Aura.... Reflexion of an uninspired web logger ..

Being Free !

2011-05-19T11:34:00.003+05:30

Few years ago in KL, Malaysia, I used to dine daily from a small South Indian Restaurant, where I enjoyed talking to this guy from my home town who worked as a waiter there. He was probably 35 then, he doesn't know where he was born. What he knew was that, he was always in a Lodge in the city (Trivandrum), where he worked as a janitor then a room boy, later as caretaker and was very near and dear to the owner of the Lodge. He was having best days of his life, with zero tensions and most of his needs were taken care by his boss. Although I am not sure if he was educated enough, although he seems to have done at least middle school. He should have made a lot of friends over there, but many of them would have felt bad about his life and how his manager would be underpaying him. And with help of trade unions, his friends urged his boss to give him compensation (bigger and better one time amount) to account for all the work he has been doing till then. That probably happened when he was 18 years old . He had to leave work (only thing he knew ) and after years of protest he got his money (probably Rs 200,000 ), he moved to Chennai where he got married . And then somebody fooled him taking almost all the money and promising him a job in Singapore. Now he ended up in Malaysia, getting payed less than what he would have been getting when in Trivandrum . I always made sure I put few Ringgits more as his tip, but he never took it . He dreams about going back to India , living with his kid and wife and may be visiting back Trivandrum. I am sure, his life would be far lot better now :)

Role play as solution to mental problems ?

2010-03-01T05:37:00.009+05:30

Psychology brings in another dimension to movies, some of these "Psychology motivated" movies makes to box office hits where as some gets vanished .

After watching Martin Scorsese film Shutter Island and impressed by the details of how he puts across the venture by psychiatrist's to treat Delusional Disorder faced by the hero (Di Carpio).

This movies is very good, and I usually give this rating to a movie if I keep remembering about the movie even when I come out of the theater. After reading clinical psychologist's review (from psychology today), I went out of words .

This is not the first time I have seen a movie made on similar grounds, on the use of role play to solve mental problems . The Malayalam movie Manichitrathazhu was blockbuster in Kerala, running in theaters for more than 300 days, and lately this move was re made (not dubbed) in 5 other Indian languages. But in here, the patient was suffering from split personality, and hero (the doctor) tries to find a solution by using role play .

They say Drugs had brought in lot of relief for mental patients as end of the day these diseases are resultant of some or the other biochemical reaction happening in our body . This so called solution sounds far better than the surgical procedures in 1930's (This is again one of the suspenses in "Shutter Island").

I wonder how often and how elaborate would these role playing solutions be if somebody would be doing so to treat mental problems. Though the climax of "Shutter Island" was disappointing compared to that of "Manichitrathazhu" suggesting the probability of success for these procedures is not 100%. Does doctors have time to formulate such acting ventures to bring back the "actual world" to these patients ?

California

2008-11-08T06:46:00.004+05:30

Silicon Valley, US101, IBM, Google, NASA, San Fransisco, Los Angeles, San Hose, Highway-1, Caltrain, DT, VTA, Madras Cafe, Sharks are the words coming into my mind when I start thinking where I am now.
A new world, far diffrent culture, and very experienced crowd has always kept me busy wondering where and what new to learn.

The German schooling

2007-09-30T10:50:00.000+05:30

We live in a small flat world, but people in different countries was brought up in different ways. My German friend was telling me how the education system was works in Germany. Its really different from what we see in India, if we had German system in India I would not have got my degree yet. As after primary school(the first 4 years), the Germans have 4 entirely different secondary schools. And how you go there is totally dependent on the children's ability as understood by their teachers. The brightest in primary end up in Gymansium , and they get trained for a university degree. The average performers end up in realschule, where they would take apprenticeship. And those who got really bad marks would end up in Hauptschule, where they get lots of practical training. The germans do have Gesamtschule , were pupils can shift bettween diffrent schools and every since its introduction in 60's this was controversial.
But if you could do good marks in Hauptschule you can go to a Gymansium but would take more number of years to do your university degree. If I were a german, probably I would have ended up in Hauptschule as I was doing pathetic in primary school, I was avery in secondary, and above average in higher secondary. So I would be still studying my degree course. Its been said that british destroyed our traditional education system based on temples and mosques, but its now doing good to millions of Indians.

Aura

How Ben Bernanke affect our Life's ?

2007-09-23T11:35:00.000+05:30

Ben, who is chairman of United States Federal Reserve is hottest man in all financial news at present as he brought down .5% of Fed's, interest rate for lending as reason he quoted as "global financial losses have far exceeded even the most pessimistic estimates of the credit losses on these loans". And the loans what he meant was sub prime crisis, it was all about not letting the housing bubble burst. The real estate prices in US was ever high, and banks started lending money to people with out looking at their credit history at a high interest rate. And banks became short of money or for some other reason they started pulling money from other funds and banks around the world. And soon there was a turbulence in the market about if the money lend ed would come back as customers are finding really difficult to pay it back. This uncertainty troubled almost all of the financial institutions as nobody had an idea of how much money has gone into these loans. And also, because people are paying a lot of their earning to these loans, the consumer confidence came down affecting the whole economy. This added to the turbulence, and people started pulling out their money from shares and started investing on blue chips. And also because of these intrest rate cuts, the fears are more about weakening of dollar and inflation. And currency carry trade on boom, dollar value is still decreasing.

