Grinning Arnab on technology and everything else

2011-11-11T09:54:00.000-08:00

HTML5 Offline Applications: ‘Donut Hole’ Caching
Combine Drupal, HTML5, and microdata : Make your content easier to find and reuse
Make HTML5 microdata useful, Part 1: Using jQuery on top of microdata :Create an interactive map with the jQuery UI Map plugin and your microdata
Build mobile text messaging into your web apps :Learn how to send and receive text messages from a web server
Define application architectures with Rational Software Architect: Part 1. Envisioning the architecture
Define application architectures with Rational Software Architect: Part 2: Iteratively refine the architecture
Reverse Ajax, Part 5: Event-driven web development
Mobile application development, Part 1: PhoneGap and Dojo Mobile on Android

2011-10-18T01:51:00.000-07:00

6th India Digital Summit & Awards

India Digital Summit is IAMAI's flagship annual event and has achieved great success and popularity in last five years. This is also been supported by the Department of Information Technology.
The 6th India Digital Summit will be addressed by renowned business leaders both from India and Overseas. This will primarily focus on "gaining knowledge" from the experiences of the industry experts.
The Summit is expected to be attended by more than 700 delegates over two days, representing CEOs and senior executive, brand manager, publisher, advertiser, marketer or business owner, government official, NGOs and evangelists from across sectors.

Internet and Mobile Association of India's [IAMAI] Annual India Digital Awards (IDA) cover the entire gamut of commercial activities around internet and mobile. Under the award, outstanding individuals and companies in the digital space will be recognized annually.

Digital Advertising

Best Display Campaigns: Includes banners, buttons, pop-ups, video etc.
Best Search Marketing Campaign: Use of search engine for advertising a product or service or for any marketing campaign. The entry is open for paid search campaigns only.
Best Viral Marketing Campaign: An advertising and marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message. Can be graphic, text or video based advertising.
Best Email Marketing Campaign: A form of direct marketing utilizing electronic mail as a means of communicating to an audience.
Best Social Media Marketing Campaign: Most creative, innovative or highly effective use of online social media - websites, applications, APIs, plug-ins, etc - within an advertising or marketing campaign
Best Mobile SMS Advertising or Marketing Campaign: The use of mobile sms for advertising a product or service or for any marketing campaign.
Best Mobile Voice Advertising or Marketing Campaign: The use of mobile voice for advertising a product or service or for any marketing campaign.
Best Mobile WAP Advertising or Marketing Campaign: The use of mobile WAP for advertising a product or service or for any marketing campaign.
Best Online or Mobile Game or Application Campaign: An online or mobile - web based or downloadable game or application made on behalf of a client to specifically market a good or a service.
Best Digital Integrated Campaign: Integrated media plan entries must include media buys and placement over either all web based options or all mobile based options

Website

Best eCommerce Website: Sites providing consumers online commerce and retail sales of any product or services.
Best Local language website: Sites providing any service or information in Indian local language.
Best News content Website: Sites providing consumers online news content.
Best Classified Website: Sites providing classifieds service or information.
Best Multiutility Website: Sites providing classifieds service or information.
Best Auto content Website: Sites that provide all automobile related services and information. Automobile related ecommerce sites may either apply for their entry either here or under ecommerce category. Not both.
Best Travel Website: Sites that provide travel services and information. These include online agents for purchasing tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, vacation packages, other travel services, online travel guides, travel writings and travel tools.
Best Financial Website: Sites providing financial services and/or information. These include online stock trading, financial news, mortgage information, online banking, bill paying services or other consumer related financial services.
Best Corporate Website: Sites providing information about the organization.
Best Government Website: Sites providing information and services pertaining to government matters.

Mobile VAS

Best Mobile Game: Mobile sites or Apps developed specifically for handheld devices featuring direct online gaming for individuals or multi-player. Includes games of any type.
Best Mobile Music Service: Mobile sites, Apps or service developed specifically for handheld devices that are dedicated to the distribution and/or presentation of music.
Best Mobile Video or TV Service: Mobile sites, Apps or service specifically for handheld devices for the distribution of video content.
Best Mobile News Service: Mobile sites or Apps developed specifically for handheld devices for the distribution of recent happenings. These may be offshoots of established broadcast or other existing news operations or developed specifically for online news.
Best Mobile Enterprise Product or Service: The most innovative mobile tool to help corporations or enterprises users to work smarter and do business better on the move.

Digital Payment

Best Mobile Banking: Most innovative, sustainable, pioneering, mobile banking service in India.
Best cashless payment service for eCommerce: Most innovative, secure, widely acceptable and low cost cashless payment service provider for eCommerce
Best Digital Financial Inclusion Project: Best financial service for promoting inclusive growth and poverty alleviation from urban and rural India.

Digital Social and Economic Empowerment

Best use of Mobile for social and economic development: Best mobile initiatives, programmes, products and services that have had a tangible effect in bridging the digital divide at an affordable cost.
Best use of Internet for social and economic development: Best web initiatives, programmes, products and service that have had a tangible effect in bridging the digital divide at an affordable cost.

Special Awards

Best Internet Person of the Year: One of the two highest awards, it would be awarded to a person who has made an outstanding contribution for the promotion of internet in India through the work of his company, government department or NGO.
Best Mobile Person of the Year: The second of the two highest awards to be given to a person who has made an outstanding contribution to the promotion of mobile services in India either through his company, government department or NGO.
Best Digital Start up of the year [Company]: The best among the internet or mobile companies that was started or incorporated on or after 01 January 2009.

2011-09-25T09:46:00.000-07:00

Mobile application development, Part 1: PhoneGap and Dojo Mobile on Android
Reverse Ajax, Part 4: Atmosphere and CometD :Learn to use the best open source Reverse Ajax libraries for Java technology servers

2011-09-08T03:19:00.000-07:00

Build a Ticketing System Using Exchange and Team Foundation Server
Get the Most out of WebGrid in ASP.NET MVC
Building Mobile JavaScript WebApps With Backbone.js & jQuery: Part I
CSS3 Animation With jQuery Fallbacks
Reverse Ajax, Part 3: Web servers and Socket.IO : Using various web containers, APIs, and abstraction libraries
Generate dynamic mobile web interfaces with the Dojo Toolkit : Create mobile web apps and dynamically update the application's content with data requested from a server
Create a networked tic-tac-toe game for Android : Build a networked, multiplayer tic-tac-toe game with PHP, XML, and the Android development kit
Get started with Dojo Mobile 1.7

2011-08-23T05:22:00.000-07:00

Use PHP with Identi.ca, Part 2 : List, search, and post microblog updates to Identi.ca with PHP and the StatusNet API
Charting for mobile with the Dojo Toolkit : Easily develop a charting application for mobile devices
Develop a Spring client for Android to a JAX-RS web service : Learn to create a Spring Android client

2011-08-06T02:40:00.000-07:00

Use PHP with Identi.ca, Part 1 : List, search, and post microblog updates to Identi.ca with PHP and the StatusNet API
HTML5 fundamentals, Part 4: The final touch : The canvas
Reverse Ajax, Part 1: Introduction to Comet : Streaming and long polling for responsive communication between your server and client
MVVM and jQuery: Designing Maintainable, Fast and Versatile Sites
Building Mobile JavaScript WebApps With Backbone.js & jQuery: Part I
Reverse Ajax, Part 2: WebSockets : A powerful solution (despite some server constraints)
User interface design for the mobile web : Best practices for designing applications for multiple device platforms
Create GPS-enabling web applications : Build a location-enabled news feed with PHP, XML, jQuery, and an in-browser GPS
Get started with the JavaScript language, Part 1: JavaScript language fundamentals
Get started with the JavaScript language, Part 2: Events, cookies, timing, and more

2011-06-26T03:19:00.000-07:00

HTML5 fundamentals, Part 2: Organizing inputs : Interacting with your visitor
HTML5 fundamentals, Part 3: The power of HTML5 APIs : Managing communication
Get started with Dojo development : Learn the basics of developing web applications using the Dojo toolkit
Comment lines: Going mobile with the Dojo Toolkit
Get started with Dojo Mobile 1.6 : And get a peek at new features coming in 1.7
Web 2.0 desktop and mobile application security design
Cross-device website accessibility : Plan your website approach with devices in mind
How to Enhance Your Website's Type Design with CSS3
MVVM and jQuery: Designing Maintainable, Fast and Versatile Sites
An introduction to Amazon SimpleDB
Explore MongoDB : Learn why this database management system is so popular
Developing web services
Move toward the paperless office with images ready for accounting audits : Enhance accounting documentation with XML and PHP
Speed delivery of Android devices and applications with model-driven development
Agile software development

2011-06-07T08:27:00.000-07:00

HTML5 fundamentals, Part 1 : Getting your feet wet
Build better web applications with jQuery UI and jQuery plug-ins : Improving the look and feel of your web pages and applications
New HTML5 structural tags : Clearly define your content blocks
HTML5 fundamentals, Part 2: Organizing inputs : Interacting with your visitor
Accessing HTTP and RESTful services from DB2: Introducing the REST user-defined functions for DB2 : Bringing the web into the world of relational database systems
Add XML as a data mining tool : Delve into the role of XML in data mining with tips and techniques on how to use it
Stay on the XPath : Boost your success with these 5 tips for using XPath in XSLT
Get started with CSS : Designing with standards
Improve web application security with jQuery Mobile : Learn how to secure your mobile applications

2011-05-13T11:09:00.000-07:00

By: Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik - Chief Belief Officer of the Future Group
devdutt@devdutt.com

To Burn or Not to Save a Forest

One day, states the Bhagavat Puran, the earth-goddess took the form of a cow and went to Vishnu with tears in her eyes complaining how the kings of the earth were exploiting her. Her udders were sore, squeezed by human greed. Vishnu promised to set things right and so descended on earth as Krishna.
In the Mahabharat, however, Krishna advises the Pandavs to set a forest aflame. This forest, Khandavprasth, is the share of property given to the Pandavs by their uncle when they demand their inheritance. As the trees burn, the animals and birds of the forest try to escape. Krishna instructs Arjun to circle the forest on his chariot and shoot down every escaping bird and beast down. Hundreds of animals are thus massacred. The rest roasted alive. The serpents beg the rain-god, Indra, to come to their rescue. But again, on Krishna's advise, Arjun uses his arrows to create a canopy over the forest preventing the water from dousing the flames. None are spared except an Asura called Maya on condition that he build for the Pandavs on the gutted land a magnificent city called Indraprasth, which goes on to become the greatest city in the world.
On one hand, Vishnu promises to protect the earth from humans; on the other hand Krishna himself indulges in an activity that damages the earth. What is happening?
These two stories draw attention to the nature of human civilization and one unspoken aspect of leadership and organization: the power of authority.
Nature is intrinsically wild – wanting to go in its own way. Nature's order is created through the game of survival. Every creature is on its own. Through strength or cunning, every plant and animal can make their own space. Those who are unable to withstand the opposition or exploit the opportunity wither away and die. Nature is thus generous on one hand, giving total freedom and all possibilities to the mighty and indifferent on the other, offering no help to the meek.
The human mind rejects this state of being. Humans have the power to reorganize the rules of nature so that life becomes more predictable and secure, and one can look beyond survival. When Pandavas declare their intention to become king, they are essentially saying they are unwilling to accept the natural state of things. They wish to domesticate nature so that all creatures align to a set of rules – their rules. This means destruction of all other rules and laws.
Nature has two parts: the mind (internal nature) and the forest (external nature) – both need to be tamed. The king ensures that the mind of his people is disciplined and aligned to his way of thinking and performing through logic, reward, punishment and constant coaching. The trees and creepers of the forest are destroyed to make way for fields and orchards where only the seed chosen by the king is planted. All other plants that attempt to grow on the king's land are declared weeds – to be pulled out and cast away. A culture is born where it is clear what is acceptable and what is not, what is right and what is wrong. The benchmark of such judgments is laid down by the king.
From one point of view, a king and leader is doing a good thing. Creating resources and opportunities for his people by laying down the law but on the other hand he is curbing freedom or at least controlling it. A king has no choice but to tread this delicate line.
In the Mahabharata, during their exile in the forest, the sages tell the Pandavas the story of Ushinara, king of Shibi. One day, a dove came to the king and begged the king to grant him protection. When the king promised to protect him, a hawk, who was pursuing the dove, asked, "What will I eat then?" The king told the hawk to eat any other dove but this one. The hawk argued that was unfair – why should other doves be sacrificed so that the king could keep his promise to his dove. The king then requested the hawk to eat any other bird or beast. The hawk argued that was unfair – why should other birds and beasts be sacrificed so that the king could keep his promise to his dove. "Then eat me," said the king, offering pieces of his flesh. These were placed on a balancing scale so that the hawk got flesh equal in measure to the dove's weight. To the astonishment of the king, the dove was so heavy that he had to give up almost all the flesh of his body.
Typically, the story is narrated to extol the virtues of the king Ushinara's kindness and sacrifice. But there is an underlying wisdom in this story. In nature, hawks eat doves. By introducing the human virtue of kindness into the natural law, the king could not make both the hawk and the dove happy. Either the dove had to die or the hawk had to go starving. Since neither was acceptable, the king had to die. If kings have to thrive then someone will benefit and someone will suffer. King's authority cannot make everyone happy – either the animals will thrive or the city will be built. This tough lesson is taught to the Pandavas when the forest of Khandavaprastha is burnt to make way for Indraprastha.
That being said, the scriptures repeatedly tell the story of Vena, a king who so excessively plundered the earth, that the sages were forced to kill him using a blade of grass that they transformed into a potent missile using magical mantras. Then the king's corpse was churned. All negative aspects of the king was cast away and a purer, more noble king, Prithu was created. The gods declared Prithu the new king by giving him a bow. The earth, still reeling under the impact of Vena's reign, refused to let the seeds sprout and the plants flower and bear fruit. Taking the form of a cow she ran away and Prithu chased her on his chariot, his new bow in hand. "If you kill me, all life will end," said the earth-cow. Prithu then lowered his bow and begged the earth to feed his subjects. He promised to be a king who treats the earth as a cowherd treats a cow. He will love her, protect her, nurture her. In exchange she will provide milk and dung that will be the food and fuel of human civilization. She will be Go-mata, the cow mother, and he will be Go-pala, the cow keeper.
Thus Prithu realizes the bow was given to him by the gods not to hunt the earth down or to domesticate her and strip her of her wildness but to learn the importance of balance. A bow is useless if the string is too loose; it will break if the string is too tight. Likewise, a king has to balance – his desire to control and domesticate nature with the wisdom to let nature be and thrive freely. A good king knows when to stop: how much of the forest should be burnt and how much should not. How much alignment he should seek and how much freedom he must give.

Strategies on Kurukshetra

A study of the 18 day war described in the Mahabharata reveals many strategies that can be used to win in the Corporate Kurukshetra. This article focuses on some of the ploys used by Krishna to defeat the Kauravas who with eleven armies outnumbered the seven armies of the Pandavas.
Of the 18 days of battle, 9 days were indecisive. For victory, it was critical that Bhisma, the old but very able commander of the Kaurava forces, be killed. So Krishna decided to make Shikhandi ride on his chariot alongside Arjun. Shikhandi was born with the body of a woman which later transformed into the body of a man. Bhisma believed that a creature such as this was a woman and so refused to raise his bow against her. The Kauravas protested her entry into the battlefield but the Pandavas saw Shikhandi as a man. Arjun had no qualms about using him/her as a human shield, raising his bow at the invincible Bhisma and pinning him to the ground with hundreds of arrows.
Bhisma can be seen as a man who is paralyzed by his own interpretation of a situation. But any situation can be seen in many different ways. By taking an alternate stand, it is possible to defeat anyone, especially if one's foe does not agree to one's stand. He will be so busy arguing the flaw in your interpretation, that you will have all the time in the world to overpower him.
Drona, the commander of the Kaurava army after Bhisma, was a ruthless killer, who broke Pandava morale by killing Arjun's son Abhimanyu and even making his soldiers fight at night, against the rule of war. To defeat him, Krishna spread the rumour that Ashwatthama was dead. Ashwatthama happened to be the name of Drona's son and Drona was extremely attached to him. Ashwattama was the reason for Drona's life. On hearing this rumour, his heart sank. Was his son dead? Yes, said all the Pandava warriors surrounding him. Yes, said Krishna. Drona turned to Yudhishtira, the most upright Pandava. Yudhishtira knew that the Ashwatthama being referred to was an elephant. Still he told Drona – either a man or an elephant, Ashwatthama is surely dead. In the din of the battle, looking at the petrified face of Yudhistira, Drona was convinced that his son was dead and that Yudhishtira gave him the strange answer to break the terrible news gently. He lowered his weapons. Taking advantage of this, the leader of the Pandava army raised his sword and beheaded Drona.
Drona can be seen as a man who is extremely attached to something personal. To break such a man down, that which he is attached to must be destroyed. Or at least he must be given the impression that it is destroyed. His obsession will cloud his judgment; he will not bother to delve deeper and check the facts. This is strategy used by Iago when he tells Shakespeare's Othello that his wife has been unfaithful to him. There is no truth in it; but Othello is eager to believe the lie because he finds it hard to believe that a fair maiden such as Desdemona can possible find a dark man such as him attractive.
Shalya who became commander of the Kaurava army on the last day, had according to the Indonesian Mahabharata, a demon that came out of his ears every time he was attacked. This demon became stronger if the attack against Shalya became more intense. To defeat Shalya, Krishna suggested that Yudhishtira fight him, not with rage but with love. So Yudhishtira walked towards Shalya with great affection. The demon in Shlaya became so weak that it could not even come out of Shalya's ears. When Yudhishtira came close to Shalya, with no malice in his heart, Yudhishtira raised his spear and impaled the last leader of the Kauravas.
A powerful lesson here. There are people who become strong in confrontations. Such people must never be confronted. Their point must not be validated through arguments. The best way to invalidate them is to simply agree with them. This unnerves them. They come prepared to face all arguments and, in the absence of any, feel disempowered. Confused, they become vulnerable. People around him, seeing there is no one aruging their point will feel withdraw. Thus through agreement can a point of view be destroyed.
Barbareek is a little known character whose tale is told in many folk Mahabharatas. He was the son of Bhima by a snake princess and was stronger than all five Pandavas put together. Not wanting him to join the Kauravas, Krishna asked him for a boon. Barbareek was too nice a man to say no. So Krishna said, "Give me your head." Barbareek immediately severed his neck and offered his head to Krishna with one request that he be allowed to see this great battle from a vantage point. Krishna therefore placed his head on a hill that overlooked Kursukshetra. At the end of the war, the Pandavas asked him who was the greatest warrior in the battlefield. Barbareek replied, "I saw no great warrior on the battlefield. All I saw was Krishna's discuss whirring around cutting the heads of warriors and their blood washing the hair of Draupadi, who had long ago been publicly disrobed by the very same warriors."
It is a good idea, in the middle of corporate political wrangling, to step back and see who is provoking the fight and stoking the flames. Often the two parties involved fail to realize that out there is another man making them fight for his very own agenda. So ask yourself – are you fighting your own battle in Kurukshetra or are you a pawn in someone else's much bigger game?

