Whose blog is it anyway.......

End of an ERA!!!!!

2006-09-06T04:19:00.000-07:00

The crowd @ Arthur Ashe Stadium came to an standstill yesterday when the legendary Agassi was knocked out of the US open by very little known Becker(this case the firstname is Benjamin and not Boris ;)).

It was an emotional and tearful exit for Agassi, who has been in the circuit for the last 21 years. The 36-year-old tennis legend is one of the only five men to have won all four Grand Slam tournaments. He also shares the record of winning the Davis Cup, Olympics and the Masters along with his wife Steffi.

Personally I felt really sad for Andre and would have been great atleast if had reached the semis. He was one of the reason for me to closely follow this game. He was not only fashionable but also brings so much energy which I will always miss from now on.

The following is a excerpt from his farewell speech :

“The scoreboard said I lost today, but what the scoreboard doesn’t say is what it is I’ve found,” Agassi told the crowd, tears streaming down his cheeks, his voice cracking with emotion. “Over the last 21 years, I’ve found loyalty. You have pulled for me on the court and also in life. I have found inspiration. You have willed me to succeed sometimes even in my lowest moments.”

Surely the world will miss one of the greatest legend to have ever played the game.

- Gannu.

The clay master downs the emperor!!!!

2006-04-24T00:06:00.000-07:00

This week again saw one of the astonishing tennis display between none other than the tennis new sensation Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. Federer again couldnt break his clay jinx and went down to Nadal in four sets 6-2, 6-7(2), 6-3, 7-6(5) in a 3 hour-49 minute thriller. Nadal has won the championship for the second consecutive year.

Nadal took advantage of Federer's slow start in the first to win the set and used the momentum to break the Swiss' serve early in the second. Serving for the set at 5-4, Nadal couldn't overcome the aggressive game of Federer, who later claimed the set with a comfortable 7-2 score in the tie-break.

Nadal continued to move Federer with his powerful baseline game and claimed the third set 6-3. In the fourth set, Federer couldn't match the Spaniard's intensity and was down two breaks. He fought back to take the set to an exciting tie-break. Federer got off to a great start taking a 3-0 lead but Nadal claimed the next four points and clinched the match on his first opportunity serving at 6-5 with a forehand winner.

Sachin.. Sachin... Sachin!!!!!!!

2006-03-16T02:47:00.000-08:00

Check out this video showing the heroics of the master blaster in the last worldcup.

Hack Any Java Class using Reflection!!!!

2005-12-01T23:29:00.000-08:00

Ever wondered what evil power can be unleashed when using reflection? Do you think private methods are really only accessible from within the declaring class? Do you think that a private field can only be modified from within the declaring class? No? That's what I thought!! In this blog, I will try to demonstrate that it is always important to correctly set the security properties of your applications. For instance, let's look at the following example where we successfully retrieve a private password from another class:

1. class A {
2. private static String getPassword() {
3. return "someHighlyPreciousPassword";
4. }
5. }
6.
7. public class Test {
8. public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
9. Class cl = Class.forName("A");
10. java.lang.reflect.Method[] m = cl.getDeclaredMethods();
11. m[0].setAccessible(true);
12. String password = (String) m[0].invoke(null, null);
13. System.out.println("I got it:" + password);
14. }
15.}

Output:
I got it: someHighlyPreciousPassword

Ok, the example is not really sexy. Let's mess up a class that implements the Singleton pattern. In the normal case, a singleton object is supposed to be the only instance of a given class. To achieve this, we usually declare the class constructor private, so that no one can invoke it. Well, as demonstrated below, with reflection we can bypass this restriction and create a second "singleton object".

1. class A {
2. public static final A singleton = new A("I'm the only instance of class A");
3. private String name;
4. private A(String name) {
5. this.name = name;
6. }
7. public String toString() {
8. return this.name;
9. }
10. }
11.
12. public class Test {
13. public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
14. Class cl = Class.forName("A");
15. java.lang.reflect.Constructor[] c = cl.getDeclaredConstructors();
16. c[0].setAccessible(true);
17. A anotherA = (A) c[0].newInstance(new Object[]{"Not anymore!!"});
18. System.out.println(A.singleton);
19. System.out.println(anotherA);
20. }
21. }

Output:
I'm the only instance of class A
Not anymore!!

Using this technique, you can create an instance of any non-abstract class, even if all its constructors are declared private. For instance, below we create an instance of the Math class even though it is useless since the Math class has no instance method. Still, it is possible to do it.

