Reservation Issue

On the burning issue of reservation someone came up with the following idea.

I think we should have job reservations in all the fields. I completely support the PM and all the politicians for promoting this.

Let's start the reservation with our cricket team.

We should have 10 percent reservation for Muslims. 30 percent for OBC, SC/ST like that. Cricket rules should be modified accordingly.
The boundary circle should be reduced for an SC/ST player.
The four hit by an OBC player should be considered as a six and a six hit by a OBC player should be counted as 8 runs.
An OBC player scoring 60 runs should be declared as a century.
We should influence ICC and make rules so that the pace bowlers like Shoaib Akhtar should not bowl fast balls to our OBC player.
Bowlers should bowl maximum speed of 80 kilometer per hour to an OBC player.
Any delivery above this speed should be made illegal.

Also we should have reservation in Olympics.
In the 100 meters race, an OBC player should be given a gold medal if he runs 80 meters. There can be reservation in Government jobs also.
Let's recruit SC/ST and OBC pilots for aircrafts which are carrying the ministers and politicians (that can really help the country.. )
Ensure that only SC/ST and OBC doctors do the operations for the ministers and other politicians. (Another way of saving the country..)

Let's be creative and think of ways and means to guide INDIA forward...
Let's show the world that INDIA is a GREAT country.
Let's be proud of being an INDIAN.. May the good breed of politicians like ARJUN SINGH long live... So, what do you think, huh???

Protest against the reservation should be continued. These bloody politicians are trying to break the unity of India as a nation. They are the persons who make people of India fight with each other and play their election game on top of this.

Evil vs. Good cont.

Something from the blog post of Brian Krebs from Washington Post

In the following snippet from an online conversation Reshef had with a sponsor known as "ATM," the spam operator reluctantly acknowledges that scrubbing his lists of Blue Security users' addresses is the most expedient solution.

ATM: We want to understand, who is attacking us? You? Competitors? Or both? What do you want, to stop your attack? My tech people till now was able to stop your attacks, but I and you want to solve this problem peacefully.

Blue Security: We don't want to harm to your business, we only want you to stop sending spam to our users.

ATM: Who are your users? List of emails, to pass to my affiliates to stop spamming? But first, answer my question - botnet of 15k IP addresses is it yours?

BS: This is not botnet, this is 15,000 of our users from about 500,000. We have program (free/open source) which can automatically clean your email list.

ATM agrees to use the e-mail list-scrubbing program, and asks Reshef for a copy of his customer list. Reshef requests ATM's e-mail address, but the spam sponsor suggests other means of communication, ending the conversation with this priceless quote:

"I'm sick with the spam in my mail boxes, so I don't use email any more."

But one pharmacy spam sponsor who calls himself "Pharma Master" didn't exactly appreciate Blue Security's tactics, and launched a volley of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against the company's Web site that eventually cascaded across the Web, knocking dozens of sites and thousands of blogs offline for hours.

Pharma Master: i am discussing daily with 10,000 of people and the biggest companys in the world. i know one thing which i already told you, u started with my and my people and my staff, you shall get hurt first to feel who we are. and when i'll make sure you got the point of who we are then we can talk but i dont feel like you guys really in mood of something. Bleusecurity.con is down now that's not bad how bout to keep all your system down for few months? How bout each time you play games i'll hit your company?

Here the spammer is saying he's willing to cover the costs of his sponsors being knocked offline after they send spam to Blue Security's members: "How bout each time you trying to screw someone i'll pay to sponosrs the money they loosing if they do?

Reshef didn't have much more to say to Pharma Master, and later decided he had lost the fight against the spammers. As of today, Blue Security will no longer be offering its services. Reshef said the company made the decision not to continue with the service out of fear of even more crippling attacks against his company that could further affect other sites. He said the spammers threatened to increase the volume of their attacks, and to write computer viruses that seek to attack security weaknesses in his company's software, thereby targeting the company's individual users themselves.

I can't say I'm surprised. It was only a matter of time before some spammer decided it was worth paying a few thousand dollars to rent out a botnet of 20,000 hacked home computers and take this company offline. The fact that a spammer can hold millions of Web sites hostage just because he is upset that someone is meddling in his business is disturbing.

Still, this saga is yet another reminder that while the Internet is an incredibly versatile, resilient and adaptive network, the underlying framework that the commercial Web rests upon was never designed with mutual trust and security in mind. As such, it will take a lot more than clever gimmickry to give businesses and consumers the upper hand over Internet hucksters, spammers and criminals.

Courtsey : http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/05/legal_antispam_vigilante_compa.html

Evil vs. Good : Evil won the war this time

A company that was protecting its customer from spammers by spamming them and making a denial of service attack has been thrown in the towel following a massive attack by a Russian spam organization.

Here is the story from Washinton post .

Eran Reshef had an idea in the battle against spam e-mail that seemed to be working: he fought spam with spam. Today, he'll give up the fight.

Reshef's Silicon Valley company, Blue Security Inc., simply asked the spammers to stop sending junk e-mail to his clients. But because those sort of requests tend to be ignored, Blue Security took them to a new level: it bombarded the spammers with requests from all 522,000 of its customers at the same time.

That led to a flood of Internet traffic so heavy that it disrupted the spammers' ability to send e-mails to other victims -- a crippling effect that caused a handful of known spammers to comply with the requests.

Then, earlier this month, a Russia-based spammer counterattacked, Reshef said. Using tens of thousands of hijacked computers, the spammer flooded Blue Security with so much Internet traffic that it blocked legitimate visitors from going to Bluesecurity.com, as well as to other Web sites. The spammer also sent another message: Cease operations or Blue Security customers will soon find themselves targeted with virus-filled attacks.

Today, Reshef will wave a virtual white flag and surrender. The company will shut down this morning and its Web site will display a message informing its customers about the closure.

"It's clear to us that [quitting] would be the only thing to prevent a full-scale cyber-war that we just don't have the authority to start," Reshef said. "Our users never signed up for this kind of thing."

Security experts say the move marks a disheartening development in the ongoing battle by computer users, online businesses and law enforcement against those who clutter e-mail inboxes with a continuous glut of ads for drugs, porn and get-rich-quick schemes. According to Symantec Corp., maker of the popular Norton antivirus software products, more than 50 percent of all e-mail sent in the latter half of 2005 was spam.

Alan Paller, director of research for the Bethesda-based SANS Institute, a computer security training group, said extortion attacks have exploded in the past few years. With Blue Security, Paller said, the attackers' extortionist demands were that the company merely stop interfering in a multimillion-dollar spam operation.

"We're hearing from federal law enforcement that they are getting more than one new case of online extortion each day," Paller said.

The spammer's counterattack generated so much Internet traffic that it also affected other sites, including Six Apart Ltd., a San Francisco-based company that runs millions of Web sites through its TypePad and LiveJournal blogging services. The attack also shut down operations for roughly 12 hours at Tucows Inc., a Toronto-based Internet services company that helped manage Blue Security's site.

Tucows chief executive Elliot Noss called the attack "by far the largest the company had ever seen," and said that only a handful of companies have the infrastructure in place to withstand such an assault, much less a more powerful one.

"This attack really was like trying to take out a mosquito with an atomic bomb," Noss said.

The FBI is investigating the attacks, according to Six Apart, but agency officials would not confirm a federal investigation yesterday.

Todd Underwood, chief of operations and security for Renesys Corp., a company that monitors Internet connectivity, called the attack against Blue Security "unsurprising but sad."

The innovative approach in the fight against spam caught the attention of investors in 2004, when Blue Security received more than $4 million in venture capital, but critics questioned whether the company could win such a massive battle.

"When the company's founders first approached the broader anti-spam community and asked them what they thought of the idea, everyone said this was a terrible idea and that they would eventually cause a lot of collateral damage," Underwood said. "But it's also extremely unfortunate, because it shows how much the spammers are winning this battle."

Courtsey : http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/16/AR2006051601873.html

Symantec sues Microsoft

Surfing round the net I found this information.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Symantec Corp. sued software rival Microsoft Corp. on Thursday, accusing it of misappropriating trade secrets to develop its own competing features and products, including the next version of Windows.

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Seattle charges the world's biggest software maker with misappropriating intellectual property and breach of contract related to a licensing deal with Veritas, which Symantec acquired last year.

