Best Campus Journalist Sooraj Keshav of CeTly Live – College of Engineering Thalassery for his Report on Onam Celebrations.

The winners of scholarships are

1. Saran from INFOCEK – College of Engineering,Karunagappally – http://www.infocek.com/2010/08/%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%A8%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%AE-2010/
2. Seena Mariam from CEKERZ – College of Engineering Kallooppara – http://www.cekerz.com/alumni-meet10
3. Admin from Amal Jyothi Beats – http://www.amaljyothibeats.com/gods-showered-flowers-from-the-heaven%E2%80%A6as-amalites-celebrated-the-festival-of-glory/

Jury’s special mention for Mr. P.K. Binu’s ( Assistant Professor, Dept. of Computer Science, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri Campus) post on Amrita ACM ICPC – 2010.

Congrats everyone…

We will keep you posted with the other competitions coming up in Campus Blogging Competitions…

Other winners will receive scholarships for studying “Applied Economics” course at the Hedge School of Applied Economics.

The following content will be considered for the competition

• News From campus
• Event reports (with photos/videos)
• Interviews of campus celebrities/faculties
• New relevant to the campus (From the locality)
• Articles about the campus

ESPNsoccernet is one in a large stable of sports widgets powered by Plusmo, now a part of AT&T interactive. The widget is a powerful tool that pulls in team and region news coverage, live game visualization, match commentary, team tracking, detailed fixtures, tables, and more. You get not only ESPN’s latest tournament coverage and stories, but also Premiere league and other soccer stories depending upon your choice of team settings.

I tried the app on my Nokia E63. The first step was setting the language, where I had my choice of English, Spanish, French, Italian, and German.

Then, I picked a region of interest from choices that included the five language countries, plus Scotland, the USA, Europe in general, and a global option. I chose England for demo purposes. If I had switched to Europe, I would have also had access to UEFA and Super Cup stories.

With England as a selection, I had a choice of Premiere League and FA Cup stories. I chose the FA Cup, and it then displayed the most recently played match.

Selection of a region determines which sets of stories will be chosen by the ESPN soccernet RSS news feed mechanism.

The icon list on the right-hand side includes my favorite teams (the star icon), schedules of selected teams (the calendar icon), articles about the teams (the newspage icon), and a change settings icon (the three dots). I clicked on the news page icon to see the list of stories, shown below.

Click on the newspage icon to have the RSS feed pull up the current stories about your team(s).

Clicking on any headline brings up the details of that story for perusing. S60 5th edition devices allow touch scrolling, while S60 3rd Edition devices use the rocker key for scrolling.

The full article can be viewed by scrolling, and related articles can be selected and accessed.

At any time, I could also switch my settings to another region or team just by clicking on the three-dot icon. I found that it was better to specify my teams very narrowly in order to sip from the fountain rather than the powerful firehose of all ESPNsoccernet coverage.

Change teams using the three-dot settings icon.

The ESPNsoccernet widget can be downloaded for free from Ovi Store. Take it with you as you enjoy coverage of the tournament this month.

Courtesy : Ovi Daily App Blog

BarCamp Kerala 8 is at MACFAST, Thiruvala on March 28^th, 2010 BarCamp Kerala or BCK is the biggest and coolest techy event in Kerala.

For those of you who don’t know what a BarCamp is…

BarCamp is an international network of user generated conferences – open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants – often focusing on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies, social protocols, and open data formats.

Venue

BCK 8 will be held at MACFAST, Thiruvala. More details are available at the venue page

Registeration

You can register for the event in the BarCamp Kerala Site. So far we have 55 attendees.

Sessions

So far we have 5 sessions. If you want to handle a sessions , you can add yourself in the sessions page.

BarCamp Kerala So Far…

If you are still undecided about coming to the BarCamp, checkout these reports about the previous ones…

So all Rock freaks get ready to catch the show live on Friday, the 19th of February 2010 at 6.30pm at the Nishagandhi open air theatre, Trivandrum. This rockshow is being organized by the German language and cultural centre Goethe-zentrum with the friendly support from Allianz Technopark, Srilankan Airways and Rosebowl

There is no Entry Fee for this rock show

• Account Supervisor
• Senior Client Servicing Executives (For Trivandrum Office)
• Client Servicing Executives (Trainees) (For Trivandrum Office)

Salary levels vary from Rs.10,000/- (for freshers) to Rs.30, 000/- per month based on numbers of years of experience. Also do note that Salary level wouldn’t be a constraint in case of very senior candidate.

