What is Moodle

Moodle (abbreviation for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) is a free source e-learning software platform, also known as a Course Management System, Learning Management System, or Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). As of October 2010 it had a user base of 49,952 registered and verified sites, serving 37 million users in 3.7 million courses.^[3]

Moodle was originally developed by Martin Dougiamas to help educators create online courses with a focus on interaction and collaborative construction of content, and is in continual evolution.

The Moodle project comprises several distinct but related elements, namely

• the software.
• Moodle Pty Ltd (also known as Moodle Headquarters or the Moodle Trust, based in Perth, Western Australia), an Australian company which performs the majority of the development of the core Moodle platform.
• the Moodle Community, an open network of over one million registered users who interact through the Moodle community website to share ideas, code, information and free support. This community also includes a large number of non-core developers, with Moodle's free source license and modular design allowing any developer to create additional modules and features that has allowed Moodle to become a truly global, collaborative project in scope.
• the Moodle Partner network, which forms the commercial arm of the Moodle environment and provides the bulk of the funding to Moodle Pty Ltd through the payment of royalties.

QR code

A QR code (abbreviated from Quick Response code) is a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code) designed to be read by smartphones. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded may be text, a URL, or other data.

Created by Toyota subsidiary Denso Wave in 1994, the QR code is one of the most popular types of two-dimensional barcodes. The QR code was designed to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed.^[1]

The technology has seen frequent use in Japan and South Korea; the United Kingdom is the seventh-largest national consumer of QR codes.^{[2Scan Me - Everybody's Guide to the Magical World of QR Codes}

Overview

Structure of a QR code, highlighting functional elements

Although initially used for tracking parts in vehicle manufacturing, QR codes now are used in a much broader context. Uses now extend from commercial tracking to entertainment and from product marketing to in-store product labeling. Many of these applications are aimed toward mobile phone users (termed mobile tagging). Users may be receive text, add a vCardcontact to the user's device, open a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), or compose an e-mail or text message after scanning QR codes. Users can generate and print their own QR codes for others to scan and use by visiting one of several paid and free QR code generating sites or apps. Google has a popular API to generate QR codes^[3], and Apps for scanning QR codes can be found on nearly all smartphone devices. ^[4]

QR codes storing addresses and Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) may appear in magazines, on signs, on buses, on business cards, or on almost any object about which users might need information. Users with a camera phone equipped with the correct reader application can scan the image of the QR code to display text, contact information, connect to awireless network, or open a web page in the telephone's browser. This act of linking from physical world objects is termed hardlinking or object hyperlinking.

QR codes can be used in Google's mobile Android operating system via both their own Google Goggles application or 3rd party barcode scanners like ZXing or Kaywa. The browser supports URI redirection, which allows QR codes to send metadata to existing applications on the device. Nokia's Symbian operating system is provided with a barcode scanner, which is able to read QR codes,^[5] while mbarcode^[6] is a QR code reader for the Maemo operating system. In the Apple iOS, a QR code reader is not natively included, but more than fifty paid and free apps are available with both scanning capabilities and hard-linking to URI available. With BlackBerry devices, the App World application can natively scan QR codes and load any recognized Web URLs on the device's Web browser. Following an upcoming update, Windows Phone 7 will be able to scan QR codes through the Bing search app.

ICC Test team of the year

Test team of the year: (in batting order) Alastair Cook, Hashim Amla, Jonathan Trott, Sachin Tendulkar, Kumar Sangakkara (capt/wk), AB de Villiers, Jacques Kallis, Stuart Broad, Graeme Swann, Dale Steyn, James Anderson, Zaheer Khan (12th man)

Execution Logic Editor in VIZ Template Wizard

The Execution Logic editor consists of three panes; a list of commands, a command editor and a list-view displaying syntax errors. In addition the editor has a search feature.

• Command list: Displays the available commands. Available context menu options are Clear selected command and Clear all commands.
• Clear selected command: Clears the execution logic for the selected command.
• Clear all commands: Clears all execution logic for all commands.
• Command editor: Displays the currently selected command and its execution logic. Available context menu options are Insert default action and Find.
• Insert default action: Inserts the default command /logic/element/run.
• Find (CTRL+F): Opens the Find tool.
• Syntax error list: Displays any syntax errors in any of the commands. It is not possible to close the window with changes to any command before all syntax errors are resolved.
• Find (CTRL+F): Searches the currently open command’s execution logic. 
  
  
  Perform the standard logic operation immediately using an unmodified command = "run".
  /logic/element/run
  After 5 seconds run the standard logic operation again, but this time with a modified command = "continue".
  /logic/element/run
  After 10 seconds run the standard logic operation again, but this time with a modified command = "out".
  /logic/element/run
  For more information on how to create execution logic, see the Viz Media Sequencer Engine (MSE) manual on how to use the MSE’ logic building blocks.
  To enable the execution logic editor
  1. Check the Execution Logic Editor option on the Object Inspector pane, or
  2. Select Execution Logic Editor on the View menu.
  To add execution logic to a template
  1. Open the Execution Logic editor.
  2. Click on one of the existing commands (left pane)
  3. Add the logic in the editor (right pane) and click OK. 

Shahid Afridi found editing Wikipedia entry

Former Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi was found editing the Wikipedia entry on himself yesterday, replacing words and sometimes entire sentences with what he considered were more accurate descriptions of who he is, reports say.

"He immediately minimised the window on his computer screen when I walked into his room last evening," said younger brother Ashfaq. "At first I didn't think anything of it, figuring he was just watching reruns of Dancing With the Stars, but then I noticed the tab on the minimised window said 'Shahid Afridi - Wikipedia'. I backed out of the room slowly and went out to get some more hair conditioners to add to Shahidbhai's collection, which never fails to lift his spirits."

Other sources have opined that Afridi is pulling out all the stops in a bid to make a comeback to the Pakistan team, now that Waqar Younis, with whom Afridi has had a turbulent relationship, has resigned as coach.

"To be honest, this isn't the first time he's done this," said Afridi's uncle. "He has understandably been under a lot of stress of late, what with being out of the team for so long, and the issues with Waqar and the PCB. Everyone needs an outlet to vent a little bit. So Shahid edits his own Wikipedia page every now and then. Is it a little strange? Sure. And perhaps more than just a little. But he's not hurting anybody is he?"

The following are the parts of the page as edited by the Pakistan player before, due to complaints by some users and Afridi's agent, Wikipedia reverted it back to the original. Afridi's inputs appear in bold and the words he replaced are struck through.

Sahibzada Mohammad Shahid Khan Afridi (born 1 March 1980 1992), popularly known as Shahid Afridi, is abrilliant Pakistani cricketer, widely considered a great of the game and a precocious one at that, for someone still so young. Between 1996 and 2011, Afridi played distinguished himself in 27 Tests, 325 one-day Internationals, and 43 Twenty20 internationals (T20Is) for the Pakistani national team. He made his ODI debut on 2 October 1996 at the tender age of four (a record, one among many that he holds)against Kenya and his Test debut on 22 October 1998 against Australia.

Batting

His general style of batting is very devastatingly aggressive, an undeniable force of nature, to be honest and attack-oriented and has earned him the nickname "Boom Boom Afridi" (Believe the hype!). He holds the record for the fastest ODI century ever, which he made in his first international innings, as well as scoring 32 58 runs in a single over, the second highest scoring over ever ever ever in an ODI. He also holds the distinction of having hit the most number of sixes EVER in the history of ODI cricket. Afridi considers himself a better bowler than batsman, as good a bowler as he is a batsman (who the hell wrote this thing??) and has taken (1)48 Test wickets and way over 300 in ODIs. Currently Afridi is the leading wicket-taker in the Twenty20 format (ever) with (1)53 wickets from 43 matches.

