Google's Summer of Code

"Students are flipping bits, not burgers."

Summer is under manner and, once again, pupils participating in the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) undertaking are flipping bits, not burgers.

The undertaking deduces its name from the Summer of Love. Now in its 3rd twelvemonth since launching in 2005, the GSoC gives pupil software system developers an chance to derive practical experience creating open-source programmes or helping with constituted projects. While most pupils come up from computing machine scientific discipline and computing machine technology programs, a assortment of educational backgrounds are represented, including pupils in computational biological science and mainstream engineering. The pupils work with a wise man and are paid a stipend for their participation. According to Google's Web site, respective of the 2005 pupils served as wise men in 2006.

In its first three years, the GSoC engaged more than than than 1,000 pupils who worked on more than 100 open-source projects, creating 100s of one thousands of lines of code. In 2005, Google worked with 400 pupils and 40 mentoring organisations representing 49 states around the world. The figure increased to more than than 600 in 2006. In 2007, Google accepted 131 organisations and more than than 900 students. Students could submit up to 20 applications, although lone 1 would be accepted; 6,200 applications came in.

The Goals

According to the Web site, Google's ends for the GSoC undertaking include releasing more than open-source codification for the benefit of all; inspiring immature developers to take part in open-source development; assist open-source projects pull new developers and committers; supply qualified pupils the chance to happen summertime work in a field related to their academic training; and to give pupils more exposure to real-world software-development scenarios, such as as distributed development, software system licensing and mailing listing etiquette.

Google makes not see this undertaking as a recruiting tool, although the company makes expression at the program's consequences to place possible recruits. While past pupil participants have got reported that their experience on the undertaking made them more than attractive to employers, most World Health Organization establish work are not currently employed by Google.

How It Plant

A Wikipedia entry studies that early in March, prospective mentoring organisations submit applications to Google. By mid-March, Google prints its listing of recognized mentoring organisations and asks for pupil applications. When pupils apply, they item the undertaking they desire to perform. The corresponding mentoring organisation measures the students' proposal(s) and ranks the applications. Google then make up one's minds how many undertakings each mentoring organisation receives, and chooses the top-rated applicants for that organization. The mentoring organisation must supply a wise man for each recognized project.

In mid-April, Google prints a listing of recognized pupil applications on its Web site. Students get coding in late May, and Google gets issuing first payments. The wise men execute mid-term ratings in July and concluding evaluations in late August. In 2006, 82 percentage of the participating pupils received a positive evaluation. Any codification developed during the course of study of the undertaking belongs to the mentoring organisation unless otherwise agreed.

Projects 2007

The GSoC Web land site listings this year's participating members and supplies an abstract of the undertakings that are under way. There are far too many to cover here, but include One Laptop per Child, or OLPC , a new non-profit organization that is researching the possibilities of developing a $100 laptop. This engineering would have got a immense impact on how the world's children have their education. OLPC have eight undertakings in the GSoC project, dealing with such as substances as exploring every other energy systems, installations to bear down backup batteries, and similar issues.

Another participant, WordPress , the organisation behind the popular open-source blogging software, have 10 undertakings under way. They company's undertakings include coding that volition ease page direction and do it easier for bloggers to change the order of their pages. Another WordPress undertaking affects coding that betters support for podcasting.

The Mozilla Foundation is another participating member. Its respective undertakings include developing codification to back up roaming in the Thunderbird e-mail application, and coding to add Firefox support for the new JPEG 2000 image-compression algorithm. JPEG 2000 bring forths higher-quality mental images at littler data file sizes than the criterion JPEG, but currently only the Campaign browser renders the JPEG 2000.

Google itself have four undertakings running in the GSoC. Google's ain undertakings include development of coding to recognize socket support in Google Web Toolkit on a browser degree using GWT Socket module. Another Web Toolkit undertaking seeks to "make the procedure of authorship appliances in it less of a challenge."

Growing Striving

As could be expected, the GSoC undertaking have been a acquisition experience for Google and the mentoring organizations, as well as the students. In the 2005 season, Google received unfavorable judgment from the open-source organisations for providing deficient clip to program projects. Nevertheless, 39 organisations participated, including FreeBSD, Apache, Ubuntu and others.

Additionally, the bulk of undertakings stalled immediately at undertaking end. Wikipedia quoted Google's open-source programme manager, Chris DiBona, as saying that lone 30 percentage of pupils stuck with their undertakings afterward. The figure of surviving undertakings may be less than half. However, in an interview with InternetNews , DiBona said that the GSoC undertaking isn't only about getting programmers to stay with their undertakings after September. Google also desires to present pupils to the open-source development procedure and to maintain them working in a computing machine science-related field over the summer.

Some mentoring organisations indicated that, in future years, they would pass more than than clip selecting appropriate projects, and would look for 1s that are more likely to be completed within the clip allotment.

As for GSoC 2006, things got off to a bouldery start in late May when 1,800 pupil appliers received an inaccurate e-mail saying their undertakings had been accepted. A follow-up e-mail somes few proceedings later apologized for the error, and told receivers that if they had received two e-mails, 1 expression they were accepted and one expression they were not accepted, then they were not accepted. Not all appliers establish this amusing.

Similarly, GSoC 2007 have not been "glitch-free." Hoping to increase the figure of pupil applicants, Google extended the application deadline from March 24 to March 26, and then, at the last minute, to March 27. In early April, the credence letters were delayed for administrative reasons. At one point, Google's Web interface erroneously changed to give each applier a position of "not selected." This, as Wikipedia explained it, "caused a immense figure of Summer of Code result-awaiting swots to just endure a corporate bosom attack." Google responded by saying that the credence e-mail was the lone echt word regarding credence or rejection.

Good grief! Would person military volunteer to learn the folks at Google how to utilize e-mail and how to update a Web site?

Anyone wanting to hear Summer of Code podcasts from participating pupils can breaker on over to the Google Summer of Code Blog . You'll happen a figure of golf course to podcasts and videocasts. Apparently, pupils who meander into Google's central office are pressed into duty to make a podcast describing their activities.

Brands - Not Just Craze But The New Mantra of the Youth in India

Brand consciousness is one of the major traits of the upcoming Indian youth. The youth in India today are willing to spend on the maintenance of a lavish lifestyle. They want to go for brands- in terms of clothes, shoes, perfumes, eatables, accessories, gadgets and even lingerie. These sudden power and willingness to spend on the part of the Gen- Y as the modern Indian youth is referred to, has come as a result of the increase in the income of these generation owing to the phenomenon called globalization. The increase in the income of the modern educated youth in India, or for that matter anywhere else, is not without a flip side. Because of the errand working hours the youth today is in an extreme want of time. And the little time that they get, they want to party or go for a movie. In short, splash cash. Shopping doesn't fit in this scheme of things. The condition is such that people don't get the time to spend even with the money in their pockets. This is where the concept of ecommerce has come in handy. Ecommerce or online shopping has grown in importance because of diverse reasons. Firstly, it saves the time and inconvenience of hunting for stuffs in the market. Secondly it makes the whole world of brands accessible to the customer. This is another important plus point of online shopping keeping in mind the increasing fetish for brands among the Indian youth. Thirdly even while purchasing brands some kind of concession is offered when you buy stuff online.

Whatever the reason behind the urge to spent, there's no denying the fact that ecommerce is rapidly gaining importance in the modern global world. In keeping with this rapid climb of ecommerce, the need for an efficient website is an utmost necessity. The need for an intelligible website for the customers in the field of ecommerce cannot be overestimated.

This website can be termed as the doorway for the customer and then he or she can think over whether to buy the particular product or not. The website is thus the all important consideration for an ecommerce company. It is through this website that the prospective buyers approach the sellers. Thus the website has to be all informative and easy to understand.

The importance attached to ecommerce software and solutions has compelled most of the concerns to hire specialists to design this all important site for them. Most of the ecommerce websites provide ecommerce solutions. Store cart is one of the most important features of ecommerce solutions. Store carts are tailor made to bring in the maximum benefits to the company. Apart from accommodating the mode of payment, security and a place to store in the selected items, the store cart also provides things like market analysis. Apart from an efficient store cart, ecommerce solutions also offer a good store front. A store front is again a very important part of ecommerce solutions. The store front houses the catalogue that holds the products, the information about the products and such like important information.

Thus more and more ecommerce companies are taking professional help in designing the ecommerce solutions. Ultimately this is what makes all the difference to the company's fortunes as it is the doorway of the customer to purchase stuff from the company.

How To Detect Spyware

To detect spyware on your computer, you can simply install one of the many free spyware software programs out there. It is always a good idea to test the actual software by downloading the free version as it may be ineffective or a program that you do not like.

The importance in today's world with safeguarding your identity should make everyone coherently aware that keeping spyware to a minimum is of great importance. By using these specialized software tools, the impossible becomes possible by simply allowing your software to detect spyware lurking on your computer's hard drive.

Here are some free spyware vendors:

1) AVG made by Grisoft


2) Microsoft has its own spyware and does a good job when it is trying to detect spyware


3) Spybot's Search & Destroy is another popular choice in spyware detection


4) PCtool's Spyware doctor


5) Lavasoft's Ad-ware software

These programs are specifically to load into your computer via your internet browser and invisibly track critical data that you may be doing right now as we speak. Do you clear your cookies daily? Do you actively run a program in order for you to detect spyware on your hard drive?

Before you can delete these malicious programs, you need to detect spyware with a reputable program. This is the first step in getting and securing your personal data. The best way to protect your personal information as well as your computer is to detect spyware online and use the best protective software you can find because your Internet security is at stake.

To find more about them, do a simple search on your favorite search engine and read the reviews on whether they fit your budget and does what you want it to. Basically, any of these programs are better than doing nothing, so you need to do your research and find a program that will ultimately detect spyware on your computer's hard drive. The best thing is to be proactive before your identity can seriously be comprised and could end up affecting your credit status and many other financial data in your credit report.

Many people assume that it won't happen to them, but with the increased usage of broadband internet access, many people's identity is severely at risk. It should be a bit of a wake up call in that identity theft is the fastest "white-collar" crime in the world today. Do not think it cannot happen to you, because many of you, who are reading this article now, are definitely infected with some sort of spyware or adware.