Today security has become one of the most sought after
concerns for any network administrator. With outbreak of recent
viruses, spams, adwares & spy wares (all types of viruses ) a
network administrator runs helter-kelter all the day to just keep
the system virus free.

But in a typical IT department that is perhaps how a network
administrator justifies his day’s salary.

On the contrary there are very strong and robust operating
systems which hardly gets affected by these viruses.

- UNIX , BSD (Barkley Source Devices) and Linux are
to name a few such operating systems.

The file systems of these OS’s are not like windows. Windows
file systems are FAT16 ,FAT32 or NTFS type. Here one can save a
file anywhere he likes. (Just like saving your file at C:\ or at
C:\xyz\abc or at c:\windows\Documents\) but in Unix , BSD or in
Linux an user can save his / her file only in /home/user-home/
directory only. This gives a very robust kind of data directory
structure and immunity to virus attack.

In ext2 or ext3 file structure (Linux file system) the ‘file
permission’ adds up to this immunity. In linux / Unix everything is
considered to be a file . It can be your pen drive ,it can be your
TV tuner card or a webcam or a simple presentation. Unless one
has the right kind of permission one cannot read , write or edit a
file or device.

Unix / Linux are born with network whereas the
windows are born first and networked later. On a networked
environment it is natural for Unix / or Linux to work relentlessly
without any virus attack than that of a windows kind of PC.

It has been seen that on a dual boot computer (Both windows
and linux installed) the windows is affected by many viruses
whereas when it is booted on Linux it works just fine.

The ext2 / ext3 file system can mount a FAT16 / FAT32 or NTFS on
same computer whereas the vice versa is not possible. Such is
the power of Linux.

The outlook or the outlook express is a potential plague house of
viruses. Whereas in linux the evolution email system works with
no threats at all. In case your office uses lotus domino email
system you can use thunderbird email sysetm which works just
like domino. Setting up of thunderbird email is also very easy.

Nonetheless it is identical to outlook. The windows viruses just
can do nothing to it. You open it , double click it and it just stays
there and does nothing . The reason being the virus which is
mostly a FAT16,FAT32 or an NTFS file is trying to work on an ext2
/ ext3 system which does not understand it’s commands.

The strongest aversion for not using Linux is it’s uncommonness.
But those days are past now. Now-a-days a Linux desktop is as
easy and as powerful (if not more) as an windows desktop.

The latest openoffice 2.1 (A SUN’s product now) can ‘open’ files
as well as ’save as’ in not less than 200 types of formats (this
includes DOC,XLS,PPT also ). The openoffice can straight away
edit / save a file in PDF Format !!!

For those who love to work on MS ACCESS would love to work
straight away on MySQL through OpenOffice. MySQL is at least
100 times more powerful than MSACCESS yet MySQL is free.

In a typical Government environment what one does on a
Desktop PC can merrily do on a Linux Desktop. The latest
Mandriva or the SUSE linux are very very colorful and far more
easy to install. Just brake the initial inertia of Windows and install
it on your Desktop or Laptop. You will feel the power of Nirvana
from windows slavery.

The linux servers are very robust , takes less memory hog
besides being highly scalable. Majority of servers on internet
runs on Linux (Viz google , rediff ,kerala govt,CG govt, Goa govt,
IIT Mumbai)
Therefore It is high time now to start harnessing the power of
Linux. Both server and desktop models are available for free in
any Linux distribution CD. Installation is also hassle free and
clean. And once installed it is only joy and joy. Nightmare of
viruses will halt on the login prompt. Believe me satisfaction is
guaranteed.

Here is relief for gizmo-lovers with a heart condition - “electronic noise” from iPods does not cause cardiac pacemakers to trip, a new study says.

Researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston were intrigued by a widely reported study last May that concluded errant electronic noise from iPods could cause implantable cardiac pacemakers to malfunction.

This just did not sound right to the hospital’s cardiac electro-physiologists who have seen hundreds of children, teens and young adults with heart conditions requiring pacemakers, ScienceDaily reported.

“Many of our pacemaker patients have iPods and other digital music players, and we’ve never seen any problem,” said Charles Berul.

“But kids and parents bring up this concern all the time, prompting us to do our own study.”

