The Bijou Blog

Employee Retention

2010-06-06T10:35:00.006+05:30

IT has evolved alot during the years, the process of Software development and design has evolved with it. It's evolved to such an extent that, it's more like unskilled labour now, maybe not all IT but definitely the Software development part of it.

1. Starting from recruitment, Engineers from all disciplines can get into IT (atleast in India, where the opportunities in specific trades are very less). Even non-engineers, Science grads apply for jobs in IT and make it as developers.

2. Everyone of them is then put to a standard training session, simple basics. After all the basic is same across all languages.

3. Project assignments are not based on how good a person is after training, it's based on how many should be 'billed' for the project.

4. Code to be delivered for a project, goes to stringent reviews, documentation and the end result of which is 'deployable working code' for the client.

5. The recruitment process continues and fills up a 'bench' of replacements for the developers in various projects. Trainings in specific products and disciplines will be taken up by the 'competency'

6. Every developer is expendable and every developer has a replacement. A developer if he's good, he'll be able to find new jobs, better roles and better pay. There is never a shortage of developers, but there definitely is a cost for a 'good' developer.

So I guess now I've justified that a developers job in an IT company is slowly becoming unskilled labour. People are expendable, so what is the 'Employee Retention' programs in IT companies. And how effective are they?

Is it cheaper recruiting from outside than retaining your talents from within the company?

What ensures that an employee who is retained will stay even after a raise or a promotion?

What's the number of employees retained in an IT Company?

I don't feel like it

2010-03-04T07:32:00.005+05:30

What's it? Why do you need to feel like something in order to do the work? They call it work because it's difficult, not because it's something you need to feel like.

- Seth Godin.

He might be the biggest 'gas bag'/'gyan dad' in the whole world, but this line actually did make sense. 'They call it work because it's difficult'.

Everyday I go through this, 'I don't feel like going to work today?' phase in the morning. I work in a project which is in the support phase now. The work is boring, you will have lines of logs and trace files of failed transactions to analyse. Annoying mails to reply to. Design a hotfix for a issue. Hack an existing process flow to fit in 'an exceptional' scenario in their business. It's tough, it's boring, it doesn't have the jazz of the normal development phase. This line has given me a different perspective to the way I look at my work.

But there is this other kinda of 'working' IT guy especially, a species found in typical Indian Outsourcing firms. The ones who fill up an 'imaginary' bench, waiting their way to another project. What would inspire him to go to office. Do his time, check his feeds and have lunch and go home. He/She also 'goes to work', what would inspire him to go to work. This line would not work for him for sure. There is nothing to feel like... there's no WORK!!!

Permanent

2010-03-02T07:03:00.003+05:30

It's anyway was not our permanent residence, but we slowly started liking it. It never score a 100 on the her scale, but I bet there were times when she started thinking of it as her own. I'm totally devastated, never saw this coming. What do I have to lose, I have an apartment for myself, I have two great roommates to share the place with. Then why do I feel like I have some big weight on chest.

I wouldn't have felt so bad if it was somebody whom I was not this close. We are not related, we don't even come from the same place. We've not studied together anywhere, but coming to think of it we basically would have the same blood type. I know how hard it was them for them to shift from Pune to Hyderabad. Though I know the place was no where near to a place, next to what they had in Pune, it kills me to see them have to go through the whole exercise again. If it was happening to me, it would have been fine, what do a guy who lives out of a suitcase care about leaving a place, but not them for Christ sakes!!!

It's been sometime... a longtime... since I prayed, sometime since I opened a Bible. I feel like I lost a Wimbledon to Nadal. I feel so not in control of what's happening around me. I feel that I'm being made aware of something cruel, strange and powerful controlling all of us...

OK. I give up, you win... again... but why don't you win FOR me for a change...

Reading Disorder

2010-03-01T07:49:00.002+05:30

All my friends read alot, all kinds a books. Fiction, non-fiction you name it, they do make it a point to read a book a month I guess. The last book I read was... Seth Godin's 'Free Prize Inside'... Ok I didn't finish it... So that won't count... Asimov's 'Foundation'... didn't finish... Diary of Anne Frank... didn't finish... I did finish Da Vinci Code... I did finish Armstrong's 'It's not about the Bike'... I did finish the 'Google story' that VnA gifted me...

I used to read alot... I was totally into all the Five Find-outers, Secret Sevens, Hardy Boys Case files, then went into some Crichton... Eric Segal... Tolkien... don't know when I lost interest... don't know when I just stopped giving life to the all words in paperback in my mind.

Got to find my way back to reading... maybe should start with some old Secret Sevens... baby steps... One book at a time...

Running water

2010-02-26T08:17:00.005+05:30

(Image courtesy:http://www.cs4fn.org)

Woke up to a dry tap... chances are, I might have to bathe in deo and go dry clean today. Running water, it's just a big confidence to a person in a house. It's not that you are using water for entire 24 hrs in a day but, it's that confidence that you have it at all times when ever you turn on turn on the tap. For all those unseen emergencies, the confidence that a tap with running water provides, is 'assurance' defined.

Need to find a new direction

2010-02-25T07:21:00.003+05:30

Feeling like I'm into some sick routine everyday. Some shitty design change, some pending issues, some crappy meeting to sit through. Need to find a new direction... need to lock on to this new direction... been wasting time for a long time... it's now time to make a change

(is it me or do you guys also here the 'Eye of the tiger' song in the background?)

(Image courtesy: barbiismyname.files.wordpress.com)

Just wanted to remind you guys on what my friends were up to. Here

Cubicles

2010-02-24T07:33:00.004+05:30

Caught up with 'Wake Up Sid' last Saturday with LSD, there was this part in it where the hero finds a job in the office, and boy was it some office. It was pretty cool, no cubicles at all. The manager had one big cabin, vending machines of course. No cubicles, now that's one office I'd wanna go to work everyday. The big sick conference hall with leather seats a with a flashy projector all is replaced by a big table with a white board and post-its. That's not just it, no dress code, well not that you can walk into office in your undies, but casuals that's the code of the day, everyday. I work in an IT firm, and I still don't know why we need cubicles? You could imagine them as bunkers place horizontally, it looks like some concentration camp of some formally dressed individuals. The place needs some posters, not posters of your HR buddy or the Go-Green campaign in office, let's get some RF posters, Cars, some graffiti, a good photo of 'aurora borealis', a view from the canyon.

Tim Robbins cell in 'Shawshank' had posters!!!. It changed his life in prison. I've decided, I'm decorating my cubicle, not like a tea shop or something... something inspiring... get a RF poster... A Steve Jobs poster... I'm gonna have my own cool, three walled office.

(Image courtesy:http://www.stomptokyo.com)

By the way a few updates. Two of my friends are getting into some serious hobbies. In alphabetical order.

Shveta: A fashion designer by profession, she's now getting her hands into 'pimping up' your old and boring dupattas, tops and curtains. She's into 'block printing' and 'tie and dye', she takes orders for printed dupattas, T-shirts and tops. You have to see the bed sheet that she just did with the whole 'tie and dye' technique- totally El wicked-o!!! and I'm not saying this just because she's my friend. She's really good at this. So if you guys are interested in 'pimping up' your wardrobe a bit. Just add a comment with your phone number or drop a mail to me at itsme[dot]bijou[at]gmail[dot]com. I'll pass on your details to Shveta.

Here's sample of she made.

Now Vasu, I have a theory about Vasu; God must have set course for her to land on earth in a place where there's cheese, chocolate and whole lotta goodness made from ovens. Seems she took a detour and landed in India instead (good for us). She's into big time baking, has an oven for herself and she's chugging out whole lot of awesomeness from this new friend of hers whenever she can find some time. She's decided on sharing her baking skills with anybody who wants to give baking a try. She will provide the materials and an oven, you just have to walk in and watch her at work and you'll get to make your 'own' cake with some help from Vasu. So you guys interested or know anybody who's interested. Drop in a comment to the end of this post or you could get in touch with Vasu on her blog here. You could also drop me a mail at itsme[dot]bijou[at]gmail[dot]com. I'll pass on your details to Vasu. She does share her recipes and pixs of the baked goodies on her blog, feel free to check it out.

Brother of the bride

2010-02-23T07:16:00.004+05:30

Am I being a very obnoxiously over protective brother here. She always had it her way, and we always let her have it her way. It was like her secret super power or something, she always had it her way. Be it with chocolates, writing with ball point pens, her time with the TV. .She has veto power on 'Going to School' or in her words 'Lu-KG'. She very much decides on what she 'thinks' is right for her, not what really is right for her. Am I blowing this out of proportion, why is it that I just can't see her as a grown up and responsible woman.

Maybe I'm comparing her with the women around me. I already am guilty of being this over expecting brother, whatever she did was never good enough. I wanted her to be better than me, get the best opportunities better than the one that I got. And to make stuff worse, folks always let her have her way. I slowly became the guy who never could 'handle the truth', ammachi became her Fort Knox. Did I become 'the guy on the other end of the daily phone call'. Did I miss out on this whole transformation from baby sister to whatever she is now.

Now suddenly she's all ready and all to get married. There is a dude of her choice, she gets her way again. I'm not saying I don't like her choices... I just never trusted her choices. Life in 'Palathra' was literally a bed of roses. Tiffin on time, daily wake up calls, pick up and drop to school. The only thing that I think she knows to make is TANG and Maggi. No, I'm not exaggerating, the only other near to cooking (when the remote is not in her hand) thing I have seen her do is, mix the flour, butter and sugar for Amma's cake, and I have my theory that she does this so that she gets dibs for licking the bowl afterwards. Are we caving in to another one her wishes. Would she be able manage a home, be a wife and all.

Why couldn't baby sisters just pupate and then emerge as these a something with wings and all. How the hell am I supposed to know she's no more a baby sister. I don't think Palathra without my pestering sis would be the same. Yeah I know I'm totally flipping out here.

(Image courtesy:www.brisbaneinsects.com)

Caterpillar in the tree, how you wonder who you'll be

Can't go far but you can always dream

Wish you may and wish you might

Don't you worry hold on tight.

I promise you there will come a day

Butterfly Fly Away

Butterfly Fly Away (butterfly fly away)

Flap your wing now you can't stay

Take those dreams and make them all come true

Butterfly Fly Away (butterfly fly away)

We been waiting for this day

All along and know just what to do

Butterfly,

Butterfly Fly Away

(From Miley Cyrus: Butterfly Fly away)

Defrosting

2010-02-22T07:27:00.003+05:30

It's been a while since I wrote anything; the last post was in Jan, I'm lazy. Saving you guys from yet another I'm lazy post, let's cut to the chase. Since my last post we did finally GO LIVE!!! well kinda GO LIVE!!!

Now days in office are kind of spent on SQL tunning and performance enhancement exercises. Years of fitting shitty requirements by 'hook or crook' takes a toll on the system once your tables get loaded with 3 crore rows of legacy data. It never crossed my mind that with 'more data comes more responsibility to back it up with quality code and queries'. So we are back to the design table, redesigning key objects we froze years ago. So right now we are defrosting. Object by Object we investigate them. Code by code interrogation, query over query we grill them. All this rework for years of haste.

(Image courtesy:1:5:10:365 EcoTip Blog)

Fake sense of urgency

2010-01-07T23:11:00.009+05:30

(image courtesy:labs.gerbenrobijn.nl)

I had a very frustrating day in office today. I do totally understand that my project is not an ideal one. It a great specimen for a totally dysfunctional project. A prefect case study on what a project should NOT be. Add a client who doesn't give a damn about the project, you get yourself a project with no end. Frustrated team, bone headed managers, making the same mistake over and over again.

After years and years of scope creeps, no proper requirement gathering or requirement sign-offs. The project has still not seen the light of the day. There's no direction to project, just bogus Go-Live dates. Wastage of resources on weekends in a very desperate attempt to show the top brass a fake 'sense of urgency'.

With just days before the latest or the newest 'Go-Live' date, we are still suffering from scope creep. Everyday there is a new requirement, a new change, that is being added on to the scope. What we end up doing is add on to what we have to deliver and later end up fixing issues caused by proper impact analysis to new changes we take in.

Dear Client,

I know we messed up, we have two of your lines of businesses ready for you ready to use. We'll make amends to whatever we have not catered to on a priority basis in the coming releases. But we want you to start using the product and provide us with your feedback. Lets not complicate the roll out and the transition by adding more to the current scope. The current approach is not helping either of us in anyway.

Now this would work if:

Our client is from some Bollywood movie.
We have shown some credibility in what we done so far.
We were professional enough and not act like greedy mercenaries trying to con the client with 'interim' solutions and 'temporary fixes'
If we have a good Customer facing team managing customer expectations.
A good Project Management team.

Is there a way out for us. I don't think so, IT industry in itself is a filthy industry with no credibility. It's a industry where no one owns up a project failure but you'd find many to own up a project success. It's an industry where blame chains play a far more important role than root cause analysis. CRs and Billing rates means more than what the 'Customer really wants'. Deadlines will whoosh past you. Deadlines would like seasons that come and go and never a date that has to be met. And most important, there will always be somebody to blame. So nobody gets fired for the project being delayed for all these years. 'Dud for brains' Project managers will still be managing projects.

There will still be bad days in your project where you still feel like pulling your hair out. So rather than wasting your energy worrying about this. Enjoy the 'free' internet access and occasionally crib about how much your work sucks, as you enjoy the fat paychecks for doing almost close to nothing.

Advantage YOU!!!

Sorry, the Nexus One phone is not available in your country.

2010-01-06T07:04:00.004+05:30

A country where every body has atleast one mobile phone to himself, and it's still not available to India!!!

Anyway what would India do with a 3G Superphone when we still are delaying our 3G auction over and over again. We wouldn't even know what to do with 3G if we had 3G. AirTel which sells the HTC Android phones has blocked the Android Market Place app on the phones that they sell. Tata DOCOMO has provided access to the Android Market Place app for their customers but they still have no 3G. There is so much restrictions with smartphone already in the market, I doubt we'd be able to enjoy the phone even if we get one.

The Google Press Event got over, the whole Nexus One wasn't any different from the hoards of rumors and reviews of test phones floating over the internet. I would buy it even when I'm totally happy with my Nokia E51. I'd borrow money and buy one if I have too but I'd wait till the whole 3G services are available in India and unrestricted 3G services that too. I think waiting for a while would be good enough, by then Android will also have a few upgrades, Multi-touch etc. Then I'd buy one of these babies. I guess by that time we'll have a Nexus 2 or Nexus 3, but surely by then I'll own an Android Phone.

Ya pakka pakka... for sure... pinky swear..

23 Red Roses

2010-01-02T00:00:00.004+05:30

It was a Sunday.

Those days when church was never to be missed.

It was the coldest bath ever.

Shivering he gets on the Bus.

The flower shop had the 23 preordered Red Roses waiting for me, arranged beautifully in a vase.

Carefully held the roses and called an auto, summoning all his guts... set meter to the place.

His heart clocked beats like Usain Bolt on a final 100m dash.

He pulls out the beautiful greeting card and a letter... 23 lines for every year.

Signed, Sealed.. and yet to delivered.

From the car park... looking up to the top most floor.

The the call is made, the phone never rang this slow.

She picks up... there is a half sleepy voice at the other end.

'Can you come down... I'm at the car park.'

Trying hard not to scream and wake her friends she makes way through the house and opens the door, phone in hand and looks down... he's not joking... he is at the car park.

Lift door opens... beep beep beep... Lift Door Closes.

Must have been the slowest lift in the whole world.

Beep beep beep... Lift Opens... Lift Closes.

'Happy Bday Mollae'

Thanksgiving

2009-12-25T00:57:00.002+05:30

Today was Christmas , it was the a Christmas away from home. No mass at my regular Church, no appam and stew for breakfast, no mumma cake for Christmas. This is not my first Christmas away from home I guess, but this is Christmas is different from the rest because, today I never missed any of these today. Todays Christmas was at Vasu's with LSD and Aravind. A good memory, a Christmas with family away from home. More details on this family of mine sometime later. I owe God an apology I guess, I've been not thankful for my life for a long period of time. It's partly to do with not taking some chances that I should have taken (there will never be a post about this). Today I, Bijou Mani Thomas, wants to set the record straight with God.

I'm not being punished for making the wrong choices in this life.
I'm lucky. I have the best set of friends that, only I can have. The only set of friends that I can call my own family away from home.
I have homes that I can call myself, and walk in at any hour, and not be considered a pain in the @$$.
Today I realized, that losses I have had many, many that I know I'll never get back. But what I've been gifted weighs more than what I have lost. Today I realized, I'm blessed.

Today I'm thankful for this life.

(Image Courtesy: teara.govt.nz)

It gets adjusted

2009-12-22T00:07:00.002+05:30

One of the best things about Hyderabad is this awesome means of public transport called 'Share Auto'. It's the Mumbai metros but it's not a train, it's an auto. Profession no bar, religion no bar, education no bar everybody shares the same ride. They do cram 7 including the driver in the auto but it's pretty cool a ride. My favourite seat is the one with the driver, the left one. More butt space and if you are a righty, you get your natural right hand to confidently seat yourself.

From my place to my first stop where I hop on our Red Palio, the share auto ride costs me 4Rs. Most of the time I end up paying 5 Rs to the auto guy. I ended up losing a rupee to the auto guy, because he doesn't have change. Today, one of the most unusual days of all, I had two rides and both of the time, when the driver didn't have enough change he kinda waived the extra rupee off.

It all gets adjusted, we lose sometime, but we gain the same some other time. It all gets adjusted. You miss home alot but you have two places like home you can walk into any point in time. Two families to call your own other than home. It all gets adjusted.

[Movie Review] Rocket Sales Corp has no HR

2009-12-20T10:33:00.004+05:30

Good movie, a good watch, and it's not like this is a substitute for 'when there is no AVATAR movie tickets' kinda movie. This movie deserves your attention. Story of working on something that 'makes meaning'.

Here's the whole movie described in the 'Chapter Titles' if it were to be released in a DVD today.

1. Pappu pass hogaya, but Pappu doesn't want to do an MBA

2. Sales Job Hunting.

3. Training Day

4. Complaint Box

5. The Black Sheep

6. We don't sell this configuration.

7. Partners in crime

8. Wrong number

9. The offer- Sir, Aap SIM Cards bhi bhejtae hai

10. Busted

11. The Merger

12. One rupee

A good climax and you got yourself a good no-nonsense movie. No romantic overdose. No 'we had to fit in a song' knda song. And some good casting and wicked acting. I never dreamed I'd ever say this ever ever... but Ranbir Kapoor has made some good choices and can act too. So good movie in all.

Lesson learnt: Behind every successful company there is NO HR.

Here's what Guy Kawasaki has to say about 'make meaning' from his famous 'The Art of Start' lecture.

What matters now

2009-12-17T07:13:00.003+05:30

(Image courtesy: neuronarrative.wordpress.com)

I'm on page 51 of Seth Godin's free e-book titled 'What matters now'. It's a collection of micro-essays by Godin and his friends. Jason Fried from 37s, Gina Trapani of Lifehacker, Guy Kawasaki and many others.

A good read, every page talks about one specific topic, hardly 200 words per page. It's free e-book and it's a available here

I, DROID

2009-12-15T06:53:00.003+05:30

I got Eclipse installed in my machine at work. Eclipse Europa 3.3x, I wanted to work on Android for long, been lazying around for a long time. Yesterday, it turns out that I could download the SDK (22 MB download). I didn't waste much time, downloaded the SDK and installed the Eclipse ADT plugin for Android. It was kind of a gamble, because the Android Developer site recommends Eclipse 3.4 Ganymede and 3.5 Galileo for ADT. I just gave it a try with the help of this awesome online tutorial here.

Now... I, DROID :)

(image courtesy: Android Development with Eclipse - Tutorial)

Speed breakers... Sleep breakers

2009-12-14T07:43:00.003+05:30

It's a very innovative way to prevent you from over speeding and injuring 'others'. If you don't respect to these man made creations on almost every Indian road, it's bound to kill you. And this is the unique service that it provides. It just kills you, nobody else other than you gets hurt. No! you might not know where and when there is a speed breaker, because most of the time, there won't be a road sign or a properly marked speed bump on the road. So always be alert, pay your respects to the speed breakers. Slow down and pass, you might have to break hard that the road should feel that you are sort of bowing down to it.

There is another variant of the same that's found on highways. They come in pairs, there should be atleast two. Now these are what I would like to call 'Sleep Breakers'. It's a highway, you have to 'have to' drive at night, we are human, to sleep is human, to sleep while driving is 'crazy' human. So sleep breakers shake the sleep off you. It's like somebody holding you and shaking you left and right, left and right and snap... you're awake. These usually with some luck, does come with big road signs which say, bump ahead and all. Most of em read as 'Speed bump ahead', which you should normal read as 'Speed bump... RIGHT Heeeee eEeeeeeReeeeeE!!!!'

Yesterday night I had an episode where I nearly took off from the seat off a Bullet for not paying respects to a Speed Breaker. Don't worry, nobody got hurt, I guess we just got a warning. That's all for now, drive safe.

Who do we blame it on?

2009-12-13T07:53:00.005+05:30

We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations -- acting individually or in concert -- will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.

- Barack Obama (more here)

This sentence caught my attention. 'We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes' a small yet simple truth right. So now it's not in our hands, war and violence will be part and parcel of being human. Now who do we blame this state of mankind on. Whom do we blame it on.

1. Free Will- Blame it on 'free will', the greatest gift given to man. That which makes us human is what makes us stupid and violent.

2. God, Religion - Blame it on mankind's belief in some force or power that's beyond his reach. The one thing that he says is the answer to that question about everything. Blame it on his need to have given it a name. Blame it on teaching his children his experiences with this 'answer' of his.

3. Caste and Creed - Blame it on our differences in skin color, language, ethnicity.

I guess we did mess up big time. The whole idea of being threatened by another human being is what makes us animals. God threw in a good helping of free will and logic what messed it up all i guess. Now that would not be true right, other animals have the same gift, except for opposable thumbs.We have intelligent dogs, yesterday I saw killer whales hunting on a grey whale and there's logic in them. There is free will and there's logic in all animals alike, maybe a tad greater in humans I guess. Animals also fight, they are territorial, they still don't have Gods and religion, when they fight, hunt, kill... it's all tagged 'survival of the fittest' or 'Being on top of the Food Chain'. Maybe the reason to all this violence, war and all is still this same thing 'Survival of the fittest', it just is in a bigger scale, a scale which God even wouldn't have fathomed.

Rephrasing Obama: We'll never eradicate violent conflict in 'any' of our lifetimes.

We never can, it's part and parcel of being human, being the animal we all are within. This how it's meant to be. But there is hope, we'll only be able to fight for all this, till we have this beautiful planet to fight for. Since we are doing a good job at destroying our planet too, we might see the end of 'war' and 'violence' in 'this planet' in just a few more centuries. Earth would be considered FUBAR one day. Humans would stop fighting for earth one day, move to a newer planet and continue from where we left on earth.

(Image Courtesy: bluray.ign.com)

4 flights and a wedding

2009-12-11T22:06:00.009+05:30

Just got back from a wedding from Gujarat. I went to attend my best friend Anurag's sister, Charu's wedding. Rajasthani bride weds Gujju groom. The highlight of this trip was this awesome 'Garba' on the night of the engagement. Boy! was it wicked, they just rocked the place like anything.

Now 'Garba' is like a Gujju version of the 'Thiruvathira', but the music to which they dance is quite fast and the dancers just dance and don't sing. I'm not pretty sure whether the 'Thiruvathira' dancers sing, but the pace of the dance is quite slow. Thiruvathira is a all girl dance thing while this is like a guys and girl thing. If the whole group comprises of people who really know the steps, it's quite awesome. Throw in a few guys who don't know the steps, you mess up the dance for not just the people watching, you might end up getting hurt or stepping a few toes and really hurting people.

A beautiful memory to remain, here's to Charu's happily ever after. God Bless!.

On a very light note: I haven't read the whole of Gandhi's 'My Experiments with Truth', but there was a chapter for non-detail in school. I remember reading that Gandhi took dance lessons, now Gandhi was Gujju, and he would have learnt to 'Garba'. And if you can 'Garba' you can pretty much pick up any dance. Did Gandhi know 'Garba'?

What if...

2009-12-08T07:32:00.004+05:30

1. Information was free and opinions not forced upon.

2. Gods had no name.

3. Religions had no house of worship.

4. Lands were not separated by borders.

5. Education was free.

6. Just enough money is enough.

7. We are blessed with forgiveness in abundance

Do you think this would make the world a better place to live

Working on a Saturday

2009-12-05T07:53:00.003+05:30

When waking up on a Saturday seems to be such a big burden, waking up and going to work would be the worst thing ever to happen. I have work today, not because I want to, but just because I have to. We have to compensate for a holiday we got for the local election in Hyderabad. So we work on this Saturday. Last time when we had the holiday for State and Lok Sabha elections we were asked to compensate for the same by working a Saturday. Later on that was cancelled quoting some court rule or something.

Maybe today's work is going to be unconstitutional. If this is true then can we get a day off on Monday. I hate Mondays, no matter how good or bad the weekend was, waking up and getting back to work on a Monday is a big drag. Weekends are happy and 'Weekbegins' are sad.

I say let's make Monday optional working days, it is a working day, but it's...(pause)... 'o-p-t-i-o-n-a-l'. Monday is the day when you mentally and physically prepare to get back to work after the weekend. Now why can't you do the same on Sunday? Well that is so not workforce friendly. You could get stoned to death in Kerala and WB for asking that question. So where were we, yup 'optional' working day. It's not compulsory but it's (pause) 'optional', you are not forced to come to office, if you feel like coming to office you come do your time and go home.

Yup that's it, the solution for a Happy Weekend and a Happy 'Weekbegin'

We'll never run out of 'tomorrows'

2009-12-04T07:22:00.006+05:30

Coldplay - The Scientist
by itami

Live blogging a 'Go-Live'

18. New Go Live date 'tomorrow'

17. The trail transactions failed, the reason not so small. The whole implementation never considered 'migrated data'. Result: Configuration data mismatch left right center across applications.

16. Meanwhile in the Actual Outsourced IT Vendor's place. A meeting for discussing results of 'trail run' on the Production system, very solemn meeting with the subtle tone of the Project Manager's snore in the back ground.

15. While all this was happening, tomorrow went by. 'Tomorrow' went by THRICE.

New Go Live date 'tomorrow'.

14. Call Center agent setups are being done, user creation happening in the application. Call Center Agent screens not working.

13. Big hustle and bustle at the new call center, machines all booted up, but still not within the network.

12. Outsourced IT Vendor finds a loop hole- You get the a Call Center up and a arrange for a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new Call Center means you have 'Gone Live!'.

11. Focus now changes on getting the Call Center ready.

10. Outsourced IT Vendor is in a jinx with the date. They can't go live 'tomorrow', there is a 200 seater call center to be setup (by tomorrow).

9. Outsourced IT Vendor gets a date from it's Actual Outsourced IT vendor- it's tomorrow. WTF!

8. Post lunch there is the rumour of a 'Go-Live!' and there is a date- It's 'tomorrow'.

New Go live Date: tomorrow

7. Somewhere down south from all that's happening, there is this team working on issues and bugs, setting up and instance for a 'Parallel Run' simultaneously juggling the work to get their machines setup in the new office.

6. Outsourced IT vendor goes and ask the 'Go-Live!' date to the IT vendor to whom they have outsourced the work.

5. Implementation Vendor caught unaware, calls up the outsourced IT vendor and asks for a 'Go-Live!' date.

4. Meeting agenda changes. 'Parallel Run' changes to 'Go-Live!'. Who needs a parallel run, Who needs a proper user training. Parallel Runs and trainings are for sissies. When can you 'Go-Live!

3. IT department having a day long meeting with the New Software Implementation vendor about the 'Parallel Run' gets to know that the $h!T's hit the fan. Need to find some cover.

2. The Business users point the finger at the IT department.

1. Client's mission critical CRM and Billing application goes down for a particular LOB.

New Go Live Date: tomorrow

Arbeit macht frei

2009-12-03T07:25:00.004+05:30

We shifted... finally. Our new work place is DLF Cybercity or something. Boy is it huge or what, it's a building still under construction. With just few of the zones which are functional, I'm at the 4th Zone 5th Floor and it's got like 2 levels of parking beneath what is already built and what's being built. Huge, I'm not sure on how the other floors are modeled, but my floor is modeled in the typical Nazi format, there are these huge floors which are divided into bays, huge bays. I mean it's bigger than Cyberspace or Gateway, the workstations are modeled similar to the 'Chicken Coop' in Gateway but with a different color scheme.

It's a bit crowed, but only when you compare it with the workplace in foreign countries, I've been to Germany for a month and the place I used to walk to everyday was a proper room. A very huge room. With just 4 seats, 4 telephones, and 4 workstations. You never get a feeling that there is a guy next to you, that you can hear him breathing. Here at DLF you get a feeling that it's like a IT Concentration camp when you find your way to the Cafeteria. It's a very sad sight, very few tables not enough to seat even the strength of one floor. Not sure whether it was was planned in a bit of a hurry or was it not planned at all. The other thing that I miss about my old workplaces is that if you felt the food in office was no great then, there were options once you cross the road outside office. We do miss that here in DLF there's no alternate source of food. The ones that are there are real far from office.

Maybe once the whole building is complete, there would be a common food court or something that would be planned. But that's going to take some time, and by that time we might shift to another building. Coming to think of it, with the number of times my team have shifted our office, I think this is the senior management way of bringing 'change' to the work experience in our project.

Mechanical

2009-12-02T07:18:00.005+05:30

I'm doing great today morning, I slept off a bad headache yesterday night. Now i'm doing fine. I hate going to office, not because office sucks- it's just that the work sucks these days. It's just the same everyday, bitching on calls, playing the blame games. My project is nearing a big milestone, it's Going Live in a few days, but it's not going live because it's proper and ready, it's going live because there's nowhere else to go other than the deadpool.

The whole project is a case study on 'How not to do projects'. We messed up everything from 'requirement gathering' to 'development' to 'setting up the client expectations right. We made compromises, we compromised alot. We did a sham job in collaborating properly with various teams within the consortium. We had new project plans with fancy targets titled "Parallel Run', 'Cut over', 'Semi-Go Live'. We made a big joke with giving dates, it turned out to be the biggest farce in the whole project. The thing wrong about our project here is, what we are delivering is not what the client would want, what is developed is what each and every team in the consortium have developed within what they are comfortable with. Designs among applications was never aimed at 'What's best for the solution'.

In a few more hours I'll be sitting somewhere in a cubicle getting back on my daily mechanical routine of checking mails, attending calls, reading feeds etc. The only different thing today is, it's a new building. And for once, in the 4 year lifetime of this project, all the teams are placed on the same floor. That would only mean, we'd have less bitching on calls. I need a break from this. Need to get busy with something new.

I feel so mechanical when I reach office, I have to get something going, got to learn something. Got to settle down fast and get working on the 'Writer's Guild' that Vasu and me are planning for the next Dreamforce. Got to spent sometime on the shorts for Youtube thing that I been planning (got to loop in Laukik for this). Get myself to know Android.

OK, now it just struck me... I'm not just Mechanical... I'm Mechanical lazy!!!

[Music Review] Battle Studies

2009-12-01T07:26:00.004+05:30

We still won't be moving to the new Building today. A sense of urgency is what we lack. The whole installation process is under some big 'red tape' in need for some approvals or something. It's a whole exodus of an entire project team from one location to another come on get the setups ready and then work on gathering the approvals and licences.

Battle Studies, John Mayers latest new album. I'm a big fan, I like that raspy sound of his, the way he arranges his music and his guitar. GwaaaD!!! he's good with his guitar, he's not like those metal band guitarist guys. he's more of your Clapton kinda guitarist. There's hoards of similarities in their styles and the music they offer. I've heard all three of his previous offerings. 'CONTINUUM' being my favorite.

Now about Battle Studies, well it's not that bad, but when you compare it with 'CONTINUUM' it's not that great. It's no-where near great. Most of the tracks are titled with battle terms and stuff, like 'Assasins', 'War of my life' and 'Heartbreak warfare'. It's like those very typical tracks of his. Love is the prominent theme in most of the tracks. When you hear it for the first time you even feel like it sounds just the same like his tracks from 'Room for squares'. All of them slow numbers, with not much of a variation in music or the vocals. There also is this cover of 'Crossroads' by 'Cream' in this album, a good cover might I add. So you could just tag all these songs as 'easy listening' and just loop it once of twice. Not one of the 'must have' John Mayer albums I must say. You could just stream this on the net and leave it. I guess John has lost it this time, maybe it's because he's a bit distracted from what he does best. Seems to be focusing more on chasing girls these days.

Verdict:

Favourite tracks: 'Who Says', 'Crossroads' (cover from Cream) and 'Half of my heart'

Buy or Stream: Stream

OK.... Maybe it's not the last time I swipe out off Cyberspace.

2009-11-30T07:35:00.004+05:30

Well we won't be moving into our new building today. The installations and all are still going on, not everybody in the team have their workstations configured and ready to work. So it's back to Cyberspace, today. Boy I hate Mondays!!!

My Generation

2009-11-29T19:23:00.018+05:30

I was talking to Laukik of LSD, while listening to this CD of Marathi Little Champs. He was telling me about each song that the tiny tots were singing. I was like totally surprised about the varied genre for the selected songs being sung by these kids. Folk songs, devotional songs, patriotic songs and the best part was, not all were from movies. From the Lil Champs show in Kerala and even the Senior Champs in Kerala, most of the songs in Malayalam is just movie songs. I mean it's what everybody listens too, it's the main stream thing in Malayalam. Movie songs, that is the it thing in Kerala I mean that's what everybody hears, that's what everybody sings in these contest. If it's not in a movie, it's not sung on TV.

Now he as always a true Marathi, and now with Shveta, the LSD as they would be known, are like twice Marathi, talk about the theater scene in Marathi, the music scene, about how they still know a lot of the folk songs, how it gets passed on from their parents. And how there are all these music being passed to the next generation in various ways. 2009 or 2010 there is this Marathi culture that's been passed on from generation to generation. Maybe there is a generation of non Marathi speaking Marathi growing up, even we have a mallu generation finding pride in not know to read write and speak Malayalam. The point I'm making is, 'MNS' or 'no MNS' there is a part of the culture that's been passed on from generation to generation. I like that. And I miss that in my being a Mallu.

After every discussion about this I end saying $h!T man why don't my Malayalam have this. Where is all this in malayalam, when I want to tell my next generation about what being mallu is, I still don't have an answer. Would I just end up saying being mallu means Harathaal, Mamooty. Mohanlal, Yesudas, AKG, EMS and Sreeshant. Where's my Shivaji equivalent? what about stories of some Mallu king who fought fearlessly and ruled his country just and wise? When will I be able to name a Malayalam theater actor and say that, this guys acting is rocking? When asked about the various Genres in Malayalam music, what will I say- Mimicry, Movie and Devotional.

Will my next generation ever learn a Malayalam folk song or is it going to be a generation that just knows their rhymes and Backstreet Boys. Do we have a generation who know the diffrence between 'theater' and theater 'theater'. The Tele-serials and reruns of 'F.R.I.E.N.D.S' is not the only thing other than Movies. Is there a generation that knows how to 'make' butter and ghee. Where did we go wrong? Did too much 'oil money' make us more modern? Are we moving to a Pizza and Cornflake generation away from the idiyappama and puttu generation. Is our syllabus so not true to my culture, are we too much into breeding Engineers and MBAs that we compromise dropping Malayalam in 10th just to make space for another extra class for Maths and Science

Is there a Mallu generation there that is still in touch with it's true culture. Have we lost it... do we still have a chance to save what's left of it?

Dispatches

2009-11-29T07:32:00.004+05:30

Yesterday I downloaded a documentary about the 26/11 Mumbai blasts. It's not like those normal documentary where some guy re-enacts the scene or anything, where there's lots of officials and cops being interviewed. The story from the cops angle. This was totally different. It's told from the POV of the terrorist and the survivors for this attack, backed by CCTV footages and radio dispatches. It's titled 'Dispaches-Terror in Mumbai'

How do you program people to kill? It takes a lot of courage and a very twisted state of mind to kill a person. And when it's people you have no reason to kill, it takes a lot of brain washing to do that. Would you kill for a promise of heaven after death? Would you kill for a whole lot of money? The terrorist looked numb, devoid of any emotion.

And who are these guys on the other end of the radio. Sounded like the joker from the 'Dark Knight'- an agent of chaos. People who simply trick naive minds and get them to do very mean things. As Alfred Pennyworth from the movie 'The Dark Knight' rightly puts it:

Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

Is there a solution for this, if people can be programmed to hate, can we program people to love/tolerate or do we really have to burn the forest down.

Get off the Coke!!!

2009-11-28T08:10:00.004+05:30

It was simply irresistible, I had to have one, so I had one.

Rest of the guys at home were having a beer and I had to have something. You just don't want to be the guy with no glass in your hand when everyone else says 'Cheers!!!'. So now what, well tonsils, still the size of a grape.

We all swiped out from Satyam Cyberspace, yesterday was the last day for me at the place where it all started. I still do remember the day, the first day at Cyberspace. There was nothing here in Cyberspace. They were practically building the place when we joined. There was no 9th floor Cafeteria, it was at the 2nd Floor. But the food was really good initially, there Chinese every week and mind you 'Chinese Buffet'. The normal buffet lunch was also pretty good. Breakfast was wicked too, Poori and curry everyday, Dosa made right in front of your eyes.

Initially at Cyberspace, there was this unrestricted internet access. Google, Gmail everything was open. We guys in our project had a proxy which still gave us access to these sites when it was blocked for the rest. I used to watch trailers online of upcoming movies on Yahoo! Movies on Fridays. Talk about unrestricted acess, I even managed to get Appa and Amma all the way to my workstation and meet my team when they had come to Cyperspace. It was pretty late after that, the whole place got like creepily secured like it was some CIA Research Facility or something- No music players, No Cameras

Then after I moved out of the 'Proxima' project I moved down to the the 1st floor, with VnA and then met up with the craziest set of guys in the whole world. A very important part of my family which I call the 'Chappi team'.The name originates from the 'Chai Peene' breaks we had a zillion times in Cyberspace. We used to pick our coffee tea and move to the Fire Exit in the 'Lobby walli Front-Side' of Cyberspace. I so loved these breaks, it was during these breaks that I got inducted to this amazing fun place called 'Goa Institute of Management' aka GIM. I became friends with not just the members of Chappi team but made friends with a whole lot of characters like Uprety, Jaggu, Wikeh, Patru, Chadda. More on this in some other post. We really did have some fun Chappi breaks at Cyberspace.

We shifted from Cyberspace as a team to another building only to shift back to Cyberspace after a few months. Now we are shifting again, only this time there's definitely no shifting back to Cyberspace. From November 2004 to November 2009 it's been a good time swiping in and out of Cyberspace. What would I miss most about Cyberspace? Nothing actually, maybe the ATM inside CyberSpace. After the whole Chappi Team disbanded, I already had missed what I always liked about Cyberspace the - 'Chai Peene' breaks at Cyberspace.

Sniffles...

2009-11-27T07:26:00.003+05:30

It's official, I have a regulation Cold. The one disease with no cure what so ever. I have a leaky nose, slightly yellow colored boogers, it's not like leaking continuously. Sometimes I do get that kinda cold too, it's like this big tank of nose water just broke and I leak like gallons of water enough to irrigate the whole of Africa.

I like my voice when I have a cold, adds a bit of 'Russel Crowe' tone to my usual voice. It's a Friday so I guess i'll have enough time to recuperate tomorrow. Got to live through office today.

I blame the unpredictable weather in Hyderabad for my Cold.

THE Best friend...

2009-11-26T07:33:00.004+05:30

1. THE best friend gets 'jealous' when their friends talk about or miss their 'other' best friends.

2. Though it kills them to see their best friend miss another friend but THE Best Friends 'hate' their competition.

3. THE best friend knows it's 'not fair' when all the 'other' Varshus, Animeshs, Sambhajis, Aashus and Sankets get a head start.

4. Can't 'wait' till they become THE best friend.

5. Knows that family is not the 'only' blood relation in the world. THE best friend is all together a new Blood Type.

6. THE Best friends never get enough of 'being' THE best friend.

7. THE best friend always thinks why it took 'so long' to be friends. Wished he had all the time from KG to this day to be friends and wants do it all over again.

Ahem... been a long time

2009-11-25T07:17:00.006+05:30

It's been a long time, it's been a crazy lazy long time. Here I am, up early this morning, I just previewed a completed download of 'The Goods' a Jamie Piven comedy (You will know as Ari from The HBO series 'Entourage'), funny movie. I have tonsils the size of small grapes in my throat. I don't feel that good, kinda getting a feeling, i'll soon succumb to a bad cold or something.

A what's happening around me? Office just came to a stand still, networks down. Made me realize what it takes to get lazy ass IT guys who waste time in front of a computer even when they have no work, to get home early- 'Bring the network down!'. Folks are doing fine at home, Amma's joined some aerobics class along with few of her teacher friends. Here at the Chappi Team HQ, it's wedding anniversary season. It was VnA's turn yesterday, it's LSD's (Laukik Shveta Desai) today. LSD are getting their Royal Enfield Bullet today!!!

Now I have to go and bathe, well now bathing- 'convince myself that the water which is verrrrry cold is to be poured on myself and when it's water that's as cold as it is in Hyd these days... taking time to clean is the last thing in your mind... Splash and Dash... that's what works best during the cold season here...'

So let me go and take that plunge... Good day to you all... Take care and be safe.

My best friends wedding. No it's not a typo

2008-10-13T04:07:00.016+05:30

I can see what's happening

(What?)

And they don't have a clue

(Who?)

They'll fall in love and here's the bottom line

Our trio's down to two.

(Oh.)

The sweet caress of twilight

There's magic everywhere

And with all this romantic atmosphere

Disaster's in the air

Yup I can totally related to Timon and Pumba now with this song. Well if you like it you can catch the whole song here.It's been 4 years since I've know these two guys, Vasu and Anurag. We worked for the same project for a whole two years then again on our next project for another two more years. Lot's of stuff happened in between. Now these college sweet-hearts are getting married. OK, so what's there to worry.

It all began with these guys looking for a place to settle down for their happily ever after. By the way just to give you guys a context. We stay pretty close by, walking distance from my place. Now these guys go and find a place, in some far away galaxy. I'm not denying the fact that it's a pretty wicked place, with the kitchen facing a mangrove and all, like Vasu liked. But hellooooo!!!!! It's friggin miles away from where I stay.

As the Godfather would say

"Just when I keep finding a place close to these guys. They keep moving to a place far away from me"

Now for the ones who still don't find this scary, here's a little bit about the trio. We totally make a great team, they like me, I love them allot. We go for movies together, we go on road trips together. We are a team, now after these guys get married, that is it for me. They upgrade themselves to husband and wife and it's all gonna change from then on. They move to the new place. They get new friends, new neighbours in their fancy apartment. They go out with their new friends. I'm scared that, they'd never need me again.

Oh Bijou! grow up, it's not gonna happen. Well I certainly do hope so, not that I'm sad that they are getting married n all. I'm like totally happy for them. I'm the most happiest in the whole wide world to see them finally get to their happily ever after. I just can't digest the fact that, I'm only gonna have guest appearances in their happily ever after. Maybe it's the whole distance thing you know, with them moving really far away.

Come on... in FRIENDS, when Chandler got engaged he moved in next door with Monica. He didn't ditch Joey and move some place far far away. See that's what friends do, I know, they are mean and un-friendly now. OK mean and un-friendly was a bit too much.

A lot's gonna change I guess, post their marriage, but no matter what I know that, if ever they need me. I'll always be there for them. And sure they will need me, well I don't know how they'll need me but I foresee baby-sitting as a major need. Yeah, I'm good with kids, kids dig me. Do they know about that, maybe I should tell them.

Still I so hope they didn't move so far from my place. Not to mention that would mean, no more free yummy food at Vasu's place.I'm just over reacting, at least that's what I say to myself. Well they will need me, and I'll sure get some guest appearances, but I'll sure make it some real good memorable guest appearances. So, as far as the trio is concerned, to be or not to be. Definitely a to be (damn where's that mail van when you wanna see one).

By the way the wedding's in Jodhpur on 24th of November.

ScribeFire- blogging addon for firefox

2008-07-09T15:20:00.001+05:30

Well I'm one of the few million IT professionals banned from blogging on Blog sites like Blogger and Wordpress. Just when you thought all hope is lost here come ScribeFire for Firefox. It's got this cool GUI that gets integrated with Firefox and enables you to write a blog and post to the Blogger and all major blogging sites using their APIs. Integrated spell check, and other formating options built into the GUI lets you draft your post like you would be drafting in you favorite blogging platform. So this is my first ever post using ScribeFire for Firefox

Now preview in Google Reader

2008-04-10T23:53:00.006+05:30

Ok, Google is on definitely on steroids, not only are they chugging out ways to deploy your web application on the Google infrastructure, they are releasing cool stuff for their existing applications. I'm talking about Google Reader and the new 'Preview' Feature which lets you preview your feeds now within your favourite feed aggregator.

Now you don't have to worry about managing multiple tabs, closing multiple windows. I think it's gonna be a cool feature. Would like check it out if it the preview feature bypasses the website blocks in offices, like for example Technorati sites are totally blocked at my workplace. So i'll check it out tomorrow and update the post. I'm kinda worried if those Firefox add ons for del.icio.us works fine to bookmark my favourite feeds with this new preview feature.

You can still save your feeds by adding a star to your feeds in Google reader. But the starred items feature stll doesn't let you tag your feeds. I guess that's something that Google can work on next.

Preview feature to be or not to be... well... let you know after i check this feature in office :)

Update: Well it turns out that the above new feature has nothing to do with Google. It's my biggest online goof up. The preview feature comes with installing the 'Better GReader Firefox extension' by LifeHacker. I think I shouldn't elaborate anymore, I will leave you guys in peace to laugh over this. I'll try not to make a habit out of this.

SFDC hacked into my brain and stole my idea!!!

2008-02-28T22:18:00.022+05:30

SFDC... SFDC who?

It's true, I would suggest all you guys to stay alert and load the latest firewall in your brain, else the SFDC will get to you. Well if you don't want to load a firewall don't get into SDFC. You plug yourself into SFDC that's it for you, you'll be lost in what these guys have come up with. For guys who don't know what SFDC is, well SFDC is an on-demand, multitenant, application for managing your Customers, to be very precise it's an on-demand CRM Application

Currently I'm working in CRM, I'm an Oracle PeopleSoft CRM Consultant. For the last three years I've been working on PeopleSoft CRM, it was by far the best CRM application that I’ve ever seen. It's a very huge application with loads of functionality, integrations built into it. The other part that made PeopleSoft so customer friendly is it's PIA Framework. I would even like to say this would be one of the first Enterprise Applications which has a application framework built on the Active Record Pattern (Now popularized by the Ruby on Rails Project), to build and customize the application. This whole trait of active record pattern gives PeopleSoft Applications the flexibility to expose APIs for other applications to integrate with PeopleSoft. The first of the Enterprise applications to have a worked on a application built and based on Meta data for Displaying Data and Storing data. Now thanks to Oracle we won't be having these frameworks for long. More on this later.

Now the how...

Because they can... not only do they have they this awesome CRM application with features and dashboards that would put the even huge and complex on premise applications to shame. The Application is so simple, the data that is stored is also very simple, which is very evident from their number of fields they have to store an address. The simplicity is amplified with a very simple concept of basing an Object/transaction on one record. The objects/transactions that are cross related and displayed under related lists. The Salesforce application is based out of a platform that they call the Force.com Platform- which basically transforms to a meta-data repository. Now Force.com platform is powered by this framework to customize existing Applications (a logical grouping of Objects- eg Sales, Marketing) and Build new Apps, these apps that you customize and build can all be exposed as Force.com APIs for integrating. I think i'm going a bit off-track, well not really, now you know how much this SFDC has hacked into my brain.

Now for the what?.... what did they steal and what was the idea? Well for the new user it's just on-Demand CRM with the various applications like Sales, marketing and all. That’s when I was thinking of building a whole Customer Self Service Portal actually a Customer's Customer Self Service Portal, on top of the Salesforce App. It was all fine; I started to profile a few Customer Portals. But all of this being fine ended with me stumbling upon a link about 'Pentaho' a Commercial Open Source BI Suite, if you check out their customer portal, check what opens up.... Salesforce Self Service. I'm totally devastated well it wouldn't have so much if wasn't so user friendly. So that lead me to investigating this new found feature (horror for me) in Sales Force.

Like Self Service wasn't scary enough

Setup with a proper wizard and a jump start option

WYSIWYG Editor

Don't mind the pix, that's Vasu's work

Merge with your own Data

Pimp up your portal with customizable themes

Handful of delivered themes

User Management

Enable and Edit your users

We ain't finished yet,
add sections to your existing 'Log a case' page in your Portal

Here's your Login URL for your very own Customer Portal
Now the worst part... It Works!!!! Login Page

It is so user friendly, it lets you setup your Portal, and totally let you customize it within the browser WYSIWYG tools to design the Portal, insert pictures. Change colors, lets you place and format custom messages. As of now the only thing missing is, we don't have this feature to add more pages to Portal, other than the ones delivered, which I'm sure would be delivered in future releases. And I know that they won't stop with just this, they'll better it. Damn you SFDC!!!!

So now what next... Well i'm not aware about other guys who are causalities of Idea hacks. After all these atrocities this app has done to me, I've painfully decided to forgive it. SFDC is like that evil villainess in all Bond Movies, you know that she's trying to get to your brain, but there is definite attraction, so I'll be working on my attraction with SFDC. As for you my readers, if you are new to SFDC, unfortunately nobody can be told what SDFC is; you’ll have to see it for yourself. So what's it going to be the red pill or the blue pill?

SFDC: to be or not to be? Oh yes definitely to be

Jump start!!!!!!

2008-01-05T09:49:00.000+05:30

It's been two long years since I last posted anything worthwhile on this blog. Jump starting my blog is one of the main resolutions I made for 2008. So here I am, back again to jump start my blog. My reason for this long break... well I wish I could say that 'I found the remains of my home planet in space, and i just flew for 2 years to bring it back to earth and bury it'. I was lazy, I'm so lazy that I skip breakfast cos I have to heat up a cup of milk. So I guess that gives you a real good idea on how lazy I am. I was lazy so I didn't post anything on the blog.

So now what's changed during this two long years that I was lazy. Nothing much, I stopped playing badminton early in the morning, bought a Laptop, got this nut-case idea that I'd look smoking hot if I had a 'shaolin' pony tail, nothing much changed. Didn't grow a shirt size nor did I put on any weight. So that's it for the two years that you guys missed.

It's a new year and it's a new start, the past year had it share of happy and sad experiences.

2007 taught me that:

'It's very selfish on our part to expect the people we love and care about to be around. The only place that they will be with us for life is in our hearts. And the ones that really reflect the love that you have for them are the ones who call up and stay in touch'

'If you want to screw up a IT Project, just screw up at your requirement gathering phase, that will take care of the rest'

'Even Roger Federer feels like an ordinary man in Roland Garros. Gods do make mistakes'

2007 left behind these to remember:

The trip to Sikkim and Nasik.
Kimi winning the F1 Championship.
Fedex Winning the Wimbledon.
First day with my IPod.
Laukik's Wedding.
A Day in GIM and a Trip to Vasu's Jungle.

What am I looking forward to in 2008:

Fedex to win the French Open, and that to beat Nadal at the Final.
Kick-start a career in SFDC.
To take the annual crusade International.
Visit a whole lot of places in India.
Peace and Good will on earth

So you guys can look forward to more posts from me, hopefully weekly. Wish you guys all a very happy new year. God Bless.

How can the human race survive the next hundred years?

2006-07-12T21:02:00.000+05:30

Right now somewhere in India, Mumbai, there will be a family waiting for their loved one to walk right through the door, it’s been more than a day since she/he had left for work in the city… she/he has not come back yet… the hide the tension with prayers and self consoling one-liners “will come, where else would she go"… "might be stranded somewhere finding a way to get back home"… "god will watch over my child”. She/he normally takes the local train to reach back home. They saw this news on TV about blasts that took place in the local train, the train their loved one take to come home. The keep praying in hearts that nothing should happen to their love one, all the prayers and their faith in God all says that… she/he will walk right through that door… they keep waiting…

This would be the scene in not just one family in Mumbai, this would be the story of hundreds of other families. All these families would be living their own happy life yesterday, today and tomorrow, all it took was 7 blasts at regular intervals to throw their today and tomorrow off-balance.

Now there was a blast… it means somebody is angry, hurt, someone has been wronged… maybe somebody wants to make a point… but

Why a bomb blast? … Why on a crowded train? … Why hurt innocent people? …

I live in a country along with another billion of people like me… I’ve been angry, hurt… but I’ve never been angry to people that I don’t know… people that I’ve hardly seen… so if I’m angry… I’m angry with people that I know, or have come to know because of this incident that has caused me to be angry.

Why a bomb blast? … Why on a crowded train? … Why hurt innocent people? …

When I’m angry… I’ve been taught to count till hundred… it works sometimes… it doesn’t sometimes… but still… i wouldn’t hurt anybody that I don’t know… I would vent my anger or my pain on somebody that I just don’t know… ok… maybe it’s just me… but still….

Why a bomb blast? … Why on a crowded train? … Why hurt innocent people? …

It was a planned attack… it should have taken days to plan out something of this magnitude… You keep nurturing this small seed of anger… you plan on it, you come up with a horrendous plan to vent your anger… to cause more pain… to sow the seeds of anger in another. To vent your anger… there are new ways to do that… go on the net… publish stuff… let people know you are angry and that you have been wronged… go public, get on a TV show.

Why a bomb blast? … Why on a crowded train? … Why hurt innocent people? …

This was a really coward act, they did shake the whole of Mumbai, blast a few trains, these blast will never be loud enough to the ears of the people who really matter… the end result… devastated families… loved ones who’d never come back home… more disaster… more hatred…

So now the question, how can the human race survive the next hundred years?

This is a question posted by Dr Stephen Hawkings on Yahoo! Answers.

Get all people educated, educated not like ‘A, B, C…’ … ‘Science, Physics…’… and stuff. Teach all the people in the world, teach them to see people not on the basis of the color of their skin, the language they speak, the God they follow, the political party they belong to, the country they are part of, teach them to see all human beings alike, teach them you are no different from any other human in this planet. What we need is to live and let live, be thankful for this beautiful planet that we live in, take good care of it. This is the education that the whole world needs; this is the education that will save us. The education that might get us through the next hundred years and the other hundred years that follows.

Human race- To be or not to be?

Answer: (Wish I had one)

The Man of Steel returns

2006-07-10T20:47:00.000+05:30

I saw Superman Returns yesterday; and I should say I really liked it. I’m so happy that Superman is back. To hear the Superman theme once again was like, bringing back all those childhood memories of days when you used to enact flying like Superman while trumpeting the theme song at the top of your voice.

Now about the movie, the story is quite good. They re-introduced the Man of Steel in a very nice and not so boring way. The Superman cape and suit is all pretty cool this time. The effects in the movie are quite good, could have done better but no issues. The Superman and his flying scenes was simply cool, I really like the scene where superman kind of meditates in space the cape and all floating- simply amazing scene. Brandon Routh is a really cool replacement for Christopher Reeves; he does looks like him in some angles.

Lois Lane is married and boy!... does that break the ‘Man of Steel’s’ heart. You’ll feel really sorry for Superman. The romantic side of Superman is re-visited again in one of those flying scenes with Lois. Superman seems to be very lonely in this one, there is this powerful sense of loneliness in his everything even his goofy portrayal of Clark Kent.

Maybe I’m biased in my opinion cos I am this big fan Superman; I loved this movie a lot. Loved the little surprise in the end, it’s a pretty cool movie, which all Superman fans will definitely love. The only little, minute thing that might be a sort of fault would be that Lex Luthor was not that great a villain in Superman Returns; they could have made his character pretty more scary and insane.

Superman is back and is here to stay that’s for sure. In his words ‘I’ll be always around’.

Superman- to be or not to be?
Definitely to be.

Ruby on Rails vs PeopleSoft Development

2006-06-30T18:36:00.000+05:30

I've been reading about this new hype in Software development world called 'Ruby on Rails’. It’s pretty interesting, rather really cool thing to happen to Software Development. I just started reading this article titled ‘What is Ruby on Rails’ on O’REILLY. It’s a really good article I would advise you all to read through it. It’s an introduction and road map to the many features of Rails.

Now I don’t know if I’m worthy enough to be called a ‘PeopleSoft Techie’ but I have done some developments in PeopleSoft. I found the whole ‘Ruby on Rails’ quite similar to the way we develop in PeopleSoft. Let me elaborate on this a bit.

“Rails is an MVC (model, view, controller) framework where Rails provides all the layers and they work together seamlessly”
Developments in PeopleSoft are also based on a MVC framework that comes with the Enterprise PeopleTools Framework. We have a ‘Data Model’-Model, ‘User Interface’ (Page Definitions and all)–View, and ‘Component Processor’-Controller forms the base for our PeopleSoft related developments.

“Scaffolding-Rails can automatically create a full set of CRUD (Create, Retrieve, Update, and Delete) operations and views on any database table”
The best part of developing an application in PS is that you don’t have to write a single piece of code for your Database transactions. It’s taken care by the whole Enterprise PeopleTools Frame work. The Creation, Updation and Deletion of database entries of your Component records is taken care by the PeopleTools Framework.

“Active Record is the part of Rails that handles the automatic mapping of your database tables to your runtime model objects. It's the M in MVC, and it is Rails' implementation of an ORM layer.”
The Active record is similar to Component Record that we have in PeopleSoft App Designer. The Component Record(s) has a firm binding to the Component (PeopleSoft Component) that we design in PeopleSoft. You'll never need to see or use SQL when accessing or updating your database the same as in the Rails framework.
There is this concept of ‘Associations’ in Rails where you can tell Active Record about the relationships with related tables in your model classes, and Active Record will generate a slew of navigation methods that make it easy for your code to access related data. The same can be found in the concept of usage of Scrolls in PeopleSoft Components.

“Call backs-As Active Record creates and destroys model objects and creates and updates them in the database, you can monitor these events in the object's life cycle using callbacks. You can use callbacks to handle complex business logic, modify data before Rails writes it to the database”
This is very similar to the Events that we have in our definitions(Component/Page/Record/Field) in PeopleSoft. For Example

Rails Callback<==>PeopleSoft Event

before_save<==>Save PreChange

before_create<==>Row Insert

Well these are the few things that I found similar in the ‘Ruby on Rails’ Development Framework and the ‘Enterprise PeopleTools’ PeopleSoft Development Framework.

I’ve still have not gone through what the ‘Ruby on Rails’ framework does and provides in detail, I’m still in the re-search mode on this topic. From what I read about the framework, these similarities just seemed to make sense to me. Looking forward for some views and comments on the same.

Well till we meet again, the question of course “Ruby on Rails as a development framework- to be or not to be?” Answer: “Yes ‘Ruby on Rails’ is on a real nice track. It’s definitely to be.”

101 days

2006-06-29T10:01:00.000+05:30

Today I start my blog, my first blog. Today I am more happy to blog on something I'd like to share with you all. Let me introduce you to the "Open House Badminton Community"

It was started some few months ago when two guys thought of getting into sports.

(I'm trying to work on a "two guys and an idea which later became Google" theme, so please play along ok).

Come on...Sports!!!!...., why sports?:
They did try jogging and all but it wasn't fun enough to making it a habit.

Ok Fair enough... But for what?:
Well you know these guys are software engineers, all they get to do in a day is brood in front of a PC, code a few lines and eat at regular and irregular intervals. The unlucky ones who do accumulate a lot of body fat had problems with the 'unluck' being fairly visible to the outside world in the tummy region. So I guess that's a fair enough reason.

Too good a reason but why Badminton?:
Well let me introduce you to Guy1 lets call him 'Neo', he know Badminton on the other hand meet Guy2 he knows carp about sports , you could categorize him as your 'play less talk more guy' meet Guy2 lets call him 'Anakin skywalker'

So these guys decide they'll initiate this Badminton thing, Neo is like the Catalyst, he'd quick to start an initiative, so he gets hold on two Badminton Rackets and a Shuttle Cork from some of his friends. He even finds a place where we can play, a small deserted field near our place... Lets give it a name... hmmmmmm let me think....... Yup...'Sea of Tranquility'.

The next day, early in the morning (were talking 5:30 AM early) Neo and Anakin starts on to this deserted land to play badminton, they are all armed- rackets and all. They reach the place and nobody is there, just as they were to set foot on the 'Sea of Tranquility'. A dog started barking real loud that it woke up the Guards in the neighboring apartments and surprisingly the guard for our 'Sea of Tranquility'. So technically we didn't get to set foot on 'Sea of Tranquility', we get into a dialogue with the Guard of the plot, who says it's 'Private Property'-talk about 'initiative inhibitors'.Well there goes the 'Sea of Tranquility'- now the mission that started with a place to play, rackets and two blokes with an initiative get reduced to, two guys two rackets and the initiative.

So then what happened:
Neo "We did come this far it's real bad if we just go home right". "Yup we should atleast try to do a smash and all with these rackets right" Anankin added. Two Blokes, rackets and a pavement. Well let me tell you something, these two blokes started out something that is called the "Open Source Badminton Community"... Oops... "Open House Badminton Community" (OHBC), which now boast of a badminton court of their own, 6 plus members, full infrastructure, our own rackets and shuttle corks

Aside:Hope the "two guys and an idea which later became Google" theme worked.

Well if you are wondering where I fit into this story, well I'm the 'Anakin Skywalker'-may the force be with you

This whole OHBC thing helped me a lot, it taught me a lot. I'm having a tough time personally in life but there are few things that do help me cope up with every day- this OHBC is one of them.

I learnt that everyday there is a something for you to start, something to initiate, some good habit, some blog... something. It need not be yours, there might be some good start that would require your support, your participation- be part of it, support it. I learnt that killing good initiatives is the most worthless thing you could do in a life time.

I learnt a game, I was never into sports, I always was a 'wanted to be' person... 'wanted to be' a doctor... 'wanted to be' a F1 Race Car engineer ... 'wanted to be' a Basket ball player(this had nothing to do with Basketball players, who get to date Hot girls in school ;-) )... I wanted to be a lot. Now I know what I want to be, no long term "want to be", just a short term "want to be" and the best thing is I work my level best to be that.

I learnt keeping boundaries, restrictions, keeping rules just kills the fun out of everything- keep guidelines not rules. Look at our OHBC it's Open- Anybody can join, age no bar, religion no bar, region no bar.There's no expert or novice or anybody among us. It's open, it's for everyone who share the interest that we have- break a sweat, enjoy the game and go home. That's it. Give your share to the community by your participation, by keeping it alive, that all that is expected from the members.

OHBC had it's share of inhibitors and show stoppers and all, but still we made it this far and we'll keep going on... I learnt that it's hard to swim upstream, but once you reach your goal, your victory is more memorable than the one if you had reached there downstream...

I dedicate this blog to all the members of this great initiative that I have taken some freedom in calling the "OHBC- Open House Badminton Community". This blog is me telling them how much I appreciate their fellowship in this humble initiative. Today we celebrate the 101th day of this fellowship. I'd would love to disclose the members of this community, but I still haven't asked their permission, if they permit I'll put their name and pixs in my next blog. Promise.

Thanks for patiently reading through this blog, this is a new initiative that I started today. I would like you all to keep coming back and read my blogs and give your valuable comments and all, I request you to be the 'catalyst' in this small initiative of mine.

Now the question that I ask myself everyday... 'To be or not to be?"
Answer: "Yup I'd die to be ME"