With US still topping as single largest importer of the world, and the value of Dollar coming down. Those businesses which are depended on US is getting affected. I am sure this years hike, is not going to like last year.

Is it going to affect us over in India ?. I am sure its not, as we have the fourth largest GDP by purchasing power parity and growing at above 9% figures. Money coming more from Banking,Aviation, Telecom, Automotive and growing about 30 % compared to what people think is IT which is growing at slower pace. But those in IT, watch out, if we are slow in going up the value pyramid we are are soon going to be pulled down.

Aura

What it takes to manage transport ?

2007-09-21T21:46:00.000+05:30

What if one day, you could use a smart card and travel around India. You use multiple modes, be it Rail, Bus, Air, Taxi or even an Autorickshaw. Huh...Is that possible ? We have 1.136 billion people. Yes smart card is smart enough to store all details about the person including how much credit he has in his card and every time he swipes it, he credit comes down .
But will it be viable enough to leave it that loose ?. Somebody needs to centrally manage it. Who is going to do it ?. Now if you ask why really we need it, its because we have multiple vendors catering from the most spread of autorickshaw drives till the most organized like Airlines or Rail. And if somebody doesnt keep track of all those transactions, the fraud is knocking the door. Dont ever dream any central organization can track transactions even if a percent of our population travels every day.
But what if we could track it. What are the returns out of that ?
Yes ease of use for customer. But for what ?. All are happy with Cash or Credit cards.
We mean business here. Its savings for the transport company. Its the costly fuel which is saved. Its intelligent means to allocate more mechanisms of travel in routes where we see lots of traffic, its how we should reduce Jams. Its about understanding people's need of how they want to commute. Its about fleet management.
So let says somebody comes forward in 2020 to do this kind of business. Probably then all autorickshaw would have some kind of handheld devices which get tracked by GPS and passes on the trasaction details to central server. And somebody is tracking where you are travelling. You cannot afford to hide.

Aura

A Web Portal

2007-09-08T22:26:00.000+05:30

These days, I am understanding the world of portals, deluged by the technology involved, from load balancing, authorization, authentication, presentation, business logic, content store and integration. I have always loved the hardware part micropartitioning, symmetrical multithreading, IP spraying, virtualization, storage arrays. Oh my god, I am diving into many things and I am lovin it :)

Aura

Read and Rate my article.

2007-05-29T10:43:00.000+05:30

Singapore

2007-05-12T19:23:00.000+05:30

Singapore Album

Malaysia Pictures

2006-09-29T22:12:00.000+05:30

Check out my album with malaysia pictures.

More photos in this album

Sambal udang, sotong ..Otak Otak

2006-09-17T20:55:00.000+05:30

Ever wonder how I could understand that text ??
This is what I eat every day and Malaya Bahasa(Malaysian Language) is written in English alphabets.

And what is Sambal ? Its kind of chili paste or something, Xtra hot material and udang should be Prawns and sotong would be Squid ( Thanks to the hotel breakfast every day I have which has pointers). Its all about fish here. Yea Nasi Lemak (Malaysian coconut rice) is basic food you can have in here.
I would say most of malay food is the perfect, well experimented or well thought about combination of Indian and chineese food.
Aura

KL

2006-09-16T19:54:00.000+05:30

For getting to eat what I like, getting to see lot of greenary around, getting the sunrays direct to my face I wake up every day in KL .
This city boasts of lots of things from the fastest train in south east Asia to the talled twin towers in the world. I was lucky to experiance both. It has the best roads I have seen in this world and one of the best public transport systems.

I love this country for the kind of food that people eat here. Its a perfect blend of indian and chinese food. And the abundance of sea food make it the best for me.

Aura

Celebrate Onam when your are abroad and alone ?

2006-09-03T15:50:00.000+05:30

Onam is coming near, and this world of professional nomads, many like me could be strangled in some part of world where you find yourself alone, away from others malayali's, not even one online on chat :(.
Yes onam is a festival which should be celebrated along with your family, in your house along with other who share joy in celebrating this festival. Onam is another important reason for malayali to come and meet their family, have couple of days away from work, eat typical mallu food. Onasadya, onakodi, onakali, oonjaal (the swing), athappoo and many more are part and parcel of this festival.

