Thunderror's technology bytes

10 Reasons Why Del.icio.us Drops Its Dots

2008-08-05T15:34:00.001+05:30

Many of you had noticed that Del.icio.us has drop its trademark dots from its URL... but WHY?

read more | digg story

Updates

2008-06-14T12:36:00.005+05:30

Favicon changed from default blogger to the thunderror logo
Updated the header logo
Removed apture enhancements
Organized labels and posts
Deleted a few widgets
Site now uses the new blogroll

Thanks to Pseudonym for testing it on his mobile ;)
A mascot for the site is in the pipeline. Now all we need is to get it out of the pipeline...

Plurking

2008-06-13T11:19:00.001+05:30

I wanted to review Plurk when I started using it..but never got around to writing this post...Plurk basically took the idea of using status msgs/microblogging to the next level by a little bit of social networking features as well.

Plurk allows its users to update their current status using 140 characters (just like twitter does) But, their similarities end there..Plurk uses a concept of a visible timeline (all your posts are chronologically arranged on an animated timeline) This is in contrast with twitter's way of presenting your (and your friends') posts in a fashion similar to an RSS feed. A follower is someone who is informed of every update of yours and a friend is a follower whom you follow as well.

The most talked about feature of plurk is the karma feature which tracks the level of your interactivity and assigns a number to it. Higher karma allows you to unlock more smileys, more interface changes etc. Karma could very well encourage people to interact more, but would also make them very well spam to increase karma. Plurk is soon revamping its karma system..so that should be taken care of..

Another much appreciated feature is the ability to carry out entire conversations over an update. This allows users to interact more freely and responses are chronologically ordered and grouped with the original status message allowing users to follow a complete conversation from beginning to end. For the first few days I used plurk, I completely ignored twitter..but after the new shine washed away...I use it alongside twitter. Plurk unlike other web 2.0s does not share its API..However, there are many sites such as hellotxt, lifestream, ping.fm which already support integration with plurk.

Join me at Plurk!

Chennai Indiblogger meet: The article in the Indian express

2008-06-11T17:40:00.001+05:30

The article in the Indian express chennai city supplement

www.indiblogger.in

Rohit Channazhi

The Indiblogger's meet

2008-06-09T10:01:00.002+05:30

Yesterday I was down with a terrible headache and I had the reminder on my mobile for the blogger's meet at 4. I decided to hurry up and leave with just 10 minutes on my watch. Got stuck at the Doraiswamy subway for about 15 minutes. Somehow managed to reach the venue 15 minutes late. But then, no parking space..I poked my car into the only space available..little realizing that it was a ditch..I tried pulling it back...but it was too late...

I decided to ditch my ditched car and go onto the meet. The meet started quite late and it was great fun, especially since I managed to sit in the 2nd row with a few fun people which offered a conducive atmosphere to comment upon others (lol, haven't done that in a long time now...all right..no offence please...)

The intro by the indiblogger's team was followed by many members introducing themselves and their blogs. That was pretty cool now that I have more interesting blogs to read during my idle hours :) The session was interrupted for tea (and snacks of course...) It was more of an ice breaking session with everyone interacting and getting to know each other..There was a great presentation on mobile blogging by Kumar from the sacrificial altar (http://atthealtar.blogspot.com/), followed by a humourous play from Rebelz http://www.rebelz.in/ This was followed by a play by the Indiblogger team and a presentation on Microsoft live writer by Sandhya...We had a group foto taken (do give me the link to the picture plz...)

And last but not least thanks to all those dear dear souls who helped me put my car back on solid ground (video link plz) from the deep valleys of despair dug by Chennai corporation...

This was a quick blog on the event. Do check out my blogbuddy's posts @

Sorry kumar, Blogspot is blocked @ office, couldn't comment on your post in the morning..will do it when I go home...;) Do give me the missing links..

www.indiblogger.in

Ground control, we have an emergency: Twitter is down

2008-05-20T15:00:00.001+05:30

Twitter is down from today morning...Out of touch with the tweet world. All I see on my twitter home are the catbot, birds and the broken piece of electrical connection..On the plus side, saves a lot of my time. Twitter is a time waster, no matter how much you try not to think that way. The morning has been really productive in the absence of twitter. Why does twitter go down? Some of the reasons that the twitter folk have given us:

Part of our caching service required an unscheduled restart
This was a planned maintenance project
finished a major infrastructure project tonight
some caching issues—namely, the /home timeline cache wasn't being updated correctly for everyone
and many many more...