Marketing Maya

One day, Drona summoned two of his students, Yudhishtira and Duryodhana. "Spend a day in Hastinapur and find me a really bad man," he told the always-nice Yudhishtira. Then turning to the ever-angry Duryodhan, he said, "Spend a day in Hastinapur and find me a really good man." The day passed. Drona waited for his students to complete the search. Finally, at sunset, the two returned, but with no one accompanying either of them. "Well, where are the men I asked you to find?" asked Drona. Yudhishtira replied, "I scoured the city and went to every house. I met every man, woman and child. I really looked for a bad man but at the end of my search, I am convinced that everyone is the city is actually very nice. There is not a single bad person in Hastinapur." Duryodhan replied, "I don't agree. I too scoured the city and went to every house. But everyone I met was a scoundrel. Even the children. There is no good man in Hastinapur." Drona heard both and remarked, "Yeh sab maya hai." This is all maya.
Yeh sab maya hai. All of us have heard this phrase sometime or the other. It is one of those wonderful quips that always evokes laughter, perhaps because deep down we agree with the truth of the statement: ultimately all things that we crave for and cling to are maya, delusions resulting from ignorance and prejudice.
But contrary to popular belief, maya does not mean delusion. The word has its roots in the 'ma' which means 'to measure'. Maya actually means 'that which is measured'. When someone says yeh sab maya hai, they actually mean our understanding of the world depends on the measuring scale we subscribe to. Yudhishtira's measuring scale failed to identify a bad man in Hastinapur. Duryodhan's measuring scale failed to identify a good man in Hastinapur. Their opinions about Hastinapur said nothing about Hastinapur but about the measuring scales they subscribed to.
There is no universal measuring scale since measuring scales do not exist in nature. Measurement is an artificial concept, created by man, for man, in order to organize and structure the world around. It is we who have created notions such as 'second' and 'minute' and 'week' thus dividing time into manageable components. It is we who have created 'kilograms' and 'pounds' and 'metres' and 'yards' to gauge the size and weight of matter. None of these concepts are natural. Why should seven days make up a week? Why not eight days? Someone decided seven days should be the unit of time. All measurements are cultural. Someone decided that length must be measured by kilometres all over the world. Americans disagreed. They still prefer miles.
Measurement scales are necessary because they help us compare things – this is longer than that, this is heavier than that, this is hotter than that. With comparison comes evaluation and judgement. Some things become more desired. Others become more valuable. And when things start becoming more desired and more valuable, then Marketing comes into being.
Marketing is typically defined as the business process by which value is created, transmitted and exchanged. Since value is dependent on a measuring scale, marketing is ultimately all about spinning the web of maya.
Once upon a time, when there were no mobile phones. Just possessing a telephone instrument was good enough. Then came mobile technology. A new measuring scale emerged: go the phone or make the phone come with you. With the new measuring scale emerged a demand which Nokia fulfilled by 'connecting people'. Everybody was connected. Well, not every body, only the rich. Then Reliance came and democratized the mobile. Everyone could own a mobile – from paper vendor to the taxi driver. The need for a new measuring scale was felt – one that would distinguish the rich from the poor. Motorola swung into action and spun the maya of slimness: a mobile was better if it was slimmer and best if it was razor sharp! Sony Ericcson's spun the maya of another measuring scale: that a true mobile phone is one that even clicks photos and makes music. Ask yourself – wherefrom came these values? What makes you happy or unhappy about your handset? Is it natural phenomena or artificial construction, and you will realize the power of maya.
The concept of maya can be quite empowering if used well. Imagine yourself going to a job interview. It is a great company. And you are eager to get the job. You are under stress. Are you good enough for them? You spend hours on your resume and spend hours on your possible answers. And you are most relieved, even obliged, when you get the job. But why are you obliged? Wear the maya cap and you will find a different view of the world entirely, one which is perhaps more empowering. Ask: why were you called for the interview? Could it be because the organization found itself lacking in something and was seeking a value that you helped fill? If that is the case, why are you feeling as if the organization has done you a favour by hiring you? Is your being hired not a case of a symbiotic exchange of value between an organization and an individual? What is an interview ultimately? Nothing but a process by which one finds out if an organization meets the requirements of an individual's measuring scale (salary, perks, designation, role and responsibility, career prospect, job satisfaction) and if an individual meets the requirements of an organization's measuring scale (knowledge, skills, attitude, experience). It is the great maya exchange.
The notion of maya plays an important role in negotiations. No matter what is offered, you begin by devaluing it. "I don't think it is worth that much." Thus the seller is put on the defensive and is forced to justify the value he is offering. You accept or reject his defence depending on how much you are willing to pay. A smart buyer always devalues an offering to bring down the price. A smart seller always begins by questioning the measuring scale currently followed by the potential customer. "You must be satisfied with your current mobile handset, I am sure. But…." After a few rounds of arm wrestling, the value exchange that satisfies both is signed and sealed. That is good business.
Come to think of it – is there any real value out there? Value is a perception and so it all depends on who you are. For a Shiva, nothing has any intrinsic value. So he shuts his eyes to everything in this world except that which sustains him. For a Brahma, everything has value and he keeps chasing all things. In religion Shiva may be a great ascetic while Brahma may be a god unworthy of worship. But in the material capitalistic world, the self-contained Shiva is a threat, whose existence is best denied, while the eternally unhappy Brahma is the most valued of customers.
In between is Vishnu who knows that ultimately, it is he and none other but he who gives value to the world. That mobile phone, that job, that concept, that product, that service is as valuable as he makes it. He knows that different people experience the same world differently because their construction of the world is based on the measuring scale they follow. Hence, he goes around creating value, sometimes by using the prevalent measuring scale and at other times, by creating a new measuring scale altogether. He is Mayin, he who spins the web of maya, the ultimate marketer.

Churning out Lakshmi

The ultimate goal is profit. Call it anything you want: bottomline, topline, market share, capitalization, equity, dividends, incentive, growth. It is what ultimately counts. It is why leaders are sought by organizations. Leaders are the ones who are able to mobilize the organizational resources to generate wealth. They are Vishnus engaged to churn out Lakshmi, the mythological embodiment of profit, from the ocean of milk.
Lakshmi, the bejewelled goddess of wealth and fortune who sits on a lotus, is the most popular goddess in India. Her image can be found gracing most households and business establishments. Everybody wants her. Her footprint is often painted on doorways pointing inwards because everyone wants her to walk towards them. Leaders exist to make this happen.
Unfortunately, Lakshmi is Chanchala, the fickle one. Few can predict where she plans to go. Sometimes her movements are predictable. Often it isn't, confounding the most astute of analysts. Exasperated by her whimsical ways, some have concluded that Lakshmi is cockeyed – she looks one way but often moves the other.
But there is one thing scriptures are sure: Lakshmi will always move towards Vishnu. She is drawn to him. Vishnu is Shrinivas – 'where Lakshmi resides'. He is Lakshmikanta – 'beloved of Lakshmi'. What is it that he does that makes him attractive to fortune? If leaders can discover this, they too can become Vishnu; they too can become magnets of Lakshmi.
In all of Vaishnava literature, Vishnu is never shown chasing Lakshmi. Two groups of minor deities chase Lakshmi. They are Devas and Asuras.
Asuras live under the earth and Lakshmi is addressed as Patala Nivasini, a resident of the subterranean reasons because the ancients realized long ago that wealth in its most primal form – minerals and plants – comes from under the ground. Asuras are deemed demons because they cling to Lakshmi and will not let her go. She is Pulomi, their daughter and their sister.
The Devas, who live above the ground, as fire and wind and sun and sky, have to fight to release Lakshmi. Observe how all primary wealth generating activities are violent – the tilling of soil, the harvesting of crop, the threshing of grain, the smelting of metal. This 'value generating violence' is described in mythology as the war of Asuras and Devas, the hoarders and distributors of wealth, the demons and the gods.
Devas transform Pulomi into Sachi, the consort of their king, Indra. But Indra, in his recklessness, knows to enjoy Sachi but not retain her – the fickle one moves away rapidly, leaving Indra's paradise shorn of all life and beauty. Indra begs his father, Brahma, to help, who in turn directs the gods to Vishnu, who advises them to take the help of the Asuras for only the Asuras possess the magical Sanjivani Vidya that can regenerate what has been lost.
Thus Devas can draw, distribute and spend wealth but they cannot create wealth. Who are the Devas of the corporate world? Could it be the flashy marketing and sales guys who go around getting the business, generating demand for products and services? In that case who are the Asuras? Are they the product makers and the service providers? Can production/service exist without marketing/sales? Can the sky-gods exist without earth-demons?
No, they cannot. Vishnu, the leader, knows this and therefore sides with no one in particular. He knows that the two make up the force and counterforce that will churn Lakshmi out from the ocean of milk. The trick is the ability to balance the two sides of the team. A tilt one way or the other will be disastrous. It will cause the churn to collapse.
Devas are guided by Brihaspati, god of the planet Jupiter, who in astrology is associated with logic, rationality and mathematics. The guru of the Asuras is Shukra, god of the planet Venus, who in astrology is associated with emotion, creativity and intuition. Brihaspati's logical approach makes him balanced; he is therefore visualized as having two eyes while Shukra, whose intuitive approach makes him imbalanced and unpredictable, is visualized as having one eye. Like the Devas and Asuras, even Brihaspati and Shukra are pitted against each other. It is the battle of logic and intuition.
The corporate world is full of Brihaspatis and Shukras, the logicians and the magicians. The former prefer excel sheets, the latter prefer power points. The former usually have a finance background, the latter are part of sales and marketing. People with a business school or science background are encouraged to become Brihaspatis but people with an arts background and in creative fields are encouraged to stay Shukras. Brihaspatis are often preferred in corporate organization because their language can be understood, controlled and predicted. Not so with Shukras. They are shunned until one realizes that survival depends on that wild and crazy 'out of the box' idea.
One can understand why Devas led by Brihaspati are deemed 'gods': they live above the ground, are bathed in light, are clear, transparent, logical hence understandable. Asuras led by Shukra, by contrast, lived under the ground, are unseen; their intuition and creativity is unpredictable, unfathomable, uncontrollable, making them mysterious and magical. Asuras threaten us, make us insecure. Therefore they are demons. Please note that in Hindu mythology, unlike in Biblical mythology, demons are not evil creatures – Hindus have no Satan. They are children of Brahma just like Devas. The divide between them is not moral or ethical. They are complementary forces of nature.
A true leader is able to harness the various forces around him to create an effective and efficient wealth-generating churn. He makes them complementary, not antagonistic. He works with both Brihaspati and Shukra, logic and magic, objectivity and subjectivity, He is able to get the best out of Asuras and Devas, product-creators and value-givers. He is sattva guna – the principle that balances the two other extreme principles: inertia/tamas of the Asuras and the agitation/rajas of the Devas. He is both rational on one hand and intuitive on the other. He respects flashy presentations but also knows the value of a robust excel sheet behind it.
While doing all this, Vishnu never bothers with Laskhmi. He is almost indifferent to her. And that is why, perhaps, she chases him. She becomes his crown, his throne, his parasol and footstool. She makes him the king by serving as his profitable kingdom. One must be careful though. Lakshmi is not a faithful wife. Leaders often forget that success is drawn not to them but to their action. The crown follows the position not the person. To keep Lakshmi walking towards them all the time, it is important that a leader always stay a Vishnu– always balanced, always focussed, always impartial, always detached.

Avatars of Vishnu

Vishnu is amongst the most popular manifestations of God in the Hindu pantheon. But curiously, there are very few Vishnu temples across India, the most popular, where he holds his four symbols, the conch-shell, the lotus, the mace and the disc, is that of Tirupati Balaji in Andhra Pradesh and Badrinath in Uttaranchal. Fewer still are temples of Narayan, the sleeping form of Vishnu, the most popular one being that of Padmanabhaswami in Thiruvanantapuram, Kerala. People mostly worship Vishnu in the form of Ram, the king and Krishna, the cowherd-charioteer. These are Vishnu’s forms when he walked the earth to reinstate order. Since Vishnu is the God responsible for sustaining the world and keep things running, one wonders if these different forms are indicative of the different roles a leader has to play as he leads a team or an organization.
The sleeping Vishnu or Narayan is associated with a time when creation has not begun or is just about to begin. Vishnu sleeps on an ocean of milk that is still. No waves, no currents, no movement. He sleeps in the coils of a serpent with many hoods. Only when a Cobra is still can it coil itself and spread its hood. By showing Vishnu sleeping in the coils of a hooded serpent, the artist is clearly representing absence of movement. The name of the serpent, Adi Sesha or Ananta Sesha, alludes to time because Adi means what exists before the beginning, Sesha means what remains after the end and Ananta means endless. Thus the sleeping Vishnu represents that moment before creation when all is still. It is the time of dreamless slumber, Yoganidra, when Vishnu is not even aware of himself, let alone his surroundings. Only when he wakes up will creation begin – time will start to roll, space will unfold, the ocean will be churned.
The sleeping Vishnu alludes to latent leader within all people that has not yet expressed itself. This latent leader is awaiting self-discovery. Or the leader is preparing to lead. Before starting any project, a leader is Narayan – still, contemplating, making plans, thinking, observing, analyzing, preparing but not acting. Some leaders do not believe in planning at all – they just take the plunge and handle problems as they come along. Others plan too much and remain Narayan, sleeping, never waking up. The best method is to visualize the entire project through with the team – making notes of predictable problems and making contingency plans for the same and having done so, going ahead with the execution. Unpredictable problems being unpredictable cannot be anticipated.
When Narayan wakes up, he becomes Vishnu and sits alert on the hooded serpent at first and then when creation begins and plans start to get operationalized and resources start getting mobilized, he leaps on the back of his eagle, Garuda, that flaps its wings and travels above the skies and beneath the seas. Garudha holds a serpent (time) firmly in his talons – indicating the sense of urgency that every project demands. This is a leader supervising the execution of plans using his conch-shell to communicate his vision. His disc which rotates around his finger is a reminder to all that review is critical to ensure everyone is focused on the outcome. The mace and lotus are symbols of rewards and punishment that keeps everything on track. When all is well with the world, Vishnu returns to sit on hooded serpent and watch things unfold. But when trouble erupts he rides the eagle, to do battle against disruptive forces.
But even this is not enough. Different situations are associated with different problems each of which demand a different solution. Hence, the avatars.
When the project is about rescuing an organization that is in the brink of collapse, he becomes the sensitive fish, Matsya, who navigates the boat full of life and wisdom to safety.
When the project needs brainstorming and cooperation between opposing even hostile factions he becomes the stabilizing turtle, Kurma, which holds aloft the spindle that can be used to churn the ocean of life.
When there are many ideas floating around but no base on which they can be applied or implemented, he becomes the boar, Varaha, plunging into the depths of the sea, getting his hands dirty, and bringing up the foundation (land or venture capital or regulatory changes), which can nurture all ideas.
When rules are established but there are many finding ways to slip between the rules, he becomes the dreaded Nara-simha, part man, part lion, outsmarting the smart troublemakers and preventing any disruption within the organization.
When people refuse to respect their respective roles in society, when Asuras choose to occupy even the earth and the sky, more than the space allotted to them, he becomes Vaman, the dwarf who transforms into a giant and shoves the king of Asuras back to the nether regions where he belongs.
When people break the rules, he rises up in righteous outrage as Parashuram, abandoning the peaceful ways of a priest who raises the axe and hacks the law breakers to death.
When rules continue to be broken, he as Ram, tries to become the model king, and by upholding the law even at the cost of personal happiness, inspires people to do the same.
When rules are upheld only ceremonially and not in spirit, he becomes Krishna, bending and breaking and redefining rules, choosing to be kingmaker rather than king.
When intervention is pointless and the best way is to provoke self-realization in the organization, he becomes the ascetic Buddha (according to some scriptures) and Balarama (in other scriptures), who though mighty refused to fight in the Mahabharat war.
Finally, when the situation is beyond repair, then as Kalki, riding a white horse and brandishing a sword, he systematically breaks down the existing system and prepares for a new cycle – a new organization.

