The Eternal Truth...

There are only 3 ways to write a blog... The Right Way, The Wrong Way and MY Way :-)

Programming Myself....

If you want something you never had, you must do something you never have done!!! - That's meee!!! can't be better:-)

Day 7

Atlast I recovered enough to make a trip to Mysore. According to the initial plan i was supposed to be back in Bangalore tomorrow, but as you might have already guessed, for me or atleast with me, when planning is involved the implementation gets a hit :-)

Wifey prepared some spicy hot fish fries and prawns curry along with some fried rice for lunch. I had this royal lunch before embarking on the drive to Mysore. We left home @ around 3.30 pm and after a brief stop for fueling the car and some hot piping chai at Mandya, I reached Mysore @ 5.30 pm. The drive was excellent and my little one did not make any  noise and was all attention watching her dad overtake all the vehicles on the state highway. I am sure she must be wondering that she does have a fantastic driver dad :-)

Once i reached Mysore, we were determined to celebrate the new years eve in style. I hopped in along with my brother in law and picked up a bottle of exquisite wine - California wine. I was all high to try the drink and well this was my first time. But unfortunately , alcohol/wine does not go well with me. Just unscrewed the cork and the smell of the drink made me go high. You can guess what happened next.  I quitely had my dinner and watched my father in lieu and brothers in lieu  gulp the drink :-(

Well nothing gained, but lost the last bottle of wine from the previous year :-)

Happy new year !!!!

Day 6

I am recuperating, i think god has heard me and trying to be considerate with me. Hopefully i can still plan for something.Looks like my 6 days are flushed now. The only good thing is I had my little one with me :-)

Day 5

I think i will allow some creativity. You can guess my day. Oh god!!! I have become an open book for every one now. God pls put a stop for this....

Day 4

My fears are beginning to take shape, nothing much its just the repeat of Day 3 :-(

Day 3

Almost the same as Day 2, except that there was a change in the movie that we watched and the place we went to hog. I am beginning to wonder will rest of my vacation end up being "ditto" , i hope not :-(

Day 2

Another lazy day for me. Did not do much, just hung around in the house playing with the little one and caught up with a couple of movies.

In the evening went around with wifey to a few places mainly for eating chats and other stuff.

Day 1

Well the vacations have begun. As per plan, i was supposed to travel to Mysore and meet wifey and kid there. Then for the next few days, we would go around Mysore sight seeing and exploring new places. Alas it looks like a distant dream now. And to to top it, I have a bloody sore throat that I can;t even talk.

So i have no other choice than watch movies on my Kick ass TV ( aka - SONY BRAVIA , FULL HD , 40 inch ). So turned in the channel and had an option to watch a nice foreign movie - Kilometer Zero in NDTV lumiere . This was a tragic Iraqi movie which had made it to Cannes. It's about a tragedy that befalls the kurds of Iraq in the form of genocide unleashed by Saddam Hussein.

The hero of the film want's to escape Iraq and move into Europe, but can;t do so because his wife is unwilling to leave her ailing father. Left with no choice he joins army to fight a war against Iran. His chance to escape comes when one of his mates is killed in the war and the task of handing over his mates dead body to their family is given to him.

Being in the Middle east for sometime i was able to relate a few aspects of this movie which made it interesting.  The highlight of the movie being - Kilometer Zero -  is a good point to begin a journey from because you can then only go forward

After i started the day with this nice movie, i rounded it off with another legendary movie - Laurence of Arabia.  It's a neat film and highly recommended if you have any interest in world domination during the World war 1 phase :-)

Day 0

Vacations starting tomorrow and i am down with viral fever, can you believe it ? My worst fear has come true. I am not sure how long will i need to be down like this. Bad...Everyone is disappointed. But what the heck, such things don't really tell and come. And even if they did, they don;t leave as desired. I am still on antibiotics...

Vacations nearing

This is something that I abhor. Vacation is nearing and i am falling more and more sick. My cold -cough combo is adding more free stuff. I now have body pain and fever. I am not sure if my vacations is gonna go as per plan.

Its a bad thing to fall sick during vacations. I really don;t want to end myself sleeping all day. errr.. if its' a working day then its ok, i can apply for sick leave and utilize it.

Any ways just been to my doctor and he has advised me to take steam for every couple of hours and some antibiotics, since i faked that i had an important presentation to make in office. I wonder how long it will be before the doc realizes that every time I go to him I always fake the urgency to recuperate :-)

Me, Myself and Mine

 

                                normal

Vacations

I am pretty much thrilled with an upcoming vacation. If you add the customer given paid holidays with the weekends and additional leaves, i will end up with 11 days of complete vacation. All for the good things that we did in our project. I have planned a couple of things for this and we are looking forward for this.

But somehow, something deep down tells me its going to be plain "spend all days @ home". Let me see what happens.

And before that we have to slog our asses out to meet the deadline :-(

Books for Reference

Been collecting this for quite some time now. I have carefully categorized it for my reference. Maybe useful sometime.

You can check out the same here - BOOKS For Reference

Quarter Life crisis!!!

It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are many things about yourself that you didn't know and may not like. You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.

You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met, and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones. What you don't recognize is that they are realizing that too, and aren't really cold, catty, mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you.
You look at your job... and it is not even close to what you thought you would be doing, or maybe you are looking for a job and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and that scares you.

Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and are constantly adding things to your list of what is acceptable and what isn't. One minute,you are insecure and then the next, secure.

You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused. Suddenly, change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life, but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away, and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward.

You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you. Or you lie in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough that you want to get to know better. Or maybe you love someone but love someone else too and cannot figure out why you're doing this because you know that you aren't a bad person. You want to settle down for good because now all of a sudden that becomes top priority. Getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic.You begin to think a companion for life is better than a hundred in the shack and for once you would not mind standing tall for that special someone which otherwise you had never thought of until now.You go through the same emotions and questions over and over, and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision. You worry about loans, money, the future and making a life for yourself... and while winning the race would be great, right now you'd just like to be a contender!

It's called Quarter life crisis!!!!

A long day

Well today was a lonnnggg day. We had 4 family functions to attend. And you guessed it right, all important ones. One was a friends engagement, one was my close pal's sisters wedding, one was my room mates wedding reception and the last one was a house warming ceremony.

As I was good at planning :-) atleast that's what wifey thinks, I was asked to work out a good path to cover all the 4 functions. I had a week to do this planning and I spent some time meticulously in such a way that we could cover all the functions without a hitch.For that i even though about small things like which mode of transport to use where so as to avoid bangalore's traffic & parking woes.

But @ the end of the day, nothing worked and we just could attend only 2 functions, which means only 50 %  success!!!  I just missed a risk , a high risk which i need to really consider from now onwards...my cutie pie daughter...

Just because i discounted her from risk, she made me understand that the hard way :-) I guess she just taught me and wifey a good lesson :-)

Great going honey !!!

Honda Activa

The Honda Activa has been designed for the new era.It's been developed using the 4-stroke technology.Some of its features like Flush surface, Multi-reflector light, Low seat with high ground clearance, sleek and aerodynamic stlying coupled with Tuffup tube makes it very good bike.

The tuffup tube prevents the sudden loss of air pressure by sealing holes or cuts made in the tube by the piercing of any foreign object.So its like tubeless tires, but not 100 % :-) puncture proof.

After waiting for nearly 3 weeks i got my delivery of Geny Gray Metallic from Haiku Honda. I guess this color is in great demand, because on the day of delivery i saw 4 out of 5 people had bought the same color.

The Honda Activa has been designed for the new era.It's been developed using the 4-stroke technology.Some of its features like Flush surface, Multi-reflector light, Low seat with high ground clearance, sleek and aerodynamic stlying coupled with Tuffup tube makes it very good bike.

The tuffup tube prevents the sudden loss of air pressure by sealing holes or cuts made in the tube by the piercing of any foreign object.So its like tubeless tires, but not 100 % :-) puncture proof

All said and done, i only complain that the Honda guys have got smarter. Capitalizing on the good performance of this bike, some of the basic accessories like side stand needs to be purchased. So to get the bike off shelf, one has to shell around 2K which i think should have been included in the bike as basics. But i guess this is how everyone makes money

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Happy B'day Mom

Some mothers are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but their love is just the same, and most mothers kiss and scold together :-) Thanks Mom!!!! you always made a difference in my life.

