Road to Ozzie Land

I am on a 3 week trip to Ozzie Land (yes... you are right. Australia).

With a tiring journey from Bangalore to Bangkok to Melbourne, the

Spring in Melbourne was a great welcome one I needed the most.

As soon I landed, the moist cold air took off all my fatigue of the

journey. This being my second Visit to the city, I was excited to

explore more of the culture, weather and the charm that the

city holds.

The First few days went in jiffy, managing the meetings with our

Clients here and of course the food. I am really not a foodie, but

do not mind cherishing good food. The area where I am staying,

Southbank in Melbourne is a wonderful smorgasbord of food,

wine and people. Often walking back from Work, I get to see

people from all parts of the world I know about. And little less

to say, the evening of the city is as charming as the mornings.

Thankfully, I have a great view of the city from my Home.

Sometimes, I just wait for the sunset, because thats when you

get to see this...

More about my trip in later posts.

See ya.

Discounts on Book by Oreilly for SAPNET

Special offer for O'Reilly User Group program members: Along with your 35% discount off print books, you can now get 45% off all ebooks you purchase direct from oreilly.com for a limited time.

Contact Me if you need the offer.

NPTEL - IISc and IIT Lectures available Online

http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/courses.php?branch=Comp

Revolutionary Input Technology from T9 Developer

http://news.cnet.com/1606-2_3-50003669.html

Do it for the Country - Chetan Bhagat

21st November - Chetan Bhagat addressed an audience filled with eager young people, and equally young at heart, the senior citizens of Bangalore. The venue was the Odyssey Bookstore

on 100 feet road, Indiranagar. The place was jam packed with people eager to get a glimpse of Chetan, who came with his wife and 2 kids. Also accompanying him were his in-laws

who play a great deal of fictional role in his new novel "2 States". The event was organised by Odyssey to mark the launch of the same book, and the excitement was evident from the participation of the audience. I reached late with my friend, but thankfully the event had just started. It was like a mini Press conference, where people from all corners of Bangalore

had something to express. Many shared how their own life and the story of "2 States" were similar in so many sorts :- the disconnection of North and South, the confusion, the chaos and chatter that goes on in the head of the people in love. And for once, they all found

a hero who they can look up to.

There were really interesting conversations, and Chetan's take on people opinions and their own real life drama. Not just the young folks, but even the senior citizens were intrigued by

the the style of Bhagat. All in all a great session for readers from Bangalore.

More photos of the session in the below slide share.

Chetan Bhagat Session

Google Chrome OS Revealed

Have a look on the Upcoming Google Chrome OS, revealed
publicly for the first time on Nov 19, 2009.

http://www.engadget.com/photos/google-chrome-os-event

SEI Cloud Computing Webinar Q&A

I had a chance to attend the SEI Webinar on Cloud Computing as a part of the SEI Webinar series. I had posted some questions during the seminar, and hence I thought of sharing them with you. The questions were answered by specialists in Cloud Computing at CMU SEI.

What is the scope for Enterprise Cloud ?

Enterprise Cloud is the term that is currently associated to the implementation of private clouds within the enterprise. The goal of enterprise clouds is the virtualization of resources leading to reduced maintenance and acquisition costs from a business perspective and hiding IT complexity from a technical perspective.

How an existing Customer can scale their already purchased infrastructure to Cloud?

There is a term called cloud bursting that is associated to only using cloud resources when local resources are not enough. This is one way. Another way is one-time usage, which is to move to the cloud one-time processing or archiving.

How do you see the Standardization of the Cloud Computing vendors coming up, and the timeline for it ?

The only standardization effort that I know of is from Eucalyptus Systems. Standardization is going to be hard.

How do Cloud Computing Implementors convince Customers regarding Security of their data in the Cloud?

The only way would be to look at their SLAs and analyze the security clauses. If you are comfortable with placing your data given those clauses, then it should be acceptable. It is a matter of trust, both from a partner and a technology perspective.

Thanks to Shane McGraw for getting back to me with the answers.

Is that God really wants ?

It seems we Indians have a special place for the so-called God Men. And these God men attract not just faith loving senior citizens, but an impatient lot of Indian youth, ready to compromise and looking for easy shortcuts to success, ofcourse in a religious way.

