Thought Flickr's

mesh '07 tickets are now on sale

Mesh '07 tickets are now on sale. AT $399/- for the two days, its worth the money !! The line-up of talkers also seem OK, they are  some of the regular loud mouths of Web2.0. However,  Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman Co.speaks on  the tension between the openness of the Web and traditional marketing. This certainly will be an interesting session , after all -  blogopshere still remembers the Walmart scenario !!

Anyhoot, cya all there..

Pharming 2D

Hackers launched the "pharming" attack on Monday, Feb. 19 and authorities shut it down on late Wednesday. "It was a professional team. It was very well planned," says Hubbard. "It was quite successful and very resilient.

"On Monday, the first e-mail lure was spammed out. It contained the bogus news that Australian Prime Minister John Howard was struggling for his life after suffering a heart attack. The e-mails are set up to appear to be a link to a news story from The Australian, a daily newspaper. The second e-mail lure offered up news of a cricket match in Australia. Hubbard notes he was surprised how many Americans were conned into clicking on a link for more information about Australian cricket.

The e-mail lures directed users to connect to a Web site for more information. When they clicked on the link, they were redirected to one of five different malicious Web sites, where their machines were infected with malware.

When anyone with a corrupted machine connected to a Web site for one of 65 banks or financial institutions, any information they entered there would be sent to both the real destination, as well as back to the hackers. The stolen information, along with more malicious code, was stored on a master server." [ source ]

Infection Rates : Australia 35%, US 32% , UK 11.5% , Others .5%

Dangerously Irrelevant !!

I kinda caught this ...while worth the time taking the feed !!

Dangerously Irrelevant : Technological and social change at a rate faster than our institutions and emotions can cope with. . . . Innovation is cumulative and the rate of change accelerates. We therefore find ourselves continually trying to accommodate new realities within inappropriate existing institutions, and trying to think about those new realities in traditional but sometimes dangerously irrelevant terms. - Gwynne Dyer

David Greeff Beatitudes 2007!

Trevor actually points me to some good old wisdom thru  David [sorry no linky to who David is ] !!

Fulfilled are those who are not ambitious,
    For they will have ultimate success.
Fulfilled are those who admit their wrongs and make amends,
    For they shall be forgiven.
Fulfilled are those on the lowest rung,
    For they shall have recompense from God.
Fulfilled are those who strive to do the right thing,
    Right will indeed come to them.
Fulfilled are those who are fair,
    For they shall be treated justly.
Fulfilled are those with clean consciences,
    For they shall receive what they deserve.
Fulfilled are the catalysts of harmony,
    For they shall be called God’s people.
Fulfilled are those who suffer because they have done the right thing,
    For theirs is an unspeakable reward.
Fulfilled are you when you are insulted and mocked, because of association with me (Jesus) and this teaching.

Be deeply and inwardly at peace, for life is infinitely more than the world and work, and everyone who has lived like this for God has experienced the very same.

Overtaking Google Desktop

This just attacke just rolled in from FD forum !!

"Attack can allow a malicious individual to achieve not only remote, persistent access to sensitive data, but in some cases full system control as well.
[..]

"the attack is composed of web-application security flaws found in Google Desktop along with exploitation of Google Desktop's tight integration with the Google.com website.

This paper is a real interesting read and it appears a patch has already been rolled out !!

India market growing ?

I just completed reading a report from Boston Cousulting Group titled " Whats Next for India : Beyond the Back  office"

It also signals a transition for the world's "back office" from its current status as a provider of data processors and call-center workers to its new role in outsourcing high-end, knowledge-based skills.

Ravi Aron, senior fellow at Wharton's Mack Center for Technological Innovation finds enough evidence to support that climb up value chains. In fact, Aron, who has consistently followed trends in this industry, had four years ago predicted the emergence of what is now commonly referred to as KPO. "Instead of routine data work, you move towards more of information extraction, which involves a certain amount of judgment, interpretation, discretion and inference," he says. "You are seeing more of that happen. Instead of medical transcription, data entry and minimal inbound call support, people are now offering high-end research services." He adds that these do not make for whole new trends: "What we are seeing is a substantial and significant difference in degree, but not of kind." 

One of the things that we have to note is that Indian companies are now investing in US and EU based Corporations. In fact Indian Companies  are on a M&A Spree ---this may tip the tide in terms of knowledge accurals.

A Grant Thornton India report notes three significant trends in cross-border M&A activity by Indian firms in 2005. First, more than half the deals were cross-border: 58% of deal value, amounting to $9.5 billion, and 56% of deal volume at 192 deals. Second, there were more outbound deals than inbound deals both in value and volume terms. Third, while Indian companies "have acquired several businesses overseas to get an international footprint, most of these outbound deals have been lower volume deals, showing that Indian businesses are treading carefully and minimizing their risks through value buys."

Updated : Sadagopan has a posting that is relevant to this thought. However, he only points to ERP Stat's.  The question in play is og what worth will ERP apps be in the first place by the year 2015 ? The landscape is moving towards Web as the OS correct ?

PbWiki USer Interface Enhancements !!

The PBwiki team is doing some great user tools...kudos to the Wiki Team

RICH-TEXT EDITING
Editing is much, much easier. Just type like you would in your favorite word processor and click Bold, Italics, and font color/size. Drag text and images around anywhere you want. It just works.

PBWIKI PLUGINS
Add a shared calendar to your wiki. Or a YouTube video, Flickr photoshow, chat room, stock chart, or more. Just click "Insert Plugin."

This make this space even more interesting...  getting tightly meshed and intergrated with other web2.0 apps. This makes content easier to manage. I just switched to the RTE and experimenting.

Oh, if you reading this then visit my personal wiki and also theysaidit :)-

What plant is this ?

Does anyone know what type of plant this is ?? Yesterday evening, a friend of mine gave me this plant. I name it "precious" , but I don't know how to take care of it. Does it need a little water, or a lot of water ? how many times a week ??

Update : from Julia on Rio de Janeiro, Brasil sez its "Cyclamen persicum" :)- Thank You very much Julia !!

I have this bad habit !!

I gotto change my habits !!

I have this bad habit that I blog and also cook at the same time. However, it seems that I kinda get lost in bloggin, rather then taking care of my roti's on the stove :(-. Second time, of the week that one of my rotis got burnt ..yeah toasted totally all over !!

MSFT settles Iowa Suit !

"Microsoft Corp. said Wednesday it agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit in Iowa that accused the world's largest software maker of overcharging consumers in the state. The plaintiffs' lawyers were seeking damages of up to $330 million in the trial that began in November."
via : eweek

This is interesting because, Microsoft used its monopoly to harm competition by incorporating new features into its operating systems at no additional costs. Any idea if Vista has something that we dont know about (yet) ??