Rads'World

Gephi for JVM Runtime Dynamics

2010-10-03T13:28:00.004+05:30

2010 Duke's choice awards were announced today. It is really amazing to see how well some people and organizations puts the technologies to the best effect, much beyond what the creators of Java could have originally imagined. One aspect of the enterprise system that always remained intriguing to me has been the Technical Data Visualization. Therefore, naturally I was inclined to check out the Duke award winner on this category. There it was, Gephi, a fantabulous framework for Data Visualization.

The feature of Gephi that impressed me the most was the Dynamic Analysis. I thought this can be an ideal platform to address a long term secret dream of mine; to create a performance monitoring tool that displays live the way in which new Objects are getting created in a JVM and how the garbage collector cleans up the orphaned ones, showing the live objects with relations intact. Any takers for this project? Ping me for the concept.

2010-05-15T19:52:00.001+05:30

On Cloud Zero

It was when I was surfing around the Apache Myfaces website to download their new JSF 2.0 implementation that I noticed this little sentence; that I needed to make little changes to my web.xml so that Myfaces 2.0 application runs on Google App Engine. That’s when I realized that there is this little thing called Google App Engine who can run my little JSF application. I was always looking forward to playing around with JSF 2.0 with JBoss seam and EJB 3.0 with host of other add-ons that I wanted to try my hands on like ExtVal and PrimeFaces. Good and exciting stuff! I rush home and download Google App Engine, Jobss Seam and all those software that I wanted to lay my hands on. And by the way, there is also an Eclipse plug-in for Google App Engine.

I realized that gone are the days when I could only host my static web pages or blogs on the internet. As a programmer, I now have the power of using the powerful frameworks that I can now use to create a dynamic application and host it for free on web. Hey, and I get a Database as well to store my Application Data.

And finally, here I’m, sitting in the Nimhans Convention Centre for WebApps 2010 organized by SiliconIndia. All I hear throughout the day is “Cloud”; Yahoo says “Cloud” and Hadoop. Rediff says, Social Networking and cloud. eBay says, cloud. Microsoft says Azure and cloud. Amazon says AWS, EC2 and cloud. IBM says SmartCloud and Websphere platform. And finally the big guy Google talks bigtable and App Engine. I realize that they are all already on Cloud 9. And here I’m inching on to Cloud Zero.

JAXB, Annotated beans and Unmarshallar Listener

2010-02-28T12:19:00.001+05:30

http://smtechbytes.blogspot.com/2009/04/jaxb-annotated-beans-and-unmarshallar.html

JSF 1.2 Components

2010-02-20T22:31:00.003+05:30

Last week, I got a chance to review a new book going to hit the stands; JSF 1.2 components. It may be a little too late for this book to reach the user community when JSF 2.0 is already at the doorsteps, but the JSF 1.2 scene has been evolving quite vigorously that made the catch up game tricky. There has been an overwhelming response to JSF from a specification implementation standpoint. The numerous sightings in jsfmatrix.com is a perfect illustration of this crowded space. The fact that there exists so many good alternatives is an appealing factor for the acceptance of this framework, but at the same time, gives a head-ache for an architect / development head advised to make a choice.

For those anxious readers, here's a link to the chapter Facelets Components

Building Richfaces Source Library (Jars)

2009-01-03T18:52:00.002+05:30

Congratulations for having decided to switch to Richfaces! Once you start using the library within your development environment, as a programmer, you might want to explore the source of this open-source library. Richfaces source code is available for download at http://www.jboss.org/jbossrichfaces/downloads/

Richfaces library is built using CDK (Component Development Kit). Hence, when you download the source, what you essentially get is the whole of CDK project. Now, what you might require is to link your development environment library. Unfortunately, there is no such ready-made source jar available as part of the download. Don't be disappointed; Richfaces CDK project that you just downloaded has everything you need to build the source jars.

You have three Richfaces binary jars in your project:

- richfaces-api-xxx.jar

- richfaces-impl-xxx.jar

- richfaces-ui-xxx.jar

No marks for guessing; "xxx" stands for the Richfaces version.

Let us look at how you build the source jars:

- Extract the source library you just downloaded

- navigate to richfaces-ui-xxx-src\richfaces-ui-xxx\framework

Here is the directory structure you see:

+ api

+ impl

+ test

- pom.xml

- pom.xml.releaseBackup

- open your command window and run the following command:

mvn install

Oh, you need maven installed on your machine before you try this.

Check out http://maven.apache.org/ for instructions

- Wait few minutes for the run to complete. After it is done, navigate to richfaces-ui-xxx-src\richfaces-ui-xxx\framework\api\target. Alas! The source jar you are looking for the binary "richfaces-api-xxx.jar" is ready.

You will find the source jar for "richfaces-impl-xxx.jar" at richfaces-ui-xxx-src\richfaces-ui-xxx\framework\impl\target

- Now, switch to richfaces-ui-xxx-src\richfaces-ui-xxx\ui and run the same command again

mvn install

Source jars will be created under the respective component folder.

To quickly find the jars that just got created; perform a file search.

Copy all the jars to a single folder.

All that is left is to deflate the jars and compile them into a single jar

You can automate this task using an "Ant" build file.

- Done. You now have the source code for "richfaces-ui-xxx.jar" too.

- If you are using Eclipse, you can link the source code using the Eclipse ".classpath" file.

&lt;classpathentry
  kind="lib"
  path="WEB-INF/lib/richfaces-api-xxx.jar"
  sourcepath="jars/richfaces-api-xxx-sources.jar"/&gt;

&lt;classpathentry
  kind="lib"
  path="WEB-INF/lib/richfaces-impl-xxx.jar"
  sourcepath="jars/richfaces-impl-xxx-sources.jar"/&gt;

&lt;classpathentry
  kind="lib"
  path="WEB-INF/lib/richfaces-ui-xxx.GA.jar"
  sourcepath="jars/richfaces-ui-xxx-sources.jar"/&gt;

Enjoy browsing Richfaces Source code!

restoreAttachedState and saveAttachedState

2008-10-31T13:47:00.008+05:30

If you had come across a situation where you wanted to restore state of a non-primitive member variable, and found that it was not working, here is the solution:

public void restoreState(FacesContext context, Object state) {
  Object[] values = (Object[]) state;
  super.restoreState(context, values[0]);

  //Don' do this; it will fail on you!!!
  //listenerPointers = (Map&lt;String, ArrayList&lt;Class&lt;? extends ActionListener&gt;&gt;&gt;) values[1];

  //This will work!!!
  listenerPointers = (Map&lt;String, ArrayList&lt;Class&lt;? extends ActionListener&gt;&gt;&gt;) restoreAttachedState(context,values[1]);
}

Notice the call to restoreAttachedState(facesContext, value).

"saveAttachedState(facesContext, value) is the saveState() counter-part.

Both are static methods in UIComponentBase class.

RichFaces - selfRendered a4j:Region

2008-10-31T13:40:00.002+05:30

For the selfRendered <a4j:region> to work properly, all the components embedded inside it should be UIComponents. In other words, if any html elements are part of the a4j:region, these elements are considered "transient" by the Richfaces framework and hence are lost-in-transit on post-back. If you have "div" tags, change them to t:divs (from Apache Tomahawk Library) or "span" to "h:outptText".

MSC. Software India User Conference 2008

2008-09-08T21:14:00.009+05:30

Bangalore Sept 08, 2008: MSC. Software India User conference started this morning. The event is attended by engineers, analysts and executives from various engineering simulation affiliated companies. Amir A. Mobayen, Executive Vice President, Worldwide Sales and Services briefed about MSC. Software's footprints and value-proposition in the Engineering Simulation Discipline. Highlight of the inagural day session was the customer keynote by Dr. Sathya Prasad Mangalaramanan, Section Head, Advanced Engineering, Ashok Leyland.

David Yuen, Vice President, MSC.Software Asia Pacific explained how Enterprise Simulation can help companies simulate more, using MSC SimEnterprise. Dr. TSK Murthy, Global Head of Integrated Engineering Services, Sathyam Computer Services on his keynote touched upon Sathyam's strategic plans to work together with MSC. Software on customizing SimEnterprise product offerings. Doug Niel, Senior Director, Development for MD Nastran gave an overview of multi-disciplinary optimization using MD Nastran.

On his Gold Sponsor keynote, Dr. Swami Narayanaswami explained how MSC partnership helps CSM software to deliver customer value.

Second part of the day included technical paper presentations by MSC Software cusomers.

Please don't forget to check back this space for more exciting updates from day 2 of the user conference.

MSC.Software India User Conference 2008

2008-08-28T23:21:00.003+05:30

If you are working in the CAE and Engineering Simulation industry, don’t miss out on this exciting opportunity to hear about the latest trends, tools and technologies from the industry leader, MSC Software, our partners and customers.

Visit http://www.mscindiauserconference.com/index.html

Early bird registration has closed. If you still have not registered, hurry up!!!

RichFaces Dynamic Menu, Finding Ajax Form, Custom Method Expression and Parameterized Action

2008-08-18T00:26:00.004+05:30

Here is a common scenario you will come across while using JSF with RichFaces

Creating Dynamic RichMenu
Register the menu component in your view (Facelets or JSP)

<rich:dropdownmenu binding="#{bean.menuComponent}" value="File">

In the backing bean, use the component binding to create Menu Items programmatically

private HtmlDropDownMenu menuComponent;

public HtmlDropDownMenu getMenuComponent() {
   FacesContext ctx = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();
   Application app = ctx.getApplication();
   if(null == menuComponent)
       menuComponent =  (HtmlDropDownMenu)app.createComponent(HtmlDropDownMenu.COMPONENT_TYPE);
   for(String key: map.keySet()) {
       HtmlMenuItem item =  (HtmlMenuItem)app.createComponent(HtmlMenuItem.COMPONENT_TYPE);
       item.setValue(key);
       item.setId(key);
       Class[] params = {};
       MethodExpression actionExpression = app.getExpressionFactory()
               .createMethodExpression(ctx.getELContext(),
                       "#{bean.menuAction}",
                       String.class, params);
       item.setActionExpression(actionExpression);
       String onSelect = "open(this,'"+map.get(key).toString()+"')";
       item.setOnselect(onSelect);
       menuComponent.getChildren().add(item);      
   }
   return menuComponent;
}

Notice how you can programmatically create a Mexpression in JSF 1.2 via UEL
Also, see how JavaScript event is wired to the dynamically created RichMenuItem

Finding the Form
RichFaces has a convenient JavaScript function A4J.findForm which you can use to locate the form corresponding to the Menu Item

function open(el, paramValue) {
   var frm = A4J.findForm(el);
   if(frm == null) {
       alert("open: no form found.");
       return;
   }
   //add hidden parameter
   var hidden = document.createElement('input');
   hidden.setAttribute('name', 'PARAM_NAME');
   hidden.setAttribute('type', 'hidden');
   hidden.setAttribute('value', paramValue);
   frm.appendChild(hidden);

   frm.submit();
}

Managed Bean Action method
From the action method, find the value of interest and take appropriate action

public void menuAction (){
   FacesContext facesContext = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();
   Application app = facesContext.getApplication();
   Map reqMap = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().getExternalContext().getRequestParameterMap();
   String param = reqMap.get(name).toString();
}

Feel free to use this code in your applications.
If you found this useful, please leave your comments / feedbacks that would prove helpful for the developer community.

Migrating to Myfaces 1.2

2008-06-19T15:31:00.003+05:30

Decorating FacesServlet: More often than not, an enterprise application would require having its business core initialized on Web Server startup and before it can service the first request. The Servlet *init* method is mostly the placeholder to trigger the business core initialization. For that matter, it is quite a frequent practice to decorate the Startup Servlet and call the initializer block from the Servlet’s init(ServletConfig config) method. In a JavaServer Faces application, the startup Servlet is the javax.webapp.FacesServlet. Decorating a FacesServlet would have worked just fine for you in the earlier versions of JSF (till 1.1). In JSF 1.2, this is no longer the case. If your web.xml do not have the javax.webapp.FacesServlet Servlet mapping entry, your web application will fail to start. How do you go about it?

Well, there is an option. If you are using MyFaces implementation of JSF 1.2 (I use MyFaces1.2.3), your previous decorator Servlet should extend from org.apache.myfaces.webapp.MyFacesServlet. Well, I admit that inheritance is evil. If I find a better way to still work with decorator pattern, I will certainly post the updates here.

Client-side State Saving:

If your JSF web application employs Client-side state saving, you are more than likely to get a "javax.crypto.BadPaddingException: Given final block not properly padded"

Encryption of client-side state saving is supposed to be OFF unless you explicitly enable it, but is in fact ON unless you DISABLE it!

The problem is that if you don't specify a secret (because you think you're not using encryption), MyFaces will generate one and place it in application context; but this will change when you redeploy, and the secret used in pages in users' browsers from before the redeploy will then fail.

To get rid of the error, add the following <context-param> to your web.xml file:

<context-param>

<param-name>org.apache.myfaces.USE_ENCRYPTION</param-name>

<param-value>false</param-value>

</context-param>

See http://www.mail-archive.com/users@myfaces.apache.org/msg45187.html for further details

Of course, don't forget to modify your web.xml to web-app_2_5.xsd

Back in Orange County...

2008-05-13T20:19:00.004+05:30

This year’s MSC SimManager Developer Conference was scheduled at MSC head-quarters in Santa Ana from May 12^th to May 16^th immediately after the JavaOne week. I did not want to fly alone; which meant, I had to fly to Mumbai from Bangalore so that I can join Aba for the rest of the journey. MSC arranged for airport drop.

Jet Airways flight from Bangalore to Mumbai was quite a pleasurable experience although it had a delayed start of 30 mins. The in-flight entertainment was world-class. Watched two documentaries; “Forbes under 25 great achievers” that featured the likes of Maria Sharapova to Daniel Radcliffe. All the 20 who topped the chart were from Sports, Hollywood and Music industry. Interestingly enough, none of the top 20 were from the technical or business community; no more Sergey Brins or Larry Page or Bill Gates or Michael Dells or Steve Jobs in the making? Or, did I make a wrong career choice as a technocrat? The second documentary was a nice illustration of Barcelona Soccer Club and its evolution. I replayed the video several times to watch one of those Maradona’s stunner; GOAAAAALLLLLL!!!

