Dreaming of an Ideal World!!!

It was a long journey that took close to 27months from here

to here….

And still, a lot more to do…..

I have been reading Times Life.  The theme for today was sharing. A few of the captions particularly caught my attention as I myself believe in that.  The author was trying to convey the message that not having enough money to donate is not a reason to hold back on sharing.  You get the meaning if you read this comment from “Soul Curry“;

If you make two cups of tea, one for your husband and one for yourself, then you have not made use of God’s gift of life.  Make three cups of tea and vie the third cup to a stranger and your life will be blessed.

I always believed that you get maximum joy when you give something that you enjoy yourself.  Philanthropy should not be to get your photo and name appear on  Page 3.  Acts 20:35 states that

It is more blessed to give than to receive

Also, Bhagavatgeetha says

one should be concentrating on Karma and not on the fruit of karma.

You can see the importance of sharing in many places in the Bible, from old testament to new. (Luke 12:33)

Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.

Though there are different interpretations for the above statements, I believe its about knowing the pain of the poor so that you help them to what ever way you can.

Have a look at the traffic signal, next to your street or the families helping you with various chores at home, you will find a number of ways to help them.

I was attending ACM India Launch at Taj Residency today.   ACM India was formally announced today though ACM India was active for over 3 years now.  The program started with a brief introduction by Dr. Anand Deshpande. Co-Chair, ACM India,
Prof Dame Wendy Hall, FRS. President, ACM  and Dr. John White CEO, ACM.  Dr. Rick Rashid, Sr. VP Microsoft Research presented various activities they do in the research area.  I must say that we all enjoyed the talk by Prof. Barabara Liskov about her work on CLU and Abstract Data Types.  She mentioned a number of papers that I liked particularly.  A few of them are:

• A design methodology for reliable software systems
• Goto statements considered harmful
• Hierarchical program structures
• Protection in programming languages
• Global variables considered harmful

There were a few more.  She also explained liskov substitution principle.  The next talk was by Dr. Raj Reddy.  I liked his knowledge navigator video very much.  After this, Sir Tony Hoare talked about the international verified software initiative.   Today’s programs were concluded with a panel discussion on lack of research initiatives in Indian education institutions. Various reasons and possible remedies were discussed. 

ACM Bangalore chapter is organizing compute-2010 tomorrow and day after.  I’m planning to attend the morning session where they talk about cloud computing.

We just viewed our first Solar Eclipse of the year 2010.  As usual, there were many reports of losing the eye sight if you view the eclipse with a naked eye and ways of viewing the eclipse. I didn’t see much of scientific evidence to the above arguments.  Why would I lose my eyesight?  UV rays and other harmful rays are bounced back by ozone layer always.  So, how can it be any different on an eclipse day?

I always believed that those harmful rays always existed.  Only difference is that, you will never be able to see the Sun directly due to its brightness.  This is possible on an eclipse day.  More over, though the light appears not that intense on an eclipse day, its good enough to harm your cornea.  Note that, Cornea doesn’t have any way to sense pain and you will never see when your rods and cones are getting burnt. 

This report from Nasa supports the above argument.  Here are some excerpts. (Thanks to Girish for pointing out to this report)

The only time that the Sun can be viewed safely with the naked eye is during a total eclipse, when the Moon completely covers the disk of the Sun. It is never safe to look at a partial or annular eclipse, or the partial phases of a total solar eclipse, without the proper equipment and techniques. Even when 99% of the Sun’s surface (the photosphere) is obscured during the partial phases of a solar eclipse, the remaining crescent Sun is still intense enough to cause a retinal burn, even though illumination levels are comparable to twilight [Chou, 1981, 1996; Marsh, 1982]. Failure to use proper observing methods may result in permanent eye damage or severe visual loss. This can have important adverse effects on career choices and earning potential, since it has been shown that most individuals who sustain eclipse-related eye injuries are children and young adults [Penner and McNair, 1966; Chou and Krailo, 1981].

There are other Indian superstitions to spice up an Eclipse.  I’ll leave that for another post.

I have been using Airtel International calling cards for a while.  Rate to US is relatively cheaper compared to the full international calling rates.  Only problem I had was the long dialing procedure which used to take almost a minute to get into a conference call.  I worked around the manual dialing process by storing frequently used numbers in the phone along with the calling card number.  For eg. one of my contact entries look like this. 1802202pppp123456789012#ppppp0015172345678#pppp123456#
where
1802202                      is the Airtel access number
123456789012           is how my card account number looks like (12 digit)
001 517 234 5678     is the US number I need to dial
123456                        is the passcode for the above conference number
‘p’ adds one second delay in the dialing sequence.  ‘p’ and ‘w’  (explained below) can be added to the dialing sequence by pressing ‘*’ key repeatedly on your Nokia phone.  On Blackberry, use keypad ‘b’ for wait and ‘n’ for pause or use the options menu (options menu can be invoked while entering a number by pressing the Menu key) and choose "Add Pause" or "Add Wait".

