Bharat Rakshak

pandyan wrote:nobody got impacted by mcafee anti virus virus? in my company there was a big drama because of this stupid s/w

i don't know about mcafee but norton anti-virus is notorious for deleting important files needed to run the operating system by flagging them as viruses.

pandyan wrote:nobody got impacted by mcafee anti virus virus? in my company there was a big drama because of this stupid s/w

It happened at my work place too. To make matters worse I was traveling to a remote site and was asked not to connect to network. My desk machine in B'lore kept rebooting due to "virus" which prevented from pulling files once laptop connected to network.

Is Indian IT industry big enough to give H1 type visas for US citizens?

ramana wrote:Is Indian IT industry big enough to give H1 type visas for US citizens?

I dont know about US Citizens but I think work visas exist in India. Last time I visited desh, the girls in the Thai massage parlor in Mumbai airport came on 1 year work visa.

I was thinking of people higher in the labor chain. Soon need something to keep massa's goodwill for itivity in addition to opening local outlets.

Neshant wrote:

pandyan wrote:nobody got impacted by mcafee anti virus virus? in my company there was a big drama because of this stupid s/w

i don't know about mcafee but norton anti-virus is notorious for deleting important files needed to run the operating system by flagging them as viruses.

To beat it all, get a mac. Every replacement at our office is a mac.

ramana wrote:I was thinking of people higher in the labor chain. Soon need something to keep massa's goodwill for itivity in addition to opening local outlets.

People higher in the labor chain can work in India. Many are choosing to do so as they get paid the same as in the USA, but the savings are greater because of the lower cost structure in India.

Middle tier IT people themselves don't want to work in India because salaries are too low compared to US levels.

Well, any foreigner working here needs a work visa. So, the ITVty fatcats must be getting them. Of course, you don't need to file hundred page petitions, running against a quota, and then stand in queue at the consulate.

manish wrote:This article on NYT, brought back memories of an earlier discussion here by vina on Yech Pee's strategies. The article poses interesting questions - if the smartphones biz is going to be as big as they say it will be, what will be Yech Pee's fate?

H.P., Tech Powerhouse, Stumbles in Smartphones

Hewlett-Packard is one of the world’s most successful makers of desktop computers, laptops, servers and printers. It owns a powerful consumer brand, and it is a growing provider of services for businesses. In the first quarter, the company’s sales rose 8 percent.

But in smartphones, H.P. has been on a steady slide into irrelevance.

Sales of H.P.’s hand-held products, including its iPaq smartphone, dropped to $25 million in the quarter, down from $57 million in the same period last year. Apple, by contrast, had sales of $5.6 billion for iPhones and related products during its most recent quarter.

H.P.’s anemic performance in the smartphone market has left analysts perplexed. Globally, unit sales of smartphones are now running just about equal with laptops, and by 2012, smartphone sales are expected to eclipse the entire personal computer market.

The world’s largest computer maker is on the verge of missing the next great phase of the computing revolution.

What do the Gurulog think? vina and GD discussed the fight for supremacy between netz, IBM and Yech Pee - is that fight distracting them? Will Yech Pee continue to stay out of the handhelds market and go the way of say, IBM?

Here is the answer:
HP to Acquire Palm for $1.2 Billion
Very nice. Palm and its WebOS powered Smartphones needed some strong backing to make some inroads into the market. Its surely getting interesting with some bloggers already drooling at the prospects of WebOS powered iPad fighters from HP.

Also, look at the price tag - I doubt HP would have been able to get products and an ecosystem of apps and developers comparable to Palm Pre/WebOS with in-house R&D so quickly and for so less!

And they also say Palm's much hyped CEO (and ex-Apple hotshot who lead the iMac and iPod development) will stay on.

Palm’s current chairman and CEO, Jon Rubinstein, is expected to remain with the company.

