Me.Tech() » General http://riteshnayak.com/blog my technology blog Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:01:18 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 My new machine – Thinkpad T410 http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2011/04/08/my-new-machine-thinkpad-t410/ http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2011/04/08/my-new-machine-thinkpad-t410/#comments Fri, 08 Apr 2011 08:58:06 +0000 Ritesh http://riteshnayak.com/blog/?p=509 I got myself a new PC.  Most of my friends and acquaintances already know that I am a big Thinkpad fan, and a thinkpad is what I got myself. What I like about the thinkpad : its sturdy build, really crispy keyboard with a high action, the infamous trackball and the battery life. I started liking the Thinkpad even more after a friend of mine introduced me to the Hardware maintenance manual and all the hardware hackery. This is my machine configuration.

  • Intel i7-620M dual core 2.7GHz
  • 8GB DDR3 RAM
  • 60GB OCZVertex2 SSD 2.5″ with Max Read: up to 280 MB/s and Max Write: up to 270 MB/s
  • I plan to mount 320GB 7200rpm HDD that shipped with the laptop on the Ultrabay which currently houses the DVD-RW drive using an adapter
  • NVIDIA NVS™ 3100M, PCI Express® x16 graphics card with 512MB memory (popularly known as Nvidia Optimus)
  • 14.1″ (358mm) WXGA+ (1440×900) display
  • Dimensions 13.2″ x 9.4″ x 1.1–1.3″ weighing approx 2.3 Kgs

Personal win: The SSD rocks. Applications are extremely responsive and boot time for Win7 is averaging at about 10 seconds. I am waiting for the 11.04 release of Ubuntu so that I can dual boot it and test it out.


Attached below is a review of the laptop.

]]> http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2011/04/08/my-new-machine-thinkpad-t410/feed/ 2 One Decade of Programming http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2009/07/24/one-decade-of-programming/ http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2009/07/24/one-decade-of-programming/#comments Fri, 24 Jul 2009 06:41:41 +0000 Ritesh http://riteshnayak.com/blog/?p=458 Sometime around July 1999 was the time I wrote my first “Hello World” program.  Yes, its been 10 years since I started programming, and I dont mean L R L T of Logo. In fact, I wrote some BASIC code as early as 1995-96, but I will skip that for reasons beyond the scope of this post.

I remember liking programming for lots of reasons, but one which I particularly remember. Unlike the other subjects in school, like math or physics,  programming had no boundaries or a legacy to deal with. By legacy, I mean there were no equations, constraints and I didn’t have to reciprocate what some mathematician proved 400 years ago. I have always enjoyed freedom and programming gave me that freedom to express myself.  I guess, I can claim that most good programmers have taken up programming because it lets them play God or be creationists of some complex entity.

Anyway, there are a lot of interesting and fun facts through these ten years and I shall pen some down.

  1. BASIC was my first programming language. PASCAL was probably my first compiled language.
  2. I wrote my first sorting routine ( an act I call, truly understanding the programming abstraction) sometime during Jan 2000.
  3. I got my first computer in 2001. AMD Athlon 1.7 GHz with 256 MB Ram and 40 Gb harddisk . “OMG 40GB” , was my friends reaction.
  4. I disliked C early on, due to my PASCAL roots, but grew fond of it later on when I completed my first large scale project ( A linux text editor, which I proudly wanted to call, “Better than VI“). This is also where I wrote my first recursive functionality which resulted in people actually wanting to read and understand my code.
  5. My first exposure to Linux and OSS was in 2002, I think it was RedHat linux 7.1 with running Xwindows.
  6. I almost lost my entire project due to a floppy malfunction. USB’s were expensive and uncommon then. CD writers expensive.
  7. I learnt about data structures in 2002.  My lecturer, one of the few good ones, was kind enough to teach us the intuition behind data structures and write the implementations ourselves. Our other lecturers taught programming from a book and expected us to replicate the programs written in the book.
  8. I would like to thank  my data structures lecturer who spent hours helping me debug and correct programs. It was probably the first time I looked at code from an outside perspective and yes, I realized the importance of indenting code then and there. I have never not indented my code again. (Remember we are still in 2002).
  9. I learnt about OO during christmas vacations of 2002. Loved it. Loved the paradigm shift in the way I thought about programs
  10. My first OO program was one class with 50+ methods in it (Yup, there was nothing OO about it, but its a start)
  11. My first large scale OO project was building a Paint like utility using C++. I am still proud of this work because I learnt about programming abstractions and class reponsibilities here. I still remember writing my first button class which was fully reponsible for itself.
  12. I learnt PERL in 2004 and wrote my first web application. An online messaging, calendar and collaboration utility for friends and corporates. ( yes, this was my first social app). When I saw Myspace very soon after that ( MySpace was still pretty bare in terms of features then) the only difference I saw was that other people could see who my contacts(friends) were and network with them.
  13. When I first discovered databases (2003), I thought, “wow, somebody made my file I/O’s really easy”. It was also an amazement because I had thought of a unified file writing and reading mechanism to solve all my I/O woes. Problem was getting it to work with many languages. I couldn’t get my head around it and thats when I learnt about databases. Imagine my surprise and rejoice. The first database I used was Oracle and later MySQL ( it wasn’t even relational then). My database project earned me 100/100 in my finals.
  14. Compiler Design was one of my favorite subjects. I loved the fact that I could understand how they build programming languagues. Lex Yacc was probably the best thing that ever happened to programming. Prateeksha and I wrote the specifications for a shift reduce parser for C++. We used an A1 sized sheet of paper to write down the shift reduce matrix. After two full days writing the Shift Reduce rules, we realized we had messed up somewhere.
  15. I wrote a prototype of my CASE tool in 2004.  My proud entry to the world of .NET. I had my official copy of Visual Studio.NET 2003 and .NET 1.1 . This CASE tool would eventually become my fnal semester project and also enter Microsoft’s Imagine Cup. We reached the Nationals for the competition. I called it Dzine.
  16. Even though I had learnt java in 2004, I didnt use J2EE till late 2005. when I started writing simple J2EE apps. I also figured that javascript, that language I had used to validate my controls in HTML (in 2004) , had suddenly taken the world by storm. Everybody was talking about it. Web 2.0.
  17. I sat for two whole days to figure out how yahoo mail was autocompleting email addresses I typed. After two days and a whole lot of searching, I learnt about AJAX. I was already on Gmail by then and didnt really understand the underlying plumbing that was holding the application together.
  18. Within the next 4 months I put AJAX and J2EE together to work on Samparkh with Prateeksha. I wrote an online chat application using AJAX ( inspired by Meebo). Remember this was a time when firebug wasn’t around and I used a tool called Venkman, which I am sure many of you haven’t even heard of.
  19. Then, Grad school happened and so did Microsoft, and the list of wonderful projects that I did during the two years I spent there.
  20. Special mention to BigKahuna, which took almost two years to perfect and won the Google Product Engineering Competition 2009.

Am I a good programmer? I dont know. But, I will continue to remain a programmer. Most of my friends know that I dont take sides. By sides, I mean OSS v/s Closed source, Linux vs Windows , Google vs Yahoo, and this is because of the vast and varied experiences I have had with all these different entities during programming. They all have a special place in my heart and I cannot choose one over the other. Programming is changing fast, and all I can hope for is that that I dont wear out of ideas or skills to call myself a programmer in the years to come.

A list of all the wonderful projects that I have pursued over the years is available here.

]]> http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2009/07/24/one-decade-of-programming/feed/ 9 State of higher education in India with a focus on Computer Science http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2009/06/15/state-of-higher-education-in-india-with-a-focus-on-computer-science/ http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2009/06/15/state-of-higher-education-in-india-with-a-focus-on-computer-science/#comments Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:50:17 +0000 Ritesh http://riteshnayak.com/blog/?p=452 I came back from attending a session which spoke about the state of graduate education in India and here is the summary:

  • Just over 450,000 students in India graduate with an Engineering degree
  • 150,000 students amongst them with a degree in either Computer Science or Information Technology.
  • There are about 1500 Engineering colleges in India.
  • Many of these colleges don’t even have a full professor on their rolls.
  • Currently there are about 750 students pursuing a Phd in 15 of the most reputed institutions in the country which means that, about 80 to 90 students graduate with a Phd from one of the 15 reputed institutions in India.
  • The 15 reputed institutions include the IIT’s, NIT’s, two of the IIIT’s (Hyderabad and Bangalore) and some autonomous institutions like BITS and Vellore.
  • The percentage of students who take up graduate education after their engineering in India is drastically low.
  • About a quarter of the students who secure Phd’s from universities from the US are Indians.
  • Students of Indian and Chinese origin make up half the graduate schools students in America.
  • Most people who secure their Phd’s from universities in India either join small and focused research groups in IT companies or take up faculty positions.
  • This year the amount of students applying for graduate education has increased dramatically, which only is reassuring evidence that graduate education is seen as a substitute for jobs and not as something of value.
  • A couple of IIT’s got about 700 applications for masters and phd positions.

Apart from all this the research output in India is not very high. Groups doing theory are considered to be doing some of the state of the art research, the other departments are not very highly regarded (I have a problem with this generalization, but we will keep that for another discussion). The researchers present in the discussion had plenty of points to contribute for the dismal state of higher education and some of the points mentioned were :

  • Lack of good, trained and motivated faculty members. This was attributed to the fact that salaries in academia were not on par with that of the industry. (pay commission’s revisions should do some good in this direction)
  • Lack of exposure to opportunities, challenges and rewards of research careers. ( this is true for colleges that are not very reputed, the quality of the faculty members are not up to the mark, which means they don’t have enough exposure … you get the point)
  • Societal pressures for securing jobs, that too through college placements, rather than pursuing something that the student really wants to do. A survey of the choices of the students during the engineering seat selection process will ascertain this fact. I even know of people who took up courses they had no interest in just because it was in a college where the placements were good.
  • Lack of funding for graduate students to attend conferences, workshops etc. ( though this was contested by a lot of people, I think , the problem lies in making the students aware of the funds that are available for such purposes )
  • Discrimination against the students who graduate from the IIT’s versus other institutions. (though strong alumni networks are not anything new, other colleges should target to strengthen their alumni networks and not work as silo’s )

This is where I found the IIIT’s (particularly Hyderabad and Bangalore) to be very innovative in their approach. They are situated in the heartland of what can be considered seat of innovation in India. Both of them have strong collaboration with the Indigenous and multinational companies based out of their respective cities and provide for a wonderful platform for students to explore a mix of both academic research and industry relevant parts of the information technology industry. Both IIIT-H and IIIT-Bangalore have achieved recognition for their quality in the industry and academia, and that too in good time. I am positive that in a few years time, these institutions will be deeply connected to the research and development communities of the information technology industry in India  and will contribute significantly to the intellectual output of the country.

disclaimer : the numbers mentioned in this post are thanks to Ashwani Sharma, part of the External Research Programs  team at Microsoft Research India.

]]> http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2009/06/15/state-of-higher-education-in-india-with-a-focus-on-computer-science/feed/ 10 What goes into a good resume http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2009/04/28/what-goes-into-a-good-resume/ http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2009/04/28/what-goes-into-a-good-resume/#comments Tue, 28 Apr 2009 13:10:44 +0000 Ritesh http://riteshnayak.com/blog/?p=444 I will be graduating soon and I am looking out for good positions in Bangalore. My areas of interest can be found here. As a result, its time for me to do my resume again. I have always wondered as to what makes a good resume. Should there be an objective? I mean, its a resume and it means you are looking for a job, so why the objective? Or should you put your achievements ? The right question would be, what have you achieved that will be looked upon as achievements by others? Should I put experience above education? Should I put that section called personal info at the end?

Give me your inputs as to what should go into a resume and what shouldn’t. If this turns out to be a good discussion, I am sure it will help out a lot of people like me.

Update: After receiving some feedback about my own resume, I am adding some more tips.

  • Even if you don’t believe that technology matters ( like I do), you have to put technologies that you know in your resume. This is required as the HR’s who look at the resume’s usually filter out resumes based on skills mentioned. Not having the skills column is only going to get your resume away from good opportunities.
  • Its very important that you provide your contact information in multiple forms. Phone number, at least two email id’s, home phone etc.
  • Nobody cares that you won a first prize in your school’s annual dancing competition or that you have helped organize your college fest. A recruiter told me that such things are good only if you are applying for BPO jobs where you have to prove your leadership skills.
  • Do not write essays about your projects. Leave it short and let the recruiters/interviewers quiz you about the same. This gives more time for conversation and a healthy dialogue.
]]> http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2009/04/28/what-goes-into-a-good-resume/feed/ 4 More modifications to More Y! http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2008/08/21/more-modifications-to-more-y/ http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2008/08/21/more-modifications-to-more-y/#comments Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:26:58 +0000 Ritesh http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2008/08/21/more-modifications-to-more-y/ If you haven’t seen More Y! , then its high time you do. Its a simple search plugin built on top of BOSS platform that optimizes the search experience for widescreen displays. Whats even more cool is the adoption rate. My statistics tell me that there have been a lot of people who use this service and nothing satisfies a technologist more than to see his technology being adopted.

