While the term FOSS stands for Free and Open Source Software, both Free and Open Source relate to two separate Advocacy Groups. The word Free relates to the Free Software Foundation (http://www.fsf.org) started by Richard Stallman in 4th October 1985. The term however originated from GNU (http://www.gnu.org) the Free Operating system that was introduced by him as a FREE alternative to UNIX. GNU was later on adopted by Linus Torvalds to give rise to GNU Linux. Where as the word Open Source related to the Open Source Initiative (http://www.opensource.org)

Assumptions of Common Individuals

However common individuals are still unaware of what exactly is Free and Open Source. There are many assumptions as:

• Free software means nothing but Freeware that is a free of charge software
• Open Source means a software that is Free of Charge
• Open Source means a Software that can be customized by the customer without approaching the vendor
• Open Source means a Software that we can change in such a way that we can replace the Software’s logo with Our’s

While there are many such assumptions, there is no clear and solid definition (that is not misleading) for Free and Open Source. Free and Open Source are two separate groups, with a common Ideology i.e. Provide a non proprietary Software Solution.

How is then a Free Software different from Open Source Software?

The Free Software Foundation had initially released one Single Software License named GNU GPL (GNU General Public License) http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

However the terms of FREE License shattered the minds who thought that the Term FREE was ambiguous and it may make  professionals uncomfortable in the software trade in terms of the Rights and Freedom that they would transfer to their end users.

This gave rise to differences in understandings and so a new group Open Source Initiative was formed. Its like two political parties aiming towards same goal with different policies, as stated in http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html

So What exactly is all this fuss about FREE?

Free Software in terms of FSF means a Software that is Free to use, distribute, modify and share with the world without the Fear of someone questioning you. So this Free actually means FREEDOM. In terms of price, the Software License would not Cost you. So the free of charge applies here, in terms of Software License. No CD Keys or Serial Numbers involved.

However you indeed cannot expect the Services for Free. Such services cover:

• Distribution Media such as Internet, CDs/DVDs and other Storage Devices
• Efforts and Consultancy involved in Customizing the Free Software
• Costs involving the technical support services, such as Installation, troubleshooting, etc.

All these services indeed are not Free of charge.

So there is only one license Governing Free Software?

As stated earlier, the base license for Free Software is GNU GPL (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html). However later on to make the software business comfortable many variants of GPL were introduced with the same principle, that the Software shall remain unrestricted. Some people argue that no Free License is 100% unrestrictive. There are some or other restrictions that a Common Individual may over see leading to legal pursuits. As to some extent this indeed is true. The OSI on other hand has extended the number of licenses (http://opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical) which seem to include even the So called Open Source Licenses from the most popular Proprietary Vendors. This has been argued of being favoring the Non Free software activities in a disguise of being Open Source (in turn pointing to Free).

So what can we conclude?

The conclusion is simple. FOSS has provided alternatives for Expensive Restrictive Software. Imagine that you pay for a software, but still the vendor tells you that you still do not own that software, rather you have only paid for the permission to use the software. What worse is that the vendors also (forcefully) asks you to permit them to collect Your Related Information from the System where the software is installed. You cannot share the software across other terminal, or else you will be called Pirate.

Do we really deserve this treatment in spite of paying a hefty amount? FOSS on other hand helps us get rid of such restrictions and actually OWN the piece of software FREE of Worries. A free software is ours as we can use, share, reverse engineer or even customize it as per our needs without accounting to anyone. However it is also true that to distribute as a modified product care is needed to first go through the License under which the so called Free or Open Source Software is released.

Rest assured, at least we have optimal options to spare our pockets from unnecessary Licensing Cost.

Cybrent on other hand introduces a Zero Balance Reseller (trading) account for such designers and consultants who need to manage their client accounts on a professional basis. To explain how it works lets consider this scenario:

You are a web designer who need to manage the client’s hosting accounts. You register on http://reseller.cybrent.com as a reseller (registration is free). Its similar to opening a Zero Balance Account in a Bank.

Once done, you get access to a readily available white label website where you can start your own Domain Name registration and Web Hosting Services. You enter the site configuration and perform the following operations:

• Upload your Logo
• Select the products and services that you want to facilitate
• Set the selling prices for those products
• Attach the online shop to your Domain Name and define your own co- branded name servers

More over we also provide a detailed Knowledge base to perform those operations. So why act like an agent, when you can become a vendor.

