Monthly Archives: March 2016

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Freelancers and Health Care: Diabetes

March 31, 2016
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Diabetes. There is a good chance that most of us know someone who has this disease. It is everywhere – or so it seems to be.

The World Health Organization (WHO) today reported that in 2015 in India of people between the ages of 30-70 approximately 80,000 males and 50,000 females died due to complication of  diabetes, whereas if we look at people above the age of 70,  approximately 50,000 males and 45,000 females died of the disease. This was in 2015 alone – and things are getting worse.

In the last 16 years the incidence of diabetes in India has doubled! There were about 32 million diabetics in India in the year 2000 and that number has grown to well over 60 million diabetics in India as of 2013. That is a 100% growth in the last 13 years!

Why is this happening? Well, unfortunately the answer is progress. Progress? How in the world can progress be responsible for some many more diabetics in India? Well, again, the unfortunate answer is not just progress but financial progress.

You see, as we get more and more rick in India; as the number of Indians who live in hi-rise expensive buildings and have extra money to buy luxury things increases, so does the number of Indians who are able to snack and eat things which they would otherwise not eat if they did not have such an amount of discretionary money.

This is no different than what is happening in other countries such as America. In Paris a few days ago a Global Survey has now discovered that today one out of every 8 adults is obese. That’s right obese. Obesity is the brother of diabetes. The more people weigh, the greater the chances of becoming diabetic.

To combat this, technology is coming up with things such as continuous monitoring patches which tell the patient and the doctors what the person’s blood sugar is at all times. There are more and more sophisticated glucose meters every day. It is only a matter of time before someone asks one of our excellent programmers on IndiaFreelancers.com to build, design or program something for diabetics. When that happens, we want for our excellent, outstanding programmers on IndiaFreelancers.com to be ready. To know what diabetes is here in India and worldwide and to be prepared to write the best program or application for this disease – in order to again put the name of India on the world’s stage as one of the places on earth where the best minds are creating the best products to help the human race. I would not all be surprised if the next big breakthrough in creating a program or an App for diabetes care comes from India. Further, I would fully expect that that great development will come from one of our excellent programmers or web developers on IndiaFreelancers.com.

Ranjiv P for IndiaFreelancers.com

Freelancers: An Indian name for Google?

March 29, 2016
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First we had Sundar Pichai of India as the new CEO of Google. What next? Well, the possibility that the next version of the popular Android mobile phone platform will have an Indian name. That’s what’s next!

India and Indians are, almost on a daily basis, making a splash on the world’s stage. Long gone are the days when India was considered a quiet, sleepy country. We are arriving and have arrived. The name or the new Android version may indeed have an Indian name – but apparently it has to start with the letter “N”.

What are our choices? Who knows. Some have suggested Nirmala or Neha Dupia or New Delhi. Of course, we will not know until all of the voting is completed, but the very fact that our own son is now chief of Google and that he has brought home to India the possibility of an Indian name on the next Android version is a sign of our arrival on the world’s stage.

India, and the excellent tech that comes from India, is slowly but surely becoming a world standard and a world’s admiration. Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella did not become CEOs of some of the most important and recognizable companies world wide by chance. It is their India roots that have contributed to their prominence. These same India roots are on display every day in the high quality of the programmers and web developers on IndiaFreelancers.com. There is not a day that goes by when someone does not comment on the quality and excellence of our technological members of IndiaFreelancers.com. And well they should. All of our excellent and wonderful technological personnel on IndiaFreelancers.com have in their hearts the same India roots which propelled people like Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella to the pinnacle of their careers.

So when you next think of and consider advising someone of where to go to find the best programmers and/or web developers. Remember that the excellent programmers and web developers on IndiaFreelancers.com may someday be the next CEO of a large American company – and may be bringing an important thing home to India like the next Android version – for an India name.

Ranjiv P for IndiaFreelancers.com

Freelancers and Star Wars: Reality and Fiction get closer

March 27, 2016
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The most recent Star Wars movie is excellent. It combines the elements of the past Star Wars movies (the past actors and robots) with the newcomers. It allows us to join the past with the future. Luke Skywalker is resurrected. Its great.

But how about real life? How close are these things to real life? Well, science is quickly catching up to science fiction. Those of us who are old enough to remember, can recall an old TV detective comic from the past called “Dick Tracy”. In that series the main character, Dick Tracy, had a wrist-worn “walkie talkie” which, in 1931 when the comic was first launched, seemed like a far-off impossibility. Well, say hello to my Apple or Android Watch. It can make phone calls and read text messages as well as email. Science fiction meets Science reality.

