Ashu's weblog

Configuring vnc on CentOS

2011-03-03T08:07:00.000-08:00

It was a pain, as most of the latest linux distros come with out-of-box vnc support,

but I finally found a good reference on CentOS site:

http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/VNC-Server

To make your centOS server vnc ready, you just need to :

Create your VNC users.
Set your users' VNC passwords.
Edit the server configuration.
Customize xstartup scripts.

$ su -

$ useradd vncuser

$ cd .vnc

$ vncpasswd

$ vi /etc/sysconfig/vncservers

VNCSERVERS="1:vncuser" VNCSERVERARGS[1]="-geometry 800x600"

$/sbin/service vncserver start

$/sbin/service vncserver stop

$ cd .vnc

$ vi xstartup

Edit xstartup. The original should look like:

#!/bin/sh # Uncomment the following two lines for normal desktop: # unset SESSION_MANAGER # exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc [ -x /etc/vnc/xstartup ] && exec /etc/vnc/xstartup [ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources xsetroot -solid grey vncconfig -iconic & xterm -geometry 80x24+10+10 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" & twm &

Add the line indicated below to assure that an xterm is always present, and uncomment the two lines as directed if you wish to run the user's normal desktop window manager in the VNC. Note that in the likely reduced resolution and color depth of a VNC window the full desktop will be rather cramped and a look bit odd. If you do not uncomment the two lines you will get a gray speckled background to the VNC window.

#!/bin/sh # Add the following line to ensure you always have an xterm available. ( while true ; do xterm ; done ) & # Uncomment the following two lines for normal desktop: unset SESSION_MANAGER exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc [ -x /etc/vnc/xstartup ] && exec /etc/vnc/xstartup [ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources xsetroot -solid grey vncconfig -iconic & xterm -geometry 80x24+10+10 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" & twm &

Start the vncserver as root.

$ /sbin/service vncserver start

and that's it ! Use vncviewer to connect ot it

$ vncviewer host_ip:1

The 20 Most Sought-After IT Skills - InsideTech.com

2010-08-31T10:32:00.000-07:00

The 20 Most Sought-After IT Skills

- from InsideTech.com

Just go through this link .. this has good info for technology crazy software engineers

http://insidetech.monster.com/training/articles/2356-the-20-most-sought-after-it-skills?page=1

Fastest Rising Pay for Noncertified IT skills	% change last 6 months	% change last year
Network security management	25.0%	37.0%
Wireless network management (LANs, GSM)	22.2%	22.2%
Business intelligence	20.0%	33.3%
PHP	20.0%	20.0%
SAP MDM (Master Data Management)	20.0%	20.0%
Oracle DB / 8i/9i/10g/11i	18.2%	30.0%
SAP ERP	18.0%	na
NetWeaver BI (SAP BW)	16.7%	16.7%
SAN/Storage Area Net Networking	14.3%	23.1%
Oracle Workflow	12.5%	na

Fastest Rising Pay for Certified IT skills	% change last 6 months	% change last year
Certified Information Security Manager (CISM)	27.3%	33.0%
GIAC Security Expert (GSE)	25.0%	34.5%
Planet3 Certified Wireless Network Administrator (CWNA)	20.0%	20.0%
IT Certified Architect (ITCA/OpenGroup)	20.0%	20.0%
SAS Certified Advanced Programmer	14.3%	14.3%
Planet3 Certified Wireless Analysis Professional (CWAP)	14.3%	14.3%
Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP)	14.3%	14.3%
Planet3 Certified Wireless Security Prefessional (CWSP)	12.5%	12.5%
Brocade Certified SAN Manager (BCSM)	10.0%	10.0%
Citrix Certified Integration Architect (CCIA)	10.0%	10.0%

Shift to the Networking category and you’ll find the following list of top-paying certifications:

Cisco Certified Inernetwork Expert (CCIE)
EMC Proven Professional Technology Architect – Expert
Brocade Certified SAN Manager (BCSM)
Cisco Certified Systems Instructor (CCSI)
Cisco Certified Voice Professional (CCVP)
SNIA Certified Storage Networking Expert
Cisco IP Telephony Operations Specialist
EMC Proven Professional Implementation Engineer – Expert
SNIA Certified Architect
Avaya Certified Expert
Cisco Certified Internetwork Professional (CCIP)

Trace where you got email from

2010-07-06T02:29:00.001-07:00

Check out this visual implementation of traceroute. This works good to find out from which location you got email from. Click at this link -> http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/visual-tracert

All you need to do is type the IP address in very first Received:from field from you email message header. in MS Outlook, you can right-click the message and select "Message Options", read the internet header where you can find all hops which this message took to reach you.

