OK, this should in most likely case be the last post on my blogspot account. I have shifted to my own domain where I will continue to blog with the same name.
You can follow me here.
May 8, 2008
April 29, 2008
Regression
OK the migration did not work out as I expected it to. Even after paying for the hosting space, the service I got was terrible. The phone helplines were supposedly meant to be musicDJ with IVR and cPanel was pathetically slow. Online Help always showed as unavailable and after almost 10 conversations the problem was not resolved. And the most ironical part - the name of the service provider was 247-host.com, claiming to be available 24x7 service providers. I think they had a different definition of what 24x7 means. They almost tested my patience by repeatedly responding with useless information about how to solve the problem. I gave up after two days and asked for the closure of account and refund for the payment made. Haven't still received the money back in my CC a/c. Will wait till this gets sorted out and then go for another hosting service. Till then this is the refuge for the blog.
March 18, 2008
From Taking Pride to Being Paranoid
From '10 Things I Hate About You'
You can be underwhelmed , you can be overwhelmed , but can you only be whelmed - ?
I think you can - In Europe.
The movie got me in to some serious trouble yesterday and I recalled this conversation from the flick. Not to mention - This was not a copyrighted version and was lying on my corporate machine (I in turn copied it from somewhere on the LAN). I did took pride in having it on my machine but all that was washed off by the formal warning.
Anyways , I've removed all copyright content now and anything now which remains is all licensed, openSource, GNU and FreeWare stuff.
You can be underwhelmed , you can be overwhelmed , but can you only be whelmed - ?
I think you can - In Europe.
The movie got me in to some serious trouble yesterday and I recalled this conversation from the flick. Not to mention - This was not a copyrighted version and was lying on my corporate machine (I in turn copied it from somewhere on the LAN). I did took pride in having it on my machine but all that was washed off by the formal warning.
Anyways , I've removed all copyright content now and anything now which remains is all licensed, openSource, GNU and FreeWare stuff.
January 23, 2008
65 Posts, last published on Aug 23, 2007
Surprisingly enough I noticed the date only after I took up my lazy step to write after such a long time. So it's been exactly 5 months. Not a day less or more. Too perfect to be a coincidence.
Anyways complaining about not being able to extract out time or having a writer's block is what I wouldn't resort to this time. No point in actually cribbing about even. What's the big deal after all :P.
And the traffic ?....nah..like I care.
However a lot has indeed changed since then. I have started to get a feel of the micro-blogging business (not that am regular even there..). I have also started to devour and look into the social-networking/social-media buzz more closely because of the innumerable links and resources I receive daily, thanks to both twitter and RSS feeds and of course their authors.
I have started to think more seriously about the SOA revolution and where does it lead to in the future from the point of view of business application software. It still remains to see whether it's a buzz, hype or a bubble.
And finally , after more than 3 yrs I moved a step higher in my organization hierarchy after the much awaited roll out of promotion cycles. That happened although a month back. Still to realize that nothing much has actually changed because of it.
With no resolution or promises of being regular i'd rather let it be like this with sprinkles of updates as and when they accrue to a size worth posting here. It's true that taking first step is half the job done, only that in my case I believe it's definitely more than half ( maybe full :D).
Anyways complaining about not being able to extract out time or having a writer's block is what I wouldn't resort to this time. No point in actually cribbing about even. What's the big deal after all :P.
And the traffic ?....nah..like I care.
However a lot has indeed changed since then. I have started to get a feel of the micro-blogging business (not that am regular even there..). I have also started to devour and look into the social-networking/social-media buzz more closely because of the innumerable links and resources I receive daily, thanks to both twitter and RSS feeds and of course their authors.
I have started to think more seriously about the SOA revolution and where does it lead to in the future from the point of view of business application software. It still remains to see whether it's a buzz, hype or a bubble.
And finally , after more than 3 yrs I moved a step higher in my organization hierarchy after the much awaited roll out of promotion cycles. That happened although a month back. Still to realize that nothing much has actually changed because of it.
With no resolution or promises of being regular i'd rather let it be like this with sprinkles of updates as and when they accrue to a size worth posting here. It's true that taking first step is half the job done, only that in my case I believe it's definitely more than half ( maybe full :D).
August 23, 2007
Search --> Discover --> ??
Search --> Discover --> ??
0.0) Since the time of its inception, web has moved leaps and bounds. It's genesis has created nerve-wracking problems and also wonderful creative solutions. Nothing apart from human evolution could compare to this so intriguing development (both good and bad) of the web. The difficulties which cast doubt on the evolution of an entity are iconoclastic problems which always push the entity to either mutate, compromise, or find a solution to end that problem. Growth of the internet has remained no exception and has led to some very amazing and intelligent answers during the course of its development.
1.0) First it was the problem of searching information/resources on the net. Google and other search-engines have solved it well and in a more than efficient way. One could search possibly everything that is there on the web by keying in pertinent keywords and reach out to potentially exhaustive list of resources relevant to that keyword(s). A peculiarly inconclusive and futile search for the letter 'a' on google would return somewhere around 8 billion resources. Of course an incalculable percentage of it is basically redundant because it's one of the most ubiquitous and canonical search arguments that can be passed to any search engine. The reason to quote that example here is to give an idea of the thoroughness of the searches that are performed over the net. As an indirect consequence of this, people have found ways to derive fun and challenges out of such systems for example by trying to figure out a combination of two meaningful keywords which would yield a single result. However, their discoveries only last for second after being published as the new GoogleWhack !!
2.0) With an almost incessant influx of data and ever increasing amount of information being put online, came the problem of discovering the information. StumbleUpon(SU) and the likes(del.icio.us, digg etc etc) provided a tool to do that. This was a paradigm shift from the way search engines work in the sense that unlike the dedicated crawling spiders/bots which generate the content for search engines systems, here the users themselves were the source of the discovered content. Any content deemed fit by a particular user would get automatically added to the stumbleupon's repository with proper topics/tags/subjects/contexts and would thereafter serve as the results of discovery by another user for those particular tags/subjects/contexts. Web-surfers could possibly keep stumbling around a particular set of their pre-defined subjects on the net and in the process rate the particular resources based on there relevancy. Thus, in essence it is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy for the systems such as SU to generate their content and also maintain the quality and reliability of that content in an almost perpetual process of information retrieval.
2.1) However, there is also a fundamental similarity in terms of the user interaction between these two kinds of utilities, services, information retrieval systems or whatever you wish to call them. And that is the user in either of these two cases has to explicitly reach out for the information whether intentionally or unintentionally. While in case of search the user intentionally seeks the information, in the other case he or she unintentionally discovers the information based on what others have qualified as the relevant resource for a particular subject. We can therefore in the language of business process classify these activities as outbound or on-demand from a user's perspective because the user has to actually 'reach-out' for the information. On-demand is a term more often used in the context of enterprise services, wherein a particular service or functionality is made available to the customers on as-and-when-required basis and it clearly represents the manner in which search and discovery work on the net.
2.2) Also an interesting common trait for these two kind of information retrieval systems is that they both are reactive in nature from their user's point of view. The process of accessing information from these system is more of a reactive(on a need-to-know basis) nature rather than pro-active(on an ought-to-know basis)
3.0) The question therefore is : What next? Well, any more obviousness would be killing and hence the next thing that demands focus is the need for inbound information availability. Not that anything of that sort does not exist, but there is a greatly felt need for an inbound Information Radiation System(IRS). Feeds, alerts, subscriptions to newsletters, spams(yes spams and junks) are all examples of these inbound information radiation systems, because the information automatically flows to the user without him or her having to do anything necessarily and continuously. This idea is not at all new in its original form because TV advertising, newsprint and radio are all quintessential legacies of these inbound information radiating systems, which we use till the very day. The way perhaps these systems became inbound had more to do with the limitations of technologies rather than the way they evolved as in one cannot imagine the invention of an interactive television in the first place.
3.1) An ideal inbound IRS should qualify by having the following characteristics.
a.) It should be a two-way communication system between the user and the radiator (radiation and acknowledgment).
b.) It should be symmetric, i.e. the roles of user and radiator should be interchangeable.
c.) It should be adaptive, i.e. to say the system should adapt itself to the radiate information which has utility for its recipient.
d.) It should be pro-active in nature and not reactive such as the search and discovery systems are.
e.) It should be non-invasive in the sense that the information should be acknowledged by it's users and should not in any way be treated as unwelcome.
f.) It should be non-binding, .i.e. the expectation of any returns from the members of this system should be ideally zero. (way to be 'leechers' !!)
g.) It should be non-redundant in a liberal sense. i.e. to say a particular information should not be repetitively radiated for a very long time.
3.2) Before going forward there are some classic example of systems which act as both inbound and outbound - Telephones and Snail/E-mails. Telephones are however not well-defined and ideal inbound IRS (according to the definition above) as these tend to violate the e.) charter of being non-invasive ( I would not believe someone thinking otherwise).
3.3) The basic motivating factor behind any such inbound system is probabilistic filtering of the relevant information over the web over a period of time. An almost infinitely vast expanse of knowledge base exists on the net ( both verifiable and true vs unverifiable and false) in the form of wikis and it's derivatives. However reaching out for the information that is of any utility or interest still remains a far cry for any given user. The probability of finding out a relevant piece of information on a reactive basis is continually decreasing in a system where information comes from a multitude of sources. No wonder people talk about information overloading, which is nothing but an indication of the inability and the associated stress in finding useful and appreciative information.
3.4) Coming back to the examples of inbound IRS, the problem perse is that first these examples are not pro-active in nature which is an essential characteristic requirement for an ideal inbound IRS. Pro-active systems are ones which do not require any or require very limited input from its users in order to radiate the information. For e.g. The user has to always first either search/discover a feed URL and then eventually subscribe to it. Similarly a user creates an alert for the events for which he/she wants to get notified. And the other examples also follow a similar pattern. Spams/junks however behave in an ambiguous way in that although they are more closer to the inbound IRS (because a user never explicitly does anything in order to receive them) than other counterparts but because by definition they are something unwanted and not obliged by their receivers they do not qualify as an ideal inbound IRS.
4.0) Instigation: Why should such a system work. Or become popular. Or more critically, is something like that even required. Two answers to support the argument that indeed there is a place for an inbound-IRS to exist - First it broadens the horizons and usability aspects of the information on the web. In a democratic setup of internet anything which is not acceptable would eventually wear off and be replaced by either something more efficient or revert to its original and enduring previous system. Hence the only litmus test for the feasibility of such a system is to first bring it into existence.
Besides an inbound IRS is in no way mutually exclusive to the existing outbound information retrieval systems or even close to become a perceptive threat. In fact both kinds of system would in time create a symbiotic ecology of their own which would not only benefit the consumers, but also bring more tangibility to the concept of Information Superhighway which we hear about in day to day talk. To grant the feasibility of anything like that would certainly add value to the way we treat information (sometime ruthlessly and casually), and help change our outlook for our own good.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
Vital Stats for this article. (acknowledgment Google Docs)
Post to Del.icio.us
0.0) Since the time of its inception, web has moved leaps and bounds. It's genesis has created nerve-wracking problems and also wonderful creative solutions. Nothing apart from human evolution could compare to this so intriguing development (both good and bad) of the web. The difficulties which cast doubt on the evolution of an entity are iconoclastic problems which always push the entity to either mutate, compromise, or find a solution to end that problem. Growth of the internet has remained no exception and has led to some very amazing and intelligent answers during the course of its development.
1.0) First it was the problem of searching information/resources on the net. Google and other search-engines have solved it well and in a more than efficient way. One could search possibly everything that is there on the web by keying in pertinent keywords and reach out to potentially exhaustive list of resources relevant to that keyword(s). A peculiarly inconclusive and futile search for the letter 'a' on google would return somewhere around 8 billion resources. Of course an incalculable percentage of it is basically redundant because it's one of the most ubiquitous and canonical search arguments that can be passed to any search engine. The reason to quote that example here is to give an idea of the thoroughness of the searches that are performed over the net. As an indirect consequence of this, people have found ways to derive fun and challenges out of such systems for example by trying to figure out a combination of two meaningful keywords which would yield a single result. However, their discoveries only last for second after being published as the new GoogleWhack !!
2.0) With an almost incessant influx of data and ever increasing amount of information being put online, came the problem of discovering the information. StumbleUpon(SU) and the likes(del.icio.us, digg etc etc) provided a tool to do that. This was a paradigm shift from the way search engines work in the sense that unlike the dedicated crawling spiders/bots which generate the content for search engines systems, here the users themselves were the source of the discovered content. Any content deemed fit by a particular user would get automatically added to the stumbleupon's repository with proper topics/tags/subjects/contexts and would thereafter serve as the results of discovery by another user for those particular tags/subjects/contexts. Web-surfers could possibly keep stumbling around a particular set of their pre-defined subjects on the net and in the process rate the particular resources based on there relevancy. Thus, in essence it is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy for the systems such as SU to generate their content and also maintain the quality and reliability of that content in an almost perpetual process of information retrieval.
2.1) However, there is also a fundamental similarity in terms of the user interaction between these two kinds of utilities, services, information retrieval systems or whatever you wish to call them. And that is the user in either of these two cases has to explicitly reach out for the information whether intentionally or unintentionally. While in case of search the user intentionally seeks the information, in the other case he or she unintentionally discovers the information based on what others have qualified as the relevant resource for a particular subject. We can therefore in the language of business process classify these activities as outbound or on-demand from a user's perspective because the user has to actually 'reach-out' for the information. On-demand is a term more often used in the context of enterprise services, wherein a particular service or functionality is made available to the customers on as-and-when-required basis and it clearly represents the manner in which search and discovery work on the net.
2.2) Also an interesting common trait for these two kind of information retrieval systems is that they both are reactive in nature from their user's point of view. The process of accessing information from these system is more of a reactive(on a need-to-know basis) nature rather than pro-active(on an ought-to-know basis)
3.0) The question therefore is : What next? Well, any more obviousness would be killing and hence the next thing that demands focus is the need for inbound information availability. Not that anything of that sort does not exist, but there is a greatly felt need for an inbound Information Radiation System(IRS). Feeds, alerts, subscriptions to newsletters, spams(yes spams and junks) are all examples of these inbound information radiation systems, because the information automatically flows to the user without him or her having to do anything necessarily and continuously. This idea is not at all new in its original form because TV advertising, newsprint and radio are all quintessential legacies of these inbound information radiating systems, which we use till the very day. The way perhaps these systems became inbound had more to do with the limitations of technologies rather than the way they evolved as in one cannot imagine the invention of an interactive television in the first place.
3.1) An ideal inbound IRS should qualify by having the following characteristics.
a.) It should be a two-way communication system between the user and the radiator (radiation and acknowledgment).
b.) It should be symmetric, i.e. the roles of user and radiator should be interchangeable.
c.) It should be adaptive, i.e. to say the system should adapt itself to the radiate information which has utility for its recipient.
d.) It should be pro-active in nature and not reactive such as the search and discovery systems are.
e.) It should be non-invasive in the sense that the information should be acknowledged by it's users and should not in any way be treated as unwelcome.
f.) It should be non-binding, .i.e. the expectation of any returns from the members of this system should be ideally zero. (way to be 'leechers' !!)
g.) It should be non-redundant in a liberal sense. i.e. to say a particular information should not be repetitively radiated for a very long time.
3.2) Before going forward there are some classic example of systems which act as both inbound and outbound - Telephones and Snail/E-mails. Telephones are however not well-defined and ideal inbound IRS (according to the definition above) as these tend to violate the e.) charter of being non-invasive ( I would not believe someone thinking otherwise).
3.3) The basic motivating factor behind any such inbound system is probabilistic filtering of the relevant information over the web over a period of time. An almost infinitely vast expanse of knowledge base exists on the net ( both verifiable and true vs unverifiable and false) in the form of wikis and it's derivatives. However reaching out for the information that is of any utility or interest still remains a far cry for any given user. The probability of finding out a relevant piece of information on a reactive basis is continually decreasing in a system where information comes from a multitude of sources. No wonder people talk about information overloading, which is nothing but an indication of the inability and the associated stress in finding useful and appreciative information.
3.4) Coming back to the examples of inbound IRS, the problem perse is that first these examples are not pro-active in nature which is an essential characteristic requirement for an ideal inbound IRS. Pro-active systems are ones which do not require any or require very limited input from its users in order to radiate the information. For e.g. The user has to always first either search/discover a feed URL and then eventually subscribe to it. Similarly a user creates an alert for the events for which he/she wants to get notified. And the other examples also follow a similar pattern. Spams/junks however behave in an ambiguous way in that although they are more closer to the inbound IRS (because a user never explicitly does anything in order to receive them) than other counterparts but because by definition they are something unwanted and not obliged by their receivers they do not qualify as an ideal inbound IRS.
4.0) Instigation: Why should such a system work. Or become popular. Or more critically, is something like that even required. Two answers to support the argument that indeed there is a place for an inbound-IRS to exist - First it broadens the horizons and usability aspects of the information on the web. In a democratic setup of internet anything which is not acceptable would eventually wear off and be replaced by either something more efficient or revert to its original and enduring previous system. Hence the only litmus test for the feasibility of such a system is to first bring it into existence.
Besides an inbound IRS is in no way mutually exclusive to the existing outbound information retrieval systems or even close to become a perceptive threat. In fact both kinds of system would in time create a symbiotic ecology of their own which would not only benefit the consumers, but also bring more tangibility to the concept of Information Superhighway which we hear about in day to day talk. To grant the feasibility of anything like that would certainly add value to the way we treat information (sometime ruthlessly and casually), and help change our outlook for our own good.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
Vital Stats for this article. (acknowledgment Google Docs)
| Flesch Reading Ease: [?] | 52.65 |
| Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: [?] | 10.00 |
| Automated Readability Index: [?] | 9.00 |
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August 13, 2007
Rich Grad, Poor Grad
- Francesco: Milano è tanto meglio di Napoli. Milano è la citta la più bella di tutti… nel mondo…
- Giuseppe: He say "Milan is better than Napoli".
- Instructor: Oh, he shouldn't be saying that — we haven't done comparatives yet.
- (From Monty Python and The Holy Grail..)
Well, neither have I (and yes, I dare admit, I saw the whole movie !). But when I stumbled upon a link by name similar to the pre-conjunctive part of this post's title, something popped up immediately in my head... - the post-conjunctive part of the title. I must confront that my proclivity towards the titles of an article by far exceeds that towards its content and hence it's more often my failed search for titles rather than my incompetency which eludes me to write a new post. This proclivity is in part abetted by my penchant for quotations/quotes/aphorisms/proverbs and the likes.
Of course, to get opinionated about any article just by the heading or the subject would be like proposing that 'beauty is not skin deep' and hence if the interest of a reader starts shaking just after the first few lines the post is certainly not its worth.
Now what about 'Rich Grad, Poor Grad'. Of course nothing. You know it's just a skewed form of plagiarism if you've read 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' which talks in practical terms about what not to do in order to be rich and what poors do to become what they are. Obviously the book talks about usefulness of money handling and cash flow concepts, of being penny wise and pound wiser, and above all of being a smart investor on a very carefully defined comparative platform. All in all it's a book with a single track money orientation and materialistic outlook.
However far from the moolah-land, the definition I am trying to proclaim here of being rich or poor is how smartly one invests his/her assets (time, intelligence, aptitude and judgement powers) to increase the knowledge base. Being a mere graduate today is normal-middle class stuff which does not distinguish you from other bricks in the wall of averages. It leaves you poor at the end of the day. It tags you as a poor grad who just like a pitied poor on street, was somehow unable to do something different or rise above the levels or normalcy.
I think if at all this world continues to move ahead, it is not because most of the people behave normally, but because everyone behaves differently and uniquely. And if you lag in that race of abnormality and doing something off track you are no better than a literally poor man who has never looked beyond the horizons of normality. And that's where the comparatives appear : Rich Grad is one who in simple words either has a upper hand in the level of education or is credited with producing something unique and different on the basis of her knowledge capital. A poor grad is someone similar to a running rat in a race who even though wins sometimes, but still remains a rat, content and calm with whatever comes on the way and does not strive towards excellence or improvisation in whatever knowledge base she has.
August 6, 2007
Wordpress vs Blogger.
Having fiddled a lot with blogspot(domain blogger.com) , getting a taste of open source blog hosting and publishing platform Wordpress(WP) was a mix of sour and sweet for me.
As always the open source thingies are supposedly more intelligent, behave in a sane manner and embrace that air of 'this is no crap' around them when compared to their counterparts and WP is no exception to that fact. WP is not only a blog host but also a standalone platform which can be installed on any host for personal domains. I haven't switched to installing the platform s/w for my domain, but instead hosting my new tech blog on the free host itself.
WP stands as one of the most preferred blogging platform amongst migrating bloggers , because it provides the flexibility and extensibility to its users through plugins.
That is one of the advantages the user community enjoys by being the part of the developing community.
However, there are also some drawbacks of being an OS community project, because there's a plethora of information available from infinite sources and every TD&H like me would post something about the project that within minutes you find yourself drowned in that information deluge about "how to do.." questions. Second, for beginner's it is at times difficult to grasp what all, the technology has to offer and what is best suited for their purpose.
The lack of standardization leading to security vulnerabilities is another big problem as with any open source community project. Although, it seems the things are not as tangibly bad with WP but it took me some time to figure out that certain things unlike the blogger platform are not possible on the standard free WP.com host. Maybe there are ways to do them, which will have to be unearthed and that will take some more time.
Whatever it be I think I still need to dig in more into the trivialities of the platform and see if I can continue to use it on as-is-basis.
As always the open source thingies are supposedly more intelligent, behave in a sane manner and embrace that air of 'this is no crap' around them when compared to their counterparts and WP is no exception to that fact. WP is not only a blog host but also a standalone platform which can be installed on any host for personal domains. I haven't switched to installing the platform s/w for my domain, but instead hosting my new tech blog on the free host itself.
WP stands as one of the most preferred blogging platform amongst migrating bloggers , because it provides the flexibility and extensibility to its users through plugins.
That is one of the advantages the user community enjoys by being the part of the developing community.
However, there are also some drawbacks of being an OS community project, because there's a plethora of information available from infinite sources and every TD&H like me would post something about the project that within minutes you find yourself drowned in that information deluge about "how to do.." questions. Second, for beginner's it is at times difficult to grasp what all, the technology has to offer and what is best suited for their purpose.
The lack of standardization leading to security vulnerabilities is another big problem as with any open source community project. Although, it seems the things are not as tangibly bad with WP but it took me some time to figure out that certain things unlike the blogger platform are not possible on the standard free WP.com host. Maybe there are ways to do them, which will have to be unearthed and that will take some more time.
Whatever it be I think I still need to dig in more into the trivialities of the platform and see if I can continue to use it on as-is-basis.
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