20 Things the average person doesn't know about XP

Very useful hints for Windows XP users. Click on the title to read the information. Found it on digg.

Our pitiful situation

 

"NaapiLakka poi paesi navanidhiyam thaedi

     nalamondrum illaadha nariyarai koodi

poopiLakka varugindra putreesal pola

     pulapulena kalakalena pudhalvargalai peruveer

kappatharkum vazhiyariyeer, kai vidavum matteer

     kavarpiLandha marathuLaiyil kalnuzhaithu kondae

aappadhanani asaithitta kurangu nilai polae

     agapatteer kidandhuzhala agapatteer neerae"

This song was written by a famous Tamil Poet 'Pattinathaar'. I came across this while I was doing some search on the net. I had read this way back in my school days. Then, I didn't bother about the meaning of this song too much. But now, when I read this, I wonder how true? how true?

 

How many of us are living such a life? We enjoy all the worldly pleasures, but yet fail to LIVE our life. we only care about surviving and not living. Cant write more now. Will do so, later.

Cheers

Joe

Introduction to 90 Online File Storage Services

Hi all,

I, so far, have been using eSnips for my file sharing needs. Now, from digg, I came across these whole lot of comprehensive list of services that I can use. I have not checked them personally. But still, would be useful for some of us.

You can use them to send big files, or backup your documentations. Some services can be accessed from your web browser, others may have a client program for you to auto-backup your hard drive.

Click Here to view them.

Cheers
Joe

Utilities: Comparing Text/PDF Files, Converting File Types

Hi,

My current job requires me keep on checking a specification document for changes and incorporating the changes in the software.. This is good when the specifcation is spawning over a few 10s of pages.. But still, I didnt wanted to do it manually though... Reading the new specification over and over again and identifying the word changes, however stupid it might be... That was a painful job to do it manually.. I wanted to do this automatically. I wanted a program where I can give the two copies of a document and boom, I should get the differences whatever it is....

So far, I have using a cute little software called WinMerge. It was good. I could compare two text files, compare contents of two folders, I could merge the text files in addition to just reviewing them.. Above all, it is a sourceforge project, which will explain its credibility to most of us. But this time, my challenge was a bit different. I had to deal with PDF files... Since Winmerge didnt support pdf files (well, as of July 2006, it didn't), what I did was copy the text contents of the pdf file to a text file and then again use winmerge. Yeah, I can hear you saying "How Stupid!!". Well, I was not so for long. I realized that there should be a utility to compare pdf files as I did with text files.

I googled it and bingo! I got myself into this, DiffDoc. Well, Its not just for comparing PDF files. It has a big list of utillity softwares for comparing different type of files, converting file types to other types you want. Trust me, you might want to take a look at this beauty of a software...

I tried only 'DiffDoc' from that set for comparing my pdf files. The interface is quite simple and neat and above all, very configurable...That is the part I like the most, Configurable. I dont like to stick to the way that somebody liked. I have my own taste and will want to change the way it looks, if not the way it works. Ok then, why dont you go ahead and take a look at it, while I get some work done...

Chill out!!!

Cheers
Joe

PS: Just in case if you didnt know, Sourceforge offers a big list of softwares that you might want to check out. Find it here.

eSnips - A Cool Sharing Site

Hi,

I had always wanted a cool online storage and sharing tool to keep all my stuff accessible from anywhere, anytime. Mostly photos are the ones that I wanted to share. You know, those fond memories of you with your loved ones. Its good to have access to them always. There might be a lot of photo sharing sites like, flickr and photobucket and ofcourse, many others.

But I got myself very much interested in eSnips.

The reason is its sheer easy to use interface and features. You can not only upload and share photos, but anything you want, if you can call it a 'file', in your PC. You can create albums, you can blog in your albums, share them with the world or with a private group. It also gives you a widget that you can place in your website or your friend's for others to visit your albums. The one coolest feature i liked in eSnips is that, you can upload stuff(again, anything) by email. You get an email with your account and when you send an email to that account with an attachment, the attachment is stored in the folder that you designate, the text portion is ignored.

The possibilities are quite huge. And recently after seeing that the users of eSnips are actually trying to sell and buy stuff online from other eSnips users, the site administrators have added a nice cool eCommerce functionality to the site as well. I havent yet checked that out personally, but it is there for the taking.

