tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38478002011-10-29T21:52:27.291+05:30Random ramblings of Debashish Chakrabarty on Programming, Java, Indian reverberations and whole slew of other things. [This is a mirror blog, for the original Null Pointer visit http://jroller.com/page/debashish]Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comBlogger1411100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1110015041660701952005-03-01T14:58:00.000+05:302005-03-05T15:00:41.666+05:30

I feel elated in presenting Nirantar, World's first Hindi blogzine. It has been the result of untiring efforts of so many Hindi bloggers, and prominently that of Pankaj Narula, Jitendra Chaudhary, Anup Shukla, Ravishankar Shrivastava, Atul Arora and Raman Kaul but I must say that the fire kindled in the Hindi blogging community for strengthening it provided the much needed shot in the arm. I must

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1110014782769590092005-02-17T14:55:00.000+05:302005-03-05T14:57:21.113+05:30

Java's friendly mascot Duke has got a blog too.Indic threads has a 3 part skinny on J2SE 5.0 Bus Service to Pakistan. Oh no not again! I am sick and tired of these gimmicks."some countries"..so sweet Patil saheb! India ki diplomacy da jawab nahin!

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1110014718335382132005-02-08T14:54:00.000+05:302005-03-05T14:55:18.336+05:30

Visibly annoyed with its aging dinosaurs and amidst the aspiration scuffles taking its toll in the party, BJP's old turk Govind Govindacharya is scratching the wounds again. The Babri mosque demolition was the "failure of the saffron leadership..to gauge the mood of the karsevaks...a glaring example of contradiction between cadre-based and mass-based politics", says the expat.An occupying

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1110014641053578312005-02-07T14:51:00.000+05:302005-03-05T14:54:01.056+05:30

It is difficult not to raise voice against this seemingly undemocratic move, the recent return of monarchy in Nepal, yet if King Gyanendra's motive of curbing the Maoist showdown holds any truth, I would invest my support for such a move. When the elected representatives are capable to do little, it is futile to justify a weak democratic setup. What scares me is thatsmall nations like Nepal could

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1110014500807282312005-02-03T14:50:00.000+05:302005-03-05T15:07:19.100+05:30

Very few organisations would go out of the way to provide additional facilities to their customers. Obviously Paypal is one such organisation. It gives you the facility to, guess what, forget your password. So if you were too proud of having an elephant's memory, accept the challenge ;)

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1110014391416908822005-01-27T14:49:00.000+05:302005-03-05T14:49:51.420+05:30

It seems the Hindi blogdom will soon realize its dream of creating a Hindi blogzine, "Nirantar". The monthly blogzine on the anvil has the mission to chronicle the blogdom in general with an emphasis on the Indian language blogging scenario. However, the magazine, hopefully, would not be confined to topics related to blogging alone.We are currently soliciting material for the inaugural issue of '

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1106627538935743982005-01-25T10:02:00.000+05:302005-01-25T10:02:18.936+05:30

Months of activity, loads of brickbats (ranging from bad template -- despite the excellent work by Chugs, poor management, disagreement with the methodology, rigging at the polls, being partisan to Hindi blogdom right unto being pooh-poohed on my anonymity and bad English) and now a breeze of praises, organizing Indibloggies was arduous compared to the last year's event. Thanks to all those who

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1110014330471399542005-01-24T14:47:00.000+05:302005-03-05T14:48:50.473+05:30

All my sites have been abused by people trying to transfer money to Pakistan, people like scientology publishing posts for gathering funds in the pretext of tsunami relief etc... and not to forget me being 'branded'all this and more from Rohan Pinto, the copycat in limelight who confesses thanks to an "angelic" call he got.

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1106627516068298262005-01-22T10:01:00.000+05:302005-01-25T10:01:56.070+05:30

Chandru emailed me about this guy called Rohan Pinto who has his own domain and has been plagiarizing the blog posts, verbatim, without perhaps ever worrying about it. Now I can understand his urge to be a noted blogger when blogging on pretty grave technical topics but what could be the rationale for blatantly copying an innocent post that appears here, notice how the copycat cleverly replaces "

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1106627486649844852005-01-20T10:01:00.000+05:302005-01-25T10:01:26.653+05:30

News paper giant Hindustan times has come up with a new ePaper concept. The catch is, it is a premium, subscription based content where they promise the replica of the print edition would be available online even before it would reach regular reader's doorstep. The concept is one coined by Bodhtree who are apparently servicing other publication groups as well. Honestly, I find such moves fairly

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1106627432411977642005-01-03T10:00:00.000+05:302005-01-25T10:00:32.413+05:30

Getting tired of my Celeron with 32 MB RAM and 10 GB hard disk (yes I was surviving on that) I have almost made up my mind to go for a new PC under exchange. Pentium P-IV with 512 MB DDR RAM, 80 GB HDD (Hynx). But I have two problems, being new at Pune I am not aware of the right places to ask quotes and secondly I am not too sure on the exact difference (in terms of performance and

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1106627458370968212005-01-01T10:00:00.000+05:302005-01-25T10:00:58.370+05:30

Null Pointer wishes its readers and well wishers and their families a very happy and prosperous new year 2005.

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1106627397647868652004-12-14T09:59:00.000+05:302005-01-25T09:59:57.646+05:30

Joel pointed to Google Suggest, another incrdible offering from the guys who always think different. I agree with Joel when he says that "Google is very publicly raising the bar on the quality of interfaces that people will expect from web pages." What inspires me is the approximate number of search results displayed along side the suggested search term, result of the XML HTTP Request magic.

