Rocky Says

Oracle: Sql script to check tablespace size

2011-10-14T17:44:00.000+05:30

Every once in a while one of my test jobs fails, throwing this error that the table-space its created in has no further space to allocate for this table. And then comes the next sets of steps. Find out the other table space which is free.
Here is a very basic sql scripts which I use to list down all the tablespaces and their size in human readable format.

SELECT /* + RULE */  
df.tablespace_name AS "Tablespace",
df.bytes / (1024 * 1024 * 1024) AS "Size (GB)",
Trunc(fs.bytes / (1024 * 1024 * 1024)) AS "Free (GB)"       
FROM 
(
SELECT 
tablespace_name,
Sum(bytes) AS bytes 
FROM 
dba_free_space
GROUP BY
tablespace_name
) fs, 
( 
SELECT 
tablespace_name,
SUM(bytes) AS bytes
FROM 
dba_data_files
GROUP BY 
tablespace_name

) df
WHERE 
fs.tablespace_name = df.tablespace_name
ORDER BY 3 desc

Oracle : Delete duplicate records from a table

2011-09-28T14:41:00.000+05:30

This is a very simple script to perform a task which almost every other database developer faces in his day to day job. To finding and deleting duplicate records. I would try to answer it in 3 simpler steps

Step1: Lets say you want to find the duplicate records for a pair of attributes c1 and c2
Find all duplicate records:


SELECT c1, c2,count(1)
FROM MyTable
GROUP BY c1,c2

Step 2: Finding the row that you want to keep. Lets say you want to keep only the maximum value of some indentifier column


SELECT c1, c2,max(id)
FROM MyTable
GROUP BY c1,c2

Step 3: keep that and delete others


Delete from mytable

where id not in (

SELECT c1, c2,max(id)





FROM MyTable

GROUP BY c1,c2

)

Java Code: URL Shortener

2010-04-28T10:37:00.000+05:30

Wrote this code some time back for a programming interview, sharing it for everyone's use.
Its a 64 character encoded URL shortener code written in java. The code does not use any database backend but can be easily modified to support that.

import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Random;

/*
* URL Shortener
*/
public class URLShortener {
//storage for generated keys
private HashMap keyMap;  //key-url map
private HashMap valueMap;//url-key map to quickly check whether an url is already entered in our system
private String domain; //Use this attribute to generate urls for a custom domain name defaults to http://fkt.in
private char myChars[]; //This array is used for character to number mapping
private Random myRand;  //Random object used to generate random integers
private int keyLength;  //the key lengh in url defaults to 8

//Default Constructor
URLShortener()
{
keyMap= new HashMap();
valueMap= new HashMap();
myRand= new Random();
keyLength=8;
myChars=new char[62];
for(int i=0;i<62;i++)
  {
   int j=0;
   if(i<10)
   {
    j=i+48;
   }
   else if(i >9 && i<=35)
{
j=i+55;
}
else
{
j=i+61;
}
myChars[i]=(char)j;
}
domain="http://fkt.in";
}


//Construtor which enables you to define tiny url key length and base url name  
URLShortener(int length, String newDomain)
{
this();
this.keyLength=length;
if(!newDomain.isEmpty())
{
newDomain=sanitizeURL(newDomain);
domain=newDomain;
}
}



//shortenURL
//the public method which can be called to shorten a given URL
public String shortenURL(String longURL)
{
String shortURL="";
if(validateURL(longURL))
{
longURL=sanitizeURL(longURL);
if(valueMap.containsKey(longURL))
{
shortURL=domain+"/"+valueMap.get(longURL);
}
else
{
shortURL = domain + "/" + getKey(longURL);
}
}
//add http part
return shortURL;
}

//expandURL
//public method which returns back the original URL given the shortened url
public String expandURL(String shortURL)
{
String longURL="";
String key=shortURL.substring(domain.length()+1);
longURL=keyMap.get(key);
return longURL;
}

//Validate URL
//not implemented, but should be implemented to check whether the given  URL
// is valid or not
boolean validateURL(String url)
{
return true;
}

//sanitizeURL
//This method should take care various issues with a valid url
//e.g. www.google.com,www.google.com/, http://www.google.com, http://www.google.com/
// all the above url should point to same shortened url
// There could be several other cases like these.
String sanitizeURL(String url)
{
if(url.substring(0, 7).equals("http://"))
url=url.substring(7);

if(url.charAt(url.length() -1)=='/')
url=url.substring(0,url.length()-1);
return url;
}
/*
* Get Key method
*/
private String getKey(String longURL)
{
String key;
key=generateKey();
keyMap.put(key,longURL);
valueMap.put(longURL,key);
return key;
}

//generateKey
private String generateKey()
{
String key="";
int counter=0;
boolean flag=true;
while(flag)
{
counter++;
key="";
for(int i=0;i<=keyLength;i++)
{
key+=myChars[myRand.nextInt(62)];
}
//System.out.println("Iteration: "+ counter + "Key: "+ key);
if(!keyMap.containsKey(key)){flag=false;}
}
return key;
}

//test the code
public static void main(String args[])
{
URLShortener u= new URLShortener(5,"www.tinyurl.com/");
String urls[]=
{  "www.google.com/",
"www.google.com",
"http://www.yahoo.com",
"www.yahoo.com/",
"www.amazon.com",
"www.amazon.com/page1.php",
"www.amazon.com/page2.php",
"www.flipkart.in",
"www.rediff.com",
"www.techmeme.com",
"www.techcrunch.com",
"www.lifehacker.com",
"www.icicibank.com"
};

for(int i=0;i
{
System.out.println("URL:" + urls[i] + "\tTiny: "+ u.shortenURL(urls[i]) + "\tExpanded: " + u.expandURL(u.shortenURL(urls[i])));
}
}

Mysql: Primer From Google Code University

2009-06-16T12:56:00.003+05:30

Introduction to Databases and MySQL - Google Code University - Google Code

Getting Started with MySQL

The first thing you need to do to start learning MySQL is get access. We'll assume that you have access and can start up the command line interface. It will look something like:

mysql -uroot -ppassword

You should see the following:

Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \q.
Your MySQL connection id is 2129621 to server version: 3.23.58

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer.

mysql>

In the exercises that follow, we will create a database and a set of tables for Plastronics order-processing. Then, we'll learn the basic commands for entering, editing and manipulating orders, customers, etc. We will spend most of our time learning how to query these tables, since that's the most interesting part.

If you have worked with other SQL systems or with MySQL in other environments, the following articles and documents may be helpful:

* Comparison of SQL Server and MySQL
* Comparison of Oracle SQL and MySQL
* MySQL Documentation

Setting Up the Tables

Step one is to create a database which is a container for our tables. Enter the following command:

create database plastronics;

Note that the commands and names are not case-sensitive. Also, note that the ending semi-colon is required or you'll see something like this:

mysql> create database plastronics
->

If this happens to you, just type the semi-colon on the line with the "->" and press Enter.

mysql> create database plastronics
-> ;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

mysql>

The "Query OK" is your signal that the command was accepted and the task performed. Creating a database does not select it for use; you must do that explicitly. Enter the following command:

use plastronics;

The system will respond "Database changed". Now, we can work with the database. Let's take a minute to review the final structure we designed for the order processing database.

relat4.PNG

We need to set up four tables, that relate to one another as defined in the structure above. We use the CREATE TABLE command which allows us to specify the fields and their contents, as well as primary keys and constraints. Here is the command to create the customer table:

create table customer (cust_no int not null auto_increment, name varchar(40),
address varchar(40), phone varchar(12), primary key(cust_no));

After the "create table" part of the command, we name our table "customer". Then, in parentheses, we define the fields. The minimum information required is a fieldname, and a type, indicating what kind of data we want to store in the field.

For cust_no, we want an integer (whole number), which is abbreviated "int" in MySQL. Then, we indicate that cust_no cannot be null (which means empty) and we would like the system to fill the value in for us by auto-incrementing from the previous value, every time we insert a new record.

The other fields are of type "varchar" which means variable-length strings, or sequences of characters. The numbers following "varchar" in the command above indicate maximum length for the data stored in the field. So, the name, address and phone fields are all sequences of characters with maximum lengths 40, 40 and 12.

Finally, we set cust_no to be the primary key.

You can find more information on types and how to use them in the MySQL documentation. For more details on the CREATE TABLE command, check the MySQL reference.

Here is the command to create the orders tables:

create table orders (order_no int not null auto_increment, FK_cust_no int not null,
foreign key(FK_cust_no) references customer(cust_no), primary key(order_no));

There are only two fields in this table. The order_no field is a primary key, and is an integer, not null and it will auto increment. The cust_no field is a foreign key. We have named it FK_cust_no in the orders table to distinguish it from the cust_no field in the customer table.

Recall that a foreign key is a field that references a primary key in another table. In the command, we indicate that the FK_cust_no field is a foreign key referencing the cust_no field in customer, indicated by the "foreign key(FK_cust_no) references customer(cust_no)" part of the command. By setting the table up this way, MySQL will enforce constraints, that is, any order that we enter into the orders table must reference a valid customer in the customer table. If we enter a cust_no in orders that does not exist in customers, an error will result.

Note: If you want MySQL to enforce foreign key constraints, you need to add "type=InnoDB" at the end of the CREATE TABLE statement as in:

create table orders (order_no int not null auto_increment, FK_cust_no int not null,
foreign key(FK_cust_no) references customer(cust_no), primary key(order_no)) type=InnoDB;

"type=InnoDB" may or may not be available in your MySQL installation (Note: in some distribution, to avoid "ERROR 1005", you have to add "type=InnoDB" on both table creation statement, customer and orders). Support for InnoDB tables requires a specific compilation parameter when compiling MySQL from source.

Let's see what we have so far. Enter the following command:

show tables;

Then enter the following command to look at the structure of the orders table:

describe orders;

Here is the command to create the items table:

create table items (item_no int not null auto_increment, price int, primary key(item_no));

Practice: Take a couple minutes to make sure you understand all the parts of the command for creating the items table. Using the CREATE TABLE command, create the fourth table, which has two foreign key fields and the count. Call this table "item_details".

Here is the command for creating item_details:

create table item_details (FK_order_no int not null, foreign key(FK_order_no)
references orders(order_no), FK_item_no int not null, foreign key(FK_item_no)
references items(item_no), count int);

If your table does not match the structure defined in this command, just delete it by entering:

drop table item_details;

Then, enter the command given above for creating item_details.

Entering and Updating Data

Now that we have our tables created, we need to populate them with data. Enter the following commands. Just copy the whole block and paste at your MySQL command prompt.

insert into customer set name="Joe Boo", address="123 West", phone="412-773-5322";
insert into customer set name="Rich Wrack", address="332 East", phone="412-773-8374";
insert into customer set name="Ken Bend", address="225 Main", phone="412-773-9822";
insert into customer set name="Kim Slim", address="415 Bent", phone="412-773-6721";
insert into customer set name="Tom Plom", address="633 North", phone="412-773-4156";
select * from customer;

The INSERT command sets the fields to the corresponding values. The SELECT command with a "*" outputs all the data. Notice how the cust_no field auto incremented. Next, we populate the items table:

insert into items set price=666;
insert into items set price=700;
insert into items set price=450;
insert into items set price=1200;
select * from items;

Now, the orders table:

insert into orders set FK_cust_no=4;
insert into orders set FK_cust_no=3;
insert into orders set FK_cust_no=4;
insert into orders set FK_cust_no=1;
insert into orders set FK_cust_no=2;
insert into orders set FK_cust_no=1;
insert into orders set FK_cust_no=2;
insert into orders set FK_cust_no=3;
insert into orders set FK_cust_no=4;
insert into orders set FK_cust_no=5;
select * from orders;

Finally, the item_details table:

insert into item_details set FK_order_no=1, FK_item_no=4, count=12;
insert into item_details set FK_order_no=1, FK_item_no=3, count=56;
insert into item_details set FK_order_no=2, FK_item_no=1, count=10;
insert into item_details set FK_order_no=3, FK_item_no=2, count=43;
insert into item_details set FK_order_no=3, FK_item_no=4, count=16;
insert into item_details set FK_order_no=4, FK_item_no=2, count=87;
insert into item_details set FK_order_no=5, FK_item_no=1, count=62;
insert into item_details set FK_order_no=5, FK_item_no=2, count=48;
insert into item_details set FK_order_no=5, FK_item_no=3, count=5;
insert into item_details set FK_order_no=6, FK_item_no=3, count=87;
insert into item_details set FK_order_no=7, FK_item_no=2, count=32;
insert into item_details set FK_order_no=7, FK_item_no=1, count=27;
insert into item_details set FK_order_no=8, FK_item_no=4, count=91;
insert into item_details set FK_order_no=9, FK_item_no=2, count=34;
insert into item_details set FK_order_no=9, FK_item_no=3, count=72;
insert into item_details set FK_order_no=10, FK_item_no=4, count=2;
select * from item_details;

If you need to edit a record, MySQL provides an UPDATE command:

update item_details set count=12 where FK_order_no=7 and FK_item_no=2;
select * from item_details where FK_order_no=7 and FK_item_no=2;

Notice how we can define the exact record for both UPDATE and SELECT using the WHERE clause. We have also used the AND connector. UPDATE can also be used to edit a group of records. For example, we could set count=12 for both of the items in order #7:

update item_details set count=12 where FK_order_no=7;
select * from item_details where FK_order_no=7;

We can also DELETE in a similar manner:

delete from item_details where FK_order_no=7;
select * from item_details where FK_order_no=7;

Let's put those records back in now:

insert into item_details set FK_order_no=7, FK_item_no=2, count=32;
insert into item_details set FK_order_no=7, FK_item_no=1, count=27;

For more information on these MySQL commands, check the MySQL Documentation.

Practice: See if MySQL checks for primary key constraints by trying to insert a new record in a table with a primary key that has the same primary key value as a record already in the table. Note that foreign key constraints are only checked if you created the tables using "type=InnoDB".

Doing Queries

We have already seen the use of the SELECT command. This is the command we use to query tables. We can see all the fields in a table using "*" or we can specify certain fields. We can also limit the output using the WHERE clause. Here are some examples:

mysql6.PNG

Practice: See if you can create SELECT statements to find the following data.

* All orders that include item #4 (only list the order numbers once). Answer: orders #1, 3, 8, 10.
* All orders for customer #2. Answer: orders #5 and 7
* Try entering a query that returns no results. How does MySQL communicate this?

We can also search within varchar fields using LIKE and the "%" wildcard:

select * from customer where address like "%West";
select * from customer where name like "%o%";

This last command outputs all records where there is an "o" anywhere in the name field. Note that using LIKE is very slow on large databases - this is not something you would do on the Ads database.

The real power of the SELECT command becomes evident when we join tables using foreign key relationships. In order to illustrate how this works, we need to add some records to the orders table:

insert into orders set FK_cust_no=10;
insert into orders set FK_cust_no=11;

Notice that we have entered orders for customers that do not exist in the customer table.

Take a look at the following command:

mysql7.PNG

In this SELECT, we have combined the orders and customer tables using the customer number. This is called an inner join. We are listing fields from both tables, and the ON clause makes the connection between the primary and foreign key. Notice that the records are listed in customer number order. Thus, an inner join takes all the records from the orders table and finds the matching record(s) in the customer table.

Another type of join is the left join. It returns all the values from left table (orders) and the matched values from right table (customers). In this join, if there are records in the left table that do not match records in the right table (orders with customers #10 and 11), then MySQL will output records for these orders with NULL values for the customer fields.

mysql8.PNG

Practice: See if you can create joins for the following:

* List the price field with the item_details fields.
* List the price field with the item_details fields, but ordered by order number, not item number.

Another thing we can do with SELECT commands is GROUP BY. We can also use mathematical functions on numeric fields. Try entering the following commands and see if you can figure out what GROUP BY does:

select * from item_details;
select FK_order_no, sum(count) from item_details group by FK_order_no;

We are summing the count fields by order number. So, we can use the GROUP BY clause to group together the values in a given column. We can then use the HAVING clause to exclude groups.

select FK_order_no, sum(count) from item_details group by FK_order_no having sum(count) > 100;

This outputs only the rows where the sum of the counts is greater than 100.
For more on the use of mathematical functions in MySQL, click here. For more on the use of GROUP BY and HAVING, click here.

Practice: Can you list the total amount for each order as well as the sum of the item counts? This requires a join along with GROUP BY.

Here is the solution to the practice exercise. It's important to understand how this works - it illustrates some of MySQL's most powerful features.

mysql9.PNG

Practice: See if you can design a SELECT statement that outputs the three columns above, along with the customer name for each order. Hint: It is possible to have successive joins in a single SELECT statement as in:

select ... from item_details left join items on FK_item_no=item_no left join orders
on FK_order_no=order_no ...

A common need in working with the Ads database system is doing queries on dates. We can add a date field to our orders table to indicate the date the order was placed:

alter table orders add column order_date date;

Then we will populate it like this. Note the date format required for a date type in MySQL

update orders set order_date="2006/11/01";
update orders set order_date="2005/11/01" where order_no < 6;

To do queries, we use comparison operators as in:

select * from orders where order_date < "2006/06/01";

For more information on the SELECT command, check the MySQL Documentation.

Before we leave this section, we should mention that there are other ways of setting up tables. Instead of marking foreign keys with an FK prefix as we did above, it is also common to name the keys the same. For example,

create table customer2 (cust_no int not null auto_increment, name varchar(40),
address varchar(40), phone varchar(12), primary key(cust_no));
create table orders2 (order_no int not null auto_increment, cust_no int not null,
foreign key(cust_no) references customer(cust_no), primary key(order_no)) type=InnoDB;

Then, when you do selects, you need to identify the table name with cust_no, so MySQL knows to which one you are referring.

select * from orders2 inner join customer2 on customer2.cust_no = orders2.cust_no;

Transactions in MySQL

A transaction is a sequence of individual database operations that are grouped together. A transaction will never be complete unless each individual operation within the group is successful. If any operation within the transaction fails, the entire transaction will fail. Transactions are a relatively new addition to MySQL but not to relational database systems in general.

A good example where transactions are useful is in banking. Say you want to transfer $100 between two accounts. In order to deposit money into one account, you must first take money from another account. Without using transactions, you would have to do the following MySQL operations:

1. Check that the balance of the first account is greater than $100.
2. Deduct $100 from the first account.
3. Add $100 to the second account.