The point of it all

The Olympic motto 'Citius, Altius, Fortius,' is Latin for 'Swifter, Higher, Stronger'. The roots of this ideal of continuous relentless improvement lies in the ancient Greek world, where the Olympic Games were a sacred ritual. Through participation, and especially through winning, the athlete reached the 'zone' that brought him closer to the gods. That was the whole point of the games – to be better than what one was, breaks the assumed limitations imposed on man by the gods.
It is this ideal that governs businesses today and propels the desire to be bigger, grow faster, and ride up the value chain. Our business models do have their roots in Western business practices which in turn have been shaped by ancient Greek ideals. Business leaders are heroes, like Ulysses and Herakles. They are expected to go where no one has gone before on great solitary adventures, creating new markets, penetrating old ones, fighting the demons of opposition and emerging triumphant. The whole point of the game is to win – to outlast the competition, to rise above mediocrity, to create new horizons, to shatter old boundaries. Little wonder then that the Greek god of business and trade was Hermes, who had wings on his sandals, always on the run.
But why do we assume this to be the universal model? When Alexander came to India and said that he wanted to conquer the world, the local sages asked, "Why?"
These sages must have been familiar with the Jain story of Bharata, who conquered the whole world and then ordered stone carvers to climb up the Mount Meru, the mountain in the centre of the world, and carve on its peak his name, declaring him the first one who conquered the world. The stone carvers climbed the mountain but returned soon after, their faces glum. "We cannot do it, sir," they said. "Why?" asked Bharata. "We cannot explain, go up and see for yourself." Bharata climbed the mountain and when he reached the peak he found every inch of the peak covered with names of former kings, each one declaring, "I too conquered the world." Suddenly, Bharata realized the pointlessness of any achievement. The event forced him to sit back and reflect on life.
The same story is retold in Hindu mythology in a different way. Indra wanted Vishwakarma, his architect, to build him a palace befitting his stature as king of the gods. A great palace was built but Indra found it was not good enough. "Make it bigger, grander," said Indra. So another palace was built. Even that was not good enough. A frustrated Vishwakarma went to Vishnu who promised to sort things out. Vishnu approached Indra in the form of a boy and took a tour of the palace. "Very good," he said, "Very good indeed but not as good as that of the other Indra." The remark intrigued Indra. "What do you mean, the other Indra?" he asked the boy. And the boy explained, "The Indras who existed before you. The Indras who will exist after you. The Indras who exist right now in other worlds." And Indra said, "What do you mean? Are there others like me?" And the boy said, "Of course. Countless others." Suddenly Indra felt small and insignificant in the grand cosmos. He was but a grain of sand on a beach of Indras. With this realization, his life became less about aspiration and more about introspection.
While Indians celebrated the cyclical nature of life, the Greeks despised the very idea. For the Greeks hell was becoming Sisyphus who spent all day taking a rock up the mountain only to find that the rock had rolled down at night, forcing him to do today what he had done yesterday. Glory came when one broke free, did something different and new. This made man a hero and assured him a place in the Greek heaven of the Elysian Fields. Greeks broke free from the monotony of existence by achieving something spectacular in the material world itself. But for Indians breaking free meant breaking free from the material world itself. Unlike the Greek world where the point of life was self-actualization, the point of life in the Indian world was self-realization. In India, the great question was never 'how can you be swifter, higher and stronger' but 'why should you be swifter, higher and stronger?' If introspection revealed that the point of one's actions was indulging the ego, then one was a fool, further entrapping oneself in the mire of materialism. The wise man worked not to indulge the ego, but to triumph over it – and this happened when one truly and sincerely works for others.
A business leader may argue that current business models are about others. That it is not (only) about ego and greed, it is also about creating jobs, democratizing wealth, and about survival. It is our responsibility to help more and more people live a better standard of life – hence we need to grow. And we must keep running ahead of the competition before they gain ground and overwhelm us. Both these viewpoints reaffirm that we are increasingly subscribing to the Greek way of thinking and less to the Indian way of thinking. No more is life a cycle, now it is a flat road where we are being chased by demons. If we run fast enough we will reach that wonderful place where there is no poverty, no strife, no competition. Such beliefs only bemuse Indians sages, for they believe you cannot change the cyclical world, only your viewpoint.
Is the Indian belief in fate and rebirth the reason why Indians are not so aggressive? Is that why Indians seem happy despite poverty? Is that why Indians are so comfortable bending the rules – how does it matter anyway? Is that why Indians are so tolerant of everything, even terrible infrastructure and bad governance? Is that a good thing? Do we want to change – become more Greek? Not passive sages but pro-active heroes?
As the world gets smaller, we are being led to believe that there is only one game to be played, with only one set of rules and one set ideals. We are being asked to be swifter, higher and stronger. We are basking in the glory of young achievers and following the footsteps of global winners. But sometimes, maybe sometimes, we need to take time out from the Greek world and ask ourselves this very Indian question – wherefrom comes our ambitions and where is it taking us? Maybe the answer will create a workplace that is less paranoid, less aggressive, less stressed and more at peace with itself. And that may not be so bad.

No Right Answer

Vikramaditya, king of Ujjain, pulled down the ghost or Vetal who swung upside down from the branches of tree that grew on the edge of a crematorium ground. "If you can bring this creature to me," a sorcerer had told the king, "I can turn him into a mighty slave who will do all your bidding. But remember, while you are carrying Vetal, you must never speak. One word from your lips and he will fly back to his tree." Vikramaditya swore, as he walked towards the tree, to keep his mouth shut. The Vetal did not mind this, more than happy to fill the silence with an entertaining tale:
Once upon a time, a king was performing the funeral rites for his father. As he was about to drop the funeral offering in the river, as ritual demanded, three hands rose from the water to receive it. The first hand belonged to a weaver, to whom the king's mother had been forcibly given in marriage. The second hand was of a priest who loved the king's mother and had made her pregnant. The third was of a warrior who had found the king abandoned on the riverbank and had adopted him and raised him on his own. "Now tell me Vikramaditya," said the Vetal, "On which hand should the king place the funeral offering? On the hand of his mother's husband, on the hand of his biological father or the hand of his foster father? On the hand of the weaver, the priest or the warrior? If you know the answer, speak and complete the story, or the sin of keeping a story incomplete will cause your head to burst into a thousand pieces."
Can there an objective answer to this question? In modern times, a child's father is determined by a biological paternity test but the results can be dismissed by the legal adoption process. In the Mahabharata, however, marriage was most important in determining paternity. That is why Pandu is identified as the father of the five Pandavas even though he did not make either of his wives pregnant.
The story of Vikramaditya and Vetal draws attention to the fact that in the world not every question has an obvious objective answer. Many questions demand subjective answers – a call. And the man who makes the call is the leader. He is Vikramaditya.
Ruchika is a Vikramaditya. She runs a chain of boutique stores selling high fashion. She has an immediate task at hand: to select a model who will appear in hoardings and print ads over the next six months. The budget is huge and before her is a complete SWOT analysis including the cost of the top models, the market perception of each of the models, their current brand equity, and future trends. Ruchika knows that in selecting the model, she will effectively be selecting the brand image of her stores. Does she want to continue with the image that exists? Does she want to change it? What will be consequences of this creative decision? Will it change the quality of footfalls to the shops? Will she get the teenage crowd or the family crowd? Her choice of model will influence many things. She turns to her finance team who give her the financial implications of her business decision – the optimistic and the pessimistic picture. There is no consensus in her design or sales team. For some the cool new model matters, others prefer the classical, and then there are those who want to be radical.
For all that talk about taking a decision as a team, Ruchika knows that ultimately she will have to take a call. If only she had the luxury of not saying anything. But then Ruchika realizes, she has not been made the head of the organization to keep quiet. She is the leader. She must use her intelligence and her intuition and arrive at a decision, howsoever subjective it may be, a decision that will affect the future of her company, her employees, her customers, her balance sheet and ultimately her own career. She must think, she must decide, she must speak. And her decision will not please everyone. They will oppose her, criticize her, pull her down when her decision does not yield the desired outcomes. She will have no one to blame, no one to hide behind. The buck stops with her. That is the price of kingship. That is the curse of Vikramaditya.
Vikramaditya always gives an answer but in different versions of the tale, the answer is different. Sometimes, valuing social institutions as the key to social order, he chooses the legal husband, the weaver. Sometimes, giving due cognizance to caste hierarchy, he declares the priest as the father. And sometimes, valuing the role of emotions, he convinces himself and the Vetal that the warrior who raised the king is the true father. There is no right answer. There is no wrong answer. Everything depends on Vikramaditya's values – what according to him is right, what according to him is wrong. Values determines the nature of Vikramaditya's judgments and hence the quality of his kingdom.
If Vikramaditya believes that his judgment is objective, then he is only deluding himself. All decisions are molded by frameworks and contexts – all frameworks are constructed and all contexts are interpreted through the subjective lens. Data helps but to a point, not beyond. That is why we cannot have an organization without kings. Ujjain is a prosperous city because Vikramaditya takes the right calls, or rather he takes calls that he feels are right and which turn out to be beneficial eventually. That is why Vikramaditya is a great king. Every king can take a call - but only a great king can take calls that consistently yield the desired outcomes.
Right or wrong, Vikramaditya has to speak, and let the Vetal go, and start the process all over again. The day Vikramaditya has no answer, the fantasy of the sorcerer who will turn the Vetal into a super-slave will take over and the reality of the brilliant king and his fabulous decision making abilities will come to an end.
Thus there is no one way to be Vishnu. It all depends on the context. Underlying this theme is the notion that everything is cyclical and impermanent. Organizations have to change because the world around them is changing. And with change, leaders have to change their way. They have to decide whether they are expected to be Narayan or Vishnu or Ram or Krishna or Kalki and act accordingly. Parashuram was successful in his time; Ram was successful in his time. Sometimes the same situation can have two different forms of intervention depending on what one aspires to achieve. Thus while Krishna provokes the Mahabharata war at Kurukshetra, his elder brother, also Vishnu, albeit not as famous, chooses not to fight.
The lesson: when you are going to office today, ask what avatar today's situation demands. And while doing that be a Narayan for tomorrow.

Monkey-Leaders and Cat-Leaders

Akbar, the greatest of Mughals, was addressed as Jahan-panah. The word means 'Shelter of the world', Was it a title meant to boost the ego of the great emperor of India? Or did it contain the people's expectation from their leader?
A leader is supposed to be the 'shelter' – protector, defender, the one who creates the environment where one can thrive. He is supposed to provide physical shelter, intellectual shelter, emotional shelter and economic shelter. He is supposed to help you become a better person. Now, that is a huge responsibility on a leader. Leadership then become not just a functional role; it becomes a deeply spiritual role, because it demands one draw out the best in one's followers. Leadership is then an exercise, not in power, but in love, where power is but a medium.
When Sarita joined an animation studio, she was surprised to find a boss like Tulika who spent hours with her trying to find out what motivated her, what excited her, and giving her work that both challenged and excited her. Sarita felt she mattered and gave her best to Tulika.
Sarita felt that Tulika was a better boss than Prithvi, her previous boss. She felt Prithvi ignored her, never really spent time with her, in fact was quite indifferent to her. But was he?
Prithvi's style of management was clearly different from Tulika's. Like Tulika, Prithvi deeply cared for Sarita's well being – but he was not that obvious. He ensured that Sarita only got work that brought out the best for her. He never let the rest of the organization take advantage of his team. He shielded his team from office politics and ensured they worked regular hours and did not stay back late. When Sarita came to him he answered all her queries and taught her a few more skills. He was never angry when she made mistakes. In fact, in company meetings, he held himself responsible for all his team's shortcomings and gave them full credit for all successes.
Prithvi was a more reactive boss. Tulika was more proactive. But both were, without being aware of it, serving as 'shelters' to their respective teams. Who is better, the proactive-boss or the reactive-boss? The former seems more emotional and caring. The latter seems distant, even indifferent, but is always available in times of crisis.
Similar thoughts emerged in South India, in the 11th century, as acharyas such as Ramanuja, were transforming the abstract and highly intellectual Vedanta philosophy into a more concrete and emotional Bhakti or devotional path. They wondered what should be the ideal relationship between deity and devotee. Everyone agreed that God is the shelter of the devotee but how must one behave before God or rather what must one expect from God.
Two schools of thought emerged. One school was the cat-school, which said God is like a cat and so devotees must be like kittens. The kitten just surrenders itself to its mother and the mother holds it by the scruff of its neck and takes it to safety. The other school was the Monkey-school, which said God is like a monkey and so devotees must cling to God as baby monkeys cling to their mothers. One must not let go. In the cat-school, God does all the effort, the devotee simply lets go. In the monkey-school, devotee does all the effort, God is always present, ready to help if help is asked.
In Sarita's case, Tulika is clearly of the cat-school of leadership while Prithvi is from the monkey-school of leadership. For centuries people have argued which school is superior. Leaders have to choose which school suits their personality best. Are they proactive shelter-providers like cats or are they reactive shelter-providers like monkey?
Problems start when the team is made of kittens but the leader is like a monkey or vice versa. One's expectation from the leader will never be met. Clinging to the cat is not advisable and hoping the monkey will carry you to safety will never happen. So the leader-follower relationship, like the deity-devotee relationship, can be complex, changing with context.
Equating the leader with the divine may seem blasphemous to many. But since ancient times, leaders, and especially kings have always been placed on a pedestal, higher than man but lower than God. This was seen in Egypt, where the pharaoh was called god-king. In France, he was called the Sun-king, the temporal representative of God, around whom the world moved. The king was the closest physical manifestation the common man had to God. That is why there were elaborate ceremonies associated with their ascension to the throne. The rituals elevated the man towards the heavens, after which he was expected to become less human and more divine, thinking less about his own pleasures and more about the happiness of others. In other words, rituals were supposed to make him Jahan-panah. His sphere of influence and concern extended beyond his family and friends to include everyone within his jurisdiction and even beyond.
When Shivaji was crowned king, he was given the title of Chattrapati – lord of the parasol, the one who holds the umbrella. For whom was the king supposed to hold the umbrella? For the people, to shelter them from the relentless rain of problems. Some kings run after their children with the umbrella, when the rains fall, for they follow the cat-school of leadership. Others hold the umbrella up and wait for the children to gather around them when the rains come, for they follow the monkey-school of leadership.

Flamboyant Villain

With ten heads, twenty arms, a flying chariot and a city of gold, Ravan is one of the most flamboyant villains in Hindu mythology. He abducted Sita, the wife of Ram, and was struck down for that. Ravan is the demon-king of the Ramayan, the lord of the Rakshasas, whose effigy must be burnt each year in the autumn festival commemorating the victory of Ram.
Yet, there is much about him to be admired – he was a poet who composed the Rudra Stotra in praise of Shiva, the ascetic-god; he was a musician who used one of his heads and one of his arms to design a lute called Rudra Vina, in honor of Shiva. When Hanuman entered Lanka, in search of Sita, he found the demon-lord lay in bed surrounded by a bevy of beauties, women who had willingly abandoned their husbands drawn by Ravan's sexual prowess. Rishi Agastya informed Ram that Ravan was only half-demon: his father Vaishrava, was a Brahmin whose father was Pulatsya, one of the seven mind-born primal sons of Brahma himself. So after killing Ravan, before returning to Ayodhya, Ram went to the Himalayas to perform penance and purify himself of the sin of Brahma-hatya or killing of a Brahmin.
Ram, by comparison, seems boring – a rule-upholder who never does anything spontaneous or dramatic. He always does the right thing, whether he likes it or not, and does not seem like much fun. It is natural therefore to be a fan of Ravan, to be seduced by his power, to be enchanted by his glamour, and to find arguments that justify his actions.
In the corporate world, flamboyant CEOs do get a lot of attention, especially if they also happen to be successful CEOs, with their very own city of gold built on rising stock markets. One is dazzled by the cars they drive, the lives they lead, their swagger, their confidence, their individual aura that makes them giants amongst their peers, powerful men like Trilochan-ji who command authority and demand allegiance. Trilochan-ji's team admires the way he can pick up the phone and get things done. He has the money to buy anybody who stands in his way. And the political clout to get all the clearances. He has, in a short while, managed to grow his business at a rate that his predecessors could only imagine. Trilochan-ji's organization is in awe of him. And everyone fears him.
By contrast, Asutosh-ji, Trilochan-ji's cousin, is a very mild man. His business has grown rapidly too, but no one knows about it, because he does not push his public relations department too much. Why? "Because press coverage has no impact on my business." He meticulously gathers data, plans his strategies with his team, empowers his directors to implement them thoroughly, keeps a hawk's eye on deviations, and ensures the numbers are met. Few would notice him in the office. He dresses like others do, uses the same toilet as his employees, loves spending his Sundays only with family, and is happiest when he can give his employees a good bonus and his shareholders a good dividend. Not the best results in the market, but much better than last year. The point, he says, is not show spikes of brilliance but a steady sustainable growth. His speeches are boring, too accurate and lacks the glamour of Trilochan-ji. And when in crisis, Asutosh-ji will not pick up the phone to call a politician nor will he look for people he can buy out; he will meticulously plan his action to solve the problem without looking for short cuts.
"Because," he says, "Short cuts always have long term repercussions and I will not risk it while am the custodian of my company's future."
It is simplistic to call Trilochan-ji a Ravan and Asutosh-ji a Ram simply because the former is flamboyant and commanding while the later is boring and task-oriented. What makes Ravan villain of the Ramayan is not his heads, or arms, or flying chariot or city of gold. It is his strategic intent.
What does Ravan stand for? He never built the city of gold – he drove out his brother, Kuber, and took over the kingdom of Lanka. He went around the world killing sages and raping women. Why? To establish his dominion – to generate fear. Why did he abduct Sita? Avenging his sister's mutilation was but an excuse; it was the desire to conquer the heart of a faithful wife. And during the war, he let his sons die and his brothers die before entering the battlefield himself. His desire for victory over Sita, and Ram, mattered more than the lives of his people.
Ravan lives only for himself. His pleasure matters the most. Ironically, he is the devotee of Shiva – the ascetic, the god who demonstrates his disdain for all things material and sensuous by smearing his body with ash and living in crematoriums and atop a desolate icy hill. Ravan may sing praises of Shiva and bow to him, but despite having ten heads is unable to internalize the wisdom of Shiva. Maybe he does understand Shiva's ascetic philosophy intellectually, enabling him to compose potent hymns, but he is unable to follow Shiva's way in spirit. For all his prayers and poems, he remains attached to power and pleasure and wealth – all things material, and all things transitory. He is no nihilist; he is simply a weak man, a talker, not a doer.
In Hindu mythology, a leader is not one who is rules a city of gold or travels on a flying chariot. It is one who lives to make a positive impact on the lives of others. Leadership is not about self-aggrandizement. It is about creating a society where people can live a full life. Ram is hero and god, not because he is a boring obedient son, but because by being an obedient son, he demonstrates his commitment to 'others'. He lives not for his pleasure, as Ravan does, but for the pleasure of those around him. And the journey is not easy – for one can never please everybody. Trilochan-ji's empire is a by-product of his desire to dominate and be feared while Asutosh-ji's establishes businesses to satisfy his internal and external customers to the best of his ability. It is the difference in strategic intent that makes one Ravan and the other Ram.