I have already uploaded some of the photos and below are some of my albums. If you want,
My Emailed Stuff
Trip to Ooty
Trip to Mahabalipuram

And hey, please dont blame me, if you cant find anything useful in the above albums. Those are pricely treasures for me, not necesarily for ya. Just get the idea of eSnips features.

You can read the techcrunch blog about eSnips, here.

Cool then, try it out...

Cheers
Joe

Learn Unix in 10 mins

A coolest tutorial I ve ever seen for any topic.. its not actually a tutorial. but jsut a web page... yeah, one single page, which can be used to brush up ur unix skills or as a reference point. This page below makes for a good unix tutorial for me, when i dont work much in unix and wanted to recall the commands to do something occasionally.

this is really cool.

Find the page here.

I think I should also mirror a copy of it somewhere... Dont know when someone will blow this off.

update: I have mirrored the page in my googlepages.

Cheers
Joe

Software Engineering Body of Knowledge

A decent guide to the software engineering for beginners. And I would recommend this as a must read or at the least, a must have reference material.

SWEBOK – SoftWare Engineering Body Of Knowledge.

The software engineering body of knowledge is an all-inclusive term that describes the sum of knowledge within the profession of software engineering. Since it is usually not possible to put the full body of knowledge of even an emerging discipline, such as software engineering, into a single document, there is a need for a Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge. This Guide will seek to identify and describe that subset of the body of knowledge that is generally accepted, even though software engineers must be knowledgeable not only in software engineering, but also, of course, in other related disciplines.

You can either visit the site here.

or

you can go ahead and download the PDF from here.

Cheers
Joe

Bypass BIOS Passwords

How to Bypass BIOS Passwords
[The original story goes here. I had reproduced it here just in case that page should go off in future.]
BIOS passwords can be add extra layer of security for desktop and laptop computers, and are used to either prevent a user from changing the BIOS settings or to prevent the PC from booting without a password. BIOS passwords can also be a liability if a user forgot their passwords, or if a malicious user changes the password. Sending the unit back to the manufacturer to have the BIOS reset can be expensive and is usually not covered in an a typical warranty. However, there are a few known backdoors and other tricks of the trade that can be used to bypass or reset the BIOS password on most systems.
Backdoor Passwords
Many BIOS manufacturers have provided backdoor passwords that can be used to access the BIOS setup in the event you have lost your password. These passwords are case sensitive, so you may wish to try a variety of combinations.
WARNING: Some BIOS configurations will lock you out of the system completely if you type in an incorrect password more than 3 times. Read your manufacturers documentation for the BIOS setting before you begin typing in passwords.
Award BIOS backdoor passwords:
ALFAROME           BIOSTAR           KDD                ZAAADA
ALLy                CONCAT           Lkwpeter           ZBAAACA
aLLy                CONDO           LKWPETER           ZJAAADC
aLLY                Condo           PINT                01322222
ALLY                d8on           pint                589589
aPAf                djonet           SER                589721
_award                HLT           SKY_FOX           595595
AWARD_SW           J64           SYXZ                598598
AWARD?SW           J256           syxz            
AWARD SW           J262           shift + syxz            
AWARD PW           j332           TTPTHA            
AWKWARD           j322                        
awkward                                     
AMI BIOS Backdoor Passwords:
     AMI                BIOS           PASSWORD           HEWITT RAND
     AMI?SW           AMI_SW           LKWPETER           CONDO
Phoenix BIOS Backdoor Passwords:
     phoenix           PHOENIX           CMOS           BIOS
Misc. Common Passwords
     ALFAROME           BIOSTAR           biostar                biosstar
     CMOS           cmos           LKWPETER           lkwpeter
     setup           SETUP           Syxz                Wodj
Other BIOS Passwords by Manufacturer
     Manufacturer           Password
       
