Cognitive Cache

Migrating Firefox Profile from one computer to another

2010-01-06T16:48:00.004-06:00

Recently, I had to get a new laptop at work since the lease on my old laptop had expired and it was acting weird. I transferred the data swiftly using this cord. But Firefox was a big deal since I stored a lot of bookmarks and passwords for some sites on the Firefox. First I tried copying the profiles folder directly but it didn't work and Firefox was giving me the message "Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window, you must first close the existing Firefox process, or restart your system." Here is how I got it working.

Lets say you want to transfer bookmarks, history, passwords from Computer A to Computer B. Firefox calls it profiles.

On Computer B, install firefox. Go to Windows Run, and type firefox -P. In the next screen click Create New profile, and give a name of your choice. Now go to (C or D drvive):\Documents and Settings\(your user id)\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles. Identify the profile you just created. You need to be able to see hidden folders to see this folder.

On Computer A go to the same location and the contents of your profile to a Flash drive and copy the contents. On Computer B, replace the contents of the profile folder you just created with the contents from the flash drive. Do this when Firefox is closed and you checked in Task Manager that its not running. That's all there is to it. Open firefox on Computer B and its exactly the same as Computer A with bookmarks, passwords and Master password too.

3 idiots - emphasizing the need to follow your passion

2010-01-01T23:53:00.008-06:00

Saari umar hum mar marke jee liye,
ik pal tho ab hamein jeene dho jeene dho .....

Saari umar hum mar marke jee liye,
ik pal tho ab hamein jeene dho jeene dho .....

(All our life, we have been dead while we were alive, at least for a moment let us live, let us live..)

Give me some sunshine,
give me some rain,
Give me another chance,
I wanna grow up once again ...

The song above pretty much sums up the entire movie from a student's perspective. The pain in Joy Lobo when he just doesnt get another chance to follow up his passion and commits a suicide, haunts you long after you leave the movie theater. As Aamir puts it, Education is supposed to be about learning and growing wiser and not about cramming some lines from a textbook for an exam. In our search for riches and society-defined comfortable life, we lose the emphasis in following our passion, the passion that defines a meaning to our life. And yet, we put our children in the same path thinking about what Mr. Kapoors' and the like would think of our children if they don't become doctors or engineers. And the cycle never ends.

An excellent movie with an excellent emotional and comic mix, 3 idiots touches your heart though it takes some cinematic liberties. At the end of the day, "All izz well"

Do yourself a favor and watch it. If it doesn't make you change your lifestyle and the way of thinking, it will atleast make you think for some time about what your passion is and the meaning of life for you is. It will define the importance of following your passion which would be followed by success and not the vice-versa.

At the outset, I think it's a great move by my friend who chose to leave a society-defined great job and comfortable life style in USA to follow his passion through to India. I sincerely wish him all the very best in his endeavors...

And by the way Happy New year 2010 everyone...

Creating a routed queue between two Tibco EMS Servers with Authorization enabled

2009-12-18T13:26:00.003-06:00

Imagine a scenario of creating a routed queue between two Tibco EMS servers A and B with home queue on B. Pretty simple right,

On server A, just define

create queue Q1@B secure, failsafe, global

Not so simple with Authorization enabled on the two servers. For messages to flow on routed queue, ServerA has to have ServerB as an authorized user to receive and ServerB has to have ServerA as an authorized user to send. So to setup the route properly with Authorization enabled the following has to be worked upon. This assumes that the route is already in place and the user ServerB is created on ServerA and the user ServerA is created on ServerB and Q1 is setup as a global queue on Server B.

Routing between two servers A and B

Q1 is on B (home queue) and we need to create a routed queue on A and send to B

On server A

create queue Q1@B secure, failsafe, global
grant queue Q1 user=ServerB receive

On Server B

grant queue Q1 user=ServerA send

Conquering Gravity Master

2009-08-15T13:55:00.005-05:00

Rads from Tunneling Thru posted about this game Gravity Master and I read her post on Friday evening. The game is simple yet complex in its own way but pretty interesting though. Involves Physics and common sense. Most levels were a breeze but some levels were indeed tricky. Finally I finished the game today, Saturday afternoon after spending like 2-3 hours in total. No googling, no cheating. Man, I was so happy after finishing it :) Here are the screenshots for those who are looking for proofs. I did not care about total score though since I was looking to finish the levels. If I have enough time someday, may be I will work on maximizing the scores :) Try it when you have time, its fun...

Love or something like it...

2009-02-14T09:27:00.004-06:00

One fine morning I saw you.
Oh God, I could not believe my eyes nor could my eyes believe me.
You saw me, approached me and gave me a gentle smile,
to give me a live canvas of Monalisa's smile.
You spoke to me, your words coming out like that of a gentle dew,
yet bringing into bloom the fairest thoughts of the world.
And then we became great friends,
You encouraged me to leave my hesitation,
You enchanted me to get my determination,
You enlightened the path from which I drew my inspiration,
You made me stand ahead of others in great position.
But by the time I came to tell you, how much
I love you, it was too late, for, you went away.
Leaving behind memories to stay.
Your memories still linger in my mind,
Your gracious picture spread over my heart,
and I put my thoughts into words to tell you
that I love you forever and ever and ever...

Configuring JDBC Datasource in Tomcat 5.0.28 in Eclipse WTP

2009-02-03T16:01:00.007-06:00

I use Eclipse WTP for developing Web applications. In my previous post I mentioned that I changed the Database connection pool to use the Weblogic connection pool. The configuration in Weblogic was straightforward and simple, but it posed an issue for me during development because I was not able to configure the Datasource in the Installed Server Runtime in my Eclipse WTP. Either I had to use Reflection to supply the class and modify it between Environment deployments and local deployments or needed to fix the issue with Tomcat Datasource. The error that I was constantly getting was

ERROR DatabaseManager.getConnection - org.apache.commons.dbcp.SQLNestedException: Cannot create JDBC driver of class '' for connect URL 'null'
org.apache.commons.dbcp.SQLNestedException: Cannot create JDBC driver of class '' for connect URL 'null'
at org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource.createDataSource(BasicDataSource.java:780)
at org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource.getConnection(BasicDataSource.java:540)
at com.pepsi.bdb.connections.DatabaseManager.getConnection(DatabaseManager.java:36)

Googling the error wasn't very fruitful because it mostly dealt with configuring Datasource in Tomcat directly, but not much information was available on configuring with Eclipse WTP. Also, there were several ways of configuring it mentioned in Serverside website and none seem to work for me. Finally I figured it out today and here is how I did

In Eclipse WTP, expand the configured Server under Servers, you will see a file server.xml. This is a copy of the server.xml file that Eclipse creates for you, but uses the libs from the Tomcat folder you configured. In this file add your Datasource under the tag <GlobalNamingResources> as shown below:

<GlobalNamingResources>
<Environment name="simpleValue" type="java.lang.Integer" value="30"/>
<Resource auth="Container" description="User database that can be updated and saved" name="UserDatabase" type="org.apache.catalina.UserDatabase"/>
<Resource name="myDbPool" type="javax.sql.DataSource"/>
<ResourceParams name="UserDatabase">
<parameter>
<name>factory</name>
<value>org.apache.catalina.users.MemoryUserDatabaseFactory</value>
</parameter>
<parameter>
<name>pathname</name>
<value>conf/tomcat-users.xml</value>
</parameter>
</ResourceParams>
<ResourceParams name="myDbPool">
<parameter>
<name>validationQuery</name>
<value>select * from dual</value>
</parameter>
<parameter>
<name>maxWait</name>
<value>5000</value>
</parameter>
<parameter>
<name>maxActive</name>
<value>4</value>
</parameter>
<parameter>
<name>password</name>
<value>(password)</value>
</parameter>
<parameter>
<name>url</name>
<value>jdbc:oracle:thin:@(servername):(portNum):(SID)</value>
</parameter>
<parameter>
<name>driverClassName</name>
<value>oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver</value>
</parameter>
<parameter>
<name>maxIdle</name>
<value>2</value>
</parameter>
<parameter>
<name>username</name>
<value>(username)</value>
</parameter>
</ResourceParams>
</GlobalNamingResources>

Go to the folder where your server is actually located and place the jar file ojdbc14.jar (for Java 1.4, for lower versions, uses classes12.jar) in the folder %TOMCAT_HOME%\common\lib.

In the server.xml on the Eclipse, place an entry inside the <Context> element of your application that is inside the <Host> element as below:

That is it. This did the trick for me. For the web.xml entry inside your web application and Java code, refer to my previous post.

Configuring JDBC Datasource in Weblogic and using it in the code in a web application

2009-01-22T15:41:00.007-06:00

I decided to leverage the Connection pooling features provided by Weblogic in one of the web applications that I wrote. This application uses plain JDBC since dome dynamic capabilities are required for sql statements and so we decided against Hibernate/Spring. Initially the code was written against Open source Snaq DB Connection pooling. Apparently, Weblogic has very good connection pooling features that an application can leverage. Since the code was object oriented and all DAO classes used a DBManager class to get their connection, all I needed to change was a method.

The Weblogic documentation shows how to configure a Data source on Weblogic but has little mention on how to get it working from your web application. The following details should help you set it up. To configure a Data source check the following Weblogic documentation.
http://edocs.bea.com/wls/docs90/jdbc_admin/jdbc_datasources.html.
In the Data source, I am assuming that you configured the JNDI name as "myAppDbPool"

In your web application, you will need a web.xml entry and an entry in a new file weblogic.xml.

The web.xml entry looks like below

<resource-ref>
<res-ref-name>myAppDbPool</res-ref-name>
<res-type>javax.sql.DataSource</res-type>
<res-auth>Container</res-auth>
</resource-ref>

If you don't have a weblogic.xml file in your app create one. It goes in your WEB-INF beside web.xml file. The weblogic.xml file looks like below

<!DOCTYPE weblogic-web-app PUBLIC "-//BEA Systems, Inc.//DTD Web Application 8.1//EN"

"http://www.bea.com/servers/wls810/dtd/weblogic810-web-jar.dtd">

<weblogic-web-app>

<reference-descriptor>
<resource-description>
<res-ref-name>myAppDbPool</res-ref-name>
<jndi-name>myAppDbPool</jndi-name>
</resource-description>
</reference-descriptor>

</weblogic-web-app>

That's the configuration part. Now all you need to do is code your web application to retreive the Database connection from this Datasource. I made the DBManager class singleton to make sure only one instance runs at a given time. The DBManager class method looks like below:

public Connection getConnection() throws Exception
{
InitialContext ctx=new InitialContext();
DataSource ds=(DataSource)ctx.lookup("java:comp/env/myAppDbPool");
Connection connection=ds.getConnection();
return connection;
}

That's it. Use this connection in your DAO and you are all set. But make sure that your DAO object calls connection.close() when it is done accessing the data. According to Weblogic documentation, this returns the connection to the pool for other objects to access it.

If you have better approach or you see any flaws in this, let me know in the comments.

Stay Hungry Stay Foolish

2009-01-20T22:19:00.003-06:00

A man single-handedly builds an empire out of his vision, a cult following among generations, and as he fights off his personal health problems, a multi-billion dollar company, the shareholders and the whole tech world are eagerly awaiting just the signal that he is fine and we can expect more wonders from this genius. Thats Steve Jobs, the man who brought Apple back to an industry leading giant, a man who never ceases to amaze the world with his unconventional outlook. The speech that he delivered in Stanford is just marvelous, as it continues to inspire me all the time.

Steve Jobs, 2005 Stanford Commencement Address :This is the prepared text of the address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, who spoke at Commencement on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.

Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course."

My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college. And 17 years later I did go to college.

But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK.

It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting. It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it.

And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example: Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college.

But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky - I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30.

And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me - I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over. I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything.

It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together. I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple.

It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that your are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure very thing is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes. I lived with that diagnosis all day.

Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now. This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.

Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras.

It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words:

"Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Errors when using Struts 1.3.x that are not intuitive javax.servlet.ServletException: org/apache/commons/lang/UnhandledException

2009-01-09T17:38:00.004-06:00

Today, I decided to upgrade a new application that I was working on to Struts 1.3.10. After getting the necessary jars and stuff from the struts-blank.war, and upgrading my webapp library with those, everything was fine until I ran into this error. Apparently, Struts 1.3.x removed some jars from the distribution, and the dependecies had to be resolved externally. The error gave me no clue that it was unable to find the commons-lang.jar. After struggling with it for sometime, I finally figured out that the commons-lang.jar was the missing jar. Usually when a jar is missing we get a NoClassDefFoundError that points in the right way, but the error trace for this gave no clue at all. Anyways if you happen to run into this error the key is to have the commons-lang.jar in your classpath from this location Apache Commons

2009-01-09 17:30:34,001 ERROR InsertTag$InsertHandler.doEndTag - ServletException in '/pages-bdb/batchListDetail.jsp': org/apache/commons/lang/UnhandledException
javax.servlet.ServletException: org/apache/commons/lang/UnhandledException
at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspServlet.java:244)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:802)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:237)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:157)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.invoke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:704)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doInclude(ApplicationDispatcher.java:590)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.include(ApplicationDispatcher.java:510)
at org.apache.jasper.runtime.JspRuntimeLibrary.include(JspRuntimeLibrary.java:966)
at org.apache.jasper.runtime.PageContextImpl.doInclude(PageContextImpl.java:610)
at org.apache.jasper.runtime.PageContextImpl.include(PageContextImpl.java:604)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:324)
at org.apache.struts.tiles.TilesUtilImpl.doInclude(TilesUtilImpl.java:129)
at org.apache.struts.tiles.TilesUtil.doInclude(TilesUtil.java:152)
at org.apache.struts.tiles.taglib.InsertTag.doInclude(InsertTag.java:764)
at org.apache.struts.tiles.taglib.InsertTag$InsertHandler.doEndTag(InsertTag.java:896)
at org.apache.struts.tiles.taglib.InsertTag.doEndTag(InsertTag.java:465)
at org.apache.jsp.pages.shared.template_jsp._jspx_meth_tiles_insert_2(template_jsp.java:173)
at org.apache.jsp.pages.shared.template_jsp._jspService(template_jsp.java:92)
at org.apache.jasper.runtime.HttpJspBase.service(HttpJspBase.java:94)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:802)
at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.service(JspServletWrapper.java:324)
at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFile(JspServlet.java:292)
at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspServlet.java:236)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:802)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:237)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:157)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.invoke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:704)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.processRequest(ApplicationDispatcher.java:474)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doForward(ApplicationDispatcher.java:409)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.forward(ApplicationDispatcher.java:312)
at org.apache.struts.action.RequestProcessor.doForward(RequestProcessor.java:1083)
at org.apache.struts.tiles.TilesRequestProcessor.doForward(TilesRequestProcessor.java:295)
at org.apache.struts.tiles.TilesRequestProcessor.processTilesDefinition(TilesRequestProcessor.java:271)
at org.apache.struts.tiles.TilesRequestProcessor.processForwardConfig(TilesRequestProcessor.java:332)
at org.apache.struts.action.RequestProcessor.process(RequestProcessor.java:232)
at org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet.process(ActionServlet.java:1913)
at org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet.doPost(ActionServlet.java:462)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:709)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:802)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:237)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:157)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:214)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardValveContext.invokeNext(StandardValveContext.java:104)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline.invoke(StandardPipeline.java:520)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invokeInternal(StandardContextValve.java:198)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:152)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardValveContext.invokeNext(StandardValveContext.java:104)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline.invoke(StandardPipeline.java:520)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:137)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardValveContext.invokeNext(StandardValveContext.java:104)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:118)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardValveContext.invokeNext(StandardValveContext.java:102)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline.invoke(StandardPipeline.java:520)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:109)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardValveContext.invokeNext(StandardValveContext.java:104)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline.invoke(StandardPipeline.java:520)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.invoke(ContainerBase.java:929)
at org.apache.coyote.tomcat5.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:160)
at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(Http11Processor.java:799)
at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.processConnection(Http11Protocol.java:705)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.TcpWorkerThread.runIt(PoolTcpEndpoint.java:577)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.ThreadPool$ControlRunnable.run(ThreadPool.java:683)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:534)

The Best Things in Life are always Free

2008-12-31T10:22:00.002-06:00

Well, probably they are always not. But these days, information is. If you truly have the passion and drive to learn something, then the opportunities today are wide ranged thanks to Internet.