If we think of this sequence as a transaction, then if any one operation fails, the whole transaction fails and we rollback, that is, the tables and the data inside them revert to their previous state. If the transaction is successful, we commit the changes to the database. This is much easier than dealing with possible errors between each step. For example, without transactions we need to skip steps #2 and #3 if the balance is less than $100; we need to skip step #3 if for some reason, we were unable to deduct $100 from the first account; and so on. Transactions can simplify the processing.

Transactions have the following four properties, usually referred to by the acronym ACID:

* Atomicity: An atom is meant to be something that cannot be divided. The operations that make up a transaction must either all be carried out, or none at all (as with our banking example).

* Consistency: The database changes state upon a successfully committed transaction.

* Isolation: Data being used for one transaction cannot be used by another transaction until the first transaction is complete. This enables transactions to operate independently of and transparent to each other.

* Durability: This ensures that the result or effect of a committed transaction persists in case of a system failure.

To use transactions in MySQL, you must use a transaction-safe table type. The default MySQL table type, MyISAM, does not support transactions. BerkeleyDB and InnoDB are the transaction-safe table types available in open source MySQL, version 3.23.34 and greater.

Support for InnoDB tables requires a specific compilation parameter when compiling MySQL from source. If your MySQL installation supports InnoDB tables, simply add a "TYPE=InnoDB" definition to the table creation statement. You can check if you have InnoDB support by entering the following command:

show variables like 'have_innodb';

In MySQL, transactions begin with the statement BEGIN WORK or START TRANSACTION and end with either a COMMIT or a ROLLBACK statement. The SQL commands between the beginning and ending statements form the operations of the transaction. Going back to the banking example, the following statements:

update account set balance = balance - 100 where acctnumber = 1;
update account set balance = balance + 100 where acctnumber = 2;

are written as transactions like this:

start transaction;
update account set balance = balance - 100 where acctnumber = 1;
update account set balance = balance + 100 where acctnumber = 2;
commit;

The updates are done in one transaction so that both must complete successfully before the changes are committed to the database. If either update fails, you can issue a rollback statement to undo the changes. For more information on MySQL transactions, refer to the MySQL Documentation.

Finishing Up

When you are ready to leave MySQL, just type "quit". When you come back, just remember that you have to select your database before you can access the tables as in "use plastronics;". You won't need to create the database or the tables again - everything will be there when you return.

One other quick tip: In many MySQL interfaces, you can use the up-arrow key to access a list of commands that you have just entered. This can save a lot of time if you are experimenting with queries.

Additional Examples and Exercises

The following websites have MySQL tutorials, if you need more practice or want to get into more of the details.

MySQL Tutorial

Database Journal MySQL Series

References

MySQL Documentation

Speed Test

2009-06-16T12:45:00.001+05:30

Mysql: Count Occurrence of a particular character in a given String

2009-05-27T08:35:00.001+05:30

Count Occurrence of Character in a String Using MySQL « In Piscean’s Heart

Since there is no inbuilt MySQL function to count the occurrence of a character in string, we can do it by using these steps:

1. Counting the number of characters in the original string

2. Temporarily ‘deleting’ the character you want to count and count the string again

3. Subtract the first count from the second to get the number of occurrences

Example:

SELECT LENGTH('foobarfoobarfoobar') - LENGTH(REPLACE('foobarfoobarfoobar', 'b', '')) AS `occurrences`
--> Result: 3

In this example ‘b’ is the string you want to count the number of occurrences.

Simple Income Tax Calculator

2009-04-28T10:24:00.001+05:30

Maintaining this simple income tax calculator for Indian Employees.

The tax calculator can be found at the following url.

India: Income Tax Calculator

Oracle Acquires Sun: Future of Mysql

2009-04-21T12:00:00.001+05:30

Big news for Software Industry and for OpenSource software industry in particular: Oracle Aquires Sun.

While the Sun, the brand, might set forever. I think its a blessing in disguise for most of the Sun's offerings, The Spark Servers, The Solaris Operating system and especially Java.

But what about MySQL?

Well, I feel MySQL is going to stay and will thrive in the coming years.

The aquisitions wont affect the mysql community like it didn't affect when mysql was aquired by Sun.
The end users and the developers will hardly see any issue with it. Infact I feel more opensource developers will flock to MySQL as it has got a strongre backing now.

While it would be a golden opportunity for Oracle to kill MySQL. I believe its not going to happen. Mysql is very popular and has a strong business model. Larry and others wont try to jeopardise this opportunity. MySQL I feel was never a competitor for Oracle. Oracle is an enterprise operating systems and its competitors in Database business have always been IBM, Microsoft and Sybase, and in this arena Oracle has always been the winner. The thing that Oracle was missing was a strong foothold in web applications and SMB applications. Where MySQL is the king. MySQL's aquisition will give Oracle an edge in this sector as well.
Also, Oracle was already setting grounds to acquired Mysql for a long time now. It had acquired the most populare storage engine for mysql,Innodb long time back and also the last time MySQL was under the hammer, Oracle was one of the very keen bidders.

What I see in the future that, Oracle may use MySQL as a stepping stone towards Oracle DB. It can use the mysql community to popularize its own homegrown technologies, something like PL/SQL which is clearly lacking in MySQL and will be happily adopted by the developers world around.

So get ready guys. I feel in future the java/mysql/plsql jobs are going to be abundant in the market.

Oracle Acquires Sun: Future of Mysql

2009-04-21T11:57:00.001+05:30

Big news for Software Industry and for OpenSource software industry in particular: Oracle Aquires Sun.

While the Sun, the brand, might set forever. I think its a blessing in disguise for most of the Sun's offerings, The Spark Servers, The Solaris Operating system and especially Java.

But what about MySQL.

Well, I feel MySQL is going to stay and will thrive in the coming years.

The aquisitions wont affect the mysql community like it didn't affect when mysql was aquired by Sun.
The end users and the developers will hardly see any issue with it. Infact I feel more opensource developers will flock to MySQL as it has got a strongre backing now.

While it would be a golden opportunity for Oracle to kill MySQL. I believe its not going to happen. Mysql is very popular and has a strong business model. Larry and others wont try to jeopardise this opportunity. MySQL I feel was never a competitor for Oracle. Oracle is an enterprise operating systems and its competitors in Database business have always been IBM, Microsoft and Sybase, and in this arena Oracle has always been the winner. The thing that Oracle was missing was a strong foothold in web applications and SMB applications. Where MySQL is the king. MySQL's aquisition will give Oracle an edge in this sector as well.
Also, Oracle was already setting grounds to acquired Mysql for a long time now. It had acquired the most populare storage engine for mysql,Innodb long time back and also the last time MySQL was under the hammer, Oracle was one of the very keen bidders.

What I see in the future that, Oracle may use MySQL as a stepping stone towards Oracle DB. It can use the mysql community to popularize its own homegrown technologies, something like PL/SQL which is clearly lacking in MySQL and will be happily adopted by the developers world around.

So get ready guys. I feel in future the java/mysql/plsql jobs are going to be abundant in the market.

NX: Shell Hack : Use a Different Color for the root Shell

2009-04-03T09:05:00.001+05:30

Today's Lifehacker tells how to do it.

Lifehacker - Use a Different Color for the Root Shell Prompt - Terminal

Use a Different Color for the Root Shell Prompt
By The How-To Geek, 1:00 PM on Thu Apr 2 2009, 3,749 views (Edit post, Set to draft, Slurp)

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Linux only: Reader Chris writes in with an excellent tip that changes the prompt to red when using the root account from the terminal—as a reminder to be more careful.

Using the tip is relatively simple—just edit the /root/.bashrc file and add in the following, preferably commenting out the existing lines that set the color, though you can simply add this line to the end of the file.

PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;31m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ '

Once you've added this line, anytime you switch to using the root shell you will see the prompt in red with white text for the command line. Chris takes it further, with a line that turns the prompt green for regular users, which you can enable by adding the following to your ~/.bashrc file:

PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ '

This tip can really come in handy if you have a bunch of terminal windows open at once, so you can tell at a glance which ones are using root mode and which aren't

Mysql: Client Tips 2: Running Shell Commands from the Commandline

2009-03-26T12:03:00.001+05:30

Ok, As you know I am trying to explore more of the mysql command line and exploring its features. I have already written about how to change default mysql prompt using the command "prompt" in one of my previous articles.

Continuing this series. I am focusing today on the "system" command or "/!".

Well, I always have some of the sql source files and I execute it from the mysql command line. But I just keep forgetting their names. And most of the times I either close the mysql session and do 'ls' at the command line or move the mysql session in background and do a 'ls'.

Mysql cli has this very useful command called "system" using which you can execute shell commands from mysql client itself.

just type

system ls -l

\! ls -l

Some of us, who are familiar with Vim, will like this "\!" version a lot, because we are already using ! to run system commands there.

You can run almost all system commands using either of system or '\!'

Some examples:

mysql:root@test [14:26:19 pm]$ \! pwd
/home/owner

mysql:root@test [14:29:33 pm]$ \! date
Thu Mar 26 14:29:46 SGT 2009

mysql:root@test [14:29:46 pm]$ \! bash
owner@rocky-desktop:~$ exit
mysql:root@test [14:30:12 pm]$

You see the last one is quiet interesting. You can actually open a shell using this command perform some tasks. Just exit from the shell and you are back in the mysql world.

Liked it ! Start playing with mysql client system command.

Mysql: Comments Trick

2009-03-24T14:35:00.001+05:30

Nice article by Eli White. Now you can understand easily all those comments that you see in the mysqldump output.

MySQL Trick with Comments

MySQL has a custom extension (if you want to call it that) to it’s commenting system, which actually allows you to make conditional commands. The mysqldump program that many people use to back up their databases uses this concept heavily, which is where I first ran into it.

In it’s simplest form, this allows you to place commands in a SQL file that only MySQL will run:

/*! MySQL specific code */

This allows you to make a single SQL file, that not only will execute correctly (and in detail) on MySQL, but it will also work on any ANSI compatible database, since you’ve hidden any of the non-ANSI parts in MySQL conditional comments. So for example, MySQL allows you to set a variable declaring that all names will be a certain character set, such as UTF-8, and therefore you can do:

/*! SET NAMES utf8 */;

MySQL: Query to List Down All Schema Objects

2009-03-19T13:54:00.001+05:30

Here is a simple query to ease your day to day work. It simply lists down all the objects of a mysql schema.
i.e. Tables, Views, Routines, Indexes

Just replace "[your-schema-name-here]" in the following query with your schema name. Hope it comes handy to some of you out there.

Select OBJECT_TYPE,OBJECT_NAME
FROM
(
Select 'TABLE' as OBJECT_TYPE, TABLE_NAME as OBJECT_NAME, TABLE_SCHEMA as OBJECT_SCHEMA from information_schema.VIEWS
Union
Select 'VIEW' as OBJECT_TYPE, TABLE_NAME as OBJECT_NAME, TABLE_SCHEMA as OBJECT_SCHEMA from information_schema.VIEWS
Union
Select 'INDEX[Type:Name:Table]' as OBJECT_TYPE, concat(CONSTRAINT_TYPE,' : ',CONSTRAINT_NAME,' : ',TABLE_NAME) as OBJECT_NAME,TABLE_SCHEMA AS OBJECT_SCHEMA from information_schema.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS
Union
Select 'Procedure/Functions' as OBJECT_TYPE, ROUTINE_NAME as OBJECT_NAME, ROUTINE_SCHEMA as OBJECT_SCHEMA from information_schema.ROUTINES
) R

Where R.OBJECT_SCHEMA=[your-schema-name-here]

Mysql: Cross tabulation: Very useful article from mysql tech-resources

2009-03-13T11:49:00.001+05:30

MySQL :: MySQL Wizardry

Cross tabulations are statistical reports where you de-normalize your data and show results grouped by one field, having one column for each distinct value of a second field.

Basic problem definition. Starting from a list of values, we want to group them by field A and create a column for each distinct value of field B.

The desired result is a table with one column for field A, several columns for each value of field B, and a total column.

Mysql: Oracle users looking for Rownum in mysql !!

2009-03-12T11:41:00.001+05:30

Sadly, MySQL doesn't have (yet) the ROWNUM function. But a simple playing around with variables will give you the desired result.

Here is an example: (Src: dzone)
mysql code

SELECT @rownum := @rownum + 1 as rownum, t.* FROM some_table t, (SELECT @rownum := 0) r

Mysql: Change Default Prompt

2009-03-11T08:33:00.003+05:30

Not so long ago, I used to use mysql command line client in a very traditional way.
you know, like a simple login using

mysql -u[username] -p[password] -h [hostname] -D [database]

Recently just out of curiousity I typed "help" at the mysql prompt. It gave me a whole list of commands. Then I realized that I can do a lot more with the mysql command line.

mysql> help

List of all MySQL commands:
Note that all text commands must be first on line and end with ';'
?           (\?) Synonym for `help'.
clear      (\c) Clear command.
connect (\r) Reconnect to the server. Optional arguments are db and host.
delimiter (\d) Set statement delimiter. NOTE: Takes the rest of the line as new delimiter.
edit        (\e) Edit command with $EDITOR.
ego        (\G) Send command to mysql server, display result vertically.
exit      (\q) Exit mysql. Same as quit.
go         (\g) Send command to mysql server.
help       (\h) Display this help.
nopager (\n) Disable pager, print to stdout.
notee     (\t) Don't write into outfile.
pager     (\P) Set PAGER [to_pager]. Print the query results via PAGER.
print       (\p) Print current command.
prompt    (\R) Change your mysql prompt.
quit         (\q) Quit mysql.
rehash     (\#) Rebuild completion hash.
source     (\.) Execute an SQL script file. Takes a file name as an argument.
status      (\s) Get status information from the server.
system     (\!) Execute a system shell command.
tee          (\T) Set outfile [to_outfile]. Append everything into given outfile.
use          (\u) Use another database. Takes database name as argument.
charset     (\C) Switch to another charset. Might be needed for processing binlog with multi-byte charsets.
warnings   (\W) Show warnings after every statement.
nowarning (\w) Don't show warnings after every statement.

For server side help, type 'help contents'

Looking at the list I realize I was using "\q", "\c" and "\G" for quiet sometime now. But wasnt aware of other commands. While I am investigating other commands. Let me tell you the most interesting command, which caught my attention immediately.

It is PROMPT. It helps you in customizing the default mysql prompt i.e. "mysql >"

To change the prompt you just need to enter prompt command with what value you want

e.g. prompt "hello world"

and your prompt will be set to "hello world". But I guess you would like to change it to something meaningful. Here comes the special sequences, to help you with this.

mysql> prompt [mysql:\u@\d][\R:\m:\s \P] $
PROMPT set to '[mysql:\u@\d][\R:\m:\s \P] $'

and now your prompt will look like:

[mysql:root@test][10:55:58 am] $

You see I have used "\u" "\d" "\R" \m \s, \P .. They mean, in that order, 'current user name', 'current database', 'hrs of current time', 'minutes for current time', 'seconds for current time', 'AM/PM indicator'. These are the special sequences I was talking about.

There is a whole list of special sequences, you can find it at mysql documentation page. So what are you waiting now. Go try out and have your very own customized mysql prompt :D

Update: To make sure that you get the same prompt everytime, you can modify mysql config file (typically /etc/my.cnf) or create an file name .my.cnf in your home directory with a content similar to this:

[mysql]
prompt=mysql:\\u@\\d [\\R:\\m:\\s \\P]$\\_

Mysql: Find max and minimum date in a month

2009-03-09T10:29:00.001+05:30

Recently I was looking for a quick way to find the first and last day of a month, given any date from that month.
Michael Williamson seem to have a quick and fugly solution, which works quiet well.

Thanks Miachael.

Michael’s Blog » Blog Archive » MySQL number of days in a month

select date_add(concat(year(curdate()),'-',month(curdate()),'-','1'), interval 0 day) as mo_start,
date_sub(date_add(concat(year(curdate()),'-',month(curdate()),'-','1'), interval 1 month), interval 1 day) as mo_end;

Update: The same thing can be achieved by replacing curdate() with "now()". Here is the modified query.

select date_add(concat(year(now()),'-',month(now()),'-','1'), interval 0 day) as mo_start,
date_sub(date_add(concat(year(now()),'-',month(now()),'-','1'), interval 1 month), interval 1 day) as mo_end;

How to Number Rows in MySQL

2009-02-25T11:52:00.002+05:30

I was looking for a way to number the row in a sql select result. A search lead me to the following.

How to number rows in MySQL at Xaprb
set @type = ''; set @num = 1; select type, variety, @num := if(@type = type, @num + 1, 1) as row_number, @type := type as dummy from fruits;

Rake: A basic intro of Rake and db migration using rake

2009-02-20T09:44:00.000+05:30

Rake is a simple ruby build program with capabilities similar to make. Rake has the following features:

Rakefiles (rake‘s version of Makefiles) are completely defined in standard Ruby syntax. No XML files to edit. No quirky Makefile syntax to worry about (is that a tab or a space?)
Users can specify tasks with prerequisites.
Rake supports rule patterns to synthesize implicit tasks.
Flexible FileLists? that act like arrays but know about manipulating file names and paths.
A library of prepackaged tasks to make building rakefiles easier.

You can get the tasks lists by executing ruby --tasks a selective approach of previous would be ruby --tasks db which shows all the tasks associated with db

rake db:fixtures:load # Load fixtures into the current environment's database. Load specific fixtures using FIXTURES=x,y
rake db:migrate # Migrate the database through scripts in db/migrate. Target specific version with VERSION=x
rake db:remove_unknown # Remove all migrations in db/migrate that is missing from ENVMIGRATION_DIR? directory
rake db:schema:dump # Create a db/schema.rb file that can be portably used against any DB supported by AR
rake db:schema:load # Load a schema.rb file into the database
rake db:sessions:clear # Clear the sessions table
rake db:sessions:create # Creates a sessions table for use with CGI::Session::ActiveRecordStore?
rake db:status # Display schema status in parsable YAML format
rake db:structure:dump # Dump the database structure to a SQL file
rake db:test:clone # Recreate the test database from the current environment's database schema
rake db:test:clone_structure # Recreate the test databases from the development structure
rake db:test:prepare # Prepare the test database and load the schema
rake db:test:purge # Empty the test database
rake db:unmigrate # Remove a specific migration based on MIGRATION_FILE (no validation is done)

Migration

rake db:migrate : (Migrate the database through scripts in db/migrate. Target specific version with VERSION=x)
Generate script for your acction example: script/generate migration DummyMigration?
it creates a file something like 01211257749_dummy_migration.rb in the directory vim db/migrate/
and also makes an entry in history.txt in the same folder do vim db/migrate/history.txt to check that

Unmigration

Revert back your changes using the following syntax

rake db:unmigrate MIGRATION_FILE=db/migrate/01211257749_dummy_migration.rb
rake --tasks db

Structure Dump

Syntax: rake db:structure:dump * creates a file something like development_structure.sql on the db folder * you can change the default schema by modifying the database config file
cd config/
vim database.yml
rake db:structure:dump RAILS_ENV=production
creates a structure dump for vim production_structure.sql

Mysql: Bulk Inserts involving updates

2009-02-20T09:04:00.000+05:30

Lets think of a situation: where you have to bulk insert,
but there might be some data which is already there in the db, and you just want to modify it.
In such cases, something like the following query will help you.

Insert
 Into t1 (id,val1,va2)
 Values (1,1,1),(2,2,2),(3,3,3)
On Duplicate Key Update
 val1= val1+ values(val1),
 val2= val2 + values(val2)
The key is to use the clause "On Duplicate Key Update"

Mysql: Show user defined functions for some schema

2009-02-20T08:58:00.000+05:30

If you have to look for the user defined functions in a mysql schema, here is the sample syntax to do so:

select
*
from
information_schema.ROUTINES
where
ROUTINE_SCHEMA=[schemaname] \G

PS: I use "\G" for better formatting, its not something which is necessary.

Mysql: Find Indexes on a Table

2009-02-20T08:40:00.000+05:30

Select
COLUMN_NAME,
INDEX_NAME,
INDEX_TYPE
From
information_schema.STATISTICS
where
TABLE_NAME=[table name]
and TABLE_SCHEMA=[schema name]

Sun unveils first details on open Java

2006-11-15T14:31:00.000+05:30

Sun unveils first details on open Java

After much market speculation, Sun Microsystems today announced it will adopt the GNU General Public License (GPL) to govern open source Java. It also releases the first set of source codes to the developer community.

Purchase of Property- What Consumers Should Know?

2006-11-14T18:58:00.000+05:30

[Courtesy: A mail from Ashok Chaitanya Ashok[_]chaitanya[at]yahoo.co.in]

The recent spate of demolitions of residential and commercial structures in cities like Delhi and Mumbai has dented the confidence of innocent purchasers of property who had invested their life savings in property only to find that it was illegal or that it could not be used for the purpose it was purchased for.

Urban Planning- Plans on Paper Selectively Implemented

The urban population of India has rapidly increased in recent years. In 1961 about 79 million persons lived in urban areas of the country, by 2001, their number had gone up to over 285 million, an increase of over 350 percent in the last four decades, which will increase to over 400 million by the year 2011 and 533 million by the year 2021. In 1991 there were 23 metropolitan cities, which have increased to 35 in 2001. As a result, most urban settlements are characterized by shortfalls in housing and water supply, inadequate sewerage, traffic congestion, pollution, poverty and social unrest making urban governance a difficult task. Big cities like Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai due to pressures of rapid urbanization have now become unlivable. Further the the failure of the local governments to adhere to the Master-plan and the greed of builders to earn a quick buck have added to the chaos of urban life in India.

To stem the rot, the courts have stepped in and in many cases as seen in Delhi and Mumbai have ordered demolition of illegal structures or structures not adhering to the master-plan. However many property owners, tenants and consumers of urban services have become unwitting victims of court judgments, simply because they were misled by unscrupulous builders. It is not that these purchasers of property were not aware that they were purchasing were illegally built property or that the same was without authority of law. In most cases, they were misled to thinking that the official apathy and corruption which allowed the buildings to come up in the first place would continue. Thus they believed that they could continue to live in the illegal structures. None of them bargained for judicial activism in regard to the activities of the municipality.

What are Master-Plans?

Master plans has been in vogue for enabling orderly development of cities so that urban development was in accordance with a comprehensive plan. At present, hardly 20 percent of the urban centers have some sort of a Master Plan, which in many cases is just a policy document. It is estimated that there are about 1200 master plans prepared by various Agencies responsible for plan preparation but their implementation is not encouraging. The implementation of a master plan facilitates the orderly and planned development of cities in a sustainable manner, which would ultimately help in good governance.

Today, the master plan, (which was initially perceived to be a process rather than a conclusive statement) provides guidelines for the physical development of the city and guides people in locating their investments in the city. In short, Master Plan is a design for the physical, social, economic and political frame work for the city, which greatly improve the quality of Urban Governance also. Either way, in today's context, a master plan read with the Municipal rules is an important document to ascertain the legality of the structure.

A Buyers/ Tenants Checklist

The following guidelines would guide property owners and prospective buyers on the laws relating to properties. For convenience and uniformity we have made reference to the laws in Delhi. However, laws in most urban areas are more or less similar.

1. Check if Use of Property would amount to Change of Land Use:

Please confirm whether the property you purchased could be used for the purpose it was purchased. You need to confirm with the master plan whether the property falls within the residential area, green belt or industrial zone. There are penalties for contravention of the plan. For example, in Delhi, the law prescribes that no person can change the use of any land or building or part thereof to other than the sanctioned or permissible use and the offence of the misuse is punishable u/s 347 of the D.M.C. Act 1957, which may result in simple imprisonment that may extend to six months or fine which may extend to Rs. 5,000/- or with both.

2. Check if Non residential Activity in Residential Premises Is Permissible:

In Delhi, specific provision for mixed use have been given for Walled City, Karol Bagh and other parts of the Special Area in the relevant sections in the Master Plan after making payment of conversion and parking fee @ Rs. 5500/- per sqm. of the permissible covered area at G. Floor as per Office order No. 5/EE (B)/HQ/92 dated 18.8.1992.

In case it is found feasible to permit mixed use in a street / area the same would be permitted subject to the following conditions:

i) The commercial activity allowed shall be only on the Ground Floor to the extent of 25 % or 50 sq.m. whichever is less.
ii) The establishment shall be run only by the resident of the dwelling unit
iii) The following activities shall not be allowed:

Retail Shops

Building materials (timber, timber products, marble, iron and steel and sand.)
Firewood, Coal.

b) Repair Shops

Automobiles repairs and workshops
Cycle rickshaw repairs
Tyre resorting and retreading
Battery Charging

c) Service Shops

Flour mills (more than 3 kw. Power load)
Fabrication and welding

d) Storage, godown and warehousing
e) Manufacturing units (excluding house hold industry)
f) Junk Shops

Nursing Home, guesthouse, and Bank shall be allowed in residential plots of minimum size of 209 sqm. facing a minimum road width of 18mtrs. wide (9 mtrs. in special area and 13.5 mtrs. in rehabilitation colonies) subject to the conditions laid down in the guidelines issued in this regard.

The front setbacks for these plots shall be surrendered without compensation unconditional to local body for use as part of the right of way for parking etc. Because of conversion of use activity the conversion fee shall be charged from the beneficiary as decided by the Authority.

3. Check if the Muncipal Guidelines allow Mixed Use

Mixed Use, viz.- carrying commercial activities in residential areas are generally governed by laws which indicate the permissible limits of mixed use. For example, the following is the law in Delhi.

The Master Plan for Delhi has been modified vide Notification dated 7th May, 1999 allowing Guest House, Boarding House, Lodging House, Nursing Homes and Banks in residential plots of minimum size 209 sqm facing roads of minimum width 18 mts. (9mts. in special areas and 13.5 mts, in rehabilitation colonies) subject to the following conditions;

Minimum road frontage as mentioned above will be necessary for allowing above mentioned activities. For Guest Houses, Banks and Nursing Homes, which are already in existence this requirement may be relaxed, provided there is clearance from fire department.

For Nursing Home and Banks, a maximum of 2/3rd-floor area may be allowed for conversion for plot size upto 250 sqm. In case of larger plots, the use for the above-mentioned purposes may be permitted subject to a ceiling of 2/3rd FAR or 600 sqm whichever is less. In the cases of guest Houses a maximum of 3/4th-floor area may be allowed for conversion regardless of size of plot. A maximum of 15 Guest rooms will be permitted in guest Houses.

The maximum plot size for the above-mentioned activities will be 1000 sqm.

No commercial activity in the form of canteen or restaurant will be permitted. Catering will be allowed only for the residents of the Guest Houses /Nursing Homes.

A permission fee will be charged at the rate of 10% per annum of 'the difference between the average commercial rate and average residential rate from Banks and Nursing Homes and 2.5% from Guest Houses as approved by the Ministry with the option to the property owners to pay use permission fee for 5 to 7 years in advance. The fees will be based on the actual floor area utilized for such non residential purpose. The amount collected through the levy of permission fee will be placed. in a separate escrow account by the concerned local body (MCD) collecting it and will be utilized for augmentation of infrastructure in and around the area.

Where residential premises are already being put to such non-residential use, the same will be regularised on their payment of permission fee vide para (ix) above from the date from which, its functioning has been established.

The law mandates that the Local bodies will ensure that permission fee is paid for each financial year within six months of that financial year. In case of violation of these guidelines /default, prompt action will. be taken to issue time-bound notice to party and in case of non-compliance close and seal the premises and pern1ission fee with 100% misuse fee recovered. Further, whatever premises are utilized for such non-residential but permissible use it will be ensured that no nuisance or hardship is created for the local residents.

4) Certain Professional Activity permissible in Residential Areas

The law in several cities in India permits professional activities by self-employed professionals like lawyers, chartered accountants and doctors within the confines of their own homes. In Delhi for example, professional activity shall be allowed in residential plots and flats on any floor on the following condition:

Part of the premises shall be permitted to be used upto a maximum of 25% of FAR or 100 sq.mtrs. which ever is less, for non residential but non nuisance activities for rendering service based on professional skills.

Similar rules exist in other cities and states in the country.

5) Check if the Building adheres to the Sanctioned Plan

There are important criteria to be checked before a building is used. For e.g., is the building constructed within with the Floor Space Index (FSI) of the locality?, and, whether there has been deviations to the approved plan sanctioned by the local authorities? In many cases unscrupulous builders have built in excess to the sanctioned plan. More often than not it seen that the developed property does not in any way adhere to the sanctioned plan. To get more sale able space, the builder most readily compromises by flouting the sanctioned plan.

‹^› ‹(•¿•)› ‹^›

Workaround for censorship - Blogger way

2006-07-18T12:27:00.000+05:30

While BoingBoing gives several solutions to bypass this censorship.

Here is a basic workaround for blogger which both the author and the reader can use using the tools provided with blogger.

For Authors:
Publish using eMail:

Step1: Go to blogger and activate eMail posting option.

Step 2: Using any of the email service, post your article by sending an email to the email id you set in step 1.

For Readers
Read the Feeds:

1. Use any of the RSS/Atom Readers to read the feed of the blog you are interested in.
2. List of feeds for the blogurl, for example in my case
atom: http://toss-up.blogspot.com/atom.xml
rss : http://toss-up.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Remember:
Support Freedom of expression, say No to censorship !

Social Network Boom

2006-07-12T15:43:00.000+05:30

MySpace Moves Into #1 Position for all Internet Sites

Check It Out !!

2006-06-30T02:10:00.000+05:30

http://checkout.google.com

Google just released its new service Google Checkout™ -- a new service that makes online shopping faster, more convenient and more secure.

Some of the Key features.
1. You can search for the participating stores across the web.
2. Take advantage of Google Account, no need to sign up ahead of time. Just do your shopping and click the Google Checkout button to complete your purchase
3. Keep your credit card number and email address confidential.
4. Track all your orders and shipping in one place

Some Questions
1. Will it be PayPal killer or both will co-exist as Mastercard and Visa?
2. What is the big picture that Google Trio has in their Mind ?
3. What is Microsoft doing?

Its not a beta Product.
It hasn't yet come to India.

Rediff 's New Look

2006-06-29T12:50:00.000+05:30

Did you also notice the new look of rediff ! If not have a look at the site http://in.rediff.com.

Here is the justification for the same by the CEO Ajit Balakrishnan:

The Internet is first, and foremost, about helping you connect with the world. The joy of being online is all about the interesting people you encounter and the opportunity to exchange views through the various tools we provide: Blogs (ILand), Social Networking (Connexions), Instant Messaging (Bol), Matchmaking (Matchmaker). We have gathered all these community services together under 'Featured Users' and hope this will make it easier for you to participate in our community...

Notice the word "community services" here.

So finally the indian portals have also started projected themselves as a community portal and service providers. Surely, content always matters, but what matters most is what is useful for the end-users.

Wisdom Of Crowds

2006-06-29T11:12:00.000+05:30

Evolving Trends has a nice article about the "Wisdom of Crowds". It takes an example of Digg and shows the flaws of the existing social bookmarking system.

Excerpts From the Article:

Crowds are not wise. Crowds are great as part of a statistical process to determine the perceived numerical value of something that can be quantified. A crowd, in other words, is a decent calculator of subjective quantity, but still just a calculator. You can show a crowd of 200 people a jar filled with jelly beans and ask each how many jelly beans are in the jar. Then you can take the average and that would be the closest value to the actual number of jelly beans.

I think, the issues raised are very genuine, the current democratic form of Digg is certainly much better than the autocratic nature of slashdot but still it needs to evolve a lot.

Superman Doesn't Soar ...

2006-06-29T01:45:00.000+05:30

Wired write...

In the film, Superman (newcomer Brandon Routh) returns to Earth after visiting the ruins of his home planet, Krypton. Bad news: He found no survivors. Worse, in the five years since he's left, his would-be sweetheart, Lois Lane, acquired a significant other, a kid and a Pulitzer Prize for an editorial titled, "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman." (It's a follow-up to her earlier article, "I Spent the Night With Superman.")

Ten Possible Consequences of Google's GBuy

2006-06-28T22:09:00.000+05:30

Why does Google want to automate the advertiser click cycle and make it as fast as it possibly can?

The first reason is obvious: Google makes money on click conversions. The more clicks done quickly, the more money for Google, and the happier the advertiser.

The second reason is that by automating the click cycle, Google will be vastly improving the efficacy of its search results, and how searches correlate with adWords. Unlike destination sites that measure success by how much time is spent on a page, Google measures success by how quickly a user navigates off Google. The company is constantly testing out data centers to see which center returns the best results that get users off Google quicker.

Visit this page to know more.

You can't keep blaming Blogger..

2005-10-18T13:38:00.000+05:30

"Just blame once, and move on."
..I am moving to http://rakeshkumar.wordpress.com

Tech reading is not that boring ..

2005-08-29T18:49:00.000+05:30

read this story while going through a java API for netbios On June 28, 1778, two years after American Independence had been declared, a young woman made her way through the sweltering heat of a Revolutionary battlefield carrying pitchers of water to heat-weakened men. Mary Ludwig Hays--Molly Pitcher, as she was called--looked up to see that one of the men who had fallen from heatstroke was her own husband, John. She resolutely made her way to his cannon just as an officer was preparing to order it retired for want of a gunner. Setting down her pitchers, Molly picked up the ramrod and took her husband's place at the muzzle. The story of the woman gunner was told and retold by the soldiers of the Revolution, and Molly Pitcher became a legend around battlefield campfires. She came to symbolize all of the women who took up arms for American Independence. During the war, General George Washington made Mary Hays a sergeant, and afterward she was pensioned as a lieutenant by the Continental Army. Mary Hays lived into her 70s and is buried in Carlisle, PA. Amy J. Gavel, Esq.

@ Hussain Sagar

2005-08-23T14:01:00.000+05:30

[from left to right]Mom, somu, me, papa

Yahoooooooo !!

2005-08-09T12:56:00.000+05:30

"Yahoo Passes Google in Total Items Searched"

Birthday Boys

2005-07-08T03:34:00.000+05:30

Bapu and Tintin

And the gang

What the hell is this ??

2005-07-07T23:24:00.000+05:30

blogshares doing bc ???

Why employees leave organisations?

2005-07-06T17:47:00.000+05:30

[Disclaimer: Too long .. I kept it here to read later :) ] Every company normally faces one common problem of high employee turnout ratio. People are leaving the company for better pay, better profile or simply for just one reason' pak gaya '. This article might just throw some light on the matter...... Early this year, Arun, an old friend who is a senior software designer, got an offer from a prestigious international firm to work in its India operations developing specialized software. He was thrilled by the offer. He had heard a lot about the CEO of this company, charismatic man often quoted in the business press for his visionary attitude. The salary was great. The company had all the right systems in place employee-friendly human resources (HR) policies, a spanking new office, and the very best technology, even a canteen that served superb food. Twice Arun was sent abroad for training. "My learning curve is the sharpest it's ever been," he said soon after he joined. "It's a real high working with such cutting edge technology." Last week, less than eight months after he joined, Arun walked out of the job. He has no other offer in hand but he said he couldn't take it anymore. Nor, ap p arently, could several other people in his department who have also quit recently. The CEO is distressed about the high employee turnover. He's distressed about the money he's spent in training them. He's distressed because he can't figure out what happened. Why did this talented employee leave despite a top salary? Arun quit for the same reason that drives many good people away. The answer lies in one of the largest studies undertaken by the Gallup Organization. The study surveyed over a million employees and 80,000 managers and was published in a book called First Break All The Rules. It came up with this surprising finding: If you're losing good people, look to their immediate supervisor. More than any other single reason, he is the reason people stay and thrive in an organization. And he's the reason why they quit, taking their knowledge, experience and contacts with them. Often, straight to the competition. "People leave managers not companies," write the authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman. "So much money has been thrown at the challenge of keeping good people - in the form of better pay, better perks and better training - when, in the end, turnover is mostly manager issue." If you have a turnover problem, look first to your ma n agers. Are they driving people away? Beyond a point, an employee's primary need has less to do with money, and more to do with how he's treated and how valued he feels. Much of this depends directly on the immediate manager. And yet, bad bosses seem to happen to good people everywhere.. A Fortune magazine survey some years ago found that nearly 75 per cent of employees have suffered at the hands of difficult superiors. You can leave one job to find - you guessed it, another wolf in a pin-stripe suit in the next one. Of all the workplace stressors, a bad boss is possibly the worst, directly impacting the emotional health and productivity of employees. HR experts say that of all the abuses, employees find public humiliation the most intolerable. The first time, an employee may not leave, but a thought has been planted.. The second time, that thought gets strengthened. The third time, he starts looking for another job. When people cannot retort openly in anger, they do so by passive aggression. By digging their heels in and slowing down. By doing only what they are told to do and no more. By omitting to give the boss crucial information. Dev says: "If you work for a jerk, you basically want to get him into trouble. You don't have your heart and soul in the job." Different managers can stress out employees in different ways - by being too controlling, too suspicious, too pushy, too critical, but they forget that workers are not fixed assets, they are free agents. When this goes on too long, an employee will quit - often over seemingly trivial issue. It isn't the 100th blow that knocks a good man down. It's the 99 that went before. And while it's true that people leave jobs for all kinds of reasons- for better opportunities or for circumstantial reasons, many who leave would have stayed - had it not been for one man constantly telling them, as Arun's boss did: "You are dispensable. I can find dozens like you." While it seems like there are plenty of other fish especially in today's waters, consider for a moment the cost of losing a talented employee.There's the cost of finding a replacement. The cost of training the replacement. The cost of not having someone to do the job in the meantime. The loss of client s and contacts the person had with the industry. The loss of morale in co-workers. The loss of trade secrets this person may now share with others. Plus, of course, the loss of the company's reputation. Every person who leaves a corporation then becomes its ambassador, for better or for worse. We all know of large IT companies that people would love to join and large television companies few want to go near. In both cases, former employees have left to tell their tales. "Any company trying to compete must figure out a way to engage the mind of every employee," Jack Welch of GE once said. Much of a company's value lies "between the ears of its employees". If it's bleeding talent, it's bleeding value. Unfortunately, many senior executives busy travelling the world, signing new deals and developing a vision for the company, have littl e idea of w hat may be going on at home.That deep within an organization that otherwise does all the right things, one man could be driving its best people away. [Azim Premzi]

Another Wicket Fallen..

