SKASC TechClubs

Welcome back friends ! .. after a long time, i am back here with the Students Tech Club Offered by Microsoft.
Student Tech Clubs connects you with top-rated user groups, meetings, community sites, blogs, forums, events and breaking news.

There are many ways to learn technology around the world. We realize that sometimes the way students can master professional tools is on their own time with your friends. Our goal is to support them with the access to tools, training and a platform to connect.

Student Tech Clubs are communities of students — problem solvers, challenge seekers, people who love to discover everything they can do with the latest technology.

The program is there to help student to start and run a Student Tech Club at your school.

Tools like surveys, member administration, newsletters, invitations to events, event calendar, support materials created by Microsoft Product Groups, access to local speakers are some of the features that you can take advantage today using this.

MSPs are one of the key assets on this, because one of the most required things for the club leaders is access to high quality speakers so here is your opportunity to polish your presentation skills.

The other area where you can use this platform is to enforce your leadership skills, and what’s better than practice that creating your own club in your campus, where you can lead together with other core members of your team. You can invite fellow students, drive events, study groups and other activities.

Link: www.studenttechclubs.com/

Note: We are opening a Student Tech Club in Sri Krishna Arts & Science College., named "SKASC~TechClubs". Which has its ultimate aim to improve the knowledge of the students and the fellow members. We are here to provide our full support for the working of this club.

Link to SKASC~Students Tech Club: SKASC-TechClubs

MSPs Selection Process 2009-2010

Well guys... its time to get on to the track. MSP Selection Process for 2009-2010 has begun.

The Microsoft Student Partners is a worldwide educational program to sponsor students majoring in disciplines related to technology. The MSP program attempts to enhance students' employability by offering training in skills not usually taught in academia, including knowledge in various Microsoft technologies.

The program is available in most countries, and all students in college and university level are eligible to apply. Typically, few most skilled students from each institution are chosen at a time. If accepted, Student Partners are assumed to further share the knowledge among the academic community by, for example, arranging courses, giving presentations and initiating projects.

If you are passionate about technology and looking for a unique opportunity to share that talent, we are looking for you! Motivated Bachelor’s/Master’s Degree students specializing in Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths or Design who will graduate after May 2010 are invited to apply for the Microsoft Student Partner (MSP) Program.

In exchange for sharing your knowledge and participating in fun activities on your campus, you will get a whole host of benefits, the chance to connect with like-minded people and gain real-world experience to add to your résumé.

Collaborate ... Innovate ... Celebrate!

For detailed eligibility criteria, selection process, benefits, responsibilities and other relevant information, please click the "Application Information" link at the bottom of the Web-page.

Link : http://student-partners.com/Msp/Country/Default.aspx

fedora 10 Review

Fedora 10 was officially released on Tuesday November 25, 2008. Since its release I have installed it on a number of machines and been running it as my full-time desktop. I added screenshots for the Syslinux boot screen, Plymouth in text mode, GDM, GNOME Desktop, GNOME Window Decorations, KDM, KDE Startup, KDE Desktop and KDE Window Decorations.




Boot Process

With Fedora 10 comes a new graphical boot system named Plymouth which replaces the previous RHGB (Red Hat Graphical Boot). Plymouth offers a number of cool features with two basic goals: 1) Improve boot speed by using kernel-based video mode settings rather than using Xorg and 2) Improve the flexibility of the underlying graphical boot system.

I'm not a big fan of graphical booting and usually turn it off in favor of the somewhat verbose kernel text messages but I had to check out Plymouth. Plymouth is basically in proof-of-concept mode with this initial release because it currently only works with a small handful of ATI video cards. It can be made to work on a wider range video cards if one passes an additional parameter to the kernel (vga=0x318) which puts it in a more generic video mode. Using the generic mode losses some of Plymouth's flash... the fade in effect and the no-flicker/jitter between video mode switching. Nothing really that important. The graphical boot is quite fancy / impressive with its animated version of the solar graphic... showing flares shooting off of the blue filtered star. Kudos to the art team.

If one of the goals is to make booting faster why even have a graphical boot? Who really cares if there are noticeable switches between the various video modes? I do respect the goals of Plymouth and I understand why the previous system had to be abandoned (compatibility and maintenance issues). I too can put up with a slightly slower boot (although it is faster than previous releases) to have some majorly improved eye candy. We'll just have to see how Plymouth matures over time.

