Quinn's Quest For Laptop - II

Now that I got back to my senses the first thing I did was go to the Dell US site as I see that third world countries are uniformly snubbed out of "chat live" feature, an exceptional feature. I mean of course the toll free helpline numbers exist but any given time I would love to chat than talk.

One of my frustrations with Dell was XP option was completely wiped out with many models and I desperately wanted one. For this the dell fella proved to be hellava help. Not only that he also informed me about becoming "dell care customer", a one step sign in process, with which one can avail further 3% discount. Most importantly I learnt I can partition the disk with no issues at all. Prior to this talking Joy had told me some laptops especially dell ones can't be partitioned at all and with all my 6 year download-install-format experience I knew how important partitions are. Without any exception I make it a point to store all my files anywhere except C:.

There was something else running on my mind. Few months before when Hrithik was configuring his laptop Ranjit had strongly suggested him to go for 9 cell and a matter of 2 grand is worth every rupee. I called up Joy again and had a series of talks with him starting with the time of delivery, the warranty period, and also about the batteries. Somehow I feel he has the air of authenticity in what he talks and he talks no crap I tell you. I must have called him up like 5 to 6 times to talk about the same topic again and again i.e. the batteries, will it be worth it? Can I not wait? Will it not be heavy? Can I compromise? . Thanks buddy, I really admire patient people and you are the best. The twist of the story is : I had to compromise on 6-Cell (money problem :( )

Ok..here goes my final config list and I am freaking happy about it and the cost could have been much much lesser if not for Core 2 Duo instead of Dual Core...

• Midnight Blue
• Processor – Intel Core 2 Duo T5250
• Operating System- Genuine Windows XP Professional
• Memory – 2GB
• Hard Drive – 160 GB
• Internal Optical Drive- CD/DVD Writer

What follows next in the series is highly technical, stuff about what softwares I am going to install..Watch out!!!!!!!

Quinn's Quest For Laptop - I

(Note: Please Read this for continuity)

Now that I knew I needed to have one, the next question was which one to take with so many competetors- Dell, Lenovo, Compaq, Acer,VAIO. Programming is what I need and top of that after reading SO MANY bad reviews about Vista , it's hardware bankruptancy I decided on XP.

A Deadly Danger Averted:
....begin...
It was Sunday and was my first working "weekend" after I have come to the new project. Only the day before Teja had told me about his friend who would be coming to India and also that there are some real good discounts of 250$. From a week prior to this my search for the right configuration had begun with DELL being the ultimate winner. The reason being with the kind of configuration I need DELL turns out to be the lowest and in some cases I couldn't configure to what I want with others. The only glitch was this would take at least 3 weeks to come from the time it is ordered. Finally I had everything charted out and my initial configuration looked quite attractive and I still wasn't in i-hate-everything-about-vista mould.

• Windows Vista Home Premium
• 2 GB RAM
• Integrated Web Cam
• 250 GB HDD
• Intel Core 2 Duo
• Blue cover with Wireless Logitech Mouse.

and everything else that comes by default totalling aroudn $1380 with discount of $350. That morning his friend was online and hurried me on to confirm my details as the supposed "discount" period was going to expire. We both were hooked with gtalk and the talks went on. Time was ticking by and the cab fella wasn't the usual either. I went over the list thrice with him and gave my assent assuring that within few days the money would be transferred and left for the office.

!!!!!Could have almost ruined my life..that's Teja for you !!!!!

It was not until the cab reached Infy building did it strike me WHAT the hell am I going to tell my dad? Oh, god he would make a minced meat of me with his plus/minus point comparisions. Though I had mailed my friends, cousins and all I know in US for any "prospects" I haven't received any response. I mean I just struck out my first deal. That as far as dad is concerned i am dead. On top of that anti-Vista feelings have started to sink in. So I called up Chitti for his thoughts and I found out that everything was not that bad as the supposed discounts I might get around Christmas would be give or take 30$. I calmed a little.

