Sarath Chandra Pandurangi's Blog

Looks like the recent video/voice chat plugin for linux is a stratergically set as a prerequisite for this big update! Now Gmail chat will have a new option to call real phones. This sounds like a HUGE competition brewing in sip world. Skype, especially, must be very worried, given the large base of gmail users. It also lacks a web client making it easier for roaming users to prefer gmail than their (might I dare say) own phone. This option requires you to have Google Voice associated with the gmail account. If you have not checked out Google Voice , its well worth the shot. Here is the preview of what it would look like

IaaS : Infrastructure as a Service eg: Amazon EC2, Rackspace, Verizon Private Cloud. PaaS : Platform as a Service eg: App Engine, Azure. SaaS : Software as a Service eg: Google Docs, Acrobat.com. Here is a collection of slideshows about IaaS, Paas and SaaS.

Google released its voice and video chat plugin for linux. This is long awaited and now much cherished by linux lovers. However, my first hand experience was a little let down. My browser crashed a few times, and the calls dropped with crashes. I realised it had to get a system restart before it could work well. I only tried audio call, given there is no web cam on my desktop. I dont see any problems now, hopefully it will stay that way. Will update this post if this change.

One more reason to buy an Andriod.. Ain't that awesome? These features don't need it to be a phone. These can also be used on Andriod devices not tying you to a phone data plan (although the use cases can grow exponentially, if you already have one).

This is a rare error that compiling with Eclipse does not catch, but maven compile goal will. In the case in question, There is a Generic return type as follows, as discussed in java forums private <A> A getValue(){ return getOtherValue(); //<-- Error occurs here } It compiles out an error: type parameters of <X>X cannot be determined; no unique maximal instance exists for type variable X with upper bounds int,java.lang.Object The intriguing question is, why does this happen only in maven? Why does it not happen in Eclipse? Few in the java forum have suggested that this is a bug in the compiler. However, an impatient programmer looking for a solution around it, Just cant get it. There is an unanswered stack overflow post here . The java forum is also confusing for a novice. The simple answer here is, the getValue() method (or the getOtherValue, or the method it calls) is, at some place, not really Strongly typed and the compiler is left to guess wildly about...

This is probably my favorite interview question. When I ask Modularity and Abstraction in practice, many a time, I get a mixed, confused or confusing answer. The reason is, there is a very thin line in what we perceive Modularity and Abstraction are. We all do it everyday, but knowing it for real.. From MIT's reading material. Modularity is the idea of building components that can be re-used; and abstraction is the idea that after constructing a module (be it software or circuits or gears), most of the details of the module construction can be ignored and a simpler description used for module interaction (the module computes the square root, or doubles the voltage, or changes the direction of motion). And that proabably is as clear as it can get.