From 0 to 10k (In 14 weeks) - A Fight With Myself

I am happy to say that I ran 10k at a stretch. Not that it is big thing but I planned and executed rigorously to get it. I started running on 27th January,2014 with a plan called "10-in-Ten"- means run 10k in 10 weeks but finished on 1st May 2014 (in 14th week). This was not my first attempt at running. I have couple of failed attempts before this. But this time I won the fight with my own self.

My plan of increasing 1-2 km every week with 4 training runs a week was going very smoothly. I reached 8.5k in seven weeks and was pretty sure will reach my 10k goal in another week or so. But I made a mistake, which became a blessing in disguise, to run a "ROAD Race", a seven km race in IITM. I ran with lot of marathon runners and because of peer pressure I ran first km of race in around 3.8 minutes (though I was slowest by huge margin) which was almost twice as fast as my usual speed. I finished the race somehow but I got stuck in knee injury/pain called ITBS. (May write about this in another blog). I had to do a lot of strengthening exercise & research to overcome this. Eventually, after almost a month, I could come back on track and finish 10k. 

Next Target: 10k in under 60 minutes ! 

Motivation to write this blog:

Running is essentially different than any other challenge. Here you have to fight with you own laziness, procrastination, lack of motivation than fighting against anyone else. In academics we fight for grades and in corporates we fight for better ratings (to get promoted) but running is one challenge where you have to fight your own stamina, legs, food habits and most importantly "will power". In academics and corporate you barely get one chance here you get plenty as everything except your body remain same. Running has many other health advantages as well. 

So do run, you need only two things, earth and your body and you own both !!

Enough drama, I would like to end with this quote:

"Running is a road to self-awareness and reliance-you can push yourself to extremes and learn the harsh reality of your physical and mental limitations or coast quietly down a solitary path watching the earth spin beneath your feet." --Doris Brown Heritage


My Lifetime stats:

A Beginner's guide - BPaaS - Business Process as a Service : Pick or Pass ?!

In late eighties when outsourcing was formally recognized as business strategy; it has seen as cost-saving measure and companies started outsourcing those function which were not mission critical. This gave companies competitive advantage in terms of cost.

IT was one of major cost drivers for many companies and companies started outsourcing their IT services. This is how lot of ERP products came into being. The biggest cost driver of IT services was servers/hardware. To save this huge fixed cost, cloud computing, aka Pay-per-Use, came into mainstream offering. The next big thing was to offer standardize services to companies and hence evolved the concept of Business Process as a Service (BPaaS). 

Gartner defines business process as a service (BPaaS) as the delivery of business process outsourcing (BPO) services that are sourced from the cloud and constructed for multi-tenancy. Services are often automated, and where human process actors are required, there is no overtly dedicated labor pool per client. The pricing models are consumption-based or subscription-based commercial terms. As a cloud service, the BPaaS model is accessed via Internet-based technologies. [1]

Characteristics of BPaaS:

The following characteristics define BPaaS:

• The BPaaS sits on top of the other three foundational cloud services: SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS.
• A BPaaS service is configurable based on the process being designed.
• A BPaaS service must have well-defined APIs so it can be easily connected to related services.
• A BPaaS must be able to support multiple languages and multiple deployment environments because a business cannot predict how a business process will be leveraged in the future.

• A BPaaS environment must be able to handle massive scaling. The service must be able to go from managing a few processes for a couple of customers to being able to support hundreds if not thousands of customers and processes. The service accomplishes that objective by optimizing the underlying cloud services to support this type of elasticity and scaling. [2]

These are main advantages of BPaaS over conventional service:

·         Process standardization: Company strives to get competitive advantage by process standardization across their value chain. BPaaS provides industry standard process processes by best-in-class technology. Many companies cannot afford to bear such a high fixed cost to develop and run IT services. This model offers consumer-based pricing where you’re charged only what you use. The entry and exit barrier have reduced drastically due to this kind of change in offering.

·         IT Integration: BPaaS utilizes all three foundational cloud services; SaaS, PaaS and IaaS.

·         Low Cost & Less Risky: ‘Pay as you go’ pricing model – avoid the cost of expensive server infrastructure and software licenses.