Trrrrrrrrrrrrr... goes my phone and I was glad it was Mr.Ranganayakulu on the phone. Before I could really pour my heart out and ask him to hold the deal back I learnt that discount was pfff and that the next time it would come he would let me know. This my friends is what they call blessing in disguise or better still "Luck favors the brave " ( very very inappropriate .. i know..).

...ends here...

Holy Crap!!! What the hell was I thinking? Vista??? I mean....Vista?? Was I nuts or what after seeing how bad the perfomance is with Hari bearing the witness and a 20 GB of disk wastage for that chunky , non-impressive software?? Damn, how close I was in committing yet another grave mistake and man I don't know how much further I could have tolerated...

To be continued...

Prelude to Quinn's Quest For Laptop

Remember remember the month of September ??

Ok it was March, but it won't rhyme you see.. The Day Bofore the Big C series? . It's the turn of my laptop now and this time because I don't exactly know when it's gonna come but it IS gonna come in December. First of all I want to thank sincerely from bottom of my hear to my roommate, ex-classmate, friend and well wisher Hari Krishan a.k.a. harikris . The time he changed the password and refused to share it with me I knew I needed to do something about it and vowed myself I would not touch his laptop again and had sticked to it till yesterday ( when I had to use...) .

!!!!!HariKris...the Laptop Dude....!!!!!

In his place I would have felt the same. I mean wouldn't it be too uncomfortable for you to see someone else installing softwares that you would never use, reading and practising on your machine instead of giving it rest, watching movies at will whenever time permits? If your answers to the above questions is yes, well he has taken the next logical step. This wouldn't normally happen at homes but at room when you are forced to share systems these things matter. I saw no point in exlaining that all those things that he sees in Add/Remove components are bundled softwares and that I can't really chose what I won't use and what I would use. The softwares in question: SQL Server 2005 Express Edition, Visual Studio Web Express 2005.( Geeks your comments please?...Can I?). That's about him. And again ain't no finger pointing here. No sir, no..

!!!!!Eswar...obviously...the Desktop Dude....!!!!!

Now the other alternative: the desktop. I have a stiff competetion with what Eswar also practising real hard I had to have it. I am very much thankful to Eswar too for his dedication to work and working for hours in pursuit of glory!!! Frankly without these two guys displaying and doing what they did the thought of Laptop would have never materialized. And well like any software developer out there I wanted one.

What follows next is how I went about chosing for one....

A La Maudling in the making eh??

What's wrong with me these days? Why am I expecting abundant sympathy,words of comfort,pat on the back etc. from everyone?

Of course I knew she left because she had some work and for that what do I do? Write a long mail around 4'o clock in the night with overdose of sadness, masala and unnecessary details. It's good she gave a fitting reply. And with that I guess the situation has taken a slight different turn. It's too early to say but for days I saw the signs anyway.

Keeping that apart at the drop of the hat I am ready to cry like a baby babbling out everything and how things are going so bad for me. Mistake after Mistake. It's a bit reminiscent of how Ranjit felt initially in the project and me still managing two projects. But seriously what can I do? With the two options out of the way I might be stuck up in this bloody thing for the next one year to come? ONE DAMN YEAR!!!!!

I gues I have to accept it as is and keep looking for a way out and stick on with it. Here on this day and on this very blogspot I take a vow not to crib again to anyone about anything and "Chillax and get on with my work". Damn..I must have looked like a stalker ready to cry and embrace words of hope with the way I am going about cautiously asking for apology then thanking then again crying, ...phew..let me end this never ending saga now.

In the words of Kurt Cobain " I'd Rather be hated for who I am than be loved for who I am not, Wanting to be someone else is a waste of who you are . " - Bloody hell, I am back.

Ahem...Taking back my words from earlier post today I have successfully fixed a horrendous CR that has been literally plaguing me for so many days in fact 3 weeks to be precise and had well threatened my plans for Diwali..

!!!Happy days are ahead!!!

First Project, First..er..Second Impression

Haven't blogged for a month? Pathetic. That's what my state is now : Pathetic. It is not as if this is something new as I have done this quite regularly in the past. But this time it is out of emotional depravity and internal turmoil that has kept me away from blogging.

