Computer Geek

Secondary Namenode - What it really do?

2012-06-21T03:03:00.000-07:00

Secondary Namenode is one of the poorly named component in Hadoop. By its name, it gives a sense that its a backup for the Namenode.But in reality its not. Lot of beginners in Hadoop get confused about what exactly SecondaryNamenode does and why its present in HDFS.So in this blog post I try to explain the role of secondary namenode in HDFS.

By its name, you may assume that it has something to do with Namenode and you are right. So before we dig into Secondary Namenode lets see what exactly Namenode does.

Namenode

Namenode holds the meta data for the HDFS like Namespace information, block information etc. When in use, all this information is stored in main memory. But these information also stored in disk for persistence storage.

The above image shows how Name Node stores information in disk. Two different files are

fsimage - Its the snapshot of the filesystem when namenode started
Edit logs - Its the sequence of changes made to the filesystem after namenode started

Only in the restart of namenode , edit logs are applied to fsimage to get the latest snapshot of the file system. But namenode restart are rare in production clusters which means edit logs can grow very large for the clusters where namenode runs for a long period of time. The following issues we will encounter in this situation

Editlog become very large , which will be challenging to manage it

Namenode restart takes long time because lot of changes has to be merged

In the case of crash, we will lost huge amount of metadata since fsimage is very old

So to overcome this issues we need a mechanism which will help us reduce the edit log size which is manageable and have up to date fsimage ,so that load on namenode reduces . It's very similar to Windows Restore point, which will allow us to take snapshot of the OS so that if something goes wrong , we can fallback to the last restore point.

So now we understood NameNode functionality and challenges to keep the meta data up to date.So what is this all have to with Seconadary Namenode?

Secondary Namenode

Secondary Namenode helps to overcome the above issues by taking over responsibility of merging editlogs with fsimage from the namenode.

The above figure shows the working of Secondary Namenode

It gets the edit logs from the namenode in regular intervals and applies to fsimage

Once it has new fsimage, it copies back to namenode

Namenode will use this fsimage for the next restart,which will reduce the startup time

Secondary Namenode whole purpose is to have a checkpoint in HDFS. Its just a helper node for namenode.That’s why it also known as checkpoint node inside the community.

So we now understood all Secondary Namenode does puts a checkpoint in filesystem which will help Namenode to function better. Its not the replacement or backup for the Namenode. So from now on make a habit of calling it as a checkpoint node.

Say Hello To "Android" !! Part- I [Introduction To Android]

2012-01-06T09:43:00.000-08:00

    Its an era of mobile, tablets and a very exciting time for developers!! Mobile phones have never been more popular and powerful. Smart Phones have become very stylish, versatile packing hardware features like GPS, accelerometers, etc. are an enticing platform which kindles the developers to create some innovative mobile applications.

    With the existing mobile development built on proprietary operating systems that restrict third-party applications, Android offers an open and the best alternative. Without artificial barriers, Android developers are free to write applications that take full advantage of increasingly powerful mobile hardware. As a result, developer interest in Android devices has made their 2008 release a hugely anticipated mobile technology event.

    The open philosophy of android is most welcomed by majority of the developers as it features very powerful SDK libraries. Experienced mobile developers can now tinker with android and explore the platform, leveraging the unique features to enhance existing products or create more innovative ones.

ANDROID
    Its an open source software stack that includes
• Operating System
• Middle ware
• Key Applications + set of API Libraries
which changes the look, feel and function of the mobile.

    In Android, native and third-party applications are written using the same APIs and executed on the same run time. These APIs feature hardware access, location-based services, support for background services, map-based activities, relational databases, inter-device peer-to-peer messaging and 2D and 3D graphics.

Just A Flashback ...

    Historically, the developers had to code in low level C or C++ and had to learn the specific hardware feature upon which they were coding. But, as the hardware features enhanced this became more cumbersome. More recently, Symbian was far successful in giving a room for the developers to better leverage the hardware available. However, it required writing complex C/C++ code and making heavy use of proprietary APIs that are notoriously difficult to use. This difficulty was amplified when developing applications that must work on different hardware implementations and particularly true when developing for a particular hardware feature like GPS.

    Then came the Java hosted MIDIlets that are executed on the same JVM, abstracting the underlying hardware and letting the developers create apps that run on wide variety of hardware that supports Java run time.

    So our Andy is here... :) Ouch! forgot about Apple's iPhone, Windows mobiles ?? ;) No offence!
    They provide richer UI, UX and simplified development environment! "BUT" they’re built on proprietary operating systems that often prioritize native applications over those created by third parties and restrict communication among applications and native phone data.

    Third-party and native Android applications are written using the same APIs and are executed on the same run time. Users can remove and replace any native application with a third-party developer alternative; even the dialer and home screens can be replaced...{ Wanna Try ?? :p }

    Google describes Android as:
"The first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices, all of the software to run a mobile phone but without the proprietary obstacles that have hindered mobile innovation."
          http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/wheres-my-gphone.html   :)

    The FLASHBACK is incomplete...... without the introduction of OHA { Oh Haa ?? ;) }

OHA: Open Handset Alliance comprises of
• Developers
• Hardware Manufacturers
• Mobile Carriers

The tech companies involved prominently are Motorola, HTC, T-Mobile, Qualcomm and their words:
"A commitment to openness, a shared vision for the future, and concrete plans to make the vision a reality. To accelerate innovation in mobile and offer consumers a richer, less expensive, and better
mobile experience."
                http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/oha_faq.html :)

        Android offers an excellent enterprise platform, has targeted developers making their lives far simple with Google and the OHA betting that the way to deliver
better mobile software to consumers is by making it easier for developers to write it themselves. This openness and power ensure that anyone with the inclination can bring a vision to life at minimal cost.

       Use Open source softwares, share them and give back something better to the community..... !! :)

       Next post...
• Merits of android
• unboxing SDK features, Software stack and lots more ..... :)

      Well, http://developer.android.com is a great reference site!

                                              Happy Learning! :)

Getting Started With ANTLR:Basics

2011-09-25T10:17:00.000-07:00

Yeah! It's after a lapse of a month or so that there is a post in this blog! :)
Well, this post drives you towards the basics of ANTLR. Previously, we had learnt about setting up of ANTLR as an external tool.

RECAP! It's here:
antlr-external tool:)
So, here we go....

What is ANTLR?
• ANother Tool for Language Recognition, is a language tool that provides a framework for constructing recognizers, interpreters, compilers, and translators from grammatical descriptions containing actions.

What can be the target languages?
• Ada
• Action Script
• C
• C#; C#2
• C#3
• D
• Emacs ELisp
• Objective C
• Java
• Java Script
• Python
• Ruby
• Perl6
• Perl
• PHP
• Oberon
• Scala

What does ANTLR support?
• Tree construction
• Error recovery
• Error handling
• Tree walking
• Translation

What environment does it support?
ANTLRWorks is the IDE for ANTLR. It is the graphical grammar editor and debugger, written by Jean Bovet using Swing.

