Google Scholar

Google has an amazing sense of business. It's engineers and business analysts seem to be more competent than of any other in the industry. Take Google Scholar for example. There is nothing new that Google couldnt already do.

Google had allowed the use of prefixes that allowed filtering of online documents through its google.com entry point. The scholar.google.com service is basically a front-end that simplifies the whole ordeal.

Google Search Techniques

Students these days are well aware of the power of search engines for their assignments, reports, presentations, etc. The load of information accessible via the Internet has made the use of search engines very popular among students, especially those enrolled in undergraduate and graduate programs. Search engines amass a wealth of information on a daily basis and sorting through the results could be a very hectic task for time-strapped students. The most popular search engine indexes more than 8 billion web pages! Surely, sorting through such a huge database is not trivial. However, search engines also include special mechanisms to tweak the search queries, that could restrict the results to only the most relevant, and make sorting through the junk a breeze.

The first thing to know is that the Google engine is programmed to exclude several common words such as "where" and "how." Therefore, if you search for "How do networks work?", your results would most likely be distorted because the common word "how" was ignored. The proper way to query Google is to place these words in quotes. Google also restricts certain other words such as "and" and "of". Suppose your query was "History of Pakistan". In all probability, you would end up with redundant results because the "of" was ignored. Simply precede the excluded words with a + sign to solve the problem.

Google search engine is popular because it is based on indexing technology - unlike Yahoo. The Google spiders continuously move around the cyberspace looking for newer sites. It is, thus, quite possible that you may want to search through a specific site for your required information. If you want to query a specific site for a search term, Google makes that possible too. Suppose you wanted to search for the phrase IT at DAWN. Using Google, type "IT site:www.dawn.com".

Searching through the information databases requires some careful thinking. Most of the search engines like Google tend to return results based on the number of links to a particular site. It is a popular practice by academic web sites to link to other web sites that host similar content. Therefore, if you have an authentic reference site and would like to find others that are similar to the one you found, try "related:www.microsoft.com". Sometimes you may have to work your way backward to find sites with similar content. If you have tried tweaking your queries and are still unable to get the related sources, it is quite possible that Google has not yet indexed the appropriate sites. However, your required site may exist on some other sites' links that the Google spiders have crawled onto. In such a case, you can try to find sites that have links to a particular web page that Google has already indexed by typing "link:www.microsoft.com" . This would yield sites that have links to the microsoft.com - sites that link to a particular site such as microsoft.com are likely to have similar content, more or less.

Apart from web pages, there are other documents such as MS-Word and Adobe Acrobat (PDF) documents that may be of interest to you. Since a pdf or a word file is convenient to read, easier to print and does not clog the telephone line, you may also carry out a search that returns only these file types. Using Google, type "IT filetype:doc OR filetype:pdf". This would search for MS-Word or PDF files that contain the phrase IT. Once you have the required results, you can download the file and read at your leisure.

The WWW started getting popular in 1995 with the introduction of HTML. Today, in 2004, there are more than a billion pages. As such, it is quite likely that your queries may turn up pages that have obsolete information. To rectify this problem, Google searches can be carried out for a specific time period that would ensure that the search results are current. A date restricted search can be carried out by typing "IT datarange:2902322-2902422". The range takes the start and end dates in Julian format. The Julian date is calculated by the number of days since January 1, 4713 BC. You can simply query Google to find a Julian date for any date range that you want to use. Alternatively, you can use http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/JulianDate.html for conversion.

The Google engine returns query results based on the words that are found in either the Title, URL or the body of the web pages. However, a matching result in the Title or the URL is hardly the kind of search that most students are looking for. More often, people require content and the content is found within the body of the web pages. Therefore, to restrict results to those with all of the query words in only the body text, use "allintext:IT in Pakistan". This would yield results that carry the term in the body. This technique has become more than necessary because of the amazing number of sites that carry misleading titles and URL's that are only discovered on accessing the site. This would also prevent you from navigating to sites that spawn worms or download adware.

The Google search engine can also be used as a virtual dictionary. You no longer have to roam the cyberspace for sites to find meanings for a particular word or phrase. Using Google, type "define:retrospective" to find the meaning for the word retrospective. The define operator shows you a list of definitions aggregated from various sources.

The query strategies shown above can be combined with one another to target the most appropriate site of your interest. For example, if you want to search for PDF files in the a sub-section of a web site you would use "outsourcing+opportunities filetype:pdf site:www.microsoft.com". This would show all the pdf files at microsoft.com that deal with outsourcing. You can also redefine your search terms with a tilde operator "~" to also search for synonyms. In the end, it is important to emphasize that a search engine is only as good as the query it is fed. Cyberspace is loaded with informative sites - all it takes is a little tweaking of the query to find the one that is most relevant.

End Note: Please make sure that all operators that end with a colon ":" have no space between the colon and the search term. Example: site:www.microsoft.

IT Education : Time for a Radical Change

IT is an acronym for what many people consider to be the path to more money, a better career or land at the highest echelons of the social circle. Judging by the existence of various round-the- corner IT institutes in various localities of Karachi, demand for an IT education seems to know of no limits. The abundance of institutes and universities offering courses in the various disciplines of IT is often used to assess Pakistan's relative strength in this area. However, we fail to realize it is the quality of education and not its quantity that would actually determine Pakistan's place in the field of IT.

Information Technology (IT) refers to the various means to facilitate the collection, transmittal and storage of information. The most common means for information processing is the use of computers. However, it would be a huge mistake to equate IT with computer sciences. In fact, this mistake has often been made by some of our IT gurus. The American Heritage Dictionary defines technology as, "the application of science." Hence, an accountant managing the ledger books is just as involved with IT as a network engineer. However, since a computer makes the processing of information rather easier, IT has become linked to computers. This article discusses the state of IT education in Pakistan and how we can improve our chances to out-compete IT monsters like India and China.

