Planet FLOSS India

Shrinivasan: கணியம் – இதழ் 2

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 08:27:49 +0000

வணக்கம்.

கணியம் முதல் இதழுக்கு கிடைத்த பெரும் வரவேற்புக்கு நன்றி. கட்டுரைகள் எழுதிய அனைவருக்கும் உங்கள் பராட்டுகளையும் நன்றிகளையும் அர்ப்பணிக்கிறேன்.

தற்போது இணையத்தில், கட்டட்ற மென்பொருட்கள் பற்றிய பல தகவல்கள் தமிழிலேயே கிடைக்கின்றன. அவற்றை எழுதும் அனைத்து நண்பர்களிக்கும் நன்றிகள். மேலும் புதிய பல எழுத்தாளர்களை உருவாக்கும் வகையிலும், இணைய இணைப்பு இல்லாதவர்களும் படிக்கும் வகையிலும், கணியம் வளர்ந்து வருகிறது. இந்த பிடிஎஃப் கோப்புகளை உங்கள் நண்பர்கள் அனைவரிடமும் பகிர்ந்து கொள்ளுங்கள்.

இம்மாதம், ரிச்சர்ட் ஸ்டால்மனின் வருகை, தமிழகத்திற்கு பெருமை சேர்க்கிறது. அவர் உரை கேட்க, அனைவரையும் அழைக்கிறேன். விவரங்கள் உள்ளே.

‘கணியம்’ தொடர்ந்து வளர, உங்களது உழைப்பும் தேவை. கட்டுரைகள், படங்கள், ஓவியங்கள், புத்தக அறிமுகம், துணுக்குகள், நகைச்சுவைகள் என உங்களது படைப்புகளையும் editor @ kaniyam.com என்ற மின்னஞ்சல் முகவரிக்கு அனுப்பலாம்.

இந்த இதழின் கட்டுரைகள் :

ஓப்பன் சோர்ஸ் – ஓர் எளிய அறிமுகம்
பொறியியல் மாணவர்களுக்கான சிறந்த FOSS மென்பொருள்கள்
தட்டச்சுக்கான கட்டற்ற மென்பொருள்
Stellarium – வானவியல் கற்போம்
மொழிபெயர்ப்போம், வாருங்கள்
CAD – Computer Aided Drawing – வரைகலை பயன்பாடுகள்
Scribus – ஒரு DTP மென்பொருள் – பாகம் – 2
விண்டோஸ் இயங்குதளத்தை நிறுவிய பிறகு ஏற்கனவே நிறுவியிருந்த உபுண்டு லினக்ஸை திரும்பக்கொண்டு வருவது எப்படி?
வேண்டுகோள்: ஜிகாம்பிரிஸ் – சத்தம் மொழிபெயர்ப்பு
Command Line அற்புதங்கள்
வாசகர் கருத்துகள்
Note pad ++ இலவச உரைப்பான்
பிப்ரவரியில் FOSS உலகம்
jQuery வீடியோ வகுப்புகள்
ரிச்சர்டு ஸ்டால்மன்
இலவச மென்பொருள் குழுமம், தமிழ் நாடு
நிகழ்வுகள்
உரிமைகள்
கணியம் பற்றி

அனைவரிடமும் பகிர்ந்து கொள்ளுங்கள்.

நன்றி.

ஸ்ரீனி
ஆசிரியர்,
கணியம்

பதிவிறக்கம் செய்ய :

http://www.kaniyam.com/releas-2/

Shrinivasan: Kaniyam – 02

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 08:26:25 +0000

Friends.

Thanks for all your wishes for Kaniyam. I dedicate your wishes to the
contributors. Nowadays, articles related to FOSS in tamil are
increasing in internet. Kaniyam works in creating new tamil writers
and reaching those who dont have internet connectivity. Please share
this PDF files with your friends.

TamilNadu prouds on the visit of Richard Stallman. I invite you all to
attend his talk. Read more the pdf for details.

Kaniyam requires your contributions. Please send articles, tips,
drawings, photos, book review, fun to editor @ kaniyam.com

This issue contains the following articles in Tamil:

Open Source – An Introduction
Free Open Source Software for Engineering
Typing Tool
Stellarium
Computer Aided Drawing
Scribus – A DTP Software
How to restore Linux after a reinstall of Windows
Request for GCompris – sound translation
Commandline tricks
Readers Voice
Notepad++
Foss World in February
JQuery – video classes
Richard Stallman
Free Software Foundation TamilNadu
Events
Licences
About Kaniyam

Download it from
http://www.kaniyam.com/releas-2/

Shrinivasan: Guide to OSS contributions

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 05:56:33 +0000

http://open-advice.org

Have seen a few folks ask questions on how to contribute to OSS. Here
is one site that has come up for that. Person has written a book too.

http://open-advice.org/Open-Advice.pdf

It would be apt if those espousing the cause of FOSS use this as
reading material for their wards and also encourage educational
institutions to recommend this as reading so that the urge to make
contributions is served.

Shrinivasan: Google Summer of Code 2012 Announced

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 05:14:03 +0000

Google Summer of Code will be happening for its eighth year this year. Please check out the blog post [1] about the program and read the FAQs [2] and Timeline [3] on Melange for more information.

[1] – http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2012/02/google-summer-of-code-2012-is-on.html

[2] – http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/document/show/gsoc_program/google/gsoc2012/faqs

[3] – http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/events/google/gsoc2012

Nirav Mehta: Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-02-05

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 21:10:00 +0000

Interesting geeky week so far.. Released updates to 3 products. Updates to Titanium, Wunderkit and Sencha Touch 2 alter my year plan.. #
Interesting read for geeks: The Trello Tech Stack on Fog Creek blog http://t.co/LFxUttu9 via @fogcreek #

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-02-05 Interesting geeky week so far.. Released updates to 3 products....
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-01-08 "Money can't buy happiness, but neither can poverty." – Leo...
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-01-08 "Money can't buy happiness, but neither can poverty." – Leo...

Nirav Mehta: Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-02-05

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 21:10:00 +0000

Interesting geeky week so far.. Released updates to 3 products. Updates to Titanium, Wunderkit and Sencha Touch 2 alter my year plan.. #
Interesting read for geeks: The Trello Tech Stack on Fog Creek blog http://t.co/LFxUttu9 via @fogcreek #

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-02-05 Interesting geeky week so far.. Released updates to 3 products....
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-01-08 "Money can't buy happiness, but neither can poverty." – Leo...
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-01-08 "Money can't buy happiness, but neither can poverty." – Leo...

Arun Chaganty: Colour the World Yellow

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 19:41:55 +0000

It’s been quite a long time since I posted anything, and indeed since I’ve coherently expressed myself in a non-technical format (well, I wonder if this counts, given its lack of coherency). Here goes to creaking rusty joints, in the name of my recent loss of self-expression:

Whilst the sky bleeds blue’s true hue,
Could I colour the world yellow?
Would pigments blend softly and slew
into dearth earthen, fallow.

Joyful regret, smiling hides nothing,
but colours few; lost in shades,
Wouldst the lonely figments meeting,
cohere? Memory evades…

When black and white flow white and black,
Could flowers bloom but grey?
With hollow stares, we change tack
till justice, fears allay.

: A review of the movie "The Road"

nav007@gmail.com — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 12:53:09 +0000

"Are you carrying the fire" asked the little boy with the pointed gun. He dreamt of being a good boy, as all the boys at such an innocent age do. The world around him is brutal & harsh and it's slowly coming to an end. There is fear,scarcity (of food), cannibalism and above all no prospect of a stable future. The houses have all burnt out, plants don't grow anymore and the trees are falling. There is no sunlight and as the world is overcast by gripping shadow of cloud & fear all around, there are some who still carry the fire of civilization within. Probably a Human face in the light of adversity;"Are we still the good guys...we always will be no matter what happens","We would never eat anybody, would we...".

