Addicting and sedating networks....

Addicted to Twitter?

Quitting Facebook next week?

Facebook admits privacy errors, plans new settings...

They don't come from me rather they come from the famous news magazines all over the world.

Yes, infact, its true that people have fall addict to Social Networks. People enjoy spending time in them, more than doing something good. Having a good relationship with friends is good. Does social networking show the true relationship?

Filmmaker Karan Johar admits, "I am obsessed with Twitter. Twitter has become my spouse as I can share every emotion that I want to with the people on it. And going by my fixation, I can say that I might need help to overcome it in future." Singer Lily Allen has branded the site as "very addictive and dangerous". "Anything which is done in extreme can be addictive.

There has been an increase in complaints by parents about childs' obsession with social networking especially on Twitter. One of the parents came during their daughter's board exams saying that she wasted an hour every day Twitter and Facebook," says Dr Aarti Anand, consulting clinical psychologist, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.

"The need for people to be connected with others and the high that one gets with knowing that so many people are reading what I tweet has people hooked on to Twitter. The celebrity presence adds to the damage. And the easy access through mobiles and through applications (like tweetdeck) on the iPhone and Blackberry makes matters worse," says Dr Amitabha Saha, senior consultant, psychiatry, Brainex.

These are not stories, but facts published in the famous newspapers. Getting addicted to one thing is infact a great pain. They believe in virtual relationships than the real. The psychological reason behind these is that they are focused just like celebrities among their friends in the virtual world. This mirage hides their eyes and makes them addicted to these networks. Bringing them back to the normal life is somewhat difficult.


A simple check for addiction: Constantly feels the need for checking some social networking site and it hampers your day-to-day activities and productivity

The next problem is the privacy issue encountered in these sites. For the last two weeks, Facebook had been the target of attack for almost many organisations and newspapers  for the Privacy issues. Facebook, itself had admitted this issue last week.

Facebook has often come in for criticism of its privacy policy, whose default setting is to allow large amounts of personal data to be viewed and searched by the public. Criticism grew following the introduction of new features recently that extended Facebook buttons across numerous internet sites and could have exposed users' browsing habits to others.

Moreover, it would be advisable not to make personal conversations, whatever issue it may be concerned with, over the social networks. Personal should always be dealt personally and public can be deal publicly. Social networks are not a channel to pass your personal issues to others.....

Don't get addicted to social networks and safeguard your privacy.....!


Think thrice before you print this!

Social Networks- New Social Threats.....

In the last 3 to 4 years, some names like Orkut, Facebook, MySpace etc... have become so famous among the youngsters. 

What are these? What is the purpose of these?

All the above said are nothing, but social networks. They were started with the intention of bringing people together. 

Often we may have friends in our school days, whose contact may have been lost when we go for higher education. These social networks were once a boon for those who were very much interested to make contact with their old friends. They could find those friends in Orkut or Facebook or some Social networks similar to them. Even I could find most of my primary school friends in those sites and could maintain a good relationship with them. But as time passed out, we could realise the threat behind these sites.Its really painful to find such things in these sites.

What is the actual problem nowadays related to these sites?

Let us see them. 

People started using these sites to map their friends and relatives and tried to have a good relationship with them. But some started taking effort to create new relations. Infact, its not wrong to have new friends. No one thought that this would become a problem. Later on, it was found that unknown people started sharing even their personal affairs with some one whom they had never seen before. Some started creating fake accounts and tried to impress others, especially those of their opposite sex. Because of this the number of fake accounts in these social networks have increased a lot. Almost 45-47% of accounts in these social networks are fake.They are just created with the purpose of misusing some one's name or to achieve those which I had said before. I call those accounts as "Faceless Accounts". 

The truth is that youngsters believe the faceless accounts more than the real people.

Who knows who is who? Only when problem arise and one tries to get the help of the Cybercrime Wing, the holder of the Faceless Accounts is made to show his/her face. It is really a very painful thing to see the youngsters moving in a wrong path.

Next comes the information being posted in one's profile. Every one have to be aware of the thing that anything being posted in the World Wide Web is open to the whole world regardless of the security that is being provided to your data. 

