Google App Engine and Java Session

In JEE web application, we are used to keeping objects required in session, so that it can be retrieved in some other call flow. But by default GAE doesn't support session management.

To enable it you have to do following.
Open WEB-INF/appengine-web.xml

Enable session by uncommenting

true

But to make it work on hosted app engine, all the objects which you are planning to put in session must implement Serializable interface.

Now app engine will put your session data into storage system (Bigtable). You can see it by viewing your datastore viewer. Search by kind _ah_SESSION

Happy Teacher's Day

Today is teachers day. My son's school had been off today. Today morning when i switched on TV, there were reports of all the famous Gurus of famous pupils. The latest addition in this list is Saina Nehwal and Phulela Gopichand.
All this has brought my memories back to one teacher who holds special place in my heart. He is Binod Sir. I was in Samastipur Bihar in my class 8-10th. He was instrumental in my studies during that period. His patience and faith is remarkable. He has the true ingredients of a good teacher. After 10th we moved to Darbhanga. He visited couple of times in Darbhanga. But when i went to Varanasi for studies, i lost touch with him.

So today i want to say Happy Teacher's day to my Binod Sir. I hope you are doing well sir.

Book Review : Only Time Will Tell

This weekend i got an opportunity to catch up on fiction. This time it is the first book on Clifton Chronicles by Jeffery Archer. The book is titled 'Only Time Will Tell.'
On the art of story telling in english fiction, Jeffery Archer and Frederick Forsyth are my favorites. I was introduced to Jeffery Archer by 'The Fourth Estate' in my engineering college days.
Then i read 'Honour Among Thieves'. Both had been a delight.

Now coming back to this current book 'Only Time Will Tell'. This is a story of a family in England during the backdrop of second world war. Although the story is focused on main character 'Harry Clifton', but it is a story containing many stories as is the style of any great book. Ex. 'Godaan' by Premchand. As we progress through the book, the story is being narrated from the viewpoint of all characters starting with 'Harry Clifton' and ending again with 'Harry Clifton' and all other important characters (for example his mother, uncle etc) introduced and described in between. The plot is so gripping that it will be hard for you to put the book down and do anything else as it was with me.

My recommendation is to go for it. Now i am eagerly waiting for the next book in this series ('The Sins of the Father').

Other reviews in this series
The Sins of the Father 

Flipkart vs Homeshop18

I like to read books and thus occasionally buy books. Now with so many good websites catering to my need, i have almost stopped going to a bookstore. The last bookstore i visited was in Aundh about 6 months ago just to kill some time.

So far i have been using the services of Flipkart . I have been thoroughly impressed with the ease of usage of this website and their prompt delivery. Within 2-3 days of ordering book is in my hand. And they had free shipping on orders above Rs 200. So whenever i needed to buy a book, i just did some comparative analysis and most of the time flipkart was my choice, however sometimes crossword also took the prize. But recently flipkart has changed their policies and they have bumped up the free shipping to orders above Rs 300. Now it hurts me, since most of my book orders are below Rs300.

So i had to research for other useful website, and www.homeshop18.com came very highly recommended by a source. The price on homeshop18 are comparatively cheaper than flipkart and they have free shipping above Rs 200. So now i have used it to order my last 2 purchases. But i am not satisfied. Their delivery system is nowhere comparable to flipkart. It takes 7-8 days. If only they can speed up their delivery process, otherwise i will be forced to club my book purchases and get back to flipkart.

Product Based Software Companies in Pune

Please find the list of product based software companies.

