My point of View

Blog Shifted

2009-03-06T22:52:00.001+05:30

My blog is shifted to http://vishalgadkari.com/blog .

Sorry for the inconvenience ...

Can India survive this Recession - Part 1

2008-11-20T17:57:00.001+05:30

A few months earlier all industries were relax & booming but suddenly this recession took over this boom. Now the industries are just trying to survive this dangerous phase.

And now in the wake of a looming US recession, India's IT sector seems to be hitting the panic button. After announcing a cut in the employees' salaries, IT major TCS saw 500 of its employees soon after a performance appraisal.

IBM too has laid off around 700 entry-level trainee programmers across offices in India on the basis of performance. More IT companies are now looking at strict cost cutting measures. Salary hikes and bonuses are also likely to come down in the IT sector.

Information from within the company, retrieved by Conrad and others, points to 1,000 layoffs in IBM's Server Division, 700 in its Software Group, 100 in its Global Financing unit, 360 at corporate headquarters, 300 in its Storage division and more than 2,000 in the company's largest single unit, IBM Global Services. [source]

Wipro, the top Indian IT Giant, has decided to go for a massive Wipro Lay off. As per the news that has come out, it seems that Wipro has fired around one thousand people citing non-performance. That constitutes around 4 to 5 % of the entire Wipro Workforce which have been put under the scanner for performance reviews.

Some Facts ...

TCS has shown the door to ~500 employees (~2-3 years of work experience), citing performance issues.

IBM laid off ~700 employees (mostly freshers) citing…? “performance in aptitude tests that were recently conducted in undisclosed IBM India locations.”

In another news, TCS cut the employee wage (across the board, I believe), since it couldn’t meet the EVA (Economic Value Added) targets.

“Its too tough to work under this types of pressure, even we are not able to concentrate on our work “ are the word of patni employee.

This recession has also had a great impact on the recruitment processes that take place in different colleges. Many colleges are waiting for these big companies to hire their students but companies are not even turning to college, instead of hiring fresher’s they are removing their experienced staff. Students who were selected in campus are waiting for appointment letter, while some companies have even cancelled their appointment.

"The campus recruitment has slowed down a lot, its almost 2 months now no company have come for campus recruitment " said a student of Pccoe.

HR consultants have also started feeling the heat as not many companies are recruiting in these days.

I have even heard that some big companies are now even taking low cost projects to survive in this situation.

Two days before India's Finance ministry P.CHIDAMBARAM said that the effect of recession will slow down in six months and the revenue will be stable in total 9 months time. I still wonder on what bases he said that .

Nobody thought that it will last for so long, but it has been over 6 months now and still no change infact the situation is getting worse and worse. If big name are included in the hit list think of the small firms.

To be continue.......

[in part 2 : some exclusive interviews]

Developer Garage Second Meet

2008-11-17T16:52:00.000+05:30

To discuss on various points 2nd meet of Opensocial Developer Garage was called on 15th November 08 at ICC tower Pune. I (Vishal), Rohan, Amit kumar, Privin Nirmal, shardul, Aman, Anish and also Arapana and Mayur of India I Care joined us in this meet.

First half we spent on discussing scope of the application that we want to build at this conference through code lab. We finalized to create an application for India I care. Shardul explained us about the idea and Aparna and Mayur were present from India I care. At the end, decision was taken that the Database and UI part of the application should be completed before the event.

Later on we discussed on Venue i.e Thoughtworks , who are venue sponsors. Later discussion happened on sessions, speakers and sponsors. Then we had a small discussion about advertising and doing PR for the event and advertising through newspaper was the best option selected we thought and decided to do the same. We also decided to charge application owners for presenting their application at “Application Showcase”. There will be a nominal charge and they will also get place at our site. We are going to contact few more companies who we think would like to sponsor this event. After all our aim is to give quality knowledge to all developers and that too Free of cost. Below points we concluded

i. There will be around 12 session at two prallel tracks.

ii. Application development will be done at Codelab. Others can see this code development on a projector. At the end of day, this application code will be shown and explained to all developers.

iii. Application showcase will give chance to application owners to advertise their application.

After the meet I (Vishal), Rohan, Amit, Pravin and Shardul decided to have lunch together.

My Own Networking Site

2008-11-12T16:09:00.004+05:30

You must have seen plenty of social networking sites. Even you must be using some of them.
I have added one more to the list of soooo many social networking site by creating my own social networking site named latelatif . So if are not punctual or even if you are punctual and want to share some stories join it.

All you un-punctual ppl join and meet your friends..

