Dreams...Imagination... and Inspiration

How UART works and its Interface with Bluetooth

2010-12-29T08:55:00.001+05:30

Devices equipped with Bluetooth technology support wireless point-to-point connections, as well as wireless access to LAN, mobile phone network, the Ethernet and home networking. The connectivity between two Bluetooth equipped devices is carried out as serial communication. Bluetooth technology delivers the received data and receives the data to be transmitted to and from a host system through a host controller interface (HCI). The most popular host controller interface today is either a UART or a USB link.

Now, even though we can use USB or UART, the most commonly used HCI is UART because of following reasons:

◦If UART is used software overhead is very less
◦Its highly cost effective.

A Universal Asynchronous Receiver and Transmitter (UART) is used for communication with serial input and serial output devices. Serial transmission reduces the cost and complexity of the wirings at the expense of speed, and for many applications this is a desired trade-off. The UART takes bytes of data and transmits the individual bits in a sequential fashion. At the destination, a second UART re-assembles the bits into complete bytes. Synchronization for the serial data stream is accomplished by adding start and stop bits to the transmit data to form a data character. Data integrity is insured by attaching a parity bit to the data character. The parity bit is checked by the receiver for any transmission bit errors.

To a host system, the UART appears as an 8-bit input and output port that it can read from and write to. Whenever the host has data to be sent, it just sends these data to the UART in byte format (8-bit wide), whenever the UART receives data from another serial device it will buffer these data in its FIFO (again 8-bit wide), then it will indicate the availability of these data to the host through an internal register bit, or through a hardware interrupt signal.

Above is the block diagram of SC16C650B UART. Let me explain the functions of UART using these blocks in brief manner.
Register Select is used to decode the address of register which the host wants to access. DataBus and Control Logic is how the host transmits and receive data to/from UART. There are several registers in UART. Some of them are TransmitHoldRegister(THR), Receive Hold Register(RHR) – both as name suggests is used to hold Transmitting and Receiving data. Then there is Interrupt Enable register used to enable/disable different kinds of Interrupts supported by UART. There are other registers used to control FIFO, Modem, Data format, etc. The Shift Registers are used to break the byte information for sequential transfer OR assemble the bits using FIFO to form Byte data.

Now that we understand the functionality of UART , lets see how it is interfaced with Bluetooth. Consider the following diagram

This is typical Bluetooth Controller architecture. The single bluetooth chip will encompass till Link Manager layer. Now this bluetooth Chip when to be interfaced with the system will do it in following manner:

The host controller sends the data using D[7-0] channel and address using A[0-2] channel. The UART chip receives these data and using shift registers and FIFO , it converts into serial data. These serial bits will be then sent to Bluetooth Controller (Rx,Tx,CTS,RTS) and then transmitted via RF channel.

This is a brief overview of working of UART explained using SC16C650B and its interface with Bluetooth.

For more info visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_asynchronous_receiver/transmitter.

This post was originally posted by me on http://www.techyspot.com/2010/10/how-uart-works-and-its-interface-with-bluetooth/

Cheers :)
Ajith

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Android SD card Boot up Sequence

2010-10-20T12:56:00.001+05:30

When you are porting Android, one important feature to check is SD card mount. Needless to say this feature is needed for many functions to operate correctly. Couple of such examples are Bluetooth OPP and FTP profiles.

SD card boot up sequence is as follows :

mmc/sd driver recognises the inserted card, makes device object for every partitions with unique combination of MAJOR:MINOR numbers and generate uevent.
uevent comes to user-level via kernel socket NETLINK_KOBJECT_UEVENT.
vold handles this uevent in uevent.c::handle_block_event().
vold reads boot sector to determine, how many partitions remains on storage.
If all partitions are found, vold will start "mount" procedure.
If mount is successfully finished, vold sends "volume_mounted:/sdcard" to com.android.server.MountListener.
com.android.server.MountListener dispatches message to com.android.server.MountService by handleEvent() method.
com.android.server.MountService provides to framework the logical interpretation of vold actions such as update icon notification and forwards command from user to vold.
So, in our case MountService::notifyMediaMounted() will generate Intent.ACTION_MEDIA_MOUNTED.
This intent will start com.android.providers.media.MediaScanner which will start searching the media content and makes the database. Parallely com.android.settings.deviceinfo.Memory will update memory status.

Some important files to remember for SD card boot sequence are mmc.c, ums.c vold.c, voldmgr.c, uevent.c. These files will be useful in debugging SD card boot up sequence. The configuration file of SD card is vold.conf and is present in /etc.

