Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Social Networking update

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2009/04/will_facebook_p.html?chan=top+news_top+news+index+-+temp_technology

Ecommerce 2.0 book & WPF position desc.

http://issuu.com/imano_ltd/docs/ecommerce2?mode=embed&documentId=081208131222-716ae87037ad44db85b25bddb22070e6&layout=grey

Imano is a digital marketing company based in London and Mumbai. Found it though a job posting for a WPF developer.

Job Description
The ideal candidate would be having minimum 1 year of hands on coding experience with WPF and would be coding extensively on a WPF project from scratch to finish under tight deadlines. The project involves coding on the Microsoft surface sdk with 3d animations and multi touch detection. Please make sure you have solid WPF experience before applying for this job as we expect the candidate to take the project from start to finish on his own under tight deadlines.

http://www.kaashyap.com

http://www.kaashyap.com - Microsoft Surface training and jobs

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Silverlight controls - FULL LIST

http://mtaulty.com/CommunityServer/blogs/mike_taultys_blog/archive/2009/02/03/silverlight-wpf-control-browser.aspx

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Example Requirements for Lead Video Architect

Lead Video Architect

About the Job
WorldNow, a New York based technology and sales company, provides a comprehensive suite of online revenue solutions to over 452 local broadcasters, newspapers and cable providers. WorldNow enables media companies to build new businesses on the Internet through five core products including a proprietary streaming video solution, Web site publishing platform, online automotive classifieds, local ad sales, and a national advertising consortium. Current WorldNow customers include Cox, Dispatch, Fisher, Gray, Lin Television, Local TV, LLC, Media General, Raycom Media, Tribune, and Young. To learn more about our company please visit www.worldnow.com.

We specialize in building cutting edge online video technology, and are seeking a seasoned Lead Video Architect with a proven track record of creating complex, high-quality enterprise software in a rapidly changing environment.

The role of the Lead Video Architect is to provide leadership for the development and delivery of the successful software product. You will play a vital role in designing, enhancing, advancing, and implementing our product, as well as managing multiple projects, and working with other team members on accomplishing goals and objectives. You will also need to be comfortable with staying hands-on in development from time-to-time.

The candidate should demonstrate expertise of the various aspects of web-based video applications (both front- and back-end), Web 2.0 technologies, OO development and testing, and agile project management. You will work closely with Product/Project Management and other Engineering teams located here and abroad, and should have the ability to communicate effectively with all levels within the company, understand the full development life cycle and the ability to oversee projects.

Role & Responsibilities:

· Lead the technical and architectural aspects of our products to ensure consistency, quality and architectural integrity
· Lead and mentor the engineering team in the design and development of new product features, providing architectural leadership and guidance to reduce schedule
· Mentor and guide the development team in the adoption and use of best practices and design patterns
· Work with product management and engineering staff to solidify technical and infrastructure requirements, track milestones related to technical infrastructure and manage issues and risks
· Create high quality deliverables, including technical product specification, design documents, UML diagrams, and in some cases, supporting training and documentation
· Write, present, and review engineering materials including architecture, design, and functional specifications
· Review existing software architecture and identify areas for improvement in the areas of scalability, maintainability, and performance
· Design and implement key technical components (such as search, integration, workflow, UI), frameworks, interfaces, and services to be used by a broad range of applications
· Participate in sales-related meetings with clients, potential clients, or investors to help articulate our technology vision and proposed solutions on occasion
· Travel as required