Travel To IOFC Center.. Panchgani

2008-11-11T20:26:00.000+05:30

Most of the activities for Opensocial Developer Garage had caught pace but the question of which application to be developed for the CodeLab event still remained a mystery. So shardul came up with the idea of developing the application titled India I care.

India I care A Campaign to Replenish “The Character Bank Of India” located at panchgani. Millions of Indians battle poverty and oppression o a daily basis,their lives in darkness with few signs of hope. Corruption, division, injustice have eaten into the heart of this great civilization. Unless we shift the ‘me-first’, ‘me-only’ mindset from ‘grab’ to ‘give’, our economic growth will only create bigger graps in our country and we’ll wreck our chances of making this nation truly great.

So to help the nation they came up with an idea of “character bank of India”. Its a virtual bank where people make deposits , the deposits will not be in the form of money but in the form of oath. Like if a person says “He’ll not give or take bribes” and for some reason he has to come across a situation where he/she were forced to give or take bribe but resisted, thus making a difference, this act would be qualified as a person’s deposit. He/She can even make multiple deposits at a time, this deposits if followed by every person can bring change in them as well as surroundings and slowly in whole nation.

Shardul had previous discussions with arpana about the CodeLab event and the application we could develop during CodeLab. So to discuss this application she called us to their iofc centre panchgani . I (Vishal) and shardul went to the iofc centre on Sunday 9^th November 08 were Arpana welcomed us. Arpana wanted to give us some idea about India i care , before actually going through the application they needed to make. So she showed us the whole centre that covers an area around 60 acres and explained every bit of it.

Then we meet Mayur,Priya, Mr.Mike Brown who’s father had created and donated the whole architecture of asia plateau. During our lunch we actually started discussing about the application. We first gave short description about what is the event about and how can codelab would benefit them.

After lunch we took their views regarding the application. There were plenty of features would could add to application but due to restriction in time we had to cut short and focus on only the crucial aspects of the app.We prepared a rough design so that we could share it with other organizers.

After plenty of corrections, confusion, arguments and thought regarding the final product we had a mockup ready on the white board. We all were so excited about the application and event that nobody amongst us got bored during the entire course of the discussion. The whole discussion lasted for around 6 hrs with 2 breaks.

We left asia plateau at 6.15 pm with the promise of making the application possible and fully developed during the CodeLab of Developer Garage.

Opensocial Developer Garage

2008-11-06T17:39:00.008+05:30

A group of OpenSocial enthusiasts from pune have come together and are planning an event Developer Garage in pune on 20th December 2008. The main aim is to unite all the Social Web Apps Developers from all over the country and just share/code/have fun and maybe inspire a few.

Its an invite only event and only 200-250 people will be invited. So just log on to http://developergarage.in and register yourself to book your sits for the event.

If you are a speaker, please fill speakers registration form. Speakers will be chosen prior the event and the names and topic of the speakers will be known to you in advance.

The venue of the event is yet to be finalized.

we are still looking for sponsors, so that event will be a free affair for participants. If you are willing to the sponsor the event do check the budget requirements.

All the discussions regarding Opensocial Developer Garage will happen at http://groups.google.com/group/developergarage

Please message us or post reply here, if you are interested developergarage@gmail.com.

Snap of first coffee meet -

From Left to Right: Pravin, Vishal, Amit, Shardul, Sandeep, Rohan, Priyank and Amit Karpe

Barbeque Nation

2008-10-21T22:53:00.011+05:30

If you are a food lover and that to specially you are non-vegetarian and also you love to try food at different place then make Barbeque Nation your next destination.

Barbeque Nation, the first of its kind restaurant in India to offer a “Live Grill on the Table”

Before planning note some important points:
1. If you plan to go,plan it min 3 days in adv,dont plan it on the spot.
2. If you plan it on the spot, then be prepared to get disappointed cos depending on the crowd you'll get the table.
3. So instead book you table in advance and be tension free.
4. The most important "Try to be as much hungry as you can". So you can enjoy the food.

The rate per head is Rs. 400/- (plus taxes, which totals to around Rs. 450/-). They have a well stocked bar and with the comfortable seating, be prepared to spend a good few hours here with good company. What you get is: Unlimited serving of starters (veg. And non-veg) (of course vegetarians can ask not to served the non-veg starters). A buffet spread for the main course to attack and at the end dont forget to have some deserts. Dont need to worry of water its free and that to its mineral water.

They put up a hot Barbeque right on your table and let you play with the skewers and roast your food to perfection and enjoy it with a choice of Barbeque sauces.

