But this study is sure to create an impact in the minds of more and more people, and ultimately drive Microsoft to their worst nightmare of Open Source taking over the corporate word (at least). But let’s talk about Government Initiative in the Open Source… Now there’s a catch!

WARNING: In the following section, I might sound Frankenstein running after NIC’s to rip it’s neck of it’s body.

IBPS Site may damage your PC

Does government actually support FOSS Initiatives ? I don’t know if you are looking at th small line at the bottom of most of the Government websites, where it says – “Please use Internet Explorer 5.5 or above” or “Best viewed on Internet Explorer 5.5 or above” or something analogous. Does it

SBI site is on ASP (Microsoft Active Server Pages) meaning NOT FOSS, they are using Microsoft Technologies and are actually not leveraging the benefits of FOSS where they can be best achieved – WEB and SERVER Technologies. If you anytime in your life have applied for any of the Country’s bank exams be it PO, Managerial or Clerk, you have to visit the site of Institute of Banking Peronnel Selection (IBPS). You would notice that it won’t open on Mozilla’s Firefox, Apple’s Safari or Google Chrome – it’s is simply loyal to Microsoft Technology – Internet Explorer.

Let’s visualize a simple example, where a person who loves linux or cannot afford Microsoft Window Operating System and want’s to make every move chaste, without the pains of proprietary software involved – Is demoralize, demotivated, his faith shattered to dust with a website popping up saying I need INTERNET EXPLORER! That wasn’t the idea of Tim Berner’s lee when he proposed Internet.

Does Government really support FOSS?

If the government really want’s to take initiatives, it should have made all the websites on NON-Microsoft Technologies, it would have saved them Millions actually Billions. Today NIC has 90% of their websites being maintained on proprietary – age old technologies, that are in no way match for today’s glossy looking, superbly interactive, and Intelligent websites. Are they ? They don’t even look like Corporate/Identity websites for Company information. Even if NOW!, after going through the Prof. Rahul De reports they think of moving from proprietary to FOSS Tech’s – who the hell be accountable for the earlier un-informed baseless decisions ?

The only one of the few website I’ve seen is the NIC’s Indigov. Its’ one of the best website, and based around php. Now what new I see is a Quality certificate being attached to the website by SQTC. Does that make a difference? What is then W3C for? CDAC, NOIDA has been one of the biggest contributor and promoter of W3C in Indian Government sector. However, now NIC & SQTC comes out with their Certificate attached to the website, ignoring all the work done so far in the field by W3C and unnecessarily putting  their precious efforts into standards that have been pre-established. No doubt the website is accessible, but that accounts to just 0.1% of the websites NIC is hosting/developing/maintaining (I would rather say lingering on with). Most of the disabled people are ignored in the country (I know low floor buses just landed in Delhi, but that’s just Delhi -not India right!) and Information Technology is the last seen area where you could consider disabled people to be preferred – in INDIA.

The author is not Anti-Microsoft, he just want the web to be independent, free from the boundaries just like a free bird.  As Internet / Web was essentially created to be platform-independent so that we could; and today as we are able to browse websites over Mobile Phone, Browser’s across operating systems like – Windows, Mac and Linux. And they look same everywhere.

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17th Sept, 2009 – HCL Technologies Ltd. (HCL), a leading global IT services provider, entered into a five year Transformational IT Infrastructure Management engagement with Oncor to seamlessly connect and support Oncor corporate functions, grid management operations and numerous community- based field service centers located throughout Oncor’s service area.

Oncor operates the largest electric distribution and transmission system in Texas, delivering power to more than 3 million homes and businesses through approximately 117,000 miles of transmission and distribution lines. “With this new contract, HCL will be investing in both the utilities sector and in Texas, through the development of a worldwide Utilities Center of Expertise in Dallas.

The Center will research and develop technologies to help transform the way energy is generated, marketed and delivered to customers around the world, which fits Oncor’s leadership in advanced Smart Grid technology deployment,” said R Srikrishna, Senior Vice President and Head – Global Sales, HCL Infrastructure Services Division (HCL ISD).

HCL’s scope of work (SoW) will cover end user computing (service desk, desk-side services) for approximately 3,600 employees; datacenter and network Services, business continuity /disaster recovery and consulting services supporting Oncor’s IT infrastructure architecture and platform modernization projects. “Our client services delivery model utilizes local personnel for on-site support, which contributes to local job base stability,” said Todd Crandall, Senior Vice President and Global Head, Energy and Utilities Sector, HCL Axon. “This engagement clearly underlines our commitment and dedicated focus in Texas.”

