cloud management solutions even though the cloud is a new way of consuming IT. Within most data centers, a variety of tools are used for provisioning, customer care, billing, systems management, directory, security and much more. Cloud computing management solutions do not replace these tools and it is important that there are open application programming interfaces (APIs) that integrate into existing operation, administration, maintenance and provisioning systems (OAM&P) out of the box. These include both current virtualization tools from VMware and Citrix, but also the larger data center management tools from companies like IBM and HP.

6. Visibility and Reporting
The need to manage cloud services from a performance, service level, and reporting perspective becomes paramount to the success of the deployment of the service. Without strong visibility and reporting mechanisms the management of customer service levels, system performance, compliance and billing becomes increasingly difficult. Data center operations have the requirement of having real-time visibility and reporting capabilities within the cloud environment to ensure compliance, security, billing and chargebacks as well as other instruments, which require high levels of granular visibility and reporting.

7. Administrator, Developer and End User Interfaces
One of the primary attributes and successes of existing cloud-based services on the market comes from the fact that self-service portals and deployment models shield the complexity of the cloud service from the end user. This helps by driving adoption and by decreasing operating costs as the majority of the management is offloaded to the end user. Within the self-service portal, the consumer of the service should be able to manage their own virtual data center, create and launch templates, manage their virtual storage, compute and network resources and access image libraries to get their services up and running quickly. Similarly, administrator interfaces must provide a single pane view into all of the physical resources, virtual machine instances, templates, service offerings, and multiple cloud users. On top of core interfaces, all of these features need to be interchangeable to developers and third parties through common APIs.

Cloud computing is a paradigm shift in how data centers and service providers are architecting and delivering highly reliable, highly scalable services to their users in a manner that is significantly more agile and cost effective than previous models. This new model offers early adopters the ability to quickly realize the benefits of improved business agility, faster time to market and an overall reduction in capital expenditures. However, enterprises and service providers need to understand what elements their cloud must contain in order to build a truly successful cloud.

Source :

Shared By: Sheng Liang and Peder Ulander on "itworld.com"
Sheng Liang is CEO of Cloud.com; Peder Ulander serves as CMO for Cloud.com.

Contributed By :
Mohammed Sufiyan,
Software Engineer, Octaware Technologies

Email Etiquettes – Must Know: Last part

As we know that email writing is a skill and we need to know it to improve our communication skill. I will brief  all 11 points today on email etiquettes.

1- Be Concise and to the point and Avoid long sentences

Do not make an e-mail longer than it needs to be. Remember that reading an e-mail is harder than reading printed communications and a long e-mail can be very discouraging to read.

2- Always read what you have written before sending

It is so easy to make a mistake on an email that will make you look uneducated or cause you to lose clients. I know someone that I was consulting with that sent out a message to all of his investing clients. The message was talking about how they should come to him to set up a business trust to protect their assets. Instead of business trusts, the message said business "thrusts."

3- Never compose an email if you are angry

You may have just received an email that upset you. If you do, do not hastily send a response. When you respond to the email out of anger, it just makes a bigger mess. Not only does it make a larger problem, people begin to associate you as the person making it a problem.

The best thing to do is to step away from the computer, go for a short walk, and then come back to it when you have calmed down. You want to be viewed as the problem solver instead of the one causing the problem. Having a cool head while writing an email will really make a good impression in the workplace.

4- Read the email before you send it

A lot of people don't bother to read an email before they send it out, as can be seen from the many spelling and grammar mistakes contained in emails. Apart from this, reading your email through the eyes of the recipient will help you send a more effective message and avoid misunderstandings and inappropriate comments.

5- Do not type in all capital letters

IF YOU WRITE IN CAPITALS IT SEEMS AS IF YOU ARE SHOUTING. This can be highly annoying and might trigger an unwanted response in the form of a flame mail. Therefore, try not to send any email text in capitals.

6- Take care with abbreviations and emotions.

In business emails, try not to use abbreviations such as BTW (by the way) and LOL (laugh out loud). The recipient might not be aware of the meanings of the abbreviations and in business emails these are generally not appropriate. The same goes for emoticons, such as the smiley :-). If you are not sure whether your recipient knows what it means, it is better not to use it.

7- Use a meaningful subject.

Try to use a subject that is meaningful to the recipient as well as yourself. For instance, when you send an email to a company requesting information about a product, it is better to mention the actual name of the product, e.g. 'Product A information' than to just say 'product information' or the company's name in the subject.

8- Use active instead of passive sentence.

Try to use the active voice of a verb wherever possible. For instance, 'We will process your order today', sounds better than 'Your order will be processed today'. The first sounds more personal, whereas the latter, especially when used frequently, sounds unnecessarily formal.

9- Try to use proper spelling, grammar & punctuation.

This is not only important because improper spelling, grammar and punctuation give a bad impression of your company, it is also important for conveying the message properly. E-mails with no full stops or commas are difficult to read and can sometimes even change the meaning of the text. And, if your program has a spell checking option, why not use it?

10- Answer all questions, and pre-empt further questions.

