Anyway, totally unrelated to the mosquitoes… ever have a craving for a particular type of food? Well, forget pregnant women – of course you did! And, I have them all the time too, and most of the time I can satisfy myself. Dominos, Subway, Curd Rice (it’s an Indian thing), mmmmm… But one that pops up now and then … and now especially… is the craving for some Mexican food – some nice bean burritos with melted cheese. At UCI, I would have just taken a 10 min walk down to the Taco Bell or Del Taco right next door (although I used to like Taco Bell while there, now that I think about it, I think I actually liked the Del Taco better). And I used to do it a lot. But damn it! No Mexican place for kilometers in this place. Anyone living in Pune know any Mexican places?

Singletons, Factories, Commands, Proxies, Visitors, Adapters, etc., etc. Yes, especially in designing and developing software, patterns like the trusty GoF are great. They give you a well-recognized, robust, reliable, reusable, flexible, etc. way to approach problems. Well-recognized because if I name something ObjectFactory, it instantly conveys a lot of structural and behavioral information to the seasoned (even the lightly seasoned) Software Engineer. Robust, reliable, reusable, flexible, etc. because well – these patterns have been put through their paces and are the result of refinement through usage in many systems.

But design patterns are not just useful in software systems. It’s easy to miss the beauty of design patterns in other areas. Consider for example, the network architecture for a large scale web site. At first, it seems like a big secret no one is willing to share. Kind of like an Alliance of Magicians. Not to worry though – there’s a few Gobs out there. So who’s coming to the rescue? Well, we start with … Google! Yes, it takes a while to filter through all the crap to get to some solid secrets-revealing but reading through the good stuff, you will again notice that the design for these sites takes the shape of a few common patterns.

So, here is some of the most interesting stuff available: The LiveJournal Backend Architecture (PDF), the Flickr Architecture, and a great series called the Database War Stories over on Tim O’Reilly’s blog (make sure to click on the links at the bottom to read through all the war stories).

Well, so what are the design patterns for the architecture of a large scale site? First are the front-facing web servers headed by load-balancer. On the other side of these web servers are one or more clusters of databases. Within each of these clusters, simple master-slave replication may be setup, or there may be horizontal or vertical data partitioning setup (which may also be across clusters, depending on the exact setup). There may also be a cluster for serving static content (such as files, HTML, etc.). Cache server (ex. memcached) clusters are also possible. The point is: there are clear patterns, and even solutions to easily implement these patterns. I leave it to you to get the details – they are all good reads (if you’re into that kind of thing).

Well, now, the damn thing actually stopped working. ARRGGGHHH!! It happened early morning on … well, that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that IT STOPPED WORKING … AGAIN!!! Now the people at Toshiba won’t replace it because its out of warranty by a couple of months. I’m thinking faulty power adapters but I still have to go buy me another one of those. Maybe in 3-4 months, I will have to buy another one after that.

 Wonderful. Thanks Toshiba. You Guys Suck.

For one thing, I went through that phase (yes, its a phase for Software Developers) where I wanted to create the next great MMORPG. And I knew for sure those jerks that kept telling me it wasn’t going to happen were all morons and should just shut up. There were lots of them too. But I ignored them, and marched on… aimlessly… for a few months (or years maybe?). In the end, the morons were right. But you know what? I learned a lot about open source, about programming, computer graphics, and a lot of other stuff from that experience. I also got to meet and make online buddies (from all over the world) with some really interesting people – and I still keep in touch with a few of them. Looking back, I would have definitely done things differently but I think as an experience, it was a useful and enjoyable one. … Eventually, I did make a few semi-complete games – one with some guys during my freshman year at UCI, and another during a Univ. course (this course/subsequent event was featured here actually). I also joined up with the Video Game Dev. Club at UCI, where we actually did make a few (OK, at least one) semi-complete game and even got to help out Dave Perry when he was working on a game design book (he even gave us some really neat gifts!). The thing is … if I had not cultivated the love for game design and development with the failed MMORPG, I wouldn’t have done any of the other stuff either – and I definitely would have regretted that.

Lesson? I guess it is kind of something like – even if an idea is stupid, and everyone is telling you so, you will eventually get something out of it. And the idea probably isn’t stupid anyway – people just tend to be jerks – they like to criticize first. I admit – even I have done it … in fact, a lot. I share ideas (software & business ideas) with my brother lots of times and he does the same with me. He shoots down most of mine, and I shoot down most of his (actually, I don’t think he has had any good ideas yet – just kidding bro). I think I do go with some slight hope that he finds a particular idea cool too. But most of the time there’s problems. I now prefer that he mostly point out whats wrong and why something won’t work rather than why it might. And its not just with my brother – someone else brings up something useful, I try to criticize first. I don’t know where I picked up that bad habit (is it?) but I do do it (Word would have highlighted the second do by now). Actually – it might have been the ##c++ channel on freenode – what a joyfully geek elitist channel that is. When you first go to the channel, you start out wondering why your simple polymorphism question turned into everyone ganging up on you to tell you how your program is fatally flawed (and they haven’t seen a single line of code in it!). Over the years, you eventually pick up enough of C++ to start being one the jerks on the other side who gets ready to pounce (with your gang of nerds) on that unsuspecting species – the n00bs. Yep… that was it – hanging out in that channel is what turned me into this arrogant criticize-first (I swear its like an instinct) guy.