After putting the IP simply click 'Host Trace'

Remote Address
Use Current IP

new ethernet standard for HD transmission

2010-07-05T02:28:00.000-07:00

HDBaseT - New ethernet standard that aims to be the future of connectivity for our digital devices. Have a look at http://www.hdbaset.org

Useful websites for networkers

2009-05-19T05:28:00.000-07:00

Bringing together the best in technical info, ideas and coverage of important IT trends

that help technology professionals build their knowledge and shape the future:

www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com

www.instantmessagingplanet.com

www.opticallynetworked.com

www.practicallynetworked.com

www.voipplanet.com

www.wi-fiplanet.com

www.opennetworkstoday.com

for telco-networking webcasts - www.jupiterwebcasts.com/networking

Protocols.com - interesting site for networking/telecom geeks & newbies

2009-03-27T07:06:00.000-07:00

While googling over a couple of VOIP protocols I somehow stopped at

http://www.protocols.com

I really found this site interesting for networking newbies.

At the same time found it quiet useful for network/ telecom domain geeks (software programmers, testers, network operation managers, solution architects etc etc )

The web site not only owns a descriptive repository for networking protocols, but also provide excellent search tool, Magazine references, references to popular telco sites ( for e.g. Light Reading ) and contains excellent technology white papers.

The protocol and networking topics have been categorised with a well seggregated menu based on underlying domain and technology related to networking and telecom protocols.

WORTH TAKING A LOOK!

Monthly BOJUG meet was good

2008-08-30T03:47:00.000-07:00

Today, just came back from the BOJUG (Bangalore Open Java Users Group) meet which held at ThoughtWorks' Pathshaala.
As like always, it turned out to be a nice platform where java users can learn, present, collaborate and exchange knowledge. The following topics were presented and discussed:

1. Java FX..Its just the beginning by Vaibhav Choudhary
Shared knowledge of JavaFX with Demo. How to make timeline, reflection, constraint,easing, shapes, animation, Java AWT/Swing.
2. Beans Binding and Beans Validation by Sathish Kumar
Short discussion on Bean bindings.

3. Tomcat Internals by Sriram Narayanan
Sriram covered in brief various Tomcat configuration issues (server.xml, how to avoid having to deploy during development time, etc). He shared stuff like developing custom Tomcat components, and how the component assembly mechanism works.
I must say I became really amazed by the fact that what is known as Tomcat web server, is nothing but a collection of components that can be assembled and disassembled on the fly to put together custom environments.

For more details visit: http://blogs.sun.com/tirthankar/entry/bojug_meet_at_thoughtworks

Clean Green Nandi Hills Drive

2008-08-29T02:11:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, 24th Aug, I joined an ecological campaign to contribute in making Nandi Hills litter-free. Nandi hills is situated 60 km on outskirts of Bangalore and is a cool weekend day/night-out hangout for most of the Bangaloreans. Recently we have observed it being littered with plastics, polythene and glasses. We thought of making a 'buzz' by taking this step to start a clean-up drive.

Caught the bus with couple of friends from Cisco, Yahoo, Cognizant and other IT/BT folks and we were there by 7:00 in the morning. Initiative and sponsorship was taken by Yahoo! folks to arrange cleaning kit (gloves, plastic and cotton bags ) which really helped us in collecting 25 plastic bags and 4 bags of bottles.

All I could say that we have really M.A.D. ( made a difference ) at Nandi hills.

