Category: Information

Mark Zuckerberg Turns Investigator


One by one, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has driven away his cofounders and close confidants. The latest to go: chief financial officer Gideon Yu.

Now Zuckerberg is tracking who has leaked the email memo sent to CFO and you can see his instigative tactics in the email… Please read the email carefully…

Catch the differences? One says “will report,” the other says “will be reporting.” One uses treasurer Cipora Herman’s last name, the other omits it. One says “we are fortunate,” while the other uses the contracted form “we’re.” And one says Peter Currie will be “an advisor,” while the other says only “advisor.”

 
That’s not the only oddity about the email. “Several versions I got of this memo had different punctuation in various places,” Swisher notes in an update.

COMPANY CONFIDENTIAL–DO NOT FORWARD

Hey Everyone–

Today ends the first quarter of 2009, so I wanted to send out an update on our growth and financial progress, as well as a couple of changes we are making.

Our user growth has been extraordinary over the past year and has continued to be strong throughout Q1. We are getting very close to reaching our 200 millionth active user. This is pretty remarkable considering we just reached 100 million actives a little more than seven months ago. We have become the top site for sharing information on the web, and this gives us a good strategic position to help people share even more.

I am also pleased that our financial progress has been very strong as well. While we came into this year wondering how the recession might affect us, our financial performance in the first quarter surpassed our expectations. As other businesses around us are slowing down and cutting back, we continue to grow around the world. Our advertising products are becoming more attractive for advertisers and we have seen strong growth in both our domestic and international direct sales and online sales channels.

Even in the current economic environment, we are confident that this success will continue. Based on our first quarter results, we now believe we are on track to see our revenue grow by at least 70% this year. We just completed our fifth straight quarter of EBITDA profitability. And most importantly, we expect to achieve free cash flow profitability next year. That’s an important measure of financial success and sustainability because it means we’d be able to fund all of our operations and server purchases from the cash we generate while increasing our cash reserves in the bank. Hitting these numbers will require continued hard work, discipline and execution by everyone here at Facebook, but we are on the path to achieve these goals.

As we ramp up to take on these challenges, I want to let you know that Gideon Yu will be leaving the company. Gideon has played an important role in helping us achieve our financial success, building a strong finance team and establishing the core financial operations of our company. I will always be grateful to Gideon for his contributions to Facebook and what we are trying to accomplish. As those of you who know him know, Gideon’s family is his highest priority and it’s certainly not the usual cliché to say that he plans to take some time off to be with his wife and son. Gideon and I have often discussed that the next stage of his career will likely be as an investor, and I fully support him in this regard.

We have retained Spencer Stuart to search for a new CFO and we will be looking for someone with public company experience who can help take us to the next stage in our growth.

In the interim, the finance team will report to Cipora Herman in her capacity as Treasurer and Ted Ullyot as mteam lead. In addition, [Facebook is] fortunate that Peter Currie, the former CFO for Netscape, has agreed to serve as the advisor to Facebook until a new CFO comes on board.

As always, please feel free to reach out to me or to others on mteam if you have any questions about our finance plans or organization. I’ll discuss this more at the Q&A on Friday and I will be happy to take questions then too.

Congratulations to everyone on a great start to the year and on all the momentum you have all helped build for the rest of 2009.

Mark

Mobile communications without a regular network


The TerraNet technology enables mobile communications without a regular mobile network. As soon as two or more wireless units equipped with TerraNet technology are within reach of each other, they automatically form their own network and can start communicating.

Units within such a network can communicate with each other directly up to a certain distance depending on frequency and the environment. If the distance is larger, the communication is relayed through one or more of up to seven intermediate units. Consequently, the network will gradually cover larger and larger areas as more units are connected to it.

A TerraNet network requires no central system, base stations or telecom provider. Everything is handled by the units themselves and the network is formed automatically.

The network can be connected to the rest of the world through a computer network or some other established network structure. To connect a TerraNet network to a computer, you just install a gateway and make sure that one of the units in the TerraNet network is within reach of the computer. To connect it to a traditional telephony network structure, standard methods of interconnection are applicable.

There are a great number of possible applications for the TerraNet technology. We are constantly on the outlook for possible partners with interesting ideas about how to use our technology. If you have a good idea in mind, please feel free to contact us for further discussions.

The Rural Telephony Application Area
Based on our technology we are currently developing a wireless phone system for areas where traditional telephone networks are not available.  There are a number of possible fields of application for this system:

  •  
    • People living in remote, rural areas can get access to telecommunications.
    • Telecom providers can dramatically extend the reach of their networks without large investments in telecom infrastructure.
    • In disaster areas where the traditional communications networks are down, a TerraNet-based telephone system can be set up in a few hours.

Since any TerraNet rural telephony system can be connected to an access point, e.g. an internet-connected computer, the rest of the world can be reached as well..

For Details Visit:
TerraNet AB
IDEON Science Park
223 70 Lund
Sweden
Office +46 46 286 34 90
http://www.terranet.se

Google Ventures Launched


Much expected Google Ventures is out at last… Google coming from rags and knowing the pains of a startup they must have done this before… But it is better late than never… These are some insights about the venture…

  •  
    • Launched on 31st March 2009
    • Managed by Bill Maris & Rich Miner (Can check their BIO’s)
    • Will invest in any kind of startups
    • Investment ranges from Seed funding to tens of millions of dollar
    • Should be contacted only thru email ventures@google.com

 

As usual the site is very simple with just four pages and up to the point… Their FAQ is also very little covering most of the questions…

 

In their FAQ they claim that that they are an independent company and they never push to use Google products or force for an acquisition…

 

Let us see how the company transforms startups in days to come…

 

At this point we wish Google Ventures Best Luck…

Reliance ADAG offers Instant Office Space…


The current economic slowdown, growing lay offs, high infrastructure costs, bureaucratic delays, and uncertain markets have compiled many businesses / Entrepreneurs / SME’s / Startups to hold back their capital expenses and adopt a ‘wait and watch’ policy, test before invest and looking for more and more flexible solutions where there are no long term commitments.

Taking the advantage of the prevailing network and footprint (105 Cities) Reliance World Stores have tailored a very economical, flexible and attractive business proposal of providing instant offices (Ready-to-use offices). These offices come fully furnished, air-conditioned and with high configuration PC’s and unlimited usage of Broad Band internet Connection all of these combined into a package.

The advantages of Hiring Reliance World instant offices are:

1). Ready Availability across 240 locations Pan India.

2). No Brokerage and No Deposits.

3). No hassles of Carpet Area and Built up area, Payment by use of spaces.

4). Locating offices in prominent places of main business districts as all our facilities are situated in those areas.

5). Flexible Rental Options without Lock In periods.

6). Technical and Secretarial Services on Demand.

Other details are available in the brochure enclosed, for more details feel free to contact the following:

1). Srinivas : +91.93201 08347

2). Pooja Gupta : +91.93222 83054

3). Suhas : +91.9324113411

It is now official


Yes. It is official that the person whom we doubted is the real hacker… Also hacking was done using some holes in Scriptlance… Ok now let me explain the post events that happened after our previous blog post…

We go an email from the hacker and bala invited him for a chat in Yahoo!… The hacker acknowledged and they started negotiating terms… Parallely we were also working with Scriptlance guys… Yesterday bala proved me a point that every time we can’t mean business… Bala convinced the hacker claiming his act has cost him his job and some how got hold of the account… The hacker seems to be of good heart :), by now I think bala and hacker must have become good pals…

In the mean time Scriptlance was prompt in suspending the account and they started the act after we our self recovered the account from the hacker… But now we have to release the account from suspension… Scriptlance had some IVR system to confirm the phone number, they asked for last three transactions and the bank account used to withdraw the funds from Scriptlance… Also they asked an ID proof… At last we got our account released from suspension…

What worried me was Scriptlance didn’t give us any reason & assurance that this will never occur again… Also they deleted our post in their forum where we posted that our account was hacked and asked if there were any other person who has lost his/her account, which means Scriptlance forum is not transparent…

What ever the case many be we got the account back and the funds in the account is also safe… Today I’m having a meeting with bala to see how we can cope with marketing without Scriptlance…

Our Scriptlance.com account hacked


Today morning my colleague Mr.Balakrishnan came to me asking if I changed the password of ourScriptlance account… I said I didn’t do anything with the account and immediately bala went to his system trying to reset the password… Only then we came to know our account was hacked…

There is no way our account could have been hacked because no one other I and bala knows the password and our systems are also not shared with other networks in office… Also we never share passwords using IM’s… So, we confirmed it must be some miscreant inside Scriptlance…

In the whole episode two things happened

  1. Irony with Scriptlance support desk…
  2. An email from the hacker…

First let me share you the screenshots of things, experience with Scriptlance & hackers email…

morning_mail

Myself and bala were using the account till 11.30 PM yesterday night and the site must have got hacked in another 15 – 30 min… We calculated this using time on the mail received… We took this screenshot by 3.45 PM today and 16 hours before must be around 11.30 PM – 12 AM yesterday or the day beginning… This screenshot has been sent by Scriptlance confirming the change in account details, without this alert we wouldn’t have found about this hack quickly… Now the irony part you can see the text in this screenshot “If you did not request this change please contact support” below IP address in this screenshot… On clicking that link we were taken to the screenshot which comes next…

guest_form

I filled all the fields in despair which again resulted in despair :(… Please look at next screenshot to see what happened

guest_form_error

Our account is hacked but Scriptlance’s system didn’t take up the complaint stating we are not guest and it promptly says we have an account by name “COGZIDEL”… Reason is because of cookie, but when things go wrong everything goes wrong…

