Scientific Computing - Applications

Computational science deals with the use of computer to construct mathematical models to enable quantitative analysis to solve scientific problems. [1][2]. Computational science is also known as scientific computing.

We will have a look at the applications of computational science [2] [3]

1. Numerical Simulations – Numerical simulation is used in a variety of fields to accurately analyze problems and to find solutions of possible.
a) Engineering Design
b) Virtual Environments
c) Model verification

Examples are – Circuit Analysis, Electromagnetic analysis of packages, structural analysis of automobiles, Drag force analysis of Aircraft, Engine Thermal Analysis, Stock option pricing for hedge funds, Virtual Environment for computer games, Virtual surgery etc.

2. Model fitting and Data analysis [4] – Model fitting is a procedure that has three steps in it –
a) First one needs a function that will accept some data and give predicted results.
b) Next, one needs a function which will give the difference between the resulting data and the predicted data.
c) One needs to find conditions under which the difference between the predicted data and the analyzed data is the least.

Example use – To revise models so that they are better aligned with the observations.

Dynamics of a drum. [5]

3. Computational optimization (Mathematical Optimization) –
“In mathematics, computer science, or management science, mathematical optimization (alternatively, optimization or mathematical programming) is the selection of a best element (with regard to some criteria) from some set of available alternatives.” [2]
Computational Optimization is used in a variety of fields – Fluid dynamics, the Finance world etc.

References –
[1] - National Center for Computational Science, Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Retrieved 11 Nov 2012 Molecular dynamics
[2] - Wikipedia
[3] - White, Jacob, Jaime Peraire, Luca Daniel, Nicholas Hadjiconstantinou, and Anthony Patera. 6.336J Introduction to Numerical Simulation (SMA 5211), Fall 2003. (MIT OpenCourseWare: Massachusetts Institute of Technology),http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-336j-introduction-to-numerical-simulation-sma-5211-fall-2003 (Accessed 14 Dec, 2013). License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
[4] – Model Fitting, http://courses.washington.edu/matlab1/ModelFittin http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/39129/6-728Fall-2002/NR/rdonlyres/Global/7/7FC24744-676E-47D3-B74D-FA6D80BA99DB/0/chp_quantum_physics_wave_1.jpgg.html  (Image courtesy of National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center.)
[5] - Introduction to Scientific Computing, Simon G Shepherd ,http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/courses/10fall/engs020/

Computer Graphics in Day to Day life

Computer Graphics have come a long way.

Anything and everything that is displayed on the Computer screen falls under the category of Computer Graphics. This includes but is not limited to Operating system interfaces to graphics in computer games. The journey that computer grahics have made is astonishing.

From Operating systems like : 

Old Windows

and games like :

A primitive verison of the game Ping Pong when it was released

to Operating Systems like :

Windows 7 

and games like :

Latest generation of games

which show incredible detail and are almost life like with minute details of the real world like textures being accurately displayed.

This has been mainly possible due to new technologies that keep cropping up making the graphics scene a hot one. In fact Computer Graphics is such a huge business that it has complete companies dedicated to it which develop technology to improve graphics. Companies like Nvdia and Intel have been researching and building completely dedicated components called as “Graphics card” which can be plugged into computers or onto systems to improve the performance drastically. These graphics cards have a stand alone CPU (or GPU) which does the various computations required to improve the quality of graphics. The down side of these is the power consumption and consequently the generation of heat.

Another area where Computer Graphics are used is in movies. Whenever there are any scenes in the movie which cannot actually be filmed (Lord of the Rings, Hobbit, Apollo 13, Transformers) or if the movie is to be completely animated (Toy Story, Shrek, Monsters Inc.) or just plain expensive to shoot, computer graphics come to the rescue. Computer graphics or CG as they are known in the movie industry are a major part of movies. It does a magnificent job too. After all who can deny the beauty of an aerial view of the army of soilders marching in to reinforce the good guys in Helms Deep. A complete treat for the eyes!!

Computer Graphics are present all around us, in Ads, in movies, in the games we play.

It plays an important role in our life.

Image references -

1. Windows Old - http://www.theoligarch.com/images/risc_os_30.gif

2. Old Ping pong - http://www.geekologie.com/2008/08/08/obama-pong.jpg

3. Games new -http://www.technobuffalo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/FC3_PVP0412_screenshot_rebel_support_nologo.jpg

Communications and Security - Past, Present, Future

The need for communication is very ancient. It includes being able to communicate over long distances without being eavesdropped. This is where security for communication comes in.

Julius Caeser  used a unique (for his time) method of encrypting his messages. He used what is today known as the Caeser Cipher.

Caeser cipher is a simple substitution type of encryption method in which the encrypting as well as the decrypting key is the alphabet shifted by a certain number of places(either backwards or forward). So if the key was the English alphabet shifted backwards by 3 places then every 'a' in the original message would be replaced with a 'x'.

Example - Original Message - " How do you do "
 Encrypted message- " ELT AL VLR AL "

The encrypted message will in itself be completely useless even if had been opened by unauthorized people.

The need for security while communicating is still paramount and in recent times even gained more importance. The importance of this can be gauged from the following.

During the Second World War the Germans had the engima machine which they used to communicate with each other. The British had broken this code by 1940 and used this to their advantage. The Germans eventually lost.

Since then encryption for communications has come a long way and can be divided into two major parts
1. Symmetric encryption
2. Asymmetric encryption

We will have a look at both of these briefly -

1. Symmetric encryption - In this type of encryption both the parties use the same key to encrypt and decrypt messages. These keys are decided using the Diffie - Hellman protocol. Example of such type of protocols are AES encryption, DES, Triple DES etc

2. Asymmetric encryption (Public key encryption) - In Asymmetric encryption in general there are two different keys which are used. For example in RSA there are two keys, a public key and a private key. The private key is kept secure by the server which uses this key to encrypt as well as decrypt messages while all other people who wish to communicate with the server need to use the public key to encrypt and decrypt data.

Asymmetric encryption

The major difference between the two is that Asymmetric encryption or Public key encryption is costly in terms of computation as compared to symmetric key encryption.

Security in communications is here to stay and will continue to be important. As technology develops and computation power increases it will be easier to break existing protocols and hence there will be a need to come up with new protocol which will be more secure and attuned to the surrounding technology. The race between the good guys and bad guys is on. I'm happy so long as the good guys are one step ahead of the bad guys !!

Artificial Intelligence: Rapid advancements and applications in the field of AI

"Artificial intelligence (AI) is a technology and a branch of computer science that studies and develops intelligent machines and software. Major AI researchers and textbooks define the field as the study and design of intelligent agents  "[1] 

Artificial Intelligence is a comparatively new field. Research in AI was practically non-existent / scarce in the early 90’s. Since then it has come a long way. Artificial intelligence today is used in all fields including but not limited to - 

1. Cell phones - “Siri” in iPhones, “S voice” in Samsung phones

2. Online advertising – Google and other online search engines as well as other tech bigwigs track all your activity including your online searches carried out on their domains as well as, in case of Google, which tracks your location too.This is done through the Google Maps app which has the permission to fetch your location at any point of time. Facebook, on the other hand, uses your page likes and your normal activity.

All this data is then fed to highly sophisticated AI algorithms which will then come up with suggestions for ads to be served to the user. The revenue from such advertisements forms a major chunk of the money that comes in.

3. Toys and games – The recently introduced “Furby” toy ( See edit ) incorporates AI. The toy is a blank slate with a few basic behaviors coded in. However as time progresses the personality of the toy changes and is shaped by the day to day interactions of the owner with the toy. This is due to the use of AI.

Also in a few games the adversary needs to respond to the actions of the user. This is achieved through the use of AI.

4. Robots – There have been many robots like the robotic dog from Honda, AIBO (Artificial Intelligence Robot) and ASIMO a humanoid robot, also from Honda, which can perform incredibly complex tasks usng Artificial Intelligence.

Here is a demonstration of ASIMO pouring himself a cup of juice.

The movie Terminator envisions a world controlled by “Skynet”, a highly advanced sentient artificial network. Such a network would have its origins in the research being carried out today. Let us hope that AI is developed in a responsible way so that we don’t run into a scenario as is depicted in the movie !!

EDIT - As Matthew Pronge rightly pointed out Furbys have been around since '98.

References –

[1] - Poole, Mackworth & Goebel,1998

Computer Science – Heroes in the History of Computer Science

“Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.” - Edsger Dijkstra

As the quote above suggests, Computer Science is not a narrow field but encompasses a wide variety of topics, including, but not limited to, algorithms, data structures, databases, artificial intelligence, game theory, computer graphics and computer architecture. The ultimate aim of computer science is to study and understand problems and then harnessing this understanding to provide a workable solution.

Let’s take a look at the notable contributors to various fields in Computer Science –

Donald Knuth -

Donald Knuth

Donald Knuth’s contribution to Computer Science is humongous and has been recognized with an A.M Turing award, a prestigious award that is only given to people who have made significant and lasting contributions to the field of computer science. He made contributions in the field of analysis of algorithms, LR parsing and many other fields.

John von Neumann –

John von Neumann

John von Neumann’s contribution to computer science is an architectural scheme which is as shown below. It consists a trio of memory, ALU and a control unit which work together operate on the given input to produce an output.

John von Neumann architecture

Alan Turing – 

Alan Turing

Alan Turing is largely considered to be the father of computer science. his contributions include the Turing machine which is defined as -

“A Turing machine is a hypothetical device that manipulates symbols on a strip of tape according to a table of rules. Despite its simplicity, a Turing machine can be adapted to simulate the logic of any computer algorithm, and is particularly useful in explaining the functions of a CPU inside a computer” ^[2] 

His other notable contributions are in the field of cryptography where his work helped build the "Bombe" machine which was instrumental in breaking the enigma cipher.

References and Image References -
[1] - Turing Machine, http://mathworld.wolfram.com/TuringMachine.html

[2] - Wikipedia

File Sharing

File sharing is defined as the ways and means to provide access to stored Digital content. This stored digital content can either be multi-media or documents.

There are many ways in which File sharing can be achieved. Following are some of the ways in which file sharing is simplified –

1. Detachable / removable devices like thumb drives / CD / DVD /memory cards

2. FTP protocol – (File transfer protocol) It is easy to share content over the same network by simply sharing the folder over the network, however when this is to be done over computers not in the same network, it is not advised to leave the folder open to sharing over the internet. Instead the File Transfer Protocol (FTP)  is used. FTP also enables transfers between different OS. A thing to understand in FTP is that the there is a central server which will provide the data to all other computers.

3. P2P networks (Peer to Peer Networks) – A peer to peer network is somewhat similar to FTP. The difference being that there is no centralized server. Every node in the network can either act as the server or the client depending on whether it is sending data or receiving data. Software such as Bit Torrent and µTorrent use the concept of p2p networks. With the advent of p2p networks sharing digital content became very easy.

However a down side to this was that the piracy of digital content became very simple. Since there is no central source to P2P networks it is very difficult to shutdown these networks.

File Sharing

Other ways in which File sharing is carried out is via software like Dropbox and Google Drive where the files are stored in the Cloud and then synced on to multiple devices including mobile phones.  Google Mail now allows attachments of up to 25 GB (using Google Drive).

Q:  How to decide which method to use for file sharing ?

- When a file needs to be downloaded again and again then it would bet better to have it stored over a central server so that it can be easily accessed. However the downside to this is that the server is the bottle neck. P2P networks can possibly help solve that.

- When a file needs to be transferred on one time basis (or less frequently) and over short distances removable  devices can be used.

- Whenever one needs to sync data across multiple devices options like Dropbox need to be explored.

Edit - After various comments here is my opinion on File sharing.
File sharing has been and always will be essential for team work. I personally use Google Docs to share and collaborate on documents, while I always use Dropbox to store all essential data on my laptop. In addition to having a safe copy of all my data in the Dropbox it also helps me share this data by simply sharing a link to the data on Dropbox (So it sort of works like an FTP). Back in India,I also used p2p networks to legally download a document for the sake of experimenting.
Thank you for reading !

Data Structures: Building blocks to solve complex problems.

Data Structures are structures that are used to store / organize data and provide a way to operate on data that is contained within them.

Why are Data Structures so important?

- When the code base itself is small and the data on which it operates is small there isn't much of a difference but when it comes down to huge amounts of data the difference between using the right data structure (read best  suited) and a not so suited one can be substantial.

Take the example of a binary tree and a hash set to be used for searching –

Searching for a particular number in a binary tree has an average time complexity of O (log n) while the worst case is O (n).

As opposed to this, a hash set, will have an average case time complexity of O (1) meaning that each element can be accessed in constant time.

As can be seen from the time complexities, the time taken to search for an element will increase with increase in the amount of data with the array. In case of a hash set, this time complexity will not change due to the way a hash set is implemented.

Data Structures can be further sub divided as shown in the diagram - 

Data Structures - Primary classification.

Examples of Data Structures include and are not limited to – HashTables, HashMap, Array, LinkedList, ArrayList, Binary Tree, Trie etc.

Different types of data structures are suited to different needs.

1. Array – When random access of elements is of essence.
2. LinkedList – When growth of the memory space with minimum complexity for addition at the beginning or the end is required.
3. HashTable – When constant search time is required.
4. Priority Queues – Scheduling
5. Heaps – For dynamic memory allocations
6. Graph – Essential to store connected data, like with Social Networks.

As discussed earlier the use of the correct data structure can help a system scale without large changes in the implementation.

Image Courtesy -Unknown. 11/3/13, http://embeddedcareers-world.blogspot.com/

Hacking: Understanding Hacking

Hacking can be termed as use of a computer to gain unauthorized access to data in a system.Hacking can be either good or bad depending on the intent with which the hacking was carried out. 

In this blog post we will be looking at hacking on computers systems.

Along with the usual intent of harm there is also another breed of hackers called the “Ethical Hacker / White Hat Hacker” who tries to hack into the system to ensure that there are indeed no security flaws in the system that can be used by the harmful hackers to compromise the integrity of the data and / or cause the system to behave in an errant way.

The recent hacking of various important websites, like the nsa.gov, the defacement of public sites show hacking can also serve as a means to protest.

There are a few basic steps that are taken when trying to hack into a system –

1. Recon – Gather information about the intended target.

2. Analysis – Analysis of the gathered information for possible ways to hack the system.  Then a decision on using one or more vulnerabilities is made and a plan is chalked out.

3. Attack – The plan is actually put into action.

Edit : The hacking process

All of the above was from the view point of a system. However individual users can also be hacked.

Today individuals have a lot of online accounts like email accounts, Facebook etc. If individually targets and if the user has not taken precautions then an account can be easily hacked.

Moreover these accounts are often linked to each other and sometimes what is public information on one account forms the basis of identification for another account as this post (very interesting read) over here shows. The hacker gained control of his Amazon, Apple and Gmail accounts and wiped all the data on the users HDD. All of this possible because Amazon shows the last four digits of the credit card number to the account holder. Apple considers these same four digits along with a few publicly available pieces of info to be sufficient information to reset the password.

Simple steps to prevent hacking are to have a good anti-virus installed and monitoring all the activities. Additionally things like creating a strong enough password can go a long way towards preventing dictionary attacks on account passwords.

References -

Honan, Mat. "How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking”, 8^th June 2012. "http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat-honan-hacking/all/”

Open Source Software: Pros vs. cons.

What is Open Source Software? 
Open source software is described as follows -
“Open-source software (OSS) is computer software with its source code made available and licensed with a license in which the copyright holder provides the rights to study change and distribute the software to anyone and for any purpose.”[1]

How is it different form other types of Software?
Open source software differs from other types of software in the way that the “Source code” or the code for that software is available for the user to edit. The user may add, delete or otherwise edit the code to suit his needs.

Open Source Software Pros –
1. Few if any license fees – Contrary to popular belief Open Source != Free . The developer might choose to charge a fee. That said most open source software is free to use.

2. Easy to manage – Open source software is easy to manage. This is because the code is available to every user. If the user thinks there is an issue he can himself work on it to get it fixed. This is the real power of Open source software. When the software is widely used if any issues crop up then it can be fixed by anyone. Maintenance is not limited to the code author.

3. Customizable – Since the source code is openly available the user can easily modify the software to suit his needs.

4. Encourages creativity thereby increasing the spectrum of usage of the software – Many a times software cannot be used due to changes needed in the Software. However with tweaks the software can be used in Domains that it was not designed to be used in the first place.

Adoption of Open Source Software

Open Source Software Cons – 
1. Open source software does not (in most cases) come with support. If one runs into some issues then there is no guarantee that the developer will be at hand to solve it.
2. Open Source is often Orphaned – After a period of time the main developers might decide to walk away leaving the code incomplete /orphaned. This can be due to issues between developers or because the developer got bored and decided to stop working on the project.

Gray Area – 
Security: Since it is open source and especially if the software is free the software might not be 100% secure. However if there are any flaws which have been made public then a wide number of developers, either individually or in unison can work towards quickly solving the issue.

My Opinion –
Open source software has its own Pros and cons however Open source software is slightly more preferable due to the mentioned Pros. This is also evident from the statistics in the diagram.

References -
[1] - St. Laurent, Andrew M. (2008). Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing, O'Reilly Media, p. 4. ISBN 9780596553951.
[2] -  http://www.leadcommerce.com/blog/the-pros-cons-of-open-source-ecommerce-software.html
[3] - http://www.cioinsight.com/it-strategy/linux-open-source/slideshows/five-pros-and-five-cons-of-open-source-software/

Agile : A Methodology.

Let's have a peek at what Agile is and how it works.

What is Agile?

Agile methodology is just another methodology to control/track/improve Project Development. Other project development models include the Waterfall model etc. The main advantage of Agile is that all the development is broken up into sprints which allow the teams the flexibility to develop iteratively and can also help increment the number of chances that a client has to impact the direction of the project.

What is Scrum?

Scrum is nothing but a means of carrying out software development in small iterative units called Sprints. These sprints usually form the backbone of why the development is iterative.

What is a Sprint?

A sprint is usually a 2-4 week cycle where the team is allowed to develop working code and a demo of which is available at the end of each sprint length. This working code provides the stimuli to the client through demos who then come back with feedback (Response) on the demo.

It is essential to choose the right Sprint length. For a project which has a small duration the Sprint length has to be small while for a project with a large duration the sprint length can be longer. This is due to the fact that we want to have as many Stimuli – Response cycles as possible so that at the end of the product we don’t have a client who goes “Eh? What is that? I didn't want this to be built in this way” . This leads us to the conclusion that smaller the sprint length greater the satisfaction of the client because he has had the chance to influence the direction of the project.

LinkedIn and Branding : Making yourself stand out from the crowd.

LinkedIn recently hit 200 Million members! Hence when it comes to hiring, companies prefer to head over to LinkedIn for its tremendous reach and other benefits (Groups).

There is no substitution for a network of active professional and that is the truth.
Kevin Bacon’s Six degrees of separation, which draws from the theory of “Six degrees of separation”, states that any person can be connected to any other person through 6 or less than 6 connections.
That gives us the reach, but what needs to be understood that it is still a level playing field and each one has the same reach. Today’s world has cut throat competition. There are thousands like you who want to be in the same position you are or are aspiring to be in. Hence the recruiter has a lot of candidates to look at.

How do you stand out from the crowd?

How do you bring yourself to the notice of employers?

As Debra Caires says "You" are a business. You have invested years in sharpening and learning new skills. You are now your own business and your resume is your sales pitch.
And this sales pitch has about 1-2 minutes before it is relegated to the garbage bin. Due to this limited attention that it will be getting it is absolutely necessary to have a sales pitch (read Resume) which will leave an impression.

A sales pitch consists of among other things the hard cold fact of “What do you bring to the table? How will your skills help the other person / business achieve his own goals?”
What you can and cannot do needs to be put across to a potential employee

I believe that this can be done by following these simple tips –

1. Get a customized URL – This way whenever anyone decides to Google for your name it is ensured that your LinkedIn profile is the one which will show up in the results.

2. List out all your skills in the inverted pyramid fashion – Put the skills you are most familiar with first followed by the others. This is how the recruiters believe people list out their skills. Users however do not realize this.

3. Have a professional photo – Although it might not seem like a lot the profile picture is sort of a pre-first impression. As such it should be decent. Extravagant / Nonprofessional photos might scare potential employers away.

4. Add Multimedia to your LinkedIn profile – LinkedIn supports all types of Multimedia including but not limited to audio, video, presentation, documents. The only catch is that the documents need to be published on a third party preapproved provider.

5. Get recommendations from people you have worked with.

6. Put in snippets of testimonials (with permission)  into the LinkedIn profile.

7. Fine Tune your headline to reflect  what you currently do / aspire to do.

8. The summary of your LinkedIn profile should reflect your work and why you think you did a good job and back it up wherever possible with figures (percentages etc)

Sources :
http://socialmediatoday.com/node/1700131
http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/outside-voices-careers/2013/04/17/how-to-market-yourself-on-linkedin
Image Courtesy: http://www.someecards.com/usercards/viewcard/MjAxMi1mYzMwNmYxOWVkZTNlMTg3

QR Codes: Decoded.

What are QR codes?

Ever see those small white squares with weirdly arranged small black squares within them? Yep. Those are QR codes.  And those weirdly arranged squares?  Yes, they contain some information.

Come on, what are QR codes?

Well technically speaking QR codes contain information which has been structured into an array of black and white squares. This info can be very easily generated and as easily read with a camera enabled phone in conjunction with a QR decoding software.

What purpose do they serve?

In short they put the offline world in contact with the online world. QR codes can be used to embed links to the website of the brand being promoted. It can be used for a variety of purposes including leading the user who is scanning the QR code to a website which can give more information on a specific topic. They can be used as a hiring tool to direct potential employees to apply for a job.

An interesting use is that of QR codes being placed on tombstones and which when scanned will lead to a web page which can display the info related to the person in question.

Example : QR Code to this website.

Any shortcomings?

Perceived shortcomings are that not everyone has a camera enabled phone, If they do they need to buy third party software. Even if these conditions are fulfilled there still is the perceived issue of the site not being displayed properly on the mobile.

In today’s world almost all cell phones are enabled with a primitive camera and third party software is reliable. In addition companies have realized that a substantial chunk of traffic is from cellphone users and hence these companies are making / have already made their company websites cellphone friendly.

What’s the future for QR codes?

Although reports suggest that user do recognize QR codes and have scanned a QR code at least once what would really give a real sense of the usefulness and usage of QR codes would be how many times does a person see a code and actually pull his/her cell out to scan it. Example: Out of the 10 times that a person sees a QR code he ends up scanning the code 8 times. That would serve as a yardstick to the future of the QR code technology.

Sources - 
http://sjsucs100wcs200w.blogspot.com .

Seven Things you should know about QR Codes, Educause Learning Initiative.

Social Networking and security. . .or lack of when promoting your brand.

The internet has made the world a smaller and a very well connected world. 

There are currently about 2,405,518,376^[1]  people who are connected to the internet. Out of these Facebook alone accounts for 1.2 billion users^[2] . Adding users from other websites will probably sum up to a huge number. Hence when one thinks about the best way to promote his/ her brand, the most natural course of action is to recognize and use the potential of the already existing social networks. There are many other reasons like the low cost to reach a potential customer, to prefer promoting brands over Social Networks rather than through other channels.

