From the archives

There was this leech...

So in a dark dense forest, on a pig's body there lived a leech. Over a period of time the leech got bigger and thicker by sucking the blood of the pig and started thinking as if he was a snake. One day the pig was bitten by a snake and died. A gang of Hyenas came and ate its' body. The leech got a chance and stuck to the Hyenas' body. The new blood gave him a fresh lease of life and strengthened his believes.

I am not sure what the motto of the story is, but surely is very funny.

Motorcyclists and the HOV lanes

Why are motorcycles allowed in the HOV lanes? Atleast I came up with some statistical data. For a car with four seats, if two are filled (with the occupancy rate of 50%) it is allowed in the HOV lanes. This drops further if the car has five (40%) or even lower for SUVs with 7 or 9 seating capacity. On comparison, a motorcycle will always have a minimum of 50% of the occupancy rate which is higher than any of the cars allowed. Which means, a motorcycle is infact a high occupancy vehicle. QED!

Ganguli is in. For whose good?

The ex-cricket captain Ganguli is back in the Indian team for a series against Pakistan. Good news I guess. I don't know if the decision was made due to the pressure from the BCCI executive board or not. But I am glad Ganguli was given this chance. I also thank Sachin Tendulkar for backing him up. But Ganguli! do you know what it means to you? It means that you have to go back a little and shed a lot of the arrogance you showed recently. Its upto you to either take this opportunity and come out gold or make this the last series of your international career. I like winners but I like fighters even better. I know you are both, now don't prove me wrong.

Darwin and the controversy of the law of nature

Everyone is familiar with the Darwin's theory - "The species which survived were not necessarily the most intelligent, but the most adaptable". The word intelligence is debatable here but thats not the scope of this blog. The question is do you really want to live like a cockroach just because it is highly adaptable? The question is do you spend all your efforts to change things which needs to be changed or just change yourself to be part of it? Darwin's theory is correct and is the rule of the nature, but sorry I disagree in adopting it.

Bat for Ganguli

So once again Saurav was dropped out of the test team. The reasons were cited the same "looking for the future". It is so dis-heartening to see when people wrap their hidden agenda inside the all good reasons they can come up with. The team India is more important than a single player Or, the performance was not upto the mark or, even if he is getting older and we have to look for the future. The problem is that we lack the intuitiveness in giving a respectable exit to our players. Ganguli did play sensibly in the second test against the lankans. He played a knock when it was required to stay longer and build partnerships. Bringing in Jaffer in place of Ganguli instead of Gautam Gambhir is ridiculous. If performance is one criteria why you don't replace a player who scored just five runs in four innings? Saurav did suffer from the nostalgia, arrogance and stiffness but he also gave himself a chance to adapt to the new team. He is doing good. He doesn't deserve the humiliation meted to him. And please don't use contradictions and get away with it just because you have the power to do so.

Missing blog and the matrix of thoughts

The year was 1999 and the blogs were non-existent. The incubator of thoughts were still few news groups. There was one more available internally with in Sun where I wrote a blog(?) about how to take the Windows heads on. Forgot the words but the essence was "don't compete with Linux now and let it make the inroads first. Then present Solaris as the better kid from the world of Unix". The email (blog?) disappeared with in two days of the appearance. Seven years down the line Sun's approach is exactly the same. The evolution of the thought took seven years though. So what am I saying? My thoughts were the secret of Sun's success? Somebody hid those thoughts under the wraps and implemented it? I had the recipe to bring the name of Solaris to every household? Or, there was another contrarian mind who thought a like? Or is it the mystery I like to keep in my own world which entices me to feel like a legend? The matrix which I won't solve.

