Finally found an old whitepaper written by me...

Those were days when Internet wasn't common and email was rare. The speed was measured into single digit kbps (as in 4 kbps)...

Wondering where to upload that...

My Article...

I have co-authored an article on how IT can play a significant role in achieving business cost optimization and increased agility and have listed down few things CIOs should embark upon. If you find it interesting, discuss it here...

Moving iTunes collection from Windows XP to Windows 7

I have just moved my collection from XP to Win 7 verbatim ... complete with all playlists, ratings and play counts. Thought of sharing the various steps I did to make it happen. It is easy enough if you can do basic copying.

First, move your complete collection to a portable drive .. say F: (and let iTunes manage the collection).

Backup your My Music folder as well as your Document and Settings folder in XP. (generally found under C:\Documents and Settings\...)

Next install iTunes on your Win 7 box. Pretty straight forward.

Start iTunes and deselect all auto search et al. You have a clean iTunes installation. Close down iTunes. Wait for few minutes to ensure that it has exited completely.

Next Follow These...

1. Copy "C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername\Local Settings\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes" from XP backup to "C:\Users\yourusername\Local Settings\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes" in Win 7.

2. Copy "C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes" from XP backup to "C:\Users\yourusername\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes" in Win 7. (this look identical but notice Local Settings in path.

3. Copy "My Music\iTunes" (from my documents backup in win xp) to "My Music\iTunes" in Win 7 Libraries.

In above steps, replace with your user name (yourusername) in corresponding operating systems. Also, if you are like me, you would have moved My Documents from default location to separate drive. Remember to change the path accordingly.

Now start iTunes again.

All your music, playlists and settings are back. As if nothing happened.

Note that if you are in different systems, the path to removable drive should be same (such as F:) in both systems. Change the system drive letters, if need be to achieve this. Choose a path that is rarely used such as letters from M: / N: / O: etc.

Good Luck...

Trying to Fix Broken Fedora 11 Install

My tryst with Fedora 11 started on a bad note. First, preupgrade from Fedora 10 couldn't resume where it left off earlier, due to some python errors. Tried couple of times to resume, but didn't succeed. Perhaps, some patch release fixed and preupgrade finally worked.

After downloading all required packages, I hit that button to reboot and continue install. Mid way thru the install, the screen goes blank.. no error but just to save power... but my hitting shift key to wake it up, fired keysym package errors and resulted in broken install. bad omen!!! never before I have seen a linux crib about key press...

Anyway, the system boots up back to fedora 10 but look at it... the keyboard no longer works!!!

My attempts to fix the broken install failed. the rpm repository is perhaps damaged beyond repair.Somehow I managed to boot the machine with same install image from preupgrade. Not much help. Didn't go well at all...

So I have a broken F-10 that won't work due to no keyboard (and thus I can't login). Finally, I decided to download fresh F-11 images...

Booting F-11 live from USB is the only thing that has worked since...

F-11 DVD download resulted in bigger problem. My other laptop doesn't have DVD burner. So somehow using that damaged laptop remotely to burn the DVD image from other laptop, I got a F-11 DVD. Directly mounting image is not working as it is on LVM and F11 not able to recognize that during installation.

Now, latest is that F-11 complains that DVD I burned remotely is not good... test is failing after 85%... I'm running low of patience on this...

My Tryst with Windows Vista

Well, today, my tryst with windows vista ends, for now...

Finally, I have managed to corrupt the partition table of my HP laptop's hard disk (that's what it looks like to me). The recovery option on boot up (F11) is not working. HP does not give recovery CDs so that means that I have reached the point of no return...

It all started with I bought this laptop about 10 months back. Vista didn't impress me at all. Given that I had successfully managed to install x86_64 on my earlier laptop that was perhaps first to be shipped with Anthlon-64 way back in 2004, I decided to give this laptop dual boot the day I bought it :). I like linux enough to start on this route... anyway, that meant shrinking windows partition and as someone who tried shinking partitions on vista would know already, windows does not give up space as easily. It kept occupying huge space unreasonably that could otherwise be freed. Anyway, I managed a near perfect install of Fedora 9 and got everything working including my TV and my Music System from it... but it was too good to last...

Vista never worked without problems, occasional freezing issues that became too frequent and its refusal to upgrade to SP1. Finally I upgraded to SP1 that lasted for few good days and problems came back... Today, I decided, enough is enough and decided to delete vista partition from hard disk and recreated a smaller one and thought that HP recovery partition would reinstall in that... but that was not to be...

So, today, I'm downloading Fedora 10 now and with a complete reformat of HDD, going one way... I have forgetten some tweaks so I thought let's use blog to keep track... so here is an effort...

iPod ships individually from China!

I recently ordered my iPod Mini and was surprised when looking at the shipment tracking details at FedEx. The shipment originated in Shenzhen, China. I knew that lot of manufacturing happens in China for majority of US products, but was surprised that they are being individually shipped. Rather, I expected a bulk shipment to US warehouses.

Why does it do so? It amazes me. I thought this was the costlier option.

Disassembling the external hard drive

Well, it had to happen one day... During last few weeks, ever since I'm back from my US trip - about which I need to write - this backup device of mine is giving me troubles. At 200 GB, it is still my primary backup device and when it starts showing signs of fatigue - it is 3 yr old - it is time to take stock. It has developed a problem of shutting itself off without any apparent reason. The music I'm playing stops and almost always data being transferred gets corrupted. Sometimes, it even refuses to start!

I was pretty annoyed with this. May be it is due to Wii, which I installed right next to it, or may be it is just jealous of a newer and smaller 160 GB pocket drive that I purchased recently, whatever it is, I wanted to dig deeper into the cause of its failure, so I got the screwdrivers and started the process of opening the external casing to see what could be the issue. The casing was hot, and I was surprised to find the hard drive inside too hot to hold. Guess, it could be overheating. I found no visible signs of dust inside but gave it a cleaning nonetheless. It took good 10 minutes to cool down. Looks like these drives are not designed for hot weather of India, or should I say Delhi, as it never gave me any problem in Bangalore. With heavy data transfers, it perhaps is getting too hot and shuts off as a precautionary measure. Air conditioner in my room is not enough to dissipate the heat and the casing design with no fans is proving a big deterrent in the thermal process.

The drive looks at peace now and I need to give it time enough to cool down between heavy activities as a workaround. But it was heartening to learn that it can open and replace the internal hard disk to higher capacity as I need. Next buy, 1 TB disk :)

Long time, Lot to say

Plenty of things have happened since my last post so this one may be a big... first I watched couple of movies...

"Dhoom 2" was below expectations except for Hrithik.
"Guru" confirms that Aish is a terrible actress.
"Don 2" was not as bad as I thought though the first one was still better. This one without any songs would have made better experience.

Apple iPhone is looking awesome. I can't wait to get one. But it won't be available till 2008. I know tons of people who are unhappy with PDAs. They are more happy with a fully functional phone and a fully functional laptop rather than carrying a combo that does none in a neat way. They always complain that sound quality on Treo is terrible. I felt the same when I used one briefly. I wondered if using google talk is better option than Treo.

Couple of days back I attended a seminar on "Blue Ocean Strategy". That was good and got me thinking. Also taught me about "yellow tail" wines :)

Finally, I had some time to enjoy Matrix trilogy again on my new LCD TV. This was amazing. I'm more than happy with my choice of Sony Bravia 32". I need to get a UPS now to enjoy the experience non-stop. Only thing I'm worried about is overloading my power outlet. Need to do some maths here.

Intel Laptop Gaming Technical Development Kit

This is a nice toolkit to modify the games. I always wish if my civilization III can show me the status so that I can save the game before the laptop starts to hibernate!

Rube Goldberg Machines

I have always loved the idea of complex machines doing simple tasks and had "invented" lots of them during my childhood. I didn't watch TV or cartoons that much, so never noticed similar ideas floating by. One such machine was a complex device to catch bees that keep disturbing us on summer afternoons.

Recently, I hit upon the quiz that talks about famous Honda "Cog" advertisement. I had seen it on Internet and liked the commercial a lot (being similar to my childhood machines). However, I never know that these are called "Rube Goldberg" machines after the famous cartoonist who invented them. Now I know that they are also called "Heath Robinson contraption" (in UK) and Pythagorean Machines (in Japan).

I loved playing The Incredible Machine a lot after I first learnt in G-20, Ravindra Bhawan at the university. Me and N. V. P. Iyer spent nights playing this game. Those who haven't played it should give it a try. I still play the later versions of this game: "Return of the Incredible Machine: Contraptions", and "The Incredible Machine: Even More Contraptions". They are so much fun.

Architects in Software Industry

I was reading this article on architect personas. I tend to disagree with just 3 there. I believe there are many more here. From experience, I'm listing down what roles I think should be here:

Enterprise Architect:
Defines what enterprise needs in terms of application and integration.

Application Architect:
Evaluates applications/softwares in line with directions from Enterprise Architect. Makes Build/BUY decision.

Integration Architect:
Defines EAI standards

Data Architect:
Defines flow of information and events (Senior, enterprise wide app-to-app, junior, at app level)

Network architect:
Defines network topology, DR strategies

Technical Architect:
Defines architecture for single app and its interfaces

I believe "Software Architect" is best suited as general term to differentiate from general (Civil) Architects and in all of the above you can replace Architect with "Software Architect" as "Enterprise Software Architect" to better quality them.