iClockr

This is a small application that tracks your work time. You can set up different projects, and tasks for each project, and associate them to a client. The concept around iClockr is to have actions timed, for that you create tasks to be timed and those tasks add up to create a project. Each task is timed with a stopwatch, even the application’s dock icon changes to a stopwatch.



You can edit the task durations for better and more exact timing. iClockr also offers two modes to manage your times: Flat Rate or Range based. You can match each project with customers (within the application’s Preferences pane). iClockr is a Mac Universal application that runs on Leopard only.

Behind The Scenes Of Failed Indian Startup

Hundreds of techies nowadays are moving on from working for a company to start their own company. While a lot of them are noticeable in the market and a few of them have reached the heights of glory and success, some start-ups fail pretty badly.

 
Lessons to build an enterprise can not only be derived from successful companies but also from those which fade into the oblivion. Thenextweb.com has listed the lessons from failing attempts of today’s aspiring entrepreneurs that can be used to save your startup.

 
Here are the lessons that caution you against some perilous mistakes.

 
1. Not getting your language right

 
It is very important to first decide the coding language that you are going to keep as a base of your startup. In case you want to start a web startup, then it is important that you start learning and honing your skills on the web designing and web programming tools. For a startup that designs applications on a particular platform, then you need to learn the particular platform based programming languages. Otherwise, you might end up wasting a whole lot of time on learning languages when you are supposed to get all set up.

2. Not building a team

 
A company can be single handed at its embryonic stage but it needs a team when it is on the launch pad. There must be a logical distribution of work and functions and a balance in decision making. Any enterprise is not just about, it has many divisions like promotion and marketing, which cannot be all governed by one person. So build a team of enough employees to support your startup when required.

3. Not thinking about money

At the end of the day, your main goal is to raise money. Isn’t that why most of us start our companies? So the moment you think about starting an enterprise, think about all the sources you can grab the dough from. Pitch your idea to the veterans and the ones who are interested in investing in startup like yours. It is one of the most important jobs that entrepreneurs procrastinate and end up with a startup with no money to take it forward.

4. Distractions

 
It is natural that when you are setting up a startup, you tend to do a lot of research, talk to people and attend events. It is good until a given point and overdoing should be avoided. Do not waste your time in going through similar articles and repetitive blogs when you can actually work on developing or marketing your product. Keep a focus on what exactly your product is going to be about and do not try your hand at everything possible.

5. Go Mobile

The tech industry has moved from laptops and desktops to smartphones since quite a while, and if you have not realised it yet then wake up. When you are developing your product, keep in mind that you encourage provisions to make it compatible on cellphones and smartphones, or you are going to be away from a major group of users who could add so much to your revenues.

Facebook Posts Its Internal C++ Software Library

Facebook has released a library of C++ software components used to help run its site, the social networking company announced Saturday.
"One clear bottleneck to releasing more work has been that any open sourced project needed to break dependencies on unreleased internal library code," wrote Facebook software engineer Jordan DeLong, who posted an entry on Facebook announcing the release.By releasing this library, called Folly, Facebook will be able to release more of its internal programs as open source, because they rely on different components in this library.

Facebook engineers also announced the release at a C++ conference the company is holding Saturday at its campus at Menlo Park, California.

Facebook has relied on open-source software, such as MySQL, PHP and memcached, to run its sites. And so the company has made a point of releasing its own internal programs as open-source software as well, such as the HipHop PHP compiler and the Thrift service sharing framework.

For many of its open source releases though, Facebook developers have had to rewrite some of the functionality that was borrowed from this library. By releasing the library itself, Facebook will be able to "continue open sourcing parts of [its] stack without resorting to reinventing ... internal wheels," DeLong wrote.

Even if developers don't plan on using Facebook developed applications, they should still take a look at this library, as it includes many utilities of possible to use in other environments, DeLong said. Many of the components available in Folly run more quickly than their equivalents available elsewhere, he boasted. "Our motivation was to build components that were faster and more efficient than what we previously used," he wrote. These utilities were designed to be used in heavy production environments, across thousands of servers.

The components cover a range of functionality. One component was designed to use memory more efficiently. Another reduces contention. The AtomicHashMap utility cuts the amount of time a piece of data in memory is locked by an operation, which can slow performance and cause bottlenecks in heavily used environments. A set of string manipulation components use fewer CPU cycles than formatters in other C++ libraries, DeLong boasted.

