Pain & Happiness...

Pain is when
you have wings to fly,
you see the path green ahead,
But cannot reach beyond the limiting glass...


Just let it fly out of the window :-) Now that's Happiness!

Indian Independence day @ Stuttgart

It was interesting to celebrate Indian Independence day in a different country.
The event had an entry fee of 2E, (as I wore a traditional Indian kurta, otherwise 3E) We were made to sit in as a group each representing states, Me and couple of my friends here sat in Meghalaya since we couldn't find TamilNadu state there.

They started with German Anthem as a customary and the chief guest Mrs.Kavita Gadgil, chairperson of Abhijit Air Safety Foundation had hoisted the Indian Tricolor flag, we all sang Indian National Anthem, It felt so nice to sing this Anthem, bringing back nostalgic feeling of India. Some chocolates, small cup cakes were distributed.
There were more discussions, presentations on freedom fight and some demo on bollywood dancing, for which I didn't stay back.. It was a different event to meet up with more Indian and German people in Stuttgart.

Some pics...
The Tricolor hoisted and president Smt.Pratibha Patil's Address to Nation read out there...



Replica of Indian flag unfurled by Madam Bhikaji Cama 100 yrs ago in Stuttgart, at the International Socialist Conference 1907 and the chief guest behind.



Some Indian Crowd.

Salutes to Aruna Sairam!

Aruna Sairam is one of my favorite carnatic singers and the best song I like her sing is Kalinga Narthana Tillana. But today I watched this youtube video,



This Tamil folk song called "Maadu Meikum Kanna", is a variety called "Kavadi Chindhu" in Carnatic Music. The song represents a conversation between Yasodha, Mother of Lord Krishna and the Little Lord Krishna.

It beautifully explains all pleadings of lord Krishna to go out and play with cows and how his mom stops him, telling that she would give him milk, butter and sugar to eat, and how sunny it is outside. She also tells him, how there might be robbers outside and wild animals on the banks of River Yamuna. She finally asks him what to say if his Papa Nandha Gopal asks for him and Krishna says, please tell him I am playing a game of ball with friends and how he can fight the robbers and hunt the wild animals for her earlier descriptions. She says No to his pleads and the song ends with him still pleading and not yielding... It brings such a beautiful drama to your imagination.

What I observed today in the Video is the spontaneity of Aruna Sairam. Her expressions in the video are just amazing to watch and the song pours out from her heart. Her laughter for the funny fiddle note is so musical and blends into the tune. The best part is when there is a loud sound that comes in the microphone or from somewhere in the auditorium and she had just sang the line, Krishna telling his mom to tell his dad that he is playing a game of ball with his friends... Aruna Sairam wittily comments for the sound that it seems the ball has hit here. Such presence of time and quick comment is a great skill for a performer. I admire her presence of mind as much as her singing!

On HP's Drive to Hire Women Employees...

I received a mail from HP's hiring guys through a popular job site, couple of days back. It is a nice drive by HP to hire women employees. The recent trend I've seen amongst my women software professional friends is that there is a steady growth in their income range comparitively.
On a other note, the policies allowing telecommuting to work has been a welcome change too and more women with good software skills can now spend few hours to design and code other than the option of stay-at-home wife or mom (who quit day job for family needs or on visa rules), giving all the care the family and the work needs too.

The Mail read as follows:

Subject: SPECIAL DRIVE FOR WOMEN CANDIDATES @ Hewlett-Packard (HP)

Please Note

1) Receipt of this Mail doesn’t qualify the candidates to attend the interviews.
2) Candidates must ensure that they meet the required criteria mentioned against the position they are applying for.
3) No Travel re-imbursements shall be entertained
4) You need to carry
- Print of your latest Resume
- Proof of employment to attend the interview. For ex: Company I Card / Pay Slip / Employment letter etc.
- Latest pay slip and revision letter (if any).
- Latest passport size photograph.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

HP is looking for Women software professionals for their Electronic City office, Bangalore for .Net technologies.

Education : BE/Btech/MCA/Msc.
Venue: Hewlett Packard, 3rd Floor Khanija Bhavan, 49 Race course road, Bangalore 560 001
Date: 5th May, Saturday.
Timings: 10:00 to 12:00 Hrs, 13.30 hrs to 16.30 Hrs.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

DotNet/ C# - (3 to 5 years)
Developers/ Sr. Developer

At least 2 years of relevant experience developing multi-tiered client server applications
Strong Object Oriented analysis and design skills

Experience developing applications under the Windows .NET Framework using: Visual Studio .NET,.NET Framework 1.1,C#,VB.NET and ADO.NET, ASP.NET,XML, XML, XSLT, XPATH, XSD,WebServices,SOAP,HTML,SQL Server,Biztalk Server 2004, Content Management server, Sharepoint Portal

5) Please carry a PRINT of this mail for reference


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

A pic for Fiddle n Doodle...

I bought myself this pencil in a musical shop, this piece at its very first glance seemed to have been just crafted for me and this blog - Fiddle and Doodle!

I didnt have a heart to sharpen it and make it shorter and left it there as a show piece! How such small things brings a lot of joy! :-)

What's after web site making? PROMO ???

Yes - Promos!!! no use to have an awesome site if it doesn't reach the desired audience. Every new website creator's major worry is promoting it.

There are 12 to 101 ways to promote websites, with or without cost when you google at it. The best practical list I read is at

http://www.robertoalamos.com/30-ways-to-promote-your-web-application-with-little-or-no-money - A nice blogger with great views!

Also a good read on non-tech guide to web application creation by the same blogger at - http://www.robertoalamos.com/so-do-you-want-to-make-money-with-a-web-application-a-non-technical-guide-to-web-applications-creation

The day one, one conceptualizes the idea of a website, one should start thinking on ways to promote it. To Sell isn't easy definitely. As they say, "No Sales, No job", in the web world- "No Promos, No Existence"

One step towards Technorati...

giant leap into Blogosphere....

I took that step forward today after having used technorati for so long...
Am I trying to be a serious blogger now?

Here is my claim - Technorati Profile

Psycho Analysis, Defense Mechanisms and a blog..

Sometimes I think - Damn, Why do I do certain things...
Everyone seems to have two choices as per evolution to face anything - fight or flight, As for me, I fight when I like, I flee when I hate.

While wondering on that and more on 'fleeing' as a way to defend oneself, I wikied out ways of Defensive Mechanisms at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_mechanisms

I had been introspecting as what I did when comparing with the article and recollecting incidents, more like seeing through a design pattern guide and recollecting lines of code previously written...

The levels by George Vaillant mentioned in the page is very interesting to note:

Level I - psychotic defences (ie. psychotic denial, delusional projection)
Level II - immature defences (ie. fantasy, projection, passive aggression, acting out)
Level III - neurotic defences (ie. intellectualization, reaction formation, dissociation, displacement, repression)
Level IV - mature defences (ie. humor, sublimation, suppression, altruism, anticipation)

I feel that the way one defends themselves can show how mature they are and while observing myself, I think I had done things from all levels at all times, matured as well as immatured acts.. thats a funny insight!

Mind Analysis and looking things in a scientific way, explaning hormones, enzymes and our super_power_brain acts for all causes of actions makes you feel generally good that you can blame it all on the molecules.

Interstingly, I also find people on 43 things - who wants to 'stop hating', seems a positive thing - http://www.43things.com/things/view/146906
There are things that people do and do...
and 'whys' unexplained many times with all the scientific explanations/ empirical observations from evolutions identified.

blog after long time.. German Musings

I guess this is the first post for this year and after coming to Germany and after a long time. what inspired me writing this blog is the amused reply from our landlord here in Germany

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: our landlord...
Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2007 10:45 AM
To: us
Subject: Re: Regarding Phone in App ###.

pls. see below

----- Original Message -----
From: us
To: landloard
Sent: Monday, April 02, 2007 3:29 PM
Subject: Regarding Phone in App ###.

Dear Mr.XYZ,

I live in Appt ###. We have a problem with our telephone. We are NOT able to make any calls inside the apartment (i.e. we are not able call any other room numbers) and even people in the apartment are not able to call our room. we know this - we can't change the technic ! But we are able to make phone call outside the apartment (0 dial). Would it be possible for you to look into this sorry, no solution possible

Have a nice day

Regards,
us


Note: Name and Email Id info are changed here obviously.