Artwork

One of the widest areas of debate with the various Fedora releases as been about the quality of the artwork. Some folks have been happy and others haven't. I guess style is very subjective. With Fedora 10 the consensus seems to be that everyone is quite impressed with the Solar theme... although some have complained that they thought that the window decorations in GNOME were somewhat simplistic and ugly. You can't please everyone.

I haven't heard anyone complain about the style / artwork provided by the KDE desktop. Its window decorations are quite different than those in GNOME. I do think KDE's KDM theme is a lot cooler looking than that of GDM.

GDM GNOME Desktop GNOME Decorations

PackageKit Improvements

One of the new features in Fedora 9 was PackageKit... but with its initial release it had a number of drawbacks... the most obvious being that it would only allow picking one software package at a time for installation. Over the lifespan of Fedora 9 PackageKit has gotten a number of upgrades and the PackageKit that is included with Fedora 10 is a lot more usable than before. It still isn't perfect though, but what is?

I ran into a few timing issues a couple of times that really slowed down the operation of package installation when there were a number of operations queued up. Some of the slowdowns were probably caused by doing a lot of network based operations shortly after Fedora 10 was freshly released and there was more network traffic on the Fedora mirrors.

In one of my install locations I happen to maintain a local copy of the Fedora mirrors and it is really amazing how fast yum and PackageKit are when they don't have to crawl the mirrors looking for package data. I think most if not all of perceived slowness behind yum and PacketKit have to do with a slower than desirable mirroring system. I don't have any data to prove my claim but I believe it to be true.

PackageKit now handles multiple operations easily and under certain conditions can even recommend additional software when a user tries to access data files they don't have applications for. An example of this would be audio / video codecs. If you try to play a video you are missing codecs for, PackageKit may be able to recommend additional packages for installation. This is the first release of the recommendations feature and the Fedora project folks have already mentioned that they plan to expand it greatly with future releases to make it smarter and more flexible.

LiveUSB

I believe Fedora 8 first introduced an application to easily turn the LiveCD iso into a LiveUSB. With Fedora 9 they added a feature where you could have persistence storage on your LiveUSB setup. With Fedora 10 they have added an option to have a separate, persistent storage for an encrypted /home directory. I tested out these features by creating a LiveUSB setup that has both persistent storage and an encrypted /home directory. Here's the command line I used on a 4GB USB thumbdrive:

livecd-iso-to-disk --home-size-mb 1024 --overlay-size-mb 2047 F10-i686-Live-KDE.iso /dev/sdb1

That creates a 1GB encrypted /home disk image as well as a ~2GB persistent storage image. After I created the LiveUSB setup I booted it, installed the software updates as well as installed a lot of additional software including Firefox, OpenOffice.org, GIMP, etc. It worked very well and I was impressed.

I'd really like to see some more complete documentation on these features as using a FAT16 formatted USB thumbdrive limits one to image sizes of 2047MB or smaller. If I used an ext3 formatted USB drive could I overcome the limits of the FAT16-based system? It appears that their current setup assumes that one is using the default format provided by virtually all USB thumbdrive makers... FAT16. The plus of that assumption is that you can still plug the thumbdrive into a Windows box and use it like you always have as the process is non-destructive. The drawback is a maximum filesize of 2GB. Those with 4GB, 8GB or bigger USB thumbdrives might appreciate the ability to create larger disk images.

KDE 4 Desktop

One of the main complaints about Fedora 9 when it was released was their decision to drop the KDE 3.x desktop and go exclusively with the KDE 4.0.x desktop. Being a KDE user I can concur with the assessment that the version of KDE that shipped on the Fedora 9 install media was not very usable. As a result, I switched to GNOME for a few months until KDE updated to the 4.1.x series.

Fedora is really aggressive about keeping up with bug fixes and security updates over the lifecycle of their products. With Fedora 9, they updated (and will continue to update) KDE every time the KDE folks did. As a result, the KDE that ships with Fedora 10 is very similar to the KDE that you have on a fully updated Fedora 9 system. This is a good thing. After KDE came out with the 4.1.x series I switched back to KDE and have been fairly happy ever since. That isn't to say that all KDE users are happy with KDE 4 but I find it to be quite usable now.