     VOBIS & IBM          merlin
     Dell               Dell
     Biostar          Biostar
     Compaq          Compaq
Enox               xo11nE
     Epox               central
     Freetech          Posterie
     IWill               iwill
     Jetway          spooml
     Packard Bell          bell9
     QDI               QDI
     Siemens          SKY_FOX
     TMC               BIGO
     Toshiba          Toshiba
Toshiba BIOS
Most Toshiba laptops and some desktop systems will bypass the BIOS password if the left shift key is held down during boot
IBM Aptiva BIOS
Press both mouse buttons repeatedly during the boot
Using the Motherboard "Clear CMOS" Jumper or Dipswitch settings
Many motherboards feature a set of jumpers or dipswitches that will clear the CMOS and wipe all of the custom settings including BIOS passwords. The locations of these jumpers / dipswitches will vary depending on the motherboard manufacturer and ideally you should always refer to the motherboard or computer manufacturers documentation. If the documentation is unavailable, the jumpers/dipswitches can sometimes be found along the edge of the motherboard, next to the CMOS battery, or near the processor. Some manufacturers may label the jumper / dipswitch CLEAR - CLEAR CMOS - CLR - CLRPWD - PASSWD - PASSWORD - PWD. On laptop computers, the dipswitches are usually found under the keyboard or within a compartment at the bottom of the laptop.
Please remember to unplug your PC and use a grounding strip before reaching into your PC and touching the motherboard. Once you locate and rest the jumper switches, turn the computer on and check if the password has been cleared. If it has, turn the computer off and return the jumpers or dipswitches to its original position.
Removing the CMOS Battery
The CMOS settings on most systems are buffered by a small battery that is attached to the motherboard. (It looks like a small watch battery). If you unplug the PC and remove the battery for 10-15 minutes, the CMOS may reset itself and the password should be blank. (Along with any other machine specific settings, so be sure you are familiar with manually reconfiguring the BIOS settings before you do this.) Some manufacturers backup the power to the CMOS chipset by using a capacitor, so if your first attempt fails, leave the battery out (with the system unplugged) for at least 24 hours. Some batteries are actually soldered onto the motherboard making this task more difficult. Unsoldering the battery incorrectly may damage your motherboard and other components, so please don't attempt this if you are inexperienced. Another option may be to remove the CMOS chip from the motherboard for a period of time.
Note: Removing the battery to reset the CMOS will not work for all PC's, and almost all of the newer laptops store their BIOS passwords in a manner which does not require continuous power, so removing the CMOS battery may not work at all. IBM Thinkpad laptops lock the hard drive as well as the BIOS when the supervisor password is set. If you reset the BIOS password, but cannot reset the hard drive password, you may not be able to access the drive and it will remain locked, even if you place it in a new laptop. IBM Thinkpads have special jumper switches on the motherboard, and these should be used to reset the system.

Hi-Fi Car from GM

Came across an article about this new Hi-Fi car from General Motors, GM Hy-Wire. A different design… I like the basic concept of keeping the upper frame of the car clean… all the equipment goes to the mainframe of the car right under where you sit. And hey, is it a left hand drive or a right hand drive… Its up to you.. that’s the coolest feature I like…

Many beginners have problem with having to push the accelerator, break and clutch with their foot. Now drives Legs Free(Read, Legs Free Not Hands free).. Take a look at the video in the below location…

Play Video


Cheers
Joe

Blogging from WinWord

Blogging From WinWord

Hi,
        Just downloaded the blogger for word application and am trying it out now. I hope this cool little software should help me blogging continuously… after all, that’s not such a bad habit. Is it???

Luv
Joe

Darling! Darling! Darling!

Oh yeah,

she is the darling of my life! The one I was refering to, as the other one I love the most in this world. Presenting Tanya Jacqueline, alias Tanu.

Boy, by the time she came to this world, which is actually on January 2nd, she kept us waiting for almost 2 days. We were so very excited to think that she might be born on the New Year's day, which would have been good. But she missed that by a day only to make it better. Who will want to celebrate two functions on the same day! Why would she not want to have two new dresses at the beginning of every year.

I cant forget the excitement that we shared in our family by the time she was born. From then onwards, there was a new color added to my life. I loved my time spent with her. When she was a baby, she use to sleep on my C++ and Java books which supported her head from not falling sideways. The passion that I have towards her cant be expressed completely here. You should watch us live in action. :)
I love her the most!!!!!