I could find a common thing among the teens nowadays, Not only teens, but also those who are alder than them. They avoid even telling their birthday if some one in their class asks or some one who is real asks. But they would inscript their whole details including those which are related to one's privacy in these Social Networks. This is really funny. It is nothing but exposing oneself to the Virtual World which may contain more Virtual Characters than real characters. Everyone must know what details must be exposed in those sites and what details should never be revealed to the Virtual World. A lot of guidelines have been given in a lot of sites about what details need to be given in Social Networks. I could find some nice guidelines being given in the official site of Asian School for Cyber Laws. I would request all those who are using Social Networks to follow those guidelines.

The next thing, I would like to focus is the photos being uploaded in the Social Networks. I have seen people who hesitate to even give pose to a photo snapshot when their class mates or "Real People" ask, but they upload pics with hight resolution in those sites. I would advice them not to use such pics in those social networks. It is preferable to use a pic with less resolution or a pic that couldn't be edited so easily. Its because, incidents have been recorded regarding the merge of beautiful faces with some other's body. Often morphing is done. Incidents have been recorded which have even left people to make undesirable decisions(e.g suicide) after such things. In order to avoid such conditions, its better to follow the guidelines above.

Another thing which is related to the social networks is the, so called "Hackers War". Different community of hackers often play with these social networks to show their power and the victims are none but the end-users who are using these networks.

It is better to avoid the usage of third party applications provided in the Social Networks. It has been noted that some of the third party application exhibit keylogging character which is infact a threat to one's privacy.

A problem with some social networks, which I may call the "Broker Networks" are found to even sell the profile of their end-users to some other companies or people who may make use of those for their own purpose which includes masquerading. Not all social networks are like that, but a few...

Another truth is that, it has been found that, those who spend their time more on social networks and rely on them are found to be affected by some mental disorders.

Atlast, I would say, its better to believe real people than those you get over the virtual world. Who knows, some one may say himself as Adri Jovin and do something unwanted things over the web when I even don't have access over the internet. No one can see the face of the one who is in the other end so easily, in this virtual world. So believe real relationships. Lead a peaceful life. . This is for you and your life. Be satisfied with the friend you have around you and never search for a new one whom you never know before and falter in your life...

International Certificatiion

I would like to express my views over the importance of International Certification in building the career of budding Engineers.
I hope, students might be aware of various corporates like Microsoft,IBM,Cisco etc...
What I'm about to tell might be new for some and may be well known for others.
All the major corporates in the World offer various certification to provide a global recognition to the technical knowledge of a person. Apart from these, there are certain third party organisations like Brainbench and Expert Rating which help the corporates in identifying the right person for the employment offers in those corporates by offering various online exams.
The most written exams in India are those provided by Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, Oracle, Sun Microsystems etc. Apart from all these corporates there are yet more corporates that provide international certification like 3COM, Adobe, APC, Apple, BEA Systems, Citrix, CIW, CompTIA, Computer Associates, CWNP, Dell, EC-Council, EMC, Enterasys Networks, Ericsson, Exam Express, EXIN, Extreme Networks, FileMaker, Foundny Networks, Fujitsu, Guidance Software, HDI Worldwide, Hitachi Data Systems, HP, Huawei, Hyperion Solutions, Juniper Networks, Linux, Lotus, McData, NCR Teradata, Network Appliance, Network General Corp., Nokia, Nortel, Novell, OMG, SAIR, SAS, SNIA, Sybase, Symantec, Tibco, VMware and so on...
All these corporates provide Associate level,Professional Level and Expert Level certifications in various domains like Programming, Networking, Desktop Administration, Desktop Publishing, Multimedia, Data Security, Network Security, Database Administration, Virtualisation and so on...
Furthermore certification details can be found in Pearson Vue and Prometric sites.
Though these certifications are costly, the knowledge gain is very high and is very useful...
The benefits are
1. Practical knowledge over a particular domain can be obtained
2. International Identity
3. Provisions to learn new things about the latest technologies
4. Direct Interaction with the Global Technical Giants.
Hope, this post may be helpful to atleast some budding engineers. For any guidance regarding International Certification, feel free to contact me.