Requirements

• 5+ years hands-on experience with Microsoft, Adobe, and Flex technologies, specifically: ASP.Net development, C#, Flash Authoring/ActionScript/Streaming, Flex, JavaScript, XML, REST, Web Services, DHTML, Windows Media, and other streaming technologies
• 3+ years experience functioning in a lead technical role on large software development projects
• Experience developing software using a formal and structured agile development methodology
• Collaborative development in a geographically diverse team environment
• Formal testing / software quality assurance experience, including hierarchical test cycle (unit test / application test / system test / user-acceptance test)
• Iterative approach to development, using short development cycles and frequent builds
• Understanding of browser compatibility issues
• Strong time management and estimation abilities
• Self-motivated and detail-oriented with excellent analytical abilities
• Excellent communication skills: You must be understood by all others and understand communication from team members from a diverse geographic distribution whose primary working language is fluent English. Excellent English written skills and grammar are more important than verbal fluency
• Flexible thinking: You must have shown the ability to translate complex problem-solving skills from one domain to another, with demonstrated problem-solving skills in a complex multimedia problem area (audio, video, transport) a must
• Experience with Ad serving systems such as DoubleClick and 24/7 a plus
• Experience with reporting systems such as Omniture, WebTrends, and HBX a plus
• 4-year degree, Bachelors in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field a plus

Please send your resume with cover letter, including salary expectations, to LVAcvs08@worldnow.com

Saturday, March 21, 2009

lynda.com

Has video tutorials for $25/month.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Example - Financial .Net developer requirements

Job Description

Description
The candidate will be heavily involved in the development and Testing of our strategic securities lending trading platform.
This is a complex undertaking as we are developing a global trading platform covering trade capture and lifecycle management, books and records management, reporting, settlement and decision support. There are a lot of challenges here: utilising the technologies effectively, liaising with and understanding the business needs and working with and influencing other IT and business teams whose input is required.
The candidate will have at least 5 years experience in development of financial applications and should have a good background in equity and fixed income products and ideally good knowledge of the securities lending business (although this is not essential).
From a technology perspective, the candidate should have at least 5 years experience in developing multi-tier, multi-threaded database applications. The most recent experience should be in C# and Sybase development.
The successful candidate will not only be able to demonstrate mastery of the technology, but also show a strong understanding of the wider scope of applications they have been working on.
The candidate will be required work closely with the development teams and business in all regions throughout the lifecycle of projects to ensure that the requirements are being correctly interpreted.
The role will involve a lot of interaction with the business and with other teams throughout the organisation. The candidate should therefore be a skilled communicator of ideas, have good influencing skills and be able to translate often-imprecise business ideas into concrete deliverables.
The candidate will need to work closely with teams in India and London; therefore there may be requirement to occasionally work outside of regional office hours to assist in communication.
At least 5 years industry experience out of which 3 years experience in application development in finance industry.
Strong experience in Data modelling
Experience in development of winform and webform multi-tier, multi-threaded database applications most recently using C#, SQL Server and/or Sybase
Strong analytical skills: ability to understand and critique specifications, confident to push back on unclear requirements.
The candidate should have good understanding of OO and n-tier development techniques.
Experience of supporting end users preferably within a trading environment.
Project lifecycle experience: delivery on at least 2 large-scale, highly complex projects.
Experience with working with a global team.
Ideally, the successful candidate will also have had experience working in the Investment Banking arena. They should have a good background in equity and fixed income products and good knowledge of the securities lending business in particular.

Qualifications
Essential Skills
Sybase (3yrs+) ? TSQL, Performance Tuning
MS.Net/C#(4yrs+)
OO Design concepts
Financial Markets knowledge

Example - Telecom .Net developer requirements

C# Developer with NHibernate and Telecom exp Back to search

Duration: 6-9 Months

Loc: Dallas
Local Candidates Preferred. Immediate Interview.

Must have NHibernate and Ordering and Billing Exp along with Telecom.

