What is my take as a consumer on Apple’s products?

Apple’s has been getting a huge success for its products like iPod, iPhone and iPad. There is no denying that Steve Jobs is doing miraculous tasks for a company that was once considered as ‘dying’. But what impact Apple’s last five year’s winning journey will have on my life?

Honestly speaking, I certainly fall in the low level income group. So, I can’t buy iPhone or iPad.  And I am not alone. There are millions of people in developing countries, who can buy a lost-cost handset from Nokia or Motorola but can’t buy an iphone. I may search topics on Google from cyber-cafes, use Windows OS or MS Office from other’s computers or login at any moment to my Yahoo! Mail account but I can’t afford to buy an iPhone. Unless, Apple has products for all income groups of the society and I find Apple as part of my daily digital life, I have slight objection for accepting Apple as the global IT leader irrespective of where that big company’s profit level goes.

By the way, I don’t believe in media reports. What I see around me, I believe in that. No reporter’s special product review can make me decide to purchase an iPhone. If my own product judgement seems to me positive and I can afford the product, I am going to buy it. I urge you to be rational like me.

Even if they loose, I love Argentinian footballers

My heart is not a commodity that can be sold to the winning world cup football team. I may like Spain, Portugal, England or France but I want Argentina to come out as the champion. So, I wish them a great success in this FIFA World Cup 2010.

What you can give back to internet?

Parents give us the knowledge and inspiration to prosper in life. Their contribution can be compared to the volume of water in a ocean. Nobody can pay back his or her parents’ debts.

Internet is the mother of all media. Be it text or audio or video, you can find everything on internet. The medium of world wide web is our ultimate resource for collecting and sharing information. And who can ignore the enjoyment part of it. Internet is a genuine friend, that can make your mood cheerful at the time of loneliness. People not getting any job can even earn money sitting at home. So internet has become bread earner for them.

Business transaction and communication are totally dependent on Internet. Companies are using corporate blogs to connect with consumers and their clients and employees. Many future notifications and strategies are published via Internet. Distant business meetings are organized by video conferencing and without internet nobody could have imagined it.

Internet has everything to make your virtual life colorful. If you are a newbie writer and want to showcase you work to others, try blogging. You can find friends by social networking sites. Want to know answer of any question? Place your question through appropriate forum. Are you a game freak? Play online games from internet or download them. You can spend hours on internet.

Critics of internet says that spending too much time on internet can be symptoms of cyber addiction. What should a person do if he has no friend in real world or he is not so good at field games. Internet is the place for him to do activities. Yes internet had bad effects. There are cases of cyber crime, internet is the cheapest resource of pornography and hacking is a concern for security experts, but you can’t blame internet for that. As there are good people who have made internet for betterment of human beings, there are bad guys who take advantage of this medium and continue their evil activities. But please don’t blame internet for the bad effects.

Let me come back to the point where I had started. Our parents have unimaginable contribution in our life. When we are established and grown up, we take care of our parents and try to make their life more beautiful. To some people like me internet in the next best friend after parents. From my early adulthood to today’s date, it has caused me to enjoy life more. It is the world of Harry Potter for me. Any idea how we can pay off its debts? At least if we can’t pay it back, can we make our own individual contribution to keep this medium moving forward?

How ‘ethical’ is ethical hacking?

Some people consider stealing as an art. But can art bring miseries to one’s life? Specially, when somebody is stealing your personal data online, then you call it art by no means. In fact, you will think that person who is responsible for stealing your personal data, should be tracked down and punished.

Hacking as the term suggests stealing someone’s or any organization’s private data by breaking into firewall. Hackers who work for security agencies are treated as ‘superheroes’. Specially, when someone is hacking in favour of his country’s government, nobody calls him a villain. 

 The whole activity of hacking has got a new viewpoint. In the name of terrorism, common people’s websites, computers and email ids will be hacked by the security agencies for the cause of baseless ‘suspicion’. You may not be aware that your cyber café’s activities will be recorded and your personal information will be secretly read by somebody else.

 Is that ethical? You call hacking an ‘ethical’ activity? I think the term ‘ethical hacking’ is rubbish. Hacking is stealing. And no stealing can be ethical even if someone’s doing it for national or patriotic cause. 

 Many ethical hacking courses are coming in the market now a days. But the ‘ethics’ of the students are hardly judged before admission of the courses. What if bad guys as students know the tricks of hacking in this way? And some hacking software are available on internet which can be easily downloaded and used. Moreover, there are forums on hacking on internet. Cyber law of every country should be made tough on hacking and not everybody should be made eligible for an ethical hacking course. 

