Chandan Chopra - Musing and Shmoozing

Why I am excited about Azure Platform's .Net Service Bus?

2009-08-23T20:38:00.005-05:00

Basically, the following statement:

"...Full-duplex, connection-oriented peer-to-peer sessions with network-boundary traversal create direct end-to-end connectivity through NAT"

That's awesome... because any developer that has ever tried to create a real-time, Peer-to-Peer application, he/she knows what hell it is to penetrate firewalls specially Symmetric NATs. Click here to learn about NATs

The Service Bus enables secure, loosely-coupled connectivity between services and applications to navigate firewalls or network boundaries, using a variety of communication patterns. The Access Control service provides an enterprise-class mechanism for federated authorization across organizations and protocols.

In the same way that Microsoft® .NET Framework provides higher-level libraries to make developers more productive, .NET Services help developers focus on their application logic rather than deploying and managing their own cloud-based infrastructure."

Azure's .Net Service Bus enables developers to build applications for the cloud and offers a scalable hosted infrastructure for deploying and managing these applications and their data stores combined with a workflow engine and a security infrastructure. The Azure Service platform is the new OS for internet scaled applications.

Lower Barriers to Building Composite Applications

Using the Service Bus, an application or service can expose and access endpoints that would otherwise be hard or impossible to reach. For example, the endpoints may be located behind network address translation (NAT) boundaries or bound to frequently changing, dynamically assigned IP addresses.

Exposes Service Endpoints Easily

-- Users can access a global hierarchical namespace that is DNS- and transport- independent

-- Services can be located through a stable, Internet-accessible URL, irrespective of location.
Offers Multiple Connection Options

-- One-way messaging between sender and listener supports unicast and multicast datagram distribution

-- Full-duplex connection-oriented sessions between sender and listener support bi-directional communication

-- Full-duplex, connection-oriented peer-to-peer sessions with network-boundary traversal create direct end-to-end connectivity through NAT
Supports Publish and Subscribe for Multicasting

The simple publish/subscribe model lets multiple publishers and multiple subscribers simultaneously use the service’s topic management and event distribution system.

Learn more:
http://www.microsoft.com/azure/default.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/azure/servicebus.mspx

WCF Hosting

2009-08-23T20:33:00.000-05:00

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Services can be hosted with Internet Information Services (IIS); with the new Windows Activation Service (WAS) installed with IIS 7.0; or with any managed application process including console, Windows Forms, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), or managed Windows service applications.

Selecting the right hosting environment for your services is a choice driven largely by deployment requirements related to transport protocol and operating platform.

A summary of hosting options and supported features:

Feature	Self-Hosting	IIS Hosting	WAS Hosting
Executable Process/ App Domain	Yes	Yes	Yes
Configuration	App.config	Web.config	Web.config
Activation	Manual at startup	Message-based	Message-based
Idle-Time Management	No	Yes	Yes
Health Monitoring	No	Yes	Yes
Process Recycling	No	Yes	Yes
Management Tools	No	Yes	Yes

A summary of hosting options based on operating platform and communication protocol:

Operating Platform	Protocol	Hosting Options
Windows XP/SP2	HTTP	IIS 5.1 or self-host
	Named Pipes, TCP, MSMQ	Self-host
Windows Vista	HTTP, Named Pipes, TCP, MSMQ	WAS or self-host
Windows Server 2003	HTTP	IIS 6.0
	Named Pipes, TCP, MSMQ	Self-host
Windows Longhorn Server	HTTP, Named Pipes, TCP, MSMQ	IIS 7.0/WAS or self-host

Read this great article by Michele Leroux Bustamante.

Memories of our band: Tatva - The Element

2009-08-23T20:31:00.000-05:00

I was going through some Audio CDs while cleaning my office and stumbled upon a CD from our Band - Tatva - The Element.

Tatva's music can be described as: "rustic Indian folk transposed into western, popular rock rythms..."

Check out our music and please let us know what you think about it.

Facebook and Flex: Rock On!!!

2009-08-23T20:14:00.000-05:00

I've been incredibly motivated and enthusiastic about Flex since I first started working with it back in early 2007. I have created Flex based interfaces for desktop apps (C++ container) and medium and large web-based apps. I have always loved Flex for the ease of use and the power it gives to developers.

Flex is, hands down, the best RIA technology available today. Flex is fast becoming the primary technology for building Rich Internet Applications.

Facebook, on the other hand, is the best, most powerful and the fastest growing social networking platform. The real power of facebook is not because of "social" (there's LinkedIn and other websites for that!)... the power is in the "platform". If you don't agree with me, just look at what Apple did with its Application platform! It's making much more money after it opened its platform to developers. Facebook would be nothing but a better and clearner looking LinkedIn, if it wasn't for the applicaiton platform.

Most of my friends use Facebook for the applications. They probably spend 10-20% of their time managing their profile and friends (social graph) and the rest on apps like iLike, Zombies, Mafia War etc etc. Good or bad, these apps have an audience - A global, over 200 million large audience. So, if you have an apps, that costs, say $1, and appeals to only 1% of the audience - you have the potential to make $2 million!!!! THAT'S THE REAL POWER!!!!!

Facebook's Ad Platform is not as good as Google's AdSense, but that is another area that can generate a lot of money for not just Facebook, but the application developers. Under Facebook's COO, Sheryl Sandberg's guidance that will likely change. Check out this Forbes article.

So, if you combine the best RIA technology (FLEX) with the best Social, Application platform (FACEBOOK), you can make a killing!!! You can deliver rich, social experiences on the web.

This is what Adobe Developer Connection website has to say:

The Adobe Flash Platform and Facebook Platform provide the ideal solution for building rich, social experiences on the web. Flash is available on more than 98% of Internet-connected PCs, so people can immediately access the applications, content, and video that enable social interactions. The Facebook Platform is used by millions of people everyday to connect and share with the people in their lives. Together, both platforms allow you to:

Share: Create rich interactions for users to share with friends.
Have fun: Make games social; let users compete against their friends.
Connect: Let users connect to your RIAs with Facebook Connect.
Solve problems: Build RIAs that harness the power of community.
Reach people: Reach millions of Facebook users through social distribution.

The new ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for Facebook Platform API, fully supported by Facebook and Adobe, makes it easy to build applications that combine the strengths of the Flash Platform and Facebook Platform.

I am back...

2009-08-23T20:02:00.000-05:00

I am back to my personal blog after a long break. While I was away, I got married, switched jobs and started some new projects. I'm excited to be back to my personal blog.

Know your Customer :)

2009-03-02T07:23:00.000-06:00

A disappointed salesman of Coca Cola returns from his Middle East assignment. A friend asked, "Why weren't you successful with the Arabs?"

The salesman explained, "When I got posted in the Middle East, I was very confident that I would make a good sales pitch as Cola is virtually unknown there. But, I had a problem I didn't know to speak Arabic. So, I planned to convey the message through three posters...

First poster - A man lying in the hot desert sand...totally exhausted and fainting.

Second poster - man is drinking our Cola.

Third poster- Our man is now totally refreshed.

Then these posters were pasted all over the place

"That should have worked," said the friend.

The salesman replied "I also didn't realize that Arabs read from right to left"

Develop Web services clients with Macromedia Flex

2009-03-02T06:35:00.000-06:00

Flex the power of Web services by learning how to easily leverage them within a Rich Internet Application (RIA) using Macromedia Flex for a more complex, engaging, and interactive client-side experience. RIAs are an evolution of the traditional Web page based model for Web applications. A big part of the attraction in using Flex for RIA development is the speed and ease with which you can leverage Web services in your applications. The authors walk you through several examples and simplify how sometimes confusing WSDL constructs map to Flex declarations.

Read article...

Selecting the Right Flex Application Framework

2009-03-02T05:43:00.000-06:00

So you’ve decided to use Flex for your web application development. It’s easy to follow the online tutorials and prototype an application, but deciding on an application framework for your major production Flex application is more difficult. The Flex community is divided between Adobe’s Cairngorm and Cliff Hall’s PureMVC, with strong arguments from both sides. However, your answer may just lie in the “it depends” space.

This post aims to help you make that decision. It includes analysis of Cairngorm, PureMVC, and the new kid on the block, asfusion’s Mate.

Cairngorm

Cairngorm (pronounced \kern-gorm\) is a lightweight micro-architecture for Rich Internet Applications for Flex or AIR applications. It is not only a framework, but also an approach to organizing and packaging code, components, and a method to achieve separation of concerns (i.e. model-view-controller).

Compared to other frameworks, Cairngorm requires the most components, but it is the most straightforward.

Figure 1 Cairngorm Framework

Pros	Cons
Advocated by Adobe Consulting and is part of the Adobe Engagement Platform. Broadest adoption for a Flex MVC framework, making it the de facto standard for Flex developers Well-documented with great tutorials. Designed expressly for Flex and thus, takes advantage of Flex features. Simple, straightforward MVC framework	Tightly couples the MVC layers. Components can either be too large or too many, resulting in the application becoming too unwieldy from the development and maintenance perspective.

Tips and Tricks

Use packaging, sub-classing, or helper classes to prevent unwieldy model locators and controllers.
Use Adobe Consulting’s Observe Utility to prevent tight coupling between the view and the model locator.
Minimize direct references to the model locator from the view, by passing data references between parent and child components.

Recommended When:

The team and/or the organization are new to application development, ActionScript and/or Flex. It is good for new Flex developers to learn Cairngorm before other frameworks first. Management will also be more comfortable with an Adobe-backed framework.
You need a quick prototype.

PureMVC

PureMVC is also a lightweight framework for creating applications based on the classic MVC concept. PureMVC is not specific to Adobe Flex and is being ported to other languages. Many Flex developers consider the framework to be the best Flex framework out there, but accept that it does not take advantage of Flex features.

Figure 2 PureMVC Framework

Pros	Cons
Provides flexibility to easily support complex workflows, e.g. command chaining. Promotes code reuse. Cleaner architecture and implementation, i.e. layers are more loosely coupled.	Well-documented, but not many tutorials. Not designed expressly for Flex, and thus, has been criticized for not taking advantage of basic Flex features, such as data binding.

Tips and Tricks

Since the framework is language-agnostic, it cannot rely on data binding innately. But this doesn’t mean binding can’t be implemented in PureMVC Flex applications. Use the mediator to bind the data from the proxy to the view component.
Use a proxy for a service locator.
Reuse mediators for multiple view components.

Recommended When:

The application has complex logic and/or repeated logic.
If you need an MVC framework that cuts across the different languages of your application, e.g. Java and Flex. However, some of the PureMVC language ports are still in alpha.

Mate

Mate (pronounced \mah-teh\) is the newest Flex application framework. It is also designed expressly for Flex. Its main differentiator from Cairngorm is that it uses dependency injection to hook the event handlers to controller entities and view properties to the data model (via injectors). Thus, it requires the least number of components of all of the frameworks.

Figure 3 Mate Framework

Pros	Cons
Provides flexibility to easily support complex workflows, e.g. method invoker chaining. View can be simple and uncluttered, i.e. injectors can enable the view to not even reference Mate components, except for within the application MXML. Promotes code reuse, e.g. invoked or referenced custom entities do not need to extend any base classes or interfaces. Well-documented, including tutorials, examples and best practices.	Nullifies the power of AS3 compile-time type checking with the EventMap MXML.

Pros

Cons

Provides flexibility to easily support complex workflows, e.g. method invoker chaining.
View can be simple and uncluttered, i.e. injectors can enable the view to not even reference Mate components, except for within the application MXML.
Promotes code reuse, e.g. invoked or referenced custom entities do not need to extend any base classes or interfaces.
Well-documented, including tutorials, examples and best practices.

Nullifies the power of AS3 compile-time type checking with the EventMap MXML.

Tips and Tricks

Flex events thrown must have its bubbling setting set to true.
Use multiple event maps to break down event type concerns.
Take special care in structuring and designing the controller entities.

Recommended When:

You need a really quick prototype.
The application has complex logic and/or repeated logic.
Your team has designers or component developers, not responsible for integrating the UI with the business services.
You have an existing Flex application that needs a framework refresh. You can quickly reuse the AS classes that have already been created and string them up using the event maps.

Others

Slide is Peter Joel’s work in progress. It has been released, but there is still a lot of work being done on it, and thus, little documentation is available. Its concept of view states by URIs and acknowledgement of data and navigation to drive view states is interesting though.
ARP (Ariaware RIA Platform) is Aral Balkan’s effort, borne from Flash 5. Its latest version finally supports Flex. It’s very similar to the Cairngorm framework with the inclusion of base classes for commands, controllers and forms. It also makes a distinction between system and view events. However, it doesn’t present a strong compelling differentiation from the Cairngorm framework, but seems to be a viable solution as well.
Foundry is another application framework, built for ActionScript and based on the MVC pattern, by Servebox. It is also very similar to Cairngorm, but heavily advocates the use of view helpers. Like ARP, the framework doesn’t provide a strong differentiation from Cairngorm, but seems to also be a simple, viable framework to use.
Guasax is a Flex application framework, but is not based on the MVC pattern. Like Struts, it uses configuration files to set up actions invoking business objects and setting up interceptors for those actions. At first blush, the framework seemed too complex, and examples online are not commented in English.
Flest is a Flex application framework that uses model, view, and controller components, but does not claim to be an MVC framework. The suggested use of the provided components is to tightly couple them within the application (e.g. commands are closures to the controller). Thus, it didn’t appear to be an ideal framework in easing maintenance of the application.
MVCS is an architectural blueprint for Flex applications, based on the MVC pattern. Joe Berkovitz’s article on Adobe Developer Connection is definitely worth the read. The concepts in the article are helpful when designing your application. But MVCS is not packaged as a reusable framework.