The same can be said for weapons of the future. We have seen images of lazers used as weapons for about as far back as we can remember seeing science fiction movies. However, in a recent report from the New Delhi based Defense Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), they note that indeed they are close to having developed something called a DEW which stands for a Directed Energy Weapons (DEWs) and is something between a high-energy lasers and high-powered microwaves aimed at something. The Hyderabad-based Centre for High Energy Systems and Sciences (CHESS) noted that such DEW systems, in their hands, can have a reach of as much as 800 meters. 800 meters? That is almost a kilometer? Does this mean that this device can beam up and destroy an aircraft almost a kilometer up in the sky? Well, at this point the answer to that is “possibly.”

What does all of this have to do with the excellent Freelancers we have on IndiaFreelancers.com? Well the connection is that our outstanding programmers and developers are the bridge that is bringing science fiction and science reality together. Our superb programmers, developers and Internet geniuses on IndiaFreelancers.com may very likely be discovered on our website and asked to take part in what may very well be the future defense of India.

So please do not stop thinking and wondering. Our outstanding programmers and web developers on IndiaFreelancers.com certainly do not – and neither do the people working on DEWs or CHESS.

Ranjiv P for IndiaFreelancers.com

Freelancers and Medicine: What are Fixed Dose Combination Drugs?

March 22, 2016
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Today I had eggs and toast for breakfast. I had my eggs on one side of my plate and the toast on the other side. Yet, if I were to go to McDonald’s and buy an “Egg McMuffin”, I could buy a sandwich with bread and eggs all in one. That is what is a Fixed Dose Combination (FDC) medicine.

Fixed Dose Combination (FDC) medicines are pills (usually a pill or a capsule) which take a few different medicines and put them all (typically two but it can sometimes be as many as three) into one pill. The convenience of this is that when you take that ONE pill, you are really taking as many as THREE pills at once, but they are all mashed into that one pill.

One would maybe think “how convenient.” Instead of taking one pill, then another and then another. All you need to do with an FDC pill is take ONE pill and you would have ALL THREE medicines in that ONE pill. How easy can that be? Right? Wrong.

The dangers to taking an FDC medicine is the AMOUNTS of each of the individual medicines inside of an FDC pill! An FDC CONTROLS FOR YOU how much of EACH of these medicines you will take. You have no choice. Its like the Egg McMuffin. You do not get to choose how much egg or how much muffin comes to you. It comes already made. The amounts of each of these two ingredients (the egg and the muffin) are fixed before you get your sandwich. Now, when we are dealing with sandwiches that may not be such a bad thing but when we are dealing with medicines that can be terrible. What if you need a little MORE of medicine “A” but a little LESS of medicine “B”? Well, if you take a medicine in which both medicine “A” and “B” are fixed in that one pill and you cannot change the amounts of each of the medicines in that one pill – you may be in trouble. The results can be a disaster. You might wind up taking MORE of medicine “A” than what you need or LESS of medicine “B” than what you need.

If your body needs different amount of different medicines you would be wiser to be a little more industrious, put in a little more effort and take the individual medicines individually. My mom used to say “the person who strives to do less work usually winds up working twice as hard” and I believe that this is what is happening with these FDC medicines. If you wish to work so little that you do not want to take the trouble to take two different pills (heaven forbid you might have to open your mouth twice and swallow two times!), you will maybe pay the price of having to work twice as hard to get over the problems you might have by taking too much or too little of a medicine in an FDC.

Why are we talking about this here today? Well, the Madras High Court today, March 23, 2016, banned 344 of these FDC medicines. If you wish to know which are the medicines which have been banned, you can find them at this link here. However the key is to take your time, take a little more effort and take each medicine that you need individually.

Now, how is all of this relevant to IndiaFreelancers.com? Well the reason it is relevant to our excellent and outstanding freelancers on IndiaFreelancers.com is because the future of medicine is in IT. More and more, medicine is going the way of programs and IT enhancements. CAT Scans, MRI Scans, Glucose Meters to test your blood sugar level, etc etc. Our world-class programmers on IndiaFreelancers.com would do well to keep an eye on the world of medicine. The next FDC that you may hear about, may be when someone is asking to hire you to make it easier for people to take their FDCs – and you will need to know what these medicines are if you wish to consider possibly accepting such a job.

