Internship Mela has posted a new item, 'Andhra Pradesh SSC Results 2012 Coming Soon'

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As many as 13 lakh students have been waiting for the results of SSC 
examinations of Andhra Pradesh which were conducted earlier this year; however 
students have been left baffled about the date of these results. As per the 
official press release earlier, results were supposed to be published today i.e. 
23rd May at around [...] 

You may view the latest post at 
http://www.internshipmela.com/andhra-pradesh-ssc-results-2012-coming-soon.html 

You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are 
posted. 
Best regards, 
vijay 
vijaykudal@gmail.com

Queen Elizabeth's silk knickers sell for 11,000 pounds on eBay

London, May 23 (ANI): A pair of silk 40-year-old knickers allegedly owned by the Queen has sold for 11,390 pounds on eBay. The undergarment, which attracted 18 separate bids, is embroidered with the letter E - presumably for "Elizabeth" - and a picture of a crown. The decades-old knickers eventually sold for 11,390 pounds, 2000 pounds more than a pair of Queen Victoria's bloomers which sold at auction last year. The vintage garment was purportedly being sold by the estate of Baron Joseph "Sepy" de Bicske Dobronyi, described as an aristocrat, art collector, traveller and Playboy. It is alleged the bloomer-style knickers, which have not been confirmed as authentic by any official sources, were left on a private aeroplane during the Queen's visit to Chile in 1968. There, it is claimed, they were picked up by the pilot and given to his friend, Hungarian-born Dobronyi. After the latter died in 2010, it is said his family discovered the garment and are now auctioning it on internet site eBay. The knickers, listed as an "item that has been previously used", are advertised as being in good condition, despite some yellowing with age. They have four small pearl-like buttons and a monogram of the Royal crown, along with two flowers on a stem with leaves, and are hemmed with crocheted lace. The undergarment, which has a 26 inch waist and is 16 inches long, is advertised on the website as a "once in a lifetime opportunity to acquire and own a piece of collectable Royal memorabilia." "Since Buckingham Palace or the garment maker have not confirm or deny the authenticity that this pair of underpants are from Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, the estate cannot confirm its provenance and it is the buyer's responsibility to do that on their own before bidding," the Telegraph quoted the listing, which implores shoppers to use the opportunity to celebrate the Queen's Jubilee, as saying. "In either case this is an excellent example of a vintage undergarment of that era and very collectable," it added. Last year, a pair of knickers owned by Queen Victoria fetch 9,375 pounds at a British auction house.

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Rajinikanth says 'gabbar singh' is a perfect mass entertainer

Rajinikanth says 'gabbar singh' is a perfect mass entertainer

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A special screening was arranged to rajinikanth and his family members to watch gabbar singh and the superstar appreciated pawan kalyan for his superb performance. Rajinikanth and his family members requested to repeat few scenes which they liked a lot.

In an interview to local media, rajinikanth told he enjoyed the movie and reffered gabbar singh is a perfect mass entertainer with energitic performance from power star.

Gabbar singh which broke all the existing first week records is all set to become highest

source: http://www.rateon10.com/rajinikanth-...s-entertainer/

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/e...w/13408836.cms

Server Room Sour Dough Bread

Server Room Sour Dough Bread

Normally I am all about ones and zeros, but today, I am all about food.

What does food have to do with Experts Exchange? Simple: the tool we are using today is a computer.

That's right. We're using a computer to prepare our bread dough.

The most difficult part of preparing a good sour dough bread is finding a place to keep your starter (the part of the dough you let turn sour) that is around 85F - 90F. Turns out that computers will do this job wonderfully for you.

Being the HUGE nerd that I am, I happen to have a 42U HP rack in my home. It's loaded with 13 boxes that do various different things. Most of them are dev servers for anyone of a number of websites.

The ambient temperature in the server rack is a balmy 85F.

Now, the ideal temperature for a server rack  in a production environment is well below 85F, but these are my play boxes in my home, and I am not about to install a halon system and a server air conditioner for them. So they stay at 85F. When they fail, I'll get another one.

Even if you don't have a server rack, I am betting there is a computer in the house that will be able to give you that tempterature. Perhaps your wife's computer, which she insists on having in a cabinet because she finds it unsightly. You can find one. I promise.

Back to the cooking part.

To create your starter, use the following ingredients:
1 Package dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water (bath water warm)
2 cups bread flour
3 tablespoons of sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
2 cups warm water to "hatch" the yeast.