Company	Domain	Office Locations
Fundtech	Banking and Finance	Aundh
ADP	HR, Payroll
Symantec	Security	Aundh, Baner
Sungard	Finance	Aundh, Kharadi
IBM Software Labs		Yerwada
BMC Software	Business Service Management	Senapati Bapat Road
Nvidia	GPU (Graphics processing unit)	Shivajinagar
VMware	Virtualization Software	Shivajinagar
One Network	Supply Chain	Aundh
Amdocs	Billing, Customer Relationship Management	Magarpatta
PTC Software	Product life cycle management	Kalyani Nagar
TIBCO	Enterprise Software	Yerawada
UGS Corp (Siemens)	Product Life Cycle Managment	Hinjewadi
ACI Worldwide	Payment Systems	Kalyani Nagar
IDeaS (SAS company)	Revenue Solutions	Baner
SAS	Business Analytics Software	Magarpatta City
Red Hat		Magarpatta City
FinIQ	Financial products	Kothrud
Triple Point Technology	Financial products	Yerwada
Tieto		Nagar Road
Synygy	Sales Performance	Koregaon Park
Persistent	Cloud Computing, Mobility, Analytics	Senapati Bapat Road
Geometric	Product Life cycle Management	Hinjewadi
Pubmatic	Advertisement Platform	Baner
UNIKEN Inc	Security Software	Baner
Saba	Human Resource	Yerwada
Mediaocean	Advertising	Wakad
Yardi Software	Real Estate Software	Senapati Bapat Road
Propalms	Application Virtualization	Baner

If you are working at one of them please add your comment about the job culture and whether you recommend someone applying there.

Also share the details of other product companies which are not listed here.

Road Rage - Happy Ending

Today was very quiet in office. In first half i was working on the prototype application which i have been trying to build for past couple of weeks. Then in afternoon one defect got assigned to me. Grudgingly i had to stop my prototype work and start working at this defect, as we are very close to the release date and thus makes it urgent. By 7:30 PM i have figured out the root cause of the problem, found a solution and sent my code for review. Tomorrow it will be checked in the accurev (place where programmers keep their code).

I packed my bag and started my 20 km drive from office to my house. It typically takes about an hour to reach home during normal traffic. India is a developing nation. Further Pune is a growing city in India. A sleepy pensioner's paradise has suddenly emerged as a major IT hub. Thus Pune has seen lot of growth in last one decade. However development of infrastructure has not kept its pace with growing population. Further people are always in a rush. So driving during peak hours can be very challenging. It gets worse if you are on a car, as 2 wheelers will try to overtake you from left and right. And if you escape them, then you have pedestrians coming from every direction. Sometimes your driving experience will be rewarded with presence of a herd of cows and buffalos.

If it is not raining or too cold i too prefer to commute on my motorcycle, but today it was both rainy and cold. So i was driving back home in my car minding all the usual hurdles along the way. I will say that my driving skills in India have improved a lot in past one year. Truly practice makes a man perfect or near perfect. To make this journey enjoyable i typically listen to songs or play some audio books. Today i was listening to Atlas Shrugged. Right now it has come to a very interesting turn. There is a stretch of two way one lane each side road along the way. So here i was minding my own way and listening to the audio book. Suddenly I heard an irritating sound of horn. I looked ahead. There was a car in front of me. I looked in rearview mirror. There was a person driving a scooter and honking continuously. As nothing i could do i ignored him. Then again "Peep Peep" and again and again. Now it was getting irritating. What did he want from me? Can my car fly? Of course not. He kept on doing this for next 5 minutes. Now i had decided that i must give him a taste of his own medicine.
A narrow space emerged and this guy overtook me. Now i was behind his scooter. And here it comes. A big "Pop Pop" and then another one. He raced his scooter. I speeded my car. And then another honking and another. He looks behind and i press horn hard. And then another horn. Ah it was so pleasing. By now we have reached the Khadki over bridge. It is a multi-lane road. So i changed lane and brought my car parallel to his scooter. I rolled down my window and ask him - "How did you find the sound system of my car". He slowed down and made a salute to me. I thought he had got my message and again i returned back to my audio book and rest of the journey back home.

(c) 2012 Anup Mayank

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An alternate ending of this story is available at
Road Rage : Sad Ending 

Movie Review : Real Steel

Yesterday movie Real Steel was on TV. I had seen promos of it for last few days and was determined to see it. I liked it very much and thus decided to write a blog entry for it.

