Faster.. Faster.. Internet in India

Just less than 2 weeks from the news of venture with Google, Airtel and BSNL have released new Faster internet plans.

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Google App Engine / Java / cold Starup benchmarks (issues).

This is connected to the post in Google App Engine Group. 

Although Google Appengine gives out a java container, I had to roll back to the python code I used for version SarathOnline 3.1 – for a sole reason – perfromance. My (blog) site has a very low traffic (compared to what google thinks a regular traffic application). Averaging ~100 visits/day. All the css and js is dynamically generated. My current python code is doing pretty well servicing these requests @ a maximum of 2.something secs

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Maven Error: Failed to resolve POM

After downloading Maven M2 Plug-in, My first build gave me this error. Just so annoying. It kept breaking at.

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Sun Tech Days – My Day 2

Day 2 missed James. But the tech series remained just as educating as Day1's. I dug deep into the JEE6 foundation laid by Yesterday's  sessions.

Today: I Jugged in knoweldge from

• Java Persistence API 2
• Overview of Servlet 3.0
• ZFS (a Whole lot on )
• Context and Dependency Injection in JavaEE 6
• Java EE 6 Tools Show: NetBeans, Eclipse, IntelliJ

I have to bold all of them, but the ZFS really instigated me to push OpenSolaris into my dev space. Look forward to some OpenSolaris entries coming.

Been There (Done That)

Finally, I been to Sun Techdays – here in Hyderabad. Now I can say.. "Been there".. done that!.. But it was an amazing experience, with more than 1500 people in HICC, Novatel, Hyderabad. Best of all, I was able to see James Gosling. Live. In Person.

They were very exhaustively educating 9 hrs. Although I was keen on Enterprise Track, I was able to sneak some time in JavaFX and Solaris Technologies too.

I stuck myself in:

• Java EE 6 & GlassFish v3: Paving the path for the future.
• Designing and Implementing Secure RESTful Web Services.
• Hands On Lab: Build End-to-End RIA Applications Using JavaFX, Dojo, REST, JPA, and MySQL.
• Glassfish and JEE 6 Features (Stall at the exhibition).
• OpenSolaris Installation desk (Okay, I got OpenSolaris on  my vbox).
• Enterprise Java Persistence with Oracle TopLink.
• OSGi & Java EE in GlassFish.

I loved ArunGupta's talks about Glassfish. Especially, the OSGi one.

Overall, its was a fascinating experience. I will look forward to tomorrow's schedule. I am so tired, I can barely write this post. Ciao.

Production: Just the kind of messages your users must not see

Reliance is a big name in Indian Telecom sector. And they better hire some production support professionals, because I am looking at this for the past 25 mins. Still the same thing. This is just the kind of messages you don't want your production users to see.



It exposes a lot of technical details.Something you, as a developer, don't want to expose to outside world.

Stop Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage bill

Indian government is bent on a  hazardous called the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage, and it's coming up for a vote in a couple of days.

The bill lets U.S. corporations off the hook for any nuclear accidents they cause on Indian soil. They'd only have to pay a meager amount, and Indian taxpayers would be stuck paying crores for the nuclear clean up and to compensate the victims.

There is a lot of dissent in the blogosphere and the Indian press about this. However, It is unclear why the ruling UPA Govt seeks to bring this to the table.

Greenpeace is launching a petition asking the PM to hold a public consultation before introducing the bill.
http://www.greenpeace.org/india/stop-the-vote

You can also voice out on facebook
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Petition-against-Civil-Liability-for-Nuclear-Damage-Bill-in-India/384059698828

Do your bit, Google it and voice your opinion.

Faster internet! Coming soon to Asia (India)

A few weeks back I wrote a comparison on prices for internet in India and the USA. Well, A lot is about to change. According to CNet news, a 7.68Tbps line is due soon to Asia. Bharati Airtel (one of the largest telecom companies in India) is part of the Unity Consortium which is making this happen.

According to the story,

The Unity Consortium, which consists of Google, Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, KDDI, Pacnet, and SingTel, has nearly completed the testing of the $300 million project. Internet users in Asia will start seeing faster Internet speeds over the next several months from the new cable, which has the potential to create a 7.68Tbps (terabits per second) connection under the Pacific.

This could mean a lot of change in dynamics and economics of internet traffic. With already (considerably) low prices in India (thanks to a tough competition among BSNL, Reliance, Airtel and Tata), The only complaint was the speeds of unlimited plans. A limit-less user, generally capped by a speed of 512kbps, is almost never a happy YouTube viewer. Speedy lines like these would allow more bandwidth to the end users. The effect will trickle down to prices and a tougher competition.

India's Wimax (Apollo, Hathway, BSNL) and Wireless (read Tata PhotonPlus, Reliance NetConnect)  Internet markets will also have tougher competition from their wired line counterparts. This market is already very inexpensive when compared to options available in USA.

Mobile Internet, TRAI's futuristic IP Telephony will be a interesting watch following this development.

All in all, Its a welcome trend. India must now work more on expanding its internal infrastructure.

Update multiple Dynamic DNS servers using ddclient

Running Linux, ddclient is highly suggested software for updating DynamicDNS servers. It supports updating a variety of servers. Some of them are dyndns.com opendns.com and no-ip.com. ddclient supplies documentation to update multiple hostnames (on the same server) but does not have an example with multiple servers. Here is an example that covers all those combinations.

## ddclient configuration file
daemon=600
# check every 600 seconds
syslog=yes
# log update msgs to syslog
mail-failure=your@emailaddress.com
# Mail failed updates to user # requires sendmail installed.
pid=/var/run/ddclient.pid
# record PID in file.
ssl=yes
#use ssl

## Detect IP with our CheckIP server
use=web, web=checkip.dyndns.com/, web-skip='IP Address'


protocol=dyndns2, login=user1, password=YOURPASSWORD \
some.selfip.org

protocol=dyndns2, login=user2, password=ANOTHERPASS\
someother.selfip.org

protocol=dyndns2, server=updates.opendns.com, login=user3, password=psswd3 \
home

Easy Green way to Cool a Laptop using a Bath Towel or Tissue paper.

Laptops get hot after long use. As they old, they get hotter; and sooner. Sometimes, working in a room with AC running doesn't even help. What makes the situation worse, they shutdown after getting extremely hot. Buying a USB laptop cooler pad is one solution. But here is a simple DIY, that can save you money and your laptop those extra amps.

Here is a simple yet powerful solution to it. No – not the "cleaning the processor fan fins" tip.

• Take a Tissue Paper / Bath towel.
• Dampen it with cold water. Make sure you remove all of the excess water.
• Take a flat board to support your laptop's bottom. If your laptop is an "always on desktop replacement", you can use the table it is resting on.
• Keep the dampened paper/towel on it.
• Make two or three bars of cardboard (about 1/2 inch wide, length to cover your laptop, considerable height)
• Keep the laptop on the dampened towel using the bars to elevate it a little.

The fans running on the laptop use the moisture to cool the temperature by staying close to it. Depending upon the dampness and the volume of moisture, the laptop will stay cool for a long time, before it starts to get hot. Just re-dampen when the cloth becomes hot.

Linux/Unix welcome messages

There are instances where you want to display a message in shell before/after terminal login in Linux or Unix. There are however many ways Unix/Linux lets you customize this.

/etc/issue
This is a text file, contents of which are displayed at the login prompt.


 
/etc/motd
Also called message of the day. You can add some text to motd and it will be displayed after successful login

Only ssh Users
Some times you want to display a welcome message only to ssh logins. To achieve this,
You create a file somewhere on the file system – say /etc/ssh/sshd_welcome
Add or edit the line Banner /etc/ssh/sshd_welcome in /etc/ssh/sshd_config