Welcome India in ITER

India is going to join an international effort towards producing controlled nuclear fusion. A welcome decision ofcourse. Controlled nuclear fusion is something which the whole world has been struggling to achieve for past so many decades. I have a longing relationship with this technology - my first job. India has two Tokamaks which tries to create plasma in a helical tube - Aditya (India's first Tokamak) and [S]teady [S]tate [T]okamak-1 which utilizes all the goodies of super conductors, Lasers, RF etc. The catch is not to produce the plasma (even your tubelight has it) but to sustain it. SST-1 was a big leap over the old Aditya but not close enough to sustain the plasma over a considerable period of time. When I was working in the Institute (Aditya was operational and we were working on SST-1) we always looked upto ITER which happens to be an international effort (EU + US + Japan). It was our dream and the mission to get SST (1&2) operational and effective. I now see it happening.

Trump made a wrong statement

So today Donald Trump said in today's 12/01 The Apprentice that he likes Microsoft as it works. No Sir it doesn't! If you think you can sustain your empire look beyond Microsoft.

Woohoo! JES is free

Today Sun announced to bundle Sun Java Enterprise System, Sun N1 management software and other development tools with the already free Solaris operating system. I welcome this decision. With this Sun is not reinventing itself, it is just bringing its' free soul out. Sun tried ealier to give the hardware free at the cost of the software but I guess this makes a much more sense. BTW, I am also happy because one of my pet projects will come to a proper end. I was given the task to create http://devservices.sun.com which allows subscription based software/patches and content downloads. With JES going free I guess this portal is not necessary. It makes me happy when a project comes to its' logical end. A proper EOL'ing.

Is Utopia hard to achieve?

1. I work from home.
2. My car runs with solar energy.
3. Winters are coming, I need to get my tokamak cleaned.
4. I just sent the electronic key of the house I sold online.
5. I now type with my thoughts.
6. I am not afraid of flying anymore, we have bubble seats in the planes.
7. I don't pay anything for my phone.
8. I don't buy CPUs, I don't even know where it is.
9. My leader is obligated to me to answer.

There was a king

There was a king. Very fond of new clothings. He was surrounded by his courtesans who always kept him flattered. He wanted a new dress everyday. Tired to keep up his demands the tailor decided to play a trick on him. One day he stiched him an invisible dress. Proclaimed, only people with pure heart can see the dress. No one could see it but everyone praised how beautiful the dress was. The king roamed around his kingdom seeing everyone praising it. One poor man asked the king why was he naked? Hang him! ordered the king. We don't want people with impure heart in my kingdom - the king gave the reason. The poor man was hanged.

Everyone knows this story. Now look around! how many such kings do you see?

Phil Ivy and the Ace Queen

Sixth time on the WPT final table and the Ace Queen did the damage again for Phil Ivy. I like his play, he is one aggressive player and I would like him to win a WPT title one day. The jinx he has with the Ace-Queen though is still holding off for him. Everytime he loses a turn around pot, he had played his Ace queen. Everyone else come and go but only few stand. Phil Ivy is one of them. Sure we will see him again.

10 reasons not to use to make someone (project?) manager

He was there from the start of the project.

He is the oldest guy in the team.

I know him personally.

He is technically good, we have to promote him.

Hiring a manager from outside is a lengthy process.

He likes football like me.

He says he used to manage projects in his last job.

He has some good ideas but doesn't know programming.

He has been a developer for a very long time.

We just created this new group and we need a manager quick.

Solaris and Postgres - Never would have imagined it.

So today Sun announced the support for Postgres database - an opensourced database distributed with RH linux, on its' Solaris10 operating system. And once again I have a story to tell. In my first job Postgres was the only database I worked with. It was on Solaris 2.6. Everybody else in my laboratory (Yes thats right) was playing with SQLserver, Access and screaming to get Oracle installed and I was happy with Postgres. Reason? It was free. It was good. and the concept of objects it has built in, and it was just v6.5 then. On the other hand Solaris has always been my favorite OS - no I am not a Solaris guru but have grown up around it. It is a good feeling to see these two of my favorites coming closer.

VC's pointers and its application to developers

BBC published an interview with venture capitalist Doug Richard, one of the dragons of the BBC's "Dragons Den" programme. He mentions five things he looks for in a venture before investing his money. How does these rules apply to a developer?

1. Return on investment - Immense satisfaction
2. Innovation  - The essence
3. A good team - Yeah it helps!
4. Market opportunity - What?
5. Business plan - Whats that?

I am not alone to think this way...

Okay, the following two posts so match with my earlier thoughts (even words) that I am about to think I am not alone to think this way...

These people are insane - King of Jordan - And its me.

The future of digital communication - And its me.

haha... I am speechless.

Simplifying the problem

There are tons of books, articles and blogs available and searchable explaining different patterns and frameworks to simplify the solution of a problem. One aspect which we all ignore is how to simplify the problem itself. I watched Anina's interview (the queen of WAP) on the nerd TV (PBS) and was amazed to notice how easily she simplified the problem of mobile networking. With the inspiration a new phase in the software development life cycle should be added. The scope of the phase should be not to think of the solution but to simplify the problem. I think the most important step in any software development is to convert a 200 page business requirement document to one simple statement. If we can do it right, the rest will be a piece of cake.

Communication should be free

Weird idea isn't it? But yes the communication should virtually be free, atleast no more than what you pay for your internet. Sooner the rip-off communication companies understand this, the better. What a google talk or yahoo messenger can't do which your land line could? Yes more needs to be done. May be a dedicated internet phone with google talk for say burnt in. 911 (999 or 100) calls should also be properly registered. Just accept it and do something about it, thats the way its going to be.

Why is Google important?

Search engines are not new. Google was not the first to appear in the market of search engines either. I am no search expert but what I hear, the algorithms used in google search is not the best either. Then why is Google is what it is today? Why is Google so important as a company and for the future of the software industry? Two things - Its simplicity and its ability to change other's momentum. It has awaken a sleepy Yahoo. It is forcing Microsoft to scan libraries. It is forcing it to provide online softwares. Its making MSN search to get better. As Sun forced IBM to revamp itself during the dot-com boom and as its burst changed Dell's strategy, Google is a very important event changing the face of the software industry.

Sun and Oracle are going to merge - One day

I have never seen such a compliment technologies ever. Never saw a Sun guy cursing Oracle and either way. They are as open to use other's technologies as if its their own. Yeah they do have appserver conflict or the message service but neither are the market leaders in that segment. Oracle has much better sales force and Sun has a better stack. With StorageTek now part of Sun, wouldn't it make more sense for Oracle to have an end to end solution? Afterall Oracle is a leader in data management and how about its' storage too? Sun can provide Oracle its' hardware, solaris and Java which is so integral part of Oracle's future. They are going to merge one day, or so I wish.

Thoughts from American drivers

Strictly humor

Hummer H1 - Big guys with big hearts
Hummer H3 - Small guys with big hearts
Porsche - Going through mid life crisis
Mini - Some confused europeans
Mercedez - business men not doing that well
BMW - People with young hearts
Lexus - I wish I was single
Audi - Responsible men looking for freedom
VW - I am not exactly german though
Camry - I have two kids
Wrangler - Why can't I get a stable relationship
Liberty - Why am I driving this?
Corvette - I made a lot of money in 80s

What is this madness?

And one more terrorist attack. If the people behind this attack wanted to send a message, then sorry - The music of democracy is too loud to hear you. We didn't hear you in Mumbai, we didn't hear you in New York, We didn't hear you in Spain, we didn't hear you in London and we didn't hear you in Delhi. I hope its' condemnation and repurcusion is loud enough to make you deaf.

How geek are you?