It also seeks an injunction that would block the further development, sale or distribution of Vista -- the already- delayed next version of Windows -- and other products until all Symantec intellectual property is removed.

"Microsoft's pervasive and continuing disregard of Symantec's intellectual property and contract rights has irreparably harmed Symantec and constitutes trade secret misappropriation," the complaint said.

Microsoft said in statement it worked hard to try to resolve the dispute and that it acted within its rights in the contract.

"We are confident that our actions are wholly consistent with the legal agreements between Veritas and Microsoft and that these claims will be shown to be without merit," Microsoft said.

The dispute pits two of the biggest consumer software makers against each other and centers on a Symantec product called Volume Manager, which allows operating systems to store and manipulate large amounts of data.

The complaint accuses Microsoft of improperly incorporating the technology into its own operating system products and seeks compensation as well as the removal of the intellectual property from the company's offerings.

Copyright 2006 Reuters

Link : http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.asp?feed=OBR&Date=20060518&ID=5733228

Word 2007 includes blogging support.

It’s a great feature that I’m trying to test from within Word 2007. Now I don’t need to go to the blogging portal or use some other blogging tool. I can just write/edit in the word and click publish. Wow Cool product.

Kudos to Word team they have done a nice job. It has a cool look some big icons I’m not familiar with(but they looks good).

If I could publish this post successfully I’m not gonna use any other tool for blogging and I’m sure you won’t either.

Rediff.com Still sending the clear text password to the server

I was just testing if rediff.com still sends the passwords in clear text. I found that out once in my college days while sniffing the college network. I thought that they might have patched it so today while playing around with gmail's I thought to give Rediff.com a try And see what I found. This is the code from the home page of http://www.rediff.com

Blogger sucks it didn't lemme format my data according to me. Anyway


<br /><br /><form name="loginform" action="http://mail.rediff.com/cgi-bin/login.cgi" method="post"><input type="hidden" value="existing" name="FormName"> </td><br /><td width="80"><span class="f9"><input onblur="if (this.value == '') {this.value='User name'}" style="MARGIN: 0px; WIDTH: 77px; FONT-FAMILY: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-class: f9" onfocus="if (this.value =='User name') {this.value = ''}" maxlength="30" size="6" value="User name" name="login"><br /></span></td><br /><td width="85"><input onblur="if (this.value == '') {this.value='Password'}" style="MARGIN: 0px; WIDTH: 77px; FONT-FAMILY: arial,helvetica,sans-serif" onfocus="if (this.value =='Password') {this.value = ''}" type="password" maxlength="30" size="6" value="Password" name="passwd"><br /></td><br /><td width="31"><input type="image" height="19" width="31" src="http://im.rediff.com/uim/mail_go.gif" border="0"><br /></td></form><br />

It must be very clear if you ever read HTML. It just calls the login.cgi and provides the User name and Password in clear text (using POST method).

Look at the Request object your browser is sending


POST /cgi-bin/login.cgi HTTP/1.0
Accept: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, application/vnd.ms-excel, application/vnd.ms-powerpoint, application/msword, */*
Referer: http://ia.rediff.com/index.html
Accept-Language: en-us
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
UA-CPU: x86
Pragma: no-cache
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.2; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; InfoPath.1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727)
Host: mail.rediff.com
Content-Length: 60
Proxy-Connection: Keep-Alive
Cookie: Some Cookie string

FormName=existing&login=username&passwd=mypasswords&x=0&y=0


So now anyone who can read your data have your password. It's not that hard to sniff the data. If you are using LAN (using hubs) anyone can read your data. Beaware if you are in a cyber cafe, your neighbour might be reading your emails or may be sending emails to your GF/BF.

Some Microsoft ADs

Hope you enjoy these Microsoft Advertisments



This is the banned ad of Microsoft Office




One more ad of XBox 360

Google afraid of Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 Beta (IE7B)

Google is afraid of Microsoft in the long run for search engine champion trophy. As published in a article in the NYTimes Google started lobbying in the Washitongton against MSFT for removing MSN as default search engine provider in the IE7.
I dont why they forgot to remove Google as default seach engine in Mozilla Firefox. So funny..........................
[SNIP URL=http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/01/technology/01google.html?_r=1]
With a $10 billion advertising market at stake, Google, the fast-rising Internet star, is raising objections to the way that it says Microsoft, the incumbent powerhouse of computing, is wielding control over Internet searching in its new Web browser.
Google, which only recently began beefing up its lobbying efforts in Washington, says it expressed concerns about competition in the Web search business in recent talks with the Justice Department and the European Commission, both of which have brought previous antitrust actions against Microsoft.
"The market favors open choice for search, and companies should compete for users based on the quality of their search services," said Marissa Mayer, the vice president for search products at Google. "We don't think it's right for Microsoft to just set the default to MSN. We believe users should choose."
Microsoft replies that Google is misreading its intentions and actions. It says the default settings in the browser, Internet Explorer 7, are easy to change. And it says the product was designed with consumers and many partners in mind — even though it might not be to the liking of Google, the leading search engine.
Companies often talk with antitrust officials, and the talks do not imply that an investigation is imminent. But they do indicate that Google is pursuing every option in its escalating rivalry with Microsoft, which has already led to some public battles.
Last December, Google outbid Microsoft to remain the primary search service on America Online, paying $1 billion and taking a 5 percent stake in AOL. Last year, Microsoft sued Google to stop a star computer scientist and manager at Microsoft, Kai-Fu Lee, from working on search technology at Google. The suit was settled, and Mr. Lee runs Google's operations in China.

Microsoft has lost some ground in the browser market in the last year, mainly to Firefox, which is a Google ally. But Microsoft still holds more than 80 percent of the market. And Internet Explorer 7 is expected to be extremely popular because it is an improvement over Microsoft's previous browser, and because Microsoft will promote downloads of it and include it in Windows Vista.
That gives Microsoft the potential to use the browser to steer substantial traffic, and business, to MSN and away from rivals. MSN handled 11 percent of searches in the United States in March, down slightly from a year earlier, according to Nielsen/Net Ratings, a market research firm. That put it well behind Google, which had a 49 percent share, and Yahoo, with 22 percent.
[/SNIP]

Read :http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/01/technology/01google.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1

Amazon finds Live.com better than google.com search

Amazon.com choose Microsoft's Live.com search engine over Google.The Amazon division's chief, David Tennenhouse, said Google search was removed from the site at the weekend after the contract expired. But Microsoft still has a long way to go to challenge market leader Google and smaller rival Yahoo.
Read more at : http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/04/amazon-drops-google-from-a9-and-alexa.html
Google is more than afraid with Microsoft push on search business. It's apparent from their recent struggle over default search engine provider in IE7Beta. I'll blog it in the other post.

[SNIP URL=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/01/AR2006050101447.html]
Amazon.com Inc. said yesterday that it has dropped Google Inc. as the provider of search engine results on its Web site in favor of one powered by Microsoft, a move that signals a small rebellion against Google but a large gain for Microsoft.
Last week, Amazon quietly removed the "powered by Google" wording near its search box when the company's contract with the search giant ended, according to Amazon. On Sunday, Amazon visitors were directed to its own search site, called A9.com, to scour the Web.
Although they are not labeled as such, A9's search results are now provided by Windows Live Search, Microsoft's new search engine, which is still in its testing phase.
"Our engineers have done some testing and evaluation, and overall we concluded this was an interesting option to discover information," said David Tennenhouse, chief executive of A9, a subsidiary of Amazon.com that provides search and mapping results.
Asked whether Microsoft's search engine is better than Google's, Tennenhouse said, "It will be up to users to try that out."
Microsoft recently announced plans to spend more than $2.4 billion to invest in the company's online efforts, where it has been slow to recognize the fast-paced growth of consumer-driven Web sites.
Microsoft said the win is part of a larger effort for the software giant to become more aggressive in providing search results on other companies' Web sites. Many sites note that their search capabilities are powered by Google or Yahoo. Few give that credit to Microsoft.
"It's very important for us to reach out to different partners in the search space," said Justin Osmer, senior product manager of Windows Live Search, adding that Microsoft cannot just offer search results on its own Web sites.
"It's going to be an area where we're going to continue to focus and continue to expand," he said.
[/SNIP]

Google earning money from your typos

You never knew that just a typo can get some money to Google. Read the news at WashingtonPost.com
Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/29/AR2006042900279.html
[Snip]
Google Inc., which runs the largest ad network on the Internet, is making millions of dollars a year by filling otherwise unused Web sites with ads. In many instances, these ad-filled pages appear when users mistype an Internet address, such as "BistBuy.com."

