Against the Enterprise Architect as God (or not)

Against the Enterprise Architect as God (or not):
Over the last two years, I have been gaining experience on the Architecture side of the IT world, as a Technical Architect, as an Integration Architect and most recently as a Solution Architect.
I have some aspirations, which may or may not be realised, to gain experience as an Enterprise Architect in my next role.
It was therefore with some interest that I read this article, The enterprise architect’s Achilles heel, by Mark McDonald, in Technology Spectator, this morning.
I thought the article was very interesting because, having been reading a bunch of job adverts for EA roles, you would certainly get the feeling that the company was looking for a god-like figure as their new enterprise architect!!
In my experience, all the high-level architects I have worked with recently, did not have an omniscient view of the enterprise at all. In most cases, they had a rough idea of how things worked in any given area and had to ask questions in order to get a greater understanding. They would be the first to admit that they did not know everything.
In many meetings I attended, many of the attendees. who were working as solution and/or end-to-end architects, were often speaking about topics about which they only had the vaguest knowledge or understanding!
This was in a telecommunications company, which are by their very nature, extremely complex; so it is not really surprising to me that this was the case.
All enterprises are complex in their own way and I quite agree with the author that you cannot compare an enterprise to a plane or a building and, therefore, an enterprise which gives ultimate control to an enterprise architect, who is after all just human and therefore fallible, is probably setting itself up for problems down the line.
Read the whole thing, as they say!!

Your Cheques will become Invalid from Jan 1, 2013 – Find out WHY ?

Your Cheques will become Invalid from Jan 1, 2013 – Find out WHY ?:
It might happen that your cheque’s start bouncing and do not get accepted from Jan 1, 2013 . There is a new standard in banking called as Cheque Truncation System or CTS 2010 , which all the banks have to follow now. RBI has issued a circular telling all banks that they should only process and accept those cheques which follow CTS guidelines.

What is Cheque Truncation System or CTS ?

Its just a new improved structure for chqeues and a set of guidelines which will change the way cheques are being processed and cleared. Right now, all the cheques are sent directly physical to the other bank for clearance, but with this new Cheque Truncation System guidelines, the banks will send the digital version of cheques (read scanned image) to the other bank and the clearance will happen almost same day or very fast. Some of the features of CTS cheques would be

• It would have the wordings “please sign above this line” at right bottom

• All CTS-2010 cheques will have a watermark with the words “CTS INDIA”, which can be seen against a light

• A bank logo will be on cheque with a Ultra Violet Ink , which can be seen only under UV Scanners.

• The CTS 2010 enabled cheques will not allow any alterations. If there is any mistakes, the cheque will be invalid

• “payable at par at all branches of the bank in India” text will be at the bottom of all the cheques

• There will be IFSC and MICR code on the cheque

• You will have to sign the cheque will a darker ink, so that your signatures are valid for scanning.

If you look at these features, you can simply see that these are required for digital processing and once these Cheque Truncation System enabled cheques arrive , the whole banking system will start clearing the cheques in a must faster time. This will improve banking and save paper . Below is a sample of cheque which fulfil CTS criteria’s.

SBI has already told all its customers to get new cheques because all the old cheques will become invalid , In the same way HDFC bank and ICICI bank have also told their customers to get new cheque books.

What you must do ?

1. Replace your Post Dated Cheques
If you have given any post dated cheques to someone like for your home loan payments or for some other kind of payment, then its the time to replace them with fresh cheques else it will just bounce and you might have to pay the bounce charges
Deposit any Old Cheque now
At times, we accumulate old cheques and deposit them for clearing only after many days or weeks. If you have any cheque which is to be cleared, better deposit it and encash !
A lot of banks have also asked its customers to give return back the old invalid cheques at their branch and collect new cheques, not sure why they need old cheques , why cant they issue the new cheques directly ? Also note that the cheques will be sent to the last updated address only. Learn more about CTS here . I hope you are clear about Cheque Truncation System (CTS) and how your cheques will become invalid from Jan 1,2013

The greatest Google Mail feature you may not be using

The greatest Google Mail feature you may not be using:

There's a wonderfully powerful and subtle technique in Google Mail that can be used to enhance every reply you make to a mail: if you select an area of a message and then hit Reply only the selected text will be quoted in the response.
For example, here's an email I need to reply to:

If I simply hit Reply then the entire original message is quoted in the response:

But if I first select the piece that's important to me:

And then hit reply, only that part is in the response:

Use this to respond to just the right parts of a message and cut down those enormous chains of replies where the messages grow and grow and grow.