Govinda Online -> Worth playing

2008-08-23T00:17:00.001-07:00

This is mast-playing online flash game on occasion of janmashtami.

http://www.dahihandi.com/

Do take a look and I bet u will enjoy!

Unnecessary evils of software services industry- The trio

2008-08-06T23:46:00.000-07:00

Nice article and a must read. Think about it as it is a serious bottleneck for future innovations in India.

Why Wipro, Infosys and TCS are “The Axis of Evil” for Indian startup space
by Ashish Sinha
This article by Vishal echoes the true sentiments of an Indian entrepreneur- so share your opinion

Why Wipro, Infosys and TCS are “The Axis of Evil” for Indian start-up space ?
Yes you read it right I am calling this trio and their thousands of offshoots “The Axis of Evil” for Indian Software and Start-up space.....

Click here to read full article

Live Traffic Monitoring on Web

2008-07-30T03:04:00.000-07:00

Nice service by Mapunity. A new web portal to get live information on traffic status, directions and auto fares for the following cities:

http://www.dtis.in/ for Delhi

http://www.btis.in/live.htm for Bangalore ( This includes live traffic cam )

http://www.ptis.in/ for Pune

http://www.htis.in/directions.htm for Hyderabad

http://www.chennaitraffic.in/ for Chennai

With the help of traffic police, they have launched a live traffic portal (Transport Information System) where you can find:

1. Optimal routes between any two places in the city
2. Auto-fares
3. Bus routes and stops, etc.

Why not Mumbai ??

Virtual tour of Cisco campus

2008-06-22T21:40:00.001-07:00

This is certainly not to impress you coz I work for Cisco but still would like to share as I believe its indeed worth to have a look at one of the nicest office campuses in India :

Click here to view !!

Courtesy: Rediff

Kodaikanal Trip Was Unbelievable

2008-06-15T08:22:00.000-07:00

It was unbelievable and extremely beautiful trip of my life to Kodai hills .. and also after a long time with full family. We were pretty amazed by the natural beauty of Kodaikanal which certainly has broken our myth that Ooty is the only standard hill-station in southern india.
Infact I liked few parts of Kodai more natural, beautiful and cleaner than Ooty, specially the nature walk into the woods .. which was awesome.

more to come ..

"StartupCity - Bangalore" was gr8 platform

2008-05-24T05:05:00.000-07:00

May 24th, Saturday around 4000 techies, 300 CEOs & 20+ VCs thronged the Nimhans conventional center, Bangalore as the SmartTechie Startup City organized a great networking platform for them.
Guess who rocked the event.. not the VCs, nor the CEOs, and neither the Programs Managers, geeks, techies or sales representatives. It was a one-man show by LeadIndia champ Mr. R.K. Mishra !!! Hats off to the guy, to the insight, passion and the vision be is having.
Be it entrepreneurship, politics or leadership, he has really fascinated the crowd with his views and case-studies.
Now ask why I was invited to attend it? No, certainly not to impress you. I don't have much inetrest in entepreneurship. SO let's talk about the business which I am into ..
Yes!! telecom .. and here's the summary ..
Companies like Divitas Networks, which started back in 2005 - developing mobile unified communications applications, were a great show. Sloka Telecom has also stepped into WiMax applications development space. No wonder, not-so-startup, Starent Networks is already doing great after being opening up their second dev center in Bangalore in 2005, in the wireless space.

For more coverage of this event, click here

Those who code/test - Engineers; Those who can't, People Managers

2008-05-21T05:57:00.000-07:00

For Indian techies, there are lot of reasons for so-called popular obsession of choosing management as a career option. Lots of my senior colleagues opted for being Project Managers in most of the IT services companies. Few give reason that there is no other way for 'growth' in engineering until one reaches higher-ladder (Management) cadre, few say that they are extra-smart enough to interact with clients, bring business to company and run the programs efficiently and thats what drives the tech business. There are few ones who ca and few are compelled by the social restrictions who feel inferior if they remain engineer for more than 5 years of their technical career.

According to them, one who is managing resources and program schedules sitting in cabin, is 'levels' above than those who write code on IDEs sitting in their cubie. They make themselves happy by thinking that they have a broader idea about the overall product without being knowing about single feature implementation. They have the so-called 'power' of manging 'people' and their decisions are going to drive the overall product/program.

more to come soon...

Weekend Trip to Kerala

2008-05-12T01:40:00.000-07:00

Just came back today morning after having a blast in Alleppy and Komarakom. We sailed thru the back-waters and the ocean in house-boat and partied heavily on saturday-nite with the deadly combination of sea, rain and the sand.
I must say staying overnight in house-boat amidst backwaters was a wonderful experience and I would recommend my friend-n-folks to have a visit during such a tropical summer.
The very next day we went to Kumarakom bird-sanctuary and that too was awesome experience in the woods. Nice chill-out we had in the nature's lap and it was a nice experience than what we generally do in so-called pub-city of India.
This was my second trip to Kerala down-south and it was altogether different from the first one which I had to Kerala up-north in Jan 2006.

Recharge successful: back from home trip

2008-03-27T03:11:00.000-07:00

25th morning 9.00 AM i landed back to Bangalore after 7 days of fully charged home trip to Lucknow and Delhi. HOLI was a blast and meeting with friends in Noida, Lucknow and Delhi was a great fun.
After 2 years I played Holi in Lucknow with 2 glass of bhang and lots of colors. This was very much required as last 2 years we friends were rocking Bangalore and I always believe in keeping a balance of north and south in my life.
Thats why when my battery goes down in south(work), I always recharge it by going north(home).

Convergence India '08 - New Delhi

2008-03-25T01:01:00.000-07:00

The most awaited telecom event ( for me at least ) has finally happened in capital city. The 16th Convergence India 2008 was hosted on 19-21 march 2008 at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi.
I am personally following this event from last 4 years ( that's how long I am into the telecom world) and I do every possible attempt to not to miss this grand event.
To me, the biggest attraction were Nokia-Seimens, Erricsson and Tejas Networks as they represent the key market dynamics. Overall market focus was on NGN (next-gen networks), 3G wireless and packet-based services.
It was a platform for hardware vendors ( networking & communication gears, OEMs, unified communications, optic-switches etc.), service providers (broadband, ethernet, VOIP etc. ) as well as for software vendors (network management).

The following market opportunities were identified:
India is the fastest growing telecom network in the world today and second largest in Asia. Year 2006-07 witnessed 66 % growth in networks. Mobile handset sales were nearly 100 million a year and PCs six million plus. In the next three years, the plans are:
* 500 million telephone connections.
* Of these at least 150 million will be in rural areas where farmer-entrepreneurs are changing the countryside.
* 40 million high speed Internet subscribers.
* 20 million broadband subscribers with 2MBPS bandwidth.
* 100,000 common service centers in villages.
* Wide Area data networks in 23 states.
* US $ 5.8 billion e-Governance programme.
* Millions of citizenship cards to be issued with biometric identification.
* Several networks in healthcare, education, research, videoconferencing facilities across the country,VoIP, VPN and IN (Intelligent Networking).

Shited Flat ...

2008-03-16T22:02:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was kinda crazy but fun as I shifted my rented1BHK flat to Indiranagar; after living in the vicinity of Bannerghatta road for three years ( that's exactly the time since I am in Bangalore).

Although the flat is in an individual house in a street which is 10 meters inside from the posh main 80 feet road in the vicinity of HAL 2nd Stage. Most os the happening hang-outs like CCDs, PlanetM, Spencer and various restaurants are walking distance only.
The good thing is that my office would be just 4 km away.

The unpacking activity was kinda fun as compared to packing. Playing with boxes and markers finally proved worth and made my life easy.

Most of the things are fit in place and the house is ready for partying as soon as I get back from my HomeTrip on 25th Mar.

You can notice in the pics that the stuff seems pretty organized inspite of the fact that bachelors live in this flat [;-)].

Back to product development.. finally :)

2008-02-22T10:19:00.000-08:00

Yes! and why not? finally am back !
Am back to what I was waiting for since last 1 year, getting back to what I've always wanted, to do what I am made for .. and that is all about getting back into PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT MAINSTREAM.
I know its gonna be nuff challenging, and i'll take some time to get accustomed also, but that all has to happen one day, so better now.
I have already started feeling the sincerity of the environment and the quality of people all around me, no doubt I made a very right decision at a very right time.
Although I don't like the tall cubicles and the deserted cafeterias, but have to make do with them. After all, no one gets a perfect world, and that's all to make me happy, for now ;-).

Should I join - IT Products or IT Services?

2008-02-01T03:44:00.000-08:00

Note: This EXCELLENT article is COPIED-n-PASTED from http://www.pluggd.in/2006/10/should-i-join-it-products-or-ithtml

Calling all ye IT folks - did you ever give a damn whether to join an IT product or a services company? Frankly speaking, does it really matter to you?

Well, here is a post on why it should matter whether you are joining an IT product or an IT services company. Comprehensive list of pros /cons of joining IT Product/Services firm.

* Challenging work*
All IT companies talk about *Innovation*, which I believe is one of the most abused terms in the s/w industry (others being work- life balance, flat structure, open culture, and of course flexi timing).
Open up the ToI Ascent page you will find every company talking about *Innovation*/*bleeding edge tech*
If all these companies offer such a great innovative work, why are they suffering from so much of attrition? The reality is that very few companies build innovative products - rest all do a lip-service.
On the other hand, Product companies offer far more innovative work than their counterparts in the services segment.
Ever heard of a service co. filing patents? How many technology patents do Indian IT services co. have? [FYI - Indian cos. have filed for less than 50 patents in the last 5 years, while US companies have filed 800+ patents from India!, using the local talent].

Services companies might talk about delivery model etc, but service companies are good at execution of processes and hence innovation/R&D takes a backseat.
Lets try to understand why product companies are better suited for Innovative work?

* Because the product requirements are very dynamic.
* They are not simply governed by SLAs (service level agreements).
* The software requirements come from different sources (Product Management, Marketing, Consulting, Analysts, Competition etc.) and hence the challenge to build a framework, which can scale upto future releases too!

Imagine yourself in the shoes of developing applications like eBay, Amazon, Google, Yahoo etc. What challenges do you see? Performance/ Optimization/ Scalability/ Integration with third-party products/Competition coming up with innovative features and snatching away your market share?
Too many things to be worried about while designing such products! You need to be efficient/nimble and a smart coder to develop such products.
And to build a scalable product (which will still be in sync with future technical release as well), technical challenges are far more compared to building an application for a client.

* Show me the money (INR)
A necessary evil! This is one of the most said/*unsaid* reason for job shifts.
In general, Product companies are better paymaster than services companies.
And why is that so?
Lets look at the type of professionals that are required in these 2 companies.
Service companies do a variety of services. Right from development to testing/ maintenance/ implementation etc. (60-70% of revenues are sourced from maintenance work).
- What this means is that service cos. do not really need rock stars (a breed which is intelligent, smart and innovative).
What they need is a bunch of average performers, who can follow the process and keep developing the system as per the client requirements.
On the other hand, product companies desperately need rock stars - they need people who have the ability to handle bottlenecks in s/w performance, who can efficiently code scalable solutions, who can think beyond the obvious stated requirements!!

So how does this map to salary? Well, there is obviously a demand-supply gap as far as Rock Stars are concerned
And its because of this demand-supply gap that Product companies have to attract the talent, offer better salary compensation than services.

Rock stars, in general have a suicidal tendency on hearing words like Process/CMM etc and are very skeptical of reporting structures.
And at the same time, they are the ones who have the capability to build solutions like Yahoo/Amazon/Google etc.
If you are a rock star (or dare to be one), I strongly suggest you not to join a services company.

* Show me the money ($)
So services guys are paupers who are neither innovating nor get a great salary?
Well, here lies the real fun!
As a developer/QA in a service co, you will have enormous opportunity to visit customer locations and make $s!
With the current trend of outsourcing, product companies are setting up their offshore dev centers (which they do not want to publicly admit as cost cutting center, but in reality 90% of such centers are meant to cut the development cost and nothing more), and therefore chances of long term onsite is very minimal.
The only opportunity for long-term onsite role in Product Company is to be the part of consulting team (which implements the solution).
Unfortunately, if your firm is in ASP business model (OnDemand service, where there is no client installation/implementation of the product-a business-model which is getting widely seen these days), your onsite opportunities are as bleak as Ganguli’s comeback in the Indian squad.
In short, if you are desperately looking for dollarised life, join a services company.

* Diversity in work
If you are the one who gets bored of same stuff/same people/same team very frequently, product companies do not have much to offer.
The moment you join one of the product lines, it is very difficult to shift to other domains/products.
But, services companies have projects (which have start and end date) and the moment your project is over, you will be shifted to different project:: new team, new codebase, new domain and of course, new deadlines!!

* Domain expertise
Be it SCM, Finance or CRM, product companies are undoubtedly richer in domain knowledge (after all, that is their bread, butter and jam!) than services.
There is no doubt that professionals from product companies are better equipped with domain knowledge than their counterparts from services background.
Very few of the service projects have much to do with the domain. Typically, their client will have a SME (subject matter expert), who will play the functional role and business analysts from service company side will fetch the requirements and convert them to SRS.
So, if you are the one who loves marrying business domain and techie stuff, go ahead and join a product company.

* Stability/Future
Stability and IT do not go very well for the product companies.
Year 2005 has seen major product acquisitions (Siebel-Oracle, Flickr-Yahoo, Skype-eBay, Retek-Oracle, Requisite-Click Commerce etc..). Any idea what happened to employees? Well, when a co. gets acquired, employee’s fate is at the mercy of the acquiring company.
If you are lucky you get a job elsewhere but layoffs are a major part of life@ product companies.
And you thought if you are a technically sound /have always been a great performer, you will never get laid off?
You are wrong.
Few major reasons for these layoffs are that the product line is not profitable, or the company gets acquired and the new * dad* may decide to downsize.
Also, most of the product companies source their funding requirements from VCs who in turn start looking out for an exit option after a certain point.
In such a scenario, the only option left for companies is to either go for IPO or get acquired (easier way out!).

If you are lucky, you might get to encash your ESOPs and make money, but otherwise your fate largely depends on the acquiree company/their strategy.
Therefore, if you are the kind who wants to stick around and retire, think twice about joining a product company!!

* The next leap? Growth path?
In services, a typical growth path that one follows is either get into Project/Delivery Management or follow the Architect route.
But Product companies have a lot more to offer.
Apart from Proj/Delivery manager and Architect role, you can join the Product Management/Marketing/Business Analysis team, which in itself opens new avenues (you can join the sales/marketing team, or be a core domain expert!).
Hence, if you are the one who wants to perform different roles in your career span, product companies are a better bet.
But, if you prefer processes (six-sigma etc..) and you want to stick to proj. mgmt, go for services! - Project Management is a lot more challenging in Services (needs direct customer handling), unlike in Products where Project Managers work internally with Product Management.

Summary:
Okay - here is a checklist for self-evaluation:
* Identify your technical strengths as well as weaknesses:

* Are you a great techie, a rock star? Do you always dream of solving complex technical problems?
* Or you are an average coder (Do what is given and maybe a little more)? It is okay to be an average coder, but have great skills to handle customers.
* What exactly interests you? - Coding/Technical talks? Or People Management?

* How do you define career stability?

* How important is onsite trip for you? Short term/Long term?

* Do you want to be a business domain expert or is it the technical domain (integration/server-side etc) that interests you?

My Artwork

2007-07-16T22:06:00.000-07:00

This is a quick glimpse my all-time fave sketch and i think this is something real crazy and different i've ever drawn as this is the only sketch in which i used both pen and pencil ;-)
For more of my sketches ..Click here!

broken six string: 1 of my fave sketches

2007-07-13T10:02:00.000-07:00

Products I worked so far:

2007-07-13T08:46:00.000-07:00

removed

NMS best practices

2007-07-13T06:11:00.000-07:00

This document describes baselining concepts and procedures for highly available networks.