Vision

Rails Backbone.js

2012-01-11T03:06:00.000-08:00

Gettting Started with Rails

Tutorial Book

CloudEdit: A Backbone.js Tutorial with Rails
Backbone.js really introduces a new kind of data flow for Rails apps. Instead of data flowing like this:Rails Model => Rails Controller => Rails View

It now flows like this:

Rails Model => Rails Controller => Backbone Model => Backbone Controller => Backbone View

What I've found is that overall, Backbone.js makes it really simple to create highly responsive Javascript heavy applications.

From Authority

2011-12-26T09:11:00.000-08:00

Y Combinator List: http://yclist.com/

When Adam D'Angelo says "partition your data at the application level", what exactly does he mean
- FriendFeed did a pretty good writeup on theirs here (though there are some other differences between their system and what I'm advocating, the system for partitioning and maintaining secondary indexes fits right in): http://bret.appspot.com/entry/ho..
- see also Memcache lessons from Reddit Reddit lessons
Memcache Implementation lessons from different companies - asr: a Ton of companies are using memcache with Schema Less Databse ...
mySQL , Memcache at NetLog http://www.jurriaanpersyn.com/archives/2009/02/12/database-sharding-at-netlog-with-mysql-and-php/

http://backchannel.org/blog/friendfeed-schemaless-mysql -- SchemaLess DB ..,,

Memcached and "N" things you can do with it – Part 1

http://abhinavsingh.com/blog/2009/01/mysql-query-cache-wp-cache-apc-memcache-what-to-choose/

Why Quora Use MYSQL not MongDB

Why did Quora choose Python for its development?

What languages and frameworks were used to code Quora

- We use Thrift to communicate between different backend systems.

- Our main webserver is paste (the default for Pylons) with nginx and HAProxy in front of it. For our Comet server, we use Tornado.
- We mostly use Amazon EC2 and S3 for hosting.
- Our data store is mostly MySQL + memcached right now, plus two services written in C++.

MemCache answers

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HTTP Servers, Proxies , and Caching ...

Nginx's load balancing features are less advanced than haproxy's but it can do a lot more things (eg: compression, caching), which explains why they are very commonly found together. I strongly recommend it to whoever needs a fast, reliable and flexible web server !
http://nginx.org/en/ -- features ..

January 2012 Web Server Survey - NginX gained
WordPress moved to NginX 8-9K connections/sec 8-9k requests/second and about 1.2Gbit/sec through a few Nginx instances and have plenty of room to grow!

Varnish https://www.varnish-cache.org/about - Varnish Cache is a web application accelerator also known as a caching HTTP reverse proxy. You install it in front of any server that speaks HTTP and configure it to cache the contents. Varnish Cache is really, really fast. It typically speeds up delivery with a factor of 300 - 1000x, depending on your architecture.

HAProxy is a free, very fast and reliable solution offering high availability, load balancing, and proxying for TCP and HTTP-based applications. It is particularly suited for web sites crawling under very high loads while needing persistence or Layer7 processing. Supporting tens of thousands of connections is clearly realistic with todays hardware
HAProxy used by Yelp , same thing used by Quora

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Trello.com

1/ Development effort

- 8 member team worked 9 months: We had two developers, two designers / front-end developers, two developer interns, and help from our sys admins, support team, and founders Joel and Michael

- I would say a rough estimate of around 3,300 person-hours went into Trello.

- Trello took nine months to develop from concept to launch.

2/ What language is Trello written in? Mostly Coffeescript.

3/ Launching Trello : PR , 9 months effort , user visits

posterous Tech Stack

http://technology.posterous.com/posterous-spaces-is-built-on-backbonejs

To interact with the API, we've used some awesome front-end technologies. Among all the awesome stuff we've been able to work with while creating Spaces, the most notable are Backbone, CoffeeScript, Haml.js, Sass, and Compass. Today I will touch on our use ofBackbone.

How LinkedIn used Node.js and HTML5 to build a better, faster app

who: LinkedIn’s mobile development lead Kiran Prasad

-The app is two to 10 times faster on the client side than its predecessor, and on the server side, it’s using a fraction of the resources, thanks to a switch from Ruby on Rails to Node.js

-They went from running 15 servers with 15 instances (virtual servers) on each physical machine, to just four instances that can handle double the traffic.
- Also, the app is insanely lightweight. “If you take our entire app and you combine all the framework pieces and zip it, it’s under 50K,” said Prasad.

-On the server side, our entire mobile software stack is completely built in Node,” said Prasad. “We use a ton of technologies at LinkedIn, but for the mobile server piece

_____________________________________________________________________

Big Data in Real-Time at Twitter: http://www.slideshare.net/nkallen/q-con-3770885
Instagram architecture: http://www.quora.com/Why-did-Burbn-Instagram-choose-Postgres-over-MySQL?q=instagram+database
Foursquare: http://www.quora.com/What-stack-does-Foursquare-run-on-EC2?q=foursquare+technology
Facebook: http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/06/18/the-software-behind-facebook/ and
http://www.quora.com/What-database-technology-is-Facebook-built-on?q=facebook+database
Groupon architecture: http://www.quora.com/Groupon/What-technology-platform-is-Groupon-built-on?q=groupon+technology
Zynga: http://www.quora.com/How-does-server-technology-work-for-Zyngas-games?q=zynga+technology
LinkedIn: http://www.quora.com/What-is-LinkedIn-s-database-architecture-like?q=linkedin+database
Quora: http://www.philwhln.com/quoras-technology-examined
Yelp: http://www.quora.com/What-is-Yelps-technology-stack?q=yelp+technology

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How I Designed CodeYear.com in 1 Hour
- So despite the late hour, I said I didn’t mind helping, got the PSD, and hopped into Photoshop for a few quick touch ups.
- Using a standard font often means you’re missing an opportunity to make a statement and create a connection with the user. This is why I choseMuseo Slab, a strong yet playful font that I knew was available on Typekit as a webfont.
asr: we need this kind of help for showing VCs, after developing a simple UI ... b) it seems they do first in Photoshop and convert to HTML

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site has Great UI , seems Photoshop driven .. http://mixpanel.com/

Why You Should Use Analytics

The fundamental reason you want to use analytics is because

- it lets you know how your customers interact with your site and

- that this drives decisionmakingabout your site design, future business directions, and the like.

http://www.bingocardcreator.com/articles/tracking-with-mixpanel.htm#code

Layout UX Interaction / good Layouts

2011-12-26T08:13:00.000-08:00

Main page Layout
This Plurk UI seems good , small fonts , good Hide button for language
-This Left menu Dim seems is a UI standard , I saw it many places .

- Good UX interaction when selected item: It is close to ( Trello Cards ... ) , may be we use this one .
- good tabs , smooth transition from '4 col grid to 2 col grid'

FAQ Layout :
ODesk faq: simple and elegant with 'top'

Site Templates
Site Templates: , good Site Template ( with no flicker Documentation ) , show/Hide options ( like Indeed.com )
- Horizantal/vertical Tab pages, Nice options box , Mega Menus ..

BLOG templates:
- 2 Level Tabs: http://keith-wood.name/gChart.html , good for easy access of information .
- Amix: good font and nice charts ( small ) to merge with text ..

Ranking / Personalization

2011-12-26T07:02:00.000-08:00

How Hacker News ranking algorithm works

How Reddit ranking algorithms work
Let me guess What You Like the most - Recommender Systems...

Categories for YouTube Video
Types and Categories of Videos On YouTube
The above mentioned categories are just a few of the many that you can found on YouTube. Additional categories include
- arts and animation,
- autos and vehicles,
- news and blogs,
- people, sports, and
- science and technology.

Interactive User Experience / UX

2011-12-25T09:40:00.000-08:00

How I Designed CodeYear.com in 1 Hour

- So despite the late hour, I said I didn’t mind helping, got the PSD, and hopped into Photoshop for a few quick touch ups.
- Using a standard font often means you’re missing an opportunity to make a statement and create a connection with the user. This is why I choseMuseo Slab, a strong yet playful font that I knew was available on Typekit as a webfont.
asr: we need this kind of help for showing VCs, after developing a simple UI ... b) it seems they do first in Photoshop and convert to HTML

http://sachagreif.com/the-design-freebies-list/
http://sa chagreif.com/projects/
- worked for clients such as Le Monde, Hipmunk, andMileWise. ( see about).
- asr : we can ask for help for our HTML5 based elearn character , first to develop character animation in PhotoShop
http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/ ( good site said by above sachagreif )

---------------------------------
self: How can we further improve this great tutorial of Python, where people can use it like CAcademy ..

Dive Into Python - Python from novice to pro

In this Python tutorial , autors took good approach of numbering and explanation for it .

- This can be further improved with coffee script document style , one shown here . This layout so easy to Read. Here is the actual DOCument app http://jashkenas.github.com/docco/

- You can also make this official python guide into DocCo.coffee for easy redability and integratioin into Python shell or CAcacdemy

- you can do DocCo.coffee this Python Reference or any other lang. reference
- http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld/ -- seems good one ..

