The Internet in Real-Time

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16 Top Social Networking Websites

Here is a list of top 16 social networking websites that you may to want to explore...

Quora - www.quora.com
Quora is a question-and-answer website where questions are created, answered, edited and organized by its community of users.


Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/
Connect with friends and the world around you on Facebook. See photos, share updates.


Twitter - https://twitter.com/
Enables users to send and read short 140-character messages called "tweets". Registered users can read and post tweets, but unregistered users can only read them.


LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/
Business-oriented social networking service. Founded in December 2002 and launched on May 5, 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking.


Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com
A content sharing service that allows members to "pin" images, videos and other objects to their pinboard.


Google+ https://plus.google.com/
Google+ is a place to connect with friends and family, and explore all of your interests. Share photos, send messages, and stay in touch with the people


Tumblr - https://www.tumblr.com/
Tumblr is 235 million different blogs, filled with literally whatever.


Instagram - https://instagram.com/
Take a picture or video, choose a filter to transform its look and feel, then post to Instagram/ any other social networking site


Flickr - https://www.flickr.com/
Image and Video hosting website


VK - vk.com
VK is the largest European social network with more than a 100 million active users.


Vine - https://vine.co/
Vine makes video fun. You can watch, create and share short looping videos -- anytime, anywhere.


Meetup - http://www.meetup.com/
neighbors getting together to learn something, do something, share something…


Tagged - http://www.tagged.com/
Tagged makes it easy to meet and socialize with new people through games, shared interests, friend suggestions, browsing profiles, and much more.


Ask.fm - http://ask.fm/
Ask.fm is a global social networking site where users create profiles and can send each other questions, with the option of doing so anonymously.


MeetMe - http://www.meetme.com/
MeetMe helps you find new people nearby who share your interests and want to chat now! It's fun, friendly, and free!


ClassMates - http://www.classmates.com/
Find High School Alumni, Yearbooks and Reunions

Technical Interview Preparation

These days a lot of folks are curious about interview/ hiring process of top technology companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon etc. Sometimes understanding the hiring process in advance helps a lot but there are couple of very simple fundamentals that all aspirants should understand: (A) Getting selected in an interview shows that you are capable of passing but at the same time it doesn't determine and show you your self worth. (B) For every skill there are really very few folks who are at the top, rest everyone else has someone for other who is more capable than them. This is a fact that the interviewing companies are also aware of and they know what to expect from most of the candidates. So all you need to do is believe in yourself and don't ever think that you are inferior to someone because negative thinking will lead to self destruction. 

How to prepare for a technical interview?

When you prepare for a technical job interview, what matters most is your real life experience and confidence. How much experience do you have and how confident are you to answer the queries with clarity of thought is what differentiates you from the others.

- Be Organized

Plan and prepare in an organized way. Do a lot of white boarding and problem solving. Your focus should be on demonstrating that you can (A) Understand a problem (b) Divide the problem into logical units (c) Attach or arrive at the solution in a logical way.

- First, Understand the Concepts and Fundamentals

Make sure you understand the basics and fundamentals of Computer Applications, S/W Engineering Processes and Programming. Expect few theoretical questions which will test your very basic knowledge of What is a data structure? How is are various data structures, like linked lists used? What are the various types of Network protocols? What is multi-threading? Concepts like Polymorphism, functional overloading etc.

- Second, Be Prepared To Write Algorithms

Most technical interviews test your ability to code or write programs/ algorithms. Make sure that you have clarity of thought and understand the logic. Syntax errors don't matter much.
Very basic programs such as Swapping numbers, Fibonacci series, Sorting. Operations with Data Structures etc should be known.

- Third, Be Prepared with Front-end Concepts and Programming

Based on your skills, you may be asked advanced questions on Microsoft or Java or any other front end technology. Make sure you have done a lot of study using experience of other folks which is available online.

- Fourth, Be Prepared With Back-end Concepts and Programming

Concepts of Database should be crystal clear. Even if you are a front-end developer you should know the basics of Database. You should be able to write Sql statements and simple PL/ Sql blocks.
If you are appearing for a Back-end Programmer job then expect drill down questions on triggers, procedures, functions, packages, performance tuning.

Oracle 11i to Oracle R12 Upgrade

If you are planning to Upgrade your Oracle 11i system to Oracle R12, here are few key considerations that should be uncovered in the assessment phase:

1 - Hardware : What is the current hardware configuration? Will the current hardware support Oracle R12? If not, what is the hardware requirement for Oracle R12?

