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Do Sun/IBM certifications really help?

I recently happened to interview a candidate boasting of SCJP 5.0 (Sun Certified Java Programmer 5.0) and I asked her few basic questions in java regarding String and StringBuffer and she didn’t have a clue about it. She wasnt even aware of the basics in Java, but she said she had a score of 95 , and well I was shocked that shes got a better score than mine 🙂

Same thing happened with a candidate who had newly joined the company (though with 2+ years of experience) ,  and he boasted a SCJP and SCWCD , and still didnt have a clue with writing a JSP.

On the other hand I have been working with these technologies for quite  a few years and when I eventually took these certifications, I felt  confident that I can answer almost anything in any interview. But probably the interview panel who sees my certifications will treat me just like the above mentioned candidates, afterall passing these certifications (which require 70% to pass) doesnt guarantee anything.

It could be very well with the way you prepare for facing these exams, if you solemly try to learn the questions in the dumps by heart, you might end up with nothing but a paper which says you are certified, on the other hand if you thoroughly go through books and specifications it will make you a expert in the area. So its upto you to decide what you really want.

My conclusion is these certifications do help individuals taking  them in gaining valuable knowledge , but it doesnt really help employers to gauge a candidate.

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Blackberry – Will it be successful in India?

Blackberry phones have starte pouring into India, but theres a catch you need to buy your Blackberry only from the Operators, a selling strategy totally new to Indians and couple it with the fact unlike US, the Mobile Operators dont give you any rebates, rather they price it much higher. Now compare it with Nokia’s E Series  phones, sold across the country in most Mobile stores, and backed by Nokia Service network.

I had the oppurtunity of using Blackberries in US and felt their build was not as solid as the Nokia’s succesful E61i, but the fact which made Blackberry a big hit in US was the Blackberry Connect/Push Email. In India most companies dont support Push Email, most of them support Exchange Servers (from Microsoft) and Both Nokia and Blackberry do pretty much the same in terms of  handling Pop/SMTP emails and Exchange Servers.   So Blackberry apart from the name really doesnt add much to the Indian Customers.

Add to that  Nokia’s popularity and resale values, you can expect very few to go and pick a blackberry ahead of a Nokia ESeries Phone. Then you got a load of free apps for Symbian compared to Blackberry adding so much to the usability the Nokia Phones.

With E71 Nokia probably has the best designed and refined QWERTY keyboard phone its hard to see how Blackberry can put one across the Nokia.

[ps: Now dont come n tell me Blackberry is so successful in US, the fact is Nokia doesnt have any deal with Mobile operators for subsidising its phones. This is the main selling point for US, no one pays the full price of any phone there. The model is very different in other countries]

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Google to launch Browser Sync for Google chrome

Of all the softwares I miss the Browser Sync for Firefox the most, when Google withdrew the plugin late last year, I thought probably Google was worried about privacy concerns and dropped the plugin. Only after the launch of Google Chrome I realized the real reason. Maybe Google was little selfish in pulling the plug of a very popular plugin, but then thats how the industry is.

But now Google is launching the plugin again but only this time the plugin will stay much longer thanks to Google Chrome. A sneak peek was given in Google’s development blog about the launch of the Browser Sync. It is expected to be launched in a week and it will not have all the features of the firefox plugin.

The first beta of the plugin will have ability to synchronise only the bookmarks and later versions will add other features like History,Passwords etc. All these information will be stored under your Google/Gmail  Account.