“Common sense and a sense of humour are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humour is just common sense, dancing.” –Clive James

Isn’t that so true?

In life… and definitely while programming software! ;)

Earlier this year, I visited CeBIT - my second time - and was once again awed by it. The scale, the planning, the integration, the execution. There are lessons to be learned here. It’s easy to see why CeBIT is described as the world’s largest technology fair.

So, what’s new in the world of technology?

Hmm… in the part of the tech world that interests me, I saw nothing revolutionarily new. Now, that isn’t meant to take away any credit from the companies that participated - some with some great products and services. Rather it’s an over-simplified, single-line conclusion. Sort of. Let me explain.

IMO, technology innovations follow a sort of life-cycle. Fundamental technology breakthroughs are rare and far between. Undoubtedly, the time gaps in between are getting smaller. Relatively speaking, that is.

For instance, in the domain of software, which is where I am most comfortable, lets consider the invention of the world wide web. It changed the world. Still continues to do so. Without any doubt. Now that was new!

And sometimes an event acts as a catalyst for something else. Like the WWW did for email.

Email, which ranks amongst my favorite technologies and which I consider the original killer app of the Internet, was invented in the late 60’s. But it’s widespread adoption, resulting in becoming a primary means of communication (as far as the “regular” non-techie person goes), happened only after the web exploded into our lives. So not only did the WWW spark of a revolution, it also pushed an older technology to the forefront.

In a connected world, there are numerous examples of these sort of symbiotic relationships often mixing and merging into integration. Like webmail or instant messaging. The whole experience being greater than the sum of the individual parts.

Once relvolution like this begins, it moves at an astounding speed. Technology has not only shrunk the world, but also reduced the time in between innovations and enhancements; it’s given people across borders the ability to work together, to benefit from each other’s contributions, and has overall resulted in reducing the time gap between an idea and its implementation.

What happens in the time in between the big breakthroughs? Adoption of technology, user feedback, enhancements, greater clarity in terms of possibilities, systems combine to form larger solutions, systems get split into sub-systems, building blocks emerge, innovative uses, and even more innovative uses.

Yessir, these are exciting times to live in!

Coming back to CeBIT, it was fun and entertaining to see how companies vied for the visitors attention: giving informational talks, eye-catching stall do-ups, inter-participant competitions, games and just plain gimmicks. Have a look at some snapshots… :)

There’s a truck indoors!	Ain’t that eye-catching?
Want a hairdo?	Charming data recovery services

Yesterday, on a lazy Sunday afternoon, I happened to watch Maid in Manhattan on television. Jennifer Lopez was walking her young son to school, when he asked her: “Mom, why did Simon and Garfunkel split?” With a puzzled look, she shrugged: “You got me…”, followed by: “You can google it in school.”

Wow… I wonder who isn’t googling?

Somtime ago, I upgraded WordPress from version 1.5 to 2.x. The official instructions are simple and clear. Basically the steps include backing up your databases and files, downloading and extracting the new Wordpress package and running the Wordpress upgrade program via your browser.

However, it didn’t work for me.

Running upgrade.php seemed to work and even gave me a success message. Clicking on the “Have fun” (or something like that) link, however resulted in: “It doesn’t look like you’ve installed WP yet. Try running install.php.”

Well, I tried that too and of course it said that WordPress was already installed. Quite rightly so. A possible reason for the above problem is addressed in the Installation FAQ and is concerned with administrative capabilities. However that wasn’t the reason for me.

A little poking around in the scripts showed that a check in the file wp-settings.php was resulting in the problem. After that, a peek into the MySQL database showed that in the table sw_options, for the condition, option_name = siteurl, the option_value was blank. I set that to “http://sharadware.com” (my weblog’s URL) and things worked fine.

Without exploring the why and how in too much detail, I’m posting this in the hope that it may be of use to someone else to upgrade and continue using WordPress - a great piece of software.

While glancing through the local newspaper, as I flipped past the movies page, one advert with it’s single word title, grabbed my attention. FIREWALL. The ad pictures an intense and grim looking Harrison Ford, with a by line: “To save his family he has to hack into the very bank that he protects.”

I am very interested in Internet security. And I think Harrison Ford is a great actor. So, although I don’t watch too many movies, this makes for a tempting combination. Additionally, it will be interesting (and possibly amusing) to see Hollywood glamorizing online security! :)

Last week I needed to burn a couple of CDs - an activity which I haven’t done too much of. My SUSE 9.3 install, running KDE gave me a couple of options under Multimedia apps for CD/DVD burning: Gnome CD/DVD Creator and K3b. Since I’m more of a KDE person, I tried out K3b.

According to the K3b website, “K3b - The CD/DVD Kreator for Linux - optimized for KDE, was created to be a feature rich and easy to handle CD burning application.” Although I didn’t explore the application in any real detail, it did what I needed to do (which was to burn an ISO), fairly easily. I’m posting this in the hope, that it could be a useful starting point for someone…

Another thing: the on-screen messages are crisp and clear, and for the technically inclined a detailed log of what happened beneath the hood is available. This easy availability of technical take-away-information is a common trait of open source software. (Of course the source is available… I know, I know; but not everybody may want to wade though the code of every open-source app they try, just to get a working overview ;)) On the other hand, going through the detailed activity log, does gives one an idea and feel for the burning process in general and the working of the application in particular. Pretty valuable in my opinion.

Finally, the success alert, in the sound of a victory bugle (I think), startled and then amused me. These guys have a sense of humor. If you don’t want to drop your cup of coffee, make sure the speaker volume is not turned up too high… ;)

There’s a lot of activity happening at my end. And quite a bit that should, but isn’t. Writing regularly over here is an example of the latter.

