Archive for December, 2004
In India, you can donate to Prime Minister’s Relief Fund by clicking here. You can know more about the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund here.
You can see a big graphic on http://www.microsoft.com/ encouraging people to help the victims of the Tsunami tragedy.
Donation Tsunami Asia India Chennai Help Volunteer
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This posting is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Reading the blog of a very interesting independent consultant whose livelihood depends on FUD (now we have heard this term enough no of times, haven’t we?) .. I am sure that the ONLY good Indian citizen he is, there is enough information that exists with him to make sure that our country is in safe hands and not in the hands of some evil empire.. Interesting read for anyone who wants to learn about the devil in mind and really wants to see FUD at work..
Let’s look into the wisdom of the wise man:
- “built on lack of information by the people executing it. “: there is enough information on all technologies out there and people undertaking such an effort want to make sure that the project finished in time (instead of a research project that never completes). Unfortunately, people assume that they are the only ones who know or think they are vigilant.
- “proprietary platform”: well arguments on what is proprietary has never ceased. and if you are talking about source code, it is available to govts. who wants it from MS (duh!)
- “by an American software company”: How much software is being developed out of India can be seen, if you visit the India Development Center. Do you know the word – “multinational”? The no of jobs being created in India due to this is just phenomenal sir.Add to this, none of the proponents of the “Open Source” are Indian companies including Red Hat, Debian, SUSE or IBM (wonder where the money is coming from).
- “is the most insecure platform in the industry today”: Check out this website for updating yourself. And talking about the bugs in software, here is a non-sponsored report that talks about more vulnerabilities in Linux than Microsoft.
Apart from the no. of bugs, responsiveness and thoroughness are equally important (if you didn’t know that)! To quote evidence, between Jan – Aug 2004 Red Hat Enterprise 3 had 54 security advisories and Windows Server 2003 had only 10. Get on speed with attack vulnerabilities on Linux v/s Microsoft here. - “the United states government or European governments do not do this.”: Well, US military is the largest consumer for the MS technologies. My friend, does military qualify your criteria? And in case you want to find out other govt. agencies who have implemented this, READ this.
- “”Popularity” in this context is a measure of how many people are using one application instead of another. “: Yes, that’s what I believe and so does Britannica, Encarata, dictionary.com and many more. Quoting from Brtiannica.com – popularity: “the state of frequently encountered or widely accepted” or from wikipedia: “A person, action, decision or thing becomes popular if many people like or use that entity/object. Thus popular means both “well liked” and “common” or “mass”.” In villages people have seen Windows more than Linux I believe..
With release of local language packs for Windows, many villagers will now be able to use PCs without the need for learning a new language. While Windows provides 9 Indian languages (fully supported), Red Hat distributions are still to launch them in Feb 2005.Our popularity is justified given the fact that Linux distris are now aping Windows interface e.g. Evolution, X Windows. - “Further, there is hardly any software development forum in India today that does not have immense Open Source development skills”: Well, this has been true for ages for MS technologies. What are you saying, Linux Application Development is now getting somewhere. Wasn’t Microsoft App Development there much before?
- “Open Source technologies are free of legal and commercial issues that one invariably finds when using Microsoft technologies.”: Sure, that’s why SCO is suing everyone using the Linux Kernel and Red Hat is offering a legal protection for its “customers”.
It is a known fact that the development cycles of non-MS technologies (open or not) is much larger than for MS technologies and hence more expensive (more people working for longer time means more money being paid out).
If government was to open a software development arm (which it is not in near future) it wouldn’t then “purchase” support from one of the “Open Software” Companies. This support is more expensive than the MS product + Support + EA.. Damn, man do you know economics? Get the support pricing from “Open Software” companies here. And to educate you further, read the non-sponsored Forrester report.
Since “Open Software” companies and consultants are not giving out anything for “free” (it is such an irony), here is your dose of support and acquisition cost analysis.
And yes “commercial interests” is one of the main reason why many companies/consultants running Open Source consultancies are so interested in the Open Software…
Finally when the Bangalore One project is over, my friend your land records will be on MS system run by the local authorities while you will be on a Linux system with a fantastic consultancy in Bangalore.
I would urge the Indian and Karnataka Government to keep greater good in mind rather than euphemism ’cause of which our country has suffered enough. We got past from the “Hindu rate of growth” when the economy was liberalised.
Only by giving up unnecessary scruples can we aim to become a GREAT nation!
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This posting is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Today I enabled support for dual monitor on my machine!
So on one monitor, I see all of my desktop.. and on the other, I see my taskbar! the advantage is, if you are working on multiple applications, you can “throw” the application that you are not using to the secondary monitor and get an uncluttered view of your own desktop.. it will increase your productivity (atleast that’s what MS Research Labs say)..
Has it increased my productivity? Remains to be seen…
If you want to enable this support, you can do so by following instructions here.
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This posting is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Dates are out for the PDC 2005..
PDCs are held to aligh with key product development milestones and are held every couple of years. There isn’t a periodic schedule set for PDC.
Microsoft Professional Developers Conference, PDC 2005
Dates: September 13 – 16, 2005. (Pre-conferences September 11 and 12)
Location: Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, CA.
More information about PDC 2005 and sign up for receiving updates, including news on registration can be done at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/events/pdc
We can expect to hear about Longhorn, Avalon, WinFX, and Indigo and lots of innovations that will cover many aspects of the Microsoft platform at the PDC 2005.
The MSN Spaces does resize the pictures very well..
http://spaces.msn.com/members/abhishekkant/Blog/cns!1pi7XripDUI-ycNchEZbs0zA!115.entry
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This posting is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights.
I like the BBC’s ClickOnline that gives a good round up of the “tech scape” in the world. Friends and family feel that i have gone too techie to be listening to tech programs on TV as well 🙂
Recently i saw a program on SS Music television, that made me happy!! well yes, our own desi computer games reveiw program 🙂 Airing daily, it is called “GameStation”..
the best part of the show was the detail with which they get into each program and show snippets of the quirk they are talking about. Something like, if they talk about separate teams in a game, they will show a snippet illustrating that point from the game.. somebody is definitely spending a lot of time playing them..
at the end they ask if we would like any game reviewed on the show.. yes, i would.. how about Microsoft Flight Simulator?
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This posting is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Do you enjoy listening to Technical shows (like game reviews, technology how tos etc)? I DO.
And to service this urge of mine there is something very interesting that i discovered recently – Drive Time CDs and Tapes. these CDs are produced by MS to be consumed internally (that means that they are not available to non-MS people) and are in two flavours:
1. Sales Edition
2. Technical Edition
The CDs ( i am subscribed to CDs instead of the tapes) that have been lying unutilized on my desk for long now.
Took up the drive time CD of technical edition of Speech Server and realised that my car (do i have one??) still doesn’t have a CD player 🙂
The latest MP3 Player (courtesy MVP Program) came to the rescue… have ripped the audio tracks from the drivetime and copied them to my MP3/WMA player (i.e. Creative Muvo) using Windows Media Player 10.
And i am all set to listen to the drive times while on the go!!
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My visit to the B.NET Design Day event and the photos from there…
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This posting is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Will be travelling to Mumbai and Pune on 8th and 9th Dec 2004.
On Dec 8 2004, will try to meet the MVPs and the CSs in Mumbai to discuss the initiatives at the Mumbai User Group.
On Dec 9 2004, will meet the MVPs and CSs in Pune.
Later in the same day, have a presentation to make at TCS and introduce the MVP Program to them. TCS being the largest company only has a single MVP there.. with more light on the MVP and CS program, hopefully there will be more community leaders in the largest IT company of the country..
On 10th, will be talking at the MDC in bangalore.. and that is a very different story..
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This posting is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights.
The Hotmail upgrades have reached Indian shores.. my account is now 250 MB..
It’s like brownie with vanilla ice-cream – MSN spaces and the Hotmail upgrade 🙂
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This posting is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights.
when technology is a part of the whole! 