And as the boy and his father travel further south, scavenging through the streets, in the hope that it will be warmer there, they encounter various difficulties of survival. The boy is a soft meat and there is every chance that he will be eaten alive. Unlike the typical cannibal/mutant tamasha films of Hollywood (like I am Legend, Legion & Resident Evil) which are so unreal, these are real cannibals who are forced to eat their own kind to survive. Some of the surviving families have even built concentration camp style basements where they keep skinny but live people to be cooked and eaten later.

The father has a solution; he has saved two bullets, one for himself and one for his son. He has even taught him to shoot himself, when faced with no other alternative. But he is trying to prepare him; for a brutal & lawless society, where survival is the only purpose left. He still read him stories and upon his last breadth tells the boy to carry his gun & find good people...

Chetan Patil: AC To 12 Volt DC

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 11:35:14 +0000

Here is the circuit which I implemented to get 12 Volt DC from AC. The main components were 12 Volt AC step down transformer, 1N4007 Diode, 4700 uF and 1uF electrolytic capacitor, two 100 nF ceramic capacitor and the IC used to regulate the voltage is LM7812 to get 12 volt on output.

This is the circuit :

This is the breadboard implementation :

And this is the implementation on general purpose PCB :

For me the circuit is working out smoothly that too considering that I never made a power supply on my own. Again recalling Why I Didn't Do These Stuff In College!!. Anyway if trying it out then do it carefully. AC supply can do Bheja Fry !

Prakash Advani: How a chef made the move to Linux

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 02:41:01 +0000

Chef Yash Amin, is our guest blogger today. He is greatest chef I have known and has moved to Ubuntu, here is his experience.

Why i made the move from being a slave to windows to open source and Linux.

For years since I’ve been using computers, windows has been the mainstay of things and although I had heard about Linux, was hesistant to try it because for a non-technical person like me. I dabble a lot with computers, but at the end of the day I’m a chef and the maximum that I’m able to do with a laptop is add more RAM. (in terms of hardware). The biggest reason, not to change was quite simple really, noone likes too much of a change in lifestyle / clothes or even their OS.
But with the hundreds upon hundreds of security patches, updates, slow working systems being tied down to paying for new software, was gettting to be too much. After i have switched to Ubuntu/Linux working on the laptop just seems easier, it boots ups faster, the updates are seamless and take a few minutes at the most. it has a graphic user interface (GUI) so theres easy to click on icons for everything to do and best of all, my favourite open source game nethack is now made for Linux too, so I can play with it as much as I can.
even though 12 years after first starting to play nethack, have still to crack the game and ascend as a demi god!!
Switch to Linux, now and save yourselves endless frustration, virus updates, security patches upon more and more and all in one package. Just download and your good to go.

after so much tech or not so much tech talk, i need to talk something about food.

The art of making a great tasting chocolate mousse

This assumes a few things and is not a DIY for dummies chocolate mousse recipe, but rather aimed at a few people who are passionate about dark chocolate. Dark chocolate is a sinful thing almost and most people will enjoy it as a guilty pleasure. A well made mousse takes that to even more dizzying heights and can be really delicious and smooth and creamy. Enough talking, now lets walk the talk.

For a family sized portion or if you are particularly greedy this is how much you would need.

Dark chocolate broken into small pieces- 200 gms(if you can get one with 50 percent+ cocoa solids then even better). Even Cadbury’s make one called old gold. If not then use Cadbury’s dairy milk and add about 30 gms of the darkest cocoa powder that you can find.

Butter – 30 gms
Eggs – 3 numbers
Sugar- between 60-100 gms (if you want it more or less sweet)
Cream – 250 ml
Alcohol-(rum/ whisky/ or a liqueur (baileys, kahlua, cointreau or similar)- optional, but adds another hint of wickedness to the final product.- about 20 ml

Process

Beat the eggs and sugar over a double boiler (pot with hot water over a low heat). The water should not touch the eggs but just be lightly simmering otherwise you will get sweet scrambled eggs. The consistency to try and achieve is very very fluffy and creamy and when stirred leaves a trail or when poured is ribbony.
Melt the chocolate and butter together, just melted about 40 seconds in a microwave is generally enough. This should be done while the eggs are getting beaten. If you are using milk chocolate then add cocoa after the mix is well melted. Add in the alcohol if you like and mix well.
Whisk the cream till its almost double in volume and forms soft peaks. Keep chilled. Do not over beat otherwise will split and turn into butter.
Mix in the chocolate mixture gently into the eggs and sugar mix.
Take of the heat and allow to cool down slightly.
Fold in the whipped cream. ie. gently mix it in trying not to lose all the air which has been incorporated while whisking. Taste the mix by dipping in finger and licking clean. Yes this essential quality control measure
Put into individual glass bowls and refrigerate until set – about 2-3 hours. It can even be frozen quite successfully and eaten frozen like a rich ice cream or used a filling for a cake/ tart.
Enjoy your chocolate mousse and Linux with family and friends.

For more recipes see Yash Amin’s blog.

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Nirbheek Chauhan: An unintended gem about usability

noreply@blogger.com (nirbheek) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 22:52:27 +0000

<UU> Somedays, I think why can't we have computers which just work.
<UU> But then I remember that I am a Computer Scientist.
<UU> So, yeah, I guess I understand why.
<Nirbheek> :D

Quite related to GNOME, really.

Runa Bhattacharjee: Indic Typing Booster – Bengali

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:00:52 +0000

My colleagues Pravin Satpute and Anish Patil have been working for sometime on a cool tool called the Indic Typing Booster. The premise for this tool is to aid users new to typing in Indian languages. Using a normal US English keyboard (i.e. the widely available generic keyboard around here) users begin typing a word in a keyboard sequence of their choice and after a couple of key presses the typing booster prompts the user with a series of words that match the initially typed in key sequences.

For instance, if the user wanted to type the word ‘कोमल’ (pronounced as: komal) in a phonetic keyboard sequence that maps क to k and ो to o, they could start by pressing ‘k’ and ‘o’ and lo and behold (no not Baba Yaga, but) a drop down menu opens up with possible words starting with ‘ को’ . From this list the user may then choose one to complete the word they had intended to type. List of words from a backend database feeds this list. Each language gets a database of its own, compiled from available text in that language. Users can add new words to the list as well.

The typing booster requires that the IBus Input Method is installed in the system. The other necessary packages to get Indic Typing Booster working are:

ibus-indic-table
<language-name>-typing-booster-<keymap-name> (i.e. for Bengali Probhat you would be looking for the bengali-typing-booster-probhat package)

If you are using Fedora, then all these packages can be easily installed with yum. If you are not, then the necessary information for download and installation is available at the Project Home page: https://fedorahosted.org/indic-typing-booster

Besides erasing the need for looking for appropriate keys while maneuvering through the inherent complications of Indic text, the typing booster could evolve into the much needed solution for Indic typing on tablets and smartphones.

After Marathi, Gujarati and Hindi, the Indic Typing Booster is now available for Bengali (yay!). The Bengali database is by far the biggest store so far, thanks to the hunspell list that was created through an earlier effort of Ankur. Pravin announces the new release here.

This is what it looks like.

So to write কিংকর্ত্যবিমূঢ়, I could either type r/f/ZbimwX or just press 4 to complete it.

Do please give the Indic Typing Booster a go and if you’d like to contribute then head over to the mailing list – indic-typing-booster-devel AT lists.fedorahosted.org or IRC channel – #typing-booster channel (FreeNode).

Prakash Advani: MIT Genius Stuffs 100 Processors Into Single Chip

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 02:30:30 +0000

Anand Agarwal directs the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s vaunted Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, or CSAIL. His company Tilera sells chips with 16, 32, and 64 cores, and it’s scheduled to ship a CPU with 100 cores.

It is green cause its power efficient. A 400-watt Tilera server provides as much processing power as eight x86 servers that draw 2,000 watts.