While last year’s study was done in patients averaging 77 years, the average age in the new study was 22. All patients had active pacemakers or implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs), which were tested against four digital music players - two kinds of iPods (Apple Nano and Apple Video), SanDisk Sansa and Microsoft Zune.

All patients were lying down during the tests, and each digital player was placed directly over the pacemaker or ICD.

The study, published in the latest issue of the journal Heart Rhythm, found there was no interference with intrinsic device functioning - patients’ EKG (electrocardiographic) recordings showed no change in any of 255 separate tests, and no patients had symptoms.

“This provides reassuring evidence that should allay the fears of people using iPods and other digital music players,” said Berul, the study’s senior investigator.

Berul and colleagues are reassured by their own findings, but acknowledge that their testing was only short-term.

“We can’t conclude that it’s completely safe to have an iPod right on top of the device for hours at a time,” Berul said. “That’s why we suggest the precaution of keeping it at least six inches away.”

London: Just one press of a button and you’ll take your last breath. One of Germany’s most promising conservative politicians and lawyer has unveiled Europe’s first suicide machine for people with a death wish.

The killing machine, ‘Perfusor’ can end a person’s life with a swift injection of potassium chloride.

If the machine, designed to evade strict laws banning assisted suicide, goes into production then Germany rather than Switzerland could soon become the destination of choice for those seeking to kill themselves.

“The machine is simply an option for fatally ill people,” Times Online quoted Kusch, as saying.

The machine is painted in green and it looks like a cross between an electric transformer and a paint spraygun.

“Nobody is forced to use it but I do believe that it will contribute to a debate that is moving thousands of people,” he said.

The machine would be lent or rented so that the patients could insert the needles themselves and then push the button releasing the potassium chloride.

Supporters of the ‘death machine’ say that the machine will bring about death in seconds. Death Row cases suggest the process could be longer.

Gerhard Strate, a defence lawyer from Hamburg, said: “As long as the sick person is fully conscious and aware, then lending the machine to him is no more illegal than lending him a kitchen knife or a razor blade. It becomes illegal only if the potential suicide asks someone in the room to press the button for him.”

SYDNEY  - If you rushed to the Internet to book one of airline Virgin Blue’s “no chair fares” for half price as advertised in Australian newspapers on Tuesday there was one message on their Web site — April Fools!

Various companies and media organizations got into the swing of April 1 when pranks are allowed until noon with a range of hoaxes designed more to amuse than trick people.

Britain’s Independent newspaper reported that foul-mouthed TV chef Gordon Ramsay was banning swearing in all his restaurants after Sydney authorities refused an application for him to set up an eatery on the grounds of “decency.”

And competitor the Daily Telegraph featured a story based on BBC footage of a colony of penguins that flies thousands of miles to the rainforests of South America to bask in the sun (http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/page/item/epeng001.shtml?src=ip_potpw).

Google Australia announced that it was to launch a new feature “enabling you to search for content on the Internet before it is created” so you could get tomorrow’s news today including share prices and sports results.

“This is awesome. I can now check the questions ahead of time and impress my girlfriend by knowing all the answers to ‘Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader?’,” said Wazza from Queensland on Google’s site (http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/gday/index.html).

Virgin Blue, Australia’s second-largest airline, put an advert in newspapers across Australia that read: “Stand Up and Be Discounted,” offering half price fares if passengers would stand for a flight with a complimentary calf massage for flights of over two hours.

“We’ve had over 1,000 click-throughs onto the Web site we set up (http://www.virginblue.com.au/nochairfare) and people had a very good humor about it. We like to have a bit of fun,” said Virgin Blue spokeswoman Leonie Vandeven.

SOME PRANKS BACKFIRE

April Fools’ Day dates back centuries but its origins remain unclear.

The Museum of Hoaxes, a Web site set up by self-described “hoaxpert” Alex Boese in 1997, said references began to appear in the late Middle Ages.

But Boese said the most widespread theory about its origin dates back to late 16th century, when France switched from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar meaning the start of the year moved from late March to January 1.

Those who continued to celebrate the New Year during the week that fell between March 25 and April 1 had various jokes played on them — but Boese said there was no evidence to back this.