Came early today to get the e-ISBN done but it just refuses to make itself understood. My incapacity to tackle the problem and get it completed before the D-Day makes me feel terrible and it further bogs me down. It is so frustrating to find yourself helpless to get results not because you haven't tried different ways of tackling the issue but beacause you can't understand it. Added to this is the fact that feelings of Inferiority Complex have accumulated as a bonus. It looks like of all the people from the erstwhile team I am left to lick my own bloody wounds with everyone else in a better position.

Not a day passes without me thinking and recollecting that Terrible day of interview and the events that followed: Huge mail to Julie, 2 Euphoric blogs on this subject,"ippude gantuleyaku inka kotha project etlundo teledu kada" ani adarsh annappudu "edaina gani Usha kanna goramyinidi edi vundadu kada ra " ani nenandam, Talks with Potharaju and his subsequent molifcation, failure to see the simple difference between ASP and ASP.Net, not talking with Shrikanth when Ranjit had approached him. Asalu how did I commit such mistake? I feel as if I have done the biggest mistake of my life.

I have tried to crrect them but it was too late. After hearing so many people telling me so many things and opinions on how to keep cool and go on with life Julie's words stand out " Enjoy your work...Most important".

Well the funny part is my emotions keep on going from one extreme to other in the sense some days it remains light and some other times I just go into real bad depression. Coming to the project, heck I don't think I will ever write anything about this goddamn project and let me keep my blog clean at least..

Bad Timing for Snap Taking!!!

Is it just a coincidence or it was supposed to be that way? Months and days pass by as we work as a team. We will be so busy with doing something or the other and don't really think about capturing the events as they happen. Here are two set's of people with whom I had most inopportune time of taking these photos. See for yourself

!!!!!! Oh-so-blogger Team !!!!!!

(Left to Right)

• Ms.Talkative (Sindhu) - Have been long since I had a real talk session :D . Doing great nonetheless keeping up the name of erstwhile Kanbay.
• SwamiNaidu (Venkat) - Busy,Busy, Busy...IIM hai no to itna sa sacrifice karna padega.
• Srujana (Laddoo) - Of all the things I could have asked why did ever ask her : Eppudu tindi gole na?? with a smiley of course and top of that a follow up requesting her avatar. Ever so sweet, completely harmless, sympathy abundant lady that she is must be giving shockers to US of A with the kind of study she is putting in.
• Karthik (Me) - Continued the blogging...

The occasion was Laddoo's & Co. farewell trip party to us at Seventh Heaven. We (the ones in the pic) and others met up and had a gala time. Excepting Laddoo the other two weren't interested in the snap but I persisted. These were the ones who joined me later to blog together and did contribute posts. I wanted this as a team blog and needed the world to see the mighty brains behind it with the snap as the static item in the blog header. It were not to be so. Well Laddoo and Ms.Talkative did write though long after the snap was taken making up for the time I wasted in putting the photo up, there hasn't been much of interest in the blog thereafter and so I had to give up on the idea.

!!!!!! Dashboard - Team !!!!!!

(Left to Right)

• Mrs.Ponnan (Sarita) - The lone survivor awaiting for a release and hopefully would work for THE project under Ramakanth. I wish something would come real fast to take her away from this wretched, never-ending dashboard.
• Bhav (Bhavya) - Ab bani BHR Ka Sultani, finally got the rightful job and the contended one too.
• Ranjit (-) - Managing two projects one with pre-historic VB 6.0 and the other with ASP.Net 2.0 and Ajax, this guy is surely having the best time of our batch.
• Me- Looking to rectify the mistake and on hunt for Another Snap .

"100$ Pix , Sari you must be joking this is absolutely worthless" (pun unintended...) :) . Right from EA to M&E our journey has been quite memorable. With Bhav in BHR and Sari married and with release of Ranjit and me to get back the team would mean a journey back to SDC for Bhav just for the pic. Thank goodness, the other three are at the same spot.

