Indian IT Industry

Nayak · Post by **Nayak** » 22 Aug 2008 15:38

Yeah, but after putting in the dog-years, i just want a nice cubicle space to hide, do things I like, not too concerned about deadlines, and not end up with diabetes and hypertension at the tender age of 40.

Stop and smell the roses. Leave a peaceful life. No tension.

Is that too much to ask ?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 22 Aug 2008 15:45

remember the scene in gladiator he constantly dreams about when far from home...just
walking down the tree lined village road....walking into the wheat fields and running the
hands through the waving stalks of ripening wheat? ... far from the screams , darkness
and blood of "conquering" some faraway land that is not his...far from the horror of watching
friends die every month or give up in drugged hopelessness...people who are too "gone" to ever make the long walk back?

remember jude law walking back in the snow to his farm in cold mountain?

come home soldier. you have paid your dues. behind the show and polish and hunger for
power and pelf, people are most happy when they are home.

do some good with what time is left of your life. teach children the futility of war on some
korrupt IT warlords behalf where jabba rakes in the shekels and we die in the trenches.

shyam · Post by **shyam** » 25 Aug 2008 06:07

Nayak wrote:My good buddy managed to sneak into TCS. He was amazed by the lack of pressure in the job.

His team logs in at 10, chat on yahoo, check personal e-mails, take a long lunch break and disappear at 3-4.

I am so fcuking jealous. I have promised myself to give a shot at TCS soon.

My only conditions will be no onsite, 8-5 and no calls on weekends.

May allah take pity on me and give me a chance to perform umra in TCS.

Somebody told me that many senior people loyally stick to TCS because of its relaxed work culture.

Nayak · Post by **Nayak** » 25 Aug 2008 07:56

GD if you ever write a novel, please give me a heads-up, I will plonk my cash immediately.

Seriously you are wasting your time in the IT world.

I preponed my decision to get out of this hell-hole by 6 months. Will be back in desh in 6 months.

Gotta start making a list of things to buy before I go back to gorging on raagi-mudday and anna-sambaaru in bengalooru.

Dileep · Post by **Dileep** » 25 Aug 2008 10:39

I have actually typed up to start a poll asking "Do you want Singha back writing fiction?". Changed my mind just before clicking OK. Looked silly. What use is a poll with assured return of 100% ayes?

I admit fanship to a very limited number of fiction writers, and this guy don't even have one published in print!! (AFAIK)

negi · Post by **negi** » 25 Aug 2008 10:53

Do you want Singha back writing fiction?

Hain ... So the dark lord used to write before ?

where on BRF ? before I joined ?

Dileep · Post by **Dileep** » 25 Aug 2008 10:58

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 86&start=0
Enjoy!!

Rupesh · Post by **Rupesh** » 25 Aug 2008 13:08

With so much talent in BR, there has to be a few books published by the oldies. Singha saar GR8 stuff ( Dileep thnx for the link ).. continue writing

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 25 Aug 2008 13:16

vivek ahuja's book will come out sometime this year. I'm sure a # of other guys like singha and Dileep ji are also good enough to get published if they put some effort into it.
p.s have you read Dileep's scenarios ? they were my favourite !

vsudhir · Post by **vsudhir** » 25 Aug 2008 22:53

face value - Ram drive

The Ekkkonomist profiles TCS boss S Ramadorai.

Uplifting read onlee.

CalvinH · Post by **CalvinH** » 26 Aug 2008 04:42

Cunning, chankia hindus are trying to hijack the thread...............

Meanwhile its going tough for one of the top 5 Indian IT firms.

Satyam defers recruits joining date

Signs of 2001!!!

whereas Infosys has accquired UK based AXON group by paying hard cash...biggest accquistion by Indian IT services firm.

Katare · Post by **Katare** » 02 Sep 2008 02:55

Queue for IT jobs: Long queues of candidates waiting for interviews at a software company at the Hitech city in Hyderabad on Sunday. - Mohammed Yousuf

Vipul · Post by **Vipul** » 05 Sep 2008 18:42

Indian American whizkid behind Google Chrome.