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1102411003472850562004-12-07T14:45:00.000+05:302004-12-07T14:46:43.473+05:30

Not many developers get the opportunity to be part of a project through the entire SDLC. For many people who are working on maintenance project, where the product is already there, the developer is usually involved only in bug-fixing or minor enhancements. Having been involved in a few, I have always wondered on the question, how can the Design Patterns be applied in such a scenario?I raised this

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1102411162784697982004-12-06T14:49:00.000+05:302004-12-07T14:49:22.786+05:30

As the baton is passed by Ek Cup chai!, my Hindi blog, Nuktachini becomes the first indic blog to host the Bharteeya Blog Mela. Nominations are being invited for BBM's 37th edition. Blog posts written by Indians on Indian topics during December 7 - 10 can be nominated for the mela. This blog had the privilege to host mela once, you can read it here.

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1102133478114467752004-12-04T09:38:00.000+05:302004-12-04T09:41:18.113+05:30

With most of the bloggers being IT professionals and students (I seem to be too sure on that), it is a refreshing change to see a lady "criminal psychologist" blogging. Thenga, Manga, Pattani, Sundal is the blog I stumbled upon recently (though I didn't quite get the need of having another blog with the same name but different username even if "Ethnic-chiclet" sounds cool..). The author seems to

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1102057910466278332004-12-03T13:41:00.000+05:302004-12-03T12:43:50.926+05:30

Charu refers to an article on how to dela with the blogger burnout, a term I came to terms with when Jivha quit blogging. For me it has been more the case of Blogger block rather than burnout. I have never been a zealous blogger anyway but few months back I at least would right twice/thrice a week, it is still twice or thrice but the weeks have turned into months. A friend, who just would not

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1102046532272216542004-12-03T09:31:00.000+05:302004-12-03T09:32:12.273+05:30

At least there is some initiative for India. Me thinks Map My India, the desi version of Mapquest has still long way to go but it’s good. I tried searching for my locality at my native place Bhopal (only a limited number of cities are covered as of now) and though it just managed to point at a broad outline, no street level data was given as with Google’s Keyhole, but then Keyhole would not ever

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1101442450132061502004-11-17T09:22:00.000+05:302004-11-26T09:44:10.133+05:30

Are you aware of any date in history when nothing, absolutely nothing happened, literally? Well I was not aware of it and the answer unexpectedly came from Unix. On the Unix prompt if you do a 'cal 9 1752' you get the following calendar. The missing days owe it to the Gregorian Reformation when the King of England decreed that the days from 3rd to 13th be knocked off the calendar month in order

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1098009494508484712004-10-10T16:07:00.000+05:302004-10-17T16:08:14.510+05:30

These are election times in Maharashtra and a reader of TOI wrote in his letter to the editor that he supports a petitioner who demanded that the pavement encroachers be debarred from voting. This, they think, apart from saving the city would prevent politicians from cashing on their vote bank. There are lacs and lacs of encroachers in most of the major cities, especially in Metros who occupy

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1094128689157352122004-09-02T18:07:00.000+05:302004-09-02T18:13:39.696+05:30

A Mumbai based lecturer I hear has moved the courts to make it binding on all Cable wallahs to show only that stuff on TV that are passed by the Censor Board. He is perturbed by the unwarranted ill effect that such programmes cause on the children. Contrary to what you may presume I support this. It has now been established that visual medium has long-term effects on child psychology. I am

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1094043385337490152004-09-01T18:24:00.000+05:302004-09-01T18:26:25.336+05:30

Bajaj is using the voice of radio doyen Amin Sayani in a television commercial for one of its vehicle range. Though this advertisement might be a complete unit in itself but the commercial plays a different combination of Indian language stanza along with the Hindi opening lines from a popular song of Adnan Sami for the Hindi movie Saathiya. What you consequently get are different versions of the

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1092994620044421702004-08-20T15:07:00.000+05:302004-08-20T15:07:00.043+05:30

IndiBlogs seem to be bitten by lethargy mites. Jivha quit blogging and I myself has not been akin to the burnout. Last month was pretty hectic and brought sort of mental upheaval that shook me up completely. When I joined my last employer I was convinced that now I want to settle down there. I and my wife had also developed a liking for the city, Tanmay was born here, but just when I expected it

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1087555910017976432004-06-18T16:21:00.000+05:302004-06-18T17:30:02.816+05:30

There has been a lot of buzz around Antenna, an Ant add-on for J2ME applications. Why! Can't I use Ant for this? You very well can, but Antenna elevates many Ant tasks that are peculiar to J2ME, for instance: updating the JAD for the correct JAR size, a task that doesn't matter as long as you are running your Midlets on the Wireless Toolkit (WTK) but is an absolute must for the Application

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1086701178657617052004-06-08T18:56:00.000+05:302004-06-08T18:56:18.663+05:30

One of the J2ME applications I had been involved in emerged with a big problem when tested for boundary conditions. When the client was sending less than 2048 bytes, the server was able to handle it correctly. The content-length header was being set in the client correctly and was available at the server. The J2ME client uses javax.microedition.io.HttpConnection class to make HTTP connection to

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1084861253358304362004-05-18T11:50:00.000+05:302004-05-18T11:50:53.363+05:30

