A Beautiful Glimpse of Bangalore....

Jusssss have a look

Chinnaswamy Cricket Stadium
Disciplined Traffic on Bangalore Roads
Bangalore Roads With Full Of Trees
Trinity Circle
Twin Towers, Hebbal, Bangalore
Stylish Apartments in Infantry Road, Bangalore
Infosys Bangalore
Isckon Temple
Kingfisher City, Bangalore
MG Road , Bangalore
Diwali in Bangalore
Forum Mall, Hot Shopping Mall In Bangalore

Bangalore Palace also called Guttahalli palace belonging to Wodeyars of Mysore
Hebbal Flyover - Engineering Wonder - One of India's largest flyovers - 8.5km
Art of Living Aashram Bangalore
Bangalore Assembly - Karnataka has the most beautiful Assembly Building complex in Asia
High Court
Brigade Road in Bangalore - Cynosure of Energetic Bangalore Crowd
Commercial Street - Shopping Paradise

So, how did you find this place... !!! Man, its one of the rocking city I have ever known..........

A Beautiful Trip to Blue Mountains - Sydney

Blue Mountains as the name suggest ‘something weird’!!! How can the mountains be Blue? This idea motivated me to explore the place called ‘Blue Mountains’. Blue Mountains is a 2 hrs beautiful journey from Sydney. It’s ideally a day trip, which can be covered by Car, Train or by Coach Service.

I travelled trip to Blue Mountains by Train. We left Strathfield station around 9 on Saturday morning and reached Katoomba station around 11 am. From Katoomba station, we took Sydney Explorer Bus Service to explore place called Blue Mountains. Actually the place is Katoomba, where Blue Mountains reside. There is no town or place called Blue Mountains, but they are just mountains which are blue in colourJ. Sydney Explorer Bus, which is a double-decker (two floors) bus. Ofcourse, it is good to sit on the second level of the bus to view beautiful market, places, and mountains while the driver narrates the history and the place worth watching at this place.

It has beautiful deep valleys, flora, fauna, waterfalls, historic shops (one I saw was there since early 1900s), beautiful multi-coloured parrots, and much more.

While the driver was narrating and taking this huge bus J via small streets, we thought to just listen and enjoy the first trip in the bus. We passed Katoomba Fine Art gallery, Skyway station, Scenic World, Katoomba waterfalls, Echo Point – home of Three Sisters and Blue Mountains), Leura Mall (where one can see ancient café shops, silks shops, green tea is famous, shopping cafes and much more) to name a few.

In the second trip, we dropped at Skyway station to catch Skyway trolley to Scenic World. The Skyway trolley was cool. We crossed deep valleys, saw waterfalls and mountains. The place is really beautiful. I just can’t describe it, but could show you some of the photos.

It was lunch time by now, and I was starving. We had nice coffee at the café and good food too.

Then, we continued our trip via Cable Car to reach valley floor. The trip on Cable way (strictly not to be missed), takes you down to the steepest deep valley floor, where you can enjoy this pristine World Heritage along Australia’s longest elevated timber boardwalk. It is the best way to experience the Blue Mountain’s unique environment and beautiful flora and fauna.

The Cable Car takes you through 300 metre journey above ancient ravines (deep steep valley) and dazzling waterfalls towards Three Sisters rock. Its worth to go through this small stroll about 15 minutes to enjoy the real nature of bush and how it’s been conserved to keep it free from any pollution whatsoever. The Cable Car is constructed by a Swiss company. No doubt, it’s a real piece of Engineering!!!!

We continued our journey, after coming back up to Scenic World through Cable Car to board the bus to Echo Point – home of the Three Sisters. And also the place where one can see a.k.a Blue Mountains. So what is the secret of Three Sisters?

Three Sisters is name of 3 tall mountains of height 922, 918 and 906 meters respectively. That is around 3000 feet above sea level!!!

It is discovered that Aboriginals first inhabited in Blue Mountains as far back as twenty – six thousand years and some estimates date back to forty thousand years back.

So in those time, it’s said, that there were three sisters, named 'Meehni', 'Wimlah' and Gunnedoo' lived in the Jamison Valley as members of the Katoomba tribe.

These beautiful young ladies had fallen in love with three brothers from the Nepean tribe, yet tribal law forbade them to marry.
The brothers were not happy to accept this law and so decided to use force to capture the three sisters causing a major tribal battle.
As the lives of the three sisters were seriously in danger, a witchdoctor from the Katoomba tribe took it upon himself to turn the three sisters into stone to protect them from any harm. While he had intended to reverse the spell when the battle was over, the witchdoctor himself was killed. As only he could reverse the spell to return the ladies to their former beauty, the sisters remain in their magnificent rock formation as a reminder of this battle for generations to come.
Really cool story. Is it true!!! Well, I don’t know, but believe so J
Then, it was around late afternoon, and time to say good bye to this beautiful town Katoomba.
Hey, but what is the secret of Blue Mountains? Ok, I know, I will tell you.
Its bit technical, so please wear to technical cap J
The blue colour on the mountains is caused because of Eucalyptus trees emitting oil vapour into the atmosphere which along with fine dust particles and droplets of water vapour, scatter the blue light (blue light is short wave-length, dig your physics books) more than any other colour in the spectrum.

