What is UX/UI (User Experience And User Interface)

This article is going to explain that, what User Experience Design and what User Interface Development actually entail.

 

What is User Experience (UX)?

User Experience is all about approaching applications as the user. When a user comes to your website, how do they know what is important and where to find the things that they are looking for? If they are filling out a form, do they know that their first name is required? If they don’t fill it out, how can they be notified that they must fill it out before moving on without losing everything in the form? Are things that belong together grouped together in a way that makes sense? These are the kinds of questions that user experience development asks.
 

The answers are not always as obvious as you might think. Why else do so many people have such a hard time using well-known web applications like Facebook and MySpace? What is shown, what isn’t shown, where they are shown, the relationship of one item to another – these decisions can make or break the ease of use for your application.

There is also a level of psychology involved in the process. A 75 year old man may interact with a website completely differently than a 7 year old girl and have completely different expectations wrapped around their actions. The perception of how things should behave is formed by observing how other similar things have behaved in the past. For example, when you scroll over a link, you expect the cursor for your mouse to change and become a pointing finger. 

This is something that has been ingrained in our expectations from visiting thousands of other websites with the same behavior. With a line of CSS, it’s possible to make the cursor something else when you scroll over a link, but it breaks with user expectations and makes them uneasy, unsure of what their actions will result in and unable to use your application properly. Similarly, as AJAX and AJAX-like JavaScript becomes more and more commonplace, it is important to show the user that the objects that trigger AJAX functions are “links.” This is again just a line of CSS, but it makes all the difference where the use is concerned.
.

What is User Interface (UI)?

A user interface is what users see when they access an application. A user interface designer may be someone who simply designs the look and feel of an application by creating wireframes and mockups of the final product or they may be heavier on the development side. Often a user interface developer will have an array of skills in client-side technologies such as JavaScript and JavaScript libraries such as jQuery, jQuery UI, EXT JS, YUI, Prototype, or others.

User interface development ties in closely with user experience development in that the user is the end-goal in both situations, which means that simplicity in design is paramount.

TECHNORATI CLAIM TOKEN - RAF2BXH3XKG4

Read More

Socialize your Blog with these 10 tips

When it comes to building an audience and driving traffic, bloggers are turning to social media with record results. Instead of relying on organic search or (gasp) IRL friends, successful bloggers know they have to develop a following on key social networks as a way to promote their brands and ultimately get more clicks.

Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon and now Pinterest provide the savvy blogger with plenty of opportunities to attract new readers and engage with regulars, but it can be overwhelming if you’re new to social media or if you only use it for fun. 

Here are 10 tips to help bloggers navigate the increasingly complex world of social media — while still making time to write content.

---

1. Display your social media icons prominently toward the top of your website.

---

Make it as simple as possible for your blog readers to connect with you on various social media platforms. They shouldn’t have to hunt around to find your Twitter handle, but should be able to click on a button and be taken right to your profile. Bonus points if your social media icons reflect the overall design or feel of your blog.

---

2. Every blog should have its own Facebook Page.

---

Even with Facebook’s new subscription feature, there’s still merit to giving your blog its own space on Facebook. It’s nice to be able to post a link every time you publish something new, and not have to worry about annoying your friends. Plus, readers who don’t your name but know the name of your blog can search for it on Facebook. Show your fans some love on your blog by using the Facebook social plugin, which makes it easy to convert readers to fans.

---

3. Generate traffic with StumbleUpon.

---

This “recommendation engine” serves as an alternate browser where users click through pages that their SU friends and SU itself have recommended. You can submit your own blog posts into the system, but it works best if you also share them with your SU friends and accept their shares back. Like most social platforms, you need to have a strong following to get good results. While people are still trying to figure out what makes SU content go viral, many bloggers have seen terrific, albeit fleeting, traffic spikes through the service.

---

4. Import your RSS feed onto your LinkedIn profile using its Blog Link application.

---

As long as your blog somewhat pertains to your professional goals, you should be showcasing it on LinkedIn. List it as one of your three websites in your profile, where it will be labeled “Blog.” However, by using the Blog Link application, your most recent posts will display right on your profile.