MIT Open courseware gives everyone an opportunity to experience the standard of its courses from previous semesters. Some of them might be outdated with respect to changes in technology but many core courses are usually not. Here is a link to MIT Open Courseware

Other universities offering free online courses that I have come across are below:

Carnegie Melon
Stanford
Tufts
UC Berkley
Utah State University OpenCourseWare
Johns Hopkins OCW
Notre Dame
Yale

To find courses available from several countries, use Open course ware consortium

If you are interested in a specific course use OCWFinder to find all the options that you have. Good luck.

Notes/Thoughts from an accident

2008-11-09T22:23:00.006-06:00

1. Life is too short. A minute or even a second could decide if you will see the next moment..
2. Live every moment of the life as if it is your last moment in your life. You never know what might come up in the next moment.
3. Nothing is permanent. You might not live to think about what you could have accomplished with your life. Spend at least 2-5 mins a day thinking what the day has meant to you, if you were given a chance to re-live the same day, what would you have done differently, and then try to implement that difference in the next day
4. Working out, looking good, trying to impress people don't have much to do when your moment arrives. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters actually.
5. If in each day, you could do something that would make you feel better as a person, as a human being, do it, you can find excuses to tell others, but there is no excuse from your conscience.
6. Procrastination could really be dangerous. If there is something that needs to be done, do it now or else have a fixed plan to do it on a particular day by a particular time. If its a big project split it into pieces and have a fixed time for completing each piece.
7. Before complaining about a thousand things that happened to you today, stop for a moment and be thankful for the fact that you are alive, you lived to see another day in your life, you got one more day to prove your essence in the world, whether you utilized it in the right way is a different story.
8. Have a fixed set of things that you really want to do in your life. Give them fixed years. do a bucket list for yourself and assign importance to them. For example, By 30, I want to own a BMW etc. Work out an exact plan how you would do it, day dreaming won't work, have an exact plan within the means..
9. When a moment can decide your life, live it up, live every minute part of a moment..

Oracle SQL group by on a portion of a clob field in the database

2008-11-07T14:49:00.007-06:00

I work on an application which writes its internal errors in processing to a DB table. The input data that caused the failure due to a parsing error or missing configuration error is put in a clob column in the database. This input data is an XML message and one of the tags identifies each application that sends data to my application. We had one of the architects who requested us to give a split up on the number of errors that have occurred for each application.

This was significant from Oracle perspective because you cannot do a group by on a clob. In order to do a group by, you need to be able to sort and clob fields do not have a natural sort order. The workaround is to do a to_char function on the clob field but you can get a max of 4000 chars. For me, this suited the requirement because the substring I needed was a small string. But the issue is that I needed to sort a portion of an XML tag inside the clob field and group them based on that. Not only that I needed to find a specific type of error in the XML message and count them.

After a little food for thought, here is the final query that fetched the sweet results

SELECT k.application_name, COUNT (*)
FROM (SELECT TO_CHAR
(SUBSTR (clobfield,
( INSTR (clobfield,
'ns0:appName',
1,
1
)
+ 21
),
( INSTR (clobfield,
'lt;/ns0:appName',
1,
1
)
- INSTR (clobfield,
'ns0:appName',
1,
1
)
- 22
)
)
) AS application_name
FROM tableName
WHERE appID = 1
AND INSTR (clobfield, 'ns0:appName', 1, 1) <> 0
AND INSTR (clobfield, 'ErrorMsg', 1, 1) <> 0
AND INSTR (clobfield, 'Application Not Configured', 1, 1) <> 0) k
GROUP BY k.application_name

The INSTR function selects the index of the occurrence of a string inside another string, while substr gets the substring from a string. The numbers 21 and 22 account for the tag name lengths and the additional characters in the tag name like > etc.

If you need to count based a specific portion of a clob, just modify the above query and you are good to go..

Lifestyle savings etc. a nice comment from an enlightened person

2008-09-03T16:24:00.002-05:00

Lately, thoughts have been springing into my mind as to what I should save for, what my real goals in life are, etc. I was navigating through some links and landed on this post about Lifestyle inflation. More than the post, this comment from Ron made a lot of sense. He sure must be an enlightened person. With his kind permission (haven't received it yet, since I have no way of communicating except leaving a comment on the same blog), I publish it here for my future reference and for any readers. I hope to emulate him some day..

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some very interesting comments and I see everyone is very committed to saving…but I wonder for what? What are you saving for, why do you want to earn more money? I am not being facetious; I really want to know the reason behind your efforts.

One of the seven habits: Begin with the end in mind. I see the blogger has a goal of a million dollar net worth…same question…why? What will having that net worth accomplish? And what are you measuring? And what is the nature of the net worth you are after, specifically?

I mean, do you want a million in equity (say, in real estate) or a million in the bank earning 5%? Two totally different scenarios.

Many people fixate on some number but it is often like leaning the ladder of success against the wrong wall. My clients come to me with that same idea sometimes; that is, to grow their net worth to some magic number as if it will resolve their financial issues somehow.

Look, as a goal I guess a million is as good as any but, really, if you are saving just to reach a number…what is the life you want? What would an ideal day look like, feel like?

Money is a tool…but for what? To build the life you want, IMO. So isn’t that the real goal? What is the life you want and, now, break that up into pieces and cost those pieces out:

The house I want: $x
The car I want: $x
Number of kids: $x

So on and so forth. Then you add that all up and you will have a bottom line and that is your real goal.

I wanted a small but comfortable home in a safe neighborhood and a five year old car that I would keep for five years and then sell and start over. Cost for that: $1,000 a month where I live. Plus expenses: Another $1000 a month.

My savings earn me $15,000 a year ($300K at 5%) and the rest I earn working three days a week doing what I really enjoy doing and what I would do for free if I could afford to do so. And I also manage to save some of what I earn so my savings are growing, as well.

I am married and we have a daughter and we look for all the world like a typical middle-class family. But we pay for it all with 24 hours of work a week; meanwhile both spouses work in all the other houses on the block.

We are not better or smarter, we were just able to decide what we wanted, price it out, and fund it with just enough work to get the REAL job accomplished (the life we wanted). Four day weekends are great!

Good luck!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Log4j writing to a dynamic log file for every run

2008-08-07T17:20:00.005-05:00

In my recent project, I was using Log4J and I had a requirement where I had to write to a new dynamic log file every time and the name of the log file was determined at runtime. In specific terms each run would produce a Project and the log file had to reflect the project name. Since this project name could be repeated across runs, the timestamp needed to be added to the log file. I searched across Google and didn't find much help in this regard. So I decided to post the code I wrote.

I didn't want to lose setting the log levels from the log4j.xml file and wanted all the options I could configure for the FileAppender except the file name. The file name was configured too, but the code had to overwrite and create a new file at runtime. Here is the code..

Date projDate = new Date(Long.parseLong(project.getTimeStamp()));
StringBuffer dateStr = new StringBuffer();
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy_MM_dd_HH_mm_ss");
dateStr = sdf.format(projDate, dateStr, new FieldPosition(0));
String logFileName = logsDir + File.separator + project.getName() + "_" + dateStr.toString() + ".log";
log.info("\n**************Log file for this run: " + logFileName + "\n**************\n");

Logger rootLogger = Logger.getRootLogger();
Enumeration appenders = rootLogger.getAllAppenders();
FileAppender fa = null;
while(appenders.hasMoreElements())
{
Appender currAppender = (Appender) appenders.nextElement();
if(currAppender instanceof FileAppender)
{
fa = (FileAppender) currAppender;
}
}
if(fa != null)
{
fa.setFile(logFileName);
fa.activateOptions();
}
else
{
log.info("No File Appender found");
}

That's it. The logs were created for each and parallel runs would write to different files...

Totally Annoyed with Toyota of Plano service guys

2008-07-18T19:59:00.004-05:00

I went to Toyota of Plano and was pretty annoyed with their service department and this Chris guy who was upset that I didnt get the Dealer recommended maintenance for $300 and got just the factory recommended one. Here is the story..

I needed a 15000 mile maintenance for my car and I called up the Toyota of Plano guys and asked how much it would cost. The guy on the phone said it costs me $335 or so. I was indeed surprised at such high amount and checked the Toyota website. All the Toyota recommends for my car is the following. (Source)

Replace engine oil and oil filter 1
Rotate tires
Clean cabin air filter
Visually inspect brake linings/drums and brake pads/discs
Inspect the following:
Ball joints and dust covers
Brake lines and hoses
Drive shaft boots
Engine coolant 3
Exhaust pipes and mountings
Steering gear box

I then asked this service dept. guy if it was the factory recommended one or the Dealer recommended one. He said it was dealer recommended one and he went on to list a bunch of things they would do. He said they were very important for the car. The only question I had in my mind was if all those were so important for the car then why wouldn't Toyota recommend that. But I didnt ask him that and asked him how much would the factory recommended one cost me. He says $93.20. He said I could come in and talk to some Chris guy who would take care of it. I say okay and start out to get one.

I go there and wait for my turn and then some guy comes in and fills my request form. I mentioned clearly I needed 15k facory recommended maintenance and asked him how much it would cost. He said, oh it costs 80 bucks and notes 80 on the sheet. I say okay and ask are you Chris. He is like, no, that guy right there is Chris, I will fill it and keep it on Chris' desk so he can take care of it. I say okay and then leave my car and wait. After an hour or so, Chris guy comes and tells me its ready. I say okay and go to pay the bill. The lady at the counter says $85 and some change. I asked her if I could get a sheet that describes what all has been done and she shows me a billing list which doesnt contain most of those listed above. I asked if they have been done at all and like to see the detailed list and she tells me, Oh ask Chris and he will have the checklist that they check the boxes when they perform the inspections and all. I say okay, pay my bill and walk out to Chris.

I ask this Chris guy if I could get a detailed list, he is like, wait and he says, If you got a dealer recommended one, I would have the list, and then he answers his cell phone, and then says it would be in the maintenance guide you have in the car, and then brings me a list that has the above checked. And then he goes on, "See you just have tire rotation and oil change, there is no wheel balancing and all done because you took a factory recommended one and not a dealer recommended one", and I say, "Okay, so what difference does it make". He says "Oh you will not know that now, after a few miles when you hit 70 miles per hour and your wheels start vibrating then you will notice." I never knew thats a way to talk to a customer and in such derogatory tone. I got really pissed off and asked him, "So if its gonna affect my car and all, why doesnt Toyota recommend whatever your dealership is recommending. And he says "Look man, I am just trying to help you.." Great way to escape without an answer.

The checklist that he gave me says the service is $93.20 and I show it to him and ask if it costs $93.20 then how come, I was charged only $85 and change and he says, ya its lesser than that right. I say, of course, but I am just curious why the difference. And he says, the guy who talked to you put 85 on the paper (he had actually put 80 but may be taxes is 5), so I had to give it to you for 85. This was totally ridiculous. I dont know if they have a pricing system at all, some guy says its 80 to me and so he says he gave it to me 85 instead of 93. The difference might be a few dollars, but what I dont like is the fact that the same thing costs different amount to different people. So, you go to walmart and ask a rep what the price of a hdtv on a tv stand is. He mistakes the price of the tv stand to be that of TV and says 200, so now will Walmart give the TV to you for 50 bucks. Doesnt make sense to me at all..

And then I ask him, did you put the seal on my Toyota Passport guide, and he was like you didnt give it to me. The last two times, the service rep guys took care of it without me even asking them. I say, okay, let me get it for you, and then he walks with me to the car. I give him the booklet, and I say, I just need the signature and your seal and he goes "I know what I need to put in there, I have been doing this for some time". I wouldn't mind if he said that in a friendly way but he was outright rude. He goes, fills it up and comes back and I ask him, one last qn, is the blinking message on Dashboard that says "Maint Reqd" reset, and he says, it should have been, and guess what I start and the blinking is still present. And then he resets it and says, now it is reset. If I hadn't asked I needed to go back again for that.

I am totally surprised by the total inefficiency and the carelessness that they show towards the customers and the worst part is they are getting away with it. And I am also appalled at their discretionary variable pricing system. May be today was a bad day or I got the wrong guys, but in my opinion today, Thumbs down to Toyota of Plano...

Java: Loading an XML file from the CLASSPATH

2008-07-16T18:07:00.009-05:00

Today, I faced this issue in Java coding. I needed to load an XML file which was in my classpath but not in the same directory as the classes. The deliverable was a jar and the properties and the configuration XML files were in a different folder and were appended to the classpath at the runtime. The issue was that the file could not be located through the the statement

String fileName = getClass.getSystemResource("config.xml").getFile;

Then I thought that it checks relative to the current class and so used the statement

String fileName = ClassLoader.getSystemResource("config.xml").getFile;

But then, it wouldn't still recognize the file. The reason is the same, it checks relative to the classes folder. I did not want to get the classpath from the system and browse through it for the config file since the class path could get larger. A couple of google searches and a little research later, I found the solution. The workaround is by using the following statement

String fileName = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader().getResource("config.xml").getFile;

It only makes sense since in the above statement, you get hold of the context class loader and find the path in the entire classpath...