When search giant Google launched its own Internet browser, Google Chrome, on September 2, it has one Indian American to thank for making it possible.

Sundar Pichai, a technology whiz-kid and an IIT-ian, was responsible for the development of the Google browser as the company's vice president of product development."We realised that we needed to completely rethink the browser. The Web gets better with more options and innovation Google Chrome is another option, and we hope it contributes to making the Web even better," Google's Sundar Pichai said in a blog post.

Pichai believes Chrome can capture a sizeable portion of the market. His blog also said that Chrome was designed for newer online content, such as videos, television and music.

Chrome is an open-source Web browser designed to rival Microsoft's new Internet Explorer version 8 and Mozilla Firefox.
The browser can be downloaded for free and since it has an open source code, no rights will have to be paid by those who use it.With this, the Google strategy to become the category leader in all Internet-related areas is very apparent. Currently, Microsoft's Internet Explorer has over 70 per cent market share, followed by Mozilla Firefox at a distant second spot.

Pichai joined Google in 2004 and now leads product management and innovation efforts for a suite of Google's search products, including Google Toolbar, Chrome, Desktop Search, Gadgets, Google Pack, Google Gears, Firefox extensions and Mac products.

He has over 12 years of experience developing high-tech consumer and enterprise products. Before joining Google, he held various engineering and product management positions at Applied Materials, and was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company for a variety of software and semiconductor clients.

He holds an MS from Stanford University and an MBA from the Wharton School, where he was named a Siebel Scholar and a Palmer Scholar."He is responsible for our overall desktop strategy and ensuring access to Google services for our desktop users," said Google spokesperson Jay Nancarrow.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 05 Sep 2008 19:47

was responsible for the development of the Google browser as the company's vice president of product development

erm ahem ahem..give media and jarnails a chance to grab credit from the real SF and they
will take it.

harbans · Post by **harbans** » 06 Sep 2008 00:03

The entire google architecture and funda/ architecture behind it has been laid by Anurag Acharya also an ex IIT ian. He was also the brain behind Google Scholar, which was done more like a give back to the Academic community.

Nitesh · Post by **Nitesh** » 16 Sep 2008 16:34

http://infotech.indiatimes.com/News/Ban ... n_showcase

Bangalore designs Intel Xeon 7400
16 Sep, 2008, 1153 hrs IST,INDIATIMES NEWS NETWORK & AGENCIES

SAN FRANCISCO: Intel has rolled out its first chip with six brains, unveiling a "multi-core" microprocessor that boosts computing muscle while cutting back on electricity use. The new Xeon 7400 series microprocessor has been designed by none other than Intel engineers at Bangalore from scratch.

The Bangalore design centre is the first Intel team outside the US to complete the design of a 45-nanometer processor.

Post its inception in 2001, the Xeon 7400 series is the first chip to come out of Intel's Bangalore design centre. The centre had previously worked on another Xeon server chip called Whitefield.

But that chip never made it to market. It was cancelled in 2005, when Intel revised its product road maps to better compete with Advanced Micro Devices, and the Indian design team soon put its focus on Dunnington.

The Dunnington chip design marks a technical milestone for Intel, as it uses a monolithic die, the term engineers use to describe putting all of the cores on a single piece of silicon.

Intel's existing quad-core processor lines use two pieces of silicon, each with two cores, packaged together. That approach made the older quad-core chips easier to produce and avoided the manufacturing difficulties that hampered the release of AMD's Barcelona chip, an x86 server chip with four cores on a single piece of silicon. Those difficulties were compounded by AMD's transition to a new 65-nanometer manufacturing process.

With the introduction of Dunnington, and the upcoming Nehalem line of quad-core processors that also uses a monolithic design, Intel waited until its 45-nanometer process was in mass production, with any technical difficulties presumably ironed out, before making this transition.

"When developers ask you for something you can pull it out of the air, literally," VeriSign engineering director John Bosco said of virtualisation made possible by multi-core chips.

Multi-core chips basically allow computers to divvy up tasks to work on simultaneously instead of having a single powerful processor handle a job in a linear style from start to finish.

