Ever Thought Of Locating Your Twitter On Your Mobile Phone Even Without a GPRS Subscription?

This concept has become a reality in India with the Shorthand mobile SMS browser introduced by the Shorthand Mobile-India(www.shorthandmobile.in), a subsidary of Smarttouch mobile Inc.. The browser once downloaded will connect you to your desired web content just through a text sms. Yes, it’s that simple!

The desired web contents are stored as SMS Apps and are listed in the Shorthand browser for easy scroll and click. The users have to just scroll down to their SMS App and click the same to access the online network. The web content is located as soon as the browser sends the text message. Hence, it does not require an active data plan.

(more…)

Make your smartphone work even smarter!

Mophie, the powerhouse of iPhone and iPod gadgets and batteries is unveiling the hottest iPhone-centric Credit Card Reader at the 2010 International CES proposed to be held at Las Vegas from 7th to 10th Jan this year. To gear up for an even smarter shopping experience you just need to swipe your credit card into the Mophies  iphone compatible credit card reader. The transaction will be processed with the help of a third party application.
The Credit Card Reader can be slipped into your iPhone just like the Mophie Juice Pack Air, the external rechargeable battery introduced in the mid 2009. The detailed information including its functioning and pricing is yet to be unveiled at the CES 2010.

The wait is over. Microsoft is all set to launch its new Operating System Windows 7. Although the product was released to manufacturing on July 22^nd, 2009, it will be available for the public only today (Oct 22^nd, 2009). The Operating System comes in 6 packages. Each of these packages is meant for different types of customers. The packages are Starter, Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate, OEM and Enterprise.

A look back

Windows XP has survived more than Microsoft would have imagined. Since its first appearance in October, 2001, the Operating System is still one of the best in the market. Microsoft says over 400 million copies were in use. Although Microsoft stopped the delivery of XP from Jan 31^st, 2009, downgrade option is still available. To be in market for 8 years and still find place to stick around, is an achievement to talk about.

Known by its codename ‘Longhorn’, Vista came into the picture with great expectations in 2007. But the Longhorn did not serve to be a horn for Microsoft. Vista neither compromised on low hardware configurations nor delivered the expected performance. Complaints and weird feedback filled the air. And not surprisingly, most of the customers either continued with XP or looked for alternative Operating Systems.

A positive look forward

With the bar set high for the next Operating System, the Microsoft team started working few years back and has now come up with a product which has generated non-skeptical positive response even from the world’s best analysts. Let’s take a look at a few features that has paved the way for this.

System Requirements – Normal

The Operating System is designed to support 32 bit and 64 bit processors. The minimum system requirements  for the best performance of the product are not highly demanding. Glance at the following table for the exact details.

Lightweight

It takes not more than 30 minutes for a normal install. However, this certainly depends on the hardware of the system and the type of install used (Upgrade or Fresh). The development team has worked in optimizing the underlying code and also removed software like Movie Maker, Mail etc. These are now available in the Microsoft site as free download. The adoption to this new trend has reduced the size of the Operating System and has made it lightweight. Windows 7 can be installed in netbooks and nettops also.

Better Battery Life

One of the concerns for a laptop user is the backup time his laptop offers. If the Operating System enables him to increase this backup time, it is definitely something to cheer about. Windows 7 saves 30% of the backup time if the previous Operating System used was Windows XP. This was announced publicly by Rob Bernard, Microsoft’s Chief Environmental Strategist.

Third Party Software Evaded

Windows 7 emdeds into it, functionalities that require third party software support. Notable ones are:

• ISO image burner
• Fingerprint sensor management

An ISO image file has so far been an unrecognized format in Windows without a third party software support. In Windows 7, you can double click an ISO file and burn it right away. Windows Biometric Framework is a new addition that avoids the necessity for third party software to manage all biometric management activities. Fingerprint sensor is one example. Windows 7 manages this on its own.

