Sieeesta

Understanding "understanding"

2011-10-10T19:57:00.002+05:30

I have lately been wondering about how we understand things. How we capture data from different sources and relate to each other to make it meaningful. Being a programmer, I wish that these can help make computers understand. Now all that we do is make it work the specifically the way we want them to work. A simple google search would reveal that "Machine learning" is the way to go. But first do we understand how we understand?

I ponder about these and hope to post what I think about.

Note: I have used a link to the Andrew's lecture notes. It is only to indicate a reference to the topic.

Fossil SCM

2011-08-08T23:33:00.001+05:30

Fossil is a distributed source control, distributed bug tracking and distributed wiki. Yes, heard about "distributed" in scm (git). It is similar. But why, what's the advantage?

Why - The entire snapshot repository comes in a single file (as SQLite database). That file has all the required data:

Source code -> The project code base, most important one.
Bug tracking -> Track all the associated bugs of the project at the same place.
Wiki -> Documentation about project objectives, its details.
Events -> A timeline of all the activities performed on fossil.
A web interface that can be launched from the small foot print fossil executable.
Lots of configuration options

NOTE: All of the developments may not take advantage of this. But, on the other side, if the development need/requirement matches Fossil, use it! Its excellent :)

The web-interface or the UI launches with most of the configurable items. A simple

./fossil ui

is all we type and this launches a web-browser with fossil user interface.

Day 2: Vegetable shopping!

2011-03-30T01:37:00.003+05:30

26th March, Saturday

Toulouse

In the morning, we went to the Market to buy some vegetables, taaza taaza! :). some tomatoes, chilli, beans, carrot and some hard bread - Occitane?. We had poha in the morning and prepared sambar in the evening. We lazied away the afternoon. In the evening, we were invited for Tea. Their daughter Amilie very very cute, speaking short french words.
Papa - Dad (same as hindi :))
Mama - Mom
Bebe - Baby

After gaining some energy, we took a long walk to jean jauras (thats how I heard, excuse me with the spelling), a place at the centre of Toulouse. Toulouse, as a fact is teh fourth largest city in France. My laptop is still without power. A power converter was available in the stores, but its too costly (8 Euros). The day ended very fast... like a blink of an eye.

Au revoir (Bye)
Bonne journee (Have a good day!)

Day1: Paris, Blagnac and St. Cyprien

2011-03-30T00:08:00.005+05:30

25th March, Friday

Saint Cyprien

It was an extended morning and as we landed at the Paris airport, Charles de gaulle airport, the first step on foreign land and the first sight of non Rupee. We quickly changed terminals for our next flight. I found myself alone at the terminal waiting for the next flight. There was pin drop silence. From nowhere, a blonde came and asked "What would you like to have for breakfast?". I shook my head to see that I was still in the aircraft and a grumpy lady was waiting for my answer.

Aircraft landed (really!) and now officially, the first mighty step on foreign soil, first breath of foreign air, first smell, first sight...whatever. Immigration procedures took over and now waiting near the boarding gate. Few minutes before the flight, the boarding gate was changed, but that was close by too. We kept hearing the new sounds of the language and trying to enjoy on every possible phrase uttered, we were probably over-elated.

We boarded the flight to Toulouse and cut --- we reached Blagnac Aeroport. Thankfully, my luggage was already on the conveyor. Our colleagues received us at airport and drove us to the Saint Cyprien, the Aparthotel (Apartment cum hotel). The room (house?) has a living room, a kitchen, and a bedroom (and of-course, a washroom).

I quickly noticed that my laptop's power cable would not suit the socket requirements. Oh no! :( Strange power sockets! We ate our first french lunch, goat cheese, honey, nuts (noix). Burp!

TIP 1: Always check the power specifications of the destination country and get a suitable adapter if necessary.

We were tired but excited... that kept us awake. Went across streets and found a supermarket, Carefour (pronounced care-fu), bought some groceries, few bottles and cans.

Dum maaro dum... :S

Day 0: Destination Toulouse

2011-03-27T17:15:00.003+05:30

24th March 2011
Bangalore

The euphoria of my first journey abroad kicked in to all my nerves. Not that it was not there before when I heard about my travel, but only that this is the "D-day". All bags packed and somehow I had the feeling that due to this, there was every possibility of forgetting things necessary for mundane activities. To ensure things were right, triple checked all things that were packed.

I had a good bath and went out for dinner, just then received an SMS that the Meru cab had arrived to pick up for the airport. I called the Meru cab driver from the SMS I received earlier and to my astonishment, he was still finding his way to my new abode. Lucky that my room-mate guided the driver to my residence. Allz well and picked my co-traveler cum colleague.

It took an hour to reach the airport. We quickly weighed our bags to check for any extra luggage weight as Air France allowed only 23kgs of check-in baggage. Our third traveler had arrived after the said "30 mins" - was actually over an hour.

