Exploring technology

~Clearspace 2.5 feature list ~

2008-08-26T12:08:00.000+05:30

Here is the initial list of features of Clearspace 2.5 Release Candidate.
Admin Console

Sytem/Settings
Phrase Substitutions: We can add rules for phrases substitutions for space/document/discussion/blog against a particular locale & theme

Sytem/Settings
Projects: Enable/Disbale the feature from admin console

Spaces/Settings
Moderation Settings: Lets one add moderators & choose the contentType which needs to be moderated for a particular space.

Spaces/Settings
Abuse Settings: Automatically hide content after a pre-defined Abuse Count.

Blogs/Management
Group Blogs: Gives way to System Blogs.
Blog Migration: Is a new feature. Migrating a blog will move that blog to a new location in the system. The blog and all its posts will move to the new location and be removed from the old location.

People/Management

i) Organisational Relationships is renamed as User Relationships.
ii) Apart from Organisational Relationship, we have new feature called Connections (which is similar to that of Twitter).

People/Settings

Profile & Homepage: System administrators and Community administrators can customize the default personalized homepage.
Status Updates (of users): One can Enable/Disable this feature.
Registration Settings:
i) Any profile fields marked as required are automatically displayed.
ii) One can move the fields in the registration form display.
iii) Add a new field.
iv) Preview the form

Status Level Settings:
i) Completing tasks in a project, you get a point
ii) Default Status level can be easily edited, apart from defining new status levels

User Data Synchronization Settings: Apart from previous attributes, we have few more additions as mentioned below
i) Scheduled sync task: Can now be enabled/disabled
ii) Synchronize profile photo?
iii) Last modified LDAP attribute name

User Relationship Settings: One can manage both the Organisational Chart & Connections.
i) User connections request approval process can be enabled/disabled.
ii) Organisational Settings remain the same.

Customer Console

Basic Customization of Clearspace - choosing a color scheme, changing logo or without logo - is very simple & easy. This option is available as 'Customize Your Site' for System Administrator in Your Stuff section.

Widgets:
1) Status updates - Update and view your current status update.
2) Watch a User - Lists the content created by a user in the system.
3) Connection Activity - Recent activity by people you are following
4) Your Groups - Displays a list of groups for which you are a member.
5) Watah a Tag - Lists the content tagged with the given tag in the system.
6) RSS Feeb - Displays results of an RSS feed from another part of Clearspace or from any web site.
7) Your Projects - A list of projects you are following.
Search: The Global search is enhanced, where the result set is sorted based on , People, Places - Spaces/Content-Type/Group

Groups:

Groups are a great way to establish a community for people who share interests. There are various types of Groups - Open, Members Only, Private, Secret.

Group Types:
i) Open membership is open and non-members can view content and participate.
ii) Members Only membership is open and non-members can view content, but must join to participate.
iii) Private membership is by approval/invitation only and only members can view content and participate.
iv) Secret membership is by invitation only, only members may participate, and the group is not listed in the group directory

Projects:

i) Import/Export Tasks - Select the CSV for your project containing a list of tasks to import, or export a CSV containing a list of tasks.
ii) Project Status - You have a risk-o-meter which lets the owner change the status & others know the current status.

Connections:
i) This feature is similar to that of Twitter, which allows a registered user to follow other user. It also supports to tracking user's content by RSS feed.
ii) Approve & decline functionality for Connections can be enabled/disabled in the Admin Console

~ Youtube: New Visualization ~

2008-05-29T00:03:00.000+05:30

Youtube provides a new way to browse related videos. If you had tested the digg site few years ago, something similar was available in the beta phase. This is a very easy way to browse & play around with related videos.

~ Quote of the week ~

2007-08-22T13:55:00.000+05:30

'If the API is better, the end product will be more maintainable'

- Bob Lee (Users Vs Programmers)

Thought for the week

2007-07-25T20:55:00.000+05:30

'There are only two hard things in CS: cache invalidation and naming things'
- Phil Karlton, via Tim Bray

Miro

2007-07-20T00:26:00.000+05:30

After spending just 15 mins with the player, here is my review of Miro a.k.a Democracy Player.

Features:

Plays all/any kinda video files without any more installers.
You can subscribe to video channels through RSS, with hourly update.
Has loads of HD content.
Download support for some of the popular video sites on the web [youtube, veoh, googlevideos, blip,dailymotion,etc].
You have 1598 channels for free.
BitTorrent support.

What i like about Miro:

Simplicity of the player.
No more hassles of downloading plugins and software to view different flavors of flash video players.
Managing downloads has never been so easy, with an option to save or delete the download from u'r HDD.

Got get yourself a Miro and start using now.

Via my daily source of cool stuff.

Quote for the week

2007-07-04T20:49:00.000+05:30

'Design, by nature, is a series of trade-offs. Every choice has a good and bad side, and you make your choice in the context of overall criteria defined by necessity. Good and bad are not absolutes, however. A good decision in one context might be bad in another.'

GMail sports new features: Slideshow, FilterAssistant

2007-06-27T17:16:00.000+05:30

Google has been very quick to integrate Zenter - their latest acquisition - to support online viewing of Micorsoft Powerpoint application into Gmail. I happened to notice that yesterday evening when one of my friend has sent an powerpoint attachemnt. It was handy because I haven't installed MS Office on the laptop.

a) Snapshot of slideshow feature

b) Snapshot of FilterAssistant feature

Was discussing about 'Slideshow' feature with my friend (who was on the mailing list of the earlier mail) in the morning, but she didn't have feature on her account. But, she spotted another feature called 'Filter Assistant', on her account. Again, this feature wasn't available on my account.

No clue as to why do we need 'Filter Assistant' on every mail you recieve. Looking at the brighter side, the GMail dev-team seems to be constantly introducing new features; unlike their competitors who seem to be resting on their laurels.

Am not sure when these new features will be available to all google accounts.

Yahoo Mail follows GMail?

2007-05-16T12:45:00.000+05:30

Looks like Yahoo has taken a leaf out of Google's GMail stratergy - free unlimited storage. Now Yahoo Mail seems to heading the same way as GMail & probably even more.

The new interface of Yahoo Mail seems to be conveying that. Healthy competition is always good, gives a better choice to the end user. Lets see what Yahoo has to offer us this year

Update Google Reader: See personalized trends

2007-01-09T10:04:00.000+05:30

Over the past years we have seen Google launch Google Trends - which analyzes a portion of Google web searches to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you enter relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time & display the result as graphs. Last year after the launch of GTalk, Google intergrated Trends with GTalk & called it Music Trends - which captures information about the music GTalk users are currently listening to from their music player.

After breathing life into their Reader during the last quarter of 2006, in 2007 they have introduced Personalized Trends into Reader. I love this new feature, which gives an overview of my reading pattern over the last 30 days. The feature is classified as Reading Trends, Subscription Trends and finally the Graphs.

~ Trends Overview ~

Reading Trends
They are classified under three categories Read, Starred & Shared. Each category can be listed as Top 10 | Top 20 | Top 40.

~ Reading Trends - Read ~

~ Reading Trends - Shared ~

~ Reading Trends - Starred ~

Subscription Trends
This one shows the frequently updated feeds & the inactive feeds.

~ Subscription Trends - Frequently updated feeds ~

~ Subscription Trends - Inactive feeds ~

Graphs
Coolest feature, which gives me a snapshot of my reading pattern over the past 30 days, time of day & which day of the week I spend reading the most.

~ Graphs - over the past 30 days ~

~ Graphs - Time of day ~

~ Graphs - Day of the week ~

Looking forward for more innovative features & services from Google in 2007.

Posted through Google Doc Service

2006-10-11T16:03:00.000+05:30

Hello

Interesting isn't it? U have so many options to save u'r document....kinda all in one :)

this is really cool
amazing stuff
type something

something......something

Who added this pic? I don't like pics in word docs ;) . I feel there is a bug in collaboration.......it doesn't let the collaborators know who made the edit & wat time....it shld also be notifying everyone on the changes....once a collaborator makes any edit. -- Vivek

Image can be resized
revision history can be navigated - older - comes with the name of the editor but not the timestamp

Google breathes new life into Reader

2006-10-07T14:06:00.000+05:30

I had signed up for Google Reader 6 months ago, but didn't really enjoy the experience. The Reader then had User Interface which I felt wasn't friendly, the navigation & managment of feeds wasn't easy, finally the reader provided only a list view of your favorite subscriptions & u only got a snapshot, if u clicked on a particular item. Gradually overtime I had stopped using it, untill last-week when I read the post 'Google Reader gets a facelift' by Garett Rogers on ZDNet's blog 'Googling Google'.

~ Google Reader Home ~

I logged into my Google Reader today morning to get a feel of the new features. The first thing which stood out was the clean and simple view of Google Reader Home. On your left-hand-side it has shortcuts to your home, starred items, shared items and finally to all your subrscriptions.

