Ashish's Blog

Happy Independence Day

2010-03-12T15:20:00.003+04:00

Happy Independence Day to everyone. It’s been exactly 42 years that we are now independent. Like most of you, I’m proud of being part of Mauritius (of course I’m not saying Mauritius is a perfect place). Obviously to some people, being a patriot matters while for others, it’s just something that should not have happen. Why?? Because those people feel that they would have lived a better life under the British government. Maybe that is the reason why the British government expelled those chagossian in numbers, took sooo much time to give the Ghurkhas their due right. Sometimes I wonder what might have happen if we were still under the British government. Maybe I would have had family expelled from here, living in countries like Gibraltar and Mauritius would have better been known as a military base.

Maybe we should just have a look at all those facilities that we have here and see if we would have benefited it in other countries, like free health care, education (I think these 2 in itself overshadows everything else). There is room for improvements in health care, but just imagine how helpful it is to those poor people (who can’t afford the cost of clinic). One of my friend pointed out in his status message on facebook – as to how many of those who benefited from free education, health care, state scholarships returned afterwards to serve their country. I hold no grudge against any laureate, but if you wanna work abroad for the rest of your life, then use your own means to finance your studies (and not to waste Mauritian taxpayer’s money).

I remember reading Shahrukh Khan’s interview once where he was asked to define what he feels is a patriot. He replied “Patriotism is when you do your best to succeed in whatever field you are and in that process, helping in your country’s progress. It has nothing to do with holding the flag of your country and singing glorious songs.” I absolutely agree with what he said. Maybe we can motivate ourselves from his quote.

Happy 42nd Independence Day to all my dear fellow Mauritians.

Efforts to blog

2009-09-11T22:06:00.003+04:00

The last time I blogged was when i was in the middle of my final year project's implementation. Since then, things have been quite fast and here i am, working at TNT ICS Express. Its been 2 months and no two days are the same, coupled with excellent peers (which i am inspired to be like) and mates. Like someone said, If you learn from the best you can be the best.

I am working principally on technology like Spring (as part of TNT objective to replace some EJB services with Spring framework). TNT focuses on standards and code quality and practice. So for the time being, my main objectives are to abide by those standards and get used to code "cleanly", write my unit test and stuffs like that.

P.S My colleague pointed out to me that this blog requires an urgent update. Hope this is the first step. But I'll try to blog about all the new stuffs that I am learning.

Snowy weather

2009-02-02T16:32:00.004+05:00

This was one of the fabulouos moment i have ever had. It was snowing today, the first time since i came here. So it was kinda exciting. I got up early as usual to attend lecture, but then apparently lecture was cancelled due to this bad weather (instead i found this exciting). So I visited a nearby park where a lot of people were just having fun (skiing, though the slope was not that much appropriate for skiing). As you might have guessed, its freezing cold here while my friend Mauritius are complaining about the VERY HOT weather:)..

Actually today, i slipped and fell down twice while walking on these snowy path. But lucky me, i was not injured.. I will sign off here itself and by the way, congratulation to Liverpool:). I wonder why everytime when Ballack mentions about revenge with the opponents, Chelsea eventually loses (the same happened when chelsea played manchester)

Microsoft Inspiration Tour

2008-12-09T23:08:00.012+05:00

Today, I attended the Microsoft Inspiration Tour which was held at the university. Its aim was to expose the latest technology that Microsoft are currently working on. Among those discuss were Silverlight and XNA. I must say, i liked the silverlight stuff and i will definitely have a go at it. Silverlight are mainly used to create user-rich experience on the net. Below are some links to website that used Deepzoom(part of the silverlight)

DEEPZOOM
http://memorabilia.hardrock.com/
http://www.laguna-coupe.com/
http://www.xrez.com/yose_proj/yose_deepzoom/ClientBin/TestPage.html
http://www.kbb.com/kbb/PerfectCarFinder/PhotoEdition.aspx
http://robburke.net/images/deeplol.html

GAMES
http://linerider.com
http://www.popfly.com/users/Adam/Crayon%20Cannon

VIDEO
http://www.smoothhd.com/
http://kirill.uk.msn.com/
http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/trailers/jumper.html
http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/trailers/vegas/default.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/video/en/us/default.aspx

The thing that really amazed me was that some of the website contain around 2000 pictures with each one of size 100Mb. YESSSSS, you've read it correctly, its 100MB. Now you must be wondering 2000x100mb(Thats pretty large to put on the website). Basically silverlight kinda create many panels for each images and it sends only what the user is looking at(hence reducing the resolution to a very lower value). And would you believe that all these was created in just 10-20 minutes!!!!

Well dont mix up things that i wrote in my previous post on Open Source but i really liked the silverlight technology.

Can we change???

2008-11-06T01:25:00.004+05:00

4th November 2008 will remain a historic day to mark the beginning of a new political order not only in the US history but worldwide. Barack Obama was elected President of America and this truly shows that American does not cast their vote according to the ethnicity of the candidate but judging by what the candidate can offer to his country. From his speech, we all see that Obama is indeed a visionary and articulate person.

I won’t go in details about US election but I sincerely hope that we Mauritian should take something out from the US election. At least we can change our mindset regarding voting for election. I know that time and again, we see the same old faces in general election despite that some were arguably a total failure during their mandate. But I sincerely believe that somewhere there is a Mauritian Obama who would like to change Mauritius into a more modern country. May the change come true

Going Open Source

2008-06-12T22:31:00.004+04:00

According to wikipedia
"Open source software (OSS) began as a marketing campaign for free software. OSS can be defined as computer software for which the human-readable source code is made available under a copyright license (or arrangement such as the public domain) that meets the Open Source Definition. This permits users to use, change, and improve the software, and to redistribute it in modified or unmodified form. It is often developed in a public, collaborative manner."

Unlike Freeware which is just free software, open source software doesn’t belong to anyone, which means you can have access to the inner works of the software, called the source code.

Well i must thank my friend shrikaant and avishen whose presentation on open source software(last year) actually encouraged me to explore this world of free software. These days, i have been using open source software mostly. For example, instead of using Microsoft Office (license fee for Office 2007: Rs 15000 approximately), i use OpenOffice. You must try it out and decide whether it suite your need because most of the time we often see people downloading cracked expensive software(like office 2007) and using very few functionalities of it. Well almost everyone of us use cracked software, so do I. But at least, we can try out those free software and use them if required. But it do happens that there is no other choice than to use a cracked software; like for example, one of my friend will require SPSS for statistical analysis process in her dissertation. I think it gonna be difficult to buy a license worth Rs50000(without maintenance). But i am not encouraging you to download cracked software huh.

It might seem surprising but many technology has emerged from open source software. For example, tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking and auto completing of forms are all innovations that we saw first of all in free software(i guess in mozilla). Since then, internet explorer adopted these strategy.

Many organisations and even some countries like Argentina are opting for open source software in their daily needs since this help in reducing cost of buying all those licenses. Nowadays, buying a pc also include the license fee for Microsoft Operating system. But, for some time, Dell has been selling systems, with the OS being linux. This reduces the overall price of the pc. According to me, the main advantages of open source software are cost and innovation. I stress on innovation because when a software is open source many developers have access to the software's source code and contributes in different ways. Maybe thats why we consider Linux to be better than windows in terms of stability because we have top researchers from top universities working on linux to refine it further.

Below is a list of all those open source software and free software that i tend to use nowadays:

Kubuntu Operating System(though i use windows about 30%)
Mozilla Firefox Browser instead of Internet explorer
FileZilla FTP instead for licence paid software like CuteFTP
Foxit PDF reader instead of Adobe reader
InfraRecorder instead of Nero
VideoLAN media Player instead of window media player

There are lots and lots more available. Anyway, i came across a website that offers all the open source software alternatives for license-paid software: try it out at Open Source Alternatives

As usual, i would appreciate your comments about what you think on open source, how it can benefit, and also whether u prefer license paid software than open source software and why.

Check out this article from bbc's click website which discuss on organisations' approach to open source software: Open source turns money-spinner

A request from all of you who happened to read this post. All you have to do is to download Firefox 3 during Download Day to help set the record for most software downloads in 24 hours. More information on: Spread Firefox

Happy Sunday

2008-06-08T22:33:00.005+04:00

I really had a nice time today. We(cousins and uncles) actually planned to climb Le Pouce Mountain, but given the rainy weather, it was wise not to climb the mountain. Instead, i invited my cousins(the smallest being 3 years old and the oldest being 11 years old) to some kind of pizza party at my place (i have uploaded the photos of the pizza party in my picasa online album). LOL. I baked the pizza and we really had a nice time. I guess, its the forth or fifth time that i'm baking a pizza. It was fun though and it tasted nice.