Next step was the routine check-in and issue of boarding pass. This time, the only difference was that I had to hold my Passport along with the ticket. Now, the first time for immigration, was little on my nerves - what should I fill in the immigration form, what would the official ask, what if I forgot a document. It was my turn for the immigration check. A small conversation history I could remember:

Officer: Are you travelling abroad for the first time?
Me: Yes
Officer: Where are you going?
Me: Toulouse
Officer: Why?
Me: -answered-
Officer: Which company?
Me: -answered-
Officer: Can you show me your company id card?
Me: Oh, yes (where did it go? did I keep in the check-in baggage?... Found!).. here it is.
Officer: What is your employee number?
Me: (puzzled for a moment and trying to interpret his question)
Officer: STAMPED, here you go.
Me: Thanks!

This was it? Wow.. not bad. Then, the usual security check and boarding. This was a Boeing 777. The "Tempo class" (Economy) had 3-4-3 seating arrangement. We internet-checked in and reserved the seats in advance, for some strange reasons, I dont knw why, the website showed only 15 seats can be selected -- that too 26 hours in advance!? . Two of us as a last resort chose the center seats of middle row of the "3-4-3". I settled down just behind them in one of the center seats of the middle row. This was the only uncomfortable part of the journey. "OK"! adjust maadi. I sleep now (I slept).

I woke up to find that I had crossed the Arab world. Only a few more hours to CDG! (Charles de gaulle airport, Paris). I gained a day, did I? -- Timezones allow us to stay young :P

The fate of two bits

2010-10-14T00:49:00.003+05:30

Currently a bit represents two states OFF and ON state. We also call it as 0 and 1.

· 0

· 1

Similarly, through natural progression of numbers, a two bit number can represent a maximum of 4 numbers:

· 00 => 0

· 01 => 1

· 10 => 2

· 11 => 3

When we generalize, the number of symbols that can be represented through a ‘n’ bit binary is 2ⁿ.

For, 1 bit => 2¹ = 2, 2 symbols can be represented.

2² = 4 …

For a byte (8 bits), 2⁸ = 256 unique symbols can be represented.

---

Now, what if a bit can represent more than two states? Say a bit can represent 3 states…

· 0

· 1

· 2

Then, two bits (each 3 states) can represent…

· 00 => 1

· 01 => 2

· 02 => 3

· 10 => 4

· 11 => 5

· 12 => 6

· 20 => 7

· 21 => 8

· 22 => 9

To generalize, n bits (each with m states) can represent (m)ⁿ symbols.

Practically, two bits can represent 4 symbols when a single bit can have two states… (Since our computers are designed to handle 2 states, we usually assume that a bit has only 2 states).

Like we have 64 bit computers, when would we have 64 mbit computers... Wonder how C programming would turn to look like! :)

The news of C++

2010-09-04T08:35:00.002+05:30

C++, this world opened up for me only in the mid of 2000, almost 10 years [#woo.. I did not realise it was 10 years till i just recollected it was 2000], was started way back in 1983 by Bjarne Stroustrup [#not born then]. It was predominantly C until then [#although many other languages did exist], thanks to simula and Stroustrup,C ++ was born. It introduced OOPS and came with it, a lot of features encapsulation, abstraction, polymorphism, inheritance and modularity [#these are the ones I remember]. Those were concepts, the language per say had new programming constructs, keywords, etc... example: class, templates[# Please excuse, if templates were not part of C++ earlier], enum, private(all 3 Ps), friend, etc and one important thing... guess what? ... its backward compatibility with its predecessor C [#debatable on good or bad].

Now time for standards, Around 1998, ISO C++ working group introduced a standard called C++98 [#today, most of the compilers support this]. It had defects and were fixed by 2003. Typically around this time (may be little earlier, 2001), a need was felt for a host of new extensions and improvisations to the existing C++, the most successful and popular C++ libraries -- Boost (a good part of it was just macros, meaning just a few header files :)), plugged most of the holes in the standard C++. Realizing this, a technical report was prepared by the standards comittee called C++ Technical Report (popularly known as TR1, careful, its a PDF) which had suggestions similar to boost library [#mostly stolen from boost :P]. But, But, But, TR1 was not a standard, but a draft which compilers could implement. (I think VS2008 implemented TR1 under the namespace std::tr1)

A very recent development, not yet released [#but still, lots of blogs on it], next version of C++ standard, C > C++ > C+=2? [#people would kill me for this :P] its called C++-0x , and would be published by the end of 2011... We will not be getting to use the new additions till few more years?? ... draft needs to be released, published, implementors analyse and implement into compilers, libraries, ..... Nah Nah..! Most of implementors have already begun work on this! As most of these additions were specified in TR1, the game is already ON. [# I always dreamed of using the C++ language to its boundaries, now with the boundaries expanding, i am left with a :x ]

Google Wave waves a good-bye

2010-08-07T02:33:00.004+05:30

When Google Wave was first announced, it was impressive and I still remember how excited I was on getting a preview Wave account (initally) through references. The features were awesome. The real-time communication echoing every single character to others on the "To" list, spelling checker, bloggiee, dynamism by programming Robots and ofcourse, how can I forget this, collaboration through simultaneous edits and posts. The first gadget shown on the preview -- The YES/NO gadget .. :)

The goal of Wave was clear, that if communication and messaging were invented in the current day world, how would it look like?. Adoption of wave was initially good (like a child exploring a new toy in the market), but with the simplicity of the current day mailing system supported by gmail, yahoo and a few others was simply more lucrative and easy. Though email had its own limitations, it was ubiquitous. Wave (according to me) was established to replace email through its creation of Google Wave Federation Protocol (an open protocol to establish Wave on multiple domains and across organizations).

