iTunes Phone

I recently purchased an iPod color (30GB) as a gift to my wife on our wedding anniversary. Both of us have really fallen in love with this product. Excellent usability features and really elegant design. The best part of the interface is the famous iPod dial. When I heard that Apple has introduced a new iTunes compatible cell phone the first thing I wanted to see the product interface and frankly I was very disappointed to see the dial missing. It almost looks like a regular motorola phone with a MP3 player built in with the iTunes software. What happened to the creative Apple design in this case? Looks like they were really in a hurry to release this product. I am sure the next version of the product will be very different ... so I am going to wait before buying this product.

Visual Studio: Contract First Web Services Interoperability between Microsoft .NET and IBM WebSphere

Visual Studio: Contract First Web Services Interoperability between Microsoft .NET and IBM WebSphere

I am presonally a big fan of contract first webservices development, but I don't think there are any good tools that support this form of development. At the end of day we should be able to define a contract that ensures interoporability, versioning and specifies the intent of the service (including the interface, all the business exceptions, usage model, etc.) and then eventually generate code from the contract. The challenge is to keep the contract and the code in sync, and this cannot happen without having some kind of an integrated tool along with a well defined change control process (change in this case is any change in the contract, theoritically the contract should not change, oh well the reality is that it does all the time). I have seem some tools which illustrate the concept with some very trivial examples, but I have not seen anything that can scale to the enterprise needs. While we wait for the industry to come up with some tools .... we should make sure that one person or a team of people with a good understanding of the business capability around the service should manage the contract.

Sonic Software

Sonic Software

Looks like a session worth attending ... I feel it is very important to look into the monitoring and management aspect of SOA.

Fusing enterprise architecture - Express Computer

Fusing enterprise architecture - Express Computer

The key challenge for adopting SOA in the enterprise is the decision on sizing the service. What I mean by sizing is the problem that services that have too many capabilities built into it are not very flexible because of too many dependencies and difficultly in managing the WS contract, and on the other hand if the service is too small then it cannot be directly used almost to a point where it is not useful. I have seen business team spend huge amounts of time to determine what should go into a service and what capabilities emcompass a complete business function.

Internet access over power lines gains momentum - Jan. 19, 2005

Internet access over power lines gains momentum - Jan. 19, 2005

WOW!! this is really impressive. BPL technology has been on the works for sometime, but it is starting to see its way out of the research labs into practical implementations. Although, they still some key issues to work out before it can be adopted on a wider scale and they have to compete with the wireless technologies, which is getting better and cheaper.

Clues may point to Google browser | CNET News.com

Clues may point to Google browser | CNET News.com

I really see that in the next couple of years Google will start getting into the Microsoft Turf like Operating Systems, Databases (search based) and Office products. All this may be really good for the consumer because we may start seeing some innovation sparking up and the technology that shall meets the end-user's expectations.

To Software Architects: Serve End Users, Not Your Egos

To Software Architects: Serve End Users, Not Your Egos

Dave is dead-on, absolutely right. Software architect has to ensure the documentation or the artifacts he delivers is actually usable. The documentation should be designed to suite the needs of the consumers or architectural stake holders (Business, Engineering, Dev, Quality, support, Data teams, etc.) and it is not meant to be compliant to some industry buzz which will be totally obsure to the actual consumers. Architects should thrive to communicate the most complex probelms is the most simplistic terms.

TheServerSide.NET - Predictions for 2005... Straight from the Magic 8-Ball

TheServerSide.NET - Predictions for 2005... Straight from the Magic 8-Ball

I really liked this prediction ....

Development Driven QA
Test Driven Development will continue to gain popularity amongst developers as more and more of them take to writing unit test scripts. In an interesting twist, QA engineers will determine that the best way to test these scripts is to write the actual components starting a new movement called Development Driven QA.

Anti-Spyware from Microsoft

Finally Microsoft is trying to do something to curb this problem.

I installed the AntiSpyware software-Beta directly from the Microsoft.com website
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

After using the anti spyware, I noticed that it detected some spyware on my PC which the SpyBlot software was unable to detect. The speed has increased and I can surf internet faster.

