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While browsing on a website, i stumbled upon this. First time for me and i was wowed. The interesting fact is that the clothes worn by the actor (Salman Khan) was pre decided. What do you say??

Drawing with SDEdit

Today I had been assigned the task of creating sequence diagram for one of the project I am working on. As with most of the things this was first time for me.

A sequence diagram helps you in understanding flow of control from one component to another component of your software when a particular action (ex. User presses a button, or your web service receives a request, or a scheduler wakes up and starts some action) is triggered. It is the intermediate step between writing problem on a document to converting solution in a programming language (Java, C/C++ etc)

Anyways since I was new to doing this, my first thought was lets do it in Microsoft word or Powerpoint. But very soon I realized the futility of this approach. I will have spent whole day on drawing lines and blocks. Then someone suggested to use Microsoft Visio. I installed it too, but only to realize that it doesn't have capability to draw sequence diagrams.

Then I searched for tools. There are many tools available on internet but most of them are commercial. Finally I stumbled upon SDEdit. This is a java based tool and available as open source. Perfect for my needs. However understanding the working of this tool required reading the help text for 30 minutes or so. It uses commands to draw and is not as intuitive as MS Word or powerpoint. Reminds me of latex. But the end result was very beautiful. With just 10-12 commands I had drawn the sequence diagrams and created pdf out of it. It even allowed me to create pdf in landscape mode (better for viewing). Overall a very useful tool. Please share your experience and let me know if you have used other similar good open source tools for UML etc.

Auto ride and wait

These days auto rickshaw is my main mode of commute. So far it has been going smoothly for my daily commute from home to work and back. But today was different.

After leaving from home, I prefer to walk little bit. First reason is to settle the heavy breakfast I had. Another is to avoid the rickshaw-wallahs near my home. They typically charge more. For a Rs 30 fare, they will ask around 50-60. So I walk till the McDonald’s nearby. McDonald’s being the hot spot; it is easy to get a ride from here.

However today as it turned out, either all the autos were full or those who weren’t didn’t want to go to Bhau Patil Road (my office location). I had talked to almost 15 drivers but with no luck. One was going in the same direction but had another female passenger. So the auto-wallah asked the girl if I could share the auto. Maybe out of apprehension or maybe she thought she had the exclusive rights, she didn’t budge. “Main doosra auto le loongi. Mujhe nahin jana”. To end this discussion I had to tell the auto-wallah to let go. I waited for another 5 minutes and then suddenly an auto stopped in front of me.

The driver was an old fellow. All the white hairs and must be above 70. He agreed to take me and turned on the meter. No haggling. And thus ended my almost 20 minute wait. This ride was very joyous and I didn’t mind leaving some tip for the gentleman.

Coming Back to India

We made a decision to come back to India. There are many reasons behind this. People ask all the time what happened? Why are you leaving after so many years? And these questions come from even a cab driver. The simple answer is that i just wanted to come.

In this post i will write how things have progressed since we made the decision about 4-5 months back.

1) Job Search

After we decided that it is time to move back, i started searching for jobs in India. In India right now Bangalore, Hyderabad, NCR (National Captial Region including Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida) are the prominent places for IT jobs. However i had been reading in the news that Hyderabad is very hot place. After living in a very good californian climate who will like to live in too hot climate. Recently Pune has come up as a very good spot for IT business. Many reputed companies have setup their development centers. Pune is very near to metropolitan city Mumbai and it seems to have a nice weather. Further my wife has stayed here for her B.E days and she liked it. So it became the top location choice. Second preference was Bangalore and then Delhi region. Then it started by sending resume to friends and contacts in linkedin. I also registered on job sites like monster india and naukari.com. From the job sites i keep on getting the requirement emails. However 99% of the time it didn't result in any actual conversation. Looks like companies in India are hesitant in hiring guys from US. From some companies i got the advice that i should come to India for a face to face interview then only they will consider it. Finally after 2-3 months one company from Pune started the telephonic interview process. The whole process took about 1 months. Finally they offered me the job. It came just 2 day before we were about to leave for our east coast trip. They asked me to join in 1 month. My current job required to give a notice of 4 weeks. This was a very tight deadline. However i negotiated with them for 2 weeks extra time. Then i talked to then current employer about my decision. There was no objection from them and things went pretty smoothly there. Then we left for our 10 days vacation trip to East Cost.