But what should others do, who are away from their family and working in odd timezone.
1.First thing that I would do is to find others like me in the city where I am, I am rest assured that there will be some one like me. Use google or any another social networking site to do so.Try to organize a meeting with all so that we could have dinner or lunch together and share of onam, may be on same day or nearest weekend.
2.Looking into fundamentals of this festival, its all about enjoying the hard work we have done (harvest festival, ofcourse we no more do paddy cultivation) , make sure that you spend enough that we really enjoy the day.
3.Never forget your family this day. Make sure you call your home, close relatives and friends this day. This is a very good reason why you should call them.
4.Make sure that you take atleast one of your colleagues to a nearest indian restaurant, and try sharing your experiences about Onam and Keralam.
5.Try doing something creative, may be you never get some flowers to make attaapoov, may be write a creative happy onam mail and send it across to all your friend.
6.Make this opportunity to do some more shopping, may be a set of new dress :), if Mr maveli comes this way, let him be happy that his praja is always happy.

Eat good food , wear the best dress, play hard and work less on Onam day

Regards,
Aura

I got my license again !!

2006-08-03T18:36:00.000+05:30

I remember as if its yesterday, when I bunked classes to take my Driving License. I was happiest person when I got it. I used it about 5 years after which I lost along with my purse, credit card 2 years ago. I filed a complaint in local Regional Transport Office for a duplicate, but I was annoyed to hear that the page with my license entry was missing from the register. Oops ..there is no way out. I rode by new bike almost two years without license (I took that risk as I already have a license as from the number I had). I took a new one last week :) and happy to ride confidently in Bangalore roads .

Regards
Aura

Should software firms block social networking sites ?

2006-07-24T21:05:00.000+05:30

In recent past we see lot of activity in social networking using websites. The sites like orkut, hi5 , Yahoo 360, MySpace are few in this sphere. People check less of mails or post less of blogs, but they make it sure that they log in into one of these site and check for new friends or communicate with the old ones often.

But is this activity increasing to the level that it needs to be blocked so that the normal buisiness is not affected ?

My opinion would be no. Its managements responsibility that people are connected socially. And when you work a lot and you are mostly near your computer and connected to internet there is no better way that these networking sites.
I use lot of Orkut, it helps me manage my friends, find old/new friends, get to know about people, above all that make best use of extra time.
Hope there is a time when you can find every one in this world in networks like these, the world open and every one is reachable as in case of Orkut.

How Supply Chain software are made ?

2006-07-22T20:09:00.000+05:30

Last four months I saw how supply chain software are made as I was working with one of the majors in the domain.
You make click on a website, add the product to cart and click it to buy what you want and it reaches you in days.

What really happens under the hood?
Where exactly the products come from ?
How do they manage all this ?
Where do they get the products from ?
How do the run the business so efficiently ?
How many request comes in a day ?
How do the intract with the transportation company ?
Do they really have some warehouses or product comes from the company where they manufacture those ?
How complex is the software involved ?
What on earth is RFID ?
To what level things are automated ?
How do they handle money ?
How do they handle shipments ?

Yea I got a shady picture about these questions . Suppy chain management is really a complex area to venture into.

Aura..

Its Published

2006-05-23T15:44:00.000+05:30

Developing PHP Applications for IBM Data Servers

Click here for viewing the abstract

Regards,
Aura

My Book in draft

2006-04-22T21:11:00.001+05:30

I never thought I would be a published author. Thanks to IBM :). Do see the draft copy of the book in here
Draft

I had a great team of another 4 authors It was nice working with diverse people . Holger was from Germany, Piotr from Poland, Daniel and Whei-jen from USA . I have snap of the team (we took this picture before Almaden.)

Aura

Tagore

2006-04-19T00:38:00.000+05:30

Was reading some works of Tagore..he is really inspiring..he won nobel prize for literature , was dramatist,eassayist , painter and composer of songs ..
typing some words he have written ..the depth of his writtings are immense..

The eternal Dream
Is borne on the wings of ageless Light
that rends the view of the vague
and goes acorss time
weaving ceaseless patterns of Being

The mystrery remains dumb,
the meaning of this pilgrimage,
the endless adventure of existence
whose rush along the sky
fames up into innumerable rings of paths,
till at last knowledge gleams out from the dusk
in the infinity of human spirit,
and in the dim lighted dawn
she speechlessly gazes through the break in the mist
at the vision of Life and of Love
rising from the tumult of profound pain and joy.

Aura

Why India ?

2006-03-01T09:20:00.000+05:30

I was getting confused with recuring question of "WHY USA ?" ..came across the Newsweek cover story about India. I was overwhelmed by the fact that I am living in the right place for the 21st century. As said in the journal ..its messy, raucous and fast growing . By 2040 India will be come third largest economy.India is the second favorite spot to invest in the world. But its growing in a bottom up fashion compared to China , where almost every thing is fast ,organized and guided by the government. Yes India grows when government is sleeping . I wonder why not give government some vacation ? Why are they for ?. But yes Indias companies are better managed and better efficient, the credit goes to the new companies the new management, the new era of industrialization. India is biggest market, the personal spending on GDP is 67% with only USA leading with 70%. No wonder why companies both MultiNational and National is making an average of 20% growht in profits !!
Its strangled by the poor, massively inefficient and corrupt public sector and shackled and over regulated private sector ? Is our mixed economy doing any good for us ? India had higher GDP than china in early 60's and its now less than a half of it.Female literacy of 54% and 124/177 of UN Human Development Index. Yes India is a demoracy but is largely ruled by organized minorities rather than majorites. These minorites are landowner , mafia , local busisness people . Its shamefult that 1/5th of MP's are accused of some crimes. Dear prime minister , we want faster reforms , stricter guidelines for growth. Growth needs to penetrate the lower layers and only faster and forceful reforms can induce changes to the lower layers

Aura :)

DB2 is free !! to Test, Develop and Deploy

2006-02-07T10:34:00.000+05:30

I feel really proud that the software I worked, I evangelised, I contributed, I learned, I helped, I made...is free to use for the masses ..!!...

