Vitamin - T

A Game of Concentration.... A Bird's Eye....

2014-04-07T17:53:00.003+05:30

A Bird's eye is the Game of Concentration..

The App world for PCs and Laptops

2013-09-30T15:27:00.000+05:30

As you all know this is the smart phone and app era i.e. the devices are are becoming smaller and for every thing you can have an app. Earlier the term used was the software but now with the modernization of technologies, the Laptops and PCs have been converted to Tablets and Smart Phones and so does the word software has modified itself to app.

You often use Tablets and Smart Phones and if you need any kind of software you go to the App Store to find the App. This is the app generation and in the coming times the software will be totally overcome by the word App. But when we install something in our computers we do not call the Apps, still we call the same word i.e. software. What if you got the same type of environment for your desktops and laptops? I cant say about the older age groups but for sure the younger generation will like that.

Chrome has introduced a "Chrome App Launcher" whose environment is similar to the one which we often use in mobiles and tablets. The Google is providing you "Platform as a Service (PaaS)" in the form of Chrome, in which they are now integrating every possible thing that a person could need online at one place. The Google persons know that people are fond of Apps so they introduced the App Store for Chrome. You can easily install any app by just clicking on the icon. You need not to arrange the setup and make it safe with you for future use. This is because Google has got the hold of Apps over the Mobile segment and this is one way to get the hold of Desktop users who like to use the Apps.

So do try the Chrome App Launcher.

Treasure Web Content you like at one place - "The Evernote"

2013-09-23T10:55:00.001+05:30

We all are web visitors and tends to visit the informative web pages very often and obviously when we visit the informative web pages we always in the greed of copying the nice content for our future use or for the educational purpose. Each one of us saves the content from the web pages according to our priorities. This was the old methodology to save the content from the web.

Suppose you have saved some content into your computer and you are somewhere outside where you need to have a reference of that but unfortunately you do not have internet and your computer then what will you do? You are lost!!!!

For these kinds of problems, an innovative mind has created "evernote". It is a software for the windows and Mac and application for android, ios and window phones. Mean to simply say that it is a platform independent application that you can use any where and any time.

This is an application which works offline as well as online in which you can save your important text notes, web content, photos, audio note, video note, pdfs and any other sort of documents. When you input the data into evernote it saves the data on the local system and when you connect it to the internet your data gets sync with your online account. For this you need to have an evernote id that is free of cost but for just 60 Mb of data. If you need more data you have to pay but that is also very nominal. Once you have synced your account your data is available on all the devices to which you have installed evernote. In addition to that evernote also provides browsers plugin by the name web clipper which can clip the content of the web you want and you need not to copy and paste the data it automatically clips and save the data, you just have to select the data. In this way you can efficiently manage the web content that you need.

Evernote also gives you a unique email id with every account so that you can mail the content to any one from within the evernote. You can also share the content privately with in the evernote with other members registered on the evernote.

Climb the Cloud

2013-09-20T15:29:00.000+05:30

These days you all must be listening/reading about the Cloud Storage here and there but do you often use cloud computing? I don't think so!!!! Cloud is given the name for this type of computing because clouds are every where, where ever you go in any part of the world. So this is a technology that enables you to store and compute the data on the cloud, it means you can store, retrieve and compute the data any where.

This technology is based upon the internet because it is available in almost in every part of the world and so does clouds. You can use the internet to store the data online on cloud storage and can use the data any where you need. In this case you need not to save your data on multiple locations, carry pen drives, use external hard drives and the most important benefit of this is that your data gets protected from hard drive and window crashes which is very much common. Moreover, the replication of data also get reduced and you need not to buy many storage medias and keep safe with you. You just need to have a password and that to in your mind.

Many cloud storage services provides you free of cost data storage but a few Gigabytes only. Its simple phenomenon, the more data you need to store the more you pay but still it is one of the cheap and safe mechanism to store the data. The most popular Google what we think is just a search engine give a 15 GB drive with every email id and in spite of that, it gives you computing facility also so that you need not to install basic software on your system. You can create and edit your presentations on the way to a trip with just a smart phone or with a tablet and you need not to have MS Office installed in the device. You can read more about functionality of Google drive here.

So guys forget the pen drives and external storage devices and switch on to cloud for better way of storage and safety of data.

Think Different.....

2013-09-18T14:42:00.001+05:30

This is the story of a boy named Nishant who has made his own prototype called "Automatic Electric Shock Tripper" and won the first prize for that in "Innovation Jockeys - Season 2" conducted recently in Bangalore by Accenture and sponsored by Yahoo. There were more than 5000 participants from different engineering colleges among which the 17 year boy from Sona College of Technology bagged the battle and now he is going to spend one week in U.S at the research center of Accenture.

Now let us have a look at the innovation of Nishant - "Automatic Electric Shock Tripper". He has made a prototype to make people safe whenever there is a breakage in main electric supply lines or there is leakage of electricity.

In this prototype the transformer will turn off the connection to the wire that got cut much before it falls or when there was heavy electricity leakage.

There is an automated system call functionality that will shoot up a voice message to the line officials and do tell them the nature of the problem. The tripper will cost somewhere around Rs. 10,000 which is very much economical.

This is brief about the innovation of the creative mind Nishant. Insipte of that i also want you to know something more about him as he has made more than 30 product by using electrical and information technology and has seven patents to his name and the 8th one is on its way.

