Well, here they are — the 12 Hottest Geek Girls on Twitter.

Photo by Gi

Practical IntelligenceThe principles of the divine

Success is the most flaunted word in this ever so mean, competitive world and every individual strives to achieve it, but only a handful have been able to savor the sweet taste of success. Every individual has the potential to succeed, yet it escapes our imagination as to why it eludes most of them. There are instances of people who work hard and excel in academics, yet struggle to find success in their careers. On the contrary there are legendary instances of people who are high school dropouts reaching iconic status.

Innate abilities differ from person to person; some are highly talented and some not so. Success is derived from developing these abilities through everyday learning and putting them to effective use. This can be termed as “Street Smartness” or “Practical Intelligence”.

Practical Intelligence

Professor Robert J. Sternberg, an eminent psychologist at Yale University in the US defines Practical Intelligence as –

It is the ability to adapt to, shape, and select everyday environments.

When described in a set of lucid words – it is our common sense. Practical Intelligence is the knowledge acquired doing everyday activities through various means. This knowledge cannot be imparted. It is the art of doing the right thing and the right time, or saying the right thing ant the right time to the right person, or applying the right knowledge at the right time. No I did not intend to play a tongue twister!

It is true that academic and analytical intelligence claim monopoly in today’s technology bound industries. There is a need to be technically sound and develop good analytical skills and adhere to vibrant problem solving techniques. To reach the peak or to go that extra mile it is equally important that we develop creativity. Even technology today is reaching new heights because people involved behind these advances have realized the need of the hour, that is, the subtle blend of analytical, creative and practical intelligence.

Developing expertise

It is not just enough to develop our practical intelligence and never put it to practice. It is as good as learning a musical instrument and never playing practicing it. It is absolutely vital that we practice in order to play better and probably become an expert. Similarly our innate abilities and intelligence need to be put to practice in order to develop expertise. Revisiting the fact that abilities differ across people, it is this practical intelligence that helps us fill the void that is required to excel or succeed, achieved by making the most apt decisions.

The world has understood the importance of practical intelligence and its role in day to day problem solving. This is evident by the fact that employers today based their recruitment on the basic skills required to excel and not only on the grades obtained in the analytical tests conducted by the institutions. The days are far gone when a mere degree would decide the fate of a candidate, ensuring thrifty business.

Studies conducted by Professor Robert J. Sternberg and his team suggests that people who are academically good often fail to cope up with the problems in life whereas the opposite is true with people who are comparatively weak in academics. This would probably explain why many top icons have scaled such heights which others can only dream of.

This article has been written by Praval Singh, a professional blogger, entrepreneur and social media evangelist. He is passionate about blogging and runs a venture called Media Redefined, based out of New Delhi, India. Follow him on Twitter.

Photo by Praval

SaaSWill it change the way you do business?

Earlier this week, I was fortunate to be teamed up as an official blogger/social media evangelist for EMERGEOUT conclave, the annual event organized by NASSCOM at N. Delhi. The theme was — The Future of Software as a Service and Cloud Computing. Dr. Sridhar Vembu, CEO - Zoho Corp. delivered the keynote wherein he shared his insights on how and why shall cloud computing change the way we do businesses.

The advent of internet (more importantly broadband), and its extensive use in day to day life gave birth to the concept called Cloud computing. Cloud computing can be described as a dynamic way of computing over the internet where the resources are virtual to the user. This concept is a boon for many Small and Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs), for the reason that they are able to avail software and hardware services without actually having to buy or maintain the entire setup.

We shall have a look towards Software as a Service model which is a part of cloud computing technology.

What is S-a-a-S?

S-a-a-S is a software deployment model focusing on providing licensed services of an application to a customer as per demand. SaaS vendors make the application available to the customers over the internet which can be accessed through a web browser, ruling out the need to install a physical instance of the application on the customers PC.

Today, SaaS is a phenomenon existing throughout various market verticals. Predominantly used in the technological industry, SaaS has also spread its roots into other market verticals such as – Financial services, Media, Government amongst various others.

