Java File System Api getting a make over

I was just reading upcoming changes in Java 7, and I was very excited. One thing I found out that java.io.File getting a make over.

Here are the things that going to be added to the Java 7 release,

• FileRef – represents file object in system
• Path – extends FileRef, binds a file to a system-dependent location
• FileSystem – interface to file system FileStore – underlying storage system

I am planning to put a post once I find an example using the new api.

Warm November

Blame it on global warming but I ll take this warm weather we are having in any given day. As we all know, when it comes November, Minneapolis is not known for warm, sunny weather. Normally by this time we get ready to bundle up before getting out from house. Also, its not unusual to see couple of inches of snow on the ground. But, its almost mid November, and I still can drive my car with windows rolled down. Simply unbelievable. So far we had July weather in June, June weather in July, October weather in November and November weather in October.

We have so confused mother nature and she can’t figure out which month should get its respective weather. Hopefully she will stay in this state of mind till next spring.

ZFS now has built-in deduplication, & ZFS available on Snow Leopard

I was doing my regular daily doze of technical reading and stumble upon Jeff Bonwick’s blog. Sounds like deduplication is a great concept. I think this might be very helpful reducing the size of the repositories. But more than any thing I was thrilled about his previous post. ZFS is available on Snow Leopard. Wow!!!, as you may know from my previous posts, I switch to mac just about a month ago. And I must say somehow my mac book pro able fascinate me in daily basis. And this was another example.

Penalize for being responsible, APRs are skyrocketing

Penalize for being responsible. Isn’t it against to what we learned from the day we came out from our mothers belly? Indeed, all our lives we learned to be responsible, truthful simply because thats the morally and ethically correct way to live your life. But thats going to change.

If you haven’t heard about it yet, banks (Citi, Bank of America, etc) have decided to increase the APR of customers who are happened to be responsible. Yes, if you always keep your balance zero, if you don’t carry considerable amount of balance, or if you haven’t used your credit card for a long time, there is a good chance that you already have a mail from your credit card company in your mail box. I would like to warn you before opening that mail because if you satisfy above conditions your APR could go sky rocketing.

Lets switch gears. Banks begged in-front of us asking money. And we (Gov) jumped in and bailed them out. But why cant the government jumped in when it happens other way around? I have heard from somewhere, that government is there to serve its citizens. Government sure served all these cunning banks, and when its effecting regular joe all the law makers have decided to turn their head other way and plug they years with ipods or something.

Where is Obama, I haven’t heard anything from Obama administration related to this matter. It might be hard to speak against giant banks that fueled his campaign. I need to be clear, as an international person, I cant vote for any party so I don’t care who rule the country as long as they serve for the people of that country.

Yes its true that being responsible have hurt in this situation but this shouldn’t be an excuse to live your life irresponsibly. Many other areas in our life required responsible behavior, it just happened to be using credit cards are not one of them.

How can US have a normal relationship, when Hillary…

I don’t have any problem with any nation doing nuclear experiments as long as there intention is to use that technology to develop their country. I clearly don’t support US’s bully approach that they conduct against every country in this world. According to Clinton, US will never have normal relationship with North Korea. It’s not an exaggeration to say that US will never have a normal relationship with any country that challengers its views.

Sri Lankan government ended a 30 year old war. But US lawmakers like Hillary kept attacking Sri Lankan government by false allegation. And today US State Department once again made headline saying Sri Lankan government disobey the Human Rights Law during the war.

Who are we kidding; US State Department is Hillary’s office. Not a long ago one of Hillary’s biggest donor got arrested by FBI for Insider Trading. Raj Rajaratnam, donated money to Hillary’s campaign and his money came with conditions. Hillary has to do everything in her power to stop Sri Lankan government kicking LTTE’s rare end.

Hillary and her colleague’s voices made headlines every time people like Raj Rajaratnam dropped of a bag of cash at their door steps (bank accounts). I am very thankful for FBI, for what they did and they did it Hillary knowing about it. Now that she has no place to go, her office releases a report against Sri Lanka for violating human rights law. How did they get information? Not a single US representative was in the war zone during the war nor they have made an attempt to go over there after the war. Yet they make false accusations against Sri Lankan government.

This why I started saying, US will never have a normal relationship with any country unless they change their approach. We all know the ending of high school bullies right..? It’s never a good ending for them…

Google Voice expose voice mails for public search

Chill out, It’s not bad as it sounds. Yes, I freaked out when I first saw the news. I did the search and sure enough I saw plenty of voice messages freely available as search results. Not only that I was able play them and actually listen to a personal conversation. After few seconds I stopped playing messages simply because its wrong. But just confirmed if they were really voice messages. It only shows three pages worth of search results. If Google were to list all the Google voice mail messages it should well be beyond three pages of results. That tells me this sounds like a link of test.

I checked to see any of my voice messages are showing up on results page fortunately it didn’t, and this made me think twice continuing with the Google Voice account.

Google Voice Messages

Attack the Moon, threaten rest of the world and still win a nobel peace award

I have nothing against Obama, but It’s really funny to wake up and hear that Obama won the nobel peace award. Also whats more funny is that judgers have mentioned that it was a unanimous decision. Judges decision really cracked me up. Then I realized only an American president can do that, do what? destroy the image of Sri Lanka while trying to fight against LTTE, cast the vote while you are on senate to send troops to iraq, keep on going war in Afghanistan, threaten Iran to shut down its nuclear research, last but not least attack the moon to find evidence of water and yet still win Nobel Peace Award.

Sri Lankan president brought peace to Sri Lanka by ending a war that existed for more than three decades. But why would the judges consider a president from a developing country when you have a president that fits the above mention activities that must have to win a Nobel Peace Price. All this time I thought it was really hard to get a Nobel Price but today I realize its not the case anymore…, ooh I just forgot I can never be the president of United States, so its still an impossible task.

First post from MacBook Pro

So, Yesterday 5.30pm long lasting wait ended with a happy ending. And it was a great moment in my life. After a never ending wait, multiple versions of “I have decided”, I finally bought my first ever apple computer. Its 15″ MacBook Pro Intel Core 2 Dual 2.8, 4GB Ram, 500GB Hard drive, GForce Graphics with 512 Ram.

I almost had a panic attack because it was lot of money even with the Student Discount + Plus two gift certificates. But with those I chop down almost $500. I also should thank my friend for giving me on of the gift certificate.

So what does this mean no more time wasting with patching Ubuntu (Don’t get me wrong I love Ubuntu). But in this way i get the best of both worlds. I guess I bought it at the perfect time. The reason is until mid september eclipse didn’t have 64bit version (at least packaging team didn’t have a package). So if you have a 64bit Mac prior to mid September you might have to create your own version of 64 bit package for eclipse. But not anymore.

I am happy yet at the same time bit worried because I have never spent this much of money for a computer.

GMail is broken

Lately I have been very dependent on my GMail. In addition to send/receive mails, I use it as an information storing location. Example: While I am researching when I find something that might be useful I note it down and save it as a draft. But today I started to experience issues in GMail, I checked the Google App Status Dashboard, yeap its broken.

Google App Status Dashboard

Tracking my Rides using Android App My Track

Summer is almost done and just firing up in all cylinders to get my latest research proposal complete. I will be diving in to Fractal Dimensions. Ok Thats all I am going to talk about it for now because, this My Tracks application is way more interesting than Fractals. Best part about is after the ride it allows me to upload map and data about the ride into Google maps and Google docs. So these are the two routes that I ride most commonly at least till the snow hits the ground.

Both routes are flat but around the Lake Medicine you get inclines which has 6-7% grade but they are short and fun because most of the time lake is on your right (depends on if you ride clockwise around the lake).

To Downtown Minneapolis Via Cedar Lake Trail

View To Downtown Minneapolis Via Cedar Lake Trail in a larger map

Luce Line Trail & Lake Medicine

View Luce Line Trail & Lake Medicine in a larger map