Jaimon’s Blog

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Switching my blog

I changed my blogs to my own server.

Interviewing skills

Ever thought of this. I'm just back from a video recording of an interviewing session. Basically, I had to ( along with my colleague ) interview a fresher and a two years experienced candidate. Our HR video recorded the process for training the other senior people who should start recording now. The process was good and at times, we forgot that we are in a drama. We were dead serious in testing the poor candidates ( again our own colleagues ) skills. The same time, the situation changes when they start asking questions to you. Boy, its not easy to answer the basics after 10 years of industry experience.

Google Fixes IE Bug

Google Fixes IE Bug: "aussie_a writes 'Without accepting blame Google has quickly patched the vulnerability, without requiring users to download a patch. Previously covered by Slashdot, the flaw allowed people to access files and passwords on a computer via any website when viewed with IE while running Google Desktop.' From the article: ''Google was able to address the problem quickly because it didn't require changing any code at the user's desktop,' MacDonald said. 'Google applied more stringent security controls on its main site, which shut down the exploit.' The incident does raise important questions about Google as a desktop software vendor and its plans for rolling out future security fixes, said MacDonald. '"

FOSS.IN 2005 starts today

FOSS.IN is India's largest Free & Open Source Software (FOSS) event. It attracts a lot of participants from India and from rest of the world. This is the natural successor to the enormously successful Linux Bangalore conference, and it covers many additional topics related to FOSS, like *BSD, community, advocacy, FOSS in education, copyrights and patents, etc.

This year, it becomes more significant, as the Govt. of India would be the "Principal Sponsor" of the event, apart from the sponsorship from various corporates like Intel, Google, Sun and HP. The venue has been changed to Palace ground considering the increased number of participation.

The event also boasts of a large number of distinguished speakers ranging from Alan Cox (Linux kernel maintainer), Rasmus Lerdof (Mr. Php), Harald Welte (netfilters/iptables), Zaheda Bhorat (Head of Open Source, Google) and a lots of other *star* Indian and foreign speakers.

Prasad and myself had proposed two topics. One of them, Cross Platform Programming Techniques was today. The schedule was slipped due the the morning talks getting extended. We had only about 50 participants for this talk. We felt that, any topics without a linux word in that attract less crowd. I gave the presenaton alone since the time given was only 40 minutes.

tuesdays with Morrie

"People would come visit, friends, associates, but it is not the same as having someone who will not leave. It is not the same as having some one whom you know has an eye on you, is watching you the whole time."

- Prof. Morrie Schwartz about family

"If you want the experience of having complete responsibility for another human being, and to learn how to love and bond in the deepest way, then you should have children."

"When you learn how to die, you learn how to live."

A beutifully written book, I must say. Now is the time to reclaim yourself. Now is the time to see yourself again as who you really are, and thus, render yourself visible again.

We were gifted the book "tuesdays with Morrie" by our mentoring workshop team. It is about a professor and a student who re-unite with the professor after 16 years. Like every student, even Mitch promised to keep in touch with the professor when he was graduated. However, he caught up with his own life and forgot the old promises in the run of becoming rich and famous. The professor, who was aging, was terminally ill by that time. He had ALS ( amyotrophic lateral sclerosis ) a brutal, unforgiving illness of the neurological system.

Mitch decides to Visit the Professor after accidently seeing a TV program about the professor. Thus the class begun. Mitch visits the professor for next 14 weeks and they talk about one area in every tuesday; many topics were covered, including love, work, community, family, aging.... A funeral was held in lieu of graduation.

A touching story and the insight that the professor had is true for the stressful life even we follow. I would recommend that everyone reads this book.

Mentoring Workshop

I'm attending a mentoring workshop today and tomorrow. This is conducted by an external HR consulting firm called CORE MIND (Corporate Renaissance of Employees Maximization of Individual's Needs and Desires ). The title of the program is "MENTORING - An Invaluable Corporate Lifeline ! Unleash Power of Employee Transformation & Corporate Dynamism".

Perspective
Executives and Managers are feeling battered by the pressures mounting on them and need support, for surviving and growing. Mentoring ideally falls into place and has never been felt more essential. There is an imperative need to meet growing desires of employess to be guided in the work place. Their personal and functional competencies require enhancement. Growing organizations reap utmost benefits by leveraging Mentor - Protégé bonding. Mentoring processes enable mutual growth for Mentors and Protégés which result in overall Organizational Effectiveness, Cultural improvements and Customer delight.