1. public class Test {
2. public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
3. Class cl = Class.forName("java.lang.Math");
4. java.lang.reflect.Constructor[] c = cl.getDeclaredConstructors();
5. c[0].setAccessible(true);
6. Math mathInstance = (Math) c[0].newInstance(null);
7. System.out.println(mathInstance);
8. }
9. }

Output:
java.lang.Math@1cde100

Finally, let's mess with the Runtime class which has one private static field for storing the current Runtime instance. This is another example of a badly implemented singleton class. Let's look at the code below. We first retrieve the current runtime object and display it (3-4). Then, we set the Runtime.currentRuntime static field to null, which means that all successive calls to Runtime.getRuntime() will yield null (6-9) since currentRuntime is initialized at class loading time. We then get the currentRuntime field again and display its value (11-12). And finally, we try to use the current runtime to execute a command for displaying the content of the current directory (14). The output talks for itself.

1. public class Test {
2. public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
3. Runtime r = Runtime.getRuntime();
4. System.out.println("Before: Runtime.getRuntime() yields " + r);
5.
6. Class cl = Class.forName("java.lang.Runtime");
7. java.lang.reflect.Field f = cl.getDeclaredField("currentRuntime");
8. f.setAccessible(true);
9. f.set(null, null);
10.
11. r = Runtime.getRuntime();
12. System.out.println("After: Runtime.getRuntime() yields " + r);
13.
14. r.exec("dir"); //raises NullPointerException!!

15. }
16. }

Output:
Before: Runtime.getRuntime() yields java.lang.Runtime@cac268
After: Runtime.getRuntime() yields null
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException
at Test.main(Test.java:59)

All this could have been avoided if the currentRuntime field had been declared final. Nothing prevents setAccessible(true) to be called on the field (8) but when the set(null, null) method is called, IllegalAccessException is thrown with the message "Field is final".

I'm pretty sure that there is a huge amount of code out there that could be broken this way. Watch out!!
Bottom line: singleton fields should always be declared private static final!!! Moreover, make sure you never grant ReflectPermission and RuntimePermission.accessDeclaredMembers in the java.policy file of your production code.

- Gannu.

A wonderful article

2005-11-22T23:09:00.000-08:00

Mutual Authentication for Web Services: A Live Example

- Gannu.

Quote Of the Day!!!!

2005-11-17T03:22:00.000-08:00

Just came across this one...........

"Danish Kaneria is no Shane Warne, [but] he does at least have a googly which - in terms of being able to read it - was sent down in Urdu to England's batsmen"
The Daily Telegraph's Martin Johnson watches England collapse at Multan

- Gannu.

After long time!!!!

2005-11-16T05:27:00.000-08:00

Hmmmmmmmm......... after a long time, i just thought peeping into my blog.... was busy all days but no excuse :)

Last month one of my ex-colleague from Germany visited me n my frnds ...we roamed around Hyderabad and had fun :)

Some of the photos from his visit...

At my old chennai office thats Claus,Prashant and Bala (From Left)

Again thats Faris, Prashant,Prakash,Claus,Sathya (From Left)

Thats Me, Seshu and Siva (From Left)

Thats Siva,Claus and Me @ Prasadz (From Left)

@ Seshu's Office

@ Charminar

- Gannu

Illayaraja's Thiruvasagam

2005-07-21T07:23:00.000-07:00

Illayaraja doesn't need any introduction to the tamil movie buffs/music lovers. He is surely one of the best music directors (If not the best) of all time in the indian film industry. This saturday, I was chatting to one of my best friend Ahilan who is working in US. He is really an ardent fan of the mastero and doesn't miss any of his compositions. He gave fabulous rating about Illayaraja's latest offering 'Thiruvasagam' in Symphony and I couldn't stop listening to it.

The album has got 6 compositions and they were really mesmerizing. The pick of the lot was 'Puttril Vazha AravumAngen' and it was amazing to hear how the mastero picks up the proper song for the tune.

Its a must 'Hear' for all his fans.

Batman Begins!!!

2005-07-06T22:47:00.000-07:00

Its been almost a month since my friend shiva landed up in hyd for a job. All this time, I was busy and couldn't take him anywhere.So on thursday we planned for a movie and headed straight to IMAX theatre to watch Batman Begins..... its not a typical IMAX movie, but a remastered version.