Cheers :)

Ajith

My first flight

2010-10-06T09:30:00.001+05:30

               Back when I was a kid, I used to run around open ground hoping to see the aircraft whenever there was sound of a plane!. We used to make paper planes and fly it over and over again. Hell!! we even caught Dragon flies , tied their tail to strings and played chopper :). All those time I always used to wonder what will it be like to see clouds from above for a change.
               Just when I was about to leave Deloitte and join Samsung, I was offered work onsite(US office) couple of months in future. Of course I left it for a better job but missing an opportunity to fly at least once was always bothering me. A month into my Samsung job, my Deloitte manager pings me in Gtalk and says :

"
Manager: Hi Ajith
how are you

me: Hello Manager..
I am doing good.

manager: gr8

me: how about you?

manager: gud
u missed the opertunity....your bad luck
X1 and X2 going to onsite"

PS: Manager, X1 and X2 is substituted for actual name :D

                 While I was happy for X1 and X2, I was partly sad not because I missed opportunity to USA, but because I missed opportunity of flying.Few months later in Samsung I get opportunity to fly abroad. To South Korea, a place of vast cultural extravaganza. At very last moment I pack my bags and get ready to see real life-size airplanes :). Of course something HAD to go wrong and it started to downpour in Bangalore. Heavy rains are rare in Bangalore and rain gods just decided to toy with my flight experience :| . I take my luggage into cab amidst all the water and finally start journey to airport. During journey, all I could remember was The Catalyst song from Linkin Park and all my friends in Bangalore. I messaged a few of them "good-bye" and started enjoying ride, while "Bangalorean -taxi meter" started ticking :s.
                  If you have been to Ulsoor in Bangalore, you can see other side of the city. Crowded and noisy like fish market. After having seen this and the Metro construction sites, I never thought Bangalore had clean roads at all. But I was proved wrong when we passed by New airport road. Magnificently lit , this structure is testament to all that is clean and beautiful. I met my Samsung senior at airport traveling with me to Korea and asked him to guide me since I have no knowledge whatsoever about airports and rules followed. Check - in , Custom and Immigration goes on and I finally rest in passenger lounge. Sitting here I think about scene in Friends when Ross declares his love to Rachel at airport and I wonder if that's ever possible in Bangalore airport with all these Police and Security :)
                 At 2.20 I board the plane, a beautiful beast. I had booked window seat :D :D. Few mins later , take-off ...Even though it was dark I could see enough to distinguish large objects. Finally as seat belt sign was off, I began exploring the plane for stuffs I can access :). I was like inquisitive kid in between candies wondering what the next one would taste like. Though other people were sleeping , I couldn't go to sleep since I wanted to savor every single moment of this trip. Air hostess then gave me Chicken - like sandwich :(. The small T.V in front of me kept giving details of the craft. The highest of all that was recorded was 39000ft, -52 deg C outside temp and ground speed of some 685 - I forgot unit of this one. I opened the shutter of the window and touched the glass. The coldness outside had affected glasses and I could feel my fingers becoming very cold & numb. The air hostess asked me to close the shutter :( :( and I began switching channels to find "Bolt" being played.
              I thought I would see the movie but I fell asleep few mins into the movie :). An hour later air hostess wakes me up for breakfast :O !!! . I had food 1.5 hr back and now breakfast!!.. and my head is buzzing because I had only 1 hr of sleep. I open the shutter to see bright light and clouds brimming over the edge of the flight's blades. When the plane banks left/right, it seems as though entire globe has just been tilted for better view. Its an amazing sight to see and it made me envy all the pilots who get to do this all the time.

              Our flight landed at HK International airport. It's a giant beast with almost all you need in life; at one place. One side of this airport is covered by Mountains and hills brushing against clouds. The other side; the open side is surrounded by sea. Air-crafts landing here is beautiful sight to see. We went around , ate some special sandwich and before we knew it we were on our connecting flight to Incheon, S.Korea. The above pic was taken on this flight. As we landed at Incheon , I could immediately see the structural differences in building architectures. Every other standing giants here are work of best artisans. I came to know that Incheon was the #1 airport few years back and its currently #2 . I was keen to experience what jet-lag is but heck I didn't feel anything. I think its highly over-rated :).
               The Visa stamping lady just saw Samsung and then started stamping all our Passports. She didn't even bother to check our faces and the same went on with luggage, Security and taxi guy. It seems Samsung for one is highly influential and no doubt I got to know how people respected it in Korea. I collected my first Korean Wons from a very beautiful foreign exchange lady :). I must agree that almost 90% of Korean women have the most beautiful legs I have ever seen :) and when I see them all I can think is Monica(in Friends) saying "hamana hamana hamana" :D.
               After getting our luggage back we called our respective Guest Houses and headed for beautiful and hopefully less hectic 3 months of our lives, thus ending my first and one of the most beautiful experience.

Cheers :)
Ajith

PS: Sorry for a late and few number of posts. I was very busy with work . Thanks!

Bluetooth Setup in Android after Porting

2010-08-09T14:42:00.004+05:30

Following is configuration needed to be done to run Bluetooth on fresh android machine(after porting).

