Prelims Questions(20 questions, 700 to 800 teams participated !)

Logo shown ? Ubuntu
Company from Canada, Blackberry ? RIM
Retina display technology ? iPhone 4
‘Nothing Like Anything’ tagline ? Micromax
‘What’s the point of option when…” tagline ? monster.com
First browser to have speed dial and mouse gesture features ? Opera
India’s 20$ laptop project name ? Saakshaat
First game to be imported to US from Russia ? Tetris
MobileMe is from ? Apple
This company is called Logicool in Japan, what in India ? Logitech
TelePresence is a Teleconference product from which company ? Cisco
Logo/screenshot ? Apple appstore
Galaxy brand ? Samsung
Expand HTC ? High tech corporation
WebOS ? Palm
Six axis ? Game controller
Decision engine ? Bing
What is the name given to 10 to the power of googol ? Googleplex

THE FINALS : STAGE ROUND ( top 6 teams)

I. Cloud Computing (+10) – visual round

1. pic ? Andy Bechtolsheim // I got a cool TCS bag for answering this, passed as audience question
2. pic and clue : look at the parking lot ? Bell Labs HQ. (there was a B symbol in parking lot)
3. pic ? Ronald Wayne (the Apple guy)
4. pic : Google doodle having nature, identify the man ? Charles Darwin
5. pic : Apple logo with ‘Hold differently’ written below ? iPhone4 antenna problem spoof
6. pic : new Palm logo, what’s significance ? HP bought Palm recently and changed the logo to HP style

II. Automatic Computing

1. What’s blingtronics ? wearable electronics made of gold or diamonds
2. Connect these terms : base,trigger,button,autofire,hatch,suction,throttle ? Joystick
3. Six letter word of Greek origin, arranging together, rules of governing, construction of command ? Syntax
4. Barbara Liskov is a Prof. of CS from MIT, only female to have achieved this ? Alan Turing award
5. Connect these Mephisto,gidion,shredder,hiarcs,junior ? These are chess engines
6. This ambitious project called Project X has codenames cupcake,doughnut,eclairs ? Android

Audience questions

• What’s flog ? Fake blog
• What’s napstering ? Distributing illegal content and making money out of it

III. @TCS : Buzzer round

1. TCS is a tech partner to world’s oldest marathon ? Boston marathon
2. With which state in India did TCS start a citizen portal called ‘MahaOnline’ ? Maharashtra
3. TCS is officially partner till 2012 for this a leading European pro-cycling team ? Cervélo
4. Expand TRDDC ? Tata Research Development and Design Center

IV. Parallel Computing ( +10,-5) buzzer round

1. pics of Obama ,Mark Zuckerberg and another lady ? Facebook
2. Video showing Beckham, pics – flickr logo,inktomi logo,del.icio.us logo ? Yahoo
3. pics of camel,java temple,turtle,song ‘ruby tuesday’ playing in background ? Programming languages
4. MSN messenger logo,cdragon logo and another pic ? Apps designed by MS for Apple on AppStore

V. Final round – Grid Computing (+5,+10,+15)
Solve the 4 questions, derive the final single worded answer using the given formula and the answers of 4 questions !
Example Question :
R-2,C+3,F-2

• A program that permits rewriting and editing of file ? ediTor
• This name is abbreviation of San Francisco ? cisCo
• Web browser from Apple for Mac OS X ? Safari

Answer : TCS

1. E+2,T-2,R+2,A-2

• Designed by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert ? enIac
• A small piece of software designed to fix problems ? Patch
• Advanced Research Project Agency Network ? arpAnet
• Original developer was C. Wayne Ratliff ? Dbase

Answer : IPAD

2. P+3,P+1,A+1,E-1

• Published in 1970 by Niklaus Wirth ? pasCal
• Greek letter for ‘five’ ending with “ium” ? pEntium
• Base 2 number system ? binaRy
• Nippon Denki Kabushiki Kaisha ? Nec

Answer : CERN

3. X-1,I-1,U-2,A-2

• Founded as Graphics Group ? pIxar
• Coined by Ralph Vaerst, published by Don Hoefler ? Silicon Valley
• Device that interconnects two or more networks ? Router
• Netscape based web browser ? mOsaic
  Answer : ISRO

Final scores of teams :
SBM Jain : 40 //Champions
SKCH-CBSE : 30 //Runners-up
NAFL : 25
St. Joseph’s Boys : 10
Bishop Cotton Boys : 10
St. Pauls’ : 0

The champions got Lenovo laptops, a bag full of goodies and entered national finals.

