Is this Why US Recession Hit the Indian IT industry?

Great economists will always say that education, food and medical industry can never be hurt by any recession. If you dig deep you would find that these are the industries where over consumption can never happen and also, these being a bare necessity can never be compromised irrespective of financial abilities.

So what about the other industries? Are we over consuming them? Can we over consume ERP software or a website design? Yes. And if the following story is to be believed some Big companies are already doing it.

Rahul Agarwal (name changed) was working with an Internationally reputed IT firm in Mumbai. This was his first job. He was assigned a project for this US media giant. It was a content management system for them. He believed an SRS document is where you start your project from but instead he was given a working software made in Java and was asked to replicate it using .NET technology. He did not question much and did what he was told to. With a team of 3 they completed the project in around 4 months. A month later they were asked to make a video uploader plug-in for the same CMS. The plug-in was developed on time and delivered but it did not work on the clients system. They checked it thoroughly on their end and everything was fine. After few follow ups they sent a member of the team on client’s site. They found the problem. The base CMS was not installed properly. Some important system files were missing, without which the system would have never worked. In fact, they also found that the CMS was never used or even tested by the client. Only when they received the plug-in, one of the new employees at the clients team wanted to play around with it and reported the error.

Why did it all happen? Well this is what Rahul got to know through his senior.

In US, most established companies have an IT budget. This IT budget is huge(until recession), usually more than what is required, set to satisfy ego and beat the competitor in numbers. The person in-charge of the budget has to spend it (err, utilise it) within the stipulated time. No one bothers to dig deep in what he spends or how effectively he spends but if he is unable to spend it, his job is questioned. So this in-charge first got the (not needed)system developed in Java. On being advised by the account manager (from the IT company) got it changed to .Net and then added a costly plugin to it. Everyone involved makes a personal cut in the whole transaction so nobody questions it (and we believed only the Indian government had corruption problem).

When the inflow of money was low for the media company the IT budgets were cut down (because even the competitor did that. Herd mentality!) and hence we saw the US recession hit Indian IT companies as well. If the Indian companies were solving only a problem or making something that would increase efficiency or add value of any kind this would have never happened. They wouldn’t have been hit by recession but also there wouldn’t have been any IT boom in India. It has become a norm in US to outsource IT work to India, the lowest bidder wins the contract irrespective of what value he adds.

After knowing this Rahul only waited for his minimum service period bond to expire. He now runs an IT services startup in Guwahati, along with his school time friend who quit Infosys, and makes more than double of his last salary. He is satisfied with the work and makes sure every program made finds a user (and not only a buyer).

I don’t know to what extent the IT budget thing is true but here are 3 lessons to learn from it:

1.Over consumption has to halt some day. In the long run its better to design for nails that need to be hammered than ones ready to be hammered.
2.Too much resources can spoil you. Startups, let not the money saving habbit get lost after funding. Rather have a huge party budget than an unneeded IT budget.
3.For a programmer, code is like a poetry, and a poet certainly doesn’t like obscurity. So next time when you ask your programmer to build something, let him know why no one read his last poem.
It was not a stable economy that was hit by recession, just an over consumption that got normal. Your views?

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How To Backup Your Gmail Account To YOUR Hard Drive...

Do you use Gmail? Of course you do – doesn’t everybody?
The Google gives you tons of space to store your precious email and attachments. We have found ways to use that space for our evil practical ways. We all know The Google backs up regularly and runs some of the biggest redundant data centers in the world, but do you really trust your emails from your long lost girlfriend attachments of your trip to that sci fi convention important work emails and attachments with them?
Wouldn’t you feel safer with a backup of your own? Of course you would young Admin! It is one of the rules I preach daily as a Network Administrator.

Enough beating around the bush – the tool is called simply GMail Backup and guess what it can do?

Wow you guys are on the ball today! Yup it can backup your entire Gmail account including attachments to a local folder on your computer. That is backup entire Gmail account on your hard drive. Ready to check it out? The GUI version of this is WINDOWS ONLY but there is also a command line version that works on Linux and Mac.

The installer version 0.44 is 4.4 MB and can be downloaded from here (Windows, Linux or Mac). The Windows download is directly available here. After installing it you can launch it from your start menu.

This is as simple as it gets guys. Easy as….well easy as typing in your username and password and clicking a few buttons.

You will have a full local copy (or a backup filtered by date). These messages are able to be opened in Outlook Express or similar email programs – and get this they will retain all their attachments! This is a glimpse of the file structure Gmail Backup creates. As you can see in the screen shot below it used the path I specified in the GUI and if I had folders created in my account it would have created those sub folders as well.

It gets even better. You can restore your local emails right back to Gmail with the click of the restore button. Awesome!

Is anyone using another method to do this? (Yes this is done via IMAP but it does not require any technical knowledge other than clicking and installing.) Let us know in the comments! Let’s hear how MakeUseOf’s superstars are backing up their Gmail accounts….or if you think we need to..


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Windows 8 Tricks, Tips and Shortcuts...

Windows 8 Consumer Preview cracked 1 million downloads shortly after launching last Wednesday and I'm sure many of you have tried it already. Whether you went with a dual-boot, upgrade, clean install or virtual machine, if you're coming from Windows 7 you'll notice significant changes immediately, while others may not be as obvious.
Inevitably, with change comes good and bad -- at least until you learn some tricks that get you back up to speed. I know I've been hitting my head against the wall when things don't behave the way they used to. The Start menu's absence is a perfect example of a radical change. Indeed, the duality of the OS may bring some trouble, but as skeptical as I was, I must admit Microsoft has done a pretty good job of easing many of my concerns.

Metro is undoubtedly very touch-oriented and perhaps a beginner's dream come true. For experienced users, it seems like Windows 8 still holds some promise. The devil is in the details, they say, so besides experimenting with a clean install I tried the upgrade option to see how well it worked. Going from a year-old Windows 7 install to the Consumer Preview was as seamless as you could ask for.

File copy dialogs, the task manager and search look better and work faster, and that adds up for an improved experience. I'm not loving Metro on my desktop since there's little I can currently do with the stock apps, but I wonder if that will be true once my most-used programs take full advantage of live tiles.
Without further ado, here's a shortlist of Windows 8 shortcuts and useful quick tricks I've gathered thus far..

Hot corners

The Start menu is no longer there, but there's a hot corner that makes up for it (unfortunately on multiple screens it's somewhat of a pain to use).

Lower-left corner + Left click Goes to the Start screen (Metro).

Lower-left corner + Right click Power user shortcut menu (Device Manager, Control Panel, Command Prompt, Power Options, etc.).

Upper-left corner Shows open window thumbnails, click to switch between them.

Upper screen limit + Click & Drag on desktop Move to left or right to snap the current desktop or Metro app to one side of the screen.

Lower-right corner Windows 8 Charm menu or Windows Aero Peak.

Upper-right corner Shows Windows 8 charm menu.

Keyboard shortcuts

Windows 8 is very hotkey-heavy, here are some of the shortcuts I find most useful:

• Windows key Shows the new Start screen (Metro).
• Win + type keyword Instant application search (same as in Windows 7).
• Win + D Standard Windows desktop. Also minimizes/restores all open windows in desktop mode.
• Win + Q Shows all installed apps.
• Win + W Instant search for settings.
• Win + F Instant search for files.
• Win + I Settings sidebar (control panel, network, volume, brightness, notifications, and more).
• Win + P Shows multi-monitor options, also useful for connecting an external monitor or projector.
• Win + X Power user shortcut menu (Device Manager, Control Panel, Command Prompt, Power Options, etc.).
• Win + Z Shows App Bar in Metro applications.
• Win + . (period) Snaps the current Metro app to the right side of the screen. Do it twice and it will snap to the left.
• Win + . (period) + Shift Snaps the current Metro app to the left side of the screen.
• Win + J Switches focus between snapped Metro apps.
• Win + Page Up / Down Moves full-screen Metro app to secondary monitor.
• Win + Left / Right arrow Moves and snaps desktop applications in that direction, or to a different monitor.
• Win + Tab Switches between open applications. Similar to using the left-upper hot corner with a mouse.
• Win + L Locks Windows.

