Archive for January, 2008

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The Last Question by Isaac Asimov

You must have heard about Issac Asimov. He was one of the best known science fiction writers in the world.

He is the person who gave us the Three Laws of Robotics.

Asimov thought that The Last Question, first copyrighted in 1956, was his best short story ever.

Do take out a few minutes and read this. If you have even a little bit inclination towards science, you will love this.

Links:
- http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm
OR
- http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html

PS: Do not read the end first, if you really want to enjoy this.

The History of “Hello World”

Almost all of you who have studied even a little bit of programming must identify these words “hello world”. I am pretty sure the first program you read printed these words on the screen.

The first known instance of the usage of the words “hello” and “world” together in computer literature occurred earlier, in Kernighan’s 1972 Tutorial Introduction to the Language B, with the following code:


main( ) {
extrn a, b, c;
putchar(a); putchar(b); putchar(c); putchar('!*n');
}
a 'hell';
b 'o, w';
c 'orld';

Then it was used as the first program in the famous book “The C programming Language” by Kernighan and Ritchie.
The code is below :

main() {
printf("hello, world
");
}

For a detailed information on Hello World programs check out this link on wikipedia

It’s not necessary to have a big thing to make history !!!

Indian IT firms see moderate salary hike

Looks like it is going to be a lousy year for Indian IT professionals. Yesterday TCS sent out a letter to its employees, informing them about a cut in the pay. And now Mint reports that Indian firms including wipro,satyam and HCL are predicting a lower hike in salary this year.

On the positive side Infosys expects a 12-15% salary hike as usual. And more importantly techies can expect the smaller companies to continue to pay higher salary packages. You can read the complete post here

TCS Cuts Employee Salary

TCS employees became the first casualty of the appreciating rupee and the recession in US, as in a strange move the company has given a notice to the employees about a reduction in their salary based on Q3 oerformance. It comes as a rude shock to the employees who have helped make the company one of the most respected company in the world. Ironically my previous post was about Tata Consultancy Services was rated the best performing IT services company

The cut will be something close to 1.5% of the CTC for the next 2 months. However it may translate to a higher percentage of the take home amount for many employees. I have absolutely no clue about how to interprete it. Hoping that it is just a temporary setback and not a long term setback. Any TCS employees? Please share your views in the comments section.

Here is the text of the letter forwarded to me by a reader

***********************************************************************************************
Dear Colleagues,

Last week, TCS posted results for the third quarter of 2007-08 with revenues rising at 5.04 per cent sequentially to Rs 5,924 crore and net profits rising 6.72 per cent sequentially to Rs 1,331 crore.

As you are well aware, our variable compensation policy is linked to EVA, based on the overall performance of the company and your individual performance. The variable pay component is paid monthly, based on the company’s expected performance for the quarter. As indicated in the annual compensation letters, variable pay may change based on actual performance of the company and the ongoing performance of the individual.

In Q3 this year, we met our revenue target but we fell short of meeting our EVA target due to a combination of internal and external factors. The EVA target forms the basis for the variable pay computation and has been given in advance, each month during Q3. Based on the audited results the EVA-based variable payout amounts to Rs. 293 crore for the quarter. The actual variable payout based on expected EVA given in advance amounts to Rs. 376 crore. The advance payment that has to be adjusted amounts to Rs. 83 crore, which will be recovered during Q4 from the employees. The recovery would be reflected in your salary in the months of February and March 2008.

TCS continues to enjoy industry-leading growth. We expect to meet our EVA targets in Q4. There is a strong business pipeline and we are very positive about the future. In order to be globally competitive and maintain our leadership position, we not only need to grow revenues, but also manage our costs better and enhance operational efficiencies.

In Q4, we will follow the same basis of advance payment of Variable Pay as per expected EVA projections at the beginning of 2007-08. When the audited results for Q4 are announced in April 2008, appropriate adjustment in Variable Pay will be made either upwards or downwards as the case may be.