I met with some of my friends (all in mid 20s), independent and aware of right and wrong, who got into the hands of these God Men by mistake or sheer bad luck. Based on the conversations I had with some of these people, I realised how gullible we all become in the hands of a God Men. Of course, these God Men have tools of their own trade required to so create the charm on their "victims". Some of the experiences of these friends of mine have been through embarrassing situations not just for their themselves but their families too. These encounters usually start with the a chance acquantanice connecting the to-be-victim's family to this God Men who supposedly holds the mysteries of what lies ahead and can diagnose or even cure bad lucks, missteps and failures in life. The family / individual strong in the faith of God gets convinced to check this God Men and hopes to fulfill the desires. What starts is a lengthy dialogue, where the God Men uses the context of an Evil Spirit influencing the life of the Victim. He then plays around with the faith of the individual and bends him/her to his / her demands. All in the God's name. Shocked relatives, and family members remain witness to this "Godly" act, disturbed but still hopeful of the "miracolous power of the God Men".

All said and done, the point I want to make is why our society so gullible to take in any God Men so serious. Why we leave the chance, the destiny in the hands of other individuals rather than taking steps ourselves. What is going on here, that we allow such God Men to make merry on our beliefs and faiths, and allow them to have their own agenda. The Agenda of Power, the agenda of Control - thats what the God Men really wants.

But is that God really wants ?

Database Taxonomy

Amazing article about the various Databases
and their classification in an intuitive
way.

Must read for all geeks

http://perspectives.mvdirona.com/2009/11/03/OneSizeDoesNotFitAll.aspx

Cheers!
Vivek

Somebody caught me questioning ?

Me at Bangalore Cloud Users Group

concat() method in String class uses StringBuilder

Hi,

Good link to understand that concat() method in String
class uses StringBuilder class.

http://www.venishjoe.net/2009/11/java-string-concatenation-and.html

Also, included in the link is the performance analysis of
+ operator, concat method, StringBuffer and StringBuilder.

Bye,
Vivek

Amazing Startup - Emo Labs

My Library - Part 1

This is part of my library at home, open to world for the first time :)

It shows an array of books on topics spanning from Technology,

Leadership, Sales & Marketing, Entrepreneurship, General Fiction,

Sci-fi, Strategic Planning and others. Some of my collection here also

includes Books part of the SAPNET library that I had reviewed or

reviewing at present. Thanks to OReilly for that.

At any point of time, I concentrate on 3 books on diverse focus areas.

But I always keep referring to other in the library.

Stay tuned for part 2 of my Library, including some real exciting

additions recently.

Frontal view of the shelf

Side View (Closer)

Closer View of the shelf

View of the bottom Row

JAD Decompilation Log Analysis Tool

JAD Decompilation Analyser
--------------------------------------

Lately, I was involved in some work revolving
Decompilation of a Java Web Application. The Source
Code is unavailable, and the Client requires some
immediate changes and features in the application.
JAD comes out to be the forefront of the solution
to this problem. Hence I used the same, and found
not everything is retrievable. But JAD really gives
an extensive Log to the users abou the problems
it faced with extracting the source code.
I also needed to generate some Documents stating
per Class file basis, the status of its Decompilation,
whether it generated errors/warnings and how many.
To Solve my woes, I wrote a simple Command Line
App in Java 5.0 that parses the Log file generated
by JAD, and creates an Onscreen report stating
the following :-

1. Per file, Status of Decompilation : PASS, PASS with Warnings,
FAIL and if Errors/Warnings, the list of the same neatly aligned
with the classname.

2. Summary of Result : No. of Files Decompiled without Errors/Warnings,
No. of Files Decompiled with Warnings, No. of Files Failed

3. Success Ratio.

I hope some of you would require this at any point of time,
and hope the tool serves that purpose. I will make available
the link around Evening today (6th Nov) once I am back
to home.

See you around and keep looking for this post for updates
(link first.. )

Bangalore Cloud Users Group Meet - 2nd Nov 2009

I had been to Bangalore Cloud Users Group Meet held at

HSR layout on Monday, 2nd Nov 2009. The Agenda was

the Introduction to Cloud Computing with AWS by

Jinesh Varia, Evangelist from Amazon.

I was accompanied by my colleagues Karthik, Ankush

and Siva.

The session was kickstarted by the founders of

Bangalore Cloud Users Group, and instated the spirit

of a Users group and their vision. Then the stage

was taken over by Jinesh who presented a crisp

session, partly hijacked by the flurry of questions

from the audience (some highly relevant).

Nevertheless the event turned out to be a success,

with Pizzas and Cola treating the hungry souls.

I really appreciate the effort of Mr. Prem and

Mr. Vinod from the Bangalore Cloud Users Group

to have arrange this thoughtful session, and looking

forward for many more of the same.

Any new technology or a paradigm requires the

effort of their proponents to spread the word

and encourage the adoption. Bangalore Cloud

Users Group surely has long way to go, but has

definitely started in a style.

Takeaways from the Jinesh's talk :-

1. Interesting Case studies of AWS uses

2. Some really interesting questions from the audience

3. Security issue still a great hurdle for Cloud Computing

adoption

4. Software licensing on Cloud - utility model - a topic that

requires more discussion.

I hope to see myself to speak at any of the future sessions

of Bangalore Cloud Users Group and hope to find the

readers there too.

Note:-

Only concern was the travel time to and fro for the

Event. Hope the event is held at City Centre rather

than one corner of Bangalore.

Till then Good Night

Finding the Professional

A few months back, I had the opportunity to visit a one-of-its kind Outdoor learning programme called Pegasus around 3 hrs ride from Bangalore in the middle of nowhere. That opportunity landed me among a batch of bright engineers and managers, all anxious and excited to

explore the possibilities of the programme. The motive for this team (me

one of them) was three-fold. First, we were expected to participate and learn from the outcomes of the programme so to apply them in our daily work. Second, To evaluate the programme and bring in new ideas so to adapt the activities for our organisation's work culture and customer

centric practice. And third, to relax, enjoy and have a great time.

I am not here to describe what all happened there, which is supposedly to be kept secret, but to

reflect the outcomes of the same. The 2 days gave us a chance to go beyond our cliché , our invisible bindings and forces that keep us stuck to what we know. The variety of activities that we all participated brought the best and worst of all us in open, thereby giving us a chance to rediscover the "Professional" in each one of us.

Today, while reading Subroto Bagchi's new book "The Professional", I was not surprised when he mentioned an interesting incident with the Pegasus camp, and how he found true leaders among the team of individuals who had been to this camp.

A great read. If you guys haven't got a chance to read the book, grab a copy now. Its an excellent read. Or you can grab the last issue of Forbes magazine and read the review for the same.

What Am I Reading these days ?

Do you think Entrepreneurship can be taught, learned or is it an instinct?

Entrepreneurship can be taught, learnt and is an Instinct too.

There are countless examples to prove that Entrepreneurship is an instinct. Look at the rags to riches stories, how ordinary people start with a small setup and end up being a role model for all budding entrepreneurs. 

Entrepreneurship as a Science can be taught, but not the Art.

Now, what is Art and Science of Entrepreneurship. Science is the executional principles of starting and then growing as an Entrepreneur. Embracing an idea, building a product on the idea, pitching to a VC and other steps in the life-cycle of a startup. The Art of Entrepreneurship is the guts and instinct that cannot be taught. It is the Spirit and urge to build something valuable. This cannot be taught, but it can be acquired but not learnt. The great stories of Entrepreneurs, their efforts, their losses and wins act as a catalyst to inspire and to instil the spirit. This is because as Humans, we learn more through 

examples.

A budding entrepreneur is like a Child, who looks for inspiration and motivation from his/her parent. The parent in this case are those wonderful individuals who have built and sustained great organisations. Therefore, I feel there is more than need to connect these children with parents.

Random Pics

Valley of the Digital

My Old Book Rack

Gloomy View of the City (15th October 2009, 3:50 PM)

Old is Gold

IT is Kolkata

I landed in Kolkata on Thursday, a cloudy day mostly bringing
in lot of lazy moments for me. Slept the whole day. The next
day I was really interested in exploring the IT landspace
in Kol. And there I was on this Website : http://www.kolkatatech.com/

Not much of fancy events though compared to Bangalore, where
everyday something or other is happening on IT events front.

But nonetheless, It makes me feel that IT in Kolkata is still
an half-written book, which needs lot of work, and initiative
to stand up against the mights of Southern cities.

I would love to hear more from you guys on this. Add your
comments on this, and lets start a conversation.

What a Picture

Today I found this photo in my mailbox sent by one acquaintance.
The Picture was taken from Nandi Hill, Bangalore around early
evening some days back, shows a part of the city in rain.
Now who ever took this, must be real fortunate to capture
this nature's beauty. I say its WOW.

Using AWS : Experiences shared by Picnik.com

LinkedIn - A Professional Network built with Java Technologies and Agile Practices

View more documents from linkedin.

'Bengal'uru Part 2 (Arko performing at Jayamahal - II)

'Bengal'uru Part 2 (Arko performing at Jayamahal)

'Bengal'uru

A tiny Kolkata in the heart of Jayamahal in Bangalore

celebrating Durga Puja.

Durga Puja has begun. I really enjoy the exuberance, energy

and positivity of the festival. It has more to do with how people

of Bengal celebrate it. A smorgasbord of emotions, cheerfulness and love.

I happened to be at Jayamahal Durga Puja festivity on 25th Sept 2009, below

are some of the pictures I took with captions.

Devotees with the 'Devi'

Different view of the venue of the Durga Puja in Jayamahal, Bangalore

'Durga' goddess in all her glory

Different view of the Idols at the Venue

The music and the Devotion

Hard metal Bengali band 'Arko' playing

View of the venue (@ 11:30 PM)

Dark Clouds in Bangalore

My Notes from Event Faster Websites by Steve Souders

Understanding AJAX Performance
Chapter 1
1. Principles of Optimization
- Cost of Program : Execution Time
- Optimizing Inner Loops
- Fixed Overhead of a Loop
- The Axes of Error
- Test Applications with Slow machines and Slow networks
- YSlow tool
- AJAX Data Packets should be small
- Use of YUI
- DOM API - Inefficient
- Velocity 2008 Conference
- Alexa top 100 pages
- Wow features - improve experience of the User
- Programs should be coded for correctness and clarity
- Do not tune to the quirks of particular browsers
- Measure before Optimization

Breaking the Jinx

I gathered a delightful insight in the future of Indian IT Service Industry recently. While a lot has already been told and talked about in the media and other circles, a considerable amount of work is required to be done in order to break out of the notion of how IT Company works and profits in India.

When I say The Indian IT Industry, it reflects the IT Services companies in India, those who provide Development, Support and Maintenance of IT systems for all breadth of Customers. As the one who is a part of the same race, I tend to reflect most of the times, the way these companies operate and increase their profit margin. The typical IT Company starts by networking with key people, people who are part of its own Clientele, or Business partners or Independent Consultants, or even Big mammoth IT Companies (looking ways to cut down Operating and Production costs). Once the networking is in place, the company seeks information from the above networking agents, to find out the possible Clients. Once this search is over and the Company got a list of Clients that it can talk to, it starts with approaching the key people in these companies, either hawking them in Socialite parties or Business get-togethers. An exchange of Business cards, and they are talking. Sooner or later, it gets an indication that there is a possible requirement of a Solutions provider or a scenario where existing provider isn’t worth the price. This is the moment for which the IT Company waits for eternity. A possible deal. A close talk between the parties, and there is a Maintenance project that it could work on, and for that the preparation starts on the Ground. People are recruited, staffs rotated, all in a process of preparation. The Company starts the process, projects their expertise to the prospective department of the Client, and enumerates the previous work in the same field if they have. If there is more than one provider in the race, things become more competitive, and the discussion on price-performance benefits are done. If the situation demands, it goes to the extent of providing freebies or a company tour, the team meets, all in the hope that Customer likes them.

The above is just a narration on a possible process followed by an IT Company in breaking the deal, however it is not whole or complete and does not indicate in any way how it operates.

It is this Jinx that some of the providers are breaking very soon. The process of Selling that Indian IT Company has been using for last 5 – 10 years is in great need for change. I was lucky to encounter some great chaps from inside and other sources to discuss the same, and to my luck, all of them reiterate the same thing. We need to own the Client’s problems. Customer Centric behavior isn’t just keeping the customer informed, leveraging the best technology and people to solve the Customer problems, and having a sense of Empathy with them.

To this, the cliché saying comes to my head, A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed, or should I change it to match the Indian IT industry, A Provider in Need is a Partner Indeed. Ram Charan in his book “What Customer wants you to know” clearly states the need for the companies to act like Partners of Growth for the Client. A Partner who stands by the Client in moments of truth and at the pinnacle of Success. There is a bunch of stalwarts who are championing this spirit, and are breaking the Jinx. We are saying to the Customer that we want to be the engines for your growth and in that process we earn our bread too. No longer is the success of the Project by a Vendor, a measure of good relationship. The “IT Aaj Kal” goes the following way : We as a Vendor want you to be profitable and successful, and would make sure the Projects we execute with you improves your odd, predictability and profit margins from what it was before we came in. And with this, bring in processes and standards in our way of work that promotes Creativity, Innovation, On-time delivery and Zero tolerance to Bugs/Issues, and a relationship that promotes future growth for both of us.
More on this in my later posts.

Writing Faster Javascript

Lately, I am researching into creating faster Web Application
FrontEnds using Javascript. And there is one quote that
smiles me most. It goes like, Users of Web application dont
really care for how faster your application is designed
and implemented, they more care about how the application
gives the impression of Speed. This is a great statement.
It all boils down to a great idiom in designing faster
and performance driven applications on Web. If you cannot
fasten or optimize a particular part of the application,
just make it look or behave like its fast. And it works too.
This apart, I also happened to watch Nicholas C. Zakas
talk on creating Faster Javascript Apps.
The whole talk sums up into the following points to consider
while debating on how to increase the performance of Javascript.

1. Minimize Global Variables Lookup
2. Cache the Global Lookup into Local variables
3. With Statement is bad
4. Minimize DOM Manipulations
5. Use DocumentFragment to reduce Reflow.
6. Minimize Object Property lookups
7. Cache Array Lookups

More on the above topics in my next posts.

Book Review: Slide:ology

The book stands out immediately
from any other on this topic not just because
of great design of it, but the infamous author
: Nancy Duarte of Duarte Designs, one of the
largest design firms in Silicon Valley. Nancy
is a leader in presentation development and
an authority in design. The book beautifully
crafts the understanding of the Art and the
Science of creating Great presentations.
A color rich smorgasbord of design insights,
must dos, and all the elements required to
create impactful presentations. I thorougly
enjoyed reading this book, and got a completely
new mindset on how to build great Presentation.
Also included are great presentations and their
creators and what was the thinking behind them.
I recommend this book to anyone who fears preparingd
and giving presentation. I know each one of us
realise how important is to know and to create
presentations in our day-to-day life. And to all
of them, just go and grab this book. You will
thank me forever :)

With this, I would like to share some my finds on
great sites that would enlighten one and all on
the Art and the Science of Great Presentations :-

1. www.presentationzen.com by Garr Reynolds.
2. sildeshare.net - Everybody knows that
3. ww.TED.com

Movie Review : Hotel Rwanda

An outstanding epic of one common man's
stand against the brutal massacre of
a tribe of people in Rwanda. He is not
a soldier, he is not a politician, he is
an ordinary Hotel manager of a 4 star
hotel in Rwanda. using his wits, humour
and people skills, he builds a network
of white friends who he hopes will help
him and his family in any trouble. But
it all backfires when civil war erupts
in Rwanda. This war was a fight between
two tribes of the country, fighting for
power and one's revenge over another.
It was his leadership skills that saved
over 1000's of people in Rwanda from
the Genocide, when the whole world
had shown their back to them.
This real life incident depicted in
a great poise by Don Cheadle, is a must
watch. I just happened to see the trailer
of this movie, and got the urge to pick
it up from my neighbourhood DVD Rental
store. And I was surprised.
In my book, i would rate this movie a 5/5
at any day.

Movie Review: Jashnn

My friend from college urged to go for a movie,
and the movie was newly released Jashnn
staring Adhyayan Suman. It came out as a poor
story telling about a man in search of the Music
within him. Its just like any other rags to
riches story, his struggles and finally winning
the prized Music competition. Totally predictable,
and a tear jerker. The newcomer isn't any good,
and apart from Shahana Goswami, none stand out.
So in the end, i suggest better take a nap in
afternoon than wasting the precious tears watching
this crap.

Rediscover Failure

Torry Harris ka Josh

For the first time, I am releasing the video that excited,
sparkled and made everybody look forward to every morning
in Torry Harris. Check the video, and let me know your
comments :-

My Issues with Reliance Broadband

With all fanfare, I recently upgraded my Reliance
NetConnect High Speed Wireless internet account to
a Broadband one, with speeds upto 3.1 MBps.

But alas, my excitement died very early, as I found
the modem had some issues with my OS (Windows XP
and Ubuntu). It refused to get detected
most of the times, and I had to go for a complete
re-installation. Things became worse, when I used to
do this procedure all the time whenever I need to access
the Net. No doubt, the speed was great, but this flaw
really hurt me a lot. The Customer care people had no
clue, and neither did the people who sold me the device.

Then finally, I came across a document regarding the modem
stating the problem and the solution for it. The problem
was with Device not being detected by the Dialer Software.
Hence I was instructed to go to the Device Manager of the
Windows XP OS and go for UPDATE DRIVER Option against the
modem listing. This could solve the issue. Now All I am left
is to try this out today when I reach back home and pray that
the solution works.

Non Stop Work

I had a very hectic last week, with almost 12 - 15 hours in
office. Hence, I was not able to release the Tag in time.
However, work has subsided, and now I can look forward for
a release in time.

So all set for the Tag release now.

What I am Building - II

After a lazy weekend, I am here to update all of you about
the ListTag which I am developing. I am building a Project
on Sourceforge today, and by afternoon will host it.

It will come with a JAR file, and a TLD (Tag Lib Descriptor)
which has to be imported in the project. Also, I will be
enclosing Documentation to explain the finer details of the
Tag usage. The Source also will be available for free.

More on the features soon coming :-
1. AJAX support. Already implemented in the ALPHA scope of the
Project, but will not be released until this Wednesday.

2. Some new UI patterns are being included, for which I will
provide Screenshots for all of you to have a better understanding.

So looking forward for reviews & comments.

Am I Reading anything ?

These books have been lying on my bedside for sometime (3 weeks).
And you cannot really finish reading any of the below books.
I got to learn it, rather than read it.
And thats what I am doing.

Comments welcome from Everyone

Thanks all for great comments. As you demanded, I
have enabled comments from all, even if you are not
a Google Account holder.
So comment, criticize and add value to my posts.

Thanks!!!

Movie Review : The Greatest Game Ever Played

This movie reminds me of Iqbal. Remember !!. Shreyas Talpade as a dumb and deaf budding bowler trying hard to make a name for himself in the big bag world of Cricket. And in the end he defeated the dislikes of his dad, the naysayers, by reaching the Indian Cricket team. This movie is not the same, but follows the mood. A poor peasant boy raised his parents to believe that, the rich will never allow the poor to excel, goes against his Dad to play his passion. A God gifted hand for Golf, this boy fights the bureaucracy, and the opposition of poor to rise up to the ranks of master of the game.

I am no golfer, and do not understand it well, but this movie has
heightened my curiosity and interest in the game. The movie
dramatizes the game of Golf into a battlefield with amazing visual
effects that truly brings alive the different nuances of the game.
The concentration, strategy and competitiveness of this sport is
expressed in such elegance, it literally keeps you hooked till the
end.
Marvelous performances and believable characters make this
touching underdog story a must watch.

The Mistaken Identity

Its sad that a lovely city like Melbourne is now in
news for all the wrong reasons. Racist attacks, brutal
wounds of Indian students, and what not. For the time,
I was staying in Melbourne, i didn't even have a slightest
hint that this place would turn into a battlefield.
I found the people ever approachable, extremely
caring and jovial. I was put up in Fairfield, a fairy
tale part of Melbourne and would daily train to city.
For not even once, I felt a sense of discomfort travelling
alone at nights and roaming around the city. Instead I
was overwhelmed by the calmness and peace of Melbourne.
A lovely place, and surely one I wanted to stay a little
longer. Its sad that these events have, if not tarnished,
spoiled the image of Melbourne. I still believe these
incidents are acts of selective few and does not
in any way reflect the mood of the city.

Hope this episode gets over and the life in this
lovely city comes back to normal.

TED : Gift to the World

How many of you have heard about TED : The premier
conference on Technology, Education and Design,
bringing some of the most creative and expressive
people around the world, and giving them the stage
for 20 min only. I am a TED addict. Watched hundreds
of TED presentations from last 2 years and still
craving for more. What delights me in each TED
talk, is the sheer passion and creativity that
the speaker tries to portray in order to make sure
his thoughts are spread around the world in less than
20 min. TED talks are freely available for anybody to
download, and they have a growing user base, where you
can share, express and exchange your TED tidbits.

And what more can I ask. TED is coming to India, this
November at Mysore campus of Infosys.

Check out www.ted.com and experience the power of changing
the world.

SAPNET and the story behind it

SAPNET was started in the year 2005 by enthusiastic team from Sapthagiri College of Engineering, Bangalore. Its initial agenda was simple: To empower students to create the next big thing in Technology.

We conducted programs, workshops and seminars in the college as well as allow some of our members

to spread the word to other institutions. And we did amazing work no doubt.

The present avatar of SAPNET has a different purpose and its agenda has changed to :

Contributing to the advancement of technology through collaboration.

Keeping this thing mind, SAPNET organises weekly meetings around Bangalore where group

members come and share their passions in technology and entrepreneurship. We host Brain-storming sessions, Code demos and technology discussions. Also as a part of the new initiatives, we are creating start-up teams to come out with innovative ideas and implement them in limited time. Then these implementations are carried forward through our contacts into the general audience. This initiative already has a team working on a solution to solve Traffic Snarl in Bangalore through Social Networking and Collective Intelligence.

We are marching towards this new phase by getting new people who are excited to work with technology and have a passion to create outstanding solutions for the world.

Now coming to the problems that we are having in the regular operations of SAPNET :-

1. Firstly most of the members are Engineers employed by IT MNCs and are running short of

time to participate every week in the meetings of SAPNET thanks to gruel some Deadline issues in their

respective projects.

2. Previously we used to hold the meetings at our college premises which was easy and convenient

for everybody to attend. Now as we moved out of the college premises, Space is one issue that is

holding us. But we have some support in the form of some temporary establishments where we hold

our meetings.

Apart from the above two issues, the others are minor to describe. We are trying to find the solutions to

above problems by either holding our meetings online through Web Conferences.

On the web we run a blog which is open through membership :-

http://riseofphenix.blogspot.com/

Thanks and Regards,

Vivek Juneja

Chief Co-ordinator, SAPNET

India

The Wave is Here

Google has done it. On May 28, it presented to the

world, its shiny new toy for everybody : Google Wave.

I was blown away by the Google Wave webcast i saw

somedays back. They have truly reinvented Email for

21st Century. The features, some of them uniquely

intuitive and some out of the world. If you have not

yet seen the video, please rush and have a look. A

80 mins. of pure Technology bliss.

Some of the cool features I loved :-

1. Ability to reply to a part of a mail, instead of

the complete mail.

2. The awesome Spell Checker that comes as an

Extension.

3. Document Collaboration where participants

can see in real time, what the other user is

typing and making changes to. This really

rocked.

4. HTML 5 really rocks.

5. Ultra cool UI effects and functionalities.

6. Wave as an Real time component which

can be embedded into any existing Communication

tool like Blogging or Twitter.

and lastly,

6. The Out-of-the-World Language Translator

Extension which comes as an Extension to the

Wave. And boy it does awesome Real time

Language Translation.

Some links you must go through :-

http://wave.google.com/help/wave/about.html

ListTag : End to Data Listing woes

After a short break from my passion, I am back to what I can do best.

Code. This time around I am working on an Independent project

called the ListTag.

A Custom tag to solve all your Pagination, Sorting and Listing woes.

My experience with the Engineering teams here at work, made me

feel that we spend too much time re-inventing the wheel. Take the

case of Listing a set of records, Paginating it and Sorting it. I know

Flex, .NET have great custom controls to automate this stuff. Even

Java has some of them. Not that popular though and each having

cryptic API which makes them implementing quite a task. So I

experimented with a brand new way of abstracting the

Web Developer on this trivial and repeated task, by building the

ListTag. It extends the JSTL TagSupport class and provides great

new features, with integration in a matter of seconds.

The initial BETA is being tested and I will release it to the World by

next week.

I am adding pretty neat AJAX features now which will attract more

audiences and greater performance.

More updates on this as I near the deadline.

Happy Coding.

Movie Review : Ladder 49

I picked up this DVD primarily because I enjoy watching

Travolta. The charisma of this guy really shines in every

film I saw before. And one more reason to pick it up

was the great soundtrack, especially As I am Leaving

by David Gray, one of my personal favourites.

I dont want to review the story as you can easily get

it from any other site. Its the sheer experience of

wide range emotions that the film makes you go

through, one of the highlights of the movie. As it is

nicely said, after you have seen the movie, you will

never see Fire truck in the same way. I am sure

most of us have never even paid a single pint of

attention to a Fire truck or the people behind it.

This movie dedicates itself to the countless Fire-

fighters around the world, and celebrates their

emotions on screen.

A must watch. Joaquin Phoenix is great.

And so is Travolta.

Movie Review : Death at a Funeral

The title sounds spooky isnt' it.

But dont go by the name, its one hilarious

cracker-jacker. I must admit, i was wary of

how the movie would be. I mean, never heard

of it. The DVD carries some great comments

from Critics and some mention of wins at

Internation Film festivals. So I picked it.

A complete roller-coster ride into one event

that brings all in a family in London.

It showcases real characters, much believable

coming together with their own differences,

and nuisances for a funeral. And the hell breaks

lose. A comedy that i enjoyed with some really good

laughs. All in all, I nice movie to enjoy on a cosy

Saturday afternoon. Watch it, and you will not

repent.

The patience of an Indian customer

I didnt even think for a second coming up for

a title for this post. The Patience of an Indian

Customer. I am sure most of us could easily

relate to this. Are we the most impatient

or the most patient customers in the world.

How many times, we go to a shop and compromise

on a sub-standard customer experience. Waiting

endlessly in a line that never ends, or dealing with

a terrible shopping experience.

It really makes me sick, when we as a nation cannot

understand one simple thing about being competitive

in this global market. The word is Customer Experience.

The recession is a proof that the world has changed.

No longer you can sell on cost margins. No longer you stay

in market because you are the cheapest provider.

The recession has hurt all, the all mighty to the lowly

hawker. So isn't this the time to rethink about how

we think about selling. I liked the book

"What the Customer wants you to Know" by Ram Charan.

A good read and a valuable one. Great insights with

some engaging examples by the champion of management

consultants. And as soon I finished the book, i started thinking

how many times, I was tested for my patience as a Customer.

Be it buying a computer or standing in line to pay the bill.

The Experience is missing. Is it because, we as a Customer

dont pay for experience, we just own the goods, and throw it

once our gratification with it is over. Or is it something else.

I think we all need to relook into what is the competition and

what are its essentials. Customer Experience being one of

them, and the one we dont really count much as far as

Indian standards are concerned. I heard so many asking

what Indian has to do to become a product development

leader. I say we need to know what makes the customer

Experience as delightful as possible. India for many in the

world is its Back office. So many support projects, Call

center and Outsourcing work, we essentially need to be

the front runners in providing the best experience a Customer

can ask for. And I feel thats the next competitive edge.

More on this in my later posts. For now, Start thinking.

Hackathon Pictures

  

 My Hack -Tool for the HackDay

 

Some Entertainment for Hack Gurus

Its midnight, but no stop for Hacking

Hacker and the Bean Bag

The Hack Day Stage for the 90 seconds battle

The Great Indian Hackathon

Hi All,

Yahoo Hack Day was in town on 14-15 Feb 2009, and we all had an experience

of lifetime. This was my second Hack Day, and immensely empowering one.

Not only we came out of a situation, where we just saw my Hack not working and

skipping the Hack Demo, but also we demoed a perfectly working Hack and got

lot of compliments too.

It was an experience like none, 300 developers from all over the State, and may be

some from other parts of the country, gathered to take a holy dip in the river of

technical wizardry. A moment captured in 2 days measured as pure bliss to people

who have the passion to innovate and who seek the dungeons of impossibility.

After 24 hours of nail biting tension, we had the Hack Demos, where the Hackers

showed off their creativity in just plain 90 seconds. 24 hours of hard work for 90

seconds of Glory.  And to judge the pursuits, we had the best of the cream of Yahoo,

among them the most notable David Filo, co-founder of Yahoo. 

My Hack was titled OnYourMove, a mashup between Yahoo Maps API and Twitter

with some Reverse Geo-coding. End result was an app that lets users visualize

the route they want to take from Place A to Place B through map, and get latest

updates about the condition of the traffic, if any mishaps, or plain any update

about the route.

So say, you are travelling from Vasanthnagar to Ulsoor (in Bangalore), you 

search for that route in our App, we put the route on the map, overlaid by

the different junctions (or roads) that you need to take. Over that, the Twitter

updates about the place (done by your friends), making you aware of the

impending traffic situations, events and anything worth to know. These

updates bubble up as a marker on your route, keeping you updated of 

the route you will be taking before you start from the place. 

Ofcourse, the above proto was just a tip in the iceberg, and we can keep

on mashing up new services on the Map making it more useful to the

users. I am still working on the extension of this map, and adding some

more features to it.

Lets come back to the event then. The 2 day extravaganza ended with

prize ceremony, and lots of Bean bags flowing around here and there,

as we were allowed to carry home one Bean bag of our choice. Quite

interesting, isn't it.

So thats all from me now. More updates and pictures to follow. Gotta work.

Bye and keep browsing.

- Vivek

Rajdhani main Rajasthani

Hey,

I happened to visit a well known Restaurant in the heart of Bangalore

named Rajdhani. Located in the UB City, I was curious as why they

named the restaurant as Rajdhani as the food they offer is 

completely  Rajasthani. Jokes apart... The food is good, lot of 

variety in the Thali  they offer. 

A simply no-no for Non-Vegies.

Vegies, you will love this place. Service is great and Pricing not that high.

Check me out having a piece of Rajdhani, while my colleague looks in 

awe  at my liking for the food. (He is a Non-Vegie to the core.. :))

See you all later.

Bye,

Vivek

Proto.In 2009 Morning Session

Talk by Atul chitnis :-

1. World is Changing

2. Lessons from his life

3. Preparing for the Big Bad day (recession) - ready for Change

4. Building for future not Just today - anticipate for future

5. Assume Connectivity


---- Noddler Interface - Speech interface to business

can be used for my Traffic navigation.

Collections Intelligence

We always get in a dilemma over the Collection types we got to use in Java.

Thankfully, somebody came up with this, and i guess will be a good reference

whenever we find ourselves in such a situation.

http://www.javapractices.com/topic/TopicAction.do;jsessionid=325035209BD037E4B6C4ABD7F1BFFA28?Id=65