Home / Archives for 2011

At the dawn of Year 2011

Year 2011 is coming to an end and countdown has started for the New Year 2012. Many argue that for Indians new year is on the eve of Yugadi not on January 1st. But I feel there is no wrong in changing calendar and celebrating it as everything in our day to day life is run based on Gregorian calendar. I certainly oppose the celebration of new year with the late night parties with no sense on themselves or what is going on around. Anyway, one more year has come and we need to welcome it whole heartedly with new hopes.

Personally the year 2011 was an eventful year setting me to a goal even though it started with some kind of uncertainty. I had to leave Goa in search of better opportunities as I mentioned about the happenings at Goa in the earlier blogs and was at home for few months, looking for anything good to happen. Meanwhile I started teaching in the home town for +2 students, the response was good by the students. Along with teaching experience I also learnt how the tuition co-ordinators can make money out of their cheap tricks even being ready to damage the reputation of teachers. Also, it was the first time I earned few bucks on my own and the satisfaction was that I could bear my expenses of applying for entrance exams and going for places for writing entrance exams. I appeared for the PG entrance of both Tamil Nadu (held at Vellore) and Andhra Pradesh (held at Thirupati). It was also the first time I visited those two southern states.

Registering for the post graduate degree was my dream and it was too fulfilled in 2011 itself, along with the teaching job fetching me decent salary just enough to bear my expenses and course fees. Also, was happy to receive the good feedback from the students for successfully completing the course Database Management Systems. I thought that the teaching was easy. But teaching has tremendous pressure, learning continuously, completing the things on time and most importantly handling nearly hundred teen age guys who are especially rebellious because of their age!

I must thank one of my professors of Mathematics even though I was not his class room student referring me to the current job and for the PG program. Thanks to all my previous teachers for guiding me and my current and past students for enriching me with your interactions with me.

I especially thank the year 2011 for being very kind to me!

Sanskruti Township, Hyderabad

Am living in Sanskruti Township (also called Singapore Township) from last couple of months and I can confidently tell that this is the only area in Hyderabad I have come across which is free from pollution and especially vehicle traffic. There are may be many areas like this but am only aware of this place, situated nearly ten kilometers from Uppal on the way to Warrangal. Apart from large residential apartments, adjacent to township there is an unit of Infosys, a reputed software company brand which millions of students aspire to work for. Also, there is news that a few companies will also have plans set up their office here as it is declared as SEZ by the government. 

Most of the apartments in the township are vacant as many are being purchased as an investment than any idea of staying over here. Guys and girls from different states and far away places have taken these apartments on shared rent basis. Few paying guest accommodation is also available. Apartments will be built with two bed room, three bed room and duplex styles. Furnished homes are also available for rent. Two or three children parks are added attraction.

Township has two departmental stores and one vegetable shop (closed from last few days!) charging more than MRP price. Also, it has a medical center and a barber shop. Evening chat center, juice center and small bakery are the only bit relaxation for junk food lovers.

No good hotel is there inside township. Even though a paratha house is there, it is quite famous for its high price than its food taste, same is the case with one more. Recently, fresh vegetable bazaar has been started inside the township and the crowd is quite high. Near by, good hotel is the Bawarchi present in the first floor in front of township entrance. Even though taste is good there, cleanness is not maintained. Also, the curry point in township caters to the saliva of many who wish to just take curries and roti.

Township also has ‘Sri Vidya Nikethan International School' owned by one of the celebrity Tollywood actor. There are many direct buses to the township operating from Secunderabad except one on time. Only bus comes on times is in the morning 08:40. 

I love this place as it is having dust free and pollution free atmosphere.

How a Head of the Department can make money illegally

Being in teaching from past few months am able to find the off record politics in the field at the college level and at the departmental level. Observing closely the functioning of the head of the department, am able to make out how he makes money easily and of course illegally. But no enough proofs to prove him wrong!

As I mentioned in the earlier blog, post graduate degree is a must for those who want to be in the teaching post of engineering colleges. Many who have joined with the graduate degrees are willing to pursue post-graduate courses but because of the commitments, they are not able to leave their full time job and pursue post-graduation. In such cases, the only thing such people deriving of post-graduate courses will rely on colleges giving full attendance and full marks in the internal tests even without writing it. For the attendance and marks a head of the department can demand up to 10,000 to 20,000 bucks depending upon the candidate’s financial stability!

Other way around, all the management seats will be generally having high fee structure and the candidates mentioned above will not be able to pay such high fees. Then, again the head of the department will interfere in the matter as in the movie, some how the head will be able to reduce the fees substantially using his influence and links in the administrative section, saving a grand 70,000 to 80,000 bucks for each candidate. Hunger of money will not be over for the head of the department, he will call each candidate and inform about fee reduction and asks to pay him 20,000 bucks as commission!

Money matter will not be over here. It continues even in names of workshops and projects. Post Graduate engineering courses requires dissertation to be submitted at the end of the second year as the requirement for the fulfillment of course. Head of the department will make sure that students are enrolled for the projects in the institute which he mentions. Making some useless guidelines, he will make the student helpless as he can play with their degrees, without any objection students will obey and pay the prescribed fees.

Organizing workshops is one more thing conducted in the name of benefit to students, even though the actual benefits are for the head of the department and the organizing institute by the student’s money. The companies and institutes organizing workshops will be decided on the commission they are going to offer to the head of the department!

By making and arranging all these hide and seek, a head of the department can earn up to 8 to 10 lakhs per year apart from his regular salary. If any associate or colleague in the same department is not co-operating in these matters will be legally terminated blaming or through any engineered process!

PS: This blog is not about any one person, it is by observing few heads of the departments of some reputed colleges in the recent past which I had come across. There are many who has lived as examples without these strings attached, but there are very few and rare.

Distance Education: Missing its track?

Distance Education was started with an aim to provide higher educational opportunities for the people who can’t attend the regular classes. It is a boon for working and for the people staying at remote places as they can receive reading material on time and can appear for the exams directly. Some of the universities offering distance education have introduced the concept of assignments to its students so that they are on track and keep in touch with the subjects. But the entire concept is being misused by the people desiring to pursue higher studies and even by some universities. Universities are mainly doing it in the name of study centers.

Recently I came across a news paper advertisement regarding distance education programs of an university. The advertisement was all about a study center of an university offering various courses ranging from doctorate to undergraduate programs in various disciplines, except medical related courses as far as my knowledge. Even it was clearly mentioned that all the degrees will be awarded in one sitting, may be meaning to give the degree on the spot!