Occasion : The cricket match between "Maaro ya maro" vs "I-don't-know". To add to the haste was Sari's departure to Koramangala (RM ain't there ...you see...) and what better place left to take : right in the ground. I mean we worked as a team for more than 4 and a half months right from Julie(ex) days to Sudha(present) days (our RM's) we had so many fabulous moments and not once did it strike us that we would fizzle out so fast. A simple photo that could have been much much better than the one you folks are seeing could have easily replaced the one above.


So you see: Team blogging didn't take off & What a shame we couldn't have a better snap.
Edit: Ms. Ponnan has been successfully recruited to none other than THE project under Ramakanth i.e Bagjas 2008. Long live the Queen!!!

An OpenLetter to UNIQUES...

baap re...blogging to chachi potunna...blog cheddam annapudu rayadaniki mood radu, raddam annapudu blog cheyya budi kadu. so dani pakkana petti oka chinna letter raddam le ani modalu petta ade ma batch andariki adi maree peddagai poyindi...so blog ga convert chestunna ...


Hello Everyone....

What better way to start another year than seeing the Indians trounce Paki's off the cricketing trough marking the arrival of young generation of cricketers and this might as well signal the end of 10 K players (Sachi,Drav,Gangu). Phew!!!Nothing better....

No matter what path one has taken ultimately we have all landed up in SDC (excepting two) and everyone is in some or other project. Of all the things that we have gone through Mr.Hirani's episode stands out the best. "The world is like a mirror.." so he began and we knew right then there was an extremist at our end speaking for the voiceless, fighting for justice, defying authority, giving a damn about the consequences or in simpler terms a nut crack who couldn't hold his mouth little longer only to see himself kicked outside :D . A great entertainer nonetheless. I admit initially I thought the first phase of training is just waste of time. I mean what the heck have I done knowing SE, C,Data Structures - binary sort , heap sort, dung sort,this sort that sort...Computer Organization etc. Note: I don't mean to offend those who loved these and topped them.

I feel the same even now but I guess in some ways having such training bridged the gap between transition from the college days to corporate crap. The ppts gave us a chance to engage the class even more.It just has all the right ingredients. Begging to let the teacher stop and give lot of breaks, playing pinball, listening to music, sweating for the exam, copying , worrying about the LOC's (aint mattered at all) and thinking about exit panel, celebrating birthdays, forming our own coterie, dumb charades, antakshari , on and on it went. To top it all came the group activities and sadly of all the three times I was part of the groups we were beaten by much better teams. Man, what an experience that was.

It just brought out the hidden talents in some of us , I mean Ranjit can as well walk into studio for the next film shoot, Doc Goveas can take seating next to Harsha Bogle, Hrithik (Roshan) leading the laughter challenge III /IV ( I don't know...), Joy's singing capability.

What followed next was a cruel joke on us about a mystery project and the urgent requirement to see us getting into Royal Bench getting something close to a training under Raghvendra. After a month and half or so of orkutting, surfing net, watching movies, group by group started branching out leaving some of us happy and some of us tensed.

Feelings of anger, frustration, neglect, inferiority complex, something similar to how we felt seeing our fellow college mates getting recruited and you waiting for your turn to happen swept over us. I surely did. But remember:

Everything that has a beginning has an end
- Matrix

Happy or not that is left to you :D. Finally during time of campus placements at our college I was mightily impressed when one of the recruiters from Cognizant said "Here at Cognizant we don't need an event to celebrate anything will do". Well we ain't far behind, so here is the list of things that given time and place we can celebrate:

3 from Hrithik( 2 birthdays, 1 Laptop) 3 from Joy ('S' Rating, IDMF, Laptop)
2 from Deepti, Bhavya,Amit,Gnana ('S' Rating, Project)
1 from Ms.Ponnan ( 4 month into the marriage and still going... ain't no easy task at times of infidelity and divorces...)
2 from Ganesh (MCAD Certificatoin, Project)
2 from Suhas (his trip, Project) (GROUP Parties...)
1 each from IDMF Team
1 each from DRM Team 1 each from Pre-sales department 1 from the rest whosoever is left over...