~ Shortcuts ~

Then I noticed, that all the tags which I had used to label my favorite feeds where transformed to a folder view. All the feeds are neatly classified under each folder. I liked this idea of folder-based navigation, keeps it is simple & easy to manage all the feeds.

~ Folder-based Navigation ~

The next feature, is the different viewing styles available as of now are Expanded View and List View. Both of them are very useful for me, I use the Expanded View, to browse the feeds of my fellow bloggers & I use the List View to have a glance @ all the news feeds - Rediff, ESPN, CNN_IBN, ZDNet, etc.

Finally, the Reader has borrowed few features from sister services (GMail, Blogger and GCal) like adding stars, tagging, sharing, emailing. Has much better implementation of Read-state management.

~ Shortcuts for sharing, tagging, emailing on an item feed ~

I am a guy who loves reading & on any given day I spend atleast 2 hours reading save them on del.icio.us & sometimes I share them across with my friends based on our common subjects of interest. The sharing was a painful process, everytime I read something interesting & felt like sharing it, I used to IM (Instant Message) them those links. Google Reader reduces this hassle of sharing, as it provides me to share my Reader feed with the rest of the world on my website. Click here to view what I have shared for you.

With all the new features and enhancements, I feel I would use Google Reader more often. Another good reason for one to use Google Reader is to read blogs/sites when there are restrictions enforced by your government or your employer.

If you aren't using it, then I suggest you to give 'Google Reader' a shot.

Blog Surfing

2006-07-31T18:50:00.000+05:30

It had been a while since I paid visit to few of my favorite blogs & today managed to hit a few interesting posts while I was surfing them.

First, Ronan Bradley's post 'Data: The Heart of SOA' on 'SOA Roads'.

'Source --> Data --> Process --> Information --> Decision' is the most common flow you would come across in any Data Warehousing & Data Mining business solution. Offlate everyone seems to be talking about how *data* plays a major role in SOA.

Couple of weeks ago, I was working on a business scenario for our client Raining Data's Tigerlogic MDM. In one of the scenarios we were rippling master data across the customer information records of three different business units (Telco, High Speed Internet and Satellite TV) of a large enterprise. For more on the TigerLogic MDM, please feel free to visit here.

Ronan Bradley, recently on his 'SOA Roads' has written an interesting post titled 'Data: The Heart of SOA'. He covers how data is behind exposed through services, how this *data* has been useful to the customers and has also highlighted on the approaches of data can be integrated within SOA.

"There are two fundamental approaches to dealing with data integration within SOA: Build a global data model for your business which each connecting business unit must bridge into and out of in order to integrate with other units or build multiple data models."

Everything he has mentioned in this post makes complete sense & echoes our thoughts on the approach of o RainingData's MDM.

Second, Brenda Michelson's 'Agile & SOA: Like Apples & Oranges, Google & Search or Oil & Water?' on Business Driven Architect.

For the first time(atleast for me, since the time I have been following Brenda's blogs) has spoken on software engineering & was glad to know she supports Agile methodology as well. In this post, Brenda refers to an interesting article on SearchWebServices.com by Rich Seeley covering Gregor Hohpe speaking on Agile & SOA as a powerful combination. As always, she has provides a different perspective to the conversation on two interesting subjects Agile & SOA.

Brenda has followed up this post with another interesting post using a good metaphor & more inputs from Annie Shum to speak more about Agile and SOA; titled 'Agile & SOA: Like Structure Building and City Planning (Special Guest Post)'.

Finally, the post from Gregor Hohpe explaining how 'Starbucks Does Not Use Two-Phase Commit' in a real world scenario. This article makes a good read in understanding on how & where 'Asynchronous & Synchronous messaging interactions work well'.

Pakistani Underground Playlist

2006-06-16T15:19:00.000+05:30

Inteha - Daastaan

Inteha - Anjaana

I-Konz - Abhi Waqt Hai

Smoke Band - Faana

Akash - Ji Liya

Akash - Aaj Phir

Riff - Main Na Manoon

Athar Anis - Maine Kabi

Xplode - Najane

Taab - Qadam

Ka'enaat - Ratoon Ratoon Mein

Aryanz - Sada

Parwaz the band - Shamain

I-Konz - Abhi Waqt Hai

Analyzing Brenda Michelson

2006-06-13T13:54:00.000+05:30

Brenda Michelson is the architect-in-residence for the Patricia Seybold Group and the founder of Elemental Links, an IT consulting practice specializing in strategy, architecture, IT portfolio planning and delivery for the enterprise. To know more about Brenda click here.

It had been a while since I paid visit to Brenda's blog & as always Brenda has some more insights into the latest developments on technology, products & events happening across the IT world. This particular post ' Responding to James McGovern's "Analyzing the Analysts: Brenda Michelson" ' on the Elemental Links blog made me write this post.

I have spent sometime reading articles of other Analysts from major firms & have also come across Analysts exchanging their thots over Service-Orientated-Architecture - group on Yahoo. Personally, I have found few of these Analysts being biased towards a particular technology or a vendor, but I have never witnessed such thing from Brenda. Even though Brenda happens to be an Analyst for PSG, she has an holistic approach to every topic she covers on her blog. Her posts have helped me at times in understanding the concepts of SOA, EDA, BDA from a broader perspective. Her insights into the architecture of the product has been invaluable & what separates her from the rest is the fact she happened to be Chief Enterprise Architect with L.L. Bean, Inc.,. The analysis of Products - Open Source or any vendor in particular - has given me an head start into the architecture of that product.

I thank Brenda for taking her time in maintaining ElementalLinks & for sharing her thoughts with the rest of us on blogosphere. Keep them coming & wishing you the very best.

I also would like to thank James McGovern for his effort on trying to get various analysts on the series titled 'Analyzing the Analysts'.

Adobe Reader 7.0/6.0 Hacks

2006-06-01T13:06:00.000+05:30

You can hear any PDF instead of reading with Adobe Reader 7 .0 or 6.0. Yes, you read it correct, there are shortcuts for doing the same.

Here are some of the shortcuts:

To hear the entire 'Document' - Ctrl+shift+b
To hear only a particular 'Page'- Ctrl+shift+c
To stop hearing - Ctrl+shift+e
To resume hearing - Ctrl+shift+v

Now you can enjoy listening to all your favorite e-books.

MoBlogging: An Executive Summary

2006-05-30T12:21:00.000+05:30

What's Moblog?

Defn: A moblog, or a mobile blog, is an online record of anything you feel like sharing with the world, whether they want it or not. The difference between moblogging and regular blogging is that you use your phone or Pocket PC to post text or pictures.

Defn2: Mobile Blogging (also called moblogging) is the act of posting text and photos to a weblog from a mobile device. The element of reading weblogs via mobile devices is also gaining popularity.

Brief History of MoBlog

Earliest development occurred in Japan.
Stuart Woodward is believed to be the first person to post from an ordinary mobile device in Jan 2001
Moblogging gained much adoption in 2002.
Term “moblogging” was coined by Adam Greenfield in 2002.

Current Mobile Trends

Mobile phones/devices have a very significant role in our day-2-day affairs. Primarly, it connects an individual to the rest of the world anywhere anytime. These days Mobile phones provide an end user lot more features than just making calls & sending text msgs.
You can share your memories and conversational content – photos, videos, text messages, multimedia messages, and notes - into a chronology that you can easily browse, search, and share.
Mobile phones have replaced computers as the de facto e-mail terminal of choice for many Japanese who are not in technology, finance, engineering or other computer-intensive occupations. This is particularly true for the young, who most clearly prefer handsets to handhelds.

Context differences of blogging between mobile & PC:

Mobile: Living in the moment, multitasking, varying environment
PC: Longer attention span, more focused, rich input & formatting methods

Blogging Patterns

“I blog the instant moments first from my phone and return to them with the PC to edit them”
“I use the PC more for thought posts and the mobile mainly for pictures”
“I blog stuff I did not blog previously, since I can post, for example, when traveling”

Motricity's provides scores of games for millions of members stretched across several carriers and it wraps around specific games tools for rating and reviewing a title, for creating buddy lists of fellow gamers and for communicating to these groups via SMS.

TextAmerica is an online photo album or moblog site that allows you to take pictures & Videos from your digital camera or camera phone and post them to their site.

Buzznet.com is a photo sharing and journal community. The site features tools to create your own public or private homepage with integrated photoblog and journals. Buzznet also provide a rich set of API's based on XML-RPC and ATOM.

Google's Blogger Mobile lets you send photos and text straight to your blog while you're on-the-go. While Blogger Mobile is currently only available in the US.

Nokia provides a service called M-Blog for Nokia users to post the pictures & videos from their mobile phones. Nokia also provides an update to its cell phone blogging software – Lifeblog,

Six Apart has apparently purchased Splashblog, the mobile photosharing solution for handhelds.

Sony Ericsson that support Google Search and Blogger.

