do it. think it. blog it! ... a twisted world

I just read this, and then this and kept wondering further... UPDATE: Thanks to a friend who pointed me to this article.

"If your strategy isn't controversial, you have zero chance of making money."

and another friend for pointing me to this one:

"All of the changes that occur between now and February 2006 are aimed at creating better ways for Sun to work together with partners,"

AH !! I ( kinda ) get it now !!, Do You ?

Would I have ever dreamt that BoingBoing would be in a banned list ever ?. And hey, this is not in some small time organization. However the filter being used is SquidGuard, which is a content filter, redirector and access controller for Squid. Well, I thought that it would be worthwhile if I downloaded the blacklist database and crosscheck if BoingBoing was in it, luckily not, it was not; which made me believe that this was a blacklisted domain in the "organization" I was at. whew !! (BoingBoing is not banned throughout the internet) The README file from SquidGuard's Blacklist Database Download read as :

!!! WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING !!! !!! !!! !!! These blacklists are entierly products of a dumb robot (squidGuardRobot) !!! !!! We recommend that you review the lists before using them. !!! !!! Don't blame us if there are mistakes, but please report errors !!! !!! with the online tool at http://www.squidguard.org/blacklist/ !!! !!! !!! !!! WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING !!!

Interesting, yet widely used !!! I gotto go back to my hotel tonight and check BoingBoing for courtesy sake..

According to this announcement, Microsoft is releasing it's much awaited Windows Vista, today (priorly known as longhorn) to developers.

Windows Vista beta code is being released into the hands of about 10,000 technical beta participants, which include customers, partners, home users and subscribers of Microsoft Developer Network and TechNet, Sullivan said.

Microsoft also will release another build of Windows Vista to developers at the Professional Developers Conference (PDC). That code that will likely be the result of what Microsoft internally calls integrated developer workstation releases, which will be fashioned into a so-called community technical preview, Sullivan said.

Now, this part of the announcement disturbed me a bit...

Another security feature in the beta is network access protection, a feature that quarantines computers that could have malware or other unauthorized software from a network until patches clearing the offending code can be applied, he said.

From what I understand of "quarantine" procedures, is that one would need to snoop around (using something like nessus ) the computer for malicious applications and assign the machine an IP (with probably a 1,2,3 or even 10 minute lease period) that's from a subnet with restricted access. Once the machine is proven NOT to have any software applications running on it that dont abide by policies setup by individual organizations, it's then that the IP address of the machine would be released and be reassigned a NEW IP in another subnet altogether, which would enable the user to access resources from within the infrastructure; IF NOT then an IP from the "QUARANTINED ZONE" is assigned to the device / machine. (and well, the device is now quarantined) Now for wired networks it may be fine, what about wireless? when a wireless device (like my laptop for example) moves from one organization to the other would it be marked "malicious" just because the applications on the laptop didn't adhere to certain standards within that organization (Some organziations do not like outlook installed and some dont like notes, and some ban opensource apps altogether, the cases vary from organziation to organization) ? And what about privacy ? I'm so so sceptical about this ! lets see what happens ahead... guess I just gotto wait and see... UPDATE : Another thing I also remembered is that, Vista seems to have rolled back it's authentication and authorization structure, of authorizing prior to authenticating. Now what I mean by that is that an IP address is assigned to a device during startup by the DHCP server (prior to authenticating the user). IF a device / machine is first assigned a IP from a quarantined zone, then a "decision" is made based on factors that determine if the device / machine is "authorized" to be allowed onto the network, ain't that authorizaton PRIOR to authentication ? once a user authenticates, additional authorization rulesets may be applied.. I like the idea behind authroization PRIOR to authentication and have been advocating that workflow for a while (sadly nobody listened to me) and if Vista DOES do Authorization prior to Authentication, I feel good about that ONE fact. It's the privacy factor (feature) that bothers me. UPDATE II: XeroCool reports that Windows Vista may be facing legal trouble already. Vista, a Redmond, Wash., company, has stated they may sue Microsoft over the name Windows Vista. Dont you think that Microsoft may have noticed that company just down the street from their HQ ? [Read The Full Report from nwsource]

I was not sure what to blog today.. nothings coming to my mind, and i'm a little busy with some other task on hand... but I just could not rest in peace knowing that my blog would not have an update today... I had to post something, no matter how stupid it was. Anyway I came up with a brilliant idea (Dont even think about it, I have it PATENTED, Patent #US1234567890) for buying out google. If you follow the following 5 steps you could own google in due time (and hey I'm in the running myself).