If you enjoyed this blog post, you might enjoy my travel book for people interested in science and technology: The Geek Atlas. Signed copies of The Geek Atlas are available. Looking for a new job? Try UseTheSource.

About JAAGA ,Android Development …and Cycling.

 

Ok, no need go get confused. The two topics in the title are completely different things, different worlds, actually. Today I attended a quick Android newbies session by the brilliant Adnan Brar, who is at the moment , bootstrapping his own startup : Taskgram.  The 2 hour event was hosted at a totally cool and hip atmosphere , JAAGA.  The concept of JAAGA of being a creative area where people can just hangout and discuss ideas is what makes it unique.  This is similar to what Noisebridge is doing in the US, provide a platform to interact with like minded individuals.

I have been searching for some tutorials on Android app development on the net, and I came across the hackerspaces community. There is found two, just two spaces registered from Bangalore, India, one being JAAGA. Its embarrassing that the techie city has nothing to offer for hackers to get together. Anyway, I found that there was an android session coming up on Sunday, so that meant I had to getup earlier than my usual 12 noon !

Now app development, or any kind of development,for that matter, is something I can do perfectly on my own with google to guide me. But there is something different when people get together and exchange ideas and brainstorm.  That’s  what led me to search out some kind of training session, to meet like minded hackers wanting to learn/create something new. Today I met Adnaan, Mayank, Nipun and..Nikhil, I think .  The one common thread we had was that all of us were employed in good companies, but somehow the work were doing was not inspiring enough for the soul. I think it proves that its not just money that is important, we do need food for the hacker’s soul.

One of the guys turned up on his cool mountain bike, and he was also in fully cycling battle-gear ! Mayank is a certified bi-cycle nut, the moment you bring up the topic, you realise that you can’t just hold up to this guy’s passion for the wheels. He did give me some advice and tips and oodles of encouragement to take up bi-cycling myself, and I am seriously considering it.

Looking forward to the next coding session at JAAGA.Kudos to JAAGA for taking the initiative. I hope more such communities spring up in the garden city !

 

Anindya Mukherjee sets new record riding from Tropic of Cancer to the Tropic of Capricorn

An Indian mountaineer made the country proud yet again, not by setting any mountaineering record, but by setting up an exceptional 69 day long bicycleexpedition. The expedition came to an end on September 2nd 2012. Kolkata based Anindya Mukherjee completed this laborious cycle expedition from Tropic of Cancer to the Tropic of Capricorn, becoming the first Indian to accomplish this.

Anindya Mukherjee

What began as a conventional expedition took this extraordinary avatar and created history. Crossing a distance of about 5000km on a bicycle which was no joyride throughout. Mukherjee had the pluck to cover the lonely and deserted areas in his way totaling to be about two and a half months. The ride started as a tribute to Harold William Bil Tilman, but itself became an inspirational story. On Sunday morning when Mukherjee reached the base at Walvis Bay in Namibia, the moment was perhaps the best moment for the mountaineer so far. Anindya said, “I always wanted to do this expedition; it was my way of paying homage to Tilman. Dreams, I guess are not always easy to achieve but I’m happy that it has finally come true,”

Having started off with the journey from June 24, Mukherjee knew this isn’t going to be an easy thing. It was a test of his survival skills too. Mukherjee said, “As a professional mountaineer, I’ve scaled many such mountains, but this one’s unique. There were days when I had nothing to eat. It was a complete new terrain and I didn’t even know much about the African language. That was a big problem,”

Cycling past deserted Trans-Kalahari highway, Mukherjee were getting frequent thoughts of winding up the plans. He said, “The journey was exhausting at the same time deadly. I had to cross areas which were completely deserted. Thinking about those moments, still gets me goose bumps!”