Well that's all folks, let's not fight now about who wants to give first. Everybody will get their chance and let's discuss this in civilized manner :D . We will have some moderators who can decide the time,venue and place. On a lighter note, it is been a great joy being part of batch of 588 and getting to know such diversified people and mindset. I feel no other field would offer a wide variety of candidates from different parts of the country, so every time someone goes off to his place we get to eat their local varieties and experience different palette altogether.

Wish you all a great success going forward ... Projects come projects go but what remains are the beautiful memories and this batch has provided a lot.

Regards,
Karthik
Signing off ,
Bangalore,
Uniques

Treading a precarious Path

Any discussion with my RM Sudha leaves me frustrated and exhausted as if I have just come back from years of travelling in desert. In discussion with Sachi yesterday while Sarita complained about her admant behavior, her thick-skinned nature and utter lack of sympathy I was thinking something else.

There is something about Sudha that I can't pin point. Everything about her is perfect and she demands responsibility and more than that pro-activeness which I mentioned earlier. And unlike Usha she comes straight to the point and wants no excuses at all which is good again.Look at the present situation.

Last week before she went on long leave that is from Tuesday, I prepeared a excel sheet for my week's activity according to which I had to have completed my installation of Visual Team Suite, THE only work that is left over for me to do and sadly which is a difficult one. The difficulty is in two stages: one with Installation (it has already taken three weeks) and the next one with regard to migration and actual working with Visual Team Suite studio. From my part I sent a mail to Sushma Nayak, N&S Level II. On Thursday I came to know from Sushma that there were no more challenges and that the installation will proceed now with SriLatha as Vinod(the original person to whom installation was handed) was on leave. On Friday I tried SriLatha for the progress and she wasn't picking up any calls, tried Sushma no response. Didn't do anything much.

But in those days the other work assigned that is the footer totals of main summary was taking lot of time. I put up the question at Forum, was waiting for response. I tried to get that on my own, was not working. So it was not as if I was lazing around happily. When I am not busy with main summary, I was doing other things for dashboard like role management or looking up for the reports.

Here is my mistake: Yesterday was only when I escalated the matter to Renji Jacob. I should have done that on Monday or Tuesday when I admit there was not much of work for me. So yesterday when called to the meeting I knew she was going to blast me and that's what had happened. It is also funny the way her voice modulates from being friendly to stern then brutal then friendly then something else. Well first she enquired about my new project, then she castigated me saying I take up no responsibility at all and that only because she has come I escalated the matter to Renji Jacob( which partly : 70% is true...). On the first word of defense about what has actually happened she cuts me off. I didn't have a chance to put my trump card that is the footer totals, that's totally obscure , I mean for her it's like getting it done in matter of an hour or so.

At the end came the bombshell she said she would take stern action and some drastic steps if by this Friday things remain same with no progress. As I was about to leave in a concerned tone she says try to get this fast and work full time at my new project. You see she is perfectly suited to dramas. Anyways getting this done by Friday looks highly improbable. With new project being in an outdated technology I would be happy being recalled. Happy but not satisfied and with a hangover feeling of incompetency and inability to finish off a job.

So coming back to the point of what is wrong with her...nothing she is the perfect RM anyone could ever have. She is someone like your old school teacher whom you would love to hate for no reason at all. These two days are going to be real tough..

Wait and watch for what happens next....

To Hell With Opera - Any version

Download.com being the favorite site I had a routine set up. Check the free latest ones out there, work on it, like them: put them , don't: discard. Out of such heap came products like Opera, Avant, Free Download Manager, Spybot Search & Destroy and many others. I got instant likeness to Opera seeing the speed with which the pages were being displayed and the ease with which the cookies and spam can be deleted and controlled. Before this I was working with Firefox.

Everything is fine up till now i.e. with evolution of web 2.0 technology. Here are the prime reasons why Opera is not for me

No 'StumbleUpon' bar. I don't know when they will get this extension.
Can't open Yahoo! Mail beta as it loses it's aesthetic sense.
Firefox allows you to have a IMDB Search engine just by clicking on the extensions available. Here you would have to download some exe, open it then do some code and stuff.
Some problem occurs when I try to blog as somehow the lines go beyond the vertical bar that appears to the right and invariably I would have to save it as draft and continue working on IE.
Even if these were my personal problems coming to my professional reasons I use MSDN Forums a lot. They appear so much out of sync. I mean this website is not yet compatible with Opera I believe.