What for ANTLR can be used?
• ""REAL"" programming languages
• domain-specific languages [DSL]

Who is using ANTLR?
• Programming languages :Boo, Groovy, Mantra, Nemerle, XRuby etc.
• Other Tools: HIbernate, Intellij IDEA, Jazillian, JBoss Rules, Keynote(Apple), WebLogic(Oracle) etc.

Where is that you can look for ANTLR?
You can always follow here http://www.antlr.org
• to download ANTLR and ANTLRWorks, which are free and open source
• docs,articles,wiki,mailing list,examples.... You can catch everything here!

Row your Boat....

Basic terms

• Lexer : converts a stream of characters to a stream of tokens.
• Parser : processes of tokens, possibly creating AST
• Abstract Syntax Tree(AST): an intermediate tree representation of the parsed input that is simpler to process than the stream of tokens. It can as well be processed multiple times.
• Tree Parser: It processes an AST
• String Template: a library that supports using templates with placeholders for outputting text

General Steps

• Write Grammar in one or more files
• Write string templates[optional]
• Debug your grammar with ANTLRWorks
• Generate classes from grammar
• Write an application that uses generated classes
• Feed the application text that conforms to the grammar

A Bit Further....

Lets write a simple grammar which consists of
• Lexer
• Parser

Lexer: Breaks the input stream into tokens

Lets take the example of simple declaration type in C of the form "int a,b;" or "int a;" and same with float.

As we see we can write lexer as follows:

//TestLexer.g

grammar TestLexer;

ID : ('a'..'z'|'A'..'Z'|'_') ('a'..'z'|'A'..'Z'|'0'..'9'|'_'|'.'|'a'..'z'|'A'..'Z')*;

COMMA: ',';

SEMICOLON:';';

DATATYPE: 'int' | 'float';

As we could see, these were the characters that were to be converted to tokens.

So, now lets write some rules which processes these tokens generated and may it create a parse tree accordingly.

//TestParser.g

grammar TestParser;

options {

language : Java;

}

decl:DATATYPE ID (',' ID)* ;

Running ANTLR on the grammar just generates the lexer and parser,TestParser and TestLexer. To actually try the grammar on some input, we
need a test rig with a main( ) method as follows:

// Test.java

import org.antlr.runtime.*;
public class Test {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
// Create an input character stream from standard in
ANTLRFileStream input = new ANTLRFileStream("input"); // give path to the file input
// Create an ExprLexer that feeds from that stream

TestLexer lexer = new TestLexer(input);
// Create a stream of tokens fed by the lexer
CommonTokenStream tokens = new CommonTokenStream(lexer);
// Create a parser that feeds off the token stream
TestParser parser = new TestParser(tokens);
// Begin parsing at rule decl
parser.decl();
}
}

We shall see how to create an AST and walk over the tree in the next blog post...

Happy learning....! :)

Hadoop workshop : First success story

2011-08-23T07:12:00.000-07:00

We completed our first hadoop workshop on 20th August with great success . This post summarizes some of the insights and feedback we got from the event.

People love to learn a new hot technology in market. So many people are interested to learn Hadoop but they just did not have the right place to start. I think our workshop gave them the right platform to kick start in hadoop. We sold all our 17 tickets to the event within few days. So we even sold out next workshop tickets and the third workshop tickets are already selling . Yeah! its on fire.. We are doing small workshops to get the feedback and improve the overall experience.

Out of 17 , twelve people attended the workshop. Participants thoroughly enjoyed the interactive sessions and expressed that the hands on were great . The hands on went as planned which gave the participants an insight to hadoop and map/reduce .Putting in their own words,the following is what the people expressed....

“Great work by small company having effective people...Impressed! I want to have the same training once again” -Vijesh
“Good and Interactive sessions delivered.Nice job by Madhu and company” -Devang Gandhi
"Hands-on trainings were good" -Uma Mahewari
"Content delivery was very good" -Puneetha

With this kind of positive response we are charged to host more workshops. We sold out few tickets for students which is a student centric workshop on 27th Aug . People already signing up for our third workshop . So if you are interested you can register here http://hadoopworkshopsept.eventbrite.com/ asap , since we are sure that we are going to sell out that soon.

We are also launching advanced trainings particularly for the workshop attendees which gives opportunities them to go deep into Hadoop and start their carrier as a Hadoop developer .If you know hadoop and if you want to know more this will be a great opportunity.

So overall it was a great experience and it gave the feeling that we are in a right path.
If you are interested in Hadoop and its ecosystem meet us at any of the above events. We can assure you that it would be a great experience for you.

Using ANTLR with maven

2011-08-05T07:02:00.000-07:00

As a part of Nectar, we are trying to build a custom language using ANTLR. Since our project uses maven during the build time, we have to integrate ANTLR with maven. Though ANTLR provides maven plug-in, its little tricky to use. So, in this post I am explaining the steps to integrate ANTLR with maven using ANTLR3 maven plug in.

Step 1 : You have to put all your grammar files , aka .g files in the default directory required by the plugin. Custom placing will not work because of some bug in the plugin. Hence, place the .g file in the following manner:

src/main/antlr3/<required-package>/.g

So the <required-package> is the package you specified in the .g file.

Step 2 : Add the plug-in to the pom as follows:
<plugin>
<groupId>org.antlr</groupId>
<artifactId>antlr3-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>3.1.3-1</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<configuration>
<outputDirectory>src/main/java</outputDirectory>
</configuration>
<goals>
<goal>antlr</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>

We added a configuration which generates the lexer and parser files in the src directory rather than the default generated source in target.

For more information about the plug-in, refer here

Step 3: Just run the pom and your .g will be compiled successfully.

One day Hadoop Workshop in Bangalore

2011-08-02T04:53:00.000-07:00

After releasing Nectar, our open source analytics framework, we got a positive feedback and many of them wanted to know more about how we use hadoop in our company and get started with the hadoop development. So, we thought that a workshop on Hadoop would be great idea.

Thus, we have arranged a workshop about Hadoop on 20th August ,2011 held at Bangalore. In the workshop, we have scheduled events as how we are using hadoop to build our own analytics products and about Nectar.We are also going to talk about how you can use Hadoop in your organization. We will be having hands on experience for the attendees in the labs to setup the hadoop cluster,running map/reduce jobs etc.For more details about the event , refer this page.

Hadoop and small things

As you know Hadoop always wants to play with Big Data . It doesn’t like small files. Initially, we thought we are going to have workshop for 10 people and the tickets were made free. But within 12 hours, all the tickets were sold out !!! Now, we have a workshop for 30 people, by adding 20 more paid tickets.On a lighter side, we learnt that we cannot do small things with Hadoop! ;)

So, if you are interested in Hadoop event and want to know more about it, then do come and join us in the workshop. You can register here.