According to UGC guidelines doctoral or any degree offered by the universities should follow its guidelines and all the programs have to be offered through contact classes at its study centers or at the university campus. Also, the private universities established under the section 2f of UGC are eligible to offer distance education through its campus or at an authorized study center within the same state where the university is situated. But these universities are allowing study centers wherever possible. Some of the study centers are located in such a place that it is not even suitable for dumping waste.

Distance education is missing its track. Even though some universities are maintaining standards, the study centers are failing to follow. Even some universities are offering courses without the consent of Directorate of Distance Education which is mandatory. The students really in need are in dilemma as many got cheated or extorted in the pursuit of gaining degree.

Was it my mistake?


I like to help anyone either my students or friends whatever I can or possible from my side. Sometimes this only happens to be the reason of loss of money or unnecessary burden on me.

Post Graduate degree being must for teaching to the students of engineering colleges many people graduated with just an engineering degree are coming forward to pursue post graduate courses. There was a system administrator in the institute where I did engineering, he being an Electronics engineer ended up in that job and somehow wanted to pursue post graduate degree with the meagre savings he had. He helped our group during our final year student project demonstration as a last fulfilment of our engineering course, from that time he was quite close to us. He spoke to me regarding his idea of pursuing PG degree and asked me whether I can do anything regarding that. I consulted a few regarding the same and informed my head of the department that is there any possibility that he could help my friend out of his situation. He readily agreed to help and told me to inform my friend so that he can come on a particular day. On the day before arrival of my friend head of the department asked me to inform the fees of the course and come down as early as possible to register for the course. Also, he hinted there may be chances that my friend has to pay some amount as consultancy to him. But I took it is just for fun.

On the specified day my friend came with some money for admission. As he was non-local came to my room after completing daily rituals we went to college and met the head of the department. After exchanging a few words, he instructed us to go to college office so that admission formalities will be completed. There was some confusion in the fees and again it was reduced after being discussed with the administrative officer of the college as my friend was not ready to pay 10000 bucks extra out of his pocket. Again my head of the department intervened to reduce the fees. In the mean while head of the department asked me regarding the consultancy fees pulling me out of his cabin. He also told me not to tell his name directly to my friend and just tell him that it’s through a consultancy and he need to pay consultancy commission. I couldn’t tell him that I didn’t mention anything about it to my friend.

My friend had come all the way keeping belief on me that somehow I will make sure that he will get out of his problem and could register for a post graduate program. I didn’t want to hurt my friend or spoil his dream of post graduate degree. I didn’t have any other option other than paying money from my pocket to my head of the department as I was also about to register for the post graduate program in some time at the same institute under him. I came home without any idea of what to do or how to arrange money as I was sure that my friend was not ready to pay any extra amount.

I only paid the money from my pocket which I had saved from the months with difficulty, with a hope that it will be helpful some day in future. I gave 10000 bucks to the head of the department next day which he counted twice and kept in his wallet giving close-up smile.

It was a strange feeling I ever had in life giving my hard earned money equivalent to one month salary of mine, I felt someone drenched my heart to the core. I stood controlling tears as I was helpless. Don't know whether I did the mistake or helped someone, I lost the hard earned money!

Secret behind 'Why this Kolaveri Di' song's success

I try to keep friendly conversation with the students outside the class, once a student from final year mechanical engineering asked me the meaning of the word ‘kolaveri’ thinking me as a Tamilian as ‘Kumar’ is my sir name even though its not my sir name. I told him I don’t know about that. He only continued that a song by name ‘Kolaveri Di’ has hit more than three million visits in three days of its release and going to hit ten million visits in a week or so. I came home in the evening around 7:00 PM even my room mate started to sing the same song ‘Why this Kolaveri Di’. Suddenly I remembered the song discussed with the student and checked on internet for more information on it.

The song had received more than ten million hits and the number is still increasing. I listened to the song; it turns out to be the mixture of mixture of Tamil and English. Even many had expressed their happiness listening to the music and the hits song has received in very less time. A few had expressed their anger as song doesn’t have any meaning and even the usage of language is not proper. But what is the secret of this song being getting popular? Many have downloaded the song and no wonder if you listen to it on bus or in anywhere else! Even if that count has kept it would have been surely in millions.

The song’s popularity lies in picturing the thinking of younger generation. The song has mainly caught the attention of youngsters in the age group of 20 to 30 may be with the significant number of outliers. In the college life and in the starting of professional career it is likely that a guy gets attracted towards his charming female colleague, even a smile or coffee with her makes his day. The pain guys feel when such charming girls get into a relationship with someone else or get engaged, the feelings are very difficult to express. The normal tendency of guys is to enjoy the pain with the hot drinks explaining their agony to friends with eyes full of tears and a glass of drinks in hand! Everyone will have crush or attraction towards opposite gender at one or the other point of time in life. All these are imbibed in the song with the flavor of regional English is one of the reasons for the success of song.

English words used in the song are quite familiar for the people of South India as the few words are very common in day to day life. Class pronounced as class-u, life pronounced as life-u, light pronounced as light-u and moon as moon-u are very common in Kannada and Tamil. Also, these are not so hi-fi words that anyone cannot understand. Sometimes even I heard n the campus faculty interacting with each other asking ‘class-aa?’ meaning to ask whether he or she has any class to teach. This is also one of the reasons for its popularity as the song closely connects to the speaking language.

Leaving these reasons, the songs popularity is in its newness. The combination of words and a song out of it was beyond imagination but now it is done. It is obvious that people like something new always.

We always like change!

Planning to start exploring Hyderabad


I was busy with the works of the departmental events and expert lectures to both the faculty and students. Experience with the organizing events is always demanding and took most of my time without giving some spare time to sit and post few blogs. For one of the expert lecture, we invited a professor from Goa University and I was assigned with the work of taking care of that person. As the person was known to me it was not difficult for me to converse with him regarding his whereabouts and requirements. The journey to see small part or glimpse of Hyderabad started from the time I went to receive the professor at S. R. Nagar.

I woke up at four in the morning and reached directly to S R Nagar taking bus from Uppal depot as head of my department informed me that the car arranged by the car will be directly coming to pick both of us at S R Nagar. With a bit struggle with auto rickshaw drivers I was able to reach destination. Felt relaxed seeing the professor; it was my duty to make him feel comfortable as I only arranged for his visit to Hyderabad. I informed the car driver in little Telugu whatever I knew about where we are standing and land mark (TB hospital) Car came in twenty minutes to take us to the lodge reserved for stay.

Narayana Comforts at Habsiguda is a good and economic lodge can opt for but all the rooms are air conditioned. One more advantage is its location, center to many places. After completing professor’s daily rituals we left to college and the program went well as the scheduled plan.

Evening we duo returned to lodge and wet for shopping resting for a while as professor wanted to do some shopping. Habsiguda has all the branded show rooms and he purchased t-shirts from Mega Mart. While conversing I told professor that the shoes and leather items are quite cheaper here compared to any other places. He was quite surprised and showed interest in purchasing. We went to Nacharam, I was quite surprised to see street full of shoe marts on either sides. As suggested by one of my colleague’s husband we directly went to Anand Leathers. Prices were very less compared to the branded ones such as Bata, Woodlands etc., the shop had good collections and the service by the shop boys was also good making professor to purchase more than one pair.

Exploring came to end on the next day dropping professor at lakdi-ka-pool for his return journey to Goa. I was happy that I saw a bit of Hyderabad including Nacharam, Planning to explore the city in the near future as I have heard lot of places to visit.

IRCTC - Money deducted but Ticket not booked

IRCTC is the website of Indian Railways allowing people to reserve tickets in advance. Indian citizens can reserve tickets before 120 days of travel and the foreign nationals visiting India can book up to 365 days in advance. The user friendly site allows nearly one million people to book the tickets. Sometimes the site will be very slow and the payment Gateway needs processing time more than expected. Even after processing for a long time the transaction will be failed, the money will be deducted from the account but the ticket will not be booked. This is the common problem people face while booking ticket during the peak hours of the day.

For the people having only required amount in account will end up in problem because of failed transaction as the ticket will not be booked and no money will be there in the account to do fresh reservation. It takes minimum of two to three working days for the money to be refunded into the payee account. The repayment system is good, the money will be refunded without any hassle but the problem is we cant get the money back instantly. The anguish and the helplessness experienced by the people landing in such situation is very difficult to explain.

Other problem is with the payment gateway of the banks. All banks are encouraging online banking, as a result many like to do online transaction instead of standing and sweating in the long never-ending queues. It takes much time by the payment gateways to confirm successful payment and lead to successful booking or successful payment.

A simple solution to avoid such unsuccessful transaction is to do reservation during the non-peak hours. The normal peak hours of transaction is during 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM in morning as this is the most convenient time for everyone, people reaching office early or planned for a trip on the day before will like to do reservation in this time period. Also, the people planned the last minute journey will like to do Tatkal reservation in this time period only making the transaction speed very low. In the evening from 4:30 PM to 9:00 PM is again the peak time people trying for booking tickets as all will tend to think about leisure and spending time outside with family or travel trip after deciding in meetings.

Usually the non-peak hours are after 9:00 PM in the night till next morning and also the number of people trying to reserve ticket is less during the time gap 11:30 AM to 3:30PM. The ticket reservation done during this time will be successful most of the times!

DNA Match Making!

Indian parents will be surprised to know that there exists an alternate match matching technique apart from Astrology. Astrology mainly relies on the position of stars at the time of birth, in the hi-tech medical world even sizerian performed to get the baby delivered will decide the time of birth and in turn the position of stars. In short, we can decide the time of birth! Recently, I heard from one of my neighbor from my native that to avoid the baby to be born in Rahu Kalam they had to pot for sizerian. Before asking doctor to perform sizerian they consulted Astrologers so that the stars will be at the right place. No wonder if in few years some Astro-medico clinics will start and also the hospitals will have consultant or visiting Astro-specialist like other specialists!

DNA matching involves the matching of genetic compatibility of the persons wh wish to get married. According to a company perfroming such DNA tests, it will be helpful in finding the right partner and the relationship lasts for long. Also, the company adds that DNA match making helps in turning people towards the traditional arranged marriages and increases the belief in arranged marriages. I doubt that there is an Indian in the team of that company as we Indians give much importance to the arranged marriages.

Guess the companies performing DNA match have nt heard of one of popular Indian jokes - 'The horoscopes of Boy's mother and Girl should be matched as they are the home makers and they living in hormany is more important than Girl's horoscope matching with the boy!' Otherwise these companies would have started consultation for the same. These kind of comapnies are still in Western countries and not expanded their business in the East, they may consider the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law compability service once they move towards this side.

Relations have to be strong between the personalities based on the warmth and comfortness one feels being with the other. Not in the lab based on the results of DNA match making experiments. But I heard somewhere that during marriages of Indian style also some traditions are performed in order to increase the relation bond between the boy and girl, dont know how far it is true and proved scientifically.

IndiBlogger - a community for Bloggers

Blogging has become occasional in the work load of the college. Telangana agitation had made students not to attend the classes for a month, in that view college management added one hour per day for the normal working hours increasing the workload! Along with teaching, departmental work seems to be never ending one after the other. I was not having patience at the end of the day to type and post, making me off from posting regularly. In the mean while had applied for joining the IndiBlogger community.

I applied to IndiBlogger community twice, in the first attempt didn’t know what was the problem my account was not proved. Giving a break of almost one month or so again tried, that time also I had the fear of rejection. It took almost a week for my account to get approved. Even I forgot about it checking once or twice about its acceptance but one fine day received the confirmation from IndiBlogger confirming my blog being added to the community of bloggers and on a personal note I was happy that I joined a community exclusively dedicated for bloggers.

Submitted posts one after the after the other to the IndiVine (till now 12). IndiBlogger helped me to get the audience to my blogs. Every blog received liking of some senior bloggers on the community who may be blogging before I knew the words ‘blog’ and ‘blogging’. Learnt a lot of things about the community and fellow bloggers.

As mentioned earlier I couldn’t blog frequently but I submitted the posts to the IndiBlogger receiving good number of hits on my page. IndiBlogger is helping in getting wide audience and also providing a platform for the bloggers to know each other and their blogs. Hope to meet the bloggers in any drives or meets organized by IndiBlogger. Thanks to team IndiBlogger and fellow bloggers.

Corruption and Fraud in the name of Students Placement

Most of the students join for engineering course (any branch) mainly for the purpose of job. Within four years of study students will be eligible for placement and can appear for any of the companies recruitment process depending on the criteria specified by the companies. It has been deeply rooted in the minds of the students and their parents that engineering (especially in CSE/IT) is the best way to get settled in life. Many students completing their graduation look for industry jobs than other possibilities in the higher studies or research. Students will tend to attend any of the placement drives conducted on-campus or off-campus.

