Social network’s goes Open Source (OpenSocial)

Google and all leading social network’s have come together with set of API’s using which anyone can create applications for social networking sites. For orkut, google provides sandbox where one can play and test there applications on orkut.

Watch this video for detail.

Career Planning Advice

I was going through post of Marc Andreessen and I found few interesting points that I would like to share.Below are some quotes from the post.

Pick an industry where the founders of the industry — the founders of the important companies in the industry — are still alive and actively involved.

This is easy to figure out — just look at the CEO, chairman or chairwoman, and board of directors for the major companies in the industry.

If the founders of the companies are currently serving as CEO, chairman or chairwoman, or board member of their companies, it’s a good industry to enter. It is probably still young and vital, and there are probably still opportunities to exploit all over the place, either at those companies or at new companies in that industry.

If not — if the industry’s founders are dead, or old and out of touch — beware. That industry is now dominated by companies that are being run by second or third or even fourth generation managers who inherited their companies pre-built, and are serving as caretakers.

Never worry about being a small fish in a big pond. Being a big fish in a small pond sucks — you will hit the ceiling on what you can achieve quickly, and nobody will care. Optimize at all times for being in the most dynamic and exciting pond you can find. That is where the great opportunities can be found.

Apply this rule when selecting which company to go to. Go to the company where all the action is happening.

Or, if you are going to join a startup or start your own company, always make sure that your startup is aimed at the largest and most interesting opportunity available — the new markets that are growing fast and changing rapidly.

In a rapidly changing field like technology, the best place to get experience when you’re starting out is in younger, high-growth companies.

(This is not necessarily true in older and more established industries, but those aren’t the industries we’re talking about.)

here are a bunch of great things that you get when you go to a younger, high-growth company:

• You’ll get to do lots of stuff. There will be so much stuff to do in the company that you’ll be able to do as much of it as you can possibly handle. Which means you’ll gain skills and experience very quickly.
• You’ll probably get promoted quickly. Fast-growing companies are characterized by a chronic lack of people who can step up to all the important new leadership jobs that are being created all the time. If you are aggressive and performing well, promotions will come quickly and easily.
• You’ll get used to being in a high-energy, rapidly-changing environment with sharp people and high expectations. It’s like training for a marathon while wearing ankle weights — if you ever end up going to a big company, you’ll blow everyone away. And if you ever go to a startup, you’ll be ready for the intensity.
• Reputational benefit. Having Silicon Graphics from the early 90’s, or Netscape from the mid-90’s, or eBay from the late 90’s, or Paypal from the early 00’s, or Google from the mid-00’s on your resume is as valuable as any advanced degree — it’s a permanent source of credibility.

In contrast to going to a big company: working for a big company teaches you how to work for big companies. The way things work at a big company is usually unique to big companies. So, working for a big company is often a statement that you plan to spend your career at big companies — and lots of people are very happy doing that, but I doubt that’s your intention or you wouldn’t be reading this post.

In contrast to going to a startup: when you are first starting your career, you should realize that raw startups are highly variable in terms of the experiences you will have. Some can be great, but many are very poorly managed and go nowhere. You will probably be better off going somewhere that’s already succeeding, gain skills and experience, and then go to a startup.

In contrast to going to a mediocre small or mid-sized company that’s not growing: those are great places to go if you don’t want to go anywhere yourself. If you find yourself stuck in one, either figure out how to get the company unstuck and on a fast growth path, or get yourself unstuck.

Don’t just be a “summertime soldier” — don’t go someplace because it’s already successful, and then bail when things get tough.

Any hiring manager for the rest of your career will be able to read that on your resume just by looking at the dates.

High-growth companies virtually always hit speed bumps, or even huge potholes. Stuff goes wrong. Going through the experience of gutting through the hard parts and coming out the other end will be a key part of your real-world education and will serve you very well down the road, especially if you ever start your own company.

Then, once you’ve racked up killer skills and experiences at a high-growth company, feel free to go to a startup.

Picking which startup to join probably deserves its own post. However, in a nutshell, look for one where you understand the product, see how it might fit into a very large market, and really like and respect the people who are already there.

