Integrating you website with Facebook

July 9th, 2010 by Ashish No comments »

Things are changing constantly on Web and the way people are consuming information on Internet. During good olds days of internet people used to depend on Web Directories like Yahoo , Lycos etc.. to provide them source of truth on resources they were looking for and latter with advent of Google Search people started looking for information & resources by Gooogling them. Google truely became synonym for search and till date it has been serving us as good starting point for things to lookout or find on internet.

However I do believe that as we rely more and more on internet not only for information but also for doing day to day things like shopping , buying gift , booking travel tickets & hotel reservation etc.. we will need lot more than Google to help us out. Yes we need recommendations from friends or other people like us who in past have had similar experiences making similar purchases online.

This is were Facebook API’s come into play and are so useful and I have feeling they are here to stay and change the way we consume information on internet. Facebook just launched social plugins few weeks back, social plugins let you see what your friends have liked, commented on or shared on sites across the web by posting their activites on Facebook. All social plugins are extensions of Facebook and are specifically designed so none of your data is shared with the sites on which they appear.

Lets say you are trying to book a Hotel room for your upcoming trip to Seattle, before making a purchase you will want to know how many of our friends have stayed in that hotel in past and checkout what they and other people have to say about that Hotel. Making a booking becomes a hassle free experience if you have friends recommending it.

Let go over few popular social plugins
LIKE BUTTON

 

There is saying that great things come in small packages and same thing is true for Like button above, This like button is few lines of HTML code and can added anywhere on the internet e.g near your products page or your article or video you just posted to your website or the world class service that you could be offering on your website. If someone likes it gets posted to their profile page on facebook, soon their friends notice it on their news stream on Facebook and thus bring them to your site and chances are they might like it as well. Soon the they starting inviting their friends to visit your page and before you know it whole thing becomes a viral.

Comment Box

 

Simple & elegant & beautiful are the words which come my mind on seeing this “Comments Box” it easily enables your users to comment on your site’s content — whether it’s for a web page, article, photo, or other piece of content. Then the user can share the comment on Facebook on their Wall and in their friends’ streams.

More over you don’t have to spend time & money to come up with home grown solution now you can just leverage API’s which facebook has to offer for integrating comment boxes to your website.

Activity Feed

 

Above plugin displays stories both when users like content on your site and when users share content from your site back to Facebook. If a user is logged into Facebook, the plugin will be personalized to highlight content from their friends. If the user is logged out, the activity feed will show recommendations from your site, and give the user the option to log in to Facebook. Thus making content more personalized to users.

This were few of most popular Facebook social plugins,for more information on other Facebook social plugin’s and see some showcases visit this documentation on Facebook

So what do you think of leveraging these Facebook api’s with your web pages, it definetly make your proucts and content more engaging & your website more lively, rich, dynamic and interactive.

Although this plugins are easy to use but it might be difficult for person who is not savvy with HTML to understand the usage and integrate them.But don’t worry if you think if think information is too overwhelming and if you need help there few good Media companies which can help you integrate Facebook social APi’s with your website.

This Facebook page offers few companies and individual developers whom you can hire for integrating your website with Facebook and or to develop applications on Facebook. http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/User:Developers_for_hire

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Role of support person during pregnancy or Pre-Labor checklist

May 5th, 2010 by Ashish 2 comments »

We recently had our first baby and thought like sharing few things which i learned from my experience from being a support person for my wife.

As pregnancy delivery dates approaches here are following things you can do as support person for women who is going into labor.

  • By the end of 36 weeks decide on baby’s name, just make that call and don’t wait till last moment to decide on baby’s name as last thing you want to do on day after delivery is waste time thinking about baby names. You can utilize the time well by being near baby and mom.
  • This one is a no brainer after 37 weeks if you are labor support person always keeps your cell phone handy or some means through which you could be reachable so that you can reach home within short notice.
  • Get the crib and car seat installed by or before 36 weeks. Get the car seat inspected by an expert or police. Police appointments are difficult to get so you will need to take appointments well in advance so don’t wait till last minute.
  • Get tour of hospital and fill-out the pre-admission form, checkout the designated parking places for women in labor at your hospital. These things help you to reach hospital very fast as last thing you want to be doing is walking  with your partner in labor around the hospital building looking for right  department.