All of the above are from Twitter's official blog..But the fact is easy to understands, the network infrastructure is too weak to support the kind of volume which twitter handles. I read somewhere that twitter's staff are not enough to support the network, which could be true as I note and quote from one of their official blogs

"I just left the office, at 6am, with most of our engineering and technical operations team. That's only a handful of people, but we were all there all night"

All said and done, I wish twitter would get its already upgraded infrastructure upgraded enough to handle the traffic or atleast give us prior information on scheduled outages and estimated downtimes (not that they have to be accurate). But, there is one thing which I read somewhere, "We need twitter more than it needs us."

Awww...twitter is still down, ground control: "may"day...

Updates:

2008-05-19T23:08:00.003+05:30

New logo
The blog is now tabbed with labels and facilitates quicker and user-friendly browsing
Blog incorporates technology from Apture and Snap
Changed the color of the mybloglog widget to suit the color scheme of the blog
Removed a few unnecessary widgets

The fantasy browser wars

2008-05-05T20:47:00.004+05:30

I have been a fearless warrior in the browser wars ever since 2000...and I have seen the nations rise and fall, so I thought I would write a blog on that...
Long long ago, in the kingdom of Windowsia, two young warriors set out to dominate the land...One of them was IE, the son of Lord Gatez, the emperor of Windowsia and the other was from the rival kingdom, equally talented..the Netscape...
The young warriors were continually at war...and neither side could be judged the winner...
Until one day, the dragon lord mozilla laid his eyes on Netscape and took over his kingdom...with no netscape to bother, IE grew strong and powerful..but the peace was not to last, because mozilla was not at rest all this while and he empowered his new found netscape with super powers to fight IE..But alas, the power given to netscape was too much for him to handle and all the heavy artillery was too much for him to even load, making him a bloated monster unable to win...IE won the battle once again...
The battle might have been won, but now Mozilla understood where he went wrong..and while he continued to support netscape with more power and troops, he secretly built his own version of netscape deep within his lair, breathing life into it with his own fire and the intelligence and strength which he derived from netscape and thus was born the firebird...but impressed by its cleverness and shrewdness, mozilla decided to rechristen it firefox instead...When firefox came out into the open, with its glistening armor, glowing aura and all the power and skill which mozilla had put into it; it was quite a force to reckon with even when it was young.. IE had to suffer many setbacks, legal difficulties which weakened it all the more...
Firefox grew strong as time passed by...it inspired others to become its followers and a "flock" of men were at its side, and it was near invincible..All this time, there was lurking a powerful lord who was powerful in his own right...who was content with his share of the land, lord opera...but then...
To be contd..

Twitter - the microblogging giant

2008-05-04T14:41:00.005+05:30

I thought of writing this post when I started noticing that many of Twitter users were technological geeks whereas the tech challenged were satisfied with their myspace and facebook profiles. Twitter for me paved way to microblogging. Allows you to blog even when you are short of time, in short bursts of under 141 characters...

Updates could be posted to twitter through gtalk IM, mobile phone and many other tools such as twitterfox, twhirl etc..What exactly do people update on twitter..Just anything, anything you feel like..Its a way to rant into the web..to show your joy, to reveal yourself to the web..or simply just update a new website you have come across, your new blog post, the evening movie you are going to watch, any upcoming event you plan to visit...And all this is shared with your followers (friends)

I decide to write this blog for all those people whom I invited to twitter who wanted to know what twitter was all about...
Read the official twitter FAQ here

10 step guide for the big web company to invest in web 2.0

2008-04-22T23:04:00.006+05:30

Well, how does it go about it?
Step 1: Go to Go2web2.0
Step 2: Decide what you are going to buy today
Step 3: select the interested subject in the tags *even random clicks will do
Step 4: find your target web 2.0 start up company *even random clicks will do
Step 5: Analyse company's competition (is it worth fighting over?)
Step 6: Contact start up company
Step 7: make secret deal for undisclosed amount *very important
Step 8: Buy company and use your signon for logging into that site
Step 9: kill competition example 1
example 2
example 3
example 4

I could just go on and on with the examples, but I am sure you would have learnt that the steps work well right now...There you go. saves u time, cost(of course it does, trust me) and all the pain of innovating (you aren't good at that anyway ever since your only creative employee left you last december to create his own web 2.0 start up)

Need more help to decide what to takeover go here

Microsoft Surface - The Possibilities

2008-04-18T20:00:00.002+05:30

I have been waiting for a few years for this to come really out and succeed...Where is it? Its such great technology..simply put, a highly enhanced table sized iphone...Why isn't everyone talking about it?

