Twitter down?

Is twitter down today? It’s giving me Transaction timed out error and its’ not opening.

IBM, Sun Microsystems Deal Could Create High Tech Juggernaut

With a reported $6.5 billion cash offer on the table for Sun Microsytems, IBM would be well positioned to snag significant market share in enterprise server hardware and software, particularly in Linux and Java software for Web application development. The deal would also give IBM a leg up in the data storage, government systems and telecommunications markets.

Learn more here.

Keynote Test Perspective: Quick points on Load Testing

Guys, just jotting the quick points from the presentation on load testing, sitting at conference room(will continue on Monday.)

• Load testing is end to end performance test under anticipated production load
• load testing is critical for any website that serves high density of traffic.
• load testing validates the justification of website infrastructure changes which organization makes time to time

best practices

• do not be assured of the previous site performance
• do not hesitate to test from multiple locations
• do not assume the user type, there are both type of users- patience packed and patience un-packed

Why terrorists attack soft targets?

We have had three waves of anger among the Indian Muslim youth — the first was after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 and the second after the Gujarat riots of 2002. These waves have since dissipated. Since last year, one has been noticing a fresh wave of anger after the convictions of a number of Muslims by a Mumbai court in the Mumbai blasts of March, 1993. A common theme in all their Internet chatter is what they see as the inherent unfairness of the Indian criminal justice system towards Muslims.

While taking strong action against the terrorists, whoever they are, it is important to address this perception that our criminal justice system is unfair to Muslims.

July 25 @ Bangalore- The BLAST-ing day

The eight blasts that rocked Bengaluru on July 25 points to high orchestration, but low intensity. The blasts reportedly took place within about 12 minutes at around 1-30 pm, that is after the Friday’s mid-day namaz in the local mosques.

The high orchestration used in timing five to six blasts, with some precision, resembled the serial blasts in Jaipur in May last year and in three towns of Uttar Pradesh in November.

While timers were used to activate the improvised explosive devices, the explosive material used does not appear to have been of a sophisticated kind. Ammonium nitrate, mixed with a booster, was the preferred explosive in previous terrorist incidents, but one does not know whether ammonium nitrate was used in the Bengaluru blasts too.

Some TV reports speak of the possible use of gelatin sticks. If so, these blasts would resemble, from the point of view of the composition of the IEDs, the serial blasts in Coimbatore carried out by Al Ummah, a Muslim extremist organisation of South India, in February 1998 to protest against the alleged police excesses against Muslim youth after the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Investigation into the Coimbatore blasts showed that Muslim youth had fabricated the IEDs with the help of explosive material stolen from the quarries of south India.

From preliminary reports, one could make the following surmise: firstly, the terrorists did not want to cause mass casualties; secondly, Bengaluru has the largest concentration of foreign businessmen and experts, but they did not want to target them; thirdly, they did not want to target the foreign tourists either.

Celebrate Valentine’s Week With One You LOVE Most

The month of February has always been much awaited for the love-birds. Folks make your Valentine’s week a memorable day and gift the moment of love to your loveables. Here’s a quick walk through the whole week:

February 7th Rose day- Gift her a rose and show the passion of your love.
February 8th Propose day- Express your love by telling him/her how much you love.

February 9th Chocolate day- This goes for boys, go get her a choco treat and make her feel cozy

February 10 th Teddy day- The cute one.

February 11 th Promise day- The day to make the eternal promise of love and togetherness.

February 12 th Kiss day- The tenderness which makes you feel loved.

February 13 th Hug day- Hug him/her and give a feeling of forever protection and shelter in your arms.

February 14 th Valentine day- The final day to be together and stay together in love forever.

Social Media and Networking, how much impact it has on Indian community?

Networking on the net isn’t new; there have been so many sites bringing friends together, dating and matrimonial and even business networking sites; but suddenly there is hush hush about the user generated content(UGC). Content communities, social and business networking are emerging all over the net. What brought about the change?
If I start mentioning about UGC sites then it would take me pages to jot about them but to name few, there are several sites those who have been so very well performed to serve the user to broadcast or showcase their content on the net. YouTube and MySpace are most extensive examples driven on:
1. Broadband.
2. Content already there, present it in a social format.