Mumbai Domestic Terminal was undergoing a major re-vamping exercise; the arrival lobby looked quite spacious that meets international standards; a reminder to outside world of the tremendous growth this country is heading towards in the next decade. The inter-terminal transfer facility was good; thanks to GVK, it was a hassle-free experience to get to the Continental check-in counter to catch my onward flight to Newark. International terminal entrance for Air India, Continental and Thai airways (Terminal 2?) looked a big mess; construction was going on in full swing; dust and pollution all over the space. Worst, they did not leave enough seating for the international passengers. I started walking back and forth in search of a seat and finally spotted one. When I was about to occupy it, the Israeli who was seated next interfered;” sorry, this seat is taken”. Moments later, his Chinese co-traveler returned with coffee-cups for both.

An hour later, Aba reached. He looked very relaxed even after several hours of travel from Pune. Together, we finished filling up the forms. It is always a pleasure to have a co-traveler during international travel. Continental flight C0 49 to Newark was delayed by 45 minutes. We completed the check-in formalities and proceeded towards the gate. The security check has become much more trouble-some over the years. Right from the Continental Security folks asking several questions to the extend of having to remove footwear and belts; makes air travel as less pleasing as possible.

CO 49 from Mumbai to Newark is a Boeing 777 long-haul flight for a non-stop 16 hours. The in-flight entertainment system was pathetic. For alcoholic beverages, you end up paying USD 5 per can. The crew is not as nice as you would expect them to be. Continental considers passenger safety as their prime concern. 16 hours were fair enough for me to carefully skim through Freakonomics, watch 27 dresses, Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal and an episode of Friends. The gentleman on my left was a veteran Tata Engineering Services manager with over 25 years experience in the industry. While the aircraft was heading through a moderate turbulence, his explanation of CFD Simulation of Turbulence helped me stay at peace. May be the industry I work has matured enough that most of these scenarios are well simulated and tested.

CO 49 landing at Newark was simply spectacular; like a feather-touchdown; thanks to experienced Continental Captain. Trust me; you may fly with no fear!!

Newark international Airport is big and spacious. The emigration process was very smooth. We collected the bags and checked them back again to the connecting flight to LAX. Continental domestic flight from Newark to LAX has a total flying time of 5.30 hours. On my third connecting flight and after loosing a night’s sleep, I was counting seconds to get out of the aircraft. There was not enough space on the overhead compartment that left us to leave the heavy and bulky Dell Precision M90 under the seat in front of us. That leaves no leg room any more. I couldn’t sleep nor could I stay awake. As I was assigned a window seat, I could not even walk up to the aisle. The old lady who occupied the aisle seat was already furious that the passenger sitting behind her, accidentally spilled coffee over her dress. So, there was no courage left in me to ask for room to get out of the seat to stretch my legs. Most of the body was aching and tired and I felt extremely uneasy. Can they not accelerate this aircraft any further? Oh, these days, in order to save aviation fuel, most of the jets have started flying slower. That just adds on to my already handful woes.

LAX looks just the same as it did two ears ago when I left US. The whether however was unusually cold for this time of the year. We hired a Supershuttle to reach DoubleTree hotel in Santa Ana. Orange County is one of the costliest counties in the whole planet. The place looked just as elegant as it claims to be. DoubleTree - the Hilton Hotel seemed to have more than 90% of the occupancy for most part of the year with Executives meets, wedding and other functions. I checked into their cozy apartment, quickly got refreshed to get out to find our lunch. We tried the Quiznos FireEater chicken. I guess we ignored “the warning” and had to pay the price. It was as hot as it can get. I never expected such a hot dish in a US restaurant.

Evening, we spent lot of time at South Coast Plaza. I was very particular to locate the Apple store so that I can touch and feel a real iPhone. iPhone qualifies for all the praise it got as the cool gadget of the year. It was very tempting to buy one, but I realized that if I do so, I will have no money left for food to survive the rest of the week.

We then set off to a hunt to find a travel adapter so that we could plug-in our laptops during the conference. After failed attempts at Sears and Office Depot, we landed at RadioShack. Just when we were picking it up, I saw another person asking the salesman questions about the same adapter. It was Georg! And there was Horst walking in zipping a large-size soda. It was quite a pleasant surprise. Horst looked trimmed down a bit. As usual, they were successful in hiring a German car; a Volkswagen. We went to Vons to pick up some essentials for the rest of the week. Back at hotel, I slept like hell till Aba woke me up at 6:00AM for breakfast.

..get away..relax...you need a break!

2008-02-12T23:12:00.001+05:30

...and yet again...
...bloomed the dawn of today...
...mingling yesterdays...
...in to the mist of memory..!

Smart...Techy...Innovative...and bored?

2008-02-06T13:37:00.000+05:30

We need you if you are:

B.E/B.Tech/M.Tech or equivalent between 3 - 5 years of hard core Java, J2EE experience.
Comprehensive knowledge in core and advanced Java programming (J2EE).
Advanced knowledge of Web programming (XML, XSD, XSLT, Web Services), Web application UI development (JSP, Servelet, JSF, AJAX, javascripts, etc), current Web standards and technologies.
Advanced knowledge of multi-platform development (Tomcat, WebSpher, Weblogic) and related issues while developing on these platforms.
Advanced Knowledge of different database (Oracle, DB2, MS SQL Server)
Advanced structured or object-oriented system design methodologies; ability to produce commercial grade software.
Advanced interpersonal, oral, and written communications skills.
Develop, Test and maintain components of the SimManager product suite.

More details at http://www.mscsoftware.com/products/simmanager.cfm?Q=131&Z=288

Send your resume to rad.msc@gmail.com with subject line "Developers and Senior Developers for SimManager"

ChakDe Miracle

2007-09-14T20:59:00.000+05:30

Picture courtsey: http://i.indiafm.com/

Enough is already blogged about “ChakDe India” and how it is a copycat of one of the classical movies by Disney ("Miracle") and Miracle_(film)

This post therefore, certainly won’t be another one of the kind to crib about how Bollywood is incompetent to produce on its own such a magical movie. Every time I watched the Disney Movie “Miracle”, I always thought such a movie, if portrayed for the audience in India, could make a lasting impact. The outstanding factor about “Miracle” movie theme is the perfect blend of “patriotism”, “spirit of the game” and “team work”. Of course, most of the movies made out of even one of these themes enjoyed huge success in the movie industry. To “ChakDe” hence, “failure was not an option”.

The core theme that the movie attempts to showcase is the art of “Team building”. Being part of a team and at several instances, being responsible for building the team, might have given you insights to closely watch how a team that can perform at its optimum is formed or on the contrary, one that is destined for obvious failure is built. There are contrasting differences across both the scenarios.

A team is formed to achieve a task that cannot be achieved by an individual alone. Therefore, the first and the obvious objective why a team is formed for is to achieve a goal that is clearly defined. Team starts to exist when the goal is established and cease to exist when the goal is achieved (unless of course, team takes up a new goal and continue but the context becomes different).

In Miracle, Kurt Russel (actor and coach) has got his cards right in setting the objectives at the inception of the team itself. His one and only objective is to have the US team beat the Soviets to win the championship. Soviets were the reigning champions and therefore, setting the objective to beat the best of the lot makes the job fairly easy. At every instance of team sessions, coach shares this clear objective with the team.

“ChakDe” has failed in this context miserably. Coach has the deepest desire to convert his “Silver” medal to a “Gold” but this is a very personal ambition. It would have been fair enough, if this personal ambition (nothing wrong with the ambition though) was translated to the team objective of winning the world-cup. In the movie, this objective never reached the ears of the Indian team; but the script writer was kind enough to take the team through the victory lane in each of the team’s encounters.

The amazing “Forming-Storming-Norming-Performing” theory of team building process is sketched to a good effect in both the movies. Of course the reality is not always closer to the theory, so Bruce Tuckman’s storming is continued until the climax of the movie in “ChakDe”. Only at the last minutes of their final encounter with Australia, the “forwards” of Indian team comes to realize the importance of team over the individual accolades waiting for them. “Miracle”, however, is following the theory to the closest though. The stages of team formation are pictured closer to perfection as suggested by the theory.

Fortunately, “ChakDe’ is a movie, and hence had the option to bring in a bunch of eve-teasers at the right place and at the right time for the individuals in the team to come together and defeat the opponents. In real life, many coaches are not lucky enough to survive that moment of truth when he / she decide to resign and at that right moment, the team realizes the mistakes and welcomes their coach back.

Many times, 80% of the credit for an optimally performing team should go to the person responsible for the team. The alias for this responsible person could range from a coach or a mentor to a boss, manager or a CXO (let us use the term coach here since the term fits the context of the movie). Both these movies have got it right. But how far?

In real practice, a successful coach is one who finds and eliminates factors or constraints that restrain the team from performing at the optimum level. The constraints could be at the individual level or the way individuals interact with each other when the herd commences to be termed as a “team”. The burning question is “Should Coach help to see through the problems in the personal lives of team members”.

Kurt Russel, in many occasions seems to embrace the fact of going that extra mile to understand in detail the personal life of some of the team members. “ChakDe” director has evaded Shah Rukh Khan from most of these troubles and leaves it to the individual team players to sort out problems in their personal lives. I am not sure how to judge these coaches in this regard; but honestly, I tend to back “Miracle” coach in offering a pat on the back for his team at crucial junctures.

As a movie, “ChakDe India” fares well. It is up to the script writer and director to make the movies to what they feel is right for the audience. However, there is a section of the society that has failed to perceive the movie in the right manner. It is none other than some of the Management Schools that has decided to adopt “ChakDe” to their syllabus. As a classical case for Team Building, I would certainly suggest these esteemed institutes to look at “Miracle” as the alternative. To me “ChakDe India” is a movie and “Miracle” fits the best for a management study curriculum.

More on Bavaria...

2007-05-28T18:32:00.000+05:30

With the morning sun, I set off to explore Munich downtown. By this time, I had a fair idea of the S-bahn and Subway train services. The day pass took me to “Sendlinger Tor” on the train going to Feld-moching from Messestadt-Ost. “Sendlinger Tor” is an important station that takes you to the heart of the downtown while coming from “Am Moosfeld”. All the shops on either side of the road were closed on Sunday. These are certain areas where I thought Germany is probably closer to India than US. Especially like Keralalites, Germans preferred to stay at home even if that means loss of decent number of customers. Something else that might irritate you would be the people who keeps staring at you for no real reason. This was never the case in US but much like that in India. I could immediately place German culture somewhere in middle between that of US and India.

Munich city was beautiful. Especially the way buildings were painted. They retained the elegance of the past still with a modern outlook. Mostly, the buildings were painted in mild colors like ivory or bright white with ebony black linings. These monuments showcase the architectural skills and craftsmanship of Germans.

Unlike Americans, Germans do not use powerful air-conditioning, thanks to the decent year-round weather. To survive the winter snow, the buildings had protective double-walls with vacuum in between. Also, most of the rooms had heating systems. There were no sky-scrappers in the city; to uphold the dignity of the Central Church, The building rules of the city banned by law of construction that exceeds the height of the church.

The roads in the city and suburbs seemed to be quite narrow. With the excellent public transportation system, number of private vehicles remained substantially low. Of the available private vehicles, BMW, and Audi seemed to have the major share with Volkswagon, Renault and Mercedes brands not way behind. Many of the cars had manual gear system like in India (unlike in US, where more than 95% have automatic transmission). Contrary to the domination of Honda or Toyota across the world, Japanese cars had a very low profile in the region. Whereas I could hardly see any of the City, Civic or Corolla or even Accord or Lexus for that matter, I noticed a better presence of Suzuki with the Swift, Baleno and even WagonR parked on the streets. The traffic flowed very smoothly. Parking was mostly tricky; at certain places, vehicles were parked with front wheels well over the curb. The lanes and even whole of the road width in California would roughly be more than double of what you could find in Germany.

The city seemed to embrace art and music with a lot of passion. There were at least Twenty-Four different museums in the city with most of them showcasing the paintings or sculptures by various artists. Theatrical performance like Opera and live music bands were integral part of the city life. The Bavarian food is something that you will pay special attention to. The servings had a lot of quantity that would easily overwhelm any one from the sub-continent. Much of the main course would be dominated by red meat with most of the restaurants serving at least one variety of chicken, Turkey or Fish.

Fashion was another thing that Bavarians followed quite close to the heart, probably with the influence from their historically-hostile neighbor, the French. Across the city, number of designer wear outlets clearly dominated the show. At the same time, the degree of greenery in Munich could easily compete with any other city in the world. Bavaria would remain in my memory for a lot more years to come!

Extermination Through Work!

2007-05-28T18:02:00.000+05:30

Second weekend of my stay in Germany came with a pleasant surprise. It was a long weekend on account of Pentecost (believed to be the 50th day after Easter). Bobby called me up inviting me to Frankfurt. At the same time, I got a mail from Rick by surprise. Rick was coming driving down from Zurich to Dresden. Since Munich was on the way, he was quite happy to come down and meet me. He was driving on the Autobahn, the only free way probably in the world with no blanket speed limit. You could drive as fast as you can with certain exceptions of patches with Speed Limit.

Rick ringed the door bell exactly at 10:00PM on Friday night when I had almost slipped to slumber. He seemed to be a happy and excited and looked smart and lively. After his stint in India and after spending couple of months in Dresden, he was finally being employed at a decent company in Zurich. We went down to the Hotel Restaurant and talked a lot over dinner. At 11:45 PM, we were the only two in the restaurant and had to leave, since we already overstayed for 45 minutes beyond the closure hours.

We continued the talk about Bavarian food, Zurich’s cross-cultural society, Rick’s feelings about his stay in India, Austrian Tourism and Alps, SimManager and MSC, Rick’s new job, Turks in Frankfurt and many more things. It was about 2:30 AM and was time for Rick to start driving again back to Dresden. We said “Tchuz” and hoped to meet again sometime somewhere in this small planet. Rick restarted his rental car and GPS and set off to Dresden.

Got up quite late at around 9:30AM on Saturday and had to quickly sort out my plans for the day. Frankfurt did not seem to be an option any longer. By the time I reached the breakfast floor at the Hotel, it was closed. The lady at the reception said they close by 10. I took a day pass for the train and have her mark the Concentration Camp Memorial Site station. The station was outside the MVV inner ring and I had to take an extra ticket. At Hauptbahnolf (Central Station), while waiting for the second train, I called up Bobby and informed him of the change of plans.

At around 12:30, train reached Dachau station. I had a very bad feeling for the place I was about to go. This was not a place to just enjoy with fun and laughter. It is memorial that reminds humanity of the brutal cruelty by a section of the society on free and educated humankind. From Dachau, for the first time in Munich I got a chance to ride a public transport bus to reach the Memorial site.

Dachau memorial site gripped a sorrowful silence. People were just moving round without much chatter. Memorial site offer two types of tours to the visitors. One is a guided tour by a voluntary organization and the other an audio-guided tour. To learn about the history in a little detail, I opted for the guided tour. Three words welcome you at the entrance or the gate of the Dachau Concentration camp; it reads “ARBEIT MACHT FREI” which translates to “Freedom through Work”.

Dachau was the first concentration camp set up by SS army of Hitler and the only one that was left without any damage after the liberation day in 1945 when Hitler and SS Army was defeated by US and its allies. Other than concentration camps, SS Army formed “extermination camp” located mainly in Poland due to its geographical position at the middle of Europe. Extermination camps, as the name reveals massacred thousands or millions for various reasons known only to SS Army.

Concentraion camps were a result of the extreme patriotism promoted by a group of cruel individuals. They believed that the only way to salvage pride for Germany is by promoting a strong sense of national pride and brutally suppressing even the slightest of opposition. There was no longer freedom of the press; the fundamental human rights were denied for the common man; SS army was quite successful in its initial forming days to spread the terror across breadth and width of the country.

10 years before the SS army was formed, through his book “Mein Kamph”, Hitler openly declared his hostility towards Jews. To Hitler and SS army, anyone who can not work to build arms and ammunitions or who can not be part of the army and fight, were just burden to the nation. Through various “extermination camps” and concentration camps, SS army successfully carried out their mission of mass murder of women, children and weak or sicker population of the society.

Dachau is a reminder to humanity of the state of things that can happen to the world with even a minor section of the society adapting to an extreme and hostile attitude towards the rest of the world. In the modern days, SS army can manifest itself in the form of Al Queda or Bush Administration or Saddam’s regime or LTTE or Parvez Musharaf. It is the need of the hour to identify these uprisings and combat them in a timely fashion. (To be continued...)

Munchen Adventure!

2007-05-24T00:36:00.000+05:30

My travel to Munich was eventful. With a life-changing moment in week 1 and a life risking event in week 2, I woke up to the rays of this fresh and cool morning sun of Austrian capital city Vienna. The Austrian airliner from Vienna to Munich took less than an hour flying over the lush green European countryside. Munich airport sounded almost deserted on an early Saturday morning. I landed with lot of suspicion in mind; first of course was the immigration formalities. The lady at the information desk told me that it was already over at the Vienna International Airport (no wonder why that old lady at Vienna Airport stared at me for sometime before giving me the passport back..she should have told me it was the European immigration counter and I would have given her some more respect I guess)

The problems were not over yet; I was not quite sure about my hotel reservation at Munich. First thing; call up the destined hotel to find out if I have a reservation for me. Oh, but how do I make the call without any Euro coins. Yet another information desk came to the rescue. This gentleman was kind enough to give me the subway map of Munich. The lady at the Hotel, Verena talked good English and confirmed that I indeed have a confirmed reservation. Thanks to Horst and Munich MSC Reception.

She asked me to take a train from Munich Airport to Englschalking station and from there; someone will pick me up. Buying a ticket was easier. Only thing you need to do is to stamp the ticket at the subway entrance and the ticket becomes valid for whatever duration you have purchased it.

Station names first appeared to be confusing. To make things worse, there are two directions to which the trains were departing. Without thinking much, I got into the first train that came by. Once the train started moving, my mind started to work better. There was an announcement in German and I soon realized that they were announcing the name of the next stop (btw, “Halt” in German means “Stop”). Now I re-opened my Map and found that I was in trouble. In fact, I was traveling on a totally wrong direction. Not much time to rethink; immediately, got down at the next station.

This incident gave me much more insight about German Subway system. They have the destination station tag in front of each train. And, the map is color coded for easier understanding of each type of trains. Before long, the next train came in and I got in. This time, it took me safely to a country-side railway station. The trouble was not over yet.

I got down and started searching for a public telephone to call up the Hotel folks to come pick me up. And the fortune sometimes does not favor a traveler; a young guy told me there was a street where I might find one public phone. I dragged my 20Kg bag and yet another 10kg laptop (Gosh! they should rename Dell Precision series a Desktop rather. It really is heavy!). Finally, after 20 minutes of dragging the luggage on a German village, I found a T-mobile public Telephone booth. The lady at the Hotel said she will come by in 5 minutes and to watch for a white colored car that has Am Moosfeld written on it. I waited and waited, minutes changed to hours and still there was no sign of Mooseld!

I called up the Hotel again. The lady said, she sent someone who came by to the station, found nobody and returned back. I was stunned. “I asked you to come to the Post office and not at the station, right??”. Then she was like, “but there is no Post Office in Englschalking. For God sake lady, I was standing right in front of this post office. So, I started to spell the name of the street which of course was in German. I could hear the lady laugh at the other end hearing how I was struggling to spell out and pronounce the name of this stupid street. Okay, enough is enough, I asked the lady to sent someone again to the back to the station. I had yet another long walk left back to the station.

Here I was, walking back or rather dragging back the 30+Kg luggage to this little known Englschalking station. Adventure got over finally; as a messenger of God, appeared the white SUV with Hotel Am Moosfeld written all over it.

Verena apologized for all the fault; but, I knew it was not quite my day. She had arranged a nice little room for me with a kitchen and a mini-bar. There were so many varieties of alcohols n bottles of different sizes. I took a shower and decided to head for lunch. The incidents in the morning had made me physically tired. Also, I was very sleepy with the late night flight taking away much of my sleep.

The fun continued; the Hotel restaurant was closed by the time I reached there. Verena was no longer at work, the new fat lady told me to take a 15 minutes walk to the other direction so that I can find a Bavarian restaurant. Somehow, I managed to drag my tired legs to further four-five blocks more. I headed to the first restaurant which was a mom-and-pop shop. They were done with the day’s work and cleaning up when I rushed in. So, they told me something in German which I think meant there is no lunch for you today. I went over to the next nice looking pizza restaurant. I was in double mind to enter into yet another Pizza adventure with what happened a week back clearly in memory. The well dressed gentleman ended my confusion telling me that they were closed for the day already.

Those were the only other restaurants in the nearby area. I remembered my Navodaya days for a moment. The days when I had to skip my breakfast when they serve Kanzhi (which is made by adding water to last night’s leftover rice) and there was nothing else around to eat. The countries change, your profile changes but a human can be rendered helpless regardless.

Across the street, there was a chain food store called “Plus”. I desperately went inside and found they had at least some fruits that I can buy. I took some bananas, grapes, a big bottle of sprite, a can of milk, half-dozen eggs which looked brown in shell color (these were the only things I could figure out buy its appearance and what was written on the envelope; everything else was in German).

Back home, ate whatever I could and slept for a long time. Evening, got up little energized and went for a stroll again, this time around the MSC Office direction. Took some pictures of MSC office and got back to the Hotel Restaurant early not to miss the dinner timings.

