Recently I came across this excellent CSS reference website:

http://reference.sitepoint.com/css

I highly recommend this website since it has been written by two of the world's most renowned CSS experts — Tommy Olssen and Paul O'Brien. In this online reference, the entire CSS language is clearly and concisely explained, including browser compatibility, working examples, and easy-to-read descriptions.

For the purists, you can refer to the W3C CSS reference here – http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/

Few other decent references are:

• http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms531209(VS.85).aspx
• http://www.westciv.com/style_master/academy/css_tutorial/
• http://xhtml.com/en/css/reference/

W3C HTML Working Group has recently released HTML 5 working draft. This is a very important step forward; the same is available for review and comment at http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-html5-20080122/

The new standard addresses the need of web application developers in more pro-active way:

• Basic template facility has been implemented with facility to repeat elements
• There are also new elements for navigation, headers, footers, figures, and dialog
• Client-side persistent storage functionality (JavaScript APIs for key/value pairs & embedded SQL databases)
• Support for server-sent events, which will facilitate persistent connections to remote data sources

Some old features like frames have been removed.

Let us see how soon new browsers start supporting these new features of HTML 5. Currently the Opera browser has the best support (though it does not support all features) for HTML 5.

Footnote:

There is an overall trend to make HTML more developer friendly so that complex web applications are developed as per W3C standards and are compatible on different browsers on different mediums. With Bill Gate's prediction coming in about different shapes and sizes of computers in this decade which will make computers more intuitive (like the table PC), this seems to be moving in the right direction.

So let's think, how your website will look and take shape (as per device specific browser compatibility) when displayed on a coffee table as the people sitting around it mumble the name of your company!

Abhishek

Proper project management is key to a successful project. To manage multiple projects and teams which are geographically spread across the globe, you need a quality project management tool.

As a medium sized web development company, we looked around for some quality software which suits our requirement and does not burn a hole in the pocket. Here is our pick!

Basecamp HQ:- A nice, minimalist simple to use software true to the philosophy of 37signals, the company which built it. This software is only available in a SaS (software as service) model. IMO this software best suits small projects which are communication centric. It lacks version control, task management, project tracking along with cost-benefit analysis.

Overall, very easy to easy and adapt, but reporting is not up to the mark. If you are a small business and you do most of your project management yourself, this can be a good choice for you.

Intervals:- It seems to have picked up the baton where Basecamp HQ has left. It also works on a SaS (software as service) model. It has more features (specially in terms of reporting and role management) than Basecamp HQ, thus making it suitable to manage complex projects across a large organization.

Overall, it is a good attempt to overcome the shortcomings of Basecamp HQ. However it needs to improve on its usability. It also needs to provide staged progression in terms of features and complexity so that small businesses can adapt the system. I am sure that this software will become popular as they keep improving and become old. For a SaS model company, time-tested reliability is more important than anything else.

Ace Project:- A comprehensive project management software with user friendly interface and short learning curve. It has different licensing policies and therefore you can rent or buy off (with our without source code) the software to suit your organizational needs. This software is around for quite some time and therefore seems to be reliable.

It has decent reporting capabilities, but not as good as what Intervals claim to have!

Dot Project:- The best free open source project management software that I have come across. This software looks flexible and extendable. You can plug in various modules, including Mantis (for bug tracking). The usability and reporting leaves much to be desired. So if you are looking at free project management software with access to source code, Dot Project is a good choice.

Conclusion:

There is nothing called a perfect project management software. The usage, the users and the desired result determines the one which suits best for a given organization. So take your pick from the above mentioned toolset.

Apart from doing software / web development on Open-source platform, Indus Net Technologies also customize and implement open-source products for clients on demand. Some popular (and free) open-source products are SugarCRM, Drupal, osCommerce for CRM, content management and e-commerce respectively.

IMHO, these are some limitations that I have observed. It is important to know them before initiating a project. These are not very serious in nature and using free open-source products remains a good option for many small and medium sized enterprises around the world.

1. Like any product, it is very important to align the product with your workflow and/or requirements. You must fit the product into the organization by making necessary changes. Therefore a gap analysis should be done and the effort must be estimated for aligning the product as per the current work-flow and/or requirements.

2. Most free open-source products lacks in usability. Therefore if you are doing a major implementation which will be used by thousands of people and you are going to pay for their time, you must consider a major overhaul of interface by involving a usability consultant from your vendor. Otherwise you will end up spending a lot of money.

3. Most free open-source products have very poor reporting system. These reports are not good enough to run a business and shall be re-done as per your company requirement aligned with your key measurement matrix for the given business function.

4. The programmers who can change the software as per your needs are the code-hackers types, who love to dive into existing system architecture and make small changes to achieve the desired results. Therefore you must identify and hook up with the right programmer / programming company (like Indus Net Technologies – a bit of shameless self promotion) to get it right.

5. It is a myth, that implementing open-source software is free. Software code is free, not the hard work of programmers and analysts which goes behind implementing it. And you need the later to successfully implement it in your scenario and reap the benefits of the solution. Yes, it considerably reduces the cost, improves reliability and gives you a head start from where you can take informed decision about your IT needs.

Do not get me wrong. I am only listing the limitations. The benefits are well-known and they out-live the limitations any day. However it is very important that these limitations are known before proceeding.

Feel free to discuss / debate!

Offshore outsourcing – a concept that made IT & India synonmous with each other in the first decade of 21st century is loosing its glamour quotient consistently. It seems that by 2010, hundreds of software companies will run out of steam as they loose their competitiveness in the ever changing industry, since their business model has been worked around cost arbitrage alone.

Some hard facts which makes me feel so:

Increasing wages in India: Salaries are constantly moving skyward. Every year IT companies are forced to raise wages by 20-25% to remain competitive in the job market. Some hot IT destinations in India have become as expensive as Australia and Canada (if not USA and UK) in terms of manpower costs. With advent of offshore facilities of US / Europe based software companies, the trend will continue to move north.

Shortage of skilled manpower: Indian IT industry is facing a major shortage of employable skilled manpower. The education system has not gone through any fundamental improvement to fulfill the ever growing demand of the industry. Large companies are hiring semi-skilled and non-skilled professionals (not really) to fill in the positions that exists in their team. This is continually detoriating the quality and quantity of work that gets done resulting an increase in effective cost of production for the customer. At one point of time or other, this will pinch and will make offshore outsourcing non-competitive.

Appreciating rupee, depreciating dollar: With the economic upswing, the rupee is scaling new heights. On the other hand, due to economic slowdown in sight, US dollar is declining heavily. This is resulting in direct losses of revenue for most offshore outsourcing companies. There has been a 10-14% decline in revenues just because of currency appreciation. This is a net loss to the company since the effort / cost of servicing the client remains the same.

Increasing operational expenses: Cost of doing business is on a rise with zooming real estate prices, increasing fuel prices and towering living expenses. Companies are forced to spend a lot of money in the x-factor to impress prospective employees. All these put together are increasing the operational expenses and overheads for offshore outsourcing companies. In fact inflation is heading towards 10%, which is not making things better.

Companies are adpoting global-sourcing: Large enterprises in USA / Europe which were dependent on offshore outsourcing till date are now aggressively adopting global-sourcing. Many of these companies are directly setting up their software development centers in India (or a competitive location), resulting in a dent in the revenues of offshore outsourcing companies who used to serve them. The trend towards captive offshore development delivery will only increase in years to come.

New destinations: Several new offshore outsourcing destinations are coming up including China, Brazil, Ukrain, Ireland, Poland, South Africa and Russia. Many of them do not rank close to India in terms of the combo-punch of english educated, logically strong, hard working Indian IT worker. But they are making

But as it is said, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. I am sure many companies will evolve their business models, move up the value chain and give customers more than one way to outsource to them!

Afterall the outsourcing story has just begun! 

• The SEZ Act is under constant change. So whatever is stated there cannot be taken as a confirmed policy from the Government.
• The Act has been poorly and loosely drafted leaving a lot of ambiguity, areas of misinterpretation and scope of misuse by people who have the best lawyers at their disposal.

1. Manufacturing or service companies – They will get duty-free import capability and relief from various direct and indirect taxes including VAT, Service Tax, Excise Tax, FBT, Dividend Distribution Tax and above all Income Tax. These sops are given so that these businesses invest for setting up new infrastructure and in their business within the SEZ marked area.
2. Real estate companies - They will develop the SEZ infrastructure and multiply the value of land literally overnight and reap rich dividends.