Today however, happens to be the third anniversary of SharadWare. How could I not post today? Here’s a quick one with the hope that my writing will get a little more regular.

After all, hope does make the world go around. As does love. So here’s hoping, dear reader, that you have a love filled Happy Valentine’s Day! :)

The Western Express Highway in Bombay is an extremely busy, arterial road. Unfortunately, these days it is more aptly described as the Western Express Craterway. I crib and curse as I travel along it, to and from work. Everyday. And you know what? The bloody craters still don’t go away!

Hmmm… this possibly requires a change of approach, and therefore dear reader I invite you to a drive on the brighter side of the WEC.

Do you have a bit of the galactic hitch-hiker in you? Would you like to ride on the Moon or even Mars, but can’t afford it? Look no further. Welcome to the WEC. Get your desired experience at a fractional, fraction of the cost.

Maybe space travel ain’t exactly your cup of tea. Okay, how about health?

Practicing Yoga has numerous benefits. Performing asanas results in the massage and stimulation of your internal organs. That’s an important health benefit. Don’t have a yoga guru? No worries. You can now experience similar benefits by riding along the WEC for a complete internal churn. In fact along some stretches, you have to work hard to ensure that your insides don’t get outside.

As your vehicle leaps and bounds, and takes on a life of it’s own, you have two more fitness options. If you are driving yourself, wrestling with the steering wheel will definitely increase arm strength. On the other hand, if you are being driven around, you have an excellent chance to hone your sense of balance. For maximum benefits, try the latter option in an auto-rickshaw.

For the folks who prefer extreme sports, dare-devil style, the WEC has something for you too. Take a motorbike (or a similar 2-wheeler) ride, preferably when the water puddles camouflage and hide the depth of the craters. The goal of this game is to go through as many of these water-filled craters as you can. Remember, you aim for the craters, not around them. Wearing a helmet during this routine is highly recommended.

While you enjoy your ride on the WEC, I hope that you don’t miss out on the subtle lesson of this story: “I am a good, creative progammer!” To understand why, you must read Kingfisher and Good Software, and apply the principles described therein to the WEC… ;)

Sometime ago, I flew on the recently launched Kingfisher Airlines. The aircraft had a distinctly new and fresh feel. Quite refreshing really, and no pun intended ;) In-flight entertainment was via a personal TV, which is basically an at-seat, individual monitor that offers a choice of a few channels, distributed from a central system. As far as I was concerned, I had some work to catch up on and I had my laptop with me (yeah, the perils of modern technology). I simply left my TV on the default channel, which was an informational view of our flight path, height, speed, etc.

As we got ready to take-off, all the TV sets auto-tuned into a common channel. Suddenly, the gorgeous Yana Gupta, in complete Kingfisher uniform materialised on the screen. The central sound system crackled into life, and for the next seven or eight minutes, Yana demonstrated the mandatory safety procedures and emergency related information. The crew meanwhile, continued with their work.

Now, this is commonplace on international airlines, but it’s the first I’ve seen on the domestic sector. Which is why it stood out. And reminded me of good software (not refering to Yana here :)) and smart programming practices.

Think about it. All passengers, across all flights get the exact same instructions. Consistent, accurate and error free. Additionally, the airline saves about 24 (wo)man-minutes (3 hostesses x 8 mins), which can be deployed into other useful work. Thus, possibly decreasing marginally, the time required for take-off preparations. Even just a few minutes, applied across a flight full of passengers, result in considerable time savings.

Without wanting to stretch it too far, I hope you get the drift of what I’m saying. How did these benefits become possible? Good thinking. Someone, somewhere thought of using an in-flight entertainment system for more than just entertainment. In a simple, productive way.

Good software is often like that. Especially when we talk of software libraries, with functionality accessible via clean APIs. Or toolsets, with specialised components that can be “strung” together to do larger, meaningful things. Application programmers, using pre-programmed building blocks will often find new and completely different uses than what the author originally envisaged. As long as the building blocks have been constructed well. Having been on both sides of this programming fence, I can assure you that when this happens, it is a delightful experience.

So, if you are coding applications, you may wish to consider the possibilty of using something that already exists, and thus avoid re-inventing the wheel. On the other hand, if you are programming lower-level building blocks, do focus towards providing your next level of users with extremely clean and flexible options.

Keep coding and may the good times roll! :)

Tuesday, July 26, 2005. Bombay. It rained and rained and rained…

My journey homeward that evening, included a seven hour drive (covering just over two miserable kms, after which I parked my car along the side of the highway and proceeded on foot), a two and a half hour walk, quite a bit of which was in thigh to waist-deep water and during which I covered about 10 kms.

Terrible, miserable, pathetic. And yet, with the grace of God, just that. The horror stories which surfaced in the next week made one realise just how bad some people had it. Things may have been siginificantly different, even life-savingly different, if our infrastructure was organized the way it should have been. I hope that the enormity of this calamity will have some effect on the concerned authorities. Somehow, I don’t feel very optimistic :(

The last week was also illustrative of how technology could be invaluable in our day-to-day life. If it worked, that is. Unfortunately, mobile phone services simply couldn’t cope, landlines went kaput and internet access was for all practical purposes non-existent. I’m not saying that these services don’t work in and of themselves. Leaving aside for the moment the crazy loads they must have been subjected to during that time, there’s not much that they could have done if there was no electric power for long durations. And it would be equally difficult for the Internet access provider, whose network operation center on the ground floor of a building was submerged under water. As were large portions of the city.

Bringing us back to planned infrastructure. Under worst case conditions, the weakest link matters. Sometimes, we may not even realise there is a link there. The city needs to be prepared for worst case situations. Besides setting up disaster management operations, it’s time to examine our infrastructure again. And begin to redesign if needed, for a better and safer future.