He does, however, list the top 100 April Fools’ Day hoaxes, which is headed by the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest. This dates back to 1957 when the BBC news show Panorama announced Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop due to a mild winter with footage of Swiss peasants pulling spaghetti strands from trees.

But not all April Fools hoaxes work out.

The worst hoax, according to Boese, was in 1998 when a newspaper owned by Saddam Hussein’s son Uday informed readers that U.S. President Bill Clinton had decided to lift sanctions against Iraq. It admitted later that it was just joking.

Boese said April Fools’ Day has never been a widely celebrated tradition but he believed pranks were becoming more common with the Internet offering fertile ground.

“Also advertisers have come to realize that a funny prank can generate lots of good publicity,” he said in an e-mail.

As for hoaxes that back-fired this year?

Police in the Australian state of Queensland are considering charging a woman who rang paramedics just after midnight claiming her baby had stopped breathing after falling off a bed. Two ambulances rushed to her house to find it was a hoax.

“This was a particularly insidious hoax call,” said a statement from the emergency services department.

IIT’S FORMULA CAR: The car was unveiled by India’s very own Formula 1 champ, Narain Karthikeyan.

Mumbai: The people working in air filters and dampers and accelerator pedals are no ordinary mechanics and the car that they are working on is no ordinary car.

A couple of IIT Bombay students decided in June last year to enter an international competition called Formula SAE — short for Society of Automotive Engineers — to build a race car.

IIT Faculty Advisor, Professor Amarnath says, “It was great how these students got together and started working on something that they had no idea about.”

The 30 students who eventually got together for the project — armed with textbooks, a supportive faculty and some helpful advice from automobile manufacturers — have come a long way, to the point that the tightening of a screw here and the testing of a pedal there is all that is left to do.

The spirited youngsters will be the only Indians participating in this prestigious international competition to be held in Detroit — the Mecca of the international automobile industry.

The 11 budding engineers who will represent IIT Bombay at the competition are ecstatic.

Formula SAE partcipant, Shyam says, “We aim to compete with the best in the world and experience some great engineering.”

And finally the moment they had all been waiting for is here. The official unveiling of IIT Bombay’s Formula racing car — and who better to do it than India’s own F1 champion, Narain Karthikeyan?

Narain Karthikeyan says, “In the last few years, the sport has been getting more popular and this will give it more exposure.”

And with Narain’s best wishes, this vehicle is truly revved up to win the race.

HELSINKI - A continuing mobile phone boom in emerging markets in Asia and Africa mostly offset a drop in demand for expensive models caused by global market turmoil, a survey showed on Monday.

Handset makers sold 283 million phones in January to March, up 10 percent from a year ago, but down around 15 percent from the fourth quarter, which is usually boosted by Christmas holiday sales, according to a Reuters poll.

“On a global basis it should be a good, normal quarter,” said JP Morgan analyst Ehud Gelblum.

In the last three years the phone market fell between 9 and 16 percent in the first quarter from the previous quarter, according to Strategy Analytics.

The world’s fourth-largest mobile phone vendor, Sony Ericsson , whose forte is its strongly branded and relatively expensive Walkman music and Cybershot camera phones, warned on first-quarter profits earlier this month.

That followed a warning by chipmaker Texas Instruments of weaker demand for chips for high-end 3G phones, raising fears that the global economic slowdown was starting to crimp the handset industry.

“The volume in the high end of the market could be somewhat thinner, but this will not be dramatically visible in the overall market volume,” said Jari Honko, analyst with eQ Bank in Helsinki.

In a Reuters poll, conducted with Inquiry Financial Intelligence, 18 analysts’ estimates for first-quarter handset shipments varied from 270 million to 306 million reflecting uncertainties over market growth in Western Europe and China.

Research firm Reuters Insight said it expected first-half sales in China to be flat year-on-year due to soaring food costs, the snow storms that hit the critical Chinese New Year retail period in February, and subdued operator campaigns ahead of an expected sector restructuring by the government.

In Europe, cellphone market growth slowed to 3 percent last year, according to the world’s top handset maker, Nokia , and several analysts said Western European consumers could delay upgrading their phones due to economic worries.