ANTLR as an external tool in eclipse on ubuntu

2011-08-01T09:06:00.000-07:00

This tutorial tells how to setup the ANTLR in your eclipse.
STEP 1:
Download the jar file antlrworks-1.4.2.jar from http://www.antlr.org/download.
Further details about ANTLRWorks: The ANTLR GUI Development Environment, follow the link : http://www.antlr.org/works/index.html
STEP 2:
Create a java project in eclipse as follows:
File->New->Project
Select Java and Java project.
Click on Next.
Name the project as "TestANTLR"
Press Finish.
Add the antlrworks-1.4.2.jar to the project classpath.
Right click on "TestANTLR" project .
Select Properties->Libraries.
Click on "Add External jar"
Select the complete path of the "antlrworks-1.4.2.jar" and press Ok.
STEP 3: make it as an external tool
Goto Run->External Tools->Configure
Click on New.
Name: ANTLR Compiler
Tool Location: /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.26/bin/java
// this must be the complete path to your java
Tool Arguments: -classpath complete_path_to_antlrworks-1.4.2.jar org.antlr.Tool ${resource_name}
Working Directory: ${container_loc}
Here, org.antlr.Tool is the main class which would take the ${resource_name} for processing.
${resource_name} and ${container_loc} can be selected with "Browse Variables" option too.
Going ahead :
*Creating a grammar file
Create a grammar file with .g extension. Say, Example.g
//sample code
grammar Example;
start : 'hello' ID ';' {System.out.println("hiii... "+$ID.text);} ;
ID: 'a'..'z' + ;
WS: (' ' |'\n' |'\r' )+
{$channel=HIDDEN;}
*Running the above code:
Run->External Tools->ANTLR Compiler
Press F5 or right click on the project and "refresh"
all you can see is a lexer and parser files generated with the tokens.
In our example,
ExampleLexer.java , ExampleParser.java and Example.tokens
Create Main.java program in the same project with the following code:
import org.antlr.runtime.*;
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
// create a CharStream that reads from standard input
ANTLRInputStream input = new ANTLRInputStream(System.in);
// create a lexer that feeds off of input CharStream
ExampleLexer lexer = new ExampleLexer(input);
// create a buffer of tokens pulled from the lexer
CommonTokenStream tokens = new CommonTokenStream(lexer);
// create a parser that feeds off the tokens buffer
ExampleParser parser = new ExampleParser(tokens);
// begin parsing at rule start
parser.start();
}
}
Set the arguments in the Run configurations and click on Apply and Run.
Now you have the output at console.
:)

Nectar : Developing an open source predictive modeling framework on Hadoop

2011-07-24T06:47:00.000-07:00

I am very happy to tell you that we have finally released the first version of Nectar,the first open source predictive modeling framework on Apache Hadoop. Being a part of the development team Nectar, I want to share some of the insights of the framework and Apache Hadoop in general.

Apache Hadoop : LAMP of new era
Back in 1990’s, LAMP (Linux,Apache,MySql,Perl/PHP) stack enabled many start ups to build innovative products. Some of them became big companies like Google,Twitter,Facebook etc., which redefined the whole Web. With the practice of open source, these companies have emerged a great way.

Now, in the scenario of solving Big Data problems, Apache Hadoop, finds the best fit. It gives a powerful stack to build powerful applications. Its vibrant community and Apache licence makes it very attractive for start ups to use as its base .Some of the companies like cloud era,Karma sphere are trying to build the innovative products on Hadoop.

Nectar : Predictive Modeling meets Apache Hadoop
Here in Zinnia Systems we see Apache Hadoop one of the most powerful stack. But with power, complexity creeps in. Though Hadoop is powerful in nature its complex to use. This is because, it must be thought in terms of Map/Reduce . So we thought, we can develop a framework which helps to abstract the map/reduce and just focus on the application. Thus we developed nectar, which provides the basic modeling algorithm like regression as simple as a java API .

We have open sourced the framework and we believe, open source is the best model to promote,encourage and envision the innovation. So, if you are interested about Hadoop and want to play with modeling problems, then have a look at our framework.

All the details about the project is made available in following links.

Info Page : http://zinniasystems.com/zinnia.jsp?lookupPage=blogs/nectar.jsp

Github Page : https://github.com/zinnia-phatak-dev/Nectar

Google Group : http://groups.google.com/group/nectar-user-group

Please checkout the code and feel free to comment or suggest us.

Google Plus : After One Week

2011-07-06T09:29:00.000-07:00

Last week Google released a new service called Google plus which integrates social,group messaging functionalities into one single service . Its Google’s yet another try in social space where they failed miserably with Buzz (anyone remembers? ) and more ambitious Google Wave. Google plus is through invite only, which means you will be not able to directly sign up for the service . It is similar to the invite only model of Gmail when it launched in 2004.

I was lucky enough to get an invite on second day after release and i m playing with it for a week now . This post is all about how i feel about the overall experience and what may be coming next.
Though one week is not enough to declare any service success or failure,first impression always matters .

So what I like about Google plus?

1. Invitation only model is a killer marketing strategy
When google launched Gmail 7 years ago , people were crazy to get an invitation from peers .In every blog,every forum people were requesting for the invitation. Same happening with Google plus. Its natural tendency of people to get attracted which is open only to few people. Its now becoming like status like saying “ Hey I have G+ account” .Even some of the people are selling invites on eBay for 0.99$ !!!.

So making Google plus invitation only Google made sure that people will get excited about new service and it also given them chance to get lot of feedback about the product before opening the product into public.It worked in case of GMail and now its working with Google plus too.

2.A Fresh start for social strategy
From day one Google made clear that Google plus is new service without any dependency on other Google services. Though it beautifully integrates all Google services it lives in its own sandbox. The biggest problem with Buzz was it totally slowed down the GMail and for extent it was a distraction.So lot of people just disabled Buzz from GMail. But in the case of Google plus , there is no distraction in other google services.

3.Ubiquitous notification bar
From the launch of Google Plus , all google properties like Google.com,GMail are showing a black notification bar where u get the new notification from Google plus. Its is one of the killer feature of Google plus. In case of other Social networks like Face Book you have to be in the site to know that someone shared something with you. But Google plus notification bars makes is very easy to move between other google services without worrying about missing the notifications. Though now this notification bar is only shown in Google properties I am sure that there will be chrome,FireFox extensions to put the bar above all websites. May be its going to be inter grated into next versions of Chrome. So Google Plus brings ubiquitous notification system of Android to the web.Notification bar not only shows you the notifications it also allows you to comment right away which a is very nice and notable feature.

4.Mobile from Day one
Google released Google plus Android app on the day of launch.If you ever used Facebook Android app you know it sucks. Its like less powerful version of mobile web app. But Google plus Android app is slick and full functional one like the web counter part. Instant upload feature, which enables you to upload the photos taken on mobile automatically to the Google plus,shows how the application is specifically built for mobile use cases.Even group chatting feature,called as Huddle,which is unique to Android app makes group chatting a joy. So Google plus is solid to use on the Mobile too.

5. Circles and a holistic approach to UI/UX design
Circles is one biggest feature of Google plus which makes it real Social network. The UI is fantastic. Its no more boring and painful to create groups. Its fun,intuitive and more importantly fully integrated in the service.Google plus encourages you to share only with few people you care rather than share with all nature of Facebook.

Over all user interface and user experience(UX) rocks in Google plus . Right from creating circles, editing profile,uploading pics and changing profile pic is so fun that it encourages you to play with service rather than getting bored.It also shows how much advancement happened in web technologies which enabling to built joyful ,powerful user interfaces on web . Thank you HTML5.

6 . Simple , straight forward privacy
Privacy in Facebook is chaotic. There are so many menus and options it becomes so hard to say who sees your posts. But with Google plus the things are simple . You can tune each part of profile like contact no.,places etc. to your own wish and profile editing experience is very nice . No more boring check boxes and no more submit buttons.Google plus even gives you ability to see how your profile is seen by other people which is similar to twitter and orkut.

So now the time to say what I miss in Google plus

1.Why no Hangout in mobile and Huddle in web
Hangout feature in Google plus available only in Web counterpart . Hangouts allows video chat with 10 people at a time.I want it in mobile too. Now, front camera so common in mobile phones (I own Nexus S, which has a front cam) it would have been great to chat right from mobile in hangouts and again it uses Google chat infrastructure and already GChat application supports video chat on Android .It was disappoint to see hangout not available in Android app.

Same holds good with huddle. It would have been great to chat with group from web interface which makes sense since all other group messaging services are allowing you to chat right from web.

I just hope these feature becomes ubiquitous so that we can switch between the interfaces.

2. No straight forward way to migrate from orkut to Google plus
Orkut is yet another Social network developed by Google few years back. Thought it dint get universal appeal , there are millions people using it especially in Brazil and India. As of now , there is no way to export all the info , photos from orkut to Google plus. If google makes it easy to migrate people and their information from orkut it gives a huge user base to Google plus which is big boost for the service and also Google doesn’t want to maintain lot of social networks .So they should make it very easy to migrate from Orkut to Google plus.

3. I don't need sparks . I want my Google Reader.
Google plus has a feature called sparks which makes content discovery easier. But as of now the content discovery is so poor that its not worth using. So i need Google reader kind of functionality which pulls me the right content . So rather than specifying feeds like in Reader , i just want to specify the topics and i want Google plus to pull content from different sources even from my own Reader .So if they integrate Reader itself into Google plus it would be great.

So these are the things what i felt after using the service for one week . I am also want to try to answer the some of questions i come across when I speak about Google plus. So some of them are below

1. Is Google plus is a Facebook Killer ? ( its another way of asking do I have to jump from Facebook to Google plus)
I don't think Google plus as a Facebook killer. Though it directly competes with Facebook , it not going to beat Facebook at-least for few years. But one thing is clear that Google plus brings very interesting concept to Social networks like circles which may force other social networks to innovate . I think Google plus is similar to Google chrome . Having bigger market share was never the focus with Chrome. It was just to push the browser technology forward. So i think Google plus going to push other social networks to innovate.

2.Is Google plus going to be killed similar to Wave and sooner like Buzz?
Discontinuing Google wave gave a negative image to Google , people just fear that any new Social attempt by Google might fail. But in the case of Wave, even Google was not sure where its going to be used.Thought it was great technology there was no clear use case for it. But unlike Wave, Google plus has a clear use case which is making online sharing simple . So its just not about technology but it also about what problem exactly its trying to solve . So I think Google plus is going to stay on the horizon unlike Wave.

Conclusion

So Google plus is new fresh look of the Social networking. Its fun to share with friends by its stellar user interface and so easy to understand concepts. So i think It has a bright future
So why you are waiting?? Just request for an invite in comments and then start exploring Google plus. :)

Exploring Art with Chrome Store

2011-06-23T00:21:00.000-07:00

Chrome Web Store came a long way from its initial conception. Now it hosts thousands of webapps which covers different areas like education, entertainment, family, games etc. It’s very easy to discover and install apps which can sync to all chrome instances running in different machines.

Being an artist in heart, I started to explore different drawing apps in the store. In this post I would like to introduce you to three different apps and my experience with them.

1. deviantART muro

Well, deviantART muro is really a cool App. There are just 4 modes.Draw, Eraser, Flood Fill and Eye Dropper. In these 4 basic modes, we can use some good number of tools, like weblink,basic,nightmare

smoke,drippy,sketch etc.Good gradient of colors are available and one can make good strokes like curves, free hand, using the “smoke” option. I really enjoyed it. I have few sample works of the same.

Filters are also great like blur, sharpen, glowing edges etc. these are amazing. You can submit your art work to deviantART muro and for that you have to be a registered user. You can’t save your work either unless you are registered with them. Well, you can take a screenshot! ;)

2. Aviary

Aviary is a nice App. The liquify tool is really awesome. It’s a nice way to portray abstract art. Shape brush tool is also notable feature with varied shapes like flowers, spray, hair line, leaf etc. The art work can be submitted as your creation by signing up with the aviary, where you get a lot more privilege to work with your art by sharing it with world wide artists. You can even take the derivative of other artists work on it and publish too. For a young, budding talent, this is a nice place to be at!

3.SketchPad

Sketchpad is yet another awesome App. Not tried much as I have done with deviantART muro. But, one must agree that the user interface is really awesome

For those who really can’t go with Adobe CS5 or any other drawing Applications which is unsatisfactory can try these Apps and enjoy to the core in their imaginary world! So, Happy drawing! :)

Apache Tuscany : Part 2 -Hello World using Eclipse and Maven

2011-06-22T07:05:00.000-07:00

This is the second article in series “ Apache Tuscany” which introduces you to the open source SCA framework Apache tuscany. This post talks about hello world with Apache Tuscany.

Prerequisites

1. Eclipse 3.4 or above

2. Maven Eclipse Plug in

3. Apache tuscany Eclipse plugin

4. Java 1.6

Installing Tuscany distribution

1.Download Apache tuscany 2.0-M5 from the following link

http ://tuscany .apache .org /sca -java -2 x -releases .html

2. Untar(zip) the downloaded tuscany distribution to a directory location. We will refer this location as TUSCANY_HOME

Creating a Maven Project in Eclipse

Step 1 : Goto File->New->Other

Select Maven project and press Next

Step2 : Just keep default setttings and press Next

Step 3: tuscany-contribution-jar as Artifact and press Next

Enter following details

Group id : com.demo

Artifact Id : sca

Package : com.demo.sca

Press Finish . Now you can see a maven project in your eclipse workspace

Source Code

1. Interface

The project creates a interface called as HelloWorldService . This interface is just a java interface having @Remotable annotation. This annotation is used to make interface a remotable interface .

2. Implementation Class

HelloWorldImpl class implements the remotable interface . It uses @Scope(“COMPOSITE”) which says this class (or component) will act as the composite service provider.