If you are in the computer industry sooner or later you will stumble upon the geek test. Some people actually feel proud of the geek score, higher the better. You may also find the self proclaimed geeks around. The problem with these tests are that they are not multi geographical and culturaly relevant. I did take one of these a while ago and found the questions to be obscure. It asks if you have watched a certain movie. If you are living outside states, you may not even find the movie released. Or, you may not even know how good the movie is to spend time and money to find it. The same is true with novels. The question doesn't ask you if you like or have read a certain genre, but specifics of a title. That is incorrect. What really matters is how much interest you show when you get that opportunity. How quality inputs you provide on a certain geeky topic. It matters how influenced you are by another geek. And I don't think writing such a blog at 1:40AM in the morning counts.

Who should be your team lead?

These are my assessments as I am no manager but based on when and why I felt comfortable with my lead. Here are some nine tips :

1. He should be some one with good communication skills, a good listener and sincere
to his work.

2. He should not be in the same grade level as you are.

3. He should be atleast two grades higher or 3 years senior if possible.

4. If a team constitutes of similar grade level developers, then make them individual
contributors and component leads. The project manager (or an architect) should take the
responsibility of being the team lead.

5. He should have some hands-on exposure to the related technology you are
implementing your solution in.

6. The job of a lead should never be collecting status and maintaing spreadsheets. He
will soon lose the respect of the team members.

7. One who could bring some real value.

8. One who is a good mediator and arbiter.

9. One who could become a manager anytime but is not interested in it.

A new bond? I am eager!

I am eagerly waiting for Daniel Craig as the James Bond. Layer cake is freaking good, good performance. Good stuff.

A new bond? So what?

So we have a sixth bond. Bond is one brand which sure needs some major overhauling. Sean is still the best among them. Roger Moore was the closer ones. I lost interest in the bonds since they lost the character and became more of gadget men. PB was okay but no different from other action heroes of his time. I haven't seen the Layer cake yet which Mr Craig the new bond is more famous for. May be a prospect movie for the weekend before I give my report card.

Who says Computer industry is immature?

Okay! The computer industry has been around for enough years to be compared with others. The best part is it has started well. Can you add few more horse powers to your car after you buy it? In computers you can! Just add more RAMs. All you can do with some old food is to throw it all. With computers you can hook them up together and make a network. Ask Andy Bechtolsheim and he might tell you some tricks to create a super computer out of them. Can you replicate your bank account some where else? With computers you can replicate your data any number of times. How fast can you search for an old friend using your phone? With computers (with ofcourse appropriate service behind) your odds are much higher. In essence the time has come when the core sector industries start treating the computer industry with some respect, and learn a thing or two from it instead. Okay my time to have some dinner!

Build or bust

I am no biker but just love this show. The problem of the show is its' slow pace. They stress on whats not working instead the progress made and I hate the zombic music too. But the intensity is too high to miss. Isn't there a similarity between this show and the apprentice? These guys are hands on - the real deal. The last show in which Joe M. won was gosh grueling. I only want to see the camera man and the producer to shut up during the shoot. They hurt more in their nonsense talking than to help the builder. Hope to see more of Bill Walls and Joes. Thanks Russel Mitchel for bringing the real apprentice.

What not to solve?

Every now and then I keep mentioning the people who I really enjoyed working with. One name which I kept omitting was my past manager of three years - Trey Marshall. This MBA from Carnegie Millan - a critique of overkilled solutions is one who leaves his impression. The two things which I learned working with him are : what not to solve? and what a running system means? Two not so simple questions as they seem to be. Sometimes as developers, as analysts and as business owners we don't understand the problem statement clearly and usually get carried away on what the system should do? And knowing what not to solve is as difficult of a question as of knowing what should be solved. The second is the value of a running system. A running and a scalable system is better than a utopic one on papers and discussions. The system which runs is the one which sustains. Being practical is one more reason of my admirations for him.

What does the Sun-google announcement mean?

Nothing and a lot depending on where they go from here. Google no question can be a huge delivery platform. The service as well as software application downloads. I was expecting a lot more from the announcement though. May be a huge hardware sale? or, Openoffice functionality on web? Due to a shear increase in the bandwidth the time has come when the applications can be made available on web on broadbands. May be a user session mobility through a web platform? i.e, mix-n-match of sunrays and web. But, nothing of that sort happened. A let down for now but very promising for the future. These are the two technology driven companies and who knows if some sort of consortium is in the making. Is yahoo listening?

