How to be a Specialist in Technology

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The Indian Information Technology (IT) industry always respects the professional certificates – even though the candidate is having experience and knowledge in his respective technical domain.  There are many professionals I see around me, are having brilliant knowledge in technical domains, especially in Microsoft technologies. There are designers, programmers, administrators and many – while discussing with them, I found that, they have very good knowledge to become a professional and improve their career values, but not having an idea about it.

So, what should be the next step – from a career strategist point of view? Well, go for a certification in your technical sphere of influence – right, but what to choose! I suggest starting with Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist Certificate.

If the candidate is having one or more years of experience, and knowledge in implementing, troubleshooting, and debugging a specific technology – the small medium size enterprise owners should push the candidates to go for a certification – because, it not only improves the career value of candidate, but also the business value of SME.

Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist certifications are for Windows Operating System, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Project and Project Server, Microsoft Windows Mobile, Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and even for Microsoft Biztalk and Microsoft Dynamics.

“Earning a Microsoft Certification validates your proven experience and knowledge in using Microsoft products and solutions. Designed to be relevant in today's rapidly changing IT marketplace, Microsoft Certifications help you utilize evolving technologies, fine-tune your troubleshooting skills, and improve your job satisfaction” – says Microsoft.

So, what makes you waiting? Start your career in right path with an industry standard certification to prove your knowledge values to the world around you.

All the best dear friends

Professional Certificates and Career – How to Plan

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Professional Certificates are keys for your Career growth in any industry. A certificate confirms your professional knowledge to your organization, clients and opportunities. In a recent discussion with group of students and professionals from various businesses, for a social media purpose – we discussed about this topic elaborately. I experienced that, many of them were not having information and plan regarding which professional certificates are suitable for their career growth. Here, I am sharing a quick plan for my readers.

The Plan: It works well with a blank white paper and pen.

• Make a Quick note about you and your current career. Add points about what is your career plan for next 3 years.


• Choose the right professional certification suitable for your career plan.


• Discuss with your mentor, and with the organization which provides the certificate to understand about the possibilities of growth with this certification. [Try to get information about alternatives too]


• Schedule for preparation and follow it. Preparation is not just paid class-room sessions. Learn from Internet, Books, Magazines, Social Media and Friends. Read Case Studies, Articles, Q&A if required. Work-out Templates with real-time data if possible. Ask questions.


• Go for the Professional Certification and earn it.


• Update your Profile, and promote yourself in Social Media and Friends Circle.


• Don’t stop learning – Continues learning helps you keep fit for future. Share your knowledge as articles, Tweets, Social Media Posts with friends and community.


• Build best practices inside your organization with earned knowledge.

All the best..!!

Coming Soon: Information about Professional certificates for various IT Careers in my future posts

Top 12 Knowledge Requirements for 2012

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2011 gave a very powerful positive impact on specialized business life for Social Media and Smart Phone Professionals - many new Gadgets, Applications, Job Profiles, Start-ups and Success Stories.

2012 – Definitely, is coming with lot more new opportunities for IT communities.

Well, what is essential for your success in 2012 – Let’s take a quick look on top knowledge requirements.

• Mobile Application Programming – It is not just Android, Windows Phone and IOS Programming. Look into HTML5, CSS3, Advance Java-script, JSON, JQuery and PHP. Mobile WEB Frameworks are going to be an excellent option for “Develop Once-Deploy to All” Concept.


• Customized Agile Project Management – Agile is still not professionally implemented in many organizations. Most of the Small and Medium size companies are using it as simplified version of traditional project management – but in the name of Agile. Certified Scrum Master and Agile Scrum Trainings for your Project Team are essential for a success with quality.


• Location Based Services – There are very few applications with Location based Content Identification as a feature and most of them are just social and Infotainment. There are lot more requirements which can be fulfilled with LBS – for Example: Tourism, Education etc.


• Data Center / Networking Technologies- The demand for networking professionals is high with virtualization and cloud computing projects. Virtualization and the Cloud could also be behind the increased need for IT professionals with backgrounds in data center operations and systems integration.


• Smartphone Security – Smartphones are becoming part of corporate network elements now days and security for official and personal data becomes major question. Data Security Applications, Anti-virus Tools, Remote Content Management, Policies for using Smartphones are high in requirement.


• User Interface Design – UI Design and Development is an important presentation layer element, which decides the success of many Smartphone and Tablets apps, and also PC and WEB Apps. There are certification course available to educate you about best practices and standards and it is a hot item in job market too.


• Mobile Commerce / Payment – Smartphones and Feature phones are fully capable for Money Management now days with Applications from various vendors. There were few banking apps, mobile malls and payment apps showed success stories last year, and I am expecting more to come in 2012.


•  Context Aware Applications – A new technology provides improved user experiences by using the information about a person's interests, intentions, history, environment, activities, schedule, priorities, connections and preferences to anticipate their needs and proactively serve up the most appropriate content, product or service.


• Gaming Smartphones, Devices – estimated to $800 million business, it provides numerous opportunities for business owners and technical professionals.


• Help Desk/Technical Support–Mobile operating systems have added a new dimension to help desk and tech support community and this will improve a lot in future.