Chetan Patil: Amplifier , Breadboard And Chai

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:52:16 +0000

So what if I couldn't implement a single Amplifier circuit in my college days! No. lets start it again : So what if I couldn't understand a single Amplifier circuit in my college days. Yes perfect. So what! I can understand how it works now and also implemented the same. It was just one of those days when I was thinking that I should implement one thing which I was most afraid of in my college and guess, Amplifier was the first thing. What I did is simple nothing great. Implemented Preamplifier circuit with a gain on 5V (I toh think it's 5V, however need to verify it from expert).

Here is the breadboard circuit and also one can see the Chai cup!

The IC I have used is LM358. Wanted to get hold of OPA2376/OPA376 however not in my reach for now. So the credit goes to the power of Chai. Nothing much to show for now. Do visit again.

Shirish Agarwal: Ideas for Debian Utsav

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:03:52 +0000

This post attempts to share some ideas of what could be done/achieved in Debian Utsav 2012. Hi all, First of all its great news to know that Debian Utsav is being celebrated by various educational institutions in this calendar year. While I would be repeating myself these are some of the tasks which could be [...]

Ankur Sinha: Using askfedora correctly

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 04:32:41 +0000

I’m the one of the moderators of askfedora. Of late, I’ve seen a lot of new questions come in. I’ve observed that most of these do not make correct use of the forum and therefore am outlining the good practices of using it here:

Search before you post: Search the interweb and then askfedora itself before posting your question.
If you have more than one question, post them separately: Do not write a post that says “many fedora questions” and ask them all together. You’re to ask each question separately.
Frame a question: This is most baffling. It’s called ASKfedora, yet most of the queries are not in interrogative form. And yes, questions end in question marks.
Ask good questions: Here’s a great post that tells you how to ask good questions
Use the tools: When you want to post information along with your question, please use the tools, such as quoting, code snippet etc. If folks can’t read your questions, they cannot answer them.
Use correct tags: Make use of existing tags instead of adding new ones. This increases the visibility of your question. Remember that tags are without spaces, so “fedora16″ is not the same as “fedora 16″. The latter actually breaks up into two separate tabs “fedora” and “16″ which is illogical.
Go through the sticky posts!
Subscribe to questions you ask/answer/comment: A lot of answered questions are not marked so because the original asker hasn’t cared to follow up!
Reward your helpers: This is most important. Mark answers as correct, vote up a good question, vote down a bad one, comment for queries. This will make it a better, more knowledgeable forum.
If you see someone not using the forum correctly, point it out: Comment telling the person what he’s doing wrong. I periodically make corrections to posts, but it isn’t really enjoyable.

That’s all I can think of currently. I’ll keep updating this post as I observe new trends. Please spread the word

Edit: Added a page on the fedora project wiki with this list

Prakash Advani: Dropping the “L” Word

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 02:56:14 +0000

The root cause is branding. “Linux” (the brand) is muddy, confusing, and unfriendly to the mainstream computer user: those on the other side of the chasm. They are the exact people that we need to embrace Ubuntu and they don’t *get* “Linux”. They don’t know what it is. They get a negative connotation when they hear the word. Don’t believe me? Ask your non-techie friend or loved one. (I just asked the person beside me and the response I got was less than flattering.)

Praveen A: Little bit playful!

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:13:35 +0000

Rishma Damodar

Hearing about the life of Kani, daughter of social activist Maithreyan and Dr AK Jayashri is wonderful…

‘I call my dad Maithreyan only. And my mother Jayashrichechi (chechi is elder sister in Malayalam). They are not legally married. Rather, I call Jayashri chechi’s father and mother as dad and mom. I lived with them till I was 15. In a very conservative atmosphere. Maithrayen and chechi lived two houses far.” Kani remembers it with a smile in her small house.

This daughter is also in a different path as her parents. Started acting in plays since 15. Kani acted in movies when she felt it was not enough to live.

”There is only one thing Maithreyan and Chechi told me, don’t respond if you are asked about caste or religion. None of the school certificates have my caste or religion.”

Your father and mother seems different?…

Certainly. They have given me all the freedoms. In our country when a girl has to ask so many people for permissions even when choosing a frock. I’m not saying that is bad. But, there won’t be a place for that girls wishes.

But, it is not like that in my case. Even if I feel like smoking a cigarette, I don’t have to ask anyone. That doesn’t mean I believe smoking cigarette is a bad thing. But even that wishes I don’t have to let go.

Maithreyan and Chechi will tell about its bad effects. but, they never push their decisions on me. I’m not saying there is no difference of opinions. We criticize each other and get angry. But, only for a small time. If I feel like doing something, they only say ‘do it if you like’. But, suppose I do something on my own. If there is a problem in that, they won’t move aside saying, ‘you decided it, you deal with it’. They will be with me.

Are you also opposed to marriage like them?

I have not decided anything now. My dad and mom won’t say ‘you are this old, why don’t you get married’. They will say live with anyone you like. It is my choice.

How did you get into acting in plays?

I used to participate in Sanskrit festival in school. I used to act Kavalam Narayanappaniker’s plays.

Even before that, feminist movement in Thiruvananthapuram ‘Sakhi’ organized many street plays. When mom and dad goes for that, I used to go with them. I was studying in 5th then. I did not have any reluctance to act like this, then.

I learned about requirement of a girl actor in ‘Abhinaya’ theater research center of Thiruvananthapuram when I was in 10th.

By then I had a feeling that play is good. Then, as I grew up, I became very body conscious. I was not in a state to decide anything. After seeing my state, Jayashri Chechi said, ‘you just go and check there. Don’t act if you don’t like. I started liking plays when I reached ‘Abhinaya’. I thought I can make a it my profession.

At last, I went to study in Thrissur school of drama. I acted in one or two plays. it was then that play director Abhilash Pillai came to take ‘Khasakinte Ithihasam’ (History of Khasak). He told me about ‘International school of Jacques Lecoq‘. So I joined a one year course.

I learned more about acting when I went to France. Perspective about life also changed a lot. I only wanted everyone to talk good about me. I even moved aside even small things I wanted to do. But life in France changed all that.

Here we do even things we like secretly saying it is against culture. A small example. I go to a public space. Boys can drink there openly. But if any girls drink at all? It will be a big problem. Earlier I used to give up even if I wished to do it.

But, after that I occasionally drank as part of socializing. But, I don’t drink now. I don’t like its taste, that’s the reason. I don’t think there is anything bad in drinking.

In short you became a rebel after coming back from France?

I don’t think living as one wish is rebelling.

There was a letter from Maithreyan, recently. It read like this, ‘you also have a right to smoke and drink like anyone. Smoking cigarette is comparatively bad. Because, it affects others too. There is nothing wrong in drinking socially. But please don’t drink like it is bad in secret.

I don’t compromise on things I like. I am careful to create a space for that always. Suppose when I travel at night and someone try to grab me. I will try not to provoke him by saying ‘I don’t like anyone touching me’. There were many experiences like that. When traveling at night, one or two men come to me and ask ‘where are you going this night?’. I say something like ‘Aiyyo, sorry brother, I came here by mistake’ and leave.

When you decided to try a hand at movies?

When I was back from France, Shankar Ramakrishnan asked me to act in Island Express in ‘Kerala Cafe’. After that I did ‘Cocktail’. It was the role of a prostitute. Then, Naxal girl in ‘Shikar’ (Prey), then small roles in ‘Karmayogi’ and ‘Urumi’.

Do anyone come with you in film-play sites?

I go alone wherever it is. I didn’t feel girls are not safe be it in play or films. So, if someone likes me physically. When I say I’m not interested, I have seen only people who say ‘ok’ and leave, in both fields. Nobody behaved badly with me.

Name also seems different like the person?

Maithreyan and Chechi named me Kani. When I was enrolled in school, Principal asked, ‘What is her initials?’, so Chechi added an initial just like that, ‘Kani K’. When I reached 10th, teacher asked me, ‘I need expansion of your name.’ When I came home and narrated this, Maithreyan and Chechi told me ‘you pick anything you like.’ So I chose ‘Kani Kusruthi’. (Kusruthi means playful in Malayalam). My passport and all has that name.