Must Haves:
.NET 2.0
ASP.NET
C#
NHibernate
SQL/Oracle DB
Nunit (or similar)
OO Programming
Web Services (creating/using)

Nice to Have:
Creativity
WCSF
Infragistics
AJAX
Threading

Experience Level: 5+ Years

Location: Dallas TX

Duration: 6 - 9 months

Pay Rate: $50 -$55

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Examples - ASP.Net Web Developer Requirements in March 2009

(1)
Responsibilities The Web Developer is an important position and a key post in the Marketing Department. More than 80% of our marketing leads come from the website which serves as our primary marketing & communications vehicle for all company products and services.
Primarily the Web Developer is a major stakeholder and plays an instrumental role in:
· The overall customer experience
· Campaigns supporting product launches
· End to End Architecture of the website, domestic & international
· Website functionality and user experience

The Web Developer will report to the Director of Web Services, and will be an integral part of the Web team to manage the online business model. The Web Deveoper will need to stay abreast of industry-wide changes in user experience, information architecture, interface design and related new tools and technologies.
The Web Developer will contribute to the creative strategy for marketing campaigns, ensuring the concepts effectively translate into web content. Leverage user-centered design principles to create high-quality user experiences and introduce creative solutions to meet user needs.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:
1. Manage new functionality and changes to our domestic and international web sites.
2. Participate in the creation of sites maps, concept diagrams, user profiles, user scenarios, wireframes, content matrices, flow diagrams, prototypes, functional requirements documentation and other deliverables representing recommended solutions.
3. Collaborate with the marketing team to plan and conduct usability testing and other user experience validation exercises.
4. Understand business and user requirements, as well as technical considerations to identify key factors to be considered for the layout, organization and hierarchy of complex customer focused web sites and product releases.
5. Help design and develop complex but easy-to-use user interface interactivity, including reusable and complex visual components
6. Work with internal and external production teams, freelance design teams, agencies and research
7. Research current and future trends in interaction design applied to both web and physical world.

Requirements QUALIFICATIONS:
· 5-7 years of experience developing C# ASP.NET web applications and websites
· Thorough understanding of cross-browser and platform compatibility issues.
· Strong knowledge of web standards and CSS-driven layouts
· Applied knowledge and skills with end to end architecture and integration with databases and web services.
· Experience creating multilingual websites
· Web metrics integration (Omniture or Webtrends)
· Understanding of programming issues related to search engine optimization
· Team-oriented, cross-functional player; a strategic thinker as well as one who executes
· Ability to manage multiple projects, negotiate work flow, and handle tight deadline
· Working understanding of SEO principles and how they apply to web design and content creation
· BS Degree in Engineering or Computer Science

TECHNICAL SKILLS:
C# ASP.NET, CSS, JavaScript, HTML/DHTML, SOAP, XML/XSLT
SQL Server 2000/2005 database integration

(2)
Sr. Developer - Our client is seeking a Senior Developer for their New Providence, NJ location. Must have advanced knowledge and extensive experience with .Net2 architecture, C# development, and Web 2.0 technologies. Must have experience working on high volume, dynamic internet applications. A creative mind, experience with design and implementation of social networking functionality.

The ideal candidate will have hands-on experience coding in .Net (2.0), ASP.net, web forms, ADP.net, User controls, C#, OOPS, themes and master pages, HTTP handlers. Experience working on Oracle/SQL server database interactions using Data Adapters, Data reader and Dataset.

ASP.net, Web 2.0, XML/XSL, JavaScript, CSS, ADO.net

Experience Level:
5+ Years

Requirements:
Hands on experience coding in .net (2.0), asp.net, web forms

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Software companies in Vizag

http://vizagsoftwaredevelopers.blogspot.com/2008/03/list-of-software-companies-in-vizag.html

Soft Script Solutions Pvt Ltd: http://www.softscripts.net/contact.php

Gems Techno Solutions India Pvt Ltd

WebToGo Mobiles Internet GmbH: http://www.webtogo.de/uk/page.asp?p=50

Net Savant: http://www.netsavant.org/Contactus/contactus.html

NuNet Dwarakanagar(vizag): http://www.nunet-tech.com/inside/gc.html

OpenLogix Lawsons Bay Colony (Vizag): http://www.open-logix.com/Company/Contact.html

Miracle Software Lawson's Bay Colony (vizag): http://w3.miraclesoft.com/msws/msoft/about/global_locations/india.html

suchinfotech : http://www.suchinfotech.com/Quality.html

M/s. Essemm Information Technologies (P) Ltd Duvvada (vizag): http://www.essemm.com/contact-us.htm