Aura :)

The Kodak theater

2006-02-02T10:19:00.000+05:30

Los Angeles
Originally uploaded by kiranh.

This is where the OSCARS happen ..

Almaden..

2006-02-01T02:00:00.000+05:30

This is the best office you can have in this world. Almaden is everything for IBM, Its where most of the IBM technologies were invented. On top of hill, serene enough that you can never think about the bad things in life. ARC as its known is where the best people in IBM works, and you can see around in the corridor photos of IBM fellows , Nobel Laureates, ACM fellows ...ahaa ..I wat some body I know personally up there ..Do you dare ?

But yes I have some freinds in Almaden and I can only pray their phots comes up there..

Cafetaria is awesome ..working in IBM and never had a IBM burger ? come to Almaden . Yes it was tasting good ...at least I can say i have eaten what researchers in IBM eat :)

Star STAMP

2006-01-27T11:33:00.000+05:30

Can you stamp a star ?

I am asking about the real star ?
Yea you can.. see this

Aura ..

Venice in LA

2006-01-27T11:18:00.000+05:30

Never heard that ..yea there is a venice beach in Los Angeles. It has Gondalas as in Italy.

The beach is wonderful, it has an open gym !! if you got little more muscles than every one ..do come over and show it off!! ..but most of them doesnt waste time like that ..they do what others show off for.

Singpore story

2006-01-27T11:12:00.000+05:30

I wonder how this country with about 600 sq km ..(30X20km).. is one of worlds most prosperous nations. I shows if you are in right time at right place ..no body can stop you. Yea its position and increasingly globalized south east asian economy is boon to this small nation which thrives on just business and make it clear to every one "size doesn't matter".

Stuck in tokyo..

2006-01-27T10:40:00.000+05:30

Always hear every thing happens reverse in JAPAN ..so we all call it a JAPAN thing..one of them is that what i heard ..if we take loan and spend in Japan ..you get reduction and when you try to save ..you loose mone. And I was had to halt in japan more than 12 hours ..but yea met lots of people about 40 airplanes were stuck and had a good time all around roaming :)
Thanks to singapore airlines

Aura..

The wipro experiance!!

2005-10-08T15:54:00.000+05:30

The only software company I knew before I ever heard of something called as "software" existed is Wipro. And its because it not just in IT, its everywhere, from soaps (FMCG) to bulbs (CE). The big joke about wipro was when the newspapers highlighted "Wipro bought Chandrika Soap" and we were wondering ..we buy it every week. I worked in the Wipro corporate office for a week.It was an amazing office, the constructions were remarkable. The cafetaria was awesome and food was yummy and cheap. As an guest from IBM, I wandered around the campus which had swimming pool, tennis court and much more ...

Aura.....

db2 disconnect DB2DDC

2005-08-19T13:00:00.000+05:30

I am moving to "Lab Services Team" for "Websphere Portal Server" inside India Software Labs.

As a fresher, I was inquisitive about most of things that can happen in Software Industry, fortunately or unfortunately I am still like that. These 2 years have been fantastic , with wonderful people and state of the art technology around. I feel proud that, I have seen the usage of what ever I have learned in college, call it operating system concepts/ data management/ compiler and theory of computation and what not. I think "Databases Management Systems" is only technology that uses all aspects of Theoretical Computer Science.

And one was answered the first day by "Krishnan". The question was "How fast I need to type letters in keyboard ?". Peeping into his computer screen, saw him logging into "Lotus Notes", couldn't count how many letter's he typed in a second. Never knowing the number of characters displayed in password screen is not proportional to the letters typed.

I owe a lot to two people, who has been my friend, guardian, mentor, team lead, guide...., and they are "Prasad" and "Suma",

I feel proud that, I have made more friends than colleagues. And all I take back with me is that.

I thank my management, for being with me all the time and understanding my career aspirations.

My watch tracked my Schoolmate.

2005-08-19T12:56:00.000+05:30

I had broken the glass of my watch, and was happy to see its still running fine. I got a watchmaker shop after "Killipalam"
and before "Thampanoor" I suppose its called as "Chentitta".

I went in and, I understood I was talking to a real professional repairing watches ( He/She who dooes so is also called horologer).
The art of repairing mechanical things has always admired me. Sometimes I try to do these things,
and I have screwed up at least 5 watches in good health in my high school, because of which my "dad" stopped wearing watches.

The microscopic crank propelled by a very small spring or jerk from piezoelectric Quartz crystal, is 50000 feet view of the
technology that drives watches with minute and hour hands. Our horologer, has many open specimens of these watches in his
desk, I would say the skeleton of these time machines. I am sure, he doesnt have the architecture diagram, nor the work flow
graph, nor design spec for each timepiece. Yet he should have got smiles in many people because he got their watches working.
Watches are important to people mostly because its perfect gift and hence an emotional attachment for most people. FOr some its
their first earning, for some its status symbol and there are "n" number of reasons why we like watches.

We started talking, and he was proudly saying, I didnt have a chance to continue my studies, even if I was doing good in it. And
'I learned from "M G R" movies'. He has treasured a copy of MGR's Photo in his diary which I saw later.
He continues " I didnt let that happen to my children. I educated them in Arya Central School. All Four". I know Arya fee structure
was little above an average person can handle. So it should have been tight for him.

Later I found out the elder, "Sugandhi" is from our batch. I remember the her !!.
She had brownish hair, was slim and was fair.
Do any one else remember her ? She was with us till 10 th class. She stays opposite to "Jayanthi" teacher.

She has some optical instruments , bachelors and is studying masters as correspondence. Great to know we have a diverse crowd
if trace back our school mates. Most, like me has landed up slogging on keyboards.

I saw a glow in his face when he was talking about his second boy. He now works with Indian Airforce. And he took out his diary
and showed the money order, which was his boys first salary. I am sure he can tag is life "successful".

I got my watch back with new glass. And I want every one including me to have that glow in us, long after may be 30 years. Our
life should have meaning.

Its sentimental, I know. I some times get awakened by such thinking's. Cant help. May be my stay away from work prompted me.

Invisible Web: What it is, Why it exists, How to find it, and Its inherent ambiguity ?

2005-07-13T20:19:00.000+05:30

The "visible web" is what you see in the results pages from general web search engines. It's also what you see in almost all subject directories. The "invisible web" is what you cannot retrieve in the search results and other links contained in these types of tools.

An Anatomy of Sarcasm ?

2005-07-13T19:57:00.000+05:30

This site says lot about how our brain handles this complex communication. The ability to comprehend sarcasm depends upon a carefully orchestrated sequence of complex cognitive skills based in specific parts of the brain. I got really confused with paper and left it in between. May some day I will get time for both reading and understand this complex thing :) and ofcourse better theories would have come by then ;)

The Programmer's Search Engine -

2005-07-05T13:09:00.000+05:30

"We're constantly searching the web and indexing the best developer sites. Browse DevSearcher by the categories below or enter a keyword for a specific search." This site seems to be provide a good index for searching code. So if you are a computer programmer do check this out.

1 B

2005-07-01T21:36:00.000+05:30

Long sit in a class room and writing a test for first time in life!! . That was when I, a cherubic young boy named "Kiran " wrote entrance exam for getting into Arya Central School, which I hence forth address as Arya Central Jail. The school has taught me lot of things both good and bad all 12 long years I was there. The unforgettable is the journey to school back and forth, 20 long Kms cutting through the middle of the city called Trivandrum, boarding rickety buses, seeing new people...

I thought of thinking back 18 years and do a brain dump of what was my world then for me.

I passed the exam; of course my mom's friends helped me. I joined 1B, its all mess, lot of children, white shirt and ash knickers for boys and ash frocks for girls. I had a big bag and I came to school with my mom. 1B was in second storey of the building which stood facing us when we assemble for morning prayers. We all had a math’s note book with blue squares on it, a drawing book, and lot of colorful text books. I was learning writing new language "Hindi" and my mother tongue "Malayalam", never realizing the importance of learning these, and ending up in getting single digit marks for these in high school.
We got a peon with white hair who we all called as "Ammavan". A mass PT with a bald haired tamilian **PT sir** was terror, there were some boys who are like born with water bottles, never letting them off their necks, he pulled them off and made them stand with hands up away in the sun.
The class room had windows facing outside schools compound, and we had crows sitting in the fence. The children use to throw snacks out and crows use to grab it with no fault, and the one who made the mark is a blessed hero. I wonder what girls where doing then. We did have school bus for our school then, which I traveled only once.

We had a prayer hall just besides our building, it was a asbestos roofed building, this foyer was pretty big with shinning surface, had lot of pictures, statues and we use to queue up going there, and spirituality is the last thing that you expect from young tykes. There was fun in what ever was happening, every one was "happy-go-lucky". There were nerds, singers, dancers in the class. I was always a proud audience, that was were it started, me landing up no were in all these things all 12 years. Nostalgia!! No way we can get back these days.

You can see my first group photo; I am the naughty looking guy in the red oval.

Monsoon

2005-06-27T13:04:00.000+05:30

One of my friends was describing what monsoon offers to people like me who are single and waiting for the time to strike..I have same to say for others like me on the same ship ..
"The monsoon has just started. The greenery is back and has induced a spark in life. Noting more romantic than a rainy day, drenched clothes, hot coffee and a wet and shivering girl by your side. Beautiful girls running for cover from the rains and muscular boys following in pursuit. There are abundant opportunities for the initiated and I am taking full toll of the rains here. The other day I had an encounter with a lady whom I had asked for directions without knowing that she was out there looking for "victims". For some reason something clicked, we made eye contact and
then in an instant all was back to normal. Society with all its
hypocrisy had taken over and we overcame our emotions to go separate ways. Do not let the monsoon's go waste...."

Inspired by Patricia Selinger

2005-05-30T15:27:00.000+05:30

Patricia Selinger I got to read about an interview with an IBM fellow, who is privileged to work in Data management from the "Relational era" to the "XML era". Her name is Patricia Selinger presently the "VP Area Strategy, Information and Interaction".

We have lot of things to learn from her career and experience, from the decision to take "Technical" or "Management" career path to balancing work/life while working with people in different geographies.
I will give you a concise view about her interview. But I request you to read/hear this interview from
"http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/witexhibit/wit_fellows_selinger.html".

She took management path after 3 years of work and rose to fourth line in management. After which she routed back to technology for which received the title of IBM Fellow, an honor accorded only to the top 50 technical experts in IBM, for her exceptional technical work and leadership in relational databases.

Because of market requirement and to bridge gap between Research and Development, for a period of 3 to 5 years she and her team was doing FVT(Functional verification Test), unit test , specs all for DB2.

She was part of, what she calls it as 3 generations of Databases. One being the relational one on Mainframes, the second being the DB2 for LUW ( which had starbust compiler ) and the 3rd being the Unstructured data (XML) database management system, The Viper.

Her technical contribution was enormous, most of them relating to cost based optimizer, distributed relational model etc.. All of which you could find at "http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/indices/a-tree/s/Selinger:Patricia_G=.html"

She explains the people with whom she had worked with and was instrumental for the relational model of databases. Which all resulted in we working here :)

She describes, her working with Toronto team gave her time for her children helping in work/life balance.

What was her secret of success ?

Women in technology ?

An inspirational read, I hope it inspires you as much as it has done for me.

Aura ..

Viper is what I work on :)

2005-05-27T21:29:00.000+05:30

"The ability to truly marry the unstructured and structured worlds is, to many, a database nirvana."

I work on the yet to be released version of DB2 v9.1 code name Viper. It is the database with native XML support, in the simplest terms This relational database stores XML as XML. As our rivals ..we dont store XML as relational table making wrapper around the database. The beauty is the new query language, the XQuery. We have Don Chamberlin in our team who was one of the pioneers who made SQL standards. XQuery is a W3C standard. Viper also has SQL/XML (2003) standard with which you can make you database queries return XML data. You can construct a XML node tree using you SQL. Isnt that beautiful.. Yes it is .. Its the world of unstructured data (XML) coexisting with structured data ( relational).
Hear from our leaders

Aura is working :)

10% of the Brain Myth

2005-05-23T19:42:00.000+05:30

10% of the Brain Myth:

"There is no scientific evidence to suggest that we use only 10% of our brains. In other words, the statement, 'We use only 10% of our brains' is false; it's a myth. We use all of our brain. Let's look at the possible origins of this myth and the evidence that we use all of our brain."

Common Cold

2005-05-23T11:40:00.000+05:30

Common Cold: "This site provides a comprehensive, updated and referenced source of information on the common cold. The goal is to provide a framework for critical thinking which will allow informed decisions about medical care for the common cold."

Resources for Programming Language Research

2005-05-22T18:52:00.000+05:30

A wonderful collection of information and resources for research in programming language theory, design, implementation, and related areas.

HealthyComputing -

2005-05-22T18:48:00.000+05:30

"Positioning or using your computer improperly can lead to various injuries, from the short term discomfort of headaches to potentially debilitating conditions like Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. HealthyComputing.com's assembled the world's foremost experts to provide unbiased information on computer-related health and safety. Developed through the joint efforts of nearly a dozen leading ergonomists, physicians, and physical therapists, HealthyComputing com is the premier source for office ergonomics."

About Haskell

2005-05-22T18:46:00.000+05:30

About Haskell: "Haskell is a computer programming language. In particular, it is a polymorphicly typed, lazy, purely functional language, quite different from most other programming languages. The language is named for Haskell Brooks Curry, whose work in mathematical logic serves as a foundation for functional languages. Haskell is based on lambda calculus, hence the lambda we use as a logo."

