What is the Big Deal about Big Data

Like every sector in our computer world we always have some new trends.  In fact the dynamics of changing trend in Computer industry is very evident. Few years back all want to adopt tablet and different form of post pc devices. And recent time Cloud was the big word. All most all companies have launched lots of cloud specific services or platform. Every blogger including me has written about cloud. And now the recent buzz is Big Data, Hadoop, Data Analytics etc.. 

There is a say Pen is mightier than Sword.  It means Knowledge, information is the key. If a student knows the right answer of the question in exam he will succeed. If the doctor knows more information about the disease he can diagnose and treat better. Similarly if a business knows has right information about its customer needs it can succeed well. So it’s important to get right information in time. And if we think most of the time that “information” is the only difference between success and failure.

So people invest huge to store data and retrieve/derive the useful information out of it in real time.  The whole process is divided in two steps first part is to store related data. And most of the time these are unstructured data. And the second thing is to analysis or processes those data to get right information in real-time. These unstructured data can come from or around your business.  For example any ecommerce portal will like to store and analysis its visitor browsing pattern. This will help them to arrange or present their products efficiently. Similarly an bank should like to know what its customers like, dislike or spending habit. So that it can customize its product as per it. More or less all big corporate houses are started spending in BigData and Analytics.

Well Data and Analytics not only help big organization. It can be useful  to stream line personal finance too. Money manager from Intuit is an example in this direction. It tracks all spending, and categorize them. So that one can easily track income and spending.  Its early days, In coming days we will see more product or services around Analytics and BIgData.  

Do I need to google ?

To find anything in internet the best way is googling. Any one who use internet the first thing they learn is googling. When I say googling it include all web search like Bing,Yahoo etc. I do googling to read news, to watch video, to check weather, movie sports etc.Since information is scattered in different website, and they are too many to remember. So people use search engine to locate their content. Few years back everything was working in this pattern, we used to search stuffs on web and browse our content in random site. And search engines used to insert some sponsored links, advisement  in the web pages or in search result to earn their revenue.

In last few year few major things happened one is evolution of post pc devices such as iPad,iPhones and other android devices. Its clear that tablet sale is outpacing PC sale. If we combine tablet + smart phones the number will exceed the PC sales. It means more and more people are accessing internet through their post PC devices. In post PC devices poeple connect to internet through different apps. For example to see weather, to read news, to book movie ticket I use my apps on phone. I don't do any web search for that. It doesn't mean web search is reduced to 0 in post pc devices, certainly it decreased dramatically. As pattern of  digital content consumption in post pc devices are quite different. And more or less every body agree that the future is all about post pc devices. Country like India a whole lots of people get introduced to digital world through mobile phones.


The inception of Facebook only resonate Human is a social animal. I will prefer to ask my friends or read post something from closed group instead of searching randomly in internet. People spend more and more time with each other at Facebook. It automatically reduced the need of google search.

Last one but not least. Evolution of "Siri" and similar services in line with it created lots of noise in the area of local search. Currently Apple announced  map service integrated with Siri and opened to lots of Social App like Facebook, yelp gives many useful information to the users interactively.

Its not that anything of above will replace search in future. Search will be there but it won't be first choice anymore it will be the last option.

Read me if you can

In my starting days of coding I had a notion if you don't understand the code means its a tough program, some hi-fi advanced code. And if the code compile with out error and execute properly means its perfect in all aspect.

My first programming language was C. There was a lab exam where we need to code 5 given program. I had completed well ahead of time, all the five were compiling and running properly. The teacher was checking each student's program and evaluating. You have to get minimum three programs right to clear the exam. The teacher came to me he read one by one program. He had checked 4 programs and found all are correct. Fifth one he saw the code, in first look he didn't get the logic he told its incorrect with out compiling or executing. Before I could explain back he had already deleted the source folders. I was bit upset because I knew I got five out of five correct. But it was recorded 4.  I was thinking I didn't get 5 out 5 just because some body was not able to read it.

And after I started working in real time project, I understand 90% time you will be working around the codes not written by you. And some point of time some one else will be working on your code for sure. And there is some figure floated on internet, as 80% effort goes in to understanding others code. All these made the point clear codes need to be written such a way that another person can understand it well. And sometime people prefer simpler algorithm instead a complicated one.
There are different best practices in line with various programming language. I found few points which help
1) Naming Convention
name of the variable and method  revel lots of information. for ex :
if ( authenticate(userName,password)
 {
  }
It clearly understood that we are authenticating by passing user name and password.
2) Comments
We all know we need to write comments. I feel Class label comments, method label comments are always handy. It should always tell more than code. I mean certainly by seeing code we get some idea, and comments should add some thing to it. For ex:
/* Check for  Ldap authentication */

if ( authenticate(userName,password)
 {
  }
In this case comments add some more info to the picture.
It is always nice to add few line of comments for a particular block of code.
3)  Use of parenthesis while doing logical operation.
parentheses always make easy to understand complex logical expression.

And the list goes on. You also can share some of the ideas here which helps understand the code. If the code is well understood it adds lots of value. And programmer can happily understand it and work with it. Happy Programmers always do wonderful things. ;)

Life and Java both throws Exception

With each passing days we realize " man proposes and god disposes" , well we plan some thing if there is an deviation we called it exception. Exceptions are annoying and we just hate it. More or less each exception holds lots of vital information of reality,  to go forward we need to decode these exception. I have not much idea how to decode the exceptions that life throw, but in Java we can certainly plan it very well.

Java got a one of the advanced way to handle exception. To know more about exception handling framework in java follow this link.

I will focus how to design exception in applications. Designing of exceptions is start right from application design. Every time an error happens or something goes wrong, the ideal way is capture as much as information possible and notify some controller who can take alternate steps in run time. Mostly applications are integration of java classes and they perform the task my calling each other method. Consider if methodA of Class A use methodB of Class B and methodB encounter some error. Obviously methodB will not have any idea what could be the alternate flow. The best thing methodB can do is log the exception. Capture as much information possible about the error and wrap it to a customize exception to report to the methodA, methodA will have idea if methodB fail what to do. It should have the alternate plan ( exception handling block).
Mostly application are segregated into different layers like UI layer,  business layer and data access layer. So if an error happen in data layer business layer can take a decision can another operation is possible to carry out or need to report error to UI.And UI layer decide what kind of message need to displayed to the user.

Its always best practice to use application specific exception which wrap java native exceptions. So that it can contain more information about the error. And logging of these exception is very important. Logs help to track the error and the reason of error which gives the required information to fix the problem.
I hope with this we can plan better for unexpected flow in Java, And guys I need your inputs how to handle exception comes in life.

new iPad

After more than one year apple released new version of iPad. And they named it "new iPad". With in less than 2 years people around the globe accepted iPad as a new way of computing and in a lots of way iPad is changing life. Apple is successfully building the ecosystem and content by its app store, iTunes, iCloud and the latest iBook which makes iPad more and more useful.

The new iPad got lots of hardware up-gradation in compare to previous version iPad2. In original iPad Steve Job used to claim it gives a magical experience. And the  experience comes from display and touch. To make the magical experience further better, the new iPad got retina display. And this is big break through in terms of display. To complement it new iPad got a better processor, better camera and new generation antenna system.

In the same event apple had released new version of iWork, iPhoto and iMovie. And these are very powerful and simple apps which specially built for iPad. With apps each day iPad is adding more capability to itself. I am thrilled to see iBook. Reading textbook was never so fun before. It makes book reading more interactive.
I was anticipating new ipad will get Siri. Last year apple introduced Siri with iPhone 4s. which created a whole new way to interact with the system. According to me that is the one this new iPad is missing. Its a great tablet with same old price. I just hope it will be in India soon in right price.

All about imports in Java

In any Java source file first line after package declarations are import statements.  These statements enable us to use different classes from outside package. Compiler always looks at the import statements to find class definition.

Instead of import statements we can write fully qualified name. For ex:

java.io. File file = new java.io.File(filepath);

This is a perfectly valid statement. Only problem is it looks littlie complicated to read.  Good codes are not only run well but also easy to read.

So we will stick to

File file = new File(filepath);

To do so we have to write import statement at the beginning right after the package declaration.

package mej.java.example;
import java.io.File;

If we use more than one classes or interface of java.io packages we need to write multiple import statements.

package mej.java.example;
import java.io.File;
import java. FileInputStream;

or we can use wild characters like

java,io.*;

At first impression it looks simple, there are few side effects with this. It takes down the performance of compiler, as compiler has to look whole package for match.  But it doesn’t affect runtime performance of code in anyway. Many time developers misunderstood it.  There can be cases if we use multiple wild character imports. And if both the package contains class with same name, compiler will not able to resolve. And it also reduces the readability of code. It’s difficult to read which class from which package is being used. So the best way is to use import individually for each class or interface.

Another type of imports are static imports. To use it I can say something like

import static java.lang.Match;

We can directly write  ceil(4.83) instead of Math.ceil(4.38).  By static imports we can directly use the methods or members instead of referring through their class name. This is widely used in junit test cases to refer Assert class methods.

In this case also too much use of static imports decrease code maintainability.  

Please let me know your thoughts about java imports.

localhost to www

Here we will discuss how to host your web application in internet. Once the application is built and running on your local machine and the testings are over next step is to take it to internet.
First we need a domain name, like for my blog I use www.myexperimentswithjava.com. To check and book your preferred domain there are lots of service providers are available for example: google apps and  godady
Domains are normally sell for 1 year , 2 years or  for some fixed terms.
If the domain name what you are looking for is taken by some one. And still you want it you can try for resale, godady facilitate resales of domain. But normally these are expensive. With domains usually service providers give some free email account, which you can use for business purpose like admin@yoursitename.com.
Once you are ready with the domain. Next thing is the Web servers,application server and database server.
Depending upon the load and traffic you expect these three can be in one machine, or individual machine or for each multiple machine. If you expect more than 1000 users are going to access then professional consultancy is required.
If you have decided to host in a share resource (popular name is cloud), you can check for service provider. I had used Amazon elastic cloud, which is pretty good. For dedicated servers you need to buy physical hardware and the set it up to run it. It should have good connectivity and fixed IP. Now next thing is that to set up each layer. I prefer first to install data base, configure security setting backups. And then create application specific objects and load initial data. Then install application server and install the apps. Check the connectivity with database. And some testing with apps. Once the application looks fine, configure the app server to run on port 80.  Then by just typing the IP of your application server you should able to access your application on internet. And the application server IP must be a static one.

Next we have to configure our domain name to application server.  From domain service provide we will get a control panel to manage the domain. There we can set redirect, configure sub domain etc. In controll panel there will be an option to add MX record. We need to add two entry like for ex:
1) http://myexperimentswithjava.com
2) www.myexperimentswithjava.com

and these entries need to map to application server.
After the configuration it takes some time to work. Normally in a day or two your application can be reachable on internet by your domain.

All the best for your hosting experiments, do post your experience.

Something is in Air

If some on follow computers actually (nowadays its other way computers follow us) must heard about cloud. And the computer guys always copy the terms from real world to use. Like Inheritance, Cloud , Mouse etc ... sometime the original meaning of these words must be thinking to sue for copyright violation.
Well copying and stealing is never a problem in this industry. It is always appreciated.
"Cloud" is such a term today no one can afford to miss it. Companies, Developers and Customers  everybody like to have it.
Well lets understand what does Cloud means and how it make sense. To start we can say your computer is connected to another computer. Then networking is there from more than last 20 years. Each year its becoming more powerful. Computer can connect with each other they can send data and receive from another computer. The next thing was application which run on network by using resource of multiple computer. Web applications are fall in this category. They run in server and user can work with it remotely.
The service providers are hosting the service in server and can cater to multiple user, that brings down end user cost of using service. The application is customized as per users preference. This is something called application on cloud. Actually it is nothing but same web application. And it is customized as per user or groups of user.
Another thing is Computer infrastructure or platform on cloud. Its like you will able to use remote server, database or application server. Amazon, Oracle and Google provide these kind of service. Here the application developers can use these platform to develop, test and host. And its easy to scale as per usage. So its a very cost effective way of using resource. Still there are some concerns with data security, organisations are comfortable to store there important data in remote data center.
And another third category of cloud services are kind of hybrid between platform and application, Salesforce, Oracle public cloud and Apple's iCloud are such example. These gives developers platform to write application on cloud.
Certainly for medium/small scale industries can use cloud services for their IT needs. It enable to have good IT system in lower price.