by Sujoy on April 1, 2008
An early morning dose of 440 volts ran down my spine when I dragged my drowsy eyes on the front page of TimeofIndia. The headline read-CAT to be held online from November 2009: IIM. And I said to myself -nothing. So finally it has happened. At par with the other global examinations for graduates applying for B-Schools, in India CAT is synonymous to GMAT multiplied a million times in terms of difficulty, prestige and desire. I know it because I have appeared for it twice, both attempts failed miserably. However, this year the exam goes ahead to adapt the online format being followed by other well known tests like GRE, GMAT , IELTS and TOEFL.The problem however is the format that is being speculated. Unlike GMAT or GRE, CAT used to be a one day in a year affair (more like a annual festival for veterans like me). But with the current scenario, it will be impossible for CAT to be held on a single date. Primarily because every year hundreds of thousands aspirants appear for it. The numbers speak for themselves. 2007-2.3 lakh (230k)appeared and this year the estimated figure will be almost 3 lakhs (300k).
With that many students hopeful to appear online simultaneously, the immediate pressure is on the infrastructure required to conduct an online test of that proportion. Not only providing enough machines for the examinees spread across different centres in the country, but also the subsequent evaluation process. In case the test has to be made available on the same day, at the same time, the servers have to be robust enough to support the procedure(given the fame that IIM servers hold during the results announcement time that sounds a huge task to do). And as predicted, this procedure is going to be outsourced to a third party vendor, however IIM will have the supreme authority.
Consequently CAT will no longer be a one-day affair and shall now span across a set of dates in a month or months. Yet another addition to the format is the single paper format is now being modified into different papers similar to GMAT( which actually boils down to the same stuff coz there were different sections previously, now it’s papers.) But unlike GMAT, the results here will not be announced instantly. So there’s still the scenario of the almost two months of dreaded wait.
Other issues facing the exam’s new format might be Security. The stringent security policy which has been synonymous with CAT for so long, might face a big question mark now that the test arrangements are being done by a third party vendor. Not only tha, how secure would be the online security is another question. Seems like all coaching classes are soon gonna install computers and start simulating online mock CATs and come November, we might actually get to see the very first online CAT. Meowww!!
Image Source:inthebag.golf
by Sujoy on February 5, 2008
Yeah, I know. Yet another half fried post on the entire episode of Microsoft’s bid for the slumping Internet giant Yahoo for a whooping $44.6 billion. Clearly, Microsoft is desperate enough to acquire Yahoo. But amongst all this, the question that remains is, is Google worried? Let’s chase it point by point as to what this deal could bring to the table, if it actually gets finalized. What could a “Microhoo” actually mean?
It means that the 600 million combined user-base of Hotmail (Windows Live Mail) and Yahoo could well be way ahead of what Gmail has. But as Scoble indicates, is there any solid reason for Google to be really worried about this deal? Of course, officials at Google aren’t very happy with the hostile bidding of Microsoft over Yahoo.
David Drummond, Senior VP at Google Inc. writes what this deal could actually churn out if Microsoft continues its legacy of monopolising Operating Systems and Internet Browsers. What if Microsoft loses all business ethics, once it acquires Yahoo, and uses it solely for its good by forcing users to use its Web-Based Services, integrated into Mail, IM, PhotoSharing et al.
The war will still continue with OpenSource technologies adopting everything Google, but this deal is a clear indication of the challenge that Google faces. Clearly, Google with the Android campaign is steering its way towards finding a huge presence or rather dominance in the Mobile World. And with the presence of Web Applications like Google Maps and Youtube, I believe Microsoft even if they acquire Yahoo, will have a long long way to go.And now the second question that emerges is, what if..ahem! Google outbids?
Image Courtesy:johnnie.maneiro
by Sujoy on January 11, 2008
If you missed the NEWS of the year, read this. TATA Motors just launched the World’s cheapest Car costing a dealer price of Rs.1 lakh (2500 USD approx). And more shockingly it looks like this.
TATA promises it to be Eco Friendly, Fuel efficient (20kmpl expected), meets all safety standards ( frontal crash limits as well as off-set and side-impact crash test), and yet somehow managed to be in style.But they claim, this isn’t the first one. As in, the first of the cheapest lot. Pakistan’s take on the Rs. 1 lakh car, aptly called “Sitara”, is manufactured by Habib Motors. And here it is.
But the joyride doesn’t stop here. Visit the official website of Habib Motors, and you will witness an online joyride, somewhat an unmatched experience. The Official website of Sitara is a flash based homepage, with not only the Image Gallery, but also a 360 degrees view. There is an Open Top option, in case you want to have a bit of your sunbath while you drive to your golf course. Available in Two seater and 4 seater models, it sports a 200 cc Four Stroke engine. The real treat is given in the description part of it and you need to read it to believe it. It goes:-
The Sitara city cart is built rugged and strong for harsh local road conditions. Keeping safety in mind, seatbelts in the front and the rear have been provided, with a roll bar and firm handles strategically placed. Soft padding all over adds to the safety and comfort.
And then I just lost it, when I read the bulleted points. [Continue Reading]
by Sujoy on January 8, 2008
If there was a Technorati-Indian edition, the top keyword search today would be CAT, IIM, CAT RESULTS or IIM CAT. This year, 2 lakh aspirants appeared for the B-School entrance exam. So considering an aspirant would have another 3 concerned people checking for their results (on an average comprising of their mom, dad and boyfriend/girlfriend ), it would total to approximately 8 lakh (800,000) people hitting the results site now as we speak, almost every second since they were officially announced at around 3 PM today (8th of Jan 2008) on the IIM websites. The irony however is the IIM websites cannot handle such traffic, and hence the people who want to check the results end up getting a server error page. This is something that we can term as CAT in a mouse-trap.
Let’s have a check at the technical details of the requirements. The result page needs a Date of Birth and an Exam ID for verification or mapping of the corresponding results. This page would be around 100 KB in size (including say the query data that is being handled to fetch the results), considering it has almost no graphics , and only static content, except for the displayed numbers. Considering 800,000 people accessing it by clicking their mouse buttons on the Submit button simultaneously, the query to fetch the data from the results database and display would definitely be handled by the server. This means a total data of around of approximately 80,000 MB or approximately 80 GB of data is being handled by the servers every second (of course assuming, all the users are hitting the website simultaneously). The question is why the IIMs don’t outsource this task to some third party WebHosting company who can handle this amount of data and bandwidth and avoid the inconvenience caused. Of course, there are other means like SMS alerts for results etc, but to check for the IIM call list, website checking is the only way out. If you already have an account at CAT forums like Pagalguy.com, you’re quite aware of it, else you’ll be surprised at the sheer size of threads that must be running today, with announcement of results. [Continue Reading]