We will shortly let you know the actual amount to be recovered through a letter in Ultimatix. On viewing your letter, in case you need any further clarification, please send in your query to the following mail address – eva@tcs.com and we will respond to your questions

***********************************************************************************************

P.S: I have posted the letter exactly as it was sent to me.

India still big in IT services

The rise of rupee might have eroded their profit margins but it has not been able to harm their importance in the global arena. Yes I am talking about the out-of-fashion indian IT firms.

In a global survey to find the top-100 IT companies in the world, Indian companies came tops in 4 out of the 10 it-service categories.Tata Consultancy Services was rated the best performing IT services company. HCL Technologies was rated the best performing infrastructure service provider. Genpact was rated the best performing BPO provider and WNS Global Services was the rated the best performing FAO provider.

Fifty-seven per cent of IT service employees working in delivery centres were located in India. Only 18 per cent were based in the US. Need any more proof of Indian might?

In the top-100 list india was second to US alone. There were 29 firms from India compared to 4 from China? Whatever happened to the chinese threat??

Read the orginal document here

Great place for Linux, Unix discussions

Linuxquestions.org is a great place for all sort of discussions related to Linux, Unix, or any posix Operating System and in general Open Source.
It has got lots of forums in different categories. Whether you are a newbie or an advanced user, developer or administrator, you have hardware compatibility issues or any software issue or you just want to do any non-technical discussion… (the list is practically endless) Just visit Linuxquestions.org .
I am sure it will be useful for you….

Why project managers don’t do what they should?

So very often we have been frustrated because the manager does not take the obvious path to solve a problem. Rather they tend to take a complicated path, that just aggravates the problem. Like when a project is behind the schedule and the project manager goes out and brings 5 more resources after much fight. If anything it just increases the level of confusion.

In this wonderful post about the mythical man month, Sulkshan talks about how “Assigning more programmers to a project running behind schedule, shall make it even more late“. Then why do the project managers put in more people into a project running late? He might not have read the book but if he has spent anytime in software development, then he has definitely experienced a similar situation.

To understand why managers behave the wat they do, just put yourself in the shoes of a manager. Now assume that your project is running behind schedule. Your manager asks why it is running short and what you are doing about it. The truth is you goofed up and you have no clue about how to fix it. You know it but do you admit it in front of your boss? No way. So you come up with the standard answer that you were given fewer resources than required, that some of your key people left in the middle of the project and without your brilliance the project would have been much more behind the schedule. See you have now converted an adversity into an opportunity to prove how smart you are ;-) Since the project was delayed because of lack of man power, the natural solution is to put more people onto it.

Even the project manager knows that putting more people onto the project will not solve the issue. But the problem is he does not know what will solve the problem. Any clues from your experience??

Social Networking Sites – A big list

Social networking sites have somehow changed our lifestyles. whether at work or leisure most of us are logged into one or the other social networking site, be it orkut, myspace, linkedin, etc. Companies are making lot of money from these sites. There are so many debates about how good or bad these sites are but I don’t want to get into these debates.

If you are a memeber of 3 or 4 of these sites and you know 9 or 10 such sites then just have a look at this list of social networking sites.

Man!! I never knew there were so many sites like our orkut.

Did you know?

Future of TV is Internet

I believe that the Future of TV is Internet. If some company is able to link TV telecast to the internet in real time and enable users to get more information about what they are watching, just imagine how much value it will create.

I will explain it with few examples:

1. A user watching a car ad can get more info about the car, like its reviews, on road price in his city and dealer contacts etc.

2. A user watching a Travel Serial can get info about travel plans and costs for the destination he is watching in the serial.

3. In an extreme case, a user can get the subtitles of a foreign language program in his native language.

You can just imagine the possibilities.

Now coming to the technology part, I have some ideas on how this can be implemented. The telecaster embeds some keywords related to the content. These keywords can be name of the product in the ad, or name of the location being shown in the travel program or the text feed of the audio (in extreme case). These keywords can then be passed on to the internet (ok.. Google), processed and meaningful results can be displayed to the user.