Ranjiv P for IndiaFreelancers.com

 

Freelancers and Apple: Please continue the romance

March 21, 2016
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Companies are, in so many ways, like people. They are both born and experience their early years. They both reach adolescence during which time they learn from their mistakes and they both then move on to being large and mature. Unfortunately, like people, many companies then go on to older years and then possibly one day cease to exist (or are bought out by another company).

Following the example above then, Apple is in many ways, showing us its age. One sign of this is the recent announcement now in March of 2016 of the launch of the iPhone SE and the decidedly lukewarm reception that this announcement has garnered. Gone are the large, adoring crowds for the launch of an Apple products. Gone are the long lines which stretch for blocks to the door of an Apple store in order to be “first” to buy a wonderful new Apple product. What we see in their absence, is a company which is slowly coming down to earth to be like almost just any other company. But notice I said “almost.”

Why almost? Well, because Apple is decidedly not just like “any other company.”  The many cutting-edge and new technological developments put in place years ago by Steve Jobs have ensured that Apple will be quite a remarkable company well into the next decade.

For this reason we recommend to our excellent programmers on IndiaFreelancers.com to continue to sharpen their iPhone development skills. To continue to learn and become proficient with Apple’s Operating Systems and writing programs for it. Please continue the romance with Apple. Apple may be showing us its age, but it is most decidedly here to stay for a long time. Programmers and web developers on IndiaFreelancers.com would do very well indeed to continue to stay very much in tune with the programming and development changes announced by the tech giant, as they will serve us well for the foreseeable future.

Ranjiv P for IndiaFreelancers.com

Freelancers and Aircraft: Up in the sky?

March 20, 2016
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What in the world can our excellent freelancers on IndiaFreelancers.com and aircraft have in common? How does one mix, as my mom used to say, rice with mango? Well the answer is in the programming.

As our lives continue to move to the IT and computer world, pretty soon, regardless of whether you are operating an airplane, a car or a toaster, there will likely be a software component to it. More and more “smart” homes are equipped with things such as “remote” operating door openers, air conditioners which you can operate from your mobile telephone and other such devices. More and more cars are becoming mobile computers and, of course, airplanes are no different. Regardless of how different the airplanes or the cars look, IT and programming will play an increasingly important role in their make up and function.

Take, for example the recent announcement of a very unusual aircraft. In London today, March 20th, 2016, the company Airlander announced the creation of a very strange looking aircraft which they have called the “Airlander 10.” In an article in the Daily Mail this new aircraft, which is billed as “part aircraft, part helicopter” and a “flying bum!” is pictured and described.

This is an aircraft filled with helium (in order to avoid a repeat of the Hindenburg disaster). This very long and odd looking contraption is reported as being almost 100 meters longer than the longest passenger jet flying today, capable of transporting 50 tonnes of freight, up to 48 passengers and able to remain in the air for up to 3 weeks at a time! What a contraption!

However, as varied and unusual and groundbreaking as this Airlander 10 appears to be, we know one thing with certainty. There is undoubtedly IT and programming on board. No question about it. And if there is IT and programming on board, then our excellent and outstanding programmers on IndiaFreelancers.com are capable of creating, writing or perfecting whatever software runs that thing.

That is one of the beautiful things about IndiaFreelancers.com. We have some of the best minds working as freelancers on our website – all capable of taking part in the most varied of things. Even a large helium-filled unusual aircraft.

Ranjiv P for IndiaFreelancers.com

Freelancers: Education and India’s future

March 18, 2016
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As I have mentioned often in this blog, India is on the rise. Our economy is on the rise. Our standing in the world is on the rise and the sons and daughters of India in prominent positions in some of the world’s largest corporations is on the rise.

But how about the not-so-fortunate in India? How about the children in rural settings. For example, those studying in government schools and those coming from less privileged backgrounds, such as Dalits and tribals? A recent study has shown that these children in these schools do not do as well in school as the children from more privileged such as some of the larger cities in India.

Education is India’s future. Whether it is for higher numbers of technical professionals like web designers and computer programmers of the quality that we find in IndiaFreelancers.com or doctors, engineers and many other professions. The days of rural, unskilled labor being the main type of labor in India are passing – and we need to educate our young people in preparation for this.

A recent study conducted by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) in the year 2015, evaluated 7,216 schools across 33 states and Union Territories (UT) in India. This study concluded a few important points:

1) Girls do as well as boys in Math and Science. This is important as many of our tech experts on IndiaFreelancers.com are indeed women. The old notion that females are not as capable in the math and science fields is not holding up to the realities of our current studies today.