1 . set_bluetooth_power(1) – rfkill i.e. set power i.e. write 1 to /sys/class/rfkill/rfkill0/state
this can be done by command line or in bluetooth.c file
Make the changes in Bluetooth.c of (system/Bluetooth/bluedroid).Change the state of the rfkill0 to zero before enabling the power to Bluetooth (these changes are specific to chipset).
In bt_enable function copy following (relative to existing code - 3rd line)

if (set_bluetooth_power(0) < 0) goto out;
usleep(1000000); // 1000 ms retry delay
if (set_bluetooth_power(1) < 0) goto out; // This line will is usually present
usleep(1000000); // 1000 ms retry delay

2.Starts Hciattach daemon- Either from command line or Init.rc as service.
#hciattach -s 115200 /dev/s3c_serial1 any 115200 flow
I was using samsung s3c6410 board with broadcom chipset in it.
Note the baud rate and initial speed.The above will be through command line. If you get Device set up complete then you can check if device in running or not using hciconfig command.
In hciconfig if the device is not running m you can give #hciconfig hci0 up command to attach hci to UART
If you are using Init.rc method then insert following in init.rc file:

service hciattach /system/bin/logwrapper /system/bin/hciattach -s 115200 /dev/s3c_serial1 any 115200 flow
user root
group bluetooth net_bt_admin
disabled
oneshot

service bluetoothd /system/bin/logwrapper /system/bin/bluetoothd -n /etc/bluez/main.conf
socket bluetooth stream 660 bluetooth bluetooth
socket dbus_bluetooth stream 660 bluetooth bluetooth
# init.rc does not yet support applying capabilities, so run as root
# & let hcid drop uid to bluetooth with the right linux capabilities
group bluetooth net_bt_admin misc
disabled

Build the kernel again , for changes to reflect after flashing.

3. create hci_sock() and send HCIDEVUP command
This step is taken care by code in bluetooth.c file.Following will be present in bt_enable function
ioctl(hci_sock, HCIDEVUP, HCI_DEV_ID);
Note that hciattach.c will contain each of dev type descriptions. You can also use #hciattach -l to view them

4. Starts bluetoothd daemon
If done using init.rc , bluetoothd is started automatically after hciattach daemon get started when clicked from bluetooth settings. Else you use following command:
#start bluetoothd

You can check the processes running at that moment to check the hciattach and bluetoothd services.

Cheers and Happy coding :)

Tata Photon+ Review

2010-07-26T13:27:00.007+05:30

Annnnnnd The Review is...................... IT SUCKSsssssssssssssszzzzzzzzzzz

I bought a new photon+ device through corporate connection. The sales person took 2400 amount and said he will get the device by next day(afternoon). When it was time , they neither came nor called. I got hold of their number somehow and called them. They said they will get it by evening 7.30pm on same day. Next thing i know, I'm scolding them at 7.30 and had to cancel next days plans because these people now said it cant be delivered on said date. So I get pissed off and start yelling at them. They reason it by saying that there was Audit going on that day. I get more pissed off and said i will register complaint in Consumer Court. Finally that guy gets afraid and 2 days later I get my device-Without Activated.

At this moment I have lost all my hope in Tata Photon Customer Service. These people now say it will take 2 more days to get activated. 4 days later, I come to know that they haven't submitted my proofs and want more proofs from me.
Initially I had given them , money, HR letter-proof of address, Company Id card xerox and Pan card copy. Later I found out they haven't activated and their process doesn't accept Pan Card as valid Government ID . What CRAP!!!!!!

So on 5th day I give them Passport copy, Finally it gets activated that night, but I'm not given my account details. When I called They said that I will receive it with my first bill. What the hell am I supposed to do without my acc details for one month and how could I track my usage. Finally a customer care executive calls me and gives me the details 8 days later.

Amidst all these, Speed never crossed 118KBps even though the signal strength shows 98%. Also average speed itself is 25KBps with signal strength of 96% almost all the time. I know there might be lot of reasons for low speed. But common I should at least get average speed of more than 60KBps... :(

My bill arrives after 3 weeks and I pay it. A week after that my connection gets BARRED. The reason : Address verification not completed. The thing is I was out of station when they initially came for address verification, But I had told them I will be back 4 days later. They never came back !!!. Further they had talked to owner of my house and confirmed that I live in the said place, but according to their process I need to be seen by them at that place. Now it been 8 days since my connection has been barred. I have lodged complaint on 2nd day itself , requesting for Address re-verification. But I haven't received any response.

The customer Service people suck. They talk rudely and every time you call them, they will just put you on hold and give you new request numbers one after other. Their process is faulty and none of them knows when actually address verification is done. They even gave me a phone number of local outlet for my help. But it turns out that number is not assigned to anyone and still they have it in their Database. They give you false information and apologies every time you say this and keep transferring the call.

One more thing is , whenever I called. my call gets routed to Kolkata Call center . they agreed that system itself is faulty .. God!!!!.... I should have recorded that. Its been week and half now and I'm still waiting for my connection to get Unbarred :( :( :( and saddest part is you cant return the device(Rs.2400), so the money goes down the drain if you no longer want stupid photon+ . They SUCK

Also Check this :
http://www.mouthshut.com/product-reviews/Tata_Indicom_Photon~~~-925106865.html

Final days of My Engineering, My Placements and a Change

2010-07-23T13:21:00.005+05:30

Change Is Good :)
28th June 2009, 6.15 AM, We arrive at Hyderabad..
The place which I thought I was destined to go after our College placements.
I got down from train "Bangalore to Hyderabad, Kachiguda Express". Me and 3 other friends are lurking to find a coolie..Especially me.. with this king-size suitcase with all the college books in it.. I thought it would be useful to brush-up some concepts which will help me at Work, lol :D.

I was about to join Deloitte. A company, many MBA grads’ dream about.
Well I'm strictly technical person and not very interested in any management related work; at least at present. So why am I here...???Well many people do think that Deloitte is purely a management company with no scope of "technical/technology development"... Well they are seriously mistaken... to some extent... (more on this ,in my future posts :D).

We take cab from Kachiguda to Hi-tech City, a place where accommodation was provided by our company. This post is specially about the thoughts I recalled during this journey. Every thought was about college days; I was having a flashback :D

Every engineering student dreams of this day.. "The placement Day".. its synonymous to "The Judgment Day" with each student being Arnie...The thing to protect being our pride, self confidence and small amount of dignity that’s left after VTU Board Exams and "The Futuristic Android" being the companies who try to take all that’s left of our pride and self confidence...

It was July 17th 2008, A company which I thought I would apply for, visited our campus. My first written test. This happens sometime in the evening. I was all happy that the day had finally arrived. I arrive at test room and see huge number of 7th sem students, which probably I might not have seen on any other given day in college. Now I realize what the word competition actually meant, my self-confidence still strong :).Finally test starts, I bang my head for another hour and half and finally get out of the test room. On my way back to the placement cell I hear my friends telling "test was so easy" which sent shivers down my spine because it wasn't for me. Initially when I wrote the test; I thought even though I might not clear the Interview round; I might just pass the written test. Well.. when the test results were announced it happened so that all around me were getting selected, my friends, non-friends, everybody. I was confused, disappointed, all my self-confidence had just went down the drain.

I looked at other people who were not selected and got a slight comfort in knowing that some deserving people didn't get selected. "Deserving" being people who study a lot and pretend they don't and when exam results are announced they will be in top 20-30 atleast :) (FYI… I do not belong to that category; though a lot of people think I study a lot). Anyways.. That night was a disappointment not just to me but also to many of my college mates. I spent night thinking was I not good enough to compete? or am I totally incompetent.

This was later followed by series of companies, many interviews, and many more nights of such thinking. Sometimes I would have lost the interview at final stage; making the time after that even worse. Well during this time most of those "Deserving" people were placed and happy .. and their only motto was to come to college and watch other placements. I personally thought that either they came to college just to advertise that they are placed or they came to support their friends during other placements, with the latter being very rare.

I know many of us would have spent hours in front of mirror practicing how to talk during interview, atleast I did. More than revising core subjects (algos, DS, C, C++, OS, DBMS, Networks etc); I spent hours talking to air and walls. My ideology was; if you can talk, you can even convince the other person that you are an Alien heheee :). But I always make these stupid time table to study those core subjects but they never work out, and I end up watching movie or finishing another Call Of Duty game. But I do have to admit that by July end I was placed in TechMahindra , one of the telecom company in India. But this was just a backup for me because it was a non-dream company in our college, meaning they give you very less pay package, they can post you anywhere in India and most probably you will end up doing work you don't like. But atleast now I had one job.

TechMahindra Placements is another funny story, where I pretended that I didn't want to get selected(because of fear of getting rejected, friends giving stupid remarks and to avoid "Oh I'm Sorry man" kind of phrases). Well anyways written and interview were really really easy and yes I got selected. Truly speaking, for a 7th sem student being placed is happiest moment in life. It's like giving a kid truck full of candy bars and saying I have still got few more trucks ,on their way :).

I know many people who, after getting few rejects or because of less percentage marks might say they don't believe in placements, might go for higher studies etc etc. But truth is each one of them dreamt of getting "Placed" atleast once.

Its late August; one month since many dream companies started visiting our college and I still haven't been placed in one of those.( Dream companies are those who’s pay packages are good.) .Then one day I hear company called Manhattan Associates visiting our college with decent pay package. I decide to write this company for 3 reasons:
1. I am afraid that my skills are not good enough for “High paying” companies to select me.
2. I heard rumors that after this company's visit; very few companies were going to visit in September.
3. I HAD to get placed.
Anyways.. Same routine of written test, technical interview and HR interview goes and I get placed in this Supply chain Management Company. Frankly I didn't even know the meaning of that word till I started working in Deloitte :). So here I’m..7th sem student ..."placed"... happy... sailing on cloud 9 ...but not for long. Like many Bollywood movies my life is filled with drama, action, comedy , villains etc . By this time new word was introduced in my dictionary; "Recession".

Next one month I spend time looking at Manh stocks and impact of recession on Manh. Every day being worse than the one before, I spend time in fear, talking to myself, convincing myself "everything's going to be alright". By late October I had received a mail from Manh saying my offer has been deferred till further notice. I referred dictionary and found what deferred meant  lol... I was devastated.. It was like at one moment I was flying high on a ship made of gold and very next moment it’s hi-jacked by pirates and they just ordered me to "walk the plank".

"This part of my life is called: CHANGE"- After this incident, I knew I hardly have any chance of getting placed in good company (Because by late November placements kind of stagnates with very few companies visiting ) and I have just hit "The Abysmal”. I lost my Job, my personal life was swinging off the charts and all hope in my life found a new home -Dustbin, I had nothing else to lose. I still had that TechMahindra job but I stopped counting on it since they didn't look that steady during recession.

It’s December and companies have almost stopped coming to the college. Well it’s at this time that I realized that all these 7 semesters of books, study and crap lead me to nothing.. I wanted to do so much during my early engg life but never did, thinking it will either affect my studies or my personal life. My roommate saw me in this pathetic situation and somehow succeeded in bringing me out of it. He and his friends helped me to come out of this mess in no time. Well a lot of things happened during this time but bottom line is , it took me 3 yrs to find a good friend :).

I did things, I never even dreamt of and I liked it. I heard many of my class mates were surprised to see such a transformation in me ,in such a short time.. Frankly I didn't give a shit about it and I didn't care. All I wanted to do now was enjoy rest of my time in college. The next few months of my adventure was going to compensate all the time of my past 3 yrs :D .Because of these last 6-8 months, today I can proudly say “been there, don that” :) for most of the conversations :)

Later one night in mid December, I sat alone near college temple -place where I usually study at night. I was looking at temple, and I felt like I should talk.. There was nobody, but still, I wanted to talk. Anyways I spoke to myself amidst the rays of light emitted from street lights. I looked at temple, doors closed, the Shine of lamp inside the closed doors somehow managing to escape the walls and spread light around the temple. I didn't pray for a good job or some handsome salary. I wished to get a one last chance to prove myself again. I asked for the same and went back to hostel to enjoy what’s left of my college days.

The very next day I heard that Deloitte was visiting our college in few days with same pay package as that of Manh. I was eligible to write it. On THE day, I finished the written test, thought I wouldn’t make it, thanked god for one more chance and started packing my bags to visit my hometown. Just then I received a call from my friend saying "Man, you are shortlisted". Joy, Happiness, lost of emotions wanted to be at same place at same time :) I quickly got ready for Group Discussion round. To tell you the truth, even today I don't have a slightest clue how I got shortlisted, because my written test went really bad, atleast according to me..

Anyways at this position I knew there was none to stop me, I somehow knew I was going to make it through :D . I qualified for Final interview and completed it successfully. I was selected. By the end of 3rd week of December I was ...PLACED ... AGAIN...: D

I realized that my wish had come true, I realized that I had to enjoy as much as I can in this life. I realized that every time I had enjoyed, every time I stopped worrying about stupid things in my life, good things happened. By Jan 10 I had my offer letter in my hand.

During my final sem, I knew that there were many of my friends who were still worried about their placements. Some losing their good jobs, some getting alternative ones. One of my friend had to go through really tough time to find a job after college. When he heard this story he laughed and told me about how he had to dwell from one company to another just to find "One Decent Job". I realized that what I had been through is nothing compared to these people who even after losing their good jobs, had the courage to go on a quest to find new one.

According to me Job Placements are 99.99% pure luck and small 0.01% of your hard work. I have known people, whom I thought would never find job, get placed in companies I couldn't even dream of. But then, I guess they enjoy their lives much more than I do :)

...... I realized that our cab had just stopped and we had reached Hi-tech City, The Service apartment was called At-homes. We reached at around 7.30 AM, and finding this place wasn’t that difficult :D. I took my luggage out, signed on registration ledger of Hotel and went to my room. My mind ;still thinking about how final year of engg had changed my perception. I opened the door to find posh, cozy, apartment :D :D :D. I went inside my room, huuuuuuuuge bed welcoming me, Plasma TV, AC's, Bathtub and much much more. Actually I was to share that room with another person but he never joined Deloitte. So I had Whole of that room for me for entire 15 days :D..

Guess my enjoyment finally paid off … with Interest :D

PS: Pardon me for any spelling/grammatical errors. I wrote this one in a hurry :|

10 best ways to Quit your job

2010-07-02T16:10:00.011+05:30

Found this while surfing..... Read and Enjoy :D
I know most of you might had this thought while at work ; here are few choices to fuel your imaginations :)

10 Best Ways to Quit Your Job

1. Do it the OG (orginal gangster….or as I like to say, gangsta) way:
Bust into your boss’s office, proclaim that you quit in a voice that could be heard for miles and walk out victoriously.

2. Go to work naked:
Haven’t you ever wanted to see what would happen if you went to work naked? Well then go ahead! When your boss comes up to fire you, one up him and pronounce that you quit. Killing two birds with one skantily clad stone.

3. Sleep at your desk:
Again, the prospect of openly sleeping at your desk must be appealing. Then go for it! Just remember to have the upper hand, never let your boss speak first. But even if the mistakes occurs, after he tells you that you’re fired, stand up angrily, look him in the eye and say “I’M FIRED? NO, YOU’RE FIRED!” and walk out triumphantly.

4. Make a move on your boss:
Whether your boss is hott or not, it’s the principle of the matter. Do a nice little whistle and maybe combo it with a hearty ass grab; you and your coworkers will get a nice kick out of it and then you can kindly pronounce that you quit. It’s a win win situation. Just be careful of office sexual harrasment laws, but really, who pays attention to those anyway?

5. Go Vaudeville on a VERY IMPORTANT, prospective client:
When you meet said client, have one of those joy buzzers ready and raring in your hand. One, two punch it with a nice water squirting pocket flower, but instead of squirting water make sure it squirts black ink onto his very expensive suit. It’ll score you major cool points in the ofice and then you can tell TWO people that you quit. The more the merrier.

6. Babysit at work:
Start a babysitting company and pick 10 of the most annoying and whiny 3 year olds of the bunch to take with you to work one day. Let them run a muck, bothering everyone by crying and releasing bodily fluids. Come on, that’s just genious! Then as your boss looks at you while a terrible two year old is hanging from his hair, smile and politely tell him that you quit. A good addinage would be to point out the spit up that is probably laying on his shoudler.

7. Call prostitutes in to your office:
Have about 5 dominatrix, leather bound woman come into your work, and go to your door. After having made sure your boss has spotted the “fun brigade” going into your office, shut the door and proceed to make blatantly loud sexual noises. Come out disheveled, and sweaty and pay them all in front of your boss. Give him a nice little wink and offer one of them to him and them tell him the great news. “I just don’t have enough stamina for the job, I quit.”

8. Bring your “home-made” movies to watch in the coffee room:
Sitdown while everyone is having lunch and plop in a nice tape of you and whoever doing the nasty. Make sure to sit and critique yourself like an oplympic judge; “Oh yeah that landing could have been much tighter,” or “Man I just wasn’t up to par that night.” Once news spreads to your boss, make sure to offer him a viewing of the tapes before you give him your two weeks notice.

9. Burn the place down over your stapler:
Bring in a broken stapler and make a raucous when it doesn’t seem to work. Start banging it on your desk and cuss it out. Finally when you’ve had enough, take out your strategically placed tank of gasoline and pour it all over the stapler and hence whatever is around it i.e. your desk and the floor. Light a match and watch the show. When the fireworks are over, look very satisfied, go up to your boss and proclaim that you can’t put up with the lack of proper equipment in the office and walk out.

10. Do it Edward Norton Style:
Must I even reiterate. We have all seen the famous scene in “Fight Club” where Edward Norton’s character walks in to his boss’s office and beats himself up to the pulp, only to be found begging mercilesly for his boss to stop when the police arrives. He ends up with full pay and anything he wants from the office forever, without ever having to lift a finger again. It takes balls, but the outcome is well worth it.

All you guys reading let me know which is your fav .. :D I like 7th & 9th one the most.. Though all are really good :D hehe

Cheers :)

My Favourite Dilbert strips(early 90's)

2010-06-22T15:31:00.001+05:30

Enjoy The paradigm truth of a typical corporate office !!

Cheers :)

New Lappy !!!!!

2010-06-08T21:29:00.001+05:30

Got my new lappy this week :D :D :D

Awesome... Inspiron with 512 mb ATI 5470 :) 4 gb ddr3 ram with 3M l3 cache

Check the entire config here : http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1231291

The Infamous "IBM Black Team"

2010-05-26T13:15:00.004+05:30

Though a developer , sometimes while at work I wonder what would be life like if I was a tester. Well, the reason for such a thought is that most of our college placements lands a fresher in a testing/maintenance job.

Nowadays, these recruiters have a formula that students, fresh out of college should be exposed to testing job first, gain experience and later may/may not be suitable for development projects. I had a shocking revelation when I heard from one of my friend who turns out to be a HR(recruitment) in a consulting company about 'how they recruit and categorize students'. Their funda is colleges are divided into different categories, top one consists of all IIT's and premier institutes. Next comes NIT's and some prominent colleges across India. The last one being rest of the colleges.The top category students are without doubt put into projects of their choice, middle ones are split into development and maintenance(but mostly development), and last categorized students land mostly into maintenance jobs.

Well I have nothing against testing/maintenance job , but only drawback of this procedure is that some talented people in Tier 2 and 3 land up in departments where they don't even have slightest interest to work.
The least they could do is clarify the job position/description during the interview and ask the student what field they might be interested in and if it is OK with them if put into testing. But that is done only by few companies.

Enough said about development jobs, hell... this post is about a group of testers. Testing jobs are fun too, and I have even seen people from Tier 1 and 2 demanding those jobs. Yes! people that has happened. These people don't criticize about their jobs but rather find enjoyment in finding faults(trivial/complex) inside codes written by top and most praised developers. They would then meet up just to laugh at the kind of bugs they encountered and mock those developers who "can't even write a standard code" :D ...

"There are two ways to write code: write code so simple there are obviously no bugs in it, or write code so complex that there are no obvious bugs in it."
-- C.A.R. Hoare

This post is dedicated to those talented testers who spend nights and days trying to detect and fix problem others have created; some of them who are my close friends :D. The story below is about the IBM's most feared group of testers.... "The Black Team".

Today's programming knowledge box is so huge that every software comes with bugs. But back In 60's software with bugs were considered defective. With software titled defective, no customer would buy such product. Such was the problem faced by IBM and they had to find a solution and fast....

The entire story is here :
http://www.t3.org/tangledwebs/07/tw0706.html

Please go through that article before reading any further.

Now, if you are a dedicated tester you must be filled with adrenaline rush by now :D . Personally I feel developer or tester , if you are having fun doing your job, well none can stop your progress. In fact, some testers are even paid more than a developer (again... in few companies).
I hope this post has boosted your morale :) ..... If you are still looking for more excitement please read the below article :

http://www.penzba.co.uk/GreybeardStories/TheBlackTeam.html

Though the author of this article doesn't guarantee the genuineness of the story, It's satisfying to think that it is true :D ....

Cheers & Happy Coding :)

August Flame

2010-05-20T14:39:00.007+05:30

Large, flame-red flower with greenish throat. One of the latest to bloom, extending the season longer.

Contribution can be in any form and Freedom can come in many different colors. I recently came across these words : "I'm programmer at heart and engineering student by choice". I realised.... my life has been synonymous to those words.
During engg days I always had urge to do something great, code such that people will remember you by. Alas! that never happened. I had ideas that might have turned to be "good code", but lack of inspiration and winter laziness made me sloppy. There were friends who would take initiative some times,I would join them like always, but all of us would lose interest at some point and give up. Still I had the urge but no courage to go forward and none to show light on path I wanted to travel.
Well seasons change, things change and people certainly do change. Over the course of time I have been majorly inspired by two people in Open Source world. One at distant place who started a revolution of his own and another who was 15 mins and Rs.20 bucks/auto-rickshaw ride away from my current place,a Sarvajna in programming world. Well, it does seem that things are finally falling in its place. I'm happy; because of these inspirations I've started contributing to free world. I have learnt a lot in past couple of months and thirst for such a knowledge is considerably growing, showing no signs of stopping....

A New August Flame in India. :)

Runway 9 Hyderabad !!!

2010-05-19T11:40:00.001+05:30

This post should have been much earlier but nevertheless....

Have you ever played Counter Strike... Do YOU love racing..... Do you love archery... If so .. Runway 9 is the place to be ...
We started off on a sunny Saturday from Panjagutta, Hyderabad,after completing a session at local school.
There were around 10 people ...3 cars .. and loads of enjoyment..

Runway 9 is located at Kompally Village on Medchal road. about 9 kilometers from Paradise, Secunderabad. The journey was about an hour long.. skipping the busy traffic; we finally reached there at around 4 in the evening.
When we entered we were awestruck at the sight of beautiful go-kart track just waiting for us.... :D , saw laser tag arena on the right , rock climbing just in front of us. Of course most of us were tired so we decided to go for refreshments first(I couldn't wait to race... but these ppl had to eat first :( ... ) .

After a couple of 'carbonated water' drinks and some sandwiches we were all set to rock the place...

When we entered track, officials informed us that there was 'Corporate booking' done that day , so track wont be available till 6.30 pm.. Cursing those officials and those corporates we finally rested our asses near the refreshment area...

We entered the indoor gaming place where there was Air hockey... TT,... pool and Foooooooooosball... :D
I always wanted to play Foosball but never got a chance before;Foosball addiction was mostly because of 'Friends' series. Well I got my hands on Foosball table and challenged couple of my friends to a match and I won... yey... I rule Foosball table :D .. Played Foosball for about half an hour and jumped to TT..

TT has always been my forte from college days.. Me , Shanker, Tolya and Gurpreet started playing.. This went on for another half an hour.. I frequently shifted between pool and TT bathing in enjoyment, not knowing for sure which one I like the most.. Tolya and me had neck2neck fight after doubles game ended..
Then came era of Rohit ... the self proclaimed God of Air Hockey ... Challenging his victims for a bet.He usually bets in multiples of 100 :) (He really doesn't know any other denominations :D ). After this trip we actually came to know why he proclaimed himself as God of Air Hockey as he pawned Nandu; match after match after match.. :)

Few mins later aastha, gurpreet, nandu, gunjan, pj and me reached rock climbing area.. I really didn't see a point to pay money to get all sweaty and tired and then brag about it.Of course most of them thought I would bring down entire set If I did climb.. So for sake of both of our beliefs I stayed back and watched these 'clueless' rock climbers embark on their artificial climbing experience :D. Actually Sitting there, watching them 'try to climb' was much much fun. When chatting I always used to type ROFL when there is a good joke, But now I was actually ROFL'ing hehe :D. Finally for sake of the pic I posed as though I'm climbing the rocks and with some trick photography I did look as though climbing without the help of ropes :D

Frankly, I don't remember if we managed Laser tags first or Karting , anyways here's the experience.10 ppl, 2 teams, 20 mins, nearly 120 bullets whichever ends first,nearly Rs.100/person. Well when the siren rang we were all set in our positions, hiding , sneaking , trying to get a glimpse of our opponent. Normally the night after playing CS1.6 I always gets dream that I'm real life CT/T :D , Well now it was true a, at least for 20 mins. All the CS experience was now coming into play with shots being fired from both the ends. 1 min and we were already 1 man down. I killed a couple of guys. Finally it boiled down to shanker and me on one side and tolya on the other. Game was poised. I finally decided to sacrifice myself for team :) and gave away my position; went to kill Tolya but died :'(. Finally shanker went on to kill Tolya to bringing us the VICTORY ..:)

We rushed to track to get slots to race.. It was 150 bucks .. 4 laps.. totally worth it. One of the finest track I've ever seen; this was among top tracks in India. Go Karts were mediocre but good. I entered the track, the supervisor explained the controls and within seconds ...Vrooooooooooom.......
awwwwwwwwwesoome... Finishing 4 laps we went to archery and shooting range , where our beloved Nandu hit 7/7 .. He never held a rifle in his life before but still managed7/7 :O ... We suspected foul play but din bother to investigate :D.

When coming back from range.. Amazing thing happened. The Corporates who had booked the tickets had many of them left out.So he went on distributing it for free , and I got 2 tickets.. that's 8 more laps. It was undoubtedly best time ever. After our 8 more laps of fun , we went on to see a pro driver test one of his karts. Mannn.. he was good.

Anyways it was nearly 8.30 and we all got back into our cars, wondering whether this kind of fun will ever be experienced again. :| One hell of a time :)

Android AIDL Simplified

2010-05-18T17:05:00.002+05:30

Target : Android developers

AIDL is functionality in Android to communicate with other processes and share the data. Though there are many IPC mechanisms Aidl is often chosen because:

Remote procedure calls (RPC) using Android’s inter-process communications largely replace the use of the Java Native Interface (JNI) in Android. In almost all cases, a remote procedure call is efficient enough to make it a superior alternative to loading a library—especially one that dynamically allocates a significant amount of memory—into the Java virtual machine’s address space. And if a process exposing an RPC interface fails, it is less likely to bring down the Android UI with it.

Android inter-process communication behaves a lot like JNI: the caller’s thread is blocked until the result is returned. Marshalling data across the IPC boundary is about the same amount of work as data conversions in JNI. But Binder-based remote procedure calls have a significant advantage over JNI: if non-Java code crashes or runs out of memory, the caller of a remote procedure call gets an error that must be handled, but the Java application does not crash. Remote procedure calls are a more robust way to call “external” libraries and subject the Java application to fewer risks in the form of clashing memory management strategies and other differences between Java applications and libraries implemented in languages other than Java.

Now that we know the advantage let me explain how it works:
1.Declare the functions which you want to make available to different processes in .aidl file
2. Define the functions in a Service file which may/may not use the function's capabilities.
3. Call the functions from remote/local process by sharing the aidl file in those processes.

If you are using ADT pluggin then aidl file is autocompiled when the project is compiled. Result is .java file.
When you share this aidl file in both projects/processes , .java file will be created. The caller needs this java file just to marshall the data to be sent and unmarshall the data received.

The important parts in generated .java file are:
1.The Stub Class is primary class you need to define the aidl declared functions.
2.There is asInterface class which will return the instance of the implemented functions.
3.Proxy Class has definitions of the data and functions you implemented.. This is almost similar to JNI file.
4.onTransact method is used to marshall and unmarshall the data shared..

Now when you share aidl file with caller and called process/activity and when call to the "shared function" is raised:
1.First The Caller program will check if it can obtain the binder object from asInterface.
2.Then it checks if the binder object was local implementation, if so returns then, no IPC call is needed so it returns the local object.
3. Otherwise it calls Proxy class and gets its own proper definition of the functions implemented.
4. onTransact(caller) method then marshalls the data to be sent , forms parcel objects and sends it to called process where actual definition lies.
5. onTransact method(called) receives the parcel object, unflattens it... Calls the functions ... and Returns the result to caller by forming a parcel again .
6.onTransact method (caller) unmarshalls it and returns the data , which can be accessed from binder object obtained from asInterface.

This is just basic flow and my understanding of Aidl . I request you to go through "OReilly Android Application Development May 2009" for detailed explanation.

The Download link of the my demo file is :

https://sourceforge.net/projects/androidaidldemo

Cheers :)

XML Editor - AjRa

2010-05-17T11:23:00.008+05:30

This Editor was developed as a part of my Final Year Project along with my friend Ravi Pandit.

The entire code is written in Java. It uses Swing Api's for GUI and Xerces parser.
It has XML-HTML conversion feature, XML Well-Formity Check, Tree conversion, DTD and XSD validation.

We developed this editor in a week's span and this had one major bug: The conversion from tree to source code is inconsistent for few files. Since we haven't completed code for the "tree parse to xml" part, we ask its users to modify the code according to their usage.

In any case, I will be releasing the improvised code shortly. Download link is provided below.
Here are few screen shots:

Download : http://www.mediafire.com/?ln0mtmzozzo

or

https://sourceforge.net/projects/ajraxmleditor/

The menacing RM -r

2010-05-14T17:29:00.002+05:30

This post is for my Engg friends who almost die searching for Rm -r functionality typically during their SHELL project :D

Tweak this program to match your needs..
Remember I have written this program so that it runs only on Absolute paths ...

Download : http://www.mediafire.com/file/mdnijyouyny/aj_rm.c

Cheers :)