This new form of advertising is turning into a booming business that some say is cluttering the Internet and could be violating trademark rules. It also has sparked a speculative frenzy of investment in domain names, pushing the value of some beyond the $1 million mark.
[/Snip]

Microsoft release a tool called strider which can be used to see the culprit behind the scene. Most of the time it's "No evil" Google.
Read at FuckedGoogle.com : Google's single largest Adsense revenue source is mistyped domain names.

You can watch the Adword abuse video at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuXilEu2EfI

Reference:
HitFarm

Google sketch up

I dont know where google is heading towards but one thing for sure they are soon gonna be the indutry leader in fastest software development at least smallest s/w development life cycle.
They are releasing product almost on a daily basis and nobody knows for sure (ofcourse except google themselves) who they are competing with. Yesterday they added a new 3D designing tool in the list of the s/w from their labs. Dont know if they bought it or developed it but it certainly is a PR+ tool.
[Update] Google bought it not developed it just as I thought it earlier after seeing the logo of the 3D warehouse.

Announcement From GOOGLE :

The new 3D Warehouse is an online location where you can find and share 3D models.

		From within SketchUp, you can search among thousands of models stored in the 3D Warehouse.
		You can download the 3D models you like best to use in SketchUp or view in Google Earth.
		You can also upload your favorite 3D models into the 3D Warehouse to share them with your fellow designers.
		The models in the 3D Warehouse include everything you need for your own 3D world, including buildings, houses, bridges, statues, sculptures, couches, cars, people, pets, and much more.

Kashmir fact

What is the authorities answer to this video. I dont want to ask the question about it.
This is you have to comment about.

Dhoomricated

Dhoomricated : This word means "Filled with Smoke"
Origin - Hindi word Dhoomra(Smoke)

Riya.Com is up for its beta customers

Riya.com is open for its beta customers. I was also the one lucky guy to get it for testing. Right now I'm trying it lets see how it performs. May be they guys did it better after getting rejected from Google.

This is not just another photo uploading service but an intelligent application that recognize your face. After uploading and with a little practise it recognize me in three pics and I think thats fairly good. keep up the good work guys.

On10 More hype than Origami

Robert scoble talks about 10. A sister of Channel 9.
This is meant for geeks to show their videos. 10 is built from the ground up using ASP.NET 2.0, SQL Server 2005 with a simple, easy to use design. Jeff sandquist talks about it in his blog.

Discuss 10 at Channel 9

Is this the Microsoft pay guidelines

I myself am not aware about the salary about my colleague or boss. But somebody outsider does. What do you think. Dont ask me if they are real.


Link to original image

Read the story at my previous post or
here(Seattle Intelligence)

Controversy over MS IDC and outsourcing

Now they are complaining against offshoring their job. Read the story from SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

A Seattle-based labor union is seeking to use newly obtained internal Microsoft Corp. documents to fuel the debate over outsourcing and draw attention to its assertion that the company is shifting fundamental work offshore.

Microsoft rejects the claim and says a certain amount of overseas contracting is natural given the company's worldwide presence.

The Washington Alliance of Technology Workers says it obtained the previously confidential Microsoft contracts, spreadsheets and phone lists this month from a source inside the firm. The documents describe a series of agreements between Microsoft and outsourcing firms in such countries as India.

One conclusion the union draws from the papers: More than 1,100 people work for Microsoft in India under contracts with outsourcing firms, in addition to the 970 direct employees the company acknowledges. That brings Microsoft's total presence in India to more than 2,000 people -- significantly larger than previously known.

"They clearly have not been forthcoming about the extent of their offshore outsourcing," said Marcus Courtney, president of the union known as WashTech.

Microsoft said it doesn't disclose the size of its contract work force in India or anywhere else, because the figures can fluctuate significantly. But the company disputed the union's broader assertions about the role of its overseas contracts.

"These accusations don't reflect an understanding of the global nature of our business," said Microsoft spokeswoman Stacy Drake. "As a global company with operations in more than 80 countries, we absolutely work with partner companies around the world."

She noted that top Microsoft executives have said repeatedly that they plan to keep the majority of the company's core software development work in the United States.

During the fiscal year ended June 30, about 4 percent of Microsoft's research-and-development budget went to contract work by outside firms, Drake said. About 1 percent of the R&D budget went to work by contractors outside the United States.



Examples of work for which the company has recently contracted with Indian outsourcing firms include the development of a promotional computer program that advertises the company's software. In another case, Microsoft contracted with a company to replicate problems reported by customers and provide the information to Microsoft employees, who analyze and fix the problems.

Microsoft uses contract workers for "projects -- not products. There's a big difference there," said S. "Soma" Somasegar, the Microsoft corporate vice president who oversees the company's 6-year-old India Development Center in Hyderabad, India.

"Anything that is core to what we are doing, core to our mission, we are going to do it in Microsoft," Somasegar said in a recent interview.

WashTech's Courtney, however, pointed out that the documents leaked to the union include long lists of outsourcing contracts that refer in two instances to Longhorn, the code name for the next version of Windows. One contract with Infosys Technologies is described as "Longhorn Migration Guide," and one with Wipro Ltd. describes testing for Longhorn and other products.

Courtney called it "a red flag" suggesting that fundamental work on the next operating system is being outsourced overseas.

But one analyst said the descriptions don't seem to refer to fundamental development work. "Based on the names of these contracts, I don't see that you can reach that conclusion," said Michael Cherry, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft, a Kirkland-based research firm.

Microsoft's Drake said the company uses employees, not contract workers, for "all intellectual property work," including the design and creation of Windows and other products that the company sells. "All development work on Longhorn is done by Microsoft employees, the vast majority in Redmond," she said.

It's the second time in recent months that WashTech has obtained documents outlining Microsoft's outsourcing practices. Last month, the union publicized two Microsoft outsourcing contracts, including job descriptions, seeking to show that high-end jobs are prone to outsourcing.

As part of its broader campaign against outsourcing, WashTech also is running an ad in The New York Times today urging Congress to protect technology jobs. The ad doesn't mention Microsoft.

The latest documents received by WashTech also include a recent agreement between Microsoft and a Russian outsourcing company, Luxoft. Courtney said the deal shows that Microsoft is developing "a global supply chain of labor." Drake described the company's relationship with Luxoft as new and said the firm isn't yet doing any work for Microsoft.

Courtney said the union received the latest documents in early July, from the same source as before, but waited to provide them to reporters until this week to coincide with the recent release of Microsoft's hiring projections and the company's annual meeting with financial analysts, to take place today on its Redmond campus.

Microsoft last week said it plans to hire 6,000 to 7,000 employees worldwide during the next year, including 3,000 in the Puget Sound region, but a significant number of those people will fill jobs vacated by others, rather than new positions, making the net gain in employment smaller. During the past year, for example, Microsoft hired about 3,000 people in the region, but less than half of those filled new positions, and the company's local employment expanded by about 1,400 people.

That is much smaller than the company's growth during the economic boom of the late 1990s.

"Microsoft has significantly reduced its hiring," Courtney said.

Rising Frustration with Microsoft’s Compensation and Review System

http://www.washtech.org/news/industry/display.php?ID_Content=5041

Wash Tech a seattle labor union got hold over some Microsoft confidential documents and now trying to unionizing microsoft. Read the story from Washtech

Defections by high-level engineers have stung Microsoft in recent months, prompting questions about a rush of creative minds for the door. One explanation is the Redmond software giant has grown too big and cumbersome to keep its top engineers happy and productive.
But the star engineers who are jumping to younger technology companies, such as Google and Yahoo, aren’t the only employees who are disgruntled with day-to-day operations.
Internal Microsoft documents obtained by WashTech News show that Microsoft salaries have been stagnant or nudged only slightly higher over the past two years. Comments from current and former employees about the company’s compensation and performance review system suggest a growing level of frustration among rank-and-file workers.