Here is a play out of the ticks and crosses of SaaS;

3 advantages of a S-a-a-S subscription

1. Cost effective — A lot of startups and SMBs face a problem of coming up with the implementation costs by buying a complete licensed application, which by itself would bulk up the expenditures. SaaS helps them with it’s pay-as-you-use and use-as-much-you-need approach, hence reducing the setup and maintenance costs. This also trickles down to the fact that the company would have a faster on-boarding and access to the latest technology. If at any point the company decides a change in focus or direction, there is always the flexibility of terminating the service from the vendor or upgrading the current plan.
2. Multi-tenant Architecture — It’s like a multi-story housing society which houses studio appartments for students and the top floor has a penthouse for one who’s graduated to house himself in! They all however enjoy the common resources alike – lifts, water supply, broadband connection and more! As a distinct feature of SaaS, there is a single underlying application code, which is made accessible to any number of customers with each one able to apply a desired customization to meet specific requirements, without making any changes to the base code of the application. This architecture also ensures a single update to the application to reflect across all the customers.
3. Easy to maintain — Local installation of an application would require a dedicated IT team maintaining the application, adding to the capital investments. This would be taken care of by the vendor providing the service for monthly monetary benefits.

Grey areas of S-a-a-S

SaaS does not always fit the bill with all types of business needs. The cost-effectiveness of SaaS may have to be revisited in such situations.

1. Integration issues — Businesses today require a lot of inputs from various sources which typically range over multiple applications. This means integration of multiple applications sufficing different business needs. SaaS may fall short in such conditions as the model is fairly inclined towards isolated working of applications.
2. Security — There has always been a hype about implementing SaaS in context with the reason that it results in confidential company data to be exposed to the vendor. There would be a mutual company code which forbids the vendor from revealing data to any outsider. But there is a need to monitor the channel of communication through which the application is accessed over the internet, and also implementation of data encryption adds to the ballooning of costs incurred.
3. Pricing — SaaS vendors charge the customers based on the type of services requested on a monthly or quarterly basis reducing the initial cost burden to a large extent. But in the long run this turns out to be a costly affair. And constant developments and customizations would only add to the costs.

It is clear that SaaS being helpful to many SMB’s is still not every business player’s cup of tea. Having said that, with more and more businesses adopting the outsourcing model, SaaS would come across as an attractive prospect. But like any other business decision careful analysis is required before implementing SaaS to determine the productive values that could be derived through it.

This article has been written by Praval Singh, a professional blogger, entrepreneur and social media evangelist. He is passionate about blogging and runs a venture called Media Redefined, based out of New Delhi, India. Follow him on Twitter.

It was an awesome experience. India had its Avatar Day today, where few movie theaters preview 20 minutes of Avatar movie in 3D including the theatrical trailer. Avatar is expected to release worldwide on 18th December, 2009.

Avatar (originally a Hindu term for the incarnation of a higher being) is the latest of James Cameron’s dramatic feature since Titanic (1997), displaying the creative possibilities both of 3D and motion-capture production techniques.

The Avatar Story

Jake Sully (Sam Worthington of the Terminator Salvation fame), is a former Marine who was wounded and paralyzed from the waist down in combat. Jake is selected to participate in the Avatar program, which will enable him to take over an Avatar. Jake travels to Pandora, a lush jungle-covered extraterrestrial moon filled with incredible life forms, some beautiful, many terrifying.

Pandora is also home to the Na’vi, a sentient humanoid race that humans consider primitive, yet are more physically capable than humans. Standing three meters tall, with tails and sparkling blue skin, the Na’vi live in harmony with their unspoiled world. As humans encroach deeper into Pandora’s forests in search of valuable minerals, the Na’vi unleash their formidable warrior abilities to defend their threatened existence.

Since humans are unable to breathe the air on Pandora, they have created genetically-bred human-Na’vi hybrids known as Avatars. The Avatars are living, breathing bodies that are controlled by a human “driver” through a technology that links the driver’s mind to their Avatar body. On Pandora, through his Avatar body, Jake can be whole once again. Sent deep into Pandora’s jungles as a scout for the soldiers that will follow, Jake encounters many of Pandora’s beauties and dangers. There he meets a young Na’vi female, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana).

Over time, Jake integrates himself into Neytiri’s clan, and begins to fall in love with her. As a result, Jake finds himself caught between the military-industrial forces of Earth, and the Na’vi, forcing him to choose sides in an epic battle that will decide the fate of an entire world.

Visit the official Avatar Site, follow on Twitter, Avatar Photos on Flickr or become a fan on Facebook.

On a humorous note, there is a Hitler meme of Avatar, you might just enjoy it.

Yep, we’ve seen this (from the movie Downfall) multiple times from Hitler being angry with Twitter, his reaction to the death of Michael Jackson. But the subtitle, when done nicely, always make it worthwhile to watch. This is a hilarious video where Hitler freaks out over the failure of James Cameron’s Avatar trailer.

