Salary Survey on US Salary

In spite of stagnant economic situation in the USA, it is dream of many foreign professionals to work in the USA. The US job market has not recovered fully. It is a big question, how the year 2013 will be for the US job market.In between, KForce, a major professional staffing and solutions firm, has come out with a salary survey of Skill in demand and average US salary, skill wise.

The survey is segregated into technology and finance\accounting area. In the technology area, Web Application developers are of highest demand, followed by mobile application developer and Project Manager. Among the top 10 cities, which are having maximum number of offers, Dallas, TX comes in the first position, followed by Washington, DC and Chicago, IL. The maximum salary is offered in Dallas, Tx in the Mobile Application Developer category is $133,000. This is followed by Project Management job in San Francisco, CA in for $124,300. The third position is occupied by the Project Management Jobs in Washington D.C., where the average salary is $117,500.

In the Finance and Accounting jobs, the most demanded job categories are Staff Accountant, Senior Accountant and Financial Analyst. In the top 10 cities, which are offering this kind of jobs, Dallas, Tx comes in the first position. Los Angeles, CA and New York, NY come in the second and third position. The financial analysts of New York are the highest earner, who have an average salary of $99,800. The second and third positions are also occupied by financial analysts in Los Angles, CA and Chicago, IL for $95,000 and $93,200 respectively.

Hope that you found it useful and can use this data to your benefit to negotiate with your employer.

 

Free Call to China in the Chinese New Year

 

Localphone is giving free calls to China in the Chinese New Year for four days. The free call period will start from 12 pm GMT, Monday 11th February until 12 pm GMT Thursday 14th February. Call to both landlines and mobiles are free. There is no time restriction of the free call and hence, you can call as many persons as you want and as long as you want. After the promotion, the calls will be charged 1.2 cents (US) per minute.

 

You can see related article here on Localphone.

How do you get a digital signature

The other day, I received a mail from my lawyer. He sent me a legal copy of a letter and wanted my signature on the same. He told that the scanned copy of the signed letter would be good enough. So, I downloaded the soft copy of the letter. Then, I took a print out and signed on it. I scanned the signed document and then again upload it in my computer and finally send it back to my lawyer. The next day, when I met one of my friends in the cafe and told him about the same, he told me that it could have been done easily without even downloading the soft copy from the mail.

You must have understood that we are talking about digital signature. But what we discussed above, requires some extra functionality other than a mere digital signature. To set up this feature in your mail, go to the HelloSign website. Enter your mail address in the space provided for Email.

 

In the next screen, enter your Name, Industry information and save the information.

 

In the next screen, you need to set up few things e.g. Password, your digital Signature and few more details.

 

 

For digital signature, you do have few options. a) If you already have digital signature, you can upload it here b) You can draw your signature by using touch-pad or mouse c) You can take a photo of your signature through a smart phone and then email it to sign@hellosign.com with a subject line eda47c70 or d) you can just type in your signature.

 

 

This is pretty much everything that you need to set up. Now, we may have three types of scenario i.e. a) You already have a document and you need to mail it with your digital signature b) Someone has sent you mail requesting your digital ignature and c) You would like to request someone to digitally sign a document. Let us take one by one.

 

You already have a document and you need to mail it with your digital signature - If you already have the soft copy of the document, upload it in the HelloSign documents. Alternatively, you can upload the document from Google Drive, Sky Drive, Box, Dropbox or Evernote. Once you upload the document, you will get an option to edit and sign your document. Embed your digital signature and save the the document. Apart from digital signature, you can also include the date. Now, just enter the destination mail address and send across the same.

 

 



 

Someone has sent you mail requesting a digital signature - You might be thinking what is different here from the first one. You can simply download the document from the mail and upload it in HelloSign and the rest of the steps are identical to the first one. You are correct, but however, it is slightly different. There is actually an extension for this application for Chrome browser and gmail combination. Whenever, you get an attachment, you can see the HelloSign link just beside the attachment. You just click on this and the document will be opened in edit mode as we have seen in the previous section. Thus, you can send the digitally signed document without even downloading it.

 

You can install the application from this link

 

You would like to request someone to digitally sign a document - You can use the Hellosign to specify, where exactly the digital signature needs to be made. You can send this request mail from your HelloSign application, where you can send a note, as well, along with the document.

 

 

With its usefulness in our everyday life, it is for sure that HelloSign is another step towards greener world and paperless office.

Voice Recognition is now in Google Chrome

In the latest version of Chrome, version 25, Google has introduced voice recognition feature. Now, instead of typing a text, you can speak it, wherever you can see a microphone icon. The prerequisite for the voice recognition tool is that you must have a microphone associated with your computer. You should also have the latest Chrome version 25, beta. In this beta version, Google has introduced a new Java script Web Speech API. So, if you are a web developer, you can even include this Web Search API, wherever you want. It enables the user to provide the input by speaking instead of typing. This Web Search API has the flexibility of having different speaking languages e.g. American English, British English, Indian English etc.