But what we really appreciate is atleast we got the reply. Wonder if they reply mails like this including their comments on the same mail we write, for avoiding using long English sentences. We are also thankful in a way that problem is only with calling inside the apartment and we are able to call our folks back home. Our neighbours have to knock our doors now to speak to us.

On Learning Car Driving...

I have felt ashamed of myself for not knowing how to drive a car this long..Not anymore! The month of december, being last of the year made me wonder what did I learn new this year, there are a few notable things but one thing missed out of my long wanting 'TODO' list - Driving a Car!

Joined a driving school here and applied for Learner's License!
Since I was from Driving School, I had an oral test in the RTO Jayanagar office, asking about 10-12 mandatory,cautionary road signs and asking me to demonstrate the hand signals while in LMV, to turn right, turn left and stop.
So got my LLr. without much problems, the driving school guys make your life easier!

So couple of classes are completed and hooo! its a lot different from the bike.. the whole perspective of seeing things change and I still have not let out the beginner's fear, which I should soon or the Instructor is going to be mad at me.
Scared many people already on the road and stalled the car in the middle of the road, causing traffic halt in two places....
My first class was even musing when the Instructor said "Brake" I did the "Accelerator", Good that he had the control with him!
my Poor Memory or High Tension may be the cause!

Tried Reverse Parking a Bit but missed looking at the Tall Pillar Post and again Instructor took the control of break and saved the day for me...

I asked the Instructor for feedback on areas to improve - First leaving out the fear, then the clutch handling and the left turns but he said I will get it with more practise!

These 2 days of experience is giving me a mixed feeling - both fun and fear, but I'm confident that I'll learn soon!

Meanwhile, browsed these two sites on car driving and liked it, good to read before you start your class everytime, like a revision -

http://www.standardshift.com/faq.html

http://www.ehow.com/how_3234_drive-car-with.html

Barcamp 2 in Bangalore

This was the event I was really waiting to attend. It was one load of fun and learning being there. The experience of Barcamp, is something one understands, only by being there.
The benefits of Barcamp I think is that, it triggers more passion in you for technology, ideas, entrepreneurship, it provides you with loads of learning, the best of it was finding great people around! Networking is something that one cannot miss out here.
It is definitely an event to attend...
More slides and Photos links here

Bengalooru Auto!

What is good about Auto-Rickshaws here ? Run on LPG so non-polluting autos, cheaper ( may be not!) I think what I like in these autos is the "Auto Driver's License Display System". This amuses me everytime, I get to see a bit of personal details of the driver, esp. the name of the auto guy, Then I decide in which language I would tell him the directions. If the name ends with some 'appa' or so, like, "sommappa" etc, then I get to speak in my broken kannada. If the name is more with 'Khan' then hindi and some names like 'murugavel' then Tamil and for rest of the names the default language is Hindi.



There are few autos with fradulent meters and my friend Deepti could recognize one today morning and to our wonder, he was ready to take Rs.5 less than what showed on the meter. Strange eh!

The biggest trouble here with autos is that you dont get one when you really need one...

Parry's Pure Refined Sugar

There is a huge bilboard advertising "Parry's Pure Refined Sugar" near the Domlur flyover. I am one of the Regular buyer of this sugar for many months now.
The best thing about this sugar is its refined and looks all white and nice, and the size of granules is smaller and melts as soon as you add it in your coffee...

Unfortunately, last time I bought my grocery, this sugar was not available, I had searched almost in 4 shops to only then buy a different packet with bigger granules and cheaper in price but from same Parry company, it was not a Pure Refined variety and was in a different packing. The same week I noticed this bilboard up there.

Should it be some kind of strategy to hold up the stock, aggressively advertise and then launch it in stores again...

How does it help ? Theory of Demand and Supply ? Cant quite get it, should wait and watch what they come up with.

Another Blog on Parry's sugar marketing analysis which I liked reading...
http://marketingpractice.blogspot.com/2006/11/parrys-sugar-branding-commodity.html

December 04 2006 An update...
The bilboard there is gone! was there merely just for 2 weeks, now is replaced with ad for pondicherry.. wanted to take a picture of it for this blog.. but never did that!