  After a fight with my significant other who is trying really hard to improve relevance on Yahoo search results, I realized that I wasn’t doing justice to search results by ordering top results in top down fashion. I have changed the code to now show results in left-right fashion. Now the most popular results will be available on top of the screen and you don’t have to strain those precious eyeballs of yours to look all the way down to see the results. A simple change but for a goo cause.

 When I get the time, I shall also incorporate search suggestions on your toolbar, but till then make do with this.


Tags: , , ,

]]> http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2008/08/21/more-modifications-to-more-y/feed/ 0 Finally I get my hands on the MacBook Air http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2008/05/29/finally-i-get-my-hands-on-the-macbook-air/ http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2008/05/29/finally-i-get-my-hands-on-the-macbook-air/#comments Thu, 29 May 2008 07:43:42 +0000 Ritesh http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2008/05/29/finally-i-get-my-hands-on-the-macbook-air/ MacBook Air. A guided tour.
Well, I finally got my hands on a mac book air and I must say, its unbelievable. The form factor is just amazing, the overall thickness of the laptop is quite comparable to my ipod. Yes, you heard it right, MY IPOD. Thats how thin the lap top is. Pictures and videos of the Macbook Air do not do justice to its brilliance.

Its got 2Gb of RAM, a 1.6 /1.8 Gig processor and 80GB harddisk. Hard to believe all that fits in the macbook air. Just head over to the nearest iStore and check it out. Its selling at a modest 100k in India :-)
MacBook Air open.

Blogged with the Flock Browser
]]> http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2008/05/29/finally-i-get-my-hands-on-the-macbook-air/feed/ 0 Bangalore International Airport (BIAL) – Transport and other facilities http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2008/05/19/bangalore-international-airport-bial-transport-and-other-facilities/ http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2008/05/19/bangalore-international-airport-bial-transport-and-other-facilities/#comments Mon, 19 May 2008 11:17:31 +0000 Ritesh http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2008/05/19/bangalore-international-airport-bial-transport-and-other-facilities/ The BIAL – Bangalore International Airport will be open for business from the 23rd of may 2008. The airport promises to be a great place with lots of facilities. BMTC will run 600 + volvo buses daily from various corners of Bangalore. The buses run with a frequency of 15 minutes, which is great and set prices will ensure you wont have trouble from Bangalore’s infamous autorickshaws and taxis. The other great initiative is the taxis that will be chartered out of the airport on set price.

The revolt to the new airport being established is plenty and the fact that its 40 kms away from the city makes travel to the airport an overhead for short haul flights. Take a look at the guide for travelling to the airport

Travel Guide to the Bangalore International Airport

and also the transportation map of the pick up points, route and the proposed time for travel.

Transportation Map.pdf

The jewel in the crown could have been booking for transports on these buses so that there aren’t any seating hassles, but hopefully they will get to it once the airport is fully operational. Best of luck BIAL.

]]> http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2008/05/19/bangalore-international-airport-bial-transport-and-other-facilities/feed/ 2 Bollywood gets blogging http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2008/05/15/bollywood-gets-blogging/ http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2008/05/15/bollywood-gets-blogging/#comments Thu, 15 May 2008 13:21:12 +0000 Ritesh http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2008/05/15/bollywood-gets-blogging/ The impact of the internet is so profound and enriching that people want to express themselves through the various ways. Bollywood stars are also not far behind ; the latest craze being Amitabh Bachchan’s blog. Besides the fact that I am a big fan of Mr Bachchan, I think, the blog idea is wonderful. Its a gateway to connect to your fans in a completely non intrusive way. Its way better than the chain mail fan club.
  I hear that there are many other stars going blog crazy. Will scour around the place to find more, especially the ones where the ladies write :-)

 Well this is where Amitabh blogs

Blogged with the Flock Browser
]]> http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2008/05/15/bollywood-gets-blogging/feed/ 0 Xobni for Outlook http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2008/05/09/xobni-for-outlook/ http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2008/05/09/xobni-for-outlook/#comments Fri, 09 May 2008 06:39:10 +0000 Ritesh http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2008/05/09/xobni-for-outlook/ xobni for outlook
Xobni is my pick of the plugins for Outlook. It manages your emails and does wonderful things. Just try it out with outlook and see the difference, I suggest people with full mailboxes to use this plugin to get organized easily. Click the link below to get Xobni

Xobni: Email organization, search, and navigation for your Outlook inbox

]]> http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2008/05/09/xobni-for-outlook/feed/ 0 IT companies rating http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/09/12/it-companies-rating/ http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/09/12/it-companies-rating/#comments Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:08:24 +0000 Ritesh http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/09/12/it-companies-rating/ Found this pdf via Dataquest. Don’t really know if I can really post this, but what the hell, who am I killing ?

