Pacific Passion
In the morning dew drops
Engrossing waking eyes to stop
In the silence of the breeze
The rhythm of the humming bees

In the calmness of the night
The reflection of the moon light
In the countless stars that shine
Amidst the darkness in haphazard line

In every tiny drop of rain
That seasons a harvest grain
In singing of flock of birds
A sequence of unknown words

In the pastures of the country side
The rise and fall of every tide
In a ray of light that glare
You paint a rainbow in the air

In every beam of the rising sun
You shower your blessings on loved ones
In every sprouting tender leaf
You send your message as relief

In the fragrance of the flowers
You spread the magic of your powers
God I thank you for everything
For this life & joy your creation brings
Pacific Passion
The mysteries in Deception Point are around NASA. As in all other Dan’s
books the characters in this book are also copies of encyclopedias. I
wonder from where he gets all smart people who solve big mysteries with
small clues. Rachel Sexton the daughter of a Presidential nominee an
intelligence agent is called to verify the authenticity of a meteoroid that
NASA discovers in the depths of the icy Arctic Ocean. The discovery proved
that there exists life on planets other than on earth as there was a fossil
of an insect buried on the rock. Everybody was proud of NASA’s victory.
Experts proved that the rock is extraterrestrial. Just before they are
about to share the results Michael Tolland a famous oceanographer and
Rachel discover a deadly deception in the discovery. In this novel Rachel
plays the role of Robert Langdon. Rachel and Michael go hunting for the
truth. Some of their friends who were involved in testing the authenticity
of the rock lose their lives in the trial. There are lots of twists as to
who is behind the plot at every turning point. The motive behind the plot
is fame and political gain. Towards the end all the missing piece of
information is intelligently arranged at the correct places. Rachel and
Michael cross all the big hurdles and finally put forth the truth before
the public. The genius brains with all the information they have about
outer space, earthly object, oceanology, blah blah blah decipher each code.
The book was quite thought provoking.
Pacific Passion
This book is woven around the Masons and Noetic Science. Dan tries to
explain that religious implications of miracles are possible through
Science. Science and religion are the same however religion teaches
mankind, Science does not teach one to be a good human being. Dan describes
Masons as not a secret society but a society with secrets. At certain
places I found the description quite scary with lots of skulls and bones.
Malakh the villain in this story also looked dangerous. The book mainly
talks of ancient wisdom as the hidden treasure and through science we are
rediscovering the lost knowledge that our ancestors already possessed. The
story is about one family “The Solomon’s” who are considered as one of the
wealthiest family. Solomon is a freemason with a 33rd degree. Katherine his
sister is a scientist and her area of study is Noetic science. She conducts
and documents a number of experiments in her highly sophisticated lab
presented by her brother. Through an experiment of a dying man she proves
that there exist soul and is different from the body and the soul has mass.
The illuminati in the story is a prodigal son of Solomon who accepts wealth
for wisdom and choices his own way of living, later realizes he has made a
wrong choice and kidnaps his father to gain access to the ancient wisdom.
In this trail he cuts the hand of his father and displays it in a museum.
Robert Langdon is called to decipher the symbols and Katherine joins him in
tracing her missing brother. There are a lot of references to religion,
numerology, ancient history, Noetic science and physics. Freemasonry is
highly explained. The whole story is around Washington DC. Dan describes
Washington as not just a capital city but a place with hidden secrets.
This book held more suspense, than the other books I read. I didn’t like
the way it ended. When the secrets were revealed there were quite ordinary
things, there was nothing much surprising when compared to the plot to
acquire and safeguard it from going into the wrong hands. First half was
quite interesting. The religious term sacrifice is well explained. This
book is the third in Robert Langdon Series a continuation of Da Vinci Code.
This book was initially named “The Solomon’s Key” and was later renamed to
“The Lost Symbol”.
Pacific Passion
Angels and Demons was the first book written by Dan Brown that has invoked
conspiracies within the Catholic Church. The story is featured around Rome
and the Vatican City and focuses more on explaining the relation between
science and religion. This book also begins with a murder investigation of
Leonardo Vetra who was a catholic priest with an interest in science.
Leonardo Vetra along with his adopted daughter works on a life changing
experiment Big Bang in which they create a substance called Anti Matter
(opposite of Matter) which could become a powerful weapon. I found the
existence of Anti Matter quite ridiculous; however it went well with the
story. Verta was killed by illuminati and the canister containing
antimatter was stolen to destroy the Vatican City followed by a treat to
kill the four cardinals of the church one by one who were the most eligible
persons to become the Pope. Robert Langdon is called up to solve the puzzle
and to stop the disaster. In this book also we have an intelligent women
Victoria who wants to avenge her fathers death. It’s a suspenseful thriller
with lots of mysteries. Solving the mysteries require expertise in Art,
Science, Religion, Symbology etc. They are a few characters who creep in on
time, share critical information that help deciphering the codes and moving
the story forward. The regular Dan’s style of writing novels only the
puzzles and situations differ each time. Forgot to mention we have the
police also following right from the beginning creating hindrances to
Landgon’s move. This is also a part of Dan’s style of writing.
Pacific Passion
Da Vinci Code was the first book of Dan Brown that I read. It’s a
continuation of Angels and Demons though I read it in the reverse order.
The book begins with a brutal murder investigation and ends revealing the
secret behind the Holy Grail. There is good suspense hidden in the series
of puzzles, deciphering one opens a door for the next one. As you reach the
end the book Dan explains how Leonardo Da Vinci has hidden a secret of the
ancient times in his art “The Last Supper” to pass the information to
future generation. Sophia the main female character in the story learns
about her family line. The book was well written however it didn’t just
reveal the murder mystery instead was based around divine mystery that had
questioned faith of the multitudes. Hence it was not received well by the
critics and there are an enormous controversies raised as the story is
against the Roman Catholic faith. I diplomatically overlooked the
conspiracies it carried and considered it just as another story book. As a
friction thriller I would definitely rate it high. There is a lot of
research and intelligence that has gone into writing this book, there are
enough suspense’s to hold the attention of the readers till the end. Right
from the Fibonacci series to the truth the Holy Grail carried, the
deciphering of the code was quite interesting.  The description of the
places was awesome. Some simple things were well portrayed, in one
incidence Vernet the President at Swiss Bank while trying to help Langdon
and Sophie disguising himself as a truck driver get caught because of an
expensive watch on his hand. “Do all drivers wear Rolexes?” This was the
question asked by the agent; there had been many such interesting
conversations throughout the book. It has good references to numerology,
ancient history, art and literature. I enjoyed reading it. According to me
it’s definitely an interesting friction however far from facts and the
mistake done is presenting a friction as fact that to on a topic concerning
divinity a faith prophesied by several millions of people, over thousands
of generations reasoning the book being extensively denounced.
Pacific Passion
Recently I have read the book Digital Fortress written by Dan Brown. When
its novels I always have a Go for thrillers and Dan Brown is been my all
time favorites. I have read 5 of his books Angels & Demons, Da Vinci Code,
Lost Symbol, Deception Point and Digital Fortress. Here’s a quick review
about Digital Fortress. I will come up with the reviews of the other books
as well.