The products and services available for reselling are:

• Domain name registrations
• Linux and Windows web hosting (with Unlimited Web space, Email Ids, Databases, Bandwidth, etc.)
• Email Hosting
• Digital Certificates

Moreover, every domain that the clients would register through you shall be bundled with following facilities to them:

• Complete control over the domain, right from DNS configurations to Domain Secret modification and Domain Theft Protection
• Free Privacy Protection (which other service providers charge for)
• One free Email ID with unlimited email forwards
• Spam and Virus Protection through SPF and DKIM

All these come along with a quick response customer support. There are no annual renewal charges (apart from your regular domain renewal cost), its pay per order. The payment system is similar to bank system.

If you sense that you may have certain pipe-lined orders, you deposit a certain amount that would suffice those orders in your reseller account. Once done, those funds reflect as your Reseller Balance. Now when a client asks you to register a domain or any service, you reuse those funds for purchasing those services. Its just like how you have a “Cash-in-Hand” concept in a shop.

So if you are a web designer of web service consultant and want a professional and efficient reseller account, contact us now.

1. I am too busy to attend you

It has become a trend today to say “I am busy” each time a client or resource calls or approaches a vendor or supervisor. Assuming that the word Busy will complement his/her status, it actually makes the client feel that the vendor least cares about his/her time and money which may lead the client to change the vendor and thus penalizing the vendor and supervisor in losing business and resource respectively.

No matter how genuinely busy you may be, but responding to the client, “I am busy will talk to you later…” and never call back, disappoints the client and this may hamper your relation as well as business with him/her. It happens lots of time that vendors don’t care at all to call back, stating that since the client is in need, the client is supposed to call back and spend for the call.

Days have changed. It can happen that Client wanted an urgent attention from you, which involved an immediate business decision and the call would have been for just fraction of seconds, but you drove away your client without even bothering to know what the matter was.  These days clients avoid Busy Vendors to avoid this.

What can be done?

The answer is simple. If you are that busy to attend the call, see to it that you notify him/her through SMS that you may not be able to attend the call, but would do so as soon as you finish the present task. At same time ask how important the task is.

2. Prioritizing Response Based on Volume and Cost

This is one mistake that led many vendors lose prospective large volume clients. If you are of a vendor who entertains only those customers with prompt response and service who deal in larger volumes and costs, and ignore lower revenue generating customers, then be prepared to lose a large chunk of customers to your competitors. Regardless of what the volume or revenue generation is, a customer has full rights towards courtesy and attention, since it’s because of him/her you are in business. Remember that a highly pampered customer wont generally bring more high volume customers, but these small volumes satisfied customers would be your prime marketing executives who would promote your service for free.

3. Arrogance in Communication Style

As discussed earlier, some vendors apart from ignoring low volume clients seldom even tend to be rude and arrogant towards their needs in their communication. Some times they even use offending statements such as “What more do you expect from me… I will treat you as per thr payment you have done!”

This hurts the sentiments of the client and don’t be surprised if he/she starts negative promotion about you. Remember the days when you lured him/her to purchase your service with sweet tongue. If you cant provide the privilege asked by the client due to limitations, try to explain him/her in a language that will convince him/her instead of offending him/her. By doing so the client will actually appreciate you.

Likewise there are lots of behavioral misconducts that broaden the wall of hatred between you and your customers.

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Domain name is an identity in form of words for a website that is used instead of IP addresses (set of numbers such as 11.121.13.4) in the website’s URL. Generally a website is a set of remotely hosted files that are fetched through the IP address of the server where they reside. However, its very difficult and next to impossible to remember the Website URL beginning with IP address, also the URL becomes too long as it may contain a large path to those files. To avoid such hazzle, domain names are provided to mask those long IP based URLs with small human understandable words.

How Is a Domain mapped with a remote server?

Now the question would arise as to how a system connected to Internet understands the relationship between an IP and the domain targeting it? The answer is simple. Every domain is associated with Name Server that points to a Domain Name System (DNS) controller. This  DNS controller maintains the list of related records such as A Record, CNAME Record, Mail Exchange (MX) Record, that tells the client terminal where to look for the required information.

How to obtain these Records?

It isn’t a rocket science to obtain these records. Generally when the domain and hosting service is taken from the same service provider, its handled automatically. However when the domain is registered through one service provider and hosting from other, the name servers  of that hosting server needs to be associated with the domain through its control panel.

So does this mean that Domain doesn’t come along with web space?

Generally, people think that just registering a domain alone provides them Email IDs and web space to host their web pages. It is because many Third Party service providers quote a common cost for hosting and domain. Domains and web space/Email service are different entities. The governing body of domains are different than that of email service and web hosting.

Its like when you want to build a house, you need Land, Architecture plan and legal registration of your ownership over the land. Now the governing body of Land Registration is local government, whereas the land would be owned by a land lord who would sell the land to you. Applying these terms in website development, the land registration is similar to registering a Domain Name. Buying land from a land lord is similar to obtaining a web space to host your web pages, and Architecture plan is similar to the task of web design and development.

What are the benefits of registering a domain through Cybrent?

Before answering this question, we would ask you to please have a look at this question What to ask a vendor while Registering a Domain. The most important and crucial part in domain registration is the person who is providing the registration service.

• Is he/she a vendor or just an agent.
• Will he/she be accountable to the problems you face with the domain in terms of service?
• Will he/she provide you full control over the domain you registered and own, or just provide you partial control over it?
• Will he/she allow you to change the domain WhoIS details so that you can prove your ownership over that domain?

There may be client grabbers who may try to grab your attention through lucrative offers and tranquilize your ownership over the domain you register and pay for.

Cybrent on other hand takes complete responsibility of providing its clients the service and support regarding the issues related to the domain registered through Cybrent. The control panel provided by Cybrent covers all the crucial features required by the domain owner. Some of those feature’s being:

• WhoIs Privacy Protection
• Domain Theft Lock
• Domain Secret (Also called as EPP or Domain Transfer Code)
• DNS Management
• 1 Free Email ID of 1GB capacity with Webmail and POP/IMAP/SMTP support
• Domain Forwarding and Unlimited Email Forwarding.

For more details visit http://www.cybrent.com/content.php?action=free_services.

Top Five Reasons for Software Piracy

1. The software that we need is so much expensive that we can get 10 computers in that cost. Why do they need to charge a simple software so heavily?
2. I wanted to purchase a legal copy of the software, but it is not available in my region, and I couldn’t wait for its availability.
3. I have purchased a legal copy of the operating system, but mine is a small computer institute with 10 working  computers. Now if I am forced to buy 10 CDs of a same software for 10 different computers, I will have to sell my home, my office and everything that I have.
4. I had purchased a legal copy of the software that I need for my business operation 3 months ago. However last month they have released a new version of that software with new features and security fixes. Now I am asked to buy that new version again. Can’t they show dignity to existing customers who have already spent a huge amount on them and provide free upgrades to such customers?
5. The CD that we purchased for the software needed by our firm got damaged last week, also when we had tried to take back up of that CD, it didn’t allow to copy its contents anywhere. Now when I report it to the vendor, I am asked to again purchase that CD. Isn’t this is ridiculous?

Like wise there may be many personal reasons why people are not able to PURCHASE legal copies of a proprietary software.

Get Rid of Software Piracy

If we closely notice these reasons, the common issue faced by everyone is the COST. The software cost for a very small purpose software too is generally so high that home users, schools,  small and medium sized organizations can’t afford them. Also the dependency on an easy to use popular (Expensive) Operating System and Office Application software, is so high that people are forced to use pirated copies (either knowingly or unknowingly out of their wish). So now the question arises as to how to get rid of Piracy and live a decent life in the Information Technology Market? The answer lies in switching to Open Source Community.

Switch to Open Source Community

For all those who are new to this term, Open Source refers to those software where the software is developed for the free distribution along with its Source Code through the GNU General Public License. As per this license:

“Published software should be free software. To make it free software, you need to release it under a free software license. We normally use the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL), but occasionally we use other free software licenses.”

The Open Source softwares provide a world wide support platform with millions of developers and users. Upgrades released are freely available. There are wide ranges of  Open Source Software alternatives to the commercial software. You can get a list of such Open Source alternate softwares at www.osalt.com.

Some Open Source Software Alternatives

Operating System

The most popular and (considered) User Friendly operating systems today are well known and commercially available. However there are Open Source operating systems available in market that are ignored just because of the rumours that they are difficult to learn and lack user friendliness. However there are large scale operating systems supported by Open Source community that have been successfully powering small to heavy duty systems, that too with robust efficiency, and virus free environment. GNU Linux is one such operating system. There are many flavors of Linux generally referred to as Distros. Some of the popular distros of GNU Linux are:

1. Debian - http://www.debian.org
2. Open SuSe – http://www.opensuse.org
3. Ubuntu – http://www.ubuntu.com
4. Mandriva – http://mandriva.com
5. FreeBSD – http://www.freebsd.org

There are lot many distros to compare and select as per your requirement.

Office Applications

The most popular commercial Office Application suite that is used world wide is very expensive. On the contrary if you want to try out free alternatives, you can try out these office applications which are similar to that popular application:

1. Open Office – http://www.openoffice.org
2. Lotus Symphony – http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.nsf/home

Open Source Solutions and Consultancy

Open Source technology is one major area where Dhayfule Enterprises focusses on. Our goal is to help Enterprises, Institutions and other Organizations minimize their expenditures spent on IT Infrastructure, by providing them Open Source Software Solutions.

If you own or belong to a Cyber Café, a School, Institute, Small Business, Large Enterprise, Non Profit Organization and need a low cost but efficient IT Software Infrastructure, then you have reached the right door step.

Linux is an  Open Source Operating System, which means that you can customize it as per your choice without restrictions. Based on GNU (a n open source clone of UNIX released by Richard Stallman), it was first invented by Linus Torvalds, and that’s how it got its name GNU-LINUX.

It is Developed and released under the GNU General Public License , which means that the source code for Linux is freely available to everyone. To know more about Linux, visit http://www.linux.org/info/index.html

What is Ubuntu?

Ubuntu is a community developed, Linux-based operating system that is perfect for laptops, desktops and servers. It contains all the applications you need – a web browser, presentation, document and spreadsheet software, instant messaging and much more.

Ubuntu is an operating system consisting of free and open source software. With Ubuntu you can surf the web, read e-mail, create documents, spreadsheets and more! Ubuntu is powerful and flexible for business, education and home use.

Visit http://www.ubuntu.com/ for official details about Ubuntu.

A1/2982, Sairam Nagar, Kamlakar Nagar, Kohojgaon, Ambernath West – 421501.
Tel. +91 9324374443.

You can write to us at:

pravin@dhayfule.com

Cybrent stands for Cyber Rent. The concept is that when you register a domain or any other web service, you are actually renting a cyber service. Through Cybrent, Pravin Dhayfule provides an affordable, reliable and efficient Web Hosting, Domain Registration and other IT Enabled Services.

Advantages

We provide you unlimited web space, when other service providers provide you web space in Megabytes (MB).  Moreover we don’t have any hidden cost. You get to know the complete breakup for the services you procure. This also means that you can flexibly choose which service to procure and which not to when you don’t really need it. For example, some may just require hosting service, some just email service, while some may require both together.

Our Web Servers, Email Servers and Database Servers are isolated and so save each other from maintenance overload due to accidental malfunction.

Services

The services offered by Cybrent are:

• Domain Registration
• Web Hosting
• Premium Email Hosting
• Digital Certificates

Free Services on Domain Registration

Every domain registered through Cybrent is loaded with following free features:

1. One Free Email Account with 1 GB space and Catch All facility
2. DNS Management
3. Whois Privacy Protection
4. Domain Theft Protection
5. Bulk Tools

For details visit http://www.cybrent.com/content.php?action=free_services

Visit www.cybrent.com for hosting details and cost.

Dhayfule Enterprises is a pioneer in IT Enabled Services covering Deployment Consultancy, Web Development, Domain Registration, Email Services, Web Hosting and Free Open Source Solutions (FOSS).

Pravin Dhayfule understands the need of hour for IT Infrastructure Deployment in terms of Effectiveness, Affordablility and at same time Efficiency.

If you are an blooming Entrepreneur, an NGO, a Student who cannnot afford much on IT Enabled services, you have reached the right place.

Switch to Open Source – Get Rid of Software Piracy

Software Piracy is considered to be a greatest area of concern in the world of proprietary software business. Many biggies have been complaining about the million rupees loss they have been subject to because of the world wide software piracy that is being carried out openly. May be the system on which you are reading this page, runs on a pirated copy of operating system.Although there are lots of (effective) reasons that you may have for not using a licensed copy of the operating system. Read More