  • Store the number of labor & delivery in your phone book so that you can reach them whenever you need to.
  • Make sure you always have fuel tank full with gas as you might need to go to hospital anytime after 36 weeks.
  • Take your partner for regular walks throughout the pregnancy, this prevents her from gaining too much weight & also during latter part of pregnancy it helps baby to get in zero station or in right position for delivery.
  • Prepare a bag to carry to hospital along with you with spare clothes for you as well as your partner. Bag can include various items including diapers, sanitary napkins  & some snacks for support person. Don’t offer any food to mother be once labor pain starts.
  • As support person if your partner complains about labor pains, first thing you need to do is not panic or make her panic (this usually happens if you are first time parents).Put yourself and your partner at ease. Get a timer and start measuring frequency of contractions. Contractions are measured from start of first contraction to start of next. If they are five minutes apart and lasting a minute its time to go to hospital. Don’t rush to hospital at first onset of labor pains as hospital staff can send you back. Best thing to do is walk during those initial hours of labor.
  • On the D-day (day of delivery) before you go to hospital. Make sure the support person has had some food to eat because labor can last up to 12-16 hrs so support person should be well rested and had enough to eat else they could get exhausted by time labor ends.
  • Create a formatted SMS or email messages with news of newborn saved in your draft folder filled with names of people whom you going to send. So you can just fill in necessary details and just hit “Send” button.
    Preferably switch off cell phone after you made call to parents or immediate family members. Last thing you want is a distant relative calling you in hospital and taking up precious minutes of your talk time which you could have well been utilized with your partner and new born. Let your immediate family member know well in advance that you will be unreachable during and few hours after labor.
  • For first few weeks if possible keep the amount of guests to hospital and at home to as minimum possible. At minimum make sure that you don’t make too much noise near the baby for first few weeks as it can get overwhelming for newborn.
  • When your partner is in labor you need to be near her and support her, remind her of breathing techniques you had learnt in pregnancy classes. Also give her back massages from time to time to put her at ease during those difficult times.Here is good website which tells you about breathing techniques .
    Practice them breathing regularly so that you get used to it and comes to you naturally during labor.
  • The environment can get really stressful especially if labor goes on long times however keep your cool Don’t get into arguments with Doctor / nurses or staff and ask him unnecessary questions. Take it easy as Doctors know what they are doing better than you so let them decide what’s best for you. There are certain things which might be out of their control as well since labor is natural process.



Congratulation’s in advance!! & Hope you have a hassle free labor.

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Indian Television Industry, growth and adoption.

April 18th, 2010 by Ashish No comments »

I am fascinated by amazing growth of Indian Television Industry in past 3 decades.

Although television has existing in India since 60’s it was mainly considered luxury for the rich and main stream people never really accepted it.

First memoirs of watching TV as a child was in late 70’s / early 80’s.Television programs were broadcasted in black and white back then. One of programs I vividly remember watching was called “Chhayageet” or Chitrahaar which was basically videos of popular Indian films songs played for about an hour. Since our family didn’t have T.V back then, as was the case with major households in urban India, we used to go to neighbor’s house to watch that program. Watching a program on Television would be a major social event during those times as all neighborhood kids as well as elders would get together in one neighborhood household to watch the event.As very few households had privilege of owning television then.

In the 1980’s when color TV was introduced by state-owned broadcaster Doordarshan (DD) timed with the 1982 Asian Games which India hosted. It then proceeded to install transmitters nationwide rapidly for terrestrial broadcasting. In this period no private enterprise was allowed to set up TV stations or to transmit TV signals.

Second major event I remember watching was the 1983 Cricket World Cup finals between India and West-Indies. Although they didn’t transmit any other matches, they just showed finals live since India was in the finals. I have vivid images of Indian bowling session’s play firstly I remember Indian captain and now legend Kapil Dev running behind and taking a spectacular catch to dismiss Vivian Richards. And secondly Mohinder Amarnath bowling slow medium and taking 3 wickets and thus paving a way for India to win their only world cup so far. No Indian cricket fan can ever forget black and white images of Kapil Dev opening up champagne bottle and holding the 1983 Cricket world cup.

Entertainment programs were few and far between. And when the solitary few soaps like Hum Log (1984), and mythological dramas: Ramayana (1987-88) and Mahabharata (1988-89) were televised; millions of viewers stayed glued to their T.V. sets.

Such was the following of those program that whenever those Serials were being televised, Mumbai streets which were usually hustling-bustling with activity, would have a deserted look. People stopped whatever they were doing and were glued to their Television sets.

Same was true when a Cricket match was being played as well. Specially between two arch rivals India and Pakistan.One match I still remember watching was this nail bitting match between India and Pakistan during 1985 Sharjah cup finals.This was one in which Javed Miadad hit six on a final ball of Chetan Sharma’s over to win the match. I was watching that match in my neighbors house, although we had Television back then but still watching a cricket match along with kids from the neighborhood was great fun.

During those days watching Television was more of social event when entire family, the extended family or even perhaps entire community used to huddle around a television box and watch the programs which were immensely popular too like a cricket match being played or one of the immensely popular television soaps.

In 1987 Reliance Cricket World Cup which was hosted in India was another major event broadcasted live by Doordarshan that led to an increase in the number of Television viewers although by then Television had reached many household in urban India.

Some of popular Indian Television soap operas during 80’s which come to my mind are Wagle ki Duniya, Malgudi days, Rajni, Nukkad , Humlog , Ramayana , Mahabharata

Commercials were very simple and sometimes got very popular too , whoever watched Indian Television during 80’s should still remembers most of them by heart , some commercials like Nirma Washing powder , Vicco vagradanti, Dabur chavanprash, Maggi noodles, Rasna were popular.

The third spark came in the early nineties with the broadcast of satellite TV by foreign programmers like CNN followed by Zee TV and a little later by domestic channels such as Star TV and Sun TV into Indian homes. This turned out to be a catalyst effect and led to a huge increase in the number of viewers for Indian Television.

I would say in between 1990 and 2000 more and more people started adopting Television and Television channels had found its place in Indian household and drawing rooms.These 10 years were also important for Indian viewers for developing an appetite to watch tele-soaps.

Let’s fast forward to early 2000 when Balaji Telefilms launched its first tele soap “Kyu Ki Saans bhi kabhi bahu thi” which was run away success and Asia’s #1 Most Watched and Awarded show till present day. Soap opera revolved around the lives of the fictitious Virani family. The show went off-air in November 2008 due to its falling popularity. However, the show had been the longest running serial in Indian Television. It also made records of getting the highest Television Rating Point for multiple years.

Another reality show Kaun Banegā Karoṛpati popularly known as KBC) was an Indian reality/game show based on the U.S game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” The show first aired in 2000 and was hosted by Amitabh Bachchan. This show was immensely popular with Indian audience and had many firsts to its credit, It was first major reality show on Indian Television. It was also first appearance of Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan on Indian Television.

Both the above program were leaders in their respective categories a) tele soaps and b) reality shows and leads to increase in such programs across various channels on Indian Television.

Today still same three things sell on Indian Television but perhaps flavors might be different

1) Cricket (as of now Indian Premier league new version of 20 over cricket match is huge hit with Indian audience)
2) Reality shows (Dance shows , Music shows or Game shows)
3) Soap opera stories based on portraying day to day life saga of extended Indian families where uncle, aunties, grandpas & grandmas stay in single household and entertainment in is form of how their lives unfold..

This lead to increasing in demand for Television soap artists and they started making big money. A rumor mill has it that Smriti Irani of “KYU KI SAANS bhi kabhi bahu thi” fame is charging $2000 per day for acting. This also started bringing small time actor/actress from Indian Film industry to either become Judges in Tele shows or host their own Television shows. Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Shekhar Suman, Arshad Warsi, Abhisek Bachaan and many others have joined the fray.


The number of cable and satellite (C&S) homes in the country. As the graph below indicates, this number has more than doubled during the last 10 years, from lesser than 40 million C&S subscribers to nearly 85 million subscribers today.

Source:
Media Partners Asia, Indiantelevision.com estimates

Graph of increase in viewership of Indian Television audience

Graph of increase in viewership of Indian Television audience

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Pregnancy at 28 weeks – glucose intolerance & anemia

February 17th, 2010 by Ashish 5 comments »

Pregnancy is a period of nine months when every day and every week there is something new and exciting happening. Your body goes through so many physical and hormonal changes. There can be lots of anxiety especially if it is your first pregnancy. You usually visit your OB/GYN every 4 weeks starting your 10th or 12th week depending on your doctor. Usually they do an ultrasound around 12th week of pregnancy and then again around 20th week of pregnancy. The ultrasound done around 20th week of pregnancy is important as that is the time when they check each and every organs of the baby to see if they are developing well. They check baby’s heart, brain, limbs, stomach, bladder, length of the bones of upper and lower extremity, face and also the sex of the baby. So if you want to know if it is a boy or a girl this is the time. Another important visit is your visit to your OB/GYN at 28 weeks of pregnancy.


During this visit, the doctor check the baby’s heart beat, measures the size of your belly to see if the baby’s growth corresponds with gestational age. The doctor also gives you a Kick count card. You will be asked to monitor the movements of your baby everyday. The doctor will ask you to count 10 movements. It should not take more than 2 hours for the baby to do 10 movements. If you are unable to feel 10 movements in 2 hours, call your doctor. The movement count should be done preferably around the same time everyday. Count each and every small movement except for the hiccups of the baby. Mostly babies are more active after meals.

Before the visit to your OB/GYN, you are told to get a blood test which includes your complete blood count including your hemoglobin and a random glucose test. These tests should be done anytime between 24 to 28 weeks of pregnancy. The reason for these tests is that during your second trimester, there is an increase in your blood volume and also the baby’s requirements increase so there can be anemia (Decreased hemoglobin). This can be due to increased needs of the growing fetus or it can be something called Dilution Anemia, which is just because of increase in fluid volume in your body. The second test is a random glucose screening test which is done to check the sugar levels in your blood and rule out Gestational diabetes or Gestational Glucose Intolerance. If you have a strong family history of diabetes or gestational diabetes then you might undergo this test in first trimester of your pregnancy. Without any such history the test is conducted in the second trimester of pregnancy. You are allowed to eat your regular meals, no fasting required. You can go to the lab anytime convenient to you. For this test you will be asked to drink an orange colored drink ( it contains about 50 gm sugar, very sweet and tastes like an orange soda) and then wait in the lab for an hour. You are not allowed to eat or drink anything or chew a gum during that one hour. You may be allowed to drink some water. After one hour the lab technician will draw your blood. The results are usually available the next day or your doctor may discuss the results with you on your next visit. If your hemoglobin is low then the doctor may prescribe iron pills that you need to take until the baby is born. It is very common to have anemia in second trimester due to the reasons I mentioned earlier.

