Indpro Magazine Nr.1

1# OCTOBER

MAGAZINE

IN THIS ISSUE UPPiNG UPPSALA KANTH iN SWEDEN BANGALORE BLUES DEVELOPERS CORNER AND MORE

MAKES YOU GROW

WORDS OF INDPRO Indpro makes you grow. With these words in mind we came to start Indpro. In this magazine you will get to know our company, our members and our values.

We work with values in our company. Values are important. They will guide you, they will give you comfort and provide a foundation for eective communication, production and decision-making. Values provide the foundation for the organization to move forward as one entity. Values provide the informal rules and routines that make the formal organization work as a community of practice pursuing a joint enterprise in the name of the company and its members. These values do not only make our company and members grow, it enables us to provide services to our clients that make them grow. Our mission has always been to make our organization, our members, and our clients grow. And we work towards professionalism and personality. We work towards communication, collaboration and agility. We work together with our clients to achieve business wellness and growth.

Together we will grow!

We are proud to present the first number of The Indpro Magazine.

Anders Ekelund Bobby Biswas Marcus Lippert Pavel Siddique Founders of Indpro

EDiTOR´S LETTER Dear colleagues & readers: Namaste!

Knowledge is power. Knowledge is light. In fact, knowledge is the strongest and wisest weapon you can carry in life. At Indpro, this belief has always motivated us to seek knowledge and enlighten ourselves and our surroundings. Guided by this belief, today we have created a platform for knowledge sharing and interactions, both for the Indpro family and our clients.

We are very proud to finally present a long time aspiration, the first issue of the Indpro Magazine !

Indpro Magazine is also part of our work to strengthen our brand awareness internally and externally and we are therefore hoping that we will all work together to make Indpro Magazine a reflection of the creativity and entrepreneurship that permeates our company.

This issue is our tribute to the Indpro family, to two cities that have meant a great deal for the people in our company and to our future endeavors. It is a tribute to what we have accomplished so far and what we are indeed capable of accomplishing in the near future and of course this has only been possible together with our talented employees.

Therefore, we will always dedicate a spread called ”Employee of the Month” where we will have the opportunity of presenting one of our talented employees for each issue.

Furthermore our magazine will always embrace a spread called ”Developer’s Corner” in which we will share information about fares and conferences which we have attended, their main points and in the future hopefully also tips and advices from our own talented developers. We also have a page for happenings, where you are always welcome to suggest us any happenings or upcoming events related to the Indpro family, our business and our market, and also a part called ”Did you know” for all of us hungering for facts that has not yet come to our knowledge. Last but not least we have a page, which we have dedicated to welcoming our new family members!

For now, we hope that you will enjoy this first issue. As we are planning to publish it quarterly there is a lot more to come in the future issues and we are hoping that it will engage many more readers and writers.

As we are still in the start up phase, we do appreciate all your feedback regarding the magazine, whether it is suggestions for future articles, comments about the articles, the design or the photos. Let us incorporate Pro in our daily routines and make it bigger and better everyday.

Enjoy!

Zeina Malla Editor

06-07 | UPPiNG UPPSALA

08-09 | KANTH iN SWEDEN

10-11 | BANGALORE BLUES

12-13 | DEVELOPERS CORNER

14-15 | DEVELOPERS CORNER 2

16

| NEW EMPLOYEES

17

| DiD YOU KNOW

6 | OCTOBER 2009

UPPiNG UPPSALA The majority of the Swedes in Indpro have a special relation to this magnificent city that we are paying tribute to in this issue of our magazine. Some were born there, some studied there, some simply grew up there and some still have their families living there. In this issue we are featuring the historical and academic city of Uppsala.

Uppsala is the fourth largest municipality in Sweden, hosting approximately 130 000 inhabitants. It is located north of Stockholm, within a distance of approximately 70 kilometers, in the province of Uppland.

The city is most famous for being an old, strong center of education with its university being the eldest in northern Europe. Uppsala is also known for having been a religious Christian centre in Sweden dating back to 1164 A.D. when the first archbishop was consecrated in Uppsala and also becoming the primate archbishop in Sweden. Prior to Christianity, Paganism used to be a very influential religion with the temple of Uppsala containing of many Aesir gods at that time.