1. Start using blogger and setup as many individual blogs as you can
2. Publish ad's using google's very own adsense program
3. Generate revenue from google for serving their ads
4. get google to directdepost your earnings into your ameritrade account
5. Use those funds to buy google shares

When you have accumulated sufficient funds to buy majority of google's shares, you automatical own google. Pay me a "royalty' for the idea. and all's good !! Cheers & Good Night!!!

Well, is this something we all should fear? I do think so; and here's why? So: Now you DO remember Sept 11 dont you ?. Well, Read this So: In short, Citigroup is owned by Saudi Arabians, or am I making this up ?? Well, I have been told that a majority of the shareholders in Citigroup ARE Saudi Arabians. I am not so sure on whether this is true or not, However, you could research this for me and post your findings here. So anyway, why am I posting CitiBank's Boo Boo alongwith references to Sept 11th, Well, I Just hope it's not true, BUT, If CitiBank has lost huge volumes of it's customer data, AND if Saudi's DO have a huge stake in CitiBank, and IF this lost Data falls into the hands of folks that it was not meant to be, Well, Houston we sure do have a problem. Remember those Phishing emails we all receive, Well, expect that number to just increase from now on. Citibank is the largest financial group in the world and has long been a target for computer criminals. Computer criminals use "phishing" to gather confidential information from bank customers. But this "lost tapes" episode makes it all the more easy for them. There already has been a "HIT" All said and done; If YOU happen to be a citibank customer and are worried about this; CitiFinancial is inviting customers to enroll via a toll-free number, 1-888-469-8603, in a free credit monitoring service for 90 days.

I was lashed at in a "mild manner" by quite a few members of the blogosphere mafia via emails and phone conversations over the last few days on my post on India An IT Superpower, Who Are WE Kidding ?. WHY ? Is it because I had an opinion ? Is it because I came across as a anti-Indian ? Or was it because I am foolish ? The Indian Technology industry sector comprises of a huge magnitude of organizations offering consultancy services, call centers and BPO markets. It's no longer a question that India has made it's mark in the Information Technology marketspace. But what I always question is whether India would be able to sustain itself in this space. The statistics, put forth by business intelligence firms, merchant bankers and leading IT industry associations such as NASSCOM, McKinsey & Co., Goldman Sachs, among others, seem to point to a robust, high growth Indian IT industry in the future. Can India make it to IT Superpower status? According to a Goldman Sachs report released in 2004, India's IT workforce could grow to 2 million in 10 years. We tend to only read up on analysts reports that picture the good. We harp on how good and great Infosys is doing. But how many of us have read the negatives? Here's a post on Stop calling India an IT superpower - courtesy : rediff.com India is a democracy right? Here's a statement excerpt from the Communist Party Of India's Website. "No country which treats its human resources as a liability rather than an asset can aspire to be a superpower" (not that I'm a communist) We also keep a justification slogan in out backpack and use it whenever we feel cornered. "that India has been independent for only 58 years, while America has been independent for 219 years" Some More Facts: (before I end this thread) The number of patents from India are far below the level expected. Of course India has a lot of talented minds. But it's all wasted as "employees" of MNC's where they have to simply work rather than think. There is a huge gap between working and thinking or developing innovative ideas. PS: Also read this post on "India as an Information Technology Giant" by Dr. Abhishek Puri This whole topic is so debatable that one could go on and on without ever coming to a conclusion. I guess it's all because we are trying to forecast things, and IF we were so good at forecasting the unknown, We would not be where we are right now.I'd do timetravel if I could I end this post with. I Wish India Was a Superpower and Hope that it DOES attain that status someday. I also wish that I win the Super Lotto someday.

a San Jose judge tentatively ruled Thursday that Apple Computer can force three online publishers O'Grady's PowerPage, AppleInsider, and Think Secret over leaks of information concerning an unreleased product code named "Asteroid" and "Q97," which has been described as a FireWire audio interface for use with GarageBand. The subpoenas are related to a lawsuit against an unnamed individual who leaked the information to surrender the names of confidential sources who disclosed information about the company's upcoming products. (As reported on cNET.) The San Jose news piece has the most detail on the ruling while Mac Daily News has some background on the case, and Gizmodo vociferously expresses an opinion on the lawsuit. The BBC is carrying a story on the legal battle between Apple and free press advocates. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has joined in the fight to protect journalists from revealing their sources. Which carries more weight: the right of Apple to protect their trade secrets or the rights of journalists to protect their sources?

More news on this at The Electronic Frontier Foundations Website.

yep, after a bashing for bundling internet explorer the browser with the WIndows OS, it's Microsoft's turn to avenge it's browsers divorce from the OS. The issue sprouted up this afternoon on a MSDN Blog, where Microsoft's chief IE developer Dave Mass recommended that users completely uninstall Netscape as a possible workaround for a bug that Microsoft has discovered in Netscape 8. AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein insists the bug only affects "a very small percentage of [IE] users" who visit pages using XML technology. Netscape 8 is based on the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox code base, which means that security bugs in Firefox are likely to affect Netscape 8 users. So I'd assume that Microsoft would want everybody to uninstall Firefox as well. With Netscape 8 and Firefox gone, Why should Mozilla be left behind ? Guess what Microsoft wants is users to have ONLY IE on their desktops.... sinister... I am really not sure what to make of this, because Ben Goodger, the lead firefox developer has also posted on his weblog that Netscape 8 is unsafe... This is gonna be a very interesting one to follow...

First Came LDAP, then Single Sign On, then Provisioning, then sprouted Identity Management, and then Access Management, and from there on Fererated Identity Management. All the major vendors like Sun Microsystems, Novell, Alcatel, Sentillion, Passlogix, Fujitsu, Evidian, Courion, Data Power, IBM, Verisign, Oblix, Netegrity, Nokia, Intel, RSA Security, Elios, Phaos, Oracle, Calendra, PingID, Thor, M-Tech, Computer Associates, Entrust, Axalto, Microsoft, HP scrambled around adopting Project Liberty standards and releasing their own version of Federated Identity Management Poducts. I thought that it would be a good thing to get involved in the circle of trust federated identity providers and keep up with the trends and technological advancements in this arena. Apart from getting a comfort factor from being able to learn and master the usability of all these products and their features, knowing their pros and cons, I believed that involving myself in just Project Liberty would suffice. I was so very wrong. Familiarizing myself with this rande of vendor products was a daunting task by itself. As I started getting involved in discussions around these products, I got sucked into discussions around protocols, framework and specifications. Project Liberty was not the one stop shop. There was InCommon Federation, , SWITCHaai, Athens Access Management, Meta Access Management, and so on... I wonder how much more there is to discover - I Wonder whats NEXT? Kim, Andre, Chuck, Kaliya, Don, Ian, Kudo I really could use some help here...

I have heard from all my fellow desi countrymen, family, friends... everybody that India would be an IT superpower in the next 5 to 10 years. Well, Who the HELL are we kidding ? Ourselves ?. I've heard that line for the last five years, and nothing much has changed since then. Yes, I bet that there would be a whole lot of preachers who would come by and explain at length what India has achieved in the last five years, and there's no denying that. But an IT superpower!!. I guess the term superpower needs to be redefined. Why are we tooting the IT superpower horn time and over? Is it because the number of IT folks in India superceed the number in the U.S. ??

Well, The number of Indian farmers superceed that of other countries too, SO why dont we proudly claim that our country would be the agricultural superpower? we could take over the worlds agricultural produce, we could take over the worlds cattle, we could take over world politics, stock markets, railways, taxicabs, 7-Eleven's, the alcohol industry, tobacco, imitation products, everything...

IF population and headcount/numbers is what makes one a superpower, India already IS one. I am not doing the "India Sucks" campaign here, but am ranting on the fact that we like to pat ourselves on our back. For what?? I read a article on "Blue Collar Roots, White Collar Dreams" by Carol Fey a while back. It's so very true.

Would I like to see India emerge as a superpower? Absolutely !!, but the difference between reality and dreams is humongous. I believe that the whole IT Outsourcing deal has made some Indians so proud that they have hit the ceiling. Yes, Outsourcing is good, it's cool, it's great; BUT does being at the receiving end of the outsourcing ordeal make a country a superpower ?. I Wish...

Atanu Dey has posted a nice article on "India's IT Companies which did gain some heavy traction from the Indian community. Well, I guess Atanu had the bandwidth to take on the intelligent shots.

When I visited India around 2 months ago, I was not too shocked to see that in the So Called IT superpower organizations of TODAY; the management and control processes were pathetic and employees were exploited to the maximum possible extent. Not to forget the slick Indian IT guy with an accent. Working In India needs one to adapt to a cultural shift, I was told. Well, What I saw was that the work culture in India is based on mutual distrust. Computers with no disk drives, no usb ports, no CD rom/DVD drives, badge access IN and badge access OUT, all in the pretext of CMM Level 5 certification. Every employee had to account for the number of pens, pencils, paper sheets that they used !!!

I guess that's a culture to be proud of ?, and that sure makes us a superpower I guess ?

If ranting was all I wanted to do, I could go on and on...

But I guess the simple message I want to put across with this post is : "Grow Up People, Stop bragging and show that the so claimed Intelligence that we have is real.". Guess time will tell a whole new story.

When others make mistakes, We learn. There have been numberous blogging catastrophies in the most recent past. Here is my attempt to providing you those links so you could read and judge for yourselves. Some of these links are credible, and some are just links. You be the judge..for yourself

• Article by Kate Lorenz on CNN
• Papal Bulls list of bloggers who have been fired
• Washington Post article on Jessica Cutler who got fired; and then won a book contract
• InternetWeek on Joe Gordon getting fired from Waterstone's for blogging
• Journal Space
• Google 'Blogophobic.'

When organizations provided email address to their employees, it was considered to be ethical to use that email address for ONLY official purposes. However one could still retain personal email addresses at yahoo, google, hotmail etc... However, using ones personal email account during work hours for prolonged periods of time was considered unethical too... as that would constitute gobbling up corporate bandwidth.

Most companies that allow their employees to blog have Blog Guidelines and some dont. Its always helpful for one to find out about their own organizations Blog Guidelines from their managers or their Blog server administrator. This would enable one to be JOB SAFE if ever one finds any particular employee's blogging to be a sheer waste of corporate energy. A SAFE blogger would blog After Hours. But blogging during the day sometimes is not too bad either; as long as one knows his/her limits and makes up for the Blogging Time in some form or the other. We often hear the term Comp Time, very soon we shall soon hear our employers using the phrase "work harder and more in lieu of Blog Time"

For companies that do not have BLOG Guidelines I'd strongly suggest they DO establish blog guidelines, policies, procedures and "Next Practices.". This kind of leadership is not too hard to find, But one has to Identify the "leader" to establish these rules. The best way (from my perspective) to discover what works is to conduct public discussions and investigations around specific cases (of corporate bloggers).

"The key to learning is not the medium nor the message, it is the quality of the dialog with your peers that really matters. More is learned on the playing fields and in discourse with peers than from the sage on the stage." Denham Grey

Here are a few tips that may help:

• Don't blog at work. Ever. "You could get in trouble for using company resources like an Internet connection to maintain your blog.... "
• The Electronic Frontier Foundation published a guide to help keep bloggers from being fired.
• John Foleys InternetWeek article on Who Owns Copyrights to Corporate Blogs

Your Comments ?

The one thing I have not heard folks rant about is Outsourcing Medicare. Seems like most of the people/folks affected in this outsourcing turnaround are people from an I.T. background. Most of the layoffs that have occured in the I.T arena have caused the numbers of jobless intelligent folks rise pretty high. But however, nobody talks and rans about Outsourcing Healthcare. Maybe there's a very good reason why !

"President Bush believes all Americans should have access to affordable, quality health care." source: GeorgeWBush.com

I read another article on the same topic on MSNBC. It's excerpt is as follows:
"Three months ago, Howard Staab learned that he suffered from a life-threatening heart condition and would have to undergo surgery at a cost of up to $200,000—an impossible sum for the 53-year-old carpenter from Durham, N.C., who has no health insurance….
Total bill: about $10,000, including roundtrip airfare and a planned side trip to the Taj Mahal."

It’s just way cheaper for one to fly to India for a heart surgery, than to do it at home in the US or Canada for that matter. Many US and Canadian doctors are "foreign", so you can say the odds are decent that if you did the surgery in the US or in Canada, your doctor might have been trained in India by that doctor. !!.

I also heard that pretty recently a canadian gentleman who was on a waitlist for more than a year for a surgery, flew to India, had his surgery done in the best of hospitals from the country by the best of doctors and had an extremely comfortable stay during the entire trip and sure did have a successfull surgery and is now back in Canada in top shape !!!. The cost of the trip was less than what his family would have to incurr if he had the surgery in Canada even if the Canadian Government paid for it in full.. (a lot of the costs in canada for surgery are not directly related to the surgery, but nevertheless there ARE expenses).

So all said and done, I believe that (it may already have started) very soon, Medicare Outsourcing would be the next boom. And nobody is gonna rant about it. The very folks who rant about layoffs, joblessness, market downslide, economic downturm, quality, management styles, profitability etc (just because the jobless sector effected them directly) are not gonna bat an eyelid if they needed to go to India for a surgery themselves or for someone they are close to. It'd be better for them to do it in India right away as they can afford it rather than not do it because of deductibles, premiums, waitlists etc and loose someone thats near and dear. I dont believe that I would hear someone say :"I'd rather die here than go to India for a surgery"

It’s for some reason thought to be OK to make it so expensive you need a medicare plan. And it’s good to restrict medicare plans to the rich and famous. The fact remains that the US, Canada Included is considered a “first world” nation, yet one needs to fly to India to get surgery.

In a recent article published by PriceWaterhouseCoopers on Oursourcing and Profitability, it's pretty ironic that the participants from Tuomey Healthcare System, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Montefiore Medical Center, and Modern Healthcare. All pretty notable names in the Medicare Sector.

Ever since Microsoft was founded almost 30 years ago, the company has taken on practically every other competitor on a headon collision course and barely lost a fight. This article on fortune.com has a neat description on how he's done in those wars and in his current mission against Google.

Also read fortune.com's article on Gates vs Google.

And for some wierd reason I feel like ranting about this !!! But would I dare to take Microsoft on HeadOn ??

hey !!! some risks in life are worth the trouble. This would not be the first time I had a 1-ON-1 and lost . One of the reason's i'm sticking around this blogosphere even though I have been bruised, battered, branded and made to bleed by the ("Blogosphere Mafia :: "U" Know who I'm Talking About") is to see what happens next.

So. Blogosphere..... I'm Back... and this time no nicknames or aliases...

The U.S. government plans to put RFID chips in passports. Well, after watching Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 911, my impression of the U.S. republican power was not emmm..... as good as what it was when the democrats were in office... From my perspective, this smart move by the U.S. government is a self laid booby trap. Once this whole RFID crap really goes into effect, I guess anybody could pinpoint an american citizen using off the shelf RFID scanners. Now thats a open invitation welcoming not just the terrorists, but those creeps who think that they ARE the bad guys to try gimmics... and sometimes gimmics can be an expensive affair. If people were to keep their passports in aluminium cases(as suggested by a few inteligent folks in the federal government), well... who knows... aluminium/metal detectors may popup !! All in all, after all... the U.S can do whatever they want, whenever they want... didnt I hear someone saying that they ARE the BOMB. BTW: Please read Andre Durants blog On Death by RFID Passport.

God !!! when will the world stop believing that I am NOT willing to assist in transfering $25000000 for a 10% commision.

Just cannot believe that there still exist folks who fall prey to this...