Raasukutty's

Author: Rajeshwaran SP

  • A R Rahman – The Genius

    Yesterday, I was in those slog moments (when you feel to do nothing).

    I just swithced on my PC to hear some songs. Keeping the volume full on my 5.1 speaker set, (not bothering the neighbours of course), I was just lying there on the bed hearing.

    The song was ”Malarodu Malar ingu magilnthadum pothu”‘ from the film, Bombay by A.R.Rahman. Simply superb. It can only composed by such a genius like him.

    The music, the voice and the lyrics… Soothing, insiring and comforting all at once. I was lost. Next song on the list was “Yenmel Vizhuntha Panithuliye”‘ from ‘May Madham” againg by A.R.Rahman. Stupendous! No words to describe the feel.

    What could have been running in A R R’s mind when he was composing the songs. How did he choose on what instrument should be played when (I really could not guess a lot of instruments played over in it) but it was a great arrangement. How comes he chose the right person to render the vocals. Simply A Genius is what I can say.

    These two songs changed the mood of the day. I followed it by hearing to ‘En Kaadhale’ and ‘Vennilavin Theril’ from ‘Duet’ .

    Geniuses are born! Not made!

  • Demystifying kCal – Calories – calorie

    As a part of my recent Cardio routine at the gym, I noticed a lot of difference in the units used in a lot of the machines. Being an instrumentation engineer by the degree I hold, it disturbed me a lot and I wanted to know actually what the units used indicate.

    The treadmill read the unit in kCal (kilo calorie). The cycle read the unit in Cal (Calorie).

    A unit of energy is calorie. This is what is used in physics and sciences. In nutrition, food and exercises, it is quite different. The unit of enery is measured in kCal or Calorie.

    1 kCal = 1 Calorie = 1000 calorie.

    So the next time you notice Cal in the gym, remember this!

  • Geek Code

    Here goes  my geek code as from http://www.geekcode.com

    -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
    Version: 3.1
    GCS/IT/S d+()@>- s:+ a----- C++$ UL P L+ E--- W++ N- !o-- K- w++$ O-- M- !V-- PS PE Y PGP+ t !5-- !X !R tv+ b++ DI D G e++ h-- r-- y--
    ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK-----

    Edit: I found a site where you can generate it easier without a hazzle, the Code of the Geek Generator. Hope you get it!

  • Dual booting Ubuntu and XP

    Starting out on the Open Source fever, I installed Mandriva, Suse and finally have settled with Ubuntu after two days of fighting over which distribution to go with. But Ubuntu doesn’t ask a lot of questions during install, about what to install and where to install grub etc.

    After installing Ubuntu, I saw that it had not even install gcc libraries but had installed the gcc compiler. Also, the default operating system to boot into was ‘Ubuntu’ instead of Windows XP. As I and my friends use the same machine and they have no liking to Linux, I needed Windows to boot first. During the installation, I was not provided the option to choose.

    I wanted to change the default boot option in grub. I had to edit the ‘menu.lst’ file located in /boot/grub manually. It does not allow to edit as the permissions for the only user was denied. The concept of ‘root’ user was not there, as I was not requested for the creation of a root user. I just created a user, and ubuntu assigns super user privilege to this user.

    To switch users, the ‘sudo’ command was to be used instead of ‘su’.

    Finally, all set and working. Still to install ruby, mysql, python, vlc.

  • Inner Calling

    What is life without an achievement? I had always wanted to live by the saying, “Live life, ‘King Size’”. Work, Earn and Enjoy life. I believe that there should be a good Work-Life balance.

    But something inside me maybe the ‘gut feeling’ suggest that, my life has a different purpose. And I feel that I am moving closer towards it. A feeling that cannot be described in words, something like being in love. I am not sure about what to do. Everything that I read, look and hear is beautiful. I have not seen a girl yet and so these can’t be taken to be symptoms of love.

    I just do whatever work come my way. Just like ‘Tom Hanks’ in ‘Forrest Gump’, putting efforts in whatever comes at me. I just have a feeling that I need to achieve something. Don’t know what? I have always dreamed about going to ‘Berlin’ (Engineering paradise), ‘Rome’ – to see all the churches. And now that feeling to go to these places is more pronounced.

    Let me wait and watch!