While doing so it is necessary to understand that different platforms will have different audiences having different tastes. Promoting your brand on the right platforms is important and will have a direct bearing on the return on investment.

Case in point - "Pepsi was one of the first few brands to use social media to raise brand awareness. When the company decided to overhaul its entire brand, including the logo, PepsiCo adopted a slightly non-traditional approach. Instead of sending out a press release, PepsiCo opted in some 'select blogger' and delivered a bunch of cans showing the way its design had evolved since its launch. These influencers then blogged about the new design, increasing brand awareness in the process. The real time nature of the social media and the fact that these brand advocate in turn influence their followers to be more receptive to the change worked brilliantly for the beverage company"[3]

This demonstrates how the focus is shifting from the normal channels to social media /networks.

A coin will always have two sides  -

It takes months to gather a following (Facebook Groups) .However something as simple as a disgruntled customer posting on such public forums can tarnish the reputation of the company. It is not limited to disgruntled customers. Disgruntled employees / reckless comments / posts by employees can have a huge impact on the image of the company. Take the example of an employee who posted the following on the Social Network website named Twitter.

“I just posted a funny video of myself frying a rodent at the restaurant where I work.”  -Employee at  well-known, nationwide fried chicken company in 2008 [4]

This tweet whether true or false will definitely make customers hesitant before they decide to visit the place next time.

Additionally if the Social Network account of the person in charge of carrying out the brand promotion is hacked then all of the hard work that has been put in can be washed away within a day or two.The security aspects when using Social Networks that need to be understood and taken care are -

1. Hoax emails asking for some critical information.

2. Posting rogue URL's which will redirect to websites which can then grab information or install rogue software.

References / Source -

[1] - "Internet Usage Statistics,The Internet Big Picture,World Internet Users and Population Stats" ,Internet World Stats ,June 30 2012, http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

[2] - "Social Networking Statistics", Browser Media and Socialnomics, 12th November 2012, http://www.statisticbrain.com/social-networking-statistics/

[3] -  "The Impact of Social Media Influencers on Brands", Syndicated Author, 23rd May 2013, http://www.ronsela.com/the-impact-of-social-media-influencers-on-brands/

[4] - "Social networking and security risks", Dinerman Paul  - http://www.gfi.com/whitepapers/Social_Networking_and_Security_Risks.pdf

Welcome !!

Welcome to my Technology blog !!

Starting to blog was one of the things in my bucket list and this class pushed me towards it. This blog will mainly focus on my understanding / opinion of the technical aspect of the material under discussion.

(EDIT)Let me introduce myself to everyone.I'm Ashwin Kalbhor. I'm currently pursuing my Masters Degree in Computer Science from San Jose State University. I consider myself to be proficient at Java as well as other programming languages like Python / C /  C++ .

I recently finished my internship at PayPal where we worked towards improving the experience of a user, when resolving an issue, by redesigning the system and making the user go through a reduced number of steps to get his / her account back to normal standing.

What excites me about Computer Science?

The field of Computer Science is relatively in a nascent stage as compared to other fields which have been around for a long time and as such the scope for innovation and improvement is huge and excites me to no end.

At a higher level I see myself interested in Computer Security as well as Operating Systems and on a more granular level Algorithms, Data Structures interest me.

Challenges that I believe can be tackled 

The  branch of Computer Science does not restrict us. In fact it provides us with the building blocks which can then be used towards building solutions that will change the world. The possibilities are boundless however with my current knowledge level of Computer Science I can have a go at reducing illiteracy by setting up a website with structured content that will provide education to everyone at no cost. With some further study I could possibly help write algorithms that could tackle congestion on arterial roads by dynamically adjusting the durations of the traffic signal. I am also currently carrying out an analysis of hard to detect viruses so that this information can then be used to make our cyber lives easier.