Adoption of Google Wave failed, in my opinion, due to the following reasons:

1) It was not a simple protocol, had a messy start with a few features not working.

2) Taking over a well established email system needed good integration with existing systems. Buzz would have suffered a similar fate had it been kept as a separate social buzz site. Buzz was intelligently added to gmail, the most popular emailing ecosystem, where users generally login once a day and leave it to update, which essentially means that gmail was well adopted and linking of Buzz with an adopted system was a boon.

3) By the time, the Google Wave was released to the public, everyone had an account and knew how Wave would look like and its initial messiness as well. That did not invite them back after Wave was officially released. It was simply not in people's mind.

4) It was ahead of its time. (However good it can turn out to be, this one takes them all down)

I'd wave to Google Wave on Google Wave before it is closed down. Sob.. candles...

3 Idiots: First day, First show!

2009-12-28T13:29:00.004+05:30

Watching Amir Khan's movies first day first show is some exciting experience. After a long sieeesta, woke up to get the tickets for the morning premiere of 3 idiots. Being a avid fan of email forwards, almost all of the joke crackers in this movie are from them. Hats off to the way the jokes and one-liners are punched.

Rushed to the theater at 9AM to get the tickets. Luckily, we experienced a short queue. Wow. As expected, theater was house full when we sat down for the movie at show time. Ohhhhhhhhh....Aaaahhhhhh[never ending], shouts and screams as the movie started... we joined the crowd a couple of times as well.

Movie starts with Farhan... then Raju and then Chatur.. then comes Rancho (or chottu)!

Engineers like: kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, millimeter, centimeter,...

The motto of the movie as I realize is to make a career in the field that interests the most. Think out of the box... Let me tell you it isn't too tough in this internet and social world. Learn the subjects for the sheer joy in it.

Another point, value relationships and friendships...

Worth watching this movie at the theater. Paisa Wasool (as always with Aamir Khan movies!) :)

Hello Wave

2009-12-21T18:58:00.002+05:30

A hello wave to you, friends...

Recently, I was introduced to waving through a good friend of mine. Though it is just available for preview, i found lot of my friends signed on. If anyone needs, i may help you signing on, and getting a peek at the Wave is definitely exciting.

The 6th sense.

2009-11-13T14:38:00.002+05:30

Lot of times we feel proud of new age mechanisms that have made our lives simple... 3G, social networking, internet,... The real question is ... Are we really mobile? Let's check on if technology has an answer for this...

Watch the video before you continue reading...

Phew! That's what is in store for us. On a general thought, I feel that most of the people of the next generation would prefer to interact with the content rather than just view them. A long way to go! isn't it? My pranam to Pranav Mistry.

Notes from btsummit Nov 2009

2009-11-09T17:00:00.004+05:30

Business Technology Summit
3rd-4th November, 2009
Indian Institute of Science
Bangalore

Alas... some time for sharing wisdom gained from btsummit 2009. I'd share some links and keywords referring to Cloud computing and SOA,

Web Service
- SoapUI, an extellent tool for testing webservices. This java based tool that has a nice interface for defining and testing webservices. A MUST have.

SAAS - Software as a service
- Example: Say, we need a software on a very urgent basis to manage and process some user data for some finite time. We'd have 2 alternatives.
1) Develop the app ourself following the complete software lifecycle which may take months.
2) Or, buy a third party software that does the same and bear the licensing costs for a year or so and install and maintain the software within the company, adding to the costs.
3) Look for a SAAS, where you pay for what you use. No software installation, No maintanace costs, All that is needed is "Internet".
Example: salesforce.com, force.com

Cloud Computing
Where all you need is computing power, like computing power for rent.
Example: Amazon EC2, Microsoft Azure, Google Appengine

SOA
Where you need multiple web services to interact and create a whole ecosystem out of them. Here, Web services serve as building blocks.

Economics of the Web based computing model [Excluding private clouds and implementations]

Factors that need to be taken into account:

Save on Network implementations?
CPU hours on cloud [How costly is it?]
Expense on storage
Capacity management [Am I expecting variable load on these apps?]

REST - Representational State Transfer
Refer http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/webarch_icse2000.pdf

Noun oriented, example: PUT /user//, DELETE /user/,...
Architectural style (Check the above url for details)
Built around resources. For the web, URI are resource identifers!
Cacheable (by various network elements)
Uniform interface

SOAP
Refer www.w3.org/TR/soap/

Verb oriented, example: UpdateUser(), DeleteUser(),...
schema defined XML based.
Not easily cacheable.

Web Security

Never trust the user!
Do not implement security as an add-on in the later stage of the project.
Use standard encyption methods.
Validate all inputs from the user. While validation, use white-listing style of validation (allow known good)
Use Custom Error Pages. [The error trace shown by tomcat could be misused]
Code Reviews, Vulnerability assesment, Penetration testing.

Lots more to cover! [Over to next post for details on Enterprise Dashboards]

Day 2 at btsummit

2009-11-06T15:12:00.004+05:30

Business Technology Summit
4th November, 2009
Indian Institute of Science
Bangalore

This day starts with a keynote talk by Nils Puhlman on the topic "A New World to Protect" focusing on security in the current world. He highlights on the risks of social networking, online gaming, botnet zombies, etc. Did you know that iphone was capable of taking screenshots periodically!! (FBIs would be the happiest) ;). Lots of facts for life!. Indeed a great talk.

There were parallel talks on SOA, cloud solutions, collaboration and virtual machines. I had a tough time choosing a particular topic among such interesting talks. I heard a lot about cloud computing and SOA the other day, so thought of attending a topic out of the box. I zeroed in on Team intelligence, Information overload and emerging open source technologies.

Team intelligence is a must for all kinds of organisations,big or small. Imagine a world where we contribute to work without taking the pain of it. Woww.. does'nt that sound great! Take cues from the current web 2.0 world, twitter, digg, wiki, delicious, tag cloud... and the list does not end. When work is done, the trace or the contributing factors get lost... which could be of use to organisations to verify or track back. Imagagine how delicious can work here. All the links get stored under a tag name, which would help interested people in digging further. Collaboration does not end there... like there is no end to our innovation!

Information overload... isnt there lots of information around us? on the web, email, messenger, news, phone calls... along with these, also comes spam, a lot of SPAM. Infact people started talking of Information overload syndrome.. check this funny video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXFEBbPIEOI

This was the most intersting talk of the day... I loved this one.. "Cloud Computing and Open Source". The speaker, Janakiraman, (I am sure many of the participants revered him) had showed us the pathway to enlightenment. He discussed the need for opensource alternatives to implement virtualization using xen, kvm. He explained in brief (was crisp enough for the non-technical participants) about how kvm and xen work, their design motives and comparisions. During his presentation, he gave a live demo of AWS EC2. Started a server in 5 mins flat. Wow... I am impressed.

Another presentation that I'd not forget was "Building Enterprise Dashboards" by Vivek Khurana. Some hints...
- Need for dashboards?
- Recipe for building usable dashboards...
- Difference between current and real data
- Latest trends -- smileys making it to dashboards :P
and many more.

-- I will try to detail out individual topics in posts to come --

[Just submitting a feedback form was the eligibility criteria]
Winners of technical books were announced at the end of the day. I dont know why my heart was pounding when the winner for the grand 16GB iphone was being announced.... Ended with a bigg Ohhhhhh when the winner was announced (expect for the person who won it).

The next day at office... i felt something amiss. Kudos to saltmarch!

Day 1 at btsummit

2009-11-03T20:05:00.002+05:30

Business Technology Summit
3rd November, 2009
Indian Institute of Science
Bangalore

Day one at btsummit started off with a marvelous inspirational talk on "Smart Services, Bright future" by Howard Charney, Vice President at Cisco. He insisted on the opportunities available in creating smart technology, or the technology that enables devices to interact with each other creating a environment for ease of life without compromising on safety and security. That smart technology could be in the cloud too! He also showed data indicating the availability of talent and scope for improvements in India, both economically and technologically.

The next talk was on computing in the cloud by Ramkumar, Microsoft. The talk mainly focused on cloud computing platforms like Amazon EC2, Microsoft Azure and Google App Engine. He identifies the advantages that come with various platforms starting with freedom, choice and scalability. Also indicates the constraints the come along. His talk draws more light on the advantages of Microsoft Azure platform. :)

Presentations on SOA and Cloud computing by various speakers continued. Insights into how cloud computing and SOA become productive from a business perspecive were laid out. An overview on building SOA in real world by Eben Hewitt, notes on how services are integrated with ESBs, orchestration, use of opensource in the development, importance of schema designs, etc. The presentation on "Web Application security" by Abhay Bhargav was very informative, giving bits of know-how on good development practices and standards in the web and data security department.

In all, the day ended with lots of stuff in our minds. Its upto us to innovate and survive (Survival of the fittest).

A quote from Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection,

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.

What a quote.. indeed!

--- More to follow ---

Soft-Rice

2009-09-21T22:21:00.003+05:30

Rice programming language? Some new opensource software? New Programming paradigm?

No. Think again. It's got nothing to do with software. :)

Soft rice is a variety of rice grown in cool conditions. An important feature(not again...! software profession has ruined my language).. err fact is that it need not be cooked. What? No cooking?Soak it in water for 40 mins and its ready to eat. voilaa!.. Soak it in warm water and get the rice ready to eat within 15 mins. wow.. doesn't that sound good.. soo environment friendly, think about the fuel we'd save in the process, the fire-wood, pollution-free cooking (uhhh.. in villages tho'). All we need is soft-rice and some clean potable water(to avoid water-borne diseases, coz there is no boiling!).

