meCard - QR Code for Business Cards

Here is an the simplified version of “Smart” Business Cards, which can aid marketing. This involves printing a coded picture on the business card. Smart Phones can read the encoded data directly or using an external scanner.

These two dimensional codes are called QR Codes and can be used in business cards, email signatures, contact information in presentations, marketing collateral, etc.

 

For starters, we could include QR codes as part of our Business Cards. It is really simple to implement.

 

Try it:

·         Have an Android phone?

·         Download QR Droid from the App Market

·         Open the app, and focus it on the QR code in the below Business Card Template

·         All information printed on the card is instantly retrieved to your phone. Now you can easily save all this contact information.

      [Note: Lesser information will have clear QR Code Image. ]

 What is QR Code?

                QR Code is Quick Response codes (2D barcodes in which data stored in both the dimensions), which can be scanned directly to read information into a Smart Device.

 Do I really need a QR Code on my Business card?

·         It is an easy way to store contact information on to your smart phone (for Android based Smart Phones, iPhone or Blackberry)

·         It is an effective marketing tool. Also helps easily provide contact information without carrying several business cards. A quick scan by a smart phone is all it takes.

Further Reading:

http://orangeqr.com/qr-code-types-examples-and-explanations/

 Is there any Security Concern?

                User should be aware of the source.

How do you generate the QR code?

                You can generate the QR code for any input text using the following link
                http://goqr.me/

 Character Limitation:

                Recommended to limit the characters to 300 so that it can work on lower end smart phones as well.

How can you place it in our Business Card?

If you have a smart phone with QR Code scanner application, try scanning the QR code  on the above Business Card Template. We can either print the Contact Details in the form of QR Code either on Front or Back Side of the Business Card. Or we can even print QR code with different information at different places.

How to Read it in Smart Phone?

You can scan the QR Code using the applications readily available for Android, iPhone OS & Black Berry OS. You can also take a pic of it in the camera and decode it using the application.

Example: QR Droid for Android Platform.

TED - Ideas worth spreading

TED is an international conference, which gives an opportunity to people worldwide, to make 18 minutes or less presentation that concludes with a message. You will find wide variety of topics and amazing presenters, who make ever lasting impression with their lively (rather life time) presentation. TED has immense ideas that are worth watching! Watch out for presentations in http://www.ted.com/

Custom Logo for Jenkins

For having your custom or company specific logo for Jenkins Instance, follow the steps below

1. Create a custom image or logo of your choice in png format (refer title.png under <Jenkins_Install_Directory>/war/images for size specification.
2. Replace <Jenkins_Install_Directory>/war/images/title.png with the custom image and your Jenkins Instance is all set with new look (i.e with Custom Image).

Get your EPF (PF) Statements online in two steps!

Here is the link to download your EPF statements online in  two simple steps.

1.       Registration – Need to enter your identify proof like PAN / AADHAAR No and mobile number.

2.       Download E Passbook
Automatically you will be logged in after registration (your registration details will be sent to your mobile as well).

a.       Enter your EPF number in the following box

b.      Assume your EPF number is => KN/12345/000, enter the details as below.

For the first time user, your EPF e-statement will be available for download in 3 working days (still better than queuing up in EPF office J) .

Please note that you can download e-statements for multiple accounts, if you have not transferred  them yet into your latest PF account.

Jenkins Multijob Plugin - Missing Slashes while traversing down

This article talks about the Missing Slashes (\\) while traversing from high-level to low-level jobs in a Jenkins Multijob project.

Lets assume a scenario where we have two free style jobs (low-level) jobA and jobB, which copies a set of files from Source to Destination path. And a Parent job (Multijob) parentA which calls jobA and jobB with Source and Destination path as parameter.

While passing Source and Destination dir from parentA to jobA and jobB, two slashes gets stripped off due to the Jenkins regular expression behaviour.

Input Entered for parentA:
Source: \\\\serverone\\\\pathone
Destination: d:\\\\temp\\\\testdir

As Received in jobA and jobB:
Source: \\serverone\\pathone
Destination: d:\\temp\\testdir

Here is the pictorial representation of our discussion..

For every higher level you add before parentA, multiply the number of slashes in that particular level by 2.
grantparentA -> parentA -> jobA   =>   8 -> 4 -> 2

You might wonder that we may have to add 8 slashes for the UNC Path (Source: \\\\serverone\\\\pathone) but your jenkins does not work if you do so. To explain further about UNC Path => When we supply 4 slashes to the parent job, child job will get value  \\serverone\pathone  not \\serverone\\pathone (which Jenkins expects).
Hence we are using 4 slashes from parent jobs instead of 8.