Drawing a Use Case Diagram

Use case diagrams are a way to visualize a System... in other words use cases tell us what the system should do.

Two main goals of a use case diagram are:
a. Visualizing the functional requirements of a system.
b. Describing the interaction between various actors and the system.

Major components of a use case are:

An Actor is someone who intends to achive some goal by using the System.
Example: A customer is an actor for an ATM system.

A Use Case is a process taking place in the system.
Example: Withdrawing cash is a use case for the ATM system.

An Association shows a relation between an actor and a use case. In most cases this relationship means that the actor will initiate the associated use case.
Example: A customer withdraws money.

Generalization shows a parent to child relationship where each child has all the properties of the parent and some unique properties of its own. Generalization can exist between use cases as well as Actors.
Example: A Parent use case Transaction and have child use cases as withdraw funds, transfer funds, Add funds, etc.

"Extends" Dependency depicts a use case which may, optionally, be initiated by another use case.
Example: It may be an option for a customer, who is withdrawing money, to print a receipt.

"Include" Dependency depicts a use case, whose initiation is a must, in order to initiate another use case.
Example: For a customer to withdraw money, his ATM pin code has to be validated.

Here is an example of a Use Case model of an ATM system.

The Legends of 2012

December 21, 2012. The day when the 13th and the final cycle of B'ak'tun (The Mayan Calender) is completed, is just one of the reasons for the fame of this particular year. Apart form being the 1st leap year of the 3rd Millennium which starts on a Sunday (There are only 3-4 such years per 100 years), this year is also a legend in the gaming world. Here are some of the games that are set this (what may be a very eventful) year:

Shadowrun: With the sixth Mayan world beginning, magic returns to the world in an event called "The Awakening."

Escape 2012: The player's mission is to escape from alien captivity.

Dark•Matter: a campaign setting for the Alternity and D20 Modern roleplaying games, the institute that the protagonists belong to believe that 2012 will be the end of the world.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R — Shadow of Chernobyl is set in this year

Psychic Force 2012 is set during this year.

Universe at War: Earth Assault: the Hierarchy invasion on Earth begins in this year.

The Secret World: An in-game document contains the date 2012 circled and underlined but the significance of this is yet unknown.

Shattered Union: U.S. president David Jefferson Adams accepts his second term in office after the Supreme Court disqualifies all other presidential candidates.

Events of Mega Man III, Mega Man's Soccer, Wily and Right's RockBoard and Mega Man V are set in this year.

One of the puzzles later on in La Mulana (A freeware PC game based on many of the older MSX games released) states you need to 'walk the end year of the Aztec's Fifth Age.' The player must then light only the torches of the gates that correspond to the numbers in the year '2012'.

The setting of Assassin's Creed is September, 2012.

here is a combined image of all these games

The Dark Knight just days away from the billion dollar-mark

The Dark Knight, which was released on 18th July, is few days away from becoming the fourth movie in history to earn more than 1 billion dollars worldwide, experts have analysed.

By the midweek, the grand movie?s worldwide haul stood at a reported 997.6 million dollars, reports E! Online.

?Dark Knight?s at a trickle now with no new territories,? Box Office Mojo?s Brandon Gray said in an email.

?[But] it?s possible that it already has [hit the billion-dollar mark], as unreported grosses can suddenly come in,? Gray added.

The only three current members of Hollywood?s billion-dollar club are ?Titanic?, ?The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King? and ?Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man?s Chest?.

Exhibitor Relations? Jeff Bock has speculated that Warner Bros., who are behind the blockbuster, was perhaps waiting for the right moment to spring the announcement of the billion dollar mark.

When asked how far its movie had to go to 1 billion dollar, the studio?s answer was: ?Not yet.?

