Google Plus

Just heard noise on the web about the new google product Google+. people are saying its a facebook killer so I thought I will do a bit of research by myself. So I kept following the buzz,, twitter feeds, followed many famous tech blogs and read many articles and saw many videos. I must confess it is the best social product I have seen from google. The demos are very exciting which you can check out here. The videos for this product are here.

I must say having read all of the Google+ content, all of the info site and watched all of the movies (to post a story about it), I can now say I am a little miffed I don’t have an invite 🙂 .This is little disappointing but as its said on google official blog its a small field trial and will be rolled out to everyone when they create a final clean product. So I am waiting for it. You can opt for trial from here.

Having said all that the best blog to read about Google plus where all the info is given is the wired article Inside Google+ by @stevenjayl

Sources: Official Google Blog, Wired, twitter and buzz feed

So what do you love??

A cool google site which combines many of the services provided by google. The end result just put a query like “India” and find out yourself where  you can get videos, news, 3D maps of places, popularity charts of the topic, products services, pictures, patent info and many other interesting and fun stuff.

 So click on it and explore.

http://www.wdyl.com/

Why Software Development can never be Engineering!!

This is a classic question which once my teacher discussed during a file structures class. After around one year I had read this articles which deals with this question.
This post is highly recommended to all those who compare Software development with a more hardcore engineering field like bridge constructions.

the articles goes:
I always find it rather interesting when academics try to quantify generalized metrics about software development.

Things like: per lines of code, there will be X number of bugs.

Statements like: it has been empirically proven that “blah” affects the development of software in some way “blah.” 

These are all interesting thoughts, but software development will never conform to rigid engineering principles like many other engineering practices. The longer I work in the field, the more and more I realize that software development has nothing to do with engineering. We just happen to attend some of the same math classes in school…. more here!! 

via: Elegant Code

State of social media in 2011

Check out this video to come up to speed with the current state of social media. The creator is Erik Qualman of Socialnomics.

via State of social media in 2011 – Holy Kaw!.

Help Bring Back the Alien-Hunting SETI Telescopes

The world’s only telescopes devoted to searching for aliens went dark two months ago because of a lack of funds. Now you can help bring them back.

This morning, SETI launched a website called SETIstars to try to gather funds to resurrect the Allen Telescope Array (ATA), which some astronomers call our greatest hope for finding ET.

Read Here

Source: wired.com

World Fastest Computer Built in Japan.

World fastest computer is has been built in Japan and is named as K-computer..

An eight-petaflop Japanese supercomputer has grabbed the title of fastest computer on earth in the new Top 500 Supercomputing List to be officially unveiled at the International Supercomputing Conference in Hamburg today.

Read More here!!

Not Just another new year.

Hey folks hi,
Happy new year to all and most importantly to myself.After 3 years I think, celebrated the transition from 2010 to 2011 like a normal person. This year 2011 will hold a very important milestone in my life . This year I will finally become an Engineer, the dream that lots and lots of young minds of India have and I am no exception to the popular saying among students “Engineering ka Kida”. The journey so far has been to say least, BUMPY and here bumpy really means bumpy. From school to high school to finally the college, I think I have spend more time with books and studies than anything else, but now when I reflect back, I can say I am happy; if not satisfied of what I have done. This very difference between happy and satisfied is what keeps me going on in my life.
In particular these four years of engineering have been quite eventful, from 1 semester ragging to 7th semester exams and placements activity. I have grown up into a person which even by my standards is a big change, so as all my fellow classmates (I hope so). I am so lucky to have these wonderful people around me, and once I leave this college I’ll surely miss them. But still there is 1 whole semester to go, no need to get too nostalgic right now. But I cant resist the temptation of putting my views about the placement thing going in my college. Its actually fun to see how my mates are serious about the jobs they will get. It’s like its the only thing that’s gonna be counted to check if you have studied or have truly become an engineer. Even I want a job, but whether I want it now or later, is something I am still confused about. 1 thing I am sure about is, to study further, to study whole my life because the sense of achievement which I get when I solve some problem or get to know some new concept is just what can I say seducing and gives me a high. I just love studying interesting things.
Guys I just wanted to wish new year and say that just follow your dreams, just go that extra mile to achieve what you aspire because at least you will have some sense of achievement. As its said some where “shoot for the moon, then even if you fall, you will fall among the stars”. Guys just dream big and believe in what you wanna do. Be stubborn , be impatient and be hungry, never ever be content though. Years will come years will go, people will come people will go, jobs come they will also go 🙂 , but what will remain with you whole of your life is your dream and your knowledge.
Keep dreaming guys and keep studying.

As Robert Frost said in his poem- stopping by the woods :–>

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”

15 Developer/Hacker Women to Follow on Twitter

You can follow the whole story at: Top tech women!!

The Seven Hoursemen of the Web Apocalypse!!

Seven people across the world will hold a keycard which when put together will reboot the key part of the World Wide Web should a security breach, natural disaster or terrorist attack disable it.

It sounds like something out of a spy thriller movie or an episode of South Park, but this safeguarding measure is to enable the web to be restarted.

Out of these seven, only five are needed to come together at a secure location in the US to put together the DNSSEC root key from the fractioned code, which would enable the resetting and restarting of the service. DNSSEC is a new Internet security system, run by ICANN which protects users from online fraud and cyber-attacks.

The experts include Paul Kane, head of CommunityDNS; Norm Ritchie of Canada, Jiankang Yao from China; Moussa Guebre of Burkina Faso; Bevil Wooding from Trinidad and Tobago; Ondrej Sury of the Czech Republic; and Dan Kaminsky, chief scientist at Recursion Ventures in the US. They have been dubbed the “Seven Horsemen of the Web Apocalypse” or the “Fellowship of the Ring.”

This video from Community DNS explains it in detail.

Sources: games.venturebeat.com, zdnet.com, youtube

The First Ever Indian Browser “Epic”

A Bangalore-based Indian software start-up company Hidden Reflex released its first web browser “Epic” from India. Epic browser is based on open-source Mozilla Firefox platform. Epic has filled with several applications and features, which are specially focused on Indians. The target of this browser is to provide a position to India in the world so Indians can feel proud. It is the first completely India made web browser and aim is to give attention on Indian users. The company, Hidden Reflex was founded by the Alok Bhardwas, a US based engineer, in 2007.

Epic is developed by a team of Indian engineers. Epic comes with a unique feature, which is different from the other browsers that it has an inbuilt protection of antivirus. This antivirus and antispyware is powered by ESET. The browser also provides a sidebar with a number of previously installed widgets such as maps, news, skins, jobs, yahoo, gmail, twitter, facebook, orkut, games and many more. Epic developers claims for faster browsing and downloads. Epic gives maximum privacy by its feature of flash cookie deletion, private data deletion. Browsing history is also not stored.

Epic offers about 1500 applications free of cost and are included in the browser. According to the Hidden Reflex, it supports approximately 12 Indian languages like Gujarati, Hindi, Telgu, Kannada, Malayalam and Tamil. It also offers free word processor. With this browser, a user can access other websites to watch videos in another small window. It also offers over 1500 customized themes and wallpapers for users.

The browser can be downloaded from here: Epic

Sources: http://www.epicbrowser.com/ , Techtree