If the results of this Random Glucose test are normal then you will be told to carry out your routine and diet as usual. But, if the results of this test are a little abnormal and it shows levels slightly higher than normal, then in that case your doctor will ask you to undergo another test. This test is called 3 hour Glucose Tolerance Test. For this test, you will have to fast for 10 hours. You are allowed to eat a regular meal the previous night and then may be have a glass of milk a couple hours after dinner. Then you have to fast for 10 hours and go for the blood test to the lab the next day. They will draw your blood and then give you a sugar drink ( it contains about 100 gm sugar, may taste like sweet lemonade). After consuming the drink you will be asked to wait in the lab for 3 hours. Make sure you have books to read or your lap top to work on during this visit as you will be spending 3 hours at the lab. They will draw a blood sample every hour for 3 consecutive hours. The results will be ready by next day. You can discuss these results with your doctor over the phone or via email. If the results of 3 hour Glucose Tolerance Test show that out of the four blood samples collected (One fasting and 3 after consuming sugar drink), if any one or two samples show higher glucose values than normal then it is considered as Pregnancy induced Glucose Intolerance. This is not Gestational Diabetes but it is just that due to pregnancy the insulin is not functioning as well and so there is mild glucose intolerance. If 2-3 values show blood sugar higher than normal, then it is considered Gestational Diabetes.

In case of Pregnancy induced Glucose Intolerance, you will be told to meet with a dietitian who will provide you with all the recommendations for diet control which will help to manage the glucose intolerance. The dietitian will ask you to take small frequent meals. You will be asked to take about 6 small meals a day instead of 3-4 big meals. You will be asked to not starve for more than 8-10 hours during the night. Your first meal of the day should not contain easily digestible carbohydrates like milk, cold cereal etc. You can take hot cereal (Oat meal) or bread, tortilla etc. The gap between your night snack and your first morning breakfast should not be more than 8-10 hours. You can take milk or cold cereal about 3 hours after your first morning snack. Then 3 hours after that you can eat your lunch, 3 hours after lunch have another snack, 3 hours after snack will be your dinner and then 2-3 hours after dinner should be your night snack ( may be fruits if you like). Your breakfast and other snacks should not exceed carbohydrates more than 30 gms. You will be allowed to take 45 gms of carbohydrates in your lunch and dinner. If you eat fruits for your snack make sure that you eat the whole fruit if it is about the size of a tennis ball. If the fruit is bigger than the size of a tennis ball, then you are allowed to eat only half of it. Initially, it is difficult to find options that are low in carbohydrates and sugar and that can satisfy your hunger. But eventually things get easier. You can eat a lot of green salad, green beans, eggs, cheese, etc. Along with these diet restrictions, you should walk at least 30 minutes every day preferably after meals. If sugar is not controlled, it can cause increased birth weight of the baby which can cause difficulty in vaginal delivery. If the baby’s weight increases a lot then your doctor may take the decision of a Caesarian delivery. But that is in extreme cases.


In case of Gestational diabetes, you will be following the same diet restrictions and exercise. In addition to that, your doctor may ask more blood tests in coming weeks to keep a check on your blood sugar. If your blood sugar doesn’t come under control with diet and exercise, then you may be asked to take Insulin Injections every day after lunch and dinner. Your doctor may ask you to check your blood sugar every day after lunch and dinner and according to the results take the amount of insulin. Here there can be chances of high birth weight of the baby. So the doctor will keep a close eye on your sugar levels, baby’s weight and growth. They may induce you early if they think that the baby is gaining too much weight. You may have to undergo Caesarian delivery if baby’s is overweight.

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Facebook Applications

February 9th, 2010 by Ashish 1 comment »

Ladies and Gentleman welcome to the world of Social networking!!

Gone are the good old days where you used to travel 100 of miles to visit a friend in a neighboring city or spend Saturday afternoon will your kids playing baseball or take your girlfriend/wife out for a dinner.

You could now virtually do almost everything online spend time and share things with your friends, find a Date , or play games with your kids. You could even be a mafia don if you liked or own a virtual farm or pet and harvest virtual crops. You could also use real money to buy virtual goods for your farm or pet if you liked. World is at your fingers tips or on click of your mouse.

Although there are many social networking site on the web. Facebook has advantage above others in terms of being user friendly and popularity.

Just in past six months their user base has almost doubled reaching 400 million users worldwide compare that to Yahoo’s 500 million users. Yahoo has been around forever while Facebook has just turned five.

Two most prominent reasons of Facebook growing popularity are

  1. It’s simple and user friendly User Interface.
  2. Launch of Facebook platform in 2007.

Facebook launched the “Facebook Platform” on May 24, 2007, providing a framework for software developers to create applications that interact with core Facebook features.Thus giving unprecedented powers to developers and also creating a greater sense of community and encouraging developers to actively participate in the sites upward mobility.There is also a crucial viral component to it as well when a friend adds an application, it is noted in their news stream on their profile. Clicking on the item brings you to the app, where you can add and/or interact with it yourself.

The payoff is two ways not only do developers get deep access to Facebook’s 400 million users, but Facebook also becomes a rich platform for third party applications.

Thus Facebook left making it site rich full of features on 3rd party developers while it concentrated on the providing the basic functionality and building the strong platform for developers. This has done wonder’s for overall economy as well since it has created new ecosystem of companies thriving and doing business by building applications on top of Facebook.One of the company which I liked to mention here is Zynga.com.Zynga is online gaming company which started in 2007 just within two years of its existence, Zynga.com already employees 750 people and already turned profitable last year.
Some of its applications like Yoville and Farmville are immensely popular and have touched by 75 million users.
I like to warn you that some of these games are very addictive; I had a friend who left a party just because she wanted to go home and harvest virtual crops on Farmville.
Without Facebook platform to support it, existence of companies like Zynga.com would have not been possible.

Here is list of few useful applications I find on facebook.

1)iLike – iLike lets you add music, playlists, and videos to your profile, dedicate songs to your friends, and see who’s going to what concerts.

2)LivingSocial is a social discovery and cataloging network that allows people to review and share their favorite movies, books, games, music and restaurants As the most comprehensive interest-based online community,

3) Marketplace lets you sell, give away, buy, ask, or search for anything you want. You can also support charities by selling for a cause.
Marketplace makes it easy to see what your friends have posted and what is available in your area.

4) SocialCalendar helps users to remember birthdays, holidays, get-togethers and other social occasions.
It lets users import, organize and receive reminders about important events.
Users can also share dates, plan events and coordinate with friends and family.

5) Training The Training application is an easy to use and powerful tool for setting and keeping track of your workout goals with friends. You can invite friends to join your training crew and help each other stay motivated.

6) Roomster is app for especially for those looking for a place to rent.
It allows users to search for apartments, roommates and sublets in the US and Canada.

7) NetworkedblogsThis application helps you Promote your blog on Facebook and to discover new blogs. NetworkedBlogs is a community of bloggers and blog lovers. You could add your blog, and connect with others who read and write about subjects you like.

8) Circle of Moms Where moms connect and address the challenges of motherhood together.Share stories and celebrate your children’s milestones with friends and family in a safe, private environment.

9)Testimonials is place to gather your personal, professional and academic references in one place from your teachers, friends, and co-workers.

10)Promotions for Fan Pages as name suggests is application for companies & agencies to run branded interactive promotions on Facebook Fan Pages.
Promotion formats include: sweepstakes, contests, coupon giveaways, and more…

11) Pet society For those of who are fond of pets or like have pets but don’t have one you can now virtually create and raise a happy pet in Pet Society!
Raise your pet and enjoy many activities together – racing, fishing, gardening, and cooking!
Make your pet happy by earning coins to shop and buy stylish clothing and cool furniture.

12) Stock Quotes Add stock prices and a look-up box to your Profile page. Check for news, financial blogs and podcasts. Then see if your friends are tracking the same stocks. Great for investment clubs

13) Collage lets you create collage of your friends on facebook.

All in all there is an Application to suit everyone needs on Facebook, There are some things which you can’t do online but for everything else there is a Facebook App !!

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Threat to secularism & Indian constitution

January 31st, 2010 by Ashish 1 comment »

Maharashtra is one of the major states in western India. Current ruling party in Maharashtra decided that new taxi (cab) licenses shall be given to only those who are well versed in Marathi and have resided in the state for at least 15 years.

I feel this is direct violation of one’s constitutional right to equality which is one of the 6 corners stones of our Indian constitution.

My interpretations of “right to equality” is that any Indian has right to pursue their career and ear their living in any part of India without being discriminated by caste, religion, language or place of birth. Government should be in the business of creating jobs and not in the business of preventing people from pursuing their jobs. In-order for the booming economy of India to grow, each and every Indian should be allowed to do the job of his/her choice and have equal opportunity to make money and earn a living.

I also don’t understand the rationale behind this decision? As per Wikipedia, the linguistic/ethnic demographics in Mumbai consists of: Maharashtrians (42%), Gujaratis (19%), North Indians (24%) and South Indians make up the rest.

Even if all cab drivers in Mumbai learn to speak Marathi, what will be the benefit? They will still be serving 58% of population that doesn’t speak Marathi. And out of the rest of 42% (Maharashtrians), people actually riding cabs would be insignificant. So would the next step be to make mandatory for people riding cabs to speak Marathi as well?

Where will all this end? Major population from North India has migrated to Mumbai to work for security agencies. Should we make it mandatory for them to speak Marathi as well? I am not sure how this would reciprocate to other parts of country. It is possible that other states may start passing laws that will promote jobs to local people residing in that state. So our country will be reduced Gujarati’s in Gujarat, Maharashtrians in Maharashta, Tamil’s in Tamil Naidu and so on. I feel as a country we should be promoting cross country migration to spread harmony and unity between various religions and ethnic groups.

What if IT industry in Hyderabad and Bangalore starts to give jobs only to those living in state for 15 years or to those who know the regional language of the state? Will this be acceptable? What impact will it have on Indian dominance in global IT industry and quality of software Engineers in our country? I agree that I might have gone a bit farther and compared apples to oranges here. Perhaps, skills required for high tech industry cannot be compared to those of a cab driver. But, where would you draw the line? Now is the time to say “Enough is enough” and we cannot tolerate this kind of political decisions by the government to please popular vote banks and certain sections of the society.

This kind of politics will create a rift between Marathi speaking and non-Marathi speaking population. Isn’t the rift between Hindu-Muslim enough? If this continues we will soon have tensions between Marathi and Non-Marathi communities.

The famous spirit of Mumbai is built by people of all religions, cultural and ethnic background living in perfect harmony. The Spirit has never dampened in face of worst calamities, may it be bomb blasts of 1993 or terror attacks of 2008.The “Bindaas” attitude and spirit of “Mumbaikars” has kept Mumbai going for long in worst situations.And I feel People from various ethnicities have played important role in harnessing Mumbaikar’s spirit. Therefore, if we remove one section of this society,this spirit will break.

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Medical Reform and Health Care System in US

January 12th, 2010 by Ashish 3 comments »

United States is world leader in Economy and GDP, however when it come to health care it’s ranked #37 as per survey done by World Health Organization, France enjoys #1 spot for its health care system.

Keys differences between 2 countries are as follows

  • In France everyone has medical insurance, whereas in US 15% of population is uninsured.
    France has Government backed health care system, In US it’s mainly run by private insurance companies.
  • In France 70% of heath care cost is paid by government, remaining most of 30% paid by employers.
  • In US insurance companies provides partial cost (could be any where from 0% to 100%, depending on treatment and level of insurance patient has), remaining has to be paid by the patient.
  • US spends double the amount of money then what France does on health Insurance, yet lags behind other wealthy nations in such measures as infant mortality and life expectancy.
  • In France certain long term & expensive illness are covered 100% by the national insurance.
  • In France, the system is set up both to ensure that patients have lots of choice in picking doctors and specialists and to ensure that doctors are not constrained in making medical decisions

When i first came to this country,  I was surprised to see the TV commercials from drug companies pleading me to ask my Doctor, I always used to ponder, Why should  I ask my doctor?  Aren’t the doctors supposed to tell me what to do?

Over the years i realized that Medical System in US works on push model (analogous push v.s pull mechanism). You always need to ask Doctors to do things , otherwise right treatment wont come to you. Here are few examples from my personal life which have made me reach that belief.

Story 1

This is about my friend who started experiencing difficulty walking and started dragging her feet while walking, She also experienced  difficulty speaking.
It seemed like parts of her body were out of her control. She consulted her primary health care provider who referred her to Neurologist.

Neurologist did MRI/CITI scan and told her that she had “multiple sclerosis” which is a very serious illness.
She was completely freaked out when she heard this, one of things that happens when you hear something like that, is your brain doesn’t accept the fact and you go into state of denial.
So she started consulting other specialists, few of specialists came up with similar diagnosis.She even had hard time getting the appointments with specialists as most of time doctors didn’t take in any new patients or even if they did they didn’t have any available appointments for 6 months. Finally, she found a right Doctor who diagnosed her correctly and treated her.

It turned out that she had blood clot in her brain and was cured with help of blood thinner.Turned out be minor thing but I can’t imagine trauma she must have gone through for few months until she found the right doctor.

Story 2

This time I was at the receiving end & victim of the Medical system, On one my trips to India I caught up a sickness on my way back to States, I was having high fever few days so decided to consult my Primary Care Physician,
Doctor asked me the symptoms, and told him I was having high fever with chills, high fatigue that was interfering with my work.
Doctor did routine examination and said its flu.He asked me to take rest, drink plenty of fluid and was also kind enough to write note of leave of absence at work to my employer.
 
However I wasn’t convinced with this diagnosis. I had caught flu in the past and although symptoms were similar I was experiencing something severe than regular flu.I asked him about the medication and he said “you can have Tylenol if there is high fever”.
 
Few days went by and fever was not relenting, it started getting worse, I remember being covered with 3 blankets and still shivering and sweating at same time. I could not eat much and whatever I eat came out.

Even my wife now started getting worried, she has studied Medicine in India and based on her medical knowledge, she was suspecting something, along lines of malaria.So we called doctor again, but it being weekend my Primary care Doctor wasn’t available, however after talking to representative on phone for about an hour, managed to get an appointment with different Doctor.
At the Doctor’s office again after waiting for long time, we finally saw the Doctor. I was not only was exhausted, but also experiencing lot of fatigue.

Doctor agains  says she was willing to bet it was flu, my wife suggest her that we have been to India recently in monsoon, and it could be possible for sickness to be malaria, which is quite common in India.
Doctor agrees that that could be a possibility but soon rules it out due to absence any visible bug bites.
She orders a few lab tests ,and only at my wife’s behest she also ordered a test for malaria, and it turns out test for Malaria came back positive, I was given right treatment thereafter and completely cured within few days.

There is ongoing debate about health care reform in this country concerning questions of a right to health care, access, fairness, efficiency, cost, and quality.

One of main priorites of Obama Administration is to provide affordable, accessible health care to all.
Medical reform bill might be step in right direction, however i feel we lot of such stories and struggle ahead of us and miles to go until we find system which is right for us.

Finally I would like to leave you with video from “Andy Rooney” a correspondent from Television Company CBS who came with a segment on health care on popular show 60 minutes.

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Search evolution, Yahoo, Google, MSN past, present and future

December 17th, 2009 by Ashish 7 comments »

This is the story of how internet search began in early days, how it has evolved and how the key players in search industry facilitated this growth of internet search.