Concept mastery

2011-12-24T09:42:00.000-08:00

1/ Introducing Fraction

These are the first 2 google searches for 'Adding fractions '
method 1: Fractions: - good sequence of topics to all the way 'Add/Subtract' fractions , notice steps given for division , we can use similar steps with audio Cacademy style .. ( do with HTML5 shapes and audio )
- At the end Laws of Arthamatic is good , stating 'Commutative' , associative laws

Method 2: Sequence of Objectives for Adding and Subtracting Fractions
- if fractions are taught correctly, they are fun and easy to learn. Most texts move children too quickly into adding with unlike denominators
- Nice 50 sequence steps

method 3: http://www.helpingwithmath.com/resources/lessons/fractions/AddingSubtractingFractions.htm
( here no easy method for finding LCM )

method 4: easy LCM , what we taught to gitu ( youtube users 300k , use this kind of numbers for our LessonRank.com )

http://www.kidsolr.com/math/fractions.html
- http://www.susancanthony.com/pdfresources/diagtest.pdf

1) Diagnostic Test ( I would call this as PreTest or Pre-Requisite )

Give a speed test on at least the multiplication facts. It would be good to give a speed test on each of the basic functions sometime during the week.

Purpose: Fractions are used for many, many things. They are commonly used in recipes for cooking: 1/2 cup, 1/4 tsp., etc. Carpenters use fractions in measuring and cutting boards. We can use fractions with time: half an hour, a quarter past two.

Pretest , PreRequisite: There will be check boxes as kid has to complete each one ( and proficient 10 correct in a row like Khanacadmy ... ? ) before going into next one ..
for fraction Addition, Subtraction the PreTest is
a) multiplication facts : 3x4 = 12
b) split multiplication : 12 -> 3 x 4 ; 12 -> 2 x 6
b) equivalent fractions : 1/2 is same as 2/4

2) Concept of Fractions , Naming fractions:
Anticipatory Set: ( good plan ) , wish collages have this thing ...

Learning:

Purpose:

Transfer:.

Motivation:

Check for Understanding:

Content funding

2011-12-20T15:52:00.000-08:00

people:
Audery Watters: http://audreywatters.com/cv.html

funded: funded compaines in the Education/Learning/ELearning Space

1) Codecademy.com - interactive Code learning
- YC S11 (Aug 11 launch ) , Series A 2.5MM (USV Fred lead with Chris dixon , Naval Ravikant , Ron Conway )

3) Piazza.com - Pooja IIT Kanpur 2001 CS grad , Oracle , Kosmix , Facebook
- Started late 2009 , raised 400K in 2010 (Ex-Goole ) , Series A 1.5MM

2) TreeHouse.com - Tech tutorials with Video ( $25/month) , NY based founders ..
Raised $600K (Hoffman ... )

4) Facebook app for home work colloboraton : funded by Gates foundation ...( I noted , but need to find it )

12 Major Foundations Commit $500 Million to Education Innovation in Concert with U.S. Education Department's $650 Million "Investing In Innovation" Fund
20 Ways Siri May Forever Change Education

Is online education disruptive or not?

people:
Audery Watters: http://audreywatters.com/cv.html
http://www.xconomy.com/author/thawkins/
http://www.xconomy.com/about/#san-francisco - Peter Norvig , Paul graham are on List ... so seems good profie people for network ...
- varma ( their VC network )
- sridhar
- techcrunch/gaigaOm and other editors
- angleList.com middle men ...

http://steveblank.com/tools-and-blogs-for-entrepreneurs/ -- Mega List ...
codeAcademy funed USV
http://mashable.com/2011/12/21/education-2011/
http://envylabs.com/development/ruby-on-rails-development/projects/13-code-school
http://scratch.mit.edu/
http://www.scriptlance.com/projects/1322323492.shtml - Jq-console bid .. only 2 days...
http://www.programr.com/Java/Money -- This works ..
http://www.usv.com/2011/10/codecademy.php -- her is enquiry , may be we can ask in scriptlance ...

- "Coding is going to be the literacy of the 21st Century, and we think we have the easiest way to do it," says co-founder Zach Sims.
- After working with a variety of startups in business development roles, Sims, who is 21, dropped out of Columbia to focus on his own venture. He teamed with Ryan Bubinski, 22, who graduated from Columbia with a degree in computer science and biophysics -- and, more importantly, an extensive knowledge of programming.
- Launched in June, the New York-based site has already attracted $2.5 million in a funding round led by Union Square Ventures and is a graduate of Y Combinator, one of Silicon Valley's most closely watched incubators.
-Lessons “Right now, there are still only two of us working on the company.” ( they did not hire 2 months after funding)
- New York based ( good not our local , it shows Tech savvy Vally lost opertunity to New York Liberal arts ..)
- Sim is dropped out , non-tech worked in biz dev ... Ryan is tech guy ..
- It seems Sim had pain for learning programming ( since drop out ) .. so Startup came from PAIN ...
- USV Fred is smart who is Lead for this round, got SV angle, FoundersFund, NAVAL .. got main guys in so that no Vally competition .

http://edublogawards.com/announcing-the-2011-winners-congrats-to-all/
http://edudemic.com/2011/12/open-wikis/
http://edudemic.com/2011/12/teacher-blogs/

http://edudemic.com/2011/12/top-5-tech-advancements-changing-the-face-of-education/

asr: Stats

- that is lots of web sites 13,370 ,
- venturehack says 20 user limit for video , if we have audio we may have less … limit or we can pay audio … let us see )

- Yo Google, Skype – what about the web?We don’t feel that the video chat itself is the destination.

- We think of it as a facilitator of real human interaction around whatever else you want to be doing, discussing or watching, wherever you are.
- Being able to take any website, application, piece of content, in fact any object on the web that can be the focus of shared interest – and use that object to gather people together and allow them to communicate face to face, there and then, in context – that is where we see huge opportunity.

The OpenTok concept is thus an inversion of the usual video chat paradigm, where the video stream itself is front-and-center and users have nothing to focus on but each other.

- “Content fuels conversation,” says Small. ( asr: we are having content ... )

-“The ‘aha’ moment for us came when we noticed that people who watch YouTube movies together hang out for an hour or more. They’re half talking, half watching, half chilling. So we said, ‘Why are we spending time trying to figure out how to fit the Web inside our service, instead of taking our service and fitting it to the Web.’”

People are always invited to go to silo destination sites for video conferencing, and that’s just not the real world,” said Micky O’Brien, vice president of marketing for TokBox. “They want to engage with others around an activity, and they want to do it immediately.”

Once video is captured from a web-enabled camera, it’s sent over to the TokBox servers and compressed. It’s then streamed to people viewing a website with Flash. While the streaming technology is handled by Flash for now, the APIs are already prepared in a way that TokBox can shift over to HTML5 once the technology is ready, O’Brien said.

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1/ This site seems has great Categorization: http://watchknowlearn.org/Video.aspx?VideoID=32255&CategoryID=6082

2/ text book based categorization: http://brightstorm.com/textbook/chemistry/glencoe-chemistry

3/ Youtube for education: ( check api for easy # of reviews , total views etc.. matrices )
http://www.youtube.com/schools?feature=etp-gs-sch&utm_medium=Search&utm_source=Google&utm_campaign=YT4S

4/ Khan Academy: check API

5/ Standord , MIT open cousseware etc..

White Board Software

2011-12-19T12:49:00.000-08:00

Free hand Drawing: Dabble Board

OPEN Source IWB software

Danny Nicholson : Educator, Science teacher, ICT Consultant, PGCE lecturer, Author and Web2.0 / SMART Masters/ Interactive Whiteboard Trainer.

Essential Digital Resources for your IWB (2011) - great resouce for Edu. photos, videos, Audio

Good book with all White Board Issues DO and DONTs

Look under ' All My Stuff' lots of good stuff by this author

Text to Speech : Talking your Typed Concept with Animation

The links to the sites/software demonstrated are :
Go Animate
Xtranormal
Toonlet
MonkeyJam

----
OPEN Source IWB software
I’m really hoping that eventually we’ll get a decent open-source alternative to the big two for users of other boards, interactive projectors,and for teachers who want to write platform-independent resources.
- We’re not there yet with Open Sankore, but maybe in the future it will get there.
- But for now it’s just too clunky and lacking in features. As an alternative to Smart or Promethean you’re still going to have so buy Easiteach for now.

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EasiTeach

Easiteach Next Generation is the latest whiteboard software from RM Education designed to help you create and deliver motivational and engaging lessons using your classroom hardware.

To view a series of feature videos demonstrating Easiteach

asr: 1) I saw vidoes , wow these are really Good . May be worth $5k , for 500 students 6-8 greade Math ..

2) I think if you have a school this kind of software will help to run . school . Advantages of this EasiTeach is '

-- they are interactive' ,

-- and seems students can access 24x7 all the content ..

-- must have student progress monitor module etc..

-- there may be API to add your content ....

3) other cheaper alternative is to have 'Edurite' indian based company software and teach Concepts.

RM Math Aligned MS License, <500 Students from $4,997.00

All features of RM Math Aligned Lite, including…

Over 4,000 interactive lessons and activities provides enough variety to support differentiated learning
Aligned to national and state standards to facilitate integration into curriculum
Comprehensive curriculum for Grades 6, 7, 8, Algebra I, Algebra II, Geometry, Pre-Calculus, and Calculus

PLUS, a full-featured content management system to…

Personalize instruction for each student
Create innovative and engaging lessons
Search for content using keywords or state standards
Assess and monitor student performance
Communicate with administrators, teachers, students
Provide 24/7 access from any Internet-connected computer

Group Learning

2011-12-18T07:52:00.000-08:00

features:
1) scheduled classes so users have a committed time, which gets regularity ( need scheduler )
2) any one in the lesson session can Pause, resume on going session. Server gets this action and passes to user Browsers .
3) assignments: will be reviewed by peers
4) Tests: online Tests ...
5) Moderators
6) pre-requisites: say for R with Stats , prior is R basic ...

7) login with FB/google+/Twitter or Register your OWN ...
8) Read 7 Problems paper and have a plan to address them first ..
9) Need strong moderators as in SE ( joel ) and community building
10) Need a partner ( strong in community management skills + Education enthu ... done in the past ) , look blooger . We need full time ...

Captioning YouTube Video and Providing Accessible Controls

A relatively pain-free way to have accessible, captioned video in your web pages.

— brought to you by the friendly people at The Ohio State University Web Accessibility Center

good one.

Suffice it to say that HTML-based controls are preferable for accessibility. All browsers can access HTML-based controls and there is no need for mode-switching. This is where our Accessible Controls for the YouTube Embedded Video Player can come in handy:

The Controls provide HTML links to start, pause, stop, jump backward and forward, adjust and mute the volume, and loop a video.

Get the Code for the Accessible Controls

You can download ytp.zip, which contains the JavaScript code that generates the player controls, a sample page that demonstrates usage, and a sample stylesheet that you can modify for use in your own pages..

Code Example: Including the JavaScript and Style Sheet

The following code goes in the head of your document.

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Learning Technologies blog at the University of Washington :

Content Repositories:

- Course material repositories are large collections of teaching materials, content, and pedagogy which can be adapted for use in the classroom. Faculty are also free to join their teaching communities to contribute their own course materials.

- You can also find images, sound clips and even entire movies and TV shows in the Graphics and Multimedia Repositories and Copyrighted Content sections.
- Many of these resources are copyright free and/or can be used as part of an academic course.

____________________________________________________________

Papers ...

Seven Problems of Online Group Learning (and Their Solutions)

The Seven Problems
Amongst the problems that are thought to be inherent to this method of teaching, the seven most commonly found in
the literature are the following:
Problem #1: student antipathy towards group work
Problem #2: the selection of the groups
Problem #3: a lack of essential group-work skills
Problem #4: the free-rider
Problem #5: possible inequalities of student abilities
Problem #6: the withdrawal of group members, and
Problem #7: the assessment of individuals within the groups

Collaborative Learning:
Group Work and Study Teams

Kohn, A. No Contest: The Case Against Competition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986.

No Contest: The Case Against Competition

Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes

The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards ( another Kohn book ..... )

The Seven Principles

The "Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education" contain guidelines for effective teaching and learning. They represent a philosophy of quality education and provide a pathway to success. These principles state that "good practice" - -

1. Encourages student-faculty contact.

2. Encourages cooperation among students.

3. Encourages active learning.

4. Gives prompt feedback.

5. Emphasizes time on task.

6. Communicates high expectations.

7. Respects diverse talents and ways of learning.

BENEFITS ASSOCIATED WITH COOPERATIVE LEARNING

Improved Attendance: Because of their commitment to others in their group, students in cooperative classrooms tend to have better attendance.

Higher Grades: Because of their active participation in class, students' self-esteem and understanding of the material are increased. They earn higher grades.

Increased Participation: Because they are contributing to the group and participating in class, students become more active learners.

paraphrasing other's words to ensure and verify comprehension;
giving and receiving feedback;
allowing everyone to contribute ideas; and
refraining from taking over the group or allowing another to do so.

Experiential Education: Making the Most of Learning Outside the Classroom, New Directions for Teaching and Learning, No. 124
Donna M. Qualters (Editor)
ISBN: 978-0-470-94505-6
Paperback
128 pages
January 2011

US $29.00

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http://www.studygs.net/cooplearn.htm

Tegrity, which has offices in Santa Clara, Calif., and Tel Aviv, has sold its so-called lecture-capture software to more than 200 schools, including University of Alabama and University of Central Florida. It recently signed a three-year, $1.2 million pact with Washington state's community-college system.

Lecture capture is still a small segment of education technology, though industry experts say it should grow rapidly as schools look to cut long-term costs and better engage students. The market generated more than $50 million in licensing and software revenue in 2009, but that is expected to increase to nearly $200 million by 2016, according to a June report by consulting firm Frost & Sullivan.

McGraw-Hill said it first teamed with Tegrity in late 2007 and in 2009 began pairing the company's software with its own McGraw-Hill Connect digital learning platfor

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Psychology

2011-12-12T13:27:00.000-08:00

Maslow's hierarchy of human needs

Chip Conley: The 5 Things Everyone Wants From You

Joie de Vivre Hotels’ founder explains how your customers, your employees, and even your investors have the same five needs. Deliver on them and you can’t lose.

You may remember Maslow from introductory college psych courses, as the creator of Maslow's hierarchy of human needs. In Maslow’s model, there are five levels. In order of urgency they are:

physiological (like food and shelter)
safety
belonging
esteem
self-actualization

Until the lower-level needs are met, a person isn’t interested in moving up the chain to the next. The higher you go in the hierarchy, the more secure, happier and fulfilled you become.

Starup stages

2011-12-12T13:17:00.000-08:00

Great Vieo -- for Lean Starup

Should you launch at a conference? - very good insight on Product Launch ( they worked 9 months for Trello )

by Joel Spolsky

How to Pitch a VC: 11 Insider Secrets

STARTUP MORE THAN BRAIN, MORE THAN MONEY, MORE THAN WORK HARD.
STARTUP IS VISION.
STARTUP IS MAKE FIST OF CODE, PUT IT THROUGH THE WORLD.
VISION IS PUT FIST IN RIGHT PLACE, BREAK WORLD IN HALF.

VISION IS SEE WHAT OTHERS NOT, DO WHAT OTHERS WON'T, WIN WHEN OTHERS CAN'T.
VISION NOT A BULLETPOINT. NOT GO IN SPREADSHEET. THERE NO ALGORITHM FOR AWESOME.

SMART STARTUP BUILD, ITERATE, FAIL FAST.
WITHOUT VISION FAIL FAST IS JUST LOTS OF FAIL.
VISION NOT HOW. VISION IS WHERE. TAKE EVERYTHING YOU DOING THAT NOT MOVE TOWARDS VISION.

STARTUP IS SEE WINDOW, START BUILDING WINGS.
VISION IS JUMP OUT WINDOW, TRUST WINGS HAPPEN BEFORE GROUND.

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Fundraising: See Investors Early and Often

asr: see this kind of guys are available for advice ..

- Set a minimum level. I like $25k; if you need $250k the max number of people you have to keep informed is 10, which is manageable.
- Raise money on a rolling basis, meaning, don't create a deal where you have to wait for all the checks to come in. Structure it so you can deposit checks and get to work, rather than having to aggregate dollars.

Burn Rates: How Much?

Stage Team size Burn Rate funding

---------------- ---------- -------- --------------
1/ Building Product 5 $50k/mon $600k at 3mm post
2/ Building Usage 10 $100k/mon $1.8 M at 9mm post
3/ Building The Business 25 $250k/mon $4 MM at 20mm post

Based on the burn rates above, this would suggest 12 months, 18 months, and 16 months of runway respectively at each stage.

1 product: / Most MVPs can be built by a team of three or four engineers, a product manager, and a designer.
2 Usage: / This is the stage after release, when you are focused in iterating the product, scaling the system for more users, and marketing the product to new users.
This can be done by the same team that built the product with
- a few more engineers, a community manager, and maybe a few more dollars for this and that.
3 Business: / This is when you've determined that your product market fit has been obtained and you now want to build a business around the product or service. You start to hire a management team, a revenue focused team, and some finance people.

GRPN LNKD

2011-12-11T09:45:00.001-08:00

GRPN Valuation:

1/ The big picture is this:

Groupon generated ~$300 million of revenue last year and should generate about $1.7 billion of revenue this year.
Groupon is now operating basically at break-even, with the North American business earning a modest profit and the international business losing a modest amount.
Groupon is cash-flow positive and has ~$1 billion in the bank
Groupon's growth rate is decelerating sharply, and this deceleration is likely to continue for at least several more quarters.

Based on my experience (15 or so years of following tech stocks), that last factor is very important. "Momentum" investors HATE deceleration. And momentum investors have a big impact on the prices at which stocks trade. So we need to keep the deceleration in mind.

In fact, let's start with the deceleration, because it will have a big impact on our fundamental estimates for the next couple of years.

2/ The reason Groupon's growth is decelerating is:

the law of large numbers — the company's already huge, and
the company is cutting back on marketing spending

The second factor is very important. To become meaningfully profitable, Groupon will have to continue to clamp down on marketing. And this will likely lead to further deceleration.

3/ Price Forecast: So what does that give us for preliminary estimates?

2012
Revenue: ~$2.5 billion
Operating Profit (assuming 10% margin): $250 million
Net Income (assuming 35% tax rate): ~$150 million

2013
Revenue: ~$3 billion
Operating Profit (assuming 15% margin): ~$450 million
Net Income (assuming 35% tax rate): ~$300 million

So what might the stock be "worth" on those estimates?

A fast-growing market-leader with a huge global opportunity should eventually trade at 20X-30X earnings. More in the early years, when the growth rate is faster and the company has not yet achieved its steady-state profit margin, less in the later years.

So if Groupon were to trade at, say, 20X-30X 2013 earnings of $300 million, it would trade in a valuation range of $6 billion to $9 billion, with a central value of $7.5 billion. This would equate to a range of about $9-$13 per share.

Notably, that's well below where the stock is trading.

So ... Groupon Already Looks Overvalued

4/ Historical Perspective : Amazon
From 1996-2000, Amazon grew like a bat out of hell, in part because it was spending boatloads of money on marketing. In 2000, however, the funding markets for unprofitable Internet companies dried up, and Amazon had to change tack and focus on becoming profitable. This transition took two years, from 2000-2002. It led to major deceleration in the business. And it was absolutely brutal on Amazon's stock price.

Specifically, as Amazon cut back on marketing spending and other profligate expenses in its drive to become profitable, the stock collapsed more than 95%, from $100+ to, if memory serves, about $6 a share. See the right half of the chart below.

___________________________________________________________________________________

LNKD

LinkedIn netted a pair of stock-recommendations rating upgrades from Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Tuesday, while Bank of America Merrill Lynch raised its 2012 and 2013 earnings and sales estimates.

All three banks served as underwriters for LinkedIn's initial public offering in May. Morgan Stanley Investment Management Inc. holds nearly a quarter of LinkedIn's shares valued at roughly $1.6 billion and is LinkedIn's largest shareholder, according to FactSet.

Shares of LinkedIn rose 4.5% to $73.10 afternoon trading Tuesday, up 62% from their IPO price of $45.

Through Monday, LinkedIn's shares had tumbled 20% since the company announced its secondary stock offering on Nov. 3.

LinkedIn's float could triple to 28 million from 9 million by the end of the year, according to Evercore Partners. More than 8 million shares are likely to come to market in February, with the expiration of additional lock-up extensions.

Morgan Stanley raised its stock-recommendation rating to "overweight" from "equalweight" and established a 12-month price target of $100, the highest among all analysts, according to FactSet.

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. analyst Doug Anmuth raised LinkedIn's stock recommendation to "overweight" form "neutral," but lowered its 12-month price target $84 from $98, noting that the recent stock declines make the stock's current price "more compelling."

Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst Justin Post raised estimates for LinkedIn's 2012 and 2013 revenue forecast by 7.6% and 8%, respectively. Bank of America kept its "buy" rating on LinkedIn's shares, and maintained a $92 price target.

Trading Wisdom from Gurus

2011-12-06T14:58:00.001-08:00

List of big Gurus posts in this blog post:

1/ Brett Steenbarger Phd Psychology
2/ Dr. Doug Hirschhorn PhD Sports Psychology
3/ Steve Palmquist

Interview By Kirk

1/ Credits: Dr. Doug Hirschhorn PhD Sports Psychology:
At the moment I am currently on retainer as the trading psychology coach for several major banks (i.e. Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank)
- . I am also on retainer with several multi-billion dollar macro and fixed income hedge funds
- . My coaching practice focuses on improving the performance of elite traders, large portfolio managers and principals of hedge funds.
Dr. Doug Hirschhorn: Some of the key lessons I learned were:

Making money is easy, keeping it is hard
You can have a 1000 reasons to get in a trade, but you only need 1 reason to get out
Focus on the process (quality of your trades), not the outcome (profits/losses)
Know what your edge is (what your pitch looks like) and trade only when you have edge (swing only when your pitch appears).

2/ Brett Steenbarger Phd Psychology

http://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Trading-Techniques-Minding-Markets/dp/0471267619/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b

1. Behavior is patterned.
2. Your trading patterns reflect your emotion patterns.
3. Change begins with self observation
4. Problem patterns tend to be anchored to particular states. (When you enter a particular state thru emotional, physical, or cognitive activity, you tend to activate the behavioral patterns associated with that state.)
5. Our normal states of mind, which define most of our daily experience, lie within a restricted range of our possibilities. (Your immersion in daily routine keeps you locked in routine mind states)
6. Most trading occurs in a limited range of states, trapping traders in problem patterns. (Traders tend to place greater emphasis on the data they process than on the ways in which they process those data.)
7. People in general, and traders specifically, enact solutions as well as problem patterns.
8. Eliminating emotions is not necessarily the secret to improving trading. (Traders can utilize positive emotional experiences to identify constructive solution patterns and to create an anchoring of new, positive patterns.)
9. Success in the markets often comes from doing what doesnt come naturally.
10. The intensity and the repetition of change efforts are directly responsible for their utlimate success.
11. Trading success is a function of possessing a statistical edge in the markets and being able to exploit this edge with regularity.

-------------

http://www.amazon.com/Daily-Trading-Coach-Becoming-Psychologist/dp/0470398566/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_a

Compared to Van Tharp's books, Dr. Steenbarger takes an entirely different approach. Where Van Tharp focues on Position Sizing and Positive Expectancy systems, Dr. Steenbarger focuses on proper self-monitoring and self-coaching tips to improve performance over the daily uncertainty of Wall Street.

Combining Van Tharp & Brett Steenbarger's lessons, below are some commonly misunderstood facts of financial speculation:

1) It's not by making large profits that money is made over time. It's by consistently keeping losses small in relation to profits.

2) Making Money and Being Right are at opposite ends of the performance spectrum, and --- very surprisingly to most --- most professional traders admit their primary job is to minimize losses, NOT focus on being right. Why? Minizing losses (well over 50% of the time losses can't be avoided) ensures their average winner will be greater in relation to the average loser.

3) No one knows FOR SURE how much profit any trade is likely to make. Fortunately, it is possible to know THE INITIAL RISK a trader is willing to lose.

4) Projection of future prices are only a BEST GUESS, never a 100% certainty.

5) Top traders only control three things all the time: Initial Risk, Exits, and EMOTIONS...

Most professional traders keep emotions in check, and most admit that an emotional trader is a Dangerous Trader. I'm happily surprised to find Dr. Steenbarger support a different view.

http://blog.traderslibrary.com/traders-library/2011/01/time-tested-trading-tips-january-15.html

Steve Palmquist

1) There is no magic to trading. It is about putting the odds on your side and not trading unless they are. This sounds simple, but it takes a few years to get good at it.

2) And like most things, while you are learning it is best to work with someone. The learning time is long because traders have to see how things behave in different markets, and learn to trade the odds and not their feelings. The market will not adapt to us, we must adapt to it. ( asr: by this time New traders lose money ).

3) Successful trading is not about predicting what the market is going to do. It is about knowing how to react to whatever it does.

(asr: this calls for have Price levels ahead a) if CL drops 3% when SP/EUR drops 2% what to do next day morning , b) have on Daily chart what was SP/EUR level last few days when CL was at bottom levels , this gives idea what LOW values of SP/EUR CL tolerate and Rise from that BASE level )

4) Trading is a statistical business where it is important to manage risk. Every trading system has a certain percentage of winners and losers.

5) Successful traders have a toolbox of well tested trading patterns, and use the ones most appropriate to the current market conditions.

http://www.daisydogger.com/Daisydogger/Trading_Tools.html

The market will not adapt to us, we must adapt to it. Using the same trading technique all the time can be ineffective because the market environment is always changing.

Trading range markets, bullish markets, and bearish markets favor different tools. The Timely Trades Letter provides insightful market analysis and powerful trading patterns like

- pullbacks,

- retracements,

- candlesticks,

- accumulation, distribution,

- overbought, oversold,

- topping and bottoming, and (asr: for CL Topping in OverBought condition calls for BUY puts/Shorts )

- continuation patterns ( important)

6) Tool Box: http://www.daisydogger.com/Daisydogger/Home.html

Fully tested and evaluated trading patterns are an important part of the successful traders toolbox. Testing trading systems does not guarantee future results, but it provides the trader with insight into what is likely to work and how to use it.

Trading a system that has never been tested and evaluated makes little sense. We focus on testing different systems in a variety of market conditions and with different volume patterns and a variety of filters in order to develop a clear understanding of how each system has worked in the past.

-----

source Kirk news letter email

http://www.smbtraining.com/blog/what-do-all-successful-traders-have-in-common

Roy felt that successful traders:
1) are very solid with what he called the “basics” (tape reading, execution, preparation for the trading day),
2) have discovered the trades that fit your personality and became excellent at those and
3) realize that successful trading is about pulling a small bucket of profit water out of the market well multiple times (in other words they are not greedy).

Mike’s top 3 were:
1) a passion for trading,
2) the willingness to admit you are wrong in your bias and to change your bias or terminate a losing trade and
3) to work really hard to become better each day.

Gman (who had actually had a list of 7 characteristics which were really interesting, but I’ll share his top 3):
1) hard work and preparation,
2) an ability to recognize what trades truly work for you and to STICK with them and
3) calmness in the midst of market volatility.

Unglamorous as it may sound, it looks like the clear winner is hard work and learning the basics. Should this be that big of a surprise? Wasn’t it Thomas Edison who said ” genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration”? But it is interesting to note that two of the three put a very high premium on recognizing your trading strengths and focusing on those types of trades primarily.

-----------

-------------

http://www.traderplanet.com/newsletter_articles/view/3987/distribution:8

asr: we are trying to capture all that info for CL like Reuters , Bloomberg , businessweek.com and archive it .

Available trading information far exceeds one’s capacity for making basic trading decisions, so one can only attend to some of this data. Limited capacity is a major factor in trading success and in understanding stress.

Three factors are essential to successful trading:

1. a healthy psychological profile,

2. the ability to make accurate decisions from a large amount of information, and

3. money management and discipline.

------------

Solar Energy

2011-12-04T08:16:00.001-08:00

Quick Facts about Solar Energy

A sunny location (like Los Angeles, California, US) receives an average of 5.5 hours of sunlight per day each year.
A cloudy location (like Hamburg, Germany) receives 2.5 hours per day of sunlight each year.
A 1 kilowatt peak solar system generates around 1,600 kilowatt hours per year in a sunny climate and about 750 kilowatt hours per year in a cloudy climate.
A typical silicon cell solar module will have a life in excess of 20 years
Monthly average residential consumption of electricity in the US in 2008 was 920 kilowatt hours. (Source: US DOE)
Monthly average residential electricity bill in the US in 2008 was $103.67. (Source: US DOE)
The typical components of a solar home system include the solar module, an inverter, a battery, a charge controller (sometimes known as a regulator), wiring, and support structure.
(asr: so 30 KW hours/day )

Solar Energy Wikipedia

Solar Energy Facts: Q2 201
- Correcting Old Myth
- Facts on America’s Solar Industry

Module Pricing

Retail Price Summary - November 2011 Update

There is little evidence of any slowing in retail module price drops. It should be noted that retail price moves can tend to lag factory gate moves by a month or more.

The continued drop in prices is being driven by excess module supplies coming from manufacturers that are still producing more than the market can absorb. Additionally,

- many do not want to miss out on the anticipated year-end demand caused by the rush to beat tariff reductions at the start of next year in Europe.

- In the US, there is also the rush to start installation ahead of the anticipated end to the Federal Cash Grant.

Solar Market Share

Figure: World Net Electricity Generation by Fuel (trillion kilowatt-hours)

The map below shows the quality of U.S. solar resources compared to the two leading countries in solar energy, Germany and Spain.

Learn: Bioinformatics , IC design ...

2011-12-03T07:54:00.001-08:00

Bioinformatics
Job Market: for Bio entire US jobs paying 100k+ are 350 , where as for Android it is 500 , Machine Learning: 500

Master Lits of Resources: Tutorials , Databases , Tools

- another Master List of Resources

asr: a) seems more on Gene Sequencing , Protein Research etc .. b) it is matured field , they are using Machine learning in it for Long time .

Finance NFLX

2011-12-02T14:00:00.001-08:00

How Netflix Fortunes changed in 3 months: ( from 300 to 100 to 65 )

Understanding Why Netflix Changed Pricing - good one.
-- You will pay us a $/user/month for anyone that has the ‘right’ to connect to our content – regardless of whether they view it or not.” This was the term that changed Netflix pricing.
-- at age fourteen, the digital world is forcing Netflix to execute a pivot. And the world they are entering is radically different from the world they are leaving. There is no longer a first-sale doctrine to keep things neat and tidy
asr: If somebody see this one Coming few months before would have known NFLX would crash 250 to 100 soon ( this kind of Clarity needed 3 months ahead in Investment Analysis , we try this kind analysis with CL ... )..

asr 1:
1/ NetFlix bought $39.6 million of repurchases in the third quarter of 2011 at average cost basis of $218 [ Netflix bought at $218 ]).
2/ Lost 1 million customers due to price increase
3/ now analysts realized content costs of future are increased ( thay why netflix issued $400 mill stock/bonds )

asr 2: NFLX has 50 Mil total shares, so brokarage earlier thought NFLX will make $4 x 50 mil = $200 million profit in 2012 . Now Contents costs are increased from 1.9 to 2.0 Billion , $100 million profit goes there b) subscribers losses add to that then 2012 estimate turned to LOss

The brokerage lowered its 2012 per estimate

- 2012 EPS : to a loss of $0.66 from a profit of $3.95.

- 2012 revenue : reduced to $3.709 billion from $3.919 billion

"Given stalling domestic net subscribers growth and lowered expectations for the whole of fiscal 2012,

- we are lowering 2012 net additions to 5.7 million from 6.1 million,

- increasing content costs to $2.0 billion from $1.9 billion,

- and increasing marketing to 14.8 percent of revenue from 11.6 percent," said Squali.

The brokerage lowered its price target on shares of Netflix to $75 from $90, while maintaining its "hold" rating.

November 28, 2011

Netflix Estimates Revised at Jefferies

"We are lowering our 2012 estimates and price target in the wake of Netflix' announcement to sell $200 million of zero coupon convertible notes and $200 million of common stock.

Concurrent with the company's S-3 filing, management updated guidance, now expecting consolidated net losses for 2012, versus 'unprofitable for a few quarters' previously," said Youssef Squali, an analyst at Jefferies.

Squali said his revised estimates reflect a combination of
- lower net subscribers additions,
- higher selling/marketing spend,
- and higher content costs.

Previously, management said it would be unprofitable for a few quarters starting the first quarter of 2012, but shied away from full 2012 guidance. Domestic streaming net adds have been consistent with prior expectations, flat for November and expected to be strongly positive in December.

Netflix entered into an agreement to sell $200 million of zero coupon convertible bonds to Technology Crossover Ventures and about $200 million of common stock, bringing the total capital raise to $400 million. The zero coupon convertible bonds do not bear interest and are scheduled to mature on Dec. 1, 2018.

The initial conversion rate for the zero coupon convertible bonds is 11.6553 shares of common stock per $1,000 principal amount ($85.80 per share conversion price).

Squali said the convert deal was contingent on the sale of $200 million of common stock at about $70 per share (this follows $39.6 million of repurchases in the third quarter of 2011 at average cost basis of $218 [ Netflix bought at $218 ]).

VC funding / Startups

2011-12-01T10:54:00.001-08:00

The Lean Finance Model Of Venture Capital : Q3 2011 seed/Series A = 1: 1 (50% each)

VC funding:
Accell got big in new VC funding : thanks to Facebook 10% stake they have ( asr thought )
Accel Launches Third India Fund; Will Invest $155M In Early Stage StartupsAccel Debuts $100M Fund To Invest In Disruptive Big Data Companies

Accel Partners Closes $1.35 Billion In Two Funds

Product Management Software Company Atlassian Takes A Huge, $60 Million First Round Of Funding From Accel

Sequoia, Accel, And Union Square Top SecondMarket’s New VC Scoreboard

Startups ( Notables ):
DropBox - all MIT gang ( Y -comb start )
Quora - former Facebook
Asana - former Facebook

Atlassian

MemSql

e-Learning Market

2011-12-01T10:04:00.001-08:00

Market Size
Home Schooling:
The number of home-schooled kids hit 1.5 million in 2007, up 74% from when the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics started keeping track in 1999, and up 36% since 2003. The percentage of the school-age population that was home-schooled increased from 2.2% in 2003 to 2.9% in 2007.
Other Ref

Successful Exits:

1/ grockit ( state what to learn from them and how to improve )
2/ khan acadmy
3/ http://www.uopeople.org/ - It only takes $6 million to Educate the World ( my ideas earlier taking content from MIT/Yale etc....)
4/ Lynda.com Review (read full review very detailed) , Yelp users , Look at this INDEXDB video
- Orielly video lessons (seems manual video ) , but from Books .... that is diff from Linda ...
- I want to be able link to individual video topics. ( photos are attached to below link page)
see e-learning-interaction-boards-pens-text

http://www.tutor.com/pricing/ - $30/hour
http://www.growingstars.com/algebra-online-tutoring - $15/hour
http://www.tutorvista.com/ - $10/hour when bought 20 hour pack , addtional discount as $140 -> $7/hour
http://educomp.com/Products/SmartClass.aspx - Material FOr schools , Pearson invested in both
CD by same tutorVista company

10 online Tutors: http://online-tutoring-review.toptenreviews.com/homeworkhelp-.com-review.html

TutorVista Exit:

The London-listed firm had, in 2009, acquired a 17% stake in the local firm, and will now control 76% of the company with a total investment of Rs631 crore.

Around 4% is held by small investors and the remaining is owned by promoters K. Ganesh and his wife, Meena Ganesh, who founded the firm in 2005.

Pearson could raise its stake to 80% by the end of February, Ganesh said.

John Makinson, chairman of Pearson India, termed India’s education sector as “exciting”, and said Tuesday’s acquisition was a strategic investment for his company’s expansion plans in the country.

The Bangalore-headquartered TutorVista operates in four business segments—

1/ online tutorials;

2/ digital content and information and communication technologies for schools;

3/ test preparation and offline coaching to students;

4/ and runs 19 K-12 schools.

Chief executive Ganesh will continue in his present role, the companies announced on Tuesday.

“The investment in TutorVista gives us control of the world’s largest online tutoring business, and crucially, a solid platform on which to build a leading presence in the Indian private schools sector,” Makinson said.

TutorVista employs 2,000 teachers and 800 staff across its business segments. There are around 5,000 students in its 19 K-12 schools, which it expects to expand to 100 in five years.

“This deal indicates that global leaders are accepting Indian education models,” said Narayanan Ramaswamy, executive director, education, at consulting firm KPMG. “India is already the biggest base for education and you will see more money flowing to this sector. While TutorVista now will have access to global best practices available with Pearson, it will make Pearson a little bolder to roll out its education plan in the country.

Pearson operates in 60 countries and is now looking at emerging markets such as China, Brazil, South Africa and India for expansion. It owns brands such as Penguin books and the Financial Times newspaper. It also has a significant presence in computer-based testing and English language testing.

Pearson formed a joint venture in 2009 with another Indian education company, Educomp Solutions Ltd, to run a chain of vocational education centres branded IndiaCan.

There are no immediate plans to list the firm on the bourses, said Khozem Merchant, president of Pearson India. “If it becomes a $1 billion firm in three to five years, then that could be a good time to enter the market,” he added.

-----------

Pearson buys 59% more in TutorVista for Rs 577 cr

BS Reporter / Bangalore January 18, 2011, 13:43 IST

Tutorvista has raised nearly $60 million as equity infusion during the past three rounds of funding

and provides online tutoring to various geographies across the world with US being the primary market. The company is also into K-12 space, supplies digital content and technology platforms to various schools and has a growing presence in test preparation and tutions.

Marjorie Scardino, Pearson’s Chief Executive, said: “TutorVista is an innovative and effective education company that we have worked with and respected for several years. This acquisition - which we believe is the largest transaction in education in India by any company – signals our excitement about the vitality of India’s education sector.”

According to a statement from Pearson,

- Indian government currently invests $40 billion each year or three per cent of GDP in education,

- while Indian consumers spend more than $40 billion on private educational institutions and services.

Both segments of the market are growing rapidly as a result of government commitment to increase the quality of and access to learning opportunities as a means of sustaining economic growth and reducing poverty.

In mid-2009, Pearson established a joint venture with Educomp, a publicly-traded learning company, to develop vocational and professional services for the Indian market.

Pearson buys controlling stake in TutorVista for $127m

Last summer Pearson spent $497m (£326m) acquiring the school learning systems business of Brazilian education company SEB and also expanded its presence in China and South Africa.

------

TechCrunch: Total Raised: $80 m , final bought out valued: $150 m ( $127 mil. for 76% stake )

tember 24, 2010, 08:40 AM IST

INVESTORS QUEUE UP FOR TUTORVISTA’S $50M ROUND

- s TutorVista plans to roll up to 100 formal schools (through the acquisition route), set up 170 brick-n-mortar tutorial centres in 10 states (from two currently) and expand ICT framework in private schools.

TutorVista has also been M&A-savvy to grow the domestic business. It acquired Edurite Technologies to foray into digital class rooms and other e-learning solutions. It is now the second largest player in this market after Educomp.
- Edurite also teamed up with Manipal Education to enter the K-12 school segment, and uses the Manipal brand to own and manage schools spread across Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad, Mangalore, Gurgaon and Nepal currently.
- Similarly, it took over Tandem, a network of tutorial centres in Kerala, to develop a chain of tutorials that are technology enabled and not centered around one star teacher.

Patents

2011-11-23T12:42:00.001-08:00

How To Patent An Idea — The Basics of Patenting: USPTO Howto

Utility patent: You will be required to pay 3 kinds of fees as you apply for the patent: 1) filing fee – $300.00, 2) search fee – $500.00, and 3) examination fee – $200.00.
If your application is successful, and the United States Patent and Trademark Office approves the patent, you will be required to pay two additional fees:
1) publication fee – $300.00 and 2)issue fee – $1,400.00 if you are an independent inventor, or represent a small business, the fees are reduced by half.
Software Patents: I always recommend that inventors seeking software patents start with a patent search. Typically there is always something that can be patented, it is just a matter of finding out what is unique and how to describe it to accentuate the uniqueness of the invention. Ultimately, the question is usually whether the patent claims that can be obtained will be broad enough to warrant the time, money and expense associated with obtaining a patent.
US Patent Search FAQs : The Detailed Patentability Assessment is typically between 4 to 7 pages in length
Patent Searching 101
Patent It Yourself: Your Step-by-Step Guide

You can Learn Lot from this Google Patent Search

Look at bottom of the page , how many things Apple Patented:

Patent Orignal granted , Patent changing hands once issued
Patent filed but not Issued

_

Google Filed Patents For Android Pattern Unlock And Gesture-Based Controls , details , USPTO file

Field: May 14, 2010 , Issueed: November 17, 20
asr: It seems you can patent things easily , see this simple google one .Abstract

Embodiments enable a mobile device to execute an action analogous to a user-defined action in response to receipt of a gesture analogous to a user-defined gesture. In an embodiment, a method automatically interprets touch gestures on a mobile device. In the method, a user input is received that defines a first touch gesture to initiate a first action on an application of the mobile device. A second touch gesture is received on a touch screen of the mobile device. The second touch gesture is similar, but not identical, to the first touch gesture, and has a different orientation, size or position from the first touch gesture. In response to receipt of the second touch gesture, a second action is determined on the application of the mobile device according to a difference between the first and second touch gestures in orientation, size or position on the screen of the mobile device. Finally, the second action is initiated.

Machine Learning Jobs

2011-11-22T11:01:00.001-08:00

Various JOb posting for ML , this gives an Idea what companies are looking for in ML .

Hunch ML: - ebay bought Hunch for this one.
StumbledUpon Info graph , Info graph company

good Hadoop info. on Web:
Future of Hadoop - Deck

How Hadoop Revolutionized Data Warehousing at Yahoo and Facebook -- Slide share Deck
Practical Problem Solving with Apache Hadoop & Pig -- Slide share Deck
Hadoop: The Definitive Guide - amazon book

Software Engineer, Machine LearningPalo Alto, CA (Facebook )

Facebook is seeking a machine learning engineer to join our engineering team in Palo Alto, CA. The ideal candidate will have industry experience working on a range of classification and optimization problems, e.g. payment fraud, click-through rate prediction, click-fraud detection, search ranking, text/sentiment classification, collaborative filtering/recommendation, or spam detection. The position will involve taking these skills and applying them to some of the most exciting and massive social data and prediction problems that exist on the web.

Responsibilities

Develop highly scalable classifiers and tools leveraging machine learning, data regression, and rules based models
Suggest, collect and synthesize requirements and create effective feature roadmap
Code deliverables in tandem with the engineering team
Adapt standard machine learning methods to best exploit modern parallel environments (e.g. distributed clusters, multicore SMP, and GPU)

Requirements

B.S. Computer Science. M.S. or Ph.D. a plus
A minimum of 5 or more years experience in one or more of the following areas: Fraud prevention engineering, machine learning, large-scale data mining for analytics.
Proven ability to translate insights into business recommendations
Experience with Hadoop/Hbase/Pig or Mapreduce/Sawzall/Bigtable a plus
Expert knowledge developing and debugging in C/C++ and Java on *nix
Experience with scripting languages such as Perl, Python, PHP, and shell scripts

Experience with filesystems, server architectures, and distributed systems

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sr. Machine Learning Engineer (Akraya consulting )

Category : Sr. Engineer

Location/City : CA - San Jose

Position Title: Senior Machine Learning Engineer

Job Type: Full Time

Job Location: San Jose, CA

Primary Skills:

Primary Responsibilities:

Developing algorithms to match offers to products

Taxonomy discovery

Improving classification precision

Developing recommendation algorithms

Identifying and extracting features for various ML tasks

Data mining

Research and implementation of cutting edge ML and NLP algorithms

Qualifications:

Candidates should have a strong sense of good software engineering techniques and preferably be able to code in Python. A proven ability to parallelize your code as evidenced by an open source or other public project would also be a plus.