Dont ever say that you don't have enough time

2008-06-25T22:34:00.003-05:00

Nice quote from Pravsworld

If you want to get inspired daily, subscribe to their email list. Its pretty cool :)

Mee Sreyobilashi - Suicide is not an option, so is giving up for an entrepreneur

2008-06-18T22:26:00.006-05:00

Just watched the Telugu movie Mee Sreyobhilashi. Gist of the story. Around 10 people who are vexed with life and want to end it travel together in a bus to take the bus down to a valley and die together. Their journey to the realization of the value of life is the movie...

The movie spurred a bunch of thoughts. First of all, why should anyone commit a suicide. God has given us the life to live. Life is a challenge, we need to face it. If everyone starts ending their life due to some problems or the other, then what is the essence of life in itself. Death is just the absence of life, not an end to it. No problem on earth is big enough to force any one to death. People who are handicapped or have many other disabilities are living a happy life with tons of self-confidence. Why cant normal people do the same...

And then there is one more way of looking at the whole thing. If living the life symbolizes your dream of making it big, your dream of being a success, giving up symbolizes the death of a life, the death of an aspiration, the death of a hope.. A person never really is a failure until he gives up. One thing is for sure. Every one of us is going to die sooner or later. And that is one thing that we can never avoid. That is one thing we cannot run away from. Then whats the point of living life in an insipid manner. What is the point of giving up... Live life to the fullest and never give up... The day you give up is the day you fail, whether you give up your hopes or dreams or even your life... Dont quit your hopes, your aspirations, your life...

Power of Java, In deleting the files that Windows cannot

2008-05-14T18:15:00.006-05:00

Today, in one of the programs, I messed up a little piece of code that creates a folder in another, which ended up creating folders in an infinite loop. The folder name was ae, but there were so many of them ae in ae in ae .... Then I just wanted to clear the folder and start afresh with the fixed code. But guess what. Windows would not delete the folder because the name is too long. This was the exact error..

"cannot delete the file name you specified is not valid or too long"

I tried from Command prompt and tried other solutions from Google search like assigning a name on shared and trying to delete from network. And nothing worked. That's when I decided, let's take Java's help. Wrote a simple piece of code to loop through until it reaches the final folder and deletes everything. Ran the code and 2 minutes later, everything was gone. One more reason to love Java and being a programmer. Here is the code in case you are interested..

import java.io.File;
public class FileDelete
{

private void deleteFiles(File file)
{
if(file.isDirectory())
{
File child[] = file.listFiles();
for(int i = 0; i < child.length; i++)
{
deleteFiles(child[i]);
}

}
if(!file.delete())
{
System.out.println("Cannot delete file: " + file.getAbsolutePath());
}
}
public static void main(String[] args)
{
System.out.println("Attempting to delete files");
File _work = new File("");
FileDelete fd = new FileDelete();
fd.deleteFiles(_work);
}
}

Britain's got talent, hell ya with these kind of Michal Jackson + Bhangra, it sure does

2008-05-02T19:41:00.000-05:00

Don't need to describe the video much. The audience reaction says it all :)

Impressed with Jawbone headset and its customer service support

2008-04-29T17:05:00.002-05:00

A week or two ago, I purchased the Jawbone bluetooth headset which has got a lot of reviews as the best bluetooth headset in the market. I should say I am pretty impressed. The noise canceling feature is just awesome, people on the other side rarely hear any other noises other than my voice. After trying the multiple ear pieces and loops and fixed on a set. I haven't used a bluetooth headset before so I can't really compare. My long calls started turning effortless and I was pretty happy with the piece. Worth every penny, oh yeah..

And then the inevitable according to Murphy's law had happened. I broke the left standard ear loop. I was trying to remove it when it broke. I called up the Jawbone support guy. They wouldn't give their number on the website but a quick Google search revealed their support phone number 408-848-4348. The customer service guy was cool and he told me that he will send me a complimentary one in 7 business days. Now, how cool is that. I didn't know you could also buy the ear loops from their website, you pay $10 for the ear loops but then you will need to order the 4 piece set. I should say that I am pretty impressed both with the piece and the customer service. All the negative reviews on the web, I guess those guys were probably having a bad day :)

Too smart or too novice in Java: Relevance of for loops

2008-04-28T17:46:00.009-05:00

During the course of my work, I have had to fix some code written by others and modify existing code for enhanced functionality. In one of such projects, I encountered this piece of code written by someone

for(boolean valid = false; !valid; valid = true)
{
try
{
sp = spf.newSAXParser();
parser = new ProjectParser();
sp.parse(projectFile, parser);
}
catch(Exception e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
log.throwable(e);
throw new RuntimeException((new StringBuilder("Unable to parse ")).append(projectFile.getAbsoluteFile()).toString());
}
}

Let's see how this for loop works. It initializes a boolean called valid with a value false. The condition is until valid is false. The increment is making valid true. And then inside the loop, the coder wants to accomplish something. Now what is the point of this for loop at all. Was the for loop used because the coder didn't know that loops are used for, you guessed right, looping. If he/she just wanted it to run only once, then what is the point of using a for loop at all. How different is the below code from the above code.

try
{
sp = spf.newSAXParser();
parser = new ProjectParser();
sp.parse(projectFile, parser);
}
catch(Exception e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
log.throwable(e);
throw new RuntimeException((new StringBuilder("Unable to parse ")).append(projectFile.getAbsoluteFile()).toString());
}

This would execute the code only once and that is the desired behavior that was accomplished by using the for loop for once. I think keeping your code clean and staying away from such unnecessary stuff helps you in keeping your code clean and reducing any unwanted bugs. Why turn the hand around the neck to eat something when you could directly eat it.. Is this trying to be too smart or being too much of a novice to know what loops are used for. Or is there something, that I am missing that is something great that I haven't realized in using this type of code. If someone could elaborate, I would be glad...

Pay auto/car Loan or Invest in a CD or other investment. When do you break even

2008-03-14T13:57:00.004-05:00

The previous post of mine on auto loan had lots of discussion and ifs and buts. I decided to make it pretty simple this time. Here is the case. You have $10000 with you today, that you can use to pay off a car loan of equivalent amount which is at a interest rate of 5.5% or you can pay the monthly installment on the car loan and invest the current $1000 you have in a CD or shares..

Analysis
--------

Current car loan = $10000
Interest rate = 5.5%
Term = 2 years or 24 months

From Bank Rate Calculator the equal monthly installment is $440.96

Let us say Best CD rate available is 5% (which is impossible at this time). So the case under study is that you have $10000 in hand today and you have $440.96 from your monthly income available to you to pay the car loan

Pay the car loan
----------------

In this case you paid off the car loan and you put the $440.96 in a Savings account like ING Direct. Let us say in an ideal scenario you are making 4% on your savings account (ING doesn't offer this interest at this time). So putting $440.96 in a Savings account for 2 years, at the end of 2 years, (from dinkytown)

Total = $11,505
Taxes = 28% of (11505-10000) = $421.4
After taxes total savings = $1083.6
After paying taxes, money you have with you = $11083.60

Put in a CD
------------

From Bankrate $10000 at 5% for two years will yield a total of $11,052.

Total = $11,052
Taxes = 28% of (11,052-10000) = $294.56
After taxes, net with you = $757.44
After paying taxes, money you have = $10,757.44

Paying the car versus CD
------------------------

Difference you lose by not paying the car loan and investing in a CD = $11083.6-$10757.44 = $326.16

Incentives for not paying the car loan is the fact that you are only liable to $441 a month, if you lose the job or if you are on bench in consulting, then you have $10000 with you and you are only liable to $441 a month. So, that makes it easier for your mental peace

If you do not put in a CD and invest in shares or something, then what percent interest rate on your $10000 investment justifies your not paying off the car loan? lets calculate that. This means that your $10000 has to become $11,505 in 2 years. Using the formula for compound interest, that would be 7.26% assuming interest compounded annually. That is a very low interest rate compared to gains on Shares. But then, you never know about Shares. You might as well lose your money.

So, that's the calculation folks. Know your facts, analyze your situation and make a good decision :)

Overcoming cross domain issues through php proxy server in Flex for RSS Reader samples

2008-03-12T23:15:00.005-05:00

Today, I took a second look at my home page and decided that the blog link should not directly point to this page and should have an in-built RSS Reader for getting these posts there. And then the troubles started. People who know me already know my website and know that it was built in Flex. I had this idea of an in-built RSS Reader in my home page for long, but whenever I started working on it, I would have weird exceptions on page load, which were not straight forward and I wouldn't have time to debug them. So it remained the same, a hyperlink to this blog. Today a post on DZone caught my attention and I again tried this. I found a simple example which I implemented in my home page and thankfully everything went cool. But when I put it on the server, another problem started. The cross-domain problem..

The thing about flex is that, while being cool and xml dominated, the biggest problem is with the fact that you cannot load the rss or xml from other websites, without a cross-domain.xml file on the serving domain that lists the calling domain. Now I cannot ask blogger.com to put my domain name in their cross-domain.xml file. Can I ?? So I preferred the alternative route, which is widely written on the net, the proxy server route. And though I do not have Java hosting by my space provider, they support php and went for a simple php script..

<?php
header('Content-Type: text/xml');
$url = 'http://cognitivecache.blogspot.com/rss.xml';
$content = file_get_contents($url);
echo $content;
?>

The script looks so simple like a no-brainer right. Nope, that wouldn't still solve my problem. Because, the blogger wouldn't let the php script open a stream and I kept ending up with this error

Warning: readfile [function.readfile]: failed to open stream: No route to host..

After changing the scripts from the net thrice hoping the other one would be different, I kept coming back to the same problem. Finally I realized that it could be an issue with Blogger not allowing an incoming connection. Boom, that was it. I changed the code to point to my feed in FeedBurner and that was it. My new code looks like this

<?php
header('Content-Type: text/xml');
$url = 'http://feeds.feedburner.com/CognitiveCache';
$content = file_get_contents($url);
echo $content;
?>

Now, The RSS Reader gets its content now and it looks like a nice addition. A Happy ending to lot of time spent indeed !!

If you are still wondering about the whole process, what you need to do, is to burn a feed in FeedBurner and put the above code in a file called proxy.php. Now upload this file to your domain and use the url for xml in your flash file as "http://mydomain.com/proxy.php" and thats it..

Taare Zameen Par - Because every kid is special...

2008-01-05T00:56:00.001-06:00

I haven't done my homework and prepared for the exam well. I was hoping and praying that the exam would get canceled, I was praying to God again and again that something should happen, a flood or earthquake should come so that the exam gets canceled, and I don't fail. Because failing the exam is a doom, that would set a downward spiral on, which would leave me with no future. I won't have a place to live or food to eat in future. What could I do now. The thoughts of "if only" run through my mind as I promise myself, if somehow I pass this exam by God's grace, I will always prepare well for every exam in m life.

Source: Movie Home

And boom, I suddenly wake up in the middle of the night realizing it was just a dream, realizing that I have finished my Masters and am in a stable job making a decent salary and set for a decent career. But why do I still get these dreams. My parents never compelled me for anything. Still there was fear of exams, fear of failing, fear of going nowhere in life, that has captured my thought process so vehemently that even at about one-third of my lifetime, I still get such dreams. Is it a psychological disorder. Of course not, it is the psychological set up of almost every Indian student who has gone through the rigors of Indian system of education, the stress of what the society would say if you fail. Is the fault with the Indian system of education. Nope. the fault is with the societal mind set in India or at least in Andhra Pradesh, where you have to be an Engineer or a Doctor in your life. Other career options don't even exist..

The thought process above was triggered in me, after watching the movie Taare Zameen Par. A wonderful movie that takes us through the journey of a kid who suffers from Dyslexia. Trying to camouflage his inability to read and write like other kids in a cover of stubbornness and frustration, Ishaan slowly loses interest in one thing he is the best at, painting. As Aamir points out, his parents and teachers were seeing the symptoms of the problem, but none try to understand the reason for his problem. It is not that he does not want to read and write, its just that he cannot. Having suffered through the trama himself in his childhood, Aamir sets out to help the kid. With the kids' Dad not understanding the situation, he gets the help of the Principal to get the kid to normality by giving him ample time to learn things his way in his own pace. And guess what, he brings progress in the kid by projecting his positive points and building up his confidence.

A really wonderful movie with superb action from the kid who portrayed the role of Ishaan. Aamir Khan performs well enough, but the best part in the movie is his direction. His sincere attempt at a heart touching story strikes an emotional cord or two by making you fell for the boy, because you have been there! Overall cent percent to Aamir Khan for a honest attempt at a genuine subject, instead of song and dance routine.. Do yourself and your kids or your future kids a big favor. Watch Taare Zameen Par, because it teaches you how to be a real parent. Because it lets you see a child's mindset from his point of view. Perhaps your kid might really benefit from your changed outlook. Perhaps India will see light in careers other than Engineering and Medicine !!

Tum Chalo to Hindusta Chale - TOI Lead India "Tree" (India will be what we are..)

2007-12-18T12:37:00.000-06:00

No words necessary to describe. The video speaks for itself!!

Genuine attempts lead to Fame, over course of time too

2007-12-10T17:23:00.000-06:00

My previous roommate started this site called Sanskritvoice.com a little while ago. We used to discuss about websites, making money from them, or business models. It was then, I asked him, what he was doing this site for, money or fame. And he replied that it was a passion that he had for the Sanskrit language and was trying to do, what he could. He wasn't doing it for money or fame. Recently he got profiled in NDTV. This only goes out to prove that, you should concentrate on what you are passionate about, money or fame will slowly follow your passion, perhaps a little later, though I doubt if money will follow in this case. Check out the video where he got profiled..

What happened to the $1. Can you explain? - A simple math brain teaser that leaves you thinking..

2007-10-31T23:53:00.000-05:00

So you think you are good at Math and at simple calculations. Here we go. Try and solve this..