Top 10 Adobe Flex Misconceptions

2009-03-01T00:18:00.001-06:00

At QCon, Adobe's James Ward shared with InfoQ.com the top Adobe Flex misconceptions that he encounters in his travels evangelizing the Flex application framework.

Users Need to Install Something New to Run Flex Applications.

Ward, exclusive to InfoQ.com, discusses the Flash adoption rates and Flex programming model:
Flash Player 9 is required for Flex 2 & Flex 3. The Flash Player 9 runtime is currently installed on 94% of the world's computers:http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/version_penetration.html

Flex 2 and Flex 3 applications execute in the Flash Player 9. Flex applications are built on top of the native Flash Player APIs like vector graphics, bitmap manipulation, and networking (which are based on the browser networking stack). The Flex framework adds reusable components like date pickers, data grids, charts, etc. Compiling a Flex application results in a SWF file which is the binary byte code format for the Flash Player. Contained in the SWF file is the byte code for the Flex framework code and a project's custom code. The Flex compiler optimizes the byte code so that only classes which are used go into the SWF file.

For desktop applications, Adobe is aiming to make their new desktop runtime, dubbed Adobe AIR, as ubiquitous as the web runtime. The 1.0 release of Adobe AIR will be available in the beginning of 2008. Currently, AIR is in beta release from labs.adobe.com. Many companies are already building production applications on AIR. One example, can be seen with eBay's application eBay Desktop.
Flash Player is 100% Proprietary.

Ward continued on this item for InfoQ.com:
The core of Flash Player is the Tamarin Virtual Machine, which is an open source project under Mozilla. While the SWF file format is not fully open, it is documented by the community on osflash.org. There are numerous open source products that read and write SWF files. The Flash Player's product direction has traditionally been heavily influenced by the community and their needs. The core language for Flash Player is an implementation of ECMAScript 262, which is the specification for JavaScript. Flex also uses CSS for styling of components / applications. Adobe AIR uses web standards as the basis for desktop applications as well as Open Source technologies like Tamarin, Webkit, and SQLite.
Flash is for Designers, Video, and Annoyances.

In Ward’s July, 2007 blog, “How I Overcame My Fear of Flash,” he discussed this point:
Indisputably, the power of Flash has been abused. Pop-ups, pop-overs, skip intros and annoying ads run rampant across our screens. I've heard it said that one should never judge a religion by its abuse. The same adage applies to technology. Flash shouldn't be avoided just because people use it for annoying things. After all, e-mail isn't avoided just because spammers happen to abuse it.
Ward elaborated on the topic for InfoQ.com:
Traditionally Flash content was built with the timeline based tool for designers. Flex is the developer toolset for building Flash based content / applications. Designers and developers can work together by sharing assets between the two tools. Flex adds a comprehensive component base:

http://www.adobe.com/go/flex_explorer_app
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?event=productHome&exc=15&loc=en_us
Flex is Not for Enterprise / Business Applications.

Over the last few weeks, Ward published a seven part blog series on a number of new Oracle applications implemented in Adobe Flex. The applications, which were announced at the recent Oracle OpenWorld, ranged from sales tools, to database management, and business intelligence.

In addition to Oracle’s usage of Flex, InfoQ.com published a piece recapping a number of groups using Flex for enterprise applications. Ward also points out to InfoQ.com, that there are numerous examples of enterprise applications being developed with Adobe Flex, including work at: Workday, SAP, Salesforce, and Business Objects.
Flex is Expensive.

Ward detailed a number of things Adobe has done to address the cost concerns:
Flex is a free, and soon to be open sourced, developer toolkit for building Rich Internet Applications for the web and the desktop. This free SDK includes everything a developer needs to build RIAs that work the same on any browser or operating system. Part of the free Flex SDK is an extensive set of components which are extensible, skinable, and accessible. You can see many of these components in the Flex Component Explorer: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/samples/code_explorer/

Flex Builder is an optional plugin for Eclipse which makes developing applications with the free Flex SDK more efficient. It includes features like integrated debugging, design view, and code completion.

The Flex Builder pricing has changed in quite a few ways recently. Flex Builder is now free for Students and Faculty. The price for the vanilla Flex Builder, without the charting components, has been reduced to $249 to better balance the tiered pricing for Flex Builder.

There are a number of options for building backend infrastructure for Flex Applications. To take advantage of the high performance AMF data transfer protocol, there are official Adobe products like LiveCycle Data Services, as well as numerous open source projects like Granite Data Services. Using AMF removes the unnecessary steps of converting data to text (SOAP, RESTful, etc), transferring it, and then converting it back to data. AMF also allows type information to be preserved across the wire.
To see a comparison of AMF to other text based serialization technologies, see James Ward's Census RIA Benchmark application: http://www.jamesward.org/census.

Flex Applications Require a Special Server.

Once again, Ward speaking with InfoQ.com:
Flex applications can run on top of any web server, application server, and database server. Flex applications are much more like client-server applications. Since the logic is running on the client inside the Flash Player, you need some way of communicating with the server. There are many different options for how you connect Flex to your infrastructure. Without any special libraries, you can expose your back-end data and services as RESTful, XML, or SOAP and easily consume that data in your Flex application. If you choose to use the AMF binary serialization protocol, you may need to add some additional libraries into your web application. AMF is just another serialization technology, like XML or JSON, so it can be one of the various methods you use to communicate to your back-end SOA.
Flex is Hard to Learn.

Leftie Friele, from the InfoQ.com community, posted a comment on the InfoQ.com piece “Who is Using Flex?”, detailing his company’s experience in learning Flex:
Our startup company, Ezmo, have used Flex since the start and we're extremely happy with the framework.

Without any prior knowledge of Flex/Flash, we built our application in less than two weeks. The integration between Java and Flex is super simple, and getting started with Flex is just a walk in the park.

The tool support is very good too with Flex Builder. You get the familiar surroundings of Eclipse and you are off and running without many problems. The one thing that is missing is better tools for continuous integration and better plugins into Maven for building Flex applications.
For those new to Flex, Ward has a Screencast showing a Flex application being built to help get you started. There are also numerous other articles about using Flex and Java in the Adobe Developer Connection.
With Flex, I Will Need to Rebuild My Entire Application.

In January, Bruce Eckel published an article titled, “Hybridizing Java.” He argues that the Java community should continue using the good parts of Java, but should use other technologies where Java is weak. His primary focus in the article is using Adobe Flex for user interfaces, instead of the traditional Java options (Swing, JSF, etc…).

Ward elaborates on this concept:
Since Flex applications are just the UI piece of an application the back-end usually stays the same. If your back-end was built following the SOA pattern then it is usually very easy to expose those services out to a new Flex UI. This preserves your existing business logic whether it is in EJBs, Spring services, POJOs, etc.
Flex Breaks Normal Browser Functionality, Like the Back Button.

Ward’s blog discusses the back button:
In Flex, back button support is built in and easily customizable so this was never an issue. Flex also provides an easy way to do hashmark urls (or named anchors), so the url changes as application state changes. Another Web 1.0 integration problem solved.
Ward adds more details for InfoQ.com:
Flex 3 provides a simple way for applications to store state parameters in a named anchor and correctly restore state based on those parameters when the URL is requested. More information about this feature can be found in the Flex 3 Feature Introductions Deep Linking documentation.

Accessibility has always been very important for Flex applications. Since the Flash Player works with Jaws and other accessibility technologies, the capability for adding accessibility to Flash based applications is there. The Flex framework builds accessibility into the core framework. There are many different pieces of accessibility depending on what impairments and disabilities your application needs to support. You can find out more about the accessibility features of Flex in the Developer's Guide.
I Can Do Everything Flex Does With Ajax.

Ward explains:
RIA with Flex and Ajax is not either/or. Sites like Google Finance show how you can use Flex and Ajax together. Ajax is very good for content-centric applications, while Flex is very good for interactive, media, and data-centric applications. If your application is somewhere in between the two sides of that spectrum, then you can use the Flex Ajax Bridge to combine the two technologies. In Flex 3, the Flex Ajax Bridge is integrated directly into the SDK. If you are using Flex 2, you will need to download the Flex Ajax Bridge separately.
Also, from the InfoQ.com community, Michael Marth commented on why his group chose Flex:
We use Flex 2 for our soon-to-launch online dating site viibee.com

The reason: Flex enabled us to create a user experience far beyond anything that we could have done with a comparable effort in Javascript/Ajax.

Screencast: Watch a Flex app built in 11 minutes

2009-02-28T23:58:00.001-06:00

James Ward recorded a screencast of him building a simple Flex app with Flex Builder.

Check it out:

http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/media/flexapp/

FlexUnit - Test Driven Development (TDD) for Flex

2009-02-28T19:51:00.004-06:00

Unit testing and Test Driven Development (TDD) for Flex and ActionScript 3.0

Unit testing isn't a particularly common practice among Flash developers. Perhaps that's because so many of us are self-taught and not aware of what goes on in other languages, or perhaps it's because, until recently, many Flash-based projects were relatively small-scale.

In this article, I am going to deal with the how and what, but not necessarily the why for Test Driven Development for ActionScript 3.0 and Flex 2. If you want to know 'why', a simple Google search will return a plethora of resources.

I'll do my best to collate and share what I have discovered over this period and show you how to unit-test using FlexUnit, hopefully saving you from some of the frustration and head-scratching I experienced.

Requirements:

FlexUnit from Adobe Labs

flexunit .zip (ZIP, 1.8 MB)

Prerequisite knowledge

Object-oriented programming (OOP), and some ActionScript 2.0 (enough to understand ActionScript 3.0.)

WHAT IS TEST DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT (TDD) AND UNIT TESTING?

Test Driven Development is one of the rules of eXtreme Programming (XP).

Originally, XP programmers wrote tests for any part of their code that could break. However, this soon evolved in to the practice of writing the tests before writing the actual code. This may sound strange, but there is reason behind this madness; by knowing what can go wrong, you have a better idea of what your code needs to be able to handle.

TDD has evolved in to a process by which code is generated, as opposed to a testing process. It does still effectively perform tests, but that is more of a by-product.

The first thing you need is a Unit Testing framework. You can write your own, but that is not necessary. Most people use one of the existing frameworks such as FlexUnit or ASUnit.

In TDD, functionality is added in very small chunks: You come up with a test, you write the test, you write the code to satisfy the test, possibly refactor it to make it more efficient, and then start with the next test. Each test may only take a minute or so to write; it may take 10; one test should not take hours though.

This quote, from Dave Astels gave me my first clear definition of TDD:

"It's about figuring out what you are trying to do before you run off half-cocked to try to do it. You write a specification that nails down a small aspect of behaviour in a concise, unambiguous, and executable form. It's that simple. Does that mean you write tests? No. It means you write specifications of what your code will have to do. It means you specify the behaviour of your code ahead of time. But not far ahead of time. In fact, just before you write the code is best because that's when you have as much information at hand as you will up to that point. Like well done TDD, you work in tiny increments... specifying one small aspect of behaviour at a time, then implementing it." – Dave Astels

There is in fact a kind of "testing dance" you perform, and it's known as the Test-Code-Simplify cycle:

The Test-Code-Simplify cycle (Quoted verbatim from "Extreme Programming Applied", p159):

Write a single test
Compile it. It shouldn't compile, because you haven't written the implementation code it calls
Implement just enough code to get the test to compile
Run the test and see it fail
Implement just enough code to get the test to pass
Run the test and see it pass
Refactor for clarity and "once and only once"
Repeat

UNDERSTANDING TERMINOLOGY

I'm going to use FlexUnit for this tutorial. The "Flex" part may be a little misleading. You doneed Flex in order to use it, but the framework can be used to test pure ActionScript 3.0 files as well.

Before looking at how to use FlexUnit, let's get familiar with some terminology. Bear with me—it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation, and will make more sense as you construct tests later on.

assertions

An assertion is a statement of expected outcome. In other words, it is the expected result of your test. You may assert that the sky should be blue, or that you want x to be equal to y. In TDD if your assertion turns out to be something other than what you expected, you write code to correct that in your class.

test fixture

There may be some setup that is constant across all of your tests. For example, each test may depend on the creation of a certain object, property or process. A test fixture is useful if you have two or more tests for a common set of objects, as it avoids duplicating the code necessary to initialize and clean up the common objects. Methods called setUp() and tearDown() are provided for this common code, and any properties used can be declared at the top of the class.

test case

A test case is the smallest unit of testing. It checks for a specific response to a particular set of inputs. Your test class must extend the TestCase class and have a constructor that calls the super class's constructor. In some frameworks, all test methods should begin with the word "test." So if you are testing that the beer is cold, your method will be called something liketestBeerIsCold().

test suite

As more and more unit tests accumulate for a given project, you will want a way to group them. Running them one at a time would be cumbersome. A TestSuite can contain other TestSuites,or individual tests, and is a way of declaring which test must be run in the same session, regardless of whether or not they are in the same file. This way of aggregating tests is very handy as you'll soon see.

test runner

A test runner is a component that often has a graphical interface and displays the outcome of our tests. In FlexUnit you tell your TestRunner which TestSuite you want to use, and then call its startTest() method.

test harness

The class that extends TestCase may contain a test suite, will contain test cases and may possibly contain test fixtures. From what I can gather this class is referred to as a test harness, although usage of this term seems to vary in the documents I've looked at. Some documentation considers that the harness is the process that instantiates the runner and passes in the suites that you want to run, while Wikipedia defines a test harness as the an Automated Test Framework (ATF).

Congratulations if you managed to get through all that. It wasn't exactly exciting reading, but they are useful terms to refer back to as you look at the examples below.

Let's get on with installing FlexUnit and creating our tests...

INSTALLING FLEXUNIT

Installing FlexUnit is pretty straight forward. You get the Flex Unit source files, set up a Flex project, and in the process, you specify that the project should use the flexunit.swc file:

Get the flexunit .zip archive (from the Requirements area) and extract it to your hard drive. I created a new folder on my C drive called FlexDev and extracted it there, so the path on my machine is C:\FlexDev. Once extracted, FlexDev will contain a folder called flexunit, which in turn contains further sub folders (bin, docs and src folders).
Create the Flex Project. Open up FlexBuilder 2 and create a new Flex project using: File > New > Flex Project.
Choose a Basic Service (in other words, not Data Services) and press Next.
Give your project a name of 'TDD Example', deselect the Use default location option, and browse to the same location as before (on my machine this is the C:\FlexDev folder). This is the location where you are going to set up your project. Click Next. (If you pressed Finish by mistake, skip to the end of this list).
Select the Library Path tab, click the Add SWC… button and browse to the SWC file, which is in the bin folder of flexunit (using my set-up, the path is C:\FlexDev\flexunit\bin\flexunit.swc).
Press Finish button and you're done.

Note: If you need to add the SWC file to an existing project, right-click your project folder, select properties from the pop-up list and continue from step 5 above.

AM I DONE?

You're almost there. First I am going to briefly describe the three files that you are about to create:

The first file is the .mxml, (which is set as the default application for our Flex project). This file contains an instance of the TestRunner component (the visual component that displays the test results). The file specifies to the component which test suites you want to run, and then starts the test. I simply called this "main.mxml."
I'll refer to the second file as the test class. It is the one that contains the "test runner." Some developers refer to this as the test harness and some would simply call it a test runner. In this file, decide what you need to assert, and then write your test cases in it. I've named this classAccountTest.as as the example in this tutorial relates to money.
Finally there is the actual class, Account.as. Build this file up bit by bit as you create more and more tests.

CREATING THE THREE FILES

Creating main.mxml:

Here is the MXML that belongs in the main.mxml file. Open up the file and copy and paste this in:


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:Application
   xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
   xmlns:flexunit="flexunit.flexui.*"
   creationComplete="onCreationComplete()">
  
   <mx:Script>
       <![CDATA[
                      
           private function onCreationComplete():void
           {
               testRunner.test = AccountTest.suite();
               testRunner.startTest();
           }
       ]]>
   </mx:Script>   
   <flexunit:TestRunnerBase id="testRunner" width="100%" height="100%" />
</mx:Application>

There are a few things to notice:

We've defined a new xml namespace in the Application tag
We have a creationComplete even calling our onCreationComplete method
we created an instance of TestRunnerBase

We defined a new xml namespace in the Application tag:

xmlns:flexunit="flexunit.flexui.*"

If you have created your own components in Flex before, this will be familiar to you. If not then I will briefly explain.

This creates a namespace called "flexunit," which refers to components located in the flexunit.flexui package. We have access to this package of course, because you associated the flexunit.swc file with the project library earlier.

To instantiate an instance of the component in MXML, you can use code similar to the following:


<flexunit:TestRunnerBase id="testRunner" />

If you had declared your namespace as "bananas", you would instantiate your component using code similar to:

 
<bananas:TestRunnerBase id="testRunner" />

But you've used common sense and gone for a more descriptive name.

The TestRunnerBase component is TestRunner (see the "Understanding Terminology" section, above, for a refresher). I assigned it an id of testRunner.

In the Application tag you also have the creationComplete event handler, which callsonCreationComplete(). This method sets the test suite(s) you are going to use, and then calls the startTest() method of the TestRunner to put everything in to action.

Finally, underneath the script block you instantiate our TestRunner as previously described, with a width and height of 100%.

Okay, that's it. You'll be glad to hear that you don't really need to touch this file again in this tutorial.

Creating AccountTest.as:

Create a new ActionScript file in the main project folder (at the same level as main.xml) called AccountTest.as, and paste the following code into it:

package
{
    import flexunit.framework.TestCase;
    import flexunit.framework.TestSuite;
    
    public class AccountTest extends TestCase
    {
        public function AccountTest(methodName : String){
            super(methodName);
        }
            
        public static function suite():TestSuite{
            var accountTS:TestSuite = new TestSuite();
                //tests are added to the suite here
            return accountTS;
            
        }
    } }

There are a few things to notice:

The class extends TestCase.
There is one static function called suite (which returns a TestSuite).
The constructor calls its super class, passing it some method name.

Creating Account.as

Finally, you must create the Account class. Create a new ActionScript file in the main project folder (at the same level as main.xml and AccountTest.as) called Account.as and paste the following code into it:

package
{
    public class Account
    {
        public function Account(){
            
        }
    }
}

Not much to say about this. It is the bare bones of the actual class.

WRITING THE FIRST TEST

I'm going to plagiarize (with permission) the example used by Simon Whacker to demonstrate as2lib's unit testing, because it was particularly clear and easy to understand.

We are going to create an application for a bank, and our first requirement is to allow the creation of a new account.

The first question to ask yourself is: When creating a new account, what should happen? Well, not much. Despite my best wishes, whenever I open a new account, it always starts off empty. How do I know that for sure? Well. I know because I can check my balance. So, when I open a new account and check my balance I should have £0.00 in there. Okay, we have our first test.

Remember, in this tutorial, we write our test before we write the code in our class, and this is how it works:

In AccountTest.as, underneath our static "suite" method, paste in this code:

public function testNew():void{
    var account:Account = new Account();
    assertEquals("Expecting zero account balance", 0, account.getBalance());
}

Note: In some frameworks all tests must start with the prefix "test." With FlexUnit, this rule doesn't seem to be enforced, but for consistency I recommend doing so anyway. One reason to require any test method to start with "test" is that you can then shortcut the suite creation process. Simply introspect a class and any function that starts with "test" is considered a test.

In this case, you are testing the creation of a new account and so the method is called testNew.

As you can see, you create a new instance of the Account class, and then use an assertion method called assertEquals.

There are various types of assertion, but assertEquals basically checks that the two values passed in are ... [drum roll] ... equal. The eagle eyed among you may have noticed I am actually passing in three values:

The first value is optional. It is a String and it should clarify the outcome you are looking to satisfy. In this case: "Expecting zero account balance."
The next value is 0.
The last value is a call to an, as yet non-existent, method of our Account class calledgetBalance(). I will write this in a moment.

Overall, this assert specifies that you want the value returned from getBalance() to equal zero.

Note: TestCase extends Assert, so there is no need to import the Assert class in order to use these assertion methods.

All you have to do now is add your test to the test suite.

Amend the static suite function in the AccountTest class to look like this:

public static function suite():TestSuite{
    var accountTS:TestSuite = new TestSuite();
    accountTS.addTest(new AccountTest("testNew"));
    return accountTS;
}

You can see from the above code that I use the addTest method to add the test to the TestSuite. The object passed in is actually an instance of AccountTest (in other words, the class you are in). The name of the test to run, gets passed in as a String...

If you remember, the constructor for AccountTest looks like the following code:

public function AccountTest(methodName : String){
    super(methodName);
}

It accepts the methodName of the test, and passes it on to its super class.

Note: This is the way I first learned to test, but you don't have to do it like this. The framework will automatically find all "test" methods in a TestCase if you pass the class reference to the constructor of a TestSuite.

Test It!

Okay, the setup is done. It's time to test.

If you think back to the Test-Code-Simplify cycle of eXtreme Programming that we looked at earlier. The first couple of stages were:

Write a single test.
Compile it. It shouldn't compile, because you haven't written the implementation code it calls

You've written a test, so try and compile the project.

Figure 1. The Errors window

The Flex Builder Problems pane should also be reporting the following error:

"Call to a possibly undefined method getBalance through a reference with static type Account."

Great! That's what we want. You haven't written getBalance() yet And so you should quite rightly have a compiler error.

Note: If you actually choose to ignore the error and run the application anyway, you will see the TestRunner, and the test will actually pass! I didn't expect this to happen so be aware of it. It is fine to ignore Flex Builder warnings (in fact, the kind of tests you'll do will probably cause a few warnings) but don't ignore compile-time errors.

From further research, I found out that the test passes based on the last time you saved. So if you saved an empty test method, it would work; or, if you saved the empty testcase it would run and report no failures. When there are compiler errors, a new SWF file doesn't replace the old SWF, so you are in fact running the old SWF file.

Now take a look at the next two steps in the Test-Code-Simplify cycle:

Implement just enough code to get the test to compile.
Run the test and see it fail.

Amend the Account class to look like this (additions are highlighted in yellow):

package
{   
    public class Account
    {
               private var _balance:Number; 
               public function Account(){
        }
       public function getBalance():Number{
            return _balance;
         }
    }
}

You now added your getBalance() method, which returns _balance, and you have also declared this variable called _balance (intended to hold our account balance amount of course), but _balance hasn't been initialized with a value yet. Compile, and you should see something like the following:

Figure 2. The TestRunner GUI

This error is a good thing! Here we can see the test that failed (testNew) and why it failed. The big red bar would be green if the test had passed.

Now you know your TestRunner is working properly. You know the test should have failed, you know your test did fail, and you know why it failed.

The TestRunner tells us that it expected a value of zero but received a value of NaN (Not aNumber) which is what ActionScript 3.0 returns (variables typed as Number and not assigned a value are returned as NaN in ActionScript 3.0).

Continuing on, the next two steps in the Test-Code-Simplify cycle are:

Implement just enough code to get the test to pass
Run the test and see it pass

All you need to do now is give _balance an initial value of zero. Change your Account class's constructor to look like the following:

public function Account(){
    private var _balance:Number = 0;
}

Now run the test:

Figure 3. The test succeeds in the All Tests tab

Bingo. The bar is green. Here we are viewing the "All Tests" tab in the left pane, which shows that the testNew test has passed. You know it passed for the right reasons too, because you saw it fail when conditions were wrong.

The final two points in the Test-Code-Simplify cycle are:

Refactor for clarity and "once and only once"
Repeat

There's little need to refactor here, and so on with the next test.

ONWARDS AND UPWARDS

You've completed your first test—the hard part is over with. Take a break if you're exhausted because in order to see the real value of TDD we are going to implement a couple of extra tests. Most of the following code will be copy and paste with little need for additional explanation, so it shouldn't take long to get to the end now

GIVE ME SOME CREDIT

In many ways this next part of the tutorial is the most important. I hope to demonstrate how TDD can help you spot mistakes and prevent you from making changes which could break existing code and leave you unaware. Catching these problems when they occur, can save hours of debugging and headache further down the line.

Let's say your bank customers can open an account and now they need a way to credit their accounts. I'm sure you can think of plenty of things you need to test for here. Just as an example:

crediting an account with a null amount (avoid this!)
crediting an account with a real value (must work!)
crediting an account with a negative amount (that's a debit not a credit)
an account credit which includes fractions of a penny (how to handle?)

We're not going to implement all of these, but we'll use a couple of them to highlight some points.

Credit with null value

This seems pretty straight forward so first let's write the test:

public function testCreditWithNullValue():void{
     var account:Account = new Account();
     account.credit(null);
     assertEquals("Expecting zero account balance", 0, account.getBalance());
}

Again, you have called a method that doesn't exist yet credit(), but in doing so you have effectively specified that it is required, and must be capable of accepting a value. This shows how TDD helps you write your specifications.

Now add your test to our test suite:

accountTS.addTest(new AccountTest("testCreditWithNullValue"));

Check that your application doesn't compile; sure enough, Flex Builder gives you a compile error because you haven't written the credit() method yet.

Next, write just enough code in the Account class to let it compile.

public function credit(amount:Number):void{
    _balance += amount;
}

Run the test and see it fail:

Only, this one doesn't fail.

Flex Builder warns is that AccountTest ('null' is being used where 'Number' is expected), but there is no error. In fact ActionScript 3.0 appears to handle the attempt at passing in a null and returns a balance of zero.

In ActionScript 2.0, adding null to zero would equal NaN (Not a Number), so let's quickly check that our assumption about this is correct by making the test fail on purpose.

Change the code as follows:

account.credit(null + 10);

When we run the test it does indeed fail, because it is expecting zero, but receives 10. It looks like the code is doing what you wanted, so remove the "+ 10" and write the next test.

Credit with real value

Now make sure you can credit the account with a real value.

Use the amount £12.34, although the currency is obviously irrelevant here.

Once again, create a test and add it to the test suite. I show the test as follows:

public function testCreditWithRealValue():void{     var account:Account = new Account();     account.credit(12.34);     assertEquals("Expecting account balance with           pounds and pence.", 12.34, account.getBalance()); }

Again, you create a new instance of the Account class, call the credit method (which now does exist) and pass in a value of 12.34. Therefore, you expect a balance of 12.34 returned.

Finally, this test passes for the first time. With something as simple as this (considering our other tests are also in place) I don't think you need to double check it by making it fail. On with the final test.

Credit to three decimal places (fractions of a penny)

In the next scenario, the bank has specified that it will allow account credits which include fractions of a penny, but it will always round these amounts down and keep the extra (they are a bank after all); so if you put in thirty seven and a half pence, the account would be credited with 37 pence. Here, you simply check a number to three decimal places.

Write the test (see below) and add it to the test suite (not shown):

public function testCreditWithRealValueTo3DecimalPlaces():void{     var account:Account = new Account();     account.credit(1.234);     assertEquals("Expecting account balance of 1.23",               1.23, account.getBalance()); }

Run the application and see it fail. Good. There is enough code in place for the application to compile already, but of course you are expecting a rounded-down figure, and the current credit method is not set up for that, so you get the following TestRunner error:

Error: Expecting account balance of 1.23 - expected:<1.23> but was:<1.234>

That's exactly what is expected. Now you write enough code to make it pass, which means changing the credit() method to round off the amount. Change it to look like the following (changes in highlight):

public function credit(amount:Number):void{     var rounded = Math.floor(amount * 100)/100;     _balance += rounded; }

If you run the test, it passes. Notice that Flex Builder warns you that you forgot to give therounded variable a Type definition. To do that, change the code to:

var rounded:int = Math.floor(amount * 100)/100;

Run the application and...

Hang on a minute. We seem to have broken a couple of tests.

Let's look at the first one:

Figure 4. Running the testCreditWithRealValue test

The testCreditWithRealValue was passing before, so what did we do to break it? Well as you can see, the test was expecting a real value of 12.34 but it only received 12.

In a moment of distraction, we typed the variable incorrectly as int, and of course integers arewhole numbers. In this case my contrived example was pretty obvious, but it shows how changing or implementing new functionality can break earlier code, and how TDD alerts you to that fact instantly.

All you need to do to fix this particular error is to type our variable as Number:

rounded:Number = Math.floor(amount * 100)/100;

Now run the application and all tests pass.

Let's look at the testCreditWithRealValue test again for a moment... luckily you chose to use decimals in the "real value" test. Obviously an integer is a valid "real value" too, and if you had just used an integer, you wouldn't have spotted this error so easily. It is important to spend a moment naming our tests accurately, and more importantly, ensuring that you can't break a test down further in to smaller tests. One of the XP maxims is "Test until fear turns to boredom". TDD is great, but it's not an instant solution to all your problems. I wanted to show both how useful it can be, and how thin the distinction can be between useful feedback and no feedback at all.

Top 10 Mistakes when building Flex Applications

2009-02-28T19:50:00.000-06:00

In this post, Adobe’s James Ward teams up with InfoQ.com to bring you another Flex Top 10 (our most recent Flex Top 10). Flex is an open source application development framework for building rich Internet applications that run in the web with Flash Player, or on the desktop with Adobe AIR. Overall, Flex is a powerful framework that is easy to use, but today let's focus on some of the common mistakes that are made when building Flex applications.

For those new to Flex, check out InfoQ’s recent Adobe Flex Basics to get a quick introduction to the framework. Here is the list:

Using an RIA framework to build Web 1.0 applications (aka. New technology same old stuff).

discusses this struggle recently with InfoQ.com:

As a Java developer, learning Object Oriented ActionScript and the UI markup language is really a walk in the park. The challenge however for (Java) developers is that we're not designers, and with RIA technologies these two skills are very much needed.

Breaking standard browser experiences.

labs.adobe.com.

AutoComplete Input

Slowing the application down with the use of too many containers.

The biggest Flex performance danger is yielding to the temptation to use containers randomly. Deeply nesting too many containers hinders the performance of your application. This is the number one performance danger that Flex developers succumb to—and luckily it is 100 percent avoidable.

Slowing the application down by using XML for data transfer over optimized protocols.

Census application.

BlazeDS is Adobe’s recently open sourced Data Services product

Hessian

Trying to hire Flex developers.

Over use of animations

post on the use of animations at laair.org:

Most animations are simply TOO LONG. They are long, and slow, and boring, and excessive. Tone it down. If there is one thing I have found, its that I hate waiting for stupid animations to finish so I can do something else.

Don’t get me wrong I am not bashing animations. I am simply bashing animations that are simply too long or too extravagant for their purpose. Every animation can be broken down to having a purpose. Figure out the purpose of your animation and apply accordingly.

Not setting up an enterprise ecosystem.

FlexUnit framework

Neil Webb discusses TDD for Flex developers and using FlexUnit.

Flexcover

Continuous Integration (CI)

Not using the entire framework.

Runtime Shared Libraries (RSL)

You can shrink the size of your application's resulting SWF file by externalizing shared assets into standalone files that you can separately download and cache on the client. Multiple Flex applications can load these shared assets at runtime, but each client need only to download them once. These shared files are called Runtime Shared Libraries.

Adobe’s livedocs

built in features for localization.

Adobe’s Getting Started

Slowing the DataGrid down with complex renderers.

Not Preparing for Offline Applications.

Adobe AIR

Google Gears

Change Your Perception

2009-02-22T22:09:00.000-06:00

OFFER YOUR PLANS AND ACTIVITIES TODAY ACCORDING TO GOD"S WILL...

There was a millionaire who was bothered by severe eye pain. He consulted so many physicians and was getting his treatment done.

He did not stop consulting galaxy of medical experts; he consumed heavy loads of drugs and underwent hundreds of injections.

But the ache persisted with great vigor than before. At last a monk who has supposed to be an expert in treating such patients was called for by the millionaire.

The monk understood his problem and said that for sometime he should concentrate only on green colors and not to fall his eyes on any other colors.

The millionaire got together a group of painters and purchased barrels of green color and directed that every object his eye was likely to fall to be painted in green color just as the monk had directed. When the monk came to visit him after few days, the millionaire"s servants ran with buckets of green paints and poured on him since he was in red dress, lest their master not see any other color and his eye ache would come back.

Hearing this monk laughed said "If only you had purchased a pair of green spectacles, worth just a few rupees, you could have saved these walls and trees and pots and all other articles and also could have saved a large share of your fortune.

You cannot paint the world green." Let us change our vision and the world will appear accordingly.

It is foolish to shape the world, let us shape ourselves first.

Change Your Perception..!!

KEEP CONFIDENCE, TRUST IN GOD AND NEVER LOSE HOPE...

35 keys to running a business, or living a life...

2009-02-16T21:03:00.001-06:00

It's okay not to know. It's okay to be vulnerable. No one has all the answers. We value and learn from the questions and the asking.
We are learning to appreciate the mystery and sacredness of our lives and the mystery and sacredness of life.
Life is short. There is no escape from old age, sickness, and death. Death is a great teacher. Recognizing the shortness of our lives provides motivation to live fully in each day and in each moment.
We understand the importance of taking regular quiet time for ourselves. Through reflection and by slowing down we develop an appreciation for life and we increase our capacity for understanding.
We are learning to trust our inner wisdom. Our bodies and minds are amazing, unexplainable, and unfathomable.
It's okay to be uneasy, to be uncomfortable, to grieve, to feel pain. Recognizing when something is off, feeling the depth of loss, experiencing pain, is the first step toward change and growth.
Practice active listening — listening deeply to yourself and to others. Listen to others without formulating your own ideas. Listen to yourself before speaking.
We all seek balance in our lives — balancing work and family, balancing our inner and outer lives, balancing what we want to do and what we must do.
We are learning that we can be fully ourselves in all situations — at work, as parents, as children, as friends, as lovers.
Being ourselves at work is vital to our health and happiness. Our time is too valuable to sell, at any price.
Each moment is precious. In every moment we have an opportunity to discover, to grow, to speak the truth.
Each moment is ordinary. In every moment we can realize we are fine, just as we are. Nothing else is needed.
We appreciate what is paradoxical. What may at first seem contradictory or beyond our understanding may be true. After all, who is it that is breathing? Who is it that dreams? How is it that these hands effortlessly glide along this keyboard?
Age is a state of mind. We have the opportunity to grow to be more like ourselves every day.
Developing intimate relationships is a vital part of our lives and our development. Intimacy requires openness, honesty, and vulnerability.
Real, honest open communication is highly valued — and takes real skill and effort.
When we slow down and learn to trust ourselves, joy arises naturally.
When we slow down and learn to trust ourselves, creativity arises naturally.
Self-knowledge and understanding require persistence and perseverance. Developing awareness and balance is an ongoing, unending process.
Self-knowledge and understanding require discipline. Whatever path we take requires structure, guidelines, and feedback.
Self-knowledge and understanding require courage.
Diversity is essential. Our differences enrich our lives. There is no "other," just as our right hand is not a stranger to our left hand.
A simple rule to follow is do good, avoid harm. Of course, this is not simple or easy.
There are many paths and many practices toward developing awareness and personal growth.
Our everyday lives and activities provide fertile ground for developing growth and understanding.
We can learn to appreciate the gifts we've received from our parents and to forgive them. We understand on a deep level all we have received from the generations that have come before us.
We feel a deep responsibility for our children and for the generations that will come after us.
We can all act as change agents. We can choose to take action in improving and healing our environment and our society. There is no shortage of issues to address, of healing to take place.
We are all change agents on a personal level — we either create healing amongst those we live and work with or we create stress.
We can choose to act as change agents in relation to our communities.
We can choose to act as change agents in relation to our society or on a global level.
Everything we hold as dear will one day change and disappear. Every business that now exists will one day cease. Every person now alive will one day die.
At a deep level, we realize that we are neither in control nor not in control. Our task is to paddle the boat, with awareness and integrity. The flow of the river is outside our doing.
We all have the power to find peace and happiness in the midst of change and impermanence.
We have the power to heal ourselves, our communities, and our planet.

(Credit: M. Lesser)

Staying Focused: 5 Useful Practices

2009-02-16T20:27:00.002-06:00

Wisdom is the art of knowing what to overlook.
— William James

Here are five practices that can be useful tools in reducing distraction or frenetic activity and cultivating focus and concentration. They are surprisingly easy to implement and, almost before you know it, can become positive addictions.

1) Appreciate Impermanence

I saw a cartoon in a recent New Yorker magazine in which two people were finishing their dinners at a Chinese restaurant and had just opened their fortune cookies. One fortune read, “You are going to die.”
If you let this fact sink in — that life is short, and we all die — it can actually act as a powerful motivating force to help maintain focus and priorities. Everything changes and is impermanent, so are we fully present and making the most of this fleeting moment? Are we fully aware of what we are doing? Appreciating impermanence clarifies priorities, and it helps us identify any frenetic, shallow and ineffective activities we’re being distracted by. We see clearly the things that exhaust us and distract us from experiencing the blessing and opportunity of each particular day.

In Zen practice it is often said that the span of our lives is like a dew drop on a leaf — beautiful, precious, and extremely short-lived. Life is remarkably unpredictable. Whatever you want to accomplish, whatever is important to you, do it, and do it now — with as much grace, intensity, and sense of ease as you can muster. None of us knows what life will bring. In any moment everything we take for granted can change. We can use an awareness of change on a deep and wise level to focus our priorities and increase our appreciation of the sheer beauty of existence.

2: Clarify Aspirations and Create Next Steps

Make two lists. Title the first one “Aspirations, Plans, and Projects.” Title the column next to this “Next Steps,” and list concrete action steps toward implementation of each aspiration, plan, or project. What is the very first action required toward completing each item, and the step after that and the one after that? In the popular book Getting Things Done, productivity improvement expert David Allen describes the relief that people experience just by listing “next steps” in relation to incomplete projects. The act of identifying clear actions can have a freeing effect and make you feel that you’re making progress (sometimes when mired in setbacks and resistance, project management minutiae, or office politics, this is not so easy to believe). It can be daunting having many projects hanging over your head, so this helps clarify the actions needed to move each project toward completion.

3: Retrain Pavlov’s Dog

We react to email and phone calls the way Pavlov’s dog reacted to a bell: we come running at once, tongues wagging. Instead, when approaching the daily onrush of emails, phone calls, and other attention “grabbers,” try these habit diffusers and attention refocusers.

Emails
Learn to check your email only two or three times per day — say, at the middle and end of your day, or at the beginning, middle, and end. Granted, sometimes this isn’t realistic. Sometimes we have truly time-sensitive matters to resolve, and we absolutely must read and reply immediately. But these situations are probably fewer than we think, and this type of behavior can be the exception rather than the rule. Actually, despite the prevailing belief that we live in a world where everyone expects quick, near-instantaneous responses, this isn’t true. Most people don’t need responses right away; they just get used to it.