The soft-rice was popularly grown in the north-eastern regions in India. Some research on this low yield crop and applying some cross-pollination, or through some scientific method, could give good yields, and thus encouraging farmers to plant this variety. Yes... jyada load mat le.. It's already done. The same was done by a government body in cuttak which would enable this low-yield, cool climate necessitating crop to be grown under hot humid conditions of orissa.

Hope this helps the farmers and the consumers alike. Well, I would like to taste the new variety soon...

Qmail tweaks

2009-09-09T00:17:00.003+05:30

I had to write this post a long time back, back then since when I was introduced to this mega sub system (Email subsystem - MTA). What a piece of code. Masterpiece! It is know for its stablility and robustness.

If you want to take a break at the normal stdio programming, look into this. Infact no standard string functions, everything is re-written. For example, the code does not include standard C headers like stdio.h, string.h, instead DJB has re-written for portability and stability. One would come across functions like str_str (similar to strstr).

Infact, today I had a chance to understand this piece of code responsible for remote mail delivery. It was a wonderful experience. No fopens, fwrites.. wow! Tangent programming hehe.

Analogy fun!

2009-09-02T12:13:00.002+05:30

I work on mailing systems, hence protocols like MIME, SMTP, POP, RFCs, encoding stand guard with me. One day, just for fun, our team thought what it would be like, if we replace MAIL with MALE.

Some day to day terminologies that bring laughter

MAIL inject => MALE inject
extract MAIL header => extract MALE head
change MAIL character set => change MALE character
MAIL analyse => MALE analyse
Love MAILS => Love MALES (:P)
MAIL attachment => MALE attachment
MAIL delivery => MALE delivery (:-/)

Moto Rokr E6 fix

2009-08-01T13:26:00.004+05:30

My super cool phone(Moto ROKR E6) was rocking for almost two years now. Then bang.. all of the installed apps on the memory card were not being displayed on the phone's menu listing. :(

But.. thankfully, the Folder view was displaying the contents of the memory card(my images, songs, etc). Ahaa..!, I thought, may be i can fix this.

I plugged my phone into USB(USB mode).. and opened the .system folder on the memory card. All the directories were in place .. (java and QTDownload)

Now, went a little inside and saw that the JAMInfo folder was corrupted. It showed some junk characters. :(

Luckily, I had a backup of the .system folder. It had two files in JAMInfo, index_card1 and maxsuiteid_card1

index_card1 had something like
20026||App1||App1 author||3.1||/mmc/mmca1/.system/java/DownloadApps/MIDlet20026||DownloadApps/20026/Files/operamini
20037||App2||App2 author||3.5.2||/mmc/mmca1/.system/java/DownloadApps/MIDlet20037||DownloadApps/20037/Files/rdmplus

I found that some of the data could be retrieved from the CardRegistry file, which is something like this..

[d25b594a-e4b9-f952-8ba1-5feae286c713]
AppID = {d25b594a-e4b9-f952-8ba1-5feae286c713}
Args =
Attribute = 5
BigIcon = Files/suiteicon
Daemon = 0
Directory = /mmc/mmca1/.system/java/DownloadApps/MIDlet20008
Eraseable = 1
Exec =
FixedAllPosition = 0
FixedPosition = 0
GroupID = ezx
Icon = Files/suiteicon
InstalledDate = 2007/6/23
JavaId = 20008
LockValue = 0
MassStorageStatus = 1
MpkgFile =
Name = App1
OsVersion =
Rotation =
Shared = 0
Size = 1522K
Type = 2
UserID = ezx
Visible = 1
[e2627ab2-9b55-08c3-862a-e0536ea1ff38]
AppID = {e2627ab2-9b55-08c3-862a-e0536ea1ff38}
Args =
Attribute = 5
BigIcon =
Daemon = 0
Directory = /mmc/mmca1/.system/java/DownloadApps/MIDlet20005
Eraseable = 1
Exec =
FixedAllPosition = 0
FixedPosition = 0
GroupID = ezx
Icon =
InstalledDate = 2007/6/23
JavaId = 20005
LockValue = 0
MassStorageStatus = 1
MpkgFile =
Name = App2
OsVersion =
Rotation =
Shared = 0
Size = 80K
Type = 2
UserID = ezx
Visible = 1

okie.. Now I had to map all these.. So a perl script came handy (if anyone needs it, post a reply to this).

the maxsuiteid_card1 file contains the last used id counter (You could retrieve this using an awk script).

Fixed my phone!! thats a great feeling to see my phone working again.

[If this information is governed under some rules/laws, let me know.. I'll pull this down]

Jackson Pollock's birthday!

2009-01-28T11:24:00.002+05:30

I did not know who Jackson Pollock was until I saw the Google's search page today (28th Jan). For more infooo.. wikipedia jay ho! For ease, click here

Also, a good flash website is available.. set your mind free and draw.. sheer pleasure. Click here Flash website

Some of my graffiti here.. :)

A quick rewind of Professional life

2009-01-02T09:35:00.003+05:30

Sometimes it feels great to look back at the achievements we made, the laughter of petty fights, excitement of widened eyebrows, sorrows of having a desolate life.

When I look back, I find I conquered all of the above elements of life barring achievements. Is it that I have really achieved nothing? That question really grows heavy on me, But my mind would not give up that I've made no achievements at all... I've made friends for life, knew what software is all about! and started to wonder about varied other things which I never bothered to put in to the frame of thoughts.

Rewind ... [<<]

21st August 2006: Journey Begins with my entry into the software world
October 2006: Completed training successfully
December 2006: Completed my "Bench" period
January 2007: Internal Assignments on FTP, RTP, SIP
March 2007: Live Project member
October 2007: Successful completion of Project -- went to the client's place to deploy and tweaks for the client environment.
November 2007: Extension of project requirements -- Beginning of Phase 2
March 2008: End of Phase 2
April 2008: New Project assignment -- Mailing solutions
October 2008: Completion of Phase 1
December 2008: Start of Mailing solutions -- Phase 2

January 2009: Happy New Year! ;)

Santa's gift this christmas!

2008-12-27T17:43:00.000+05:30

I would remember this christmas a lot. I take it as my gift this christmas!

Mumbai! what an exciting place it is, full of life.

Day 1:

I went to Mumbai after long time to catch up with friends. I could not believe... it turned out to be a super hit meet-up, that this trip would be a relishing memory forever.

The day before, I got an SMS which said,

"Oye hum log kal ja rahe hai school..r u joining in?"

Ohh.. wow, what an moment. Sent out a couple of messages to other friends.. and we were there at school... the next day!

Went to school with friends in a बड़ा ऑटो (bada auto) to complement the memories, the mode of travel we used to take. The first glimses of the school were spine chilling...

We met our school principal, teachers and the reminiscent schooling days. After all the school round-up, we got some favourite school snack, the वड़ा पाव (vada-pav) with some coffee, biscuits and a long chat session.

In all, the day was full of memories.

Foss.in 2008

2008-11-22T13:24:00.007+05:30

For beginners, FOSS is Free and Open Source Software!. FOSS.in represents Indian contribution to the open source community. FOSS.in 2008 has a punch line.. "Show me the code...!". It brings in people together to look at solving day to day problems.

Addendum: It is not only for software developers. It is for everybody by everybody... Documentation experts, Art designers, Testers, Marketing honchos, Geeks... name any one! FOSS work is showcased by people all around the world!

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Globalization

2008-11-18T15:39:00.002+05:30

A good video on the current state of economy.. (a little exaggerated though!)
Found it interesting too..

Story Time - Are we Eagles?

2008-10-19T17:25:00.002+05:30

Many of us must have heard this story.. Sometimes it is worth reading it again!

An eagle's egg was placed in the nest of a prairie chicken. The egg hatched and the little eagle grew up thinking it was a prairie chicken. The eagle did what the prairie chickens did. It scratched in the dirt for seeds. It clucked and cackled. It never flew more than a few feet because that is what the prairie chickens did. One day he saw an eagle flying gracefully and majestically in the open sky. He asked the prairie chickens: "What is that beautiful bird?" The chickens replied, "That is an eagle. He is an outstanding bird, but you cannot fly like him because you are just a prairie chicken." So the eagle never gave it a second thought, believing that to be the truth. He lived the life of and died a prairie chicken, depriving himself of his heritage because of his lack of vision. What a waste! He was born to win, but was conditioned to lose.

Are we Eagles in the guise of a prairie chicken? Everyone has the ability to have Eagle-like potential.

From the story, it is also probably true that the real prairie chickens could never have become eagles, because their god given physical characteristics were not of the eagle vintage. But the eagle among prairie chickens, scratching the dirt for seeds? If we have the courage to rise above the level of an average and are not content to settle down with dirt, there must be no reason to stop us. Keep pondering and delving into this...!

Source of the story: "You can win" by Shiv Khera

The movie dialogue mania

2008-10-07T16:17:00.002+05:30

Well, if you are hindi movie buff, you must understand this.

There is a nice saying in Rang De Basanti

" Koi bhi desh perfect nahi hota hai.. usko perfect ban-aana padtha hai!
IAS mein bharti ho jao, Politics join karo.."

Apply the same for films,

" Koi bhi movie perfect nahi hota hai.. usko perfect ban-aana padtha hai (dekh dekh ke)!
Director, story writer ya Artist bano.."

Source - Vishy K. (Time-pass room partner)

The MTR Eatery Safari

2008-09-13T15:33:00.007+05:30

If I was on a time machine to date back around one year, ...

XX Sep 2007, 2:30 PM
I am at "MTR Lunch House" which serves authentic south Indian food. I am here at around 2:30 PM traveled exclusively to eat there with lots of hardship in finding the place. "Lunch time ayuthu" says the cashier.. meaning Lunch time over!. How can that be.. ! I am disappointed thoroughly. :(

Okay.. Back to the Present, I mean Sep 2008
It took us a year for another attempt. :) Started early, so that we do not have to hear the "ayuthu" words again. We reached here at around 12:30 this time. Yuppiee.. Token number 26. The price of the meal was Rs. 110/person. We walked upstairs heading for the "Waiting Room". There were around 30 people there... MTR has a batch processing mechanism (they serve meals in batches). Ok.. ok. here is the pic if you don't believe me.

