THE 'vyoo`poynt - Blog by Dileep K Sharma

The Best U.S. B-Schools Of 2008

2008-11-14T18:04:00.002+05:30

BusinessWeek has published latest list of best B-Schools. Every two years, BusinessWeek consults students, recruiters, and academic research to determine which business schools fit the bill. Here's this year's look at the best U.S. full-time MBA programs.

1 Chicago
2 Harvard
3 Northwestern (Kellogg)
4 Pennsylvania (Wharton)
5 Michigan (Ross)
6 Stanford
7 Columbia
8 Duke (Fuqua)
9 MIT (Sloan)
10 UC-Berkeley (Haas)
11 Cornell (Johnson)
12 Dartmouth (Tuck)
13 NYU (Stern)
14 UCLA (Anderson)
15 Indiana (Kelley)
16 Virginia (Darden)
17 North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler)
18 Southern Methodist (Cox)
19 Carnegie Mellon (Tepper)
20 Notre Dame (Mendoza)
21 Texas-Austin (McCombs)
22 Brigham Young (Marriott)
23 Emory (Goizueta)
24 Yale
25 USC (Marshall)
26 Maryland (Smith)
27 U. of Washington (Foster)
28 Washington University (Olin)
29 Georgia Tech
30 Vanderbilt (Owen)

The Best U.S. B-Schools Of 2008

Photoshop Magical Moves

2008-11-08T09:29:00.003+05:30

10. Cloak of Invisibility

Remove everything from the screen except for your file.

F, F, F | Cycle through Screen Modes
Tab | Remove Tools and Palettes
Ctrl+H | Hide Extras (Grid, Guides, Slices, etc.)
Ctrl+R | Hide Rulers

9. Quick Brush Jab

Quickly and easily customize a brush. This combo is a staple for digital painting.

B | Brush Tool
Right-Click and Select or F5 and Select | Open condensed or full Brush Palette
or . or , or Shift+. or Shift+, | Cycle through brushes or jump to first or last brush
[ or ]: | Shrink or enlarge brush radius
Shift+[ or Shift+] | Decrease or increase brush hardness
{Numeric Input} | Change brush opacity (e.g. ‘5′ = 50%, ‘55′ = 55%)

8. Quick Brush Jab Path Stroke

Stroke a path with a customized brush.

{Draw Path} | Use any tool to draw a path
B | Select Brush Tool
Quick Brush Jab | Use the Quick Brush Jab Combo to customize brush
Enter | Stroke the path with your customized brush

7. Gaussian Attack

Apply a filter, fade it and apply again. Good combo for fine-tweaking filters.

{Apply a Filter} | Manually choose and apply a filter (warning: using the Lens Flare filter may result in a swift kick to the mouse balls)
Ctrl+Shift+F | Fade the filter
(Ctrl+F or Ctrl+Shift+F) | Reapply filter with or without dialog box

6. Shadow Maker

Create a basic shadow based on a chosen layer.

{Select Layer} | Select the layer the shadow will be created after. The transparency of this layer needs to resemble the desired shape of the shadow.
Ctrl+J | Layer via Copy
Ctrl+[ | Move layer down
D | Reset color defaults
Alt+Shift+Backspace | Fill with black and preserve transparency
Ctrl+T | Free transform
{Transform} | Modify to your liking
Enter | Commit

5. Layer Catcher

Select, group and mask layers. Often easier than using the layers palette.

V | Selection Tool
Ctrl+Click or Ctrl+Shift+Click or Ctrl+Shift+Right-Click |Select your layers
Ctrl+G | Group Layers

4. OCD Layer Sort

Rearrange your layers quickly and easily. Great cure for you neuroticism.

F7 | Show Layer Palette
Alt+[ or Alt+] or Alt+, or Alt+. | Select a layer
Shift+Alt+[ or Shift+Alt+] or Shift+Alt+, or Shift+Alt+. |Select more layers
Ctrl+[ or Ctrl+] or Shift+Ctrl+[ or Shift+Control+] | Move layers down or up or send to bottom or bring to top

3. Ultimate Flattener

Merge All Layers (even those hidden). Quick way to flatten a file.

Alt+. | Select Top Layer
Shift+Alt+, | Select all layers between currently selected and bottom layer
Ctrl+E | Merge the selected layers

2. Infinite Dupe
Duplicate and evenly distribute or transform items. Nice way to distribute something like nav buttons.

Ctrl+T | Transform
{Transform/Move} | Manually Move or Transform
Enter | Commit Transform
(Ctrl+Alt+Shift+T) | Duplicate and transform relative to the newest item

1. Finishing Move - The Web Extractor

Extract a selection and save it for the web. Extremely useful when pulling individual elements from a design, such as buttons or rules.

{Create Selection} | Select the area you want to extract
Ctrl+Shift+C | Copy Merged to clipboard
Ctrl+N | Create New Image based on selection size
Enter | Confirm New Image
Ctrl+V | Paste from clipboard
Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S | Save for the Web

Welcome to the age of information overload

2008-10-30T21:35:00.003+05:30

Of all the tools we use in the modern office, few are the double-edged sword that e-mail

has become. Once a method for quick and easy communication, e-mail has evolved into

a time-consuming—but necessary—evil in today’s workplace. In fact, the average user

spends over 30% of his day creating, organizing, reading and responding to e-mail.

But it’s not just overflowing inboxes that vex today’s knowledge worker. Blogs and

RSS feeds keep you constantly connected to the world at large. Social groups such as

Facebook and LinkedIn keep you continually networking. Then there’s the actual work

you have to do. In fact, on average, you start doing something new every three minutes.

This is more than a busy day. This is information overload.

Read Full Story

The correlation among dollar, oil, and gold prices

2008-10-27T13:44:00.006+05:30

The correlation between the dollar and gold is negative because investors enter gold when the dollar slips and vice-versa. Rising oil prices cause the U.S. trade deficit to increase, which in turn leads to depreciation of the dollar.

Historically the price of gold and oil have a positive correlation. The reason being oil purchases were paid for in gold. Even today, a sizable percentage of oil revenue ends up invested in gold.

Given that inflation is driven to a great extent by crude oil prices when oil prices rise, inflation rises as well. Gold plays the role of being a good hedge against inflation. This enhances the demand for gold and rise in its prices.

One way of identifying trading opportunities is to use the gold-oil ratio. This can be calculated using this formula:

Gold-Oil Ratio = Price of Gold (per oz.) / Price of Crude Oil (per barrel)

Most gold fans and economic historians peg the ratio between the price of gold to oil at 10:1. If the historical ratio between oil and gold is to sustain, either gold has to rise or crude has to drop.

The gold-oil ratio signals:

Buying opportunities (for gold) when the gold-oil ratio turns up at/below 10 barrels/ounce; and

Selling opportunities when the gold-oil ratio turns down at/above 20 barrels/ounce.

Live Gold Price

Who says don't try again?

2008-10-26T12:45:00.008+05:30

After three misses, Bhanu finally performs at the Indian Idol and floors all with his emotion.

It reminds me of the famous Robert the Bruce and the Spider story.

King Robert the Bruce I was born at Lochmaben Castle in 1274. He was Knight and Overlord of Annandale. In 1306 he was crowned King of Scotland and henceforth tried to free Scotland from the English enemy.After being defeated at a battle, Bruce escaped and found a hideout in a cave. Hiding in a cave for three months, Bruce was at the lowest point of his life. He thought about leaving the country and never coming back.While waiting, he watched a spider building a web in the cave's entrance. The spider fell down time after time, but finally he succeeded with his web. So Bruce decided also to retry his fight and told his men: "If at first you don't succeed, try try and try again".

On a day like today

2008-10-25T17:09:00.002+05:30

Free is all you gotta be

dream dreams no one else can see

sometimes ya wanna run away

but ya never know what might be comin' round your way

On a day like today

the whole world could change

the sun's gonna shine

shine thru the rain

on a day like today

ya never wanna see the sun go down

Somewhere - there's a place for you

I know that you believe it too

sometimes if you wanna get away

all ya gotta know is what we got is here to stay

all the way

On a day like today - the whole world could change

the sun's gonna shine - shine thru the rain

on a day like today - no one complains

free to be pure - free to be sane

on a day like today

ya never wanna see the sun go down

Free is all we gotta be

dream dreams no one else can see

but ya never know what might be comin' for you and me

ya it's gonna be

on a day like today...

