On Wikis

Why a wiki?

• Easy to share and continually refine information, collaborate. (Even though its blindingly obvious why wikis are useful)
• The Wiki Workplace - foster innovation and growth
  
• Motorola's IT Department Takes On Enterprise 2.0
• Most content management systems are data ghettos. People fail to realize that information is dynamic and continually changes. We should celebrate and rejoice if anyone has information and wants to add/modify, the first step towards doing that is to make it extraordinarily easy to add information - either modify directly or add a comment.
• Wikis enhance the spirit within the organization, bringing together people from cross-cutting concerns together.
• However, one must be cautious. All men are created equal doesn't work too well in the real world. And don't go ga-ga over democratization of information. Things need to be architected elegantly, someone smart needs to do thoughtful research, anticipate future needs and design.
  
• At the same time, never forget how important freedom is: Adam Bosworth's talk.
  

That software which is flexible, simple, sloppy, tolerant, and altogether forgiving of human foibles and weaknesses turns out to be actually the most steel cored, able to survive and grow while that software which is demanding, abstract, rich but systematized, turns out to collapse in on itself in a slow and grim implosion.

My main criteria for a Wiki evaluation are:

• Tags (tagcloud): Allows multiple tag (keyword) assignment to any page. This removes the overhead of setting up a hierarchical structure. Searching becomes easy. Navigation can be done by tagclouds, which can be weighted.
• Attachments: In-place file attachments are useful.
• RSS Feeds: Allow us to look at a variety of streams of information quickly without having to subscribe, maintain mailing list, etc. Almost all wikis have this as well.
• Comments: All wikis allow comments, as part of wiki or as a plugin, hence I'm not including that in the pros and cons.
  

Without furthur ado and fanfare, lets take a look at some solutions.

Confluence

• Features: http://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/features/
• Has tons of features, true enterprise class, integrates blogs, has workspaces and many other features.
• Unfortunately, it is not free.
• Lots of companies use this: http://www.atlassian.com/about/customers.jsp

Sharepoint

• Sharepoint might have some of the required features, but I don't know which ones work well and which ones don't. It seems like a document repository. The good thing about sharepoint is automatic authentication. All Enterprises have Microsoft messaging infrastructure, Exchange + Outlook + Live Communicator. Like it or not, sharepoint is going to be the standard in most enterprises. This has nothing to do with the technical capabilities of Sharepoint, but the suits in the management would make this decision for you and push it down your throat.
• I've used Sharepoint, its mostly useless. However, upper management wants to see everything as properly organized and lower managers comply by creating a hierarchy of folders and put some documents there. This has limited utility (slightly better than shared folders), but it makes people look good.
  

TWiki

• Useful for enterprises, can build portals and such.
• Supports attachments.
• Quick intro: A taste of wiki: http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/TWiki04x01/ATasteOfTWiki
• Supports tags
• Lots of power under the hood. If I were CIO/CTO, I would take one good, hard look at TWiki.
  

DokuWiki

• File based storage – easiest to migrate.
• Easy to use, install and configure. Can get it up and running in 2 mins.
• No attachments
• No tags

Deki Wiki

• Supports attachments
• Supports tags
• WYSWYG editor. All other wikis require us to learn that specific wiki syntax.
• http://wiki.opengarden.org/Deki_Wiki

MediaWiki

• MySQL based, used by Wikipedia.
• No tags
• Poor file attachment support. Can't attach to current file, attach somewhere else and link to it.

KnowledgeTree

• Not a wiki, but a document management system
• Tags and tagclouds
• Has document workflows

On Wikis

H-1B documentation

If you have any questions after reading this, please join H1Bfaqs group. And go through the archives.


Deadline for first time H-1s

• Masters degree holders in US (or any other US degree) - Feb 29th, 2008
• Foreign degree holders - Feb 22, 2008. We need 2 weeks for educational evaluation

Comprehensive list of documents for those in India and in US, both for initial and transfers. If you don't understand a document requirement below, it means you don't need it. For example, if you've never been to US, you won't have an I-94 and don't have to worry about sending it.