M/s. Net Decisions, U.K.: http://www.netdecisions.com/

M/s. Pyxis Technology Solutions (P) Ltd. VSEZ (Vizag): http://www.pyxistechsol.com/contactus_locations.htm

M/s. Cambridge Systems (India) Pvt. Ltd. VSEZ (Vizag): http://www.camsysind.com/Contact.html?FrameLoad=25

M/s. Phoenix IT Solutions Ltd. VSEZ (Vizag): http://www.phoenix.co.in/docs/contact_us.htm

M/s. Extreme IT Solutions VSEZ (Vizag) :
http://www.extremeit.net/magnoliaPublic/extremeit/contactus.html

M/s. Xinthe Technologies Pvt. Limited VSEZ (Vizag):
http://www.xinthe.com/Xinthe_offices.aspx

Eprosoft seethammapeta bazaar (vizag) : www.eprosoft.com [vizag address is not mentioned in website]

Mahathi (Vizag) : http://www.mahathi.in/contactus.html

Gayan Solutions : some where near Indore stadium, maddilapalem

Wintel Software PVT. LTD., DWARAKANAGAR, VIZAG

ACN Infotech, Siripuram, (vizag) : http://www.acninfotech.com/v2/cont_contact.htm

symbiosys , Siripuram ( vizag) : http://symbiosystech.com/contact.html

visinfotech , Siripuram (vizag) :http://visinfotech.com/VIS/files/careers.html

Computer Terminus Limited : http://ctindia.net/about_CTL.htm


(II) http://www.weblogixesolutions.com/contactus.php

http://www.symbiosystech.com/contact.html

http://www.manuhsolutions.com/
- consulting firm based in US, offshore office in Madhuranagar, Vizag

http://www.vigiboss.com
- consulting fimr based in US, offshore office in MVP Colony

http://www.zdnetasia.com/techjobs/ has postings also

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Friday, January 23, 2009

Thursday, January 22, 2009

AIR for BatchEncoder

AIR for BatchEncoder
--------------------

http://ajaxian.com/archives/the-pros-and-cons-of-adobe-air
Cons:
Database access limited to SQLite or web services
No way to external applications - to maintain cross-platform compatibility

If we cannot call external applications, then we cannot call mencoder


Multithreading in FLEX
-----------------------
http://blogs.adobe.com/aharui/2008/01/threads_in_actionscript_3.html
http://blog.barncar.com/?p=10
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/communityengine/index.cfm?event=showdetails&productId=2&postId=12026

Using AIR to launch other applications
--------------------------------------
http://www.jeffryhouser.com/index.cfm/2008/4/22/Using-AIR-to-launch-other-applications
Synopsis - launch the exe as URL using URLRequest and let the OS launch the correct application ( for .doc, OS will launch MS Word etc)

Monday, January 19, 2009

Economics Books to read

Against Intellectual Property

Economics - Dollar, Mandrake Mechanism

http://goldismoney.info/forums/showthread.php?t=3993
Above link talks about Mandrake Mechanism.

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/01/25/1828046.php
Above link is an interview with the authors of the book The World is Flat? (a critique on The World Is Flat)

From a Amazon Forum - has good 'further reading' references -
What goes up must ultimately go down and the further up it goes, the further down it must go. Right now, we are living on a bubble of debt backed by a currency based on debt, created out of thin air (Google "The Mandrake Mechanism" for the facts on how our currency is created by the Federal Reserve) and redeebable in nothing. (Go to http://www.edwinvieira.com/ and select the "What is a Dollar?" link for a description of the value of our currency in a pdf format. Very revealing description of the facts few Americans are aware of regarding the specific value of the dollar as determined under the Constitution by the first Congress)

Alexander Hamilton the First Secretary of the Treasury stated: "There is scarcely any point, in the economy of national affairs, of greater moment than the uniform preservation of the intrinsic value of the money unit. On this the security and steady value of property essentially depend."

Our current monetary unit has no redeemable value. It is simply a non-redeemable fiat piece of paper that can only be exchanged as legal tender for all debts public and private. The problem is since it has no intrinsic value, it derives its value from the willingness of others to accept it. However, as the number of Federal Reserve Notes in circulation increases, their value goes down as value does with anything with exchange value.

Obama's stimulus plan will utimately drive the value of the Federal Reserve Note further down in value since there will be more FRN's in circulation with no real increase in actual wealth. Our manufacturing has been steadily declining due to NAFTA, CAFTA and outsourcing of manufacturing to foreign nations. Thus, we are not producing wealth but rather consuming it. To pump more money into an economy floating on debt is simply to add to the source of the problem not correct it. If one is deeply in debt, the first thing one must do is stop spending. Our nation is no different.

We have gone from the worlds largest producer of goods just after WWII to the world's greatest debtor nation. The only thing holding this house of cards built upon a bubble of debt together is the reluctance of trading partners to cash in the debt they are holding such as China, Japan and the Arab Nations. Once they lose confidence on the bogus, non-redeemable FRN's and start cashing them in, the debt bubble bursts in full and the crash you say will never come will come with a vengeance that could potentially dwarf the Great Depression.

The dollar has been reduced to a political abstraction that contains no fixed amount of intrinsic value. Consequently, it can be reduced in value infinitely and it has been. Obama's policies such as piling yet more debt on top of debt as in the "stimulus plan" and cabinet selections like Timothy Geithner, President of the NY Federal Reserve, will ultimately hasten the inevitable correction to an economy built on debt and fluff.

The crash will come of that you can be assured. It is only a matter of when and how long it will last. The higher the debt level that is built up, the deeper will be the correction and the longer it will last. (Read "Crash Proof" by Peter Schiff for some additional facts and preservation ideas. Visit Ron Paul's site for some reality on our current political and monetary system. visit the the Ludwig Von Mises Institute website for some common sense economics at http://mises.org/. You also may want to check out "America's Great Depression" by Murray Rothbard which is most likely available from Amazon.com, mises.org or dowloadable on scribd.com or "Web of Debt" by Brown as well.)

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

new streaming developments - Microsoft, Akamai, Adaptive Streaming, OpenVideoPlayer etc

http://www.akamai.com/smoothhd
http://www.openvideoplayer.com/
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/397411/whats-the-best-solution-to-create-a-streaming-video-website

IIS will do Adaptive Streaming - depending on bandwidth, the quality will vary for users.

A similar architecture, but used to distribute mainly sound is the Conversations Network. They leverage Amazon S3 and EC2. The whole architecture is documented. Have a look at the interview of Doug Kaye. This project is also documented on Amazon's case studies. You dont have to use Amazon, but the concepts outlined in those articles can be reused in other projects.

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Monday, December 29, 2008

Sunday, December 28, 2008

WPF and BackgroundWorker

Code from http://pavanpodila.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!9C9E888164859398!246.entry :

namespace WindowsApplication1
{
///
/// Interaction logic for Window1.xaml
///


public partial class Window1 : System.Windows.Window
{
private BackgroundWorker _worker;
public Window1()
{
InitializeComponent();
}

private void StartWorker(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
_worker = new BackgroundWorker();
_worker.WorkerReportsProgress = true;
_worker.WorkerSupportsCancellation = true;

_worker.DoWork += delegate(object s, DoWorkEventArgs args)
{
BackgroundWorker worker = s as BackgroundWorker;
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
{
if (worker.CancellationPending)
{
args.Cancel = true;
return;
}

Thread.Sleep(1000);
worker.ReportProgress(i + 1);
}
};

_worker.ProgressChanged += delegate(object s, ProgressChangedEventArgs args)
{
_progressBar.Value = args.ProgressPercentage;
};

_worker.RunWorkerCompleted += delegate(object s, RunWorkerCompletedEventArgs args)
{
_btnStart.IsEnabled = true;
_btnCancel.IsEnabled = false;
_progressBar.Value = 0;
};