2005-06-27T18:02:00.000+05:30

Pondy off to Pune

A picture is worth a thousand words !!

2005-04-13T09:14:00.000+05:30

Party[ing] time

Babul mora naihar chhooto jaye

2005-04-07T11:55:00.000+05:30

[For my batchmates only ] While the blogs of most of my batchmates are filled with posts of nostalgia, how can I stay behind. After all I am one of the guys who has added fuel to this fire [I guess wrong phrase for this situation .. something like adding tear to the sadness would be more appropriate :) ] with my senti mails. Well, the leaders will always be Nirnimesh and Jayram who converted themselves in some sort of coundown bot with every morning spreading this news that only So and so days are left [I guess its 2 more days to go now... if the exams shedule was taken into consideration ]. Nirnimesh, hit us with a big blow when he sent a mail saying that the days of being student are over and we have to get used to the word alumni and start using the ug2k1_AT_students.iiit.net instead of ug4_AT_students.iiit.net. Sometimes truths are so bitter, %^$& you all for realizing me that. This place was more than a home for last 4 years and I'll really miss all the moments spent here with all the near and dear friends. After IIIT I will have to fight for a new identity. Here I was safely part of a community. One of the 200101*** and 200102*** s having a surname of students.iiit.net now we all are getting married to our companies or Institutes to get surnames of the form we@XYZ.com :) My nostalgia deepened when I listened to this song.. "babul mora naihar chuto jaye". This song has two meanings. It can be looked upon and a song by "atma that is leaving its body" and a song by "a bride who is leaving her dad's home". I never really felt the pain hidden in this song until today.. can't able to write what I am really feeling right now.. just want to say that, I'll miss you guys

C++ loses its 3rd position after almost 4 years

2005-04-07T11:26:00.000+05:30

According to the TIOBE Programming Community Index for April 2005 C++ is no longer in top 3 most popular programming languages. Interesting my favorite language Perl is the the one which has dethroned C++ to get its position. I think Parry will jump with Joy after hearing this news.

Ten Inspiring Lessons from Azim Premji of Wipro

2005-03-23T16:08:00.000+05:30

Long one but worth reading. Lesson # 1: Dare to dream When I entered Wipro at the age of 21, it was a sudden and unexpected event. I had no warning of what lay ahead of me and I was caught completely unprepared. All I had with me was a dream. A dream of building a great Organization. It compensated for my inexperience and I guess, also prevented me from being overwhelmed by the enormity of the task before me. What I am happy is that we never stopped dreaming. Even when we achieved a position of leadership in every business we operated in India. We now have a dream of becoming one of the top 10 global it service companies. Many people wonder whether having unrealistic dreams is foolish. My reply to that is dreams by themselves can never be realistic or safe. If they were, they would not be dreams. I do agree that one must have strategies to execute dreams. And, of course, one must slog to transform dreams into reality. But dreams come first. What saddens me most is to see young, bright people getting completely disillusioned by a few initial setbacks and slowly turning cynical and some of them want to migrate to America in the hope this is the solution. It requires courage to keep dreaming. And that is when dreams are most needed- not when everything is going right, but when just about everything is going wrong. Lesson # 2: Define what you stand for While success is important, it can become enduring only if it is built on a strong foundation of Values. Define what you stand for as early as possible and do not compromise with it for any reason. Nobody can enjoy the fruits of success if you have to argue with your own conscience. In Wipro, we defined our Beliefs long before it became a fashion to do so. It not only helped us in becoming more resilient to stand up to crises we faced along the way, but it also helped us in attracting the right kind of people. Eventually, we realized that our values made eminent business sense. Values help in clarifying what everyone should do or not do in any business situation. It saves enormous time and effort because each issue does not have to be individually debated at length. But remember that values are meaningful only if you practice them. People may listen to what you say but they will believe what you do. Values are a matter of trust. They must be reflected in each one of your actions. Trust takes a long time to build but can be lost quickly by just one inconsistent act. Lesson #3: Never lose your zest and curiosity All the available knowledge in the world is accelerating at a phenomenal rate. The whole world's codified knowledge base (all documented information in library books and electronic files) doubled every 30 years in the early 20th century. By the 1970s, the world's knowledge base doubled every seven years. Information researchers predict that by the year 2010, the world's codified knowledge will double every 11 hours. Remaining on top of what you need to know will become one of the greatest challenges for you. The natural zest and curiosity for learning is one of the greatest drivers for keeping updated on knowledge. A child's curiosity is insatiable because every new object is a thing of wonder and mystery. The same zest is needed to keep learning new things. I personally spend at least ten hours every week on reading. If I do not do that, I find myself quickly outdated. Lesson # 4: Always strive for excellence There is a tremendous difference between being good and being excellent in whatever you do. In the world of tomorrow, just being good is not good enough. One of the greatest advantages of globalization is that it has brought in completely different standards. Being the best in the country is not enough; one has to be the best in the world. Excellence is a moving target. One has to constantly raise the bar. In the knowledge-based industries, India has the unique advantage of being a quality leader. just like Japan was able to win in the overseas market with its quality leadership in automobile manufacturing, India has been able to do the same in information technology. At Wipro, we treat quality as the #1 priority. This enabled us not only to become the world's first SEI CMM Level 5 software services company in the world but also a leader in Six Sigma approach to quality in India. However, even today I am dissatisfied with several things which we are not doing right in the area of customer satisfaction. Doing something excellently has its own intrinsic joy, which I think is the greatest benefit of Quality. Lesson # 5: Build self-confidence Self-confidence comes from a positive attitude even in adverse situations. Self-confident people assume responsibility for their mistakes and share credit with their team members. They are able to distinguish between what is in their control and what is not. They do not waste their energies on events that are outside their control and hence they can take setbacks in their stride. Remember, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. Lesson # 6: Learn to work in teams The challenges ahead are so complex that no individual will be able to face them alone. While most of our education is focused in individual strength, teaming with others is equally important. You cannot fire a missile from a canoe. Unless you build a strong network of people with complimentary skills, you will be restricted by your own limitations. Globalization has brought in people of different origin, different upbringing and different cultures together. Ability to become an integral part of a cross-cultural team will be a must for your success. Lesson # 7 Take care of yourself The stress that a young person faces today while beginning his or her career is the same as the last generation faced at the time of retirement. I have myself found that my job has become enormously more complex over the last two or three years. Along with mutual alertness, physical fitness will also assume a great importance in your life. You must develop your own mechanism for dealing with stress. I have found that a daily jog for me, goes a long way in releasing the pressure and building up energy. You will need lots of energy to deal with the challenges. Unless you take care of yourself there is no way you can take care of others. Lesson # 8: Persevere Finally, no matter what you decide to do in your life, you must persevere. Keep at it and you will succeed, no matter how hopeless it seems at times. In the last three and half decades, we have gone through many difficult times. But we have found that if we remain true to what we believe in, we can surmount every difficulty that comes in the way. I remember reading this very touching story on perseverance. An eight-year-old child heard her parents talking about her little brother. All she knew was that he was very sick and they had no money left. They were moving to a smaller house because they could not afford to stay in the present house after paying the doctor's bills. Only a very costly surgery could save him now and there was no one to loan them the money. When she heard daddy say to her tearful mother with whispered desperation, 'Only a miracle can save him now', the child went to her bedroom and pulled a glass jar from its hiding place in the closet. She poured all the change out on the floor and counted it carefully. Clutching the precious jar tightly, she slipped out the back door and made her way six blocks to the local drug Store. She took a quarter from her jar and placed it on the glass counter. "And what do you want?" asked the pharmacist. "It's for my little brother," the girl answered back. "He's really, really sick and I want to buy a miracle." "I beg your pardon?" said the pharmacist. "His name is Andrew and he has something bad growing inside his head and my daddy says only a miracle can save him. So how much does a miracle cost?" "We don't sell miracles here, child. I'm sorry," the pharmacist said, smiling sadly at the little girl. "Listen, I have the money to pay for it. If it isn't enough, I can try and get some more. Just tell me how much it costs." In the shop was a well-dressed customer. He stooped down and asked the little girl, "What kind of a miracle does you brother need?" "I don't know," she replied with her eyes welling up. "He's really sick and mommy says he needs an operation. But my daddy can't pay for it, so I have brought my savings". "How much do you have?" asked the man. "One dollar and eleven cents, but I can try and get some more", she answered barely audibly. "Well, what a coincidence," smiled the man. "A dollar and eleven cents -- the exact price of a miracle for little brothers." He took her money in one hand and held her hand with the other. He said, "Take me to where you live. I want to see your brother and meet your parents. Let's see if I have the kind of miracle you need." That well-dressed man was Dr Carlton Armstrong, a surgeon, specializing in neuro-surgery. The operation was completed without charge and it wasn't long before Andrew was home again and doing well. "That surgery," her mom whispered, "was a real miracle. I wonder how much it would have cost?" The little girl smiled. She knew exactly how much the miracle cost ... one dollar and eleven cents ... plus the faith of a little child. Perseverance can make miracles happen. Lesson # 9: Have a broader social vision For decades we have been waiting for some one who will help us in 'priming the pump' of the economy. The government was the logical choice for doing it, but it was strapped for resources. Other countries were willing to give us loans and aids but there was a limit to this. In the millennium of the mind, knowledge-based industries like Information Technology are in a unique position to earn wealth from outside. While earning is important, we must have mechanisms by which we use it for the larger good of our society. Through the Azim Premji Foundation, we have targeted over the next 12 months to enroll over a million children, who are out of school due to economic or social reasons. I personally believe that the greatest gift one can give to others is the gift of education. We who have been so fortunate to receive this gift know how valuable it is. Lesson # 10: Never let success go to your head No matter what we achieve, it is important to remember that we owe this success to many factors and people outside us. This will not only help us in keeping our sense of modesty and humility intact but also help us to retain our sense of proportion and balance. The moment we allow success to build a feeling or arrogance, we become vulnerable to making bad judgments. Let me illustrate this with another story: A lady in faded dress and her husband, dressed in a threadbare suit, walked in without an appointment into the office of the president of the most prestigious educational institution in America. The secretary frowned at them and said, "He will be busy all day." "We will wait," said the couple quietly. The secretary ignored them for hours hoping they will go away. But they did not. Finally, the secretary decided to disturb the president, hoping they will go way quickly once they meet him. The president took one look at the faded dresses and glared sternly at them. The lady said, "Our son studied here and he was very happy. A year ago, he was killed in an accident. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial for him on the campus." The president was not touched. He was shocked. "Madam, we cannot put up a statue for every student of ours who died. This place would look like a cemetery." "Oh, no," the lady explained quickly, "we don't want to erect a statue. We thought we would give a building to you." "A building?" exclaimed the president, looking at their worn out clothes. "Do you have any idea how much a building costs? Our buildings cost close to ten million dollars!" The lady was silent. The president was pleased and thought this would get rid of them. The lady looked at her husband. "If that is what it costs to start a university, why don't we start our own?" Her husband nodded. Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California, where they established the university as a memorial to their son, bearing their name - the Stanford University. The story goes that this is how Stanford University began

Keep it simple !!!

2005-03-21T12:10:00.000+05:30

Got this in a mail today One of the most memorable case studies on Japanese management was the case of the empty soap box, which happened in one of Japan's biggest cosmetics companies. The company received a complaint that a consumer had bought a soap box that was empty. Immediately the authorities isolated the problem to the assembly line, which transported all the packaged boxes of soap to the delivery department. For some reason, one soap box went through the assembly line empty. Management asked its engineers to solve the problem. Post-haste, the engineers worked hard to devise an X-ray machine with high-resolution monitors manned by two people to watch all the soap boxes that passed through the line to make sure they were not empty. No doubt, they worked hard and they worked fast but they spent whoopee amount to do so. But when a rank-and-file employee in a small company was posed with the same problem, did not get into complications of X-rays, etc but instead came out with another solution. He bought a strong industrial electric fan and pointed it at the assembly line. He switched the fan on, and as each soap box passed the fan, it simply blew the empty boxes out of the line. Moral of the story: KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) i.e.always look for simple solutions. Devise the simplest possible solution that solves the problem :-) So, learn to focus on solutions not on problems "If you look at what you do not have in life, you don't have anything" "If you look at what you have in life, you have everything"

Before IIIT

2005-03-19T02:10:00.001+05:30

Looking back in the time ok lets give it a timestamp, the year 2001, I was just another engg aspirant, not very brilliant, but was struggling very hard to get admission into any one of those famous engg colleges in India (namely IIT, Roorkee, IIITS). I already had a bitter experience of being a dropper and wasting some precious time of my life. But like many Bihari guys like me I had no other choice but to continue this fight untill my goal was reached. I was staying in Keshavpuram Delhi with my friends Yashvir, Mukesh and Arun. Don't know why but I always wanted to be a computer engineer. May be computers were a buzzword at that time [remember I am talking about 2k1 and .COM Boom]. But I guess it was my fear from the core courses, especially chemistry which got me attracted towards IIITs. These colleges were getting very popular (even though they were barely one or two years old only 2 yrs ago) among the students. But getting admission into any of the IIITs was considered very tough, even tougher then IITs because they had very limited seats apprx 100 and almost 50000 student were appearing for that compared to IIT JEE where almost double or triple number of students were fighting for some 20-30 times more seats... Anyway, getting admission into IIIT-H was considerd as next to impossible. But somehow after the papers I was quiet satisfied because I felt that I had done well. But when the results were declared I was not in top 500. I was very upset because I hadn't made into any other exam by then [No luck in IIT, Roorkee, very poor rank in DCE, hadn't applied for the state engg ], so I was at my lowest. Well a few days later I got one good news, I had secured 97th rank in IIIT kolkatta.. This news gave me some relief that atleast I can do something ... by this time we had changed our flat and shifted in a nearby flat... Some 2-3 days later I got call from the previous land-lord saying that I have got some letter from IIIT Hyderabad. I said him that it must be from IIIT Calcutta because I was expecting the letter from IIIT Calcutta and not from IIITH but he again said no its from Hyderabad. I was a little puzzled then I thought that may be they have sent marks. So that evening I went to my previous landlord who gave me this letter and surprisingly it was from IIIT Hyderabad. I opened it and read the letter and what was inside the letter, I only had dreamed that.. don't know what the actual content was.. but it was something like this : Dear Mr Rakesh Kumar You have secured a rank 634 in the entrance exam conducted by IIIT Hyderabad and are requested to attend the second counselling session of it. There have been already many seats filled up in the first counselling and this letter doesn't gurantee your admission. Directions to reach IIIT Hyderabad: From Secunderabad railway station you may take the buses numbered 5,5M or 5C. From there you come to Mehdipattnam. From Mehdipattnam you can board buses numbered 216,217 or get into some 7seater for IIIT. The nearest bus stand is JNIDB stand. Signature: Commandar M. V. Raman Well, I hardly had any time to think about anything as I had to attend the counselling in 4 days. The next 3 days I spent in travelling. Next day morning I left for my home. I reached my home in evening. Slept in the night, the next morning I went to my college to issue some certificates, I came back at the time of lunch had my lunch and left for Calcutta stayed there in night with bhaiya. He already had booked tickets for Secunderabad. In the morning I left for Hyderabad for a journey with a Dream... A journey which gave me a new life and gave a new meaning to my life...

Introduction [Yaadon ki baarat...]

2005-03-19T02:09:00.000+05:30

"Yaadon ki Baarat nikli hai aaj dil ke dware..." I am listening to this song and getting nostalgic about the past few year spent in this college. It has become more than a home to me. I may get bored in my home but here !! Never !!... the only thing which rarely come closer to us was probably boredom ... There was always something to feel the gap.... Ahhh !! college life is so fun and hostel life ... well U can't explain... u just need to experience it to understand what it is... Today I feel like recollecting my memories related to the time I spent in here and also in making into this place...

Modi denied visa to visit US

2005-03-18T15:01:00.000+05:30

Modi denied visa to visit US: "The US has denied visa to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi to visit the country, apparently because of Gujarat riots. Modi has been denied diplomatic visa and his tourist/business visa already granted has also been revoked as per the US Immigration and Nationality Act, a spokesman of the US Embassy in New Delhi said." PS: Just testing the blog this ..

R&D Showcase...