Academia

Uppsala University was founded in 1477, which makes it the eldest centre for higher education in Scandinavia.

The Cathedral in Uppsala, Domkyrkan, is one of the largest in northern Europe with towers reaching 118.7 meters. It is also the landmark of Uppsala and can be seen from most directions in the central parts of the city.

Uppsala also hosts the largest library in Sweden, The Uppsala University Library Carolina Rediviva, with more than 5 million volumes and 60, 000 manuscripts.

Uppsala takes great pride in their university and the city is also popularly called the Student City. Uppsala University was ranked as Sweden’s best university, and number 63 of the top 200 universities in the world in the Times higher education evaluation of universities (2008) *.

Among other influential people in Sweden the crown princess of Sweden, Victoria, graduated from Uppsala University. The Uppsala University hospital is also one of the city’s great prides. It is the oldest university hospital in Sweden. The first department was established in 1708 and today the hospital is one of Sweden’s most complete regional hospitals.

Today Uppsala is, asides from being known for its long history, renowned for its medical research and acclaimed for its leading position in biotechnology.

Cultural Life

Uppsala embraces people from many different nationalities and backgrounds. It offers its visitors and inhabitants beautiful cultural scenes with famous plays in the theaters but also events to encourage the sharing of the many ethnicities and cultures in the city. Every year the municipality of Uppsala hosts a festival together with the various cultural institutions and societies, called the Cultural Night or Kulturnatten in Swedish. It is a night filled with dance, music and various performances from different cultures across the world to boast the multitude and varieties in cultures.

Tom - COO, what’s your relation to Uppsala?

Though I was not brought up there, Uppsala is my hometown whenever I go back to Sweden. I lived there for many years and studied astrophysics for 5 years at Uppsala University.

What do you miss the most in Uppsala?

Well, primarily I miss my family and friends in Uppsala.

I miss the food in these favorite places we used to go and grab something quick to eat in the afternoons. I also miss the many cafés around the shopping street in central Uppsala. You know, to just sit and relax with some friends over a cup of coffee and see all the people rushing by…

Marcus - CEO, what’s your relation to Uppsala?

I did my PhD studies in Uppsala and was employed by Uppsala University as a lecturer and researcher for 5 years.

What do you miss the most in Uppsala?

The best thing about Uppsala is that it combines the vision of being historical and also being modern at the same time.

For more information on Uppsala, please visit: http://www.uppsala.se For more information on Kulturnatten please go to: http://www.kulturnattenuppsala.se

KANTH iN SWEDEN Vijayakanth, one of the senior software engineers of Indpro India, travelled to Sweden during 15 days. We asked Vijayakanth to share his experiences of Sweden, regarding social life, work culture, climate and food. Vijayakanth shares the memories from his visit in Sweden with a great smile.

Name: Vijayakanth. P Age: 27 Origin: Tirupur, State of Tamil Nadu.

Civil status: Single Role description: Working in ASP.NET applications and C# since 2007 in Indpro. Joined as a Software engineer and got promoted to Senior Software Engineer in 2008.

Current client: Mathem

Vijayakanth shares the memories from his visit in Sweden with a great smile. ”I had many expectations before leaving to Sweden. For example I was curious about their infrastructure, I wanted to see how the roads look like, interact with Swedish people and taste the Swedish food. Being there during the transition phase of late winter season and beginning of the spring, I experienced four seasons at one time”.

Vijayakanth is currently working for a Swedish client called Mathem. ”The purpose of this trip was to meet our client and newly joined programmers. Mathem is an online store which sells products through recipes. Members can search, view recipes and order for recommended products. After placing the order, Mathem’s Truck company will deliver products to the customer’s home. I have been working on this project for nearly 2 years. I started out as a junior software engineer in this project and got promoted to a Senior Software Engineer in 2008”

Continuing our discussion about his experiences in Sweden, Vijayakanth is recalling his first meeting with a Swedish family. ”I actually visited four Swedish families, in the cities of Uppsala and Stockholm, and I was positively surprised by the openness and freedom in the families. I learned that as soon as the children turn 18 years they are considered to be independent and can leave their parents to start a new independent life, if they wish to. There are no restrictions or rules from parents about how their children should live their lives when they are adults, unlike in our Indian society for example.