Example:
The documents outline 20 salary grade levels with a low, medium and high range of pay for 2004 and 2006. A software design engineer in Test, for example, might start at level “58,” earning about $67,000. An employee at the Product Manager level could earn a $74,000 base at level “59;” and a Program Manager might start at level “62,” earning a mid-range annual salary of $99,000.
Some employees have access to pay levels, but others do not. And although most are aware of the different pay levels, some have only a vague understanding of how the system works as a whole. At Microsoft there is an unspoken code that co-workers not share compensation information with each other.
What is causing considerably more ire than pay levels, however, is a performance review ranking system that uses a bell-curve model to decide who gets high scores and who takes the low ones.
Microsoft Corp. has over 60,000 employees, and like almost all large corporations, it uses a performance review process to rate them. The idea behind any corporate performance review system is to provide an accurate and fair assessment of employee contributions, but some employees say Microsoft’s system promotes politics over fair reviews.
According to employees, who said they would be fired if they spoke on the record, the annual review amounts to little more than a closed-door popularity contest in which managers “fight” for higher scores for their team, or defer to higher-level decision makers who mandate how many workers drop to the bottom of the review scale.
One employee in the company’s Mobile and Embedded Devices group said when it comes to her review score, “my performance is about 10 percent of the whole equation.”
Another employee denounced a compensation system that is “capricious in its tolerance of managers who corrupt the system for their personal gain,” and blamed consecutive low-rankings on a “well-entrenched culture of favoritism.”
She said that even though she had received division awards for good work, two consecutive low review scores blocked her from moving to another, less-politically driven team, and the low reviews exclude her from getting any raises. Now her only option, she said, is to leave the company.
Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos said the company conducts an annual poll of its employees, and that it was aware of the “different feelings” about the performance review system.
“The theme of this is something that is not new. We’re aware of what employees feel about this issue and others,” Gellos said in answer to a question about the level of frustration among employees.
Gellos said senior vice president Lisa Brummel, who was promoted to Human Resources Director in April last year, has been conducting an open door “listening tour” over the past month to solicit feedback from employees, and that compensation is high on her list. Gellos stressed that Brummel’s listening tour wasn’t an exercise, and that there would be action once sufficient information is collected.
Behind closed doors
In many groups, an employee’s review score may have less to do with their performance than their popularity, or their manager’s ability to negotiate to give out more high review scores. Another variable is when a marketing manager who does not have the technical background to fairly assess technical work is expected to review individual contributors in their team.
Review scores range from 2.5 to 5.0, but the process by which scores are arrived at occurs behind closed doors, employees said.
A writer who has worked at Microsoft for over six years, first as a contractor and now as a full-time employee, said her team numbers “have to be distributed in some way along a pseudo-bell curve: a certain percent get 4.5, a different percent get 4.0.” She said a 3.0 score officially meets expectations, but, “we all know that 3.0 is a red flag that you're on your way out the door - after all, Microsoft wants only people who exceed expectations.”
Unfair or not, she noted, “At least the company actually has enough money to give out raises, and bonuses, and stock.”
One former employee who worked at the company for over a decade said that if someone received a low review score and was overheard by a manager discussing it with a colleague, they risked a serious reprimand or being fired.
“No one would even talk about his level,” said the former employee, who said any open discussion about pay or review scores was taboo.
Microsoft’s bell-curve grading system has been in use, in one form or another, for years. A “stack ranking” system, which identified employees as “number one” and “dead last,” was changed in recent years to a “bucket system” in which employees are placed in a categories. The change occurred after lawsuits were brought against Microsoft alleging racial and gender bias in the closed-door meetings that determined the fate of an employee.
But the system hasn’t changed much, said the employee who worked at Microsoft over 10 years. “That’s why people are so irritated; there’s no way to predict your bonus, or ranking,” he said.
“Now the big problem is that those bucket meetings are behind closed doors. And where you get ranked depends almost entirely on who your lead is, how hard they fight, and what you’re working on,” he said. “Somehow that passes legal muster.”
Another employee who has been a test developer for several years said the reviews have always been a political process.
“The more peoples’ consciousness that you can get into, managers or peers, the better your rewards,” he said.
“In other words, your performance is meaningless unless everybody knows what you've been doing and see that it has a value or benefit to them or the team.”
A blog run by an anonymous Microsoft employee argues that the company is alienating employees with the review system and needs to overhaul it or risk further damaging morale. A post on the “Mini-Microsoft” blog sums up what appears to be a growing sentiment at the company once famously known for its overachieving workforce: “Microsofties have had enough.”
Comparing Microsoft’s review system with Boeing’s
If Microsoft is one side of the economic engine in the Northwest, Boeing is the other.
Each company employs highly educated, skilled workers. But Boeing’s engineers enjoy far more transparency about pay levels and their review system due to collective bargaining agreements between Boeing and the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace union (SPEEA). SPEEA represents about 22,000 engineers, the majority of whom work in the Northwest.
Software sales are more predictable compared to sales of 737 jets, so Microsoft employees don’t face cycles of layoffs like at Boeing, but there are similarities in the review systems. Boeing engineers are assigned "Retention" numbers, from “R1” to “R3.” The 20 percent of the group who are categorized R3 know they are the first to go in a layoff, and explanations for R designations are available to all workers.
SPEEA makes salary grade level information available to all members. Retention ratings, layoff information, and salary adjustments are also readily available. At Microsoft, annual bonuses and review scores are determined behind closed doors. The difference between the two groups is the collective bargaining power of the Boeing engineers.
According to the Mini-Microsoft blog, Microsoft employees “own their own career.” For employees who work hard and manage to land on the high side of the review scale, the statement rings true. But for others, the bureaucracy in Redmond is wearing thin:
“I love working at Microsoft but cannot stay in an environment where I am treated shabbily and afforded no opportunity to defend myself against such treatment.”

Origami - what is the hype all about

Here is the Origami launched by Microsoft I talked about earlier in my posts.
http://www.windowsfordevices.com/news/NS4596527542.html

Microsoft launched a new category of mobile computers Thursday, following several weeks of teasers on its Origami Project website. "Ultra Mobile PC" (UMPC) mini-tablets feature 7-inch touch-screen displays, built-in hard drives, WiFi, and Bluetooth wireless, and run Microsoft's Windows XP Tablet Edition operating system.

The first generation UMPCs are expected to weigh around two pounds and offer two and a half hours of operation per battery charge, and will include 30-60 GB hard drives, according to Microsoft. They are expected to be based on Intel Pentium M, Intel Celeron M, and VIA C7-M processors.
Intel showcased several UMPC prototypes based on its chips earlier this week at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, and Via is showcasing a new high-integration chipset and several UMPC prototypes using its chips, at CeBIT starting today.

Bill Mitchell, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Windows Mobile Platforms Division, said he expects some UMPCs "to include additional built-in features such as GPS, a webcam, fingerprint reader, digital TV tuners, and CompactFlash and SD card readers." Additionally, "some UMPCs will be able to connect via wide-area networking."

Because they run a full Windows XP OS, UMPCs will be useful for a wide range of entertainment and computing applications. An on-screen QWERTY keyboard can be used for data entry and navigation, along with stylus-based handwriting input. The devices will also support external Bluetooth and USB keyboards as input devices.

Mitchell said he expects the devices to be popular for "mobile communications, entertainment, gaming, and new scenarios such as location-based services."


According to Mitchell, UMPCs will initially run Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005, along with a new software package called Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows XP. The Touch Pack "optimizes the touch screen user interface for UMPCs to simplify navigation and ease-of-use while on the go," Mitchell said.

The Touch Pack also includes a customizable Program Launcher that "organizes software programs into categories, and uses large buttons and icons to make it easy to find and open your favorite applications," according to Mitchell. Other Touch Pack features include a thumb-based on-screen keyboard, a "Brilliant Black" Windows Media Player skin, and Sudoku, a "highly entertaining touch and ink enabled game," Mitchell said.

Windows Vista will eventually replace Windows XP Tablet PC Edition as the UMPC operating system, Mitchell added.

"We anticipate pricing in the $599-999 price-range," Mitchell said. "Part of our objective in creating the original reference design for the UMPC category was to engineer a platform that's both very compact and, through careful component choice, possible to sell for $500 MSRP."