They could have done a better job with the tool UI.

Giant tsunami leaves millions homeless, thousands missing

All,I am sure you are all aware of the disaster that has struck South India, and the natural calamity has left thousands of people dead and millions homeless along the costal areas of Tamil Nadu, Andhra and Andaman Islands.

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/000200412272101.htm?headline=Tsunami~toll~crosses~24,000;~massive~relief~work~underway

http://www.newindpress.com/gallery/show.asp?Topic=-1031

I am making a small financial contribution ($100) towards the relief fund setup by the Prime Minister of India and to the doctors without borders.

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/
http://www.ndtv.com/template/template.asp?template=tsunami&slug=PM+urges+donations+for+relief+fund&id=65860&callid=1&category=National

I strongly encourage all of you to do the same. I am sure this money will go a long way in helping those who have lost their loved ones and to those whose entire life-time of assets has been completely wiped out. It is after all only a small percentage of your pay check.

nokia 6620

Arggg ... I had to return the new Nokia 6620 phone. Here are the reagons why?

Pros:

• I like the bluetooth capability
• Sync up with Outlook calendar, notes, tasks and contacts
• Good form factor
• Expandable memory slot (although you have to replace the existing one if you buy a new memory card). But the built in memory should be good enough for most of the functions
• Good Battery life

Cons:

• Key pad is rather small
• DOES not sync up with outlook email. The software Nokia PC Sync does not support this capability. Only way to do it is to set the email as a POP3 or SMPT email account and sync up email via Internet
• I thought this phone was really bulky for the capabilities it provides
• The speaker phone is weak ... hardly a speaker phone in my opinion
• Nokia PC sync software has a very poor UI

I had to return the phone because it does not support the email sync up using bluetooth and the phone was really bulky. After using a flip phone for so long ... I realized that I prefer a flip phone.

TIP: If you plan to buy any phone from the local AT&T wireless, do your research using google and they usually match the price on the device (they don't match the accessories). I was able to get the phone for about $100 less asking them to match the price.

Desktop Google search tool

This is really cool. I have started using this tool and it really does a great job ... finally I don't have to depend on the sluggish File explorer search capability. I am still figuring out all the capabilities it supports like wild card search, etc. I will blog about this as soon as find out more.

I went on an adventurous camping trip with a very good friend Subbarao. We camped near the Wollawa Lake and the Hells Canyon wilderness. Here are some pictures from the trip … pictures speak for itself the beauty of this place.



IMG_0183.JPG

IMG_0107.JPG

Gmail - Inbox

Great!!! Finally, I managed to get a gmail account and it really rocks. Awesome speed, 1000MB of space, search capability for finding emails, keyboard short cuts is nice, etc. I wish they had some more work on the adding some more attributes / details for the contact list, but other than that it is really nice. I will be making this gmail account as my primary personal email account.

I went to a beautiful trek last weekend (02/27-03/01) with a group called “Adventura”, an adventure club in Infosys. I spent an exhilarating weekend with a bunch of highly spirited and fun loving people.
Trek details:
• ~10Km one-way to Kodachadri, ~2500ft elevation gain
• ~2KM one-way to the Cave, ~450ft elevation gain

The key highlights of the trip were:
• Positive spirit and enthusiasm created by the Infosys crowd through out the trip
• The beautiful evening swimming in the warm waters of the Arabian Sea while watching the spectacular sunset at the baiyandoor beach.
• The breath taking view of the sun-rise on top of Kodachadari
• Beautiful hike up and down to the Cave (the cave itself was not worth the hike)
• Magnificent view of the clear sky in the night
• Marvelous sounds from all the birds and insects dwelling in the wilderness
• Incredible views of the serene and unruffled landscape

The overall experience was very delightful and pleasant.

From Bangalore take a train to Shimoga.
From Shimoga you have to catch a bus to Kollur or Biyandoor
You have to go to the kodachadari base (start the trek on the jeep trail)

Few Pictures from the trek:
Kodachadari
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DSCN0621.JPG
Sunset 1
Sunset 2
Kodachadari
Kodachadari
Kodachadari
Kodachadari

It is a well known fact that companies that are the market leaders in one technology wave fail to catch on to the next wave. Usually these shifts happen with the advent of new disruptive technologies. Take the example of companies like Lotus, Word perfect, Apple, DEC, Ingres, and SCO to name a few. Every one of these companies failed to make the required changes to embrace the disruptive and discontinuous change.
Intel is the current Market Leader with Micro processor technology. Intel as a company has been doing a lot of thinking and investment in the area of “what is the next thing after semi-conductors? Can a multi-billion dollar semiconductor industry survive if a new discovery revolutionizes the whole computing industry?”

A Quantum Computer could solve a problem in few months that would take millions of years for a conventional computer. Using the principles of quantum dots, Quantum physics describes the special rules that apply to atoms and subatomic particles. One principle is that when you observe a particle, you change it. If a particle can be in one of two states, for example "up" or "down," it only settles on one state when you look at it. Before you look at it, it can be in both states at the same time. Conventional computers process information as "bits."

A bit can be a one or a zero. A string of eight bits can represent a single number from zero (00000000) to 255 (11111111). In a quantum computer, bits can be both one and zero at the same time. A string of eight bits can therefore represent all of the numbers between zero and 255 at the same time. (Source: Science daily)

Think of using atoms to manage states instead of transistors in a semi-conductor chip. This will completely revolutionize the way we have known about computers, all the billions of dollars invested in various manufacturing plants across the globe will be rendered almost useless and Intel the market leader in microprocessors will have to find something else to do.

Biological computing may be the next big threat to the whole silicon industry. You could possibly use biological particles like bacteria and viruses to control your state and use billions of them in a space that can only fit 1000 transistor today. Biological particles will not have the problems of heat, transmission and power that we have today, the system designed today can become more powerful tomorrow when the bacteria or virus replicate. All this completely changes the way we use silicon, the systems designed with bio-chips may be millions of times faster than the silicon based, there will be simply no match with the computing power. It is like using diodes instead of semi-conductors to manufacture PCs.

As we all know, patenting has become a very familiar task in the research landscape. One critical question remains: whether intellectual property is fundamentally inconsistent with the norms of research science. Although, we are likely to ask more questions around what sorts of research discoveries should be patented and about how proprietary research tools should be disseminated in the research community.
Intellectual property has been an important phenomenon in research science. According to me it is absolutely essential to preserve the benefits of intellectual property while minimizing interference with the progress of science.
When large corporations are investing so many dollars on research and often the goals of the competitors are similar. It is very likely the output will be similar or pretty close, then how does one really qualify infringement.
In the global landscape, the validity of the patent is largely questionable in many countries. Making sure you are protected in every country is often very expensive and some countries don’t have the intellectual property rights as in U.S. How does a corporation deal with global infringements?
I am not suggesting that corporations should not harvest IP, but in many cases they are going over-board with IP protection. Patent the core-technologies and the technology that is going to be market differentiators but not every new thing you come across.

One of my resolutions for this year was to start blogging more often. I found this interesting article that talks about the future of wireless technology, it addresses some of the issues of who pays for the WiFi connections. Wireless capabilities cannot be restricted to a confined boundary or location .. so how do you compete against free wireless service providers .. if wireless connections does become free then it become like internet where it will extremely difficult to force customers to pay. In my opinion Occasionally Connected Computing will become the norm with the cost of the bandwith will become so cheap that it won;t be worth charging the customers.

Techweb > News > WiFi�s Future: Paid Or Free? > Want Free Wi-Fi With That Latte? > January 14, 2004

Bangalore metro rail work to start next April - The Economic Times I really hope the karnataka gov is serious about considering a alternative to the massive traffic problems in bangalore. Last time I visited bangalore in Dec 2002, I was amazed to see the explosive growth of this city. All the other mass transport plans never saw the light of the day, hope this is not one of them.

Wishing you all a very happy and wonderful new year (2004).
I really hope this year will enable me to do more of blogging.

Regards
Ajay