  • Keynote – Interest in Open Source

    I was stumbling the web as usual a few days back. I came across a keynote speech by Chris. This has changed my entire perspective of viewing the software business and industry. I have till now just enjoyed life as a programmer, reusing existing code, ‘googling’ what I don’t know and getting the job done by time.

    My life as a software engineer has just been concentrated on providing solutions that already exist. But real software engineering is not that. My goal in life is not that. I need to engineer something. A product, that people use in their day to day life. I remember my Engineering Mechanics professor’s definition of an engineer, ‘A person who creates, engineers something so that it is useful to the society in their daily life’. That is what I feel as the soul calling.

    This keynote address, http://gist.github.com/6443 was what I have been wanting to inspire me. He tells what a software is all about. It is the passion of a programmer that creates the wonder, a Real Software. What a programmer needs to do? The real joy comes from within and not from materialistic gains.

    What in the world can be more inspiring than one’s own creation. I have had moments when I felt this joy, pride and enthusiasm, that comes when I did programming, when a thing that I have been struggling with, at last comes to place, when the very blank mind of mine, finds a solution to a problem, when a client or peer appreciates. But they did not last long.

    Open Source is calling me to contribute. I have started out with Ruby and Python. Any suggestions are always welcome.

  • Google Chrome

    Google had launched its new browser ‘Google Chrome’. Right now I am typing this post in the Chrome browser. True to how Google had been in the past, ‘Google Chrome’ is simple, clean and does what it was intended to do.

    For developers, there is a Javascript debugger. Although I am missing the addons that I had in Firefox, I am sure that we will be having a lot of addons in the coming months.

    The interface is simple, loads a lot faster. There is one more feature, that is new in ‘Google Chrome’, the ‘incognito’ mode, wherein no browsing history, cookies are saved. Google had incorporated the best of features in all the browsers in this launch. Tabbed browsing, unintrusive password remembering tools, smooth import of bookmarks from IE and Firefox.

    Hope everyone has a happy Surfing!

  • Design Time Support in Custom Server Controls

    Visual Studio and ASP.Net provide excellent design time support for all controls. By Design Time support, I am referring to the Values and Description provided in the Properties window when a developer places his focus on the control.

    When designing custom server controls, providing such design time support is simple.

    [Category(“Custom”)]
    [Description(“Set the Corp Image URL.”)]
    public string CorpImageURL
    {
    get
    {
    return CorpImage.ImageUrl;
    }
    set
    {
    EnsureChildControls();
    CorpImage.ImageUrl = value;
    }
    }

    Here a property CorpImageURL to set the URL for a Image control is exposed. If the ‘get’ part of the Property is not defined, then the design-time support for the property will not be enabled. So to get the design time support, it is necessary to set the ‘get’ accessor.

    The attribute ‘Category’ is used to set the category in which the property will be displayed in the properties window. So in this case, a ‘Custom’ category is defined. If the Properties window is configured to show in the ‘Categorized’ mode, this new Category, ‘Custom’ will be displayed.

    The attribute ‘Description’ is used to set the description for the property. The description of the property to instruct what the developer is supposed to provide to the property.

    The attribute ‘DefaultValue’ is used to set the default value for the property. Note: This value will be displayed only on the properties window. It will not be assigned to the property by default.

  • Two point someone – Part II

    Chapter 2:
    The final year winded smoothly, with fewer subjects, project work and lots of time advicing juniors. In April 2006, my college days got over. I was spending the last big vacation in my native place, when I received a call from the HR of Cognizant asking me to join the next day. I packed my bags and  reached Chennai the same day night.
    When I told Sri and Soms over phone that I got a call from HR, they too got eager and called up HR. To our surprise, they were also allowed to come the same day. On that Friday morning, clad in complete formals, there we were in TCO office, where destiny had brought us. The office seemed like a palace. We were not even allowed inside and had to wait at the security gate. We felt proud then seeing the tight security in office. Anyone wearing a company tag commanded respect from us. We were taken to the Academy block and given loads of papers to be autographed by us. Who knows what it was, the HR person told us to turn to each page and place a sign in the specified places. Once done, we were asked to come to Tidel Park for orientation on Monday. We also has a medical examination that very day. The gals (figures in our slang) were good, but most of them where my college.  So we didn’t care much about them. We knew we will get to see more people in the office than these girls. (One point to be noted here is that all three of us had no girl friends, the sad part of the story, but we manage to give the feeling that we didn’t want a girl friend).
    In Tidel, it was just a full day of lecture, getting introduced to the ‘Exceeding customer expectation’ band wagon of Cognizant. One session that interested us was when they had all the lights out and asked each guy to take a seat next to a gal. But as fate would have it, again, I got to sit next to my class mate and when I turned to see who else was next to her, it was Soms. Cursing badly, we made it past the session and was back. We had no residence here in Chennai, so we got the Pallavaram office accomodation. We were a happy lot though many complained about the food and water.
    Getting into the Siruseri Academy and seeing the facilities, we felt we were truly in the dream destination. The automatic coffee vending machine, the small pool at the academy with seats around it, the lighting, the feel inside an air-conditioned office, the boot polisher were all new to us. We felt we were on top of the world. Training was a honeymoon period. Fun, food, girls, mock tests, mock projects. It was as if we were being paid for attending college. We were not sure on what to do with the two point salary we got then. We wore the tag everywhere in the evening. When in formals and shoes, the textile shops which once would not serve us, showed interest in allowing us to window shop. With money came everything. But all joy should come to an end and so the training ended and we as lucky for Soms and Sri to be on the same project. But I was alone in a new project. I had to move to Navallur and they were in TCO. By now, we had our residences in the IT Hub, Thiruvanmiyur. Those were wonderful days.

  • Two Point Someone – Part I

    Disclaimer:
    The places and figures presented in this story are real. The story is out of imagination and is fictitious based on real events.

    Epilogue:
    I am Rajesh. I am going to narrate a few years of my life. It is spun around three characters, Rajesh (me), Soms and Sri. Both my friends from my college.  It is altogether a different story how we became friends, but that we are now. This story starts from the 3rd year of our college life.

    Chapter 1:
    It was the peak of summer in Chennai in the year 2005. I, Soms and Sri were all seated in out hostel rooms in MIT(Not Massacheuts but Madras Institute of Technology, Anna University). We were cursing the sun for having out sweat out the day preparing for our placements. With 3 years of college life already wasted in culturals and chats, we were trying to cope up with the studies which we had missed the previous years. Though we had battled out in 12th standard to get into Anna University, studying was not for us. We desperately needed to attend the campus interview, as none of us three had any aspirations on GATE or GRE. We never has the pressure on us though. On May 27, 2005, in the afternoon, after our lunch in the mess, Sri was solving out Aps from R.K.Agarwal and puzzles from Shakuntala Devi. Soms as usual was sleeping hearing to his Rock Gods AC-DC, Metallica playing. I was seated in the bed wondering whether to join Sri or Soms.
    Our placement representatives had gone for a discussion with the Placement Cell. In the evening they came and informed us the slot of companies. It turned out that placement started from May 29 and went through June 15, with a company turning up everyday. The first on the list was Cognizant, followed by Tata, Infosys and Wipro, the top recruiters. 3/4 th of the 3rd year students were aspiring to get into one of these four companies.
    With just 2 days to go, we were bound shopping that evening, getting the needed business formals, tie and stuff. That night, we had resources pouring out from everywhere. Everyone was busy. Sri was busy brushing us C, I and Soms immersed in Puzzles wondering what in the world does one get in solving puzzles that the companies wanted to get it. The next day meant serious business with getting the long forgotten shoes polished, certificates and files in place. Also our class members had a secret meeting in our class sorting out the strategy for the next day.
    May 29 dawned. It was the day when we attended our dream company, Cognizant. (It was a dream then, as our seniors here at Cognizant told us that it was headquartered in US, and offered many onsite offers to its employees). Written exams went fine. We had enough lime juice and water packets to get through the heat in the CEG campus. Results of the written exam were out and all three of us were selected in the 1100 selected that day. The next day was the interview. We just could get enough sleep that day with all the anxiety. After 10 minutes of interview and waiting in the University auditorium for 3 hours, the results were out. 504 were selected and it was a dream come true for the three of us. We were selected and we can enjoy the rest of the college days. Thus we landed a offer from Cognizant, a dream conquered.