Folks,

Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx is scheduled for release today. This is a Long Term Support ( LTS ) release - meaning that for there will be support for 5 years.
The management at Ubuntu have been harping that this is the release which will see a spike in the adoption rates. Plus , Ubuntu Cloud deployments are giving a stiff competition to Amazon.

I so desperately want this to succeed. Open source is the way forward for India. Why settle for a pirated OS when you can get something better for free.

From Chandigarh Tribune

Trial by fire


Ramalinga Raju


The fallen IT icon B. Ramalinga Raju may well go down in the Indian corporate history as the longest-serving under-trial prisoner. The founder chairman of Satyam Computers has been in judicial custody for the last 15 months. The fraud he had scripted in the software company was also the biggest in the country’s corporate history.

The trial is yet to commence as Raju is undergoing treatment at a city hospital and the doctors have ruled out his appearance in court. Though a special fast-track court was set up six months ago, not a single person has been questioned so far as the court has been adjourning the case every week because of Raju’s ill-health.

The CBI has listed 800 witnesses and submitted 1.60 lakh pages of documents pertaining to the case. Besides, over 100 material objects were filed. The trial is going to be a long and grueling process.

Non-stop work

The software industry, an important contributor to Hyderabad’s brand image, has reasons to cheer. The state government recently issued an order bringing IT and IT enabled services under the purview of the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) to insulate them from disruptions due to agitations and shutdowns.

This means that employees cannot resort to strike nor can they cite shutdowns or curfew as an excuse for their absence. The IT industry representatives have been demanding the application of ESMA to ensure uninterrupted development. The demand became more vociferous in the wake of the recent turmoil over Telangana.

AP has 1,300 IT companies employing about 2.50 lakh professionals.

Neela wrote:Folks,

Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx is scheduled for release today. This is a Long Term Support ( LTS ) release - meaning that for there will be support for 5 years.
The management at Ubuntu have been harping that this is the release which will see a spike in the adoption rates. Plus , Ubuntu Cloud deployments are giving a stiff competition to Amazon.

I so desperately want this to succeed. Open source is the way forward for India. Why settle for a pirated OS when you can get something better for free.

Second that. I think open source software(OSS) is a natural fit for the frugal minded Indians. How ever, lot of Indians are not aware of the power of OSS. Download quotas and slow internet connections could be the main reason preventing Indians to dip their toe in OSS.

I have been using Ubuntu for the last 4 years at home. I wouldn't use Windows, even if I get paid to use it. Ubuntu 10.04 is stable, fast and full featured OS, I am happy with it.

The latest Ubuntu releases Karmic Koala onwards are fast approaching ease of use and familiarity close to Windows.

Yech Pee is thinking of using WebOS in the same role as Gum Boot/Chipzilla's MeeGo. Right now only Android fills that gap but Android still has shortcomings.

for those not blessed with karoprate konnections, may we know how to download a full 4 DVD ubuntu type distro over a 256kbps dsl line and download caps?
a lot of people even have usb wireless connections at home.

OSS is dead in the water for the command man due to this. plus the piraters and grey marketeers who assemble PCs will install Windows7 premium edition for you on the cheap in one shot rather than take the bother of installing anything else. they have a smoothly oiled machinery and they will stick to it.

students/itvity types are the only ones who might use linux, and mostly students just get a windows laptop.

for small business without any itvity expertise, its far cheaper and easier to just use a pirated windows.

Singha wrote:fplus the piraters and grey marketeers who assemble PCs will install Windows7 premium edition for you on the cheap in one shot rather than take the bother of installing anything else.

Looks like Microsoft has taken a few lessons from Linux as well. Windows 7 has a way to get automatic updates from Microsoft servers. And folks who have pirated copies up and running would have a nasty surprise. During these automatic updates Windows 7 will check for the authenticity for the version installed. And if it is not authentic popups, message displays etc. will keep coming reminding the user that he is using a pirated version .

^^^^
Yep, a million windows warning you that " you might be a victim of software piracy" open up a regular intervals....