Digital Fortress was written during the outbreak of encryption/decryption in digital technology. To summarize the story goes
this way; the US National Security Agency NSA develops a code-breaking
machine called TRANSLTR that could break any code. NSA does not reveal
TRANSLTR's existence to the public. "Who will guard the guards", Ensei
Tankado a former NSA employee who was displeased with NSA for its intrusion
in people’s private lives develops an unbreakable algorithm called Digital
Fortress. The code somehow bypasses the NSA security firewall and TRANSLTR
runs for hours trying to break the unbreakable code. Though this was kept
as a top secret, the code running in TRANSLTR for more than 12 hours did
create chaoses among a few staff and each one start spying to find out
what’s happening. There are enough suspense’s and new twist as to who is
behind the plot as you turn your pages.

Important characters in the story are Susan Fletcher, David Becker, and
Strathmore. Employing a language professional as a detective agent to find
the pass key has been quite different and interesting. To know the exact
struggles involved in searching the pass key, breaking the unbreakable
code, what the code for Digital Fortress was actually meant for, the threat
it carried to NSA etc you must read the book.

It’s an excellent techno-thriller and the mysteries would keep holding till
you reach the last page. Like all other books of Dan this one also has deciphering
of code. There are references to technologies especially the network
security, firewalls, encryption/decryption and a slight reference to
history Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A techy who loves thrillers would enjoy
reading this book.
Pacific Passion


Here’s a collection of some interesting facts about Steve Jobs and Apple
Inc.

-Steve Jobs was born to Abdulfattah John Jandali and Joanne Schieble (later
Simpson). He was a Syrian origin by birth who was adopted by Paul Jobs and
Clara Jobs.

-Steve’s biological sister, Mona Simpson, is the famous author who penned,
“Anywhere But Here” — a novel about Simpson’s relationship with her folks.
He had learnt a lot about his biological parents through his sister. He had
never got a chance to meet his biological sister until the age of 27.

-Steve never wanted to meet his biological father, though his father yearned
to meet his genius son.