The idiot (box) wants some intelligence.

Great place to get free e-books

Found this(http://www.ebookee.com) nice link where you can get lots of free ebooks. I used it only for computer books . I got famous books like CLRS, introduction to algorithms, Compiler design by Aho, Ullman & Sethi, Operating systems by Tanenbaum and rare books like The Minix book by Tanenbaum. And the best part is that you find books in various formats (.chm, .pdf, .rar, etc.).

Itis basically a book sharing place. You can also upload a good book if you have . Also if you don’t find a book you can request for it and someone will probably upload it. All in all a good site.

Knowledge is free….

The Mythical Man-Month : Best Reads

The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering is a book written by Fredrick P. Brooks, Jr. on Software Program Management. The work was first published in 1975, and republished as an anniversary edition in 1995. The main theme is that “Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.”

You might be thinking that why I am recommending a book written some thirty years back. Even I thought the same when someone recommended this book to me. But after reading this I can without doubt say that this is one of the finest books you will read on this subject. We in industry are constantly facing issues related to project delays, cost over-runs, over complexity, unmotivated employees etc. This book tackles these issues at a very fundamental level. What Fred Brooks experienced as a “father of the IBM System/360″ is still relevant today, even in this age of internet, java and extreme programming.

I have seen time and again that managers think that building a software is like building a wall. You need to deliver a software in six months instead of a year, fine lets put 20 programmers instead of 10. This book explains that this can never be achieved and why it can’t be.

I would strongly recommend this book to someone who has worked in industry (knowledge industry) for couple of years. This would definitely change your view and would make you think (in the right direction) before you take critical decisions.

Some of Brooks insights and generalizations are:

The Mythical Man-Month:
Assigning more programmers to a project running behind schedule, may make it even more late.

The Second-System Effect:
The second system an engineer designs is the most bloated system she will EVER design.

Conceptual Integrity:
To retain conceptual integrity and thereby user-friendliness, a system must have a single architect (or a small system architecture team), completely separate from the implementation team.

The Manual:
The chief architect should produce detailed written specifications for the system in the form of the manual, which leaves no ambiguities about any part of the system and completely specifies the external spcifications of the system i.e. what the user sees.

Pilot Plant:
When designing a new kind of system, a team should factor in the fact that they will have to throw away the first system that is built since this first system will teach them how to build the system. The system will then be completely redesigned using the newly acquired insights during building of the first system. This second system will be smarter and should be the one delivered to the customer.

Formal Documents:
Every project manager must create a roadmap in the form of formal documents which specifies milestones precisely and things like who is going to do what and when and at what cost.

Communication:
In order to avoid disaster, all the teams working on a project, such as the architecture and implementation teams, should stay in contact with each other in as many ways as possible and not guess or assume anything about the other. Ask whenever there’s a doubt. NEVER assume anything.

Code Freeze and System Versioning:
No customer ever fully knows what she wants from the system she wants you to build. As the system begins to come to life, and the customer interacts with it, he understands more and more what he really wants from the system and consequently asks for changes. These changes should of course be accommodated but only upto a certain date, after which the code is frozen. All requests for more changes will have to wait until the NEXT version of the system. If you keep making changes to the system endlessly, it may NEVER get finished.

Specialized Tools:
Every team should have a designated tool maker who makes tools for the entire team, instead of all individuals developing and using their private tools that no one else understands.

No silver bullet:
There is no single strategy, technique or trick that will exponentially raise the productivity of programmers.

Open Source – Myths, Realities & My views (Coke*^ & Lemonade way)

There’s been lot of hue and cry about open source in past few years in the technical world. Whatever technical forums or blogs or news you see has some story on open source every day. Some people think open source is the best thing and they want o go open source (though many of them don’t even know the true meaning of open source!) and there are some who think it’s something bad (may be just because they don’t know what it is!).

I would like to explain what I came to know about open source in past three years and what I think about it. (Please beware that all ideas expressed in this article are my personal views, don’t be simply guided by them and believe in what you think … Everyone’s free to believe in and do what one thinks, that’s one of the features of open source).

Do you know the recipe of Coke? I am sure you don’t. Nobody knows (except for the people who make it) because the Coca-Cola company does not tell anyone how they make it . But I am sure you know how to make a good lemonade (lime juice or shikanji or neembu paani) … If you don’t know please first go and ask your mom how to make it, make one and then swallow this article with it :-) .

So, we can’t make Coke at our home but we can make lemonade (probably a better one than sold by a few multi-national companies).
Now let us look at some other facts related to Coke and lemonade…
We pay approximately 20 Indian bucks for 500 ml of coke bottle (you may pay upto 30 Indian bucks for the same thing if you buy it at a multiplex). Making 500 ml of lemonade won’t cost more than 7 or 8 Indian bucks (just the cost of two lemons and some sugar, water is free).
We always get coke as it is, wherever we buy it. Yes we can add stuff to it to change its taste but the basic thing remains same…though most of us won’t mess with a 20 bucks cost (probably not worth) thing. But in case of lemonade we are free to modify its recipe as we like… choose the number of lemons, quantity of sugar, type of lemons, etc. We have to trust the Coke company when they say that they use clean water and ingredients that don’t harm our health. There’s no other way to know the truth unless you know a food inspector who won’t take bribe. But in case of lemonade we always know how good or bad the ingredients are that are used.

I guess by now you think that I want to say that lemonade is open source and coke is closed source. Yes you are right if you think so. Lemonade is open source because the recipe(the source ) of lemonade is known to all and coke is closed source because we don’t know how it is made.

Since this article is on BinaryDay, a few technical words…

Comparing the above to software industry, an open source software is one for which the users know the source code written in C, Java or any of the hundreds of computer languages (the recipe) of the software and closed source software in which you get the compiled executable file but you don’t know the source code (the recipe) of the software…You know what it does but you don’t know how it does.

There’s a very common question that people ask . “How to make money with open source?”
Most people’s answer to this question is a very moral one… “Not every work should be done for money”… True, but how practical is it? Not at all. What’s the point in burning your brains out when you can’t buy even a laptop or a bike? The philosophy of open source does not stop one from making money. People generally take free software to be free in the sense of “Buy two, get one free”. That’s not the correct meaning . The “free” in free software is free in the sense of “freedom”.

Let me again bring in some coke and lemonade to explain the money part and the freedom part of open source.
First the money part. We all know how to make lemonade but still we buy it in a shop or order it in a restaurant.(I guess lime juice is the most sold thing (in terms of quantity) in our college canteen!). We all buy a thing which we know how to make (sometimes even better than what we buy) because due to some reason or the other we can’t always make it ourselves.

Consider one more thing. If you make your lemonade yourself there’s no guarantee that every time you make it, it’s equally good. But a good restaurant can guarantee that and that’s one of the things they charge for.
Similar is the case with Software. Companies buy software just as we buy lemonade. But why will a company buy open source software rather than a closed source software? (Or why will I buy lemonade rather than Coke?) The answer is below in the freedom part.

If we order lemonade in a good restaurant we can always ask the waiter to tell the person who prepares lemonade to add less/more sugar or to add a pinch of salt or to add extra lime juice, etc. The point is that we can get it customized according to our taste. Whereas in case of coke we don’t have such “freedom”. That’s one of the reasons why I prefer lemonade and former President of the Republic of India, Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam prefers Open Source software for the Indian Armed Forces.

There’s one more issue I would like to discuss.
When we make lemonade for the first time, or bake a cake for the first time or for that matter cook anything new, we always ask for help from someone, mostly our mother (all mothers are expert cooks, that’s why we have so much good food in the world), who knows to make it or knows to make something similar (in case you are creative with food and try new recipes). When we have made our new recipe we want everyone we know to try it out (We don’t charge them). If our new recipe is good enough and people like it, it’s very likely that they want you to make it again and again and if it’s really great you may end up making money by teaching the chefs of a five start hotel how to make it.
Same is the case with software, you always get help from people in the online forums. You make a new software and give it to people to try it and if your software is real good, it may be the next MySQL (MySQL is the world’s most famous database software, it is open source and was bought by Sun Microsystems a few days ago).
That’s how somebody once made a burger and Linus Torvaldz made Linux !!!