So all in all it was a worth a trip and very exciting too…

Some of the links might come useful, if planning a trip to Blue Mountains
Blue Mountains - Australia
Blue Mountains - Visitor Information

Cloud Based Offerings – A new dimension to Business!

Changes bring gamut of offerings, both risks and benefits. Cloud Based Offerings is no different. It has brought numerous advantages where demand to upscale infrastructure is hitting the backbone of Businesses.

Some of the benefits of Cloud that I can count on my fingers are:

 - Cost i.e. days are numbered where organizations invest huge in maintaining data centres. The focus is shifting to pay – as – go business model. Use the service and increase the business value without the total ownership of the costs and risks.

- Scalability i.e. infrastructure offered is scalable as per the cloud offering by the service provider. No longer has the higher management needed to purchase hardware components, negotiate bandwidth usage and other complexities.

- Provisioning  [DE-provisioing] i.e. which lets the service provider to manage the Cloud assets based on consumer demands. The resources could be added, deleted or enhanced as per the load. Ex: IBM CloudBurst 2.0 which is used to manage IBM WebSphere deployments with click of a button!

- Automation i.e. software licensing and periodic updates are the things of the past. The regular security patches to firmware, and software alike, the service provider takes care of this.

- Information mobility i.e. get the information as and when you require, wherever you require and on which medium you require. Cloud offerings are Internet based so you can avail and manage your business on fly.

Yes, benefits looks quite intriguing but it comes at a RISK. According to Ernst and Young, risks to Cloud are:

- Data Leakage

- Lose Data Control

- Security

These could be potential concerns for any management but there is always a light of hope which is marked by sound analysis and secure implementation of the Cloud offerings. The business is the custodian of the data through Secure Access and Categorization of Data which needs to be understood.

Below is IBM Perspective on Cloud [by Doug Clark] and how it’s been leveraged:

Fig: Cloud Adoption – IBM

Well there are many un-answered questions like cloud offering compatibility, data portability, network latency, security of data, how access is controlled etc. etc.

At last, I can say ‘With Power comes the Responsibility’. Cloud is offering us a Power, a power to make substantial growth and with sound understanding, if we select the right offering, the success is inevitable.

Google+ - Another kid on the block

Guys this is what I have been waiting for. Now the WAR begins. I guess FACEBOOK came at right time but so was ORKUT, MYFACES or other social networking sites.

No matter how things turn up but it is very easy to get engrossed with this so called social media. People [including myself] get fantasized with new things around so everyone left old social media and hung on to Facebook.

Let me ask you this:
- Will you go and create account on Google+ when it will come on full swing

I guess the answer of some would be 'I don't know' but if by and large we see Google brings more innovative offerings, we may switch to Google+.

I am die hard fan of Google products [especially Google search] so I do forsee some cool things to come.

Cheers,

Working with Java Native Access [JNA]

There could be a requirement that an application needs to interface with Windows processes. It could be accessing the Dynamic Link Library [DLL], which forms the heart and soul of Windows processes, or accessing some hidden processes.

To satisfy this, we may require to write C/C++ code or use Java Native Interface [JNI] framework. To me, JNI is bit complex and if you think the same, look no further. Now we could use Java Native Access [JNA]. Java Native Access allows the Java programs to access the native shared libraries without using the Java Native Interface [JNI].

Apart from accessing Windows processes, one could use Java Native Access to access the processes of UNIX and Macintosh machines.

Recently I have used Java Native Access in one of the project to create an API such that it will access the base native shared libraries. To start with, I have to identify the native library. So I came to know that there are three basic native libraries which could provide all the major required functions. They are:

<> 

DLL	Description or Use
GDI32.dll	Graphics Device Interface [GDI] functions for device output. For Ex: functions for accessing print devices
Kernel32.dll	Low Level OS functions for memory management
User32.dll	Windows functions, such as the window name, the window file name, etc.

Table 1: Window Native Library Summary

This above table helped me a lot to charter my way to use the required Native library in order get going. Java Native Access [JNA] is beautifully layered architecture API which could be easily accessed to use the Native Library functions.

