.NET From India

Outsourcing Job Losses - Hype??

A recent ACM Report says that the perception of people in IT losing thier jobs due to outsourcing is not really true.

Study Plays Down Export of Computer Jobs

The problem actually boils down to perception and thus fewer students are now majoring in computers in the US now due to this. This may become the actual threat in the years to come.

Yet the view that job opportunities in computing are dwindling fast is both common and potentially damaging to America's competitive prowess, according to David A. Patterson, president of the Association for Computing Machinery.

He pointed to the declining interest in computer science as a major among American college students, based on a survey last year of the intentions of students entering college. The results suggested that only 1 in 75 students would major in computer science, compared with 1 in 30 in 2000.

"The perception among high school students and their parents is that the game is over — that all computing jobs are going overseas," observed Mr. Patterson, who is a computer science professor at the University of California, Berkeley. "It's an extraordinarily widely held misperception."

I have seen this phenomenon in India too. During the tech boom, almost every student wanted to be in computers. Then the bust came and a batch or two were left with no campus placements, as companies froze hiring to handle the bust. After the bust for two to three years, computers were at the lower end of preferred courses. Now with the stabilization in the IT sector, students are slowly trooping back to computer specializations.

New Certificate Error Display in IE7 B2 Preview

Another new thing in IE7 Beta 2 Preview.

It does not pop up a error dialog when there is a certificate error. It instead shows a error page. I am not sure if this is good or a bad thing, but it atleast is more natural than a error dialog when browsing. Also it is not offering you a Yes/No kind of option, but rather has an advice that leans towards security and forces the user to proceed only if he is very sure about the site.

Another thing that I missed last time was the menu. In the previous post I had mentioned it had disappeared. Actually, it has not. It appears when you click the Alt key(I assume there must be some option that would make it always stay on, but I have not searched for it yet). But it appears in the correct place now, above the toolbar, instead of below it.

IE7 Beta 2 Preview

I had mentioned about the release of IE7 Beta 2 Preview sometime back.

Downloaded and installed the new version over the weekend (I have been using Beta 1 for quite sometime as my default browser). I am quite impressed by the newer features added and the refining of the other features.

The first one that actually catches the eye is the the set of new graphics that are in place. the icons seem to be better and the tabbed interface slightly more polished.
After a few seconds you notice that the confusing menu under the toolbar has vanished (This was my most hated feature of IE 7). Then to your suprise you find that the menu bar itself has vanished. A little search and you find it tucked in the left corner but as a toolbar now.

Another mistake I usually did when I started using tabbed browsing (I still do it once in a while) is when I want to actually get rid of a site, I close the browser forgetting the other tabs that are still there. Now IE shows a dialog reminding you that closing the broser will close all Tabs.

And ofcourse the completely new feature that is hidden in one of the icons on the toolbar is the preview mode (This is the name I use, I am not sure what is the official name of this feature). This is really cool and I really like it . I am not sure how useful it will be when browsing, but it is super cool.

What this does is allow you to see a thumbnail of all the pages you are currently browsing in different tabs in a single screen. You just click on one and go to that particular tab.

Will write about other features as I come across them. In total Beta 2 looks a lot more polished and usable than the previous beta (that is to be expected) and till now has been quite stable.

Do give it a try if you have not been using other tabbed browsers before and you will find that it can be quite addictive..:-)

Mention in FT

I was suprised to find that there was a lot of hits to this site from Financial Times.

Following the link lead to a story on OfficeLive and I was pleasently suprised to find DotNet From India mentioned there.

They actually had a link to my previous post on OfficeLive. I am not sure if this was on the print edition or the online only edition.

Microsoft Office Live

Office Live has gone into Beta. Everything is free during Beta, two of the three options are charged for once you get out of Beta. So this maybe the best time to actually play around to find out how it could be useful for you.

Looks like they are going to keep the basic version free even after Beta. Not a bad deal for a domain name, 30MB storage, 10GB monthly transfer and some online web designer tools (Did I mention you also get 5 email accounts with 2 GB of space per account).

Excel 12 File Size

I have been a beta tester for Office '12' for sometime now.

Something that I noticed when I was working on it yesterday is that it seems to be able to create smaller files. All the Office '12' products now have a new format (Excel's is now called xlsx). I was working on a file and when I saved it in xlsx I found it was 12KB in size. Then I resaved to xls so that I can share it with others who are on Office 2003 and found the file size was 19KB now. It is quite common to see that file sizes increase with new versions due to newer features being added, but it was suprising to find it shrinking.

I have not spent too much time actually verifying all options etc, but just an observation...

ACE Award

Yesterday I got a package from MS that contained the Award for Customer Excellence for Visual Studio 2005. This is usually given to the team when it ships a product. This time, they also gave it to MVPs who were beta testers for the product.

These are a few snaps of the award and the box in which it was packaged.

When does VS 2005 Beta 2 expire?

Now that the release version is out there, when will Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 and the many CTPs that were released expire.

A google search did not come up with a definite date, though a blog had a mention that said 1st May 2006. But there does not seem to be any official date anywhere.

If you know of a official expiry date, do pass the link over via the comments.

VMWare to have a Free Product?

This ZDNet article talks about a possiblity that VMWare is going to make one of its virtualization product free. I remember beta testing the first version of VMWare and being very excited. I even went so far as to buy one of the low cost hobbyist versions that they had at that time.

But then the hobbist version dissappeard, and the cost kept going up. Then MS came out with Virtual PC, so I just shifted to VPC (I was anyway getting it as a part of my MSDN subscription). Now with the free version (if it does come out), I suppose VMWare is trying to get back in the race.

What would Microsoft do now??

IE 7 Beta 2

A Beta of the new IE is now publicly available at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7/default.mspx

I also got a link from a co-MVP Anando to this video and it is hilarious!!!!