Three guys came to a motel and asked for a room with 3 beds. The manager said that the room rent was $30. They said they will check the room and pay for it. So the boy took them to the room, they liked it and each paid with a $10 note and the net amount came to $30. The boy went back to the manager and gave him $30. Then the manager realized that they had discounts at that time and that the room rent was actually $25 for the day. Since he was honest, he gave $5 (5 1 dollar notes) to the boy and asked him to return that money to those guys in the room. While going to the room, the boy thought that they cannot share the amount of $5 equally and since they didn't pay him the tip last time, he thought that he will take $2 and give them back $3 so that each gets $1 back. He silently slipped $2 into his pocket and went to their room and gave each guy $1. Everyone was happy.

But here is the question about it.. Initially the three visitor guys gave $30. Each paid $10 and got $1 back. This means each paid $9 and so the total they paid is $27. $2 were stolen by the hotel boy. We have the count for $27 + $2 = $29. What happened to the remaining $1 ???

How much do you understand your auto loan - Can you find the fault in this calculation?

2007-10-31T22:21:00.000-05:00

A small discussion with my room mate brought up the subject of auto loan that I have on my car and why I should / should not pay it off. I have some savings in my savings account and I have an auto loan on my car. If I open a CD (Certificate of Deposit) with Indymac bank they will give me an APR of 5.5% and my car loan is financed by a Credit Union at 5.5%. The argument that my roomie was making was that I should pay off the car loan instead of opening a CD. His reasoning was that, though the car loan and the APR on the CD were the same, I am actually losing money, because on the interest that I earn on the CD, I have to pay a tax. And since I am single and fall in the higher tax bracket, I will end up paying 25%(+) on the interest earned. Which means that I will actually be making around 75% of the 5.5% which is around 4.13% which means that I am losing around 1.37% (5.5-4.13) on the whole amount that I am planning to open a CD with. In a way, it made sense for a brief moment.

But then, further investigation showed that it is not a valid argument to me. Here was my case that I presented. Let us say you have $10000 with you, and you have two choices, put it in a CD for two years at the rate of 5.5%, or pay off your loan which is 5.5% and ends in 2 years. If you don't pay off the loan now, you keep paying it in monthly amounts of $440.96 (Calculation from Bankrate calculator) with your salary. If you put it in CD for 2 years, you make a simple interest of $1130.25 (550+550). Let us say, you pay 28% tax on it. So your net interest earned from that amount after paying taxes off is 72% of 1130.25 which is $813.28 and the total interest you pay on the car loan for these 2 years is $582.96 (Calculation from Bankrate calculator). So I argued that I actually am making $230.32 (813.28-582.96) extra by not paying off the car loan.

Sounds logical right, but the above calculation is wrong because it was one-sided. The reason is, if I pay off the car loan with the $10000, then I don't need to pay them the $441 that I was paying every month, which means that I can put it in a savings account like ING Direct for an APY of 4.3% or an APR of 4.21%. This means that the total amount I make in two years with this monthly savings would be $11541 (Calculation from dinkytown). This means I make an interest of $1541 in two years. After cutting the tax at the rate of 28%, I will be left with around 72% of 1541 which is $1109.52. This means the total I save is this 1109.52 plus the interest I would have paid for the car loan which is 582.96. So the net total I would have saved is $1692.48 So by not paying off the loan today, I am actually losing is $879.20. So the conclusion of the whole calculations is it is better to pay off the car loan, if you have the cash instead of saving in your bank account and having the loan aside and paying monthly payments.

Agreed this calculation has some flaws because of some assumptions. It assumes that the rate from ING Direct will be 4.21%, but since it is variable it can go up or come down. Also, we are assuming that you will have continuous money from your salary, and that you will actually put aside the car loan amount payment in a Savings account instead of spending it on the next cool thing like the Iphone :) It also assumes that you would pay the money off instead of having it in your savings account, which you can withdraw in case of an emergency. You obviously can't get a car loan again on your car in case of an emergency right :) It also assumes you have 10k or the total amount of your car loan with you in your savings. But anyways, under the given set of assumptions, it makes sense to actually pay off the car loan rather than put the amount in the CD or Savings account. One more thing, you can consider is taking the amount from a special offer like 0% APR (be careful with the Balance Transfer fee in the fine print) on Balance Transfer from a credit card company like Citi and paying off the loan, provided you have a good credit history. That way, you don't pay the interest to the auto loan provider and you can pay off monthly amounts to the credit card company. And when the balance transfer offer ends after one year, take another card and transfer the balance to that. All this provided you actually have time to do some research on these and wish to save some dollars :)

Feel free to challenge the above calculations or present counter arguments :)

PS: There is a big fundamental mistake in the above calculation, and the net amount you actually save is $272.19 and not $879.20 as mentioned above. Can you prove this?

What do you work for? Money, Fame or a Happy Relaxed retirement??

2007-10-23T20:49:00.000-05:00

A lunch time discussion yesterday got me thinking about what do I actually work for.. At lunch, my team lead told us about his friend's Mom who expired at 60. And he was like, I would be pretty disappointed with myself if I die at 60. His reasoning was simple. One works till about 60 years thinking that he/she will retire at 60, and then with all the money saved, he can just relax, buy a great car, and relax and do nothing on that private yacht just sitting down on a chair in the yacht on a sunny day relaxing. But let's say, you work hard and toil till 60 thinking of that day, that you would have enough money to just sit and relax, and guess what, you just die at 60. Then what's all this hard work worth?

You may say, I am doing this for my children. But the point is, you will be tuning the minds of your children, the same way your parents did to yours, as to how important it is to be in top 10 percent in the class, as to how it is important to be educated well enough to lead happy and secure life. And you know what, they will toil just like you do, and the vicious cycle always keeps continuing. No, I am not telling you Rich Dad-Poor Dad story to forget saving to your 401 (k) and paying your bills like the Poor dad and start investing like Rich Dad. Either ways, you are toiling towards something, which you are never gonna enjoy actually. You earn when you should be enjoying, and by the time you have enough money, you do not have age to enjoy your life. The long term benefits are indeed way too long to achieve.

So, does that mean that you should stop studying, or working and then start enjoying your life doing nothing. That is not what I am hinting at. You need to understand and plan, when you need to relax, may be take a year off in thirties and start fresh again, and again take a year off in your forties and relax probably. Yes, you might not get those lucrative pay hikes, and those well deserved promotions in your organization, but come to think of it, it is probably well worth it. If you can't give yourself 1 year out of ten years of your life, then who and what are you living for.. If at all, you live to see your golder seventies and glorious eighties, you will still not regret your taking off those years because you dared to enjoy you life when you had the zeal and the age to enjoy.. Think about it, it might be something that you could put in your achievements to cherish at a later age. May be this might not be the best solution, but it is one of the feasible solutions to balance your craving for a relaxed life and your hectic work schedules..

statement.setMaxrows in JDBC vs Oracle rownum in SQL

2007-10-10T21:31:00.000-05:00

If you want to limit the number of rows retrieved from an Oracle database in a Java/Servlet application using JDBC, you can accomplish this in two ways. One is using statement.setMaxRows in the JDBC or using rownum in the Oracle SQL.

For example, lets say there are 1000 employee records in the EMPLOYEES table which has the columns: empid, first_name and last_name. In order to retreive the first 200 rows, in java you can say

....

Connection dbConn = db.getConnection();
Statement stmt = dbConn.createStatement();
stmt.setMaxRows(200);
String sql = "select empid, first_name, last_name from employees";
ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery(sql);

...............

This gets you a resultset with 200 rows and everybody is happy. You could have alternatively done that using rownum on your sql query itself without using setMaxRows() on statement like below:

....

Connection dbConn = db.getConnection();
Statement stmt = dbConn.createStatement();
String sql = "select empid, first_name, last_name from employees where rownum<201";
ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery(sql);
...............

Even this time, the resultset has 200 rows and everybody is happy. Now the question is, which one should you use and why. I may not be an expert in talking about this, but here are my observations...

If you are dealing with a table which has relatively less records like in thousands, then either way works just fine. But if you are dealing with potentially huge database which has like millions of records, then I guess using rownum in the sql makes more sense. This is because the impact on your Java heap space would be lesser.

According to JDBC, the implementation of setMaxRows is as given below:
-----------------------------------
The maxRows limit is set to limit the number of rows that any ResultSet can contain. If the limit is exceeded, the excess rows are silently dropped.
------------------------------------

For example, lets say there are 14 million records in a table, from which you want to retrieve the first 3000 rows. If you use statement.setMaxRows(), the JDBC call retreives the entire 14 million records from the database table and sets the first 3000 records on the resultset object. But the retrieval of such huge number of records puts a huge lump of data on your JVM, and you are dependent on the Garbage Collector for retrieval of this space. But if you use rownum in the SQL, then the number of rows retrieved from the DB by JDBC itself is limited and there won't be any heap space issues. I ran a trial session with our DBA and it was confirmed that the statement.setMaxRows() doesn't modify the sql using rownum automatically. We traced the session and it was retrieving all the million records. And I came to a conclusion that the heap space issues I was facing was due to the usage of statement.setMaxRows() instead of using rownum on the SQL. Also the speed of retrieval of rows when you limit by rownum could be more, though I don't have substantial evidence to state it as a fact.

If you are an expert in Java / Oracle Databases and feel that part/total of this post doesn't make any sense or if it looks like complete bullshit, then please feel to share your expertise on this matter / bash me in the Comments:)

Happy Days - A Nostalgic Retreat

2007-10-02T20:14:00.000-05:00

Watched Happy Days (Telugu) movie in Irving Hollywood theaters this week. What a way to remember the happiest days of my life, viz college days. As the emotions of students joining the engineering college overflow mellifluously on the screen, one cannot help but bring these characters to real life experiences, with expressions like Shankar in the movie was like this guy in the college and so on. 4 years of Engineering - from fear of ragging to ragging of juniors in 2nd year, from a novice of life to a career planner of life, from few friends before engineering to numerous friends, from nobody to an 'Engineer' - thats the life you have experienced that unfolds on the celluloid leaving you with a tinge of smile on the lips and a nostalgic feeling in heart..

The story is simple. 4 guys and 2 girls come to CBIT as engineering students. The life that they encounter with love, friendship, career choices and emotions is the movie. The entire credit goes to an adept handling by Sekhar Kammula, who gives us back our precious college memories. I don't remember the last time that I had taken a moment to remember all my Engineering classmates and about my experiences with them. But after seeing the movie, I went back to my nostalgic memories. Yes, I went through ragging and yes I did rag a few juniors in college within limits, and I was one of the many students who used to scold our college and I did love the samosas in the fifth gate of our college with a mini Pepsi :) But in the last two years, I probably never spent a moment in remembering them to bring a smile on my lips, but seeing the movie, all I could think of the next whole day was my engineering college days.

The music by Mickey J Meyers is simply superb and the lyrics of the song Oh My Friend are just awesome. I would have listened to this song like 100 times so far. And the characters are simply lovable. The best is Tyson with a caring heart and sincere love for a senior. The next is Rajesh who cares a lot about his friends, my favorite among the girls is Tamanna and also Sonia who played the senior. And the theater in which the movie was showed was really good. Kudos to the exhibitors who maintained great standards. Once in a while, a movie comes that reminds you of memories that you cherish, and lets you associate yourself with the characters and feel their characters instead of seeing the actors in those characters. Happy Days is one such brilliant movie. A really good watch worth every penny spent :)

Impressing the executives in business meeting with corporate BS catch phrases

2007-09-08T18:46:00.002-05:00

Ever seen this sales guy or a highly successful manager uttering highly effective buzz words which catch your attention not because they make sense in that particular context but because these words leave you thinking about the meaning that they are trying to convey. I am sure everyone of us have been there. I ran into this forwarded website which provides you with a list of these high tech buzz words.

Want to generate a quick corporate catch phrase. Click on the button below and get it in the text box below. Click the button as many times as you need phrases..

Your Corporate BS Buzz Phrase:

(Powered by Atrixnet)

To get a list of all the words used for this or to create a buzz word manually by yourself, visit the main site

http://www.atrixnet.com/bs-generator.html?bullshit=precise

Greg the Architect and his world of SOA

2007-09-04T20:05:00.000-05:00

Found this video on the TIBCO blog. Pretty interesting and funny. Need a sneak peak into the life of an SOA architect, here you go..

Fundamental mistake in Digg web page coding or fooling Diggers??

2007-09-03T19:44:00.000-05:00

Everyone knows how famous Digg is today, on the web. So much that Time magazine rated 'You' as the person of the year because of the user power created by Digg. And Digg has opened gates for Developers by providing Digg APIs and contests for the best mashup. All these made me think great of Digg and the way the website is coded, but this fundamental flaw in coding the Digg page leaves me stunned. Is it an oversight or an attmept to fool the users??

Here is what I mean. Find the news dugg by any user on Digg by clicking on their link. I am showing the example with the news dugg by me.

As you can see at the bottom, where I circled, there are links to more than 10 pages with the Next button after 10 ... But if I click on 9th page for example, here is what I see..

Forget about 9th page, if I click on 4th page, here is what it shows..

So, basically, I had dugg 3 pages worth of news, but even in the second page, it shows me links till 10 pages and more as if I had dugg news worth more than 10 pages. Any programmer who has done basic programming would know how easy it is, to control the number of links for pagination. Calculate the number of diggs a user has, divide it by the number of links you show on each page to figure how many links to show for pagination.

I agree that it may not be a show stopper and it might merely be a small bug, but with the Digg team implementing new comments system and opening up APIs, I would surely expect higher standards of coding. Not impressed much Digg team.. So as I said above, is this just an oversight or an attempt to show off a lot of posts to the Digg users. I would side with the former but still expect them to fix this..

The last 2 feet - Kindling the spirit of Entrepreneurship

2007-09-03T15:29:00.000-05:00

Every other guy I meet these days wants to be an entrepreneur, at least initially. And most of them tried a little towards what they want but after some initial hiccups they just gave up, due to family responsibilities or something else or just because it's not their cup of tea. For those and for every one else who wants to be an entrepreneur or make it big in life, here is a small story.