During the childhood I used to follow the superhero's series in the tv and have also watched the last three versions of the same in the big screen. I wasn't expecting anything special in the movie, but for my amazement the movie was superb. The movie had a breathtaking line of starcasts with some of the big names like Michael Caine,Liam Neeson,Gary Oldman,Morgan Freeman and the hero Christian Bale as Batman. The funny part is, this is the prequel for its 4 earlier versions. The movie was fantastic, unexpected and above all more realistic with lesser dosage of fantasy ;).Its really worthwatching this movie.. dont miss it.

-Gannu.

Befitting end to Wimbledon..

2005-07-04T06:38:00.000-07:00

past 2 weeks has been hectic, hence I couldn't peep into my blog :(.... so today i decided to comeup with some update...

Last month witnessed some wonderful tennis matches at All England Club, Wimbledon( which is btw my favourite tournament) and again I got a chance to see some of the most promising players in action. The two players i was fascinated to see in the tournament were injury prone Davenport and *Great* Federer (oh boy, there is no stopping for him)...

Poor Davenport was ousted by Venus Williams in a thrilling & hard fought ladies finale, but Davenport was in exquisite form throughout the tournament beating some of the excellent players like Clijters,Kuznetsova,Mauresmo with some unbelievable ground strokes. I felt she deserved the crown, since venus was not all that convincing through out the tournament.. but venus was better player that day and ended up capturing the championship.

And for the mens finals, it wasn't surprising at all.. it was again Federer and 3 in a row for him at the wimbledon. He played dashing tennis with some amazing passing shots and it was purely genious. Grass Court heavyweights like Hewitt and Roddick were of no match to him and surrendered meekly. All in all it was a fabulous tournament....

chalo then catch u soon with something interesting...

- Gannu.

Chiru's Birthday!!!!!

2005-06-24T05:47:00.000-07:00

The week has been great, just that after back from the vacation.. had to sort out some of the important issues at work and luckily everything fall on place.

This week witnessed one of the important occassion at oracle.. especially to HRMS ;)and that was our Chiru's(Raghu) birthday bash ....

Thats Raghu taking himself away from his fan's attentions..

We had an excellent lunch at Vilas Venue... this is my first visit to the place and the food was pretty good.. Long Live Chiru :)

thats all for now.. tune in for more news from wimbledon...

- Gannu.

Back @ Oracle

2005-06-20T03:26:00.000-07:00

Hmm... chutti khatham and I'm back @ oracle.. after a longtime I savoured the delicious food from my bhabhi's hands :) and had wonderful time playing with my brother's kids. I really enjoyed it.

Being a tennis freak, i caught up with the Eastbourne Hastings Championship during the week.. Kimi was on a roll and took the championship by defeating the rookie russian in no time :). She is my favourite for the wimbledon, but it is not going to be easy with williams sisters and sharapova around. I am really looking forward to the tournament..

Whilst coming back, i again enjoyed reading one of the Alistair MacLean's classics 'Where Eagles Dare'. Its one of my all-time fav... may be because it is one of the first set of books I read, when i started the habit of reading ;). Maclean has the special knack of writing wartime thrillers and his 'The Guns of Navarone'(I dont remember how many times i have seen this one ;)) and 'Where Eagles Dare' are absolutely top-class novels.

My ex-roomi(Arun) bought Maruti Swift last week and today we went for a quick drive and the car was simply amazing. According to me it should be one of the best model maruti has comeup with lately. We have Alto at home and its a wonderful car, but itz kinda cramped. But swift is mid-sized and has got considerable leg space.. soon it should grap some of Hyundai's market :).

Thats all for now ..... Tune in later for more about this week....

- Gannu.

The Grand Finale !!!!

2005-06-06T01:24:00.000-07:00

The sunday started off as usual with a yummy breakfast from Hot Rotties.

Laws Of Attraction......

It was late in the afternoon, I was thinking of catching up with some movie and ended up watching Pierce Brosnan & Juliane Moore starer 'Laws Of Attraction'. I had already ran into the movie couple of times in * movies, but couldn't really watch it. Since, I didnt had anything to do this time ;), I sat for it.

It was a pleasant and lively romantic movie. Juliane Moore was absolutely gorgeous and the chemistry between her and Pierce Brosnan was amazing. Both of them are top Divorce Attorneys, fighting against each other in almost every case in Newyork. Atlast both of them fell for each other. The movie is worth a watch.

French Open......

In the evening, it was the French Open final between Nadal and Puerta. The match was a real cracker and we enjoyed watching it. We witnessed an incredible tennis match and all scores to both the players for giving us such an entertaintment.

This match was again a four setter and Nadal took away the championship after a gritty fightback from puerta. The fourth set was a see-saw with the fortune wandering between both sides and composed of some classical points. It was a shame though that Puerta couldn't take the match to 5th set.

Its June and its wimbeldon time, and I really looking forward to my favourite tournament.

- Gannu.

D' Company

2005-06-04T07:06:00.000-07:00

Come weekend and its movie time.... mostly we trio will try to catch up with some movies during the weekend :)

This friday D'Company from Ram Gopal Varma got released and Amit really wanted to see that movie. His enthusiasm and knack of getting tickets yield us the booking for today 2.45 PM show at Prasadz .

Myself and chotoo reached there by 2'o clock and had our lunch at the Ohri's food court... the food was delicious and the lemon tea was simply superb. We took our seats just when the movie started... RGV has a strong penchant for the underworld movies and his sathya/company were really fabulous movies. This one also started off well and the first half was very good. But later the movie started dragging with unneccessary songs and ended unconvincingly. All in all the movie was watchable and worth a try atleast for Randeep Hooda. He was very impressive and had the perfect look with his stubble as the 'Gangster' Deshu.

We reached home at time for the women's French open finale between Henin and Pierce. Henin was in terrific form and was slated as the favourite. Well, it was true... she surpassed pierce in no time with a 6-1,6-1 straight sets victory. The match was simply one-sided and the last appearance of pierce in french open ended in a sad note.

Thats all for now... Gud Night..

- Gannu.

What a Birthday Gift!!!!!!

2005-06-03T23:39:00.000-07:00

The big game is over and it was the Birthday boy Nadal all the way. Defeating the best player in the world is the biggest B'day gift he can ask for. The big guns always falter at the French Open and Federer was no different this time. Nadal showed why he is called the best player in the clay court. After two sucessive Master's title, he is on his way to become 2nd youngest player(If i am not wrong) to clinch the French open after Micheal Chang.

The game was a four setter and the match was very interesting poised till fourth set with Nadal leading 2 sets to 1 and Federer having a break in the fourth set and comfortably leading 3 games to 1. But a casual backend volley sealed the fate for him and it was no looking back for Nadal. He comfortably took the fourth set and eventually won the match.

Myself, Amit and Dhaval were really disappointed to see Federer losing, but all marks to Nadal for showing great sportsmanship and temperament in the match.

Today is the women's final and I would watch it if there are no plans for the movie....

- Gannu.

French Open: Federer Vs Nadal....

2005-06-03T08:30:00.000-07:00

Today is the big game.. and most probably the match of the tournament . Nadal is in impressive form with almost 22 clay court straight wins and he is up against the best player in the World Roger Federer.

I have been a great fan of Federer for the last year or so, since I can see the likes of Pete in him whenever he plays in Grass / Hard courts. Its almost next to impossible to defeat him at his forte. But clay court has never been his cup of tea for Federer and its really weird that great players like him, Sampras, Becker... always struggled here at Roland Garros.

As far today's match is concerned and with the Nadal's current form, its not exaggeration if I say Federer is going to be a pushover for him. But still I expect this to be a absoulte cracker of a match and I can't really wait to see it :) .

So thats all for now... Just also thought of sharing some of the recent photos of myself and my teammates...

Soma's Farewell Photos

From left its Vikash, Anima , Vidhya , Dharmesh , Soma

and Myself. (At Melting Moments)

Again from left Its Vikash, Anima , Vidhya , Dharmesh , Soma
Myself and Shiv .(At Melting Moments)

Uzair's Visit

From left Its Uzair and Myself. (At Shikar)

From left Its Uzair and Anima. (At Anima's Cabin)

Faz's Visit

From left Its Vikash, Suria,Soma,Anima,Vidhya,Nitin,

Shiv,Kunal,Faz and Myself (At Anima's Cabin)

- Gannu.

Movie Time => Bunty Aur Babli

2005-06-02T23:13:00.000-07:00

Thursday .......

Its been a long time, all our team members at work went for a movie.. so we all struck a deal to enjoy a dinner outside and go for the night-show.

Two movies were proposed... Star wars by Shiv and Vidhya (I have never watched a star-wars episode before, so dont have much about it) and the much hyped Big/Small' B starer 'Bunty aur Babli' by Vikash.

Atlast Vikash won the battle and we headed for the 'Bunty aur Babli' at sangeet in the evening. We first stopped at 'Paradise' for dinner and tasted their famous bryani. This is my first visit to the place and I really enjoyed the food there....

I had earlier read the review of the movie in couple of websites and all had given fantastic rating for the movie. So I was really looking forward to the movie and excepted some fireworks when the two B's meet. But all in all the movie turned out to be a complete disaster. I guess the director tried to do a 'If Tomorrow Comes', but the movie was simply pathetic.The only saving grace of the movie was Rani (I wonder how she does any role with elan).

And today Vikash is sick and couldnt come to work, i guess its the after effect of the movie ;)

- Gannu.

Optimistic Start to the week

2005-05-30T11:15:00.000-07:00

Monday....

Today was as usual at work and nothing much to talk about, just cleaned up some bugs from the queue and had the daily dose of TT....

- Gannu.

Sunday Evening.....................

2005-05-30T00:01:00.000-07:00

Last week, due to work i couldn't catchup with the live feed of french open (though i do regularly watch highlights), so i just tuned to Ten Sports to see some of my fav. stars in action. First match was between Kim Clijsters and Davenport. Hard hitting Clijsters was my fav. to win the french open, but unfortunately she lost it out to Davenport in 3 sets. Clijsters started off with a bang by taking the first set, but Davenport proved too good for her.

Easly the pick of y'day's match was between un-seeded local boyMatheiu and argentine Canas. The match was facinating and we 3 were almost glued to the chairs watching it. Matheiu lost the thrilling five setter after having 2 match points in his favour.

Then we headed to Hyderabad Central for shopping to purchase some jeans for our hero 'Amit', but he didn't buy any......

before that we stopped at Himalaya book shop and bought 'Force 10 from Navorone' ... though i was looking for 'The Andromeda Strain' and it wasn't available.. History Savvy Amit bought 'From Beirut To Jerusalam' and already started his research on it :).

For dinner we stopped at Chutneys and a simple dinner ended up as a b'day treat from Amit :)

Another Fresh Sunday

2005-05-28T23:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening we 3 tried our luck to see 'Bunty aur Bubli' and as expected we didn't get tickets... even Amit's expertise on getting the tickets on the initial days of the movie release didn't come good this time :(.

So we ended up having our weekend dose of relishing the chat items at Kesav Reddy and the 'panni puri' was simply delicious. Amit was almost on a roll y'day and he never misses an opportunity like this lol...

Today started as early as 7AM and at last i completed reading 'State Of Fear' by Micheal Crichton. The book was about the global warming and bizarre climatic changes(which the author claims are not because of green house effect etc.. and can only be triggered by eco-terrorism). I atleast for one, found the book unpersuasive (though he has put forth lot of footnotes (datas/graphs) accompanying his argument), since i am firm believer in kyoto protocol. Sounds like he is a supporter of bush ;)...

Then, myself and chotoo had a heavy breakfast(parathas) and came to office. I have to include 'Java' as also a passion for me. I have been learning Java ever since my college days and I always keep myself up to date with all their latest offerings :).

I also have the habit of completing the certifications they provide(apart from others) and already I am Sun Certified Programmer / J2EE Architect (all 3 levels) . From the last 4/5 months I have been learning web services and was thinking of finishing the Scdjws certification also within a month. Hence i came to office to read some of the important latest articles published regarding the webservices on serverside.com/java official dev. site.

That's it for today.... tune in here tomorrow for more ....

- Gannu.

My First Blog

2005-05-28T03:51:00.000-07:00

Haye,

Today was so far boring!! boring!!! boring!!! all the way, I just didn't feel likedoing my fav. timepass 'Reading'... though I have still some portion left in State Of Fear by Micheal Crichton.

So as like any other weekend I thought of peeping into the office for couple of hours and watch some movies or my fav. friends series.(Most of the episodes I remember by heart now lol..).

I just finished watching the 'Hitch' and the movie was fantastic and hillarious. . Couple of times i tried watching it in theatre but unfortunately I couldn't get tickets. Somehow i feel i missed watching it on the big screen :(

Its still late afternoon, so i thought what can i do to kill the time..... n suddenly out of the blue, i got this idea, why can't i start blogging and here i ended up completing my first blog :)

Well, thats all for today , i got to catch up with Amit and Dhaval aka chotoo (btw they are my roomies) for some evening outing.. either a movie/shopping.

- Gannu.