Now comes the best part… Couple of minutes back bala got an email from the hacker asking for a ransom to release the account… Here is the screenshot of the mail received by bala…

hacker

This drove our interest to dig deep inside and bala was very proactive in finding who did this and we zeroed in on a person… But we must have released this report only after the investigation is fully complete and once we are sure about the hacker… But I’m sharing the details of the person whom we think is the man behind this attack :(… Look at the email id specified in the email screenshot received form the hacker it has come from “viroxic@gmail.com”… We searched in Scriptlance for “viroxic” and found that there is a user with that handle… Then we traced the IP address which was sent in the mail (check first screenshot), the IP was traced to Morocco… Also we googled “viroxic”, we got two more profile’s with the name “viroxic” from other sites… Look at those profiles

https://www.eufreelance.com/users/26190.html
https://www.scriptlance.com/cgi-bin/freelancers/buyers.cgi?view=viroxic
https://www.getafreelancer.com/users/868495.html

In his profile it states he is from Morocco… So, we think we have almost zeroed in on the hacker…

But still we didn’t get any response from the webmaster/customer support department of Scriptlance… Still we are keeping our fingers crossed and we must see if we are the only ones who are affected or there are couple of other who are affected… We have posted a post in Scriptlance Forum and waiting for more reactions… Our first priority is to get the account back and then understand how this hacking was done… Then we have to take a strategic call if we must continue with Scriptlance or not…

Please share with us if you have any such experience so that others can learn from our experience… Also I promise to share the entire case once we are out of this…

Why is there deuce in tennis?


Ancient civilizations in Rome, Greece and Egypt have made claim to the sport’s origins, but what we recognize today as tennis is widely accepted to have begun in France. Where else but in the land of romance would athletic measure be articulated in the terms “love” and “deuce” (as in, it takes two)?

During the Middle Ages, French monks hit balls with their hands over a rope stretched across the cloistered quadrangles of their monasteries. What they called jeu de paume (palm game) evolved into “tennis” courtesy of the serving player, who initiated action by shouting “Tenez!” — roughly, “Take it!”

In the game’s incrementally peculiar scoring, the first point is 15 (or 5, if the players went to prep school), the next is 30, the third, 40, then game over, provided the winning margin is two points. Players can be tied at 15 and at 30, but not beyond; 40-all is deemed “deuce” because it is a “deux du jeu” — two points away from winning the game.

The next point remains estranged from the numerical and in league with the verbal, with the winning player deemed to have the “advantage.” If he wins the next point, he wins the game. If the opponent wins, it’s back to deuce.

As in baseball, the clock is not a factor in tennis, so the deuce dance can become a marathon. Among professionals, the longest known singles game appears to have occurred at the 1975 Great Britain Championships in Surrey, England. Competitors Anthony Fawcett of then-Rhodesia and Keith Glass of Britain played 37 deuces among 80 total points in a game that lasted 31 minutes. Tenez! Encore. Et encore. Et encore . . .

— Ellen Alperstein

Cogzidel Attrition Report Sep 08 – Mar 09!!!


Today i’m excited to get this report from my HR Manager Mr.Boopathi… I’m thrilled for two reasons

  1. There were many specialised HR’s who worked for me who didnt do this…
  2. Boopathi is not specialised HR in terms of qualification or experience…

One nice take away form this experience is, hire people who have passion than specialization… Also i must not say i’m inspired because of this report, he has always excelled in all aspects of HR’s function…

ATTRITION REPORT – Sept – 2008 to Mar  2009
             
Sl No. Month Opening balance (Employee Strength as on 15-Sep-08) No. of Employees Joined Employees Left Attrition %
Closing balance (As on    16-Mar-09)
1 September 9 1 2 8 10.00%
2 October 8 9 17 0.00%
3 November 17 8 1 24 4.00%
4 December 24 1 1 24 4.00%
5 January 24 1 3 22 12.00%
6 February 22 4 5 21 19.23%
7 March 21 3 1 23 4.17%
8 April 0 0 0 0 #DIV/0!
9 May

 

image002

Chennai Floods 2008…


It has been a regular affair every November, which exposes how unprepared our governments are on managing floods. Chennai’s winter hardly lasts for a week (Can’t imagine what happens if it rains last long). This is a YoY affair and I don’t know why government is not taking adequate steps to tackle such calamities.

Because of Mumbai Terrorist Crisis, Chennai’s flood has got a back seat from getting media publicity. Chennai floods have claimed 80 lives so far. Most of the deaths are mainly due to the negligence from the government officials. Also flood relates deaths because of negligence are also on raise YoY.