Readers of this blog would recall that I predicted that the Congress (and Sonia Gandhi too) would show some prudence in electing any seasoned politician from its camp (and there are many) to be the next Prime Minister. Sonia could still be the party supremo to act as the "source of inspiration" for the party workers as well as create a "power centre" within the organisation to dispel internal

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1084775958570368732004-05-17T13:09:00.000+05:302004-12-03T09:37:19.696+05:30

The Java "pitru-purush" (father figure), James Gosling will be on his maiden India visit this week. He would be here to participate in the Sun Tech Days, taking place on May 20-21 at Hyderabad. The theme for this year is "Turning Ideas into Innovation". It should be a grand event as there are almost 3 lacs Java developers in the country (almost half of the entire developer population) and the

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1084773788740759442004-05-17T11:33:00.000+05:302004-05-17T11:33:08.746+05:30

My father is a retired public sector undertaking employee. Having grown up in a city within a city scenario where this navratna organisation had created all kind of facilities for its employees sector-wise schools, colleges, dispensaries, shopping complexes, recreational facilities, everything the employee and their families would ever need, I have deep respect for public sector organisations.

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1084607865259835242004-05-15T13:27:00.000+05:302004-05-15T13:27:45.266+05:30

If there is one thing that has undisputedly emerged as the winner at Elections 2004, it is the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM). A country where 35% people are still illiterate, yet a country regarded as a super-power in IT manpower, infact a country with all kind of contradictions voted in this elections entirely through EVMs, with no problems. Credit indeed goes to the designers who envisaged

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1084528880325041342004-05-14T15:31:00.000+05:302004-05-14T15:31:20.333+05:30

When I first saw the link to the gruesome video showing American contractor Nicholas Berg being beheaded in Iraq at Jihva's I had expressed my anguish over the internet rage such videos become in a jiffy. I wondered on what makes the Internet fraternity to happily pass on the links to such gruesome videos (I remember a friend of mine gleefully calling me to his cubicle and displaying the

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1084526764159031382004-05-14T14:56:00.000+05:302004-05-14T14:56:04.166+05:30

Few afterthoughts on the Elections 2004 that I must pen down. Tough days ahead for Congress, reorganizing the cadres, dealing with inline power spots and above all running a coalition with a bloated ego. Though leaders like Paswan (who earlier backed NDA) want to be part of the government, many (like CPI(M)) will chose to stay outside. Such partners will only add to the risks. We are perhaps

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1084439720969164222004-05-13T14:45:00.000+05:302004-05-13T14:45:20.976+05:30

What a turnaround! Couple of weeks ago I was contemplating on how LK Advani will overrule Vajpayee after an NDA win. But in my earlier post on the Chandrababu Naidu debacle I had talked about the choice of Chip and Chapati that a voter of today is presented today. I am happy that he has shown that he can be affected but not blinded by the glitter of colossal campaigns run on money and charisma.

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1084425298595686732004-05-13T10:44:00.000+05:302004-05-13T10:44:58.600+05:30

It has been long since I won anything in some contest or the like, so the last fortnight unveiled few pleasent surprises for me. First the Microsoft Wireless Optical desktop that I won at a competition at Bhasha India (stupid courier walas managed to do a vanishing trick on the 4 batteries though) and second a book on JFC Swings at Javaranch's giveaway. Wish the spree continues!

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1084348964176238712004-05-12T13:32:00.000+05:302004-05-12T17:48:57.906+05:30

They had a choice to go for a CEO or choose an able Chief Minister and people of Andhra Pradesh settled for the latter. The recipe of advances in the IT, economic reforms hardly mattered for 80% of the people who were dealing with abject poverty and lack of development. IT has been a pure urban revolution and who cares for such phenomenon when you are not promised your daily meal and basic

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1083304865564535592004-04-30T11:31:00.000+05:302004-04-30T11:41:27.153+05:30

Indian politics and the electoral procedure are fun galore. From the tickling to outrightly funny, from bizarre to most innovative, we have it all. A candidate from Madhya Pradesh, for instance uses banners and thelas carrying boxes with posters to campaign, nothing unusual in this except that he urges the voters not to vote for him. Balram Jakhar, erstwhile Loksabha speaker takes a clue from the

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1082985007362105452004-04-26T18:40:00.000+05:302004-04-26T18:44:13.733+05:30

Sushmita Bose noticed that in the quick-shift world of Indian advertising, the Big Idea these days is going back in time. Offcourse Null Pointer was the first to point this out.

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1082984624560664102004-04-26T18:33:00.000+05:302004-04-26T18:37:51.013+05:30

Though I am a man with strong prejudices and the 1 GB thing might have blinded me but still here is my 2 paise on the features I liked about GMail:The scripting that lets the Reply/Forward text areas open almost instantly with an option to open them as new windows.If you liked the MS-Word spell checker Gmail has got it better, and remember this is not a desktop application.Email addresses being

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1082700391708345782004-04-23T11:36:00.000+05:302004-04-23T11:40:33.763+05:30

Though I have never been able to decipher an iota of the concepts of business blogging (and most of the posts at her blog), I wonder how people like her are still making money selling the same old image of India in the name of ethnography, as a country of snake-charmers and cows walking on streets. I wish Munnabhai MBBS asks Circuit for another body for doing his practicals ;)Got yesterday a

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1082178772523017252004-04-17T10:42:00.000+05:302004-04-17T10:46:46.500+05:30

Two interesting aspects were brought forward related to making the forthcoming polls completely electronic with sole usage of the EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines). The first is off course the public interest litigation which demands the Elections Commission to add a last option "None suitable" on the EVM panel, similar to the "None of the above" or "Insufficient data to predict" option to an

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1082091204035144232004-04-16T10:23:00.000+05:302004-04-16T10:27:16.106+05:30

Zee News featured an interview of Atalji with veteran journalist Rahul Dev on 16 April. It was supposed to be a short routine interview, but instead came out saying a lot of unsaid things about the contender to the post of next PM. I had only read about Bahadur Shah Zafar's last days and perhaps he wouldn't have been much different from what Atalji looked. The grand old man of India was truly in

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1081328589262755032004-04-07T14:33:00.000+05:302004-04-07T14:36:50.356+05:30

If any award were to be given for regional language blogs in India, I have little doubt that the Tamil Blogs would emerge as the deserving winners. Just look at their magnitude. I am not aware exactly how many of them are in Unicode but I believe that majority of them are. Apart from opening-up for universal readership, Unicode encoding also paves the way for these blogs to surface on Search

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1079938453750191122004-03-22T12:24:00.000+05:302004-03-22T12:27:32.873+05:30

The PM to be, L.K.Odd-vani is a great movie buff and like most stereotypical Hindi film characters is a hopeless blusterer. In last many posts I had talked about his and BJP's poll strategy of passing the Indo-Pak friendship lollypop to the minorities and the feel-good lollypop to the majority urban masses. This he hopes can work wonders. So founded is his view that he has started talking about

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1078724600566478042004-03-08T11:13:00.000+05:302004-03-16T18:30:19.280+05:30

Vir Sanghvi must be having a premonition that led him to jot very similar views in his column Indian Muslims and Pakistan that I expressed in this post in my Hindi blog about how BJP strategists think that the lollypop of Indo-Pak friendship can lure Muslim voters. However in his attempt to being non-partisan he brushes-aside Odd-vani's remarks as involuntary, so uncharacteristic of him. Vir

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1078475060250350292004-03-05T13:54:00.000+05:302004-03-15T11:20:43.686+05:30

Talking of Television there are clearly two divisions in the Indian context. On one side there is the state-owned Doordarshan (DD) and on the other the herd of satellite TV channels. The distinction off course is in the roots. DD have been traditionally serving as the mouth-piece of the ruling party and their filthy purpose. But if you could ignore this motive you can clearly say that there still

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1078466206102889372004-03-05T11:26:00.000+05:302004-03-05T11:29:43.513+05:30

Praful Bidwai writes in his column about BJP's poll strategy: Vajpayee must pave the way for the 2 per cent-rating man to take over. The BJP knows Advani is like Dick Cheney, equally devious, but more rabble-rousing and demagogic, who cannot match Bush’s ratings. Therefore, gullible sections of the public and the BJP’s upper middle-class supporters are being cajoled to vote for Vajpayee, only to

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1078290935811967722004-03-03T10:45:00.000+05:302004-03-03T10:48:30.340+05:30

With my investments I have been hitherto happily content, alike one third of Indian population, keeping the perils of share-bazaar out of the purview. A recent print article by Vishnudutt Nagar provoked me to wonder on the irony of this. People like me who rely on small-saving schemes, saving accounts and term-deposits have been of the opinion that the money is not risked at any point and that

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1078211280621808772004-03-02T12:38:00.000+05:302004-03-03T10:49:40.920+05:30

Congress has a supposedly fitting reply to the India Shining campaign of BJP, they now have a website called A Nation Betrayed which highlights the antonym; though I wonder what took so long to wake them up. Apparently the site is put up by a youth wing of the party indicating that the top-ripe-brass is still fast asleep and lacks the professional look for apparent reasons. Amongst the prominent

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1076046110153770692004-02-06T11:11:00.000+05:302004-03-15T11:22:50.856+05:30

The buzz must be stale by now, but Tiger (JDK 1.5) is out. Gosling excitedly terms Generics, the ability to parameterize a type, as the big one. As everybody knows by now, JDK1.5 is probably the last big change to Java after JDK1.2 which saw the arrival of Swing and new Collections API. I am yet to lay my hands on it, meanwhile here are few worthwhile pointers:J2SE 1.5 in a Nutshell: sums up

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1075881419424760532004-02-04T13:26:00.000+05:302004-02-04T13:48:52.763+05:30

Manohar puri made an interesting point in his article*. Should voting be made compulsory? Though I don't entirely agree with his view that one should snatch away the rights of an individual to criticize government policies and performance if he has not voted, right for expression being one of the foundation stones on which our democracy stands, that should not dilute the fatc that "duties"

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1075785389805774322004-02-03T10:46:00.000+05:302004-03-15T11:25:25.153+05:30

Asks Charu. Here is what I commented. If we are talking about a surging stock market, which might be a short-lived and synthetic phenomenon , yes. But going by the same yard-stick was India shining while Harshad Mehta was reigning? India is not shining because our exports have suddenly amassed, but because of the fact that FDIs and NRIs have invested here owing to the better interest rates they

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1075714533344951222004-02-02T15:05:00.000+05:302004-03-15T11:26:07.623+05:30