Google was founded in year 1997, but before Google dominated the search scene many other search engines were popular on internet like AltaVista, Ask Jeeves (now ask.com), Lycos and of course Yahoo! to name few

Picture of Yahoo Homepage in 1996

Picture of Yahoo Homepage in 1996

Yahoo wasn’t really a search engine but it started off as directory of websites organized in different categories, and all this was maintained by human’s editors who manually browsed the internet and added website in right categories.Since this was manual, it ensured indexing was of high quality as it used human intervention to distinguish between good and bad sites.

However as internet grew Yahoo’s manual method of organizing sites was becoming less efficient and less scalable so they partnered with a third-party “crawler-based” search engine to provide answers for when there are no matches within its own human-powered listings..

Until late 90’s search market was non-lucrative and Web Companies didn’t see enough potential for making big money so stayed away from it.

In late 1990 like other search engines/web directories, Yahoo! diversified into a Web portal. In the late 1990s, Yahoo!, MSN, Lycos, Excite and other Web portals were growing rapidly.
Web portal providers rushed to acquire companies to expand their range of services, in the hope of increasing the time a user stays at their portal.

Thus all of above portals (excluding Google) started loosing focus from search and started concentrating on building portals.

In February 1998, a player in Search market “GoTo.com” (later renamed Overture Services, Inc.) entered the scene and started offering advertiser’s option to bid for keywords for placement of their ads on search results, so the advertisers with highest bid got better placement on search results.This revenue model is called PPC (pay per click) wherein advertisers paid money to search engine for the clicks that were generated to their website from search results.
This program from was highly successful and it’s allowed its partners like MSN and Yahoo to monetize search market.

However GoTo.com model had one drawback, highest bidder got highest placement for keywords, so it didn’t factor into account “relevancy” of website or geographical location from were searches were being made.
Obviously if the site was not relevant, less users would click on the Advertisement and thus resulting in less money going into Search engines coffers.

Google overcame this drawback in 2000 and came up with better search monetizing algorithm with Program named “Adwords”.
As per this program, the ordering of the paid-for listings depends on other advertisers’ bids (PPC) and the “quality score” of all ads shown for a given search. The quality score is calculated by historical click-through rates, relevance of an advertiser’s ad text and keywords, an advertiser’s account history, and other relevance factors as determined by Google.

By 2000 Google as search engine was slowly growing in stature as not only their search results were more relevant, but also much faster compared to competitors.The Google search engine attracted a loyal following among a growing number of Internet users, who liked its simple design and useful results.

Google Homepage in 1998

Google Homepage in 1998

In 2000 Yahoo dumped Inktomi and started using Google to power their search results and thus helping Google to be more and more popular.Soon people started realizing that they could directly go to Google for their searches instead of going to Google via Yahoo.

By 2002 Yahoo & Google had equal share in search market which was about 30% and Google was slowly taking the search market away from Yahoo.
Yahoo saw Google as threat to its growth and started acquiring companies with search technologies.
In 2002, they bought Inktomi, a “behind the scenes” or OEM search engine provider, whose results are shown on other companies’ websites and powered Yahoo! in its earlier days.
In 2003, they purchased Overture which owned the AlltheWeb and AltaVista search engines. Initially, even though Yahoo! owned multiple search engines, they didn’t use them on the main Yahoo.com website, but kept using Google’s search engine for its results.

In 2003 AOL signed deal with Google which enabled them to not only power their search results but also used them for paid listing on their sites in US and some other countries.

In 2004 Yahoo started powering its own search, but that was too late in the game as by this time Google was leading the search traffic with 35% of share as compared with Yahoo! was 32%

In subsequent years Yahoo kept loosing the search market share to Google. In a desperate attempt to stop slide, towards end of 2006 Yahoo launched a project named Panama.

Yahoo’s Project Panama was designed to catch up with Google’s Ad placement technology.Prior to 2007 Yahoo placed a paid ad solely based on the amount advertisers are willing to pay for the keyword. Post Panama Yahoo Ads placement would be based on price and relevancy of ad.

This again was too little & too late, as by this time Google completely dominated the search market with 45% of share, compared to Yahoo’s 28% market share.

In July 2009 Microsoft and Yahoo announced a deal in which Y! search will be powered by Bing, making Microsoft and Yahoos share of search traffic close to 30% and Google’s share is still 70%.

What happens next only time will tell,but as now search game will be fought 2 powerful players Microsoft and Google, both of them trying to outwit each other in terms of marketing dollars spent as well as technology.

As of when, this post was being written Miscrosoft was running a powerful online marketing campaign to promote its Search Engine Bing. Its offering searcher’s upto 20% cashback on products bought online from partner vendors on sales originating from its search pages.

Here are Important timelines in Search Industry

1994 Yahoo founded.
1994 Lycos founded.
1995 AltaVista founded
1995 Excite
1996 Inktomi
1996 AskJeeves
1997 Google founded.
1998 MSN search
1998 GoTo.com offer advertisers option of bidding to appear at the top of the results in response to specific searches. Bid amount was paid by advertiser to go to overtime searcher clicked on a link to the advertiser’s website.
2000 Google launches adwords
2000 Yahoo begins using Google to power Yahoo search
2003 Yahoo acquires inktomi, goto, altavista and alltheweb
2003 Google launches Adsense
2004 Yahoo begins powering its own search.
2007 Yahoo rolls-out project Panama to bridge gap with Google
2009 Microsoft launches new search engine Bing.
July 2009 Microsoft and Yahoo announced a deal in which y! search powered by bing.
2009 popularity google 70% , Yahoo 26%

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Funny Tale of Traffic Ticket

December 1st, 2009 by Ashish No comments »

Many of us get traffic ticket every year, but this was a very unique way of getting traffic ticket which has stayed in my mind for years.

I wanted to urgently ship some travel documents for my wife in India, who was awaiting them for coming to U.S for very first time since our marriage. So I called up FEDEX office and the attendant on the other end of phone urged me to rush the documents to their Office before 5 p.m (another 30 minutes) otherwise I would miss last shipment for the week (as weekend was approaching) and my documents would be delayed reaching its destination by few days.

So I gather all documents and hurriedly get into my car and not before long I was on Highway 85 trying to drive as fast I can. Traffic on highway was heavily backed up as it was peak commute hour.CARPOOL lane looked very tempting however me being a honest and responsible citizen, decided against breaking any laws and face the risk of getting caught by the cops.

After travelling for few miles on the Highway it occurred to me that I was not going to make it. However I wasn’t ready to throw in the towel yet and in a desperate attempt to reach on time came up with a plan of flashing lights to cars in front of me, so they would realize my emergency and let me pass ahead of them. Some cars did let me pass them so plan seemed to be working but the euphoria soon died down, as soon after I was confronted with this white car in front of me who would not budge and give me way to pass.

“Maybe he is not noticing me”, I tried consoling myself so now I decided to follow him closely and again started flashing lights at him to ensure that I attract his attention.

Sure enough this white car in front of me acknowledged my efforts and went into the adjacent lane so that I could pass it. While was I passing I decided to stare at him and give him that angry look which we usually get from other drivers when we don’t follow the law or make some mistake while driving.

While I was passing him I realized that he was not any ordinary driver but a COP, It looked like a ordinary car from behind but had this “Sheriff” logo on it so all this while I had been FLASHING LIGHTS at the cop.

How on the earth was I supposed to know it was COP?

He had let me pass initially but latter on gave me indication to pull over.

While I was waiting in my car anxiously, waiting for him to come over and hand me the ticket. I was getting very nervous and started blaming myself as now not only I was not going to reach in time but also had to deal with a traffic ticket.

He come towards me, but looked confused.

As I now vaguely recollect we had following conversation.

COP : Why did you flash lights at me ?

“I thought maybe If I come up with something very convincing he would me let off the hook. However I was very nervous and went totally blank at that moment”

ME : Sir, I was checking the functions of my car and pressed flash lights to check if they were working.

COP : So how long you have been driving?

ME : Five years

COP : So it takes you 5 years to figure out the functions of your car?

After that he might have realized that there was no pointing talking further so he went back to his car and handed me the ticket stating the reason “Flashing lights within very close distance of car in front”. In the hindsight I feel I had better changes of getting of the hook if I had told him the Truth. However now when I think about it I can stop laughing at that incident and feel it was most funniest and unique way of getting the traffic ticket.

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Thanksgiving Tradition & History

November 27th, 2009 by Ashish 1 comment »

Thanksgiving is a harvest festival celebrated across North America, these kinds of harvests festivals are common in Europe and Asian cultures. Many of Indian harvest festivals like Vaishaki, Loni, Makar Sankranti and Pongal also come to mind.

Historythanksgiving
As per History few hundred Pilgrims (actually Separatists from Church of New England) landed on shores of US from England aboard ship named Mayflower, They were supposed to land on banks of Hudson river in New York State for which they had proclaimed rights from “Virginia Company” based in London,UK which had the rights to most of the eastern seaboard of the U.S. However due to rough weather they landed in New Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Half of pilgrims died aboard the ship or during first winter of settlement in New Plymouth. Pilgrims gradually become friends with Native American tribes and they started to learn new techniques of planting, harvesting and fishing from Native Americans, as a result of Native American help and wonderful weather they had bountiful harvest during harvest season of 1621 so decided to celebrate the occassion.Native Americans decided to join them for celebration and this become the First Thanksgiving celebration.

Current Tradition

In mordern’s days we still celebrate Thanksgiving with same intensity and fervor, Americans usually have family get together over Thanksgiving and have a customary lavish dinner consisting of Turkey, pumpkin pie, potatoes and corn. Watching football matches on Thanksgiving day is also very customary.Next day of Thanksgiving (usually Friday) marks begining of Christmas shopping season, Parades have also became Thanksgiving tradition & Departmant Stores have caught on badwagon by offering huge discounts and open their stores very early in morning,This day is also called black Friday since department stores make enough sales this day to turn from red(loss) to profit(black).

Although Thanksgiving is celebrated on different days in US and Canada but the intention is same “To express our gratitude to God for all the things he has given us”. Most importantly he has given us life to enjoy all beatiful things in life which we have taken for granted in modern days.

Thanksgiving is all about family so lets take a break from our hectic schedule & busy life this thanksgiving and spend time with family and friends and thank Almighty for beautiful life, wonderful company of family & friends and overall the great privileges that he has given us.

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