I don’t use Windows, so I had totally brushed aside the offer of 4 free Professional license of WinAutomation. However, I felt it should be useful to Windows users who visit my site. So, here you go — stand a chance to win a WinAutomation license Professional Edition (I’ve got 4 licenses to give away).

What do you need to do?

Just comment on how you will use WinAutomation to help you in your daily Windows Computing.

What is WinAutomation?

WinAutomation is a powerful automation tool that helps you automate any repetitive task on your computer.

UPDATE:

The professional licenses were given out to (a) Abhishek Baxi (b) Raul Almeida Carvalho (c) Andreas (d) Mauro and (e) Hayco. Congratulations!

Photo from Apple

Snow LeopardThe world’s most advanced operating system. Finely tuned.

One more day before Mac users can rejoice belling the all new cat. Apple releases Mac OS X, Snow Leopard tomorrow, that’s 28th of August, 2009. You may check the system requirements as laid out by Apple. For the die hard fans, there also exists an option to pre order! (However, Amazon is selling it much cheaper.)

Leopard, the current Mac OS X 10.5 is one of the most talked about operating systems available today. We’ve seen pros and newbies sticking to it and never looking back. Excellent user interface and a power packed performance makes it as an elegant performer. Apple however wants its users to get more. This quest has brought them to develop yet another release of Leopard, the Mac OS X 10.6 or what you shall better remember as Snow Leopard.

With the release date being just around the corner, we shall look at some of the features that gets the Snow Leopard up and running.

Let’s take a Snow Leopard Safari

Apple calls Snow Leopard a refined and better version of Leopard and nothing that goes into reinventing a wheel. Leopard was well known for being simple and reliable, despite a few areas which needed some concern. Apple has looked to fine tune these aspects ranging from ejecting an external drive to the size of the core applications in Snow Leopard. Some of the viable and standout changes in Snow Leopard are;

• Lighter and faster – The primary focus of refining Leopard was to make it light and fast. The applications in Snow Leopard are considerably slimmed down contributing to a smaller footprint thereby saving up to 7GB of installation space. The sluggish installation time is also reduced by almost 45%. Snow Leopard has been tuned for faster booting and shutdown along with quick responsive processes and quicker wireless connectivity.
• Security – System applications on Snow Leopard are built on 64-bit code. This not only ensures an enhanced performance but also offers a better security just the 64-bit apps can use better security techniques in order to protect data from malicious software and hackers.
• Multi-touch framework – With Apple notebooks being standardized with multi-touch trackpads it will be possible for developers to enhance their applications using the code libraries and functions bundled in Snow Leopard on the lines of current multi-touch features available in Apple applications such as Safari, iPhoto and more. In-built feature of Snow Leopard also allows Chinese characters to be entered by just drawing the character on the multi-touch trackpad, instead of the conventional method where the user would have to enter the phonetic spelling of the Chinese character.
• ZFS file system support – Leopard provided read-only features for the ZFS file system which is a combined and logical volume manager developed by Sun Microsystems. ZFS, which is a 128-bit file system was designed for high storage capacities and volume management. It is of great application in servers and workstations with multiple disk drives. For all these reasons Snow Leopard and Snow Leopard Server supports both read and write features for ZFS.
• Microsoft Exchange Server support – The new improved Microsoft Exchange Server support means that mails, contacts, calendar items from Outlook can be easily accessed. Something which most of you would have been waiting for! iCal, Mail and Address Book in Snow Leopard will be enhanced with this exchange support making it business ready.
• Faster Backups – Leopard introduced to the world the revolutionary Time Machine which allowed the users to take backups of their hard drives with ease. With Snow Leopard, backing up hard drives is light years ahead, with backup time being reduced by up to 50%.
• Few others – Web spot is a handy feature being imported into Snow Leopard which allows zooming in on a particular section of a webpage. Snow Leopard also boasts a slick QuickTime with an improved interface of sorts. The new improved Expose in Snow Leopard enables organized grouping of multiple open windows and applications with ease. An ardent supporter of open source, Apple has also incorporated many tool kits and gizmos which are finely tuned specifically for developer’s delight.

What’s the deal?

Pre-existing Leopard users can avail a $29 upgrade to Snow Leopard, or a $49 upgrade package for a five installation family pack. For older Mac OS X users the upgrade would be available for $169, and the 5 license package can be availed for $229. (Remember, Amazon sells at 14% discount for Snow Leopard.)