Now, sour dough fundamentalists will come to your house and drag you into the street and beat you for using yeast. They want you to ferment your dough the old fashioned way. I, however, care about the quality produced over the methods that produced it. As since active dry yeast is not illegal, I use it.

Drop the yeast into the 2 cups warm water, and let it sit for 5 minutes or so. Don't use a metal bowl. Metal + yeast is bad. Use glass. Do not eat the bubbles.

After 5 minutes or so, combine the rest of the ingredients into the bowl, and blend well with a mixer.

Cover it with a cheesecloth or plastic wrap (I used aluminum foil), and place it in a metal mixing bowl.

Place the mixing bowl in the server rack in a safe place. (Somewhere where it will not get knocked over and kill machines).

Let the starter ferment in your server rack for 3-4 days. The longer you let it ferment, the more sour it will be. Stir it about 3 times a day. After 3 days it is ready to use. After 4, it is extra sour.

At this point, you could bottle it and put it in a refrigerator, for use later, but that's outside the scope of this article. In this article, we're using computers and server racks as incubators for sour dough bread. So we're staying fresh.

Once you have properly fermented your sour dough starter, it's now time to create the bread itself.

Again, we'll take two packages of yeast, and hatch them in 2 cups of warm water for 5 minutes.

Then, in a bread mixer, or giant mixer, or bowl that you can mix with, add the following:

1 cup of your famous starter.
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons salt
2 eggs (beaten)
3 cups of bread flour

Mix. Mix until you cannot mix anymore.

You may find that the 3 cups of flour are not enough to give you a dough-like appearance. If that is the case, continue to add bread flour 1/2 cup at a time until the dough is elastic and dough-like.

Once you have good dough, it's back to the server rack we go!

Place the dough in a bowl, and cover it, and place the bowl back in the server rack in the warm 85F air. Allow the dough to rise and double in size. This will take about 90 minutes or so.

During this time, write code, answer questions on experts-exchange.com, or play Age of Empires.

After 90 minutes, check on the dough. It should be huge.

Remove the dough from the bowl, and cut it into 4ths. Each fourth will eventually become a loaf.

foreach($fourth as $loaf) {
        $loaf->flatten();
        $loaf->tightly_roll_into_loaf_shape();
        $loaf->pinch_edges();
        $loaf->place_into_greased_pan();
}

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Cover the pans with aluminum foil, and place them BACK in the server rack for another 90 minutes to let them double in size again.

Once they have doubled in size again, go back into the kitchen and pre-heat the oven to 375F.

Once pre-heat is complete, remove the bread loaf pans from the server rack, and lightly coat the tops with some oil (for a pretty appearance).

Bake at 375F for 30 minutes.

Remove and let cool for 5 minutes.

Slice, serve.

How To Create Custom / Distinctive Ring Tones on Polycom Phones

How To Create Custom / Distinctive Ring Tones on Polycom Phones

Purpose and Overview

When creating a custom ring tone, you have simple aspirations: to make your phone cooler than everyone else's. Perhaps you need a louder ringer. Perhaps you want your phone to sound like a model 2500 touch tone phone from the late 70's and early '80s. Maybe, you need to make "Ding dong the witch is dead" the ring tone for that jerk at the office who thinks the IT department is useless. Whatever. Here's how you do it.

Conventions and Assumptions in this article.

In writing this article, I have assumed:
1. You are using a Linux machine (examples are for Ubuntu based systems).
2. You have at least an intermediate knowledge of Linux, bash, and administrator rights on your system.
3. You have an established provisioning server. (Examples here use TFTP, but the concepts are nearly identical for FTP and HTTP servers).
4. You are running Asterisk. The process and concept is the same for other SIP servers, but Asterisk is used in the article for syntax and examples.

1

Working with Sound Source Files

Converting Source Files

First thing you have to understand is that the Polycom phones are very picky about their ring tones. They have to be single channel, 8000hz sampled. So, if you're starting with a wav, mp3, or otherwise, use sox to convert it to the appropriate audio file type and sample rate.

How to Use sox:
Install sox with apt-get install sox or yum install sox.

Once installed, use the syntax below to resample your file into a Polycom appropriate version:

sox sourcesound.wav -c 1 -r 8000 -U ring tone1x.wav [vol x.x]

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Once you have a properly formatted sound file, you need to store it on your provisioning server in the directory that is serving your provisioning files.

Understanding how the Polycom "understands" what ringer to use and where it is.

The ringer is triggered by an ALERT-INFO header (See: RFC 3960). When Asterisk is executing and extension in the dial plan, the SIP-INFO header is sent to the phone just before the dial application begins to setup the call. Upon receiving the ALERT-INFO header, the Polycom parses the Alert-info and extracts the label for the ring tone.

Next, the Polycom compares the label with the contents of the se.rt.x.name values in the sip configuration file. When it finds the label, it will then reference the type and ringer.

Finally, the Polycom will use the type and ringer information to identify the ring tone as a custom ring tone, and ultimately play the ring tone using the the information found in the values of saf.x under sip > sampled_audio.

To sum it up, we have to tell the Polycom that there is a chance they will receive an alert info that specifies a ring tone. Give it a "lookup" value of what to do with that information, and finally give it a path where that ring tone can be found.

2

Configuring Your SIP Configuration File.

Configuring sip.cfg

This section directly corresponds ONLY to SIP v 3.2.1 RevB. Values and positional locations of these values may change without notice when the SIP application version changes: it just depends on what Polycom decides to do with their software and when they decide to do it. If you're running a different version, double check your configs to make sure everything matches up. As of version 3.2.1 RevB, the location of these values has been greatly simplified in comparison to previous versions.

  1. Open sip.cfg in XML Notepad 2007 or our favorite XML editor. You can also do this by hand, but XML editors make it easier.
  2. Expand sip > alertInfo
        1. For voIpProt.SIP.alertInfo.1.value, enter the corresponding value as a label. This label will be the SIP Info header you attach to the dial statement for distinctive ringing. Use a single word for simplicity.
        2. For voIpProt.SIP.alertInfo.1.class enter the ring class. This specifically refers to a ring type number as defined in the next section, sip > sound_effects > ringType > CUSTOM_1 > se.rt.x. The first available value is 8.
   3. Expand sip > sound_effects > ringType > CUSTOM_1
        1. For se.rt.8.name, enter a name that describes the ring.
        2. For se.rt.8.type, confirm ring is there.
        3. For se.rt.8.ringer enter the number for the ringer you want to use (1-12) or enter a sampled ring tones ringer number (13+).
   4. If you are using a sampled ring tone
        1. Expand sip > sampled_audio
        2. Enter your sampled audio starting at saf.2. saf.2 corresponds to the first available custom ringer on the phone (13). Each ringer thereafter has a difference of 11. saf.3 = 14, saf.4 = 15, and so on. NOTE: this must be in the form of a URL, i.e, tftp://192.168.1.70/ringer.wav.
   5. Reboot phone for this to take effect.

3

How to Tell Your Configuration Works

Confirming Your Setup

If you have configured everything correctly, you should be able to open the menu, go to preferences, and find the ring tone section. In that section, starting at ring tone #13, you should either see the label you put in to sip.cfg that describes the ringer, or the name of the wav file itself. Pressing play will play the ring tone as a demonstration. If you get a default sound, use the next section to troubleshoot.

4

Configuring Asterisk

Modifying the Dial Plan to Implement the Custom Ring Tone

At an appropriate place (preferably just before a dial statement) insert a SIPAddHeader command:

exten = 4101,1,SIPAddHeader(Alert-Info: sales)
exten = 4101,n,Dial(SIP/4101)

Troubleshooting ring tones

  1. Make sure you have encoded the wav file using sox as stated above.
  2. Make sure the wav file is available at the path you put in sip.cfg. Use a command line tftp client to download and play it to check for errors.
  3. Retrace your steps in this guide to make sure you have dotted your i's and crossed your t's.
  4. Make sure that the phone is using the correct provisioning server to download these configs.
  5. Always reboot the phone after each step above and test as part of your debugging process.

Conclusion.

This article intends to clarify and simplify the process of making custom ring tones for Polycom phones. It is a poorly documented subject even in the Polycom documentation. I would invite readers of this to give me feedback on this article by leaving comments and questions below: ESPECIALLY if you are not able to get it working.

Critiques are always welcomed.

How to Fire Your Customers to Make More Money.

Easily optimize your consulting profits by cutting complaining clients.

Running a business sometimes comes second to us as IT consultants and professionals. Most of us love the puzzle. Most of us love to help others. All of us have experienced an angry user. All of us have had a customer service nightmare that was not the result of poor management on our part, but rather the dichotomy that exists between the user's perception of computers being simple boxes...just like a microwave... and the IT consultant's view of the inside of the machine with its millions of moving parts.

The bottom line is that there are two types of users / customers. Those that understand and those that don't.

Those that understand pay their bills, and are the type of customers we like to work with. "Those that don't" can further be divided into subcategories. Those that understand the value you bring to the table and those that don't. It is this latter category that the rest of this article will focus on.