Answer: link

Thanks to jrjflick for that one!

Windows 7 soon going to be out

2008-04-06T00:42:00.001+05:30

Here is something, I thought Vista was newest one and there are sounds of a newer version just around corner...Makes me wonder why anyone should not bypass vista all together...

Windows 7 or so it is called, should be out for 32 and 64 bit systems and I guess during development, it was codenamed "Vienna". And as usual it will out in consumer and enterprise editions..The new version should be out within the next 3 years I guess

I really don't understand why Microsoft is in such a hurry to come out with the next version...I really think they need to give Vista some more time, after all people take time to move to the next operating system...It is not like a browser or an antivirus which people can upgrade every now and then..
Read about the idea to bring out windows 7 here...

All trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Cool websites

2008-04-02T20:48:00.003+05:30

Its been some days since I have last blogged. So here it goes; All of us have our favourite list of webpages which we have made up over the years. Here are my personal picks

Deviantart
I have been a lover of electronic art for some years now and being a avid worshipper of photoshop and 3DSmax, Its no surprise that this site gets the first mention on this post. I love the community effect which dA has to offer. Every artist gets his own page...The ever helpful forums and of course the fact that its free for use and of course if you wish to have a paid account, its available at a cost..I also love the way you can add art to your favourites. Even if you are not a digital artist, it’s a great place even for just wallpapers and skins…The artists at dA are really talented; some of them I guess are even better than professional artists. One of my fave artists who has his own website for wallpapers would vlad..check out his website at link..

Flowers2mail
Ever felt like sending flowers to someone? Look no further, a few mouse clicks allows you to send a lovely bunch of flowers arranged the way you wish to your loved ones.

Orisinal
The cutest website with the best and simplest of the flash games with the best music..Enough to keep anyone engrossed for hours together..

Musicovery
Music to suit your mood. The best online radio I have heard..I love the way music is organized using a lovely flash interface. Try it once...its really addictive

Goowy
Right now goowy doesn't allow new accounts to be opened...I already guess I posted a whole blog on this topic..So just a link..

Technorati
The best blog search engine out there..Google blogsearch is good as well; but I love the way technorati presents the information. Google is a website search engine primarily and technorati is a blog search engine

imo
The best and the most versatile webbased chat client out there. Supports gmail, yahoo, msn and aim and doesn’t require a signup at all. You sign into one account and all other linked accounts are signed in automatically. Only gripe is (no support for yahoo chat rooms, which I guess only koolim offers)
Post to be updated soon..

Robotic technology to hunt people

2008-03-13T01:31:00.006+05:30

Sounds like a sci-fi flick? Well it could be closer to reality than you think. Military applications for robotics is one of the fastest progressing technology areas and more and more applications are being developed each day. Though we would not be having "robocop" anytime soon, we could soon be having automated weapons which think and analyse "threats" and eliminate them as required. Which means basically, automated search and destroy weaponry. These weapons are already here. With the developments in more and more powerful chips and more compact technology available from even the shop around the corner, it does not seem all that surprising.
Professor Noel Sharkey, well known for his role in BBC’s Robot Wars, says he is scared by the pace at which armed forces across the world, especially in the United States, are adopting robot weapons and have done little to create international laws or an ethical code on their use.

“In case of robot weapons, it is the robot which decides ‘who to kill’, ‘where to kill’ and ‘when to kill’. This is treading on a danger path,”

Which would really mean artificial intelligence is taking over faster than we think. The US for instance is set to spend $4 billion by 2010 and $24 billion by 2013 on developing unmanned fully autonomous military robots. The US is also testing its latest addition to its air fleet called the Reaper, a pack of unmanned aeroplanes which talk to each other and decide which target to kill and it also successfully tested another unmanned fully autonomous land vehicle named the Crusher, which is a 7-tonne strong truck fitted with guns and bombs. So then the only thing left to do is for me to sign off this post by saying "Asta Lavista, baby"