“The macroeconomic situation is starting to have impact, but we saw this already before the credit crunch,” said CCS Insight analyst Geoff Blaber. “Most of those markets are heavily saturated.”

Global market volumes grew 16 percent in 2007, helped by booming emerging markets sales and also the introduction of Apple’s iPhone, which boosted consumers’ appetite for more advanced cellphones in developed markets.

KOREANS, NOKIA TO WIN

Struggling U.S. phone maker Motorola , which has now decided to spin off its handset division, is expected to continue losing market share to aggressive competition from Korean vendors LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics as well as to Nokia.

“We expect Samsung, LG and Nokia to outperform, while Sony Ericsson and Motorola will underperform,” said Neil Mawston, an analyst at Strategy Analytics.

Kim Ik-sang, an analyst at CJ Investment & Securities, said: “I think LG’s strategy to prioritise and focus on hit models is working. Samsung is also benefiting from rivals’ difficulties but not as much as LG.”

Nokia is continuing to benefit from its dominant position on emerging markets and in making cheap models. Motorola, which in 2006 claimed more than 20 percent of the market, saw its share halve last year and is expected to lose further ground as long as uncertainties over the future of its handset business continue.

“The mobile phone industry could see a radical change in the competition landscape due to Motorola’s restructuring,” Samsung Electronics Chief Executive Yun Jong-yong said at a shareholder meeting last week.

LG Electronics told Reuters it has seen balanced growth in North America, Europe and Asia.

“The uptrend should continue with the introduction of new phones and several hit models, but we are closely watching changes in the market conditions,” the company said.

SAN FRANCISCO  - Google Inc said on Monday it is taking the next step to make its Web-based software useful in the real world of spotty Internet access by allowing users to edit word processing documents offline.

The world’s top Internet company said it will begin over the next several weeks to allow users of its Google Docs word processing application to edit documents without an active Web connection, on planes, trains and other disconnected spots.

The offline feature of Google Docs temporarily stores documents changes on a user’s local computer. Once reconnected to the Internet, any changes the user made will automatically be synchronized and stored on Google-hosted computers.

“This is still early days. We’re working to make more Web applications and functions work where connections are unavailable,” Google said in a statement.

These include the ability to edit spreadsheets and viewing or editing presentations, among other applications Google now offers online, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company said.

Offline editing is a free feature using a technology known as Google Gears that the company introduced around 15 months ago to application developers to build offline features into their own programs.

The technology already works within Google’s news feed reader, Google Reader, and applications from independent Web developers such as task-management service “Remember the Milk,” from an Australian-based company of the same name. Grenon

SAN FRANCISCO - Microsoft Corp sees no reason to increase its bid for Yahoo Inc, two months after it made a $44.6 billion offer to buy the Internet company, people familiar with Microsoft’s plans said on Monday.

“Why would Microsoft bid against themselves? The company sees no reason to bid against itself,” one of the people said.

The people requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on behalf of the company.

A Yahoo spokeswoman declined to comment.

Microsoft and Yahoo executives have met once to discuss a potential merger since Microsoft made its $31-a-share for Yahoo on Jan. 31, other sources told Reuters earlier.

Although some technology blogs have speculated that Microsoft is planning to raise its bid, one person familiar with the company’s plans said Microsoft does not feel the need to pay more because no viable strategic alternatives have emerged.

Since Microsoft’s offer, Yahoo has held talks with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and Time Warner Inc’s AOL division, sources told Reuters earlier.

Microsoft also feels comfortable biding its time because a recent roadshow by top Yahoo executives, intended to shore up support among U.S. institutional investors and prove the bid was too low, was “underwhelming,” one of these people said.

Yahoo rejected Microsoft’s offer, currently valued at about $42 billion, in February, saying it “substantially undervalues” the company.

Shares of Yahoo closed Monday’s session down 0.2 percent at $28.93 on the Nasdaq, while Microsoft shares closed up 1.6 percent at $28.38.

Many people now create and share content on the Internet or blend services from various sites in their daily tasks, reflecting the medium’s clear evolution from a place for simply consuming websites.The upcoming version of Microsoft Corp’s Internet Explorer, version 8, embraces those trends by adding an “Activities” feature that makes all that easier for PC users. It’s still in a “beta” test mode meant mostly for Web designers to try out.