Besides, there's also a good spread on the buffet, both veg and non-veg, salads, Chinese, pasta, Indian and to top it all some good choice of desserts and fresh fruits!!

On the table you`ll also find Barbeque sauce,Barbeque oil and some brushes. Apply the sauce for additional taste and if u think grilled items have become very dry apply some oil to it and keep it on the Barbeque.

We had booked our table 4 days in advance.We reached Barbeque at around 12.15pm, it was sunday,so obviously it was going to crowed. When we reached there were only 3 family's , so i took this opportunity and ask the waiter if i can take some snaps as i am a photo freak.And i took some snaps until another waiter came and told me that it was not allowed to take snaps. It was amazing that one said yes and other said no to take snaps..

Well coming back to barbeque..The ambiance was too good. The way they had arranged the food was lovely. The new concept i saw here was a mind blowing. There was a flag on which it was written "Kindly Turn Down To Discontinue Starter Services". Until your flag is standing they(waiters) will come to server you the starters. When its turn down they wont turn upto u. I should say Great Concept.

First drinks was complimentary.You can order any drink you want from Lemon juice to moctail and from red wine to whiskey. After our drinks/juices were completed, it was time to start with our lunch.

First they brought chicken soup. It was ossam, hot and tasty. Then started the ummy starters.They Stareted with some grilled chicken, fish and my favorite prawns. They just keep on bringing the skewers with chicken,fish and prawns and keep them on the hot Barbeque attached to our table and take away the empty skewers.

They even served the salad which had plenty of variety. You can make it out by looking at the pic.

Once i was satisfied with chicken & fish i told the waiter to bring only prawns, as i love prawns very much. The prawns were very fresh and soft, ya and even they tasted great.

Only the starters were served on the table, for the main course and deserts there was buffet. There were so many option to eat for the main course that i was confused.But i wasnt much interested in the main course so i turned my attention towards deserts and sweets.

Again too many options. Mix fruits,cake,sweets,cookies,deserts(vanilla),Gulab Jam(small and hot) etc. i dont remember other items. The best of all was the cake,it was so tasty that i wasnt able to control and took it again even when my stomach was tight. Desert was the next to be followed and gulab jam was the third one. It doesnt mean other items were not good.

We were there for nearly 4 hrs. You be with anyone there, even with your childrens everyone will enjoy there. The staff was bit more attentive and prompt.They were very kind with everyone.

Barbeque Nation is located in Khar(mumbai), Thane ,Bangalore ,Hyderabad, Gurgaon, Chandigarh , Chennai , New Delhi , Pune ,Lucknow ,Jaipur Ahmedabad , Vadodara.

To experience something different and unusual surely visit Barbeque Nation. But make sure you reserve you seats in advance.

BarCamp Mumbai Day2

2008-10-08T12:58:00.012+05:30

Day 1 of the Barcamp was great. Now the expectation from day 2 was little high.

I and kiran reach IIT at 12.30pm, i wasn't so late because the day 2 session started at around 11.00 am. I missed seed fund session, but it was ok for me as i heard that guys session at proto.in in Delhi. By the time i reached the session on photo connection had already began. It was totally a new concept i have seen. They showed some slides which had a song playing at background of it. The pics where from different flickr users account. Lyrics of the song were perfectly matching the photos. The thing they want to prove through this was that everyone should share their pics as they can be useful to others ( Ya but you should have the copyright of all the pics so no body can stole that pics & and if any body stoles that you can sue them.)

By the time they finished there session it was 1pm that means lunch time. We searched for the lunch table for 5 min but we didnt find it any were, so i thought today we should go to the canteen and have our lunch. But then we saw some pizza guys and the organizers announced that today , Pizza and soft drink is for lunch. They had both Veg & Non-veg pizza and Pepsi and Miranda as soft drinks.

The thing i liked of today's lunch was the food was not at all wasted,the organizers counted the number of ppl attended the 2nd day and ordered the pizza. It was less expensive for them as well as less wastage of food. Gr8 Job organizers !!!

After lunch raxit took a session on community building. After raxit’s session it was again rohan and Shardul who make everyone aware of the forthcoming events in pune. And even they told about the Developer Garage that will be held in pune on 20th December ’08 and also about the Drupal Camp and Joomla Day that will be followed after Developer Garage.

At around 5pm the organizer of barcamp explained the procedure ,experienced and the tough time they went through to make this Barcamp Mumbai Successful. They even as for the feedback from everyone, where everyone shared the +ve and –ve (not much pts in –ve side) side of the 2 day event.

After everything was over i was about to leave when i saw some thing very strange that immediately this line came in my mind ..

“BARCAMP BENEFITS EVERYONE EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT TECHIE”

Barcamp Mumbai Day 1

2008-10-05T22:26:00.012+05:30

We (Rohan, kiran, vipul and myself) reached thane the day before the event and (Vijaya and priyanka) went to andheri. It was a nice feeling that i was back home after a long time but i was more excited as i was going to attend my first ever barcamp. I had heared a lot about BarCamp but was going to experience for the first time.

We had decided to meet at IIT campus at 9 am .. vijaya and priyanka made it on time, i was late by 15 min but rohan and vipul who were going to reach IIT by 8.30 were late by only 1 and 1/2 hrs.

When we reached i saw that not much ppl had come till 9.30 only the organisers were there. So i took out my camera capture the organiser preparing everything from registration book, to banners etc.

Well but i would like to appreciate the Sprite of the organisers that even when it was so hot out there they were enthusiastic.
So we then decided to take some snaps of our team until they complete pre-registration process.

By around 10 the pre-registration process were completed and the actual registration process had started, so we all immediately rushed to spot and got registered ourselves and we got a pen, a notepad and even a t-shirt. Around 10.30 the crowd had began to gathered. After that the 2 rooms were decided where the session would be held (IRCC it was an AC room, IC1 was a non-ac room) and KIWI and CANARY the name of birds where used for BOF (Birds Of Feather) sessions in the openspace around.

Immediately the guys who want to give some session gathered to acquired the slots, We took two slots one at 12.30 and that was for the demo of our app on orkut and other slot for youCharades which we had done for c2w.

After the introduction of the speakers , the first session began at 11 am.
The first session was very interesting ,it was about blog marketing .He told various ideas to make ur blog popular and the ways make them good enough so that everyone read it..

The second was of some guy from Sun ,on Sun Startup essential and the third was of some guy from Opera on Mobile Web Trends. The Forth was ours , Housie and rohan showed the demo of the game and we got plenty of feedback (+ve that too )
and alot of suggestions. It was the first totally interactive session of barcamp (I think so).

The important thing was that the press was also there to cover the event. After Housie demo Rohan was interviewed by ITN mumbai (its a news channel in mumbai). Many more speakers were interviewed.
The lunch time started at around 1 pm. The delicious food was from rajdhani and was packed like a box of sweets, but the main point is the food was ossam.

After lunch it was youCharades demo. The c2w game created by socialwebfactory. plenty of interactive sessions followed after that.

Abhishek thakkar took a session of HTML,CSS it was a wonderful session got so much to learn and even that session solved my plenty of problems.As we were not much interested to attend any session anymore, we meet some techie ppl and had some conversation with them.

There was this wonderful concept Naukri wiki, were the ppl who have job or want to recruit someone with the some skill pasted the requirements of this naukri wiki..

It was 6 in the evening when i realised that its time to go home and get ready for the next days sessions. The overall experience of my first BarCamp was too good, everyone those who shared their thoughts or even knowledge were very down to earth. Its was good to see ppl sharing knowledge , Ideas and even the response and the feed back the speaker used to get after his session.

Read Day 2 events Tomorrow evening........

BarCamp Mumbai ' 08

2008-10-05T21:55:00.003+05:30

BarCamp is an network of user generated Unconferences open, workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants — often focusing on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies, social protocols, and open data formats.

Where: October 4-5, 2008

Where: IIT Mumbai , Powai

Barcamp Mumbai - http://barcampmumbai.org/

Open social Coffee Meet

2008-09-29T11:33:00.004+05:30

27th September 2008 we had Open Social Coffee meet at ICC Level 9. We were total 9 of us gathered to discuss about Developer Garage and planning for other activities which will be happening i next few months.

The meeting was attend by Rohan Dighe, Shardul Mohite,Amit Karpe,Rakshit, Pravin,Prasoon Kumar, Amit Kumar Singh, Priyank. The main target of this meet was , how and what things are important to make 1st Open Social Developer Garage'08 successful.

MOM,

1. Open Social Developer Garage'08 conference will be held in Pune on 20th September. The venue of the event is yet to be decided. Its a "Invite Only" event.
2. To spread CMS awareness we are planning to visits some colleges and give them a talks and demos on drupal.
3. There will be a special event for Joomla lovers. We are Planning to Organize the first ever Joomla day of India in pune in April 09.

Be the part of this conference by helping us in organizing,volunteering or be a speaker or bring a speaker(Not directly at the event).

Help me to find out my unsolved questions

2008-09-15T18:49:00.003+05:30

Everyone knows there's a phrase

Everything Happens for a Good Reason

and now i have a big question ,that if everything happens for good..
then whats so good in this blasts which took place in Delhi,Jaipur,Bangalore,Ahmedabad.
All those who did this are not humans ? Why do they do this ? what they are going to get by killing innocent people.
1000 innocent people have died. whats their fault in this. why they have to pay for the mistake they have not made.

What Good in all this that had happen to the innocent people.

I tried to find out the answers for all this question but i was helpless as i couldn't find their answers.

Please help me to find me the answers of the questions.

Tough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do

2008-07-26T01:13:00.007+05:30

Book Discription :Name your problem, and you name your possibility! That's the message in Dr. Robert H. Schuller's new bestseller, Tough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do! Dr. Schuller shows you how to build a positive self-image, no matter what your problem. Whether it's unemployment, poor health, loneliness, fear or anything else that blocks your success, you can turn your negative into a positive. No matter how tough times get, you have the potential to achieve the best of life. Through Dr. Schuller's dynamic principles, you can learn:

* 4 ways to evaluate a new idea * 10 commandments of possibility thinking * 5 principles for putting problems in a proper perspective * 18 principles of leadership * 5 phases necessary for the faith to move mountains * 5 ways to overcome a 'brownout' and prevent a burnout * 25 action words to get you started and never let you quit.

My View : "Tough times never last but tough people do", of course the author Robert.H.Schuller has said it right. He starts of sweetly by sharing the troubles he had to get through at different situations. Using simple language this man has not only seems to be an author but also a 'Life Changer'. The flow of words from his mind seems to change every single problem of yours into a lesson. He explains how you can transform an I CANNOT life into a I CAN life and thus go on solving even the most difficult problems. He lists many techniques to improve your problem solving power.He has spread an whole new idea on how to be a better man and live peacefully. Nevertheless this book can change the way you think. I would describe this tiny master piece as a clear cut book to all those who were looking for a book on philosopy.As you go deep into this book you will find some classical no-nonsense adventures like building a church with no money in hand and also getting employment for a whole city! You might be shocked but these are real life incidents from the life of Robert.H.Schuller and have been solved by him by using simple logic but powerful thinking. Thus this is an extremely good book with good simple logic. Well as I end let me list some extracts from the book for you to read and enjoy: 'The only place where your dream becomes impossible is in your own thinking...... If you listen to your fears, you will die never knowing what a great person you might have been.....High achievers spot rich opportunities swiftly make big decisions quickly and move into actions immediately. Follow these principles and you can make your dreams come true....'There is a lot more to this book but I now would better leave the rest of this spicy book for you to read

In Short : Whatever may be the problem you are facing dont, run away from them. The Tough time never last forever only the tough people who face them last.

Rating :3/5

Latest Charity Drive

2008-07-02T13:13:00.000+05:30

Hello Friends,

A kind attitude towards people is not a bad idea at all. I think we are earning now and able to give some time and little amount of money that we earn to needy people.

So some of our friends decided to donate the one computer to a village school. So that they can aware of what computer is and they can become little bit familiar with the same. One of the guy who deals with second hand computers is ready to give a PC with following configuration in just Rs. 8000/- only.

· 1.8 GHZ Processor

· 512 MB RAM

· New keyboard

· New mouse

· 17” CRT Monitor

· CD ROM

This one year old computer is branded PC of Dell. We are excepting contribution from you all to complete this. You can contribute any amount you are comfortable with.

For further details and suggestions if any please don’t hesitate to call us. We are reachable at following contacts

· Prashant Jagdale : 9860249343

· Anand Birajdar : 9960007589

· Vishal Gadkari : 9730068899

Small Wonders

2008-07-02T12:39:00.000+05:30

Small Wonders is a group of my friends who are helping me achieve one of my dreams.
It is an effort to fulfill the basic requirements of the children & elderly.

We aim at providing financial & non financial aid to the needy esp. children & old pple.

Needy refer to children/elders facing financial crisis, deprived of basic necessity like food ,shelter, clothing, education & entertainment or those exploited mentally, physically or socially.

At present we have undertaken tiny projects for VIKAS VIDYALAY (school for earing impaired) at Dadar E. It has 118 students who majorly come from poor families. So far we hav provided thm with school bags, study material, shoes & socks, have organized entertainment programs like Circus, xmas parties etc.

We intend to do better projects for many such organizations who are in need.
Also very soon SMALL WONDERS plans to get registered.

All we say -u don’t need to invest money to bring a change n sme1s life
all u ned is -invest few hrs of ur lif & c wat wondrs it does!