Lyrics
“Yaara Yaara ho Yaara…

Tumhare vaaste toofan sehle
Muskurao tum, jiyo har lamha
Tumko zindagi peene ki aadat hai
Yaara Yaara ho Yaara…”

About the ad :
The ad comprises of a series of visuals that depict how people go ahead and enjoy life, when they have the assurance of protection by a loved one. My favourite is the one where a group of little children jump into a river to enjoy a bath in the summer heat. The camera zooms out to show a pet dog watching over their clothes.
Gulzar has penned the lyrics for the ’Jiyo Befikar’ song that plays in the background. The mistakable voice of Sukhwinder brings the lyrics to life. And with Vishal Bharadwaj composing the music, this ’Jiyo Befikar’ song is a hit – as far as mobile ringtones are concerned. The commercial has been conceptualized by M&C Saatchi and shot by Dungarpur Films.

Download Bajaj Allianz Jiyo Befikar MP3 Ringtone

Link to online real-time engineering seat availability :
http://stg2.kar.nic.in/seatmatrix/cet_cell_e.asp

You can view the vacant or remaining seats :

• Category Wise
• College Wise
• Course Wise
• College and Course Wise

All the best

Here is a list of Free Public DNS servers that are a lot better,faster and safer than DNS servers of your ISP.

OpenDNS
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
or
208.67.222.220
208.67.220.222

Google Public DNS
8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4

DNS Advantage
156.154.70.1
156.154.71.1

Norton DNS
198.153.192.1
198.153.194.1

ScrubIT
67.138.54.100
207.225.209.66

Help :
How to change your DNS
Changing DNS server settings

• Will you get admission in good college or not?
• What will be the Cut off percentage of different colleges ?
• What are the different courses available in different colleges ?
• Which branch should I take ?
• Which college I will get for my rank ?

First things first, shortlist the colleges and the places that you like (keeping your rank in mind : having rank over 10k and expecting to get E&C in RVCE, that’s height of craziness). This is where the previous year cutoff ranks and college ranking list come in handy. You’ll get a very rough picture about which college and branch you can expect. You can talk to your elder brother,sister,cousin,relative or anybody who is doing engineering. That’s the best reliable source that you count upon.

Location : I had an obsession after my CET; I wanted a college either in Bangalore or Mysore and nowhere else. Ask yourself, do you mind moving to far places to do engineering. Those of you have stayed in hostel or as paying guest before, this shouldn’t be a problem at all. It’s a good thing opting for a college located in Bangalore (or even Mysore) because you’ll have good exposure there and bright career opportunities even if you by chance end up in a college that is not quite good. Besides, the weather is also good in B’lore and Mysore

Infrastructure and facilities : Infrastructure does NOT mean attractive buildings and gardens. Check whether the college has sufficient amount of infrastructure according to it’s intake capacity. It includes classrooms, administrative building, workshop, computer labs, various laboratories etc. You can include playgrounds too. A friend of mine(Federer fan) had got Mech @ PESIT and he was complaining that there was no lawn tennis court there. lol Visit the college campus and take a look around yourself. Check if it has good Library, Internet access, hostels, seminar halls, dispensary, student clubs, gym etc.

Faculty : Okay, here’s the truth. There’s no way to know how the teaching there will be unless you are in touch with a student who studies there. I believe engineering is all about self study. So don’t give a damn about how the faculty is. But, do look for colleges that have good teacher to student ratio and experienced teachers. How to identify experienced teachers ? Look at their hair ? Are they bald yet ? I was just kidding

Placements : I believe this is the most important factor of all. Consider you’ve completed 4 years of engineering. Now what ? How can you manage to get a job ? Check the placement record of the college in previous years branch wise as well as company wise. Suppose you join a college which has a very good placement record , it does not mean you get placed easily. It depends on your talent, personality and how your interview goes. I joined PESSE, a sister concern of PES because it had same management as that of PESIT and we get to write placements along with them Here is the placement record of my college for this year.

Extra curricular activities: “All work and no play make Jack a dull boy”. To survive in competitive environment and to have a good personality, extra curricular activities play a very important role. So have a look about extra activities provided by college like, annual fest, technical fest, sports function, students club, seminars and workshops, industrial training, social activities etc.

Parent’s Choice : I don’t want to give any comment here. Parents can guide you by their experience. But some times,students know more than their parents about the education field. It’s you who makes the final call and choose the college.

Autonomous or VTU ? Those of you who don’t know what an autonomous engineering college is, start here. In most of the autonomous colleges : they have their own updated and optimized syllabus(with no nonsense and irrelevant topics like VTU syllabus). They have their own grading system (sometimes it’s an advantage as well as disadvantage) and you get around 3 months holiday between even semesters !!! On the other hand, in VTU colleges, the syllabus and grading system is same throughout Karnataka and hence there’s a common exam for all colleges at the end of each semester. VTU question papers have choice : answer any five out of eight questions with each question coming from each individual units. So you can study 5 units throughly and become topper (highly not recommended idea). Besides, in VTU colleges, you get around one month holiday between even semesters Above all, VTU really sucks, students often curse VTU.

Do you really want to know how a college is ? Then ask someone who is in that college. They’ll be knowing the college better than any outsider. And some of you may be wondering by now, how I know all these stuff ? I’ve been through the dilemma just one year ago.