New Taskbar

The new taskbar is arguably one of the best features of Windows 7. It works even better than the Mac OS X dock. It looks like a modified Vista. But behind the screens, there is a complete change of code. Mouse over has been dealt with in an innovative way that is sure to attract the public. Pinning to start menu has also become much easier now. Jump list, a new feature, manages recently opened documents. The show desktop icon is brought into the taskbar. And it works with just a mouse over.

PowerShell

PowerShell is a command-line tool that administers various tasks using cmdlets. Cmd and command were available earlier. With the new command-line tool, it is possible to bring out all GUI functionalities. This tool could become very handy for administrators. Although PowerShell could be downloaded for XP and Vista, it was not a very big hit. Microsoft has decided to bring it as a built-in feature for Windows 7.

There are a number of other features that are sure to influence the public. The control panel has been modified and made more users-friendly. The Operating System integrates backup utility with the control panel. Problem Steps Recorder is a new tool that captures user actions and helps debuggers. System repair disc can now be created during administrator works. The features and innovative developments in Windows 7 makes it more than just a Vista debacle fixer or an ideal XP successor. I can’t wait to get my hands on it!

In my previous article, we discussed all the video formats that are predominantly used in web. Here, we are going to see how these different formats are effectively delivered in the web. There are three methods that genuine developers have used so far to bring video into web. Let’s list them chronologically and get to know them in simple terms.

• Downloading

This traditional method is the one in which the user will have to wait for the file to download in his local machine and then play the file in a player. The user will not be able to view the video unless the file is downloaded completely. He must also choose the right player to play the file. Right player, in the sense: the one which understands the codec used by the video file.

Accomplishing this method in a webpage is pretty simple for a developer. He has to upload the file in the web server and provide a link to the file in the webpage. An alternate method is to embed the file in the webpage with a player using a HTML code. When the user clicks the link, the download begins. This method is commonly referred to as HTTP Streaming. This method is still used by a number of sites. And yes the point is it does not cause any trouble if the site traffic is low. One notable inability of this traditional method is that no live streaming can be done since there can never be a complete file during live transmission.

• Streaming

In the case of a streamed video, the file is sent to the end user in a continuous stream which allows him to watch the video as and when it reaches the local system. Streaming has gained so much popularity with live telecasts. When you browse through the web you will find podcasts and webcasts delivering video. Both of these use streaming method to deliver video. A webcast is mostly a single file that is played live or on demand whereas a podcast comes as a series and is delivered on demand. Another widely used streamed application in countries like US and UK is the internet television. Let’s break down streaming and get into the next level.

o   Progressive streaming

o   True streaming

Progressive streaming is used for on demand videos. If the video is delivered progressively, then the video file gets saved in the local system and plays from the local. Once the video is done playing, it will still be available for replay. This is not the case with true streaming which plays the file without saving it in the local. So once the player has completed playing once, it will not be further available for replay. A perfect example would be a live match that is telecasted through the internet.

Streaming is complex which could be understood only when tried. Protocol selection is one which could add to the complexity. Unicast protocols may be a feasible one for modest websites but more number of concurrent users could upset the system unless there is sufficient storage provided. Multicast protocols compel to forgo on demand function which might not be possible for all. UDP (datagram) may not be efficient as the others.

The data (video files) may be stored in-house or outsourced. Most of the companies outsource the complete process in order to avoid complexities. A few major products available to service video on web are FMS (Flash Media Server), Wowza, QTSS (Quick Time Streaming Server). This is another area which I will cover in my next article. Now we’ll move on to the next method.

• Progressive Downloading

The method of progressive download is similar to Streaming. However, this method uses a HTTP protocol. Also there is difference in how data is interpreted at the user’s end. YouTube.com uses progressive download for its video service. Gaining access to the video is also simple as the file is mostly saved in the temp folder. The file could be stolen by anyone and this has given rise to piracy and security problems. In the streaming method, a similar situation will not arise because at no time will the entire file be downloaded locally.

I hope to have put these video concepts in simple terms. Do contact me if you like to know more about video on web.