Food and Software are so similar, aren’t they?

 

*Coke is the registered trade mark of the Coca-Cola company.
^You may replace coke with any proprietory beverage of your choice. (I chose coke because the
word “coke” has less characters than “pepsi” or “thums-up” . Thus I saved a few KiloBytes of a
costly resource known as computer memory)

 

PS: 7Up is just 3 characters (taking 7 as a char), one less than coke but I will stick with coke because it is one of the oldest commercial soft-drinks on Earth.

Understanding the Digg story

Techcrunch has this really wonderful post explaining the success of digg. Basically it says that digg succeeded because it was a small company taking on established media, trusted by a good number of followers and satisfied an inherent need of the users to get unfiltered information. All of these points are true. However that is true for all the digg clones as well. Then what explains the fact that none of the digg clones have become a success.

The most important reasons are the network effect and first mover advantage. First mover advantage may not count for a lot on its own. But couple it with network effect and you have a really lethal combination.

Simply put the network effect means any system whose value for a new user goes up as the number of users on the system increases. The text book example of network effect is a telephone network. If you are the only 1 with a telephone then the value of the system for you is zero. However the value for the second user is higher than zero, as he can now talk to you. The value for the third user is still higher as he can talk to 3 people. Basically the value of telephone network goes up as more and more people use it.

Network effect is very important on a site like digg. More number of users means more stories being submitted. As more people start voting, it becomes more difficult to game the system. Also since now digg is able to send more traffic, websites start putting up digg buttons on their site. This creates a virtuous cycle, that keeps making digg even more useful.

For a new entrant, the only way to break this virtuous cycle is to come up with a differentiated offering that will be attractive enough for the users to try it out. We have seen facebook doing so successfully by creating a social network for college students alone. However social news by itself is a very simple product. Hence the ability of competition to come up with a differentiated product is very less.

A new entrant ximmy is trying to do so by paying the users to submit links and commenting upon them. We need to see if the apyment will be incentive enough for the users to abandon digg and come to ximmy. You can read our earlier post about ximmy here.

Got a brilliant idea? Get it funded

If you think that you have a really great idea but you do not know how to proceed then you may be in luck. Techstars is now accepting applications for funding 10 new ideas.

It offers seed funding upto $5000 per founder, upto 3 founders. So you can get a $15,000 or Rs 6 Lakhs of funding. The amount is not the best part about the programme though. It is the other facilities like legal advice, networking and mentoring that they provide, that makes them special. Last year also they had funded 10 companies. 8 of them have now recieved angel investment.

The best part is they do not want you to send them a business plan. So you need not worry about preparing one. See the details of the programme here

Google India Women in Engineering Award

Google India has announced an award for deserving women students in Computer Science and related majors, and inspire them to become active participants and leaders in creating technology. The prize money is Rs 75,000. Eligible candidates must be full-time students from recognized institutions with specialization in Computers or related subject. They need to have Cumulative CGPA of at least 4.0 on a 5.0 scale, 8.0 on a 10.0 scale or equivalent. Demonstrable leadership experience would be a plus.

The detailed eligibility criteria is as follows

    • Full-time students from recognized institutions
      Area of specialization – Computer Engineering or related majors
      2nd to final year students from a bachelor’s program; all students from a master’s or PhD program
      Cumulative CGPA of at least 4.0 on a 5.0 scale, 8.0 on a 10.0 scale or equivalent.

    • The last date for application is 31st-Jan. So if you know someone who may be eligible then please pass on the word. The details can be found here.

    P.S: The programme has been open since first of december. I got to know about it today only from TechBanyan

    What Google knows about me

    Everything. ok, almost everything.