"It helps keep things exciting. Our development community has embraced the multi-core era," Bosco said.
Dell, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Unisys and Fujitsu are among the computer makers building the new Xeon 7400 chips into servers designed for business networks, according to Intel.

Vipul · Post by **Vipul** » 16 Sep 2008 23:23

India's hardware design prowess on the global map.

India's hardware design capabilities have got a shot in the arm with the launch of semiconductor giant, Intel's next generation microprocessors which were fully designed by the Intel India development team here. The project, which started almost two years ago with a team of around 300 design engineers, was completed almost two months ahead of the schedule.

Smaller than the size of a matchbox, each microprocessor contains 1.9 billion transistors, which makes it suitable for companies which handle heavy amount of data. Formerly code named Dunnigton, the Intel Xeon 7400 series processor is Intel’s first six-core central processing unit (CPU). Such servers can be deployed to handle data demanding workloads in sectors such as BFSI, telecom and stock market, according to K Ananth Krishnan, CTO, Tata Consultancy Services, which helped in conducting the validation and testing of the microprocessors.

Internally, TCS is planning to use the servers that uses Xeon 7400 series microprocessors. According to Intel, more than 50 system manufacturers including Dell, Fuzitsu, Hitachi, HP, IBM and Sun are soon expected to launch servers based on the Xeon 7400 processor series.

The previous generation of microprocessors had four processing units (cores) in each chip. Three years back, for 96 CPUs you would have had to install 96 servers, which would have occupied lot of space. "But now we can have the same computing power in one server, which will not only consume less area, but less power as well. Besides, when compared with the previous generation Intel processors, the power consumed by Xeon 7400 microprocessor will be at least 10 per cent less," explained R Ravichandran, Director, Sales, Intel South India.

The 6-core microprocessor features six processing 'cores' built into each chip with 16 MB of shared cache memory. This makes the servers that use such microprocessors suitable for handling intensive enterprise applications such as databases, business intelligence, enterprise resource planning and server planning.

Intel India started focussing on hardware design almost six years back.

The design of Intel's first 6-core Xeon microprocessor was completed on August 15, 2007, when India was celebrating its 60th year of Independence.

The Intel India team planned and executed the complete design activities including front-end design, pre-silicon logic validation and back-end design. The post-silicon validation which test the market readiness and the product performance, was also undertaken at Intel's Bangalore facility.

"We are really enthralled to be part of the team that worked with this complex project which earned us the distinction of designing India's first microprocessor which was productised for the global market. This is in fact a great day for semiconductor research and development in India," said Praveen Vishakantaiah, President, Intel India. "Going forward India would continue to be a strategic location for high-end technology development for Intel globally," he added.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 17 Sep 2008 09:33

around 250 people were involved in India per TOI.

their first big deliverable after the cancelled Whitefield few yrs ago.

bala · Post by **bala** » 17 Sep 2008 11:16

Formerly code named Dunnigton, the Intel Xeon 7400 series processor is Intel’s first six-core central processing unit (CPU)

Intel should rename the project to "Dunyawad" India. The real key was the power reduction. The power reduction team did a super job. Reducing power consumed is no easy joke, almost every piece in the design is evaluated for its power hog and optimizations often lead to redesign of the circuit.

but less power as well. Besides, when compared with the previous generation Intel processors, the power consumed by Xeon 7400 microprocessor will be at least 10 per cent less

Kudos to the team on a major milestone/accomplishment.

putnanja · Post by **putnanja** » 17 Sep 2008 20:06

According to rumor mills, the whitefield processor developed in india few years back was dumped as it wasn't up to the mark. Apparently, the Israel facility of Intel generated better quality work compared to India. All rumors of course.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 17 Sep 2008 20:49

the Israel facility is a much older and better established one thats not surprising. the Whitefield rumor
could be true ofcourse.
I have seen really high level distinguished engg type relocate back to israel for their parent cos.
if that happens for yindia, then similar things and levels can emerge. I think there has been too much
of managers/directors and too little distt engg desis migrating back