The Pareto principle (a.k.a., the 80/20 rule) states that 80% of your business will come from 20% of your customers. You must keep, coddle, and grow this portion of your business. They are the core. This is your top 20%.

The corollary to that states that 80% of your customers only represent 20% of your business. This is your bottom 80%. 

Taking that one more step, 80% of your problems come from only 20% of your customers. That's 20% of the bottom 80%.

This means that 16% of your existing customer base is an acute drain on your resources, and actually costs you money, and may actually affect your bottom line and your ability to service your top 20%.

So, in order to make your business a more profitable business, and make your life easier and happier, you should be looking at firing the bottom 16% of your customer base.

"THAT'S CRAZY!" you say. Well, if done improperly, yes, it's completely nuts. But it works when done properly.

How to figure out which customers to fire

The first thing that you have to do is grade your customers. Each customer that you interact with should be rated A,B,C,D. 

In order to do that, you have to have some type of criteria for grading them. Here are some example criteria:

A Customers:

• Pay on-time (or early).

• Have a recurring revenue component on their account (or a contract)

• Pro-actively refer you new business at least once / quarter.

• Never question the bill or ask for a discount (they trust you).

• Are very polite, and respect the effort and time required to do the job correctly.

• Listen to your professional advice without nit-picking or self-researching excessively.

B Customers:

• Pay on-time.

• Don't question the bill much.

• Are very polite, and respect the effort and time required to do the job correctly.

• Listen to your professional advice without nit-picking or self-researching excessively.

C Customers:

• Don't refer business.

• Do not look to build a relationship.

• Frequently confirm or question the bill.

• Always double check what you say by googling whatever you suggest even though they don't understand what it is.

D Customers:

• Don't refer you anyone.

• Constantly ask for discounts or complain your fees are high.

• Constantly take your advice, then research on the Internet trying to go with cheaper equipment that might work rather than do it correctly with systems you know work properly.

• Argue with you when you tell them what a solution is.

• Monday-morning quarterback your decisions.

• Pay late

• Keep you frustrated so that you're thinking "I'm not going to make any money on this deal / project"

Categorize EVERY customer you have according to criteria similar to the ones above. 

Once that is done, seek out the bottom 16% and monitor, in detail, and look at their accounts. Figure out what you make on an hourly basis by the time that you are done convincing them you are right, convincing them they need to pay the bill, and doing things over a second time "for free" or as "warranty work" because they cannot make up their mind what they want or do not have the ability to communicate what they want.

You'll very quickly see that although you are charging $150 / hour (see leew's great article,How Do I Know What to Charge as an IT Consultant?, on what you should charge) you are actually only making $75 / hour or $35 / hour for this bottom 16%.

That's not good business for you!

So what do you do about it?

The bottom line is that you don't want those customers any more. One option is to sell their accounts, preferably, but it's hard to do unless there is a contract to sell. Try to sell D customers that have contracts to a competitor because "we just don't have the capacity to handle any more business". 

Except for selling them off, the easiest way to make the customer go away is to raise rates on them. Calculate out how much you would have to charge in order to bring up your actual hourly rate (the $75 / hour or $35 / hour we just calculated) back up to the $150 / hour it should be. In most cases, it will jump to $300 or $400 / hour.

Then, write them a notice stating that their rate is going to increase, and... oh by the way... because of frequent delinquency in remitting payments, we are now requiring you to pre-pay in blocks of time.

That bottom 16% will jump ship in a heartbeat. Especially the cheap ones.

Be prepared with a script to handle D customer resistance.

When your D customers whom you are trying to fire get notice that their rate has just doubled and that they are now required to pre-pay, you may get some angry phone calls. Train your staff with a script to prepare them to handle it. Equip your staff with the scripts and the truth that the customer is being fired because they are not profitable so that your employees are able to properly and professionally handle the issue.

An example script might be "Mr X, thank you for calling in about the change to your account. Unfortunately, the change on your account will be permanent. We understand if that affects the business relationship that we have, and if you are unwilling or unable to accept the new terms, we would be happy to help you transition to another IT provider." 

Then make sure you charge them for two hours time that it will take for you to get the new provider up to speed. And make sure you get the money first!

So how much is this worth to me?

We just figured out that your D customers require two or three times as much time in customer service and maintenance than your other customers. Assuming that 16% of your customer base was taking up 32% of your time, this is time you can now spend increasing your business and increasing wallet share of your A customers. This is time you can use to spend on your C customers, encouraging them to become a B customer. Time you can use to make your B customers into A customers.

Bottom line, firing your bottom 16% of our customers will free up one-third of your time to increase your profits from the existing customer base that actually likes you, and respects the service you provide.

Bottom line, you've probably lost an A or B customer because you were too busy servicing a D customer. 

D customers cost you money. Get rid of them to get more profits!

Dont Fix your computer for free

It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul.

We love the accolades. We love to be seen as the digital white knight who fixed the server, the computer, the email, and anything else that life depends on.

We love it so much, we sometimes make horrible decisions. Sometimes, we work "FOR FREE."

We've all done it. A friend, a neighbor, a relative, a good client, a bad client, a pretty girl... Whoever it was, and for whatever reason, we all threw them a technological bone and fixed something for free. In rare instances, it can be a rewarding experience. Perhaps your buddy gave you a beer. Maybe someone said thank you. Maybe there was a smile on their face, and that was rewarding enough.

More likely, however, that five minute task you thought you were signing up for turned into 40 minutes, then an hour, then a commitment. Wow. You didn't see that coming.

There are 5 reasons you should ALWAYS hand out a bill.

1

You Break it You Bought it.

When you sit down to fix a problem that presented as a simple one you are creating a contract. Not a legal contract, but a social one. The computer owner is trusting their computer with you. It's their baby, and you're the doctor. So you sit down, and begin to fix a problem.

In the process, something else breaks. You fixed one thing, but something else goes awry. What's the best part? Neither you nor the user notice it is broken until a day later when they call you to blame you for breaking something else.

"I thought you were going to fix it." They complain.

This is the primary reason you charge money to fix something. You break it, you bought it. The user / owner will expect you to warranty your service even though THEY received all the value of your time, and you received nothing in exchange.

2

People don't respect things that are free.

I learned that quote from a man who runs a non-profit organization. Image that. A man who solicits donations for a living candidly told me "people don't respect things that are free." You know what? He's right.

Free advice. Free upgrade. Free entry. None are valued. Free advice is seldom wanted. Free upgrade was something you were going to get anyway. Free entry? The band playing tonight must not be any good.

People associate the value of service with the amount of money that is exchanged for it. How else do you think that lawyer can get away with charging $400 an hour? People naturally make the assumption that if it costs an arm and a leg, then it must be worth it.

So, if customers and friends will assume that the most expensive car is the best one, what will they assume of the free car? Do you want the heart surgeon who charges $500,000 per surgery or the one who works for beer to operate on your mother?

3

They will expect it forever.

In law, the concept of a precedent is vitally important. Judges and lawyers look to previous cases to decide what the interpretation of the law was because if a case was settled one way before, chances are, it will be settled that way again.

Gamblers playing craps look at the past behavior of the dice to, mistakenly, assume that the good luck will continue.

Users will figure if you fixed it once for free, you'll do it forever for free. There is no reason why they should respect the thousands of hours you have spent learning and researching the art of computer science. There is no reason that they should respect the certifications you hold. There is no reason that they should honor your abilities by paying your fees. Why? Because you did it for free. Once!

When they come back and you try to get fees, they will meet you with resistance in the form of guilt. "I thought we were friends" they cry. "You didn't charge me anything last time." They argue.

Setup the expectation that they are going to pay (or barter) from the onset. Demand the respect that you deserve. Make sure they understand you are a professional. After all, that is the difference between a professional and an amateur. Professionals get compensated for their skills.

4

The demands will only grow with time.

Give them an inch, and they will take you through three operating system upgrades, two virus infections, and a crashed hard drive. Once you've set the precedent and created the expectation that you are their knight in shining armor, they will begin to call you for everything. They will suck up your time and resources. They will not be grateful. They will involve you in 30 minute hypothetical conversations then disagree with your expertise.

5

It Weakens Your Backbone

Working for free is not only unprofitable, it weakens your constitution as a professional consultant. For many consultants, asking for money is difficult. They email out a silent invoice after the fact and hope they get paid. This practice can lead to unbalanced books, debt, and a going out of business sign. The simple fact is: if you don't ask for your money, you're not going to get paid. No one just hands out checks.

Setting up the expectation, especially when you fix a computer for the first time for a client, is vitally important in establishing boundaries that ensure you are paid in a timely fashion. Working for free, throwing out freebies, "comp"-ing your time hurts your ability to ask for the sale. It hurts your credibility because the client will assume that if you're not charging them for a given task, you didn't know what you were doing or you made mistakes.

It may give you butterflies, but ask for the money. Do it openly and notoriously. Your clients will take it as a sign of confidence.