Finally a guage to enlighten me on the orientation of my thoughts. Political Compass tells me that I am an economic left winger with a slight inclination towards authoritarianism (score: Economic Left/Right: -3.88, Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.05). A confirmed authoritarian leftist, wow! Though my score on the social dimension surprises me! [Link via Acorn]

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1075187159707908682004-01-27T12:35:00.000+05:302004-01-28T10:26:58.750+05:30

Many, if not most, of us might have gotten rejected at interviews and recruitment processes. While rejection itself is reason enough for one to brood over and blame the selection process or the employer, I had tried on such occasions to sit for a while and put myself in recruiters shoe to analyze what might have gone wrong. Almost 70% of the times I realized it was my mistake. OK no probs, will

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1074664408846543412004-01-21T11:23:00.000+05:302004-01-21T13:20:22.686+05:30

My last post had a quote that represents my long standing apprehension: How will the BJP look minus Atalji? The answer is: very scary. But how has this scary party managed to run a coalition government for 5 years and reach the stage proclaiming the "til-gud factor". Answer is: BJP (read that RSS and the Hinduist organisations like that of Bahubal Thoke-ray) knows how to play different games in

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1074601793893091222004-01-20T17:59:00.000+05:302004-01-20T18:05:47.280+05:30

In this series of posts I will try and include quotes from various sources which match my own views. Here is the first in the series. Vir Sanghvi quips, "Vajpayee's stature blinds us to the reality of the BJP. Take him out of the equation and what do you have: a party composed of people who condone mass murder, rewrite history books, seek political advice from sadhus and leave electoral strategy

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1074495282317779422004-01-19T12:24:00.000+05:302004-01-20T18:06:05.826+05:30

Finally, I had to jump into it. I have been a Hindi writer, it is the language in which I think. But since typing in Hindi is tedious I had somehow put the project on backburner; not any more. The Hindi version of Null Pointer is now live here. It is called "Nukta Chini" (meaning occasional comments, frankly I am not awareof an English word that truly represents its meaning). My colleague Padmaja

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1074143796229344702004-01-15T10:46:00.000+05:302004-01-17T15:11:43.686+05:30

I had my childhood nourishment of entertainment from Vividh Bharati and Doordarshan so this post of Turbanhead revived old memories. The "Ek Anek" short animation film was targeted at National integration and was used as filler by DD at that time and, thanks to the fact that satellite TV wasn't even there, was immensely popular. Many readers might not know perhaps about the persons behind this

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1074058864881138782004-01-14T11:11:00.000+05:302004-01-17T15:16:28.936+05:30

If you read my post "Living in wonderland " notice the word "backtrack" that I used there. Devoid of spine, politicians have been known, since ages, to create artificial frenzy to fool people: the til-gud1 factor, cute mini-budget full of goodies, all-is-well on Indo-Pak front (aka Hindi-Paki bhai-bhai), Vajpayee is BJPs undisputed leader (backstabbing noise in background), L.K.Kataarvani2

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1074057539509724702004-01-14T10:48:00.000+05:302004-01-17T15:17:27.640+05:30

Chakra provided this cool link that creates a mirror of your website, literally. Though I already have a mirror at blogspot, have a look at the one created by this trick. Now the trick is adding ".mirror.sytes.org" to the domain name of your URL .

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1073540466967969552004-01-08T11:11:00.000+05:302004-01-17T15:19:10.543+05:30

I am always surprised by the media-frenzy that builds up even if the stalled vehicle of Indo-Pak talks manages to crawl an inch further and almost all the times backtracks many more inches later. For God's sake judge the scenario with a fair mind. Mian Musharraf will perhaps only risk his life from Islamic hardliners by negotiating anything on Kashmir if he is promised the Nobel Peace Prize, you

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1073540452616209442004-01-08T11:10:00.000+05:302004-01-17T15:19:52.593+05:30

Whenever I encounter any strange behaviour on my referrer list (which, thanks to Paris Hilton, are no more public now) I usually add it to my list of "funny referers". Here is the latest list for you to savor, my favorite being the Neena Gupta one ;) aircrafts videos crashedWhy do singletons prefer Mumbai? "indian wives" l o v e scenes from indian movies sarkari mindsetneena gupta in b a t h

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1073453324181623562004-01-07T10:58:00.000+05:302004-01-23T11:00:18.826+05:30

I came across Erik's survey on the "the 10 Habits of Highly Annoying Bloggers" and decided to jot down few things I detest about a blog: Blogs with black background and yellow fonts Blogs that are both blogs and photoblogs Blogs that would not accept an email id of the like debu at email dot com in comments Blog authors replying to your comments with a "thanks for reading", "ok" or such

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1073282505907161912004-01-05T11:31:00.000+05:302004-01-23T11:00:56.826+05:30

There is an interesting quiz that would perhaps let you know if you are a Blogoholic. I thought I was one, coz even if I don't post very regularly I read a lot of blogs everyday. But it emerged that I am only a casual weblogger. "You only blog when you have nothing better to do, which is not very often. There's nothing wrong with that. But if you'd post a little more often, you'd make your

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1072948751655586372004-01-01T14:49:00.000+05:302004-01-01T14:51:20.780+05:30

The best of Null Pointer! I have been pondering to put together this list for long and here it is. Now what do I mean my "the best"? Obviously not "the most visited" or "the most linked to" or " the most commented on" posts but those which I think I wrote well or reflect my stand-point on the issue. In a nutshell if you read only these posts you will perhaps have a dekko inside my mind. And