Living with a partner before marriage is also accepted by the society. This allows the people to choose their right life partner. I found this to be a very interesting way of life, since the majority of us in India are used to different preconditions”.

What can you tell us about your experience of a Swedish work place and culture? ”Working with Swedish people was great. They are very social and we could talk about anything and share everything in our minds. I often found myself wondering about some differences in our cultures, if Swedish people are as such because of the size of the country and its population, geographical location and history, or if the country is as such because of its people. Another thing which I think was very positive is that Swedish people use their mother tongue, Swedish, everywhere, at work, in their homes, in hospitals, with medical prescriptions etcetera. “This is something very positive because they preserve their mother language which I sometimes miss in India”.

Many people are surprised and curious to hear about how cold the winters in Sweden can become. What did you think about the climate? ”Well if someone wants to see snow and ice they should definitely visit Sweden during winter season! People have to plan carefully how to dress in the cold and buy their outfits accordingly. I recall experiencing the effects of 0 degree Celsius on the roads and it was amazing. Being there in end of March until the first week of April I experienced different seasons. When I first arrived it was approximately 0 degrees and when I left the temperature had drastically increased”.

Did you experience any difficulties with the food and food habits in Sweden? ”I noticed breakfast is light, and lunch and dinner are heavy. For breakfast there was bread, milk, tea, juice. For lunch, fish, chicken or meat is served.

Most of the dishes containing fish, chicken and meat are boneless and I think this is a big difference between how we eat the food in India. In Sweden the cutlery is frequently used, forks and knives and spoons. In India many of us chose to eat our food along with bread and therefore we use our hands so fish, chicken and meat can be cooked and served with bones. The vegetables in the Swedish meals are served raw or cooked without being fried. I figured this might be one of the secrets for the Swedish’ good health”, Vijayakanth says with a big smile.

When asking Vijaykanth if he can share the most memorable experiences from Sweden, he does not hesitate for long before firing off his answers: I would definitely say that the first thing is how almost religiously people follow the rules on the roads. I was standing at a bus stop with a digital arrival board and I was stunned by the precision of the arrival of the buses!

Not to mention the superb quality of the roads… The second thing is the trust and confidence that I felt in people, because of their openness and being so open-minded. The third is the governmental service that I experienced. Sweden is a very generous country.”

OCTOBER 2009 | 9

BANGALORE BLUES ”Bangalore to me is a home”, says Pavel who first came to Bangalore in 2004 to set up the company.

Once upon a time when Bangalore and its surroundings was still heavily forested, legend has it that the King Veera Ballalla from the Hoysala dynasty lost his way in the jungle while he was out hunting. Tired and hungry he met an old, poor woman living deep inside the jungle, who offered him shelter and baked beans for dinner. The King was so grateful to her that when he constructed a city in the surroundings, he named the whole city as “Benda Kalooru” which means baked beans in the local language Kannada. This name was later modernized to “Bengalooru” and again shortened and anglicized after the British influence until it finally became Bangalore.

Industry and the Academic world Bangalore is referred to as the Silicon Valley of India, the IT capital of the country, and ranked as one of the fastest growing cities in Asia with major Indian and other multinational companies such as Infosys, Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, Microsoft, Google and Oracle establishing either their Indian head quarters in Bangalore or moving major operations there.

It also embraces some of India’s most renowned research institutions and colleges, with one of Asia’s top management institutes located in Bangalore South - Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIM-B).

“Being in Bangalore gives me hope, it allows me to dream and fulfill my dreams and each time I come back my dreams just grow. Just like the city” / Pavel Bangalore is the capital of the South Indian state Karnataka. The state of Karnataka is known to be the emerging IThub of Southeast Asia where Bangalore is the main attraction of the companies.

Bangalore, also known as Bengaluru, has a population of approximately 8-9 million inhabitants, making it the fifth most populous city in India. The official language in Karnataka is Kannada, but Hindi and English are widely spoken, as they are the two official languages of communication in India.

“Bangalore actually reminds me of my hometown in Sweden in many ways with the mild climate and the cool atmosphere. But Bangalore is also an inspiring city, an environment filled with opportunities waiting for us to catch hold of them and make something big out of them… that is how I feel walking around the streets in Bangalore. It is a business environment with a vivid atmosphere where development is happening in a pace faster than I have ever experienced anywhere else in the world. Every time I have left Bangalore and come back again, I see new places that has come up.” / Pavel

It is stated that 10% of the Indian graduates are produced in the state of Karnataka, which is historically known as a center for R&D and technology based institutions. Karnataka also possesses the best IT-infrastructure in India. Along with the large pool of competence and skills within the field of IT. The area is therefore one of the most attractive destinations in Asia for IT-outsourcing.

In 1985, Texas Instruments was the first global technology company to set up its base in Bangalore and might have acted as a door opener to the many other IT companies that would follow in the years to come and eventually give Bangalore it’s reputation as Silicon Valley of India.

The city of many names The mild climate, with the pleasant temperatures and the many beautiful gardens which made Bangalore famous among it’s neighboring cities also as the Garden City of India, attracted many senior citizens and therefore the city also became known as ”the retired man’s paradise”. Today, Bangalore is an emerging metropolitan city with major growing shopping areas and innumerable pubs around the city to cater to the growing diverse population.

“My first vivid memory is having coffee in Indian Coffee House on Mahatma Gandhi Road (MG road). Although the interiors and the building was looking worn out and not what I was used to back in Sweden with all the major international coffee brands outlets, after having my first sip of that coffee I was sold…

Strolling down MG Road after that moment was totally different.. I knew that no other coffee in the world would ever measure up to this experience.” // Zeina

For more information, please go to: www.blr.stpi.in/index.htm www.karnataka.com/industry/software www.india.gov.in/knowindia/st_karnataka.php www.discoverbangalore.com/index.html

OCTOBER 2009 | 11

DEVELOPERS CORNER Indpro and Great Indian Developer Summit 2009 Cutting-edge topics, luminary speakers, over 3200 talented delegates, leading IT brands as sponsors and the biggest summit for software developers in this part of the world - Great Indian Developer Summit (GIDS) Season II took place between 22nd April - 25th April 2009 at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. For both veterans and newcomers to the world of .NET, Java, Rich Web and COBOL, the Great Indian Developer Summit provided participants with a wellbalanced learning experience that guaranteed they went back with a richer understanding of the technologies that make a difference to their careers.

We from Indpro also participated in this event and attended various sessions covering various topics/technologies.

Some of the interesting topics that we came across were:

1) Data Access Hacks and Shortcuts – By Stephen Forte Spying on your Server I ) Use implicitly typed local variables a) IEnumerable will execute locally (Linq to Objects, XML) b) IQueryable will convert your LINQ to TSQL and execute remotely II ) When executing remotely, LINQ queries will generate TSQL on your server III ) You can spy on this SQL via code or even better, watch the whole conversation via SQL Server Profiler a) Learning a very small amount about TSQL, Indicies, and Execution Plans will make you a far better LINQ Programmer.

3) Tips and Techniques for High Performance Managed Code By Milind Hanchinmani ASP.NET performance Tips • • • • • • • • •

Use efficient caching strategies Partition your application logically Use Server.Transfer instead of Response.Redirect Use SP’s Appropriately use DataReader and DataSet Use try{} and finally to make sure connections are closed Use appropriate type transaction Use Paging mechanism Use SQL profiler to monitor locks.

2) A Two-Pronged Approach to Debugging AJAX – By Venkat Subramaniam I ) Error Console: The Error Console is a tool available in Mozilla-based applications that is used for reporting errors in the application chrome an d in web pages user opens.

II ) DOM Inspector: It lets web developers look at the entire DOM as well as update the DOM by hand if you wish.

III ) JavaScript shell: The JavaScript shell is a command-line program included in the SpiderMonkey source distribution.

IV ) FireBug: Firebug enables on the fly debugging, editing, and monitoring of a web site’s CSS, HTML, DOM, and JavaScript, though these edits aren’t saved on the fly.

V ) Grease Monkey: Greasemonkey is a Mozilla Firefox add-on that allows users to install scripts that make on-the-fly changes to most HTML-based web pages.

4) ASP.NET 4.0 Roadmap • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

MVC Controller Event MS Charting control released AJAX process is improved No viewstate in MVC, no datacontrol, no postaback model all are operational model.

RAD with Visual Studio designer and tools We have control over following things Control Rendering Control IDs View State (Legacy, Static, Predictable, Inherit(default)) Website URLs XHTML and Accessibility ASP.NET routing for search engine optimization.

Page.Description Page.Keywords Response.RedirectPermanent JQuery support

5) WPF and SilverLight (Demofest Application)–

By Mike Benkovich

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is a next-generation presentation system for building Windows client applications with visually stunning user experiences. With WPF, you can create a wide range of both standalone and browser-hosted applications. Some examples are Yahoo! Messenger and the New York Times Reader. The core of WPF is a resolution-independent and vector-based rendering engine that is built to take advantage of modern graphics hardware. WPF extends the core with a comprehensive set of application-development features that include Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML), controls, data binding, layout, 2-D and 3-D graphics, animation, styles, templates, documents, media, text, and typography.

WPF is included in the Microsoft .NET Framework, so you can build applications that incorporate other elements of the .NET Framework class library.

In the workshop conducted, Mike Benkovich explained WPF and SilverLight by creating a Sample application named as Demofest application. In this application Mike showed how to loop through a FOLDER containing images using a webservice and displaying them using WPF on a form with excellent graphics.

6) Introduction to Oslo – By Stephen Forte “Oslo” is the code name of platform for model-driven applications. The goal of “Oslo” is to provide a 10x productivity gain by making model-driven applications mainstream. At the core of this platform are domain-specific models, language and tools: • • • •

A language, “M”, for authoring domains textually A tool, Quadrant, for authoring domains visually A Repository for managing domain models A library of pre-built domain models and languages

Together, these components will make it more efficient for a team to develop, implement, and maintain applications and services.

As a whole we learned a lot on the upcoming technologies like Silverlight, WPF, Entity Framework, AJAX, OSLO etc. This event has not only helped us to expand our knowledge but it will help us in our various projects as well. Besides this we got the opportunity to interact face to face with people from Microsoft, Telerik etc. This served both as a motivator and support in the long run.

DEVELOPERS CORNER 2 PHP Developer’s Day - By Microsoft Microsoft conducted an exclusive session on Microsoft InterOp initiatives tailored for open source developers to create cutting-edge business applications. Indpro attended this session and came to know more about new technologies, met people from different backgrounds and got valuable insights on best practices from neutral experts. Following were the topics covered:

1) Build Mission Critical Applications on the Microsoft Platform using Eclipse

By Nahas Mohammed, Technology Advisor, Microsoft

Microsoft has delivered multiple technologies that focus on interoperability with non-Microsoft and Open Source technologies. This session explained how to use Eclipse tools today to build Silverlight applications that run on PCs and Macs, how to work in a cross-platform environment and yet integrate our solution with our designer team. Also got to know about Microsoft’s commitment to openness with the Azure Services Platform.

Unni. Micro 2) jQuery – the write less do more javascript library

By Deepak Gulati

JQuery has gained tremendous popularity in little over two years. It aims to allow web developers to write clear, concise code that cleanly separates the behavior of a page from its design without having them fret over details of cross-browser Javascript development. With its formal inclusion into Microsoft’s Ajax stack, it is bound to become an important tool in an ASP.NET Web Developer’s toolbox.

He started with a tour of some advanced features of Javascript and then moved on to using jQuery for: • • •

Efficient DOM traversal and manipulation Using a unified event handling mechanism across browsers Increasing visual and functional appeal of your web-pages with special effects and plugins

3) MS SQL Business Intelligence with mySQL

By Praveen Srivatsa

This session looked at leveraging our existing investments in mySQL and leveraging the Reporting and Analysis Services from MS SQL server to extract data out from our mySQL data store to build meaningful dashboards. Also discussed about connecting to mySQL from the .NET world, how we can use SQL Reporting services with your data in mySQL and the best practices in working with mySQL. The area explained were: • •

How we can integrate SQL Reporting Services and use SSIS to harvest the data from mySQL. How we can replicate or sync data between MS SQL Server and mySQL to be able to share the relevant data across these databases.

