Now Cogzidel has a William Wordsworth


It is always nice to get motivation from someone… Also in an organization if someone take initiative and start showing the path it is even more exciting… Today I think we have two mangoes in one shot… I’m doubly thrilled… The reason is;

We are opening up night shift from tomorrow and I don’t know if people have fully accepted the change… When we communicated this information in our mailer, Ms.Narmatha started a loop of fun with her poetry skills… It brought the entire situation to funny zone and people started telling they are the ones who will be working on the night shift… Here goes her quote;

“Hai,
How lucky the moon is!
Finally it got the chance to enter his rays into Cogzidel.
Take care Friends.”

Here is a screenshot of her mail, which has a reply from saravana proudly claiming that he one among the lucky ones to work under the moon :(…

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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…

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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…

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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…

Struggles makes us strong…


Once upon a time, a man found the cocoon of the butterfly. He kept it with himself for observation. Then he noticed an opening in the cocoon. He sat there and watched how butterfly struggled to come out of the opening. Then after some struggle, it seemed that butterfly stopped its efforts and sat there as it is.

Man by that time decided to help the butterfly and took a pair of scissors and cut the remaining bit of cocoon so that butterfly could come out easily. But what happened there after, he never imagined that.

After cutting the cocoon, he was expecting that butterfly would come out any moment with its enlarged wings and fly. He was watching the whole thing with great concentration. But nothing of that sort happened. In fact, what happened was horrible. Butterfly could never open its wings. It spent rest of its life crawling around with shriveled wings and swollen body.

By struggling, its body out of the hole, butterfly was trying to release the fluid in the wings and the man by cutting its cocoon stopped that natural process.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If God allowed us to go through our life without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been.

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

Interview with Mr.Nandakumar, Founder Ndot


Today I’m proud to be with Mr.Nandakumar, Founder Ndot… Nanda is a budding entrepreneur with lots of business ideas and passion for technology… Let us get more from horse mouth…

Q. Hello Nanda. First of all tell us about yourself?

A. I’m a cool guy, much interested in advanced internet technologies.

Q. When & how did your entrepreneur desire started & evolved?

A. In the beginning I was inspired by Microsoft Bill gates and wanted to run a big firm like him. Name “N.” was taken in my college days itself. But did nothing big till 2006. My inspiration is my Dad, he chosen different path in our village, still learning so many things from him.

Q. Tell us how Ndot took shape?

A. Well, I started it to focus on Social Media solution. We started “N.” with 3 guys. Currently we have employee base of 9 for providing solutions to many clients. Our main aim is not to deliver the code like a web company. We should deliver the result, co-create & provide options.

Q. Tell the challenges you faced (Pre formation & post formation)?

A. First of all we had initial investment of 0, We reinvested the revenues to make our company grow. Challenge we faced and facing is Cash Flow. And I can say that will be the biggest thing for every (startup) company. I had few failure startups before “N.”, learned so many things from those failure with which I gained expertise in business & Social Media.

Q. Tell us about Ndot’s business model?

A. Our business model is totally based on Products & services ( Both mostly on Social Media ). We also have our own startup stuff, which will be our unique thing.

Q. Tell us about Ndot’s services & products?

A.  We providing services & solutions in Social Networking, Business solution for social media. Currently we are developing 2 to 3 products. We developed our own social networking framework to make our development very faster. Also we plan to launch that application as Opensource soon.

Q. Do you feel the impact of recession? How do you plan to overcome this recession?

A. Impact, actually no, sometimes I feel when I don’t have good cash flow. Don’t have plans to overcome, but reading lots of books/articles/news. I don’t want to think about recession when working, I feel there are lots of opportunities to crack. Economic downturn, there are lot of problems in the economy. That means for an entrepreneur there are lots of new opportunities are available to solve. Recession needs us.

Q. What are your future plans?

A. We will rock the web One day. Have good future scope on semantic & AI web, and started focusing on it. Working on educational startup, aim to release soon.

Q. What is your advice for new startups and wannabe entrepreneurs?

A. Make sure everyone have good cash flow every month. Do some services side, to make your company for long run. Keep running with your concept side by side, which is going to make you unique.

=====> End of interview <=====

Thank you very much Nanda for sparing your valuable time with us and it was really inspiring to be with you. Your answers were really inspiring and motivation… I’m sure this interview will kindly the egos of many wannabe entrepreneurs and will make them jump into the world of entrepreneurship…

We wish you all the very best for your initiatives and wish to see Ndot a major force when it comes to Social networking or education or retail…

Launch of 5dollarservices.com


5DollarServices one of the service model was launched on Feb 23, 2009… It took a while to share those photos…To tell a brief about the service, the idea originated from road side vendors in Chennai who sell toys / fancy items for a flat fee, ie: what ever you buy from that shop it costs a flat fee…

There are lots of services which can be offered at low cost and I thought I can create a platform for people offering those service and end-users… Already we got some positive response from service providers and you can expect more action in the site soon…

Here are some of the launch snaps…

 

1

Bala inaugurating the site…

2

Two architects of the site…

3

The launch cake… It was yummy…

4

Pandi cutting the cake… 5

Cogzidel Team…

Launching of Cogzidel.com


March 18, 2009 must be a special day in my diary… We started Cogzidel Technologies on September 14, 2008 and it took us six month to launch our corporate site… There are plenty of reasons I can give, but I know there is no excuse for the delay… Anyways it is better late than never…

I must thank Mr.Bala Krishnan, Mr.Bala Subramaniyam & Mr.Major Karthik for single handedly taking the responsibility and get it done… Thanks a lot guys you have done a great job and there were some feedback received in twitter which were also positive…

Here are some snaps taken during the launch…

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Site launched by Mr.Bala Subramaniyam (he is missing in the photo)…

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Post inauguration bonanza (…

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

 

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eFarm : Recruiting Interns


eFarm is inviting interns and freshers !! If you or someone you know
may be looking for an internship position, please do forward.

We are inviting interns to participate in working on some exciting new
projects at eFarm.(By exciting, we don’t mean taking a thousand photo
copies or getting chai for the boss 😉 )

The internships are crafted in such a way so that one can choose to
work on a specific area of choice, and take the project through
completion till the go live stage during the internship period
itself. For details on projects , application instructions, please refer to :
http://www.matchboxsolutions.in/internships.html

Disciplines and Open positions

The internships are across a wide variety of disciplines. Also each
project would be comprised of multi-disciplinary team members. The
following are indicative of the number of positions open at this
point :

  • Agriculture , Post Harvest technologies (4)
  • Supply chain management (4)
  • Sales and Marketing (5)
  • Food Science , catering (3)
  • Economics (2)
  • IT Software Development (8) – Computer Science,
    Engineering
  • Product design / Industrial design (2)
  • Retailing, Branding, Franchising (2)
  • Visual communication , Graphic arts (2)
  • Finance , Accounts (2)
  • HR (1)
  • Social Science , Rural studies (2)

Madurai Marathon…


We at cogzidel supported Madurai marathon organized by Maverick Fitness Studio by sponsoring T-Shirts for the event… The even happened 14th Feb 2009… Even was a great success and I’m thrilled to see people participating even on a Valentines Day…

Here are some snaps…

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T-shirts distributed early in the morning…

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Run of full flow…

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Finishing is style…

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Prize distribution..