Eyes of a Leader

God may be an abstract concept but the common man needs a tangible form for this abstract concept. That is why, in ancient times, people represented their deities as rocks. That is why, when we travel across India, we find in shrines of local gods and goddesses, no elaborate imagery, just a rock smeared with turmeric or saffron or vermillion. But such imagery is too impersonal. To make it personal, in many shrines, one thing is done – the rock is given eyes, large petal shaped eyes, usually of metal. They stare at the devotees constantly from the moment the door of the shrine is opened to the time the shrine is shut. In temples, the ritual that transforms an ordinary statue into a deity is called the 'eye-bestowing ceremony'. Once the eye is given, or opened, the deity is established and alive. The murti becomes swarup, the living image of the divine. What is so special about the eye? What does the eye do? And why is the eye equated with life?
With the appearance of the eye, the stone becomes sentient - it can sense, it can see, it can respond to the world in front of it. The eye-bestowing ritual tells us something very powerful about humans, about the devotees who establish the deity. We want to be seen. We want our gods to observe us, know us, and understand us. Without eyes, how can they know our pain, our aspirations and our issues? We constantly ask God to open his eyes, see our suffering and even shed tears for us, empathizing with our situation. A leader is supposed to be like that village god or goddess: he or she must have eyes that observes the team and understands them for who they really are.
The Mahabharata tells the story of a kingdom where the royal couple has no eyes. The king, Dhritarashtra, is blind and his queen, Gandhari, is blindfolded. The result: children who feel unobserved. The father cannot see; the mother chooses not the see. The children grow up with a warped value system. Since no one is seeing them, they feel they can get away with anything. As a result the law of the jungle reigns supreme in the kingdom of Dhritarashtra. A woman is publicly disrobed and lands are grabbed by force.
A leader must see his people. He must recognize them for who they are, rather than what he wants them to be. More often than not, leaders don't have eyes – or rather they see only themselves. Their eyes are only for their vision of the world. They do not realize there are others around them with other visions of life. This lack of eyes strips them of all empathy. Everything is measured and valued against their vision. Those who align with their vision are good; those fail to do so are bad. Intellectual leaders with an intellectual outlook of things therefore look down upon people who are not intellectual. Emotional leaders keep advising non-emotional team members to transform for their betterment. Task oriented leaders do not value people oriented team members and vice versa. In other words, they see nothing but themselves and constantly seek themselves in others. They notice no one else.
Aziz knows what it feels to have a blind boss. Due to unfortunate circumstances, Aziz could not study beyond the 12th standard. A contact brought him to a garment manufacturing unit where the proprietor, Jaichand-saab, decided to make him the telephone operator because he spoke English. Aziz had no choice but to accept the position. But in a matter of few weeks, he knew everything about the garment business simply by merely answering the queries on the telephone: he knew where sourcing was done, where the finances came from, what were the customers looking for, what were the issues in the garment manufacturing business, who were the competitors. Every time he tried to talk to Jaichand-saab of a way to improve the business, Jaichand-saab dismissed him because for Jaichand-saab, Aziz remained a '12th standard pass, English speaking, telephone operator'. Blinded by Aziz's resume, he refused to see Aziz – the living, breathing, thinking, feeling Aziz. He did not see, or even try to see, the person before him.
One day, Jaichand-saab's son, Krishnachand, came to the office to help his father. Krishnachand noticed that Aziz was different from the other employees. He could answer all queries. So he knew everything, but he could he imagine? The owner's son took Aziz out for lunch. It was an unforgettable lunch: he discovered how brilliant Aziz was – he had imagination and creativity, an ability to diagnose problems and find innovative solutions. He was all excited to tell his father about the discovery. But when he returned to the office, he had to face an angry father. Jaichand-saab shouted at his son, 'Don't get too familiar with the workers!' Out of respect, knowing his father, Krishnachand kept quiet. It struck him how blind his father was. He did not blame his father: after all when was the last time his father actually saw him? One day, thought Krishnachand, he would take over the business. That day, he would make Aziz his right hand man, whatever his qualifications.
The ability to recognize and nurture talent is often missing in people who are assumed to be leaders by their respective organizations. Some leaders, recognize talent but do not know what do with it. Others, envious of talent, reject or ignore them deliberately. The character Karna in the Mahabharata is a case in point. Like Aziz who is dismissed as '12th standard pass, English speaking, telephone operator', Karna was always seen as a charioteer's son and never as a great archer by the Pandavas. Only Duryodhana who saw Karna's talent but used him unfortunately for his villainous goals. This is what happens to talented people who are rejected by the mainstream - they end up in the wrong hands. And in rage and frustration, they end up doing the undesirable.
In the Upanishads, it is said that it is an observer who creates an observation. It is our attention that creates the world around us. Thus it is the eyes of the village deity that creates the village around him. Likewise, it is the eyes of the leader that creates an organization around him. Dhritarashtra's lack of sight and his wife's refusal to see created the Kauravas. It is not so much about sight as it is about attention – how much attention do we put in people around us. We want the gods to see us and pay attention to us. Do we see people around us and pay attention to them? Do we see what they see? Do we try and align our vision to theirs or do we simply impose our vision onto them? It is time for leaders to open their eyes to these questions.

Everybody loves Hanuman

Hanuman plays an important role in the Ramayan, yet in the epic itself, he does not hold any great position. He is just one of the many monkeys Ram encounters in the forest. He is not Sugriva, leader of the monkey troop. He is not Angad, who is told to lead the band of monkeys searching for Sita. He is not Jambavan, the bear or Nila, the monkey, who are given the responsibility of building the bridge. He is projected as an obedient follower who, through his intelligence, strength and courage, wins the admiration of Ram and emerges as one of the most revered characters of the tale and a god in his own right. But at no point does Hanuman make any attempt to steal anyone's glory; while in his own temple he stands powerful with mountain in hand and feet on a demon, in Ram's temple he is most content sitting at the feet of his master, hands in supplication.
Who would not want a Hanuman in his team? One who is very good at his work, one who will do whatever he is told to do, one who will never seek either reward or recognition and one who finds validation in obeying his master.
If we go to Raju's auto repair shop, we will find that all the work is done by his Hanuman: Amol, a young boy, who has been working with Raju for three years. Amol is a natural, able to fix the most complex of problems. Raju knows he can totally rely on Amol. No job is too big or too small for Amol. He is as happy changing a tyre, as he is fixing the brakes. He does not boss over the juniors and does not feel slighted if the seniors ask him to fetch tea. If there is a problem that eludes a standard solution, everyone knows that leave it to Amol – he will, like Hanuman crossing the sea, find a way.
Yes, it matters greatly to have a Hanuman in our team. One who will not question you. One who will do exactly what you tell him to do. One who delivers no matter what the odds. One who is loyal and devoted. But is that really good?
The following is a folk story of Hanuman: Hanuman once narrated the entire Ramayan to his mother, Anjani. After the narration, an impressed Anjani sought a clarification. "You are so strong that with a flick of a tale you could have destroyed the whole of Lanka, killed Ravan and rescued Sita. Why did you not do so? So much effort and time would have been saved – you would not have had to build a bridge to Lanka, you could have avoided the war. Why did you not do that?"
Hanuman replied, "Because Ram never asked me to."
And suddenly we wonder if this was opportunity lost. Hanuman was asked to discover Sita's location; he did that. Hanuman was asked to fetch the mountain of herbs that would save Lakshmana's life; he did that. No one asked him to destroy the Rakshasas and rescue Sita. So he did not do that. One common explanation given for why Ram never asked Hanuman to kill Ravan and rescue Sita is that it was Ram's duty to rescue Sita, not Hanuman's. Ramayan is about Ram, not Hanuman. But it is not so in the corporate world; the story is about the entire organization, not just about the leaders.
In the entire epic, Hanuman proves his capability time and time again. On his way to find Sita, he displays his extraordinary power (crosses the ocean), brain (outwits the snake-demon Surasa), brawn (kills Simhika) and integrity (not resting on Mandara mountain). And yet, while everyone admires this, no one seems eager to take full advantage of it. Was this refusal to take advantage of Hanuman's abilities a divine decision or merely a oversight? Is the same being done in the corporate world?
Yes, Raju loves Amol's work. Yes, Raju admires Amol's work. But is Raju harnessing the full potential of Amol? Is his contentment with Amol's obedience preventing him from seeing all that Amol can do, proactively, creatively, independently, if he is given the freedom to do so? Ask Raju and he will say, "But I don't stop Amol from doing anything." He does not stop Amol from doing anything, but he does not encourage Amol from doing something either.
The greatest danger of having Hanumans in our team is that his actions are limited by our directions. Maybe we fear that if Hanuman thinks for himself, there will be chaos - he is a monkey after all. Maybe we fear that he will overshadow us. Hence, ultimately, only we decide the goals, we define the vision, we declare the mission and state the objective. Our Hanuman will help you realize all this. But, maybe, the goals could have been greater and grander, if we had let Hanuman do more than merely obey.
Amol once had given Raju a suggestion. "Sir, if we park our cars perpendicular to the wall rather than parallel we can keep more cars in the garage?" Raju ignored this suggestion. "Do you work," he snapped at Amol without giving his words much thought. But the message he implicitly gave Amol was that - 'I only want your obedience, not your intelligence.' Amol immediately complied. And that marked the end of Amol's creativity that would have perhaps made Raju's auto repair shop a much greater success.
This is the danger of over compliance and extreme obedience. We prevent followers from thinking and contributing. It makes business sense therefore to take a closer look at the Hanumans in our team; we just might find in their hearts a Ram waiting to be coaxed out.

2011-05-07T06:23:00.000-07:00

Just what is Node.js? : A ready-to-code server
Use Node.js as a full cloud environment development stack : Embrace the concurrency model using asynchronous I/O via callbacks, and build a chat server
HTML5, CSS3, and related technologies : A rapid-fire guide to new and emerging web standards
Extend SugarCRM REST web services to use XML : Combine XML with SugarCRM to improve how your web services handle large data sets
Java development 2.0: JavaScript for Java developers : A Java developer's primer on JavaScript variables, types, functions, and more
Improve web application security with jQuery Mobile : Learn how to secure your mobile applications
jQuery Mobile and JSON : Learn how to create mobile web applications powered by jQuery Mobile
Building CouchApps : Create web applications stored in an Apache CouchDB database

2011-04-25T02:38:00.000-07:00

Cloud or desktop? Compare and contrast applications : Decide which one is right for you
Transform RCP applications to web applications using RAP : Migrate with minor changes
Get started with object-oriented JavaScript code : Learn how to create objects using the JavaScript language

2011-04-15T05:50:00.000-07:00

IBM Mashup Center Need-to-know tips and tricks, Part 1: Work with feeds and build data mashups
Accelerating your use of IBM Mashup Center versions 2 and 3
The Semantic Web, Linked Data and Drupal, Part 1: Expose your data using RDF
Combine advanced spreadsheet export with PHP to create pivot tables : Build flexible, exportable spreadsheets from an XML template

2011-04-13T09:14:00.000-07:00

Find and resolve browser memory leaks caused by JavaScript and Dojo :Scan and sift with sIEve
Using core telecom network features to develop web applications: Part 1. Web services method
Using core telecom network features to develop web applications: Part 2: Using REST style APIs
Comment lines: Mobile apps and the Web

2011-03-26T09:37:00.000-07:00

Developing a web service and consuming it with J2ME Client
Introduction to jQuery plug-ins : Create a useful plug-in
Ruboto: Ruby on Android : A flexible scripting approach to the Dalvik virtual machine
Classify content with XQuery : Categorize unstructured and semi-structured content
Top 10 SOA and web services tutorials and articles : A listing of the SOA and web services zone's most popular content

2011-03-21T11:24:00.000-07:00

Use Django and jQuery to create a spreadsheet application
Mobile cloud computing : Devices, trends, issues, and the enabling technologies

2011-03-15T21:22:00.000-07:00

Build an easy JavaScript data access layer : Use PHP, jQuery, and JavaScript to access your database simply and securely
What's new in Lift 2.0?

2011-03-12T10:23:00.000-08:00

Accessing third-party content with oEmbed and PHP : Add rich content and data from popular apps and websites to your web pages
Create customizable web interfaces with the jQuery UI and Ajax
Review sandboxed natives, Fusebox, and FuseJS : A short history of safely enhanced JavaScript natives

2011-03-09T03:08:00.000-08:00

Manage operational requirements for production : Four steps to ensure that Development and Operations teams agree on nonfunctional requirements
Leveraging PHP V5.3 namespaces for readable and maintainable code : Organize your code and protect yourself from name collision
Build an Ajax application with the Dojo Toolkit
jQuery Mobile and JSON : Learn how to create mobile web applications powered by jQuery Mobile
Build native mobile applications with Jo and PhoneGap : Develop Android applications with HTML and JavaScript code

2011-03-04T10:26:00.001-08:00

DOM-based data storage and retrieval using jQuery
Achieve cross-browser functionality with HTML5 and CSS3 : Learn new techniques to use on the latest browsers
Bob Leah Blog HTML5 code example: Intelligently store Images in localStorage for faster page loads!
Build mobile web applications with Sencha Touch : An HTML5 mobile JavaScript framework for WebKit browsers

2011-02-19T02:28:00.000-08:00

Integrating WebSphere CloudBurst capabilities in an iPhone solution, Part 1: Architecture, decision model, and tools for a simple Web 2.0 application
Integrating WebSphere CloudBurst capabilities in an iPhone solution, Part 2: Defining and building the iPhone application
Quick iWidgets using Rational Application Developer Web 2.0 tools
Working with web services using the EXPath HTTP client : HTTP testing with EXPath
Build a Java Data Objects application by using Rational Software Architect 8.0 and the Google App Engine SDK

Create offline Web applications on mobile devices with HTML5
Cloud billing service : An SOA-enabled billing service module for the cloud environment
Bring data together with OpenLayers : Using data from multiple divergent sources in web maps
Dojo from the ground up, Part 3: Creating rich user interfaces with the Dijit component framework
PHP V5.3 invigorates object-oriented programming with late static binding : Taking another look at OOP and design patterns

2011-02-18T07:53:00.000-08:00

Agile Contracts
Agile Business Analysis in Flow: The Work of the Agile Analyst (Part 1)

2011-02-12T03:41:00.000-08:00

Cook up Web sites fast with CakePHP, Part 1: Getting started : Quick and easy PHP rapid-development aid
Create great graphics with the HTML5 canvas : New features help you create from simple figures to awesome animation
Kick-start your web development with HTML5 Boilerplate
Developing Drupal publications to support standards-based XML : Customize your Drupal installation to support the publication of TEI (or other) XML documents
Cloud computing service models : Learn the key concepts of the infrastructure, platform, and software as a service models

2011-02-11T00:30:00.000-08:00

Dojo from the ground up, Part 1: Getting started with Dojo development
Dojo from the ground up, Part 2: Mastering object-oriented development with Dojo
Conquer event-driven design using dojo.connect : Explore how dojo.connect and pub/sub make web applications more maintainable
Domain-model persistence with Morphia and MongoDB : Use Morphia to persist, load, delete, and query a Java domain model mapped to MongoDB
Implementing FusionCharts with Xpages in a Notes Application.

Cloud business analytics: Write your own dashboard : Find patterns in multitudes of cloud business analytics data
Build portable XSLT utilities : A practical guide to creating lightweight XML authoring utilities
Processing XML with jQuery : Build dynamic, XML-based UI apps with jQuery, XML, DOM, and Ajax
Introduction to jQuery Mobile
Add XML structure to the resume : Put HR-XML, stylesheets, formatting objects, and namespaces to work
db2university.com: Get started designing, configuring, and deploying on the cloud, Part 1 : Designing for resiliency, scalability, and performance to support Moodle open source software course management
Mobile web application framework match-up, Part 4: Rely on Sencha Touch as a complete mobile web solution

2011-02-09T23:24:00.000-08:00

How to get an extra hour every day

Time pressure is acute and frustrations such as commuting, inflexible working hours and tedious meetings make it worse.

To get things started here are ten sure-fire ways to get an extra hour a day.

