Facebook Album Downloader

Goal:

1. Write a .NET/Java app which can download albums from Facebook.
   
2. Port it to Android :)
3. Publish it
   

Authentication of WCF services using IIS/AD

Goal: Should write a comprehensible article of WCF Bare webhttp services with authentication with code

TODO's

I was planning to maintain a list of TODO's and was looking for something good to maintain it.
The GMail task list, Outlook task list are pretty basic. Others available will need me to maintain a new account.
So used this blog to maintain it.
Posts labeled as TODO is a todo :)

Find locks in Oracle Tables

A lot of time we as developers see Oracle tables being locked. As we all share one dev database, the reason might be some long running query or service on some other workstation.

An easy way to find it out is through a query:

SELECT s1.username
'.'
s1.program
'@'
s1.machine
' ( SID='
s1.sid
' ) is blocking '
s2.username
'.'
s2.program
'@'
s2.machine
' ( SID='
s2.sid
' ) '
AS blocking_status
FROM v$lock l1,
v$session s1,
v$lock l2,
v$session s2
WHERE s1.sid = l1.sid
AND s2.sid = l2.sid
AND l1.BLOCK = 1
AND l2.request > 0
AND l1.id1 = l2.id1
AND l2.id2 = l2.id2

Seattle - Seafair Parade and visit to USS Port Royal

This weekend saw the Airshow as part of the Seattle Seafair. Videos are available in the site : http://www.seafair.com/weekend/airshow/. The start was boring but when the F-18's came, it was good. They were so fast that even when they reached the center show point, there was no sound (as it was trailing behind). So if one is not focused, then he can miss half of the show. That was followed by the thundering engine noise. Once it passed over our head at like 1500 feet (500 mts) and it was deafening. Saw in the news later that some windows in nearby house broke due to it.




Followed that, we had a visit to USS Port Royal. More about it in here. One of the last of its kinds, it had some big 5 inch guns, and house Tomahawak Cruise Missiles and had a stealth coating in it. It was a guided tour for 1 and half hours but was worth it. Built in 1994, it still had Windows 95 as OS for one of its radars :) - and we blame India for carrying legacy systems.

Youtube - My Speed

Now YouTube too is providing a free service to display your downstreaming speed history.

Lookout for http://www.youtube.com/my_speed

Strategic Decision Making

Just attended a workshop on Decision Making and found it very interesting. So wanted to write about it.
Key Points :

• Lower level employees work with certainty whereas higher level employees work under ambiguity. Like in a software company a coder will be given a design, explained what to do - now all he has to do is to write the code and test it out - which is pretty certain. A higher level manager will get a job like "bring more projects".

There are three types of decisions:

• Strategic - Have Long Term Impact, are Less Frequently made, and have a High Cost of Change.
• Tactical - Something that can change based on time and situation.
• Operational - Opposite to Strategic i.e. have Short term impact, are made on regular intervals, and can be changed easily.
• Decisions which are strategic for low level folks can be operational for higher level ones and vice-versa.

Strategic Decision Framework:

• Information - Fact or Assumption
• Challenges (Internal or External) - Fixed or Changeable
• Specialized Knowledge - Accessible or Inaccessible (now made more accessible due to Internet)

Finally, build a Story to support your decision - very important for a manager to become a leader to convince all those impacted by the decision.

Finally :

• Define the objective - half the job is done.
• Apply the Framework (above)
• Look for Changeable Challenges
• Build Specialized Knowledge
• Develop articulation skills (for convincing)
• Review the decision as its strategic
• Document it
• Finally detach yourself and don't make the failure of the decision impact your ego