• Business Intelligence – from Cost saving to investing in Technology, I am expecting many new prospects with BI.  There are certifications, Business Analysis best practices to improve it.


• Life with Open Source – Open source is not just limited to PHP and MYSQL, but there are more useful, free to use, efficient platforms for developers, designers, project managers, analysts, testers, business owners and general IT end-users.

I wish you all the best in this New Year 2012 for many new success stories, career improvements and business values.

Personal Goal Planner 2012

Dear Friends,

This Simple Goal Planner 2012 will help you to Plan your Goals, and Track it with milestones periodically.  Give me your comments.

I wish you everything success in this New Year 2012.

All the best.

Download your copy here

m.yoursite.com or www.yoursite.mobi

m.yoursite.com or www.yoursite.mobi - which would be your preference for your mobile website? I see many US based companies are using m.yoursite.com but Europe adopted .Mobi as a standard.! What would be your preference in personal or corporate mobile web domain..!

Question: Why Indian Android Mobile devices are not popular compare to Samsung and HTC Android Devices?

There are Lava, Videocon, Karbonn and Micromax Android devices, less popular even in Indian cities. Everyone prefers Samsung and HTC. Why? Do we need more advertisements and promotion activities?

Best Indian Android Mobile Devices – a Study

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Android – the Mobile Operating System is surprisingly becoming more popular in India – not just because of its variety of applications availability, but also for the Hardware devices from Samsung, HTC and others. Many users prefer to use Samsung, LG and HTC – the stylish look and feel makes them decide.  On the downside of it – these devices are costly and not suitable for rough industry level implementations. What you need is a cost effective device, which is fine for rough usage and of course for custom developed application implementations.

Android OS based Indian devices are best choice for this standard.  I met a client last month for a business discussion on enterprise level mobile applications for manufacturing industries. The client was already having a software package for manufacturing industry MIS. The idea is to extend it to mobile devices so that the usage of Computers can be minimized and instead their clients can go for more Smartphones. The advantage of mobility, instant status reports and communication can be achieved. We worked on an analysis report based on the available suitable Indian android devices for this business idea – so that we can offer these devices with pre-installed configured apps for quick startup.

I am just sharing few points from our analysis – to show how Indian android devices are valuable, and why you can consider them for your next purchase.

• We reviewed 4 affordable mobile brands for our analysis – iball, Micromax, Karbonn, and Videocon


• Micromax is based in Gurgaon, Haryana, India. The mobile devices are in good quality. We reviewed 3 devices from this brand – A60, A70 and A85.


• A60 is with Android OS, v2.1 (Eclair), and the Processor is 600 MHz. J2ME apps are not performing well, but Android 2.1 Business apps are fine. Network [GPRS, EDGE, 3G, Bluetooth, WI-Fi, USB] connectivity is good. Display is fine for Business apps [240 x 320 pixels, 2.8 inches]


• A70 is an improved version with 320 x 480 pixels, 3.2 inches (~180 ppi pixel density) and Android OS, v2.2 (Froyo). The processor is again 600 MHz ARM. There is GPU [Graphics Processing Unit] with Adreno 200. This is a preferred device for business users and professional purposes.


• A85 was announced 2011, Q3 – with 480 x 800 pixels, 3.8 inches (~246 ppi pixel density) and Android OS, v2.2 (Froyo). It comes with Nvidia Tegra 2 AP20H Chipset and Dual-core 1 GHz Cortex-A9 Processor with ULP GeForce GPU. 8 GB internal storage is also available. This device is little costly compare to other devices in same range.


• Micromax A60 is around INR.4000, Micromax A70 is around INR.8000 and Micromax A85 is around INR.17000


• IBall - is a privately-held computer hardware company headquartered in Mumbai, India that develops and manufactures peripherals related to computer.


• We received and reviewed IBall ANDI – an Android 2.2 based Device with DUAL SIM capacity. It comes with a 416 MHz processor and network connectivity features are good. It is a slow device for business applications but good for common android users. The price is just – INR 6500.


• Karbonn Mobiles is a Telecommunication firm which was founded in March 2009. It is a joint venture Mobile manufacturing company between the Bangalore based United Telelinks Limited (A group of Telecom Major, United Telecoms Limited) and Noida based Jaina Marketing & Associates.


• Karbonn A1 was the suggested mobile device for our review. It is a 3G enabled device and comes with Android 2.2. The processor is 600 MHz and Screen Size is 2.8 inch (240 x 320 pixels) 256k TFT touch screen display. 150MB internal memory and expandable memory up to 32GB with MicroSD is provided. Karbonn new article says – there are more new phones to come in Android series. Karbonn A1 is around INR 7000. We also recommended this phone for business purposes.


• Videocon is a very popular company in India. Their Android Mobile devices – Zeus V7500 [Android 2.1] and V7400 [Android 2.1] are relatively costly compared to other all devices – Price around INR. 12000 each. The features are limited and we felt it is not for core business users.

Finally we recorded, Karbonn and Micromax are best phones – based on the reviews in multiple scenarios, and we suggested the same in our reports. Now, based on your experience – what is your opinion? Are you using any Indian Brand? How about your experience?