Give a Test Drive to Google Drive

2013-04-19T14:26:00.002+05:30

Google drive is a platform for online creation, storage and sharing of files very easily. This is a wonderful development by Google and is very useful as well. It allows you to take full advantage of the gadgets you have as it is available for all platforms. You can use it online or you can download to your system or smart phone or tablet and sync with each other through your Gmail account. Many benefits of using Google Drive are as follows:

You can create your documents, reports and presentations any where with the help of just internet. You need not to install any kind of special software for that. Your Gmail account will become your operating system and Google drive will become your computer in which already everything is installed and space storage of 5 GB is provided and that too absolutely free.
If you want to send a large file to your frend you can easily send via Google Drive. Just upload your file to your Google Drive and share it with your friend. It is quite simple and useful.
The most important advantage of this is that you can use it from anywhere and from any device.
You can keep your important documents and files into drive that you may need any time as it is more secure and safe than the pen drives or portable hard disks.
There are around 144 applications that you can install or link with your Google drive. Some of the common applications are: PIXLR EDITOR(Just like photoshop to edit photographs), OFFICE (like word, excel, powerpoint), AUTOCAD, Graphing Calculator, Drive Tunes, PDF Mergy, Google Drawing (like paint), Drive Notepad and many more.

You can well imagine that if you will get all these things in your Gmail account only, and moreover you can access it any where and on any device, then why will you install all those things in your computer. What you need is just sign in into your Google Drive and get ready for the ultimate riding experience.

Smartly backing up and securing your contacts with Smart Phones

2013-04-07T15:11:00.000+05:30

We all generally face problems when we lost the phone and we do not have the backup of the contacts. But with the wave of smart phones this problem is quite solved. The simple solution is that you need not to save any contacts in the phone or sim. You might be thinking that why so? This is because when ever you lost the phone the contacts are saved in either of the two memories i.e. phone or sim. But if you do not save anything to either of the memories then the threat of misuse of contacts is quite less. The simple way to back up and secure your data is keeping the contacts on the cloud. The best is to save the contacts to your Google account and sync your smart phone with your account and all the contacts will be visible from your Google account. The simple steps to backing up all the contacts to your Google account are as follows:

1. Firstly export all the current contacts in your smart phone to a single .vcf file. This is not difficult at all. All the smart phones have this facility to export all the contacts into a single file. Go to contacts in your smart phone, chose the option export all contacts to SD card. It will automatically create the single .vcf file containing all your contacts.

2. Go to your Gmail account from your smart phone or transfer the .vcf file to your computer and then login to your Gmail account.

3. On the left corner where Gmail is written, click on the small arrow to see the contacts section.

4. Click on the contacts to move to the contacts section and click on more button to expand the menu.

5. Click on import and give the path of the .vcf that you have exported. This will import all you contacts to your Gmail account.

6. The next step is to sync your Gmail account to your phone and the contacts in your phone are ready form the Gmail. Whenever you add a new contact, add it to your gmail account when phone asks you where you want to save.

Another benefit of this is that, you can sync your gmail account on your multiple devices and your contacts will be there at multiple devices without having the trouble to import and export your contacts. Whenever you lost the phone just change the password of your Gmail account, so that the contacts in your lost phone got unsync and your contacts remain safe and backed up.

Creating Animations using CSS3

2013-04-05T12:25:00.000+05:30

This is the era of Internet and Technologies where every day you could find a new development. CSS3 is a mind blowing development in the field of web designing. This is not only a technology but a platform from where any designer, weather fresher or experienced could touch the sky. Its so simple and results are so impressing that you could even forget flash. The design era in the web designing sector was firstly captured by flash and it remain there for a decade, but now JQUERY, HTML5 and CSS3 have changed the scenarios. They are so light in size that they could easily load in the web browser and the results are awesome. Here, I am discussing a small example as how to easily create animations using CSS3.

#anim
{
width:100px;
height:100px;
background:red;
position:relative;
animation-name:myfirst;
animation-duration:5s;
animation-timing-function:linear;
animation-delay:2s;
animation-iteration-count:infinite;
animation-direction:alternate;
animation-play-state:running;
}

I have created an id with the name anim. The basic CSS you can understand if you are a web designer or a fresher even in the IT sector. I will describe the CSS3 properties. animation-name is the name that is given to the animation. You will come to know, further in the tutorial how it will work. animation-duration specifies the seconds for which your animation will play. animation-timing-function tells the behavior of the animation, it could be liner, ease, ease-in, ease-out. animation-delay specifies the time in seconds between consecutive iterations of the animation. animation-iteration-count specifies the no of times animation will play. IF you want it to play all the time then specify it infinite. animation-direction tells the direction in which animation should play. It can be normal or alternate. animation-play-state specifies the state of the animation when the page gets loaded. This is the description of the CSS3 for the id anim. Moving on further, I want to explain the @keyframes CSS at rules. These are certain set of rules that can be used to develop the animations.

@keyframes myfirst
{
0%   {background:red; left:0px; top:0px;}
25%  {background:yellow; left:200px; top:0px;}
50%  {background:blue; left:200px; top:200px;}
75%  {background:green; left:0px; top:200px;}
100% {background:red; left:0px; top:0px;}
}

Here @keyframes is the syntax and myfirst is the name of the animation that we have specified in the CSS property. Coming to the description of the rules. The @keyframes rule set provides you the facility to give different animations at different time intervals of the animation. In this example I have divided the animation into four sections. At 0% i.e. when the animation starts the css given will be applied till 25% of the animation is complete and the css given at 25% will be applicable till 50% and so on. When you apply this in your code you will find something like below.