-Steve was a Zen Buddhist and once thought about joining a monastery.

-Steve was a college dropout.

-He was a millionaire at the age of 25.

-He was offered an internship with Hewlett-Packard in his eight grade, As an
eight grader he called William Hewlett co-founder of HP to inquire about a
missing part from a frequency counter he was assembling. Hewlett reportedly
offered him a bag of parts and a summer internship.

-Steve Jobs first worked in an Apple Farm. When he decided to start his
business, he joked with his friends that if they did not suggest a name for
his company he will name it as ‘Apple Computers’. Obviously his friends
could not come out with a name and hence Steve named it as ‘Apple
Computers’.

-The apple logo bite/byte has a fitting reference for a tech company

-After Jobs and Wozniak founded the company with Ronald Wayne, the initial
Board of Directors decreed that every employee need to be issued a name
badge and an employee number based on their date of hire. Wozniak got
number one and Jobs was left with two. This made Steve unhappy. He made so
much of stink that the number two badge retired and was issued a new badge
with number zero.

-Steve was known for his aggressive personality and erratic management
style.

-Fortune magazine once wrote that Jobs was “considered one of Silicon
Valley’s leading egomaniacs.”

-Jobs was fired from his own company in an internal power struggle.

-He eventually stepped back as the interim CEO and served as the CEO till
August 2011.

-When Jobs resumed control as Apple’s CEO in 1997, he stopped all of its
philanthropic programs, saying, “Wait until we are profitable.”

-Even after rising to the top to become a $40-billion company, Apple still
doesn’t donate to charity.

-As the CEO of Apple, Steve earned $1 a year, 50 cents for attending the
meetings and 50 cents for his performance.

-On August 24th, 2011 Steve Jobs resigned his position as Chief Executive
Officer of Apple before his long battle with pancreatic cancer took his
life on October 5th 2011

-Jobs stake in Disney was twice as big as his stake in Apple

-He was the 110th richest person in the world when he died

-Today, Apple is the largest technology firm in the world, with annual
revenues of more than $60 billion
Pacific Passion
The novel “Only Time Will Tell” had killed two days of my time and here’s a
quick review of the book. The story revolves round two families, "The
Barringtons" and "The Cliftons" through some generations. It begins with
Harry Clifton’s, childhood around whom the entire story is bound who in the
beginning chapters says “I was told my father died in a war”. Time reveals
Harry, his own identity, How his father died? And the fact whether he was
his father or not? I am not going to put the entire summary as I wouldn't like
to reveal the suspense of the readers the author had hidden in his book. The
narrating art Jeffrey has used was quite impressive where each part of the
story was told by a different character without much of repetitiveness.
Each coming up with their point of view and also driving the story forward.
I loved the character of Old Jack throughout; all the other characters were
also equally good. Towards the end I felt the story ended abruptly, some of
the characters have gone missing, leaving the readers ambiguous on the
conclusion. I felt there should have been something more. This book is the
first part of “The Clifton Chronicles”. Hmm… need to wait for the next book
in this series.
Pacific Passion
Change is inevitable in this world especially when the talk is about technology; the world has experienced a rapid transformation. There is nothing astonishing if I put forth the transition I have witnessed in the digital world in a timeframe less than two decades. Black & White TV’s have got replaced with color ones, and now we have LCD’s. Radios and Tape recorders to walkman and walkmans to new iPods, Postal service & Telegram offices have become relatively free as most of the letters and information is been passed through emails, Telephones & Fax. Decades back having a computer of 256 MB RAM had been a talk in the town and now personal laptops with 8 or 16 GB RAM and Tablets are quite ordinary things. In schools and colleges blackboards have got replaced by projectors, lesson plan goes as presentations, I am not sure if there’s a trend of emailing the progress report cards to parents. Thank God this was not there when I was in school. The schools bags which carried huge text books got replaced with laptops. Rough notes are taken in Notepads, exams are written online and results are declared on spot. Joggings are done on Treadmills, Gossips are converted to online chats and emotions are sent as smileys. What’s on your mind goes as status on Facebook? Diaries are archived online in blogs. Group discussions happen on forums, shopping & shipping can be done sitting at home, money can be drawn anytime, anywhere. Meeting schedules and To Do’s go as reminders. A 3 year old is busy with computer games. Group conversations happen over Skype, project work is shared across location and firms. Acquiring the latest gadgets is become a fashion. Bills are paid online. No more queues and waiting. Two people sitting side by side talk on gtalk or instant messenger. Images are taken, uploaded and shared instantly. Beware your boss can spot you from his mobile on Google Earth if you try to escape from office (Google Earth features are advancing). Mobile is become a substitute for most of the electronic devices. The progress in technology had bought in several comforts to our lives at the same times they have made us lazier than never before. The joy of acquiring the latest gadget does not last long as by the time you show your friend and rejoice exploring the new features, the competitor is out with a better piece and the whole crowd around you has it. If the revolutionary speed of earth is 18.5 miles/sec wondering what would be the speed of technology revolution?
Pacific Passion
Thought could post a few details about cron for the benefit of some of my
friends. A cron is a utility used for scheduling jobs on unix environment.
It’s used to automate a system administrator’s work. If you are good at
writing a shell script you can automate most of the administration tasks
like archiving logs, checking for stuck threads, Exceptions and errors in
log files, Listener port status etc. Crontab is the configuration file that
specifies the shell commands to run periodically. Cron is set up as a
daemon in unix which constantly checks the /etc/crontab file and
/var/cron/tans directory for new crontab files. Crontab file stores
information about the task the cron is supposed to perform.
Each line in a crontab represents a job, the cron expression and the
command to execute. You can also instruct the cron to run a shell script at
specified time.