Existential Primer

2005-05-22T18:43:00.000+05:30

Existential Primer: Home Page: "Existentialism attempts to describe our desire to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe. Unfortunately, life might be without inherent meaning (existential atheists) or it might be without a meaning we can understand (existential theists). Either way, the human desires for logic and immortality are futile. We are forced to define our own meanings, knowing they might be temporary. In this existence…
"

All you need is love

2005-05-22T18:31:00.000+05:30

CODEPENDENCY: WHEN CARING BECOMES A DISEASE

2005-05-22T18:25:00.000+05:30

CODEPENDENCY: WHEN CARING BECOMES A DISEASE: "So you've tried to 'stop caring' and found that it makes life dreadful? Maybe you don't have to relinquish core standards to be happier. Perhaps you're trying to eliminate the foundation and expect the building to continue standing. Maybe it's okay to 'care too much.' Can you 'care too much' and be happier than you are now? That would take a lot of re-evaluation...of yourself, of your spouse, of your family, maybe even your past. Now that's a challenge"

Computer Languages

2005-05-22T18:02:00.000+05:30

I was always facinated by computing languages ..especially the way they have grown from the machine code ..to the very high level. It has been increasingly easier for user to write programs day after day .. May be the next version of Java ..the mustang
or the Visual studio for Longhorn.

Robert W Floyd, In Memoriam by Donal E Knuth

2005-05-22T17:56:00.000+05:30

Biography by Knuth

"Nobody has influenced my scientific life more than Bob Floyd. Indeed, were it not for him, I might well have never become a computer scientist. In this note I’ll try to explain some of the reasons behind these statements, and to capture some of the spirit of old-time computer science. Knuth"

Aura..

Find a IBMer from the Internet ?

2005-05-22T17:53:00.000+05:30

Click here !!
Search eg
If you want my details search here with Lastname as 'Nair' and First name as 'Kiran'

Aura ..

I was aired live

2005-05-22T17:40:00.000+05:30

I was aired (both audio and video) couple of times live to more than 100 colleges of VTU EDUSAT session I was talking about Apache derby and DB2 software’s . This is frist time that I am talking to such a wide audience..it was really a nice experience .. in fact at many places I went out of words ..but I was given a recording cd for the same ..which I kept on playing in computer to see how it went . It had a peculiar sensation ...I was kind of attaint..But next time I saw my self I felt better..and it was very fine ..may be the 5th time I saw it .

Google Portal

2005-05-22T17:27:00.000+05:30

Google has a portal now ...do try it ..its really use full ..you can search ..get news ..guotes ..check mails all in one window and set you page in your style

Google

Google launches Video Upload Program

2005-05-15T18:02:00.000+05:30

An Unfair and Unbalanced look at the left.<"Google launched the Google Video Search not to long ago and now they're offering to host your videos with the new Google Video Upload Program now in beta.

Submitted videos won't be available for viewing right away and will have to be approved by Google before being made available to the public but the service claims that you'll be able to make your videos available on Google for others to search, preview, (optionally) purchase, and play it."

Top 10 XML Specifications Rejected by the W3C

2005-05-03T16:27:00.000+05:30

This URL is has some fun: "Top 10 XML Specifications Rejected by the W3C

10. WS-IrishSpring: for scented, more pleasing SOAP packets

9. WS-UPS: for sending SOAP packets in real envelopes

8. WS-USPS: for sending SOAP packets that dont need to get there

7. WS-PrisonShower: for picking up the dropped SOAP packets

6. X-Wife: protocol for monetary transfer

5. WS-Insecurity: dating protocol for web services programmers

4. WS-Monopoly: protocol used to keep antitrust penalties to manageable levels

3. NICKLE: for encoding smaller binary attachments

2. SFFCI: Syndication Format for Complete Idiots

1. WS-XXX: bringing a business model to XML, e.g.

the storeroom

saucy

Chris Sells, Jason Whittington, Tim Ewald, Becky Dias & Brian Jepson
Presented at the Applied XML Developer's Conference West 2003
July 10th, 2003"

Malayalam language

2005-05-01T17:44:00.000+05:30

Malayalam is the major language of the state of Kerala, in southern India. It is one of the 22 official languages of India, spoken by around 30 million people. A person who speaks Malayalam is called a "Malayali" (or rarely, a "Keralite").

Decisions !!

2005-04-30T19:12:00.000+05:30

"Somewhere along the line of development we discover what we really are, and then we make our real decision for which we are responsible. Make that decision primarily for yourself because you can never really live anyone else's life."

-- Eleanor Roosevelt

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in the lack of understanding, but in the lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Have courage to use your own understanding! Enlightenment means taking full responsibility for your life.

Thanks,
Kiran

My first webpage..

2005-04-30T18:46:00.000+05:30

My first webpage

Can complexity be explained ?

2005-04-30T18:25:00.000+05:30

... while we all know that unmastered complexity is at the root of the misery, we do not know what degree of simplicity can be obtained, nor to what extent the intrinsic complexity of the whole design has to show up in the interfaces. We simply do not know yet the limits of disentanglement. We do not know yet whether intrinsic intricacy can be distinguished from accidental intricacy.
-- E. W. Dijkstra, Communications of the ACM, Mar 2001, Vol. 44, No. 3

Calendar & Easter History

2005-03-23T12:37:00.000+05:30

Calendar & Easter History
I was wondering how easter dates are calculated, when my friend and collegue from Romania told me he is having it on May first and that He is a Chirstian Orthodox. I was confused. I have many orthodox friends in India, they never said they have easter on another day.
When I investigated and found that easter is calcuted in 3 ways and these three ways used in diffrent parts of the world.

