To start with, let me clarify that this post is not meant to be a job search guide! It is intended to only give some pointers in choosing the right courses.

If you are in the field of computing, you would know that these days the mantra is Multi-core CPUs rather than Blazingly fast single-core CPUs. Gone are the days of clock-cranking where you would see a jump in the CPU clock speed every fortnight or so. In a way, the computing industry has reached a theoretical barrier of cranking the clock speed. The focus is now on inclusion of multiple cores on the same die. No wonder you see the "dual-core, tri-core, quad-core and soon octa-core CPU" ads. Unless there is a breakthrough in the field of microelectronics and cooling solutions, this "stuffing-of-more-cores-on-the-same-die" will continue.

From a normal computer user's perspective, it may seem like "Wow! Two cores, double performance!". Nope...Thats not entirely true, in fact not even half true! There are some inherent challenges in the multi-core environment. What are those challenges? If you can find the answers to these challenges, then Hey Presto you most probably would be hired! The challenge is 'Parallel Programming'. What is parallel programming? This is a concept, which deals with processing data in parallel. Lets say you need to perform this task: Fill two glasses of water. Assuming you have 2 glasses with you, 2 taps and a big container, enough to hold the water of 2 glasses, this is pretty easy and fast. You can fill in those two glasses with both your hands in parallel and there, you completed the task in half time as compared to doing that work sequentially!

Now, what happens if you have 2 glasses, but only 1 tap? Even though you have enough resources, you are forced to do the work sequentially because you need to wait on the tap (the source). What happens if you have 2 taps, 2 glasses but a container big enough to hold only one glass of water? You need to wait till its consumed and then fill in from the other glass. See something here which you can relate to the world of computing? The glasses are the cores of the CPU, the taps represent the programs, the container represents data bandwidth. Makes sense? What it all means is that if you do not have complementing system components and a program optimized to be processed in parallel by multiple cores of the CPU, the performance gain will be negligible even if you haf the world's most advanced CPU.

Let me iterate the title of this post now: "Where are all the jobs in the computing industry??!!" The jobs are here:

1) in making sure that there are as many taps as glasses - developing parallel algorithms and programs which all these years were sequential, so that each part of the program can be processed in parallel on each core of the CPU
2) in making sure that there are more glasses - designing multi-core CPUs, understanding the shared-memory problem, coherent caches etc, so that you have more "workers" for completing the task
3) in making sure that there are big enough containers - designing memory systems which can complement the multi-core CPUs by keeping them busy, feeding them with and extracting useful data/results without being the bottleneck

If you are interested in 1) then you will most probably be a Computer Sciences student and IMO you should take up courses like Algorithms, Parallel Programming, GPGPU etc.

If you are interested in 2) then you will most probably be a Computer Engineering student and IMO you should take up courses like Parallel Architecture, Design of GPUs, Advanced Microarchitecture etc.

If you are interested in 3) then you will most probably be an Electrical [Electronics] Engineering student and IMO you should take up courses like Memory Systems, Digital/IC Design etc.

Whether Computer architects come up with many-core CPUs or not, whether Electrical Engineers come up with high bandwidth systems or not, Computer Sciences students will always have the job of converting the billions of already existing sequential computer programs into parallel to make use of the current multi-core CPUs. So if you are a CS student go ahead and register for any and every Parallel Programming related course that you can. These are sure-shot job fetching courses.

I hope this post was useful :)

I'm very happy to inform you all that Mac4Lin has been featured in the current issue of CompterWorld. I'd like to thank Howard Wen for penning down the article. The topic of the article was Transformation Packs. It can be read here.

Summer full of enjoyment and a trip back to India. What more could one want??? Studies and Classes??? Its the same ol' routine again - class, home, cooking, projects, assignments! Well, hopefully this will be my last semester at Graduate School. Will "try" to enjoy my time!

The palatial home at San Diego, the work at Qualcomm, the beautiful San Diego, my home in Bangalore, Mum's delicious dishes - I waved a bye bye to all that for the time being and am back to being a student at the hot-and-humid Raleigh. I'm eagerly waiting for winters. I hate summer in Raleigh.