2) Students from rural and less privileged backgrounds do worse in their academics than those from more privileged backgrounds. This is important as we need to bear in mind that all of India needs to rise if we are to continue to rise as the world power that we are poised to become.

3) Girls indeed do have better language skills than their male counterparts. This has long been felt to be the  case and this new study indeed bears this out as well.

In summary, India is on the rise. Tech experts such as the excellent ones we have in IndiaFreelancers.com are a sample of the excellence that is coming out of India and is making a name for themselves on the world’s stage. People from all over the world, Australia, England, America and beyond, hire programmers, developers and other tech experts from IndiaFreelancers.com. As they do, word of mouth in those countries will continue to grow and let the world know the quality that is to be found in India – especially on IndiaFreelancers.com.

Ranjiv P for IndiaFreelancers.com

Freelancers: US Supreme Court and Surgeon General

March 16, 2016
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In so many ways, the new century of the years 2000 is the century of India. We are growing in India in so many ways. We have a very rapidly growing economy. In 2015 India’s economy was judged to be the fastest growing economy in the world with a growth rate of 7.5 percent. This was faster than even China’s 6.9 percent growth rate for 2015. The World Bank also projects that India will be the fastest growing economy for 2016.

But our growth and increasing world status is measured in the quality of our sons and daughters. Indra Nooyi is a prominent daughter of India who is today the CEO of Pepsi. Satya Nadella is CEO of Microsoft and Sundar Pichai is now CEO of Google. Indians are slowly, quietly but most definitely rising to the highest positions in the world and showing the world our quality.

Now comes the position of the Supreme Court of the United States. There are reports that President Barack Obama of the United States is going to nominate Judge Sri Srinivasan to be the first Indian to the Supreme Court of the United States. He is very well regarded in all judicial circuits. In 2013, he was confirmed unanimously to the Washington DC Circuit Court . That was an amazing feat for a court which is considered to be the “introductory” court to a Supreme Court appointment.

Why are these things I have mentioned above relevant to our freelancers on IndiaFreelancers.com? Well, the reason is because our excellent and outstanding programmers, web developers and technical experts on IndiaFreelancers.com com from the same high quality source as the people who are today the CEOs of Microsoft, Google and Pepsi. Our excellent freelancers on IndiaFreelancers.com share the same quality heritage as the possible future justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and Dr. Vivek Murthy, the current Surgeon General of the United States.

So, as I always tell our excellent freelancers on IndiaFreelancers.com, please remember that, as you do your work and answer your customers, your quality – and all of India – is on display. You are ambassadors to the world of the outstanding quality that is India.

Ranjiv P for IndiaFreelancers.com

Freelancers: Start in India – end up in Google

March 14, 2016
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In July of 1972 a boy was born in Chennai, Tamil nadu, in India. How could we imagine that that boy would go on to some day be the CEO of one of the most well known companies in the entire world? That boy is today known as Sundar Pichai (Pichai Sundarajan) and he is today the CEO of Google.

This is what we on IndiaFreelancers.com know so well. We in India have the abilities to be the best in the world. We have produced people who have created, invented and changed so many things in the world for the better. Today there are Indians who are CEOs and heads of companies such as Pepsi (Indra Nooyi), Microsoft (Satya Nadella) and Adobe (Shantanu Narayen). Indians are running things all over the world.

And where do they get their start? They get their start with the strong work ethic and strong sense of family and community that they learn as young lads in India. They learn to respect hard work and perseverance. They learn to respect their elders and love their families – and they take these lessons as “gifts” with them to go out to the rest of the world and bring glory to India. They let the world know that India is tomorrow’s economy. India is the world’s future.

Once upon a time the world thought that the next USA would be Japan or, more recently, China. But we have seen that this is not the case. Japan’s economy has decreased very much over the last decade and, more recently, the Wall Street Journal reported (January 19, 2016) that China’s economic growth in 2015 was the slowest rate of growth for the last 25 years.

But that is not the case with India. We are growing – and growing fast. India is today one of the most impressively developing technological countries. For all of our persistent poverty, we have large cities developing like flowers blooming. Technology, and web sites such as IndiaFreelancers.com which bring the world’s employers in contact with the wonderful minds of our great programmers, web site designers and other technological wonders in India are the bridge between the world and our wonderful young minds.