    I was a reading a post on “Google To Become Open Source Science Repository” at Techcrunch. While this is a really nice gesture by Google, what made me uneasy was Ducan’s observation that “We thought Google knew everything, now it will know even more“. So I just made a list of Google’s products that I use and what google knows about me. The list was really scary. Read on and most probably you will be scared too.

    Google Search :- all my searches (interests, hobbies, plans). May be my profession too.
    Google Desktop Search :- all the content on my laptop
    Google Toolbar :- the web sites I visit, frequency of visit
    Gmail :- All my emails. Even if you do not use gmail, if the person you send mails, uses gmail then google knows the content of the email sent by you.
    Orkut :- myyour freind list, the communities I belong to
    Blogger :- frequency of my blog post, all those post that I never published
    Adsense :- my complete address, my online income, which posts on my blog are more popular
    Adword :- my credit card information
    Analytics :- details about my users, where and how they come from
    webmaster tools:- the search term I target

    Personally I love google and I use their products because they are the best ones available. But the thought that one company knows too much about me sometimes worries me. Just in case they become evil someday !!! I think we desperately need an alternative, may be an open source search engine.

    The following links will explain exactly why I am uncomfortable.
    AOL search data scandal
    US regional bank hacked
    AT&T hack exposes 19,000 identities

    MySQL sold for $ 1 Billion !!

    Yes that is true. MySQL AB the developer of opensource database system MySQL has been sold to Sun for close to $ 1 Billion. Here is the posting on Sun’s website announcing the acquisition.

    Most importantly this deal proves that open source software development can be a viable business model.

    MySQL was always a great database. However continued support was a major concern for any corporation considering installation of MySQL. With SUN’s might behind MySQL that concern shall be gone. Support revenue forms a large part of the revenue for many product companies and IMHO SUN must have given a lot of weight to the expected support revenue in coming up with this billion dollar valuation.

    The deal looks to be quite complementray. Sun is in the enterprise and has a substantial Web presence, while MySQL has a substantial Web presence and is entering the enterprise. Hence there is a possibility of a substantial cross-sell for both products.

    The only downside can be that MySQL stops being a truely opensource software and starts to focus too much on the earnings potential. Hope that better sense prevails at SUN.

    SUN has been involved with the development with the development of rival open source database PostgreSQL. It will be interesting to note what will be SUN’s strategy going forward.

    Seems like it is time for Larry to start concentrating on his core database business.

    Microsoft seeks patent for office ‘spy’ software

    The Times reports that Microsoft has filed for a patent that will allow the employers to monitor employee’s productivity, physical wellbeing and competence.

    Microsoft submitted a patent application in the US for a “unique monitoring system” that could link workers to their computers. Wireless sensors could read “heart rate, galvanic skin response, EMG, brain signals, respiration rate, body temperature, movement facial movements, facial expressions and blood pressure”, the application states.

    The system could also “automatically detect frustration or stress in the user” and “offer and provide assistance accordingly”. Imagine a world where you are constantly monitored by your employers, where getting excited privately by an attractive fellow employee could end up in a sexual harassment claim, or even privately being unhappy by someone in management may automatically result in intervention and retraining.

    Scary
    You can read the original article here

    Anyone who has never made a mistake

    “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
    — Albert Einstein

    Apple Air : The Thinnest Notebook on Earth

    Steve Jobs in his Macworld keytnote announced the MacBook Air, which is the world’s thinnest notebook. He demonstrated just how thin the notebook is by pulling it out for its grand introduction from a standard envelope.

    Apple Air, The thinnest notebook
    It sports a number of standard notebook features, including Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and a Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 80GB hard-disk drive. It has a battery time would be roughly five hours. Unlike the iphone, users will not have to wait for long as the product starts shipping in 2 weeks.

    However it does not have a optical drive. There’s a “remote disc” feature built right into the operating system that will show all Macs or PCs in the vicinity — you can just click on one of the machines and ask to borrow its optical drive. That’s cool.