Now this is interesting they are also utilizing local personnel and following the govt. guidelines as the part of Obama’s initiative to save jobs and reducing the loss of jobs due to off-shoring – great going. I believe it is necessary – Everything can’t be remote!

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Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10-year license to Yahoo!’s core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo! search technologies into its existing Web search platforms. In simple terms, Microsoft will now power Yahoo! search while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ search advertisers.

Microsoft’s Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites. Yahoo! will continue to use its technology and data in other areas of its business such as enhancing display advertising technology. Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft’s AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter’s automated auction process.

Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force. Under the agreement, Yahoo! will innovate and ‘own’ the user experience on Yahoo! properties, including the user experience for search, even though it will be powered by Microsoft technology. Microsoft will compensate Yahoo! through a revenue sharing agreement on traffic generated on Yahoo!’s network of both owned and operated (O&O) and affiliate sites. Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships.

Microsoft will pay traffic acquisition costs (TAC) to Yahoo! at an initial rate of 88 per cent of search revenue generated on Yahoo!’s O&O sites during the first five years of the agreement. Microsoft will guarantee Yahoo!’s O&O revenue per search (RPS) in each country for the first 18 months following initial implementation in that country.

The agreement does not cover each company’s Web properties and products, e-mail, instant messaging, display advertising, or any other aspect of the companies’ businesses. In those areas, the companies will continue to compete vigorously.

At full implementation (expected to occur within 24 months following regulatory approval), Yahoo! estimates, based on current levels of revenue and current operating expenses, that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual GAAP operating income of approximately $500 million and capital expenditure savings of approximately $200 million. Yahoo! also estimates that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual operating cash flow of approximately $275 million.

The transaction will be subject to regulatory review. The companies expect the deal to close in early 2010.

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• Socrata :  Social Data Network. One of the most advanced data creation, collection and management tool.
• Google Docs : One of the most used by me, as all the data gets stored as Excel sheet, Automatic graphs based on data.
• Free Online Surveys : Free Solution for your survey or Quiz needs. Quite an apet
• FormSite : A free and easy to use solution

Google doing Analysis of your data!

<DING> I was writing this article and guess what? Well I received another Question a part of one more Questionnaire, hopefully I was successful in stopping the transfer that could have taken my mind for answering those questions on chat, rather I offered help to make that dull chat session into a simply exciting good looking web based questionnaire using Google Docs, and guess we did!! and we got 35 responses in just 18 hours. There was one another Questionnaire which I made for my junior, which was about 12 pages in length of Microsoft Word format. I still remember it was midnight when I working on it, and till that time she hadn’t got a single response from it. And the very next day even before it was 9 in the night, she had 62 responses right in the excel sheet waiting for to lay her hands on it.

Still the practice, the.. information, the.. simple technological usage that could be easily disseminated among the students, among interns still remains hidden from the most of the world. Well, I hope this article does what is necessary.

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Pixaaza Technology

Here’s another quickie, Google now backs Pixazza a new advertisement technology, its quite similar to what Google has been doing with the text – showing advertisements based on the text on the webpages. Pixazza is very similar to that except that it applies to the pictures. People tag the pictures (or part of the picture) with the links of the online merchants, they are given commissions based on the number of hits, their links recieve.

Pixazza’s “experts” are paid a commission based on sales from their links. The start-up also employs reviewers that track the links. “There’s a work queue of all the images that come in and you can see which are high-traffic images and which are interesting to users,” said Bob Lisbonne, chief executive of Pixazza.

Pixazza has signed up with Amazon.com, Bluefly and Zappos. Pixazza is currently targeting Fashion industry as per the teh CEO Bob Lisbonne. However there are other websites which are following similar for years, one of them being – Coolspotters. Somewhere in the world of web even Microsoft has filed a patient for the technology even before Pixazza, but I guess they got late!

But still I believe, Pixazza has an edge over everything -

• It has “the publisher” involved, that means people can use a single line of javascript to use technology for images on their site.
• People will do anything to make money (even if it takes hours to tag pictures), so tagging isn’t a problem, its good.
• They have Google to support them!
  • Google can utilize Pixazza’s technology with their image labeler, and ultimately with Adsense
  • Google can ultimately acquire Pixazza

Well that was it, It wasn’t quick.. right? Anyways I hope you have learnt a new technology coming your way.

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Firefox on Acid Test 3

Hi to all the web dev’s and designers out there. It must be so much interesting news for you guys for the launch of IE8. Well to look at it from another perspective it is quite disappointing for you too, as now you have another browser on your shoulders to see – the site maintains “that look!”. Well I would recommend all you guys to either stick to either Firefox or Safari (I don’t believe, I’m saying it! Safari.. huh). Well if you go a bit deep into assumptive analytics of browsers –

• I see Mozilla Firefox being used by more and more population across Operating System be it – Windows, Linux or Mac.
• IE is just limited to Windows and Mac
• Safari is all geared up for Windows apart from the native Mac.