Skills in the following areas are desirable:

Postgres/pgsql
Python
OOP
Python web frameworks
Web user interfaces

Education Background:

Bachelors /Master's degree in Engineering/Machine learning/Researces

Mobile Apps

2011-11-22T06:58:00.001-08:00

What is changing on App Stores : Apple App Store and Android Market

11/2011:
a/ Noticed Wikipedia complete offline edition : $9
b/ Learn Hindi , Punjabi , Spanish , German, Chinese / Learn Python, Java , PHP ..... All needs Same template almost .. done by one company
c/ http://www.bonobolabs.com/the-changing-app-store/

Machine Learning

2011-11-20T08:03:00.001-08:00

Thanks to Sandeep for this good easy to Learn Layout .
This is Ideal Layout for learning new subjects , what this Layout provides
- complete set of handouts and corresponding Vidoes ,
- Videos are all in one page with hide/show. you can open 2 videos , press pause button on one video and can go to other video on that topic

Here comes my Perfectionist critic(asr) , how can we improve on this good Layout further
- we can have 2 pane window (same page) showing Lecture PDF on LEFT and on the Right showing Video
- Both panes do Vertical scroll independently that way you can go to any section of PDF and any related video for that section
- next step: Have 'topics' in each lecture PDF listed on a collapsible DIV so that we can go to those 'topics' directly.

What is Machine Learning?
A computer program is said to learn from experience E with respect to some class of tasks T and performance measure P, if its performance at tasks in T, as measured by P, improves with experience E. - Tom M. Mitchell (1997).

Prerequisites
Following are the recommended prerequisites for this course:

Lecture handouts

cs229-notes1.pdf	Linear Regression, Classification and logistic regression, Generalized Linear Models
cs229-notes2.pdf	Generative Learning algorithms
cs229-notes3.pdf	Support Vector Machines
cs229-notes4.pdf	Learning Theory
cs229-notes5.pdf	Regularization and model selection
cs229-notes6.pdf	The perceptron and large margin classifiers
cs229-notes7a.pdf	The k-means clustering algorithm
cs229-notes7b.pdf	Mixtures of Gaussians and the EM algorithm
cs229-notes8.pdf	The EM algorithm
cs229-notes9.pdf	Factor analysis
cs229-notes10.pdf	Principal components analysis
cs229-notes11.pdf	Independent Components Analysis
cs229-notes12.pdf	Reinforcement Learning and Control

Machine Learning - Standford University Lectures

Lecture 1

Lecture 2

Lecture 3

Lecture 4

Lecture 5

Lecture 6

Lecture 7

Lecture 8

Lecture 9

Lecture 10

Lecture 11

Lecture 12

Lecture 13

Lecture 14

Lecture 15

Lecture 16

Lecture 17

Lecture 18

Lecture 19

Lecture 20

A Big thanks to the Standford University for posting these lectures.
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e-Learning Project Tools

2011-11-18T13:07:00.001-08:00

Listed below are Models Tools , Layouts , ' Design Inspirations ' , Libraries for e-Learning Project

JSFiddle good layout http://graph.tk/ http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Browser/LassoBirds/ http://www.lynda.com/Access-training-tutorials/140-0.html

Inspirational Quotes:
The winners have always been those who took average technology and reconfigured/repackaged it for mass market or different audiences. With google search, they achieved both a leap in technology and the ability to make it easy for people to use - which was quite a feat.(asr: we our html5 audio, video(Canvas render) e-learn we are going to do same )

In my opinion winners win because not only do they have crazy good ideas, but they work hard to show the world it works.

1/ Content
Learning : Concept Mastery

2/ Interactions ( with user)
Main page Layout ( get from other ref links )
Component layouts
Audio
Objects/Diagrams

3/ Components details
Layouts/Code : HTML5 sample projects

-- editable table , and Pie charts shown for teaching fractions
-- reminders example showing simple data input
-- tiny links on top of Postit notes..

4/ Technical Architecture
Performance
Hosting
Khan Client architecture
Khan Server architecture

JS Libraries ( diff libraries , discuss lib size KB , licensing )
HTML5/CSS3 vs. supporting OLD Browsers

5/ Releated Works
asr: see my notes at the bottom stating a) shortcut b) amplification , most of these 10 startups are in shortcut , our E-learn is in Amplification ...

Education Incubator Imagine K12 Picks Ten Startups For Its First Class

The company sorted through some 200 applications, interviewed 36 startups and made offers to ten startups for the first class this summer. All accepted, took an average of $20,000 in funding for an average of 6% of their equity, and moved to Silicon Valley.

They’re also getting lots of attention and mentoring via a weekly dinner and office hours.
Screen Shots of al 10 Startups
ImagineK12 hatches its first class of education tech startups
grockit ( state what to learn from them and how to improve )
khan acadmy
Lynda.com Review (read full review very detailed) , Yelp users , Look at this INDEXDB video
- Orielly video lessons (seems manual video ) , but from Books .... that is diff from Linda ...
- I want to be able link to individual video topics. ( photos are attached to below link page)
see e-learning-interaction-boards-pens-text

http://www.tutor.com/pricing/ - $30/hour
http://www.growingstars.com/algebra-online-tutoring - $15/hour
http://www.tutorvista.com/ - $10/hour when bought 20 hour pack , addtional discount as $140 -> $7/hour
http://educomp.com/Products/SmartClass.aspx - Material FOr schools , Pearson invested in both
CD by same tutorVista company

6/ Building
--asr: But the key is to find passonate HTML5/CSS/JS guy so that he can do the work. Expertise is extermly important to understand Khan Academy 'Practice excercise Model ' using in JS scrpits etc.
a/ we got the guy ( ref. indian blogs ) 9Lessons.com Srinivas .lots of tutorials , easy JS guy .
- This guy has Mac Book Pro and hosts on EC2 , so he may be expensive.
b/1 other possibilities: talk to Bokam to get any known Javascript, CSS guy
b2/ get from other Indian blogs (JS/CSS guy)

d/ ELance:

-- shows how a small company getting projects done: https://www.elance.com/e/consumer/2?&t=1

-- HTML5 top1 tested:

Here is some Independent HTML5 guys list

1/ Learning : Concept Mastery

Learning : Concept Mastery ( details are here)

- And it explains the higher mathematical concepts in the way a younger child's mind would work! It's like the author remembers well how he thought when he was a kid and wrote the book from that POV. You can see the light go on in the child's eyes when that algebra or logic concept clicks

- I particularly liked this book because each unit (chapter) is all-inclusive. There is a great lesson at the beginning followed by practice and then three levelsof questions. The only supplement I needed to create was a method of assessing my studentsImagineK12 hatches its first class of education tech startups

Technology does two things for us; shortcuts and amplifiers ( from the above link)
- it either provides a shortcut to accomplishing something,
- or it amplifies that which we want to do.

Using this framework, where and how can shortcuts and amplifiers aid us in teaching and learning?

At the individual level, learning is an inherently incremental, evolutionary process. There are no shortcuts really. Sure, this varies by individual student. Some only need access to the info in order to absorb it. Giving this type of student a shortcut to the content is useful. But most non-future-hedge-funders learn gradually, incrementally and experientially.

Case in point: much of our collective knowledge is on the Internet already, but this has made little difference in student learning outcomes. Real learning experiences take time and guidance.

That’s not to say that shortcut technology doesn’t have its place in schools. It does.

- Data processing,
- student tracking,
- gaming,
- testing,
- instant messaging,
- and content distribution will help us save some time and track what’s trackable. Money will be made and engagement may see at least a short-term boost.

asr: based on this blog post author , therese startup do either a) Shortcut or b) Amplification asr: our E-Learning is in Amplification ( one on one , tracking progress based based on what is teaching in class romms these days and master with from the Best Material ...)

1) Shortcut startups: Eduvant, Goalbook, ClassDojo, Nunook and Remind101

2) Amplification startups: Then comes the question of amplification. Here there is more promise, certainly! Of the 10 ImagineK12 startups, Educreations and FormativeLearning are amplifiers

The case against Khan Academy and for 3.5 million Sal Khans insteadWhere to hack education and where to stack it

2.1 / Mainpage Layout

This Plurk UI seems good , small fonts , good Hide button for language
-This Left menu Dim seems is a UI standard , I saw it many places .

for explaining 'math Word' problems , to hand draw pictures use this code base http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Browser/LassoBirds/ ( Have a separate pallete items to draw this and write Text below it )
- complete List of MS demos are here ( we may find some other good ones here )

See this Lynda tutorials http://www.lynda.com/Access-training-tutorials/140-0.html

a) JSFiddle good layout , ( use processing.Js to draw Canvas object to show )
- Have F11 full-screen mode by default when user enters application so that User is immersered with material no TABS and other things on the TOP side of the browser.
b/ study this we may need this kind of HAND DRAW .: http://mbostock.github.com/protovis/ex/splines-full.html ( asr: we may develop small lib to show HAND Drawn style diagrams such as circles , Cat , set of Cats/dogs , house , Candies, boys, girls etc.. ( light weight , colored )

c/ JQuery key based Canvas Draw Theory ; JQuery Key Navigation
d/ good fonts, expand collapse Chapter List , Look at bottom Yellow Tabs , very tight and good . Top A-Z ribbion is good

e/ good smooth drag/drop of images , we can use it : http://chessvenue.net/pages/chess/

2.2 / Component Layout

Component Templates: we can have similar templates on Web for sale around $10 ) , get and modify
MySQL console : we may use this kind as part of MYSQL class ... , I tried CONSOLE it worked .

- good Time Line based UI ...
- good FAQ page layout

Site Templates: , good Site Template ( with no flicker Documentation ) , show/Hide options ( like Indeed.com )
- Horizantal/vertical Tab pages, Nice options box , Mega Menus ..

Top author List here , 5 star rated..
Events Calender ,
Category Tree on RHS - good color , we may choose this kind of tree for cat. .
Santu Setty - from Hyderabad

Good UX interaction when selected item: It is close to ( Trello Cards ... ) , may be we use this one .
- good tabs , smooth transition from '4 col grid to 2 col grid'
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http://graph.tk/ - all Algebra is based on this one .
See this Lynda tutorials http://www.lynda.com/Access-training-tutorials/140-0.html

a/ good tiny fonts Rect. box with links
b) Also check Wofrafram alpha site UI ( good fonts , hide/show )
c) blogger.com post view ( on mouse over show Edit/View/Delete , this is latest 2011 design of blogger )
- Icons and buttons are great , Icon change color when selected .
d) we should you this kind of arrow with Html5 canvas/css while explaining audio, this seems natural arrows than straight lines ( find how , this is a image of it )
The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook : good to Viz to show 'Changes over time'

----
Best UI: http://keith-wood.name/gChart.html - I want my blog this way single page and Editable link which saves change content to Server ...

( all web sites android/Python/... learning sites should be like this , except ADs spoiled the web pages for #of Page views so for Dollars )

1) for us stick with 'Jquery UI' , this works great across all browsers and HTML 4 based .. but still great verity of tools and Ton of plug-ins ( see pulg-in list )

http://jqueryui.com/demos/datepicker/

- we can use this JQuery Lib for now our 'course Project ' , you can not Canvas/SVG with out MS support on WIN 7 of IE 9 ( as of now Beta ..)

2.3/ Audio

We need to contral Audio in sync with learing materiala painted on the screen, timing is important , here are tools to help.
a/ Buzz - HTML5 JS Audio library .. ( asr: this is what we want ...)
b/ Sound Mager 2: What, Why, How
- The soundmanager2.js core can get down to 10 KB over the wire, - Api demo - good audio demos : loops , timers etc.. this what we need for e-Learner .., HTML5 based API ( see nice debugger on right )

c/ HTML5 fallbacks Modernizer

2.4 / Objects/Diagrams

a/ We need these light weight HTML5/CSS components for drawing/diagarms instead of Images/flash
- so they are FAST to download
- responsive ( user can manipulate )
http://csspiffle.com/ - No more photo editing software for web design! .

-- Wireframe: You can create interactive wireframes with CSS Piffle easily. Just using HTML5 and CSS3.

-- Animations:Animations in CSS Piffle are really easy to create. You design and CSS Piffle makes all the work for you. (asr: they may provide TEXT Animation with Timing for our Course Content )

b/ study this we may need this kind of HAND DRAW .: http://mbostock.github.com/protovis/ex/splines-full.html ( This simple editor demonstrates the various methods of spline interpolation supported by Protovis. Drag the control points to see how the shape of the spline changes. Click to add new points, and use the DELETE key to delete the selected control point.) [ these guys say new one D3.Js ) , Pivotvis to D3.js
- also check this http://mbostock.github.com/protovis/docs/scale.html , check these features where are these in D3.js , Pivotis Documentation

3.3/ Layouts/Code :HTML5 sample projects

Design Inspirational  Sites: http://line25.com/category/inspiration

Another Big list here  , all good ones
wow MindMaps   clean Layout , HTML5 Canvas games

All Entries: http://10k.aneventapart.com/Entry/Gallery , Nishant is On this Panel of judges
- $3k first prize , good response worldwide , all HTML5 base , good Rules see here , all under 10K code size , here is what you can be assured about these apps
- good limited JS libs as per rules ( 4)
- Rules says they need to work on IE9+ , FireFox 3.5+ , Safari , Chrome . So well tested on modern Browsers so we can base the code on top of these apps.

First prize - good graphics ,
PostIt Notes - wow simple asr: we can use this in e-learn ( for drawing comparison bars etc.. )

Lean /Clean pages
3D Graph - wow
Calender - lean
Reminders - wow simple ( we can extend this with Voice Alert when time hit , send this info to calenders Google/Microsoft .)
Symbol game: simple/clean ( author said available for consulting ) , JUMP game: http://www.paulbrunt.co.uk/ : we can have these inside free for Kids ...
table - we can use this table for students to create new table from a simple menu ..

Card Game:
PastChart - Needs to parameterize  of Time line ( month/Year/Days/Hours ) , Store locally as file or to Google Docs as XML etc..

Clock - Param for Color , Hands , Roman/Numarals etc.. - we can use for Kids Test in E-Learn ....
Good Font and chart
Rows and Columns , SUN Calc 3D
Beatiful page Reader( see next/prev ) HTML editor     , good YouTube Viewer

SVG apps: home art  , Darg and Drop objects , objects/Walls   , Color Mix

Games:

4.1/ Old Notes

content:
1. Stating Pre-requisites ( show on pre-requisites text some where when mouse over , so user can go there and do some exercises).
ex: Gina has 15 candies which is 3 times as much as Ria candies . How many candies Ria has
step 1: ask question who has more candies
step 2: draw a picture of 2 bars comparing ( name bras G , R and relative size 3x )
step 3: now show examples 1/5 2/10 3/15 in a table
step 4: now see what we know Gina has 15 , let us write Gina Really has 15
step 5: now ask how many Ria has ...
for this pre-requisite is: person A has 5 times as candies as Person B , so who has more candies ....
( asr: see Physics book/alagebra ordered to show summary of topic at the begging )

4.1/ Performance

- Khan site linked to this Yahoo performance guide
a/ Need this book for Google App Engine GAE archietcure understading

b/ Performance Pfofiling with AppStats 3/2010 article
60 seconds is relatively high for data that may change often, but we figure users won’t be bothered by this on our site. Much shorter timeouts - as low as just a few seconds - can still save huge amounts of resources, especially on popular sites. Few users will worry about a 5 second cache timeout, but if you’re getting 100 queries a second, you’ve just eliminated 99.8% of your query overhead!

c/ Adventures in performance tuning on Google App Engine : see Lesson Learned
d/ I intend on pushing ahead with AppEngine as there aren't too many cloud platforms that offer scalability to the point that AppEngine does

4.1/ Hosting

a/ Need this book for Google App Engine GAE archietcure understading

b/ Pricing $9/month level should be fine till end of VC pitch
b2/ Amazon EC2 Vs. RackSpace
c/ support for GAE on StackOverflow
d/ Khan Academy is using it
e/ Nov 2011 Review - positive
f/ it served about 3.4 million pageviews (1 million unique visitors) in the 12 days it was live. It grossed over $1.2 million. Depending on who you ask, this is quite a lot of traffic, and we exceeded the free App Engine quota. Google sent us a bill for a grand total of $71.56.
g/ This site is on GAE , response seems fine , founder say they will do it again on GAE

asr final word: Whole Stack webserver , DB , memcache all is by Google , so they improve it over time , instead of going to RackSpace or Amazon or eapps.com
- Scalability ( for once in a while peak demand ) is taken care by App engine , instead of you worrying about it for RackSpace case ...

4.2/ Khan Client architecture

Khan Exercise Rewrite ( by JQuery Creator )

Writing Exercises: Home Exercise template , Formatting

4.3/ Khan Server architecture

a/ Khan Academy runs on Google App Engine (GAE) which means they must either use Java or Python 2.5 (Python 2.5 in sandboxed mode also minus the ability to run C extension modules).

b/ Khan Academy uses Python 2.5 along with GAE's default webapp module. Since webapp does not include a template engine, they use the Django 0.96 template engine which the GAE runtime includes by default.

c/ GAE works off of a datastore which is automatically replicated and scaled and is based on BigTable and hence Google Filesystem (GFS). GAE does not allow for you to host a relational database. Instead of using SQL to tie into the datastore and having write access to your filesystem, you need to use the Google Query Language (GQL).

d/ GQL looks exactly like SQL but you can't do joins and you can't select partial entities from your queries. You must either select just the keys or the entire entity.

e/ GAE works off of a datastore which is automatically replicated and scaled and is based on BigTable and hence Google Filesystem (GFS). GAE does not allow for you to host a relational database. Instead of using SQL to tie into the datastore and having write access to your filesystem, you need to use the Google Query Language (GQL). GQL looks exactly like SQL but you can't do joins and you can't select partial entities from your queries. You must either select just the keys or the entire entity.

f/ GAE applications such as Khan make use of caching so that the datastore does not need to be contacted on each page load. This caching is typically handled with the memcache service included in GAE API

f/ Other than GAE they use a few very cool Javascript libraries under the hood: