AIX > Solaris? ROFL!

This one makes for a real good holiday time joke -

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Murphy/?p=491∂=rss&tag=feed&subj=zdblog

Technorati tags: Sun, Solaris, IBM
AIX
HP

Pet peeves at work

Some things I have no patience for in a work environment (more relevant to the indian scenario):

Type 1]"I'm taking a break => so must you"

This is the number one kind of pest in the Indian corporate setup that you can come across. People who keep peering at their screens for hours at end, finally decide they need a break. So, what do they do? Barge into someone else' cubicle, nose around, pass comments in general, play the fool and expect the other person to reciprocate. Remember, that person has no work except to entertain this moron.

Type 2] "What's he doing to get an edge over me?"

This kind of a pest has NO RESPECT WHATSOEVER FOR ANYONE'S PRIVACY. Has to keep peeping into everyone's screen, finding out what great tech article the other guy is reading (& getting an edge over this moron?Who cares? ) They constantly have this insecurity that they're losing the edge & the other guy is going one up over this loser. So, whether you're writing code ("it's our product's code that he's keying in - i have a right to see it too"), reading an article ("this guy refuses to waste time on orkut like i do. Doesn't he have a life?") or composing a mail("ah, finally"), he must look into your screen. My response is generally one of these:

1)That's none of your business sucker.
2)You call yourself a professional?
3)"Etiquette" - ever heard of it?
4)"Self respect" - not heard of this either?
5)I'll tell you when you're allowed to play sherlock & look over my shoulder.
6)Do your own thing
7)Spending a year in the industry doesn't make you "experienced". It takes mental maturity to understand how a professional work environment functions. This isn't your college. Time to grow up/
8)(And if push comes to shove..) Go fly a kite.

Type 3] Hypocrisy

The same pest who has admirable qualities 1] & 2] also talks of how the Indian IT industry "isnt't professional enough compared to that in the US of A " - look who's talking.

The bottom line -you need to mature dear, and mature fast. Poke your nose into other' biz only when you're asked to. Don't impose your schedule, your mood & your state of mind on others. Do your own thing. If your feeling bored, go to the rooftop,get some fresh air or even better, fly away from there. But learn to be professional, for christ sakes. This isn't your damn college!! Get the message, yes?

The Niagara thunders down in full force

The enormity of Niagara's processing capability & it's power efficiency are simply overwhelming every other system in it's class built to date. The amount of buzz it's deservingly generated is quite amazing, to say the least. And HP, as usual, has shown it's class by resorting to FUD. Alan Hargreaves has responded fittingly. Some more information on the niagara boxes & the records that they've been setting. btw, Sun's open sourcing the design & validation code for the UltraSparc T1 (Niagara). More links:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1896866,00.asp

http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/dagastine?entry=ultrasparc_t1_screams_running_java

http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jclingan?entry=simply_refreshing

Technorati tags: Sun, Sparc, Ultrasparc
Niagara
HP

Capturing Screenshots in GNOME on Solaris

Ever tried capturing a screen shot of a menu in an UI application on GNOME? Notice how the menu gets de-selected (or loses focus & disappears) as soon as you hit the print-screen button. The way to get around this is to use the gnome-panel-screenshot command at the console with the --delay= option. This switch makes the screen capture occur automatically after the specified delay, by which time you can "prepare" your application UI for the screen shot.

Technorati tags: Solaris, GNOME, JDS

22 Dell Boxes = 2 Galaxies

That's right. A former dell shop just replaced 22 of it's servers with 2 four core galaxy boxes.

Technorati tags: Sun, Galaxy,Dell

Created a new technorati profile

This is my profile. Go fetch!

"Titanic" Itanium

Itanium's "titanic" characteristic - of going down in cold waters - is becoming more obvious by the day.
Sun responds .

Technorati tags: Sun, Itanium,HP

netbeans 5.0:What's cooking?

Charles ditzel writes about some cool new additions to netbeans 5.0

Fleeing temptation..

"Those who flee temptation generally leave a forwarding address."
- Lane Olinghouse

Brilliant quote, isn't it? :-)

Meeting Geoff Arnold

This is why i just love working at Sun. If you swear by distributed computing, could you ask for anything more than a meeting with one of the Jini Engineers? That's right, I got to meet Geoff Arnold. I mustered enough courage to ask him about decentralized discovery in Jini and querying/aggregating partial results in a distributed computing system (like project neuromancer). He was in Bangalore to talk the JBI folks, and set aside some time for a talk on "the future of distributed computing". Need i say that it was nothing short of enlightening and inspiring? And does someone have to tell me that I'm working at exactly the right place? :-)

Correction: I had previously (erroneously) stated that Geoff Arnold was one of the *original* Jini team members. (See the comments.)
Sorry about the gaffe, Geoff. :-)

Update: Geoff Arnold has since moved to Amazon

Cool quotes

Found these on my (custom) google home page -

The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling that I have always cultivated.
- Oscar Wilde

My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.
- Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.

Preserving health by too severe a rule is a worrisome malady.
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld

The best car safety device is a rear-view mirror with a cop in it.
- Dudley Moore

Town hall with John Fowler

Just came back from a town meeting with John Fowler at the cafeteria. Man, does he speak fast. He probably provides a stiff competition to Bryan Cantrill in speed of speech. And he really is earning is salary - every cent of it. The fact that he's an Engineer-turned-manager showed up on several occasions when he answered technical questions in the Q&A with great ease (including a rebuttal to HP's claims on cache pollution in the Niagara). He must've been a good engineer. But is he a good orator ! He had the audience in a trance during the whole session, treating us to delightful technical tidbits, interesting stats, marketing theories and an amusing old story on how he first me Andy Bechtolsheim.
Sun is in good hands - you can be sure of that.

The Sun cares for Planet Earth

Some environment friendly initiatives by Sun highlighted here

Java trivia

Brilliant piece of Java trivia
I could figure out the answer (wink wink). Could you?

Feel the power (outage) of Dell

Good analysis of power consumption by Dell machines.

A verse very relevant to me

Found the complete text of Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" here:

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Linux trademarked

I hope this isn't a rumour.
Cry, my dear zealots on slashdot :-)

If you can't join them

"If you can't join them, beat them." - They didn't want me to join them. Granted. I'll now beat them whenever we face-off. That's a promise. I'll make them regret this. Promises to be fun.

Grid offerings compared

Gird offerings compared

Good Quote

Found this excellent quote on the google home page:

"Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go much further than people with vastly superior talent."
- Sophia Loren