February 21, 2009
Sarvvam - Music Review
Yuvan and Vishnu combo always rock and this album is no exception. It was a sweet surprise on on Valentine`s day at City Center where the core crew were present for a soft audio launch. This is a nice idea since the movie is a luv story and it created the necessary hype without spending much money for a theatre or a hall needed for these kind of music launch.
Now coming to the tracks
Adada Vaa
This song is inspired from the beats of Usher`s "You make me wanna" and its a peppy number to hear especially in our maestro`s everlasting casual vocal. It has some rap bits too.
Neethane
The typical Yuvan style solo luv song. These type of numbers suits Yuvan`s "having cold" style husky voice. I luv the following lyric in the song penned by vijay.
"Yen vizhiyin karumaniyai thedi paar...
Un kaaladiyin thandangalai kaatumaey..."
Sutta Suriyane
I guess this is the hero intro song . Very nice beats that tempts u to dance and a surprising remix of old hit "megam karugudhu mazhai vara paakathu" in the middle of the track. The feel and harmony of the song is similar to "Seval Kodi Parakudhuda" in "Billa-2".
Kaatrukullae
This track is THE TRACK of the album even though its a small track. It brings out the depth and intensity of the luv that the movie is all about. If 'SMS' is a perfect movie for V-Day, this number is the perfect number to listen on a V-Day with your loved one. As usual Yuvan rocks with his vocal. The water droplet BGM is very interesting and really brings you the feel of being in the midst of an abandoned woods.
"Kaatrukule vaasam pol ada enakul nee"
Siragugal
Am not much fond of this number. Just a usual fast duet song.
February 17, 2009
Regulations
Regulations are there in every country and its an important thing to streamline and monitor any business activity so that the consumers wont be affected. In US, there are so many regulations and acts in every industry sector to protect the business as well as consumers and this is one thing I admire in US.
The following are few important regulations in US
HIPAA
SOX
PCI DSS
27002
These regulations in turn results in IT expenditure increase coz they need to enhance the infrastructure to support the regulation and usually within a short period of time.
I was working for a Storage Appliance Startup when SOX regulation was introduced and we saw significant increase in sales coz all major businesses were going on a shopping spree to enhance their data storage and backup infrastructure.
All these regulations mandated the companies to see the "data" as not just "data" but "valuable assets". Its not just bits and bytes anymore but instead every flow of data should be monitored,audited and preserved. This created a new jargon called "Information Lifecyle Management" which provides standards on how to manage data end to end starting from the point the data is gathered upto the point its destroyed.
These regulations are also the reason why you get annoying popups in your mail clients (outlook , notes etc) asking you to confirm the deletes or retention of an email.
There are lot of consultants (e.g. Deloitte, PWC etc) and softwares (e.g OpenPages), available to audit a business and report whether they are in compliance to a regulation or not, what should be done to make it compliant etc.
But the pity thing is, even though we have so many regulations how come we couldnt stop the current global economic meltdown or the financial sector frauds in US or the Satyam Scandal ?
The following are few important regulations in US
HIPAA
SOX
PCI DSS
27002
These regulations in turn results in IT expenditure increase coz they need to enhance the infrastructure to support the regulation and usually within a short period of time.
I was working for a Storage Appliance Startup when SOX regulation was introduced and we saw significant increase in sales coz all major businesses were going on a shopping spree to enhance their data storage and backup infrastructure.
All these regulations mandated the companies to see the "data" as not just "data" but "valuable assets". Its not just bits and bytes anymore but instead every flow of data should be monitored,audited and preserved. This created a new jargon called "Information Lifecyle Management" which provides standards on how to manage data end to end starting from the point the data is gathered upto the point its destroyed.
These regulations are also the reason why you get annoying popups in your mail clients (outlook , notes etc) asking you to confirm the deletes or retention of an email.
There are lot of consultants (e.g. Deloitte, PWC etc) and softwares (e.g OpenPages), available to audit a business and report whether they are in compliance to a regulation or not, what should be done to make it compliant etc.
But the pity thing is, even though we have so many regulations how come we couldnt stop the current global economic meltdown or the financial sector frauds in US or the Satyam Scandal ?
February 14, 2009
Siva Manasula Sakthi - ella manasulaiyum oru feeling
Happy Valentine`s Day :)
In one line, this movie is the apt movie for the valentine`s day cause it tells the love in a realistic way. Yes, the terrible fight followed by a passionate love. And its true and I have seen it myself in several couples whom the world believed that they are foes but turned out to be made for each others !