Do emails on the train. With an HP notebook with 3G Mobile Broadband, you can get ahead of your emails before you even get to work. (Broadband connections require separately purchased wireless data service contracts.)
Work from home. Instead of commuting to work, why not stay at home and put the journey time to better use? Using HP technology, you can still stay in touch with your colleagues and access all your email and work files.
Virtual meetings. The majority of office professionals reckon they could save up to six hours a week simply by not travelling to offsite meetings. Video, web or phone conferences can reduce the amount of time you spend travelling to meetings.
Get up earlier. An hour before work is more productive – mainly because it is quiet – than any other time of the day. Changing sleep habits takes a bit of work but it isn't difficult.
Concentrate more. If you can get the same work done quicker with better concentration, it will free up time later for other things. The key concept is 'flow'. This is a mental state in which a person is fully immersed in what they are doing. Disruptions, such as phone calls and emails, break the flow. It can take 10-15 minutes to regain your concentration, so avoid disruptions. Switch off email, put the phone on voicemail and consider getting noise-cancelling headphones.
Find information faster. Microsoft Windows Vista and Windows 7 include a lightning-fast search feature that can find files and emails anywhere on your computer. Finding the right file quickly can save you having to rewrite it or spend hours searching manually. You can also save searches as virtual folders for future reference. For example, you can create a virtual folder for each of your clients.
Go wireless. HP Notebooks with built-in wireless networking mean you can get online and pick up your email from any location that has a suitable Wi-Fi connection point. If you don't need to go back to the office between meetings or you can work in cafes, trains and airports you can get more done in less time. With 3G Mobile Broadband (available on certain HP notebooks) you don't even need a connection point to get connected at broadband speeds; anywhere with cell phone reception will do.
Shorter, more efficient meetings. Do you find yourself spending most of your time in meetings? If you could make them more efficient, with better preparation and the right technology, you could save hours every week.
Manage your time better. Microsoft Outlook helps you time tasks more efficiently. Consolidate tasks, flag email messages for follow-up, and schedule appointments in one view.

What would you do with an extra hour every day? We asked real people and got some surprising answers. These are the things that really matter to people:

Plan ahead.
Play more sport.
Visit the gym.
Help other people.
Spend more time with the family.
Spend some time in the garden.
Go for a walk.
Spend more time with my staff – investing in their career.
See my friends.
Relax and listen to music.
Do some reading.
See more concerts.
Take a break to reflect.
Come up with new ideas.
Sleep more.
Catch up on all the administration I don't have time to do.
Learn something new, like a new language.

An extra hour a day would make people happier, more fulfilled and more productive. You can make it happen.

Original @ HP

2011-02-09T23:19:00.000-08:00

How to channel anger into better performance

Most of us get defensive and angry when our goals are frustrated or when we feel attacked by other people. Anger is normal, and it should be expressed: failing to express anger, and bottling it up, can build feelings of intense frustration and eventually lead to depression. However, if in your case being angry regularly turns into “losing your temper”, and if this is the only way you know how to deal with criticism and problems, it will not only damage your reputation and personal relationships but also cause stress-related diseases.

Aggression is not the same as assertiveness
Working with, or living with, someone who regularly loses their temper is extremely unpleasant and demoralising: it’s hard to trust a person when you are constantly worrying that they will turn on you and unleash their anger, often unpredictably. Don’t make the mistake of confusing fear with genuine feelings of respect: your employees are almost certainly looking for another job. And if you are looking for promotion, it is unlikely to happen: a good manager is assertive but not aggressive; a good listener and not a shouter.

However, the good news is that there are ways to help control anger and even channel it into a positive force, helping you explore problems more effectively and find real solutions. So next time you feel your temper rising, try the following:

Stop. Don’t say anything. Breathe deeply, then silently count to ten. This will really help calm you down and relax. And it means you won’t just say the first thing that comes into your head – something you may regret later.
You’re in control. Losing your temper may feel good at the time, but it won’t help in the long run – in fact, it will probably weaken your position and make you feel bad about yourself. Remember that you will command more respect if you stay calm, and that assertiveness and authority have nothing to do with loud aggressiveness.
Take a break. If possible, say that you need some time to consider what has just been said, and arrange to meet again later. This will give you time to calm down, collect your thoughts and respond rationally. During this “time out”, try to do something physical to release your anger and frustration – for example, go for a short walk around the block. Repeat a calming phrase to yourself, like, “Keep calm,” or “Take it easy,” “Relax,” or “This too will pass.” When you come back, you will feel calmer and more positive.
Win time. If you can’t go for a walk, reduce the tension by saying, “I’m not quite sure I’ve understood what you’re saying,” or, “Could you explain to me again what you mean?” This delaying tactic puts the ball in their court and stops you going on the offensive. Remember, staying calm and listening does not mean you aren’t in control.
Don’t take it personally. Other people are not necessarily trying to annoy you on purpose. Difficult situations are simply part of the complex fabric of our lives, so approach them objectively. For example, it’s possible that your work was criticised because it simply wasn’t good enough; it was probably not intended as an attack on you personally or your ability in general.
Remember. Different people have different standards, values and goals in life. Is there a good reason why they should conform to your standards? If so, tell them. Do you have unreasonable expectations? Maybe you should modify them. People who have strict standards for themselves tend to impose them on other people and then tend to react angrily when they don’t conform. Maybe you need to reassess your expectations for yourself. Sometimes you just have to accept the world the way it is.
Think. Choose your words carefully. We often come to regret words spoken in anger, and in a professional situation particularly this is not going to help your reputation.
Move on. Yes, you’re angry, but instead of wallowing in self-pity and anger, try to find a solution to the problem. Have your employees missed yet another deadline? Think before you shout. Is it really because they are lazy? Or are there real problems in the workflow? Are they unmotivated? Underpaid? Working weekends without any bonus or time off? Instead of working yourself into a rage, try to consider how you could help the situation, perhaps by praising their efforts more, or taking them out for lunch or a drink when a rushed job is complete. Take your angry feelings and channel the energy into solutions which benefit everyone. Similarly, if you are an employee, don’t bottle up your frustrations until you explode and shout at your boss – which could jeopardise your job. Instead, as soon as you start feeling angry, ask your boss for a private meeting and explain what you are feeling. If your boss is consistently unsympathetic and unhelpful, don’t waste time in negative thoughts: either accept the situation and try to make the best of it, or take action and start looking for another job. Either way, remember: losing your temper is only going to make it worse.
See it with a sense of humour. Though this may not always be appropriate, a laugh will often help defuse tension.

Original @ HP

2011-01-14T03:10:00.000-08:00

Master the Dojo Rich Text Editor And extend it with plug-ins
The zen of XSLT : The fundamental questions when writing XSLT
Building an iPhone chat app from the ground up : Make a cool iPhone app and its corresponding server piece

2010-12-27T19:31:00.000-08:00

Convert your web application to a multi-tenant SaaS solution : A checklist of considerations and steps to quickly turn your web app into a cloud application
GAIAN Database : A distributed federated database using a biologically inspired self-organization principle to minimize management.
Use the FusionCharts Free charting widget in the IBM Mashup Center : Using widgets with rich and highly customizable presentation in a mashup
Use Dojo's JsonRestStore with your REST services : Learn a simple, generic service implementation
Integrate Google Spreadsheets data with PHP, Part 2 : Use PHP to process and integrate data feeds from Google Spreadsheets with a web application
Introduction to Facebook APIs : Write Facebook apps for the Android platform with the Facebook SDK for Android

2010-12-12T03:49:00.000-08:00

Use Dojo Grid and Dojo Tree widgets in Apache Wink : How to create a simple custom provider
Mobile web application framework match-up, Part 3: Boost your next mobile web app with jQTouch
Anatomy of a cloud storage infrastructure : Models, features, and internals
Automated web testing with Selenium
Five XML dos and five don'ts that you need to know : How to use XML the right way
Integrate Google Spreadsheets data with PHP, Part 1 : Use PHP to process and integrate data feeds from Google Spreadsheets with a web application

2010-12-02T09:28:00.000-08:00

JSF 2 fu: HTML5 composite components, Part 2 : Implementing drag and drop
Understanding Android local data store APIs : Take advantage of preferences, SQLite, and the internal and external memory APIs
Evolutionary architecture and emergent design: Environmental considerations for design, Part 2 : The impact of refactoring and enterprise architecture
Data visualization with Processing, Part 1: An introduction to the language and environment
Mobile web application framework match-up, Part 2: Explore Cappuccino for mobile web app development
Building web applications with YQL and PHP, Part 2 : Use PHP and YQL to retrieve and combine data from multiple web services

2010-11-20T08:01:00.000-08:00

Introduction to Android development Using Eclipse and Android widgets
Building web applications with YQL and PHP, Part 1 : Use PHP and YQL to retrieve and combine data from multiple web services
Developing AJAX Web applications with IBM Rational Application Developer and Dojo

2010-11-05T07:48:00.000-07:00

Open hardware: How and why it works : Applying open source concepts to physical objects
A guide to writing unobtrusive JavaScript and Ajax : Employ good programming practices when creating your web applications
Bonita for business process management, Part 2: Configure forms and variables : Implement user interfaces for your BPM applications

2010-10-31T00:10:00.000-07:00

Evolutionary architecture and emergent design: Environmental considerations for design, Part 1 : Estimating emergent design and demonstrating technical debt
Search and integrate Google Buzz Streams with PHP : Use PHP to process and integrate activity streams from Google Buzz with a web application
Ajax user authentication and registration techniques with jQuery
Make your web applications fly : Improve loading performance and decrease bandwidth of CSS and JavaScript code

2010-10-22T23:50:00.000-07:00

Software's Technical Debt
How to implement symbolic representations - requirements
Developing a social networking iPhone application based on IBM Lotus Connections 2.5
JSF 2 fu: HTML5 composite components, Part 1 : Start implementing an HTML5 component library with JSF 2
Selection criteria for packaged applications in service-oriented architecture environments : Towards packaged application selection for service-oriented architecture
Hibernate Framework-based database sharding for SaaS applications
Using Ext.Direct in Ajax applications : Streamline client-side and server-side Ajax development using PHP
Enhance Ajax development with a fusion of jQuery, ZK, and Java code : Quickly reap benefits of both server- and client-side programming
Mobile web application framework match-up, Part 1: Build mobile applications with SproutCore

2010-10-10T11:08:00.000-07:00

Installing Oracle XE on Windows 7 64 bits

2010-10-08T19:55:00.000-07:00

Looking At The WebMatrix WebGrid
Announcing NuPack, ASP.NET MVC 3 Beta, and WebMatrix Beta 2
Introducing HTML5 video : Why we need HTML5 video and how to use it
Migrate your Linux application to the Amazon cloud, Part 3: Building scalability : Serve more traffic with ease
Data-driven interactive applications with HTML5 and Ajax : Cross-platform Web apps for online or offline use
Programming XML across the multiple tiers: Use XML in the middle tier for performance, fidelity, and development ease : Develop an all-XML solution using JDBC 4.0, SQLXML, and the WebSphere Server XML Feature Pack
Programming XML across the multiple tiers, Part 2: Write efficient Java EE applications that exploit an XML database server : Optimize an all-XML solution with JDBC 4.0, SQLXML, the WebSphere XML Feature Pack, and DB2 pureXML
Create modular performance tests to save time and increase reuse: Part 1. Use Rational Performance Tester to exchange data between modular tests

2010-10-01T21:09:00.000-07:00

Java development 2.0: MongoDB: A NoSQL datastore with (all the right) RDBMS moves : Create and query documents using Java code and Groovy
Building mobile applications for WebSphere Commerce using the hybrid application programming model
Integrate disparate data sources with Semantic Web technology : Combine data in multiple formats into a single report, using free tools to automate their conversion to RDF
Search RDF data with SPARQL : SPARQL and the Jena Toolkit open up the semantic Web
The Linking Open Data cloud diagram
Smarter collaboration for the Education Industry using Lotus Connections, Part 1: Integrate Lotus Connections with a RESTful web application : Track publications by person using Lotus Connections Profiles
Using the Stakeholder Collaboration Strategy with Rational Requirements Composer: Part 4. Collaboration approach
Improve Ajax development with jQuery
Improve the performance of your web applications : Find bottlenecks and increase the speed of your client-side content
Maximizing JavaScript and Ajax performance : Measure performance with Firebug, Safari Web Inspector, YUI Profiler, and YSlow
Creating juxtaposition tables, Part 1: Use Flex to create JTables
Creating juxtaposition tables, Part 2: Use Dojo to create a matrix viewer
Build a WebSphere application with AMIs : Learn to start an instance in the cloud and deploy a sample application to it.
Simulate XQuery and XInclude functionality with PHP : Enjoy the power of XML data processing in web programming

2010-09-24T10:04:00.000-07:00

SOA Reference Architecture
Enterprise Mobile Application Platform Sybase Unwired Platform (SUP)
Assess enterprise applications for cloud migration : Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process to evaluate apps for the cloud

2010-09-15T04:46:00.000-07:00

The Law of Two Feet

I came across an interesting concept recently in an article by Harrison Owen, a member of an organization advocating Open Spaces Technology, a model for organizing meetings that's based around open participation : the Law of Two Feet. Brilliantly simple, it says any time you're in a meeting where you're not contributing nor adding value--you are encouraged to use your two feet and find a place where you can. In other words, if it's not meaningful, and you're not doing your part to make it meaningful, move on.
Source : Darwin meets Dilbert: Applying the Law of Two Feet to your next meeting

2010-09-15T04:24:00.000-07:00

Google App Engine
What Is Google App Engine?
Import XML data to Google App Engine : Upload bulk data stored locally in XML files to Google App Engine's persistent object database
Google App Engine SDK for java
Using the Datastore with JDO
Exposing SOAP Service on GAE
Using Simple for XML serialization : Really does make it simple to go from Java objects to XML
SOAPUI : Leading tool for web service testing
Force.com Web Service Connector (WSC) (inc GAE)

2010-09-10T12:34:00.000-07:00

Build dynamic user interfaces with Android and XML : Collect data using an Android forms engine
Consuming web services with the Dojo Toolkit : Use the Dojo Toolkit for Ajax and RESTful services
Using the Stakeholder Collaboration Strategy with Rational Requirements Composer: Part 3. Linking strategy
Migrate your Linux application to the Amazon cloud, Part 1: Initial migration : How to migrate your application into the cloud
Migrate your Linux application to the Amazon cloud, Part 2: Improving application reliability : How to improve the reliability of your migrated Linux application

2010-09-03T13:27:00.000-07:00

Using the Stakeholder Collaboration Strategy with Rational Requirements Composer: Part 2. Organizing the project and repository space
Business intelligence on the cheap with Apache Hadoop and Dojo, Part 1: Crunch your existing data using Apache Hadoop
Business intelligence on the cheap with Apache Hadoop and Dojo, Part 2: Create eye-catching, interactive reports using the Dojo toolkit : Take advantage of Dojo charts

2010-08-31T00:39:00.000-07:00

Creating Effective Semantic Markup
ASP.NET MVC meets HTML5
Better Web Forms with the MVP Pattern

2010-08-28T02:08:00.000-07:00

Using the Stakeholder Collaboration Strategy with Rational Requirements Composer: Part 1. The Audience
Capturing Architectural Requirements
Mashups, beyond reporting : Build a form widget to use with IBM Mashup Center relational update feeds
Create Facebook applications with CodeIgniter : Integrating the Facebook SDK
Using XML and JSON with Android, Part 2: Deliver hybrid Android applications with JSON : Mix JavaScript, JSON, callback functions, Android-SDK Java code for flexible mobile apps

2010-08-19T13:30:00.000-07:00

Simplify Ajax development with jQuery : Discover how easy Ajax and DOM scripting can be
Working with XML on Android : Build Java applications for mobile devices
Build a simple JSON controller for your web project
Build a web-based notification tool with XMPP : Write real-time web applications with XMPP, PHP, and JavaScript
Test web applications with Selenium RC : Introducing Selenium Remote Control
Requirements traceability in analysis models in Rational Software Architect Version 7.5 : Trace requirements from use cases in an analysis modeling process

2010-08-02T23:23:00.000-07:00

Use Dojo to process web service responses : Simplify the use of web services with Dojo

2010-07-24T06:05:00.000-07:00

Enable a collaborative experience for HTML forms : Use the WebSphere Communications Enabled Applications Feature Pack to create collaborative and dynamic HTML forms
Using XML and JSON with Android, Part 1: Explore the benefits of JSON and XML in Android applications : Consider both XML and JSON data-interchanges formats for use on the Android platform

2010-07-18T07:17:00.000-07:00

Developing custom widgets for Business Space using Dojo, Part 3: Using multiple templates in iWidget and inheriting from a base widget

2010-07-08T22:33:00.000-07:00

Reading data from Gnumeric spreadsheets directly through XML from external applications : The best of both worlds in account reporting
Thinking XML: The XML flavor of HTML5 : 6 recommendations for developers using the next generation of the web's native language

2010-07-01T20:21:00.000-07:00

Use IBM Lotus Forms on the cloud : Create a car repair application with Lotus Forms Turbo AMI on EC2
Creating mobile Web applications with HTML 5, Part 5: Develop new visual UI features in HTML 5 : Add Canvas, CSS3, and more semantic elements to mobile Web apps
Using Internet data in Android applications : Parse XML, JSON, and protocol buffers data
Optimizations For Improving Page Load Times

2010-06-28T01:02:00.000-07:00

Thoughts on two months of pairing
2020 Best CIO Acceptance Speech

2010-06-24T19:34:00.000-07:00

Build a web-based notification tool with XMPP : Write real-time web applications with XMPP, PHP, and JavaScript
Various client-server communication mechanisms in an Ajax-based web application
Creating mobile Web applications with HTML 5, Part 4: Using Web Workers to speed up your mobile Web applications : Add multi-threaded JavaScript to HTML 5 for the win!

2010-06-09T09:56:00.000-07:00

Silverlight in an Occasionally Connected World
Ajax library smackdown: Dojo versus YUI : Using libraries to create a better user experience
Express social objects in Atom format : An introduction to the Activity Streams standard
Produce 60-second radio theatre with XML, PHP and Festival : Create minimalist audio art using computer-generated voices

2010-06-04T22:55:00.000-07:00

Creating mobile Web applications with HTML 5, Part 3: Make mobile Web applications work offline with HTML 5 : Enable your application to function with or without an Internet connection
Being RESTful with SugarCRM : Tap into the new REST support with the SugarCRM Web services API
Connect your data to the outside world with SugarCRM connectors : Build a Google News connector using the Google AJAX Search API

2010-05-20T21:59:00.000-07:00

Using Ajax with Web services : Combining two leading-edge technologies is easier than you think
Creating mobile Web applications with HTML 5, Part 2 : Unlock local storage for mobile Web applications with HTML 5 : Improve the speed of your mobile apps with standardized local storage

2010-05-15T00:51:00.000-07:00

CodeIgniter and Ajax using jQuery : Creating effective and usable Web 2.0 interfaces
Collaborative ALM interoperability : Options for integrating Rational ClearQuest with Rational Team Concert or Rational Quality Manager
Creating mobile Web applications with HTML 5, Part 1: Combine HTML 5, geolocation APIs, and Web services to create mobile mashups : Find and track location coordinates to use in various Web services
Create Ajax applications for the mobile Web : Build cross-browser smartphone Web applications
PHP and the Cloud
Java development 2.0-NoSQL : Schemaless data modeling with Bigtable and Groovy's Gaelyk
Doloto: The Power of AJAX without Its Headaches (a Microsoft Research Project)

2010-05-11T18:02:00.000-07:00

Enterprise Patterns with WCF RIA Services
Streamline Workflows using Barcodes
Going NoSQL with MongoDB

2010-05-03T11:20:00.000-07:00

Create Flex 4 and Java Web applications : Discover object remoting
Build Ajax applications with Ext JS : A JavaScript framework for rich Internet application development
What's new in Ext JS
Ext JS Samples and examples
Creating mobile Web applications with HTML 5, Part 1: Combine HTML 5, geolocation APIs, and Web services to create mobile mashups : Find and track location coordinates to use in various Web services

2010-04-22T01:41:00.000-07:00

Create client-side diagrammatic interaction in Web applications with SVG : Set up an example of Web-based SVG co-operation
Entity Framework 4.0 and WCF Data Services 4.0 in Visual Studio 2010
An Introduction to Functional Programming for .NET Developers

2010-04-14T21:19:00.000-07:00

Agility: Definitions, Principles, and Practices for Today
Build your first iPhone App in five Minutes via XPages and iUI
Working with XML on AndroidBuild Java applications for mobile devices

2010-04-02T04:05:00.000-07:00

Build Web applications with HTML 5 : Create tomorrow's Web applications today
Programming XML across the multiple tiers: Use XML in the middle tier for performance, fidelity, and development easeDevelop an all-XML solution using JDBC 4.0, SQLXML, and the WebSphere Server XML Feature Pack
IE9 Test drive
Microsoft Announces Hardware-Accelerated HTML5, Pushes Boundaries on Web and Cloud Development
URL Rewriter
SEO Toolkit
Get Popular Web Applications

2010-03-09T00:04:00.000-08:00

Post-Event Resources for Microsoft Architect Insight Conference 2009
ASP.NET Web Application Toolkits
ASP.NET Control Gallery

2010-03-04T22:39:00.000-08:00

Create modern Web sites using HTML5 and CSS3 : Implementing the canvas and video elements in HTML5
Create Ajax applications for the mobile Web : Build cross-browser smartphone Web applications
Developing gadgets for Google Wave : A gentle introduction
What's new in iBATIS 3 : Using iBATIS as a persistence framework in your application
Enhance Web applications by secretly using the Flash Player
Are you using a toolset in your code review?
CouchDB basics for PHP developers : A look at CouchDB from a PHP developer's point of view

2010-02-28T20:25:00.000-08:00

Silverlight 4's New Managed Extensibility Framework
Silverlight 4's New Notification Windows
Silverlight 4's New INavigationContentLoader Interface

2010-02-18T01:09:00.000-08:00

The Evolution of Rational Requirements Offerings
Manage development of document-based requirements in parallel with IBM Rational RequisitePro : Ways to work with requirements such as use case specifications in Microsoft Word document format

2010-02-15T05:27:00.000-08:00

Coinciding with the commercial launch of Windows Azure, Microsoft released the Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio 1.1 for creating, configuration, building, debugging, running, and packaging scalable Web applications and services on Windows Azure. And for getting your current Windows applications running in the cloud, the Windows Azure team released a beta of Windows Azure Drive.

2010-02-15T05:21:00.000-08:00

OpenLaszlo -- A platform to rapidly build and deploy rich Internet applications : Understand what OpenLaszlo is and how it simplifies the way rich Internet applications can be developed and deployed
Python basics for PHP developers
sMashing your application... the Ajax way : Develop applications on WebSphere sMash Developer's Edition with PHP
Get to know Apache Click : Quickly write Web applications using a lightweight model free of heavy frameworks
Accessing social networking Web sites through OAuth : Build an OAuth-enabled Web Twitter client

2010-01-21T23:15:00.000-08:00

What's New in the .NET Framework Version 4

What's Obsolete in the .NET Framework

2010-01-18T04:52:00.000-08:00

Integrate Google Book Search into a PHP application:Use PHP to process and integrate data from Google Book Search with a custom Web application
Location-aware search with Apache Lucene and Solr : Combine unstructured text and spatial data to enhance your search applications
Modeling with SoaML, the Service-Oriented Architecture Modeling Language: Part 1. Service Identification
Emerging Web technologies : A look ahead
Rich Internet applications using ZK : An open source Ajax framework
Dealing with data in XML : Use the CDATA section effectively
Being RESTful with SugarCRM : Tap into the new REST support with the SugarCRM Web services API

2009-12-29T22:53:00.001-08:00

2009-12-29T22:18:00.000-08:00

Nice Dilbert cartoon about training

2009-12-19T02:20:00.000-08:00

Cloud services for your virtual infrastructure, Part 1: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Eucalyptus
6 tips for optimizing a native XML database : Common sense guidelines for using XQuery with native XML databases
Develop a store locator application using IBM DB2 pureXML and ASP.NET : Create a Web app to browse and maintain store information and plot coordinates on a map
Java development 2.0: Hello Google App Engine : Quick Web application development leveraging Groovy, Eclipse, and JDO
Java development 2.0: REST up with CouchDB and Groovy's RESTClient : RESTful concepts and a document-oriented database in action
Java development 2.0: Gaelyk for Google App Engine : A Groovy-based framework makes rapid development on Google App Engine even faster
Social Networks using Web 2.0
Combine social media APIs and XML-based data formats : Program to social media provider APIs using XML dialects
Process XML in the browser using jQuery : Navigate some major pitfalls to gain the benefits of the popular Web application API
Next-generation banking with Web 2.0
Integrating a Dojo client with an SCA application via SCA HTTP binding
Create an alerts system using XMPP, SMS, pureXML, and PHP : Develop a Euro currency exchange rate application with automatic updates
Building smart Web applications for a smarter planet

2009-11-15T22:58:00.000-08:00

Build a pureXML and JSON application, Part 1: Store and query JSON with DB2 pureXML
JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), a popular textual notation in Web 2.0, is used to represent objects (or data structures) as serialized text when clients and servers exchange information. Some applications benefit from persisting JSON objects to maintain state across sessions. In this article, learn how DB2® pureXML® can store, manage, and query JSON when you adopt a simple JSON-to-XML mapping.
Build a pureXML and JSON application, Part 2: Create Universal Services for pureXML that expose JSON
The pureXML Universal Services for JSON (abbreviated to JSON Universal Services in this article) are a set of database operations, including insert, update, delete, and query, exposed as Web services. These services enable an application to persist JSON in pureXML and to query it easily through HTTP with WebSphere Application Server. Get started with configuring and testing JSON Universal Services in this article.
Build a pureXML and JSON application, Part 3: Create OpenSocial gadgets for pureXML
With the Web 2.0 technology of OpenSocial gadgets, developers can easily include their applications in popular Web sites, such as iGoogle, MySpace, Hi5, LinkedIn, and others. In this article, explore OpenSocial gadgets through hands-on construction of an application that leverages the pureXML® capability of DB2®. This article is the last in a series of three that illustrates how to build a pureXML application whose user interface is a gadget that you can deploy in any OpenSocial compliant Web site. Follow the steps in this article to build a user interface that stores and retrieves the JSON data described in the first article through JSON Universal Services created in the second article.

Validating XML in PHP :Ensure data integrity and validate XML documents against an XML schema in PHP

Leveraging pureXML in a Flex microblogging application
Part 1: Enabling Web services with DB2 pureXML
Part 2: Building the application user interface with Flex
Part 3: Using pureXML Web services to publish microblog entries to an HTML page

2009-10-03T00:05:00.000-07:00

Link Listings
Case Study: Web 2.0 SOA Scenario
Meet CAM: A new XML validation technology : Take semantic and structural validation to the next level
U2 Compact Framework : UniObject for .NET Compact Framework for a smarter planet
Data scoring: Convert data with XQuery : Do quality analysis on conversion results
Build a RESTful Web service using Jersey and Apache
Integrate your PHP application with Google Contacts : Read and write contact information from Google Contacts with XML and PHP
Introducing Quercus, a Java-based PHP framework
Implement a real-time server push in Ajax applications using socket-based RIA technologies
Two new Microsoft Security Developement Lifecycle (SDL) tools: MiniFuzz File Fuzzer and BinScope Binary Analyzer
Microsoft has announced two new Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) tools here:
MiniFuzz File Fuzzer
MiniFuzz is a basic testing tool designed to help detect code flaws that may expose security vulnerabilities in file-handling code. This tool creates multiple random variations of file content and feeds it to the application to exercise the code in an attempt to expose unexpected application behaviors.
Because fuzzing is effective at finding bugs, it is a required activity in the Verification Phase of the Microsoft Security Development Lifecycle (SDL). With the release of MiniFuzz, we have made a simple file fuzzer available to assist developer efforts to find and address more bugs in code before it ships to customers.
BinScope Binary Analyzer
The BinScope Binary Analyzer is a Microsoft verification tool that analyzes binaries to ensure that they have been built in compliance with Microsoft’s Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) requirements and recommendations. BinScope checks that SDL-required compiler/linker flags are being set, strong-named assemblies are in use, and up-to-date build tools are in place.
BinScope also reports on dangerous constructs that are prohibited or discouraged by the SDL (e.g. read/write shared sections and global function pointers). For a more detailed enumeration of the checks performed by BinScope, please see the BinScope documentation. BinScope is available in two forms: as a standalone executable and as a Visual Studio add-on.
Jeremy Dallman, of Microsoft, explains both tools in this post.

2009-09-18T07:54:00.000-07:00

Finding the way through the semantic Web with HBase : Use HBase and Bigtable to create and mine a semantic Web
Creating juxtaposition tables, Part 1: Use Flex to create JTables
Meet the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) : Explore Internet communication with XMPP architecture, applications, and examples
Using the Technorati API : Create automated blog searches

2009-09-17T04:07:00.000-07:00

Agile poster from VersionOne

2009-09-13T21:39:00.000-07:00

Introducing Apache Mahout : Scalable, commercial-friendly machine learning for building intelligent applications
Using the Technorati API: Create automated blog searches
Explore multithreaded programming in XUL : Retrieve search results simultaneously from Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft's Bing
Top 10 tips for writing successful Software as a Service : Essential skills for ensuring that your SaaS project finishes on time and under budget
Integrating SOAP Web services in WebSphere sMash applications : Using the REST to SOAP extension
GMaps4JSF in the JSF 2.0 Ajax world

2009-07-27T23:19:00.000-07:00

“I thought of that while riding my bike”

“I thought of that while riding my bike” - so said Albert Einstein when asked about the theory of relativity. How many of us have “thought of that while riding my bike”?

All too often - in these days of crunchy deadlines and in a world that never sleeps, where someone on the other side of the world wants an instant answer, even though it’s 3am where you are - we don’t get the time to “think of something while riding our bike”. Sometimes we need to crack a problem or issue, or come up with a new idea or product and the creative juices just don’t flow. We lock ourselves away in a room with no windows, with artificial light, a blank piece of paper and a bright whiteboard and we try to come up with the solutions and ideas. It doesn’t work, does it? Rather than the lightbulb above our head glowing, our brains switch to neutral and the ideas grind to a halt - or at least that’s how it is for me.

Maybe we should do something different to spark the creativity - go for a walk, swim in the sea, watch the clouds, go ride our bike….. I’m a keen road cyclist and on a long spin, once I’m into my cadence rhythm, I find my mind becomes clearer; I’m able to think things through, come up with a plan, assess the strengths and weaknesses, threats and opportunities. The solitude helps me think. I’d struggle to do this in a plain room, with a plain whiteboard.

Ref: The Six Ninja's blog

2009-07-26T23:04:00.000-07:00

To tell you the truth

by Indrajit Hazra.

Excerpts:

Let me be honestly brutal. The only way I can negotiate with this world without majorly losing out on what it has to offer is by dropping a little lie here and mixing a bit of facts with fiction there. I just have to ensure that I’m not branded a liar.

But what if I’m being told to be in a situation where lying is no longer an option? What if everything I say are fact-checked and then played back to me for my reaction? What if I am made to undergo a psychophysiological detection of deception (PDD) examination — what in my grandma’s generation was known as a polygraph test?

Well, for starters, I just won’t agree to undergo the test, would I? But that refusal itself is bound to send out a message that will travel faster than it takes a text message to reach from a Vasant Vihar mobile to a mobile in Vasant Kunj. Like a man running away from the cops, I will be considered ‘guilty’ even before it’s established that I have been fibbing. So the only way out is to hone one’s lying skills.

Which is why Yudhisthirs petitioning the Delhi High Court and howling against the prime time game show Sach Ka Saamna should chill. Participants on the programme are not Guantanamo Bay orange-suited residents who have been pumped with temazepam and forced to listen to Amitabh Bachchan reading Harivansh Rai Bachchan’s poetry. These are people who, lusting after filthy lucre (a perfectly reasonable human endeavour), agree to come and sit on the hot seat after a polygraph test to answer questions such as ‘Did you, after your marriage, sleep with your driver while returning from a Gurgaon party that involved throwing in car keys in a big salad bowl?’

As you can gather by the line of that question — and I’m only exaggerating a bit — Sach Ka Saamna’s big ticket questions are overwhelmingly family-wrecking in nature. Which brings us to the real issue that’s made people howl against the show “promoting obscenity” and — here we go again — “propagating values against Indian culture”.
Telling the truth is not an Indian tradition. Lies have thrived among humans simply because in the long run they work. The scary bit is being caught lying, and worse, being caught lying in public. Imagine a Congress MP being asked by Sach Ka Saamna host Rajeev Khandelwal the jackpot Rs 1 crore question: “Would you trade your mother for Soniaji?” Even being truthful here would be very tricky.

2009-07-24T05:20:00.000-07:00

Napoleon's March

Probably the best statistical graphic ever drawn, this map by Charles Joseph Minard portrays the losses suffered by Napoleon's army in the Russian campaign of 1812. Beginning at the Polish-Russian border, the thick band shows the size of the army at each position. The path of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow in the bitterly cold winter is depicted by the dark lower band, which is tied to temperature and time scales.

Ref: http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/posters

A Brilliant Visualization

An excellent example of how magic can be created with data

Gaps within China , India, Europeon Union and United States of America from 1900 to 2006 .

2009-07-22T20:41:00.000-07:00

45+ Excellent Code Snippet Resources and Repositories

40+ Tooltips Scripts With AJAX, JavaScript & CSS

45+ New jQuery Techniques For Good User Experience

70 Expert Ideas For Better CSS Coding

70 New, Useful AJAX And JavaScript Techniques

30 Handy Cheat Sheets and Reference Guides for Web Professionals

Build Wikipedia query forms with semantic technology : Create simple Web forms that drive semantic Web standard queries to take advantage of exciting new databases

2009-07-22T20:29:00.000-07:00

Job Hopping

I have changed jobs a lot in my career of around 15 years. According to this article that might just have been a good thing for me.

"Software industry culture has an unwritten rule that if you don't like a job, or if you think your company isn't going anywhere, you leave. Instead of hanging around the office whining, you walk out the door and find something better and cooler to do. Because skilled tech workers are hard to find and interesting companies abound, employees, not employers, call the shots. This was true at Apple in 1984, and it's still true at Facebook today.

Worker mobility gives the tech industry fluidity, velocity, and energy. It creates a culture in which people routinely jump from one job to another, looking to get in on the next must-have product or service.

As it happens, that lack of loyalty has been a key driver of the software industry's rapid innovation over the past three decades. AnnaLee Saxenian, author of Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128, puts it this way: "Job-hopping, rather than climbing the career ladder within a corporation, facilitates flows of information and know-how between individuals, firms, and industries. When combined with venture capital, it supports unanticipated recombinations of technologies and skill." In other words, we have Twitter today because a bunch of engineers who were trained at other companies quit their jobs and brought their expertise to Evan Williams' side project. It's like biology: In an ecosystem where microbes are promiscuously swapping genes and traits, evolution speeds up."

2009-07-22T04:28:00.000-07:00

Another crazy week

by Manas Chakravarty

Monday: Protests erupted today in Daman, Diu and other areas near the Gujarat border on the Gujarat government’s failure to enforce total prohibition in the state. “Gujarat is the birthplace of Gandhiji and liquor must be banned there,” said a pub-owner in Daman, ushering in a busload of tourists from Gujarat into his pub. A local Gandhian observed the protests with tears in his eyes, as he told this reporter that even the smugglers in Daman were all for prohibition in Gujarat — an instance, he said, “of how Gandhian values can find a place even in the most hardened heart”.

Tuesday: As torrential rains flooded Mumbai’s streets, terrorists at a camp outside Lahore looked decidedly glum. Reports say that terrorists training for another attack on Mumbai have gone on strike, complaining that working conditions in Mumbai left much to be desired. “At the very least,” said a young jihadi, “we should get a flood allowance”.
Meanwhile, the LeT chiefs have been trying to find a few rain-free days when an attack on Mumbai could be carried out. “We must study the El Nino phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean because it affects the monsoons,” said a learned terrorist. But a young terrorist said all they had to do was follow the Mumbai Met Department’s warning of heavy rainfall. “Those days”, he pointed out, “are invariably bone dry”.

Wednesday: After the hullabaloo in Parliament over the TV serial Balika Vadhu, legislators are demanding that the popular cartoon show Tom & Jerry should be banned. “The cartoon is very violent with episodes featuring Jerry slicing Tom in half and Tom using everything from dynamite sticks, axes and poison to try and kill Jerry. This can severely affect a child’s psyche,” said a child psychologist. A policeman pointed out that the proper procedure if either Tom or Jerry felt aggrieved would be to file an FIR at the nearest police station and allow the police to investigate. “At the very least, Jerry should file a writ petition,” added a lawyer.

Thursday: The government was ecstatic today as the rate of inflation continued to be negative. Asked about the sky-high prices of vegetables and pulses, an economist said that wasn’t inflation. “That’s a mere price rise,” he said, adding that the great economist Milton Friedman had said that inflation is always a monetary phenomenon and that money supply growth was decelerating. “Besides,” he added, “prices of purified terepthalic acid, springs and jelly-filled telephone cables have come down”.

Friday: The US government congratulated India today on re-opening the dialogue with Pakistan. “When terrorists attacked us, we behaved immaturely by invading the country harbouring them and attacking another country on fake evidence. We are very happy India is behaving in such a mature manner,” said a State Department official. An Indian government spokesman said he was happy the US was happy.

Saturday: No buses were burnt in Kolkata today. In protest, the opposition has called for a bandh next Monday.

2009-07-08T20:58:00.000-07:00

Why Incompetence Spreads through Big Organizations

Promoting the people most competent at one job does not mean that they'll be better at another, according to a new simulation of hierarchical organizations.

There's a paradox at the heart of most Western organizations. The people who perform best at one level of an organization tend to be promoted on the premise that they will also be competent at another level within the organization. I imagine that most readers will have had personal experience at the way that this hypothesis fails in practice.

In 1969, a Canadian psychologist named Laurence Peter encapsulated this behavior in a rule that has since become known as Peter's Principle. Here it is:

"All new members in a hierarchical organization climb the hierarchy until they reach their level of maximum incompetence."

That's not as unfair as it sounds, say Alessandro Pluchino and buddies from Universita di Catania, who have modeled this behavior using an agent-based system for the first time. They say that common sense tells us that a member who is competent at a given level will also be competent at a higher level of the hierarchy. So it may well seem a good idea to promote such an individual to the next level.

The problem is that common sense often fools us. It's not so hard to see that a new position in an organization requires different skills, so the competent performance of one task may not correlate well with the ability to perform another task well.

Peter pointed out that in large organizations where these practices are used, it is inevitable that individuals will be promoted until they reach their level of maximum incompetence. The unavoidable result is the runaway spread of incompetence throughout an organization.

Now Pluchino and co have simulated this practice with an agent-based model for the first time. Sure enough, they find that it leads to a significant reduction in the efficiency of an organization, as incompetency spreads through it. That must have an uncomfortable ring of truth for some CEOs.

But is there a better way of choosing individuals for promotion? It turns out that there is, say Pluchino and co. Their model shows that two other strategies outperform the conventional method of promotion.

The first is to alternately promote first the most competent and then the least competent individuals. And the second is to promote individuals at random. Both of these methods improve, or at least do not diminish, the efficiency of an organization.

Interesting idea that would be fascinating to see in action. What would be a suitable prize for the first CEO to implement such a policy?

Ref: Technology Review: the physics arXiv blog

2009-07-02T21:53:00.000-07:00

PHP object orientation - Separating concerns : Building more modular PHP applications
Translate Atom to RDF : From syndication to semantics with ease
The new role of XML in cloud data integration : Using XML to integrate Salesforce data with enterprise applications
An introduction to custom application development on the cloud using Force.com : Fundamentals and Workbook

2009-07-01T04:18:00.000-07:00

Chocolate Lines

"Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar in four pieces with your bare hands- and then just eat one piece "
--JUDITH VIORST
"There are two kinds of people in the world: those who love chocolates and communists"
--LESLIE MOAK MURRAY
"It's not that chocolates are a substitute for love.Love is a substitute of chocolate. Chocolate is far more reliable thana man"
--MIRANDA INGRAM
"Nine out of ten people like chocolate. The tenth person always lies."
--JOHN Q. TULLIUS

2009-07-01T04:06:00.000-07:00

Ours to question why

The first excerpt is written by Karan Thapar. I have always thought him to be a little stupid specially after his television programs and also his other articles where he had written about benazir bhutto as if she would have solved all the problems between india and pakistan if she was alive and at the helm of pakistan. I on the other hand think its probably the best that lady was killed or else pakistan would have by now used its entire terrorists against us while the americans would be eating out of her hands. I have not forgotten that while she was at the helm pakistan was the most vocal regarding kashmir.
So when I read this article, it came as a very nice surprise.----

At first, I was taken aback that the president of France should have spoken about the burqa and in an address to the parliament at that. But the more I read, the more sense it seemed to make. Presidential addresses ought to be about issues that transcend the daily struggle of politics and Sarkozy had framed the burqa in bigger, more important, terms.

“The issue of the burqa is not a religious issue, it is a question of freedom and of women’s dignity,” the French President said in his Versailles speech. “The burqa is not a religious sign, it’s a sign of the subjugation, of the submission, of women. I want to say solemnly that it (the burqa) will not be welcome on our territory.” Perhaps, more than any other, this sentence was received with rapturous applause. In fact, Sarkozy’s comments on the burqa captured the headlines, even though this was the first presidential address to the French parliament after Charles Louis Napolean Bonaparte 136 years ago and despite the fact that Sarkozy’s 45-minute address touched on many subjects, including the economic crisis.

Beyond his indisputably correct comments on the burqa, what struck me about Sarkozy’s speech was how different it was to the sort of fare we, in India, have grown used to. Neither our politicians, nor our president talk to us about issues other than politics. Either for reasons of misplaced political correctness or because they haven’t thought through the matter themselves — and I bet it’s the latter — they avoid moral issues. This, I might add, is both sad and a mistake.

Moral issues need to be questioned and debated. They must not be buried under the weight of custom or under fear of the controversy any comment could provoke. If politicians feel strongly about them they must speak out. Not just because silence would be deception but because that’s how a debate is started. And democratic societies need to question and debate.

Let me also add that just because a politician speaks doesn’t mean his or her point of view will be accepted. Sarkozy knows that only too well. So let not an exaggerated opinion of themselves become an excuse for timidity or reticence. However, because they are politicians and are practised speakers they could frame the issue intelligently and create a platform for equally thought-provoking responses. And that is important.

But will we ever hear Manmohan Singh, L. K. Advani or Sonia Gandhi speak to us about issues such as the right of women to drink in pubs, wear jeans in colleges and lead normal lives after widowhood? I hope so. But I doubt it.

The second one is written by Indrajit Hazra whose articles I really like probably because his thinking matches mine after all he is also a fellow bong.

Ever wondered what goes through the head of Ashok Srivastava each time a young woman in jeans walks past him? It’s demanding enough for the Convenor of the Uttar Pradesh Principals’ Association to stay composed when any jeans-wearing young woman walks by. But imagine the serious conflict raging inside Srivastava, a good man of the kind we don’t meet often enough these days, if a jeans-clad college girl with a dexterous figure — with the wind blowing through her hair — and humming ‘Jaadu hai nasha hai’ walks by in slo-mo.
Well, I can’t see his perfectly normal heterosexual reaction to a young, attractive lady wearing figure-hugging trousers being any different from yours (if you’re a man, that is) or mine — except, perhaps, in intensity, which in turn depends on the frequency of spotting women in jeans on a regular basis (not that much for Srivastava, I would presume) and one’s own hormonal balance.

What is different, though, is how Srivastava wants to deal with his biologically-driven affection for women in denim: by not having them anywhere near him. (In some societies, of course, a more effective method would be to punish women in jeans so as to make them stop existing altogether.) As far as I’m concerned, you don’t have to be a hick or a pervert or even the head priest of the Guruvayur Temple to be distracted by the ergonomic quality of jeans when fitted on to a charmingly-shaped lady. The nature of the limbs-hugging jeans, after all, is to highlight the physical attractiveness of the wearer. (Thus, the total pointlessness or more of, say, President Pratibha Patil wearing a pair of Levis 901s.)

No woman — or man, for that matter — wears clothes to look unattractive, not according to their own set of aesthetics, that is. Their objective may be to look ‘smart’, ‘traditional’, ‘radical’ or a permutation-combination of all three. But the basic premise, even of someone like Sushma Swaraj, is to present oneself as ‘attractive’, a diluted-by-evolution-and-social mores version of the original biological purpose of looking attractive: advertising one’s sexuality.

The woman-in-jeans, of course, elicits different reactions in different settings. A jeans-wearing girl walking along Flora Fountain in Bombay will be seen as a different entity from the same girl in jeans cycling along a Gorakhpur alley. It’s as different as an attractive lady in a sari in Delhi is from an attractive lady in a sari on the streets of, say, Melbourne.

So, much of everything that surrounds the business of women in jeans boils down to what men make of it — and what women make of what the men make of it. The pitch against women in jeans, of course, will never be in the following form: “I am reacting hormonally to those girls in jeans under that tree. Please ensure that they don’t wear such tight clothes and force me to think of things other than the price of plums!” Instead, the rationale is always on this line: “Other men — lascivious ones — are reacting hormonally to those girls in jeans under the tree. Please ensure that they don’t wear such tight clothes!” Here’s Ashok Srivastava’s version: “It has been seen that eve-teasers generally target girls wearing jeans or modern clothes.” The truth is that I don’t think he’s wrong. One man’s women in hip-hugging jeans can be another man’s women in bodice-hugging salwar-kameezes.

The latest jeans imbroglio won’t be the last jeans imbroglio. Men will — comfortably or uncomfortably — get turned on by this iconic, all-pervasive apparel that accentuates the wearer’s hips and buttocks.

2009-06-22T01:23:00.000-07:00

Where the mind is with fear

Excerpts from two articles in hindustan times written by Manas Chakravarty and Indrajit Hazra.

We are a non-violent people. We hate it when people resort to violence. In Lalgarh, the tribals have all along been very peaceful. True, the primary health centres in their villages didn’t have any medicines and doctors from the towns rarely visited them. So what’s new? Many people saw their sick loved ones die as they made the long trek to the district hospital from their villages over the dirt tracks that pass for roads. But there was no violence.

Finding drinking water in the summer has always been a problem in the villages. Ponds have had to be used for both drinking water and for bathing. Children have often suffered from diseases as a result. But the tribals of Lalgarh are used to their children dying early. They never complained.

Most villagers in the region are caught in a vicious poverty trap. Malnutrition is rife. Doctors from Kolkata who recently visited the place said that what the people needed was not pills but food. Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen once said that hunger was “a quiet violence”. He meant that if a state can’t feed its people it’s guilty of violence towards them. But he was just twisting words to suit his theory.

Indians are malnourished not just in Lalgarh, but all over the country. A recent Unicef report said that 405 million people in South Asia suffered from chronic hunger. India’s rank in the Global Hunger Index of 88 countries is 66, below several African countries. So there’s nothing special about Lalgarh. Also, in spite of being hungry, the people were peaceful. Being peaceful is the most important thing.

Every election, the Lalgarh tribals voted the Left to power in the hope that these self-proclaimed friends of the poor would help them. But in spite of the promises, nothing happened. The money from the anti-poverty programmes never reached them, the police occupied the buildings that were supposed to be clinics and the irrigation canals dried up. They watched in silence as the local party bosses built mansions and businesses for themselves and their cronies.

For more than 60 years after independence, they patiently waited for better times. And it’s not that the country wasn’t doing well. Some of them went to the grand city of Kolkata and came back with wondrous tales of shining malls and air-conditioning and taps that never ran dry. They were right to wait. For as we all know, it’s just a matter of time. Once the Sensex goes up enough and CEOs start earning several crores a year and India becomes a world power, then money will trickle down and reach places like Lalgarh. True, generations may be destroyed before that happens. But that is not violence.

Some things do seem to suggest, at first glance, a hint of brutality. Take the routine manner in which the police pick up tribals for questioning and then torture them. But that’s required for the police to conduct their investigations. How else will they protect the people from the Maoists? True, tribals in Lalgarh lived in constant terror of the police and of the party thugs. But that is not terrorism.

Of late, though, the people of Lalgarh have been behaving very oddly. They drove the police and the party bigwigs out of the area and torched their houses. They have started digging wells, setting up schools and running health clinics, without any help from the state. They have formed a Committee against Police Atrocities which wants electricity in their villages and roads and bridges to be built. Worse, they even want the politicians to apologise! Very strangely, after all these decades, they seem to be running out of patience.

What on earth is going on? Outsiders must be inciting them to violence. We are a peace-loving people and must stop this violence at once. Don’t worry, our tribal brothers, our troops are on their way to save you.

--Manas Chakraborty

The conditions that have led people to fall for the seductive charms of violent revolt were being pressure-cooked for years. An administration had long forgotten to recognise, never mind keep, its part of the bargain with the very people who had given the CPI(M)-led front its generational power and the pelf that comes with it.

Take the case of Kuna Sabar, a resident of Darra village in West Midnapore’s Belpahari sub-district. On December 22, 2007 — when a million miles away in Calcutta, people were frantically speculating about the return of Sourav Ganguly in the Indian cricket squad — Sabar died of hunger. If his cause of death (confirmed by a doctor) wasn’t shameful enough for a government that took pride in prioritising the concerns of its rural masses, the subdivisional officer’s response to the death was horrific. He said that documents showed that Sabar had bought “8 kg rice, 2 kg wheat and 2.4 kg sugar” from the ration shop “between December 2 and December 16”. Effectively, he was telling Sabar’s widow that his death must have been her husband’s fault.

Sabar is just one statistic. During 2004-2005, a year before the Left Front won the 2006 assembly polls by a landslide, dozens of ‘hunger deaths’ across Bengal were recorded by the Asian Human Rights Commission. And these sordid deaths were overwhelmingly because of utter administrative failures. Till January 2008, only 34 people in West Midnapore, for instance, had received the minimum 100-day job and corresponding pay under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. The remaining earned wages for an average of 11.6 days.

In a universe where bureaucrats, academics,policemen, the cogs and wheels of administration and governance are deeply entrenched in ‘party affiliations’, accountability can only be a silly theological notion for bourgeois ‘management types’. It is this affliction of apathy — and of genuinely being stumped about why people might be enraged about pointless deaths, of living in life-defying poverty — that really makes for something rotten in the state of Bengal.

What applies to administrative ignorance (an evolutionary byproduct of administrative apathy) holds true for a police force that simply doesn’t know anything about crowd control or how to tackle a riotous mob. Either the police do nothing (as they did when the Maoist-goaded People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities in Lalgarh first marched to the CPI(M) zonal headquarters in Dharampur last week to destroy any signs of the CPI(M)/administration and attack party workers), or they shoot first and ask questions later (as they so memorably did in Nandigram on March 14, 2007).

Only in Left-ruled Bengal do you get armed partymen being regularly and openly sent to ‘capture and liberate’ towns and villages that have fallen in the ‘wrong hands’. The police arrive at the scene later, if the comrades and their local commissars have failed to do their job. As this is being written, the state government has finally let the police and security forces enter Lalgarh to ‘reclaim’ it from the Maoist ‘invaders’. It will remain unclear for a long while whether this reclamation is being conducted at the behest of the CPI(M) or the people of Lalgarh, considering that the concerns of the two are different and almost diametrically opposite.

--Indrajit Hazra

2009-06-18T20:53:00.000-07:00

Leveraging Amazon Web Services for enterprise application integration : XML messaging with Amazon SQS
Connecting to the Cloud, Part 3: Cloud governance and security : Secure the HybridCloud application
Anti-Patterns To Avoid In N-Tier Applications
Build Better Data-Driven Apps With Distributed Caching
Using Mocks And Tests To Design Role-Based Objects
Building A Data-Driven Expense App with Silverlight 3
The ADO.NET Entity Framework Overview

2009-06-05T03:12:00.000-07:00

Implement Web cut-and-paste using Atom XML and Firefox XUL
Using the Twitter REST API :Explore the Twitter REST API for automated Web 2.0

2009-06-03T00:30:00.001-07:00

During Microsoft Teched at Hyderabad, there was a contest for the top architect which I contested.
The following images are of the slides I sent and the text is basically the audio I sent.

