Priyank Vira

Watch this video for a very interesting view point of Guy Kawasaki from Garage Technology Ventures. I don’t quite agree as to what he has to say but he brings forward a great topic to talk about. I will debate on this topic later.

Kawasaki’s viewpoint is not one shared by the majority of venture capitalists. Kawasaki sees the best candidates for a successful start-up are young engineers with no business experience.

About Guy Kawasaki
Guy Kawasaki is a founder and Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures. Prior to this position, he was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. and sits on the board of BitPass Inc. A noted speaker and the founder of various personal computer companies, Guy was one of the individuals responsible for the success of the Macintosh computer. He is also the author of eight books including Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way. Guy holds a B.A. from Stanford University and a M.B.A. from UCLA, as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

I found this really interesting article when I was reading through nettuts.

Should you attend University for Web Development?

I agree with some people who say that University’s are behind in technologies, and that you don’t learn as many languages when you get out of college. It is important to remember that University’s teach us the basics, and understanding of web development and programming. I think university is a very important part of your career. And, another important think to remember is that the degree holds a lot of value, and can be an important game changer when it comes to employment.

Here’s what Nettuts had to say:
We’re entering a unique age; an age where a simple Google search has the potential to replace professors. As students across the globe decide whether or not to spend massive sums of money - during a financial recession - to attend University this fall, they might find themselves asking, “Is it worth it?”

Especially in the web development world, it’s possible that the latest technologies and trends are being taught on blogs, rather than in the classroom. On a weekly basis, I receive emails from University students informing us that our “little ole’” blog has taught them more than their college professors. Considering the frequency at which these flattering emails occur, it does raise an interesting question: “Is University out-dated?”

Read more here…

HuffigtonPost has just reported Tom Hanks’ endorsement for Barack Obama. Barack Obama has a tough road ahead in the next two primaries especially after the Rev. Wright controversy. I feel it is important for him to win the Indiana and North Carolina primary to end Hillary’s hopes of moving ahead.

Here’s what was said in Huffigton Post:
Actor/activist who had given money to both the Illinois Senator and Clinton posts compelling video on his MySpace page explaining his choice.
read more

The world at the moment does not suffer from a shortage of superheroes. And yet in some ways the glut of anti-evil crusaders with cool costumes and troubled souls takes the pressure off of “Iron Man,” which clanks into theaters today ahead of Hellboy, Batman and the Incredible Hulk.

read more | digg story

The bounceback e-mail messages come in at a trickle, maybe one or two every hour. The subject lines are disquieting: “Cyails, Vygara nad Levytar,” “UNSOLICITED BULK EMAIL, apparently from you.”

read more | digg story

My usual mornings begin with me reading news for an hour or so everyday. One of my favorite website for news usually is BBC.com. Usually I skim through the headlines on my Firefox RSS Feeds. This morning I click on on the links for BBC.com and I find a new website. Its interesting how all the new website are moving to a very similar magazine style grid look with clear typefaces, making it very easy to read. The website structure seems to very similar, the only things that seemed to have changed is the way the page looks, the color scheme, more white with grey fonts. The navigation bar structure and content seems to be same, its simply replaced by new colors. The right side bar also seems to be the same except the link are font color are different. The bottom navigation column seems to look the same again, a different color scheme. So, it seems that the major changes in the new BBC website seems to the be color. I personally think having a white background with grey fonts makes the site look much clearer and easier to read, and I love the fact that finally the website is centered. I prefer websites that are centered. Oh, also the the website width seems to bigger then before. More and more websites are now keeping 1024 x 768px as the standard screen sizes.

Overall, I like the BBC new website, they changed the look and feel of the website without changing the site structure. This way the reader don’t have to worry about getting used to the website, and making it easier for people to read. I think I will come back more often.

PS. I think CNN.com and Time.com are two of the best News website, and I think next will be BBC for me.

My Ratings for BBC.com (Out of 5)
Rate of User Errors: 4
Since the site structure remains the same, the users don’t have to worry about getting used to the website, hence its hard for them to make mistake. The site structure is well organized with a heading so, its easy to find what you are looking for.

Speed of UI Performance: 5
The website loads fairly quickly. Even with high volume of readers, the website works fairly quickly without any time lag. The search responds fairly quickly, so my guess is the backend is fairly fast.

Time to Learn: 5
This the best thing I loved about the new BBC website if the fact that people don’t have to learn where their navigation or other things they are looking for in the website. The site structure has remained the same, so the readers don’t have to spend time learning, but rather enjoy the new color scheme. Even for new readers, the information is fairly organized making it easy to learn.

Retention of Skills: 4
As mentioned before the website is fairly organized with a great structure so it is easy for anyone to get used to the website, and they don’t have to remember how to navigate through the website. Most of the information is right in front of you, and there is a search bar if you can’t find what you are looking for.

BBC Website

Udeshi Inc. and JSK Entertainment proudly presents
Dandia Queen Falguni Pathak

October 7, 2006 8:00 pm.
at Maryland SoccerPlex, 18031 Central Park Circle, Boyds, MD 20841

Tickets : $25, $35, $50 ($5 discount available for tickets purchased by September 30, 2006)
Buy Online at http://www.desinites.com

For Information Call:
Priyank Vira: (202) 213 0344
Kirit Udeshi: 703-449-0772
Kashyap Sheth: 571-437-7203

or visit http://www.asianocean.com, http://www.desinites.com or http://jskentertainment.com

GMU ISA Bhangra Night: Let the dhol drive your soul.
Featuring DJ Zagreus and other guest DJs.
Tickets:
$2 for Members &
$5 for Non-Members
For more information contact us at contact@gmuisa.com

Please leave a reply if you plan to attend and wish to buy the ticket, please leave your full name and contact number where I can best reach you, and an email adress.

Thinking about pulling an all nighter? Before you do, read the article below:

A study on www.about.com offer these tips:

1. Plan ahead. Gather all the study materials and supplies you will need in advance. Take a nap early in the day before the big night. A one hour rest will make a big difference. Allow time at the end of your all-nighter to compose yourself. You want to be as lucid as you can be so you can focus on the task ahead.

2. Set an alarm. Set your clock or wristwatch to signal you at reasonable intervals to keep you on task.

3. Be careful about magic formulas for staying awake at night. Cat naps, coffee, chocolate, and caffeine pills work for some but have devastating results for others. Stimulants may get you through the night, but if you can’t concentrate or you’re so tired the next day that you can’t think straight, what’s the benefit? It might be best for you just to face the challenge and just take the test cold turkey.

4. Avoid getting too comfortable. Study at your desk or anywhere but on a soft bed or comfortable sofa. Study at an all-night diner if you have to.

5. Take five-minute breaks. When you begin to doze off, get up, stretch, take a walk, turn on the radio or TV for a few minutes or take a shower. This will clear your mind so you can focus better when you return to your studies.

6. Exercise. Do something to get your heart rate and energy level up. Don’t overdo it. Your priority here is to focus your energy on studying and concentrating, not exercising.

7. Cover all the material, even if you just skim it. If your choice is to know half of the material thoroughly or all of it superficially, pick option number two. Even a fleeting familiarity with some chapters of a textbook may be enough to allow you to wing it through part of an essay exam. Look for summaries and outlines. Then methodically divide the material into blocks and decide how much time you can afford to spend on each unit. Be ruthless.

8. Don’t do all-nighters often. You can manage a late night every once in a while, but a steady diet of all-nighters guarantees that you will be fighting off the drive to doze. Also, studies show that cramming results in little long term memory.

I know many people have been reading Dan Brown’s books after the success of ‘The Da Vinci Code’. I was reading Digital Fortress sometime back. It is a vert intresting story that involoves lot of technology and deals with some of the current issues like Privacy, government, and technology.

The book was intresting and thrilling, a worthy book if you like some action. The actions on the streets, and the actions running parallel to it in the crypto, made it quite intresting to read. But, as I read the book, I also saw that some of the things written on the basis of technology weren’t right or didnt make much sense.

The book is very intresting to read, he made a good presentation of ciphering but it seems that he was confused between codes and ciphering many a times. “Without wax” is a code, and is thereofore not subjected to decryption. Cryptographic key length is expressed in bits, but key lengths are often refered with diffrent length of characters. A character is usually measured as a byte, or eight bits. Adding a single bit to a key sometimes doubles the key space, and doubles the time neccessary to crack a given key. Therefore when expressed in characters, it would take them a lot of time to crack a key.

If your TRANSLTR superdecrypter is able to crack a 64 “character” key in ten minutes, a 65 character key will take about a day. A 66 character key will need about four months. However, in the book, a 10,000 bit key, which is equivalent to 1,250 bytes and roughly 20 times as long as your 64 byte key, only takes an hour. A key length a hundred times as long as the 10,000 bits takes only three hours. That doesn’t really make much sense to me. For the common reader’s who don’t have much knowledge in computers wouldnt really matter.

Next, comes the size of the TRANSLTR. In the books it says that the, the command center has 30 feet by 40 feet video wall, requires an excavation of 250 METRIC tons of earth, has a room that is only eight feet from front to back. I would say that the TRANSLTR is housed no more then 30feet wide and two hundred feet deep. Dan Brown talks about fire releasing oxygen, as long as I know Fire consumes oxygen, not necessarily release it. And “PGP” not an algorithm.

It doesn’t make any sense to create a virus for one of a kind computer, as viruses are meant to be reproduced. Viruses do not infect data, they simply corrupt it. What they had in the book was neither a virus or a worm either. It a trojan horse.

Without wax,
Priyank