Future endeavors?

There is a famous theatre group. Footsbarn. I’m with footsbarn for 2 years. Go inside and outside India with play acting. That is my plan.

Originally appeared in Malayalam daily Mathrubhumi

Krishna Bharadwaj: Solving the performance bottleneck

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:32:11 +0000

Often, we come across problems which need better and faster solutions. It may seem like we have tried out everything and we do not have anything else for the given scenario. But some solutions seem to be just amazing, I have come across some of them where these performance bottlenecks have been solved using very simple design.

1. HTTP reverse proxying

Apache is the most common web server used by many websites. Apache is very good for serving dynamic content, but it has some limitations. As load increases on the server, performance of apache starts going down, whereas some lightweight servers like nginx perform really well for static content.

An instance of apache thread is tied to a client and it is busy as long as the data transfer between the client and server is going on. This can be problematic if many clients are accessing the site from a slow connection. Slower the connection, more is the time needed to serve the data and free up the thread.

Client <-----> Server(Apache)

On the other hand, nginx uses a single thread to manage all the connections. Like apache, slower connections will not tie up the server. How do we take advantage of this? By placing an instance of nginx between the client and server, we can get some amazing performance boost and this technique is called as reverse proxying

Client <-----> Nginx on port 80(Reverse proxy) <-----> Server(Apache on some other port)

Whenever we make a request to the server, Nginx listens to our request on port 80 and forwards it to apache which is listening on another port, which processes the request and returns the http response. Since both Nginx and Apache are running on the same machine, the data transfer is really fast between apache and nginx. Apache processes are released in no time. We are taking the best of the two servers, apache for serving the dynamic content and nginx for static content. More information about reverse proxying can be found Mark Maunders' blog.

2. Compression in MS SQL Database

When I attended one of the boot camps as a part of Microsoft Student Partner programme, Vinod Kumar spoke about MS SQL server, where he mentioned that data is compressed before saving it on disk and it has resulted in better performance. One may be surprised how doing something extra can speed up operations? It so happens that disk IO is far more time consuming that processor operations. So, transferring of compressed data is reducing a lot of time.

Transfer time of Compressed data + Decompression < Transfer time of Uncompressed data

This is analogous to us sending a zipped file to some of our friends via email. Internet speed is a bottle neck and we rely on the processing speed of our computers to compress and decompress the files which result in faster sending and receiving of data.

3. AWS Data transfers

This one was least expected but it truly happens. I attended the Hadoop summit last year and attended a talk by Simone Brunozzi. where he was talking about how one can perform map reduce on Amazon map reduce platform. During the QnA session, one of the delegates asked the following question:

Since map reduce deals with humongous amount of data, to even take advantage of the platform, we have to upload all the data to Amazon servers, which is very troublesome since it may take several weeks to transfer all the data.

And this was the answer

You can courier us your hard drives, we will plug them in our high speed data centers and you will have access to your data on our map reduce platform within 2 to 3 days.

Many were surprised, and some asked. What?! do you really do that?? and the answer was yes. Simone went on to quote an example where tanenbaum was asked to devise a backup solution for storing huge volumes of bank transaction details. Considering the connectivity available at that time, tanenbaum said:

"Never underestimate the power of bullock carts carrying hard drives on a highway!"

So, before we devise complex solutions, it is important to see if there is something simple and more elegant :-)

Raj Shekhar: gitosis hint: does not appear to be a git repository

nospam@example.com (Raj Shekhar) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 07:56:54 +0000

You have successfully installed gitosis, and you have been able to add users into gitosis. Now, on a remote computer, you try to checkout.

tearlayneed-lm:tmp rshekhar$ git clone ssh://stormcrow@home:221/gitosis-admin
Cloning into gitosis-admin...
fatal: '/gitosis-admin' does not appear to be a git repository
fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly

I am running the ssh server on port 221 and my username is stormcrow. If your reaction is WTF!, then I can sympathise with you. The correct clone command is

git clone ssh://stormcrow@home:221/~/gitosis-admin
Cloning into gitosis-admin...
remote: Counting objects: 24, done.

If you failed to notice, there is a ~ required.

Prakash Advani: The Ultrabooks are here

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 02:48:00 +0000

Ultrabooks are thin and light weight Notebooks which has similar look and feel to Apple MacBook Air. Many vendors have started offering these at competitive pricing.

These use standard Intel Core i5 or i7 processor, SSD and 12″ or 13″ Display.

Advantages:

Standard ports:

Many of them have USB 3.0 ports, which are much faster than USB 2.0
HDMI and some may have Display ports as well.

You can load your choice of OS such as Ubuntu.
Light weight around 1 KG

Disadvantages:

No Optical Drive (The mac book air also doesn’t have one and who uses them anyways these days ? If you do you can get an external one.

Only Windows pre-load currently, we need choice of Ubuntu atleast! If you are still using Windows, time to give Ubuntu a try.

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: A review of Battlestar Galactica

nav007@gmail.com — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 01:17:15 +0000

Battlestar Galactica: An exodus journey of surviving Humans, post apocalyptic/Nuclear-war scenario. into space/cosmos, also surviving from Cylons (AI machines), who now look and feel like humans & most of the times exceed their capabilities. The humans have lost their battle and all of the twelve human planets/colonies are completely destroyed and are occupied by the Cylons. But the lucky few, who were wondering the cosmos /space at the time of attack, survived the attack.

These 50,000 survivors, whose number are dwindling day-by-day, due to nasty Cylon attacks & plots, live in many spaceships. After the attack all of these spaceships assembled & formed a cluster around the sole surviving, old-generation, Battlestar named Galactica. These Spaceships have Faster than Light (FTL) travelling capabilities, and their route & destination is planned by Galactica's powerful supercomputers. The precise distance achieved in one jump is limited by the computing capabilities of the supercomputers. So greater distances are achieved in multiple jumps. But to make the matters worse, Cylons have infiltrated the human cluster, with their Agents among Humans, and have superior technology to compute at least 2 or 3 times the FTL distance, that the human technology could compute. Also on being dead a Cylon could upload/transmit his/her/its memory into a Resurrection Server and later be reborn with its intact memory but a new body of the same model who looked exactly the same.

Without hope, the Humans are on the run, and they sometimes fight back, with the sole purpose; survival into an unrelenting universe. The Humans have a small but an excellent fleet of fighter aircrafts and Fighter Pilots. But the fleet is losing their count in frequent fights with Cylon fighters and the replacements are hard to find.

Also the limited supply of water and mineral resources too dwindle very quickly. And hence Humans' major exploratory activities centre around finding water and mineral resources to satisfy their survival needs, instead of making an effort to find a suitable planet to survive biological life. The citizens are demotivated and susceptible to rumours & fears, while also being xenophobic to the possibility of Cylon Agents being among them.

But something is different. And while the humans are religious, who pray to the twelve Lords of Kobol, the Cylons too have found their religion in the form of one God.

But not all humans believe in the stories of the Lords of Kobol. The Lords are said to have made an exemplary journey, in the past, from a planet called Kobol, to the twelve new planets/worlds/colonies and possibly to a thirteenth mythical planet called the Earth. The religious text books of Humans are filled with prophecies and stories of these journeys. But some leaders of Humans find some resemblance in their current situation and some of the prophecies of their religious books. And so begins the search/effort/journey to decipher and retrace the path to the thirteenth mythical planet, which could sustain life.

But the Cylons too are interested in finding about the myth & the Earth. They could have left these decaying humans with their problems, but they didn't and Why?

Sadique Puthen: RHEV-3 supported 60 day evaluation available

noreply@blogger.com (Sadique Puthen) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 07:16:13 +0000

Since I am working on RHEV support group, I am really elated to shared this news.

