Microsoft Award

Microsoft has always ecouraged technically brilliant people all around the world by introducing award programs like the MVP(MOst Valuable Proffessional). These exceptional masterminds can represent any background. They may be teachers, artists, doctors, engineers, as well as technologists, who actively share their high-end technical expertise with the community and with Microsoft. They may be awarded for voluntarily providing technical expertise towards technical communities supporting Microsoft products or technologies.

“Microsoft Community Contributor Award” is a new award program introduced by microsoft to recognize contributions to Microsoft online community forums such as TechNet, MSDN and Answers. So from those people who contribute to the Microsoft online communities some of them will be selected by Microsoft,moreover Microsoft Community Contributors can be recommended by Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals as well.

The awardees need not be Microsoft employees. Awardees expected to be independent third-party individuals who have received an award from Microsoft that recognizes their notable contributions to Microsoft online technical communities. The recipients are to be identified by Microsoft for their notable contributions to Microsoft online community forums. Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals are key leaders in technical coomunities. So they are given a chance to recommend the award recipients.

The Awardees are presented with a certificate, program award logo kit and a complimentary online technical resource which is aimed at forum participants to stay tuned to all pieces of technology information.

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Google's ChomeBook on the way

The concept of a Web-based computer was conceived 13 yrs ago at Sun Microsystems. It was more complex to do it then than expected but now with the advancements in cloud computing back ends, public networks, and HTML5 there is a great deal of possibility that ChromeOS will coexist with windows, linux and MacOS. Google first announced about Chrome Operating System in 2009. It was  engineered to be web-focused, fast with quick-start up time and ability to run on devices with solid-state drives. It would be powered with a Web store for Chrome apps.

Google is planning to bring forth a laptopn fully based on ChromeOS called the Chromebook. When connected to world wide web, Chromebook is designed to run entirely from the Web. The OS uses Chrome 9 browser for its user interface, with app icons in its main window. The same interface as the forthcoming Chrome 9 browser for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. When disconnected, a Chromebook uses HTML5's offline storage capability to continue working in cloud apps such as Google Docs. Other HTML5-savvy Web apps will also work in disconnected mode.Google has designed a special keyboard with web related features. The caps lock key is switched out for a search button, the shift key has a caps indicator light and a few navigating function keys are positioned above the number row.

This doesnt mean that all windows and linux users would be left aside. Traditional standalone applications can be run on a Chromebook through a desktop virtualization client such as Citrix Receiver, which will be available for Chrome OS. Citrix Receiver is widely used today on Google's Android and Apple's iOS mobile operating systems. Citrix clients are available for Mac OS X and Windows as well.

From the words of vice president of product management at Google Chrome OS itself is still a work in progress due to which actual Chrome OS-based "Chromebook" laptops won't be available until mid-2011, with Acer and Samsung expected to offer the first models.

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India runs short of Ip addresses

India is going to shift its domain name address protocol to IPv6 from the existing IPv4 protocol by march 2012. India, a bit late though, came to this plan in response the global scenario of the internet running short of IP addresses.

According to a report of the Internet and Mobile Association of India, and research firm IMRB International in september last year, about 52 million urban Indians were active Internet users. The problem is expected to worsen with the continuing rise of mobile phone subscribers and the rollout of 3G services by most of telecom operators and broadband wireless access (BWA). Mobile phones that support data will each require an IP address. As a solution to this problem in a statement issued by the government earlier this week, all ISPs and telecom providers will have to be IPv6-compliant by the end of 2011. The statement also said by March 2012, all central and state government ministries and public sector companies will make the switch to IPv6 Internet protocol based services.

IPv6, as an Internet protocol version, promises to offer a larger address space than the current IPv4. It uses a 128-bit address space which is much larger when compared to 32 bits in IPv4. IPv6 also has a level of security baked into the protocol. IPv6 carries capabilities for verifying addresses and known identities, and establishing trust between routers. Criminals would find it harder to use "IP spoofing" attacks, where packets of data misrepresent where they come from. Thus IPv6 based routers and firewalls should offer a better shield to anonymous attacks.

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Ubuntu 11.04

The new Ubuntu 11.04 has been given the name “Natty Narwhal”. The GNOME shell giving a better impression upon the desktop environment will be a part of Natty Narwhal. The name comes from an artic mammal, is a fitting reminder of the fact that we have only one spaceship that can host all of humanity.

The Ubuntu 11.04, Natty Narwhal is the 14th release of Ubuntu. Natty Narwhal shall be released on 28 th April, the coming year 2011.

The first Alpha version of the upcoming Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) operating system is now available for download (published on dec 2nd). While all are discovering and enjoying the brand-new Ubuntu 10.10 (Maevrick Meerkat) Ubuntu developers are working tirelessly on the next major update for their popular Linux distribution.

Whats new . . .
Unity is now the default in the Ubuntu Desktop Edition. Unity uses Compiz so that you will need all the proper video drivers installed to see it. If you don't have video drivers installed, you'll see the default two panels layout. The Unity Launcher is now available. It can be used to launch applications that are pinned to the launcher and switch between running applications.

It supports Quick lists on context menu. It can be set to auto-hide. Places is not yet available in Alpha 1. Clicking the Ubuntu logo in the upper left of the screen will open the applications directory. This is temporary until the Application place is available.

Network Manager applet has been patched to use appindicator. Its best you put NM-Applet into test scenarios as much as possible. Classic Gnome panel applets are not supported.

There are two kinds of sessions in Natty Narwhal:
-Ubuntu Desktop
--running on unity by default
--requiring 3D desktop support

-Ubuntu Classic Session
--running on gnome-panel.
--supporting all video hardware and video drivers.

get the cd image from :
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/natty/alpha-1/natty-desktop-i386.iso

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Mobile Number Portability

I was once a student suvidha user and continue to be the same because i have already given my number to a quite lot of people including me family, friends, business partners, "underground chat friends" and so on . . . It seemed almost impossible for me to change my operator until on Nov 25th a piece of news appeared in Hindu about Mobile Number Portability.

It was declared that Mobile Number Portability will be launched in the entire country on January 20, 2011. The service, which allows subscribers to retain their phone numbers while changing their operator. MNP in India was launched first in the Haryana circle, on November 25th, 2010.  According to the DoT, the networks are now technically ready for launch of service ofwhich BSNL, MTNL and Uninor are worth mentioning. MNP will intensify the competition among service providers both in respect of quantity of services and quality of service as well as in terms of tariff.

How to do it . . .

1. send an SMS to 1900 from the existing service provider.
2. get a unique porting code as SMS from the existing service provider.
3. fill an application mentioning the code to the new selected service provider for porting of number.
4. After 4 days or so the process of porting of the mobile number to the network of the new service provider gets completed
5. Then you enjoy the services of new operator

But my doubt is . . . will it work out in India? after all the pain DoT has taken to set up this service . . . where day after day the number of SIM cards per phone keeps increasing . . . Today people in India prefer multi-sim environment to take advantage of all the operators available in the country.

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