Infosys gives its employees ‘a voice’

Infosys Limited may not be your friendliest neighbour or the most employee-friendly IT company around. But they sure are making amends.

'Infy Bubble', their recently launched internal social networking site is supposedly a platform for disgruntled Infoscions to vent on. The site mirrors Facebook and allows employees to connect across borders with colleagues as well as bicker about anything they want, said Nandita Gurjar, Vice President and Group Head, Human Resources, Infosys Limited.

She added that the site doesn't encourage personal attacks but it does welcome negative feedback about their bosses and peers. The site also allows them to share photographs and other stuff just like they do on Facebook, thus giving them a platform to engage themselves with other employees.

This is one of the internal PR exercises Infosys is conscientiously indulging in to salvage their image. The company has been battling severe criticism and high attrition rates lately.

And, despite rising wages hurting the IT bellwhether's profit margins, it isn't stopping its hiring momentum.  Infosys that plans to hire 12,000 employees this quarter has already added 9,992 employees this year.

When asked if this would further affect their revenues, the management strongly responded by saying that they are going as per their yearly target of 45,000 new additions. With the improving business sentiment and revival in IT spends , IT firms are stepping up hiring to meet demand for their services.

The company today posted a 15.72 per cent jump in consolidated net profit to Rs 1,722 crore for the first quarter ended June 30, 2011. During the first quarter, Infosys and its subsidiaries saw over 7,000 employees leaving.

As we know,  with increased hiring comes a high rate of attrition. But the company isn't really worried about it. Gurjar says, "This is the quarter when we normally expect employees to go for higher studies. 30% of the employees who have quit cited this reason."

She says, the company  can't stop employees from pursuing higher studies. However, they are pondering on how to get them back with acquired skill sets.  Gurjar says, "95% of the employees who quit to pursue higher studies actually want to come back. But since we have a structured process they have to undergo the complete interview cycle in the campuses.  So may be in the near future we might have a policy where an employee can come back after getting MBA degrees or something else without getting into the complete interview cycle.".

But there is an interesting bit of information that Gurjar revealed. "34% per cent of our total employee workforce is woman. So in this quarter 32% of the woman employees who quit didn't cite any reason for quitting the job. They just wanted to take a break. Now this is something that we want to review."

While they ponder on what's working and what's not,  the company is also planning an Infosys radio service through which the management will regularly interact with the employees. Looks like the company is engaging in some serious PR exercises with employees to build a few bridges.  But will it curtail attrition? In true Infosys management lingo, "We might have to wait for the next quarter" for an answer.

Acer Launches Happy 2 Netbook Series in India

Acer has launched a new netbook series in India called the Aspire One Happy 2. The new range starting from Rs.15,749, will be available shortly across the country. Acer is targeting the youth, in general with the Happy 2 series, and with good reason, too. The netbooks will come in four fruity colors with a candy gloss finish, so if you are an attention hog, then it will go well with your personality. This will certainly appeal to young girls, college kids and probably Pee-wee Herman.

Available in different flavors

But, underneath all that candy coating lies some serious horse-power. The Happy 2 is powered by an Intel N570 Atom dual core processor that powers Windows 7 Starter and Android. The netbook can dual boot between the two operating systems depending on your needs. Other features include a 10.1-inch screen, 1GB RAM, 320GB hard drive, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 3.0. It’s quite light as well weighing in at just 1.25kg. Finally, the bundled battery promises 8hrs of battery life, which is fairly good (if true) for a days worth of work.

Notion Ink Adam Faces Serious Backlash from Irate Customers

The tablet wars are heating up with the likes of Apple, Samsung and now HTC’s entry into the fray, with their rather high-priced Flyer. So while these brands are flaunting their wares, one manufacturer, Notion Ink, is still making the news from time to time, but seemingly with nothing positive being said about it. Their Adam appears to be once again plagued with issues and this time, members of the tablet toting community are demanding that somthing be done and be done quick.

More broken promises

As most people know, Notion Ink, the India (Bangalore) based company announced their tablet called the Adam way back in early 2010, and from the specs released at the time and the initial hype, this was the iPad killer that was supposed to blow away the competition. With the ability to feature 1080p video output, standard sized USB and HDMI ports the Adam was all set to thrill audiences and even more so with their Pixel Qi display technology. However, after failing to meet the expected launch date, bad global reviews, issues with damaged shipments and other problems, the Adam was finally shipped and made it to households. But the issues for this ill-fated product didn’t seem to end there; some consumers who received the device are now up in arms regarding the quality of the device received.

According to a website – NotionInkScam, started by one annoyed customer, many others like him are calling to action for their voices to be heard by the global community. The owner of the site is calling all unsatisfied customers to voice their concerns through NotionInkScam. Max Power, the founder of the website says - “Just to clarify, I am now on a personal venture to take Notion Ink down. I have been waiting 4 months for a return of what’s rightfully mine, the $470 it cost me to buy an Adam tablet PC that broke down within 24 hours with less than 1 hour of usage.” He goes on to say that he wishes to see the owner of the Notion Ink i.e. Rohan Shravan, handle the issue with the utmost importance and seriousness. Power also mentions that he knows of 15 other people who have concerns and are being ignored by the company and he urges them to mail in.

Notion Ink it seems has more downs than ups and to rub salt to the company’s wounds, according to a source, the present Honeycomb version on the Adam seems to have glitches with the GPS and camera functionality. Tabletroms and other members of the Notion Ink community seem to have gathered that the current Rom is just ’semi-working’ and they intend to do something about it by starting a contest to create a stable ROM for the device where the winner stands to win $100 – “If a developer creates a bootable Honeycomb ROM for the Adam before Notion Ink, based off of a port I will issue $100.00 via PayPal for that user, as a community thank you.” is what was posted on thier site.

How to Re-use Your Old Notebook as a Second TV

With laptop hardware getting cheaper and more powerful, older laptops are being phased out simply because they cannot be upgraded to meet the requirements of newer operating systems and other software. These outdated laptops either have no resale value nor can they be donated because they are practically useless for newer software. So what do you do with these laptops? We have covered numerous options on how to turn your older PC or laptops into standalone machines that run as basic file servers, proxy servers, routers, media streamers, torrent clients and download hubs. This time we give you another alternative of converting it into an additional television with which you can watch, record or pause live TV and use it in your kids room, bedroom, study area or your kitchen, All you would require is your old laptop in working condition and loaded with an operating system and a USB TV tuner.

In this workshop, we have featured an old HP Pavilion DV4000 laptop which has a configuration of Intel Centrino 1.7 MHz, 80 GB of storage, 512 MB of RAM, 15.4-inch LCD display and a DVD combo drive. Upgrades for the hard drive and RAM are either not available or are too expensive. This makes the laptop suitable only for Windows XP with basic facilities for surfing the internet, office documentation and media playback. Hence, using this PC as a TV which can additionally function as a media player for local and streaming music and videos is the best option. For this workshop we made use of Hauppauge WinTV-HVR 900 USB TV Stick costing around Rs 4,800 (available online at www.accessinfoworld.com). The TV tuner is capable of receiving DVB-T and Analog TV and is also compatible with Windows Media Center. You can also use basic USB tuners costing around Rs 1,200 or purchase a second hand one to save on cost.

USB with cable on a stick

Firstly, to get the laptop running in the best possible speed, we need to format the internal storage and reinstall an operating system from scratch. In our case we have used Windows XP with SP3. You can make do with any Linux distribution or Microsoft Windows 7 provided you have all drivers in place and compatible hardware to meet the requirements. Once the operating system is installed, install all drivers and setup the laptop as per your requirement. Configure the network (Wi-fi or Ethernet) if you want to use it for internet streaming too. Next, plug in the USB TV tuner and install the drivers that came along with it. Once done, connect the TV tuner with your cable TV or DTH set-top-box connections accordingly. Tune in and set all channels (if you are using an analog cable connection). Now that you have setup the TV on your laptop, it is time to find a suitable place and keep it or wall mount it in your room if you have a 180-degree foldout laptop. There, you now have a 15-inch LCD TV at the meager cost of a USB TV tuner.

Mediamote for iPhone and Win-Remote for Android

Advanced users can take this workshop to the next level too. You can open the laptop completely, disconnect the LCD screen and the motherboard properly, create a unique slim and wall-mountable and fix the entire circuitry inside the chassis with the LCD fixed on the front area. The keyboard, optical drive, hard drive and battery can be completely disconnected to make the product lighter, slimmer and more energy efficient. With this stripped-off configuration, you can run a live operating system such as XBMC or Ubuntu straight off a USB pen drive and watch TV, surf the internet or play movies from the network or an external USB storage. You can also use a wireless mouse and keyboard for controlling the entire unit. Windows users can also make use of the Windows Media Center to have an excellent HTPC unit and connect the VGA out to an existing LCD monitor. If your laptop’s configuration is little better, you can also convert it into an HTPC for your living room.

Windows media center remote - Android and vmcMote - iPhone app

You can connect the VGA or HDMI port (if available) on your laptop to your LCD TV or projector. You can also use a standard Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone or a smartphone such as an Android or an iPhone which can connect to your laptop wirelessly and make use of an app for controlling your media player. Windows Media Center can also be controlled similarly. ‘Windows Media Center Remote’ and ‘Win-Remote’ are some examples Android applications and ‘Mediamote’ and ‘vmcMote’ for iPhone available in the market.
Finally, you can also use this workshop for family video conferencing in your living room by additionally connecting a webcam. So finally, you have created a basic HTPC using an old useless laptop.

Note: if you want to use Windows Media Center, make sure your TV Tuner is compatible for complete functionality.

Aruba MDAC Solution Now Available for Cisco Wi-Fi Networks

Known as the ‘BYOD phenomenon’ or “bring your own device” , corporate workers have a tough time using their own personal devices like tablets or notebooks over secured Cisco Wi-Fi networks. One solution is implementing Cisco TrustSec on existing Cisco Wi-Fi networks but this isn’t a very cost effective solution as it includes replacing Cisco Access Control Server, upgrading switches, etc  which is not cheap. Aruba Networks Inc. have announced availability of the Mobile Device Access Control (MDAC) solution for Cisco Wi-Fi setups which is about 85 percent cheaper to implement. A cost effective solution for enterprises By using MDAC, existing Cisco customers don’t have to immediately replace existing network equipment as compared to TrustSec. Mark Fabbi, Vice President of Gartner Research advises organizations, “not overspend on highly engineered, expensive, traditional approaches to campus LAN architectures,” but rather, “consider extending the life span of current investments. The trends of server and data center consolidation, hosted virtual desktops and cloud computing have altered the requirements for network services. Consider adding new functionality as centralized overlays, rather than updating large portions of existing infrastructure.”