Beware of Phishing

2013-04-02T15:59:00.001+05:30

Phishing is the art of fetching the personal and secret information like user name, password, bank details, credit card details, cell numbers etc. Since many persons hesitate to reveal the personal information on the websites because of identity theft, the phishers have found an advantage out of that. They deliver the mail to you which seems like it is sent personally and is so convincing that it attracts and forces the user to give the personal information. Instead, persons should understand that giving the information on trusted sites is purely secure rather than giving the information by mail to any one.

Certain ways how phishers attack, what mistakes are commonly observed and how you can protect yourself are as follows:-

Fake and spoofed emails and messages on cell phones: The main way by which phishers attach is emails and messages. Whenever you receive an email or message with a threat or congratulations like

Send the form immediately or your bank account will be terminated
Congratulations you have won $1000, please fill your details and send as soon as possible
You have been selected in MNC, register yourself for the interview
Your credit card is at the last stage of renewal. Renew immediately

All these types of messages are fake and they are intended to get your personal information. So when ever you receive such a mail. Do not panic or get excited, rather stay calm and recheck the things.

Copy of Popular Websites: This is also very common technique to get the information via fake means. The designers make the copy of certain popular websites and misusing the faith developed by those websites to fetch the information. They just make small changes in the URL of the website like they change www.facebook.com to www.faecbook.com but the design on the page and the website is the same. Even many persons make clone of the bank's website. So when ever you fill your personal data on any website do check the URL twice.

Portable Electronic Gadgets - A need or social symbol?

2013-04-02T08:16:00.000+05:30

These days most of the persons do not judge you by what you wear, how you talk, how you behave, in-spite of that they judge you by what electronic gadget(s) you carry along with you like smart phones, tablets, smart watches etc. This scenario is not applicable only to the youth but to every age group. In any party, the status of persons is with smart phones or tablets. If you have something to show like this then you have a status else you do not.

This is not the fault of the people rather it is the impact of the developing technology. The technology has developed to such an extend that every person is in the net of that technology. Every one needs to have access to the technology in order to get updated. In one or another sense, we can say that portable electronic devices are much of a need these days. These electronic devices provide a means of ease in every sphere of life, like instant mail access, instant media sharing via messengers like whats app, any time any where business conferences using apps like Skype, any time any where television using apps like nexGenTv, weather access via AccuWeather, you can create and give presentations any time any where, get up-to date on social front etc. etc., it is endless.

There are so many advantages of the smart phones and tablets but still for many persons it is just a status symbol. There is no doubt that what a high end phone can provide you features, a basic smart phone cannot provide, but still they could provide all basic needs that a smart phone needs to deliver. We should not use them as a status symbol rather than they are for making our life simpler and faster on technological front.

What type of images should Designers/Developers use on web pages

2013-03-31T20:13:00.001+05:30

Web developers/designers have different types of image formats that they can use on the web, but many times they got confused as which type of images to be used. In general there are three types of images that are best suited for the web pages:-

JPEG
GIF
PNG

All three of them have their own characteristics and they are as follows:

1. JPEG:

It supports 17 million colors
It uses lossy compression technique
Size should be reduced without much impact on the quality of picture

2. GIF

Supports 256 colors only
Uses loss less compression technique
Supports animation
Low quality

3. PNG

Easily load over the web
Provides transparency
Provides 8-bit and 24-bit channel which could reduce the size
Uses loss less compression technique
Good quality

It depends upon the developer/designer as to decide which of the type to use. This article will help them to decide when and where to use which type of images. Based on the below table, it becomes easier for the developer to decide when to use which type of images.

Type	JPEG	GIF	PNG
Logo
Photographic
Descriptive
Textual
Transparency
Animation
Colorful
Sharpness
Compression

Moving over from core coding to Content Management Systems

2013-03-25T23:43:00.001+05:30

These days core coding ways of developing web sites is getting out of trend and the main reason for that is more use of Content Management Systems.For the new comers it is highly advisable to learn all the basics of core coding. Develop few sample websites so that they could understand the basics as how web pages becomes a website. After getting hands on to the core one should immediately move on to content management systems. The reason for moving from core to content management systems are:

1. There are certain web development standards, which are not so easy for the freshers and also not so easy for the experienced persons. They should learn those standards from CMSs as those standards are already implemented in all CMSs.

2. This is the era of smart word along with hard work. Do hard work on learning the coding skills and do smart work by implementing those coding skills via CMSs.

3. CMSs are easy to implement, as they have their own standards. If we go by the options and features they provide us, we can develop very efficient websites with in very less time.

4. Most of the CMSs are free and their tutorials and manuals are easily available.

5. If you have learned coding thoroughly and you are working on a CMS, then you can excel very well because if you want to develop some advance website features then you have to create certain plugins or modules that are not available in that CMS. If you create a plugin, and you think that could be useful to others as well then you can get that plugin patent and fix a price for that. If it will be really good you could earn a lot from it.

6. These days screen sizes are much variable, which creates problems for the designers but many of the CMSs provides templates that are much responsive, means that got fit to any screen size weather tablet or smart phone. One should just not implement it but simultaneously learn as how to do.