Internet Explorer’s main competitor among browsers for PCs, Firefox, also has been testing an update, although the most promising features await implementation by websites.

With Activities, one of several new Internet Explorer features, Web services like Facebook, eBay and Yahoo can write tools that users can install with just two clicks.

For example, Microsoft links a slew of Activities to its e-mail, blogging and news services, among others. Yahoo Inc. has one for maps, and auction site eBay Inc. has one to search its listings. The online hangout Facebook, of which Microsoft owns 1.6 per cent, offers tools for finding friends or sharing content on its site.

Say you are reading a news article you’d like to email to friends. Simply right-click and choose Microsoft’s Hotmail, and the e-mail service opens in a new browser tab with that item already added to the subject line and message body. Or if you’d rather blog about the item, then simply right click and choose Microsoft’s Live Spaces.

Mapping is initially the only service where there is choice of providers: Yahoo or Microsoft. In either case, you also get a thumbnail image of the map if you select an address and right-click. You can expand the map in a new tab with another click.

Other uses for Activities include looking up definitions of selected words or translating phrases to and from other languages.

Anyone can write an Activity, and each developer can choose whether to offer the thumbnail. You don’t need Microsoft’s permission beforehand.

Once Activities are available for the services used most, including Google Inc’s Gmail and search, a lot of time can be saved in not having to manually open new tabs and copy words or paragraphs to launch other services.

Having said, you may encounter a few frustrations.

For one, a new tab pops up every time you want to send an article or map, even if Hotmail or Yahoo Maps is already open, quickly cluttering the browser.

And clicking a “mailto” link in a Web page — the ones you might come across clicking on a name or a “contact us” link - opens a standalone, desktop e-mail program rather than Hotmail, meaning you have to manually copy and paste in the recipient’s e-mail address to use a Web-based e-mail service.

Microsoft says these two issues will be addressed before the final release, a date for which hasn’t been announced. At least one more “beta” test is expected this year.

Firefox also has a “beta” out for developers.

Firefox 3, available since November, offers a number of improvements related to bookmarks. The new version lets you add keywords, or tags, to sort bookmarks by topic, and a new “Places” feature lets you quickly access sites you recently bookmarked or tagged and pages you visit frequently but haven’t bookmarked.

The two most notable features, however, still need enabling by developers of the Web services. One promises offline support, which would let you compose Web mail without an Internet connection and send it once you’re back online. The other allows Web-based “mailto.”

An obscure browser called Flock already supports “mailto” links through Gmail and Yahoo and has a wealth of good features meant to foster sharing and connections with friends on Facebook, Yahoo’s Flickr, Google’s Picasa and other services.

But Flock, which is built on top of the same open-source Mozilla code that Firefox uses, isn’t as widely used as Internet Explorer or Firefox, meaning many Web sites haven’t been tested on it and they may not work well.

The new versions of Firefox and Internet Explorer both have security improvements. Previous versions warned users when they were about to reach a “phishing” scam site. The new versions also protect against sites that attempt to exploit known security flaws to automatically install malicious programs on your computer.

The new Internet Explorer also highlights the domain name in Web addresses to help you spot scams. In the Web address “paypal.com, scamsite.com,” for instance, the “scamsite.com” part is highlighted so that you don’t mistakenly believe you’re on PayPal and can safely enter your password.

The new version also adds “WebSlices,” which quickly alerts users to updates on their eBay auctions, Facebook friends and other frequently viewed services. The concept is similar to the Really Simple Syndication feeds that major Web browsers now permit, except those tend to be text headlines, while WebSlices can incorporate photos and interactive features.

Of course, unless you’re designing a Web site and need to test Firefox 3 or Internet Explorer 8, you shouldn’t upgrade to either yet. But the new Internet Explorer does show a lot of promise.

India has given the green light to the tie-up between telecoms operator Tata Teleservices and UK’s Virgin Mobile, after it was convinced the combination was legal, the Economic Times newspaper said on Saturday.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had sought clarification from Tata Teleservices after a lobby group of telecom operators had demanded the government inquire into the legality of the tie-up.

DoT had decided the tie-up was not operating as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), based on Tata Teleservices’ argument that it had no partnership for use of network or spectrum with Virgin and the tie-up was purely for non-license activities, the report said.

Earlier this month, Virgin Mobile, a unit of British communications group Virgin Media, launched a youth-focused service in India through Tata Teleservices.

This had lobby group, Cellular Operators Association of India, demanding the government check if the tie-up meant Virgin was entering India as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO).

MVNOs, which do not own networks or spectrum but rent it out from other operators, are not permitted in India.

Tata Teleservices and its subsidiary, Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd, operate in 20 of India’s 23 telecom zones.

Richard Branson’s Virgin Group operates flights to London from India and has a minority stake in private FM radio operator, Fever, controlled by HT Media.

Virgin Comics is partnering India’s Studio 18 and broadcaster UTV Software Communications Ltd for publishing, television, film and gaming.

Poor Google. Its stock has been sliding since the beginning of the year.

Now key executives and engineers are trickling out and heading to the Internet’s latest darling, Facebook.

The latest Google defector is Ethan Beard, who plans to leave his post as the Mountain View, Calif., company’s director of social media in mid-April. He will become director of business development at Facebook.

Google veteran Sheryl Sandberg left earlier this month to become chief operating officer at the popular social-networking company. Within the last year, other Googlers have departed for Facebook. Among them: Gideon Yu, former chief financial officer at YouTube, Google’s video-sharing site, who is now chief financial officer at Facebook; and top engineers Benjamin Ling and Justin Rosenstein.After leaving the Internet search giant last year, Rosenstein sent an e-mail to friends and colleagues, describing his new employer, Facebook, as “the Google of yesterday, the Microsoft of long ago. That company where large numbers of stunningly brilliant people congregate and feed off each other’s genius. That company that’s doing with 60 engineers what teams of 600 can’t pull off.”

Ouch. Indeed, it wasn’t so long ago that Google was stealing top talent from Microsoft to fuel its growth spurt. Now Google is big–16,800 people at last count. Internally, a few people have been heard to grumble that the company might just be a bit too big.

Now it’s Facebook, with its lofty valuation of $15 billion, that expects to double its head count by the end of the year to reach a respectable 1,000. Facebook is still at the point where it needs seasoned Internet executives to help it become a viable business.

Both Facebook and Google declined to say how many ex-Googlers now work at the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company, but Google said it tries to keep its employees happy and challenged. Despite its efforts, the company conceded that some turnover is inevitable. “We understand that the nature of our times is that people will do many things over the course of their careers,” Google said in a statement.

Google is still a dream employer, especially for the hundreds of students in business schools throughout the US. But at 16,800 employees worldwide–and growing–it’s hard for every smart and ambitious new hire at Google to become a star. One awkward opening: Google has yet to fill the post of chief financial officer. Current CFO George Reyes has been ready to leave since August 2007.

“You hire that kind of talent, they’re going to move” if they are not satisfied, says Colleen Hulce, a managing director at executive recruiter DHR International. “There’s only so much room at the top, and Facebook is on fire.”

Besides, Hulce points out, turnover is par for the course in the tech world. Workers who don’t move around risk getting labeled as stagnant. “If you stay too long, it’s not necessarily a good thing. You become too Googlized,” she says.

Despite defections to Facebook, Hulce said Google is still attracting top talent. “Google is in a class by itself,” she says. “They’re a steamroller–who knows what else they’re going to come out with?”

Cups of steaming cappuccino, people in jeans and experimental hairdos plonked on cushy beanbags, a couple of young Greeks and Germans chatting - that’s the daily meeting at Trine Animation and Gaming Studio, presided over by founder and Managing Director Sangam Gupta.The 22-year-old almost chokes when he hears the word ‘presided’.

“They’re all my friends. Jesus, I don’t preside over anything. We just have casual meetings in the evening to discuss the day’s progress.”

Gupta began his firm two years ago, but he had known he was headed in this direction ever since he was 13, hacking into Internet games so he wouldn’t have to spend all his pocket money.

A year later, the Delhi boy turned entrepreneur, with a website called planetcricket.net, which modified online games to make them snazzier.