---

5. Pinterest is the hot new frontier for bloggers.

---

Pinterest is the cool new kid, and all of the bloggers are scrambling to establish a presence there. Pin your best photos onto themed boards with links to a relevant blog post. Blogs with strong visual content, like fashion, food, design, crafts and travel, are a natural fit. Infographics will also do quite well. Don’t forget to add a Pinterest plugin (like the Pinterest “Pin It” Button for WordPress users) to make it easy for your readers to share your content on their Pinterest boards.

---

6. Use link shorteners even when you don’t have to.

---

Twitter will now shorten your link for you, and the length of your link doesn’t matter on Facebook and Google+. But by using a link shortener like bit.ly, you will gain access to metrics, so you’ll know how many people clicked and at what time. With this essential data, you can experiment with different ways to tease your content and different times to post it.

---

7. Use your blog name as your username whenever possible.

---

Promote your personal brand by consistently using your blog’s name for your Twitter handle, StumbleUpon name, Pinterest name and so on. Then, people don’t have to wonder about your blog’s name — it’s right there. Also, people will remember you easily across platforms, which is key as you develop up your online community.

---

8. Join blogger groups on Facebook.

---

There are some very active groups on Facebook that are terrific resources for any blogging issues you encounter. Look for groups like “Travel Bloggers” or “Global Bloggers Network.” WordPress geeks have “Advanced WordPress” and Central Florida residents have “Central Florida Bloggers.” Not only are blogger groups good for problem-solving, but it’s well-known that bloggers like to read other blogs. Do some searching and find a bloggers group that’s suited to you, or start your own!

---

9. Be generous with other bloggers.

---

Promote other bloggers’ content, and hopefully they’ll return the favor. You can’t simply blast your own content anyway — you need some variety in every social media stream. So why not check out what your fellow bloggers are posting and give them a retweet, a share or a repin whenever you can. And don’t forget to reciprocate and share content from bloggers who share yours.

---

10. Be on social media — even when it’s not driving traffic.

---

It can be frustrating when you feel that you’re doing everything right (posting good content on the appropriate platforms in the best way possible) and you’re still not getting many clicks. But console yourself by thinking about all of the links that you see throughout the day that you don’t click on. Just spending time on social media platforms is great way to forge relationships, keep up on industry news and find inspiration for that next blog post.

Read More

NIIT gets 300 crore Project from Union Home Ministry

Infotech Solutions vendor NIIT Technologies today said it has bagged a deal worth Rs 300 crore to implement a Union Home Ministry project called the "Crime and Criminal Tracking Network System (CCTNS)", which will be part of the proposed Natgrid.

The company has been selected as the system integrator in Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh. It is in active pursuit of similar opportunities in other states as well, a senior company official said. Execution of work is already on in Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand.

"These wins are an endorsement of our leadership in providing IT solutions to the government. We have a history of successful implementations with IT programmes in Defence and home affairs," NIIT Technologies chief executive Arvind Thakur said here on the sidelines of the Nasscom leadership summit.

The CCTNS is a comprehensive and integrated nationwide system designed to help the police investigate crime and detect criminals, on which the Union Home Ministry plans to spend Rs 2,000 crore.

The system is expected to connect and share real-time information and data on crime and criminals from across the country thus strengthening the information base of investigating officers.

After the implementation of the system throughout the country, over 14,000 police stations spanning 6,000 district police headquarters, fingerprint bureaux and forensic science laboratories will be linked to a common IT platform enabling investigating officials to get the data of any criminal at the click of a mouse.

"FIRs and photographs can be made available from any police station to any other police station in real-time, after the project is completed across the country," a company official said.

Recently, NIIT Tech also commissioned a Rs 228-crore 'Intranet Prahari' project for the Border Security Force.

Read More

8 much needed techies for a IT company startup

The number of start-ups is increasing every day, and with it, positions that need techies who are well-versed with new and upcoming technologies.

