Tennis has been ruined by instant replay or “Hawk Eye.” I was watching the game between Rafael Nadal and Luis Horna today, and poor Horna poured everything he had into this game just to win a set. But, to me the main reason Horna lost easily in the last set was because of a decision that went against him. Basically, Nadal’s shot was out, and it was called in. Horna did not challenge the call and went on to lose his game and any hope of staying with Nadal. Now, if the Hawk Eye technology is as accurate as people like McEnroe believe it to be, why are we allowing this to happen. The guy basically won the point. Why bring this stupid challenge notion to the game. If you have a technology that allows to figure out what happens with each and every call then by all means use it on each and every single dubious point. But, if your so called “Hawk Eye” technology needs glasses, then why use it at all. People like McEnroe and Gilbert are hell bent on ruining the game we all love. Now, they are talking about coaching and everything. John and Patrick McEnroe need to keep their opinions to themselves. I respect McEnroe for the player he was, but I do not give a rat’s for what he has to say about using new technologies in Tennis. Tennis made McEnroe not the other way around.

As a developer, you get to experience many different technologies. However, it is difficult to master every single technology that is out there. So, if you are a developer, and you need to learn web technologies, it is better to focus only on one of these technologies. JSP, ASP.net, and PHP are the leading web technologies. JSP uses the power of J2EE to allow developers to implement complex web solutions. Pretty much the same can be said about ASP.net, though ASP.Net is based on Microsoft .Net languages such as VB or C#. PHP is an open source technology that makes creation of dynamic websites easy. Now, if you are developer, you might ask which one of these technologies is better? The simple asnwer is it depends. JSP and ASP.net seems to be used in larger corporations for more complex projects. Though, I have seen PHP used for medium scale projects, rarely it is used for large scale projects. The main reason is that JSP and ASP.net are what we call tiered technologies. So, Java and ASP.net are 2-tier technologies where as PHP is a 1-tier technology. It is easy for an Java application developer to read JSP code and figure it out. The same can be said about ASP.net. So, using JSP or ASP.net gives some extra advantages to large corporations that PHP simply cannot provide. At the end of the day, the choice will be a matter of taste. But, if you are already a Java or C# developer, you will feel more comfortable with JSP/ASP.net.

The 21^st century is the era of technology. In the age of technology, communication has become extremely important. Mobile technologies such as cellular phones are used widely by businesses and individuals. Businesses use mobile technologies to exchange information and collaborate to achieve better results. 

Cell phones have their limitations has well. Places such as hospitals do not allow people to use their cellular phones. In other words, cell phone holders are not allowed to use their device in one of the places that they might need it the most. The consumer is not helpless here. There are a few options available to people that facilitate communication in such areas as hospitals. Hospital calling cards are one of the best options available out there. These prepaid calling cards usually offer rates that are much lower than those offered by cell phone or regular phone service providers. Consequently, prepaid phone card owners are able to save a considerable amount of money on their communications bills. 

Prepaid calling cards are not only cheaper, but they are also more convenient for customers to use. Some of these cards come with many useful features such as ‘Pinless Dialing’. Pinless Dialing allows holders to avoid entering a pin every time they want to make a call. Prepaid phone calling cards are more mobile than mobile phones since there is no battery to charge and no phone to carry everywhere one goes. Besides, these phone cards can be used to make cheap international and local long distance calls. So, by using these cards, it is possible to avoid high international and local long distance rates. The quality of service provided by prepaid phone card service providers is as high as that of cell phones. Therefore, prepaid phone card holders are able to get the same quality calls for much lower prices. Best of all, they won’t have to make long term commitments or limit themselves to any specific calling plan. 

While in some cases cell phones might be handier than prepaid phone cards, in most cases phone cards are as useful as cell phones. However, unlike cell phones, prepaid phone calling cards do not have any limitations. In other words, card holders can use their cards to make calls from places such as hospitals. Best of all, unlike cell phones, prepaid phone calling cards do not have a battery to be charged every week or so. So, phone cards are available every time you need them, and they are cheaper. What more can be asked? 

Barcelona, the reigning european champions, are expected to make a good in this year’s edition of UEFA Champions League. But, are they the best team in the europe at the moment? I highly doubt so. While Barcelona have kept their superstars and have added Zambrotta and Thuram to their ranks, they are far from invincible, and Seville showed that by beating them in the European SuperCup. I highly believe that Barca’s success cycle is once again over. Let’s not forget that in the past decade or so, Barca has not won the La Liga more than 2 successive terms. In other words, if the past is for anything, Barca should not win the La Liga this year. In addition, last year Barca had a very shaky campaign in Europe. While they were undefeated in Europe, they could have easily lost it to Benfica, AC Milan, or Arsenal. AC Milan can argue that they scored at the Nou Camp, and the referee made a huge mistake to disallow it, and they would be justified. Nevertheless, I don’t see twice lucky for Barca. The favorite to win this year’s champions league is without a doubt Chelsea with Inter Milan and Real Madrid running behind them. Barca is also in the mix, but they can’t expect to beat Chelsea this time like they did last year. Here is my ranking for this year’s UCL:

1. Chelsea 2. Inter Milan 3. Barcelona 4. Real Madrid 5. AC Milan 6. Lyon 7. Manchester United 8. Liverpool 9. Arsenal 10. Valencia

Many scientists believe that the next era is going to be the Robots Era. In a sense, it makes sense to believe that someday we are going to have such advanced robots that we will not need manpower to do most of our functions. Sure, we will not have robot programmers. But, computers are going to take over some more job functions in the next 2 decades or so. Engines already outperform the humans in games such as Checker. Chess is also very close to be taken over by the machines. Now, if computers can outthink a human being in a chess game, how hard is it to believe that they can outperform us in other areas as well? We are still probably 20 years away from having computer that do what businessmen do, making business decisions. Nevertheless, we are getting there pretty fast! Do you think we will be taken over by the machines in let’s say 50 years? Tell us!

U.S. Open continued today, and James Blake, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Andy Murray all won their opening games. Roger Federer and Nadal had straightforward first round victories while Blake and Murray both were tested in the opening round. Roddick is also on his way to the third round. Thursday will see Agassi go against Marcos Baghdatis, which is the most anticipated second round match of the tournament. Can Agassi defy the odds again? Tell us!

OK. We have all heard this rumor that Roddick and Sharapova have been dating for a half a year now. There is no question that there is something to this whole thing as Roddick keeps losing his money by playing poker, and Sharapova keeps watching him in the process. John McEnroe confirmed yesterday that he thought there was something between the two, and they are probably “hiding” it just to have some privacy, which is understandable. But, the question is, what the heck Roddick is thinking. Don’t get me wrong. Sharapova is a talented beautiful lady, the way she handles herself on and off the court has earned her the nickname “pretty snake.” It is not going to take that long for her to dump Roddick for someone richer, more powerful. My dentist, who is Russian, made an interesting comment a couple of weeks ago. He said, “russian girls are very beautiful to date, disaster to marry.” Personally, I can not verify the merit of that comment, but there might be something there.

Tuesday was a terrible day for tennis fans in New York as rain washed out the whole day, and virtually no progress was made in the draw. Nadal, Blake, Federer, and Sharapova were all due to play on tuesday, but now they have to catch up on Wednesday. The good news is that the weather is not expected to be as bad as yesterday. The bad news is that rain is again in forecast Wednesday.

It was ought to happen someday. Well, it happened. About a year ago, Israeli Scientists created a simple chess engine called “DNA engine.” This engine is now being trained to play complicated chess combinations. However, a man-eating Tic-Tac-Toe has been made, scientists report.

The human player makes his or her moves by dropping DNA into 3 by 3 square of wells that make up the board. The device then uses a complex mixture of DNA enzymes to determine where it should place its nought or cross, and signals its move with a green glow.

“More complex computational tasks than noughts and crosses could be tackled with different arrangements of the enzymes. But the pair acknowledge that the approach will never rival silicon computers, because human action is needed to operate the gates in system and it is not reusable” says Jenny Hogan.

Of course the entire article is accessible here.

But, imagine just for a second what our world would be like when our DNA based PCs feed like we do. Imagine the computation power that can be extracted from these DNA PCs. All these begs the question: Aren’t we all highly advanced DNA-supercomputers? I’ll leave answering this to you.

System Development Life Cycle, Joint Application Development and Rapid Applicatoin Developments are not everyday topics for most of us. These methodologies have often perceived to be mutually exclusive. But which one is better? Well, it depends. You can not choose a methodology based on how good its name sounds or even the number of advantages that it has over others. We should choose a methodology based on what it can offer to our project and that only! Now each of these methodologies has a set of weaknesses and strengths. SDLC provides tools for controling details within large development projects. JAD allows the IDI of IS, while RAD is used for unstructured, cross functional projects. For us to be able to choose the right methodology, two important aspects should be known: 1. The nature of our business and how it is structured 2. Process details and the system’s role as a part of our infrastructure. Once we know these, then it will be easy(ier) to choose one methodology over the others.