naresh

Get a random color in JavaScript

2013-08-26T13:35:00.000+05:30

Computer can understand only hexadecimal color code.

As a science student, you might be known.
Converting a base(x) number to base(n) number.

Same logic we are going to use. In JavaScript we have base conversions.

Math.random() will return a float number. Convert this number to integer as well string too.
While your converting string pass "16" parameter to toString(16) function. So, this way it converts a string to base(16) number.

Solution :
1. '#'+Math.floor((Math.random()*100000000)).toString(16)
2. '#'+(( 1<<24)*Math.random()|0).toString(16)

This function will hep you to generate number of colors as you given input number

var getRandomColors = function(no){
    no = no || 0;
    no = parseInt(no,10);
    var i=0,arr=[];
    do{
        arr.push( "#"+(( 1<<24)*Math.random()|0).toString(16) );
        i++;
    }while (i < no);
    return arr;
}

Most Innovative Companies 2013: Full List | Most Innovative Companies 2013 | Fast Company

2013-03-01T15:11:00.001+05:30

http://www.fastcompany.com/most-innovative-companies/2013/full-list

The Joel Test: 12 Steps to Better Code - Joel on Software

2012-03-06T15:08:00.001+05:30

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html

html2text

2012-02-15T17:15:00.001+05:30

The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies 2012 | Fast Company

2012-02-15T11:20:00.001+05:30

http://www.fastcompany.com/most-innovative-companies/2012/full-list

Code: logout Api for Linkedin

2011-12-13T16:24:00.000+05:30

Hmmm!
It's not an API, simple tric...!
Just JS dynamic image tag solves our problem....

open script tag
new Image().src='https://www.linkedin.com/secure/login?session_full_logout=&trk=hb_signout'
close script tag

njoy...

Various Social n/w And Various Mind Sets...

2011-11-04T15:04:00.000+05:30

What ever it may be, Finally audience are defining various roots for various social network portals.

Web site for what?

2011-11-03T17:54:00.001+05:30

Seems to be very confusing to find a simple and professional web site. What I did?

Easy to say words, but very hard to put efforts. Every one known.

1. I took peace of paper and writing on it, What ever my mid says.
Like: AIM of web site, Profile of web site (business,personal...), Images (kind of [funny, kids, documentary,... ]), Logo, how many colors, how many pages ....etc

2. Content (based on web site profile)
3. I draw on paper as my wish.
4. And i shared with my friends.
5. I received many suggestion, based on that i re designed my web site.

Create your own CDN

2011-11-01T08:14:00.000+05:30

Assuming, User known about Google appengine, and for awareness up to 1Gb this service is free (every 24 hr it will reset). If you need more bandwidth feel free to enable billing based on you usage.

No need get Surprise, Now a days! find next street awesome girl pic @ google.com. i.,e because of google front gate.

So, one day i thought! how may i use google front gate? and search for google api's which is very easy to reach google front gate.
Finally i come to know one easy solution using google appengine, we can easy reach google front gate.
Yup, Yup....!
Then i started reading and completed with in couple of hours.

** CDN work for static data.
Are you ready with your CDN requirements?

For awareness before start CDN code, you have to know some more tech stuff, like how it works?
1. Source data
2. Cache
3. DataStore
4. Cache invalidator
5. URL fetch

Easy way to read cookie and with out loop..

2011-10-28T23:02:00.000+05:30

Assuming, reader know about what is cookie.
As of you know, document.cookie is java script key word and most of the times i use to write on OOP's.
let us code:

var obj={};
obj.c=document.cookie;
//Define read cookie name:
obj.cName = '__utmz';
//split obj.c, this way:
obj.c1 =obj.c.split(obj.cName+'=');
// here am adding "=" to cookie name, because browser stores cookie and values as in format of string
Ex: "TL=te:0; __utma=150635877.1168279805.1319048317.1319048317.1319822141.2; __utmb=150635877.3.10.1319822141; __utmc=150635877; __utmz=150635877.1319048317.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none)"
simple check an condition if obj.c1 > 1 then expected cookie exist other wise, dose not exist.
if Exists:
obj.data = obj.c1[1].split(';')[0]
Finally obj.data is your cookie data.

In single line of code for reading cookie value is
function readcookie(cookiename){
var val = '';
try{
//if cookie present on the doc
val = document.cookie.split(cookiename)[1].split('; ')[0].split('=')[1]
}catch(e){
//cookie dose not present on the doc.
val = '';
}
return val;
}

var cookieVal = readcookie('cookiename');

Thank you.

How To Get Your First 1,000 Users

2011-02-09T05:23:00.000+05:30

The good news is that it’s easier than you think to get 1,000 people to try your site.

The bad news is that it’s really hard to get those people to turn into users, users that create an account, users that come back repeatedly and users that tell their friends about your site.

This post is about how to get 1,000 people to try your site so you can find out what isn’t working, iterate and keep trying to build a site that people, other than your mom, actually come back to. I’ll write a future post on how to retain those users.
Get Yourself a Domain Name and a Splash Page

You should set up your splash page today. Not tomorrow, today. In terms of the domain name, it’s okay if you don’t love your domain name; you can change it later though it’s always easier to pick a good one from the start.

Once you get your domain name, you should use a service like unbounce to create a simple splash page. You don’t need a programming background to create this page.

The goal of the splash page is to collect email addresses from visitors. How do you do that? The splash page tells a user very clearly what problem your site will solve for them. If the user submit their email address, you’ll give them early access to the site when it’s ready. For Yipit, the splash page said: “Get All the Best Daily Deals in Your City”. For Tumblr, it’s “The Easiest Way To Blog”.

Those email addresses become your early test users. When your prototype is ready to be tested, you’ll email a portion of these users and get them to test-drive your prototype. You’ll iterate and invite more users from your list till the product works.

Now, how do you get people to visit your splash page?
How To Drive People to Your Splash Page

There is no shortage of ways to get people to your splash page. The following are things we at Yipit did and things we’ve seen our friends do:

* Add Link to Your Email Signature. Seems obvious, but most people don’t do this. You should have your value proposition at the bottom of your email with a link to your splash page. For us, it was: “Get All the Best Daily Deals in Your City: http://yipit.com”
* Add Link to All Your Web Profiles. Add a link to your splash page on your Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and every other account you have. Now you might see why it helps to be a high profile social media user.
* Create a Demo Video. Even if your prototype isn’t ready, create a demo video of what your prototype will be doing. Dropbox did this and their video appeared at the top of Digg giving them 100,000 email addresses wanting access to their site. You can also add this video to your splash page to help increase conversion of people submitting their email addresses
* Be Full Entrepreneur. When I went to tech events, friend’s drinks, family gatherings, I would pitch everyone on Yipit. Painful, yes. But, it got me good at pitching Yipit and those people would go home and sign-up to check it out.
* TechCrunch and other tech blogs. It will be hard to get press for your site if you can’t give the blogger a prototype to use. But, if you do have a working prototype, this the easiest way to get people to your splash page. For all three of our projects, 140it.com, UnHub.com and Yipit.com, we were able to get TechCrunch to write about us just by submitting it to through their news submission form. If you can give the bloggers some beta codes for their readers, that makes it more likely they’ll write about your site. Just make sure you’re ready for it. If you have a very good demo video, they might be willing to write about you without the prototype.
* HackerNews. HackerNews is a great community of entrepreneurs who are willing to give you good advice on your startup. You need to have a working prototype and let them look at the site directly, though. Here’s some great advice on how to submit to HackerNews.
* Facebook Ads and Google Adwords. This is actually really hard and often pretty expensive. We were never able to really pull this off despite several attempts.
* Start a company blog. The blog should be focused on providing helpful advice on the problem you are helping consumers solve. Kissmetrics, a startup focused on helping websites with analytics, runs an excellent blog on helping startups think through user acquisition. This strategy involves a lot of work so only do it if you have a really good idea for the content you want to create and think that users will appreciate it.