 

Glen Shires, a google engineer, wrote "So, in the near future you'll be able to talk apps doing into all sorts of things". It means that the developers now can implement the Web API to enable all kinds of voice commands to their applications. Thus, it may change entire ball game of the web applications going forward.

 

Coming back to our original context, we can use this voice recognition feature to compose a mail, write an article or for any other requirements. Though, there are other voice recognition tools, none of them is available free of cost. Where as Google is bringing this facility to you without any additional cost and without any special software installation. Also, most of the other tools are oriented to US English and hence sometimes, the other English speakers find it difficult to use these softwares. Where as in the latest chrome version, Chrome is having the option of different english flavor and hence, it should be well adopted world wide.

 

 

So what do you need to do to use this tool to type on behalf of you. Google has provided a site for "Web Speech API demonstration".

 

1. Click on this link to go to the demo site

2. Choose your language and country. For example, if you are Indian and want to speak in English, just select English in the first drop down and India in the second drop down.

3. Now, Click on the microphone and begin speaking for as long as you want. At the end of your speech, again click on the microphone to stop it recording.In case, you keep silent without stopping it, it will automatically stop after few seconds.

4. Now you can either copy the text or send mail.

 

Photo of Microphone - Courtesy Audio-TechnicaUK on Flickr

Cloud Google Print - An excellent option

With the advent of cloud technology, one important introduction is cloud google print. There are basically two types of printers, which can be used as cloud printer. The first type is called Cloud Ready Printer. For this kind of printer, you basically don't need a computer. The second type of printer is called classic printer or any printer, which doesn't belong to Cloud Ready Printer category. To access these printers, you do need a computer. It is unnecessary to mention that in both the cases, we do need internet connection.

 

Major cloud Ready Printers are coming from the manufacturers like Canon, Dell, Epson, FedEx, HP and Kodak. You can directly connect these printers to the internet and then set up the same in the printer setting tab. After registering your google account with your printer, you will be able to access your printer through Google cloud service.

 

Here, our main area of interest is the classic printer. Classic printers do need a PC to register with your google cloud service. We will see, how we can set up a classic printer to serve it as cloud google print. The pre-requisite of this set-up is that your printer needs to be connected to a computer and your computer should be connected to the internet. Also, you need to have Windows XP (service pack 3) or later version of windows operating system. You also need to have Google chrome installed in your computer.

 

Step 1 - Open Google chrome and Sign into your Google account. Now, click on the wrench menu on the right hand top.

 

Step 2 - Click on settings and then on "Show advanced settings"

 

Step 3 - Now click on "Add Printers".

 

Step 4 - It will open up a new page and will show the google account name, for which the printers will be added. Now, again click on the "Add Printer(s)" button.

 

Step 5 - Once, you click on "Add Printers", you will get a message that your printers are now registered and will get a link "Manage your printers".

 

Step 6 - Click on the link "Manage your printers" to check whether your printer has been registered or not. Supposing, you want to share it with your spouse, just click on the printer name, add hisher google account and then click on share.

 

 

Now, your printer is set up and accessible through google cloud service. You can fire a print out from anywhere in the world. However, the could print is not accessible from all applications. To fire a print out, you do need a Chrome Browser. You can print a page by hitting Ctrl+P or Print from the wrench menu by selecting "Print With Google Cloud Print" in the destination option. You can get a list of all supported applications from this link.

 

Google cloud printing is an excellent service, which though has not received due popularity yet.

International call-A cheap option from localphone

How do you get a local number in any country in the world? The answer is Localphone. Localphone is a VoIP based service, which provides the facility of cheap international calling and texting. Localphone provides cheap international calling rates to most of the countries in the world. I have personally used their service and it is quite good in quality. Through Localphone service, you can make international calls and as well as, send text messages. You can find the call-rate information for different countries at this link . The charge for text message can be found here. The good point is that if, you don't want this facility for long, just fill up your account with a minimum amount of $ 1. You can top up your account through Visa card, Master Card, Maestro Card, Switch, Solo, Paypal or Ukash.

 

Apart from international calling and texting service, Localphone also provides the facility of having a local number for a nominal charge. And interestingly, you can have local number in any country (provided it is supported by Localphone). So, if you have business in different countries, it makes sense for you to get one local number in each country. I found that it is an excellent facility, as you would have total control on your communication just by sitting at a single place. From 1-Feb-13 to 1-Mar-13, they are not charging any set up fee for the incoming numbers. So, if you are in US and have a business in Germany, just pay $1 to avail a local number in Germany. People in Germany can make a local call at this number. You can receive the call in two ways. If you configure for VoIP, you can receive the call for free. Otherwise, you can get it in your nomal phone at low international call rate of Localphone.