3. Composite File

In resource folder , a HelloWorld.composite file will be created. This file will define the configuration for the compositions. Replace the code in HelloWorld.composite by below code.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<composite xmlns="http://docs.oasis-open.org/ns/opencsa/sca/200912"

xmlns:tuscany="http://tuscany.apache.org/xmlns/sca/1.1"

targetNamespace="http://com.demo.sca"

name="hello-sca2">

<component name="HelloworldComponent">

<implementation.java class="com.demo.sca.HelloworldImpl"/>

<service name="HelloworldService">

<interface.java interface="com.demo.sca.HelloworldService" />

<binding.ws uri="http://localhost:8080/HelloWorld" />

</service>

</component>

</composite>

This creates a Web service at URL http ://localhost :8080/HelloWorld.

Note that the service name should be as same as the Interface Name

Contribution file

In META-INF , there is a file filed name sca-contribution.xml .It used to specify which component will be used as launching component. Replace the code by below code

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<contribution xmlns="http://docs.oasis-open.org/ns/opencsa/sca/200912"

xmlns:sample="http://com.demo.sca">

<deployable composite="sample:hello-sca2"/>

</contribution>

Building the project

Right click on the project and select Run as >Maven Install . It will create a jar file containing the classes of the project.

Running the project

In this example , we will run the project outside of eclipse . Copy the helloworld.jar to $TUSCANY_HOME/bin

Then goto console

In windows

C:> cd $TUSCANY_HOME /bin(replace by actual path)

C:> ./tuscany.bat helloworld.jar

In linux

$ cd $TUSCANY_HOME/bin ( (replace by actual path)

$./tuscany.sh helloworld.jar

If there are no errors, tuscany will create a web service at http ://localhost :8080/HelloWorld

Apache Tuscany : Part 1 - Installing Tuscany Plug in in eclipse

2011-06-18T08:54:00.000-07:00

Apache Tuscany is an open source implementation of Service Component Architecture (SCA).This series of posts discuss how to use tuscany in your projects. This tutorial explains how to install and configure tuscany in eclipse(3.4 and above).

Step 1 : Launch Install New Software (3.5) or Find new software (3.4) from Help.
In Eclipse 3.5:Help-->Install New Software

In Eclipse 3.4:Help-->Software Updates -->Available Software

Step 2 : Add the following site http://www.apache.org/dist/tuscany/java/sca/1.5.1/tuscany-sca-1.5.1-updatesite/
Give some time till eclipse will fetch necessary dependencies

Step 3 : Once fetching is complete , select Apache tuscany core feature

Step 4: Eclipse requires old update manager to install the plug in

Allow eclipse to use old update manager . Click on launch

Step 5 : Now you got old update manager . Select “Search for new feature to install” and press next.

Step 6 : Click on New Remote Site and enter the above url in the URL field and give name as tuscany

Step 7 : Press OK

Step 8 : Update manager searches in the url and gives the below screen

Select tuscany and press Next . Accept the licence and hit Next and then finish. There will be a window showing some error . Don't bother about it.Just close that window. In progress view , you can see the progress of installation.In slow connection , eclipse shows some exception in getting jar and asks for retry. Just click yes , whenever exception arises.

Step 9 : Once download is complete , it will ask for installing the download . Just select “Install all”

Step 10: Once the installation is complete , just restart the eclipse . You are set to go with the Apache tuscany.

Web forms: Do it right, A DZone Story

2011-06-17T01:38:00.000-07:00

Web is full of forms. Every day when you browse the web, you come across a lot of forms. May be to register to a new site or to write a comment on a blog which you liked. Over the years, building forms has turned an art, where designers put a lot of effort to make forms less boring and more intuitive and interactive to the users. But most of the time you will come across some of designs which drives you crazy .I came across one of those recently and this post is about it.

DZone is well known place to get great articles regarding technology. I am a regular user of DZone from a long time and I have never shared any links using it. But after revamping this blog, I thought let me share it on DZone. When I tried to add a new link, it took me to registration page, which is a standard form to signup. Everything looked normal until I hit with strange problem. Every time, I tried to signup, it failed with an error saying “First address is not correct “. I just started wondering how the system is evaluating the addresses. Does it have some magical map based address validation tool? The field was not blank. So there is no question of null value. I changed the country and all the other options but it kept on failing with same error. It started to drive me crazy. The error message was not giving any information about what might have gone wrong. After so many tries I thought of giving up. But suddenly everything worked and I was a registered user of Dzone. I thought of doing research on this mystery form. After a little poking in source I came to know that the field was expecting two characters “#” and any number, which is used to tell home number or street number. But how should I know that? May be, the developers who build the page thought that every address will have a number which may not be the case always. There are some addresses in my country that doesn’t have any numbers both for home and streets.

So after going through the crazy form, I thought its time to rephrase the rules to build good forms. So the following simple rules to make sure your form don’t suck.

Don’t make any assumptions. Because your site going to be accessed from different parts of world.
Keep the error message information as informative as possible. Even you can suggest example information to say how the field should be filled.
Use Ajax whenever possible rather than waiting till user to click submit

So when you build your next signup pages, make sure you get it right. Users are becoming smart; they may not have the patience or would have very little interest in wasting time on your forms. So work smart, while building smart forms!

Art … what role do they play in our lives???

2011-06-13T08:27:00.001-07:00

Art is as complex as we are. It is hard for any one of us, artist or not, to understand who we are and what we genuinely do and art, which comes out of this creative chaos, reflects our situation and helps us to recognize its variations, how we connect and disconnect with other people, places and ideas.

For people who don't know what art is about, or for those who see it as belonging to the few, art needs to be relevant to people's daily experience, hopes and aspirations. Then it can begin to inspire people to transform not just themselves but also the world around them.
We all have the perception to play and work with our active and vivid imaginations. Artists help us to connect with ideas of making and destroying so that we may feel more confident about renewal rather than frightened of change.

Art can transform the non-human into the human, the formless into the formed, the everyday into the profound, the passing into the permanent, the gathering into a community, the city into an idea.
Art is where we practice being fully human.Art moves us forward …. So can I see this to be a future?? Integrated with our lives?? With technology?? Hope I’m not wrong…

Google Art Project was one step!!
And I just wish it becomes a cutting edge to the technology we are about to envision…

Book Review: JavaScript Patterns

2011-06-13T04:31:00.000-07:00

JavaScript is becoming a universal, ubiquitous language. Though it was initially designed to make web pages dynamic, it has gone beyond that. It invaded server space by efforts like Node.js. It’s the language to develop cross platform mobile applications. In fact in HP WebOS operating system, JavaScript is used to build native applications too. So when JavaScript is poised for world domination, it becomes very important to develop quality and complex applications using this language. In that journey of developing applications, “JavaScript Patterns” by Stoyan Stefanov, may help you immensely to create and develop new things or to garnish your thinking.

Update : Read it online here

"Why is that you have to read yet another JavaScript book?” Even though we have “JavaScript: The good parts”,which is a concise reference to good practices and also there are number of books for design patterns in store. So where does this book fit in your shelf? The following are few highlights which may set it apart from the rest.

Talks about JavaScript independent of Browser
Patterns, Patterns, Patterns
Good, Bad and ugly

ECMA 5 standard

Development vs. Deployment

It’s a must read JavaScript book for anyone who is developing or who have the plans to develop an application using JavaScript. 240 pages book packs great information and writing style makes you learn a lot about the language as smooth as possible. So give it a shot :) Happy reading... :)

Ubuntu at work part3- Maven ghost

2010-08-31T00:38:00.000-07:00

This Maven ghost is not unique to Ubuntu . He can be seen in windows version of eclipse too.So what does he do? He just makes all maven dependencies disappear from Eclipse !!!. Deadly dangerous right?

After getting back all my plug ins , i was a happy worker. But Eclipse was not happy.So it launched maven ghost against me.One evening i see all the maven dependencies are disappeared from package explorer. The project was building fine which means all dependencies were there.But they just disappeared from the eclipse view.

I restarted Eclipse .No effect. I cleaned it so many times.No effect.I rebooted my system itself . No effect.So started to Googling about it. After one hour of search i found out that two small setting will change everything. I am sharing with you this , may be it will be useful if you come across this ghost.

For every project ,Eclipse maintains a .classpath file. Just add the following line to the .classpath file of the project in which maven dependencies are missing.

classpathentry kind="con" path="org.maven.ide.eclipse.MAVEN2_CLASSPATH_CONTAINER"

This enables the eclipse to show maven dependency folder.

That's not enough. By this setting it only some jars . If you want to see all dependencies
got to .settings folder. Then in org.maven.ide.eclipse.prefs change

includeModules=false

to
includeModules=true

Just restart the Eclipse.

Maven Dependencies are back and ghost is not here. May be he went to your place , just be aware :)
Update : This ghost is unique to Maven plug in 0.10 version. It does not appear in 0.98 version

Ubuntu at work - Part 2 Where are the plugins

2010-08-28T12:29:00.000-07:00

Plug-ins are the most exciting things in Eclipse. They are the one which make Eclipse so exciting as a development tool. Virtually there is an Eclipse plug-in for every java tool out there. Our product also uses a lot of plug-ins. But today I discovered a strange thing in Eclipse. Some of the plug-ins simply disappeared from the IDE window. OMG!!! it took hours to download them and now they are missing and another strange thing is that every time eclipse starts it loads different set of plug ins. This post discuss how to solve this mystery.

Eclipse to Ubuntu : Hey I want to load 2000 plug ins
Ubuntu : No dude ! You can load only 1024 of them.

No.of open files in Ubuntu
If you execute
$ulimit -a you can see the system parameters limiting the resources. In those parameters no.of open files for a given process is defined. In ubuntu its 1024 files by default. But as no.of plug-ins grow in the eclipse, this limit is inadequate. So we have to set this parameter to a higher number. But sadly there is no direct way to do this. So we have to follow the following steps to change the parameters

Step 1: Add “session required pam_limit.so” to /etc/pam.d/common-session
$sudo vi /etc/pam.d/common-session

Step 2 : Un-comment same line in /etc/pam.d/su
$sudo vi /etc/pam.d/su

Step 3 : Add “ * hard nofile 10000” to the /etc/security/limits.conf. Here 10,000 is the limit which we want to set for per process basis. You can choose your own limit.
$sudo vi /etc/security/limits.conf

Step 4 : Reboot your system

Step 5 : Login and in terminal type
$ulimit -n 10000
Now this will set to no.of open files to 10,000.

Hurray!!! Plug ins are back again. Time to work again ...see you

Ubuntu at work - Part1

2010-08-20T22:53:00.000-07:00

I am a happy user of Ubuntu from 2 years. It worked smoothly over 5 upgrades.These years I primarily used ubuntu for the academic and personal uses. But now I am out of college and working for a start up company “Zinnia Systems”. Since I am so used to ubuntu , i din’t wanted to switch to windows at work place . Luckily I am allowed to use ubuntu at work place too .So the in next series posts I will share experience of ubuntu at work

Background
Our company is a telecommunication product company . We use java stack for developing our products. So java employs “Write once, Run anywhere” policy should work on any platform, i am trying to develop the product in ubuntu when all working on the windows systems.

System
My system is dell Vostro with 2GB RAM and 320 GB hard disk . It runs ubuntu karmic kola (9.10) . Though 10.04 is the latest i dint had much time to test it, so i am using 9.10 itself.

Day 1 : Setting up the environment
Any company you work ,first requirement will be learning the working environment . So in this post i talk about how i managed to install the tools for getting started

Installing IBM RTC Express-C eclipse client
Since we use Java for development we use Eclipse for coding which is a favorite of most of java developers.We also use Rational Team Concert for source control , I have to use IBM RTC for development .
So i downloaded the IBM RTC from here ( It’s trickier to find )
https://jazz.net/downloads/rational-team-concert/releases/2.0?p=allDownloads (requires registration)
Just download the Linux version.

Button.......Don't click me!!!!!!

“ With choice comes the responsibility”
Though i download the correct version , the buttons in eclipse dint worked.After a lot of googling, I came to know that It’s a bug in 9.10. So i used to the following shell script to launch the eclipse

#!/bin/sh
export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1
$path to ur downloaded eclipse

This script make sure that correct GDK available to the Eclipse. After configuring this Eclipse is happily responding to the button clicks.

Installing and configuring Maven plug in to the Eclipse
This is one of the most time consuming thing in whole setup . Though maven is small plug in it has too many gotchas with the IBM RTC.

“Update sites don't make life easier “
The m2eclipse repository failed to fetch the plug in for eclipse. After many hours of googling we found that the update site http://m2eclipse.sonatype.org/sites/m2e incompatible with the eclipse 3.4
So if you want maven plug in for Eclipse 3.4 use this repository
http://m2eclipse.sonatype.org/sites/m2e/0.10.0.20100209-0800/
It may save you a day.

“Dependencies hell”
Though I am able to find the correct repository , it always refused to install by saying that it needs a lot of things . I tried to install all those dependencies but it wanted more . Finally i discovered that there is an easy way to do it. Just click on manage sites and check all the sites.Then it automatically downloads the all the required dependencies. Yes it is a long download ..U can take a nap and come back.

So at the end of day , I was able to get the eclipse running and maven was happy to build projects for me.

Its enough for a day.Will be back with another story .Till then happy ubunting :)

If Apple holds the future of Computing ,I dont want to be a developer

2010-04-13T07:01:00.001-07:00

Software development is my childhood dream. I always wanted to be computer engineer and now i am very close to it . Only two months away from my computer degree .

But suddenly a question pop ups in my mind “ Do i really want to be a developer of the future? “ .After seeing current dynamics of industry, my answer seems to be no !!! . Let me explain.

Openness and Choice

The primary things drew me to the software field is its openness and choice. Software industry became very open ,thanks to open source movement and Internet. Its open in terms of code,process,entrepreneurship etc . There are millions of books,sites,blogs to help you in every step of journey . There are many experts to help you when you encounter a problem . We call this expert group as the community.

Software field is an ocean of choices . We have choices in platform , programming languages ,frameworks etc. There no one to force you what to use and how to use .

The openness and choice always results in innovation . If you look at the enterprises like Google , Facebook ,you will know what type of innovation can happen in open world .

Mobile is the Future

Mobile devices are in use over decade. But its potential reveled only after iPhone is released . Mobile is the feature . What we do today in the PC , we will be able to do in mobile devices . Mobile devices doesn't only refers to the smart phones , but they also include netbooks , tablet computers etc . The power of mobile devices growing day by day and its predicted that future generation will doesn't know what a mouse is !!.

Can we expect same openness and Choice in future ?

The openness and choice what we enjoying today is for PCs and web. But is same openness and choice will be there in mobile devices . By seeing current scenario I am afraid it will be not.

Apple is the leader in mobile devices . iPhone was named as Jesus phone and AppStore is De facto standard for mobile applications. They have more than 150,000 applications in the store and its a very large compared to second big store ,Android Market, which has only 30,000 apps.

From the above figures its clear that if you want to be developer for the future , you have to develop for the mobile and that too for iPhone . But do you think it will easy?

Closed platform and Closed minds

Apple is always a closed platform like Windows . But it will create no problem for a developer till they create great applications using the platform . But the iPhone Eco system is closed such that you will start to suffocate in it. The following are the reasons that make you suffocate

1.Develop in their own hardware and OS : To develop for the iPhone you need to own a Mac. Come on man , for developing for a mobile device you have to get a new system altogether? .If you are Mac user then there will be no problem.

2.Closed minds : iPhone SDK policies states that you cannot share what you are making with your fellow. If you do that,then its a offence . What??? is this way you develop applications in the past . We had great communities to help , but now we are helpless.

3.No choice in language and tools : Recent change to iPhone SDK TOS stated that you have to use Apple tools to develop for the iPhone . Which means their own language Objective-C,IDE etc etc. If you are expert in other languages ,you skill sets are waste . You have to learn new language and new tools or stay away.

4.Big boss has to approve your application in order to reach the users : Whenever you developed the apps in the past , there was no one to say “hey let me check the app ,if you cant please me you cant get users” . It was the users who made an app successful or failure . But in the case of iPhone , Apple has to approve the app in order to reach to the user .This means if you are in rival company you cant get your app in Appstore. Google voice is a good example.

Are we going to develop applications like this in feature. Sitting in the dark room, fighting with 80's language and waiting big boss to approve your app. I fear yes.

Still hope is there

Though current scenario looks like hopeless , there is a ray of hope in dark called as Android. An open platform which embraces the openness and choices in the Mobile industry . Though its not market leader , it will be in 2014 as projected by IDC.

I am desperate for Android to win, so that i can pursue my dream . There are millions of developer like me who want the same. If it is not going to happen , i will change my field rather than developing for platform like Apple. Whats your stand??

Array copy hack in C

2010-03-26T09:51:00.000-07:00

Programming is all about hacking . Hacking in good sense means tinkering the code for achieve great things.

So here is a small hack in C using which you can copy one array into another array without using any loops!!!! and obviously without using any in built in functions.

Here is the code

#include

int main()

{

static int i=0; //array index

int a[10]={1,2,3}; //first array

int b[10]; //second array

b[i]=a[i];

printf("\n %d",b[i]);

i++;

if(i>2) exit(0); //continue till first array is empty

main();

}

The hack uses the two simple facts of C

1. A static variable will not be re initialized when a function is called

2. main ( ) is a user defined function

Do you have any better hacks? Let me know!

Mozilla Firefox -”Browser for Human Beings”

2010-02-27T21:54:00.000-08:00

I attended Mozilla DevDay yesterday here in Bangalore.So thought of sharing my experience with you guys.This post does not gives you detail happening of the day's activities...it will be coming soon..If you want know what it was all about check here.

Firstly I have to confess that I am not an ideal Firefox fan. I switched to Google Chrome when it arrived in Linux few months ago and very happy with that. But attending the yesterday's conference changed my view about whole FireFox community and why Firefox is not yet another browser in world. By the way , i am posting this post from Chrome itself :)

Firefox vision of Web as a platform

If you are following the news very closely , your may be heard that word “Cloud computing”. Its says you can do every thing in the browser.Companies like Google,FireFox say that Web is not just document host, but its next generation application platform.But both companies differ in their visions.

Google's vision is very enterprise centric.Its all about blazing fast web applications, fast web browsers and fast Internet connections. But FireFox vision is very user centric. They are more interested to help user to deal with web with little annoyance and with greater security and privacy.

One of the very interesting project in this path is,

Account Manager– A protocol and add-on which enables the user to log-in to any site with very secure manner and that to right from the Browser window. A great step towards avoiding fishing.

It also should be noted though this feature now in the FireFox, it can be easily implemented any other browsers since its open, which means Firefox does not want tie the user to a single browser as other browsers.

Firefox vision of Open Web.

“Web is very healthy and open today....But is it will be same after 100 years?” ,its the question asked by one of the Mozilla Developer.We are all enjoying a nice open web.But recent developments are becoming threat to open web. FireFox wants to our next generation to enjoy the open web which not governed by any corporation or government. Open web means open formats, open source and open standards. One of the most controversial dissuasion in open web is the open format for video codec in HTML5 . Its nice to see FireFox is committed to the open source,royalty free implementation codecs like Ogg thoera.Firefox believes that Web should be available as it to anyone which any control over

Firefox -”Browser for human beings”

Community is what makes FireFox very special. Many millions of users are participating in shaping the Firefox and Mozilla as a whole. It is the key part that is missing in other browsers. Thought Google Chrome is also an open source browser, i never heard or seen a guy saying i am chrome guy , but you can see millions of FireFox guys outside. So FireFox gives a human touch to the browser.

Firefox.next

DevDay gave me a chance to see the what will be available in FireFox 4.0.Not too surprisingly many nice features of Google Chrome will be coming to the FireFox like tabs on top of URL bar, single reload,stop,go button etc.But thankfully FireFox not trying to yet another Chrome. They are also trying many great user interface ideas like Home Tab,Account Manager etc which are unique to Firefox.It also nice to see that many great developer tools like Ruler will find their place in next Firefox version.

Firefox was the first browser to break the IE monopoly over web. It showed how much innovation can be done in browser space. I hope that they continue their good work and make the web a great world to be in.

Next post will be on some of very interesting projects by Firefox that are showcased on DevDay .They are targeted towards the young ,new web developers. So if you are interested stay tuned......

Java- the language of the future

2010-01-09T00:10:00.000-08:00

Java is Dead.It has no feature . Java's future is uncertain in the hands of Oracle.Is this you hear about Java everywhere?Is this discourage you to learn Java?

Then you should read this post to find out why Java still matters and a good language to learn.

Java is the language that first to come up with idea of platform independence. It was important idea since programmers were divided in terms of platforms and porting applications from one platform to another was extremely difficult.Also advancement of Web wanted a cross platform environment to evolve. Java just helped to do it.Starting with applets , the first dynamic content on the web ,Java is a major player in the Web. But as technologies are changing Java is getting diverse application which should we aware of .So in this post we explore the what Java is actually useful for and not useful for too.

The things you should not try with Java.

1.Don't use Java to write Client side programs like Applets.

When Java launched at 1995, it was first used to write the client side web programs are called as Applets. But Java Applets no more an attractive idea. Since Java Script +AJAX doing wonders in client side , it make no sense to wait for JVM to load in order to see the applet running in the browser. Though we cannot do some of the things in Java Script as in applets like drag and dropping files from machine , advance of HTML5 can change that. So as a Java Developer applets doesn't make sense any more.

2. Java for desktop applications has a limited scope.

Yeah there are many desktop applications written in Java(Open office use Java), but they are slow and clumsy when compare to the application written in C/C++. The JVM again plays a major role here.Java desktop applications tends to be memory hungry, which can slow down the whole system . So as a Java developer writing desktop applications is not an attractive option.

Things that you should try with Java

1.Java is perfect language for server side programming

Many argue that PHP better than Java for server side programming. Its true if you are developing the sites for general information or for organising the information .But if you want develop a web application for Web like SaaS , then Java is perfect language for you. Its fully object oriented nature with strong typing gives you the power of building the strong applications.Its nicely integrates with the client side applications like JavaScript .

2.Java is the language for Google Android .

Google android is the mobile operating system Google.Its making waves in the Tech industry and seen as a true competitor iPhone. If you are planning to develop the applications for the Android , then you should know the Java. It is the official language for Android. So it may encourage you to learn the Java since smart phones running Android are growing very rapidly.

3.Java the language for Cloud.

Every cloud application Platform supports Java .Google App Engine ,Amazon EC2,Sun cloud etc are well supports the Java language to develop the high class cloud application that can scale very easily and flexibly.

4.J2ME to develop cross platform applications for Mobiles.

If you are willing to develop a mobile application that should run on the every mobile , the Java is language for you. Except iPhone all the mobile platforms support J2ME so your application can run on any mobile if you develop it using Java.

After saying this all, some will ask what is the future of Java in the hands of the Oracle. We dont know what will be the future but there is nothing to panic. Because Java is open sourced in 2007 , so if the Oracle want to close the source ,Java will evolve through the open source contribution .

So Java is language of past and for the future too. So if you want to learn a new language in this new year, start with Java.Wish you happy Java journey.

Start the Java journey with Sun tutorial

5 Golden Rules of cloud computing

2010-01-04T05:25:00.000-08:00

It is the forth article of ongoing series "Cloud computing-not only for big boys".

After knowing the cloud and its features , we have to be very careful in choosing and using cloud services.

Though price is major deciding factor, we have to take care of other factors too. This article gives you the 5

golden rule of cloud computing that you should follow.

1. Always backup your cloud data

Cloud is not a error-free environment. So when there is an outage in cloud servers , there is always possibility of data loss.Recent Microsoft SideKick incident is one of the ugly incident that made many customers to loose their data permanently.So always backup your data in a safe place like your hard disk , portable hard disk etc

2. Don't store your personal data in cloud

Security one of the major challenge in cloud computing. Research is going on to find a perfect security model for the cloud .But its not yet implemented. So don't store your personal sensitive data

3. Share with Care

When you share the data on cloud you should be very careful .Since though you delete your copy of data it will remain in the cloud since its shared with others. So when you want to share the data be sure about person and content.

4. Spend some time to read privacy policy

In cloud computing paradigm privacy plays a huge role. So when you sign-up for a cloud service please spend time reading the privacy policy of the cloud service providers.Don't blindly press OK for everything.

5.Choose a stronger password

Its a general care that to be taken when you use the web applications. But the need of stronger password is increased with increased use of cloud computing.

An research study says its only takes $45 and some hours to crack a 8 character password. So its good practice to use at least 12 character passwords.

Tell us what you think about these rules?

Promising technologies of 2010

2010-01-03T03:39:00.000-08:00

This decade seen many great technologies.Some stayed and some lost in time. This post will bring you the promising technologies for 2010.

1. Cloud Computing.

Cloud computing is everywhere. Its in business, entertainment,education. Though it is in its infancy state it will be one of most promising technologies of 2010.

2. Mobile Computing (Android and iPhone)

The smart-phones are becoming more and more popular now days . They are replacing bulky desktop computers. They are becoming the integral part of our life. So the two major mobile platforms Android and iPhone will have a great impact on the technology in 2010

3.Social networking

Social networking is in the scene from many years. But from last 2 years it has been a major player on the Web . The services like FaceBook,Twitter,Orkut have millions of users . The trend will be continuing in the next year too.

4. NetBooks.

Sleek and light weight computers won the hearts of millions of users. Netbooks will be a real competitor for the bulky desktop computers.

5. Web Applications.

Its a part of the cloud computing. But it needs a special mention since many desktop counter parts are now replaced by their web applications .Some of the examples are Google Docs, Gmail,Microsoft Office Live etc

Which technology you think will be the trend changed in 2010 ? Share with us.

A Tech Event List for 2010

2009-12-31T05:48:00.001-08:00

Happy new year .2010 will be the very interesting year for the Tech World. There are many major events lined up which have the potential to change the whole industry itself . Stay tuned to these dates so you don't miss any of these.

1. January 5 -Launch of Google Phone (Nexus one)

Google entered the mobile world with their open source OS
Android. Google earlier said that they are not interested in making their
own smart phone . But the time is changed now. It is rumored that Google
is launching their own smart phone with brand new Android 2.1.It will
sold in unlocked version for a price of $599.So stay tuned get the
glimpse of Google Phone aka Nexus one

2. January 12- Stable version of Google Chrome for Linux and Mac.

Google Chrome is the fastest browser on earth. Its still in beta
version for Linux and Mac. But the first stable version of chrome is
releasing on Jan 12 for these platforms . If you are a Linux/Mac user
you probably don't want to miss this.

3. January 26 – Rumoured launch of Apple Tablet

Apple has the habit of redefining the market. It done it in past
with iPod and iPhone. This time they want to do it with latest Apple
Tablet (called as iSlate , iGuide etc..not yet confirmed ).If you like
the gadgets stay tuned to it.

4.March – Google Wave stable version

Google wave is new way of collaborating . Its now used by one million
users through invitations. But in march it may go to stable version
and more and more people will have access to it.If you dint get the
invitation , March will be your month.

5.April – Launch of Ubuntu LTS 10.04

Ubuntu is one of most popular Linux distors.Its releasing its Long
Term Supported version on April 29. Its more interesting release since
9.10 was a major hit. So can ubuntu reach 10 second boot up time?

6. September/October- Launch of Chrome OS netbooks

Chrome OS is a browser based OS which runs Google chrome on Linux
kernel. The first netbooks with Google chrome OS pre-installed will
be shipping from middle of next year. Ready to catch one

It is a very short-list .May be you should add this to your to-do

list or event list so that you don't miss them .Do you have any interesting
event to share? Share with us.