RFC 3601 (Text String Notation for Dial Sequences and  Global Switched Telephone Network (GSTN) / E.164 Addresses) defines the implementation of pause and tonewait as follows:

Implementation of  ‘pause’  and ‘tonewait’: 

• one instance of a ‘pause’ SHOULD be interpreted as a pause of one second between the preceding and succeeding dial string elements;
• a ‘tonewait’ SHOULD be interpreted as a pause that will last until the calling party hears a dial tone or another indication  that more dial string characters may be processed. An off-hook  indication MAY also be interpreted as this kind of indication      (meaning that the audio channel has been opened to the  receiving party)

As you notice, the above number sequence is very long. Sometimes, Airtel doesn’t connect you correctly within the 4-8 seconds delay you introduced between the numbers.  You can add a ‘tonewait (w)’ instead of pause.  So, if you modify the above number like this:

1802202w123456789012#w0015172345678#w123456#
Note that, ‘p’ has been replaced with ‘w’.  In this case, phone waits for the next set of sequences at every ‘w’.  You can listen to the prompt and ask phone to send next sequences.  On nokia, you will see the prompt “Send” against one of the option keys.  Blackberry shows the next sequence of numbers  and wait for you to press the trackball to send those numbers.  I noticed that Blackberry ignores the ‘w’ if you have a ‘p’ and ‘w’ together.

However, storing the numbers like this become annoying soon because:

• Airtel doesn’t have the notion of recharging.  (This service is outsourced to another company).  You get a new account number when you ‘recharge’ and you have to edit your phonebook and update all numbers that you stored this way.
• You may want to dial different numbers. Dialing this entire sequence (if not stored in the phone book) is time consuming considering that quality of service is not great from Airtel and there is no guarantee that you will get connected at the first attempt.   More over, your line will get disconnected multiple times and you will have to redial if you are taking the call while traveling in Bangalore.
• You will take more time to get into a conference number because you have to dial a large sequence of numbers.

This is where I started exploring the way of registering your phone for the account number that you receive so that if I use my phone to dial out, I don’t need to enter the account number.  This FAQ from Airtel was the starting point.  This didn’t work as expected and the customer care was clueless as usual.  Here are the steps to register your phone.

• Dial 1802202
• Enter your 12 digit account number
• You may be asked to choose the language if this is the first time you are using the number after a recharge
• Dial 111# after the IVR announces your account balance
• Follow the IVR.  Press 1 for registering the card.
• You will be asked to enter the PIN.  The default PIN is 0000 (4 zeros).  You can’t change this.
• You will be given another set of options related to phone registration.  Follow the IVR and register the phone.  You will have to enter 0091 before your 10digit phone number.

Henceforth, you will be presented with your card balance anytime you dial 1802202 using your registered phone.  Your dialing sequence becomes simple now. For eg.

1802202w0015171234568#w12345#

(Use ‘w’ or ‘p’ as explained earlier).  Just register your phone after a recharge every time and then you don’t need to update your phone book entries.

One last line of caution for those who use your mobile phone for taking calls. I noticed that my line gets disconnected at every hour.  Airtel customer care tells me that there is a DoT regulation that the lines should not be active continuously for more than an hour.  I don’t know if this is true or this is a way of Airtel managing a large number of customer base with fewer lines.

Like everyone else, I watched for the release of Sony Reader Touch with great enthusiasm.   Though I prefer to read while traveling and during my free time, I was not sure that I will be that comfortable with a digital device.  I checked out Sony PRS-505 at Staples and I must say that I was very impressed with the display quality.  I found it more comfortable to read than the book I purchase at Jayanagar 4th block.  Look of PRS-505 accelerated my decision to go for an ebook reader.  Thought of carrying over 300 books with me while traveling was a compelling enough reason to own one immediately. 

Sony announced PRS-600 and PRS-300 at the same time.  I decided to go for PRS-600BC for the following reasons

• Touch Screen
• Free hand highlighting and note taking capabilities
• Built-in dictionary
• Multiple format support

The last one was the decision point when I have to choose between Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader.