Here are a number of positions that tech startups will be looking out for, according to a report from Mashable, a site that covers digital media, and technology. The site interviewed a panel of entrepreneurs to predict the IT skills that will be in demand.

SEO Experts: These techies optimize web-sites’ traffic. An experienced SEO expert will help you create back-links so the ranking of your page is improved on search engines like Google. Having an expert in SEO allows startups to target their core markets through keyword research, and makes sure that every piece of content created enhances the brand and the web presence of the company, according to Andrew Saladino from Just Bath Vanities.

Communication Experts:  These IT personnel go through every part of content before it is published, and take care of communicating ideas and techniques to other employees. In the viewpoint of Matt Cheuvront from Proof Branding, by being a techie who is comfortable and proficient in communicating efficiently, you cut down the need for a middle person while improving the efficiency and productivity of the company.

Dev-Ops:  These techies bridge the gap between development professionals and operations. The requirement for these professionals rose when a number of IT organizations understood the emerging need and interdependence of both areas to meet goals of rapidly producing software products and services. “Because consumers are becoming more tech-hungry, and startups are using ‘lean methodologies’ to build fast, new startups are looking for people, who can combine the skills that help to scale businesses intelligently,” said Doreen Bloch from Poshly Inc.

User Experience Specialists: These techies are curious and continuously question themselves about how users’ experience can be made better. Although they don’t see the production of a product from beginning to end, their inputs are invaluable. Benjamin Leis from Sweat EquiTees notes that user experience designers are becoming much sought after. He says, “These individuals help to streamline processes while working towards maximizing return for their clients. Mobile apps, online stores, brick and mortar stores, airline terminals, etc. — all can benefit from exceptional UX design.”

Cloud Specialists: Startups no longer fear having to build physical servers, especially since the cloud offers an elegant solution. Eric Bahn from Beat The GMAT however notes, “Managing a strong, cloud-based server infrastructure requires some special skills and management. I expect that a lot of startups will be looking for people who know how to user cloud services like Amazon AWS and Rackspace this year.”

Data Specialists: Data specialists assist social scientists in social science research. They prepare tables, graphs, and reports summarizing research results, based on internet research. Arjun Arora from ReTargeter said that having a dedicated resource specialized in analytics will not only help transform company data into workable insights, but will also ensure that the data doesn’t impose a burden on other employees.

Mobile Developers:  With more of the customer base being increasingly accessible via mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, the need for mobile developers is widening beyond the reach of companies were conventionally expected to have this need. Ben Lang from Epic Launch said that companies are going to continue wanting to exploit the trend of consumers focusing on mobile devices, with new apps for smartphones and tablets. “This market is only going to evolve and become more and more advanced,” he said.

Business IT Specialists: Startups usually have a lot of technical talent built in to them by default, but another important part of its structure lies in business support. This fact points to a current need for IT specialists “who are used to working with project management, accounting and other business software”, says Thursday Bram from Hyper Modern Consulting.

Read More

10 Commandments of Software Testing

"Software Testing is a systematic activity but it also involves economics and human psychology." - Glenford J. Myers

Economics of software testing is to determine and predict the faults of the system early by using foreseeable models and applying structured test strategies and test methodologies to discover those at early phases of the software development life cycle.

Psychology of testing is to destructively test the application by identifying as many exceptional or out of the box scenarios or sometimes called as the third vision.

A set of good test scenarios evaluates every possible permutations and combinations of a program during ideal conditions. In addition, Software Test Engineer needs the proper vision to successfully test a piece/whole application to comply with the Standards and the Quality.

Whenever Software Test Engineer tests a program, they should add some value in it rather than performing only the requirements conformance and validation. A systematic and well planned test process adds the value of quality and reliability of the software program.

The most important considerations in the software testing are the issues of psychology, leading to the set of principles and guidelines to evaluate software quality:

1. Testing is the process of experimenting a software component by using a selected set of test cases, with the intent of revealing defects and evaluate quality Software Test Engineer executes the software using test cases to evaluate properties such as reliability, usability, maintainability, and level of performance. Test results are used to compare the actual properties of the software to those specified in the requirements document as quality goals.