So please do not worry if today you are working as a Freelancer on IndiaFreelancers.com. This is your stage and your chance. This is your introduction to the world. The world – and its employers – are waking up to the beautiful diamond which is India and websites such as IndiaFreelancers.com serve as the introductory means by which these two worlds meet (the world’s employers and India’s outstanding tech professionals) and, if you will, marry.

Many a young person started on IndiaFreelancers.com, was discovered by a major employer on the website and was then hired to go to the employer’s country to grow with them. In India, I do not think we are wrong if we feel as if the 21st century is ours for the taking.

Ranjiv P for IndiaFreelancers.com

Freelancers and mobile phones: The Micromax tale

March 13, 2016
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The tale of Micromax is one which our freelancers on IndiaFreelancers.com may wish to learn from. Although we do not think of our freelancers as companies, the reality is that each freelancers can, in a sense, be considered his or her own small company. They each have services which are offered, they each do work and are paid for their work. They even have the ability to place a small advertisement on IndiaFreelancers.com to advertise their services (see “recommended” on IndiaFreelancers.com). And, lastly and most importantly, each freelancers on IndiaFreelancers.com may at some point grow such that they consider taking on a partner or partners.

If a freelancer on IndiaFreelancers.com starts to attract a large following and a large amount of work orders, please be careful to manage that growth. Grow slowly and in an organized manner. Too much growth can be as hurtful as not growing enough. More importantly, as we will see below, growing with the wrong partners can be even more devastating.

Let’s take a look at the tale of Micromax. The company which today we know as Micromax, which has its headquaters in Gurgaon, Haryana was founded in the year 2000 by Rahul Sharma, Vikas Jain, Sumeet Arora and Rajesh Agarwal. Micromax started life working in electronic embedded devices but by the year 2008 had moved to mobile telephones. Powered by Rahul Sharma’s vision of a long-lasting mobile phone battery, by 2014 Micromax became the mobile phone manufacturer in India which was shipping the most telephones in one quarter. They shipped numbers which even exceeded those of giant Samsung. This was pretty impressive stuff for a company started in India by four friends.

Then the problems started. Fresh from the reports of these heady numbers in 2014, the founders  brought in outside managers to lead the company – and the problems started. Understandably, tensions soon started to arise between the founders and their new executives. This is not unusual. This happens all the time in business. The newcomers were not there during the heady, inspired days of the start of the company and their views often clash with the view of the founders to whom the company is “their baby.”

These clashes between the old and the new have, of course, caused problems. There is now not a single voice with a single focus on how best to move the company forward – there are a number of voices. Many of which conflict with others. As such, investors such as Alibaba, who was considering investing $1.2 Billion dollars in Micromax for a 20% ownership of the company, in May of 2015 decided to not invest. Unfortunately, in the wake of Alibaba’s decision, other potential investors also did the same. To make matters worse, the disconnect at the top has also affected the company’s performance itself.

The leadership, in its turmoil, was not quick to realize and react to the fact that their original Chinese outsource partners were themselves entering into the “white-hot” India mobile telephone market with products of their own. Thus, Micromax has this month (March 2016) seen their market share drop by nearly 50%. Truly sad. To be complete, it is important to note that Micromax had other problems (for example, the Rajesh Agarwal bribing scandal and the Ericsson patent infringement litigation to name two), but the bringing in of new people was a particularly salient issue.

So what is the lesson in this for our freelancers on IndiaFreelancers.com? The lesson is simple and yet complex at the same time. In a nutshell, the lesson is “chose your partners wisely.”

Remember, we have seen this movie before and it did not end well. On April 8, 1983 Steve Jobs brought in John Sculley to head Apple Computers thinking that Sculley could be a great “organizer” for Apple. What happened next is, of course, now history. Sculley and Jobs soon clashed and Sculley soon led a Board of Directors take over which included encouraging the Board to fire Steve Jobs – which they did.

Therefore, when the Micromax founders decided to bring in their OWN “John Sculleys” into Micromax, they would have been well served to have learned from Apple’s example. They should have considered the almost inevitable clash between the newcomers and the old guard.

Therefore, as our freelancers on IndiaFreelancers.com grow and consider taking on partners. Please bear in mind the Micromax and Apple stories above. Be very careful who you bring on board to your company and your efforts. Great new partners can be a blessing, but the wrong new partners can mean the possible demise of your company.

Ranjiv P for IndiaFreelancers.com

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