I received my Sony Reader (after some struggle due to back orders) just before I left Utah.  I was hoping that I can use the Reader as a tool for my references, like read through multiple books, mark sections, refer them back etc.  I realized after using ti for a couple of days that, eBook Readers are best used just as a Reader. It’s slow to skip through pages and highlight (on screen writing works pretty well though).  I switched to using this just as a Reader now. 

I’ve been using the Reader for over two months now.  I’m very used to with the Reader and its there always with me when ever I go out.   Here are my observations….

Good Stuff first…

• Small and convenient to carry around
• Can be used for taking small notes
• Over 350 books with you always
• Supports PDF

And things that I don’t like

• While PRS-505 looks better than real paper, PRS-600 has a lot of touch screen glare.  Its difficult to read in a room with fluorescent light.
• PDF docs needs to be zoomed for better readability. You can’t copy text in this mode.
• Music and image quality is not great.

Operating System Supported

You need Sony’s application to purchase ebook from Sony’s ebook store.  I wish I never have to use this software.  Sony supports only windows platform.  I took almost an hour to figure out how to transfer some files to the device.
I searched around for a linux client before I purchased the Reader.  Calibre is much better than Sony’s own software (except that you can’t purchase books) and supports multiple platforms.  I use my linux laptop to manage the device completely using Calibre.

I’m very happy with my PRS-600BC.  Its very handy and convenient with its leather book like cover.  I already finished 4 books (including the Lost Symbol!!!) already and I’m afraid that I’m getting addicted to the Reader.  However, I would recommend PRS-505 anytime if you are not very interested in dictionary, online note taking etc.

Rajesh brought this news to my notice.  This is interesting for me as Gizmo5 is my VoIP provider and Google Voice provides me connectivity to all US numbers which I bridged through my Gizmo5 account.  Great to see this development.

Jon shared this blog two days back.  I could relate to many things that we do in the organization.  I was also surprised to see some of my thinking patterns reflected in the blog.  Some of the points I particularly liked in the context of software development are:

• Majority of people will be most advanced beginners in a particular skill
• being an expert in one skill might make you competent and proficient in in dozen others (in a lighter note, if I know how to debug on one platform, I can do it on any!!!)
• Treat your junior team members in a similar fashion as you would your experts and show them the big picture

What do you think???

Here is a WikiPedia reference to Dreyfus model of skill acquisition for the more enthusiasts.

I decided to attend a couple of sessions today.  The format of the sessions is called Workshop.  Its more like experience sharing by industry leaders and some panel discussions around the topic.  Since panel discussions can take a long time, duration of the session is 4hrs, which means one can attend only one session in the moring and one in the afternoon. 

I decided to go for cloud related sessions today.  Morning session was on Security aspects on the cloud.

• Security and Identity aspects of cloud

Presenters were from Burton Group (Dan Blum), Sun, ebay and CSA.  All are worried about security.  eBay mentioned that they encrypt the data at the source, so they are not much worried about the data security.Their main concern is performance.  They do 200 million logins a day and expect same kind of performance when they move to cloud.  Sun suggested that enterprises and cloud vendors should use industry standard provisioning and other security standards such as SPML and XACML.

• Building Applications for Deployment in the Cloud

Burton suggested that customers should build their applications by consuming various services available in the cloud rather than building themselves.  Simply migrating applications is not a cloud application architect.  They also presented a reference architecture. 

Here are some more photographs from the venue.
This is the bay (south) side of the hotel

Same side, more of the bay area

And a front view…

Lawn in front of the hotel

and an evening view of the bay area.

Burton Group Catalysts conference is an annual event which explores cutting-edge ideas, current challenges as well as emerging technologies shaping today’s and tomorrow’s enterprise. Catalyst Conference is renowned for its attendee-driven agenda, high-profile speakers, in-depth content and fiercely independent point of view.  This year, Novell is unveiling its Cloud initiatives through an interoperability demo in this conference.   This is a very important conference for us as the outcome and learnings from this conference will provide the right directions for our cloud strategy.  I’m one of the attendees from Novell with the objective of meeting with customers and partners and understand the concerns which are holding them back from moving to a cloud. 

The venue for this conference is the newly opened San Diego Bayfront.  You get a magnificent view of San Diego bay from this 30 story hotel.  I’m alloted a north-west  corner room on the  20th floor.  Here are some photographs from my room.

This is the view of the bayside.

View of downtown, next to the Bay

The train depot at the north side.

View of the Bay from level Aqua (4th floor)