If you are an enthusiast to explore various virtualization offerings, a fully supported RHEV3 60 day evaluation is available for you to test.

You can sign up at http://www.redhat.com/promo/rhev3/

Evaluation Guide at http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Virtualization/3.0/html-single/Evaluation_Guide/index.html

More details at https://access.redhat.com/kb/docs/DOC-69002

Kashyap Chamarthy: Heya FOSDEM

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 05:22:13 +0000

I’m giving a short talk/demo on dogtag pki in ‘Hardware and Cryptography Devroom’ at FOSDEM conf. Here are the details.
Looking forward to the already packed schedule.

Prakash Advani: HTC Inspire 4G a good budget phone

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 03:02:16 +0000

HTC Inspire is a good budget phone, however I don’t know when HTC will launch this in India. It’s currently available in US from AT&T.

Here is what is cool.

4G Capable HSPA+
Android 2.2 upgradable to 2.3
4.3″ Display
8 Megapixel Camera, 720p video recording.
Dolby Surround sound
Scratch proof, Gorilla Glass screen
4 GB Built in with expandable microSD memory card slot.
1 GHz processor

Whats the limitations

1 GHz processor sounds a little low as compared to the new generation dual and quad core phones. However for people just wanting to use the phone features this is enough unless you want to play games. By choosing a single core processor, HTC is able to keep the price affordable for this phone. Unlocked phones are available for around $300 on Amazon.

No Front facing camera, this in my opinion is a need for people wanting to do video calling over 3G or skype.

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Anoop John: Script to connect automatically to Reliance broadband internet connection

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 07:42:45 +0000

We had switched to a Reliance broadband internet connection recently from our Asianet connection. Reliance connections requires you to authenticate via http to get connected to the Internet. This was a minor inconvenience since we wanted to connect and remain connected without having to login manually. For this we created a script that will login automatically to the Reliance broadband connection and will also reconnect automatically if the connection is dropped. The script that we created has been released via our github account as Free Software under GPL.

Prakash Advani: Desktop Linux gains market share

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 07:31:15 +0000

As per PC World, Desktop Linux gains market share of more than 1 percent.

After dipping to 0.97 percent in July, Linux rose to 1.07 percent in August, 1.11 percent in September, 1.19 percent in October, and 1.31 percent in November, Net Applications reports, followed by the new high of 1.41 percent last month.

W3Counter, for instance, puts non-Android Linux at 1.64 percent in December.

Wikimedia’s Traffic Analysis Report for last October pegged Linux at 3.48 percent, while news site The H-online which also reported on the new Net Applications data–noted that Linux users now account for 25.36 percent of its own traffic.

Our own stats shows 34 percent of users coming to Cityblogger are using Linux. I am glad people are finally realising the benefits of Linux on the Desktop.

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Saleem Ansari: JRuby on Rails with RVM ( on Fedora )

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 12:10:12 +0000

First install RVM and set it up:

sudo yum install rubygem-rvm
rvm-install

To include RVM into your bash shell, add following line to ~/.bashrc:

[[ -s "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" ]] && . "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" # This loads RVM into a shell session.

Now install JRuby and use it as default Ruby interpreter:

source ~/.bashrc
rvm install jruby-1.5.6
rvm use jruby-1.5.6

Setup Rails environment:

gem install rails
gem install bundler

Lets create a new Rails application:

rails new rails-app
cd rails-app
bundle install
rails g scaffold Person name:string
rake db:migrate
rails s

Now go to http://localhost:3000/people/
Yay! Your new Rails application is up and running, powered by JRuby ( setup using RVM ).

Shrinivasan: Ubuntu Developer Week: 31st Jan-2nd Feb

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 07:25:31 +0000

Hello everybody,

It’s everybody’s second-most favourite time of the release again. No,
not the actual release, but it’s Ubuntu Developer Week!

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperWeek

Join us from Tuesday, 31st January 2012 to Thursday, 2nd February 2012
for three action-packed days full of tutorial and hands-on session all
around Ubuntu development. We spared no efforts to bring you a very
diverse set of topics and a very diverse set of speakers as well. This
time we managed get speakers from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech
Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Pakistan, Poland,
South Africa, Spain, UK and USA.

No matter if you are new to Ubuntu development or quite experienced
already, we are sure going to have an interesting session for you.
Here’s just an excerpt of the great things to come:

* Packaging: find out how software is put into Ubuntu and how it’s
maintained. We have a variety of hands-on sessions where Ubuntu
developers share their experience with you. It’s the perfect time to
get involved.
Sessions: Intro to Ubuntu development, Getting set up, Dos and
Dont’s, working with Upstream projects, building packages
locally, using pkgme for automatic packaging, writing good
changelog entries, distributed development and loads more.
* Quality Assurance and Bug Fixing: One of the greatest ways to
contribute to Open Source is resolving problems. Not only for you,
but for millions of users out there. Join in to find out from
experts how to make Ubuntu even better.
Sessions: Bug lifecycle, triaging bugs, fixing small bugs in lots of
different settings, automated testing, and lots of
hands-on action
* Writing code: we will talk about apps, tools, projects and
infrastructure to make writing software for Ubuntu even easier.
Sessions: automated testing, pair programming, code review,
technology overview, introductions to many cool
technologies and making your apps rock.
* Ubuntu projects and Ubuntu in the bigger picture: Ubuntu has grown
dramatically and lots of different project make the awesomeness we
release every six months. Find out who’s doing what and what’s new.
Sessions: Ubuntu TV, Edubuntu, juju, the Cloud, Unity and Debian.

Joining in is trivial. Use normal IRC (even a web browser will do) [1]
or install Lernid [2] and connect.

[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperWeek/JoiningIn
[2] apt://lernid

We put lots of effort into this great event. 31st January to 2nd
February will be a great time and just for you. Bring your friends and
your questions.

As this is generally asked very often: yes, we will keep logs of all the
session if you shouldn’t be able to attend. We will make them available
on the Ubuntu Developer Week page.

More info:
* Timetable: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperWeek
* Session descriptions:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperWeek/Sessions
* How to join in: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperWeek/JoiningIn
* Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/215339905226998

Shrinivasan: Invitation to RMS lecture – Chennai – Feb 6

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 06:30:56 +0000

Hi all,

As you all know, Richard Stallman is coming to Chennai. We would like
to have you all for the seminar. We are proud as well as excited to
invite you to this event

For details, please visit
http://fsftn.org/content/richard-stallmans-visit-chennai

Event is open to all free of cost. Please register at the website so
that we can make required arrangements. But this is optional. Those
who need certificate for the event has to register at the venue with
fee of Rs.20/-. Bulk registrations for the event are accepted. Please
get in touch with us if you would like to do a bulk registration.

Note: Registration counters for certificates will be closed by 1:00 PM
sharp. So please reach the venue at least 30 minutes before the event.

Contact:
shanu
alagunambiwelkin

Kindly forward this to all the lists you know.

Krishna Bharadwaj: MVC in client side javascript using Backbone.js

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 13:31:52 +0000

As internet applications are getting more rich, designing user interfaces for the same gets complicated. Designing an application like GMail can be very complex since it is feature rich and one action is directly or indirectly related to several sections of the user interface.

I came across this javascript framework called "backbone.js" few months back, I could not appreciate it much till I wrote an application myself using backbone.js. I wanted to see the benefits of using backbone and I must say I am impressed with it.

Some background about how websites/applications function:

What we see in our browser consists of the following:

1. Data

All the information that we are interested in accessing. For example our mails. What we consume at the end of the day is the content of the email and the metadata associated with it, like sender, date and time when it was sent, people who are cc'd etc..

2. Display

Browser uses a markup language called as HTML to dispaly all the data. HTML controls the layout of a webpage. This can be thought of as a blue print of a building. We know where exactly a room is going to come.

3. Style

It would be boring to see all the above data without any styles applied, it is these small things which make a user actually choose some services. How many times have we moved away from websites saying, "the UI is really a turn off". If display is our blueprint, styling can be thought of as the work of an Interior decorator who makes buildings beautiful by applying some creativity w.r.t colors, images etc.

4. Events

In the initial days of interet, there used to be just pages linked between each other using hyperlinks. clicking on one link will take us to another page, along with some forms for entering data and posting it to the site. Nowadays, we are seeing more and more features on the browser which were only possible in desktop applications previously. This opens a whole range of possibilities, for example, facebook lets us view all photos in an album without actually moving away from the page. All these events are handeled by Javascript for us.

MVC

MVC stands for Model View Controller. It is a design pattern where we separate the data from the way it is defined, manipulated and displayed. One of the main reason why we use this design pattern is to ensure clean and organized code which makes maintaining a software comparatively easy.

MVC on server side

To understand how MVC has helped us organize the code better, lets take a look at this PHP script which reads a bunch of rows from the database and displays it on the screen.

If we notice clearly, this single script does it all, right from opening a connection to the database, to retrieving the records, then rendering the html for the respective records. As our program grows, it becomes extremely difficult for us to manage it, since making a change to some database queries will be on the same file and some minor changes to styling will also go to the same file. We are tying everything together. This way there is a lot of dependency between developers, designers and other stake holders. For a project to progress without bottlenecks like these, it is very important for us to decouple different segments and have a well defined interface for interaction between these blocks.

This is how we can remodel the design using MVC.

1. models.py file consists of code which deals with data only.

2. views.py consists of code which is used to fetch the records from the model and render it to the template.

3. template.html consists of the markup with variables embedded in it.

There by structuring the code to a great extent.

MVC on client side

Lets look at this application:

Model - Mail data represented in the data.js file.

View - the html display of each of the mail and the side menu.

Some advantages of using MVC design on the client side:

1. Streamlined Event handling

All our operations are on the models, we manipulate the data directly and we add hooks such that, whenever there is a change in the data, the view automatically renders the html which contains the latest data.

In this application, the moment we 'star' any mail, the 'star' field in the model gets modified which triggers the callback 'render' method. Similarly, we add hooks to reflect the change in models for the inbox details, like number of unread mails, number of starred mails etc.

2. Reduced data transfer

The possibilities are vast when we are delegating some processing to the browser. Lets take this example. We have a table which consists of 10 records and we are interested in sorting the records based on different fields in the table. We can get a sorted table using the SQL Query

SELECT * from persons ORDER BY '<somefield>'"

but it would mean, more interaction with the server, one more hit to the database, the complexity of sorting the records adds up.

We know that javascript can be used to manipulate data in the browser, we can just use the clients computing power to sort the table. Isn't it reducing a lot of delay for the user (Request -> Database -> Rendering -> Response )? From the infrastructure perspective, we need less processing power on the server side.

Lets take the example of rendering a template on the server:

Length of this template syntax: 258 Characters

players = [ {'name': 'A' , 'games' : [10, 20, 30]} , { 'name': 'B', 'games': [30, 50,60] } ]

Length of the data: 82 Characters

after rendering the template using the data provided above, we get the following hypertext:

Length of the rendered HTML : 426 characters.

Length(Our initial template + Data) = 258 + 82 = 340 characters!

We are including a lot of markup in between the data when we are rendering the template. All the words <li>, <div>, scored, runs, Satistics is adding up to the amount of html which will be sent to the client from server.

Is embedding of data in between the html elements something that cannot be done by the browser?? Definitely not, it can be done. and we get a lot of improvement in terms of speed.

3. Caching templates

Some websites load amazingly fast, don't they? Like facebook. The header, the side bar and few other segments load in no time, which is followed by all the posts. One great advantage of separating data from markup is caching. We can cache templates, scripts, stylesheets and they can be served from a CDN which will make loading of websites amazingly fast.

Looking forward to use backbone.js in some of my future projects.
Demo and Source

Jaikiran Pai: Very impressed by JUDCon 2012 in Bangalore

noreply@blogger.com (Jaikiran) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 06:15:57 +0000

I just returned from the first ever JUDCon event in India which was organized in Bangalore. For those of you who couldn't make it (you really missed a very impressive event) here's an review of the event.

The venue:

It was organized in the Nimhans convention centre in Bangalore on Jan 24th and 25th. The venue had very good WiFi facility (although it did make it's absence felt for a few seconds during Rado's live demo on mod_cluster :) ). I haven't been to previous JUDCon events, so I wasn't aware how good the connectivity usually is at these events. Apparently the connectivity here was among the best as compared to the previous events, as per Galder's review. So a big thank you to the organizers of the event, Saltmarch Media.

Attendance:

To be honest, when I arrived for the event I was expecting an audience of around 100-150 people. I did know that there's a huge number of jboss.org community users from India (like Bruno later showed in his presentation) but I hadn't expected that many would show up at the event especially since it was weekday (for some of the JBUG events that I have organized earlier, I have always been requested that the event be scheduled on a weekend) and also because the event was close to a national holiday on 26th. But to my pleasant surprise the attendance was far more in number, a number that I had never expected. We were told that there were 700+ registrations for the event (remember, this is a paid event so most of them would definitely show up) and we could really see the large numbers during the presentations. Apparently this is the biggest JUDCon in terms of attendance itself. The audience was not just impressive because of the numbers but also because of the knowledge they had about various JBoss projects some of which are very new. We could see that the audience was very well informed based on the questions (a lot of them) they asked after the sessions. So full marks for all those who attended the event and made it a great success.

Sessions:

Before the event started this week, due to some unavoidable last minute changes, a couple of sessions had to be changed. Luckily for me and those from the audience who would have liked to hear about EJB configurations in AS7, the session organizers decided to allow a session titled "Configure and deploy your EJB applications on AS7" on the second day of the event. Since this was a last minute change and because I had already made some arrangements to leave the event sometime in the afternoon on the second day, Satish Kale and Ravi Maurya (who are both from the Red Hat team) volunteered to present the session and I decided to provide them with the necessary help for creating the slides/content. I arrived in Bangalore one day earlier before the event and spent most of the time creating the presentation for the session.

The sessions were divided into 3 tracks: (1) JBoss AS7 (2) OpenShift/Cloud and (3) Rules,Workflow, SOA and EAI. The AS7 sessions were held in the Main Hall which had a very large seating capacity and the other tracks were held in two different halls which were a bit smaller compared to the main hall but still had enough room to accommodate around 100 (or more?) people in the audience. The smaller halls were always packed for whichever session I decided to take a look at. Infact, many of them were even standing due to the full house. You will get to see a proof once the videos and pictures of the event are uploaded at jboss.org :)

I had decided that I would be attending most of the AS7 sessions and the OpenShift ones. The event started on day one at 9 in the morning when Bruno delivered the keynote address to a packed house. Then I attended a couple of more sessions - one by Ales, on Android and the Cloud and the other by Greg Kable (who I finally got to meet!) on the Best Practices for using JPA2 with Hibernate. Like I said, the sessions were well attended and the audience had some very good questions in the end for the speakers. I even got to take home a couple of important best practice suggestions from Greg's presentation. I had always wondered whether field based annotations or property based annotations on entities was a preferred approach. If you too have been wondering about that, then wait for the Greg's video/presentation to be uploaded on jboss.org (I'll actually create a new blog entry once those are uploaded. So you can even watch this blog too).