KDM KDE Startup KDE Desktop KDE Decorations

Encrypted Partitions

One feature that was made available in Fedora 9 that I never tried using was the option to use an Encrypted partition. With Fedora 10 I decided to give it a try on two of the systems I installed on by making an encrypted /home. This uses the LUKS (Linux Unified Key Setup) system to provide the encryption and password prompting during boot. It worked fine for me.

Some have complained that having the installer automatically make all of the LUKS decisions for the user is a lot less flexible than letting the user tweak all of the parameters manually. While that is true, having it part of the install means a lot more people are going to use it than who would have even considered doing it post install.

This feature is especially useful on laptops where one might be concerned if it got stolen, the thief could get valuable personal information off of the hard drive.

Constant Updates

One thing that makes Fedora stand out from other distributions is the number of updates that come out over the lifecycle of a release. Most distributions offer security updates and some offer bugfix updates but Fedora takes that a step further by quite frequently rebasing on newer versions of things. It is not unusual for Fedora to follow both KDE and GNOME with desktop version updates shortly after they become available. It is also not unusual for Fedora to have 100MB or more of updates a week. Some folks might cringe at that but I happen to like it.

A few mainline Linux kernel developers recommend Fedora when asked how end users can help with kernel testing since the kernels used by Fedora aren't usually that far behind the latest kernel release.

Upgrading from previous Fedora releases

All of my installs where clean installs with the exception being on one machine where I had /home on a separate partition which I retained. I did NOT try upgrading from Fedora 9 to Fedora 10. In the past Fedora really didn't recommend upgrading from one release to the next but that has been changing over the last few releases. They do provide upgrade instructions but not having tried them I can't comment on how well they work. I have read a few comments made by those who have done upgrades and so far all of them have been positive... and Fedora seems committed to improve the situation every release.

Conclusions

Fedora 10 has a lot of impressive features and a large library of software. The install is very easy and fast especially from the LiveCD. I believe there are still some compatibility issues with Xorg (that are probably not Linux distribution specific) on some newer hardware so the LiveCD option is great for pain free hardware compatibility testing. Fedora 10 doesn't offer a lot in the way of new major features but offers a lot of pretty impressive minor ones.

It is clear that Fedora improves things from release to release as they help mature the advanced technologies that they are early adopters of. I'm a Fedora fanboy myself so I'm usually not disappointed with any release but I think Fedora 10 overall has been one of their better releases.

I don't necessarily recommend Fedora 10 for a complete Linux newbie... but wholeheartedly recommend it for users with 6 months or more of Linux experience... especially for those who like being early adopters of new software technologies. Fedora is also THE distro for those who are considering becoming contributors.

Additional Links

Assuming you got this far and have some interest in giving Fedora 10 a try for yourself, I highly recommend the following resources provided by the Fedora Project:

Release Summary - https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/10/ReleaseSummary

Feature List - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/10/FeatureList

Release Notes - http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/f10/en_US/

Known Issues - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Bugs/F10Common

Installation Guide - http://docs.fedoraproject.org/install-guide/f10/en_US/

Upgrading - http://docs.fedoraproject.org/install-guide/f10/en_US/ch-upgrading-system.html

Get Fedora - http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora

Dell Launches Exclusive Retail Stores In Coimbatore

PC maker Dell India has made announcement about the opening of its first Dell exclusive stores in India at New Delhi and Coimbatore.

These newly launched Indian stores would sell the company's consumer range of products, which includes Inspiron, Studio and XPS.

The main feature of the new Dell exclusive stores is that it keeps on offering the benefits of Dell’s direct model with the added benefit of retail availability to browse, touch and feel the product, and then place an order for the favored model.

Mr. Mahesh Bhalla, director, consumer sales, Dell India said, “The Exclusive Dell Store is a step towards enhancing the overall purchase experience for consumers in India. We have rapidly increased our presence in the consumer market here with new products and by expanding our reach.”

“With the launch of Dell exclusive stores, we offer our customers the touch and feel for Dell branded products within a unique shopping experience,” Mr. Bhalla added.