Since its launch about a year ago, Google Chrome has been in the limelight every now and then; and for good reasons too. The latest news has Chrome further zeroing in on its arch rival in a more creative fashion. On September 22, 2009, Google launched Google Chrome Frame “an open source plug-in that brings HTML5 and other open web technologies to Internet Explorer.”
According to Google, with GCF, you can: (more…)

There were several eyebrows raised, when Wipro appointed Suresh Vaswani and Girish Paranjpe as the joint CEO of Wipro. The new model was proposed by the chairman Mr. Azim Premji, who was the stand-in CEO after Vivek Paul resigned from the company. Amid recession, Wipro outperformed its rivals by an increase of 11.78% in its Q1 revenue that proved the proposed model a big hit!

By this pioneered model, Wipro has reduced the workload at the helm and helped both CEO’s to concentrate on the business verticals that they are responsible for. They have shared the responsibility and integrated all their technology business under a single umbrella. Though the companies would have an extra burden, this model helps them to focus on the business more carefully rather than one executive handling myriad business.

Vendor consolidation has been the norm of the big shots in the recession. Most of the big companies in Europe and America, irrespective of the industry have 100-150 vendors, which include 60-100 vendors handling the pivotal IT support. The current trend is the trimming of the vendors to 5-10%. This will help the Big IT vendors to stay afloat in the recession as 2-3 bulk projects can the turn the game for them.

The outsourcing world has been quite skeptical about Barrack Obama’s ‘Protectionism’, however, if we go by the new consolidation trend, most of the big players in US and Europe will go for vendor consolidation, which can reduce their cost by another 10-15%. The main advantage of this trend is that, if there are fewer vendors, then the access to the sensitive data and the accountability of that can also be restricted to a few, which in turn de-risks data-theft.

As big players hold the benefit in this model, the small players will face the hard side. Companies look for a broader portfolio when they select vendors. This puts small players out of the race. Small players should aggressively bid for small projects and increase the number of deals, as they have to compromise on the margin due to the recession.

“Future is Web” is a phrase we have been hearing for a few years now. And the latest talk on web is the web OS! But on second thoughts, does the web have enough power to replace the feature and flexibility that an OS provides? To mimic the operations of an operating system, we have Java, Flash, Silverlight and similar things. None of these are capable of doing some of the basic features that an OS provides. The basic functionalities that an OS requires like memory and process management, are alien to web applications. The delay in I/O is another key factor which restricts the further development of a web OS. So a pure web OS is a distant future.

The giant has already made promises of a pure web based OS. Yes, I am talking about Google Chrome OS which is in development now. By studying the latest products from Google, it won’t be anything bigger than an Android in better shape. Android which is a purely web oriented OS for mobile phones may be tweaked to an extent where it can be used in low power portable computers, or precisely – Netbooks. But the key point to be noted here is that, Chrome will be a web ‘based’ OS, not an OS in the web. So what will be a pure web OS? And why should one need it?

Mobility is the first advantage of having a pure web OS. Resource sharing and low cost end user hardware is another one. Consider having an entire OS in web, which will handle all the heavy tasks for you and all you need is a cheap, low end, web enabled notebook or netbook which is powerful enough to just run a browser. In short, you can encode an HD video even with a mobile phone! Interesting, isn’t it? Of course it is but the concept is very old and yet to become a reality. A few attempts have been made towards this end and the result was web applications like Google docs and Adobe’s online Photoshop. The interoperability of these online applications is essential for a web OS. No one will like to process a file in one application, download it and upload it to another application. It will be a fair job if these applications can send files/data to each other. It will be much better if both applications have access to a common online storage just like we have hard disks in our PC. And finally, it has to be free and open source! Before someone creates a perfect web OS, let’s take a look at something close to it. The eyeOS – an OS in a browser window, which is the Project of the Month in Sourceforge.