Singha wrote:for those not blessed with karoprate konnections, may we know how to download a full 4 DVD ubuntu type distro over a 256kbps dsl line and download caps?
a lot of people even have usb wireless connections at home.

Saar, Ubuntu install disk is a single CD, not 4 DVDs. The base install that this CD does gives one a fairly user-friendly system, with some commonly used programs (firefox, openoffice, MP3 music player etc.) installed by default. The base install is geared for normal users though, not power users. For instance, the basic install doesn't install a C compiler or the man pages. The base install also doesn't install some codecs and win fonts because of legal reasons.

To install anything else, one just goes to the Synaptic package manager (or Ubuntu Software Center) and clicks on the package they want to install. The packages are pretty well classified into categories (e.g. Games, Office, Programming etc.), so it is pretty easy to find the package you want to install. Of course, to install these extra packages, one needs a network connection so that they can be downloaded. First order of business for me after a new installation is to install all the restricted stuff (codecs and msfonts) followed by programming tools.

X-post:

sum wrote:Guys, need a quick answer for a friend of mine:

Which are the major GoI( DRDO also included but not educational institutions like IITs etc) orgs doing quality work on Computer Sciences?

Some names would be greatly appreciated.

Singha wrote:for those not blessed with karoprate konnections, may we know how to download a full 4 DVD ubuntu type distro over a 256kbps dsl line and download caps?
a lot of people even have usb wireless connections at home.

In India, there are lot of misconceptions about Linux & open source software in general.

Any one can buy Ubuntu CD for Rs.20 (plus shipping may be) at zyxware.com. They have lot of open source OSs on sale, even an external hard drive with full Ubuntu repositories stored in it (price - Rs.4,400).

Ubuntu has a free shipping program, they mail the CDs for free(shipit.ubuntu.com). It may take couple of months, but still worth trying for people with out high speed connection.

IMHO, both these options are so much better than using pirated or legal Windows 7/Vista/XP.

With out internet connection also, there is a way to install packages in Ubuntu. This is done by copying the package files(located in /var/cache/apt/archives folder) from a computer which has an internet connection to one which is not connected to the internet. After copying one can install the packages with out an internet connection.

ramana wrote:From Chandigarh Tribune
Trial by fire
Ramalinga Raju

I heard that a comprehensive audit is in progress in aSatyam company.

On hindsight it is a good thing that all this happened. Now Mahindra group got a solid tech company in its profile and is well set to compete in domestic defense market. Good Luck Mahindra Satyam.

sum wrote:X-post:

sum wrote:Guys, need a quick answer for a friend of mine:

Which are the major GoI( DRDO also included but not educational institutions like IITs etc) orgs doing quality work on Computer Sciences?

Some names would be greatly appreciated.

go through the list on right hand side frame under DIT organizations list at http://www.mit.gov.in/

Purely in (applied) Computer science - CDAC, Media Labs - will top the list. NIC doesnt do much software anyway.

IMHO defence labs like CAIR, DRDL etc do a lot of good computer science centric work

Cross posting from "Intelligence & National Security Discussion" thread

Indian Government Wants Its Own Operating System

First they spend $200 million to develop their own microprocessor, now this: The Indian government is currently looking into developing its own operating system, both as a means of curbing cyberattacks and “end[ing] the reliance on foreign operating systems.” But is this really a good idea?

DLF looks to exit IT SEZ in Chennai, seeks 700 crore refund from govt
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/mar ... 918102.cms

Is this a cold war between DMK and Congress?

Question for Gurus in Webhosting, Datacenter ops and Telecom - I am trying to learn the scenrio in India related to webhosting and Data center ops.

Is there a white paper from some orgs like NASCHOM that shows advantages with infrastructre, costs and other parameters over other countries?

When I search on the internet, I see there are several companies with very large scale operations. If there are such a large scale ops why should small-biz who does reselling of sever space etc should buy the services in US? Why can't they just buy from VSNL, Relaince etc? Often the complaint is that support services are not that good in India. This is where I have a problem in beleiving because even in US, the support comes from India centers.