An email reply must answer all questions, and pre-empt further questions – If you do not answer all the questions in the original email, you will receive further e-mails regarding the unanswered questions, which will not only waste your time and your customer’s time but also cause considerable frustration. Moreover, if you are able to pre-empt relevant questions, your customer will be grateful and impressed with your efficient and thoughtful customer service. Imagine for instance that a customer sends you an email asking which credit cards you accept. Instead of just listing the credit card types, you can guess that their next question will be about how they can order, so you also include some order information and a URL to your order page. Customers will definitely appreciate this.

11- Answer Swiftly:

Customers send an e-mail because they wish to receive a quick response. If they did not want a quick response they would send a letter or a fax. Therefore, each e-mail should be replied to within at least 24 hours, and preferably within the same working day. If the email is complicated, just send an email back saying that you have received it and that you will get back to them. This will put the customer's mind at rest and usually customers will then be very patient!

Let's inculcate improving email writing by learning above few points, which definitely improve email writing skill.


-Regards,
Shahnawaz 

7 requirements for building your cloud infrastructure

This article speaks about the7 requirements for building your cloud infrastructure. It is beoing published on this blog in two parts.


Part - I

Today, service providers and enterprises interested in implementing clouds face the challenge of integrating complex software and hardware components from multiple vendors. The resulting system can end up being expensive to build and hard to operate, minimizing the original motives and benefits of moving to cloud computing. Cloud computing platforms are attractive because they let businesses quickly access hosted private and public resources on-demand without the complexities and time associated with the purchase, installation, configuration and deployment of traditional physical infrastructure.

While 2010 was the year for talking about the cloud, 2011 will be the year for implementation. It is for this reason that it is important for service providers and enterprises to gain a better understanding of exactly what they need to build their cloud infrastructure. For both enterprises and service providers, the successful creation and deployment of cloud services will become the foundation for their IT operations for years to come making it essential to get it right from the start.

For the architect employed with building out a cloud infrastructure, there are seven key requirements that need to be addressed when building their cloud strategy. These requirements include:

1. Heterogeneous Systems Support
Not only should cloud management solutions leverage the latest hardware, virtualization and software solutions, but they should also support a data center's existing infrastructure. While many of the early movers based their solutions on commodity and open source solutions like general x86 systems running open source Xen and distributions like CentOS, larger service providers and enterprises have requirements around both commodity and proprietary systems when building out their clouds. Additionally, cloud management providers must integrate with traditional IT systems in order to truly meet the requirements of the data center. Companies that don't support technologies from the likes of Cisco, Red Hat, NetApp, EMC, VMware and Microsoft will fall short in delivering a true cloud product that fits the needs of the data center.

2. Service Management
To productize the functionality of cloud computing, it is important that administrators have a simple tool for defining and metering service offerings. A service offering is a quantified set of services and applications that end users can consume through the provider — whether the cloud is private or public. Service offerings should include resource guarantees, metering rules, resource management and billing cycles. The service management functionality should tie into the broader offering repository such that defined services can be quickly and easily deployed and managed by the end user.

3. Dynamic Workload and Resource Management
In order for a cloud to be truly on-demand and elastic while consistently able to meet consumer service level agreements (SLAs), the cloud must be workload- and resource- aware. Cloud computing raises the level of abstraction to make all components of the data center virtualized, not just compute and memory. Once abstracted and deployed, it is critical that management solutions have the ability to create policies around workload and data management to ensure that maximum efficiency and performance is delivered to the system running in the cloud. This becomes even more critical as systems hit peak demand. The system must be able to dynamically prioritize systems and resources on-the-fly based on business priorities of the various workloads to ensure that SLAs are met.
(We will further elaborate on Reliability; Integration; Visibility & interfaces)

Source :
Shared By: Sheng Liang and Peder Ulander on "itworld.com"

Sheng Liang is CEO of Cloud.com; Peder Ulander serves as CMO for Cloud.com.


 Contributed By :
Mohammed Sufiyan,
Software Engineer, Octaware Technologies

Five Most Exciting Search Tricks with Google Operators

Knowing about different techniques of searching in Google, has the biggest advantage in saving precious time. The more you optimize your queries, the more faster you get what you were looking for and finally the more quicker your work gets done. Its a bit of ‘more’ in everything when Google search tricks are applied. Please find below more five tricks to what I shared ten last week.


The theme for this article is "Definitive Search". It means that, instead of beating around the bush for carrying out permutations and combinations of your search queries, why not carry out the search for exactly what we are looking for. By doing this, you would become more sure of getting the most relevant articles to your queries.
Most of the Definitive Search tricks are obtained by using the Google Advanced Operators. I would like to specify in this article as to where the operators can be utilized ‘more’ efficiently.
For this article I am taking a particular case study for search query optimization. So here we go…

Let us take the current situation of the Oracle BEA acquisition. One would be interested in which stories are doing rounds of it on the web. Even if you put the phrase Oracle BEA acquisition in Google you would obviously get a lot of links. Try it:

• Oracle BEA acquisition

But can you tell for sure which of the links are actually speaking specifically about this story? The answer is NO. This is because Google only searches for those articles which have these 3 words viz Oracle or BEA or acquisition.