_worker.RunWorkerAsync();
_btnStart.IsEnabled = false;
_btnCancel.IsEnabled = true;
}

private void CancelWorker(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
_worker.CancelAsync();
}

}
}

Friday, December 26, 2008

FLV Streaming using IIS and HTTP handler

ASP.NET 2.0
http://blogs.ugidotnet.org/kfra/archive/2006/10/04/50003.aspx

ASP.NET 1.1
http://blogs.ugidotnet.org/kfra/archive/2006/11/26/57225.aspx

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Flash file - parsing for metadata, generating a preview

Generating a Preview using PHP -
http://flashvideo.damnfinecoffee.eu/flv_preview

Reading a Flv's metadata using C# -
http://johndyer.name/post/2005/08/23/Flash-FLV-meta-reader-in-NET-(C).aspx

Streaming FLV using PHP
http://www.flashcomguru.com/index.cfm/2005/11/2/Streaming-flv-video-via-PHP-take-two

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Search Strategy - improving upon 'google.com for everything' strategy

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Strategies.html

Above link describes a search strategy that we should use when we want to search for a certain topic on the net.

The step that I found most useful - 'picking the right starting place'. The different starting places are -
Search Engines, Subject Directories, Specialized Databases, Experts

Search Engines - good for searching 'distinctive phrases'; e.g. - www.google.com

Subject Directories - good for 'overview on a topic', understanding the broader concepts etc; e.g. - directory.google.com, dir.yahoo.com

Specialized Databases - good for facts, statistics of a topic

Expert (Society,organization,author,discussion group,blog) - good for everything

Smaller HD space = faster?

http://www.computing.net/answers/hardware/smaller-hd-space-faster/51684.html

Above link has a good discussion about the topic. One of the suggestions - a large hard disk (300GB etc) should use 3 partitions at least - a small one (20GB or so) for OS, a 2nd one for Programs , 3rd one for storage.

"IMO, you should have a minimum of 3...a relatively small one for the OS, one for programs & one for storage. If the 300GB HDD is setup as one huge partition, of course it's gonna take longer to run maintenance utilities.

http://partition.radified.com/"

Understanding XP performance

The below forum post is from a user asking about PF usage in XP.
http://www.computing.net/answers/windows-xp/reducing-pf-usage/169167.html

One of the replies to the post contains the below links to understand performance related topics -

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;555223
RAM, Virtual Memory, Pagefile and all that stuff

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310419&Product=winxp
Computer Speed and Performance May Decrease
When you open, then close programs, programs may not free up RAM memory. That is called
"Memory Leak". Restarting computer will clear out its RAM memory.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308417
HOWTO: Set Performance Options in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314482
How to Configure Paging Files for Optimization and Recovery in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314834&Product=winxp
How to Clear the Windows Paging File at Shutdown

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307886
How To Move the Paging File in Windows XP

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

An engineer from IIT, now a farmer

http://specials.rediff.com/money/2008/dec/23slide1-an-engineer-from-iit-now-a-farmer.htm

Madhavan, a mechanical engineer who garduated from IIT Madras worked for ONGC for 9 years, saved enough money to buy 6 acres of land and started farming on that land. He started making a profit only after 4 years partly because of the time it took him to get the required know-how. He says it took him 4 years in the 90s to get the know-how but can do the same in 6 months now given the current communication and information facilities. He has a net annual income of 50,000 from 1 acre. He is trying to make improvements so that that figure will become 100,000 from 1 acre. He currently has 10 acres of land and comes into the small-farms category. He mentions the lack of tools for small farmers.
If more food is produced per acre, the cost per acre will go down, reducing the cost per every meal, which he says is very high today in India, when compared to the US.

Vertical farming

http://science.howstuffworks.com/conservation-issues/vertical-farming.htm

Summary - idea is to do farming in buildings in urban areas. This could be the future of farming as most of the world's population is moving to urban areas and arable land decreasing in percentage. Since farming is carried out indoors, conditions can be controlled.