Muppalla:

For a person who hosts a few servers out of a data center, these would be the primary concerns:

1. Redundant Connectivity: If a data-center has multiple carriers providing connectivity, then this is better. There are situations where a carrier's router suddenly goes down. What happens if an undersea cable gets cut between India and Dubai, for instance.

2. Backup Power Supplies: If a power outage happens, how quickly do the battery backup/generators kick in and how much time do those generators buy? This could be a big issue when hosting in India.

3. Security: Places I've hosted at have 24x7 video surveillance + fingerprint scanners and such. Last thing people want is someone else going into their cage and stealing their hard disks. This should be pretty easy to provide in India as well, if someone is willing to put the upfront investment. Unfortunately there might be other issues as well, such as what happens if the datacenter gets flooded. Images of Mumbai roads in the monsoon aren't very encouraging fpr people who like data security.

4. Cost: Of course everyone wants a competitive price for all this. One of the major expenses for data centers is electricity cost for running servers + AC cooling. If I recall correctly, cost of electricity in India is higher than some other countries.

5. Support services: While you mention that "even in the US, the support comes from India centers", this is not entirely true. The India based personnel must be only the billing and sales staff. Tech support needs people on site to go up to the servers and physically poke at them, and this part cannot be outsourced naturally. Of course, if the datacenter is also in India, then it isn't too hard to train a bunch of local Indians to go attach a monitor and keyboard and do some basic troubleshooting, so I'm not too sure why people think support services aren't good in India. Perhaps that perception is due to other factors beyond the support staff's control, that don't occur in the west as frequently (such as power outages). I can imagine hapless SDRE support staff have to do their best to explain to an angry customer why their website is not online and this might lead to that perception that support staff in India sucks, when it really is beyond their control to help.

ArmenT, Thanks for the detailed reply. Here are few links that will give you serveral answers to the points that your raising. The concerns that you mention are mostly something relevantSecurity is no more an issue in India. Otherwise we don't have that many shipped jobs. Another thing tech know how. I can't beleive so many data centers with no talented tech members. Try the following links you will get the glimse and the scale of ops these days. The reality does not seems to match with the arguments and hence my confusion.



http://www.esds.co.in/about-esds-data-centers.php
http://www.qualispace.com/nova/co-location.aspx
http://www.oriensoft.com/Services/Share ... Plans.aspx

http://www.webwerks.in/

http://net4.in/net4app/index.aspx

http://www.go4hosting.com/serveroffers.html

http://www.ctrls.in/ - This is from my home town in Hyderabad and it is a world class datacenter and just see their scale.

http://www.znetindia.com/

http://www.znetindia.com/network-datacenter.aspx
ths is a huge company

http://www.indsoft.net/products_live_chat.htm with costs
http://www.dinsol.in/about/network-detail.html
http://www.dinsol.in/ with costs and this is something like a mid range model.

http://www.cyquator.com/Html/sitemap.html - This is another India based with no costs related info

http://www.wipl.in/ - very simple with costs

http://www.business-standard.com/india/ ... ne/383157/

Verizon is the largest telecom company in USA. They have started selling datacenter solutions in India. http://www.verizonbusiness.com/products ... atacenter/

A news article - http://www.informationweek.in/Data_Cent ... _2011.aspx

Muppalla wrote:Another thing tech know how. I can't beleive so many data centers with no talented tech members.

Oh, I wasn't making a point of lack of talent or anything. The point I was making was that if the data-center is in the US, you need local people to go poke at the servers. This particular job cannot be outsourced elsewhere because the support person needs physical access to the servers, switches etc.

If the datacenter is in India, you can train local Indians to do the same job just as well as local Americans would, so there is no question of lack of talent in the data centers.

So the reason why people think that Indian support sucks might really be a perception problem, probably caused by earlier bad infrastructure issues. That's what I was trying to point out from my 5th point above.

ArmenT wrote: So the reason why people think that Indian support sucks might really be a perception problem, probably caused by earlier bad infrastructure issues. That's what I was trying to point out from my 5th point above.

Thx again. My entire post was to convince myself if that is just a perception ( may be from past hangover) or if there are any real structural problems associated. BR has several IT folks from India who are hands on and I hope someone will throw their gyan on this topic.

The datacenter and webhosting biz has grown exponentially in India and it is just not beleivable that the 24x7 tech support sucks. Bharati, VSNL, BSNL and Relinace are themselves are giving state-of-art datacenter facilites and above all leasing out zillabytes to many players to have their own biz with another scores of state-of-art data centers.

Does anyone knows how to buy .in domain? Do we have any national authority that allocate these domains or are private players the only bet.

Muppalla wrote:

ArmenT wrote: So the reason why people think that Indian support sucks might really be a perception problem, probably caused by earlier bad infrastructure issues. That's what I was trying to point out from my 5th point above.

Thx again. My entire post was to convince myself if that is just a perception ( may be from past hangover) or if there are any real structural problems associated. BR has several IT folks from India who are hands on and I hope someone will throw their gyan on this topic.

The datacenter and webhosting biz has grown exponentially in India and it is just not beleivable that the 24x7 tech support sucks. Bharati, VSNL, BSNL and Relinace are themselves are giving state-of-art datacenter facilites and above all leasing out zillabytes to many players to have their own biz with another scores of state-of-art data centers.

Muppala, while I cannot comment on the IT part of the Data Centers, I sure know that the security and infrastructure releated aspect of Data Center is looked at vey minutely. From Real Estate perspective, the requirements of Data Centers is very unique and very very demanding. The security and other related check-list is amazing and huge. Hardly any existing building(s) can meet the stringent requirements of establishing DC. I know of many instances where organizations (example ICICI and Reliance) got a built-to-suit facility for their DC - these fulfilled all the requirements and met the specs. The amount of investment for infrastructure (RE+support less main IT thing) is huge.

PS: I know this because at one point I transacted medium sized space (50K sq.ft) for DC for a big Telecom Company.

sampat wrote:Does anyone knows how to buy .in domain? Do we have any national authority that allocate these domains or are private players the only bet.

+1 to this question. Also can any one give some pointers to good reliable data hosting services in India? It need to be at the high-end, but should be enough to support a small-to-medium sized e-journal initiative.

^^ http://www.inregistry.in/

I am looking for some statistics on an issue.

The question being, what is the size of India's software industry?

Before, someone says lookup Nasscom or any of the business or IT rags, let me expand.

By software I mean, "Intellectual Property" that is created, primarily in India with Indian talent, in an Indian company and then licensed or subscribed by users.

To keep it simple, we can allow, the ownership structure of these Indian companies to be not as much of an issue, as long as the local company is not a wholly owned subsidiary of another foreign company.

Any numbers, on how many companies, areas of strength, revenue, employees, geographical locations, etc.

We could also count a portion of an existing services company that may have IP assets, but please only that portion and not the gazillion crores through services, with no underlying IP.

Would welcome members thoughts on the issue, as this is something that has been on my mind for 15+ years now. That is the general dearth of IP based software companies from India.

By Dan Tynan
http://is.gd/cVc9m

In the workplace you'll generally meet three kinds of personalities:
Type A, Type B, and Type IT.
The last are a breed apart from the rest.

We're not sure what it is about technology that draws certain types of people while repelling others. In any case we've identified the eight classic personality types you'll find in virtually any reasonably sized IT department.

IT personality type No. 1: The Empty Suit
Job title(s): Department manager, business analyst
Profile: Hired to be a liaison between top-level management and the techies -- with whom top-level management, or anyone on the business side, would rather not deal directly. Acts as a go-between during client visits to keep the geeks at a safe distance.