LA Times quotes;

“Microsoft, which doesn’t have much of a hardware presence to recoup its costs compared with Apple, is unlikely to match that price.”

Giving Apple an upper hand in this price driven market. But on the down side Snow Leopard is compatible only with Macs running on Intel chips. Power PC Mac users will have reached the end of the road with the existing Leopard OS.

The wait is almost over. Come September and the Mac users shall be ready to experience Apple’s self proclaimed “world’s most advanced operating system. Finely tuned.” This also comes at a time when Windows 7 is due to be released in October, this year. It is no secret that Apple and Microsoft are at war and only time shall reveal if Windows will fall a prey to the Snow Leopard.

This article has been written by Praval Singh, a professional blogger, entrepreneur and social media evangelist. He is passionate about blogging and runs a venture called Media Redefined, based out of New Delhi, India. You may follow him on Twitter.

Developer’s preview of Google Wave

While BING created a much expected hype about way we would look at search engines, Google is all set to redefine the mashup ecosystem.

You might just set aside all you menial mail boxes, and I say this with all due respect for serving the world so sincerely for all these years. It’s time for the tides to change. The web might just be swept away by the giant waves of “Walkabout” or as what is evident as — Google Wave.

Change is good

The world loves a change, especially a change that implies convenience. The mall culture brought convenience into shopping just as multiplexes into movies. We’re about to witness a change in the way written communication is used today. Enter Google Wave!

What is Google Wave?

Google Wave is a new model for communication and collaboration on the web.

In a more logical way Google Wave is a complete package, consisting of e-mail, chat, photos, videos, maps and other utilities which we use on a daily basis across various tools or services. All this blended with a whole new experience in real-time written communication. Google Wave has an API for integration with other applications for further collaboration. (Something on the lines of Twitter API, if you can correlate to tweetdeck. Hundreds of clients exhibiting different UI and features.)

Watch the video above for the developer’s preview of Google Wave.

Impact of Google Wave

How hard is this Wave going to hit the shores of our day to day online activities?

Today emails along with IM’s are the preferred ways of written online communication. We are comfortable with the nuances of current day emails and the way they work. Lars Rasmussen one of the brains behind Google Wave puts it as, “Wave is what email would look like if it were invented today. Google Wave is our suggestion for how emails could work better”.

The fact that Google Wave incorporates multiple utilities and extensions into one single package will certainly lure people into giving two thumbs up for this move.

Just another day at work

Consider a classic case corporate scenario where you have team members exchanging details of a project over emails and IMs. This could be replaced by Google wave enabling better tracking and quick turnaround of requests. Documents would be shared and edited with utmost ease with everyone in the loop kept aware of the changes. These being few of the advantages extended by Google Wave might just ensure the corporate world switching from widely used email and chat clients to Google Wave. This point is also being upheld in the cnet news review where Stephen Shankland, a senior writer with the company states, “Expect businesses to go through an adjustment period as Wave arrives”.

The Wave rides Microsoft

Microsoft Office is widely used across different organizations, but with Google Wave making the concept of dynamic documents a reality and emails being more interactive has got Microsoft thinking. Unless Microsoft could replace the existing Office suite with some real-time extensions they would be waving goodbye to their wide Office client base in the years to come.

Any developers around?

Google plans to make the code open source. I hear a loud cheer from the developer community somewhere in the distance as this is an opportunity for them to play around with the code and create some fascinating add-ons to Google Wave. Developers can rejoice over some cool wave applications at Wave Sample gallery and check out the technical documentation as well.

High tide or a Low tide?

Sergey Brin, the Google co-founder states in one of his interviews that – “Google Wave will set a new benchmark for Interactivity”. The world awaits this revolution, one that might just change the way we look at internet based communication technologies. All the hype that’s going around is just from a few demos from the creators and some sandbox testing by few developers.

With the kind of spine it has, there is not a speck of doubt that this change will be welcomed with arms wide open, but the question still remains, is it here to stay? Only time will tell the crests and troughs of this Wave.

Praval, the author of this article is an independent blogger, entrepreneur and social media evangelist. He writes articles, stories and reviews on Startup ecosystem, Blogging, Internet business, Wordpress, Linux, Open Source Software and technology in general.

