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Behavioral patterns

Recently was going through the software design patterns. Well, for people who are alien to the software, design patterns are the solutions to the most commonly occurring problems in design. They are tested and proven. You can say that they are analogous to the axioms, which are true, foolproof and don't need to be proved so. Now my intention is not give any gyaan on a technical topic. You can get a lot of info from various links that are available across the internet. There are a bunch of design solutions that are well proven. And if you are a software architect and come across a problem in a context you SHOULD be using one of them. (Sometimes it might not serve the purpose but still... people use for the heck of it). Well, what does such design solutions or patterns do? Of course, they will remove the burden of finding a foolproof solution to the most commonly occurring problem. But is that all? No. They limit your thinking, analyzing and solution finding capacity. Any ready made solution kills the urge and the curiosity to find better solutions. I can give you a better example; all of us have solved maths problems in our school days. When the teacher used to solve them on the board did any one of us thought that there could be a better solution? Worst, we used to note that and solve the them in the same way in the exam. Applying this to the design patterns... Do they help in solving the problems in software design or do they limit the inherent thinking capacity of humans? Recently had an opportunity to interact with an eminent Prof of IIITB (IIITB is a deemed institute in Bangalore and offers postgraduate courses.) According to him, patterns (could be architectural or software) came up when there was a need to offer solution to same type of problem. Why would you think for the different way when there was ready made, existing solution for the problem? This surely does not mean that people stop finding better patterns. Human mind is truly amazing, a ready made (and a so-called foolproof) solution before you and your mind just uses it blindly.

Another example to prove the unusual behavior of human mind. Imagine that you have an important meeting in the office and leave home early. When you are half way through, you discover that the municipal corporation has dug the road in between to carry out construction task. It is the only known road to you and you are in a hurry to reach the office. Luckily a friend who is accompanying you knows an alternate route and you follow his directions. While returning from office you follow the same alternate route. Applying the readymade solution funda, how many of us would pause and think for a better route? Only a few I guess. You take the same route for office for next few months. Then one fine day, municipal corporation is done with the construction work and opens the original route. Now which route do you use? I can bet that most of you would still have the urge to use the new alternate route in spite of knowing that the original route is open. The simple reason is that your mind which is accustomed to using the new route is now reluctant to revert back to the original route. Human mind prefers stability and resists change. Nature has bestowed precious human minds with unusual gifts. Most of them are awaiting to be discovered… More of this some other time…

Hmm... Quite a lengthy post. Will get back to you when my mind comes up with an urge to write. Till then, take care and God bless.

Free telescope by Microsoft

Microsoft has launched a new software that is expected to create waves in the world of astronomy and Internet, WorldWideTelescope. However this is more of a surprise to most of us because you can download this free. Yeah you read it right.. It is absolutely free. It has been launched on May 13 2008 (Got the date from a news web site). The link was forwarded to me by a friend. I was curious to explore and started accessing the link.

Here are some of my observations with the telescope software:

• The website UI looks sophisticated and matured with the night sky in the background.

• The installation procedure is pretty easy but takes long time. The installation file(setupwwt.exe) is of size 20.8 MB. Download it from the website and run it. The installation file will in turn start downloading necessary files (Microsoft .Net 2.0 and others).

• The application has a very good, mature UI. Something I liked (I want to learn how you do such a good UI design :) ). But it was slow, memory problem I guess. However the screen too many options and you have get used to it before gaining some comfort level in navigating across the screen.

• Lots of images, I read that the application has access to around 12 tera bytes of data.

I heard about a similar venture from Google few months ago. Sometime back Google had launched a software Google sky which provides easy way to access to images of astronomical bodies. It is available as a plug in to Google earth or as a link through which you can start using the facility directly without downloading.

However I found that,

• You can easily access the facility. No need of any installation procedure. :)

• The UI is pretty simple. No unnecessary options. It is fast. :)
  

The images are good in both the applications.

At the end of the day, I would prefer:

For UI and looks: WorldWideTelescope.

For the ease of use: Google Sky.