After some 15 mins, which was around 12:45 PM, a MTR coupon checker started calling token numbers starting from number 1... 2.. and then came 26. We stepped in and a person guided us to a seating place.

The cutlery and the brunch
A big plate, a silver tumbler with grape juice, a glass of water and a spoon. The MTR servers, dressed in a neat shirt, white dhoti and a towel on their shoulder(I remember Tamil Nadu), come one by one starting from mint chutney, cabbage curry, mixed vegetable pickle, another curry(dont know what it is made of!), masala vada, payasam, another unknown sweet(very good in taste.. I liked it). First dish to start with, dosa(i guess it was ragi dosa) came over. Then came bise-belle-bath (a special karnataka cuisine) topped with cashew-nuts, onion curd raitha. [Oh my god! I am nearly full now.. there are more to come..] Papads, sambar rice, rasam rice, curd rice followed. Then fruit salad with ice-cream and then a south indian pan.
Brunch - It was more of breakfast and lunch, time and quantity matched ;)

Mission MTR accomplished.

A "Post" from HOME

2008-09-04T19:29:00.009+05:30

It has been long while since I have last posted here..

It was long since i waiting for a big HOLIDAY! It has already been about 10 days with my parents.. time zapped through soo fast that I started feeling a little gloomy thinking about my return. I am at at a place called Jorhat (.. Are you googling to find where Jorhat is?, well, Its in Assam).

Nearest flying club is Rowriah Airport. I call it more of a flying club coz it has a single landing strip and after landing one needs to walk to the Airport hall to collect baggage.

About the climate here, its a little humid(now dont ask me humidity numbers!), gets dark soon as early as 6 PM. At 6 in the evening, it gets pitch dark! Mornings are early tooo.. 4AM. So the work timings here are adjusted to match Mother nature's time table(say 8:30 to 5:00). One thing is certain.. "GET UP EARLY".

About Plate Tectonics.. I mean one can feel slight tremors now and then. Initially I alarmed and pressed the panic button.. only to realize that people are used to this and they understand the difference between a tremor and an earth quake better. Phew! I had a faster dhak-dhak after the reminiscence of 26th Jan (Bhuj, Gujrat)

Now.. my mom asking me to stop this tip-tap-tap typing coz I'll be doing the same when I return. Point taken.

I remember 26th July!

2008-07-26T15:45:00.004+05:30

26th July 2005, Mumbai

Wondering if I am on a time machine dating back to 2005? Well, this day is when Mumbai blacked out completely exactly 3 years back. I call it a black day in Mumbai's history. This is what happened (to me) on that dreadful day.

The day started of a little drowsy and gloomy with thick dark clouds hovering above us. It did not raise suspicion as it was monsoon in Mumbai and it was normal to see dense clouds. The clouds were really thick(some kilometers thick ?? :-P) this day. I started off to college without my bike, walking down the short-cut lanes and railway tracks. At the local railway station, I met some of my friends, and wished my friend a "Happy Birthday!". College lectures started and the regular gossip was on.

The first alarm bell rang! An emergency bell?, That was lunch break :). By the way, our college did not have a bell to tring-tring at the end of lectures [;)]. Dabbas opened with fragrances of food spreading all around the class-room (canteen was full that day!). Zip-Zap and Lunch is over! It'll take a separate post to explain Zip-Zap!

First wave of panic message spreads around... "Central band ho gaya". Meaning, Either the central railway trains came to halt or were running with long delays.... We also got info that tracks were flooded due to continuous rain. Some time later, "Western bhi band ho gaya..." There was no sign of college management indicating the same to us. After 3:30 PM, red alert was raised and everybody were asked to manage their way back. Even then, I did not notice the criticality of the situation, as this was common in Mumbai. Heavy rains... college holiday. It was raining heavily when I and my friends were at the main gate of the college. We decided to wait for a few minutes thinking that the rain would subside. Nope.. As if to challenge us, it started pouring down heavily. Auto-rickshaws made their money now.. ("Make hay when the rain pours..") :) With great effort, we managed to get an auto..(with only 2 seats unoccupied), we asked the two girls (friends) to reach the bus-stand. Understanding the situation, we dispersed and caught separate autos. One of them saying.. "Jinda Bachenge toh kal milenge".

I need not catch a bus to go, but had to walk a lot of distance with a multi-folded umbrella. It was getting tougher to guess the direction wind, making my umbrella reverse time and again till I was completely drenched(after that there was no point holding an umbrella).

By the time I reached home, I was dripping wet! My mother scolded me for getting wet and asked if I could not wait till the rain came down. Though she agreed later that I have done the right thing by coming back, .. (Shaabashi.. wah wah).