Crontab Syntax:*    *    *    *    *  command to be executed
┬    ┬    ┬    ┬    ┬
│    │    │    │    │
│    │    │    │    │
│    │    │    │    └───── day of week (0 - 7) (Sunday=0 or 7)
│    │    │    └────────── month (1 - 12)
│    │    └─────────────── day of month (1 - 31)
│    └──────────────────── hour (0 - 23)
└───────────────────────── minutes (0 - 59)
<> <> <>
Name    Mandatory Values    Special
 MinutesYes0-59* / , -
HoursYes0-23* / , -
Day of the MonthYes01/31/11* / , - ? L W
MonthYes1-12 or JAN - DEC* / , -
Day of the weekYes0-6 or SUN - SAT* / , - ? L #
YearNo1970-2099* / , -


Special characters and their meaning
  *     All values
  /     Repeat pattern like /2 for every 2 minutes or /10 for every 10
     minutes
  ,     Separate items eg “MON,WED,FRI"
  -    Used to specify range, Range specified is inclusive, Lists are also
     allowed.  A list is a set of numbers (or ranges) separated by commas,
     Eg: “1, 5,9” or “1-3, 8-11”
  ?    Used to omit the value
  L    Stand for Last
  W   Stands for Weekday (Mon ? Fri)
  #     is allowed for day of week. Allows specification like 2nd Friday
     of the month

Other Key Points:  - Blank Lines, Leading spaces and tabs are ignored
  - Lines beginning with pound sign (#) are considered as comments, Comments
     are not allowed on the same line of the command or environment
     variable. If it’s found on the same line they would be treated as
     part of command.
  - The specification of days can be made in two fields: month day and
     weekday. If both are specified in an entry, then cumulative meaning
     of both the entries will get executed
  - Names can also be used for the ``month'' and ``day of week'' fields.
     The first three letter of the day or month are used case doesn't
     matter.
  - The last field i.e 6th specifies the command to be run.  The rest of the
     line after the 5th field is considered as part of the command until a
     newline or % character is found. Percent-signs (%) in the command,
     unless escaped with backslash (\), will be changed into newline
     characters, and all data after the first % will be sent to the
     command as standard input.

     Eg:    ``30 4 1,30 * 4'' would cause a command to be run at  4:30 am
     on the 1st and 30th of each month, plus every Thursday.

Crontab Commands:export EDITOR=vi  To specify a editor to open crontab file.
crontab -e    Edit your crontab file, or create one if it doesn’t already
exist.
crontab -l      Display your crontab file.
crontab -r      Remove your crontab file.
crontab -u      To change other users crontab, Only privilleged users can use this
crontab -v      Display the last time you edited your crontab file.

Other Config FilesThe following two files play an important role:

1. /etc/cron.allow - If this file exists, your user id must me listed in order
  to have the privileges to run the cron jobs.

2. /etc/cron.deny - If the cron.allow file does not exist but the
  /etc/cron.deny file does exist, then your id must not be listed in the
  /etc/cron.deny file for you to run the cron jobs.

Environment Variables: SHELL is set to /bin/sh, and LOGNAME and HOME  are
set  from  the  /etc/passwd

By Defaults if MAILTO is defined (and non-empty), mail is sent to the
user/DL so named.   If MAILTO is defined but empty (MAILTO=""), no mail
would be sent.  Otherwise mail is sent to the owner of the crontab

If no email is required then end of the cron job line with the below
command
>/dev/null 2>&1

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