Critics -Today

On the top of the web world: Excellence achieved in 5 years

Saturday, November 5, 2011

5 years ago, when giants like Google started expanding their innovative products range, web world was just transforming. Many social networking sites, hosting sites, blogs, photo sharing sites popped up like mushrooms. Today many of them extinct due to the heavy competition by majors like Google.

During last five years, evolution of web world to what it is today happened at a greater pace and in an extraordinary way. During the period much of the young talent pool is absorbed by the software companies at higher pay and fueled the process. In the initial days of serious social networking like orkut, hi5 and others, it was more of showcasing features which can attract users. Then slowly from theme oriented business to product orient business it has turned. At this point of time facebook entered the business to only add innovation to social networking.

After facebook entered the business, products were developed and hosted to attract investors while improving user activity. An unusual phenomenon 5 years ago. At that time more advertisements that day only means you are going to loose your users next day. A phenomenal change is brought through improved user experience, products and design.

Google, which is known for its talented mathematicians and engineers who can make Google "do a barrel roll", successfully created new benchmarks for web experience. Google search with dynamic search experience, Google books, Google Reader, Google Plus and many to count .... are at heights in terms of cleanliness in design and user experience and almost unmatchable by competitors.

W3C supported these advances with HTML5 and CSS3, where you can have simple dynamics to complex ones without the need of flash which was always heavy though an innovative one and served for many days.

We have to wait and see.. what would be the next innovative change that will engineer the future growth of web world!

Are you interested to be part of this web world? Then, here you go.. take a cup of tea and start working on HTML5 and CSS3. You may find these books interesting . ..!!

Lincoln on Leadership: Good Read on 16th President of United States

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Abraham Lincoln is most famous President of United States but a little is known to many about his principles and administrative strategies. "Lincoln on Leadership" gives an insight into the famous personality and his decisive actions during Civil War.

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Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of United States is the most famous among the presidents of United States. Every individual with minimal schooling experience is aware of this great personality. Though a little information about his qualities is published at about Lincoln in School books, he remains to be the most inspiring personality. Great leaders like Mohandas karamChand Gandhi & Martin Luther king Jr. were inspired by Abraham Lincoln's principles.

Under the governance of this able leader United States remained unified in spite of strong protest from civilians to secede southern states.Not much literature is available for reading on administrative abilities of Lincoln which helped to win Civil war. "Lincoln on Leadership " written by Donald T. Phillips is a genuine attempt to explore leadership skills exhibited by the President during his stint. "Lincoln on Leadership" is an authentic collection of Abraham Lincoln's sayings and anecdotes through which he managed to handle his men in tough situations.
Few anecdotes from the book,

Lincoln's advise when a person asked him to surrender all forts in southern states during civil war:

A lion was in very much in love with a woodman's daughter. The fair maid referred him to her father and the loin applied for the girl. The father replied: "Your teeth are too long." So the lion went to a dentist and had them extracted. Returning, he asked for his bride. "No", said the woodman, "you claws are too long." Going back to the dentist, he had them drawn. Then he returned to claim his bride, and the woodman, seeing that he was unarmed, beat out his brains.

Lincoln's analysis of situation when Great Britain and United States were squabbling over the capture of British vessel Trent,

I remember when I was a lad, there were two fields behind our house separated by a fence. In each field there was a big bulldog, and these dogs spent the whole day racing up and down, snarling and yelping at each other through the fence. One day they both came at the same moment to a hole in it, big enough to let either of them through. Well, gentlemen, what do you think they did? They just turned tail and scampered away as fast as they could in opposite directions. Now, England and America are like those bulldogs.

Umpteen references are made in this book which makes it an exceptional read to know about Abraham Lincoln. I think its a must read book for any one who want to become a leader.

Stop Spam - Read Books - reCaptcha

Saturday, June 4, 2011

This is a familiar image to every web user. Most of the times unable to make out why the CAPTCHA reloads in spite of correct entry!

Have you ever given a thought why should you fill two words to help a website protect from spam machines, Is single word protection so weak? Have you ever noticed why there is a difference in clarity of two words, one being so obvious and other very weird?

Answers to these question are available at the right bottom corner of the Captcha block. "Stop spam. Read books.". Unfortunately many of us are not familiar with the last two words.

Anyone with engineering background and invested efforts in making technical reports will appreciate this technology. It's OCR, technology that converts scanned images and PDF files to editable word documents. ABBYY fine reader is a good software of this kind.

Google started this campaign to digitize the old scanned documents which cannot be read by OCR and human intervention is required. Google does this for NY Times and Google books. you will be startled to know the fact that daily 200 million recaptchas are loaded. Even if one of two words is used for the purpose a rough estimate (assuming each book has 500 pages and 250 words a page) would make it 1600 books per day.

What irks me? The idea is that it is excessively marketed as a spam detector and websites keep on reloading though the words entered are correct. May be due to poor coding (I don't think so!) or deliberate act to increase the number of instances.

It's a Google product, hence it's always fishy!

Googlepoly - Occupying WebWorld

Friday, May 27, 2011

Google is swallowing entire web world. It has become address for everything. Like It's Google with Twitters courtesy!

Again Google for data theft! Paypal and eBay file lawsuit against Google and 2 former employees alleging that they misappropriated trade secrets in the area of mobile payments and point-of-sale strategies.

Google has been coming out with umpteen new products. Many products like Google Books, gmail features, maps, Google earth Buzz have been controversial in data theft cases soon after their inception.

Google kept adding features to its search engine like realtime, music, dictionary, cinema etc., which involved results from a selected party to the users. Though informative and easy to use, this is swallowing smaller companies who rely on search engines for traffic. Today Google is also ready to show flight details at a search hit & no extra navigation. This kind of approach by Google gives a feel like, "It's Google with Twitters courtesy!".

Mark as Important : GMAIL

Sunday, May 22, 2011

When there is a feature of 'Starred' mails to flag important mails why do you need a special feature like 'Make it important'?

Google launched 'Mark as important' feature in Gmail. It was about two days back this feature popped up when logged in. It was shocking to see that Google gave a thought about what could be important and what can be made important for me :P.

When there is a feature of 'Starred' mails to flag important mails why do you need a special feature like 'Make it important'?
When I opened my mail box after this feature is automatically turned on, I found emails from facebook, a few spam surveys, offers,contests emails are marked important for demonstration. The moment I changed my stance on these mails and prioritized a few other mails, Gmail marked incoming mails from these contacts as important & calls it Priority Inbox.
This could be a good feature when you have so much junk in your mail and would like to stay with the junk. But, I guess its better to unsubscribe or spam the unnecessary emails and get rid of yourselves form being an internet victim.
At this point of the time in Web World when data theft by Apple, Google are questioned this feature looks fishy. Google has been tracking the keywords in mails for its advertisements. This could be one move by Google to clearly influence advertisers by actually picking up important mails. As of now I don't find a great buzz on this feature but in case of data theft, this may be questioned.
It is as simple as a consumer survey with no remuneration. This is new feature in Google money making machine. I hope Google doesn't care about the login information retrieved by me at many 'forgot my password' instances. :)

F Ch E A for Chem Engineering

Sunday, March 13, 2011

For Chemical Engineering Assistance is an initiative to help on standardization of Chemical engineering applications. F Ch E A will bring out best methods available in the literature to tackle regular problems faced by a fry who somehow landed in Chemical engineering.

It is always a trouble in this web world to locate for an authentic source which cite the information made available. Chemical engineering being an uncertain subject, it is always a trouble to filter the information from various sources. Before this resource comes live it worth mentioning some of the sources which are really helpful- Cheresources, engineering toolbox, eng-tips, matche, OCW MIT.

Kenya becomes victim of WIN desperate New Zealand

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Nehemiah Odhiambo during practice session on 19 Feb, 2011; Image:ESPNCricinfo

Kenya has lost 10 wickets in 24 overs scoring 69.

Kenya, a team that is remembered for its performance in 2003 World Cup looks too weak to fight in this big game. It has lost its 7 wickets scoring just 63 runs in 21.3 overs against New Zealand. In no time the tail-end batsmen are back to the pavilion adding just 6 runs to the board.

New Zealand has been out of track for some time continuously losing the ODI's in the last season. Looks like they have decided to re-built the instinct required for the big encounters in the series. New Zealand's right arm medium pace bowler Bennett ruthlessly sank the Kenyan Team hardly giving any chance for recovery.

Nevertheless, a good cricket from Kenya is still expected during the second innings. The bowlers are expected to play passionately and post a challenge to the thrashing batsmen like J Ryder and Guptill of New Zealand.

After a high scoring match yesterday between India and Bangladesh, India scoring a massive 370 in 50 Overs and Bangladesh posting a decent figure of 285 on board; in contrast this match is a low scoring match.

ICC has realized this parity between the weak nations and strong nations in the 50 over format and announced that only 10 teams will be playing the tournament from 2015.

Let us watch the second Innings!

Triffin Paradox!

Television industry is busy advertising their latest innovative LED TVs and 3D television. LED TVs and 3D TVs are supposed to be the most advanced ones giving the viewer a crystal clear clarity which he has never experienced before. These TVs come with a very high price.

It is interesting to note that these guys have a extravagant task of showing a LED TV clarity in CRT, which looks certainly impossible. Designing teams are trying their level best to slow down the motion, add light effects, pictures beyond the dimensions of the Television.

Interestingly most of the advertisements by various companies look alike giving one inline with their competitor. In every case the concept designer chooses a fast moving object and exaggerates the stuff by bringing the picture out of the Television with umpteen Photoshop effects added to it.

It is the toughest thing to accept that most of the TVs in India are connected through Cable which has little clarity in supporting these advertisement. It looks like a paradox if there is anyway to show the stuff at considerably good speeds and impress the audience. May be it's time to think out of the box in advertising such equipments through an unsupported media.

The fantasy is On - ICC World Cup 2011

Sunday, February 13, 2011

With a few days left for the biggest cricketing event to kickoff likes of my generation have started picking up cricketers to play for their customized fantasy league. Starting this 19th, World Cup 2011 is going to be one of the biggest money games (only after IPL :)) officially and unofficially.

What makes this a different tournament altogether is the presence of many teams which otherwise you hardly get a chance to watch. May be one can call them 'Beginner Teams', which are going to drag some concentration with their novice cricketing culture.

How many do you think will practice cricket in Ireland watching Sachin Tendulkar or Brian Lara? I strongly believe that at least 7 out of 10 players grow watching their domestic legends. All my support for these guys who create their own brains.

Those teams which haven't traveled long journeys yet will be looking up for a turnaround to improve their current cricketing status (in terms of money & rating). Though there is a discouraging fixture composition for such teams, they ought to perform against odds to win the hearts of the world.

This season I will be looking on to O'Brien brothers of Ireland, C. Obuya & Tikolo of Kenya, John Davisonn of Canada (whom I remember had a big innings against WI in 2003 WC) and some new energy who are going to debut this season.

Political Corruption

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Image Courtesy: The Hindu

World is trying to balance itself on an unstable fulcrum after Global melt down, a great recession, civil wars, currency wars, huge unemployment & deepening corruption. This season has had a great impact on political & market structures while scams being exploded.

India is seeing worst of its scams where huge money is siphoned through endless political scams. 2G spectrum scam where former Telecom minister A. Raja was alleged to have caused a huge loss to exchequer, Mining scams and land scams in Karnataka, where Karnataka Governor ordered for probe against CM Yeruduppa, Realty scam where large number of companies are involved, Black money cases etc.. The list is endless involving politicians of various designations.

It is a good sign that these scams are coming out (at least now) and there is a good response from the honorable courts in dealing these cases. In most of these cases honorable courts are ready to sack the criminal politicians. The Supreme Court of India has ordered government to setup a special court to deal 2G scam. In another instance the court awarded rigorous 1 year imprisonment to a former minister of Kerala.

Years after globalization people became vigilant about the economic reforms supposed to be implemented and now started questioning their governments. With so much of corruption rooted deep into the fundamental units of service the world will have to fight tougher to realize their rights and place.