UMPCs are expected to begin shipping during 2006. Founder and Samsung plan to introduce Intel-based UMPCs in Q2, with Asus following shortly thereafter. PaceBlade and TabletKiosk also plan to introduce Via-based UMPCs in Q2, according to Mitchell.

Interestingly, several companies have already introduced or announced Windows XP-based handheld mini-tablet PCs over the past several years, including OQO and DualCor Technologies.

OQO, which has made "ultra personal computers" (UPCs) for several years, recently began shipping a UPC running Windows XP Tablet PC Edition that offers handwriting input. The 4.9 x 3.4 x 0.9-inch OQO model 01+ is based on a 1 GHz Transmeta x86 processor and is equipped with 512 MB of DRAM and a 30 GB built-in hard drive. The device boasts a 5-inch 800x480 pixel touchscreen LCD along with a slide-out QWERTY thumb keyboard, and it provides both 802.11b and Bluetooth wireless, as well as connections for USB 2.0, Firewire, and Ethernet (available via a docking cable).

For its part, start-up DualCor recently unveiled a 6.5 x 3.3 x 1.2-inch handheld that combines the functions of a Tablet PC with those of a Pocket PC Phone. Like OQO's devices, DualCor's cPC has a 5-inch 800x480 pixel touch-screen. Unlike the OQO handhelds, the unusual cPC runs two OSes -- on two processors, no less. Windows XP Tablet Edition runs on a 1.5GHz Via C7-M processor, equipped with 1GB of DDR 2 DRAM memory and a 40GB hard drive, while Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC Phone Edition runs on an unspecified XScale processor equipped with 128MB of DRAM and 1GB of Flash. The device also provides two USB 2.0 type A ports, one USB 2.0 type B port, and a CompactFlash Type II slot.

OQO's UPC currently goes for a whopping $2099, roughly double the expected pricing for the initial UMPCs. Additionally, both OQO's and DualCor's devices have smaller screens -- 5 inches, vs. 7 inches for the current generation UMPCs. DualCore, which offers the advantage of including Pocket PC Phone capabilities, has disclosed neither availability nor pricing of its device.

Nokia takes a lower-end tack with its 770 Internet Tablet, which runs a Linux-based software platform and sells for around $360. The device, which features a 4.3-inch 800 x 480 pixel touch-screen LCD, is substantially smaller than the current-generation UMPC prototypes. The 770 boasts built-in WiFi, Bluetooth, and an RS-MMC (reduced-size-MMC) memory card slot, and its bundled software suite is mostly oriented toward Web browsing and media playing. It includes a version of Opera's mobile browser, along with an email client, multimedia player, image viewer, sketching, note-taking, and games. VoIP capabilities will be added in an upcoming software update.

Compared to the first generation UMPC prototypes, the 770 offers smaller size, lighter weight, and, most likely, longer battery life. But these advantages come at a cost: constrained processor and memory resources -- a 200 MHz TI OMAP processor, 64 MB of SDRAM, and 128MB of flash (expandable via RS-MMC) -- and a limited set of available application software, in comparison with all that Windows XP Tablet Edition has to offer. On the other hand, by the time second generation UMPCs reach market sometime next year, the Nokia Internet Tablet can be expected to have evolved, both in terms of computing resources and available applications.

We reckon consumers, who already have desktop and laptop PCs running Windows XP or Vista, will be reticent to shell out $750 or more for a fairly large, rather heavy, high-powered device that requires handwriting or soft-keyboard taps as input -- and that might easily get dropped or lost.

Frankly, we think Nokia has the right idea but the wrong software. In our opinion, a Windows Mobile version of the 770 Internet Tablet -- but with more DRAM and flash, and an honest-to-goodness SDIO slot -- priced under $400, would be a real winner.

Not that we don't think the Windows XP-based UMPC concept has merit. It's just that from a Moore's Law perspective, the necessary economies of scale are probably several years off.


LinkBack :
http://www.windowsfordevices.com/news/NS4596527542.html
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1935744,00.asp
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/24/1734257
http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/02/23/what-is-the-origami-project/
http://www.origamiproject.com

Apple: Finding the Root of the Problem

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2006/tc20060308_032391.htm
Hack-My-Mac Challenge Leaves System Shipshape
Plug pulled on Mac hacking challenge


The second potentially major Mac security incident in as many weeks has thankfully been debunked. Earlier this week I wrote a blog entry about a Mac Mini owner in Sweden who configured his machine as a server and challenged hackers to gain access to it. The Mini was -- as hackers like to say -- "owned" only 30 minutes after the challenge started. By "owned," I mean rooted. An outside attacker, through a remote Internet connection, was able to get "root" access -- the highest and most powerful level of administrative access on a Unix-based computer (which Macs running OS X happen to be).
Advertisement


Root access gives the bearer free reign on a machine, no questions asked. Files can be altered or deleted. Accounts assigned to other users can be changed or deleted altogether. The potential for misuse of the privilege has caused Apple to ship its machines with root access disabled by default. Root can be re-enabled only through a series of technical contortions understood by advanced users.

Even so, the Swedish attacker said he succeeded with an "unpublished" exploit -- a method that hasn't been publicly documented. If your Mac is connected to the Internet all day, as mine is, you can see the fright such news might generate. It's like knowing a criminal gang has a master key to your home and thousands of others, and that the only defense you really have so far is that they haven't found you yet.

BIASED STUDY. That is, if it were true. It turns out the original reports weren't forthcoming with all the facts. The person who "rooted" the Mac already had a user name and password, as if he were a regular day-to-day user. In fact, having an account on this Mac was a prerequisite to taking part in the challenge. From there, the person used some method -- most likely having to do with weaknesses in the Unix underpinnings of the Mac operating system -- to gain escalated access.

These kinds of "privilege escalation" vulnerabilities have cropped up on the Mac over the years and date back decades to FreeBSD, the variant of Unix on which Mac OS X is based. But remember, you can't take advantage of this type of vulnerability unless you already have access to the machine -- which implies having been given permission for that access in the first place.

The pseudo break-in and misleading reports didn't sit well with Dave Schroeder, a network systems engineer and Mac enthusiast at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He's been outspoken on the issue of Mac security, portraying recent reports as overblown. So he set up his own challenge, inviting the world to hack a Web page -- the very page he used to tell the world about the challenge -- running on a Mac Mini he set up as a Web server.

His challenge mirrored the one in Sweden, with one critical difference: No one would have an account on the machine. They'd be locked out and therefore would have to break in. His aim was to demonstrate the flaws in the Swedish test, and provide a more realistic test of Mac security. The tech news site Slashdot picked up news of the challenge and quickly spread the word.

A NEW CHALLENGE. Attacks on the machine surged. It recorded more than 4,000 login attempts, and Web traffic to it spiked to 30 megabits per second. Half a million people visited the Web site (http://test.doit.wisc.edu/). That little Mac Mini was one busy server, but it remained online.

Most of the network traffic conveyed attempts to break in: Web exploits seeking a wedge into the machine via the public page; dictionary attacks, which make repeated guesses at passwords at high speed; and a scanning tool known as Nessus, software that scans for known vulnerabilities. The machine even came under what's known as a denial of service attack, in which an attacker hammers a machine with thousands of requests for information in an attempt to overwhelm the server and thus create an exploitable weakness.

For 38 hours, nothing worked. The Mac Mini held its ground against the worst that the multitudes could throw against it. The contest ended earlier than originally planned and even appears to have gotten Schroeder in trouble with his employer, since it wasn't sanctioned by the university. I'm hearing he may face some kind disciplinary action. The University of Wisconsin apparently isn't interested in such a real-world ad-hoc test, no matter how successful and harmless it proved to be. Schroeder wasn't available for comment.

This illustrates changing perceptions about Mac security. The Mac is increasingly on the radar screen of people who have long ignored it and who, for whatever reason, want to find the chinks in as-yet virtually impregnable armor. And while it may indeed be a more secure system than anything put out by Microsoft (MSFT) and its many hardware partners including Dell (DELL), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Gateway (GTW) and others, the level of attention can only increase. Hackers love nothing more than a difficult challenge -- which Windows ceased to be a long time ago.

