Friday, July 20, 2007

Bridging the GAP: Designer / Developer

The days of building a "website" are over. We are full-fledged application designers, the web is merely our front-end. The increasing complexity of application development is causing our various disciplines to converge, with designers dabbling in front-end code and developers working through interaction paradigms. Though the scope of our work and particular roles continues to increase, excellent communication remains the key to success. Tom Watson will discuss principles that will help bridge this gap so you can create simple and beautiful web applications.

Web 2.0 - Future of the Web

Web 1.0 : was Commerce
Web 2.0 :is People



In our Daily Life we are so addicted to computers no matter what we do.People are doped with the use of pc like found of blogging,gaming are well know fever in which some guy’s event forget to sleep.Now most the computer application are shifted toward online.(lang like ajax,php,java are most popular for making web applications)
The move to put more and more of those familiar programs on to the web has been happening for a while but its latest incarnation has won the name of Web 2.0.

Here is the slide show which gives you tips on what you need to become a web 2.0 company.

Web Analytics Guide to WebMasters

Here is a nice presentation on web analytics take a look at it.

Future of Marketing:Word Of mouth Marketing

We all are aware of the growth of Web 2.0 Companies, these all companies are using different marketing approach to reach maximum users, they came up with a new concept of marketing their products. Companies and Products like Google, Orkut, Mingle Box, Face Book all have applied this new concept of marketing to gain popularity.

The latest concept( or the Buzz word) is "Word Of Mouth Marketing". Take a look at this presentation to understand what is it all about.



And This

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Visit My blog Pipe on Yahoo Pipes

Now My blog related yahoo pipes is available here. you can view/subscribe to my blog posts on RSS Feed Readers/Yahoo Pipes now.

This is another step towards exploring the new area of Yahoo Pipes.

AJAX Quick Glance: Part 3

new ActiveXObject(Microsoft.XMLHTTP)
This constructor is for Internet Explorer.

new XMLHttpRequest()
This constructor is for any other browser including Firefox.

http.onreadystatechange
An anonymous function is assigned to the event indicator.

http.readyState == 4
The 4 state means for the response is ready and sent by the server.

http.status == 200
This status means ok, otherwise some error code is returned, 404 for example.

http.open( "POST", "data.xml", true);
POST or GET
URL of the script to execute.
true for asynchronous (false for synchronous).

http.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
This is for POST only.

http.send(document.getElementById("TYPEDTEXT").value);
Send data to the server. Data comes from the "TYPEDTEXT" variable filled

throught the form by the user.

AJAX Quick Glance :Pat2

How it Works?

Ajax uses a programming model with display and events. These events are user

actions, they call functions associated to elements of the web page.
Interactivity is achieved with forms and buttons. DOM allows to link elements of

the page with actions and also to extract data from XML files provided by the

server.

To get data on the server, XMLHttpRequest provides two methods:
- open: create a connection.
- send: send a request to the server.
Data furnished by the server will be found in the attributes of the XMLHttpRequest

object:
- responseXml for an XML file or
- responseText for a plain text.

Note:a new XMLHttpRequest object has to be created for each new file to load.

We have to wait for the data to be available to process it, and in this purpose,

the state of availability of data is given by the readyState attribute of

XMLHttpRequest.

States of readyState follow (only the last one is really useful):
0: not initialized.
1: connection established.
2: request received.
3: answer in process.
4: finished.

Ajax Quick Glance: Part 1

Famous Set of Techonologies make AJAX a hot topic.AJAX has changed the way

Web apps are developed and used.AJAX is used to build fast, dynamic websites, and

also to save resources.


AJAX- Asynchronous Javascript And XML

Asynchronous- means that the response of the server while be processed when

available, without to wait and to freeze the display of the page.


Ajax is a set of following technologies

1. HTML --for formatting
2. Javascript --client side processing
3. XMLHttpRequest
4. CSS --for styling
5. DOM --to access data inside the page or to access elements of XML file read on

the server (with the getElementByTagName method for example)

other than this some of the optional technologies

* The DomParser class
* PHP,ASP,ASP.NET,JSP and other programming language on the server side.
* XML and XSLT to process the data if returned in XML form.
* SOAP may be used to dialog with the server.

Lockheed Martin award for 14 Indian innovators

Top 14 indian innovators have been awarded Innovators award by Aerospace gaint Lockheed Martin Corporation which along with Federation of Indian Industry and Commerce and IC Squared Institute at the University of Texas had organized a program called "India Innovation Growth Program" to help Indian innovators take their technologies into the U.S. and European markets.

Here is the list of top 14 Innovators

Gold medalists

1. Natesh Babu of Techweb Technologies, Bangalore
2. Amarnath Bhat of Oriental Software, Bangalore
3. R.Gopalan of Composites Technology Park, Bangalore
4. Mahendra Pratap of Integra Microsystems, Bangalore
5. Janak Seth of Century Pharmaceuticals,Vadodara,
6. T.R.Rao, Mumbai
7. Meera Goel of Som Extracts, Ghaziabad.

Silver Medalists

1. W. Amarnath, Chennai,
2. Mohan Kandaswamy of Oriental Aquamarine Biotech India, Coimbatore,
3. Ashwin Bhambri, New Delhi,
4. Joydeb Roy Chowdhury of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)’s Durgapur-based Centre for Mechanical Engineering Research Institute,
5. Basant Kumar Gupta, Mumbai,
6. Vinod Kalande, Akola, and
7. Nimish Sharma of Aurora Integrated Systems, Kanpur.

Read News from The Hindu

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Tips to Reduce Eye Strain or computer vision syndrome

Reduce lighting glare in the path of viewing.

Keep visual distractions around: work near a window, put the clock across the room andd turn off the screen clock, anything that helps you look around and change your visual focus frequently.

Make sure the viewing angle is perpendicular to your face, and the screen angle keeps your neck relaxed; that is probably a little below your natural eyeline.
Arm angle to the keyboard needs to be similarly relaxed. If you have to move your arms, hands, or neck (from a comfortable seated position) to get into position to use the computer, something needs to move.

Monitor Configuration
Increase the Refresh frequency of your Monitor (right click on desktop select properties then select settings tab and click on advanced button. Select Monitor tab and change the frequency to higher frequency.

Enable Windows XP ClearType. (Click Here To Download the Clear Type Tuner)

Eye Strain: The Startrek Explanation

"That's because electromagnetic radiation from the cathode ray tube in the 3 centimeter range of the electromagnetic spectrum interferes with gamma waves of the corpus callosum splenium portion of the brain, causing a sympathetic excitation of the parahippocampal gyrus, on a sub
quantum level, which sets up an interference wave in the 400 to 700 nanometer range, changing the linear interpretation of the space/time continuum to a logarithmic interpretation."

Thursday, July 12, 2007

What evolution left behind in human body?

Its nice to know that what was left in us from our ancestors in the Evolution. I came across an article which explains what our ancestors left to us in our body.

List of body parts left behind
1. Appendix :which helped us to digest the cellulose.
2. Paranasal Sinuses :They make our heads lighter (weight wise), and adds warmth and moisture to the air we breath. It helped us in olden days to have good smell sense but we lost that power now.

And many more. Read more about it at.. What Evolution left Behind?

Monday, July 09, 2007

Things you need to know for Starting a Software Company in India

Below are listed steps, laws, rules and specifications about Companies act 1956 which one must consider when setting up a company in India.

The below is divided in 2 sections. Foreign investors willing to start a company in India, and Indian citizens willing to start a company in India.

Disclaimer: The author, or ad4business.com cannot be held responsible for the accuracy of the content below, This is for informational purposes only. Please consultant a lawyer in your local area for changes brought to laws, information about and new bills passed.

For Foreign investors:

1. Incorporating a Company.
2. Registering with the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI).
3. Gaining Approval from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for Call Centers.
4. Exit Options.

Incorporating a Company

There are mainly two types of companies in India: public and private companies. Overseas organizations will find it easier to set up a private company rather than a public one as private companies have more flexibility and are easier to operate. It takes around 20 - 30 days to incorporate a company in India.
See below for information on how to register a company in India (Overseas companies, methods, options and procedure).

Registering with the STPI

The STPI grants approval to establish a unit and specifies the amount of capital goods that can be imported, the minimum export performance
and the net foreign exchange earnings as a percentage of exports. The units in the STPI are also granted certain indirect tax benefits, such as exemption
from the payment of custom duties.

Gaining Approval from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT):

The DoT has to give its approval for the setting up of a call center in India. The DoT guidelines on call centers classify them within the ambit of other service providers.

Exit Options

Exit options take the following forms:

1. Shareholders of Indian BPO companies can exit the company either through a transfer of shares or other routes.

2. Under Indian exchange control laws, the transfer of shares from a resident to a non-resident will require the prior approval of the Foreign Investment
Promotion Board (FIPB) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)

3. The transfer of shares from a non-resident to a resident requires the prior approval of the RBI. The RBI ensures that the price of the transfer is not above a maximum price, which is based on the NAV (net asset value) of a private company and the price on the stock exchange for a listed company.

4. Under the provisions of the IT Act, gains realized on sale/transfer of shares on the Indian company by the foreign company would attract capital gains tax in India.

5. Long term capital gains realized on sale of shares of Indian companies not listed on a recognized stock exchange in India will be taxed at the rate of
20 percent and a surcharge of five percent.

6. Long term capital gains realized on sale of shares of Indian companies listed on a recognized stock exchange in India will be taxed at the rate of 20%.

7. Short term capital gains realized by a domestic company will be subject to tax at the rate of 36.75 percent.

It may be possible to reduce the capital gains tax to zero, if the investments are routed through Mauritius and the operations are structured so as to avoid a PE in India.

The shareholders of the BPO company can exit at an IPO. However, if the shareholders are treated as promoters of the company, there are certain lock in requirements on the shares held by such promoters. The shareholders can exit from the BPO company through a merger of the BPO company with another company or after a winding up of the Indian company.

Drawing up the BPO agreement

The BPO agreement, which defines the relationship between the concerned parties and the nature of the
transaction can take myriad forms including the following:

1. A third party agreement, where the customer and the vendor are not related.

2. A captive agreement, where the customer and vendor are related parties.

3. Build-Operate-Transfer agreements where the vendor builds and develops the BPO operation for the customer and at a future date transfers it to the customer.

Also note: To hire independent consultants, you do not need to go through the STPI. This will be a simple client (you) - vendor (consultant) relationship
where you pay them as an Independent contractor. You will need to be sure of data security, intellectual property rights etc. while dealing with
Independent Consultants.

For Indian Citizen, (Information Technology software and services operations):

One can form any one of the following types of companies:

1. As an Individual / Proprietor.
2. As a Partnership / Firm / Trust.
3. As a Company registered under the Companies Act, 1956.

Fortunately, to start an IT software unit, no prior permission is required from government of India. As a matter of fact, to encourage development in IT industry, the government of India has announced following schemes:

* Domestic Tariff Area: When the primary focus is to sell in the domestic market in India. This unit can be set anywhere in India. All normal laws apply.
No concession is available on import duties. Exports are permitted. A special Export Promotion Capital Goods (EPCG) scheme of Ministry of Commerce can
be availed. This scheme allows zero duty import of capital goods against export obligations.

* Special Economic Zones (SEZs): SEZ is a new scheme announced by the Government of India. SEZs are areas where export production can take place free from plethora of rules and regulations governing imports and exports. Units operating in these zones have full flexibility of operations and can import duty free capital goods and raw material. The movement of goods to and fro between ports and SEZ are unrestricted. The units in SEZ have to export the entire production.

* Export Processing Zones (EPZ): These zones are located at various places including Cochin, Falta (Near Calcutta), Kandla, Chennai, Noida, Santacruz (Mumbai), Vishakhapatnam and Surat. A unit can be set up in these zones subject to availability of space. “Zero import duty” and a “special 10 years income tax rebate”, (Previously 3 years),
are some of the incentives provided. Also, there is no restriction on quantity of domestic sales.
* 100% Export Oriented Unit (EOU): This is similar to EPZ scheme. But in this scheme, there is no need to be physically located at EPZ. All other
incentives are same as provided to EPZ units.
* Software Technology Park (STP): This is a very special scheme under the Ministry of Information Technology. STPs are located at Noida, Navi Mumbai, Pune, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Bhubaneshwar, Jaipur, Mohali and Thiruvanathapuram. This scheme offers “zero import duty” on import of all capital goods, “special 10 years income tax rebate”, availability of infrastructure facilities like high-speed data communication links, etc.

For overseas companies:
(This information is both for foreign companies, and individuals willing to set up a business entity in India.)
Foreign Company is one that has been incorporated outside India and conducts business in India. These companies are required to comply with the provisions
of Companies Act, 1956

* As a foreign company through a Liaison Office / Representative Office, Project Office or a Branch Office.
* As an Indian company through a Joint Venture or a Wholly Owned Subsidiary.

Liaison Office / Representative Office

A liaison office is not allowed to undertake any business activity in India and earn any income here. The role of such offices is limited to collecting
information about possible market opportunities and providing information about the company and its products to the prospective Indian customers.

The Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) regulates the opening and operation of such offices. Also, approval of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is required to open such offices. These offices have to ensure the following:

1. Expenses of such offices are met entirely through inward remittances of foreign exchange from Head Office abroad.
2. These offices do not undertake any trading or commercial activities. Commercial activities should be limited to collecting and transmitting information between overseas Head Office and potential Indian customers.
3. Liaison offices should not charge any commission or receive other income from Indian customers for provisioning of liaison services.
4. Permission for such offices is initially granted for a period of three years and may be extended from time to time.

Project Office

Foreign companies planning to execute specific projects in India can set up temporary project, or site offices in India with the approval of RBI. Such approval is generally accorded in respect of Government approved projects.

Branch Office

Foreign companies engaged in manufacturing and trading activities abroad may set up Branch offices in India, with the permission of RBI, for the following
purposes:

1. To represent the parent company / other foreign companies in various matters in India e.g. acting as a buying / selling agents in India
2. To conduct research work in the area in which the parent company is engaged provided the results of the research work are made available to Indian companies
3. To undertake export and import trading activities
4. To promote possible technical and financial collaborations between the Indian companies and overseas companies. A branch office is not permitted to carry out manufacturing activities on its own but is permitted to sub-contract these to Indian manufacturers

As an Indian Company

A foreign company can commence operations in India through incorporation of a company under the provisions of Indian Companies Act 1956. Foreign equity
in such Indian companies can be up to 100 percent depending upon the business plan of the foreign investor, prevailing investment policies of the Government and on receipt of requisite approvals.

Joint Venture with an Indian Partner

Foreign companies can set up their operations in India by forming strategic alliances with Indian partners. Setting up of operations through Joint Venture may entail the following advantages to a foreign investor:

* Already established distribution / marketing set up of the Indian partner.
* Available financial resources of the Indian partner.
* Already established contacts of the Indian partner that help smoothen the process of setting up operations

Foreign investments are approved through two routes as under:

1. Automatic Route: Approvals for foreign equity up to 50 percent, 51 percent and 74 percent are given on an automatic basis subject to fulfillment of prescribed parameters in certain industries as specified by the Government. RBI accords automatic approval to all such cases.
2. Government Approval: Approval in all other cases where the proposed foreign equity exceeds 50 percent, 51 percent or 74 percent in the specified industries or if the industry is not in the specified list, it requires prior specific approval from Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB).

Wholly Owned Subsidiary

The foreign investor has the option of setting up a wholly owned subsidiary, wherein the foreign company owns 100 percent share of the Indian company. All such cases are subject to prior approval from the FIPB. Some of the criteria for setting up wholly owned subsidiary include:

* Only “holding” operation is involved and all subsequent / downstream investments to be carried out need prior approval of the Government.
* Where proprietary technology is sought to be protected or sophisticated technology is proposed to be brought in.
* At least 50 percent of the production is to be exported.
* Proposals for consultancy.
* Proposals for infrastructure like roads, industrial model towns, industrial parks or estates.

Corporate Documents involved & Registration of a Company

An application for registration should be submitted to the registrar of companies with the following documents:

1. Memorandum of Association,

2. Articles of Association,

3. A declaration signed by a person named in the articles of the proposed company as a director, manager, or secretary of the company, or by an advocate of the Supreme Court or High Court, or by an attorney entitled to appear before the High Court, or by a chartered accountant practicing in India stating that all the requirements of the Companies Act 1956 and the applicable rules with respect to the registration and other matters have been complied with,

4. A list of persons who have consented to act as directors of the company,

5. If the proposed company is a public company, consent of very person prepared to act as a director must be submitted in a prescribed form,

6. Information about directors, managing directors and managers and secretary must be submitted in a prescribed form,

7. Information about the registered office in a prescribed form,

8. Power of Attorney in favor of one of the promoters or any other person, authorizing him/her to make corrections in the documents submitted to the registrar of the companies, if it becomes necessary,

9. Applicable registration fee payable to the registrar of the companies.

Also note that public companies and private companies have different limitations for the number of share holders.


Links to Useful Resources

1. Ministry of Company Affairs

2. Bangalore IT

3. Department of Information Technology

4. Department of Telecommunication

5. Ministry of Communications & Information Technology


DIT Organisations



Attached Offices of DIT

Section 25 Companies


Autonomous Societies of DIT

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Reign of the Web World (aka Internet)

Recent innovations in the world wide web(WWW) have transformed our lives, our networking with other people,our thinking and the way we market our products.

Initially Internet was used by very small number of people comprising of mainly scientists and researchers, but at present more than 1 billion people on the planet use Internet for their day to day work.

Web developments helps us to see how the social forces and information changes our life time.

People use Internet :
1. to do business(stocks, internet marketing, e-commerce,ads..)
2. to see the real time news (both multimedia as well as text)
3. to blog (which is helping in changing politics and publishing industry)
4. to Email (which is replacing the way people interact)
5. to enhance their knowledge (browsing - which helps to explore new things)
and many more.....


Internet is the main source to see the patterns in the human race and their thinking, it helps to interact with people from various places of the world...

It may be the best time(bcoz we have access to all the information at our finger tip) or the worst
time( we are madly digitizing everything which may destroy the existence of the present human race if by chance we loose every digitized records) .

I feel very happy with these movements but i think we need to analyze the things like pros and cons.

The Bamiyan Buddha's

Hope you all remember the Great Buddha Statue at Bamiyan valley, central Afghanistan.They were destroyed by the Taliban with the assistance of Pakistani and Saudi engineers in 2001.

Here is the Details of Bamiyan and Buddha:

Bamyan (or Bamiyan), situated 240 kms northwest of Kabul between the snow-covered ranges of Koh-i Baba and Hindu Kush, is a small city lying in a beautiful valley containing the remarkable statues of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. The kingdom of Bamiyan was a Buddhist state positioned at a strategic location along the silk road a caravan route linking the markets of China, India and Europe.It was the site of several Buddhist and Hindu monasteries, and a thriving center for religion, philosophy, and Greco-Buddhist art.It was a Buddhist religious site from the second century up to the time of the Islamic invasion in the ninth century.


The Buddhas of Bamiyan were two monumental statues of standing Buddhas carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamiyan valley in Afghanistan. The two most prominent statues were the giant, standing Buddhas, measuring 55 and 37 meters (180 and 121 feet) high respectively.

The construction of the two statues was begun in the second century A.D. under the patronage of Emperor Kanishka and probably finished around the fifth century A.D.The height of
the Small Buddha was 38 m, that of the Large Buddha 55 m. Thefigures of the two Buddhas were decorated with gold and fine jewels. Many caves were carved in the Bamiyan's cliffs in the same periods as the Buddhas. They were used as chapels and many monks lived there.

Monday, July 02, 2007

Tribute to Hero's 1:Death of Nostradamus (Michel de Notre-Dame)

2 July 1956 Death of Nostradamus French physician and astrologer who made predictions of the future in his Centuries.

Google and OCR

As you all know Google is attempting to digitize all the printed material available. Google uses OCR to make the printed material to be readable by the search engine crawlers.This means that the scanned page doesn't appear as an image to the search engine. The words can be deciphered and so keywords etc...can be used in the same way as they would for web documents.


How OCR can help common people?
Suppose
you have written something all over a whiteboard and then realised that this is good stuff and you want to keep it all, but it's too much to write out? Did you get your camera or mobile out and take a photo? This is where OCR can really be efficient, you could it into your computer and it would still be able to read the text (of course if the handwriting and pattern recognition is also included).

Limitations of PageRank concept of Google

We all are aware of the Google's PageRank Based Searching algorithm to produce the search results.

But I think there are certain limitations to this type of algorithm. Following are the limitations i think:
1. New pages have less page rank and they take much time to be get listed and gain high ranks.
2. If some one inaccurately quote something on an web page then subsequent readers also quotes it on another web page, search engines index all of the inaccurate pages, and we end up with a mess where fiction is accepted as reality.
3. Search results are based on the
literal(keywords, tags,meta data) things but not on meaning.

I think the move of Google to provide custom search engines may help to reduce the above mentioned limitations. Or somebody else take care of these limitations and they may dominate the Google dominated world.

Let me know about your views on the limitations of PageRank and Google.

Let us hope that in future we can get very accurate results based on the present researches in these areas.

Cross-language Search: What is it all about?What is CLIR?

Cross-Language Information Retrieval (CLIR) : This is the technique used to retrieve the information stored in different languages. We all are aware of the Google's translation services, Google is now working on CLIR to translate search queries to other languages and back again for the results.

How it Helps?
It helps to break the language barrier by finding anything in any language.And also it helps to digitize the old manuscripts and helps people find the information from old books written in forgotten languages.

searchmash.com-Google's New Search Engine?

We all know about the search engine gaint Google, recently i came across a site called searchmash.com which is operated by google.

Is Google researching on secret search engine ? Take a look at Searchmash.

Why another search engine?Is Google Experimenting with new ways of searching the web?Why its not listed in google labs?

If you find any information let me know too.