My 50th Post: Java founder James Gosling joins Google

James Gosling, the notable programmer who founded Java at Sun Microsystems, has joined Google, a company locked in a lawsuit over how the technology is used in Android.

Gosling announced his new Google employment today on his blog. "I don't know what I'll be working on. I expect it'll be a bit of everything, seasoned with a large dose of grumpy curmudgeon," he said.

When Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems last year, Gosling decided not to join.

Oracle's ways evidently didn't agree with Gosling. He called Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison "Larry, Prince of Darkness." And, he said, "During the integration meetings between Sun and Oracle, where we were being grilled about the patent situation between Sun and Google, we could see the Oracle lawyer's eyes sparkle."

Oracle sued Google for patent and copyright infringement concerning how Android uses software called Dalvik that's very similar to Java. A prime benefit to using Java is that it shields programs from the differences of underlying hardware, such as different processors, letting a single program run on a variety of computing devices.

Google has some of the bubbling, research-intensive ethos that characterized Sun, but it's vastly more commercially successful. And unlike Sun, it's managed to become a household name.

Gosling was on his own for about a year. "One of the toughest things about life is making choices. I had a hard time saying 'no' to a bunch of other excellent possibilities," he said on his blog.

Was The Apollo Moon Landing Fake?

According to DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, the most important film of its kind since Oliver Stone's JFK - or since Rob Reiner's This is Spinal Tap, at any rate - images of Neil Armstrong's walk on the moon on July 20, 1969 were shown to the world through the lens of master film-maker Stanley Kubrick and were staged on the same Borehamwood, U.K., soundstage where Kubrick made his landmark film, 2001: A Space Odyssey.


Thursday, July 13, 2006: The original high-quality video tapes of Apollo 11, which were apparently sent by NASA to the National Archives and then were returned to the Goddard Space Flight Center, have gone missing (see the pdf by John M. Sarkissian).  The quality of the video broadcast to the world on television was of much, much lower quality than the video originally received – or manufactured! - by NASA.  Obviously, if you were going to fake the moon landing, you might have a motive to ‘lose’ the high-quality tapes, where artifacts of faking could be seen.  This was by far the biggest moment in the American space program.  You’d think they would care about hanging on to the evidence.

Motives

Several motives have been suggested for the U.S. government to fake the moon landings - some of the recurrent elements are:

1. Distraction - The U.S. government benefited from a popular distraction to take attention away from the Vietnam war. Lunar activities did abruptly stop, with planned missions cancelled, around the same time that the US ceased its involvement in the Vietnam War.
2. Cold War Prestige - The U.S. government considered it vital that the U.S. win the space race with the USSR. Going to the Moon, if it was possible, would have been risky and expensive. It would have been much easier to fake the landing, thereby ensuring success.
3. Money - NASA raised approximately 30 billion dollars pretending to go to the moon. This could have been used to pay off a large number of people, providing significant motivation for complicity. In variations of this theory, the space industry is characterized as a political economy, much like the military industrial complex, creating fertile ground for its own survival.
4. Risk - The available technology at the time was such that there was a good chance that the landing might fail if genuinely attempted.

The Soviets, with their own competing moon program and an intense economic and political and military rivalry with the USA, could be expected to have cried foul if the USA tried to fake a Moon landing. Theorist Ralph Rene responds that shortly after the alleged Moon landings, the USA silently started shipping hundreds of thousands of tons of grain as humanitarian aid to the allegedly starving USSR. He views this as evidence of a cover-up, the grain being the price of silence. (The Soviet Union in fact had its own Moon program).Proponents of the Apollo hoax suggest that the Soviet Union, and latterly Russia, and the United States were allied in the exploration of space, during the Cold war and after. The United States and the former Soviet Union today routinely engage in cooperative space ventures, as do many other nations that are popularly believed to be enemies. However, this suggestion is challenged by the impression of intense international competition that was under way during the Cold War and is not supported by the accounts of participants on either side of the Iron Curtain. Many argue that the fact that the Soviet Union and other Communist bloc countries, eager to discredit the United States, have not produced any contrary evidence to be the single most significant argument against such a hoax. Soviet involvement might also implausibly multiply the scale of the conspiracy, to include hundreds of thousands of conspirators of uncertain loyalty. http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Apollo_moon_landing_hoax_accusations