Bowling

Having started as a fast bowler, Afridi decided to switch to bowling spin after he was told he was throwingsimply too fast. He modelled himself on Pakistan legspinner Abdul Qadir. Hollywood heartthrob Sylvester Stallone. His supporters have been known to superimpose his head onto the body of Rambo on posters, though they needn't do that for I - I mean Afridi - already has a body that Rambo would die in Afghanistan for.

Captaincy

In June 2009, Afridi took over the Twenty20 captaincy from Younis Khan (better believe it!) and naturally was later appointed ODI captain for the 2010 Asia Cup. In his first match as ODI captain, against Sri Lanka, he scored a century however Pakistan still lost by 16 runs. He then also took over the Test captaincy but resigned after one match in charge citing lack of form and ability to play Test cricket pressing humanitarian work in various developing nations around the world in his other job as spokesman for UNICEF, UNDP, PETA, and various other capital-letters-thrown-together thingies; at the same time he announced his retirement from Tests.

He however retained the captaincy in limited-overs form of the game and led the team admirably and to what would have been victory in the 2011 World Cup had it not been for some dumb****s in the team, who couldn't have caught a cold let alone a catch that day against India. In May 2011, having led Pakistan in 34 ODIs, Afridi was replaced stepped down again as captain. Later that month he announced his conditional retirement from international cricket in protest against his treatment by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). Yeah but with Waqar gone, I'm back now, b******s!

Shahid Afridi is married and has two daughters, Aqsa and Ansha. He is the bee's kneesand the PCB had better recall me or I'll retire again, I swear. I'll retire again even before you recall me, and who'll be laughing then?

Don't answer that.

Darrell Hair on Bowling actions

Offshore software Research & Development

Offshore Software R&D is provision of software development services by an external supplier positioned in a country that is geographically remote from the client enterprise; a type of offshore outsourcing. In this context, it refers to theoffshore development phase of a software. The main reason behind the companies to use offshore software development services is the higher development cost of the local service providers. The global software R&D services market as contrasted to ITO and BPO is rather young and currently is at early stages of its development, but India is leading the world in this field ^[1].

Countries involved

While India, Ireland, Canada and Israel were the four leading countries that controlled this business in 2003^[1], the percentages shifted by 2009 when the front-runners, India and the Philippines, had a combined share of the world market for business process offshoring of about 50 per cent. The UN Information Economy Report 2010 ^[2] reads that "the second largest exporter, Canada, continued to shrink to 21 per cent by 2009. Beyond these top three locations, several economies from all continents are making inroads as offshoring destinations. The group of “other destinations” in figure III.5 surged from 4 per cent in 2004 to 16 per cent in 2009. The main such locations in 2009 included China, Thailand and Sri Lanka in Asia;26 and Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica and Mexico in Latin America. On the African continent, Egypt, Mauritius, Morocco and South Africa all have more than 10,000 offshore jobs in the IT and ICT-enabled services sector (Everest Research Institute, 2009). The share of countries in Central and Eastern Europe was unchanged at 6 per cent between 2008 and 2009." According to Gartner Group^[3], only these four countries are capable of scaling up enough to meet the demands of large-scale projects. Brazil has been attracting attention due to the closer timezone to the US eastern cost, besides closer cultural affinity^[4]. Other offshore software development destinations include Eastern Europe(Slovakia, Armenia, Romania, Ukraine, Belarus, Serbia, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Russia), Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Vietnam, Philippines, Egypt, Morocco, Sri Lanka, Argentina and Bolivia. .

Offshore R&D hubs

According to Gartner group's report, global cities are categorized into Tier I, Tier II and Tier III based on numerous factors such as the quality of infrastructure, global connectivity, and availability of human capital^[3], in order to rank the best places to set up an offshore R&D location. The report concludes that cities like Bangalore, Yerevan, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bucharest, New Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Indore, NOIDA, Gurgaon, Thiruvananthapuram, Greater Toronto Area, Ottawa, Montreal, Haifa, Tel Aviv, Dublin, Kiev, Moscow, and St. Petersburg would be the ideal places, and hence 'Tier I' cities to offshore R&D.