Deviations or failure to achieve quality goals must be addressed. Software Testing has a broader scope rather being only limited to the execution of program or detecting errors more rigorously as described in the test process improvement models such as TMMi framework models.

2. When the test objective is to detect defects, then a good test case is one that has a high probability of revealing a yet undetected defect(s).

Principle 2 supports a strong and robust designing of test cases. This means that each test case should have a goal to identify or detect a specific type of defect. Software Test Engineer approaches the scientific method of designing the tests to prove or disapprove the hypothesis by the means of test procedures.

3. A test case must contain the expected output or result. Principle 3 supports the fact that a test case without expected result is of zero value. Expected output or result determines whether a defect has been revealed or the conditions have been passed during the execution cycle.

4. Test cases should be developed for both valid and invalid input conditions. Use of test cases that are based on invalid inputs is very useful for revealing defects since they may exercise the code in unexpected ways and identify unexpected software behaviour. Invalid inputs also help developers and Software Test Engineers to evaluate the robustness of the software, that is, its ability to recover when unexpected events occur (in this case an erroneous input).

For example, software users may have misunderstandings, or lack information about the nature of the inputs. They often make typographical errors even when complete/correct information is available. Devices or software program may also provide invalid inputs due to erroneous conditions and malfunctions.

5. The probability of the existence of additional defects in a software component is proportional to the number of defects already detected in that component. Principle 5 supports to the fact that the higher the number of defects already detected in a component, the more likely it is to have additional defects when it undergoes further testing.

For example, if there are two components A and B, and Software Test Engineers have found 20 defects in A and 3 defects in B, then the probability of the existence of additional defects in A is higher than B. This empirical observation may be due to several causes and degree of influence of the software factors. Defects often occur in clusters and often in code that has a high degree of complexity and is poorly designed.

6. Test Cases must be repeatable and reusable. Principle 6 is utmost important and plays a vital role supporting the fact that it is also useful for tests that need to be repeated after defect repair. The repetition and reuse of tests is also necessary during regression test (the retesting of software that has been modified) in the case of a new release of the software.

7. Testing should be carried out by a group that is independent of the development group. This principle holds true for psychological as well as practical reasons and does not say that it is impossible for a programming organization to find some of its errors, because organizations do accomplish this with some degree of success. Rather, it implies that it is more economical for testing to be performed by an objective, independent party which gives a direction of the third vision by the means of test cases. Finally, independence of the testing group does not call for an adversarial relationship between developers and Software Test Engineers.

8. Test Activities should be well planned. Test plans should be developed for each level of testing, and objectives for each level should be described in the associated plan. The objectives should be stated as quantitatively as possible. Plans, with their precisely specified objectives, are necessary to ensure that adequate time and resources are allocated for testing tasks, and that testing can be monitored and managed.

Test planning must be coordinated with project planning. A test plan is a roadmap for the testing which should be mapped to organizational goals and policies pertaining to the software program.

Test risks must be evaluated at each levels of testing. Careful test planning avoids wasteful "throwaway" tests and unproductive and unplanned "test-patch-retest" cycles that often lead to poor-quality software and the inability to deliver software on time and within budget.

9. Avoid throwaway test cases unless the program is truly a throwaway program. Whenever the program has to be tested, the test cases must be reinvented. More often than not, since this reinvention requires a considerable amount of work, Software Test Engineer tends to avoid it. Therefore, the retest of the program is rarely as rigorous as the original test, meaning that if the modification causes a previously functional part of the program to fail, this error often goes undetected.

10. Test results should be inspected meticulously. This is probably the most obvious principle, but again it is something that is often overlooked.

Weve seen numerous tests that show many subjects failed to detect certain errors, even when symptoms of those errors were clearly observable on the output listings. Put another way, errors that are found on later tests are often missed in the results from earlier tests.

For example:
I. A failure may be overlooked, and the test may be granted a "PASS" status when in reality the software has failed the test. Testing may continue based on erroneous test results. The defect may be revealed at some later stage of testing, but in that case it may be more costly and difficult to locate and repair.

II. A failure may be suspected when in reality none exists. In this case the test may be granted a "FAIL" status. Much time and effort may be spent on trying to find the defect that does not exist. A careful re-examination of the test results could finally indicate that no failure has occurred.

Summarizing all the above principles, Testing is an extremely creative and intellectually challenging task. Creativity required in testing a large program exceeds the creativity required in designing or developing that program. We already have seen that it is impossible to test a program sufficiently to guarantee the absence of all errors. This requires a systematic test process and methodologies to design the robust test cases.

This principle supports that:

1. A Software Test Engineer needs to have comprehensive knowledge of the software engineering discipline.

2. A Software Test Engineer needs to have knowledge from both experience and education as to how software is specified, designed, and developed.

3. A Software Test Engineer needs to have knowledge of fault types and where faults of a certain type might occur in code constructs.

4. A Software Test Engineer needs to reason like a scientist and propose hypotheses that relate to presence of specific types of defects.

5. A Software Test Engineer needs to have a good grasp of the problem domain of the software that he/she is testing.

6. A Software Test Engineer needs to create and document test cases. To design the test cases the Software Test Engineer must select inputs often from a very wide domain.

7. A Software Test Engineer needs to design and record test procedures for running the tests.

8. A Software Test Engineer needs to execute the tests and is responsible for recording results.

9. A Software Test Engineer needs to analyze test results and decide on success or failure for a test. This involves understanding and keeping track of an enormous amount of detailed information.

10. A Software Test Engineer needs to know the method for collecting and analyzing test related measurements.

References:
The principles and the excerpts have been taken from the following books:
1. The Art of Software Testing by Glenford J. Myers
2. Software Testing Principle by Bertrand Meyer
3. Practical Software Testing by Ilene Burnstein
4. TMMi Framework by TMMi Foundation.

Read More

How to Search the Web more better

For most people, searching the web is limited to just entering a bit of text into a search box. Here we show you how to search faster, more accurately and have some fun while doing it too. With these tricks & tips you can search the web more better.

 

Google
Launched in 1997, this search engine with a minimalist design has grown in a way that a few would have imagined. It is adopted by multiple browsers as the engine for their top search bar and is also used as a homepage by various browsers.

Tips, tricks and easter eggs

1. Search in Klingon — If you're a Star Trek fan, head to http://google.com/intl/xx-klingon to view Google in Star Trek's Klingon language. 

2. Search as Elmer Fudd — Looney Tunes fans can view Google in the way Elmer Fudd speaks by vis iting http://google.com/intl/xx-elmer .

3. Play Pacman in Google — http://google.com/pacman has a mini version of the game to play. 

4. Experimental Google - http://google.com/experimental will show you options to enable keyboard shortcuts for a faster web search.

Yahoo
Although Yahoo has been in the search business since 1994, they have recently entered into a deal with Microsoft for their search engine to be powered by Bing. The transition is expected to be complete sometime during 2012.

Tips, tricks and easter eggs

1. Yahoo Yokel — Open www.yahoo.com (not the Yahoo India site) and click on the exclamation mark in the Yahoo logo on top to hear the Yahoo yokel. 

2. Compose email from search box — In the search box type "!mail abc@xyz.com" (where abc@xyz.com is a complete email ID) to directly compose a mail with that email ID in the 'to' field (You need to be signed in to Yahoo for this to work). 

3. Search within a website — Yahoo allows you to search within other sites from its search page. Just type "!sitename query" (for example !wiki Vegas).

Bing
Bing has been through its share of transitions right from when it started off as MSN Search in 1999. Over the years it was changed to Windows Live Search and Live Search before Microsoft finally settled on Bing in 2009.

Tips, tricks and easter eggs
1. Get the full version of Bing — The localised version of Bing's search page shows a trimmed down version. Go to www.bing.com/worldwide.aspx and set your language to US-English to see the en tire interactive search page.
2. Get search results as RSS feeds — You can subscribe to search results as RSS feeds by adding "&format=rss" to the search results page URL. 