The qualified genius

I have been watching the interviews on PBS conducted by Robert Cringely with the legally qualified nerds of the computer industry. Andy Hertzfeld, Max Levchin, Bill Joy, Brewster Kahle and a long list to come. One of their common traits is that they all are the alumini of some great colleges (drop outs or graduated). And I do accept the genius in them. Being part of the colleges like Stanford and MIT itself is a qualification, atleast for me. It doesn't excite me though. Yes you are born genius, you have shown your abilities not once but time and again and then you come up with some great ideas. Yeah! what else can us the lower beings expect from you :-)? Greats produce great things. What does excite me though is when not so genius people produce some great piece of art. People in some remote village with no infrastructure and money produces a simple hinge to stop the bucket for falling in the well. Or, for an inability to purchase one if someone converts his motorcycle to use as a tractor. So I guess there are three categories of people - One who solves the very complex problem with the help of all the resources he can get his hands of. The second who solve small problems with all kind of constraints you can have. The third are those who get awestruck from these geniuses and write about them.

Why I like mexican?

Ofcourse I love the food. The burritos, enchaladas, taquitos, sopapillas and what not. And above all, the mexican restaurants are the only places where I do not feel uncomfortable with my Indian accent.

Ain't preface useless?

I do reserve the right to challenge what I don't use. Book's preface is one thing to start with. I never read it. If the title of the book is self explanatory, why would you need a preface, specially while reading a technology book? I prefer to surf through the chapters instead, than to read its' preface. It contributes no useful purpose to the content of the book. Something similar to an unnecessary chain of management command in any organization. I recently watched Andy Hertzfeld's interview on PBS. The guy is a programming legend. "The best size team comprises of just one person" was his comment on the discussion around an ideal size of any team. He did quote Albert Einstein stressing the need of removing the communication overheads. We continue to use them for the sake of tradional heirarchy and are afraid to challenge its presence. Something similar to a preface in the book.

Two links and two feelings

I was happy to see a comment from one of my ex-colleagues on one of my blogs. I was not expecting her to ever reading my blogs, and here she goes and agrees with my sentiments. On the otherhand, I saw a link to my blogging site was removed from my ex-PM's site. May be she had a legal (?) reasons to do so. Otherwise why would anybody delete a link just coz we don't work together anymore?

One more addition to my favs

I am very selective in the movies I like. From The Godfather, Back to the future, Office space, Hotshot series and any Clint Eastwood's to Shakti, Umrao Jaan, Shool, and The Training Day. I am little inclined to the realistic action movies and have special interest in the cop movies. One more addition to it : "Sehar". Remarkable! Very good performances by everyone. Kudos to Arshad Warsi and the all time great Pankaj Kapoor. A cop movie which ends well. After getting frustated by Mangal Pandey and Bose which I had very high hopes from, I thought to stop watching any Bollywood movie. And then came Sehar - Good stuff!

The best people I have known so far

In the middle of my lunch, I had an idea of mentioning few awesome people I have known so far. They are not extraordinary but have something which makes them a little different. The names are not in any specific order :

Joe Mocker - The silent guy who knows everything. I worked with him in the project starlight which is the core engine for most of the external web venues for sun.com. I have never seen a better listener than him. He corrects you in a manner as if he is just learning. A guy with a huge potential. I will not be surprised if he becomes a VP of some engineering team at Sun, or CIO of some company one day.

Dr. Prabhat Ranjan - Phd from Princeton University. A scientist by profession, an Engineer at heart. I could have knocked at his door in the mid-night and he would have helped me. A guru of Linux, open and keen forever to learn new things. One of my first ideals. Last I heard, he has become a professor in some college in India.