Most of the IT companies will outsource the recruitment process as it reduces the burden of visiting each college and conducting the placement drives. Many agencies and institutes have come up with the purpose of helping the companies in their recruitment process. They are just similar to the event management agencies. These agencies authorized by the companies acts as a middle man between the companies and colleges. Even there are rumours that these agencies visit the colleges taking huge sum of money to conduct drives and also from the students or management to hire the students. Sometimes college management pays the amount in order to maintain the standard of the college in terms of the placement.

Number of such middle man agencies is surprising increasing. In the same manner many fraud or unauthorized agencies also came into existence. These fake agencies are acting in the same manner as authorized middle man agencies taking money from the students assuring 100% placements. Usually in the race of placements students will not bother much about the genuine agencies and just fall prey to such fake agencies with the hope of better settlement in life.

Many agencies conduct drives in the name of popular companies without any connection with the companies. The condition is so worse that some of the companies have released the warning press notes recently regarding the institutes or agencies conducting the unauthorized placement drives in the name of popular companies. But identifying the agencies whether they are genuine or fake has become difficult.

The best way to identify is just by money factor whether an agency is asking money in each and every process of recruitment or registration as the companies hires students free of cost. But the drawback is if the genuine agencies itself charge money for recruitment, it is impossible to make out genuine or fake!

QR Code for Blogs

Was astonished to see a new kind of code in news paper yesterday, a reputed Indian company had advertised for the various posts and at the end it was mentioned that more information on Jobs can be got by the QR code. The code was looking like some Black patterns on White background. For a moment I was surprised looking at the code as I never came across such codes, only the one which I was well versed with is the bar code used in grocery shops and book stores. I thought it is something new technology and felt am outdated! Immediately searched on Google to know what exactly the QR codes are.

QR code is abbreviated from the word Quick Response code, it looks like small rectangle or something represented in the form of matrix. It is a kind of two dimensional barcode being first used in automobile industry for identifying the vehicles. Later got popularity as it is possible to incorporate artistic designs and logos in the codes itself.

There are many QR code generators available and can be used to get QR codes for URLs or on visiting cards. Almost all smart phone platforms supports readability of QR codes, the QR codes has to be scanned to get the information stored on it. The QR code has to be captured or scanned and then further processed using the suitable software to retrieve the information in the codes. Even the encryption can be done for the data stored in QR code.

Physical QR code printed on visiting cards or news paper can be scanned and upon retrieving the link will be directed to the information present in the code or to the respective URLs. This refers to hardlinking or object hyperlinking as it involves linking from the physical world objects. QR code reader is required to read the contents in the QR code.

After knowing what exactly QR codes are and how they can be generated I used the free QR code generator available on Kaywa for generating the QR code for my blog URL and you can see the QR code of my website below

qrcode

Now I can relax hoping am not outdated with QR codes anymore!

Steve Jobs views on Education


We are blaming that Education is getting corrupted by the private colleges and schools demanding higher fees and donations but at the same time we ourselves admit that education standards have increased by these private colleges and schools. Days are gone that students and parents likely to turn towards Government Schools. Images of some village school will obviously come to our mind where the number of teachers is more than the number of students!

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was a college dropout but he had certain views on education and reforms in it. Steve’s views on education were interviewed by Smithsonian Institution and have published the excerpts of the interview. Even though Steve expresses his ideas on US education or education in general his views are valid for any country.

Steve’s views on Education as appeared on the Smithsonian Institution’s Oral and Video Histories of Steve Jobs. It can be found on the website http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/comphist/sj1.html too:

 “I'm sure it did. I'm a very big believer in equal opportunity as opposed to equal outcome. I don't believe in equal outcome because unfortunately life's not like that. It would be a pretty boring place if it was. But I really believe in equal opportunity. Equal opportunity to me more than anything means a great education. Maybe even more important than a great family life, but I don't know how to do that. Nobody knows how to do that. But it pains me because we do know how to provide a great education. We really do. We could make sure that every young child in this country got a great education. We fall far short of that. I know from my own education that if I hadn't encountered two or three individuals that spent extra time with me, I'm sure I would have been in jail. I'm 100% sure that if it hadn't been for Mrs. Hill in fourth grade and a few others, I would have absolutely have ended up in jail. I could see those tendencies in myself to have a certain energy to do something. It could have been directed at doing something interesting that other people thought was a good idea or doing something interesting that maybe other people didn't like so much. When you're young, a little bit of course correction goes a long way. I think it takes pretty talented people to do that. I don't know that enough of them get attracted to go into public education. You can't even support a family on what you get paid. I'd like the people teaching my kids to be good enough that they could get a job at the company I work for, making a hundred thousand dollars a year. Why should they work at a school for thirty-five to forty thousand dollars if they could get a job here at a hundred thousand dollars a year? Is that an intelligence test? The problem there of course is the unions. The unions are the worst thing that ever happened to education because it's not a meritocracy. It turns into a bureaucracy, which is exactly what has happened. The teachers can't teach and administrators run the place and nobody can be fired. It's terrible.”

'Akash' - the Indian tablet

The much awaited Indian made low cost Tablet ‘Akash’ was being released on 5th October by the central Human Resource Development Minister Mr. Kapil Sibal. The most attractive thing about this tablet is being the low cost and the idea of giving it to the students on still lower price by the Government subsidy is a welcome one. According to the press release ‘Akash’ is much likely to be available from the month of December to the students and may be by the next year to the general public. Till now ‘Akash’ is the low cost to be available tablet in the market so it has even raised the eye brows of many developed countries and multi-national companies.

The prototype of ‘Akash’ was released last year and the full fledged development work was done by Data Wind. The specification of the ‘Akash’ is it uses Google Android Operating System version 2.2 Froyo, 366 MHz processor with on chip Graphic Accelerator and HD Video Processor, has 2 GB internal memory expandable up to 32 GB and RAM of 256MB. ‘Akash’ has 7 inch resistive touch screen display and has 2100 mAh Lithium-polymer battery. Internet can be accessed using GPRS and also with Wi-Fi connectivity which is an added advantage. Aircel is likely to be the basic official network provider for connecting to the internet using its 3G SIM cards or even the 3G internet dongles can be used. Also it can be used as a phone!

The tablet is specifically developed to cater the needs of the students, the processor speed and RAM won’t be of much hurdle depending on the simple applications most likely to be run by the students. ‘Akash’ may not be useful for business applications as much as other tablets.

The reception of the tablet by the students and teaching community is of much curiosity as many students and teachers are not aware of technologies and using tablets. Training will be helpful for doing so. No product can be perfect on its first release, hope ‘Akash’ will also make some changes in its future releases and also the company Data Wind is planning for tablets as low as $10 making use of locally available components.

Waiting to see the ‘Akash’ effects on students as well as teachers!

Traffic Jam and bus smoke

People in Bangalore are very much used to traffic jams and pollution. But people new to Bangalore get suffocated in the traffic jams and pollution. The vehicles smoke can be compared only with that of Chimneys of large industries venting flue gases. I even wondered how people can travel in city buses inhaling so much dust and smoke always, later got used to it and stayed for few years studying for my graduate course. I heard and read from the books that Bangalore is quite famous for its culture, weather and food. But by the time I landed up in Bangalore everything was changed in the name of development!

Air Pollution

Was just going through the pictures I captured on my phone, one caught my immediate attention it was taken on a traffic jam near Hebbal fly over. On one side Government through forest department creates awareness about the environmental pollution and on the other side the Transport department contributes its share in the pollution!

Facebook's Paid Membership

Social Networking giant ‘Facebook’ is going for paid membership and the members of facebook should sign one or the other kind of membership for retaining their accounts. Such a rumor was spread on internet few days back and many walls (on facebook) was decorated with the information on different levels of memberships and the related cost. The message spread so quickly within no time many discussion and query forums were filled with the question strings linked with the questions pertaining to it. The reason behind many people panic about the costing of facebook is it has become inevitable with our daily life.

Most of my friends don’t even sleep without having a look at facebook account. The interesting thing is it also allows us to know about others a lot. Stalking can be done legally! Facebook has members more than enough to declare it has a country with a population of more than fifty million. If enough space was available on this Earth even facebook users might have sat for strike demanding separate country. Many believe that Windows (of Microsoft) and Walls (of Facebook) rock the world.

Recently I read on one of the popular technology blogs, that facebook has received one trillion page hits. Number of users socializing is increasing making people addicted to these. Whatever may be the addiction if facebook steps for paid membership as many as 90% percent of its members stop using it. The majority of users are students not having enough money to buy membership and will turn towards other websites offering free memberships! Facebook has invested enough on data storage centers and many things so it won’t take a decision affecting the member count.

Facebook has seen a sudden increase in Advertisers turning to it ready to pay any cost. Making advertisements to reach to a particular section of audience is an added advantage. No where else in the web right now doesn’t have the advantage of targeted ads reaching wide audience of particular age group, country and location etc., Facebook is earning decent money from its advertisers and in the last year alone it generated a revenue of around 6.4 billion US dollars. This year the expected revenue generation from advertisers will be twice as that of last year according to an expert analysis.

Facebook will not step forward for paid membership taking chance with its members or account holders. Facebook users can relax!

Passive Smokers are in more danger than the Active Smokers

‘Prohibition of Smoking in the Public Places’ rule was passed by Indian Government on 2nd October 2008. Two days back again we celebrated one more Gandhi Jayanthi remembering Gandhiji and his words. October 2nd is observed only as ‘dry-day’ as almost all the bars will remain closed. But even after three years of passing prohibition of smoking in public places has not made any significant difference.

According to a survey performed last year, the number of smokers has significantly increased compared to last years. People exposed to smoke will be having higher risks of lung disease. Over the years there are chances that lung alveoli will be damaged, blood enters into lungs creating problem in breathing and sputtering blood. People who have enjoyed smoking for a long time, had many kinds of ailments in their old ages compared to others. This is the story of active smokers.

Passive smokers are those inhaling the cigarette smoke left by the others also referred as second hand smoke. Passive smokers are in high risk factor compared to active smokers. Sounds crazy? The reason behind it is the tobacco present in the cigarettes has anti-carcinogenic property along with the carcinogenic property. As long as smokers don’t quit smoking they will be slightly protected by this anti-carcinogenic property. But the same people when they quit smoking are more prone to cancer than anyone else. But for passive smokers the carcinogenic factors present in the smoke causes adverse factors.

Even though there is strong rule on prohibition on smoking, the strict implementation is not yet done. Awareness has to be created rather than punishing or implementing something strictly.

I came across a few lines Gandhiji wrote on smoking in his auto-biography a century before: ‘Ever since I have been grown up, I have never desired to smoke and have always regarded the habit of smoking as barbarous, dirty and harmful. I have never understood why there is such a rage for smoking throughout the world. I cannot bear to travel in a compartment full of people smoking. I become choked.”

Life is to Live

To pass time on unexpected holidays I will get the news paper. Solving puzzles is fun. Apart from puzzles and some fun, news paper will have news on political issues and death news. Political issues are at peak covering major portion of any news paper, news agents need not worry much about getting news. Second or the fourth page in almost all news paper will be filled with local information on accidents, suicides and tributes to the departed soles. No one is permanent on this Earth, one or the other day we should leave this place. Even if we try to stay here permanently also we won’t survive.

Leaving the deaths after a certain age, the saddest part is of suicides. The suicidal rate is ever increasing and the reason for committing suicide is much ridiculous. We have only one life, we don’t know whether we take re-birth or not it doesn’t matter much as we won’t know what happened in the earlier birth!

Some of the recent happenings really figuring out that we are unable to withstand even the simplest facts. Committing suicides for scoring less in examination, not getting proper attention from boy friend/girl friend, unable to find a job easily and even getting scolding from the parents/teachers have become major issues for committing suicides.

Even we are failing to face the simplest realities in life. Leading a normal and contented life is very difficult than it appears to be. Every one can’t expect the things to happen as he/she likes to. One should be optimistic and take challenges to face life. The tragedy is that the so called premier institutes of the country are preparing our students only for the sake of making money not concentrating much on the over all personality development of the student (many institutes impart soft skills in the name of personality development.)

We are here only for once, enjoying the life is important. Life is to be lived, not to be wasted.

Anna Hazare into Blogging and Social Networking

With the advent of Web 2.0, blogging also took steady growth. Since the availability of the high speed broad band connections easily blogging took exponential growth and the growth is ever increasing. Addition to blogging is the social networking. Social Networking sites have become part and parcel of life. Even the minute fluctuations in day to day life or in mood, they are being quickly reflected on the pages of social networking sites. We are sharing more things on these sites pages than with the fellow human beings. Hope in the near future, machine-man interaction will be as common as or even simpler than communication between human beings.

