Latest Technology Blog

Today I was feeling bored with the routine work. I was hearing a few news about the downfall of the IT sector and the share market, US economy, etc. etc. Then I thought to search a few sites, which supports IT sector.

Suddenly I found a website TechTeam, which has a Title that “We Support IT”. So I thought to go through their site and I found that they not only support the growth of IT but they help in remote infrastructure management too.

They basically help to resolve user’s inquiries of their clients, with the help of Single Point of Contact (SPOC) methodology. They provide the multi-lingual help desk along with the onsite interventions and online self help.

TechTeam is a company which provides services in IT Outsourcing along with BPO (Business Processing Outsourcing), and IT services. These include SPOC Online Support, Help Desk, Application Management, Consulting, System Integration, On Demand Technical skills and many more activities which help IT sector.

At the time when world is facing the economic crisis and IT sector is the worst affected sector from it, this type of sites gives new energy to fight this crisis. I liked the site and thought to let our visitors know about them.

TechTeam is the company which has an experience of 25 years in IT process, and their strength lies in merging peoples from all over the globe. This is what IT sector requires. I was surprised to see the Awards which they have received, like “2006 Global Services 100”, “2005 Future 50 of Greater Detroit” and many more.

The best thing which surprised me is “One of the first IT companies in the United States to receive IS0 certification (achieved ISO 9001:1994 in 1995 and ISO 9001:2000 in 2003)”.

So if you need to contact them then please check their IT help desk.

Finally the wait is over. The car which was a distant dream few years back is ready to rock the roads sometime soon. Popularly known as the “people’s car”, Tata Nano (petrol version) is expected to be launched around October this year.

Mr. Ratan N. Tata, Chairman of the Tata Group and Tata Motors, had unveiled the Tata ‘NANO’, the People’s Car from Tata Motors that India and the world have been looking forward to, in January. It was a development, which signified a first for the global automobile industry; it would be a car which would bring the comfort and safety of a car within the reach of thousands of families.

Speaking at the unveiling ceremony at the 9th Auto Expo in New Delhi, Mr. Ratan N. Tata had said, “I observed families riding on two-wheelers – the father driving the scooter, his young kid standing in front of him, his wife seated behind him holding a little baby. It led me to wonder whether one could conceive of a safe, affordable, all-weather form of transport for such a family. Tata Motors’ engineers and designers gave their all for about four years to realize this goal. Today, we indeed have a People’s Car, which is affordable and yet built to meet safety requirements and emission norms, to be fuel efficient and low on emissions. We are happy to present the People’s Car to India and we hope it brings the joy, pride and utility of owning a car to many families who need personal mobility.”

The petrol version of this car has a rear-wheel drive, all-aluminum, two-cylinder, 623 cc, 33 PS, multi point fuel injection petrol engine. This is the first time that a two-cylinder gasoline engine is being used in a car with single balancer shaft. The lean design strategy has helped in minimizing weight, which will help in maximizing performance per unit of energy consumed.

Tata Nano had faced many hurdles in the due course of its making but the good news is that it has crossed all obstacles with flying colors. The car confirmed the Euro IV emission norms that have yet not come to India but are expected to become an Indian standard by 2009. During the test, this small wonder delivered 20 kmpl with its 623cc twin cylinder petrol engine. It was subjected to almost 100 tests over a period of 4 months. The car proved to be perfect to ply Indian roads.

Although Tata Motors will launch only the petrol version this year, it has already announced a diesel version and even a hybrid is in the pipeline. At its premiere in the Auto Expo in January, Ratan Tata had said: “By and large we’ve always been a diesel company so we will have a diesel version that will follow this variant soon after.”

According to sources in the auto industry, the car will sport the world’s first 800 cc, turbo charged, CRDi diesel engine. The diesel Nano will probably roll out in 2009.

Who had thought in the age of chariots that horses would be replaced by “The Bullet” (World’s fastest train in service)? Had it not been for the Einsteins and Newtons, who are born with new names in every era, we may have been complacent farmers and hunters even today.

As is popularly said “Necessity is the mother of all inventions”, welcome to the 21st Century! Here you will find that you no longer have to dial a ten digit number to call someone (Speed dialing on mobile phones saves you your precious time). Just 1 click and your letter travels across continents in 2 minutes rather than 2 weeks and you can turn your lights off without getting up from your chair. That’s right folks; here in the 21st Century we have vastly advanced that crazy concept called technology. No more video cassettes or tape recorders. No more wasting your money on music or movies. With just a click of a button you can have anything your restless heart desires.