Talking about ACID3 Test,  in short they are reference for testing the support for CSS, for those who have their hunger still unsatisfied can see more about acid tests here. So where were we ? Oh yes, ACID3 Test is for CSS v3. Browser Scores for ACID3:

• Safari 4 Beta: 100%
• Mozilla Firefox: 71%
• IE8: 20% [FAIL]

IE8 On Acid Test 3

So a final word of mouth for all those involved in development and/or designing. I would rather advice you to stick to Mozilla Firefox, as it will be the safest bet until Microsoft comes with a set of SP1,2..n updates to correct problems with the CSS3 Engine in the now, not so anticipated IE8!

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Microsoft founder Bill Gates has banned his family from using Apple’s iPhone and iPod gadgets.

In an interview to Vogue magazine, Melinda Gates has revealed that Bill has barred in three kids, Jennifer, 13, Rory, 10 and Phoebe, 7 from using any of the Apple products.

“There are very few things that are on the banned list in our household. But iPods and iPhones are two things we don’t get for our kids,” the Telegraph quoted her as saying.

However, Melinda herself is swayed by Apple’s iPhone device, which combines a touch-screen music player and web browser with a fully featured mobile phone.

“Every now and then I look at my friends and say ‘Ooh, I wouldn’t mind having that iPhone’,” she added.

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• SQL Server 2000
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition
• Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (MSDE 2000)
• Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (WMSDE)
• Windows Internal Database (WYukon).

Systems running SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 7.0 Service Pack 4 and SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3 aren’t affected, according to Microsoft.

Security researcher Bernhard Mueller of SEC Consulting published details of the SQL Server flaw on Dec. 9, after initially notifying Microsoft of the vulnerability in April.

According to SEC Consulting’s advisory, Microsoft claimed to have developed a fix for the issue in September, but didn’t offer details on when it would be released.

Mueller’s last contact with Microsoft was Sept. 29, and the researcher made three additional attempts to contact the company before going public with the exploit. Microsoft didn’t include a fix for the SQL Server flaw in its most recent Patch Tuesday release on Dec. 9.

Microsoft said in the bulletin that it’s aware that exploit code for the vulnerability is circulating online, but isn’t aware of any active exploits. Microsoft is continuing to investigate, and is advising customers to disable the “sp_replwritetovarbin” procedure as a workaround.

“Upon completion of this investigation, Microsoft will take the appropriate action to protect our customers, which may include providing a solution through a service pack, our monthly security update release process or an out-of-cycle security update, depending on customer needs,” Microsoft said in the bulletin.

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If that’s not  enough digest this: 34% employees at Microsoft, 28% at IBM, 17% at Intel and 13% at Xerox are Indians.

And the House of Elders also heard some startling facts about a country that’s still stuck with a Third World tag — 20% of gold in the world is used by Indians and nine out of 10 diamonds used in the world are made in India.

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The games industry as a whole grew 18 percent year-over-year in October and is still poised to top $22 billion in annual sales through the end of the year, ignoring all signs of a recession.

The top-selling Wii game in October was, again, Wii Fit, with 487,000 units sold. Mario Kart Wii sold 290,000 copies and Wii Play picked up another 282,000 converts. The top-seller for the month, however, was Fable II, with a massive 790,000 copies sold during the month.

The top three best-selling Wii games demonstrate the unprecedentedly long shelf life that some software enjoys on Nintendo’s system. Not only has Wii Play, packed with a remote, sold upward of 7.2 million copies in America, but a quick glance at Wii Fit’s sales progress would show an increase in momentum as the months have passed, virtually unheard of.

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Viewing OneNote in web browser

“Microsoft is not a web company”, Google is! Microsoft is just diversifying, probably because -

• It has recognized, most of the users spend their time on internet Google.

Software as a Service (SaaS)
SaaS enables firms lower costs,
optimize IT resources,
Shift from capital to operating expenses
SaaS can help Microsoft target enterprises that are resistant to large scale deployment/upgrades.
Customization / Consumerization – Firms increasingly allow workers to choose the platform of their choice be it Microsoft Window, Apple’s MAC or Linux.
Ad Revenue – Microsoft wants to tap the growing revenue from ad-supported services for consumers.

- As analyzed by Gartner.

