This Week I Learned - Week #182

This Week I Learned -

VNet peering is a mechanism that connects two virtual networks in the same region through the Azure backbone network. Once peered, the two virtual networks appear as one for all connectivity purposes. They are still managed as separate resources, but virtual machines in these virtual networks can communicate with each other directly by using private IP addresses. The traffic between virtual machines in the peered virtual networks is routed through the Azure infrastructure much like traffic is routed between VMs in the same virtual network. Some of the benefits of using VNet peering include:
- A low-latency, high-bandwidth connection between resources in different virtual networks.
- The ability to use resources such as network appliances and VPN gateways as transit points in a peered VNet.
- The ability to connect a virtual network that uses the Azure Resource Manager model to a virtual network that uses the classic deployment model and enable full connectivity between resources in these virtual networks.

YouTube Go is a new mobile app that will be India-only at first.

*  G Suite is the new name for Google Apps for Work which consists of Gmail, Docs, Drive, Calendar, Hangouts

* Google has acquired API.AI which offers "a conversational user experience platform enabling developers to design and integrate natural language interactions into their solutions in a matter of minutes". It is currently used by Slack, Facebook Messenger among others

* There is a free MS Press ebook on Windows Server 2016: Introducing Windows Server 2016

Optimizing the size and speed of videos on the web is key for responsive websites. One technique you can use is to display a static image from the video first, and load the video dynamically once the user hits the play button.

HTTPS adoption among the world’s top half million sites doubled this year, achieving in one year what hadn’t been managed in 20 years’ since HTTPS’ introduction

Alexis Deveria (a.k.a. @Fyrd), the developer behind caniuse.com is a web developer at Adobe by day and a champion of cross-browser compatibility by night. Caniuse includes Statcounter or Google Analytics stats to help users determine how much of their potential market can use a particular feature

ipinfo.io's API can be used to filter out bot traffic, customize content based on visitor's location, display full country names, perform bulk IP geolocation

Last week, it was revealed that over 500 million Yahoo! accounts were breached. While the account-holders' passwords themselves were only retrieved in encrypted form, it appears as though some if not all the password hints (questions about something private to the account holder and the answers) were retrieved in clear text, unencrypted. Back in Oct 2013, Adobe experienced a nearly identical compromise in which the hackers obtained the encrypted passwords and password hints (in clear text) for over 38 million of its users. One year later, when the social media company Buffer suffered a major API-related breach, it was relatively confident that at least part of the attack on its infrastructure was inspired by data gathered during the Adobe breach. At the root of the issue is a problem every Internet user knows about (but also doesn't do much about): shared passwords - ProgrammableWeb

* Chennai received 1,049 mm (41.3 in) of rainfall in November 2015, the highest recorded since November 1918 when 1,088 mm (42.8 in) in of rainfall was recorded.  The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) station in Santacruz recorded 944 mm. of rain in the 24 hours between 26 July & 8:30 a.m. on 27 July.

* Tech Mahindra is a US$3.68 billion company with 105,000+ professionals across 51 countries. Tech Mahindra is now the fifth-largest IT services company in India, with more than 100,000 employees, $4.05 billion in revenue and $477 million in net profit for the year ended March 31. Tech Mahindra started in 1986 as a joint venture between British Telecom and Mahindra & Mahindra.

* Vineet Nayyar,77, Vice Chairman & Managing Director,  brings the experience of many worlds to Tech Mahindra. A former bureaucrat with the Indian Administrative Service, he started as a district magistrate and then worked in the agriculture department in the northern state of Haryana. Then came stints at the World Bank heading the energy, infrastructure and finance portfolios for East Asia and the Pacific. In 1986, he became the founding chairman of the Gas Authority of India, where he oversaw the construction of one of the largest gas pipelines in Asia. His IT avatar began in his late 50s when he became managing director of IT heavyweight HCL and also co-founded HCL Perot Systems - Forbes India

* With some of its largest development centres located in Bengaluru and Chennai, which have more than 2,000 engineers, India has emerged as one of the most important development hubs for PayPal. Business in India (PayPal’s India presence is limited to the cross-border payments space) - Forbes India

* Eicher Motors has sold more than 500,000 Royal Enfield motorcycles in the past year. It makes trucks and buses through a joint venture with Swedish auto major Volvo.

* HDFC Bank is the second-largest bank in India’s private sector. Boasting more than 4,500 branches across 2,500 cities, it serves 37 million customers.

* American men today earn about 20% more than their female counterparts and hold 96% of Fortune 500 CEO positions. They constitute more than 80% of the House and the Senate, and have an unrivaled 44-0 streak in winning the presidency - HBR

* Satyam’s founder, B Ramalinga Raju, had perpetrated the largest fraud in Indian corporate history by fudging accounts to the tune of $1 billion

* The Prasar Bharati Corporation which runs the national TV channel Doordarshan, is funded by the I&B Ministry. Only 15 per cent of the budget is spent on content; the rest goes for salaries to over 31,261 staff.

* There is no long-term capital gains (LTCG) tax to be paid if Arbitrage funds are held for over a year and sold thereafter. If sold within a year, they become liable for 15 per cent short-term capital gains tax. Arbitrage funds score over debt funds due to the tax advantage. Debt funds qualify for LTCG if held for three years, after which they are taxed at 20 per cent with indexation. Over the past three- and five-year periods, arbitrage funds have delivered over 8 per cent returns. Investors may find returns from this category suboptimal but this owes to their lower risk profile.

* Energy from renewable sources still makes up less than a fifth of global energy production

* "Arrogance comes from self-confidence, self-confidence comes from the accumulation of successes" - Wang Deshun, 79

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