IT personality type No. 2: The Scary Sys Admin
Job title(s): Network administrator, database administrator
Profile: Your company can't run without him -- and he knows it. Fortunately, he likes dealing with machines far more than people, so you can rest easy, confident that he spends way more time keeping your systems up and running than may even be necessary.

IT personality type No. 3: The Human Roadblock
Job title(s): Software developer, enterprise architect, systems administrator
Profile: No matter what task or project is presented, the Human Roadblock responds in exactly the same manner: It can't be done.

IT personality type No. 4: The Angry Support Drone
Job title(s): Support tech (what else?)
Profile: Hired to schlep from desk to desk fixing the computers of people deemed unworthy of their time. Will do what you ask, and not one iota more.

IT personality type No. 5: The Übergeek
Job title(s): Software engineer, senior programmer
Profile: Fiercely intelligent, stubbornly logical, and disturbingly anti-social. In other words, what most people think of when asked to describe a techie. In Myers-Briggs nomenclature, the Übergeek would be classified INTJ -- an introverted, intuitive-thinking, and judging person. If the Übergeek absolutely must communicate with beings of inferior intelligence (i.e., you), she would rather do it by e-mail. But if she can avoid all human contact, that's OK, too.

IT personality type No. 6: The OS Fanboy
Job title(s): Help desk, support tech, programmervista
Profile: There is only one true path -- and, more important, only one true operating system -- for this person. All nonbelievers are heretics whose tech needs will be quietly ignored. Though most commonly associated with Apple products, often aligned with Windows or, more likely, Linux -- the more obscure the distro, the better. Every conversation ends with a discussion of why their OS of choice is superior, despite the fact that your company doesn't use it.

IT personality type No. 7: The Promiser
Job title(s): Outbound sales, business development
Profile: There is nothing this person won't say to close a deal. You want features the original product was never designed to deliver? Done. You need it within six months? The Promiser will get it to you in three. Of course, he or she doesn't have to deliver anything -- that's a job for the developers. Delays, cost overruns, and impossible feature-set requirements are all someone else's headache.

IT personality type No. 8: The Shadow
Job title(s): Unknown
Profile: It's not my problem, it's not my job, it's not my fault -- that's the mantra of the Shadow, who somehow manages to take up space in the IT department (and on the payroll) without actually filling it. No one's sure what the Shadow does, mostly because he or she has become expert at doing as little as possible. Over time, the Shadow may be handed management responsibilities, at which point this individual morphs into the Human Roadblock.

Did we miss any classic IT types?

^ I will like to add these top level/senior folks (not management or yum bee eaa). You would think that they would know their sh1t. But they don't. Not always. And they throw their title or seniority around and give opinions or make demands on what they don't understand anymore. Can't do the job and doesn't know what issues are there and how to solve them, but throws these "can't we do this, can you do that" in meetings.

Acharya wrote:Did we miss any classic IT types?

This list I feel suits more for a IT firm in US or other European countries. A whole set of profiles needs to be identified for a typical IT-Vity company in India. For example the multiple grades of "Managers" (Project Mgr, Assistant Proj.Mgr, Deputy Proj.Mgr, Proj.Mgr. (selection grade) ) would itself would add to a big list.

myers-brigss is available online. I took it long time back - INTJ . which explains my need to avoid most of humanity if I can.

Well, most of the BRF Jingoes would qualify, because being INTJ is the primary reason why we belong here!

I would wager 99% women are not INTJ.

cross-posting from gen. discussions thread:

hello birathers,
I need some help urgently. One of my chaps in a remote location is trying to send a fax using VoIP. But inorder to make it work he needs to make the following changes to the Canon MF4350 :
ECM : disable
Rings to answer : 2
Resolution : lowest
Overseas mode : ON
Baud rate :9600

The chap is unfamiliar with making changes to settings on the machine and the manual isn't of much help either. Can anyone please guide me through the fax interface to make these changes ? Thanks in advance.

edit : is there any resolution for slow or incomplete fax over VoIP ?