DO NOT Submit Originals - submit photocopies
Clear copies of the documents only in A4/Letter size (Not legal size)

• Degree and Certificates in related field with marksheets or transcript
• All prior work experience letters from previous employers on their company letterhead
• ALL PAGES of Passport
• I-94 copy
• H-1B Approval Notice, VISA and I-94 (with clear dates of arrival) if already in USA on H-1B
• H4, B1/B2 or SEVIS (I-20), F-1 VISA with I-94 if applicable (for you or your spouse)
• ALL I-20s, OPT card
  
• Current 5-6 pay stubs if already on H-1B, L1, L2
• Educational evaluation report if any
• US Employment Authorization Document if applicable
• All prior Non-Immigration H/L visa Approval( I797) if applicable
• On a separate sheet - exact dates of any prior stays in the U.S. in H visa status
• On a separate sheet - your address in USA and foreign country (Eg.India), give the date of last Arrival
• Copy of Social Security card (If available)
• Marriage Certificate (For Candidates currently in H4 visa status only)
• Resume
  

Scanning Instructions:

• Faxing is not acceptable. Copies need to be high resolution.

• Scan using a high resolution scanner. The formats and resolutions would be different, eg., bmp, jpg, png, tiff, 1640 * 1800, etc.
  
• We need copies in easily printable format. Convert everything to Adobe PDF. Use CutePDF to print to PDF if you don't have Adobe Acrobat.
  
• Merge the PDFs to create a few files. One pdf for passport, one for certificates, etc.
  
• Use gmail, which allows attachments upto size 20 MB.
  
• If you are compressing the files, rename the file extension, like so: files.zip to files.zip.REMOVEME. Extension .zip extension not allowed in gmail.
  
• Anything more than that, you need to reconsider your scanning options and scan to jpg, then convert to pdf and so on and so forth.

Filing Options

For those in the US on different status (L1, L2, H4, etc), you can choose one of the following:

• H-1 application with change of status (I-539 ?) - this is the standard way. This will automatically change your visa status from what you have to H-1 on October 1, 2008. What this means is that you can't work in US (L1) with your previous employer anymore. And for those in L2/H4, you are now in a work visa, which means you need to have regular paystubs from your employer, otherwise, you would go out of status. Your H-1 approval, I-797A, would come with new I-94.

• Another way of filing is to opt for consular processing which requires you to go out of the country to get the visa stamped on your passport when you want to switch. This gives you the flexibility needed, if you are on L1 and would like to decide when to switch.

Filing for H-4

• All H-4s, opt for consular processing. You would be disinclined to move from your current location, which creates some placement challenges. If you are on H-1 and not working, you would be out of status. Best course of action is to opt for consular processing, and when you are ready, get H-1 stamped. You would have the luxury of being in H-4 and not worry about maintaining status.
• As an aside, consider pursuing a Master's degree. Some states offer resident/in-state tuition for temporary work aliens too. One of them is California. There is one more, which I don't remember. Perhaps Massachusetts?
  

Filing Options for L-1/L-2

• If you are on L1 and your wife is working on EAD (L2), this creates interesting combination problems. Always opt for consular processing. You don't know who would be picked up in the lottery.
  
• If the L2/EAD spouse gets through the lottery, you are in good shape. You can use L1 and H1 combination.
• If the L1 holder gets through, consular processing would give you time to evaluate the situation and see what is the best course of action.
  

Filing address

• For Masters students is (was) different. Confirm with lawyer before mailing out.
• For non-quota H-1 is different. I guess everything goes to CA. (look at comments)
  

Stamping Issues

Stamping issues go here - don't print documents in India, print everything in US.

If you have any questions after reading this, please join H1Bfaqs group. And go through the archives.

H-4 documentation

All consultants on H-1B should understand that it is their responsibility to maintain the H-4 Status of their Spouse and Children as lawyer may not have knowledge whether they are married or single or we may not have documents of their Spouse and Children if they are in USA.

For extension of H-4 Status:

• Copy of Passport
• Copy of H-1B Approval Notice for main beneficiary
• Copy of H-4 Approval Notice (if any), Visa and I-94 if already in U.S. on H-4;
• Copy of Social security Card if applicable
• Current 4-5 pay stubs for Spouse on H-1B
• Marriage Certificate and Birth Certificate for Children
• Current Address in USA
• Foreign Address

Even though we say for extension the same set of documents can be used for initial filing as well. Google for I-539.

H-4

H-4 extension

If you are on H-1 and transferred, your spouse doesn't need to transfer H-4. As long as the visa/I-94 is valid, you are in good shape. However, when visa/I-94 expires, you need to file for I-539 - Application to Extend/Change non immigrant status.

Fee for this is $300, attorney fee would be $350. You can fill it yourself and send it to USCIS, no need of attorney.