Dr. Shashank Chaturvedi - An ex IITian, and a chemical engineer turned physist. He was as good in C-programmning as he was in shock wave analysis. He could steer in your eyes and would find out how much you know. Last I heard he was working as a sr. scientist in a reputed research laboratory in India.

Hideya Kawahara - The brain child behind the project lookingglass. Project looking glass is a futuristic 3D workspace being currently developed by Sun Microsystems. I love guys with passion and futuristic appeals.

Greg Cowin - The coolest guy ever. He established atomatron and once used to be my project manager. He never called himself a manager, and used to develop codes along with the team. As clear in his goals as it ever gets and knew how to reach there.

Sunfire and LOM

My sunfire decided not to boot one day. The problem was I couldn't diagnose the problem as the only way to get to the output is through the console (or hyperterminals). The funny part was that I had left the RJ45-DB25 adapter in India over the last vacations. So my sister had to parcel it. After struggling with the LOM prompt (1 hr of research to find the esc character) and playing with the various options, I found how to get to the OK> prompt. Tried to load the kernel from a CD but it simply hangs. Looks like as if the harddisk itself has gone bad. I will try to buy an off the shelf IDE harddisk and will try to install solaris on it. I am not sure if any jumper configuration would need to be changed. I had pretty much everything stored in my beloved machine and am not sure if I would be able to salvage the disk.

A sweet day

Today is Raksha Bandhan an Indian festival dedicated to the love and bonds between brother and sisters. I wish I had sent any gifts to my sisters. On gifts' websites you only find a few types of things. My sisters are not a typical saari and jewellery type girls. They prefer cricket, formula1, computer games, tailspins and Tom & Jerry over singing, dancing and probably other girlish stuff. I am sending all my love and all my best wishes to my sisters - the best sisters you can ever have.

The deaf interviewer

So I have been looking for jobs recently. Satisfactory successes in few interviews
where things couldn't be materliazed because of HR issues than technical and bad
experiences with few others. Here is a scriptlet from one of the interviews I
attended which didn't turn out good. Someone had forwarded my resume for a
product support position.

I'er : So tell me about yourself
I'ee : blah blah blah
I'er : Good.
Transferred me to another so called the "technical guy".

II I'er : So have you worked on java?
I'ee : Yes I have been working in Java for past 9 years.

II I'er : Have you worked in EJBs?
I'ee :  No I have never worked on EJBs. I am familiar with the generic
container models but nothing specific to EJBs.

II I'er : What is the difference between container managed and bean managed?
I'ee : Hmm! As I said I have never worked on EJBs but logically the difference
would be how the objects are managed and where the responsibility of managing
states lie.

II I'er : So what is the delegation model in EJB containers?
I'ee : I am not familiar with the delegation model specific to EJB containers
but I can tell you about the delegation patterns and my guess would be EJB
containers must implement something similar to it.

II I'er : What is a MDB?
I'ee : It stands for Message driven bean. Must be a wrapper to the message queue
objects where few objects wait for an event to occur. Very similar to the
Observer-Observable pattern.

II I'er : Let me ask you some database questions.

II I'er : How would you see if no two requests are accessing the same row in the
database?
I'ee : One way is to make database access through one singleton object which
provides synchronized access to the database so that the object lock is only owned
by only one client at a given time. The second way is to single out the critical
section and synchrnize the block so that no two simultaneous access is possible.

II I'er : No no no. my question is very specific. How can you see if no two requests
are accessing the same database row? Not in the application.
I'ee : So you are asking no programming should be done. I am pretty sure the database
should provide locks which can be used at a row level.

II I'er : No no no. I know there is a lock maintained by the database. My question
is specific..
I'ee : Are you pointing me towards any log files? or snooping the port where
service is running?

II I'er : No. Okay, if an applications' memory consumption is increasing, what will
you do?
I'ee : Usually I will use commands like prstat to monitor the number of threads and
[interrupted]

II I'er : No no no. prstat is a very high level program I want to know what will you
try to see?
I'ee : Okay.. one thing I would like to monitor the heap size in the VM and how the
garbage collector is behaving. We can also use apps like optimizeit to see how the
memory is growing. If it is a multithreaded application I would like to see its'
stack and heap sizes and see if threads are not waiting for something and
continuously creating new objects in the method. I will also watch out for any loops
but I am not sure if I am allowed to look with in the code. If it simply hangs, I
would like to get its' stacktrace...

II I'er : Have you ever tuned the JVM?
I'ee : Yes I have. In the application <name> which I worked recently I did a
lot of JVM tuning. Do you want to know something specific?

II I'er : No no no, just wanted to know if you have ever done it.
I'ee : Yes I have.

II I'er : Thats all I had.
I'ee : Thanks.

III I'er : Do you know how to enable https on a app server?
I'ee : Yes the configuration is stored in the server.xml usually it defaults on port
443 but is configurable. You would need to have a certificate though signed by the
recognizable authority.

I I'er : Are you familiar with the <some> ticket resolution methodology?
I'ee : Nope. Is this same as what <some team> uses?

I I'er : I don't know. There is a standard which is followed in the product team...
I'ee : No I am sorry I have never heard of it. Could you please send me the link
where I can read about it more?

II I'er : Sure I will send you that.
I'ee : Thanks.

I I'er : So did your resume was forwarded by an external agency?
I'ee : Nope. It was applied internally from with in the company.

I I'er : I needed to know how to respond to them.
I'ee : [felt very demeaning]

I I'er : Thats all we had. Do you have any questions?
I'ee : Yes, is this position based in Bangalore?

I I'er : Yes it is based in Bangalore but you will have to work with ....
I'ee : Ah good. Does it require a lot of onsite supports?

I I'er : No not alot. sometimes it could be.
I'ee : Are there any training sessions planned after the selection?

I I'er : Yes there are. As you have worked on a lot of the stuffs we need, you will
not need the basic trainings [if selected was implied I guess].

I'ee : Thats all I had I guess.


---------

II 'er later sent me the link to the process document. I sent a "thankyou for your
time email later". Never heard back from them since.

Now.. I know I didn't do well. I answered tomcat's SSL configuration instead of the
app servers. But, what is worrying me is when I had already said I have never worked
on EJBs - the guy kept asking me a series of questions on that. I tried to answer
him logically (not EJB specific) and he kept responding me as if I didn't know
anything. I am not sure if he was given a sheet of questions he had to ask no matter
what. Since then I have really been slightly disturbed.

Six pack and the pool

So this year Colorado is a little bit hotter. There is nothing like sitting in pool under the Sun. So one day I asked one of my friends to accompany me to the community pool. He is a diet and looks freak. Couldn't go till I get a six pack (abs), he said. Never mind! we have the whole beer keg was my wry response.

Smart people are everywhere

Smart people are everywhere - all over the world. Even in those corners and equal in numbers which are not termed "proper civilizations" by the western world. Then why some countries are so developed and the rest are lagging behind? Its not the number of smart people which matters but the ability of the state to find them and make use of them. Isn't the same in corporate world too? I have not seen a single company which is not run by some very smart people. Then why some fail and some succeed? What matters is how the resources are managed. It matters where do you place them. It matters how you retain them. It matters how you develop them. This is where some succeed and most fail. This is why Jack Welsch and his GE succeeded and www.someprettybadcompany.com failed.

ezsaid

So after writing in my company's blog site for months, I thought to have my personal one too. Blogging has a lot of potential not only as a channel for free thoughts but also as a new found media for the corporate world. So whats the best way to start with my own personal blogsite but on my birthday? Yeah, close enough - it was yesterday though. So once again I felt reborn which I feel everyday anyway. The only problem with that is that you have to learn everything you learned earlier, everyday. A lot of work!