Unfortunately, the state of IT education in Pakistan is pathetic. The principle problem is the obsolete material that is taught by most of the universities in Pakistan. Instead of a curriculum that would prepare the students for the future, most of the courses fail to adequately address the needs of even the present. A student pursuing a computer science program is offered a preliminary course in the C language. However, the days of C language are numbered and its scope is quickly fading out. With the extreme penetration of Internet and use of mobile devices, the curriculum should instead focus on technologies that would enable production on such medium. Preferably, the curriculum should include Java language as an introductory course followed by courses in the .NET Framework.

However, this is not to say that the entire syllabus is out of sync. Although, universities do offer courses that are in line with the industry's demands, such courses are not industry or business oriented. Most of these advanced courses fail to impart the analytical skills.

Just like the construction of a building is based on a blueprint design, the construction of an information system and all its components (including the software) also requires careful planning and designing. The lack of adequate analysis and design skills has left us far behind our neighboring IT giant, India. Most of the IT projects outsourced to India are those that require analytical skills. Unfortunately, the curriculum in Pakistan emphasizes more on the programming side of things, rather than the design. It is not the shortage of programmers but of people with analytical and design skills that has slowed our growth. To fill this gap, universities must include courses that can help the students build their analytical and conceptual skills. Business administration courses can help, especially courses related to finance and economics. This integration of business education with computer science and engineering should be a priority for the government and schools offering professional degrees.
The teaching methodology also deserves some remarks. Teaching a course in the classroom and flipping through the PowerPoint slides is a tactic that needs to be eliminated for good. Instead, teachers should adopt creative ways to impart knowledge. Teachers need to find ways to make the students learn by using the means that they love; for example Internet chatting. Internet chatting is quite an addiction worldwide. The technology also supports voice chatting and video conferencing. Using Voice and Internet chat, students can easily be taught communication skills, customer service skills, skills required to run a call center, etc. All chatting is not bad and using MSN as a teacher's aid would increase the students' interest, and consequently the level of motivation, in the course.

With the advent of video conferencing, holding classes over the Net has become a reality. Why not arrange for that extra session on a Sunday over the Internet, rather than asking the students to commute to the university. Since attendance is usually short during these extra weekend sessions, distance learning might be just the cure. Besides, making the students aware of video conferencing and chat etiquette is just as important as teaching them conventional manners, because professional careers would require the IT graduates to make the most of these technologies.

This training to use the latest technologies is also needed to tap into the outsourcing opportunities provided to South Asia by the corporations of the West. According to a research conducted by Gartner Group and IDC, about 80% of the IT based projects would have been outsourced by the year-end. Unfortunately, Pakistan is not part of the statistics and is seldom the location of preference for any major project. Although outsourcing has solutions to some of the most sought after macroeconomic problems such as employment and poverty, the IT curriculum in Pakistan remains oblivious of such global trends.

Another major problem lies in the editions of the textbooks that are used. Most of the universities prefer to use outdated editions even though revised editions are easily available in the market. Most of us are aware of the exponential pace of technological changes, yet the students still using editions published in the late 1990's. Although this situation holds true for many of the other disciplines, it has greater consequences for students enrolled in a technology-based curriculum. In fact, the very use of obsolete material fades the purpose of IT - IT required Information to be relevant and timely.

Apart from the traditional classroom instruction, IT education is also promoted through electronic media. The media, which is most often credited with having the potential to mass educate and bring about societal changes, has failed to bring about any substantial changes or IT awareness amongst the masses. We cannot reasonably expect the entire Pakistani population to benefit from any educational program as long as the channels continue to use English as the medium of broadcast.

The education system is quite unique from the IT perspective. Information Technology education is actually a subsystem of a system that also includes (besides schools) ISP's, Internet, VPN's, and utilities such as the telecommunications (PTCL) and electrical (KESC and WAPDA) agencies. We are all well aware of the problems experienced while browsing the Internet. We have all faced poor bandwidth, connection problems and disconnection. It is high time that the government takes measurable efforts to revamp the infrastructure that is so crucial in developing an information based society. Without an extreme overhaul of the facilities, the IT graduates cannot produce substantial gains. The system must be changed. There is no way out.

First it was the Industrial Revolution now it is the Information Technology Revolution. The way that information has penetrated into all parts of our life and, inevitably, would continue to do so is remarkable. A revolution brings about changes in a nation's socioeconomic structure, which the IT seems to be doing. However, instead of embracing it as a revolutionary force and implementing it in all walks of life, IT has become akin to a fad for most of us. Fads come and go while revolutions almost always bring about some positive change. Introducing a radial change in our educational system is the only way to bring about this positive change.

SWOT Analysis for Firefox

Strengths:
a) free of cost

b) integrated download manager

c) integrated popup blocker

d) integrated spyware detection

e) integrated adware detection

f) makes for a small download - 4.9 MB

Weaknesses:
a) in competition with Microsoft - which as we all know is loaded.

b) doesnt come integrated with Windows

Opportunities:
a) more feasible for markets where intellectual property rights are acknowledged, respected and protected.

Threats:
a) IE

b) Netscape Navigator

c) Opera

d) from a developer's perspective, IE comes bundled with OS, IE components are used to develop applications using Visual Programming languages and IE has its own XML parser. Firefox lacks a parser.

As long as Microsoft Windows continues to be a defacto standard for home PC's, firefox would have a hard time competing with IE. It's one thing to download a 4.9 MB application and entirely another to actually make a complete switch over. With the versatility that comes with IE, I doubt anyone would ever ditch IE completely.

If you guys disagree with something or would like to add some to the SWOT, please do tell me. Thanks