2005-03-16T23:56:00.000+05:30

As everyone is writing about this I thought why shouldn't I ?? Thought its a little late but who cares :) Well !!! The R&D showcase has travelled a long distance to reach to its current form and status... till 2002 it used to be Open House, then last year it got renamed as Showcase and now the R&D Showcase... The name sounds very cool, but to a die hard Pancham Da fan like me.. it sounds like a musical extravaganza full of "Jhankar Beats". Similar to last year, this time also we got this mail from our project Guide that we have to put our project in showcase. Well !! For every such mail I have only one reaction, I ask Pankaj; What is the situation??? If he gives a green signal then its OK otherwise its a little disturbing... but again not for me ... I know that anyway Pankaj is going to do all the work :) So, it was Pankaj only who did all the work this time. I helped him with setting things up, like moving the system to Data Engg Lab... putting everything in place and configuring network etc... Finally the D-day come. The most difficult thing was to wake up at 7 in the morning... somehow both me and Pankaj managed to do it, we tried to wake up Utkarsh also but all in vain, so we decided that we should leave Utkarsh will join us later.Now it was the time of demonstration... Before writing anything else let me explain what our project is (which I understood that day only :) ) ... Basically our project was to implement a Data Stream Management System with an additional monitoring module. Its the "cutting edge" research that the IIIT always talks about... I won't brag much about this but sincerly speaking Pankaj has done some real good work because Dr Kamal and Dr P K Reddy both were quiet happy with the work. So I was talking about demonstrations. That too was mainly done by Pankaj only. I just stood there to give him moral support. I was feeling very sleepy by lunch so I said goodbye to Pankaj and left for the hostel. Utkarsh came to accompany Pankaj after the lunch. The next day again Me and Pankaj went for the demonstration. As Pankaj was very tired. I reluctantly took command of the demonstration part. I was confident about the students which were coming to see the project but the time any faculty used to come closer I used to start behaving like even I am here to see this project :) ... Well, there were some nice experiences. Once I started explaining a bunch of girls form some college about my project. I explained them for almost half an hour... and at the end I was feeling good that probably I have succeeded in explaining and I was expecting some good questions... but No the questions they asked was "what programming language have you used", "what database have you used ??"... same was the situation with many other guys... vision students were trying to explain some fundas to the crowd and later they came to know that the audience isn't even familiar with simple graphics concepts ... Such was the situation of the audience.. from industry side also we didn't see many visitors... except for the first day when Kiran Karnik came at the very inaugral of the event... The projects were more or less similar to last year... only the students have changed ... conceptually I liked very few projects... some of the vision projects ... some DE projects (mainly Rishi's, Ravi's and the Agrids and ofcourse mine :) ) ... Tintin and Pelu have done some really interesting work... Amal didn't show me his project :( ... Ranta and Bedi were not present on their desk .. but their project was interesting.. Nir's and Chandu's project was good... In communication lab I didn't see any new thing.. all the projects were basically done on existing ideas... LTRC was just repeating what it has done so far... the same old Shiva and Shakti... nothing new... The Building science demonstration was good .. but again that was done last year by the MTech BS guys... Didn't get much time to visit other labs... but heard that there wasn't much serious work being displayed anywhere... Finally me and pankaj were discussing what research is. I thought to start afresh, I searched the dictionary.com to get the definition of the word "research" re·search Audio pronunciation of "research" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (r-sûrch, rsûrch) n. 1. Scholarly or scientific investigation or inquiry. See Synonyms at inquiry. 2. Close, careful study. And both of us found that here we do, may be only the 2nd part of the above definition... I really doubt about the first part... and also the R&D showcase was more or less like D&D only... I haven't seen any other similar activity anywhere else ... so there isn't any example with which I can compare .. but certainly most of the things which were on display didn't qualify for the research .... I don't want to demean anyone .. but most of the projects looked like some sort of cool hacks... Anyway... the good things were that we got 2day's extension for fyp report and enjoyed free coffee, tea and cold drink for 2 days.... The bad thing is that we didn't get the Showcase T-shirts like last time :((

Best Article [How to Blog ??]

2005-03-16T23:48:00.000+05:30

Written by Tony Pierce.. this article got the best article prize in bloggies 2005 1. write every day. 2. if you think youre a good writer, write twice a day. 3. dont be afraid to do anything. infact if youre afraid of something, do it. then do it again. and again. 4. cuss like a sailor. 5. dont tell your mom, your work, your friends, the people you want to date, or the people you want to work for about your blog. if they find out and you'd rather they didnt read it, ask them nicely to grant you your privacy. 6. have comments. dont be upset if no one writes in your comments for a long time. eventually they'll write in there. if people start acting mean in your comments, ask them to stop, they probably will. 7. have an email address clearly displayed on your blog. sometimes people want to tell you that you rock in private. 8. dont worry very much about the design of your blog. image is a fakeout. 9. use Blogger. it's easy, it's free; and because they are owned by Google, your blog will get spidered better, you will show up in more search results, and more people will end up at your blog. besides, all the other blogging software & alternatives pretty much suck. 10. use spellcheck unless youre completely totally keeping it real. but even then you might want to use it if you think you wrote something really good. 11. say exactly what you want to say no matter what it looks like on the screen. then say something else. then keep going. and when youre done, re-read it, and edit it and hit publish and forget about it. 12. link like crazy. link anyone who links you, link your favorites, link your friends. dont be a prude. linking is what seperates bloggers from apes. and especially link if you're trying to prove a point and someone else said it first. it lends credibility even if youre full of shit. 13. if you havent written about sex, religion, and politics in a week youre probably playing it too safe, which means you probably fucked up on #5, in which case start a second blog and keep your big mouth shut about it this time. 14. remember: nobody cares which N*Sync member you are, what State you are, which Party of Five kid you are, or which Weezer song you are. the second you put one of those things on your blog you need to delete your blog and try out for the marching band. similarilly, nobody gives a shit what the weather is like in your town, nobody wants you to change their cursor into a butterfly, nobody wants to vote on whether your blog is hot or not, and nobody gives a rat ass what song youre listening to. write something Real for you, about you, every day. 15. dont be afraid if you think something has been said before. it has. and better. big whoop. say it anyway using your own words as honestly as you can. just let it out. 16. get Site Meter and make it available for everyone to see. if you're embarrassed that not a lot of people are clicking over to your page, dont be embarrassed by the number, be embarrassed that you actually give a crap about hits to your gay blog. it really is just a blog. and hits really dont mean anything. you want Site Meter, though, to see who is linking you so you can thank them and so you can link them back. similarilly, use Technorati, but dont obsess. write. 17. people like pictures. use them. save them to your own server. or use Blogger's free service. if you dont know how to do it, learn. also get a Buzznet account. several things will happen once you start blogging, one of them is you will learn new things. thats a good thing. 18. before you hit Save as Draft or Publish Post, select all and copy your masterpiece. you are using a computer and the internet, shit can happen. no need to lose a good post. 19. push the envelope in what youre writing about and how youre saying it. be more and more honest. get to the root of things. start at the root of things and get deeper. dig. think out loud. keep typing. keep going. eventually you'll find a little treasure chest. every time you blog this can happen if you let it. 20. change your style. mimic people. write beautiful lies. dream in public. kiss and tell. finger and tell. cry scream fight sing fuck and dont be afraid to be funny. the easiest thing to do is whine when you write. dont be lazy. audblog at least once a week. 21. write open letters. make lists. call people out on their bullshit. lead by example. invent and reinvent yourself. start by writing about what happened to you today. for example today i told a hot girl how wonderfully hot she is. 22. when in doubt review something. theres not enough reviews on blogs. review a movie you just saw, a tv show, a cd, a kiss you just got, a restaurant, a hike you just took, anything. 23. constantly write about the town that you live in. 24. out yourself. tell your secrets. you can always delete them later. 25. dont use your real name. dont write about your work unless you dont care about getting fired. 26. dont be afraid to come across as an asswipe. own your asswipeness. 27. nobody likes poems. dont put your poems on your blog. not even if theyre incredible. especially if theyre incredible. odds are theyre not incredible. bad poems are funny sometimes though, so fine, put your dumb poems on there. whatever. 28. tell us about your friends. 29. dont apologize about not blogging. nobody cares. just start blogging again. 30. read tons of blogs and leave nice comments. if you're going to ripoff/mimic/be inspired by one blogger make it raymi, shes perfect.

Isn''t it strange !!

2005-03-14T15:03:00.000+05:30

Feel like writing something... but what ??? Well there are a a few things which are puzzling me for last couple of days... Most of them are because of Making of Modern Mind class... This course really made me think seriously for some of things which we see in our day to day life....but never give much that much importance that it deserves... There are lots of why's... for which I don't find any answer?? One of them is this paradox about situation of women in India... We Indian think women as the fairer and weaker sex, which supposed to have lesser brain than men... We have statistics to prove this.. In all the games/Athletics women performance has always been one step behind humans... Every R&D team is dominated by males... but isn't it the same India whery every mythological work is full with praise of females. This country worships Durga and Kaali as the symbol of power and Shakti... Our entire freedom movement had one driving mantra "Vande Matram"... We call our country as BharatMata (even though it is named after the king Bharatha...) Similarly the symbol of knowledge is again a Goddess, Goddess Saraswati... Ironically girls are supposed to be sex symbols... but isn't it Kamdev which is seen everywhere in the ancient texts.. with only some mentions of Maya and she too is not an sex-symbol.. and she too is a avatar of Lord Vishnu... When and why did this U-turn in Indian thinking come into existence ???

प्रयाणगीत

2005-03-13T00:49:00.000+05:30

हिमाद्री तुंग श्रृंग से प्रबुद्ध शुद्ध भारती - स्वयंप्रभा समुज्जवला स्वतंत्रता पुकारती - अमर्त्य वीर पुत्र हो, दृढ़-प्रतिज्ञ सोच लो, प्रशस्त पुण्य पंथ हैं - बढ़े चलो बढ़े चलो। असंख्य कीर्ति-रश्मियाँ विकीर्ण दिव्य दाह-सी। सपूत मातृभूमि के रुको न शूर साहसी। अराती सैन्य सिंधु में - सुबाड़वाग्नि से जलो, प्रवीर हो जयी बनो - बढ़े चलो बढ़े चलो। - जयशंकर प्रसाद I rember my school days when we used to do "Prabhat Pheri" on Independence day and Republic day... singing this song together.... that time I didn't understood the meaning of this song... but as I see myself leaving this institute and joining my Karmabhoomi... I suddenly feel the spirit of this poem... which encourages me to excel in whatever I am going to do... A message to all the youngsters.. प्रवीर हो जयी बनो - बढ़े चलो बढ़े चलो।

President's rule in Bihar...

2005-03-08T02:24:00.000+05:30

Sounds a good news to me.. though peoples have always said that a governemnt of the people for the people and by the people (democratically elected one) is better than the President's rule, I think anything other than Laloo is good for Bihar... atleast for some days...

Certainly no new government can change the situation of Bihar in a night becauase Laloo Raj hasn't left any stone unturned while eating the entire state... But the announcement of K. P. S. Gill as the security advisor of the governor gives me some hopes that alteast he can do something to improve the law and order in Bihar...

Somehow I have a very good impression of him. I always saw him as another hero of our times...He made Panjab a terrorist free state... well, people criticize his style but I think that at times you need to take some strong decisions... The only thing that has to be seen is whether he is still the same Gill or has lost his touch over the time.

Another news of concern is that the President's rule is very much influenced by the center... and as the central government has Laloo as its ally it might end up as a psuedo Laloo Raj...

Well !! I just hope that it won't happen ???

Slashdot.. + Indian

2005-03-08T01:38:00.000+05:30

For the first time saw a post by an Indian in slashdot... I have seen several indian names in the comments list but never really saw any one as a news contibutor... Well, may be I am not a regular reader of slasdot.

Indian beheaded in Saudi Arabia

2005-03-07T01:31:00.000+05:30

Just read this shocking news in Rediff... One Indian, Malaya Maroti Bajantra, was beheaded in public because he was convicted of robbery and murder... again another example of Hummurabian justice.... I don't say that a criminal shoudn't get punishment... but this is really outrageous ... don't these countries have any value for life .... when the entire world is thinking over lifting the Capital Punishment... we still see these stinking examples... When will they understand the value of human life .... The news article had one line : Among those beheaded are mostly Asians as the Saudi government often sets free Western convicts because of political pressure. I don't know how much truth is in the above statment... but its really shameful if our government is not doing anything to stop this kind of incidences.. And what is the media doing about all this... they seem very interested in publishing the news of beheading.. didn't they find this news worth consideration when they come to know about the trial in the first place ... May be something could have happened in that situation... Well! may be in that case it wouldn't have been such a big NEWS ...

BlogShares !!!

2005-03-07T00:31:00.000+05:30

BlogShares is a fantasy stock market where weblogs are the companies. Players invest fictional dollars on shares in blogs. Blogs are valued by their incoming links and add value to other blogs by linking to them. Prices can go up or down based on trading and the underlying value of the blog. Have a look at my blog Share

Abhijit Sawant is Indian Idol !!

2005-03-05T22:14:00.000+05:30

Read this Rediff Article to know more

Kyun Ki Main Jhooth Nahi Bolta !!!

2005-03-05T21:35:00.000+05:30

Last night me and Utkarsh saw another demo of Maddy's brilliant talent of telling lies... I was going to have dinner and just stopped by his room to ask him whether he would like to come for the dinner... At that time he was chatting with Utkarsh. He saw me and suddenly his face expressions changed ... Maddy: "I have a bad news for all of us" Me: "Kya Hua" Maddy: "Yaar abhi abhi khare ko bataya hai .. ab dubara himmat nahi ho rahi, tum padh lo .. " and then he shows me the IM conversation box between him and Utkarsh... First Line: PK Reddy Sir told Kamal Sir that our Stream Project is complete. Second Line: Kamal Sir is very happy about It. Third Line: He had asked us to put it on demostration tommorrow in Excitement of Research. Now, I was totally dumbstruck. Because in reality also our Project guide thinks that our project is almost over and the above conversation looked so convincing. I was thinking what to do next.. certainly we can't finish this project overnight.. need atleast a week for that... and if we can't what are we going to show tomorrow... I was in this state for some 5 minutes... then Pankaj again said that.. it was just a lie ... we don't need to give a demo... he had only got a mail which has asked him to come in the DE lab he wants to put the project on demo... Jhandoo Pankaj ... I felt like kicking him ... but then I was so happy about the fact that we are not showing anything so I just enjoyed the entire scene. Haan, there was one more intereting thing .. Khare was still not aware about the truth ... and the poor soul was coming hostel to meet us to discuss about the demo :)

Questions asked from the within !!

2005-03-02T05:17:00.000+05:30

Saw these questions in Utkarsh's latest post My attempts to answer them : Question 1 -> Why do I never blog about my parents .. If a blog is a way of expressing my feelings .. don't I have any feelings towards my parents. My Answer: I somewhat agree with his points that something are too personal to us that we don't discuss publicly, which generally includes our family, our love life and probably our ambitions... very true... but besides this I also think that their is this trend in the modern day youths and that includes me too that somehow we while trying to explore our own self, leave our parents aside. We take them forgranted and in the long run we start getting farther and farther away from them. We take time off for every damn thing on earth but we didn't manage to get one or two day off to see them. Question 2 -> Why do I Blog ? MyAnswer: Not really my answer..somebody has written it on his blog, which I found very true..just sharing it here Why Blog ? The urge to write! My literary pretensions and caprices bring me here. Like any writer I write to be read. All my posts, though fettered to my small world and trivially myopic, will live and yearn that somebody connects to them someday. Cognitive frenzies, sardonic musings, aimless banters, incoherent ramblings and trivial indulgences; this is simply an episodic narrative of my trivial world -- in a grain of sand… Smaller than Life. Question 3 -> Should we have expectations .. Is it fair to have expectations from people around you? MyAnswer: Is No !! Ideally we shouldn't have expectations from anyone around us and even from our work. Because if anything or any person comes even a little behind from our expectation, it hurts us, it feels bad and finally results in pain and frustration. That's why it's written in Shri Mad Bhagwat Gita in a generic context that "we should do our work without any thought of the outcomes". But as I said earlier this is an ideal case. Ideally we shouldn't have expectations. But the ordinaly peoples like us can't live without expectations. It gives us a reason to do anything and motivates us to go along. We study to get good grades, good job, handsome money, beautiful wife..every where there is some sort of expectation... It is our driving force... but I would again say that if we manage to get rid of the expectation we will be a lot more happier than what we are now. Tyaga of expectation is very difficult for us and it is not expected from us if we choose to lead our life in this society. The complete Tyaga of expectation can be expected and is possible only if we choose to leave this society and become truth seekers like Sannyasis and Saints... which probably none of us want to do. Question 4 -> What Does true love mean ? .. If I love someone does it mean that I give her the right to play with my heart by coming and going into and away from my life whenever she wants . MyAnswer -> Again this question supports my statements about the first question. Now a days we are too much envolved in ourselves that love has only meaning to us that between a boy and a girl. But isn't love more generic ? How about the love a father has for his child ? Anyway... True love... I think its just another vanishing species about which PETA people talk, express their feelings and essentially do nothing... True Love is always something which we guess and try to achieve but as in probablity nothing has a probablity of one, here also we never get to know about the real Love. About the second part of the question... I think its relative... from our side we should give our love a complete freedom, and shouldn't expect it to return it back to us.. if it returns back to us we shouldn't think that it was ever gone... and I think If you truely love her you will wait... its not because you expect her to be back...its becoz you don't need anyone else... We can compare it the love that we have with our parents... if by any chance we loose them.. we don't go on looking for another mom and dad... because we don't need anyone else... may be because no one else can be them... I think this is the feeling of true love...

Funday...

2005-03-02T05:11:00.000+05:30

"Khane Khilane ka Pyar dikhane ka.." The Amul Ghee used to start its ad in the context of Sunday.. Our last Sunday started with the same spirit... just in the previous night Khare gave this idea of having a day totally for fun and Abhinav and Parivesh showed gr8 enthusiasm, chalking out the plan and arranging everything and finally in the morning the qualis was here in the hostel even before I woke up. We had Dhola-Ri-Dhani and Runway9 in our list. We were not sure where to go first. Finally we decided to go Dhola-Ri-Dhani First because none of us wanted to eat a crappy food of mess on a Sunday. So we left for DRD. The journy was quiet entertaining. As usually we played Antakshari. Thanks to Parivesh who kept the tempo going otherwise Poppy and Khare had done their best to ruin it with their God gifted voice :) Finally we reached DRD at lunch time. As everyone was hungry so we hurriedly headed towards the Rasoi. The ambience was too good. The food was too good.. with lots of delicious items like Moong Dal ka halwa, Malpuwa, Churma... the best thing about the food were the waiters (shall I call them waiters ?).. they were doing so much of Manuhar, every other time one of them used to come with one Malpuwa and if we say no .. he used to say.. "nahi bhaiya khana hi padega". I remember me saying to Utkarsh that "Lagta hai hum sab apni sasural main kha rahe hain" :) After lunch all of us had some rest and then we went for Boating and Camel riding. Before that we played volleyball for sometime. Some of us went to Jyotishi Ji (mostly to know about our love life and when are we gettin marrried :) ) As we had to go to Runway9 too wo we decided to leave but suddenly someone pointed out that we are missing something... Hukka.. Yeah ... we tried Hukka too... with Apple flavor, certainly a very refreshing experiece... After this we left for Runway-9 which was at a stone's throw away from there. We had loads of fun there ...I did many things for the first time in my life... I had never done Go-carting, Archery, Rock climbing and skating earlier... and even though I sucked in most of them.. I did reasonably well in Archery (got highest points amongst us) and in Rock Climbing.. I liked skating a lot, tried to learn it for more then one hour, fall a million times ,but all in vain... seems I have to take couple of lessons more.. Anyway ... I wanted to write about Utkarsh's questions.. but got carried away with the other things ... well its better to write it in another post now ..