Oh, I liked the vegetable soup they served. But the main course Turkey in some stupid sauce was disgusting. Anyway, I called it a day with the FA cup highlights of Chelsea winning over ManU, of course with German commentary!!!

Strawberashwar...

2007-04-09T00:43:00.000+05:30

...and finally I set off to my second outing in Pune..in last 7 months could manage only the second one..that is fairly bad turnaround per my initial plans...there were fair reasons to the wide gap, mainly attributed to tasking project and of course, no good company...so, if last time it was HariHareshwar and surroundings; the trip being ridiculousely tiring, this time it was a much relaxing hill station...Mahabaleshwar and its surroundings including the one shown in picture..Panchgani...more than the wikipedia fact that it is the second largest plateaeu in Asia, what caught my attention here was something completely different...

The moment I grabbed my camera and ran down to the edge of the plateau, the first thing that came to my mind; was my first view of Grand Canyon...Panchgani view of the world has boundaries...whereas, Grand Canyon has the horizon being its' visual limit...even the slightest similarities ends there...

Grand Canyon is preserved as a National Park by US Govt. The entrance fee charged is made to the full use of the visitors and for keeping the serenity of the place intact for the generations to come...absolutely, no commercialization is allowed...visitors gets decent basic facilities and free ride through this enormous park on echo-friendly vehicles...the dangerous points are well protected...important vista points and landmark spots have detailed descriptions of the history and related scientific therories...

Although, Mahabaleshwar corporation charges the vehicle entry fee, they spare no effort to help the visitors in any way whatsoever...warning: plan your trip very carefully in summer; the days are really hot and there is almost no hiding place; the one and only natural cave is commercialized as a restaurant..for the worst part, they charge you Rs.10/- for photography inside the cave...just think about this; a private person who has absolutely no business here demands money for taking pictures of the nature..pure irony!

Now, have a look at the picutre again...it was one of those poor horse which had to carry me and my four friends..and of course the driver too...the only option to explore the plateau (of course, other than taking a walk, which is almost impossible in summer noon) is to hire a "Goda Gadi"... people are (of course, including me then) mostly merciless to these animals..they want their vehicle to run like that of Rani Lakshmibhai or Shivaji Maharaj...com'mon, give them a break; those legends did not have any other echo-firendly, fuel-efficient hybrid-cars in those days...now, when we claim our culture has grown leaps and bounds, why go back to bother these innocent animals...

Growing demand drives more exploitation and the sad story of these animals just continue on an uphill trend much beyond what the size or stature of this plateau itself is...

But for an optimist like me, there is always a bright side of the story...and at Mahabaleshwar, it was the stunning Maprao...we really enjoyed the evening at Maprao which had a Strawberry festivel on offer during the season...and what is more is that you get to eat and take back Straberries for free...also you get to taste and buy a whole lot varieties of fruit syrups...I especially liked the keysar flavor...and they sell decent icecreams too...

At other view points, we went on an eating frenzy with mulberries (cranberries), corn, strawberries and many other fruits (can not recall the names now)...and then, the water oozing out of the statue at the panchganga temple was ice cold even in the hot sun...and I really felt the godly vibrations at the sanctum sanctoram of Mahabaleshwar temple which is kept continually serene by a natural spring..

On the way back, I felt, Mahabaleswar should rather be named after the strawberries they produce...to me, it is rather a "Strawbereshwar"..:-)

Payback Time!

2007-02-22T00:37:00.000+05:30

Harshad Oak's this little article was quite thought-provoking. Beside highlighting the important point regarding over-hours slogg, a major point that got my attention and kept me thinking over the dinner and drive back home was his statements about India's "consumeristic" behaviour with regards to the Open-source usage.

Right from the days Indian media begin to spell "computer" and "software" correctly, Indian govt started to talk in terms of "open-surce software". This statement may hurt someone, but to me it seemed like using those abusive words in a language first even before you learn a new language (like my friend who only learned the word "patti" (meaning Dog) in Malayalam when he started learning the language ..and as you would have already guessed, used it first against his teacher...yeah me !). At first, it sounds like govt thinks and talks like the computer "geeks" do, but on contrary, as Terry Prachett rightly puts it, they only looks at free software as a way to save on hefty licensing fees (and that is probably the exact same reason they hate Microsoft).

I will write yet another post about my thoughts on what govt, educational institutions and software firms in India can do salvage some pride in this context.

Apart from all that, what is really disturbing is the "Consumerism" behaviour. Before I could crib about it, I did an introspection on myself. Even if you leave out the real-techy stuff like contribution towards "open-source", there are much simpler areas where we can make a small difference, like answering a beginers query in a tech forum. That counts as a contrinution to the internet too. I realized that I had googled for solutions starting from trivial API method lookup to even looking for specialized solutions on my own problem domain. More oftern than not, I was fortunate to hit exact answers or atleast the pointers to the right direction of thinking to solve these problems. Now, looking again at the way I contributed back...not much surprise...it would sum upto a max of 0.000000x% of my consumeristic behaviour.

On this one time, I was crazy about contributing back (may be I wanted to have my name shown up on the search engines or to boast to my friends about this heroism) and had spent several hours answering questions posted on experts-exchange forum. But, then that was it. I would have helped my friends solve some of their problems too on some instances in the office, but never bothered to document them either for anybody's good. On most of those days, I was working for this corporate who could afford to buy commercial software. Back then, I never had any real intimacy with the so called "open-source" community except that I had a notion about them as "geeks" (and had a good deal of respect for my friends who talked like "real programmers" ...the funniest part about this real programmer story is of them wearing hiking boots to work thinking...just in case a mountain pops-up in their workstation...they can be ready to give a go...lol..).

With my present company being into product development and with its tech-savvy work culture, they rely too much on the open-source softwares. Initially I thought these folks are just pretending to be like real programmers and felt little sad about them of not having the luxury to buy commercial software bundles and blame the vendors for any fault. But, gradually and very convincingly, my perception changed dramatically. I could see the benefits of open-source, everytime a problem surfaced and we wanted to customize it for our own needs. It was very clear that product companies and service companies operate on completely different tech awareness levels.

My recent craziness for quite some time has been blogging (of course during non-working hours ... yeah, non-earthly timings as you can see the timestamps on some of the posts). During the working hrs, the things I most love to do these days is to logon to our development community portal - wiki and jot down whatever I found out on that day. My friend U and folks from Munich are quite active in putting their contributions onto wiki as well. At the end of the day, it gives you a sense of being part of the community that contributes something back. Thanks to wiki, although the payack is not to the open world, atleast, it takes away some part of that guilty feeling...you know what I mean !

When dreams come true!

2007-02-18T23:46:00.000+05:30

There are certain times when dreams truly comes true. And it comes so true that you feel amazed and stand still holding your breath for a while. Being a kid having a lot of love towards the nature, I have always had dreams about probably the msot beautiful places on earth. Of those, the the most desired picture in my mind was of this little valley somewhere on this universe whaving blue skies with goose-feather-like clouds, a plane with lush-green grass cover, with trees having lot of branches with yellow leaves, with many leaves on the ground covering some portion of the lush-green grass cover, with mild snow flakes making its way down, at the same time very much bright and sunny, with cool breeze flowing around, with children running around making only noice of laughter, a good old baroq music playing in the background from the nearby grill, where I sat down on one of the benches of the grill, enjoying every bite of buffallo wings with its sweat aroma floating in the fresh air.

The folk stories need your genie or god to appear to grand you these wishes to make them real. Here I was standing with my digicam seeing and experiencing this eternal beauty of nature...nature at its best for me...I would never want to wait or wish for anything more from God. I just wished I could stand there, watching that scene for ever in my life...I only wished if my eyes could absorb the scene in its entirety and keep recalling it whenever I close my eyes, wished if my ears can record the sound track and play it back when I close my eyes, wished my nostrils could immibe that sweat aroma and fill them in air when I close my eyes, wished my skin could remember the feeling of that cool breeze and bring it back when i close my eyes, wish my tastebuds could store in memory the taste of the buffallow wings and recall it when i close my eyes.

I did not have any better dream ever after and I don't think I will have any...ever !

...and the things that make you mad!

2007-02-05T00:21:00.000+05:30

Last time I wrote about things that make you smile. This week I had several incidents that make you mad for no real reason of yours. I have seen it in one of the episodes of Apprentice (yeah, the Donald Trump Show) and “Kannadi” (an Asianet program) but in two different contexts. Both of them were cases of isolation of one individual or family by the team or the society. In “Apprentice” the guy finally ended up being the first to be fired by Trump. In Asianet, this family happened to be left in a state of dire distress by the society just for the reason that they were fortunate to be richer than the neighborhood community.

You probably have experienced this at least once in your life. Or if you are really sincere, may be in more than one occasion. Those are the moments when the teams you work with, or the friends you live with ditch you and keep you on spot, bombard you with the most disgusting arguments. The moments when you feel completely rejected and isolated. You feel so much for your stand that you know with all the might in the world that you are right in this context. Why on earth does this bunch of fellows cannot figure out what you are trying to convey? Is it that I am not communicating properly or it is just that these fellows are the dumbest idiots who have ever inhibited planet earth?

The situation could get quite subtle you might even feel sorry for the position some of these folks are holding. Just the kind of moments when you fell that the whole world is against you and God alone can help you come out victorious, winning over the opponents. It is true that life is not fair to some of the unfortunate folks around; somebody who is short, or dark or fatty or clumsy. The world blindly looks at their external appearance and completely ignores their capabilities and skills. The “equal opportunity employer” turns out to be just a fad for the fame.

Things that make you smile!

2007-01-29T00:40:00.000+05:30

Being a regular visitor of Kathy Sierra's "Creating Passionate Users" blog, I was particularly amused by this wonderful post that reminded me of this incident and made me smile.

Have a look at this little little animal posing for us with a cute smile all over its face.

What an elegant way to make someone smile!

The Amazon of India?

2006-12-30T23:22:00.000+05:30

Ever since I started e-shopping, like most out there, Amazon.com was my default choice. They are way ahead of the competition in brining innovative ways of shopping experience for the customers. Having used Amazon.com while in US, I was thinking that they have a similar global reach. In US, they ship most of the articles without any shipping and handling fee. I was in doubt about their plans for international shipping strategy before I set out to order right from India. I was ready to pay up for a minimal S&H fee for the International Shipping and of course, I was ready to wait and let Amazon take their sweat time dispatching the product. Unfortunately, I realized that the S&H cost was much higher than the article itself that I was planning to order.

That is when I googled for the same product with "India" suffix and the first hit was http://www.fabmall.com/. I had an experience with fabmall in the past trying to order a house hold appliance from US destined for delivery in India. That was, by far, one of the worst online shopping experience I ever had. Even after collecting the payment, they took about 2 months before they delivered the product. And, for the worst part, they shipped an alternate model than the one I ordered citing reason that thye ran out of stock of the previous item. Okay, enough to have them black-listed in my list of shopping sites.

However, I recently checked out their service again. I had to order for a book urgently and they seemed to be the only store carrying it. And the experience was not bad. They shipped the item on time. Unfortunately, this time their courier service failed to deliver the product on time. I logged a compliant with fabmall, and at the same time tried to get in touch with the local courier agency. The courier folks finally made it to deliver, of course after a delay. By then, fabmall shipped a replacement for the item lost in transit. I was embarrassed and acknowledged them that I already received the order. Then comes the final twist! They shipped the replacement order after a month and asked me to accept the replacement and ship back the original. The ultimate climax! Of course, they charge you for S&H (I paid Rs.25 for a book that costs Rs. 500/-)

Following are certain other sites out there are that you may want to check out!
http://www.ndtvshopping.com/
http://www.futurebazaar.com/
http://shopping.indiatimes.com/

For Books, you may want to check out the following.
http://books.rediff.com/
http://www.firstandsecond.com/
http://www.booksatbahri.com/
http://gobookshopping.com/
http://www.kithabay.com
http://www.bookshopofindia.com/

Rediff books ste is pretty responsive and they offers most of the latest books on print. Some of these sites claim that they have free S&H service. So, whom do you think is poised to become the Amazon.com of India?

Why they say Bigger Projects always fail...

2006-12-26T21:29:00.000+05:30

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0612170278dec17,0,61792.story?track=rss ...just a perfect example of why they say bigger projects have one sure fate; "to fail" more often than not. interestingly, this could be a perfect case study for anyone in the industry; just enough failures to keep every discipline get a handful of learnings...software version control or change control failure, absence of a technology assessment board, lack of agility in process, One-shot approach..let me explain some of them in little more detail:

Absence of a Technology Assessment Board
As per the best practice, every organization should maintain an approved "Technology Stack" at the enterprise level. The "approved technology Stack" contains the list of softwares (or hardwares may be) and their "Version Numbers" that can be used by any projects going on in the firm. Any entity in the organization, be it an SBU (Strategic Business Unit), suppliers in the extended enterpise, partners who associate with the project or any individuals or contractors should adhere to the compliance standards of this stack. Having established a stack, the owner of the stack should be resposible for scheduling a periodic audit or review of the project to ensure the compliance.

Lack of Agility

If turbulence and turmoil define the problem, then agility is key to the solution http://www.awprofessional.com/articles/article.asp?p=25930&rl=1 . Agility is a hot word in IT these days. However, it is a must and can be very easily deployed in such a "Jumbo" project like that of A380. Just look at the number of problems this approach could have solved for Airbus. The "progressive elaboration" can only go in perfect blend with a phase-wise approach.

Theory of Constraints

Theory of constraints (TOC) is an overall management philosophy that aims to continually achieve more of the goal of a system. If that system is a for-profit business, then the goal becomes one of making more money, in the present as well as in the future http://www.goldratt.com/. The bigger the project gets higher the need for following the fundamentals.

Using the Right Software

Most OEM has a tendancy to have a "lock-in" to a particular software vendor. This is attributed to the fact that their engineers and analysts are comfortable using this software having used the same for long. However, it is not just the efficieny that matters here. OEMs have to keep re-evaluating their technology stacks at regular intervals for the emerging technologies and softwares in the industry that makes them more efective. One classic example for a revolutionary product in the Virtual Product Development industry is "SimEnterprise" suite from MSC Software http://www.mscsoftware.com/products/?Q=131

Welcome to the age of "Paritrana"

2006-02-04T03:15:00.000+05:30

India has an incredible history of either believing stuff with extreme optimism or rejecting ideologies with extreme neglect. As negative energy is so powerful and easy to acquire, our nation seem to embrace and blindly follow the leaders of the pessimist world. Amidst these controversies that rules, the nation has now focused their attention on the newly formed “Paritrana” party. A party who proclaims to have born to cater to the deepest desire of a generation to break free from the shackles of irresponsibility and comatose momentum.

This has happened in the past in Indian and world history. No ideology or party can sustain its growth and synergy as the world is growing through an innovative transformation. Companies change their strategies to face the ever-changing market. Markets change their response to a changing economy. Leaders were born out of dare distress to lead the companies, economy, society or nation to see through the status quo. They monitor the environment they strive on and move on to formulate strategies for future.

So was the cause for the formation of Indian National Congress (INC). Mahatma Gandhi envisioned it just as a mean to unite entire India fight for freedom. Once the objective was attained, he advised dissolution of the party. But in those days, India badly needed a leader and a brand name to keep the pieces of a disintegrated nation together. And, through Congress India achieved what it wanted of those days: a written constitution and a largest democratic nation were born.

But, INC did not satisfy the thirst of a young generation. They believed in the principles of equality and a socialistic nation. That was a generation that did not want the nation to bow in front of Capitalistic and wealthiest nations. A deepest feeling of hatred was framed in their minds against the wealthiest nations and even wealthier society and people. This generation thought socialism would solve their problems and was abundantly supported by media and events that followed in neighboring nations. To the youngest generation of those days, this revolutionist concept was the solution to revitalize the nation. And communist party gained supporters at grass-root levels and they did what was the requisite of those days. But, the party failed to make inroads into some of the societies of the illiterates. This revolutionary concept was too much for those people to even digest.

That paved way to a section of people who emerged to build a nation based on religion. Religion was easy to be digested even for illiterates. Coupled with a sense to build a nation based on the true ideologies of the Hindu religion seem to have succeeded to a certain extend. The party was able to penetrate to the deepest pockets soon enough and made credible progress. Some of the educated leaders provided a decent interface for the party which attracted even the educated masses into believing their mantra for building a prosperous nation. But there was not much of a focused long-term vision for the party to lead the nation their way.

Meanwhile, the nation was seemed to favor localization. A large number of parties were formed in each part of India with local customization. Some that focused on religion, others on caste, or buffalos or fodder or terrorism etc. At the same time, IT wave was spreading the entire nation. India was perceived as a knowledge hub by many corporations. Industrial and agricultural output increased manifolds. Youth had a better opportunity to get employed soon enough. Everyone is now talking about a growth rate that equals the blistering pace of the new generation computers.

Stage is set for “Paritrana” with new mantra to rebuild a nation from the grass root level. They are an extraordinary league of gentlemen with outstanding career record. They represent the true Indian youth that wants to hear only good things about their nation. While they work their way out for a new “Outlook” for the future India, rest assured that they are not cheap fodder scam or coffin scam politicians. India might as well reject them with their pessimist attitude, but, there is still hope. They might probably stand out to deliver the goods that India lost in transition in the last couple of centuries.

While the optimists will join their hands with “Paritrana”, I would say….”hey pessimists, at least, there is nothing wrong in dreaming for a better world for you and your folks”. For certain, I salute their patriotic spirit!

India Inc. in Fortune Global 500

2005-07-15T12:33:00.001+05:30

As per the latest release (dated July 11, 2005) from Fortune Magazine, five Indian PSUs made into the the Global 500 list. This is a much better show by India Inc. compared to last year when only four Indian Companies managed to be a part of the top 500. While Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) moved up the chain by 19 positions to occupy 170th slot, Reliance Industries (RIL) improved its standing with a staggering 417th position.

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) continued its good show by climbing 21 places up to reach 429th position. Another Oil major Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) managed to better its previous position by 26 places to occupy 436th rank. Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) made its maiden entry to the mighty list with a decent 454th position.

Fortune magazine rating is purely based on the Revenues reported by the corporations to the regulatory authority. A closer look at the financial summary of these Indian giants reveals some interesting facts.

Indian Oil Corporation has managed to increase its net revenues by 14% compared to the previous year. But, IOC has failed to capitalize on the increased sales and reports a declining trend in profit.

10 Easy Steps for Creating Custom JSF Components

2005-06-13T13:55:00.000+05:30

Find out the standard HTML component that closely matches your required custom JSF component
Write the component class that extends from the identified standard JSF component implementation. Override "getFamily()" method to return a "Family Name" for your custom component
Write your custom validator class that performs required UI validations for your custom component. Your validator class implements "Validator" interface in JSF framework
Include "addValidator(new YourValidator())" call in your component class.
Write your Renderer class by extending "Renderer" class in JSF framework. Override "encode" (generate HTML for the component) and "decode" (interpret HTTP Request and set value to the component) methods based on your requirement.
Create "faces-config.xml"
Register your custom component class (created in step 2) in faces-config.xml with a unique "Component-Type" name.
Register your custom Renderer class (created in step 4) in faces-config.xml with a unique "Renderer-Type" name.
Create your custom Tag Handler class that extends "UIComponentTag" class provided by JSF Framework. Override "getComponentType()" and "getRendererType()" accessor methods. Make sure that the Type names returned by these two methods matches the names registered in faces-config.xml (Step 7 and Step 8)
Create you Tag Library (TLD) for the custom Tag and associate Tag Handler (created in Step 9) class with the custom component tag.

2005-06-06T13:43:00.000+05:30

Web World Moving to Client-Side UI Architecture

For many a years, I have enjoyed working on client-side UI applications especially on the Microsoft products. The outstanding feature that kept me interested in Visual Programming Applications was the ability of the client-side applications to successfully distinguish the presentation and the behavior of the UI components by using an event-driven programming model. Unfortunately, World Wide Web did not have that privilege to use such a distinction; reason being the Network traffic barrier that separates the event-handler, the Server from the Presentation at the Client Side, on The Browser.

That was when web world turned their attention to the art of scripting; to use client side scripts and hence to reduce the overhead of client-to-server and back network travel. Hence, came the days when HTML was sandwiched with JavaScript and VB Scripts. Presentation and the Behavior stuffed together. Web Designers who were previously “Creative Artists” then learned the art of scripting and begun to call themselves as “Web Programmers”. Web community could not draw a line of distinction between presentation and behavior yet.

Soon, problems started to surface. First, the application maintenance and porting became tedious. The task of identifying the problem routine from among the mark-up language and content and rectifying the issue turned out to be a nightmare. Portals introduced the concept of aggregation for content rendering making page designers and scripting artists to stretch their abilities to the extreme limits.

Things started looking better when Java community decided to organize itself using scriptless JSPs. Custom Tags and EL were quite effective. Struts Framework provided another useful alternative by moving the HTML validation to the Server Side. But still, bits and pieces of code remained in the JSPs that serviced component handling tasks.

JavaServer Faces was the revolutionary concept that came to the rescue of developers in the web world. Initial step was to clearly distinguish and define the roles in a typical web application development. Then, the fine-grained model of separating the presentation from the behavior was introduced by moving everything to the server side.