Detailed Job Description :

Account Supervisor

• Four plus years of experience
• Should independently handle a basket of accounts
• Will be responsible for client interfacing, management and retention
• Should ensure quality service to the client in a day to day basis within the deadlines
• Should accurately provide client briefs, inputs and feedbacks to the internal team
• Should be able to generate more business from existing clients
• Excellent presentation skills
• Should be able to lead a team of 3 or 4 persons

Senior Client Servicing Executives

• Three plus years experience in advertising with good communication skills
• Should be capable of independently understanding the clients requirements including
  • Management of projects from signature to execution
  • Managing high profile client relationships
• Good interpersonal skills & a team player

· MBA’s preferred / graduates with more than 3 years experience

Client Servicing Executives (Trainees)

The remote location of the BarCamp did not deter the 100 odd attendees who came in through interesting ways like carpooling from Trivandrum, Cochin and Calicut and hitchhiking from nearby places. “I cannot believe that this is a event which is organized online totally and even the organizers meet only on the day of the event.” said the first time barcamper Jobi John who is a student in USA currently on his vacation in Kerala.

The sessions of the morning were:

1. BARCAMP KERALA : Kevin Babu – An introduction to BarCamps and its history in Kerala.
2. 2. 3D GRAPHICS PROGRAMMING : Praseed Pai – Introduction to graphics programming and the mathematic equations involved.

3. Building Complex Website the Drupal Way : Fredrik Jonsson – An enlightening session by this Swedish programmer who explained the usage of Drupal for building websites easily and customizing them.
4. Media and Freedom-Kenney Jacob – A debate and argument filled session on how the Old Media is threatened by the New Media and how dangerous is the media corporates with a hidden agenda.

This was followed by a lunch break and a Christmas cake sponsored by the digital marketing firm ayruz web holdings was distributed. This added a special touch to the event in this festive seasion.

Noon sessions

5. Recycling Old Computers using LTSP- By VU2SWX – A thought provoking session which helped attendees to find out new ways of using their old powerless computers as nodes and utilizing it effectively.

6. Innovation-”The UST Global Way”-Harikrishnan Nair -  A session on the importance of events like barcamps and how UST Global encourages innovation in their work culture.

7. Multi Monitor Machines by Binny V A – The advantages of using more than one monitor with your desktop and its disadvantages was shown by Binny VA who uses 3 monitors at his home in Linux.

8. Device management in modern Linux system by Unnikrishnan

The day was winded up with a wonderful discussion led by Mr. Kenney Jacob on the existing conditions for a new startup to bloom in Kerala. This discussion saw entrepreneurs share their troubles, their reason for “starting-up” and about funding and investment.

The Principal  of the MACFAST college  Fr. Abraham Mulamoottil gave a mindblowing talk on startups and his personal appreciation to all entrepreneurs and his open invitation to mentor new business ideas.

In all, the event was an experience all student startups appreciated, an experience for them to learn from those who have been successful and those who have failed.

The next Barcamp got scheduled at MACFAST.The session winded up at 6.15 pm.

Akros is a technology solutions company, focused on developing and marketing cutting- edge solutions for the global mobile technologies industry and has cleared for admission in Technopark TBI. CNBSignin is a patent-pending, software based Two Factor Authentication solution, as opposed to the hardware based solutions that are available in the market today. It uses a non-time based synchronization algorithm and is built using the latest Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). A software based Two Factor Authentication solution does not require dongles or hard tokens and the customers of Banks, Capital Market Companies, and other institutions can secure their online accounts just by using their mobiles.

The Companies now get the benefit of easy administration of this service by doing away with the hassles of maintaining and shipping hardware based dongies and hard tokens to their customer base. Another added advantage of this solution is that it easily integrates with the Company’s base application and eliminates the need to host separate authentication servers and the costs associated with such infrastructure.

Sanjay Padode, CEO, Religare Technova Ltd. stated, “E-Frauds are impeding the growth of e commerce, a second level authentication mechanism deployed by e-commerce providers can significantly reduce the Incidents of e-frauds thus providing the end users to transact securely in cyberspace. Religare Technova is pleased to announce its partnership with Akros and to introduce a superior and hassle free software based Two Factor Authentication solution that I am sure will enhance the security of cyberspace transactions”.

Sid Prasanna, Managing Director of Akros TechLabs commented, “We are pleased to work with Religare Technova as our exclusive partner for CNBSignin. I am confident that we will be able to capitalize on the reach and size of Religare Technova. Also, our product being a software based solution is positioned uniquely as opposed to the other hard token based solutions that are currently available. We believe our solution brings significant value to companies along with high level of cost savings.”

The MACFAST-McDaniel partnership offers opportunity to qualified science and mathematics graduates aspiring for teaching profession in the United States to pursue their higher studies there and get suitable placements there at the various U.S. public schools.

The very mission of our partnership programme is establishing a new `knowledge highway’ linking the Central Travancore town of Thiruvalla with Maryland in the U.S., thereby throwing the doors open into the world of opportunities abroad for the State’s unemployed educated youths, says Fr Mulamoottil.

It is officially known that the U.S. has severe shortage of qualified school teachers in mathematics and science subjects. Last year, therewere 350 unfilled teaching positions at various public schools in the State of Maryland alone and the partnership programme is aimed at effectively tapping this employment opportunity in favour of the scores of well qualified youths in India, he said.

Fr Mulamoottil said a total of 25 candidates in the age group of 20-40 years with ability to communicate and positively interact with young children would be selected for the first batch. The selected students will have to undergo a three-month resident preparatory course at MACFAST Santhinilayam campus. Dr Lynn McClintock, a post-graduate teacher from McDaniel College, is now in Thiruvalla to teach them the language skills, American accent and way of life. Four candidates have joined the training programme that has already started at MACFAST Santhinilayam campus in Thiruvalla. Talking to The Hindu, Dr. Lynn said the selected students will have to undergo a one-year post-graduate degree course in education at McDaniel College which will enable the successful candidates to obtain the Master of Science (MS) degree as well as the U.S. teaching license from Maryland State Department of education under an accelerated and intensive course, including structured class room teaching in regular secondary schools.

With this, they can work at any public school in the U.S., she adds. "It is true that the U.S. is facing shortage of school teachers in mathematics and science subjects. President Barak Obama has set apart $ 5 billion to improve the quality of science and mathematics teaching at school-level, besides making financial resources available to the school system on a competitive basis,” Dr Lynn said. Dr. Lynn said Indians have proved themselves excellent teachers in the U.S. as well as various other parts of the globe. America would only be happy to accept more Indians as teachers and the MACFAST-McDaniel venture has opened a new chapter in the Indo-US educational partnership, she added.

The McDaniel College offers 12-month accelerated graduate programme for selected students from India, based on its BEST (Better Educators for Students of Tomorrow) programme, emphasising on areas such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology. Successful participants will receive the MS degree along with MSDE (Maryland State Department Education Certification in their respective areas of concentration, which in turn make the license holders eligible to teach in Higher Secondary Schools in Maryland (Grade 7–12) and 30 other States in the U.S.

Employment

McDaniel and MACFAST will act only as facilitators for employment and not participate in the actual job offers. MACFAST selects well-qualified graduates in mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology, preferably those with Masters or those who have obtained high marks at degree-level. Candidates with teaching experience will be given due consideration.

Those with B.Tech. or post-graduation in science subjects and mathematics will also beconsidered, says Fr Mulamoottil. The estimated total cost of the programme is approximately Rs.15 lakh, including the tuition fee, food and accommodation, says Pradeep Vazhatharamalayil, college manager. The college will also arrange education loans from banks, if needed, Fr Pradeep said. Candidates may apply with supporting documents showing their educational qualification and job experience, if any, to Coordinator, MACFAST-McDaniel Partnership Programme, MACFAST Campus, Thiruvalla, Kerala- 689 101 .