I wanted to see this movie based on a news that this movie has an "innvotive" scene of proposing love ! Its true too. I dont think this type of proposing has come in any other movies in the past. Also the trailer which projected a typical local chennai boy! Ofcourse the songs by Yuvan.
One more amazing thing is the full house on 1045Pm Friday show. Eventhough its the release day, its a welcoming change happening in movie industry where the star power is not only the one which decides the opening but a non star/new director/new producer can also get a good opening. The Producers of Kollywood should seriously think that its not a mandate to have huge costly sets, exotic locations, super model heroines and high priced automobiles roaming etc to pull in crowds but even a movie revolving around mambalam station, tasmac bar,chennai city and a 2 wheeler can pull the same !
Luv Stories when presented right and casted right with the right knot always makes it at the box office as hits. Especially the cat and mouse types with the boy being a "local" always makes it a hit with a proper screenplay and scenes. e.g. Minnale, Thiruda Thirudi, 7G Rainbow Colony, Vaaranam Aayiram.
This movie is also in the same genre - feel good romantic comedy. Even thought the plot is "old wine", the movie is "old win a new bottle" since none of the scenes are repetitive and the director has also given his unique touch in everything from the boy/girl intro, their fights, the falling in love, broken heart phase,locations etc.
I started accepting Jeeva as an actor after "Ram" and a performance actor after "Kadradhu Tamil". In this movie he proves he is a flexible director`s actor too. I dont think anyone would have suited well for the role he has played in this movie. ((Ya, Dhanush would have been apt, but he has aready done this kind of role in Thiruda Thirudi, slets leave him out of this list :) ))Awesome mannerism, dialogue delivery using local chennai slangs, changing expressions from sadness to laughter to frustration to jealousy..Jeeva is simply amazing...
The girl Anuya, eventhough not a typical kollywood glamour material , she is definitely an actress material cause her acting make it difficult to believe that she is a newcomer. She portrays her role as the "local inside peter outside" girl in a very promising way. Perfect Cast for a next door rich girl.
No Luv Story will be complete with a comic sidekick for the hero and in this movie, Sandhanam has done a tremendous job and he is the one who makes us not bored during the second half of the movie when the pace is little slower compared to the first half.
All Luv Stories should have a nice"bit" song for the falling in love scene and this movie is no exception. Yuvan deserves accolades for that beautiful bit song "Oru Paarvaiyil", especially the starting violin BGM. Also how can the love story end without the defacto Yuvan`s Pathos Song in his own voice for the broken heart scene?! This movie also has a heart melting number "Oru Kal Oru Kannadi".
I guess, the director Rajesh must have experienced the scenes of the movie, coz he has portrayed the typical "average earning chennai youngster" so nicely. He has gone into very fine grained details . e.g. the tasmac bar bill written on a cigar pack wrapper. He could have easily left it on white paper but it shows how much care he has taken to make it as realistic as possible. This is another reason for the movie`s win, coz one can easily relate themselves to atleast some of the scenes of the movie.
The only Minus point is the dragging last 20 mins which is totally unnecessary. Most felt that the movie got over and started walking , but it drags for few more scenes which is totally boring and also predictable. I hope the director trims these parts.
Last but not the least, a luv story cannot move unless an"america mappilai" enters the story and makes a twist and its a sweet surprise to see the actor who played that role in this movie. He just comes for 5 mins but makes a good impression. I wont reveal who it is. Will leave it as a surpise !!
Its a nice movie and its worth watching , especially during valentine day weekend.
February 11, 2009
Performance Data and its Analysis
As part of performance tuning, we gather lot of data from different entities. But without proper analysis of it, the data gathered will be of no use. Here are some tips.
Network
Data :: tcpdump
Analyzer :: Ethereal
Database (Oracle)
Data :: statspak/AWR
Analyzer :: statspak analyzer
Java Heap Dump
Data :: map file created by JVM
Analyzer :: heapanalyzer
Java Thread Dump
Data :: thread stack trace
Analyzer :: TDV
Network
Data :: tcpdump
Analyzer :: Ethereal
Database (Oracle)
Data :: statspak/AWR
Analyzer :: statspak analyzer
Java Heap Dump
Data :: map file created by JVM
Analyzer :: heapanalyzer
Java Thread Dump
Data :: thread stack trace
Analyzer :: TDV
February 10, 2009
The Commutes of our life !
Are we noticing that the happiness during commute is decreasing and the distance during commute is increasing as we grow in life ?
When we were kids , the commute used to be very pleasant, that one eagerly awaits the school van or the group bicycle ride. One even thinks that the journey should never end coz its full of gossips, the last night TV show discussions, tasting of lunches, the adolescent flirts with fellow girl passengers. The list goes on and on...
The Group Bicycle rides were more fun coz it helps to project the heroism in us. It dealt with the weird mods to the bicycles and its discussions, mini cycle races till school, once again the adolescent flirts fixing fellow girl riders cycles, the pit stops at nayar kadai or bhai kadai for a quick tea or lemon salt soda or if one is too matured , even a "dhum" too.
Then when the college life started, using college bus was considered a pathetic activitity. The popular rides were the Yamaha Rx100 and the HH Splendor and ofcourse the everlasting local govt buses. Who can forget the loosened silencer mods, getting a quick "puff" of a cigar from the friend in the pillion, cruising near bus stands hoping to give a ride to girl classmates and last not but not the least "the wheeling" !
When I started my career, most IT companies were within the city only and since most are campus recruited, the fun continued there too. In fact, it was more fun coz we had more independance. The commute was still fun coz we used to do "bike pooling" and the rides were never alone. The waits at the lights was the most awaited moment, coz we can do all "petering" there especially when another girl "s/w engr" is in the adjacent auto. One will do all tricks of raising the helmets, checking their ID cards to reveal that they are also "s/w engrs", throttling the idle engine as tho a "rocket launch" is waiting for our arrival at office !
Later when the IT companies were shifted to outskirts so that they can build sprawling campuses, the commutes which were totally fun all our life suddenly became monotonous and horrific. There are souls who even spends 2 hrs one way to reach the office in a so called "air bus" when the only air that comes in the bus is the "korattai" sound of a fellow passenger.
It also spoiles the health coz of severe back pains, skipping breakfast to catch the bus, constant listening to music using the mp3 or fm players.
There is an exception to this if one has a girl or boy friend (should not be husband / wife...coz that adds more pain :) ) riding in that same bus.
Thanks to God for gifting me an heart of the city office and a Car to commute a 6 km distance. I see my friends suffer and go thru this torture daily.
Why cant companies think of making these commutes productive ? Why cant they give laptops and datacards so employees can atleast do some work and make these commute part of work hours, so that they can spend more time for their personal life ?
Atleast in Bay Area US, google and microsoft have wifi enabled buses for their employees commute. In India, Big G is planning to have bus rides across cities to increase the awareness of internet among rural people. These buses looks hifi and its all internet enabled.
I wish the IT companies use this as a model and enable the same for the commute of their employees and make the time more valuble.
February 07, 2009
Naan Kadavul - Review
Finally the much hyped and awaited movie released yday (Feb 6th). I was also one of the people who were eagerly waiting for this movie mainly coz of Bala. Ofcourse the terrific stills of Aarya and the Kaasi location , plus the awesome trailer increased the expectation.
Good things first...
Baala
...Hats off to bala for still thinking different and bold even in this age of commercial cinema. Only he can touch the neglected chars of tamil cinema as main chars - be it a suffering mentally challenged person at yervaadi or the vettiyan of a suddukadu.Aarya...It was Kamal who used to set bars for costumes,makeups and "living" the character. In the new age actors, it was Surya who used to mend and strain himself to do the same and he did set a new bar in his latest movie "Vaaranam Aaiyram". Now Aarya has raised the bar to a new level with his awesome performance and straining himself to live the character - ruthran , an angry saadhu in Kaasi who believes that he is the God - "Aham Bramasmi".
Pooja...Its rare to see heroines who volunteers to show them non-glamorous coz the cast mandates it. Not just non-glamorous, in this movie she even comes as visually handicapped with whitened eyes and also gone thin to live the character of a homeless needy girl.
Music...As usual the maestro rocks especially the kaasi BGMs, the intro song of aarya and the stomach swirling "udukai"
Visuals...None can show the intensity of Kaasi like the way it was portrayed in this movie.
Dialogues...Penned by Jayamohan is superb. I love one dialog by aarya which goes something like this "nerupula yedhuda nalla nerupu ketta nerupu" when he lights his cigar from a holy diya.
Movie has all the defacto baala touch - dance for yesteryear song , an abnormal hero, a girl wearing shirt, scary locations and closeups, dark comedy, a mentor for the hero etc...The movie has lot of his earlier movie impact - pithamagan.
Now the disappointing stuffs ...
From the initial hype , rumors, articles and the trailers, I was under the impression that the movie is about an angry young abandoned man in Kaasi and his phases of life.But the movie totally deviates from this and portrays the dark side of the needy physically challenged people and how a "hero" finally saves them by killing the "villan". The "hero" is none other than our angry young man from Kaasi.
Either it should be fully about the former topic or fully about the later topic. But Baala struggles a lot to balance between these and this results in aarya character totally missing in second half and everyone wonders where is he other than coming in the "dope" smoking scenes rarely.
Baala has used real people for the cast of the needy physically challenged people and shows the pathetic life of them in a very disturbing manner. These scenes will make one have sleepless night after watching the movie.
I agree its all true and happening in our cities , but is sitting in an AC posh multiplex, eating popcorn and drinking pepsi , the right way to watch and know about their life. What are we acheiving by this ? What is going to happen to these people ? Will the producer or Baala be doing or already did something to these people out of the huge profits from this movie ? I wish they should.
Its an irony that these pity cast makes us laugh by their crude dark comedy more than our famoues comedians. Hats off to them. Even the character of the "supervisor" done by one of member of vadivelus sidekicks is simply amazing.
My only question is why a person from kaasi should come and save them and why not a local normal person ? I guess the answer is than the movie wont be a typical baala movie since it will be void of an abnormal lead cast ! This aarya character also loses its weightage coz of the monotonous scenes like sitting somewhere with fixed eyes, smoking dope and posing in weird positions (there is an even a pose where he sits like a typical calvin klien model during a fight !)
What is Baala suggesting ? That all these phy challenged needy people should die ? But one thing for sure, I will seriously think twice b4 donating money to these people coz the movie has showcased the evil "corporate" world behind these challenged but sweet people, who operates them and treats them as their slaves. May be i should just get them food or things.
Bottomline, if you are expecting aarya and kaasi for full of the movie, you will be disappointed. But it can be watched for a the bold unique baala, awesome aarya and poojas performance.
February 04, 2009
Freebies to start your own VoIP PBX or a Call Center or even a Telco :)
X-Lite
The defacto Softphone. Its very user friendly and reliable
Asterisk
The father of all IP PBX software. Asterisk has very good PSTN trunking capabilities. This is needed if you want to have outgoing calls into PSTN world
SIPfoundry
A full fledged SIP Call Processing Server with excellent list of call features for individuals upto an enterprise. It also has ACD feature for Call Centers, IVR for Auto Attendants and a good Unified messaging system
mobicents
This is also a SIP server but the main advantange of this is that its also a SIP container supporting JSLEE which means one can develop new services/features and telco 2.0 mashups very easily and deploy them
OpenSBC
This list cant end without the SIP firewall for session control and NAT Traversing. OpenSBC is one of them
SIPp
A good load testing tool to stress test your VoIP environment
Ethereal
An excellent packet trace debugging tool to figure out any issues in your VoIP setup
NIST SIP
Raw API to develop more fine grained SIP applications which gives you full control of all SIP events and notifications
The defacto Softphone. Its very user friendly and reliable
Asterisk
The father of all IP PBX software. Asterisk has very good PSTN trunking capabilities. This is needed if you want to have outgoing calls into PSTN world
SIPfoundry
A full fledged SIP Call Processing Server with excellent list of call features for individuals upto an enterprise. It also has ACD feature for Call Centers, IVR for Auto Attendants and a good Unified messaging system
mobicents
This is also a SIP server but the main advantange of this is that its also a SIP container supporting JSLEE which means one can develop new services/features and telco 2.0 mashups very easily and deploy them
OpenSBC
This list cant end without the SIP firewall for session control and NAT Traversing. OpenSBC is one of them
SIPp
A good load testing tool to stress test your VoIP environment
Ethereal
An excellent packet trace debugging tool to figure out any issues in your VoIP setup
NIST SIP
Raw API to develop more fine grained SIP applications which gives you full control of all SIP events and notifications