eyeOS is an attempt towards the perfect Web OS. “Open Source Cloud Desktop” is what they call it. You will have all your essential applications, a storage system and a desktop to integrate it all. eyeOS doesn’t look like a web page even though it’s inside the browser window. eyeOS package can be installed in your own server and you can allow other users to sign up and use it. The process is straightforward and simple as installing a Wordpress blog. The wizard driven installation won’t take much time and soon you will be provided with a login window as in normal OS. Once you pass this screen, you will take a couple of seconds to realize that what you are looking at is actually a web page inside a browser window. I was confused whether it was my Linux desktop; it has everything that a normal desktop should have. A task pane, notification area, desktop with changeable wallpapers and themes, games, application menu and everything that you won’t expect in a web page. It even has a browser and a task manager which lists the running processes like Windows Task Manager. The default installation comes with a handful of applications which can be further extended using a package manager like in most Linux distros. There is already a large pool of applications available for eyeOS. And all this is written in PHP and XML! Yes, eyeOS is a PHP application which runs on Apache server and doesn’t need a database. Instead of a database it relies on XML files. This is primarily for making the installation simple for the end user as all they would need to set up an eyeOS server is to enter account information for the first user. Flat files are used to avoid bottlenecks on data fetching. Core parts of eyeOS runs as independent applications and uses Javascript to send server commands. The UI is fast even on a 512kbps connection.

eyeOS is being developed by a company based in Barcelona and it’s currently in the 4th year of development. They also provide a tool kit with which we can develop cloud applications easily. A reasonably good wiki page, including a “Hello World application” is present to provide a walk-through towards eyeOS application development. Anyone fluent with PHP and Javascript can start writing applications for eyeOS without any further learning curve. You can try it out at their demo server : eyeos.info or get your copy of eyeOS package from here.

eyeOS may not be mature enough to host anything serious, but it is proof on how far a web application can go!

Almost a year back (Aug 15^th, ‘08, to be precise), AUTOMATTIC released WordPress 2.6.1 fixing over 60 bugs. Also the version featured with the introduction of ‘right to left’ typing for Hebrew and Farsi language administrators. In a very short period of time (may be around one month), the company alerted 2.6.1 version users of security holes in using the same. Here, in this small article, we are going to analyze those vulnerabilities that made AUTOMATTIC release an upgrade for WordPress version 2.6.1 so soon.

Ok, let’s be clear and to the point. The problem is created by the nature of:

1.    mt_rand () function of PHP and

2.    the truncation method that MySQL adopts

mt_rand ():

PHP has two random number generating functions: rand (), mt_rand (). The former uses GNU C library and the latter uses Mersenne Twister algorithm. Mersenne Twister algorithm was created by Takuji Nishimura and Makoto Matsumoto of Japan. mt_rand () is predominantly used in most of the PHP applications and most importantly, WordPress 2.6.1 uses it.

Normally a seed is used to initiate the generation of random numbers. If it is possible to determine that seed, we will be able to generate the same sequence for any number of times. In other words, we will be able to hack the working of random generation. Seed can be determined using a lookup. Now, once the seed is found, anyone can generate the sequence that the application generates. If you want to know how this is possible, you got to learn random number generation in PHP or there’s an alternative: bow to the fact that it is the nature of mt_rand () function.

Now, make a request for admin password which would send an activation link to the actual admin. But since we have the seed, we will be able to calculate the same activation link by enabling Keep Alive HTTP request.  Activating this link and using a different email ID in the form will allow creation of a new WordPress admin password and thereby complete control.

MySQL Truncation:

Let’s see the next one. When the string input given in a query is longer than the defined maximum length, MySQL, by default, truncates the string to the defined maximum length. For example, if the maximum value of the string column is defined to be 8 then, the input value, “qburst_expressions” will be truncated to “qburst_e”. There will be a warning displayed but, applications are normally not configured to handle those warnings. And importantly, WordPress version 2.6.1 was not.

Suppose I know the WordPress admin name, (let’s say, “godfrey”) and the maximum length of the username in MySQL is set as 32. When I register as a new user with the same name “godfrey”, obviously, MySQL will return an error as there already exists an username godfrey. Now, I try with “godfrey   “(with 2 spaces after the name), MySQL will truncate the string to “godfrey” and again return an error due to the same reason. Suppose I try with “godfrey                         g” (with 25 spaces between godfrey and g) then MySQL will not be able to identify a similar username and also truncate the name to “godfrey” to be inserted into the database column. This happen because the username exceeds the defined maximum length of 32 and the system will not be able to find a match in the database. Now we have 2 admin usernames in the table. This is sufficient to pass the validation and gain access to the password of the original admin, thereby complete control.

These holes in security made AUTOMATTIC to work on an upgrade at the earliest. And the next release fixed all these errors. So if you are planning to use WordPress, make sure you use the latest version and remain safe. WordPress 2.8.4 is available for download now. It is the latest stable version of WordPress according to the AUTOMATTIC’s last release.

From the offset of 2009, the name ‘Satyam’ has been in the news lines of major business newspapers and TV channels. It all started off with the disclosure by Satyam’s founder and then Chairman Ramalinga Raju about the financial fraud did by him and his close colleagues. This scandal rocked the Indian IT business, which was already shattered by the recession and led to a steep decline at the stock market. The Government of India had appointed directors at the Satyam board to find a solution to end this scandal. Finally, Tech Mahindra -The IT arm of Mahindra & Mahindra emerged as the potential buyers of Satyam for $354 million (In 2008, Mr. Anand Mahindra – Vice Chairman of M&M had contacted Mr. Raju for a tie-up, but due to the lack of response from Raju, the alliance didn’t happen.)

There were several eyebrows raised when Mahindra acquired Satyam through the open bid. The primary concern was making the defamed organization a profitable one amid the slow down and merging it with Tech Mahindra. Tech Mahindra’s main intention behind this acquisition is to extend their portfolio beyond telecom. Tech Mahindra, a Joint venture between Mahindra and British Telecom, has 70 of their revenues from telecom and has a very good customer base in Europe. They wanted to extend their reach to US, where Satyam has a good Client base.

Satyam, on the other hand, is diversified: with customers’ in banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), manufacturing, retail and healthcare sectors. Tech Mahindra sees this leverage, when they bid for lucrative projects like ERP, where Satyam has expertise. Though Satyam is calumniated with the corporate fraud, none of its clients have doubt in its ability to deliver. That has prompted Tech Mahindra to go for Satyam.

According to CP. Gurnani, the new CEO of Mahindra Satyam and Sanjay Karla, the CEO of Tech Mahindra; both these companies will bid together for projects to get the leverage of diverse portfolios rather than bidding against each other. Though a comprehensive merging doesn’t look apparent on the cards now, the partnership will catalyze the proposed merger in a couple of years. By that time Mahindra Satyam will re capture its erstwhile structure, which they had before the scandal.

It has been proved that the recession is the best time to start a business due to myriad reasons. The main advantage is that it won’t get worse than the prevailing situation and the expenses to start up a new venture is low compared to boom. For starting a new business or improving an existing one, the entrepreneur should have a good business plan. So, what makes a business plan that stays near to perfect and attracts equity? Here are the important ingredients which makes a perfect business plan.

The Executive Summary

Write this summary last, and make sure it contains the highlights of your plan. Assume your most important readers will read only this section.

The Company

A plan for a startup describes your strategy for creating the legal entity and how the initial ownership will be divided among the founders. It should also include a table that lists startup costs and initial funding. A plan for an ongoing or already existing company should describe the legal form of the business, the company history and the business’s past performance.

What You Sell

Describe the products or services you offer. Emphasize why buyers purchase those things, what benefits they get, and what pain points they have before they buy. Show how much it costs to deliver what you’re selling.

Your Market

Describe your target market, including market demographics, market growth and trends. Include a table that shows a market forecast. Describe the nature of your industry and the competition you have.

Strategy and Implementation

Strategy is all about focus. So focus on certain target market segments, certain products or services, and specific distribution avenues. Forecast your sales and the cost of sales. Define your milestones with dates, budgets and specific responsibilities.

Management Team

Name and describe the key members on your team. Include a table that shows personnel costs. List the gaps in the management team–if any–and show how they’re being addressed.

Financial Projections

Describe your financial strategy and how it supports your projected growth. Include a break-even analysis that shows risk as a matter of fixed vs. variable costs. Include projected profit or loss, cash flow and balance sheets.