Phone Calls
As with email, learn to respond to phone calls or messages only two or thee times per day. Like changing any habit, learning this new behavior takes patience and some repatterning; give yourself a week at least. What you do also depends on your communication needs, but commit to different behavior. Let your message service do its job, so you can do yours. Retrain yourself not to always respond to the ring of the telephone or the vibration of the cell phone. This way, you control your interactions; they don’t control you.

Think Time
Schedule think time and reflection time at the beginning and end of each day. This could include a full meditation, or perhaps just silent, focused thoughtfulness over a cup of coffee or tea, while taking a robust walk, or while still lying in bed first thing in the morning. In any case, commit to giving yourself this daily gift of a few moments to sit quietly and gather your thoughts. These can be some of the most pleasurable, precious, and practical moments of the day. They can help to reframe your focus and energy in unexpected ways.

4: Savor Borrowed Time

Borrowed time is when we take a brief moment to do nothing; we just breathe and smell the sweetness of the air, think briefly about the task we just completed or are about to start; or listen to the birds flying, one’s heartbeat, or the conversations around us (without participating in them). These refreshing bits of time can be just a minute or two long, and they can happen many times throughout the day if we let them. They are, quite simply, daydreaming, but we shouldn’t view them as guilty indulgences. One helpful result of engaging in the more disciplined practice of meditation or mindfulness is that it makes us more relaxed about “do nothing” time. The quietude is familiar; all of these practices become the pause that refreshes.

5: Create Your Own Toolkit for Reducing Stress

Experiment with beginning each day, or most days, with meditation practice. Explore routines and rituals to center and relax during the day. Just breathing deeply and from the diaphragm three or four times, several times a day, can be a great start. Commit to stopping: notice the warm power of the sun or the sound of the freezing rain; smile; drink a glass of water; close your eyes for a minute or two; stretch your arms and legs, giving your neck and shoulders or hands a mini-massage; or get up from your desk to chat with a colleague down the hall. It can be any activity that refreshes and makes you pause from the whirlwind of activity you may have (unconsciously) gotten yourself into. If you work at a computer for much of the day, consider setting a timer to remind yourself to stop and stretch at regular intervals.

(Credit: M. Lesser)

A secret to making money online

2008-09-28T12:10:00.006-05:00

This is a MUST-SEE for anybody that is running a start-up and/or is thinking about starting one. In this presentation, David H. Hansson (creator of Ruby on Rails), talks about the lifestyle business with the importance of spending "less" but quality time in developing a good product and generally "enjoying life" doing it!

He talks about the over-jealous intent of start-ups to flip the business... the companies are narrowly focused on pumping it up and selling-out in the hope of living a good life after that. Instead the focus has to be on creating a great product that address the pain point businesses have, and doing that better than others.

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NYC Freedom Tower plans found in trash (What the *&^#?)

2008-04-18T12:58:00.005-05:00

Check out this report from Associated Press:

A homeless man has come forward with two sets of confidential ground zero blueprints that he says were dumped in a Lower Manhattan trash can. The man brought the Freedom Tower plans to the New York Post, which says the 150-page schematic is marked: "Secure Document — Confidential."

I can't believe this!!! You must be freakin' kiddin' me. Ever heard of a shredder you freakin' moron...

The documents are dated Oct. 5, 2007. They contain plans for each floor, the thickness of the concrete-core wall, and the location of air ducts, elevators, electrical systems and support columns. The agency that owns the World Trade Center site, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, calls it a serious security lapse.

Now what are they going to do? Re-do the whole thing from scratch? How many tax dollars have been wasted by this stupidity??? How many other secure and confidential blueprints are there in the trash cans around the country???? What if they get in the wrong hands??? Then what??!!!

Friday Fun: MSFT CEO, Steve Ballmer going crazy...

2008-03-28T14:43:00.002-05:00

Starting today, I will try to post something funny every Friday... after a loooong, stressful week, its a good idea to relax, laugh and enjoy life....

In the first edition of "Friday Fun", I want to share a very funny video of Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer going crazy. Hope you like it...

2008 will be a Good year of Tech M&A

2008-03-26T18:04:00.004-05:00

According to the article in BusinessWeek, 2008 will be a good year for Tech M&A. I think so too... Already we are seeing a lot of activity with major tech companies furiously trying to might off their competition by investing and acquiring. Being in a tech startup, this article was a pleasure to read... Some snippets from the article...

According to Lorraine McDonough, eBay's mergers chief, "2008 is shaping up to be a good year to go shopping. Banks are reining in credit, relegating competing private equity firms to the sidelines, and stocks are tumbling, taking a bite out of asset prices. "We are in a good position to make acquisitions,". Early this year eBay purchased a payment-security firm Fraud Sciences for $169 million and expects to make eight or nine acquisitions this year.

Tech buying fever is catching. At the end of January, Microsoft made an unwelcome $44.6 billion bid for the troubled Web media portal Yahoo!, the largest tech takeover attempt of the decade. That same month, business-software maker Oracle said it would spend $8.5 billion on rival BEA Systems, and in mid-March Time Warner's AOL unveiled the biggest-ever acquisition of a social network, agreeing to spend $850 million on Bebo.

High-tech mergers and acquisitions have surged 132% this year through Mar. 25 from the same period a year earlier, according to Thomson Financial (TOC). Tech companies "are absolutely bargain-hunting," says Benjamin Howe, CEO of investment bank America's Growth Capital.

"With venture firms and management teams less optimistic on their prospects and more realistic on valuation, there will continue to be very heavy activity for major acquirers," Howe says.

Microsoft, along with computer maker Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and networking gear giant Cisco Systems (CSCO) together have more than $125 billion in cash. "We will continue to look at new opportunities," says Mike Galgon, chief advertising strategist for Microsoft's advertiser and publisher solutions group. This year, Microsoft has made four purchases unrelated to Yahoo, including Danger, a maker of mobile-phone software, for an undisclosed amount. Microsoft is likely to make other purchases to beef up its Web search and online advertising businesses.

Oracle is expected to keep up its big-player role in the continuing wave of software consolidation, as clients increasingly look for a single provider that can provide a range of applications that work well together. HP has joined the software buying binge, recently announcing plans to acquire Exstream Software for an undisclosed amount. Last year HP paid $1.6 billion for data software maker Opsware.

Tech firms aren't alone. Deals are up in finance and the steel industry, too, although more modestly. JPMorgan Chase's (JPM) Federal Reserve-subsidized offer for Bear Stearns (BSC) reflects the consolidation of an industry beleaguered by subprime lending gone awry.

Read the entire article here... (Source: BusinessWeek)

Unified Communications is really about simplifying the user experience

2008-03-11T16:58:00.002-05:00

Unified Communications breaks down the communication silos between separate products such as: voice, e-mail, Wi-Fi, video, cellular, IM, web conferencing, unified messaging, calendar functions and more. The result is an integrated, intelligent, communications experience that empowers knowledge workers to spend more time being productive.

Unified Communications also simplifies the communications experience by providing a centralized application interface as well as an integrated management console that can be configured to work with any development environment.

Unified Communications is really about simplifying the user experience. In today’s work place, employees have to deal with multiple forms of communication. In fact, a study conducted by the Sage Research group in 2005 concluded that as of September 2005, business and technology decision makers averaged having at least six communication devices and each employee had almost five communications applications to manage.

That’s not expected to dramatically improve anytime soon. In another survey from the Telecom Intelligence Group that was performed in 2007, they found that by 2009, over 40% of enterprise IP telephony users expect to have two or more devices that can access the features of their voice systems as well as Unified Communication applications. In addition, up to a third of Enterprise IP telephony users could justify replacing their desk phone with an advanced wireless phone in five years.

So what is the industry definition of unified communications?

Currently, there isn’t one. Unified Communications is confusing because the concept is so new and there are lots of different ideas and definitions of what comprises Unified Communications. The vendors and analysts have different opinions about what protocols, applications, and features should be/not be included within unified communications.

The following list summarizes a sample of the different definitions:

Definition from Gartner (Magic Quadrant Report, 2006)
"Gartner defines UC products (equipment, software, and services) as those that enhance individual, workgroup, and organizational productivity by enabling and facilitating the control, management, integration and use of multiple enterprise communication methods."

Definition from Yankee (Unified Communications Leverages Existing Technology to Increase Productivity, July 2003)
The concept of unified communications … is to break down all distance, time, and media barriers to allow people to communicate with one another anywhere, anytime, and across any medium from a single device.

Definition from Microsoft (Microsoft website, June 2007)
"Unified Communications bridge the gap between telephony and computing to deliver real-time messaging, voice, and conferencing to the desktop environment."

Definition from Cisco (Enhancing Business with Smarter, More Effective Communications Whitepaper, 2007)
"Unified Communications is an emerging class of applications and services designed to improve communications within the modern organization – to keep workgroups connected, enable them to collaborate effectively, and streamline business processes."

Definition from Strategic Path International (What is Unified Communications? And Is It Worth the Extra Investment, 2007)
"Unified Communications integrates existing communication methods like instant messaging, email, voice telephony and audio and video conferencing, making it possible for each interaction to work across different hardware devices."

Definition from Forrester Research (Unified Communication Industry Study, 2006)
"Unified Communications is not about replacing existing applications; it is about improving the functionality of existing applications through the use of SIP, which enables businesses to connect quickly to the intended party for actionable results."

Definition from NEC
Unified Communication enables customers to experience greater productivity through the convergence of communication channels and business processes using a combination of technologies, devices and services, including presence, status, mobility, collaboration, video and voice conferencing, and messaging.

As you can see, depending upon who is talking about unified communications, the story changes. A common theme does emerge. Unified Communications focuses on communications for the user.

If we then extrapolate back from this, elements of a Unified Communication portfolio could include the following:

- User Mobility
- Presence
- Telephony (voice, fax, etc.)
- Voicemail/unified messaging
- Email/calendaring
- Conferencing (voice, video and web)
- Instant messaging
- Administration and management
- Contact center

If we break Unified Communications down further into usable functions, this list summarizes the key benefits for businesses:

- Allows companies to react to change better and faster
- Creates an expanded business reach
- Improves business continuity scenarios
- Improves Customer Service
- Results in fewer integration issues/costs for the IT department
- Industry standard solution for interoperability
- Ability to optimize geographically diverse people (seamless teaming)
- Low product and administration costs
- Lower training costs with integrated solution
- Productivity improvement due to less mail boxes to manage

From an end user perspective, these are the key user benefits for unified communications:

- Empowers users with single number reach
- Delivers rich Presence
- Results in speedier decision making
- Collaboration (application & doc. sharing, whiteboard, chat)
- Enables Instant Messaging
- Easier for end users because there are fewer devices to manage
- Reduces travel costs
- New IVR services for users

The greatest user benefits are single number reach and rich presence. Between these two features, the user can control who contacts them and by what medium (terminal) that is best for the user. Available options also include no contact, i.e. a diversion to voicemail or another number if that is preferred. The main point is that the user is able to take back control and manage their devices instead of their devices managing them.

Unified Communications

2007-11-18T01:46:00.002-06:00

While cost saving has been the primary driver for the adoption of converged communications, the concept of unified communications - the ability to communicate in real-time from any location, to access any application using any device delivers the productivity gains many organizations have failed to see before.

A rapidly connecting real-time world creates challenges and opportunities that the chief executive needs to understand and embrace. Unified communications will fundamentally change the way in which organizations serve their clients.

Technology and the evolution of the virtual organization
Since the 1990s, the world has grown 's maller' as advances in communication technology have closed the geographical gap between people around the world. Telephony, fax, email, conferencing and now instant messaging enable 4/7 communication and impacting the way we look at interaction.

Technology has changed the way organizations communicate, resulting in fundamental changes to the way they structure their operations and business models. Structures have evolved from a top-down approach, through a horizontal model designed around processes, and on into a new 'adaptive era', made possible by new communication technologies.

As organizations evolve towards a virtual model, so communication technologies have become even more important. Convergence results from standardization and it started in the early nineties with the emergence of the Internet Protocol (IP) as the de facto network protocol. Today, IP has brought man advantages to communications applications. Standards make it possible to consider using a single network (IP network) to carry all types of communications traffic; voice, data and video.

It manifests itself across the communications spectrum right down to devices. Executive PDAs and corporate CRM systems highlight the blurring of distinctions between phones and computers. Dual-mode handsets that use voice-over-wireless networks do the same for fixed and mobile telephone technologies. And the mobile device is getting more powerful by the day with multiple functions being performed on a single device which enables collaboration on a real-time basis.

The Presence phenomenon signifies a step change in the usage of new tools and technologies in the corporate sphere. Presence provides the means on integrating the numerous forms of communication into a single integrated environment associated with the individual, not the device (laptop, office phone, mobile phone, etc.). A fundamental shift occurs when we are no longer reliant on email addresses and telephone extensions for identifying people, but identify people and associate a mechanism with them base don their preference. Be that on their mobile phone when they travel or Instant Messaging because they are in a meeting.

Transforming business effectiveness
Business effectiveness increasingly depends on having communications tools and an infrastructure that can harness diverse talent, knowledge and skills across boundaries of time and space. Virtualization enables an organization to leverage 'connectedness' to generate significant gains.

These business effectiveness gains play out in different ways across a range of business functions. We take a quick look at the implications for: maintenance of business services; offshore manufacturing; customer contact; and home working.