"If every Leader / Manager in Corporate life served as a Mentor to Protégé as well as become a Protégé to a Mentor, we would be more successful and capable of transforming Organizations substantially faster than we do today"

Organization Transformation Model Through Mentoring Process

Voluntarism by and / or Identifcation of Protential Mentors
Integrating willing Mentors and desiring Protégés
Mentors and Protégés relish their journey of togetherness in life
Mentors and Protégés build relationships of mutual acceptance
Mentors enable Protégés in enhancing Personal and Performance Effectiveness
Mentors transform Protégés into emotionally engaged employees
Emotionally engaged employees create emotionally engaged customers
Emotionally engaged customers drive business growth, profits & shareholder value

There are many more to add here to get a perspective of this training program.
The training is conducted by G. Udayakumar, Director of CORE MIND who is a freelancer and excellent corporate trainer.

We were asked to choose a buddy in the beginning of the program. Coincedently, Anand Sinha became my buddy. Then we were asked to mix with another pair of buddies and laer with another set of such group. We were asked to come up with a name, slogan and a song for each team. Here are the teams we formed
1. Phoenix - "Fly High" ( I belong to this group)
2. Disha - "Hum Hein na? "
3. Gurukul - "Reach out"
4. Vanskape - "Passionately Pursuing Potential" ( They say that this name is formed by taking first letter of all members )
5. Enthu Cutlet - "You win, we win, we all win together"

Remaining part of the day was filled with various activities to remember and thus get an inner sight of various people who touched or made a difference in each one of our life.

A weekend in Veerajpet

We had a series of holidays in the first week of November. We decided to drive down to Veerajpet, a southern district, famous for coffee. The Chegappa couple has a house where they accommodate nature lovers with homely food and atmosphere. The Honey Valley estate is an ideal place to spend a couple of days for any nature lovers.

Though they warned us about climbing up with our scorpio, we decided to test the vehicle. We could manage even though we got stuck in one place. ( I don't recommend anyone else to take a chance if the muddy road that leads to Chengappa house is slushy )

We enjoyed the environment and decided to just roam around close to the resort in the first day. Second day, we trekked to Tadiyantanamol, one of the highest peak in western ghats. It was a 16 km trekk through multiple leach palaces. Axe deo was a real savor in this case. ( I found lots of blood and leach bite when I removed my shoe in the evening ). It started raining as we reached top and I should admit, the view from top is something that one should experience.

Checkout some of the photographs in our gallery

On return, we came back through Bhagamandala ( bhagandeswara temple), Talacauvery ( birth place of River Cauvery ), Abbe falls in Madikery and the Golden Temple in Kushal Nager.

Changes...Changes...Changes

It has been a hard time in office for last two weeks. There are lots of changes happening. Leadership changes, team changes. As managers are given training to implement changes, ICs should be given training to accept changes, I think.

Anyway I have to concentrate few things in work front and personal. Foss is coming up and I have a teaching assignment. The first cut of slides are submitted and we are waiting for the next milestone.

December 26th, 2004 changed the map of areas located in and around Indian Ocean.  A little mischief of nature, called TSUNAMI played havoc on thousands of people.  It was a shock to see people being carried away into the sea with the gigantic waves destroying everything that came in its way.  Though people were taken aback for a moment, government and various non-government organizations swung into action and started relief work.



I also happened to visit Nagapattinam for relief work along with an NGO from Bangalore.  We reached Nagapattinam at around 3:30 in the morning on Wednesday, January 5th.  Our destination was a small village called Akkarapette , close to Nagapattinam town.  The place was deserted at this time of the morning, and it was horrifying to see boats on the road, broken houses everywhere and the roar of the ocean in the background.  The place looked like a battlefield.  In the morning, the area was full of activities, with various restoration works taking place.  The Army is playing an important role in the region and restoring bridges, roads etc.



We learned that there is an NGO co-ordination center ( http://www.tsunami2004-india.org )setup at the Collector’s office to co-ordinate the various types of help pouring in.  Any NGO can go and register with this co-ordination center and the center will then assign various villages based on the NGO's area of interest.  There are daily meetings happening, and they have already identified the following areas that need involvement from NGOs.

- Rehabilitation

- Community Kitchen

- Medical AID, Health and Sanitation

- Relief

- Disposal of dead bodies

- Rehabilitation of children ( Especially Orphans)

- Housing

- Volunteers

- Miscellaneous

The list of NGOs working on each of these areas is available with NGO co-ordination center.



After leaving the NGO co-ordination center on the first day, we visited a relief camp  to counsel and play with the children.  This was suggested as a good way to spend a few hours, since the psychological needs of children are often overlooked in the rush to provide immediate food, aid, and shelter.  The children were overjoyed to have visitors who could help them take their minds off of the disaster they had just experienced.