Cingular's new mobile blogging and social networking platform called Rabble.

Other Innovative Ideas

REXplorer is a rich interactive scavenger hunt designed to enhance the tourist experience for young adults through the fun and excitement of a public game using mobile technologies as a part of the Regensburg Experience1 (REX) Museum. The well-preserved medieval city of Regensburg (to become a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2006) serves as the game board for the competition.

MoBlogs - the Future of Distributed Learning and Distributed Learning Institutions.

Connectivism - Is a learning theory for the digital age. Learning has changed over the last several decades. The theories of behaviourism, cognitivism, and constructivism provide an effect view of learning in many environments. They fall short, however, when learning moves into informal, networked, technology-enabled arena.

eTravel Assitant for Backpackers - The aim of the project is to design an electronic travel assistant for backpackers and extend existing research methods so that they are more appropriate for mobile group research.

EarthCam adds a twist to the usual photo blog. With a paid subscription, $4.95 US a month at the time I wrote this, you can access Web cams around the world on your phone. You can also set up your own Web cam on your desktop computer, and view it on your phone. This could be useful for people who want to see their children during the day, or check on a pet.

Mobile P2P - I bet this would be the next 'big thing' to happen. Imagine the power of P2P with your PSP or XBox or any hand held device.

Disclamier: The information found in this summary on MoBlogging is aggregated from various resources & articles which were found on World Wide Web through Google Search. The content/idea/information belongs to respective owners & I don't claim any credit for them. This summary is meant for educational purposes only.

Quote of the Week

2006-05-10T10:42:00.000+05:30

"Nobody should start to undertake a large project. You start with a small _trivial_ project, and you should never expect it to get large. If you do, you'll just overdesign and generally think it is more important than it likely is at that stage. Or worse, you might be scared away by the sheer size of the work you envision.

So start small, and think about the details. Don't think about some big picture and fancy design. If it doesn't solve some fairly immediate need, it's almost certainly over-designed. And don't expect people to jump in and help you. That's not how these things work. You need to get something half-way _useful_ first, and then others will say "hey, that _almost_ works for me", and they'll get involved in the project. "

--Linus Torvalds

Found this interesting quote here.

Interesting post on REST

2006-05-02T18:51:00.000+05:30

I just stumbled on this interesting post titled 'How I explained REST to my wife' by Ryan Tomayko. The best past about the post is that Ryan explains the whole concept of Internet & its related technology in its latest avatar (read SOA) in a conversational manner. He covers the concepts of internet in the past & its limitations, their protocols and how things have changed over the passage of time in a layman's terms & drives the picture of SOA or to be more precise REST in a simple manner.

Google offers 3D modeling tool for free

2006-05-02T17:22:00.000+05:30

Few months ago while I was reading the Google's Official Blog I read this post. The post titled ' A new home for @Last Software ' was written by Jeff Martin, Product Marketing Manager of @Last Software. Google acquired Skecthup, which offers 3D modelling software & is now offering the same software in two versions - free & paid. I have been following Google for quite sometime now & their acquisitions of - Keyhole, Picasa, Writely & the most recent one Skecthup. What excites me is the stratergy of Google's Integration of these newly acquired services to their eco-system in a meaningful manner & offer them for free. I am eagerly waiting for Google to integrate Writely's Web Word Processor into their GMail service, so that I can have all my essential documents available anytime anywhere.

I was curious to know the Google's Acquisitions in the past, so I digged in a bit to get this post by William Slawski of 'SEO by the SEA' titled 'Google Acquisitions'. This post has an impressive trail of companies accquired by Google starting right from the acquisition of Deja.com in the year 2001 till @LastSoftware, 2006.

Yahoo! offers 'Tech' service

2006-05-02T12:59:00.000+05:30

Just hit this new 'Tech' service from Yahoo!. Now Yahoo is trying to compete with the mother of Technology site c|net.com. I am not sure whether Yahoo can match the kind of reviews & news on latest technology like CNET, but, competition is always good for the consumer. Don't u agree with that?

Via: Digg.com

Watch Banaglore Roads Live!

2006-04-26T16:19:00.000+05:30

Now you can watch 2 majors interesections of Bangalore live!. The 2 intersections are

Mekhri Circle - Bangalore North

Basaveshwara Circle - Bangalore West

Video Feeds from Sifymax.

P.S: Open this post in Internet Explorer.

Experimenting Play Tagger from Del.icio.us

2006-04-23T14:41:00.000+05:30

I found a JavaScript called 'Play Tagger' on Delicious sometime in Feb 2006. I had just saved it & never used the script, today I thot of experimenting the same on my blog and it works fine!

Water Under Water - The Thrill.mp3

James Blunt - Goodbye My Lover

James Blunt - You're Beautiful

Building a Behemoth

2006-03-27T14:30:00.000+05:30

Out-sourcing is a very common term that is very often associated with the IT industry. I am sure this term is valid to a certain extent with other industries as well. But, there are so many issues I have come across myself or heard from my friends about the software development process. Many companies in India spend enormous amount of resources [time, money & personnel] in getting the various certifications which are currently there. The most popular certification which many of them posses is Capability Maturity Model (CMM) which was developed by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Despite having these certifications many of them fail to follow the core aspects which are clearly laid down in the CMM.

Now if you are thinking what has the title 'Building a Behemoth' got to do with Software Engineering & the IT industry in particular? I just happened to read 'How the world's biggest passenger jet is made' and then went through the following slides. I hope most of you would agree that IT industry has lots to learn from such challenges in order to overcome the numerous problems which we come across in our SDLC. Just by having mere certifications, things wouldn't look better unless they are implemented and practiced by one & all.

And for all those companies who don't follow any process nor any methodlogy in their software development process, then I am sure they are never gonna achieve the best.

Source: Rediff | Business Week

Thought for the week

2006-03-17T12:52:00.000+05:30

'When the program is being tested, it is too late to make design changes'

Tao-of-Programming on Software Design

Google Maps...Earth...Moon...Mars...Is Google Solar next???

2006-03-13T14:06:00.000+05:30

Today morning when I hit the Google page, they had this new logo, which depicted exploration of Mars. So, I happened to click the image it took me to this page, which is similar to Google Maps. Here they have classified the terrain of Mars into various topics being Regions, Mountains, Plains, Spacecraft, Canyons, Ridges, Stories, Dunes & Craters. All these can be viewed through 3 different options called Elevation, Visible & Infrared.

If you haven't checked it out, then I guess you could visit during your free time. Similar services from Google, Google Earth, Google Moon, Google Maps , Google Mars.... Is Google Solar next???

Logo Source: Google

Are SOA and web-services synonymous?

2006-02-27T11:13:00.000+05:30

Amir Shevat has an very interesting article titled 'Are SOA and web-services synonymous?'. Here is an extract from his article....

"SOA is an architectural paradigm whose goal is to achieve loose coupling among interacting software applications. Applications invoke a series of discrete services in order to perform a certain task. A service is a unit of work done by a service provider to achieve desired end results for a service consumer.

Web services provide a standard means of interoperating between different software applications. When an application calls web-services it actually invokes remote methods on other applications with the use of XML as a communication protocol (usually over an HTTP transport protocol) ."

I very much agree with what he says in the end "The bottom line is that we need to choose the right technology to fit the right task and not to go blindly with the crowds. I guess that this is a good advice for life in general…", its so very true.

Site of the Week: Technicat

2006-02-15T12:55:00.000+05:30

'Technicat' - owned and operated byPhil Chu in Huntington Beach, California, provides consulting and development expertise to the Internet, educational software, computer graphics and video game industries.

He has written some outstanding essays on various subjects and I just happened to read couple of them 'Seven Habits of Highly Effective Programmers' and 'Work Hard, Play Hard: Applying Game Design to Project Management'; I enjoyed both of them & would love to read the remaining sometime sooner;)

He also has sections on Gaming, OpenSource and Graphics. Hope you enjoyed it!

Finally Sun Microsystems Inc. debuts with ESB

2006-02-10T14:16:00.000+05:30

Sun Microsystem Inc has rolled out its version of ESB.

Found this news on SearchWebServices,"Sun Microsystems Inc. officially entered the enterprise service bus (ESB) market today, rolling out its first upgrade of the former SeeBeyond Inc. messaging middleware and tying it together with Sun's portal, application server, Web server and development studio offerings as part of a single platform." [Read more]

Google integrates GMail with GoogleTalk

2006-02-07T14:23:00.000+05:30

Another interesting feature gets integrated with GMail, this time its *chat*. I was pleasantly surprised with this new feature, you don't need to install any software or include/add contacts on the chat program, you get to do it with just a your gmail account. Google is right on the track to take the lead in implementing Web 2.0 and also add more value to the term 'On Demand Service' or 'Software On Demand'. This very feature would make a good example for 'Software On Demand'; What exactly do I mean by 'Software On Demand' is, you don't need to install program on your local machine to utilize the service, you just start using the service when u require.