Update Asset Attribute Value Using Rational Asset Manager Web Service

2008-10-24T22:08:00.007+05:30

Rational Asset Manager publishes Web services that allow you to work with the repository. Use the Rational Asset Manager Web Services Descriptor Language (WSDL) file to develop custom applications that interact with the Rational Asset Manager server. Here is an example code using client API to interact with Rational Asset Manager from a Java application. Make sure you include all required jars in class path. Use the API found in the Rational Asset Manager Javadoc located in the Reference section of the help.

package ram.update.asset.data;

import org.eclipse.core.runtime.NullProgressMonitor;

import com.ibm.ram.client.RAMAsset;

import com.ibm.ram.client.RAMSession;

import com.ibm.ram.common.data.AssetAttribute;

import com.ibm.ram.common.data.SearchQuery;

import com.ibm.ram.common.data.SearchResult;

public class UpdatedAssetAttribute {

public static void main(String[] args) {

RAMSession session;

session = new RAMSession(

"http://RAM_SERVER/com.ibm.ram.web.ws",

"USERNAME", "PASSWORD");

SearchQuery sQuery = session.createAssetQuery("ramSearch:(1fGroup,COMMUNITY)");

SearchResult searchResult = session.getAssets(sQuery);

RAMAsset[] queryAssets = (RAMAsset[]) searchResult.getAssets();

System.out.println("RAM Assets Query results::" + queryAssets.length);

for (int j = 0; j <>

try {

AssetAttribute attribute = queryAssets[j].getAssetAttribute("ATTRIBUTE_NAME");

attribute.setValues(new String[] { "NEW_VALUE" });

session.queueAssetForPut(queryAssets[j]);

session.putAssets(new NullProgressMonitor());

} catch (Exception ex) {

ex.printStackTrace();

}

CHANDRAYAAN-1: India's first mission to Moon

2008-10-23T21:27:00.005+05:30

India becomes the latest country to send a robotic mission to the moon with the successful launch of the Chandrayaan 1 spacecraft. The other members of this global elite are the US, Russia, the European Space Agency, Japan and China. India is the sixth member of this club.

The moon mission marks a new chapter in the history of Indian space programme that takes a giant leap — from 36,000 km of orbit around earth to 3,84,000 km away to orbit the moon. It also initiates a fresh era of more ambitious interplanetary missions in the future by India to Mars and other planets.

The initial success of the lunar programme is fulfilment of five years of technological striving by Indian space scientists. For the world, it was a clear demonstration of what India can achieve. As former ISRO chief Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan said, the moon mission will help realise India's aim to become a technological powerhouse.

Bangalore Transport Information System

2008-10-23T20:02:00.007+05:30

BTIS is Urban Transport Information Systems developed by Mapunity (a company incubated at the N S Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore). With simple and easy to use application components one can see traffic conditions at major spots of the city in real time. Screen image refreshes very frequently and you can easily see the difference in traffic conditions between consecutive real time images. This is truly wonderful application interface available online to tackle urban traffic and transport issues in a congested city like Bangalore.

Mapunity has led the development similar systems for cities - Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi. These systems use several types of inputs - teledensity data from Airtel's mobile telecom tower network, video company/images from police cameras, location-tracking of buses and taxis - to create real-time knowledge of traffic conditions in cities. These are then made widely available through Airtel's mobile telecom network to city residents, and also accessible online.

Its a truly innovative solution to social problems and development challenges in India... Thanks to Mapunity.

IBM Offers Notes/Domino As A Hosted Messaging Service

2008-10-23T19:44:00.006+05:30

IBM (NYSE:IBM) is making its Lotus Notes/Domino messaging software available as a hosted service, the company's latest move to provide more of its software through its cloud computing initiative.

The new Lotus Notes Hosted Messaging service joins other IBM cloud services including Lotus Sametime Unyte, a Web conferencing system based on technology from IBM's August 2007 acquisition, and the Bluehouse social networking and collaboration service that's now in beta.

As with those other services, channel partners will have the opportunity to sell the IBM Lotus Notes Hosted Messaging service, said John Dunderdale, IBM Lotus sales vice president.

IBM will host Domino on dedicated servers within its own data centers, a different approach from the multi-tenant architecture used by some on-demand software suppliers. While browser access to the service will be an option, Dunderdale said IBM expects most customers to run the Notes client on their desktops. "It's really user preference," he said.