'Dark Knight' on its way to becoming 2008's most pirated movie

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but movie fans like to show their love for a great movie by stealing it, as data from TorrentFreak on The Dark Knight downloads suggests. With over one million downloads in just a week, The Dark Knight is quickly on its way to earning the dubious honor of being the most pirated movie of 2008.
The Dark Knight(Credit: Warner Brothers)

What a perverse message to send to the movie studios: we love your product so much that we refuse to pay for it. How do we expect the industry to invest in more movies like The Dark Knight if we aren't willing to fund that investment?

Microsoft's Thomas Rubin, chief counsel for Intellectual Property Strategy, recently told the UK Association of Online Publishers that "the 'information wants to be free' approach not only does not work, actually it has been a disaster for almost all newspapers." While Rubin's words were somewhat self-serving, designed as they were to position Microsoft as the "safe" technology partner to the industry, to Google's detriment, he still has a point, and one that correlates to online video.

Yes, many people steal online music and video because they simply want a more convenient way to consume it. Rubin suggests that "It turn(s) out that most people do not want to steal music--they just want convenient online access to it," and I agree with that. Back when Fellowship of the Ring came out, I downloaded the movie from an IRC network and watched it for months before it hit retail. However, I also bought both the standard and extended versions, plus I saw the movie three times in the theaters. New Line Cinema made its money from me, and I got to conveniently watch the movie well before its retail release.

Yet my desire for convenience shouldn't have trumped New Line Cinema's desire for control and profit. I had no right--legal or moral--to pirate the movie to satisfy my own whims. I was wrong, and that wrong could well end up ensuring that fewer "Dark Knights" and "Fellowships" get created.

As consumers, whether of movies, software, or other digital goods, we do ourselves a disservice when we steal. I hate to rely on a Microsoft executive to teach this lesson, but Rubin's comments on the newspaper industry are instructive here:

Google continues to struggle to find a way to monetize the user-generated, amateur content on YouTube. As entertaining as some of it may be, it has so far proven to be of little commercial value.

Now let's contrast that with Google News. Put aside, for a moment, the concerns that many have expressed that Google is profiting by using others' content without permission. Consider just the economics. Google's vice president of search revealed this summer that Google News, a product that was put together in a weekend and that is run by automated search algorithms, generates $100 million in revenue for its business. That's no small sum, especially when one considers the negligible investment and extremely high margins. What it demonstrates is that quality content does have great value. Only in this case, as has been pointed out, the $100 million is a bonanza enjoyed by Google, not the creators.

Clearly this can't be the future for publishing.

Rubin is right. As technology providers, we need to foster new, convenient, and safe technologies and, hence, business models for content providers to make their products available online as wares, not warez.

Sure, it's easy to download The Dark Knight, and may even impress your friends. But do we really want YouTube entertainment? Hulu has thrived precisely because it has blended control of content with quality of content, while YouTube continues to struggle toward profitability on the back of its user-generated content model.

We may well get what we pay for. Go buy The Dark Knight now.

Prince of Persia trailer

The Ten Most Used Fonts in Design

You've seen them over again. You may not even notice but the internet is filled with them. In the form of text, logo, headers or any thing else, but they are every where. Thus here are ten most used fonts in design. All of these fonts are used again and again and whatever you do you can not avoid them . They are listed in no particular order.

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HP Touchsmart TX2

While i was recently searching for that dream laptop i came across this piece of art. As the name suggests this thing has a touch screen but whats so smart about it. Well it can track two points at a time, in simple words place two fingers on the screen and the laptop will consider both of them as separate inputs at the same time.
The note book is preloaded with a bunch of softwares where one can make use of the smart touch feature to watch movies, look at photos, play music, listen to radio and watch TV on demand.On the hardware side, you can carry out a variety of gestures including select, drag, double tap, pinch, zoom, arc, rotate and flick.
In addition to the 1200x800 multi touch capability, it has 2.1GHz AMD Turion X2 processor, ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics, 8 GB RAM, 500 GB HDD (5400 RPM), Bluetooth, integrated webcam, 8x DVD burner, VGA out and a digital pen.

Follow this link to know more.
and here are two more pics: