Summer 2009, originally uploaded by VeNiVi on flickr

Rising energy prices and changes in the global climate have put ecology issues on the strategic planning of corporate executives worldwide. The phenomenon of “Going Green” is worldwide now and naturally in Mauritius also there are campaigns of Going Green – Maurice Ile Durable: Summer Time, Solar Water Heater, Fluorescent Lamps (Ampoule économique) , Electricity production for sale to CEB, Waste to Energy, Sale of Hybrid Cars, MCB Green Initiative, reducing dependency on imported fossil fuels and increasing the use of renewable energy via use of biomass, bio-ethanol, biogas – 35%, solar – 15%, wind – 6%, hydro -3%, cogeneration – 3% and waves 3%. Maurice Ile Durable was first announced by the Prime Minister of Mauritius as a long term vision aimed at promoting sustainable development. The project is spearheaded by Professor Joel de Rosnay.

There are also environmental issues involved in the use of Information Technology. On the 21 September 2009, The British Computer Society changed its logo:

Before

After

It is very interesting to note that The BCS has various Green initiatives. On www.bcs.org/greenit, we read that, in the near future, very soon there will be the ISEB Foundation Certificate in Green IT.

In Mauritius, we gonna have the world’s first Green Data Centre using Sea Water Air Conditioning (SWAC), the project which was presented during the Data Centre Strategies.

That’s great!

Interestingly, we also have a Green Mauritian blog!

I was happy to purchase some books on eBay during Aug-Sept 09.  It was another pleasure to receive them at home as fast as: from 1 week to 3 weeks. Yupi! E-commerce rocks!

So here are the new books which are proudly in my bookshelf:

Professional Issues in Information Technology

Author: Frank Bott

Professional Issues in Information Technology is the only textbook tailored specifically to match the syllabus of the BCS Professional Examination compulsory Diploma module, Professional Issues in Information System Practice, in its entirety. And, I am preparing for my BCS Core Module, as you already know.

Essentials of Management Information Systems

Author: Kenneth & Jane Laudon

This second book is the Primary text for the BCS Graduate Diploma module: Management Information Systems. This book rocks!

Finance for IT Decision Makers – A Practical Handbook for Buyers, Sellers and Managers

Author: Michael Blackstaff

Since, I have a close relationship with the world of finance, I could not resist this BCS book. Finance for IT Decision Makers covers those aspects of finance relevant to IT professionals in both business and non-commercial organizations who make or influence decisions about IT.

And finally, the new book that is still in shipping progress is:

Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web

Author: Sir Tim-Berners Lee

I want to read a book from the inventor of the World Wide Web.

Happy Reading to me!

Mac with Internet Everywhere

Mauritian Mac and Notebook PC users, get ready to enjoy Mauritius Telecom’s new service:

(some extracts of Orange’s Internet Everywhere campaign)

So here in our littoul Paradise Island, after Emtel’s Mobile Broadband service (with a cool, successful Ad jingle: Internet : dans caro, dans buro)

We notice the cost of the USB Modem of Mauritius Telecom is Rs 3,999 (prepaid) and Rs. 2,999 (postpaid). This is much lower than Emtel’s Rs. 5000’s USB Modem.

More details from orange.mu is as follows:

Les packages postpayés pour un usage régulier.

Le client prend un abonnement de 12 mois et obtient une clé USB3G+ à Rs 2 999 (tva incluse) et une carte SIM gratuite.

Le premier mois d’abonnement est gratuit, cette offre promotionnelle est valable jusqu’à la fin d’août.  (This is quite a very quick launch!)

Trois packages internet mensuels sont offerts en fonction des besoins :

1. Package 5 Go à seulement Rs 1 599 par mois. Tout excédent est à Rs 2 par mégabit.
2. Package 3 Go à seulement Rs 999 par mois. Tout excédent est à Rs 2 par mégabit.
3. Package 1 Go à seulement Rs 499 par mois. Tout excédent est à Rs 2 par mégabit.

Le plan prépayé pour un usage ponctuel

Le client n’a pas à prendre un abonnement. Il obtient sa clé USB3G+ à Rs 3 999 (tva incluse), une carte SIM gratuite, Rs 500 de crédit pour une capacité de 1 gigabit et 10 SMS gratuits.

Tout excédent sera facturé à Rs 3 par mégabits.

How to use the service?

Some (probable) installation Guidelines for Internet Everywhere:

Step 1: insert the SIM card into the USB modem. You will hear a click when the SIM card is correctly positioned.
Step 2: Insert the USB modem into the USB port of your laptop or Mac. You can use the extension cable to connect up the USB modem to your laptop.
Step 3: Installation of the software and drivers starts up automatically. Choose your language and click on ‘Install’. The installation can take from 5 to 40 minutes depending on the hardware configuration of your PC.

Access to Internet via Internet Everywhere

• Enter your pin code. You’ll find this code under the grey area of the card with your SIM card. Then click on OK.
• To access the Internet, click on ‘connect’. Now open your Internet browser (Use Mozilla Firefox/ Chrome/ Safari; Stop using Internet Explorer 6!).
• To stop your Internet connection, click on ‘Disconnect’ and close the Internet Everywhere screen. Or click on the Mobistar icon on the right and select ‘Disconnect’.

Target Objective of Internet Everywhere

Mauritius has approximately 115,000 internet users out of which 90,000 are Facebook users (Oreilly research). According to lexpress.mu, Mauritius has around 75,000 laptop/ Macbook users (a percentage of which is already using Emtel’s Mobile Broadband service).

Ce produit est destiné à quatre types de consommateurs, selon Emmanuel André, Executive Head Commercial du groupe. «Pour ceux qui ont un business, les foyers qui n’ont pas encore d’internet, les foyers qui disposent déjà de l’internet mais qui pourront utiliser cette clé 3G+ quand ils sont en déplacement et pour les touristes», assure-t-il. Les utilisateurs pourront se connecter aux réseaux récents et aussi aux anciens réseaux mais la performance variera dépendant du réseau.

Orange has the objective of reaching 100,00o users connected to the Internet via this new service by the end of August!

Well well folks, we can expect aggressive marketing of the product in the coming few days. Internet Everywhere, being launched today: Wednesday 12 August, shall be available as from tomorrow 12 Aug. on the Mauritian Market.

Conclusion

How far can the ISP giant Mauritius Telecom be successful with “Internet Everywhere”  now introduced in Ile Maurice: cyber-ile?

Today I joined IT Toolbox.com which is a community where professionals interested in IT connect and communicate to share knowledge. Browsing the interesting blog posts and articles, I found one very tempting to download and read:

IT excellence: Achieving optimised business outcomes -an Economist Intelligence Unit report, sponsored by SAP.

The article focuses on how leading companies enable IT to perform optimally.

Ms Mulders believes that IT excellence connotes different things to different companies. “You have to start with ‘What are we trying to do as a corporation?’” she says. Since Dow Corning is “focused very heavily on customer relationships,” she says, for her company IT excellence means “that IT and the businesses are marching to the same priorities and initiatives—that IT is partnering with the businesses to deliver value for our customers.” IT excellence simply means achieving the right balance between IT value and IT cost.

According to Applied Materials CIO Ron Kifer, the firm’s investments in IT are enabling business strategies and creating differentiation. “Our leadership is committed to the idea that IT is vital to business strategy,” says Mr Kifer. “But IT excellence is also very important.” At his company, he says, that means more than merely enabling business strategies—it also means “taking a leadership role” in business and process improvement, if not transformation.

Outsourcing

Using an outsourcing approach for enabling business is beneficial because it allows for a more flexible and cost-effective staffing model that can adjust rapidly to changes in the business environment. Outsourcing frees internalresources to focus on value-added core competencies such as change leadership, process optimisation and technology innovation.

What other interesting stuffs I’ve learnt so far concerning strategic use of IT is that

Today’s Chief Information Officer (CIO) must understand technology well, speak the language of senoir management, and involve their personnel in finding innovative ways of using IT to efficiently and swiftly deploying new business ideas.

At Triolet, another Youth Centre has seen the day! This is a laudable initiative by the Ministry of Youth and Sports (the Minister, also a legendary figure in Mauritian Football was elected from No. 5) since there is a lack of such incentive in such a large village. Interestingly we notice a very nice innovation:

Free Internet Access. Come to learn and Enjoy! ICafe Opening Hours: 10:00 – 17:00 Weekdays

Driven by curiosity, I went to pay a visit to the new Internet Cafe (ICafe) and collected Membership forms. We learn that there will be a Youth Officer or Net Coach who will be providing help to users to surf the internet. It is also encouraging for people of all age to come and learn to use the effective way of surfing on the information superhighway.

Concerning this, I had a brief brainstorming of what I think personally should be delivered by the net coach. Here is the draft presentation (still work in progress):

Of course,  suggestions and ideas to better coach surfing the net are welcomed!

We Follow is a new user powered Twitter directory. The site was launched by Digg founder Kevin Rose

The WeFollow site lists the top Twitter members in various popular categories (e.g. Celebrity, Blogger, Tech, Music, Social Media, etc.), displaying the Twitterers in order of the number of followers they have.

It’s quick and simple to add a Twitter account into the WeFollow index : simply select “Add Yourself to WeFollow” on the We Follow homepage and you’ll be redirected to your Twitter account. You’ll then be asked to send message to @wefollow with up to three hash tags that describe or define you as a Twitterer.

Excamples of some the popular categories being used include: blogs, entertainment, health, science, socialmedia, food, books, news, politics, movies, fashion, shopping, gadgets, gadgets, pets, and business.

WeFollow is a useful alternative to sites like Twitterholic that show only the most popular Twitter users overall. Websites like these have become dominated by celebrity twitterers as of late.

I have personally started to follow the following Twitterers:

1) Britney Spears! ” Yes! This is the real Britney Spears! We’ve got updates from her team, her website and yes, even Britney herself!” 

2) Evan Williams, CEO of Twitter (Dude, if Google acquired Twitter, would there be an improvement in Twitter Search? )

3) Coldplay- my favourite band who is considering taking a break from the music industry, so their fans don’t grow sick of their music.

4) Kevin Rose – Founder of social media site digg.com. Random ideas, entrepreneur, climber of rocks, video blogger, & tea drinker.

5) Tim O’Reilly – Founder and CEO, O’Reilly Media. Watching the alpha geeks, sharing their stories, helping the future unfold.

6) Dave Morin – The Facebook Guy

7) Twitter Tips – Twitter tips, tools, news & status from @SarahJL (radio DJ, dance teacher) & @QuantumGood (resident geek)

William Shatner – A nice surprise to see one of my favourite actors (Denny Crane in TV Show Boston Legal) on Twitter!

9) twt.fm – Tweeting Music, ahh something very interesting! My first Music Tweet : http://twt.fm/41013

10) Guy Kawasaki – RSSurai with Annie Colbert, Gina Ruiz, and Bill Meade

11) LFC TV  – eihhh I would had preferred Man U TV though!

12) Gary Vaynerchuk – Internet Marketer

13) Bill Crosby – Wickedly Smart Marketer

14) Daniel Brusilovsky – Young entrepreneur

15) startupstudent – Entrepreneurial quotes in the AM and blogging about entrepreneurship all time

Overall, weFollow is a great Web tool to find Twitter users to follow and promote your own agenda!

On Friday 3 April, my Google Calendar reminded me by SMS that there would be 3 presentations in the Campus. More details about the advert for the 2 presentations by the Computer Science and Engineering dept. can be found here. Kindly allow me to write my personal feedback on the events .

TNT Express ICS

Firstly, the presentation by TNT Express ICS (Mauritius). The powerpoint design was very well done. The flow of presentation was good and coherent. We obtained an idea of what we, future UoM Graduates (Computer Scientists), would be doing at the company i.e. giving the best of ourselves. Tackling the challenges lying ahead. I personally very much appreciated this part of “Warning Challenges Ahead” sign in the powerpoint.

In one of the Human Resources Management paper I read, I grasp the concept that one is not primarily motivated by the pay obtained from the work but by whether they feel challenged by the work that they are doing.

Ceridian (Mauritius)

Second presentation was by Ceridian. It was OK, I should say. The presentation team comprising of 3 “Ceridians” was smaller comapared to the one from TNT (greater that five). Unlike free distribution of  ‘Company Pen’, this time the student community obtained an informative brochure on Ceridian. The presentation by the HR lead shed light on the current economic situation a bit, which I appreciated and she stressed that despite this worldwide phenomenon, the company is growing and will be accomodating more employees by July 2009.

The interesting point is about the 5 months placement training given jointly by UTM and Ceridian. The programme is being introduced for the first time and starting in May 2009.

ACCA (Mauritius)

Last but not the least, a very interesting, informative and creative presentation given by the Director of ACCA Mauritius at Lecture Theatre 2, Faculty of Law & Management. The Director of ACCA(Mauritius), Mr. V. Busawah has agreed upon the request of faculty representative (FLM) to make a donation of all ACCA textbooks (F1 to F9 and P1 to P6) to UoM. This is a very laudable initiative since ACCA textbooks are expensive. A big bravo for the team for being to make this donation event possible.

The quality of the presentation was fantastic! No denying. This is a style of presentation from which I find lots of inspiration. Will try to work on this style straightaway and prepare a template so that my next presentation can reflect this unique style.

The questions and answers sesssion was brief but interesting questions were being given by the future professional accountants.

In the end, Assoc. Prof Juwaheer, Dean of FLM accepted the books and gave the vote of thanks. Special mention was made about care to be taken on avoiding mishandling of the new books (including tearing of pages and other ‘barbarie’). It was nice to obtain so much information about the activities of ACCA Mauritius and its close collaboration with the University of Mauritius in providing exemptions in ACCA modules for certain degree courses (for eg. BSc (Hons) Accounting)

Slavery versus Indentureship Seminar

In the end, had the opportunity to attend a Seminar at the Fine Arts Lecture Theatre (MGI) on similarity/difference between Slavery and Indian Immigrants. Despite being delivered with no use of technolgy (as in previous presentations), the similary of high quality of intellectual thoughts being shared was present there also.

Techcrunch published on The 2009 List of Tech Billionaires and How much they lost. Quote:

“The tech billionaires are still collectively worth $203.4 billion. Although Bill Gates rose to the top of the list after falling to number 3 last year, the move was bittersweet. Gates lost a massive $18 billion in the past year. Larry Ellison from Oracle lost $2.5 billion but moved up 10 spots from last year, to number 4 on the list. Larry and Sergey from Google both took a hit of over $6 billion each.”

Some facts on Bill Gates from funlok.com:
1. Bill Gates earns US$250 every SECOND, that’s about US$20 Million a DAY and US$7.8 Billion a YEAR!

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2. If he drops a thousand dollar, he won’t even bother to pick it up bcoz the 4 seconds he picks it, he would’ve already earned it back.

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3. The US national debt is about 5.62 trillion, if Bill Gates were to pay the debt by himself; he will finish it in less then 10 years.

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4. He can donate US$15 to everyone on earth but still be left with US$5 Million for his pocket money.

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5. Michael Jordan is the highest paid athlete in US. If he doesn’t drink and eat, and keeps up his annual income i.e. US$30 Million, he’ll have to wait for 277 years to become as rich as Bill Gates is now.

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6. If Bill Gates was a country, he would be the 37th richest country on earth.

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7. If you change all of Bill Gate’s money to US$1 notes, you can make a road from earth to moon, 14 times back and forth. But you have to make that road non-stop for 1,400 years, and use a total of 713 BOEING 747 planes to transport all the money.

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8. Bill Gates is 40 this year. If we assume that he will live for another 35 years, he has to spend US$6.78 Million per day to finish all his money before he can go to heaven.

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Last but not the least: If Microsoft Windows’ users can claim US$1 for every time their computers hang because of Microsoft Windows, Bill Gates will be bankrupt in 3 years !!!!!!! !!!!

Last but not the least, Business Week compiled: Bill Gates – A Rich Life, which is worth having a look.

Today I attended a lecture on Happiness organised by the UoM Campus Culture Society. The talk was given by Dr. Bilal Philips on way to Real Happiness. The stuff that very impressed me is that according to him, research found that spiritually committed people are more happy than less committed ones.

What would you do if you had the fortune of Bill Gates? Would you be Happy forever?

As part of BCS Membership benefits, one amongst them is access to Forrester reports. While browsing for any interesting report on IT Service Management, I encountered one which I find interesting. Here is the excerpt.

Interesting questions were covered on the following topics:

• x86 Server Purchase Plans
• x86 Server Virtualization Adoption
• Cloud Computing Adoption
• Alternatives To Traditional PC Technologies
• PCs, Laptops, And Management
• Small Business Hardware Spending Plans
• Small Business Product Selection And Channels
• Reliance On IT And Support Services
• Information Sources And Influence In Purchasing

Sample questions:

• Approximately how many x86 (Intel or AMD servers — in some companies known as the Windows servers) are operated by IT that you know about?

• For approximately how long has your company used x86 server virtualization? a) Less than a year; b) about one year; c) about two years; d) about three years; e) about four years; f) five years or more; and g) don’t know.

• What is your company’s level of use of pay-per-use hosting of virtual servers (also known as cloud computing) for the following workloads at service providers such as Amazon Web Services, Savvis, or Mosso? 1) Not aware (includes don’t know); 2) not interested; 3) interested but no budget for it; 4) interested and planning budget for it; d) implementing in the next 12 months; and e) already implemented.

• For each of the following alternatives to traditional PC technologies, please tell me your highest level of awareness or interest based on the following scale: a) thin-client hardware or other terminals that access a server-hosted session (e.g., Sun Ray, Wyse, HP, Dell); b) blade PCs (i.e., HP CCI and ClearCube); c) hosted application virtualization (also known as server-based computing) (e.g., Citrix XenApp/Presentation Server and Microsoft Terminal Services); d) hosted desktop virtualization (e.g., VMware VDI and Citrix XenDesktop); e) local desktop virtualization (e.g., VMware ACE, Microsoft Virtual PC, and Parallels); f) local application virtualization and streaming (e.g., Microsoft Application Virtualization [Softricity], VMware ThinApp [Thinstall], and Altiris SVS); and g) Citrix XenApp with application streaming.

The survey results are very interesting as we get an idea of what are the emerging hardware trends 2008-2009 by North American and European Small and Medium Businesses.

Today, our IT Law class has to do mini-presentation on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). After the presentation that we will start the lectures on this new chapter for semester 2. It a good approach, from unknown to known. Students learning by themselves and then sharing the knowledge before the class to his/her fellow classmates. However we can also run the risk of doing research not completely related to the IT domain, since IPR concerns industrial issues. There we need to focus on IPR concerning IT law in the Mauritian Legislation.

So let me polish and refine the powerpoint, as soon as presentation over, will upload the file and let you have the feedback. Till then, stay connected!

Wednesday 18 March:

Finally after weeks of postponement, the presentation was finally held. Here is the precious:

Posted in Law, Nerd Stuff, Uni Student Life, University of Mauritius Tagged: Computing, Mauritius, University of Mauritius ]]> http://asheshr.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/intellectual-property-rights-in-it-law/feed/ 2 curiousEngine ipr http://asheshr.wordpress.com/2009/03/03/ambcs/ http://asheshr.wordpress.com/2009/03/03/ambcs/#comments Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:03:37 +0000 Ashesh http://asheshr.wordpress.com/?p=533 ]]>

Today I received the much awaited BCS membership pack at home! I was and still am very happy to read the cover letter with the title: Mr. AK Ramjeeawon AMBCS. “Dear Mr. Ramjeeawon, Congratulations on upgrading to Associate Membership. I am pleased to inform you that you have been successfully upgraded to Associate Membership of the BCS. Please find enclosed your new Membership Card and Certificate.”

I quickly had a glance at the new Membership Card and the post nominal letters AMBCS were……….simply great! and even to my pleasant surprise, the certificate was simply …………..fantastic! At the end of the Certificate it says: The holder of this certificate has undertaken to abide by the BCS Code of Conduct. I had once sticked this Code of Conduct into my wall when I recently had obtained BCS membership so that I can read them well.

Well I am very happy. I then read the Certificate Framing Service Form and Membership Plaque Order Form enclosed in the pack.

Still very happy when reading the “Welcome to BCS Membership” brochure. In the first page in the left, you see the pic above as in the blog post holding background for the Table of Contents, then on the right, Introduction message from David Clarke FBCS CITP, Chief Executive Officer. He says “On behalf of myself and the President of the BCS, I would like to welcome you to the BCS, the industry body for IT professionals.”

Concerning the Career Recognition, I quote:

“Post Nominal Letters – Set yourself apart from your peers with internationally recognised BCS post nominal letters for those members who are Associate and above e.g. Mr. John A Smith MBCS.”

The membership structure of the BCS consists of Ordinary, Professional and Chartered Status. BCS membership grades allow you to reflect your current professional status and are a show of recognition to the wider IT community including employers and customers.

Associate membership (AMBCS) is the first step on the ladder to Professional membership (MBCS) and is suitable to those with one year’s IT experience and/or relevant qualifications.

I don’t know what to say. I am so happy for having climbed the first ladder towards professionalism in my career. God bless me and God bless my well-wishers!

Goody good morning! Have been heavily busy with Database systems these days. To my great pleasant surprise, I finally found a good book in the UoM library and the book is NEW (has been added to the QA 76 section on 2 Feb) and I am the first borrower of the book :

A preview is available on Google Books and here are the Supporting material for the Third edition. Happy Reading !

Well, another major update in uni student life is that now we have a new Bookshop at UoM. The company is Edition le Printemps Ltd. who is mainly located at 4 Club Road Vacoas. Welcome to UoM Reduit Campus ELP!

A brief visit at the bookshop revealed that it has a good stock of interesting Management books including this one which I was so eager to buy on eBay! Another chat with the ELP guys there suggested that they need the books list from respective departments from the university in order to place them on the shelves here. To my knowledge, lecturers make book requests at the UoM library. The latter then equip themselves with copies of the book (just like Database Management Systems book). Its maybe the books are really expensive (between Rs. 600 and Rs. 1500) that they know students will not be able to afford them in the bookshop. That’s why we, students always seek for the low price edition, at least I do buy books of the low price ed. (< Rs. 600).

Well that’s Uni student life! We  search for eBooks (free pdf version of the book), download the book slides, check for preview in Google Book Search and thankful to India for publishing the Low Price Ed. of the book! Another option is to lend the book from the respective lecturer, do photocopy and return in time with a big Thank You Smile Obviously we also Share book content/slides with classmates.

To end with, here is a quote I read somewhere:

“A student acquires a quarter of his knowledge from his/her lecturer, another quarter from his/her own intelligence, another quarter from  friends, and the last quarter, in course of time, from experience”

True isn’t?

Well, now the Certificate modules have been nailed successfully , its time to open new doors, that of Diploma in IT. Here are the blog posts related to BCS Certificate in IT:

My First BCS Module posted on 22 April 2008

Knock Knock: BCS exams posted on 3 October 2008

How was the “Certificate experience”?

It was pretty cool. For the first time I got the opportunity to appreciate Computer Hardware, given basically am a Software guy. The module Computer & Network Technology was very helpful for upbringing my maturity in the field of hardware. I also purchased a book on Hardware which is:

I was not hyper confident in this module given am not a fan or Registers, Addressing modes, Fetch-Execute cycle, Boolean Algebra & Logic Circuits, Memory System, Truth table, karnaugh map, Instruction Sets, Number Systems, History of Computers.

For me, all these terms are maybe Geeky stuff, while maybe I consider myself to be Nerd!

The book: Principles of Computer Hardware by Alan Clements (as mentioned in the Knock knock: BCS exams blog post) was of great help.

Now lets talk a bit about the new doors that I have to open in my career.

The BCS Diploma in IT has the following shape:

Diploma in IT

This is the Diploma level of BCS Professional Examinations.

This level is the academic equivalent to Year 2 of a UK university honours degree and is recognised by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) as Level 5.

By beginning the Diploma in IT level course BCS assumes knowledge of the Certificate in IT level modules (or exemption) and focuses on the following:

• Professional Issues in Information Systems Practice (Core Module)
• Computer Networks
• Database Systems
• IT Project Management
• Object Oriented Programming
• Systems Analysis (Last ever exam October 2010)
• Principles of Internet Technologies (April only)
  (this module has replaced The Internet & World Wide Web and is not available for online registration)
• IT Service Management April only
• Software Engineering 1 (April only)
• Systems Design (April only - Last ever exam April 2010)
• Principles of User Interface Design (April only)

BCS recommends a minimum of 225 hours study per module. The course culminates in a 2 hour written exam focusing on the one core module and each of the three optional modules of your choice.

Completion of the Diploma Examinations level means you are eligible to apply for BCS Membership if you have 3 years’ experience as an IT professional.

Yes, more hours of study. I was skimming the materials and find the level has increased.

For the April Sitting, I am concentrating on:

1. IT Service Management
2. Database Systems
3. Software Engineering 1

Keep connected, I am going to post my experience in studying these BCS modules. I have already started to post and here are the tags:

http://asheshr.wordpress.com/category/british-computer-society/it-service-management/

http://asheshr.wordpress.com/category/british-computer-society/database-systems/

http://asheshr.wordpress.com/category/british-computer-society/software-engineering/

Aller Bon courage, lets attack the Diploma Module and remember: we never back down!

hurray! Good news, good news, cheers !

I got the letter from England. To my great delight, I passed the remaining 2 modules required for me to obtain my Certificate in IT. Quote from BCS website:

This level is the academic equivalent to Year 1 of a UK university honours degree and is recognised by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) as Level 4.

The Certificate in IT focuses on the following core modules:

* Information Systems

* Software Development

* Computer & Network Technology

BCS recommends a minimum of 200 hours study per module and the course culminates in a 2 hour written exam focusing on all three core modules.

Completion of the Certificate in IT level means you are eligible to apply for BCS Associate Membership (AMBCS).

To my great surprise, in the Software Development module, I got 86%! This is incredibly great. am very happy

Another great news to be happy is that today is the proclamation of HSC results.  Congrats to the HSC 2008 laureates. It is very nice to see a laureate from the prestigious college Droopnath Ramphul SSS. And concerning MGI, there are after-laureates, as usual. The new era of HSC pass results comes from our sister college RTI with a 95% pass rate. That’s a good effort RTI. Long live MGI/RTI!!!

Congrats to all those who have brillantly passed their exams! cheers! keep up the good effort, remember: Hard work is fruitful.

Aim: To explain the background of the software crisis and the need for an engineering approach.

When projects became too big and complicated to easily maintain, the “software crisis” was born, with programmers saying, “We can’t get projects done, and if we can, they’re too expensive!”

Source: Bruce Eckel, Thinking in C++

[The major cause of the software crisis is] that the machines have become several orders of magnitude more powerful! To put it quite bluntly: as long as there were no machines, programming was no problem at all; when we had a few weak computers, programming became a mild problem, and now we have gigantic computers, programming has become an equally gigantic problem.

– Edsger Dijkstra, The Humble Programmer

The causes of the software crisis were linked to the overall complexity of the software process and the relative immaturity of software engineering as a profession. The crisis manifested itself in several ways:

• Projects running over-budget.
• Projects running over-time.
• Software was very inefficient.
• Software was of low quality.
• Software often did not meet requirements.
• Projects were unmanageable and code difficult to maintain.
• Software was never delivered.

• The most visible symptoms of the software crisis are
  • Late delivery, over budget
  • Product does not meet specified requirements
  • Inadequate documentation
• Some observations on the software crisis
  • “A malady that has carried on this long must be called normal” (Booch, p.
  • Software system requirements are moving targets
  • There may not be enough good developers around to create all the new software that users need
  • A significant portion of developers’ time must often be dedicated to the maintenance or preservation of geriatric software

From Wikipedia,

1965 to 1985: The software crisis

Software engineering was spurred by the so-called software crisis of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, which identified many of the problems of software development. Many software projects ran over budget and schedule. Some projects caused property damage. A few projects caused loss of life. The software crisis was originally defined in terms of productivity, but evolved to emphasize quality. Some used the term software crisis to refer to their inability to hire enough qualified programmers.

• Cost and Budget Overruns: The OS/360 operating system was a classic example. This decade-long^{[citation needed]} project from the 1960s eventually produced one of the most complex software systems at the time. OS/360 was one of the first large (1000 programmers^{[citation needed]}) software projects. Fred Brooks claims in The Mythical Man Month that he made a multi-million dollar mistake of not developing a coherent architecture before starting development.
• Property Damage: Software defects can cause property damage. Poor software security allows hackers to steal identities, costing time, money, and reputations.
• Life and Death: Software defects can kill. Some embedded systems used in radiotherapy machines failed so catastrophically that they administered lethal doses of radiation to patients. The most famous of these failures is the Therac 25 incident.

Therac 25 incident:

Researchers who investigated the accidents found several contributing causes. These included the following institutional causes:

• AECL did not have the software code independently reviewed.
• AECL did not consider the design of the software during its assessment of how the machine might produce the desired results and what failure modes existed. These form parts of the general techniques known as reliability modeling and risk management.
• The system noticed that something was wrong and halted the X-ray beam, but merely displayed the word “MALFUNCTION” followed by a number from 1 to 64. The user manual did not explain or even address the error codes, so the operator pressed the P key to override the warning and proceed anyway.
• AECL personnel, as well as machine operators, initially did not believe complaints. This was likely due to overconfidence.^[3]
• AECL had never tested the Therac-25 with the combination of software and hardware until it was assembled at the hospital.

The researchers also found several engineering issues:

• The failure only occurred when a particular nonstandard sequence of keystrokes was entered on the VT-100 terminal which controlled the PDP-11 computer: an “X” to (erroneously) select 25MV photon mode followed by “cursor up”, “E” to (correctly) select 25 MeV Electron mode, then “Enter”. This sequence of keystrokes was improbable, and so the problem did not occur very often and went unnoticed for a long time.^[2]
• The design did not have any hardware interlocks to prevent the electron-beam from operating in its high-energy mode without the target in place.
• The engineer had reused software from older models. These models had hardware interlocks that masked their software defects. Those hardware safeties had no way of reporting that they had been triggered, so there was no indication of the existence of faulty software commands.
• The hardware provided no way for the software to verify that sensors were working correctly (see open-loop controller). The table-position system was the first implicated in Therac-25’s failures; the manufacturer revised it with redundant switches to cross-check their operation.
• The equipment control task did not properly synchronize with the operator interface task, so that race conditions occurred if the operator changed the setup too quickly. This was missed during testing, since it took some practice before operators were able to work quickly enough for the problem to occur.
• The software set a flag variable by incrementing it. Occasionally an arithmetic overflow occurred, causing the software to bypass safety checks.

Peter G. Neumann has kept a contemporary list of software problems and disasters.^[2] The software crisis has been slowly fizzling out, because it is unrealistic to remain in crisis mode for more than 20 years. SEs are accepting that the problems of SE are truly difficult and only hard work over many decades can solve them.

More reading: http://www.unt.edu/benchmarks/archives/1999/july99/crisis.htm

Yes, its time back to work hard for the BCS modules. This time, I have enrolled for Diploma Modules amongst which features the module: IT Service Management. Honestly this is something completely new to me.  The lectures had already started and I missed them because the module, I did not consider studying it at that time (December). Now we decide to investigate a bit about the topic.

IT Service Management (ITSM) is a discipline for managing information technology (IT) systems, philosophically centered on the customer’s perspective of IT’s contribution to the business. ITSM stands in deliberate contrast to technology-centered approaches to IT management and business interaction. The following represents a characteristic statement from the ITSM literature:

Providers of IT services can no longer afford to focus on technology and their internal organization, they now have to consider the quality of the services they provide and focus on the relationship with customers.^[1]

No one author, organization, or vendor owns the term “IT Service Management” and the origins of the phrase are unclear.

Source: Wikipedia

Source: http://www.emacao.gov.mo/documents/14/10/seminar10a.pdf

IT Service Management is the Industries‘ best practices for the delivery and support of IT services
Applicable to small and large organisations of all kinds:
– Business
– (Non-)government
– Education
Applicable to centralised and distributed systems
applicable to in-house or 3rd party supplied systems

IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a best practice framework

De facto Standard for IT Service Management

ITSM/ ITIL Process

Service Delivery
– Service Level Management

– Financial Management for IT Services
Financial Management helps determine and record cost, which is incurred on the management and delivery of IT services. Financial Management provides benefits that help perform various tasks, such as estimating cost and optimizing the performance of IT services. Financial Management involves various roles such as finance manager, who performs tasks such as creating budgets and managing the finance department of the company.– Capacity Management
– Availability Management

Availability Management is a process, which helps manage and provide resources to other Service Management processes, such as Change Management and Configuration Management. Availability Management ensures that IT services are functioning properly and sufficient resources are available to IT services. Availability Management also ensures that the resources are reliable and cost effective and that all the IT services are available to end users. The implementation of Availability Management helps improve the quality of IT services and prevent unauthorized use of the available resources. To implement Availability Management, the Availability Management team in a company designs an availability plan and an availability recovery plan.– IT Service Continuity Management

Service Support
– Incident Management

Incident Management enables a company to resolve the incidents and restore the functioning of IT services without affecting the quality of other IT services. Incidents can occur due to various known and unknown causes, such as a damaged cable or a printer error. When an incident occurs, a company can use either a work around or a Request for Change (RFC) to resolve the incident. A work around is a temporary solution for the incident, whereas an RFC provides a permanent solution, provided the Change Management team approves it.

The three types of incidents that can be resolved using Incident Management are:

• Application: Includes incidents that are caused by a software problem, such as a network server that is not available or a bug in an application.

• Hardware: Includes incidents that are caused by a hardware problem, such as network failure.

• Service requests: Include incidents that are caused by service requests such as retrieving and transferring information across the network.

– Problem Management
Problem Management enables a company to manage and deliver error free IT services. Problem Management helps reduce and control the number of incidents that occur while delivering IT services. To manage and deliver error free IT services, a company implements proactive Problem Management. After implementing proactive Problem Management, if a problem occurs, then a company needs to implement reactive Problem Management.– Configuration Management
– Change Management
– Release Management
– Service Desk.

Amongst good books, we find:

Managing Infrastructure using ITL, Skillsoft Press 2006

Overview of Service Management

Service Management is a management strategy of Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) to manage the delivery and support of IT services provided by a company. A company needs Service Management to provide quality IT services to customers according to the requirements. In Service Management, a company implements Service Desk to provide support for IT services to customers. Service Desk is a point of contact for customers to provide solutions to the problems and incidents reported by them.

The processes and levels at which the Service Management processes are aligned with the business perspective are:

• Business Relationship Management (BRM) : Provides information related to business requirements of a company. This information helps align the Service Management processes with the business perspective.

• Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) : Provides information related to requirements of the suppliers. This information helps define the requirements for Service Management processes.

• Review, planning, and development of IT: Defines the process in which IT infrastructure is reviewed and plans for the development of IT infrastructure are created. In the review, planning, and development of an IT process, the IT infrastructure is also developed according to the plans.

• Liaison and planning: Defines the process in which the employees of a company are provided knowledge and training about the Service Management.

• Strategic: Defines the level at which the Service Management processes should map with the strategic level objectives of the company.

• Tactical: Defines the level at which Service Management processes should align with the tactical level processes of the company.

Operational: Defines the level at which the Service Management processes should map to the operational procedures of a company.

Benefits of Service Management include:

• Helps improve the quality of delivering the IT services and provides support for the business of a company by managing the delivery of IT services.

• Provides standard procedures for the continuity of IT services in a company.

• Provides better understanding of current functioning of the IT infrastructure.

• Provides more information about the current IT services including information about the IT infrastructure areas in which changes can be made. These changes provide benefits, such as increased flexibility and adaptability of IT services, to the company.

• Delivers the IT services that are required by the customers resulting in enhanced customer satisfaction.

• Provides benefits, such as improved security, accuracy, speed, and availability that are required to deliver quality IT services.

Can you hear me there at the back? Ok….

Welcome to the second semester of the module : CSE 2001 Software Engineering.

It was with these words that the kickoff of the module was given. It was nice to be back again in the most important module in Computer Science & Engineering course.

The first session was hyper interesting with promises of personalities in the Software Industry (Accenture, Ceridian etc) coming to give guest lectures during the semester. Software Engineering Principles and Practices would be different from what has been done in the first semester i.e OO (OOA, OOD, OOP – Java).

As an encouragement to increase our communication skills, we are supposed to talk before the class on a topic chosen by our lecturer. This time the topic is: Software Project Failures.

To start with, here is a very interesting link from my favourite blog codinghorror: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000588.html

Agreed that our lecturer’s examples of software project failures were mostly on aviation related (NASA Mars orbitter, Air Traffic controller), we have to look for failure and its impact in other industry as well. n’est-ce pas?

To my nice surprise, I also realised that after barcamp, we also have DrupalCamp and recently: WordCamp! That’s nice

Just like we watched Le Web 08: Paris live on  Ustream TV, (which was hypercool), this time also we won’t miss the opportunity to watch the great brains behind the wonderful open source software: WordPress (2.7 being the current latest version).

What is WordCamp:Las Vegas?
WordCamp:Las Vegas is a conference style event covering topics related to the WordPress software. We are also planning for Unconference style sessions in the afternoon to let the people attending WordCamp help choose the topics discussed at WordCamp:Las Vegas

WordCamp: Las Vegas agenda includes many items. I would like to hear from

Speaker: Matt Mullenweg
Topic: State of the Word

Matt is the founding developer of WordPress. According to businessweek, he is also one of the most influential personality on the Web.

Speaker: Lorelle VanFossen
Topic: By the Numbers: a look at stats and what they mean to you

Of course, her famous blog, Lorell On WordPress with her nice blogging tips.

Speaker: Chris Brogan
Topic: Using Your Blog for Sales and Marketing

Speaker: Liz Strauss
Topic: From blog to community

Jim Turner
Topic: Blogging for a Living

Well most of the topics are very interesting, but I would like to hear the most from the above ones, given time constraint. The full list of speakers is here.

So, to conclude, I am enthusiastic to attend my first WordCamp! aren’t you?

Steve Jobs is the CEO of Apple, which he co-founded in 1976. For some time now, there has been speculation that Steve Jobs was sicker than either he or Apple wanted to admit. At first, the company said that he simply had “a bug,” and then when the company announced that he would not be doing his usual keynote speech at Macworld — a speech so associated with him that it has come to be known as a “Stevenote” — the company denied it had anything to do with his health. Now, we know that this was untrue. Steve himself has confirmed that he is unwell as a result of a “hormone imbalance,” and that he is working on getting better. Source: mathewingram.com
Here is the letter to the Apple Community from Steve Jobs:

Dear Apple Community,

For the first time in a decade, I’m getting to spend the holiday season with my family, rather than intensely preparing for a Macworld keynote.

Unfortunately, my decision to have Phil deliver the Macworld keynote set off another flurry of rumors about my health, with some even publishing stories of me on my deathbed.

I’ve decided to share something very personal with the Apple community so that we can all relax and enjoy the show tomorrow.

As many of you know, I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors. A few weeks ago, I decided that getting to the root cause of this and reversing it needed to become my #1 priority.

Fortunately, after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause—a hormone imbalance that has been “robbing” me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis.

The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward, and I’ve already begun treatment. But, just like I didn’t lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this Spring to regain it. I will continue as Apple’s CEO during my recovery.

I have given more than my all to Apple for the past 11 years now. I will be the first one to step up and tell our Board of Directors if I can no longer continue to fulfill my duties as Apple’s CEO. I hope the Apple community will support me in my recovery and know that I will always put what is best for Apple first.

So now I’ve said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.

Steve

The whole Apple community and we also, support you for your recovery Steve. Get Well Soon!

14 Jan 2009: An update:

Apple CEO Steve Jobs today sent the following email to all Apple employees:

Team,

I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personal with the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.

In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.

I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for Apple’s day to day operations, and I know he and the rest of the executive management team will do a great job. As CEO, I plan to remain involved in major strategic decisions while I am out. Our board of directors fully supports this plan.

I look forward to seeing all of you this summer.

Steve

Interestingly:

Slide 17: “Open Source is becoming a strategy to attack proprietary code strategies”

Google Supports the Open Source community in a spirit of collaborative creation, one of Google’s Strategic pillars.

Very Interesting question:

Slide 20: Is PageRank a really competitive advantage?

Well the full online version of the study is available here:

http://www.fabernovel.com/sites/default/files/Google_14Q_en.pdf

Time is Money! n’est-ce pas?

RescueTime is a web-based time management and analytics tool for knowledge workers who want to be more productive.

An introduction to rescueTime can be found here: http://www.rescuetime.com/dashboard_preview

Product Tour: http://www.rescuetime.com/product_tour

Well, here are my personal statistics of RescueTime. I have set a new goal on this Free Management software and I will test this functionality. I hope it works koz I want to prioritise my computing time, specially during the SHORT uni holidays!

My top tags include:

• Freelance – working for clients
• Wordprocessing – working for university assignments
• Chat –
• music – ya, its a must, istn’t?
• email – an essential communication tool
• slideshare – inspiration is a must, isn’t?
• acrobat reader – to read lecture notes
• search – google.com, google desktop etc
• BCS – information from BCS sites
• socialising – facebook !
• university – online.uom.ac.mu , www.uom.ac.mu, vcampus.uom.ac.mu
• flickr – zoli photos
• facebook – the name says it all

My Top Apps and Sites include:

Microsoft Word – spent much time working on assignments

Windows Media Player – essential to benefit from the food of love – music!

ramjeeawon.info – ya, improving my portal constantly

msnmgr – ahem ahem, to talk with dear ones

powerpoint – Ya, much time spent on MS powerpoint, my powerpoints, I try to design them up to the high level

Conclusion

To conclude, give rescuetime.com a try, it will save you a lot of money time.

Here is is a very intereresting Photo Essay:

http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/2007/steve_jobs/

I was reading Why is Steve Jobs Skipping MacWorld? on Time magazine and we sadly note:

Apple also said that Phil Schiller, its top marketing guy, will be giving the keynote this coming year, and that this will be the last Macworld in which Apple will participate.

 Jobs has battled pancreatic cancer and has been looking exceptionally thin since the summer.

 

iPhone 3G in Mauritius

Well in Mauritius, Friday 19 December will be marked by the introduction of iPhone 3G in Mauritius. This event is currently being publicised by the Telecommunications company Mauritius telecom. You can reserve your iPhone 3G on their website. We note from lexpress.mu:

Ainsi, on peut déjà s’attendre à ce qu’Orange déploie la grosse artillerie pour cet événement. La version 3G débarque avec une puce plus puissante. Un joujou à la mode offrant plus de fonctionnalités comme la visioconférence, la télévision mobile et le GPS, qui n’étaient pas disponibles dans l’ancienne version. L”iPhone vient combler les manquements de la première génération.

L’iPhone 3G prend en charge les fonctionnalités corporate tel que Microsoft Exchange. Il propose aussi un nouveau App Store. Et tout comme l’iPhone original, la nouvelle version embarque trois produits en un: un téléphone révolutionnaire, un iPod à écran panoramique et tactile, et un terminal Internet doté d’une messagerie électronique au format HTML. La navigation web a aussi été enrichie.

iPhone.mu

Surprisingly enough, we find a Mauritius IPhone Community, a website claiming to be able to share your views about iphone. It has an iphone community forum.

Santa Claus and iPhone

Well, this time, I would write to Father Christmas to request him an iPhone 3G, given that I had been a good boy during the academic year 2007-2008 (University CPA> 65) Am sure he would reply to my letter, won’t he?

Well, yesterday was a great day: BCS members were invited to attend the prestigious Award ceremony: BCS IT Personality Award 2008 at Sofitel Hotel, Flic en Flac.

President of the Republic of Mauritius

A good introductory video to watch is: Web 2.0..The Machine is Us/ing us:

and an interesting powerpoint:

and last but not the least, Web 3.0 according to Eric Schmidt (Google):

An update on Nethackz.com : http://nethackz.com/what-is-web-30/

An interesting post on What is Facebook Connect and the Dark side of it can be found in this post from a UTM pal.

The following presentation shares a deep insight on for eg. What if Amazone, iTunes and iPhone implement Facebook Connect.

So what do you think: Would you like to use Facebook Connect to “easily” and “quickly” sign in to websites?

Do you prefer Google Connect? or simply what about OpenID – the Universal Login?