The impact on the community is to identify the difference between the approach to en-cash the concept of social networking and community content. Google AdSense and several ads publishers/sponsors gives a good start to develop around the social networking concept. It’s a good option to start the transactions but may not be a possible option always.

There are so many social networking sites approaching the common goal; being social but there’s a thin line in this game that has to be drawn. I call this forecast an eagle-eye, developing a content oriented site where networking should be a mean of sharing or making the content social but NOT the end. Be more polite, networking should not be end but it should be a medium of content oriented sites.

So what would be main ingredients in making of a successful community? Obviously, understanding one’s pain would always be highlighted and then throwing them the options as solution to their pain has always a good impact. That’s what is needed to translate the impact in a successful community. The main ingredients or key bullet points would be:
1. Understanding your user and their needs(the pain)
2. Offering a simple but targeted product/service
3. Go social(Log on….log on…log on)

Creating a forum and discussion board to observe the conversation may be easy but on the community scales it may be tough. We need multimedia capabilities and user engagement(user activity) to involve more(go social).

Sony uses social media

Social media such as social networking sites and blogs, in particular, are being used to spread the buzz. Sony Entertainment Television (SET) India took this route when it launched its comedy reality show, Champion Chaalbaaz No. 1.

Albert Almeida, executive vice-president and business head, SET India, says, “The idea was to cash in on UGC (user-generated content) that refers to various kinds of media content, which is publicly available and which is produced by end users… The response to this site has been tremendous in terms of page views and reach.”

According to Saurabh Gupta, chief executive officer of Phonethics, Mian Fekoo has already posted about two lakh entries on social media sites in the last six months, so people were familiar with it. “The character acted as a brand ambassador in endorsing the show. On Facebook, Mian Fekoo has 130 friends, and we received about one lakh visits to the blog during the campaign.”

Though the campaign ended in January, Mian Fekoo is still alive and kicking and continues to add postings on the blog. The character will continue creating content on various sites, says Gupta, and may be licensed to other advertisers in the future.

Rising rupee against the dollar, pay back by your job

How far is this justified that if rupee rises against the dollar then you have to compensate this by your job? Sounds stupid right, but it’s being happening all over.

India’s leading software services firm Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) said on Tuesday that about 500 of its employees were asked to look for another job after their performance was rated poorly.

The export-driven software services companies have been winning large outsourcing contracts from western clients, but recession fears in the US and a rising rupee against the dollar has considerably affected their profit margins in the recent past.

“Those who cannot meet the performance requirements of our company were asked to look for another job commensurate with their abilities,” TCS spokesman Pradipta Bagchi said here.

Whose Mumbai is it? India says everybody’s

In the past two days cosmopolitan Mumbai has witnessed ugly parochialism. Political mobs loyal to Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray targetted North Indians on the streets, taxi drivers were attacked and their taxis are burnt, passengers on trains were roughed up and even Amitabh Bachchan’s residence came under attack, only because the victims hail from North India.

Are North Indians still outsiders in Mumbai? That was the question discussed on CNN-IBN show Face the Nation conducted by Sagarika Ghose. Look political leaders giving fake justifications to their shortcomings.

1. Who is responsible?

Is the party nurturing a victim mentality within the North Indian community in order to win votes? Is Raj Thackeray trying to repeat Bal Thackeray’s strategy?

2. Vote bank politics?

Are two politically insignificant forces – MNS and Samajwadi party in Maharashtra simply playing a game for votes?

3. Damage control

Deshmukh also explained the initiatives that the state government was taking to bring the communities together.

4. Where is the Mumbaikar spirit?

Every time there is a disaster or a terrorist attack, the spirit of Mumbai takes over. Where is the spirit now and why does it not come to the aid of people who have been targeted? Police, too, has been a mute spectator to the incident and did not do anything to save the people who were attacked.

The growing economy is placing a massive strain on community relations in every Indian city and making nonsense of India’s modern image. Be it in Mumbai, Bangalore or Hyderabad, locals complain that migrants are taking away their jobs and their facilities. Governments act swiftly to impose law and order otherwise India’s famous cosmopolitan urbanism will be revealed to the world, as nothing but a lie.