METHOD 1 - The original calculation based on the Julian calendar

METHOD 2 - The original calculation, with the Julian date converted to the equivalent Gregorian date

METHOD 3 - The revised calculation based on the Gregorian calendar

And the link provides algorithms for calculations for these Easter dates.

~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
WESTERN ORTHODOX
~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
23 April 2000 30 April 2000
15 April 2001 15 April 2001
31 March 2002 5 May 2002
20 April 2003 27 April 2003
11 April 2004 11 April 2004
27 March 2005 1 May 2005
16 April 2006 23 April 2006
8 April 2007 8 April 2007
23 March 2008 27 April 2008
12 April 2009 19 April 2009

Definition of Easter Sunday Date
Easter Sunday is the Sunday following the Paschal Full Moon (PFM) date for the year. In June 325 A.D. astronomers approximated astronomical full moon dates for the Christian church, calling them Ecclesiastical Full Moon (EFM) dates. From 326 A.D. the PFM date has always been the EFM date after March 20 (which was the equinox date in 325 A.D.).

Easter Sunday date is the Sunday after the Paschal Full Moon (PFM) date
The PFM is the first Ecclesiastical Full Moon (EFM) date after March 20
PFMs are pre-defined (see above)
EFMs are approximated astronomical full moon dates, not actual astronomical full moon dates

Spotting Fake Smiles

2005-02-02T11:40:00.000+05:30

Most people are surprisingly bad at spotting fake smiles. One possible explanation for this is that it may be easier for people to get along if they don't always know what others are really feeling.

Although fake smiles often look very similar to genuine smiles, they are actually slightly different, because they are brought about by different muscles, which are controlled by different parts of the brain.

Fake smiles can be performed at will, because the brain signals that create them come from the conscious part of the brain and prompt the zygomaticus major muscles in the cheeks to contract. These are the muscles that pull the corners of the mouth outwards.

Genuine smiles, on the other hand, are generated by the unconscious brain, so are automatic. When people feel pleasure, signals pass through the part of the brain that processes emotion. As well as making the mouth muscles move, the muscles that raise the cheeks – the orbicularis oculi and the pars orbitalis – also contract, making the eyes crease up, and the eyebrows dip slightly.

Lines around the eyes do sometimes appear in intense fake smiles, and the cheeks may bunch up, making it look as if the eyes are contracting and the smile is genuine. But there are a few key signs that distinguish these smiles from real ones. For example, when a smile is genuine, the eye cover fold - the fleshy part of the eye between the eyebrow and the eyelid - moves downwards and the end of the eyebrows dip slightly.

As said by BBC

Enterprises Warming Up to Firebird Open-Source Database

2005-01-31T15:43:00.000+05:30

Click here for the doc from eweek

"Firebird—an open-source relational database known for sizzling transaction performance—is surging in popularity in the enterprise and heralds growing acceptance overall of open-source databases, according to a recent study."

"The report also found that 60 percent of database developers plan to expose or invoke database operations through Web services. The most likely database operations to be invoked are stored procedures, at 22 percent, SQL Query Web services, at 18 percent, and XML Query Web services, at 15 percent."

Tech gadgets vs. tech knowledge

2005-01-31T15:30:00.000+05:30

Tech gadgets vs. tech knowledge

IT'S SAD THAT TODAY'S KIDS DON'T SEEM TO BE INTERESTED IN STUDYING SCIENCE AND MATH
By Janet Perna

Some excerpts from her writing in Mercury news.

"The National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century revealed that by 2008, the technology-driven economy will add 5.6 million jobs in the health sciences and computer industries that require science and math skills. Meanwhile, more tech workers are retiring, and precious few are ready to take their place."

"Taken together, the black, Hispanic and American Indian communities constitute only about 6 percent of the 2 million scientists and engineers in the United States."

"We can do a number of things to improve this picture. We must support national advocacy, research and policy organizations that are working to redress the underrepresentation of women and minorities in technical careers. These groups need both funding and volunteers. And companies must focus on attracting and retaining women and minorities in information technology positions."

"But most of all, parents, teachers and business leaders -- all of us -- must encourage and influence our children to take a longer view of what education has to offer, which will lead many of them to find rich and rewarding careers in math and the sciences. Tell them and teach them about the exciting opportunities that await them over a lifetime. Our nation's future success depends upon this effort."

JANET PERNA, a former high school math teacher, is general manager of IBM Data Management and works out of IBM's Silicon Valley Labs in San Jose.

2005-01-20T10:46:00.000+05:30

Chennai
I was in Chennai last weekend. Chennai is a metropolis in south eastern tip of India. Its first time that I have made my foot marks in Chennai soil.Its a big city with its tradition intact.

2003-04-15T23:46:00.000+05:30

MY web site is updated

2003-01-07T23:53:00.000+05:30

hello