Pros: Technology has made life very comfortable for us. Cell phones, computers, even coffee makers are now so much more efficient, quick and easy to use for most people. Not denying the fact that they are also tons of fun. We’ve got robots vacuuming our carpets and scrubbing our floors. We have everything in our homes just a click of button away. It’s really amazing how quickly technology is developing and how far it has come. Had we ever thought that a single chip would replace an entire assembly line of workers? This has helped in eliminating human errors and made work faster and more efficient (We can’t argue that this might be considered as a con since a single chip has become the cause for employment of an entire work team). There was a time when a person diagnosed as HIV positive was ostracized from the society as people thought that they would be infected too if they even touched the infected person. But thanks to the advancements in the field of medicine and health, now these people are treated with love and care and have a hope to live. New researches about human anatomy are done every day. Doctors and researchers all over the world are working hard to introduce new medicines and treatments which can cure even the deadliest of diseases. This has surely added some years to the average life span of humans.

Cons: I went to watch “Rock on” some days back. At the end of the movie it said “Don’t download the music, Buy it”. Even after that I came back, opened my laptop and within 10 minutes I had all the rock numbers I wanted. In my case it wasn’t that I couldn’t afford a CD, It was just my laziness which got the better of me. The other day I got late for my office by 2 hours. The reason: I was caught up in a jam. Why? Because someone was talking on the mobile while driving and met with a brutal accident. Hacking is the most common “sophisticated” crime nowadays. It has engulfed a major chunk of the young and talented pool of today. Every second day there is a new type of deadly software virus which we are made aware of. Modern inventions and techniques are not for everyone. It’s only a rich man’s dream to fly a personal jet with all the latest gadgets fitted in it. On microscopic level, I feel technological advances are also widening the gap between the various classes of the society. I fear that this might cause unrest amongst the underprivileged or the less privileged section of society and lead to more crimes and disparity. And how can we forget Hiroshima. Throughout most of the world, the name Hiroshima has come to represent man’s technological capacity for massive destruction. Hiroshima was the culmination of the high-altitude bombing and long-range killing that came increasingly to characterize World War II. Hiroshima opened the door upon a new world, a world in which it is possible for humanity to destroy itself by its own inventions of highly destructive weaponry. Hiroshima was the world’s first look at a technology that could destroy countries, end civilization, and foreclose a human future. What is unfortunate is that Hiroshima seems to be recreated every day with more and more scientist squandering their talent to improve weapons of mass destruction. Nuclear weapons do not discriminate. They kill innocent men, women and children. The problem is if the disillusioned and disaffected extremists of the world obtain nuclear weapons, they will use them to destroy everyone.

What we have to ask ourselves now is, as technology advances, do we slow down? Have we become victims of laziness and potential danger because of computers and cell phones? Are machines running or possibly ruining our lives?

E-commerce sites play a crucial role to spread your business and make new clients everyday. In today’s fast track life, no one has enough time to visit showrooms to enquire about the products. Internet sites are the best place where they can get the required information without wasting time. Designing of these sites are hence important to keep the visitor pull towards the site. Cluttered and overloaded sites push the visitors out. Web users are impatient and need quick and easy browsing. If they do not find what they want, they will be gone in seconds.

Simple web designs are appreciated by users which help them to find the required information quickly especially if you are selling any product. Useless text, widgets or unrelated products, and unnecessary ads make the site meaningless. Keep it simple and to the point.

Simple designing doesn’t mean to remove the necessary and important information from the home page. Cover all the key points and links but arrange them in such an easy way to reduce bulky appearance and avoid a cluttered look to the site. Some of the key points you can take into account while simple but efficient designing are as follows:

1. Show only what is needed: only show what is needed to make the sale of the concerned products. This doesn’t mean that you have to hide lots of information but just make sure that you are designing in such a way that user approaches to see more information. E.g. Apple uses “Learn more” links throughout the page to bind the visitor.

2. Reduce links: If a user has to click more and more to get the information, he/she will be frustrated and will be gone. Try to minimize the use of clicks to reduce their jumps.

3. Remove unnecessary information: Do not cover unnecessary and unimportant information on the home page. Let them remove to give a pleasing effect on the landing page.

4. Reduce total number of columns: More the number of the columns less will be the space for the content which will reduce emphasis over it. Keep the minimal number of columns in the site.