Electricity was cut off(to prevent any electrocution, that might happen due to waters around the power station). Land-line and Mobile networks jammed. Late in the evening, water started to rise... and by night, the flood waters gulped the entire ground floor. [The dreadful night demands another post, as this is already long]

I considered myself lucky when I learnt that many of my friends had to walk in the flooded waters for kilometers and kilometers without any connectivity to inform their parents. I also heard that few family members returned back to their houses days after the black day!

After the 26th Jan Earth-quake, this was the second natural calamity I've been through, and would wish I never see them again.

[ Ending the post with a heavy heart! ]

A Weekend Cricket Match

2008-06-29T16:20:00.008+05:30

An Initial plan for a cricket match between two teams started as early as July/August 07. Discussions went on, delayed, ignored and at a point when we all thought that we would never make it to the game and it went deep-rooted into our minds.

Then came an email on 23rd July 08..
Hello All,

We are planning to start playing cricket match in the week ends (from this Saturday*). Please do let us know in case you are interested in joining us.

Thanks and Regards,
**** & *****

"Okay..!" Some initiative was up. Everybody keenly "replied all" to this email confirming their presence. Woow. Soon the word spread across other project members. A day was finally decided "28th July 08 7:00 AM (IST)".

On 'D' day...
A colleague friend gave missed calls to everyone as early as 5:00 in the morning.. (phew!!). Ofcourse we lazy bums could move out of the beds only after 6:30. Dressed up, as if I was playing for a soccer team (wore half-pants, T-shirt and shoes). Then myself and my room-friend took an auto to the destined ground. In the auto, while travelling, I said "Who will be coming this early... I bet we will be the first to reach"...

[[ Oouch.. ]](Asking what this meant?.. You'll know at the end)

To refute my sayings, most of the crowd was already there on the ground.. some vividly tossing balls and other wooing their batting skills. Within few minutes, teams were formed and the coin was tossed.

I was in the team which won the toss. Naturally "Batting" was what the captain chose. Other team started positioning their fielders and the game started.. (Alas!.. the game started after 1 year of thoughts...).

Our team put up some 56 runs- all-out. (asking how many I scored? -- 0(run out).. no wonder I cut the batting comments). The other team chased and won in less than 12 overs. :(

[[ Oouch.. ]]

We played another match, this time the other team won the toss and put up a score of 106 runs. (I am a little jealous that I could not bowl/bat/field well like others did..) Miraculously, we won!, chased 106.. I said "miraculously" because our team had a few "Star" players... (I was one among them :)).. Everybody enjoyed the weekend game(General weekend rule: Sleep till we see the Sun burning red-hot, then watch TV.. no wonder this game was much better).. we all agreed to keep up the same tempo and spirits for the forthcoming week/month as well... (I would not commit on years)

EOD:
Body aches prevailed throught the day and popped a pain-killer before sleep. The pain killer did no magic! I am still writing with an aching body... Oooouch!(I moved a little in my seat)

3 Mistakes of my life

2008-06-22T13:49:00.005+05:30

yeeeaaah! The latest on the book-racks under Chetan Baghat's corner. First question that I asked myself, Is this a true life story ?.. phew!

Jan 26th Earthquake, Godhra-kaand(massacre), the political parties saga and Cricket.

It was only for Cricket, that this book made it in to my room-mate's hands(reading as if there was some semester exam the next day). We decided to go on shifts with the book.. "Today you read, Tomorrow I will!".. That was a good option and had decided upon norms for this.. Norms for this ?? Yeaaah.. the one who reads ahead must not reveal the story unless asked for! [;)]. This was made because I tend to preempt the story, be it Cinema or a novel. That does not mean I am an AIR type( All India Radio) [:)]

Chetan Baghat's story line always includes romance... then started the discussion.. "Did you read that 15-16 chapter?..". To refute our thoughts, imaginations, the chapters were pretty decent (nicely crafted). This time the story's main theme does not revolve around girl(s).

The story's end was a little desolate... (this is my opinion)... There will be some tiffs around after my so called "room-mate friend" reads this piece of text. The hyphenated words mean a lot.. Chetan says so!

Well, I am ready for your quarrel my "good-room-mate friend".. I am exaggerating these hyphenated words by adding lots of hyphens.. (obsessive after-effects)

Morning Hangover!

2008-06-22T13:16:00.004+05:30

This is what my friend says on a Monday morning. Thoughts wandering over weekend booze? Nopz!

You might have seen a funny gif animation of "How to scare a software engineer?"

(Picture taken up from an email. No offenses meant with the website/picture)

.. that holds true in this case. Weekdays are all about Work, Night-outs and what else, more work. This becomes a vicious circle, .. Nightout-Work-Sleep-Work-Nightout. I also experience a similar trauma, it is only my friend who speaks out. Together we think of many options of spending a nice weekend - some outing,exotic food, parks (on the pretext of relaxation, but it is girls on our minds ;)). Life takes a complete "U" turn with our imaginations. We only end up getting up late and life takes a slow motion scene. By the time we realize we have completed our weekend, Monday morning comes up. This is what he calls the "Monday Hangover!".