How to easily generate CSS3 for your website

2013-03-23T13:12:00.004+05:30

All the fresher web developers these days should focus on new techniques for styling and creation of web pages. CSS3 is very good and provides so many design features from earlier CSS, but the thing is that how new comers learn about these styles. They know, there is CSS3 but they do not know as how to use it. Here I am explaining a very simple way to generate and apply CSS3 code for their websites. One should not make a habit of this, but it is very good for learning as well as for quick design development.

There is a website, www.css3generator.com that provides a feature to generate CSS3 code, that code could be understood and can be copied and applied to your website very easily. Let us take an example step by step:-

1. Go to www.css3generator.com

2. From the drop down chose the type of CSS style you want to give. In this example we will use text shadow.

3. Give the parameters as you want and you can see the changes in the preview area. In this example we have given 4px horizontal length for the shadow, 3 px vertical length for the shadow, blur radius is 2px and shadow color is e6092e. You do not have to specify the shadow color, when you click on the text box of shadow color, color picker will appear and you can easily pick the color and its code will be displayed in the box. You can easily see the text shadow in the preview area.

4. In the box next to the browser icons is the code of the CSS3.

5. Click on the notepad icon on this portion of the webpage. The CSS3 code will be copied to your clipboard.

6. Now go to your web page code in which you want to apply this CSS. You can make a class or ID for this.

If you want to make a class they you have to write code as

.class_name{

text-shadow: 4px 3px 2px #e6092e; filter: dropshadow(color=#e6092e, offx=4, offy=3);

}

and if you want to use it against an ID then you have to write code as

#id_name{

text-shadow: 4px 3px 2px #e6092e; filter: dropshadow(color=#e6092e, offx=4, offy=3);

}

class_name and id_name could vary according to your naming methodology.

7. Then give the reference of this CSS in your text element. For suppose you have a text element as:

<h2>Hello, This is CSS3 Generator</h2>

Hello, This is CSS3 Generator

and it will be displayed as above. If you want to give that styling that we have generated then you can give

<h2 class="class_name">Hello, This is CSS3 Generator</h2>

if you are implementing as a class

<h2 id="id_name">Hello, This is CSS3 Generator</h2>

if you are implementing as a ID.

When you implement this you will get the result as below:

Hello, This is CSS3 Generator

Make your Website Device Friendly using RWD (Responsive Web Design)

2012-07-03T12:01:00.000+05:30

After reading the title for this post you must be thinking of what is RWD i.e. Responsive Web Design. It is not a technology but just a thought given by Ethan Marcotte, in his book “A Book A Part”. The idea is that our website should response to the device on which it is to be shown by adapting the resolution, layout and design of that particular device so that our website fits on that particular device.

Now the coming era is of smart phones and hand held devices like tablets, iPad etc. and the main question to keep in mind is that are our web designs ready to be viewed on different types of screen resolutions? The usability of web browsers has changed from desktop based browser to mobile based browser and so does the change in expectation of the users. Now they want to use the websites in the same manner as they are using on their desktops and laptops. It is easy for them to expect but it is not as easy for the designer or the developer to develop. But after the invent of RWD it became easier for the designer to code the things for the unknown device. In the next few posts I am going to explain the complete fundamental of Responsive web design in a simpler manner.

ENTERPRISE 2.0 – SOCIALIZING YOUR BUSINESS

2012-06-30T12:31:00.003+05:30

Enterprise 2.0 helps the organizations by involving the employees, customers, suppliers to share, collaborate and organize information for the benefit of the organization using web 2.0 technologies. Harvard Business School professor describes Enterprise 2.0 as “the use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers”. Some people think that it is bringing something of the kind Facebook into the internal atmosphere of the organization but it is much more than sharing comments and photographs. Social business platforms are now providing features like link to emails, IM tools, keywords and hashtags to find people, discussion forums, corporate blogging and many other features so as to dig out the employee’s brain.

CMSWire, de Gier in an interview quoted the term “creating this type of corporate social business connectivity solutions will help in expanding corporate brains”.

CEMEX’s Social Business Platform: Shift

CEMEX, a $13.5 billion company, world’s largest building material supplier and the third largest cement producer has taken an initiative in 2009 to blend social networking concepts and the idea of Enterprise 2.0 and develop an internal social network for the employees which became fruitful in 2010 and its results were beyond the imagination. The Shift is being used by more than 95% of the company’s employees. The results were so paying off that they cannot imagine. More than 500 communities were made by the employees and where they come together and collaborate on certain specific task related to a particular subject of the task and the CEMEX has admitted that the working culture and productivity has increased after doing so.

Richard Foo, the Collaboration Director of Nike Inc., has admitted that in just 60 days he has experienced a drastic change in the live production by adopting the social business platform from CISCO based social business network that creates enterprise-wide discussion and information threads. Nike is also trying to make it a Mobile Enterprise Business Solution that is integrating the social business platform onto mobiles and many vendors in the market are trying to provide certain trying to provide certain functionality.

If the organizations truly wants to maximize their benefits then they have to adopt social business platforms and not just that they have to make them mobile friendly as much as possible because this is the era of smart phones and internet.

E-MONEY AND SECURITY

2012-06-28T08:21:00.002+05:30

With the advancement in technology and the increasing internet culture has made online shopping an attractive option for many internet users. But the fear of being cheated and fraud is on their minds, are the online transactions safe, will the product delivered will be the same they have seen, and many other questions.

The answer to all these questions is yes. If the site is genuine and the payment gateway tied up with that site is genuine then definitely your transactions are safe. All the transactions are safe because of encryption i.e. your username, password, merchant details, payment to be provided, pin numbers etc. all are in the highly encrypted manner and no intruder can have access to that information.

MasterCard has started MasterCard Online Authentication Service (OAS) that meets the needs of all e-commerce participants by offering flexible and robust solutions for online payment authentication. MasterCard provides high level of authentication to the user. There are choices of different types of authentication at different levels of security like:

Static password: In this most basic approach the cardholder is typically allowed to create his/her own personal password on the hosted, issuer-branded web site, after answering several enrollment questions. Cardholders may also “Activate-during-shopping” at participating merchants.

Dynamic password Via SMS Text message: Cardholder portfolios with high levels of mobile phone penetration are also candidates for this solution which delivers a dynamic password to the purchasing cardholder on a just-in-time basis. The MasterCard service can generate the one-time-password and route the SMS text message to the cardholder on behalf of the issuer, or send the message to the bank to handle with their SMS carrier.

Chip Authentication program (CAP) & AA4C

HOW IT WORKS

1. A cardholder submits an order at a participating online merchant.

2. The merchant sends a request to the MasterCard directory server to determine if the cardholder participates in the SecureCode program. The MasterCard directory subsequently forwards this request to the Hosted Service Access Control Server (ACS) to determine cardholder status. The enrollment response is returned to the merchant.

3. If the cardholder is participating in SecureCode, the merchant sends a request to the Hosted Service ACS to perform the actual cardholder authentication. Upon receipt of this request, the ACS will populate an issuer-branded authentication page, which is displayed to the cardholder within the merchant window. This page prompts the cardholder to submit their private SecureCode, which is then validated by the ACS.

4. The Hosted Service ACS sends a digitally signed response which contains the Accountholder Authentication Value (AAV)—back to the merchant indicating a successful cardholder verification session.

5. The merchant sends an authorization request that includes an AAV to the acquirer.

6. The acquirer sends the authorization request through the MasterCard authorization network. This authorization request will contain distinctive information about the SecureCode status of the transaction. A fully authenticated transaction will contain an AAV in the Universal Cardholder Authentication Field (UCAFTM).

7. The authorization request is sent by the MasterCard authorization network to the issuer for processing.

8. The authorization response is returned to the merchant and the purchase process is complete.

INDIA AND E-MONEY / E-COMMERCE

2012-06-25T12:09:00.002+05:30

India after being a huge success in social market is all set for the next big revolution that is e-commerce. Indians are always positive when it comes to job perspective and personal financial matters. Moreover exposure and awareness to brand culture, wider market options, changing lifestyles, western influence and many other things are influencing Indians to adopt the e-commerce culture. Recent trends and figures shows the upcoming revolution which has already started, in Australia online purchasing has reached to $10 billion with a 9% growth in online spending. Now is the turn of India to get the colors of e-commerce.

Certain facts that shows the market is booming in India:

· More that 6 out of ten Indian online consumers plan to do shopping.

· 10% of the users commit that they spend more than 11% of their monthly expenditure on online shopping.

· 71% of Indians got trust from their families while making an online purchase.

· About 55% of the users take help of social sites to make a decision in order to buy something online.

· More than 10% of the Indian users post negative comments or posts if they got a bad experience from certain product.

· In the last six months Indians have purchased books (41%), Airline, Train tickets, Movie Tickets (40%), Electronic Equipments like TV, Camera etc.

Based upon these facts certain prediction can be made for the next six months w.r.t Indian market:

Products and Services People intend to purchase in next 6 months
Books	47%
Music	20%
Videos/ DVDs/Games (not downloaded)	21%
Clothing/Accessories/Shoes	30%
Cosmetics /nutrition supplies	13%
Electronic equipment (TV/Camera etc.)	37%
Computer Hardware / Accessories	25%
Computer Software (not downloaded)	20%
Airline ticket/ reservations	45%
Tours /Hotel Reservations	30%
Sporting Goods	12%
Groceries	21%

% of spending on online shopping of their total monthly expenditure
% of people	% spend
40	<5
33	6-10
19	11-25
6	26-50
2	51-75%
0	>75%

Age group wise comparison of spending money online
Age Group	% spend
15-20	6%
21-29	48%
31-39	28%
40-49	11%
>50	7%

Enterprise 2.0 – A new way Organizations going to work

2012-06-15T08:37:00.000+05:30

As the new technologies are being evolved big organizations is also participating in changing their work culture form a cabin style working culture to collaborative style working culture. Organizations want their employees to be more social on professional as well as personal fronts but within the boundary walls of the company. They want employees sitting in various places to discuss on the same project via some collaborative or social business application of the company so that more and more ideas evolve and the organization to have the best of the results.

The problem these days is that the size of organizations is increasing and employees at one location know nothing about the employees at another location though they are working on the same project. Asian paints, the biggest manufacturer of paints, who has hundred of offices in India as well as abroad tries to solve this problem. They are using a tool names as Huddle, which is based on the IBM suite, Connections. Huddle is an Enterprise 2.0 tool or social business software.

Huddle is just a social business tool. There are other competitors too like AVAYA that provides wide range of socialization from text messaging to video chat to an entire eco system, CISCO QUAD is a platform designed for the professional sitting at different geographical locations, GOOGLE’S app like Google docs, Google hard disk, etc. are already used by professional and a major advantage is that it is totally free, and many other including IBM connections, JIVE, IDEAWORK, KINETIC GLUE, MICROSOFT SHAREPOINT, ORACLE social network, QONTEXT, YAMMER and ZOHO etc.

The main purpose of Enterprise 2.0 is to break the barriers and to create a horizontal system in which everyone can interact with everyone on the ideas and that allows creativity and intelligence to be summed up together which could harness the growth of the organization. Just think a peon or a clerk has an idea that could be fruitful for the organization but he cannot implement that and he does not have access to the employees who can make that idea into product, then what? The idea as well as the innovation gets ruined. So if we have social business software where even a peon or a clerk could be in link with all the other employees, then he could easily deliver the idea.

Many organizations are using Enterprise 2.0 software including Asian Paints, Paragon, Airtel, Dr. Reddy’s Lab and many more. The organizations admitted that after adopting Enterprise 2.0 software they are experiencing tangible but powerful benefits. Many of the employees have started working 24x7 and the time duration of completing a particular task has been reduced. So Enterprise 2.0 could be a boom for the organizations.

E-Wallet / Digital Wallet

2012-06-10T07:16:00.000+05:30

When we go on the internet and our activity on the internet increases, there is a rapid increase in usernames, passwords, pins, personalized billing information, shipping information and other sensitive personal information which cannot be shared publically. It is very difficult for an individual to not only just remember hundreds of such things but also to keep them secure and safe.

The solution to this is E-Wallet or what we call as Digital Wallet. It keeps all our private and sensitive information within it and we just have to remember a single password to access it. We can store infinite number of passwords, credit card numbers, ATM pins, and any other information. Since it is in digital form so the memory of e-wallet compared to human brain will be much bigger. Since our memory could not memorize huge amount of data, that’s why many people used to store their usernames, passwords, ATM pins on somewhere, either on a spreadsheet, or on a notepad file, or may write them onto a paper. But is it safe doing so?? No it is not safe it is quite risky to do certain things. Paper can get lost or gets water locked; spreadsheet or notepad file can be deleted or can be misused by any other person. So the ultimate solution is the e-wallet in which one can keep the data unified, intact and secure. One just has to remember a password to have access to all the encrypted data.

E-wallet is just a software application that can be downloaded into your Smartphone, PDA or on your Laptop. Many retailers in the market sell their e-wallets at a very low cost so you can buy any. If you have a doubt or you cannot trust so easily then you can download the demo version for your satisfaction purpose and if you get impressed then you can purchase the full version.

If you change your smart phone, or your laptop then what will you do? Need not to worry every e-wallet provide a feature of sync and backup. So if you have backed up your data it gives a peace of mind that your data is safe and with you always what so every may be the situation like you want to change smart phone or any other case may be.

Change of Money Technology from Tally Sticks to M-Pesa and Airtel Money

2012-06-08T12:46:00.001+05:30

Money is not a feature; it’s a technology rather a tool that defines a way of doing things. In ancient times money was defined as exchangeable goods (gold, silver), now a day’s its paper cash and in future it will be e-cash. So it is clear that as technology is advancing the technology of money is also advancing.

In the earlier times “split tally”, a wooden stick is used to record royal taxes in England. Tallies came into existence in 1066 and were there till 1826, a long duration. The sheriff would collect the taxes based on tax assessments and then remit the collected cash to the king. To ensure that both the sheriff and the king knew where they stood, the tax assessment was recorded by cutting notches in a wooden twig. The twig was then split, so that the king and the sheriff each had a durable record of the assessment. When it was time to “tally up,” the sheriff would show up with the cash and his half of the tally to be reckoned against the king’s half
.

Today’s tally sticks are Mobiles. Mobile phones are used for making payments for a decade in Japan and Korea. In March, one out of six Japanese users bought something in a shop using a mobile.

M-Pesa: Africa is doing wonders in this field. Kenya is the home to the development of such a system known as M- Pesa. It was launched in 2007—not by a bank but by the country’s biggest mobile operator, Safaricom, with support from the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development. The system has around 15 million users who can use their mobiles for making the payment in near about 28000 shops around the country who has a tie up with the system. Users can make transactions from their mobiles using an application that is built on the top of text messaging function i.e. user has to just send a text message in order to make a transaction. A third of Kenya’s gross domestic product now flows through M-Pesa. M-Pesa is also being replicated in Tanzania, Uganda, and other countries.

Airtel Money: Bharti Airtel has launched mobile money in India which they named as Airtel Money. A user can have an account with Airtel i.e. Airtel Money account or Airtel Money Wallet in which user can load money from any of the bank accounts and then spend the money anywhere, paying bills, purchase of utilities etc. Airtel Money scheme is available in 300 cities all over the India and the user can spend money over 7,000+ merchant outlets.

In spite of this Airtel money can also be used to do recharge of any one from anywhere on the go. One can transfer funds from one Airtel Money account (wallet) to another Airtel Money account and bank accounts. Airtel money does not work on the principle of text messaging, rather user have to dial *400# from their Airtel mobiles and the Airtel money menu will appear.

The Upcoming form of money – e-money

2012-06-07T10:52:00.005+05:30

Electronic money or e-cash is changing the way money is perceived as the paper cash had changed the way of buying the things. In the earlier times things were purchased on the basis of barter system or exchange of goods like gold and silver but then a revolution came first starting from coins moving onto paper cash. Paper cash has ruled a lot and now the time is coming when the paper cash may get replaced by the e-cash or e-money. However it is highly doubtful and not so easy to replace paper cash with e-cash.

With the invent of technology and internet, the way things were purchased has changed drastically and that is happening because of e-commerce. The internet has created a new economic system – the ecommerce, which has become the virtual market place for everything. It has provided a platform where we can quickly and conveniently buy and exchange goods and services globally just sitting at our homes over the electronic systems such as internet. Ecommerce is identified as the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically, using the technologies such as EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer). EFT means transfer of funds from one account to another, either with single financial institution or with multiple financial institutions via computer based systems called the internet or any other computer network.

As per day by day technology is advancing and high-tech hand held devices are emerging which has converted e-commerce to m-commerce. M-commerce means doing any sort of commercial transactions with the help of any mobile device that can be a smart phone, PDA (personal digital assistant), or any other mobile device. According to comScore, upto November 2011 there were 38% of smart phone users who have used their phone to make a purchase at least once which means as smart phones are becoming more popular and is going from hands to hands, so does the mcommerce.

Global Internet penetration rates have an enormous impact on e-commerce and m-commerce growth rates. Currently, more than 30.2% of the world has access to the internet, and hence, e-commerce. Reduced Internet surfing charges, Internet technology development covering expanded bandwidth, and increased speeds & reliability could make e-commerce and m-commerce available to a large pool of emerging market consumers.

As e-commerce and m-commerce will increase, the value of e-money goes on increasing day by day. People will shop sitting at home or on the way using e-money. So, slowly and gradually the trend of e-money is increasing.

Moral Question and Access of Internet in Middle Class Families – part 2

2012-06-05T13:57:00.002+05:30

The problem: How to make parents aware of Internet and how they should teach the moral aspects of internet to their children.

The fact comes that many parents themselves are not interested in going to the cafes or anywhere for the internet coaching classes because they think that internet means chatting, watching videos, listening to songs, etc. but the fact that internet is much more than that and there should be a way out as to get the interest of parents regarding the internet.

The social, moral, cultural, religious and ethical value of internet must be known to the parents. The problem again the same how this should be achieved??

There is a lot off content over the internet which justifies all the values related to internet, but again how it should reach the common man? For that someone has to take initiative on a bigger scale that it reaches every mass in the world. For example Mark Zukerberg did, he touched the social value of the internet, creating facebook which results the involvement of one and all, and even those people have started using facebook who have never touched the internet. This kind of revolution is needed in the other values like moral values, cultural values, and religious values.

What the parents will do, who do not know internet and want their children to learn and access internet, but are worried because of social and moral values. They can’t wait for such a revolution in other sectors of social and moral values. Rather they should join or search for the ongoing revolutions which are unnoticed and can do wonders in the life of their children like what is done and is ongoing in education. There almost all the books related to any subjects are available on the internet. Hundreds and thousands of reference books are available related to almost all the subjects in the world. If parents have no time to study internet then also they can at least motivate their children to study such books and the reading experiences that many of the sites are giving is such that a student who does not like studding also starts doing so.

In spite of only education there is a lot of content related to children’s interest on the internet. If a child likes to play with clay and tries to make something out of it then there are lots and lots of videos and tutorials that parents can follow in order to create more talent out of the child. If a child has good dancing or singing skills then those can also be enhanced by the parents by motivating the children to do things related to their interest. Many children like story books, novels, creative writing, artistic creations, designing (textile, interior, etc.), etc. There is a lot of content related o all such things that if a child wants he can master all such things just sitting at home with internet. What needed is the vision of parents not considering internet as a bad thing and spoiling the moral values of the child, rather considering it as the new way to groom their children and making them multi talented on different platforms.

Moral Question and Access of Internet in Middle Class Families

2012-06-05T08:12:00.000+05:30

Internet and the Moral issues have always been the two sides of a coin especially for the Indian middle class families. On one side the mind blowing features of the internet, providing knowledge, instantaneous, worldwide, interactive and the list goes on. On the other hand, the issues related to moral and social values like porn, chatting with strangers, cut out from the outer world, ruining the social life and again the list goes on….

In our middle class Indian families moral values are the assets and no one can beat them in the world. These moral values come into the way when it comes to the internet world. Parents in the middle class families are afraid that if they got internet at their home children will be spoiled by the negative effects of the internet. It’s the tendency in Indian middle class to protect the children from any bad things weather many good things associated with them also goes untouched. Fear of being addicted to porn, fear of being making strangers as friends, fear of being spoiling the social and childhood life and all these fears because a seed of evil will grow 100 times faster than a seed of goodness. Parents are absolutely right because the way kids are getting maturity is a matter of discussion for the parents as well as the society, but that does not mean that the children of middle class families should be deprived of internet just because of other fellow children who do ass such kinds of nonsense activities.

Now the question arises that how moral values be maintained and simultaneously access to internet has also be provided to the children especially of Indian middle class families. For this parents have to come on the front to take it as a challenge. They should take time from their busy schedule to give time to their children and tell them the pros and corns of the internet, give them certain assignments so that their interest related to internet gets built up, fixing their internet usage hours, giving them a platform to read on the internet and lots and lots of things that a parent can do in order to generate energy and good ideas in the mind of a child related to internet such that the other side of the internet remains away from the child. But what if the parents themselves are not aware of internet??? A big question to worry!!!! Children want internet, parents have no knowledge what it is?? But they know that it can harm children in many ways, so NO NO NO NO to internet. This is a major problem in Indian middle class families. This problem can also be eradicated but if parents want so.

Parents could join the internet classes and can have a look at both the sides of the coin before giving the access to children, so that their doubts can be cleared, moral values can be retained and children also gets the access to the internet.

Samsung Galaxy s3 VS Apple iPhone 4s

2012-06-01T13:18:00.002+05:30

Well the biggest threat to Apple’s iPhone, Samsung has already stunned the market of smart phones by introducing many smart phones but specifically Samsung Galaxy s2 which they launched last year and it has break the records like anything. Now Samsung is again set to win the battle by introducing another big ball in the market of smart phones just to beat Apples’ proprietary of smart phones and that is Samsung Galaxy s3.

Comparing the two big giants of the smart phone market:

Well the comparison itself shows that Samsung S3 has headed the Apples’ iPhone 4s. Now Apple has to think upon developing something new in iPhone 5 which according to rumors expected to be launched in Oct 2012.

Industry of Future – a blend of I.T and Manufacturing

2012-05-31T08:14:00.000+05:30

It all started in EuroMold fair (one of the biggest trade fairs held in Frankfurt, which shows machine prototypes of products) where the industry of future was not just visualized but also seen. In November last year at EuroMold fair, there were a group of machines at display called as 3D printers. Sounds somewhat that it may generate 3D images or so, but in reality it was not so. They were the printers used for manufacturing. Sounds strange!!! But they were used for generating real materialistic objects from the digital sources. Imagine you have a digital image of an iron ball, you just give a print command and the iron ball is there for you in the 3D printer. Now, this is not imaginable but real. An American firm, 3D systems, used one of its 3D printers to print a hammer, complete with a wooden handle and metalized head. This is called the INDUSTRY OF FUTURE.

No doubt that it is a new technique and it in its infant stage but if we look at futuristic scope, we can call it as the Third Industrial Revolution. First industrial revolution began in Britain in 18^th century with the mechanization of the textile industry, second began in America in 20^th century with the era of mass production, and now it’s the time for the digital manufacturing using smart software’s capable of customized manufacturing with such an ease in terms of cost as well as time that no one can imagine.

China is leading the manufacturing sector in the world and has decreased the manufacturing jobs in America by one third. Outsourcing the manufacturing parts and getting it assembled became the basis of all the manufacturing companies because it reduces the manufacturing cost of the product by huge amount. But now workers in china are not so cheap, they are also demanding high salaries for the work they are being producing and with in very short span of time. For this reason many of the production houses are moving towards the other cheaper countries. For instance Nike has shifted it production base from china to Vietnam, which is now the company’s biggest production base. Many other production houses are moving to the countries like Bangladesh, Cambodia and Indonesia. But now with the invent of technology many of the production houses are moving into their native countries and setup base over there. They can have robots to control the production process, they can have smart machines and smart software that can be very beneficial as for the reduction of wage cost and more over it increases the economy of the country and all the production process is under observation and if one needs any alterations then it can be made very easily which is very difficult if the production base in elsewhere located.

3D Printing

At Rock hill, South Carolina, in a business park there is a factory of future which is working on the vision to change the way thing are manufactured. There are lots of machines, some are bulk size like cars and some small as microwave but all are operated by computers. Some machines are printing ornaments and some other parts that can be assembled as a product later.

This factory is the head quarters of 3D systems, a firm founded by Chuck Hill. Basically 3D printing was started as a way to make prototypes but as the technology expands it can be used to print fully finished products. The ability to produce highly complex designs using the smart software and then turning them into 3D objects that too without any nuts and bolts as a single structure has created a new world of manufacturing. With the invent of this technology the workers engaged un the manufacturing process will be decreased but that does not means it decreases the employment, but the employment becomes more and more skilled. Now the factories will be full of designers, IT specialists, accountants, logistic experts, marketing staff, customer relationship managers, cooks and cleaners and a few if required manufacturing experts. So in this way the scenario is going to change.

Working of a 3D printer

The 3D printer works on the phenomenon of additive manufacturing. It works in the same manner as the paper printers. The command is given to the printer and the printer creates a layer of ink over the paper surface and the paper gets printed. The same is the fundamental with the 3D printer but here the layers are more than one and this is known as additive printing. In 3D printing the smart software creates the dgital slices of the product and send the command to the 3D printer which then successively adds the slces one on to the other and creates a 3D object. The difference is that the ink used in 3D printer is the material. The layers can come together in many of the ways, some printers uses inkjet process. Object which is an Israeli firm uses inkjet method to create a plastic layer which is then exposed to ultraviolet rays it get cut into the desired shape and then new thin layer of plastic gets deposited again and again to make a 3D object. Many of the firms are using powder as the print medium. The powder can be spread onto the priting medium and then it can be solidified using the liquid binder and the process can be continued to create a 3D object. The extra material can be blown off.