Nothing is permanent but change

2008-03-11T23:14:00.006+05:30

Today I made quite a few changes to the blog and in fact spent almost an entire day reading other blogs, commenting upon them..losing myself in the vast vast expanses of Technorati...reading enewspapers, updating my facebook profile and what not. So now I sit here at 2317 hrs to update the blog. This blog update is also bring in new focus to the blog. all journal entries related to my personal space would be tagged with the "my life" tag. The blog would have a strong focus on business trends, information technology and computing.
At any point of time, there would be a main post (which would be updated everyday); this post would have the words "hot topic" added to the title. browse around to check out the current hot topic.
Other changes made to the blog:

All tags are now in order
The simple white theme
Syndication support
feeds from the wired blog
links to other blogs
lots of other minor changes

In order to make the layout changes and few of the other changes I really had to work on html, now that rocks...its been years since I last worked on html...I remember the last when I was working on it was when I was just out of school..and I used to think how magical it was. add a tag here; add a tag there..and voila...you have a webpage...

I think I really am becoming a blogging addict now. It is actually a liberating experience to get a high on something like this...It ensures that I do spend my time happily even when I am alone...Writing is an art and I am proud to be an artist. I made this post just because I wanted another post for all the work that I did today, I wanted this blog to be a bookmark on the pages of this blog...Now, I think I would go and update the current main post which is outsourcing.

Outsourcing

2008-03-11T01:13:00.013+05:30

In one of my earlier posts, I had hinted that I wanted to write about outsourcing. I would quote from wikipedia which has this to say (at the time of my visit to the site)

"Outsourcing is subcontracting a process, such as product design or manufacturing, to a third-party company. The decision to outsource is often made in the interest of lowering firm costs, redirecting or conserving energy directed at the competencies of a particular business, or to make more efficient use of labor, capital, technology and resources"

I came across an article when I was browsing blogs about something which disturbed me a lot. Dealing with reproductive outsourcing (link). A search on the topic through up features such as medical tourism...The very fact that just to cut down on costs everything can be outsourced to developing countries disturbs me. I do not know how to even react to something like this.

I understand that developing countries do have lower costs of living and many things which would sell at a premium (including labour) in a developed country would be outsourced to cut down on costs and a multitude of other reasons which could be discussed for days...I would sum up the very foundation of the phenomenon of outsourcing from nature principle of balance and the basic theory of economics which requires that demand increases when supply falls and vice versa.

Outsourcing is after all a system. It is a system of doing business (or is it just that?) To simplify matters, I assume it is merely a system and hence would apply the logic that it has its own stages of inception, growth, maturity and decline. The inception of outsourcing was from the need of developed countries to cut down on their costs (and other miscellaneous reasons) Upon reaching the level of saturation or maturity; even outsourcing has to die or fade away...Looking at the future of outsourcing when this would happen , I realize that there would rise a state where costs incurred for outsourcing are no longer commensurate with its benefits, where outsourcing would yield no benefits to the outsourcing unit.
All through this blog post I use the word "cut down costs" because this is the one which we very easily tend to associate with the concept of outsourcing. I do not wish to restrict the meaning of the term "cut down costs" to merely monetary expense but would wish to stretch the blanket over a wide plethora of benefits that outsourcing units receive from it (focussing on core competencies, global reach..to name a few)

To attempt to find out in which stage of its life cycle, outsourcing is in, would not be easy since like all concepts, the concept of the life cycle which I have attempted to present here is not perfect, is vague and abstract as well. However we could always look at what would happen in each one of the stages of outsourcing which would go a long way in understanding the language of outsourcing better.

At the inception of the system of outsourcing was the need for entities in developed countries to gain an advantage over their competitors. The potential outsourcing customers (just thought of a name to make look better than calling them entities "blandly") had saturated the market (since the country was already at a developed stage) in order to go on, it had to work on three aspects. One, develop new markets; Two, work on value addition to the current markets; three, differentiate themselves from their competitors. We can see that outsourcing directly offered an option for the third aspect and indirectly contributed to the first and second one as well. The indirect contribution came from the fact that outsourcing created new jobs in developing countries, increased their standard of living and made them the new market for the potential outsourcing customer (actually, now their outsourcing customer). Post outsourcing, the outsourcing customer in the developed country was free to focus its attention on developing its core competencies providing value addition to the current markets and competitive advantage as well.