 Hacking is not a course like hardware, software or networking. It is very risky and only ‘good guys’ should learn about this subject for their own system’s security purpose.  

A Ghost Story : An Actor's Last Act

1
Ramesh Kapoor. The name became very famous in Hindi serials for the past 4-5 years. The man who started his career as a call center employee, got a guest actor role in the most popular serial, ‘When Love Happens…’ on New TV. After that Ramesh had no looking back in his career. He became youth icon and heartthrob of many women. He has also bagged the prize of best TV actor of the year for the past two years.
I was a blind fan of Mr. Ramesh. I tried to copy his hairstyle, dresses, speaking style etc. When he came to Kolkata’s City Centre last December to promote an event, I was among many guys who rushed there to get a glimpse of him. And I was one of those luckiest guys on earth who somehow managed to get autograph from him in that overcrowded place.

Yesterday when I got the news, I could not believe my own ears. It was the most shocking news for RK fans. Ramesh Kapoor did suicide!

No matter how much successful he was in profession, he was never happy in his personal life. His first wife died in cancer. Then he married another woman who divorced him 6 months before from now. Frustrated Ramesh started drinking alcohol. He attended nightclubs and parties. He misbehaved and bit people there after drinking excessive alcohol. He was not getting new offers from the serial makers. A great actor’s career ended so miserably.

2

Mohan is my elder brother. He is 34, unmarried. He spent last three years in Raigarh for the purpose of job. Recently, he came back to Kolkata. During his stay at Raigarh, he learnt new things. He and one of his colleagues did some researches about supernatural entities and they usually conducted planchette sessions on weekends. Me brother feels very irritated when somebody asks him about his planchette sessions. I got a weird idea in my mind. Can he bring RK’s soul? I want to know how is he? Where is he? Is he still unhappy?

I told my plan to Mohan. Initially he just refused and gave excuses like planchette requires mental toughness and one needs to have dead person’s used things to call the spirit. I showed him RK’s autograph on my diary. And I boldly said him that I am no kid and ready for planchette.

3

We had taken dinner 3 hours before. Mohan and me were sitting in candle light with a square shaped box on our dining table. Our dining room had almirah, fridge, a TV set apart from this table. Mohan told me to keep my hands on RK’s autograph in my diary and think about his acting memoirs. He started murmuring some peculiar dialogues. Then `suddenly he stopped. There was total silence in the room. I don’t know how much time we passed. Then it started! Our chairs and dining table were shaking like earthquake and the square shaped box broke into pieces. Mohan whispered, ‘He has come.’ Suddenly our television started. Some horrible scenes were waiting for us. I saw RK inside TV screen. Blood and foam were coming out of his mouth. And his eyes seemed like black holes. It was like he was in another serial. He was standing on the edge of the top of a building. He was going to suicide. For one second, I forgot reality. I shouted, ‘Please don’t do this! We love you!’ For once, he looked back and stayed at me. A devilish smile cam out of his mouth and then he jumped! Our TV shuts down just after that.

My brother whispered, ‘That’s how he died.’

We sat still for the next 15 minutes. Then Mohan turned on the lights. I was still sitting like a robot. Suddenly, my eyes fell on the diary. Where was the autograph page gone?

‘The unstable spirit has taken the thing from you that belonged to him,’ my brother lamented.

Top Photo blogging sites

 If you like photo blogging, then you may be interested to know about photo sharing sites. Photo sharing sites are popular medium for social networking with photos. You can upload your own stock photographs and images to write little description or no description for it. Top photo blogging sites good places to meet other photo bloggers and get ideas about their work. Following is an indicative list of photo blog and photo sharing sites:

Flickr.com: Flickr is a service from Yahoo! Yes, it’s ‘YOU’ and your photographs only! You can make photo albums. Your albums can be personal, shared with friends or for everybody.

Photoblog.com: This site is available in various languages. Just sign up and share your life stories with pictures.

Photoblogs.org: The site hosts nearly 40,000 photoblogs or photologs. View the ‘Hall of Fame’ section to know the quality of photos that are getting uploaded and shared.

Fotothing.com: The site is a cool photoblog site and it shows the daily life pictures of people. You can enter contents organized by this site.

As festive season of Christmas is ahead, one of the weird ideas can be uploading all your past festive pictures on photoblog site. Then send the photoblog link to your friends during holidays.

KaliPuja 2009: celebration of sound

Kolkata experienced Noise pollution at its level best as daily dose of Objectionable crackers bursted and made enough inconvenience for city's peace loving citizens. This year I took personal initiative by informing police about use of illegal
crackers. But during nights of Diwali and Kalipuja, demons of sound came back. They started their usual fireworks with earsplitting sounds.