 

So, next time you are flying to US, don't forget to avail the service of Localphone. Are you sceptical about the quality of the service? You can check the voice quality by availing free 5 minutes of talktime, when you register for their service.

 

 

 

The photo is used from flickr.com. Photo courtesy nimble photography

Use efficiently Facebook open Graph Search

Now, we have access to much awaited Facebook open graph search facility. If you haven't yet got the access, you can easily request for access. To seach facebook, you can use the facebook open graph search efficiently to your benefit. Here are some of the ideas that can be utilised through Facebook open graph search.

Gift to Friends through facebook open graph search

- Are you planning to call your friends at home? A good surprise for them may be to play their favourite songs in the party. You can find out the most liked albums from Facebook graph search facility. If I click on my Facebook search and then on "Music my friend like", the most favourite among my friends would be A. R. Rahman, followed by Shreya Ghosal. You can use the same search to gift a musicmoviebook to your friend. In that case, you just need to refine the search criteria by your particular friend's name.

 

 

Finding friends with same interest through facebook open graph search

- When you are trying to join a community, you can take help of Facebook search. You can find out different interests of your friend through Facebook graph search. For example, if I would like to join a community on Public speaking, I would like to take some pointer from my friends, who have affinity towards this area. And hence, I will directly go to "Music my friend like" and change the Page Type to "Interest". It will show me the interests of my friends. I will check, if "Public Speaking" or anything related to it is there in the search result. And then accordingly, I contact my friends associated with the same.

 

 

Finding a gaming partner through facebook open graph search

- Are you in search for a gaming partner? Well, may be some of your friends are interested. You can find out if any of your friends is interested in the same game. Just refine your facebook search criteria with "Page Type" as "Game" and it will show all the games liked by your friend. If you see the same game enlisted in the search result, contact your friends mentioned along with the same game.

 

Friend Statistics through facebook open graph search

- You can quickly enumerate a statistics of your friends in different dimensions. For example, you can find out what is the malefemale ratio of your facebook friends or how many of them are employed with your current employer, or how many of them are residing in the same city as you are. There are many more such statistics, which can easily be found out from the Facebook search under "My Friends" category.

 

Anchoring a party through facebook open graph search

- Got the responsibility of anchoring a dinner in a nearby restaurant? Well, you can choose a restaurant, which is liked by majority of your friends. Just go to the search "Restaurants nearby" and set "Liked By" criteria to "My Friend". It will show you nearby restaurants liked by your friends. If you want, you can change the option to Cafes, American restaurants etc according to your choice.

 

Job Hunting through facebook open graph search

- Looking for a job? Here as well, Facebook search is of great help to you. You may know where your friends work. But they may not be employed, where you are planning to apply. In such case, you can check, if any of your friend's friend is employed in the same company. Go to the search criteria "Friends of my friends". Now, refine the search criteria with the employer name that you are interested in. The search result will show you the friend's friend, who is employed in the company. Now, you can ask himher to forward your resume in hisher company.

 

The above list is just few ideas. Facebook open graph search with its newly implemented feature "open graph search" is a very powerful tool and you can use its immense power to your benefit.

An all purpose alert notification software

You are no longer required to hop from one application to another to check new message or notification. Now, you can just set up an alert notification software through your Chrome browser and avoid missing any notification.

The alert notification can be set up through Chime. Chime is an extension of Chrome browser. You can download it by clicking this link . Once installed, you can select the applications, for which you do need the notification. The good part is that it automatically selects the applictions and do the configuration accordingly, where you are already logged in. To select other available applications, you need to choose those applications manually and provide the log-in credentials. Currently it supports the below applications

 

1. gmail

2. Reddit

3. facebook

4. Tweeter

5. Linked In

6. Quora

7. flickr

8. StackOverflow

9. Foursquare

10. Github

 

How does it work - Chime logs in to the selected applications with your login credentials and then intercepts all the new notifications. When you get any new notification from any of the applications, it opens a pop up window at the bottom right corner, with the notification. It also shows the application name e.g. gmail in different color i.e. red. In case, you miss the pop-up window, you can also see all the notifications from the Chime menu, next to the Chrome's file menu. If you would like to see detail message, just click on it and it will take you to the actual message. The good part is that there is no server side code and Chime handles the entire operation in your computer. It ensures that you need not worry about your data security.

 

 

So in a nutshell, what are the benefits of Chime

 

1. You do get alert notification of any message and can take immediate action if required. It helps you to be more efficient in responding to important message.

 

2. You get list of all notification alerts in a single drop down box. And hence you can quickly glance through all the messges without hopping from one site to another.

 

3. Once configured, you need not sign in to all your sites again and hence you can get rid of some recurring steps.