Using aedict in PC/Laptop!!

With the advent of smartphones, lots of useful applications for smartphones are being developed. After knowing about aedict - the best dictionary & kanji flashcard freely available - i bought an android phone and started using it. It was really handy and i used the flashcard a lot while travelling, while i was waiting for someone. But i thought whether it can be used in PC and found that using an emulator, this application can be used in PCs. Emulator is nothing but a software application which contains the SDK and used for testing the applications developed in the SDK. Since not everybody may not hold an andriod phone, i thought it would benefit all, if i share the tips on how to use aedict in desktops/laptops. The following steps are applicable for Windows XP.

Here are the steps..

1) First check whether Java version 1.6 has been installed in the desktop by opening a command window and exexuting java -version in the prompt. If it has been installed, this step can be excluded. Else, download Java from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html as shown below


2) Download Andriod SDK file - installer_r08-windows.exe - from http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html


3) Download aedict apk file - aedict-apk-2.7-signed.apk - from http://code.google.com/p/aedict/


4) Install JRE downloaded in step 1 by double-clicking and following the wizard.

5) Install Andriod SDK downloaded in step 2 by double-clicking and following the wizard.

6) Once Andrioid SDK has been installed, launch the SDK Manager from Program Files as shown below.



7) Once the SDK Manager has been launched, the manager will connect and will try to update the available SDK versions. Once updated, create a virtual device as shown below by clicking New button. In the pop-up window, enter virtual device name, the API level to use (preferably the latest API). Allocate a memory of atleast 256 MB as the virtual SD Card's memory as this much memory is needed to store the data files for dictionary and flashcard.



8) Once the virtual device has been created successfully, start the device by clicking the start button and clicking on Launch button on the popup as shown below.





9) Once the device has been launched, it will take sometime for the emulator to start. Wait for a while and the below screen will be displayed.



10) Install the downloaded aedict apk file as below.
Open a command window and navigate to the folder C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk-windows\platform-tools.
Issue the command as below pointing to the apk file and will see a success message once installed successfully.



11) Unlock the screen as shown in the below image.



12) Click on the applications link icon as below.



13) Now Aedict will appear in the application list and click on that as shown below.



14) When the Aedict icon is clicked, for the first time, it will ask for prompt and download the dictionaries when allowed as below. For the first time configuration, the PC should be connected to internet for the application to download Tanaka, KanjiDict etc.





15) Once downloaded, the dictionary can be used as shown below. Enter the word to be searched in romaji and click From Japanese button.





16) It gives example sentence also using the word as below.



17) Click the menu button to launch menu options where jlpt quiz is available as shown below.











Aedict is the best dictionary and flashcards' generator for all levels and works offline once it has downloaded all the data files.


PS: Using the above steps, one can run any andriod application on desktop, if the application is available in the form of .apk files.

My SCEA Experience..

Part I

The first thing i did when i aspired to be a SCEA was i took a print out the objective of the exam from the erstwhile Sun website.
I read through the objectives again and again and meditated for couple of weeks to decide on how much on my experience i can use
for the exam. I have been working in Java/J2EE for the past 10 years. Once i had an idea of the objectives, i visited javaranch
(http://saloon.javaranch.com) site which i used to visit for my previous certifications. I compiled the list of books by ranchers who passed the exam. The list of books required were

SCEA Study guide - Mark Cade - Security, Design patterns and protocols
Core J2EE patterns - 2ND EDITION
Head First Design Patterns
Core JSF
EJB 3 in Action
SOA Using web services - Mark Hansen

I read all the books 2 times and while reading for the 2nd time i concentrated on the areas relavent to the objective. The exam tests on the concepts so while reading the books you will not have a sense of confidence as you are ready for the exam. But make sure you have understood the concepts and do believe in yourself that you have understood the concepts. To test the concepts, the exam questions are scenario based. So, the better you understand the applicability of the technologies, you will be in a better position to answer questions correctly. Though working through the examples, given in the book will give you more insight into the technology, understanding the concept is very essential.

Regarding mock exams, i attended all the mock exams listed at http://faq.javaranch.com/java/SceaMockTests . Most of the exam questions to some extent matches with the mock exams.

Part II

Once Part I has been passed, the steps to buy assignment (Part II) is available in Oracle website. The method of payment differs for different country. I bought the voucher in a Sun event for all parts in discount. Once i passed the exam i sent an email to Sun and requesting for the assignment. I received the assignment (Dreamcar) and started to work on that. I read the assignment, re-read the assignment and read between the lines. One of the main thing to notice in the assingment is the coverage of non-functional requirement. Though those requirments are quite obvious, the design should cater for that. It can be in the form of using standard frameworks or use of multi-tier architecture for maintainablity or usage of clustered deployment to cater scalability. After i understood the requirement, i started to work on the assignment. The assignment had three external interfaces to interact with. First i decided on the technologies to use then i started with the class diagram which i made sure that the class diagram had all the entities listed in the assignment. Though some of the multiplicities in the business domain model were wrong, i made some assumptions so that the mulitiplicity is maintained but there is no need to navigate as given in the domain diagram. For example, between class A and B were many to many relationship was there if i implemented as given in the assignment, then i had to be implement a link table to maintain the relationship. So, i explained in assumption that though there can be many to many relationship, but there is no need to access the information from both ways. This i decided after making valid assumptions. I used StarUML to draw all the diagrams. I had an issue with StarUML that whenever i closed StarUML and opened again, i got "Cannot focus window" error. It seems to be a bug when i searched internet. Everytime i had to uninstall and install again to make it work. I am not sure whether it is the problem faced by others.

I had one class diagram, one deployment diagram, one component diagram and few sequence diagram. One sequence diagram for one each use case. For some use cases, i had to split the sequence diagram into multiple diagrams at the user interaction resulted to interface to external systems. Once i am done with the diagrams, i exported them as JPEG files and created html files to link to those images. Besides, the diagrams, i came up with goals and design decision of the assignment, assumptions and risk and mitigations. The risk and mitigation part was quite challenging to come up with. According to the assingment, it should be technical risks and after thinking through, i had a list of 6 risks and mitigatin strategy. While working on the assignment, maintain a notes where you can take down all your notes whenever something related to the assingment strikes. So at the end you will have lots of details thought over the time and will be helpful in drafting your assumptions, risks/mitigation strategies.

Once i had the all htmls in place, i created a jar of the entire folder and named with my Prometric ID which starts with sp*******. I email that jar to architect-submit_US@oracle.com. But before sending, ensure that the jar can be extracted by testing it some other system. Besides, ensure that alignment and layout of images are correct and can be visible properly by testing in IE as well as Mozilla browsers. After emailing the package, the next day, i received an email from Oracle saying that they have received the assignment and sent for assessment. After 4 to 6 weeks, you will receive an email on your assignment result. In the mean time, you can login into www.certmanager.net/sun and check the result of the assingment. In my case i received the result in 7 days. After another 4 weeks, i received the certification package. It had the certificate and congratulatory letter. It didn't have logo download information and lapel pin. It had to login to certmanager and submit a form and download the logo.

Part III

Once i had done the assignment, i prepared a list of questions on the Non-functional requirement and the architecture. I scheduled the exam in Prometric and the exam was a breeze. The exam is for 2 hours. First i went through all the 8 questions to get a gist of the questions. This is to make sure not to repeat the same answer everywhere. 2 hours was enough and if you yourself had worked on the assignment, then answering the questions is not an issue at all. There is no score issued for Part III and will be assessed with Part II. On whole, the preparation for Part III is get conversant with the technologies and thier usage in the assingment.

Now i can proudly say that i am Sun Certified Enterprise Architect. Thanks to all ranchers at http://saloon.javaranch.com for clarifying doubts and giving a platform to share the thoughts of aspiring architects. Below are few of the posts i searched for Part II and found useful.

this and

this

All the best on your endeavours to be become an SCEA !!!!

Vegetarianism - The healthier choice..

As I commute to work daily by Mass Rapid Transport (MRT), I see the advice near the MRT track for passengers on safety in station. It says “Value Life. Act Responsibly”. The phrase “Value life” often echoes in my mind when I see a slaughter-house or a steak house.

In this modern world with world's most of the food chains offering all kinds of non-vegetarian food, my blog may not be solicited by majority of people when i write about vegetarianism. But, if one can imagine of the last moments of a chicken or a cow or a pig in a slaughterhouse, it will lead to think twice before having their next burger/mutton briyani. Besides, the last minutes, as could be read from various media the lives are constrained in cages not suitable for them. The vegetarian food practice should come from parents to children. Consuming non-vegetarian food comes with the way kids are nurtured. I would say parents should follow vegetariansim for their kids to follow although the parents' ancestors might have been meat-eaters. When parents eat meat and the kids follow eating non-veg without knowing what they are eating. It is the flesh ojavascript:void(0)f a life. Infact, i know few friends wherein their family eats chicken or fish only and prevents consuming pork/beef but my friends go on to the extra mile of eating pork/beef/rabbit etc. When i discuss with my friends about having non-vegetarian, i was disturbed to hear them telling that they can consume anything that can fly and walk/run except aeroplane and ship.

