WHY SEO?

• 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine.
• Google owns 65-70% of the search engine market share.
• 70% of the links search users click on are organic.
• 70-80% of users ignore the paid ads, focusing on the organic results.
• 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results.
• Search is the #1 driver of traffic to content sites, beating social media by more than 300%
• SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads (such as direct mail or print advertising) have a 1.7% close rate
• For Google, 18% of organic clicks go to the #1 position, 10% of organic clicks go to the #2 position, and 7% of organic clicks go to the #3 position.

Drupal.org Hacked

Another day, another big site hacked. 2013 really just hasn’t been a good year for web security.
This time around, the site writing the email that noone wants to write is Drupal.org, home of the popular content management platform, Drupal. Though no exact number was shared, it appears that nearly one million user accounts are affected.
Also affected are the user accounts of groups.drupal.org, a sub-site meant to help Drupal users establish meetup groups in the real world.
Word of the break-in went out this evening, when Drupal began to email affected users.
In an FAQ about the hack on their site, Drupal says that they currently have no idea who might be behind the attack. So far, it seems like the hackers had access to usernames, email addresses, and hashed passwords.
As is par for the course at this point, Drupal has immediately reset the passwords for every user in the system. If you’re one of the million-or-so users on Drupal.org, you’ll need to confirm your email and pick a new password before regaining access.
While you’re at it, you’ll probably want to change your password on any sites where you’ve used a password similar to the one you might’ve used on Drupal.org. While Drupal seems to have done a pretty good job of ensuring that passwords were stored safely (most were both salted and given multiple passes through a hash filter), it’s just good practice. You’d be surprised at how insanely fast password cracking has become.
It’s important to note that this hack affects Drupal.org, the website itself, and is not the result of a vulnerability in Drupal, the CMS. In other words: if you’ve got a Drupal-powered site, don’t freak out. According to Drupal Executive Director Holly Ross, the hackers gained access through an exploit in an unnamed third-party tool that Drupal.org was running on their server.
Also important to note: Drupal says they store no credit card details on their servers, but they’re still making sure there wasn’t any malicious code put in place to quietly intercept’em without them noticing. They’re recommending that anyone who’s made a transaction on Drupal.org keeps an eye on their statements, just in case.

Magento Introduction

Introduction of Magento Ecommerce Platform Solutions

WHAT UNITED STATES IMPORT FROM INDIA.

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are a group of autonomous public engineering institutes of India. The IITs are governed by the Institutes of Technology Act, 1961 which has declared them as “institutions of national importance”, and lays down their powers, duties, framework for governance etc.^[1] The Institutes of Technology Act, 1961 lists sixteen institutes located at Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Delhi, Gandhinagar, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Jodhpur, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Mandi, Mumbai, Patna, Ropar, Roorkee and Varanasi. Each IIT is an autonomous institution, linked to the others through a common IIT Council, which oversees their administration.

Ten Reasons Why Your Programmer Might Kill You

You can do away with the bulletproof vest, it won’t save you. There are a few things that a programmer hates more than dividing by zero, and one of them is a manager that they perceive as being annoying and incompetent (we’re sure you’re not, but read on anyway!). As a non-programmer manager, the last thing you want to do is anger your programmers. They’re a very special kind of species; they don’t conform to the laws of society since they’re bound to the rules of programming, they enjoy jokes to the tune of “If at first you don’t succeed, name it Version 1.0” and they carry a comic book under their arm everywhere they go.
We caught up with a team of programmers and developers and asked them what about their managers irked them the most. They threw entire books that they’d written about the topic at me, so once I got out of the Emergency Room, I decided to put pen to paper (finger to keyboard – it’s 2013, gimme a break) and decided to put down some of the most common and interesting points.

1. “Just tell me exactly what you want, dammit. None of this creative crap.”

Not surprisingly, they all agreed that they love clear and concise instructions about what needs to be done. They enjoy building things exactly as specified, and feel that more in-depth the instructions for the functionality of the program at hand, the easier and faster it will be for them to build it.

The ten things you should really play close attention to!

2. “It would help if my manager understood the difference between an event and an action.”

Another unanimous cry of anguish came when I asked about communication. Apparently programmers and their managers tend to speak different languages, and it’s hard to make a point if the two can’t find a common platform.

3. “Given that I’m adding such value to your business, you might as well ask me every now and then for some input! I have some good ideas!”

Programmers do their own research. As hard as it may be to believe, between their marathon video game and comic book sessions and rattling out code in NetBeans and Eclipse, programmers find a lot of time to go through the latest programming techniques and pick up new concepts that they’re doing to share with their managers and use in projects.

4. “There’s no such thing as a simple modification. If you ask a builder to add a window to an already completed wall, he might use your head to knock out the bricks to make space for it.”

Ever said, “Could you just make a slight change?” Chances are, that the slight change will involve them working with 100 lines of code. Instead, think of it as a new feature and be prepared to wait longer than 2 minutes for it to be in place.

5. “I have a style of programming, and there’s no such thing as ‘churning out code’, alright? I craft my code, I’m an artist of instructions.”

Want to avoid facing the wrath of your programmers? Avoid treating them like robots, or expecting them to simply churn out lines of code. Just avoid the word “churn” completely. Each programmer has his own style of coding and takes pride in it.

This is not how you should perceive your programmer, no matter how much you want to!

6. “Maybe he should show his face during developer meetings to understand what we’re doing.”

With grumpy faces, they admitted that managers were very disconnected from what programmers were doing and going through, and therefore if they made an attempt to attend programmer meetings – a large gap would be bridged.

7. “You want the status report or you want the application finished? Make up your mind.”

Programmers don’t like giving status reports. Period. If you want to ask him something, do it verbally, don’t ask him to send e-mails. It drives them paranoid.

8. “So all that needs to be done is move this box here and that box there is it? Well why don’t you do it?”

Programming is a complex task, and every manager understands that. Don’t try to make their work sound trivial and don’t over-simplify it, understand that the more you appreciate their effort and level of work they’re putting in, the more they’ll give back to you!

9. “I never said that this needs to be done in four days, you did. There’s a difference.”

Given that programmers are analytical, it would make sense to trust their sense of judgment when it comes to timelines. When you’re looking at setting a timeline for a project don’t just set it, ask them to!

“Most of my damn status reports are about sending you status reports.”

10. “The client is using software that was made before I was born. I don’t make you write with a feather pen do I?”

While at times this might be out of your hands, it makes sense to ensure that the clients you’re forcing the programmer to work with are using the latest tools and software – if not, it becomes a big problem to work with them.
For those of you taking this lightly, you should know that programmers do spend a fair amount of time playing Call of Duty, have excellent hand-eye co-ordination and the last thing you want to do is be at the end of their custom made and 3D-printed gun.

A few days ago, we had a fairly nerve-wracking incident when our Solutions Architect leapt across his table, screamed “KILL FUNCTION INVOKED” and threw a mousepad at the Business Developer. Since then, we’ve ensured that they’re both on the same page using these ten “principles”! The result? Our stunning showcase is a live example!

How to increase Referral Traffic?

Generally speaking there are three kinds of website traffic: direct traffic, search engine traffic, and referral traffic. All are valuable and serve different purposes, but this post focuses on the third kind, referral traffic.
Referral traffic is valuable in online marketing because it sends interested readers and qualified potential customers to your site from new domains. It also provides added SEO benefits, since by definition referral traffic is driven either by an inbound link or social activity, both of which send positive signals to the search engines about your site.
Need some of that sweet ol’ referral traffic? We’ve got you covered with five simple referral traffic strategies to help.

Guest Posts

Guest posts are a great way to build up referral traffic. Especially in light of the Penguin update, it’s best to focus your guest posting efforts on sites that are related to your business, which means your content will be in front of a relevant audience providing top-notch referral traffic. If you can set up a regular guest posting schedule, all the better, because that allows you to keep your referral traffic from those sources steady over time.
The first step in guest posting is getting a feel for the blogs you’d like to post on: Are the blog posts professional and formal or more relaxed and laid-back? Is their reader base advanced or beginner? Many blogs have strict guidelines for guest posts with specific word counts and a certain number of links you are allowed to embed, so always read the guidelines first and keep those restrictions in mind while writing. 

Pinterest

Pinterest has been all the rage lately and it’s no surprise why – Shareholic recently released a new study showing that Pinterest drives more referral traffic than Twitter. Heck, Pinterest beats Google Plus, LinkedIn and YouTube combined for referral traffic.
If you’re not pinning yet, you better get to it! Check out our new Pinterest Guide for Marketers to get started.

Press Releases

Press releases are a quick and easy way to get a wave of fresh referral traffic. It’s a great idea to do a press release for an event you’ll be hosting or to announce milestones like executive changes, earnings releases, acquisitions, and product launches. But to be honest, if you are paying for a press release, you can write about pretty much anything and pretend it’s newsworthy. Some businesses even send out press releases whenever they get a new client.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking sites, or sites that allow you to bookmark and tag various online resources, are another easy fix for your referral traffic cravings. We get a ton of referral traffic from Stumble Upon, which lets you stumble about the internet like a drunken college student out at 2am on a Friday night. Stumble Upon allows visitors to serendipitously discover your awesome content and share it easily with others.
Reddit is another great social bookmarking site ideal for sharing compelling content. With over 2 billion page views a month, Reddit has incredible social bookmarking potential, but marketers should be warned that only truly unique, interesting content will be welcomed. Posting on Reddit is playing with fire—submit spammy or overtly sales-focused content and your business could get berated by this extremely tech-savvy community.
If you have content you believe the Reddit community (majority is young, geeky, liberal, and internet-obsessed) would enjoy, you could reap tremendous benefits and earn valuable referral traffic. I’d recommend trying funny cat videos—works every time.

Social Networks: Facebook, Linked In, and Google+

Social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+ are also natural contenders for bringing in referral traffic. Just remember your platform—Facebook and Google+ tend to promote a more casual, friendly atmosphere while LinkedIn is more professional.
Share your latest blog posts, events, or even favorite blog comments. It’s fine to share a link to a page that simply needs a bump in traffic now and again, but be aware these attempts can sometimes appear spammy – your followers’ tolerance may vary.
Do you have any additional tips for building up referral traffic? We’d love to hear them!

Ubuntu Founder Officially Gives up Trying to Topple Microsoft

Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth announced on Thursday that Ubuntu Linux bug #1 – "Microsoft has a majority market share" – is now officially closed. Rather than boasting about his victory, he gives much of the credit to iOS and Android. “Android may not be my or your first choice of Linux, but it is without doubt an open source platform that offers both practical and economic benefits to users and industry. So we have both competition, and good representation for open source, in personal computing.”
We use the term “victory” above very loosely since it’s quite clear Shuttleworth didn’t achieve his overarching goals of dominating the PC industry. Back in 2004 he believed pretty strongly that all PC’s should ship with primarily free and open operating systems, a goal which quite clearly hasn’t played out like he expected. Even Android phones for the most part ship with locked boot loaders, and OEM’s do everything possible to restrict access.

Despite the technicalities, Shuttleworth notes that the Microsoft of 2013 is nothing like the company he declared war on back in 2004. He writes that Microsoft Azure in particular is "a pleasure to work with" on Linux, and that today "circumstances have changed.” 

U.S. Goverment Texas cops will soon need a warrant to search your e-mail

Texas is poised to become the first state in the U.S. to require law enforcement officers to get a search warrant based on probable cause before they access any electronic communications and customer data stored by a third-party service provider.

The Texas legislature this week passed a bill (H.B. 2268) mandating the warrant. The measure now only needs a signature by Gov. Rick Perry to become law.
The bill would be the first to address what many, including courts, say are glaring shortcomings in the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The ECPA was drafted in 1986 and does not always require law enforcement authorities to obtain a search warrant to access email, instant messages and other customer data stored by Internet service providers and online storage services.

In many instances, the ECPA only requires them to give prior notice and obtain an administrative subpoena to access customer data. The only situation where existing federal law mandates a search warrant is for unopened email messages that are less than 180 days old.
Concerns over warrantless email searches by police have prompted sweeping calls for ECPA reforms, both at the state and federal level.
Just last week, for instance, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced the Fourth Amendment Preservation and Protection Act of 2013, which stipulates a search warrant requirement similar to the Texas bill. In March, three lawmakers introduced an ECPA reform bill that would require law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant to intercept or access stored electronic communications and geolocation data.
Similar bills have been proposed by others in recent years, but the Texas statute looks to be the first effort to actually become law.
The measure requires a warrant for all law enforcement access to stored electronic data, regardless of how long it has been stored, who is storing it or how it is being stored. All applications for search warrants would need probable case and have to be supported by an oath by the officer making the request.
In most cases, companies served with such warrants would be required to comply with them within 10 days. In some instances, a judge could require compliance in as little as four days if police are able to prove than a delay would jeopardize an investigation, put someone's life at risk or let someone to escape prosecution.
The bill is important for two reasons, said Hanni Fakhoury, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). First, it creates stronger privacy protections by updating the state's electronic privacy laws.

"Second, although this bill only covers Texas, it will hopefully spur other states to do the same and for Congress to update ECPA, too," Fakhoury said.
California, for instance, is currently considering a similar bill (SB 467) sponsored by the EFF. It has been passed by the California Senate and is now awaiting action in the Assembly, he said.
Separately, ECPA reform has been steadily moving through Congress, with entities as varied as Google and the U.S. Department of Justice now backing a warrant requirement, he noted. "Having individual states demonstrate to Congress that email privacy legislation is both politically and practically feasible, necessary and desired is only going to make the law better for everyone, no matter what state they're in."

The Texas law would only apply to state investigations -- not federal investigations, which will still be governed by ECPA requirements.

Dropbox goes down for more than an hour

Cloud storage service Dropbox users were hit with a widespread service outage this morning that lasted a little more than an hour.
Tweets from outraged users around the world appeared to show the breadth of the service outage.
According to the web monitoring site Is It Down Right Now, Dropbox's servers were unresponsive at 6:32 a.m. Pacific Time and appeared to be down for a little more than an hour. During that time, the Dropbox website was displaying 404 server error messages.

After coming back online, Dropbox Support tweeted the statement: "We apologize for any inconvenience that might have been caused. Dropbox is back to normal."
When contacted by Computerworld, a spokeswoman didn't elaborate on the reasons for the outage.
Web monitoring site Isitdownnow.com shows Dropbox servers as unresponsive on the morning of May 30

Dropbox's last service disruption in January lasted more than 15 hours.

Computer scientists oppose Oracle's bid to copyright Java APIs

Some prominent scientists, including the inventor of JavaScript, have backed Google in its court battle with Oracle

Nearly three dozen computer scientists have signed off on a court brief opposing Oracle's effort to copyright its Java APIs, a move they say would hold back the computer industry and deny affordable technology to end users.

The group, which includes prominent names such as MS-DOS author Tim Paterson and ARPANET developer Larry Roberts, signed the amicus brief in support of Google in its copyright lawsuit with Oracle.
Oracle accuses Google of infringing the copyright on its Java APIs (application programming interfaces) in the development of Google's Android OS, and it is seeking billions of dollars in damages. Google denies any wrongdoing and has argued, in part, that software APIs aren't eligible for copyright protection under U.S. law.
Last year, a district court in California largely agreed with Google and ruled against Oracle in the case. Judge William Alsup determined that the Java APIs in the case can't be covered by copyright because they're a functional part of the Java platform and required by others to use the Java language. Copyright law typically does not extend to works that are functional in nature.
Oracle appealed the decision, and Thursday's brief aims to sway the court that will eventually decide that appeal. It was filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation on behalf of 32 computer scientists and software developers. Other signatories are Brendan Eich, inventor of JavaScript and the CTO of Mozilla; Michael Tiemann, author of the GNU C++ compiler and an executive at Red Hat; and Samba developer Andrew Tridgell.
"The freedom to reimplement and extend existing APIs has been the key to competition and progress in the computer field -- both hardware and software," the brief states.
"It made possible the emergence and success of many robust industries we now take for granted -- such as industries for mainframes, PCs, peripherals (storage, modems, sound cards, printers, etc), workstations/servers, and so on -- by ensuring that competitors could challenge established players and advance the state of the art."
For instance, the brief argues, the spread of affordable PCs was made possible because IBM held no copyright on its BIOS system, allowing competitors such as Compaq and Phoenix to create their own BIOS implementations and build PC clones. The open nature of APIs was also essential to the development of the Unix OS, the C programming language and the open protocols on the Internet, the brief says.
"Should the court reverse Judge Alsup's well-reasoned opinion, it will hand Oracle and others the ability to monopolize any and all uses of systems that share their APIs. API creators would have veto power over any developer who wants to create a compatible program," the brief states.
Oracle responded sharply. "I guess everyone is having collective amnesia about the uncontroverted testimony that Android is not compatible with Java," said spokeswoman Deborah Hellinger.
At trial, Oracle argued that the complex structure and syntax of the Java APIs make them a creative work worthy of protection. Google knowingly copied the APIs, it said, and has since made billions of dollars from the success of Android, which is now the world's top-selling smartphone operating system.
James Niccolai covers data centers and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow James on Twitter at @jniccolai. James's e-mail address is james_niccolai@idg.com

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Oracle Company changes plans for Java security improvements

Oracle Company plans to make changes to strengthen the security of Java, including fixing its certificate revocation checking feature, preventing unsigned applets from being executed by default and adding centralized management options with whitelisting capabilities for enterprise environments.

These changes, along with other security-related efforts, are intended to "decrease the exploitability and severity of potential Java vulnerabilities in the desktop environment and provide additional security protections for Java operating in the server environment," said Nandini Ramani, vice president of engineering for Java Client and Mobile Platforms at Oracle, in a blog post on Thursday.
Ramani's blog post, which discusses "the security worthiness of Java," indirectly addresses some of the criticism and concerns raised by security researchers this year following a string of successful and widespread attacks that exploited zero-day -- previously unpatched -- vulnerabilities in the Java browser plug-in to compromise computers.

Ramani reiterated Oracle's plans to accelerate the Java patching schedule starting from October, aligning it with the patching schedule for the company's other products, and revealed some of the company's efforts to perform Java security code reviews.
"The Java development team has expanded the use of automated security testing tools, facilitating regular coverage over large sections of Java platform code," she said. The team worked with Oracle's primary provider of source code analysis services to make these tools more effective in the Java environment and also developed so-called "fuzzing" analysis tools to weed out certain types of vulnerabilities.
The apparent lack of proper source code security reviews and quality assurance testing for Java 7 was one of the criticisms brought by security researchers in light of the large number of critical vulnerabilities that were found in the platform.
Ramani also noted the new security levels and warnings for Java applets -- Web-based Java applications -- that were introduced in Java 7 Update 10 and Java 7 Update 21 respectively.
These changes were meant to discourage the execution of unsigned or self-signed applets, she said. "In the near future, by default, Java will no longer allow the execution of self-signed or unsigned code."

Such default behavior makes sense from a security standpoint considering that most Java exploits are delivered as unsigned Java applets. However, there have been cases of digitally signed Java exploits being used in the past and security researchers expect their number to increase.
Because of this it's important for the Java client to be able to check in real time the validity of digital certificates that were used to sign applets. At the moment Java supports certificate revocation checking through both certificate revocation lists (CRLs) and the Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP), but this feature is disabled by default.
"The feature is not enabled by default because of a potential negative performance impact," Ramani said. "Oracle is making improvements to standardized revocation services to enable them by default in a future release."

The company is also working on adding centrally managed whitelisting capabilities to Java, which will help businesses control what websites are allowed to execute Java applets inside browsers running on their computers.
Unlike most home users, many organizations can't afford to disable the Java browser plug-in because they need it to access Web-based business-critical applications created in Java.
"Local Security Policy features will soon be added to Java and system administrators will gain additional control over security policy settings during Java installation and deployment of Java in their organization," Ramani said. "The policy feature will, for example, allow system administrators to restrict execution of Java applets to those found on specific hosts (e.g., corporate server assets, partners, etc.) and thus reduce the risk of malware infection resulting from desktops accessing unauthorized and malicious hosts."
Even though the recent Java security issues have generally only impacted Java running inside browsers, the public coverage of them has also caused concern among organizations that use Java on servers, Ramani said.
As a result, the company has already started to separate Java client from server distributions with the release of the Server JRE (Java Runtime Environment) for Java 7 Update 21 that doesn't contain the browser plug-in.

"In the future, Oracle will explore stronger measures to further reduce attack surface including the removal of certain libraries typically unnecessary for server operation," Ramani said. However, those changes are likely to come in future major versions of Java since introducing them now would violate current Java specifications, she said.

LinkedIn trying to make themselves safer from hackers : Login and Password

Once the feature is enabled, users will get a code sent to them when logging in from a new device

Add LinkedIn to the list of Internet companies trying to make themselves safer from cyberattacks by adding two-step authentication.
Users of the professional social-networking site now have the option to add two-step verification to their accounts, which is designed to add another layer to the sign-in process when logging in from a new or unknown device. With the feature enabled, users will be prompted to type a numeric code sent to their phone via SMS when logging in from an unrecognized computer or device for the first time.
Most Internet accounts that have become compromised are illegitimately accessed from a new computer or device, LinkedIn said Friday in a blog post. When enabled, the new feature makes it more difficult for unauthorized people to access users' accounts because both their password and mobile phone are needed to log in, LinkedIn said.

Two-step verification can be turned on using the site's settings page for users' security options. After the feature is enabled, the site will send the code upon sign-in once per device. A user will be notified via email each time his or her account is signed into using a new device.
The changes come one week after Twitter introduced two-factor authentication following a series of recent hacks targeting high-profile businesses on the blogging site. Security experts had long been calling for the company to make two-factor logins an option.
Last year, LinkedIn users were advised to change their passwords after it was reported that millions of "unsalted" hashed passwords had turned up on a Russian hacker website.
Apple, Facebook and Google are among other companies that also offer two-step authentication as an option for users.
But while two-factor login does add an extra layer of security, it is not a panacea, some security experts have said. With an email phishing attack, for instance, a hacker could fake a login page to ask for the code the user just received, it has been argued.
Aside from two-factor logins, Google on Thursday laid out several safe password tips for users to follow, though some of the advice was fairly basic. "Use a different password for each important service" and "make your password hard to guess," the company said.

Google Company Launches Display Benchmarks Tool for Advertiser

Google is offering advertisers the chance to instantly check how their ads are performing with the latest addition to its arsenal – the Display Benchmarks Tool. It will show how display ads are faring relative to aggregated campaigns, which will allow marketers to see their marketing activity in context and to compare their own performance, Google´s DoubleClick Advertiser Blog informed.
Users of the tool have the option to select the criteria with which their ads will be compared, according to geographical coverage, type of media, size and formats. After the analysis has been completed, the tool prepares a report that can either reveal current information, or look at trends going back more than a year.
What the Display Benchmarks Tool tracks is the average interaction rate, average duration of interaction and the expansion rate for rich media ads. In addition, it also gives marketers the opportunity to compare the overall click-through rate with those recorded for standard media and rich media, Google explained. Information regarding the length of time during which expander ads stay expanded and video completion rates, as well as the average amount of time that rich media impressions were displayed, can be also be obtained.

While utilising the tool, Google noticed certain trends that have evolved over the past few months. Since last summer, users interact with ads 50% to 60% more frequently. Meanwhile, video completion rates grew almost 24% and reached a 60% completion rate, the blog post said.

Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy returns Infosys'

 Infosys' co-founder and first CEO N. R. Narayana Murthy has returned to the company as executive chairman, amid concerns that the outsourcer's performance has not been as good as that of some of its Indian peers.
Murthy, 67, said he would be "adding value" to CEO S.D. Shibulal, who has initiated a strategy called Infosys 3.0, which aims to focus the company on high-margin businesses like consultancy, reusable platforms and products.
Once the darling of investors, Infosys has seen lackluster growth in revenue and profits in comparison to some of its Indian competitors such as Tata Consultancy Services. Murthy could now help Infosys recover from problems it has had in executing on its strategy, analysts said.

Murthy was chairman and CEO of Infosys from its founding in 1981 to 2002, and remained as chairman until 2011, when he was appointed chairman emeritus, largely an honorific position.
He brings to Infosys his son Rohan Murthy, as executive assistant in the chairman's office, ending an over 30-year-old corporate policy not to employ family members of the company founders.
Shibulal is also a founder of the company. The CEO's has remained among the founders, which has been criticized by analysts who said the company was not giving an opportunity to high-performing insiders or to outside recruits for that job.
Shareholder approval is required Murthy's appointment as executive chairman and director for a period of five years, the board said Saturday.

Besides Murthy and Shibulal, former CEO S. Gopalakrishnan will steer the company as executive vice chairman. Gopalakrishnan was co-chairman of the company until the changes announced Saturday. Chairman K.V. Kamath returned to being an independent director on the board.

Online Activiti BPM training

  Advantages of Activiti BPM training on June 13,14,15 - 2013

• To understand Business work flow easily
• By this training you will able to implement business work flow using Activiti BPM
• You can deploy Activiti process definitions to specify workflows
• We cover Introduction to BPMN, BPMN Modeling, BPMN best practices, Overview of Activiti, Activiti tool stack, Activiti Modeler, Integration with JBoss Drool and many more
• After this training, you will be familiar with BMPM 2.0 business processes, services orchestration, process deployment, execution, testing and monitoring using Activiti
• You will also learn how to deploy custom workflows

  Why Attune University?

•  We are fully committed to provide the most comprehensive curriculum in every aspect of our certification training
• As the industry advances, we make sure our courses are completely current with the latest technologies
• Having great experience of working with all types of domains around the world
• Our experts have experience in configuration of Business process using Activiti in various projects
• We offer a range of public and corporate training courses that are built-up and delivered by our highly experienced trainers
• Easy language, friendly interface and well structured study materials

More information :   http://www.attuneuniversity.com/courses/activiti-bpm.html

Liferay Training For Developer

Liferay Training Course for Developer

This training course is designed for developers, architect and project managers to get handson on Liferay Portal administration, System administration, Plugin development and Extension development. This is a required training for individuals who wish to become Liferay Portal expert. One will get benefited from hands-on approach to learn the material effectively and quickly.

http://www.attuneinfocom.com/training/liferay-training.html

Attune Infocom’s client Daniel Schneider is sharing his experience working with Attune Infocom Pvt Ltd

Daniel Schneider Shares his Experience with Attune Infocom Pvt Ltd

IT Looking for New Jobs ?

A new survey by Jobvite, a recruiting platform for the social web, found that unemployed Americans aren’t the only ones looking for jobs. Sixty-nine percent of employed respondents are considered job seekers—meaning they’re actively seeking a new job or open to the idea, and it turns out they’re using social media to do it.
“Inside every employed worker is a job seeker,” says Dan Finnigan, president and chief executive of Jobvite. “Because of pent-up demand now that the economy is growing, those workers are looking for the next step in their career.” According to the 2012 Social Job Seeker Survey, which asked 2,100 people about their current employment status and the role of social networks in their job search, 52% of all job seekers (employed and unemployed) have used Facebook to look for work, 38% have used LinkedIn, and 34% have used Twitter. One in six employed respondents credit social media for their current job.
When asked about how they’ve used Facebook to find work, 25% of respondents said they updated their profile and added professional information; 17% provided their Facebook profile information on a job application or during an interview; 15% modified privacy settings with work in mind; 14% used the site to search for jobs; 9% used it to research a potential employer; 8% connected with a potential employer on the site; and 6% communicated with a recruiter on the site. Almost half (49%) said they’ve used their Facebook contacts for “career gain.”


Finnigan says, “It is extremely important to be a well-rounded job hunter, and that absolutely includes maintaining your professional presence on the three most-used social networks for recruiting: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. For many professional and managerial careers, that begins with LinkedIn, as it is the leading social network geared toward people in professional occupations.”
In Pictures: 7 Tips For Landing A Job Using Social Media
Twenty-six percent of surveyed job seekers said they’ve updated their LinkedIn profile with professional information; 11% used the site to search for job opportunities; 9% provided their LinkedIn profile information on a job application or during an interview; 7% modified privacy settings with work in mind; 7% connected with a potential employer; 6% used the site to research a potential employer; and 4% communicated with a recruiter through the site. Thirty-eight percent said they’ve used LinkedIn contacts for career gain.
“Job seekers have become increasingly frustrated at searching for jobs online and getting no response, and they intuitively know that the best opportunities are found through people, not search engines,” Finnigan says. “As social networking has become a core part of our cultural dynamic, we are continuing to see more and more job hunters taking advantage of a vertical they are comfortable with in order to find work. We anticipated growth last year and the numbers do show that job hunters are expanding their presence on social sites. Simply put, social networks provide a way for job seekers to tap into a large pool of job opportunities easily.”
However, he cautions job seekers against spending too much time online because the interaction that comes from an in-person meeting with the employees and potential colleagues at the company you’re interested in can never be replaced by a computer screen, he says.
“For active job seekers, spending an hour or two a day on social media, with the professional mindset of connecting with employers and looking for job listings, can pay off,” Finnigan says. For those who aren’t actively looking but are open to new opportunities, it’s important to make sure your profiles are current and the content is professional and appropriate.
Previous research from Jobvite found that 86% of recruiters are likely to look at social profiles for candidates, with 48% reporting they always do so. If you’re looking to clean up your profile, consider including content about participation in professional organizations. Why? Eighty percent of recruiters said they like to see that on social profiles; but just 1 in 5 job seekers have posted that information.
“My advice to employers is to use the standard employee background check initially and use social media for reference checks rather than prying too deeply into a candidate’s social media background,” Finnigan says. “Regardless, job seekers should know employers are looking at these and should be aware of the content they are putting out there.”


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5 Best Cloud Storage

It's cloud storage week, with Dropbox rolling out an update that improves how its users can share things, Microsoft's SkyDrive getting dedicated desktop apps and a revamped feature set, and Google Drive finally making its long-awaited debut. The market suddenly got much more competitive perhaps even before we all realized it was necessary.
Although there are many more options out there, some serving specific niches, we've hand-picked what arguably are the most high-profile and consumer-friendly cloud storage services currently out. We took them for a spin to see how well they stack against each other, first with a brief overview on the table below and later in better detail, with impressions and commentary to give you a better idea of which one may fit your needs best.

	Dropbox	Google Drive	iCloud	SkyDrive	SugarSync
Free storage	2GB	5GB	5GB	7GB (25GB limited time offer)	5GB
Additional storage (price per year)	50GB ($99); 100GB ($199)	25GB ($30); 100GB ($60)	10GB ($20); 20GB ($40); 50GB ($100)	20GB ($10); 50GB ($25); 100GB ($50)	30GB ($50); 60GB ($100); 100GB ($150)
File size limit	300MB via browser, unlimited from desktop	10GB	25MB free accounts, 250MB paid users	2GB
Desktop apps	Windows, OS X, Linux	Windows, OS X	Windows, OS X	Windows, OS X	Windows, OS X
Mobile apps	iOS, Android, BlackBerry	Android, iOS	iOS	Windows Phone, iOS	iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone
Web interface	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Version tracking	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Multiple folder sync	No	No	No	Sort of	Yes
Sync over LAN	Yes	No	Yes	No	No
Stream to mobile	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Public sharing	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
File/folder collaboration	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Password protect file sharing	No	No	No	No	Yes

Dropbox

Dropbox wasn't the first cloud-based storage service in the market, but it certainly was the one that pioneered the seamless one-folder synchronization approach that everyone is following now: toss any file into a preset folder and it automatically appears in any other device connected to your account. Make an edit and everything synchronizes instantaneously. Famous for its simplicity and ease of use, Dropbox doesn't fall behind when it comes to features either, with a version tracking system, easy sharing, collaboration options, and more.
Performance-wise Dropbox offers more flexibility than most competing services. You can tweak how fast it uploads and downloads files, which is great if you don't want it to steal bandwidth from other important things, and if two devices are on the same network they will sync much faster over LAN.


The Dropbox client works the same on every major platform -- Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, BlackBerry -- and you can also access your files through its clean and capable web interface on any device with a browser. Another key strength is that its popularity has led a lot of third-party developers to integrate Dropbox synchronization functionality into their apps and services using the public API.
Its main drawback? Dropbox offers just 2GB of storage for free, which compares unfavorably to rivals, but you can bump that up to 18GB without spending a dime by referring new users (at 500MB bonus space apiece). Paid storage is also expensive: 50GB or 100GB of extra storage costs $9.99 or $19.99 a month.

Google Drive

The debutant Google Drive offers the same drag-and-drop synchronization capabilities as Dropbox on the desktop, with clients available for Windows and OS X, but its web portion is more robust than the latter. On the web, Drive ties in with Google Docs and another handful of Drive apps for Chrome to support up to 30 types of files, allowing you to view or edit images and videos, work on documents, and more, right inside the browser.
Sharing capabilities are also present, but as far as I can tell you can't set permissions from the desktop client, so you'll need to go to the web app and click through a few options depending if you want to send by email, share with other users, or make a file public. You can set files as view-only or make them editable.


Search is also a big part of Google Drive -- again, from the web interface -- allowing you to search by document type, owner, and other advanced filters. There's even OCR capabilities built into the service so Google will scan any images on your Drive account for text and make them searchable, or if Google can decipher the contents of your pictures (a landmark, for example), you can just search by subject and it will come up in the results. That's a neat feature indeed, although it might turn off more privacy conscious users -- especially after checking the TOS.
Google Drive is also available on Android and the iOS client is supposedly on the way. It comes with 5GB of free storage (Google Docs files don't count towards that limit), and offers upgrade options like $2.49/month for 25GB of extra storage, $4.99/month for 100GB of storage, and 200GB for $9.99/month.

Apple iCloud

Apple's iCloud lacks many of the features available in cloud storage services like Dropbox or SkyDrive, but still stands to grab a good chunk of the market for a simple reason: its deep integration with iOS. In fact, almost 70% of the 350+ million iDevice users have access to iCloud, with over 100 million using it already.
If you are into the Apple ecosystem this one is a no-brainer. It's virtually transparent to the user and can keep your mail, contacts, calendar, documents, backups, and more, synchronized and stored in the cloud. Apple's iWork suite as well as various third-party OS X and iOS apps come with iCloud sync capabilities built in, but aside from those you won't be able to just throw any type of file into your account. It's definitely a more streamlined yet closed way to manage your stuff in the cloud.


Your music, movies, apps, books, and TV shows purchased from iTunes are saved to the cloud but don't count against your free storage, and you'll be able to stream that content to your iPhone and iPad. Pay an extra $25 a year for iTunes Match and you'll be able to store and stream music obtained from other sources, too.
The web interface is more limited compared to other cloud services but it's there in case you need to quickly check up on you mail, contacts or iWork documents from a browser, or to use the handy "Find My Phone" feature. Otherwise it's available on Mac, Windows and iOS and comes with 5GB of storage for free.

SkyDrive, SugarSync, Our Picks

SkyDrive

Microsoft's SkyDrive has been around for a while but just recently it received a major revamp that puts the service in the spotlight once again. New dedicated apps for Windows and OS X integrate into the OS with a folder where users can drop files into. The service now includes the synchronization abilities of Live Mesh as well as its unique "fetch" feature, which enables you to remotely access any file on your computer, even those outside the default SkyDrive folder. Mobile apps are available for iOS and Windows Phone.


Like Google Drive, SkyDrive's web interface lets you create and edit documents within the browser for Microsoft Office products like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, and everything is searchable powered by Bing. You can also share files and folders with groups or via public links and set them as view-only or allow edits.
Overall SkyDrive is a very well-rounded cloud storage solution. It comes with 7GB of space, which is already enough to beat the other contenders in this round-up, and if you signed up before April 22 you can bump that to 25GB. Extra storage is also the cheapest all around at $10, $25 and $50 per year for 20GB, 50GB or 100GB.

SugarSync

Another well-established cloud storage provider and perhaps one of the most feature rich services you will find. SugarSync is among the very few that lets users pick folders all over your computer to sync, rather than having users reorganize stuff and throw everything into a single folder. This allows very fine-grained control over what to sync to each device connected to your account.
That extra flexibility brings some added complexity that might turn off novice users -- it's not rocket science but it is a bit more work to manage compared to services like Dropbox that require almost no user intervention.


Other features include uploading via email (with Outlook integration), no file size limits, media streaming to mobile devices, and the ability to share files and folders with specific users or publicly, with the option to password-protect said files. There's also version tracking but versions are only saved for 5 days versus 25-30 on all others.
SugarSync is available on Windows and OS X desktops and just about every mobile platform. You get 5GB of free storage out of the box, while additional storage can be had for a monthly fee of $4.99 (30GB), $9.99 (60GB), $14.99 (100GB), $24.99 (250GB), or $39.99 (500GB).

Making some picks

The great thing about having many free cloud storage options is that we don't really need to pick one single winner. Rather, you should pick whatever meets your needs and has the stronger support for the platforms you use. If you are running low on space you could even combine two or three while sticking in the free tier.
In my case, combining iCloud and Dropbox works just fine. The first because I already have a couple of iDevices and using the cloud to backup my data is as simple as flipping a switch. The second because I've been using it for years to store my day-to-day work files and other important stuff I may need access to while on the go. A service like SkyDrive could replace Dropbox for me, but for now at least, since I'm not running low on space, not even the free 25GB are enough incentive to switch.
If I were to pick some winners, however, I'd go for something like this:

• Ease of use without sacrificing features: Dropbox.
• Best deal on free and paid storage: SkyDrive
• Fine-grained control and vast feature set: SugarSync
• Best browser experience (and no-brainer if you use Google Docs a lot): Google Drive

Examples of Big Data benefits

There is big hype being generating around the topic of Big Data, but there is no doubt that data volumes across global enterprises are ramping up exponentially.
IDC’s latest estimates puts the volume of digital content generated in 2012 at 2.7 zettabytes (ZB), up a staggering 48% from 2011. Over 90% of this information is unstructured (images, videos, MP3 files, and files based on social media). As such it contains potentially valuable information, but is difficult to analyse. As businesses seek to squeeze high-value insights from this data, the research group expects Big Data to become the next "must have" competency in 2012 and to see data and analytics technologies, including in-memory databases and BI tools, move into the mainstream.
Such moves to maximise the value of Big Data stores were recently undertaken at the research and development department of consumer products giant Unilever, which employs over 6,000 specialists stationed in 20 countries. It recently began an eScience project intended to accelerate the company’s access to global information. The programme was conceived to promote the usage of public data for biology and informatics research. To underpin the Big Data service a highly-scalable environment that supports parallel computation and heavy data storage demands was required.
Pete Keeley, Unilever Research’s eScience IT lead for cloud solutions, explained the company decided to partner with genomic data analysis company Eagle Genomics for the project. The programme relies on large Amazon Web Services cloud-based processing, and Amazon relational database service to store the computation results. Amazon’s cloud storage buckets maintain non-relational data as it migrates between various instances.
“Unilever’s digital data programme now processes genetic sequences twenty times faster — without incurring higher compute costs. In addition, its robust architecture supports ten times as many scientists, all working simultaneously,” Keeley said.
Speeding up the generation of reports derived from Big Data was also a priority for Deutsche Postbank in the UK. Its core business in London is corporate lending for commercial real estate (CRE) and, as a result, branch managers need accurate and timely management reports to help them make investment decisions. The financial company reported that a recent Big Data analytics roll out was required because it was finding CRE reporting were becoming increasingly time consuming and involved multiple staff to manually collect data from disparate sources.
In an attempt to address these issues the company evaluated multiple analytics offering from companies including Oracle, QlickView and Logica. Ultimately it selected an IBM Smart Analytics system designed to provide a single view of business information so that decisions can be made based on up-to-date information.
Head of IT at Deutsche Postbank, Clarel Sookun, said: "The system has really proved its worth by reducing the time it takes to produce our reports for CRE from hours to minutes and they are 'accurate to the penny'. The IBM system allows us to centrally store actual and reconciled data and gives us the ability to produce further management reporting at a higher quality level."
The success of the system has led to plans to extend it to the bank's finance operations, analysing loan and interest data, and performing 'what-if' scenarios using graphical data.
Sookun added: "The bank is now able to analyse data in different formats and produce subsets of reports as and when required, which used to be a very labour-intensive task. Implementing the system also unexpectedly highlighted inaccuracies in our existing data and we are now confident in consistent, high quality reporting.  The beauty of the new system is that it can also integrate with our existing systems."
Attempts to improve access to Big Data recently led to one of the most “infrastructure challenging” project for global information group Thomson Reuters, which has with 55,000 staff spread across 100 countries. The organisation currently uses NetApp storage to support a wide array of business systems and research platforms. The Thomson Reuters shared IT infrastructure and cloud are built on NetApp storage, the VMware vSphere virtualisation platform, and Cisco networking switches. This infrastructure – supporting around 16 petabytes of global data - provides a foundation for Oracle-based content and metadata systems for Thomson Reuters’ Westlaw legal research service, which is used by 98% of the largest firms in the United States.
A recent enhancement of the Westlaw service – to create the WestlawNext offering required a major infrastructure upgrade for the company. “Our infrastructure strategy for WestlawNext required dramatically scaling shared storage,” said says Mick Atton, vice president and chief architect, Thomson Reuters Professional Division.
To facilitate this the company implemented a shared IT infrastructure and cloud foundation, which allowed it to avoid building a new two-megawatt data centre at an estimated cost of $65m. “NetApp performance and on-the-fly scalability allow us, for example, to search on a significantly larger body of content, as well as to seamlessly handle the unpredictable workloads of a new launch. In just the first year, we scaled to bring on some 6,000 new users, exceeding our first year adoption forecast by 50%,” said Cary Felbab, vice president, technology, Thomson Reuters Professional Division.
For global property consultancy Knight Frank a key objective of its Big Data strategy centred on deploying a system to help staff combine geospatial data with other sources of information. To facilitate this, working with Microsoft Partner intelligence, Knight Frank upgraded to Microsoft SQL Server 2012. The integration, reporting, and analysis capabilities — combined with Bing Maps for Enterprise — provided a platform for building a reporting and analysis tool for the London residential development team.
The first step in this process was to develop an application based on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise, to give access to rich data on residential development opportunities in London. As a result the London team can use maps to either find an existing development site or add a new one. The filtering and segmentation capabilities of the application can then be used to drive deeper-level reporting and analysis provided by Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services and Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Power View.

Given the exponential rate at which corporate data volumes are expanding it is apparent that the CIOs cannot afford to shy away from the analytical and infrastructure issues posed by Big Data. And it is equally apparently that successfully taming the Big Data tiger can deliver compelling business benefits. The recent Economist Intelligence Unit report, The Deciding Factor: Big Data & Decision making, reveals that nine out of 10 business leaders believe data is now the fourth factor of production, as fundamental to business as land, labour and capital. The study, commissioned by Capgemini among over 600 C-level executives and senior management and IT leaders worldwide, indicates that the use of Big Data has improved businesses’ performance, on average; by 26% and that the impact will grow to 41% over the next three years. The majority of companies (58%) claim they will make a bigger investment in Big Data over the next three years.
Two-thirds of executives consider their organisations are ‘data-driven’, reporting that data collection and analysis underpins their firm’s business strategy and day-to-day decision-making.
“The exploitation of Big Data fuels a step change in the quality of business decision-making,” said Paul Nannetti, global sales and portfolio director, Capgemini.
“But it’s not only through harnessing the many new sources of data that organisations can obtain competitive advantage. It’s the ability to quickly and efficiently analyse that data to optimise processes and decision making in real time that adds the greatest value. In this way, genuinely data-driven companies are able to monitor customer behaviours and market conditions with greater certainty, and react with speed and effectiveness to differentiate from competition.”

Top tips for improving your email marketing success rate

Email marketing continues to dominate as one of the most popular forms of advertising around, yet everyone is continually looking to improve their success rate on this platform. What's great is that you don't always have to move heaven and Earth to boost your stats.
Anyone can send an email out with an advert for a product and score the occasional sale. That's not difficult. To get the real 'wow' stats you just need to look a little deeper at what you are doing in your email marketing campaign and how recipients are reacting to your messages. 
A survey from Econsultancy in 2012 found that two-thirds of marketers branded their return from email marketing services 'good' or 'excellent'. The following tips are not just for the one-third that have yet to achieve satisfactory results; they are also for the happy two-thirds, as they may be able to elevate their game even further...

Measure the stats

Before you can talk about how to improve the 'success rate' of your email marketing, you need to define success. There are a range of metrics that could imply success, from the basic open rate to whether people are clicking through from the email to your website, but also whether anyone is actually converting too.
It's certainly worth keeping an eye on all three of these stats (along with your list growth rate, unsubscribe rate and any other figures relevant to your wider objectives), while also interpreting them in context. A high click through rate is great, but what does it mean that there are zero conversions at the end of every customer journey?
Further to this, make sure you take into account seasonal trends - it may be that every January the open rate for certain industries is low.

Diagnose the problem, then apply the cure

By looking at the figures - via whichever analytics system you are using - you will see where your campaign is under performing. Like any good doctor, when you begin to see what the symptoms are then you are able to come up with a reasoned explanation as to why it is happening - and begin working on a cure.
So if your open rate is low (or simply lower than you would like) then you have narrowed down the problem area. Now think about all the factors that could be affecting this - the 'from' field, subject line, time sent and any deliverability issues. From here, it is a question of tweaking each contributing factor and seeing what the results tell you.
Some simple A/B testing should tell you, for instance, whether a £10-off voucher or a £20-off voucher is required to convince a significant proportion of a certain demographic to open your message. Also, don't forget to include the sign-up process in your diagnosis, maybe the people on your email list simply are not good leads?

Content

The content of your message is, of course, what is driving its success, so think carefully about what you are including and how this contributes to your goals. Some companies try to include too much in a message and end up with several weak calls-to-action - you want to provide the reader with relevant and engaging content (text, pictures, etc.) with a clear 'next step'.
Make sure you look at all of the different facets of your email, not just the body text and subject line (although these are admittedly major points). For example, have you thought about playing with the from field? You could have the message coming from an individual within your firm, rather than just the brand name, or perhaps it is more effective to have just the brand name? Keep testing to find out.
A key part of producing the right content is relevance and a prerequisite for relevance is actually understanding your target customer base. Who they are, what motivates them and how they react to certain issues - these can all help you to meet or even surpass their expectations.

Mobile

Adobe research from 2012 revealed that 79 per cent of smartphone owners use their devices to check their email - and the proportion of people with a smartphone continues to grow rapidly - so if you are not taking into account the mobile factor, then you are heading for trouble.
Not only will this affect the length of your content, as mobiles have smaller screens and will resize messages, but it should also inform other decisions, such as the type of files you send out and the size of the message. Recipients will not be pleased if they decide to download your message on their phone, only to see 100MB of their 500MB per month data plan eaten up by the email!
Also, think about how your call to action can be adapted if a lot of people are opening the message on a phone - including a link to a cluttered web page may not be appropriate. Instead, think about creating a responsive web page; so if they do come through on a mobile, then it will look good on their screens. You could also consider including a phone number very high up in the email - preferably tracking the number to show that the lead came from an email.
All of these things and more can elevate your email marketing success; it's all about zeroing in on a problem area and making it fit better with your recipients' expectations or motivations.