Star Wars III - Revenge of the Sith

Yesterday, I had been to the late night show of Star Wars III at Inox. Movie started at 23:00 hrs.

Before starting of the show something took me by surprise. Usually, before starting of the movie lots of advertisements and messages are displayed. So, I was not viewing them and was lost in my thoughts. When suddenly I saw everybody around me standing up including my friend sitting next to me. For a moment, I thought, 'is there some bomb hoax and have we been asked to vacate the theatre ?'. When I took a look on the screen, there was a message "Please stand up - for the National Anthem". And I think I was the last person to get up, and that too with a jerk.

I liked this idea of National Anthem before the movie begins. But, the flag cloth that was being picturised on the screen could have been of better quality. Anyways, something better than nothing.

Star Wars as usual had cool graphics and special effects. Anakin Skywalker who saves his master Kenobi and rescues the Chancellor gets promoted to be included in the Jet-I council. But to his dismay he is not designated as a Master(One who becomes the member of the council by default, becomes a Master). This came as a surprise to him. Since he is not the master, his suggestions are not taken into consideration and nor is he being consulted for any critical decisions. Though, his skills were more than anybody in the council.

This made him felt being left out of the activities of the council and he is approached by the darker side of the mission. He becomes the slave of the evil and obeys his command.

Director, George Lucas has very well highlighted this part of the movie where the hero in the begining becomes a complete devil towards the end.

Good movie. Worth watching once....

That bad morning

Yesterday morning, when everything went wrong for me. Here how it goes ..........

When I woke up in the morning it was already 8:30 am to find that my alarm did not rang coz' it's battery had gone down. I hurriedly got ready for office by 9 am, and to mention that I had to skip exercising that day.

By 9 my office starts and here at 9, i was leaving my house. It takes 10 mins to reach office by an auto-rickshaw. But since this was a bad morning there was only stand without any rickshaws. Had to keep walking towards my office, keeping an eye on all the auto-rickshaws that passed my way to find them boarded. After 10 mins found a one. And to add to my woes, this rickshaw driver was not carrying any change, not even a rupe. No option but, left change with him.

At last, reached office at 9:25 am. Quickly ran through my mails and headed towards pantry to have breakfast. Corn flakes with milk was on my mind. On reaching pantry found that it was not readily available which burgeoned the queue.

Sandwhich was the another quicky left. I moved out of the queue, to get sandwhich coupon. To my disguise Sandwhich guy had no chutney left.

Headed towards cornflakes queue, only to know that the bowls that came out have been served. So, took the decision to stand in the general snacks queue and have idlis. Atlast, got some idlis, had them and returned to my desk.

Managed to start my daily work at 10:00 am which was planned to start at 8:30(a day ahead).

I would always remember this morning......

$5m a day EU fine looms for Microsoft

Following the Ballmer-Kroes meeting, the E.U. confirmed that Microsoft was still not complying with the order to stop abusing its Windows monopoly and that time was running out.

"All I can say for the moment is we are still not satisfied," said Jonathan Todd spokesperson for Commissioner Kroes. "Patience is not unlimited. We are talking weeks rather than months."


Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO - During the past 20 years, Ballmer has headed several Microsoft divisions, including operations, operating systems development, and sales and support. In July 1998, he was promoted to President, a role that gave him day-to-day responsibility for running Microsoft. He was named CEO in January 2000, assuming full management responsibility for the company.
Todd confirmed on Friday that the clock is ticking.

"Within a matter of weeks rather than months we will have to decide whether we are satisfied that they are complying with the remedies to our satisfaction," he said.

Microsoft may be fined up to 5 percent of its daily worldwide turnover.

Microsoft is appealing the Commission's decision before the EU's Court of First Instance in Luxembourg.

On Friday, the court admitted the European Committee for Interoperable Systems, a business group, as a formal party in oral proceedings on the grounds that it has an interest in the outcome of the case.

That group includes companies such as IBM, Oracle, Nokia and Red Hat.

An oral hearing in the case is expected before the end of the year

Appraisal meeting tips

Here are few things that Avneet Chatwal has pointed out that you can do during your meeting with the Boss at an Appraisal:

1.Understand Its Importance - Make sure you understand the significance of your appraisal review. For instance, your boss should review your job description with you and go over any goals and any change in objectives which the two of you agreed upon at inception or at your last appraisal discussion.

2.Look into your boss's eye - Sit up straight in the chair and look into your boss's eye. Your body language should convey openness, confidence and alertness.

3.Listen carefully without interrupting - Be open, flexible and willing to admit your short comings. Remember you don't have to be perfect. Try to see things from your boss's perspective. Being able to look at and accept your weaknesses is a sign of maturity and strength.

4.Ask for Explanations - If you don't understand or agree how your boss arrived at a particular judgement, ask for further explanation. Ask questions with a motive of achieving a common understanding and a summary of your performance.

5.Respond Objectively - If you disagree over some point, try to respond as objectively as possible. Speak based on facts about your performance and the results that you have achieved.

6.Clear Understanding - Before the appraisal is over, make sure that you have a clear understanding of areas you need to improve on and how you are going to do it. Discuss the possibilities with your Boss.

7.End Positively - Finish on a positive note as an appraisal discussion is an opportunity for you and your boss to understand each other better and strengthen your relationship.

After the appraisal meeting is over, if you don't agree with the discussion, pen down your thoughts and attach them to the appraisal form. Your human resources department probably has a procedure if you disagree with your appraisal. Ask them about it.
Last but not the least, remember that you and your boss are a part of the same team working towards the same goals. Eventually, bosses want their employees to succeed and do well because when you are successful, they have done the job they were supposed to do. So give your Boss an opportunity to rate you. Trust us, you won't regret it.

XBRL and Business

By using XBRL, companies and other producers of financial data and business reports can automate the processes of data collection. For example, data from different company divisions with different accounting systems can be assembled quickly, cheaply and efficiently if the sources of information have been upgraded to using XBRL. Once data is gathered in XBRL, different types of reports using varying subsets of the data can be produced with minimum effort. A company finance division, for example, could quickly and reliably generate internal management reports, financial statements for publication, tax and other regulatory filings, as well as credit reports for lenders.

Small businesses can benefit alongside large ones by standardising and simplifying their assembly and filing of information to the authorities.

Users of data which is received electronically in XBRL can automate its handling, cutting out time-consuming and costly collation and re-entry of information. Software can also immediately validate the data, highlighting errors and gaps which can immediately be addressed. It can also help in analysing, selecting, and processing the data for re-use. Human effort can switch to higher, more value-added aspects of analysis, review, reporting and decision-making. In this way, investment analysts can save effort, greatly simplify the selection and comparison of data, and deepen their company analysis.

Such type of standard XML format for businesses can be boon to the industry mainly when it comes to communicating the data with some alien application.

What is a PSM?

A PSM is a relatively concrete model of a software system that incorporates choices for certain implementation technology/technologies. The acronym stands for Platform Specific Model. PSMs describe the system taking into account the chosen implementation technology. Note however, that it is very likely that the software development process will consist of more than one transformation step. Like a PIM, a PSM could be either input or output of a transformation.

What is a PIM?

A PIM is a relatively abstract model of a software system that does not incorporate any implementation choice. The acronym stands for Platform Independent Model. PIMs describe the system independently of the chosen implementation technology. Note however, that it is very likely that the software development process will consist of more than one transformation step. A PIM could be either input or output of a transformation.


For instance, you could take a business model as input to the first transformation, thus producing an abstract software model representing the data relevant to the system. The software model itself could then be transformed into a less abstract software model, one that divides the system into components with their interfaces. Still this model could be platform independent, because no choice needs to be made whether to implement the system using .NET or J2EE. The model with components could be input to a transformation that extends the model with much of the standard CRUD functionality. Finally, the last model could be transformed into a PSM and from that into the source code.

What is the MOF?

The MOF is a standard that describes how metamodels should be described. (A metamodel is a definition of what a model is.) The acronym stands for Meta Object Facility, as it was meant to facilitate the creation of metamodels. The UML is one of the metamodels described using MOF. In the same way that you need the QVT, you need the MOF to be able to build MDA tools.

What is the QVT?

The QVT is an up coming standard from the Object Management Group (OMG) that specifies how Transformation Definitions can be written. The acronym stands for Query, View, Transformation. Queries and views on models are included in this standard because one could argue that both are very simple transformations that produce from a given input model an output model that consists of only part of the input model. In theory, definitions of queries and views can be considered to be similar to transformation definitions.

What is the MDA Framework?

The MDA Framework is the architecture that enables a series of tools to work together to accomplish the MDA goal. These tools can be generation tools, modeling tools, programming IDEs, etc. Central to the architecture is the notion of model. Each tool should be able to use a model either as input or as output or both. Thereto tools should agree on what the syntax and structure of a model is. That is, they need to agree on a common metamodel, or on a number of metamodels for different purposes. (A metamodel is a definition of what a model is.) Once they agree, the relationship between two models in a different language (that is, built according to different metamodels) can be standardized. This relationship is called a Transformation Definition. Tools that transform one model into another model can than be built according to the standard Transformation Definition. Plaatje!!!

The HTTP Protocol

HTTP communicates over TCP/IP. An HTTP client connects to an HTTP server using TCP. After establishing a connection, the client can send an HTTP request message to the server:

POST /item HTTP/1.1
Host: 189.123.345.239
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Length: 200

The server then processes the request and sends an HTTP response back to the client. The response contains a status code that indicates the status of the request:

200 OK
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Length: 200

In the example above, the server returned a status code of 200. This is the standard success code for HTTP.

If the server could not decode the request, it could have returned something like this:

400 Bad Request
Content-Length: 0


SOAP HTTP Binding

A SOAP method is an HTTP request/response that complies with the SOAP encoding rules.
HTTP + XML = SOAP

A SOAP request could be an HTTP POST or an HTTP GET request.

The HTTP POST request specifies at least two HTTP headers: Content-Type and Content-Length.
Content-Type
The Content-Type header for a SOAP request and response defines the MIME type for the message and the character encoding (optional) used for the XML body of the request or response.
Syntax

Content-Type: MIMEType; charset=character-encoding

Example

POST /item HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/soap+xml; charset=utf-8


Content-Length
The Content-Length header for a SOAP request and response specifies the number of bytes in the body of the request or response.
Syntax

Content-Length: bytes

Example

POST /item HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/soap+xml; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 250

SOAP Building Blocks

A SOAP message is an ordinary XML document containing the following elements:

* A required Envelope element that identifies the XML document as a SOAP message
* An optional Header element that contains header information
* A required Body element that contains call and response information
* An optional Fault element that provides information about errors that occurred while processing the message

All the elements above are declared in the default namespace for the SOAP envelope.


Syntax Rules for SOAP

Here are some important syntax rules:

* A SOAP message MUST be encoded using XML
* A SOAP message MUST use the SOAP Envelope namespace
* A SOAP message MUST use the SOAP Encoding namespace
* A SOAP message must NOT contain a DTD reference
* A SOAP message must NOT contain XML Processing Instructions

JAVA talk : Collection Interface

Collection

The Collection (in the API reference documentation) interface is the root of the collection hierarchy. A Collection represents a group of objects, known as its elements. Some Collection implementations allow duplicate elements and others do not. Some are ordered and others unordered. The JDK doesn't provide any direct implementations of this interface: It provides implementations of more specific subinterfaces like Set and List. This interface is the least common denominator that all collections implement. Collection is used to pass collections around and manipulate them when maximum generality is desired.

JAVA talk : ArrayList Class

public class ArrayList
extends AbstractList
implements List, RandomAccess, Cloneable, Serializable

Resizable-array implementation of the List interface. Implements all optional list operations, and permits all elements, including null. In addition to implementing the List interface, this class provides methods to manipulate the size of the array that is used internally to store the list. (This class is roughly equivalent to Vector, except that it is unsynchronized.)

The size, isEmpty, get, set, iterator, and listIterator operations run in constant time. The add operation runs in amortized constant time, that is, adding n elements requires O(n) time. All of the other operations run in linear time (roughly speaking). The constant factor is low compared to that for the LinkedList implementation.

Each ArrayList instance has a capacity. The capacity is the size of the array used to store the elements in the list. It is always at least as large as the list size. As elements are added to an ArrayList, its capacity grows automatically. The details of the growth policy are not specified beyond the fact that adding an element has constant amortized time cost.

An application can increase the capacity of an ArrayList instance before adding a large number of elements using the ensureCapacity operation. This may reduce the amount of incremental reallocation.

Note that this implementation is not synchronized. If multiple threads access an ArrayList instance concurrently, and at least one of the threads modifies the list structurally, it must be synchronized externally. (A structural modification is any operation that adds or deletes one or more elements, or explicitly resizes the backing array; merely setting the value of an element is not a structural modification.) This is typically accomplished by synchronizing on some object that naturally encapsulates the list. If no such object exists, the list should be "wrapped" using the Collections.synchronizedList method. This is best done at creation time, to prevent accidental unsynchronized access to the list:

List list = Collections.synchronizedList(new ArrayList(...));


The iterators returned by this class's iterator and listIterator methods are fail-fast: if list is structurally modified at any time after the iterator is created, in any way except through the iterator's own remove or add methods, the iterator will throw a ConcurrentModificationException. Thus, in the face of concurrent modification, the iterator fails quickly and cleanly, rather than risking arbitrary, non-deterministic behavior at an undetermined time in the future.

Note that the fail-fast behavior of an iterator cannot be guaranteed as it is, generally speaking, impossible to make any hard guarantees in the presence of unsynchronized concurrent modification. Fail-fast iterators throw ConcurrentModificationException on a best-effort basis. Therefore, it would be wrong to write a program that depended on this exception for its correctness: the fail-fast behavior of iterators should be used only to detect bugs.

This class is a member of the Java Collections Framework

Wireless Industry Growth Depends on Rich Data Services

Read what John Pallatto has to say on mobile content :

The sale of data services is going to drive the growth and profitability of the wireless telecommunications industry as voice services continue to come under increasing price pressure, said Paul Jacobs, president of Qualcomm Corp.'s wireless and Internet Group.

"Our industry is going through a fundamental change" because it is moving from selling voice service that has been commoditized to selling data services that provide added value and differentiation to operators' offerings, Jacobs said in his CTIA Wireless show keynote here on Tuesday.

"This change is rippling all through the industry" and will continue to gather momentum, he said. Wireless carriers are adding as many new services as they can, including ring tones, games, e-mail and instant "press to call" services, he noted.

Many wireless phone operators, especially those in Asia, are making plenty of money, but data services is what is going to keep them going, Jacobs said. "Voice is still a very important service, but data is going to be the thing that drives an operator's service … at a time when voice revenues are under pressure, he said.

Jacobs predicted that data services will generate as much as 25 percent of wireless operators' revenues by 2008.