2 - Infrastructure : Other than the hardware you need to make sure you have the right Operating System, Memory and other servers configurations to host the Oracle R12 system.

3 - Database : Before you move to the Oracle Apps upgrade from 11i to R12, you need to make sure you understand whether your Database requires upgrade. For example, moving from Oracle 10g to Oracle 11gm, moving from Non RAC to RAC model and moving from Non OATM to OATM etc

4 - Oracle Apps : When you upgrade from Oracle 11i to Oracle R12 make sure you ascertain the exact R12 version on which you want to move, for example, Oracle R12.1.3 or Oracle R12.2.

5 - Business Process : Understand what are the demands of your business process, whether you want to move your existing customization from Oracle 11i to Oracle R12 as is or whether you want to analyze whether any R12 new features will eliminate your existing customizations.

6 - Demo for Business Community : Movement from Oracle 11i to Oracle R12 will be big change for your business community so you need to make sure that they understand the changes in the User Interface as well as the changes in the functionality. A demonstration of Oracle R12 new features will come in handy to get business approval for the upgrade.

SOX IT Compliance - Do we have enough IT Automation?

Do we have enough IT automation to avoid corporate frauds?
Following are certain IT SOX compliance areas which deserve to be prioritized for IT automation within each organization.

What is SOX?

Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) Compliance monitors controls for key enterprise-wide processes that have a direct impact on an enterprise's financial reporting. SOX Compliance documents, standardizes, tests and reports on these key controls in IT and the business to meet annual legislative requirements.The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (often shortened to SOX) is legislation enacted in response to the high-profile Enron and WorldCom financial scandals to protect shareholders and the general public from accounting errors and fraudulent practices in the enterprise. These scandals, which cost investors billions of dollars when the share prices of the affected companies collapsed, shook public confidence in the nation's securities markets.

The rules and enforcement policies outlined by the SOX Act amend or supplement existing legislation dealing with security regulations. The basic outline is as follows:

     1. Establishment of a Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, where public companies must now be registered.

     2. Strict auditor regulation and control by means of auditing committees and inspecting accounting firms.

     3. Heightened corporate responsibility for any fraudulent actions taken.

     4. Stricter disclosure within company financial statements, and ethical guidelines to which senior financial officers must adhere.

     5. Authorities available to the Commission and the Federal Court, as well as required broker and dealer qualifications.

What are Key Financial Controls?

§  Financial Controls are those controls that primarily:

Act as “checks and balances” to ensure that the information on a company’s financial statements is correct.

Relate to the preparation of reliable external financial statements as published in SEC filings (10Q’s, 10K’s, annual reports) or earnings releases.

§  Key Financial Controls (KFCs) are the Financial Controls deemed most essential to a process.

§  SOX compliance only requires documentation and testing of KFCs.

The controls are generally 'programmed' into application systems with the objective of ensuring integrity of transactional and master data related to financial reporting that is initiated, recorded, stored and reported on in the application system or between multiple systems by executing automated functions related to completeness, accuracy and validity of the data.

Application controls are classified into two types:

§  Combo controls: control activity includes both a manual portion and IT system dependent portion

§  Automated Controls: control activity is 100% IT system dependent (i.e. has no human involvement)

     General examples of application controls are:

§  Embedded controls: controls programmed into a system e.g. calculations, edit checks, automatic holds etc

§  Reports: system generated reports e.g. application custom reports or standard reports and business object reports

§  Interfaces: data transfer between systems

§  Workflow: system generated workflow specific to a business process e.g. transaction approval routing.

What is User Access Controls (UAC)?

User access controls protect organizations information resources and the integrity of financial data entered, authorized, stored, processed and reported on, in applications used for financial transactions and reporting.

What is Segregation of Duties?

Segregation of Duties (SOD) is a key internal control that, at the most basic level, attempts to ensure that a user’s access to two or more phases of a transaction or operation does not create risk.

Within any flow of transactions, the same person should not be responsible for conflicting tasks, because this creates RISK. By dividing responsibilities, no one person has the ability to perpetrate fraud or cause errors in the financial statements.

What is Restricted Access (RA)?

Many processes and controls are fully or partially automated. It is impossible to think about the division of responsibility without examining the power that is given through user access to applications. “Who has access to what” is a critical part of examining opportunities to commit fraud or cause errors in the financial statements.Through the proper restriction of access to applications by roles and job functions, an organization can help minimize these risks.