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1072764853835764962003-12-30T11:44:00.001+05:302004-01-23T11:07:09.653+05:30

Aaj Tak is going for a public issue and they suddenly realized that the brand has emerged mightier than the TV Today insignia, so their typical "B&W Hindi archaic movie ishtyle" stupid advertisements were back to tell the viewers that Aaj Tak is an offshoot of TV Today and not the other way round. I was really taken aback that for one they actually succeeded in roping in one of my idols Siddartha

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-107209421503306002003-12-22T17:26:00.000+05:302004-01-23T11:04:53.623+05:30

Many times the most innocuous aspects of programming create lot of trouble. Take the innocent Properties file. These avatars of Hashtable are collections of key-value pairs, frequently used by applications for their need for external resources and configuration settings. Now pointers such as these tell you that reading the Properties file using java io is evil, owing to the fact that it warrants

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1073278124224813632003-12-20T10:17:00.000+05:302004-01-23T11:03:59.153+05:30

Mitali just rang me up to inform that Tanmay has taken his first bold steps by himself. Pray, there is no looking back for him. May God bless him!

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1071899373442333982003-12-18T23:19:00.000+05:302004-01-23T11:06:35.983+05:30

Jivha thanked Bhutan for its military action against the insurgents including the ULFA outfits. As I commented on his blog, diplomatically we can read more than a "friendly" gesture here. Indian stature for SAARC countries resembles very much the American stature in the UN. India is the "local dada" here, reason why Pakistan is acting sheepishly off late to make the next summit, that its is

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1071648236851881132003-12-17T13:33:00.000+05:302003-12-17T13:35:09.936+05:30

What is Real development?By 2020 India will be a developed nation. Good for us, if the prophecy comes true. But then, what would be the state of the economy (or "new economy" as the term goes), education and employment then? One never notices murky media raise such issues, actually only a handful of people talk about it publicly. Surendra Mohan, a socialist thinker, in one of his recent columns

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1071553827930509662003-12-16T11:20:00.000+05:302003-12-16T11:21:38.890+05:30

Whither Development!Renowned sociologist and scientist Prof.Yashpal was in town few days back. He is one of the few people who have the straight-forwardness to oppose the education and examination system in India. "Education is not about cramming, you cannot learn science by mugging equations, you have to touch it to get the feel", said the Professor. An amazing point that emerges out of the

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1071468137072513462003-12-15T11:32:00.000+05:302003-12-15T11:33:27.420+05:30

Ulcerative Collitis: Need InformationFellow bloggers and readers, though I avoid posting very personal posts here this one is an exception. My mother has been suffering from Stomach ulcer (Ulerative Collitis) since almost 1.5 years. Recently she was advised to undergo surgery (ileopouch anastomosis). If you know any body who has undergone such a surgery kindly let me know the pros and cons of

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1073278246339860862003-12-12T22:19:00.000+05:302004-01-05T10:22:23.606+05:30

indian Googlee Search engine giant Google is all set to open its first offshore R&D facility at Bangalore in 2004. Keeping aside the hype about more and more offshore opportunities does that actually translate to better perks for the Indian techies. Forget it! Apparently the Google Indian initiative is guided by cost-cutting concerns (thought the company denies this) and the visa-problems that it

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1071122695280172432003-12-11T11:34:00.000+05:302003-12-11T11:36:00.310+05:30

Blogs dramatized!Ye duniya ek rangmanch hai Babu-moshai! (the world is a theatre, my dear bong). How can our blogs be less theatrical then! Alok pointed to this ingenious site that adds that quintessential spice of melodrama to your blog. Just type your URL here and your blog is hilariously converted to a Hollywood screenplay, instantly. Samples? Look how Alok's blog and mine fare, in their

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1070946232599519922003-12-09T10:33:00.000+05:302003-12-09T10:34:54.966+05:30

Bharteeya Blog Mela, 39th edition!This has been the first ever Blog-Mela hosted by Null Pointer, and though the number of nominations haven't been spectacular, they haven't been discouraging either. Now that I hosted it I can empathise how difficult it is to select a handful of entries from a maze of good posts. My thanks to Melodrama, Ravages, Aadisht, Aashish and someone who would remain

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1070625716797549122003-12-05T17:31:00.000+05:302003-12-05T17:32:54.326+05:30

Charge the spammers?A funny yet apt disclaimer for comment spammers I ecnetly noticed on a blog:Any advertisements or commercial endevours placed in the comments or sent via email addresses on this site (either mine or other commenters) will be charged at a rate of US$250 per time, payable within 30 days. Placing any such advertising or commercial message is an acceptance of this charge. If you

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1070604750736924232003-12-05T11:42:00.000+05:302003-12-05T11:43:27.840+05:30

39th Bharteeya Blog MelaLadies and Gentlemen! It's my privilege to host the weekly celebration of Bharteeya Blog Mela this week. And here is a formal invitation:Translated, that means: nominations for the 39th mela are open and may be submitted using the comments area for this post. If you go by rules, they have been quoted by last host Yazad here. You can nominate posts (including your own) made

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1070526420462516922003-12-04T13:57:00.000+05:302003-12-04T13:57:56.140+05:30