Some of the reasons I preferred opera were its paste-and-go facility, background tab functionality and it's Speed Dial which I used less frequently anyway. All these functionalities and many more exciting add-ons are available at Firefox shop. Well it was after having a real bad experience trying to post a forum using Opera I decided enough is enough...and I repeat : To Hell with Opera , no where near FireFox and lacks themes, add-ons and evertyhing that makes Firefox the top of the lot out there...

Beautiful Song...

In the last one year after 'Manasa' from Munna I am completely blown over by 'Jil Jil Jiga....' from Happy Days. I mean after hearing the song I felt at last here is someone who looks like has been in college and has done a fantastic job capturing the essence of college life in 270 seconds or 4 and a half minutes. I became nostalgic listening to the songs and going back to the college time. Jash's words came back to me : "This certificate, the degree, the marks sheet, ...these are all piece of papers...the real life was in the journey not the destination...the years of engineering...the life we had..."

Man I could feel my heart clench and the pulse beating hearing those words. How much more plain can it be? Coming back to the song, it is different. "different" a word that lost meaning in Telugu film industry each claiming it is different that others. And this was one of the other things that put my fellow buddies at unease and they just want me to shut-up when I start off because they know what is coming next. But for the sake of readers I will just brief it up in one line : " The most unrealistic feature of the telugu film industry today is it's representation of students in the college, the professors in it ..this bugs me to no end..." well that's all..I don't want to go on...

Coming back SECOND time to the song...

Podduna legaliiiiii, Snanam cheyyaliiiiiiiii
bussu ekkali, college kellalli

oooooooooooooooooh...oh.oh.oh.......oooooooooohoohohoho...
oooooooooooooooooh...oh.oh.oh.......oooooooooohoohohoho...

bathroom lo patalu, breakfast lo matalu
amma mundu wonderlu, nanna mundu blunderlu
pocket money ki tenderluuuuuuu.. uhuhuhu..

ika bassulakai waitingu,footboard lo fightingu
canteen lo meetinguuuuuuuuu....uhuhuhuuuuu ...(2)

oooooooooooooooooh. jil jil jiga ...jil jil jiga...oh.oh.oh.......oooooooooohoohohoho ...(4)

teachers to classulu, classulo massulu,
sms lo matalu, mms to patalu ...(2)

last bench seatingu, cell phones to gamingu,
interval ku waitinguuuuuuuu....uhuhuhuuuuu

last bench seatingu, magazines readingu,
interval ku waitinguuuuuuuu....uhuhuhuuuuu ya ya ya...

...jil jil jiga....jil jil jiga....eh....jil jil jiga...eh...

(for the urban and chic popule....)

Podduna legaliiiiii, Snanam cheyyaliiiiiiiii

IMAX lo cinemalu, morninglu matnilu,
alley lo bowlingu, food court lo datingu

ye pilla, What maaaan? , ne style ente ila...ne confirmation ila...
ye pilla ye pilla..nuvvu ila ila...ye pilla ye pilla..hey ,hey,

oooooooooooooooooh. jil jil jiga ...jil jil jiga...oh.oh.oh.......oooooooooohoohohoho ...(4)

ika bassulakai waitingu,bus stop lo chattingu,
waiting waitinguuuuuuuu....uhuhuhuuuuu ...(2)

podduna legali...e.e.e.e.....

This is an absolutely superb song to get back to those good old days. Eppudu period aipodda ani, canteen ku epudu veldam, asalu ivi koni rojulu levu. Last bench lo nenaithe na novels chedive vadini, inkondaru celll phone games, ikkada missaindi ante lunch box lu aipovadam. Hats off to who ever wrote the song and composed..You guys have reinforced the belief in me that not all the things that come out are thrash....

mere kuda chadivi vini anandichandi....