To get started with Java Native Access, here is simple example to access the kernel32.dll

import com.sun.jna.Native;
import com.sun.jna.win32.StdCallLibrary;

public interface Kernel32 extends StdCallLibrary {

Kernel32 INSTANCE = (Kernel32) Native.loadLibrary("kernel32", Kernel32.class);

long GetCurrentThread();

boolean Beep (int freq, int duration);

}

public class HelloJNA {

System.out.println(Kernel32.INSTANCE.GetCurrentThread());

System.out.println(Kernel32.INSTANCE.Beep(37, 2000));

}

Listing 1.0: Show method implementation of Kernel32 Native Window Library

The listing 1.0, shows the current thread ID implementing the GetCurrentThread() method of the Kernel32. It also shows the implementation of the Beep() method. Upon compiling and executing the above implementation, it will show the current process ID and there will be a beep sound for 2 seconds.

You will also require jna.jar, to be placed in the CLASSPATH to run this above program successfully.

Java Design Patterns

Java Design Patterns are in essence is a true understanding of the problem and applied methodologies to achieve generic solution. I will be showcasing my understanding of the Java Design Pattern[s] along with collaborative UML diagram[s] and JUnit Test Case.

1. Factory Pattern (FP)

In the Factory pattern, objects are created based on a condition. Now, which object to return, is decided at run time based on the condition[s]. It is best described by an example. For instance, we have a Juice factory i.e. JuiceFactory. JuiceFactory manufactures juice[s] based on the type. Type could be a ‘fruit’ or a ‘vegetable’.

The juice is prepared in Juicer, is measured and then packed. These are standard operations. They will be same for all type of juices. Hence, they will be captured using the JuiceInterface[code can be fetched from the Resources].

Figure 1 Blueprint of Juice

So, as per the Figure 1, we have Juice class which implements JuiceInterface. We also have a VegetableJuice and a FruitJuice classes which inherit the properties of Juice class to prepare the juice, measure it and then pack the juice.

Figure 2 Blueprint of Juice Store Implementation

Now, as per the Figure 2, we will create the JuiceFactory, whose main task is to give the JuiceStore, the appropriate Juice based on the customer’s choice i.e. fruit or vegetable juice.

Implementation: Let us frame our juice factory

// Create JuiceFactory, which manufactures juice object

public class JuiceFactory { public static Juice typeOfJuice (String type) { Juice juice = null; if (type == null) return juice; if (type.equalsIgnoreCase("vegetable")) juice = new VegetableJuice(); else if (type.equalsIgnoreCase("fruit")) juice = new FruitJuice(); return juice; } } } // end of JuiceFactory

Now we will create the JuiceStore class, to see how the implementation of Factory Pattern is progressing. Below you may see [in the shaded], that all the logic of comparing the type of juice to choose is taken care by JuiceFactory.

// Order Juice

public class JuiceStore { JuiceFactory juiceFactory; public JuiceStore() {} public JuiceStore (JuiceFactory juiceFactory) { this.juiceFactory = juiceFactory; } public Juice orderJuice (String type) { Juice juice; if (type == null) return null; juice = JuiceFactory.typeOfJuice (type); juice.prepare(); juice.measure(); juice.packed(); return juice; } }

The rest of the implementation you may find in the code attached [Resources].

Try to test your implementation using JUnit. You may find plenty of reasons in Resources or when you search on the net. Below you find a small test of the above implementation.

public void testJuiceStore () { JuiceStore myStore = new JuiceStore (); assertEquals(new JuiceStore().orderJuice("vegetable").prepare(), myStore.orderJuice("vegetable").prepare()); assertEquals(new JuiceStore().orderJuice("vegetable").measure(), myStore.orderJuice("vegetable").measure()); assertEquals(new JuiceStore().orderJuice("vegetable").packed(), myStore.orderJuice("vegetable").packed()); assertEquals(new JuiceStore().orderJuice("fruit").prepare(), myStore.orderJuice("fruit").prepare()); assertEquals(new JuiceStore().orderJuice("fruit").measure(), myStore.orderJuice("fruit").measure()); assertEquals(new JuiceStore().orderJuice("fruit").packed(), myStore.orderJuice("fruit").packed()); }

So, above we have seen, how the implementation of the Factory pattern solves a particular use case of calling the class object based on certain condition.

Resources:
1. Source Code for the above implementation. Soon the files could be downloaded from Google Docs.
2. Why to Test programs
3. One stop shop for all design pattern can be found at Gang of Four book Design Patterns, Eric Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, John Vlissides (Addison-Wesley, 1995)
4. Learn Design Pattern from AllAppLabs

Access JBoss AS with IP Address

When I installed JBoss Application Server [AS] 5.1.x on Remote machine, I wanted to access it using the IP address of the remote machine.

Though, you can access the JBoss AS welcome screen on a machine on which you installed the JBoss AS, but not on the remote machine. It is because the JBoss Server is locked on 'localhost'. Hence, you could access the JBoss AS using either localhost[:port] or 127.0.0.1[:port].

To fix this issue, you must have to run the JBoss AS using following command line argument:

$ $JBOSS_HOME/bin/run.sh -b IPADDRESS
where
-b, --host= Bind address for all JBoss services
IPADDRESS could be your remote machine IP Address on which you installed the JBoss AS

For the reference, check out this link: