Yahoo! LAUCHCAST ki jai

Proabably I am the last the last guy to discover Yahoo!'s LAUCHCast. "Better late than never"- somebody once said.
It is a great(brilliant, super, super-duper) way to enjoy and discover new music. Not to mention legally! 'Yahoo!' lets you choose the music station by genre or themes (Oldies, At work, Coffee house., to name a few). Info about the band, album reviews etc., are just a click away. It can be accessed either through Yahoo!'s latest yahoo messenger with voice or by going here.

I got hooked, so should you!

Boy-Friend Girl-Friend and all !

I almost fell off my chair when Krishna let me in on his secret. Krishna had a girl friend. Not for one or two but 5 long years. Believe me Krishna is not the kind of guy who has a girl friend and all. He is a bit geeky and quite far from being charming, chivalrous, etc., etc., We soon got to talking (rather I coerced him to talk) about his "boy friend experiences" and all.

He told me a few things about that, I HAD to put on the blog.

Even after five years Krishna could not predict what mood she would be in, why she would say something but mean quite the opposite, why she would spend hours at the Mall and never purchase a thing, why he was responsible for all the bad fortune that occurred to them, and the purpose of having a teddy bear. He did convince me that these were not complaints but this stuff just puzzles the him. Although this drives him to desperation from time to time. There are a zillion things he likes about 'her' and how...

She can kill with a smile
She can wound with her eyes
She can ruin your faith with her casual lies
And she only reveals what she wants you to see
She hides like a child
But she's always a woman to me

She can lead you to love
She can take you or leave you
She can ask for the truth
But she'll never believe
And she'll take what you give her, as long as it's free
She steals like a thief
But she's always a woman to me

Oh, she takes care of herself
She can wait if she wants
She's ahead of her time
Oh, and she never gives out
And she never gives in
She just changes her mind

And she'll promise you more
Than the Garden of Eden
Then she'll carelessly cut you
And laugh while you're bleedin'
But she'll bring out the best
And the worst you can be
Blame it all on yourself
Cause she's always a woman to me

Oh, she takes care of herself
She can wait if she wants
She's ahead of her time
Oh, and she never gives out
And she never gives in
She just changes her mind

She is frequently kind
And she's suddenly cruel
She can do as she pleases
She's nobody's fool
But she can't be convicted
She's earned her degree
And the most she will do
Is throw shadows at you
But she's always a woman to me

(She's always a woman to me - Billy Joel)

Strange!

PS: Krishna has just jumped to another firm. That makes me the lone CSE fresher @ my-current-employer. I getting jittery everytime somebody mentions the words future, career, on-site, cat,... I did send my resume to Krishna's-current-employer, and a few other companies. Secretly hoping I will get through. As usual I am confused, mixed-up, dazed, etc,etc.,

Corporate life - Part III

Ah! My own Cube

I can’t believe it! It is a giant leap, far better than being locked up in the dingy training room with Sam. After the strenuous training month, it is something I deserved (or so I think).
Well, there is a whole list of accessories that have come along with the “Cube”. A personal phone, a stack of drawers, a coffee mug and of course the machines, thanks to Murthy with some maska, Micheal and me were given good ones, a GB of RAM and all ( I remember my first machine had a Hard Disk of the same capacity). I spent the whole day calling up friends and fiddling with every device on my table. Although most of you may find it juvenile, this is very new to me, and I am enjoy every moment of it.

At about 9:30 AM today I was introduced to my lead, Vini. Micheal told me she was “khadoos”, so I made it a point to put as much maska as possible (yeah! I don’t care what you call me ‘suck up’, etc., etc., naanirode heege ( I am like this only)). 2:00 PM in the after noon I was already in a project meeting with 4 others I had not seen before, Manna, Meesh, Beed and Madhuka. Manna Meesh and Beed knew each other well. Madhuka and myself were new. She was a “resource” from another company called Symphony; this was overheard from the discussion between my manager and Vini (I hate the practice of calling people resources, people are not resources you only resource the people).
Vini allocated the work at lightening speed. I was asked to work on three of the eleven-page change request. I had a bad feeling about this, it was confirmed when Vini said,”I think none of us have a problem working on week-ends”. I nodded in approval but suppressed all instincts to give the finger. Vini also arranged for a laptop for me( I was pretty excited at first but soon discovered that it was part of her devilish plot to make me work from home too).
The project was about tweaking a website, that allows people who are in a quest of their family tree to search the municipal records of UK. I was given the changes of the account module. I was supposed to change parts of the front-end as well as the back end. I simply had no fucking idea how to do it. But did contemplate on what kind of jobless people would use the website, have to appreciate the idea though, it is in fact making money.
Vini asked me to identify the changes to the files and database. I did take a whole day and explained it only the morning after. After obtaining Vini’s approval I started to make changes to the JSP. I fail to find an example to portray the amount of frustration I felt in programming in a language I did not know.
The worst part was even if I had a doubt about anything I was directed to Google. The problem with this was I didn’t know what I was looking for. So, Googling was just garbage in : garbage out.
I was forced to stay back almost everyday up to 9:00 PM.
Later that week Vini asked me if I could finish the work in the next three days. Although I didn’t know if I could I did agree. Then worked my ass off for the next week. Thank fully Vini was on leave on the D-day and two days there after. After a lot of coding and recoding I did complete the project, with lots of debugging help from Manna and Mesh. Manna reminded me of my elder sister, Mesh was a frustu tall lad who had this uncanny ability to switch jobs faster than girlfriends. He is a good mentor and a friend. Although I had pushed the dead line for a whole week, I was fucking relieved.
I desisted from putting the disclaimer:

Some parts of the code may be unnecessary, but removing or altering them may affect the smooth functioning of the application. The author shall not be responsible for any abnormal behaviour as a result of the code written. Henceforth he is free of servile (de-bugging, redesigning, recoding, etc.,) bands. The liability of any bug discovered while testing will lie with the tester itself, and the bug shall not be reported to Team Lead, Manager or any other employee of the company who has considerable influence on the appraisal of the author. If any parts of the code is reproduced, you should seriously consider an executive's post in the 'L' club.

PS: Please excuse me for all the profanity in the post, had to vent the frustration.

...To be continued