My trip to India was really good. Its always nice to see your near and dear ones :) Most of the time I was home, helping my family pack as they are moving to a different place. Met friends, family. Had a nice time. About the travel, I'd like to caution people traveling on Lufthansa. The journey wasn't particularly a pleasant one. Especially my last leg of journey Frankfurt to Bangalore. It was an old Jumbo Jet (747) with almost absolutely no in-flight entertainment. Only I know how I managed that journey squeezed in the middle seat. If you are traveling on that route fully load and charge your iPods. You gonna need abundant supply of entertainment. So make sure your iPods are faithful!

More to come...

Thanks to everybody who voted for Mac4Lin. Xbox Media Center and Mac4Lin were hot favorite contenders for Sourceforge.net Community Choice Awards 2009. But there was an unexpected winner in the "Best Visual Design" category - PortableApps!!!

I congratulate the PortableApps team for winning the award :) Mac4Lin was a finalist at CCA 09, being 1 in 85 amongst more than 47,000 Opensource projects worldwide. That is a big achievement for me. I thank you all once again.

The other news is that my internship at GPU division of Qualcomm, San Diego is almost over. I'm looking forward to my India trip but definitely NOT looking forward to going back to school again [for at least one semester!].

I'm very happy to announce that Mac4Lin has been declared as one of the finalists at Sourceforge.net Community Awards 2009 in the Best Visual Design category. The final phase of voting began today and will run till July 20th 2009. Please vote for Mac4Lin, if you feel it deserves to be voted. To vote click on this image:



Optionally, you can also click on the first box in the right frame on my blog. You do not need to Sourceforge.net login id. All you need is a valid email id. Each vote is associated with an email id, which needs confirmation that you actually voted (you will get an email giving a confirmation link, so all you need to do is click it). The whole voting process takes just 3 clicks.

I urge patrons to vote for Mac4Lin if they feel it should win. Mac4Lin is completing with projects like Xbox Media Center (XBMC) etc. I once again thank everyone for their continued support, feedback and appreciation. Mac4Lin exists today because of you all :) Do spread the word around about this.

I am happy to release Mac4Lin ver.1.0. I know it was long due. Was held up with my graduate school and work. Version 1.0 finally sees light! :)

Changes:

* Fully supports GNOME 2.26 and backwards compatible
* Improved support for GlobalMenu, support integrated in the default GTK theme
* Better native Xfce support
* Icon additions
* Statusbar is now fixed
* New progress bars
* New tabs
* Improved installation and uninstallation scripts
* Integrates well with Gloobus
* Finer UI refinements
* Metacity theme now supports different button sizes
* Firefox 3 themes are now updated
* Songbird plugins included
* Pidgin AWN 64bit plugin now included
* Fonts are now consolidated
* Transparent top panel
* GDM theme is now in-line with Mac OS X login window
* Cairo dock is the default recommended dock

Issues:

* Usplash is still buggy
* Thunderbird theme is still buggy
* GDM theme is not automatically set by the script

Screenshots:

1) Mac4Lin Desktop, NOTE:Apple logo is NOT bundled with Mac4Lin


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2) Mac4Lin Desktop with Firefox


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3) Mac4Lin Login Window


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4) Mac4Lin with Nautilus File Manager


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5) Mac4Lin with Rhythmbox


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6) Mac4Lin with Terminal


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7) Mac4Lin on Xfce!


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It is available for download at Mac4Lin Sourceforge.net Download page with immediate effect. Grab your copy now!

I am eagerly waiting for the Sourceforge.net Community Awards 2009 :)

I am elated to announce that Mac4Lin is one of the finalists at the Sourceforge.net Community Choice Awards 2009 :) I'm very optimistic about Mac4Lin being one of the winners. I do understand that being nominated and ending up as one of the finalists is in itself a big achievement!

I thank you all for your continued support, appreciation and comments which have helped me make Mac4Lin better and better with every release. Thank you all again :)

I will keep you all posted about the results.