The only thing i find relatively difficult while preparing a pizza is mainly about the dough. Fortunately, YouTube was of help. Check it out out on YouTube

For the filling, i used pineapple, chopped onion and poivron(sorry i dont know its equivalent in english though i'm not sure if its called pepper), maize, cheese of course, mushroom. Well, i am not that good at cooking, so if you want to have a go, just search for a recipe on google. Maybe if LovlieButterfly came across this post, she can suggest about her recipe. Well, i'll end here itself. Do leave your comment about how you find this e-pizza:-)

The Joel Test

2008-06-05T21:20:00.004+04:00

Hi everyone. Am i a lazy blogger??? I think so, because, though i am in holiday nowadays, i hardly find any time to post. Well it so happens that my placement started this Monday. My main task is to test and find errors in software that those programmers are coding. Its interesting though. Yesterday itself i came across an article on how to assess a company, known as the JOEL's test.

The Joel highlights 12 main points as stated on the Joel on Software:
"

1. Do you use source control?
2. Can you make a build in one step?
3. Do you make daily builds?
4. Do you have a bug database?
5. Do you fix bugs before writing new code?
6. Do you have an up-to-date schedule?
7. Do you have a spec?
8. Do programmers have quiet working conditions?
9. Do you use the best tools money can buy?
10. Do you have testers?
11. Do new candidates write code during their interview?
12. Do you do hallway usability testing?

"
I wont go in detail analysis, as i did for the previous one on my exam. Out of the 12 points highlighted, i must say that we adhere to only 1, 4, 5, 7, 9 (we use mainly open source), 10(Thats basically me:). The one where we "kinda adhere" is 6. The rest, we do not.. So the score are:
Yes we adhere: 6
Yes we kinda adhere: 1
No, we neglect it: 5

According to Joel:
"A score of 12 is perfect, 11 is tolerable, but 10 or lower and you've got serious problems. The truth is that most software organizations are running with a score of 2 or 3, and they need serious help, because companies like Microsoft run at 12 full-time."

Anyway, these last few days i have been cooking a bit (mainly veg food), because i need to get myself used to all these now. The reason is obvious though. Coupled with mom's help, i came across a mauritian blog which should be really interesting for all those who are interested in veg food. The url is Lovliebutterfly - Vegan Lovlie Cooking . Do check it out.

The other day, my friend visited my blog and complained that it only contain IT stuff(is that so?? i do not think so). She suggested that i should also write about finance and so on. Maybe i can share my ideas and that of bro on the 2008-2009 budget. Well that will be for the next post.

For the time being, i'll pen off right here.

Exam's Over

2008-05-23T13:35:00.004+04:00

Hi everyone.. After 3 intense week of revision, finally my exams are over. The modules that I sat for was (in order of date of examination):

Computer Graphics
Programming Languages and Algorithms
Software Engineering
System Software
Database Systems
Web Technologies

I came across a technique to perform an analysis for the exam u sat for. You can find it at Exam Analysis. The main points to consider are:

1. Lack of knowledge of subject area
As far as retention is concerned, i mainly use a network technique to revise, that is, i do not learn by heart, but try to understand the topic and link it together. The problem was that, i could not manage to obtain adequate time to revise, so the revision was carried out mainly during the last week since we had quite some assignments to complete, but nevertheless, for many subject, like Web Technologies, the assignment itself helped a lot in understanding the topic itself and hence, my revision for Web Technologies was not that intense. My weakest performance so far in test was for the module Computer Graphics(CG), and the reason was because i could not understand the concepts enough to apply the concepts. Maybe, some motivation coupled with some more practice could have make a difference in CG. The lecture notes was very brief and somehow, if you really wanted to understand the topic, you had to organize group work and search for notes elsewhere. Besides, university is meant for self-learners.

2. English Skills
So far, all the question in the exams was not confusing. Though it happen that it took more time to understand some question. Otherwise, everything was OK for this part.

3. Exam Panic
I suffered from exam panic, mainly for computer graphics. The main reason was that:first, as i told you above, i did not manage to obtain adequate time to prepare for computer graphics and secondly, this was the only module that i did not fancy doing it. Well, i blame myself, since i did not have a serious approach towards this module. Normally, before exam start, i use relaxation techniques to immerse myself into the exam, and this has so far, helped me a lot, to keep my composure.

4. Exam Technique
To time myself, i used a simple formula. The paper was set on 100 marks and the allocated time was 180 minutes. Most of the time, we had to complete 5 questions, each carrying 20 marks. Hence, i spent roughly 36 minutes on 1 question. From this approach, it is clear that i did not cater for revision time. Hence i relied a lot on answering the question right, the first time itself. If i finish a question in less than 36 minutes, i prefer to start next question, instead of revision. From this approach, i manage to complete all the question in all papers.

Well, planning was important. Anyway, the results will confirm whether all went fine. I'm confident the result will be fine because, if you work smart and appropriate, you ought to have a good result.

For the holiday, i have set myself some target that i must complete like: i will complete an assignment (based on linux scheduling) to increase my knowledge in Linux kernel, learn more on Ruby language and java, and of course, have fun:-).. For the time being, i will end here itself, and i will post more frequently, since i am in holiday now. See you and comments are most welcome.

Facebook or Facebored

2008-05-16T14:24:00.010+04:00

My first experience with facebook started this year itself and to be frank, i liked using it so much that i even exceeded my 40hr package (now i've got MyT). I'm able to keep in touch with my friends who are abroad. No doubt that Social Networking website(SNW from now onwards) like facebook are highlighted for:

eliminating communication barrier - Normally life is so fast nowadays that we hardly get time to chat (well for the majority of people, not for me), thats why virtual communication give them new means to communicate.
Social awareness - We do have application in facebook who spread awareness on HIV and so on. Personally, i find this a good initiative
Expose your talent - I came across a profile in the mauritian network where a guy (i guess he fancy photography) stored some really nice pictures.

But the fact is that, all those good points are outweighed by the flaws that exists while using SNW, especially facebook. Facebook rose from nowhere to become the favorite of everyone, and credits for that to Mr. Mark Zuckerberg. I am not an expert whatsoever, im just telling you what i watched on the BBC's documentary 'Click' and 'Facehooked'.

Many people tend to put so many details about them that it has become very easy to steal one information. I mentioned about the 'miner' application (in my last post) which was developed by BBC's tech guy to exploit facebook's flaw of its users privacy. Some users just include their birth date, home address, school attended and more information that is sufficient to allow a fraudsters to open a bank account on your name.

BBC Quote -
"The experts we've spoken to all agree that Facebook can't see what the code does because applications are not stored in Facebook - they run elsewhere on the web. This makes it difficult for the company to check what is going on, whether anything has changed, how long applications store data for and what they do with it.

In fact, the only way we can see of completely protecting yourself from applications skimming information about you and your friends is to erase all the applications on your profile and opt to not use any applications in the future.

So has Facebook done enough to protect its users from identity theft? " - Maybe NO

Check this out which is part of the privacy policy of Facebook - "Facebook may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services, and other users of the Facebook service through the operation of the service (e.g., photo tags) in order to provide you with more useful information and a more personalized experience."

This might not seem appealing to some person, since they want some privacy.

My main for writing this post was not to tell everyone to stop using facebook, but warn you to exercise caution while using it. Dont just give details about yourself because there are guys out there who devote their whole life earning money at stealing your identity. So be cautious!!!!

Source:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/7375772.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7151690.stm

Software Engineering examination

2008-05-13T20:32:00.003+04:00

Hi everybody.. Frankly speaking, ever since i started blogging, i could not control myself from posting, though i stated in my previous post that i will write something new only after exam finish.

Well here i am.. Today, i sat for the Software engineering exam and i must say it was relatively not that difficult as i expected it to be. Well a brief definition for those who do not have an idea what 'Software Engineering' mean. The main goal for SE (stands for Software Engineering) is to develop system that will be delivered on time, cost will not exceed the initial cost and the last one which is most important, is to achieve quality in software. And please note that quality here means customer satisfaction. In SE, we equate software quality to customer satisfaction.

Now enough of SE.... Well today was a special day. Actually today was the birthday of one of my dearest friend and unfortunately i could not meet her at the university since she did not had any exam. So happy birthday again to you dearest friend, if you come across this post...

Last sunday, i watched facehooked on BBC, and i really appreciated the documentary. It was not biased at all. I'll be giving you more details in my next post since i have a lot to share with you on that documentary, which is based on facebook. Actually i missed one episode of click, which was also based on facebook. To summarize what i read on the BBC's click website; Spencer (who presents click) and his friend tried to write an application for facebook (the one you have like Gift,superwall on so many more). The name for that application was 'The miner'. Supposedly, 'The miner' is a game application like 'Werewolves' but in reality this application was just created to extract all your personal details and bear in mind that this can lead to 'theft identity'. So please, exercise caution while using facebook. Re-adjust all you privacy setting and ya, dont just add bogus application. I'll be writing more about facebook in my next post

I guess i have written too much for today. So for the time being, see u all. Take care

My First Post

2008-05-11T09:06:00.001+04:00

Hi Everyone. First, let me just introduce myself. I'm Ashish Boobun of Mauritius(long mountain for those who are in Mauritius) and im a student of the university of Mauritius studying Computer Science. Well, we are having exam these days, and i thought it might be a wonderful opportunity to start a blog:-). So far, all the papers were ok. For the time being, i need to revise a bit, so its only on the 22 may that i will be able to post again. For the time being, cya everyone.