Wait, I’m not going the direction I want to go … what I actually want to say is that critics are helpful most of the time. The reality is that most video games are not very successful – most companies are not very successful – most people don’t get filthy rich – most people don’t become famous – most MMORPGs fail. These are things you probably considered but in the end, you somehow dismissed them. I do that – I somehow dismiss important things – I later forget why exactly I thought my social networking idea was better than myspace, and why my groupware application was going to rule them all! Then my jerk of a brother or one of the friends comes along and says HEY STUPID! – you did realize you can’t dismiss that right? A lot of the time that little voice has been trying to yell in your ear but you haven’t been listening. But sometimes, there was no little voice and what the critics say is something you never considered at all.

So, even though this article was a nice pick-me-up and feel-good piece (OK, it was kind of helpful too), the let-downers and kill-joys also have solid advice to give. They just have to make it more friendly. CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM people!

 First is Ohloh, which I came across as I was looking at the OGRE site. It collects some nice and useful stats about any project with a CM repository. It counts LOC, including percentages of code that are in various languages, it builds some nice history views – history of developer commits, and an overview graph of code history. It also has an interesting project effort and cost calculator. Based on these stats, it makes a few assertions like “mature codebase”, ”active development” etc. It also collects rss feeds related to a project, and lets users add their own reviews, etc. Things I would really like to see is a way to browse projects instead of just search for them. When they have collected such detailed stats, it offers the possibility to browse OS projects in cool ways that they have not yet offered.

 Second up is Krugle - it is yet another code search engine. But this one offers a nice ajaxy interface including tabs (with search results and invidual code views given in different tabs). It also has a treeview which shows each of the code files being viewed in the context of the other files from the same project – an excellent feature.

The office is also in this little village – I work at Zensar Technologies, Ltd. – yet another of those Indian services companies. But hey, don’t worry, if you are in the US, I probably did not take your job – I work as part of an internal innovations team – not for some external client. So, it wasn’t me. But, it might have been one of the other people I see walking around campus everyday. And thats all I’ll say about that.

Meanwhile… while I am definitely not a prolific blogger, I think I will now have at least something to write about considering I have a job. However, it comes with a new curve ball which might hit me smack in the face (is that expression ever used?)  if I’m not careful. I did sign some sort of paper (it was actually a little book I think) that says something about protecting the IP of the company – so I should tread lightly lest I fall straight to “down there”.

Anyhow, maybe there will be a bit more of technical nonsense in the next post.

First was E-music – I have to say it is really nice – the site is quick, easy to use, and the best part – all the downloadable files are in regular old mp3.  Why is this great?  Well, you can play them in the player of your choice; you can move them between computers (I have two and need to be able to do this); and it just doesnt get in your way.  My only issue with Emusic is that its meant only for indie artists, etc.  Most of the stuff I want to listen to are more mainstream so although the service itself is great, the content doesnt fit my taste.

Ok, now on to Sony CONNECT.  The content is definitely mainstream.  Initially, the experience is pretty nice too (albeit with a few issues):

First, the only way to get the music from the store is to install their SonicStage software.  Fair enough.  I go ahead and install it on my desktop computer.  It installs the OpenMG Secure Module, which is Sony's DRM piece.  Ok, after a mandatory restart (for a damn music program?), I start up SonicStage.  Let me take this opportunity to point out how big and clunky the SonicStage program is – the interface is a drab white with some crappy blue gradients that don't fit well.  It uses the default UI font on this highly customized form which makes it look just plain ugly.  The thing takes up the whole screen, and the reduced size version is still huge. 

I download some files from the store.  Ok, that was pretty quick and easy.  I play the files in SonicStage… Ok, so I can play them fine in the ugly player.  But no way I'm going to use this as my permanent player.  Did I mention it takes a while to load up?  Media players should pop up instantly – even 10 seconds is too long for media players to load.  Why? Although many media players have their own libraries, I find myself browsing my music collection using Explorer most often and when I double click a file in explorer, I expect the media player to start playing it instantly.  Anyway, so I didnt want to use SonicStage and so I opened up the file in Windows Media Player, expecting it to fail.  But, hey! it works!  Awesome.  So I began downloading songs (around 18 so far) and was enjoying the new music.

