Google's Killer Application.

Already Microsoft getting heat from Google, that Google is capturing all critical functionalities from Microsoft office suite and developed online based Google Docs suite. From many of small business to individuals now using Google docs instead of expensive Microsoft office suite. Now Google released a "sharepoint killer application" named as Sites. It was just redesign of JotSpot wiki, which Google acquired some years back.

I think that now Google can declare war against Microsoft office suite. Google has now all replacement products for Microsoft office. Actually now we are expecting a twist from Microsoft that they will release a online based mini office suite to fight against Google Apps.

What's behind Web2.0?

It seems to me everybody started loving Web 2.0 concept, who ever really enjoying Web 2.0 applications such as wikis, blogs, diggs, tag cloud etc are not making any comments.This makes software engineers unhappy who design and develop web 2.0 applications. The improvement and innovation happen only if there is strong constructive criticism from users, since everybody just accepting Web 2.0 as is and not making any constructive criticism leads to a sudden death of web 2.0. The criticism now these web 2.0 drawing are from some fundamentalists who hates web democracy. To make things worse, major companies like Microsoft, IBM, SAP and Oracle are not investing money towards WEB 2.0 research and development.Google is the only company investing something for R&D, but for Google web2.0 is part time business, there main revenue not tied to Web 2.0. So the growth now Web 2.0 enjoying may not be sustain for long time. Unless something got changed in coming years.

Excellent Cricket Match.

After many low scoring matches and rain delayed matches, yesterday we had an excellent and thrilling cricket match between India and Australia. First of all, Ricky Pointing from Australia and Gautham Gambhir from India played marvelous innings and made this game very interesting. India's players are tough and fought back very hard to win this game. I thought one point of time when Harbhajan and Pathan were on grease, we are going to win. But Lee is too good to take tailenders wicket, he just beat them with his pace.

I don't know what happened to Sachin Tendulkar, the ball he got out was very simple for him to play, having this many years of experience and genius cricket brain. I think he was bad form since this one day series starts, may be he become overwhelmed with continuous cricket career since he was 17. He can retire one day cricket now and concentrate on Indian domestic cricket to help Indian cricket to find more talented cricketers. Uthappa was good and our million dollar baby Dhoni was very slow to score his runs also cost us this game. But Dhoni wants to stay until the game ends, his intention was good but he just wasted lot of run scoring opportunities.

Master - Worker Pattern.

Master-worker pattern sounds like as layman terms split a work into multiple pieces and delegate each pieces to workers and gather all work results and send back to caller. If we want to implement in java, we can easily do it by multiple threads. But what about behind single node? what about availability? how we are going to address single point of failure? Master-Workers design pattern addresses all of these answers. From Martin Flower's Patterns of Enterprise Application,

"How, then, do you effectively use multiple processors? In most cases the way to go is clustering. Put all the classes into a single process, and then run multiple copies of that process on various nodes. That way, each process uses local calls to get the job done and thus does things faster. You can also use fine-grained interfaces for all the classes within the process and thus get better maintainability with a simpler programming model.”

A master is always one node and workers can be multiple nodes and Master controls job queue and creates set of tasks, put it in shared space and waits for workers to complete it.

here is good article about Master-Worker pattern http://www.theserverside.com/tt/articles/article.tss?l=DistCompute

Terracotta - A flashback.

While reading Terracotta architecture, I was just paused and my mind flashback to year 2002, when we try to build an ambitious health care contract system, we want to do something to scale up our performance a 100 fold to differentiate us from our competitors.This was almost impossible to achieve it since we are talking about some 10 million worth of health care products with massive transactional system. At that time we want to build a secondary in-memory servers to cache our entire set of data, for fast retrieval and store data and asynchronously persist with database. But for some valid reason, we did not implement it and scrap the whole idea.

Ok..flashback ends here. Now we have a open source, well defined and proven, NAM (Network Attached Memory) called Terracotta. Terracotta was there in market since 2006 but it made some buzz recently after it become open source at end of 2006. The year 2007 it got much needed support from open source community and become leader in Java clustring solutions. Here is a good simple introduction to Terracotta from infoQ.

Now question is where to use Terracotta. They are multiple places where ever we need a cache support. Here are some effective usage of Terracotta.

1. Distributed Caches
As per Terracotta.org, "Distributed caches powered by Terracotta can see as much as 100x throughput vs. native solutions, with no changes to existing code." and "Terracotta can support any data structure from simple hashmap to OSCache".

2. Hibernate
"Terracotta helps to reduce database overload caused by O/R-mapped applications deployed in a clustered environment. Use it to cluster your Hibernate second level cache, or get even more performance by clustering disconnected Hibernate objects."

3. HTTP Session Clustering
"Terracotta is used by Java websites both large and small to cluster web sessions. When clustered by Terracotta, web application session becomes highly available without actually being replicated to every app server in the cluster. This leads to scalable applications especially when used in conjunction with an HTTP load balancer. "

Taste of Knight Rider again.

It is more than 20 years after today NBC telecasted one of my favorite serial Knight Rider again. Last series was telecasted in Sri Lanka TV as soon as NBC telecasted here in USA, We took advantage of being geographically close with Sri Lanka. Knight Rider starts all Wednesday at 7.30 PM IST, we get ready to watch it by 6.30PM itself. As a kid I enjoyed the series a lot.

Now again in NBC today, it is Knight Rider 2 hour movie, this time KIIT is like Windows Vista with compare to early KIIT, which was like Windows 2.0. Integration with spy camera, image matching, solar energy fuel all are advance invention for KIIT. Today KIIT using C21 cargo plane for transportation. This time also I enjoyed the show as I did it 20 years ago as kid.

My prediation worked.

As I blogged last week about high definition DVD format war, as I predicated Toshiba backed HD DVD format going to end of life. Today Toshiba announced that they are going to give up HD DVD format

I have to give myself some kudos.....Sony's gamble also paid off because they spent large sum of money to promote Blu-ray.

This is good time to buy Blu-ray player. My choice would be Sony BDP-S300 since it is moderate price and best quality among all other players.

Gone Baby Gone.

Today as usual went to Blockbusters to get some movies, my wife called me and asked me to take "Gone Baby Gone" DVD. I was reluctant since this movie was directed by Ben Affleck and almost unknown cast other than Morgon Freeman. But anyway took it and watched. Wow..it was a great movie to watch. Started as a crime movie and ends as an emotional movie. Ben Affleck, rookie[Oops I'm wrong his first movie as director is I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meat Hook, and Now I Have a Three-Picture Deal at Disney] director handled this complex subject really good. Some of storyline just similar to Mytic River. Casey Affleck is simply brilliant. The final moment of the movie is really touching and powerful.

Real firecrackers.

In next few weeks, it is going to be real time firecrackers somewhere over the Pacific Ocean skyline. US government decided to shoot down spy satellite, which anyway going to fall from orbit because of power failure. This spy satellite was launched on 2006 and it failed as soon as enters orbit. So this satellite's fuel tank is almost full and may cause severe damage when it hit the ground. But there is only 1 percent chance that this satellite hits populated area. Because our earth 75% covered with sea and 24% is waste land. So some experts are concerned with US plan, and this would leave some million piceces hanging in orbit(like debris cloud), which act as a barrier to other satellite and spacecraft. Most recently China shoot down a weather satellite and made a large debris cloud in space. Now it is US's turn.

I don't think this actions would speed up global warming.

Big format war.

There is a big format war between Toshiba and Sony regarding high definition DVD. Toshiba backing up with HD DVD format and Sony backing up with Blu-ray format. The main difference is, which technology to use for interaction, Java based BD-J or Microsoft based HDi. Now HD-DVD soon going to be end of life(EOL). Couple of weeks ago, BestBuy(largest US retailer) announced that their preferred format would be Blu-ray, to make things worse for HD DVD, today Netflix (largest DVD renter) says no to HD DVD format. Lot of customers like me, has been waiting for long time to buy high definition DVD player but confused with which one to buy. I think now we have clear idea, how industry heading to in terms of high definition DVD format.

As per following graph from wiki, clearly majority of studios are in favor of Blu-ray but 2 major studios are still with HD DVD. Universal and paramount are leading movie producers and their market share is huge. So best bet would be wait for some more time before making decision.

Google Android - Is next Java for Mobile?

The main aim of Google's Android is to run on all low end mobile phones to smart phones without adding any special chipsets. Android is open source and Linux based, there are millions of developer's "hands on deck" to improve or add new features for Android. Today Google introduced first prototype of Android, guess what, this demo was running in 2 generation old ARM9 process. Google's whole idea about this Android is, design and develop an application framework on top of a "sandbox", which can be run on any mobile O/S. Now here is real twist, Google just developing an application framework for mobile, then why they need to bid for wireless spetrum, they won wireless spetrum bid by losing lot of money.

Now we have to connect the dots, you have the world's first class mobile application and control of unlimited wireless spetrum(700MHz explained here, this is after analog to digital TV conversion free'd spetrum). What you can do with that? We can transfer large set of data over phone to phone, we can transfer a viedo or pictures to any phone if we are running same Android software. So it is something like P2P support for mobile. We can download a Netflix movie in Mobile and watch it in Android movie player. It is inline with consumer-is-winner Google concept.

This is virutally end of Java ME ambition to rule mobile world. Google by-passing Java ME because it is not as fast as Google's expectation and Google is building their own JVM called Dalvik, which is going to be custom virtual machine on top of a Linux kernel.

Groovy - All set to launch.

As Java becomes a community platform or language or whatever we want to call it, Java grown a lot because it is not owned by one company. In other words Sun mature enough to open up it's underlining implementation to all developers hence we have more and more invention for Java language such as Spring, Struts, JSF etc. Having said that now these frameworks or specifications are declining showly. Now we want something easy to code with less bugs and bring up system quckily at same time high quality. Here is one dynamic script language extension for Java is Groovy. There was lot of debate among developer's community, which is to choose Groovy or JRuby in last year.Groovy got some steam after its 1.5 version release in last year. I think Groovy is clear winner specially for Java developers, because

• it is just an extension of JVM
• easily integrate with existing java objects.
• no need to deal with 2 different objects.(one for Java and one for Grovvy like JRuby).
• zero learning curve for Java developers to start Groovy.
• easily integrate with existing java web-app frameworks.

Rich Internet Applications with Flex and AIR.

This is the presentation; I’m waiting for days to understand FLEX better. Nice one.Very detailed and good education for naive FLEX developers with Java background. As he explained, RIA is all about “expressiveness”. Web site needs to be more “expressive” in order to attract and retain users.

1. Car insurance accidental information system is good, but he didn’t say what the success rate after FLEX migration.
2. As performance side FLEX outpaced AJAX by wide margin. For example to show 2000 rows Ajax is taking more than 33 secs (note after a javascript warning), but Flex is taking 20000 rows little more than 1 secs.
3. His demo application itself tempted to download FLEX SDK beta, FLEXBuilder. He showed how FLEX script acting as a object oriented way and MVC pattern and a component.
   
4. Desktop Vs Web application at deployment time decision is plus for flex application, eBay example is good one.

5. Message driven collaboration charting also great and requires small bandwidth to collaborate efficiently.

The disadvantage would be,

1. Debugging at front level may be difficult.
2. I hate drop and drag front end approach,but good that they have both code and drop and drag switch over.
3. Since all component's source code owned by Adobe, I don't know scope of adding and customizing components as we wish.

Perfection denied by Confident Silent Killers.

WOW...what a game? I thought Peyton Manning is in field last 3 mins. of 4th quarter in place of Eli. I would say Eli became Eli+Peyton in 4th Q. Most happiest person from this game is parents of Eli because their sons give them “double whammy”. Everybody must be in edge of their seat in 4th Q. The failure of Pats is they are very protective to keep ball and didn’t take any risks like they did it in 4Q. May be they thought 7-3 is enough to win this game. They didn’t know that scoring more in first 2 Q will always helps final out come. Plax exactly did what he said in couple of weeks ago. Pats underestimate him and always single covered him. Finally they paid the price.
Cool , great season and great games and next season is not far away.

Patriots to Perfection - 21 Hours away.

All are set and final count down started for Patriots towards Perfection. Today I went to Costco for shopping and fans were line up to buy big plasma/LCD TVs to Beer and Superbowl cake. It is funny that wife's are looking at husband face, and husband are starring at TV set one by one.

Cricket: India not looking good at this time. Sachin out was heart breaking and unlucky one. Lets hope rain will save India.

Playing with Life.

While reading latest news from India, one news got my attention that kidney racketeers issue, This time from North India. I was little emotional on this because last year my beloved father suffered from Chronic kidney disease, which created shock waves in my mind but I was confident that I can easily replace his kidney to solve the failure. But when I landed in India, I got another shock that in my state Tamil Nadu they stopped kidney transplantation after a massive fraud like now in North.Other states also had a same kind of restriction and I can't enroll in waiting list also, because that would take another 5 years. I didn't lost hope and because of open market(thanks to Manmohan) Baxtor healthcare in India has a easy and simple solution to treat kidney failure, which is called CAPD but little expensive but was affordable. Thanks to the Dr. Palanirajan from Madurai Apollo who explained to me about this and giving training to my mother. The whole process just took about 3 weeks. For my father he is a god. Now he is in CAPD for almost one year.

But I'm thinking about who suffered the same issue but can't afford this treatment. They have to die because of this fraud. It is bulls*** and we have to punish this criminals until death before taking their kidney to give it needy and suffering people, they have to prosecute them in separate court not in civil courts. This doctors and criminals doesn't understand chasing money makes them Paranoia, narcissism and attention deficit disorders.Since they are always greedy and chasing money,that makes them to play with lives. Nobody will do this fraud unless they are mentally ill and paranoia.

Microsoft bids $45 billion for Yahoo

Checkmate to Google. From CNN "Microsoft Corp. made an unsolicited $44.6 billion cash and stock bid for Yahoo on Friday, a deal that could shake up the competitive and lucrative market for Internet search."

Here are more informations.
Fun Facts

• Yahoo and Microsoft working on this deal since late 2006, their top executives met at undersea, deep inside Amazon forest and Sahara desert to keep this top secret.
• If the deal goes thru, Microsoft said that they will keep Yahoo as a separate entity and will not interfere it's operation. But based on Microsoft's history and creditability they might sunset Yahoo products just to promote their own MSN after 2-3 years. So stop using Yahoo Mail, Flicker and other Yahoo service from today.
• Microsoft also said that they would announce a bid soon, after Google stock hit bottom like Yahoo, and they are saving money for that by adding more bugs in Windows Vista OS.

Real Facts

• The timing of this announcement is really boosting for some pessimistic who suffering from recession blue in wall street. (from Marketwatch)
  
• This M&A fuels other companies to buy their competitors because Microsoft can foresee market ahead of time compare with their peers. (from CNNMoney)
  
• If you love graphs here is detailed analysis of MSFT,YHOO and GOOG and clearly MSFT+YHOO is next EXXON+MOBILE.
  
• Antitrust is always an issue for this kind of deals, but Microsoft lawyers knows that how to resolve it because they have lot of experience with it.