British mathematician Alan Turing conceptualizes the idea of computer software in the 1930's. His revolutionary concept, dubbed the "Turing Machine", describes how a computer can perform a particular task by breaking the job down into a series of simple instructions. This concept earns Turing the title of "Father" of modern computer science. Read more
McKinsey Quarterly proposes a new Organizational Model for the airlines to succeed! I feel Southwest is probably best suited to handle the future threat in the AIrlines sector. Here are the recommendations: * Over the past decade, traditional airlines have responded to heightened competition by diversifying, which makes them more complicated to manage. * A good way to make these diversified companies more agile and competitive is to adopt a new organizational model: semiautonomous business units that are responsible for their own profitability. Read more
A study released Monday contains some troubling, even shocking, implications for CFOs: CFO turnover at Fortune 500 companies continues to rise (16 percent over last year's turnover rate), while the frequency with which CFOs ascend to the CEO spot is dropping. "The CFO seat is not just a 'hot seat,' it's a dead end," reads the press release for Russell Reynolds Associates 2006 "Financial Officer Turnover Report." That's bad news for CFOs -- but good news for controllers, who are fast becoming the "rock stars" of the finance department as they leverage "their status for better pay at different companies." Read more
Most of us Indian immigrants in the US use some phone card/service or the other to call home. And we call home a LOT!! I had started with MCI and AT&T when I came here first.. but my experiences were soo bad that now the only way MCI, AT&T and Sprint can have me as a customer is when they open a Grocery store!! Then maybe I will buy some potatoes from them!! Most of us heaved a sigh of relief when the Reliance Infocomm started its Reliance India Call service - they were such a great improvement over the myriad of calling cards that I got hooked onto them.. but in these last two years I have had a few issues with them.. One, when you dial a number wrong - you need to start all over again! The basic thing of dialing another number that most of the phone services provide in the US is absent. Wonder why the technical minds there never thought of this basic thing!!? Two, this service is ONLY for India. If I need to dial a US or European number I need another service. For me that service was Pingo.com. They offered very good rates for US and other countries although their India rates were a bit higher than Reliance's. Read more
TheLadders.com is a very popular and different job site as in it gets only the best jobs that are over USD 100k and they get the candidates to pay instead of the employers! So its different in that sense. They did a little digging in their databases to find which words in the resumes of the candidates attracted the most attention. Here are the top hundred words! In this day and age of online resume mailing and submissions - online filters are used extensively.. so it makes sense to use the right buzzwords and in my view a good resume does 80% of the work and if you can handle the interview well then the chances of getting the job are VERY HIGH!! So go ahead and use this to your advantage. Link for the list Read more
Interesting news from across the border.. .I have always believed that it would be good for India if Pakistan progresses too economically. So this is a welcome step. It would be good if India could also use this technology to connect the vast hinterland! Motorola is providing the country's Wateen Telecom with an 802.16e-based Motowi4 network. An initial uptake of a million subscribers is expected, with a nationwide rollout to follow. As a developing country, Pakistan has until now lacked the infrastructure for widespread broadband. The deployment is a milestone in the spread of WiMax, a superfast wireless technology that has a range of up to 30 miles and can deliver broadband at a theoretical maximum of 75 megabits per second. The 802.16-2004 standard, which is used in fixed WiMax networks, is being skipped in favor of a large-scale introduction of 802.16e, which was only recently agreed upon by the WiMax Forum. Read more
Now it is the turn of the POK kids to seek reservations in IIMs and IITs.. and somewhere the news byte says that the effort to open up higher learning institutes for POK folks has Indian Government approval - wonder if that means even looking at this reservation issue too?? And since we are at it anyways.. .shall we reserve some percent seats for the rest of the Pakistanis too.. some for Africans who have endured slavery and tribal wars... Blacks of the US.. Aboriginies of New Zealand and Australia.... Dil Jala hai to Zaalim; Zara Ghar bhi Jala kar Dikha. Duniya ko kuchh to pata chale; Read more
This is one product I am very happy to buy - so I thought might as well do a review of it. I was at the Newark airport a few weeks back and there was this stall of NeatReceipts Scanalizer - a scanner that can scan your receipts and business cards (also photos etc.) and using OCR puts the information in a tabular form. Now, it uses a USB port to link with your laptop and is powered through your USB too - which means that I can scan my receipts that I gather while travelling on my flight itself!! The information that comes in the table can be updated if not everything is there and then saved as the following types of files: PDF, Excel, Microsoft Money, Quicken format, Quickbooks format. In fact you can decide for which receipts you want the export to be done and save the information AND/or the images!! I did that in Excel... the images came over on one worksheet and the information on the other in a real professional tabular manner!! Awesome Stuff! The business cards area does a similar stuff for the business cards. I have been saving my business cards in there too.. with the information coming in over in a vcard manner. Again it can be exported to any of the "Contacts" programs. Read more
As Nandi has pointed out this issue of reservations is inherently a facetious one that these idiotic politicians have paraded all over the place. Karan Thapar - probably THE only interviewer worth anything - confronted the Minister for Human Resource Development - the Devil behind opening up of the Pandora's box this time on reservations! It is clear that ONE, he has no idea of facts and truth; and TWO, he is in MASSIVE denial! This interview is WORTH A READ!! Karan Thapar: Hello and welcome to the Devil's Advocate. As the debate over the reservations for the OBCs divides the country, we ask: What are the government's real intentions? That is the critical questions that I shall put today in an exclusive interview to the Minister for Human Resource Development Arjun Singh. Karan Thapar:Most of the people would accept that steps are necessary to help the OBCs gain greater access to higher education. The real question is: Why do you believe that reservations is the best way of doing this? Arjun Singh: I wouldn't like to say much more on this because these are decisions that are taken not by individuals alone. And in this case, the entire Parliament of this country - almost with rare unanimity - has decided to take this decision. Karan Thapar: Except that Parliament is not infallible. In the Emergency, when it amended the Constitution, it was clearly wrong, it had to reverse its own amendments. So, the question arises: Why does Parliament believe that the reservation is the right way of helping the OBCs? Arjun Singh: Nobody is infallible. But Parliament is Supreme and at least I, as a Member of Parliament, cannot but accept the supremacy of Parliament. Read more
This Reservation thing is really getting out of hand. I was just reading comments of Mr Murthy of Infosys, and he rightly said he supports reservation and quota for OBCs and Scheduled Castes, and he suggests we have reservations in our Cricket team and Olympic Team too. I mean why not? Why not have 50% OBCs/Scheduled Class players, and also have some 30% reservation for Muslims and Christians, as they are also in Minority in India!! Really, why dont we have 50% reservation for OBCs/Scheduled Castes in our Parliament? Isn't it the place where all this should start from? There should be a Nation wide protest to say all types of reservations are agreed to if the Government is ready to implement the same quota in our Parliament, and reserve seats for the backward classes. Read more
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