DataQuest IT companies rating 2007

]]> http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/09/12/it-companies-rating/feed/ 0 Live from Live Writer http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/08/16/live-from-live-writer/ http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/08/16/live-from-live-writer/#comments Thu, 16 Aug 2007 15:27:10 +0000 Ritesh http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/08/16/live-from-live-writer/ After a lot of waiting, I finally got myself office 2007 and windows live writer. The interface looks really killer but its hard to let go of the good old fashioned interface of word. There will be obstacles in the large scale adoption of live writer due to its change in usability. The blogging bit has definitely gotten me excited and hopefully , I should be posting more. Till then…..

]]> http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/08/16/live-from-live-writer/feed/ 0 Pani Puri 2.0 http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/06/07/pani-puri-20/ http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/06/07/pani-puri-20/#comments Thu, 07 Jun 2007 12:49:11 +0000 Ritesh http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/06/07/pani-puri-20/ Found this great presentation, which is one of the winners of the best presentations in the world, conducted by Guy Kawasaki. Read this post here to view some of the best presentations as judged by Guy. My choice was definitely Pani Puri , its been my staple and my way of life. I cannot imagine a life without it and to think it had a deep spiritual meaning attached to it is completely rewarding experience. Truly 2.0 !!

]]> http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/06/07/pani-puri-20/feed/ 2 Back on the saddle http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/05/10/back-on-the-saddle/ http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/05/10/back-on-the-saddle/#comments Thu, 10 May 2007 10:05:24 +0000 Ritesh http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/05/10/back-on-the-saddle/ Had a very refreshing vacation in India’s own Hawaii, aka Goa and am back after a good 5 day break. It was good staying away from technology for almost 6 days and it cetainly is a good feeling coming back to a full inbox and a fuller RSS reader. Wait for my post on my vacation in Goa – will write one soon, as for now back to tech-ing.

]]> http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/05/10/back-on-the-saddle/feed/ 0 I have arrived ….. to my personal space http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/03/28/i-have-arrived-to-my-personal-space/ http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/03/28/i-have-arrived-to-my-personal-space/#comments Wed, 28 Mar 2007 10:52:03 +0000 Ritesh http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/03/28/i-have-arrived-to-my-personal-space/ I have arrived. If you are reading this post, then you have reached my right blog address. I shall be actively blogging my usual rants, ideas and wows about technology here.

If you were using a feed reader to read my posts, please change the subscription to this url

http://riteshnayak.com/blog/feed

If you are already reading this through a feed reader, then you do zilch.

Just in case you are wondering who I am, Im Ritesh, who blogged actively here all this time. My sincere thanks to the wordpress team for giving me such an amazing place to express my ideas.

Ritesh

]]> http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/03/28/i-have-arrived-to-my-personal-space/feed/ 0 Post Number 200 http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/03/01/post-number-200/ http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/03/01/post-number-200/#comments Thu, 01 Mar 2007 16:26:05 +0000 Ritesh http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/03/01/post-number-200/ Hey all, this is my 200th post and I thought this would be a great opportunity to acknowledge all those people who made this possible.

For starters, I definitely would like to thank WordPress, my blogging framework, their wonderful software was what inspired me to write more. I just love wordpress and would recommend anyone who wishes to blog to come onto it and check it out.

Next in my list would be all those people who inspired me to write, I am not going to quote best selling authors here, but some of my motivators include Om Malik, Mike Arrington , Alex Russel and of course Ajaxian. These are some of the people I just cant live without.

I would also like to thank P, for dutifully reading my blogs and pointing out mistakes and drawbacks, she is someone whose expectations I can never live up to  :)   I would also like to thank my workmates Ash, Saha and Prabhat who have dutifully been listening to me Rant about things before I write about them.

Blogging to me started as a way of assimilating a repository of information that I kept learning over the net. More as a reference to things that I could look up when I needed to. Now its become a part of my existence, many know me through my blogs and I guess its just a part of my identity. Thanks for all the hits ;-) and keep reading .

]]> http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/03/01/post-number-200/feed/ 1 Back after a long time…… http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/01/31/back-after-a-long-time/ http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/01/31/back-after-a-long-time/#comments Wed, 31 Jan 2007 15:06:26 +0000 Ritesh http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/01/31/back-after-a-long-time/ Had been really busy for sometime. My current project was up for release and we did a pretty good job of it in the timespan that we allocated for ourselves. Read all about it here.  It was a sleepless, nerve wrecking experience seeing all our code failing on production. But we( as in the developers) are all happy with the end product. Thats what finally matters I guess, Well back to blogs now….

]]> http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/01/31/back-after-a-long-time/feed/ 0 Wishing everyone a happy new year http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/01/01/wishing-everyone-a-happy-new-year/ http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/01/01/wishing-everyone-a-happy-new-year/#comments Mon, 01 Jan 2007 13:15:54 +0000 Ritesh http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/01/01/wishing-everyone-a-happy-new-year/ I would like to thank each and everyone of you for taking the time to read my blogs and even write back. Hoping this new year will bring with it more joy and happiness than ever. Hapy new year. Keep rocking!!

]]> http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2007/01/01/wishing-everyone-a-happy-new-year/feed/ 0 Ajax Based DNS search http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2006/12/20/ajax-based-dns-search/ http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2006/12/20/ajax-based-dns-search/#comments Wed, 20 Dec 2006 11:26:25 +0000 Ritesh http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2006/12/20/ajax-based-dns-search/

Check out AjaxDNS

Thanks to Ajaxian, I found this new ajax based service which provides DNS based search results. Really cool, for webmasters and others alike.

It includes the following searches

  • Live DNS
  • Whois Search
  • IP Whois
  • HTTP Headers
  • RBL Search
  • Ping
  • DNS Traversal

]]> http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2006/12/20/ajax-based-dns-search/feed/ 1 Doomsday for enterprise software? http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2006/12/20/doomsday-for-enterprise-software/ http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2006/12/20/doomsday-for-enterprise-software/#comments Wed, 20 Dec 2006 09:18:50 +0000 Ritesh http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2006/12/20/doomsday-for-enterprise-software/ I just read this great article on the growth and concerns of Oracle. Well Oracle might be in a bigger soup than what people expect. They spent about 10 Billion for PeopleSoft and 5 Billion for Siebel and things dont look picturesque. It goes to show you that big acquisitions need not mean big clients and more revenue.

   The growth of the second quarter has apparently been down for oracle. The major blame is on how the concept of a software is changing. The first quarter posted profits of 80% but second quarter showed only 28%. 

 Im sure most of the peoplesoft and siebel clients will only rethink after being freed by licensing agreements. All the disgruntled clients now are free to rethink. Application sales have hit rock bottom, with SOA’s becoming more and more compatible to reuse and also lot of open source extensions to existing apps, sales/upgrades have become sparse. Also another factor would be the Software as a service model , companies like salesforce who are delivering hassle free software at low prices and extremely fast. Gone are those days where you would wait for a customised version of your enterprise software. 

 There are also service companies who provide such applications in a redistributable license, basically use a single licensed version to cater to all their clients. All in all things look chaotic for the marketing teams of such enterprises. I think its time, such companies rethink their strategies and adapt to the changing times. Is it doomsday for Enterprise software?  

]]> http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2006/12/20/doomsday-for-enterprise-software/feed/ 0 Yahoo and the Page Views Factor http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2006/12/20/yahoo-and-the-page-views-factor/ http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2006/12/20/yahoo-and-the-page-views-factor/#comments Wed, 20 Dec 2006 09:05:17 +0000 Ritesh http://riteshnayak.com/blog/2006/12/20/yahoo-and-the-page-views-factor/  There is a new post on the Yahoo blog, which explains how yahoo has perceived the recent news of Myspace snatching the Yahoo’s page views crown. Yahoo goes onto explain that metrics such as page views and unique visitors are passé and that they were valid until technologies like flash and Ajax took over.

 I totally agree with whatever they are saying. It makes absolutely no sense to judge a good site by the page views it gets. There are a lot of single page sites nowadays like meebo, blogmusik etc which cater to all the sites needs in just one page. Does that mean that its not a good site? The concept of unique visitors is also screwed up. Lots of people using wifi nowadays keep moving from one cell to another, every new node will have a new ip and unique visitors concept is obscure in these cases.

We need a new metric to handle this, it definitely will be something to do with userbase, geographical distribution, time spent on the site and other things or probably a combination of both. Only time will tell…

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