Monthly Archives: June 2009

Tech-Ed Roadshow from Pune (Microsoft Technologies) User Group – 20th June

Pune (Microsoft Technologies) User GroupWhat: A full-day event by the Pune (Microsoft Technologies) User Group (PUG) on the latest technologies from Microsoft
When: Saturday, 20th June, 9:00am-5:30pm
Where: International Convention Centre, Senapati Bapat Road, Pune – 411016
Registration and Fees: This event is free for all. Register here.

Details:

Image representing Microsoft as depicted in Cr...
Image via CrunchBase

Tech-Ed On Road brings you the very best in Microsoft Technology Showcase. Brought to you by the Pune (Microsoft Technologies) User Group.

Session for IT Pros has talks on Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, Virtualization 360– Technical Overview, Windows Client Windows Server 2008 NAP– Better Together

Sessions for Developers has – What’s New in Silverlight 3, Windows 7 for Developers, Welcome to ASP.NET 4.0 with VS2010

Agenda

IT PRO TRACK
Time Session Speaker
09:00 – 09:30 IT Pro Track Registration
09:30 – 10:45 Introduction to Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Ramnish Singh/
Devendra Thatte
10:45 – 11:00 Tea Break
11:00 – 12:00 Virtualization 360 – Technical Overview Ramnish Singh /
Abhishek Pradhan
12:00 – 01:00 Windows Client Windows Server 2008 NAP– Better Together Aviraj Ajgekar

DEVELOPER TRACK
Time Session Speaker
01:30 – 02:00 Developer Track Registration
02:00 – 03:15 What’s New in Silverlight 3 Vikram Pendse
03:15 – 03:30 Tea Break
03:30 – 04:30 Windows 7 for Developers Dhaval Faria
04:30 – 05:30 Welcome to ASP.NET 4.0 with VS2010 Sarang Datye

For more details about the events, and detailed speaker bios please see the event page. This event is free for everyone to attend, but please register.

About Pune (Microsoft Technologies) User Group

“Pune User Group” is a local user group of developers interested in Microsoft technologies and platforms. It has an informational portal with very active forums, it holds monthly user group meetings, an annual developers conference, and it also has a number of special interest groups.

For more details see the PuneTech wiki profile of PUG.

For other tech events coming up in Pune, see the PuneTech calendar. See also other PuneTech articles about PUG, and Microsoft.

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“wh[0x01] WildHack Contest” for articles/video/code related to cyber security by null.co.in

null-logoNull.co.in, Pune’s network security community for hackers, security professionals, security enthusiasts, and in fact anyone related to IT for whom security matters (ahem: if you are in IT, and security does not matter to you, you should really not be in IT, should you?) is holding a month long contest for the best security related content. Content means anything that you can produce: article, blog post, whitepaper, advisory, disclosure, tutorial, video/audio, source code, tool, proof-of-concept. Pretty much anything that you created on your own, and relates to cyber security, and would be educational for other people to see/read/consume.

The contest runs from 15th June to 15th July, and winners get cool “????” T-shirts (there will be at least 10 winners). It’s OK to submit content that you’ve previously published elsewhere (e.g. bugtraq, or your blog), but it must be your original content. So get cracking (or is it “hacking”) and email your submission to submit _at_ null.co.in

Contest Details

1. The contest starts on 15th June 2009 and ends on 15th July 2009. Winners will be announced on the null mailing list on 20th July 2009.
2. The submissions can be anything related to security/hacking.

3. Submission Categories expected(but not limited to):

  • – L2-L4 security/hacking.
  • Web 2.0 vulnerabilites and countermeasures.
  • .NET Malware/security.
  • – Code injection (Binary/XSS/SQL/Command etc).
  • – Spam mitigation and antispam evasion techniques.
  • – Malware detection and antimalware evasion techniques.
  • – Protocol vulnerabilities.
  • – Voip.
  • – Mobile networks GSM/CDMA/3G.
  • – Wireless.
  • – Cryptography.
  • – OS/Kernel and Virtualization security/hacking.
  • Bluetooth.
  • – Hardware based security/hacking.
  • – Cyber Forensics.
  • – Cyber Warfare.
  • – Social Engineering.

4. Research work in Progress will also be accepted.
5. The submissions can be in the form of:

  • White papers.
  • – Advisories/Disclosures.
  • – Best Practices.
  • – Video/Audio Demos.
  • – Tutorials.
  • – Hacks, tricks & tweaks.
  • – PoCs.
  • – Source code/Tools.

6. The submission should be original work of the author/submitter.
7. Your submissions* should be emailed to (submit _at_ null.co.in).
8. It is ok to submit your work already published on the net like advisories already posted on FD/Bugtraq, paper presented at a conference etc.
9. Submissions will be judged by core group members of null. Criteria for judgement:

  • – More technical the submission, more chances it has for winning.
  • – Innovation/Some thing new and never heard of before.
  • – Age of the work. Newer work will get more preference.

10. NULL will be giving away atleast 10 T-shirts.
11. For any further queries/details please write to (dhiraj _at_ null.co.in).

*Disclaimer: By submitting your work to null you are giving null the right to publish and redistrubute it in any form.

See the contest website for more details.

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PuneChips: Weekly round-up of Semiconductor/EDA News

(This is a roundup of last week’s semiconductor/EDA industry news by Abhijit Athavale founder/editor of PuneChips – Pune’s forum for the semiconductor industry. For more information about PuneChips see the PuneTech wiki profile of PuneChips)

The integrated circuit from an Intel 8742, a 8...
Image via Wikipedia

This is my first attempt at sending out a digest of Semi/EDA news from last week. I am also peppering it with my own, slightly irreverent comments, so feedback from you is greatly appreciated. I will also try to put in at least one off topic item somewhere just to see if you are reading this! Whoever points out the OT item, will get a reward – your name will get a mention in next week’s news.

Markets

PC/Processor

  • Intel buys Windriver for $884 million: Possible that Intel is now targeting embedded apps. I wonder if they will launch another crush operation against Motorola (Freescale now). This on the heels of the rumor that Nvidia is thinking about a new x86 based processor.
  • Microsoft to exclude ARM based netbooks from Windows 7: Is that a surefire way of making sure that ARM based netbooks don’t get popular with the non-geeky crowd?
  • Larry Ellison wants more Java on Netbooks and Phones: Here goes Larry again. Anyone remember his attempt at pushing a network PC a few years ago? A PC or a phone either has Java or not – how do you get more or less Java? And, I don’t think he intends to spill Coffee on the machines 🙂
  • Intel launches the CULV Processor: What is a CULV – this is just as bad as BING. Wonder if Intel and MSFT used the same agency to come up with the respective names. China may be the main market for this, so they are probably betting on getting this pronounced as CURVE anyway.

Mobile

Storage

Technology

  • Flexible Memory: The researchers at National Institute of Standards and Technology in the US claim that this technology can be used to print memory as easily as printing a slide. I can’t wait for the day when I add more memory to my machine by photocopying it at the neighborhood store …
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PMI Monthly Meet: “Work life balance” & “Best practices for MS Project” – 13 June

PMI Pune LogoWhat: Monthly meeting of PMI Pune, featuring two talks: one on the importance of security in global delivery projects, and another an introduction to Banking and Financial Domain
When: Saturday, 13 June, 10am to 12:30pm
Where: Pune Shramik Patrakar Sangh, Cummins Auditorium, 193 Navi Peth, Ganjwe Chowk, Near Alka Talkies, Garware bridge
Registration and Fees: This talk is free for all to attend. No registration required

Session 1: Work Life Balance – How to enjoy life and keep your job by Shivakumar C S – PMP®

Work-life balance is a broad concept including proper prioritizing between career and ambition on one hand, compared with pleasure, leisure, family and spiritual development on the other. As the separation between work and home life has diminished, this concept has become more relevant today than ever before. The interactive session aims at understanding between what is “work life balance” and what “work life balance is not” and tips to lead a healthy “Work Life Balance”

Session 1: About the Speaker Shivakumar C S

Shivakumar is a training professional with 19 years of hardcore training experience in setting up corporate universities. He has a Masters in Public Administration, a PGDPM&IR and an MBA with specialization in Personnel Management and Additional Specialization in Marketing Management. He is a Certified Project Management Professional and a Certified Cross Culture Trainer.