For Complete Info visit: http://www.apfn.org/apfn/moon.htm

Why I don’t want to be in Sachin's shoes - By HARSHA BHOGLE

Remember when you failed an examination. How many people recall that, your class, friends, relatives? You failed to make it to the IITs or IIMs. Who remembers. How many times have you had the feeling of being the best in your class, school , university, state….., you failed to get a visa stamped this quarter…, you missed a promotion this year…, how did it feel when you dad told you in your early twenties that you are good for nothing…..and now your boss tell you the same...     You keep introspecting and go into a shell when people most of whom don’t matter a dime in your life criticize you, back bite you, make fun of you. You are left sad and shattered and you cry when your own kin scoffs at you. You say I am feeling low today. It takes a lot from us to come out of these everyday situations and move on. A lot??? really?      Now here’s a man standing on the third man boundary in the last over of a world cup match. The bowler just has to bowl sensibly to win this game. What the man at the boundary sees is 4 rank bad bowls bowled without any sense of focus, planning or regret. India loses, yet again in those circumstances when he has done just about everything right.     He does not cry. Does not show any emotion. Just keeps his head down and leaves the field. He has seen these failures for 22 years now. And not just his class, relatives, friends but the whole world has seen these failures. We are too immature to even imagine what goes on in that mind and heart of his. That’s why I would never want to be Sachin.      True, he has single handedly lifted to moods of this entire nation umpteen number of times. He has been an inspiration to rise above our mediocrity. Nobody who has ever lifted the willow even comes close to this man’s genius. His dedication and metal strength is unparallel. This is specially for those people who would have made fun of him again last night when India lost. They are people who are mediocre in their own lives. Who just scoff at others to create cheap fun. Who have lived in a small hole throughout their lives and thought they have seen the oceans.     Think about the man himself. He is 37 years of age. He has been playing almost non stop for 22 years. The way he was running and diving around the field last night would have put 22 year olds to shame. The way he played the best opening quickies in the world was breathtaking. He just keeps getting better which is by the way humanly impossible. Its not for nothing that people call him GOD.     But still I don’t want to be in those shoes. We struggle in keeping our monotonous lives straight, lives which affect a limited number of people. Imagine what would be the magnitude of the inner struggle for him, pain both mental and physical, tears that have frozen with time, knees and ankles and every other joint in the body that is either bandaged or needs to be attended to every night, eyes that don’t sleep before a big game, bats that have scored 99 international tons and still see expectations from a billion people.      And he just converts those expectations into reality. We watch in awe, feel privileged.     Well I think its time that his team realizes that enough is enough. They have an obligation, not towards their country alone but towards sachin. They need to win this one for him. Stay assured that he himself will still deliver and leave no stone unturned to make sure India wins this cup.     This is not just a game, and he is not just a sportsman. Its much more than this. Words fail here..... 


--- HARSHA BHOGLE

Inside IE9: How Microsoft rewrote its browser from scratch

Jason Weber, lead program manager for IE performance.

Jason Weber’s office boasts a fantastic view, a gigantic monitor — and some of the least-impressive machines you’ll find on the Microsoft campus. His 4-year-old PC runs an early Intel Core 2 Duo processor. On his Tablet PC, the processor is mere 1 GHz.

And that’s precisely the way he likes it. Weber is Internet Explorer’s lead program manager for performance, and his team’s work has been a key part of overhauling Internet Explorer 9, the new version of the browser set for public release tonight.

“If I can make IE9 fast here, I can make it fast anywhere,” Weber explains, noting with almost a hint of pride that the graphics scores of his various machines are all in the bottom 20 percent of PCs run by everyday computer users. If the browser is running smoothly and quickly on his setup, he says, “a high-end machine is just going to scream.”

Those performance improvements will be critical to Microsoft’s efforts to regain traction in the browser market, in the face of tough competition from Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and others.

Microsoft also still needs to overcome lingering negativity about its browser, resulting in part from years of neglect in which little to no work took place on Internet Explorer — creating a five-year gap between major versions, between 2001 and 2006.

The Blackest Day in the History of Football

The Munich air disaster took place on 6 February 1958, when British European Airways Flight 609 crashed on its third attempt to take off from a slush-covered runway at Munich-Riem Airport in Munich, West Germany. On board the plane was the Manchester Unitedfootball team, nicknamed the "Busby Babes", along with a number of supporters and journalists. Twenty of the 44 people on board the aircraft died in the crash. The injured, some of whom had been knocked unconscious, were taken to the Rechts der Isar Hospital in Munich where three more died, resulting in a total of 23 fatalities with 21 survivors.

The team was returning from a European Cup match in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, against Red Star Belgrade, but had to make a stop in Munich for refuelling, as a non-stop trip from Belgrade to Manchester was out of the "Elizabethan" class Airspeed Ambassador aircraft's range. After refuelling, the pilots, Captains James Thain and Kenneth Rayment, attempted to take off twice, but had to abandon both attempts due to boost surging in the port engine. Fearing that they would get too far behind schedule, Captain Thain rejected an overnight stay in Munich in favour of a third take-off attempt.

The Fastest Century Ever

Don Bradman did score 100 runs in 3 overs once. The match was played between Blackheath and Lithgow at Blackheath to commemorate the opening of their concrete wicket. Bradman and his NSW team-mate Wendell Bill were guests in the Blackheath Team.The game was played in December 1931.

The scoring shots were -

* 1st Over: 6, 6, 4, 2, 4, 4, 6, 1
* 2nd Over: 6, 4, 4, 6, 6, 4, 6, 4
* 3rd Over: 1, 6, 6, 1, 1, 4, 4, 6

Technology's Biggest Myths

1. Vista is slower than Windows 7

When Windows Vista came out, it soon acquired a reputation for being slow and a resource hog. Once Windows 7 arrived, people were quick to tout it as the speedy, slim operating system that Vista should have been.

We conducted performance tests on a handful of laptops and desktops using both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Vista and Windows 7, shortly after the latter OS was released. While Windows 7 did seem to speed things up somewhat, a few tests actually showed some slowdown. Applications launched more slowly across the board, and the Gateway laptop saw a slight increase in startup time.

As it turns out, the "snappy" feeling Windows 7 engenders has to do with Registry tweaks and minor changes to the window manager that make the OS feel more responsive, even though it isn't that different. The verdict: Windows 7 is faster, but not by as much as you may think.

2.  All smartphones suffer signal loss from a grip of death

When early iPhone 4 adopters discovered that touching a certain spot on the exposed antenna could cause the phone to lose signal strength, reduce data speeds, and even drop calls, Apple in­­sisted that all smartphones suffered from a similar defect.

We tested that claim with five different smartphones. We looked at RF signal strength, data speed rates, and call quality in areas with weak and strong signals.

While every phone we tested was affected by a "grip of death," none went so far as to drop calls, as the iPhone 4 did. Bottom line: If you don't have an iPhone 4, you don't need to worry too much about this antenna issue.

10 Great Error Messages

1. Error: No Error


2. No Space to Delete

Jugaad!! : Rural India's Most Cost Effective Solution

Jugaad (Hindi: जुगाड़ Punjabi(gharuka)) are locally-made motor vehicles that are used mostly in small villages as a means of low cost transportation in rural India. Jugaad (also sometimes juggard) literally means an arrangement or a work around, which has to be used because of lack of resources. This is a Hindi term also widely used by people speaking other Indian languages, and people of Indian origin around the world. The same term is still used for a type of vehicle, found in rural India. This vehicle is made by carpenters, by fitting a diesel engine on a cart.

The End of the IT Department?

When people talk about their IT departments, they always talk about the things they’re not allowed to do, the applications they can’t run, and the long time it takes to get anything done. Rigid and inflexible policies that fill the air with animosity. Not to mention the frustrations of speaking different languages. None of this is a good foundation for a sustainable relationship.

If businesses had as many gripes with an external vendor, that vendor would’ve been dropped long ago. But IT departments have endured as a necessary evil. I think those days are coming to an end.

Amazing Facts about India

1. India is the world's largest, oldest, continuous civilization.
2. India never invaded any country in her last 10000 years of history.
3. India is the world's largest democracy.
4. Varanasi, also known as Benares, was called "the ancient city" when Lord Buddha visited it in 500 B.C.E, and is the oldest, continuously inhabited city in the world today.
5. India invented the Number System. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta.

Netaji Subash Chandra Bose – Mystery Revealed

A first person account of Netaji's life from 1965 to 1977

Netaji Subash Chandra Bose led the Indian National Army (INA) and struggled for the independence of India from colonial rule.

There is a large body of work documenting his life as a leader of the INA and his contribution towards the freedom of India from British colonial rule.  However, his disappearance towards the end of the World War II remains one of the enduring mysteries of the 20th century for people of India and the world.

This site is dedicated to revealing the mystery of the life and times of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.

Through this web site Dr. Suresh Padhye, Professor of Geography and retired Principal of Vidarbha Mahavidyalaya Amravati, Maharashtra, reveals the mystery of Netaji Subash Chandra Bose. Dr. Suresh Padhye spent time off-and-on over several years from 1965 to 1977 with Netaji at the Shaulmari Ashram in North Bengal.

To know more, visit Netaji- The Mystery Revealed

Is IE9 a modern browser?

NO

IE9 is definitely better than IE8 and a step in the right direction, but I don't believe it to be a truly modern browser, and let me tell you why.

Microsoft is bragging a lot about HTML5. They are also suggesting that their HTML5 support is exceptionally good compared to other vendors.

   How well does IE9 support HTML5

In this article, Microsoft explains that tests like caniuse and html5tests are not good because they just check for the existence of features, so it's better to use W3C tests.

No. IE9 doesn't support 99% of HTML5 and 100% of CSS3.

10 Best Programming Quotes

10. If debugging is the process of removing software bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in. -  Edsger Dijkstra
9. The first 90% of the code accounts for the first 90% of the development time. The remaining 10% of the code accounts for the other 90% of the development time.  – Tom Cargill
8. “There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.”-  C.A.R. Hoare

Guide to the seven types of malicious hackers(Source: InfoWorld)

Whether you're attacked today or tomorrow, it's important to understand the motivation and objective of your intruders -- doing so can help you devise an appropriate defense. Malicious hackers can, in fact, be broken out under some broad classifications.

Malicious hacker No. 1: Cyber criminals

Professional criminals comprise the biggest group of malicious hackers, using malware and exploits to steal money. It doesn't matter how they do it, whether they're manipulating your bank account, using your credit card numbers, faking antivirus programs, or stealing your identity or passwords. Their motivation is fast, big financial gain.

Malicious hacker No. 2: Spammers and adware spreaders
Purveyors of spam and adware make their money through illegal advertising, either getting paid by a legitimate company for pushing business their way or by selling their own products. Cheap Viagra, anyone? Members of this group believe they are just "aggressive marketers." It helps them sleep at night.

Malicious hacker No. 3: Advanced persistent threat (APT) agents
Intruders engaging in APT-style attacks represent well-organized, well-funded groups -- often located in a "safe harbor" country -- and they're out to steal a company's intellectual property. They aren't out for quick financial gain like cyber criminals; they're in it for the long haul. Their dream assignment is to essentially duplicate their victim's best ideas and products in their own homeland, or to sell the information they've purloined to the highest bidder.

The 6 Crappiest Interview Questions

The Myth of "WORA": Write Once Run Anywhere

For years, businesses have searched for the holy grail of the development world – the notion of being able to write a program, application, app, or whatever they’re now calling it, just once, while being able to deploy it on any number of systems. Hence the term “Write Once Run Anywhere”, a.k.a. WORA.

This notion really started to gain traction, or at least publicity, in the mid-90′s when Java took the business world by storm. Through the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), companies could be assured that their valuable software assets could be reused on Windows, Solaris, Unix, Linux, or Mac operating systems. The problem was that the implementation of the JVM varied across operating systems. In addition, the apps created with the technologies of the day, like Applets, Swing, etc. produced clunky user interfaces.

Now today, we have a whole new set of technologies with the same old set of promises. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard business folks say that want to learn about this HTML5 thing and how it can bring them to the promised land of WORA. After rolling my eyes (once I’ve turned away from them, of course), I proceed to explain how this is something that is more promise than reality. Besides, says I, who would want that anyway? Let me explain.

Recycle it Right!! -Source: Electronics Take Back Coalition

Guide To Recycling Your Electronics

1.     Don’t throw old electronics in the trash!

Don’t put your old electronic products or batteries in the trash (even if it’s legal in your state). The toxics inside these products don’t belong in the landfill.

More on the toxics in your computer.

2. Donate for reuse if possible.

If your product can be reused, donate it to a reputable reuse organization, that won’t export it unless it’s fully functional. Some good organizations include the National Cristina Foundation or World Computer Exchange. Many e-Stewards (see #3 below) also refurbish.

3. Find a responsible recycler (an e-Steward) in your state.

If your product is too old or too broken to donate, you should recycle it.

But many recyclers simply export your old products, dumping them on developing nations.

Your best option is to use a recycler who is part of the “e-Steward” network; they don’t export to developing nations, and they follow other high standards. Many also will reuse and refurbish equipment.

Click here to find e-Steward recycler near you.

The Internet is Full!!

For those of you unfamiliar with the issue and how the internet works (in simple terms) each and every connected device on the internet needs an IP address. It's like a phone number, basically a unique number given to your computer, mobile phone, or whatever, whenever it is connected to the internet. It then "dials" another number whenever you check your email, go to a web page or any other activity.

Of course, to dial a number you need a number your self. And as we all know the number of connected devices on the internet is by no means slowing down. So we need more numbers to allocate to these devices. But here's the catch: There are no more numbers available. There are some, but not many. So that implies that the internet is full. All thought there are many unused numbers held by organizations that ones got them but are no longer using them, these unused numbers are not enough for any sustainable future growth.

The current numbering system we're using is called IPv4. This system contains about 4,000,000,000 unique available addresses in total. At the time of writing, about 2% is unallocated. At the speed things are going, that will be empty within a matter of days. Luckily this development hasn't come as a shock to the people who help maintain the internet, so there's a new version available called IPv6.

Web images to get expiration date: BBC News

German researchers have created software called X-Pire that gives images an expiration date by tagging them with an encrypted key.

Once this date has passed the key stops the images being viewed and copied.

Creators plan to levy a small charge to use the tagging system and put a digital lock on digital pictures.

10 ways to show you're a programming Rockstar

It seems nowadays that programmers are a dime a dozen, but how do you pick the best programmers from the rest of the crowd.

It's not just about coding (although that is a big factor). It's about building your skill set over the years and nurturing them so you can stand out from the programming "collective."

What characteristics makes them stand out? Are they easy to get along with? How long have they been programming? Are they teaching you things you never knew were possible? Here's how to find out if you are a programming rock stars!

Hackers turn back the clock with Telnet attacks

A new report from Akamai Technologies shows that hackers appear to be increasingly using the Telnet remote access protocol to attack corporate servers over mobile networks.

Akamai, which specializes in managing content and Web traffic, issues quarterly reports on Internet traffic trends. The latest report, which covers the third quarter of 2010, shows that 10 percent of attacks that came from mobile networks are directed at Port 23, which Telnet uses. That marks a somewhat unusual spike for the aging protocol.

Telnet is a remote access tool used to log into remote servers, but it has been gradually replaced by SSH, also known as Secure Shell. Administrators are generally advised to disable Telnet if the protocol is not used to prevent attacks targeting it, but some forget.

Although those attacks originated from mobile networks, Akamai said it did not appear that mobile devices were the source.