Looking forward to use this new feature from GMail;)

Technorati:gmail | google | google talk | vivek kondur

How to be Creative by Hugh MacLeod

2006-02-06T16:20:00.000+05:30

I have been using Del.icio.us for over one week now and thanks to my friend Suresh who referred me to Del.icio.us. Since then I have discovered few good articles/resources on various subjects @ Del.icio.us. I happened to hit this one, before stumbling upon ChangeThis. Then I started browsing the archives @ Changethis, untill I got hooked to 'How to be Creative' by Hugh MacLeod, then visited Hugh MacLeod's site which finally led me to his humor filled site where he posts his 'Blog Cards'.

The best thing about Hugh MacLeod is he touches many complex subjects like life, society, business, technology, management,etc; with ease using his creative expressions called 'Cartoons'.

Portable Apps Suite

2006-02-04T00:09:00.000+05:30

Direct Web Remoting or AJAX

2006-02-02T17:50:00.000+05:30

There has been lot of noise on AJAX in the past year, especially when Google announced Google Maps. I feel it has made a some kind of impact on companies who are into developing web applications. Sometime last year I happened to read few articles on AJAX and tried out few samples and could feel the difference, when compared to the traditional MVC or Struts implementation. Today one of my friend sent me a webinar link, where Joe Walker of Getahead puts his insights on AJAX. He has also developed Direct Web Remoting (DWR), which has become the most popular Ajax toolkit for Java by making browser/server interaction intuitive for Web developers.

The webinar is quite informative in understanding the technical advantages of using DWR framework, integration support for the existing web applications developed with MVC style or Spring Framework, security concerns and the challenges in AJAX implementation. Overall this webinar gives a good overview to anyone who has to decide on building a fresh web application or moving the existing one on AJAX.

Resources: Webinar with Joe Walker | Ajax with DWR | Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications - by Jesse James Garrett | Ajax Patterns | DWR Home | Ajax @ SUN

Website built on Ajax: Baconbutty.com | Chess game developed by Jesper Olsen

Source: IBM | The Server Side | SUN | Getahead | Adaptivepath | Baconbutty | Jesper Olsen

Thought for the day

2006-01-24T11:16:00.000+05:30

"If you know it from media, you are aware.
If you hear it from experts, you are informed.
If you work alongwith the experts, even then you know only the best known by mankind.
However, you are as close to truth as one can be for your time."

Innovation

2006-01-19T14:25:00.000+05:30

Me and another colleague of mine had this interesting conversation yesterday afternoon over lunch. We were basically taking a snapshot of the kind of exisiting Services & the Products which are being developed and available in the marketplace. If I could choose a word to summarize the entire debate we had then I would choose the term 'Innovation'. Here is my effort to summarize some of the best articles I discovered over last 6 months, which depicts Innovation in various walks of life and not just limited to Software development.

So what exactly do we understand by the term 'Innovation'?

According to my favorite source for information Wiki, here is an excerpt," Innovation is the introduction of new ideas, goods, services, and practices which are intended to be useful (though a number of unsuccessful innovations can be found throughout history). The main driver for innovation is often the courage and energy to better the world. An essential element for innovation is its application in a commercially successful way. Innovation has punctuated and changed human history (consider the development of electricity, steam engines, motor vehicles, et al)."

But, I actually like this one from Business.gov,"Introduction of a new idea into the marketplace in the form of a new product or service or an improvement in organization or process."

Why I like this one, because Innovation is not always about introducing NEW ideas, products or services into marketplace, rather improvization of the EXISTING ideas, products or services. Just to back myself on the last sentence I made, I brought the examples of Gmail and Adsense from Google. Both the technologies are quite old and there are lot of companies who are providing Email services for free for over a decade now, starting of with Microsoft's Hotmail. Same with the case of Advertisements or Ads; Ads have been the key source of income for many of the DOT companies for quite some time. As you see there are many companies who are providing both these services, but once Google started offering them the whole world talks about or atleast it gets noticed from the existing players who start working on their products/services to offer the same. Not to forget the 'Google Maps' & 'Google Earth', which is really cool & fast. Tristan Louis has done a great job in summarizing as well as comparing all the stuff Google has been working with the existing players in a very simple way, read here 'Reading the Google Tea Leaves'.

This is what I have to say, no matter what we are building [products/services] today, irrespective of how many players exist in the marketplace, we need to build it in such a way that it has more value to the end user.

I have admired few companies for many years for the kind of products or services they have come up with over the years, some of them I remember as of now are 3M, Du Pont, Apple, Maya, Sony, Nokia, Honda, Toyota, ThoughtWorks and my favorite Google;). I just did a search on Google to find out if there is anyone who enlists Innovative companies in the world, guess what BusinessWeek does list some of the companies I have mentioned, click here to see the list.

Here more food for thought on Innovation: Du Pont Innovation | Not All Innovations Are Equal | Why Smart Companies Do Dumb Things | Ideas and Inspiration For Brand Planners and Creative Thinkers | Designing for Experience [PDF:In-depth case study of a library redesign]

Source: Du Pont | HBS Working Knowledge | Business Week | Fast Company | Tristan Louis | Marc Rettig | Business.gov

Engadget

2006-01-19T13:05:00.000+05:30

Engadget a site which keeps track of all the upcoming gadgets all round the globe. Found some of the reviews really helpful, their coverage of CES 2006 which concluded last week is really good. I really enjoyed their featured contents 'Live coverage of Google's keynote' it keeps you informed about the entire keynote from Larry Page & Robin Williams in a unique way. They have lot of sections covering all types of Gadgets from Cellphones - Digital Cameras - u name it they have it. If U R a Gadget Freak then its definitely worth visiting.

WEIRD! Instant Messengers

2006-01-08T16:57:00.000+05:30

Today I was browsing through Anthroponym's blog and found this post on Google Talk. Just to Xperiment I tried the same myself, I changed the year to 2007 and tried logging into Google Talk, unfortunately I got the same MSG as Anthro. Then tried the same with MSN Messenger, its the same here, never let me login. The only IM which did allow me to login without any problem was Yahoo!.

SOA @ Work

2006-01-05T13:25:00.000+05:30

Joe McKendrick in his recent post on ZDNet has complied an interesting set of use-cases/examples of SOA. It is really interesting to know how SOA has played a role in so many different Scenarios like Streamlining access to data, Managing HealthCare Insurance, Improving Customer Services, To cut down integration costs and Providing loose coupling & at the same time being efficient. I bet you don't wanna miss this post.

Source:ZDNet.

Indiatimes Top 10 gadgets of the year

2005-12-27T21:27:00.000+05:30

I would love to have few of them next year;)

Refresh your XML

2005-12-20T17:37:00.000+05:30

It has been quite a while since i posted on this blog, today I just thought of summing up something on XML. It has been more than a year ago when I wrote this article on XML, I know there is still a post due on the tools & APIs for XML currently available in the market. Last month I found this interesting lecture from David P. Heitmeyer, AM, Manager of Web and Applications Development, Faculty of Arts and Sciences Computer Services, Harvard University on Web Development Using XML. So I thought i would share the same with all of you who are new to XML development.

All the information available on this link is Copyright under "The President and Fellows of Harvard College". This link gives you the privilege to watch two Lectures from David P. Heitmeyer. Mr David gives you a real use case on how we would use XML for Developing Web Applications. During these lectures, Mr David also suggests few articles on XML and Web. The links to those are listed below:

Source: Harvard Distance Education | Scientific American

Site of the week:TechCrunch

2005-11-30T10:30:00.000+05:30

Sometime back there was so much noise about Web 2.0 & i guess all the noises are valid. Web 2.0 is all about convergence & developing software and services for on-demand future. Here is this weblog called "TechCrunch -Tracking Web2.0" which is dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new web 2.0 products and companies.

I enjoyed browsing the site & i hope u would enjoy it as well.

Update: Michael Arrington who writes for TechCrunch also has an informal collection of thoughts on Web 2.0 @ CrunchNotes.

Bug in IE or Windows OS?

2005-11-24T18:23:00.000+05:30

Create a folder on the desktop and name it "Notepad", open any webpage in IE and see its view source....AMAZING !!!

Software Evolution

2005-11-23T15:36:00.000+05:30

I had not heard about "Software Evolution", a common phrase in the research area of Software engineeringbefore untill i found this Keynote Talk by Mr Mehdi Jazayeri on 'Software Evolution' called "Species evolve, individuals age". It is a must read article for anyone who is in anyway realted with software development.

I like the way Mr Mehdi says, "It is not the software that Evolves, rather our knowledge about a particular type of software".

For more read here.

Source: Distributed Systems Group, Technical University of Vienna.

Web Services Glossary

2005-11-23T13:14:00.000+05:30

Found this interesting Glossary on Web Services on W3 site. It contains a list of Web services terms that are part of a coherent framework defined in the Web Services Architecture.

