joysaphine @ flickr

If you have ever worked on a multi-threaded application or even any application of significant scope, one of the unwritten requirement is a log file that helps in supporting the application.

The challenge is to be able to piece together all the scattered log entries that belong together, may be as a single transaction, or a user’s session. So the goal is to have a unique identifier in each log entry that will aid greping. If you have ever faced this, you either did it cleanly as I will detail below, or you had to hack in a ‘context’ to each log entry by appending / prefixing some unique id.

I will talk about the two most commonly used logging frameworks are Apache’s log4j and log4net.

The bad (obvious) way:

logger.info(uid + " I am doing something important");
logger.debug(uid + " I am doing something else");

The problems with this approach are

• might not have access to the uid in each function that is called
• need to remember to append the uid everywhere
• no way to do it in common code, utility libraries, etc.

The good news is, support for such a use case is baked into log4j and log4net.

Mapped Diagnostics Context – log4j MDC

MDC class has a thread local hashtable, in which you need to inject your context at the beginning of the transaction. All subsequent log entries will automatically contain the context as well.

MDC.put("uid", uid);
logger.info("I am doing something important");
logger.debug("I am doing something else");

logger.debug("I am in a completely different code block.");

You can inject as many key/value pairs into MDC as you like. To print the values contained in the MDC context, change the logging format to include the %X{uid} or whatever keys you have passed to the MDC. Something like:

log4j.appender.R.layout.ConversionPattern=%p %t %c %X{uid} - %m%n

Now each log entry will contain the uid that was set in the beginning of the transaction.

ThreadContext.Properties – log4net

The equivalent in log4net is the ThreadContext.Properties

The usage is pretty similar, instead of MDC.put, call

ThreadContext.Properties["uid"] = uid;

and include %property{uid} in the output format. Something like:

<conversionPattern value="%timestamp [%thread] %level %logger %property{uid} - %message%newline" />

That is all, ain’t this cleaner? BTW, have a look at NDC / ThreadContext.Stacks as well.

Note: I never used Vista, so if some of these were present in Vista, I wouldn’t know.

The Windows Explorer

I think the explorer has seen the most refinement, there are nice things in all corners. My favourite features:

Pin to Windows Explorer

You might have heard about ‘pin to task bar’, but did you know that you can pin to windows explorer, which adds a folder to the Windows Explorer task bar shortcuts jump list. Wow, those were too many words but still doesn’t explain it right, so here’s a picture instead.

Drag a folder to the task bar

And the folder shows up in the jump list

(right click on the icon)

Favourites

Although favourites were available in even WinXP, Win7 makes improves them.

To add something to favourites, just drag it into favourites

and it shows up in your favourites list.

Notice, the photos link in favourites? That brings me to the next feature:

Saved Search

This is a talked about feature, so I would not go in detail, just want to remind you that it exists, and please use it.

Libraries

This is by far my favourite feature. You can group a set of folders and call it a library. This make organising stuff so much easier. Out of box, Win 7 comes with 4 libraries, but it is trivial to add a new one.

Similarly, it is trivial to change a library, just right click –> properties and add/remove a folder to the library

Notice how Win 7 works with me instead of against me? Earlier it used to dump everything in My Documents\My Pictures, whereas I prefer my pics in a different drive. Now I get the best of both worlds.

Rename is smarter

You can rename multiple files at once, just select them, rename 1, rename them all. BTW, undo works as well.

And thankfully, only the filename is highlighted on rename, not the extension. Thus you just overwrite the name without needing to retype the extension. Win 7 seems to be catching up with Linux

One more thing, if you into the rename area, all junk characters will be stripped and the remaining will be used as the new file name.

Other refinements

Explorer lets you view stuff the way you want to:

Window Manager

Everyone who used Win7 would have soon discovered that dragging a window to the left or right edge of the screen resize the window to take up half screen, or that dragging it to the top makes it a full screen window. But there are a few difficult to discover shortcuts:

Action	Mouse shortcut	Keyboard shortcut
Resize to fill left half of screen	drag window to left edge	Win + left arrow
Resize to fill right half of screen	drag window to right edge	Win + right arrow
Maximise	drag window to top edge	Win + up arrow
Make window as tall as the screen	double click top / bottom border
Minimize window	click the minimize button	Win + down arror
Show desktop	Click the bottom right corner	Win + D

The clock

The clock seems to be another area which got a complete makeover. People were used to double clicking the clock to check the calendar. But this needed admin privileges since the calendar was for setting date, not getting it. Now the clock supports this use case really well. Some additional features:

Additional clocks

Finally Windows has entered the inter-connected world.