Well it is a movie on Robot and set in little distant future (2018), where Robots take the place in boxing ring. So if boxing and robots are not of your interest you can simply skip/ignore whatever i have to say next.

Man characters of this movie are Charlie (Hugh Jackman  remember X-Men series), Max (Dakota Goyo a new kid whom i haven't seen before), the good robot (ATOM), the bad robot or the robot on bad side (ZEUS)

In summary the movie is about father son bonding, realizing what is really important and yeah robots killing other robots. Dakota Goyo has done a superb job. The fight sequences are worth watching. Dialogues are crisp and don't bore you.

So my recommendation is to watch it if you like this genre of movie. My rating 4/5.

For more details goto

Real Steel (2011)

Websites to download free e-books

I have used following websites and found them very useful for my day to day needs of e-books (technical and otherwise)

http://www.4shared.com/
(You will need to create a login account to use this)

http://ebookbrowse.com

Please share other suitable links which you have found useful.

Conversation with a kid

Kids are always fun to talk to. Today i had this conversation with a young girl (she is about 8-9 years old).

Ishita - Maine dekha ki main skating kar rahi thee. Wo jagah bahut achhi aur cement se plastered thee. Yahan ki tarah ubar khabar nahin.
Anup - Fir kya hua
Ishita - Main bahut fast skating kar rahi thee aur bahut maja aa raha tha. Tabhi kya hua ki maine dekha samne ek tree hai aur wahan par meri mamma phone par baat kar rahi thee.
Anup (chintit awaj main) - Oh fir.
Ishita - Main bahut dar gayi. Mujhe laga ki agar aise hi skating karti rahi to mamma se takra jaungi aur fir daant lagegi.
Anup - Fir kya hua
Ishita - Fir kya tha. Maine apni skate ko turn kara diya, lekin thodi hi der baad saamne ek doosra per aa gaya aur main usase takra gayi.
Anup - He bhagwan. Fir kya hua.
Ishita - Meri skate ulat gayi aur mujhe bahut chot lag gayi. Main rone lag gayi.
Anup - Achha.
Ishita - Fir meri aankh khul gayi. Main bahut dar gayi thee aur ro rahi thee.
Anup (Muskurate hue) - Lekin baad main to tum hansi hogi jab tumhain pata chala ki wo sab ek dream tha.
Ishita (Haste hue) - Ha Ha. Fir to main khoob hasi.

Sachin and his 100th hundred

So finally Sachin hit his 100th century today and once again it has proved that whole country is so emotionally attached with this game. In the England and Australia series, Indians were beaten hands down. All kinds of blame were put. Heros were made villains. Dhoni started loosing his charm. Cricket pundits started blaming coach, captain and Sachin. Talks of his retirement were the ice breaker of any conversation. It was very ridiculous to watch Vinod Kambli (one time buddy) putting his judgments on national television. Even advertisements shifted on this mood change. Hero started sponsoring Hockey (more of this need to happen as it is our national game) and Pepsi promoting football (soccer).
And now all has changed. Facebook is filled with all sorts of comments. People have again started comparing him with God. Some comments are as follows

Lets have a partyyyyyyyyyyy.

Finally Most awaited Milestone achieved.. 100th international 100.......

He is a true son of the nation... India Salutes Sachin

He always played for his country with average of 45 and more and still people will say he is nt a match winner, Those people should keep thr mouth shut and try to admire the ever greatest god of cricket Sachin.

And the list goes on and on.

Oh common people. He is just a sportsman, who has some good days and some bad days. No doubt he is great at what he does. But that is no reason to worship him as no doubt there are thousands if not millions among us who do equally well. Be it other sports, business, education, community service, defending nation etc. He is great, but as of my knowledge he has done well for himself. He has made lots of money from cricket match fees, endorsements and advertisements. I don't see him doing lot of philanthropic work (at least not in public knowledge).

So lets just give proper place to this game and its players and lets not get emotionally overjoyed or disturbed by it.

Kundan's first suggestion that helped me

During the pooja ceremony for our new apartment, we have got some goithas (made of cow dung and hays which is dried so that can be used for burning). Goitha was earlier used as one of the main fuel for earthen stoves and it is still being used in many indian villages. Now a days it is mostly a ceremonial thing used in pooja and havans etc.
So we had a bag full of goithas left after the pooja. We were debating on how it can be used. So after waiting for 2 months, i finally decided to throw it away. Our apartment is on the first floor. To throw it away i was planning to take the bag downstairs and throw it in the open area adjacent to our society building. That bag was little heavy so i asked Kundan (now 3.5 years old) to open the gate. He innocently asked where i am going. So i told him that it is garbage and i am going to throw it out. Then he said that leave it outside our gate. He remembered that we keep our daily garbage there, so that the cleaning people can take it out. It immediately struck me that now i don't have to take this heavy bag downstairs and who knows maybe cleaning people will find a use for it. Thus because of Kundan's presence of mind i was saved from unnecessary lifting of that heavy bag. Thank you Kundan.

SITM Lavale Campus

Khadakwasla Dam

Kundan's 3rd birthday

View from Chaturshringi Mandir

Chokhe Dhani (Pune)

This was a long weekend we had leave on Saturday, Sunday and on Monday(for Independence Day). Well the question to do something in this was in the air at home. While talking to one of my colleague i got to know about Chokhe Dhani (Rajasthani theme based resort). Did some enquiry about it and decided that this is the place for this weekend.

Now it has been a year in India and i have not been able to gather enough courage to take my car out it in crazy traffic. Chokhe Dhani is about 23 Km from the place we currently live. Lately i have done some practice in the car to drive it around the neighborhood and so on. This gave me some level of confidence that i will be able to manage manual transmission driving for this distance. (Though i have about 5 years of driving experience in US and have driven almost 50k miles, but you need guts to drive in India)

We left home at around 3:30 as the Chokhe Dhani timing is from 5 PM -11 PM. I had the printout from google for the directions, but those directions are not of much use. You have to do the traditional approach (ask people). Well one good thing was that we had been to Aga Khan Palace on bike and Chokhe Dhani is on the same route although a bit far ahead.

Near Bopodi bridge, i encountered my first driving problem. There were 6-8 buffaloes standing on the mid of the road and they were not ready to buzz. To make matters worse there were autos and bikes coming who will somehow push the buffaloes more close to my car. Anyhow with honking and slowly moving i overcame this problem. I am sure i will remember this moment for the rest of my life as this was the first instance of this kind of problem.

So we finally reached the place. It is almost 2 km away from the main road. There are no visible sign (or atl east we missed to see one). We found it by asking people and taking a u turn. Thankfully there was no shortage of parking which was a blessing as i am not yet good at parking in a crowded place.

The entry fee is Rs 450 per adult and Rs 300 for children between (3 and 12). Upon entering we were welcomed with tilak. Then there was a drink stand where we got jaljeera and sharbat. Very near to that was a big bell which was supposed to be hit with a very heavy hammer. We tried our hand on it. Then there came the snack stand, where they were serving kandi bhaji, kadi bati etc. Hungry as we were we had several doses of them. Then we had a cup of tea.

After this we started exploring the entertainments provided by the place. There were camel ride (but it had a big queue), horse cart ride, bullock cart ride, train ride etc. Further there were performers doing puppet show (kathputli naach), acrobat doing tricks on a thin rope and Rajasthani folk dance and song shows. But the thing which left a mark on me was the magic show.

Magic Show

========

The show was being performed by a young person. He did several tricks. In one trick he took the ring from my wife and then hid it in a cloth and asked everyone to touch it and make sure that they can feel it. One lady was asked to hold the ring with the cloth and then with the 3 taps of his magic stick he made the ring disappear. Finally ring was found hidden in a tomato.