Is that Kalipuja and Diwali all about? We wanted peaceful festival of light. During night I didn't see any cops stopping miscreants. Goddess Kali is regarded as the angry form of all Hindu goddesses. But it seems to me even her anger was not enough to stop miscreants.

Police is targeting wrong people. They are taking action against illegal fireworks sellers. But what about the buyers of the crackers? Many dare to burn crackers on open roads and ground floors of their house. They can be easily caught and arrested.
Transparency and coordination among cops are very important to catch miscreants.
I wish politicians and environmentalists will join hands to eliminate excessive sounds during our annual festival named Diwali.

P.S.: 1) Visit the following link to get more information about this festival.
http://www.diwalifestival.org/kali-pooja-in-bengal.html
2) The picture given above is Kalipuja of Path family, one of the biggest Kali Puja's in Kolkata

A tool for fun and temptation: Chocolates

Ever since, I consider myself as a foodie and connoisseur of cookies or sweets, chocolate unofficially became part of my weekly menu and my digestive system.
I prefer milk and white chocolates rather than dark chocolates. When one of students offered me a dark chocolate, I tasted it but didn’t like the bitter-sweet taste it has.
Chocolates have become part of my personal celebration. During Dashami of Bengali people’s biggest festival Durga Puja, I hardly ate chocolates, but during Christmas and family occasions, chocolate became ‘an item’ for the events. The feeling of melted sweet chocolate doing down your throat is simple a divine pleasure.
It’s an irony that children don’t like to drink milk daily, but they jump of chocolate gifts made of condensed milk.
Chocolates are good for healthy diets and they may keep down your blood pressure – says experts. But, now you know, I just don’t eat chocolate for such reasons!
If I have my pocket even half filled with money, I just go to a groceries shop and buy chocolate bars and chocolate gift items of my choice. I pay the money and get it. Fortunately, I never ‘earned’ a chocolate. I have always purchased or gifted chocolates. That’s didn’t minimize in any way my ‘basic instinct’ for tasting more and more chocolates. I like different flavours of chocolates. You can visit www.thenibble.com/reviews/main/chocolate/flavors.asp for more information about chocolate flavours.
After buying a chocolate, I don’t eat that immediately. I return home and put it inside the fridge. When, the chocolate becomes cold, I feel more addicted to taste it. However, hot chocolate products are also my favourite choice.
So, if you want so sweet taste, you don’t need to earn it, just grab chocolate and place it inside your mouth!

Number 7 and Biswajit Ganguly

Number Game

My date of birth dies not contain the number 7. and I am not going to talk about seven days of week or seven secrets to become successful in life. All I want is to tell you how seven is related in my life.
In my first technical technical training, I was given an identification number. That number was 52. Add 5 and 2. you get seven. I went my technical training place by a bus. Its number was 223. Add these digits, again you get 7.
I got thrilled by this number when I saw popular movies of James Bond, with license to kill. I only had self-perceived license to thrill people. However number 7 always had a special meaning to me.
Number seven relates to my competitive mentality. I have faced some good competitors, bad competitors and mediocre competitors. Against all three of these categories of competitors I wanted to come out as a clear winner: ‘number 1’. If you convert number 7 to binary number, the number becomes ‘111’. This number better describes my attitude.

If I write my name as Bishwajit Ganguly, you will find that total number of characters in my name become 16. Add 1 and 6 to get 7.

One seven number was with me from my date of birth. I belong to Ganguly fanily. Count the number of characters in the word ‘Ganguly’. You can write it as Gangoly, Ganguli etc. In all the cases the characters in the surname sum up to give 7 as output.

The Story of Another Subhas

[This post is exclusively for people of West Bengal]
“Subhas Ghore Phere Nai.” Was a book on Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. Its title meant Netaji still did not return to his home. Another Subhas went away from his ‘Ghar’(Home). And this home was a structure made by love of the masses.
The second Subhash was our West Bengal transport minister, late Subhas Chakraborty who has just passed away. I never shared any political views with him. And I a 100%, politically neutral person. I’ve met him twice face-to-face in my life. He didn’t reflect image of a comrade but a true human being and a great leader.
His opponent in the state always believed in to defeat him in the next Bidhansava Election. They can’t do so now. Subhas Chakraborty continued his life as an undefeated leader. He would continue to do so even after his death.
Why Mr. Chakraborty was different from other Marxists? Subhas Chakraborty was seen in the temple of Hindu Goddess which his other colleagues have not done. He supported state’s opponent party in many issues. Most importantly, he repeatedly criticized some of his own party’s activities, which very few CPM leaders or Marxists have ever done! He had the gut to do that again and again and he still got away with it. Because, his name was Subhas Chakraborty.
He was a CPM leader. His death has made him a leader of the masses. No political color I want here!
That's my tribute to an exceptional leader...