Moreover, it also provides an option for customers to purchase Dell PCs via its direct online or phone-based sales groups or via select Tata Croma and Staples stores.

Mr. Girish Mehta, director, consumer marketing, Dell India “Consumers today interact with a brand through multiple touch-points. We offer a unique buying proposition to consumers-the ability to personalize products uniquely to their individual requirements, and to buy through the channels they find most convenient," said.

“The opening of the Dell Exclusive stores in Coimbatore and New Delhi today marks an important next step in the rollout of our multi-channel model in India and supports our brand tagline of 'Yours is Here'," Mr. Mehta added.

Microsoft Bus - The other one !

"I’m not talking about the Enterprise service bus (ESB) today . This in reality is the office bus Microsoft started out in China currently to be implemented in Bangalore also.

The idea is that either you get squeezed in public transport or the pain of driving through the traffic. But here is what Microsoft seems to have done for their employees in China. A special bus which ferries them!.

Employees can start work from the bus itself and their office hours counts from the time they start work in the bus. Same way total working hours of the day calculate based on at what time they stopped work in the bus.

Would you like to work like this ????? You will not be extra payed for this. Traveling is also a good time to catch up on some reading and now with podcasts you plug into your tunes."

Tidel Park Coimbatore to start functioning from Jan 2010

The much awaited IT park- Tidel park at Coimbatore is expected to start functioning from January 2010. After a three year wait, work in full swing for building the park inside the IT & ITES special economic zone (SEZ) at Vilankurichi, behind Coimbatore Medical College.

Promoted by the State-owned Electronics corporation of TamilNadu ( ELCOT), the project is expected to be ready for occupation by companies by September 2009. With a built-up area of 1.7 million sq ft, the Tidel Park is expected to provide employment to 12,000 IT & ITES professionals.

Conceived in August 2006, foundation stone for the Park was laid in February 2007, but the evacuation work began only in November 2007 and the civil works contract was awarded only in September 2008.

"The delay was mainly due to complying with various government stipulations and also since a contractor had backed out due to price escalation. A second global tender was floated and Mumbai based B E Billimoria & Co are the civil contractors now," Tidel Park Coimbatore’s Director and GM, planning, ELCOT, L Stanislaus told ET.



Moreover, ELCOT had also planned to scrap the residential building plan inside the IT-SEZ. "Since the SEZ is well within the corporation limit, we have decided to allot more space for IT companies and use the remaining space for bus parking and other social amenities like restaurant, gym and extra curricular activities," he added.

In the 56-acre IT-SEZ , Wipro, Tidel and TCS have a taken 9.5 acres each and HCL 5 acres for building their campus facilities. Two acres had been allotted to TNEB for sub-station. "In the 11.69 acres earlier allotted for residential area, five acres would be sold to an IT company," Mr Stanislaus said.

The Rs 370 crore Tidel Park would have three floors. The office space would be available from smallest module of 5000 sq ft up to 2 lakh sq ft with back up power from 5X2000 KVA DG sets.

Of the proposed 9.7 lakh sq ft IT & ITES space, companies have already shown interest to take 7.5 lakh sq ft and the ELCOT has asked them to re-confirm it. "The companies can occupy the space from Sept 2009 and after completion of interior decorations, the Tidel Park would be up and running from January 2010," Mr Stanislaus said.

Further, he said, ELCOT has called for tenders to build IT Parks in Trichy, Tirunelveli, Madurai, Salem and Hosur. "Despite general talk of slowdown, the demand for IT space is very much there and we plan to start construction works in other cities soon," he said.

Welcome to "OpenSourceCBE" !!!

A blog which has been started for the development of computer based IT growth in Coimbatore,TN,IND in a flawless manner, with the code of contact called as "OpenSource".

Open source is an approach to design, development, and distribution offering practical accessibility to a product's source (goods and knowledge). Some consider open source as one of various possible design approaches, while others consider it a critical strategic element of their operations. Before open source became widely adopted, developers and producers used a variety of phrases to describe the concept; the term open source gained popularity with the rise of the internet which provided access to diverse production models, communication paths, and interactive communities.


Soon we are going to start an organization named "OpenSourceCBE"

Come ! Join ! and make Coimbatore proud by your Participation !