·         Scalability: like all cloud services, not having to worry about the IT costs of upgrading software and server infrastructure means you can massively scale your operations up or down to match your business size. This means a service that manages a few operations having the capacity to manage hundreds (even thousands!).

·         Process Integration: BPaaS services must be easily integrated with related services through an easy to use application user interface (API).

Is this model for you?

This is an amazing comparison between three different approaches. It may help you in evaluating whether the BPaaS model is there for you or not.

Source

Some interesting examples:

• Rubicon Project: It is online advertising technology firm. It provides a platform to advertisers to optimize their Ad reach. For more details
• Alfresco: It is the open platform for social content management. Its recent launch of Activiti Business Process Management (BPM) has sparked lot of interest in the industry. For more details
• Workday: solution includes HR Process Consulting & change management consulting for effective HR Transformation. For more details
• FinancialForce: FinancialForce.com is a cloud applications company that provides business applications for Force.com, a cloud computing platform from salesforce.com. FinancialForce.com supplies Accounting, Billing, Professional Services Automation (PSA) and Services Resource Planning (SRP) applications. For more details

Facts:

• The study, conducted by marketing company Research and Markets, said the services would grow by 45.55% CAGR from $1.09bn this year to $7.12bn in 2018.[3]
• Gartner is predicting that BPaaS will grow from $84.1B in 2012 to $144.7B in 2016, generating a global compound annual growth rate of 15%.
• Of the eight subsegments Gartner is tracking in their BPaaS forecast, Cloud Payments (17.8%) Cloud Advertising (17.1%) and Industry Operations (15.1%) are expected to have the greatest compound annual growth rates (CAGR) in revenues generated by 2016. 
•  In terms of revenue generated, Cloud Advertising is projected to grow from  $43.1B in 2011 to $95B in 2016, generating 17.1% CAGR in revenue growth through 2016.
•  E-Commerce Enablement using BPaaS-based platforms is expected to grow from $4.7B in 2011 to $9B in 2016, generating a 13.6% CAGR in revenue globally”.

Understanding Union budget 2012.. (part 1)

This is very comprehensive and easy-to-understand guide to understand Union Budget 2012.

Let’s first understand what a budget is:

Let’s assume Mr. Natwarlal earns 50k per month but spends 55k per month so his financial health is like India, I mean he has a budget deficit.(He must be borrowing remaining 5k from someone else). Let’s take the second case, Mr. Sundar who earn 50k per month and restricts his spending in 45k. So he has a surplus budget.

Union Budget (AKA “Annual Finance Bill”) : Under Article 112 of the Constitution, a statement of estimated receipts and expenditure of the Government of India has to be laid before Parliament in respect of every financial year which runs from 1st April to 31st March.

It comprises of these funds:

· Consolidated Fund: The Constitution of India provides for the manner in which the accounts of the Government have to be kept. All revenues received, loans raised and all money received by the Government in payment of loans are credited to the Consolidated Funds of India all expenditures of the Government are incurred from this Fund. In short, Government’s Bank Account.

· Contingency Fund: The Contingency Fund of India exists for disasters and related unforeseen expenditures. In 2005, it was raised from 50 to Rs 500 crore.

Few important Terms:

To understand budget speech or budget related documents, one needs to understand following imp terms:

· Public Accounts Committee :

o The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is a committee of selected members of Parliament, constituted by the Parliament of India, for the auditing of the expenditure of the Government of India.

o The PAC is formed every year with a strength of not more than 22 members of which 15 are from Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Parliament, and 7 from Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament. The term of office of the members is one year.

o Earlier, it was headed by a member of the ruling party. Its chief function is to examine the audit report of Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) after it is laid in the Parliament.

· Revenue Budget: It is an account of Revenue Expenses and Revenue receipts. (It is very important terms to be understood)

o Revenue spending is all recurrent expenditure like salaries of govt employees.

o Revenue Receipts are exactly opposite of the former, it includes all recurrent receipts by government like interest of loans given to states or to other countries or any recurring income.

· Capital Budget: It is an account of capital expenses and capital receipts. (Another extremely important term to be understood).

o Capital expense is any one-time or non-recurring expense of a government. Majority of them include spending on infrastructure (building roads, airports). This expense will give return to government on a very long term basis so investing in them even by taking loan at lower interest would be a profitable affair.

o Capital Receipt is on the opposite side is one-time or non-recurring money coming to government. Prime examples are 2G and 3G auction. OR in Greece’s case, government leased many public properties like airports or tourist spots.

· Deficit: Remember Mr. Natwarlal’s case? Yeah, that’s called deficit. Let’s understand different types of deficits.

o Revenue Deficit: It is an extra expense done above the revenue receipts (See revenue budget explain above). i.e.,

Revenue Expenditure – Revenue Receipt

o Fiscal Deficit: When we consolidate Capital and Revenue receipts whatever deficit we get is called Fiscal deficit. i.e.,

Total Expenditure – Total Receipts (excluding borrowings)

o Primary Deficit: It adds interest payment (of the loans taken by Government from states or other counties) to Fiscal Deficit.

Fiscal Deficit – Interest payments

o Current Account Deficit: Remove total amount of exports from total amount of imports, you shall get current account deficit.

Imports – Export

· Fiscal Consolidation: You may find these terms at many occasions, it simply means ways of squeezing government spending and reducing government deficits [explained above].

· Fiscal Policy: it is the use of government expenditure and revenue collection (taxation) to influence the economy. Two main instruments: a) government expenditure b) taxation. This will include all changes related all types of taxes and government expenditure.

· Monetary Policy:

o Monetary policy is the process by which the monetary authority of a country controls the supply of money, often targeting a rate of interest for the purpose of promoting economic growth and stability.

o Monetary policy rests on the relationship between the rates of interest in an economy, that is, the price at which money can be borrowed, and the total supply of money. Monetary policy uses a variety of tools to control one or both of these, to influence outcomes like economic growth, inflation, exchange rates with other currencies and unemployment.

· Debt Trap: You will never find this word in official budget speech. (As it involved two dangerous words one, DEBT and two, TRAP, any government will try to ignore.) Each government around the world takes loans [read debt] (Every government is like our Mr. Natwarlal) every year and after paying interest for around 2-3 decades it find this loan hard to bear so takes another loan [read debt]. In short, Debt taken to repay your earlier debt is called debit trap.

Jasmine Revolution and its global Repercussions

Some say that daily consumption of Jasmine helps in preventing cancer. Sometimes an autocratic rule is like a rigid cancer. What Jasmine tea does to cancer, Jasmine revolution in Arab has done exactly the same in many countries in Western Asia and Arab. Although the Jasmine revolution which we are talking about has nothing to do with actual Jasmine flower. But Jasmine is the name of national flower of the country, Tunisia, where it all began.

Jasmine Revolution, better known as “Arab Spring” started in Tunisia when a young man set himself on fire to oppose corrupt police/governance. This incident triggered a mass movement against 26-year old dictatorship in Tunisia. People of Tunisia were fed up with fast deteriorating living condition, lack of political freedom and unprecedented corruption. The uprising spread like a wildfire in countries like Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and Syria in that order. In Egypt, it ended 30 year autocratic rule, although shown on paper as democratic – by rigging elections, of Hosni Mubarak. Same was the case in Yemen, a poor country, where people had a lot of angst against growing corruption, unemployment and economic hardship. Next comes the land which is very rich in Oil and natural gas, Libya. The revolt against 41-year, capricious and autocratic rule of Muammer Qaddafi was a major part of Arab spring. Next comes Syria, where protest against 10-year old rule of Bashar al Assad was demanded by people.

Oil, China, Israel, geo-strategic interests, and weapons are five major reasons why US and its western ally are akin to shape Arab revolution to fulfill their own agenda. The Arab revolution is likely to change the regional balance of power decisively. The US-led “axis of moderation” and Iran-led “axis of resistance” are unlikely to endure the current upheaval. The contest between Iran and US has intensified after the Arab uprising. It will also affect a long war between Israel and Palestine. Whereas India is mainly concerned about three things: large oil supplies, their own people living in those countries and larger geo-strategic impact on west Asian neighboring countries.

The year 2011 will be remembered as the year of change for entire Middle East region where this revolution happened. It has certainly changed the power equations world over. Next decade will be important for countries like Israel, which has major threats from Palestine and Iran; US, who has just recovered from recession and has tactful interest in natural oil reserves in that region; Iran, who wants more amicable relationship with Middle East countries.

Hi, Guys
I'm Sun Campus Ambassador and promoting Java (including Net Beans) and OpenSolaris which are the products of Sun Microsystems.

During my 1 year I found lots of students asking me from where to start Java ? and what are the resources where we can learn Java? What are different part of Java Technology.

Here I'm starting my preceding with Basics not will go further on Question HOW TO START WITH JAVA???

• What is Java?
• Java is a programming language expressly designed for use in the distributed environment of the Internet. It was designed to have the "look and feel" of the C++ language, but it is simpler to use than C++ and enforces an object-oriented programming model. Java can be used to create complete applications that may run on a single computer or be distributed among servers and clients in a network. It can also be used to build a small application module or applet for use as part of a Web page. Applets make it possible for a Web page user to interact with the page.

  Ask your Java questions at ITKnowledgeExchange.com

  The major characteristics of Java are:

• The programs you create are portable in a network. (See portability.) Your source program is compiled into what Java calls bytecode, which can be run anywhere in a network on a server or client that has a Java virtual machine. The Java virtual machine interprets the bytecode into code that will run on the real computer hardware. This means that individual computer platform differences such as instruction lengths can be recognized and accommodated locally just as the program is being executed. Platform-specific versions of your program are no longer needed.
• The code is robust, here meaning that, unlike programs written in C++ and perhaps some other languages, the Java objects can contain no references to data external to themselves or other known objects. This ensures that an instruction can not contain the address of data storage in another application or in the operating system itself, either of which would cause the program and perhaps the operating system itself to terminate or "crash." The Java virtual machine makes a number of checks on each object to ensure integrity.
• Java is object-oriented, which means that, among other characteristics, an object can take advantage of being part of a class of objects and inherit code that is common to the class. Objects are thought of as "nouns" that a user might relate to rather than the traditional procedural "verbs." A method can be thought of as one of the object's capabilities or behaviors.
• In addition to being executed at the client rather than the server, a Java applet has other characteristics designed to make it run fast.
• Relative to C++, Java is easier to learn. (However, it is not a language you'll pick up in an evening!)

Java was introduced by Sun Microsystems in 1995 and instantly created a new sense of the interactive possibilities of the Web. Both of the major Web browsers include a Java virtual machine. Almost all major operating system developers (IBM, Microsoft, and others) have added Java compilers as part of their product offerings.

The Java virtual machine includes an optional just-in-time compiler that dynamically compiles bytecode into executable code as an alternative to interpreting one bytecode instruction at a time. In many cases, the dynamic JIT compilation is faster than the virtual machine interpretation.

JavaScript should not be confused with Java. JavaScript, which originated at Netscape, is interpreted at a higher level, is easier to learn than Java, but lacks some of the portability of Java and the speed of bytecode. Because Java applets will run on almost any operating system without requiring recompilation and because Java has no operating system-unique extensions or variations, Java is generally regarded as the most strategic language in which to develop applications for the Web. (However, JavaScript can be useful for very small applications that run on the Web client or server.)

This is introduction just to read once Don't worry if u didn't understand some of the concepts.

• Installation of Java
• You need to install Java Software as follows(only for CORE Java applications):
• Check whether Java is install in your computer:
• CHECK JAVA
• If its installed skip the below step :
• Install Java:
• Follow the steps and install Java after Downloading it(if you have setup no need to download it).
• Checking Java Properly Working:
• Open Command Prompt: Start-> Run ->write "cmd"
• Change the directory using "cd" command and traverse to bin directory in jdk's folder. Commanly C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.5.0\bin
  
• Write "java" as command and see whether it displays options for this command if cmd says command not known java is not installed properly.(Go through the installation procedure again)
• Repeat the above step for "javac" command also. (n.b., We will use javac and java command for compiling and Running )

Congratulation you have installed one of the most secure programming language.

Now you can work in it.

I suggest you to install Net Beans 6.1 IDE

• Download Net Beans 6.1
• Order Free DVD

Also follow the tutorials from

• http://www.javapassion.com/
  

I'll be posting some of the basic tutorials in my next posts. In between if you have any doubt or problem kindly post your Id in reply or simply send me and e-mail saumil.mehta@sun.com

Thanks ,
~SAUMIL