Western dilemma

Outsourcing R&D has also become a solution to some issues facing certain Western countries, especially USA and Canada, even though they have traditionally tried not to lose their technological advantage to Asia. USA and Canada are producing little more than half the reasonable number of graduates in science and technology ^[5], a lot of the MS and PhD students in these countries are international students^[6], North America has an aging population and lot of people in senior positions are either heading towards retirement or to renew their contracts with an R&D organization^[5][7], both of these countries are falling behind in growth and business competitiveness, and the productivity gap between them and smaller industrialized nations continues to widen everyday ^[5]. The solutions to these problems aren't possible in the short term in the Western countries, as even immigration is a long and cumbersome process, therefore it is beneficial for Western countries to outsource R&D to meet these challenges.

Future trends

In 2003, a survey by Santa Clara University showed that R&D sector would be the next target of outsourcing ^[8]. The same survey also mentioned that even as of 2003, many US-based companies were adapting to a new business model where they would have the ownership of the intellectual property, but the outsourcing vendor would be given the contract for development with well defined goals in a certain period of time. Outsourcing research operations is currently a small sector in the offshoring business; however, it is growing very rapidly. As of 2006, India alone was getting 25% of new global investments on research^[9]. Hundreds of major multinational corporations have set up R&D centers in India, the list of such companies include several big names such as Oracle Corporation, Intel, Adobe Systems, STM, SAP, IBM, and Microsoft. For a lot of these companies, their facilities in India are their largest facilities outside USA or Europe.

India's software exports are growing by more than 30% per year^[10], which has triggered protectionist measures on the part of US government, especially the IRS, which recently passed regulations to make outsourcing research harder^[11]. However, these regulations don't forbid outsourcing research, and many Western corporations like Eli Lilly and Company, P&G, Henkel, Dow AgroSciences, Novartis and Indian scientists are using web as a forum to easily get around such regulations lawfully. Many R&D contracts have been given to Indian universities and labs in this way, and lot of research solutions are patented during this process^[12].

At the same time, there is a shortage of PhD's in India, possibly due to brain drain or because of lack of financial resources. It is estimated that very soon there could be a 25-30% gap between supply and demand of PhD's in India^[9]. However, increased FDI and creation of lot of well paid job opportunities are encouraging enough to motivate more Indians to opt for pursuing PhD. Moreover, many Indians have recently moved to India from Silicon Valley, and a lot of them are technically specialized and hold advanced degrees from world's premier institutions, which considerably enrich India's workforce^[13].

National Identity Card for Overseas Pakistanis (NICOP)

As per this ordinance, NADRA has been entrusted with the task of registering the overseas Pakistanis. NICOP, in addition to providing the authenticity of the individual, has additional features at the same time, as the person possessing the NICOP is entitled visa-free entry in Pakistan. 


The National Identity Card for Overseas Pakistanis (NICOP) was conceived as a project by mutual resolve of the Overseas Pakistanis Foundation, the Ministry of Labor, Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis, and the Interior Division, so as to provide them with NICOP cards, and getting them registered. The scheme calls for the creation of a comprehensive database of Pakistanis who either work abroad or hold a dual nationality. The card is supposed to be produced at domestic or international entry or exit terminals.

There has justifiably been recognition of the overseas Pakistanis, their services and the potential benefits to the homeland, which has led the Government of Pakistan to issue them with National Identity Cards for Overseas Pakistanis (NICOP).

The NADRA Ordinance envisages issuance of NICOP to Pakistani workers, emigrants, citizens, or Pakistanis holding dual nationality, having been registered under the NADRA Ordinance. NICOP is an identification document to be used as a substitute for the NIC as and when requested. However, NICOP is more than just an identification document.

