Nokia will slash 1700 jobs globally over the coming few months because of falling demand. The mobile phone maker had announced in January that it aimed to cut annual costs at its key handset unit alone costs at its key handset unit alone by more than 700 million Euros (909.3 million dollars) to counter the plunging demand.

Nokia has announced that, in addition to its handset unit, it would also cut jobs in its marketing unit, corporate development office and global support functions. Up to 700 jobs would be cut in Finland. The over all mobile phone market is expected to contract by about rein in spending and handset sellers try to clear our unsold phones

The internet could provide an early warning system for environmental damage, imitating an online watchdog that gives alerts about outbreaks of diseases. An automated trawl of blogs, videos, online news and other sources could yield bits of information to fill in a bigger picture of problems such as global warming, pollution, deforestation or over-fishing.

“We are facing huge environment challenges…but we don’t have god monitoring systems.”……(by Victor Galaz of Stockholm University who was lead author of the study with colleagues in Britain the United States and Sweden.)

Speaking to Reuters, Galaz said “With the internet there are pretty good ways to get that information. Nobody has exploited get that really. Better environmental information could help Governments to act”.

Online statistics about a surge in fish prices in an Asian port, for instance, might hint at wider problems of over – fishing. Or a blog about an insect pest out break in a Nordic forest might fir a pattern tied to global warming.

Some online environmental monitoring networks already exist, such as birdwatchers recording sightings. Many species are shifting their ranges in what may be a sign of climate change.

The aim of trawling the internet would be to “enlist the services of observers who don’t know they are observers,” said Tim Daw of the University of East Anglia in England, who was among the authors.

“Coral reefs, which may die if sea temperature rise could be an example where scatters observations in Australia, Hawaii or the Caribbean might help, put together a bigger puzzle,” he told Reuters. “Scuba divers, either recreational or professional, often put reports in blogs or other communications, he said”.

One problem would be to filter out unreliable source to avoid an information junkyard. Compiling information might perhaps be done by United Nations (UN) agency.

Lately, everyone seems to be weighed down by talk of difficult financial times. Some people may think the concern is overrated, but there is no denying that the global economy is undergoing a sever recession. Even businesses in Europe are feeling the heat, with ever-declining sales, and are trimming their marketing budgets. Marketers are being asked to do more with less and navigate these tricky economic times while staying focused on profitable expansion.

One strategy outlined here may help marketers survive and even thrive in the current situation. It is focused around the idea of analyzing, optimizing and diversifying. These three concepts can become the cornerstone if their success online.

Analyze:

It times of recession, it is tempting to cut down on marketing budgets. Marketers in such a situation naturally abandon activities with fewer or no results at all. It may sound logical, theoretically, however in most cases, in the absence of a well-defined analytical strategy; this is rarely the correct approach to assume.

For example, a local shoe store began advertising on Face book, using Face book’s pay-per click advertising model. Assuming that the retailer did not have good advertisement copy written and an equally weak landing page, the store found advertising on Facebook to be a low return on investment (ROI) activity. In order to save costs, they decided to shut down the campaign and hence missed out on acquiring potential customers. Here, a better strategy would have been to test various versions of the ad copy and the lading page, before deciding whether or not to continue spending on the campaign.

Analyzing online marketing activities is easy and differentiates online marketing form its conventional counterpart. It can be assessed and measured extensively. The thing to remember is that any advertising campaign ratio. This conversion ratio, also viewed as an ROI, significantly helps marketers decides which online marketing channel to choose and which to lose.

Conversion can be defined as any action the advertiser wants the visitor to take. It could be a sales transaction, signing up for a newsletter or a qualified sales lead. In the context of analyzing, marketers need to analyze data and find out which marketing activity, channel or strategy results in maximum conversions. This also means weeding out activities that are not bringing in positive results. The first and foremost strategy marketers should adopt in times of recession is investing in conversion measurements tools. Most of them are fairly adequate and, above all, free. Google analytics, for example, is a free conversion tracking tool, with which one can define conversion goals and track the success of a campaign. Another great tool, also free from Google, is Website Optimizer. This utility lets one perform various tests to measure versions of a webpage that converts more visitors.