Sanyasin is CM, CM is SanyasiThe magic of Ballot has unfolded in Madhya Pradesh. The sansyasin (or sadhwi, whatever) Uma Bharti is destined to become the next Chief Minister of my home-state Madhya Pradesh and the defeated CM Digvijay Singh (incidently called Diggi "Raja") will take a political Sanyas, if words must be kept. What an irony! The confident-till-yesterday Diggi raja didn't had to say

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1070454630656390392003-12-03T18:00:00.000+05:302003-12-03T18:01:25.186+05:30

Rewrite the song Remo!Remo Fernandes, the famous pop-singer from Goa has once sung this famous satirical song on the state of telephones in Goa:Graham Bell, Graham Bell,You're dead and its just as well;But if you saw the phones in Goa.You'd jump into the well.Years later, it seems Remo will have to rewrite his lyrics as the BBC reports that Graham Bell did not invent the Telephone. Scottish-born

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1070434082614668512003-12-03T12:18:00.000+05:302003-12-03T12:41:51.360+05:30

Trip to mela & other thingsCool, it is my lucky day today? I think for the first time my post has made it to the mela, don't know whether on merit, or the folly of posting multiple comments at the nomination post that brought me to limelight. The plain vanilla flavour can be savored at Yazad's here. Thanks buddy :)The pre and exit poll surveys have predicted that sadhwi Uma Bharti will be the

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1070429142791953442003-12-03T10:55:00.000+05:302003-12-03T11:09:24.780+05:30

Bhopal: The struggle goes onIt's been 19 years since the Lethal Methyl Isocyanate gas from Union Carbide (now Dow Chemicals) struck disaster at Bhopal, the worst ever industrial havoc in the history of mankind. Images such as the one here had shook the whole world as more than 20 thousand peopel have lost their lives and more than a lakh suffer from the after-effects of the poisen. I remember

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1070260077043855102003-12-01T11:57:00.000+05:302003-12-01T11:58:48.686+05:30

Identity CrisisThe Indian states of Chhatisgarh, Madhya Pradesh (MP), NCT of Delhi and Rajasthan are going for assembly polls tomorrow. Funnily, the MP Election commission has specified 16 ways to identify a voter. The list includes Ration card, Student ID card, The IT PAN card, Passprot, Driving license, Blue card for people below poverty line and so on, apart from the expected Voter Identity

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1070018224507853842003-11-28T16:47:00.000+05:302003-11-28T16:49:52.296+05:30

Is Blog-revolution over?An interesting but debatable point has been raised by John C. Dvorak. Dvorak feels that the so-called Blogging Revolution has bitten the dust and that Blogging can't become the future of journalism as predicted due to two reasons: Massive abandonment of blogs with the writers getting bored or too tired to cope up with regular writing "Big Media" co-opting the blogosphere

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1069931155321233492003-11-27T16:35:00.000+05:302003-11-27T16:36:42.233+05:30

Blogs of EarthIt was a pleasant surprise to find a blog with an Indian name by a foreigner. While the author Awacante has evidently stopped blogging today on one of his other blog only he has a blog (infact a travelogue) called Namaste (Hello in Hindi). The author had visited India in 2000, perhaps as a volunteer to the Missionaries of Charity at Calcutta, and was inspired enough to chose an

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1069823429911906112003-11-26T10:40:00.000+05:302003-11-26T11:13:18.140+05:30

Scrollbar for Lefties?Rajesh was intrigued to find the scroll bar on the left of his screen for Google Arabic search and I agree with his observation. Now I am no UI design expert but for languages that are written from right to left is it imperative that the readers are left-handed (no pun intended) too? Also notice how the left/right arrow keys behave on the page. The reasons for the text

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1069761992804451462003-11-25T17:36:00.000+05:302003-11-25T17:39:31.903+05:30

Awareness is cureThere are very few bloggers who write keeping the reader in mind. Still very few will gather the courage to write about their shortcomings, agonies and disease for others to benefit from their experience or offer advice to. During my day's surfing I often come across many blogs listed at the Blog Portal or through the blogrolls of other blogs, some of them I could never visit

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1069737836131714842003-11-25T10:53:00.000+05:302003-11-25T10:54:39.903+05:30

Kudos TOISeldom do you find the virtues of restrain and responsibility amongst news media amidst the cut-throat competition that exists now a days. Mediaah reports that Times Of India's Pune team had uneartherd the CAT entrance test paper leak the previous evening but chose to exercise restraint and help the police nab the culprits. I think this is one of the finest examples of ethical journalism

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1069665969848644642003-11-24T14:56:00.000+05:302003-11-24T15:01:30.560+05:30

FM Radio takes a dramatic stepIf you were tired of watching those rona-dhona and saas-bahu soaps on the Indian tele there is no immediate respite because Star's Radio City is soon going to air radio-versions of few of its long-running soaps like Saans and Kyonki Saas bhi kabhi bahu thi. Radio is not cognitive and the Vividh-Bharati's Hawa Mahal listeners may readily vouch that it is more potent

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1069408852917047582003-11-21T15:30:00.000+05:302003-11-21T15:32:12.843+05:30

Walking straight in muddled watersSeasons change, people change, mentalities change but these politicians, they never ever change. Come election times and you can see a wide array of gimmicks from them. They talk talk and talk but you can be sure that they won't talk any sense. Take Madhya Pradesh (MP). BJPhas been vociferous in blaming the Chief Minister (CM) for the power crisis, yet it has

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1069326299503847522003-11-20T16:34:00.000+05:302003-11-20T16:35:36.170+05:30