Main features of the NICOP are:

Ø Thirteen digits registration number randomly generated by a computer system
Ø Green color
Ø Written in English
Ø It carries a Machine Readable Zone(MRZ) for world wide ID acceptance

Documents Required

Ø Completely filled English Application Form.
Ø 2 photographs (passport size).
Ø Bank Draft/Bank Receipt/Postal Order/ Cashier’s Cheque for the fee in favor of NADRA, Pakistan..
Ø  Copy of Pakistani or foreign passport.
Ø  Copy of National ID Card (NIC) or the RG-2 (Form-B). In case neither is available, the registration of Pakistani children born abroad may be used (Form S-1).
Ø  Marriage certificate is required if one is married

NICOP FAQ’s

Q. Do we need to pay any cost for acquiring the application form? 
A. Application forms are absolutely free of cost and can be received from any of the prescribed places. 

Q. Where can I get the application form for the NICOP? 
A. You can get the application form from the Pakistan Embassy if you are abroad or any of the NADRA Provincial Headquarters or Regional Headquarters if you are in Pakistan. You can also download it from the NADRA website. Alternatively, if you are in Pakistan, you can directly process your NICOP from any NADRA Swift Registration Center (NSRC) without a form. 

Q. If there are mistakes in the application form and it is rejected by the authority, what will happen to the paid fee? 
A. You would be informed about the rejection of the application through a reply letter and your money minus the service charges will be returned to you. 

Q. What is the fee for adults and children? 
A. Fee for NICOP card for is US $25/- per card for Pakistanis living in North America, Europe, Far East and Australia and US $15/- per card for Pakistanis living in Middle East, Malaysia etc. 

Q. When do I need to renew the NICOP? 
A. NICOP is renewable after every seven years. 

Q. Can I get a NICOP if I have dual nationality? 
A. Yes you can. 

Q. Can I get a NICOP if I have Pakistani nationality only? 
A. Yes you can, provided you are resident abroad. 

Q. Is it advisable to travel through NICOP or through visa on foreign passport? 
A. You don’t need a visa, because you already have dual nationality - that is, Pakistani nationality and a foreign nationality. 

Q. Can I get a NICOP if I’m a Kashmiri? 
A. Regardless of your ethnicity, you can get a NICOP if you have a Pakistani passport, 

Q. What support documents do I need to provide? 
A. Completely filled English Application Form.
2 photographs (passport size).
Bank Draft/Bank Receipt/Postal Order/Cashier’s Cheque for the fee ($25 per card for Pakistanis living in North America, Europe, Far East and Australia and US $15/- per card for Pakistanis living in Middle East, Malaysia etc), in favor of NADRA, Pakistan.
Copy of Pakistani or foreign passport.
Copy of National ID Card (NIC) or the RG-2 (Form-B). In case neither is available, the registration of Pakistani children born abroad may be used (Form S-1). Marriage certificate is required if one is married. 

Q. I have a NICOP. Do I also need a POC? 
A. You do not need a POC if you have a NICOP. Possession of NICOP means that you have dual nationality. The POC would be required if you had a single, non-Pakistani nationality. 

Q. I have a POC. Do I also need a NICOP? 
A. You are not eligible for a NICOP if you are a holder of a POC. 

Q. Can I have/keep both CNIC and NICOP at the same time? 
A. Yes 

Q. Do I need a personal reference for the NICOP? 
A. No. All you need is proof of your Pakistani nationality/citizenship. 

Q. Will the NADRA Swift Registration Center (NSRC) accept the NICOP fee? 
A. Yes. 

Q. Will the Pakistan Embassy accept the NICOP fee payment? 
A. The majority of Pakistani embassies accept the NICOP fee. However, some embassies require payment to be made at a designated bank. 

Q. Is urgent processing available? 
A. YES. 

Q. Where can I collect my NICOP card? 
A. If you are in Pakistan, you can collect your card from your local NADRA Central Distribution Point (CDC). If you reside abroad, you can collect your card from the Pakistan Embassy. 

Q. Can I collect my NICOP card from NADRA Headquarters? 
A. No.

Note: Pakistani citizens who are holding dual nationality or are only on work or residence permit in a country outside Pakistan, are not eligible for Pakistan Origin Card (POC), but eligible for National Identity Card for Overseas Pakistanis (NICOP).