Garbage Collection

Makes me immediately think of all possible things - From C# GC, PC Recycle Bin to the literal Trash Bin at Home..
Well I recently came across a "release build only bug" which happened when I used Mutex and the actual reason being, the Garbage Collection cleaning up the variables when out of the scope immediately in release build. Some refactoring got it working.
Similar one discussed here: http://weblogs.asp.net/savanness/archive/2003/05/23/7496.aspx

On a different Note, a recent visit to St.John's Hospital made me wonder about the garbage collection for the hospital waste. Then googled to find this one: http://www.medwasteind.org/
oh wow, lotsa things, how great it is to run a good hospital!

One of the Best things I saw here in Bangalore, the guy who comes to collect our garbage bags (atleast the one who comes to our street everyday) has all the patience to seggregate the garbage out (unlike many people who dont). And I feel, the garbage collection infrastructure has to improve a lot in India...

Ready Steady and "Muv"

www.mymuv.com is up and running, will be launched officially to public very soon...
a trends tracking website
and kudos to my colleagues who developed it..
after all the hardwork I've seen them do, the brainstorms, the creativity that ebbed till the Huge treemy fish cutout that we all made..(now pasted on our office wall) every bit of the project seemed enjoyable!
Hope everybody else likes the site as much as we all here do!

Foodie Scribble -- Sprout Dosa

Ok, I know I harvested too much of sprouts... little did I remember that I will be out of town this weekend, and my husband is not a salad lover unlike me...
Not having a heart to put away with it, an idea clicked to me..

I had ground two handfuls of sprouts, a little salt, few green chillies, a cube of ginger and a pinch of asafoetida into a smooth paste. Added two ladles of Dosa batter (readymade from shop) to it ( more as a binding agent) and mixed well. it was smooth and poured it on tava like our normal dosa... wow, came out well... tasted more like 'pesaret' and a little like 'adai'

One more successful " My experiments with food " and my hubby gave me a pass mark and a smile 0:-)

Ok, an additional topping for your dosa could be sprinkling some moong sprout, grated carrot, Chopped onions, tomatoes, corriander leaves and some grated cheese... (if you really crave for pizzas in some form.. he hee! )

Quotes that adorn mail signatures

I used to keep them in my mail signatures earlier(and a few now)... this is just a recollection....

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
- Theodore Roosevelt

We look forward to the time when the power of love will replace the love of power. Then will our world know the blessings of peace.
- William Ewart Gladstone

"Nothing for me; no matter whether the thing is good, bad or indifferent; I do not care for it; I sacrifice all unto Thee." - extract from Karma Yoga by Swami Vivekananda.

Tech Scribble - Firefox Extension Samples URL

The best resource I used for creating an extesion for firefox.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Category:Example_code

This one comes handy lot of times.

Tech Scribble - Using Virtual PC - Part II

Okay, just installing VM is not enough, Go to the Actions menu after opening the VM and there install the virtual machine additions. This provides a lots of features like shared folder usage. Now we can create a shared folder from setting and start sharing files between the host and the VM running.

This VM helped me to figure out one issue on writing registry entries of my application.

Tech Scribble - Using Virtual PC

Atlast, the solution for testing windows application in different environments. I find it difficult most of the times to create suitable testing environments and sometimes, just being a developer cant save the day, you have to think of all possible test cases and try it out in different environments, figure out problems and fix it even before the actual testing team can do it.

then there is this Microsoft Virtual PC, as saviour...

All you do is get the Virtual PC 2004 installer (45 day trial version is available)
and install it on your system. Then create Virtual Machine, map Virtual Harddrive and install OS on the virtual system.

Installing OS was a little time taking as I did not have a CDROM attached to my desktop. Finally got one CDROM fixed to my desktop. The virtual PC did not recognize this CD drive (I was not able to figure out why) So installed Virtual CD v5 and created a Virtual CD of the XP setup.

In the VM, from CD menu, I selected Map physical drive (points to a virtual CD drive) and rebooted the VM(Virtual Machine). and cool, it detected the XP setup.


(well, I wonder why VM did not recognize the physical CDROM, anyway virtual CD was useful in making it work, but Now I am thinking should I use these virtual CD everytime I try to install anything on my VM ?)

Now I can test the windows application in a cleaner XP machine and play with it, changing all possible things I can... and from my own comfortable seat! (not to walk to different cubicles to try out things)

This is just what I wanted. Wow to Virtual PC, this is so real! and I got a chance to try it after so long....