Shivakumar is currently the Global Head – Training at Syntel. Prior to Syntel Shivakumar worked as the head of Training at Persistent Systems Limited, (Pune).Prior to that he had a long stint of 14 years at WIPRO Technologies (Bangalore) and has worked across the spectrum of the Training function, He is an active member of the PMI-Pune Chapter and an inspirational speaker at various forums and colleges. He is an outbound team building expert and a renowned PMI-PMP Trainer.

Session 2: Best Practice Guidelines on Using Microsoft® Project by Ashish Dhoke – PMP®

Best Practice Guidelines on Using Microsoft® Project

  • The Scheduling Process [Key Steps]
  • Tracking & Monitoring
  • Best Practices for Dynamic Project Scheduling
  • Do’s and Don’ts [Checklist]

Session 2: About the Speaker Ashish Dhoke

Ashish Dhoke has over thirteen years of IT experience. Ashish has successfully delivered solutions to UK customers including Norwich Union, Experian, RAC plc, LEX, Surfcontrol and Barbour ABI amongst others.Ashish is a certified PMP® and a registered PRINCE2™ Practitioner. He is a Microsoft certified MS Project 2007 Technology Specialist and has extensively used Microsoft Project and Enterprise Project Server for project management and project scheduling. Ashish has participated in process improvement projects as a SEPG member in ISO 9001:2000 and CMMI implementation program. He was involved as a Six Sigma Green Belt in process improvement projects for RAC plc call center.

Ashish has delivered project management training programs on PMP Preparation, Microsoft Project, Software Project Management, Planning and Scheduling, Communication and Leadership and Risk Management. He has conducted various workshops on Cultural Familiarization in UK and India. Ashish has developed courseware on Microsoft Project 2007 for Microsoft.

For more about PMI, see the PuneTech wiki profile of PMI Pune. For other tech events in Pune this weekend, see the PuneTech calendar.

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Ignite Pune: Speak for 5 minutes on anything you’re passionate about – 19 Jun

ignitepuneThoughtWorks hosts the first edition of Ignite Pune! Imagine you’re on stage. You have 5 minutes, 20 slides advancing every 15 seconds. What is the passionate topic that you would talk about?

On June 19, 2009, 6:00 PM at ThoughtWorks Pune, YOU can have that stage. Any topic that you think is interesting is welcome (no sales pitches or a product demos please!). If you are interested in speaking, email your presentation to ignitepune@thoughtworks.com

The event is free, so if you’re interested in meeting people, learning something new and sharing their passions, RSVP via email.Let’s Ignite Pune! If this will be your first Ignite night, check out others around the world at
http://ignite.oreilly.com/

Venue: ThoughtWorks
GF-01 and MZ-01, Tower C
Panchshil Tech Park, Yerwada, Pune – 411006
Email: ignitepune@thoughtworks.com

For more details see the Ignite Pune page. If you want to attend, register here.

Breakfast with TiE: My Story by Narendra Barhate of SEED Infotech – 11 June

TiE Pune LogoWhat: A talk by Narendra Barhate of SEED Infotech, and an informal get-together with entrepreneurs from The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), Pune
When: Thursday, 11th June, 8:30am to 9:30am
Where: PYC Hindu Gymkhana, Near Deccan Gymkhana, Bhandarkar Road, Pune
Registration and Fees: Anybody can attend. The event is free for TiE members, and Rs. 50 for non-members. To register, send mail to namita[dot]shibad[at]gmail[dot]com.

Details:

This session of “Breakfast with TiE” has Narendra Barhate, Managing Director and CEO of SEED Infotech Ltd, Pune and SEED Healthcare Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

After graduating in Electronics and Telecom and an M.Tech. in Computer Science, IIT Mumbai, Narendra worked for DRDO Labs from 1984 to 1994. He started SEED Infotech Ltd, a company that provides technology training and consulting services in 1994. Since then, SEED has set up 30 centers in India and now even started a small venture in China.

Narendra added SEED Healthcare Solutions in 2006 and has successfully installed Hospital Information and Management software in over 100 hospitals in India and the Middle East. SEED is also the winner of the Maharashtra State IT HRD award.

On Thursday, June 11, Narendra will share his experiences, insights and the path forward for his company.

This will be followed by an informal chat with all present. A truly invaluable morning.

For information about previous TiE events, see PuneTech’s TiE page. For more information about tech events in Pune this week, check out the PuneTech calendar.

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PuneChips Editor’s Blog: PuneChips Inaugural Event

Well, I am quite excited to get the PuneChips forum up and running. While we would have liked to see more people attend, we had a good start. We invited most of the Semi/EDA folks in and around Pune and did get a very favorable response. Pending work and travel schedules are probably the culprits for a lower attendance, and I certainly hope that we will get more and more people to attend future events.

Ultimately, this forum is for the Semiconductor/EDA and Applications companies in and around Pune and we want to make sure that all future events/programs are catered to these companies needs. Again suggestions are most welcome and we are most certainly looking for individuals and companies to take on other responsibilities. We already have a taker for writing a guest blog so that is an encouraging sign.

That said I want to thank Abhijit Abhyankar from Rambus for taking time out of his busy schedule to present to us. The presentation was packed with lots of information generated a healthy amount of discussion during and after. Abhijit mentioned falling productivity and increasing power consumption as the two most important industry challenges, and therein lie the opportunities. Due to progressively declining geometries, number of transistors per chip has exploded, creating all sorts of new challenges. Conventional problem solving approaches are not working and radically different methodologies are required.

Chart of Sematech Potential Design Complexity and Designer Productivity in Semiconductors

Ever since Gordon Moore made his empirical observation that transistor densities will double every two years, the industry has been making concerted efforts to ensure that Moore’s law remains valid despite all predictions otherwise. Physical limits do certainly pose a challenge to increasing the transistor densities in two dimensions, but scientists are working on 3D placement of transistors, where transistors are either placed vertically, or on top of each other. Another approach to increase densities is to skip the third dimension altogether and go directly to the fourth, i.e. Time. Some programmable device makers think that you can make a cell or logic block on the chip perform different functions during a clock cycle resulting in extremely dense chips without pushing physical limits. If these efforts are successful, Moore’s law will continue to live for a long time.

Interestingly, Google’s founder Sergey Brin came up with a new term coined “Page’s Law” (watch this clip) named after his co-founder just last month. It states that software gets twice as slow every 18 months, explaining why your cell phones and PCs seem slower even as the HW inside remains unchanged. This new law seems to be destined as a sidekick of Moore’s law and may provide a reason for people to go buy new hardware every 18 months! Maybe, this is what they call a virtuous cycle …

Jokes aside, productivity and power are certainly a couple of areas that need solving in the near term. SEMATECH or Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology Association has circulated this interesting chart which compares design complexities to designer productivity. This problem can certainly be solved by creating new tools that let the designer work from a much higher level than delving deep within the IC.

Additionally, today’s chips consume too much power. Power analysis has become a huge time sink during chip design due to very high densities. It may not be an overestimation to claim that power related issues are a major cause of productivity losses during chip design. Newer techniques that allow designers to work on reducing power from the early design stages are required, in addition to new architectures that inherently consume less power.

I personally feel that Indian companies should rise up to solve this challenge. While we are not well set as far as semiconductor manufacturing goes, we are certainly on the ball with respect to VLSI design, verification, simulation, etc. We have the talent, the training and now, even the experience to tackle these challenges. To all the young entrepreneurs out there, look at the evolving opportunities in this sector; there certainly is a world beyond web 2.0.

Finally big thanks to Kaushik Gala and the NCL Venture Center for opening up their facilities to this group. Rarely do we see such well equipped meeting rooms and fabulous campuses. I also want to thank everyone who attended the inaugural event. We had some very senior people attend from QLogic, LSI, and KPIT Cummins. There are 12-13 more companies in the area and I would really like to encourage engineers working there to attend. There will be lots of opportunities to learn from industry experts, network and formulate your ideas. Keep in mind that we will not be able to distribute yesterday’s presentation to a wider audience so those that did not attend truly missed out. I expect this will happen in the future due to corporate guidelines, so it is important that people show up for the event.

Once again, thanks to everyone who helped get PuneChips off the Ground.

If you’re a technology professional interested in the semiconductor/EDA area in Pune, please join the PuneChips mailing list and linked-in group.

About the Author – Abhijit Athavale

Abhijit Athavale is the President and CEO of Markonix, and a high-tech marketing consultant. He has 16+ years of high-technology industry experience. Prior to Markonix, Abhijit spent over 11 years at Xilinx, Inc. in various engineering, applications and marketing roles. In his role as a marketing consultant, he has held executive management positions at Taray, Inc and Sanved DA. He has a masters degree in electrical engineering from Texas A&M University and a bachelors degree in electrical engineering from University of Pune. He is an accomplished speaker and author of several publications including a book.

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Event packed weekend in Pune: Proto volunteers, tweetup, Android, much more – 6th June

PuneTech logoThis weekend promises to be very hectic for techies in Pune with at least 6 events planned. If you did not know about at least 4 of them, you have not been paying attention – PuneTech has already written about the tweet-up (6:30pm), the Marathi localization meeting (6pm), the presentation on Google Android, and the IBM Tivoli User Group Meeting. If you count today (Thursday) as part of the weekend, then there’s the PuneChips event for the semiconductor/EDA design/apps professionals in Pune, bringing the total up to 7. And also, Lakshminarasimhan Sundararajan is looking to meet Pune entrepreneurs for an informal coffee in Koregaon park, so if you’re interested, let him know.

In addition there is a free CRM workshop by iWare Logic, from 10am to 5pm, at their Baner Road office. “Know CRM” is an intensive short duration workshop where we don’t just talk about CRM concepts but how they can be implemented usefully in your day to day operations. CRM consultants will share their knowledge and experience with you and help you understand the components of an effective CRM solution through guided demonstrations of Oracle CRM On Demand.

There’s a meeting for all those interested in volunteering for Proto.in. Proto is India’s premier startup conference, and it is coming to Pune in July. There is a lot of work to be done, and for this to become successful, a lot of volunteers are needed. This is your chance to get involved in the startup community in India – interact with the who’s who of the startup community, see the best startups in India at close quarters. And make Pune proud by making this the best proto. No registration required. Just show up.

And there also the monthly Pune Linux Users Group meeting from 4pm to 6pm. This meeting happens on the first Saturday of every month at 4pm in SICSR, and is definitely the place you want to be if you are interested in Linux in particular, or free/open source software in general.

Did we miss anything? If you are aware of any tech events in Pune (this weekend, or anytime in the future) please add them to the Pune tech events calendar at upcoming. This is an open calendar – anybody can add events to it. Please do so for the benefit of the tech community at Pune. Any event added there automatically gets added to the calendar at PuneTech.com.

By the way, don’t forget about the inaugural event of PuneChips today (Thursday, 4 June, 6:30pm: details). PuneChips is a forum for semiconductor industry (chip design, EDA, applications, VLSI, embedded systems) professionals in Pune. Please come today to meet and network with others in Pune working in this area, and to help us figure out what the activities of this forum. And in case you need more incentive to attend, Abhijit Abhyankar, head of Rambus India will talk about the emerging opportunities in the semiconductor industry. Please forward this info to your friends who might be interested.

As always, keep checking the PuneTech calendar on a regular basis. And follow PuneTech on twitter.