Or, start your own company.

If your startup fails, try another one. If that one fails, get back into a high-growth company to reset your resume and get more skills and experiences. Then start another company. Repeat as necessary until you change the world.

Indian software engineers obsessed with US tag

I have been talking and interacting with many software engineers (Senior guys) in recent days. Actually looking for few good engineers who can start working on new product line and build there team for the product(Absolutely great work profile for a senior engineer and that too product like implementing a highly scalable and high performance snapshot for NAS box ) .

When I explain the job profile, most of them gets exited (of course whosoever loves working on technology and have passion for product development wont like to miss such opportunities) . But! when they know its _not_ US/Europe based company, there half of enthu is lost :-O.. I am really shocked!!

I don’t understand why Indian engineers are so much obsessed with ‘US’ tag? Hardly any US based company develop there core technology @ there ODC/IDC.. forget about outsourcing such work!. It makes sense also.. In US there are resources available(though Indians contribute there also in major chunk) who can actually develop and they can keep there technology more safer(attrition rate is low, better IP laws) and better quality of engineers(India don’t have much resource which fits for product R&D).

But hey.. there is world/market beyond US!!Take a look at Asian market… Japan, Korea, Taiwan.. all have already made there mark in Electronics market. Economically these countries are doing great. But unlike US/Europe these counties don’t have good quality of software engineers. Again if Companies are product based they wont like to outsource there core technology.. hence they are opening there development centers in India/China.

Here its really good chance of being part of great products and work on some really good technology and R&D work (esp. for people who don’t want to leave India and want to work on core technologies!!)

Of course if VC’s funds and Indians start there own product development, it will be really great.. but still area where both hardware and software development is required.. Indian market is not yet developed much.. I think its high time Indians should start thinking beyond US and make them selfs independent of any single market..

Proware’s first Advertisement in India

Today Proware has published first advertisement in India (Times Accent, 5th page), after more then 2 years of its successful establishment of IDC . It is for hiring not for product sales.

Going WiFi..

I recently purchased D-Link WIFI Router (DI-524) for my home. I always hate wires running all over my house. Thanks to mobile and Wireless technology, It made life much easier.

Some Past facts

Since last half decade Internet has seen huge growth in India and worldwide. I remember when I started using Internet at home, at the time of my bachelors using dial-up, even speed of (which was very rare to get )10Kbps was gr8 . Well that was the time when broadband was very much limited to Corporate sector. Two years later cybercafe with broadband connections was becoming common in most of the upcoming cities. later with Cellular boom communication mode in India was totally changed. Internet was accessible from mobile phones and now a days mobile phones are more smarter and powerful then my first desktop machine .

This summer, I was in my village(somewhere in Bihar) and I was booking my return tickets over Internet sitting at machan in my mango garden with help of my (mobile and notebook) Ahh!! that’s life man..:) I wish one day ,I could setup my office there

WIFI Technology

WIFI has seen growth in last couple of years, Nowadays apart from corporate sector it can be seen in public places like Airports, shopping malls, coffee shops and of course Universities.

WIFI Technology is cellular computer network that transmits and receives data with radio signals instead of wires. To use this one needs a WIFI adapter card, nowadays most of laptop readily comes with that. For desktop you can buy USB or card adaptor.

WIFI is basically based on 802.11a, 802.11b and 802.11g. In India ( b and g ) network is available these days. The DI-524 Wireless Broadband Router utilizes the new 802.11g standard. The IEEE 802.11g standard is an extension of the 802.11b standard. It increases the data rate up to 54 Mbps within the 2.4GHz band, utilizing OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) technology.OFDM works by splitting the radio signal into multiple smaller sub-signals that are then transmitted simultaneously at different frequencies to the receiver. OFDM reduces the amount of crosstalk (interference) in signal transmissions.

The DI-524 is backwards compatible with 802.11b devices. This means that if you have
an existing 802.11b network, the devices in that network will be compatible with 802.11g devices at speeds of up to 11Mbps in the 2.4GHz range.

WIFI and security issues.