Blogaholic !!

2005-03-02T03:36:00.000+05:30

Seems I have become a blogaholic (hasn't anybody coined this word yet ??)... Well !! Its 3 AM in the morning and I wasn't able to sleep and guess what I decided to read blogs... Too much raa... After going through some blogs I have found some very nice topics for next posts and I wish to write atleast two posts one to the answer of questions which Utkarsh has posted in his blog and other .. which is gaining very popularty, about God...

Google cheat sheet

2005-02-28T22:16:00.000+05:30

Today while surfing I got to see this cheat sheet of google... some of the things which I liked: OPERATOR EXAMPLE FINDS PAGES CONTAINING... vacation hawaii the words vacation and Hawaii . Maui OR Hawaii either the word Maui or the word Hawaii "To each his own" the exact phrase to each his own virus –computer the word virus but NOT the word computer Star Wars Episode +I This movie title, including the roman numeral I ~auto loan loan info for both the word auto and its synonyms: truck, car, etc. define:computer definitions of the word computer from around the Web. red * blue the words red and blue separated by exactly one word. I'm Feeling Lucky Takes you directly to first web page returned for your query. CALCULATOR OPERATORS MEANING TYPE INTO SEARCH BOX + addition 45 + 39 - subtraction 45 – 39 * multiplication 45 * 39 / division 45 / 39 % of percentage of 45% of 39 ^ raise to a power 2^5 (2 to the 5th power) ADVANCED OPERATORS MEANING WHAT TO TYPE INTO SEARCH BOX (& DESCRIPTION OF RESULTS) site: Search only one website admission site:www.stanford.edu (Search Stanford Univ. site for admissions info.) [#]…[#] Search within a range of numbers DVD player $100...150 (Search for DVD players between $100 and $150) date: Search only a range of months Olympics date: 3 (Search for Olympics references within past 3 months; 6 and 12-month date-restrict options also available) safesearch: Exclude adult-content safesearch: sex education (Search for sex education material without returning adult sites) link: linked pages link:www.stanford.edu (Find pages that link to the Stanford University website.) info: Info about a page info:www.stanford.edu (Find information about the Stanford University website.) related: Related pages related:www.stanford.edu (Find websites related to the Stanford University website.)

How did they get their names

2005-02-25T18:10:00.000+05:30

One of the better forwarded emails that I have received. Adobe - came from name of the river Adobe Creek that ran behind the house of founder John Warnock. Apache - It got its name because its founders got started by applying patches to code written for NCSA's httpd daemon. The result was 'A PAtCHy'server -- thus, the name Apache Jakarta (project from Apache) - A project constituted by SUN and Apache to create a web server handling servlets and JSPs. Jakarta was name of the conference room at SUN where most of the meetings between SUN and Apache took place. Tomcat - The servlet part of the Jakarta project. Tomcat was the code name for the JSDK 2.1 project inside SUN. Apple Computers - favorite fruit of founder Steve Jobs. He was three months late in filing a name for the business, and he threatened to call his company Apple Computers if the other colleagues didn't suggest a better name by 5 o'clock. C - Dennis Ritchie improved on the B programming language and called it 'New B'.He later called it C. Earlier B was created by Ken Thompson as a revision of the Bon programming language (named after his wife Bonnie) C++ - Bjarne Stroustrup called his new language 'C with Classes' and then 'new C'. Because of which the original C began to be called 'old C' which was considered insulting to the C community. At this time Rick Mascitti suggested the name C++ as a successor to C. CISCO - its not an acronymn but the short for San Francisco. Compaq - using COMp, for computer, and PAQ to denote a small integral object. Corel - from the founder's name Dr. Michael Cowpland. It stands for COwpland REsearch Laboratory. GNU - a species of African antelope. Founder of the GNU project Richard Stallman liked the name because of the humor associated with its pronunciation and was also influenced by the children's song 'The Gnu Song' which is a song sung by a gnu. Also it fitted into the recursive acronym culture with 'GNU's Not Unix'. Google - the name started as a jokey boast about the amount of information the search-engine would be able to search. It was originally named 'Googol', a word for the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros. After founders - Stanford grad students Sergey Brin and Larry Page presented their project to an angel investor, they received a cheque made out to 'Google' ! Hotmail - Founder Jack Smith got the idea of accessing e-mail via the web from a computer anywhere in the world. When Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service, he tried all kinds of names ending in 'mail' and finally settled for hotmail as it included the letters "html" - the programming language used to write web pages. It was initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective upper casing. HP - Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett. Intel - Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore wanted to name their new company 'Moore Noyce' but that was already trademarked by a hotel chain, so they had to settle for an acronym of INTegrated ELectronics. Java - Originally called Oak by creator James Gosling, from the tree that stood outside his window, the programming team had to look for a substitute as there was no other language with the same name. Java was selected from a list of suggestions. It came from the name of the coffee that the programmers drank. LG - combination of two popular Korean brands Lucky and Goldstar. Linux - Linus Torvalds originally used the Minix OS on his system which he replaced by his OS. Hence the working name was Linux (Linus' Minix). He thought the ame to be too egotistical and planned to name it Freax(free + freak + x).His friend Ari Lemmke ncouraged Linus to upload it to a network so it could be easily downloaded. Ari gave Linus a directory called linux on his FTP server, as he did not like the name Freax.(Linus' parents named himafter two-time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling) Lotus (Notes) - Mitch Kapor got the name for his company from 'The Lotus Position' or 'Padmasana'. Kapor used to be a teacher of Transcendental Meditation of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Microsoft - coined by Bill Gates to represent the company that was devoted to MICROcomputer SOFTware. Originally christened Micro-Soft, the '-' was removed later on. Motorola - Founder Paul Galvin came up with this name when his Company started manufacturing radios for cars. The popular radio company at the time was called Victrola. Mozilla - When Marc Andreesen, founder of Netscape, created a browser to replace Mosaic (also developed by him), it was named Mozilla (Mosaic-Killer, Godzilla).The marketing guys didn't like the ame however and it was re-christened Netscape Navigator. ORACLE - Larry Ellison and Bob Oats were working on a consulting project for the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). The code name for the project was called Oracle (the CIA saw this as the system to give answers to all questions or something such). The project was designed to help use the newly written SQL code by IBM. The project eventually was terminated but Larry and Bob decided to finish what they started and bring it to the world. They kept the name Oracle and created the RDBMS engine. Later they kept the same name for the company. Red Hat - Company founder Marc Ewing was given the Cornell lacrosse team cap (with red and white stripes) while at college by his grandfather. He lost it and had to search for it desperately. The manual of the beta version of Red Hat Linux had an appeal to readers to return his Red Hat if found by anyone ! SAP - "Systems, Applications, Products in Data Processing", formed by 4 ex-IBM employees who used to work in the 'Systems/Applications/Projects' group of IBM. SCO (UNIX) - from Santa Cruz Operation. The company's office was in Santa Cruz. Sony - from the Latin word 'sonus' meaning sound, and 'sonny' a slang used by Americans to refer to a bright youngster. SUN - founded by 4 Stanford University buddies, SUN is the acronym for Stanford University Network. Andreas Bechtolsheim built a microcomputer; Vinod Khosla recruited him and Scott McNealy to manufacture computers based on it, and Bill Joy to develop a UNIX-based OS for the computer. UNIX - When Bell Labs pulled out of MULTICS (MULTiplexed Information and Computing System), which was originally a joint Bell/GE/MIT project, Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie of Bell Labs wrote a simpler version of the OS.They needed the OS to run the game Space War which was compiled under MULTICS.It was called UNICS - UNIplexed operating and Computing System by Brian Kernighan. It was later shortened to UNIX. Xerox - The inventor, Chestor Carlson, named his product trying to say `dry' (as it was dry copying, markedly different from the then prevailing wet copying).The Greek root `xer' means dry. Yahoo! - the word was invented by Jonathan Swift and used in his book 'Gulliver's Travels'. It represents a person who is repulsive in appearance and action and is barely human. Yahoo! founders Jerry Yang and David Filo selected the name because they considered themselves yahoos. 3M - Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company started off by mining the material corundum used to make sandpaper.

Sanskrit is a blessed language

2005-02-24T20:04:00.000+05:30

[Just another Joke of the Day] Teacher : what is the meaning of ' TAMASOMA JYOTHIRGAMAYA ' ? Student : TUM SO JAO MA, MEIN JYOTHI KE GHAR JA RAHA HOON... ---

My Sassy Girl ..

2005-02-23T22:04:00.000+05:30

My Sassy Girl !!! What the hell is this !!! - That was my first reaction when I heard the name of this movie... Everybody who saw it was going ga ga over it... I wasn't able to understand ... I was simply puzzled, what is so special about this Korean movie... I didn't even know what "Sassy" is ... Well searched the dictionary.com for it .. and got this result 1.Rude and disrespectful; impudent. 2. Lively and spirited; jaunty. 3. Stylish; chic: a sassy little hat. It increased a little curiousity in me and as I recently had a good experience of watching movies with subtitles [I recently saw Amelie]... I thought to give it a try... Well !! It was really worth it.. the movie was too good... I won't say it was very different from the other romantic movies... but it has its own freshness in it... As a typical love story, in this movie too, boy and girl who meet accidently... and become friends ... and finally fell in love with each other... what I liked was that even though the girl tries to boss this boy... the boy lets her do anything .. becoz he feels that she is hurt and to make her happy... he tries to get all her agonies and sorrows in the form of her slaps, her torturous stories :)... Well the another plus point is the heroine .. she looks very innocent and cute ... a must see this movie atleast once for her :)

Another kind of Evolution ...

2005-02-22T13:53:00.000+05:30

Gone are the days when only the pcs were the target of attack of hackers and viruses... as the technology has evolved cell phones have taken there place... Just saw this 2 news at google news.. Cell/Hack Cell/Virus

Finally..

2005-02-20T17:59:00.000+05:30

These queries show my home page and my blog as the first search result in Google :) http://www.google.com/search?q=rakesh_kumar http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&safe=off&q=rocky-says+%2B+blogspot -- ‹^› ‹(•¿•)› ‹^›

Feel Good News...

2005-02-20T15:52:00.000+05:30

Pt. RaviShankar is nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize... Don't know how much are his chances to win.. but surely this news gives a good feeling... -- ‹^› ‹(•¿•)› ‹^›

In Xanadu Did Kubla Khan ....

2005-02-19T19:25:00.000+05:30

Just saw this draft in my mail client ...I had saved this post some 2-3 weeks back for further edition and just forgot to post it ... Well finally I am posting it.. Dreams... one of the most fascinating and mysterious things that God has ever created... and I am experiencing a lot of it, these days [maybe becoz I am sleeping a lot :) ] Usually I forget my dreams.. but today it was little different ... As soon as I went to bed, I fell asleep .. and some magical and illogical things started to appear in front of my eyes... at first I saw some very senseless dreams (thank god that I don't remember anything of it now), but after some time all that chaos disappeared .. and my dreams started taking sensible shapes.. There I saw myself going toward a big lake ... it was very much like the big pond, back in my village, except one thing that it was surrounded by lots of greeneries ... well I started swimming there... after some time .. I heard a very familiar voice of this girl ... I turned around and saw her [taking her name here, may create a big controversy here :) ]... she too had come to swim there... so we two started swimming... After some time I heard her shouting : Help ! help !! she had gone too far and had started drowning in the water... Well I saved her with my heroic effort but this is not important the most interesting things were yet to come ... so, I saved her and was giving her the artificial breathing; suddenly she opened her eyes... and saw me.. and then like a typical Hindi movie... we got lost in each others eyes :) .. Finally when both of us came to our senses ... we said good bye to each other and went back to our homes... This didn't stop here ... the very same evening one of my friends came to meet me and said that she wants to talk to me [surprisingly he was aware of everything]... So we met near this bridge on the river [surprisingly that lake has turned into a river :) ] We had some formal conversation for some time and then suddenly she said "Rakish, I love you !! " [ ;(( for the first time I heard this sentence from a girl and that too in my dream :(( ] Well, at that time I tried to show a little modesty [basically stupidity] and said her that this thing is not gonna work between her and me [what a big ass I am :( ] and finally consoled her to go back to her home... But after she left, I started have this guilt feeling, that I broke her heart and that I am never going to get another girl like this ... so finally after too much thinking... I called her [ I had the latest camera phone of Niki in my hand :) ]. We talked for an eternity [he he who cares for the cell phone bill in the dream] and finally we fixed a meeting again in the coffee shop near that bridge [How did Batista come in my dreams ??] I was waiting outside the coffee shop when I saw her coming... wow what a scene it was. Very much like the seen of "Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander", where that girl comes to meet the bro of Amie in the end of the song "Pehla Nasha"... OK she comes and gives me a gr8 hug... and again both of us see in each others eyes and make a move to kiss each other... and suddenly BANG, BANG... some body from this Zaalim Zamana was banging my door... trying to wake me up for the breakfast... [Yaar, ek minute aur ruk jate to tera kya chala jata] Well, I don't remember the person who wake me up... neither do I remember anything that I did that day... but its almost a month now and I remember that dream as if I have just woken up from the sleep...

Back in action again ...

2005-02-18T10:17:00.000+05:30

Its been 3 days since I posted on my blog... well there wasn't any special reason for that ... may be because I was a little low lately... another thing was I didn't have much to write .. even now I am not able to think what to write... but just to maintain the sheer sprit of blogging I am here on my blogger dashboard typing arbitrarily... Well, I saw a couple of movies in last 3 days. That includes Page 3, Godfather, Bad Santa, Bap numbari beta das numbari, Roti... Page 3 is cool... I m not in the mood of writing a review here. Utkarsh has already done this here . Godfather is superb, no wonder its IMDB no.1 ... this was my 6th attempt to see this movie... in all my earlier attempts I never got beyond the wedding ceremony... The other movies were just time pass... Roti has some good songs .. but the "Latka Jhatkas" of Kakaji are no longer tolerable... enough for now ...

Get Romantic .. with Google

2005-02-14T12:40:00.000+05:30

Happy valentines day
There is a love letter contest going on, in our batch ... with the help of judges I finally managed to get hold of this entry.. no no its not mine... its Abhinav's... I hope Abhinav doesn't mind putting it here ... here it goes PS: The final results are not yet out Dear ................................ , Today is Valentine's Day .. the day used by lovers all over the world to tell their love what they feel about them. So here I am .. trying to tell you what I haven't told anyone. I have been trying to say this for a really long time .. It may sound a little awkward to you, being surrounded all the time by people who seem to like you .. and you seem to like their attention too .. but I haven't been able to get myself to talk to you because of the simple reason that I thought I would falter at the final moment. I have tried so many times to talk to you, but every time the thought of ruining what we have presently ( which is just friendship ) has kept me from doing it. But I guess now it is about time that I gather courage to take the relationship to the next level. I don't want to be just a friend, I don't want to just an acquaintance. I want to be the guy who comes home to you everyday, the guy who helps you through the difficult periods of your life, the guy who you come to when you face some problem, the guy who is not just present physically with you all the time, but is in your heart. I want to make it clear now itself, that it won't matter to me now, what your reply is. May be even after reading this letter, and knowing how I feel about you, you would decide to spend your life with someone else. But what is important for me is that you should be happy. I don't care what happens to "us" but "u" should always find what you deserve and If you think I am the perfect person for you, nothing would make me happier, but a "no" ( though, would hurt ) won't ruin me. I have gone through a large number of years of my life, without you and liking you. I am sure I can go through the rest of my life the same way. Though tough, but I can handle it. Just the thought that I love you and you are happy would be enough to sail through the vast vacant ocean of life. I am not sure how much this letter has helped me, to get your attention, but it certainly has take the load off me. Now I am pretty sure that whatever your reply is, it won't be based on an imaginative guess, but a written proof of my love. Although you may decide to spend your life with someone else, I won't be able to convince myself to like anyone ever. Most probably if you say no, I will be spending my life all alone. You are the only person who has touched my heart and soul and I can't think of anyone who is more perfect for me than you are. The very thought of you makes me happy and if you give me chance I will spend the rest of my life trying to make you feel the same way. Just remember that I love you and will always continue to do so. Yours' and only your's Abhinav

Felicity...

2005-02-13T12:47:00.000+05:30

I am crossing the limits of utter laziness... I wanted to write about Felicity in last week itself ... I kept postponing it .. and its 13th now... 7 days have gone and still no words for felicity in my blog... You must be wondering why this sudden awakening!!! actually I was going through Thiyagarajan's blog and found one post about our college rock band Insomia... and I thought if he can still remain in touch with with the IIIT, why cant I?? Ok Coming back to Felicity... I was initially very worried about its fate... because of the way things were going on ... in the very beginning there was a mild difference of opinions between the juniors themselves (which we had never seen before in IIIT), then the coming of Avik as Felicity co-cordinator ... which spoilt the mood of juniors... actually it always happens... the culfest is always believed to be a done entirely by the third years.. we faced similar things last year.. so this time we didn't disturb the 3rd years at all... (well another good execuse to hide our laziness :) ) and above all the Amalgam didn't took place... One of the major reasons for cancellation of Amalgam were, we 4th years ourselves. We were pretty busy with our FYPs and test, but looking back into time... the same problems were there in the last year too. Our seniors also were busy with their FYPs and all but still they participated. I think one reason could be lack of enthusiasm from the organisers side.. I still remember how we publicises the whole event last year... where every time one used to go to the students site , a pop up used to be there to challenge him/her saying -- come on guys take this challenge head on... all those posters which we (especially utkarsh) used to paste every other week about Rohit and his love story... to create the feeling of felicity...to remind students that something is round the corner... I never felt this way this year... Well another reason could be the cultural council... even being a council made entirely from students and for the students.. it always seems to maintain a distance from the students... But as the Felicity started coming closer... things started becoming more clearer... juniors got some good sponsors like M$, Verizon and TCS to cover the expeneses... I started feeling the same way like last year... thanks to the hand made posters of felicity, which were very very beautiful.. Thanx to the person who ever made that.. the idea and the efforts , everything was very extra-ordinary... If anyone reading this post has a pic of that plz tell me where can I get it ... Coming to events... last year I didn't have the time to enjoy any event... I remember I was was so frustrated about this , that finally on the eve of fusion nite I switched off my cell saying to hell with this management work... I need to see something .. I am going to watch atleast one event... and the Fusion Night was so perfect and so enchanting ,I never experienced anything like that .. not even the concert of Rehman and Lata Mangeshkar ... This time I wanted to participate in all the events... and finally participated in almost half of all the technical and cultural events... I remember our junior girls commenting on us "in seniors ko kya ho gaya hai", well just one answer to all of them... "you will realize it next year !!" The technical event started with Online programming contest.. which was a hit ... I think our programming contest is getting more and more respect every year. Sadly, this year our own participants didn't do that well... (Somebody plz kick Amal from my side ) The Online Treasure hunt (Cache In), was also well thought out.... nice set of questions.. we managed to join the top 5 teams to finally reach to the treasure. The online crossword and online quiz were also very interesting. Me, Jaya and Kunal didn't sleep properly for 3 consecutive nights to find the answers for the quiz. Satvik must have spent a lot of time preparing the time.. in making the question... I can never forget the last night, when Me and Jaya got frustrated with various meaningless keywords to search in google. Well sincere efforts always pay back :) and finally the other day me and jaya shared the second spot together for (in Jayaram's words ) "a Princely sum of 300 "each :)) There were many more interesting events like Biz Quiz, IT Quiz..etc The cultural events were also organized pretty well. we participated in Face Painting, Collage Making, Antakshari... and didn't get anything :)) ... anyway as I always say, its not the results which matter, its the spirit and sincere efforts which matter. The stage events were good. The presentation and the management was very good but except the solo singing, the lack of participation was largely felt in all the events. The nights were good.. Bombay Vikings sang really well but I think we needed some person who could have put more enthu in the crowd the only solution could be to have more then one celebrity in one night... well its not possible now... but may be after 4-5 years... I heard that performance of Debu Choudhary was good... I missed that.. I was very tired that day ... The fusion night was as expected the best program of the Felicity. The performance of our college band was mind blowing.. This band has surely travelled a long distance from the Check Check of Shalabh (no offence itended)... Those times listening to Insomnia was a real pain in the neck... Thank God that we have much more talented guys/gals now... Well atleast Vidit will agree with me ..
Seems Mr and Ms Felicity has lost its touch over the time... and also we need to have some new ideas...there was nothing new in it. The only good thing was that, our local lad Anand Rathi became the Mr Felicity. This takes me to the results. This time our batch done pretty well. We were everywhere... Ketan got the first prize in Cache-In, me and Jaya did well in Quiz, Piyush as usual did wonders with his songs, winning prizes in group songs. Girls of our batch got first prize in the group folk dance. Parivesh got the second prize in instrumental... Pappu and co and Patnaik won the BizInfo. Sam and team performed as usually very well... winning the prize in western group dance... in Debugging the C bug contest.. 4 teams of our batch were in the top 5... with Amal and Sunil leading the bandwagon... again Bapu and Google and DP repeated the story in Java jargons.. This time all the events were managed pretty well... everything went very smoothly... all the technical events and cultural events were well thought out and well planned... The only problem as I said earlier was lack of participation..... there could be many reasons for this. May be the timing was not correct.. may be the publicity wasn't done properly... Last year the opposite has happened... we managed to pull the crowd... but the events were not that well managed... anyway whatever be the reasons... I hope the current second years will learn ... and do their best At last.... Kudos to all the organizers for organizing every event flawlessly... well guys you are better managers than us :) ...

Bas Itna Sa Khwab Hai !!

2005-02-12T20:18:00.000+05:30

Just posted this blog on our batch blog and thought I can use it here as well, so just go through about my future wishes.. actually Chandoo's post reminds me of our shimla trip ... when all of us got bored with every possible thing that we could have done on such a trip, i.e antakshari, dumb charades, discussion of love lives ( basically the crushes and crashes ;) ) we moved on to our future plans.. how would we like to see ourselves after say 20-25 years from now... I think initially it was like our immediate goals (2-3 yrs from now0 short term goals ( 5-10 yrs from now) and ultimate wish (20-30 yrs later or after retirement).. but finally we settled on the long term plans... Any way I won't disclose what other said (though there was nothing that secret), let everyone write himself... coming to my future plans... well a little correction.. its not a plan... my wishes for my future life :) I don't really remember what I said that evening... but taking from others and also adding some of my wishes... I would like to see myself living happily with my family in a beautiful house in some hilly area, with a room full of books. A peaceful surroundings... I hope that I'll have a nice, caring and understanding wife to accompany me there :) I don't want to beceome the richest person on the earth, I know that I'll earn sufficient money to have a life like what Kabir has said "Sai, itna dijiye jame kutumb samaye, main bhi bhookha na rahoon, Sadhu na bhukha jaye". That is enough money to take care of myself and any guest that comes to my door... I would love to run a school, not for charity purpose but to help the society which has given everything to me... As per my professional life is concerned, I wish to repeat what Jack Welch has done... Those who don't know Jack Welch never left the first company he joined(GE) for any other company and finally retired from GE as its CEO... Well !! Kuch jyada hi wish kar liya lagta hai... so stopping myself here... keep in touch guys to know the latest news from my side .. --- Rocky

What Kind of shadow am I ??

2005-02-12T10:12:00.000+05:30

You are a human shadow. If a loved one needs you,
you are always right at his or her heels! Your
deep social connection with human beings
produces your qualities of genuine caring and
charisma. However, at times you are naive to
the true nature of your loved ones. Remember
that humans' gift of free will does not always
lead them in wise directions. But your essence
of love and friendship represent the other
precious gifts of humanity. Overall you are a
strikingly valuable and innocent being who has
a lot to give.(please rate my quiz cuz it took
me for freaking ever to create)

What Kind of Shadow Are You? (with gorgeous pics)
brought to you by Quizilla -- ‹^› ‹(•¿•)› ‹^›

BLACK

2005-02-09T11:55:00.000+05:30

Movies like BLACK come once in a decade and may be 3-4 such movies come over a century. Its really a masterpiece of a genious, which stands tall among the mediocre films of bollywood. I haven't seen many of Satyajit Ray, Gurudatta or Bimal Roy works, who are called the greatest of greats in bollywood. But I am sure that with this movie SLB deserves a place equal to them. This movie, I think is very diffent from the all other SLB movies. Its like "Mera Name Joker" of RajKapoor. A movie very different from his earlier movies (except may be Khamoshi), but at the same time containing that very special signature of SLB. OK coming to movie... I don't know much about the technical details like screenplay or cinematography and things like that ... but in a pure layman's language... The story was very touching ... The scenes and picturization were too good... the absence of colors (not exactly) and the powerful use of shades of white, black and grey makes every scene wonderful. The acting of all the actors were superb. The acting of Ayesha Kapoor(young Mitchell) and the Rani Mukherjee(mature mitchell) is very enchanting. I always knew that Rani is a good actress but this time her acting was far superior from all of her earlier works. She was like living the character of Mitchell in herself. Amitabh as usual has done gr8 but this time his role as an teacher (Devraj) is very very different and challenging, I don't think anybody else could have equalled his performance. Anyway I found him a little overacting in the later part where he acts an Alzheimer patient and also the make up of Amitabh for this part sucks.
There are some scenes in the movie which I can't forget. Like the one where young Mitchell learns the meaning of words. The speech which Rani makes when sister is getting engaged and also when finally she completes her graduation.
I don't expect this movie to be financially successful and I guess even Bhansali didn't make this to make money. I have never seen the blind and deaf people so closely before this movie. This movie shows us that they are also humans and they too have feelings. Its indeed a very brave effort from the director. Great work Mr Sanjay Leela Bhansali. I think this movie is made totally from `Dil Se`. So just watch it, if you like listening to your heart.

Bio-Informatics Class Notes

2005-02-08T17:16:00.000+05:30

Today's Elements of Bio informatics Class Notes
class started at 1:30 . I started writing some notes but after 15 minutes I became restless and started writing these notes... just have a look...

Bedi is humming some song, which i am unable to identify
Its 2 PM students are still pouring in...
OK, Finally identified Bedi's Song "Insaaf ki dagar pe Bachchon dikhao chal ke"
Sireesh is tryig his best to remain awake :)
2:05 PM Unni comes to the class .. ma'am is loosing her control.. tells to close the door
2:10 kirti, Gaurav Jain, KBJ and gang comes to the class ... Madam can't tolerate anymore ... the main door is also being closed now... oh wait a minute ..who's there on the stairs. Rastogi !!! Run Rastogi run...Let's see whether he can make it or not ... ok now he has climbed the stairs.. approaching towards the door .. but... SLAM ... doors are closed now ... poor chap ...
Bedi has come to whistling now ....
The guy in front of me (Dhruv) is working on his vocab... trying to concentrate hard on the "Norman Lewis"
Ok something interesting in the slides "Human lie in the species --Sapiens" but how is that related to bio-informatics
Bedi Once again : "Insaf ki dagar pe bachchon....."
2:20 PM .. 3 more students coming for the class... ha ha they can't come in
NO, NOT AGAIN !! The same old NCBI page
Ma'am says What's the need for such a classification ?? I hear What's the need for such a class
Ok Bhawani is the first one to give up.. Sweet dreams Bhawani
Unni and Venki are doing gr8 with BINGO
Ma'am is on the board now .. trying to explain something.. I just hope that someone is paying attention to her..
Ok now the guy with the "Norman Lewis" has finally given up
There is a good competition going on between Madam and sireesh. So far Sireesh is doing well... Oh no our gladiator is losing his grip in the battle... Sireesh with half open eyes now ... no .. full .. no half.. ok ... end of Sireesh episode... Sireesh seems to have some very nice dreams... meanwhile Bedi is still on "Insaaf ki dagar pe .. bachchon dikhao chal ke"
New Page
He he.. I m feeling very happy.. I think this is the only class in which Pammy seats behind me :)
Hey ! What is Nirnimesh doing ?? Can't see from here ... Ok finally got a quick glimpse.. seems he is enhancing his gegraphy knowledge.. searching very hard for Taj Mahal in the map of Hyderabad :)
Bedi !! Why is he so quiet ?? Whatz wrong ??
Just showed the above line to Bedi.. now Bedi is back to "insaf ki dagar pe ..."
Ma'am is successful in hypnotizing the entire class... almost half of the class is sleeping now... the latest entrants in the "Sleeping Babies club" are -- Joon, Underscore, Pappu, Parida, Kirti Sinha, Bolli, Khare (half asleep),Vishnu... and the count is increasing every minute...
Another interesting line from the slides " BANANA PANAMA " and I am thinking , how nice it would be to eat bannana on the coast of Panama river :)
Ok, Finally Nirnimesh found one Taj Mahal in Hyderabad too !!! strange isn't it. How many Tajmahals are there ??
Well !! Its 2:45 PM now .. can't stand this torture any longer.. going to sleep... bye bye Zaalim duniya ... anywat Bedi is still on "Insaaf ki dagar pe bachchon dikhao chal ke "

-- ‹^› ‹(•¿•)› ‹^›

FYP...

2005-01-31T15:22:00.000+05:30

This is cool ..there are around some 40 days remaining for the final submission of the fyp .. but we haven't done any thing so far. Today we had to submit the progress report. I was wondering what to write in this ... that for the past two months we have done everything except contributing anything to final year project. What will I write, that I went to Shimla and we had a real gala time over there or we enjoyed rain dance in Ramoji or we ate chocolates in Majj's talk or the boating was fun in the class picnic. Anyway, as we are very good in doing BC ; especially me and Utkarsh. So it didn't take us much time to finish the report. It was full of lies that we did this thing and that thing and some 90% of this module is complete and the only major work remaining is the integration part ;) .. Well this time even our project guide was a little reluctant in signing the progress report. But as usually we convinced him. Well !! One thing is sure. Our final submission is going to be very tough. We will have to do so many things to save our face . Ok tab ki tab dekhenge .. for now its party time ... Felicity Rocks ... Going to participate in Online Treasure Hunt .. -- ‹^› ‹(•¿•)› ‹^›

P4Runs

2005-01-27T23:47:00.000+05:30

Well !! Its not the Pentium 4 Processor which is running on my system :) Even I thought the same when I get to hear about this for the firsttime. It is our gang @IIIT and stands for the eight of us Pankaj Madhukar Pankaj Kumar Parivesh Pushpam Rakesh Utkarsh Nirnimesh Sunil Pankaj just created this blog p4runs.blogspot.com, dedicating to our friendship. Visiting this site and seeing all of us at a same place felt very good... but suddenly I felt that we are no longer gonna stay together. This is the last sem and after this all of us are going to choose our own paths.And who knows may be some of us will never meet again (though its highly improbable, meri shadi main to sab log aayenge hi :D ). This all thing reminds me of DCH.. the sea and the ship.. feels like I am that ship.. going farther away from my friends... ok ok ok ... need to study.. have a test tomorrow.. God save me from this God forsaken biology. -- ‹^› ‹(•¿•)› ‹^›

Yaaron (Nice Song by Kay Kay)

2005-01-25T20:49:00.000+05:30

Yaaron, Dosti badi hi haseen hai
Yeh na ho to kya fir, bolo yeh zindagi hai
Koi to ho raazdaar, begaraz tera ho yaar
Koi to ho raazdaar,
Yaaron, Mohabbat hi to bandagi hai
Yeh na ho to kya fir bolo yeh zindagi hai
Koi to Dilbar ho yaar, Jisko tujhse ho pyaar
Koi to Dilbaar ho yaar.
Teri harek burai pe daanten woh dost.
Gham ki ho dhoop to saya bane, tera woh dost
Naache bhi woh teri khushi main....
Are Yaaron ! Dosti badi hi haseen hai
Yeh na ho to kya fir, bolo yeh zindagi hai
Koi to ho raazdaar, begaraz tera ho yaar
Koi to ho raazdaar.....
Tan man kare tujhe pe fida, Mehboob woh
Palkon pe jo rakhe tujhe Mehboob woh
Jiski wafa tere liye ho....
Are Yaaron ! Mohabbat hi to bandagi hai
Yeh na ho to kya fir bolo yeh zindagi hai
Koi to Dilbar ho yaar, Jisko tujhse ho pyaar
Koi to Dilbaar ho yaar.
-- ‹^› ‹(•¿•)› ‹^›

Finallly ..

2005-01-25T10:45:00.000+05:30

I compiled and installed the new kernel (2.6.10) on my system .. I was kind of ashamed that it is my 4th year and I haven't yet compiled the kernel. So today I woke up early in the morning at 8:30 (he he this is quiet early for me ) and came to the lab with this mission. Though when I used the new kernel for the first time .. It came with a littel surprise that the X was not working .. but that was a minor hiccup because it was the problem with Nvidia driver .. I reinstalled it .. and everything seems working pretty well... Well that's it now .. Have to read the wonderful world of Linux 2.6. U too can have a look here -- ‹^› ‹(•¿•)› ‹^›

:)) My visitor count is 200 Now

2005-01-24T18:24:00.000+05:30

‹^› ‹(•¿•)› ‹^›

Darbari Ka Darbar

2005-01-20T15:12:00.000+05:30

Last night was fun ... we had Darbari ka Darbar .. in continuation of Majj's talk ... well for non IIITians .. this was just an get-together of our batchmates, but it was really something special for us .. we didn't do anything .. and neither publicised the event but may be because of some sentiments for the batch, that we are leaving in a few days.. it became very special ... anyway the beginning of the event was very bad ... all courtesy to some bad organizers like me :) and there was a point where me and Adi were almost sure that this is going to be a big flop show... thank God that somehow it ended pretty well ... we had the usual games like dumb charades, Antakshari and the "Ghoda Badam Chai" as usually in our own ishtyle ... The dumb charades involved the enacting of faculty or students. I gave a really tough question to Vidit .. he had to enact Amba kulkarni :)) .. Bapu came with this very wild idea that in Antakashri that if a team is singing someone from that team will have to dance on that particular song... I think this added life in the Antakshri ... though I was an organiser ... I shared the dancing stage with some of the teams ... The final game was Ghoda Badam Chai .. I have played this game many times in my childhood .. but wasn't aware that it is called so ... anyway this game was the biggest attraction of last night... where Adi Become a Murga ... Amal Sang a hindi song in a Girl's voice and told about her BTree ;) ... KBJ did the famous Veena number of Indra... Swati enacted DVD and Patke (though I am not sure whether that can qualify for acting)... Lahari enacted Jaya :) and Javahar Sir. The best part was when Parivesh mimicked PK and Manas and Prof Garry.... and when Jayaram enacted Paddy... It was too good to be explaind here ... Poor Darbari was again the victim of Jaya's jokes :D .. well just for a change this time he was not all alone .. Shetty too got his share with that special comment .. "Perfect Marriage Material " :) Well this was the end of the events... as it was Swati's birthday.. she had brought us a very delicious cake ... which was followed by the sweets that we had brought for the event and the Coffee party (again by Swati). PS: Kunal if you read this .. please give me one snap of maharaja Abhinav Darbari's so that I can add it here ..

Ramoji Trip

2005-01-15T17:01:00.000+05:30

Well !! Surely there is nothing which can beat the Shimla Trip .. but this trip to Ramoji Film City also holds its place among the tops. A very memorable trip. Another example of my utter laziness. rest of the content of this post is shamlessly taken from Kunal's blog Space Of Kunal :) 28 of us went for a trip to Ramoji Film City. Abhinav, Vidit, Piyush, Adi, Parry, Majji, Pushpam, Kunal, Maddy, Khare, Pankaj, Parivesh, Ranta, Tiwary, Dixit, Deadly, Bapu, Jayaram, Sam, AU, Akhil, Bhargava, Kaka, Raheja, Shetty, Sushant, Malik and Me. Whew, that was a long list!! Took minutes to remember all 28 people..

Instead of a detailed blog here is the story in pictures..

The trip starts.. Waiting for Dixit in front of Kamal's home..

Majji was flooding us with his intolerable PJs..
Majji guide always led us on to the wrong way throughout the trip.

Still in bus, Kunal and me.

Vidit, Abhinav, Jayaram, Shetty, Raheja, AU etc are up there, trying to reach the sky

Adi, Dixit, Pushpam and Parivesh await their turn to touch the sky..

Vidit and Me, with Vidit saying yyuuyui !!

A scared Tiwary and the photographer - Kunal

Pushpam did a nice job as Monalisa.. :))

Kunal is wanted...

Now even Majji is wanted..

Almost half the group (13/28)

Piyush, Bapu, Ranta, Kunal, Daedly and Khare

On the slope in front of Hawa-Mahal.
Now it is more then half the group, 15 of us.

Rocky, Me, Pushpam, Abhinav, Aditya and Parivesh
An artistic touch...

Woman on top !!!

Bapu enjoying ...

Can you belive it, Kunal is holding on Parivesh !!!

The roll, discovered by Majji.
Tiwary rolling while Majj offers a helping hand.

Malik falling off the bull...

And Bhargava trying to take the neck of the bull with him..

After some agonizing 30-40 secs, even Kunal fall off... But gg

The rain dance...

Beneath the rainbow !!!

Bapu, Majji, Pushpam, Adi, Abhinav and Me - all rocking...

Shetty, Raheja, Vidit, Sam, Sushant, AU, Kaka, Rnata, Malik

The monkey in us coming to the front..
Kunal, Maddy, Abhinav and Tiwary

Parivesh, me, Pushpam and Majji
Copy Cats or Copy Monkeys ??

Kunal!

Adi!

And Bapu..

The Sun-fountain. Kunal, Pushpam, Adi and Dixit.

Notice the white speck in center of the photograph ??
Thats Adi copying the statue !!

Parivesh, Abhinav and Kunal - Still on the fountain

The line - Adi, Parivesh, Kunal, Dixit, Pushpam, Bapu and Abhinav

The circle - Adi, Parivesh, Dixit, Abhinav, Pushpam, Kunal, Bapu.

The semi-circle - Pushpam, Parivesh, Abhinav, Adi, Kunal, Bapu, Pankaj

Playing Snakes and Ladders... Tiwary, kunal, Ranta and Pankaj

The rain dance... Part II

Pankaj, Abhinav, Tiwary, Parry, Bapu, Adi and Ranta on the floor

Aftermath of the rain-dance..

Jan 15th, 9:55 pm

Nerd test ...

2005-01-09T15:57:00.000+05:30

Well!! Seems I am becoming a geek ... just see the results ..

Happy New Year

2005-01-07T16:02:00.000+05:30

to me ofcourse.. this is my blog isn't it :) any way just joking ... a very happy and prosperous new year to all those who have accidently come to this page. Thinking about the last year filles me with some of very good memories. It was a kind of dream fulfillment year for me. Earlier in the 6th semester (January to June) I got a good chance to know the work culture of IT industry in the form of internship at Computer Associates India Ltd. I earned my first salary also, officially I finished my honours project (thanx to pankaj), did my best for Felicity and Farewell, got my first experience of social service with NSS. In the seventh semester (July to November) I became class representative as a side effect of which I become the studement parliament member also, did some voluntary work for campus placements, got placed in Oracle and worked as an tutor for first years. Well this semester was little disappointing for me in terms of Academics. I was about to fail in some courses due to the recent attendence rule of our institute but due to the latest modifications in the rule I ended with Ds. The year ended with a happier note as our gang went for a trip to Shimla. We enjoyed a lot. It was a wonderful and unforgettable experience with the mountains. I am leaving the details for my next post. There were many new things from the cyber space which I would like to write here. I started blogging and got addicted towards reading and writing blogs, Got invitations to make an Orkut and Gmail account both of which have revolutionalized the internet. Talking about the college. We became the seniormost UG Students. Got to see many new teachers and also the departure of our beloved Physics teacher Dr Naidu :), we experienced the trauma caused by the new attedence rule and at the same time enjoyed many events like Felicity, Freshers Day, Birthday of IIIT, The R&D Showcase and many others. The College opened many new research labs like communication lab and Robotics lab. We got to see the new CVIT and also the work for new Data Engineering lab started. IIIT got its share of publicity another time and OUTLOOK magazine praised the work done by LTRC. Many known faces left the campus making the room for many new faces to come. Though we gave the farewell to our seniors but it was looking like it is our own farewell. From that day onwards I get very sad and emotional whenever I think that this is my last year at college and in this June itself we will leave the campus and its very possible that some of us will never meet ever in life.

Chokher Baali

2004-12-02T18:29:00.000+05:30

I had always heard about the greatness of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore... my first encouter with his literatue was in schools ... but at that time somehow I didn't feel the beauty of his literature.. this latest encounter with Choker Baali was really mind blowing... For the first time I realized what are masterpieces and Masters.. I mean if we consider the time when he wrote this novel we can just imagine how broad and mature minded he was. And the way he has handled this sensitive issue of a young widow and her feelings... And It will be very rude of me I don't praise the director of Chokher Baali... Mr Rituparno Ghosh.. what a tremendous job he has done... Probably there couldn't have been any one else who would have done a better job... I am going to see all of his movies now... Well !! If I start writing about the actors and acting ... I will have to write for another one hour.. so I won't touch that part here ... except that all the charaters were beautifully placed and the acting of all the actors especiall Aish and Rima Sen's was marvellous.. The only thing that I found somewhat very different and unusual was the ending of the movie.. may be Rabindranath wanted to relate with the Bangal division... but it was kind of unusual ... especially when everything was settled, a typical indian viewer like me was thinking that Vinodini and Bihari will get married ... Well !! Can't say ... probably this is the diffence in the mentality of a legend like Gurudev and someone like me ...

Which OS are U ??

2004-11-28T01:43:00.000+05:30

Just filled up this questionaire .. and see what I ended with ... Very bad for me .. I was expecting a Red Hat Linux ... If you also want to know which OS you are just click on the above image.

Parichay

2004-11-18T14:53:00.000+05:30

Veer-Zaara

2004-11-15T05:05:00.000+05:30

I think its time to write my own review of this movie... especially after pankaj forwarded me this link. I think Sourabh had lots of expectation with the movie and it always happens when U expect a lot from something and finally it doesn't appear as you had wanted. Contrary to the view expressed in the above link. This movie is not at all pathetic. It is a typical Yash Chopra movie. Full of emotional scenes (we boyz don't like it becoz boys dont cry) and songs. Well it was nearly 6 hrs for me (that includes movie time + travel time + time spent in fixing Jaya's bike's flat tyre) and it was not a complete waste. We/I hadn't much expectation from the movie and at many points the movie fared better than we had thought, in fact we enjoyed it. Ya Shahrukh is not a versatile actor like Aamir. But he can do justice to some roles, like the ones which he gets with Chopras or Johars and it was a Chopra movie. So this was a kind of tailor made role for Shahrukh and I can't picture any one else in that particular role. Its same like that I can't picture any one else in Shahrukh's role in KKHH and as far as I think he has done his best. About music. Certainly if Sourabh Nanda doesn't like the music of Veer-zara he shouldn't listen to hindi music. Come on you have got Lata Mangheshkar singing on Javed Akhtar's lyrics which are composed in Madan Mohan's tunes ... what else you want to listen... Probably he is tired with the way the songs are presented... but every song is unique and very melodious... and don't blame that it had lots of songs .. becoz this is supposed to be a musical and infact all yash chopra movies are musicals, probably you don't know how to appreciate musicals. Story was not that impressive .. in fact at many point I thought whether I am watching Gadar, but it was ok. Not a tragedy like usual love stories (the likes of Heer Ranjha, Romeo-Juliet ...) I think the director didn't stress on the Indo Pak issue or the Hindu Muslim issue because he knew that we have got bored with this and he wanted to think us, of that miniscus probablity of one indian boy and one pakistani girl falling in love. This was something different from regular movies otherwise it is always the same old Hindu/Muslim confilict or Indo-Pak masala. I mean can't we increase the level of our thinking. Ab't the line : "Tumhaare mulk mein saare bete aise hi hote hain kya" "Woh to nahin bata sakta... lekin saari maaein aapke jaisi hi hoti hain" Well in my opinion it was the best dialogue of the movie. Some Plus Points of the movie: 1. Yash Chopra (I think I am biased towards his movies) 2. Madan Mohan (Most melodious tunes) 3. Lata Mangeshkar (simpley rules our hearts) 4. Javed Akhtar (Has given life to the music of Madan mohan) 5. Preity (Zaara looks superb) 6. Amitabh Bachchan (He has a cameo ... but he has proved once again that he is Amitabh) 7. Divya Datta (The sabbo: will remind U of sweet and naughty village girl) 8. Picturisation of all the scenes are perfect 8. All the guest appearances are gr8 (Zohra Sehgal, Amitabh, Hema Malini, Certainly there were some things in the story which were hard to digest like the 22yrs of imprisonment of Shahrukh (all the time I was calculating the dates) and also the make up of Shahrukh and Preity Zinta sucks.

Yahoooo!!!!

2004-11-09T10:33:00.000+05:30

Exams are over .. masti time is back ..

End Sems Starting ..

2004-11-04T02:12:00.000+05:30

With Economics exam tomorrow... got to study a lot ..

The Fountain Head

2004-10-31T22:51:00.000+05:30

Just finished reading this novel. Written by Ayn Rand, this one is very different from the other novels which I used to read earlier.. I mean much better then of the Sheldon's, Ludlum's, King's etc This novel talks about Heroics and cowards .. the concept of purity and impurity of soul... the selfishness and selflessness ... and is a heroic attempt to save heroism from second handers ... This is story of an Architect for whom his work is his God and his religion... and all through the book he alone fights with the world to save his religion/Profession which has already been polluted by the intellectually deprived once. Surely it is one of the best novels I have read so far.. I have become fond of the writer and looking forward to read her another novel "The Atlas Shrugged" -- ‹^› ‹(•¿•)› ‹^›

2004-10-30T23:44:00.000+05:30

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

I m back ....

2004-10-30T13:51:00.000+05:30

Back from home :) This recent trip was a very beautiful and one of the most memorable to home. I got the chance to meet all the persons who love me and care for me and vice versa ... It had a special significance because I met her for probably the last time time in my life... actually she was the driving force for this trip... we never spent much time together and may be itwas just 6th or 7th meeting of ours in last 4yrs and this time I was meeting her after a gap of 1 year... but we were so comfortable with each other that it never felt that we are meeting after such a long gap... anyway this story ended befor even starting formally, we never moved beyong being just 2 good friends... This time when I had a job in my hand and I was going to propose her ... I got to know that she is alread engaged to someone :( ... while talking to her I was imagining the scene frm DDLJ where Kajol was asking Shahrukh "Tum meri shadi main aaoge" and I could'nt say anything ... Well, atleast I learnt something, Never wait for time ... Just do it .. well everything else was very regular... mummy still says that I am becoming thinner day by day and Papa says that I am getting too much fat... Khushi (Didi's daughter) has started speaking and Somu has become naughtier... Everybody is talking of Bhaiya's marriage and Bhaiya is still reluctant for marriage ... For a change, this time I went to Mamaghar after... I guess 5-6 yrs...

Is Google making a browser..

2004-09-26T01:59:00.000+05:30

Seems this is the hot topic these days... if it does surely I'll be among the firsts to use that ...

Teachers Day Card

2004-09-21T17:03:00.000+05:30

We gifted this card to Govindrajulu sir on teacher's Day.. Rakesh

Placment List

2004-09-21T01:06:00.000+05:30

My friends placed so far...
Virtusa Tintin<
gupta_nitin@students.iiit.net>
Virtusa Priyanka< priyanka@students.iiit.net>
Virtusa Devi< devi@students.iiit.net> Kanbay Ankit< ankit_k@students.iiit.net> Kanbay PP< ppandey@students.iiit.net> Kanbay Imran< imran@students.iiit.net> Wipro Tiwary< arvind_tiwary@students.iiit.net> Wipro Kasak< karthik_ks@students.iiit.net> Wipro Piyush< piyush_b@students.iiit.net> Wipro Manjeet< manjeet@students.iiit.net> Wipro Majji < v_manoj@students.iiit.net> Wipro Manas< manas@students.iiit.net> Infosys Malik< vishalmalik@students.iiit.net> Infosys Gupta< vinod_gupta@students.iiit.net> TCS Vinod< vinod_reddy@students.iiit.net> TCS Bolero< bpradeep@students.iiit.net> TCS Shadab< s_shadab@students.iiit.net> TCS Anand< abhi_anand@students.iiit.net> TCS Kartika< kartika@students.iiit.net> TCS Nalli< ravishankar@students.iiit.net> TCS Jenny< janardhan@students.iiit.net> Verizon Bhopali< upadhyay_a@students.iiit.net> Verizon Khare< utkarsh@students.iiit.net> Verison Akhil< akhil_goel@students.iiit.net> Verizon Jaya< jayaram@students.iiit.net> Verizon Man< nipun@students.iiit.net> Verizon Ramneek< ramneek@students.iiit.net> Verizon Bedi< ajay_bedi@students.iiit.net> IBM Swati< swati@students.iiit.net> IBM Sam< sanyam@students.iiit.net> IBM Pandey< sushant_pandey@students.iiit.net> IBM Mota< parivesh@students.iiit.net> IBM Adi< aditya_m@students.iiit.net> IBM Akhil< akhil_k@students.iiit.net> IBM Guddu< egirishrg@students.iiit.net> IBM Sunny< dwivedi@students.iiit.net> IBM Suman< suman@students.iiit.net> Amdocs UnderScore< vinod_j@students.iiit.net> Oracle Deepika< deepika@students.iiit.net> Oracle Vindhya< vindhya@students.iiit.net> Oracle Kunal< kunal@students.iiit.net> Oracle Nirupam< p_nirupam@students.iiit.net> Oracle Rakesh< rakesh_kumar@students.iiit.net> Oracle Ranu< ranu@students.iiit.net> Oracle Dixy< abhishek_dixit@students.iiit.net> C.A Patti< chaitanya_reddy@students.iiit.net> C.A AC< amit_c@students.iiit.net> C.A DP< durgaprasad_j@students.iiit.net> C.A Patke< patnaik@students.iiit.net> C.A Chandu< sandeep@students.iiit.net> Novell Anu< anubhav_a@students.iiit.net> Novell PJ< piyush_j@students.iiit.net> Infosys + delloite Aara< aaradhya@students.iiit.net> Infosys + CSC Bhargav< ankit_b@students.iiit.net> Infosys + Verizon Unni< sreejith@students.iiit.net> Wipro + Delloite Maddy< pankaj_n@students.iiit.net> TCS + delloite Pappu< gaurav_kr@students.iiit.net> TCS + IBM Bavs< sankar_s@students.iiit.net> TCS + IBM Poo < sireesh_b@students.iiit.net> TCS + CSC Ravi < ravichandra@students.iiit.net> TCS + Verizon Lahari < lahari@students.iiit.net> TCS + Verizon Manjusha < manjusha@students.iiit.net> TCS + Verizon Kaa < vishnupraveen@students.iiit.net> Kanbay + Amdocs KG < kumargaurav@students.iiit.net> Kanbay + Amdocs Pandey < asheesh_p@students.iiit.net> Wipro + Adobe Rajjo < sourabh_r@students.iiit.net> IBM + Adobe Darbari < abhinav@students.iiit.net> Novell + Adobe J.LO < jagannathan@students.iiit.net>

Change...

2004-09-12T20:15:00.000+05:30

Moved from Students.iiit.net to blogspot...

Just another day...

2004-08-21T01:01:00.000+05:30

well last night (morning would be more appropriate) I slept @ 4am after watching Kyun Ho Gaya Na ... movie was ok .. not very good .. a typical romantic Hindi movie and almost predictable ... Ash was looking veryyyyy beautiful... Amitabh was a little boring ... his role could have been easily avoided ... ... I think indian cinema makers should learn something from hollywood directors... if you are making a love story make it like A Walk to remember ... .. This movie changed my perception about Hollywood that they can't make a romantic movie with songs... Though I have seen some of the very good romantic movies like "You have got mail", "Notting Hill", " A walk in the clouds" ... but "A walk to remember" is The Best.... just see the lead pair in the following pic ahhh !! I was writing about today ... doesn't matter ... tomorrow I'll write about today :) ..

Test ...

2004-08-18T19:22:00.000+05:30

last time I posted through mail .. but it didn't appear on the site .. it's just another test ..

Sage

2004-08-17T20:28:00.000+05:30

Just installed sage in my browser (firefox) .... well it rocks .. a very good rss reader... now I can read news of rediff very easily ... no need to open all those links for every article...

Rocky Says

Oracle: Sql script to check tablespace size

Oracle : Delete duplicate records from a table

Java Code: URL Shortener

Mysql: Primer From Google Code University

Speed Test

Mysql: Count Occurrence of a particular character in a given String

Simple Income Tax Calculator

Oracle Acquires Sun: Future of Mysql

Oracle Acquires Sun: Future of Mysql

*N*X: Shell Hack : Use a Different Color for the root Shell

Mysql: Client Tips 2: Running Shell Commands from the Commandline

Mysql: Comments Trick

MySQL: Query to List Down All Schema Objects

Mysql: Cross tabulation: Very useful article from mysql tech-resources

Mysql: Oracle users looking for Rownum in mysql !!

Mysql: Change Default Prompt

Mysql: Find max and minimum date in a month

How to Number Rows in MySQL

Rake: A basic intro of Rake and db migration using rake

Mysql: Bulk Inserts involving updates

Mysql: Show user defined functions for some schema

Mysql: Find Indexes on a Table

Sun unveils first details on open Java

Purchase of Property- What Consumers Should Know?

Workaround for censorship - Blogger way

Social Network Boom

Check It Out !!

Rediff 's New Look

Wisdom Of Crowds

Superman Doesn't Soar ...

Ten Possible Consequences of Google's GBuy

You can't keep blaming Blogger..

Tech reading is not that boring ..

@ Hussain Sagar

Yahoooooooo !!

Birthday Boys

Bapu and Tintin

And the gang

What the hell is this ??

Why employees leave organisations?

Another Wicket Fallen..

A picture is worth a thousand words !!

Babul mora naihar chhooto jaye

C++ loses its 3rd position after almost 4 years

Ten Inspiring Lessons from Azim Premji of Wipro

Keep it simple !!!

Before IIIT

Introduction [Yaadon ki baarat...]

Modi denied visa to visit US

R&D Showcase...

Best Article [How to Blog ??]

Isn''t it strange !!

प्रयाणगीत

President's rule in Bihar...

Slashdot.. + Indian

Indian beheaded in Saudi Arabia

BlogShares !!!

Abhijit Sawant is Indian Idol !!

Kyun Ki Main Jhooth Nahi Bolta !!!

Questions asked from the within !!

Funday...

Blogaholic !!

Google cheat sheet

How did they get their names

Sanskrit is a blessed language

My Sassy Girl ..

Another kind of Evolution ...

Finally..

Feel Good News...

In Xanadu Did Kubla Khan ....

Back in action again ...

Get Romantic .. with Google

Felicity...

Bas Itna Sa Khwab Hai !!

What Kind of shadow am I ??

BLACK

Bio-Informatics Class Notes

FYP...

P4Runs

NX: Shell Hack : Use a Different Color for the root Shell