Adding FUEL to the Marathi Localization Fire: PLUG Meeting – June 6

FUEL (Frequently Used Entries for Localization) is an open source project for streamlining the process of translating open source software into regional languages like Hindi and Marathi. We’ve had two major FUEL Marathi meetings recently – one in the GNUnify conference, and later in the Indlinux conference. Based on this, the Pune Linux Users Group decided to continue this work by with the aim being apart from the current active members in Marathi L10N,  find and get more persons from different walks, to participate in Marathi L10N activities. While that being the broader goal, the starting point activity will be standardizing on Marathi translations in FUEL, after which more localization work could be done, depending on resources and level of interest.

With this in mind, all those interested in contributing to this initiative (i.e. all those who can contribute to the Marathi translation project (also known as Localisation or L10N)) are invited to attend the FUEL Marathi meeting on Saturday 6th June, 6pm, at Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research (SICSR), 7th floor, Atur Center, Model Colony, Pune, India (Map). The meeting is free and open for all. No registration required. The meeting will be held immediately after the Pune Linux Users Group monthly meeting, which is from 4 to 6pm. (The PLUG monthly meeting is held on the first Saturday of every month in the same place and at the same time. It’s a good place to meet the most enthusiastic Linux and open source fans in Pune.)

The meeting will discuss the following points:

1. Current status of Marathi localisation: How, why, where, what etc.
2. FUEL activities. How to take it further.
3. Marathi word collection for adding in dictionaries. Validation/verification of these words. (Shantanu Oak has a big repository that needs to be reviewed/verified/corrected and included in dictionaries)
4. Spell check and other related applications/tools
5. Generating new words for various technical English words.
5. Usage of unicode by various categories of users- especially the DTP, book publications community.
6. Pushing Unicode from the Government to the users.
7. etc. etc. etc.  add here…. etc etc etc.

This is not just an “open source” or “Linux” activity. This is for those interested in seeing good Marathi translations of software and is generic to all the computing systems. Please inform other like minded people and groups so that we have enough people at the meeting to give a boost to Marathi l10n activities.

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India’s largest tweet-up: Will Pune break its own record? (#ptu2)

Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...
Image via CrunchBase

The Pune Tweetup is back.

Back in February, when we had the first one, organizers Bhavya, Purva and others had organized it on CCD on FC Road, assuming that “a few” people will turn up. A staggering 62 showed up , and managed to squeeze into CCD (that number is confirmed – I was personally present when the bodies were counted). Rohan talked about how he got business through twitter, Anupam Saraph talked about how to help Pune using twitter, Dhananjay talked about using different twitter accounts for different purposes, and I gave my twitter best practices spiel. It was covered by Pune Mirror, DNA, and Indian Express. As far as we know, that was the largest tweetup in India, and will be known by that name (“Largest Tweet-up in India”) until someone gives us details of something bigger that happened elsewhere.

Or, unless Pune Tweetup 2 (#ptu2) is bigger.

This one is on Saturday, 6th June, 6:30pm at the Mint Cafe. And I am not giving directions, because a SadakMap url is a more efficient way of doing that. To give the organizers a chance to panic (at the number of registrations), you should register at http://ptu2.eventbrite.com.

And for those feeling a bit lost, I guess I should explain what a tweet-up is. A tweet-up is a meet-up of twitterers. A Pune Tweetup is a chance for Pune’s twitterati to meet in person all those people they’ve met and interacted with only over twitter. It’s a place where you make friends and influence people. It’s a place where you run into people with interests similar to you. It’s the best place for professional networking. There’s also place for some unprofessional networking. It’s a place where you’ll sell your Ferrari and become a monk. It’s a place where you meet some of the smartest people in Pune (by definition, since, if you are not on twitter, you are not that smart, right?) And those who have been living in a cave for the last two years and have just emerged are probably wondering what is twitter and why is everybody going ga-ga over it, should educate themselves about twitter and take the plunge.

So what are you waiting for – register now. As they say, offer valid until stocks last.

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