Make sure that you file for this at least a few months before expiry.

H-1B FAQ

If you have any questions after reading this, please join H1Bfaqs group. And go through the archives.

Fees

Refundable fee if not selected in the lottery

• USCIS Filing Fee: $320
• USCIS Training Fee: $1500 ($750 if less than 25 employees)
• USCIS Fraud Prevention: $500

Non-refundable

• Attorney fee: $830
• Document checking: $100

Total: $2500 (without education evaluation)

Additional fee as necessary

• Educational Evaluation fee
• $75 - related foreign degree (CS, IT, Electronics and Computer Science, etc)
• $250 - $350 for evaluation based on experience. Unrelated degree, but has IT experience. $250 is the norm.
• Premium Processing - $1000
• Evaluation will take 2 weeks. Better send it in advance.

Experience letters must have sufficient detail of skills and job duties. Experience letter that certify you as hard working, honest, decent, diligent, dignified, good looking, nice hairstyle, good gait - are all useless. Must have specific job duties and skills used.

Check for a subsequent post on experience letters.

Multiple H-1B Applications
For multiple filing of H-1B, USCIS will adjudicate with company filing what ever application is selected. If any person is selected through two companies then he will get two H-1B approvals from two different companies and he can join any company.

Master's degree requirement
For Masters degree, one should have Master's degree before filing application otherwise USCIS may deny the application even after selection.


If you have any questions after reading this, please join H1Bfaqs group. And go through the archives.

Wesley Snipes Is Acquitted of Tax Felonies

Mr. Snipes had become an unlikely public face for the tax-denier movement, whose members maintain that Americans are not obligated to pay income taxes and that the government extracts taxes from its citizens illegally.

Two co-defendants — Eddie Ray Kahn, a promoter of tax denial, and Douglas Rosile, a disbarred accountant — were convicted on separate felony counts.

“The verdict shows that promoters face serious jail time” but clients who follow their advice will face a lesser but still-serious risk, said JJ MacNab, a Maryland insurance analyst who attended the trial and is writing a book about tax deniers.

Even as Congress has reduced income tax rates, the tax denier movement has spread, fueled by high payroll taxes, political attacks on the Internal Revenue Service and anger among people who have not benefited from decades of strong overall economic growth.

Instead of prosecuting all offenders, the Justice Department brings cases against well-known individuals, hoping that widespread news coverage will encourage compliance, a policy known as general deterrence.

Tax deniers assert variously that the tax laws are valid but do not apply to them, that no law makes anyone liable for taxes and that the government tricks people into paying. Promoters of tax denial claim that people can legally stop paying income taxes by executing certain documents, or by not signing others, such as tax returns. Courts have rejected all of these arguments.

KnowBeforeYouVote.com

http://www.knowbeforeyouvote.com/

federalbudget.com

How I Became An Atheist

Children are pliable in the extreme, and they without fail emulate those they respect. My father was a Christian, so I became one as well.

Realize what I mean by that: I didn’t decide to become a Christian; it just happened. As a child, if someone you respect tells you that something is true — or even just illustrates that they believe it to be true — it becomes absolute. This is something that people don’t realize. There is no choice in these matters for a human until much later in life.

The place was more segregated than anything I’d ever seen. Everyone disagreed on where Jesus was buried, where this happened or that happened, and overall had their own dogmatic and exclusionary versions of how things “really” transpired.

I remember the moment it happened — the moment I realized I no longer believed.

I was reading a story about Moses going into a town to spread the word of God. The people of the town must have been Pagans or something because they wanted nothing of Moses’s teachings. They became quite terse with Moses, as I remember, and invoked the anger of God.

In a fit of rage, God proceeded to set fire to the town.

As I was reading this, with all of these doubts and questions in my mind already, I was dumbfounded. Setting fire to a town? A town full of humans he created? Was he surprised at their non-belief? How could he be if he created each one of them from scratch as an omnipotent and omniscient being? Wouldn’t he have had to create the very “flaw” within them that gave them the option to choose incorrectly? If not, how did it get there without his knowledge? What part of any of this was outside of God’s control.

Nothing. Nothing is outside the control of an all-powerful and all-knowing God.

Moses ended up negotiating for the people who’s town was being destroyed by God. He begged and pleaded that they didn’t know any better, and that they should be sparred. God finally listened to Moses and stopped his attack (praise God).

That was it for me. I put the book down and have been an atheist ever since.