SOWING FEAR And as Apple Computer (AAPL) gains attention for its innovation, superior software and so far relatively airtight security, people in the media -- including myself -- will be watching with interest and not a small amount of anxiety for the moment when the first really nasty and widespread Mac security vulnerability shows up. Until that happens, even little hiccups are going to trigger an avalanche of negative publicity.

Uninformed media sources will do what they do best -- sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt. And the first time a really big Mac security incident occurs it will cause some people who are considering a Mac over a cheaper Windows-based system to change their minds.

Vulnerabilities in Windows are so common they don't really make the news anymore. But a large-scale, widespread incident on the Mac could badly wound Apple's reputation.

LOCK DOWN. It's for this reason that I think the time has come for Apple to consider doing what many other companies like IBM (IBM) and Oracle (ORCL) have: create a position of chief security officer. This person would be a well-known computer security expert, ideally from outside Apple, who would wave the flag for all things related to Mac security, debunking myths, correcting the record, and providing a public face when issues crop up.

And when something does go wrong -- and I think eventually something will -- he or she would be Apple's ombuds officer evaluating what failed, where, when and how, and then take responsibility for seeing that it's fixed, reporting on the matter to CEO Steve Jobs, Apple's board of directors, and (where appropriate) its shareholders and customers.

I talked briefly with Apple's Bud Tribble, vice-president of software technology. He called my idea a "good suggestion" but said the company would be reticent to assign security issues to any single individual, and that the responsibility of a CSO instead tends to rest with everyone. "For pretty much all the senior people at Apple, security is one of the top jobs on their list," he says. "When we think about security and how we design software, the basic approach is to make it as secure as possible, because most people really aren't security experts. We try to make sure things are pretty well locked down out of the box."

CONFIDENCE BUILDER. While the Mac's Unix underpinnings suffer from the occasional vulnerability, they still present a security advantage, Tribble says. "Unix is sort of a kid that grew up in a tough neighborhood," he says. That neighborhood was a networked environment where people were constantly trying to figure out tricks to log into the system. So over the decades, lots of holes have been plugged. You can't say that about Windows.

And I admit, creating a CSO position may be viewed by some as an admission of weakness. Still, I say it would be a good way for Apple to inoculate itself against the perception -- warranted or not -- that Mac security may be eroding, and get ahead of the curve for any troubles that may be inevitable. That may not be the case, but in matters related to product marketing, it's the public perception, not the reality that really matters.

And once you've lost a user's confidence, it's hard to get it back. Just ask Microsoft.

Live search in Beta

http://www.live.com/

Microsoft launched its beta search engine live.com officially.

Share your secret anonymously

http://postsecret.blogspot.com
If you feel shy to share your secret just send a post card to the address given at the above blog.

“what would it take to enable users themselves to wire-the-web”?

Nice article from RayOzzie. Talking about clip board. Standardization of WebFeed and much more.Dont forget to read the whole article.

Google use PowerPoint for their presentation

http://tomcaster.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/20060302_analyst_day.ppt

Why the heck google is using MS Powerpoint for their presentation if they are supporting OpenOffice at least they should show some respect for the Sun OpenOffice :)

TrackBack : http://sandeeprawat.livejournal.com/10145.html

Blogspot banned in pakistan. Who is next

Blogspot Banned,Next is Orkut,Insha Allah 3/7/2006 5:12 AM
Well the Blogspot has been banned in Pakistan and now its the turn of this vulgar,obscene and anti-islamic portal called Orkut.Instead of banning blogspot,they shud first have banned Orkut because such a website cannot be allowed to be run in an Islamic country.
Moreover let me tell u tht the Supreme Court of Pakistan has issued an explicit order to close and ban all anti-islamic and un-islamic websites and portals on the internet.I m very much surprised tht why is the Pakistan Govt delaying the blocking of this website,Orkut. If the supreme court and the govt are really sincere abt their claim to ban and block anti-islamic and un-islamic websites,they shud take immediate action against this extremely anti-islamic,unislamic,vulgar and obscene website.
Thankyou.
P.S:I will also do my part by informing the Information ministry abt this website also write to Pakistan Telecom Authority to immediately ban this website.Moreover i'll also contact members on Islamic communities on Orkut to mobilize against this website and pressurize the Ministry of Information to ban this anti-islamic and un-islamic website.

Just copied from Orkut thread somewhere...........................
http://www.orkut.com/CommMsgs.aspx?cmm=55961&tid=2451807805632979545&start=1

More info at http://www.boingboing.net/2006/03/04/net_censorship_in_pa.html

Employee headcount at Microsoft and Google and Yahoo

http://www.gaborcselle.com/blog/2006/02/timeline-employee-headcounts-for.html
Nice Reading nice reply thread too

Dell Hell

http://www.buzzmachine.com/archives/cat_dell.html
Dell is getting evil. Not microsoft :)

Do read the blog about Customer care of Dell. I myself am a HP customer.
May be you would like to read http://www.gapingvoid.com/ He reveals a true story about Microsoft.

Federal Web Search Upgraded : using MSN search engine.

http://firstgov.gov/

The new search engine is being operated for $1.8 million a year under a contract with two private companies: Microsoft Corp. and Vivisimo Inc.

By presenting frequently asked questions and special sections to allow consumers to refine their initial search, FirstGov is more than a Google for government, said Larry Freed, president of ForeSee Results, a Michigan firm that measures customer satisfaction of Internet sites. "It's sort of a Google-plus" because you do not have to rely on scrolling through pages and pages of search results to find what you want, Freed said.

happy Valentine Day

Happy Valentine day to all readers/

http://sandeeprawat.livejournal.com

"Reveal your search stats" : asked Bush Govt. to Search Engines

For more read :
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/30/boingboing_search_pr.html
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060120-105609

Also go through
http://www.toad.com/gnu/

No GPL 3.0 for Linux - Linus Torvalds

GPL 3.0 First draft in released and Linus Torvalds is in no mood to put Linux in there.

Quoted from : Linus Torvalds's mail to the Linux-Kernel mailing list

Link : http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0601.3/0559.html

From: Linus Torvalds
Date: Wed Jan 25 2006 - 17:39:09 EST

* Next message: Rafael J. Wysocki: "[PATCH -mm] swsusp: userland interface fixes"
* Previous message: Nix: "Re: [RFC] VM: I have a dream..."
* In reply to: Chase Venters: "Re: GPL V3 and Linux - Dead Copyright Holders"
* Next in thread: Chase Venters: "Re: GPL V3 and Linux - Dead Copyright Holders"
* Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]




On Wed, 25 Jan 2006, Chase Venters wrote:
>
> This means that when the code went GPL v1 -> GPL v2, the transition was
> permissible. Linux v1.0 shipped with the GPL v2. It did not ship with a
> separate clause specifying that "You may only use *this* version of the GPL"
> as it now does. (I haven't done any research to find out when this clause was
> added, but it was after the transition to v2).

Bzzt. Look closer.

The Linux kernel has _always_ been under the GPL v2. Nothing else has ever
been valid.

The "version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version"
language in the GPL copying file is not - and has never been - part of the
actual License itself. It's part of the _explanatory_ text that talks
about how to apply the license to your program, and it says that _if_ you
want to accept any later versions of the GPL, you can state so in your
source code.

The Linux kernel has never stated that in general. Some authors have
chosen to use the suggested FSF boilerplate (including the "any later
version" language), but the kernel in general never has.

In other words: the _default_ license strategy is always just the
particular version of the GPL that accompanies a project. If you want to
license a program under _any_ later version of the GPL, you have to state
so explicitly. Linux never did.

So: the extra blurb at the top of the COPYING file in the kernel source
tree was added not to _change_ the license, but to _clarify_ these points
so that there wouldn't be any confusion.

The Linux kernel is under the GPL version 2. Not anything else. Some
individual files are licenceable under v3, but not the kernel in general.

And quite frankly, I don't see that changing. I think it's insane to
require people to make their private signing keys available, for example.
I wouldn't do it. So I don't think the GPL v3 conversion is going to
happen for the kernel, since I personally don't want to convert any of my
code.

> If a migration to v3 were to occur, the only potential hairball I see is if
> someone objected on the grounds that they contributed code to a version of the
> kernel Linus had marked as "GPLv2 Only". IANAL.

No. You think "v2 or later" is the default. It's not. The _default_ is to
not allow conversion.

Conversion isn't going to happen.

Linus
-



SlashDot it : http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/16/2036239&from=rss

Microsoft releasing its own MP3 player

Microsoft Corp. on Thursday confirmed that it's considering plans to build its own portable music player to rival Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod, which has captured the lion share of the market at the expense of competitors offering devices with Microsoft's music player.

BusinessWeek reported Thursday that the Redmond, Wash., software maker was working on plans to develop its own device, rather than just rely on partners to take on Apple, which is becoming a dominant player in entertainment on the Web. Quoting sources inside the company, the magazine reported that Microsoft had put together a team to consider the business behind such as initiative.

A spokeswoman for the company called the BusinessWeek story "speculation," but confirmed that Microsoft was considering its own music player, along with many other projects stemming from a major reorganization announced last year.

"Officially, nothing has been announced," a spokeswoman said. "I don't think anything has been officially decided."

In September, Microsoft reorganized its operations into three divisions, including an Entertainment and Devices Division that was meant to improve the company's ability to provide software and services for mobile devices.

Chief executive Steve Ballmer said that the reorganization was needed to "enhance decision-making and speed of execution" of products and services. The company at the time was facing sharp criticism for having internal operations that hampered its effectiveness and chased away employees.

Despite having portable media players before Apple, the iPod has trounced rivals in the market, capturing about three-quarters of sales.



Courtsey : http://www.informationweek.com/windows/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=177104403

New avatar on the political horizon of India

Some IITians formed a party paritrana in order to change the political environment of India. Personally I believe its a good step towards change in Indian Politics and help accomadate india changes in its social culture. More about it later

Till then welcome the guys. THANKS for giving your time for our beloved country.

Introduction of toilets in trains

Okhil Chandra Sen wrote this letter to the Sahibganj Divisional Railway Office in 1909. It is on display at the Railway Museum in New Delhi. It was also reproduced under the caption "Traveller Tales" in the Far Eastern Economic Review.

"I am arrive by passenger train Ahmedpur station and my belly is much swelling with jackfruit. I am therefore went to privy. Just I doing the nuisance that guard making whistle blow for train to go off and I am running with lotah in one hand and dhoti in the next when I am fall over and expose all my shocking to man and female women on platform. I am got leaved at Ahmedpur station. This too much bad, if passenger go to make dung that dam guard not wait train five minutes for him. I am therefore pray your honour to make big fine on that guard for public sake.
Otherwise I making big report in papers."

Any guesses why this Bengali Babu's letter was of historic value?

It apparently led to introduction of toilets in our trains !

U know these guys ?

This is Me.
This is JO



And this is doc

Google Nears $1 Billion Deal To Take Stake in AOL

Google Nears $1 Billion Deal
To Take Stake in AOL

By JULIA ANGWIN, KEVIN J. DELANEY and DENNIS K. BERMAN
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
December 16, 2005 3:47 p.m.

Time Warner Inc.'s AOL and Google Inc. have entered exclusive negotiations over a deal that would have the search giant pay $1 billion for a 5% stake in AOL, deepening their advertising partnership, according to a person close to the situation.

The talks shut out Microsoft Corp., which has been wooing AOL since January.

As part of the deal, AOL would be able to sell advertising among the search results provided by Google on AOL Web properties. AOL's sales staff would also sell display ads across Google's network of Web publishers.





WSJ's Julia Angwin discusses a possible partnership between Google and AOL.
• Plus, WSJ's Kevin Delaney and Porter Bibb of MediaTech Capital Partners discuss the deal.

Google will promote AOL's Web properties among the sponsored links in its search results, and will include AOL's collection of online videos among its search results. Google's arrangement to provide search technology for AOL, which was set to expire at the end of next year, would be extended for five years.

Microsoft had hoped to convince AOL to use MSN's search engine instead of Google's. Talks between the two companies began early this year, when Microsoft first approached AOL about switching its search-engine alliance.

When news of the talks leaked to the media in September, Google, working with cable giant Comcast Corp., emerged to try to save its relationship with AOL. Time Warner was considering proposals from both companies by Thanksgiving, and in early December appeared to be in favor of a deal with Microsoft.

Web portal Yahoo Inc., also a potential suitor, dropped out of the running in early November.

Spokespeople for Google and Time Warner declined to comment Friday. A Microsoft spokeswoman couldn't immediately be reached.


The contest illustrates how far companies are willing to go to secure a chunk of the quickly expanding market for Internet advertising, by far the fastest-growing advertising medium. Online sales in the third quarter rose 34% to $3.1 billion from a year earlier, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. Search ads, which display ads based on queries users enter into search engines, are the biggest segment of that market.

The deal also comes at a difficult time for Time Warner, as hedge-fund investor Carl Icahn wages a dissident campaign to replace a majority of the media giant's directors. Mr. Icahn has threatened to sue Time Warner's directors if they sell a stake in AOL at too low a price or approve a partnership that makes it difficult to sell or spin off AOL at a later date.

For its part, Microsoft has struggled for a firm foothold in the online ad landscape. Its MSN unit, whose search ads are currently sold by Yahoo, has lagged behind Google in market share and in its ability to woo large Internet advertisers. It wanted to team with AOL to get the scale needed to compete with Google and Yahoo and bring more advertisers to an online ad system, dubbed AdCenter, that Microsoft is testing outside the U.S.


Courtsey : Wall Street Journal

My pics at IDC

People asked for my pics so here I am with some which I took at My Cubicle

www.flickr.com flyingdeath's MS IDC photoset

Yahoo! answers

http://answers.yahoo.com Yahoo launched its new service Yahoo answers Beta. Check it out.

National Talent Hunt Microsoft

Microsoft is organizing is a talent hunt for students of India.

Copied from http://www.microsoft.com/india/code4bill/

About the Contest
code4bill is a unique contest aimed at finding the best student technologists in India.Contest registrations open on January 1, 2006. Till then you can sign in to get updates and access to cool brain teasers.What is in it for you?Internships, cool jobs, and an opportunity to work with Bill Gates Technical Assistants Team (Yes, that’s true!).

Here’s how:
The top 20 students will be offered a two month internship at Microsoft Research Center & Microsoft India Development Center in India. What’s more students successfully completing their internship will be offered a job at Microsoft India. And these jobs will not be just any jobs, these will be cool jobs where you might just change the way we work, communicate and live. Click here to see projects that interns work on.

The Grand Champion:
The numero uno, the chosen one, the best of the best will be decided on the basis of project submissions & final presentations to a selection panel. The winner will work with Bill Gates Technical Assistants Team in Redmond, USA for a period of one year.

What if you are not in the Top 20?
You can still win certificates of participation, cool Microsoft goodies and gifts if you are in the top 1000 contestants.

How does it work?
The code4bill contest comprises of a series of online tests followed by a face-to-face interaction to identify the top 20 student technologists.The contest will run from January 2006 to March 2006 followed by a 2 month internship for the top 20 contestants.Check out the exact details on January 1, 2006Interested?You can actually get a sneak peek into what's coming, interact with our top programmers and benefit from the first mover advantage.

To get updates, take a sneak peek and stay ahead, just Sign In. It's that simple.

For more information log on to http://www.code4bill.com

3000 new MS jobs in India

Read this thread at Channel 9

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=143523

Killed for doing his job, Manjunath

BANGALORE, NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 23:
Lost in the din over the Bihar elections is the story of 27-year-old IIM graduate Manjunath Shanmugham killed for doing his duty. As a manager with the Indian Oil Corporation, he ordered the shutdown of an IOC petrol pump in Lakhimpur Kheriwhere he was postedfor allegedly selling adulterated fuel.
Over the past three months, Manjunath had shut down two IOC dealer petrol pumps in Lakhimpur for selling adulterated fuel.
&His friends and batchmates have sent several emails to The Indian Express drawing parallels with the murder of Satyendra Dubeythe IIT engineer and NHAI official who was killed in Gaya after he complained of corruption on the Golden Quadrilateral.
For a grieving father, thats little consolation.
Especially, when his son had told him about the risks, the mafia, and the father had advised him to let go of some things because he was all alone.
Having not heard from his son for three days, at around 9 pm last Saturday, the father, M Shanmughan, a design manager with BEML in Kolar Gold Fields, sent an SMS: How are you?
There was no reply.
For, that evening, Manjunath was beaten up and then riddled with at least six bullets. His body was found in the backseat of his own car. At the wheel, were two employees of the petrol pump, on their way to dispose of the body. Both were arrested on Saturday and the main accused, pump-owner Monu Mittal, was held today along with four others.
On Sunday, at a family function in Chennai, Shanmughan got a call saying his son had been shot.