Role of graphics in web designing

Web design: Is that all for visual pleasure?

An art has its own connoisseurs. If web design is taken as an art, then we are here on the web to admire it. But how many websites are on the web for the sake of art? Very few.

The very purpose of making websites is to do business online and to share information with the target audience. The unbelievable popularity of mini-sites clearly indicates that people are seriously taking online business as part of their job.

Even social networking sites, earns a lot by static and animated banner advertising through their pages. We users get curious after viewing such ads and sometimes click on the ad links. Here the graphics and creativity within the ad actually brings the advertiser some business.

Blending professionalism with creative art for website designing is in the hands of limited expert designers. In many cases, designers put too much graphics on the web pages as part of their brilliant graphic display and their sites yet get low search engine rankings. The reason is simple. They ignore text content.

No matter what stunning graphics, flash animations or videos are put on the site, they should match with the content and theme of the site. If you have a site of nutrition and somebody designs a gaming-site-like-template for your site, then you can feel how awkward it would be to view the site. Nightmare, right?

Designer should not overdo the site’s design work. Rather, his work should support the website’s business and salability of its product(s) or service(s).

For art related and design related sites the case may be different. Even if converting a viewer to a business may be their objective, still, they focus on great imageries, too.
In non-profitable organizations’ sites, some experiments can be done with graphic designing.

At the end of the day, most people want something in return from their site, because, they have made it with a purpose!

Education

MCA and MBA : Are these couses worth?
Now-a-days, after the courses like B.E., B.Tech., M.B.B.S. and C.A., the two courses
Which many students in India opt for are MBA and MCA. Now in this post, I don’t want to talk much about MCA course. Rather, I would focus on MBA course. Now, MCA course is perceived to be equivalent to the B.E. degree in the computer science. But in most of the universities, which offer MCA courses, you won’t find a proper infrastructure. Also faculties coming to teach computer science are less experienced or are not skilled and most of them are less meritorious. What is saddening part of the course is that computer software market is frequently updated and upgraded. But the university syllabus for the course remains almost the same year after year. So the students passing out of the MCA course do not become ‘industry ready’ and as a matter of fact they have to undergo more ‘trainings’ on specific softwares.
The second course is MBA. This course is more popular than the MCA course because of the ever growing popularity of the IIMs. More and more students are giving the entrance exams of management like CAT, MAT etc. Most students or aspirants who opt for MBA, are not even aware of the type of jobs that they will get. For about the IIMs… what percertage of the total aspirants get chances in the IIMs? Very less. Most students study in some B+ or B graded schools. They even don’t know that after two years of they graduation they get jobs of ordinary sales guys if they take marketing specialization. Even I have seen my friend who took finance specialization in his MBA course, currently doing a simple ‘field job’. There are people who are doing field jobs after MBA. Had they knew that they will be offered such jobs, they won’t have invested lacks of Rupees for studying MBA. In low graded B-Schools, faculties are not trained about conducting case study sessions. Also, think about the job offer differences between IIMs and low rated B- Schools. While a fresh graduate from IIM get lacks of Rupees offer (per month) as his starting salary, a typical B-graded B-School graduate gets Rs. 7000/- to Rs. 10,000/- per month offer. Companies also prefer not MBA guys but ‘Qualified People’ (i.e. a graduate or even a 10+2 level passed!) with specific domain experiences. Then what’s the reason for studying MBA? Another thing is less number of companies are taking MBA people as management trainees. So, for getting an ‘entry level’ ordinary sales job, why study MBA? Actually in the post of managers, the demand is less and the supply is more. And some B-Schools are taking 120 students per batch for PGDM or MBA courses. There is no government rule to control number of students intake for private B-Schools. Also, in the low rated B-Schools, every candidate is cleared through the GD+PI session. As a result, less talented students are getting chances for studying MBA and private institutions are allowing them for more profit. This self-destroying system should be stopped immediately. But I blame not the B-Schools but the media for the over-popularity of MBA course. In several newspapers educational supplement, a big space is wasted for MBA entrance guide and information about business schools. Many good students’ careers are misguided by such articles in the newspapers and these students go for MBA entrances. These newspapers educational sections should be banned for misguiding generations after generations. Then after two years of ‘enjoyable’ study, these students find a black & white field job in front of them. Also I forgot to say, in many organizations, female candidates are preferred more than male candidates. Getting chances at IIMs is reality for few but getting a frustrating start of ‘management carrier’ is a close reality for many.
Then should everybody stop doing MBA? The answer is NO. Those people having their own business, can go for MBA. People having prior work experience can opt for MBA. And people having flair for marketing field can pursue management in sales/ finance/ HR for future prospects. And institutes giving single specialization offers, having poor cam placement records and taking illegal money in the name course fees, should be banned by the government for conducting further MBA or PGDM programmes.