1. Most common trick – Using Quotes

To circumvent the above analogy lets try one of the most common trick, using “” (quotes) around this phrase, since using them restricts the results to include all the above 3 words and match the articles which have them. Try it:

• “Oracle BEA acquisition”

This time the results look good since all the returned results have the 3 words either in content or their titles. But you still cannot say that the links would have some content surrounding the story. The reason is, if you consider this article itself, the 3 words are mentioned right here above. This means that even this article might get displayed in the results simply because I have used all the 3 words with the exact sequence. But there is no story about the acquisition. Get it?

2. Power of All – Using the operator allintitle

The time has come for using the powerful Google operator allintitle: This operator is used in a situation as above. Now considering the above situation, one would be urged to click on any article which has the 3 words in the title, the reason being articles with such titles are bound to be related exactly to what the title mentions. This is meaning of being definitive. The operator makes it a point to help you search the articles on the web which have the 3 words in their title. Try it:

• allintitle:Oracle BEA acquisition

3. Power of One – Using the operator intitle

Similar to the allintitle you also can use just intitle which searches for articles which have either “Oracle” or “BEA” or “Acquisition” in their content and not all the three in the title. It is good for single word searches which come in title. Let’s say that you just wanted to find some articles which mentioned all the acquisitions made by Oracle but you are not sure of them. The trick would be to use:

• intitle:Oracle acquisition

3. Digging deeper – Using the operator inURL

This one is my favorite trick. I am always looking out for current topics. The web on the other hand has got overloaded with redundant information. The problem lies here. If I search for something I won’t be so sure whether the links in the results are recent or old. Blogs help me the most is using this trick to my advantage. If you are frequent visitor of blogs then you might have noticed that they have the date of publishing right there in the URL. If you notice this blog too then the URL will have the date. Are you thinking what I am thinking?

If you have not understood then lets take the same above example. If you take the 1st example then you would notice that the search results also include old articles. In this case it also lists out BEA’s denial of Oracle merger in 2007. What we are interested is not this, but the news of the acquisition in 2008! So to try out a simple hack to this is to use the inURL operator. Try this:

• “Oracle BEA acquisition” inurl:2008

The usage of inurl:2008 lists out only those links which have been published in 2008, thus furthering making your search definitive.

4. The Perfect Match – Using the operator allinurl

This is the most definitive of all the combinations which I have mentioned above and the most efficient too. But it may not always work because having multiple words all together in an URL is rare. But still if we try this in our example:

• allinurl:Oracle BEA acquisition 2008

This is a huge filtering operator. You can judge it by the results themselves. It gives only a handful of results! Isn’t that brilliant? However, with this operator you cannot judge the quality of the returned results since it all depends on the URL is framed and not on the content! But many a times, I find it exact and helpful. Remember, you don’t have to put slashes (/) in here, just the words which you think might appear in the URL.

5. Look who is spying – Using the operator site

I use this operator sometimes for my amusement. With this operator you can search for keywords only from particular sites. For example:

• Oracle BEA acquisition site:techtracer.com

will search for the articles in this site only! It isn’t helpful much since many sites have inbuilt search feature, including Techtracer. But you can use it for finding comments which you might have made in some site! Sounds like fun!

I remember I had made a comment in DailySeoBlog a few days ago. But hey, I don’t remember which article I had made the comment on. So here is my hack for using the site operator. Just type which name you had entered while commenting. I had used my first name “nitin”. So check this out:

• nitin site:dailyseoblog.com

Amazing isn’t it? Now I know which all articles I had commented upon in the blog. So now I can easily see what people or the author has responded to my comments.

Gimme ‘more’

Using definitive tricks you can now be sure fire way of finding out exactly what you are looking for. But in the end knowing all the tricks will just won’t be helpful if you don’t apply the right tricks at the right time. It comes with habit of constantly searching for ‘more’ information.

-Haroon

Power nap - IT enabled...

We implemented “PowerNap during lunch hours” few years back at Octaware for its obvious benefits. Slowly but surely, the benefits of the classic, 20-minute power nap are getting more recognition in other IT firms also. All of us believe that PowerNap increases alertness, boosts creativity, reduces stress, improves perception, stamina, and accuracy, helps you make better decisions, keeps you looking younger, aids in weight loss, reduces the risk of heart attack, elevates your mood, and strengthens memory.

Now the PowerNap is IT enabled. The companies are installing “Sleep Pods” at the office and more software applications like “Pzizz” are ensuring to set the right power nap. The sleep pod is a specially designed chaise lounge with a privacy bubble and built-in full body buzzer-as-alarm clock. It also has a wake-station with mints, refreshing spray, hand towels and a locker.

Pzizz is neat little piece of software that will help you relax and reduce stress. It does this by providing you over a billion custom naps on your computer that you can trigger when you need a refresher. Pzizz combines Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), enchanting music, sound effects and a binaural beat to achieve a wonderfully relaxed state in the listener, similar to that experienced during the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) stage of sleep.

You can download a free trial to give it a shot and share your experience here at Octaware blog :-)

-Aslam

Email Etiquettes – Must Know:

There was a time when we used to send letters by mail/post to our colleague or relatives. In today’s world we communicate widely through email. Email has become one of the primary tool for communication. Knowing this fact we never try to learn the skills of writing email, which is called nothing but Etiquettes.

First question in our mind: Why do we need email etiquette?

Answer is very simple in two word. “Professionalism” and  “Efficiency”

- Professionalism: By Using Proper email as per etiquette you will convey a professional image

- Efficiency: Emails that get to the point are much more effective than poorly worded emails.