I found it very useful and thought of sharing the same.

UN finally unveils $100 laptop

2005-11-17T17:56:00.000+05:30

Its good to know that $100 laptops are finally available and I wish it would bring the much needed change as per the end goal of the project, i.e. narrowing the technology gap between the rich & poor.

For more on this check here.

Site of the week : ZDNet

2005-11-03T11:46:00.000+05:30

The Caption of ZDNet says it all 'Where Technology meets Business', it truly lives upto that. I am not sure how many of u actually hit ZDNet regularly, if u aren't then all i can say is u are missing much of the buzz from both 'Technology' & 'Business' worlds.

Till recently i was just hitting their blogs & news sections. Today, i discovered they have amazing whiteboard sessions. I really enjoyed the whiteboard sessions, as they are rich in information, crisp & to the point. I just went through few of them What is SOA?, RFID Vs SmartCards & Google Tiles, they are really worth watching.

Source: ZDNet
Technorati: Video | ZDNet | Vivek Kondur

Has your company carded u yet?

2005-11-02T12:38:00.000+05:30

Microsoft employees are carded. If u don't get what i am talking about, then read this article to understand what i mean by 'Carded'.

Source: RedmondMag | Technorati: Vivek Kondur

Women & Techonlogy

2005-11-02T10:35:00.000+05:30

Interesting combination!

Techonrati:Vivek Kondur

My Latest Article on WSBPEL

2005-11-02T09:50:00.000+05:30

Here is another article on JavaWorld; the article is on WSBPEL, which one of the emerging languages in the Web Services world. In this article, we cover the basics of the language, the engine architecture and also how we could use XQuery & XML Database. You could click here to read the article.

Update: BPEL has a human side | BPEL gets bopped again

Guess what just turned 34?

2005-10-27T21:32:00.000+05:30

Post from the Gmail engineer on the origin of email, worth reading.

Web 2.0 - the latest buzzword

2005-10-07T13:40:00.000+05:30

Looks like everyone in the town is speaking about version 2.0 of Web. I didn't really get what was Web 2.0 all about, today morning Times Of India, Bangalore edition also carried an article on Web 2.0. Here are some of the articles on Web 2.0 which i browsed through to find out What Is Web 2.0 | The Web 2.0 | Web2Explorer

Source: ZDNet | Oreilly.Net | Loekb @ blogspot.

Site of the week

2005-10-06T19:34:00.000+05:30

Engadget – a frantic news alert of the latest gadgetery available all done with a decent mix of humor and irreverence. You would also like to read the interview with Peter Rojas of Engadget, who happens to be the founder of Engadget and also a blog pioneer;).

Vivek Kondur | Gadget

JAVA still leads the race

2005-10-06T19:04:00.000+05:30

According to TIOBE-the coding standards company's Programming Index for the Month of October JAVA still leads the race among the mainstream languages. To read more about the predicitions/statistics about the Programming Index click here.

Source: TIOBE

vivek kondur | java

Honda Accord - Ad

2005-10-06T14:45:00.000+05:30

Very Creative!

The Soft Grid : The Future of Software

2005-10-05T11:00:00.000+05:30

Joint Venture from SUN & Google

2005-10-05T09:57:00.000+05:30

Looks like Microsoft will be having tough time in the coming years from it's rivals. The rivals (Sun & Gooogle) this time are teaming together for the development and distribution of their respective technologies in order to challenge the domiance of Microsoft. For more on it read this & more.

Update: Google and Sun horse trading | Next for Sun, Google, Java: Walking papers for the fat client cartel? | Google and Sun join forces (Video)

Source: The New York Times, ZDNet.

Bill Gates makes his bet on GUI & Web Services

2005-09-26T15:19:00.000+05:30

On Microsoft's 30th Birthday, Bill Gates says,"I’m most proud of our making 'big bets' on technologies like the graphical user interface or Web services and watching them grow into something people rely on every day." To read more click here.

You could also read this interesting article on Web Services.

Why Internet Explorer is unsafe?

2005-09-20T14:59:00.000+05:30

Another interesting site which is dedicated for telling all the netizens 'Why Internet Explorer is unsafe?'. I feel if u are not using Firefox, you should read this.

Technorati tags: Vivek Kondur

Mysore beats Bangalore on WiFi

2005-09-15T13:00:00.000+05:30

Yes its true that the IT captial of India aka Bangalore is still not wire-free as Mysore. City of Palaces becomes the first city in India to go completely WiFi, now u can stay connected from irrespective of the location in the city without wires.

I hope Bangalore takes a note of it and we do have it in the near future, currently only some of the Coffeeshops & Hotels in Bangalore provide WiFi.

You can read on Mysore going wire-free on TOI.

Technorati tags: Vivek Kondur | WiFi

GBS - Google Blog Search

2005-09-15T10:25:00.000+05:30

Yes the Search giant has added another dimension to their search engine, this time it searches the *Blogs*. Still a Beta search, i guess it will take sometime before people start using it more often for considering fellow bloggers opinions/feedbacks on any topic. I did a search for my name [Vivek Kondur] and the reuslts are quite good, as it featured many of my posts randomly from different blogs.

But, i am sure this guy wouldn't agree with what i have said about the search results,..."Improved Relevancy: One example. I did a search for my name [Gary Price] and found several non-relevant results in the first 20. In the second result "Gary" is found in one part of the post and "Price" in another. Then, back to results mentioning yours truly before posts discussing the "price" of movies for sale. Note: Yes, of course, I could search "Gary Price" and get more precise results but most searchers don't use quotes to denote phrases".

Technorati tags: vivek kondur Google

iPod nano

2005-09-14T10:54:00.000+05:30

I want one, that was my first expression when i saw *Nano* on Apple site. Gadget i would be buying shortly;).

Logging: log4j / commons-logging API /JDK 1.4 logging

2005-09-08T14:16:00.000+05:30

Very useful article on choosing the right logging API for your projects.

Source & Copyright: QoS

Hype Cycle on ESB

2005-09-06T17:35:00.000+05:30

Quote of the week

2005-09-06T16:40:00.000+05:30

" A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others " - Ayn Rand

Hype Cycle on Emerging Technologies, 2005

2005-09-06T14:24:00.000+05:30

Gartner has come out with their 10th edition of Hype Cycles, the report quotes it has covered a lot of technologies across various trends, regions and industries. It is worth going through their report on Hype Cycle.

Where to find the report? Click here.

Next Gen mobiles

2005-09-01T13:08:00.000+05:30

If you are planning to buy mobiles, then i feel u need to check out this before investing your money. Some really cool ones, but i am sure you need to shell out more money to enjoy more features.

Source: Indiatimes Infotech.

ENV - Emission Netural Vehicle

2005-09-01T12:07:00.000+05:30

Did u read the heading right? Yes it’s true, there is indeed a vehicle which doesn’t pollute a bit and what it emits would surprise you even more, any guesses for what the emission would be? It emits 'WATER', making it one of the ENVs. I watched it on BBC World yesterday night.

To know more about the technology behind the bike and other stuff then you could find some info over here: BBC | Bludja | Fuelcellsworks | Update by Bludja.

Quote of the week

2005-08-31T17:35:00.000+05:30

" Design adds value faster than it adds cost" -Joel Spolsky

SOA definitions simplified

2005-08-30T18:26:00.000+05:30

Brenda Michelson of PS Group has spent a lot of time in the SOA World. She has defined some of the key SOA terms in a simple way on her blog, which provides a clear insight. I found her post very useful, thought of sharing 'SOA Definitions' with rest of u.

Exploring Enterprise Service Bus[ESB]

2005-08-26T10:45:00.000+05:30

*ESB* is yet another buzzword in the IT world currently. I am writing this post to take the snap shot at what is current status of ESBs in the market. This post has taken significant amount time for me to study the trend of ESBs and its realted Technologies, Standards, Frameworks, Patterns and ofcourse the buzzwords;). So thought i would sum it all in this post kind a one-stop-shop for the analysis of ESBs (lol).

P.S: Well most of my the knowledge on this subject is borrowed. As per the principles of DRY which states,

''Every piece of knowledge must have a single,
unambiguous, authoritative representation within a system''.

Going by the same prinicple, there are many good articles on the web, 'written' by those who have been both in the EAI era & been witness to the transformation of standards into the current platform independent standards & protocols; Some authors who follow the new breed of standards (which fall under SOA like SOAP, WSDL, WSBPEL, etc); And some authors who represent the Vendors who have some kind of implementations of ESB. All due rights are held by the respective Vendors or Groups or Authors.

So let us start from the scratch,

What Is an ESB?