The second day, we surveyed  several remote villages to determine their need for supplies, shelter, etc.  It seemed that most villages were well off in the basic supplies, but needed tools and most substantial aid in rebuilding their boats and houses.  One problem seen was the lack of aid received by certain castes that were isolated by the other villages.



The third day, we assisted the villagers of one smaller  village in clearing and cleaning several of the relatively intact houses.  We cleared thorn bushes, trees, mud, and helped cleanse a previously unusable house so that a family might be able to stay there.  There was a division within the village, with some villagers choosing to help with the cleanup effort, while other chose to not become involved.



I was told that there was no coordinated relief effort for the first few days after the disaster.  The South Indian Federation of Fishermen Societies (SIFFS) and SNEHA set up the co-ordination center at the Nagapattinam collectorate after this.  This center looks after the daily needs in various camps and villages in addition to coordinating long term relief activities with various NGOs.  They have volunteers working at each of the rehabilitation camps and villages who track the daily requirements of the camps and villages.  Volunteers at the co-ordination center compile this list and deliver the supplies by the next morning.  Individuals who are interested in donating in any form can contact the center and find out their requirements.  We also see large number of supplies in terms of food grains, cloths, utensils, medicines etc. pouring into the affected areas from various part of the country.  Actually, the supplies coming in are much more than what is required.  It is advised that people talk to the center before dispatching any supplies.  It will be a good idea to setup a co-ordination center at nearby cities from where help is coming.  We should have centers at big cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Bombay, Pune, Delhi which will in tern work with co-ordination centers at Cuddalor, Nagapattinam etc. It will be good if media can take up this initiative.  It will also help us in directing help to needy places in future also.



We also felt involvement from villagers should be sought before helping them with supplies.  NGOs or groups should make sure villagers clean up their surroundings; help the volunteers with daily work etc.  This will help them in recovering from the disaster and look forward for their livelihood.  We found that, at least in some places villagers are expecting supplies and help to come to them.



Though we can't repair the damages caused by TSUNAMI in various part of the world, it is overwhelming to see that people are extending their helping hand to the people in distress.  It will take months before life becomes normal for these people. Let us remember our friends whom we lost to the fury of sea in our prayers and hope nature won't cause another tragedy to occur for quite some time.



References:

• TSUNAMI relief work web site: http://www.tsunami2004-india.org
• Contact number at NGO co-ordination center, Nagapattinam: 04365 252800
• Deputy Director of Health services (Nagapattinam): 04365 293323
• Collector’s office in Nagapattinam: 04365 251882

Photographs: 

• Jaimon's TSUNAMI Photos
• Cory's TSUNAMI Photos

Its pizza time... People think its fun to attend these meetings because we can have pizzas...Hmmm.. I don't mind letting them attend and eat all my pizzas if I can go home early...

However, leaving that apart, here are some of the interesting quotes that I found on the pizza cover...

"You won't find pick pockets in a nudist camp"

"Hey Mom, Every slice of US pizza is packed with the energy bosoters growing teens need"

I'm in the architecture meeting. Erin is qiving a exciting talk about what the future of our product is. He brought a roller skate board ( is it the correct name of skate board) and explained how the same product is marketed for 4 different markets. Hmmm.... he wants to see kepler that way...same product...marketed for different markets. Interesting....

Today is the setuup day. The weather is awesome. I remember, how cold it was to stand in the One Net solutions lab two years back. We didn't have to use a jacket today.
I was supposed to setup multiple instances. Looks like its mess. I have no clue how to get the new builds up and running. Rajesh gave me a set of manul steps to achieve this. I don't think I can demo multiple instances this way. So, I started changing the our old multiple-instance script. Alas, it was only the beginning of a big mess. Two instances won't stay up together....I can't bind one isntance to a specific ip address..., my "ndsconfig rm" coredumps... Finally, after kind of developing a feature sitting in the brainshare lab, I got four replicas configured.

I'm trying to setup a set of unit tests for my code in a Linux box. Its pain working on these when you don't know how the layers below you work. Its more painful when the guys who own this don't know how all these work. Need to figure out somehow. Anyway checkout my new photographs at my photograph's page

Last three days I spent at SanDeago. I'm attending OpenGroup conference now. Its fun working with all these

Wanted to finish lots of work. I'm trying to write a document for last 3 hours. I could complete only few sentences. Lots of phone calls, planning, thinking etc, are happening in background for some property related matter. I have to complete one document and start coding of couple of features by this week end.

One interesting thing I did today is to start writing blogs. I found this blogger where I can have my free web log. newsisfree is another interesting site i found to aggregate all my RSS feeds.
You can see more of my activities listed here more often nowonwards.