Read Full Story

Tips for Humanizing Your Résumé

2008-10-22T20:12:00.004+05:30

Humanize your resume and improve your your chance to get an interview. Read the origional article published by Liz Ryan (an expert on the new-millennium workplace and a former Fortune 500 HR executive) following the link: Humanize Your Résumé

Start of Something New

2007-11-28T19:16:00.002+05:30

Movie: High School Musical

Living in my own world
Didn't understand
That anything can happen
When you take a chance
I never believed in
What I couldn't see
I never opened my heart yeah!!
To all the possibilities
I know that something has changed
Never felt this way
And right here tonight

This could be the start
Of something new
It feels so right
To be here with you
And now looking in your eyes
I feel in my heart
The start of something new

Now who'd of ever thought that
We'd both be here tonight
And the world looks so much brighter
With you by my side
I know that something has changed
Never felt this way
I know it for real

This could be the start
Of something new
It feels so right
To be here with you
And now looking in your eyes
I feel in my heart
The start of something new

I never knew that it could happen
Till it happened to me
I didn't know it before
But now it's easy to see

It's a start
Of something new
It feels so right
To be here with you
And now looking in your eyes
I feel in my heart

That it's the start
Of something new
It feels so right
To be here with you
And now looking in your eyes
I feel in my heart
The start of something new
Start of something new

I Can't Take My Eyes Off You

2007-10-25T13:49:00.001+05:30

Movie: High School Musical

Troy:
Ya never know what you’re gonna feel, oh
Ya never see it comin’ suddenly it’s real

Gabriella:
Oh, never even crossed my minde, no
That I would ever end up here tonight

Both:
All things change
When you don’t expect them to
No one knows
What the future’s gonna do
I never even noticed
That you’ve been there all along

Chorus
Troy & Gabriella:
I can’t take my eyes off of you
I know you feel the same way too, yeah
I can’t take my eyes off of you
All it took . . . Was one look
For a dream come true

Ryan:
Yeah, we got a good thing goin’ on

Sharpay:
Oh, right here is right where we belong

Both:
You never really know what you might find
Now all I see is you and I
You’re everything I never knew
That I’ve been looking for

Chorus
Ryan & Sharpay

All:
Can’t take my eyes off of you
Oh, oh, oh yeah
So let the music play
Can’t take my eyes off of you
Yeah, the feeling’s getting’ stronger
And I never ever felt this way

Alright, I see everything
In your eyes. . . Oh yeah
Alright, something’s happening
Cause everyone’s around but
You’re the only one I see

Chorus

I can’t take my eyes off of you
Feelings like I never knew
I can’t take my eyes off of you
From the start. . . Got my heart
Yeah, you do
Can’t take my eyes off you

The Horse Whisperer

2007-07-07T16:30:00.000+05:30

Directed by - Robert Redford

Produced by - Patrick Markey, Robert Redford

Written by - Nicholas Evans (novel), Eric Roth, Richard LaGravenese

Starring - Robert Redford, Kristin Scott Thomas, Scarlett Johansson

Music by - Thomas Newman

Teenager Grace MacLean (Johansson) and her best friend Judith (Kate Bosworth) go out early one winter's morning to ride their horses. As they are riding up an icy slope, one of the horses falls, dragging both horses and girls onto a road where a truck appears, resulting in a horrific collision. Judith and her horse (Gulliver) are killed, while Grace and her horse (Pilgrim) are both severely injured.

Grace eventually recovers physically, though she is left permanently disabled by a partial leg amputation and remains listless and psychologically scarred. However, her horse is traumatized and uncontrollable to the extent where it is strongly suggested he should be humanely put down. In an attempt to heal both her daughter and the horse, Grace's mother Annie (Kristin Scott Thomas) contacts Tom Booker (Redford), a "Horse Whisperer", who reluctantly agrees to help, on the condition that the despondent Grace takes part in the process. Matters are complicated more when Annie begins to fall in love with Booker, even though she is married to Grace's father (played by Sam Neill).

Tutorials

2007-07-07T07:43:00.002+05:30

Rational Asset Manager

Update Asset Attribute Value Using Rational Asset Manager Web Service

Special Reports

2007-07-07T07:25:00.001+05:30

Innovation & Discovery

CHANDRAYAAN-1: India's first mission to Moon

Finance

The correlation among dollar, oil, and gold prices

Reviews

2007-07-07T07:07:00.002+05:30

Movie Reviews

The Horse Whisperer
Serendipity

Social Technology

Bangalore Transport Information System

Can Once In A Lifetime Happen Twice?

2006-11-13T13:51:00.000+05:30

Directed By - Peter Chelsom
Written By - Marc Klien
John Cusack as Jonatah Trager
Kate Beckinsale as Sara Thomos

What would you do if you met your soul-mate for only the briefest of moments, and then the person disappeared from your life without a trace? Would you leave your fate to chance or would you take matters into your own hands?

This premise is what drives Serendipity, a delightful if insubstantial movie with a sweet heart at its center.

The film establishes early on that Sara, played by Kate Beckinsale of the recent blockbuster Pearl Harbor, does not believe in accidents. When she meets Jonathan (I probably shouldn't even get started on how much I adore John Cusack) at Bloomingdale's as they reach for the same pair of gloves, the sparks fly immediately. Though both of them are already involved in relationships, the chemistry is undeniable and the two of them wind up going to a little coffee house called…Serendipity. From that point, Sara and Jonathan have a wonderful evening as they get to know each other better, but when Jonathan asks Sara for her name and phone number, a sudden gust carries the slip of paper on which she has written it off into the wind. Convinced that fate is giving them a signal, Kate decides to put their outcome in the hands of chance, and writes down her name and phone number in a book which she will sell at a used book store, while Jonathan puts his information on a five-dollar bill.

While I do have to admit that I was annoyed early on by the concept that these two seemingly-intelligent individuals would be perfectly content to leave their lives to be decided by destiny, part of Serendipity's charm is that the silliness of that notion is never denied. Even as Jonathan goes along with Sara's wacky ideas, he is constantly pointing out how ridiculous it all seems. After the opening sequence, the film jumps ahead a few years, where the voices of reason come from Dean (Jeremy Piven) and Eve (Molly Shannon), the best friends of Jonathan and Sara, respectively. Credit must be given to first-time screenwriter Marc Klein, as he never takes his own themes too seriously.

More importantly, though, our two leads are eminently likeable and have no trouble whatsoever carrying the film. After his embarrassing role in America's Sweethearts, Cusack seems to be back to his old standards here, though oddly enough, despite the fact that he truly is one of the two stars, he never seems to get enough screen time to really shine. Nonetheless, his lines are delivered with the trademark Cusack tone and wit that fans have come to appreciate, and much of that is because he plays so well off of Piven, who has also appeared in a number of Cusack's previous films. Piven himself is a bit too over-the-top at times for my taste (why give him what amounts to a stand-up comedy routine at the beginning of the movie?), but he tones it down a bit when interacting with Cusack and actually does a fine job of being the voice for Jonathan's true feelings.

I found Beckinsale to be charismatic and genuine. She is given the somewhat difficult task of making us believe that her character would honestly accept that fate and destiny are in control. What she manages to do really well is make the progression from that early innocence and naiveté in the beginning scenes to the more experienced and cautious professional woman she becomes, as the special moment she shared with a stranger grows more distant.

A couple of other notable key players in the tale include the always-hilarious Eugene Levy, who plays a Bloomingdale's sales associate, and John Corbett as Sara's fiancé, a kind of cross between Kenny G and Yanni (and indelible proof that guys like Zamfir are definitely not cool). Levy's appearance basically amounts to an expanded cameo, and unfortunately, one of his primary scenes is featured heavily in the trailer. If you've seen that, you've basically seen his shtick for Serendipity, but he has a few other humorous moments as well.

The movie itself moves along at a fairly brisk pace, clocking in at just about an hour-and-a-half in length. There are few, if any, wasted moments, as we follow our two hopeless romantics to what we know will inevitably be a warm-and-fuzzy ending.

In other words, the movie has no big twists or surprises, but the journey to get to the end is a rewarding one. Jonathan and Sara encounter all kinds of obstacles and apparent signs as they try to figure out what fate is determining for them, but ultimately, it is the decisions they make that shape their future. Serendipity is pure, fluffy fun, and though it's not likely to make any kind of long-lasting impression, it will almost certainly put a smile on your face.