Also Chennai suffers from serious water crisis every summer & seeing all flood water getting wasted real matter of concern. One must also look at the loss (Bothe productivity loss & material loss) incurred by residents & offices. If we had proper Flood Management system in place we can store excess flood water and use it effectively during summer & can also avoid material & productivity losses.

India having a good growth story and Chennai being one of the fastest growing cities with no. of multinationals setting shop in Chennai it is high time we take serious steps to overcome calamity related crisis & have a proper crisis management in place.

There is a saying “When we point fingers at some one, three fingers points back at you”, like wise I’m also a mean citizen who forget everything and keep moving with the work. But I thought at least by writing this blog it might reach some right person / NGO somewhere in the world who might take some step or give some solution.

Here are some snaps sent by Balaji.

1
Arial View from Olympia IT Park. 100 feet road looks like a lake.

5
Water stagnation in inner ring road…

4
Making ready to walk in floods…

7
Traffic flow in floods…

6
Traffic flow in floods…

Creating Private Limited Company In India


Pre-requisites to incorporate a private limited Company in India by foreign citizens:

Step-1:
i) Obtaining Director Identification Number (DIN-1) for all the Directors of the proposed company.

Documents required – Passport of the applicant containing address of the applicant and passport size photograph.

If all the particulars are given, DIN-1 provisional number can be generated in half a day’s time.

DIN-1 application for foreign citizens require attestation by Notary of the country concerned.

Once the signed copy of physical form attested by notary of foreign country is sent to MCA Office, Noida, it will take a week’s time approx to get the number approved. Once approved by the MCA authority, provisional DIN-1 which has already been generated will be final.

ii) Obtaining Digital Signature for at least one Director of the proposed company.

It requires ID Proof, Address Proof and the applicant’s signature on the application form. It will take 2 to 3 days once the application is received duly filled in all respects.

Step-2:

Making online application to ROC for availability of Name in Form 1A.
The particulars required for making this application are:

-Name of the proposed company
-State in which the registered office of the proposed company will be situated
-Main Objects, in brief
-Names of Subscribers to the Memorandum of Association (it is nothing but, first shareholders of the company, who should sing MOA & AOA)
-Proposed Authorized Share Capital of the Company

This process will take 3 to 5 days approx.

Step-3:
Once the name is approved by ROC, then preparation of MOA, AOA, other forms & documents viz., Form 1, Form 18 & Form 32 along with other documents have to be done and filed with ROC.

Approximately it will take a week’s time to complete incorporation formalities.

Q : How many days we have to wait for this getting Name approval and registering ROC

Ans:- Name approval process will take 3 to 5 days. Entire Registration process will take Minimum 15 to 20 days provided all the information has been furnished promptly.

Q: If the director is registering for first Time can we apply without DIN? Or should we apply for DIN first?

Ans:- Applying for DIN is prerequisite before proceeding for registration of the Company

Q: What is “Subscribers to MOA”?

And:- It is nothing but, first shareholders (also known as promoters) of the Company, who should sign the Memorandum & Articles of Association.

Q: Can registration be done in any part of India?

And:- Place of registered office can be in any part of India. Depending upon place of registered office, registration has to be done in the respective State.

Q: Need details about all the forms

Ans:- These are Statutory forms which have to be filed for registration of the Company.
Form 1 – Contains details of promoters of the Company
Form 18 – About the place of registered office of the Company
Form 32 – About Directors of the Company

Q: Suppose 2 directors are non india citizens can they start the company?

Ans:- There is no objection for non Indian citizens to start a company in India and to act as Directors. But they have to appoint Alternate Directors representing them, to comply with the statutory requirement of convening quarterly Board Meetings and to take day to day decisions to run the company, signing other documents and forms for getting various registrations as applicable to the company. It is recommended to allot atleast 1 share each to 2 Indian citizens to comply with the statutory requirement of convening Annual General Meeting every year & EGM as and when required.

Q: Can we register the company without the directors coming to india?

Ans:-This is possible provided foreign citizens execute power of attorney in favor of Indian citizen attested by Notary/Magistrate in the Foreign Country. Then the authorized person can sign in the Memorandum & Articles of Association on behalf of foreign citizens.
More clarification on this point will be sent soon.

Q: Need more specific Breakup time frames like how long for name checkup, then the time for next process, also define total process involved like submitting forms to different departments etc?

Ans:- Entire incorporation process will take 15 to 20 days appox provided all the information has been provided immediately.

Subsequent to formation of the Company generally the following formalities have to be complied with:
a) Applying for PAN (Permanent Account Number) & TAN (Tax Deduction Account Number)
b) Opening of Bank Account
c) VAT & CST Registration, if applicable
d) Preparation of Common Seal & Share Certificates
e) Appointment of Auditors
f) PF Registration (applicable only if 20 or more employees are there)
g) Professional Tax Registration
h) Other Registrations & Licenses, such as Excise, Customs, STPI as applicable to the company