5. Keep the site clean: Designing should be clean to give a pleasing effect on visit. The layout should be attractive but not bulky. Make sure that the design is aesthetically pleasing to bind your customers.

Apple is one of the best examples of minimal and simple web design. The landing page covers only simple header navigation, One product in the body of the page and only a few informational links about the featured product with images below the fold with the standard footer navigation. On clicking any product link you will the page will highlight only the clicked product and other unrelated products, ads, and clutters will be out of the scene giving a simple and easily understanding information.

Shoeguru.ca is another good example of it which presents a simple single shoe image highlighted at the centre on the homepage with only a few navigation links and nothing else. The design only presents the products which are needed by the visitor.

Take care that every word, every image has to be weighed in a design. So make the design simple and attractive but informative. Keeps the above points in mind and carry on.

A recent UK iPhone advertisement has been caught up in a controversy of misleading the customers and Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned the ad.

The advertisement features an individual flicking through holiday-related web pages on an iPhone to a voiceover saying: “You never know which part of the Internet you’ll need. The ‘what’s the quickest way to the airport’ part? The ‘what about an ocean view room’ part? Or the ‘can you really afford this’ part? Which is why all the parts of the Internet are on the iPhone.”

2 local viewers in the UK felt that this was deceptive as iPhone does not support Java or Flash applications (2 very essential components for viewing many websites).

In its defense Apple has said “[Apple] believed the ad was not about technical details or the functionalities or plug-ins that were available on the iPhone, but the varied websites that users could visit and utilize.” They said all the websites featured in the ad were available on the iPhone and were shown as they would be seen by the user. They said none of the content in the ad was Flash or Java based and the ad did not mention any other technical capabilities of the iPhone.

ASA claims that the part “You’ll never know which part of the Internet you’ll need” and “all the parts of the Internet are on the iPhone” implied that users would be able to access all websites and see those sites in their entirety, which is very illusory for the customers and have passed the verdict that Apple cannot broadcast the ad in its current form.

Apple declined to comment on the ruling.

A second test version–beta 2 of the very popular and most widely used web browser, Internet Explorer 8 has been released by Microsoft Corp on Wednesday. The new version has added features to enhance privacy, ease-of-use and security.

Main features of IE 8-beta 2 are as follows:

-The latest version of Internet Explorer replicates features found in Firefox 3.
- It includes a “smart” address bar that remembers and redirects user to website addresses they have visited before.
-Internet Explorer 8 offers a mode called “InPrivate Browsing,” which ensures that history, temporary Internet files and cookies are not recorded on a user’s PC.
-Security feature allows a user to block content coming from third-parties trying to track and aggregate the user’s online behavior.
-Microsoft also updated already announced features such as “Activities,” which allows a user to use information found on one page, such as an address, in conjunction with an online service such as mapping without leaving the original site.

Microsoft has pledged to deliver more regular updates of Internet Explorer, whose lead has been chipped away by Mozilla’s Firefox browser.

Earlier, Microsoft has released a test version– beta 1 of IE 8 in March, but that was aimed at letting Web developers take a first look at the new browser. Beta 2 has a market share of about 75 percent and is aimed at a broader consumer audience.

The date of official launch of IE 8 is not yet disclosed. Officials didn’t tell anything about how many people are expected to download the test version of the new browser.

The new version of IE 8 is available for download at www.microsoft.com/ie8.

We spend most of our time inside a browser while online. Google is the most popular service provider which we uses for search, chat, emailing, news, shopping etc.  Because we spend so much time online in a browser, there comes a question about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. People are watching and uploading videos, chatting with each other playing web based games which were not possible in earlier browsers. Google Chrome, going to launch today, is what that meets the new demands of current users and applications. It is Google’s open source browser project.

Today’s web applications demand more and more. Browser needs to be stable that is there should be no crash while we re writing any email or editing a document. It should be fast and secure. It must have a clean simple and efficient user interface. All these features are supported well by the newly launched Google Chrome.

Google Chrome’s browser window is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn’t the browser that matters. It’s only a tool to run the important stuff — the pages, sites and applications that make up the web.

It is able to run today’s complex web applications much better. It deals with multiple processes instead of multithreading. By keeping each tab in an isolated “sandbox”, it prevents one tab from crashing another and provides improved protection from rogue sites. It is based on a more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, to power the next generation of web applications that aren’t even possible in today’s browsers. If there is a browser bug in renderer, it will lose only one tab instead of crashing the whole browser.

Google Chrome is another option to provide more options and innovation to the web. For more details visit http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome