Most Misread stories of 2009

2009 was year of Tech . Every month there was a breaking news. Right from Sun-Oracle deal till the Google chrome Mac version there are many breaking news came through.

This post summarizes some of the most misread stories of this year.

1. Google Chrome OS is a windows killer.

From the day of announcing the Google Chrome OS , this story surrounding in Internet. Too many sites and blogs written about it.

But the truth is Chrome OS is not a Windows killer, atleast for next 5 years...Read more here.

2. Java is Dead (after Sun-Oracle deal)

Many feared Java will die if Sun is bought by Oracle. Though the deal is not over yet its certain that Java is here to stay , at least for 2 reasons.

1. Java is most used language in server side programming and there is a large pool developers for java.

2. Java is released under GPL which means anyone can fork and develop it in the future

3.Bing to beat Google in search

When Microsoft search engine Bing launched , many wrote that is a highly innovative product and it will beat Google.

But the truth is that after one year of launch , Bing is only stealing market share from poor Yahoo not from the Google

4. Cloud computing will replace Desktop computing

Cloud computing is the most talked technology of this year. Companies like Google are backing the cloud computing as future compute padigrim.

Yes cloud computing will hold the future but its not going to replace Desktop as a whole at least for some coming years. So stick to your Desktop .

5.Linux is a Geek OS

Yes its true till Ubuntu came into Linux World. Ubuntu changed the look of the Linux from a geek OS to most user friendly OS. With the release of latest

Ubuntu 9.10(aka Karmic Kola) Linux is no more a geek OS.

So what you think about these stories? tell us

Cloud Services

It is the third article of the series "Cloud computing - not only for big boys".

In cloud computing world everything is service . So we say cloud employs a service - oriented deployment model.
There are 3 main type of services provided by the cloud and now they became the buzz words of cloud computing

SaaS (Software as a Service)

1. It is the most popular and well known service provided by the cloud

2. Here software is provided as a service over a network like Internet

3. No more software installation, configuration . All is done at cloud and you just need a browser to access it.

4. No more software licences . Payment is done in subscriptions

Some of well know SaaS are Google Docs , Zoho Office Suite

Check out more SaaS services here



PaaS (Platform as a service)


1. It is least known but emerging cloud service

2. It provides a platform for building different kind of software

3. It includes an operating system , middle-ware etc.

4. You can use a nice Operating system over Internet !. Check out a cloud OS here

Well know PaaS are Google App Engine , Amazon EC2


IaaS(Infrastructure as a service)

1. More useful for start-up companies who don't want to invest in high-end servers

2. It provides the storage facility for the users

3. One of the simple example of IaaS is storing our mails in GMail servers.

Well Know IaaS are Joyent, Esnips etc.

Many think SaaS is cloud computing . But cloud is more than that. Its a combination of different technologies.
Try cloud services and tell us what you think about them .

GMail Offline : Use with care

Google today graduated its Offline feature for GMail from Google Labs to main product.GMail off line lets user to use GMail when
they are not connected to the Internet.It uses Google Gears technology to store the emails in the user's machine.Its a competitor
to the products like Microsoft Outlook which are used for accessing email in absence of Internet.

But there is twist in the story. When you enable off line mode in GMail it stores emails in your systems and also installs a desktop
shortcut. So if you are in off line and if you click on that shortcut you will be shown page as below

OMG!! It only asks for user name....not mention of password!!!.

It means if your laptop or netbook stolen , thief can access all your off-line messages by just entering your username. Its a serious threat since GMail off line feature holds key in its fore coming Chrome OS.It lacks the password locking facility provided by the products like Outlook.

So think before you enable off-line feature in your account .

Cloud computing as I see (Interesting views of different people about cloud computing)

It is the second article of cloud computing series “Cloud computing – Not only for big boys” .

This article brings you some of the interesting quotes about cloud computing by different people. Article will show how there are many different views about the cloud computing.

“I think whether you’re an enterprise or an individual, it rarely makes sense for you to have your own buildings, fiber cables and infrastructure. It takes a lot of time and effort to

maintain. Ultimately, your resources are available to you wherever you are, and you want those things there. There’s an economy of scale that makes that easier and more powerful because there’s a lot of interoperability that’s not otherwise possible.

There’s less time-burn in managing your digital life”. - Sergey Brin , Google Co-founder

“We believe that the cloud is a game-changing paradigm shift” - Lanham Napier , Rackspace CEO

“It's stupidity. It's worse than stupidity: it's a marketing hype campaign

One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control” - Richard Stallman,FSF founder

"The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we've redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do. I can't think of anything that isn't cloud computing with all of these announcements. The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It's complete gibberish. It's insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?".

"We'll make cloud computing announcements. I'm not going to fight this thing. But I don't understand what we would do differently in the light of cloud."

- Larry Ellison , Oracle CEO

“ Cloud computing is the future of Open Source” - Jonathan Schwartz, CEO , Sun Microsystems

“In the extreme case, we can take some body's data center and run it for them on the cloud. All the issues about administrative, capacity, who owns the data, what happens when things go wrong, when people are getting error messages, that's cloud computing and there is a lot of deep invention and work”

- Bill Gates ,Co-founder of Microsoft

If you came across any other interesting quotes , feel free to share with us.

Google Chrome OS- a different ball game

Google Chrome OS is making waves in the both technical and business community. Released for the developers in last week , there is different types of views about this new Google operating system.Some feel that its just another Linux clone and some feel it will great threat to the MS Windows. But the Google Chrome OS targets a very different Kind of market and users.

Cheap Devices to Connect to Internet

There are some of the users who primary use the system just as a gateway to connect to the Internet. Netbooks are one of this type. But the prices of the netbook relatively high because of two reasons

1. The standard hardware which cost a lot , but used less often Ex: Hard disk space, Graphic cards etc
2. Operating system and other software costs which are primary not useful in Net books Ex:Licencing for Windows Operating system , Microsoft Office etc

But Google Chrome promises to change all this . It doesn't uses the bulky hard disks since all the data will be stored in Cloud . It doesn't comes with any OS licences since Google Chrome OS is an open source and free Operating system.So the devices running Chrome OS will relatively cheaper which gives option to buy theses devices for accessing Internet services

More People means More space to sell Ads

Cheap devices bring more users to the Internet. It will give the Google an opportunity to target their ads to more people . Even they can display the ads in the application inside the Chrome OS. This is where all the business comes from .

Not an Windows replacement , but tries to make Windows obsolete

Google chrome OS is not a Windows replace. It never intended to be . But its primarily focus to make windows obsolete and give the end users to an truly alternative.No more users to depend upon the bulky Windows or less user friendly Linux just to run the browser.

In future we can see more devices running Chrome OS , which will be very cheap and light weight.

So do you think Chrome holds the future?

P. S If you are interested in testing Chrome OS , download VMWare image from here

Introduction to Cloud computing

It is the first article of cloud computing series “Cloud computing – Not only for big boys"

Cloud computing is every where . You can read or see hundreds of articles written about it . But most of them are more focused on technical and buisness details. This series takes a diffrent approach . We try to present the cloud computing in a simple , realastic and in end user point of view.

Rather than explaining what the cloud computing all about, I will try to answer the some of intresting questions I face when I talk about cloud computing.

1. Can you explain simply what is cloud computing all about (Other than what i read in Wikipedia)?

In simple terms cloud computing is “some one do the all job for you ...Just pay him as you use his service “.

Everything is service in cloud computing . You just pay for what you use.

2. What is cloud doing in computers?

Cloud is a methphor for the Internet. Since all the services are delivered over internet

we call this type of computing as cloud computing.

3. Is cloud computing is ground breaking technical revolution of this century?

No. Cloud computing is a not a new techonology revolution. It just using existing technologies in diffrent ways .Thats it.

4. Why there is so much buzz around the cloud computing these days?

There are two reasons for that

1. Cheap Internet access, increasing use of notebooks and smart phones, increased usage of Internet
2. Backing by big companies like Google , Amazon . When big companies talk it makes a lot of noise.

5. Is cloud computing related to satellites?

No. It has nothing to do with satellites.

6. Am I using cloud computing?

Yes. If you are using email,chating or other services over internet you are already using cloud computing

7.If cloud computing is all about Internet , then what is new in it?

The main diffrence in cloud computing is the business model. In earlier we purchased the software and bought its licence,update for patches, upgraded the hardware when the application wanted more etc ...But in cloud computing no more installations, maintance or updating. All are done by the cloud providers . Even you don't buy a licence . You pay for in subscription basis .

8 .Can you give an example of new business model?

If you want to use Microsoft Office first you have to buy the licence and install it on your system and keep updating...License may expire for 1 or two years.

But if you want use Google Docs (a cloud computing word processing suite ) you just subscribe for the serive and pay $50 for one year for one user

So tell us what you think about cloud computing......

10 Most influential men in Computer Field

This post gives a small introduction to the most influential people in computer field.

1.Charles Babbage : He is known as Father of Computers. He was an English Mathematician ,mechanical engineer who invented the first mechanical computer. His invention led to the growth of modern computers. Read more about him athttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage

2.John von Neumann :He was a Hungarian American mathematician who gave the architecture of a modern digital computers which is know as von Neumann architecture .This architecture is used even today from desktop computers to the super computers. Read more about him at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann

3.Gordon Moore : He is one-of pioneer in the field of semi conductors and co-founder of Intel .His biggest contribution is the Moore Law which described how the speed of processor increases with the number of transistors. It his vision which made possible Intel to create the fastest microprocessors. Read more about him at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Moore .

4.Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson : They are the creator of Unix ,a widely used OS and the father of Linux. The another contribution of Dennis Ritchie is the “C programming language “ which changed the way of programming.Read more about them at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Ritchie

5.Richard Stallman :Father of Free software movement .Its his vision that is the driving force behind the Free and open source software .He also founded the GNU which is a non-profit organization which makes the tools for Linux and Unix. Read more about him at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman .

6.Bill Gates : Co-founder of Microsoft. His vision of “a desktop of every desk” is greatly achieved by the Windows operating system which best known for its easy usability. Read more about him at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates

7.Bill Joy : He is a computer scientist from America. He is one of the co-founder of Sun MicroSystems. He created a Unix shell called 'C shell' at the age of 17!!!.The shell became famous as “Joy of Unix”.His other contributions are vi editor(the most popular editor in Unix and Linux),Java,BSD Unix,TCP/IP stack which made Internet possible .Read more about him at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Joy

8.Linus Torvalds : He is Finnish software engineer who created the Linux kernal in 6 months!!.Linux changed the computer industry with storm since it runs in a small hand help phone to a big super server computer .Read more about him at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds

9.Larry Page and Sergey Brin : The founders of the Internet search engine Google. Their vision of “organizing the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful “ is greatly achieved by the Google search engine.

The Google changed the face of Web. It made every one to have access to the information which is benefiting the millions and millions of the people throughout the world. Read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google

10.Mark Shuttleworth :Founder of canonical Ltd which provides the Ubuntu operating system. Ubuntu played a major role in bringing Linux to the desktop. It is know for its usability and stability. Read more about him at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Shuttleworth

Next post is about woman at Informatic's History. See you soon...

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