Maintenance of business services and continuity
Tragic events in recent history have highlighted the need for an effective business continuity plan. Arguably the most critical portion of this is the ability to maintain communications with customers, staff and suppliers. By deploying a robust, integrated communications and collaboration infrastructure organizations are able to maintain these communications and business activities. As these environments support communications from any location, organizations are able to divert staff to branch offices or have them work from home with no effect on how they communicate with customers, colleagues and suppliers.

Offshore manufacturing
Virtualization was pioneered by the aerospace industry back in the 1970s. Then it was all about coordinating teams around the world to build new aircraft. Today, many organizations design their products in one country and manufacturing them in low cost production centers like China and India. So there is a pressing need to connect teams across continents.

The new communications infrastructure enables individuals and organizations to work together more effectively. It delivers feature-rich, real-time communications using video conferencing, instant messaging, and collaborative applications that can be accessed at any time and from any location. And the fact that information is stored online in a common repository rather than in a team or individual 's file means that those with clearance can access this as and when required.

Customer contact
Voice portal solutions allow users to access online services using a telephone. The user might use his mobile phone to dial in and request information using voice or touchtone keys. The information is sent back using a special voice-producing programme on the website. Alternatively it could be provided as a visual display and/or email on a 's martphone'.

This new technology which takes convergence to a new level offers business enormous benefits. Self-service through voice portals cuts costs and streamlines processes, allowing customers to automatically access information and perform transactions that are captured by the providers' database. This saves operator time and provides customers with a new channel for interacting with suppliers.

Home working
The virtualisation of the workspace means that it doesn't matter where you are based. So people can continue to work on projects whatever their physical location, whether it is home, a satellite office or a hotel in another country. Using virtual private networks (VPN) employees can connect with the office and use any of the tools or directories remotely.

This has considerable benefits for organisations who wish to retain key staff. Many families today may have two people with careers and it could be that one person has to relocate. In the old days that could have meant a change of job for the other and the loss of their talents to the organisation. Virtualisation allows employees to relocate without having to change jobs, or conversely change jobs without relocating.

What is damaka?

2007-11-08T16:13:00.000-06:00

damaka® is the world's most comprehensive, peer-to-peer, SIP-based, secure communication, collaboration and multimedia software/platform. damaka provides voice, video, instant messaging, file transfer & sharing, desktop & application sharing, PSTN calling, IPTV, and other features in an easy-to-use, real-time environment on both desktop/laptop and wireless devices (such as smartphones). A technology pioneer in distributed softswitching, damaka offers its IMS ready white-label solution to Operators and Enterprises. The damaka platform is based on industry standards and uses patent pending technology to provide a very secure peer-to-peer environment for Internet users worldwide.

damaka® solutions integrate wired, wireless and mobile devices to deliver state of the art peer-to-peer hybrid Unified Communication and Collaboration solutions cost effectively, while dynamically boosting user productivity.

damaka is available for Windows desktop, Windows Mobile, and Web (For Linux and Mac users).

Desktop Client can be downloaded from http://www.damaka.com/consumers/download.htm
Web Client can be accessed from http://web.damaka.com.

Connect, Communication and Collaborate from anywhere, anytime.

What motivates an investor to say "yes"

2007-10-23T00:53:00.000-05:00

I read a wonderful article by Tim Westergren, founder of the popular music service, Pandora yesterday night. Wanted to capture the key points...

What causes an investor to shift from looking for ways to say ‘no’ to looking for ways to say ‘yes’? The shift happens when three things come together for the investor:

They personally believe in the entrepreneur(s);
They have a sense (and it’s often just a gut feeling) that the idea could be very big; and
They have a personal interest or background in the industry that gives them a leg up the diligence curve.

Microsoft’s Ballmer: MSFT will acquire 20 companies a year

2007-10-23T00:25:00.000-05:00

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco that the software giant will acquire 20 companies a year for the next five years, ranging from $50 million to $1 billion.

This steals from the playbook of News Corp, the media company that generated excitement among Internet companies after it acquired MySpace and others. There's a tactic here: By declaring you are hungry, you get entrepreneurs coming to you to show you their wares -- letting you get a glimpse of emerging technology even if you're not going to buy it.

Read the rest of the story...

Things You Don't See Every Day

2007-10-22T00:07:00.000-05:00

(From: bambooflexible)

Apple Promises SDK for iPhone: Step in the right direction...

2007-10-17T23:36:00.000-05:00

The software industry gave a hearty cheer to Apple's announcement that it will provide a SDK for the iPhone by Feb next year. I am also excited about it. I have a few apps in mind that I'd like to develop related to Video, RSS, VoIP and Social Media Convergence.

Steve Jobs said the company is trying to do two things at once -- provide an open platform to developers while protecting iPhone users from viruses, Trojans and other malware. This is no easy task, he said, arguing that the iPhone will likely become "a highly visible target" for malicious attacks.

I can't wait...

damaka web client released

2007-10-17T11:41:00.000-05:00

We released a new Web-based version of damaka yesterday. damaka web client gives all users - from professionals and travelers to students and Internet café visitors - access to instant messaging via the Web, from any browser, anywhere, anytime.

Mac and Linux users will benefit from this release. They can now connect and collaborate with their friends using damaka client (on Windows).

Currently users will be able to:

- Chat with their friends
- Track their friends with Buddy Presence
- Organize all instant messages in tabs, rather than separate windows
- Enjoy Free TV (IPTV) and Radio
- Check Offline Messages, Call Logs and voicemails

damaka \ damaka news \ damaka web client

Enjoy!

Fantastic Pictures

2007-10-13T15:00:00.000-05:00

(From: meisterjoker)

Google To “Out Open” Facebook On November 5

2007-10-10T03:23:00.000-05:00

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch reported last month of a highly confidential meeting at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View to discuss the company’s upcoming plans to address the “Facebook issue.” Google’s goal - to fight Facebook by being even more open than the Facebook Platform. If Facebook is 98% open, Google wants to be 100%.

Google is planning to announce a new set of APIs on November 5 that will allow developers to leverage Google’s social graph data. They’ll start with Orkut and iGoogle (Google’s personalized home page), and expand from there to include Gmail, Google Talk and other Google services over time.

This is a potentially killer strategy. Facebook has a platform to allow third parties to build applications on Facebook itself. But what Google may be planning is significantly more open - allowing third parties to both push and pull data, into and out of Google and non-Google applications.

Read more...

Cowboys' win takes bizarre to another dimension

2007-10-10T02:58:00.000-05:00

Cowboys didn't crack Monday night, despite plenty of forehead-slapping moments - from Tony Romo throwing five interceptions to Romo losing a fumble, from Terrell Owens dropping a tying 2-point conversion pass to Owens dropping a long pass that might've set up a short field goal for the win, from the special teams allowing a kickoff return for a touchdown to blazing-but-injured cornerback Terence Newman getting caught from behind on an interception return.

They hung close enough to make a last-minute push, then had to keep hanging on when Nick Folk's 53-yard field goal to win it was called off because the Buffalo Bills sneaked in a timeout just before the snap.

Forced to do it again, the rookie did, giving Dallas a stunning 25-24 victory and a 5-0 record for the first time since 1983.

DAL v BUF 10-08-07 (Source: NFL.com)

Video: I am India

2007-10-10T02:41:00.000-05:00

This film is a journey through emerging India," the fastest growing free market democracy in the world". It celebrates the relentless spirit of the people of India, who through their karma give it a place amongst the leading economic nations of the world.

Conceived and produced by Bharatbala Productions (BBP) for India Band Equity Foundation (IBEF)

Cool Images

2007-10-10T02:25:00.000-05:00

Check out the cool images posted by Peeti

Back after a long break...

2007-10-10T02:17:00.001-05:00

- Closed the house in March
- Moved in in April
- House Warming party - May 5
- Went to India in June/July
- Got really busy with damaka (new clients, platforms, features & challenges)

Busy closing the house

2007-03-28T23:45:00.000-05:00

Sorry for not posting anything new.... I am really busy with closing of my new house - it was scheduled to be on 3/29, but since the lender did not get all the paperwork, it is going to be on Friday 3/20. I have been busy with home inspection and walk-through. A lot of work is still left to be done, but the builder is confident that he'll get it done.

Here is a picture... this is a 2 weeks old picture...

Woh bhi kya din the

2007-03-18T00:17:00.000-05:00

Jaane kahan gaye woh din...

Jaane kahan gaye woh log...

Jaane kahan gaya Cricket

May the above pictures give strength to you all

Worst day for India and Indian Cricket

2007-03-17T23:56:00.000-05:00

I usually sleep in on Saturdays. I stay busy the whole week and I cherish the sleep on Saturdays. But today - March 17, 2007 - was different! There was excitement since last night. I wanted to sacrifice my sleep to get up at 8:00 am to watch India play their first World Cup game.... WoW!!!! I got up correctly at 8:00... turned on my laptop, connected it to my TV and made me some coffee anticipating a great opener. Honestly I wanted India to bat first and expected them to make more than 300 runs ---- Now I feel like a fucking fool. Forget 300, Indian team could not even make 200 against (a much improved) Bangladesh.

There was NO aggression, NO passion, NO grit, NO determination, NO character, NO talent, NO CRICKET!!! Basically India team DID NOT show up for THE game. It almost felt like they didn't even want to play. It was lackluster, boring, drab, unimaginative, uninspired, muted and JUST PLAIN DEAD. Indian cricket team should officially apologize to all of India and Indian fans all over the world for falling waaaaaaaaaaaaaay below the expectations and playing such a lifeless game at the biggest stage of International cricket --- What a fucking Shame!!!! Infact they should all be FINED and BANNED form participating in ANY Fashion-Show or Ads --- Enough is Enough --- there's gotta be some BASIC STANDARD, some BASIC LEVEL OF PERFORMANCE.... Is that too much to ask?????

Something needs to be done... we deserve better than this! Strong, result-oriented actions must be taken! Hiring an international coach will not SOLVE anything!!!!

It was the worst day for India and Indian Cricket - not because they lost a game, just the way they lost it!

Damn you!

A depressed, dejected and really really sad cricket fan....

Indian definition of Customer

2007-03-15T16:07:00.000-05:00

customer --> Kasht de-de-kar Maar

Why Cisco paid $3.2B for WebEx?

2007-03-15T11:32:00.000-05:00

GigaOm says that Cisco's move (a smart one) to buy a company that had sales of $380 million, and a net income of around $47 million is actually part of a bigger chess game the company is playing against Microsoft. GigaOm has this chess game all figured out.

Cisco gobbles up WebEx for $3.2 billion

2007-03-15T11:29:00.000-05:00

Cisco Systems Inc. agreed to buy WebEx Communications Inc., the largest provider of Internet teleconferencing services, for $3.2 billion to counter Microsoft Corp.'s expansion in the market.

WebEx investors will receive $57 a share in cash, the companies said in a statement today. The offer is 23 percent higher than the Santa Clara, California-based company's closing share price of $46.20 yesterday.

Cisco will add WebEx's services to products for making phone calls, sending messages and holding meetings over the Internet, allowing for integrated communication. The company and Microsoft, which bought WebEx rival PlaceWare Inc. in 2003, are battling for corporate customers who want to simulate face-to-face meetings.

"It's a very attractive market, a growth market,'' said Ari Bensinger, an equity analyst at Standard & Poor's in New York. He has a ``hold'' rating on the shares and doesn't own any. "We like the video conferencing aspects of this deal. Cisco provides the corresponding pieces for this.''

Cisco, the world's biggest maker of computer-networking equipment, said the purchase won't affect earnings excluding some items in fiscal 2008. The companies said they expect the deal to close in the fourth quarter of Cisco's 2007 fiscal year.

Shares of San Jose, California-based Cisco rose 4 cents to $25.89 at 12:03 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. WebEx shares surged 22 percent to $56.49 in Nasdaq trading. The stock had gained 32 percent this year before today.

Cricket World Cup Frenziness

2007-03-13T09:05:00.000-05:00

An Indian cricket fan gets hair cut prior to the start of the first match between Pakistan and West Indies,Kolkata, March 13, 2007

Microsoft Executive Makes VoIP Predictions

2007-03-12T19:28:00.000-05:00

A senior Microsoft executive predicted last week that the average cost of VoIP service for businesses will tumble by a staggering 50% over the next three years.

Jeff Raikes, President of Microsoft’s Business Division, said that the falling prices will be apparent as VoIP systems make the shift from hardware to software. He went on to say that 100 million people will be able to make calls from Microsoft Office applications during this same time period.

“Software is set to transform business phone systems as profoundly as it has transformed virtually every other form of workplace communication,” said Raikes.

“Over time, the software-based VoIP technology built into Microsoft Office Communications Server and Microsoft Office Communicator will offer so much value and cost savings that it will make the standard telephone look like that old typewriter that’s gathering dust in the stockroom.”

Raikes indicated that Microsoft plans to distribute the public beta version of Office Communications Server 2007, Microsoft’s VoIP and unified communications server, and Office Communicator 2007, to testers later this month.

Read the rest of the story

Craziest week of the year...

2007-03-11T20:52:00.000-05:00

I am sorry for not posting something last week... Last week was the busiest and craziest week of the year so far... Not only the work was hectic, but there are million other things I had to take care of on the personal front (like trying to work with the lenders for the mortgage of the new house I am building, trying to get things straightened with the builder, and doing other stuff with my GF, and not to mention paying bills that have been starring at me for the last 2 weeks)....

Anyway so yeah, I had a crazy, busy week. Work was split up in the middle by working with a client - my most important account - trying to help them setup Ruby/Catalyst web framework and also trying to release new features of our product.

On the personal front exciting things are happening but its really draining - trying to build a house is extremely strenuous - especially when its 45 miles from work and 25 miles from my current place. But I am so looking forward to it - it is very special to me and my GF and thats what keeps me going.... and right I need to go eat my dinner... more laters... bye for now.

Nike: Just DID It... Awesome ad

2007-03-04T01:26:00.000-06:00

This is an awesome ad...

In pictures: Holi: Hindu festival of colors

2007-03-04T00:42:00.000-06:00

The Hindu festival of Holi marks the start of spring. The colors signify the blossoms of the season. Below are some colorful pictures. You are more than welcome to send me your Holi pictures....

Enjoy....

Holi - Hindu Festival of Colors

2007-03-04T00:16:00.000-06:00

An Introduction

Holi - the festival of colors - is undoubtedly the most fun-filled and boisterous of Hindu festival. It's an occasion that brings in unadulterated joy and mirth, fun and play, music and dance, and, of course, lots of bright colors to make a festive graffiti on every heart.

Happy Days Are Here Again!
With winter neatly tucked up in the attic, it's time to come out of our cocoons and enjoy this spring festival. Every year it is celebrated on the day after the full moon in early March and glorifies good harvest and fertility of the land. It is also time for spring harvest. The new crop refills the stores in every household and perhaps such abundance accounts for the riotous merriment during Holi. This also explains the other names of this celebration - 'Vasant Mahotsava' and 'Kama Mahotsava'.

"Don't Mind, It's Holi!"
During Holi, practices, which at other times could be offensive, are allowed. Squirting colored water on passers-by, dunking friends in mud pool amidst teasing and laughter, getting intoxicated on bhaang and reveling with companions is perfectly acceptable. In fact, on the days of Holi, you can get away with almost anything by saying, "Don't mind, it's Holi!" (Hindi = Bura na mano, Holi hai.)

The Festive License!
Women, especially, enjoy the freedom of relaxed rules and sometimes join in the merriment rather aggressively. There is also much vulgar behavior connected with phallic themes. It is a time when pollution is not important, a time for license and obscenity in place of the usual societal and caste restrictions. In a way, Holi is a means for the people to ventilate their 'latent heat' and experience strange physical relaxations.

Legends & Myths

Like all Indian and Hindu festivals, Holi is inextricably linked to mythical tales. There are at least three legends that are directly associated with the festival of colors: the Holika-Hiranyakashipu-Prahlad episode, Lord Shiva's killing of Kamadeva, and the story of the ogress Dhundhi.

The Holika-Prahlad Episode
The evolution of the term Holi makes an interesting study in itself. Legend has it that it derives its name from Holika, the sister of the mythical megalomaniac king Hiranyakashipu who commanded everyone to worship him. But his little son Prahlad refused to do so. Instead he became a devotee of Vishnu, the Hindu God.

Hiranyakashipu ordered his sister Holika to kill Prahlad and she, possessing the power to walk through fire unharmed, picked up the child and walked into a fire with him. Prahlad, however, chanted the names of God and was saved from the fire. Holika perished because she did not know that her powers were only effective if she entered the fire alone.

This myth has a strong association with the festival of Holi, and even today there is a practice of hurling cow dung into the fire and shouting obscenities at it, as if at Holika.

Radha-Krishna Legend
Holi is also celebrated in memory of the immortal love of Lord Krishna and Radha. The young Krishna would complain to his mother Yashoda about why Radha was so fair and he so dark. Yashoda advised him to apply color on Radha's face and see how her complexion would change. In the legends of Krishna as a youth he is depicted playing all sorts of pranks with the gopis or cowgirls. One prank was to throw colored powder all over them. So at Holi, images of Krishna and his consort Radha are often carried through the streets. Holi is celebrated with eclat in the villages around Mathura, the birth-place of Krishna.

Making the Colors of Holi
The colors of Holi, called 'gulal', in the medieval times were made at home, from the flowers of the 'tesu' or 'palash' tree, also called 'the flame of the forest'. These flowers, bright red or deep orange in color, were collected from the forest and spread out on mats, to dry in the sun, and then ground to fine dust. The powder when mixed with water made a beautiful saffron-red dye. This pigment and also 'aabir', made from natural colored talc, which were extensively used as Holi colors, are good for the skin, unlike the chemical colors of our days.

How to Celebrate

Colorful days, solemn rituals, joyous celebrations - Holi is a boisterous occasion! Draped in white, people throng the streets in large numbers and smear each other with bright hued powders and squirt colored water on one another through pichkaris (big syringe-like hand-pumps), irrespective of caste, color, race, sex, or social status; all these petty differences are temporarily relegated to the background and people give into an unalloyed colorful rebellion. There is exchange of greetings, the elders distribute sweets and money, and all join in frenzied dance to the rhythm of the drums.

Happy Holi

2007-03-03T23:54:00.000-06:00

Today is HOLI. Wishing u and ur family a very happy and colorful HOLI !!!!!

Holi is all about Colors, Coming Together, Joy & Happiness...Celebrate the occasion with the true spirit....

The 20 Most Popular Websites That Capture 39% of Our Online Time

2007-03-01T23:35:00.000-06:00

Yahoo! continues to be the number one online destination for U.S. internet users with over 131 million unique visitors in December, followed by Time Warner (AOL), Microsofft, and Google sites, each of them attracting over 100 million unique visitors, according to comScore. But the latest data from Compete.com show that none of these web properties in the top spot in terms of total time spent online.

No surprise -- MySpace.com tops the list with 11.9% of all time spent online (or 29 billion minutes in December 2006) by U.S. internet users. Here is a list of the top 20 websites, capturing 39% of all U.S. internet online time, according to Compete.com:

Tony Blair deliberates over his future in this fantastic music video

2007-03-01T23:33:00.000-06:00

Positive proof of Global warming (funny)

2007-03-01T23:30:00.000-06:00

Mind Your 'Mind'

2007-02-27T00:29:00.000-06:00

I made another blog-friend this evening - Surjit! He writes a wonderful blog - "gurushabad". The following is from his blog. I wanted to post his post because I think its beautiful and I wanted my blog readers to read this wonderful piece too. Thanks Surjit.

Mind your 'Mind'

"The mind is amazing.It is a great mystery.Very few people have been able to understand its powers and potential.It stands between an individual and the Supreme Truth and is cause of bondage and liberation. If properly trained, the mind can help us attain enlightenment,but if misguided, it can leave us in the midst of confusion and bondage.

As we all know that the mind, like the wind, can move in any direction i.e. negative or positive ,creative or destructive, and has a power of creating and weaving world of illusions around us.So peace, strife, confusion, happiness etc are all reflection of the state of mind.

The mind,therefore, has to be exercised daily, just as the body, in order to discipline it.As we are aware, our mind is the source of thought energy and thoughts emerge ceaselessly and create worlds of its own. It becomes, therefore, important not only to control it but to divert its energies to positive and constructive direction.The mind has to be reminded continuously that world out side is unreal and ever changing. Human body is also perishable.Pursuit of this world will only bring sorrow and emptiness.Once it realises the fallacious belief about the ever changing world, it starts becoming aligned with the self within.Once this happens, positive and nobler feelings of love and compassion start emanating from the mind and this is the sign that our higher self, i.e. the soul, is now in control of our being."

Credits: Surjit gurushabad

Does Management Knows their Staff?

2007-02-26T12:04:00.000-06:00

On walking into the factory, the MD noticed a young guy leaning against the wall, doing nothing.

He approached the young man and calmly said to him, "How much do you earn?"

The young man was quite amazed that he was asked such a personal question, he replied, none the less, "I earn $ 2 000.00 a month, Sir. Why?"

Without answering, the MD took out his wallet and removed $6000.00 cash and gave it to the young man and said, "Around here I pay people for working, not for standing around looking pretty! Here is your 3 months salary, now GET OUT and don't come back".

The young man turned around and was quickly out of sight.

Noticing a few onlookers, the MD said in a very upset manner, "And that applies for everybody in this company".

He approached one of the onlookers and asked him, "Who's the young man that I just fired?"

Reply: "He was the pizza delivery man, Sir...!!"

How to get noticed in the blogosphere?

2007-02-26T03:00:00.000-06:00

Divya has a really nice post about blogging to fame! I highly recommend it.

Here is a small list of what all should do to get your blog noticed:-

1. Try to get fame for others, the more you give the more you get.
2. Search engine optimize well.
3. Comment on others blogs, create a conversation.
4. Provide RSS feeds for your blog.
5. Be an expert of your field and provide quality content.
6. Get yourself listed in major directories.
7. Pick up products and provide first hand user experience.
8. People do not talk about you if you are a part of the crowd. You need to be innovative and creative.
9. Get yourself noticed by the A-list Bloggers(I’ll soon tell you how)
10. Add a viral effect to your blog, be contagious.
11. Try Linkbating.
12. Use Social Network Sites to your benefit, without depending on them(Atleast they will help in Branding).

Check out her blog! And don't forget to thank her for the post... (Item #1 and 3)

79th Academy Awards

2007-02-26T02:40:00.000-06:00

Highlights:

The Departed wins four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Directing, giving director Martin Scorsese his first Academy Award.
"An Inconvenient Truth" wins former Vice President Al Gore the first Oscar given to a senior politician
Loved the performances by Celine Dion, Jennifer Hudson and Beyonce
Ellen DeGeneres hosted the ceremony for the first time. She was funny... I enjoyed it.
Forest Whitaker's speech was awesome!

Major winners

Feature films

Category	Winner	Producers/Country
Best motion picture	The Departed	Graham King
Best foreign language film	The Lives of Others	Germany
Best documentary feature	An Inconvenient Truth	Davis Guggenheim
Best animated feature film	Happy Feet	George Miller

Acting

Category	Winner	Film
Best actor in a leading role	Forest Whitaker	The Last King of Scotland
Best actress in a leading role	Helen Mirren	The Queen
Best actor in a supporting role	Alan Arkin	Little Miss Sunshine
Best actress in a supporting role	Jennifer Hudson	Dreamgirls

Complete list of winners

ICC World Cup 2007: Schedule for Indian Cricket Team

2007-02-26T02:38:00.000-06:00

The Indian Cricket Team has participated in all the ICC Cricket World Cups since 1975, and has won the 1983 World Cup. It reached to the World Cup semi-finals in 1987 and 1996, and were runners-up in the 2003 ICC Cricket World Cup in South Africa. India is placed in Group B of the ICC World Cup 2007 groupings, along with Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bermuda.

India will play its first warm-up match against the Netherlands on March 06, 2007 at Trelawny Stadium in Jamaica, and it will start its Group Stage matches against Bangladesh on March 17 in Trinidad and Tobago. India will play a total of 3 matches in Group Stage, and if it qualifies for the Second Stage - Super 8, it will contest in 6 matches to enter semi finals and then finals on April 28 at Kensington Oval, Barbados.

India Match Schedule – ICC Cricket World Cup 2007

India Warm-up Match Schedule*

Date	Matches	Venue
06 March, 2007	India vs. Netherlands	Trelawny Stadium, Jamaica
09 March, 2007	India vs. West Indies	Trelawny Stadium, Jamaica

* No points will be awarded for these matches.

India Group Stage Match Schedule

Date	Matches	Venue
17 March, 2007	India vs. Bangladesh	Trinidad and Tobago
19 March, 2007	India vs. Bermuda	Trinidad and Tobago
23 March, 2007	India vs. Sri Lanka	Trinidad and Tobago

ICC Cricket World Cup 2007

2007-02-26T02:36:00.000-06:00

The two time winner of the ICC Cricket World Cup, West Indies, will be hosting the ICC Cricket world cup. The event will take place between March 11 to April 28, 2007, where 16 nations divided into 4 groups of 4 teams each will contest in a total of fifty-one matches.

The Opening Ceremony of the tournament will be hosted on March 13 at Sabina Park, Jamaica and ends with the final on April 28 at Kensington Oval, Barbados.

Eight venues have been selected to host the final tournament and four additional venues to host the warm-up matches. For the first time in the history of ICC Cricket World Cup, the tournament will be hosted by the West Indies and will be spread across several Host Venues. It will be played in 9 beautiful Caribbean countries. They are: Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitts & Nevis, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines and Trinidad & Tobago.

ICC Cricket World Cup West Indies 2007 Inc. (ICC CWC WI 2007) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB). It has its own board of directors vested with the responsibilities of planning, managing and executing the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 in the Caribbean.

Starting Date: March 13, 2007.

Ending Date: April 28, 2007.

Host: West Indies.

Teams Played:

Group A : South Africa, Australia, Scotland, The Netherlands.
Group B : India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bermuda.
Group C : England, New Zeland, Kenya, Canada.
Group D : Pakistan, Zimbabwe, West Indies, Ireland.

Gamers make better surgeons ??!!!!! huh!!!

2007-02-20T16:53:00.000-06:00

Came across this interesting article on CNET News.com covering the study published Monday in the February issue of Archives of Surgery that says "Playing video games appears to help surgeons with skills that truly count: how well they operate using a precise technique"

The study also mentions: "There was a strong correlation between video game skills and a surgeon's capabilities performing laparoscopic surgery".

I, for one, don't want my doctor to practice his game skills on me!!!! Jokes apart, its an interesting study!!!!

Read the story: Gamers make better surgeons, study says

Back from my vacation...

2007-02-20T16:41:00.000-06:00

Sorry for not being to post for almost a week.... I took a small vacation and went to San Antonio, TX. This was my first trip to SA and it was a lot of fun. Went with my best friend and his wife... walked & enjoyed a nice boat ride @ River Walk, saw the The Alamo, shopped at Market Square and Prime Outlet mall. It was a lot of fun... I will post some pictures later.

Its good to be back!

Happy Valentine's Day

2007-02-14T15:35:00.000-06:00

Wish everyone a sweet and love-filled Valentine's Day!

Shripriya, I did help the economy with cards, flowers and chocolate. Happy V-Day day to you too!

Have a great one! :D

US Telecom Market Grew 9.3% to $923B in 2006; Worldwide Market Hits $3 trillion

2007-02-14T15:23:00.000-06:00

According to TIA’s 2007 Telecommunications Market Review and Forecast, the U.S. telecommunications market grew 9.3% in 2006, the fastest rate since 2000, to $923 billion in revenue, while the worldwide telecommunications market grew 11.2% to $3 trillion in revenue.

Microsoft Launches “PlayReady”

2007-02-13T09:56:00.000-06:00

Amid industry-wide speculation of where the DRM technologies will be heading in the next few years, Microsoft yesterday anounced a new DRM system “PlayReady” at 3GSM Conference.

The concept of “PlayReady” is a system- or platform-agnostic technology that does not hide access keys for individual devices. Rather, it holds a common key to a set of devices (defined as “a domain”) and content providers and device manufacturers can decide how many and what types of devices the key can unlock. From Microsoft’s press release, it appears that the technology is designed for the ultimate convergence experience: consumers will be able to enjoy multimedia content across PC, TV, and mobile phone.

Press Release: Microsoft Announces Breakthrough Technology Enabling Simple Access to Broad Set of Digital Content, Including Music, Games, Video, Ring Tones and Pictures

YOU KNOW YOU ARE LIVING IN 2007 when...

2007-02-13T09:48:00.000-06:00

1 You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.

2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.

3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.

4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.

5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses

6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.

7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen.

8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.

10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee.

11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )

12. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.

13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.

14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.

15 You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list

AND NOW U R LAUGHING at yourself....

About a week ago, here's what Boston actually thought...

2007-02-13T09:42:00.000-06:00

Osama Team Hunger Force (ATHF terror freakout parody video)

Terrorist guy 1: "What if people don't see it?"
Terrorist guy 2: "We light it up..."
Terrorist guy 1: "But what if people still don't see it?"
Terrorist guy 2: "We make it BLIIIINNNNK!"
Osama: "Genius!"

(Source: collegehumor.com)

Impact of SecondLife

2007-02-10T18:40:00.000-06:00

An interview on Channel 4’s Richard & Judy show with three Second Life residents: Fizik Baskerville (aka Rivers Run Red’s Justin Bovington), Slim Warrior (aka musician Leo Wolff) and Errol Mysterio (aka author Tim Guest who’s written a book about his Second Life experience).

IIT Delhi guys video of omkara song Beedi jala le

2007-02-10T00:54:00.000-06:00

Check out this funny video - very funny!!!

Dallas Mavericks hammer Houston Rockets

2007-02-09T23:56:00.000-06:00

The Mavericks outmatched the Rockets with stifling defense en route to Friday's 95-74 triumph. Josh Howard recorded 22 points for Dallas, which has now won a franchise best 17th straight at home. Jason Terry added 18 points.

PS: Oh and this Wiki thing is catching on like wild-fire... our own Mavericks also have a wiki now:

The Official MavsWiki is a collaboration of Mavs history, official stats and the all important FAN perspective. Editing of this site is open to all and we encourage everyone to share thoughts, comments and photos of their experiences with Mavs.

Why I love Fridays...

2007-02-09T23:34:00.000-06:00

Friday is my favorite day of the week... specially when I get back home from work.... I can finally relax, think about and give some serious time to other things are important to me - like sleeping hard and being totally lazy in the most efficient manner... and, of course, abuse, yell and scream at myself for not paying that bill on time... and for not being able to make it to the gym more regularly....

Life is going so fast... work is hectic... too many things going on at this time... I am building a new house so I have to visit that once every week (that reminds me I have to post some pictures - I have a freaking busy sleeping schedule, so if I get some time I will do the needful)... and then there is other stuff(!!!).... but I made a resolution that this year I will be a better blogger... and I think I am doing reasonably ok!!!

(PS: My ultimate favorite evening of the week happens to be WEDNESDAY! :-) That is when I see mi vida)

Forget Second Life. Get a First Life

2007-02-06T14:59:00.000-06:00

TechCrunch points to this really funny parody site called “Get a First Life” created by Darren Barefoot who is bemused by the amount of hype and attention the game…er…virtual world has been receiving.

Super Bowl Ads

2007-02-05T21:34:00.000-06:00

My favorite ones:

Congratulations, Indianapolis Colts -- SuperBowl XLI Champions!

2007-02-05T08:31:00.000-06:00

The Indianapolis Colts won the Super Bowl for the first time since the franchise’s relocation to the Circle City in 1984 with a 29-14 win over the Chicago Bears in super-soggy Miami.

I am so happy for Payton & specially for coach Dungy - not because he is the first ever african-american coach to win, but for his personality, for the way he coaches. He calls it the "Gods way" - with faith in God and each other. WoW! I respect him so much. The team does too and I think that is reflected in his teams performance year over year and now the well-deserved championship. Payton manning is a future hall-of-famer. He is the best in the business. Well done Payton.

So, after the congratulations, let us go over the game:

Chicago’s Devin Hester put the Colts in a hole early, returning the opening kickoff 92 yards for a touchdown. The first quarter was most exciting and was full of turn-overs and drama.

The Colts answered at the 6:58 mark of the first quarter when Reggie Wayne broke loose in the Bears’ secondary for a 53-yard TD reception. Indianapolis settled for six points, however, when the extra point snap was bobbled.

Set up by a 52-yard run by Thomas Jones, Chicago went up 14-6 when Rex Grossman hit Mushin Muhammad in the end zone from four yards out.

The Colts pulled to within five at 14-9 with 11:17 left in the second quarter on a 29-yard field goal by Adam Vinatieri, and took a 16-14 lead on Dominic Rhodes’ 1-yard TD run with 3:08 remaining in the first half.

After turnovers on consecutive plays by both teams gave the Colts the ball back in Bear territory, Vinatieri missed from 36 yards out on the final play of the half.

Vinatieri came through on the first possession of the second half, hitting a 24-yard field goal to cap a 13-play, 56-yard drive that ate 7:34 off the clock and put the Colts up 19-14. He then made it an eight-point lead with a 20-yarder with 3:20 left in the quarter.

Robbie Gould ended the Bears’ scoring drought with a 44-yard field goal with 1:18 left in the quarter.

With 11:44 remaining, Kelvin Hayden intercepted Grossman and returned it 56 yards for a score — one that held up after the play was reviewed — to put the Colts up 28-17.

The Colts’ defense intercepted Grossman and forced a turnover on downs on Chicago’s next two possessions, and kept the Bears nowhere near the end zone to end the game.

The Colts had the ball just over twice as long as the Bears, and dominated most every statistical category. Peyton Manning was named MVP after hitting on 25-of-38 throws for 247 yards, one touchdown, and one interception.

With the win a lot of milestones were reached for the Colts:

It’s the second time in 35 years that they won the Superbowl.
It’s the first time they’ve won it as the “Indianapolis” Colts.
The Colts became the first “dome” team to win in an outdoor stadium.
Tony Dungy became the first african-american coach to win the Superbowl.
Dungy (Player - Steelers, Coach - Colts) became the only 3rd person in NFL history after Tom Flores (Player - Chiefs, Coach - Raiders) and Mike Ditka (Player - Dolphins, Coach - Bears) to have won the Superbowl both as a player and head coach.

80M IPTV subs by 2011 (Strategy Analytics)

2007-02-01T16:52:00.001-06:00

According to a report from Strategy Analytics, over the next five years IPTV subscribers will grow to a staggering 80 million worldwide from just under 6 million IPTV households today. Additionally, the number of households worldwide that pay directly for IPTV service will rise from 3.3 million in 2006 to 40.9 million in 2011. Currently, about 55 percent of IPTV households pay directly for IPTV services while most of the remaining subscribers receive IPTV service as part of a bundle. In five years, we can look forward to a decline in the percentage of direct-paying IPTV households, as the industry increasingly favors service bundles.

For more on this report:
- see the write-up over at TVover.net

ConvinceMe - arguing oline

2007-02-01T15:14:00.000-06:00

For all the compulsive argue-ers, now there is a website where they can go all out and argue all they want... without getting bitch-slapped or knocked-down. Honestly I can't believe that someone would think there is a business model around something like this. If it becomes popular, then yeah maybe some ads revenue. But would that be enough to sustain the company? I don't know if there is a huge demand for something like this, but it sure looks interesting...

ConvinceMe is a new competitive arguing site launching tonight. It will let debaters carry out public debates, head to head arguments, and a “King of the Hill” free for all about any subject they like. Other argument sites, like Hot Soup and LoveToLead, have focused on sobering issues, like political or philosophical debates and polls. Comment threads and forums have also been great places for people to argue. Just look at the comments for Do the Right Thing.

ConvinceMe lets members talk about anything and ranks them based on how many “convince” points they get from user voting for their argument. Private debates are issued as public challenges from one member to another and end when one site has gained the agreed number of votes for their side. For public debates, each side’s arguments are ordered by the number of votes the arguments have. “King of the Hill” is a twist on the challenge debate, with each member only able to submit one argument for their position. The first argument with 100 votes wins. The final type, public debates are ongoing, with the votes for one side or the other marking the overall opinion of the community on the subject.

ConvinceMe just launched and hopefully they will convince me...

9/11 Mysteries (Full Length, High Quality)

2007-01-31T13:25:00.000-06:00

Interesting video:

This is what happens when you gossip at work

2007-01-30T17:13:00.000-06:00

Predictions for Superbowl 2006

2007-01-16T01:08:00.000-06:00

Bears vs Saints : NFC Championship Game

Saints win this one... They deserve to. They have the best offense, coached by last year's Cowboys offensive coordinator - this year's coach of the year - Sean Payton - and are by far the most creative and exciting team to watch - and they play with so much emotion! (very much required to win playoff games)

Colts vs Patriots : AFC Championship Game

Colts better win this... they became my favorite team after Cowboys lost. I think this is going to be a thriller. This can turn out to be a more exciting game than the Superbowl 2006. Payton Manning deserves to play in the Superbowl (and win it).

Superbowl 2006: Colts vs. Saints

COLTS WIN IT ALL!!!

Go Colts...

Skype founders name new video start-up Joost

2007-01-15T16:56:00.000-06:00

Company executives had referred to the new company for months by the codename "The Venice Project." They chose Joost because they like the ring of it, according to a spokeswoman. The word doesn't have any meaning in Danish.

CNet has the story

Why damaka is good for Enterprises?

2007-01-13T22:37:00.000-06:00

A friend asked me this question last night... Some of the key points of my response are listed below:

damaka is great for enterprises that are looking for a secure, standards-based communication and collaboration application, to provide productivity features but keeping the costs down.

Benefits of damaka

End-to-End Secure:

One of the biggest concerns, Enterprises have is Security. Skype, with its supernodes can be an IT admin’s worst nightmare. But damaka’s solution is “end-to-end secure” (signaling and media) and allows administrators to have “complete control” over the network.
Standards-Based (Peer-to-Peer, SIP - Session Initiation Protocol):
With damaka’s SIP-based, P2P enterprise solution, businesses of all sizes can combine voice, video, data, real-time presence, instant messaging (with cross over to other protocols), and various applications for richer, more integrated communications on one converged IP network.
Enterprises can streamline system administration, desktop and endpoint management by integrating their IP PBX for conferencing, unified messaging, and other media on the same SIP network, and eliminate multiple admin interfaces as well as the need for separate IT voice teams and data teams.
Save Money - damaka-to-damaka audio & video calls are completely free. Enterprises can also enjoy free audio & video conferencing. damaka PC-to-Phone feature DialOut allows businesses to save a lot of money on phone calls. They can save a lot of money with reduced cost of operation as damaka is peer-to-peer. Enterprises can go with either fully managed, damaka-hosted or in-house-network solution.
- Increase Productivity – Real-time Presence, Instant messaging (with IMConnectivity you can connect to MSN, Yahoo, AOL, GTalk and ICQ from within damaka) , Group chats, conference calls, video conferencing, Desktop sharing help improve productivity.

damaka website
damaka's enterprise offering
Features list of damaka
ELSUA thinks damaka is fun to use and helps improve team building

Go ahead download damaka and add me as your contact if you want to test out the features:
My damaka id: chandan

A closer look at iPhone

2007-01-12T13:05:00.000-06:00