Some final tips and notes:

* Your list will get stale. The longer you wait to invite people to your prototype, the smaller the percentage that will respond to your invite email. You can try to keep the list active by sending them occasional updates on the product.
* I recommend you give the users a survey after they submit their email address where you collect information from them regarding what they are hoping your site will accomplish for them. I have heard good things about surveymonkey
* Encourage users to tweet, share on facebook, or email your site to their friends. One way people have done this successfully is to promise the user earlier access to the prototype if they invite 3 friends.

Now that you know how to get people to your site, I’ll write a future post on what you need to do to make sure those 1,000 people actually stay on your site.

Copied from: http://viniciusvacanti.com/2011/02/08/how-to-get-your-first-1000-users/

Learn How Social Networking Changed the Internet | Social Networking Services

2010-12-22T07:54:00.000+05:30

Social networking has revolutionized the web as we know it. With the emergence of sites like MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook, the internet has changed for good. Of course, these names may not last forever, but social networking itself, as a whole, is hardly a fad that will disappear over time.

An early example of social networking includes forums. Forums, like any type of social networking platform, allow people who share a common interest to communicate. The type of information obtained through forums often rivals the type of results a search engine can produce, because actual groups of people are communicating, creating a knowledge base built around a specific topic.

Instant messaging services and chat rooms, such as the ones AOL was famous for, are forms of social networking platforms that have changed the internet for good. Online dating became popular as a result of these services, and people are now more apt to make friends and meet their partners online than they were in past decades. To this day, people prefer using these types of services to keep in touch with people overseas, as the cost to communicate this way is often far cheaper than a phone call.

More contemporary social networking platforms such as MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook have greatly influenced the web in many ways. Facebook allows people to stay connected and make new social connections. Students can stay in touch with fellow classmates, or find Alumni that have jobs in fields that they want to work in, or stay in touch with teachers who can write reference letters. Celebrities have used Twitter to rally up the support from their fellow “followers” to help support their charity. Many people that have been estranged from their loved ones have been found using MySpace.

Most social Media networking platforms have changed the way Digital Online Marketing Companies do marketing through the web. Forums were often used for link building and lead generation, and to an extent still are. However, most lead generation today is done through sites like Facebook. After all, someone is keeping track of the books, movies, television shows, and products that Facebook’s users are rating and talking about on the site.

Social Media networking platforms like Facebook also offer a medium for digital archiving. If sites like Facebook last long enough, historians may have access to detailed information of the lives of millions of people around the world in the future.

Article Source: http://www.virtualsocialmedia.com/learn-how-social-networking-changed-the-internet-social-networking-services/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+virtualsocialmedia+%28Virtual+Social+Media%29&utm_content=Gmail

Humor and Fun in the Workplace

2010-10-29T17:58:00.000+05:30

"The human race has only one really effective weapon, and that is laughter. The moment it arises, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place." -- Mark Twain

Sit with children as they play and you will hear a joyful sound: the sound of laughter. Children can be counted on to make fun even out of unpleasant work. What do they know that we have forgotten? They know how to laugh. They know how to add a dimension of playfulness to boring chores. Make a mental survey of people that you find uplifting and fun to be around. What is the common denominator? They know how to laugh and how to have fun. Can laughing and having fun on the job make a difference in the way we do our jobs? Absolutely!

A survey by Hodge-Cronin & Associates found that of 737 CEOs surveyed, 98 percent preferred job candidates with a sense of humor to those without. Another survey indicated that 84 percent of the executives thought that employees with a sense of humor do a better job than people with little or no sense of humor.

Dr. David Abramis at Cal State Long Beach has studied fun at work for years. He's discovered that people who have fun on the job are more creative, more productive, better decision-makers, and get along better with co-workers. They also have fewer absentee, late, and sick days than people who aren't having fun.

The benefits to a pleasant and happy workplace are that happy employees are more loyal and productive employees. The absenteeism and tardiness rate may decrease as people look forward to going to work. The turnover rate may decrease, as employees feel content and loyal to an organization. And the cost associated with illness may decrease as people experience the positive physiological and psychological effects of laughter.

Can the benefits to having fun be measured? Yes, by comparing the absenteeism, tardiness, and turnover rates pre-program implementation. In addition, an employee satisfaction survey can reveal how employees feel about their jobs, the company, and company culture. Will your customer complaints decrease as they encounter happier employees?

Company activities can teach employees how working together as a team can be fun and productive. Some of the competitive natures can work itself out on a co-ed field. In addition, managers or supervisors can be seen also as team players, who can relax and enjoy life and others as well. Company-planned or approved activities can go far in cultivating a positive corporate culture.

The use of fun and humor in the workplace must be appropriate in nature, when and how it is used. The humor should not be offensive to the ordinary or reasonable person. It is meant to encourage people to see the absurdity in our thought processes, perceptions, behaviors. It is also a useful tool that can be used to help us lighten up and not take things so seriously. It can also effectively reduce the level and intensity of conflict among employees, if properly used.

So, how do you implement and maintain (with an emphasis on maintenance) a humor and fun program? Is it going to be costly in terms of resources, including money, time, and productivity? It does not have to be a costly undertaking. However, even if there is some expenditure associated with "fun-at-work" activities, the benefits may be multi-fold in terms of the reduction of cost associated with absenteeism, turnover, and decreased productivity.

Fun at work can even lead to alleviation of the inevitable boredom that arises out of dull, routine, and non-challenging tasks. Even schools recognized the importance of giving children recess breaks so that they might have the opportunity to have fun.

The inability to laugh may be a sign of impending burnout (see May 2000 column). When it is no longer possible to find humor in anything, it may be that the employee is in the throes of burnout.

The desire to feel good, to change a mood, or even to loosen up a bit, is the reason that many people turn to alcohol or even legal or illegal drugs. However, there is no way that any man-made substance can be as powerful as the endorphins that the body produces for free, without any side-effects.

Norman Cousins, brought to our attention how laughter can be healing or reducing symptoms. You may recall that he had a serious and painful illness. He discovered that 10 minutes of laughter could lead to one hour that was pain-free.

Laughter releases endorphins that are more powerful than morphine. These endorphins can lead to a sense of well-being and optimism. In addition, humor and laughter can even bridge the gap between total strangers. The use of humor can even reduce tension in a tense situation (as workplaces can sometimes be).

Who said that fun and work were mutually exclusive? Have we unknowingly incorporated the quote used in exercise "no pain, no gain" to the workplace? Is work meant to be stifling and boring? Let's hope not, because boredom can give rise to burnout.

Boredom arises from rote and repetitive tasks. It can also rise out of the failure to have opportunities to be creative. Lawyers deal with it — drafting and reviewing contracts. The front desk receptionist who answers the phone all day — the computer programmer who is discouraged from using his or her creativity in programming. Having some boredom-breaking activities can lead to greater creativity and a tolerance for carrying out tedious repetitive tasks.

Can businesses successfully implement an employee-friendly and fun environment? Isn't it dangerous? There are two examples that come to mind that demonstrate just how successful these efforts can be. SouthWest Airlines has departed from the typical approach to passenger service and has been rewarded for it. The flight attendants were named number one among the flight attendants of all the airlines.

The SWA flight attendant uniform is casual and not at all like other airlines. In addition, they are encouraged to use humor in their customer service — which the passengers seem to appreciate (this one in particular.) Does the playfulness of the attendants impact their credibility with the passengers? Apparently not, as evidenced by the laughter and positive comments that follows some humorous remarks by the attendants. And this from a no-frills airline.

Other companies have also recognized that happy employees are productive employees. Autodesk, a California-based software company, has implemented an unusual bring-your-animal-to-work program. The company recognized that employees would happily work the long hours that are sometimes required if they can have their animal companions with them. Of course, there are conditions and expectations that accompany the program.

SWA and Autodesk are but two of the many large companies that recognized the importance of creating a fun environment. That is not to say that other companies will implement a bring-your-animal-to-work program. However, there are many other ways to create an environment that is pleasing to employees.

Bring out that ability to laugh, dust it off, and go for the gold… the golden sounds of someone enjoying himself or herself. You may ask "What if I make a fool of myself?" That may happen, but you will be in great company. There is something magical about someone who is so confident that he or she will take the risk of being misunderstood or criticized by some negative Neal or Nellie. There is also something magical about a company that has the ability to see that happy and laughing employees are good, productive, and loyal employees. This magic can be transformed into a productive and financially profitable workplace environment.

If you would like some information on how you can make your environment fun but productive, just call Mary at (615) 371-2900 or e-mail her at E-mail Mary.

Please Note: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not the intent of Mary Rau-Foster to render legal advice. If legal advice is required, you should seek the services of a competent lawyer.

Did you know that ...

1. The average pre-schooler laughs or smiles 400 times a day? Or that the number drops to only 15 times a day by the time people reach age 35?

2. People smile only 35 percent as much as they think they do?

3. Laughter releases endorphins, a chemical 10 times more powerful than the pain-relieving drug morphine, into the body with the same exhilarating effect as doing strenuous exercise?

4. Every time you have a good hearty laugh,you burn up 3 1/2 calories?

5. Laughing increases oxygen intake, thereby replenishing and invigorating cells? It also increases the pain threshold, boosts immunity, and relieves stress.

Six Reasons that fun can improve work quality and mental health:
1. Fun breaks up boredom and fatigue

2. Fun fulfills human social needs

3. Fun increases creativity and willingness to help

4. Fun fulfills the need for mastery and control

5. Fun improves communication

6. Fun breaks up conflict and tension

Copied from: http://www.workplaceissues.com/arhumor.htm

What is Steve Jobs so afraid of?

2010-10-26T08:28:00.000+05:30

There's a saying that the more you have, the more you fear losing it.

Apple's CEO made a surprise appearance during yesterday's fiscal 2010 fourth quarter earnings call. Jobs said he couldn't resist participating, given Apple's record $20.34 billion revenue. But he leveled most of his comments at competitors, and in quite defensive posture. Now why is that? Apple's iPhone blew past Wall Street estimates by as many as 3 million units. The iPad outsold Macs and, according to Gartner and IDC analysts, sucked sales away from Windows netbooks and low-cost notebooks. Apple controls the largest and most successful applications store on the planet. The company sits on a cash horde of more than $51 billion. Then there are the quarterly results, which topped consensus estimates by nearly $2 billion.

Investors punished Apple for its gangbusters quarter. The stock opened at $303.49 today, after closing at $318 yesterday. I'm not surprised by investors' reactions, which some Wall Street pundits chock up to declining margins. I don't agree; Apple has warned about declining margins many times before. I blame the CEO. Jobs' defensive, competitor-attacking comments were unnerving. I felt uncomfortable listening to him rant in kind of a childish way. His comments felt oh-so out of place -- and out of control -- for a chief executive running a company on a roll. The cheap shots, given from such a position of competitive strength, were unbecoming.
Something else: Jobs' presence disrupted the earnings call's flow. Financial analysts seemed more unsure what to ask and to whom. Similarly, Apple's chief financial officer and chief operating officer didn't jump in with the kind of aggressive answers that are more typical of Apple earnings calls. If Wall Street has lingering concerns about Apple margins, perhaps it's because analysts couldn't ask the questions or didn't get the answers they needed. Jobs' presence -- and sometimes a bumbling one, at that -- proved to be negative.
From one perspective, Jobs laid out the competitive market as he sees it. He asserted that with 14.1 million iPhones shipped in fiscal 2010 Q4 that "Apple handily beat RIM's [Research in Motion] 12.1 million BlackBerries sold in their most recent quarter ending in August. We've now passed RIM, and I don't see them catching up with us in the foreseeable future." That may be true, but why does anyone need Jobs proactively asserting this? Surely Wall Street analysts would issue reports with these figures and the news media and Apple fan blogs would report about them. There was a defensiveness to Jobs tone that left me asking: What is he so afraid of when Apple is doing so well?

Gagging on Google

Jobs moved on to Google and recent statements by Eric Schmidt, its CEO and former Apple board member, about there being 200,000 Android activations per day and 90,000 apps in the Android Marketplace. "Apple has activated about 275,000 iOS devices per day on average for the past 30 days" with the number topping 300,000 some days, Jobs asserted. It's an apple and oranges comparison. Apple isn't just activating iPhones but iPads and iPod touches, too. Nearly all Androids are phones; for now. It's a me-too claim that demonstrates Jobs' fear Android may do to iPhone what Windows did to the Mac during the 1980s and 1990s.

Apparently recent analyst reports and forecasts about Android outselling iPhone bug Jobs, whose reaction seemingly is one of simple denial. "Unfortunately there is no solid data on how many Android phones are shipped each quarter," he asserted. "We hope that manufacturers will soon start reporting the number of Android handsets that they ship each quarter. But today that just isn't the case. Gartner reported that around 10 million Android phones were shipped in the June quarter, and we await to see if iPhone or Android was the winner in this most recent quarter."
To clarify, when Apple asserts X number of items sold, it really means shipped, because there usually is Y number of units in inventory somewhere. Gartner doesn't measure number of handsets shipped but the number sold. This accounting explains why Gartner's numbers for iPhone are usually lower than Apple's. Jobs' statement ignores recent reports from IDC and other analyst firms clearly showing Android matching or exceeding iPhone shipments. That Jobs doesn't like the numbers doesn't mean manufacturers aren't reporting Android shipments or that analysts are miscounting them.

"Android is very fragmented," Jobs harped. He observed that HTC and Motorola skin Android with proprietary user interfaces "to differentiate themselves from the commodity Android experience. The users are left to figure this all out. Compare this to iPhone, where every handset works the same." He went on to assert that TweetDeck "had to contend with more than a hundred different versions of Android software on 244 different handsets." Jobs asserted that fragmentation and the number of hardware iterations present application developers with a "daunting challenge." Now "compare this to iPhone where there are two versions of the software -- the current and the most recent predecessor."

The tech news media and bloggers have written widely about Android fragmentation -- and HTC or Motorola skins, which appeal to many mobile customers. Jobs' unnecessary assertion seemingly reflects his frustration and fear Android will win the smartphone wars. He also asserted that Apple's mobile app store has 300,000 applications and 200,000 registered developers, which again raises the question: What is Jobs so afraid of? He's arguing competitors' weaknesses from a superior strategic position. Apple is renown for successfully selling aspiration; Jobs' defensive posture undermines confidence in him and in the company he cofounded.
Jobs made many good points, about the benefits of integrated over fragmented, not forcing customers to be system integrators and that Android isn't as open as Google asserts. "We are confident that [integrated] will triumph over Google's fragmented approach, no matter how many times Google tries to characterize it as open," Jobs asserted.

An Allusion worthy of "Saw"

Keeping up the defensive posture, "I'd like to comment on the avalanche of tablets poised to enter the market in the coming months." He mused about a "handful of credible entrants" and "almost all of them use 7-inch screens as compared to iPad's near 10-inch screen." He went on to explain why smaller isn't better -- that the 7-inch "size isn't sufficient to create great tablet apps, in our opinion." I laughed. By that reasoning, iPhone's 3.5-inch display is too small to create compelling apps, too.

I laughed again, when Jobs asserted: "While one could increase the resolution of the display to make up for some of the difference, it is meaningless unless your tablet also includes sandpaper so that the user can sand down their fingers to around one-quarter of their present size." That allusion conjures up a bloody mess worthy of any "Saw" movie. My question for Steve Jobs: When will you start shipping sandpaper with iPhone and iPod touch?

Apple is shipping the industry-leading tablet, as measured by nearly 7.5 million units shipped during the first two quarters of availability. In a press release issued four days ago, Gartner classified iPad as a media tablet. The analyst firm projects 19.5 million media tablet sales this year. If iPad simply keeps the same sales pace during fourth quarter, the tablet would account for about 65 percent of that 19.5 million units. So why is Jobs so defensive, when iPad is doing so well? What is he afraid of?

Jobs droned on more about tablets and during the Q&A section bumbled through several pointed questions from financial analysts. Nearly every Jobs' statement effused defensiveness. I expected more confidence from the legendary Steve Jobs. Judging by today's nip at Apple shares, I'm not the only one.

Copied from: http://www.wisdeo.com/articles/view_post/11317

Luxury Brands Still Tread Lightly With Social Media

2010-10-26T08:24:00.000+05:30

They say the Web dilutes exclusivity, but Burberry, Oscar de la Renta and others are starting to embrace it.

For a sector as forward-thinking as the fashion industry, the reluctance with which it has ventured into e-commerce and other digital platforms--particularly social media--is more than a little perplexing.

The affinity for traditional commerce and marketing channels is strong among many purveyors of luxury goods, both in the fashion sector and elsewhere. In an international survey of 178 premium and luxury firms in 2008, Forrester Research ( FORR - news - people ) found that only one-third of them actively sold online, though 8 out of every 10 affluent consumers use the Internet to actively research and purchase luxury goods and services on a daily basis.

That number has risen significantly, but it is still strikingly low. Federico Marchetti, founder and chief executive of Italian retailer Yoox, estimates that half of luxury brands now sell directly online, though several others suggest that the percentage is higher, due largely to recession pressures.

Yet many brands, particularly European manufacturers of high-end wristwatches and other luxury goods, refuse to set up shop online.

From Store to Web: The Challenges of E-Commerce
"We have an exclusive network of over 400 retailers but that cannot work online," Jean-Claude Biver, chief executive of Hublot, said at Reuters Global Luxury Summit last summer. "When you are online, you are not exclusive anymore."

Other firms say that e-commerce is not an option because the shopping experience their brands provide cannot be successfully translated for the Web.

Copied from: http://www.wisdeo.com/articles/view_post/11318

Study examines social media’s impact on student mental health, interpersonal activity

2010-10-26T08:20:00.000+05:30

In today’s fast-paced society, social networking has evolved beyond cell phone calls and text messaging and proliferated onto the Internet. Most teens and college students now have at least one account on the sites Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Tumblr or other popular forms of social media, like Google Chrome and LinkedIn.
A newgoogle.com

A new mtvU study in collaboration with the Associated Press and the Jed Foundation reported that 90 percent of college students sampled said they visited at least one social networking website in the past week.

The results held that the new era of incessant communication can cause friction and mental uncertainty for students.

“For college students, constant digital communication carries an additional layer of complexity, often leading to misunderstandings, confusion and uncertainty,” the text of the study read.

The study goes so far as to suggest that the very nature of communication has shifted in the era of social networking, with a majority of students reporting that they had had a fight without physically speaking to another party.
“Nearly 70 percent [of surveyed students] have had an argument exclusively via text message,” the study states.

This study was released as part of the Half of Us Campaign by mtvU and the Jed Foundation to examine “how technology is impacting college students’ emotional health,” according to the campaign’s website. The Half of Us Campaign “is designed to improve emotional health and prevent suicide among college students,” it states.
The study also sought to examine how students use social media in the categories of seeking help/suicide, misunderstandings/conflicts, being connected vs. feelings of isolation, and stress and happiness. The study sheds light on how social media tools have become the most common form of communication among young people.
Beyond a shift in the parameters of possibility for how young people argue, the study found that students have changed how they empathize and console each other, as well. Nearly four in 10 students reported they had “ask[ed] for help with a serious personal issue or let a friend know they are upset via text message.”
The mtvU study certainly indicates that in-person interaction likely has the most positive effects on student well-being, in addition to highlighting how digital communication can be confounding based on its ambiguity.
“At least half of the time when college students read emails/text messages or posts on social networking sites, 48 percent report that they are unsure about whether the sender was serious or joking.”

The study also illustrates how social networking has changed how people keep tabs of one another, and some would likely argue for the worst. “Sixty-one percent of students say they have found themselves frequently tracking someone’s social networking site,” the study suggests.

With the capability to link together individuals from all over the world, social networking tools have, however, have helped 85 percent of students feel more connected to others, the study states. However, the results also show that one in seven say that, while they may be more connected to those around them, they are also further away. This seventh stated that “social networking sites increase feelings of isolation.”

The study also suggests that, with the constant presence of social media, young people are changing how they spend their time. A majority of students reported spending two to six hours online per day, and “one-third are online for more than six hours daily.”

To understand the prevalence of social networking usage at the University of Massachusetts, 20 undergraduate students were randomly selected and surveyed about their social networking usage. All but one of the students stated that they possessed at least one active social networking site account. Seventy-five percent, or 15 of the UMass students, answered that they checked their online social networking accounts daily, while 40 percent of those that admitted to using their networking accounts daily admitted to actually checking the account more than three times a day for updates and messages.

The number of “friends” the individuals surveyed had in their social network site ranged from 0-900. On average the students had about 343.05 friends on their friends list. Most individuals stated their reason for keeping a social networking account was “to keep in contact with people.” One student said, “I was forced to make one,” while another simply stated “pictures.” Long gone are the days where direct face-to-face communication is the main form of communicating with others. Social networking websites and tools are here to stay.

Copied from: http://dailycollegian.com/2010/10/25/study-examines-social-media%E2%80%99s-impact-on-student-mental-health-interpersonal-activity/?utm_campaign=Social+Media+-+Google+News&utm_medium=Twitter/eric_rojas&utm_source=SNSanalytics

Small Business Skeptical About Social Media

2010-10-26T08:16:00.000+05:30

Social media may be all the rage when it comes to marketing, but small businesses (SMBs) are unsure about the impact of social networking on reaching customers, according to a recent survey.

The survey revealed that while 36 percent of small businesses believe their customers spend time on social networking sites, another 47 percent aren’t so sure about the medium’s popularity.

More importantly, however, small business owners are also conflicted about the use of social media for business purposes.

While 35 percent believe social media is a quick way to connect with prospective customers only a quarter believe their customers actually want to hear from them on social networks. More than a third, in fact, believe their customers do not want to hear from them through social media

However, small businesses that are proactively using social networking to reach customers are finding a strong return. Of the small businesses that indicated they will be using social media as the main tactic to drive new customers to their business in the next 12 months, 70 percent said they do so because social media is the least expensive option.

"Small businesses often think managing social media is time and resource-intensive, but many SMBs have found tools to help them make the process more efficient and effective," said Neal Creighton, CEO and co-founder of Rate-point, which conducted the survey. "SMBs need to talk to customers via social media so they can find how to meet customer needs, build relationships and make sales."

Copied from: http://www.wisdeo.com/articles/view_post/11319

India Career Journal: 10 Signs It’s Time to Leave Your Job

2010-07-17T15:00:00.000+05:30

Associated Press

Too much time social networking?

Do you get into the office without a plan of action for the day? Are you not being rewarded for your efforts? Does your boss often pull you down and embarrass you in front of colleagues?
If any or all of these ring true, it might be time to shake things up.
Here are 10 signs that could indicate that it’s time for you to move on – either from your current job function or from your organization – to other adventures.
1. Social networking but not working
Are Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter taking up more of your working day than preparing that PowerPoint presentation? If your company doesn’t allow access to these sites, perhaps your energies are focused on finding proxy sites which allow you to access sites that have been blocked by your company.
Or, do you simply dread coming to office and wait for the day to end quickly?
If this happens some days a week, then maybe you simply need a holiday. “But if one spends more than a month populating Farmville on Facebook, then yes, it’s stagnation and you need to move on,” says Purvi Sheth, chief executive officer of Mumbai management consulting firm Shilpusti Consultants.
2. Been there, done that
If your job has become so routine or monotonous that you can do most of it without thinking much, what are you doing in it? Essentially, you are not learning much or growing in that role, so you won’t be able to stay motivated for long. “Careers are not ponds, they are streams; they have got to be going somewhere from somewhere,” says Dony Kuriakose, director of Delhi-based recruitment firm Edge Executive Search Pvt. Ltd. “If you’re not moving, you’re dead in the water.”
Remember that if you have become too complacent and start taking the company for granted, your employer will soon recognize that, putting your role in jeopardy.
3. Not challenged enough
This is related to the point above. But if you feel that your organization is not giving you the right exposure or a challenging enough position, you could end up becoming very frustrated. “Take the initiative of engaging with (your) employer and…ask for more responsibilities,” says Pankaj Arora, managing director of Protiviti Consulting Pvt. Ltd, a business consulting and audit firm. If that doesn’t work, look for challenges elsewhere within or outside your organization.
4. Unmet goals
You want to become a team leader or a business head but your employer is moving you around into different departments without really promoting you. “It is time for you to move on when you feel your career objectives are not being met or fulfilled by your employer,” says Ms. Sheth.
5. Too big for your shoes
You were good at your first job, so you were promoted to the next level and the next level and so on. But now you have reached a position which is too much for you to handle. This is popularly referred to as the Peter Principle which states that in a hierarchy, employees rise to a level of their incompetence.
Either you need to re-skill and reinvent yourself pretty quickly to survive in that role or you need to move into another position which is a better fit for you.
6. Closed to change
Today’s organizations are nimble on their feet and are often changing their processes or businesses to meet delivery and cost pressures. If you can’t handle that change because you are too set in your ways, you could end up getting left behind. Or, maybe you don’t agree with your organization’s changes at a philosophical or an ethical level. “There are certain reasons why you work at a place and there are certain things that enthuse you,” says Mr. Kuriakose. “If those core issues change and you suddenly find that you’re working for a place that you wouldn’t have joined” it might be time to rethink.
7. Politics over mechanics
Every organization has politics and it’s smart to keep on top of major changes as well as the movers and shakers of your organization. But if your professional relationships at work have become so entangled and complicated that they are keeping you from your work, that’s a problem. Don’t let politics become more important to you than the mechanics of your job.
8. You’ve been overlooked — again
Are your batch mates from school and college more successful than you are? Or is your company promoting people with less experience and fewer achievements above you? Figure out why that is happening. If they’re working harder and are smarter than you, then consider adding to whatever skills are keeping you from that next job. But if your company is overlooking you, then it might be time to go where you get more recognition.
9. Don’t want your boss’s job?
We typically envy our bosses not only for their higher salaries but also for the responsibility and authority they command. But if you don’t aspire to be in your boss’s position at some time in the future, then it’s time to look around and reconsider your career plans. You can’t stay in your current position forever. Not everyone has to be the top dog, but a career path that promises advancement and satisfaction is a good road to be on.
10. Evil thoughts about your boss?
Ok, so all of us have some evil thoughts about our bosses every now and then. That’s normal. If you hate him or her as a person, deal with it. But if your professional relationship is troubled, then you have a problem. “You have to work with all kinds of people,” says Mr. Kuriakose. However, a boss who is always pulling you down, and maybe embarrassing you in front of colleagues, could be harmful for your morale and progress. Time for some introspection and perhaps an exit strategy.

Dual-SIM Phones: Here to Stay?

2010-07-17T14:46:00.000+05:30

Not one or two but 15 dual-SIM card phones from a single handset manufacturer – wow. Is this a sign of things to come in the mobile handset sector? Well, there is a lot up for grabs, considering the scores of handset launches by various manufacturers – those, whose single selling point besides the cost factor, is the dual-SIM option.
So what makes these phones so popular, I asked the MD of a new mobile handset manufacturer. He said:

Unlike the city-breed, migrants who come to work in cities like to have two numbers, one permanent and another that they can keep changing according to mobile plans.

Before we look at the various brands that manufacture dual-SIM mobiles and what consumers think of the feature, let’s look at the dual-SIM concept itself-
Dual-SIM phones are ones which can hold two SIM cards. These phones are predominantly of two kinds, the first where you have the option of switching between the SIM cards, while the other SIM remains inactive. This is known as ‘standby dual-SIM’. The other type of dual-SIM phone is what’s called the ‘active dual-SIM phones’, where both SIMs can be used together.
The dual-SIM technology has seen a steady progress over the years, from the time when SIM cards had to be clipped to be fit into an adaptor to the newer versions where SIMs can be alternated by just a click.
Major mobile players like Nokia, LG and Samsung are already absorbed into the dual-SIM race with phones such as Nokia C-series, Samsung GT B5722 and LG-KS660, naming a few. But the manufacturers who have made significant gains through their dual-SIM handsets are ones like Micromax, Spice and Karbonn mobiles – with handsets such as Micromax Q7 & X235, Spice D-90, D-1100, & D-88 and Karbonn K770 being sold extensively.
And with many more having entered or planning to, only time will tell how the dual-SIM handset market will shape up. Other relatively new entrants into the sector include G-Fone, Airphone, Intex, Maxx, Olive, Onida, Orion, Oscar, Videocon, Lemon, Infibeam, Fujezone, Sky, Fly, Wespro, Wynn and Zen mobiles (bet you didn’t know all of these existed). For details like the pricing of some of these handsets, click here.
We also asked a few people for their thoughts on dual-SIM phones. A majority of them felt it helped in separating their work-life from their social one. Here are some different takes-

The advantage dual SIM mobiles have over others is one of the SIM cards can be changed regularly to avail better mobile plans, while the other remains a permanent number.-Abhishek

I am particular about my mobile network coverage. In a dual-SIM phone, if you have trouble with the connection of one network, you can easily switch over to the other.-Shilpa

With the Dual-SIM, phone manufacturers could lose out on the handset numbers, while SIM-card sales could see a multifold rise. Finally some good news for mobile service providers.-Nikhil

There’s also an interesting piece written in The Economist that talks about the rise of dual-SIMs in developing countries like India. Quoting some of it:

In practice you use one SIM most of the time, and occasionally swap in another one. This is also common practice among people who travel a lot, and among cost-conscious users, such as teenagers, in the developed world.

For people juggling multiple SIMs, a dual-SIM phone therefore has obvious appeal: it allows your phone to act, in effect, as two phones at once, sitting on two networks, and may even be able to switch between active calls on different networks.

Looking at the biggest picture however, there are some more pertinent thoughts, which can be answered only in course of time. A few:

When private players get operational with 3G, and will it have any impact on this segment of mobile users?
Will mobile operators tie-up with handset-makers, and develop the phone contract business?
How relevant is number portability in these times of Dual-SIM handsets?

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Facebook Tool To Generate Exposure – Facebook 101 Series

2010-07-16T18:11:00.001+05:30

What could be better than potential exposure to a massive audience of for FREE? Let me make sure you catch this…..”exposure to a massive audience for FREE”. What am I referring to is… Facebook. It currently has over 400 million active users worldwide. So whatever your industry and however big your business is, you are likely to find an enormous audience on Facebook. This social networking site allows businesses to create a fan page, free of charge. According to Facebook Press Room published statistics there are more than 20 million people that become fans of Pages each day. Facebook also just made it easier to become a fan of your page by simply clicking “Like” rather than clicking “Become a Fan”. They feel it will increase the number of connections to quicker. This is part of their plan announced this month to turn the web into one giant cocktail party by allowing users to share their interests across the web. Your Facebook business page is the face of your business on the social network. So now more than ever it is important that you take the time and effort to make it part of your social media marketing plan.

Getting Started

To start on your Facebook business page visit the network’s advertising page and go to “Create a Page”. If you have a personal Facebook profile the process is a little easier for you. To start with you will need company information you want to display on your business page, your business logo and pictures that you wish to upload. It is recommended that you use your business logo as your profile picture. This will help publicize it and also make it easily recognizable for existing and potential customers. Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans to date.

Creating the Business Page

Select a business category and enter your business information. Now you are all set to set up your Facebook business page. Your business profile page should resemble a personal profile page. The business page is essentially divided into three columns. The left column will feature your business logo, list of fans, business information and admin links. The central column is dedicated to your business information with a special emphasis on the latest on your business and updates on your Facebook business page. The column by default features the Wall and also has links that visitors can open. For instance while the business page would have brief business information, a more comprehensive feature can also be opened. This column will also have the tabs for the Facebook applications you subscribe to, such as RSS.

For those of you that have a marketing budget that you are willing to use, the column on the right is dedicated to Facebook paid advertising. Facebook allows you to set up targeted ads on your product, website, Fan Page, Event, or Application easily for a charge.

It is important that your Facebook business fan page is regularly updated and this is reflected on the profile pages on your fans automatically. So, even if a fan doesn’t visit your business page they are kept updated on the latest offers and news from your business. It is a good idea to offer valuable and interesting content and not send out business updates so often that is considered as spam.

Facebook Applications

Now that your business page is ready you need to explore the Facebook applications that will make it easier and fun to manage the page. You can also add discussion groups to encourage interaction between fans and to discuss business and industry related information. Use the reviews applications to get honest feedback from your customers and fans. This is a great way to understand how your business can be improved. You could also add a video application and a photo application that allows you to upload pictures and share them with your fans.

The Facebook Fan page gives you a great platform for your business. The customers have already stated they “Like” or have “Become a Fan” so they are truly engaged in your message. So do you still want to miss out on free Facebook exposure?

Copied from: http://socialsmarty.com/social-networking-101/facebook-tool-to-generate-exposure-facebook-101-series/

Top 25 MySpace Games for July 2010

2010-07-13T22:58:00.000+05:30

It’s time once again to look at the monthly numbers in the social gaming world. While Facebook still bucks due to the slew of changes that the social network always seem to make, how does the more stable MySpace network hold up? Overall, the numbers have been fairly regularly in their growth, but a handful of games grew by rather surprising amounts, while others, continued on their negative trends from last month.
Curiously, of the apps doing well on MySpace, it is the less game-like ones such as Tag Me that have been doing better. This is partly due to fewer games being released for the platform compared to Facebook. Moreover, when they are, they’re usually of the typical, and highly dated, role-playing genre, with minimal, if any, core game play changes. Players need something new now and again.
Nevertheless, with MySpace’s relatively new iPhone and Android SDKs, as well as a “massive overhaul” coming this fall, perhaps it will finally see new developers and more sophisticated games seed its space.
Here are the highlights for the Top 25 MySpace Games for July 2010:

Playdom‘s Mobsters sees a nice chunk of growth, gaining 58,836 new installations. It’s a monthly change that is almost 10,000 greater than the growth of last month.
Mafia Wars does not see as big a gain as its chief competitor, only earning around 21,000 new installs. It is still a gain, but last month the increase was around 33,000.
BitRhymes sees significant growth with its app, Tag Me. The long standing game tallies in at #5 with nearly 7.7 million users, gaining just south of 300,000 new installs this past month.
Zynga Poker also sees growth, though, again, less than the month prior. Coming in at #6 with just over 7 million users, it’s monthly gain is 52,480 compared to last month’s 65,372.
Other Zynga RPGs continue to drop with Street Racing (#11), Gang Wars (#20), Dragon Wars (#21), and Fashion Wars (#22) losing roughly 4,000, 13,000, 12,000, and 1,000 players respectively.
On a lighter note, Oxylabs does extremely well with What is your Street Reputation, moving up to #15 from #18 with a gain of over 460,000 new installations, ousting Playdom’s Overdrive.
Speed Racing from RockYou drops to #18, from #16, this month, but still gains about 15,000 new installations, with a total of almost 2.6 million users.
Rounding out the list is Green Spot from WonderHill and older title, Bloodlines from Playdom. The two games garner 1.75 and 1.72 million user installs respectively.

Infographic of the Day: The Rise of User-Generated Porn

2010-07-03T23:00:00.000+05:30

Together, the top five sites alone grab 20 million unique visitors a day. And then the visitors grab themselves.

A couple years back, maybe the hottest Internet startup category was user-generated porno sites--places such as as PornHub, which allow users to upload their porno stashes. How's that working out? Quite well, as this infographic by Woorkup shows:

The pluck and success of that Paris Hilton is truly inspiring, innit? Click here for more information. At the very least, the infographic is great at letting you know what sites are out there. And what you do with that information is your own business.

Copied from : http://www.fastcompany.com/1663910/infographic-of-the-day-the-rise-of-user-generated-porn

Facebook Open Graph Search Brings the Fight to Google

2010-07-03T22:58:00.000+05:30

Ever wondered the significance of the Like button? It's Facebook's portal that will take it into Google territory. The social media giant, half a billion users strong, has just announced the arrival of its Open Graph search feature, which will allow Web sites that use the platform to be added to Facebook search. In short, Facebook can start searching the Web at will, rather than merely its own site. Social semantic search, here we come.
The difference between Google and Facebook is that Facebook is making Web sites come to it, via its Open Graph platform, which it rolled out at f8 earlier this year. Softpedia explains Facebook's advantage over Google very well indeed this morning. "It doesn't need a massive and constantly updating infrastructure to index the Web, Web masters will do its work for it."
Whereas Google scours the web for keyword-based links (although its switch to a semantic version began in March 2009) Facebook is making publishers of online content use its own API to get the Facebook community to act as the site's very own Web content data source.
So how will this affect Google and, to a lesser extent, Yahoo and Bing? Probably not so much, although you might see Bing, with its superior travel search, suffering a little. The reason is this: Facebook's Open Graph Search will do wonders for the leisure industry (and Justin Beiber merchandise sites) because, if lots of people Like a hotel's website, then it'll go to the top of the Facebook search. What you won't see on the Big Blue 'Book will be the more mundane stuff, such as health clinics, and services such as mortuaries. This is where Google will clear up.
Another thing to remember is coverage. Google is universal. It really is. Although Mark Zuckerberg is expecting Facebook to hit a billion users sometime soon (China, Russia and Japan have yet to go gaga for his site) that's still only one-sixth of the world's population. (I say "only", but you get the gist of it.) And there's also a trust issue with Facebook. Its privacy furore has hit it hard, as a Zogby poll earlier this week put it way below Google on that front.
Finally, what about news on Facebook? Expect Google to remain the go-to search engine for that to, as how does one Like a story with elements of tragedy in it? Thousands of people killed in a man-made disaster won't work, but campaigns by aid organizations to help the rescue effort will work--don't forget Causes, Sean Parker's philanthropic effort for Facebook. If, as Nick O'Neill on the All Facebook blog puts it, Like baiting takes over from link baiting, we may be entering the Good News Only era.

Copied from:
http://www.fastcompany.com/1663832/facebook-open-graph-search-brings-the-fight-to-google

Exploring the software behind Facebook, the world’s largest site

2010-07-03T22:56:00.000+05:30

At the scale that Facebook operates, a lot of traditional approaches to serving web content break down or simply aren’t practical. The challenge for Facebook’s engineers has been to keep the site up and running smoothly in spite of handling close to half a billion active users. This article takes a look at some of the software and techniques they use to accomplish that.

Facebook’s scaling challenge

Before we get into the details, here are a few factoids to give you an idea of the scaling challenge that Facebook has to deal with:

Facebook serves 570 billion page views per month (according to Google Ad Planner).
There are more photos on Facebook than all other photo sites combined (including sites like Flickr).
More than 3 billion photos are uploaded every month.
Facebook’s systems serve 1.2 million photos per second. This doesn’t include the images served by Facebook’s CDN.
More than 25 billion pieces of content (status updates, comments, etc) are shared every month.
Facebook has more than 30,000 servers (and this number is from last year!)

Software that helps Facebook scale

In some ways Facebook is still a LAMP site (kind of), but it has had to change and extend its operation to incorporate a lot of other elements and services, and modify the approach to existing ones.
For example:

Facebook still uses PHP, but it has built a compiler for it so it can be turned into native code on its web servers, thus boosting performance.
Facebook uses Linux, but has optimized it for its own purposes (especially in terms of network throughput).
Facebook uses MySQL, but primarily as a key-value persistent storage, moving joins and logic onto the web servers since optimizations are easier to perform there (on the “other side” of the Memcached layer).

Then there are the custom-written systems, like Haystack, a highly scalable object store used to serve Facebook’s immense amount of photos, or Scribe, a logging system that can operate at the scale of Facebook (which is far from trivial).
But enough of that. Let’s present (some of) the software that Facebook uses to provide us all with the world’s largest social network site.

Memcached

Memcached is by now one of the most famous pieces of software on the internet. It’s a distributed memory caching system which Facebook (and a ton of other sites) use as a caching layer between the web servers and MySQL servers (since database access is relatively slow). Through the years, Facebook has made a ton of optimizations to Memcached and the surrounding software (like optimizing the network stack).
Facebook runs thousands of Memcached servers with tens of terabytes of cached data at any one point in time. It is likely the world’s largest Memcached installation.

HipHop for PHP

PHP, being a scripting language, is relatively slow when compared to code that runs natively on a server. HipHop converts PHP into C++ code which can then be compiled for better performance. This has allowed Facebook to get much more out of its web servers since Facebook relies heavily on PHP to serve content.
A small team of engineers (initially just three of them) at Facebook spent 18 months developing HipHop, and it is now live in production.

Haystack

Haystack is Facebook’s high-performance photo storage/retrieval system (strictly speaking, Haystack is an object store, so it doesn’t necessarily have to store photos). It has a ton of work to do; there are more than 20 billion uploaded photos on Facebook, and each one is saved in four different resolutions, resulting in more than 80 billion photos.
And it’s not just about being able to handle billions of photos, performance is critical. As we mentioned previously, Facebook serves around 1.2 million photos per second, a number which doesn’t include images served by Facebook’s CDN. That’s a staggering number.

BigPipe

BigPipe is a dynamic web page serving system that Facebook has developed. Facebook uses it to serve each web page in sections (called “pagelets”) for optimal performance.
For example, the chat window is retrieved separately, the news feed is retrieved separately, and so on. These pagelets can be retrieved in parallel, which is where the performance gain comes in, and it also gives users a site that works even if some part of it would be deactivated or broken.

Cassandra

Cassandra is a distributed storage system with no single point of failure. It’s one of the poster children for the NoSQL movement and has been made open source (it’s even become an Apache project). Facebook uses it for its Inbox search.
Other than Facebook, a number of other services use it, for example Digg. We’re even considering some uses for it here at Pingdom.

Scribe

Scribe is a flexible logging system that Facebook uses for a multitude of purposes internally. It’s been built to be able to handle logging at the scale of Facebook, and automatically handles new logging categories as they show up (Facebook has hundreds).

Hadoop and Hive

Hadoop is an open source map-reduce implementation that makes it possible to perform calculations on massive amounts of data. Facebook uses this for data analysis (and as we all know, Facebook has massive amounts of data). Hive originated from within Facebook, and makes it possible to use SQL queries against Hadoop, making it easier for non-programmers to use.
Both Hadoop and Hive are open source (Apache projects) and are used by a number of big services, for example Yahoo and Twitter.

Thrift

Facebook uses several different languages for its different services. PHP is used for the front-end, Erlang is used for Chat, Java and C++ are also used in several places (and perhaps other languages as well). Thrift is an internally developed cross-language framework that ties all of these different languages together, making it possible for them to talk to each other. This has made it much easier for Facebook to keep up its cross-language development.
Facebook has made Thrift open source and support for even more languages has been added.

Varnish

Varnish is an HTTP accelerator which can act as a load balancer and also cache content which can then be served lightning-fast.
Facebook uses Varnish to serve photos and profile pictures, handling billions of requests every day. Like almost everything Facebook uses, Varnish is open source.

Other things that help Facebook run smoothly

We have mentioned some of the software that makes up Facebook’s system(s) and helps the service scale properly. But handling such a large system is a complex task, so we thought we would list a few more things that Facebook does to keep its service running smoothly.

Gradual releases and dark launches

Facebook has a system they called Gatekeeper that lets them run different code for different sets of users (it basically introduces different conditions in the code base). This lets Facebook do gradual releases of new features, A/B testing, activate certain features only for Facebook employees, etc.
Gatekeeper also lets Facebook do something called “dark launches”, which is to activate elements of a certain feature behind the scenes before it goes live (without users noticing since there will be no corresponding UI elements). This acts as a real-world stress test and helps expose bottlenecks and other problem areas before a feature is officially launched. Dark launches are usually done two weeks before the actual launch.

Profiling of the live system

Facebook carefully monitors its systems (something we here at Pingdom of course approve of), and interestingly enough it also monitors the performance of every single PHP function in the live production environment. This profiling of the live PHP environment is done using an open source tool called XHProf.

Gradual feature disabling for added performance

If Facebook runs into performance issues, there are a large number of levers that let them gradually disable less important features to boost performance of Facebook’s core features.

The things we didn’t mention

We didn’t go much into the hardware side in this article, but of course that is also an important aspect when it comes to scalability. For example, like many other big sites, Facebook uses a CDN to help serve static content. And then of course there is the huge data center Facebook is building in Oregon to help it scale out with even more servers.
And aside from what we have already mentioned, there is of course a ton of other software involved. However, we hope we were able to highlight some of the more interesting choices Facebook has made.

Facebook’s love affair with open source

We can’t complete this article without mentioning how much Facebook likes open source. Or perhaps we should say, “loves”.
Not only is Facebook using (and contributing to) open source software such as Linux, Memcached, MySQL, Hadoop, and many others, it has also made much of its internally developed software available as open source.
Examples of open source projects that originated from inside Facebook include HipHop, Cassandra, Thrift and Scribe. Facebook has also open-sourced Tornado, a high-performance web server framework developed by the team behind FriendFeed (which Facebook bought in August 2009).
(A list of open source software that Facebook is involved with can be found on Facebook’s Open Source page.)

More scaling challenges to come

Facebook has been growing at an incredible pace. Its user base is increasing almost exponentially and is now close to half a billion active users, and who knows what it will be by the end of the year. The site seems to be growing with about 100 million users every six months or so.
Facebook even has a dedicated “growth team” that constantly tries to figure out how to make people use and interact with the site even more.
This rapid growth means that Facebook will keep running into various performance bottlenecks as it’s challenged by more and more page views, searches, uploaded images, status messages, and all the other ways that Facebook users interact with the site and each other.
But this is just a fact of life for a service like Facebook. Facebook’s engineers will keep iterating and coming up with new ways to scale (it’s not just about adding more servers). For example, Facebook’s photo storage system has already been completely rewritten several times as the site has grown.
So, we’ll see what the engineers at Facebook come up with next. We bet it’s something interesting. After all, they are scaling a mountain that most of us can only dream of; a site with more users than most countries. When you do that, you better get creative.
Data sources: Various presentations by Facebook engineers, as well as the always informative Facebook engineering blog.

Copied from : http://ht.ly/240wR

The Controversy Surrounding the Origins of the Taj Mahal

2010-07-03T22:52:00.000+05:30

The Taj Mahal, located near the Indian city of Agra, is one of the world's greatest architectural treasures. The almost supernatural beauty of the Taj Mahal and its grounds transcends culture and history, and speaks with a voice of its own to visitors from all over the world of feelings that are common to all humanity.

There are two stories of how the Taj came to be.

The Taj's Love Story

It has been called the most beautiful temple in the world, despite the fact that it was built at the cost of much human life. The Taj Mahal is a real monument of one man's love for a woman. The story is a sad one, told many times. But it never hurts to tell it again.

In 1631, when his wife died in childbirth, the emperor Shah Jahan brought to Agra the most skilled craftsmen from all Asia and even Europe, to build the white marble mausoleum that is the Taj Mahal. He intended to build a black marble mausoleum for himself, and the link between the two was to be a silver bridge. This fantastic plan suffered a dramatic and permanent setback when the Shah himself died.

Its stunning architectural beauty is beyond description, particularly at dawn and at sunset when it seems to glow in the light. On a foggy morning, it looks as though the Taj is suspended in mid-air when viewed from across the Jamuna river.

This is, of course, an illusion. The Taj stands on a raised square platform with its four corners truncated, forming an unequal octagon. The architectural design uses the interlocking arabesque concept, in which each element stands on its own and perfectly integrates with the main structure. It uses the principles of self-replicating geometry and a symmetry of architectural elements.

If you don't want the huge crowds to distract you from your view, try arriving just as it opens or is about to close. A few minutes alone in the perpetually echoing inner sanctum will reward you far more than several hours spent on a guided tour. Especially if your tour guide is Murbat Singh, who makes it his job to find a new comic slant on the Taj story every time he tells it.

To really do the Taj Mahal justice, you should plan to spend at least a full day in the grounds, to see this stunning piece of architecture at dawn, midday, and at dusk. The colours and atmosphere of the gardens and the Taj itself constantly change throughout the day. Under moonlight the marble glows.

The Taj's Other Story

If you have ever visited the Taj Mahal then your guide probably told you that it was designed by Ustad Isa of Iran, and built by the Moghul Emperor, Shah Jahan, in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal. Indian children are taught that it was built in 22 years (1631 to 1653) by 20,000 artisans brought to India from all over the world.

This story has been challenged by Professor P.N. Oak, author of Taj Mahal: The True Story, who believes that the whole world has been duped. He claims that the Taj Mahal is not Queen Mumtaz Mahal's tomb, but an ancient Hindu temple palace of Lord Shiva (then known as Tejo Mahalaya), worshipped by the Rajputs of Agra city.

In the course of his research, Oak discovered that the Shiva temple palace had been usurped by Shah Jahan from then Maharaja of Jaipur, Jai Singh. Shah Jahan then remodelled the palace into his wife's memorial. In his own court chronicle, Badshahnama, Shah Jahan admits that an exceptionally beautiful grand mansion in Agra was taken from Jai Singh for Mumtaz's burial. The ex-Maharaja of Jaipur is said to retain in his secret collection two orders from Shah Jahan for the surrender of the Taj building.

The use of captured temples and mansions as a burial place for dead courtiers and royalty was a common practice among Muslim rulers. For example, Hamayun, Akbar, Etmud-ud-Daula and Safdarjung are all buried in such mansions.

Oak's inquiries begin with the name Taj Mahal. He says this term does not occur in any Moghul court papers or chronicles, even after Shah Jahan's time. The term 'Mahal' has never been used for a building in any of the Muslim countries, from Afghanistan to Algeria.

'The usual explanation that the term Taj Mahal derives from Mumtaz Mahal is illogical in at least two respects. Firstly, her name was never Mumtaz Mahal but Mumtaz-ul-Zamani,' he writes. 'Secondly, one cannot omit the first three letters from a woman's name to derive the remainder as the name for the building.'

Taj Mahal is, he claims, a corrupt version of Tejo-mahalaya, or the Shiva's Palace. Oak also says that the love story of Mumtaz and Shah Jahan is a fairy tale created by court sycophants, blundering historians and sloppy archaeologists. Not a single royal chronicle of Shah Jahan's time corroborates the love story.

Furthermore, Oak cites several documents suggesting that the Taj Mahal predates Shah Jahan's era:

Professor Marvin Miller of New York took samples from the riverside doorway of the Taj. Carbon dating tests revealed that the door was 300 years older than Shah Jahan.

European traveller Johan Albert Mandelslo, who visited Agra in 1638 (only seven years after Mumtaz's death), describes the life of the city in his memoirs, but makes no reference to the Taj Mahal being built.

The writings of Peter Mundy, an English visitor to Agra within a year of Mumtaz's death, also suggest that the Taj was a noteworthy building long well before Shah Jahan's time.

Oak also points out a number of design and architectural inconsistencies that support the belief that the Taj Mahal is a typical Hindu temple rather than a mausoleum.

Many rooms in the Taj Mahal have remained sealed since Shah Jahan's time, and are still inaccessible to the public. Oak asserts they contain a headless statue of Shiva and other objects commonly used for worship rituals in Hindu temples.

Fearing political backlash, Indira Gandhi's government tried to have Oak's book withdrawn from the bookstores, and threatened the Indian publisher of the first edition with dire consequences.

The only way to really validate or discredit Oak's research is to open the sealed rooms of the Taj Mahal, and allow international experts to investigate.

Copied from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A5220