Microsoft might have launched WorldWideTelescope as a response to Google Sky. However it has dedicated this application to Jim Gray, the brain behind the entire application. Jim Gray is missing since Jan 28 after he went on a solo boating trip.

That’s all for now. Happy exploring !!!

Links :

WorldWideTelescope

Google sky

Jim Gray

Tagged...

I am unofficially tagged by sady... so here it goes..

1. LAST MOVIE YOU SAW IN A THEATER

Aramane, a kannada movie. You could rate it as an average..

2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING?

Windmills of the Gods by Sidney Sheldon


3. FAVORITE BOARD GAME?

none.

4. FAVORITE MAGAZINE?

Reader's Digest, India Today


5. FAVORITE SMELLS?

Smell of wet soil, petrol, nail enamel

6. FAVORITE SOUND?

Rain droplets falling on leaves and trees. You can experience this in places where the vegetation is dense.

7. WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD?

Betrayals and breaching of trust.

8. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE?

Morning already? wanna sleep for some more time :)


9. FAVORITE FAST FOOD PLACE?

Fast food? hmmm... nothing specific. Any place where they serve good fast food.

10. FUTURE CHILD'S NAME?

haha.. not yet decided. But i like the names, Parikshith, Kshitij, Menita, Vaidehi.

11. FINISH THIS STATEMENT. "IF I HAD A LOT OF MONEY I'D...?

First pay income tax, then buy few good modern gadgets and gifts for near and dear ones. Would invest rest of the amount in the fields which would provide good returns.

12. DO YOU DRIVE FAST?

No.


13. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL?

No.

14. STORMS-COOL OR SCARY?

Cool :)

15. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR?

Yet to buy one.

16. FAVORITE DRINK?

Chilled mint and lemon juice, rose milk shake, strawberry milk shake.

17. FINISH THIS STATEMENT, "IF I HAD THE TIME I WOULD .....

Sleep and read a lot.

18. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS ON BROCCOLI?

Broccoli

19. IF YOU COULD DYE YOUR HAIR ANY COLOR, WHAT WOULD BE YOUR CHOICE?

Burgandy.

20. NAME ALL THE DIFFERENT CITIES/TOWNS YOU HAVE LIVED IN.

Bangalore, Kinnigoli, Mulki, Mangalore, Hubli and Mysore.

21. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?

Gymnastics.

22. ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU.

Always speaks her mind :) .

23. WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED?

Shoes, sandals and two buckets.

24. WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE BORN AS YOURSELF AGAIN?

Yup.

25. MORNING PERSON, OR NIGHT OWL?

For 5 days a week, I am a morning person. For the remaining 2 days, I am a night owl.

26. OVER EASY, OR SUNNY SIDE UP?

Sunny side up.


27. FAVORITE PLACE TO RELAX?

Bed.

28. FAVORITE PIE?

hmmm.. none.


29. FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR?

Black current.

30. OF ALL THE PEOPLE YOU TAGGED THIS TO, WHO'S MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND FIRST?

hmmm.... Sady is always the first to respond. But as she was the one who tagged me I need to wait and watch who among others will respond first.

New Look...

I just changed the look and feel of my blog :) .Looks great right? The page looks elegant and feminine now. One of my team mate forwarded the link to Pratima Jayaram's blog. The blogger uses a template powered by Final Sense. Navigating to the website, I found out that it is dedicated to provide variety of services. One of them is the free blogger templates. Clear steps are mentioned for using the template in blog. However the steps given are for blogs supported by Blogger.com. I don't know if they support LiveJournal or Wordpress. You can check it out. There are various categories in the templates like 3-Column, Animal, Architecture etc. I browsed through some of them and found this one to be good. This one is from the 'Women' category.

Note: Better save your current template before you migrate. The custom titles which you might have added will not be migrated to the new template. I underwent this and found that the blog roll list which was maintained is lost with the previous template. I have to add it once again :(.

That's one part of the change. Apart from this I have changed the url of the blog too.
The new blog url is http://mortalzlife.blogspot.com/. The previous url http://poornimaprabhu.blogspot.com is no longer valid.
The reason for this change?. Well, I really don't know. Just felt like changing and going underground for next couple of days. Moreover anonymity brings certain privileges you see :).

The blog renovation does not end here. I would like to plugin some more features site hit counter, feeds, messenger, shout box etc. Let me see how it goes. Thats all for now.
Btw.. I would like to thank Suresh, my team mate who forwarded the link to Pratima's blog and my supervisors for not assigning me any task for day. Without them I would not have been able to renovate my blog. ;) See you soon. Till then, take care.

One year in IT industry.

I recently completed one year in IT industry. I am recollecting my experiences as a fresher a year ago. Frankly I don’t know what to say. Shall I say that I have matured as an individual or shall I say that this exposure has brought me face to face with some truths of life.. I joined this software firm as a campus recruit. To some extent I knew what to expect as a fresher.Still, other facets were unknown. Anyways I coped up with this transition. I wont mention the regular training schedules and the induction into project which followed, as most of you might be familiar with this phase. But I would like to mention few things that I learned as a professional/individual. Some of them are…

--> When given an opportunity to do challenging things, do accept it. In the end what matters is not whether you execute the task successfully or not but whether you handled it well with responsibility. There is always scope for people who take responsibilities.

• Have the humility to take responsibility for failures.

• Don’t rely on people every time. Help yourself whenever the need arises. Have the courage to explore solutions beyond limitations.

• A ‘Yes’ can mean a ‘No’. But a ‘No’ always means a ‘No’.

• Whenever offered help don’t reject it.

• Learn to hear between words and read between lines. This will help in anticipating crisis.

• Have lots of patience as there are many dumb people here.

• Be humble enough to learn things.

• Apart from that you need to have the regular stuff, communication skills, presentation skills, networking skills and blah blah..

There are few other changes that have impacted my personal life as well.

• I have become an addict to chat engines gtalk and yahoo. Trying desperately to kick this habit J. My work place provides me with free internet (chat) usage. This explains all. Hey, I do work. It is just that I cant concentrate on work if I am not online… (Hope my PM is not reading this :D) Well this don’t reply to pings if I am busy.

• You lose touch with your mates and close friends from your college. This happens if you are not staying together or when you don’t meet during weekends. Meeting during weekends is out of question as you are occupied with other things ;) . Initially you keep in touch through mails/chat/phone calls, eventually this practice will fade away. Gradually they will be too busy to reply to your mails or you will be too busy to notice their messages (will write about this in a separate entry).

• You get into habit of checking mails every now and then.

• You eagerly wait for weekends .

Hmmm… looks enough for now. It is really hard to summarize the changes of one year in one page. Well, I did my best. This is all for now...

Please, leave a comment before you navigate away from this blog .

Guru Poornima at Hubli

Last weekend I had been to Hubli. My grand parents stay there and its been almost a year since I saw them. There was another reason for my being there. I had been there to take part in the Guru Poornima Mahotsav which is celebrated annually by the Sanatan Sanstha. Sanatan Sanstha is a spiritual organization which is striving hard to revive ancient Hindu culture. My granny and aunt are active members of this organization. Well I am not a staunch follower of the organization, but I do appreciate some of the values preached there. This was the third time I was participating in this event and it has become an annual ritual for me now. Every time I attend this event, life has posed a new turn for me. I remember, first time when I attended this event, I got a job unexpectedly.

This year when I attended, I was put into a new and challenging project all of a sudden. I don’t know what you call this. ‘Miracle’ is too strong a word to be used to describe this. But I believe in and have faith in this annual ritual. Every time I attend this event, my instinct tells me that something exciting will happen soon. And this has been happening every time. I really don’t know weather it is faith or something else, but something does happen when I attend the event. Every one has their own faiths and beliefs and it is this that adds more value to every day life. Some times such rituals might seem foolish and useless, but you feel at ease when you perform them. Such rituals could be pertaining to divinity or could be relating to normal life. Whatever it may be, it helps in self actualization.

I am still coping up with the turn in my life this event has brought about. At the same time I am eagerly waiting for Guru Poornima next year and I am sure something more exciting will happen then.