But the best piece was the last trick. He asked people to make fist and put one on top of other persons hand, so that the top of two hands meet and asked everyone to choose among several flowers (rose, jasmine etc). And with few magic spells, he asked us to smell the hand. And truly there were fragrance coming out of our hand. I am sure that he didn't touch our hand any how. To make sure that it was not a collective hypnotism, i smelled my hand again after leaving him and fragrance was there.

Dinner

=======

They serve food in traditional Rajasthani style, with a wooden small table to keep your plate etc, while you sit on the floor. Dinner starts at 8 PM. But if you want to eat in traditional way then you may have to wait for 10-30 minutes depending on the rush. For people who can't wait that long there is a buffet system also arranged there. We decided to go for the traditional way. After about 15 minutes our turn came in. It was worth the wait. The walls of the eating hall were nicely decorated with the traditional drawings. People who served food were wearing traditional dresses. Whenever we asked what it is this item? The answer always ended in "Sa". For example "Bati Sa", "Choorma Sa". This is a vegeterian menu. We liked the "Palak Panner" very much. Almost 15 different kind of dishes if you include pickle and papad too.

Post dinner while my wife and mother were busy in getting heena on thier hand, me and my son roamed around to see what else was there. There is an aritificial cave. We decided to go through it. Some portion of the cave was dark enough to terrify you. For a moment i felt that something moved and was scared. But anyways it was fun.

Finally we had our final dose of jaljeera and decided to leave, but not before i tried my hand on the heavy hammer bell.

An year in India

Last august we were busy in packing our bags. Busy on craigslist to find buyers for the furniture etc. I remember even on the last evening we had sold few smaller items. It can happen only in US.

So now it is almost a year and it is apt to write something about the experience so far.

Good things first.

It was a joyous occasion to be present with the family in my brother's marriage. The young couple seems to be enjoying the new chapter in their life. May god bless them.

Further we went to our native village for my son's Mundan (first hair cutting ceremony). It was after 8 years for me and first time for the wife and kid. Things have changed very much there. Now we have solar lamps in our village. The roads have improved a lot. The road from Mujaffarpur to Darbhanga can be compared to expressways. (Maybe i am exaggerating here a little bit)

Workwise i like the challenge. Getting lots of opportunity to learn new things ex. we have worked on 2 agile projects. Now there is focus to learn new UI technologies which i didn't have to so far. Further learnt a couple of things about estimating software projects. Had to learn it in a hard way though. More on this in upcoming post.

Pune (the city where we are currently living) has very nice weather. It was not too hot nor too cold. Although it does rain a lot here. I don't mind that. It is pleasant to drive my motorcycle(maybe a bit dangerous too) when rain is hitting on my helmet.

Not so good things

Driving a car is pain. We have got a manual transmission car. First there is a learning involved in how to switch gears. And then you have to be careful about who is coming from which direction. So far i haven't dared to take my car to a movie theater and find a parking place. Someday i will gain that courage.

Housing expenses are huge. Rents and cost of houses have sky rocketed. I don't have a big salary but kind of earn enough as per the market. Even then i am facing this pinch. I wonder how can common government salaried person afford this.

Late evening meetings. Since being an offshore development organization we need to hold meetings with our US counterparts. And most often they start at 7:30 in the evening. But i guess that is just part of the job.

Pt Bipin Mishra from Darbhanga playing shankh

Bhimashankar Trip (07-MAY-2011)

Book Reading : The Mythical Man Month

This is a book on Software Engineering by Fred Brooks. It was first published in 1975. I have just started to read it. I am finding very witty remarks by the author. Some of them are copied here.

An omlette, promised in two minutes, may appear to be progressing nicely. But when it has not set in two minutes, the customer has two choices - wait or eat it raw. Software customers have had the same choices.

Adding manpower to a late software project, makes it later.