• SEZ scheme is mainly helping large, established businesses and is working against small and medium sized businesses. Large companies like Reliance, Infosys, Mahindra, etc. who can buy and build infrastructure measuring 25 acres or more will reap the benefit of tax exemption for another 15 years, while small companies will struggle with a collective tax burden of more than 50% of the total turnover. Big will become bigger, small will have a tougher time and perish.
• SEZ scheme is brining back (in a new package) the age old zamindari system. The SEZs which are being developed by real estate developers to accommodate medium sized companies are leasing out infrastructure at abnormally high costs (almost five times of normal rent) which makes it out of bounds for most entrepreneurs. There is no regulation on the ownership / lease / rent process between these real estate developers and the SEZ units. In one of the agreement that I have managed to get my hands on, the SEZ developer made a mix of Deed of Assignment and A Sub-lease Agreement keeping best of both worlds in his own favor and charging a price which a Freehold Land. Few companies, who will manage to afford it, will end up spending a major of their cash flow on rent/lease cost alone. This will make them highly vulnerable to cyclic depressions in the market which are very common on a new industry.

• We do not mind paying taxes. If IT industry should do away with subsidies, Let everyone pay taxes! There should not be double standards by retaining tax benefits for large established players and punishing small & medium sized enterprises for being what they are – i.e. small.
• Please come out of the dream that infrastructure creation is fundamental to IT growth. IT is not like heavy engineering, steel or shipping business which depends heavily on top-quality infrastructure. In fact IT infrastructure has the highest depreciation and technologies / equipments get obsolete overnight. The largest companies in Silicon Valley have come out of garages and dorms. IT industry needs entrepreneurs and people for its growth. Focus on growing talent in colleges and universities. 
• IT industry has low entry barriers. Try to keep it low. This will help innovativeness and constant evolution of the industry. Let entrepreneurs take control and scale new heights. Facilitate them, don't frustrate them.

Among all the social-business networking sites, I find Ecademy and LinkedIn to be the best ones. Ecademy is my favorite since it has very nicely integrated offline networking in its system which results in creating trusted networks.

I experienced a very nice group-problem-solving technique called Virtual Tables during an offline networking event organized by Ecademy. I found it to be very effective. It can be extremely beneficial if practiced in a trusted network.

What you need:

• People who are interested in helping each other
• Ninety minutes (1 1/2 hour) 
• Paper / Pen to take notes

This is how it works:

Group together

It works best in a group of six-seven participants. If there are many more members, they should arrange themselves in group of six participants. I feel that it works best when the group is of people from diversified field (different businesses, departments, etc.). I think (not yet tested) that it will work best if people with same kind of responsibilities participate together (all business owners, all managers, all programmers, etc.).

All participants sit around a table. Every participant has 12-15 minutes by turn.

Now its your turn

When your turn comes, you can table your problem. Generally people table their biggest concern, dilemma, situation, issue they are facing in few minutes. The other participants of your group come up with their own solutions, point-of-views and ideas to help you. Since different people come from different backgrounds and have different ways to solve a problem, it is amazing to see how many fantastic ideas pops up. These sessions are generally filled with why-i-did-not-think-of-this-before sighs. This collective brainstorming delivers a list of suggestions that are diverse in nature and gives a new approach to solve the same problem.

It is like having five consultants serving you for fifteen minutes with their subject matter knowledge and common sense with an honest intention coming from an absolutely independent chair to help you out!

Take notes & rotate

You should take notes of the ideas. I suggest you note down all the ideas and spend some time back home thinking over them and considering the solutions offered by different people on the table. For the time being, you shall rotate the strike and the next guy should now table his/her problem and you should become a part of the elite panel of consultants who will help bail him/her out!

An important note:

It is utmost importance to maintain the privacy and confidentiality of the discussion. The purpose of the virtual tables is to help and get help. It may take time for members to trust each other, but once a trust network is formed, the effectiveness just multiplies and it keeps growing with the speed of trust.

So, go out and try this to discover a stress-free way of solving your problems (and others' too)!