3. Results for linked files — You can search a specific site for linked files by adding "contains:filetype" in your query (for eg site: bing.com contains:doc). Search Engines for Specific Needs

For Music
Use Midomi to discover new music, listen to samples or just sing/hum into your microphone to find the name of a song you've heard before. They also offer free iOS & Android apps.
www.midomi.com

Deep Web Search
Dogpile combines most relevant search results of your query from Google, Yahoo & Bing to deliver results faster. You can even add it to your browser or get a toolbar.
www.dogpile.com

For Images
1. Bookmark PicSearch to search for images from all over the web. It offers easy ways to streamline your search plus image dimensions & file size are clearly mentioned upfront.
www.picsearch.com

2. Bookmark Getty Images -Find high resolution royalty free images, editorial stock photos, vector art, video footage clips and stock music licensing at the richest image search photo library
www.gettyimages.in/

Medicine Related
Probably the largest medical resource on the internet, WebMD can check on symptoms, offer food advice, tips on parenting and pregnancy and lists common names for drugs.
www.webmd.com

For Videos
1.Blinkx has over 35 million hours of video stored — all searchable, but you can also view categories, ask it to show you current news, entertain you or create a custom channel.
www.blinkx.com 

2. You Tube

3. Vimeo

Automatic Search
Wolfram Alpha is not a search engine; it's a computational knowledge engine. Use it for conversions, stats, fact finding or just enter anything that you want to know about in the search box.
www.wolframalpha.com 

Posted by Azziet Singh follow me on twitter

Subscribe me on Facebook

Read More

if Broadband is priced at Rs 200, India will be no.1 using Internet

According to a report titled ‘India: The Impact of Internet’, jointly prepared by ICRIER, DIT and IAMAI, if broadband is priced at Rs 200, internet penetration can witness exponential growth in India and India will be the no. 1 in uses of internet.Currently India is no 3 just behind the china & U.S.A. The report studies impact of internet at the micro level through 17 case studies across seven impact areas, viz. Agriculture, Health, Education/Training & Employment, Ecommerce/ BPOs, Financial Inclusion, and Community Development.

#	Country or Region	Population, 2011 Est	Internet Users Year 2000	Internet Users Latest Data	World % Users
1	China	1,336,718,015	22,500,000	485,000,000	23.0 %
2	United States	313,232,044	95,354,000	245,000,000	11.6 %
3	India	1,189,172,906	5,000,000	100,000,000	4.7 %
4	Japan	126,475,664	47,080,000	99,182,000	4.7 %
5	Brazil	203,429,773	5,000,000	75,982,000	3.6 %

The report says that India stands to add US$ 17 billion in GDP annually for every 10 per cent increase in internet and broadband penetration. In comparison, a 10 per cent increase in mobile penetration can increase the GDP by 1.5 per cent. 

Further, an additional US$ 87 billion in GDP during 2012-2014 can be generated if targets are achieved as per TRAI’s NationalBroadband Plan. However, missing the targets set by the National Broadband Plan in 2004, India lost approximately US$ 100 billion in GDP in the interim. 

The report also shows that States with higher internet penetration can grow by 1.08 per cent points for every 10 per cent increase in the number of internet subscribers. Developing States of India have chances of greater growth dividend than developed States if there is higher internet penetration. For example, if Bihar had half as many as internet subscribers as that of Punjab, it would have resulted in an increased growth of 7.02 per cent in the State’s per capita income.

According to the recommendations of the report, internet penetration can witness an exponential growth if broadband has a price point of around Rs 200. The trigger point in lower price point has been reflected in massive adoption of mobile phones and cable TV. The report also recommends speedy implementation of optical fibre network to reach 250,000 Gram Panchayats in the next 3 years. It further recommends that broadband network be established in schools, government agencies including hospitals especially rural telemedicine centres.

Posted by Azziet Singh follow me on twitter

Subscribe me on Facebook 

Read More

Google Launches Adsense Extension for Chrome

Google today released a new extension for Google Chrome that will help you quickly access your AdSense earning reports without leaving the page you are currently reading. 

 

Google AdSense Publisher Toolbar for Chrome

The extension, known as the AdSense Publisher Toolbar, offers a summary of your AdSense earnings for the current day, the previous day, the current month and the previous month. In addition to daily earnings data, it also show revenue data for top channels that you have created in your AdSense account.

There’s an interesting “lifetime revenue” section in the report that shows your total AdSense earnings from the day your account was approved for AdSense.

Once you install the extension, it connects to your Google AdSense account using OAuth and then uses AdSense APIs to fetch your earnings data. You need to authorize only once and thus, if you enjoy checking your AdSense report every hour, this extension could save you plenty of time.

I have multiple Google Accounts and my AdSense account uses an email address that is different from my primary Gmail address. Earlier, I had to log out of Gmail to check my AdSense reports but with the AdSense Publisher Toolbar now available, I can get my basic earnings data without having to switch accounts.

On a different note, I have no idea why the Google team is calling this extensions the AdSense Publisher Toolbar when it only adds a button near your Chrome address bar and there are no toolbars anywhere. You click the AdSense button and your earnings report are almost instantly display in an overlay. 

And if you activate the AdSense extension while you are on your website (that is running AdSense ads), you can turn on the "site overlay" mode and it will display a quick summary of each ad unit’s earnings that are available on that page. Channel names are confusing, especially when you have tons of them, so this visual mode will come very handy.

Posted by Azziet Singh follow me on twitter

Subscribe me on Facebook 

Read More

Wikipedia going dark to protest SOPA on Wednesday

Wikpedia will go offline Wednesday to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), according to Co-Founder Jimmy Wales. Wales made the announcement via a series of tweets.

“This is going to be wow,” reads one tweet. “I hope Wikipedia will melt phone systems in Washington on Wednesday. Tell everyone you know!”

Jimmy Wales@jimmy_wales

This is going to be wow. I hope Wikipedia will melt phone systems in Washington on Wednesday. Tell everyone you know!

16 Jan 12

• Reply
• Retweet
• Favorite

Wales has been mulling the idea of a blackout on his user talk page. Wikipedia joins other major websites, such as Reddit, where a very active anti-SOPA community exists. Wales tweeted that the decision was made by community consensus among Wikipedia users:

David Monniaux@dmonniaux16 Jan 12@jimmy_wales Will this affect users outside of the US?

Jimmy Wales@jimmy_wales

@dmonniaux The emerging consensus of the community seems to be for a global blackout of English Wikipedia.

16 Jan 12

• Reply
• Retweet
• Favorite

According to another tweet by Wales, Wikipedia English receives approximately 25 million visitors every day. Wikipedia’s decision means those millions of visitors will be greeted not with the usual digital tome of knowledge, but with a screen explaining the company’s stance on the bill and information on how to take action against SOPA. The blackout will only effect the English language page.

“Student warning! Do your homework early,” joked Wales in another tweet. “Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday!”

Jimmy Wales@jimmy_wales

Student warning! Do your homework early. Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday! #sopa

16 Jan 12

• Reply
• Retweet
• Favorite

Late last week, the authors of both SOPA and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) announced they would be removing the DNS blocking provisions from both bills. The DNS acts as a kind of “phone book” for the Internet, and many in the tech community warned that interfering with DNS would have catastrophic consequences for the stability and security of the Internet.

However, many – including Wales – have responded with a whole-hearted “that’s not good enough.” An anti-SOPA Twitter, tweeted today that “closing a global business in reaction to single-issue national politics is foolish,” perhaps an indication that Twitter will not be following in the footsteps of Wikipedia and Reddit.

Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch, CEO of News Corporation, went on a Twitter diatribe lambasting the Obama administration for failing to support SOPA.

Do you think Wikipedia made the right choice? Let us know in the comments below.

 Source: Mashable

Read More