Celebrities are also started with their blog sites and web pages to convey their messages and to socialize (on web) with their fans. Celebrity blogs are popular now and many bollywood actors have turned into bloggers, few of them making decent income by blogging also. Amitabh Bachchan blogs daily on BigAdda and receives on an average 350 comments per blog. Recently, we have witnessed the power of blogging when Anna Hazare sat for hunger strike in demand of Janlokpal bill. Many bloggers were updating the happenings from the site. The role of social networking sites was also incredible. In less than a day’s time many thousands liked the page on Anna Hazare and the event pages to get updates.

New addition to the list of celebrity bloggers is Anna Hazare. Understanding the necessity and power of blogging and social networking sites, Anna is also joining the league. He has started his blog with an intention to cater people World wide who are eagerly waiting to know his thoughts. Currently with the help of Vijay Kuvalekar and Raju Parulekar his blog site is being updated and currently available in English, Hindi and Marathi later to be made available in other vernacular languages also.

Anna Hazare is using WordPress and Blogger platform for hosting blogs. His WordPress blog page is well organized and the blogs in a particular language can be easily found. May be in the future, the blogs on blogger page will also be properly organized.

WordPress blog page – www.annahazaresays.wordpress.com

Blogger blog page – www.annahazaresays.blogspot.com

Anna can be followed on Twitter and Facebook also

Facebook page – Anna Hazare Says

Twitter page – Anna Hazare Says

Hope his blogs will be well received by the people World wide.

Misguiding Indian Engineering Colleges survey Rankings

Engineering colleges are increasing exponentially. Students planning to take admissions for engineering courses need not worry about getting a seat. Many colleges are offering the management seats just for nominal fees. Like every year many surveys are being conducted on the engineering colleges and the results are being published in the popular magazines. Every time for the surprise of people and students, unknown and unheard college names will take the lead over the well established institutions.

The survey will be done on various factors such as infrastructure of the institution, faculty with doctorate degree, research output, placements and finally the popularity depending on the ranking of the number of students taking admission to the courses. I don’t know how these surveys will evaluate research output of the colleges. One more important thing about these surveys is that it will cover only the colleges which voluntarily agree for the surveys by paying money.

Most of the times only the private engineering colleges will come forward for the surveys as it will increase the popularity of the college and also possible to get good ranking by spending some extra money. Government colleges won’t be having sufficient funds for spending on such surveys and they stay away. Ultimately the benefit for the private engineering college is even an average engineering college will get good ranking in the paid surveys and in a reverse engineering view college gets more number of admissions.

Not only these surveys increase the popularity but also allow the colleges to give a page advertisement in some of the leading magazines of the country. The transparency and reliability of such surveys will never gain importance as no one will bother about these things and the private colleges will be happy for getting wide coverage more than they deserve.

Recently was going through the survey done by on of the leading magazines in collaboration with some private sector agency. As I expected, the newly opened and least popular colleges were on the top of the list. The newly opened colleges most of the time will have no research output and poor infrastructure facilities. But according to the survey these colleges are excellent centers of engineering education.

These surveys are in a way misleading general public. Students not aware of the colleges techniques of advertising colleges will be misguided landing up in the low grade colleges. On the other hand students lacking guidance on the colleges and the courses will blindly rely on these surveys and face troubles by the extortion of the private engineering colleges. It will be appropriate if the popular magazines stop publishing these kinds of surveys ignoring the social responsibility only for the sake of money.

In Memory of Dr Baab Mallya

Five years back blogging was not so popular and also only a few Indian bloggers had their own blogs and blog sites. All used to have blogs on different platforms, one popular web platform holding many bloggers and readers from India was Sulekha. Till today it is there with some modification technically but majority of its readers are Indians. Early bloggers on Sulekha were not bothered much on money, page ranks or popularity. Only thing they did is to post quality blogs regularly and had huge readers. The reader community was not just for name sake, it was like communication between reader and writer with feelings. One of the bloggers from Sulekha who had filled the blogosphere with his travelogues, cooking recipes, medical anecdotes and personal blogs was Baab Mallya, a neuro surgeon by education and a writer, poet and an artist by choice. Though many are under the impression that his real name is Baab Mallya, his actual name was K B Mallya aka Kasargod Balakrishna Mallya. It is very saddening that he is no more with us.

Dr Mallya joined Sulekha around 2006 and he continuously contributed the blogs and very soon kept the pages alive, with comments filled with feelings. His journey onto becoming a specialist neuro surgeon spending almost 18 years is really inspiring. In a single word he was ‘Genius’. It is very difficult to list his interests and likings in this page, he did whatever he liked and in whatever he did, he succeeded. He was active in blogging till he moved to a remote village near Mangalore. He was a man who enjoyed his life fully in all the aspects.

He was not only active on sulekha but also on many web pages contributing or commenting (constructive criticism). By reading his blogs and comments, one can easily understand how he used to interact with the readers. Many will miss him and his blogs. Even passing away of Dr Mallya recently was also informed on blogosphere by one of the bloggers from Sulekha itself.

On a personal note, I interacted with Baab many times through email and through his blog columns. Every time he responded generously. I didn't get the chance to meet him personally. Unfortunately, the last comment he posted on sulekha was for one of my queries. Really am unable to believe that Baab is no more. No one can beat his web posts or whatever he has contributed to medicine or blogs.

Baab… Rest in Peace.

'The Last Lecture' by Randy Pausch - Video

Some time back I posted a blog on the book 'The Last Lecture' authored by Randy Pausch. The book is a best seller and it is translated in many languages including the regional languages. The book was inspired by the popularity of his Last Lecture named 'Achieving Childhood Dreams'. The video of the lecture is available on YouTube now.

Bombay - Karachi Halwa

Unexpected holiday once in a while in the routine schedule is welcome and I love to look forward such days. But if the holidays itself become majority in a week then it is very difficult to spend time. Getting used to taking class for minimum two or three hours a day, not getting how to spend time without doing any work sitting idle at home. To get out of boredom learnt preparing Bombay-Karachi Halwa from one of my colleague. I don’t know how the name came to this halwa!

Ingredients required for preparing Bombay-Karachi Halwa:

Quantities are important for this halwa so add all the ingredients in definite proportions

Corn flour (50 grams)

Sugar (100 grams) for preparing Sugar syrup using water (100 to 125 ml)

Ghee

Cardamom powder

Cashew Nuts

Method:

First prepare sugar syrup. Next, in a non-stick pan mix corn flour with 100 ml water. Mix well without any lumps, don’t make the solution too dilute or too thick. Add little ghee and keep pan on low flame. Keep stirring, when the liquid mixture of corn flour gets thickening switch off the flame. Keep stirring the mixture adding the sugar syrup in little quantities. Once the sugar syrup is mixed with corn flour mixture, again switch on the flame and add three table spoon of ghee little by little keep stirring as before. Add a pinch of cardamom powder and cashew pieces (and color if necessary) and mix well. Switch off the flame and spread the mixture on a plate greased with ghee. Leave it for an hour and cut into desired shapes.