]]> http://brajeshwar.com/2009/emails-to-google-wave/feed/ 4 http://brajeshwar.com/2009/emails-to-google-wave/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/brajeshwar/~3/cshut1Nkv9s/ http://brajeshwar.com/2009/the-answer-to-life-career-and-everything/#comments Tue, 11 Aug 2009 07:36:32 +0000 Praval Singh http://brajeshwar.com/?p=2015 Choosing photography, music or media is still a hobby for many. They're willing to wear an alternate suit, unlike the white collar of a physician or a software engineer.

Photo by Prakaz

Love what you do or Do what you loveThe choice is yours.

At a point in time, an individual wishes to define his/her career and subsequently the future. This might be fascinating for some and disgusting for several others. By now, a handful of you would have started to build up thoughts around keeping yourselves into the picture. The big question here is that you do what you love or you love what you already do?

There are various factors that fuel this argument. Let’s try and break them down.

The World

It’s no secret that we live in a competitive world. The order of the day is to do better than the others. At most instances, the pressure drives us to follow the herd, or as they say “Go with the flow”. For most of us, we define ourselves to the world’s perception and not ours. There was a time when being an Engineer or a Doctor was the only thing. Today being an IT professional is again pretty hyped about. Few years down the line this would change too. This is because the world defines them as the ultimate suit and places them on a pedestal for everyone to see and opt. There is nothing bad thing in being in any of these suits when you are making a living out of it. But is that all to it?

Unacceptable Choices

Being an Engineer or a Doctor is acceptable for the world, to be more specific the family, as they have been defined as a great jobs. However, choosing photography, music or media is still a hobby for many wannabe photographers, musicians and journalists who are wearing an alternate suit, that of a white collar physician or a software engineer. They would probably excel in these fields and do well for themselves, but they would have to settle for one of the more acceptable choices, the one at which the world doesn’t frown upon. The road that these off the line choices take are often considered as risky or worse, “Useless”. Again, is that all to it?

Circumstances

The most definitive of reasons are the ones nobody has control upon. Few might be really lucky to have green pastures in their backyard, nothing to worry about, be it financial status, family dependencies, other responsibilities. These might look insignificant, but come to think about it and you’ll find they are not. The circumstances would certainly affect a decision. It’s always considered wise to do the most feasible thing at a time, compromise and stop dreaming aloud. Again I shall ask, is there more to it?

Defining Decision

No matter how much we deny, this will be the major decision we will make for ourselves. One may argue saying – “What are you talking about? I have made all my decisions for my entire life.” Well, deciding a university you would want to study, or a course one would want to study, or the choice of a country one would want to study in – are not exactly the defining decisions one would make. What all can school dropout can do? – It is this very answer to this question that is the defining decision.

Penelope Trunk, a career advisor quotes –

One of the worst pieces of career advice that I bet each of you has not only gotten but given is to “do what you love”.

and we have selfcreation.com saying the exact opposite.

We also have Katherine Hepburn, a famous 90’s actress saying –

If you always do what interests you, then at least one person is pleased.

Having said all this, did you find the answer for yourself? If you have, I shall count one more person to be pleased, if not, there is certainly more to it!

A lot of people have found themselves doing what they love while others are vying to get to it. It’s a food for thought!

Praval, the author of this article is an independent blogger, entrepreneur and social media evangelist. He writes articles, stories and reviews on Startup ecosystem, Blogging, Internet business, Wordpress, Linux, Open Source Software and technology in general.

]]> http://brajeshwar.com/2009/the-answer-to-life-career-and-everything/feed/ 4 http://brajeshwar.com/2009/the-answer-to-life-career-and-everything/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/brajeshwar/~3/Yf0m8MDPUzY/ http://brajeshwar.com/2009/chicken-a-la-carte/#comments Fri, 31 Jul 2009 01:01:19 +0000 Brajeshwar http://brajeshwar.com/?p=2006 Everyday, around the world, 25,000 people die of hunger. Some lucky ones live on the refuse of men to survive. What is inspiring is the hope and spirituality that never left this people.

Chicken a la Carte

This short film is about the hunger and poverty brought about by Globalization. There are thousands people dying everyday due to hunger and malnutrition. This short film shows a forgotten portion of the society. The people who live on the refuse of men to survive. What is inspiring is the hope and spirituality that never left this people.

Ferdinand Dimadura’s short film — Chicken a la Carte — will surely leave you spellbound.

]]> http://brajeshwar.com/2009/chicken-a-la-carte/feed/ 1 http://brajeshwar.com/2009/chicken-a-la-carte/