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Terror

War on terrorism – ‘a 360 degree’ thinking

Every strategy that is taken by Indian government against terrorism, is not only very conventional but also quite irritating for the common people because they have to face all sorts of harassments by police and army. To stop an incident, you have to find the ‘cause’ of the incident and you have to do a detailed analysis of the incidence. Following measures may be taken to stop terrorism :
No ‘Breaking News’ : every time a blast occurs, news channels show breaking news on the bloodshed. Since mass killing is a sensitive issue, it must be dealt with sympathy and grief and not with breaking-news mentality.
Media positioning : whenever you win against somebody and you call your opponent a ‘looser’, he becomes angry and thinks of the revenge. Do say, ‘Indian army today successfully killed 3 terrorists in an encounter…..’ or ‘Operation XYZ finished’, report that ‘Indian army defended their motherland against three militants who all died in the encounter’. In this way, terrorists will also understand that we are not attacking, we are only doing defense and hence we are the peace keeper and peace maker.
Another positioning is that terrorism is not only a political cause but it’s also a social cause, since, most of the terrorists come from poor class of society and most of them are not much educated. Ad- makers should think about that.
Human Face of admin. : common people prefer to stay away from the army and police forces because of their possible brutal behavour. All those special forces, whose indulge in keeping our city safe from terrorism, must behave like normal persons. I thing, one out of every five police or army people should be given short term HR-training on behavioral skills. This simple initiative can solve many unwanted civic harassment. Also, most of the police should be in plane dresses such that common people don’t feel scared.
Restriction on usage of CCTV : Due to this buzz of possible terror attacks, every small organization is using CCTV. They may have the possibility to use this TV for business purposes or other bad reasons also. So, if anybody installs CCTV, he has to take permission from local police station.
Focus on community development: every community or religion or cast should be treated equally not as per its religion but also as per its geographical/ regional presence and culture. I mean, if Kashmiris see that people from different states are coming to their states and reigning on them and most of them are not highly educated and still are not part of India’s mainstream politics, sports, business etc., then they may naturally have a common hatred against rest of India. They are thinking that if they remains part of India, then one day their culture will become extinct. Under such circumstances, terrorists are only misguiding these people to fulfill their evil mission. Our education minister must see the development in terms of education in the states like Kashmir and other north-eastern states such that youths in these regions can have the freedom of thought. Also, since, travel and tourism industry in these states is largely affected due to terrorism, Government should give loans to the unemployed youths of these states such that they can start their own business. Then the number of people joining terror groups will be reduced.
Follow Tata’s example : I personally think that the step taken by Sir Ratan Tata by reopening the hotel in Mumbai showed that Indians are not at all afraid of terrorism any more. Top level Indians’ body language should be just like Mr. Tata.
Strengthen the border security force : Since, most of the terrorists come from the camps based on outside of India, so our border-security should be strong and more recruitments should be done. Hidden cameras should be there in the border regions which will be taking automatic pictures of moving objects even in the darkness of night and under extreme temperatures.
Change the song : I think, the concept of an eminent singer singing patriotic songs on 26th January or on 15th August is very old. The best way of war against terrorism is to spread the essence of patriotism. Instead of old patriotic songs, spectacular ads should be used in print media, FM channels, television and also on internet. Celebrate Independence Day or Republic Day with a blast in the states of north-east India or in Kashmir. Media should also give publicity to those events rather than giving publicity to Delhi’s special celebration process. Free foods, chocolates, balloons, and patriotic leaflets should be distributed to the kids and common people by the government officials in the militant driven states.
Repositioning terror driven states : The image that Kashmir has nationally and internationally is getting worse day by day. Have we even seen any film on Kashmir whose story is not based on terrorism? Make new documentaries on Kashmir which should bring other problems that Kashmiris are facing. Same process should be followed for other similar states also.
Hidden attacks on Terrorists’ head quarters : India’s defense and foreign ministers must plan for possible commando attacks on the foreign land soil to ruin terrorists’ training camps.
By following these measures, India may be not virtually but actually free from terrorism.
Comment : The views expressed above are personal and as per knowledge and belief of Biswajit Ganguly.