iPhone 3G in India...

Finally... finally... after such a long wait.. iPhone comes to India.. officially. But, despite all the hype and wait around it, the affordability of it really a huge question mark.

I didnt change my mobile phone for last 2 years, waiting for the iPhone to come to India. I booked an iPhone for me through both the prospective service providers in India, Airtel and Vodafone. It was all in anticipation that once its released in India, there would be huge queues for buying it, as was seen in other parts of world for iPhone 3G release.

However, the launch in India was not as expected. There was hype, but not as many customers. I am not a statistician and therefore cant give any numbers to prove my point, but I guess I have a feeling for the situation.

In my view, the pricing of the iPhone is a big reason for its slow launch. I cant say whether or not it would pick up in future, but right now, the price tag of 31000 and 36000 INR for iPhone is a very very high price. I mean, yes its a good phone, there are nice features, but thirty one thousand rupees... its just too much for a gadget in my view. And then, compare the price of the phone in US, 200 USD.. converts to around 8000 INR and so it shows that apple is selling that phone 4 times as costly as in US.. what kind of business strategy would that be ??? Especially in a cost sensitive market as India...

There would be people buying it, but not like me, not the average Indian IT guy, who knows the features, their meaning and usage and has a wish to own one. I dont know many who'd take up the phone at this price tag.

May be Apple will come back with a price cut in India as well, as they did in US... but will they offer people refunds for the difference.. we'll see...

Till the time apple decides to cut down on the price tag, my wait for owning an iPhone continues...

Swiss Alps...

DSC_1102, originally uploaded by _maze_.

Wow shot...
From somewhere in Swiss Alps, Marcel has come back with this one... super shot...

What an expanse...

DSC_1134, originally uploaded by _maze_.

A wonderful valley (actually vallies) view from Marcel...

keep it up..buddy..

Data Warehousing on a Shoestring Budget : TDWI

Another interesting set of articles around low budget data warehousing...

Data Warehousing on a Shoestring Budget

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Ideas on DWH Testing...

Recently I was asked about strategy on data warehouse testing.  Realizing how rarely we talk about this, I went to google for this and spend about half an hour searching.

Found the following links, which still need to be researched/analyzed further.

DM Review : Where are the Articles on Data Warehouse Testing and Validation Strategy?

A Wordpress blog : Strategies for Testing Data Warehouse Applications « Business Intelligence and Datawarehousing

DM Review : Strategies for Testing Data Warehouse Applications

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Lookup Transformations in Informatica

Lookup is a transformation to look up the values from a relational table/view or a flat file. There are two types of Lookups in Powercenter, namely;

1. Connected Lookup 
2. Unconnected Lookup

Caching is an important facet of lookup transformation planning. You need to know what kind of data you are dealing with, how frequently do you call the lookup, how frequently does the data change, what is the size of your lookup table etc. among other things. Once you use cache, the trip to database can be avoided, thereby enhancing performance.

Different types of caches can be used with lookup like static, dynamic, persistent, and shared(The dynamic cache cannot be used while creating an un-connected lookup). Each of these has its own identification. For more details, refer to Informatica Transformation Guide.

Lookup is a passive transformation, and can be used either connected or unconnected.  Typically, connected lookup is used when you want to do the lookup for all rows. When you have selective lookup requirements, its normally better to go for unconnected lookup. Unconnected Lookup can be used as if its a function call.

To read more, here is a good article -
What is lookup transformation in informatica? - IT Community

iPhone screen capture

iPhone screen capture, originally uploaded by yOOrek.

Still something I am waiting on... specially since I am back in India and Apple is to launch iPhone in India (officially, though cracked versions are already available). Personally, I am not the biggest fan of cracked phone... :)

nice screenshot tip ..

Go on yOOrek... :)