Have a happy b'day and always pray to god to give you many more :-)

Snoozing all day

We have a few functions coming up this weekend, so  in-order to get prepared, i had picked up wifey and daughter from mysore. Every Tuesday's we have a early morning conference call with customer where my presence is required. Unfortunately my office does not have the option of "taking the call on the move" and every time i need to get into the conference room where ever i am.

Yesterday, i requested my daughter to be a good girl and give me a good nights sleep, so that i can get in fresh for the call. She gave me her beautiful smile and i was almost assured from that she had seconded my thoughts.

Well, along with the horror of yesterday, my daughter woke up 5 times in the night, something was bothering her and we were unable to figure that out. We tried every trick in the book, but unfortunately lacked the experience... So i had to call my mom at that hour to get that "experience" . Finally she slept @ 5 am and within minutes i had to get ready to get to the conference room.

No rewards for guessing how my day went and where and all I dozed :-)

New issue

Ok, here is what I learnt today - my wifey is allergic to fan and my daughter needs light to sleep. And when I say light, she ain;t satisfied with a bed light, she wants is the bright fluorescent lamp glowing at 220 volts :-(

And for me :-( like any one cares now - can't sleep without fan and need the room to be pitch dark!!!

Can't crib, just need to take it in stride ;-(

Studio Kabab

Tucked @ 32/3, Crescent Road, High Grounds, Off Kumara Krupa Road, Studio kabab is part of Goldfinch Hotel. The hotel offers valet parking. You can call them 41291300 to make advance booking.

We had been to Kabab studio as a part of a birthday bash celebration of a colleague.We opted the kunch buffet. For kabab-loving foodies, the Kabab Studio at Goldfinch is the last stop. It offers five varieties of kababs every day, both in the vegetarian and the non-vegetarian sections. In main course you are served two tawa items (dry sabzis) along with one paneer dish, one non-vegetarian kurma and a biriyani. I am given to believe that the menu changes everyday to give the customer a wide choice.

The ambience is pretty good, with a good view of the race course. The alu-tikki chat masala is something that i relished and had a couple of plates though i was quite full. Beware walk in to studio kabab only when you are in a mood to eat kabab's.

The buffet costs Rs - 320/- and they offer you a 10 % off if told before hand about corporate discount.

Gift for the anniversary

I just did some quick research and planned to buy wifey a Honda Activa for our anniversary. She used to have a kinetic honda and she may just love it . Also i may have hit a bullseye coz, dad also tried his hand on the bike during test drive and seemed to love it. And as far me, i can use that bike when Bangalore is bright and sunny.

                                                     activa

SONY Bravia V series

After a lot of speculation and researching, we decided to replace our old ancestral TV.It was from Solidaier a german company and its DOB was 1983. I think Mom got the TV to watch India take the World cup.

Finally we zeroed on the 40 inch LCD TV, after hours of convincing & fighting with Mom. Dad was already excited when i told him that we should look at the latest models and stay in tune with technology rather than picking something that was on a verge of being obsolete.

And what a day we picked for delivery ;-) My Inlaws were coming home with my wife and kid for a couple of days for some important traditional function and Sony India decided to call that day as the new DOB for my Bravia and the drama unfolded

The delivery guy called me up @ 5.30 and told me he would be coming in 30 mins and asked for instructions and landmarks.But alas!! he failed to estimate the bangalore traffic and landed 2 hrs late. At 7.30 , I signed the delivery order and received the TV. It was Huge and i had mixed reactions, Happy and excited at its size, but disappointed that no service man would be available for a week.I decided to unpack the beauty, but i needed help because of its size. I made quick calls to friends to check who was free to help me, but i did not get any success. So i waited for Dad to come by. Later on we slowly unpacked the black beauty and placed it on the TV stand.After that i just informed wifey to do pooja( Yes, we do that for anything new we buy :-) and i am proud of it ), and just she began that power went and we were in darkness for an hour increasing our excitement. Finally all's well that end's well. Power was back and now  It looks awesome. Just pushed in a DVD and tested. Watching movies is real pleasure as it gives you the feel that you are in a theatre.

This model being Full HD, i connected my DVD player via HDMI and bingo, the resolution blew up t0 1080i instantly and beautifully. I am still on its features. Will post more review later

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Some of its features include - Bravia 2.0 Engine, Full HD @ 1080 , 24 True Cinema which supports Blu-ray disc,Intelligent picture, MPEG noise reduction, Bravia Sync, S-Force surround sound, Light ambient sensor, PIP, PAP, Theatre mode and power reduction.

Secrets of Success

Lying on bed yesterday night, I had this sudden GYAN come over me,

The secrets of success:

Roof said: Aim High

Fan said: Be Cool

Clock  said: Every minute is precious. Be punctual

Mirror said: Reflect before you act

Window said: See the world

Calendar said : Be up to date

Door said: Push hard to achieve your goals

I am a wiser man now

Wireless Mouse

Thanks to Phani, i am now in possession of a Micro$oft Wireless Mobile mouse 3000. He gifted that to me and I passed it on to my dad, as he is still not very comfortable with the laptop's touchpad. I think part of it has got to do with the fact that he works with Auto cad which is easier with a mouse rather than the touch pad.

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I just set it for my dad and i was impressed. The mouse is very comfortable and is ergonomically designed for comfort in either hand. A snap in receiver is present so that you can plug it in when you want to use the mouse, else you can pack it away when not in use. There are 4 scroll buttons for easy navigation. It's made up of high definition optical technology which promises high battery life. I still need to validate this part. Overall its compact and is designed with care for notebook users.

Married but available - Abhijit Bhaduri

The much awaited sequel to the bestselling Mediocre But Arrogant: The first ten years are the most eventful, they say, in anybody's working life. They certainly are in the case of Abbey, who walks into a job at Balwanpur Industries, fresh from B-school. Working in HR is fun, he soon discovers. What isn'tis  the fact that there's hardly anybody in the company who doesn't have a view of who Abbey is and what Abbey does—or should do. Add to this the complications of being newly married to a woman more successful than he is, a crusty boss, and a sudden turn in the company's fortunes that catches Abbey unawares. It's up to him now, to apply all that HR wisdom learnt in business school to the dilemmas confronting him at work and in love. Can he hold down his job or will it end the way his marriage threatens to—rapidly and without too many regrets?

but i am kind of disappointed with the lack of ingenuity of some of our brethren...All these books of married but available, keep off grass , 3 mistakes of my life....same thing , different institute...if not IIT , its IIM ! Dear Writers, there is more we need to explore now... for starters - How about MORE CRAP AVAILABLE????

Tiger Trail - Royal Harsha Orchid

Located on Park Road, Shivajinagar is this nice place called Tiger Trail. You can call - 22865555 to make any reservations, but for most part you can just drop in impromptu and still get a seat. Experience an eat out adventure like never before. In the rare ambience of a warm forest lodge. Warm earth-tone colors, wooden floors and an open hearth offset by white tablecloths and uniformed waiters, give Tiger Trail a feel that is rustic yet elegant look. Yet the only thing that is lacking is the non availability of space for parking your car and the one way's that lead to the hotel.

You can enjoy a great meal at a modest  Rs.200 on the lunch buffet. It would be great if you can give those guys a call before you drop in as you will get to know the items on menu. You should not miss the chicken Manchurian while there. However the desserts section sucks.

Code coverage - Dead code

A nice read for those interested in dead  code analysis while doing code coverage

Dead Code is a term that means more than just a block of code with no possible entry points. It's been used to describe code that's been commented out or exists in files but not being built.  Also in some cases, it's been inappropriately used to describe code that is very difficult to reach.

The following 3 categories are meant to clarify the different types of "Dead Code" and recommendations on what to do for each.

Unused Code:

Orphaned code that lingers in the build but has no possible customer usage scenarios. This is more like the classical “Dead Code” definition; code blocks with no possible entry points.

Example:

· Class that never gets instantiated anywhere.

· Function that is never used in any other code.

Risk:

· Likely untested

· Likely un-analyzed by various runtime tools

· Potentially wasted space (media, ROM images, etc. if not optimized out).

· Security exposure.

Unused code is most likely optimized out, but in the cases where it makes it into the binary, it should be considered for removal.

Unreachable Code:

Code that is unexecuted due to logic that does not currently evaluate to allow execution (ex. relies on config/environmental scenarios that do not exist).

Example:

· Blocks of code that are logically unreachable: if (some_condition) { ...code....}, where some_condition doesn’t exist as TRUE in the world today.

· Blocks of code to handle non-existent hardware:

· Exception handler code that may impossible to trigger.