"Dr. Despommier believes that 150 30-story farms could feed all of New York City. Elegantly designed, these vertical farms would be carefully placed around a city or clustered together in a nearby development (in the case of New York City, possibly on Governor's Island). They would remain unobtrusive, or even pleasant to the eye."

Article has pointers to more information as well.

Rinku and Dinesh - Baseball pitchers for Pittsburgh Pirates

http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?videoId=3785319&categoryId=3286128&n8pe6c=2

Bollywood - Online business (Vivah - was released online and in theatres on the same day!)

The below Time article talks about the new option of releasing Bollywood movies online at the same time as the theatres. Vivah was released like that and it made $4.5 million dollars which was almost a quarter of the movie's entire earnings.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1713342,00.html

http://www.Rajshri.com
http://www.erosentertainment.com/

Monday, December 22, 2008

Outside.In - a hyper-local news service

http://broadcastengineering.com/news/outside-in-attempts-1222/

Outside.in started as a service that aggregated local bloggers who cover topics that a town's citizens are passionate about.

The service can tell advertisers where a reader is and affirm that they are reading about their neighborhood.

"Outside.In helps small publishers find an audience and aides larger publishers in finding local stories. By serving up all this local content, it hopes to help advertisers target the reader on precise streets. The service can tell advertisers where a reader is and affirm that they are reading about their neighborhood. That means an ad for a bookstore that is 50ft from the reader will be more useful for the advertiser and the reader."

Glossary for Broadcasting/Webcasting technology

http://broadcastengineering.com/glossary/

64 bit encoding

http://digitalcontentproducer.com/affordablehd/newsletter/cs4_64bit_1208/index.html?imw=Y

The author of the above article found that CS4 on 64 bit machines - Windows and Apple (since they can work with a larger RAM) outperformed CS4 on a 32 bit Windows machine significantly in terms of speed when CS4 was used to convert AVHCD.

AVCHD (Audio and Video Compression for High Definition) is a high-definition and standard-definition recording format for use in digital tapeless camcorders.

32 bit Windows (eight core, 2.83GHz HP xw6600, 3GB RAM) - 68 mins
64 bit Apple OS X 10.5.5 (3.2GHz, 8GB RAM) - 11 mins
64 bit Windows (eigt 3.33GHz cores, HP xw8600, 16GB RAM)- 8.5 mins

In fact, Adobe recommends (from Adobe's reply to the author) to use 64 bit machines with CS4. Its new architecture splits up the application into separate executables. Each executable has to be 32 bit to maintain compatibility with 32 bit machines and hence can access upto 4 GB RAM only. But, since the application consists of separate executables, the combined RAM that is available for the app is more than 4 GB. And compatibility with 32 bit machines has also been achieved.

Apple Compressor 3

Apple Compressor 3

Uses Optical Flow analysis and Dynamic Upsampling techniques (analyze motion of pixels from frame to frame and create new frames for the output clip) - superior to Frame Blending technique used by other technologies

Features -
Batch processing
SD,HD, Mpeg2, H264, VC1, WMV, GXF, FLV
Prepare video content especially for Apple TV, Ipod, DVD, Mobile Phones
Can leverage multiple MACs on the network to distribute encoding tasks using QMaster (that is available with every copy of Final Cut Studio)
Metadata and support for closed captioning

Portable Live Encoders - TouchStream (Digital Rapids), GoStream (Viewcast), Tricaster

1. Portable live encoder that is operated using a touch screen

http://www.digital-rapids.com/Products/IndividualProducts/TouchStream.aspx

YouTube video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBmiLQhT33A&feature=related

2. GoStream
Very good review at -
http://digitalcontentproducer.com/videoencodvd/revfeat/viewcast_niagara_gostream/

Can use IPod or Zune as input device
No support for SDI, Component vide at the time of review in 2007

3. Tricaster

Sunday, December 21, 2008

3 monitors on a Windows XP machine

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/northrup_multimon.mspx
http://daggle.com/060223-231233.html

Excerpts from the above links -

What is MaxiVista?
MaxiVista turns any networked computer into an external monitor. MaxiVista's only hardware requirement is that the two computers must connect to each other across a network, so it's perfect if you can't add an extra video adapter. I have a network adapter for my old laptop, so I connected it to my network and installed the free MaxiVista demo. It worked and my laptop's desktop was immediately spread across three displays, as shown in Figure 1.