Long ago, when gold diggers were hunting for gold all over, there was a town somewhere in Africa, in which a person named Abasi concluded with his amateur calculations that there was a huge gold mine in the middle of the town. He brought all the equipment necessary to dig and offered to share it with anyone who helped him in the process. Every one laughed at him and said he was crazy, for there would be no gold in there, since no gold was ever found in the neighboring districts ever. None came forward to help him but Abasi was not disheartened. He believed in what he calculated and set out to dig alone. Days passed, when he would toil in sun, rain and snow to reach the depth he thought at which the gold was present. The passers by, usually stopped near him, mocked him and ridiculed him saying they have never seen such a fool. He spent a good amount of time, money and energy when he hit a rock in the middle of his digging. He went on and on, struggled against all odds and continued but he found no signs of any gold anywhere closer. He kept telling himself that one day he would find the gold and all these people who ridiculed him will praise him for his tenacity. But after going down to a significant depth Abasi started losing hope, for, he was hitting one rock after another and there was no sign of gold being present. He couldn't even see the traces of a gold wire in the mud he was digging, though he used to process the mud at nights to check for even a slightest presence of gold, somewhere in there. But to his utter disappointment, he couldn't find anything. He started losing interest but he still went on and on. But one fine day when he hit a 16th rock he gave up. He thought his amateur calculations were indeed what they were, amateur. He decided that people who told him that there was no gold beneath were no fools and so he gave up, took his equipment and walked away. He was in so much grief, but he thought there was no point in wasting any more time and he quit.

Years passed by, but the pit that Abasi had dug, laid there, in the middle of the town as a mark of Abasi's failure. It stood as a sign of a person's foolishness who wouldn't heed to what the society told him and finally figured out himself after much toil. One day, a person named Khamisi from a neighboring town happened to see the pit and asked the people around what it was. They narrated him the story of Abasi who thought there was gold under and who was such a fool to not hear to other people and ended up wasting his time leaving it as a sign of his failure. Khamisi got interested in the tale and wanted to try out himself. Everyone ridiculed him, this time even more than they ridiculed Abasi, because it was proved that there was no gold there. None came forward to help Khamisi either but he started digging alone. He believed blindly that he will get the gold and after just digging 2 feet, he found the big box of gold and in front of the whole town which stayed agape, he walked off with a huge pile of gold..

This story is not about Khamisi becoming rich by taking off where Abasi left and going all the way to the gold. This story is about Abasi who lost the gold because he didn't have the dedication in him to carry on until he found the gold. He struggled against all odds, he went on though many people ridiculed and mocked him, he went on though no one came to support him, but somewhere down the lane he lost faith in himself and his belief. He quit giving in to what other people told him instead of following his own belief and that too when he was just 2 feet away from the gold. After spending so much time and effort, he could have carried on for the next 2 feet, but he chose to quit, the one mistake that every one of us quite often make...

Most of the young aspiring entrepreneurs give up and quit in the middle, because they are not aware that its just 2 feet that is the distance between them and their gold. Feuds between partners, lack of income potential in the business model and a bunch of other mistakes presented everywhere on the web to account for a huge percent of failure of startups are all just secondary. A startup fails because the founders have decided to quit before they took their dream to success. Though these entrepreneurs had initially decided to go against all odds and succeed, they give in to what the 'other people' like the investors or some stupid web review blog says and they give up and quit. Quitting is the single most mistake in my opinion that kills a startup, because everything else is just secondary. All you young entrepreneurs out there, if you come up with a great idea and believe 100% in it, then take it through to its success, and whenever you decide to quit, remember that you might just be 2 feet away from the success...

Here is a poster that always inspired me, though the author is not known, these verses have a great moral boosting spirit in them..

My score is 94980 in first attempt.. What is yours

2007-08-31T13:29:00.000-05:00

This post on Digg got me interested in the Ramps game and since it said Physics, being a Physics fan that I am, I started trying the game. Took me about 30 minutes to finish all the levels and end up with a score of 94980. So again, my score is 94,980. What is yours ...

Link for the game is

http://www.myfreegamespot.com/game/22548/Play-Ramps.html

Update: Image has been updated to hide the passwords :)

Update 2 Here is my second attempt at the game. I crossed 100k but couldn't still beat some of the scores posted in the comments.. :)

Redemption of a man's lost dignity - Chak De India

2007-08-29T21:47:00.000-05:00

One man, Kabir Khan captains the Indian team and takes it through to the World Cup finals, where they meet long time nemesis Pakistan in finals. He thinks its just a matter of 70 minutes and all there was is to go out there and give his best shot. Little does he know that his pride, dignity are at stake just because of his religion. Hell breaks lose on him not because he misses a penalty stroke in the penultimate moments of the game just like a zillion people before him have, but because he is a Muslim in Indian team and because he happens to have the sporting spirit to congratulate the winning team. Accusations of his being sold out to the country where he belongs to, take an uproar in the media and with the aam junta and he is forced out of the team and his ancestral home with a label as Gaddar (The traitor).

Spending seven years in anonymity Khan returns for a redemption of his lost glory. His aim, to convert the silver medal that he had, to a gold in the world cup.. As he mentions later on to the committee in an intense way, he spends these seven years in preparing for the interview with the Association. The path to the World cup is not easy for the Khan, because of the politics in the Association and more than that, the diversity in the team which has lost the identity of a 'team' by itself. Its the dignity of the person at stake and yes he delivers big time..

Thats the story of Chakk De India in short, but the way it unfolds itself on the celluloid in the direction of Shimmit Amin is excellent. CDI works big time not just because of the powerhouse performances of the cast, but because of the intensity of emotions portrayed during the duration of the movie. A girl is willing to desert her family for the love of her game while another is willing to do 'anything' for the position of the captain. Another girl is out there to teach a lesson to her boy friend according to whom the National game of India is just a stick and ball game. And yet another is out to prove her parents that she can make a mark in the world of Hockey. And above all of them who will do anything to get his dignity restored..

CDI may not reap harvest of profits for the Yash Raj films but it will surely stand out as one of the best attempts by the production house ever. Though I personally dislike Sharukh Khan for his over the top performance I cannot help but appreciate his performance in the movie. He is restrained, a wide gamut of emotions overflowing in him during the movie, from a coach who pits his girls against the men's hockey team for a chance to go to the World cup to the person who inspires the same team against the six times champion Aussies with a powerhouse speech. Seventy minutes is all you have in your life that could make a big difference in your lives, he tells the players, and you could easily associate that to yourself in all the crucial moments in life. For example, 3 hours is all you have in IIT JEE to enter the premier institutes of India or to spend the next four years in colleges which do not justify their existence as the Engineering colleges of India.

The girls perform equally well, Bindia as the senior player who has a wonderful game, but would refuse to play as the coach says just because she is a senior player in the team and wants the things her way. Watch out for her intense portrayal when she offers herself to Khan for the captaincy of the team. Though Vidya as the captain doesnt have great scenes in the movie, she does leave her impact when you leave the theater. Balbir, who transforms from a person who doesn't have a restraint on her anger to the person who uses it properly against the Argentinians in the Quarters. Komal, the bubbly young girl who wants to teach the Memsahib Prreti a lesson by making the maximum number of goals but passes the ball to her at the last moments of the finals for the sake of the nation. And above all my favorite among the lot, Preeti Sabarwal who almost loses her breath for a place in the team and is out to prove her boy friend Abhimanyu Singh that she has a career of her own as an independent woman and doesn't heed to the whims of the star cricketer. She is my favorite among the lot not because she is a gora memsahib as mentioned by Komal, but because of the enigmatic look that she carries with herself throughout the film. A look that portrays dis interest in the pettiness of Komal, a look that shows her determination for proving her might to her boy friend, a look of respect for the coach while at the same time disliking his ways, a look that leaves you haunting even after the movie is over as to what was really going on in her head while enacting the role and what emotion she was actually trying to emote more than others..

CDI might not fit in the regular Bollywood dance and routine but it is definitely worth a watch. I am sure the film would bring the same kind of inspiration about hockey as was brought by Rang De Basanthi in the youth about the country as a whole, but guess what, just as days pass by, CDI will not be able to retain the inspiration just like RDB couldn't. I still remember seeing a lot of Yahoo groups formed by youth of India who got inspired by RDB, but that was all it could go to, before it became just any other thing. Sure, CDI will generate excitement about our national game Hockey, and might retain it for a year or two, but in the wave of cricket that sweeps the nation by its feet, the national game will keep trying hard to justify its identity in the nation, until the Association and the government decide to do something to retain the lost glory...

Getting things done - Using memory where it is actually needed

2007-08-07T23:41:00.001-05:00

This post of my previous roommate got me interested in GTD (Getting Things Done). Being the lazy guy that I am, I didn't get to read entirely of the concept and how to use it, but during a quick glance at wiki there was one statement that caught my attention. "If you could do something in less than 2 minutes, you must do it immediately. Procrastination is not going to help you. Another thing of interest is the fact that you should spend your time and brain in what matters the most, in doing things, not in remembering them or in thinking about what needs to be done.

This got me thinking and I realized that I spend more time in recollecting similar things again and again and many times end up not doing it. For example, whenever I do my laundry, most of the times, I forget to put my towels for laundry along with my clothes, and I usually end up going for a second round that is actually not necessary ending up paying $2 more. Not only that, every time I visit Walmart, I spend more time thinking about what I need to buy, than the time spent in finding the item or in getting it at the counter. Inspite of that, I end up missing something or the other making another trip all over again. Then I thought about how my Mom used to do it when I was young. She kept a book and before going to the grocery store, she would think about all the necessary items, make a list of it and take it to the store thereby saving the time to think of things at the store. I wanted to follow this approach, but there is still a problem with this approach. Every time, you will make a list, and during the making you spend your memory thinking of all the items that might be necessary. A small but significant amount of memory is being wasted in this process. Also there is a chance of losing that note book or if it was maintained in a excel sheet, maintaining a lot of them and tracking them is an issue. I thought about this for a little while, and I zeroed down on an approach and this has been working pretty good for me.

Here it is..

List down all the items you would ever buy from a Walmart or a Target in an Excel sheet or even better in a Google Spreadsheet. Look at your past couple of months receipts if you think you are forgetting some. Spend some time in preparing this list, since its only a one time task. Once you feel that your list is as complete as it can get, keep it handy. Every time you visit a Walmart or Target, check against the list and note the items that you are currently out of.. What does this save you. It saves you the cognitive process of recollecting what items you are out of, since you have all the items that you need in the list and you are checking against it.. This does save considerable amount of memory that you could probably use for some other tasks :) This was my approach. If you think of a better approach or you have a better approach that you follow, please don't hesitate to drop a line in the comments..

This is not applicable to just the Grocery list. This is applicable to anything and everything. For example, you can make a list of all things that you would ever need to take to a laundromat, and when you get ready to go there, check against your list, and you know what you missed... If you are a consultant and keep shifting frequently, then make a list of all the places that you need to change address in. The next time you shift, all you have to do is to check against this list. Google Docs is the best place to save this information because, your computer might crash or you might change your system but you will still have all your lists safe. If you are thinking, what if Google goes down, then all I could say is, (though I don't believe this would happen in the near future) Bad time, you need to prepare your list one more time...

Also you can apply this to your goals in life. Make a list of all the things that you want to do. If you could do something in less than 5 minutes, don't list it, just go finish that task and come back. Once you have set up your tasks and goals, arrange them in short term, medium term and long term and also based on their priority. When you have some time to do things, you should use that time to do one of these rather than in 'thinking' what to do at that point of time. This does matter because time saved is time spent effectively.. After all, it makes no sense in spending time in thinking of the same things redundantly like preparing a list from the scratch everytime.... You might come up with a rapidly different approach to your issues, but at the end of the day, the idea is focusing on the tasks than in thinking about the tasks to be done over and over. Good luck...

Dil Hai Hindustani

2007-07-29T16:49:00.000-05:00

What Indians think when asked what is one thing that is unique about India. A variety of things have been spoken in the video. Unity in Diversity indeed..

So what is one thing that you think is unique about India???

Favorite Food Restaurants in Dallas

2007-07-24T19:13:00.000-05:00

I haven't done any personal posts in this blog so far. But one of my best friends' anneK tagged me for the favorite food spots here and so here we go. If this post bores you to hell, then you know whom to blame now. For starters, I currently stay in the Dallas / Fortworth area, TX, but I will be moving out in a couple of weeks, so I wanted to mention my favorite food places here before I leave. That I am an Indian and like Indian food is no big secret since you can easily figure that from my name and my posts. So please bear with me if you find bias towards more Indian kind of food.

1. Madras Pavilion: I lost count of how many times I would have visited this place, and one thing that pulls me towards it is the fact that it is completely vegetarian. Their buffet boasts some of the best South Indian varieties and their menu is huge too. Their take at the North Indian dishes is not so good, but as far as the South Indian food is concerned, they are more or less authentic. The weekend buffets offer a wide variety of dishes and God, do I curse myself after every buffet for adding more carbs to my flab.. If you are strongly looking for a Gobi Manchurian or smooth Aloo parathas, then the place to go is Udipi Cafe, a little distance away from Madras Pavilion

2. Zaks Thai Restaurant: Formerly known as Thai Frisco, their Thai menu is pretty good. Though their Pad Thai leaves you asking for a more tastier version, the other varieties like Red, Green or Yellow curries are pretty good. With a Spring Roll and a Side Salad offered with most of the dishes, the meal fills you up to a decent extent. Don't go for their yellow Big Noodles though. I am still regretting my afternoon's decision of choosing it for lunch.

3. Olive garden: I guess there is not much debate about this place around here to be one of the best authentic Italian cuisine chain around. Being a veggie, I have very little options here, and honestly I have never tasted anything other than a Egg Plant Parmigiana but that alone is enough for enticing me towards the restaurant at least once a month. I don't know how much of an apetite The Minnestrone soup with the smooth French bread creates as an apetizer, but I sure am not complaining. Oh, and how can I forget the yummy Tira Misu there. It's delicious. If you haven't tried it yet, then you do not know what you are missing.

4. Taj Restaurant: I don't remember their full name since I only visited it twice, but this is more or less like an Indian fast food shop. Tastewise, I would give it number 1 rating, because everything there is excellent and pretty inexpensive. But the vicnity and the maintenance leave me asking for more. If you want to get a very good Dosa or Upma Pesaratt, then this is the place to go.

5. Banana Leaf Thai cuisine: This is a slightly expensive Thai restaurant but the taste and the ambiance is very good. Watch out for their Pineapple fried rice which has so many fried cashews that would leave you wondering, how many calories you would have to burn that night to make up for it. If they would serve me any faster than they actually do, I would go there once a month definitely..