Now, let me say at this point that Toshiba finally got me the new AC adaptor (see previous post) so my laptop was again functional.  Of course, I wanted to enjoy my new music on the go.  Now, here the problems start, and the bullshit that is Sony DRM quickly becomes apparent.

First thing to note: Turns out that the only reason I could play the files in WMP was because I had installed SonicStage.  In fact, you MUST install the (ugly) SonicStage software to play CONNECT store music on a PC.  Ok, this may not be exactly right – they may be offering the OpenMG (read obnoxious DRM crap) module as a separate download – I didn't check that.  However, you still have to install something from Sony to be able to play their files.

Ok, while this frustrated me, I decided to go ahead and install SonicStage on the laptop. The process for getting your music onto a second computer was this: You install SonicStage, and then you re-download your music from the store.  So, having installed SonicStage on the laptop, I proceeded to re-download the music.  Here was the problem: the god-damned thing wouldn't download any of the music!  It would reach near 100% and then fail.  Repeatedly.  For any track.  No matter how many tries I tried.  Great.  It won't download my music to my second computer.

Pretty peeved, I tried uninstalling Sony's entire bullshit software and reinstalling it.  Now, when I logged in to my account a second time, SonicStage registered the same laptop as a new computer with my CONNECT account.  So, instead of 2 computers, I had 2 computers on my account.  Ah, thats lovely.  You can tell great quality software when it pulls that crap.  I thought – ok, this will all be worth it if I can just download the music to my laptop.  Deep down though I knew it wouldn't work.  And what do you know?  It didnt.  It still failed after downloading nearly 100%. 

Now, I was mad.  Its my music, and I ought to be able to move it to another of my computers.  So I went back to my desktop and tried to figure out a way to (legally) copy the already downloaded music to my laptop.  I opened up SonicStage and looked for a way to transfer the music.  The only options were to burn to an Audio CD or to an ATRAC CD.  WTF??  I should be able to just move the stuff I already downloaded between my own two computers!   Determined to do so, I tried moving the .oma (turns out these are OpenMG encrypted ATRAC files) to the laptop anyway.  They moved over fine but couldnt be played on the laptop.  The damn DRM bullshit bases its encryption on the originating computer.  Ok, so now I'm stuck at this point till I can buy some CD-Rs or CD-RWs.  But, come on?  I have to buy CDs so I can move my music between computers?  And I'm not even sure the CD thing will work – will I be able to play the ATRAC files on my laptop??  I doubt it.  And ripping Audio CDs just sounds absurd.

I know there's this HI-MD renderer thing that will convert the oma files into wavs but I don't know the legality of doing this.

I'm not going to use this as a reason to go back to P2P file sharing and illegal downloading madness.  But, I will say that the alternatives really get in the way of just being able to play your music wherever and whenever you want.  I really do think DRM is here to stay but there needs to be a universal standard that makes it so that the consumer does not even realize that the DRM is in place.  The DRM should be completely transparent as long as the consumer is just using his own music that he/she purchased. 

At this point, I have to admit I was pleased with how quickly I got to an actual person.  I described the problem and what I thought was the most likely cause.  The person was quick in agreeing it was something actually wrong with the physical pieces.  The first thing she wanted me to do was take it to one of their service centers.  I asked if they could just send me a replacement adaptor instead.  She said something like: It'll take about 2 weeks to do that anyway and you might as well have it checked out at a service center.  OK, recap: They gave me a piece that went to hell in less than 4 months, and they are not going to make any haste whatsoever in getting me a replacement part. 

So, I call up the service center guy and before dropping it off, I ask how long he thinks the whole process will take – he starts off by telling me its probably something wrong with my laptop's motherboard (??) and he'll probably need to replace that and so probably like 2 weeks.  WTF??  A couple of days later, my roommate takes me to drop the laptop.  While at the service place, the guy tests the laptop with another AC adaptor, and surprise, it works.  So, he says he'll order an AC adaptor but I have to give him the non-functional one.  I got no use for it so why not?  I ask if I have to come back to pick it up once its ready?  Yes, of course I do.  Can I have Toshiba send me the adaptor directly to me?  Sure, but you have to mail the old adaptor to them yourself if you want that done.   Wow, thanks man, you are really making me feel like this is my fault – and if I want it fixed, I have to do the damn work!  So, I let him do the shipping and agree to pick it up once its available.  The next day he calls to tell me the AC adaptor is backordered and so it will take 2 weeks minimum. 

Ok, recap: I bought a brand new laptop less than 4 months ago.  It's become completely useless within that time.  Toshiba luckily will help me fix the problem but they will take their own sweet time to do it.  Any time and productivity lost while they take their sweet time (oh please god don't let it be more than 2 weeks) is really my own damn fault anyway.