By the way, speaking of Hibernate, if Steve's reading this blog (Hi Steve! :)) there was one specific question about Hibernate which got asked atleast 3 times during various sessions and once when I was having lunch. Many of you would know that Hibernate recently switched to Gradle as their build system. They were earlier using Maven like many other JBoss projects. Apparently some users are having problems using Gradle to build Hibernate. They mentioned that they had an internal set of testsuites which they run after building Hibernate themselves, before deciding whether or not to use the newer versions of Hibernate. Apparently there's some issue with using Gradle since they say it requires some native .so library which they don't have and that results in failure on their build systems. So the question they had was whether the Hibernate team would have some kind of Maven compatibility for the builds. I don't have any knowledge of Gradle, so all I could suggest was to open a forum thread asking this question and explaining their usecase. So that's a heads up to Steve :)

After those couple of morning sessions, we had a nice lunch at the venue. The food was good. Later during the noon, I attended the session on JBoss AS7 "What's new" by Bruno. Being part of the AS7 team, I already had an idea of what the session was going to cover but I decided to be in the audience to see their reaction to the new changes to AS7 and the feedback they had around it. It was nice to see that there were many users in the audience who had started using AS7 and were aware of many of the new developments around it. The feedback was mostly encouraging although some users did mention that they had some trouble trying to migrate application which had previous JBoss AS specific extensions and descriptors. But overall, they were really happy with AS7 because of the vast amount of improvements it has compared to previous versions.

The session after that, I attended Shane's presentation on Getting Started developing apps with AS7. This was a very technical one with a live demo of how to use the command line interface (introduced in AS7) for deploying/undeploying the applications. The session included quickstarts that are made available publicly here. The session was attended by a packed audience and was well accepted. Those of you who haven't had a chance to look at the quickstarts, then I would very highly recommend taking a look at https://github.com/jbossas/quickstart. It covers a vast range of technologies and has quickstart applications with comprehensive documentation for each of those applications. Thanks to Sande Gilda and Pete Muir for managing the quickstarts and thanks for everyone else that has been contributing. This is a big improvement compared to some of our previous JBoss AS releases which did not have readily usable quickstart examples.

After these sessions, I decided to meet some of the community users and also catch up with some of my JBoss colleagues. It was good to talk to many of the community users some of whom had apparently known me by my name on the community forums.

Later in the evening of day one we had one last event at around 5:30. Although it was the last one of the day, it really turned out to be the best one (in my opinion) and well participated one. The event was "Expert Q&A with the Red Hat team". Ray Ploski (I finally got to meet Ray too!) started off the session by asking some questions to the audience and the on-stage Red Hat team then went on to discuss a wide range of topics covering a lot of JBoss projects. Each of the on-stage Red Hat team members shared their experience on a wide range of topics right from the relevance of Java, post Oracle acquisition of Sun to the very new Ceylon language. There was also discussion around Drools, jBPM, AS7, EAP and other JBoss projects. You could clearly see that the audience was very knowledgeable. This session not just had some serious discussions on a variety of topics but also had its fun moments, thanks to Mike Brock ;) (you'll see it in the video once it's posted, towards the end of the session when one member from the audience asks a question which had something to do with multi-core processors). That session ended a very lively and exciting first day of the event. We then had dinner at the event, where the delegates were invited to join the JBoss team and have a chat with them. I got to meet some delegates who had very interesting experiences to share about JBoss projects. Some of them were curious why there wasn't any session on Arquillian.

That marked the end a very nice day one at the event.

The next day the sessions started at 10 in the morning. The first one, in the AS7 track was by Dimitris, who by the way, told me that he had an exciting first hand experience of the Bangalore traffic - actually, lot of my other team mates had a similar opinion, which was natural :). Ales, I think even has a video. If not, Rado has one for sure :). So back to the sessions - the first one for day two that I attended was by Dimitris titled "JBoss Application Server 7 - Reloaded". I loved this session and I'm sure many who attended it loved it too! Dimitris started off with the history of JBoss AS 2.x, 3.x days and went on explaining the various changes/improvements that had happened all the way till AS7. It was nice to listen to some of the stories behind the previous versions, some of which I wasn't aware of. Later in the session he explained about AS7 and the projects and kernel that make up AS7 and why AS7 performs so fast. He ended that session with a "Thank you" slide which was well appreciated by the audience because he had that slide in Kannada (the language spoken in Bangalore), Hindi, Greek (Dimitris is from Greece) and English!

The next session I attended was by Rado, on mod_cluster. Rado presented on mod_cluster, which although I had some idea about, was new to me. I found the session very informative technical and got to learn some nice facts about the project. Rado even had a live demo of the project against AS7. The session went off well and there were a lot of questions from the audience.

It was then time for lunch on day two. Since I planned to leave the event an hour after lunch, I had just one more session that I had planned to attend. Ales presented a session titled CapeDwarf - Running your Google App Engine applications on JBoss AS7. Being part of the JBoss team, I had heard about the CapeDwarf project a few times from Ales but did not have much idea about what it was all about. So this was my chance to get to understand it better. I attended the session and Ales explained what the project was all about and where it stands currently. He even had a demo where he showed that you could directly deploy your Google App Engine application (an application which uses Google App Engine APIs) against a JBoss AS7 instance enabled with CapeDwarf subsystem and without having to do any changes to your application. It was an impressive demo and presentation and I got to learn what the project was all about.

So that was the last session I could attend that day since I had to leave early. There still were some other sessions that I wished I could attend and even present the "Configuring EJB applications for AS7" but that wasn't to be. Later I got to know that the session on EJB went well, although I still have to catch up with Satish and Ravi to get to know more. A big thanks to Satish and Ravi for presenting this session since it was a last minute decision for them too after the previously decided sessions were cancelled.

I caught up, one last time for this event, with my JBoss colleagues before leaving the event. Turns out I missed getting a JUDCon t-shirt because I left early and forgot to submit the feedback form for the sessions :(

Overall, these 2 days at the event were real exciting and the event was really impressive. I got to meet my JBoss team mates, some of whom I had never met before and also got a chance to meet a lot of community members. I wish we had a few more days of this! A big thank you to all those who attended and made this a success and for those who couldn't attend, keep a watch on this blog - I'll post a link to the event photos/videos once they are uploaded. Also keep an eye on the jboss.org blog feeds where I'm sure you'll see many more reviews of this event.

Shrinivasan: Debian Utsav 2012

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:06:34 +0000

Debian Utsav is celebration of Debian Folks – meet at one place, eat,
drink and work on Debian! Just decide a place and time and add it
here. Come join in any one listed at
http://wiki.debian.org/DebianIndia/DebianUtsav2012 and if you don’t
see something near you, just announce one!

Saleem Ansari: Packaging Java JARs as RPM packages

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:00:05 +0000

At JUDCon 2012, I had a discussion and argument with Jaikiran Pai and Ravi Maurya on “Packaging Java JARs as RPM packages”.

Well it is not just RPM, it could be any package management system ( eg. dpkg, protage etc. ), doesn’t matter as long as it serves the purpose of:

automatic dependency resolution
installation of dependencies
rollback an install step
install multiple versions of a (JAR) package
ensure the packages are authentic ( for security )

How is all this achieved in Java world? Simple. Just package all the required JARs in a single JAR or WAR or an EAR for that matter. And trust the packager for its security. But:

Is this a good practice?
What happens when you want to install the same package on multiple systems?
Can you roll back changes easily on multiple installations?
How are JARs shared across different kind of projects, some which use the same version of the same JAR package?

Consider the case of Maven, with which you can easily specify the dependencies and Maven does all the work of dependency resolution.
However, it solves the problem only at the developer’s level. JARs are still bundled inside the output application package (JAR / WAR / EAR). And everytime this application is distributed, it will contain “ALL” the dependencies. That is clearly an overhead.

That makes me think, why JARs don’t work like Shared Libraries, which can be shared across applications. Every classloader / JVM instance has its own version of the same JAR file on-disk! Can’t they be shared? That too is clearly an overhead. I am not aware of the reasons why it is so, which I would definitely like to know.

The point is, since a package manager has all the functionality, why not just leverage it? Java community is either unaware of it, or doesn’t care.

No problem. There are efforts already in place.

Anyway, of other things Jaikiran told me that, JBoss AS7 has how better and modular class loading which is based on JBoss Modules. This appears to me similar to how Maven structures it JAR repositories.

Here are some resources:

Thats it folks!