High Overview

UseCase

Microsoft Solutions Architecture

Deployment

The first slide is a high level overview just for illustration purposes, so I won't delve into that. Let me speak of the Use cases which is in the 2nd slide.Here as I state a user or rather an authenticated user can vote, Mark Self as Candidate, sponsor someone else as candidate, view candidate info and so on. Ialso have another actor Candidate who extends from user and can upload content. I also have a external system who gets data and functionality from the system. To do so it pays to the system which I have assumed is done via a Payment Partner. The system also takes money when a user marks self as candidate and sponsoring another person.This is another assumption i have made.
Now to the solution Architecture, I have proposed a N tier application(in code) with complete seapration of UI, business logic, and data access logic. I follow the business facade pattern and will have a generated Data access layer where every method corresponds to one stored proc. Now one thing people might not like is the site having both a web client and a rich internet client. I like rich internet clients a lot and I think its usage could be a great plus in this site. I have suggested a web client to go with a rich internet app as well as it can then run on mobile browsers and on those browsers which do not have rich internet client framework.The rich internet client as well as the external services can connect directly to service layer to get the data.
Now if we go to the microsoft technology based architecture slide you will see that I have replaced all the technologies spoken earlier with the Microsoft technologies, Rich Internet Client has become Silverlight, the web client app has become ASP.NET MVC ( to mobile enable it , you just need to add the mobile browser definition files).I'm a great believer in software factories and so I have used the web service software factory with WCF in the service and business layer, the ADO.NET entity framework takes up the job of data layer along with data access application block which is heavily being used along with other application blocks in enterprise library cross cutting all layers for exception management, validation, logging, security, etc. I have proposed SQLserver as the dbas we are using .net and Microsoft's SQL client provider is super optimized for SQL Server.MS is supposed to come out with a rich internet client technology for mobile but as it is still in the pipeline( not even a beta release), I would like to first build the ria and even after it is ready if ms does not have the ria client for mobile browsers, I would create the web client, and my experience tells me that it will not require a heavy resource as the business logic has already been created.Finally security in WCF, to connect to silverlight u need to use basic http binding , so the security will have to happen at transport-level, HTTPS, IIS-based auth for the entire application and authentication outside of silverlight, but for b2b scenarios I suggest consider using messagebased brokered authentication with X.509 certificates with certificates the certificate issued by a commercial certificate authority.
Now for the deployment diagram, a little costly but I believe this is the best.
First there is the hardware firewall which will handle DDOS attacks, TCP flood, Malformed Packets efficiently as there is a dedicated processor in Hardware Firewall that handles all the filtering. If i use just Windows firewall and too many malformed requests come in, my Web servers CPU will be too busy saving me from those attacks then doing the real job like running my .NET code.My fire wall connects to a router or switch which has load balancing capability that evenly distributes traffic to my web servers. I had thought of firewalls with load balancing capabilities built in and with enough NIC to connect all my web servers but finally decided on the present architecture as i feel every device should do its own wotk and also this is perfect if the site is a hit and requires scaling up. I have seen many networks and web sites which have gone down for hours even a day because they did not have a backup, so I suggest each device should have a backup. So if the firewall goes down or has to be patched up, my backup can do its work.Note, the physical architecture is two-tier,the decision to have two tier architecture is due to speed. Since we don't store super critical information, we don't need to worry about Security as much as we would do if we were building a financial application.The servers should always run 64 bit windows as otherwise you cannot fully utilize the 4 GB RAM or more than that.The 64bit version of .NET framework is stable enough to run heavy duty applications. Some people have had bad experience running 64bit Windows on their personal computers, but 64bit servers are pretty solid nowadays. Web server layer contains three web servers in load balanced mode. Each web server hosts the exact the same copy of the code and other artifacts of the application that we have.Also our main users are coming from RIA and external systems which are any way going to be connected to the service layer but even if we only had a web client application, I would still do the same as a separate application layer has been proven to be a bad practice for high performance websites particularly the ones developed using ms technologies.even if you say that the webserver has no idea of the sql server,in modern applications, almost all operations are exposed via services. There's very little ad-hoc SQL query. So, this means, if someone can compromise the web tier, all the service methods are exposed to hacker and calling those service methods are not more complicated than calling SQL Server. IIS generates humoungous sizes of logs, and also we have the application logs been genrated by logging application block, my suggestion is to keep a large amount of space in the drive where the app is located as might need to store several weeks worth of IIS logs incase our internal systems to move those logs to somewhere else for reporting gets broken.
Now the webservers are also connected to the internal router. the db servers sit behind it. I know that some people would say that a firewall is required to keep the webservers in dmz but my exp is that this firewall becomes a bottleneck for all traffic between web and database servers. What I do is use a router and open only port 1433 to pass anything through the router from a web server to any DB server.I have been told by many security experts that if you can hack and get the web.config,everything else whether dmz or anything else is of no use.I have suggested windows clustering witha active /passive cluster but if the site scales up, we can make it 2 active /passive cluster. I have also suggested SAN for the main db data as windows clustering needs it(very costly i know, but if the site is big just worth it) but only local raids for backups and reporting data. Finally I have suggested MDFs and LDfs kept in spearate disks with RAID10 for storing MDFs where the read data is normally kept and RAID1 for LDFs which contain the high write scenarios.

2009-05-31T23:29:00.000-07:00

Ashokan Rock Edicts

There are Asokan edicts scattered over more than 30 places in India, Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan, in the Brahmi script. The languages they use are ancient Magadhi and Sanskrit, though one bilingual edict in Afghanistan is reportedly in Aramaic and Greek! There are 14 big rock edicts, seven big pillar edicts, minor pillar and rock edicts and the Kalinga rock edicts.
Rock Edict 2 says, ‘Everywhere within Devanam-piya Piyadassi’s realm and among the people beyond the borders, the Cholas, Pandyas, Satya-putras (Konkan), Kerala-putras, as far as Tamraparani (Lanka) and where the Greek king Antiochus rules, and among his neighbours too (Northwest Frontier), Piyadasi has arranged for two kinds of medical treatment: for humans and for animals. Wherever suitable herbs are not available, I have imported and grown them.’
Yes, better health, infrastructure and so on. But above all: law, order and justice. Asoka’s first rock edict says: Esahi vidhi ya iyam, Dhamma palana, Dhamma vidhane , Dhamma sukhiyana , Dhamma gotiti
‘For this is my rule: rule by the law, of the law; prosperity by the law, protection by the law.’

2009-05-24T20:43:00.000-07:00

Microsoft® Operations Framework (MOF) 4.0 delivers practical guidance for everyday IT practices and activities, helping users establish and implement reliable, cost-effective IT services.
Also check out Planning for Software-plus-Services: A MOF Companion Guide.

User Experience 2.0 : Any User, Any Time, Any Channel

2009-05-11T19:43:00.000-07:00

"The other day I had this idea, what if I were to take all the concepts I write, speak, and consult about and turn them into a concept map. That might help me explain how things like messaging, unit of work, and exception management work together and why. It also shouldn’t be too much work. Or so I thought.
I started out with a blank piece of paper, and this is what happened:" -Udi Dahan

Source: http://www.udidahan.com/2008/08/04/distributed-systems-concept-map/

2009-04-28T22:29:00.000-07:00

Gaming The System

I read an excellent article at wired in their security matters section by Bruce Schneier.

Uncle Milton Industries has been selling ant farms to children since 1956. Some years ago, I remember opening one up with a friend. There were no actual ants included in the box. Instead, there was a card that you filled in with your address, and the company would mail you some ants. My friend expressed surprise that you could get ants sent to you in the mail.
I replied: "What's really interesting is that these people will send a tube of live ants to anyone you tell them to."
Security requires a particular mindset. Security professionals -- at least the good ones -- see the world differently. They can't walk into a store without noticing how they might shoplift. They can't use a computer without wondering about the security vulnerabilities. They can't vote without trying to figure out how to vote twice. They just can't help it.
SmartWater is a liquid with a unique identifier linked to a particular owner. "The idea is for me to paint this stuff on my valuables as proof of ownership," I wrote when I first learned about the idea. "I think a better idea would be for me to paint it on your valuables, and then call the police."
Really, we can't help it.
This kind of thinking is not natural for most people. It's not natural for engineers. Good engineering involves thinking about how things can be made to work; the security mindset involves thinking about how things can be made to fail. It involves thinking like an attacker, an adversary or a criminal. You don't have to exploit the vulnerabilities you find, but if you don't see the world that way, you'll never notice most security problems.
I've often speculated about how much of this is innate, and how much is teachable. In general, I think it's a particular way of looking at the world, and that it's far easier to teach someone domain expertise -- cryptography or software security or safecracking or document forgery -- than it is to teach someone a security mindset.
Which is why CSE 484, an undergraduate computer-security course taught this quarter at the University of Washington, is so interesting to watch. Professor Tadayoshi Kohno is trying to teach a security mindset.
You can see the results in the blog the students are keeping. They're encouraged to post security reviews about random things: smart pill boxes, Quiet Care Elder Care monitors, Apple's Time Capsule, GM's OnStar, traffic lights, safe deposit boxes, and dorm -room security.
The most recent one is about an automobile dealership. The poster described how she was able to retrieve her car after service just by giving the attendant her last name. Now any normal car owner would be happy about how easy it was to get her car back, but someone with a security mindset immediately thinks: "Can I really get a car just by knowing the last name of someone whose car is being serviced?"
The rest of the blog post speculates on how someone could steal a car by exploiting this security vulnerability, and whether it makes sense for the dealership to have this lax security. You can quibble with the analysis -- I'm curious about the liability that the dealership has, and whether their insurance would cover any losses -- but that's all domain expertise. The important point is to notice, and then question, the security in the first place.
The lack of a security mindset explains a lot of bad security out there: voting machines, electronic payment cards, medical devices, ID cards, internet protocols. The designers are so busy making these systems work that they don't stop to notice how they might fail or be made to fail, and then how those failures might be exploited. Teaching designers a security mindset will go a long way toward making future technological systems more secure.
That part's obvious, but I think the security mindset is beneficial in many more ways. If people can learn how to think outside their narrow focus and see a bigger picture, whether in technology or politics or their everyday lives, they'll be more sophisticated consumers, more skeptical citizens, less gullible people.
If more people had a security mindset, services that compromise privacy wouldn't have such a sizable market share -- and Facebook would be totally different. Laptops wouldn't be lost with millions of unencrypted Social Security numbers on them, and we'd all learn a lot fewer security lessons the hard way. The power grid would be more secure. Identity theft would go way down. Medical records would be more private. If people had the security mindset, they wouldn't have tried to look at Britney Spears' medical records, since they would have realized that they would be caught.
There's nothing magical about this particular university class; anyone can exercise his security mindset simply by trying to look at the world from an attacker's perspective. If I wanted to evade this particular security device, how would I do it? Could I follow the letter of this law but get around the spirit? If the person who wrote this advertisement, essay, article or television documentary were unscrupulous, what could he have done? And then, how can I protect myself from these attacks?
The security mindset is a valuable skill that everyone can benefit from, regardless of career path.

2009-04-10T01:13:00.000-07:00

I used to work on LAMP before moving to the microsoft platform. Sergey Solyanik did the same and his post on the subject is just... hum.. pragmatic! Here are my favorite parts of the post:
(...) "First, I love multiple aspects of the software development process. I like engineering, but I love the business aspects no less. I can't write code for the sake of the technology alone - I need to know that the code is useful for others, and the only way to measure the usefulness is by the amount of money that the people are willing to part with to have access to my work.
Sorry open source fanatics, your world is not for me! "(...)

2009-04-07T22:26:00.000-07:00

Navigate the cloud computing labyrinth Make an educated decision about the best cloud computing platform for your application
Is there value in cloud computing? Cloud computing and its impact on the future of architecture
The role of Software as a Service in cloud computing
Connecting to the cloud, Part 1Leverage the cloud in applications :Take advantage of the hybrid model
Make dashboards with XQuery Present business data with a Web-based dashboard
EXIST Open Source Native XML Database
XQuery 1.0: An XML Query Language
XML Path Language (XPath) 2.0

2009-03-31T05:12:00.000-07:00

ASP.NET and Comet: Bringing Sockets Back
Send Instant Web or Window Messages through SocketPro HTTP Server Push
COMET (or Reverse AJAX) based Grid control for ASP .net web applications - Scalable, High performance and Low latency grid control
Pushing Data to a Silverlight Client with Sockets: Part I
Pushing Data to a Silverlight Client with Sockets: Part II
Creating a Silverlight 2 Client Access Policy Socket Server

2009-03-30T04:14:00.000-07:00

The tale of two ladies

Two news items last week caught my eyes. One on a minister and another one on a sr manager in a software firm.

'Last time I checked my calculator-cum-clock, there was a biggish difference between ‘five minutes early’ and ‘90 minutes late’. I also know by instinct and experience that five minutes early gets me a different kind of look from my boss than the one in which I arrive 90 minutes late. It now seems that my being able to tell the difference between the two time durations is a gift. Last week I realised that there are some unfortunate people out there suffering from the debilitating side-effects of Ministerialitis — the crippling ailment that makes Ministers and
other VIPs believe that the world revolves around them. It is with this knowledge that I feel humbled by the fact that when I’m late, I know I’m late. Especially, when I’m late by a bloody hour and a half.

So my heart goes out to Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Chowdhury. Being a Minister makes most mortals — especially those whose Ministerial functions involve social development and much radiant smiling — extra-susceptible to believing that they are popular enough to be forgiven for any sort of transgression.'-Indranil Hazra

The second story is about getting duped by a tantrik.The woman, a computer engineer and employed as manager in a city-based software company is also daughter of a retired assistant commissioner of police.The tantrik operating his black magic business from multiple locations in the city had placed advertisements about his ‘powers’ in newspapers including a vernacular daily stating that performing a certain puja would solve all problems. After noticing the advertisement, the victim had approached him. However, he had convinced her into believing that he was capable of fulfilling all her wishes and duped her into believing that sacrificing a rhinoceros would remove all obstacles and help her find a match within a week and also promised the victim that he would go to Uttar Pradesh to catch a rhino.The lady is said to have paid Rs 2.95 lakh to perform the puja.

The victim paid another visit to Shah a week later but he was not traceable. She then lodged a complaint with the police and the police caught the scamster obviously because of her father's connections.But what of the woman? How could she believe that a rhino sacrifice would help her find a man?

What puzzles me with this case, as with any other case pertaining to tantriks and babas fooling innocent victims, is what exactly was the crime here ?
If it is sweet-talking a victim into parting with cash, then every advertisement, sales and marketing gimmick does exactly that.
If it was giving false promises without any logical reasoning, then every puja that is done has no guarantee anyway.
If it is the fact that she did not get married after doing this, then there would be more than billion cases against gods and goddesses in India; and a few millions against self-proclaimed godmen and sadhus.
If it is the fact that he killed a rhino, then it looks like he didn’t take the pains to go to UP and kill a rhino after all. So he comes clean on that account.
If the amount of Rs. 2.95 lakhs is the issue, then is Rs. 100 okay ? Rs. 1000 ? Rs. 100000 ? What is the cutoff before it is booked under IPC section 420 ?
All I feel is that the law shouldn’t be a cushion for human stupidity; and if this tantrik is a criminal under the law, so are all the above people.

2009-03-20T06:21:00.000-07:00

Let's chat with Ajax
Accelerate access to critical data using IBM solidDB Universal Cache Use an in-memory RDBMS as a cache to existing disk-based databases
Harness the power of XML to Open Financial Exchange files Enabling XML parsing for non-XML OFX files
Scalable Vector Graphics and bitmap rendering using Flex

2009-03-15T06:53:00.000-07:00

Hope you’re having a wholesome breakfast today, Mr Prime Minister.

I have been reading for some time the excesses of government in this country on common man. I intend to search for such articles and put them here. I read an article by Indrajit Hazra in Hindustan times on a true non violent struggle by Irom Sharmila Chanu who hails from Manipur.

"If you’re really serious about fasting, there can be no better motivator than the Government of India. Our good old national institution has worked wonders by pushing someone to forego a proper meal since November 2000.
Irom Sharmila Chanu is the kind of person who usually makes me deeply suspicious of human goodness. I mean, what kind of person would go on a hunger-strike for eight years, demanding the repeal of something as abstract-sounding as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA)?
Irom Sharmila’s story is as much about one Manipuri woman’s battle against the worst possible adversary — irrelevance — as it is about practising the lost and powerful art of satyagraha, non-violent protest, against the very people who make a huge reverential show of this invention by another Indian political activist. Irom wants the AFSPA to be repealed from her home state, Manipur.
So what is this thing that goes by the acronym-resisting name of AFSPA? It’s a law that was enacted in August 1958 that grants the military extraordinary powers to arrest without a warrant, give out shoot-to-kill orders and destroy property in ‘disturbed areas’. Most magically, it protects military personnel from prosecution against any crimes. Passed as a short-term measure to take on separatists, it became a protective cloak for extra-judicial killings, torture, rape and ‘disappearances’.
On November 2, 2000, ten people standing at a bus stand were shot dead at Malom, Manipur, by members of the Assam Rifles in retaliation to a bombing by insurgents. Irom Sharmila saw the pictures of the dead in the next day’s newspapers and lost her appetite. Since then, she has been trying to get the AFSPA scrapped in Manipur by the only way she thinks will get the attention of the powers-that-be in Never-Neverland Delhi: by going on a fast.
Well, she’s been dead wrong, hasn’t she?
Arrested and released and re-arrested over the last eight years on charges of attempted suicide, Irom has managed practically nothing, even as she has been force-fed a liquid diet through her nose all these years.
In 2004, after the custodial killing of Manorama Devi (remember those naked Manipuri women with the banner carrying those ‘inviting’ words, ‘Indian Army Rape Us’, outside the Assam Rifles headquarters in Imphal?), the tremendously decent Prime Minister Manmohan Singh set up the Justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy Committee to look into the act. The committee presented its report to the PM a year later in which it stated that the AFSPA “should be repealed... The Act, for whatever reason, has become a symbol of oppression, an object of hate and an instrument of discrimination and high-handedness.”
Apart from lifting the Act from municipal areas in Manipur, the AFSPA firmly remains in place in the state (even as Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah stated last month in the state assembly that he would repeal the AFSPA in J&K “if the situation continued to improve”).
Irom Sharmila was released last Saturday, the day before International Women’s Day. She was re-arrested for attempted suicide on Monday, the day Jayalalithaa didn’t eat a morsel. Yesterday, Irom Sharmila turned 37 in prison.
Hope you’re having a wholesome breakfast today, Mr Prime Minister."