The spammer Chief-ministerWell these are election times and the other day I was wondering whether the political parties are considering email as a medium of canvassing. Today I received a spam from, as it is signed, Narendra Modi the Gujarat CM, as many of you also might have received. The mail has possibly been distributed using private mailers and is targetted at the NRI or NRGs (non-resident

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1069069845343360152003-11-17T17:20:00.000+05:302003-11-18T14:07:18.560+05:30

Towards harmony with HibernateNever thought that leaping into Hibernate1 could be a bit tricky at this time. First there aren't many good step-by-step guide to using Hibernate and secondly all the available ones, perhaps, don't hold good for Hibernate ver 2.01, though it was released almost 6 months back. Now the porting guidelines say that it isn't much of a work but a Hibernate newbie may beg

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1068791096269799492003-11-14T11:54:00.000+05:302003-11-14T11:55:24.576+05:30

JavaRanch Journal ~ November IssueThe November issue of the Javaranch journal is here. The newsletter also featues a review of Whizlab's SCBCD exam simulator.

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1068699341518146252003-11-13T10:25:00.000+05:302003-11-13T10:26:08.810+05:30

Yahoo Groups available againSeems like the blanket ban on Yahoo Groups imposed by the boneheaded Indian beaurocrats has been lifted. Yahoo groups websites are now again available. Hope they do not repeat their stupidity.

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1068642381656689252003-11-12T18:36:00.000+05:302003-11-12T18:36:47.966+05:30

Is a Certification worth it?Thomas informs that according to the Sun Wireless Developer Newsletter a new certification exam Sun Certified Mobile Application Developer for J2ME, Version 1.0 is coming up. While this may be some good news for developers, it makes me wonder whether taking a certification exam is worthwhile at all. In a previous post Thomas had raised a similar point. I am of the

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1068527787900697602003-11-11T10:46:00.000+05:302003-11-12T18:37:21.310+05:30

Enough of showcasing technologiesI recently watched an episode of Bhoomi on Doordarshan National network. Bhoomi is a series on environment produced by Siddhartha Kak of Cinema Vision India and promoted by the Ministry of Environment and Forests. Siddhartha is better known for his long-running and immensely popular cultural magazine programme "Surabhi". My kudos to the producers for a very nice

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1068196860465062892003-11-07T14:51:00.000+05:302003-11-07T14:51:19.873+05:30

The malicious BananaJivha pointed to this unfledged clique in the Indi-blogosphere jeering the Bhartiya Blog Mela. It's called the Bhartiya Blog Kela. Now before I even start please note that I do not have anything for or against the Blog Mela but this is pretty hilarious . The guy apparently "had enough of sanctimonious debates on the social relevance of the mela". Wow, Wow..now this guy

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1068010337507193932003-11-05T11:02:00.000+05:302003-11-05T11:02:33.903+05:30

Meandering waysLife has meandering ways. You never know which way would lead to what destination, atleast that's what Googling often lets you decipher. Savour these recent funny search strings that lead people to this blog.housewives looking for fun in Navi Mumbaipressures and pains extra marital affairs labour politics inside zara hindi movies +love scenes aishwarya b***s how many ruppes in a

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1067854356416621942003-11-03T15:42:00.000+05:302003-11-03T15:42:50.733+05:30

The Quest for unknownIf there is one blog that comes any closer to my range of thoughts, its perhaps Charu's Peek in to my mind. One reason might be that we both belong to the same 70's generation. Many of her posts, like this one, echo my own thoughts. Her recent post "What about job satisfaction" prompted me to jot this down. Like Charu's my father has been a public sector employee with all

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1067662886695436852003-11-01T10:31:00.000+05:302003-11-01T10:31:38.263+05:30

Castor and the Namespace bugWhile working with a new version of Castor I recently encountered a strange error during unmarshalling (creating Java object out of corresponding XML schema). The error was as follows: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: The prefix 'xml' is reserved (XML 1.0 Specification) and cannot be declared.Luckily, some Googling brought me to this thread which explains the

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1067587865940931932003-10-31T13:41:00.000+05:302003-10-31T20:04:27.280+05:30

Holly-Bolly ke bahaneWatching the closing credit title of a Hollywood movie makes me appreciate their dedication to the art. All people who put in their effort seem to get the due credit; so one is not surprised to see the credit for the "Teenager at the disco" or "The fifth waiter" or the "lady at street corner". Many of the credit titles are very funny and many very artistic. On the contrast

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1066890889080573992003-10-23T12:04:00.000+05:302003-10-23T12:16:44.306+05:30

Much ado about CAFEBABEI was going through the documentation of BCEL and started wondering how come the magic-number in the Java class file 0xCAFEBABE looks so meaningful. While the original purpose for specifying the begining four bytes of Java class files is to assist in segregating prbable class files from non class files the the choice lets one ponder on whether it was just inadvertant or an

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3847800.post-1066801089425890822003-10-22T11:08:00.000+05:302003-10-22T17:13:34.580+05:30

My posts on JDJ/CiolOne of my post made under technology catgeory has been featured by the portal Ciol. The article is available here. Another recent post of mine on Code Analyzers has made been mentioned in Eric's Pulse of 20th October and has been published in the Java Developers Journal Industry journal available here. Thanks Eric :), thanks Ciol.

Debashish Chakrabartynoreply@blogger.com