“Getting real is about skipping all the stuff that represents real (charts, graphs, boxes, arrows, schematics, wireframes, etc.) and actually building the real thing.” -37Signals

Slowly and gradually India is also joining open source. Kerala the 100% literate state in India . If we will follow the statistics by the year 2011 everyone of us will be some using open source software on your mobile, desktop, or TV sets.

“We have decided that we will use only free software for computer education in Kerala schools. We have implemented the Linux platform in high schools; it will be implemented in other schools step by step,” Kerala Education Minister M A Baby. We want to make Kerala the FOSS (Free and Open Software Systems) destination in India. That is all

By throwing out Microsoft from high school desktops, Kerala is following the footsteps of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Goa, West Bengal, and Delhi, who are also in the thick of bringing Linux to schools.

In MP, nearly 2,600 primary schools are given computers with a Hindi language interface on Linux platforms. Rajasthan is already pushing it in 4,000 schools.

By 2008, 56,000 schoolteachers in the Kerala will be trained in Linux and students in the 2,650 government and government-aided high schools will be taught the open-source code software,” said Shankaran Nair, director of IT@school, responsible for promoting IT education in schools.

It’s important to mention that free software guru Richard Stallman is virtually the consultant to the Kerala government’s IT initiatives.

When you are switching to open source?

“Simple innovators don’t seek to be the first to create something, but rather to be the first to perfect it so it will thrive in the real world.”  -Business  2.0

Before buying anything as you do research to know at least the most important facts; before you pay. Similarly if you have just started thinking to have a web site and you don’t have any clues about where to start from, read Esther Schindler’s article Becoming Clueful: What You Should Know Before You Redo Your Web Site. It goes in details about

1. Understand what you want
2. It costs more and takes longer than you think
3. A Web site has several pieces. Don’t cut corners.
4. Balance glitz and guts
5. If you build it, they won’t necessarily come
6. Avoid bit decay: the site needs maintenance
7. Treat the Web team as professionals

Then you must read Daniel Will-Harris’s Taking the plunge: What to consider before building, or rebuilding a site to understand

1. Why do you need to build or rebuild a web site?
2. What kind of site do you need: Content, Commerce or Interaction?
3. Who will visit your site, and what will they get out of it?

and at the end before you decide who is going to create your web site, answer Dr. Greg Chapman’s Seven Marketing Questions You Should Ask Before You Get a Teenager to Build Your Web site.

Ready to outsource your website design work? Here is what Seth Godin suggest that you should know before you talk to your designers. “How to live happily with a great designer” couple of my favorite are -

1. If you want average (mediocre) work, ask for it. Be really clear up front that you want something beyond reproach, that’s in the middle of the road, that will cause no controversy and will echo your competition. It’ll save everyone a lot of time.
2. You can’t tell me you’ll know it when you see it. First, you won’t. Second, it wastes too much time…
3. Get very stressed about user interface and product design. And your packaging.
4. Be clear about dates and costs. Not what you hope for, but what you can live with!

You might come across professionals, project managers, and web consultants who are totally clueless about these points, simply they did not understand web. But still when you are working with their organisation; one of them will be responsible for creating your web site.

Therefore before giving away your web site for development to any of the organization make sure they understand web.

Welcome to Switch to better a blog by SwitchPrompt about entrepreneurship, web design, experience, simplicity, what we like, and more.
We will talk about improvement; that adds to the value of web for human being.