Instead of sugar syrup, honey or jaggery syrup can be used.

Mobile Phone Charging Kiosks

Discharging of Mobile Phone Batteries is the common experience for the people travelling frequently. There is no way by which one can easily charge the batteries. Many carry mobile chargers and keep for charging wherever they come across the plug sockets. Sometimes we can see people charging the phones in bus stands and railway stations. We are obsessively associated with the mobile phones, even if the signal is not available on the phone for a while we get tensed and won’t be in rest till we get a single dot on signal indicator! Also, we like to capture all the things and like to store everything on phone, irrespective of whether it is any private photos or confidential matters such as credit card, debit card and even online banking passwords.

In the Metropolitan cities, there will be charging kiosks which will be having charging pins of almost all kind of mobile phones. The charging of mobile phone batteries can be done either by the chargers connected to the power supply or by connecting the mobile phone to the laptops or computer through USB port. Similarly, the mobile phone charging kiosks at the public places also use either work on electric supply or by computer ports for charging phone batteries.

If the charging at the kiosks is done using USB port then there are chances that the owner of the kiosk can access the data on mobile phones. There is also possibility that the data on the phone can be misused.

Always make sure that on which source the public charging kiosk work. If there is any doubt regarding its source of charging or not sure about it, don’t take chance. Just switch off the mobile phone and keep for charging as accessing the phone data is not possible when it is switched off.

Video Lectures a good source to rely upon

Number of engineering colleges are increasing exponentially, the demand for the qualified and experienced teachers is also increasing as the available human resource is limited compared to the demand. Colleges are becoming only money minded leaving the priorities of providing basic infrastructure and failing to maintain even the minimum teaching standards. Economically rich students are relying on the tuition and coaching classes, on the other hand economically poor cannot afford for private coaching classes and also these cannot understand the contents from the ‘hi-fi’ prescribed text books.

One of the solutions to overcome the limitations of available good resource is to rely on video lectures available on the internet. In India, all the IITs and IISc have joined together in developing video lectures on the subjects which are generally prescribed in almost all Indian universities. The project of developing video lectures on the subject is named as ‘National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning’. Many of the engineering branch courses are included in the first phase of it and few more courses are to be developed in the second phase of NPTEL.

These courses are available freely and also easily downloadable in even MP4 format. Students not having good teachers for the subject can rely on these video lectures and improve their knowledge in turn performance.

One more advantage in these video lectures is some of them are recorded in the real class rooms so that the students watching the videos will also have the feeling of listening in the class. The videos are accessible on the website NPTEL

Alcohol doesn't solve any problem

Alcohol or alcoholic beverages are available easily than the necessary things. Drinkers get everything easily, within no time two drinkers can become good friends! The conversation with drinkers is very difficult as they speak as if they ruled the World for half a century. We can find such people on the bus or train journey, they will be waiting for someone to listen their words.

The drinkers will give a common reason that to come out of depression or to forget their pain they will drink. Alcohol makes the nervous system weak and the ability to sense the things so it is common that drinkers are more prone to accidents. Even a bit of alcohol is not good for health but a few self declared intelligent people encouraging it as it is considered good for health and keep us healthy. But none of the authentic research has proved that alcohol is good for health.

Drinking doesn’t solve any problem. For people living on meager income, drinking in a bane as the earning member of the family spends everything on it making his family to suffer without food. Some drink for the sake of fun, leave them as they will do it as a means of spending money but some how about the people who have to live only with small income. If the elder earning member of the family itself is a drinker, then no wonder if the next generation also continues the same.

Alcohol addiction is a social problem, we should educate our own people about its danger. Medicines available in the market are not helpful in keeping people away from drinking. One should have a strong urge to leave Alcohol as it doesn’t solve any problem in reality.

Took a short leave from Blogging

Had decided to write at least one blog per day but because of workload and relocation to Hyderabad kept me away from blogging. Didn’t write anything in the last few days. Slowly getting adjusted to Hyderabad weather and work load in the college. I have been assigned with handling two subjects and a lab for the students. Enjoying teaching students of entirely different back ground as am teaching one of the computer subjects to the Mechanical branch students and one more course and lab for the MCA department where the students are from diverse back grounds ranging from statistics to political science. In the mean while I got the seat confirmed for pursuing higher studies. The classes will commence from next month, looking forward to experience the post graduate classes!

Most of the classes are assigned in the after noon immediately after the lunch break. The difficulty in teaching is to take classes in the noon as students will be ready to go to sleep with the indication of yawning continuously after the lunch. The challenge for the teacher is to keep the students awake cracking some jokes and explaining simple concepts. Being an engineering student some time ago I had the freedom of studying only easy topics for the exam but now being a teacher I should read, understand and teach the concepts irrespective of whether the topics are easy or difficult.

I am slowly learning the work of a teacher, keeping track on syllabus coverage, writing lecture plan and maintaining attendance records of students. Was assigned with the internal exam duty, had to stand for two hours without doing any work just having look at busy writing students. Exam duty is quite boring but still no other go as it is the prime thing to be conducted in any course.

Not getting enough time to visit any spots in Hyderabad as the college working hours only take more than half a day. Had been to home also last week applying two days leave on the eve of Ganesh Chathurthi which is also one of the reason for not blogging as I didn’t have internet access.

Hoping to blog regularly from now onwards as am back from short blogging vacation!

Beware of Hidden Cameras

Hidden cameras have helped in exposing many of the scams and bribing cases which might have gone unnoticed or public. Hidden cameras working as spy cameras are being used in show rooms and shops to keep a watch on happenings in the premises. Hidden cameras are available in many shapes making it very hard to identify. Danger of such cameras is when the same is used for illegal purposes resulting in spoiling the dignity of anyone.

It is common that now and then everyone will be hearing of some scandals and video clips of celebrities or college students. Most of the times these kinds of video clips will be fake made using some image mixing software to spoil the reputation or dignity of a person in the society but if at all true those will be captured using hidden cameras. Easy availability of hidden cameras is also one more reason for the misuse.