Nowadays, many campaigns actively use the internet to promote their brands in cyberspace. Unfortunately some of them don’t even have landing pages followed by their advertisements or a call to action and hence, there is no way to track conversions and success for the money spent online.

It is always beneficial to set conversion goals and track the performance of advertisements and e-mail campaigns more strictly. Analyzing campaigns helps improve conversion rates which results in more customers without extra payment.

Optimize:

Common sense dictates that a website that demonstrate better conversion rates will have lower cost per conversion and, in turn, will increase ad spending efficiency.

A site being continually improved for conversion can with stand the storms of finicky economic times. Optimizing a site should be a scientific process that gives customer insight and is accountable, efficient, and measurable. The following are three steps integral for ad- campaign optimization.

Use analytical reports as customer insight:

Instead of just reports, analytical data provides deep insight into customer behavior. Using the data, analysts can identify what actions customers are taking on a website as a result of which strategies. Each click is an action taken by a real person and learning why customers do what they do can help optimize the advertising campaign.

Turn insight into action:

If users leave the website or landing pages, reasons should be theorized and then variations of the pages and ads should be tested to confirm or refute the insight obtained from step one.

Rinse and repeat:

This process of determining consumer insight and acting accordingly is the single most effective strategy in a marketer’s repertoire. This process should be part of the strategy and applied continually to achieve the highest possible conversion rates manageable.

Diversify:

No doubt, many brands have already diversified from the conventional advertising channels. Many are now online, with some advertisement running on popular services such as Facebook, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo! Mail etc. unfortunately for many that is the extent of their online marketing strategy. A 360 degree strategy online comprises other more profitable and effective channels, which if played well, can surpass and yield better results. Some highly effective activities are:

• Search Engine Optimization
• Blogging
• Pay-per-click
• Email Marketing
• Social Networking
• Blogger relation
• Microblogging (Twitter, Plurk, Jaiku)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Advertorial (NewsForce, AdFusion)
• Video Marketing

Apart from these tested online marketing channels, there is always good, old-school, targeted e-mail marketing. Companies, small or large, who have not already started working on this, are missing out on this huge piece of the internet marketing pie. Generating, managing and maintaining the value of mailing lists is tedious and time consuming- but it is well worth the effort.

Many companies, such as telecommunication and banks, are sitting on a gold mine of large lists of subscribers and customers. Other large fast –moving consumer’s goods companies with huge customer bases and a large budget for conventional media can really exploit this channel. Some examples include getting customers to register online or via SMS, using conventional campaigns or providing incentives for registration.

In times of recession, using these lists to begin a more personalized communication channel can greatly reduce marketing costs. Monthly newsletters, e-mail alerts, and promotions can be disseminated through e-marketing. Cost of sending out e-mail messages are insignificant compared to the costs of print, radio, television, etc.

Despite the global economic recession, the times are certainly interesting. It can separate visionaries from rookies. What is important to remember is that even in the darkest times, business goes on. People buy and sell and this trend never plunges below a certain threshold. In fact, there are some benefits of a recession.

Low media costs, for example; as fewer advertisers deals. Smart marketers will find no shortage of opportunities in the coming months and year and the ones who seize these opportunities, will come out strong and success on the other side of recession.

With tuition centers are minting money, wedding planners having a filed day with their various packages and day care centers offering to enroll one –years-olds. It seems that every one is out to make some extra money. Following the same logic, if one can cash in on almost anything and everything else these days, then why not on blogs?

The idea of making money through blogs is by no means a new one. Right from the time that blogging was taking off in cyberspace, blogs had started making money – and they continue to do so. Of course, this is not to suggest that one can actually take up blogging as a venture for extraordinary monetary gains, however, a little extra cash never hurts,

So, how can one make money through blog? The 1st word, which invariably comes to mind in this context, is of course Adsense. Putting Adsense on your blog will display advertisements on the chosen part of the blog – right or left of the sidebar, top or bottom of the sidebar etc. These are not static advertisement – they vary with the content o your post. If people click on those advertisements, the blogger gets a certain commission.

There are quite a lot of bloggers who also put up request for donations especially if their blogs are related to a specific social, political or even religious cause that their readers would want to support. A PayPal account or other similar services can be used to transfer payment to the concerned blogger.

The more popular blogs, of course, don’t even need to put up such requests. The more widely read a blog is, the higher its search engine rank, and the greater the possibility that online advertiser will want their advertisements prominently displayed there. The blog invariably generates income.

Effective marketing a blog is an important way to ensure that the presence of a specific blog is knows and readers (and advertisers) know how it meets their particular needs. Bloggers try anything from joining affiliate and link exchange programs; placing trackbacks on individual posts to listing their blog is every blog directory and blog aggregator available. There are also that place the link of their blog in their e-mail signature, social networking profile, and as part of their profile on Web forums. All these techniques ensure that there is a wide range of websites linking audiences to your blog. The higher the number of websites/bloggers links to a certain blog, the higher the search engine rank of the blog. Consequently, the popularity of the blog pulls in advertisements on its own.

And even if it doesn’t, bloggers can easily make an advertisement tariff plan for their blog and sell space to advertisers. Of course, dealing with advertisers and ensuring that they pay on time is a hassle in itself. However, If the bloggers are up to it, and have excellent blog statics to prove that advertising on their blog is an advantage, then they should have no trouble finding advertisers and getting regular payments from them. It is important to take into consideration that advertisement rates can differ according to the placement positions and the nature of the content (banner, button, or text advertisement).

So is there a catch here some where? If making money out of blogs is as easy as that, why isn’t every one able to do it? Why do some blogs become successful income generators, while others can’t even earn penny? The reasons for the above can be summed up in two words – time and effort. There are bloggers who make sure that their blog, even if it is a personal one, has something which will make their readers come back for more. Their blogs are regularly updated and are free from clutter. These are blogs which people like to link to quite often and their search ranking improves.

The same applies to bloggers who are activists in their own rights. They, too, spend a considerable amount of time working on their blogs, which reflects their dedication to the cause they are promoting. Such blogs, then, are able to receive donations.

Moreover, apart from the bloggers who write appealing content, there are those who genuinely try to market their blogs. They ensure that they either do search engine optimization (SEO) to improve the SERP of their blog, or get SEO done by a software house. If one is able to generate some income from their blog in the long-run, then the investment is definitely worth its while.

Also, the bloggers who manage to earn money form Adsense are those who display the advertisements sensibly in the first place. It goes without saying that if a blogger rarely takes out the time to update the blog, forgets all about Adsense once it is posted, will rarely, if ever, make money.

These bloggers, on the other end of the spectrum, are those who can easily be termed as “non-serious bloggers”. This does not indicate that they write content which isn’t worth reading. On the contrary, this simply means that they don’t or can’t give the kind of time and effort to their blog, required to help them earn anything at all from it. Such bloggers may not be concerned about the search engine rankings of their blog, and can’t be bothered to market it.

To sum it up, it is all about how much you give to your blog; because that will ultimately determine what you get back from it. Some bloggers treat blogging as a hobby and cashing in on it is not a concern. However, if one is truly it interested in generating a monthly income from their blog, then turning it into a well-marketed product which can compete with similar blogs is a must.

Open source has emerged as one of the most important trends in software development. Over a relatively short period of time the application of open source methodologies has grown significantly in scope as has its usage. Here is a look at the path traversed by this software movement

To better understand the concept of free and open source software one need to understand the real definition of a hacker .Most people perceive hacker as computer experts who illegally gain access to system and tamper with sensitive information. This could not be further from the truth.

The Jargon File, a glossary of hacker slang, defines a hacker as

“A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internet workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular.”

It comes as no surprise that hacker have been ubiquitous since the creation of electronic computers.

The Pre-Hacker Culture:

During the 1960’s, if a student travelled to another university and found a particular piece of code interesting, he was more than welcome to take it back with him. Moreover, there were no ramifications for experimenting and sharing code with peers. At that time, the concept of proprietary software (that is, software which sets restrictions on usage and private modification- commonly referred to as closed-source software) had not fully evolved. Large computer corporations were under the notion that the money lay in selling hardware. As a result, proprietorships of software were largely ignored.

People didn’t cling to this assumption for long. Soon, corporations started developing software and licensing it to people. Not only did users lose the freedom to modify and change the software they purchased but they also learned to live with this lack of freedom and over time, considered it normal.

Richard Stallman, a hacker and software developer from the MIT labs saw this threat long before anyone else did. He wanted to create a free operating system that anyone could use, modify and share. He started off by contributing necessary tools such as a free complier, text editor , debugger etc. by the early 90’s he had most parts of GNU operating system, with the exception of a kernel. Help came from across the ocean, when a Finnish student, Linux Trovalds, initiated the development of the Linux kernel.

Hackers from all over the world download this kernel, modified it, added extra drivers and improved it. They started to integrate the Linux kernel into the GNU operating system and thus GNU/Linux was born. Today, GNU software is used in a number of operating systems, such as Mac OS, Solaris, BSD, and even Windows.

The Hacker Manifesto:

In 1986 a 21 year-old hacker named “The Mentor” (Loyd Blankenship) defined an entire generation of geeks with a short essay called The Hacker Manifesto. His attempt at explaining the hacking culture was much like how Dylan or the Beatles defined the revolution of the early 70’s with their music.

The paragraphs extracted from the defining essay give considerably insight into minds of hackers from around the globe.

“This is our world now…the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if profiteering gluttons didn’t run it, and you call us criminals. We explore…and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge …and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias….and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars you murder, cheat and lie to us and try to make s believe it’s for our own good, yet we are the criminals.”

“Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for. ”

Floss- The Free, Libre And Open Source Software Movement:

In 1994, a hacker by the name of Marc Ewing created a distribution called Red Hat Linux. Although there were other distribution at that time, this was the first time someone had actually packaged all the required applications to create a complete distribution. Red Hat may not have been the first FLOSS Company, but it was the first company to make it big. Red Hat challenged the proprietary software market space and managed to crave a niche for itself. On August 11, 1999 Red Hat went public and set a record of the eight biggest first-day gains.

Numerous other companies followed Red Hat’s footsteps. MySQL AB was formed in 1995 b three hackers, Michael Wideius, David Axmark and Allan Larsson. They built the most widely-used, reliable and fast database and gave it to developers for free. Today, MySQL powers innumerable websites worldwide. In Jan 2008, Sun Microsystems expressed interest in acquiring MYSQL AB. Months later; they signed the largest contract in the history of the company.

Such companies started pushing FLOSS into other companies that relied on proprietary software such as UNIX or Windows. The quality of software they offered and the price at which they offered and the price at which they offered it made FLOSS a big ht in corporations. It soon started spreading like a virus everywhere. Soon, people started porting FLOSS software and operating systems to a number of devices, such as PDAs, mobile phones and gaming consoles.

FLOSS created such an impact in the software industry that even Sun Microsystems, a longtime supporter, started releasing all its software under a free license. In a time when people were trying to protect their source code Sun Microsystems made it freely available. This gamble paid off and Java’s performance in the market jumped tremendously after that released it under a free license. This was because a huge community was now contributing to improving this language. Open Solaris, OpenOffice , are other such examples.

Open Source Collaboration Online:

The rise of the internet further enabled the collaboration that is inherent to Open Source software development. Initially developers relied on mIRC and FTP to share code and collaborate on software projects. However, the free software, the free software and Open Source movement got a substantial boost during the latter half of this decade, thanks to the proliferation of repositories.

Open Source Grows Up:

As information Age, a publication focusing on business technology puts it,

“Today, Open Source software is no longer just a free, second-place substitute for proprietary system. Its growing maturity, particularly in the “LAMP” architecture (of Linux, Apache, MYSQL and PHP technologies) has made it a viable alternative to proprietary software. Furthermore, the success of application software, such as Open Office and Mozilla’s Firefox browser, is giving Open Source software a visible presence throughout the entire organization.”

It goes on further, “Until recently, the use of Open Source software was limited by a number of factors, wit accountability and reliability near the top of the list. Many potential users feared that interest in Open Source projects might flounder and leave them without support for maintenance for their software. These fears were reason. On open source websites such as sourceforge.net – one of many repositories giving Open Source developers a central base to manage their code – there are thousands of incomplete projects that have simply been abandoned.”

“But gradually, these fears about Open Source have abated, because Open Source software is freely downloadable, support and maintenance has become the bug revenue generators for many services and software companies, big and small.”

As adolescents, our teachers and parents encouraged us to pick a career. Many of us to were ushered on the path to becoming doctors, lawyers and engineers; others were presented with a choice between choosing a financially viable occupation. Then there is the challenging and intriguing field of software engineering.

At a time when the world is witnessing hundreds of employees being laid-off, software programmers still hold their ground. For years, they have been designing innovative software that plays an integral role in connecting people from around the world. From the moment we wake up to the sound of a mobile phone alarm, to the work and communication we carry out on e-mails or instant messengers, everything is dependent on software. In essence, software engineers have eased our lives.

Let me make a confession. I am a software programmer and I love my job. However, I m often faced with perplexing questions such as: should one even consider being a software engineer? How can one programmer stand apart from other programmers? Why choose programming as a profession?

To be honest, I haven’t been in the programming field for very long. I also can’t boast of making a application such as Microsoft Windows or the Google Search Engine. However, if some were to ask me if they should opt for software engineering as a profession, I would simply reply, “Are you MAD?”

This might sound a bit strange, but that’s the way it is. Programming is a passion and if definitely needs a certain amount of enthusiasm. Unless and until you are excited, truly motivated and madly passionate about writing reams and reams of computer code, you can’t be a dedicated programmer. To be a geeky programmer, you don’t have to make gigantic applications – all you need is a lot of passion and madness about the work. If you love your PC more than you do your pet, car or spouse, then there is s strong chance that you might qualify for his filed. However, if you find writing hundreds of lines of code tiresome and boring, then its best you find yourself another profession.

In this day and age, the world is striving to become completely paperless. We need software programs to simplify work in our office as well our homes. The software programmer has the added responsibility of making innovative programs that answer to the need of corporation as well as individuals.

Over the years, programming has been simplified to such an extent that now almost anyone can do it. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone should do it. In the software fraternity, programming is considered to be synonymous with change. The advent of desktop computers and the birth of Microsoft Windows 95 ushered in an era where programs and application are used in homes, schools, and work place as well as business enterprises.

The late 90’s saw the java craze, which was followed by the .NET bubble at the start of this decade. A few years later came the rich internet applications (RIA) fad. Nowadays, the cloud computing hype seems to have taken hold of the software development realm. In other words, software development realm paradigms tend to change at a brisk pace and the learning curve for software developers can become steep in a very short span of time.

In my case, I enjoy programming irrespective of the development platform or language. I personally am against sectionalizing a programmer’s skill set. For instance, some programmers prefer to be identified. To me, at the end of the day, you are a programmer and you should know how and what to program.

So if your are thinking of joining the software fraternity, do bear in mind that anything you learn now will expire in a year or so. Therefore, you need to update your skills constantly and stay abreast of the latest developments in the field of software engineering. You need to be passionate about it in order to do so. This is a ground reality that no one can deny. Students who are enthusiastic about this field may find my words motivational, but those lacking the dedication required for the field should consider them as a warning. The software fraternity is quite helpful and is open to sharing knowledge. Thanks to the Open Source community, these are millions of codes easily available on the internet to help out software developers.

However, what matters most is how you find the relevant information. I will conclude with the words Morpheus from The Matrix,

“There is always a difference between knowing the path and walking the path”

The problem with programming is that there are myriad pathways. As it is with mathematics, you are given an objective and a set of rules to help you achieve your objective. It is ultimately up to you to decide which pathway to take.