The Folly library is posted on GitHub, and Facebook will add new components as they are written, according to DeLong.

Highest Paying Jobs At Google

A company is as strong as its weakest employee. Certainly a superpower like Google must have some exceptional talents working for it. A company must also handout hefty remunerations to keep this talent from going elsewhere. Let us take a look at howGoogle pays the people who make the search giants such a success.

1. Senior software engineer
Salary: $139,084
The gold is earned by the top most software engineers. They are the ones responsible for all the products that Google launches.

2. Research scientist
Salary: $121,547
Research scientists work on the fringe products of a company.  It is their knowledge and expertise which helps a tech company come up with offbeat products that have the capability of changing the world. Their expertise earns them a more than hefty pay package from Google.

3. Product manager
Salary: $119,495
A product manager is the person entirely responsible for a particular product. He has to work closely with the developers, engineers, sales and marketing departments and make sure that products become a success.

4. Sales engineer
Salary: $118,710
Sales engineers are the technical glue of a technical sale. They are responsible for letting the customers solve any issues with the product. Their expertise is required for the success of any product. They earn a lot for shouldering this responsibility.

5. Research engineer
Salary: $117,900
Google recently became a hardware company and they need seriously talented people to research in the hardware field. it is a new territory for Google and they need only the best in the industry to work for them in this field.

6. Software research engineer
Salary: $116,593
A tech company can survive only if it keeps itself ahead of the times. Google has engineers working on futuristic products which could become a reality someday. These people are responsible for all the cool stuff Google comes up with. Case in point,

7. Product marketing manager
Salary: $106,667
Google products are widely appreciated by users. Product marketing managers use heavy research to come up with products that will be well received by the world. Their work is very important.

8. Financial analyst
Salary: $104,819
Finances of the company are handles by financial analysts. They find out which product s is profitable and which ones are not. A handful of these financial analysts earn the big bucks at Google.

9. Software engineer
Salary: $103,436
The high numbers start here. Software engineers make google what it is today. Their work is to create codes for new products and services. Android, search etc all run because of them. Naturally they make money at Google.

10. User experience researcher
Salary: $95,320
Google needs to know how users react to their products. User experience researchers are responsible for this. Their work is crucial because they find out which product is working and which is not.

11. Site reliability engineer
Salary: $94,934
These people are very important since they make sure that search pages are working allright. A company can lose a lot of money if the site is down even for a few seconds. Therefore site reliability engineers in Google are paid well.

12. Database administrator
Salary: $94,420
Google is ideally known for its near magical search results. They have to crunch a large amount of data to make the search process run smoothly. Database administrators take care of all the data that Google has to process. These people are important and are paid relatively well.

13. Senior account manager
Salary: $89,778
Google pays its senior accounts managers a decent salary. Although it is nowhere close to what senior software developers make.

14. User interface designer
Salary: $87,661
The user interface of a company is how a user sees the company. Having a brilliantly designed UI is of great importance. But Google still pays its UI designers slightly more than its interns.

15. Network engineer
Salary: $87,219
Large organizations need a near perfect intranet service or else communication becomes difficult. This has a direct effect on the work that people have to do. Network enginers are the people responsible for keeping the internal networks working fine. Naturally they earn more than the sales people do.

16. Software engineer intern
Salary: $82,488
Surprise surprise!! Google pays its interns more than it pays its regular employees in sales and marketing. This clearly shows the love a tech company gives to its engineers. But it is understandable because a tech company is nothing without its engineers.

17. Business Analyst
Salary: $80,510
Analysts working for Google take home a slightly better salary than people in sales do. Their role is to keep a check on the overall working of a company and is a job that requires much more expertise.

18. Account manager
Salary: $68,188
Accounts managers are key people in a company who take care of the management of sales and also handle some important clients. Google does not hand out a very big salary package to account managers though.

19. AdWords associate
Salary: $53,538
AdWords is Google’s main advertising product and its primary source of income. But surprisingly sales people working for this platform do not make as much money as they make for Google.

20. Associate, online sales and operations
Salary: $50,200
Google is a tech company. They value their engineers much more than any other employees. So this does not come as a surprise that sales associates figure at the last spot on the list. But the advantage of having ‘worked for Google’ should make the relatively small pay package look a little better.