Rishirishi · Post by **Rishirishi** » 18 Sep 2008 02:00

Singha wrote:the Israel facility is a much older and better established one thats not surprising. the Whitefield rumor
could be true ofcourse.
I have seen really high level distinguished engg type relocate back to israel for their parent cos.
if that happens for yindia, then similar things and levels can emerge. I think there has been too much
of managers/directors and too little distt engg desis migrating back

I think the real challenge lies in making Bangalore a nice place to live, where expats like to live. I think the gov should consider developing a new city near to Bangalore. Palm Medows x 500.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 18 Sep 2008 02:02

There are many such empty townships North of present day B'lore. Devanahalli

people already exists with 100 x Palm Meadows minus the villas.

sum · Post by **sum** » 18 Sep 2008 08:45

According to rumor mills, the whitefield processor developed in india few years back was dumped as it wasn't up to the mark. Apparently, the Israel facility of Intel generated better quality work compared to India.

It is true.....The Israeli division got out a better chip and the entire clean room,supercomputer etc set up in Blore (Airport Rd office) was dismantled...

Nothing alarming as Intel always follows the strategy of getting two divisions to work on the same chip and the better one wins while the loser has egg on the face...

putnanja · Post by **putnanja** » 26 Sep 2008 00:50

IT cos may not dispute Lehman’s ‘cure amounts’

IT cos may not dispute Lehman’s ‘cure amounts’

Deadline to file objection expires on October 3.

Adith Charlie

Mumbai, Sept. 25 No Indian technology firm has yet objected to the ‘cure’ amounts fixed by Lehman Brothers as part of the dues it owes outsourcing vendors. Interestingly, several global vendors of the fallen financial services giant have objected to the amounts offered to fix contracts defaulted by Lehman.

To transfer contracts from Lehman to Barclays, the bankruptcy law requires making up any payments that were missed. In other words, the ‘cure amount’ is a cure to all the claims that vendors might otherwise have against Lehman, according to a senior industry observer. When a bankrupt company and its creditors disagree on the cure amount, the bankruptcy judge takes a call on it, he added.

More than 80 of the 345 filings to Lehman’s bankruptcy docket till date are related to objections (to the cure amount) by companies such as Microsoft, Verizon, EMC Corporation, Keane and others. AT&T (representing AT&T Wireless, SW Bell, Bell South, Cingular Wireless), says it is owed more than $3 million, as opposed to the $ 0.69 million outlined as the current ‘cure’.
No filing till date

Despite cure amounts being lesser than existing defaults on contracts for many technology firms, not a single filing has been made by any of Lehman’s Indian vendors till date.

It may be noted that Lehman’s contracts with 10 outsourcing vendors (TCS, Wipro, Satyam, HCL, Satyam, Cognizant, Polaris, eClerx etc) will be assumed and assigned to Barclays. Thus, a cure amount of $5.8 million is due to these 10 companies, according to lehman-docket.com.

Of this, eClerx, a KPO, has been assigned a cure amount of $0.5 million, though it said in a filing to the bourses this week that Lehman owes it about $1 million till September.

“We are yet to receive advice from both our auditors and lawyers and hence I will not like to make a formal commitment either way. However, at this point the odds are less that we will make a formal complaint,” Mr P.D. Mundhra, Executive Director, eClerx, told Business Line.
Polaris satisfied

Meanwhile, Chennai-based Polaris Software Labs seems satisfied with a ‘cure’ of $0.5 million. “The outstanding due to us was in the same range. So, we will not be contesting the cure amount,” the company CEO, Mr Arun Jain, said. A senior official from Satyam echoed similar sentiments.

Both TCS ($1.23 million) and Wipro ($2.29 million) have been assigned a combined cure amount of $3.58 million. On being asked whether TCS would contest this amount, a company spokesperson declined comment. A Wipro spokesperson too did not comment citing the silent period before the quarterly results.

Since these contracts have already been assigned to Barclays, Indian firms do not want to unnecessarily complicate things by challenging the ‘cure’, an industry official said. “Also, since these are not large amounts, Indian vendors would be keen to maintain the relationship than recover dues for, say, 30 days of work done," he said.

Vendors can file court objections to the ’cure’ till October 3.

fanne · Post by **fanne** » 26 Sep 2008 21:11

Guys,
There was an editorial in dailypioneer (damn these guys have a very screwed up way to find archives) yesterday that whoever had clicked on the IM mail on one photograph had something loaded on their comp that opened something directly to an agency in TSP. That meant, paraphrasing pioneer, the computer itself had to be changed, and then all the passwords etc.
Now my comp at home, it has Norton anti-virus, internet firewall, this comp has problems. Though I browse in non admin mode, whenever I go to admin mode the comp sometime crashesh and then reboots. The data light is always lit and the comp keeps on making noises (even when I am doing nothing). I do write enough stuff from my comp under many name du jure, which might attract attention of the unwashed folks. Can anyone suggest any free software, processes, or anything to clean my comp. I have on recommendation running unhackme rootkit.

Thanks,
fanne

vipins · Post by **vipins** » 26 Sep 2008 22:59

HCL threatens Infosys bid for Axon

Offshore outsourcing providers HCL Technologies and Infosys are now competing to acquire UK SAP consultancy Axon Group.

HCL has topped Infosys' previous offer, made in August 2008, of £407.1m with a new offer £444.1m. If the acquisition goes ahead it will be the largest ever by an Indian IT company overseas.

harik · Post by **harik** » 27 Sep 2008 00:15

fanne wrote:Guys,
There was an editorial in dailypioneer (damn these guys have a very screwed up way to find archives) yesterday that whoever had clicked on the IM mail on one photograph had something loaded on their comp that opened something directly to an agency in TSP. That meant, paraphrasing pioneer, the computer itself had to be changed, and then all the passwords etc.
Now my comp at home, it has Norton anti-virus, internet firewall, this comp has problems. Though I browse in non admin mode, whenever I go to admin mode the comp sometime crashesh and then reboots. The data light is always lit and the comp keeps on making noises (even when I am doing nothing). I do write enough stuff from my comp under many name du jure, which might attract attention of the unwashed folks. Can anyone suggest any free software, processes, or anything to clean my comp. I have on recommendation running unhackme rootkit.

Thanks,
fanne

Fanne bit difficult to pinpoint the exact issue by above sympltoms.

Please download this http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloadget.p ... e6434cfc13
and upload the log, this can point out unusal bho and the types.
If uts very important, assuning that you are on Xp and above and its registry issuse you could try restoring registry to last restore point.

Try disabling addon in expolrer if you want to avoid all this.

And before all that dnld ccleaner http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloadget.p ... e45b0c7a82
and run this , beware in case ou save passwd in IX this may delete them depening upong the options you choose.
.
Next , goto safemode , run Norton full scan..

harik · Post by **harik** » 27 Sep 2008 00:15

fanne wrote:Guys,
There was an editorial in dailypioneer (damn these guys have a very screwed up way to find archives) yesterday that whoever had clicked on the IM mail on one photograph had something loaded on their comp that opened something directly to an agency in TSP. That meant, paraphrasing pioneer, the computer itself had to be changed, and then all the passwords etc.
Now my comp at home, it has Norton anti-virus, internet firewall, this comp has problems. Though I browse in non admin mode, whenever I go to admin mode the comp sometime crashesh and then reboots. The data light is always lit and the comp keeps on making noises (even when I am doing nothing). I do write enough stuff from my comp under many name du jure, which might attract attention of the unwashed folks. Can anyone suggest any free software, processes, or anything to clean my comp. I have on recommendation running unhackme rootkit.

Thanks,
fanne

Fanne bit difficult to pinpoint the exact issue by above sympltoms.

Please download this http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloadget.p ... e6434cfc13
and upload the log, this can point out unusal bho and the types.
If uts very important, assuning that you are on Xp and above and its registry issuse you could try restoring registry to last restore point.

Try disabling addon in expolrer if you want to avoid all this.

And before all that dnld ccleaner http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloadget.p ... e45b0c7a82
and run this , beware in case ou save passwd in IX this may delete them depening upong the options you choose.
.
Next , goto safemode , run Norton full scan..

putnanja · Post by **putnanja** » 27 Sep 2008 00:50

Sixteen BPOs in fray for Air India’s contact centre

Sixteen BPOs in fray for Air India’s contact centre

Deadline for bids on October 6; projected need for 600 seats.