The subsequent stage is of growth which I personally think is where we stand is..I say this since maturity is a point in time whereas growth is a continous process and when we would have reached the point in time where maturity stands we would know that decline is just one step away. In this stage of growth, the outsourcing phenomenon branches out to different areas across the world, entering new areas in all spheres of business and trade. Potential outsourcing customers seek out newer and newer outsourcing service providers to create a competitive advantage. The stage of growth benefits many and increases the number of billionaires in the developing nations quite drastically. Forbes has this to say

Microsoft founder Bill Gates, the world's richest man for 13 years, and his pal Warren Buffett, who holds the No. 2 spot despite enormous charitable donations, are quickly losing ground to Mexico's most-monied man, Carlos Slim Helú. Helú's net worth is up an astonishing $19 billion this year--the single biggest one-year gain in a decade--and is now just $7 billion shy of Gates and $3 billion less than Buffett. After a 20-year reign, Japan is no longer Asia's top spot for billionaires: India has 36, worth a total of $191 billion, followed by Japan with 24, worth a combined $64 billion.
India's rich are also marching toward the top of our rankings. Brothers Mukesh and Anil Ambani, who split up their family’s conglomerate in 2005, join Lakshmi Mittal, who heads the world's biggest steel company, Arcelor Mittal, among the world’s 20 wealthiest. India now has three in the upper echelons, second only to the U.S.

For more on that, go here. So we see that outsourcing has in fact been a hugely equalizing factor, bringing in something which I started off this post with: balance.

Growth of outsourcing has seen phenomenal jumps and has lead to birth of even a few revolutionary systems such as "outsourced outsourcing", wherein, the outsourcing service provider further outsources it to another provider and merely acts as the bridge between him and the end customer. We could just go on discussing what growth actually means, in positive and negative terms as well. One of the them would also be reason for reason for the birth of reproductive outsourcing and medical tourism. I do not wish to discuss on the conflict between ethics and business on this post. Growth also means that the customer finds newer and newer zones to get his tasks outsourced to.

The level of maturity is marked by a stage where outsourcing would be about to hit a stone wall and there would no longer be any economies in indulging in it. At this stage, most customers would look for other options to substitute for the fall in the power of outsourcing. They would have to come up with strategically important ideas which could take them further and save them from the decline. Customers who would fail to do so, would not be able to take their business further and would suffer defeat as well. Hence, we could assume safely that many customers would exit as this level and would not wait for the decline to come about.

Maturity would actually mean that benefits from outsourcing are no longer as good as they used to be. However, in the final stage of decline; outsourcing would indeed be a burden on the resources of the customer and he would have no option but to discontinue it. Although, the end of outsourcing is not something we can truly visualize now. The end of the system of outsourcing would not mean that many service providers and customers would be out of business. It simply would pave way to the inception of a new system which promises further benefits for everyone involved. We may prophesize that the decline would most probably coincide with the end of developing countries (when, they too would have become developed countries). But there is no such thing as true balance and it is merely an attempt to balance all the way and hence a new system would rise from the ashes of the old and it would change the future as we know it. (I did get a bit carried away with those words I guess...)

Feeling goowy

2008-03-10T01:29:00.006+05:30

I was getting really bored so decided to visit one of the email websites which I had subscribed to long back..(really really long back)..I had signed up for the service since it was a flash enabled email interface...When I went over to the website, I realized that a lot had changed..it was like going back to the house where you spent your childhood after a long long time (ok that was too much of an exaggeration) What I meant was that the site had changed a lot for the better..It not only boasts of a flash interface but gives you a complete online desktop at your disposal..I would say this is the future of the web..Real web 2.0 (now for more on that click on the link which should take you to a lovely blog on the subject)...I have received a few forwards about how google is planning to come out with an online operating system...But till it comes around, I would like to taste the future..The website belongs to aol now and its got everything integrated into it (online storage space, email, chat, bookmarks, search and even games) In fact, the games on the website are not just there for the sake of being there...Some of them are plain outstanding...I loved the feel so much that I decided to dedicate a whole post just for the website.

Cyberpsychology

2008-03-06T00:51:00.007+05:30

When I going through other blogs at random, I realised that people often put up a slice of their personal life on their blogs. I came across, family albums, messages to near and dear ones...love letters and so on...These were all available on the internet for the whole world to see and hear. I realized that it is the human mind's need to shout out loud to the wide open world that would have initialized such an urge.
My blog would of course tell you a great many things about the kind of person I am, maybe even more than my facebook or orkut profile would tell you...I would not have discussed these with even my closest of friends...which could be true with many others...You might go out for a movie with a friend, share a lot of secrets, discuss things...still you would put lots of stuff online which you would've in fact not discussed with anyone....I didn't even think about this post 3 minutes ago. But now that I have thought of it, I have decided to work on this.
Which brings us to the core idea behind this post. I haven't worked so much on this topic so it'll be sometime before this blog gets completed. For now, all I have is this
The wikipedia article
Its not very helpful, since wikipedia still has only a stub regarding the topic. I did my research on the web and came across this great blog on the subject. I also learnt that the phenomenon I was trying to express in the earlier paragraph of this post is known as the disinhibition effect.
Go here for more: Psycyber's blog
While on the topic of cyber psychology; I did come across this neat little article titled blogging may have psychological benefits. The article is definitely worth a read (all the more so, if you are blogger yourself)

Satellite enabled geographical visitant tracking

2008-03-04T21:21:00.011+05:30

Today I was browsing around other blogs at random and came across this tool which lets me track geographical locations of visitors to my blog...(its got nothing to do with satellites, I just put it on the blog to make it look complex)...Now let it be known that, you are being tracked...I liked it, its something like out of a sci-fi movie...10 years back if I were to tell you something like this, you would've said that I had gone crazy. I love the technology of the future...I don't have much to blog about today and I even thought I would just update yesterday's blog..but then I thought otherwise and decided to write a new blog. I need to sit and read a lot of stuff which is pending...I got the books from the library renewed for a fresh term as well; b'cos I haven't finished reading them yet...
There was something I meant to write about today, which I forgot...which most probably I would remember tomorrow...If I do, I would blog about it..I really hate it when you have things on your mind which you just can't seem to remember...but then, thats what happens with everyone I guess...
Updated on 10th March 2008:
I decided to take away the visitor tracking on my page and instead use google analytics for the purpose..When we have a google service for anything why should I use any other service? If you have a blog, I would recommend Google Analytics

delayed

2008-03-02T14:41:00.002+05:30

I realize its been some days since I blogged last. Not that it matters to anyone. This blog too has unique and outstanding stuff. But even its uniqueness is lost in the crowd of lot of other blogs which are just as unique, which leaves this blog not so unique along with others. Well that was enough nonsense to start off with this blog. The end process() has been updated. I have spending most of my time listening to music these days and most of it is robert miles. I love the simplicity of his work, the austerity of his tunes and the pristine clarity in what he wishes to convey through his music. ahem..that was quite a lovely description but its not even a bit as good as his music really is. I spent my lonely times listening to the music losing myself in a whole new world...And of course I am not lonely. The function has already been called...
I do not have much to write today since I haven't got much going on around. I spent my evening yesterday trying to learn calculus, but soon gave up...I guess physics is far more interesting and easier than mathematics...

E=MC²

2008-02-20T16:54:00.008+05:30

The equation forms the very foundation of theory of invariance as proposed by Einstein. It lays the foundation for the energy created or energy required by/for the movement of a body. This blog would be continued soon...
This topic also would deal with Tachyons

A tachyon is a particle which can move at speeds exceeding the speed of light (the C in the formula). I would write more on it later when I get the time to do so..

But for now, here is a wonderful animation on how a tachyon would look like when it is in motion. Even though it is a particle whose existence has not been proved, yet the animation makes it as real as possible.

The Time is now

2008-02-07T20:21:00.017+05:30

there are two things I must write about. About "time" and something else which I forgot. Most probably it was related to IT but I don't remember anything now. Yeah...got it. I wanted to write about outsourcing. Now the only problem is, I have to read about both to write about them, so I guess both these blogs will have to wait till I am ready...ready to write them...

I write about time not because I love to write about it, but because I love time itself. I love the very concept of the all encompassing, omnipotent, omnipresent "time".
It is not easy to write this blog, since study of time requires study of far more complex things such as quantum physics, the relativity theories, atoms, dimensions and so on.
But when this post will be done, I want to be really proud of having written something like this. So, I am going to work on this post, one day at a time.

I did read a little bit on the general and specific theory of relativity and as it goes on, I would like to make it really simple for people who are going to read it. The theory of relativity in simple words means that velocity, time, space all are relative to position, velocity, time of the person measuring/looking at them. That was just a statement I made to sum up the whole of the concept.

This is explained by an example by Brian Greene The speed at which you see things move is relative to your own state of motion. Assume that we are looking out of a car window, we see trees, lamp posts move by whereas the car's dashboard remains static. However, to a bystander, the car's dashboard seem to be moving whereas the lamp post next to him remains static. I usually hate these seemingly simple examples which only make complex things seem more complex. However, in the case of the theory of relativity I had to make an exception. Now if we were to exaggerate this example to increase the speed to billion miles per second, then the real impact of relativity would come into play and the time and distance calculated from inside the car and outside would be drastically different. And distance is merely a product of time and speed. The second aspect of relativity would deal with the fact that unlike other objects, it is not possible to apply this rule for light. Light is a form of energy which consists of particles known as photons. The cardinal rule is that light is never static. It goes on at a constant speed of 670 million miles per hour no matter where the person watching it stands/moves. i.e. it is sort of immune to the fact that if you run faster it would take much more time for light to catch up with you. All these seem to be loud and gaudy concepts to understand time, so let me touch upon time as well and make it look as gaudy as I possibly can.

Time in itself cannot be defined since time can be expressed only by way of time. Even if I were to tell you that time consisted of days, hours, minutes, seconds etc. it still does not explain it. Since a second is after all a gap of time, which is an specific interval between two states. Now that didnt explain time at all..So thats it, time is inexplicable. Time as we have seen already is different for different people. The movement of time slows down/speeds up relative to our motion/state of rest.

Einstein did not want to name his theory "relativity" he wanted to name it the theory of invariance. This was because he wanted to stress upon the invariance of the speed of light...I would also like to add to the fact that there were two theories of relativity (general and specific) and it was the specific theory which came first. The specific theory was insufficient to explain relativity when there was movement in the frames and hence a theory which could explain when the frames where in movement as well.

Service oriented architecture (caution: very long and boring post)

2008-02-05T19:14:00.004+05:30

This is just an article I decided to write after attempting to learn what SOA is all about. I thought there would be many others who would like to know what Service oriented architecture is all about. No amount of queries on any of the search engines is going to explain what it is all about because:

1) Not many are clear about the concept

2) It is a concept

3) It is a concept which is still under development

When I started off with SOA, a friend of mine said; I have checked out 10 different sites and they have 10 different explanations as to what SOA is.

During my tenure as an auditor, I have had the opportunity of having used a fledgling SOA application which I never was a SOA in reality. The company had installed the system called it its homegrown ERP. Our IT department was all in awe of the technology. I thought then that the installation was plain crap since it took multiple and lengthy procedures to perform simple tasks. But now I understand that even though the system was plagued by teething problems and interface complexities, the underlying technology was what SOA was all about.

The company had a system where there was a web based portal which could be accessed from anywhere and yet had an secure authorisation system which prevented unauthorised access. The website integrated the legacy system accounting system which it had based Tally combined with power of databases for storage of other information. The web based interface was basically made available to users and the users would merely have to click on links which offered a wide variety of business oriented services to the user. These services were for users from departments right from sales all the way back to the purchases.

The sales page allowed its users to be updated of revenue on a daily basis, enabled zone wise, region wise and revenue generating unit wise segregation of sales. The purchases menu was linked to the inventory, goods receiving and quality control system. In effect, the system did provide everyone in the organisation with a webpage full of services to perform their tasks effectively. It was something like an EAI which had a common standardized interface. I did realise that were many comparisons which tried to put in SOA as an extended version of web services.

Given below as some reactions to SOA from both the system as well as user's point of view

Existing system's reactions:
The system could react in two ways depending upon what the system is like. Considering the system is a legacy application which had been programmed on some old programming language, it would go about questioning the need for such a system. Most probably the system would not be in a position to appreciate the benefits that SOA would bring in, considering the limited artificial intelligence the legacy systems would offer and also the traditional mindset I would assume such a system would have. The existing system would have sufficed when transactions where not so dynamic, competition was not so cutthroat and management never cared what the IT guys did as long as it produced their traditional everyday reports.
Things are changing fast, transactions are dynamic and ever changing, the environment changes so drastically, competition is cutthroat and management focuses on IT more than ever to make the business produce results. Considering a real life situation, Most traditional systems would have produced a few "not so customisable" reports, and would have been limited to batch processing regular clerical transactions. Doing exactly what they were told to do and nothing more. A change in the enterprise's requirements for something new would be so taxing on the system, since its adaptability to change would be minimal. I use the word "most traditional systems" since there are many systems which sometimes even work beyond what they are supposed to do and are in short ahead of their time. But they are limited and hard to come by. No matter what the nature of these traditional systems, they have reason to get excited;
since SOA would ideally "link" them up with other applications, both traditional and conventional.
The SOA would bring in its own technologies which would further enhance the way the whole company looks at IT "services"
Assuming that most probably SOA is implemented with web services, the traditional apps now can even go online (what could be better...)
SOA is the best thing since their last upgrade since it would invent a new way of utilising their "services"
SOA would be renew their life since it would package their existing functionalities in a new manner
All those mundane tasks would now be a part of an exciting service menu (ok, this statement doesn't mean much, but still..)
If the system were in fact an ERP instead of a legacy application it would again look at SOA with hostility. "What does SOA have that I don't" would be what most ERPs ask. An ERP has a reason to get excited since:
The SOA would allow it to network with the older applications, increased benefits from the older, more customized apps.
More of the ERP's functions are now being put to use, its no longer a huge white elephant since the SOA puts them up on its menu.
data from the legacy systems flows freely into the veins of the ERP (a utopian state?? I'm not to sure about it, still....)
The ERP's complex menus and "T-codes" are enhanced by the fresh web interfaces.
It can work peacefully in the background sure of the fact that the SOA would ensure that users get what they need
User's reactions:
From my interactions with many users of information services, there are broadly the following categories of users.
Non technical users who do not care about the system as long as it does their mundane tasks (read technophobic) - Such persons would most probably initially resist the system, however as soon they get around to understanding a bit more of the new system, they would appreciate the fact that work has in fact become easier.
Non technical users who understand technology to the extent to which it is required - would appreciate right from day 1 as to how easy work has become, chose an option from the menu and you are ready to go. They would be delighted to see that data from their legacy systems and other systems flows freely without boundaries and SOA delivers it to their desktop.
Technical users would be in fact be updated regarding what SOA is all about and their interaction with the consultants implementing SOA would ensure that they are delighted about the change.

How to make nonsensical statements

2008-02-01T21:42:00.000+05:30

"Life is such an empty piece of facts and happenings when there is no care and love involved"

- (insert some great name here, but the statement is mine which isn't too bad for a starter)

Now thats quite a revolutionary and bold statement. A statement much ahead of its times. An empty piece refers to the aspect that there it is not quite the complete picture and that there could be more to it than actually meets the eye (i.e. this statement)

The words "facts and happenings" provide a sense of boredom to the statement at same time serve the purpose of stressing on the issue that life could be viewed as a statement of truth and significant events during a specific timeline (which as we observed earlier, is only a portion of the entire aspect which does not meet the eye).

The words "happenings" also enables the reader to understand that each event of life in itself does not render completeness and it requires a multitude of situations and circumstances which would make it even remotely capable of being qualified to be called a slice of life.

The last leg of the journey which the statement seeks to lead us constitutes of enlighten us of the effects of the absence of the emotive aspects of care and love involved. We cannot even attempt to fathom the impacts on life when such aspects of life are lost since we are very much used to taking these for granted. The word care not only appears in the statement to compliment the component of love but also to enable the person to truly appreciate that love should be expressed in the words of care.

Now that you have read the nonsense about a statement which I wrote. I really think everyone can appreciate how I have tried to bring out the essence in which management books, great orators, boring teachers and others attempt to fool the masses. They merely beat around the bush with a single statement and helps them out since they are not at all required to tax their intelligence for actually radical statements for which otherwise they may have to answer for. The inspiration for this is purely attributable to the various abstract management concepts, presentations and speakers I've heard over the years.

Coming back to the where we left off yesterday, its not really that I have changed or anything around has changed; Just got myself an "attitude transplant" as calvin would say...And somehow my mind hasn't rejected it yet...I do not know when that would happen, but anyway let me enjoy it when it lasts. I have got a team building session tomorrow and nothing much happened today...

Life at infy 03

2008-01-27T21:28:00.002+05:30

Today was pretty idle a day @ infosys. Being a sunday, you cannot even guess how boring it gets here. Its almost like a city under curfew with very few people around here. I spent the afternoon watching wild wild west on cable tv, I tried watching "Namaste London" but I guess it was too boring for me to stand it...spent the evening talking to Guru and going to the food court and having my dinner. So here I am listening to Keh do tumhe remix and writing this blog. I guess if I was just having teething problems settling down at the hostel. Today I went out and got milk so I could make real good coffee not just the limp one I could earlier make with the skimmed milk powder which is provided by the hostel. You could think its too insignificant an issue to write a paragraph about. But its because of 2 reasons that I do so.

I don't have much to blog about today.
I am dependent (read addicted) to good coffee.