You can add more clock by going to the Date and Time settings.

Now a mouse over the clock will reveal the additional times as well:

A click is even better

Zoom in / out

Clicking the month (February, 2010 in above screenshot) will zoom out to this year then decade and finally the century:

Clicking on any of the ‘table cells’ will zoom you back in.

Desktop Zoom

Talking about zoom, did you know that turning the mouse wheel while holding the ‘control’ key will make the icons on the desktop smaller / bigger?

Other Applications

Win 7 has some good new apps and some refinement in older apps. A few applications worth a mention

Snipping Tool: Finally a screen capture tool

Paint: Although still lacking, it is at least not as bad as earlier. Some decent brushes and ability to save in multiple formats.

Media Player: Finally ships with decent codecs

Games: A few new games and improvements to the earlier ones.

Notepad: nothing to see here, move on

And finally…

What started out as a short post grew quite large. If you have some tips, please leave a comment below.

Market

Growth and Revenues

Your management style

I don’t really know how much I work. In a start-up you have to work like a clerk, peon, receptionist, customer care, sales executive, manager, CEO Keeps you occupied.

For our readers

Well so far I don’t have but yes I am definitely looking for a person who wants to work hard and creatively. Do all works of a CEO at a salary of a sales and marketing executive.

Full disclosure

The only Apple product I own is the iPod touch. It rocks, itunes sucks.

Initial impressions

I was a bit underwhelmed and I doubt I will acquire an iPad. But that does not stop me from believing that it will be a big hit.

What could be better?

Personally, I would have loved the device if it came with multi tasking and maybe a camera. But this post is not about it.

Then what is it about?

This is about the big disruption the entire tablet computing movement could cause to the current state of art. How the relatively low price, the interactivity and the right size makes it suitable option in a lot of never before situations. And about how, Apple could leave a gaping hole for another Microsoft to capitalise on.

How so?

By not allowing custom built apps from being installed on the iPad. This will rule out iPads adoption in the enterprises and also cool new ideas and mashups. Large companies could use an iPad for several clever niches, but needing to install custom IP on to the iPad via the app store is out of question.

Are there any examples?

Sure, several.

• Team of financial advisors carrying a tablet for explain various insurance or investment options to average Joe. Imagine how good the apps could be made to look and how interactive they could be. It would go a long way in closing the sale.
• A restaurant replacing the boring menus with interactive ones on a tablet. Hell, they could even just ‘add to basket’ then and there. If there is a waiting time, people can pre-order their food and also surf while waiting.
• Replacing the dull and expensive kiosk with a 350$ tablet. This might still happen, but by playing a keynote presentation.
• How about the classic ‘travelling salesman’? Does he really need a laptop?
• Medical staff carrying a tablet instead of the physical patient files.
• I haven’t even begun to think about industrial applications

I think you get the picture. Not only can the tablet replace a laptop, but also paper in several cases. People more creative than me will find several more creative uses of a tablet. This brings me to mashups.

What about them?

The thing about mashups, they are obvious in hind sight. But it takes a creative mind and an open ecosystem to dream and create one. But I can imagine a few hacks / mashups surly.

• How about a tablet controlled robot or speed boat?
• A tablet replacing the entire instrument panel of a car
• Tablets used in performing arts
• Tablets used in science and education
• Tablets used by NGOs in rural upliftment

The possibilities are limitless. But the artificial limitations imposed by Apple, will leave the door open for a highly hack-able, maybe android based, tablet provider. Whether that’s a known brand like Asus, who spearheaded the netbook revolution; or an unknown startup like NotionInk remains to be seen.

Sure, Apple will sell millions of these devices and make tons of money, but saying that there is no room for another player is a false assumption.

She was super excited and did most of the steps herself, including taking the pictures.

Here is a pictorial guide to making your own ‘hand-made’ paper.

1. User calls a premium number and speaks the advert.
2. The server processes the voice and tries to understand the message.
3. If the message is correctly understood, it will post an appropriate ad on Craig’s list, with the user’s phone number and an auto generated email id.
4. If the message is not fully understood, it is passed to a call centre for transcription.
5. The message is then transcribed and posted to Craig’s list.
6. Any email received on the auto generated email id is sent as text message to the caller.

The above set up allows the user to place a classified ad in under 2 minutes with no unnecessary steps required. The calls are placed to a premium number thus generating revenue.

I am surprised no one has thought about it or maybe I didn’t dig into it enough.

What would it be?

An empire building game that needs to balance technology, way of life and climate to achieve sustainable conditions. The players will need to move from stone age to iron age to industrial age to knowledge age. All this is well covered by games in the Civilisation series. The difference is, to advance in the technology tree, they will need to consume resources and they need to understand that resources are limited and that consuming them is not without consequences.

Learning

A game that will show the interdependence of several factors like:

• Exploitation of natural resources (wood, coal, oil, gold, diamonds, animals, fishes etc)  for technical progress and their costs in terms of environmental impact
• The long term implication of the such impact
• Investing in technology to achieve sustainable development
• Also the flip side of not consuming natural resources and it impact on growth and empire building
• The need to consume resources to ‘unlock’ next levels of technical innovation
• Trading of resources amongst empires which have surplus of something
• I would probably underplay the option of war and more of foreign trade as a means to acquire scarce resources.

What next?

I am not a game developer so wouldn’t know how to get about doing it. But may be some like minded people will come together and look at it. Maybe Freeciv can provide a starting point. Maybe it even becomes successful and makes some money for the creators.

Let me be quick in saying that my family and I loved the film and think it is one of the best movie. It is a good take on the state of education in the country, a subject I feel strongly about. This is also not about Chetan Bhagat, although the nit-picking could apply to Five Point Someone as well. But I haven’t read it, so can’t say.

I expected more from Aamir, the perfectionist.

I was born in 1978, the same year that Farhan Qureshi (Madhavan) was born. So I felt more connected to the movie than the current generation. This also means that the college period depicted in the movie was the same period I was in college, which is roughly 1995-1999.

So what?

Well you see, a few of the things shown in the movie are, let’s say, futuristic.

Mobile Phones

Mobile phones were launched in India after 1994. The call charges in a ‘scheme’ were 16 Rs. incoming/outgoing. They were not mainstream until 2000 when charges began to drop. Even then, in 2000, I was the only one in my MBA college to have a mobile phone, and that too was given to me by my employer.

So showing engineering college students carrying a phone, pre 1999, was a bit of a stretch.

Mobile Internet

Even if you think ‘chote’ (Rancho) was rich enough to carry a mobile, the movie shows mobile internet being used in the hospital for video conferencing.

• Internet in 1999 was the good old modem based dialup internet at blazing speeds of 56 kbps. Broadband Internet was unheard of until 2005.
• Mobile Data Cards / USB Modems were launched in 2008/2009.
• Even then, I don’t think the speed that Airtel EDGE gives is insufficient for video conferencing. I don’t know for sure, since I am not using one.

Scooter

The scooter that Pia (Kareena) drives looks most certainly like Kinetic Flyte, which was only launched in 2009.

Bottomline

With a little research, which Aamir Khan is known for, the film could have been more realistic. Anyways, if you haven’t seen the movie, please do, it is really good.

P.S. Happy New Year.

• A web host
• A web site, including a blog
• A store front
• Email
• Customer support infrastructure like forums, CRM, Chat, etc.
• Bug tracker
• Source Control
• Build environment

Apart from these, some software related bits

• Common controls / Custom controls
• Framework things like:
• Installer
• Auto updater

And if your software is not open source, then

• Obfuscater
• Software copy protection
• Licensing
• Payment provider

And some marketing related:

• Software submitter
• Ad network

What I could come up with so far are:

• Trac: Issue Tracker
• VersionOne: Hosted Agile Project Management
• GetSatisfaction / UserVoice: Forums
• DreamHost / Google App Engine / Amazon: Hosting
• Google Apps: email and collaboration
• PayPal / FastSpring

I would update the list as and when I find more resources.

Is anything available integrated out-of-the box for a micro ISV to jump start, drop a comment below.

1. User requests a page
2. Request reaches Request Middlewares, which could manipulate or answer the request
3. The URLConffinds the related View using urls.py
4. View Middlewares are called, which could manipulate or answer the request
5. The view function is invoked
6. The view could optionally access data through models
7. All model-to-DB interactions are done via a manager
8. Views could use a special context if needed
9. The context is passed to the Template for rendering

1. Template uses Filters and Tags to render the output
2. Output is returned to the view
3. HTTPResponse is sent to the Response Middlerwares
4. Any of the response middlewares can enrich the response or return a completely new response
5. The response is sent to the user’s browser.

Please leave a comment if I have got something wrong.