SK’s Technology & Social Blog

APPLE INC Co-founder and chief executive Steve Jobs sent a letter to employees saying he was taking medical leave until June to focus on his health. The cancer survivor had recently said his weight loss was caused by hormone deficiency. Apple’s shares plunged by 7 percent.

So this was the big news in all leading news papers of the world. But why I covering this news in my blog as usually I do not cover up front stories here. The oblivious reason for me to include this news here is that I love this kid Steve Jobs. He is truly a great guy.

(more…)

How long do you think it will take Google to corner a full 3/4 of the search market? According to the latest Hitwise report - Not Long! Does April or May sound too conservative?

That is the estimation of and on my own rough estimate, not Hitwise’s. The metrics firm says Google searches accounted for 72.07 percent of all US searches in December, which reflects 14 percent increase over 2007. By January 2010, we may be wondering how far off 90 percent is.

Yahoo, which had one tough 2008, dropped three percent from the previous December, grabbing 17.79 percent; MSN bled down to

(more…)

Let’s get down and discuss some stats about blogging. Statistics published by Technorati were interesting and encouraging for bloggers. Good news, blogsphere has maximum readership. Look at the figures.

comScore MediaMetrix (Aug. 2008)

• Blogs: 77.7 million unique visitors in the US
• Facebook: 41.0 million
• MySpace 75.1 million
• Total internet audience 188.9 million

(more…)

Microsoft has begun testing some Web-based Office applications that will be delivered through Office Live Workspace, its online adjunct to Microsoft Office, and give the company a closer rival to online application suites such as Google Docs.

Microsoft will begin a public beta test of what it calls the “Office Web applications” later this year. They will allow users to create and edit new documents online from within a Web browser, said Justin Hutchinson, group product manager for Microsoft’s Office Client division, in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

That’s a significant change from the capabilities in the beta of Live Workspace available today, which requires users to create documents using a copy of Office on their PC and then save them to the Web, where they can then be shared with friends and colleagues.
Launched last March, Live Workspace marked the first tentative steps by Microsoft to put its lucrative Office franchise on the Web. More than 1.5 million people have signed up for the beta since it was released, said Michael Schultz, director of product management and marketing for Office Live Small Business.

(more…)

A job applicant is typically interviewed by at least 2 or more people. These interviewers have different background and different skill sets. In order for a candidate to get the coveted job offer, s/he must impress most, if not all, of the interviewers. Having a complete command over your area of expertise will get an applicant 90% close to the goal of landing the job. However, the other 10% is dependent on the other “softer” side of the candidate that is explored during the interview. Typically, the higher-up the interviewer asking the question in the food chain of the company (read, his feedback about you is extremely important), the more s/he will ask these behavioral questions.

We have assembled below answers to some of the questions faced by most job seekers. By no means, they replace your knowledge and hence your confidence in your own field. These questions are in addition to queries specific about your skill sets and your background.

1. Tell us about yourself.

Usually an initial question, an ice-breaker. I have typically asked this question for different reasons. One, I did not get a chance to review the candidate’s CV beforehand and this will give me time to peruse through his CV while he is talking about himself. Another reason is because I want to hear the interviewee talk to ascertain how good of a communicator he is. A concise 2-minute answer to this question that hits all the main points of the candidate will impress upon me that the person can think analytically and is a good communicator. Generally speaking, this question maybe asked more from those candidates seeking non-technical jobs, or those seeking higher positions.

(more…)

Self confidence is the most imperative thing any individual requires either at the start of his professional career or through his pursuit to nurture it. Do you feel your mind clouded with questions like, How do I look like to other people? What others think about me? People and their perceptions are the realities that every human faces every day and every minute of his/her life.

Self confidence is the difference between feeling inexorable and feeling anxious about your intellect. Sometimes we observe that wonderfully gifted personals have not harnessed the best out of them because of their internal fears. Remember, your own perception about yourself reflects how others perceive you. Perception is like veracity — the more self confident you are, the more are chances of your success.

Even though many aspects regarding self confidence are out of your control, but you can consciously adopt a number of things to build self confidence. Use the following 10 strategies to get the mental edge you need to reach your prospective.

1. Dress Sharp

A dress affects the way a person feels about himself. For example the morning you know you don’t look good the feeling reflects in the way you carry yourself around all day. This also affects your interaction with other people. So be conscious about yourself and take care of your personal appearance to build up a good confidence level. Significant improvements can be made by following some simple routine:

• Bath and shave frequently
• Wear clean clothes
• Be cognizant of latest styles
• A great rule to follow is “spend twice as much, buy half as much“. Rather than buying a bunch of cheap clothes buy half as many. Select high quality items. This will decrease your spending because expensive clothes have good quality so they take time to wear out and stay in style longer

(more…)

I was inspecting the traffic to one of my customer’s website in the past few days and observed that it was only making 3-5 visits a day and I found this quite strange. So I make a decision to check Google analytics installed on that website to see how much traffic that website was receiving.

Not surprisingly, I check it and the website was only getting 3-5 visitors a day as opposed to 100+ organic search traffic.  Initially I thought the website might has for some reason gotten nuked by Google and Yahoo, but then realized that the website is still in top 3 results for the targeted keywords, in search rankings.  My next move was to click on the website link, and there it is - the moment every webmaster worries a lot. (more…)

Microsoft released a security patch on Monday for software that won’t be available publicly until Tuesday at the company’s Professional Developer Conference.

Microsoft will be providing attendees of

(more…)

Let’s get down and discuss some stats about blogging. Statistics published by Technorati were interesting and encouraging for bloggers. Good news, blogsphere has maximum readership. Look at the figures.

comScore MediaMetrix (Aug. 2008)

• Blogs: 77.7 million unique visitors in the US
• Facebook: 41.0 million
• MySpace 75.1 million
• Total internet audience 188.9 million

So the ultimate truth is that blogs are ruling the internet at present, what say.

Now let’s try to drill down the entire blogsphere further from the eyes of (more…)

Marshall Simmonds is a long-time colleague who, as vice president of enterprise search, oversees the SEO work to make the New York Times more search engine friendly. The NYT acquired Marshall as part of the Times’ About.com purchase last year.

Prior to Marshall’s arrival at the Times, the company’s web sites, which also include the Boston Globe and the International Herald Tribune, had good traffic, but this was largely due to the strength of the brands. Little effort was expended on making search-friendly content, or making sure that search engines could easily crawl and index the sites.

“When I joined the company, Google was not crawling the Times,” said Marshall (more…)