Manage Multiple Monitors with Ultramon
There's a downside to using multiple displays—it's hard to keep track of your windows. Arranging windows on each of the different displays requires dragging and dropping, which takes as long as switching between windows with the taskbar. The Windows XP General newsgroup has many questions from people with similar complaints, and everyone gets the same answer: Ultramon.

Ultramon makes it easier to work with multiple displays by adding a taskbar to each monitor, adding a button to the title bar of every window that you can use to move it to a different monitor, and letting you quickly switch between different monitor configurations. I configured Ultramon so that pressing F4 moves a window one display to the right and pressing F3 moves it one display to the left, as shown in Figure 2.

2 mouse , 2 pointers, 1 computer

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Hardware/Misc/Q_21306997.html

Excerpt from one of the posts from Experts-Exchange -

1st download: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/cpnmouse/cpnmouse-driver-binary-1.0.1.zip?download
2nd download: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/cpnmouse/cpnmouse-ordinary-binary-0.1.0.zip?download

Unpack etc...

Then go to your hardware manager: Update driver for each of your mouses connected. Use the supplied driver from cpnmouse-driver-binary.
During installation choose the kind of your mousetyp: serial, PS/2, USB respectivly.

If at least 2 mouses are supported, you are in the game. Now start the exe from cpnmouse-ordinary-binary. It will find all mices that are using that special driver. Now a red cursorblock appears, that can be directed with 1 mouse. The ordinary mouse cursor remains.
That's it. Good Luck with your hardware. If just one mouse is supported you can still see that red cursor block, but it is not that much fun.

Dressing properly in winter

http://www.weather.com/activities/recreation/outdoors/extreme/layerintro.html?from=tenday_trigger

Layer 1: Wicking
Layer 2: Insulation
Layer 3: The Shell
Use a Hat, Get Good Gloves, Protect Your Feet

Top 10 Survival Items

http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/10-survival-tools10.htm

Map and Compass
Fire-starter
First Aid Kit
Mirror
Flares
Survival Knife (Rambo)
Multi-tools (Swiss Army Knife)
Snake-bite kit
Water treatment - water filters etc
Machete

Dec 21, 2008 - Pan IIT 2008 , Rural development, Agriculture

Learn about farming here - http://42explore.com/farming.htm
www.agriculture.com

Pan-IIT 2008 at IIT-Madras in Chennai :

Surprisingly, of the six themes -- Research (leveraging research and technology in rural development), Entrepreneurship (enabling and launching a million entrepreneurs), Infrastructure (opportunities & problems in India), Education (transforming education for a better tomorrow), Innovation (innovation & entrepreneurship), the theme that has attracted the maximum number of people was Rural Transformation!

An IIT-M alumnus, R Madhavan is a farmer today. He spoke of his successful Padapai Farms and why he chose to be a farmer and not an engineer.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Madhavan65

The man who won the heart of all listeners was Popatrao Pawar, a village sarpanch from Ahmednagar district in Maharashtra. In eight years, Popatrao transformed his village of 180 families with his many projects which include the successful 'pani panchayat'. Today, the World Bank has included a visit to this village as a must for its staff.

Website -
http://www.paniit2008.org/

YouTube videos of Rural Development presentations -
http://paniit2008.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=298&Itemid=152

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Green Sahara!

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-sahara15-2008aug15,0,3774647.story?page=1

Sahara was green for a while - between 12000 and 8000 years ago..
This was because, a wobble in the earth's orbit made the rains in Africa move north for some time.

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