Security is one of the most important issue with this technology, though lot of solutions are also available. Countries esp. like India where still cyber laws are not too strong, Its better one should take precautions by themselves.

Your network is accessible by everybody within the range of device. Its duty of owner to protect it from unauthorized access, else you may end up paying huge Subscription fees for the bandwidth which you have never used or even worse you might be sharing you important personal detail like bank account info, your pictures to wrong peoples.

This router comes with WEP ,802.1X and WPA-PSK and WPA security options. Though I will personally recommend WPA.

WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) authorizes and identifies users based on a secret key
that changes automatically at a regular interval. WPA uses TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol) to change the temporal key every 10,000 packets (a packet is a kind of message transmitted over a network.) This insures much greater security than the standard WEP security. (By contrast, the older WEP encryption required the keys to be changed manually.)

So be alert and stay secured. Happy surfing

Book Review: Simple.ology – Mark Joyner

Recently completed this book, I found it really nice. The whole book is written in 4 sections. Author tried to explain what are the things/faith/thoughts which control an individuals decisions, which changes attitude towards life.

I personally like the way book is written. Its like watching a movie . The dave(an imaginary character, author used throughout book) example is simply superb.

I second last section bit boring, I mean its same as most of self help says.

But overall its nice book and everyone should read.

Happy Birthday to me :)

I got a surprise from my friends, Kundu and Birender yesterday on my birthday. Below are few pics

First mark of ProSUN baby :)

You must be wondering who is proSUN baby . Well let me introduce it with you.

It is a RAID Controller card (SCSI-SCSI & SCSI-SATA)*, which you can see soon in storage market. A product developed & owned by Proware Tech. Corp.

Seen lot of up and downs over the span of more then two years of product development cycle, But today finally proSUN 1.0 is released . Kudos to Team Proware ! Yes we did it

Thanks to Johri for bringing me into Proware team. I really feel gr8 to work with such team and on such product. It is really crazy, bunch of engineers chasing a dream and today the dream came true .

This product is special for me, since this is my first product on which I started working since its inception (you can ask for my resume to know what other product I have developed ), that too at this stage of my career . Also I have added a significant amount of code which is part of core in product. I really feel proud on it

The whole product is developed in house, i.e. Right from designing to development of hardware and software both from scratch and believe me developing such product (read RAID Controller where development of hardware and software is involved) is not everybody’s(read every company’s) cup of tea.

Well I wont be writing the feature set or any performance no here.. it will be soon available in press release on my company website, as we do official release in 2-3 days. So stay tuned to know more about it.

I would like end this blog with johri’s saying “Good day to be alive”.

Notes:

* A lot of more combination will be released in few months.

Law of Attraction

Have came across such situation.. that after you brought something new and you may find same thing is with many people in your surrounding. e.g. you purchased a watch /pen/car etc of some XXX brand.. and when you went to office you started realizing same watch is with few of your colleague!!!.

Well its not that it was not there before! its just you have not noticed that. Agreed? Our brain is like that.. Whatever we think or is going in mind, our brain start filtering data on basis of the same. Some thing like data-mining.

It is known as Law of Attraction. Well may of you may start goggling  on ‘Law of Attraction’. It states “you get what you think about”. Though it is a religious faith but, I think above theory gives it scientific proof.

If someone thinks, he has to achieve something, and he keeps that in his mind always.. Obviously he will start working towards it.and eventually will achieve that.

Now may of you will say, if so why people fails to achieve  there goles… hummm now it comes here distraction.. Remember  whenever we see think we will do exercise everyday and will make body like salman bhai :p. We ever bring new shoes, gym gears, tracksuit etc.. and enroll to cities posh GYM( esp. example for software engineers ) But after few days.. ” yaar  subah subah gym.. shaam ko jate hai na!!”… After few days more.. ” yaar yea gym jaa ke kuch nahi hota, we should join dance classes “

Well at first we were determined. We were focused and goal was in mind so we enroll to GYM, purchased things. after few days Morning sleep suppressed the goal in Mind. and thats it…

So ‘Law of attraction’ hold it, but there is another law , ‘Law of Distraction’

Can there be such world ???

Ofcourse.. But with human too