Shirish Agarwal: SOPA is dead, long live H.R. 1981

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:34:48 +0000

This post is about sharing another of the bills which has the same thing as SOPA, just drafted using the words ‘child molester’ so that people do not fight back H.R. 1981. Hi all, We are all hunky and dory that SOPA is defeated but I just came to know yesterday that Rep. Lamar Smith [...]

Saleem Ansari: JUDCon 2012 – an experience!

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 07:21:21 +0000

My first Java exclusive conference!

I arrived at the venue right on time. Surprize, there were a lot of people already holding their welcome kits. Conference was already running quite smoothly. Wifi worked most of the time. The sessions, lunch, tea were always on time. Actually, there were people assigned to ring bells, just like in schools, to notify timeout during lunch and tea breaks

The whole confenence was revolving around four major topics: JBoss AS7, Infinispan, Drools and OpenShift.

Opening talk was given by Harish Pillay, Red Hat Global Community Architecture Team.

The Keynote of the day was by Bruno Georges. He mentioned some interesting trends of which are:

There are about 4 times the processors compared to the number or people in United States alone and growing. Meaning that the processing power is available in abundance.
There is a significant growth in Ad-Hoc Social Networks for businesses

Now where is the industry heading? In perspective of Java, Java ME/EC is going to be merged with Java SE/EE. SQL based data is moving towards NoSQL which is now leading us to NewSQL. The software stacks are moving towards ubiquitous computing i.e. even smaller handheld devices, are capable of running these software stacks. To sum it up, it was a very factual and a visionary talk by Bruno.

I will defer the other topics till later. Let me talk about the topics I liked the most:

JPA – Painless Persistence

Painless Persistence by Greg Kable was a very engaging talk. It was kind of an OOPS/ORM primer. The concepts were explained in a very general terms like “why/when to use ORM and when not to”, Skinny Objects and their pitfalls. Why to avoid optimization? Such concepts could be applied to any kind of ORM in practice. Even if you didn’t know anything about JPA or Hibernate, you could understand the point Greg was trying to make. And by the way, there are 3 rules of optimization: don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it. Before deciding on optimizing part(s) of your application always think of these 3 rules. It is just as a reminder that it might not make sense to put efforts on optimizing your applications first of all.

Future of Seam Framework

Seam 3 is final release of Seam project. That’s it. All future efforts are directed towards Apache DeltaSpike from now on. So, do think twice before using Seam for your new projects. However, Seam being a widely used framework, the bugfixes and mainitainence will still be available. And contributes, checkout the DeltaSpike project now!

Polyglot Revolution

This was an intersting topic. What it means is that many JVM based languages (ceylon, scala, clojure, ruby, python) and their frameworks ( like Ruby On Rails ) will be available integrated with JBoss AS. TorqueBox is a unique example of this. With this effort, you can use all the power and features of Java EE stack right into your other language frameworks. Same argument applies for Immutant.

JBoss Application Server

In the recent years, JBoss has seen a lot of increase in the number of hits on its project sites from the Indian region. Most of these hits are by the users who use JBoss. But what about the size of contributers? What is the plan ahead for community engagement? Well that is the question I asked the panel. JBoss Heroes is project that is supposed to address this issue. Lets see when it is going to actually materialize. JBoss AS7, the latest release, is fully EE6 compliant, is very lightweight and is blazing fast with a boot time less that 3 seconds!

Infinispan

I don’t know why but there were just too many talks on Infinispan alone ( over 6 talks ! ). Inifinispan is a data grid platform based on the design of Amazon Dynamo ( has many implementation including Apache Cassandra ). Infinispan spans a very broad set of usecases. It can act as an in memory cache, persistent cache, distributed cache, replicated cache for high availablity. Also it provides plugins for different backends like Arjuna TM, BDB, JDB, JDBC etc.

Essentially it acts a key/value store. Its real power comes from its flexibility, which allows it to be adapted for many many use cases.

Becoming an Open Source developer

“When in fight, I start to fear that if I get hit by my oppnent, worse is going to happen, and I will lose.” Well, dont! Believe in how good things are going to be if you succeed. Always think that you are going to bring the opponent down no matter what. Never fear of failure. Fear the fear itself, and put your best. That is the mantra of successful Open Source developers, quite well explained by Dmitris in his talk Becoming an Open Source developer. Fight the problem until you solve it. Isn’t that straight forward

Drools – Rules Engine and Complex Event Processing

In the talk “Declarative Rules” by Mark Proctor ( co-creator and founder of Drools ), he explained that Drools is Declarative Rules based engine. He demonstrated a simple game Wumpus World, that can be completely created using only rules. No other code required, which simplifies the whole process. Of the other things in his talk, there qere queries regarding Fuzzy logic support in Drools. Rules reduction or compaction process in Drools. Also rules processing on distributed and unstructured data, which is an inherently hard nut to crack.

In a subsequent talk “Demystifying Complex Event Processing” by Mark Proctor again, he explained how CEP works. How Complex Event Processing (CEP), Event Stream Processing (ESP) and Event Drive Architecture (EDA) are closely related. Drools Fusion is the CEP tool by JBoss. To learn more about Drools / CEP there are many books available: The Power of Events, Event Drive Architecture, Drools JBoss Rules 6.0 Developer’s Guide, JBoss Drools Business Rules

I am happy to have met a lot of people Jaikiran Pai, Sachin Patil, Ray Ploski, Radoslav Husar, Ales Justin, Dmitris Andreadis, and many other whom I only listened to

However, I also missed a few things that would have made this conference even better in my opinion. There could have been an inclusion of activities like Hackathon, Bug Squadding or Workshop ( hands-on sessions ).

It has been a great learning experience. Keep them coming – the events – JUDCon 2012, you rock!

PS: I don’t see any slides nor the videos from JUDCon 2012 on their website yet. When are they coming?

Shrinivasan: chennaipy – January Monthly Meet

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 02:41:04 +0000

= January Monthly Meet Announcement

== Date & Time

28 Jan
3:00pm to 5:00pm

=== Venue

Zilogic Systems,
Fourth Main Road,
Kamaraj Nagar,
Thiruvanmiyur,
Chennai

Location map: http://www.zilogic.com/contact.html

Agenda
–

1. Lightning Talks – 30 min.

- lxml – Processing XML with Python – Vijay Kumar
- AlphaBubbles – Siva Chandran
If you would like to give a lightning talk, just come prepared,
we will be able to accommodate you.

2. PyCon 2011 Video: API Design anti-patterns
by Alex Martelli – 45 min.

Designing interfaces so that other code can interact with ours
(whether our code is a library, framework, application,
website…) is a very common and clearly crucial activity, but
fraught with dangers — stuff we all keep doing wrong time after
time. This talks shows some common cases of API design errors
encountered in the wild, with tips on how to avoid them when you
design your next API.

entry free.
all are welcome.

Shrinivasan: Submit Ideas for Open-source Mobile Apps – Rhomobile

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:15:55 +0000

spritle, a chennai based company is willing to do open source mobile
applications using Rhomobile.

Please give your ideas for the development.

http://www.spritle.com/community/ideas_for_opensource_mobileapps.html

Atul Chitnis: eBooks & Educational Institutions

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:58:39 +0000

Too many people look at ebooks as some new, technological miracle that requires some completely new way of thinking. That’s rather weird to someone like me, who has been using eBooks since the late 1990s. It is also completely wrong – ebooks are essentially just books, as we have known them from times before Gutenberg. [...]

Shrinivasan: RMS meet at Chennai – training for organizers

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:02:30 +0000

friends.

as RMS is visiting Chennai, we feel that organizers should be clear on the free software concepts, difference between free software and open source etc.

there is a training session on these for volunteers and organizers for the event.

date – January 26 , 2012
time – 10.00 – 1.00
place – computer science block, room 32. iit madras, Chennai

all are welcome.

it Will be a memorable event in our life to be a part of organizing team on such great event.

see you tomorrow.