As we could hear in recent years, medias yelling about the hostage dramas in Iraq and Afghanistan ending with the hostages being killed by slitting their throat or shot dead. The entire world sympathised for those who are killed and for their families. The same goes for capital punishment also. When a culprit is going to be hanged, the entire world sympathise for him with enough media coverage. According to me, the same sympathy should go for each life in the world and every life should be given the freedom to live the life to its fullest. Some may argue that if the world don't eat non-vegetarian, the world may face severe scarcity for grains and egological imbalance will occur. Since the human-being has made so many inventions, he should definitely find a way to live within what is available. Example is the petroleum natural resource. Since it will be depleted in long run, research has been going on for sometime to find alternate energy source. In the end, some alternative may be found. The same goes for food also.

I strongly belive that habit makeup human being. I remember a motivational quote by someone which says "People don't decide their destiny but they decide their habits and the habits inturn decide their future". Though i am being a vegetarian, i could pass by a slaughter house without much discomfort whereas i can't (and you too cannot) pass by an accident site where few human bodies are mashed and blood is scattered everywhere. The earlier was possible than the later because of we are used to it. Eating meat is also like this where meat eaters are used to it and if they are decided to break the habit, they can be vegetarians.

By adopting a vegetarian life style, one can contribute to minimize the effect of global warming and adopt a healthly lifestyle.

Let us live as vegetarian and let other lives to live life to the fullest. Let us foster our descendants as vegetarians.

Migraine and How do i manage it...

How do i manage my migraine?

I am now in my mid 30s and of asian origin male. I used to have headaches during my childhood days and didn't care to find the reason. I took some tables and it used to subside. As i grew up and graduated, the impact of headache in my daily life was very severe and i started to visit doctor for treatment. It started with eye doctor who checked my power and said through there
is no reason eye being the cause of headache, still he advised to wear some eye glass with minor power. I used to wear the glasses for sometime but still the headache visited often. I decided that there is no point in wearing spectacles. After few years of suffering, i visited a ENT specialist who decided there is nothing wrong with ENT after scores of tests. Then i thought i am destined to have headaches and suffered with that for a more few years. Then this headache caused great impact in my work-life and decided to dig further. This time i consulted a neurologist who took a CT scan for my brain for any problem in brain like tumours etc. And that report was also clear. Again..Oh no..no reason for headache. Again the cycle continued. I used to have headache once every month. But one thing that improved(???) with headache was it used to go off when i vomit after 5 to 7 hours the headache started. Oh, that vomiting experience was very terrible. Sometimes i had to threw up 3 to 4 times until the headache comes down. At times, because of the vomitting, blood came out from throat. Many times i started to eat all junks foods to trigger vomitting to get rid of the headache.

Being an IT programmer and internet savvy, i searched internet. Now got the rescue and necessary information. The headache i have is migraine headache though the throbbing headache is on both sides of my head. I found the reasons for migraine headache and the triggers for the headache. The very first fact that i have migraine is confirmed by my sleeping pattern. Because, i get headaches most of my time during weekends as i sleep for more than 7 hours on Friday or Saturday night. Though my wife used to joke that since i am with you on weekends you get headache. If i sleep for more than 7 hours, i used to get headache. So, the rule for sleeping pattern is if one has less sleep or more sleep, it will trigger migraine. But that too will not always be true. Most of the time this will be true. Apart from sleeping pattern, there are some foods that triggers migraine. Examples are banana, papaya, cheese etc. You get a complete list from www.helpforheadaches.com. Not all foods may be trigger for you. How to find which foods are trigger for you, you have to have a record of your headache whenever there is headache and have to recall and note down what are the foods you ate the day before. There is nice worksheet available in the above website where you can record all the information like triggers, how long the headache lasted etc. I have a record of 3 years of my headaches. Thanks to the website owner for hosting these kinds of valuable resources.

Then, my wife told that one of her colleage who used to have migraine headache treated with homeopathy tablets and referred to the same doctor. We consulted that doctor and he prescribed tablets but many conditions out of one is you should stop drinking coffee. Oh no..one my favourite drink is coffee but taking the sufferings of migraine into consideration, i was ready to give up coffee. I took the homeopathy tablets meticulously and it has been 2 years since i started taking tablets. Now i feel better and able to manage headaches. Though i get headaches nowadays too, the severity is very less and i don't throw up. When i sense morning itself that i am going to have headache on that day, i start to take the homeopathy tablets for subsiding headache immediately i brushed up. The headache didn't start and came down in all occasions. Homeopathy has really helped in the treatement of migraine in my case. It is not only medicine but the management of migraine is important.

Still my mother is suffering from migraine and she can't take homeopathy tablets as she can't quit drinking coffee. She is still taking allopathy tablets and the effect is not very appreciable.



Note: While writing this blog, i am having a mild headache and may not be able to do any other work. So, i decided to write a blog on my headache. This may be useful for someone to find the cause of headache and take proper action.