An ESB is an open standards, message-based, distributed, integration solution that provides routing, invocation, and mediation services to facilitate the interactions of disparate distributed information technology resources (applications, services, information, plat-forms) in a reliable manner. That’s a lot to take in, so let’s break down the key terms in our ESB definition, as follows:

Open Standards. Open stan-dards refers to both the ESB solution compo-nents (runtime container, messaging infrastructure, integration services, design-time notations) and the mechanisms for inte-grated resources to participate (attach, request, respond) on the bus.
Message-Based. The communication mechanism of an ESB is messaging, using standard message notation, protocols, and transports.
Distributed. The ESB runtime environment can be distributed across a networked envi-ronment for the purposes of quality of service, quality of protection, and economics.
Routing, Invocation, and Mediation. Routing, invocation, and mediation are the ba-sic functions of the ESB. Routing includes address-ability and content-based routing. Invocation refers to the ability to make requests and receive responses from integration services and integrated resources. Mediation refers to all translations and transforma-tions between disparate resources including security, protocol, message notation/format and message payload (data/semantics).
Facilitate. The ESB must coordinate the interactions of the various resources and provide transactional support.
Reliable. The ESB must guarantee message delivery.

Source:Ebizq

If u have time and want to invest in knowing how EAI evolved over a period of time. How EAI was transformed to the new age *ESB*, then you could spend some time reading this.

What are the essentials in an ESB?

Source: Ebiz and Patricia Seybold Group.

But this doesn't mean that all the Vendors of ESB agree with the feature list. Most of them provide them in their own way. Here is list for some of the Vendors & their features.

BEA --- Aqua Logic

CapeClear --- ESB

Cordys --- ESB

Fiorano --- ESB

Firona --- Xtended Web Services Management Suite
HP --- Adaptive Enterprise Services

IBM --- ESB

Iona --- Atrix

Oracle --- ESB

PolarLake --- Integration Suite

Progress --- SonicESB

Tibco --- ESB

SeeBeyond --- eInsight

Now we know what is an ESB, their features and also some of the Vendors in this arena. There are many Use-Cases around which fits perfectly for these infrastructre products, so i wouldn't be venturing into them. One thing which has been constantly lingering in my mind is the fact that every major infrastructre Vendor wants to jump into the Bandwagon of ESB or ESB-styled products and offer services on them. This is what Ronan Bradley, CEO of PolarLake had to say when i asked him about the numerous flavours of ESB sprouting in the market on his blog,

"With regard to question around ESB vendors - there are already many who either claim that they have an ESB - or in the case of IBM and more recently Tibco claim that they have been selling one for years (a claim that I find bizarre and incredible).

If the market growth continues, the number of vendors may well grow further. That is why it is important for the user to focus on what they are trying to do rather than abstract marketing driven definitions (perhaps this is stating the obvious). "

I agree with Ronan, that there is enough room for all the major vendors, but looks like there will be some tough competition from the open source world. As far as i know, currently there are 2 players in ESB, they are Mule and ServiceMix.

Not to leave our prime Open-Source player, Apache, which has finally made its plans of entering the infrastructure software development by announcing the project Synapse. Since, Apache, the Mother of Open-Source Projects has ventured into the development of an ESB, i guess the other players should take a note of it. May be it is too early to say anything about Synapse, but you definitely can't write them off. Moreover, Synapse has some highly credible industry support with Sonic Software, Blue Titan, Iona and Infravio all pitching in. If you have noticed that some of the key vendors of ESB are pitching into the development of Synapse, apart from WSO2 being the key contributor. Switching groups has already begun, if u didn't get what i mean then you should read this.

Here are some of the articles relating to ESB, which I have really enjoyed reading.

The ESB vs WS "Fabric" - a Phoney War? - By Ronan Bradley, CEO of PolarLake.

Incremental Integration & the ESB - By Ronan Bradley, CEO of PolarLake.

Following are some links to interesting articles on ESB @ Ebizq

Enterprise Service Bus Q&A Part I

Enterprise Service Bus Q&A Part II

ESB and BPEL: Changing the Rules of Integration

The Omnipotent Extensible ESB

ESB Fills Management Gaps for Web Services

Following are some links to interesting articles on ESB @ LooselyCoupled

ESB: time to grow up

All about ESB

Let me know if there are any more interesting articles on ESB.

Source: Apache, BEA, CapeClear, Cordys, Ebiz, Fiorano, Firona, Loosely Coupled, HP, IBM, Iona, Oracle, Patricia Seybold Group, PolarLake, Progres, Tibco, SeeBeyond.

Apache's Synapse

2005-08-25T14:27:00.000+05:30

Apache's Synapse - A Web service Mediation Framework project. It is a proposal to build a set of components that work together with Axis2 and other Apache and open source projects to create a flexible transformation, management and routing system. The feature list looks impressive, and the aims of the Synapse as follows:

a messaging and communications infrastructure;
based on the principles of service oriented architectures;
that provides a way of connecting disparate systems;
that manages the connections and the routing of messages between systems;
that intermediates and transforms messages and service interactions independently of the endpoint applications;
that is neutral with respect to the languages and platforms that are integrated - providing first class support for C/C++/COBOL/Java/.NET and other application platforms.

This project implements the patterns that are often called Enterprise Service Bus or Broker. You can find more of this on Apache's Incubator.

Source: Apache.

Review - Google Talk

2005-08-25T11:29:00.000+05:30

One more great service from Google, this time its called Google Talk. YAIM (if you didn't get what i meant, expands to Yet Another Instant Messenger) but this time its from Google's stable. Since its from Google, there must be something different from the rest.

Let me not brag too much about it, will just highlight the stuff i came across, as they say it is Integrated with GMAIL, all the contacts on your GMAIL ID are available for u, like any other IM it can be used for Instant-Messaging, you could also use it has VOIP (for Non-Techies it simply means that you can talk to another person on your list for free & the voice is clear and there is no latency).

What are the essentials for using Google Talk,

Must have ID on google mail or GMAIL.
Need to download Google-Talk.
If u wanna talk then u need to have speaker and a microphone.

Would like to thank Satz who introduced me to GoogleTalk.

Enjoy the power of Google Talk.

Culture of Mobility

2005-08-25T10:55:00.000+05:30

Yesterday i came across this interesting site on Nokia, its called the Culture of Mobility - its Vibrant, Colorful & Trendy.

Source: Nokia.

Sony Ericsson announces new Mobile Walkman phone: W550 0

2005-08-25T09:51:00.000+05:30

So all those who want to have feel of W550 will have to wait till Q4. Wanna know more about the phone??? then click here. The phone specification can be found here.

Source: SonyEricsson.

Blinder by Google

2005-08-23T10:03:00.000+05:30

I have admired Google for their creative and innovative ideas in making software simple & fun. But sometimes even the most innovative companies create blunders, can't believe it?, then try the following steps yourself and enjoy the blunder.

1. Open google
2. Click 'language tools' link.
3. Write "Aishwarya's mom is very nice" in 'Translate text:' textbox.
4. Select "English to Spanish" in the below combo.
5. Press Translate and wait for translation.
6. Now copy the translated text from the above text and paste it in the 'Translate text:' textbox.
7. Select "Spanish to English" in the below combo.
8. Press Translate and wait for translation.
9. Enjoy.

A Practical Explanation and Example of SOA for the non-Techie - Eric Stahl

2005-08-19T12:45:00.000+05:30

If you are working in IT {Information Techonlogy} domain, then by now you should would have heard everyone across the chain ( CTOs, Architects, Developers, Marketing teams ) talking about *SOA* in one form or other.

Accorindg to some of the Research and Analysis firms like Zapthink, Gartner, Forrester Research, have predicted that SOA would be the buzzword in the year 2005. I did write a post about this in the month of Jan'05, in case u want to read click here.

Eric Stahl, Senior Director of Investor Relations at BEA, gives a very simple practical explanation & example of the use of SOA. As Eric says at the end of his post "Hopefully this entry helps cut through some of the "SOA" buzzword noise...".

The example really makes sense from the perspective of a Non-Techie, to provide the feel of what SOA & the associated Standards has to offer for the future. I really enjoyed reading the example & the explanation.

Source: dev2dev-blogs,BEA.

Few interesting blogs

2005-08-16T17:46:00.000+05:30

Today i happened to come across few interesting blogs and i thought it would be of much use to those on the *Virtual World* who hit this blog-space regularly.

Arvind Thiagarajan - Innovator

2005-08-10T16:29:00.000+05:30

I stumbled upon this article and was pleasantly surprised while reading the article which speaks about his invention 'EchoView' and his company 'MatrixView'. EchoView is an algorithm developed for compressing larger files with less loss of data, interesting read.

Source: Rediff.

How digital era is changing Bollywood

2005-08-10T16:21:00.000+05:30

You feel good when u know that Techonolgy is rapidly catching up with every strata of the society in some form or other. The Technology revolution also brings many changes in the equilibrium of the system which is well established. The adaptation of the Technology always lies at various players involved in the system.

Source:Rediff.