Manjunath, an engineering graduate from JSS Engineering College, Mysore, and an MBA from IIM, Lucknow had ordered the sealing of the pump for selling adulterated fuel. But a month later, the pump started operating again, prompting him to conduct a surprise raid. It was during the raid that he was murdered, say UP police.
He was killed for doing his duty, said a tearful Shanmughan after the cremation. He told me many times that he was working in an area with many mafia gangs and that anything could happen to him. I never thought it could happen, he said, fighting to regain his composure. He used to tell me about the lack of proper controlling systems and official support when it came to stopping adulteration and booking wrongdoers in UP. He said it is a lawless world and for survival, one has to keep mum even if there are irregularities, said Shanmughan. He wanted the dealers to follow all norms. I used to tell him you are alone, dont get worked up, let some things go. He said he was responsible to his company and its sales... I told him to come back home. But he said he loved the challenge.
The family resides in Kolar, 90 km from Bangalore. He was the eldest of three children. He financed all his education himself through loans, said the distraught father.
Manjunaths death has shocked and outraged all those who knew him. He was such a free spirit. He had no enemies and yet he suffered such a heinous fate. Just because he was doing his duty, his IIM classmate Sunit Sapra wrote in an e-mail to The Indian Express. The case is no less than the killing of Satyendra Dubey. The criminals must be brought to justice and Manjus sacrifice must be given the respect it deserves, he wrote.
For Manjunaths professor at IIM-L, Debashis Chatterjee, its a personal loss. He was not our typical 8-point brilliant student... but he was a go-getter, very courageous and hardworking. He used to come to me at 4 am to study... we all will miss him, he said. Chatterjee plans to get in touch with as many alumni as possible to decide on a course of action. We shall not let him vanish quietly into the night, he said. Messages from his batchmates are pouring in.
He would always keep his mind on the silver lining of a dark cloud, always laughing and joking around. You fought the odds real hard. Goodbye Machan, wrote Karthik Parthasarathy, IIM-L Batch of 2003. He was the booming voice of 3.4, our campus band. He sang from the bottom of his heart, and with an infectious enthusiasm. One of those singers who made the listeners feel like singing along, or at least clap in tune. Bye Machan, wrote Gaurav Sabnis, IIM-L batch of 2003. Machan is what they used to call Manjunath, the singer from Karnataka. At Mysore, they had a singing contest where girls dropped flowers to vote for the best singer, it was my son who won, said Shanmughan, fighting his tears.

Courtsey : http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=82603


I hate to say that we are living in such a world (or country) where these kind of incidents are happening again and again. Nobody fears law......
Wake up people.......... wake up. Nobody listening

Beta.MSN.com

http://beta.msn.com/
Microsoft is moving towards better User Experience in its portal. I like the site. What about you. Google obviously lure people more than any other but soon i think MS is back. Dont forget Yahoo! it was yahoo who started personalized page concept with My Yahoo!
Microsoft also launched Windows Live a very nice personalized RSS aggregator or whatever you name it. I have it as my home page.

How Microsoft Lost the API War

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html
This is an intersting article I found while surfing the net. Joel Spolsky shared his experience and thought about Windows API and web. This is a must read article along with Raymond Chins’s Blog. He is a senior programmer at Microsoft. His blog mainly explaining history of Windows and his own experience in ensuring its backwards compatibility. You just can’t ignore to read it.

Dont Listen the Music CD on your PC. Sony might be watching you

The global music giant Sony BMG yesterday announced plans to recall millions of CD's by at least 20 artists - from the crooners Celine Dion and Neil Diamond to the country-rock act Van Zant - because they contain copy restriction software that poses risks to the computers of consumers.

So be careful when you listen to the songs on your PC. Some one might be waiting for you to play the CD and control your PC.

Read full story at : http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/16/technology/16sony.html

GBPEC alumni site is up for Registration

Alumni site of GBPEC http://www.gbpec.com is updated to support the content managment system. Now you can register yourself and access the feature. Its powered by Mamboserver.
Site Development is still in progress so if you find any bug with the site please inform us at http://www.gbpec.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=12.
So guys rush up. It is upto you GBPECian to make the word GBPEC alive.

Official website : www.gbpec.org
Alumni Site : http://www.gbpec.com
Forum : http://www.gbpec.com/phpBB2/index.php

GBPEC.com is Up and running

GBPEC alumni site is up and running with Mambo server in it. More feature are ready to come. Check it out.

World Wide WEB turns 15 Today - Do you remember First Visit?

WWW has turns 15 today.
Some of the oldest post of the Internet you can find at http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=121.
Grab the information from http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=136306.

Do you know who invented the internet. If you read angels and daemons(Dan Brown) definitely you would say CERN. :) Didnt u ?
Read the article from American heritage newspaper : http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/web/20051112-internet-world-wide-web-tim-berners-lee-computer-geneva-cern-enquire-html-url-world-wide-web-consortium.shtml

Singularity New operating system from MS

Microsoft is working on its new operating system know as Singularity
It's independent of windows and has built from scratch.

Read the news at http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0%2C2180%2C1882174%2C00.asp
Read more at ftp://ftp.research.microsoft.com/pub/tr/TR-2005-135.pdf
Microsoft is investing heavily in its Microsoft research division. We might see something intersting in near future at our desktops or mobiles. Who knows !!

Google Reviews is open for review

Google Labs is at its pace. With the recent launch of Google Reviews it shows its innovativeness. Check it out.

http://www.google.com/reviews

Will MSN pay the users for using their search engine.....

In an exclusive interview to computing Bill gates indiacated that search engine might have to pay their customers for using their services. So is it we who will pay for the services or they ????

Cool. BillG seems to be going more user friendly.....


Full Interview with Bill Gates

PC Hardware design contest

Microsoft is sponsering a Hardware design contest. so if you want to change the way hardware looks Vote at http://www.startsomethingpc.com


You should have a spiral shape PC at your desk now :)



Link : http://blogs.technet.com/sandy



Sponsered by Microsoft

Microsoft Antispyware -> Windows Defender

Microsoft Antispyware is now renamed to Windows Defender. Read more at http://blogs.technet.com/stevedod/.


Also read
http://blogs.technet.com/antimalware

Microsoft gone Live

Microsoft has gone Live with Live.Com.
Although it already has start.comI feel which is already same thing, but its great that MS finally coming in the open web market. :)

C++ is 20 year old now

20 Years of C++
Check it out. C++ has reached its adulthood.

Adwords Spam

Ever since I subscribed to the Google Adwords for my blog all of sudden number of comments increased. :) not really a good news. Not valid readers are increased but only spam. Too sad. I dont wanna enable restriction on comments so I gotta find out some way. Any way Software always can be debugged :)

Intersting post at Channel 9

Intersting reading at Channel 9

Google Reader in its beta

GOOGLE READER is ready to be used in its beta. Its web based feed reader like My Yahoo or other feed manager but its cool like other G products..

Google Hiring beautiful gals

Google Hiring Beautiful gals Lol
Click the above described link. Looks like Aishwarya Rai will soon be S/W engineer.

IIPM sucks

I dont about IIPM but I know whats happening within India.


Freedom of speech is no longer asset of India. Rashmi Bansal was attacked by IIPM guys. Why just b'coz she found that IIPM disagress to. Whats happening man.
How do they(IIPM) think they can compete with IIM. They are just piece of shit.
Gaurav Sabnis had to leave the IBM b'coz he didn't agree with IIPM. Shame to you IBM. U lost a guy who was firm to u'r firm.
I'm with Indian blogosphere who hates this kind of activity. We have a right to speak and write what we want and nobody can take this away from us.
Join the fight against evil at http://sambharmafia.blogspot.com/2005/10/join-fight-against-iipm-and-string-of.html

IIPM sucks http://www.desipundit.com/2005/10/08/lies-damned-lies-and-fake-blogs
Blogging is my right. Nobody can stop me. Nobody. Keep it up guys