Mukherjee a.k.a Raja, was the first Asian to have participated in the Mt Elbrus race in 2007.

Ustad Hotel - Smacking good.

 

The DVD version of this new age malayalam movie was released last month, and torrent sites all over have picked it up.  I finally got to enjoy perhaps the other best movie of this year Diamond Necklace being the first).  And my verdict : It’s a keeper. The plot of the movie is fully on Wikipedia. And there are a lot of themes and ideas in the movie which have been borrowed/inspired from others though.

The move is centered around good food, and good times, and feel good music. There are mouth watering shots of signature malabar cuisine, lazy strolls by the beach, and different genres of music in songs and in the background. But at its core, it is a story of relationships. A gentle mixture of the old and new, and about change.

Three different generations of a family are present in this movie, and the rift between them is presented without the usual melodrama you see in normal tear jerker movies.  There is the beautiful story of how five children grew up without a mother, the elder sisters bringing up their youngest brother. There is the rebellious daughter of an orthodox muslim family, who first rejects the boy, and then realizes her mistake late, but not too late.  And then there is Karim’s philosophy that inorder for something to be special , you simply have to believe it is special. A nice borrow from the Kung Fu panda.

The visuals are awesome ! I have been living in the malabar area of Kerala for the four years while I was in college, and I was amazed at how artistically the familiar sights and sounds of the area has been captured on film. The background music beautifully accompanies the visuals without over powering it. The strings beats and vocals in the BGM are a fresh relief from the usual cacophony one finds there.

A lot of colorful characters further enrich the movie. There are some characters here who do not have single dialogue, but still show us why they are important in their roles. The character of Narayan who is a tamil social worker is a gentle nod in the direction of selfless service of humanity.

But the highlight of the movie is the brilliant acting of Thilakan. Nobody else (barring Nedumudi Venu perhaps ?) could have played that character. The moments between Karim and his grandson discussing various ideas of luck, fate and success, sipping sulaimani tea by the beach side really stand out. He speaks the idea that “anyone can fill a stomach, but a truly gifted person can fill the soul” twice in the movie. The first time, it is not meant to register, the second time, you come to really appreciate it.

What stood out:

1. At the airport, a character mentions that Faizi has a good Mammootty look (19:14). It is actually Mammotty’s son who is playing the character.
2. Shahaana praises Faizi’s superb dialogue delivery (1:20:58). Good for his second movie.
3. Most of the female characters in the movie are muslims, and they are fully veiled when they step out of their houses. In the wedding photo of Faizi’s parents, the bride is completely veiled, only her eyes are visible.
4. The boys start their days playing football on the beach. Football is a fever across Kerala, something different in this cricket crazy nation.
5. The scene where Faizi brings a live chicken to the GM’s table (1:52:00)  is from the climatic scene in Hollywood movie ‘No Reservations’, where Catherine Zeta-Jones drops a raw steak at the table of an annoying customer.  The next scene where the live rooster pecks on the pieces of cooked chicken gave me jitters, you could say it is forced cannibalism there.
6. Towards the end of the movie (2:17:54), in the scene where Faizi prepares the biriyani, there is a beautiful piano piece which is a straight lift of Nemo’s theme, from the movie Finding Nemo. The OST of that movie had got composer Randy Newman and Oscar nomination.  The songs in the movie really make you sit up and listen, it’s a rarely found fusion of Arabic and new age rock sounds.

Well now this mouth watering review has certainly made me hungry again, so Im gonna munch on my Diwali sweets.

Happy Diwali everyone !!

iPhone 5 inspired by October Sky / Rocket Boys

 

I was watching October Sky (one of my favourit movies) the other day and I noticed a scene which inspired them at Apple !!  So I put together this original creation….

8 Secrets of Pulling Your Team to Greater Productivity

8 Secrets of Pulling Your Team to Greater Productivity:

How do you get your team to get more done?
How do you get them to go beyond their limits?
Do you drive them? Do you push them hard?
And then push them harder even once they are resenting the efforts?
You may get the work done, but you probably won’t have much of a team afterwards.
If you want your team to be successful, you can’t push them… you have to pull them.