Microsoft Vista

2005-07-29T11:14:00.000+05:30

In the past i have been very vocal against Microsoft Operating-System(OS) due to the several reasons like security lapses, frequent crashes, etc... I did use Linux for some time at home, but when my parents had to use the system then i had to switch to Windows b'coz it's easier for them to use, I feel that is major edge which Windows has over Linux.

Even though there is Graphical User Interface(GUI) in many of the present flavors of Linux, it's still takes sometime to unlearn some concepts from windows and learn things on Linux. It's easier for a technol guy to pick up things within couple of hours, but it ain't that simple with people who aren't aware of using different application softwares. So this where Micorsoft wins the battle of OS's in personal computing when it comes to desktops or notebooks. After the release of XP from Microsfot i have started liking them, because they have fixed some of the major glitches which were found in the previous OSs.

Next year Microsoft is coming out with a new OS called Windows Vista. Click for more on the vision, platform and philosophy.

Motorola to add Yahoo! Web Services to Mobiles

2005-07-28T17:26:00.000+05:30

Web Services has changed the face of integration, and it's slowly making it's roads into the service integration on mobile phones. With Motorola having plans to integrate Yahoo Internet services - such as e-mail, search, instant messaging and news - into its handheld and desktop devices throughout the major markets, as early as in the first quarter of 2006, it looks very promising. It would start the next wave in the way we access Internet through mobile devices.

Source: Digital-lifestyles.

DoD getting real with the next generation SCI technology?

2005-07-28T17:13:00.000+05:30

DoD is slowly adapting the new age technology called RFID. That's mainly because of these recent developments

(i) Where the Systems integrators ODIN Technologies and Unisys have been awarded a U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) blanket purchase agreement (BPA) under which all military services can use the companies to evaluate, install and integrate radio frequency identification systems. More...

(ii) In the EPC world, a revision to EPCglobal's tag data standard includes the Department of Defense's legacy product code formats. More...

Source: RFIDJournal

Porn, Dubai and Bluetooth phone hacking...

2005-07-15T10:31:00.000+05:30

If you own a bluetooth mobile and you happen to be visiting Dubai, then i guess u need to read this article and update yourself on the use of Technology and Rules of the Land.

Porn, Dubai and Bluetooth phone hacking...

Police sound warning over obscene SMS

So next time when your are in a crowded place in Dubai, you better keep the bluetooth diabled on your mobile.

Source:The Register, Khaleej Times.

Yahoo Unveils new SMS service in US of A

2005-07-08T18:14:00.000+05:30

Now Yahoo unveils the SMS service which would enable people to send text message queries to its search engine and receive results back on their mobile phones.

So by Yahoo providing this latest feature, it tries to compete with the exisiting beta service provided by Google SMS.

Source: The Register.

Sun Microsystems

2005-07-01T12:31:00.000+05:30

Standford University Network well known to the world as SUN Microsystems, who made JAVA the favorite language for the WWW (world wide web).

Going by history, SUN has always tried to hold the control of JAVA. Apart from SUN, there have been lot of contirbutions to the JAVA world by IBM, BEA, HP to name a few. On the other hand the greatest, ever-growing, vibrant, diverse open-source community has been contributing dynamically towards the growth of the technology in many ways. Some of the big companies like IBM, BEA also have started contributing to the Open-Source World in developing frameworks. Thereby SUN is no longer the guiding light for the technology it invented according to this interesting article called "Sun faces open-source swarm".

Sun is not the only one who would face the challenge, rather it would be common for all the Big companies in the IT trade is from LAMP. If Open Source world would start developing products then it would definitely give a run for the money.

SUN is smart they have moved on with the open-source swarm, trying to get a major chunk on the latest techonlogy RFID which is grabbing the headlines. Here is an update on what SUN is doing w.r.t RFID.

Source: Wiki, Infoworld, ZDNet India.

SOA Repository

2005-06-28T10:47:00.000+05:30

I feel the predictions are right on track for SOA domain and now there are lot of Products which are being built to make SOA-Complaint. SOA Repository is one such product which plays a diverse-role in the SOA domain. It could be used for Persistence, Registry, Monitory, Governance, etc.

Here is an article on Java World "The power behind the SOA repository" ,which clearly describes the role and need for having an SOA Repository.

Source: Java World

Compilation of FireFox Features

2005-05-27T14:36:00.000+05:30

A month ago i stumbled upon LifeHacker-LH and it was a gateway for the world of new stuff happening on Softwares, Technology, Gizmos,etc.I regularly drop by LH and especially like the info i get on Firefox, as it has utilize Firefox to its best.

Here is compilation of few URL's on Firefox which i found while i was browsing LH, so take your time to read them so that u can use Firefox much more efficiently and be more productive:).

So if u are not using Firefox or don't even know what is Firefox then i guess u need to make the switch right now and find it out here.

Source: LifeHacker

Next Generation of Credit Cards with RFID Technology

2005-05-27T12:42:00.000+05:30

Some of the ideas which are presently floating in the RFID seem to be a take from some of the Sci-Fi movies Hollywood makes. As we are moving ahead with many innovations with the use of new Technologies, some of these fictions are being transformed into reality and can be used in our day-t0-day activities to lead a very hassle free life.

This story speaks about one of the successful use of RFID Technology in Banking sector. Here is an extract from the article "Chase Offers Contactless Cards in a Blink" on RFIDJounal.com.

"We're very focused on trying to figure out new opportunities for Chase customers to use their cards," says Rau. He explains that Chase conducted a pilot program in Orlando, Fla., in 2003 to develop the blink program. Chase also participated in a MasterCard PayPass pilot (see MasterCard to Test RFID Card). Rau claims that results from the blink pilot and other research shows that consumers consider contactless technology to be "simple, fast and convenient," and that "consumers enjoyed the added security from retaining possession of their cards while paying."

Source: RFIDJournal.com

Google Trying Out Video Blogging

2005-05-11T13:21:00.000+05:30

I have always admired Google for developing innovative services and products or for that matter everything they do is so creative. This time too there was no surprise when i hit upon this news about their idea on 'VBlogging' or 'Video Blogging' to be more precise. Let's wait and see what more features will be available from Google for the bloggers.

I feel Google should also support file sharing on blogger so that it would be very useful for sharing certain documents over web.

My first contribution to the article on "Get familiar with ebXML Registry " in Java World.

2005-04-26T14:14:00.000+05:30

All these days i have been blogging about technology in general. After i joined SourceN India Pvt Ltd i was given the oppurtunity to contribute to a article on ebXML Registry which was being written by Ash Parikh DoT, RainingData Corp, USA. Now the article "Get familiar with ebXML Registry " is published in Java World.

yagoohoogle.com

2005-04-14T16:15:00.000+05:30

Interesting useage of Yahoo and Google search engines. This website utilizes both the yahoo and google search engines reuslts to be displayed in a single window, which can be compared easily.

Keyhole - Another side of Google

2005-03-10T16:30:00.000+05:30

Google is always doing different stuff with technology on many fronts. They are so creative in what they do. May be Keyhole wasn't their child, but now that Google has taken over it i am sure they will have some interesting concepts for that too.

Here is just a brief description of Keyhole," Keyhole is the 3D digital earth pioneer—the only company to deliver a 3D digital model of the entire earth via the Internet."

Visit there site for more details on Keyhole.

Google is one of my dream companies to work for.

New Range of 3G phones form SonyErcisson.

2005-03-01T17:30:00.000+05:30

For all SonyEricsson fans out there, here are some latest range of 3G mobile technology. I liked the look and feel of both Z800i and K600i. The sad part is these models are not available in India as of now. Sony-Ericsson has started building its brand image in India in a major way with S700, K500i, J200i,etc. India is one of the potential markets for any mobile manufacturer. Everyone manufacturer is trying to outsell there products with the latest feauters be the global leader like Nokia, or Motorola or LG or Samsung or SonyEricsson.

Even though i own a Motorola E365, i am great fan of SonyErcisson, my next one will surely be an SE. I hope SE opens its own centres in India like Nokia or Motorola, it will be very easier to upgrade latest firmwares and also get to have the latest models of SE.

Will 2005 really belong to SOA and Web Services?

2005-01-06T13:23:00.000+05:30

I surely feel year 2005 will belong to SOA and Web Services, there are lot of signs that Web Services and SOA are going to drive this years IT industry's growth. To learn what exaclty is SOA read this, " Demystifying SOA: An Architect's, Dev Guide ".

I came across one more article today which was about the interview with Mr Marc Fleury, CEO of JBOSS Inc. This one on Web Services was posed to him

1) "IT is certainly abuzz over Web services and shops moving to a service-oriented architecture. How will JBoss climb aboard the bandwagon?"

Fleury: J2EE 1.4 certification was a Web service standard. To pass certification, we had to rewrite Axis, the open source implementation of the SOAP stack. A lot of the infrastructure for those Web services is present in the JBoss app server.

2) What are your customers saying about Web services?

Fleury: We follow Web services with interest and some detachment. We are technologists and open source people. We include features in products when customers want them badly. We don't sell licenses. We view Web services as a vendor push to differentiate. We see vendors talking about Web services, but we're not seeing customers talk about it. They ask for technology lower in the stack, because it's a great integration technology; expose business services as a WSDL [Web Services Description Language] and have a coarse grain of computing with Web services. It's not like our customers are saying we need WS-Orchestration right now. It's a wait-and-see attitude. If the market goes that way, we will too. Let Microsoft and IBM duke it out. We'll go with it.

For more on interview with CEO of Jboss Inc, click here " JBoss CEO: Web services a prime integration tool".

Here are few of the extracts the analyzed prediciton on SOA from some of the reputed firms like IBM, ZapThink, Gartner and

IDC. According to IBM, Web services and the SOA market, now just 3 percent of the IT services market, will grow to 17 percent by 2007—about $100 billion in client spending overall. That's not software or hardware—just services.

According to IDC, more than 80 percent of companies surveyed plan to have Web services projects under way by 2005. IDC predicts that the total value of the Web services market alone, including hardware and software as well as services, will grow to $21 billion by 2007.

As Web services and SOAs come into use more and more, Gartner predicts a dramatic drop in the cost of releasing and customizing applications. Today, for every $1 spent on a software license, it costs about $5 to $6 to implement the software.

By 2008, Gartner says, advances in Web services will drastically lower the installation costs of software applications to $2–$2.50 for every $1 spent on a license.

Finally, according to ZapThink, we're close to what they call "the tipping point" for Web services: the point when enough companies will have adopted at least some Web services that deployment and use will explode. "When that point passes,"

ZapThink predicts in a paper, "the world of distributed computing will never be the same."

I hope SOA and WebService grow according to the predictions. Some more interesting articles on what Web Services will offer.

Outsourcing good for WS jobs in 2005.

ZapThink 2004 SOA retrospective and looking ahead to 2005.

Why service orientation is a move in the right direction?

Is this the end of IT as we know it?

New Features from Google - Library, Suggest, Print.

2004-12-15T09:09:00.000+05:30

I came to know about this one today morning while i was watching BBC World. Google my favorite search engine has come up with their new project called Library. This allows google to scan the millions of books from some of the world's best Universities. Google is partnering with the New York Public Library and the libraries of Harvard University, Stanford University, the University of Oxford and the University of Michigan. For more info on Google's Library click here.

As i have already written about how other players are getting into search engine acticity, i guess Google plans to stay on top of other Search Engines by coming up with some of the innovative ideas. World's largest OS company Microsoft yesterdayt also has unveild its beta version of Desktop search engine making the field even more competitive. I feel Microsoft has an edge over Google in Desktop search among PC users because they will surely package with their OS and this has been their marketing stratergy to corner some of the other software vendors over a period of time. If u remember the same happened with Real Player, Microsoft came up with their own Windows Media Player.

For those of you who have not heard about Google's Froogle, Scholar, Groups, Local, News, and the rest do visit here to learn more of it.

The following features from Google are still not listed on their site as they are still in there Beta launch. But do try it out.

1)Try this one its called "Google Suggest". Google Suggest suggests you the words as you type in the text box. More info on Google Suggest.

2)This one is called "Google Print".Google Print puts the content of books where you can find it most easily. More info on Google Print.

Finally to find out what is Google presently working upon, you can visit their playground called Google Labs.

Now you know i am great fanatic of Google:).

FireFox

2004-12-04T13:55:00.000+05:30

How many of us are bored using the same old Microsoft IE everyday. Microsoft has not done any major feature updates to their subsequent version releases of IE. From IE 4.0 to the latest IE 6.0 there are hardly any changes. Since Microsoft rules and dominates the OS market they have taken the consumer for granted and not added any new features.

I just came across FireFox from Mozilla, a new(atleast for me) browser last month from one of my colleagues. I installed on Nov 10th and from them i have thrashed IE. Firefox gives a lot many features(main feature it provides is to block those pop-ups) which u don't get in IE. I am not gonna tell u what are the other features of Firefox, i will leave that for you to discover yourself.

Make the switch to Mozilla Firefox today and feel the difference the way you browse. May be 85% of the population uses IE, but its if Microsoft doesn't add any features they are gonna loose slowly.

Here is the link for the downloading Mozill Firefox if u wanna support Mozilla for there work.

XML - Part I

2004-11-18T16:45:00.000+05:30

I felt like writing something on XML and so decided to write some basics concepts i have learnt on XML. XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language. XML is an interesting language and i enjoy working on XML- oriented languages. The only drawback with XML is you have to keep yourself updated with many related languages (XML Namespaces, XPath, XML Scehmas, etc.). Somtimes its fun learnig these languages too as they are necessary at times.

In Part-I i will try and cover few of the questions i had in mind when i started trying to learn or understand like, what is XML? How can we use XML? why go for XML?

What is XML?

As said before XML stand for eXtensible Markup Language. Well XML is something totally new to the world to the computing world. The definition on W3C says," Originally designed to meet the challenges of large scale electronic-publishing". XML as grown a long way since its intial year and it has been used in many different ways for different purposes. The current XML version we use is 1.0.

How we can use XML?

This is good question. XML can be used in multiple ways, and so it gives different views. Here are some of the ways XML is being used, XML can store data, but it is not a database. XML can serialize objects, but an XML document is not an object. Web pages can be written in XML, but XML is not HTML. Functional (and other) programming languages can be written in XML, but XML is not a programming language. Books are written in XML, but that doesn’t make XML desktop publishing software. XML is simply XML, that which can be eXtensible. XML by itself defines no boundaries, it gives us all the freedom to use it anyway we wish to.

Why go for XML?

This is another good question. For those of us who know the benefits of what Java language gives, XML too shares some of the benefits. Here are a few of the pros and cons of it.

Pros:
1)It is independent of architecture, platform, operating system, and language. Well u can say XML should work on any system that supports JAVA.
2)You can define your own tags, provided u follow the formatting rules.
3)Easily extensible.
4)It can be used for a variety of purposes as mentioned before.

Cons:
1)The one and only disadvantage of XML i found is lack of adequate processing applications. What i exactly mean by this is that you wrote an HTML Document, anyone, anywhere in the world could read that by opening the HTML file in any of the Web Browsers. But that is not the same with XML Documents as there are no XML browsers as of now. I guess IE version 5 + above provides displaying XML as of now, but the processing of selective XML data is still not a feature in any of the present day broswers.

In Part - II i guess i will cover the tools, API's available and describe them.

Well comments and suggestion are always welcome and feel free to contribute more on this.

All about Business Processes Management

2004-11-17T17:05:00.000+05:30

Let us first get the definitions right.

Process Flow - A flow diagram showing the sequence of activities in a process.

Work Flow - Sequence of tasks. A workflow describes the order of a set of tasks performed by various agents to complete a given procedure within an organization.

Now all these jargon come into picture only in the Business Process Management Systems or Business Process Modelling (BPM). Before we venture into knowing more about BPM its always good to know the underlying concepts clearly. Here is a good one on Business Process and Web Services by Phil Wainewright. I hope by now you are familiar with the jargon and the concepts before we move on to BPM.

So now here is a good article i enjoyed reading on what is BPM The end in mind... by Jean-Jacques Dubray.

Microsoft enters Search Engine Activity

2004-11-11T22:46:00.000+05:30

Today Microsoft has announced its entry into the search engine battle ground where Google enjoys its dominance. After Yahoo Inc broke its ties with Google and enterd the search engine now its the turn of the world's largest software vendor to enter this field. Well Microsoft has plans of having a desktop crawler. All the three american companies have entered a new-era of online commerce to take advantage of huge revenues spent on keeping your site listed on one of the Top Search engines.

How many of u have ever got this thought in your mind. Google doesn't have a decent face to its site, its just got a simple form which does a lot of work at the back-end. And Google makes much revenue out of just its Adsense program on its partner sites. All i am trying to say is u don't need a good Web interface to make successfull company. We have lots of things to learn from google.

For more information on how a Search Enigne works click here.

Welcome!

2004-11-06T01:30:00.000+05:30

<world-wide-web>
      <blogger>
          <blog-details>
             <name> http://work-space.blogspot.com </name>
             <existence> 6-Nov-04 </existence>
             <category> Technology </category>
             <purpose> Share and Xplore Technology </purpose>
          </blog-details>
      </blogger>
</world-wide-web>

Hello world! i have created another blog-space for all the latest technology and the programming aspects which i have come across during my work. For those of you who have this doubt why one more blog-space?. All i can say, i prefer to have a different namespaces for each of my interests. I guess at somepoint of time i will open this blog for people who would like to contribute anything realted to technology or any programming concepts.

I have lot of things to write but time is a factor. Let's share the concepts which each one of us have and understand the technology better, so that we make use of the technology in better manner. Also feel free to correct me if at all i am wrong anywhere.