Line of call

Plans to offer round-the-clock services for domestic, international callers.

Contract to cover 3 years initially; extendable by two.

Ashwini Phadnis
Moumita Bakshi Chatterjee

New Delhi, Sept. 26 IBM Daksh, Aditya Birla, Wipro, First Source and Interglobe Technologies are among the 16 BPO companies that have shown an interest in participating in the maiden contract by Air India to provide round-the-clock contact services for domestic and international callers.

Other companies that have thrown their hat into the ring for the mega contract include Spanco, Quatrro BPO, Infovision, VCustomer. All these companies attended a pre-bid meeting held earlier this week in Mumbai and are learnt to be gearing for submission of the bids by October 6, the last date set by the airline.

The airline, which plans to offer the contract initially for three years, which is further extendable by another two years, has projected a requirement of 500 seats for domestic operations and 100 seats for international operations at the contact centre.
Eligibility

The eligibility criteria laid down in the RFP stipulates a minimum annual turnover of Rs 50 crore in the last two consecutive financial (2005-06 and 2006-07) from contact centre business.

The move to have an integrated contact centre comes as the newly merged airline looks to expand its wings both globally and domestically. Air India, the new name given to the airline created by merging Indian and Air India, operates to 120 destinations in India and abroad with an annual passenger carriage of more than 14 millio. It plans to increase operations within India, UK, Europe, Canada, and Gulf apart from expanding its flights to new routes in Australia, South Africa and South America.
Overseas focus

A new hub in Europe and trans-Atlantic operations is also under consideration. Premium non-stop international flights will be Air India’s focus overseas.

The pre-qualification criteria requires the vendor to have existing contact centre in Mumbai or Delhi for providing various services to the airline customers. For out-bound services, the service provider would look at pre-flight and post-flight checks, initiate calls for flight delays through multiple channels (SMS, IVRS and calls), and provide tele and direct marketing of NACIL products.

Other requirements include payment gateway for revenue collection and disaster recovery solutions. “The service providers have been asked to give details of existing and new solutions for revenue collection towards the sale of tickets through these call centres,” sources said.

putnanja · Post by **putnanja** » 28 Sep 2008 22:18

How are salaries in Bangalore/Hyderabad these days? Couple of my friends with 7-10 years experience as software engineers are planning to return to India. what is the typical salary range they can expect? How is the work culture/type of work in MNCs like Yahoo/Google/Microsoft/Cisco compared to desi MNCs like Infy/wipro/satyam etc?

They were a bit spooked by some people saying that there isn't a technical role available at many companies who have been coding for last 8-10 years as they expect them to have managerial experience by that time. Is this right?

Rishirishi · Post by **Rishirishi** » 29 Sep 2008 04:07

RaviBg wrote:How are salaries in Bangalore/Hyderabad these days? Couple of my friends with 7-10 years experience as software engineers are planning to return to India. what is the typical salary range they can expect? How is the work culture/type of work in MNCs like Yahoo/Google/Microsoft/Cisco compared to desi MNCs like Infy/wipro/satyam etc?

They were a bit spooked by some people saying that there isn't a technical role available at many companies who have been coding for last 8-10 years as they expect them to have managerial experience by that time. Is this right?

The issue is of pay. A "good" technical person, may not make more then a measly 3-7 lacks. Managerial positions can fetch 10-20 lacks. Senior level pay is even higher.

Work culture in desi companies is usually bad.

Rajesh_MR · Post by **Rajesh_MR** » 29 Sep 2008 06:17

RaviBg wrote:How are salaries in Bangalore/Hyderabad these days?

There was a discussion on this few months back. My back of napkin calculation is 1.5X-2X of number of years of experience(true only if more than 5 yrs). Singha had a more "scientific" method.

RaviBg wrote: there isn't a technical role available at many companies who have been coding for last 8-10 years as they expect them to have managerial experience by that time. Is this right?

Yes and No. I am not surprised if this answer came from services companies and head hunters. There are product companies who want technical people with good coding skills. One thing for sure is it will be difficult for a person to say I will do only coding after 8+ yrs of experience. It works in US but in India lot more will be expected.
There are few folks working Bangalore at BR who still does coding with 10+ yrs of exp.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 29 Sep 2008 08:42

one thing is you cannot be manager of 10 people in a US co and expect to jump seamlessly into a services co here.
because people of your exp will be managing 200 people. questions asked will be how many people you have managed,
how many clients, how much of account revenue?
if you say 10, no direct client management exp and no exp in bidding for winning contracts (which would be the case
in product cos), you have zero chance of making it.

so if you were in product dev try to get into product dev here and be happy with the 10 reports. maybe in time
it might grow to 30.

jamwal · Post by **jamwal** » 01 Oct 2008 11:44

Fanne

That Pioneer thingy looks like a XSS attack.

Don't want to sound like a Micr0soft basher here, but if you are using Internet Explorer and built in firewall, its only a matter of time before washed/unwashed folks find a way in.
If PC is making too much grinding noises it could be a hardware error. Most often its due to overload on hard disk due to bad sectors, low RAM, low free space etc.
First cleanup HDD of temporary/useless files. Do a disk check, then a defrag session.

Anti-spyware:- Spybot-Search & Destroy (free)
Firewall: -- Comodo Personal Firewall (Free)
Anti-virus:-- That is your choice, but IMHO, Norton sucks. Some good free alternatives are Avast, Avira etc. Kaspersky is cheap and good too.

Browser:-- I recommend Opera(free). Much better than IE and even Firefox.

Instant Messengers:- Many IM clients like Yahoo, GTalk are targets of attacks and support only 1-2 accounts at max. There are other software like Pidgin, Kopete etc that support login through more than one id (Yahoo, Msn, Google, AIM ) all in one window.

If possible try using Linux. There are lots of great free distributions that are very easy to use. Examples are Ubuntu (many flavours) GOS(Google OS, very net-oriented). If you don't want to install Linux on your HDD, try using distros that run off CD or Pen-drive.
Knoppix, Ubuntu(again), BackTrack are some examples. If you are doing some sensitive work and don't want to leave any records running temporary OS from a CD/pendrive is a great alternative.

sampat · Post by **sampat** » 01 Oct 2008 14:53

For browser, as far as safety issues are concerned, Firefox with script blocker, adbock plugin is very effective.
I use Opera as primary browser, however it lacks the easy way of script blocking that forefox provides. And because of that
few times unwanted programs sneak through the antivirus scanner and find their way in temp dir. Luckily, firewall alerts outgoing traffic request. So you can remove manually.

Firefox + scipt blocker + adblock is a good combination for secure surfing.

Also, consider CCleaner(freeware) for cleaning junk files. Though, in my case it didnt remove virus dloaded in temp dir. That i had to remove manually. However, it is a good piece of SW for house keeping.

durvasa · Post by **durvasa** » 01 Oct 2008 15:04

RaviBg,

There are many Bangalore/Hyd captive centers of bay area companies that desperately are looking for 7-165 year tech engineers, rather than tech managers. I know this as I lead a ~150-people Bangalore captive centre for a cutting-edge product company in data mining and know how difficult it is to get guys with this profile. Salaries benchmarks (for most captive centers, surely in mine) are around 40-60% of what they (7+ years exp) are making in the US; . And I am finding it difficult to hire people even at those levels.

Apologies if I am treating BRF as a social network. But if these guys are good for product development, and not looking for touchy - feely roles, please do sync up

bart · Post by **bart** » 01 Oct 2008 19:41

Firefox with No Script is very effective.

putnanja · Post by **putnanja** » 01 Oct 2008 21:00

Durvasa, thanks for the info. Will speak to those folks and let you know. Their expertise is in C++/.Net/Asp.Net.

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 02 Oct 2008 04:54

Hmmm....so the average aam NRI, after R2I-ing is going to be unemployable? Can't code because too old, can't manage people because never had the experience of managing.