As an example, the Bible clearly says that if you work on the Sabbath you should be put to death.

Whosoever shall work in the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.— Numbers 15:32

But millions of Christians and Jews work on the Sabbath and think it’s just fine. Why? Because they’ve justified — using their own morality — that no just God would really condone killing people for such a thing, right? Well, here’s the simple question: what gives regular men the right to deny the parts of the Bible that they see fit? What tells them to pick and choose what to follow and what to discard?

The answer is nothing. Nothing tells them it’s permissible to ignore the exact words of the ten commandments if at some future time the laws don’t permit their enforcement. Let me state this again: God commanded Moses to kill a man for gathering firewood on the Sabbath. The man was killed. There is nothing about this that expired or became obsolete due to later law. If you are a Christian or a Jew, and you work on the Sabbath, you are breaking God’s law in a way that God himself says is punishable by death.

And that’s my point. You, my fellow humans out there who know this is a hideous idea but cling to a Christian identity are fooling yourselves. You are moral because YOU are a good person. You are moral because you don’t kill people who check their work email on Sunday. You decide how your family follows the Bible. You decide the moral way to raise your family.

You think your goodness comes from the Bible, but it doesn’t. It was inspired by the Bible, and you enjoy the idea of the Bible, but that idea is actually your own version of it — not the real thing. If it were the real thing you’d be in jail right now. The same goes for Muslims, as the Koran commands unspeakable evil as well of its followers. In short, if you’re open, thoughtful and moderate then you’ve perverted the original teachings of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam by being so.

Arun Sarin's keynote

The main impetus of the talk was leadership, especially in the context of IITians. Arun was of the opinion that most IITians are not realizing their full potential as leaders. Leadership is not merely the recognition that you are better than others and lead them to wherever you are supposed to go, but more importantly, it allows you to bring about fundamental change. Leadership allows you to achieve tangible results without fighting with the intricacies of team work which he described as "holding hands and singing songs".

Arun likes to think of three forms of leaderships but there is a catch - all three forms need to be practiced simultaneously. The three forms are:

• Strategic leadership
• Operational leadership
• People's leadership

http://abhishekrai.blogspot.com/2007/07/iit-2007-from-engineer-to-leader.html

http://abhishekrai.blogspot.com/2007/07/iit-2007-to-mba-or-not-to-mba.html

http://abhishekrai.blogspot.com/2007/05/promising-deltas.html

CIOs Shun SaaS Unfairly, Says Google Exec

Some 1,500 businesses a day are now signing up for parts of the service, according to the exec. "Obviously, a lot of that is in the small-to-medium business segment, but we’re also doing a lot with large enterprises," he said, explaining that Google is already working with General Electric, Proctor & Gamble, and Cap Gemini around Google Apps.

The Google product guru used his keynote to describe some of the corporate culture within his notoriously secretive company, illustrating ways to encourage employee innovation in much the same spirit that SaaS adoption needs to be encouraged.

Most firms tend to put barriers up when it comes to employee innovation, he stated, though Google does not. "There's no penalty for failure [at Google]," he said. "In fact, we encourage it, because, if you're not failing, then you're probably not trying hard enough."

India Budget

Attorney-General Soli J. Sorabjee, Nani's friend and colleague for many years, recalls: "His talent in expounding the subject was matched by his genius in explaining the intricacies of the Budget to thousands of his listeners. His famous Annual Budget speeches had humble beginnings in 1958 in a small hall of an old hotel called Green Hotel in Bombay. He spoke without notes and reeled off facts and figures from memory for over an hour keeping his audience in rapt attention."

Describing the Annual Budget meetings, Sorabjee goes on to say: "The audience in these meetings was drawn from industrialists, lawyers, businessmen and the common individual. Nani's speeches were fascinating for their brevity and clarity. His Budget speeches became so popular throughout India and the audience for them grew so large that bigger halls and later the Brabourne Stadium in Bombay had to be booked to keep pace with the demand of an audience of over 20,000. It was aptly said that in those days that there were two Budget speeches, one by the Finance Minister and the other by Nani Palkhivala, and Palkhivala's speech was undoubtedly the more popular and sought after."

We need a budget browser, budget watch or something that makes available India Budget (historic) immensely navigable.

Why Don't People Get It?

Even now, people think nothing of professing their attachment to socialist ideology at cocktail parties, at restaurants serving abundant foods, and lounging in the fanciest apartments and homes that mankind has ever enjoyed. Yes, it is still fashionable to be a socialist, and—in some circles within the arts and academia—socially required. No one will recoil. Someone will openly congratulate you for your idealism. In the same way, you can always count on eliciting agreement by decrying the evils of Wal-Mart and Microsoft.

Yes, for example, there is a growing student movement, on minimum wage.

The students in the Stanford Labor Action Coalition are working with a national union to pressure Stanford to improve the lot of janitors, cooks, maintenance workers and other blue-collar employees who work on campus, some for as little as $8.50 an hour, less than $18,000 a year.

The Harvard Living Wage Campaign

Controlling Crime - police, mafia, politicians, etc

One of the many problems:

If this report from Tehelka about the complicity of the police in the Nithari serial killings does not outrage you, check your pulse–you may be brain dead and therefore be qualified to be an Indian political leader.

A Possible solution:

The number of rebels on the Web site is still tiny compared to Palermo's businesses overall, but their movement has helped to chip away at the Mafia's psychological hold on Sicilians - long conditioned to believe that defiance would bring ruin or a death sentence. And any consistent crumbling of that culture of fear could ultimately lead to Cosa Nostra's undoing.

The businesses are openly defying the Mafia by signing on to a Web site called "Addiopizzo" (Goodbye Pizzo), which brings together businesses in the Sicilian capital that are resisting extortion.

1. Track down every police - maintain an online directory, editable/commentable (anonymous too).

2. Assign local representatives to tag/track every policeman in that area.

3. Make these locally electable positions. Not appointments. Self governance. Why have democracy at the top level, if our people don't know how it is going to work locally? Make school principals/teachers locally electable too. These guys pay lotsa money in bribes to get a job, they might as well spend it on getting elected.

Wozniak Backs Captain Crunch in Net Video Startup

Draper, Kotas and a group of developers have spent months coding en2ools, a set of technologies that accelerates access to content, and creates bridges between devices and entertainment like music and films, allowing people to use content meant for a single device on dozens of different gadgets."Portability is what people want," Kotas says. "But with the big companies at war with each other, you'll never see iTunes on Yahoo or movies on Google. En2ools are the bridge that will let you listen to iTunes and iRadio on your Nokia phone. We make our money by inserting ourselves into the deal between the provider and the user."

Wozniak Backs Captain Crunch in Net Video Startup

Study: $90 wine tastes better than the same wine at $10

In a study that could make marketing managers and salespeople rub their hands with glee, scientists have used brain-scanning technology to shed new light on the old adage, "You get what you pay for."

Researchers from the California Institute of Technology and Stanford's business school have directly seen that the sensation of pleasantness that people experience when tasting wine is linked directly to its price. And that's true even when, unbeknownst to the test subjects, it's exactly the same Cabernet Sauvignon with a dramatically different price tag.

States vie for stem-cell scientists

Much of that battle is being waged in state capitals.

At the forefront, seven big states are leading the world in political and financial support for embryonic stem-cell research.

Their goal: Attract the best stem-cell scientists from around the globe and become a hub for a multi-billion-dollar bioscience industry. So far, their plan appears to be working.

The Future of Ideas is now Free

After a productive and valuable conversation with my publisher, Random House, they've agreed to permit The Future of Ideas to be licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license. You can download the book for free here, or above.

This means all four of my books are now CC licensed. Code (v1) was licensed under a BY-SA license; so too, Code (v2). And Free Culture and now The Future of Ideas are licensed under BY-NC licenses.

I am particularly glad that The Future of Ideas is now freely licensed. That book hit the stores 2 weeks after September 11. I'm glad it now has a chance to flow a bit more freely.

Top 100 living geniuses

1. Albert Hoffman - LSD

Free Software Movement - Dr. Edgar Villanueva, Peru

There's a letter circulating, purportedly from Peruvian Congressman David Villanueva Nuñez to Microsoft Peru, which cuts the heart out of Redmond's chief 'panic points' to chill those considering open-source migration.

Apparently, the Peruvian government is considering a bill mandating open-source software for all public bureaux. From the congressman's letter, we gather that MS had circulated a FUD communiqué calculated to frighten world + dog with images of collapsing domestic software markets, spiraling costs and systems migration nightmares. Villanueva Nuñez slices and dices with great skill to reveal the internal inconsistencies, unsupportable claims and irrational conclusions which the MS flacks trade in.

The letter provides the most thoughtful and thorough rebuttal we've ever seen to Microsoft's standard open-source terror boilerplate.