2) East Coast Trip

This trip was planned for quite some time. I never got a chance to visit east coast during last so many years. So thought we must make a trip before finally going back. Who knows when we will get another chance. So on 1st July early morning we left our house to catch the flight. Thanks to Uma Aunty for dropping us at the Fremont BART. If you are living in East Bay area then BART is the best way to go to San Francisco. Very pleasant. Much better than driving or by cab.

Reached SFO on time and got the boarding pass of Virgin America. It had one stop at LAX where we waited at airport for about couple of hours. Then the next flight was for almost 5 hours. Since this was the first time for Kundan to travel, he got very uncomfortable during the last one hour. The seats of a plane (in economy class) are not comfortable at all. It is a torture for adults then just imagine the situation of a 2 year old. We reached JFK at around midnight. That night we stayed in a nearby hotel JFK Inn. They had courtesy shuttle service, which picked us soon. The room was small and it had a very big TV. So looked like sitting in the first row of cinema hall.

Next day we flew to Niagra Falls. We reached buffalo airport at around 2 o clock. There is a bus service from buffalo airport to niagra falls. But its frequency is very less. So we made sure that we reach the bus stop in time. The due time 3 PM came but there was no sign of bus. Using bus it will cost you only 3 bucks per person, otherwise the cab will charge you around $100. There were other people waiting for the same bus. Slowly they took the cab. But we stayed there waiting. Finally the bus showed and we went happily to our hotel (Quality Inn). The credit goes to Anshu for being persistent that we should wait for some more time. After changing we took the trolley and went to see Niagra. It was just amazing..

3) Selling our household items

4) Long flight from SFO to Kolkata

5) Stay in Kolkata

6) Stay in Darbhanga

7) Starting in Pune

PS: Since it is getting late for me i have not filled in the details. Intend to do it later.

Premchand Notes (Kayakalp)

From Premchand Notes

FARQ SIRF ITNA SA THA

Teri doli uthi,
Meri mayyat uthi,
Phool tujh par bhi barse,
Phool mujh par bhi barse,

FARQ SIRF ITNA SA THA
Tu saj gayi,
Mujhe sajaya gaya .

Tu bhi ghar ko chali,
Main bi ghar ko chala,

FARQ SIRF ITNA SA THA
Tu uth ke gayi,
Mujhe uthaya gaya .

Mehfil wahan bhi thi,
Log yahan bhi the,

FARQ SIRF ITNA SA THA
Unka hasna wahan,
Inka rona yahan.

Qazi udhar bhi tha, Molvi idhar bhi tha,
Do bol tere pade, Do bol mere pade,
Tera NIKKAH pada, Mera JANAAZA pada,

FARQ SIRF ITNA SA THA
Tujhe Apnaya gaya ,
Mujhe Dafnaya gaya !

PS: It is not my creation. I have shamelessly copied and pasted from some mailing list.

Shoddy customer service of Reliance iCall

Please see below the email communication i am having with the customer service at Reliance. Do you think i am not justified at being upset with them. It has been 4 days and i am not able to use their service. Instead of taking it seriously they are playing email game with me.


==============================================

Dear Sir/Madam,
I am not going to waste my time in answering these questions. If you want me to continue the service and pay for it, please call in between 7:30 PM - 9:30 PM. Otherwise i will happily take my business else where and inform others too.

With regards
Anup
- Hide quoted text -


On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 12:14 AM, wrote:


Dear Customer,

We understand that you have faced an issue while using our services.

Kindly confirm the exact error message you get while using the services. Also provide the IP address for further investigation.


In case you require any information regarding our services, visit the Help or FAQs section of our website, for further details give your comments in our feedback section at www.relianceicall.com or mail us at customercare@relianceicall.com.


Keep Talking
Reliance iCall Team







To
customercare@relianceicall.com
cc
Subject
Re: In response to you Reliance iCall feedback





> 1. Suitable timing for test call : 7:30 - 8:30 AM PST, 7:30 - 10:00 PM PST
> 2. Phone number to contact you for on-line testing. : +1-XXX-XXX-XXXX
> 3. Country name from which you are calling: US
> 4. Destination country.: India
> 5. Time and date of unsuccessful calls: All attempts made since last 3 days.
> 6. IP address:

On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 5:05 AM, wrote:
>
> Dear Customer,
>
> We are analyzing the issue, if required we would like to do on-line testing.
> Please provide following info:
>
> 1. Suitable timing for test call
> 2. Phone number to contact you for on-line testing.
> 3. Country name from which you are calling
> 4. Destination country.
> 5. Time and date of unsuccessful calls
> 6. IP address:
> 7. Brief of issue faced:
>
> In case you require any information regarding our services, visit the Help
> or FAQs section of our website,for further details give your comments in our
> feedback section at www.relianceicall.com or mail us at
> customercare@relianceicall.com.
>
> Keep talking
> Reliance iCall Team

Hibernate Tutorial With Java

A good tutorial on how to get started with hibernate. I am going to try it with H2 DB instead of MySQL.

People's madness to See Amitabh Bachhan

On importance of doing

This is a quote from a speech that President Theodre Roosevelt delivered at the Sorbonne in April 1910 entitled "Citizenship in a Republic". This was also lately quoted in book "Too Big to Fail"

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails with daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

The biggest baby and child recalls of the year.

This is part of my gmail mailbox. I didn't know that babies were on sale :-)

Importance of Individuality (An excerpt from "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostovesky)

I like them to take nonsense. That man's one privilege over all creation. Through error you come to the truth. I am a man because i err. You never reach any truth without making 14 mistakes and very likely 114, and a fine thing too in its own way. But we can't even make mistakes on our own account. Talk nonsense, but talk your own nonsense and i will kiss you for it. To go wrong in ones own way is better than to go right in someone else's. In first case you are a man and in a second case you are no better than a bird.

Amazing stunt

My workplace Restroom Messages

I always laugh when i see "Every Drop Counts" message on the Urinal. Wonder which drop they are referring to??

A very nice and yummy dinner

Thanks to Hana and Samir for inviting us.

Happy Kundan on a sunny day

Soda accident and pile up

Kundan Running wild in Target Store

Google didn’t buy a Super Bowl ad.

Gross misrepresentation of facts by BBC

Generally BBC does a good job at providing reliable news. However here in this news titled "Alarm at Mumbai's teenage suicide trend" they have done something terribly wrong.

In this piece of news they have discussed that a recent movie "3 idiots" is in a way encouraging kids to take their own life.

The content is as follows.

One theory behind the recent rise is the influence of a recently released Bollywood blockbuster, Three Idiots, which has a scene where an engineering student is shown committing suicide after a mediocre exam result.

The film's impact has been debated and scrutinised in prime time television shows, with many directly blaming it for adding to the problem.


As i recently saw this movie, the engineering student didn't commit suicide because of mediocre exam result, it was because he failed to complete the required practical assignment and proff didn't give extra time to finish it.

BBC should check their facts before publishing such error.

PS: I completely agree that these days competition is very tough and is takings toll on young kids. For this we need a change in our educational system and more than anything parents and teachers should be engaged in a eye opening discussion such as there are other things more important than a grade/percentage in class.

However life is always tough and that's the way it is. That doesn't mean someone will always commit suicide. A final year boy in engineering college should be more sensible to do such stupid thing. And should we stop showing truth. Further parents should take time to interact with kids and explain them the difference between movie and real world. If mom and dad don't have time to talk to kids, then it is their fault above anyone else.