Now that you have my choices here and know where to look for me the next time my post offends you, let me sign off not tagging any more people to write about their favorite restaurants, because if they want to blog about their favorite food places, they don't need a tag from me to do so :)

Facing fears - essence of optimism for entrepreneurs

2007-06-30T14:12:00.000-05:00

Growing up watching the likes of Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf play great tennis in their hay days, the curiosity about the game in my mind only grew with me. While I wanted to try my hand at it in my childhood, I was always afraid of a remark from my friend. He said "If you play at a wrong angle, the game has the potential to break your nerves." God, did I believe that. Perhaps it's true and perhaps it's not. But that stayed in my mind and I never even attempted it. But seeing many people in my apartments playing it, I thought why would I be the only one to break my nerves. I played tennis for the first time yesterday, and boy, did it feel good. I felt I had more exercise than my daily walk on a treadmill burning 450 cals gave me. And also playing a game does makes the difference, because you are not doing it for the sake of doing it (like walking), you are doing it because you love to do it. And what great way to love some physical exercise other than a game like tennis.

The point here is not playing tennis or doing some daily physical exercise. The point is breaking the long associated fears in a person. if I did not take up a racket and stepped on the court, I would have died some 50 years later still thinking I would break my nerves if I played at the wrong angle. Or probably I would have done it some other time in these 50 years but I would have lost all the time in between. So I guess the right thing for a person to do is to actually go there and do it. Many of us hear many a thing from childhood which have such strong thoughts implanted in our minds that we should not do 'this' for this might happen. Until we do not try it once, we will have no idea or proof to base that upon. No, that doesn't absolutely mean that you should try jumping off a roof to clear your fear of heights :) I am only mentioning about smaller fears in life.

Many a time you hear many people say 'This idea will not work out' or that idea has no scope. Never believe them. Approaching any situation with blatant optimism is the right way. I once saw a guy wearing a T-Shirt which said 'I haven't failed. I only found 1000 ways that don;t work. That's the spirit we need to possess. Fear of failure should not stop one from actually attempting something. If we don't have optimism and belief in ourselves, we have nothing. You want to be an entrepreneur, ignore those thousand guys who tell you the idea you have won't work. Try it and check it, you might fail a hundred times, but the 101th time, you have an idea of 100 ways how not to fail. It was definitely not an idiot who said 'Try and try till you succeed.' Faith in yourself, your idea and your capacity to implement can only make you a successful entrepreneur. It's not just about entrepreneurship. It's about anything that appears daunting to you at the first look. Until you try it yourself don't let others' opinions dictate what you want to do. Time to break some fears isn't it!!

An Amazing Conversation - Is God there? - Atheist Professor vs. Theist Student

2007-06-25T22:26:00.001-05:00

I cam across this forwarded email which had this amazing conversation between an atheist professor and theist student. Searched about it on net and found several interesting versions and discussions about it on online forums. The conversation is as below:

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An atheist professor of philosophy speaks to his class on the problem science has with God, The Almighty.
He asks one of his new students to stand and.....

Prof: So you believe in God?
Student: Absolutely, sir.

Prof: Is God good?
Student: Sure.

Prof: Is God all-powerful?
Student: Yes.

Prof: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to God to heal him.
Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But God didn't. How is this God good then? Hmm?
Student: (Student is silent.)

Prof: You can't answer, can you? Let's start again, young fella. Is God good?
Student: Yes.

Prof: Is Satan good?
Student: No.

Prof: Where does Satan come from?
Student: From...God...

Prof: That's right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?
Student: Yes.

Prof: Evil is everywhere, isn't it? And God did make everything. Correct?
Student: Yes.

Prof: So who created evil?
Student: (Student does not answer.)

Prof: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don't they?
Student: Yes, sir.

Prof: So, who created them?
Student: (Student has no answer.)

Prof: Science says you have 5 senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son...Have you ever seen God?
Student: No, sir.

Prof: Tell us if you have ever heard your God?
Student: No , sir.

Prof: Have you ever felt your God, tasted your God, smelt your God? Have you ever had any sensory perception of God for that matter?
Student: No, sir. I'm afraid I haven't.

Prof: Yet you still believe in Him?
Student: Yes.

Prof: According to empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says your GOD doesn't exist. What do you say to that, son?
Student: Nothing. I only have my faith.

Prof: Yes. Faith. And that is the problem science has.

Student: Professor, is there such a thing as heat?
Prof: Yes.

Student: And is there such a thing as cold?
Prof: Yes.

Student: No sir. There isn't.
(The lecture theatre becomes very quiet with this turn of events.)

Student: Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don't have anything called cold.
We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can't go any further after that.
There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat.
We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.
(There is pin-drop silence in the lecture theatre.)

Student: What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?
Prof: Yes. What is night if there isn't darkness?

Student: You're wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something.
You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light....But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and it's called darkness, isn't it?
In reality, darkness isn't. If it were, you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn't you?
Prof: So what is the point you are making, young man?

Student: Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.
Prof: Flawed? Can you explain how?

Student: Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is death, a good God and a bad God.
You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can
measure.
Sir, science can't even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one.
To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing.
Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it. Now tell me, Professor.
Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?
Prof: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.

Student: Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?
Prof: (The Professor shakes his head with a smile, beginning to realize
where the argument is going.)

Student: Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavour, are you not teaching your opinion, sir?
Are you not a scientist but a
preacher?
Prof: (The class is in uproar.)

Student: Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor's brain?
Prof: (The class breaks out into laughter.)

Student: Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor's brain, felt it, touched or smelt it?.....No one appears to have done so.
So, according to the established rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable
protocol, science says that you have no brain, sir.
With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?

Prof: (The room is silent. The professor stares at the student, his face unfathomable.)
Prof: I guess you'll have to take them on faith, son.

Student: That is it sir.. The link between man & God is FAITH. That is all that keeps things moving & alive.

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Pretty interesting conversation isn't it.. Click below to find some interesting comments on the above conversation that I picked up from an online forum from some atheist vs Theist guys..

CLICK HERE
.

VizagDude

But, I am not that convinenced on the example that the student gave to explain FAITH. Though, none of them saw the Prof. brain, there is scientific proof that the HAS one and every human being does as well and thats good enough for me. I know if rquired (u know what Im sayin...), I can see it, touch it, feel it.So, that does not explain FAITH to me.Correct me if Im wrong.

TT

science doesnt go with teh belief of God itself, its just an explanation in terms of science against science, but when u say scientifically u can touch and feel the brain, then everytime u r in peril and think abt God, u r actually touching and feeling God..Does that answer ur qn bhai??

VizagDude

I agree that sicience does not go with the belief that God exists. Personally I am not an Atheist. But just for the argument sake, what Im trying to say is... the Student was not able to convinence me that example of the Brain and Faith. And what you answered is totally different.

Painkiller

if faith is such an irrefutable thing, what if someone has faith that there is absolutely no god?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

id also like to add this its from douglas adams hitchhikers guide to the galaxy
(the discussion is about babel fish, which when inserted into the ear can transalate any language into your own)
"Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything
so mindboggingly useful (like a babel fish) could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching
proof of the non-existence of God.
"The argument goes something like this: `I refuse to prove that I
exist,' says God, `for proof denies faith, and without faith I am
nothing.'
"`But,' says Man, `The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it?
It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so
therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'
"`Oh dear,' says God, `I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly
vanished in a puff of logic.
"`Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to
prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next
zebra crossing.

TT:

ur logic is correct bro, faith of a human being is created with his beliefs in various things and when arguments like this converstaion prop up showing that God mite be there, an atheist mite as well believe it r probably stop arguing based on science....

Trigger_jam

I don't think it reached any surprising conclusion. All it showed was that both science and religion were built upon faith but as far as proving/showing/explaining the existence of god it failed. You don't need faith to know you exist. You need faith to believe otherwise.

Castanza

Guys, there is no God there is only Google. That conversation fits a telugu masala movie. that is not real class room stuff, it is just another tirade of believers against the non-believers. you can find the remaining part of the story here at this link. http://www.bowness.demon.co.uk/brain.htm

TT

depends on how u look at it dude, u found out a website that gives u the other side of the story as it states in the start itself it has different versions. Check these sites for the version that I have posted.....

http://www.sconsig.com/inspirations/faith.htm

http://www.fitnessandfreebies.com/christian/faith.html

http://gwenc.myblog.com/7717.html

I can give tons of those sites which do mention this side of the story.

So the moral of the story is THERE ARE TWO WAYS OF LOOKING AT A GLASS WITH WATER

U MITE LOOK AT IT AND SAY IT IS HALF EMPTY WHILE I CAN LOOK AT IT AND SAY IT IS HALF FILLED. the optimistic way of looking at it......no offense bro, just bringing up my side of the point.....

Dhaavak

Of course faith is necessary in realization of God. However, God realization is not illogical. This creation is a proof of God's exisrence. Albert einstein, who was himself a thiest had an atheist friend who belived in the Big Bang theory that everything just evolved out of nothing. Gases compresiing and decompressing etc. So whenever Einstein would ask him that if there were no god then where did everything come from, and he would always say it was just there. So one night Einstein mad a really cool looking model of the universe with planets in orbit and everything and set it in their lab. When the friend came to visit him the next day and saw the wonderful model of the universe he asked who had built that wonderful replica of the universe. Einstein replied: 'I don't know I woke up this morning and it was just there'. The friend asked numereous times but Einstein's reply was the same. Finally Einstein just told his friend that if even such a small imperfect model of the universe cannot come into existence on its own then how could this creation which has so much order and precision just evolve out of mere gaseous combustion. The freind was finally able to understand the fault in the theory of The Big bang.

Harihar2006

this argumet is not factual...

for a fact the statment that evoloution is not seen is not true...it could be seen every minute in viruses and bacterias etc...

also to sujjest that creation is possible only cos sone things are not seen is not acceptable... nealy all tyhe foundations of nucler physics are not seen and are only a model proped by observation of traits...

and prediction based on the model holds true and therefore the model in genereal is accepted ...

also the child does not answer the questions of evil abd suffering beging around if a creater had his way... and also as to why is it not stopped by the creater...

i hope atleast someon could answer me this question as to why the creator has alooved so much suffering to go on and for somepeople who do all evil do carry on with impunity...

also there is nothing called light as well...it is the presence of enegy whithin a certain frequency ... when the frequency chages the energy will take a different form...

also in darkness there is energy...( for example night vision thermal imaging...) the only thing is that it will not be in the frequency of light...

then it is safe to argue in darkness the essence of light is infact there...( the roort enegy of sufficient will produce light)

so basically the argument goes to the bhuddhist phylosaphy...

in strict theory where there is darkness there is light as well as darkness...depending on what state the energy is... in total darkness if one rubs hands tight and sees through a night vision you will see bright light...

buddhism does not believe in a creator...it also has some complex explanations about life and matter...

this principle is discribed in the complicated set of preachings of buddha called the "abidhamma" ...it is known as the theory of uncertaincy...which goes on to explain the atom the begiing of life and many other interesting nd complex physical issues....

basically budhissm does not accpt the logic which goes set= (A,B) : if A is taken off ... what reamains is B...

it says that as A and B could always be in a state of constant exchange while maintaining its equilibrium what that remains could be either at the time of extraction...

A , B or something inbetween but no less than (A+B)...

in the same sense and with modern science...it cannot be agrued that darkness is the mere absence of light...

or eveil is the mere absence of good...!

the argument which i put forth was for the first time ever in the world put forth by the enlightened one...

in western logic there was no place for an intermediate state...(check the A,B example) it took about 200 years for them to accept the intermediate state theory which was forced on them by the quantom physics observations which could be explained in no other way...

if some one wants to know more please feel free to ask also you can find more about abidhamma in many sri lankan buddhist web sites...

p.s - a nother aspect of the car argument is this...

according to abidhamma what we call an object is only a perception it is infact not true contrary to what the child and the professor said...

if the same car is broken in to pieces and thrown on the ground no one will call that car...! do u....? despite being the existence of all the pieces that made the car...

so what that was present as a car if u take it in a strict physical sense was not a car buit simply an accepted perception...when the perception is gone the car too is gone...!

this principle is refeered to by lord buddha as "sammuthi" or accepted perception... in elglish...also accepted perception is never the sole truth...! just like the exaple of car...

please feel free to ask if u want more information...

TT

gud argument there in terms of budhism, well talking abt the evil part of ur argument, lets think abt it like this, lets say if there is no evil like the mishaps which claim lives, and if every1 starts living forever then the very balance of the whole universe is lost, like we learn in our elementary classes, if we look at teh cycle of insect-frog-snake if insects are not eaten by frogs, the world will be full of insects, if more insects are eaten and less frogs are eaten by the snakes, the frogs grow and if more frogs are eaten, the population of insects again grows, i hope u got the point, what i mean 2 say is what is being looked upon as evil like the mishaps killing people mite be a balance of nature or GOD to achieve a harmony. Lets put it this way, if there is no evil and every1 starts living for a life cycle of average expectancy, then the alarming growth of population wud leave no land for human beings in the near future. Also we can think of it in terms of Punarjanma of teh Hindu philosophy I donno if Buddhism supports it but what I can say is tho people are good in this janma, they mote have committed sins in the previous janma, i dont say i am not a sinner but this mite be an explanation for the evil too...

koolhead

god...hmm..i like him...

there is no difference between good and bad, death and life, love and hate, curse and bless, poverty and wealthiness, evil and devil.....HEAT AND COLD....

these all are just a state, without one, the other has no meaning. they are like a glass- half filled with water..one can say this state either as HALF EMPTIED or HALF FILLED..both are correct...in fact both are same..but difference will be in views and every different view will lead to different results....LOVE or HATE...both are correct...in fact both are same..but difference will be in views and every different view will lead to different results..amazing..isnt it?

when i die, i lose my body..but what abt my thoughts? i cant imagine that i will disappear in this universe forever.....even not knowing my own presence....even not knowing that i ever existed...this cant happen....i wont let it happen..thats why i must believe in god..thats why i must believe in love...

ponting

The point of "heat" vs "cold" is also meaningless if one uses the concept of entropy or order/disorder in molecules. The professor-student conversation is not the greatest I have seen, having myself been engaged in some debates as a strong-headed atheist. I can now see the futility of such discussions
as "Science" has had to correct itself several times on a number of (mis)conceptions and is yet to answer many questions, some popular ones being the apparent absence of "missing-link" in evolution and many aspects of the origin of the mind-boggling universe. Now I have come to understand that just as "faith in God" can be the ultimate thing in someone's life (I don't have any right to say what that thing is), science likewise can be a spritual experience for some people with its ability to evolve, modify and discover,
(almost) always showing potential to benefit mankind in some ways.

TT

science says that entropy or the randomness of the universe is increasing but if the randomness of the universe is increasing everything shud start occuring in random, sun shud be able 2 rise in east r west r north r south, but it does rise in the east, earth does rotate in and revolute in the same way, and there are a lot of patterns if one observes closely, what i wanna say is that there are a lot of flaws in the heavy topic of science itself as u said, science takes that part of anything that it can explain and leaves the rest to bay, so y dont we justify the student taking that part of the argument which justifies his argument like science does....

all said and done, i am science student and believe in the discoveries of science as much as u do, but at the same time, I believe that God r a Spiritual Force runs the entire universe maintaining its balance.....

Castanza

TT,
In all of the three links that you posted there was nothing that continued after the professor's reply to the student's logic that I posted. I never found anything that proves logically that there is God. As someone said in a later post we can't prove that there is God by logic. Actually it is easy for the people trained in Logic and philosophy to cheat us by proving either way.
And how would the concept of believing in God be optimistic when "He doesn't save us from rushing in tidal wave"(from the story).
As it is said in the story God is a concept based on "belief", so no believer should ever try prove God's existence by logic because it is bound to fail.
Thanks brother for starting the discussion. But you should have posted the rebuttal that I posted with your first posting.
(baala vinodam vinnaarooo baallaalaara ee pooota.. )
Have fun,
George Castanza.

TT

gud one castanza bhai, actually i am neither an atheist nor a complete theist, i just believe that there is a spiritual force that runs the world in harmony bringing it in2 a balance. Like I said in my previous post, if the tidal waves dont hit and people do not meet their end in some way r the other, then the harmony of the nature would be destroyed (plz refer 2 my previous reply) the balance wud be missing, I am not saying people should be killed, but every1 cannot die in a heartache r in sleep, so death r the absence of life shud come in some form or the other, r may be we can believe in Punarjanma as I said, people who mite have sinned in previous birth mite have been facing teh consequences now, otherwise how wud we explain the fact that people come put of great mishaps safe and sound and call it being miraculously saved and stuff like that. Again, I am not saying that people shud be killed, its only an optimistic way of looking at it, every1 has 2 meet their end in one way r the other may be that was the way they were destined 2......

neway this is turning out 2 be an interesting discussion....

Presenting India - for those who think it is a land of snake charmers !!

2007-06-24T17:53:00.000-05:00

Here's an interesting conversation from the movie Namasthey London in which Akshay Kumar replies to an English man who writes off India as a land of snake charmers

"Namasthey, Sir my name is Arjun Singh. Because of 5000 year old culture, we Indians bow and say Namasthey like this and say Pranaam. When we greet one another we fold our hands in namastey because we believe that God resides in the heart of every human being. The kind of culture in which a lady of catholic origin gives up the chair of Prime Minister for a Sikh, and a Sikh takes the oath of Prime Minister from a Muslim President to hold the chains of a nation in which over 80 percent of the people are Hindus. Your mother tongue English is more spoken in India than anywhere else in the world. And probably you do not know that a lot of words in English have their origins from Sanskrit. Sanskrit's word 'Maatr' became Mother in English, 'Bhratr' became brother, 'Giamiti' became Geometry and 'Trikonnithi' became Trigonometry. It may interest you to know that in our land, we have 5600 news papers, 3500 magazines in over twenty one different languages with a combined readership of over 120 million. It is pretty large when compared to your nation. We have reached the moon and back, but yet you people still feel that we have only reached as far as the Indian rope trick and you care to still see a snake on our hands. In the count of doctors, engineers and scientists, Gentleman, we are only behind two other nations in the world. This was a talk of the brains, now let's talk of strength. The world's third largest army is ours. What is yours. And even then I fold my hands in humility before you and bow and say namasthey to you because we don't consider anyone to be smaller or weaker than us and we don't believe we are above or beneath any individual. Namsthey. "

Jai Hind. Jai Bhaarat..

If interested, check out other facts about India which are from a forwarded email by clicking below
CLICK HERE
.

ACTS TO MAKE EVERY Indian PROUD

Q. Who is the co-founder of Sun Microsystems?
A. Vinod Khosla

Q. Who is the creator of Pentium chip (needs no introduction as 90% of the today's computers run on it)?
A. Vinod Dahm

Q. Who is the third richest man on the world?
A. According to the latest report on Fortune Magazine, it is Aziz Premji, who is the CEO of Wipro Industries. The Sultan of Brunei is at 6 th position now.

Q. Who is the founder and creator of Hotmail (Hotmail is world's No.1 web based email program)?
A. Sabeer Bhatia

Q. Who is the president of AT & T-Bell Labs (AT & T-Bell Labs is the creator of program languages such as C, C++, Unix to name a few)?
A. Arun Netravalli

Q. Who is the GM of Hewlett Packard?
A. Rajiv Gupta

Q. Who is the new MTD (Microsoft Testing Director) of Windows 2000, responsible to iron out all initial problems?
A. Sanjay Tejwrika

Q. Who are the Chief Executives of CitiBank, Mckensey & Stanchart?
A. Victor Menezes, Rajat Gupta, and Rana Talwar.

Q. We Indians are the wealthiest among all ethnic groups in America, even faring better than the whites and the natives.
There are 3.22 millions of Indians in USA (1.5% of population). YET,
38% of doctors in USA are Indians.
12% scientists in USA are Indians.
36% of NASA scientists are Indians.
34% of Microsoft employees are Indians.
28% of IBM employees are Indians.
17% of INTEL scientists are Indians.
13% of XEROX employees are Indians.

Some of the following facts may be known to you. These facts were recently published in a German magazine, which deals with WORLD HISTORY FACTS ABOUT INDIA.
1. India never invaded any country in her last 1000 years of history.
2. India invented the Number system. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta.
3. The world's first University was established in Takshila in 700BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century BC was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.
4. According to the Forbes magazine, Sanskrit is the most suitable language for computer software.

5. Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to humans.
6. Although western media portray modern images of India as poverty striken and underdeveloped through political corruption, India was once the richest empire on earth.

7. The art of navigation was born in the river Sindh 5000 years ago. The very word "Navigation" is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH.
8. The value of pi was first calculated by Budhayana, and he explained the concept of what is now known as the Pythagorean Theorem. British scholars have last year (1999) officially published that Budhayan's works dates to the 6 th Century which is long before the European mathematicians.

9. Algebra, trigonometry and calculus came from India. Quadratic equations were by Sridharacharya in the 11 th Century; the largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 106 whereas Indians used numbers as big as 1053.
10. According to the Gemmological Institute of America, up until 1896, India was the only source of diamonds to the world.

11. USA based IEEE has proved what has been a century-old suspicion amongst academics that the pioneer of wireless communication was Professor Jagdeesh Bose and not Marconi.
12. The earliest reservoir and dam for irrigation was built in Saurashtra.

13. Chess was invented in India.
14. Sushruta is the father of surgery. 2600 years ago he and health scientists of his time conducted surgeries like cesareans, cataract, fractures and urinary stones. Usage of anaesthesia was well known in ancient India.
15. When many cultures in the world were only nomadic forest dwellers over 5000 years ago, Indians established Harappan culture in Sindhu Valley (Indus Valley Civilisation).
16. The place value system, the decimal system was developed in India in 100 BC.

Quotes about India.
We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.
Albert Einstein.

India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend and the great grand mother of tradition.
Mark Twain.

If there is one place on the face of earth where all dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India.
French scholar Romain Rolland.

India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border.
Hu Shih
(former Chinese ambassador to USA)

ALL OF THE ABOVE IS JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG, THE LIST COULD BE ENDLESS.
BUT, if we don't see even a glimpse of that great India in the India that we see today, it clearly means that we are not working up to our potential; and that if we do, we could once again be an evershining and inspiring country setting a bright path for rest of the world to follow.
I hope you enjoyed it and work towards the welfare of INDIA.

Say proudly, I AM AN INDIAN.

iGoogle lets you add more than 6 tabs - screws up on moving content from 1 tab to another

2007-06-12T22:05:00.000-05:00

Earlier Google Home, now known as iGoogle added a feature quietly, that lets you have more than 6 tabs on your iGoogle page. Earlier there was a restriction on the maximum number of tabs you could have - 6. After creating 6 tabs, you would not find the linke for "Add a tab". I just noticed that in iGoogle, even after having 6 tabs, you can find the link for Add a tab. Moreover, iGoogle also has a new feature, that now adds content automatically to the tab based on the tab name you give. You can do this by checking the check box "I'm feeling lucky. Automatically add stuff based on the tab name". These are indeed very good features. Because earlier I wanted to add more than 6 tabs for a variety of feeds and I couldn't. Also I needed to hand pick my feeds, but now the tab name gives an indication to iGoogle on the kind of content I want.

But there is one place where I would say iGoogle screwed up. Earlier it was very easy to move a particular feed from one tab to another. Just hold the title of the feed and drag it to the next tab, and the feed moves from the old tab to the new tab. Now, I don't know if they removed that inadvertently or screwed up something in the code, but I can no longer move that. This is very irritating because, when you have a tab and feel that it has too much content, you would feel to move some specific feeds to another more specifically named tab. But now you will have to remove the feed from the older tab, add it again in the new tab. If the drag and drop feature from one tab to another wasn't there before, it would have been ok but I don't get the logic in offering a nice feature and later removing it...

Any guesses anybody??

Gandhi/Nehrus - when will the dynasty rule end?

2007-06-11T20:30:00.000-05:00

As a child I always liked Rajiv Gandhi, I don't know why, may be he looked like a prince though he was bald, or may be he had that charisma that children would fall for!! I still don't know..

Call it Indira or call it Nehru or now call it Sonia, or now even Rahul, the country has to go through this family, never really understood why, looks like this is a monarchy in rule voted by OUR own people. Does India lack in individuals who hold the caliber of any of these?? Nope, absolutely not, its just that Gandhi or Nehru tag at the end which makes them win the elections and rule the country!! Am I a supporter of BJP. Absolutely not!! I am a supporter of intellectuals taking the country ahead..
But isn't it high time to come out of the notion as to what Indira or Rajiv have done... In a country in which you have to go through such difficult exam as IAS to rule a district, the entire country is ruled by people who come from a DYNASTY.. does anyone really know what Rajiv Gandhi studied or now even Rahul Gandhi has? That clearly is masqueraded in the sympathetic wave created for the family.

As long as people vote looking at the PERSONS rather than POLICIES, as long as people vote for CASTE rather than REMOVAL OF PROBLEMS the country will remian the same. So the question is how do we show the progress that we have. Thanks to able intellectuals like Manmohan Singh and Chidambaram the country is making progress, but alas they still have to lie in the shadows of these GANDHI's and carry on their WHIMS.
Way to go India, my MOTHERLAND....

Can't Rahul Gandhi learn about the lives of people in the rural areas by becoming an IAS officer instead of becoming an MP. Can he become one ever? Oh, I forgot, why does he have to, when he is a Gandhi. Now, one may say, the PAs and Secretaries offering advice to them and other ministers are all officers of IAS cadre. Now, let's say an officer X does offer some good advice for the progress of the country, how many ministers would come forward to implement the same, when they are busy doing 'collections' during the short tenure that they have..

It is high time, we have graduates as MLAs and MPs and Ministers. Without minimum education level set for the 'people's representatives' how do you expect them to solve the problems of the country, when they can never come up with a solution. I am tired of hearing the argument, that a common man, aam junta, cannot become a MLA or a MP then, why not? most of the educated people are common people too, they come from these areas of poverty too, at least they will have a minimum knowledge of what can be done for the country. It is time that intellects become leaders and rule the country towards progress. It is time that parties like Lok Paritran get their fair share in elections and become representatives of the people. Watching movies like Rang De Basanti and forming yahoo groups is not just enough. It is time people start 'thinking' before they vote. The vote should not be for Gandhi or Nehru or for Congress or BJP. The vote should be for progress and development of the nation. Will we ever see the light of that day ever? One can only hope..

Learning from egos in the online world

2007-06-10T14:29:00.000-05:00

Ever wonder, why people go crazy in the online world, swearing at one another in the online forums, abusing someone to an extent that they would change their user names and going against the sites' moderators and admins to such an extent that they would be banned, and a lot of times it doesn't make much sense to a neutral reader. Though this seems to be a very good topic of research for a grad student in Psychology, the logic behind it is pretty simple. Every body needs a feeling of importance. Call it ego, call it self-respect or call it any thing that you would like when attributed to you. The bottom line is people want to feel important. They want appreciation of their work. They want someone to assert the fact that they know, that they are an important part of this society and they are good.

It is only this fact of feeling important, that makes many people post thousands of pictures and posts in online forums and communities. It is this, that makes people take creative and weird videos and post them on Youtube. It is this, that makes many people get dvds, rip movies and post pictures and clippings from these movies to movies forums ignoring what could happen to them if they are caught of piracy. It is this feeling that makes people carry thousands of posts in online forums. And what do they ask for. They want you to thank them for what they are doing. They want you to tell them that they are creative, and that their work is the best. If you don't believe me, check it out yourself by joining in one of these forums and watch out for the so-called "Senior Members" or the biggies in those forums. Check out how far can people go in wasting their personal time to get that feeling of being important.

You might have a feeling that these guys are a bunch of losers. Of course they are not. These are people with families', great jobs in IT or other fields, who spend some time very frequently to get that feeling of importance in the virtual world. It doesn't matter that the other person hasn't seen them, it doesn't matter that if the other person is actually typing the truth, it doesn't matter if their online name has nothing to do with their real name and that the praise is for their virtual id. All that matters is the fact that what they had done is important and that someone else asserted that they are good and creative.

So, what does all this prove to us. If an unknown person with a virtual id could do so much for you in an online forum for your enjoyment, so that you would appreciate their efforts, what does it tell us of the people in the real world. You need not read Dale Carnegie's How to win friends and influence people to understand that people need a feeling of importance. Things like the online forums and many things around you teach this very effectively and practically to us. The next time you feel that a colleague in your office has done a decent job on something, go ahead and appreciate them. You do not need to flatter them, just tell them honestly what you feel about it. If you are a manager, tell some one who works for you, once in a while, how much you appreciate their work. Send them an email of appreciation. Most people quit jobs not because of the money or the challenges but because their work is not appreciated. Give people honest appreciation, and make them feel important. A person with a satisfied ego is bound to stay lot longer than a person who is substantially overpaid.

Also, you can use the same in your family relations. The next time your wife makes a good meal, tell her how good it is, tell her once in a while that you appreciate all that she is doing. This is also equally applicable to kids. When your kid ace in a course or do something good, tell them you are proud of them. In an effort to keep you proud, they will do what you want them to do even without your telling them. If you observe, all that is needed is honest appreciation, which takes you probably a couple of minutes, the effects can only be experienced than explained..

Cricket: A passion that binds the nation, India

2007-05-19T23:09:00.000-05:00

I was watching Iqbal movie again today, I guess for the fourth time, and I realized the movie still moves me even after repeated watching. Then I wanted to analyze why is it that a movie with cricket theme moves me so much when I have been trying to dissociate myself from cricket slightly after betting scandals and completely after India's miserable performance at the 2007 World cup. I realized that Cricket is not something you can associate yourself with, or dissociate yourself with, when you want, because it has become an inherent part of our Indian culture, it is in our blood and genes, it is in our minds and heart. In essence, cricket is a passion that binds the Indian nation..

I still remember the days when we the whole of our family used to watch cricket, every time a ball was being bowled to Sachin or Azhar, we would be praying to God that it should be a four or six, for every ball that Javagal Srinath or Manoj Prabhakar bowled, that it should be a wicket taker. We would dance when Indian team would win, eat sweets and celebrate as if it was an achievement in the family. And the day India lost, every one would be filled with gloom, and would scold Indian team members for their failure and decide not to watch it again. But when the next match came, the process started all over again.

The passion for cricket just goes from parents to children as if it were a part of our culture and tradition. When I was in Engineering hostel during my bachelors, it was much more serious. We used to have a TV in the hostel and a big mat in front of it. People would start saving places on the mat an hour before the match and when the match started, it was like a festival. Whistles and claps for every Indian boundary and opposition wickets, boos for Indian failures, what not. The tension would accumulate, and if any of them supported the opposition for their performance, they would get a real beating from the rest of the frustrated fans. Never did it occur to us when there were matches, if the upcoming Finals or Project deadlines needed to be given much more importance. Well, it was cricket time, and rest was all insignificant at that time.

The credit for Iqbal being such a big hit or for Lagaan being such a blockbuster just goes to the successful blending of two things that Indians are so passionate about, Cricket and Cinema. Also, Iqbal highlights a couple of things other than the passion for cricket. The determination of a deaf and mute guy who raises against all odds to hold a coveted place in Indian cricket. The opening scene mirrors a common scene in India, a bunch of people watching cricket together and celebrating Indian victory and Iqbal's mom who is due for her delivery by then, still watches it along with them and celebrates and gives birth to Iqbal. No wonder the boy is born with such passion for cricket. The struggle then starts, with Iqbal being thrown out of Cricket Academy and convincing Naseeruddin Shah to coach him. The scenes that follow show his drive and determination, and with the able support of his coach and parents and his loving sister, he reaches the pinnacle of his career.

Every one of us would definitely remember the days we played cricket on streets, the days when we thought we could be another tendulkar, the days when playing cricket in 120F temperature was just normal, the fights with friends over someone being Out, what not. These are the memories we cherish for our lives. If only the Indian team could realize how much we worship cricket, they would never bow out of World cup so meekly. I still remember the banners that fans used to have during Indian matches. "If cricket is religion, Sachin is God." Is he really, or WAS he? There was this match in Sharjah, a finals between India and Australia, when Australia made a huge total around 280, and the commentator said, It looks like it will be a cake walk for Australia but there is only thing that could stop them, the Sachin factor and yes, the Sachin factor did defeat Australia, Sachin scored a brilliant century to win the cup for India. Gone are those days now, I guess, where Sachin merely stands a feeble shadow of what he once was, trying to hang on to the team at an age he should be retiring, just to keep that 80 crore ad deal alive (I last heard his ad revenue a year was 80 crore).. I am not the one who can comment upon his calibre, but hey, I am fan who has a right to know the reason for his miserable performance in the World cup 2007. Rest of the team, there is no point in trying to discuss them..

I guess the Indian team should be made to sit and watch Iqbal and Lagaan, they should understand that when they play, they are not just playing a match for ad revenue or for public image, but in fact they are carrying the hopes of 1 billion people, who don't work in offices, or study or watch movies during their matches and pray to God not just for their victory but for every ball bowled. If only they realized this, it wouldn't be long before we snatch the World cup from the mighty Australians and show the world our caliber...

Here is a funny interview video of one of my good friend, that throws a satire on Cricket

How secure is your entrepreneurial idea?

2007-05-16T20:08:00.000-05:00

Most of the techies out there who have a passion for technology, be it Java, be it .NET or any other, have a drive, a passion to be an entrepreneur. You look around you, look at the way things are going around in the IT industry, feel how much better you are than the rest of them, and you get reminded of the song, Anything you can do. But you are not let to do so, because of one reason or the other, the manager above you doesn't want so, or the politics in your team do not allow you to do so, or there is this guy who just opposes you to show off that he is better than you. Though I haven't fortunately experienced such stuff in my work environment, I hear this from many of my friends who face this on a day to day basis. This sows the crop for a desire, a passion to build better technology or to own your own company. And there starts the trouble.

The TV has been discovered, the computer has been, Google has been established and so is Digg. Now if you want to be an entrepreneur, you need an idea to start the whole process of owning your own company. The idea, that killer idea that can take the world by surprise, that idea which would take the competitors a little time to replicate in which you capture a significant portion of the loyal market. But how and where do you get such ideas from. Are they available for sale. Absolutely not. Are they written in books, again a blunt NO. The person who would get the idea will rather implement it and make hay than writing about it to the world. Even if someone were to write a book on ideas, it would still be of no use, because by the time you implement it, the next reader would already have done so. So where do these ideas stem from. From your observations and experiences. Did I say observation, yep. All you need is a sharp look at everything around you, to find out what else is missing around you that you can capture and bring out. I was reading Sabeer Bhatia's interview in this wonderful book Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days (presented by my roomie on my birthday), where he mentions how they got the idea for hotmail that eventually got acquired by Microsoft for $400 million. He and his colleague were collaborating on a project, when they needed to share ideas via email. But the corporate intranet had put a firewall around to prevent them from using personal email accounts. This is when they got the idea of the utility of a web based email.Now, we may think how dumb should the rest of the people be, to not have thought of the same. Well, thats the power of simple yet powerful ideas. They are all around you, all you need is to just capture them and utilize them

Now, lets say you got the idea. Do you go on keep announcing the same to every one around you, Nope, thats an absolutely bad idea. For, you have no idea, who might come up with a better system than you do long before you can even start implementing yours. This might be weird if you are very strongly passionate about technology and you want to be a part of an open source project. But otherwise, your idea needs to be sold to the right people. Until then, keep it safe, keep it secure, discuss it with your near and dear and friends, but not with that talented guy in the office, to whom you want to show off how more 'cooler' you are, than he is. I liked the approach that Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith implemented when they sold their hotmail idea. Sabeer initially had another idea, a database, where users would store the information they need online so that they could retrieve it from anywhere using internet, information like addresses and phone numbers. They would go to the VC's and would tell them about the database idea, and would study the VC. If the VC would ask about their experience and had little confidence about their ability, then would not even inform about the email idea. This worked because if they let their email idea, the VCs who had no confidence in them could have used their idea with someone else. All these guys had was the killer idea and they protected it from the wrong VCs. When they finally met the VC who expressed interest in what they said, rather than their experience and background, they revealed the hotmail and the rest is history.

So the point is, you want to be an entrepreneur, well and good. You don't have an idea, look around, there are lots waiting for you to explore. And if you do get an idea that rocks, think twice before using it to show off to someone else who aren't worth sharing it with. Share it with your friends and family and when you find the right VC who trusts you, rather than the experience and the background you have in the industry, go for it, who know you might be the next Sabeer Bhatia in the making...

Is Steve Jobs really a geek or a icon?

2007-05-14T23:39:00.000-05:00

Disclaimer: The thoughts mentioned in this post are just the opinions formed from what I read from Wiki and from the book "Founders at Work". This post is in no way an attempt to malign Mr. Steve Jobs' image or his iconic status in the world"

I heard many a person speak about how great Steve Jobs is, and how inspirational he is to the youngsters who want to make it big in their lives. We had a computer lab in school, with around 60 Windows machines and 15 Macs. Very few people used Macs, and when the Windows machines got filled up, I went to use a Mac once. I then thought, what a poor design, why would anyone want to use this instead of Windows. But that was my ignorance speaking, since I had never really used any machine other than Windows. A common form of Lenz's law applied to human nature is that "Change is opposed". Perhaps I was only following my human instinct then...

When I started working, I found a colleague who liked Steve Jobs immensely and used to tell me about him. Also my roomie is a great fan of Steve Jobs and he makes no attempt in hiding that. This made me wonder, who is this guy and what's so special about him. The more I read about him and the more I listened about him, the more I found about the cult following he has successfully established and the iconic status he has been able to maintain in the computer and the entertainment industries.

Out of my observations, I find him to be a charismatic character. And he might not be a visionary, but he is definitely a person with a vision. But I doubt if he is a geek or even an icon... I might be in no way qualified to evaluate a person of the stature of Steve Jobs, but I would like to bring out the points that make me feel so. First and foremost, the launch of the Apple Computer comes to my attention. There wasn't much contribution from Steve Jobs to the creation of Apple Computer. He found a geek and a genius in Steve Wozniak who could fit in the minimum possible number of chips to make a PC Board.

As mentioned in Wiki

"According to Atari Founder Nolan Bushnell, Atari had offered US$100 for each chip that was reduced in the machine. Jobs had little interest or knowledge in circuit board design and made a deal with Wozniak to split the bonus evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips. Much to the amazement of Atari, Wozniak reduced the number of chips by 50, a design so tight that it was impossible to reproduce on an assembly line. At the time, Jobs told Wozniak that Atari had only given them US$700 (instead of the actual US$5000) and that Wozniak's share was thus US$350"

This clearly shows his nature. He wasn't interested in the creative challenge posed by Atari, but was definitely interested in the money part of it. He knew Steve Wozniak, who he thought could ace it, and he kind of outsourced the work to Woz and got it done. This shows his business mind, and probably his business acumen, but what he did with the money was not entirely ethical. He blatantly lied about the money the design generated and conned Woz of $2150 which was his genuine share. As a matter of fact, the design belonged to Woz, so he was entitled to $5000, but they had an agreement in place, out of which Jobs had to give him at least $2500, but he didn't.

Then came the Apple Computer. Jobs saw Woz's design of the computer, he was never interested in building one of his own to show off his potential, and he very well knew he couldn't. He saw an opportunity, and convinced Woz that they could sell the computers that he had made and made partnership with him. Agreed he met the right people and took care of all the marketing and all the business points of a stellar growth that Apple had experienced, but is he in any way responsible for the kind of genius tag that he is usually associated with, and the cool image that he maintains. If marketing the cool product developed by someone and establishing a business out of it is iconic and genius, then why is it that Bill Gates looked at as a villain at the same venue where Steve Jobs is looked at as a hero. Not that I support Bill Gates, in fact I am gonna write a post about him and Google soon too, but the point I am trying to make is that, if building a business is considered iconic and genius, then Bill Gates should occupy a better slot than Steve Jobs.

To his credit, Steve Jobs has done many a thing which can be considered his strong pros. He was a kid who was 5 years younger to Woz, but he knew that Woz had the right design to capture the market. He saw the potential in the product, he made money out of it. This is a true representation of his business acumen and probably a vision of the future business but in no way a representation of the vision of technology he had held at that point of time.

The second thing that captures my attention is the product Ipod. I seriously doubt if Jobs got the idea of an Ipod. I see in the ipod page on Wiki the following entry:

iPod came from Apple's digital hub strategy,[2] when the company began creating software for the growing market of digital devices being purchased by consumers. Digital cameras, camcorders and organizers had well-established mainstream markets, but the company found existing digital music players "big and clunky or small and useless" with user interfaces that were "unbelievably awful",[2] so Apple decided to develop its own. Apple's hardware engineering chief, Jon Rubinstein, assembled a team of engineers to design it, including Tony Fadell, hardware engineer Michael Dhuey, and design engineer Jonathan Ive, with Stan Ng as the marketing manager. The product was developed in less than a year and unveiled on 23 October 2001. CEO Steve Jobs announced it as a Mac-compatible product with a 5 GB hard drive that put "1000 songs in your pocket."

The design belonged to someone else, the implementation belonged to someone else, and just because the team in Apple got the idea when Jobs was the CEO, he got the credit for one of the coolest innovations of this decade, the iPod. I seriously doubt if Steve Jobs had put the seed for the idea and harvested it. He was probably at the right place at the right time (He wasn't with Apple for some time). But, at the end of the day, the point is that iPod is not his discovery or his invention as was the Apple Computer. He was just a facilitator between the genii behind these products and the rest of the ordinary world, in making them famous and available to the general public.

Does this mean, that Steve Jobs is not as great as he is credited to be. Perhaps he is. We definitely have to agree that he is an effective business man and a strong charismatic person. But as Abhishek Bacchan puts it in Guru movie "Aapne mujhe paanch minute dhiye the, lekin maine saade chaar mein sab kuch khatham kar dhiya, thees second munafa, ise kehthe hain buziness" translated as "You gave me 5 minutes to put my argument. I completed in 4.5 minutes, 30 seconds profit, this is called business" (says to the Judge in the climax), Steve Jobs is probably an iconic business mind, who knows how to get the best out of an opportunity he faces, and he may be the best in marketing and in demanding a cult, but he is definitely not an geek or icon in the technical sense of it....

So, the next time you hear a guy who wants to develop a product that would blow the world off, and declares he is a staunch follower of Steve Jobs, don't think twice in correcting such sort of an oxymoron statement

A caching area

2007-05-10T22:59:00.000-05:00

As I was traveling back from work to home, thinking what should I write in my newly opened blog, many a thought wavered in my mind. I wanted to write about every little thing I saw on my half hour drive back from work. About a cop car, a lady driving carelessly while chatting on a cell, a benign smile of a small kid from a neighboring car at the traffic signal, what not. Then a thought struck me, as to why I should look for something to write about, while I should be writing about something I am thinking about. Well, a blog basically is a web log, a log where you want to store your thoughts and feelings. Not an area where you would write just because you want to blog or because it's something that the cool kid on the block is doing..

Now that brings the question, what thoughts would I want to cache or store here. Well, its probably things I would like to complain about, or things I feel good about. But I won't say that I will take this blog forward to such an extent that it would be the No.1 blog in the town. Honestly, I don't want to. Want this to just remain a repository of thoughts, that I would like the world to know some day or any day when they do a relevant 'Google' search. Oh did I just say google, well, let's take on the google topic some other day. For now I sign off with my first post not essentially conveying any message or any feeling.. I want this to stand as what flows in my mind at the point of writing..