Connected Indians

Fixed Deposits rates in India.

ING Vysya Bank is offering a very good rate of interest for Fixed Deposits of any amount below 1 crore for a period of 1 year.

http://www.ingvysyabank.com/scripts/interest.html

Here is the comparison of rate of interest offered by some of the leading banks in India. (This information[Top table] is from Times Of India newspaper dated 11 Sept 2008 - Bangalore Edition, page 13)

State Bank of India is offering 10% interest for 1-2 years which is the only one closest to the interest offered by ING Vysya Bank.

www.khaam.com - A Job Aggregator

Khaam is a search engine for jobs in India which aggregates jobs posted on all the best Job Portals in India. There is no fee for Job Seekers as well as for Employers for posting their jobs to the site.

Whats even more interesting is - if you're a Linkedin User and logged in while you search; you could also view contacts from your Linkedin network who work with the companies advertising for positions.

• One-Stop Job Search Dashboard
• Consolidated Jobs from across the best Job boards in India
• Provides you with position-specific Market info on salary and Company data

Call For papers - STC 2008

8th Annual International Software Testing Conference 2008 (STC 2008)

Finally I sold Yamaha Rx-135

Update on my earlier Post.

Within 12 hours after posting an ad on the Sulekha, my bike Yamaha Rx-135 is sold. I am amazed by the quick responses I got through Phone Calls/ SMS / E-Mails for the ad. The deal was settled at Rs 20,500.00. I didn't know that Yamaha Rx-135, the 2-stroke bike is in so much of demand :-)

My paper for Test2008 Publication

Finally I came to know the status of my submission. My paper at Test2008 is not being selected for in-person presentation :-( though it will be part of publications :-) I would have missed the conference anyways as I am coming back from the US on 15th Oct after presenting at STARWEST 2008 conference.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: submission group < >
Date: Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 5:12 PM
Subject: Test2008: Your paper has been selected for publication only
To: "Nikhil R. Bhandari" < >

Dear Nikhil Bhandari,

Thank you very much for your submission and the interest shown in Test2008.
In the very first year, we have received an overwhelming response from enthusiasts around the world.

We had set up very stringent procedures to select quality presentations for our conference such as the following:

1. All submissions will be reviewed by a distinguished Review Panel and subsequently forwarded to the Conference Program Committee for evaluation purposes.
2. Papers only aiming to promote a company will not be considered for the final program.
3. All papers will be reviewed according to specified criteria to maintain standards.

We are confident that the above procedure(s) will help us meet the Test2008 delegates' expectations and enable us to satisfy them.

As we have limited slots for presentation, we are not able to include many papers for in-person presentation. We have selected your paper " Automating Software Validation Process using generic framework with Windows PowerShell " for publication. However, we are sorry to inform you that we are unable to include your paper for in-person presentation for this year. We thank you for your understanding and hope you will support our conference.

With warm regards,
< >
Test2008 Conference Committee

Yamaha Rx-135

I am planning to sell my 2-wheeler Yahama Rx-135 (2-stroke, 4 Speed) which I purchased in year 2002. I still love this bike, but I want to sell it as it not being used and lying in the parking area. I have posted a Ad on Sulekha after my friend got a very good deal for his Yamaha from the website.
Its a 2-stroke bike and Yamaha stopped its production couple of years back. It has run 26000 Kms.

http://classifieds.sulekha.com/bangalore/automobiles/two-wheelers-bikes/clad.aspx?cid=2956607

Linux Resource Center for businesses

The Linux Business Resource Center talks about how to leverage power of open source software to improve & grow your business. This center has lots of articles, knowledge base and advices which helps use of Linux in growing businesses. This resource center has interesting sections like Advantages of using Linux, Basics of Linux, Success Stories, White Papers and Discussion Forums.

There is a Contest running on the site where you can submit a entry about innovative open source software solution for running your business. Cash prize is of $2000 for the first place winner. The deadline for submitting contest entries is September 30th, 2008.

Microsoft Virtual TechDays

Virtual TechDays is an online event scheduled between 17th - 19th September Microsoft. “ The focus of this event would be mostly on Microsoft's newest technologies. It is spread across 3 days, over 40 sessions on topics like Studio 2008, IE 8, Silverlight, .Net 3.5 and so on. Check out the Agenda of the sessions.

Join us at Virtual TechDays and discover how Microsoft can help you get more out of life.

Microsoft products and tools give you the productivity boost to quickly address your most time-consuming development, deployment and management challenges, which helps you better connect with life outside work. Don't take our word for it, though. Join your fellow colleagues and Tech Gurus at this online event and explore Microsoft products online, from the cosy confines of your workstations.

During the event, the Technical Experts from Microsoft will deliver 40+ free, in-depth sessions on latest Microsoft technologies that help you boost your productivity. Get set to access these online interactive sessions and provide instant feedback.

Some of the common questions are answered on the FAQ's page

Q. What is the registration fee to attend Virtual TechDays event?
A. This event is FREE.

Q. Where is the event being held?
A. This is an online event, accessible through any computer with a minimum internet connection of 256 kbps or more bandwidth.

Q. What is the schedule of the event?
A. This is a 3-day online event scheduled on 17th, 18th & 19th September, 2008, from 10.00 am to 5.00 pm Indian Standard Time (GMT + 5.30).

You can also take part in online Virtual Quiz during the sessions. For attending these sessions online you need to have Microsoft Live Meeting 2007 client installed on your machine.

Zyoin - Career Portal & Referral Job site

Zyoin is a career portal from TechUnified Consulting. You can register for free, search suitable jobs and refer friends. You can earn cash rewards upto Rs 1,00,000 for referring a successful candidate to the jobs posted on the site. They have a Salary Meter gadget powered by PayScale. It is a new concept and not very popular India. To attract more job applications currently they are offering 2 movie tickets from PVR Cinemas if you apply for a job. They have got their own blog which they use it for contests, feedback, career counselling, tips and so on.

Feedback on my Evening Talk

Finally I got the feedback from the Evening Talk from organizers of the event and it doesn't look that bad. The ratings are out of 5. The evening talk on Automate the software validation process with Windows PowerShell is attended by 35+ people from various companies in Bangalore. Overall the session was very interactive. The presentation is now available for download on STeP-IN website.

Software Freedom Day

Software Freedom Day is celebrated on third Saturday of each September. This year Software Freedom Day will be on 20th September 2008.

Software Freedom Day (SFD) is a worldwide celebration of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Our goal in this celebration is to educate the worldwide public about of the benefits of using high quality FOSS in education, in government, at home, and in business -- in short, everywhere!

Yahoo! Big Thinkers India series

Yahoo! Big Thinkers India series is the quarterly lectures on science, technology and the internet in India. The speakers are acclaimed experts from the Yahoo! International Team.

The forthcoming events are,
Sep 10, 2008
Six Degrees: The Science of A Connected Age - Duncan Watts, Principal Research Scientist Yahoo! Research

Dec 4, 2008
Computational Advertising - Andrei Broder, Fellow and Vice President for Computational Advertising in Yahoo! Research

Register here.

Test2008 Conference

TEST2008 - Test excellence through speed and technology is an upcoming testing conference held between 13th to 16th, October 2008 at New Delhi. The theme of the conference is Agility in Testing.

Test2008 is the first conference being organized by PureConferences in India. Our conference will provide a platform for international and national test professionals to interact and participate. Speakers from around 10 countries, such as USA, UK, France, Sweden, Canada, Italy, Netherlands, including India will deliver keynotes, tutorials, and papers during the conference. We intend to involve academia and institutions of learning with our conference. We also intend to make Test2008 a ‘green’ conference as far as possible. Additionally, we will institute two test scholarships for educating promising students unable to finance their studies.

Agility represents nimbleness, resourcefulness, and adaptability. In the world of testing, agility is synonymous with the testing team’s resourcefulness and ability to respond quickly to changing contexts. Organizations need to catch the ‘window of opportunity’ when releasing a product to remain profitable. At the same time, we, as customers only want to use ‘quality’ products.

We are hoping to have intense discussions around the theme to make it a learning experience for all participants. The theme is broad enough and will cover diverse topics. Keynotes, Tutorials, and Paper presentations by renowned speakers known internationally and in our country will be the highlight of the conference.

Tutorials are held before the main conference in 4 cities on 13th & 14th October, 2008

• Bangalore
• Delhi
• Hyderabad
• Pune

Keynote speakers are,

• Geoff Thompson - Director, Experimentus Ltd., UK
• William (Bj) Rollison - Test Architect, Microsoft, USA

This conference is organized by PureConferences.

Registrations are open!

QuickBooks Online gives customers more mobile mojo

QuickBooks Online is a web-based account software from Intuit is now available on iPhone & BlackBerry. The iPhone & BlackBerry applications are early concept release from IntuitLabs and are available free to QuickBooks Online users.

QuickBooks Online for the iPhone/BlackBerry lets you view read-only versions of:

• Balance Sheet and Profit & Loss reports
• Bank account and credit card balances
• Vendor, customer, and employee lists
• Accounts receivable and payable
• QuickBooks Online contact information, which works with your iPhone/BlackBerry to make calls, create emails, and look up addresses using Google Maps

Microsoft Officelabs

Microsoft Officelabs is place where prototypes for ideas are build, implemented and made available to users for FREE download. One of the reason for getting this out in public to find out ideas which are valuable, how people are using it and get their feedback. Few of their current projects which will catch your attention are,

• Chart Advisor - Create quick charts in Excel
  
• Email Prioritizer - Email Ranking for Outlook
  
• pptPlex - Transform presentations into zoomable canvas
  
• Speed Launch - Quickly access your documents, web-sites
  

Know more about Microsoft Officelabs here and read their blogs for some interesting stuff.

Quicken Beam - Mobile Bank Balance Service

Quicken Beam is a free web and SMS based service from Intuit to check Bank Balance & get Payment Alerts on your mobile device.
Using this application you will be able to track your bank account balance, setup payment due alerts, check and log transactions, create reminders and more directly from your mobile phone.

Features:

• Check your bank account balance from mobile phone
• Keep track of your daily spending and transactions
• Setup and receive text message reminders and payment due alerts
• Manage your Quicken Beam account from your PC or mobile phone
• Available only to US users
• iPhone optimized

The application is currently available for beta testing from the Intuit Labs site.
Please read complete FAQ about Beam.

Beam only works with Banks in United States.

Intuit Labs

Intuit (makers of Quicken, TurboTax and QuickBooks) invites customers, friends, fans and employees to offer feedback on new applications in the works at the Intuit Labs Web site.

http://www.intuitlabs.com

You can download and try out the latest products from Intuit, provide feedback and talk online with members of the design team.

Intuit Labs has applications for different categories like Small Business, Personal Finance, Taxes, Mobile, Social and so on.

Webinar: Becoming Agile - Reshaping Testing For An Agile Team

EuroSTAR bring a free live Webinar on topic Becoming Agile - Reshaping Testing For An Agile Team by James Lyndsay

Date: Wednesday, 15th, October, 2008
Time: 10:00am Dublin- London / 11:00am Central European Time
Duration: 30 minutes

Register here.

Webinar: 3 Most Dangerous Software Vulnerabilities:Understanding, Finding & Mitigating Them

This webinar is part of Security Innovation Webinar Series

Presenter: Kevin Poniatwoski, Sr. Security Trainer at Security Innovation
Date: Thursday, August 28
Time: 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. EDT (3:30 GMT, 5:30 CET)

Register here.

Call for Speakers at Better Software Conference 2009

http://www.sqe.com/bettersoftwareconf/Speaker/default.aspx

Important Dates for Speakers

Presentation Proposal Deadline: December 5, 2008
Notification Date :February, 2009
Speaker Materials Due: March 23, 2009
Conference Dates: June 8 - 11, 2009

Conference Venue: Las Vegas, Nevada

If your paper/presentations gets selected, you get one complimentary conference registration :-)

Webinar: Test Environments: How to Get it Right!!

A 30 minutes online event on Test Environments,
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/917234073

Time: Wednesday, August 20, 2008, 11:00 AM EST, 4:00 PM UK

STeP-IN Forum Evening Talk - Automating software validation process using generic framework with Windows PowerShell

Date: August 27, 2008
Time: 4:30 PM to 6:30 PM

Venue:
Aztecsoft Ltd.
# 23, III A Cross
18th Main, 6th Block, Koramangala
Bangalore - 560 095

I am taking this session as part of Evening Talks organized by STeP-IN forum. PowerPoint presentation will be posted to the site after the presentation along with Q & A.

The 2008 Software Best Practices Webinar Series

Free Live Webinars from expert speakers - http://www.itmpi.org/webinars/

eRail.in - Easier & Faster

eRail.in is a very good site to check Seat Availability, PNR Status, Route, Fare, Distance, Running Status and so on... It is developed in AJAX fast, simple & consistent user interface. At the back-end the data is pulled from indianrail.gov.in website, but almost all of the functionaility offered by indianrail.gov.in is simultaed in a Single page on eRail.in. It is a great website which helps you to make your rail travel decisions easier & faster. Once you decided the date, class, train you can use IRCTC website to book your tickets online.

Bachna Ae Haseeno - Good movie to watch

Bachna Ae Haseeno is a very good movie to watch. It has a very good mixture of some great Dialogues, Music, Comedy & Dance. It is a complete entertainer. Times of India rated this 4 out of 5. It is well directed movie by Siddarth Anand after Salaam Namaste & Ta Ra Rum Pum

Call For Speakers - STeP-IN Summit 2009

6th International Conference on Software Testing (STeP-IN SUMMIT 2009) is held during January 20-23, 2009 at Bangalore.

Call for speakers
http://www.stepinforum.org/STeP-IN_SUMMIT_2009/callforspeakers.html

Dates to remember
Monday, September 15, 2008: Submission of final paper + Speaker Profile + Speaker Submission form.
Monday, November 17, 2008: Speakers selection and intimation.

STeP-IN Evening Talks

STeP-IN is a forum for Software related TEsting Practitioners in INdia. Evening Talk is one of the activities carried out by this forum. This activity allows you to share best practices, new concepts, innovation in testing field.

Presenting at STARWEST 2008

I will be presenting at STARWEST 2008 Conference at Anaheim, California (Sept 29 - Oct 03, 2008). The topic that I selected is Automate API Tests with Windows PowerShell.

http://www.sqe.com/starwest/Concurrent/Default.aspx?Day=Wednesday#W8