Pushing Your Team

True story.
When I was an officer in the Navy, one of my first Captains coached me during my annual review by saying…

“You don’t yell enough.”

What? Excuse me? What do you mean?

“You don’t yell at your team enough. I’ve never heard you raise your voice at them, I think you need to be harder on them.” 

After sitting in stunned silence for a moment, I decided to answer with a question or two…
I asked,

“Do we get our work done?”

and then

“Do we finish projects ahead of schedule?”

and finally

“Didn’t we get an overall grade of “Excellent” on our most recent operational evaluation?”

It was obvious that we had differing styles of motivation and leadership.
Getting your team to work hard is not about pushing them.
Rather, it is about pulling them.

Pulling Your Team to Productivity

There is an old leadership maxim that dates back to the early 1900s.
It says…

“You can’t push a string.”

Think of a physical string on the table. If you push it, it simply bunches up and goes nowhere.
If you pull it, it lines up and goes wherever you gently direct it.
It means that to make progress, you can’t push a string. You have to pull it forward.
The same is true for high-performance teams.
You can’t push them incessantly. You will only cause friction and discord.
You may get them to the finish line, but they will be a jumbled mess.
Instead, try pulling your team to success.
Motivate them by pulling them forward to accomplish new things and reach levels they did not know they could reach.
This is was good leaders do.
Here are 8 Secrets to Pull Your Team to Greater Productivity:

1. Tell Them What You Want Done, Not How to Do It - Motivate your team by letting them determine how to get the work done. Tell them the objectives and goals, and let them impress you with their creativity and initiative.
2. Praise Your Team - Surveys show that most employees are lucky if they receive any praise during the course of their job. Recognize hard work and success and make sure that you call it out. Publicly praise your team members. It doesn’t have to be fancy, it just has to be sincere.
3. Make Them a Team – Make sure your team is a team. Pull them together. Do activities and events to allow them to bond as more than just co-workers. Trust and understanding are things that have to develop, you can’t force them. On a side note, if someone is not part of the team, you may need to remove them in order to let the core team thrive.
4. Give the Team the Authority to Make Decisions – Some managers don’t let their team make any decisions without their approval. This does not lead to a productive environment. You should trust your team to make day-to-day decisions on their own. Good leaders don’t lead by giving permission on each simple task. They lead by knowing when to gently course correct their team along the way.
5. Keep Them in the Know – Let your team know the big picture. Don’t withhold information unnecessarily. Your team can’t perform at their best if they are wearing blinders.
6. Let Them Have Skin in the Game – In many companies, teams feel like they are simply working to make the boss more successful. Great companies know that teams produce better results if they are vested in the outcome. Make sure the team has incentive in the overall outcome… win or lose.
7. Hold Them Accountable – Pulling your team does not mean not holding them accountable. In fact, they want to be held to high standards. Teams suffer if a leader does not hold all team members accountable for their role.
8. Positive Attitude – As a leader, you set the tone for your entire team’s operation. The team takes their cue from the top. If the boss is having a bad day, so is the entire team. Bringing a positive attitude can be crucial to your team’s success.

Pull Instead of Push

Pushing your team only goes so far. In the end, it causes discontent and strife.
You might get the work done, but it will take double the effort and produces half the results.
If you want your team to get more work done and be more productive…. pull them.
Pull them to greater limits. Pull them to greater achievements.
And of course, pull them to success.
Question: Do you push or pull your team to get work done?

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prostopleer.com New site for MP3 listening and sharing

Its amazing what you find on the net. I was searching for a copy of an old song and I found it shared on a new site : prostopleer.com. It’s a new site where people can upload and share their song collection, and also download for free ! The interface is super smooth and fast, no need to provide email/facebook details, at least not yet.

Use the services before this site is also taken down like other mp3 sharing sites !!!

tv.burrp.com–Best site to view Indian TV channels listing

 

I have been using this tv.burrp.com to find out programs on TV channels in India. It is the only site I found which displays a comprehensive listing with customizations in a gantt-chart applet. All the programs are displayed next to each other and shows are classified into kids/sport etc.. You can create your own listing of favorite channels and even setup SMS alerts for your favorite programs.

 

For instance, here is a part of my favorite list at the moment of writing this.

Nandakumar R: 'Libra Showers'

Nandakumar R: 'Libra Showers':

In an early post here I wrote the following brief description of Tulavarsham (literally "the Showers of Libra"), the Keralan name for the North East or Retreating Monsoon:

"In late October - early November, Kerala experiences a very unique weather regime called 'Tulavarsham' - the mornings are sunny and clear; by midday it gets very sultry and the afternoon sees a rapid and massive buildup of clouds followed by a thunderstorm, which clears up in a couple of hours. The evenings are usually clear and humid."

And there are any number of other online pages which repeat: "During Tulavarsham, it commonly rains in afternoons with thunder and lightning".

That the Advancing (South West) Monsoon blows in from the Arabian sea due to the subcontinent getting hyper-heated in summer is no mystery. That the monsoon has to retreat once the temperature gradient levels off and then inverts in autumn is not hard to understand either. The Coriolis force explains why the air current advances and withdraws along a South-West to North-East axis rather than a North-South one - undergrad, if not high-school, stuff.

But there still remains plenty about the Thulavarsham phenomenon that I find very puzzling.

First up, why does it rain almost exclusively in the afternoons/evenings? Afternoon thunderstorms are quite the norm in equitorial rain forests (this again is school gyan). But there, what happens is local convection with no large-scale *horizontal* currents of air; here we do have a major and steady drift of air masses from the north-east.

One could guess: the moisture laden monsoon (the moisture having been collected from the Bay of Bengal) blowing in from the north-east collides above Kerala with the afternoon sea-breeze and this causes the disturbances and violent showers. The sea-breeze does set in in the afternoon. But is it strong enough to cause such precipitation? I really don't know.

There are other issues: Why does it not rain anywhere else on the western coast during Thulavarsham (rainfall is utterly scanty on the coast beyond north Kerala; Bombay, which gets much more rainfall from the main south-west monsoon than most places in Kerala, actually suffers a brief but sharp summer called 'October heat'!)? Why don't the Western Ghats cause a rain-shadow effect over Kerala for the North-East monsoon (they do cast a rainshadow over western Tamil Nadu during the South West monsoon)?

The first question is perhaps answered by the shape of the Indian peninsula - a triangle with apex at Kanyakumari. This coupled to the North-Easterly direction of the withdrawal of the monsoon suggests that over say Bombay or Goa, the withdrawing monsoon would have hardly any moisture since it would not have passed over any waterbody. In the south, the Bay of Bengal provides enough water to the withdrawing monsoon to drench a good half of our eastern coastline in pretty steady rain - and even after traversing Tamil-Nadu, the winds have enough moisture to give Kerala a sharp rainy spell.

I have no good idea why the Western Ghats have such an asymmetric rain-shadow effect. Unlike in Maharashtra/Karnataka where the mountains drop sharply to the west coast and slope much more gently eastwards, along Kerala-TamilNadu border, they are steep in both direction. A possible explanation could be the narrowness of Kerala which allows the sea-breeze to play a major role in causing precipitation - the Bay of Bengal is quite far from Western Tamil Nadu.

A legend from medieval Kerala relates: the Portuguese stealthily took away some pepper wines; the Zamorin remarked: "Nothing will happen! They can't take away our 'Edavappathi' (the South-West Monsoon)"

I beg to differ with Zam. the Edavappathi gives no *exclusive* benefits to Kerala - it gives good rains to Kerala all right but it gives much more copious precipitation to Coastal Karnataka, Konkan and so forth. But, the Thulavarsham is a different matter altogether; ignoring the west-coast above Kasaragod, it extends the Keralan rainy season almost to December. And this is precisely why Kerala has, by far, the most persistently lush landscapes in the country. One can see drought-resistant scrub and cactus hedges in the hills near Bombay but they are unheard of anywhere in Kerala except perhaps the farthest corners.

And seeing the rapid buildup and awesome approach of a Tulavarsham thunderstorm from the Ishanya (North East) corner of the October sky, one can't help recollect the inspired imagery of medieval Keralan poet Poonthanam's hymn addressed to Kali (Thirumandhankunnil Amma):

"Ghanasangham idayunna thanukanthi thozhunnen!"

("I behold and salute thy fearful form, a vision of dark, swirling rainclouds thunderously colliding with one another!")

Reasons not to buy from Amazon - Richard Stallman

Reasons not to buy from Amazon - Richard Stallman:

Check out the daily Political Notes.

If you want to order a book (or something else), don't buy it from Amazon. If it's a book, order it directly from the publisher or through a local book store. Here are the reasons — plenty of them.
Amazon publishes ebooks designed to attack your freedom (PDF or html).
Amazon's on-line music "sales" have some of the same problems as the ebooks: users are required to identify themselves and sign a contract that denies them the freedoms they would have with a CD.
Amazon's shipping in the US is done in a sweatshop More info, including paramedics standing by for workers who pass out from the heat.
Amazon cut off service to Wikileaks, claiming that whistleblowing violates its terms of service. It had no need to go to court to prove this, because if you rent a server from Amazon, you have no rights.
Amazon squeezes small publishers. For instance, Amazon cut off Swindle sales for an independent book distributor in order to press for bigger discounts. (The article ends by promoting ebooks for another platform, the Shnook from Barnes and Noble. While that company is not as nasty to small publishers, its ebooks do violate your freedom in most of the same ways.)
Amazon doesn't just compete with independent book stores, it arrogantly seeks to destroy them. Independent book stores urge people not to buy from Amazon.
Amazon appears to treat self-published authors well, but it can unilaterally cut the price of their books. And when it does, the authors are the ones who lose.
Amazon censored an ebook that exposed how ebook bestseller lists can be manipulated (and therefore are meaningless).
Amazon was a member of ALEC. ALEC is the right-wing lobbying group that promotes voter-suppression laws and "shoot first" laws, as well as attacks against wages and working conditions in the US. Amazon quit ALEC after public pressure in May 2012, but I am sure it still seeks the same nasty policies that ALEC advocated and is waiting for a new tool to achieve them.
Copyright (c) 2011-2012 Richard Stallman
Verbatim copying and redistribution of this entire page are permitted provided this notice is preserved.

Amazon
Check out the daily Political Notes.

If you want to order a book (or something else), don't buy it from Amazon. If it's a book, order it directly from the publisher or through a local book store. Here are the reasons — plenty of them.
Amazon publishes ebooks designed to attack your freedom (PDF or html).
Amazon's on-line music "sales" have some of the same problems as the ebooks: users are required to identify themselves and sign a contract that denies them the freedoms they would have with a CD.
Amazon's shipping in the US is done in a sweatshop More info, including paramedics standing by for workers who pass out from the heat.
Amazon cut off service to Wikileaks, claiming that whistleblowing violates its terms of service. It had no need to go to court to prove this, because if you rent a server from Amazon, you have no rights.
Amazon squeezes small publishers. For instance, Amazon cut off Swindle sales for an independent book distributor in order to press for bigger discounts. (The article ends by promoting ebooks for another platform, the Shnook from Barnes and Noble. While that company is not as nasty to small publishers, its ebooks do violate your freedom in most of the same ways.)
Amazon doesn't just compete with independent book stores, it arrogantly seeks to destroy them. Independent book stores urge people not to buy from Amazon.
Amazon appears to treat self-published authors well, but it can unilaterally cut the price of their books. And when it does, the authors are the ones who lose.
Amazon censored an ebook that exposed how ebook bestseller lists can be manipulated (and therefore are meaningless).
Amazon was a member of ALEC. ALEC is the right-wing lobbying group that promotes voter-suppression laws and "shoot first" laws, as well as attacks against wages and working conditions in the US. Amazon quit ALEC after public pressure in May 2012, but I am sure it still seeks the same nasty policies that ALEC advocated and is waiting for a new tool to achieve them.
Copyright (c) 2011-2012 Richard Stallman
Verbatim copying and redistribution of this entire page are permitted provided this notice is preserved.