You can snap Metro apps or your desktop to the side and continue working on the center of the screen.
Another shortcut lets you switch focus between the two.

Showing all apps at once (Windows Phone style) and searching with a few keystrokes is
the Windows 8 equivalent to the old Programs menu.

Get the Start Menu back, orb and all!
Following user posts in our previous Windows 8 articles, I've seen some of you wanting to completely get rid of Metro and get the Windows 7 orb back. If that's the case I'd personally recommend you just stick to Windows 7, but if you already jumped ship there's a trick to do so as discussed on AskVG.

Updated: A second, improved alternative The clever folks at Stardock have released a piece of software called Start 8 that essentially adds a Start button to Windows 8's desktop mode. When you click on it you get a Metro-esque Start menu from where you can search and access other settings.

That's it for now. Did we miss anything important? Have a Windows 8 how-to question? Let us know in the comments and we'll do our best to come up with a solution.

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10 Easy Ways to Download YouTube Videos To Your Computer...

YouTube is the most popular video sharing website where users can upload, view and share video clips. But they don't have the feature to download these videos, so if you want to download some of your favorite videos from Youtube, but don't know how to do it, than check out this post.

Top 10 tools which help you download YouTube Videos.

1. YouTube Downloader - YouTube Downloader is free software that allows you to download videos from YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video, and many others and convert them to other video formats. It also allows you to convert downloaded videos for Ipod, Iphone, PSP, Cell Phone, Windows Media, XVid and MP3. Just specify the URL for the video you want to download and click the Ok button.

2. YouTube Catcher is a free service for downloading YouTube videos and saving them to your PC.

3. Kiss YouTube - Kiss YouTube offers the easiest way for downloading video clips from YouTube. To download and save a YouTube video clip, just add the word “kiss” to the video URL in your browser address bar and hit enter. And then click on the download link provided to save the video to your computer.

4. YouTubeLoader Firefox Plugin - Youtubeloader firefox plugin is a Greasemonkey script, which adds a Download link below the YouTube video.

5. KeepVid - Download and save videos directly from Youtube, Google, Metacafe, Putfile and more. Simply copy/paste the link of the video that you're going to download and you're done.

6. VideoDownloader is very similar to KeepVid, but supports even more video sharing sites, and it’s also available as a Firefox extension. Just like with KeepVid, all downloads are in .flv format.

7. save2pc is a free tool that downloads videos from Youtube or Google Video and saves it as Avi or Mpeg. No need to use scripts for web browsers. Just run save2pc and start downloading!

8. VidGrab is another simple site that works with YouTube, Google Video, MySpace and Break.com. Besides the download function, the site also sports a top list of most viewed videos.

9. Xilisoft Download YouTube Video - This YouTube video downloader is an easy to use and flexible application that allows you to drag the YouTube URL directly to the program itself. There are multiple options to make your downloading easy: download directly with Internet Explores right-click menu or with the programs own built-in browser. Moreover, multithread and batch processing assures you the fastest download speeds.

10. KCoolOnline - Currently supports 231 video portals including Youtube. It has a basic interface. All that needs to be done is to paste a video url in the form to download the Youtube video. Users who like to download videos from many different video portals might like this as it supports a lot of them.

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Keyboard Shortcuts for Gmail Power Users..

To become a Gmail power user, you’ll need to master Gmail’s keyboard shortcuts. Keyboard shortcuts allow you to speed through your mail faster than you can click. Gmail even lets you create custom keyboard shortcuts.

Gmail’s keyboard shortcuts aren’t enabled by default and don’t appear when you hover over interface elements, so you won’t find them yourself unless you explore Gmail’s settings. This guide will get you up and running quick.

You can also just click this link to automatically enable keyboard shortcuts.

Cheat Sheet
Press Shift-? to view the built-in cheat sheet after enabling keyboard shortcuts. You can also consult Google’s list of Gmail keyboard shortcuts.

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