A blog about C# and other interesting stuff

 

Peter Bromberg’s blog is the blog to visit if you wish to read about varied topics right from Politics to C#. And, his views on politics are extremely interesting. Not that others are not, but, his views are more than interesting as they take you right into the core issue and he provides a solution. His post titled “Doomed to repeat history” brings out the point which many in US around the world fail to acknowledge. The bush administration did indeed protected Americans from any attack for seven years.

Started back in 2004, when blogging probably really took off, Peter has posted more than 500 posts. The blog posts on C# and programming, and general computer usage tips are very useful to all. He covers various topics on programming such as registry, IIS, backups, getting a software for free, web config files, explorer shortcuts, and f#.

A man can be judged by his actions. I believe he can also be understood by the quotation he likes. Peter has around 43000 quotes, all stored in a database his site :  myidentityplus.com. Constantly adding new posts, with a wide topic range always to the point, and willing to link back Peter’s blog truly participates in the philosophy of the internet “An interconnected world”.

Peter Bromberg’s blog is the blog to visit if you wish to read about varied topics right from Politics to C#. And, his views on politics are extremely interesting. Not that others are not, but, his views are more than interesting as they take you right into the core issue and he provides a solution. His post titled “Doomed to repeat history” brings out the point which many in US around the world fail to acknowledge. The bush administration did indeed protected Americans from any attack for seven years.
Started back in 2004, when blogging probably really took off, Peter has posted more than 500 posts. The blog posts on C# and programming, and general computer usage tips are very useful to all. He covers various topics on programming such as registry, IIS, backups, getting a software for free, web configfiles, explorer shortcuts, and f#.
A man can be judged by his actions. I believe he can also be understood by the quotation he likes. Peter has around 43000 quotes, all stored in a databasehis site :  myidentityplus.com.

Constantly adding new posts, with a wide topic range always to the point, and willing to link back Peter’s blog truly participates in the philosophy of the internet “An interconnected world”.

 

 

Useful topics for ASP.Net application developer

This post is about the topics a programmer has to be thorough with when he/she is about to be begin developing an ASP.Net Database driven Application. The topics and a brief introduction about the topic with a link to web resources is given below.

1.  Server Controls

2.  Validation Controls

3.  State Management

4.  Master Pages

5.  Site Navigation

6.  Themes

7.  Autentication

8.  Gridview controls

9.  User Interface design

10. Enforcing Validation programmatically

11.  Error Pages

12.  Data Sources

13.  Detail View controls

14.  Form View controls

15.  Setting properties of controls

16.  Using Field Validation

17.  Displaying reports in a form

 

The best site for information on ASP.Net

A good thing MS did is to have a dedicated site for ASP.Net.  This is the official Microsoft site for ASP.Net. Includes links for downloading AJAX, ASP.Net framework and Visual Developer and has a bing search bar at the top.

A new book on developing ERP software

A new book on developing ERP software using VB, SQL for the .Net platform was released last month. Features include developing software using layers which enables easy porting of the app onto the Web.

Covers Accounting, Manufacturing, Purchase, Sale and Inventory modules. Useful for those who are developing software (erp) for factories and companies.

More about the book can be seen here ERP Software development using VB and SQL

Satyam – Asatyam

Satyam computers is (was?) thought of as a younger brother of the big ones – Infosys, Wipro, and TCS. This view was more prevalent among the public and investors.

But, anyone who worked at Satyam knew the company was walking on a thin edge. Or anyone who followed trends  with a bit of caution.  The news that Satyam is sick and the Chairman admitting that he cheated everyone shows that that everything was not hunky dory. If Google is growing, climbing up the pyramid, it is bound to start hitting at the OS space, occupied by Microsoft. After limited results of the Google Desktop and Chrome, Google has opened up another front with its Android OS. So, when we do not see any kind of public announced strategies, tactics, and service improvements, etc. it is time to take stock and be alert.

On the other hand, there was an eeriee similarity when the quarterly results ( :-< ) were announced by the four top IT companies. The percentage of profits on sales were similar, there was a similarity in general trends  (increase or decrease in growth) etc. Combine this with the fact that there are few IT companies apart from the top four with high growth and huge sales, govt. should have become alert and saved hundreds of small investors from loosing their hard earned savings.

Most of what Satyam has been saying about itself is ‘Asatyam’.

The recruitment scenario and health of IT Industry in India

Given the secretive nature of Indian IT industry, it is difficult to make an estimate of the real goings on in the companies. Of all the indicators available recruitment, attrition, general opinion of employees (if you can get any) and announcements are used to make quick assesments.

Of late, companies have given a slower guidance on recruitment indicating that things are not hunky dory.

NASSCOM has also indicated a true picture, for once, by saying that recruitment is slow.

What knowledgeable people are asking what about the existing staff. Is attrition also a problem or a bigger problem now?

Link building scam

When Google thought of Links as a means to judge a site, they would never have imagined the magnitude of link building scams they would have indirectly helped to grow and fool the gullible website owners.

People who have been watching how this link building story has developed, will have seen how text-link-ads.com and textlinkbrokers.com sites and many other sites have been penalized for selling links. (text-link-ads.com has since recovered and page rank is back in place). The rule google seems to be following is that – any link purchased for boosting page rank is not acceptable. So, to the question of how to tell google that a link is a bought link is to include the rel=’nofollow’ tag. So, a directory which includes a rel tag is legit. By including the tag, no link juice is passed on from the directory and so no boost to page rank. However, you still get the traffic. This is surely going to dissuade the text link buyers, as they will not get any link juice but only link traffic.

There are some some directories which still value highly. One example is yahoo directory. http://dir.yahoo.com

A listing in yahoo directory under a category chosen by an editor, may not boost page rank, going by the google rule stated above. But, there may other benefits which in turn could boost page rank. The one benefit which i have observed is the number of pages google crawls and the frequency with which it crawls your website. A listing in yahoo has a beneficial effect.

Listing in any other directories may not bring much either in terms of page rank boost or higher web traffic.

Some seo experts state that listing in niche directories is still valued by Google. While this statement looks logically correct, it still does not hold when you apply the Google no page rank for links purchased. In fact, I see a subtle effort by certain seo blogs to keep some directories alive by recommending them.

But web site owners have to see that it is not always possible to get a link without exchanging something with other website owners. In fact, Google has no problem if you create a link resource page with links and a brief text to sites which are based on the same theme as yours. Also, you can always exchange links with websites which have same theme and topics as yours. So, if exchanging is ok, buying a link should be too, as long as you do not over do it. Buying a link, may be easier in a few cases, but not always. And a webaster of a website which has high rank may not want to link to all sites, unless he/she is sure . Remember buying a link from a website owner with your same theme is easier said than done.

Where does this leave our link building experts. Remember a link building expert will probably have created an inventory of websites from which it is possible to get links. Now, to serve you, for your website with a particular with a particular theme, a link building expert has to search and create a new inventory of websites with relevance to your website. All this means, a link building expert has to work full time for getting you links on a continuous basis. This in turn means that link building is an expensive and out of reach for small and medium website owners. So, all the low cost link building services you see on Google and Yahoo are many a times not worth the money.

So, where does this leave the text link brokers ?

Let us recall that Google hates any kind of patterns in your incoming links.  By hiring text link brokers and other such inventory based agents, you are putting yourselves under risk, you and your competitor may be getting links from similar sources. In future, the risk may turn out to be a grave risk as Google may go hard on link buyers. If you consider how the whole link building story has progressed, you will see that Google started discounting links with same anchor text. Google has now started discounting links which are purchased. Google also discounts links which are from forums and free web pages, unless the free web pages are having a high page rank. Google discounts links from directories.

So, be aware of any expert who says i will get you links for $100 per month or $300 per month, because, link building involves, writing great content, identifying web sites which are relavent to your website, contacting the web master, offering a proposal, negotiating and following up to ensure that the terms are honoured. This is a full time work which cannot be done as a part time service.

So, how did http://www.text-link-ads.com get back its rank ? You will have known the answer ….

Indian BPO – IT companies watch out..

1. Scale is important. If you look at the top grossers, all are players with huge investments. So, Indian companies have to scale up to keep getting business.

2.Russian programmers are good at math and offering better and high services up the value chain.

3.English speaking countries like Phillipinos are catching up.

4.China is fast catching up increasing – engineers, coupled with creating cities with an ecosystem of engineers, educational institutions etc.

5.Value chain- Climbing up the value chain. Easier said than done. Ability to hire experts and mix it up with hectic and powerful lobbying. Should have an inspirational leader.

6.Keep customer requirements in view and serve customers.

Six Things that changed India – Since 1991.

Mr. Nandan Nilekani on 6 things that changed India:

1. Globalization embraced
2. The technology revolution
3. Change in democracy
4. The power of English
5. Entrepreneurship gains acceptance
6. Gigantic human capital

I have my own six things that changed India.

Earlier to 1991 – India was a underdeveloped / developing country. And unwilling to capitalize on global opportunities. The first and other things that allowed India to change are:

1. World Bank stipulation of liberalization vis a vis further urgently needed funds.

2. Available of capital via IPO’s

3. Inability of the govt. to interfere in the IT Sector. No Transport, no Reservation, no funding required via financial institutions.

4. Large sections of people willing to do hard work in IT sector – as it gave social respect.

5. Rampant corruption. This has also driven growth. The disparity in wealth distribution in India is because of corruption at all levels. The law abiding honest Indian is at a disadvantage.

6. The openness of the US economy. Ability to absorb people with varied skills and outsource work which is cheaper to other places.

I am not  a multi millionaire, so my views are for consideration only..

Infosys breaks silence…

Infosys breaks silence. The going is getting tough. Thus spoke Nandan Nilekeni in an interview. He also added that when the going gets tough the tough get going. Well said. And brave too. IT industry from being a 100 million industry in 1991, is today a 50 billion dollar industry.

Infosys, it seems has first ensured that its expenses are controlled. Firstly, the campuses are being made more eco friendly. Less power consumption is the motto. Experts have been called to setup a low power consumption infrastructure. I suspect that use of sunlight will be encouraged with plenty of solar units being installed. Good.

The second one being Infosys is working on reducing HRA allowances where ever possible by asking its employees to move into campus residential quarters a la Central Employees. This should bring some cheer to salaried middle class employees staying in smaller towns, where Infosys is located. In Mysore for instance, Infosys has asked its staff to move into campus residences. This will clear 300 to 400 houses and thereby reduce pressure on real estate. A friend of mine staying in Mysore, earning about 22k per month tells me that the indiscriminate renting by Infosys employees has caused owners to jack up rentals to high levels and thereby creating problems for others.

Infosys, may have put a ceiling on other expenditures and it is a question of time others start doing the same, unless they are already quietly doing it.