Following suit with the Common Aptitude Test for management programs in the country, CBSE decides to make the All India Engineering Entrance Examination an online examination. Indeed a bold move considering the number of candidates appearing every year. I gave the Online CAT test this year, and was glad it all went smooth and glitch free.

I came across this article in The Hindu yesterday.

The tag line goes like this, “Given the digital divide, is it feasible or fair for an undergraduate entrance exam to go this way?”

There still exists digital divide among Indian youth, especially among those aiming to pursue an Engineering degree?

It isn’t like Indian students pursuing engineering degree today are exposed to computers only after they join college. Even if they don’t have the skill set to program and use linux, they should definitely be acquainted with using the keyboard, mouse and the monitor!

At least that alone is what you need to attend online exams. You should be able to use the mouse, point it at the buttons and click! Even though we claim it to be a no paper pen test, yet all the rough work is done on paper only!

From the article in Hindu:

However, a lot of thought and debate needs to go into any move to make it an entirely paperless exam, the lecturer added. She explains that in two of the three pre-university colleges that she has taught in, students are not computer-literate. Even if they are, it is only to the extent of browsing or checking the e-mail. “To be able to do an exam online, that too at a consistent speed and level of accuracy, requires a fair amount of familiarity with computers. A large section of society is really not there yet, and we must wait for the digital divide to collapse before any such thing is attempted.”

What?! They can browse the internet, socialize on facebook/orkut, and check and compose emails, but that is just not enough! They need to be more familiar with computers?! How much more familiar should they be?

You tell me? Is there a digital divide among Indian youth?

Technorati Tags: aieee, cat, computers, digital, entrance, india

The final few months of 2009 wasn’t good for my blog. Readership and Viewer-ship simply fell. The last week, nobody visited my blog. Yes zero visitors.

I would love to add the statistics graph to show you, but at the moment I am short of photo manipulating images (or I don’t know what to use on this computer I am using.)

And I came to know of all this because I installed WordPress Stats. Yeah, it wasn’t there by default, had to install it manually.

But because I installed it I came to know of several other fancy stuffs.

One was this blog’s birth. I had totally forgotten that, I started blogging in this domain in April 2009. I have been active in the blog-o-sphere for quite some time. I used to blog at Novice Investigator.

I visited my old blog’s dashboard. Startled to see, that blog got greater number of viewers than this current one.  Content indeed is king.

Another thing I noticed was the “Busiest Day”. 316 viewers and it was on my Birthday! Surprise Surprise!

I had viewership between 1000 and 1500 during July, August and September. The time when I was blogging actively. Should have stuck to it.

Enough of what has passed. It will soon be a new year. With the new year comes new resolutions!

My first resolution for 2010 is that I will manage my time well and use it productively. I have returned, with a determination, to blog.

Happy Holidays!

Technorati Tags: 2010, blog, resolution, Web

I am facing it yet again. Yes, the same scenario that left my earlier blogs to die. I can’t let it happen again. I…. must…. blog….

I know what you might be thinking now. This article might not be worth reading, it might be just another, ‘bump’ post just to show others that the ‘blog ain’t dead’.

Of course, this blog isn’t dead. Neither is my desire to express myself through my blog.

Though I haven’t been blogging, yet I have been surfing and reading a lot. And humor being something which everyone likes I ran into several humor specific blogs, especially desi ones (I mean by Indian Authors and mainly about India and Indians).

Who doesn’t like to catch a laughter and release some steam.

9gag

9gag is a collection of pictures, comics, videos and text (very less of this). A collection from different parts of the world and created during different occasions. The collection will leave you laughing. Check it out!

The Secret Journal of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala

This is one “fake” Rakesh guy. Go read the blog. It will tell you all.

Doing Jalsa and Showing Jilpa

This blog by one Mr. Krish Asok, is again a humorous take on different incidents in life. Humour again.

Fly You Fools

A comic blog. Full of comics, made out of a collection of pictures of Indians, styled out in a beautiful way and also garnished with humorous dialogues! Totally Desi!

Off the Record, On the Net!

There are many ways to review movies. There are many ways to spoof movies. This blog shows yet another way. There are lots of information on the internet. Reading articles sometimes becomes irritating. And long articles makes me close the tab. But in this blog, the post is long, but is entirely in a comic fashion, with crude stick images. A fun way to know about the movie, before deciding on spending some bucks on it. Totally Bollywood though.

Well, that’s five amazing humor blogs for you to devour this festive season! Laughter some say is an instant vacation!

A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book.

It’s midnight now. The night is calm. Signing off for today!

And Merry Christmas! Have fun this festive season.

Technorati Tags: Blogs, internet, laughter, posts, Web

Wow! A new post! You might be wondering, where I had vanished.

Well, the semester has come to an end, and I can put something into my blog. As said before, I promise, short simple posts.

Am now having trouble with updating my wordpress and plugin. Some error. Must sort that.

I have got a Google Wave invite and am on google wave now. Wait, most of my friends are not and without friends, am pretty confused of what to gain from Wave.

Windows 7 looks really spiced up.

So does Ubuntu 9.10. I installed it on my friends laptop and it blew me off! Wow! Amazing work there coders!

So am I not waiting for Linux Mint 8? I wanted to but I had some really bad experiences with Mint 7. It hung! Yes, something screws Gnome and then I need to hard reboot. Hate it!

And well Mint is for new comers. Am no new comer (I mean it!).

Now am going to install Ubuntu 9.10 on my laptop. Next time will be blogging from Karmic Koala. Watch out for reviews, tips and tricks on Ubuntu Karmic Koala!

Technorati Tags: holidays, Linux, tips, tricks, ubuntu, wave

Do you tweet? If yes, good. Skip the first paragraph. Read the rest. If you don’t tweet, very good. Read everything.

It’s all about twitter. The microblogging service, that has become a part and parcel of  everyone’s life. And many a thanks to latest technology, you can tweet from your mobile phone. Twitter asks you to answer this question. “What are you doing?”. And it expects you to answer in less than 141 words. You might think why it became hip among the online community. It’s all because it became a new novel way to find and share web content and connect with friends. This video should make things clearer. (Or you can read one of my older posts.)

So you do tweet. Well, let me ask. What do you tweet? I know people who because have unlimited internet access, who are lazy to leave their computer desktop and who can tweet from their mobiles because they can. They tweet from the point they wake to till they fall into slumber.

Something like a live commentary probably. So if you think you fall in that category, a piece of advice. Please don’t tweet every minute and second of your life. Tweet reasonably. If you don’t then mind your trouble is around the corner.

What trouble? Don’t follow if you don’t like!

I like to follow my friends, and it isn’t their live commentary about their own life that bothers me. The thing that bothers is that, your everyday tweets are enough to reconstruct your life. So what? You become predictable. You may think it’s cool. But people are crossing the line and into your privacy.

You might argue. “No, I am careful, not to tweet everything”. Unfortunately, tweeting is addictive like texting. It happens automatically. Look at your tweets and think how useful it will be to a stranger.

Well friends. It’s time to think twice before you tweet.

P.S. As an example. There was news that a tweeter’s house was robbed when he and his family were out on a holiday. Here is the link to the article published at Mashable.

Technorati Tags: Life, privacy, twitter