Viewing Word in web browser

However with great products NEWS come great responsibility, actually to keep on your words is all that matters. By announcing several advance launches -

• Microsoft Windows 7 (Microsoft’s answer to VISTA Bugs),
• Microsoft Azure (The cloud computing platform from Microsoft),
• Microsoft Surface (The New User Interface experience from Microsoft) and the
• Web Version of Microsoft Office

I personally feel its trying to get consumers think more Microsoft even when they are Googling. Gartner says it might slow down the adoption of Google Apps and other personal productivity application, but my gut feelings says it would invite more awareness about Google Docs as an alternative, as well as consumers would use it as a benchmarking to compare what Web version of Office doesn’t offer and might even drive customers to Google if MS fails to meet the expectations.

Editing in OneNote

Gartner has quite well analyzed about Office Web Applications, it suspects Office Web  Applications will -

1. Have a limited set of functions compared with traditional Office
2. Be optimized for use with SilverLight (Microsoft’s rich Internet application)
3. Use SharePoint for the container for collaboration
4. Have offline facilities

Now if Microsoft proves Gartner right, Point 1 will bound to go against Microsoft. If you ever had used Google Docs, I believe it has almost all the features you are looking for in a Document Editor. The best of being it being exported as PDF, and other formats.  But then Point 4 will complement it. So it’s like you can have the web version but it won’t be complete until you buy Microsoft Products . Point 2 Silverlight will probably the interface engine for Web version of Office Application. Microsoft has been quite agressive about spreading Silverlight, Silverlight has been released for linux too. Microsoft is making sure no corner lefts untouched. Moreover Microsoft has been developing Interfaces for its enterprise products on Silverlight too. Microsoft Health Common User Interface is one of the examples and it looks quite impressive.

Editing in Word

Gartner also concluded the challenges Microsoft has to confront while delivering its promise -

1. Limiting the impact on Microsoft’s traditional Office revenue model
2. Re-engineering 20 years of technology for the Web
3. Competing with Google, which offers some compelling features such as real-time
   document collaboration
4. We believe Web versions of personal productivity applications will generally supplement
   locally installed versions, although in some cases, users needing limited functions will
   use Web versions exclusively.

Microsoft has already taken a step by launching www.officelive.com Office live provides

• Anywhere access to your documents,
• Sharing of your documents
• Preview of your documents without any office suit installed.
• Facility to open or save files directly from your favorite office suite.

The service is available for use to both Home users as well as small Business users. I suspect microsoft will shift the service on its cloud computing platform – Azure when it finally launches the Now! Anticipated Web version of Microsoft Office.

Till then keep your finger crossed, hope the clashes of titans helps users get the best! Adios for now!

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Read more about it at  the Official website.

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A Chinese lawyer has filed a legal complaint against Microsoft for installing Windows Genuine Advantage on his computer. He has asked the Ministry of Public Security to file criminal charges against Microsoft.

Dong Zhengwei accused the company of hacking into people’s computers. He said: “I respect the right of Microsoft to protect its intellectual property but it is taking on the wrong target with wrong measures.

“They should target producers and sellers of fake software, not users. The authorities should take action to protect citizens’ property and privacy rights,” he continued

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Google Docs is the best office suite, that gives you the power of collaboration. Google Docs consists of 3 Core Office applications -

• Documents
• Spreadsheets
• Presentations

Google Document -

It’s similar to MS-WORD, it provides you with all the features that MS-Word gives you, from writing text, editing, managing, changing styles, inserting images, etc. The plus point that MS-Word doesn’t give you is – Direct conversion of that document to HTML / PDF / DOC / RTF / TXT / ODT within seconds. Even MS-WORD Converts the Document to HTML but the HTML converted isn’t clean & recommended for direct use with Web. As far as PDF is concerned you need to have additional Software..!!

Google Spreadsheets -

I haven’t worked with the spreadsheets that long & deep, but still experience with it is good enough. Though looking around you’ll find all the formulas that Excel Gives – Column Sorting, Auto-fill, Charts, & some of them like integration with Google finance that even Excel can’t provide .

Google Presentations -

Now this is something which would bring MS to it’s knees. Presentations is one big thing that Google has recently launched on it’s 9th Anniversary. It’s still in BETA Stage – you won’t be able to add Animations to it, still You can create slides, use themes, etc.

The common features to all these 3 Superb products are -

• No Installations – No need to install, except your Browser & Internet Connection.
• Anytime Anywhere access.
• Off-Line & On-Line – Edit Off-line ( Word / Excel / Powerpoint ), upload and Access online.
• Support for large base of Export Formats.
• Simultaneous Editing of the same document.
• Share your Documents with Group of People or Publish it on the WWW.
• Simple yet Secure.
• Restore previous versions of the Documents.
• Invite Users to help you EDIT or Just View the document.
• Lucrative Template / CSS Support

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