His turning point came when someone from Electronic Arts, one of the world’s largest gaming companies, wrote to him about what a brilliant job he was doing.

“I had absolutely no background in gaming,” said Gupta. “My father owned theatres in UP and could never really figure out what I was up to in front of the computer all day.”

That one e-mail set his career path. After high school, he went to the US to study computer science and started working for a gaming company there.

It was on one of his vacations home that he realised how big gaming was getting in India - and that there was still no one creating full-fledged games in the country.

Trine Animation is now the only Indian company that creates XBox and PlayStation games in-house.
 
On the Streets of Mumbai
Gupta founded Trine Animation in April 2006, with Rs 8 crore invested by an equity firm, and five employees - all friends he made on the job in the US.

They began in a one-room office in Andheri, with packaging boxes for furniture. Today, Gupta has a plush set-up in Malad, spread across an entire floor. And 200 employees who spend the day creating content, writing scripts or illustrating for the online games he creates.

“I’m glad I decided to set up shop in Mumbai,” Gupta said. “It has the best atmosphere for a start-up, all the resources you need, and even the people within the industry are so helpful here.”

His is a typical success story of the nascent but fast-growing Indian game development industry, expected to grow tenfold to $425 million (Rs 1,700 crore) by 2010.

“Gaming has to succeed simply because it is one of the few industries that makes leisure a profession,” said Alok Kejriwal, founder of Games to Win, the gaming branch of online lottery company Contests to Win. “Virtually everyone’s a start-up, and everyone’s succeeding. It’s been a year since we began and we already have 150 employees.”

Gupta’s next venture is a game that is truly Indian in theme and characters. On the drawing board already, it’s called Streets of Mumbai and offers players a thrilling car race through Nariman Point, along Marine Drive and into the international airport.

“India creates mobile and flash games, but complex online games with detailed scripts are still not our forte. I want to break that barrier,” said Gupta. “India is far more talented and the manpower is much cheaper, so why not our resources to create games instead of doing it for other countries?”

If you study the $1 billion gaming markets in China or Korea, Gupta adds, the most popular games are the indigenous ones that have local characters and themes. “That is exactly what I want to achieve.”
 
Head-hunting, around the world
On Gupta’s payroll are Americans, Greeks, West Indians and Romanians - all people he gathered on work trips abroad and all known game creators in their own countries. But this field needs talent, not qualifications, he stresses.

Gupta found one of his best artists at Malad railway station. “He used to sit on the platform and draw brilliant portraits for Rs 10 each,” said Gupta. “I offered him a job and today he is one of my most important illustrators, earning about Rs 40,000 per month.”
 
Never a Sunday
While the thought of making your leisure your livelihood is appealing, it needs a lot of hard work. Gupta admits he has no social life.

His day begins at 10 am and ends at 3. It’s been this way ever since he set up his company. When everyone’s workday ends at 7 pm, it just gets more hectic for Gupta.

At 7 pm here, London starts their workday and it’s time to coordinate with his clients in the UK. At midnight, San Francisco, the biggest gaming hub in the world, wakes up. And the jetsetter, who is constantly flying off to either the US or Germany, usually ends up working weekends too.

“When I was 18 and studying in the US, my friends and I would always talk about turning 21 and finally being able to get into US nightclubs. Today, I’m 22 but I don’t go clubbing,” said Gupta, adding with a smile that it’s “worth the sacrifice” because he loves going to work every day.
 
Totting it up
So how did a 20-year-old raise Rs 8 crore?
“It wasn’t too difficult finding an investor because gaming is one of the hottest industries today and they knew that it wouldn’t backfire,” said Gupta. His age actually went for him - his ideas were fresh and original and he connected with the audience because he was virtually one of them.

When will his two-year-old company break even?
That’s a question that doesn’t worry Gupta too much. “We’re already doing better than we expected and we’ve surpassed our investors’ targets,” he said. The company is growing at an annual rate of 100 per cent and is expected to break even in 2009.
“By end-2010, the company will have a turnover of $30 million (Rs 120 crore),” declared Gupta.

New Delhi: The government has decided to establish four new Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and six Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) campuses, Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh said Friday.The new IITs will come up in Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Punjab, while the IIMs will be set up in Jammu and Kashmir, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Haryana.