Risk:

· Likely untested, and can be awakened if config/environment comes into existence (most serious for already shipped code).

· Likely un-analyzed by various tools

· Wasted space (media, ROM images, etc.)

· Security exposure.

Unreachable code may also be optimized out (like in the cases of if (0) {...}), but for other code in this category that makes it into the binary, it may require core code changes to enable test cases, like interface hooks or some other type of testing approach (like fault injection).

The most serious code in this category is code that could become active post RTM when the world changes in a way that causes it to be executed.

Boneyard Code:

Code that is kept around for either posterity, tradition, fear of unknown (like if confronted with “let’s get rid of if”), or just plain laziness.

Example:

· Code that is commented out

· Code in files that are not part of compilation (i.e. in tree, but not in sources)

Risk:

· Untested

· Un-analyzed by various static analysis tools

· May not go through security review

· If enabled/re-activated at some future date, may introduce anachronistic code

· Security exposure.

Boneyard code is not as serious as it has no presence in shipping code and thus, by definition, poses no risk to our customers. Should be remove during something like a MQ timeframe or some other "Codebase Clean-up" effort.

Confused

 

Yeah, the frustration is creeping up as we are still unable to find a suitable name for our daughter. The more I Google , the more i get mad. I am gonna stop this and let wifey take control over small things like this. But i made sure that i would definitely have a say in bigger matter like

1. When should India declare war on Pakistan

2. What should be the world's stance on terrorism

3. Should Ganguly be selected for the Ind - Aus series

4. Did Bank of America make the right move by acquiring Merrill Lynch

5. What should be India's GDP in the next 5 years

6. Measures for winning more gold medal's in next Olympics

Wife, you heard me right. I have bigger problems on my hand. So please get a good name for our Daughter :-) Love ya both :-)

Kannada Barutha?

“Kannada Barutha??”, ah! I am sure most of you in Bangalore would have heard this, but what is “kannada barutha?” here it goes. Bangalore the IT capital of India , the silicon city and now a Metro city opened its gates to almost all kinds of people. Very evidently the recent poll census proved that there are only 47% of original inhabitants in Bangalore/bengaluru. The life style of the city has seen a gradual change with Pizza Corners replacing MTR’s, classy eat out’s replacing “Vidyarthi Bhavans” and flashy pub’s replacing all our “Mahalakshmi wine shops”.

“Change is inevitable” from the days of BEML, HAL and BHEL to INFOSYS, WIPRO; Bangalore has a new look now on the world map. Gone are the days where a typical Sunday for any bangalorean was a nice romantic walk on the pavements of “LALBAGH...”, “rave idli and coffee..” at the nearest yet old looking MTR and a wonderful Annavra film either at Santosh or central ‘talkies’. Today’s Bangalore is deluged in traffic, stress and pressure, Saturday nights without beer is desolate and a Sunday without a visit to either a nearest spa or health clinic is schlocky!! The gandhibazar’s are now AC cooled super markets, majestic is now replaced by ultra modern and diversified Brigade road, sri Cauvery coffee joint is now Coffee days.. and “Bhagyalakshmi coffee adda.. is now barista. With globalization and more retail market the city will definitely see more forceful changes.

Have all these changed our language? Kannada the local language of Bangalore is supposed to be one of the most meaningful language, it also has an unique script as compared to its other counterparts; but how many percentage of people really use Kannada in Bangalore now? The figures are staggering, only 37% of people speak kannada in the state’s capital, for rest it is only “Kannada barutha?”

Any normal guy starts with this sentence “Kannada barutha?” while talking to other person, people confirm before they speak the language. You want to ask an address in Bangalore ? Or reply to a question then English is the most preferred language other than Hindi. It’s a famous fact that two kannidagas in an IT company always talk in a neutral language!! even the vendors and shop keepers are channeled with this new wave, the moment when you step in any shop in Bangalore , you are always asked “Kannada barutha?” or the entire conversation takes place in non kannada languages. People have lost the confidence of speaking in the local language and more over speaking Kannada on the streets of “M.G road “or “kormangala” is substandard.

Shopping malls in the city have been completely banned from using Kannada, not a forced one but definitely an adapted one. One has to confirm that the other person knows the language before he starts using any language. “ondu glass beer” is a insult when it comes to any decorous pub in Bangalore .  “Swalpa menu card kodthira..??” has been replaced by “Can I have the menu card pls…?”

Just to hit some facts, Marathi is still the largest and common speaking language in Mumbai even though Mumbai has the highest no of inhabitants. Telgue is a practiced ritual in yet another IT HUB Hyderabad . When it comes to Tamil nadu, beware you can be alive either if you are a fan of rajnikanth or you know Tamil. Malayalam runs in the blood of every mallu be it Kuwait , Dubai or any hospital; but when it comes to kannada it is always “kannada barutha?” and next is “namaskara.” 

I am not a Kannada activist neither I run any Kannada supporting organization, I am just a plebeian who just love the language. Globalization is the trend and modernization is the mantra but at the cost the language? Sounds no logic.. is speaking kannada down market? The answer has to be found within oneself. Next time when you hear “kannada barutha?” you just remember that “kannada runs in your blood..”

How true!!!

Mother

No words to describe :-)  

mother

Simple yet powerful

If GOD is great, MOTHER is the greatest of all!!!!

Engineer's Day

“An Engineer’s first problem in any design situation is to discover what the problem really is.”

Engineering is The creative application of scientific principles to design or develop structures, machines, apparatus, or manufacturing processes, or works utilizing them singly or in combination; or to construct or operate the same with full cognizance of their design; or to forecast their behavior under specific operating conditions; all as respects an intended function, economics of operation and safety to life and property.

I take the vision which comes from dreams
and apply the magic of science and mathematics,
adding the heritage of my profession
and my knowledge of nature's materials
to create a design.
I organize the efforts and skills of my fellow workers
employing the capital of the thrifty
and the products of many industries,
and together we work toward our goal
undaunted by hazards and obstacles.
And when we have completed our task
all can see
that the dreams and plans have materialized
for the comfort and welfare of all.
I am an Engineer
I serve mankind
by making dreams come true.

- Sir M Visveswaraiah

What's in a name?

 

The Shakespearean saying goes - " What's in a name? A rose is a rose is a rose call it by any other name". But what he wouldn't know is naming his kid, if he were to be an Indian.

Consider these protocols

1. The name should be based on the Astrology

2. The name should have odd number of phonetics - 1, 3, 5

3. It should start with the astrological symbol and end with the sound "ee"

4. It should be simple enough to be short and sweet

5. It would be an added advantage if the name represents any goddess name .

The hunt is on now, i think finding a kid's name is a huge 9 months project and the complexity grows because you will never  know the gender soon.

Happy Hunting !!!!

Hectic Day

I rushed from Mysore on Friday to be in Bangalore by afternoon. I just needed some sleep before i could pick my parent up from BIAL. They were coming back from their mini world tour :-)

All through my drive back home, i had the lil one's though running. I guess i will have to get used to this. 

Tomorrow, i will be driving my parent to Mysore, so that they catch a glimpse of their grand daughter ;-)

I am enjoying the long drives , excited that my parent are back and seeing my daughter would just be the icing on the cake.

Lucky lil one

 

So far, my daughter has been real lucky for me.  I am not sure if its by co-incidence or otherwise, but i still prefer to call her lucky for me.

There were a few positive things that happened to me & family after her birth, so i know for sure now that she is a lucky charm for me....

We got home from hospital today and since today being the 5th day , we had some pooja's @ home for the kid. MIL asked me to pick up some items from market. The names of these items were real funny and unique. Any takers for  - "BIBA" :-)

Paternity leave

 

I feel proud. Proud because i have now availed the paternity leave of 5 days. I was just wondering, how would ppl know if you really went on paternity leave :-) Just kidding, probably there are 100 ways to figure out if you really are "DAD".

So while i am on paternity leave and watching my lil one sleep. Just wondering what the future is in store for her:-) Yeah, i know i being a real "DAD" already....

Gifts & Items

I don't believe this. Parent's went to US & UK with only 2 bags and when they come back they have 6 bags. And my mom reasons that she left all her clothes back in US.

I am waiting for them to unload the bags so that i can catch a glimpse of their world treasure:-)

Well, no surprises - gifts for family and friends..... This is gonna be fun esp when they get 2 bags full of kid's stuff for their grandchild :-)

Days in Hospital

 

Day's in hospital can get boring. Trust me. I have been through that. Consider this case.

1.Your wife is on bed sleeping after a heavy dose of anesthesia

2. Worse, if the doc has advised the patient not to talk

3.Your new born kid is always sleeping

4. The TV in the room has only those channels which you never watch

5. The novel you always carry around as a backup is misplaced

6. The newspaper you brought in to read has been borrowed by the duty doctor

7.No one else in the room

8. Your cell phone is half dead & your SMS does not reach out

9. You can't open the window, for fear of dust

10. You can;t switch on AC, for fear of making the room "cold" for baby

To top it all, you can't leave them alone and walk out of room for a breath of fresh air.....It can;t get crazier than this :-)

Blessed with an Angel

 

Yeah, you heard it right. We are now proud parents of a lil angel who has joined our family. Everyone is thrilled and delighted.

It's been first baby girl in our family considering my sis has two baby boys :-). The cutie pie is sleeping while i am blogging.

Earlier on i had my own moments. 9 mins of mixed reactions. I can now on behalf of all dad's tell that if mom's gestate for 9 months, we encompass a certain feeling of that 9 months in 9 mins esp when they are in OT. There is no way i can describe that feeling( if it was that simple, would'nt i blog about it?)

You never have a choice with docs, do you? After 8 hrs of labour pain, the doc advised for a C-Section. I could not deny.

Well all's well that ends well. At 5.14 pm our baby was born weighing 2.8 Kgs :-)

Night Out

 

Phew!!! It was a virtual night out for me and wifey. Wifey could not sleep and would not allow me to sleep either.I am not sure if it's the pain or excitement that's keeping her awake. But one thing for sure i know is, we are both eyeing the computer. She for chatting with her friends in US and me for updating the blog:-) Any guesses who won? Well, i am not that bad, i took hold of the computer after she was done.

It was our first real night out - we talked about a variety of things we did in our married life... Very nostalgic. IMHO i think everyone needs to get nostalgic every now and then :-). MIL woke up a couple of times to check on us, but she retired to bed as easily as she woke up. The excitement was nearing.....

Chrome is here

While i am blogging, Chrome - the wonder browser from Google has been launched.

You can download it from HERE

I just installed a copy and evaluating. Maybe some time later i will write a review on that.

Nervous Moments

I had my moments when wifey called to tell me that her D day was nearing and the doc advised her to admit soon. I am sure wifey would have been more thrilled than me, After her wait for 9 months was round the corner. As I wound up my office work and planned to leave early, i could feel my stomach turning inside out. It was a mixed feeling...

Many thoughts gushed to my mind, and i had to carefully brush aside a few though they seemed very practical. Reached home in a jiffy and packed all my things in a hurry. I wanted to be there when wifey delivers.

The normal 2.5 hrs drive to Mysore was like a long never ending drive for me. I just hope everything goes fine... Hope the lord is listening :-)

DharmaShikshana

Finally the new blog is up. You can visit DHARMASHIKSHAN.  It's a product of hours of discussionof like minded people and born on Krishna Janmashtmi

BTW, what is DharmaShikshan?

Dharma is not religion but righteousness

Shikshan is awareness coupled with understanding

What is the name of our Moon? Wondering right? When there is only one Moon, then why names?

Similarly Righteousness cannot be named. Truth is only one and never two, but it can be deeper and wider.

Righteousness as a whole is for the proper working of universe and overall upliftment of mankind towards the ever wanted BLISS!!!!

For more such info, rush to that site

Harsh Reality

If voting changed anything, they would make it ILLEGAL

Best DVD Ripping tool

 

Despite the fact that the freeware - DVD shrink has not been active in development for a few years now, this freeware decrypter, ripper and compressor is still my fav for ripping and backing up DVD's. Its compression feature is what sets it apart. It can compress 8GB dual layer DVD down to 4GB sizes to suit your standard DVD disk. DVD Rip makes this even easier with one click.

Try and let me know:-)

The Audit

 

I have a solid idea :-)

Send a guy to a company and make him sit next to the Network Admin to write a professional audit on his processes and practices. Naturally the Admin would be in his best and show the auditor all the clever and intelligent things he would do keep the company's network ticking and maintaining the downtime to minimum.

At the end of two weeks, you can now fire the Network Admin.There was never an Audit. this was just a method the company can use to replace their IT people without disruption and at the same time making sure that the old guy gave a complete Knowledge transfer to the new guy!!!!

Sounds foolproof :-) just hope that no one does this though!!!

Mistakes

My mistakes in life , summed up

                          mistakes

Dirty little secrets

The dirty little secrets of IT which no school or books teach

10.) The pay in IT is good compared to many other professions and what this means is since they pay you well, they often think they own you

9.It will always be your fault when users make silly errors and mistakes

8.You will go from dog to hero and back again multiple times within any given day.

7.Certifications won’t always help you become a star performer, but they can help you land a better job or a pay raise during appraisals.

6.Your non technical co-workers will use you as personal tech support for their technical issues

5.Vendors and consultants will take all the credit when things work well and will blame you when things go wrong

4.You’ll spend far more time babysitting old technologies than implementing new ones

3.Veteran IT professionals are often the biggest roadblock to implementing new technologies

2.Some IT professionals deploy technologies that do more to consolidate their own power than to help the business

1.IT pros frequently use jargon to confuse non technical business managers and hide the fact that they screwed up

In-Gate cricket

 

And on the night the Lunar eclipse was schedule, we spent the day playing cricket with Deepak, Guru and the neighbour's kid Samith.

The plan to play cricket was spontaneous and its always amazing how things work out when you don;t plan. 5 mins back we did not have bat or ball, but then we managed to get from a distant friend. That's another reason why cricket is a popular sport in india;-) . Well we did not have much choice of grounds or stadiums so we simply confined to our parking lot . We devised a lot of complex laws/rules which gave a fair chance of someone becoming out and if you adapt soon you could be among runs. We played various variations of the game. I am pretty sure if we write to Lalit Modi ( VP of BCCI), he would market it for millions of $

And the result was .... body pain, aches and severe cold stretching till fever...

Tribute onto holy feet of Bharat Mata

 

Lyrics of Vande Mataram Translation by Shree Aurobindo

वन्दे मातरम्
सुजलां सुफलां मलयजशीतलाम्
शस्यशामलां मातरम् ।
शुभ्रज्योत्स्नापुलकितयामिनीं
फुल्लकुसुमितद्रुमदलशोभिनीं
सुहासिनीं सुमधुर भाषिणीं
सुखदां वरदां मातरम् ।। १ ।। वन्दे मातरम् ।
कोटि-कोटि-कण्ठ-कल-कल-निनाद-कराले
कोटि-कोटि-भुजैर्धृत-खरकरवाले,
अबला केन मा एत बले ।
बहुबलधारिणीं नमामि तारिणीं
रिपुदलवारिणीं मातरम् ।। २ ।। वन्दे मातरम् ।
तुमि विद्या, तुमि धर्म
तुमि हृदि, तुमि मर्म
त्वं हि प्राणा: शरीरे
बाहुते तुमि मा शक्ति,
हृदये तुमि मा भक्ति,
तोमारई प्रतिमा गडि
मन्दिरे-मन्दिरे मातरम् ।। ३ ।। वन्दे मातरम् ।
त्वं हि दुर्गा दशप्रहरणधारिणी
कमला कमलदलविहारिणी
वाणी विद्यादायिनी, नमामि त्वाम्
नमामि कमलां अमलां अतुलां
सुजलां सुफलां मातरम् ।। ४ ।। वन्दे मातरम् ।
श्यामलां सरलां सुस्मितां भूषितां
धरणीं भरणीं मातरम् ।। ५ ।। वन्दे मातरम् ।।

Mother, I bow to thee!
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
bright with orchard gleams,
Cool with thy winds of delight,
Dark fields waving Mother of might,
Mother free.
Glory of moonlight dreams,
Over thy branches and lordly streams,
Clad in thy blossoming trees,
Mother, giver of ease
Laughing low and sweet!
Mother I kiss thy feet,
Speaker sweet and low!
Mother, to thee I bow.
Who hath said thou art weak in thy lands
When the sword flesh out in the seventy million hands
And seventy million voices roar
Thy dreadful name from shore to shore?
With many strengths who art mighty and stored,
To thee I call Mother and Lord!
Though who savest, arise and save!
To her I cry who ever her foeman drove
Back from plain and Sea
And shook herself free.
Thou art wisdom, thou art law,
Thou art heart, our soul, our breath
Though art love divine, the awe
In our hearts that conquers death.
Thine the strength that nervs the arm,
Thine the beauty, thine the charm.
Every image made divine
In our temples is but thine.
Thou art Durga, Lady and Queen,
With her hands that strike and her
swords of sheen,
Thou art Lakshmi lotus-throned,
And the Muse a hundred-toned,
Pure and perfect without peer,
Mother lend thine ear,
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
Bright with thy orchard gleems,
Dark of hue O candid-fair
In thy soul, with jewelled hair
And thy glorious smile divine,
Lovilest of all earthly lands,
Showering wealth from well-stored hands!
Mother, mother mine!
Mother sweet, I bow to thee,
Mother great and free!

Happy Independence day!!!

A great reminder of a great responsibility

Independenceday

Computer Stupidities

  • Me: "DSL is a lot faster. It--"
  • Friend's Father: "Yeah, but if you have DSL, there are a lot of threats."
  • Me: "Yes, that's true to a degree, but there are firewalls that--"
  • Friend's Father: "No, but they can hack into your computer even when it's off and steal our electricity."
  • Me: "Umm...I'm pretty sure that won't happen."
  • Friend's Father: "It's all over the news. You mean to tell me they're wrong?"
  • Me: "...I guess so
  • I have nobody to blame !!!!

    Tight Rope Walk

     

    I guess, a picture sums up a thousand words......

    takethetightrope

    Crazy but cute animal

     

    The other day, while i was hanging in Mysore zoo, trying to study animal psychology :-) ok that was a lie .. i was actually in the Zoo just to kill time ;-) . I happened to see this cute lil' monkey which looked rather very disinterested in life. It just showed no signs of movement and was day dreaming. It was a cute pose considering the fact that this animal was just hanging by the twig of the tree. I reached for my pocket to shoot this animal using my Canon Powershot. While i was adjusting my lens, the monkey leaped forward with all enthu, as though pretending to pose for mee.. What a sight. I would recommend this cute one to Ekta Kapoor for one of her Mega Serials;-) I am sure this monkey will increase her TRP :-)

    one

    I am Free

    Study in School., Go to Work

    Follow Fashion, Act Normal

    Walk on Pavement, Watch TV

    Save for your old age, obey the LAW

    Repeat After Me: I am Free!!!!!

     

    The success Mantra!!!!

    Code Review

     

    The humorous side what goes behind the code review cabin ;-)

    wtfm

    Ruminations - 29

    Recently i was telling a friend a story when she stopped me and asked me how old the people I was referring to were. Instinctively, i said , "Kids, you know our age.". It did not strike me strange until later that i had just called a bunch of guys in thier late 20's as kids :-) And it has begun to occur to me that , as much as i don;t want to grow, its happening whether i like it or not :-(. But although standing one year shy of thirty scares the shit out of me, the upside of being twenty nine is that i have been around enough now to pass some "valuable gyaan" . So kiddies, here are some rules i wish i knew when i was your age

    • Unless something catastrophic has happened don;t tell mom any bad news. You fought with someone or just a cold. Your mom does not need to know , after all the crap she has put with you all these years
    • As much as you hate your job, your boss hates his twice as much in addition to having kids, loans  and close to 50. Can;t do much
    • Don't over eat just because you liked it. You still have a life time to munch
    • Never get into loans, they can ruin your perfect thirties. & the golden one is never lend money esp if they are your childhood chums
    • Infatuations don;t lead to love marriages. infatuations die when you graduate..
    • If you are going out and don't remember if you had your cologne on, don;t give yourself a precautionary deo spray. Too much cologne is much worse
    • keep in touch with your friends, you never know who will get rich and famous one day
    • There is no difference between career and job ;-) Get satisfied with what pays you!!
    • Don't speed on empty lanes, satan can show up any time

    Morning Maths

    I think, while lying on bed and deciding to get up , the times you use in your calculations are the personal best .....

    2 mins  to shower

    1 min to get dressed

    15 seconds to eat

    20 mins to drive to work.....

    oh!!! so sleep for another 30 mins :-) and that's why i love maths ;-)

    Management

    Some of my colleagues are busy preparing for PMP :-( , which leaves me crippled.... I need to wait for another year , before my profile gets accepted. Until then for me management is all about

    Employees are like mules. Some you stand in front of and coax them along with a carrot. Some you stand behind and kick them in the ass. The key to management is knowing which mules are which.

    If you beg to differ, drop in a comment :-)

    Living by rules

     

    I am a person of rules... I live and die by them..So here is my set of strict rules , incase you want to be me :-)

    Rule #1: There are no rules
    Rule #2: Forget Rule #1
    Rule #3: Rules are meant to be broken
    Rule #4: Never forget Rule #2
    Rule #5: Don't play by anybody else's rules.
    Rule #6: No fat chicks
    Rule #7: Forget Rule #6

    Isn't it amazing ???? ;-) This is the rule to attain moksha :-)

    QA Tips Updates

     

    Release notes for my ongoing mini projekt...:-)

    1. Updated the Navigation menu with Web testing, Software Metrics & tech tools

    2. Added articles/documents for Web testing, web security, Cause and effect Diagram , Fish Bone diagram, Software Metrics ,Win Runner Interview Questions & defect management - Bug attributes..

    I simply want this thing going....

    Dark Knight!!!

    Taylor Benson once said - " It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light '

    Yesterday i had to focus on light aka electricity. My UPS was running low on battery and the service mechanic did not turn up even after repeatedly calling him. It was the time when my MCB circuit decided to act smart. It started witching off and on at will. It scared the shit outa me!!!! You don;t scare a lonely boy at night ;-) . Well then i decided to play smarter and started eliminating the causes like a true technician...

    And presto, i brought light to home.. MOM, DAD are you listening, i am truly the LIGHT of your house :-) ahem!!! and I already have  a LIGHT in my life .... :-)

    QA Tips updates

    Finally i have got something moving now. I have updated the QA-TIPS links navigation and also added new documents in there

    Release Notes :-)

    New Navigation pane added - Testing Articles
    Added following articles

    Interview questions
    testing Quiz
    Defect Management
    IEEE standards
    Testing Books
    Testing Glossary

    Friendship Day!!!

    Well , it started off like any  other day, with me drinking a jug of chai over newspaper and being a Sunday was only a catalyst. I had nothing productive to do, except for the fact that i had to complete the design of a website which  I promised to publish yesterday. Lazy meee!!!!

    While i was at it , i got a call from GC , that he would drop by.It was a lazy moment, but we got into the act. First we went out and checked the Ezone, found nothing that invigorated us. But that made us hungry and we embarked on a journey to Annaporneshwari hotel. The hotel is a old fashioned place, but definitely got a good cook and his NV dishes are the best. After our lunch we packed off to buy some music CD's and PS 2 games. Brian Lara's cricket, Metal Gear Solid ( Snake Eater) & Prince of Persia were the games that i picked.

    Later we hit back home and watched some movie. Towards evening we again went out for a light snack :-) That explains our build:-) and then were joined by a couple of friends...

    friendship                                             

    All in all a quite Friendship day!!!

    Lucky me

    As i got out of bed today, for one thing i was feeling very lazy... Lazy like why are work days greater than weekends... Can't it be the other way ??? 5 days of off and 2 days of work :-) .. Anyway's, pulled myself out of bed and slowly and steadily got ready to hit office. One the way to work , some kind Samaritan pointed that I was running on a flat tyre. I just pulled over and saw that indeed my rear wheel was flat. Just when I was wondering  where do i go looking for a vulcanizing shop... what do i see???? i had pulled my car right next to a vulcanizing shop and the dude there was starring at me... Can I get any luckier...The dude got down to work and only then we realized that the air vent had gone in and he could locate it. So guess what??? we had to induce a puncture and then actually take the tube out and patch it... This is crazy!!! , but at least i got the thing done in less than 30 mins and was on my way back to office.

    Some times life does crazy things to you... you just have to pull along...

    Dell Studio 15

    I have just placed an order for a new Dell Studio 15 for my dad. I reviewed the complete spec and laid my hands on the best available deal

    The specs are  - Intel Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz, 3 GB RAM, 15.4 inch glossy display, ATI Mobility Radeon, 320 GB Hard Disk, 8X slot load DVD burner, Integrated Web Cam, Bluetooth, WIFi, card reader , HDMI support and a Finger Print reader... I am excited , but hope my old man is excited as well.

                     dell_studio_15

    Windows Live writer

    Yeah, I just used Windows live writer to write this post. The writer comes along with the Windows live messenger.I just happened to hit on this software and so giving it a shot.

    For those who would want to configure Windows live writer to their post...Here is how you do it

    Weblog Homepage url:

    http://username.blogspot.com/index.html is the URL to be used. All other instructions are self explanatory.

    Technorati Tags: ,

    The Three Mistakes of my Life - Review

    This book by Chetan Bhagat has all the ingredients of a typical Chetan story. But this time he has taken added pain to direct it to masses.He was worked smart on this one - Cricket, Religion, business and all this in amidst the earthquakes in  Gujarat and Godhra incidents.

    Chetan is still not a Salman Rushdie or Dan Brown, but his writings are so Indian and are always relatable to the Indian masses. Here is where he scores high. He does make an impact. More over he is our generation writer and tends to use the language that we use, which makes him different. Although the story starts of well, in between it losses its charm only to increase pace in the end. The story has its own share of twists, emotions and plots to keep you glued to the book. Starting with the beautiful bonding of friendship and  how the friendship gets translated to a business venture , while maintaining their passion for cricket.

    If I had a choice between - The three mistakes of my life and Five Point someone, I still would go with Five point someone. The reason is what the protagonist thinks is a mistake and Chetan standing by that is actually not a mistake and can happen to anyone.

    Make no mistake, it's a one time read......

    Can you beat this?

    I don't think even Force India can better this?? Is Dr.Mallya listening? We'll i really don;t care if he is or not. All I care is now that I need some new sponsors for the tyre that got worn out in my recent Mysore Trip. I almost hit a constant 150kmph on my old one. The tyre went flat @ that speed and when i pumped up the jack for the replacement,i noticed that the wheels were real HOT :-).

    Tyre

    ***UPDATE****

    Dad is not sponsoring and instead directed me to the insurance guy for sponsorship:-(

    Resumes and covering letters

    I just joined this new company and I am dead sure that i have not given my official id to anyone, but some how my email id is all over town and i am getting more mails for reference than business:-( . I am frustrated with this spam, but coming to the covering letter these people write, i am spell bound and in fact it reduces my stress levels :-) Here are some actual samples....

    This is %^%&%^% ..I am completed my MCA in 2007 and looking  for a job in software Development Side. I am sending my profile, so plz forward my profile to concern HR Person.

           Iam a BE (E&C) Graduate from BLDEA'S COLLEGE OF ENGG &TECH BIJAPUR KARNATAKA.  I have good academic standings.

    I am attached my resume for referrence. if it satisfies u r needs plz call me at any time.

    WTF***** i am no gay :-)

    please find the resume enclosed with this mail.... N DO THE NEEFULL

     

    Guys, you need to be more polite.. and not show TASHAN.......

    Keep our Planet clean :-)

                                995647yx8ujtlp92

    Batman or Badman?

    On Friday, Christian Bale pretended to be Batman, on Sunday he fought with his mom and sisy. He basically spent the weekend acting like me when i was 12 :-) And get to think of it??? Batman - The dark knight has broken records of all sort :-) Yeah, who could break Bale's mom and sisy's neck :-)

    Weekend

    Last weekend i had been to Mysore. The place is pretty good, but can get boring especially if you end up being to the same places again and again or you double as a guide. This is exactly what happened to me this weekend.I doubled as a guide for - Karanjee Lake, Nanjangud & The Mysore palace.

    Here is what i did

    1. Drove @ 150 kmph on my old one, with windows open  early in the morning - 6:30 am

    2. Change tyres, exert  yourself and help the poor boy pump some air.

    3. Eat ice cream while its raining

    4. Engage in a never before 3 kms walk in the park

    5. Act as a guide and bluff your way about History

    6. Walk up and down a three storey building like a hero..

    7. Drive back to bangalore @ 140 kmph , this time with only a thin tee-shirt on the wee hours - 5.00 am

    Result ???? This is rewarding ain' it? Yes and i deserve them all - A full round of VIRAL FEVER with addin's like - body pain, cough, cold, vomiting and eye burning and the icing was shivering.....This means 1 week off from work:-)

     

    Some pics  -

             Karanjee Lake EntranceIMG_1431 The birds of Karanjee ParkIMG_1452
    Karanjee lakeIMG_1501 Mysore Palace in lightsIMG_1517

    Guru Poornima


    Today is Guru Poornima and here is a open invitation for all. Hope you make it...

    Where do Babies come from?

     

    Simply brilliant piece of humor i picked from a web site i don;t remember to give credit for :-(

    Nevertheless it's worth the laugh :-)

    analogies

    Hope, these things don;t happen to me :-)

    Movies Galore

    I had this fetish and i think i still have - Downloading movies :-) I still remember the time when i used to spend nights searching for good DivX movies. The kick i got from searching, downloading and then archiving never actually translated to watching :-(
    I always felt i would do it some day ,when i am free preferably with wifey and show off what awesome collection of movies i have. But, like nothing in life is certain esp when you plan ahead, it never happened. And i am now watching the movie collection when wifey is not there. It certainly helps me beat the boredom of being Home Alone.I must admit , the movies downloaded are a class apart and i am enjoying everybit of each movie.
    Movies seen this week so far - Hitch, Batman Begins,Usual Suspects, Memento, LA Conficential, Next, Jhonny Gaddar and Prestige. All the movies are worth watchin...

    New Beginning

    7 years in this field of software engineering and sometimes my memories go past the various issues i had run into - I mean the tech issues.

    I am collating all the info here for the fresh young ones who start the career. Maybe these posts will help them scale faster and also teach them what NOT to do :-)
    As you notice, this new layout in my blog has actually helped my cause.. So keep watching the links

    *** QA -tips: For all QA and testing related stuff

    ***Dev-Tips: for all Development efforts across all the technologies i work on....

    Tracing an email???

    Tracing an email has become so easy now, that even you can trace any email sent to you , but since they have tied the IP to the lat/longitude on the Google map, its not way correct. But at least you can figure out your ISP and then start the trace from there.

    You can trace your email HERE

    Old wine in a new bottle

    I have give my Blog a face lift... It's nearly 3 years now i am on blogger and was starting to get mundane. And when the image hosting company pulled the plug and i lot all my template images... I thought i will give this a kind of botox... It took me 2 days to resdesign-test and go live ;-)...Comments on its look and feel are welcome...

    Gmail and Yahoo for E51

    I was trying to configure gmail for my E51, and was running into some issues. So i got on to my GOD ( aka google) , but somehow this piece of information i did not find them all at the same place. So after a lot of cross blog, cross forum readings i have collated the info not only for others but also for me to look back in future

    Connection Settings > Incoming E-Mail
    User name: Enter your complete Gmail e-mail address including ‘@gmail.com’
    Password: Enter your Password
    Incoming Mail Server: imap.gmail.com
    Access Point in Use: Select the active data connection
    Mailbox Name: Gmail
    Mailbox Type: IMAP4
    Security (ports): SSL/TLS
    Port: Default

    Connection Settings > Outgoing E-Mail
    My e-mail address: Enter your complete Gmail e-mail address including ‘@gmail.com’
    User name: Again enter your complete Gmail e-mail address including ‘@gmail.com’
    Password: Enter your password
    Outgoing Mail Server: smtp.gmail.com
    Access Point in Use: Select the active data connection
    Security (ports): StartTLS
    Port: 587

    I think the other details such as User Settings,Retrieval Settings & Automatic Retrieval are fairly simple and you can choose your config.
    Incase you want to configure Yahoo ( not Plus or Premium) just make the following changes -
    incoming mail server : imap.mail.yahoo.com
    outgoing mail server : smtp.mobile.yahoo.com

    And make sure that for email just enter your yahoo user name only (without '@yahoo.com)

    ****UPDATE****

    While the gmail setting works perfect, yahoo settings run into trouble. You amy safely download the Yahoo GO( which is slow) or consider installing opera mini , but nothing beats the inbuilt browser of E 51

    Need learning

    No matter , how many times i undergo such embarrassing situations, i never learn... I think i should be more circumspect when talking to any one from now on... Here is a nice story which relates what normally happens to me when i try and lecture the GURU's. I am sure this happens to all....

    Over a hundred years ago an university student found himself seated in a train by the side of a person who seemed to be well-to do peasant.
    He was praying the rosary and moving the beads in his fingers.
    "Sir, do you still believe in such outdated things?" asked the student
    of the old man."
    "Yes, I do. Do you not?" asked the man.
    The student burst out into a laughter and said, "I do not believe in such silly things. Take my advice. Throw the rosary out through this window, and learn what science has to say about it".
    "Science? I do not understand this science? Perhaps you can explain it to me.", the man said humbly with some tears in his eyes.
    The student saw that the man was deeply moved. So to avoid further hurting the feelings of the man, he said:
    "Please give me your address and I will send you some literature to help you on the matter."
    The man fumbled in the inside pocket of his coat and gave the boy his visiting card. On glancing at the card, the student, lowered his head in shame and became silent. On the card he read:
    "Louis Pasteur, Director of the Institute of Scientific Research, Paris."

    MessQuote

    I would love to change the world, but they won't give me the source code:-(

    Alienated

    After a long hiatus from my bike, i am back @ it. In the course i actually forgot the basics of biking. I mean basics of biking to get to your work place:-)

    I used to have these things without fail during the days of using my bike to work

    1.A crash headgear
    2.A nice jacket which also doubles as a rain coat during the meaner times
    3.A leather glove
    4.Bike legal papers
    5. A backpack in which i carried my other stuff

    But all the fun started when i forgot about all this and ventured out... it was chaotic.. people were watching me and i felt very embarrassed and guilty after i realized that - I was driving the bike like I stole it and not like i own it :-(

    E51 Review


    After a while of deliberating, reading numerous posts and reviews I bought a Nokia E-Series. E -51 to be precise. Its been a week now and thought i would put my review

    *Nokia E-51 is quite a slim and thin device which is loaded with features. The device weighs only 100 g. The slim factor is must for someone who feels the bulkiness of other Nokia Model ( read N- Series ).You can get the complete specs here .Its a no nonsense cell which quietly lets the performance speak. Trust me, i am a quality guy and i think i have tested it well in this one week.
    *On the connection front it has USB, WIFI , Bluetooth and IR. Do you need anything else. i was able to test all the connections and successfully established connections on my laptop. It seamlessly integrated and transferred data without any issues. WiFi worked really well with my Wireless G router from Linksys. In fact the device was easier to pair compared to my IPOD touch.
    *The display is bright and good and makes you happy every time you look at your device.This compensates for the fact that its only a 2 inch display.The screen is very glossy and easily catches the fingerprints. You will need to be extremely careful with that. I think Nokia realised this and ships a cloth to wipe the fingerprints. They also package a pouch to make teh device look very professional.
    *Call quality and battery backup is Nokia's standard and they have maintained it well.Since the phone is a business device, don;t expect to many multimedia stuff on it - Camera, Music player, Radio are just a bonus for you.The ringtones are crisp and clear.
    *The device is fast enough and multiple apps can be opened and it handles them effortlessly.The built in memory is around 130Mb and comes packaged with a miniature 512 MB card. You can upgrade this card to 8 GB, depending on your use.
    *SOme of the applications that i have installed include - Opera Mini,Yahoo Go, Gmail, Gizmo, Skype , Fring,YMess, Talkonaut, IM+ for skype,SMS Conversation, IRRemote, iSkoot,Vibrate call, Projekt, MS Dict and Xplore. The reason for having so many IM's was i was desperately trying to use the VOIP to call US. I have yahoo & skype credits. But still i am unable to make call. However i can receive calls from others on skype but i am charged for that. I shall try and keep my research on.
    *One thing that i miss is a good ToDo list in this device.I have installed Projekt to overcome the lousy TodoList of E51.The other thing that bothers me the lack of good screen saver. I tried to put a good flash screen saver but it times out and comes back to the built in screen saver. I am 100 % sure that i am doing right, but will need to check further.
    *All in all i am very satisfied with this device so far. I know i will be delighted once i get the Blackberry connect working on this. I will give that a try sometime next month.
    *Cost is 11.2K in Sangeetha and that's the best deal. The package includes - Cell, battery, charger, 512Mb card, pouch, cleaning cloth, USB connector and some CD's.Its a good VFM.

    WTF#$%

    Holy cow!!! I don;t believe this - My computer thinks I am the virus ;-) What's with the world and technology...I am beginning to feel that the 3 laws of robotics is true :-)

    Final retreat

    Referring to this POST... As i guessed, the postmortem has taken its toll. All the big guns in cabins have either put down their papers are asked to leave. But the fact still remains that there is still a lot of undue credits on them.
    Politically motivated currents have pulled the plug on this project.Result 5 top performers make way for mediocre resources.... Way of life .......



    Day 1, Olympics

    The Olympics and the the controversies generated with the flaming torch has got me thinking - any publicity is good publicity... With all the hue and cry, i just hope this does not happen on  the first day of the D-Day :-)

    chinatraining

    Very true









    Finally decided

    It's final now. Its decided. Point Taken. The decision was right but the result was not what i quite expected to be.I never make stupid mistakes. Only very, very clever ones..





    Well when life undergoes a complete swing, it kind of shakes you up and forces you to stop Simply living and hardly thinking. I gave it a real nice though..made my mind - i am gonna relocate back. I want to spend time with my family. Money and fame are just by products and can come at any time. There you go Bangalore , i am coming back for good

    Jagtap's 0

    Jagtap's 7 is now called Jagtap's 0



    I know there were lot of things that went into this failure.But one thing is for certain, the post mortem is going to be hurting.Like they say, in Mahabharata epic war - many people good and bad died, but a few good men needed to die to weed out the bad ones.So i am expecting something like this to happen. Right now if you ask me what i am feeling - confused. Thats the word i would use, becaz of strong politically motivated currents.Meanwhile i am looking at the availability of my ticket back to india. Personally , no matter who try to convince me that i did my best, i feel we gave up on a winning battle

    Taming the shrew!!!

    Taming the client is an art. But this is something which no college or books will teach. I think this is because there is a very very vital ingredient for this and as such this ingredient is not always available:-) Take a guess???



    Yes, its called Time :-) the one with capital "T". Even though we were pulling Jagtap's 7, it requires time as this idiot comes accompanied with various dependent parameters. i have upped the steam for my team and they are raring to go and even though i was extra cautious on my final plan, I think credit to be given to my boss who actually convinced the client that - this was the do-able plan and even though all resources are over loaded, we are still committed to this and blah blah :-) i think we just hit two birds in one stone with this move. Bird 1: Customer was kind off sympathetic towards my resources and asked me not to push my team too hard( the mpp plan showed heavy usage and leveling threw the project out of time bounds). Bird 2: We are currently 1 day ahead of schedule:-) I know the customer is happy, but i dare not to speak anything, coz all through this project i have realized one thing - one day you are the dog , the other day you are the pole. So i am keeping the cards close to my heart:-)

    Dune Bashing

    Thanks to Bala's friend!!! We almost that we had no life other than work here. Slogging our butt off in this hot place. No retreat, no reward no nothing. The only solace was you get Indian food and you should not complain because that will keep you alive


    I was to take KT from another resource and had arranged for the same knowing that well my weekend is stashed, if not in office , but in hotel apartment.But there are only a few things here in doha that work with you while all others are always against you. At the last moment it turned out the KT guy packed to office, leaving me in apartment.So we braced reality and we were planning what to do next, when Bala's friend called. He has been in Doha for more than two years now and we figured if thats the case he would have a car( mind you , not having a car in doha is like a disability). So after some calls , he pulled over. With him we had the first dose ob>f fun in doha


    Villagio: Though we had heard a lot about this mall, it's designed only for tourists. The whole mall is designed like a Italian village/street with all the lights and sound ambience. If you listen intently you can also hear birds chirping. There is a canal and some boats to ferry you across. All these days i had seen such images in movie studios but seeing in real is a treat. Apart from the ambience and AC :-) there is nothing much of value here. The food courts are expensive and suck.


    Dune Bashing:We took a trip to sealine along the desert to get a real feel of what desert is.Qatar boasts of some impressive sand dunes, reaching heights of nearly 50 metres.So we set off and boy what fun it was, you can spend a thrilling afternoon racing up sand dunes and navigating your way down the other side.. Though our car was not a quad, we were so tempted to get that going.. but it was real fun...

    Weird Science! NYU Student Invents Virtual Girlfriend -- Daily Intel -- New York News Blog -- New York Magazine

    Weird Science! NYU Student Invents Virtual Girlfriend -- Daily Intel -- New York News Blog -- New York Magazine

    No kidding.... This would solve all our guys problems.. esp if you are a desi and always dreamt of that brunette, red head or a blonde.....

    But i'll tell you what, just get this piece of code or chip and give it to our boys at shivajinagar or national market and they will make this 2-D girl 3rd. hahahah , joke apart... i guess they will give you a practical solution.. pick any girl of your choice and you can sleep with her :-) Ask Anil :-) he has a DB of where and what kind of 3D to find....

    Jinxed project

    Just when we think that we saved a capsizing boat, the anchor has been shaken...After lot of pep talks and motivating the team, detailing the plan , analysing risks, our client thinks other wise...

    I am not too sure who will be held responsible for this failure. But i know for sure that there will be detailed post postmortem analysis and that analysis will hurt many:-( But our take is do what it takes to complete what we can and atleast get some grace while exiting.Things have gone wrong in this project starting day1. Also i second the customer when he says this project is jinxed :-(

    Blogger Bar :: Firefox Add-ons

    Blogger Bar :: Firefox Add-ons

    I found this tiny little addon to Firefox... I am yet to figure out how this thing is gonna perform. Earlie i had an addin for MS Word, but unfortunately with the new blogger , the word addin failed. Here is my first attempt using this addin

    Jagtap's 7

    As of yesterday, i had two plans - Plan A - Accept the fact that we had resourcing issues and incompetent people and would like to make an exit from project and check how i can make that exit graceful or Plan B - Fight, add more resources( competent ones) , give another deadlines, make sweat and blood one and deliver...

    Though i had few other plans like offshore modeling, body shopping to client, buying out customer tech consultant time - i was not very convinced. I spent a night thinking what i would present to my customer. I had few talks with the team and everyone suggested Plan - A. 'coz we had already burnt our finger and no one was interested to burn the entire hand. We have crossed the budget and running in negative balance, lost customer trust and some internal issues pounding us.It was almost certain that i would go for Plan A as best interest of team and others. But the other me always kept telling me - "you have done this in the past, why can;t you do it now?" . But the answer to me was - "I was hands on then & i could control stuff". So all night i had these clashes in my head and my alter ego convinced me that Plan A was the best.So i prepared a report to present the customer with Plan A. On the day of presentation i gave a small good relaxed thought. Heck!!! if i can get this going, then there will be nothing like it. Rounded up my boys and gave them a 30 mins pep talk( ala Chak de!!!) and presto i had the team's confidence back. So after all this, i walked into the presentation and presented PLAN B :-) Beaming with confidence and convincing the customer to give us another 15 days to turn this around and also suggesting making it customer centric and transparent so that they themselves can check the progress on a daily basis :-) So the saving grace done the trick and we are on work with all boys geared and ready to fight. Deliver or diminish. I work hard and want the team to work harder :-) If we can pull this out...i would call this Jagtap's 7 :-)

    Project pressure

    What's a project without pressures???. Hell i can;t even imagine such a project exist.A project ain;t a project if there is no resourcing issues, no timelines , no deadlines, no deliverables, no scope ......

    If any project exist then its called "vacation". Well we are no vacation here, but in doha the heat coupled with project heat and pressures is slightly greater than the heat required to boil the entire water body existing on earth. Oh well!!! i am exaggerating... but trust me, its getting serious...But who the heck cares... lets see what;s in store and move with the flow... you never know when nature will get kind on you... And while i am here, lemme cool my heels by having a coke zero... it tastes good and is just 1 riyal :-)..so long doha!!!

    Real Hillarious


    Never knew such kinda geeks exist

    Never mind the geeks...i am sure any married dude would relate:-). Life is so uncertain but can get hillarious

    Life in Doha Series

    Well, amidst all the project pressures of delivering the software as of yesterday today:-) we embarked on what we thought was our vacation of funtime to Doha for er the deployment of software. My team consits of - Guru,Balaji, Praga and myself........

    Just a quick background of these ppl will make you see these people as i see them :-).
    Guru - A drummer by passion. A musician for love. You can find him humming and more merrily hammering the laptop keyboard as a drum. A gregarious person , who can make you ROFL :-) but @ the same time equally sentimental. Currently he is low on confidence :-(
    Balaji - Would have been a politician if not for a MOSS specialist. A great designer. Small attitude problem ;-). A voracious eater , given his built. With him it is WYSINWYG :-) read the NOT in between.
    Praga - A smoker who does not take any tension. Comming from a public section background and is pretty much laid back in his work.Has the brain, but chosses to use it while he is asleep. Caution: this guy talks, laughs, cries and walks all in sleep.

    Thats the pick!!!. While i share the room with Praga, Balaji & Guru chill in the other room.
    Watch out ...i 'll blog more

    Sunday Sucks

    First time in my professional career , i am working on a Sunday;-( i don;t know why on earth they have this. It's so awkward..My body , my soul & my mind think its a holiday and refuse to work, while i physically drag myself first day to Microsoft for a meeting.

    Oh God!!! i know you created all equal.. could you not have made atleast Sunday as the common holiday...something like an universal law???Even the dogs in india don;t bark on Sunday, so how could we work. I mean Sunday is the day when u bask out with your passion and not get tied down to some crude meetings , setting expectations and crap like that. Not a good healthy way to start the week, its already demoralizing me ...And today it seemed like the longest Sunday of my life. dragging it through though.....I am starting to get desperate to get outa this zone ;-( And talk about water!!!!, water is costly than petrol... how i wish i cud gulp the petrol and tank it in india. I could be rich.. See this is where i still feel god has overlooked - he created 70 % of the earth to be made of water , 70 % of our body is made of water and yet here water is scarce.. The look on people's face is annoying when u ask for water:-(.. Finally the bottom line of the pic sums up the Sunday experience :-)

    Entry to doha

    Reached Doha intl' airport, but unfortunately my baggage decided to stay back @ bahrain and see the artificial islands

    With all the joy of seeing some arabic chicks we got down @ Doha international airport and went to the baggage area. We waited there while all the baggages were out. But unfortunately praga's and my bag were missing, whilst the other two got thier baggages. Man it was a terrible feel. Imagine you come to a new country and you don't have your baggage??? So with a heavy heart went and logged a case with the airport authority. They informed us that they will let us know when the baggage will be found. So we left the airport and reached our apartment. Man i was dead tired - and was pondering over the series of unfortunate incidents that happened during my travel -
    1. did not get direct flight from bangalore to doha & had to come to chennai. For this i came in brundavan express train which leave bangalore @ 2.30 pm and reaches chennai @ 8.30 pm. But then near Avadi, the train engine developed problems & would not proceed. So the engine driver had to summon a another engine to come all the way from chennai;-( , so it was late by 2 hrs...
    2. reached office, no dinner.. had to rush to the last closing shop for a quick bite. I had no choice but to eat what he had
    3. came back to office to get my visa and travel itenary printed, but the network would not put me in domain;-( by the time i figured out with all IP's i realized i still had to configure the printer... Damn... it took a while for me to do that . After which i gave a print command only to find out that the paper tray of the printer was empty :-( . I had to look around like a thief for some paper and eventually found it under a chair :-( .So by the time i had my documents intact it was 1.00 am.
    4. The only thing that happened on time was my alarm which was set @ 2.30 am :-) , btb there was no sleep in that 1.5 hrs- just imagine - chennai & no AC. I know u'd figure out this.
    5. Taxi came by @ 3.00 am and i left for the airport enroute to pick up Guru. While i waited for him, i saw a guy @ 3.15 am in the morning all decked up in formals ;-) and that was Guru.
    6. On reaching airport we had to wait for a long time for another college- Praga.. In the baggage check area , i just hit the limit - 20.8 kg while the limit was 20 Kg. So kinda just got through.
    7. Horrible looking hostess on the flight. I even did not get the requested airplugs. Luckily i had some cotton buds with me and that helped
    8. Mid air i realized that we are going to Middle east where water was costlier than petrol :-). I had to beg plead the hostess for a glass of water.
    9. The plane took off late and so landed late.. nothing to complain. We had less than 1 hr for transit, so did not get to see much of bahrain...
    10. After this ..... the story of bagage

    Thanks TOI

    Boy!!! I must be real lucky:-) I really thank Times of India for publishing some great articles like this.Although i have not read any article like that or confirm reading it anywhere on net either...

    But who the heck cares???? Wifey read it in TOI , so be it ... i am only happy. Do you guys know what this means??? It means life time of some amazing experience daily at any cost. Guy's lady luck has just smiled on me and its big time. I really have no words.. Thank you so much TOI, with this i am your life time subscriber and Wife, go ahead and read ONLY such articles :-)