You will find many etiquettes and rules on the internet. Some rules/etiquettes differ according to the nature of your business or corporate culture.

Following are the common, need to know Etiquettes:

1- Be Concise and to the point and Avoid long sentences

2- Always read what you have written before sending

3- Never compose an email if you are angry

4- Read the email before you send it

5- Do not type in all capital letters

6- Take care with abbreviations and emoticons.

7- Use a meaningful subject.

8- Use active instead of passive sentence.

9- Try to use proper spelling, grammar & punctuation.

10- Answer all questions, and pre-empt further questions.

11- Answer Swiftly.

I hope that These email tips will help you impress others at work and avoid offending others. Knowing or unknowingly sometimes it happens. J

I want blog to be small and simple to read, so I will brief all above 11 points in my next blog with some examples.

-Shahnawaz

Puppies for Sale

As last month was X’mas time so everywhere big red tag of “SALE” were displayed in malls and retail stores. Even email inbox were flooded with promotional schemes and clearance sale. While clearing my email, the subject “Puppies on SALE” jumped out at me and caught my eyes due to this coincidence. There is very beautiful and strong message here…

Puppies for Sale:

A store owner was tacking a sign above his door that read "Puppies For Sale."

Signs like that have a way of attracting small children, and sure enough, a little boy appeared under the store owner's sign. "How much are you going to sell the puppies for?" he asked.

The store owner replied, "Anywhere from $30 to $50."

The little boy reached in his pocket and pulled out some change. "I have $2.37," he said. "Can I please look at them?"

The store owner smiled and whistled and out of the kennel came Lady, who ran down the aisle of his store followed by five teeny, tiny balls of fur.

One puppy was lagging considerably behind. Immediately the little boy singled out the lagging, limping puppy and said, "What's wrong with that little dog?"

The store owner explained that the veterinarian had examined the little puppy and had discovered it didn't have a hip socket. It would always limp. It would always be lame.

The little boy became excited. "That is the puppy that I want to buy."

The store owner said, "No, you don't want to buy that little dog. If you really want him, I'll just give him to you."

The little boy got quite upset. He looked straight into the store owner's eyes, pointing his finger, and said, "I don't want you to give him to me. That little dog is worth every bit as much as all the other dogs and I'll pay full price. In fact, I'll give you $2.37 now, and 50 cents a month until I have him paid for."

The store owner countered, "You really don't want to buy this little dog. He is never going to be able to run and jump and play with you like the other puppies."

To his surprise, the little boy reached down and rolled up his pant leg to reveal a badly twisted, crippled left leg supported by a big metal brace. He looked up at the store owner and softly replied, "Well, I don't run so well myself, and the little puppy will need someone who understands!"

We ALL need someone who Understands!

-Aslam

10 Most Amazing Google Search Tricks

Searching on Google can be a magical experience once you find out how to make your search queries efficient. By making efficient I mean using some tricks or the cheat sheet provided by Google itself to quickly find what you actually require. Having being hooked onto Google for a long time now, I have come across some amazing search tricks which can change the way you look at Google today.



In this article I will list down the search tricks. Be it finding time, meanings or watching the cricket score, searching PDF’s, with Google as the search engine life cannot be more simpler. Here are the 10 most amazing Google Search tricks:

1. Different Types of Files at your will

How many times would you have asked for materials (PDF, PPT, DOC) for a particular topic from a friend? Its almost everyday that we might have the necessity to ask them either for knowledge, preparing a presentation, white-paper or for case studies. Such times it mostly difficult to look out what to exactly search for because most of the times you don’t know about the topic at hand. But this petty keyword unleashes its lethal power at such occasions.

Let’s say I want to implement a case study on SOA which means I have to read a lot of information for SOA. So I just have to find materials which might have already been uploaded on the web in the form of PDF’s, DOC’s or PPT’s. These materials can be easily obtained by doing a search for:

• PDF – service oriented architecture filetype:pdf

• PPT – service oriented architecture filetype:ppt

• DOC – service oriented architecture filetype:doc

2. Scholarly Search

If you want some authenticity of the materials then it would be better to find the materials from educational institutes or universities. For this use the Google scholar search. But suppose you don’t like to switch to Google scholar search you can add the same query with an additional parameter to the normal Google search box,

• service oriented architecture filetype:pdf site:edu

3. Meanings of any word in an instant

Now you do not have to carry a dictionary or install a dictionary software just for the purpose of finding out a meaning of a word. With the wealth of information in Google’s hands, its a piece of cake to find out the meaning of the word. Just use the define: keyword. The meaning would of course be displayed but also a set of other links which might have an alternative definition are also given out with the link to read more about it.

• define:beureaucracy

You would argue here that, a dicitionary gives out more information than this. But what about words that don’t actually fall within the vocabulary. Suppose you want to know what SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) is then you would have no choice. Google Search comes to your rescue in this case,

• Abbreviations – define: SOA

• Jargons – define: Web 2.0

• SMS language – define: LOL

4. Find the time of any location

Many of us might be probably working for client which are based at different locations. And communication has to be carried out frequently carried out in such cases. But before a communication you have to know which time zone the location is falling into otherwise you would be causing a disturbance.

I have seen people installing time zone software for showing the time of the location they would be calling to. But with Google at your hands you don’t have to install any software. It would be just simple to use a query for finding the current time such as,

• time new york

psst….look closely the time on the little clock graphic. It also shows the perfect time!

5. Weather at your fingertips

If you are thinking to visit a place it is useful to know what the temperature of the place is before hand, it can make efficient packing. Google helps you here too. Just use this query without asking anybody or waiting for the news to make a weather report. I wish I had thought of this!

• goa weather

6. Google does live commentary too!

Indians are cricket fanatics. If you want to find the latest info about all the cricket matches then just type,

• cricket

But if you want to find out only about a particular match then use only the names of the two playing nations,

• India Australia

Remember that the scorecard will come only when the play is going on.

7. Calculate with your browser

Every OS has a calculator inbuilt but when the browser is the thing which is constantly open whey bother to open up a calculator. Open Google and straight away type your mathematical expression. You can go all the way from basic arithmetic to trigonometrical expressions. This is simply amazing stuff accomplished by Google.

• 26 * 9000

• sin(90) / cos (90)

8. Compare your currency with others

Now that the dollar is declining, the rest of the world must be busy trying to check the impact of the dollar on their currencies. But first of all one must know how much a particular currency amounts to when cashed in another currency. Google’s inbuilt currency converter just does this.

• 1 USD in INR

• 1 EUR in INR

9. Keep track of the stocks

With the booming stock market it is very important to track the stocks on a day to day basis. Putting a stock ticker in the search box is the most obvious thing you would think of. But it is not always you would remember the stock ticker, you should add the keyword “stocks:” to the company name.

The best part of the obtained result is that it provides a chart which shows the trend in the company’s stock along with important statistics.

• stocks: INFY

Note: Currently the results are restricted to the companies listed in the US stock markets.

10. Wanna find some faces?

This is most interesting trick. You might be needing images for various occasions and searching for images is the most difficult thing because what we expect might not be possibly mapped to a query. But Google has a parameter in place for images in situations we need an image which describes a face.

Suppose I search for the term “happy” then the Google results page displays smileys. But I would like to use images of happy people. Even if I choose the term as “happy face” the results don’t show images which contain people. For this there is a parameter “imgtype” which you can use with the URL. For this put in the URL as follows:

• http://images.google.co.in/images?q=happy&imgtype=face

There are many more variations which can be bought about with the above tricks thus making your search experience not only enriching but also exciting. I will be sharing more in my next blog.

-Haroon

RFID Technology: Ten RFID Myths and Realities PART-V

This is the last series of Ten RFID Myths. It was quite interesting to know about complete understanding of RFID technology from its mode of operation to its Myth.

Myth #8: RFID spells the end to privacy.

RFID in consumer products and retail is seen as a potentially invasive technology. People are afraid that the items they buy in stores will have the radio chips on them and then people can "see" what they have purchased by driving by their house and using an RFID reader. As RFID evolves from an emerging technology, so will the privacy protection systems. Consumer products have “kill” software which renders an RFID tag useless once it leaves the store. This is similar to the security devices you see used on many DVD's and CD's in electronic stores, once purchased they are killed so they don't alert the security sensors at the front of the store that they are "stolen".

Myth #9: RFID is easy to deploy.

Demonstrations are easy to set up, but production deployment in distribution centers, warehouses, retail stores or manufacturing facilities can be challenging and frustrating, even for the most experienced professional. The entire environment must be analyzed, including the types of shelving (metal), types of lighting, and sources of radio interference. Even legacy 900MHz phone systems can interfere with RFID tags and readers. In order to successfully deploy an RFID system in a warehouse, a wireless site survey is required to identify all possible sources of interference and signal attenuation

Myth #10: I can afford to wait.

It’s better to get a deployment right than to be first. Barcoding Inc. recommends starting early, proceed slowly, and learning step-by-step. You want to avoid rushed, catch-up deployments necessitated by competitive pressure. Many large companies are waiting to see how Wal-Mart's tracking of cartons and pallets works, but they have already begun the investigative process so they can be ready when the time comes.

Do not put yourself in the position of having to tag products for your customers, without being able to derive value from those tags within your own operations.

I will start with some interesting technical topic or series from next week.

-Shahnawaz

Some words of Wisdom: Which could well be implemented in our daily life.
They're written by Andy Rooney , a man who has the gift of saying so much with so few words.

I've learned.... That the best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elderly person.

I've learned.... That when you're in love, it shows.

I've learned.... That just one person saying to me, 'You've made my day!' makes my day.

I've learned.... That having a child fall asleep in your arms is one of the most peaceful feelings in the world.

I've learned.... That being kind is more important than being right.

I've learned.... That you should never say no to a gift from a child.

I've learned.... That I can always pray for someone when I don't have the strength to help him in some other way.

I've Learned....That no matter how serious your life requires you to be, everyone needs a friend to act goofy with.

I've learned.... That sometimes all a person needs is a hand to hold and a heart to understand.

I've learned.... That simple walks with my father around the block on summer nights when I was a child did wonders for me as an adult.

I've learned.... That life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes.

I've learned.... That we should be glad God doesn't give us everything we ask for.

I've learned.... That money doesn't buy class.

I've learned.... That it's those small daily happenings that make life so spectacular.

I've learned... That under everyone's hard shell is someone who wants to be appreciated and loved.

I've learned.... That to ignore the facts does not change the facts.

I 've learned... That when you plan to get even with someone, you are only letting that person continue to hurt you.

I've learned.... That love, not time, heals all wounds.

I've learned.... That the easiest way for me to grow as a person is to surround myself with people smarter than I am.

I've learned... That everyone you meet deserves to be greeted with a smile.

I've learned....That no one is perfect until you fall in love with them.

I've learned... That life is tough, but I'm tougher.

I've learned.... That opportunities are never lost, someone will take the ones you miss.

I've learned.... That when you harbor bitterness, happiness will dock elsewhere.

I've learned.... That I wish I could have told my Mom that I love her one more time before she passed away.

I've learned.... That one should keep his words both soft and tender, because tomorrow he may have to eat them.

I've learned ....That a smile is an inexpensive way to improve your looks.

I've learned.... That when your newly born grandchild holds your little finger in his little fist, that you're hooked for life.

I've learned.... That everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you're climbing it.

I've learned.... That the less time I have to work with, the more things I get done.

Finally and personally,
I have learnt that gratitude is a great virtue.

 [Andrew Aitken "Andy" Rooney (born January 14, 1919) is an American radio and television writer. He is most notable for his weekly broadcast "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney", a part of the CBS News program 60 Minutes since 1978]

- Contributed By:
Najeeb

Five tips for being profitable in IT consulting

The last thing you want to do is get caught up in a consulting engagement that costs you lots of time and effort and makes you very little money. It’s frustrating, counterproductive, and almost certainly ensures that you won’t have return business with that customer.

To safeguard the profitability of the engagement, you need to keep several things in mind when you’re discussing the project with the customer, scoping and pricing the project, and executing on the project. Here are some tips that will help make sure a job will be worthwhile.

Note: These tips are based on an entry in our IT Consultant blog.

1: Have a spine
By “having a spine,” I mean you need to be able to do the following:
• Say no to the customer when necessary.
• Stand firm for what you believe to be the necessary tasks.
• Be confident and unwavering when directing the activities of others.
• Stand firm to prices quoted.
• Stand behind your estimate and the work involved.

Some of these items may be especially challenging when you’re just starting out in IT consulting. But in the end, you’ll be more profitable, and you’ll have customers who truly need your expertise and are willing to pay you for it.

2: Know your cost of doing business
Many years ago, I was responsible for creating a coupon booklet for a fundraiser in a small town in the Midwest. My team and I went around to area businesses, explained the purpose of the booklet, and asked them to suggest coupons that their business could honor in the books. The very nice gentleman who owned the only full service gas station offered 20% off a full set of tires. Then he hesitated and said he needed to think about it for a while. I told him that I certainly didn’t want him to lose money on the offering. He was nice but not a very good businessman. (This wasn’t the only evidence, but that’s another story.) He had no idea what his cost of doing business was and what his profit margin was on a set of tires.

To be a profitable IT consultant, you absolutely must know your cost of doing business. You should figure in your overhead expenses, travel expenses (air travel and driving), supplies, phone time, and more. You should also build some wiggle room in the scope that you know you may need to give away without putting up a fight. Once you calculate your cost of doing business, you’ll know what you need to bring in per hour to make a consulting engagement profitable.

3: Understand your Peter Principle
An independent contractor spoke with me recently about his frustrating situation. The contractor works in a small town in Nebraska, and he receives $500 for his service offering. We both knew that in other parts of the country, especially in larger and more affluent markets, he could receive much more money for this service package. Since he had no plans to move, his options were to change his offerings or include more or different services in the package. The contractor’s research indicated that he risked losing business. In effect, he found his Peter Principle in terms of what he could get for the type of service he was offering in that location.

The Peter Principle applies to IT consultants as well. We have to understand what the ceiling is in terms of rate, price, or contract. We also need to understand our earnings limitations within our main client base and work with those limitations. If we fail to understand all that, we risk alienating current and new clients and decreasing our earning potential and profitability.

4: Don’t let the customer change the scope
Scope management is always an issue when managing a customer and a consulting engagement. You document the work with one estimate (perhaps even in the signed contract). Yet throughout the project, the customer may try to insert new “must haves.” Analyze these requirements changes carefully. If the changes are outside the original scope, let the customer decide whether it’s something they need and they will pay for it, or if it’s something they can do without.

5: Advertise strategically
No-cost advertising that actually works equals increased profitability. These advertising strategies can be huge boosts to your consulting business and likely won’t cost you a penny:
• Get testimonials from satisfied customers and post those prominently on your Web site.
• Write press releases about your offerings and post them to free press release sites on a regular basis.
• Become a subject matter expert and write articles for industry sites.
• Ask satisfied clients to recommend your work to other local businesses.

Source Website: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/five-tips/?p=548&tag=results;CR1

• Date: January 7th, 2011
• Author: Brad Egeland
• Category: Five Tips, IT consulting

Contributed By:
Mohammed Sufiyan,
Software Engineer, Octaware Technologies.

10 resolutions to help grow your consulting business in 2011 - II

(This article was published in two parts)
PART - II
(Remaining 5 Ways)


6: Offer specials for referrals
Word of mouth is the best source of advertising. Why? Because new clients are being referred to you by satisfied customers, so those new clients will have positive expectations for your work. For customers you trust to give positive references, offer discounts for every referral they make that results in a new client. This will perpetuate itself, as those clients learn that sending you referrals benefits them as well.

7: Get (and stay) better organized
Most of us could stand a little improvement in this area. Let this be the year you successfully become an organizational machine! The more organized you are, the more efficient your work will be. The more efficient your work is, the more work you can do. Finally — the more work you can do, the more money you will make. If you aren’t motivated by that, just think how happy your clients will be when they see how organized you are.

8: Reevaluate the tools you use
The firm I work for recently reevaluated the anti-virus solution we deploy and made a fairly big change away from the tool we had used for years. This decision was based not only on issues we had experienced with the software in the past, but also with advancements by other companies. You should never just assume the products you use are the best for the job. Always be on the lookout for newer, better tools.

9: Get a new certification
Although it seems that certifications are so very 90s, they’re still valuable business-enhancing tools. But instead of adding onto your MCSE, consider a Cisco or network security certification to broaden your horizons and your marketability. The Cisco certification may be a bigger challenge than you’re used to, but it will certainly be worth it in the long run. You could also consider a RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer) or Ubuntu Professional Certification.

10: Hand out your business cards more often
If people don’t know about your business, they won’t call you. One of the easiest ways to get your name (and number) out there is to distribute business cards. You can do this in many ways. Hand them out at network meetings, pin them to the corkboards at coffee shops… anything you can do to get those cards into the hands of the public. Always have a stack of cards with you (in your purse or wallet) in case you overhear someone talking about computer or network problems. Then, hand them a card with a smile.

Source :

• Website: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=2108
• Date: January 4th, 2011
• Author: Jack Wallen

Contributed By :
Mohammed Sufiyan,
Software Engineer, Octaware Technologies,

Interestng Self Assessment

One of the most important aspects of climbing the ladder of success in your career is first knowing yourself. Not only do you need to know what skills and expertise you are offering to your employer, you should know

1) What value you are adding to your employer?
2) How important you are for the growth of the organization?
3) Which characteristics of yours contributing towards success of your employer?
4) etc.

For this HR industry has come up various self-assessment tools, process and methodologies but here is one interesting story on self-assessment which I came across and thought of sharing.


A little boy went to a telephone booth which was at the cash counter of a store and dialed a number.

The store-owner observed and listened to the conversation:

Boy : “Lady, Can you give me the job of cutting your lawn?

Woman : (at the other end of the phone line) “I already have someone to cut my lawn.”

Boy : “Lady, I will cut your lawn for half the price than the person who cuts your lawn now.”

Woman : I’m very satisfied with the person who is presently cutting my lawn.

Boy : (with more perseverance) “Lady, I’ll even sweep the floor and the stairs of your house for free.

Woman : No, thank you.

With a smile on his face, the little boy replaced the receiver. The store-owner, who was listening to all this, walked over to the boy.

Store Owner : “Son… I like your attitude; I like that positive spirit and would like to offer you a job.”

Boy : “No thanks,

Store Owner : But you were really pleading for one.

Boy : “No Sir, I was just checking my performance at the job I already have. I am the one who is working for that lady I was talking to!”

-Aslam

MOSS 2010 : Remote BLOB Storage (RBS)

RBS is another beautiful feature in SharePoint 2010 to store large data into external databases or file stores.

This will be useful in our upcoming project of ECM (Enterprise Content Management) with ParaComputing where they will be using NAS (Network Attached Storage) for file storage.

Before going to discuss about RBS, first we need to know the BLOB storage which stores two types of content one is unstructured data i.e. no schema simply we can say encrypted data. Second type of data is audio, images; video like large data is stored in a binary format. BLOB stands binary large objects.

In SQL server BLOB data stores in its database but this increases the size of database and usage of resources causes some problems.


This is overcome by using RBS which stands for Remote BLOB storage. RBS is a library API which is used as an add-on feature pack for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express.


RBS is designed to move the storage of BLOBs from database servers to commodity storage solutions. Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 supports a BLOB storage implementation that accesses the RBS APIs through a FileStream provider.


We need to enable FileStream provider using SQL server Configuration Manager and we need to execute few stored procedures and run shell command in order to configure this RBS.


RBS exposes three views for interacting with it: application view (through the RBS client library), administrator view (through stored procedures), and provider view (through a provider interface).


I would like to explain RBS Provider The main goal of an RBS provider is to enable the use of a particular type of BLOB store (called a target BLOB store) to store RBS BLOB data.


This means we can create our own RBS providers by deriving the BlobStore abstract class.

An Application (here SharePoint) calls this Provider to perform its action like store or retrieve the Blob data, Provider sends a request to BLOB store (CAS-Content Addressable stores-large data stores-file servers and others…) which will send response back to Provider and it sends response to Application.

Install/Configure RBS by following procedures in the site below:
http://blogs.architectingconnectedsystems.com/blogs/cjg/archive/2009/12/14/SharePoint-Remote-Blog-Storage-_2800_RBS_2900_-_2D00_-Step-by-Step-Install.aspx

To create a custom RBS provider you can look at code plex sample on:
http://sqlrbs.codeplex.com/

To get more idea on garbage collection and deletion process please find the below: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlrbs/archive/2010/03/19/running-rbs-maintainer.aspx

-Haroon

10 resolutions to help grow your consulting business in 2011

(This article is published in two parts)
PART - I

The New Year has arrived, and many people have been making resolutions they most likely will keep for only a few weeks or at best, months. That doesn’t have to be you. For your consulting business, you need to make resolutions you can keep — especially ones that will help increase your business. But how? There is always something new to try that can help build your business. Here are a few possibilities.

1: Go social
Let’s face it: The “networking” of today is all about social networking. This means Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. You and your business need a presence on these sites to expand into markets you wouldn’t reach otherwise. One outstanding trick is to offer special deals via Twitter. Post something like, “The next person who responds to this tweet gets 15% off their next visit.” Just make sure you let the winner know this does not include the cost of any hardware or software.

2: Include open source and Linux
As much as the media and Microsoft do not want to admit it, Linux adoption is going to continue increasing. So you should start picking up Linux and open source skills. Even if you don’t focus on the Linux operating system, you can add LibreOffice, Apache, Samba, or a number of other open source technologies to your toolkit. The more you add, the more powerful and marketable you will be.

3: Focus on mobile platforms
If you add mobile platforms to your toolkit, your business will boom. Anyone who knows anything about the IT industry knows the future is mobile. This means you are going to be taking on more and more clients who have mobile help needs. This does not just mean iOS. You need to know Android as well as Blackberry. Of course, knowing the Android OS means you’ll need a solid understanding of the different Android platforms: Droid, Samsung, HTC, etc. All of the Android platforms are fundamentally similar, with the biggest differences being at the “desktop” level.

4: Learn a new skill that will increase your clients
If you are a small shop, you might want to consider adding something like Web site design. If you are a larger shop, you could add virtualization or cloud computing. Regardless of your size, the important thing is to diversify your toolkit. This goes along with knowing the mobile platform or open source, but you want this to be something that goes beyond what you already do. If you are primarily a desktop service, add a level of server work. If you are a server-specific shop, add some desktop work. Whatever it takes to add business and success to your bottom line.

5: Spend a few dollars on traditional advertising
The beginning of the fiscal year (regardless of whether that’s the beginning of the calendar year) is a great time to run an advertising campaign, no matter the size. This could consist of a run of fliers you can hand out at shopping malls or plaster cars or mailboxes with. Or you might buy a small advertising slot on your local newspaper’s Web site. Yes, you’ll have to incur the cost up front, but prospective clients (who may not have known about you before) will become aware of your presence. You should recover the cost of that campaign fairly quickly.

(More 5 Ways to continue in Part-II)

Source :
Website: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=2108
• Date: January 4th, 2011
• Author: Jack Wallen

Contributed By :
Mohammed Sufiyan,
Software Engineer, Octaware Technologies,

RFID Technology: Ten RFID Myths and Realities PART-IV

In my last series we have gone through  five myth. Today I will brief next two myths and remaining will be completed in Part V.

Myth #6: RFID delivers perfect information.

The information the tag sends to the reader is only as good as the information that was put on the tag. This opens the door to human error in data entry. Information can also be affected by poor system design, unskillful or incompetent integration, poor software design, unfriendly materials such as water and metal, human error, double reads, no reads and other factors. However, a well-designed system that detects and corrects errors can provide near perfect information about your supply chain.

Myth #7: RFID is primarily a supply chain technology.

RFID has been deployed and is an effective solution for:

• Automobile manufacturing
• WIP, just in sequence, right parts
• Access control and security
• Payment systems for fuel and merchandise
• Toll roads

RFID represents an opportunity to add value as opposed to a cost incurred for tracking items

-Shahnawaz

The Truth About Positive Thinking

Wishing you all a very happy and prosperous new year 2011. Last few blogs of my colleagues are on motivational subject and hence planning to continue the same. Enjoy reading truth about positive thinking…

The Truth About Positive Thinking

A lot of people are very skeptical about positive thinking because they have tried it in the past and did not see any real improvement in their lives.

Those who dismiss positive thinking are in fact right about one thing – Positive thinking alone will NOT change your life.

The truth is that there are no magical genies waiting to make your dreams come true just because you maintain a positive attitude.

This does not however mean that positive thinking is a waste of time. On the contrary, positive thinking is the first step of a powerful process that can and will change your life if you choose to apply it.

Here is the truth about positive thinking…

Positive thinking is only effective when it inspires you to take positive action towards achieving your goals.

Over time, repeated positive action becomes a positive habit and it is these habits that will bring you the positive results you desire.

The main reason people become disillusioned with positive thinking is because they mistakenly expect positive thoughts to lead directly to positive results. When things don’t improve, they then dismiss the concept of positive thinking entirely. This is a big mistake.

Once, you understand that positive thinking is the first step of a powerful four step process, you will discover that the true benefit of positive thinking is that it gives you the impetus to take action.

This Week’s Action Steps:

1. Visualise your goals each day and fill your mind with a positive image of the outcomes you want to achieve.

2. Use these positive thoughts as a springboard to take action.

3. Understand that repeated action becomes a habit.

4. Establish the habits that will lead you to achieve your most important life goals.

- Aslam