The videos or the pictures captured will be used for blackmailing the concerned persons for money or for any kind of favors. If the demands are not met, the videos or image will be published on websites damaging a person’s dignity in society. Even though strict rules are there against this kind of illegal use of electronic media, they are going useless as the affected fear to move forward approaching cyber police.

The affected people of such cyber crimes will undergo lot of stress emotionally and there are chances that they lose interest and belief on everything and everyone. Always prevention is better than cure. Be careful when you are out of house. Some of the usually targeted places for taking videos or images are dressing rooms in some show rooms, hostel rooms and resorts which all like to spend time freely.

Many devices can detect the presence of hidden cameras based on some signals or waves which these cameras make use of. But availability of such devices is difficult and also expensive. It is better to be careful always outside as many invisible non-living things can be watching us!

Don't upload personal information on Social Networking Websites

Signing up in any of the social networking site is common. Along with signing up we need to enter pages of personal information starting from birth place to present job. Social Networking sites provide plenty of free space in which we can upload pictures, videos and much more. Socializing on these sites are much common, if you are member of any of social networking site you can read your friends’ status messages which even include purchasing of good quality ‘broom stick’. Even sometimes we also upload some of the messages and also share photos of trip or outings and any information regarding us.

If the images or videos are not set to private only to be seen by the members in the friend list anyone can see the photos and use the information publicly available. In few networking sites one can easily save the photographs of others just by right clicking on the image and opting for ‘save as’ option. There are chances that such that such saved photographs are being misused. It is always preferred to keep the photographs and personal information to be accessed by the people whom you know personally because sometimes unknown people can also be there in the friend list as there is no restriction that only known persons should become friends.

The personal information can be misused by anyone for illegal purpose making us to land in problem for the no mistake of ours. The purpose of socializing will lose meaning and it turns out to be something else by the series of problems occurring by the misuse. Try to keep the personal information to be accessed by the persons known to you quite well. It may not completely reduce the problem of misusing our personal information but certainly reduces to some extent.

The Social Networking Websites

Web 2.0 has changed our attitude towards life. Web 1.0 initially got popularity allowing only for one sided or half duplex mode of communication. It was only possible to read or see the contents uploaded on the server. Even having websites was a difficult task as the web hosting companies were rare and also the importance of web was not known much. Later web world has got transformed slowly into two sided or full duplex mode of communication in which both the readers and website owners can interact. Owning a website to upload personal content and images gained popularity. The two way communication between the readers and writers (website owners and bloggers) was termed as Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 also introduced the concept of social networking sites in which people can socialize or establish connections beyond geographical barriers! Social networking sites brought enormous changes in our lives. We are getting connected to our friends and relatives only through these online paradises. Totally unknown persons started to know about each other leading to friendship. There are many instances that friendships on social networking sites ended up in happy marriages and some times even death making us to think are we addicted to these more than required. At least few may remember of a woman committing suicide sharing the status of taking sleeping tablets. The status update was neglected and taken lightly by her friends but the woman lost the life sharing it on a social networking site! Even when the Carlton towers of Bangalore caught fire, the people inside the building were sharing the status of fire on their profiles.

Socializing on social networks has resulted in youngsters spending much time on these with a curiosity to know about others especially of opposite gender. Hormonal changes in the adolescent create a normal attraction towards opposite gender and social networking sites helping to know the likings of the others. It will be more interesting to know that one of the popular social networking website was developed in knowing the likings and the relationship status of a person whose plan was to ditch her boy friend.

Social Networking sites also help in keeping in touch with friends, classmates and colleagues. Also, create a platform to discuss things freely and get guidance. Last but not the least a new disease ‘Social Networking Disease’ abbreviated as ‘SND’ will be reported from some part of the world soon and it will have the symptoms of ‘over addiction to social networking sites or spending too much time on the social networking sites’.

'Google Power Search' by Stephan Spencer; O'Reilly Media

Google Power Search written by Stephan Spencer is a good book on getting what we want using the Google Search Engine refining the search strategies saving our time and energy (utilized going through the irrelevant web pages)

Google has been considered as the alternate name to the search engine. Anyone referring to searching something over the internet, he/she will certainly tell ‘give it on Google’ or ‘find on Google’. Even though there are many search refine strategies are there, we spend much time on browsing through irrelevant documents and words straining ourselves. Instead of that, refining our search strategy we can directly land on to the pages having the information what we want.

The book describes everything in an easy go manner. We can modify our search strategies using simple words along with the word given for querying. One good example is, for getting presentations on artificial intelligence we can give presentations on artificial intelligence filetype:ppts instead of only artificial intelligence which returns tons of pages not having presentations.

Many of the Google tools mentioned in the books are being used widely and a few tools like searching pages of a particular language and setting geographical boundaries using search settings option is new. The Google database saves the information on the pages which were removed. The Google Search Engine also includes the ‘Page Not Found’ in the search results which is not the case with the other search engines. The book also has information on some tools like currency converters, calculators useful in day to day life.

PS: Received the soft copy of the book from O'Reilly for the review purpose

Free books for the bloggers to review

Before buying anything all will like to have the review or feed back of product from the users. With the advancement in the Information Communication Technology (ICT) it has even become very easy to get feed back or review of users over the internet. Many dedicated websites are there solely for the purpose of providing users experiences with the products purchased either through online or through stores. Even there are discussion forums where one can discuss regarding which is the best store to order something!

Similarly with the purchasing of books whether it is online or from book shops buyers will like to know the nature of book. But in case the book is a new release to the market, demand will be there for the review of the book. There will be limited group of audience for purchasing technology related books. The book publishers will also like to get the review of the book from readers. An idea is to provide the soft copy or ebook to a writer or blogger freely and get the review of the book.

In a way the book reviewing is beneficial to the blogger also as his blog site address get published in the review sections of popular book stores website address and review websites, indirectly increasing the page views and popularity of the blog site.

Many publishers are coming up with the idea of giving free electronic version of the book or soft copy of the newly published book to the blogger with a demand of submitting the review about the same. There are some of the guidelines to be followed while writing the review but there is no compulsion that the review should be in favor of the book. Depending on the blogger’s reading experience he can write review.

I came across two websites supporting the book review program namely BookSneeze and O’Reilly blogger review program. On BookSneeze we can request for the hard copy of the book also but on O’Reilly one can request for the soft copy. At a time only one book can be requested and further requests will be considered only upon the submission of review of received book.

I feel it is a good program as bloggers will get benefitted by the free e-book and also gets a chance to express his views about the book. Also it doesn’t require spending few dollars (at least) to purchase the book and wait till it gets delivered.