She is now 3 years old! and she has already taken control as the most authoritative one in my family. Everybody has to give up when it comes to her. Whatever it is, her decision is the Final. It is always fun watching her giving orders to other people. But she is obedient when she has to be. Altogether, Cute girl!

Jaanu

This is Baby Inika, my SweetHeart's niece.

How cute she looks? She is the most lovable female in the world I feel. Well, along with yet another female. Thats Tanu. I always fall in love with kids. My god! They are so amazing. They have no fear. For me, they are the people who enjoy their reason of coming to this planet fully. I adore them a lot.

It has been a loooonnnnnnnngggggggggg time

Yupeee,

It has really been quite a long time since I have blogged. Actualy I started this blog with the thought that I should blog daily atleast. :) but look where i am now. Ok, I dont have any excuses for that. All that I did was I did not. :).

Then, all these time here is what i ve been doing. After joinign TEL, my time was good in bangalore. The project and the responsibilities that I held in TEL was all good. And suddenly I had an opportunit to with Samsung Electronics and this is where I am. Working for a project in Samsung Electronicz, Suwon, South Korea. Man, I shoudl tell you that this place is realy a heaven for the person who can adapt. Before flying people were giving me many onsite blues. I should say that I was a little bothered about that but I had many other issues to worry about that. Especially the shabby work that TEL Travel desk did for my travel. They ruined myy first time flying experience. They let me know of my flying date only 1 day before. Actually on monday, 25th sep, 2005 they called by afternoon and told me that I am flying on tuesday night 10:30 flight and the comedyy is that they were not having my passport stamped till that time. All teh information they had on that time was that my visa stampingn will be done in mumbai on tuesday and it will be sent by air cargo to bangalore. So, I had ddone some on the hurry packing(not well thought out though)... And when i was expecting to be travelling that night, on tuesday those great people called me and told that i am flying via mumbai as i had to collect my visa myself in the mumbai Chatrapthi Shivaji airport. My flight to mumbai was on 4:30 in the evening and they give me this information by 12:00 noon. How very good. my house is about 1:30 hours journey from the airport and I had to collect some certificates from my office. And everythign happened and I boarded my flight just in time. Thanks to my friends, Akbar, ganesh, parthi and prabhu who had been there getting me all the details about which counter to check in. I just got off my car and only had time to wave my hands off to these guys. I didnt even talk to them properly. thats kind of bad... and thats it... i flew to mumbai... bangkok.... taiwan......Seoul.

And this is where I am Suwon, a 40 mins travel from Seoul. Suwon is kind of an Industrial city of South korea. This is where Samsung Electronics is head quartered. Samsung's campus is HUGE. from the gate, it will take me about 10 mins from the gate to reach my work desk. I stayed very near to my office so, I didnt have much of an experience looking around suwon.. There should be a special about the people of South Korea. Man, they are damn helpful... I was worried about one issue before i came here. About how I am going to get along with these people. and before even I started thinking about that, I had already made some good number of friends here. Thanks to all my team members here. They are so very kind, helpful, affable. But there is one problem that people MIGHT face in south korea. language. These people are all great brains but their love towards their nation, country, their language and culture has somehow prevented from developing themselves a command over the English language. They do work whcih the whole world turns around to look, but in that busy schedule, they have avoided the importance of the command over the language. But you will certainly be lucky to come across some people who understand and speak english better. The good thing that i like in these people in teh shopping complexes, their love and commitment to their mother country. In india, all shopping complexes, even though hindi is their mother tongue, all sales person speaks in english to their customers as if they are not from India. Is it good or not is another topic of debate, which, I am not getting into.

I was lucky that all my team members are capable of coversing with english. If some of them are nto able to converse, the just dont keep quiet. They are just so keen to learn it and they are not ashamed of making mistakes which is really a good sign for learning. They will succeed one day. my wiishes to them all. And the koreans are really hardworking. I was amazed to know the fact that these people come in tot he office before 8:00am and go home after 10:00 pm. and the interesting part is that some of them have to travel more than 30 mins to reach their home. so, think of the time that they had to sleep and get back to fofcie. They are so casual to say that they sleep only 5 hours a day. I am really interested in knowing how far they can go like this. I ve been hearing from various people and other sources that a human needs atleast 7 hours of sleep everyday to keep their body functioning properly. how are these people managing? hmm, interesting...

I am trying some korean delicacies here to get the taste of their country. More of it in my next blog as this one is bloggged tooo much.. ;)

k, then later...

lolly

Its a different ball game

So, I have settled down in a CMMi Level 5 company as I had been expecting for a long time now. Actually a CMMi Level 5 company was not my target. but a good established concern. basically people should be able to understand to immediately identify the company you are working for. Still TATA Elxsi(the company I work for is not the Infosys of the world and the Wipros of the world. But still the name TATA has a reputation worldwide.

I might make you thinking that I go after fame. Certainly not. Its always a different ball game. There are standards set here and there are predefined procedures to work here. You might not have the liberty to work as a freelancer. Everything is pretty organised here and you get to know what it takes to organise and manage such huge projects that they handle.

Small startup companies have their advantages too. For example, it is only in a small startup company your learning range is wider and wider. You get exposure to all the stages. You are free to try out new things. You are free to research on anything you would like to. You get to know many thing being in a startup than in a MNC. This is my honest opinion. And the disadvantages that you have working for a small startup are not much, infact nothing if you are not seriously looking at the money aspect. Small startup MIGHT NOT (some companies do, like Skava Systems) pay you more. But you should accept the fact that the work you get there is above par.

When it comes to MNCs, you are basically hired on an as-needed basis. Your learning is very much narrowed down to the project that the company is currently interested in. But I should tell you that there are some exceptions in MNCs too, where they offer you great work culture and atmosphere.

I just sat for a discussion with our team and a discussion with a client. Thats when I was thinking how a similar project would be approached elsewhere. We go out to discuss to a separate discussion room, we have a white board, somebody goes in front and talks for a while, explains, and then everybody asks questions to him, THATS NOT EXACTLY WHAT I AM TRYING TO TELL YOU. There is something more more more more important than those silly things. The procedure that you have to follow. The decisions that are taken here are not always taken. And there is no adhoc plan on how to go about with the project. Everything is clearl charted out. The way to write out a proposal document, going through requirement specifications,.... In my previous company, it was all product. no service. We developed our own product coz of which we had to requirement specification doc or anything else. We just start off with an initial design of the product straight away and after approval from boss, we go about implementing. Here it takes much more than to start designing right away. You are also considering the cost aspects for the development. You also have to think about how the client would like to have so many resources in the project, since he is actually paying for each and every resource that is in the project. We have to convince the client about the need for a particular resource, if the client finds that as unnecessary. Lots of things, but you gotta appreciate the fact that, there are too many people to manage this. But for all thsoe people, it is up to them to mange it themselves. They dont think that somebody else will do it. They take the responsibilities on their shoulders. And thats a sure sign of success...

hmm, I was just thinking as i was blogging. how about adding some technical information which some ppl might find good. Infact, I myself will be one in that in the future. So, expect some technical stuff or atleast some useful stuff in this blog later.

for now,

time to go,

bye

Joe

Switched Job

So atlast after two years, two successfull, two wonderful years I have quit my company and joined a new company. And that was not the reason for me not blogging for all these days. It was sheer laziness and getting myself indulging in other activities that I did not blog. When I said other activities, they dont mean activities that are junk. some were such ofcourse. But I did get myself involved in some important ones too. Important ones like, my House Warming Ceremony. Man, it feels soo very good to have a home to cal your own. I did not actually construct this home to call it my own. but, as a token of my love towards my parents. I knew how much they wouuld have wanted to get themselves settled in a home, sweet home. they were not able to in the past. Coz, they had to take care of the expenses incurred by meee.. And I dont exactly consider this a way of repaying them. not at all... this is simply not enough to repay their love and kindness that they have shown towards me.... But still, its a small token of my love and gratitude to my parents. Now that I have moved them into a new home, I started chasing my dreams. jumping into a branded company.

My previous company Skava Systems, was a startup company. I was the first employee to join the company. Before me, there were two partners who had been running the company for almost two years alone... Right from day one I joined the company, it was exciting. I was introduced into a new world. infact a small world. Java for mobile phones and other handhelds: J2ME.

It was a Roller Coaster ride for two years since then. I was part of all the stages of the Software Development Life Cycle. The work there required me to put in late nights and extra hours at work and I happily did it. As far as I am learning something and doing something useful, I dont really mind how much time I spend working. I can even go on like this for days. well, until my bio clock allows me toooo, ofcourse..

Then, my team grew and we were a total of nine people(apart from those Big Two). When I had completed a year, I started looking out and infact got an offer from L&T Infotech, Mysore. But then, I had turned it down after a discussion with my bossie. I liked the way both my bosses reacted when I told them about the offer. I had them call me right from USA to India and discuss things. They wanted to know what prompted me for a change. They did and they matched my expectations in Skava itself. Then, I had told them that I ll stay with them for some more time. And then again I received some offers Which I had to put down again after discussing with them. But, once my house construction was over, I thought I had to make the move irrespective of whatever I get. And I did. My new company has a good brand name in the industry.

But I honestly feel, Skava was a better place to work in. Leave alone the difficulties I had to face and the problems that I had there, Skava Systems will always stand high on my wish list. I am sure one day they will grow to the magnitude of what my new company is today. But then, I would not be a part of it to celebrate its success from within the organisation. But I ll definitely celebrate the growth of Skava. Coz, I have a personal sentimental feeling towards Skava, as that was my first company. First company is equally my first love too. I owe to Skava Systems what I am today. And I am not afraid in saying so anywhere. I told this same sentence even in my interviews elsewhere. I am proud of being a part of, infact, having been a part of Skava Systems.

But fine, now its an all new place, all new people, all new policies, all new procedures, all new rules and altogether the environment and my work atmosphere had changed. The way I had to work also had to change.... I am maintaining work timings here,. Strictly 9 hours duty and not more than that. Atleast now, till I am assigned any huge responsbilities to shoulder. After having been assigned responsibilities, its totally different... Let me wait n see how it turns out to be...

Work Crunch

In one of my previous blogs, I shared some of my views about crunch time on work. Now, I come to know that I am not alone in this world of crunch time sufferers.

I came to know about this unhappy spouse of an employee of one of the world's leading Gaming company. EA - Electronic Arts. Ever played their Football game. Boy oh boy! its kind a realistic and very very addicting. You cant just take your mind off while playing the game. But, merely nobody would ever think of the pains the developers of the game had put into the wonderful product. The fun they had lost, the families that had suffered their absence, nobody would give these things a damn. But atleast find some time, to read this article in the link below.

This was written by a spouse of an emploee of EA. Also, if you have time, just look at the comments and response that this had received from the world over, not just from the gaming industry but from everyone....
EA_Spouse


The next time you ever happen to play a game, take some time apart from the fun you have had, to thik about the ppl involved in having provided you with that much of fun. But, please, dont just think of the creamy layer. like the CTOs CEOs of the company. You do not know their actual role in any project.. :)

Cheers
Joe

Responsibilities in Work

R E S P O N S I B I L I T I E S......

Have you ever shouldered some? Or have you ever thought you need to be given some responsibilities? Well, I do. Taking in responsibilities gives me some confidence and courage. The ounce of pride which will help you attain ur goal easily and quickly. No headweight stuffs.

But in the IT industry, many can come across who are just reluctant to be responsible. They are just freaky enuf to be DJs, VJs or street side romeos. But, nobody has a clue as to why they are into a software industry. And to many of our amazement, they occasionally do well in certain areas. Like, keeping them physically well and mentally alert all times. After all, they have nothign to worry about and so they can always be ready to take up anything new. but seriously, they just take up but dont carry them for long :). Kindly apologize me, if you are one such person.

When some responsibilities are handed over to you, it is either because the other person trusts you so much and think you are the right person to do this job or you are put under test and its ur duty to do well in this job. If you arent going to keep up to the expectations in the latter case, then you can soon expect to be shown the way out. But, in the former case, the effect is kinda depreciation. You dont loose anything all ofa sudden. But slowly, you are loosing your values. Slowly the other person will loose trust in you. Soon, you will find yourself without any job. Well, who trusts you to give you a job...

There are some freaks, who will never understand the seriousness and never even have a clue of what is expected of him. When something is told to them, they just claim themselves that they have all their life to complete their task. My God!!! How do the HR recruiters miss out on these qualities.? Years back, I had a colleague of mine, who just used the office as a mere browsing center. By that time, our boss was not there to keep an eye on that F*. (Well, I just mean to say Fool) We took the responsibility and had warned him of his performance quite a number of times. But he was reluctant. Then, there came the day when I had to ask him, infact, ask him strongly that I needed him to finish off his task in another couple of hours. I was really shocked when he just shouted back at me on top of his voice. Things went rough from then on.. The point I wanted to make here is, I still dont understand why ppl are ignorant towards the responsibilities vested on them.

Well, on the other hand, taking all responsibilities on ones shoulder isnt that good too. That could end up in a real fuss. Be ready to accept responsibilities and accept whatever comes your way and most importantly, give your best to keeping up to the expectation, no matter what it takes. Well i started this blog with a diff thing in mind and i had gone in a diff direction now. No probs. This is understandable because, nobody after working for more thatn 15 hours continuously, will be able to think as clear as he would have some 10 - 12 hrs back.

More on the next blog

Cheers
Joe

Spread the Aura of Happiness

Aura!! this word was of less importance to me until I happened to chat with one of my friend. Until then, I was able to identify the thing exactly. Everybody has a personal space of influence spread around them. Depending on each person they come in contact with, it may either be a master or a slave. Master / Slave is just terms to indicate the behaviour and nothing more than that. This aura is their influence among a group of ppl a person interacts with.

There are also stories which say, "Ppl with strong Aura can acquire other ppl's strengths. blah blah.." But the good guy, the "Aura of Happiness" is something which, everybody isn't gifte with. Even wondered of the people who always laugh around, giggling, smiling and always having fun......

Take some time to think about those ppl and watch them closely. Those selfless creatures exist in the world, to mainly encourage and enthusiase (ignore, if wrong) others. But, if looked closely, even they have their own sad stories and personal problems with which they can be feeling gloomy all day., But they dont live their life that way. Instead they keep it to themselves and just pass on the flowers of happiness to everybody they meet. I have wondered what they could get back in return. The answer I got was, Happiness, true happiness.

When you are happy, not only you are happy, but your environment and your colleagues and other of ur mates are alllll happy. soo happy that everybody will forget their personal grievances and live a happy life. Today, once my problems got fixed, I was just making fun for every other thing. And we were just firing on all guns without feeling tired at all. We were putting in extra hours without much of a trouble. When you crack out jokes, you will soon realise that you are not alone. soon, others will follow suit, and then the entire place is filled with fun n frolic.

wow, feels like heaven. really, happiness is what every heart in this world crave for. So, am going to try n make everybody cheerful as much as I can. I am a good one to try out. I am determined to try till I succeed.

With sheer determination.

Joe

Its sometimes better to take the easy way out

So, I now gotta believe in the fact, "Its a fresh new day each day.". Yesterday, I was terribly disappointed with the way things ended up. And I ended the day with nothing but resentment. But as my friend has in her email signature

"Life can be learnt backwards,
But it must be lived forward" - Kierkegard

How true!!!

Today, when I called up my boss to know about the issue, I soon learnt that she didnt even bothered about taking a look at the issue. She was busy looking at some other thing. But then, backed by all her years of experience, she was guiding me to do that and this, experiment and let her know of the result. We both tried (even today... but this time, the approach was totally different) several times and atlast, boy oh boy, she finished the issue with a simple question. "Why do you have to try n conserve too much when you have loads of stuff for the taking?"

I ll tell you what. that one question striked me very hard and with that i managed to finish the issue. Actually, I was optimizing the game to work in the weaker phones with restricted memory and other restrictions. But the particular phone, which was creating problems for me yesterday (my god, pls forgive me if I had blamed it badly yesterday. I am really sorry ;) ), had loads of memory, with which I dont have to do any optimizations. I just rolled back my code to its prev state without any optimizations and you should have seen my face light up like a 1000 watts bulb. I was very happy, a sense of relief suddenly filled me up and I am back to normalcy.
My boss summed it up with this sentence
"Its sometimes better to take the easy way out"

Yesterday, I said i have to wait to know whether that was a silly mistake or a valuable lesson to be learnt. Today, it has now proven to be a valuable lesson, a lesson, worth to be learnt in ones life. It is sometimes better to take the easy way out. sometimes, we find our mind very much preoccupied so that, we will just stay ignorant to think of the easier solutions. If we had just taken the time to think out of the box, we would have found that there wasnt any problem really existing...

So, Always, try to think out of the box... stay calm n think clearly. You may arrive at a solution, if one exists or atleast, you will realise that there is no problem for which you need to find a solution...

Cheers
Joe

Crunch time on work

oh my god, this has been a reaaaaalllllllllyyyeee loonnnnnnnnggggggg day. And that too, without too much of a progress in the work schedule. This doesnot in any way mean that I was just sitting idle doing nothing all day long. Never!! I had enuf of squeezing my lovely little brain just to fix one issue.

basically, I am a game developer for mobile phones using j2me. Gaming!!! that sounds fun right? but i ll tell you that may ALWAYS sound fun only when u r sitting in front of a game terminal. But if you are the person doing all the decision making stuff and painting stuff(if not doing, atleast programming ::), yes, thats what i do) from inside that terminal, I ll bet you might not always have good times. Game development is equally fun and exciting as it is for game players. But the things is, those people dont cooperate with each other well. While developing a certain game, We initially start off targetting certain handsets. And that fortunately or unfortunately is the best of the lot that is available in the market. with full features and the best platform available, you will not find it difficult to write a game for those phones. But later, when the game is successfuly developed for the target handsets(initial targets), there comes the real crunch. There are hell a lot of cell phones available in the world and not all of them are a boon for developers. some are really a curse for developers. They will just claim that they support this and that... but to the real extent they do support, but only to a minimal extent. like, the features are minimised and the resources are far too low, giving a programmer not much room to free his arms and legs,..... actually free his program...

but, due to the low cost and easy availability they would have penetrated the market very well. and we poor developers are asked to support those phones too. And you know what. it takes more time to port these games to certain handsets than it takes to design and develop a new one for a better handset.

huh, see how much pain i am having in my heart.. i can just go on like this spittin out everything in my mind. but, to hit the button, today, i was put into one such task. ahmmm not really today, but for the past week, and today has been the real crunch. The port was scheduled to be delivered yesterday and since there was an issue (which i very innocently thot would be a simple fix) and we had to take it up today even. I started off with huge confidence to get the work done by early afternoon. but as time passed by, I was trying many many many many many many many, sooo many fixes and workaround. but nothing was fruitful. The problem really is the same piece of code works fine on some devices and on some other devices it spells curse for me. The culprit of my day today is the Nokia 3650 phone. And the better phones( claimed better only for this reason) are nokia 6800 and nokia 7210.

Actually, the Nokia 7210 is another curse for developer with a very miniscule heap memory. that too, when porting ur game from a hefty phone will give u very less chances to be happy all day. But with all my days of experience I managed to track this issue down with quite a bit of ease. But the 3650 hit me right on my stomach in an unexpected time and u know, it really hurts. At the end of day, after trying several times ( I guess, King. Ghazni even would have given it up far earlier today), I had escalated this issue to my boss. She will have a look at it and get back to me pointing some really silly mistakes or with a valuable lesson to learn. Will wait till tomorrow for knowing which one, it would be.

But the real point i wanna say is, I just feel like all the hardwork i had put in today has gone useless, since i was not able to fix this silly(not so really, will have to wait to decide on this) issue. This has given me nothing less than a sheer mental torture. hmm, thats the way every developer out there is living their life. I have heard many sad stories about the EA sports employees. I, atleast get some time to go home (but only for sleeping). Those ppl are working like hell so that they don't even know abt their world when they have their work pressure.

Every work has a certain period where the worker will feel the pressure. But the job a software developer is very different. Think of any other employee. Comes in at 10 in the morning. looks at his files till 5 - 6. completes all his work. goes home happily to spend with kith and kin. But a s/w engr. comes in by 9 - 10 starts his work (may be the one that he left yesterday) , goes on and on and on and on and on and on... then by midnight or early next day morning, realises that he needs to get some sleep, goes home with the pondering about the pending work. slips thru the bed for some time but still pondering over it again n again.. Where is his time to be spent with family n frenzzzz. Come on God!!! you are really clever in creating this job... Is this a boon or a curse?

with heavy eyes
Joe