4) Recognize and Deal with Project Warning Signs

By Sanjay Dugar

This session was run by ESI and provides detailed guidance on conducting project health checks, what warning signs to look for, how to find them and finally, when to pull the plug on a project. Also explained the reasons for the failure of the project and how we can handle the projects in a better way to avoid those failures.

For more information, please go to: Microsoft Silverlight

http://silverlight.net/

Expression Studio for Silverlight

http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/overview.aspx?key=web PHP on Windows Training Kit (April 2009) http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=c8498c9b-a85a-4afa-90c0-593d0e4850cb

Manage and deploy ASP.NET and PHP applications, simply. Windows Server 2008 with Internet Information Services 7.0

osoft

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver/compare/php-on-windows/

SQL Server Driver for PHP

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2005/en/us/php-driver.aspx

PHP 5.2.9-2 (Windows) http://windows.php.net/

PHP on IIS

http://php.iis.net/

Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP) for Microsoft Silverlight. http://www.eclipse4sl.org/

Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 RC (Web PI) http://www.microsoft.com/Web/downloads/platform.aspx

Deep Zoom Composer - Prepare images for use with the Deep Zoom feature in Silverlight http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=457b17b7-52bf-4bda-87a3fa8a4673f8bf&displaylang=en

Deep Zoom Composer Demo http://memorabilia.hardrock.com/

JQuery

http://docs.jquery.com/Core

TechEd India 2009 - jQuery Presentation http://www.deepakg.com/prog/

OCTOBER 2009 | 15

NEW EMPLOYEES ”Indpro makes you grow” is our motto.

As we are also always striving to grow, it would be impossible without our talented employees. We are dedicating this part to introduce and welcome two new joinees from Sweden to our talent crew.

Name: Navid Khaledi Age: 23 Nationality: Swedish City: Uppsala Civil status: Single Education: MSc in Engineering and management Position in the company: Scrum Master Previous occupation: Student Hobbies: Excersizing and traveling.

Have you been to India before: Yes What did you like the most?: The people, the food and the climate.

Name: David Allansson Age: 27 Nationality: Swedish City: Bromölla Civil status: Single Education: BSc, Media Technology Position in the company: Technical Director Previous occupation: Self-employed as sysadmin/developer. Prior to that, I worked as a project manager for web developers in Ukraine.

Hobbies: Big passion for visual effects and directing movies.

Have you been to India before: No What are you looking forward to?: Try to learn how to play cricket! And of course the Indian food and beer!

16 | SEPTEMBER 2009

DiD YOU KNOW? …that Bangalore was the first city in India to have electricity (1906)? …that Java was originally named Oak, but they had to change because the name ”oak” was already taken? …that Sweden became a Christian nation in 1050 A.D.? …that the word ”Sun” in Sun Microsystems (the company which developed among other things: Java and Solaris) is actually an abbreviation of ”Stanford University”, where the founders of the company studied at the time when they started the company? …that the ”black box” which is used to register flight data and the communication between cockpit and the air traffic control in an aircraft is actually either orange or red colored and are always placed in the rear of the aircraft (to reduce the shock that reaches the recorder in case of crash)? …that the world’s largest wireless internet provider is NTT DoCoMo in Japan, providing wireless Internet for 45,687,117 subscribers to their i-mode service? (Guinness world records).

…that Sweden had left-hand traffic until a changeover took place in 1967?

…that the Government of Karnataka decided to officially change the name of Bangalore to Bengaluru on 1 November 2006? …it snowed in the Sahara Desert in February of 1979?

OCTOBER 2009 | 17

Makes You Grow!

Sweden.

India.

Brunnsgatan 8 111 38 Stockholm Sweden Tel: +46-(0)8-5000 47 91

# 18, Sri Krishna Arcade New B.E.L. Road, ITI Layout Bangalore - 560054 India Tel: +91-(0)80-236 078 56

www.indpro.eu